Here's Chapter 2. Again, any C & C will be GREATLY appreciated. Just at least
let me know you read the story!
Chapter 2 Humiliation
Next week, as promised, Lucca and her friends arrived at the Tendo dojo
once again. Ranma had put together a team that would fight Lucca's friend.
They were Ranma (of course), Ryouga, Mousse, Shampoo, Ukyou, Kunou. Ranma had
reluctantly asked Akane for help just so that Akane wouldn't think Ranma didn't
respect her. As Ranma expected, Akane promptly refused to take any part in
Ranma's "foolish fighting" but agreed to watch the fight. As Akane silently sat
down in the dojo, she thought, <It is not like Ranma really needs me. Despite
the fool and jerk he is, he can handle these people by himself. When it comes
to martial arts, Ranma never lose. I'm sure he'll win. At least he was
thoughtful and asked. I don't ask for much. If only Ranma can be like how he
is today, I will be very happy. However, he can't even do that! Why do we get
into to fight all the time anyway? We can't even be neutral to each other!
Well... well... it is all Ranma's fault! He is such a jerk!>
"We're ready whenever you are!" declared Ranma.
"Wait," said Lucca, "Isn't she (pointing at Akane) going to fight?"
"Ha!" stated Ranma, "We don't need Akane. She is too slow and only gets
in my way. We're better off without her..."
"Ranma, you jerk!" screamed Akane reflexively. It was a weird thing.
It wasn't the insult, not at all. She didn't really hate Ranma for insulting
her because she was quite accustomed to Ranma's insensitive remarks. After
being insulted for almost every day in her life with Ranma, Akane could care
less about what Ranma had to say. However, she felt that there was a need to
hit him. <It is almost as if something is wrong if I don't hit him,> thought
Akane, <If I don't hit him, people will start making up stories about us. It...
it is the only way I can treat him sometimes.> Akane reached for her mallet and
was surprised to find that she couldn't pull it free. It was as if some other
force was restraining her. Try as she might, she could not pull her mallet
free. Turning around, Akane quickly realized that a robot-like thing was
casually holding her mallet down with one finger! Akane was furious and
continued to try to pull her mallet free but eventually gave up.
Ranma, oblivious to what had happened, wondered, <What's wrong with
Akane today? She usually hits me for saying things like that. I was fully
expecting a hammering, but it didn't happen. It feels... kind of weird. It
almost feels as if I need to get hit... Oh well, I can worry about that later.
Maybe for once she isn't such a violent tomboy after all.>
Meanwhile, Lucca continued, "It wouldn't be fair for us to have a man
advantage over you. Robo, why don't you just sit next to her and watch the
fight."
"Surely, Lucca." answered the robot-creature that was holding Akane's
mallet earlier.
<So that's his/its name,> thought Akane, <I'm not going to let that Robo
get away with this that easily. How dare he/it humiliate me like that! He/it
shouldn't have gotten in between my business with Ranma! Besides, it is not
like I was actually going to hurt Ranma! We do this all the time. Why does
he/it have to interfere!>
Just as Akane was brainstorming the possible ways she could revenge,
Robo walked to her and apologized, "Miss Tendo? I'm terribly sorry for what I
did a moment earlier. I know that was rude, but I can't see you hit Mr. Saotome
like that. Resorting to force to solve problem is not the right way to do so.
You can hit me or do whatever else you want do as long as it will make you
happy."
That was not something Akane expected. She was used to living with the
insensitive and unpolite likes of Ranma or Kunou. She had rarely met anyone who
was remotely polite and well-mannered, save maybe Ryouga. Akane's flashfire
temper quickly cooled off and she realized that she was at fault also. "Uh...,
it was nothing, really. I guess I... I probably have my faults, too,"
apologized Akane.
"You are too kind, Miss Tendo. I thank you for your kindness." said
Robo.
<He's awfully polite,> thought Akane, <If only Ranma was half as polite
and gentle like him/it, instead of being that insensitive and rude jerk! I wish
Ranma can be a little bit more gentle sometimes... That Robo is also strong
too, being able to restrain me so easily. Even Ranma couldn't have done that so
easily. Wait a second, these people seem so confident that they didn't need
Robo. If Robo reflected their average strength, then, what does this mean for
Ranma? Would he be hurt? WAIT! WHAT AM I THINKING! Why should I care how his
stupid fights go!>
While Akane was cursing herself for being concerned and worried about
Ranma, Lucca continued, "Then it's all settled. Frog will fight for us first.
Which one of you will fight him?"
A little short frog-like creature stepped forward and it was evident
that he was the one called Frog. Before Ranma could answer, Kunou jumped in
front and replied, "I, Tatewaki Kunou, accepts the challenge from this, um,
frog!"
<He's just trying to show off to Akane by beating that Frog person,>
thought
Ranma, <Oh well, I suppose that even the likes of Kunou can defeat that mutated
frog thing.>
"Ah, thou art indeed heedless. I was like thee once before," remarked
Frog, "Alas, Crono, wilt thou lend me thy wooden sword. I have no desire to use
the Masamune for such a fight like this."
The boy named Crono silently handed his wooden sword to Frog.
"Ah, while this may not be the Masamune," continued Frog as he held the
wooden blade high, "Alas, I feel the spirit of Cyrus flows through me through
even this wooden blade! Alas, let us fight!"
"I shall smite thee, evil creature!" declared Kunou, "The vengeance of
the Heavens is slow but sure. I shall destroy a pest like you!"
<When is that Frog going to finish his speech?> wondered Ranma, <he
talked just like Kunou (of course Ranma doesn't know that difference between
Medieval English and Kunou-talk). Although Kunou may be an idiot, he is
actually pretty strong. He should have no problem defeating this mutant Frog.>
Kunou charged straight into Frog and attacked Frog with his bokken.
There was a flurry of motion and then Frog emerged unscathed, while Kunou lay
unconscious on the floor.
"He is in no danger," commented Frog, "A few day of rest and he should
be okay again. Thou art quite a formidable opponent, but thou wilt need more
training to defeat me. Thou hast good potential to be a good swordsman. I look
forward to the day when we shall fight again."
<I guess they are pretty good,> thought Ranma, <Still, beating Kunou
doesn't mean anything. I could have done that myself.>
Meanwhile, Akane was rather puzzled at Kunou's defeat and asked, "Robo,
what happened?"
"Oh, Miss Tendo. Frog attacked Mr. Kunou and..." began Robo.
"Wait," interrupted Akane, "How did you know our names? I do not
believe I was introduced to you yet. And can you please stop addressing me as
"Miss Tendo", or Ranma as "Mr. Saotome"? This formality is... you know...
rather uncomfortable. Hey, you call your friends by their names, don't you?
You didn't call Frog Mr. so-and-so. Just don't be so formal, okay?"
"Sorry, I forgot that human don't like formality," apologized Robo,
"Now, Akane, to answer your question. I come from the 2300 AD and my memory
banks contained information about everything that happened prior to 2300 AD"
"Oh, I see," said Akane, not really too surprised. After living with
Ranma so long, she figured that anything was possible as long as Ranma was
around. <So this time it is time travel and people from the future. I've seen
weirder things during my life with Ranma. So, that Robo knows everything that
has happened and almost everything that will happen,> she thought, <I always
thought that time travel was some kind of crazy idea! Guess I'm wrong on this
one. Wait! He said he knows everything...> Akane thought several moments to
decide whether or not to ask her question. Then, summoning her courage, she
timidly asked, "Uh... Robo, I would like to know.... that... who am I... uhh...
married... to?"
"Searching the information right now," responded Robo, "Sorry, the
information you requested was lost during the Day of Lavos."
"Day of Lavos?" puzzled Akane, "What's that?"
"It is a long story, Akane," answered Robo, "Something I don't really
want to talk about right now. It happened in 1999 AD and let's just say it
almost destroyed the entire world. So information concerning your marriage is
not available due to this catastrophe.
"Oh, I see," said Akane, a bit disappointed. <I always wanted to make
sure,> she thought, <If it is going to be Ranma, then... I guess I'll live with
it. It is not easy, but I think I can do it. But... if it isn't going to be
Ranma, then I might as well break off our engagement right now! For one thing,
I don't like to be around that senseless jerk!>
"Anyway," continued Robo, "The future is not fixed, Akane. I wouldn't
be worried about your marriage just yet. You are still young. There is plenty
of time for changes to happen between now and your marriage. Just remember, the
future is always changeable."
Akane, partly disappointed and partly relieved, thought, <So there still
is time for change, he says. I guess he is right. I shouldn't worry too much
about this fiancee stuff. After all, future's changeable, isn't it? Well,
Ranma. Let's see how well you and I can do, and that'll determine our future,
okay?>
Akane continued to dream about her future when she suddenly remembered
that every time she tried to confide her true feelings for Ranma, someone else
always managed to hear it and would spread the truth. In the end, it always
caused her or Ranma to be embarrassed and end up saying things they didn't want
to. It was almost as if they couldn't ever summon enough courage to admit that
they care for each other and must do something incredibly foolish to prove their
point. <This time I'm not going to let people found this out! This is my
decision, and I don't want anyone starting rumors again!> thought Akane.
Turning around, she asked Robo, "Oh Robo, please promise me that you would tell
NO ONE about this, okay? I absolutely positively do not want anyone to know
about this. Just keep this between you and me, please?"
"That request has been stored in my memory banks and will be honored."
replied Robo.
"Thank you, Robo. You don't know how much this means to me." Akane
thanked Robo. She already had a vivid picture of what could have happen:
someone heard about Akane asking about her future marriage and starts to spread
rumors that she really loves Ranma after all. Then, either she or Ranma would
deny this like crazy and end up hurting each other in the process. <This has
happened too many times,> thought Akane, <It is not going to happen again!
Whether I really love him or not, no one else needs to know.>
While Akane was asking these questions to Robo, the fighting continued.
Lucca was the next person to fight for her group. Ranma, a bit unconfident and
uneasy about his first encounter with Lucca, decided not to fight her himself.
Instead, Mousse volunteered to fight.
Lucca pulled out a toy gun from her pocket and declared, "I shall use
this weapon so that I won't risk killing any of you on accident."
Ranma was fuming. It was almost like his first encounter with Mousse
when Mousse used toy ducks as weapons. Ranma considered to personally handled
that annoying brat, but decided not to as the fight between Mousse and Lucca
already started. Mousse launched his impressive arsenal of weapons. Lucca made
no obvious attempts to dodge the weapons and she was hit from the whole gamut of
weapons from Mousse ranging from swords to bombs to everyday objects. Somehow,
though, she didn't seem to be in the least bit tired or hurt. Eventually, she
used the toy gun as an impact weapon and whacked Mousse on the head with her toy
gun and knocked Mousse unconscious. Ranma was surprised. Even Mousse shouldn't
have lost this easily, especially from the damage of a toy gun.
"Thank you. Now you know the power of Lucca the great!" Lucca bowed as
she stepped down.
The rest of the fights didn't go well, either. Ranma silently watched
as the one called Ayla easily withstood all of Shampoo's attacks and then she
tossed Shampoo into low earth orbit. For a while it looked like Ryouga might
have a chance to defeat the one called Magus, or, at least, before Ryouga got
lost. Magus dodged one of Ryouga's attacks by hovering in the air and Ryouga
thought that Magus must have run away and chased after him. Ranma hasn't seem
Ryouga ever since then.
"Marle and Crono wanted to take the final match together," announced
Lucca, "Hey you, Ranma, right? (points to Akane) Is that girl over there your
girlfriend or something? Why don't you two fight Crono and Marle?"
"Well, there's no way I am going to pair up with that tomboy," replied
Ranma, "I guess I'll just pair up with Ukyou..."
<Here we go again!> thought Akane. "Ranma, you jerk!" screamed Akane.
Again, her action was more reflexive than actual anger. She hammered Ranma
smack in the head with the mallet she conveniently drawn from hammerspace.
"Oh no! If you have already taken damage then the fight wouldn't be
fair!" remarked Marle, "Here, let me help you, AURA!"
Just as Ranma was wondering what in the world that Marle girl was doing,
he felt that he seemed to recover his health already. Feeling refreshed, Ranma
replied, "Who needs your help? I'm fine and let's fight!"
"How ignorant," sighed Marle, "By the way, Crono's never talks for some
reason I cannot explain so I will be doing all the talking. We promise to go
easy on you, okay?"
Meanwhile, Akane had calmed down and can't help but to ask, "Robo, why
didn't you stop me? I thought you don't like people solving problems with
force?"
"Well, stopping you would be also using another form of force to prevent
you from using force on someone else. Therefore, that doesn't really help the
situation. In the end, I still have to use force to stop you, right?" shrugged
Robo, "I figure that you might as well let your feeling out. I see that you
feel much better now after you hit Ranma, Akane. Besides, I already analyzed
your strength and figure it wouldn't do serious damage to Ranma. Also, I'm not
too sure about this as human emotions are always hard to tell, but I don't think
you really hate him, don't you Akane?"
"You got that one wrong, Robo!" replied Akane, "I really hate him. He
is such a jerk. He never cares about me. All he does is insult me. Why
shouldn't I hate him? You may be super-smart and know every single fact, but
you don't have a clue about love!"
"Whatever," agreed Robo, "Well, you know this a lot more than I do. I
say just trust your true feelings. If this is the way you really feel, then go
right ahead. I won't be stopping you."
Akane almost couldn't stop laughing when she realized that Robo really
believed her. <Oh my gosh! I'm criticizing someone for being clueless about
love! Who am I to say Robo doesn't know anything about love? I sure don't know
anything about it! Heck, even though he is a robot, he probably knows more
about it than me! I know I don't hate Ranma as much as I claim. But... how I
really feel... my true feelings,> thought Akane, <I don't know. I hate him.
No, that's a lie. Okay, so I don't hate him. I'm just his friend and his
fiancee. No... that's a lie too. I guess I love Ranma. No, I do love Ranma,
but it is so hard! Sometimes I wonder if it was just that fiancee vow that kept
us together! I wish I can just let it all out, but it is so hard to say how I
really feel to such a jerk! Sorry, Ranma. It is your fault, too! You force me
to treat you the way I always treat you.>
While Akane was talking to Robo, Ranma had already started to attack
Crono. To Ranma's surprise, Crono moved with an amazing agility and easily
dodged his attack. <I thought I was pretty fast,> thought Ranma, <But look at
him. My fists can't even touch him!> Ranma continued to try to hit Crono, but
he knew it was probably futile. Taking a quick glance at the battlefield, Ranma
noted that Marle was also passively dodging Ukyou's attacks. He also realized
that both Marle and Crono had not fight back yet! Ranma was furious. <Those
people hadn't even bother to fight back yet!> As the battle continued, Ranma
realized that the girl named Marle was considerably slower than Crono. <She is
fast, all right,> thought Ranma, <But not nearly as fast as the Crono person. I
think she is probably as fast, or maybe a little bit faster, than me. As much
as I hate attacking girls, it seems like I have no choice. Okay. This is a
formal martial arts challenge. She is my opponent, so I must defeat her first.
I must knock her out first and with a two-on-one advantage we'll be able to
win!>
Ranma slowly moved closer and closer to Marle while pretending to
continue to attack Crono, knowing that he won't hit him anyway. Finally, Ranma
got close enough and he got his chance. Ranma suddenly shifted his attack from
Crono and concentrated his attacks on Marle. Caught off guard, Marle didn't
have enough time to dodge Ranma's attack. That was all the time Ranma needed as
he delivered around 100 solid punches. The force of Ranma's punches slammed
Marle back into the walls. After that, Ranma grabbed Ukyou and retreated to a
safe distance to see what happened.
"Oh my," remarked Akane, "Ranma's really mad to use so much force on
that girl. Is she going to be all right, Robo?"
"An interesting tactic, trying to take out Marle first... Oh, don't
worry about it, Akane," smiled Robo, "It might have caught Marle off guard, but
no serious damage was done."
"Really, but..." began Akane and then she stopped abruptly as she
noticed that Robo was right. Marle doesn't seem to be hurt at all. Ranma and
Akane both thought that she must have at least taken some damage from Ranma's
attack, but she didn't. She quickly got up and wiped the dust of her face. She
seemed just as healthy and energetic as before. "That hurts, you know! You
fight pretty well," remarked Marle, "Guess I have got to fight more seriously.
Ready? ICE!" With that, she sent a blast of ice storm toward Ranma. Ranma
instinctively dived out of the ice blast's way. He took a quick glance at
realized that the ice blast had completely eradicated a section of the wall.
Marle, obviously displeased for missing Ranma, sent a few more ice blasts and
eventually one of them hit Ranma. The power of the ice sent Ranma crashing
through the walls. "You have to do better than that to defeat me," taunted
Ranma, "That was good, but not enough to defeat me!
Meanwhile, Akane was watching and thinking, too. <It is almost like the
fight he had against Ryouga,> she thought, <But how can that girl have the same
stamina as Ryouga? She is only my age! She doesn't look like she is any better
built than I am. How can she have that kind of stamina to simply shrug off
Ranma's attacks?>
"Crono, don't just sit there," complained Marle, "You should be doing
the fighting, not me, Crono! That person was rude. Let's just end this fight
now." Ranma noticed that Crono drew his wooden sword. Even though it was just
a wooden sword, Ranma immediately felt its power emanating from Crono's hands.
Crono jumped into a the air and prepare to attack.
Even as Crono was ascending in air, Ranma felt the heat and intensity of
Crono's power. <So he is going to try to attack me from the top,> thought
Ranma, <I can already feel the heat of his attack. The heat and energy caused
by his attack should be enough for me to use my Hiryu Shoten Ha to knock that
him out!>
Meanwhile, Crono had completed his ascent and was beginning to descent
upon Ranma with his sword. Just as Ranma was preparing for his Hiryu Shoten Ha,
he heard Marle shouting, "Here we go, ICESWORD!" Marle fired another blast of
cold energy directing not to Ranma, but to Crono! Crono caught the ice with his
sword and dived down to attack Ranma. "I have you now," shouted Ranma, "HIRYU
SHOTEN HA!" To Ranma's surprise, his punch didn't create any tornadoes and even
as he wondered what went wrong with his attack, Crono had descended upon them.
The last thing he saw was the ice blade Crono wielded and then everything turned
black.