(We open on a small, fog-drenched town by the edge of the Black 
Forest. Slowly the camera begins to zoom in upon one particular 
house. It focuses on one window which opens to reveal...

Couple: EEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKK!

Oh my! Um, er, sorry, wrong house, start again.

(We open on a small, fog-drenched town by the edge of the Black 
Forest. Slowly the camera begins to zoom in upon one particular 
house. Well, not really a house, more of a tavern. Or a pub, 
although that's an awfully British term. Not that we're against 
British English, lovely dialect even if they do call car parts 
silly things like "boot" and "bonnet", doesn't look much like a 
damn bonnet to me, but ...

Start again.

(We open on a small, fog-drenched town by the edge of the Black 
Forest. Slowly the camera begins to zoom in upon one particular 
building, with a badly scarred oak sign proclaiming it to be the 
Blau Teufel Rathskellar. The door opens, and the camera pans in 
to reveal a scene very much like the one that probably gave 
Dante his motivation. Patrons of several different nationalities 
sit at tables, drinking, laughing, and shouting. A group of 
Italians near the center are yodeling the French Foreign Legion 
song, while Otto, the massive bartender rumored to have been 
kicked out of the SS for Human Rights violations, stares at them 
grimly. On the stage, four rather scruffy-looking...)

Seamus: (outraged) "Ere, who're ya callin' "scruffy"?

(...scruffy-looking young men are setting up a projector, with 
some difficulty.)

Seamus: Look, why don't we jus buy us a soddin' teargas bomb an 
clean out Windex an Frito again? Then we'll have that luvverly 
stage, an mebbe even a drop 'o wine....

Giles: ...And gorillas chasing us for days afterwards, and Nabiki 
charging us a week's pay to call them off. Oi don't think so. 
We'll do this one ourselves.

Mahon: Right.

Mike: Okay....that should do it. Roll the projector.

(Mahon flicks a switch. The projector coughs, sputters, and 
promptly ignites.)

Giles: (rolling his eyes) Of course.

Seamus: (righteously) I told ya, I did. Teargas is goin' fer mere 
pennies, but no, we had ta do it ourselves...

Giles: (disgusted) Aww, put a sock in it, you Oirish son of a 
constipated chicken.

(Mike and Mahon, meanwhile, desperately pour liquid on the 
projector. Sadly, most of the liquid in the Teufel is alcohol, and 
the flames merrily leap higher and turn a peculiar shade of 
puce.)

Mike: (sweating) Uh, guys? Guys? We've got a bit of a problem 
here...

Seamus: (happily) You could be teachin' ugly ta a toad wit 
leprosy, ya English deflowerer 'o goats!

Mike: Um, guys?

Giles: Ugly, is it? If Oi had a dog with a mug half as grotesque 
as yours, Oi'd shave it's arse and teach it to walk backwards!

(Otto, having noticed the burning projector, stalks over. Seamus 
and Giles pale and go silent.)

Otto: (squinting) Projector ist supposed to burn, ja?

Seamus: (stammering) No, yer honor, not really, uh, under 
control inna minute...

(Otto's face moves to Scowl #51 <Burn down mein bar, und I kill 
you slowly> He turns to the blazing projector.)

Otto: OUT! SOFORT!

(The fire turns pale, and flickers out. Otto grunts in 
satisfaction and lumbers away.)

Giles: Um. Right.

Mike: (inspecting the projector) Well....it's a bit crispy, but it 
seems mostly intact...gimme the fic, and I'll see if it works.

(Seamus pulls out a rather tattered copy and hands it to him. 
Mike threads it through, and flips the switch. A hum is heard, 
and an image flickers to life on the far wall. The Rats pull up 
chairs and lean back to watch.)

=================================================

               Ranma's Half - Bits and Pieces
                      Part One of Six
               A 'What the Dickens?!?' production
                written by Christopher Willmore

(A hail of bottles rises from the Teufel's patrons to crash 
against the screen. The Rats put up umbrellas to deflect the 
flying glass.)

Seamus: Willmore! Ere, he's the guy wot does the Ranma 2096 
series! He's good!

Giles: He's also the one wot did Kodachi 1/2, if Oi recall...

Seamus: (crinkling his brow) That 'ad almost nothin' ta do wit 
Ko-chan. Was rather disturbin', too....

Mike: Yes, having Ranma fried and breaded was kinda 
nauseating...not really that good a ploy, either. I wanted him to 
be sent to Australia, myself....

Seamus: Better ta be fried...

 BASED ON CHARACTERS AND SITUATIONS CREATED BY  RUMIKO 
TAKAHASHI
              Original story concept by Kunoichi
=======================================================

Giles: (disbelievingly) Kun-chan? Considering the nature of the 
fic, Oi hardly think _that's_ likely....

Seamus: (with a disparaging wave) Yah, but think 'o all the 
really hentai possiblities it leads to.

Mike: (gently) Um, Kun-chan's not hentai. She's "ecchi", 
whatever that means.

Seamus: Naw, she's a hentai. I mean....

@BAP@BAP@BAP@BAP@BAP@BAP@BAP@BAP@BAP

Giles: (musing) It was really inevitable after the Australia 
remark, Oi suppose...

Mahon: Yup.

Mike: Help me peel him off the carpet.

       Ranma was dead, to begin with.  There is no doubt 
whatever about that.  He was as dead as Ryouga, if somewhat 
more intact, and Doctor Tofu had helped the forensic team, 
signing the certificate of death less than an hour after Herb's 
victory.

Mike: Chris seems to be parodying the opening to "A Christmas 
Carol" here, for some reason...

Giles: He did say it was a "What the Dickens" production...

Seamus: (pulling himself off the floor) So 'e did...Charles is 
prolly revolvin' in his grave...

Mike: At any rate, we can probably clear Kun-chan of the charge 
of inspiration. No chance that she'd ever propose a story in 
which both Ranma and Ryoga bite it...

Seamus: (innocently) Ere, they do plenty of bitin' in 'hat lemon 
'o hers...

Giles: (darkly) Hentai...

       Considering the delicacy of the situation, and the extreme
difficulty in piecing together the remains, Cologne agreed to
prepare the corpses for burial herself.  The embalming process 
had to stop and be restarted, when they found that Mousse had 
been stitching together the pieces in a somewhat less-than-
correct fashion (placing arms where the legs should be, and 
worse) but all in all, they were doing a fine job.

Mike: (weakly) This is a side of Mousse we thankfully haven't 
seen before.....

Giles: Uh-huh. But why's he doing it? Oi mean, Shampoo is his 
now, there's no reason for him to be cruel to Ranma anymore, 
and he was never mad at Ryoga...

Seamus: Bah, yer both missin' the joke. The silly bugger's 'alf 
blind, remember?

       Only two days had gone when Ryouga was ready -  If it 
WAS Ryouga, at all.  Some complained that he looked somewhat 
shorter, and that the criss-crossing of the thread and needle, 
along with the scorches, made it difficult to recognise his 
features, but they were a minority.  For the likes of Soun and 
Genma, it was enough to note that the work put into the 
reconstruction had taken so much from the China crew that 
their restaurant had suffered. For days after that, people 
complained that the pork bowl tasted stale; obviously the
experience had drawn from Shampoo the energy she normally 
put into cooking.

(The Rats stare at the screen in horror. In the taproom, people 
who had been eating hastily shove their plates away and run for 
the bathroom.)

Seamus: That's....it's...

Mahon: Ugh.

Mike: Chris seems to have a fondness for having poor Ryoga wind 
up on the dinner plate. Just look at "Candle-Flame"....

Giles: Oi think the poor guy's been working too hard lately...

       And so, it was only on Thursday afternoon that the two 
halves were laid side by side, to be united.  Well... Four halves.  
They'd found out, when they'd tried to scrub the corpse clean, 
that the Jusenkyo curse did NOT wear off with death, and it 
was quite the sight to pour differently-temperatured water 
onto the exposed entrails.

(A few of the drinkers lurch unsteadly to their feet and rush to 
join the crowd in the bathroom. The Rats are looking rather 
green in the face.)

Mike: (weakly) Well, there's one question answered....

Seamus: (muttering) Bleedin' disgustin' answer...look here, I 
think he might be goin' a wee bit far wit the gore.

Giles: Naw, it works. Face it, he wanted to do a morbid humor 
piece....

Seamus: (cocking his head) _A_ morbid humor piece? Wot about 
Kodachi 1/2 and Candle-Flame? An his others?

Giles: (stoicly)  Candle-Flame, Oi think, wasn't really humor, 
though Oi grant you morbid. As for Kodachi 1/2...frankly, Oi 
didn't like it. Not sure if it was humor or not. Anyhow, Oi think 
the katty-cornering and gore work well.

Seamus: Mebbe....but it's turnin' me stomach.

       "Shampoo... Shampoo ready."
       "Once we start, my dear, there's no turning back... Your
debt of honour is settled with his death, but I know you held
more than a... legal interest in him.  This mending marks the 
first step in his funeral procession."
       The purple-haired Amazon bowed her head.
       "Shampoo know," she whispered, and picked up a needle.
       "Good, child. It seems you, too begin to piece
yourself together."

Mahon: (grunting) Bad pun.

Seamus: Yah, kinda a mean thing fer the auld ghoul ta say ta her. 
I mean, she's in mournin', even if she _is_ a bimbo. Tact is 
called fer.

Giles: Bimbo? Oi dunno if you can say that, considering the 
woman you moon after....

Seamus: Oh? Should I be tellin' Ko-chan that?

Giles: (paling) Never mind.

Seamus: (smugly) Thought so.

       It was the Saotome woman, here with her husband (in 
human form, for a change), Akane and the Tendo man.
       "We've come to see Ranma," said Nodoka.  Her expression
was firm, and she was trying her best to keep a straight face,
but her eyes were glazed over with a cover of tears. The men
were no better, while Akane merely looked... Angry, for some
reason.
       "Of course," the old woman nodded. "This way."

Seamus: Aww, Akane _always_ looks angry. It's a state 'o mind 
fer her.

Mike: You'd expect her to be a bit shaken, though - I mean, she 
is...

Seamus: Nah. She gets pissed off ta hide her emotions, ain't ya 
ever noticed? Her way 'o grievin', prolly.

Mike: I don't buy it. She's broken down and looked sad several 
times in the series.

       "Shampoo want get this done quick," spoke up the warrior. 
"You go, so I stitch Ranma, no?"
       Nodoka looked at her husband, who paled and lowered his 
head.
       "If you do, it will be a DOUBLE burial."
       "Shampoo no understand... You want Ranma stay bloody 
butcher chops?"

Mike: While the phrase, "Shampoo no understand" is a very 
common one, I must admit to being puzzled as well.

Giles: (dubiously) Mebbe she just doesn't trust them to do the 
job right...remember that earlier bit about Mousse?

Seamus: Naw, it's gonna be fer some gristly, disgustin', foul 
purpose.

(Mahon shoots him a questioning look.)

Seamus: Wit the way the fics been goin', sure an it don't take a 
genius ta predict that.

       "Then what do you speak of?"
      "A manly man does not shirk from his duties to women."
       "He is DEAD!"
       "It does not matter.  Two girls was he promised to, and 
two girls shall have him."
       "Geeze," muttered Akane, "she's making me sound like a
NECROPHILIAC. This is so embarrassing!"
       "Patience, Akane." Her father rubbed her shoulder. "What 
must be, must be. Her mind is fixed, and I cannot allow 
Saotome-kun to..."

(The room goes quiet for a second. Then, several people hastily 
order more drinks.)

Mike: She's nuts. Nodoka has flipped. She's crazier than Kodachi...

Seamus: (dangerously) Come again?

Mike: (smoothly) ..which isn't saying much, as Kodachi is a 
model of mental health. Anyhow, this is just....

Mahon: ...awful.

Giles: Oi think Akane is taking all this rather calmly. Her love is 
dead, she's gonna be forced to live with the corpse, and all she 
can say is that it's embarrasssing? Bloody hell, Shampoo's more 
upset than her. She's acting like she never really cared for him 
in the first place.

Seamus: (hesitantly) Ere...ya know she hides her feelin's about 
him...

Giles: Not _this_ well. And not with him dead. And not with 
wot's going on. No, Oi think we can slap an OOC charge here.

       "Why am I not surprised..." The Tendo girl's eyes narrowed.
"Auntie's gone nuts and she's threatening to kill us all unless I
keep half of Ranma."
       "What?" The needle fell from Shampoo's hand, and 
Cologne's eyes widened.
       "Yeah; that's what she's here for. Figures it'd be easier
to do now that my 'fiance' is already split apart. Guess which
half *I* get." She rolled her eyes.
       "Nodoka, can you seriously be considering..."
       "I have decided, Cologne."
       "But a proper burial..."
       "Nothing more proper than cleansing a stain upon one's
honour. His spirit will thank me."

Seamus: (snorting) Yah, _right_..

Mike: Akane's being downright callous here, I think. She seems 
more annoyed and embarrassed than anything else.

Seamus: (reluctantly) Welllllll.......mebbe yer right....

Giles: Course we're right.

Seamus: Don't push it.

Mike: One wonders what Ranma's spirit would think of all this, that is, if
his gh
ost was hanging around.

Giles: There's an idea....

Seamus: Aw, c'mon....wot are the chances 'o Willmore puttin' 
Ranma in a fic as a ghost, 'o all things?

(Everyone facefaults.)

       "There are sanitary laws..." finally spoke the crone. "I can
have you arrested for keeping a corpse unburied."
       "All I want is a time long enough for his honour to be
cleansed.  Once a meat locker is not enough to keep the body..."
       "That could be months."
       "A refrigerator, then."

Seamus: (incredulous) The daft woman's gonna make Akane keep 
'im til he's beginnin' ta ROT? This is.....

(Down in the taproom, several people are turning green and 
leaving.)

Mike: I think Chris has _really_ been working too hard lately...

"Come back tomorrow. We will have the parts ready for you. 
Scrubbed, and such. I take it the other is for..."
       Nodoka nodded.
       "Ukyou."

Giles: (flatly) Ucchan's gonna flip.

Seamus: (musing) Mebbe not...ya know how obcessive the lass 
is...mebbe she'll see this as the only way she'll have "Ranchan" 
ta herself.

Giles: (aghast) Oi seriously doubt...

Seamus: 'ell, she might have 'im stuffed an mounted on the 
mantle, so he'll be wit her forever.

Mike: Hush, you'll give him ideas.

       "Aiyaaaa!" shouted Shampoo, returning from a side room.
"Great-grandmother, where Ryouga?"
       "Didn't we put him in the spare cupboard?"
       "Shampoo think so, but he no there!"
       Cologne slapped her forehead.
       "Even dead, that idiot gets himself lost." A sigh. "Come on,
Shampoo, we have work to do..."

Mike: Heh.  The Lost Boy rides again. Just goes to show that you 
can't keep Ryoga down. The boy's got spirit.

Mahon: Espirit de Corpse.

(Everyone stares at him. Mahon grins sheepishly.)

==================================================
COMING SOON IN THE SERIES:

PART TWO: AKANE
PART THREE: UKYOU
PART FOUR: SHAMPOO
PART FIVE: KODACHI
PART SIX: A STITCH IN TIME...

==================================================
Interfector beluam Ecclesia Ryougis.

Seamus: He's gonna do more 'o 'em? An wit Ko-chan? That 
monster!

Mike: (squinting) He's a member of the Church of Ryoga?? 
Geez...after these last few fics, he'll be lucky if Kun-chan just 
excommunicates him. That was....well, opinions?

Seamus: Horrible. Sure, an if I ever meet Willmore I'll do unta 
him as he did unta Ranma.

Giles: (thoughtfully) Oi dunno...it was a morbid humor piece, and 
in it's own role was pretty good...disturbed, twisted, and sick, 
but good.

Mahon: Chris needs help.

Mike: Yes....Mr. Willmore, kindly turn yourself in for therapy and 
shock treatments. We guarantee that the voices in your head 
will go away in no time flat.

Giles: Hold up...where'd everyone go?

(The Rats look around. Indeed, the Teufel is empty except for 
them and a slowly advancing Otto, who wears Scowl #71 <No 
customers>.)

Otto: (rumbling) DU! You say fic gut for business, people laugh at 
funny story! Nein, they no laugh. They vomit und run away! Who 
pay for lost business?

Mike: (sighing) How come we always wind up running for our 
lives at the end of these things?

Mahon: Habit?

Seamus: Mebbe next time we'll be usin' Bailesu's theatre. Wot 
could go wrong in space?

(Otto growls.)

Mahon: Run?

Mike: Good idea.

(They do. Curtain.)
-------------------------------------
Today's picture, "Bits and Pieces", by Christopher Willmore.
Review by Mike Loader
Ranma 1/2 and attendant characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi.
The Institut Rats are copyright 1993 by Mike Loader and Mad Wombat Ent.
Fnord.