Aa! Megami-sensei! by Peter Ward Episode 14: Beach Blanket Amazons July days at the beach were usually hot. Just how hot depended on how many good-looking people had shown up on any given day and how much flesh had been shown by those people. Today, though, was hotter than most. This became evident to the lucky guys as a girl happened to pass by along the length of the beach. Just about any person with a Y chromosome that she passed had to do a double-take at the hardbody covered only in a very brief turquoise string bikini. The double-takes soon turned into drooling leers as the bikini turned out to be of the g-string variety. Not even her pink hair or tiny black horns were a distraction for the lustful males, many of whom were more used to the native Japanese women. Amano Buffy paused for a moment and looked around her, much to the pleasure of the guys in her immediate area. She found what she looked for and headed there, hefting a large cooler single- handedly. She was not unaware of the looks she was getting and smiled inwardly to herself. she smirked mentally. The alien amazon soon came upon her friends, the Tendos and Saotomes, as well as Suzie Cabbit, the short felinoid Khel'azi who usually tagged along with her and Nabiki. After she ex- changed greetings with them, she frowned slightly as she noticed some people were missing from the group. "Hey, guys, where's Urd-sensei and her bunch?" she asked as she set down the cooler. "I thought they'd be here by now." "They'll be here soon." Kasumi answered as she opened up the cooler and passed out the drinks inside. "After all, they do live in Nekomi City and it is a bit of a longer trip for them." "Hey, Buffy, are you sure you want to wear that?" Akane asked from where she was laying by Ranma (in girl form) and Genma-pan- da. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination, you know!" "What?" Buffy asked as she turned around in her bikini. "It's a swimsuit, right? It covers up the 'vital areas' you humans get so worked up about, so there shouldn't be any problem. Geez, I go out of my way to adapt to your beach customs since we Haka- neans just go in the buff, and look what I get..." "Oh, my." Kasumi blushed slightly at the thought of going to the beach nude like Buffy's people do. "Don't you worry about modesty on your planet, especially around the men?" "Naaaah! Males are not much more than servants and property to us, so if they happen to be around serving our needs, well, so be it. No big deal." "Heh! I could begin to like it on your world if the guys have that kind of status." Nabiki commented. Unlike her sisters, Ranma, and Suzie, who wore tank suits, Nabiki wore a bikini, albeit a more conservative one than Buffy's. "By the way, say cheese!" With that, Nabiki produced a water-resistant disposable camera and aimed it Buffy's way. Knowing what Nabiki would have planned for the pictures, she posed suggestively and said, "I'm getting a cut of the profits, right?" "We'll negotiate later." Nabiki replied as she clicked the shutter a few times. After a minute, she put the camera back while sneaking a shot of Akane and Ranma. "Hey, Buffy, I think you've been hanging around Nabiki a little too long if you're discussing picture profits." Suzie teased from her end of the group (with Ranma at the other end for well-known reasons). "Naaa...I've been learning just how fun it is to tease these human males with my looks, that's all." Buffy grinned back. "If I get some money off of the deal, so much the better!" "You do have a point there." Suzie conceded, also knowing about how visually-oriented males tended to be on Earth. While she knew that nothing serious would come about it due to her feline nature, Suzie did enjoy flirting around, and she knew that her petite figure was also curvaceous enough to draw looks at least. Before anybody could reply, another female voice called out from nearby. "Hey! We're here!" Urd shouted as she led her sisters, Keiichi, and Jun from the road running along the beach. They were all carrying various containers of food, drink, luggage and supplies for the weekend. "Hey, what took you guys so long?" Ranma asked. "Why didn't you guys teleport over or something?" "That's because Keiichi here didn't want to attract attention, that's why!" Urd replied, jerking a thumb in Keiichi's direction. "We ended up taking the train and the bus, and for that, we had to get up at an obscene hour to make it." "Keiichi was right, Urd." Belldandy said in defense of her love. "The beach is rather crowded today. Besides, five o'clock isn't that bad a time to get up." "Let's not bicker, people." Kasumi cut in. "It's a beautiful day, so let's just relax and enjoy it." "Sounds good to me!" Jun said as she dropped her load and joined her classmates. "How's summer going for you?" "Going pretty good." Nabiki said while Suzie and Buffy agreed with that statement. "I think it'll be a profitable one too, with the pics I just got of Buffy." "Gee, I can't imagine why." Jun teased as she got her piglet brother Joe out of one of her baskets. "I don't think you left much to the imagination with that suit, Buffy." "Hey, she just knows how to dress properly for the beach, that's all!" Urd chimed in from where she was sitting with the others. Her tiger-stripe two-piece wasn't that much more conservative than Buffy's. "You might want to take a few tips from her, Jun. That way, you get more dates!" "Urd!" Jun shouted in shock. "Just because you're my teacher, mentor, and guardian doesn't give you the right to mess with my love life! I mean, really!" She was pretty comfortable in her strapless one-piece and didn't want to show off as much as Urd or Buffy were. "Get used to it!" Keiichi advised Jun. "How do you think Bell- dandy and I feel at times?" "Well, fine! See if I care!" Urd huffed at them. "Try to help people out and see what I get! Talk about ingratitude." While everybody laughed at Urd's comments, Akane got up and walked over to Jun, with Ranma close behind. "Hey, is that your pet piglet there? Can I see her?" "Sure." Jun replied as she handed Joe over to Akane. "Her name's Jo." "That's a nice name. Isn't she the cutest? Well...maybe not quite as cute as my P-chan, but she's still pretty cute!" "'P-chan'? That's the name of your pet piglet, right?" Jun asked. "Yeah. He got lost again over a month back and I'm a little worried." Akane answered, looking downcast as she related the problem to her sempai. "Awwww...he always comes crawling back." Ranma commented. "He just has no sense of direction, that's all." "Ranma! Stop making it sound like he's Ryoga, you jerk! You know, you could take some lessons from him on how to behave." * * * * * * * * * * The normal sounds of the mountain woods were broken by a fit of sneezing. "Ryoga! Are you all right? You're not getting sick, are you?" a 12-year-old blond girl asked him where they were camped out. "I don't think so, Dorllir..." Ryoga responded as his sneezing fit died down. "I don't know what brought that on." "Well," Dorllir said while producing a map, "since you seem to be all right, we should get going then. If we take this path here, and not take any of your so-called shortcuts, we should reach Tokyo in a day or so." * * * * * * * * * * "Too bad P-chan's not here." Akane commented after calming down. As usual, Ranma had made a few rude comments and Akane decided to bury Ranma in the sand...head-first. "We might have been able to see if he and Jo would have made a great pair." At that comment, everyone in the temple household did double-- takes, knowing Joe's true nature. Joe, for her part, thought- flashed her sister. "Um, I don't think that'd be a good idea." Jun responded as she mentally strained out Joe's telepathic objections. "She's, um, really shy around other pigs, you know." Ranma started to wave his legs around and muffled from within the sand, "Hmph hmph mhhph m-mmmp mmmf mm mph mmmph!" Buffy rose up, walked over to where Ranma was half-buried, took a firm grasp of one of his ankles, and gave him a quick yank out of the sand. "Spit it out, he-girl!" "I said, I don't think P-chan would go for that!" Ranma sputtered as sand flew from his mouth. "Too bad." Akane said. "Oh, well, it was an idea, right?" "That's true." Jun said, trying to make sure the whole matter blew over without incident. The roar of a very loud engine interrupted everybody as a heavily souped-up dune buggy pulled up to the now-large group. The engine was cut off and out stepped a statuesque female lifeguard in a red tank suit that was stretched tight over her physique. If one took a close inspection of her long, wavy black hair, they would notice a pair of tiny black horns nestled in it. The woman looked straight at Buffy with a bemused look on her face and removed her shades, revealing eyes that matched Buffy's dark-blue-on-light-blue eyes, and features that also resembled Buffy's. "I see you haven't outgrown burying people in the sand, little sis." she teased Buffy as Buffy continued to hold a sand-- covered Ranma by the ankle. "Well, well, Nami. Fancy running into you here" Buffy answered her sister with an annoyed look on her face. "For your informa- tion, I wasn't the one who buried Ranma here. I was just the person who drug her out." "Hey, Nami, what are you doing here?" Keiichi asked as he and Belldandy recognized her. "What, you guys know her?" Buffy asked them as she dropped Ranma face-first onto the sand. "Yes, we do." Belldandy answered. "Nami's a new member of the motor club at NIT. We didn't know that she was your sister, Buffy." "Oh, yeah, that's right...sis decided to go to NIT since dad's an alumni." Buffy said, remembering which school her older sister went to when they moved to Earth back in March. "Anyway, if no one else is going to interrupt me," Nami continued with an edge to her voice, "I'm working here as a lifeguard for the summer." "Lemme guess, you had to take a job to repay any shopkeepers you lifted stuff from, right, sis?" "Well, I *did* promise to pay them back for the stuff I bor- rowed..." Nami explained. "How else was I going to get the money to pay off the car parts and munitions I had to get the past few months?" "'Munitions'? You started loading up the motor club's cars and bikes with weaponry when you joined, right?" Buffy asked in exasperation, then added, "You always had an obsession with large-scale weaponry since we were kids." "Don't worry about it, Buffy." Keiichi said in an attempt to allay the high-schooler's fears. "She tries, but we always make her remove it before a race. Otherwise, we'd be disqualified for sure!" "Hmph...spoilsports." Nami spat out. "You earthlings are pretty wimpy since you don't allow weapons in your sports. Then again, the bosses were pretty uptight about adding the pintle-mounted .50 caliber machine gun to my buggy here. Oh, well, at least I have easy access to my other goodies!" she added cheerfully as she materialized a rapid-fire bazooka, then popped it back into a subspace pocket. "What?? You're packing weapons with you on the job?!?" Buffy yelled as the others tried to quiet her down. "You trying to get yourself canned? What do you think they'll do if they find out???" "They won't find out." countered Nami. "Not so long as I've got my subspace pockets to stash stuff in." "At least not until you lose your temper and go on a shooting spree." Buffy pointedly said. "Oh? You're one to talk, sis. I remember some of the fits you've had back home, and you caused a fair amount of damage in those!" Nami teased. Before the fight could escalate any further, several screams could be heard from down the beach. Both sisters turned to the apparent source and saw a mob of women heading their way. Buffy only needed one guess as to the cause, along with Urd, Jun, Suzie, the Tendos, and the Saotomes. "Hey, you're on the job, sis, so why don't you go take care of it?" Buffy egged her sister on. "Right." Nami said, a determined look on her face as she strode out to intercept the mob. Unfortunately, she was so intent on the mob that she didn't notice the target of the mob's fury until he landed squarely on her chest. "Sweeto!!!!" Happosai cried out as he nuzzled on Nami's quite ample bosom. Nami froze momentarily, taken aback that a human male, a withered old one at that, would be so brash as to cop more than a feel off of her. The shock quickly turned to fury, though, and Nami growled, "Prepare to receive a one-way ticket to the afterlife, old man." Happosai replied from between Nami's breasts, "I'm already in heaven, sweetie!" Enraged, Nami yanked the old pervert from her chest (his grip nearly tearing the already-taut fabric of her suit in the pro- cess) and tossed him a few feet away. Then she opened up one of her pockets in subspace, pulled out her favorite toy (a DNE3DRPG rapid-fire bazooka) and squeezed off one shell at the reprobate. Happosai barely leaped clear of the resulting explosion (which caused a minor ripple of panic in the immediate vicinity) and protested, "Hey! That's no way to treat your elders, young lady! I was just having some fun!" "Well, then. Let me have some of my fun as well!" Nami said as a nasty grin spread over her face. With that, she let five more shells loose in Happosai's direction. Happosai was able to dodge them and the shells exploded in a neat line along a quarter of the beach's length, causing more panic along the way. Happosai's only reply was a scream as he started to scamper away. Before giving chase, Nami turned to the crowd and produced more weaponry from her subspace pockets. "Anyone else want to help hunt that bastard down?" She was answered by a loud cry from the mob as many of the women grabbed the weaponry. Nami led the small army of women after the old man down the beach. While Nami's shots were relatively on-target (only missing due to Happosai's incredible agility), the other women weren't as adept with the firearms and explosions started to spread throughout the beach as they went along. Belldandy, upset at the turn of events, started to go after them in an attempt to stop the mayhem. Keiichi grabbed her arm and shook his head. "It's too late, Belldandy. Once Nami gets started, there's no stopping her." "He's right." Buffy confirmed as she watched the chaos unfold. "I should know, being her sister and all. How do you think I got my agility? She used to chase after me all the time with her stupid weapons. Some amazon she is. Even Shampoo is a better amazon than her!" "Well, I hope she nails the little bastard and sends him to his reward." Urd commented as she watched through a pair of opera glasses that she materialized. "Too bad she didn't wait up a minute more, or I would've let her use my grenades." Skuld added as she produced a half-dozen of the tube-and-globe contraptions from her bag. Having been to Furin- kan a few times to bug Urd on the job, she had seen Happosai in action and actually lobbed a few of her grenades his way, as well as use her telescoping mallet on him. Happosai was even more annoying than a bug. "I see Happy is up to no good as usual." Cologne observed as she came from apparently nowhere, as usual. "I had a feeling he'd be chased by an armed mob of women one of these days, but I thought it would have been in America, not here in Japan." "Where'd you come from?" Urd asked in astonishment, having been taken by surprise by the old crone's abrupt appearance. "Hello, Urd-sensei. Fancy meeting you here." Cologne replied. "Every summer I run a beach side ramen shack with my granddaugh- ter and that boy" she added, pointing to Mousse, who was hugging Jun. "I'm not Shampoo, I tell you! Let go of me!" Jun was yelling as she was trying to pry Mousse off. When physical force proved not to be enough to remove the young man from her torso, she started to prepare a spell, nearly panicking everyone in the group. "Here, Mousse." Nabiki said as she set Mousse's glasses back on his face from where they sat on top of his head. "See? That's not Shampoo you're holding." Inwardly, Nabiki sighed, having averted another disastrous spell cast by Jun. "Aaah! You're not Shampoo!" Mousse exclaimed the obvious as he let go and stepped back. "So good of you to notice." Jun said in slight irritation. "You know, I *do* like to be held by good-looking guys like you, but not when they're calling me by another girl's name." "Sorry." Mousse said sheepishly. "But could you please tell me where my Shampoo is?" "I think I know where, Mousse." Ranma said, pointing to where Shampoo was. Just like how Mousse had latched onto Jun by accident, Shampoo had glomped onto Ranma as usual, causing Akane's blood pressure to rise. "Nihao, husband!" Shampoo greeted brightly. "Saotome, you cad!" Mousse shouted in indignation, ignoring the fact that it was Shampoo doing the glomping, not Ranma. "Hey, wait a minute!" Ranma protested as Mouse stalked towards him, producing two to three dozen blades from his loose sleeves. "It isn't what you think! I wasn't doing nothing!" "And since *when* was he your husband?" Buffy addressed Shampoo as she yanked the Chinese amazon off of Ranma. "You no interfere!" Shampoo yelled at Buffy. "Ranma *my* husband by tribal law. You challenge this?!" "Hell, yeah!" Buffy snarled as she took a fighting stance. "Let's do it! I've been waiting a long time for this!" "Shampoo show you who better amazon is!" the Chinese girl de- clared as she launched herself at Buffy. "Yeah, right." Buffy sneered as she handily dodged Shampoo's charge. As Shampoo ran past her, Buffy raised one of her legs and gave Shampoo a shove towards the ocean with her foot. Shampoo barely stopped herself from running right into the water and having her curse ruin the fight for her. Spying a large rock a few meters away from her, Shampoo quickly covered the distance and hefted it. "You no get me so easily!" she cried as she tossed the rock towards Buffy. Buffy merely smashed her fist into the oncoming rock, shattering it into hundreds of pieces. Luckily, Belldandy and Urd put up force fields to protect the others as they started to run away from the duel between the two amazons. "Some day at the beach!" Urd complained as she started to follow the others. "Who would've known that we'd have three amazons on the rampage?!" "It was bound to happen." Cologne replied as she hopped along on her staff. "Those two girls have been nursing a grudge since the start of the school year, it seems. It's the amazon way, and it seems to be universal" she added, not resisting the pun. The hasty retreat the group was doing was disrupted as what seemed to be an earthquake struck. As most of them stumbled due to the shockwaves, the ones still standing turned around and saw that Buffy was the source of it. In a show of power, Buffy had slammed her fist into the ground itself, her strength causing the minor quake, as well as a long crack in the ground beneath the sand running between her and Shampoo. Shampoo, being as skilled as she was, managed to leap clear of the small chasm as it opened. * * * * * * * * * * "Come on, dammit!" Nami was swearing as she loaded another clip in her rapid-fire bazooka. Who could've known that someone this old would have been this spry? Her sneaky little sister, that's who. No wonder why Buffy had egged her on earlier when she first ran into this old lech. The mob had chased Happosai down the length of the beach already, and he had somehow managed to dodge all the bullets, grenades, misses, and shells that were fired his way. This served only to infuriate the mob even more, especially Nami. No man, especially an old, gnomish pervert like this one was, made a fool of a hakanean and got away with it. As soon as the clip was securely loaded and the first shell entered the chamber, Nami took practiced aim while running. Happosai was leaping relatively straight at this point, and was giving her a perfect opportunity to draw a bead on him. "Gotcha!" she shouted as her motion-predicting sight locked on to him. Unfortunately, it was then that the shockwave from Buffy's miniquake hit them, knocking Nami's shot way off and causing the shell to hit a nearby kite. Happosai used the moment of disori- entation to double back through the mob, copping feels left and right. Seeing that she couldn't squeeze off another shell without hitting the mob, Nami lowered the bazooka and muttered, "Aw, hell. That had to have been sis. Leave to her to spoil one of my better shots..." * * * * * * * * * * While Buffy and Shampoo charged each other, Belldandy looked around and saw that there were fewer people in their group than had been before the amazon-made quake hit them. The goddess realized who one of the missing people was within seconds. "Where's Ranma?" she asked aloud. "Ranma?" Akane asked as she, too, saw that Ranma wasn't with them. "Where'd he go?" "Hey! Suzie's missing too!" Nabiki noticed, making a mental head count and noticed a certain head with a white mohawk-like mane absent as well. "You don't think they went down this sinkhole, do you?" Urd asked as she looked over a pit in the sand that was just big enough for someone to fit into. As the others looked into the pit, the sand along the walls of the pit slowly flowed ominously into it... * * * * * * * * * * "Uuuuunnnnhhhhhh...what died? Not me, I hope..." Suzie groaned as she came to. Before she even opened her eyes, she was over- whelmed by the putrid stench of her surroundings. Finally bringing herself to open her eyes, she noticed that it was almost completely dark. The only light where she was came from above (along with a steady stream of sand), as well as down the way, as if it were the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. , she thought as she pondered her situation. Unfortunately, the passageway leading towards the second light source was blocked off by some rocks and debris. The last thing she remembered was that she was running with her friends from the fight that was starting to rage between Buffy and Shampoo. Just as they were running, it seemed as if they were hit by a quake and that was it until she came to. As she started to become more aware of her surroundings, Suzie realized that whatever it was that she was laying on, it was soft and trembling. In fact, it felt as if it were a person... "Oh, geez! I'm sorry! Are you all right?" Suzie asked as she scrambled off the person and into some sleazy liquid. she thought as she swallowed her revulsion. "I-I-I will b-b-be as s-s-soon as you g-g-get away fr-fr-fr-from m-me...." a familiar voice sounded. "Ranma?" Suzie asked as she backed away from her. "Shoot! With that stupid phobia of yours..." "It's okay now..." Ranma said as she calmed down some. "At least I wasn't at the point of using Cat-Fu. At least not then..." "Yeah, Buffy told me about it a few weeks back." Suzie replied, recalling the incident when Joat-mon, a fellow student of theirs who was also feline in appearance, triggered Ranma's Cat-Fu and got shredded along with Kuno. Ranma chuckled a bit as she sat up and said, "Seems I am getting used to you some if you didn't trigger my Cat-Fu. Not like the way Joat-mon triggered it." "Well, he had it coming and then some." Suzie said. "Last I heard, he was assigned neighborhood cleanup detail for the summer, and I think principal Kuno shaved his head as well." Suzie took another look around, having better low-light vision than Ranma, and added. "I think we ended up in a sewer tunnel. I don't think plain water smells *this* bad. Ugh! And I'm soaking in it!" "You think the quake caused us to fall in here or something?" "Has to be. Look up there." Suzie indicated, pointing to right above where she and Ranma came to. "I think we fell right through that hole." "Hey, all I have to do is use a chi-blast to widen that hole and..." "No way!" Suzie shouted. "Don't you realize that the quake might've weakened these tunnel walls as well? You want to bring the whole damn tunnel down on us? I don't know about you, but I don't want to be buried in a sewer!" "Then what are we supposed to do, then?" Ranma asked in frus- tration. "Wait, I guess." Suzie shrugged. "And hope that help comes soon." "I sure hope so." Ranma muttered as she settled back down. After a few minutes of silence, Suzie asked quietly, "Ranma?" "Yeah, Suzie?" "What do you think of me?" "Huh? What kind of...I mean, what do you mean?" Ranma stammered at Suzie's question. "Not *that* way, you dolt!" Suzie shot back. "I meant, what do you think of me as a person?" "Oh." Ranma blinked, then paused for a few moments. "Well, I guess you're okay for one of Nabiki's friends. You've also helped out a few times,. I mean, if it weren't for your, well..." "My cat looks?" "Well, yeah." "Geez! I wish you'd get off your stupid hangup about cats already! Just because a person looks like a cat doesn't mean you have to hate them!" "It's not like that!" Ranma shouted back. "I don't hate you at all!" After calming down a second, she continued, "I mean, you're my friend and all, it's just this stupid phobia." After a moment of consideration, Suzie changed her tone. "Sorry, Ranma. I didn't mean to snap at you like that. It's just that it's been so hard the past few months trying to figure out if we're friends or not, with you being so skittish and all. Guess we can thank your stupid father for that." "Yup." Ranma agreed. "I guess you and Nabiki are right, though. I am going to have to face up to my stupid phobia eventually." With that, Ranma slowly got up and made her way over to where Suzie was sitting. Gingerly, she sat down next to her. "Hey, are you going to be all right, being this close?" Suzie asked. "I think so, but please don't push it or anything." Ranma re- plied, some nervousness evident in her voice. "I think I can handle you for the most part since you've been hanging around pretty often. Just don't try it with Joat-mon or a real cat." "Okay." Suzie said, giggling a bit. "Guess we'll have to take what we can get, huh? Some pair we make. A felinoid and an ailurophobe stuck in the sewers." The two laughed for a minute, then fell into silence. After a bit, Ranma asked, "Hey, did you notice that thumping above us?" "Now that you mention it..." Suzie said, perking up her ears a bit. "What do you think it is?" "Dunno. After shocks, maybe?" "No." Suzie disagreed. "It's just thumping, that's all. After shocks are more like the quakes that set them off. In fact, there haven't been any aftershocks at all. Wonder what's going on..." "Well, my two guesses would be either Buffy still fighting with Shampoo, or that sister of Buffy's that's chasing after the old man with a bazooka...." "Dammit! Why didn't I think of it sooner?" Suzie shouted as a light dawned in her head. "What if it wasn't a quake that hit us, after all? What if it was Buffy that caused it?" "That's right!" Ranma said, considering the thought. "After all, Buffy's got all that raw strength on her. She might be able to pull something like that off!" "Man, am I gonna give her a piece of my mind when we get out of this!" Suzie growled. "It's just like her to lose her temper around Shampoo, and look where it got *us*. Now I gotta go and get this sewage out of my fur and my suit!" "You really don't like getting wet, do you?" "Nope. You should know what it's like, since you have that curse." "I've gotten used to it." Ranma sighed. "You tend to when you become a magnet for cold water wherever you go." Just then, there was a small plop in the water in front of them. As Ranma and Suzie looked on, a Mini-Urd surfaced and started to splash about. "Bleccchh!! Sewer water! Why couldn't you two have picked a better spot to get trapped in?!?" "Sensei?!" Suzie exclaimed in joy as she waded over and scooped up her miniature teacher. "What took you guys so long?" "Well, we were trying to figure out a way to get down here to see if you two fell in or not." Urd said as she magically dried and deodorized herself in Suzie's hands. "I figured I could send one of myself down to locate you two while the rest of us figured out how to get you out. By the way, you two seem a little cozy. I thought Ranma was supposed to have a cat phobia." "Hey, it's not like that!" Ranma exclaimed. "We're just getting to know and get used to each other, that's all!" "Oh, I'll bet." Urd winked at the pair. "Maybe I should leave you two alone for a while longer. After all, it's still unsafe up there with the fighting still going on...." "Would you quit that?" Suzie protested. "Ranma and I are just friends, and he's just getting used to me, that's all. It's bad enough that you've gotten it into your head to match him up with Ukyo, but don't try to match him up with me! He's got enough woman troubles as it is!" "Okay, okay! Just teasing!" Urd said. "Anyway, I'll see if we can get Skuld down here in a minute and she can teleport you through water." After a couple of minutes of waiting and overhearing some argu- ing, Ranma and Suzie saw a few Mini-Skulds drop through the opening above them. "Okay, let's get this over with." Skuld said irritably while merging back into a full-sized version of herself. "The sooner we get out, the sooner we're rid of this stench! It smells just like your lab, Urd!" "What was that?!?" Urd protested as Skuld created a portal in the sewer water large enough to allow Ranma and Suzie through. "Maybe I ought to leave you in here." Skuld said as Ranma and Suzie disappeared through the portal. "After all, you seem to be used to the smell." "Oh no you don't!" Urd exclaimed as she bounded into the portal. She found herself bursting out of a bucket of water that Kasumi had set up as directed by the goddess sisters. As soon as she was out, she rejoined her main body, which was just turning away from the sinkhole to the bucket. "Hmph! It was worth a try!" Skuld muttered as she emerged from the bucket and shut the teleport spell down. As for Ranma and Suzie, they sat near the bucket, dazed. "Geez...remind me not to go through that again." Ranma muttered, still a bit overwhelmed by the teleport. "You and me both." Suzie agreed. "You get used to it." Jun commented. Unlike Ranma and Suzie, who had their first teleport just then, Jun teleported with Urd every school day and was accustomed to the strange (to humans anyway) sensations and sights the process brought about. "By the way," Nabiki said as she stepped up by the rescued pair, "I'm curious about something. I noticed that Ranma hasn't started using Cat-Fu at all, even being this close to Suzie. You guys think that we're finally getting rid of Ranma's little phobia?" "Not exactly," Suzie answered, "but at least he *is* getting used to me." "You weren't messing around down there, were you?" Akane asked suspiciously. "Okay, so he's not *that* used to me." Suzie replied in slight irritation. "Besides, he's your fiancee, not mine, so I didn't try anything, and neither did he. You know, maybe you ought to have a little more faith in him once in a while." Before either Ranma or Akane could respond, they were forced to duck as a bonbori zoomed past where they were standing and into Cologne's beach side ramen shack. Cologne's only comment was, "Improve your aim, great-granddaughter." Belldandy looked at the old crone in shock. "She just smashed your business and all you could tell her is to improve her aim?" "A mere shack can be replaced." Cologne responded evenly. "However, great-granddaughter must constantly improve her skills if she is to be my heir to leadership in our village. A shack is but a small price to pay towards that goal." As if she read the goddess's thoughts, Cologne continued in a quieter voice. "Interference in a duel between amazons would not be prudent, child. Even Kami-sama understands this." All Belldandy could do is stand there and wonder at Cologne's cryptic comment. * * * * * * * * * * "Buffy stop ducking like scared rabbit!" "Hey, it's not my fault your aim's lousy, you Chinese bimbo!" The fight between the two amazons was in full swing now. While Shampoo was a bit upset about her thrown bonbori hitting her grandmother's ramen shack, she still had the other one in hand, and was attempting to use it to swat Buffy into defeat. Buffy, for her part, remained unarmed and tried to get in close to take Shampoo out with her bare hands. This was not due to a lack of skill with weapons (indeed, Buffy could use them quite well), but due to pride. Buffy wanted to satisfaction of laying a few fists on the Chinese amazon without resorting to weaponry like Shampoo did. Also, Buffy preferred the flexibility of unarmed combat. While weapons gave an obvious advantage of extra reach and damage, they also put limits on the one wielding them. Readying them for a strike being one, and being limited to the attacks the weapon allowed being another. Being very well trained on her home planet of Hakane, Buffy spotted a new weakness in her opponent that was related to the disadvantages of weapons. Shampoo's bonbori were used best as paired weapons, and Shampoo threw one of them away in an attempt to wallop Buffy at long range. Now Shampoo was reduced to swinging her remaining bonbori like an oversized club. While still dangerous, Shampoo now couldn't help but produce an occasional opening now and then whenever she swung her bonbori. All Buffy needed to do is to wait until Shampoo gave her the right opportunity to finish this. After fending off several swings of the bonbori, Buffy saw her opportunity. As soon as Shampoo made a particularly vicious swing at her, Buffy closed in while Shampoo was still twisted around at the end of her swing. Not willing to wait the extra second for her fists to be in reach of her target, Buffy elected to give Shampoo a good kick, sending her flying for several feet. "AAAAIIIIIYYYYAAAAAA!!!!!" Shampoo yelled as she sailed into a crowd of young men. While the fight had been going on, it had drawn a crowd that remained at a respectful distance for safety. Naturally, since the fight involved beautiful women in skimpy bikinis, the crowds were mainly male. Of course, there was the occasional incident of minor violence in the crowds as a jealous girlfriend or wife found their significant other drooling at the two amazons. After regaining her senses from her landing in the crowd, Shampoo saw that the only injuries were a nosebleed on the part of a man she landed on, as well as a couple cases of blissful unconscious- ness from the men that her bonbori had smacked into. She paid neither them nor the other men any mind as she got up and grabbed her bonbori. Her immediate thoughts were on Buffy, who was charging her at that moment. Remembering that game that was popular in Japan..."baseball" was the name she recalled, Shampoo readied her bonbori like a bat and gave a swing into Buffy's face as she came close. Just as Shampoo took an im- promptu flight a few moments earlier, Buffy experienced the unfriendly skies of Shampoo Airways and landed into another crowd of males. Before Shampoo could follow up on that, she was be- sieged by several guys trying to get her to play on whatever baseball team they were on. * * * * * * * * * * "It would seem that this fight is a fairly even one, right Tendo?" A few male bodies flew as Shampoo broke free of the crowd and rushed Buffy. "Yes, it would, Saotome. Buffy is a fine student of the Tendo School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, wouldn't you say?" Shampoo found herself in midair again as Buffy smacked her towards the damaged ramen shack. "I'd say that it's more of a matter of her amazon upbringing, if you ask me." Cologne interrupted. Shampoo emerged from the shack holding both of her bonbori, having recovered the one she threw earlier. "Nobody did, you old ghoul." Ranma pointed out. Buffy sidestepped Shampoo's charge and the Chinese amazon ran headlong into another crowd of delighted males. "What's the matter, Ranma? Antsy because you're sitting this fight out?" Nabiki teased. Shampoo knocked most of her overeager admirers out and took a challenging stance facing Buffy. "Yeah. Remember last time you got involved in a fight between amazons?" Suzie added. Like Buffy, she was told about Ranma's predicament with Shampoo the first day of school. Buffy rushed Shampoo, barely avoiding a bonbori swing and tackled her opponent to the sand. "Like how was I supposed to know??" Ranma snapped back at the two. Buffy found herself in midair as Shampoo kicked her away. Moments later, she landed right in Keiichi's lap. "Don't get any ideas now, Keiichi." Urd giggled as Keiichi struggled to get Buffy off of him while trying to keep from touching certain areas. "You wouldn't want to get my sister jealous..." "It's not like that!" Keiichi spat out while Buffy regained her wits. "She just landed on me! Honest!" He paled as Buffy's body started to rub against his as she attempted to get up. "I know it's not your fault, dear Keiichi." Belldandy said gently as she reached out and gave Buffy a hand up. "We all saw what happened." "Besides, you're not my type anyway." Buffy commented as she turned to face Shampoo again. As she prepared to attack again, her trained ears picked up the sound of weapons fire nearby. she mused before her ears picked up something else. Buffy's eyes widened as she heard the telltale sound of a bazooka round approaching their vicinity. She was quite familiar with the sound since her sister aimed a few her way when they were younger. Knowing she had split seconds to act, she saw the round and where it would land with practiced ease...right at Shampoo's feet. Remembering that humans didn't have the resiliency of hakaneans, Buffy knew that she had to do something. Throughout the fight, Buffy only allowed a little of her super strength and speed to be used in order to make it fair for Shampoo. However, the situation was different now and she poured as much of her speed as safety would allow and tackled Shampoo and carried her several meters away before the bazooka round landed and exploded a split second later. Buffy tried to convince herself as she set a stunned Shampoo down. Turning towards the approaching mob in pursuit of Happosai, she decided enough was enough and slammed her clenched fist down into the ground again. While the sand certainly softened the impact, enough of it caused a small seismic wave to rush out and knock the mob, with Nami in the lead, off their collective feet. "Enough!" Buffy shouted at them as they stirred. "You almost got someone killed! I don't care if you are trying to send the devil incarnate to the deepest bowels of hell or not, but you shouldn't endanger bystanders in the process." "Just tell me one thing, sis." Nami said irritably as she got to her feet. "Where did the old goat go while you were having your little fit there?" "Right here." Buffy growled as she looked down and found Happosai nestled between her barely-covered breasts. "Don't mind me!" Happosai said in all innocence. "As the master of the school of Anything Goes Martial Arts, I simply *must* make sure that all of my students are in tip-top shape!" "Yeah, right!" Buffy sneered in derision as she peeled the ancient master off of her chest. "Try another line!" she added as she slammed him into a nearby post. To her surprise, Happosai came to instantly. "You dare do this to your master?" he asked slowly, generating one of his auras. "Since when were *you* my master?" Buffy spat out. "Since you decided to train under the school of Anything Goes Martial Arts." Happosai pointed out, "of which I am the master." Before Buffy could answer, another female voice sounded out. "Oh, geez! I got sand in my suit! Looks like I'm gonna have to go over to the changing booth to get it out..." Happosai quickly switched his attention from Buffy to the source of the voice, who turned out to be Ranma. Ranma, for her part, was making as if she was heading for the changing booths nearby, with her back turned to Happosai. In split seconds, Happosai crossed the distance between himself and Ranma like a moth on a two-liter of Jolt cola to a flare. While Buffy, Nami, and the others watched, Ranma took hold of the old lecher and slammed him into the sand with the ease that comes from constant practice. After sharing congratulatory glances with each other, Ranma, Genma, and Soun proceeded to stomp on the old man repeatedly. While Nami sputtered in shock over the ease with which they vanquished him, Buffy looked on in admiring approval. "Guess you have to be sneaky where he's concerned!" she shouted at the trio from where she stood. "You just have to know how to get to him!" Ranma replied. "Come on! Why don't you join us?" "Don't mind if..." Buffy started to say, but trailed off as she noticed a shadow falling on the sand from behind her. As she turned around, she saw that Shampoo had come to and was getting ready to strike. Buffy swore inwardly as she realized that there was no way she'd be able to avoid this hit. "Shampoo have interfering alien amazon now." the Chinese girl sneered with a satisfied look on her face. Before she could strike, a voice cracked through the air like a whip. "Stop, great-granddaughter!" Cologne ordered as she made her way to the two amazons. "Why, great-grandmother?" Shampoo asked, not once taking her eyes off of Buffy or loosening her grip on her bonbori. "Shampoo have her fair and square! Shampoo could remove obstacle to Ranma!" "Because she saved your life, child. Did you not notice the weapon that nearly killed you moments earlier?" Shampoo paused to ponder this tidbit for a moment before looking a short distance away, to where she last remembered she was standing. There was a small blast crater where she used to be. Looking intently at Buffy, Shampoo relaxed a bit and lowered her bonbori. "Considering the circumstances, wouldn't it be proper to call this duel a draw?" Cologne continued. "Not only have you both proven yourselves to be worthy opponents to each other, but now you owe Miss Amano your life." The two warriors regarded each other for several long moments before dropping their combat stances entirely and bowing to each other. "Shampoo not give up on Ranma." Shampoo said as she came out of the bow. "You no interfere, Amano Buffy." "Sorry, but Ranma and Akane are friends of mine, and I'm going to do what I can to make sure that their engagement is carried through." Buffy replied solemnly. "Even though they may not appreciate it." she added, looking right at Ranma and Akane, who were now standing next to each other. "Wait a sec. Lemme get this straight, sis." Nami interrupted as she walked up to her younger sister. "This planet allows same- sex marriages like on Hakane? I thought that it didn't." Buffy looked at her sister and tried to stifle a laugh. "What's so funny?" Nami asked. "She no know Ranma's curse?" Shampoo asked Buffy while pointing at Nami. "Nope." was all Buffy answered before she leaned in towards Shampoo to whisper, "I promised Ranma I'd keep his secret. Besides, it's kinda fun looking at the look on sis's face, don't you think?" Shampoo giggled in agreement. Before Nami could ask any further, though, a loud voice boomed, "Nami! Get over here!" Paling, Nami turned and walked slowly to the muscular man that was the source of the yell. "Yes, boss?" she asked meekly, knowing full well what would happen. "Told her she'd get busted for those weapons." Buffy commented as she watched Nami get chewed out in the distance. "It's the same back at NIT." Keiichi said. "She doesn't quite grasp the concept of a weapons policy, from what we've seen there." "Be glad you're not related to her." Buffy quipped. "You don't want her to be aiming her playthings your way, even if it is in fun and games." * * * * * * * * * * "So, do you think Grandma and Grandpa Amano will let me crash at their place until the school year starts?" Nami asked. After getting chewed out and fired by the head lifeguard, Nami decided to stick around Buffy and her friends until the end of the day. During that time, she had been brought up to speed on Ranma's curse, as well as the curses of Shampoo, Mousse, and Genma. Since she was no longer a lifeguard, she had changed to a pair of cutoffs and a red tank top. "I think so." Buffy replied evenly. "They have gone on about you not being there as well from time to time, so I don't think it'll be a problem as long as you behave yourself." "Whatever do you mean?" Nami asked, trying to feign innocence. "Gee, who was it that brought all those weapons to the beach?" Nabiki chided. "Not to mention shoplifting all the time?" Keiichi added. "Hey! I'm not stealing, Keiichi!" Nami protested. "I'm just...borrowing until I can pay it back later! I mean, that's how a credit card works, right?" "Yeah, except that you don't have a credit card to begin with!" Buffy pointed out. "Okay, minor detail there, but I always pay the store owners back!" "That's true." Belldandy confirmed. "But you really should pay them when you're buying those items, not after." Nami, finding herself unable to argue with Belldandy, finally relented and said to Buffy, "Okay, I'll behave myself from now on! Happy, sis?" "It'll do." Buffy answered, then paused to wonder about some- thing. "By the way," she said finally, "whatever happened to the old pervert, anyway? I haven't seen him since you guys finally stopped him." "Oh, we put him someplace out of the way." Ranma replied. "Do you think that he'll get out of there soon, Tendo?" Genma asked. "He'll get out of there eventually." Cologne said, not caring that it wasn't her that Genma was talking to. "I could still put a magic seal on that boulder you put on that sinkhole." Jun commented. "NO!!!!" was the answer she got from most of the group. "She really is that bad with spells, huh?" Buffy asked. "You better believe it." Ranma answered. She, like most of the others in the group, had experienced Jun's clumsiness at magic in the past. * * * * * * * * * * "H...h...how dare...you...treat your master...like this?" Happo- sai slurred. It had been several hours since Ranma, Genma, and Soun had stuck him down the same sinkhole that Ranma and Suzie had gone down in previously. Now, he was going through withdraw- al in the sewer, while trying to find a way out to get his revenge on his students. "Just...you...wait...Ranma..." Next Episode: The Divine Summer It's time to see how Jun spends her summer vacation with the goddess sisters and Keiichi. How well will she react to the various loonies that populate NIT, where she plans to go to after graduation? More important, how well will she keep both the secret about Joe as her parents come to visit, and the goddesses' secret as her friends stay for a weekend? Find out in the next Aa! Megami-sensei! All Aa! Megamisama and Ranma 1/2 characters copyright Fujishima Kosuke and Takahashi Rumiko, respectively. Dorllir appears courtesy of Ryan Matthews and Larry Mann. All other characters copyright Peter Ward, Tim Dunn, Tim Holt, "Snafu", and Ray Yeen. E-mail all comments, suggestions, etc. to falcon@best.com. They're always welcome...even the flames to a certain extent ^^;