Ok, it was a long History class.  Perhaps I'll continue this, perhaps not.
Either way, it was a fun way to spend a couple of hours!

<Insert your favorite legal jargon here.>

The following is a Thirteen Moons production.

	The Author Fic:  Revenge At Last!    (by Mike Simmons)
       -----------------------------------


	It was lunchtime at Furinkan High.  The sun was shining, the crickets were
chirping merrily in the weeds, the cabbits were gamboling on the lawn, and
the baby unicorns were standing around, thinking whatever baby unicorns
think about and looking cute.  (Well, what do you expect?  They sure ain't
gonna be playing seven-card draw...)  As you would expect, it was a peaceful
and pastoral scene, jarringly at odds with the council of war being held
under a convenient tree.

	"This sucks!"  Ranma muttered, summing up the group's feelings precisely.
	
	"You said it, sugar."  Ukyo glared at the photocopied sheet clutched in her
fist and crumpled it into a ball.

	"Indeed," Kuno replied, watching the cabbits gamboling on the lawn.  The
high-stakes poker game quickly degenerated into a brawl, but the roulette
tables were still raking in customers.  Kuno shrugged, and returned his
attention to the group.  "Such a task is ill-suited to a warrior such as
myself."

	Akane rolled her eyes.  "Look, you guys!  There's no choice involved, we
either do the joint writing assignment or we fail!  Remember what Miss
Hinako said?"  The group shuddered as they recalled the dire fate
Ninomiya-sensei had threatened them with if they failed to deliver.

	"Uhm...at least she gave us a character profile to work with..." Gosunkugi
ventured, glancing up from his autographed copy of Lovecraft's Necronomicon.

	"Oh, is that what these are?"  Ukyo groaned and started trying to uncrumple
her sheet.  The rest of them scanned their own sheets in silence.  Outside
the gates, a poultry truck collided with an earthworm wearing a Super Suit.
A live chicken sailed over the wall and levelled Kuno in a puff of feathers.
Squirming out of its bonds, the chicken ran off into the distance.  Ranma
picked up the piece of string that had previously bound the chicken's ankles.  	

	"Hey Akane!  What's this?"

	"Are you blind, Ranma?  It's a hen tie!  Now be quiet, I'm trying to read
here."  Both returned toe their reading, with only the occasional endearing
mutter of 'tomboy' and 'pervert' breaking the silence.

	Abruptly, Kuno discarded his sheet, fuming.  "This is an exercise in
futility!  I cannot possibly craft a tale of one so pathetic!  How can I
create a story about someone so undeserving of my respect and regard?"

	"He's a fictional character, Kuno,"  Ukyo interjected in calming tones.
"You don't have to like him.  You just have to write about him."

	"Pah!  His gaijin name forbids pronunciation."

	"I think it's... Maaiku Shimonsu..."  Akane said absently, struggling with
the English syllables.  Ukyo chucked her own sheet on the ground and folded
her arms.  

	"This isn't going to be easy."

	"Ninomiya-sensei said that we must try to identify with the character,"
Gosunkugi piped up, clutching his Voodoo Dollie.  "She said that using a
Westerner character would be more of a challenge."

	Ranma scoffed.  "Look at this!"  he gestured derisively at his own
photocopy, already dog-eared and torn.  "This guy writes -poetry-, for
crying out loud!  He wouldn't last five seconds in a fight with any one of
us.  Even Akane."

	Akane turned purple.  "Why you..."  Producing her lucky mallet, she wound
up to nail Ranma, but stopped as she noticed the small reflecting pool a few
feet away.  "Hey, that pool wasn't there before!"  The pool rippled towards
Akane and then away again in a teasing motion.  It repeated the act,
teasingly trickling towards her feet, and dashing away as though shy.
"Hmmmm,"  Akane thought.  "Must be one of those coy ponds."

	"Being a good fighter isn't everything, you guys!"  Ukyo frowned.
"Although I have to admit, this Maaiku guy sounds like a real loser."  Akane
moaned, and flopped back on the grass with a hand over her eyes.  

	"But if we don't write, we fail.  So what are we gonna do?"

	"I have an idea."  At this, all eyes turned to the nervous Gosunkugi.  He
gulped, and explained.  "Well, magic is hard work and takes a lot of time,
so I usually don't have time to do my school assignments.  So I just check
on the Web, nine times out of ten the assignment has already been done
somewhere else and I can use that!"  

	A vote was quickly taken.  Ranma, Ukyo, Akane and Kuno quickly agreed that
while morals were a fine and upstanding thing in theory, practice quickly
invalidated them.  

	"Lead the way, Gosunkugi!"  The five students ran for the computer lab.  

	Gosunkugi plunked himself at a terminal and started the logon procedure.
"Rats!  Where's my password?"  The skinny voodooist plunged a hand into his
backpack and began pulling out all kinds of stuff.  Extra voodoo dolls, a
steak, nine mismatched socks, and a stuffed Winnie-the-Pooh.  Akane picked
it up.

	"Oh, how cute!  One of those Disney toys!"  Gosunkugi winced.

	"Uh, Akane?"  Ranma interrupted.  "Take a look at the tag."  Akane squinted
at the tiny tag.  It read  "Skinny the Bear.  Another fake Disney imitation
product from your friends at Amazon Inc."  Akane flinched as though burned.

	"Oh.  It's a sham Pooh."

	Meanwhile, Gosunkugi had found his password and fired up the web browser.
Quickly locating a search engine, he typed in "Mike Simmons".  Several
thousand references immediately popped up, from haberdashery links to exotic
travel destinations.  Gosunkugi began to scroll helplessly through the mess.
Something caught Ukyo's eye.

	"No way...  Gosunkugi, click there!"  They watched in awe as a small web
page loaded up.  It was entitled "Thirteen Moons", and the proprietor was
none other than... Mike Simmons or "Ronin".
(http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Garden/2506, just in case you were
wondering...)  

	Kuno spoke first.  "It...it is not possible.  The fiend is a mortal man?
Methought he was but a phantasm, a creature of fiction!"  Akane voiced the
same amazement.  

	"So did I, Kuno.  So did I."  Gosunkugi clicked on a section entitled
"Ronin's Scribbles" and a menu of various written works appeared.  As the
words "Ranma fanfics" appeared on the screen, the shock level in the room
hit an all time high.  An hour passed, as they read all of the stories
posted on the page.  

	"He's been writing stories about us..."

	"He knows where we live!"

	"Brrrr, this is spooky!"

	"Methinks an aura of the supernatural dost lurk about this Maaiku person."  

	As was par for the course in Nerima, however, shock was quickly replaced by
anger.  "He had me killed off... by that old lech, of all people!"  Ranma
yelled, shaking his fist at the computer screen.  "And cured of my curse!
And in LOVE with Akane!  What kind of a hack writer is this guy?"  

	Kuno narrowed his eyes.  "And in all of his stories, he has yet to mention
the great Tatewaki Kuno!  Such negligence cannot go unpunished!"
	
 	Ukyo hefted her spatula, regarding the screen with a baleful eye.  "I
think it's time for some payback, kids."  

	"Then let's kill two birds with one stone!"  Akane said firmly.  "Let's
write a story about him, and see how HE likes it!  With luck, Hinako-sensei
will think we just did it for our assignment!"

	Gosunkugi chuckled.  He liked devious tricks.  "I guess that would make
this a con, eh?"  The rest of them blinked.

-------------------------------

As you can probably tell by now, I like puns.  This story was
written with no prep in advance and no particular destination in mind
other than the Ranma cast getting some kind of revenge on me for 
writing stories about them.  So be gentle, huh? ^_^

I will most likely be continuing this, so tune in next time for 
another episode of "The Author Fic!"

Mike Simmons
msimmons@bcgroup.net
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Garden/2506