I hope this gets through, as e-mail and I are not getting along very
well.  If the word wrap doesn't work and it comes out with "big lines,"
I'll learn from my mistake and post with hard returns next time.

This little piece of crossover fluff was the first story I ever
finished.  Constructive comments are welcome; flames will be considered
unmanly ^_^.

IF SHE HAD A HAMMER
A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Jan Story

All standard disclaimers apply.  Ranma 1/2 belongs to Rumiko Takahashi,
Shogakukan, etc. and Washuu belongs to the people who do Tenchi Muyou. 
None of them are mine.  Putting them together was my own perverted
idea.  And so...


"Ranma... no... BAKA!" The last word was capped by a vicious uppercut
that lifted Ranma several feet into the air and sent him flying across
the street to land unceremoniously in the Nekohanten's trash pile. Akane
Tendou gave herself a small, self-satisfied smile and walked on, the air
around her crackling with battle aura.

Once she rounded the corner, the blue flames subsided a bit. She began
massaging her right hand. Oww, his chin's hard. Feels like I tried to
smash through a concrete wall.

"Looks like you need something better than your fist to hit him with,"
said a brassy, feminine voice.
                                                                        
Akane looked around, startled, and saw a strange girl who seemed to have
appeared out of nowhere. She looked to be about twelve years old. Her
flame-red hair framed her face in tendrils that looked like the legs of 
a crab, and fell in a long tail down her back, nearly to her knees. Her
eyes were hard and green as emeralds, and much, much older than any
junior-high kid should have. Under their knowing gaze she faltered. "I
know I shouldn't hit him... but he can be such a *jerk* sometimes!"

"Yeah, guys can be a real pain. That's why I like science."

Do you go to school around here?" Akane asked. She didn't recognize the
elaborate uniform the girl wore... but somehow she was sure it *was* a
uniform.

"School? Hah!" the girl scoffed, then raised a lecturing finger.
"Listen. I like ya, so I'm gonna help ya." She raised her hands and
suddenly she was typing on a translucent keyboard that appeared in front
of her. It 
looked a lot like Nabiki's new laptop computer... but it didn't seem to
be completely *there.* Akane blinked. The girl's fingers flew over the
keys, even faster than Nabiki. "How's this?" She reached into the air
and pulled out a short-handled wooden mallet, which she tossed to Akane.

Akane caught it, hefted it experimentally. Just at that moment there was
a sound of rushing feet. Coming up the street was a handsome young man
wearing the traditional garb of a kendoka. He held a bokken in one hand
and 
a bouquet of red roses in the other, and shouted "Akane Tendou, at last
I find you free of the foul company of that evil Saotome! Come, you
shall date with me!"

Reflexively, Akane flattened Kunou with the mallet. She looked at it and
grinned. "I like this, but I can't exactly carry it around with me all
the time."

"That's the beauty of pseudospace," the strange girl enthused. "Ya don't
hafta! All ya gotta do is reach out, think of a hammer, and there it is!
And when you're done," she took the mallet from Akane, "just toss it
back!" She tossed the mallet into the air; it vanished. "You try it!"

This was getting really weird, but... Akane thought back to the comments
that Ranma had been making about her cooking and her martial arts
ability, reached out, and...

There in her hand was another mallet! "Sugoi," she breathed. "How'd you
do that?"

"Piece of cake," the girl bragged. "Way too easy for a genius like me! I
just gave you a personal link to pseudospace, so any time you need
something to hit jerks with, you've got a hammer!"

This was all way too much for Akane. Science wasn't her best subject to
begin with, but she had a feeling sensei would find this strange girl
just as baffling as she did. "Uh, thank you, umm..."

"Just call me..." the girl assumed an exaggeratedly kawaii pose...
"Washuu-chan!"

Just then Ranma came up, rubbing his chin. "Hey, whaddya do that for?"

Blue flames rose around Akane again. "Do. You. Really. Have. To. ASK?"
She raised her mallet.

He backed swiftly, straight into a splash of water from a little old
lady who was out dampening her sidewalk.

Washuu blinked. That had been a young *man* a second ago, tallish,
well-muscled, with black hair. Now it was a redhaired *girl* about her
own height, but much more amply upholstered. She was wearing the same
clothes as the guy, and had the same eyes... Washuu stepped forward and
circled the redhead slowly, looking her up and down. "You're
interesting," she said. "You're really interesting."

The redhead, however, wasn't paying any attention to her. "KAWAIIKUNEE!"
she screeched and took off in Akane's direction. The two continued their
running battle down the street. Washuu gazed after them, wondering...

A round-topped door appeared in front of her. She went through it and
the door disappeared.

Back in her lab, her fingers danced restlessly over computer keys, then
stopped. She leaned back in her backless chair, hands behind her head,
hair sweeping the floor. /*Now what could trigger a transformation like
that...?*/


NOTES:

I'd never paid much attention to mallets before I started reading other
people's fanfic.  They aren't really that much in evidence, certainly
not on the same level as, say, City Hunter, and aren't exclusive to
Akane by a long shot.  (Actually I think she uses a shinai more often
than a mallet.)  But I kept running into references to "hammerspace,"
and who knows more about extradimensional spaces than the Greatest
Genius in the Universe?