Ranma and Jet Moto are used without permission.
=======================
The first thing Ranma was aware of was pain. His head throbbed with
his heartbeat, sending waves of agony from the back of his brain to his
face. His mouth and throat were dry and parched, and his insides felt as
though they'd been through the spin cycle on an industrial dryer.
Despite his mind and body's ardent protests, he attempted to open
his eyes. The lids grudgingly obliged, the light in the room stabbing his
eyes and cranking the pain in his skull up a few notches.
"Aw...shit..." he croaked. He knew that he probably looked as bad
as he felt, so he decided not to attempt looking into the mirror. If he
had, he would have noticed Nabiki's face on the little vid-phone on the
dresser. The predatory look on her face probably would have frightened
him out of bed.
"RISE AND SHINE!" her voice blasted. "TIME FOR RACTICE!"
Ranma's hands shot to his ears, his face becoming a mask of
agony. The sudden sound startled him out of bed and right on the floor
opposite the side where the vid-phone sat. Rising to his knees, his bleary
eyes focused on Nabiki's grinning face on the vid-phone's monitor.
"Sorry about that, Saotome, but I couldn't resist," she giggled.
"Ya could've tried," he replied. Ranma rose to his feet, the
muscles in his back aching in retaliation. He heard Nabiki whistle in the
fashion most men used for attractive women. His addled brain then relayed
three rather late facts.
One: Nabiki was still on the vid-phone.
Two: He was in an unclothed state.
Three: She was staring at his ass.
Ranma hastily snatched a sheet off the bed, covering his modesty
with a blush coloring his cheeks.
"Now THAT'S one for the scrapbook..." Nabiki said before cutting
the connection. Grumbling, Ranma set to finding some clean clothes.
===============================
The Holotrainer was, without a doubt, the most expensive piece of
equipment team Ryu-Ken possessed. It was a four-by-four-by-four meter
chamber outside the Tendo house, the outer surface lendning the
appearance of an obsidian monolith. Ranma stood outside for a few
moments, still shaking off the effects of the hangover. Once he felt he
was ready, he entered.
The inside was rather unimpressive. The jet black walls were
covered by a bright orange grid. In the center was a mock Moto. The fake
Moto was designed to mimic the handling of either a large or small
model, and to simulate in every possible way the conditions of a real race.
Ranma straddled the mockup Moto, gripping the handles and calling
for the program to begin. An image of a stadium appeared almost instantly.
The ersatz sun glared down on the track, as noise from the
holographic crowd filled his ears. Taking his feet off the floor, the
training began.
The Holographic Image Projector was outdated. The HIP could only
display so many objects at one time without flickering and slowing down.
The fake Moto would simulate the feelings of impact if the rider collided
with one of the obstacles on the holographic track. This became evident
when Ranma upped the number of holographic opponents to forty, just to
see what it could do.
At one time, the Holotrainer was top of the line. However, with
the decline of the team and the increases in the price of technology,
opportunities to upgrade the Holotrainer's equipment dried up rather
quickly. As such, use of the machine declined as well. It was still used,
but only when access to the track was unavailable. Like today, for example.
Ranma's headache was still going strong, though the aspirin was
beginning to take effect. His memories of the previous night were blurry
at best, which he had discovered long ago was often for the best.
He had learned that Ryoga had signed on with a rather prominent
player in the Moto circuits, though the name escaped him. The two had
talked of old times, parties, races, triumphs and tragedies. Vaguely, he
recalled someone carrying him home.
Couldn't have been Ryoga, Ranma thought. God only knows where
I'd have woken up this mornin'.
Having finished yet another simulated lap, Ranma called for the
computer to end the simulation. Training on a simulated track never did
much for him, much less with inferior equipment. He dismounted the false
Moto, and exited through the large double doors on the west side of the
chamber.
On the other side waited Akane, an angry scowl on her face.
"So, how do you feel?" she asked, as though she knew the answer
was terrible.
"Like I had a railroad spike in my head." Ranma replied.
"Well, that's what you get for going on an all-night bender, you
jerk!" she shouted.
Ranma bit back a sharp reply. He really didn't feel up to arguing
with his "partner." Instead, he just walked past her.
He spun around when Akane grabbed his arm.
"Listen up," she hissed, "Because I'll only say this once. I
don't care if Daddy bought out your contract, and I don't care HOW good
you are. You'd better straighten up and fly right or you'd best get off
this team!"
"What?"
"You heard me," Akane replied. "Going out drinking with one of
your old buddies and leaving me and Kasumi to unload the Motos like that!"
Ranma attempted to leave, which prompted Akane to tighten her grip. "Don't
you walk away from me, Ranma," she warned. Her face was hard, eyes boring
into his like laser sights. "I don't know what you've been doing before you
came here, but get this through your head. You aren't racing with your
father anymore, so don't expect us to be as lax on you as he was..." Akane
regretted the words just a second after they escaped her
lips. Ranma's face became hard, his eyes burning. He tossed her hand off his
arm, and glared daggers into her. She realized, looking at his rigid,
muscular body, that he could easily rip her apart. Looking into his eyes,
she saw that he was roughly two seconds away from doing just that.
"You don't know a damn thing about me," Ranma began, his voice
ice cold, "but my father NEVER went easy on me!" Like a bolt of lightning,
his arm shot out. Akane flinched, but the blow landed on the wall beside
her head like a gunshot. "And he was even worse on Ranko..."
"Who?" Akane asked, confused. Ranma glared at her for a few
seconds more, but some of the intensity had faded. It was as though the
thought of this "Ranko" had taken him somewhere else. Placing his arm
back at his side, he stalked off down the corridor leading to the house.
Akane breathed an audible sigh of relief as he walked away. She pulled
herself off the wall, still a little shaky in her knees. What the hell was
THAT about? She cast a glance at the spot where his hand hit the wall, and
was surprised to see a rather large crack there.
=============================
The red motorcycle shot out of the gates of the Tendo Moto
Training Complex, and into the remains of Nerima Ward. Hunched atop the
screaming machine, Ranma gunned the throttle and sent the tachometer over
into the red.
The sun was still an hour away from reaching its zenith in the
sky, and the smog was relatively light. The ruined buildings shot past,
one indistinguishable from the other. The wind seemed determined to tear him
off his ride as he guided it through the trash-strewn streets.
Ranma paid little attention to where he was going, depending on
his reflexes to keep the bike upright. His mind was few years behind his
body, recalling the most painful loss he'd ever suffered...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I hate these backstreet races."
Ranma looked at his sister as she said it, agreeing fully. Not
only were the races illegal, but many racers lost their lives on the
bootlegged tracks.
Ranko was almost a head shorter than her brother Ranma, with a
mane of fiery red hair done in a pig-tail down her back, which was odd
for a Japanese girl. She stood over her kneeling brother as he fussed over
the Moto's internal workings, smiling all the while.
Ranma knelt by the access port of their only able Moto,
double-checking the systems governing steering and the magnetic fields.
The Moto wasn't a bad one, for being nearly ten years old. The two never
did ask their father and manager, Genma Saotome, where he got it. They
knew they'd never get a straight answer from him.
The sun was setting, the light catching the methane emissions,
and other chemicals in the air, giving the sky a psychadelic appearance
with the green and purple clouds. The ruined buildings were all that was
left of what was once a place called Shinjuku.
"So, how's it going down there?" Ranko asked, giggling. Ranma
shot her a half-hearted glare. He hated doing mechanical work, so the two
switched duties of pilot and mechanic since they only had one working
Moto. They chalked that up to their father's incompetence. At one time,
they had two, and some rather good equipment. But, as usual, Genma Saotome
pissed it all away. Now, to keep what little they had, Ranma and Ranko had
to race on the back streets of Japan, ducking the law and less savory
characters.
"GET TO THE LINE," shouted a man in tattered clothes, his hair
done in a multi-colored mohawk. Ranma reluctantly shut the panel.
"C'mon, Ranma," Ranko said, "You can't luck out all the time."
"It's not that," he replied, "I just have a bad feeling about
this race, that's all."
Ranko laughed as she straddled the small Moto. "You're just
superstitious, that's all." She donned her helmet and thumbed the
ignition. The Kawasaki 1000 series power plant cycled up to full in
seconds, the magnetic field lifting the Moto up to its full height off
the ground, about a half meter. Flashing a thumbs-up, she eased the
machine to what passed for the starting line.
Only ten so-called "racers" were competing. They were your
standard cyber-trash; freakish hair, pierced in places they really
shouldn't be, one even had a metal tongue with which he made a lewd
gesture to Ranko.
The race was a rather straight-forward affair. They would charge
through what was left of Shinjuku after the quake of 2002. After clearing
the city, the racers would finish up on the ruined stretch of freeway
that connected Shinjuku to the rest of Tokyo. The starting gun fired, and
the racers took off like bats out of hell.
"You're doin' fine, sis," Ranma said over the comm-link. Ranko
was already in second, not far behind the leader.
"Well, what do ya expect," Ranko replied. "You're dealin' with
the best!"
Ranma's face smiled in the small window on her HUD. With almost
casual ease, she whipped the Moto around the wrecks of cars and assorted
other obstacles. In seconds, she was alongside the lead racer. She had to
admit, this guy had some skill. He was keeping right with her, matching her
move for move. Ahead, the remains of what was probably a delivery truck lay
overturned in the street. Ranko cut to the left, and was
surprised when her rival cut with her.
What the...., she thought just
before he hit her. Screaming, she charged toward one of the dilapidated
buildings.
Fortunately, her Moto blasted through the boarded up door without
throwing her. Cutting the throttle, she brought the front of the machine
around in a sharp curve. She gunned the power plant, charging through one of
the windows, clipping some of the brick.
"You OK?" Ranma shouted. His face and voice radiated worry.
"I'm OK," Ranko replied, "But he won't be for long!" Hitting a
boost, she hurtled through the street, catching up to the guy who just
tried to off her.
"Careful, Ranko," Ranma warned, "You're comin' up on the old
freeway real fast."
"I know," she replied. The freeway had been severely damaged in the
great earthquake that rattled Japan's teeth in the second year of the
twenty-first century. Many sections were missing, and those that still
stood weren't overly reliable.
In seconds, she was on the freeway,
dodging the holes. The freeway was about thirty meters up above more
ruined pavement, concrete, and other assorted types of wreckage. If
anyone went over the side, or down one of the many jagged holes, their
chances of survival were practically nil.
"Ranko, what are you doin'?" Ranma asked as she began to bob and
weave erratically.
"I ain't doin' nothin'!" she shouted, her voice thick with fear.
"What're you talkin' about?" Ranma asked, getting a little scared
himself.
In the passenger seat of their equipment van/sometime living
quarters, Ranma sat with a laptop open on the dash before him. The screen
showed the condition of the various parts of the Moto, while a window showed
in real-time the view from a small camera embedded in the nose of the
machine. The image from the camera weaved and jumped randomly, almost as if
Ranko was losing control.
"Ranma," she said, the fear in her voice becoming terrified,
"I...I can't control it!"
"Your systems show everything's normal on my end!" Ranma shouted,
scared and confused. Suddenly, a window on the small screen flashed red,
despite the fact that the window displaying her gagues showed everyhting to
be normal. Expanding it, Ranma saw the condition of Ranko's power plant. A
cold lump of fear settled in his stomach as he saw the display.
"Ranko, your power plant's about to overheat!" he shouted. "Kill
it! Kill it now!"
"I'm tryin'!" she screamed. Ranko had never sounded so terrified.
Everything seemed to be happening at one time to Ranma. The image from the
Moto-cam was spinning wildly, with Ranko's terrified screams shrieking forth
from the laptop. Ranma's gaze fell on the power plant window again, with the
words "CRITICAL DAMAGE" flashing over and over repeatedly. Another window
popped up, this one showing the status of the boost tanks. The remaining one
was flashing red...
The Moto stopped spinning through space, and exploded in a raging ball of
intensely hot flame. The sound was deep and loud, the freeway and ruins
below illuminated briefly as though another, yet infinetly smaller, sun had
appeared. Fragments of Moto rained down, with the main fireball colliding
with the hard, unyeilding ground far below.
The laptop fell from Ranma's numb fingers as the event set in.
Ranko... was... He couldn't even bring himself to finish the thought. The
roaring in his ears grew louder as the world went black.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
One year later, the pain was still fresh. The void stubbornly
refused to fill, no matter what. Over the ten years since the death of
his mother, Ranko had been his closest companion. She was all he had left,
his father nothing but a lazy, drunken slave-driver.
The over-turned truck came up suddenly. Ranma didn't notice it,
being so lost in thought. When he finally snapped back to reality, the
rusted wreck was dangerously close.
As fast as he was moving, there was no way he could stop the
bike, or even swerve to avoid the inevitable collision. Instinct took over
as Ranma catapulted himself backward off the bike, landing roughly on the
pavement. The bike charged into the overturned truck, smashing the front end
and bringing the machine to a sudden halt. Ranma bounced on the pavement
two, three, four times, coming into a roll along the cracked
asphalt. His head impacted a fire hydrant hard enough to crack the nomex
helmet. The resulting jolt sent the world spinning for a few seconds
before going dark.
===============================
Tatewaki Kuno walked about the spacious, and extremely well
equipped, garage of team Blue Thunder's headquarters. Along the north
wall were several racks filled with all the tools a mechanic could
possibly want. The west and south walls were lined with parts, brand new
and top of the line. The east wall was bare save for a large roll-up
door. Behind the door rested the team's stock of Motos.
Needless to say,
the team was excessively wealthy.
One Moto had an access port open, a diminutive mechanic in a scarf
tending to it. The mechanic was short, his head coming up to just the
seat. Sasuke Sakuragare rolled his eyes, trying to lose himself in the
mundane maintenance he was performing on Kuno's Moto. The master was
composing more of his bad poetry to that Akane Tendo girl. Sasuke had met
her once, and she seemed nice enough, but it was a wonder she didn't pound
him more often.
"Here come ol' flat top he come,
groovin' up slowly he got,
Ju-Ju eyeball he got,
Holy roller he got,
Hair down to his knee,
Got to be a joker got to do what he please," Kuno said in his
most theatrical stage voice. Sasuke just rolled his eyes.
"He wear no shoeshine he got,
Toejam football he got,
Monkey finger he shoot,
Coca-cola he say,
I know you, you know me,
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free," Kuno stopped
his poetry reading when he heard Sasuke softly sing,
"Come together, right now. Over me."
Kuno stopped, glaring at his
mechanic.
"Sasuke!" he shouted. "Dost thou dare to mock my noble verses?"
Sasuke jumped at his sudden shout.
"N-n-no Master Kuno," he
stammered, "I was trying to...uh...complement you on your work!"
Kuno scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Imitation IS the sincerest
form of flattery, I suppose." he said. "Very well, continue with your
ministrations upon mine noble steed." With that, he walked out of the
garage. Once he was gone, Sasuke whispered,
"And this is a GOOD day..."
===============================
Kasumi opened the door, taking in the two men behind it.
"Oh, hello, Mr. Hibiki," she said, giving a small bow.
"Hello, Kasumi," Ryoga replied. "This is my...chauffeur... Mikado
Sanzenin." He swept a hand toward the tall, handsome man behind him.
Mikado was dressed in what looked to be an Armani three-piece, looking for
all the world like a guy in a shojo manga. Ryoga wore faded blue jeans and a
brown bomber jacket over a white muscle shirt.
"Oh, please come in," Kasumi said, ever the gracious hostess. The
two entered, removing their shoes and donning the pairs of guest slippers
Kasumi always had available.
"It's a pleasure, Kasumi-sama," Mikado said in his smoothest voice.
He strode up to her, giving a deep bow. "Your home's beauty is surpassed
only by your own."
"Why thank you," Kasumi replied with a smile. "Would you like
some tea?"
"No, thank you, Kasumi," Ryoga replied. "Is Ranma in?"
"No, he isn't," she answered. "He left a few hours ago. He seemed
so upset."
"Oh," Ryoga asked, concerned. "What about?"
"He just got pissed off because I told him to get his act
together," came Akane's voice from the next room. She wore rather
tight-fitting blue jeans and a white T-shirt. Her short bob of hair shone
from the recent washing she gave it. Ryoga's eyes passed over her a
couple of times.
"No, people have told him worse than that, and he just brushed
them off," Ryoga said. "It's gotta be something else."
"Well," Akane replied, "He kinda spaced out after he mentioned
someone named Ranko..." Akane trailed off at the sight of Ryoga's
suddenly pale face. "What?"
"Oh, damn," he whispered. "I gotta find him!" Ryoga turned and
charged off, in completely the wrong directuion.
"Mr. Hibiki!" Kasumi exclaimed, "where are you going?"
"To find that damned idiot," Ryoga replied.
"But the front door's that way," she said, pointing in the
direction opposite of the one in which he was moving. Ryoga stopped cold
and turned, a furious blush coloring his face. Too embarrassed to say
anything, he just walked back in the direction Kasumi was still
pointing.
"Who's Ranko?" Akane asked.
"C'mon, I'll tell you on the way," Ryoga replied.
=======================================================
Questions? Comments? Love to hear 'em!
Jed