I thought I'd mailed this once!<brightly>
anyway, for those of you who are STILL mailing me saying can you
have it, here is part two<smiles>
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<original message>
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I'm just having no damn luck with this ... <sighs>
here it is<brightly>
same disclaimers as before, (here's part two, I hope you like it...
and I'm sorry that it doesn't seem to go anywhere, curently it's just
kinda splitting into a lot of backstory before it gets going in
earnest...
) and please help me get a new title!
*********
********
Death: the Moron and the Maiden
<e-mail to Kathy@linuxgrrls.org>
Sandman and Ranma 1/2 are copyright to Neil Gaiman and
Rumiko Takahasi.
Feel free to repost this sucker, just let me know. You're also free to
change the text provided such changes are limited to spelling and
grammatical errors. You've also got to mail me a copy of the
revisions for
my own files ^_-
Please note, Death and Destruction speak in normal tones, the
other endless have their own vocal markers... you'll see as we go
along ^.^
********
Part Secundus
What has come before:
Death comes to everyone. When she came to Ranma
Saotome, she accidentally saved his life... and found herself
engaged to him due to a surreal interlude in Genma's Childhood.
And this is just the start ....
****
Genma-panda shifted his siting position uncomfortably, looking
like he was sat on a wasps nest and lifted his unbroken arm.
Raising a sign with poorly written hiragana (even by HIS standards)
Genma tried to protest his innocence once more. Too bad no-one
was in the mood for apologies or excuses. Ranma deftly swiped
the placard and began to browbeat him once again.
"Of course it's your fault Pop! It's *always* your goddamn fault!
How the hell could you get me engaged AGAIN!" he crescendoed.
Kasumi laid a gentle hand on the overwrought youths shoulder,
breaking his concentration.
"Ranma, please, you'll wake your innazuke up."
Ranma actually paused at this. He had NO desire to get
engaged AGAIN, an especially not to the Usher of Souls...
although he had to admit this was a complication he hadn't really
ever thought about... But mostly he paused because he REALLY
didn't want to get on Kasumi's bad side. When you thought about
Kasumi you came up with ideas of vapid cheerfulness, and placid
mothering. What you didn't get was the demonically perverse
attacker who had shaved his fathers posterior, tattooed 'kick me'
onto it, an then attacked said creature with a broom with nails in
it...
Still it was what she had done with it afterwards that was giving
the clans of Tendo's and Saotome's pause. They had never thought
Kasumi could be so evil. Nabiki made a note to get rid of her Vlad
the Impaler reference works... she'd just have to do that project at
the
library...
Ranma sighed and looked at the floor. This was just beyond his
comprehension. He could fight birdmen, Chinese princes, loony
amazons and the perpetually lost and merely chalk it up to really
sucky karma, but this exceeded the previous weirdness factor of
his life by a long way. Even Jusenkyo looked like a minor fluff in
comparison.
Soun LOOKED at Ranma. He looked at the unconscious
anthropomorphic personification. He GLARED at Genma. Then,
being Soun he started to cry.
"Oh my poor little girl, how will she cope, displaced by Death?
WAHHHHHH!"
Ranma relaxed. He'd been worried about the demon head
attack that he'd felt he would be receiving, but just for once he'd
lucked out. He also had a moment to think about his next move...
literally a moment.
"Tadaima!" Called Akane cheerfully from the entranceway, P-
Chan held absently in her arms. Ranma panicked. Death might not
have killed him, but Akane would! Not even pausing to ponder the
absurdity of that last statement he grabbed a mallet, and sent
himself into low earth orbit. It would probably hurt less in the long
run
he figured.
He spent the time until his inevitable rude landing wondering
just HOW he'd managed to summon Akane's mallet...
***
Akane looked at the new hole in the ceiling in some surprise.
Not that Ranma had been sent flying, but that he'd volunteered to
do the job himself instead of allowing her to speed him on his way.
Drawing the one conclusion possible for her, she seized her
dropped mallet, and sprinted back out of the door, ready to give her
errant innazuke the beating he so richly deserved... afterall... he
deserved it for not letting her hear the story and hit him herself!
Kasumi stared in astonishment at the two new holes in the
house, one in the roof, and one in the door that Akane had
forgotten to open in her rage. "Oh my..." was all she could weakly
offer.
"I'll say," agreed Nabiki grimly, "I'd only budgeted for ONE hole
today...." Sighing mentally, Nabiki wondered just who got to pose
for panty shots to pay for the damage this time... Ranma for
starting the damage, or Akane for creating the extra...
Death woke up, looked at the damage, realised it hadn't been a
dream, and passed out again.
***
Desire is everything you could want, both male and female, to
look at it once is to fall instantly in love, you are possessed utterly,
painfully to the exclusion of everything else. It is everything you
could
want. EVERYTHING.
It was also lounging around it's realm barefoot in a pair of
jogging bottoms and a Hello Kitty T-shirt. The overall effect was ...
Cute. Sickeningly cute. Attractive and unutterably sweet. This
suited
Desire fine, after all slobbing around the temple of it's body was no
fun
if all you had to do was simply select clothes... It made the whole
Fun
thing of getting dressed up kinda into a work routine. Desire was far
too
canny to let a pleasurable activity become a chore.
Lying back on its silk sheet covered heart shaped bed, Desire
sipped at a mug of hot chocolate and giggled. Destruction had
been right - this would be too much fun....
/Flashback, AD 459, Rome/
"~Well met brother mine,~" greeted Desire politely to the red
haired giant in front of her. They hadn't met in over a hundred years,
and
Desire found that it almost missed the booming self confident
presence of
its older brother.
"Indeed, I haven't seen your ugly mug around in a long time
either," grinned Destruction, garbed in the garb of a Mongol cavalry
rider. Desire bristled, it was all for teasing in it's place, but not
aimed at itself! Still that was one of the reasons it was fun to hang
around Destruction - he always refused to take anyone or anything
too
seriously, even going as far as trying to play a practical joke on
Destiny... who had chosen to not allow himself to know what was
going on,
and had received the full benefit of the custard pie that Destruction
had
helpfully hidden above the door to it's house.
"~But that's not why you wanted to see me is it?~" Guessed
Desire shrewdly. Destruction nodded. His little sibling (it was
easiest to think of Desire that way), was able to read him almost
as well as their older sister... Which coincidentally was why he'd
asked the most annoying of his family to met him.
"Bingo. It's our Sister..." Desire nodded, they both knew who
he meant. "It's worrying me that she spends all her time alone...
she hasn't had a date in three million years... that's just NOT
healthy for a body..." He paused and looked up at Desire. Desire
twinkled - this could be far too much fun!
"Look, the long and short is that Dream and I had a little talk,
then he talked to Delig - ... Delirium, and then I talked to Despair...
and basically what we have is a quorum agreement. When we
asked Destiny,
he said that frankly, he was going to stay out of our way, and that
he
wouldn't blab."
"~So you've twisted our family around your shapely little fingers
again then eh brother?~" Glittered Desire. "~Well... you wouldn't
have come this far without a plan... what do you want ME to
do....?~" Desire raised an exquisitely shaped eyebrow. Destruction
merely looked impassively at the ... his eyes watered.
"Would you stop that please? You know damn fine that it gives
me headaches seeing through your glamour's No. We know our
jobs, you know yours. This one's in your hands... we're here to
provide backup, we'll do anything you want us to *within reason*"
he glared to make this point clear - it had damn near lost them
Dream's support until they'd agreed to put a veto on the plan if it
crossed certain... barriers.
Desire looked into the burning hamlet blow them, it's eyes
reflecting the carnage and horror down below. Watching till the
flames grew low, till the night came and went, till the nomadic
raiders who'd destroyed the nameless ruins left, with their meagre
stolen treasures on the backs of pack wagons...
Eventually it nodded once.
***
As much as Desire missed Destruction, it knew that it was
glad he'd left them. If he knew exactly how and what it had done to
set
up Death, he'd throw a tantrum that would make Lucifer's fall look
like a
playground scuffle.
And that was what made it fun. Leaning back, and sipping its
cocoa contentedly, Desire laughed, and laughed.
***
Death woke and looked about again. Nope, still real. Still a
nightmare. Looking at a badly mangled panda stood in the corner
trying to avoid moving while it chewed miserably on a bamboo
shoot, she glumly realised she was still engaged.
She could deal with that. It was what she'd accidentally done to
her ... friend? fiancé? well... Ranma was in a whole hell of a lot of
trouble now, and it was all her fault.
It promised to be a bigger cock-up than when she'd
thoughtlessly allowed her nephew Orpheus to persuade her to
make the changes that had allowed him to enter the underworld.
***
Ranma landed in the Park... in the fountain. Even now she had
to admit that the situation was kind of funny. Even SHE malleted
herself into water. Getting out she removed her top and twisted it
until a long sausage shaped piece of cloth was left dripping from
both hands.
She looked up, and saw a highly annoyed figure, radiating
battle aura wildly, lighting it up until the dusk around them was as
bright as noon.
"RAAAAAA-AAAAAANNNNMMMMAAAAAAA!" Growled
Akane.
"eeep." offered Ranma-chan as she spasmodically wrung her
top so hard, it tore down the centre, leaving two dry and destroyed
pieces of red silk shirt hanging loosely from her clenched hands.
Ranma-Chan found herself on a trip with hammer lines for the
third time that day. Idly she wondered if was due frequent flyer
miles...
Akane glared at the fading spot in the sky that HAD been her
iinazuke. With an effort of will she calmed somewhat, the glowing
aura winking out. She hadn't really meant to hit him, it just
happened. Again. She was getting heartily sick of Ranma making
her so angry that she would hit first and ask questions later. It
wasn't as if she LIKED being so angry that she'd hurt people... it
was just that Ranma by his very existence seemed to bring out the
very worst of her.
Sighing and concluding that he'd probably deserved it, and that
she'd soon enough find out the real story behind today's weirdness,
Akane shouldered her mallet, and set off home, with a jaunty little
stride, whistling tunelessly as she went.
***
Khu Lohn the elder was sweeping the floor during a quiet
moment when Ranma-chan flew through the door, ploughing an
impact crater twenty feet long with her nose as she slowed from
near escape velocity to a more sedate stop. Khu Lohn had to give
Son-in-law credit - the furrow was almost perfectly straight, and
would have made a good sowing place for seed had it occurred to
anything but concrete. A little work and Son in law might be able to
turn
martial arts into a dual purpose ploughing technique...
Making a mental note to store that thought for later, she picked
Ranma out of the furrow, idly dusting him off, and calling for hot
water. She wasn't prepared for what happened next.
Leaping at her, and embracing her desperately, son in law did
something she had never expected. Begged.
"Please old ghoul, you gotta help me! Pops engaged me to
Death!" Khu Lohn listened. Oh Son-in-law, you DO have to work on
your timing...
Shampoo stood in the doorway of the kitchen glowing with
rage, a bucket of hot water negligently held in one hand, a mace,
rather more firmly in the other.
"Ailen get engaged to more stupid womans? Xian Pu teach
stupid panda man and stupid Ailen to cheat on Shampoo!"
Throwing the heated water to one side she started to chase Ranma-
chan around, wild swings capable of crushing walls and smashing
steel barely missing as the red-head ducked and wove desperately
away from the annoyed Amazon.
Xian Pu decided that this particular attack wasn't going to work,
and was causing rather too much incidental damage - even in her
battle rage she could hardly fail to note the elders scowl and open
invitation to take it outside. Removing a small thermos from her
belt, she pored it over herself. Xian Pu-Neko leapt at Ranma-chan,
whose skilled evading suddenly became a panicked straight out
dash...
Watching through the wreckage of what had once been her
front door Kho Lohn looked sadly at the retreating pair, a half naked
girl
fleeing a small pink cat. Son in law always DID over-react to every
little
thing. Still she had to hope that she'd heard wrong or that he'd been
mistaken. She was 300 years old, and the last thing she wanted to
do was
to remind death that she was still alive...
Worrying slightly, she started to sweep up the debris, a highly
pensive frown crossing her aged features....
***
Ranma-chan desperately hid behind some garbage cans in the
back alley she'd ducked into. Watching carefully she counted off
the pursuers as they passed. Kuno, screaming for his pigtailed
goddess, Kodachi screaming imprecations at the scarlet haired
hussy who had taken her Ranma-Sama, Shampoo (once more
human, and once more fully dressed... and how she managed it,
wouldn't he like to know!) Mousse, screaming kami knows what,
he'd gotten carried away in the moment and was shouting in
Chinese....
With a deep sigh of disgust, Ranma-chan dropped the torn
halves of her shirt into one of the pails of trash, whilst she
performed a spectacular leap over the wall from a standing start.
Looking around swiftly, she jumped down into the back yard she
overlooked, and grabbed a blouse (icky!) off the line as being the
best possible option modesty wise. Lightly dodging the old
obaterian who was collecting the clothes before the light went
totally, she slipped into the distasteful garment, and leapt back up
to
the wall, and thence back to her concealed hiding place. With a
mental
note to come back and pay for the blouse, she finished adjusting
her
clothing, and resumed her alert pose.
A look both ways convinced her that the coast was clear, and
she merged with the shadows, desperately trying to avoid any
more insanity. She couldn't figure out how they'd ended up at the
Kuno mansion, but once Kuno had gotten a look at his topless
dream date, he'd gone even more insane than usual. Being Kuno,
he'd begun pursuing her, proclaiming his love at the top of his
lungs until a firm jab in the solar plexus had shut him up. Of course
the
black fruitloop had heard the commotion, and she decided to join
in.
Fleeing the mansion, she'd discovered that Shampoo had
managed to revert to human, and found some clothes, and was still
after him... Fleeing again, he'd crossed Mousse's path, and seeing
chance to pound his rival into mush, he'd tagged along too. All in
all, a pretty normal day actually, but for once Ranma wasn't
bouncing back with his normal speed.
Spotting the Dojo in the distance, he made towards it...
Perhaps he could make it to the roof unseen, and actually have
some time to think about today's little disaster in peace. Not that
he actually thought it would happen, but hell, stranger things had
happened, and quite frequently to him.. her at the moment.
She almost made it, until a blast of hot water changed her back
to his preferred form. Looking up he saw a smirking Ryoga leaning
casually across the porch, arms crossed, twirling the kettle around
his foot in a display of arrogance only slightly milder than Ranma's
own
usual stadard. Just for an instant though, Ranma thought he saw a
flash of
joy beneath the smirk. Nah, it *had* to be the poor lighting...
"So, you return to the scene of the crime eh Ranma... You've
cheated death for one last time... for upsetting the beauteous
Akane, I'm gonna pound you flat - Die Ranma!" Cried the lost boy,
kicking the kettle at Ranma, and taking advantage of the Ranma's
momentary distraction while he dodged the missile to lunge at him.
Ranma desperately backpeddled out of the way, battle aura
flashing brightly before contracting down to invisibility, as he began
a
furious counter attack, weaving around Ryoga's punches, and
releasing his
own barrage of amaguriken speed punches as he went.
Surprisingly more of
them hit than usual, instead of angering him as he had planned,
the blows
seemed to make Ryoga smile...
"Look what the hell is it with today!" He screamed as Ryoga
shrugged of the attack and came forwards again, looking almost
relieved. "I've had a really!" duck high kick, weave around follow up
punch, start spiral... "REALLY bad day! I'm supposed to have - "
whoops
that one nearly got me, leap over low sweep, accept light punch as
opening
for snap kick to Ryoga's face, as long as I attack he won't realise
what's
coming... halfway there..."-been killed! I've been hammered all over,
I've been chased, and now I've got another iinazuke, the last thing I
need
to do is deal with you're pig- headedness P-Chan!!" (Ah ha, thats
got his
old battle aura going!)
"And who are you calling P-Chan?!" screamed Ryoga as he
stepped forwards to try and take a last blow at Ranma. Ranma
smirked.
"No-one I know *here* P-chan old boy... " (THERE! THAT'S IT!
uppercut!)
"HIRYU SHOTEN HA!"
***
Ryoga looked down at the retreating ground as he span away
from it.
"Hmm.. .perhaps I was pushing it a little... i should have waited
till he was off guard... " THUMP!
"BWEE! BWEE Buki bwee....bwe..." sighed P-chan as he
unerringly landed in the fountain that Ranma himself had landed in
a few short hours ago.
*Damn you Ranma - this is all your fault!* he thought with rueful
humour, and more than a little justification for once. Then he looked
around for anything he recognised.
"CHARLOTTE!" cried Azusa, returning from skate practise,
spotting the cute little pig sat dazedly on the lip of the fountain.
Ryoga resolved to forget the landmarks in future and just trust
to luck. He fled as fast as he could, whilst the kooky klepto
followed him down the paths of the park. Some days it just didn't
pay to be him...
"Bwee!" he yelled as he began the long process of waiting for
Azusa's alleged mind to find something else to name... the only
way he'd ever found of persuading her to leave him alone.
***
Ranma sat down on the front yard of the Tendo house, as the
last after echoes of the tornado died away. he'd blown his secrecy,
he was debating whether to stay and face the music, or run and
live when two things happened almost simultaneously. The first
was a mallet strike that drove him to his knees. Akane wasn't
taking anymore chances about him getting away, and Ranma
embedded to his knees in the ground as much less mobile than
Ranma on an orbital entry angle.
The second was a concerned arm wrapping itself around his
shoulders. He blinked.
Death gave him a slightly worried smile, and pulling him out of
the floor, started to walk him back to the Tendo living room. The
follow up strike from Akane died aborning, as Akane found her
mallet suddenly to heavy for her to lift. Death turned and winked at
her,
before returning her attention to Ranma. Linking her arm though
his, she
spoke to the dazed martial artist in a serious tone.
"We need to talk."
end part two
Is that fun enough for you...? I'm still debating whether to use
the plot device I've thought about, or find something else...
otherwise it just gets a little to 3x3 eyes...
Anyway, chases, amazons, idiots, and special attacks! just what a
Ranma fic needs<sighs> Not quite what I was hoping for.... I'd
quite appreciate feedback, but then, I'm a praise powered little bun
on
the QT...
Thanks to the usual people.
Zen-chan, whose really helping me to think through some stuff I
need to deal with, Arigato gozamatsu Zen-Sama
Mom for abandoning me on a bird park four miles from anywhere so
often i started to write in preference to going mad (again :-( )
My cats for sitting on my lap when I'm trying to type, and then
attempting to knead their claws into my sides, resulting in much
ticklish stuff
My friends on the mailing lists I frequent (you know who you are,
thank you all)
Bailesu-sama, for getting me interested in fan fiction at the point
where I was getting sick and tired of insipid and pointless sailor
moon fics where people simply created new senshi, with no rhyme
or reason, or plot, just to make cutsy speeches...
And of course, to the person who invented the pot noodle -
snackfood of the gods
um, and that's it, stay tuned cos I'm writing as fast as I can!
Oh yes... and watch out for Ryoga.... thinking! <smiles>
<kathy@linuxgrrls.org>
10-04-00
Ryoko
myaa!
Mail Eternal power, make-up!