sorry for the delay - here's the revised version of part two, the draft
of part three will go up by wednesday!
********************
********
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 sitting position
uncomfortably, looking like he was perched on a
wasp 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.
Ranma was in no mood for his fathers excuses.
his eyes fierce with unexpressed rage, he spoke
in a cold harsh whisper.
"Of course it's your fault Pop! It's *always*
your goddamn fault!" Even Ranma had his limits,
and he also had had habits that were hard to
break. He began to work his way towards a full
bore shout.
"There was Akane, a drunken agreement with
Tendo-San, you screw up Ucchan's life, and the
there's all the others you've yet to tell us
about - so how the hell could you get me engaged
AGAIN!" he crescendoed. Kasumi laid a gentle
hand on the overwrought youth's shoulder,
breaking his concentration.
"Ranma, please, you'll wake your iinazuke up."
Ranma actually paused at this. True, he had
desire to get engaged again, especially not to
the Usher of Souls... although he had to admit
this was a complication he hadn't really ever
thought about...Even if she was cute. 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, and 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 scions of clan
Tendo and Saotome 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 slightly. 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 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 to
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... if he reacted like this then there
had to be some truely appalling story behind it.
There was no way she was going to let him think
the baka had wormed out of the beating he so
richly deserved by running away... Besides, he
was fed up with all the chaos and pain he caused
- he deserved to feel some of it for once.
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 if the familly
finances could stretch to the repairs or if
she'd hve to sell more of those unpleasant
photo's to Kuno again. It wasnt even as if she
liked taking the photo's, conveniently
forgetting the toples photo's of Ranma in his
male fom she kept hidden in her wardrobe...
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 pleasure 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....
/AD 459, somewhere on the far eastern borders of
the Roman Empire/
"~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. Almost.
"Indeed, I haven't seen your ugly mug around
in a long time either," grinned Destruction,
garbed in the clothing of a soldier in Hanibal's
army. 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 Destiny's
house.
It was also the reason Desire liked it's
brother in homeopathic quantities.
"~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.
Destruction quirked his lips wryly "And jut
how do you know I'm not sickening for the
pleasure of your charming company?" He sobered.
"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 well... we're all
going to help out. 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 *please* stop that?" winced
Destruction, his eyes watering painfully. "You
know damn fine that it gives me headaches seeing
through your glamour's." He sighed, wondering if
this really was such good idea...
"No... you know your job, and we know ours.
You get to run the show, but if you need any
help, we'll provide backup, and do anything you
want us to *within reason*...." he trailed off
staring very hard at the most twisted of his
familly, attempting to reinforce the point by
force of will. If he didn't get an agrement...
well he would lose Dream's support, the Dream
king unwilling to participate until they'd
agreed to put a veto on the plan if it crossed
certain... barriers.
Desire looked into the burning hamlet below
them, its 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, worse - she could
complain to Dream about those.... 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
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
exceedingly destroyed pieces of red silk shirt
hanging loosely from her clenched hands.
Ranma-Chan found herself on a trip with
hammer air 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. Perhaps
when he got back to the dojo he'd be able to
explain without making her so mad this time.
Akane shouldered her mallet, and set off home,
with a jaunty little stride, smiling slightly,
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 a furrow 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 place for sowing seed had it occurred in
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 her off, and called 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. At the other end of
the mace Mousse slowly peeled out of the fce
sheped dent in the weighted ball and slowly slid
to the floorm, watching the halo of circling
ducks in happy bewilderment. "Ailen get
engaged to more stupid womans? Hmmph, not good,
more obstacles. Obstacles only good for one
thing - Killing!" Idly discarding the damaged
mace, and kettle, Shampoo stalked towards the
door, pausing to withdraw a sword from the
umbrella holder by the door.
Ranma-chan looked sadly at the kettle, which
had spilt over the floor, before Shampoo's words
hit home. Leaping in front of the Amazon, she
began babbling something that the young warior
couldn't understand - that she shouldn't attack
this new woman because she was death?
"Hmph! stupid womans no match for Xian Pu!
Even if have silly name.."
"No Shampoo - ya can't beat her - she's Death
- ya couldn't kill her if you tried from now
till you were as old as the Ol' Ghoul!" Ranma
insisted, trying to penetrate the determination
in Shmpoo's eyes. However she hadn't planned on
finding the target of Shampoo's rage switch to
her.
"Stuipid ailens say Xin Pu can not fight? Is
no good warior? You make Xian pu MAD!" Reaching
down, she pulled a small thermos from her apron,
and tiped it over herself. Instant cat.
Ranma-chan screamed and bolted, Xian-pu neko
in hot pursuit.
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 she 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 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. It was all starting to become a
little too predictably perverse. Someone up there just did not like him, and
Ranma-chan was becoming heartily sick of the whole fiancee wars...
Spotting the Dojo in the distance, she made towards it... Perhaps she could
make it to the roof unseen, and actually have some time to think about today's
little disaster in peace. Not that she 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 standard. Just for an
instant though, Ranma thought he saw a flash of joy beneath the smirk. Nah, it
*had* to be the poor lighting...
"Yo, whassup P-chan?"
"Who's P-chan?! " screamed Ryoga, "I wait here to give you a gift an all you
can do is mock me?! Well, you've cheated death for one last time... I'm gonna
pound you flat!" Cried the lost boy, kicking the kettle at Ranma, 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 almost happy...
Then again, the lost boy could just really want to pound him.
"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, meant to use this
on the ol mummy, but no would be a good chance to see if this refinement
works... "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!)
"I said just who the hell 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, KAITEI!"
***
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 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 was 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 goziemashita 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!