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The characters of the Ranma � universe are the
creation and possession of the brilliant Rumiko
Takahashi. They belong to Rumiko Takahashi and her
licensees (Shogakukan Inc., Kitty-Fuji TV, Viz
Communications Inc.) No copyright infringement is
intended.
^�The Green Lantern^�, copyright ALL-AMERICAN COMICS
# 16 (July 1940)
(Note: Green Lantern #16 provided the inspiration for this story.
However only the colour green remains.)
WARNING: This story contains scenes that some readers may
find sexually suggestive and/or violent.
Extended author notes will be added at the end of
of Chapter one and again at the end of the final chapter.
*******************************************************
Bedlam Fire
Chapter 5 part a
******************************************************
Ranma glowered down at his fiancee as he trotted along
the fence top on the way to the hospital the next day. "It ain't
_that_ funny."
"I think it's pretty funny." Akane grinned up at him as
she did a little hop-skip along the sidewalk. "I just wish I could
have seen your face when the hot soup hit the 'rat'."
"Ask Nabiki." Ranma grumbled, wincing as his split lip
protested. "She's selling eight by tens in sets of five." He
looked sourly at Akane. "She might even give you a discount."
"Oh, quit being such a baby," Akane couldn't seem to
stop grinning. "are you a man or aren't you?"
"They didn't have to gang up on me like that," Ranma
sulked, fingering the bruises he'd accumulated from the
Amazons. "It wasn't _my_ fault."
"I am sorry," Akane bit her lip. "they shouldn't have
blamed you. I . . .I'll go talk to Shan Pu after we visit
grandfather Happousai. OK?"
"Nah," Ranma jumped down from the fence, walking
facing Akane, a small bundled balanced on his head. "I don'
think you should go see 'em right now." he thought for a
moment. "Ucchan neither. Give 'em a chance to cool down."
Twiddling his fingers for a moment he appeared to be looking
for the right words to say next.
"Ummmm, 'bout Ryouga----"
Akane stopped him by pressing a finger against his lips.
"I don't want to talk about _that_. Not until I see him myself."
"Ahhhh maaaan," Ranma resisted an almost
overwhelming urge to touch the place her finger had rested. He
felt his face heat and turned his head away, increasing his pace
until he was slightly ahead of Akane.
Normally he was of the opinion there was no problem
that couldn't be solved by ignoring it. Or better, letting it
become someone else's problem. But waiting for Akane to do-
--- whatever she was going to do, was like a boil he'd had on
his leg when he was little. It aggravated him for weeks until he
just _had_ to pop it and get it over with.
"Ummmm, you ain't gonna kill him 'r nuthin'? Are ya?"
Defending Ryouga felt really strange, but he couldn't just let the
poor schmuck end up as pig fritters. Well, he could, but only if
it would save his own hide. His bones ached every time he
tried to _imagine_ the kind of beating he was going to get.
"I'm not going to _kill_ him." Akane assured him.
Ranma shivered at the promise of pain in her voice and
decided to change the subject.
"Why we gotta go see the old fart anyway?" he flipped
the bundle in the air with a toss of his head and caught it behind
his back. "It's not like he didn't deserve whatever happened to
him." Ranma sniffed the delicious odors coming from the
bundle. "They ain't gonna let him eat this stuff in the hospital,"
he fumbled with the knot Kaumi had tied, "_we_ outghta eat it
so it don't go to waste." He smiled ingeniously. "An' it ain't
fair to the old guy to temp him with stuff he can't have."
"If you eat grandfather Happousai's gift . . .,"
Ranma looked apprehensively at his fiancee.
" . . .I'll tell Kasumi."
Ranma blanched and hastily retied the bundle.
"Geeez, you don't play fair."
Akane just grinned and skipped on ahead to the
hospital.
******************************************************
"I'm afraid you'll have to wait,"the harried receptionist
looked up from her computer screen. "Happousai-san isn't
allowed but one visitor at the time and someone is already with
him."
"Someone?" Ranma had a bad feeling about this. Only a
certified psycho would _voluntarily_ visit the old freak.
"Ummm . . .Tarou-san?" she read from the screen.
Shit. Tarou. Psycho. Hospital. Bad. Badbadbadbad.
" . . . his godson according-----" but she was talking to
empty air. "Wait! You can't go up there!"
Akane, whose brain was clogged with actual thoughts
which slowed her reaction time, took a moment to process this
information and come to a conclusion----
"Shit."
----very similar to Ranma's own.
"Ummm, sorry." Akane blushed, bowing in apology for
her involuntary epithet. "Uhhhh, does this hospital have a
security force?" The woman nodded shakily. "You might want
send them to grandfather Happousai's floor to clear out the
other patients. And do you have any-----" Looking around she
saw a carafe of coffee bubbling at the end of the table. "Great."
She grabbed the pot and headed after Ranma. "I'll bring this
right back."
******************************************************
"No more chances, old man," the honey smooth voice
made the absolute hatred all the more powerful. "I'm tired of
playing. I'm going to kill you, but if you give me a new name,
I'll make it quick."
Ranma skidded to a stop just outside Happousai's
room.
"Hey! Pantyhose, what's up?"
Tarou didn't bother to turn around. "Go away, fem-
boy." He stepped closed to the heavily bandaged figure,
delicately fingering an IV tube running into one frail arm.
"I don't like the old freak any better 'n you do. But ya
can't go beatin' up on him when he's all weak an' helpless like
this."
"No?" The beautiful boy pinched the IV closed. "That's
the best time."
"C'm on," Ranma edged closer to the two, "why
do'ncha come home with me. Kasumi 'll have lunch ready."
He ducked a back handed slap but ran into a side kick that
slammed him into the wall.
"If you get in my way," Tarou glanced over his shoulder
as Ranma struggled off the floor, "I'll kill you."
"Geeez," Ranma wiped blood from his face, "get a
grip." Cracking his knuckles he jerked his head toward the
door. "C'mon, let's take it outside. There's all kinda
sick----"
"A name old man," Tarou ripped an IV out of
Happousai's arm and watched blood seep into the bandages.
"What are you doing!" A nurse, followed by two blue-
uniformed guards, burst into the room. "Get away from that
man."
Inhumanly fast, Tarou grabbed her by one starched
sleeve and flung her against the wall. "Don't interfere in things
you don't understand."
The two guards moved forward in a rush, truncheons
raised.
With eyes like a snake, Tarou watched them come.
"C'mon panty-boy," Ranma taunted, sliding in front of
the out-matched guards. "Let's take this outside. Man-to-man."
"I don't see any _men_." Tarou lashed out with a
Roaring-Dragon kick that would have ruptured Ranma's
diaphragm if it had connected. Instead Ranma turned away
from the kick, grabbing Tarou's leg in a joint lock.
Without pausing Tarou kicked up with his free leg,
tearing free of Ranma's grip as he flipped in the air to land
facing his opponents. The hospital guards, having no idea of
what they were facing, pushed past Ranma, intent on doing their
duty. Unfortunately this wasn't like the fights they'd seen in the
movies, or even like their training. Real fights are fast, brutal
and the first blow to strike home ends the fight with death or
crippling injury. They didn't understand this, but Tarou did.
As trained, one guard attempted a side-arm blow to
Tarou's shoulder, to stun or at least distract while his partner
came in from the other side and applied a joint-lock
take-down. It was a text book perfect application of their
training. Unfortunately Tarou was reading from a different
book.
He didn't even blink as the baton slammed into his
shoulder, so hard that it almost bounced out of the hand of the
attacking guard. Brushing aside this feeble attack he slammed a
palm strike into the guards face that would have crushed his
head like a rotten melon if Ranma hadn't yanked the guard
away, dissipating the force of the blow.
Not caring if the man were alive or dead Tarou turned
instantly to the other guard who was standing frozen,
immobilized both by the failure of their carefully
choreographed plan and the ferocity of Tarou's counter. A
spastic attempt to defend against Tarou's attack was slapped
contemptuously aside. The baton spun through the air and hit the
wall with a wooden clatter. A slender hand gripped the guard
in a steely grip and his stomach dropped to his shoes as he left
the ground in a swoop, floor and ceiling spinning around him as
he flew across the room.
"Oooof," Ranma grunted as the guard impacted his
chest, rather than the wall. "Man, you gotta cut down on the
bean-jam buns." Ranma dropped the guard in the corner and
patted him on the head. "You just wait here, outta th' way."
"C'mon Tarou, ya can't do this sorta stuff in a hospital.
People ain't gonna like it if----ahhh geeez!" Ranma broke off in
disgust as he noticed Tarou had gone back to pulling wires and
tubes out of Happousai.
"A _name_ old man," Tarou hissed as he slid an IV
needle in and out of Happousai's arm with slow sensuality.
"You've tainted my whole life with your twisted sense of
humor," he jammed the needle home, his eyes moist with
pleasure as he felt it pierce the bone. "Now it's my turn," the
twisted the needle, shivering in delight as he felt Happousai
writhe like a snake on hot coals. "Does that hurt, old man? Do
you feel even a _little_ of the pain I've felt all these years? I'm
going to make you feel every----"
"Get a grip!" Tarou was yanked away from his
pleasures and bounced off the wall. "Geeez, what an asshole."
Ranma gently pulled the needle out of Happousai's arm then
turned to Tarou, who was eying Ranma with cold ferocity.
"I warned you fem-boy." Tarou snatched an IV bag and
crushed the plastic container of cold Ringers-Lactate over his
head, triggering his transformation.
"Ahhhh . . .crap." Ranma watched, disgusted, as the
gigantic winged Minotaur replaced Tarou's more human form.
The ceiling tiles began to shatter and the walls bulged outward.
"RANMA!" Heads, human and less so, turned at the
cry, just as a jet of boiling black liquid hit Tarou in mid-
transformation.
"Baka!" Akane stood panting after her run, an empty
coffee pot dangling from one hand. "What did you think you
were doing? You should have known that Tarou would
transform. Why didn't you----"
"Bitch."
Akane had almost enough time to register Tarou's
words before he slammed her against the wall with a powerful
Black-Mountain front kick. Ranma watched in horror as Akane
slid limply to the corridor floor, blood trickling from her mouth
and ears.
"You wanna a new name panty-boy?" Ranma grated
coldly, stepping into the hall. "How 'bout----" Ch'i roared
from Ranma's hands and blasted Tarou down the hall and
through the wall. "----worm-food."
"You take good care of her," Ranma commanded the
coterie of nurses and doctors rushing to the sounds of battle.
"I'll take care of Tarou." He hesitated, then knelt, lightly
squeezing Akane's limp hand. "Stupid tomboy. You take _real_
good care of her," he commanded again, before running down
the corridor and jumping through the breach after Tarou.
******************************************************
Pain.
The pain of wounds, burning, stabbing, crushing.
Pain.
A mother weeping for her lost child, a husband feeling
half his soul slip into the eternal dark. A child, lost and alone in
a strange place. Burned, helpless and dying in pain like an
animal.
Pain.
It was delicious.
"Nothing broken, but I want her down to X-ray. She
may have a concussion."
Akane swam back to consciousness to a blur of light
and indistinct faces looming over her.
"Check her pupils. And get some help getting this wing
evacuated."
"waaaa . . ." Where's Ranma? What's going on? At
least that's what she tried to ask. Her tongue didn't seem to
want to work and her head ached when she opened her eyes.
She shut them again.
"You're awake? Good." The crisply professional voice
grated on her nerves. "Let's just see how our pupils are
reacting." Her eye lid was pulled up suddenly and an aircraft
landing light switched on.
Akane batted the light away, moaning in pain. "Our"
pupils hurt like hell, thank you very much, she thought, as well
as she was able with her head broken in a million pieces.
"Now, now,"the obnoxiously cheerful voice chided.
"We mustn't be so childish when people are trying to help us."
Akane pried open her right eye, the left one didn't seem
to want to work. Fumbling at her face the entire left side felt
swollen to the size of a grapefruit.
"Wh' happ'n?" She slurred.
"Now, now. We mustn't worry about that. We should
just concentrate on getting bet---"
Akane batted blindly at the annoying voice, connecting
solidly this time, and the nurse dropped without a sound to the
floor. Pushing herself to her feet she braced against the wall
and was violently sick, the contents of her stomach splashing
onto her shoes.
"baka." Akane wiped her vomit slimed mouth with the
back of her sleeve. Holding onto the wall with one hand she
stumbled down the corridor, her head swimming from the blow
she took hitting the wall, heading toward the sounds of a fight,
all the way muttering under her breath, "bakabakabaka
baka . . ."
******************************************************
Tarou Pantyhose was having a surprisingly hard time of
it. On the one hand he had strength, speed and skill. On top of
that, his cursed form could take amazing amounts of
punishment, had eight enormously strong tentacles that
projected a moderately toxic ink over long distances, while his
opponents cursed form was smaller, rounder and only
marginally faster, if at all. And he could fly.
On the other hand, Ranma _really_ wanted him dead.
"I'm gonna rip you a new asshole," Ranma-chan
stepped out of the spray of the broken water fountain and
launched herself into the air after Tarou. The bull-headed
monster contemptuously moved just out of reach with one lazy
beat of his wings. Anticipating this the pig-tailed martial artist
spun in mid-air, bringing her vacuum blades into play like a
power saw. The forbidden technique he'd sealed away as too
dangerous to use, until the son-of-a-bitch hit Akane, bit deeply
into the monsters calf muscle.
Tarou bellowed as Ranma somersaulted to the ground,
drenched in a scarlet spray of blood.
"A'right ya sonuvabitch, ya wanna come down here and
fight? Or hang in the air like a damn dirty buzzard?"
In answer Tarou folded his wings, dropping like a hawk
on a rabbit. Unlike a hawk, Tarou had more than talons to kill
his prey. As he fell his tentacles fanned out around him,
bracketing Ranma with jets of poisonous, blinding ink.
******************************************************
"Great-grandmother . . ." Shan Pu trotted to keep up,
"Why are we going to the hospital to see Happousai?" She
wrinkled her nose that, thanks to three thousand years of
Amazon medicine, no longer looked like an overripe tomato,
in disgust. Just saying the name left a bad taste in her mouth.
"Faster, Mr. Part-Time," from her perch between his
shoulders Ke Lun whacked Mu Si on the behind with her staff.
"Owwww!" Mu Si muttered something under his
breath, getting his ears boxed for his troubles.
"Mind your manners, boy!" Ke Lun glanced down at her
great-granddaughter, frowning slightly at the brightly coloured
scarf that covered her bald pate. "I've put this visit off long
enough." perhaps too long she thought, more worried than she
wanted the young girl to know. "Happousai is a formidable
opponent. Anyone, or anything that could defeat him so badly is
made more dangerous if it remains hidden." She reached down
and patted Shan Pu on the head. "And I'm interested in learning
how the young Tendou has become so skilled, so suddenly."
"It was not skill," Shan Pu protested. "She was just
lucky," at her great-grandmothers darkling look she ducked her
head and blushed. "and I was careless. But it won't happen
again!" she vowed staunchly.
"Not until your hair grows back." Ke Lun replied dryly.
"She won't take me by surprise a second time."
"She shouldn't have done so the first time," Ke Lun
leaned into the curve as Mu Si rounded a corner, "unless she
has been training. Didn't you say she appeared injured?"
"She looked like she'd been beaten to a pulp. At first I
thought she had been . . ." Shan Pu hesitated, not wanting to
voice her thoughts in front of Mu Si. Men were so childish
about such things.
"Yes, yes," Ke Lun said impatiently, able to read
between the lines. "Did it never occur to you that perhaps she
had been training?"
"Training? But to be hurt so badly . . .she was limping.
And she left a trail of blood where she walked."
"Was _your_ training so different?"
Shan Pu's eyes went wide, trying to encompass the
thought of a girl, not of The People, undergoing such rigors.
Ke Lun smiled tightly as she saw understanding begin to
dawn in her great-granddaughters eyes. "Exactly. Someone of
great skill defeated Happousai. Tendou Akane suddenly has the
skill to defeat you. Perhaps she has found someone to train her?
The same someone that defeated Happousai?"
"But who?"
"That is what we are going to find out. I suspect," Ke
Lun said dryly, "that it is one of Happousai's old friends."
"Friend?" Mu Si blurted, shocked. "Surely only an
enemy would beat him so badly."
"With Happy," Ke Lun bopped Mu Si, just on general
principles, "there's not much difference between the two."
"Why are you so certain of a connection with . . . him?"
Shan Pu couldn't bring herself to speak his name.
Ke Lun appeared thoughtful for a moment, watching the
buildings whiz past as Mu Si huffed down the sidewalk. "This
isn't for your ears," she tapped a shiatsu spot, rendering him
temporarily deaf. She wasn't worried about the gawkers on the
street, since the odds were _very_ slight that any there
understood the Amazon's ancient tongue.
"There are not many martial artists stronger than
Happosai," she began. "It's possible the senile old goat simply
stole the wrong panties and got the stuffing beaten out of him
while he was distracted by his 'pretties'."she paused while
Shan Pu chuckled. "But the most fascinating point is the young
Tendou."
"Akane?"
"It's possible the two events are unrelated . . .but think.
Happosai is defeated, badly. Tendou Akane is beaten, badly
but not so badly she cannot defeat you. Shan Pu snorted, but
wisely kept quiet. "and finally there is her treatment of you."
Shan Pu looked puzzled and Ke Lun elaborated.
"She _could_ have killed you," Shan Pu made a sharp,
instinctive motion of negation, "but she showed the same
forbearance you have shown." Ke Lun affected to not notice
Shan Pu look of disgust at the notion she could show charity to
an outsider. "However that could simply be acknowledging a
debt. It _is_ interesting that out of all of the things, short of
murder, that she could have done, she chose . . .," Ke Lun
plucked the scarf off Shan Pu shaved head. " . . .this."
Shan Pu squawked, yanking the cloth around her
baldness, tying it off under the chin.
"However," Ke Lun continued, chuckling, "it is even
more interesting that Tendou Akane chose a method more in
keeping with Happousai's perversions than her own usual
methods."
"Pervert girl hit with big rock until something break."
Shan Pu agreed chirpily in fractured Japanese.
"Please," Ke Lun protested, wincing. "I am _not_
Japanese to love anything kawaii. Speak in a civilized tongue.
Shan Pu grinned up at the old woman.
"Inflicting such humiliation is something Happousai
might do . . ." Ke Lun glanced at her great-granddaughter out of
the corner of her eye. "You look like a twelve year old, shaved
like that." Shan Pu flushed as Ke Lun went on conversationally.
"I wonder how she knew you would enjoy it?"
The young Amazon stopped dead in the street, stunned,
then hurried to catch up.
"What! What are you talking about," she sputtered,
"that's the stupidest thing I've ever-----"
"Lying to other people is a skill," the old Amazon
advised cooly, "lying to yourself is a weakness." Shan Pu's
mouth opened and closed like a hooked carp. "If, as I think,"
Ke Lun continued, "Tendou Akane has found a new teacher, I
should like to meet the person who has taught her to read
another's desires so well. That is a rare and important skill.
More so than mere punches and kicks." She tapped Mu Si
behind each ear and the hidden weapons master started as the
roar of the city returned in a rush.
"Ahhhhh, that smarts!" He held his hands over his ears,
then removed them with a puzzled frown. "That sounds like a
. . . fight?"
"What," Shan Pu said, distracted by her great
grandmother's foolishness. How dare she say she had _liked_
-----then she heard it too.
"Happousai always _did_ know how to have a good
time. Even unconscious and in intensive care." Ke Lun said
with an exasperated sigh as they rounded a corner and entered
the courtyard of the hospital gardens.
Shan Pu stood, open mouthed in shock as she saw a
giant flying Minotaur dive at Ranma-chan. She started to go to
the smaller girl's aid when Ke Lun stopped her with a hand on
her shoulder.
"Let's watch for a moment," the old Amazon suggested
with a small smile, "and see how your husband has improved."
"No!" Shan Pu protested with some heat, "I want
to----" Ke Lun squeezed her shoulder and she subsided with a
huff. "Yes, great-grandmother," she agreed reluctantly.
Heart in her mouth she watched Ranma crouch, one arm
shielding her eyes from the shower of toxic ink, waiting to
receive the attack of the giant beast. As it roared in Ranma fell
back, kicking up at Tarou as he overshot his target, catching the
giant squarely between the legs.
Tarou shrieked in agony and Ranma rolled to her feet,
laughing. "You sing pretty good. Maybe you're a canary instead
of a buzzard."
Folding one wing and flaring the other Tarou spun,
faster than should have been possible for so gigantic a form.
Bellowing in anger he smashed a section of paving stones with
his hooves and began using his tentacles to hurl the rubble with
lethal force. Staying on the ground this time he followed the
rock storm with a thundering charge that shook the ground and
tore great divots, the size of a small child, from the earth.
Again Ranma stood her ground, waiting for Tarou to be
committed to his attack, relying on her speed and agility to
sting her opponent to death.
Once she was sure Tarou was committed she started her
counter. Using the speed training she'd developed by avoiding
swarms of hornets, Ranma danced and wove her way through
the hail of jagged missiles. Even with her agility and speed it
was impossible to avoid all of them and she emerged on the far
side of the stone curtain looking like a small sack of raw
hamburger, bleeding from hundreds of tiny cuts and scrapes
inflicted by the less lethal fragments.
Tarou was waiting for her. He'd made a mistake letting
fem-boy distract him, make him angry. It was time to finish this
so he could get back to Happousai. Even the thought of the
ancient pervert made him shake with anger so that he had to
force calm on himself. Fighting angry was fighting stupid. And
that was fem-boys speciality, not his. Coldly, now, he watched
Ranma's bloody form emerge from his hurricane of stone darts.
He'd expected the little freak to survive, although he wouldn't
have much cared if she'd gotten her head smashed. But it had
funneled her directly to him, rather than allowing her a flanking
attack. Tarou watched Ranma's hands come up and felt the
sudden deepening of her ch'i that presaged those dammed
vacuum blades.
Tarou lashed out suddenly with his tentacles, forcing
Ranma to respond to them, rather than carving Tarou's heart
from his chest. The gigantic bull face twisted in pain as the ch'i
attack cut away the terminal three feet of a tentacle. But the
intentional sacrifice of a limb that would regenerate had served
it's purpose. Ranma was focused on attacking Tarou's
tentacles, and that opened her defenses. At the instant Ranma
turned, to deal with another wildly lashing rope of muscle and
barbed suckers, Tarou's great wings snapped open and swept
_back_, sucking Ranma into gigantic arms that closed around
her like a hydraulic press.
Ranma's head snapped back in a rictus of agony as
Tarou began to crush her ribs like an empty cola can. Her
tormented scream wasn't enough to cover the sound of a rib
snapping like a broken pencil.
*********************************************************
End Chapter 5 part a