This story was written Sunday night, at our FFIRC monthly one hour event.
Thanks to my brother Tom for the story idea, to the folks in group #2 for
editing help, and especially to my partner, Fido, for rereading and
suggestions.


Finding the Lost

by June "KaraOhki" Geraci
karaohki@snet.net
March 31, 2002


Tenchi doesn't belong to me, but to Hiroki Hayashi,
Masaki Kajishima, AIC and Pioneer.  Ranma 1/2
doesn't belong to me either, but to Rumiko
Takahashi.  This tale was written to make you
smile, not for commercial purposes.


--------------------

"Young lady, when I talk to you, look at me!"

Sasami raised her head for a moment, saw her
father's angry expression, and looked down again.

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I'm sorry, Papa."

"And well you should be!  First you 'borrow' my pet
without asking, and now you tell me she's lost?"

"Yes, Papa."

"How hard have you looked?"

Sasami sniffled.  "I looked hard, Papa!  But I
couldn't find her.  I think maybe--" the little
princess stopped to wipe her eyes and blow her nose
before continuing.  "I think maybe she died when
our ship crashed."

The king closed his eyes.  Azusa had been quite
fond of his pet ferret, and the thought that it
might have perished upset him a great deal.  When
he opened his eyes again his daughter had gone from
sniffles to full-blown hysterics.  He glanced
around to make sure no one was watching before
gathering her into his arms.  "Don't cry, dear.
I'll find her."

*****

"How does one go about locating a lost pet on this
planet?"

Tenchi gulped.  The last thing he expected was that
his great-grandfather would come to him for advice.
Fortunately, the answer was not difficult.
"Normally people hang up posters with pictures of
the lost pet.  Sometimes they offer a reward."

"Excellent!  I shall see to it immediately."

Azusa took Tenchi's advice to heart, and soon every
telephone pole in town was plastered with pictures
of the missing ferret.  What the young man was not
aware of was that the Emperor of Jurai never did
anything by halves.  He had also placed an
advertisement in every single newspaper in the
country.

*****

"I'm going to call her again, and if I get that
damn machine this time I'm going over there and
smashing it!"  The sounds of a phone being dialed
followed that muttered statement, and soon the
phone on the other end was picked up.

"Azusa, you're late!  Practice was supposed to
start--"

"Hello!  You've reached Azusa's house.  I'm very,
very busy right now, taking care of my little
Philomena.  Leave a message, and I'll call you back
later.  Bye!"

Mikado Sanzenin hung up the phone so hard that it
nearly fell off the wall, and grabbed his jacket.
Ever since Azusa had found her new pet, their
practice sessions had gone completely downhill.
Either she didn't show up, or she had that damned
thing with her.  It was time he did something about
it.

As the angry young man headed for the exit to the
skating arena he passed a series of benches.
Someone had discarded a newspaper on one of them,
and it was opened to an advertisement.

"MISSING!  Reward!"  That normally wouldn't have
stopped him for a moment, considering how focused
he was on his mission, except for the picture that
accompanied the words.  It was a picture of the
bane of his existence:  a small ferret.

*****

"You know where she is?  Wait a moment, let me get
a pen!  What's that address again?"  Azusa wrote
frantically for a moment, and then spoke again.
"I'll meet you there in five minutes, and once I
get her back you'll be rewarded.  Thank you so
much!"  He was out of the house so fast that the
windstorm he created ruined the hairdos of all the
women present.  Tenchi came flying down the stairs
and found Sasami dancing around the room.

"What's going on?"

"Papa found her!  He's going to get her right now!"

"What's he taking?  Not his ship?"

"But he's in a hurry, Tenchi!"

Tenchi sank to the floor, covering his face.  "Why
me?"

*****

Mikado took his time getting across town.  The
phone number he'd just dialed was not a local one,
so he wasn't at all worried about getting there
first.  As far as he was concerned, it would take a
lot longer than five minutes for the owner of the
ferret to arrive at Azusa's house, no matter how
sincere he sounded.

He was wrong.  When he arrived at the house, there
was pandemonium everywhere.  A strange vehicle was
parked in the middle of the street, causing traffic
to be hopelessly snarled.  The police were trying
to direct cars around the obstruction, and there
was a lot of screaming and shouting.

Sanzenin ignored it.  He was more interested in the
sounds of screaming coming from inside his
partner's house.

"No!  You can't take Philomena away!  Philomena
belongs to Azusa!"

"That's right!  She belongs to ME!"

"No!  Philomena belongs to AZUSA!"

*****

It took a few minutes for Mikado to figure out that
both of the claimants to the ferret were named
Azusa.  No wonder his partner was so confused.  It
took him even less time to realize that
'Philomena,' or whatever the dratted thing's name was,
belonged to the regal-looking gentleman who had
placed the ad in the paper.  The little animal was
sitting on the man's shoulder, rubbing her face
against his, and looking quite content.  She had
never behaved so nicely with Azusa, instead trying
to run off at any opportunity.  His partner had
several bite marks on her hands, received when she
squeezed the animal too hard.

"I've had enough of this.  It's time to call in
some backup."  The male Azusa pulled some kind of
device from his pocket, and made a call.  "Kiyone?
I need your assistance here in retrieving an item
that belongs to me--a lost pet.  Here's the
address."

*****

"Wait a moment, I don't have a pen!"

"Oh, I have one.  Just repeat it to me!"

Kiyone desperately reached for the pen in Mihoshi's
hand, but her featherbrained partner refused to
give it up, and she reluctantly repeated the
address to her.  "We'll be there shortly.  Don't
cause any trouble, sir!  Your presence on Earth is
supposed to be low-key!"

Kiyone slammed the phone down and ran outside.
Mihoshi was already starting the engines on their
cruiser.  "Let's go!" she cried.  "I know how to
get there!"

"Gods, we're in trouble again," muttered her
partner.

*****

Across town from the Shiratori residence, Akane was
not having a good day.  Ranma had promised to take
her out for ice cream, but everyone and everything
seemed to be conspiring to keep that from happening

Shampoo had arrived and followed Ranma all around
the yard, trying to get him to eat the 'special
lunch' she'd prepared for him.  Akane soon got tired of watching Ranma's
ineffectual attempts to rid himself of Shampoo, and finally took matters
into her own hands.
She splashed the girl with water, and punted the cat
over the wall before Ranma could react to the change.

"How come YOU couldn't handle her?  Why did I have
to get rid of her?"

"DAMN IT, Akane!  What did you want me to do?"

"Just tell her to get lost!  How hard can that be?"

Ranma was trying to answer that question when Ryoga
came flying over the wall.  "Ranma!  How DARE you
flirt with Shampoo when you're supposed to be
taking Akane out!"

"Hey!  SHE was flirting with ME!  And what makes it
YOUR business?"

"Never mind that!  DIE!"

"I don't believe this," sighed Akane.  She retreated
to the porch to watch the two fight.  It was useless
to try to reason with them.

As she reached the porch a shadow blotted out the sun,
and seconds later something fell out of the sky and
landed in the pond, sending water everywhere.  Naturally,
Ranma changed. That was fine.  Akane had seen that
happen before.  However, she had never seen it happen to Ryoga.

"R-r-r-ryoga?  P-p-p-chan?"  For a brief moment,
Akane swayed.  She thought she was going to faint.
Then anger took over.  "I'm going to KILL you, you pervert!"  Akane
uprooted the stone lantern and was running toward the cowering pig when a
green-haired woman emerged from the vehicle in the pond and grabbed her.

"I'm sorry, but I can't allow that."

Ranma's jaw dropped.  Akane's jaw dropped.  Ryoga
ran for his life.

"What did you say?"

"I said I can't allow that.  Someone reported a
disturbance about a lost pet, but it looks to me
like you want to kill it.  Would you mind
explaining yourself?"

Akane's jaw moved, but nothing came out.  Ranma
took over.  "There's no lost pet here, Miss.  Are
you sure you're in the right place?"

By this time a second person had found her way out
of the cruiser.  Unfortunately, the blonde's way
out ended up with her landing face-first in the
pond.  She got up, trudged out, and handed a soggy
piece of paper to Ranma.  "This is where we are,
right?"

Ranma looked at the note.  "Nope, that's across
town."  Ignoring Mihoshi's protests, Ranma gave
careful directions to Kiyone, who thanked her and
began to drag her partner back to the cruiser.  In
the meantime, Akane had overcome her inability to
speak.

"That, that pervert!"  Then she burst into tears
and threw herself into her fiance's arms, despite
the fact that he was female.  "I'm sorry!"

Ranma gestured at Mihoshi, and Kiyone released her
collar so that she could come closer.  "Yes?" she
asked nervously.

"Look, I gotta thank you.  You guys just did me a
BIG favor with that splash landing."

The confused officers got into their cruiser and
took off, Kiyone at the controls.  Kiyone kept
shaking her head as she flew the craft, and
muttering to herself.  "She did something RIGHT?
That's simply not possible."

*****

Azusa had gone from screaming to hitting.  She
began with the art book sitting on her coffee
table, and soon escalated to the brass candlesticks
from the mantelpiece.  Her victim was showing
remarkable restraint, evading her blows rather than
striking back.

"Young lady, my pet and I are leaving, and that is
all there is to say about it!"  He calmly backed
toward the door, being followed by the tiny,
furious woman.  Then the door flew open.

"Gal--police officers here!"  Mihoshi and Kiyone
inserted themselves between the Emperor and Azusa,
allowing him to leave the house.  Moments later,
his ship took off, freeing up the traffic jam.

Azusa burst into tears.  "Give me back my darling
Philomena!  Thief, thief!"  She flew out of the
house, and stopped crying.  A look of joy replaced
the tears.  Something was crawling out of the
vehicle that the police officers had arrived in.
Something that she hadn't seen in a long, long
time.

"CHARLOTTE!"

Ryoga groaned.  Perhaps he should have allowed
Akane to kill him.

--------------------------------------------------

As always, I appreciate your comments.
karaohki@snet.net

--------------------------------------------------
http://karaohki.anifics.com
--------------------------------------------------
     You could turn this way,
I'm also lonely
     this autumn evening

Basho


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