Ah My Goddess Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Aa! Megami-sensei! ❯ Beach Blanket Amazons ( Chapter 14 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Aa! Megami-sensei!

by Peter Ward

Episode 14: Beach Blanket Amazons


July days at the beach were usually hot. Just how hot depended
on how many good-looking people had shown up on any given day and
how much flesh had been shown by those people.

Today, though, was hotter than most. This became evident to the
lucky guys as a girl happened to pass by along the length of the
beach. Just about any person with a Y chromosome she passed had
to do a double-take at the hardbody covered only in a very brief
turquoise string bikini. The double-takes soon turned into
drooling leers as the bikini turned out to be of the g-string
variety. Not even her pink hair or tiny black horns were a
distraction for the lustful males, many of whom were more used to
the native Japanese women.

Amano Buffy paused for a moment and looked around her, much to
the pleasure of the guys in her immediate area. She found what
she was looking for and headed there, hefting a large cooler
single-handedly. She was not unaware of the looks she was
getting and smiled inwardly to herself. <Go ahead and look all
you want, guys!> she smirked mentally. <After all, if you want
to touch, you'd have to be able to survive just one round with
me. I don't think many of you could do that...heh heh heh.>

The alien amazon soon came upon her friends, the Tendos and
Saotomes, as well as Suzie Cabbit, the short felinoid Khel'azi
who usually tagged along with her and Nabiki. After she ex-
changed greetings with them, she frowned slightly as she noticed
some people were missing from the group.

"Hey, guys, where's Urd-sensei and her bunch?" she asked as she
set down the cooler. "I thought they'd be here by now."

"They'll be here soon." Kasumi answered as she opened up the
cooler and passed out the drinks inside. "After all, they do
live in Nekomi City and it is a bit of a longer trip for them."

"Hey, Buffy, are you sure you want to wear that?" Akane asked
from where she was laying by Ranma (in girl form) and Genma-pan-
da. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination, you know!"

"What?" Buffy asked as she turned around in her bikini. "It's a
swimsuit, right? It covers up the 'vital areas' you humans get
so worked up about, so there shouldn't be any problem. Geez, I
go out of my way to adapt to your beach customs since we Hakane-
ans just go in the buff, and look what I get..."

"Oh, my." Kasumi blushed slightly at the thought of going to the
beach nude like Buffy's people do. "Don't you worry about
modesty on your planet, especially around the men?"

"Naaaah! Males are not much more than servants and property to
us, so if they happen to be around serving our needs, well, so be
it. No big deal."

"Heh! I could begin to like it on your world if the guys have
that kind of status." Nabiki commented. Unlike Ranma, her
sisters, or Suzie, who wore tank suits, Nabiki wore a bikini,
albeit a bit more conservative than Buffy's. "By the way, say
cheese!"

With that, Nabiki produced a water-resistant disposable camera
and aimed it Buffy's way. Knowing what Nabiki would have planned
for the pictures, she posed suggestively and said, "I'm getting a
cut of the profits, right?"

"We'll negotiate later." Nabiki replied as she clicked the
shutter a few times. After a minute, she put the camera back
while sneaking a shot of Akane and Ranma.

"Hey, Buffy, I think you've been hanging around Nabiki a little
too long if you're discussing picture profits." Suzie teased from
her end of the group (with Ranma at the other end for well-known
reasons).

"Naaa...I've been learning just how much fun it is to tease these
human males with my looks, that's all." Buffy grinned back. "If
I get some money off of the deal, so much the better!"

"You do have a point there." Suzie conceded, also knowing about
how visually-oriented males tended to be on Earth. While she
knew that nothing serious would come about it due to her feline
nature, Suzie did enjoy flirting around, and she knew that her
petite figure was also curvaceous enough to draw looks at least.

Before anybody could reply, another female voice called out from
nearby. "Hey! We're here!" Urd shouted as she led her sisters,
Keiichi, and Jun from the road running along the beach. They
were all carrying various containers of food, drink, luggage and
supplies for the weekend.

"Hey, what took you guys so long?" Ranma asked. "Why didn't you
guys teleport over or something?"

"That's because Keiichi here didn't want to attract attention,
that's why!" Urd replied, jerking a thumb in Keiichi's direction.
"We ended up taking the train and the bus, and for that, we had
to get up at an obscene hour to make it."

"Keiichi was right, Urd." Belldandy said in defense of her love.
"The beach is rather crowded today. Besides, five o'clock isn't
that bad a time to get up."

"My, it's such a beautiful day." Kasumi said in seeming oblivi-
ousness. "It's so nice to be able to relax and enjoy the weather
with friends."

"Sounds good to me." Jun said as she dropped her load and joined
her classmates. "How's summer going for you?"

"Going pretty good." Nabiki said while Suzie and Buffy agreed
with that statement. "I think it'll be a profitable one too,
with the pics I just got of Buffy."

"Gee, I can't imagine why." Jun teased as she got her piglet
brother Joe out of one of her baskets. "I don't think you left
much to the imagination with that suit, Buffy."

"Hey, she just knows how to dress properly for the beach, that's
all!" Urd chimed in from where she was sitting with the others.
Her tiger-stripe two-piece wasn't that much more conservative
than Buffy's. "You might want to take a few tips from her, Jun.
That way, you get more dates!"

"Urd!" Jun shouted in shock. "Just because you're my teacher,
mentor, and guardian doesn't give you the right to mess with my
love life! I mean, really!" She was pretty comfortable in her
strapless one-piece and didn't want to show off as much as Urd or
Buffy were.

"Get used to it!" Keiichi advised Jun. "How do you think Bell-
dandy and I feel at times?"

"Well, fine! See if I care!" Urd huffed at them. "Try to help
people out and see what I get! Talk about ingratitude."

While everybody laughed at Urd's comments, Akane got up and
walked over to Jun, with Ranma close behind. "Hey, is that your
pet piglet there? Can I see her?"

"Sure." Jun replied as she handed Joe over to Akane. "Her name's
Jo."

"That's a nice name. Isn't she the cutest? Well...maybe not
quite as cute as my P-chan, but she's still pretty cute!"

"'P-chan'? That's the name of your pet piglet, right?" Jun
asked.

"Yeah. He got lost again over a month back and I'm a little
worried." Akane answered, looking downcast as she related the
problem to her sempai.

"Awwww...he always comes crawling back." Ranma commented. "He
just has no sense of direction, that's all."

"Ranma! Stop making it sound like he's Ryoga, you jerk! You
know, you could take some lessons from him on how to behave."

* * * * * * * * * *

The normal sounds of the mountain woods were broken by a fit of
sneezing.

"Ryoga! Are you all right? You're not getting sick, are you?" a
12-year-old blond girl asked him from where she was cleaning up
their campsite.

"I don't think so, Dorllir..." Ryoga responded as his sneezing
fit died down. "I don't know what brought that on."

"Well," Dorllir said while producing a map, "since you seem to be
all right, we should get going then. If we take this path here,
and not take any of your so-called shortcuts, we should reach
Tokyo in a day or so."

* * * * * * * * * *

"Too bad P-chan's not here." Akane commented after calming down.
As usual, Ranma had made a few rude comments and Akane decided to
bury Ranma in the sand...head-first. "We might have been able to
see if he and Jo would have made a great pair."

At that comment, everyone in the temple household did double-
takes, knowing Joe's true nature. Joe, for her part, thought-
flashed her sister. <Uh-uh! I'm not doing that! No way! You
and Urd might've made me into a girl piglet, but I'm still a guy
as far as I'm concerned!>

"Um, I don't think that'd be a good idea." Jun responded as she
mentally strained out Joe's telepathic objections. "She's, um,
really shy around other pigs, you know."

Ranma started to wave her legs around and muffled from within the
sand, "Hmph hmph mhhph m-mmmp mmmf mm mph mmmph!"

Buffy rose up, walked over to where Ranma was half-buried, took a
firm grasp of one of her ankles, and gave her a quick yank out of
the sand. "Spit it out, he-girl!"

"I said, I don't think P-chan would go for that!" Ranma sputtered
as sand flew from her mouth.

"Too bad." Akane said. "Oh, well, it was an idea, right?"

"That's true." Jun said, trying to make sure the whole matter
blew over without incident.

The roar of a very loud engine interrupted everybody as a heavily
souped-up dune buggy pulled up to the now-large group. The
engine was cut off and out stepped a statuesque female lifeguard
in a red tank suit that was stretched tight over her physique.
If one took a close inspection of her long, wavy black hair, they
would notice a pair of tiny black horns nestled in it.

The woman looked straight at Buffy with a bemused look on her
face and removed her shades, revealing eyes that matched Buffy's
dark-blue-on-light-blue eyes, and features that also resembled
Buffy's. "I see you haven't outgrown burying people in the sand,
little sis." she teased Buffy as Buffy continued to hold a
sand-covered Ranma by the ankle.

"Well, well, Nami. Fancy running into you here" Buffy answered
her sister with an annoyed look on her face. "For your informa-
tion, I wasn't the one who buried Ranma here. I was just the
person who dragged her out."

"Hey, Nami, what are you doing here?" Keiichi asked as he and
Belldandy recognized her.

"What, you guys know her?" Buffy asked them as she dropped Ranma
face-first onto the sand.

"Yes, we do." Belldandy answered. "Nami's a new member of the
motor club at NIT. We didn't know that she was your sister,
Buffy."

"Oh, yeah, that's right...sis decided to go to NIT since dad's an
alumni." Buffy said, remembering which school her older sister
had gone to when they moved to Earth back in March.

"Anyway, if no one else is going to interrupt me," Nami continued
with an edge to her voice, "I'm working here as a lifeguard for
the summer."

"Lemme guess, you had to take a job to repay any shopkeepers you
lifted stuff from, right, sis?"

"Well, I *did* promise to pay them back for the stuff I bor-
rowed..." Nami explained. "How else was I going to get the money
to pay off the car parts and munitions I had to get the past few
months?"

"'Munitions'? You started loading up the motor club's cars and
bikes with weaponry when you joined, right?" Buffy asked in
exasperation, then added, "You always had an obsession with
large-scale weaponry ever since we were kids."

"Don't worry about it, Buffy." Keiichi said in an attempt to
allay the high-schooler's fears. "She tries, but we always make
her remove it before a race. Otherwise, we'd be disqualified for
sure!"

"Hmph...spoilsports." Nami spat out. "You earthlings are pretty
wimpy since you don't allow weapons in your sports. Then again,
the bosses were pretty uptight about adding the pintle-mounted
.50 caliber machine gun to my buggy here. Oh, well, at least I
have easy access to my other goodies!" she added cheerfully as
she materialized a rapid-fire bazooka, then popped it back into a
subspace pocket.

"What?? You're packing weapons with you on the job?!?" Buffy
yelled as the others tried to quiet her down. "You trying to get
yourself canned? What do you think they'll do if they find
out???"

"They won't find out." countered Nami. "Not so long as I've got
my subspace pockets to stash stuff in."

"At least not until you lose your temper and go on a shooting
spree." Buffy pointedly said.

"Oh? You're one to talk, sis. I remember some of the fits
you've had back home, and you caused a fair amount of damage in
those!" Nami teased.

Before the fight could escalate any further, several screams
could be heard from down the beach. Both sisters turned to the
apparent source and saw a mob of women heading their way. Buffy
only needed one guess as to the cause, along with Urd, Jun,
Suzie, the Tendos, and the Saotomes.

"Hey, you're on the job, sis, so why don't you go take care of
it?" Buffy egged her sister on.

"Right." Nami said, a determined look on her face as she strode
out to intercept the mob. Unfortunately, she was so intent on
the mob that she didn't notice the target of the mob's fury until
he landed squarely on her chest.

"Sweeto!!!!" Happosai cried out as he nuzzled on Nami's quite
ample bosom. Nami froze momentarily, taken aback that a human
male, a withered old one at that, would be so brash as to cop a
feel off of her.

The shock quickly turned to fury, though, and Nami growled,
"Prepare to receive a one-way ticket to the afterlife, old man."

Happosai replied from between Nami's breasts, "I'm already in
heaven, sweetie!"

Enraged, Nami yanked the old pervert from her chest (his grip
nearly tearing the already-taut fabric of her suit in the pro-
cess) and tossed him a few feet away. Then she opened up one of
her pockets in subspace, pulled out her favorite toy (a DNE3DRPG
rapid-fire bazooka) and squeezed off one shell at the reprobate.

Happosai barely leaped clear of the resulting explosion (which
caused a minor ripple of panic in the immediate vicinity) and
protested, "Hey! That's no way to treat your elders, young lady!
I was just having some fun!"

"Well, then. Let me have some of my kind of fun as well!" Nami
said as a nasty grin spread over her face. With that, she let
five more shells loose in Happosai's direction. Happosai was
able to dodge them and the shells exploded in a neat line along a
quarter of the beach's length, causing more panic along the way.

Happosai's only reply was a scream as he started to scamper away.
Before giving chase, Nami turned to the crowd and produced more
weaponry from her subspace pockets. "Anyone else want to help
hunt that bastard down?"

She was answered by a loud cry from the mob as many of the women
grabbed the weaponry. Nami led the small army of women after the
old man down the beach. While Nami's shots were relatively
on-target (only missing due to Happosai's incredible agility),
the other women weren't as adept with the firearms and explosions
started to spread throughout the beach as they went along.

Belldandy, upset at the turn of events, started to go after them
in an attempt to stop the mayhem. Keiichi grabbed her arm and
shook his head. "It's too late, Belldandy. Once Nami gets
started, there's no stopping her."

"He's right." Buffy confirmed as she watched the chaos unfold.
"I should know, being her sister and all. How do you think I got
my agility? She used to chase after me all the time with her
stupid weapons. Some amazon she is. Even Shampoo is a better
amazon than her!"

"Well, I hope she nails the little bastard and sends him to his
reward." Urd commented as she watched through a pair of opera
glasses that she materialized.

"Too bad she didn't wait up a minute more, or I would've let her
use my grenades." Skuld added as she produced a half-dozen of the
tube-and-globe contraptions from her bag. Having been to Furin-
kan a few times to bug Urd on the job, she had seen Happosai in
action and actually lobbed a few of her grenades his way, as well
as use her telescoping mallet on him. Happosai was even more
annoying than a bug.

"I see Happy is up to no good as usual." Cologne observed as she
came from apparently nowhere, as usual. "I had a feeling he'd be
chased by an armed mob of women one of these days, but I thought
it would have been in America, not here in Japan."

"Where'd you come from?" Urd asked in astonishment, having been
taken by surprise by the old crone's abrupt appearance.

"Hello, Urd-sensei. Fancy meeting you here." Cologne replied.
"Every summer I run a beach side ramen shack with my granddaugh-
ter and that boy" she added, pointing to Mousse, who was hugging
Jun.

"I'm not Shampoo, I tell you! Let go of me!" Jun was yelling as
she was trying to pry Mousse off. When physical force proved not
to be enough to remove the young man from her torso, she started
to prepare a spell, nearly panicking everyone in the group.

"Here, Mousse." Nabiki said as she set Mousse's glasses back on
his face from where they sat on top of his head. "See? That's
not Shampoo you're holding." Inwardly, Nabiki sighed, having
averted another disastrous spell cast by Jun.

"Aaah! You're not Shampoo!" Mousse exclaimed the obvious as he
let go and stepped back.

"So good of you to notice." Jun said in slight irritation. "You
know, I *do* like to be held by good-looking guys like you, but
not when they're calling me by another girl's name."

"Sorry." Mousse said sheepishly. "But could you please tell me
where my Shampoo is?"

"I think I know where, Mousse." Ranma said, pointing to where
Shampoo was. Just like how Mousse had latched onto Jun by
accident, Shampoo had glomped onto Ranma on purpose as usual,
causing Akane's blood pressure to rise.

"Nihao, husband!" Shampoo greeted brightly.

"Saotome, you cad!" Mousse shouted in indignation, ignoring the
fact that it was Shampoo doing the glomping, not Ranma.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Ranma protested as Mouse stalked towards
him, producing two to three dozen blades from his loose sleeves.
"It isn't what you think! I wasn't doing nothing!"

"And since *when* was he your husband?" Buffy addressed Shampoo
as she yanked the Chinese amazon off of Ranma.

"You no interfere!" Shampoo yelled at Buffy. "Ranma *my* husband
by tribal law. You challenge this?!"

"Hell, yeah!" Buffy snarled as she took a fighting stance.
"Let's do it! I've been waiting a long time for this!"

"Shampoo show you who better amazon is!" the Chinese girl de-
clared as she launched herself at Buffy.

"Yeah, right." Buffy sneered as she handily dodged Shampoo's
charge. As Shampoo ran past her, Buffy raised one of her legs
and gave Shampoo a shove towards the ocean with her foot.
Shampoo barely stopped herself from running right into the water
and having her curse ruin the fight for her.

Spying a large rock a few meters away from her, Shampoo quickly
covered the distance and hefted it. "You no get me so easily!"
she cried as she tossed the rock towards Buffy. Buffy merely
smashed her fist into the oncoming rock, shattering it into
hundreds of pieces. Luckily, Belldandy and Urd put up force
fields to protect the others as they started to run away from the
duel between the two amazons.

"Some day at the beach!" Urd complained as she started to follow
the others. "Who would've known that we'd have three amazons on
the rampage?!"

"It was bound to happen." Cologne replied as she hopped along on
her staff. "Those two girls have been nursing a grudge since the
start of the school year, it seems. It's the amazon way, and it
seems to be universal" she added, not resisting the pun.

The hasty retreat the group was making was disrupted as what
seemed to be an earthquake struck. As most of them stumbled due
to the shockwaves, the ones still standing turned around and saw
that Buffy was the source of it. In a show of power, Buffy had
slammed her fist into the ground itself, her strength causing the
minor quake, as well as a long crack in the ground beneath the
sand running between her and Shampoo. Shampoo, being as skilled
as she was, managed to leap clear of the small chasm as it
opened.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Come on, dammit!"

Nami was swearing as she loaded another clip in her rapid-fire
bazooka. Who could've known that someone this old would have
been this spry? Her sneaky little sister, that's who. No wonder
why Buffy had egged her on earlier when she first ran into this
old lech.

The mob had chased Happosai down the length of the beach already,
and he had somehow managed to dodge all the bullets, grenades,
missles, and shells that were fired his way. This served only to
infuriate the mob even more, especially Nami. No man, especially
an old, gnomish pervert like this one was, made a fool of a
hakanean and got away with it.

As soon as the clip was securely loaded and the first shell
entered the chamber, Nami took practiced aim while running.
Happosai was leaping relatively straight at this point, and was
giving her a perfect opportunity to draw a bead on him.

"Gotcha!" she shouted as her motion-predicting sight locked on to
him.

Unfortunately, it was then that the shockwave from Buffy's
miniquake hit them, knocking Nami's shot way off and causing the
shell to hit a nearby kite. Happosai used the moment of disori-
entation to double back through the mob, copping feels left and
right.

Seeing that she couldn't squeeze off another shell without
hitting the mob, Nami lowered the bazooka and muttered, "Aw,
hell. That had to have been sis. Leave to her to spoil one of
my better shots..."

* * * * * * * * * *

While Buffy and Shampoo charged each other, Belldandy looked
around and saw that there were fewer people in their group than
had been before the amazon-made quake hit them. The goddess
realized who one of the missing people was within seconds.
"Where's Ranma?" she asked aloud.

"Ranma?" Akane asked as she, too, saw that Ranma wasn't with
them. "Where'd he go?"

"Hey! Suzie's missing too!" Nabiki noticed, making a mental head
count and noticed a certain head with a white mohawk-like mane
absent as well.

"You don't think they went down this sinkhole, do you?" Urd asked
as she looked over a pit in the sand that was just big enough for
someone to fit into. As the others looked into the pit, the sand
along the walls of the pit slowly flowed ominously into it...

* * * * * * * * * *

"Uuuuunnnnhhhhhh...what died? Not me, I hope..." Suzie groaned
as she came to. Before she even opened her eyes, she was over-
whelmed by the putrid stench of her surroundings.

Finally bringing herself to open her eyes, she noticed that it
was almost completely dark. The only light came from above
(along with a steady stream of sand), as well as down the way the
sand was flowing to, as if it were the proverbial light at the
end of the tunnel. <Not a good sign>, she thought as she pon-
dered her situation. Unfortunately, the passageway leading
towards the second light source was blocked off by some rocks and
debris. The last thing she remembered was that she was running
with her friends from the fight that was starting to rage between
Buffy and Shampoo. Just as they were running, it seemed as if
they were hit by a quake and that was it until she came to.

As she started to become more aware of her surroundings, Suzie
realized that whatever it was that she was laying on, it was soft
and trembling. In fact, it felt as if it were a person...

"Oh, geez! I'm sorry! Are you all right?" Suzie asked as she
scrambled off the person and into some sleazy liquid. <Water?
Geez! I hate getting wet!> she thought as she swallowed her
revulsion.

"I-I-I will b-b-be as s-s-soon as you g-g-get away fr-fr-fr-from
m-me...." a familiar voice sounded.

"Ranma?" Suzie asked as she backed away from her. "Shoot! With
that stupid phobia of yours..."

"It's okay now..." Ranma said as she calmed down some. "At least
I wasn't at the point of using Cat-Fu. At least not then..."

"Yeah, Buffy told me about it a few weeks back." Suzie replied,
recalling the incident when Joat-mon, a fellow student of theirs
who was also feline in appearance, triggered Ranma's Cat-Fu and
got shredded along with Kuno.

Ranma chuckled a bit as she sat up and said, "Seems I am getting
used to you some if you didn't trigger my Cat-Fu. Not like the
way Joat-mon triggered it."

"Well, he had it coming and then some." Suzie said. "Last I
heard, he was assigned neighborhood cleanup detail for the
summer, and I think principal Kuno shaved his head as well."

Suzie took another look around, having better low-light vision
than Ranma, and added. "I think we ended up in a sewer tunnel.
I don't think plain water smells *this* bad. Ugh! And I'm
soaking in it!"

"You think the quake caused us to fall in here or something?"

"Has to be. Look up there." Suzie indicated, pointing to right
above where she and Ranma came to after falling and being knocked
unconscious. "I think we fell right through that hole."

"Hey, all I have to do is use a chi-blast to widen that hole
and..."

"No way!" Suzie shouted. "Don't you realize that the quake
might've weakened these tunnel walls as well? You want to bring
the whole damn tunnel down on us? I don't know about you, but I
don't want to be buried in a sewer!"

"Well, what are we supposed to do, then?" Ranma asked in frustra-
tion.

"Wait, I guess." Suzie shrugged. "And hope that help comes
soon."

"I sure hope so." Ranma muttered as she settled back down.

After a few minutes of silence, Suzie asked quietly, "Ranma?"

"Yeah, Suzie?"

"What do you think of me?"

"Huh? What kind of...I mean, what do you mean?" Ranma stammered
at Suzie's question.

"Not *that* way, you dolt!" Suzie shot back. "I meant, what do
you think of me as a person?"

"Oh." Ranma blinked, then paused for a few moments. "Well, I
guess you're okay for one of Nabiki's friends. You've also
helped out a few times,. I mean, if it weren't for your,
well..."

"My cat looks?"

"Well, yeah."

"Geez! I wish you'd get off your stupid hangup about cats
already! Just because a person looks like a cat doesn't mean you
have to hate them!"

"It's not like that!" Ranma shouted back. "I don't hate you at
all!" After calming down a second, she continued, "I mean,
you're my friend and all, it's just this stupid phobia."

After a moment of consideration, Suzie changed her tone. "Sorry,
Ranma. I didn't mean to snap at you like that. It's just that
it's been so hard the past few months trying to figure out if
we're friends or not, with you being so skittish and all. Guess
we can thank your stupid father for that."

"Yup." Ranma agreed. "I guess you and Nabiki are right, though.
I am going to have to face up to my stupid phobia eventually."

With that, Ranma slowly got up and made her way over to where
Suzie was sitting. Gingerly, she sat down next to her.

"Hey, are you going to be all right, being this close?" Suzie
asked.

"I think so, but please don't push it or anything." Ranma re-
plied, some nervousness evident in her voice. "I think I can
handle you for the most part since you've been hanging around
pretty often. Just don't try it with Joat-mon or a real cat."

"Okay." Suzie said, giggling a bit. "Guess we'll have to take
what we can get, huh? Some pair we make. A felinoid and an
ailurophobe stuck in the sewers."

The two laughed for a minute, then fell into silence. After a
bit, Ranma asked, "Hey, did you notice that thumping above us?"

"Now that you mention it..." Suzie said, perking up her ears a
bit. "What do you think it is?"

"Dunno. After shocks, maybe?"

"No." Suzie disagreed. "It's just thumping, that's all. After
shocks are more like the quakes that set them off. In fact,
there haven't been any aftershocks at all. Wonder what's going
on..."

"Well, my two guesses would be either Buffy still fighting with
Shampoo, or that sister of Buffy's that's chasing after the old
man with a bazooka...."

"Dammit! Why didn't I think of it sooner?" Suzie shouted as a
light dawned in her head. "What if it wasn't a quake that hit
us, after all? What if it was Buffy that caused it?"

"That's right!" Ranma said, considering the thought. "After all,
Buffy's got all that raw strength on her. She might be able to
pull something like that off!"

"Man, am I gonna give her a piece of my mind when we get out of
this!" Suzie growled. "It's just like her to lose her temper
around Shampoo, and look where it got *us*. Now I gotta go and
get this sewage out of my fur and my suit!"

"You really don't like getting wet, do you?"

"Nope. You should know what it's like, since you have that
curse."

"I've gotten used to it." Ranma sighed. "You tend to when you
become a magnet for cold water wherever you go."

Just then, there was a small plop in the water in front of them.
As Ranma and Suzie looked on, a Mini-Urd surfaced and started to
splash about. "Bleccchh!! Sewer water! Why couldn't you two
have picked a better spot to get trapped in?!?"

"Sensei?!" Suzie exclaimed in joy as she waded over and scooped
up her miniature teacher. "What took you guys so long?"

"Well, we were trying to figure out a way to get down here to see
if you two fell in or not." Urd said as she magically dried and
deodorized herself in Suzie's hands. "I figured I could send one
of myself down to locate you two while the rest of us figured out
how to get you out. By the way, you two seem a little cozy. I
thought Ranma was supposed to have a cat phobia."

"Hey, it's not like that!" Ranma exclaimed. "We're just getting
to know and get used to each other, that's all!"

"Oh, I'll bet." Urd winked at the pair. "Maybe I should leave
you two alone for a while longer. After all, it's still unsafe
up there with the fighting still going on...."

"Would you quit that?" Suzie protested. "Ranma and I are just
friends, and he's just getting used to me, that's all. It's bad
enough that you've gotten it into your head to match him up with
Ukyo, but don't try to match him up with me! He's got enough
woman troubles as it is!"

"Okay, okay! Just teasing!" Urd said. "Anyway, I'll see if we
can get Skuld down here in a minute and she can teleport you
through water."

After a couple of minutes of waiting and overhearing some argu-
ing, Ranma and Suzie saw a few Mini-Skulds drop through the
opening above them.

"Okay, let's get this over with." Skuld said irritably while
merging back into a full-sized version of herself. "The sooner
we get out, the sooner we're rid of this stench! It smells just
like your lab, Urd!"

"What was that?!?" Urd protested as Skuld created a portal in the
sewer water large enough to allow Ranma and Suzie through.

"Maybe I ought to leave you in here." Skuld said as Ranma and
Suzie disappeared through the portal. "After all, you seem to be
used to the smell."

"Oh no you don't!" Urd exclaimed as she bounded into the portal.
She found herself bursting out of a bucket of water that Kasumi
had set up as directed by the goddess sisters. As soon as she
was out, she rejoined her main body, which was just turning away
from the sinkhole to the bucket.

"Hmph! It was worth a try!" Skuld muttered as she emerged from
the bucket and shut the teleport spell down.

As for Ranma and Suzie, they sat near the bucket, dazed. "Geez
...remind me not to go through that again." Ranma muttered, still
a bit overwhelmed by the teleport.

"You and me both." Suzie agreed.

"You get used to it." Jun commented. Unlike Ranma and Suzie, who
just experienced their first teleport, Jun teleported with Urd
every school day and was accustomed to the strange (to humans
anyway) sensations and sights the process brought about.

"By the way," Nabiki said as she stepped up to the rescued pair,
"I'm curious about something. I noticed that Ranma hasn't
started using Cat-Fu at all, even being this close to Suzie. You
guys think that we're finally getting rid of Ranma's little
phobia?"

"Not exactly," Suzie answered, "but at least he *is* getting used
to me."

"You weren't messing around down there, were you?" Akane asked
suspiciously.

"Okay, so he's not *that* used to me." Suzie replied in slight
irritation. "Besides, he's your fiancee, not mine, so I didn't
try anything, and neither did he. You know, maybe you ought to
have a little more faith in him once in a while."

Before either Ranma or Akane could respond, they were forced to
duck as a bonbori zoomed past where they were standing and into
Cologne's beach side ramen shack. Cologne's only comment was,
"Improve your aim, great-granddaughter."

Belldandy looked at the old crone in shock. "She just smashed
your business and all you could tell her is to improve her aim?"

"A mere shack can be replaced." Cologne responded evenly.
"However, great-granddaughter must constantly improve her skills
if she is to be my heir to leadership in our village. A shack is
but a small price to pay towards that goal."

As if she read the goddess's thoughts, Cologne continued in a
quieter voice. "Interference in a duel between amazons would not
be prudent, child. Even Kami-sama understands this."

All Belldandy could do is stand there and wonder at Cologne's
cryptic comment. <How is it that this mortal knows Kami-sama?
Have they met before?>

* * * * * * * * * *

"Buffy stop ducking like scared rabbit!"

"Hey, it's not my fault your aim's lousy, you Chinese bimbo!"

The fight between the two amazons was in full swing now. While
Shampoo was a bit upset about her thrown bonbori hitting her
grandmother's ramen shack, she still had the other one in hand,
and was attempting to use it to swat Buffy into defeat.

Buffy, for her part, remained unarmed and tried to get in close
to take Shampoo out with her bare hands. This was not due to a
lack of skill with weapons (indeed, Buffy could use them quite
well), but due to pride. Buffy wanted to satisfaction of laying
a few fists on the Chinese amazon without resorting to weaponry
like Shampoo did.

Also, Buffy preferred the flexibility of unarmed combat. While
weapons gave an obvious advantage of extra reach and damage, they
also put limits on the one wielding them. Readying them for a
strike being one, and being limited to the attacks the weapon
allowed being another.

Being very well trained on her home planet of Hakane, Buffy
spotted a new weakness in her opponent that was related to the
disadvantages of weapons. Shampoo's bonbori were used best as
paired weapons, and Shampoo had thrown one of them away in an
attempt to wallop Buffy at long range.

Now Shampoo was reduced to swinging her remaining bonbori like an
oversized club. While still dangerous, Shampoo now couldn't help
but produce an occasional opening now and then whenever she took
a swing at her. All Buffy needed to do is to wait until Shampoo
gave her the right opportunity to finish this.

After fending off several swings of the bonbori, Buffy saw her
opportunity. As soon as Shampoo made a particularly vicious
swing at her, Buffy closed in while Shampoo was still twisted
around at the end of her swing. Not willing to wait the extra
second for her fists to be in reach of her target, Buffy elected
to give Shampoo a good kick, sending her flying for several feet.

"AAAAIIIIIYYYYAAAAAA!!!!!" Shampoo yelled as she sailed into a
crowd of young men. While the fight had been going on, it had
drawn a crowd that remained at a respectful distance for safety.
Naturally, since the fight involved beautiful women in skimpy
bikinis, the crowds were mainly male. Of course, there was the
occasional incident of minor violence in the crowds as a jealous
girlfriend or wife found their significant other drooling at the
two amazons.

After regaining her senses from her landing in the crowd, Shampoo
saw that the only injuries were a nosebleed on the part of a man
she had landed on, as well as a couple cases of blissful uncon-
sciousness from the men that her bonbori had smacked into.

She paid neither them nor the other men any mind as she got up
and grabbed her bonbori. Her immediate thoughts were on Buffy,
who was charging her at that moment. Remembering that game that
was popular in Japan..."baseball" was the name she recalled,
Shampoo readied her bonbori like a bat and gave a swing into
Buffy's face as she came close. Just as Shampoo took an impromp-
tu flight a few moments earlier, Buffy experienced the unfriendly
skies of Shampoo Airways and landed into another crowd of males.
Before Shampoo could follow up on that, she was besieged by
several guys trying to get her to play on whatever baseball team
they were on.

* * * * * * * * * *

"It would seem that this fight is a fairly even one, right
Tendo?"

A few male bodies flew as Shampoo broke free of the crowd and
rushed Buffy.

"Yes, it would, Saotome. Buffy is a fine student of the Tendo
School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, wouldn't you say?"

Shampoo found herself in midair again as Buffy smacked her
towards the damaged ramen shack.

"I'd say that it's more of a matter of her amazon upbringing, if
you ask me." Cologne interrupted.

Shampoo emerged from the shack holding both of her bonbori,
having recovered the one she threw earlier.

"Nobody did, you old ghoul." Ranma pointed out.

Buffy sidestepped Shampoo's charge and the Chinese amazon ran
headlong into another crowd of delighted males.

"What's the matter, Ranma? Antsy because you're sitting this
fight out?" Nabiki teased.

Shampoo knocked most of her overeager admirers out and took a
challenging stance facing Buffy.

"Yeah. Remember last time you got involved in a fight between
amazons?" Suzie added. Like Buffy, she was told about Ranma's
predicament with Shampoo the first day of school.

Buffy rushed Shampoo, barely avoiding a bonbori swing and tackled
her opponent to the sand.

"Like how was I supposed to know??" Ranma snapped back at the
two.

Buffy found herself in midair as Shampoo kicked her away.
Moments later, she landed right in Keiichi's lap.

"Don't get any ideas now, Keiichi." Urd giggled as Keiichi
struggled to get Buffy off of him while trying to keep from
touching certain areas. "You wouldn't want to get my sister
jealous..."

"It's not like that!" Keiichi spat out while Buffy regained her
wits. "She just landed on me! Honest!" He paled as Buffy's
body started to rub against his as she attempted to get up.

"I know it's not your fault, dear Keiichi." Belldandy said gently
as she reached out and gave Buffy a hand up. "We all saw what
happened."

"Besides, you're not my type anyway." Buffy commented as she
turned to face Shampoo again. As she prepared to attack again,
her trained ears picked up the sound of weapons fire nearby.
<Seems sis can't get a bead on the old fart after all.> she mused
before her ears picked up something else.

Buffy's eyes widened as she heard the telltale sound of a bazooka
round approaching their vicinity. She was quite familiar with
the sound since her sister aimed a few her way when they were
younger. Knowing she had split seconds to act, she saw the round
and where it would land with practiced ease...right at Shampoo's
feet. Remembering that humans didn't have the resiliency of
hakaneans, Buffy knew that she had to do something.

Throughout the fight, Buffy only allowed a little of her super
strength and speed to be used in order to make it fair for
Shampoo. However, the situation was different now and she poured
as much of her speed as safety would allow and tackled Shampoo
and carried her several meters away before the bazooka round
landed and exploded a split second later.

<I'm not going to let sis steal my victory away from me.> Buffy
tried to convince herself as she set a stunned Shampoo down.
Turning towards the approaching mob in pursuit of Happosai, she
decided enough was enough and slammed her clenched fist down into
the ground again.

While the sand certainly softened the impact, enough of it caused
a small seismic wave to rush out and knock the mob, with Nami in
the lead, off their collective feet.

"Enough!" Buffy shouted at them as they stirred. "You almost got
someone killed! I don't care if you are trying to send the devil
incarnate to the deepest bowels of hell or not, but you shouldn't
endanger bystanders in the process."

"Just tell me one thing, sis." Nami said irritably as she got to
her feet. "Where did the old goat go while you were having your
little fit there?"

"Right here." Buffy growled as she looked down and found Happosai
nestled between her barely-covered breasts.

"Don't mind me!" Happosai said in all innocence. "As the master
of the school of Anything Goes Martial Arts, I simply *must* make
sure that all of my students are in tip-top shape!"

"Yeah, right!" Buffy sneered in derision as she peeled the
ancient master off of her chest. "Try another line!" she added
as she slammed him into a nearby post.

To her surprise, Happosai came to instantly. "You dare do this
to your master?" he asked slowly, generating one of his auras.

"Since when were *you* my master?" Buffy spat out.

"Since you decided to train under the school of Anything Goes
Martial Arts." Happosai pointed out, "of which I am the master."

Before Buffy could answer, another female voice sounded out.
"Oh, geez! I got sand in my suit! Looks like I'm gonna have to
go over to the changing booth to get it out..."

Happosai quickly switched his attention from Buffy to the source
of the voice, who turned out to be Ranma. Ranma, for her part,
was making as if she was heading for the changing booths nearby,
with her back turned to Happosai.

In split seconds, Happosai crossed the distance between himself
and Ranma like a moth on a two-liter of Jolt cola to a flare.
While Buffy, Nami, and the others watched, Ranma took hold of the
old lecher and slammed him into the sand with the ease that comes
from constant practice.

After sharing congratulatory glances with each other, Ranma,
Genma, and Soun proceeded to stomp on the old man repeatedly.
While Nami sputtered in shock over the ease with which they
vanquished him, Buffy looked on in admiring approval. "Guess you
have to be sneaky where he's concerned!" she shouted at the trio
from where she stood.

"You just have to know how to get to him!" Ranma replied. "Come
on! Why don't you join us?"

"Don't mind if..." Buffy started to say, but trailed off as she
noticed a shadow falling on the sand from behind her. As she
turned around, she saw that Shampoo had come to and was getting
ready to strike. <Aw, hell.> Buffy swore inwardly as she realized
that there was no way she'd be able to avoid this hit.

"Shampoo have interfering alien amazon now." the Chinese girl
sneered with a satisfied look on her face.

Before she could strike, a voice cracked through the air like a
whip. "Stop, great-granddaughter!" Cologne ordered as she made
her way to the two amazons.

"Why, great-grandmother?" Shampoo asked, not once taking her eyes
off of Buffy or loosening her grip on her bonbori. "Shampoo have
her fair and square! Shampoo could remove obstacle to Ranma!"

"Because she saved your life, child. Did you not notice the
weapon that nearly killed you moments earlier?"

Shampoo paused to ponder this tidbit for a moment before looking
a short distance away, to where she last remembered she was
standing. There was a small blast crater where she used to be.
Looking intently at Buffy, Shampoo relaxed a bit and lowered her
bonbori.

"Considering the circumstances, wouldn't it be proper to call
this duel a draw?" Cologne continued. "Not only have you both
proven yourselves to be worthy opponents to each other, but now
you owe Miss Amano your life."

The two warriors regarded each other for several long moments
before dropping their combat stances entirely and bowing to each
other.

"Shampoo not give up on Ranma." Shampoo said as she came out of
the bow. "You no interfere, Amano Buffy."

"Sorry, but Ranma and Akane are friends of mine, and I'm going to
do what I can to make sure that their engagement is carried
through." Buffy replied solemnly. "Even though they may not
appreciate it." she added, looking right at Ranma and Akane, who
were now standing next to each other.

"Wait a sec. Lemme get this straight, sis." Nami interrupted as
she walked up to her younger sister. "This planet allows same-
sex marriages like on Hakane? I thought that it didn't."

Buffy looked at her sister and tried to stifle a laugh. "What's
so funny?" Nami asked.

"She no know Ranma's curse?" Shampoo asked Buffy while pointing
at Nami.

"Nope." was all Buffy answered before she leaned in towards
Shampoo to whisper, "I promised Ranma I'd keep his secret.
Besides, it's kinda fun looking at the look on sis's face, don't
you think?"

Shampoo giggled in agreement. Before Nami could ask any further,
though, a loud voice boomed, "Nami! Get over here!"

Paling, Nami turned and walked slowly to the muscular man that
was the source of the yell. "Yes, boss?" she asked meekly,
knowing full well what would happen.

"Told her she'd get busted for those weapons." Buffy commented as
she watched Nami get chewed out in the distance.

"It's the same back at NIT." Keiichi said. "She doesn't quite
grasp the concept of a weapons policy, from what we've seen
there."

"Be glad you're not related to her." Buffy quipped. "You don't
want her to be aiming her playthings your way, even if it is in
fun and games."

* * * * * * * * * *

"So, do you think Grandma and Grandpa Amano will let me crash at
their place until the school year starts?" Nami asked. After
getting chewed out and fired by the head lifeguard, Nami decided
to stick around Buffy and her friends until the end of the day.
During that time, she had been brought up to speed on Ranma's
curse, as well as the curses of Shampoo, Mousse, and Genma.
Since she was no longer a lifeguard, she had changed to a pair of
cutoffs and a red tank top.

"I think so." Buffy replied evenly. "They've gone on about you
not being there as well from time to time, so I don't think it'll
be a problem as long as you behave yourself."

"Whatever do you mean?" Nami asked, trying to feign innocence.

"Gee, who was it that brought all those weapons to the beach?"
Nabiki chided.

"Not to mention shoplifting all the time?" Keiichi added.

"Hey! I'm not stealing, Keiichi!" Nami protested. "I'm
just...borrowing until I can pay it back later! I mean, that's
how a credit card works, right?"

"Yeah, except that you don't have a credit card to begin with!"
Buffy pointed out.

"Okay, minor detail there, but I always pay the store owners
back!"

"That's true." Belldandy confirmed. "But you really should pay
them when you're buying those items, not after."

Nami, finding herself unable to argue with Belldandy, finally
relented and said to Buffy, "Okay, I'll behave myself! Happy,
sis?"

"It'll do." Buffy answered, then paused to wonder about some-
thing. "By the way," she said finally, "whatever happened to the
old pervert, anyway? I haven't seen him since you guys finally
stopped him."

"Oh, we put him someplace out of the way." Ranma replied.

"Do you think that he'll get out of there soon, Tendo?" Genma
asked.

"He'll get out of there eventually." Cologne said, not caring
that it wasn't her that Genma was talking to.

"I could still put a magic seal on that boulder you put on that
sinkhole." Jun commented.

"NO!!!!" was the answer she got from most of the group.

"She really is that bad with spells, huh?" Buffy asked.

"You better believe it." Ranma answered. She, like most of the
others in the group, had experienced Jun's clumsiness at magic in
the past.

* * * * * * * * * *

"H...h...how dare...you...treat your master...like this?" Happo-
sai slurred. It had been several hours since Ranma, Genma, and
Soun had stuck him down the same sinkhole that Ranma and Suzie
had gone down in previously. Now, he was going through withdraw-
al in the sewer, while trying to find a way out to get his
revenge on his students.

"Just...you...wait...Ranma..."



Next Episode: The Divine Summer

It's time to see how Jun spends her summer vacation with the
goddess sisters and Keiichi. How well will she react to the
various loonies that populate NIT, where she plans to go to after
graduation? More important, how well will she keep both the
secret about Joe as her parents come to visit, and the goddesses'
secret as her friends stay for a weekend? Find out in the next
Aa! Megami-sensei!


All Aa! Megamisama and Ranma 1/2 characters copyright Fujishima
Kosuke and Takahashi Rumiko, respectively. Dorllir appears
courtesy of Ryan Matthews and Larry Mann. All other characters
copyright Peter Ward, Tim Dunn, Tim Holt, "Snafu", and Ray Yeen.

E-mail all comments, suggestions, etc. to falcon@best.com.
They're always welcome...even the flames to a certain extent ^^;