Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Gold Digger Fan Fiction ❯ Golden Oportunity ❯ Chapter 15 ( Chapter 15 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Notes – Read the Golden Opportunity Side Story before Reading this chapter. I’ll be making several references to it during the course of the chapter. It will also explain why Gina’s house is being rebuilt. Lots of new stuff to be introduced in this chapter so let the fun begin.

Web Site: http://shi_hanna.tripod.com/

oooooooooo
Golden Opportunity
Chapter 15
Cory D. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(c) 2005
oooooooooo

Ranma rolled out of bed and quickly stood up. He was wearing his usual t-shirt and boxers, but this early in the morning he wasn't that concerned. Now if it was later in the day he would have been more worried. Relaxing, he walked over to his closet, quickly picked out an outfit and got dressed.

Today he was just going to wear a simple white muscle shirt and loose black pants. Instead of his soft soled shoes though, he put on a pair of simple boots that Gina had designed for him. He wasn't entirely sure how she did it, with all the other work she had going on, but the boots were quickly growing on him.

They were made of a soft material that protected his feet. He could move around in them easily, and they were water proof. Gina had explained when she gave them to him that they had been in development for some time for her sister Britanny to protect her feet when she ran.

That meant that they could take a beating, were padded along his ankles, and could survive the friction created by a running werecheetah. That and Britanny had refused to wear them the instant she saw them. Something about black boots not going with anything she owned.

Ranma didn't mind, they were perfect and his old shoes had been wearing dangerously thin. He slipped them on, stood up, and cinched his belt tight to keep his pants up. Turning he glanced at the far wall of his room and sighed as he saw that the plastic was still there.

The reconstruction of Gina's house was taking a little longer than planned. He pulled the plastic to the side and stepped out into the back yard. Well, after dropping to the ground. His room was on the second floor after all.

Half a dozen of Gina's robots were slowly rebuilding the house. What was taking so long was that Gina was making improvements to the house every step of the way. The walls were being reinforced, the spaces between floors fitted with even more high tech wiring and devices, and even better bathrooms.

Even after two weeks Ranma was still amazed that the girl's had managed to defeat that IB character. He'd had them beaten completely, but a stroke of luck on their part won them the day. Of course the aftermath had been even worse when the house blew up.

"Ranma!"

He turned to see Julia walking towards him, her red hair standing out a little more than it usually did. Then started to sense that she was holding a lot of Ki energy in her body and it was making her glow a little. No one would have noticed it except another Ki master.

"Master Julia." He said, bowing to her.

"Things are a little busier than usual around here. Have you been studying those Ki and meditation techniques lately?"

"Not to much, just those that allow me to control the Neko-ken."

She nodded. "I wanted to talk to you about our trip to Jade."

Ranma frowned a little. "That war was horrible."

"I know, but you haven't really talked to anyone about it. Even Sheila is worried about you." Julia pointed out.

"Nothing to talk about really. We won, that's all that matters." Ranma said, sounding a little confused.

"I'm not talking about that, I meant your reaction after the fight ended."

"I don't understand."

"You were depressed Ranma, you can't fight at your best when your emotions are causing distress."

"I'm over that." Ranma insisted, looking away.

"You'll have to talk about it sometime Ranma." Julia said softly.

"I just need to be a better fighter. Right now I'm not the best. I thought I was and it's been proven to me over the last few months that I just need more training."

Julia frowned. "Ranma this isn't about being the best…"

"Name one fight where I've won without someone interfering?" Ranma snapped.

"What?"

"Everyone I've fought lately has fought me to a stand still Master Julia. Rook kicked my ass for a while and Brianna's robot took him out. I had to fight Daishi several times before I could beat him and even then I nearly died. The only person I have fought and proven myself against was Ryan Tabbot and he doesn’t have much respect around here." Ranma said as he listed off his familiars. "I need to reach the next level if I'm going to be able to compete with the rest of you."

"Ranma it isn't that you win the fight, but protecting those you care about."

"You win your fights Master, all of them, easily. I can't say the same so I'm not living up to my potential or protecting the weak."

"I disagree. You protected those people from that undead monster during the war. What was its name, Jeb?"

"Sheila had to help me with him, we beat him together. Even that other girl, Hanza beat me the other day." The frustration in Ranma's voice was beginning to show.

"You are being to hard on yourself Ranma. You are one of the most talented fighters I've ever seen. Now I have a couple of moves to show you that should be incorporated into that kata I taught you last week. It will add about ten percent more power to the final attack."

As she detailed the moves, Ranma pictured them in his head to memorize them even before he performed them. They headed to the front yard where more robots were working on the some last minute details for this section of the house. Gina's underground garage was even back to normal.

oooooooooo

An alarm went off and Gina sat up with a yawn. She wasn't wearing her usual pajamas though. All her clothing was lost in the explosion, just like everyone else. So she was wearing a sheer slip that barely touched her thighs as she got out of bed.

She itched her long blond hair and wandered over to the mirror stand and grabbed her glasses. The robots were doing an excellent job putting the basics of the house back together as well as installing all the new equipment that would keep IB from ever being able to invade their system again. Even Brianna was worried about losing control of her Peebos again.

It didn’t help that one of them was still running around loose and they didn't have a clue where it was. When IB rebuilt Peebo-Brit, he'd removed everything they could use to track her. Shaking her head, Gina opened a drawer and sighed as she was reminded of the clothing situation.

She pulled a yellow and green spandex body suit out of her drawer and slipped it on. Because of IB she'd lost over forty percent of her lab and nearly all her money was going into buying up materials to rebuild the house. Even Britanny was feeling the crunch.

Hearing another alarm, she wandered over to her computer and tapped a button to turn on the wall screen monitor. A larger than life picture of Ranma walking to the closet appeared. She drooled at his body as he changed clothes, saving some pictures and sending them to Brianna's computer.

Their house guest was looking yummy today. She hoped that he stayed dressed like that, it showed off his well formed muscles. The scene continued till he walked out the hole in his wall and she made a mental note to get that fixed. It would have been if she hadn't been making some special adjustments to Ranma's room.

She fantasized about Ranma for a few seconds before she shook herself out of the daydream. After taking a few seconds to pull on a pair of socks and boots, she wandered out of her room. The giant monitor flickered off as she left the room. She was going to have to find a way to make a large amount of money in the next month or they would be bankrupt, again.

Plans, she needed to see if any of her old files survived down in the sealed vaults below the house. Shaking her head, she wandered down stairs and entered her lab.

"Hello Gina." Hurt bot 1101 said as she entered.

"1101, how go the lab repairs?"

"We are 95% done, Gina." It said, motioning towards the far side of the room. "We were able to reinforce the room where the criminal Daishi is being held. He is once again safely held and should pose no problem."

"Excellent, and what about the vault access?"

"The light gate shall be operation within six hours."

Gina nodded. After IB she redesigned nearly all her equipment just to make sure he hadn't hidden a portion of himself anywhere in her systems. Even the core was going through a complete redesign and would be finished by the end of the week. All of this was being sent to Penny as well so she could protect her own systems from further tampering.

"Thank you 1101." Gina said and walked across the room to her main computer desk and started working on an idea she had for Ranma's room. She was blushing by the time she got down with it, her glasses slightly steamed up. Now all she had to do was talk Brianna into letting her access her VR set up. The machine had taken surprisingly little damage.

She cackled suddenly.

oooooooooo

In an unknown location several cities away, PeeWee 'Lord' Talon was reading some notes as he entered his own lab. He was wearing a white lab coat and had a piece of buttered toast hanging out of his mouth as he read and walked at the same time.

Walking over to a tube leaning against the wall, he glanced at the man floating inside and checked his the readings. He made a small notation and told the computer to add in some chemicals to the water. He watched as the readings changed and nodded.

His trip to Jusenkyo had been quite interesting and informative. Just by analyzing the waters he found five new life forms that had a large portion of the scientific community buzzing with anticipation. His papers on the initial discovery had earned him several million in grants to continue his genetics research.

His mother was proud of him. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. As interesting as the new life forms were, they were single celled creatures so he wasn't that interested. Their DNA structures were already in his computer database as well.

No, he had other things he was planning. The water's of Jusenkyo could transform people at a genetic level, something he hadn't reported to the scientific community. He couldn’t recall ever finding anything like that outside of a lab. So he needed to find out how nature had pulled it off.

His newest 'bodyguard' was in the tank, being enhanced in several ways. He was optimistic for this one, although all his bodyguards seemed to lack the brains to tie their shoes. They seemed fine when he agreed to enhance them, then later on they would just lose the ability to think straight.

It was rather annoying.

Before his trip to Jusenkyo he'd located three people that might be willing to take over for his current team. They all had a grudge against his current team too, which made things even better. Of course they weren't scheduled to arrive for another couple of weeks though. He'd have to make sure the current morons were out doing something when they arrived.

He glanced up at the boy again. After three days in the tank the boy was finally starting to show signs of the chemicals being infused into his body. This usually took a couple of hours, but Ryoga was a marvel of human endurance and strength that even now resisted his changes.

PeeWee was impressed. He figured that Ryoga would have to be in the tank for another week, but by then he'd be the perfect weapon. With a little help form Jusenkyo of course. Now if only he could find a servant that had some brains. Why did the stupid ones always seek him out.


oooooooooo

Ranma moved through the kata at full speed, moving so fast that some of his moves couldn’t be seen by the naked eye. Determination filled his eyes as he moved, jumped, kicked, punched, and flowed through ever step of the kata. Off to the side Julia watched his progress.

She was slightly concerned. In the past Ranma had picked things up fast, but he never seemed to be this serious about it. She could see the Ki filling Ranma's body as he launched into the air and performed a complicated aerial spin kick. His body was covered in sweat and it made all his muscles stand out as he moved.

All of Ranma's recent defeats had really changed him. Even the close calls seemed to hold more weight than she originally thought. It didn’t help that Ranma was already showing signs of an Adept status. Every now and then he would use a move while practicing that wasn't included in the kata, but it would be a block for something she was thinking about.

His martial arts skill just continued to amaze her. She folded her arms and watched him for another twenty minutes, making him perform the kata over and over at ever increasing speeds and starting over from the beginning when he messed up even a tiny little bit. Then she lowered her arms.

"STOP!"

Ranma landed, sucking in a giant lung full of air and slowly stood. Already cooling down form the harder than normal workout. "What's next?"

"The Hiryü Shöten Ha."

"From that Amazon book we got from the library?"

Julia nodded. "I think you are about ready to learn some of those techniques. You still have those copies right?"

"No, but I memorized them. They went up with the house."

"You memorized all those books?"

Ranma nodded. "Of course, I've been thinking about them for some time. Ever since I finished my Neko-ken training."

"Good, I want you to start working on learning all three aspects of the move then. We'll start with the ability to control your emotions."

"The Soul of Ice trick?"

"Exactly."

"I've tried to do that one a few times, but haven't quite pulled it off."

"Not to worry, there's a trick to it that isn't mentioned in those books. I remember thinking about it when I read through them."

Ranma nodded.

"This is where meditation comes in handy. You need find your center, then pull your battle aura into your body and place it inside your center. This will have a dramatic effect on your Ki control once you perfect it."

"I've never heard of this one before. Even pops never mentioned anything like it while were traveling."

"He may have been keeping it a secret." Julia said, not mentioning that it was actually an adept move. "Now watch me."

A pure white aura of Ki flared around her and then seemed to flow into her body. Ranma watched in shock as Julia seemed to power up, radiating a large amount of energy as she stood there. So much that he could feel his Ki senses warning him of a serious danger. "Whoa."

Julia smirked a little. "Indeed. I usually use my Ki in this way. It amplifies everything about me. Now, once the Ki is centered and under control you need to focus on stilling your emotions, freezing them. This will make you start radiating cold energy."

As she talked the air around them started to turn colder and colder, even forming a frost on the ground.

"Now Ranma, these kinds of moves are flashy, even strong, but they also tell the enemy what you are doing. Which is why they are so rare. They’re only effective against people that have no idea what you are doing. Once that happens it's just a matter of pure skill and strength."

Ranma's eyes gleamed.

"Now you practice that for a few hours. It took me a few months to figure out how to pull my Ki in so don't be to surprised if you fail."

"I'll master every move in those books."

"I hope so." Julia said, smiling a little as she saw that Ranma wasn't brooding anymore. "Now I have some phone calls to make."

"Alright." Ranma said as she walked off. It took him a few minutes to realize that she hadn't powered down or released her Ki from her center either. He filed the thought away to so that he could think about it later.

oooooooooo

"This is quite interesting." Brianna muttered as she typed, eying her computer screen.

"What is?" Ranko asked. "And why am I in this tube anyways?"

"Well, I put you in there to make sure that IB isn't influencing you anymore." Brianna explained. “Just running a scan, we’ll be done in a few minutes.”

"And?" Ranko said, slightly irritated.

"And, these readings are amazing. When you first came here, Gina made a number of repairs to your android body, and made some very detailed scans. According to this scan, nearly every aspect of your programming has undergone some kind of enhancement."

"I don’t feel any different." Ranko said.

"Oh but you are, these readings are truly amazing." Brianna said. "They remind me of advanced AI models I've been working on for my little Peebos."

"Well let me out Brianna." Ranko said, thumping on the tube. She was just glad it wasn't filled to the brim with liquid.

"No can do. We have to make sure IB isn't hiding in your programming anymore."

"I did fight him you know."

"Yep, but he may have left a tiny bit of himself in you and we need to find it and remove it."

Ranko's eyes went dark for a split second as she performed a deep scan of her android systems. "Nothing detected."

"Of course not. We need to do a scan using an outside system, this system, now hold still. This may…pinch."

"What?!" Ranko yelled.

Brianna tapped a key on her computer and Ranko felt the scan invade her body. She arched back in shock, her mouth open and her eyes wide. At the same time Brianna started to type so fast her fingers blurred from sight. About fifteen seconds later Ranko started to relax, slowly regaining her balance as the scan finished.

"There we go, all done."

"Brianna, I'm going to give you a…pinch." Ranko growled, her eyes glowing.

"Hey, hey, calm down and let me finish this. What if IB is still inside you and one day he decides to take over?" Brianna snapped.

"He's gone! I know he is." Ranko snapped. "Let me out of this tube or I'll break it."

Now Brianna was starting to think something was wrong. Before IB showed up Ranko had been naive and a little dense. Now she was acting more human than ever before. She looked over the readings again as the computer compiled all the scan information.

"Ranko, are you aware that your neural net is function at completely new level? Or that you are acting more like a human than ever before?"

"I know my mind is functioning a lot quicker than it did before. But other than that I am unchanged." Ranko explained.

"I disagree, but I think Gina needs to take a look at you, as well as Penny. These readings are astounding." Brianna muttered to herself.

"Let. Me. Out!" Ranko yelled.

"One sec, the scan is nearly finished compiling." Brianna said as she watched the computer. She nearly started drooling, then shook her head and tapped a few buttons. "Alright, we're done."

"Now let me out!" The red headed android snapped.

"Keep your panties on." Brianna snapped back as she continued to watch the screen. Then she tapped a couple of buttons and the tube lowered into the floor.

Ranko wanted to find the nearest gun and shoot Brianna as she glared. "I'd be happy to, I if I wasn't COMPLETELY NAKED!!!"

Laughing, Brianna tossed her a robe. "Sorry, but it's hard to scan through clothing."

After pulling the robe on. Ranko walked over to the computer and leaned down to see just what Brianna was looking at. "You’re watching a video…of a sweaty Ranma? Oooh."

Reaching out, Brianna moved the mouse to turn off the real time show of Ranma's morning workout with Julia. Ranko shook her head and headed for the door. "I'm going to find some real clothes Brianna."

"Alright, I'll just make sure Ranma makes it to lunch. Maybe he’ll want to play around."

"Right." Ranko scoffed as she left the lab.

Brianna’s smile vanished the instant the android shut the door. Then she grabbed the phone and called Gina's lab. "Gina!"





"Brianna, I'm…busy at the moment." Gina said into the phone. She was breathing a bit heavier than normal. "Mmmmm…"

"Get your mind out of the gutter sis. You need to take a look at Ranko, she's completely changed. It's as if someone installed a completely new set of personality programs in her net."

"Ahhh…" Gina groaned, gasping for air slightly.


"Gina! Quit playing with yourself and listen to me!" Brianna yelled.

“Hey, I’m not playing with myself!” Gina yelled back. "I’m just distracted, now I'll take a look at her when I'm finished here. But I need to use your VR set up."

Brianna blinked. "Why?"

"For a project."

"Well it did survive the explosion, but still needs some minor repairs."

"How long?"

"Maybe a week. It's not scheduled for repair until several of the projects you programmed the robots for are finished." Brianna said, hinting that it was Gina's fault that the VR room couldn’t be used.

"Well, I might be able to speed that up. I've got to finish writing this program though." Gina said. "Plus we have so many other things to take care of."

"Like getting some decent clothing."

"I can't help it if the explosion ruined my clothing making machine." Gina growled.

"Yeah, but now we have to go out and buy some."




"Yep, but we’re low on money, so that means we have to go and explore." Gina reminded her. "I'm looking forward to it."

"Who all is going to come with us?"

"Actually, I'm going to take a trip to the place where I found Ranko. Maybe we can find out why she's acting so oddly."

"You taking Ranma?"

"Hopefully, but I haven't asked him yet."

"Well get a move on. We really need some money to pay for all this stuff." Brianna yelled. "I'll even send some Peebos along with you."

"Not to worry Bri, I was planning on bringing you and Brit along as well." Gina says. "Gotta go, Hunkma just finished his morning workout. I want to transfer this to the hard drive."

“Send me a copy!” Brianna said as she hung up.

Mornings around the house were a lot more fun these days. Something interesting, usually funny, happened whenever Ranma was around. He just seemed to create weird situations without even trying. Even Gina was a bit amazed how much trouble Ranma could get into just by sitting down to breakfast. Under no circumstances were they to ever mention the grapefruit and the spoon incident.

oooooooooo

“I gotta an interview today.” Stripe said as he stood in front of the mirror and adjusted his tie. He was wearing a brown suit, the tie was back, and a pair of shiny black shoes.

Britanny hugged him and purred. She wasn’t wearing anything at all, just a sheet wrapped around her. “I’m glad you were able to get that suit rented yesterday. I’m still a bit hesitant about this job though.”

“I know, but The Agency will be the best place for me to use my artifacts and not have to hide them constantly.”

“Even after what they pulled the other day?”

Stripe nodded. “That’s the only thing that’s worrying me. I didn’t like how they refused to listen to anything we had to say. I talked to Agent M’s director yesterday and he said that changes would be made and that they would still like me to join the team. Anyway, we need the money.”

Britanny sighed. Every penny of money that was available was going into rebuilding the house. Even the emergency fund that Gina hid in case something like this happened. She was just glad that most of the underground levels had only suffered minor damage from the explosion, but the main house had been completely obliterated in the blast. “The money would be great, plus Gina does have that law suit against The Agency.”

“I think that’s one of the things that will get discussed today when I arrive at their office.”

“You think it will cause you problems?”

“The director didn’t think so and he even hinted that they would be more than willing to settle with us.” Stripe explained as he finished tying his tie.

“That would be good, the faster we get the money the quicker things get back to normal.”

Stripe smirked a little. “Since when is it ever normal around here? What with dog aliens showing up, or giant robots, or crazed mutants stomping their way through the house.”

“Hey!”

“Gotcha.” Stripe said and patted her on the head. “I’ll be back tonight sometime. Then we can start planning that weekend trip you wanted to take to Eden. I bet Jetta would like to see you again.”

Brittany shrugged and pulled Stripe over for a hug. “Be careful Honey, I really don’t think Agent M will just drop this matter. Jetta has already said that we can visit whenever we want and says she has a house set up for us already.”

“We’ll see.” Stripe said as they kissed and she used her tail to rub his back. Then he stepped out into the hall. He was nearly plowed over by Ranma as he bounced up the stairs. “Hey Ranma.”

“Stripe, where you going?”

“I’ve been offered a job working for The Agency.”

“Those guys that nearly leveled the house on their own?”

“Yep.”

Ranma shrugged. “Good luck with that, kick that M guy’s ass if he gives you any trouble.”

Laughing, Stripe waved over his shoulder as he headed down the stairs and out the front door. Ranma watched him till he was out the door, then turned and headed back for his room. He needed to take a quick shower and change his clothes again.

It was almost ironic that of all the people in the house, he had the most clothing. He carried most of it with him in his pack so it wasn’t in the house when it went up. Of course, the girls had all ‘borrowed’ most of his clothing over the last few days.

“Ranma.” A voice sang behind him.

He turned to see Britanny standing there, in a sheet, trying to look innocent. Her hands were behind her back, her head tilted to the side, eyes wide, and swiveling back and forth with her large chest jutted out. “Uh…”

She leaned forward, giving him a better view of her cleavage. “Can I borrow some clothes.” She asked, in a little kid voice. “Pwease.”

“Ack!” Blood almost trickled out his nose.

Britanny started to laugh. “You need to mature a little Ranma.” She said with a grin. “It’s so easy to play with you.”

“No fair.” Ranma said, holding his nose and blushing.

She just grinned at him.

“I’d give you the shirt off my back, but I’m not sure that would be enough.” Ranma said.

“What?!” Britanny yelled.

Smirking, Ranma just grinned at her.

“Oh!” Brit snapped and stomped her foot.

Still grinning, Ranma stepped into his room and pulled a silk shirt and pants from his pack and tossed them to the girl. “I doubt you want to wear my boxers.”

She caught them. “Thanks Ranma! And Eeewww!”

“Heh.” Ranma laughed as Brit headed back to her bedroom. Even though she was married, it didn’t stop her from messing with people’s heads every now and then. Of course, he’d also given her his last clean shirt. Sighing, he ruled out his morning shower.

It would be a waste of time to put a dirty shirt back on. He’d just have to keep wearing the white muscle shirt. He spotted Ranko as she came up from the labs. For some reason she was wearing one of the robes that the girls kept in the labs.

“Hey Ranko, what’s up?”

She grins at him. “Hi Ranma, how did practice go?”

“Pretty good, learned a new Ki technique.”

“You going to show me?”

“Can you learn things like that?” Ranma asked.

“I’m just a copy of your female side Ranma.” Ranko said, stepping a little closer to him and letting the front of her robe open just a little, giving him a peek inside.

“Ah…” Ranma muttered, suddenly nervous.

“Hmm…I’d like to keep ‘up’ with you.” She said, leaning even closer.

Ranma started to turn red. “Well, you see…”

“You certainly are.” She said with a giggle. “Want to see more?”

Ducking, Ranma moved around Ranko and almost ran across the room. Ranko turned, smiled at him, and watched as he vanished into the kitchen. Shaking her head, she continued upstairs to see if she could find anything to wear herself.

She spotted Britanny coming downstairs wearing some of Ranma’s clothing and had to smirk. Ranma had more clothing than any of the girls in the house combined. Borrowing from him was a good idea. She turned and headed right for his room to see what he had left in his backpack.

Gina was also coming up the stairs, and decided to follow Ranma into the kitchen, when she spotted him. She ran a hand through her blond hair as she spotted Ranma opening the fridge door. “Not much in there I’m afraid.”

Ranma nodded. “Completely empty.”

“We’ll have to send out for food again tonight.” Gina muttered.

“When you going to get the house finished?”


“I think another week and all the improvements will be completed.” Gina explained. “Though right now we’re a little low on cash. So it could take quite a bit longer.”

“Oh? Anything I can do to help?”

“I’m planning on a little trip to find something to bring us some cash.” Gina explained. “Want to come?”

“Sure, all I’m doing right now is training anyway.”

“I was planning on leaving in the morning, before sunrise, that way we can spend the day exploring.”

“Who else is going?”

“Me, you, Ranko, and I think I’ll bring Cheetah along as well.”

“What about supplies?”



Gina sighed. “I think I’ll have to borrow some from Penny. I don’t like asking for help, but IB did a lot of damage. At least Penny’s house didn’t become a giant pile of smoldering kindling.”

Shrugging, Ranma closed the fridge. “It’ll work out and if we need it I’ll go get a job. Same as Stripe did this morning.”

Gina growled. “I don’t want him working for those jerks.”

“We need the money and if we can get it from the people we don’t like, so be it.” Ranma said with a shrug. “Anyway, The Agency seems to be going out of its way to make up for its mistake.”

“Then they could pay the bills for rebuilding the house.”

Ranma nodded. “True, but for now, we can still get money from them.”

“I’ve got some more research to do, so I’ll be down in my lab, I just wanted to see if you would come along.”

“Where are we going to go?”

“The same place where we got Ranko. I want to finish exploring that island inside and out. There has to be something there that we can sell for money.”

“Sounds like a plan. Will Penny be coming along too?”

“I don’t think so, but if I use her equipment I may have to give her part of what we find.” Gina explained as she covertly eyed Ranma in his muscle shirt. She had to resist the urge to reach out and touch him and reminded herself that he wasn’t even eighteen yet.

She wanted to scream in frustration. How could a teenager look like a male god of muscle and perfection?

oooooooooo


Penny Pincer was on the wall screen in Gina’s lab, sitting at her desk, using a similar wall screen to see Gina. The dark skinned girl was giving Gina a dirty look. Of course, she was wearing a simple pair of jeans and a blue sweater with the sleeves rolled up.

“So let me get this straight. You’re broke again?”

“Well, not completely. I would have had plenty of money if the house hadn’t been destroyed. I’ve sold several of my inventions as well, but those investments won’t start making any money for another couple of months. After that I can pay you back, just like last time.”


“I can’t believe you're broke again.” Penny muttered.

“I’m not broke!”

“Of course, but you need to ‘borrow’ some money and supplies to go on another treasure hunt.” Penny said, smirking a little. “So, you’re broke again.”

“Fine!” Gina snapped. “I’m broke!”

“So long as you admit it.” Penny said. “Swing by with your car, I know that still works.”

“I’ll be by early in the morning, about five or so.”

“That’s fine, I’ll set everything out that you need. Just send me a list now and I’ll get to work on it.”

“Thanks Penny.” Gina said in relief.

“Of course, I want twenty percent of whatever you find. I have repairs to make too.”

Gina sighed and Penny smirked. “I’ll even include some extra cash for clothing.”

oooooooooo

Ranma looked out the widows as Gina's flying car started to descend through the clouds. Far below, they could see the sea. At first that was all they could see, but within a few minutes Ranma spotted the island they were looking for in the distance.

Once they spotted that Ranko moved from the back seat and looked out the front window. "I don't recall ever being here."

"You never saw the outside of the island." Gina said. "You should remember the place once we get inside."

Ranko nodded and moved back to her seat. At the same time Ranma watched the android from the corner of his eye. This was the first time he had really ever worked with Ranko before. Up till now he had just let her do her own thing and tried not to think about how she was a perfect robotic copy of his female form and skills.

He was still a little creeped out by the idea, but over time he had started to think of her as a kind of long lost sister. Ranma just sat back and waited for them to land, considering his last visit to the island, and what may happen when they arrive.

Last time they hadn't had a chance to explore something so large. At the same time he wondered if he should have stayed back at the house. Gina had insisted he come along and he was a little bored, but these adventures seemed to always end up with him in some kind of fight. A fight that was a lot harder than he would have expected.

Before they Julia had told him that he needed to be careful because he was at a delicate time in his training. Ranma wasn't sure what she had meant, but had taken the advice to heart. He would have to be twice as careful as usual while they were on this mission. When it came to the Art, he was always careful to follow any instructions given.

Training with Julia had taken on a whole new level lately and was sure that it was also why she was being so careful. He still hadn't mastered the Soul of Ice technique though. It was rather frustrating. He was used to learning things quite fast and he hadn't even made any progress on this technique even after she showed him. Now he just hoped that this mission would give him time to reexamine the technique.

The flying car suddenly altered course a little bit and leveled out just above the island. Just like last time there weren't any beaches on the island, just steep rock walls that could keep nearly anyone out. Gina quickly found the old landing sight and took advantage of it.

The car's thrusters fired, sending up a wave of smoke as it landed with a gentle thump. Since the island was really too hilly to drive over, everyone exited the car and looked around. They really hadn't had time to go shopping for clothing yet either, so Ranko and Gina wearing some very revealing clothing.

Ranma just noted the skimpy shorts and a tight tops that didn't hide anything. He just shrugged it off. It just made him think of Sheila who was currently staying at the Digger's mansion a few blocks away from the house. Gina had refused to even ask her father for money.

That also reminded him of Gar, Luan, and Carla who were due to arrive from jade in a week or so. He knew Gar and wasn’t looking forward to that meeting at all. He was also one of Julia's students and she wanted him to spar with Gar. Ranma wasn't sure if Gar could keep the fight to a simple sparing match, but would wait till things got out of hand to do anything about it.

The other two were a pair of girls that Julia was going to train. They were both students of the Master Leep. Ranma didn't know a thing about the pair. He recalled Shelia telling him that Carla was known to be quite a party girl and that Luan could be quite normal.

It was an odd group, but things were looking up now that Gina was in the field again. Ranma looked around the area and spotted the cave entrance. "Are we heading right in?"

Gina shook her head. "We'll get to that in a few minutes. First I want to set up our backup plan."

"That thing that Brianna sent along?" Ranma asked.

At this Gina nodded. She moved to the back of the car and opened the trunk. She pulled out a black and silver case. Sitting it on the ground she opened it and four gold spheres the size of grape fruit rose into the air. They shifted around a little, but it was hard to say where the front and back began and ended.

"What are those?" Ranma asked.

"Brianna called them cam-bots and they're supposed to have several functions. They are intelligent just like her normal Peebos, but these have a specially designed use. They record everything around them and send that image back to the lab where Brianna is monitoring them."

"So she can see us right now?" Ranko asked, eying the spheres.

"Yep." Gina said, then started issuing orders. "You and you, go and explore the island and record everything you can."

Two of the sphere's quickly flew off into the trees and vanished. Ranma watched them for a few seconds, then tensed and turned to look up the hill, towards the cave. "Gina, I don’t think we're the only people here."

The blond explorer gave him a look. "The car's computer didn't pick up any life forms when we were coming in."

"Then they arrived after we did." Ranma suggested. "I'm sensing two life forms down near the cave entrance, but I can't get any clearer than that. It's like they're trying to hide on purpose."

Ranko bounced up and down a couple of times. "I can go and check it out…"

"Not yet." Gina said. "One of my contacts in the Explorers Society said that a couple of groups might look at this site eventually. It would be against the rules, but they would still do it for a big pay off."

"Ranko, are you sensing anything?" Ranma asked.

The android looked towards the cave they were going to enter and narrowed her eyes. "My sensors are telling me that something living is up there, but what I'm reading doesn't make any sense." She sounded confused.

"What do you mean?" Gina prompted her to continue.

"Well…I'm sensing tree pulp mixed with bleach and a few other things. What's strange is that that it's what's giving off the life sign readings. I have no idea what could be causing such an effect."

Gina looked up at the cave entrance. She was using a finger to tap her lip as she considered the information. "Wood pulp is the raw form of paper."

"Paper?" Ranma asked, looking confused.

The blond just nodded, knowing that explaining it would just confuse her sister. "Yeah, but why would you even be sensing it, Ranko?"

"I can tell that it's up there, and that it's alive in some way, but not what it is or how it got there." Ranko said and had an urge to put on a pair of glasses. She shook her head.

"Well let's check it out." Ranma said as she did a few stretches. "This sounds easy enough to me."

Gina palmed her face and sighed. "Yeah, jinx us why don't you?"

"Huh?" The Android asked, looking surprised.

Ranma, who hadn't taken his eyes off the cave frowned. "I see movement up there. A shadow is moving back and forth just inside the entrance. Maybe they can't get past that door?"

"It's quite possible. That language isn't hard to figure out, but it would take someone else a couple hours at least and that's if they know what they are doing." Gina said with a little nod as she tapped a spot on her glasses and looked up at the cave. "Heat readings are picking up one humanoid person and an entire wall of something."

"Could that be the wood pulp?" Ranko asked. She didn’t want to mention it to anyone but this island was just a little scary. Looking around a little, she gulped and moved a little closer to Ranma.

"We'll deal with it when we get up there." Gina decided as she turned to the four remaining spheres. "You two are to guard our equipment as best you can till we return or call for anything." Two of the spheres bobbed up and down and flew over to take position over the car.

"I'm going to use my glasses to help document the inside the this island. I've had my suspicions about this place for some time now. I just want to find out if what I'm thinking is true."

"And what might that be?"

Gina shrugged. "I'm not going to say right now."

"Whatever."

"Ranma, Ranko, are you two ready to go?"

Ranko nodded, bouncing around on her toes in excitement. Ranma just shrugged and wondered why Ranko was acting so oddly. "Let's get to work."

Gina pulled her Light gate remote out and tapped a button. With a bright burst of light a large box appeared beside the car. She walked over and started to pull a number of items out of the box. The three that stood out were the collapsible scooters.

Kneeling next to one of the scooters, Ranma examined it. He wasn't looking forward to riding the things. He couldn't ever remember a time in his life where he had ridden anything like them. Ranma didn't know how to drive and depended on his physical abilities to get around. Last time he had ridden the hover board with ease and could even roof hop when he needed to.

"Interesting." Was all Ranko said as she tapped the tank of the scooter.


The genius grinned. "Well the last time I was here all I had were those old hover boards. They worked fine but were a little hard to control. I figured this time, I would make sure we had a better way to move around the place. It's got never ending hallways and passages."

"And we have to explore the whole thing?" Ranko asked. "I still don't recall any of this."


"Ah, well your original memory was fried when Ranma blasted you during that first attack. I had to rebuild your memory core." Gina explained.

"I'd forgotten about that." Ranko admitted, blushing a little.

Gina gave her an odd look, but shrugged it off as she turned back to the box. "Do you want to carry the scooters down? Or shall I wait till we get down there and use the light gate again?"

Ranma glanced at Gina. "Um, Gina, I don't know how to ride one of these things."

The blond turned to look at him. "That's okay, they're easy to ride. You'll pick it up quickly enough. Especially with those long passage ways we have to use. Give it an hour and you'll have it mastered.

He shrugged. "Sounds good to me. Ranko?"

"I haven't ridden one before either, but they look easy enough." She said, eying the machines. "I'd rather run."

"Brit might have said that, but she can run beyond the speed of sound with her werecheetah abilities. Even you can't move that fast on foot." Gina said as she handed both of them a small harness. So the scooters could be carried on their backs.

Gina frowned. "I really should have just waited till we were down below before pulling these out. Ah well, I'll remember that next time."

Minutes later they lugged the packs to their backs and started making for the hole that led down into the passageways. Gina had a device out that she was using to scan the area. Behind them a small pink and blue Peebo crawled out from under the car.

It quickly followed after them, moving silently. Gina had the group use some of the trees for cover as they approached the open door. All of the displaced dirt was still in place from last time. Ranma eyed the darkened entrance warily. The door had shut on them the last they were here and they come out this way.

"Someone is here." Gina said. "They must have made their way to the elevator already."

"Do you think they are already inside?" Ranko asked.

"Yeah, whoever they are. Let's go."

"What are we going to do when we find them?" Ranma asked.

"I'm not sure yet, but right now we just need to get inside and start looking around. The Explorers Society will back up my claim if they try to take anything."

Ranma shrugged. "Let's go then."

The three of them trekked over to the door and glanced inside. Ranko's eyes narrowed as the glanced at the short hallway. "Something isn't right."

Gina glanced at her.

"The roof is alive with energy." Ranko said as she pointed to a small section in the shadows. "All the way over to the elevator."

Examining her scanner, Gina confirmed that Ranko was detecting something odd. "What about you Ranma?"

His eyes scanned the passage way for several seconds. "I think there's a false ceiling. Notice how it's rumpled in the corners?"

Ranma held his hand out and fired a quick Ki blast into the ceiling. It rippled and burst into flames. The fire raced down the hallway as the paper like ceiling quickly vanished. Seconds later, black smoke filled the hallway and slowly wafted out the open door.


Moving into the passage, Ranma continued to scan the area with his senses. Once the smoke vanished, he made his way over to the elevator panel. The front was removed and several wires were hanging down, connected to a little computer board.

"Jinkies." Gina said as she examined the entrance door. "This was forced open. The metal is all scratched up and warped. What a waste."

"How about this?" Ranma asked.

Gina examined the computer board. "Someone bypassed the electronics of the elevator to make it run. These may not be explorers, but thieves."

"Then we need to remove them." Ranma said. "Let's go find them."

"We need to be careful Ranma, we don’t know what they are capable of yet."

"Alright." He conceded.

Ranko was frowning as she looked at the damaged parts. She reached out and tapped one of the symbols on the main plate. This made Gina glance at her for a second, but then the elevator started to hum with energy. "The elevator should work again."

"How did you do that?"

Ranko shrugged. "It just seemed like the logical thing to do."

"Excellent, now we can get inside and look around."

With a whooshing sound, the doors opened. Gina nodded to herself and stepped inside. The other two followed her and minutes later the elevator descended. Ranma sniffed the air and frowned. "Can you smell that?"

"What?"

"Some kind of perfume."

Gina sniffed the air. "I rarely wear the stuff so I don't recognize it."

"Some kind of jasmine?" Ranma muttered under his breath.

Suddenly the doors to the elevator opened. Gina quickly stepped out into the nearly pitch black area. She didn't recognize the area at all. "This isn't where we were last time."

Ranma nodded. "This is different. There aren't any lights like last time. This area is nearly pitch black."

"That way, I think." Ranko sounded confused.

"What makes you say that?" Gina asked as she eyed the emptiness around them.

"I'm not sure, but I think there's a door over in that direction. I also think this would be a good time to use the scooters. From here on there is a lot of distance to cover."

Gina's eyes narrowed as she considered something. Eventually she just shrugged her pack off and sat the scooter on the floor. Ranma watched as she tapped a button on the side and the thing quickly unfolded itself. Seconds later the box with wheels was a small, light weight scooter.

It sure wasn't very impressive looking, but Ranma figured that was because Penny had designed and built them instead of Gina. The other two scooters soon unfolded themselves. Gina looked them over with a little frown on her face and sighed. "Penny always did sacrifice style for basic use."

Ranma shrugged. "How does this thing work?"

About fifteen minutes later Ranma was puttering around them in a circle, the scooter wobbling like crazy. "Speed up a little, the faster it goes, the easier it is to ride." Gina explained.

Ranko didn't seem to have any problems as she and Gina started move through the darkened area. It took a bit of doing, but Ranma quickly figured out how the thing worked and caught up with them. About five minutes later their headlights lit up the far wall and they spotted a doorway.

It just amazed Ranma how big the inside of this island could be. They all stopped and got off the scooters as Gina pulled out her scanning device again. Her glasses gleamed a little as she studied the device. "I'm not entirely positive, but I think we're on the lowest level. Some kind of storage room for large equipment. Ranko, we need to find any treasure vaults or anything like that."


The Android tilted it's head to the side. "I'm not sure there are any."

"You've been guiding us a little since we arrived. I thought you might have some idea where the vaults would be."

"No really." Ranko shrugged. "All I'm detecting is more of that living paper energy."

"You're still sensing that?"

"Yes, but it's beside the door there." Ranko said as she pointed at the wall.

Ranma moved over to the door and spotted a little white piece of paper stuck to the wall beside it. Seconds later Gina was examining the paper with her scanner and she nodded. "I thought so."

"You recognize it?"

"Yeah, but I've never met the person that uses this stuff. She's listed on the Japanese roster of Metahumans."

"A girl?" Ranma asked. "What exactly does she do?"

"She can make paper do anything she wants it too. She seems to have some kind of Psychic connection to paper."

"What's her name?"

"I don't remember. I'm actually surprised I remember this much about a person I read about some years ago."

Ranma just nodded.

Gina tapped a plate next to the door and it slid open. They entered the hallway on the other side. This was as dark as the other room, but Ranko touched a nearby panel and the area lit up. Looked up as the light flickered on. "These are running on emergency power."

"They aren't as bright as before." Gina observed. "Will these follow us like last time?"

"I assume so." Ranko said. Her voice sounded distant.

"Well let's start looking around, I want to really explore this place and we have enough supplies now."

"What about that security system?"

"No problem there, I figured out a way to bypass that. The computer systems here aren't reading us as enemies anymore." Gina explained.

"Check it out, more paper." Ranma said as he spotted slips of paper on the wall every fifty feet or so.

"A trail, so they can find their way back."

"Want me to remove them?"

"Leave them for now." Gina said as she scanned a couple of them.

"Now what?" Ranma asked.

After mounting the scooters, they spent over an hour racing down the hallway. As before it was nearly endless, but every fifty feet there was a small slip of paper attached to the wall. Then they rounded yet another wide turn and had to skid to a stop. Ranma nearly wrecked, but managed to keep control by dragging his feet on the floor.

There in front of them was a large door. Gina jumped off her scooter and started to examine the door. Scanning as much of it as she could with her hand held computer. "You aren't going to believe this, this whole door is made out of paper!"

"Isn't the door part of this place?"

"No, it's just been made that way." Gina said excitedly.


"Want me to blast it like did that one at the entrance?" Ranma asked.

"No, the fire and smoke would fill up the hallway and make it hard to breath."

Ranma, who was already about to blast it, quickly lowered his hands. "Then what?"

"Try to tear it down with your hands."

Reaching out, Ranma touched the door with his hands. It even felt like cold metal. He gave a Ki enhanced shove, but the door didn't move and inch. He scanned it with his senses. "I think it's anchored to the walls somehow."

Gina scanned the door for several minutes before nodding. "Yep there are almost a dozen anchor points. I think its only about a half inch thick though."

“It also means that they are aware that we are following them.” Ranma pointed out. “Up till now I wasn’t sure because of those trail markers.”

Gina nodded. “We’ll just have to be careful and see if they’re hostile or not. Perhaps I should have brought Cheetah with us.”

“I can handle anyone we come across.” Ranma said.


He moved over to the door and his aura lit up for a brief second. His foot slammed into the wall of paper. The impact sent a shiver through the stuff, and then with a loud groan the whole thing fell to pieces. Filling the whole area with loose sheets of paper as it collapsed.

Gina, hiding behind her scooter, peaked over the side and nodded. "That should do it. Thanks Ranma."

"No problem." Ranma smirked.

Then Ranko walked over and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you, that was great." She whispered in his ear.

Ranma froze.

"No time for that Ranko, we need to keep going." Gina said with a huff. Though there was also a calculating gleam in her eye as she watched the two.

"Sure." Ranko said, smiling brightly as she let her fingers trail across Ranma’s shoulders. Then the two girls hopped on their scooters and raced off. Ranko’s giggling trailed off into the distance.

It took Ranma several seconds to recover before he raced off after them. He grumbled under his breath about never understanding girls. One minute they were cold as ice and next they wanted something from him. It was aggravating him to no end. It only took a few minutes for him to spot the girls in the distance and catch up.

“Hey, Gina, is that a door?” Ranma called out and pointed down the hallway.

There in the distance was indeed a door and right next to it was a little slip of paper attached to the wall. They all came to a stop and dismounted the scooters. Gina took a second to record the location in the small map the computer was building. “The computer says we’ve risen about ten feet from when we entered this hallway.”

“We’re getting higher?” Ranma asked. “The floor must be slopped, but not enough to really notice.”

“So that large area won’t be on the other side of that door?” Ranko asked.

“No, I think this might be what I’ve been looking for since we arrived.” Gina explained. “A way to learn more about this place.”

An odd look crossed Ranko’s face for a second, but the only one to notice was Ranma. Then Ranko strutted back to her scooter, dug something out of a bag, and came back with a rather large hand gun strapped to her leg. “Girl’s gotta have some protection.” She said with a Brianna like grin.

“You alright Ranko?” Gina asked.

“Perfectly fine, lets find some targets. My finger is getting itchy.”


Ranma backed off a couple of steps.

Gina continued to watch Ranko for several seconds, then she shrugged, and opened the door. Several things jumped to her attention at once. The first was that the room was some kind of computer bay of some kind, with terminals running all the walls for nearly fifty feet. Then she noticed a pair of girl’s examining the terminals.

It was hard to determine the ages of the girls, but Gina noticed a red haired woman with a sword on her back, wearing a simple kimono. The other one seemed to be in her early twenties, with black hair, glasses, and a book in her hand. Next to her was a little pull suitcase. Inside the open case Gina could see a pile of paper.

“Come in Gina Diggers.” The younger one said and smiled at them.

Gina thought she looked slightly flushed, but dismissed it. Getting to this point on foot must have tired both the girls out in some way. “You know who I am?”

“I just got done talking to a friend of mine. He recognized you.” She said. “I’m Yomiko and this is Nodoka.”

“I’ve got a permit to explore this place.” Gina said, pulling out a slip of paper.

“We know, but that isn’t why we’re here.”

Ranma and Ranko stepped into the room and took up their places beside Gina as the two talked. He quickly noted that the red headed woman, in her late thirties at least, altered the way she was standing as they came through the door. She seemed to be Yomiko’s body guard or partner. Ranma easily recognized the kendo stance the woman was using.

He studied her for a second with his magic and noticed that she seemed to have an normal aura, so she wasn’t powered in anyway. The bundle on her back seemed to be a different story. It actually had an aura of black and silver fire swirling around. Ranma could even detect a link between the woman and the sword, a strong one.

The younger girl has a blazing aura that seemed to fill her eyes. Everything about her seemed to blaze with living energy, her hair, glasses, dress, and even the coat. He stared at the girl for several seconds, stunned by the aura swirling around her. She didn’t appear to notice, but Ranma saw her blush a little as the older woman leaned over and said something to her.

“Then why are you here Yomiko?” Gina asked.

“To find any lost books that may be around and bring them back.” Yomiko breathed, looking awed.

Ranma was positive she was blushing this time and she wasn’t even looking at anyone. He also noticed that the red headed woman beside her seemed to roll her eyes a little. “Your initial report the explorers society make it’s way along the usual channels and were sent to find any missing or lost scraps of knowledge.” Nodoka explained.

“As far as I’m aware, this while island is abandoned and only has a few functional computers. I’ve never seen anything even resembling a book or scroll.” Gina said.

“We are also supposed to get copies of the computer banks.” Nodoka said, holding up a small disc. “Once that’s done…”

“No!” Gina yelled. “I discovered this island and what’s in it, the rules say that I have first dibs on everything. I won’t allow you to just run around take anything you want.”

“We’re just here for copies of the banks, Miss Diggers.”

“No, and a gain NO.” Gina growled. “There are dangerous things in the bank of this place and I won’t let that information fall into the hands of people that will abuse that knowledge. It’s bad enough groups like Peewee and his moron brigade run around stealing everyone’s DNA to play with. Now people are developing tech that’s to dangerous for them to handle. I’ll give over what information won’t cause needless suffering!”

“We can’t allow that.” A flinty eyed Nodoka snapped.

“I can.” Gina snapped back. “I’m here to explore this whole island and document everything and I can’t do that when someone else is stealing information from the computers!”

“Now, now Nodoka, there’s no reason to pick a fight. We’ll get the information and just leave.” Yomiko suggested.

“After I document everything, then I’ll give you limited access to the computers.” Gina said.

“No deal, we’ll make copies of everything.” Nodoka growled and reached up to grab a string around the bundle on her back. The covering came off to reveal the hilt of a large katana. “Even if we have to take you out to get it.”

“Nodoka, calm down. We can get it later…”

“No, they are insulting our organization and won’t ever give us what we came here for.”

“I can get Joker to take care of it, this mission isn’t about fighting.” Yomiko insisted.

“Too bad, they’ve insulted me as well.” Nodoka snapped.

Ranma studied her as she ranted and realized that the blade on her back was influencing her decisions. He wasn’t sure just how, but the sword was giving off an intimidating aura. Yomiko seemed to want to wait, but Nodoka wouldn’t listen. “Gina, the sword is magical in some way. It’s affecting her mind.”


“Are you sure?” Gina asked, looking worried.

“She won’t get far.” Ranko said, pulling her weapon out.

“Just give us the information and we’ll leave.” Yomiko said, trying to restrain Nodoka.

“No, that information is mine. I won’t let you have it.” Gina said.

“See, just like I told you.” Nodoka spoke up.

Yomiko sighed and stepped back. “We don’t have to fight.”

“I disagree.” The red haired woman said, pulling her sword from its sheath. The blade hummed as she brought it around and took up an attack stance.

Ranma and Ranko both prepared to fight while Gina gulped and backed off. Silver fire sprang up around Nodoka’s blade, a tiny bit dropping to the floor, and sizzling. Ranma wasn’t sure what he was dealing with now. His senses were going crazy as he studied the blade. He could tell from the look in Nodoka’s eyes that she was confident she would win any fight with the blade.

He brought his hands up and formed a small fireball. “Back off, or else.” He bluffed. She was rude, but he still didn’t want to hurt the woman.

Nodoka sneered a little, completely confident in winning any battle. “A fire ball isn’t going to win this fight boy.”

“Um, Ranma, could you not destroy this room. We do need the computers here.”

“I won’t, but I doubt she will cooperate in any way.” Ranma indicated Nodoka. “That blade is fueling her blood lust.”

“I control this blade boy, not the other way around.”

“You might believe that, but I can see differently.” Ranma said, his eyes glowing slightly. This only seemed to make the woman smirk a little more though.

“I always like playing with magic users. Their screams of shock as they are defeated by my blade always make me smile.”

“Ranko, keep glasses here from interfering.” Ranma said, focusing on what he considered the major threat. He knew that Yomiko held quite a bit of power, but this sword was proving to be even more dangerous.

“No problem.” Ranko said and pointed her gun at the girl.

“Hey, put that thing away.” She said, pulling several sheets of paper from her coat. “I don’t want to fight, but I will if you force me…”

Nodoka growled and jumped forward. She slashed at Ranma, who just jumped back and slapped the blade away. With a bright spark of silver fire, Ranma cried out in pain. His whole hand was bright red, as if he just burned it. Nodoka laughed and spun the blade around a few times. “A magic user can never touch this sword.”


“You aren’t a very skilled weapon user are you?” Ranma asked, shaking his hand. It was slightly numb. “Pops was a better weapon user than you and he hates blades.”

Jumping forward, Nodoka attacked in earnest. Filling the air with bits of silver fire as she tried to take Ranma down permanently. “Give up!”

Ranma smirked as his body blurred, leaving Nodoka to slash up his after images. Seconds later Ranma bounced off her head, flipped over her, and landed behind her. He easily avoided her back thrust and tapped the side of her head.

Since he was focused on the swords movements, he didn’t see the odd gleam that appeared in her eye as they fought. Though he did noticed the odd smile she started to sport seconds later as she launched into another attack. This one was a little different than the first one. Then the blade suddenly slashed the side of his leg and Ranma cried out in agony.

“What the hell?!”

“A magic user and a martial artist.” Nodoka said, grinning widely. “Of the Saotome school?”

Ranma’s head widened in shock as he gazed at the woman. “I’m Ranma Saotome, of the Saotome school of Martial Arts and how do you know of it?”

Nodoka just grinned. “I’ll tell you some other time. Now show me what you can really do and stop holding back.”

Growling, Ranma rushed forward, met and deflected the sword off his bracer with a shower of silver fire. At the same time she used her leg to grasp his punching arm and throw him off balance, tossing him to the side. He had to twist to keep from being sliced by the sword. She laughed as he came back to his feet and Ranma brought his hands up and fired a fire ball at her.

He started to worry the instant he saw her bring the sword around and slice through the fire ball and the whole thing exploded into silver fire. Seconds later Nodoka stood there panting for air, her hair slightly mussed as the silver fire swirled around her. “Gotta do better than that!”

She brought sword around and sent a wave of silver fire at him. Ranma gasped and dove for cover and let the wave of fire fly by and realized that the sword absorbed magic and turned the energy into a weapon. He frowned as she slowly came to his feet and recalled something that Dr. Diggers had told him.

Magic is a tool and must be used wisely, or it’s a useless tool. Across the room Ranko, still acting like Brianna, brought her gun to bare and fire. Yomiko whipped the paper around and blocked the High velocity bullet. The sheet of paper just rippled a little and the spent slug fell and bounced off her foot.

“That wasn’t very nice.” Yomiko said, her glasses gleaming.

“Your friend is trying to injure my brother.”

“He won’t be hurt too badly. Just give us the information and we’ll leave.”

“Not my decision.” Ranko said. She fired off several more shots, aiming for non lethal areas, but Yomiko just blocked them all by creating a shield of overlapping paper. Even as Ranko stopped firing the shield was falling apart.

With a quick step, Yomiko was in front of her and lashed out with a stream of paper that sliced the gun into pieces. Ranko could only gape as the pieces fell to the floor and joined the bullets. She re-evaluated the threat level the girl presented. Grinning she dropped the useless grip to the floor and pretended to crack her knuckles.

“Then let’s play this a different way.” Ranko threatened.

Yomiko just pulled out a deck of cards. “I guess we’ll have to play.”

Suddenly Ranma backed into Ranko, just as Yomiko sent the paper cards flying out in a long chain. They whipped around, slammed into the floor, and cut through the metal in the blink of an eye. Ranma and Ranko yelled out as they suddenly fell through the floor. They tried to jump for the edge of the opening, but just missed it.

The fall was only about twenty feet and they landed with ease and looked up at the hole to see Yomiko and Nodoka look down at them. They waved and moved away from the hole. Yomiko looked at Gina and smiled a little. “That wasn’t so hard.”

“I expected better from him.” Nodoka said, disappointed in Ranma’s performance. Though she did admit that he seemed to have lasted longer than some of her other fights. For a moment she thought of Genma, then put it out of her mind. She turned back to Gina. “Now, that information.”

“Indeed, the spoils of war.” Yomiko said. She picked her book up from where she dropped it earlier and dusted it off. “There, there, I’ll have cleaned up in a moment.”

Gina was about to respond when the floor started to shake. Nodoka and Yomiko glanced around nervously. Then the hole in the floor flared with light just as Ranma and Ranko levitated back into the room looking angry. Ranma flicked his wrist just a little and the two of them landed at the edge of the hole. The sword in Nodoka’s hand started to flicker back to life, dripping silver fire on the floor.


“Don’t you two know when to give up?” Nodoka snapped. Her voice sounded angry, but her eyes showed something else.

Ranma didn’t say anything as he brought his hands forward and fire three quick Ki blasts at Nodoka. Instead of hitting her two of them made a quick turn in mid air and slammed into the floor on either side of her. The third one went right for her chest and she brought her sword around as she tried to keep her feet among the blasts.

The third Ki blast seemed to fade out even as the sword would have hit and she stumbled back. Ranma was there in a second, pressing his finger into several spots on her chest and neck. The red haired woman sighed as she collapsed to the floor asleep and dropped the sword. Ranma then turned to Ranko. “Ranko, please shove the sword into the floor blade first.”

The android nodded, quickly picking up the sword and ramming it into the floor until only about an inch of the blade was still showing. “How’s that?”

“Perfect.” Ranma said as he checked Nodoka’s vitals. “Now, let’s take care of the other one.”

Yomiko couldn’t believe Nodoka had been taken down so fast. “How??”

“I was holding back against her because she was using that sword. I didn’t want to hurt her that badly.” Ranma said as he stalked towards the girl.

“But…”

“Now I believe its time for you to leave.” Ranma said, glaring at the girl. “Gina, are you alright?”

“Yeah, they didn’t hurt me.”

“Good.”

Yomiko glanced at the three of them and tried to think of way to continue her mission. It was a well known fact, now that The Agency knew that Ranko was an android, that this place held the information needed to build fully functional robots.

Her boss, Joker, told her to get the information at all costs. With it they could use the knowledge to create disposable soldiers. There were only a few people around that could build robots like Gina Diggers did. Very few of them would ever give up that knowledge.

She needed that information. Though she was disappointed that it didn’t come in a nice, easy to read, book format.

The three of them were looking at her now, so Yomiko stood up, adjusted her clothes, and glanced down at the floor where her cards were scattered around.

They moved around and quickly formed underneath Nodoka’s unconscious body and lifted her off the floor. “I’ll be going then.”

“Don’t come back.” Ranko said from behind Ranma.

“Alright.” Yomiko meekly said as she turned and headed back for the door. As she took a step, paper from her suitcase started to fly out. She raised her arm and waved it at the three of them. The room filled with pieces of paper flying about like snow in a blizzard.

Ranma rushed forward, only to be pushed back by a large wall of paper. At the same time Ranko pressed against it, but the wall still pushed her back, even scraping her shoes across the floor. After nearly a minute of straining against the wall, it shuddered to a stop just a few feet from the terminals.

No matter how much he strained and flexed his muscles, the wall wouldn't budge. Then the wall slowly started to fall apart from the edges in, scattering paper across the room, even down the hole in the floor. Ranma and Ranko fell to the floor when the wall gave out.

Glancing around, they came to their feet and ran over to the door. There was no sign of Yomiko or Nodoka as they looked down the hall. They heard several curse words and turned to see Gina stuck between a couple of terminals, squashed between them with only an arm and leg wiggling around.

"Help!"


Gaping for a second, Ranma had to keep from laughing for several seconds before he went over and helped Gina out. She glared at him for several seconds before stomping over to her scooter and got her scanner. She spent a few minutes adjusting it, occasionally glaring at Ranma, then going back to the scanner.

As she moved across the room Ranma couldn’t help but notice the way Gina’s hips rocked up and down as she moved. It just drew his eye like a magnet. In some ways he was reminded of what happened between him and Brianna in the VR room. He was sensing the same kind of feelings from Gina as he did Brianna when she was frustrated with him.

Ranko, noticing where Ranma was looking, gave Gina a withering look. She didn’t do anything about it since she was planning something herself. There were several ideas racing around her mind at that moment and all of them included a night of passion and waking up in Ranma's arms the following morning. She spaced out for several minutes fantasizing about Ranma.

Meanwhile, Ranma hadn't really noticed Ranko, he just sat back and watched as Gina moved around the room in her skimpy outfit that stretched over her curves and left nothing to the imagination.

Then Gina stopped, and turned around to look towards Ranma as if she had sensed him looking. Grinning, she ran back over to her scooter and started tossing supplies around until she pulled out a small white box. She held it in the air for several seconds.

“Ranma!” She yelled, stuffing something from the box in her pocket before he could see it. "Get over here."

“Wha?”

Gina pointed at his slightly bleeding leg. “Let me clean that up. I’m a fully trained doctor after all.”

Ranma glanced at his wound and shrugged. "It's not that bad."

"It could get infected in this environment." She explained as she reached for his leg.

Seconds later Gina ripped the leg of his pants right up the side to reveal the small cut. She cooed at him and started to clean up the wound. Her fingers seemed to go everywhere though and Ranma wondered why she was feeling his butt and blushing.

Ranma looked confused. "Hey, Brianna did something like that…"

“Gina!” Ranko yelled.

“I’m cleaning his wound.”

“You’re feeling him up!”

Gina huffed, but pulled her hand out of his boxers much to Ranma’s relief. Now she was really starting to remind him of Brianna. She was getting a little too friendly. Then she tapped a bandage over the wound and gave it a good field dressing. “We can fix that up once we get home. I think I can get the rejuvenator working again.”

Ranma checked the bandage. “Good job, I should be able to heal that in just a couple of days.”

Gina beamed at him. Of course she was kneeling on the floor right in front of him, gazing up at him with wide innocent eyes, but Gina could be as bad as Brianna at times. “I’ll change the bandage here in about four hours.” She said in a husky voice.

“Huh?”

“We can’t let it get infected can we? No, so I’ll change the bandage for you.” Her eyes were glittering.

“Uh, right.”

She stood up and hugged his head to her chest. “You were so brave!”

“Ack!”

“Gina!” Ranko yelled. "Don't make me get that 'Gina' prod Britanny used to carry around.

Gina could only gape at Ranko and back away from Ranma by several steps.


oooooooooo

Theodore Diggers was floating at the center of a pentagram. The lines of the pentagram glowed brightly, sending light rising into the air around Theo's body. Highlighting his black mage suit. His aura flowed around him like a miniature hurricane, his hands held before him as he chanted.

Magic swirled around the room. Off to the side Julia Diggers and Sheila were keeping guard to make sure that Theo wasn't interrupted. If he was it could mean his instant death. He was tapping into the very same energies that his own father had touched so long ago when he became the Lich King.

Two of Johnathon Digger's scrolls floated off to each side of the pentagram. Magic hummed and thrummed throughout the room. Theo yelled out a word and the magic came to a stop and started to build up power. He yelled out a second word and magic rippled form him, nearly vaporizing the back wall, but the pentagram wasn't even touched.

The girl's hair was flying around them as they struggled to stay in place. Sheila shifted to her human form, doubling in size and height. Muscles bulged on her arms as she knelt down and ignored the wind. At the same time Julia stepped beside the girl and used her as a wind break.

Theo yelled out a third word and the low thrumming became a loud buzz that filled the mansion. From there Theo slowly wove his aura magic around him with hand gestures, forming a funnel inside the pentagram.

"How much longer, Mrs. Diggers?" Sheila yelled.

"About five minutes, he's not even at the halfway point." Julia yelled back.

Sheila stared into the maelstrom of magic and spotted the small living puzzle piece that was Raphiel. "Why aren't we doing the same thing as last time?"

"Because Array isn't available this time." Julia explained. "She's been imprisoned here on earth."

"What about Gina doing something with her technology?" Sheila suggested and cringed a little.

"Gina's house just blew up, she couldn't help right now."

Sheila nodded as she saw Theo wave his other hand and the puzzle piece rose up into the air and developed it's own aura. Then Theo's eyes blazed to life and his mage suit rose up and covered him from head to toe. Giving him the appearance of a humanoid shadow.

The puzzle piece started to expand, changing shape as the seconds went by. Theo held forth a small beaker full of blood and poured it on the piece. Instead of dripping to the floor, the blood was absorbed. The small aura expanded even more and a small humanoid shape appeared.

Yelling a fourth word, all the magic in the room converged on the growing shape and appeared to enter it. Julia suddenly sensed something and whipped her sword out just as something appeared in the corner of the room. It stepped forward to reveal a rather sexy female vampire.

"Queen Natasha." Julia said, recognizing voluptuous black haired beauty before her.

The nearly naked vampire stared at the scene before her with glee. "Dabbling in Necromancy, Dr. Diggers? You bad, bad, boy."

"Stay out of this Natasha." Julia said, stepping between them.

"I'm the Queen of the Undead, Julia, this falls under the sway of my job." Natasha explained. "Especially since dear old Grandpa is my servant. It seems the son didn't fall as far from the tree as dear old grandpa Diggers." She said with a fanged grin and licked her pure white teeth.

"Raphiel was never part of your domain Natasha. He's…"

"He was granted true life when Array gave him life. Once your husband succeeds Raphiel will be mine to play with. Once he lost what Array gave him, he died. Just because his soul piece still has some life doesn't mean squat."

"You can't have him!" Sheila yelled. "Raphiel is my friend and he isn't going anywhere!"

"Be quiet little girl. Let your betters talk while you stand around and BE Quiet!" Natasha snarled.

Sheila stumbled back a couple of steps and suddenly changed into her smaller werejaguar form. She found that she couldn't say anything even when she tried, no sound would come from her mouth. Growling, she flicked her wrist and Ice Fang appeared in her hand.

Queen Natasha just threw her head back and laughed, making bits of her jiggle around. "Ooooh, I'm so scared!"

"Natasha, leave before I make you."

The dark haired vampire's head snapped around to glare at Julia. "I'm not that weak willed buffoon you fought a couple years ago. I'm the Queen of the Undead now and I have more power than you in my fingernail. Now get out of my way, the rite is nearly finished."

"No." Julia growled.

Natasha's eyes lit up with power as she hissed at Julia. "So be it then, I wasn't going to hurt any of you. Just take what belongs to me, but if you insist on a fight. Deadians, come!"

"OOOOOh! I love that word!" A perverted voice yelled out and a skeleton slouched out of a nearby shadow, followed by twenty others. They all turned to look at Julia and Sheila. "WhoooEeee, this be the best part of this job. The good looking babes!"

Sheila sighed. "Great, the perverted skeletons."

One of them held up a rather large, though beat up, dildo. "Who's first?!"

"Hiya Queeny."

"Do what you want with these two girls, they're yours. Just keep them out of my hair."

"Your rear? It's mighty fine!" One spoke up and suddenly exploded into pieces. Natasha lowered her hand and growled a little.

"Now get to work!"

"YES MA'AM!" They yelled and saluted like deranged Nazis. The beat up dildo was an interesting counter point though, since it was now switched on.

Julia and Sheila shuddered. They could remember when Britanny and Gina encountered these things.

“Bring on the chicks!”

“These old bones need some luvin!”

“Buzzz!”

“Look at the hooters on that one! Yow!”

Sheila sighed. “I see Britanny wasn’t exaggerating.”

A skeleton turned its nose up at Sheila. “This one has no talent at all.”

“It’s a crime when pre-teens are exposed to such naughtiness.” Another one said, looking around behind her. “No breasts at all, though she does have a nice rear view.

Shiela growled.

“And this other one, she’s got a fine, FINE set of knockers, but she’s old! I’m insulted!”

“Knockers!”

With a curse, Julia lashed out with her sword and two of the skeletons exploded into powder. The others took this as an excellent chance to attack and swarmed around her. Sheila cried out and sent a wave of ice into the pack of undead perverts, entombing them in walls of ice.

The rest, still commenting on their breasts, weaved and dodged between both women, every now and then they would rip a bit of clothing off. Then things got worse as they started to rise up out of the very shadows on the floor. With the girl’s occupied, Natasha sauntered over to Theo and smiled at him.

A very large amount of magic flowed around him, slowly entwining into the mass of flesh between his hands that was rapidly shaping itself into a humanoid form. Natasha knelt down before him, proving that she didn’t believe in underwear, and flashed him a smile.

“Soon Diggers.”

“Sheila, jump back, now!” Julia yelled as she tossed a skeleton across the room.

Sheila jumped to the side just as blast of energy filled the room. Three seconds later all the Deadians were just gone. She looked around and was surprised to find that all traces of the undead things missing. There wasn’t even any dust on the floor.

The armsmaster casually sheathed her sword and glanced over at Natasha, who glared back. “Natasha, I told you to leave. Or else.”

“I am Queen Natasha! I will not stand for this kind of insult!” The vampire queen yelled.

“You’re asking for such a Kapowie!” Sheila growled back.

With a curse, Natasha sighed dramatically and vanished in a burst of black fire. As soon as she was gone, Julia made her way back over to where Theo was just finishing his spell. The room filled with light seconds later.

As the light died down Sheila saw that a body was on the floor. She moved over and looked down to see a human looking Raphiel. As with most lycanthropes, his human form was quite a bit smaller than his hybrid form. She blushed a little as Julia handed her a blanket to cover his naked body.

Theo was completely exhausted and just sat on the floor gasping for. “I’m not doing that again any time soon.”

“You did a great job, honey.” Julia told him.

“I’m just glad I could do something to help the boy.”

“He’s had a rough life. Were you able to do everything you wanted?”

Theo nodded. “That blood sample I obtained from Britanny worked perfectly. Raphiel should be a pure werecheetah now.”

“Natasha showed up.”

“She’s a little hard to miss.” Theo smirked.

Julia slapped the top of his head. “I had to kill nearly two dozen of those skeletons.”

“Blasted things are just distractions usually. What did she do while she was here?”

“Nothing.” Julia said after a few seconds of thought. “She just demanded that we turn Raphiel over to her once you were done. For some reason she believed that Raphiel belonged to her now that that you were resurrecting him.”

“She just may have a claim, though I disagree with what she might want him for. She’s very used to getting her way. Was Vlad with her?”

“No.”

“I’ll have to think about it. Raphiel is kind of immortal, so I’m not sure what she would want him for. For now let’s not worry about it and get Raphiel to a bed. He’ll need to sleep for several hours at least. I don’t expect him to wake up till tomorrow sometime.”

Theo climbed to his feet and followed the girls as they transported the resurrected werecheetah to the closest bedroom. As soon as the door closed, Natasha reappeared in the center of the room. She wandered over to the cabinets on the far side of the room and glanced inside one filled with scrolls.

She ran her finger down the each one to read the name until she came to one entitled Nemesis Flare. Grinning, she cast a couple of runes on the whole cabinet and pulled the scroll out. Once out, she made a quick copy of it and replaced it.

With another burst of black fire, she vanished from the house completely. Even Dr. Diggers would have been surprised to find out how she got past his security wards, but he wouldn’t find out about it for a long time to come. Once she was back in the Undead Realm, she headed for her office and sat down to read the spell that had created her most irritating servant. Johnathon ‘Lich King’ Diggers, the former ruler of the Undead Realm.

oooooooooo

Beep! Beep! Beeeeep! Beep!

Gina’s eyes snapped open and she sat up in her sleeping bag. She crawled out, wearing almost nothing, and walked over to the terminal. Her computer had finally cracked the code and was accessing the computer banks. She tapped a couple of buttons and retrieved a small device from the scooter.

The device was one of her computer designs. It looked like a miniature server tower that sat on the floor. She quickly plugged it in to the back of the scanner. A screen informed her that the new hardware was ready for use and she started downloading the banks.

A little gage popped up on the screen and informed her that it would take three hours to get it all transferred. She sighed at the amount of time required, but figured it would be worth the time. Catching movement out of the corner of her eye, she sauntered back to her sleeping bag, sat down, and stretched.

A few yards away, Ranma moved deeper into his sleeping bag and tried not to look at the nearly naked girl just a few feet away. He was a bit confused and couldn’t figure out why he was looking at her like that either.

It didn’t help that Ranko, who had her own sleeping bag near Gina, was also doing the same thing Gina was. Although she was taking being nearly naked to completely new levels since her programing still included Ranma’s complete lack of modesty.

For a few seconds he considered turning into a girl to get them to stop. A little voice in his mind told him to go and jump in a lake if he even continued to think like that. So he just admired the view of a half naked pervert scientist as she moved around. It didn’t help that Ranko, who was topless, was copying Gina.

She was even wearing glasses.

Ranma sighed and wondered where she managed to get them. Then could only goggle as Ranko’s top started to jiggle all around. Gina looked up in panic and grabbed her own wobbling chest. It was only then that Ranma noticed that something was wrong.

The whole room was shaking around and the girl’s suddenly moved under the cover of the sleeping bags. “It’s an earthquake!” Gina yelled. “Holy Moley!”

“Jinkies!” Ranko yelled from her own bag. They both emerged fully clothed in their outfits from the day before, much to Ranma’s relief.

He jumped to his feet an instant later in case he was needed to protect the girls. They glanced in his direction and Gina wondered how long he’d been awake and how much he’d seen of her little show. He was so fun to tease.

“Ranma, start gathering up the loose supplies. We need to be out of this room as quickly as we can.” Gina said, as the quake, which was like one long continuous shaking, slowly intensified.
Ranma nodded and started to quickly roll up sleeping bags, collect any loose clothing, and pack away everything on the scooters. At the same time Gina and Ranko ran over to the computer and tried to reduce any damage it might take from the quake.

“I need to leave this hooked up for a few more hours.” Gina muttered. “Or all that information will be lost.”

“Any idea what’s causing the quake?” Ranma asked.

“No. I took readings of the island before we arrived and things seemed stable enough.”

“Are we heading back for the surface?”

Gina frowned, which Ranko quickly copied. “Maybe, right now everything is shaking, but there isn’t any damage. Perhaps something is taking the brunt of the damage elsewhere on the island.”

“Hard to really say, I haven’t been in an earthquake since I as wandering around China with the old man and he turned that into a training exercise.” Ranma said just as the shaking finally stopped.

This made Gina sigh in relief. “If the island is unstable, we need to complete the exploration as soon as possible.”

Ranko nodded. “Indeed, seeing as we are inside a hollow space, we might want to worry about the possibility that it might lose buoyancy.”

“Huh?” Ranma asked.

“It might sink.” Gina explained.

“Ah, well, let’s worry about that if it happens.”

The room started shaking again and the girl’s yelled as they ran over to Ranma and grabbed his arms in a death grip. Ranma blinked in surprise, but then pulled them a little closer as the shaking increased. The girl’s didn’t complain and Ranma breathed a sigh of relief.

Gina wasn’t all that scared, but she wanted to take advantage of Ranma’s innocence while she could. No matter how often she told herself that she was too old for him, she couldn’t stop lusting after him. It helped that the only person that thought she was too old for Ranma, was herself. That was why she had to resist the urge to grab his butt as they huddled together.

It was only a little while later that the rumbling stopped and the girl’s looked around. Gina also noticed something. “Both quakes lasted exactly ninety two seconds. That is very, odd.”

Ranma continued to sweat nervously until the girl’s finally let go of his arms. He stepped away from them and shook his hands to get the circulation running again. “Could those girls from yesterday have caused something?”

“Maybe, but they should have left by now.” Gina said.

“They obviously want that information and will go to any length to get it. I’d be they’re still around.”

Gina nodded. “Me too, but I really hoped they just left.”

“At least it’s not Pee Wee and the Gang.” Ranko commented, sending Gina into peals of laughter.

“What?”

Three hours later the quake hadn’t returned and Gina was bouncing around the room nervously checking on the computer every few seconds. When it beeped, indicating that it was done, she quickly checked to see that the information was there. “We got it! Now we need to explore the rest of this island. Remember it was once a pirate island.”

“Treasure?” Ranko asked.

“Yep, there has to be something around here.”

“Let’s find it then.” Ranma said as he quickly started his scooter and hopped on.

Shrugging, Gina did the same. She glanced over at Ranko and once again tried to figure out what was wrong with the android. Ever since IB possessed Ranko’s body, she had been acting out of sorts. Brianna had even noticed some major alterations of her AI coding.

It was something Gina really wanted to figure out. Once she understood what created the new programming and why, she could duplicate it and make her Hurt Bots even more useful. A fully functioning AI design could also bring her a lot of cash.

They rode out of the room and continued for nearly an hour before they reached another door. Ranma couldn’t help noticing that those little slips of paper were still pasted to the walls as well. They checked the door and quickly found a small empty room.

“Why would anyone create all this space and then put in small tiny rooms?” Gina asked herself. She wandered back over to her scooter and pulled out her scanner. “Let me check and see if I managed to download a map of this place.”

Ranma just nodded.

A few minutes later Gina found something. “It seems we’re near another large room. It’s about twenty minutes away and leads to something labeled ‘SC’.” Gina told them. “I can’t tell what it means though.”

Twenty minutes later the corridor finally opened up into another bay area, although this one was only a fraction of the size of the others. Ranma started to sense something dangerous nearby and glanced around, but all seemed quiet. He looked over at Gina. “Be on guard, something odd is going on around here.”

“What do you sense?”

“Danger of some kind.” Ranma said as he glanced at the ceiling. Last time he was in a room like this, things came out of the ceiling, and tried to blast him.

“I see, Jinkies, but this is getting interesting.” Gina said with a grin. She bounced around a little in excitement. “We must be close to something great.”

Ranma raised and eyebrow at her, but she seemed to be in her own world. On the other hand, Ranko adjusted her glasses and smiled at Ranma with a wanton look of desire. This made him edge away from her and think of Sheila, who was stayed back to help Dr. Diggers with a project.

“Gina, there’s a door over there.” Ranko said suddenly, pointing off to the left of the group.
The door was identical to the one they entered through. Gina hopped off her scooter and checked her scanner again. As the stood there, the door slowly opened, and a wave of smoke came out. It quickly flowed around them before they could do anything.

Suddenly a female form ran out the door. Ranma only had a quick look at the girl, but recognized her as the girl from the day before, Yomiko. He went to grab her but a weird sound suddenly filled the air and a wall of fluttering paper started to explode from the doorway.

Gina and Ranko had to dive off their scooters to keep from being hit by the paper. The black haired girl didn’t make it to far before the wave of paper seemed to rear up high into the air. Ranma could only gape at the scene as the paper formed into a large snake of some kind.

It struck out and grabbed Yomiko in its mouth. Then rose up, tossing the screaming girl high into the air. Ranma reacted before he had time to really think about his actions. He took a couple of steps and launched into the air, bounced off the thing’s back and head, and grabbed the girl in mid air.

From there he saw Gina fire a small weapon of some kind, but it had a hell of a blast. Gina fell on her back from the gun’s kick back. The paper snake’s head seemed to explode in a ball of fire. Ranma landed with the girl wrapped around him clinging for her life.

Her glasses had landed nearby and her hair was in complete disarray. Ranma tried to lay her on the ground, but she wouldn’t let go. He looked over at Ranko. “Make sure that thing doesn’t try and get back up!”

She nodded and blasted the paper snake with several Ki blasts, sending the rest of it up in flames.

“What’s going on?” Gina asked as she came over.

“Shock, I think.” Ranma explained.

Kneeling down Gina began to make a quick check and nodded. Ranma moved one of his hands and tapped the back of Yomiko’s neck, knocking her out. It also made her whole body relax. Once she was laid out, they made a quick check to see if she had any other injuries.

“She’ll be fine. Something just scared the hell out of her.”

“Why was that paper snake after her? I though she controlled paper?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I don’t think we’ll have anymore problems with this things.” Ranko told them as she finished burning the thing.

Gina wandered over to the door and looked inside to see several large piles of burning paper. “She’s been busy.”

“Where’s that other one? The red haired woman.” Ranma asked.

“I don’t see her anywhere.”

Ranma nodded. “I’m still sensing danger though.”

Yomiko groaned suddenly and sat up. “Nodoka!’

Gina rushed over. “What happened to your friend?”

The girl cringed a little, as if remembering something horrible. “Nodoka and I were exploring when we entered that room. At first…e-everything was fine, boring, but then the ceiling just came alive with…cables.”

Gina gulped, this sounded familiar.

“…a-after that Nodoka was grabbed and vanished. After that, things started attacking me.” Yomiko took a shuddering breath and tried to regain control of herself.

“I was afraid of this.” Gina sighed. “It’s one of the reasons I asked you and your friend to leave. This place can be dangerous. Ranko, would this place try and create another android?”

“I think it would.” Ranko said, though she hesitated a little before answering.

“We need to get to that room then.” Gina said.

“We’re quite a distance from it.” Ranma pointed out. “At least a couple of levels.”

“More than likely there’s more than one room for creating androids.”

“Is Nodoka in danger?” Yomiko asked.

“Yes.” Ranma said. “I was duplicated when I was here last time and the android tried to kill me.”

“We have to save Nodoka!”

“What about your paper thingies.” Ranma asked. “Can they help us?”

“Thingies?”

“Whatever.”

“Everything I’ve created with paper in the last half hour has turned on me.” Yomiko said.

Gina nodded at that. “This place adapts to threats and intruders.”

It only took a second for Ranma to move over to the door and look into the next room. Although smoke filled the air, it seemed to be lessening slowly. Allowing him to see several smoking piles of still burning paper.

“Amazing.” Gina breathed quietly. “We’re underground, yet the smoke is being cleaned from the air faster than we can breath it in. It shouldn’t be able to go any place at all.” She adjusted her glasses and tapped a little button on the frame. “Hmm…”

“What is it?”

“I’m developing a theory, but it’s so outrageous that even I’m having a hard time believing it.”

“That…weird?”

Gina nodded. “If I’m right, this is the find of the century and I should never have just left like I did last time.”

“Well let’s go and save that woman first.”

“Of course.” Gina said, waving him off as she pulled out a second scanner.

oooooooooo

Peebri glided through the small tunnel silently, Peegi and Peecee, one of Brianna’s newest Peebos, were following her. Every now and then one of them would stop and examine a part of the tunnel with their sensors. They weren’t entirely sure how they got down here, but so far it was a fascinating experience.

During the night they had caught up to the girls as they slept in that room. After checking the computers and taking several mandatory pictures of a sleeping Ranma, as per Brianna’s orders, they had left the room and continued on. Brianna’s cackling had filled their hearing sensors for several minutes before it stopped.

At the same time as Peebri explored, Peegi was using her sensors to scan the tunnels around her. So far she was developing a theory that this place wasn’t what it seemed to be. Endless hallways, massive rooms, and an elevator that could easily hold a hundred people, something was definintely out of place. She just couldn’t seem to figure out what it was.

“Peebri, these readings just make no sense!” Peegi growled.

“Yeah, yeah.” The grumpy Peebo said.

“Let’s find something interesting.”

“Yeah, whatever. Let’s just explore this heap, there has to be a video game around here somewhere.”

“As if Gina would bring such a thing with her.” Peegi said.

“This is scary.” Peecee whined.

“Then let’s play Peecee’s games!”

“We’ve played them almost constantly for the last month!” Peegi yelled.

“So?”

“Brianna asked to keep an eye on Gina, so that’s what we’re doing.”

Peebri snorted. “Oh yeah, like she’s anywhere around here.”

Peegi harrumphed. “We agreed to explore ahead to look for dangers.”

“Oh that, I just suggested that so we could have something to do. This is boring.”

“Peebri!”

“Whaaaattt?!” Peebri yelled as something grabbed her and lifted her off the floor.

The two other Peebos gasped in shock and looked up to see a cable with a hook holding Peebri retracting into the ceiling even as a dozen more cables dropped down and headed right for the Peebos.

“Evasive!” Peegi yelled and started racing off.

Peecee turned and made it about half an inch before he was captured and pulled into the ceiling. He yelled about not yet having an escape program programmed into his hard drive. Peegi managed to dodge and weave her way across the small area, deftly avoiding the cables.

On the other hand, her world went decidedly worse when she ran head first into a pair of legs. She bounced off and skidded across the floor. She yelled for help as she ended upside down next to the wall. A hand came down and picked her up and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank…” Was as far as she got.

She had assumed that it might be Gina or one of the girls. Instead it was an older red haired woman dressed in a form fitting body suit. The woman’s head tilted to the side. “Query, you are…inorganic?”

“I’m a robotic explorer out to find as much information as I can.” Peegi explained in a slightly nervous voice. There is no need to tell the large woman that she could also explode with ten times the power of a land mine.

“Interesting.” The flat voice said. “Where are the other…organics?”

“Behind us somewhere, we passed them hours ago.”

The woman’s face was blank. “What…is an hours?”

Peegi sweat dropped. “That could take a little while to explain.”

“I am immortal, so I have plenty of time.”

“Cool!” Peegi said with wide eyes. “You wouldn’t happen to know if there are some video games around this place, would you?”

“What is a video game?”

“I thought as much.” Peegi muttered.

“Input complete, samples have been assimilated and information sampled. You are a Peebo, an imperfect creation of an organic mind. Status of subject:

Useless.” The woman said.

“What?!” Peegi yelled. “I’ll have you know that I’ve got over a terabyte of memory!”

A cable started to come down from the ceiling and the little Peebo looked up at it in despair. Was this to be her last seconds on earth? The was so much more to learn and experience!

Suddenly the ceiling in the corner exploded with a yellowish green burst of energy and Peebri, slightly battered, fell to the floor and landed on her wheels after a couple of bounces. “I’ll teach you to stick things where they don’t belong!”

Peegi gaped as Peebri’s mini cannon took aim at the woman and fired in a split second. Peebri didn’t seem to grasp that Peegi was still in her hands though. “Peebri you dummmmyyy!”

The blast hit the woman in the chest with the force strong enough to blow a full sized dragon out of the air. Still holding Peegi, the woman flew across the room and slammed into the wall hard enough to dent it.

“Bad Android! Bad!” Peebri yelled as the cannon took aim once more and fired.

Peegi had a split second to come to her senses. That was why she was nearly enveloped in the explosive force of the attack. She slid across the room and slammed into the wall. Where she fell over on her side with little swirly eyes. Peebri’s laughing continued for several minutes as she blasted the woman again and again.

Until little pieces of her started to rain down around the room. Gears, bits of plastic, limbs, and eventually her head rolled out and looked like something out of the terminator. Peebri just laughed like a maniac and rolled around in circles.

A tile fell out of the ceiling, and Peecee crashed to the floor with several wires still plugged into his CPU. “Halllp!”

“Peecee, can’t you do anything?!” Peebri yelled as she fired several more shots for the hell of it.

“I’m not programmed for this kind of thing.”

Peebri snorted as she finally came to a stop. “Now what?”

Peegi peaked out from behind a bit of fallen wall. “Let’s just go and find Gina.”

“No way, she’ll ruin all our fun.”

“This ISN’T fun!”

“Sure it is, beats playing games around the house and getting in trouble.

After all, we are exploring someplace new.”

For a second, Peegi seemed to look excited, then shook herself. “We are going to get in so much twaaable!”

Peebri snorted again and waved on of her rabbit ear to dismiss the idea.

“Brianna said…”

“We’re supposed to keep an eye on Gina, not blow up half this place before she can find it!”

“Whatever.” Peebri said as she headed for the door. “Let’s see what else is around here.”

Peecee and Peegi looked at each other and sighed. No matter what they said Peebri always seemed to do whatever she wanted and damn the consequences. They raced after the little robot before they lost track of her completely.

They left the decimated body of an android Nodoka.

oooooooooo

According the scanner Gina held, as she examined Yomiko a little more in depth, there was some nanites inside the girl. She knew that purging them from the girl’s body would be easy enough, but she couldn’t find her Nanomachine Collector Strip Roll, er…duct tape. Amazing machines, but way too easy to capture and contain.

The nanites explained how Yomiko’s powers had been yanked out of control. She suspected that the computer of this place was examining all of them and their abilities. Just like it tried to do with Ranma when it made Ranko. She was just glad she didn’t have to deal with her own double.

Ranko was standing over Yomiko, still wearing those glasses, and looking rather excited. “Ohhh, nanites! Those things can be nasty.”

“True, but they aren’t very bright machines and can be reprogrammed with a simple burst of energy on a specific energy band. I can have her purged of the things within ten minutes.”

“Fascinating.” Ranko said. “Are you going to destroy them?”

“No, I’ll study them and see if I can adapt or improve them for my own purposes.”

Yomiko sweatdropped as both girls started going into geek speak. That language where normal people could only understand about every tenth word, yet they were speaking the same language. Eventually Gina shook her self as she finished her scan and pulled a little pen like object out.

“Now, let me make one final scan and we’ll be ready to remove those little pests.” Gina explained as she pointed the pen at Yomiko, clicked a button, and a flashlight like beam shot out. A few minutes later all three girls were cleaning up the small mess. Gina waved Ranma over and grinned at him.

“And how is that cut of yours doing?”

Ranma paled a bit, glanced at his leg, and turned to run. Gina and Ranko grabbed him before he could get more than a few steps. “Now, come on…”

“You need to change the bandage.”

“But…”

Gina smirked as Ranko suddenly stepped behind him and yanked his pants down, nearly causing Ranma to jump from them. She knelt by the bandage and started to pull it away as Ranko prepared a new bandage. Off to the side Yomiko stared at Ranma with a strange look in her eyes. She grinned a little and if Ranma had seen it, he would have ran to the edge off the island, jumped off, and swam home.

Good thing he didn’t, especially when all three girl’s eyes started to sparkle. “That isn’t necessary Gina, I can change the bandage on my own.”

Gina tutted. “I’m a professional Ranma, no need to be scared.”

This only caused him to scowl at her, then he jumped away from both girls. “You will not pinch my butt!” Ranma yelled.

Ranko giggled. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

All three girls giggled.

“Hmph!” Ranma growled, quickly grabbed his pants, and stalked off. “Lets get this day over with.”

The girls quickly finished picking everything up even as Ranma stepped into the next room to put his pants back on. A few minutes later they moved into the next room and started making their way past all the piles of smoldering paper. Yomiko took the time to slowly collect as much of the un- burned pieces a she could.

She wasn’t able to get more than a few dozen sheets of paper, but that would be enough for her purposes. While she was doing that she made a few experiments to make sure she had control of the paper back. She grinned a number of paper rabbits stated racing around the group and made them do some dancing as well.

“Perfect.”

Ranma ignored the girl’s blushes as she kept glancing between him and paper animals. Once again he noticed that he could sense a bit of Ki in the paper. He wondered if he could pull off something similar if he tried. It seemed to only be a Ki manipulation technique and he was getting quite good with that.

Even then he could try to use a bit of magic as well, but he would only rely on magic if he absolutely had to. Dr. Diggers still hadn’t trained him much since he returned from Jade. He sent his senses out ahead of him and scanned the area. Behind him, Gina was reading the map she created.

“Ranma, there are several exits from this room besides the way we came in.” Gina said as she showed him the map. “I think we’ll find what we want if we head for this large room here.”

“Sure, we can try each of those rooms. That other woman has to be around her somewhere.”

“The sooner we find her, the better.” Yomiko said.

“Of course we have to find her before the an android duplicate kills her.” Ranko told them. “It’s only logical, it’s what I tried to do to Ranma after all.”

Yomiko nearly fainted again.

“Ranko!” Gina snapped.

“Sorry, just thought she might want to know.”

“I think she’s fine.” Ranma told them. “I haven’t sensed anyone dying today, so she should still be alive.”

“Oh thank god.” Yomiko breathed.

It happened just as they were nearing a pair of double doors. On the last visit to this place Ranma could remember that entering rooms meant getting attacked almost constantly. This visit was a little different, the attacks weren’t happening. Instead they were wasting their time wandering around looking at empty, over sized rooms.

Now things became more familiar as a part of the ceiling opened up and a small sphere came down. Ranma noticed it at the last second and only had time to bring his hands up as it fired. He cursed just as a white beam of energy fired at Gina.

Ranma blurred and appeared in front of her, blocking the laser with his hands and deflecting it into the floor. The girl’s scrambled out of the way, Gina activating her personal forcefield, Yomiko forming a wall of paper, and Ranko fired a ball of Ki into the ceiling to destroy the little sphere. Even as it shorted out, several more lowered down and fire.

“Crap!” Ranma yelled. “Into the next room, this place is starting to fire at us again.”

The spheres fired again and Ranma quickly deflected several shots into the floor. At the same time Ranko took a direct blast to the chest. Instead of being blown off her feet, she took the blast head on and didn’t move an inch.

Her hair stood straight up and smoke wafted off her body as she stood there. Then she shook her head and continued forward. It took them several minutes to reach the door they wanted, but Ranma and Ranko continued to fire Ki blasts into the ceiling at the never ending spheres. Yomiko kept behind her shield and only had it breached in a couple of places.

“Just as dangerous as last time.” Ranma yelled.

“Keep going! We’re almost there!” Gina told them.

Ranko ran head and shoved the door open to make sure it was safe on the other side. They all heard Gina’s device as it started to reach it’s limits. The spherical shape of the shield was being overwhelmed by the continuous blasts of energy. Ranma was grinning a little as he batted away more and more blasts.

He had been getting quite bored with walking forever and not having anything happen. It was to bad they had been forced to abandon the scooters though. They wouldn’t have made it through this barrage of fire. Gina’s shield failed just as she ducked into the room.

After that Ranko and Yomiko ducked inside and let Ranma keep blocking the blasts as he backed into the open doorway. The instant he was through the door slammed shut and the blasts finally stopped. Gina’s shield flickered back on for a couple of seconds before Gina turned it off and let it start recharging.

They all collapsed to the floor and gasped for air. It took several minutes for them to recover after that attack, but eventually Ranma managed to get back to his feet and look around. “Now where are?”

Gina pulled her scanner out and checked the map. “One of the smaller rooms off to the side of the bigger one we were trying to get to.”

“We must have gotten turned a little as we were running.”

This statement just made Gina nod. “We might want to wait for a little while before we move on to the next room though. I think we may be attacked again pretty soon and I want my force field to be at full power.”

“Yeah, I need a little while to recover too.” Ranma admitted, though reluctantly. “Ranko, you took a direct hit out there. Are you alright?”

The android looked fine, other than her clothing. Most of the front of her shirt was ripped, giving a brief view of her breasts every time she moved. “I’m in perfect health Ranma.” She gave one of the tears a little pull and smirked at him. “Unless you want to check me for injuries.”

“Ranko!” Gina yelled.

She smirked as Ranma blushed and looked away.

“I’m feeling a lot better now.” Yomiko said as she walked over to Ranma and gave him a hug, which made him freeze up completely. “Thank you for saving my life.”

“Um…heh, yeah.”

She smiled at him in the same way that Brianna did whenever they passed in the hallway and Ranma felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. “I really want to pay you back for risking your life.”

“Tha-that’s fine, I’d do it for anyone.”

“But you need a reward.” She said, lowering her voice just a bit and placing her hand on his chest. “I’m willing…”

“Time to head for the next room!” Ranma yelled and pulled away. He marched, a little stiffly towards the other end of the room. The girls all pouted a little as Ranma moved away, but they quickly picked everything up and chased after him.

“One of these days…” Gina muttered as she glanced at Ranma. “His age doesn’t matter any more and Brianna isn’t the only one that can…”

“What was that Gina?” Ranko asked.

“Nothing!”

“I thought you might be thinking about Ryan.”

Gina grumbled under her breath and walked a little faster, though she was blushing. Why was it whenever she came across a strong man, perfect abs, and her legs just went to jelly? She sighed.

As they approached the door, it slowly opened on it’s own and they could see lights on in the next room. She checked her scanner again and couldn’t tell what might be in the room from its shape. Ranma moved to the side of the door and looked inside without entering.

“Look at that.” He said, pointing off to the side.

The girl’s looked and gasped at the sight of Nodoka tied to a small plat form with some kind of device moving up and down her body using a red light to analyze her. Gina tapped a little button on her glasses.

“Nodoka!” Yomiko gasped. Ranko reached out and grabbed the dark haired girl before she could run into the room.

“Not yet, it may be a trap.”

“Nodoka…”



“She’s right.” Gina said. “I’m detecting about ten force fields in place around the room keeping anyone from getting to her.

The red haired woman appeared to be unconscious. Ranma remembered when he was captured a few months before. Off to the side he could see an android being constructed. He wondered why they hadn’t done so already.

“Nodoka seems to have been drugged. I’m detecting several odd substances in her body that I don’t recognize.”

“Nodoka is the descendant of a Samurai family that specialized in a Ki enhanced swords.”

“That thing she used before wasn’t a Ki enhancement.” Ranma said.

“I know, she uses that on missions when she needs a bit more punch.” Yomiko said with a shrug. “And just where is the sword, she doesn’t have it on her. She carries it everywhere.”

“I don’t see it either.” Gina said.

“I’m going to try and get her out of there.” Ranma said.

“Be careful.”

He nodded as he stepped through the door. He made it several steps closer to the machine and was about to ascend the stairs on the side when a burst of light hit him from the side. He flew off his feet, but managed to twist around before he hit the wall.

His legs absorbed the force of the blow and he dropped to the floor an could only gape at the thing in front of him. A Fifteen foot tall parrot stared down at him. It opened it’s beak and instead of a squawk, a beam of energy fired out.

“Crap!”

He dove to the side as the beam vaporized a portion of the wall. Ranma barely registered that his shirt was completely gone and that he had a large bruise forming along his side. The girl’s didn’t know what to do and stayed back. Gina had a couple of things she could use to help them fight, but her light gate used the same source of power as her force field, and that source needed another half hour to recharge.

“Ranma!” Ranko yelled as she ran into the room. “I’ll help!”

Ranma heard her, but he had to roll to the side as the giant bird nearly impaled him with its beak. He was instantly in motion as he ran and jumped for a kick, but the bird’s wing came around and batted him across the room. This time he hit the back wall hard.

He slid to the floor with a loud groan. “That won’t work.”

Ranko brought her hands around and fired off a quick Ki blast, but the bird just stood there. It turned its head to look at her just as a hand grabbed her shoulder and tossed her into the air. Ranko looked down to see a strangely dressed old man with ratty looking clothes, a long beard, and an eye patch smirking at her.



His hand reached out and grabbed her ankle and with a strength that would be impossible for a normal human being, he snapped her around like a whip and slammed her head first into the floor.

Bang!

Picked her up, and did it again with a backwards swing.

Bang!

“Argh! Bitches, should know their place.”

Bang! Bam! Bang!

The bird turned and pecked her right in the stomach and Ranko felt her body explode in shock as she was almost driven through the floor. The old man just stood there and laughed with his slightly scratchy voice.

Gina and Yomiko could only watch in horror as Ranko’s body, sparks coming from her stomach, fell to the floor.

“She’s an android?”

“Yeah, she’s why I’m here. I want to figure out how some of her parts work. I wasn’t able to properly reverse engineer some of her when I had make repairs last time.” Gina explained. “That’s why I need the computer files.”

Yomiko nodded. “I see.”

“Can you help?”

“Yes, a little, I’m not sure how long it would work.”


“Those two are the muscle, if they fall, we’re in deep poop.”

Yomiko laughed.

Across the room Ranma slowly climbed back to his feet and growled. It was happening again. He would not loose to some idiot looking bird. He would not lose! Snarling, he stalked across the room towards where Ranko was laid out on the ground looking a little pale.

She tried to smile when she saw him coming. The bird squawked and turned towards him and he heard the pirate order it to finish the malfunctioning android off, and then deal with him. “No way.”

“Argh! You humans have always been to weak and are easily killed.” The pirate growled.

“I see you have a body now.”

“Aye, I adapted it from the computer core. Your last visit taught me that I was over confident, so I decided to take things more slowly this time. The woman’s android duplicate will be done in a matter of minutes.”

“You’re going down, ass wipe.” Ranma stated just as the bird opened its beak right above Ranko. She looked up at it, but didn’t show any fear.

Ranma growled as he brought his hands up, formed a blue sphere of energy, and threw it right into the thing’s back. Instead of exploding, it seemed to coat against the thing’s feathers and a strange sound filled the room, for several seconds.


The bird seemed to rear back as the energy coated it from beak to talon, slowly turning a slight blue color. Seconds later icicles descended to the floor. Ranma growled as he punched out, shattering the android bird into millions of little pieces.

The pirate, who Gina realized was the computer AI she dealt with the last time she was here, just stared in shock. “Humans can not do things like that!”

Ranma came to a stop a couple of feet from the guy and glared at him. “I’m tired of this crap. Now release the woman, or else you’ll receive the same fate as the bird.”

“You can destroy this body as many times as you like, but I’ll always exist.”

“I can always erase the places computer core.” Ranma said, his voice colder than ice.

The pirate laughed. “Aye! You could, but how do you know that’s the only place I be?”

This made Ranma shrug. “You wouldn’t be here, which is the whole point. Computers aren’t my thing, but I have learned a few things about them from Gina and her sister.”

Panels in the ceiling silently opened to reveal stacks of loose paper. No one noticed though, except the Pirate, who just smirked. “I’ve got access to all kinds of attacks. I just have to delay you for five minutes and that woman’s android duplicate will be ready.”

“I only need a minute to deal with you.” Growled Ranma. “Prepare to die.”

A ball of bright energy formed in Ranma’s hands as he brought them forward and sent a fire ball flying across the room. At the same time the Pirate waved his and the air was suddenly full of falling paper. This set off the fire ball only a few yards from Ranma’s position.

Yomiko gasped as the paper fell and realized what was going on even as the paper suddenly took on a mind of its own. She could only watch as pieces of paper started to swarm around Ranma, slapping into this legs and arms faster than he could move. The burning pieces didn’t seem to be burning right as they too glided towards Ranma. “He’s going to be killed!”

“What?!” Gina yelled.

“That’s my power and it’s being used to kill!” She gasped.

Covered from head to toe in paper, Ranma realized that it was covering him completely just before his face was swathed in paper. After that it fluttered in and started to form into a large ball of paper. He struggled against the stupid thing, but his arms and legs were held in place against his body.

“That pirate is cutting off Ranma’s air. He’s going to suffocate inside that ball.”

Gina’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh crap!”

Suddenly a blue and yellow blur raced around her and Gina looked down to see Peebri racing across the floor. “Tally Ho!”

The back mounted mini canon that she carried around at all times was out, tracking a target, and firing. The pirate took the blast in the back and staggered forward, causing a noticeable change in the paper.

A second shot rang out and flew across the room and impacted the ball of paper. It exploded, forming an a cloud of confetti. Ranma knelt on the floor for several seconds as Peebri came to a stop and looked up at him.


“Peebri?”

“You took out the birdy, you’re hero.” The little robot smirked.

Ranma chuckled as he stood up. “Thanks, I owe you one.”

“All birdy’s must be shot.”

Gina could only gape as Peegi and Peecee came out of nowhere. Stopping next to her and looking a little nervous. “Hi Gina.”

“What are you three doing here? And where is Peebrit, she always hangs with you and Peebri.”

“Peebrit is still MIA ma’am.” Peecee said. “Brianna asked us to keep an eye on you since Ranma is a little green at the body guard biz.”

Gina just shook her head and heard Yomiko. “What are these things?”

“My sister’s creations. They are mini portable, AI computers, with explosives in them for emergencies. The one in the room there is the most dangerous one of all though.”

Peegi sighed and nodded. “She just won’t learn that all birds aren’t bad.”

“I’m not explosive.” Peecee insisted. “I had Brianna turn that function off. As if anyone would want a pound of C4 in their head.”

“Amen to that.” Peegi said.

Inside the room, Ranma watched as the pirate pulled itself back to its feet. Peebri’s blast had damaged it’s clothes, but hasn’t caused any major damage to the thing. He heard the little bot curse several times as it realized it as well.

“Where do all these little distractions keep coming from?” The pirate asked angrily.

Ranma shrugged. “Peebri, shoot that machine several times would you, just don’t hurt that woman up on the table there.”

The Peebo turned, glanced at the over sized machine, and nodded. “Sounds easy enough, and a lot of fun too.”

“Don’t you dare!” The pirate yelled just as Ranma blasted him with another fire ball, sending him flying across the room.

“Have fun Peebri.”

The little bot looked gleeful as its cannon started firing shot after shot into the large machine. At first there were only dents, but after several blasts even there was a change in the sound of the machine. Ranma cracked his knuckles as he walked across the room.

He watched out of the corner of his eye as the little pink Peebo Peegi raced into the room to check on Ranko, who appeared to have shut down. Ranma knew it was likely she would be repaired eventually, so he wasn’t too worried. Then he heard a sound he didn’t want to hear and glanced up at the machine.

Even though it was being pummeled by the little bot, only the outer skin was being damaged at the moment. He saw a form rising from the top area of the machine that bore a striking resemblance to Nodoka. The biggest difference was that her skin was obviously plastic, nothing like Ranko’s nearly human skin, and portions of her body had metal sticking through.

The pirate laughed as he came to his feet. “When the machine is endangered it will eject all functioning androids to protect itself. How do you think I came about?”

Ranma glared at the thing. “This is getting on my nerves.”

“We are unstoppable!”

“That thing is holding Nodoka’s Sword!” Yomiko yelled.

“Peebri, shoot the mechanical woman’s head off.” Ranma ordered.

“Gotcha!” Peebri yelled and took aim, but Android Nodoka blurred and vanished. She reappeared with a screech of metal as she sliced the little cannon off Peebri’s back and sent it flying.

Peebri spun around and raced out of the room. “Retreat!”

The creepy looking Nodoka Android slowly relaxed and turned towards Ranma and leveled the sword at him. She smirked a little, her robotic eye glowing a deep red color. The blade started to flare with silver tendrils of fire.

Ranma did the only thing he could really do. He raced forward and exploded into motion. The android seemed to read his moves though and used the blade of the sword to slap him around at high speed. He jumped away from her, the skin on his hands and arms smoking from where the sword touched him.

Off to the side the pirate laughed. “Once we assimilate someone’s knowledge, we always know it. Ranko there is one of us and everything she got from you, we have as well. That means we know all your martial arts kid. Arggh! HEHEHEH…My dear, please end this quickly.”

Nodokabot nodded, and Ranma had a bad feeling. With Ranko down he was in a bad situation, but he wouldn’t quit or ask for help. Not this time. He raced towards Nodoka and fired off a blast of Ki, but the android hopped over it with ease. The blade flared with energy as she brought it around and sent a wave of silver fire right into Ranma.

He screamed as it ripped through his body for several seconds before flinging him clear across the room. His mind barely registered the girl’s screaming from the other room as he landed on his back and bounced. He could barely register that silver fire was cascading all over his body.

There was no way he would let something like that keep him down and he was back on his feet a few seconds later. 'Nodoka' raced across the room and sent another blast of silver fire at him. He felt a deep calm come over him in the midst of the attack and let Master Julia’s training take over.

Twisting and weaving, he made his way through the poorly executed sword moves as the air rippled with the blade’s power. A shape formed in his mind and he instinctively started to hop, weave, duck, and dodge everything that came his way as words echoed in his head.

'Nodoka’s' attacks increased in speed as the seconds wore on, but Ranma knew he only had one chance a this, so he kept his cool. The girl’s were confused at first, but then Gina noticed that the very air in the room was starting to get colder and colder. A little voice in the back of her mind was telling her to find a good hiding place.

Glancing at Yomiko, she grabbed the girl’s arm and pulled her away from the doorway. A deep rumbling filled the air as a sudden breeze seemed to come from out of nowhere, confusing the pirate completely. The Peebos didn’t know what was going on, but followed Gina’s lead and got away from the doorway just as Ranma screamed.

“Hiryü Shöten Ha!”

The room exploded into a hurricane of swirling air, debris, and tons of silver fire. 'Nodoka' was pulled off the floor and sent crashing into the ceiling with a silent scream. The power of the move also sent the sword ricocheting off the ceiling, around behind the machine after several bounces.

At the outer edges of the room, the Pirate yelled out in shock and realized that the boy had learned some new tricks while he was gone. He made a run for it while he still had a chance. He would be able to come back at a later date and get his revenge.

High above them, the real Nodoka was still tied to the platform and not as unconscious as she was pretending. She had to fight the urge jump up and pull out a pair of fans. That was her son down there and he was magnificent! She hadn’t missed the looks those girl’s had given him either.

Gina and Yomiko huddled against the wall as a massive blast of fog like wind roared out of the door and into the next room. The sound was probably the most frightening thing Gina had ever heard, well, in the last year anyway. Eventually the wind died down and stopped completely.

Leaving a shirtless Ranma panting for air with his fist raised towards the ceiling. He heard a noise and looked up to see the pirate making his way over to Nodoka’s platform. Groaning in exhaustion, Ranma rose to his feet and headed for the stair case.

“We have no further need of you.” The pirate said as he pulled out a nasty looking cutlass. He smirked a bit as he let the light reflect off of it into Nodoka’s eyes.

“I’ll not give in that easily coward.” Nodoka snapped.

“You lie helpless while I have the weapons to kill you. An easy victory.”

“A cowards victory.”

He shrugged. “My program doesn’t say I have to be fair, only that the job get done.”

She glared at him.

“Goodbye, flesh bag. Argh!” He said with an evil grin and brought the sword down on her neck.

Nodoka’s eyes turned silver and an instant later her body exploded with fire. Light filled the room and they all heard a sickening sound of screaming and twisting metal. As the light slowly disapated, Ranma came to a stop about fifteen feet away and smirked a little.

The red haired woman was in a kneeling position, her sword out to the side, glaring at her opponent. One glance at the pirate and Ranma knew he didn’t have to bother. The pirate looked like a train hit him. A giant gaping hole filled his chest and wiring, bits of plastic, and even fake blood fell to the floor.

The thing staggered back several steps, gaping at the damage. Nodoka bright the sword around and sent a truly massive burst of silver fire into the thing, vaporizing it on the spot. “There is more to this blade than throwing around blasts of fire.”

She turned and looked down at Ranma. “Can you help me down from here? I accidentally destroyed the ladder.”

Smirking a little, Ranma Ki jumped up to the platform, grabbed her. And they dropped to the ground with a couple of bounces. Ranma sat her on the ground. “There you go.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

A squeal filled the air and Yomiko ran over to Nodoka and gave her a giant hug. Ranma kept away from then and let them make up. At the same time Gina started pulling out all kinds of scanners.

“Lab Assistant second class, Peegi reporting for duty!” Peegi said.

Gina handed her a scanner and told her to go and find a terminal, hook it up, and start downloading everything. Peecee quickly followed after her. Off to the side Ranma could see Peebri looking around the edge of the door curiously, and then race over to where her gun landed and pick it up carefully.

The little blue peebo saw something and moved over to the machine a few yards from where Gina was working and looked inside. “Gasp! It’s all mine!”

Gina looked up and saw Peebri cackling and came over. “What’s got you so worked up?”

“Nothin! Go away!”

Glancing at the bot, and the little hole, she knelt down to look inside. Peebri moved to intercept her, but Gina just picked Peebri up by her extended ears. That allowed Gina to get a good look inside the machine and she grinned with little stars in her eyes. “I knew we would find something!”

“It’s mine I tell you, mine!” Peebri yelled.

Ignoring the Peebo completely, Gina threw herself a little party, then pulled out her remote. “We can get that out of there easily, but right now I have a computer core to dismantal.”

“It’s mine! For video games! You got that?!” Peebri yelled as Gina walked away.

“Uh huh.” Gina muttered, little hearts in her eyes. She knew this mission would give her a pay off in the end. Then she saw Yomiko waving her over. “What’s up?”

“Um…” Yomiko said. “I’m not staying around this place any longer than I have to. Me and Nodoka are going to head out.”

“You should rest up first.”

“Naw, we can be home in a few minutes with Nodoka’s sword.” Yomiko explained.

“Oh?”

“Yep, it’s one of the main reasons why she’s my partner.” With a wave of her hand, all the little bits of paper around the room started to move around. A few seconds later Yomiko had her suitcase open and the paper quickly filled it, even reforming into regular sheets of paper.

“That’s amazing.” Gina said.

“Thank you.”

“Let’s go Yomi-chan.” Nodoka said. “I’ll see you in a couple of days as well.”

Gina blinked. “Huh?”

Nodoka just grinned as she placed a hand on Yomiko’s shoulder, held the sword high, and with a burst of silver fire they vanished. Off to the side Ranma was too tired to say anything. Gina just shrugged at the abrupt departure and went back to tinkering with her tools.

It took her ten minutes to even consider that the two had done anything other than leave. Her head snapped up and with a curse she ran across the room to her bag, she opened it and started pulling things out, taking a quick inventory. Ranma just watched as Gina said several rather dirty words.

“I’ve been robbed! The discs are gone!”

For some reason Ranma wanted to laugh as the girl ground her teeth in fury, then sighed. Peegi, turned to Peecee and told him to start downloading all the information once more. They already had the computer language cracked, so it was just a matter of transferring it again.

Gina stomped back over to the machine and started to work again. She continued to work like crazy for a few hours. Once he was rested up a little Ranma made his way over to where Ranko was laying on the floor. She weighed a lot more than she appeared.

“Gina, is there any way to get Ranko working again?”

The girl looked up and adjusted her glasses. Ranma edged away from the death glare he was getting from her. “Once I understand this machine I think I can repair her here. I just need to make some adjustments.”

“Oh good.”

Gina went back to cursing out lousy thieves.

oooooooooo

Kneeling on the floor, Gina fiddled with the dial of her machine. It looked like a little laptop, but it had a little satellite dish connected to it. The screen was mostly electronic snow, but after a second that stabilized into a complete picture. “Brianna?”

“I hear you Gina.” Brianna said as she sat down in front of her computer at home.

“How’s the transfer going?”

“Perfectly, the car’s computer uplink is sending us tons of information, even got pics of the battle you had with those androids.”

“Excellent. I was worried that something might go wrong.”

“Nope, Peecee is helping out quite well as well. I knew his hard drive would need a lot of space, but that processor I created for him is simply incredible.”

Peecee beamed from across the room.

“Good, we made out like bandits and my theory about this place was correct.” Gina grinned.

“So, it’s a Spaceship?”


“Yep, it’s been her on the ocean for so long that over the centuries dirt started to collect on it. Eventually life forms found their way here and things proceeded naturally from there. This place is too big to move, but I think it’s still flight worthy or can be repaired.”

Brianna grinned. “I can’t wait to check that place out. What about the computer though?”

“That’s been disconnected for now. It needs a major defragmentation. Since it’s an AI, not doing a defrag is a Bad thing.”

Ranma peaked around Gina’s shoulder. “Hi Brianna.”

Brianna swallowed a mouth full of drool. “W-what happened to your…shirt, Ranma?”

“Lost it in a fight.”

“I like the new look.” She said with a grin.

Ranma laughed a little. “I bet you do.”

“Ranma!” Gina yelled.

“What?”

“I can’t believe you said that!”

“After feeling me up while changing my bandage, I’m entitled.”

Gina palled. “You knew?”

“I’m not as ignorant now as I was when we first met.”

Brianna started laughing. “We can always have another session in the VR room, it’s up and running again.”

“Ah…maybe some other time.”

Brianna beamed at him. “I knew you would find your confidence.”

“Whatever.” Ranma stretched his arms and made both girl’s blush. He grinned a little as he walked away.

“That was new.” Brianna said once he was out of hearing range.

Gina nodded. “He’s been acting like Ryan ever since he took out that android Nodoka and learned that new move.”

“He’s cocky then?”

“Yeah, that’s it exactly.”

Brianna grinned.

“I still say he’s too young…” Gina muttered.

“That perfect ass of his tells me a completely different story sis.”

“Shut up!” Gina yelled. She blushed a bright red.

“I knew it! You better not wear him out before you get back! I want some that hunk too!”

“Oh I don’t know, wearing him out sounds like a grand idea.” Gina said with a smirk.

They grinned at each other. Ranma’s life had just gotten more complicated and if he knew about it, he would have ran for his life. What Digger’s girls want, they get. Brianna shook herself out of a particular detailed day dream. “When you headed back?”

“I think we can head back later on today. I have a few things to drop off, a couple of thieves to track down, and Penny to pay back. I don’t want her to hold this over my head like she did the last one.”

“Good idea. She’s been calling he here every five hours for the last day or so.”

Gina sighed. “Yeah, I thought she might do that.”

“Well, I’ll let you get back to work Gina. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t and haven’t done.” She sang and the screen went dark.

This just made Gina huff.

oooooooooo

They spent another four days on the island, exploring and cataloging thousands of different areas. Gina was in her element, working nearly twenty four hours a day. She didn’t even seem to be tired, as it the work energized her quite a bit. Ranma wasn’t about to comment on the smell of the unwashed girl, he just tried to stay down wind.

So it was nearing midday when they finally made their way back to the surface. Gina took the time to repair the scooters now that she had the time and didn’t want to walk all the way back. Gina had a gleam in her eye as she carefully placed a bag full of diamonds in the back seat.

Ranma didn’t care about money, but apparently Gina needed to sell them to repair the house, pay Penny back, and have a little extra left over for food and clothes. Ranma also had to wonder how a girl covered in dust and grime could look as good as Gina did. Her aura told him she was very confident, but mischievous as well.

He shrugged. “So, we heading home from here?”

Gina nodded as she started checking the car over. “We should have everything packed and according to Brianna we need to get back as soon as we can. Penny is getting impatient. She’s up to four phone calls a day.”

“How about we take a few minutes to find a waterfall on this island to take a shower?” Ranko asked. “I feel dirty.”

“Naw, we’ll be fine till we get home. Brianna says repairs to the house are nearly completed now. All the rooms are rebuilt and stabilized, the bathrooms work, and the only thing left is the small details. Like furniture and stuff.”

Ranko shrugged. “That’s fine with me.”

The Smell wafting off Gina made Ranma cringe, but he toughed it out and started thinking about his magic training. Anything to keep his mind occupied while they were flying back. Gina pulled a box from the back seat and opened it so that all four of the gold spheres, which returned to the car just after they did, landed and started transferring all their information into the box’s hard drive.

Everything else was placed back in storage with the light gate. “Anyone want to explore around before we leave?” Gina asked.

“Naw, let’s just go. I’m kind of hungry, maybe we can make some curry when we get home.”

Ranko nodded. “Let’s book.”

Suddenly Brianna’s three Peebos come racing up the path and jump in the back seat of the car. Peebri gives a wide grin. “Let’s go. Been waiting forever for you to get done.”

“Peebri…” Peegi growled.

“You’ve been so busy you didn’t notice we were even in here?” Peebri asked, looking innocent. “Tsk tsk.”

Gina frowned. “This sounds familiar.”

Peecee grumbled about being innocent until he was thrust into this cruel, cruel world.

The island starts to shake and shudder violently. Gina fell to the ground and quickly crawled to the car. “What did you do, Peebri?!”

“It wasn’t me!” The peebo lied. “It was Peecee!”

Peecee sputtered at Peebri.

Ranma and Ranko kept their feet as they stumbled over to the car. The car started just as he shut the door and Gina hit several buttons. Thrusters on the bottom of the car fired, sending a wave of dust and smoke fling in all directions as it lifted into the air. Wings swung out from the sides and they shot forward.

“Whoaaaah!” Peebri yelled as she rolled backwards and got plastered against the back seat. Peegi and Peecee were on the floor, so they didn’t go very far. The car swung around and skimmed over the trees as it picked up speed and altitude.

“Gina, look at the island!” Ranko exclaimed.

The car swung a little to the left and tipped, giving them all a front row seat. Below them geysers of water were firing into the air as the entire Islands started to sink. Little tidal waves flowed away from the thousand foot rock walls.

“Jinkies! Its sinking!”

“I didn’t do nothing!” Peebri yelled.

“Peebri!” Peegi growled.

“I didn’t do nothing!”

“You pushed the button!”

“I plead the fifth!”

“Peebri!”

As they argued, Gina eventually pieced together that they were messing around with one of the terminals so that Peebri could get some diamonds of her own to buy some video games with. Peecee didn’t want anything to do with it and Peegi had tried to lecture Peebri.

Some how Peebri had activated part of the navigational computer’s programming. This would have allowed the ship to fly in space and accidentally sent it to the bottom of the ocean. Gina would have been mad, but having a large bag of diamonds in the car helped curb her anger a little.

Ranma just watched out the open window as they circled the island until it sank completely. He noticed that Gina was saving the new coordinates in the cars computer. “You’re not planning on coming back here are you?”

“No, but I’m picking something up on the scanners that has me curious. The ship passed something as it descended below the waves. Something big and I might just come back and check on that when I have the time. A lot of the best places to explore are underwater, something that would be bad for you.”

He shuddered. “I haven’t changed once in the last week or so and I’d like to keep it that way.”

Gina mused. “Maybe you should have.”

“What?!” Ranma yelled.

“Well, it would have just been us girls. We could have had so much fun.”

Ranma huffed as Gina laughed.

“You’re to easy to rile up Ranma.”

“Whatever.”

The flight back to Atlanta was just as boring as the flight out, but they eventually made it back in one piece. They stopped at the house first, long enough to get cleaned up anyway. Gina and Brianna were gone by the time Ranma finished up, the note on the fridge said they were at the mall grabbing some new clothes.

Ranma was a bit surprise to find Peebri, Peegi, and Peecee sitting in the corner of the room though. They were all grumbling to themselves, so he decided not to get involved. He made his way outside and started to review the last few days while meditating.

Sorting his thoughts and reviewing all his actions. He paid especially close attention to how he pulled off his new move. For some reason he still wasn’t quite sure how he pulled it off, but knew he would have it down within the week. This trip had also gotten him to think about his own life.

He hadn’t seen his father in months now and wondered what the old fart was doing these days. Maybe it would be a good idea to take some time to go and find his family before the summer was up. Julia did want him to think for himself and not just react to anything that came along, but that meant…thinking for himself.

His Ki and magic were quite strong now, but he certainly wasn’t close to mastering them yet. That would take a year or two of constant training. He didn’t really want to commit himself to that just yet. Learning would have consumed him just a few months ago, and damn the consequences.

“Decisions, decisions…”

oooooooooo

At the same time several things were happening at once. Lord ‘Peewee’ Talon was just sending Ryoga into the final stages of his enhancement. He had managed to remove most of the ‘Drowned Black Piglet’ curse, but not all of it. Ryoga had darker skin because of this.

He also had a stronger physical build, bigger fangs, and some internal changes that wouldn’t even be noticeable. Peewee added some chemicals to the tube that Ryoga was floating in and spent several minutes monitoring the levels until he was sure everything was working according to design.

oooooooooo

In New York, Agent Zane, the tall, dark skinned, red headed amazon agent stood before Agent M’s desk. Beside her was another Agent named Will. They were partners and would be for another year or so. Most teams did five years stints before they got a new partner supplied to them.

With Britanny’s husband Stripe joining the Agency, they needed to someone to train him. M wasn’t to happy with the decision, even though he had been about to seek out Stripe himself, before this whole IB situation came down. M’s boss had hired Stripe without consulting M about it.

M had to much to deal with at the moment to worry about it though. His initial failure at in Atlanta was the first time in years that a case ended up in the courts. Agent M was usually better at his job and people thought he might have just screwed up, but that wasn’t an excuse.

So M adjusted his glasses, smiled at Stripe, who was standing beside Agent Will, and put on a happy face. “Welcome to the team Agent Stripe. For the next few months you will be an agent in training, moving from team to team until you are completely trained. Agents Will and Zane are to be your first assignment, they will teach you the basics, field survival, and the proper way to clean up a situation.”

Stripe nodded, trying his best not to smirk at Agent M. “Thank you sir.”

oooooooooo

“Sheila, I think it would be best if you escorted Raphiel back to Seer’s Hamlet and let him get settled in again.” Theo told the small girl.

“But sir, I’m waiting for Ranma to return from that quest with Gina and Ranko.”

“I know, but I can’t do it, and all you have to do is drop him off. Your brother Gar has told me that he and Onoli have managed to get the Hamlet back into a semblance of order. They need some help though and they thought this would be the perfect time to train Raphiel in emergency procedures.”

“You’re not trying to get rid of me are you?” Sheila growled.

“Of course not.”

“And how long should this take?”

“It shouldn’t take more than twenty four hours to get him settled with the others.”

“Where? The Compound was leveled.”

“The Edge Guard have been assigned a new headquarters until the Compound can be rebuilt. It should only be for about six months. A number of wizards are helping out to rebuild the destroyed houses and reweave the magic that keeps the city hidden.”

“Alright sir. I’ll be back tomorrow morning some time after breakfast.”

“Thank you Sheila.”

Sheila grabbed Raphiel’s arm, who was standing nearby staring in awe at the light reflecting off the wall. She really had to wonder how much of his intelligence had survived a second resurrection. Dr. Diggers waved his hand and quickly opened the portal to Jade. They were gone a few seconds later.

“Perfect…”

A blur jumped across the room, tackled Theo, and pinned him to the floor. He looked up at his wife, who was wearing a skimpy robe, and smiled. “Theo, we have twenty four hours to ourselves.”

“Indeed.”

“Whatever should we do with ourselves?”

“Find a bed?”

“We don’t need that in our own house.” Julia said as she leaned down to kiss her husband. Soon they were too occupied to care about anything else. Luckily this was one of the few times when they really did have a few hours to themselves.

oooooooooo

“…and who might you be?” Gina asked. She was in her room using the wall sized computer screen and for once, her clothing wasn’t strewn across the room. This was mainly because it was all destroyed, but she still came out of the deal with a clean room.

A very rare occurance.

On the screen, a man with blond hair and an angular face sat a his own desk. “My name is Joker, I’m an associate of Yomiko. I believe you met her a couple days ago?”

“She stole a disc from me and ruined eighteen hours of hard work.” Gina snapped. “Now that the ship I got it from is gone, I can’t replace it either. I was only able to recover about forty percent from the other terminals I came across.”

Joker nodded, he had figured the girl would be mad with what Yomiko and Nodoka’s actions. “I apologize for their actions and I’m willing to make a deal with you.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“That information is incomplete, so how about I buy the missing information from you and compensate you for the theft?”

Gina nodded. This wasn’t anything new to her, she was always trading information for favors and money. It just depending on who she was dealing with. Off to the side, a second computer was access certain hard drives and getting her a quick run down on just who Joker was. “How much are you offering?”

“A million British pounds for a complete file on everything found on the island before it sank.”

Gina was tempted, that was a pretty good chunk of change and it would allow her to pay off a couple of their credit card accounts. “Deal, wire the money to this account and give me a secure hookup to send the information to. It’s all been loaded into a secure computer already.”

Joker took the information down and nodded. “The transfer will be done within the hour.”

“Excellent.”

“A pleasure doing business with you Miss Diggers.” Joker said and hung up.

Gina set everything up and waited as her account was accessed and the money added. Close to one point two million dollars. She grinned and transferred the money to another account. Ever since Britanny spent went out and spent the emergency fun on shoes, she kept a secret account that no one could access without her permission.

She was about to start working on another project when the doorbell rang. Normally she would have let one of the others get the door, but her robots were still working on a few side projects. So she got up, headed upstairs, and opened the door. She nearly fell over in shock. “No-Nodoka?”

The red haired woman smiled. “Hello Gina Diggers, could we talk?”

“Ah…sure?” Gina muttered.

The woman stepped into the house, her sword strapped to her back, but bundled in a cloth. She was wearing an elaborate kimono her hair was perfect. Gina suspected something was up instantly. Nodoka glanced around the room. “I’d like to talk to you about Ranma?”

“What about him? You did give him a hard time during the last mission, nearly burned him to death at one point.”

“Well, at first I didn’t know who he was, but then he went and introduced himself as someone I thought was dead. I barely managed to hide my surprise and everything after that was a test.”

Gina was confused. “Huh?”

“Miss Diggers, my full name is Nodoka Saotome and I’m Ranma’s mother.” Nodoka said.

“Fascinating!”

oooooooooo

To Be Continued…

Notes:



Omake:

People gathered in and around Gina Digger's garage. All of them were women and quite a few of them looked a little flushed. One could see Gina leaning against the wall. Sheila stood beside Brianna, looking over the girl's shoulder.

Brianna herself had a small book in her hands that ever girl within twenty feet seemed to be starting at. Smiling, she grabbed a microphone. "Hello ladies! Welcome to the Ranma 'The Ultimate Hunk' Saotome fan club!"

The girls all yelled.

"I hold here in my hand a week's worth of photos! Ranma working out! Ranma showering!"

"Oooooh!"

"You got that right!" Brianna said as she hopped around happily. "We've even got him sleeping, posing, and fighting! This hunk can do it all!"

The girls screamed.

"We need money! So these exclusive, one of a kind photos will go to the highest bidder. We'll start at a thousand dollars! The nudes are worth at least that!"

"$1000!"

"$1500!"

Above the girls, on the roof, Ranma used his magic to blend in with the roof and keep hidden. He grit his teeth and swore that no one would see those photos, ever.

"$3000!"

"Now, now girls, no need to fight." Brianna told them. "Anyone else!"

"$5000!"

"$6000!"

Suddenly a strange sound fills the air and all the girls look around in confusion. Then a blue blur raced between the girl's feet, sending a couple of them flying. Peebri comes to a stop a few feet from Brianna and smirks.

"Peebri, what are…"

A mini harpoon fires from her back, snags the photo book, and retracts to Peebri. Laughing, the bot races out of the garage and sends a couple more girls flying. It's like something out of a Peanuts comic!

"Peebri! Get your butt back here!" Brianna yells at the fleeing Peebo.

Peebri just laughs and keeps going. The girl's all cry out as they realize their pictures are getting away. They all chase after the little robot with screams of rage. Ranma kind of wondered where they all grabbed those brooms, swords, and 2x4's from.

Peebri raced across the yard and races around the corner laughing loudly. Of course Brianna is in the lead, easily out pacing the girls with her half werecheetah DNA. "Peebri!"

Ranma jumps down and nearly lands on two girls. They look at him, sigh, and faint. Ignoring the two, he jumps over them, and takes off after Peebri as well. No one would get their hands on those pictures.

Inside the house, Peegi and Peecee are sitting on top of the couch looking out the window, watching Peebri. They figure nearly every girl in the neighborhood is out there chasing the little bot.

Brianna races by cursing up a storm, causing the two Peebos to fall off the couch and roll to the floor. Then Gina comes out of the house with a rifle like weapon with a weird tripod object sticking out of the barrel. She kneels down and fires a net over Peebri.

The girl's all cheer, the book I safe, but Ranma suddenly races through and grabs the book. He bounds over the pool, to the fence, and lands on the roof. The girl's all look up at him and sigh. Then Peebri suddenly extracts herself from the net and races across the yard, aims the harpoon, and snags the book again.

"It's mine! I tell you! HAHAHAHAHAH!"

"Peebri! Give that back!"

Whoosh! Snag!

Peebri slides to a stop and wonders where the book went, when she sees a blur of motion in the distance. Racing across the yard, Peebrit has the book and skids to a halt in front of Britanny. She picks up the book, pats the little Peebo on the head, and flips through it.

"Britanny!" Brianna yells as she stomps over.

"What?"

"What are you doing?"

"Looking at the pictures."

"I didn't think you were interested in Ranma?"

"I can always appreciate a man of his build." Brit says with a smirk. "Anyway, you have digital copies on Peecee's hard drive."

Brianna flinches. "Um…"

"Brianna!" All the girls yell at once.

The laughs nervously, backs away, then makes a run for it with half the girl's chasing after her.