Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Half a War ❯ chapter 4 ( Chapter 4 )

Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 and Homeworld are not mine. I'm using them without permission, etc. etc.

Author's note: Before you flame me about this not being a Ranma + Akane fic, just remember I said I was giving the characters more credit for intelligence.

Half a war: Chapter 4

The five remaining people watched as Ranma was led away. He still looked a little shell-shocked and didn't seem to be resisting it like he normally would have been. Genma thought it was a sign that Ranma liked the two girls. Nodoka thought it meant that both girls would do well in settling her son down some. He really was too wild for his own good sometimes.

"Well Tendo do you want a tour of the Senken as well. It must come as quite a surprise to see your old drinking buddy in charge of this group Eh?" Genma sounded a little smug.

Soun loved this game of one-up-man-ship. "Actually Nabiki figured it out on her own. She really is a very bright girl you know. We had to get her private tutors just to keep her occupied. She was raising all sorts of hell at the schools we sent her to."

"I wish we could have done that for Ranma. Out here it's impossible to find good teachers. They all go to the Academy or the Institute or any of the other colleges and universities that are on Hiigara." Nodoka was a little regretful that her son hadn't had a chance to grow up normally.

"Speaking of Ranma, how in the name of the maker did he do that?" Kimiko was recovering and was starting to wonder about marrying one of her children to that boy. "He is a he, right?" She wished she had thought a little more carefully when Nabiki and Kasumi had shown the initiative.

"Yes Ranma is a man. And if you're wondering about him switching gender with a glass of water, I am afraid that's Ranma's story to tell. I can only tell you that for all intents and purposes it appears to be magic."

"But magic doesn't exist." Akane voiced

"Dear, just because you don't know something or don't understand it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. You would be amazed at the amount of magic out there." Nodoka liked this girl. She reminded her of Ranma. It really was a good thing that Nabiki and Kasumi had shown an interest in Ranma. If Akane had been engaged to Ranma she didn't want to even think about the amount of chaos that the two would likely cause.

"Does this magic have anything to do with Ranma leading the recon group?" Soun asked. If Ranma could teach this to his soldiers, or pass the ability along to his children even, it would help them immensely.

"Yes and No actually. His ability to find hidden ships is only distantly related to his shapeshifting. Also he wouldn't define that ability as magic, though to the rest of us it might as well be." Genma answered his old buddy

"Is there anything else we should know about Ranma or is everything his story to tell?" Akane was getting annoyed at being unable to get anything useful out these people.

"You're starting to catch on Akane." Nodoka said as she smiled.

Akane wished that Nabiki had stayed here. If Nabiki were here she would probably be able to weasel all sorts of information out them. Than Akane remembered something that made her feel better, Nabiki was with Ranma, the source of all the mystery.

"So Ranma this gender thing you do is essentially magic. Hot or cold water will change you depending on what body you're in at the time." Nabiki paraphrased what Ranma had just told her. Pumping people for information was a favorite game of hers and Ranma had some very interesting information.

"Uh yeah cold water changes me into a girl, hot water back to a boy." answered Ranma.

"That must be very enlightening for you. How long have you had this ability?" Kasumi was interested as well.

"Four years now. I got it when I was twelve. Actually it's supposed to be a curse. The place where I got it was called the cursed pools of Jusenkyo. But other than the occasional problem it hasn't bothered me too much. And it is useful in some situations actually." Ranma was slowly loosening up around these women. They didn't seem to mind him switching genders too much. It obviously intrigued them but didn't seem to repel them any. A lot of people tended to think he was disgusting because of it at first, and it took them a long time to get over their first impression. That tended to hurt him some, but he had learned to live with it. After all it helped him separate his real friends from the posers.

"And where would turning into a girl be useful?" Nabiki had some ideas herself but she wondered what Ranma had come up with on his own.

"Well when I'm in a fighter cockpit it helps. My female body is smaller so it has less inertia and women seem to handle high g-forces and unusual environments a bit better than men." He was hoping that by staying on technical aspects of his curse they wouldn't discuss about how society treated him differently.

"Well I was hoping to know about how you would see life differently as girl, versus being a boy." Kasumi was interested in that part the most. She loved to study human nature.

"Uh I haven't spent that much time off the carrier actually, we're usually on business, that and I was raised as boy most of my life so I don't actually see the world as a girl does. It's more of a glimpse really."

"I'll bet you just don't like talking about how many guys come on to you before realizing you're not a girl." Nabiki ribbed him. That and she was a little curious.

"Well that's only a problem occasionally. Some really dumb people have seriously freaked out about it though."

"That would be Ryoga and Kuno wouldn't it?" Nabiki remembered Ranma mentioning them.

"Yeah those two are a couple of fruit cases. I'd rather not talk about them at the moment actually. Uh, what about you two? You haven't told me anything about yourselves yet." Ranma was a little uncomfortable about being the center of attention in anything other than a fight.

"Alright I suppose it is only fair. I'm Nabiki Tendo, age seventeen. I was pulled out of school when I was eleven. After that I was given private tutors. I have attended some advanced classes for strategy at the Academy as well as taken some courses for physics at the Institute. I'm in charge of collecting intelligence on our enemies and keeping our operations secret. Normally I am very good at it, the Taidan Empire being here, was an exception " Nabiki figured telling him about her intelligence work would be okay. After all sometimes you had to give before you received.

"I'm Kasumi, I'm nineteen and have a degree in medicine from the Institute. I'm also being trained to handle the diplomatic duties of our kiith and am authorized to act in as a representative in a first contact encounter with any new alien species." Kasumi summarized for Ranma. She was even less used to being in the spotlight than Ranma.

"Okay I'm sixteen and I haven't had a chance to go to any school. My mom and pop taught me most of what I know. I've picked some stuff from the engineers and doctors that we have aboard. I'm also a first rate combat pilot and can fly any fighter made. I'm also familiar with every corvette class ship as well as most hiigaran frigates. I also know the Vengeance and the Senken carrier well enough to command either." Ranma paraphrased some of his abilities.

"Okay that's a start. Uh how exactly did you get the curse any way? Or whatever you call it." Nabiki asked. She didn't want to call it a curse if it would alienate him. This alliance was important to her kiith and family. Besides Ranma seemed like an okay guy so far, and he was cute in either form.

"Uh well that's a little embarrassing." Ranma said with that slightly sheepish expression of his again. He had raised his arm to scratch the back of his head like some schoolboy. Nabiki found it amusing.

"Well, now I just have to know." Nabiki said jokingly.

"Okay. We heard about the springs and went to collect some samples. While doing that I slipped and fell in. Mom was right shocked when I popped up with red hair. Could have been worse though, most of the springs apparently turn you into animals."

"I would have thought she would have been more shocked about you having breasts than having red hair." Kasumi commented.

"Well I fell in four years ago so I wasn't as uh, mature, then as I am now. We didn't figure out the rest of the changes until I climbed out of the water."

Nabiki looked at him surprised "You mean you had to deal with them growing out. That must have been an experience, puberty as both a girl and guy."

"Yeah since my girl half hit puberty first it was real weird. I had sorta been prepared for some stuff as a guy from talking to the doctors." Ranma was not going to mention the trip where Genma had talked to him about the birds and the bees by smuggling him into a seedy bar with girls dancing on the tables when he had been only eleven. Actually when Genma had shown him the back room with the booths and mirrors Ranma didn't think it would have been necessary to smuggle him in. That bar had had no standards. "It slipped by everyone that I would hit puberty as a girl first. Once we figured out what was going on my mom sat down with me and we had a long and enlightening talk." It also helped repair a lot of the damage done by that previously mentioned trip to the unnamed bar. At least Ranma didn't want to remember the name anyway. "What about you? Why were you pulled from school?" Ranma was used to his curse but he did want to talk about something else.

Nabiki winced. Most people assumed she was pulled from school because she had been so far ahead. That was only partly true. "Well I was a real bright kid, way ahead of my class mates. I ended up with plenty of free time and was kind of bored. So one day I started betting with some of the students over small things like school sports. It was real easy too, but there was an added element of risk that school work lacked. After a while I was running the school's whole gambling ring as well as a loan shark business. I also got into blackmailing and secret trading among the students. That was the real fun part, the finding secrets and making connections. The teachers found out and I got yanked from school. My parents gave me private tutors, lots of them, and also got some of their intelligence agents to start teaching me the business when I was old enough. They figured that since I had shown a larger interest in finding out secrets than running the money making aspects of my business that I might be good at handling the intelligence ring when I got older. Turns out they were right to." Nabiki finished her little tale. She wondered what Ranma would think of that. As much as she would have liked to make up something more flattering she figured secrets and lies weren't a good way to start a potentially romantic relationship.

Ranma looked at her a little stunned "You did this all when you were eleven. Wow. What about you Kasumi, do you have any interesting stories to share?"

Kasumi seemed a little hesitant. "Well my life was a little more controlled than Nabiki's. I was the first child so I was sheltered a bit more than either Nabiki or Akane. I've also had to maintain a reputation of excellent citizenship since I'm the one who handles much of our kiith's business. In the end I'm afraid I don't have too many sordid tales to share. Although there was this one time when an Ambassador from the Taidan Republic insisted on meeting me in the most unusual of bars..."

Ukyo was relaxing in the Senken's lounge waiting for Ranma to finish his business with the arriving Tendos. She saw Hiroshi and Daisuke walking in with a large amount of bills and happy looks on their faces. "Have you two jackasses been fleecing the engineers out of their hard money again?" She asked as they walked up to her table.

"Yup, and you ain't gonna make me feel guilty about it neither. Those boys are practically begging to have someone take their money." Hiroshi said with his characteristic smile.

"So what bet did you clean up on this time and how come I wasn't in on it?"

Daisuke gulped at this. He could try lying but while he and Hiroshi were good at fooling the rest of the crew they couldn't fool Ukyo. "Uh well you see, we bet them that you would be able to hear Ranma yell from any where in the ship while we were in the engine room."

"And what would Ranma be yelling about exactly." Ukyo asked

"You would have heard it actually. It was when Ranma found out that one the Tendo girls was going to be his fiancée." Daisuke braced himself waiting for Ukyo to explode.

"Oh that's an unusual bet to make." was all Ukyo commented.

A few seconds later the ship reverberated again.

"FIANCEE!"

Only this time it was said an octave or two higher.

Nabiki stared at her sister, her jaw hanging open. Ranma was blushing all the way to his ears.

"...And after all that he finally agreed to sign the trade agreement and give us the rights to mine the asteroids around the Kart'Alan star system."

"Kasumi you do realize that if father ever heard this story he would die from a heart attack, and dad has a strong heart." Nabiki was still wondering if Kasumi was telling the truth. Ranma was thinking the bar sounded disturbingly familiar.

"Of course I know that Nabiki. Mother doesn't know either and I'll ask that we keep this just between the three of us. Akane doesn't need to be bothered with this story either, you can guess how she would act." Nabiki pictured Akane storming into the diplomat's office and doing something very undiplomatic to the poor pervert, err man.

"I would have thought that Nabiki's contacts would have preferred to meet at someplace like that, not some high ranking diplomat" commented Ranma.

"Actually I meet many of my contacts in nice clean board rooms, and high class restaurants. Those places you can at least be sure that someone at the next table over isn't listening in on one of your conversations." Nabiki never did like the whole small seedy bar scene, it was all too cliche.

"Hey since we're supposed to be getting a tour of the ship, let's see some of it. I would love to see what this thing is made of." Nabiki said.

"Um okay. Mind if I grab a shower first. The cockpit fluid is great for keeping you alive but it's horrible for keeping you clean."

"Sure Ranma." Kasumi said. "Where should we meet you after you've had a chance to clean up?"

"The Lounge is down that hall and to the right. Ukyo should be there and you can talk to her while you wait for me. Just ask anyone there to point her out to you." Ranma said. Ukyo wouldn't embarrass him too much while he got cleaned up, unlike Hiroshi and Daisuke. Too bad he was unaware that Hiroshi and Daisuke were with Ukyo at that very moment.

To be continued...