Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ One-Half a Wing and a Prayer ❯ History and Her Story ( Chapter 30 )

Author’s Note: Ranma and company were created by Rumiko Takahashi and were distributed by Kitty and Viz. I use them with reverence, but not permission. I don’t get any money from this, and it hurts me, right here, ya know. This little story is to be considered adult reading due to sex, violence and cussing. You know; all that fun stuff.
P.S.: for Jan-chan.


To say that Shampoo was agitated on her first day of classes would be an understatement.

Take your typical Chinese Amazon, who is pretty high strung to begin with due to their warrior culture and strict laws and traditions. Add in a helping of perverted midget who had stolen her first real bra before the day’s gym class. Mix with the daily required dose of volleyball and toss in a dash of catcalls and whistles from the boy’s gym class across the field. Stir well.

Add a pink haired demon girl sitting on her husband’s lap at lunch.

Serve slightly above room temp.

Then run like hell before she bashes your skull in.

Nabiki had a slightly different perspective on Alexis’ arrival at the school that day as she had seen the oddly dressed girl wander in a few minutes earlier asking around for Ranma. She knew that the girl was Ranma’s ‘sister’, and therefore had approached the situation diplomatically.

“I hope you aren’t here to start a fight, little demon.”

Alexis had stopped short at that. She was asking one of the boys if they had heard of Ranma, and enjoyed his obvious distraction due to her red leather bra that showed under her open jacket. Turning she saw a schoolgirl with brown, pageboy cut hair and a half smile on her face. Her relaxed stance and sharp eyes screamed ‘dangerous’ to the succubus, even though it was only a human.

She asked calmly, “How do you know my name?”

“Nabiki Tendo,” the girl answered and offered a hand to shake, “I believe we’ve both kissed the same redhead.”

Alexis blinked, and then the reference clicked, “You must be the one Ranma said got her that job. No, I’m not here for a fight. Nice to meet you.” The pink haired girl took Nabiki’s hand and gave it a quick shake, but not before Nabiki did a quick scan of her surface thoughts.

Alexis blinked again as she felt her mind being probed, and her eyes widened in amazement as the smirk on the other girl’s face grew.

To be that strong when she’s so young, she thought, Ranma has a strong lover here.

“Thank you,” echoed in her mind. Nabiki let go of her hand and continued normally, “I was just about to join Ranma for lunch.” She waved at the leather wearing girl to follow her while mentally signaling ahead to let Ranma know she was coming with company.

A mental debate took place between the two of them as Nabiki led the way around the school. Ranma was in his male form, and had become rather annoyed at the attention his other half was getting around the school. He also wanted to avoid Kuno’s attention today as the delusional upperclassman was still wandering around seeking his pig-tailed nymph.

“Besides,” he reasoned with Nabiki, “if Alexis hangs around long enough she’s going to figure it out eventually. Even Kodachi put it together after we came back from China.” Nabiki had to grudgingly admit his point at that, and led Alexis to the tree where Ranma was sitting.

“Here’s Ranma,” she said simply and sat down next to the boy who handed her a lunch.

Alexis blinked at the attractive young man how almost oozed energy, then looked back at the other girl, “Um…Ranma’s a redheaded girl. Big bust, big smile, about my height. Couldn’t miss her.”

“”Sounds about right,” Ranma said with a small smile. “What do you want, Alexis?”

The succubus blinked again, especially when they young man lifted a hand up, inviting her to touch him. She slowly reached out and took his hand, wondering what was going on, but as soon as she made contact the unmistakable rush of family contact washed over her and she stared in amazement down at the boy who she now knew was her elder sister.

“How,” she started to ask, but was cut off by Ranma who simply sighed in agitation.

“Your Guild has Enema, right? She didn’t tell you about Jusenkyo? Must have slipped her mind.”

Nabiki smirked, “Pretty easy for someone that slimy.”

The young man grunted an affirmative and continued, “Long story short, I was born a boy, got dunked in a cursed spring and timeshare with the body of your dead sister. It was going great until I picked up some of the mental baggage that went with it.”

Alexis stood dumbfounded at this, but could not sense any lie coming from the boy. The improbable nature of her lost sister almost overloaded her, but she remembered the contact she had made with him only seconds ago, and knew it was true. A smile crept on to her face and a giggle escaped her lips as she jumped into the startled boy’s lap.

“My sister turns into my brother? That’s so cool!”

Ranma began to turn a few shades of red as he felt the succubus’ leather covered assets press into his suddenly very thin seeming silk shirt. It didn’t help that he also remembered that he had picked out that bra for her only a couple of days ago.

“Erk…”

“What bubblegum hair girl doing to husband!”

Ranma looked around his uncomfortably close ‘sister’ and saw his Amazon wife approach with lethal intent in her eyes, “No, wait Shampoo! This isn’t what t looks like!”

All Nabiki could say, with a smile of her own, was, “Run lover boy. Run like hell.”


One Half a Wing and a Prayer
By Seth

Chapter 30
History and Her Story


After Shampoo had calmed somewhat, and Alexis had removed herself from Ranma’s lap, the introductions were made. Alexis was surprised by the Amazon’s mercurial mood as the blue haired girl glomped her and welcomed her as ‘sister to husband’. Nabiki also seemed to accept her presence and treated her as a friend, even if the Tendo girl was still giving her a cautious glance every now and then.

After an explanation of the Jusenkyo curse and a quick demonstration with a few splashes from the schoolyard sink, Alexis sat in a small circle with the three lovers and got right to the point.

“Father wants you dealt with,” she said solemnly. “You have to come back now, or people are going to start coming after you.”

Ranma snorted, and Shampoo and Nabiki fought to hold down a burst of giggles. At Alexis’ incredulous look they lost the fight and let a little laughter out. She was about to chastise them, but Ranma waved her off.

“I’ve had people trying to kill me for a while now,” he said calmly, “and a lot of the time it was for a lot less then backstabbing them after they screwed up my life. I’ve been in a pissing match with Enema since day one, kept another guy from killing me for stealing his bread in junior high, and ironically enough I fought my own father to get a measure of freedom.”

Out of nowhere a young man garbed in kendo robes leapt towards Ranma screaming, “Die, defiler of the pure! Today I free Akane Tendo and the pig tailed nymph!” Ranma rolled from a sitting position into a hand stand and planted both feet under the attacker’s jaw, sending him flying across the schoolyard.

After rolling back to his seat Ranma continued, “And then there’s that nut and his wannabe sorcerer sidekick. Having one more person try and kill me is what we call Thursday. I never can get the hang of Thursdays.”

“O…kay,” Alexis slowly let out. She took a moment to consider the nonchalant way Ranma and his two lovers were handling the interruption, and remembered the raw power she had felt on her first encounter with his redheaded alter ego. She had it drilled into her by everyone that she had known that humans were weak and no match for a full demon. The only one to come close was Master Happosai, but even he could not stand against the Guildmaster.

Now here was Ranma, and in her demon form she combined power and grace and a level of skill that was truly unbelievable, and she saw that Nabiki and Shampoo moved with the same air of confidence that he did.

Finally she spoke, “You’re good, but how long do you think you can keep it up? Guild assassins aren’t someone you can just dismiss. They never fail, not in the history of the Guild.”

“And that’s not a lie,” another voice said as a small form dropped from the tree they sat under. The teens looked and saw that Happosai was in their midst, and Nabiki and Shampoo quickly shifted their legs to guard against an attack against their underpants. Shampoo’s hand flexed and suddenly one of her maces was imbedded in the old master’s head.

“You give back Shampoo’s bra, little pervert. You no want to be bashed more, do you?”

“Gnirf,” was the old man’s replay as he rested his further compacted form under the hard steel of the mace head. Alexis blinked again at the savage strength displayed by the Amazon girl.

After a moment Happosai managed to pull himself back upright, a sizable lump forming on his head and tears in his eyes, “Oh Ranma, it’s terrible! Here I am, an old man, and you let these girls abuse me like this?”

The young man chuckled, “Like I’d want to stop them? And even if I did, you had it coming, ol’ fart.”

Happosai took a pensive pose for a moment and finally nodded, “Ok, you have a point. Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. It’s time you knew a few things, and with little Alexis here I can answer some of her questions as well.”

Nabiki looked at the pink haired girl and saw her nod, then asked, “You know the little troll?”

“Sure,” the demon girl answered, “he took care of me when I was little. Master Happosai was the one to get me interested in the outside world, like Amnara was.”

The old master nodded and took out his pipe, “True, true. I remember two hundred years ago I was carrying you around on my shoulders and you were always trying to get into things. Ah, good times.”

Nabiki looked sideways at the pink haired girl, “Two hundred? I guess you age differently then humans too.”

Alexis shrugged and turned back to Happosai to ask, “So is he really her, or…well you know?”

Happosai lit his pipe and puffed on it for a few minutes as the group surrounding him looked on with interest. Ranma wanted desperately to know the answer; it was something that had plagued him for a long time now. Was he his own person or just the continuation of someone long dead. He felt a sudden pulse of warmth within and looked up to see Nabiki and Shampoo’s eyes.

“You are Ranma,” Nabiki’s voice echoed in his mind, “the person Shampoo and I fell in love with. The both of us will stand by you no matter what.” He nodded his thanks and turned his attention back to the diminutive master of his Art.

Happosai closed his eyes and held his pipe out, stem pointing at Ranma, “The answer is simple. Amnara Nightbane died long ago, but before she passed on she gained what few of her kind ever do, a noble soul. She was more then willing to sacrifice herself for the benefit of others, and whatever powers there are in the universe allowed her to move on in peace. The magic of the cursed Pools of Sorrow could only capture her physical self. Ranma is his own person.”

Ranma asked softly, “Then how come I remember all this stuff from her life?”

Taking another pull on his pipe, Happosai answered out of one corner of his mouth, “A link was formed, between you and Amnara. When she died and placed her curse on the Amazons a new magic was placed into the pool that she drowned in. Jusenkyo would wait to impart the succubus’ form until someone deserving could be found.”

Nabiki blinked, “Deserving?”

“Yes. It had to be someone who was a warrior, who had a strong will and a pure heart despite adversity. Only then could the pool release the power that it had held for five hundred years. That valley is a living thing, and its magic is meant to balance the world with both blessings and punishments.”

“How you know so much about springs and Amazon history,” Shampoo asked.

“I dated your great grandmother when we were young,” Happosai said simply, a small smile on his face.

“Shampoo think she be sick now,” the Amazon managed in a weak voice.

“Me too,” Ranma stated blandly, “but putting that aside for now. So I’m really just me, but I’m stuck with Amnara’s body to undo an Amazon curse. Peachy. What next, and what is this Guild you both keep talking about?”

Happosai nodded to Alexis who answered, “A long time ago the world was controlled by demons. We didn’t originally come from earth, but from a dying world in another realm. You’re kind would see it as hell, what with all the lava and stuff. When we came here humanity was weak and didn’t amount to much, so we just moved in and set up shop. Over the centuries humanity evolved and started learning, and eventually became strong enough to be a serious threat to us in numbers. Because there were so few of us, and millions of humans we formed a kind of support group.”

“Thus the Guild came into being,” Happosai continued. “Over time it splintered, reformed, evolved and changed, but the foundation is still true. The Guild is a way for demon kind to stay safe from an all out war with humanity. The currant Guildmaster, who has held his position for close to a thousand years, holds the belief that humanity needs to be wiped out so demon kind can live freely again. Only the conservative elements within the community hold him back.”

“Daddy is a bit of a traditionalist,” Alexis added. “You know; the whole defiler of the innocent, blood drinking, fire spitting image. That was what demonic life was like in the home realm, or so he keeps ranting.”

“The life of a demon is fraught with peril,” Nabiki paraphrased her own father.

Happosai chuckled, “True words, those. As for what is next, that’s up to all of you. I take it that you really don’t want to fight Ranma all out to try and kill him?”

The pink haired demoness sighed, “She…he…whatever walked all over me the last time we fought. And I grew up hearing about how great Amnara was from my sister. Dizzy was flipping out on the phone when I told her what happened. She’s curious to meet you, and I don’t know if that’s good or bad or what.”

“From what we dredged up in Ranma’s mind Dizzy loved her sister very much, but was still loyal to the Guild,” Nabiki said while putting a comforting hand on Ranma’s shoulder. “Any chance Amnara’s death and rebirth have had an impact on her?”

Alexis shrugged, “No idea. Sometimes she’s a cold bitch, sometimes she’s the best friend I’ve had. I do know that if she comes after you seriously, you won’t have as easy a time with it as you did with me.”

“That good point,” Shampoo added. “Why pink demon be all nice nice now? You think maybe backstab Airen when guard down?”

Waving her hands defensively, Alexis quickly countered, “No, no! I’m not all into the Guild stuff. I’m just looking for a good time and keeping my head low. Daddy wants the whole demon empire thing. I like humans, after all, who else could come up with internet porn?”

“That’s not all, is it,” Happosai said knowingly.

Alexis looked down at the old man for a long time. The others could almost see the young looking girl’s thoughts running wild behind her eyes. Finally she looked up again, and the teens were surprised to see a look of longing of her face.

“All my life I heard stories about my big sister, Amnara. How she rebelled against Daddy. How she stood up and made a bid to be free. How she wanted to live by her own rules. I grew up hearing that, and wound up wanting it too. Dizzy told my about Amnara to caution me against her wild behavior, but Master Happosai taught me that chaos like that is what makes humans stronger than us in the long run. You can adapt and evolve and grow to overcome chaos. We forgot how to do that a long time ago. I want to be free, and I thought Amnara…Ranma…could show me how.”

Silence descended on the small group after that. Even the ringing of the bell to signal the end of lunch only managed to stir them slightly as each of the teens soaked in the emotion filled declaration of the pink haired punk demon girl.

At last Ranma stood and took her hand, pulling her up, “I may not know much about demons, or all that supernatural crap, but I do know a few things. Amnara and I are two different people, but we share a lot. We both had crappy fathers who controlled our lives and forced us along their paths. We both wanted our freedom. And most importantly, we both fought and got ourselves free. Now you’re in the same boat. But you’re different.”

Alexis looked down; anticipating rejection, but Ranma grabbed her chin and gently pulled her head back up.

“Amnara didn’t have help getting free. I had the love of my wife and fiancée.” Ranma looked back and saw the support of the girls and Nabiki’s small smile.

“You just have to go play the hero, don’t you lover boy,” her voice echoed in his mind.

Ranma gave a small nod and turned back to Alexis, “The difference with you is you get the backup I had, and your big brother will look out for you too.”

Alexis saw the smile on Ranma’s face, but still felt a knot of doubt in the pit of her stomach.

“How do I know I can trust you? It’s not like we’re really related, after all.”

“Then find out,” Nabiki said calmly. “We know succubi are empathic. Give the big lug a kiss and you’ll find out.” Her smile grew sneaky and she added, “Unless you’re scared of a little human?”

Alexis bristled at that, but Ranma was the one to hesitate this time, “Are you sure about this? The last thing I need is another girl chasing me around.”

“High opinion of yourself there lover boy,” Nabiki’s laughter echoed in his head. “Besides, the two of us figured out a while ago that you were a whole lot of man for one woman.”

He was about to protest further, but Alexis had solidified her resolve and grabbed Ranma’s face, pulling him down and initiating a hard and wet lip lock with him. She felt him go limp in her hands as his own doubts dissolved, and with a touch of power she reached into him, tugging at his energy and seeing the truth.

The first thing she found was that the pig tailed martial artist tasted great. His life-force was drenched with power, physical, magical and spiritual. Like when she had kissed his female half, she found herself almost instantly addicted to the taste. The second was his almost naive honesty. He meant what he had said, and was willing to welcome her into his, albeit very dysfunctional, family unit.

Ranma was also stunned by the euphoric experience, and now truly understood why Shampoo and Nabiki seemed to never be able to get enough of his own demonic form. It took a supreme effort not to start groping the younger looking girl right there in public. Thankfully, Alexis seemed to be quickly satisfied to his intent and pulled away.

“Wow,” he said quietly as the taste of cherries left his lips. He was about to comment further, but Alexis excitedly glomped onto him in an almost Amazon style.

“Thank you,” she said simply in his ear.

Suddenly a voice shouted from above, “If you’re done flirting with MORE girls, shouldn’t you be up here?!”

Shampoo, Nabiki, Ranma and Alexis looked up to see a frowning Akane leaning out a window in Ranma’s class room. Nabiki looked at the clock tower and hissed sharply at the time.

“We are so boned,” she declared to the other students, but was reluctant to run off in the middle of the conversation. “I could always call in a marker to get us excused again, but I’m running low on favors with the office staff.”

“I guess you youngsters should run along then,” Happosai said, “you don’t want to miss out on your education now, do you?”

Ranma smirked, “Shows what you know. Besides, I still have more questions for you old man.”

Happosai chuckled and patted out his pipe, “Now, now, Ranma my boy. Your mind is a muscle too, don’t forget. Off you go.”

“But…” Before he could protest further, Happosai bounded off over the wall of the school and towards the commercial district of town. “Ever get the feeling that he’s dodging more then just Shampoo’s mace?”

“That’s the old man for you,” Alexis chuckled. “He probably wants to keep you guessing about him for a while longer. He usually gives you enough to go on, but leaves it up to you to figure out what to do next. It’s just like how he taught me to fight, but I’m not very good, even with his teaching me.”

Nabiki shrugged and started towards the school, “You jocks can go around comparing your styles later. I think we need to get to class now.”

Shampoo reluctantly followed her back towards the school building, but noticed that Ranma lagged behind to speak with Alexis a moment longer.

“Seriously, “Ranma told her, “I’m not going to run away just because some old demon club is out to get me.”

Alexis frowned at the young martial artist, “Brave, but not bright. This is life and death here, and you may not be immortal like I am.”

Ranma gave her his characteristic smirk, “The little freak doesn’t seem too worried, and you haven’t seen me go all out yet. When it gets down to crunch time, I’ll be more than ready. And you don’t know what Shampoo and Nabiki are capable of. The three of us are unstoppable when we need to be.” His face widened further into a full smile, “Trust me, I know what I’m doing. See you later, little sis.”

Ranma sprang into motion, leaping to the covering over the school entrance and jumping up to the open third floor window, ducking into class. Alexis sighed at his disappearing form and spun on one high heel and started out of the school grounds. She lightly hopped over the wall, landed outside and pulled her cell phone from her jacket pocket.

Dialing quickly, she raised it to her ear and waited for the connection to be made.

“Hello,” a silky voice on the other end of the call answered.

Alexis took a deep breath and spoke, “I can’t do this, Dizzy. Amnara…well, she isn’t what we think. I talked to…her…again, and I think it’s a bad idea to try and force her back.”

There was a long pause, and Despair’s voice came back over the line, “What happened, Sister?” She decided not to include her usual chide about her name when she heard the pain in Alexis’ voice and waited for a reply.

Alexis did respond soon enough, “Ranma doesn’t want anything to do with the Guild, and it sounds like she’s had to put up with her own family problems, which didn’t help my case any. Throw in the fact that Master Happosai is here, and I’m really losing my footing here.”

“Happosai is there?” Despair took a moment to take this in and then continued, “I take it you didn’t try and kill him as well.”

Alexis grunted, “Daddy is crazy if he thinks a ‘kill on sight’ order is going to make me attack him. Happosai almost raised me, Dizzy. And now he’s taken Ranma as an apprentice. Ranma has the powers of a demon and all that stuff that Master Happosai showed us when he was with the Guild, and she’s only going to get stronger.”

“So you can’t fight her?”

Alexis paused. She knew that Despair could tell she was holding something back, and she decided to let a little of it out. “Ranma doesn’t want anything to do with Daddy, but she called me sister. I…I feel so…confused. It’s like when you call me that. I can feel it between us, and there’s more. It’s like a warm blanket around…around my heart…”

There was an even longer pause, and Despair’s voice came back on the line with a hard edge to it, “I’ll be in Tokyo tomorrow. This needs to be dealt with quickly, before it gets out of control. If she manages to defeat the scouts I’ve sent, then I’ll deal with her myself.”

“I really think that’s a bad idea, sis.” But Alexis’ warning was wasted due to the line already being dead.

The pink haired girl looked down at her cell phone and frowned deeply, “By the pit. I hope Ranma can survive this.”

It was much later that night when Alexis looked over the Tendo compound from a few roofs away. She stood next to the leader of the scout team, an assassin who was barely able to hide his contempt for the demon girl.

“So the mighty sex witch can’t kill one half breed,” he sneered. “It’s about time you arrogant bitches let the real warriors do their work.”

Alexis held her tongue, knowing that the four to one odds were not in her favor if she took exception to his comment. The assassins may have been lesser in power to her, but they more then made up for it in their training and raw brutality. She looked down at the lean demon leading the group and frowned.

“If you take this prey lightly, you’ll be sorry,” she told him tersely.

He sneered back, “And will you be joining the slaughter?”

“No,” she said, her eyes returning to the compound, “I prefer to survive the night.”

The killers laughed at her words, then at the signal of their commander glided off the roof and silently crept onto the Tendo property. As they vanished from sight, Alexis turned to look behind her as a small form dropped down on the roof with her.

She asked the figure, “Are they ready?”

Happosai came out of the shadows and smiled darkly at the red leather clad succubus, “Oh, the Tendos are going to be quite the handful for those four. But I must ask, my dear Alexis, why are you doing this?”

“Don’t you already know?”

“Maybe,” the old master chuckled, “but I think you need to say it.”

Alexis sighed, then grew a dark smile of her own, “I’m picking a side.”

Inside the house, the team split up, each member taking a bedroom, ready to strike simultaneously, ending the lives of everyone in the house. Their demon senses alerted them to two presences in three of the rooms, and the last holding a single presence. Of the signatures, the strongest was the single, and the leader took that for himself.

The doors were opened and closed silently, and simultaneously. And as they closed, all hell broke lose.

In Kasumi’s room, when the door closed the sheets were thrown off the bed and two lithe, shapely forms bolted forward. One rolled off the bed and tumbled to the assassin’s legs, kicking hard at the kneecaps as she also struck at his neck with a whip like ribbon. The other, slightly taller form bounded off the ceiling of the room and delivered a spinning backhand, enhanced with a gymnastics club that almost caved in the head of the unsuspecting demon.

The impact buckled his weakened knees and he spun around while falling, the ribbon around his neck cutting off his air supply. He was out cold before he hit the floor, but two shapely legs, one from each girl, slammed across his stomach for good measure.

Kasumi helped her apprentice up and joined Kodachi in a grin as they looked down at their handiwork. They tried, but Kodachi failed to hold her mirth in as she relished in the trap being sprung. Kasumi could only look on with a masters pride as Kodachi’s head rolled back and a long, evil laugh escaped the busty gymnast.

In Nabiki’s bedroom, the attacker managed two steps into the room before he felt ten sharp pricks along his neck and heard a load animalistic sound behind him. He turned slightly to see animalistic eyes glowing yellow with reflected moonlight before the large, clawed hands took a firmer grip on his head and forced him took look directly ahead. He was about to call out to his comrades, regardless of the consequences, when a warm blanket wrapped around his mind.

“You really don’t want to do that, do you?”

The voice echoed in his mind, and was silky, warm and inviting.

“This job is so easy you could sleep through it, couldn’t you?” The voice continued, “The others have this all but finished. May as well go ahead and take a nap now…just for a moment…just sleep…”

The assassin fell to the ground, sleeping soundly as Shampoo glided from behind him with cat like grace and moved to stand with Nabiki, whose eyes still glowed faintly with power as she reinforced her psychic command.

“Weak humans, Shampoo’s fuzzy butt,” the Amazon cat girl snorted as her lover and co-wife gave a derisive laugh of her own.

In the master bedroom, the demon found his targets simply looking at him. The girl had a large wooden mallet in her hands, and the older man only had open hands and a frown on his mustachioed face.

“I give you this opportunity to leave my house in peace,” Soun Tendo said calmly as the demon brandished a long, curved knife. “I doubt your fellows are getting the same consideration.”

The demon hesitated a moment, unused to such a calm reception from his targets. The moment passed, however, and he lunged gracefully at the armed girl, the bigger threat in his mind.

Instantly, Soun was in front of him, using one wrist to turn the attack while a lightning fast strike pushed two fingers into the soft tendon on the inside of the elbow. This attack was followed by a hard knee to the solar plexus and a double punch to the shoulders. The attacker was slammed hard into the wall, and once he shook his head clear he saw an imposing image. Soun seemed to loom over the demon, his hair floating around a grotesquely enlarged and deformed visage.

The Tendo patriarch’s voice chilled the assassin and caused further discomfort in his stomach, “DID YOU JUST TRY AND ATTACK MY LITTLE GIRL?!”

To be sure, the demon had seen far more powerful, and frightening things in his life, but the looming menace and righteous parental anger that washed over him almost made him wet his pants.

“Daddy,” came an exasperated groan from behind the apocalyptic face of Soun Tendo. Instantly the enlarged head popped out of existence, leaving an embarrassed looking human in its wake, lightly rubbing the back of his head.

“Sorry about that, Akane,” Tendo chuckled. “You can’t blame your father for being a little protective of his baby girl.

Akane took a claming breath and answered, “I’m sixteen, and not a baby any more. I was ready for his attack you know, one good whack on the head and he wouldn’t be a problem anymore.”

The demon continued to slump against the wall, confused. Normally mortals would be screaming, or trying to run away. These two threw him by having a family argument and ignoring him.

He decided to regain their attention, and hopefully their fear, “I’m going to peel your skin off!”

“Oh, shut up!” The snap kick he received to his already abused stomach was complemented nicely by the mallet to the face as the twin shouts from father and daughter echoed in his ears.

The last thing he heard before he passed out was the girl sighing, “What a moron.”

Finally, in the guest room, the leader of the raid stalked silently into the center of the large, empty room and looked for his target. The sudden click that signaled the light being turned on behind him caused him to spin quickly around to see a slightly unnerving sight.

The redheaded demoness he had been sent to kill was leaning up against the wall, seemingly without a care in the world and with a small smile on her face. One black gloved hand still held the light switch, and one high heel was tapping lightly, almost impatiently.

He wasn’t ready for the quip that came from her either, “Where the hell have you been? We’ve been waiting for like, two hours now.”

The assassin drew his knife and was about to attack the cocky girl when she held up a hand.

Cocking her head to one side, she told him, “Wait for it…”

“OHHOHOHOHOHOHO!”

“YOW L!”

“DID YOU JUST TRY AND ATTACK MY LITTLE GIRL?!”

Sighing in satisfaction, Ranma pushed off the wall and gave a wide smile to the remaining demon assassin. A whip uncoiled from one hand while a small ball of white energy slowly formed in the other.

“I love it when a plan comes together.”

The next morning Despair arrived at the Guild safe house that Alexis was supposed to be staying at, but all she found was the remains of one of her best scouting and assassin teams. None of them had been killed, but the message was clear.

The team leader was burned across his chest, and it wasn’t healing like it normally would. And his arms and back showed evidence of a long session with a razor sharp whip.

His second had an icepack on his jaw, nose, and stomach and was holding a half empty bottle of pain killers.

The third member of the team was still asleep and nothing Despair could do would rouse him.

The fourth member of the team was huddled in the corner of the room, slowly rocking back and fourth muttering, “make the laughter stop, make the laughter stoop…”

She shook her head in disbelief, and then looked up at the final touch. Scrawled across the wall of the main room in bad English characters was a warning for her, the whimsical smiley face at the end notwithstanding.

“Da Wrecking Crew Was Here!”

Below it in smaller, neater letters was an addendum, “Have a nice day.”


To be continued.