Ranma 1/2
A very... VERY Thin Line Between...'
"Ranma! You Jackass!" Ukyo shouted, while throwing another volley of spatulas at him, "You're so inconsiderate! You know how hard it was to get dynamite around here? Now stand still and blow up with me!"
Ranma's breath was ragged, not from exhaustion, but from exertion. Her mind was in turmoil, as she ran from his pursuer. She was totally off-balance, as every time she thought she had evaded one of them, another had shown up. If she could get a piece of himself, she would have laughed; Ranma Saotome of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts, afraid of some girls who were acting funny. But it was more than that, it definitely wasn't funny to her. Something had caused all the women he knew to snap at the same time. Some outside force, possibly some weird magic.
Whatever it was, it tried to see to the pigtailed martial artist being dead before dawn.
Ranma didn't 'hear' Ukyo's shouts, she just knew she had to get away. Like a wounded animal in a flee from overwhelming odds situation, the redhead kept running, running until her pursuer was lost. The shouts of the irrational woman behind her faded as she gained distance on the rooftops, and then she dropped from the roofs to ground level. The redhead scoured the area frantically, and was met with the sight of ten men trained on her, and their employer was among them.
The hired mercs raised their guns, when the noted that it wasn't a pigtailed boy. Kodachi stared right through her, almost not noticing her.
"The pigtailed harlot may be heading this way. Make doubly sure you earn your wage when she arrives!" One of the mercs paused, and then looked back at Ranma-chan, who was nervously backed against a wall stairing at them with total fear. He shrugged, and continued to look for who was described to them, a black haired pigtailed boy of about sixteen-seventeen. The girl was more than likely startled by a small army of men with illegal artillary, nothing of consequence.
When Ranma noticed the attention was away from her, her mind started to assess what just happened. Kodachi didn't recognize her, none of the men were shooting at her. They didn't know who she was! She now had a way to evade the women, by being one of them. Surely they wouldn't harm their own kind!
::SPLASH!::
"SHAMPOO KILL BOY-TYPE RANMA, NOT GIRL TYPE!!!" Otoko-Ranma jumped to the side, barely evading the chainsaw that cut through the concrete she had been standing on. Shampoo didn't look up immidiatly, instead her shoulders shook from silent mirth, the silence that was screaming decibels to the mad. A scream that Ranma was hearing quite well.
Shampoo finally raised her head, her face had an expression of grim seriousness that was tainted by a paul bearer's joy in their duties. The worst part were here eyes; the Irises had dialated as wide as possible, leaving them to seem like twin black pits of lightless tar, maliciously sucking Ranma down into them, into where he would never escape.
The sounds of several locking firearms brought Ranma back from the brink, but what forced him to flee, was the single word Shampoo said in an emotionally void voice, before silently approaching him like a wraith come to claim his soul for Hell...
"Dead."
Ranma let out a scream of fright, and instincts controlled him once again. His martial arts skill mattered little, he merely saught to avoid the oncoming fire aimed for him in his desperate attempt to merely survive. A million voices moaned and screamed in his head, all telling him to run, to hide, to get away. In his blind panic, Ranma bowled over two of the mercenaries before they could start shooting, and he dissappeared into the darkness, where the streets lost any light from the moon or artificial. The darkness would be Ranma's only comfort; it was his only savior from the chaos that finally decided to swallow him whole, and never let him escape.
"THERE IS NO ESCAPE, YOU PIGTAILED SUCCUBUS! I'LL HAVE MY VENGANCE FOR YOUR ATTEMPT TO TAKE MY BODY AND SOULLLLLLLLL!!!!!" Kodachi's voice was almost shrill at the end. The sound of it rippled through Ranma, both physically and psiologically. He was only spurned to run faster.
Akane seemed to melt from the shadows, right into Ranma's path, causing the manical young man to come to a quick stop and tumble backwards.
"We can always be together, Ranma," the almost ghostly girl cooed, as she glided towards her fiancee. Ranma continued to crawl backwards from her, his eyes as wide as the moon that hung in the sky. In the background, he could faintly hear piano music; the song he heard Akane playing, "Yes, we can. All you have to tell me is..."
"Am..."
"I..."
"Lovely?"
Like a thousand glass shards that punctured his mind, any coherant thought Ranma attempted scarred his brain. The screams were becoming louder, telling him to flee, run away, get away and live. One thought, one almost subdued, hidden, caught his attention...
'Find Help.'
Before Akane could tower over him, Ranma shot to his feet, and leapt to the roofs once again. Ranma's analytical mind was still working somewhat, and ran through possible allies. "Cologne? Woman." "Mr. Tendou would be under their power, same with Mousse. Pops? Mom has him by now. Ryoga was unreliable at best. Happosai, HAPPOSAI!" Ranma's desperate mind grasped at his possible savior, and he only hoped he arrived at the Dojo before he left for his rounds,.
________________________
Ranma arrived in the house, all the lights were off. It was late, true, but it was still unusual with Akane still out. The pigtailed young man crept from the bottom floor, not wanting to go through any of the upstairs windows in fear of being discovered by a woman. He made it upstairs, dreading the few meters more he needed to get to the attic to find the ancient perverted martial arts master. HIs dread was well warrented, as Kasumi staggered listlessly out of her room like a marionette being skillfully played.
She looked straight at, and straight through Ranma. Her smile, oh her damning smile. It was like a doll's; fictional, and lifeless. She tilted her head jarringly, as she observed the frozen young man; Ranma half-expected her to rotate her head all the way around...
Kasumi's head turned slowly, agonizingly slowly, to the right...
________________________
Ranma was gone well before her neck reached humanly impossible angle, subconciously protecting his currently fragile sense of reality as much as possible. The moon shown down from high in the sky, and it seemed to swallow up the blackness in a sinister white glow.
He couldn't take anymore, it was just too hard to fight now. He needed to get out of Nerima. Get anywhere, just away from there. He no longer had any destinations in mind, just the task of flight occupied it. He could not let them get him, he could not let them get him, he could not let them..."
"Ranma-honey! I've been looking everywhere for you!" Ukyo latched onto him like a corpse of a lover, attempting to claim it's eternal mate and take it with itself to whatever damnable destination it had in mind. Ranma screamed a piercing cry, that forced Ukyo to let him go to cover her ears. His cry out, unfortunatly, alerted everyone to his location.
Shampoo was now dragging the buzzing chainsaw behind her like a sullen child carrying an unwanted rag doll. It bounced and skittered across the concrete, screeching like the screams of the underworld's demons that skittered behind the seemingly posessed girl in legion.
Kodachi landed from the roof, wearing her gymnastics leotard, while brandishing her most deadly weaponry. Her hired men scuttled out from their hiding places at ground level, and slowly approached with guns raised.
Ranma jolted, as he felt a pair of arms encircle him, but his voice was too raspy, and he could no longer scream. "Ranma, tell me how beautiful I am."
The pigtailed boy slowly slumped to the ground, staring unfocused, at all around him. He could hear his heart beat attune to the ticking clock that was against Ukyo's stomach,
Tick
Ba-doomp
Tick
Ba-doomp
Both sounds began to fade from his perceptions, as everything started to fuze, and grow darker. He could feel Akane stroking his hair still, He could hear Shampoo's chainsaw being lifted from the ground, and raised high above him...
Then he knew no more...
________________________
________________________
::Epilogue::
"I can't say that I approve," Nodoka stated, while sipping her tea. She looked around the table at Akane, Nabiki, Kasumi, Shampoo, Ukyo, and Kodachi, "But I guess I can understand, and it does sound rather humorous."
"Well, as much as I was against it at first, I found it kinda fun," Ukyo stated, with a sheepish expression.
"Well, I have to admit, the expression on my son was priceless," Nodoka replied, with a small smile.
"Oh, if you think that was good, you should have seen him in my room, I even had cameras rigged!" Nabiki passed the images around, inciting giggles from all the women.
"This nothing, airen too, too funny when Shampoo show him chainsaw!"
"Oh my, it wasn't proper to do this to Ranma-Kun."
"And who's idea was it for the black iris contacts?" Nabiki replied, raising an eyebrow.
"Well..." Kasumi blushed, and looked down into her tea.
"Oh, though it pained me ever so slight to even bring harm to my dear Ranma-darling..."
"That didn't involve narcotics..."
Kodachi continued as if she didn't hear Ukyo, "It was a lesson he well had to learn."
"Yes, husband need to learn proper respect for womens."
"For the last time, Shampoo, he isn't your husband!" Akane forced herself to calm down before a confrontation occured, "Anyway, the idiot did need to have his ego turned down a couple of notches. I mean he was getting so pig-headed lately. By the way, Nabiki, the tape of 'Moonlight Sonata' was a nice touch!"
"You said it, Sugar, but we should probably apologise when he wakes up."
"Nabiki Tendou, one thing still puzzles me. Why did you require of me to ignore the pigtailed hussy when I laid sight to her, and refer to my Ranma-sama as the harlot?"
Nobody answered.
"Where is my son, by the way?"
"Oh, he's still upstairs, sulking," Nabiki said with some distaste, "You would think he, of all people, could take a joke." Nabiki sipped her tea, and flashed everyone a smile, "Whoever thought Western unnofficial holidays could be so fun?"
All the girls drank to that.
________________________
Ranma sat upstairs in his room in lotus position. His eyes did not dialate at the change of light, he didn't acknowlege any outside stimuli. His mind had retreated to safety, and it could not be said when it would emerge...
Moral of this story? There's a very... VERY thin line between a prank and reality.
So try not to let your April Fool's jokes get too far out of hand this year, huh? ^_^
A very... VERY Thin Line Between...'
"Ranma! You Jackass!" Ukyo shouted, while throwing another volley of spatulas at him, "You're so inconsiderate! You know how hard it was to get dynamite around here? Now stand still and blow up with me!"
Ranma's breath was ragged, not from exhaustion, but from exertion. Her mind was in turmoil, as she ran from his pursuer. She was totally off-balance, as every time she thought she had evaded one of them, another had shown up. If she could get a piece of himself, she would have laughed; Ranma Saotome of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts, afraid of some girls who were acting funny. But it was more than that, it definitely wasn't funny to her. Something had caused all the women he knew to snap at the same time. Some outside force, possibly some weird magic.
Whatever it was, it tried to see to the pigtailed martial artist being dead before dawn.
Ranma didn't 'hear' Ukyo's shouts, she just knew she had to get away. Like a wounded animal in a flee from overwhelming odds situation, the redhead kept running, running until her pursuer was lost. The shouts of the irrational woman behind her faded as she gained distance on the rooftops, and then she dropped from the roofs to ground level. The redhead scoured the area frantically, and was met with the sight of ten men trained on her, and their employer was among them.
The hired mercs raised their guns, when the noted that it wasn't a pigtailed boy. Kodachi stared right through her, almost not noticing her.
"The pigtailed harlot may be heading this way. Make doubly sure you earn your wage when she arrives!" One of the mercs paused, and then looked back at Ranma-chan, who was nervously backed against a wall stairing at them with total fear. He shrugged, and continued to look for who was described to them, a black haired pigtailed boy of about sixteen-seventeen. The girl was more than likely startled by a small army of men with illegal artillary, nothing of consequence.
When Ranma noticed the attention was away from her, her mind started to assess what just happened. Kodachi didn't recognize her, none of the men were shooting at her. They didn't know who she was! She now had a way to evade the women, by being one of them. Surely they wouldn't harm their own kind!
::SPLASH!::
"SHAMPOO KILL BOY-TYPE RANMA, NOT GIRL TYPE!!!" Otoko-Ranma jumped to the side, barely evading the chainsaw that cut through the concrete she had been standing on. Shampoo didn't look up immidiatly, instead her shoulders shook from silent mirth, the silence that was screaming decibels to the mad. A scream that Ranma was hearing quite well.
Shampoo finally raised her head, her face had an expression of grim seriousness that was tainted by a paul bearer's joy in their duties. The worst part were here eyes; the Irises had dialated as wide as possible, leaving them to seem like twin black pits of lightless tar, maliciously sucking Ranma down into them, into where he would never escape.
The sounds of several locking firearms brought Ranma back from the brink, but what forced him to flee, was the single word Shampoo said in an emotionally void voice, before silently approaching him like a wraith come to claim his soul for Hell...
"Dead."
Ranma let out a scream of fright, and instincts controlled him once again. His martial arts skill mattered little, he merely saught to avoid the oncoming fire aimed for him in his desperate attempt to merely survive. A million voices moaned and screamed in his head, all telling him to run, to hide, to get away. In his blind panic, Ranma bowled over two of the mercenaries before they could start shooting, and he dissappeared into the darkness, where the streets lost any light from the moon or artificial. The darkness would be Ranma's only comfort; it was his only savior from the chaos that finally decided to swallow him whole, and never let him escape.
"THERE IS NO ESCAPE, YOU PIGTAILED SUCCUBUS! I'LL HAVE MY VENGANCE FOR YOUR ATTEMPT TO TAKE MY BODY AND SOULLLLLLLLL!!!!!" Kodachi's voice was almost shrill at the end. The sound of it rippled through Ranma, both physically and psiologically. He was only spurned to run faster.
Akane seemed to melt from the shadows, right into Ranma's path, causing the manical young man to come to a quick stop and tumble backwards.
"We can always be together, Ranma," the almost ghostly girl cooed, as she glided towards her fiancee. Ranma continued to crawl backwards from her, his eyes as wide as the moon that hung in the sky. In the background, he could faintly hear piano music; the song he heard Akane playing, "Yes, we can. All you have to tell me is..."
"Am..."
"I..."
"Lovely?"
Like a thousand glass shards that punctured his mind, any coherant thought Ranma attempted scarred his brain. The screams were becoming louder, telling him to flee, run away, get away and live. One thought, one almost subdued, hidden, caught his attention...
'Find Help.'
Before Akane could tower over him, Ranma shot to his feet, and leapt to the roofs once again. Ranma's analytical mind was still working somewhat, and ran through possible allies. "Cologne? Woman." "Mr. Tendou would be under their power, same with Mousse. Pops? Mom has him by now. Ryoga was unreliable at best. Happosai, HAPPOSAI!" Ranma's desperate mind grasped at his possible savior, and he only hoped he arrived at the Dojo before he left for his rounds,.
________________________
Ranma arrived in the house, all the lights were off. It was late, true, but it was still unusual with Akane still out. The pigtailed young man crept from the bottom floor, not wanting to go through any of the upstairs windows in fear of being discovered by a woman. He made it upstairs, dreading the few meters more he needed to get to the attic to find the ancient perverted martial arts master. HIs dread was well warrented, as Kasumi staggered listlessly out of her room like a marionette being skillfully played.
She looked straight at, and straight through Ranma. Her smile, oh her damning smile. It was like a doll's; fictional, and lifeless. She tilted her head jarringly, as she observed the frozen young man; Ranma half-expected her to rotate her head all the way around...
Kasumi's head turned slowly, agonizingly slowly, to the right...
________________________
Ranma was gone well before her neck reached humanly impossible angle, subconciously protecting his currently fragile sense of reality as much as possible. The moon shown down from high in the sky, and it seemed to swallow up the blackness in a sinister white glow.
He couldn't take anymore, it was just too hard to fight now. He needed to get out of Nerima. Get anywhere, just away from there. He no longer had any destinations in mind, just the task of flight occupied it. He could not let them get him, he could not let them get him, he could not let them..."
"Ranma-honey! I've been looking everywhere for you!" Ukyo latched onto him like a corpse of a lover, attempting to claim it's eternal mate and take it with itself to whatever damnable destination it had in mind. Ranma screamed a piercing cry, that forced Ukyo to let him go to cover her ears. His cry out, unfortunatly, alerted everyone to his location.
Shampoo was now dragging the buzzing chainsaw behind her like a sullen child carrying an unwanted rag doll. It bounced and skittered across the concrete, screeching like the screams of the underworld's demons that skittered behind the seemingly posessed girl in legion.
Kodachi landed from the roof, wearing her gymnastics leotard, while brandishing her most deadly weaponry. Her hired men scuttled out from their hiding places at ground level, and slowly approached with guns raised.
Ranma jolted, as he felt a pair of arms encircle him, but his voice was too raspy, and he could no longer scream. "Ranma, tell me how beautiful I am."
The pigtailed boy slowly slumped to the ground, staring unfocused, at all around him. He could hear his heart beat attune to the ticking clock that was against Ukyo's stomach,
Tick
Ba-doomp
Tick
Ba-doomp
Both sounds began to fade from his perceptions, as everything started to fuze, and grow darker. He could feel Akane stroking his hair still, He could hear Shampoo's chainsaw being lifted from the ground, and raised high above him...
Then he knew no more...
________________________
________________________
::Epilogue::
"I can't say that I approve," Nodoka stated, while sipping her tea. She looked around the table at Akane, Nabiki, Kasumi, Shampoo, Ukyo, and Kodachi, "But I guess I can understand, and it does sound rather humorous."
"Well, as much as I was against it at first, I found it kinda fun," Ukyo stated, with a sheepish expression.
"Well, I have to admit, the expression on my son was priceless," Nodoka replied, with a small smile.
"Oh, if you think that was good, you should have seen him in my room, I even had cameras rigged!" Nabiki passed the images around, inciting giggles from all the women.
"This nothing, airen too, too funny when Shampoo show him chainsaw!"
"Oh my, it wasn't proper to do this to Ranma-Kun."
"And who's idea was it for the black iris contacts?" Nabiki replied, raising an eyebrow.
"Well..." Kasumi blushed, and looked down into her tea.
"Oh, though it pained me ever so slight to even bring harm to my dear Ranma-darling..."
"That didn't involve narcotics..."
Kodachi continued as if she didn't hear Ukyo, "It was a lesson he well had to learn."
"Yes, husband need to learn proper respect for womens."
"For the last time, Shampoo, he isn't your husband!" Akane forced herself to calm down before a confrontation occured, "Anyway, the idiot did need to have his ego turned down a couple of notches. I mean he was getting so pig-headed lately. By the way, Nabiki, the tape of 'Moonlight Sonata' was a nice touch!"
"You said it, Sugar, but we should probably apologise when he wakes up."
"Nabiki Tendou, one thing still puzzles me. Why did you require of me to ignore the pigtailed hussy when I laid sight to her, and refer to my Ranma-sama as the harlot?"
Nobody answered.
"Where is my son, by the way?"
"Oh, he's still upstairs, sulking," Nabiki said with some distaste, "You would think he, of all people, could take a joke." Nabiki sipped her tea, and flashed everyone a smile, "Whoever thought Western unnofficial holidays could be so fun?"
All the girls drank to that.
________________________
Ranma sat upstairs in his room in lotus position. His eyes did not dialate at the change of light, he didn't acknowlege any outside stimuli. His mind had retreated to safety, and it could not be said when it would emerge...
Moral of this story? There's a very... VERY thin line between a prank and reality.
So try not to let your April Fool's jokes get too far out of hand this year, huh? ^_^