No Tendo: A Fusion Tale
by Greylle (Kestral) and Kender_Sci
DISCLAIMER: Don't own anything. Don't have money. Just written to hone skills and amuse readers. Originally written by myself and Kender_Sci over at the Anime Addventure.
Many of the crossover/fusions featured are just spice, there is no attempt to keep those particular characters in the mix. If you want to run with one as a story of your own, please e-mail and i'll forward the request to Kender.
Chapter 36: Tendo Mercies
To Hotaru, this was the sort of thing that she'd known that she'd want to have for herself. Being able to be with a mother as they enjoyed activities together was a dream that she'd seen in plenty of magazines and comic books for girls, but she hadn't been able to have it for herself. Oh, it wasn't that she downplayed the role that the soldiers and other scientists had played in her life, as they had treated her at worst as the project's 'mascot', which wasn't all that bad. But, for all the care that those 'surrogate parents' and her own occasionally absent minded father gave her, it never stopped her from wondering about what it would have been like to go shopping or chat with her own mother.
Right now though, she was wondering about just how comfortable starting to get into such a relationship with Ranma's mother would be.
"Don't be so tense, dear," Nodoka gently admonished. "If you strain too much, you won't be able to slice the vegetables evenly."
"I didn't mean to mess it up..." Hotaru weakly replied.
"That's quite alright. Remember, it's not about perfection. It's about putting your feelings into the meal."
"I guess..."
The older woman sighed, and gave the girl an indulgent smile. "I can understand your hesitation, but remember, this will help you along your way. Why, when he was younger, Ranma absolutely loved this dish."
"But it has been so long since... Oops!"
"It's alright. I've become used to how things are. Of course, I came into this knowing what it would mean for my life. And you should know about this too."
"I should?" the raven haired girl squeaked, her violet eyes widening as she recognized what the older woman was saying.
"As the wife of a martial artist, you'll have to be strong. It'll be your role to be the support that he'll need."
"We... we... still haven't..."
"That's fine, but remember, when that time comes, it'll be you propping him up. And I'm not merely talking about the cooking and the cleaning," Nodoka stated.
"Then what could you mean?"
"You wouldn't realize it, being so young, but a wife has a responsibility to keep her husband on his proper path. That might mean that the couple would be separated for long periods, but in the end, a bride will be called upon to protect the family. And that might mean she could have to sacrifice for the good of the clan."
"How am... how is a wife supposed to do that?"
"With care and concern," the other woman told her. "And there can be no honorable way to waver."
Something about that sentence sat... oddly with Hotaru, and she smiled nervously as she tried to figure out how to work around this shift in conversation.
None of those in the room were under any illusions that the change in the temperature of the object was something to dismiss. Things like that just didn't happen without a reason, and when one didn't know what that reason was, it tended to be a problem. Even if it wasn't a danger in and of itself, it would likely develop into trouble if it was mishandled.
General Hammond knew this, and wasn't about to waste time in finding the proper way to handle the development. "Captain, what exactly is happening?"
"I don't know myself, sir," Carter reluctantly admitted. "We only started checking into what it's made of, never mind knowing what it does."
"So... we can't even start to work on this."
"Pretty much... unless Daniel's translated something."
"Don't look at me," the archeologist protested.
"Maybe you should come look at this then, Carter," Jack murmured.
Blowing out a breath, she glanced over at her team leader. "Sir, I'll be right there."
"Now, Carter."
"Alright," Sam murmured... leaning over to peer at the medscanner he'd been fiddling with. "That can't be right. It would mean that this thing is alive."
The men in the room blinked at her words.
There was a lightning storm in the mountains. Not that this meant a lot.
Except for the lightning that blasted through Shinto wards and caused rubble to fall away from a cave entry.
Not that anyone noticed.
"Testing. Servos OK."
"Main trans-engines start. Number one, two, on. Number three, four, off. Number five, six, seven, eight, on."
"This is Deimos Tower. All systems show active. Meters green. Airspace clear."
"Hello, this is VIFAM."
"Hello, VIFAM 7. Airspace clear."
"Permission to sortie?"
"Permission granted. Good luck, VIFAM-7."
"So a new TV series about how some group saves the universe in a giant robot?"
"Yeah, it's gotten a green light from the people with the money. Vernian Iinfantry Fully Articulated Mecha or VIFAM."
"What's a 'mecha'?"
"Japanese word to indicate a human-shaped war machine, I think."
"I dunno, isn't this something that might give the wrong idea?"
"I thought the idea was to make boatloads of money."
"I mean like having the military as heroes?"
"We can always have corrupt politicians and incompetent military leaders to provide conflict. Heck, those are stock characters we can use."
"I suppose."
"Where the hell is this?" asked a boy.
He had been wandering all over Japan. When his middle school had recessed for Spring Break, he'd gone off to train further in the martial arts.
Of course, he'd been wondering exactly what the heck was going on when he'd seen this ship passing overhead in a manner not exactly keeping with the sort of ships he'd been familiar with.
He'd seen some people going in a door and had decided to ask for directions. Except that inside that door he'd quickly found himself alone again.
Then a set of rings had popped up around him, there had been a weird noise, and now-
"HOW THE HELL DID I GET ON THE MOON?" yelled Ryoga Hibiki as he tried to figure out what was going on.
"Okay, this is just MORE wrong," said Haruka, looking over the place.
"The Dark Kingdom," said Michiru, glancing up at the dark blue neon sign. "Jindai High Astronomy Club meeting on Tuesday... they also do fieldtrips."
"What's that splashing noise?" asked Haruka, thinking about water-based yoma maybe drowning schoolkids. It concerned her that she was actually hoping this would be the case.
Michiru looked around the corner, stared for a moment, then walked back. "You don't want to know."
"I don't?" asked Haruka.
"No. No, I don't think you want to know." Michiru sounded quite firm on this.
"Is it innocent schoolkids being drowned by water-based yoma?" asked Haruka.
"No, it's a charity carwash being staffed by scantily clad yoma in human form," said Michiru.
"'charity carwash'?" saked Haruka weakly.
"Apparently to benefit rebuilding efforts from one of those crashed Death Gliders that came down in Juuban," said Michiru with a shrug. "I told you - you wouldn't want to know."
"I see," said Haruka. "Do you suppose if we broke in and investigated this place - would we find any indication of some dark and dangerous evil plot?"
"I'm just going on intuition and recent events and say 'probably not'," put in Michiru.
Haruka twitched.
Michiru sighed, knowing EXACTLY how Haruka felt.
SCHWANG!
"OUCH!"
"Sir, the alien device just produced spikes that anchored itself in the gate room, incidently pinning Colonel O'Neill to the wall."
"I'll be right there," said General Hammond.
When she'd come to visit the mother of her childhood friend, Hotaru had been looking forward to it. Not only was she getting to see a woman that she respected and liked, but she would be a bit closer to the boy that she cared so much for. It would allow her to experience the sort of normal life that she would have never quite gotten with the life she'd been leading so far. That wasn't to say that she hadn't had a happy and joyful upbringing, but she'd always wondered about what it would be like to enjoy a quiet and peaceful life.
What she hadn't expected was to be wearing a somewhat elaborate kimono as Ranma's mother fixed her hair up in a little more formal style. "Is this really alright?"
"Oh, certainly," Nodoka murmured with a smile. "Making yourself feel and look beautiful is always important and comfortable."
"It takes a lot of work, doesn't it?"
"That can be the case, but with such a lovely child like you, it's no problem at all."
The violet eyed teenager blushed and ducked her head. "I'm not..."
"Don't sell yourself short, dear. You did do well with the food."
"I wanted to just make something good."
"Well, you did well. Ranma did like it, now didn't he?" the Saotome matriarch commented.
"Yes, he did..."
"I'll help you learn how to do some things that will let you do some wonderful things."
"Really, like what?" Hotaru asked, clearly interested.
"If you want, you can help me set some flowers in to the vases around the house."
"That sounds nice..."
"So, let me see if I understand the situation," General Hammond said as he peered over towards the chaos going on in the Gate Room. "Colonel O'Neill can not be removed from the spike that artifact had produced."
"It does seem to be that way, sir. Nothing that we have seems to even scratch it," Carter reluctantly admitted.
"Can we go through the wall instead?"
"You do remember what they built this facility out of, sir."
The base commander pressed his lips together and sighed. "Unfortunately, I do. But that I refuse to give up on my officer. Do we have any options?"
"Well, we could see if we could get him something to help him deal with it."
"Then we really have no choice."
"Sir?" commented Sam.
"Someone go and zap Colonel O'Neill. Perhaps those powers of his could help."
"It is a possibility, sir, but we can't be sure that it will actually..." the blonde began, and then blinked at those around her. "What? Why are you all looking at me like that?"
There a moment of calm as the men merely let their expressions pass their ideas to her.
Happosai was confused.
Things had changed since he'd been imprisoned in that cave by Genma. He'd expected a few things over ten years.
"Hmph," said Happosai as he looked over the magazines. Women in the military? That gal with the blonde short hair on the cover of Tokyo Photojournal. Some Amerikajin military girl but under that uniform he could tell she was cha-cha-cha!
Samantha Carter had no idea why, but she had a sudden chill and a desire to stay away from Tokyo.
Shrugging, she continued to work on translating data on the sphere that currently had Colonel O'Neill pinned to a wall. She wanted to make sure that shooting a superior officer to free him from alien death-traps wasn't going to make things worse.
She had this feeling that it would. Not that she paid much attention to that sort of 'intuition' of course.
Just... better make sure.
Happosai frowned as he looked over the magazines. Alien invasions? Vampires? Sailor-suited warriors of Love and Justice? Oh, waitaminute. Look at those skirts! Whoo hooo!
Hmmm. From what he could see in this magazine, these girls had advanced chi techniques with an elemental effect. This side bar here indicated that they put on those clothes in order to fight menaces to society.
Well, he was here. He was a menace to society, wasn't he? Where were the scantily-clad girls that should be fighting him?
Happosai frowned as he considered the unhappy thought that he simply wasn't considered menacing enough.
Putting the magazine back on the shelf, Happosai glanced around at the other magazines as he thought about this.
Happosai cackled as another thought occurred to him. If THEY wouldn't come to him, HE should go and find them.
He'd just go after girls of the approximate age until he found them. Ones with high chi, but he couldn't discriminate against the other girls either.
"Gotta catch 'em all!" declared Happosai. Now where to go after young girls with high chi? Dojos of course. He was in Nerima now, so that was as good a place to start as any.
"Hello, Saotome residence?" said Ranma after he answered the phone. "Yeah? Yeah? Oh okay. What time? Got it."
He settled the phone back down as he considered that.
"Hotaru? Something came up back at the SGC. They want to know if we can be at the ring transporter in about two hours."
If she was going to be truthful, Hotaru had to admit that she really did like the concept that Ranma's mother was going with. Since her own mom had passed away when she was a little girl, she didn't have a really good chance at getting that sort of attention. Her teachers in cooking had been in mess halls, guards had been her babysitters, and female officers had taught her about feminine clothing and makeup. There hadn't been many people of her age group around either, and even though she didn't blame her Dad, it was nice to be able to get to know this sort of stuff.
At least, that was the case until it became clear that whatever had been stifling the Saotome Matriarch's mothering instincts had been holding back a flood.
"They want us to go back there faster?" Hotaru asked, hope flaring in her eyes.
Ranma gave off a reluctant shrug. "Well, they were willing to let us hang around here, but they might need our help, so they're going to have us come back sooner."
"Of course. If they need our help, we really should go on and head there."
"You don't wanna do anything first?"
"Not really. We have to hurry out as soon as possible," his childhood friend murmured.
"If you say so. Sorry about this, Mom."
"It's perfectly understandable," Nodoka allowed, sadly smoothing out the fabric that she'd spread over one arm. "You both seem to be in a rush, after all."
Something about the way that the words had come out made Hotaru feel guilty, and she flushed a bit as she pressed a hand onto Nodoka's. "We really do want to visit properly with you, but they need us."
"I know, my dear. I am a martial artist's wife, you know. They do tend to run off on training journeys and such fairly often."
"This has to do with the military though..."
"Which makes it all the more worrisome, but I could not bear to keep the two of you from your duty. Just promise me one thing."
"What?"
"Make sure that you come back, would you?" the elder woman murmured softly.
"Absolutely!"
The certainty in the girl's voice seemed to touch Nodoka, and so she reached out and gave her a gentle embrace, almost as if she was holding something precious.
As she was let go and his mother went to hug an embarrassed Ranma, Hotaru found herself rather happy that this woman liked her so much. Oh, it wasn't from the fact that it meant that she had gotten approval from her childhood love's mother, although that was part of it. Rather, she was happy that she was getting affection from someone who was so nice and kind, and who seemed to really like her a lot.
That didn't stop her from glancing over at the pile of kimono fabric and feeling relief that she would be leaving it behind.
Going down the street was something that Akane was fairly used to, as she tended to do it all the time. It was a way to go home after all, and that made it easy to understand. Of course, she knew a lot about Furinkan, seeing as she had spent most of her life there. Save for a few family trips, she'd spent her time in this ward, growing up, and growing familiar with its character and quirks.
But as she swung her schoolbag as she walked, she couldn't help but notice that things really had changed. Why, an 'urban legend' had been proven to be true when the Sailor Senshi had been revealed. Then there was that attack in Washington, which was really scary. And to top it all off, aliens had come to attack the Earth.
For all that this had seemed to be from an action cartoon, she was happy that she was safe here in Tokyo. Nothing major seemed to happen here, and she wasn't looking for that to change. All that she wanted to do was to enjoy her life as a schoolgirl, and to maybe follow in her father's footsteps a little. She wasn't trying to be the best, but it was nice to compete in a karate tournament here or there.
Now, all that she wanted to do was to get together with a nice and mature young man and have a nice stable life.
What she got were screams that seemed to eerily feminine for the most part. Even as she took note of the fact that there were male cries of indignation mixed in there, she felt the part of her that rose up when her classmates were being harassed growing. Something was happening, and she was pretty sure that she didn't like it. That was especially true when she saw girl after girl cringing in anger, fear, and disgust. It was clear that something was coming her way, and she braced herself for it.
However, whatever it was zipped around her faster than she could react. This normally would have been an inconvenience at the very least, but it was clear that this wasn't just some normal sort of troublemaker. No, the perpatrator went as far as flipping up her skirt, making it so that her long legs and white cotton panties were on display for all to see.
"Ahhh! Nooo!" she shrieked, swinging her back wildly as she tried to get her behind out of sight.
This merely got a chuckle out of the offender, who then bounced around her attempt at attacking back. But her reaction didn't seem to bother him, as he was grinning as he jumped up. Landing on her bosom, he took a few trial squeezes before looking thoughtful. "You're not quite as built up here, but damn, you are a feisty one, aren't you."
"An... alien?" Akane screamed, not quite sure that a human could look like that thing.
"I'm hurt. I'm all man, baby. Why don't you give me a kiss to make me feel better."
With an apparently non human life form groping her chest and trying to make out with her, the teenager wanted to get out of there.
"AGH!" said Akane Tendo, swinging her bookbag. That each swipe missed the leaping little lech was just further infuriating.
"Hmmm, you have a fair amount of ki but nowhere near what I'm looking for, my dear," said the old man, going from defense to offense in a moment and bouncing her off a brick wall.
Akane blearily watched the old man bouncing off and wondered why she had to put up with weirdoes like that.
Well, fortunately, there was a hotline set up after the attempted invasion. If you saw aliens, pieces of spacecraft, or anything like that - you call the number on the commercials.
Little alien pervert gropers sounded about right.
Fortunately, she had her cellphone with her.
"One hundred fifty calls with the same description from Nerima ward in Tokyo," said the dispatch manager. "All report the same thing."
"Okay, what is it?" asked the liason.
"Something that looks like a grotesque old oompah-loompah. Wearing a brown gi, smells like something that hasn't been washed in a half-century or more, roughly three feet tall. Some details vary but it apparently has a scrawny moustache, bald on top, and there are reports that it's eyes glowed every so often. Some of those touched by it indicate they feel drained afterwards, though mostly just disgusted and angry," said the manager.
"Glowing eyes? Could be a Goa'uld then," said the JSDF liason. "Though the energy drain sounds like a youma."
"Could a Goa'uld parasite infest a youma?" asked the manager.
"Unknown," said the liason. "I'll relay it though. Try to figure out where it's going, and we'll let the police try an ambush first. While they're doing that, I'll check with the specialists."
"I sense something odd," said Hotaru, slowing down a little beside Ranma.
"Yeah," said Ranma. "Some strong chi nearby. Moving closer."
Hotaru and Ranma went back to back, their training with SG-X and experience on strange worlds coming back to them.
There were others on the street though, including one girl leaning against a wall for some reason. She didn't want to transform in front of anyone as it might mean she could never go shopping again without facing a mob.
"It's circling," said Ranma, his voice having an odd sound to it.
Hotaru looked around, trying to spot the source of the uneasy sensation she was getting.
"Incoming," said Ranma abruptly, shifting around and heading for a shimmer. What followed was too fast for Hotaru to see anything more than blurs. It was as bad as when he'd fought KOS-MOS, except the bluish light indicated he was unsealing manuevers from his experiments with that energy he'd gotten from that 'chaos' person.
Ranma blocked, parried, slipped around one attack, and found his own counter-attacks being blocked.
The attacker bounced away to a stop to look at him. "Hmph. Not too shabby. I might have to get serious."
"I could say the same," countered Ranma.
Hotaru considered for a few moments before bowing her head in concentration. When she opened her eyes again, it was as Sailor Saturn.
"Hotcha!" said the alien being, bouncing around to a better angle of attack.
Happosai didn't know what to make of the boy who had come to fight him. The kid was good for his age, but he was too young to really understand how much he had to learn. Why, by the time that he was as old as that boy, he'd traveled over countless distances, faced many challenges, and had the chance to grope some of the greatest warrior women the world had ever seen. Certainly the youngster was good, and clearly was talented enough to garner an interest in training the lad, but the elderly martial arts master simply could not see him being all that worth long term attention.
However, there was a cutie pie that just screamed that out a need for attention without having to make a sound. She might have been young, but she was certainly pretty, with delicate features and big violet eyes to give her an air of fragility. On top of that, she had some lovely legs that were smooth and oh so appealing to the male sensibility. It was like a fairy had come to Earth and taken human size, just for his benefit. And what made it even better was that she looked to have one of those stylized sailor outfits that those 'Sailor Senshi' were supposed to bear.
Here was an attractive young lady wearing a rather skimpy outfit and likely had energy to spare for him. There was no way that he was going to give her up, and so he charged right in. Being able to cuddle against such a precious beauty was too alluring to ignore. "Hotcha!"
"EEK!" Saturn screeched, her eyes going wide as she brought her Glaive up to shield herself. "Silent Wall!"
As he came close to reaching his prize, with all the silky treasures she likely had for him, Happosai was surprised as he wound up bouncing off something that felt very solid. But the the only thing between them had been the air, and that would have meant that he had been repelled by that. That confused him though, as she hadn't used any sort of technique that could have forced a wind to come at him, and even if she had, it didn't feel like a counter blow. What it did feel like was hitting his head against the side of a large building, and not one of those shoddy ones either. No weak barrier could have set the stinging and soreness that had now seeped into his face after striking himself directly into it.
Given a chance, the elderly pervert was sure that he could figure out what the problem was... but then he didn't have that opportunity. Instead, he had to jump out of the way as that pigtailed boy from earlier came right at him. Such a thing normally wasn't a problem, but this time the kid was coming with such force that he was able to smash a crater in the street. With his experience and abilities, Happosai was able to dodge, but it was clear that this lad was more powerful than he appeared.
Of course, Ranma wasn't thinking of that, as he went to chase after the old pervert that had just tried to assault his childhood friend. Despite the fact that Hotaru was 'Sailor Saturn', she was still the little girl that he'd grown up with, and he cared too much about her to let her be treated like that. So, it had gone beyond a mere search to see what was going on, and it had had turned into an urge to get the gnome that was attacking her.
Not that Happosai was just sitting around for it. Hopping backwards, the old man tried to keep out of the way of the pigtailed boy's reach. No matter how weak the kid might be, getting hit wouldn't have been all that amusing. Due to that, he decided to put some distance between the two of them, and so he grabbed some nearby signs and decided that they would make good projectiles.
Improvised weapons were something that the teenaged martial artist was used to, and so he was perfectly able to avoid them. All that he had to do was to twist his body around, and he was able to let them sail right by him. In fact he even did it once in mid air, twirling about so that the thrown 'missiles' wound up flying beneath him as he jumped over them. Unfortunately, this also allowed them to go sailing through some storefronts, sending glass sailing everywhere, with the shards falling like a sparkling rain across the sidewalk. Displeased with how that was going, Ranma bolted forward, intent on landing a blow before he could be detected.
The problem was that Happosai had trained himself to be ready for unseen threats, and so he already had his pipe out for what had to be done. As Ranma came close to him, he hooked him with the smoking implement, and then twisted about, using the force of the spin to send his young opponent flying. The boy sailed right to the upper floor of a building, crashing through the wall, and causing a gaping hole where a formerly flat surface had been.
Pulling himself out of the wreckage, the pigtailed teen appeared in the hole just long enough to kick up some debris and send it flying right back at the geriatric pervert that had been causing him so much trouble. It was a veritable shower of materials, each with rough edges that held points in many cases, and likely would at the very least delay the creep. In that way, it did do its job... but then again, they also pierced several nearby cars, not only making them unusable, but making all sorts of liquids start leaking over the asphalt.
Realizing that there was a problem, Happosai decided that it would be best to strike before the boy could come close. When the kid jumped all the way from the ruined building back down to the street, the elderly martial arts master knocked a small steel drum into the air. Using it to attack wasn't the point though, as he knew that it was likely that his young opponent could dodge it. But, he could use it as an obstacle, and so he bounced it back, planning on having it give the boy reason to pause.
What he didn't expect was for it to be smacked away, sending it sailing right into a grill restaurant. That was annoying, to say the least, but it did put things into perspective. Fighting like this was a problem, and he didn't want to have to face it. Sending some ash from his pipe, he tried to blind the boy... but perhaps he should have also paid more attention to his surroundings.
Had Happosai done so, he might have noticed that he'd severed a gas line in his previous attack... and that the wind wasn't quite blowing the way that was in his best interest.
As a result, the restaurant wound up blowing up in a massive fireball that sent shards of material, from shattered furniture to pieces of steel shooting out to pepper the neighborhood around them. The shrapnel tore through the area around them, and did horrible things for the property values there.
And in the light of the flickering flames, the two fighters squared off, ready for their next exchange of attacks.
The two leapt at each other, the size difference between the two apparent only for the brief period of time that they were visible to the naked eye.
Akane Tendo, staring from a building not too far away, was reminded of a strobe effect.
Flick. The boy was bringing an axe-kick down upon the alien, who met it with arms crossed over his head. The impact still managed to crater the street underneath the alien.
Flick. The alien critter was glowing with energy, becoming huge. Which ended an eyeblink later when the girl with the polearm cut his giant form in half.
Flick. The alien slammed into a purple-tinted forcefield surrounding the girl, bouncing off.
Flick. The alien was suddenly there, at most four feet away from her, with the boy elbow-spiking him in the kidneys hard enough that there was an alien-shaped indentation in the pavement.
Flick. The boy had drawn two large metal kukri-style blades and was cutting through the old alien pervert's pipe?
Flick. The old pervert alien was driving two fingers through one of the blades. The boy was off-balance for just a moment.
Whick-thunk!
"YEOWTCH!" exclaimed the little alien pervert, pulling a bunch of roses out of his butt.
Then a fog rose up and Akane couldn't see a thing.
Well, other than lightning crackling around. And what looked like a flamethrower going off. And lots of smaller electrical crackles.
"!"
Akane blinked at that, as it had started off delighted and ended up as if in horrible pain.
The JSDF had responded to events with the sort of inventiveness and speed not normally associated with military chain-of-command, but with everything going on - that might have just been facing a sink-or-swim situation and learning to swim really really fast.
There were some few zat-guns to go around, but other weapons were developed and constructed.
Naturally, those who had NORMAL guns looked on with envy at those who had newer hardware. Not that normal firearms were obsolete by any means. It's just that almost everyone wanted the new stuff.
Then again, they were there mainly to act as support.
With the fog put out by Sailor Mercury in place, light-amplification was useless. As was IR, UV, or laser.
So what they COULD do was what they DID do. Form a cordon outside the fog, emplace sensors and prepare to shoot any oompah-loompah aliens that might come out of there. With weapons that were tied to sensor devices specifically to counter super-fast yoma.
Then too, there were Jupiter's Jaffa, who wanted to prove their worth to their Lord.
"It's so fast!" cried out Sailor Moon.
"Back to back, keep formation," said Sailor Mercury. "It seems to be mainly a melee-type. Limited ranged attacks."
"AHHHH!" cried out Sailor Saturn as something managed to latch onto the front of her outfit.
"Okay, that does it," said Ranma, rising up out of where he'd been pounded into the pavement. "Now if I could just see the little monster."
Ranma frowned, trying to feel the chi of the little gnome. Odd that he didn't FEEL alien.
Happosai grabbed the bow on the chest of the little girl, felt what felt like a promise of things to come, and then got shoved off by purple lightning?
"Got you," said the boy as something HURT a lot more than he'd ever felt in his very long life.
Then there was this blinding white light everywhere as this blonde with two ponytails announced something that sounded very silly.
He didn't know exactly what it was that the blonde had hit him with, but to Happosai it felt like he had been splashed with seltzer water. Not that it was all that unpleasant a feeling. Rather, it was like some bite of cool freshness had splashed all over his body, with tingling 'pops' running all along his wrinkled skin.
Oddly enough, it did leave him unable to move, but that was more from being overwhelmed by what it was doing to him than anything else. Whatever it was washed over him so that all his focus and thoughts just seeped out of it. It took him several moments to gather enough concentration to actually be able to consider things again.
Fortunately, it didn't seem that she had meant to hurt him, and the elderly martial arts master was mighty appreciative of that. That allowed him to gather the last goal that he'd had, and he remember setting his attention on young girls. Of course, he could see the reasoning for that quite easily. Young girls were pure, they were untouched by life, and they were so much fun to be around. Happosai knew deep in his heart that he liked playing with them. Just thinking about being around little ladies set his heart alight... and he didn't even bat an eye as he recognized that they might be around boys. The more that there were, the merrier it would be, and he looked forward to having lads joining in on the play.
After all, there was much enjoyment to be had playing 'hide and seek', 'kick the can' and other such games with the wee ones.
Once he was able to, he'd have to go and find some little ones to share his time with. Doing so wouldn't be that hard, seeing as they would be at the kindergartens or the park. The thing was to get them to realize that he just wanted to have fun like they would.
On a scale from 'one' to 'ten' of just how bad his day was going, Jack O'Neill would have had to rate his as a 'seven' or so. That was saying something for a man who had the enslaved minions of body snatching aliens shooting at him on a regular basis. Yet, that was perfectly understandable, given the current circumstances.
As it was, he was currently pinned to a wall by an alien sphere that they had tried to get rid of moments before he'd gotten hit by the device. What made it worse was how he wasn't being pressed against the wall, but was stabbed through his shoulder like a butterfly in a display case. On top of that, he felt like he was burning up, and he was being held up high where his feet didn't quite touch the ground.
To be honest, this wasn't one of his better days.
There wasn't much to do, other than to... 'hang around'. It wasn't like he could go anywhere, so he got to watch what was going on. The fact that those in the observation area didn't come in didn't bother him, as he'd rather not involve more people than he had to. On that note, he could perfectly understand why the soldiers near the door were hesitant to come his way.
At that moment, what did disturb him was the fact that Carter seemed to be arguing with someone outside. Waving her hands, her expression said a lot about what sort of words that she was using. And since he could see the strain she was under trying to look respectful, he knew that it had to be something important.
In what seemed to be a bit of luck, she soon came his way, allowing him to have his own conversation with her. "Why, hello there, Carter. It's nice of you to drop by."
"Sorry, sir," Samantha murmured with a wince. "We've been trying to figure out a way to help you, sir."
"And, what, you and all those bright lights they have out there haven't found out at least something to get the job done."
"Well, there was one idea that was suggested."
"Really? what was it."
"Actually... I... I don't know," the blonde murmured.
"Okay..."
"The thing is..."
"Just out with it, Carter!" he bit out.
"Are you sure..."
"Yes!"
"Okay..." she began, and then swallowed. "They want to bring in a staff weapon."
"Okay they're going for the paper clip... Wait, guns?"
"Pretty much."
O'Neill gave her a weak lop sided grin. "Hey, I'm all for shooting the nasty shiny death ball."
"Oh, it's not that we're supposed to aim at."
"There isn't that much here to do that with right now, but..."
As he trailed off, she reluctantly gazed into his eyes with a sheepish expression.
"No, come on! Getting zapped and turned into a girl wasn't on my 'to do' list today!"
"I told them that you wouldn't be that keen on it," Carter admitted.
"Then what exactly would that help with?"
"Near as we can tell? If nothing else, it could help you deal with your situation better. From the data, it seems that you are tougher and heal faster like that. And who knows, maybe you could manage to free yourself at the same time with that 'super strength.'
"This is getting to be even more of a ball than I would have imagined," Jack growled as he tried not to imagine himself as a 'cheesecake' poster.
Samantha Carter left the room.
When she returned it was to drop to one knee, point a device at her commanding officer and pull the trigger.
If the blast had hit the sphere, it would have absorbed it.
"Damnit, why in the face?"
"It was a clear shot, sir," said Samantha, ready to flee.
The transformation, to Jack's point-of-view, took nearly a minute. With bounces and jiggles and shifting mass. To an outside observer, the process was nearly instantaneous.
Jack-chan reached up and grabbed the pole that had gone through his shoulder and heaved. The alien device attempted to discourage this by sending an electric current through him. Absorbing THAT energy as well, it was converted to physical strength.
flashback
"I really don't like this," said Jack in his female form.
"Interesting," said Sailor Mercury, scanning for every piece of data she could.
"Watch," said Samantha Carter, pulling out a zat gun and shooting Jack.
"HEY!" said Jack, not liking that at all.
"Sir, we've already determined that ANY energy striking you simply increases the power and duration of your transformed state," pointed out Samantha.
"Got it," said Sailor Mercury. "It looks like there's an upper limit to that, but..."
"Tell me you can give them that figure and they DON'T have to keep shooting me with bigger and bigger guns," pleaded the transformed Jack.
"No, Colonel," said Sailor Mercury. "Some kinds of energy you most likely won't be able to tap into. Extreme heat, some magical attacks most likely. However, electricity, particle beams, radiation, and some other radiant energies - you can absorb mostly without problem up until you pass that threshold. Your strength and apparent invulnerability will increase with the amount of energy you take in, and using that strength and invulnerability will deplete that energy. It's just that if you take in too much and don't deplete it - that threshold might cause you to explode."
"That would be bad," said Jack to Samantha, trying to point out that particular opinion.
"Sorry, Jack-chan," said Sailor Mercury, unfortunately giving everyone in the base a handy way of referencing female-Jack versus normal male Jack.
Eventually alien metal and Jack-chan's superstrength reached a compromise as the concrete behind him cracked and provided a bit more leverage.
"I liked that arm," said Jack-chan as she tried to staunch the bloodflow now that she was free. As well as missing a good chunk of shoulder.
"You heal very quickly in that form, Colonel," said Samantha Carter, remaining out of reach. "In fact."
"Oh no, don't you dare-" began Jack-chan as Samantha pulled the trigger again.
"Colonel O'Neill is not exactly happy," observed General Hammond.
"No, he's not," said Janet, who wasn't going anywhere near the Colonel. Nope, quite content to watch from security videos. "The second staff-blast has clearly triggered his healing factor."
"I'm more concerned with the viral growth shown in the walls where that sphere's rod penetrated at the moment," said General Hammond.
"Yes, sir, we're pumping air out of the gateroom as quickly as we can, going with the theory that the artifact was triggered when it was brought into an atmosphere," said one of the observing technicians.
"We've still got those spacesuits, and an airlock will be rigged, when everything's in place we can put the device back," reported Morisato.
The lights flickered.
"Okay," said Siler. "Wasn't expecting that."
The lights went out.
The JSDF and local authorities had started the cleanup.
The twitching little alien groper was loaded into a box and then the box was placed on a truck which drove away.
The Sailor Senshi vanished quickly, leaping away, though the blonde with the twin-ponytail style seemed to want a give a speech and was stopped by the one with the long dark hair.
The boy and girl who'd originally held off the monster simply walked off, giving a nod of the head towards the authorities as they did so.
Akane Tendo watched it all, aware she was late - but this was something completely unexpected that had shown her a world unlike anything she had experienced before.
Prior to this, she'd been in the school's Karate Club and Drama Club. She'd had, as far as she could tell, a somewhat weird life in that she was the heir of her family's school of karate.
Akane considered that world she'd just glimpsed. Weirdness abounded. She could walk away now, and most likely that would be it. She'd most likely never get molested by aged alien gnomes, see martial arts manuevers that were right out of videogames, or get involved with the sort of urban legends that had been restricted to another ward of Tokyo altogether just a year ago.
She'd never realized how ordinary her life had been, nor as grateful for that quality.
Picking up her bookbag, Akane Tendo gave a thoughtful look towards where the girl and boy were still visible as they walked away. Maybe she wouldn't complain about how weird it was to be the school's karate champion after this. She had a new benchmark to measure weirdness with.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: There were enough requests to see what was up with Akane and the Tendo family that this brief look was included.