Jeffrey "OneShot" Wong

Just Won't Die Nene



     "Urd,"
  Urd turned toward Ranma, "What is it, Ranma?"
  "Can you send me back?" he asked.
  The comment surprised Urd immensely, "Really? You want to live 
again?"
  Ranma nodded, "Yeah, can you do that for me?"
  "Of course," she said, "But whatever for?"
  "I made a promise to a little girl named Jun," he answered, "I don't 
wanna break that promise,"
  Urd smirked, "That's very sweet of you, Ranma. That's what I really 
like about you,"
  "So will you do it?" he asked.
  "Sure," she smiled.
  "Thanks,"

  Nene had a boring life, even by her own standards.
  She entered her apartment after a long day of work. Even though it 
was only six in the evening, she was tired and wanted to go to sleep.
  She had pulled a double shift, a fellow co-worker having asked her 
for that favor. Besides, she needed the money.
  She threw her keys on the tiny table located just to the side of the 
entrance and headed for the computer room to check her email.
  She decided she was going to take a quick nap. What was great was 
that she didn't have to worry about anyone telling her that it would 
ruin her sleep schedule. She was her own woman and lived her life the 
way she saw fit. No one told her what to do, at least at home that is. 
  Work was a totally different subject. Although she had worked at A.D. 
Police Headquarters for close to half her life, she didn't move up in 
the working world. She had been given an exuberant amount of 
opportunities to be promoted, but she constantly declined. She liked 
being a data entry clerk and was very happy with her job.
  Besides, she didn't want to be promoted. She didn't want the extra 
stress and responsibilities that usually accompanied promotions. 
Because of how long she had worked there, she had quite a bit of 
seniority but little responsibility.
  It wasn't that she was irresponsible, far from it. It was because she 
wanted to work to live, not live to work. It was as simple as that. 
Sure, she didn't make as much money as Ritsuko or Misato or any of the 
other adult females, but she was very happy with her job.
  That was what counted.
  Nene took a glance around her apartment. 
  She didn't live in poverty, but she didn't live extravagantly. She 
lived in a modest two bedroom apartment, the second bedroom currently 
being used for her computer. 
She had perhaps one of the greatest and most powerful computer on the 
planet. As much as she wanted it in her own bedroom, the noise it 
generated made it too loud for her to sleep, thus, it requiring its own 
room. Besides, she didn't like noise all that much.
  Her kitchen was virtually spotless, she never really cooking for 
herself. Although she lived by herself, she wasn't all that great a 
cook so she tended to avoid cooking if possible. The only time she 
really entered in the kitchen was to make coffee or boiling some water 
to make some soup.
  Her livingroom was messy, much like her bedroom. There were cardboard 
boxes strewn all about her apartment. They contained all her stuff from 
when she moved out of her tiny one-bedroom apartment awhile back. Sure, 
it had been about a year ago since she moved into this bigger apartment, 
but she believed she would move again in a few more years from now so 
there was no real need to unpack. It would only mean more things for 
her to pack up for when she does move again.
  Among those cardboard boxes were other cardboard boxes, all of them 
filled with various antique clocks, a hobby of hers.
  She couldn't help but believe she lived a rather eccentric life, she 
sometimes randomly sleeping outside on the livingroom couch instead of 
her own bed. There was no explaining it either.
  Entering her computer room, she sat down in front of her computer. 
The screen turned on automatically as she sat down.
  "Eva, do I have any email?" she asked aloud.
  "Only one of any importance," the computer replied in a female voice.
  "All right," she said.
  She went about reading her email. It was from A.D. Police 
Headquarters, telling her of an upcoming charity function at the end of 
the month.
  After reading it, she got out of her seat, "I'm going to sleep. Goto 
standby mode,"
  "Okay," the computer named Eva replied.
  Eva was one of the most powerful computers on the planet. Its name 
was derived from the computer that used to be integrated in the Unit-01 
the God-version of Ranma had saved which Ritsuko later used to 
integrate with her already developed MAGI system to make it even more 
powerful.
  Nene's computer was basically Ritsuko's own MAGI computer but custom-
developed for Nene. Although neither of them admitted it, it was said 
that Nene and Ritsuko were computer rivals. This was because they both 
shared a love for computer that bordered along the lines of obsession.   
  Funnily enough, although Ritsuko was more known for her knowledge of 
computers, Nene was actually better at using them. She knew how to use 
a computer to its full potential. It was very ironic because Nene could 
used the MAGI better than Ritsuko could, and Ritsuko had developed MAGI 
in the first place.
  It was proven that Nene was more knowledgeable. During one random 
Friday dinner, Ritsuko had mentioned that MAGI-2 was almost complete 
and ready to be unveiled to the public. When Nene said that she might 
take a early peek at it by hacking into her company's computer and 
seeing sensitive information about MAGI-2, Ritsuko had commented that 
Nene would be unable to, that her computer was locked down from the 
outside world and impossible to hack.
  Nene considered that a challenge and accepted it. To make things fun, 
she gave Ritsuko one week to completely fortify her company's computer. 
  At the end of the week, Nene hacked into Ritsuko's computer during 
her fifteen-minute coffee break. After she had gotten into Ritsuko's 
computer, she left a small message 'Ph34r m3. l33t h4x0r, N3N3, W45 
h34r', which basically translated to 'Fear me. Elite hacker, Nene, was 
hear'. 
  It took Ritsuko about a day to decipher the message, she not all that 
familiar with 'l33t speak'. Besides, it was an ancient language in the computer 
world. What was funny was that Nene left a very simple version of her message, 
so it wouldn't look like random gibberish. Nene felt very proud of herself. 
Unfortunately, her victory wasn't quite as glorious as she had wanted it to be 
when Ritsuko corrected her spelling and said she misspelled 'here'.
  Nene laughed to herself as she thought about that. That had happened 
not too long ago. She wondered if Ritsuko would one day try and hack 
into her computer.
  "You just try," Nene said to herself as she headed across her 
apartment and toward her bedroom.
  Entering her bedroom, Nene flopped down on her bed.
  She glanced at the clock that hung on the wall. It read six-fifteen.
  "I'll just sleep for an hour," she said to herself, yawning.
  Closing her eyes, Nene went to sleep and slept all the way until 
morning.

  "What ever happened to the hottie that used to visit you every here 
and there?" Yuko asked Nene.
  Nene was at work at A.D. Police Headquarters and Yuko was a fellow 
co-worker that worked on the terminal right next to hers. They always 
went to lunch together. It was sometime in the morning, but because 
there were no windows where they worked, it was hard to tell what time 
of the day it was unless one looked at a clock.
  "Nene, what ever happened to that cute guy we see pop in here from 
time to time?" Yuko asked again.
  Nene had been snacking on some potato chips when Yuko asked that. 
When she heard that, she stopped but said nothing.
  She knew who Yuko was referring to.
  Ranma.
  It had been a little over a year since Ranma had disappeared from 
everyone's lives, he having chosen to remain in heaven and not have Urd 
resurrect him like everyone else. 
  "Something the matter?" Yuko asked, wondering why Nene was quiet 
suddenly. They always talked whenever work wasn't busy. Now was one of 
those times when it wasn't busy.
  Nene couldn't help but feel a bit sad, "Ranma's gone,"
  What was funny was that even though it had been over a year since 
Ranma disappeared forever, she still felt an attachment toward him. She 
was one of the few people that knew what really happened to Ranma.
  "Gone? Gone where?" Yuko asked.
  "He died a while ago," Nene said, feeling as if she was telling the 
truth in a sense. Besides, there was no real reason to tell the truth. 
Fact was definitely much stranger than fiction. 
 "R-really? He did? When? Why didn't you tell me?" Yuko said. She 
became a bit sad, "Um, I'm sorry to hear that. I shouldn'tve asked that 
question,"
  "It's okay," Nene said, giving a forced smile, "I've learned to move 
on,"
  "What happened to him, um, if you don't mind my asking?" Yuko asked 
cautiously.
  Nene said, "He was hit by car. A car ran a red light and hit him. He 
was basically at the wrong place at the wrong time,"
  "I-I'm sorry to hear that," Yuko said, "Really, I am,"
  Nene waved a dismissive hand, "It's okay. That was a while ago. I've 
learned to move on,"
  "You're really strong," Yuko commented.
  Not as strong as you think, Nene thought. Nene had been nothing more 
than a shadow of her former self for weeks after she came back and had 
found out Ranma was gone for good. 
  "You really loved him, didntja?" Yuko dared to ask.
  Nene nodded without hesitation, "Yeah,"
  She felt no embarrassment about it. It wasn't until around two months 
after Ranma had been gone did it hit her that she had been in love with 
Ranma. She knew she really liked him ever since she had first met him 
many many year ago, but she had always believed it was more along the 
lines of a physical attraction thing, more along the lines of a crush 
than love.
  One random day, it dawned on her that she was never going to see 
Ranma ever again. Tears started flowing from her eyes and they wouldn't 
stop. At that point in time, it made her realize that she had been in 
love with him.
  It also pained her greatly that Ranma never knew that, that she had 
never told him. She knew Ranma knew that she liked him, but she was 
pretty sure he didn't know that she loved him. Even if he did know that 
she loved him, she had never actually said those words to him.
  If she ever saw Ranma again, she swore to herself that she would 
confess to him that she was in love with him.
  As sad as she was, she wasn't terrible sad. Afterall, misery loves 
company. Several of the other girls hadn't been able to tell him of 
their feelings as well. It was no surprise that Misato had been in love 
with him. Luna had believed she was  falling in love with him with 
everything happened. Akane had secretly been in love with him well 
before Ranma anyone else, well before the Nerima Massacre. Basically, 
virtually all the girls that Ranma had prolonged contact with had found 
themselves either in love or slowly falling in love with him over time. 
Only two people did not. They were Madigan and Emiko. Madigan had 
Carper. Emiko had Shinji. That was most likely the reason why.
  Nene wondered why that was the case. How can so many girls be in love 
with the same guy? What about him made girls fall for him? Sure, he was 
handsome and smart and kind, but there had to be more than that. There 
were plenty of other guys like that out in the world, so what made him 
special? 
  What about Ryoga? Ryoga, in a sense, was just as good as Ranma. He's 
just as handsome and just as kind and just as smart as Ranma. Perhaps 
he wasn't quite as smart as Ranma, but he was definitely stronger than 
him. So how come none of the girls were in love with him?
  Nene knew why. Because Ryoga was never around. With guys like Ranma 
and Ryoga, it was most likely inevitable that they would fall for them 
over time. They have a quality to girls fell in love with. If she 
thought about it, none of the girls ever loved Ranma when they first 
met him. It wasn't until the got to know him did they start falling for 
him.
  Nene sighed. 
  "Um, you want to go to Shanigan's for lunch?" Yuko asked, wanting to 
change the subject.
  Nene thought about for a moment, feeling a bit happy at the change in 
subject.
  "I guess so,"

  Nene felt a bit cold as she walked home. 
  Since her apartment was relatively close to work, she always walked. 
She lived in a safe area so she had nothing to worry about when walking 
home. Perhaps it was because she lived so close to A.D. Police 
Headquarters. Whatever the case, it made walking home from work in the 
evening not all that scary.
  Back then, she used to ride her scooter to work, but there was no 
need for it since it would be more trouble parking it than to just walk 
the short distance.
  Besides, she hadn't ridden the scooter in quite a while and she had a 
funny feeling it would die on her as she was riding it.
  Looking up at the sky, she noticed the dark clouds in the far off 
distance. It was going to rain soon.
  She shrugged. She wasn't all that bothered at the thought of rain. 
She would be home in five minutes, long before it started to rain. And 
since she rarely went out, it didn't bother her one bit to have to stay 
in because of the rain, so long as she had Internet connection that is.
  Nene paused for a moment in front of her five-story apartment 
complex. It was an old building and was starting to show its age. The 
fact that it was sitting between two modern-looking apartment complexes 
made it seem all the more older. 
  Her apartment was located on the top floor, the fifth floor. Looking 
up toward the window that was to the livingroom of her apartment, she 
wondered what she looked like during the times when she saw by said 
window and glanced down toward the street below.
  She had made a habit of doing that, sitting by the window during the 
evening. This was because the window faced West which usually gave her 
a good hour or so of sunlight so she could work on her hobby, antique 
clock. She liked working in natural light, it was one of her quirks, 
something very ironic considering most computer-geniuses usually did 
their best work under artificial light.
  Of course, that was for computer related stuff. She had a hobby 
outside computers. It was an odd hobby. She liked collecting and fixing 
antique clocks. There was a pawn shop located in the middle of the city 
and very close by, near a deli Shinji and Emiko usually frequented, 
where she would buy an antique clock and work at it until it looked as 
good as new.
  She rarely ever bumped into Shinji or Emiko. This was because they 
went to Makunouchi Gym usually during the day, when she was at work. 
She only went to the pawn shop in the evening. She only knew about the 
deli because Shinji and Emiko talk about how the eat there every day 
while on their way home from their workout at the gym.
  Nene usually ends up picking up a sandwich at the deli on her way 
home whenever she stops by the pawn shop nearby.
  When she was done fixing it up the antique clock, she would put them 
away in one of the cardboard boxes that lined one of the walls of her 
livingroom. She never put them out on display or use. Perhaps it was 
because they were noisy everyone hour on the hour.
  Nene wondered how much longer she had until she would be finished 
with her new project. It was her biggest project yet, an antique pocket 
watch. Literally, it was her smallest project. Figuratively, it was her 
biggest one. This was because the pocket watch had many more parts, all 
of which were much smaller than what she was accustomed to.
  When she heard thunder in the distance and the storm getting closer, 
Nene decided she should stop daydreaming and head into her apartment.
  Taking the elevator up to the fifth floor, Nene wondered if it was 
better if she took the stairs instead. She was two pounds heavier than 
her usual weight. If a guy weighed two pounds more than he was supposed 
to, he couldn't care less. It was different with girls. Weighing even 
half a pound over their average weight was considered depressing.
  Nene wondered if it was better to just quit eating the potato chips 
she usually snacked on at least once a day every day or to start taking 
the stairs to compensate.
  After a moment of quiet contemplation, she decided she should try and 
take the stairs more often. She didn't want to give up her potato 
chips.
  She also decided, for now, she would only take the stairs going down, 
because going up stairs was much harder than going down stairs. It was 
easier to let gravity do the work. Maybe after a month or so of walking 
down several flight of stairs, she would be fit enough to walk up 
several flight of stairs as well. Only time will tell.
  Entering her apartment, Nene did her usual routine of tossing her 
apartment keys onto the table next to the entrance door and heading 
into the computer room to check on her email. When she realized she got 
no email, she felt a bit sad. She, liked everyone else, liked getting 
email. It meant people was paying her attention. Then again, who would 
send her email? 
  Done with checking for email, Nene left the computer room and went 
into the livingroom. She walked up to the window and sat down by the 
chair nearby and looked down at the pieces of gears and sprockets and 
parts laid out on a towel on the square table in front of her.
  She worked on the antique clock for about half an hour before there 
was insufficient sunlight to continue and she called it quits for the 
day. This was because the clouds blocked out the setting sun as it 
started to rain.
  Looking at her watch, she noticed it was around seven in the evening. 
  Around this time, she usually went out and down the block to get 
something to eat. Since it was raining, she would not be heading out. 
And since she had no food in the fridge, she would not be eating 
tonight.
  She sighed.
  Nene couldn't help but feel a bit sad at her life. It was so routine. 
Everyday, she came home at the usual time. She would then check her 
email before going about working on her current antique clock project. 
After that was done and over with, she didn't have much else to do 
except sit in front of her computer.
  Going to the computer room, Nene checked her email again, just in 
case. Perhaps someone emailed her during the half hour she was busy. 
That made her realize just how much of a computer person she was. She 
was definitely the kind of person that checked her email late at night 
after getting up to use the bathroom while on her way back to bed from 
said bathroom.
  Finding no email, she went about keeping herself occupied. She had a 
routine as well in front of the computer. She would check out several 
websites in certain a order. She liked several things about the 
Internet. She was hooked on reading a particular genre of fanfics of a 
particular anime she remembered from when she was young. That usually 
occupied a good couple of hours of her time. From there, she went about 
checking hacking forums on several websites. This occupied a couple 
more hours as well. When all was done, it was usually around one in the 
morning.
  Ranma had gotten her into anime. He had been the only person in the 
group that liked it so she had given it a try. After watching a few 
random anime shows that Ranma had given her, she realized she liked it. 
Of course, it was after Ranma had disappeared did she get into it. 
  Fanfiction was something she liked but had trouble getting into, 
solely because many fanfic writers wrote very slowly and she found it a 
bit agonizing waiting for them to update. That was why she now only 
checked one particular website known to archive only finished fanfics. 
She only checked that site and read whatever fanfics were archived on 
that site since she knew it would have an ending.
  She couldn't help but wonder what Ranma would think of that if he was 
there. He never discovered fanfics simply because of his lack of 
computer knowledge. It would be so cool if he was around and liked 
fanfics.
  No one knew that she was a closet anime otaku. If they knew, it was 
most likely that Linna and Priss would make fun of her or at least 
tease her. With Ranma liking anime so openly, none of them bothered him 
since he just brushed off whatever jibes they threw at him. She was 
different.
  They knew she liked working on antique clocks and sometimes teased 
her about it, but it didn't bother her as much. Such a hobby was 
considered 'unique' so there was nothing they could say much about it, 
unlike anime which they considered just plain 'weird'.
  Reading in front of her computer usually took a few hours. When she 
was done with that, she would then head off to sleep, it usually being 
around eight where she would wake up for work tomorrow and repeat 
everything all over again.

  Friday was the only day where her usual routine was different. This 
was because she, and everyone else, went out to their weekly Friday 
dinner. 
  Friday night was the night when her usually mundane routine week 
became chaotic. This was because, every Friday night, she had no idea 
what was going to happen. Although Ranma was no longer around to fuel 
the chaotic flame, he being the main instigator, the combination of so 
many different personalities sharing a meal together usually made 
things exciting.
  Shinji had become the Ranma of the group, or at least that was what 
she believed. He wasn't swooned upon like him, but he had a slight aura 
to him that reminded her of him. 
  Shinji acted more confident and outgoing, a stark contrast from how 
he used to be. Of course, considering what he had been through, it was 
easy to understand why.
  Every here and there, Madigan and Carper and their daughter, Jun, 
joined them. Jun was now eleven and starting to look like she would 
become a very beautiful woman when she grew up. When she was with them, 
everyone had to be more reserved in what they said, not wanting to soil 
her innocent ears. It was all good. Although the group seemed more 
along the lines of a bunch of grown-ups acting like children, they were 
also very capable of acting grown-up if need be.
  Tonight's Friday dinner, Jun was going to be there so their 
conversations would have to be a bit more tight-lipped.
  When Nene got home at around six, she went about preparing for Friday 
dinner, which was usually around eight-thirty to nine.
  That mean she had over two hours to prepare. That was plenty of time. 
Unlike most females, Nene didn't need an exuberant amount of time to 
prepare.
  A female always needed time to prepare to do whatever it is that they 
would be doing. Nene was different. She was the type of girl that only 
needed around ten minutes to get ready, unlike the usual two plus hours 
that took regular girls to prepare. 
  Nene was naturally cute so she didn't need make-up or all that other 
stuff that most girls put on their face. She was never going to look 
beautiful so there was no real need to spend extra time trying to look 
beautiful. No matter how hard she tried to do so, the end result was 
that she would only look cute. 
  She wasn't quite like a guy though. She did spend at least some time 
getting ready to go out, albeit little. She needed to at least take a 
shower and wash her hair and brush her teeth and put on some 
antiperspirant but that was all. With a guy, as long as he didn't 
smell, he was considered ready to go out.
  She sighed, that would be such an easy life.
  Wondering why she was even bothering thinking about that, Nene went 
about with her usual business of checking email and then working on her 
antique clock project.
  When she was done with that, she went to her computer where she would 
spend the rest of her time until it was time to get ready to head out 
for Friday dinner.

  "Hey," Linna smiled.
  "Hey," Nene smiled in return.
  Linna was standing in front of Nene's apartment, leaning against her 
car. She picked Nene up at her apartment every Friday night. She drove 
a fancy-looking sports car, able to afford it due to her high-paying 
job as the most premier fitness trainer in all of MegaTokyo.
  They greeted each other, inquiring on stuff like how each other's 
work and week was, the both of them always saying that nothing new had 
happened like always.
  Together, Linna drove them to their meeting place, Akane's house. 
  Along the way, they conversed in the car. They talked about nothing 
in general. The conversation actually seemed somewhat forced.
  It was very odd now that Nene thought about it. Everyone used to be 
very close. However, over time, what with the fact that many of them 
now had time-consuming careers, they have all started losing touch with 
one another, as if their friendship was drifting apart.
  It was like that with all of them. Sure, she was still close to Sylia 
and Priss and Linna, but that was because they used to be the Knight 
Sabers and were extremely close from then. However, that was over a 
decade ago. 
  Friday dinner kept everyone coming together on a weekly basis. The 
importance of it became evident after Ranma was gone. He had been the 
one that came up with that idea, to have everyone come together once a 
week and just enjoy one another's company. If it weren't for that, Nene 
was pretty sure everyone would've gone their own separate way and 
basically lose contact with one another.
  It was easy to see why. They were slowly drifting apart since there 
was nothing bringing them together. Friday dinner was the only thing 
keeping them constantly coming together on a weekly basis. 
  
  Friday dinner was much like all Friday dinners, a bit chaotic. It was 
about the same size as most gatherings. However, this time around, 
Madigan and Carper and Jun were there. Unfortunately, Lina and Luna 
weren't, having gone back to their own world for the time being. Ryoga 
was lost as well so he wasn't around either.
  "So, Ritsuko have you found a way of getting back at Nene after she 
schooled you in computers by hacking into your company's computer?" 
Linna asked with a smirk. That was the current subject as of late. 
  Ritsuko narrowed her eyes at Linna, "She got in merely because of an 
error on my part,"
  "Hey, didntja hack in during your coffee-break?" Linna asked Nene.
  Nene gave a slight smile, "Um, well, yeah,"
  "You better lock down your computer," Sylia commented to Nene, "I'm 
pretty sure that Ritsuko's going to hack into your computer as a way of 
getting revenge,"
  Everyone laughed. They enjoyed the rivalry that seemed to be evident 
between Ritsuko and Nene. In a way, it seemed much like the rivalry 
between Ranma and Ryoga.
  "So, Shinji, how goes the school?" Priss asked, wanting to change the 
subject.
  Shinji smiled, "It's nice. I didn't realize it was so hard taking 
over the Anything-Goes Martial Arts school was such hard work, but I 
like it,"
  "Keep in mind that I did it for quite a while," Akane smirked, 
"Surely, you should be able to handle something that with no problem. 
Afterall, you're a big strong man and I'm just a weak little girl,"
  Everyone laughed, even Shinji.
  Shinji was constantly picked on because he was usually the only guy 
in the group. Carper sometimes had dinner with them, but he usually 
came with his wife and daughter only once in a while so everyone got 
used to Shinji being the only guy there.
  As they enjoyed indulged in conversation, Shinji happened to have 
glanced up and saw a familiar face approached the table.
  It was Ranma.
  "Who's that?" the younger Asuka asked.
  The younger Misato and Ritsuko looked at Ranma curiously, wondering who he 
was. After a moment, they recognized him as the Ranma everyone had been talking 
about for so long that had done wondrous things.
  "Hey, guys," Ranma smiled warmly.
  The entire group stopped what they were doing, their mouths agape 
from shock of seeing Ranma. They had no idea what to say, believing 
their minds were playing tricks on them, like they were seeing an 
illusion. 
  Nene's heart started racing.
  Ranma was back. She had secretly prayed that he would come back one 
day. If he was back, that meant she had an opportunity to confess to 
him her feelings.
  "Ranma?" Shinji was the first to say.
  "Yep, and I'm back. And this time, to stay," Ranma said, scanning the 
table. 
  His gaze came to rest on Madigan's and Carper's daughter, Jun.
  "Hey, Jun," Ranma smiled, "How's my favorite little girl. Long time 
no see,"
  "Ranma!!" Jun shouted gleefully, extending her hands out.
  Ranma walked over there and picked Madigan's and Carper's daughter.
  "Long time no see," Ranma smiled warmly, giving Jun's cheek a kiss.
  "See, I knew he was gonna come back," Jun squeaked happily toward the 
shocked group.
  Everyone was still at a loss of words.
  Ranma smiled at the group.
  "I'm back because I'm not going to break the promise I made to little 
Jun," Ranma said.
  Nene's heart felt like it was going to shatter. 
  





<new stuff 2/3>




  It was very funny why Ranma was back. It turned out that Ranma made a nuisance 
of himself in Heaven and it was in anarchy because of him. This was because 
Ranma was constantly went into the control center, the heart of Heaven. 
  "I want Ranma sent back to Earth," Skuld complained to Urd, "I can't stand him 
being up in Heaven with us,"
  "I will," Urd said, "Ranma asked me the other day about being sent back. I'll 
be sending him back to Earth by the week's end. He said he wanted to go back 
home on Friday night,"
  "Good," Skuld said.
  "Why? What did he do this time?" Urd asked, believing it was best that she not 
asked.
  "I found him using Yggdrasil to download porn," Skuld said.
  "What?! How did he do that?!" Urd asked.
  "How the heck am I supposed to know?" Skuld said, "I step away from the 
computer for a quick break, and when I come back, Ranma's sitting in front of 
the screen and busy downloading porn. I don't know how he did it,"
  "You're Yggdrasil's system administrator," Urd stated, "You should know what 
he did. You know everything about Yggdrasil,"
  "I thought I knew everything as well. However, after what had happened, it 
seems like I don't," Skuld said in annoyance, "I have a funny feeling that it 
wasn't because of technical knowledge that allowed him to do that. I think it 
was pure luck,"
  Urd shrugged, "Perhaps,"
  "You're God, remove Ranma's luck," Skuld said.
  Urd shook her head, "You know I can't. All that luck was bestowed on Ranma by 
the previous God. I can't undo what He did back then. Heck, I can't even undo 
the powers Ranma received from when he was God momentarily. The only way his 
powers can be undone is if he undoes them himself. And from the look of things, 
it seems like he doesn't intend to give it up any time soon,"
  Skuld wanted to pull our her hair, "This is so annoying. Can't you just create 
a world and send him to it?"
  "And then what? Ranma will find his way back," Urd replied.
  "Lettme get this straight," Skuld stated, "You're God. However, Ranma has the 
exact same powers as you. The only difference is that he knows how to fight and 
can, thus, kick your ass and dethrone you if he wanted to? Therefore, Ranma's 
basically God because he can become God whenever he wants,"
  Urd said nothing. Skuld, in a way, was correct. 
  "Argh! This sucks!" Skuld shouted.
  Ranma entered the room, "Hey, guys. What's up?"
  "Stay away from me you evil man!" Skuld shouted at Ranma, "It took me all day 
to remove all those viruses I found on there. And it's all your fault, all 
because you wanted to download porno pictures. And speaking of which, you're a 
pervert for doing so,"
  Ranma grinned, "When was the last time you scanned for viruses on Yggdrasil?"
  "T-that's not the point!" Skuld said, "Those viruses was on there because of 
you. I know it,"
  Ranma shrugged, "Okay. So what's your point?"
  "Argh!" Skuld shouted, pulling at her hair.
  Urd sighed. She couldn't wait until Ranma was gone. That was why she didn't 
think twice about sending Ranma back home when he had approached her about being 
resurrected.

  Nene had a big smile on her face as she entered her apartment sometime around 
one in the morning. This was because Ranma was back and everyone's lives will be 
much more interesting. He always brought excitement to the table, something that 
they have not had in over a year.
  She wondered if Jun was the true reason why Ranma came back. He had come back 
because of a promise he had made to Jun a few years ago. Then again, Ranma was 
weird so it wouldn't be all that surprising if he did. He was both a complicated 
and simple individual. 
  Tomorrow was the weekend. She didn't have to work then. She can go over and 
see Ranma. As much as she wanted to tell him of her feelings to him, she 
couldn't bring herself to do so shortly after he had arrived. Then again, no one 
had been able to. They were all so caught up in their happiness to see him again 
after so long that they realized they forgot to do so well after Ranma had 
wanted to go to sleep and called it a night.
  Ranma had already assumed the role of leader of the group shortly after his 
arrival. He had requested a sparring match against Shinji, to see how much he 
had grown as a fighter since their last encounter. And to everyone's surprise, 
Shinji eagerly accepted.
  Everyone, very curious to see the fight, was expected to show up at the house 
at around noontime to watch the sparring match and then head out for lunch 
afterwards. Everyone was off that day so it was no problem. It was a good 
distractions from their everyday routine life.
  She sighed.
  She knew exactly what was going to happen tomorrow. Every girl that had any 
form of feelings for Ranma will be confessing their feelings for him. This was 
because none of them wanted to miss their opportunity to let it be known how 
much they cared for him.
  She sighed again. There was no way she could compete against the others. The 
saying that 'All's fair in love and war' seemed to hold true to those girls, and 
it sucked.
  Heading into the computer room, Nene wanted to check her email before heading 
off to sleep. She liked to sleep in late over the weekends so she didn't want to 
oversleep the sparring session. She was eager to see how well Shinji would do 
against Ranma and see how much better Shinji had gotten over time. 
  Checking her email, she found out she had none.
  She couldn't help but feel a bit sad every time she checked her email and 
found out that she had received none. She checked her email often so she found 
herself constantly being disappointed when she received none.
  Heading toward her bedroom, she noticed the blinking light on her answering 
machine by the entrance. Clicking on the button, she listened to the message.
  "Hey, it's Yuko," she heard her co-worker's voice, "It's ten right now. I just 
wanted to call to ask you for a big favor. Can you please work my shift 
tomorrow? Just call me when you get this message. Thanks,"
  Nene looked at her watch. It was a little past one in the morning and she 
wondered if she should call Yuko. Also, she didn't really want to fill in for 
Yuko tomorrow. Perhaps she should just pretend she didn't listen to her 
answering machine.
  "Damn," Nene said, picking up the phone and dialing in Yuko's number. Nene 
wasn't that kind of person. If a friend needed her help, then she would help, 
even if it meant her expected Saturday outing would be cancelled. 
  "Nene?" Yuko answered her phone. Yuko, like Nene, lived on her own so Nene 
didn't have to worry about waking anyone else up.
  "Yeah," Nene said.
  "Great, you got my message," Yuko said in relief.
  "What's up? You needed me to fill in for you tomorrow?" Nene asked.
  "Yeah," she answered, "An old college friend of mine is having a wedding 
tomorrow. I got the dates wrong and thought it was on Sunday, when I have off. I 
used up all of my personal days so I can't get any days off from work to attend. 
However, the captain said I can take the day off if I can find someone to fill 
in for my place,"
  "You want me to fill in for you?" Nene asked reluctantly.
  Yuko said, "Yeah. Since you don't really do much on Saturday, I figure you 
wouldn't mind. Is that okay with you?"
  "But-" Nene began to say.
  "Please!!!" Yuko begged, "My shift starts at ten in the morning, so if you go 
to sleep soon, you'll have no problem waking up like you usually do,"
  Nene was silent for several moments, contemplating this. Her friend needed her 
help, but she also wanted to see Ranma and Shinji spar against one another and 
head out to lunch with the group.
  "Fine," she said, "I'll do it. Afterall, I can't refuse a friend in need,"
  "Thanks, you're the best!"

  Nene had trouble waking up for work early in the morning. It was 
understandable. She always went to sleep later than she was supposed to so she 
always had trouble getting up in the morning. Like most people into computers, 
she usually sat in front of the computer until she got sleepy and went to sleep. 
Usually, by the time she was sleepy, it was well past the time when she was 
supposed to have gone to sleep.
  Nene yawned as she went through the morning routine of getting ready. However, 
she was glad that she didn't need to take an exuberant amount of time getting 
ready. 
  She was usually out the door and on her way to work within twenty minutes 
after waking up. However, before she left for work, she called Ranma's house.
  "G'morning," Nene said when Akane answered the phone, "I'm just calling to say 
I can make it to the sparring session today,"
  "Oh? How come? I did something come up?" Akane asked curiously.
  "Yeah," Nene said, "I have work today. I'm filling in for a co-worker,"
  "Oh, that's unfortunate," Akane said, "When will you be getting off? Since you 
won't be able to join us for the match or lunch, we can all go to dinner 
together. I have a funny feeling, now that Ranma's back, all the girls are going 
to be hanging around all day. You can join us when you get outta work,"
  Nene smiled, "I'd like that. I get off at around seven tonight,"
  "All right," Akane said, "You want us to meet you there at work?"
  "Nah," she said, "I'll be in my work uniform and all. I have to head home and 
get changed,"
  "So we'll meet you at your place then?" Akane asked.
  Nene looked around her apartment. It was a mess. Ranma had never seen her new 
apartment before and she didn't want him seeing it in such a state of mess. Even 
though she was a messy person and everyone knew it, she had gotten much more 
messy over time. She needed time to clean up if Ranma was going to come visit.
  "There's no need to meet me at my place," Nene said, "However, if you want, 
I'll call you guys after work and we can all meet at whatever restaurant for 
dinner. Is that okay?"
  Akane said, "Okay. That sounds like a good idea. Sure," 
  Nene looked at her watch, "Well, I've got to get going. I'm going to be late,"
  "All right," Akane said, "I'll hear from you tonight,"
  "Okay,"

  Nene wished she wasn't working now. She was bored and wanted to go home, even 
if it was only noontime.
  Nene picked at her salad that was her lunch as she sat by herself at her 
terminal. Although she wasn't supposed to eat on the job, it was her lunch break 
and no one would complain since everyone knew she could do her job even if she 
was eating at the moment.
  Right now, she wanted a big fat juicy burger. She didn't want to have to watch 
what she ate. Her idea of watching what she was eating was to eat in front of a 
mirror, not eating healthy.
  Nene touched at her stomach, feeling a bit self-conscious of herself. She had 
a flat stomach at the moment, but she had a funny feeling that she would start 
getting a tummy if she didn't change the way she ate. She knew she should eat 
healthier when she found herself a bit out of breath when she ran the short 
distance from her apartment and to A.D. Police Headquarters.
  "Man, I should start working out," she said to herself, "Maybe I should join 
Linna's gym,"
  She laughed aloud. If she was going to work out at a gym, it would definitely 
not be at Linna's gym. That girl always teased Nene about her eating habits. If 
Nene started working on at her gym, then that was basically a big 'I told you 
so'.
  Wanting to think about something else, Nene thought about what Ranma and all 
the girls were doing right now. They were probably having lunch and enjoying 
each other's company at some fancy restaurant.
  She felt a bit sad that should couldn't be there. She always wondered how many 
of the girls proclaimed their feelings for Ranma by now. She wouldn't be 
surprised if all of them had. 
  "Hey, Nene," came a male voice.
  Nene was startled by the voice that she nearly fell out of her chair.
  She quickly swiveled around in her chair and found herself face-to-face with 
Ranma. 
  "R-R-Ranma!? What are you doing here?" she gasped in surprise.
  "I came to see what you were up to," he answered, "Since you had to work 
today, I figured I drop and see what's up,"
  "How'd you manage to get in here? This is a restricted area," she said, "If 
you wanted to see me, you were supposed to talk to the receptionist and I 
would've met you down in the lobby,"
  Ranma shrugged, "I guess. But I decided it was easier to just visit you at 
your desk. Heh, I'm glad you still have the same desk from back then. Man, the 
security of this place is atrocious if I can just waltz right into the heart of 
A.D. Police Headquarters,"
  "How long were you here?" she asked.
  "Since you made that comment about going to the gym," he smirked, "And why 
would you wanna do that? You look fine,"
  Nene blushed, "I-I do? Thanks. Um, aren't you supposed to be having lunch?"
  "Yeah, I am," he said, "But I left halfway through to come here and see what's 
up,"
  "Y-you left just to visit me?" Nene was very surprised to hear that.
  Ranma nodded and grinned, "Yeah, why not? Since when did I care about who'd I 
offend if I did what I did," 
  "Um, how did the match go?" Nene asked, still blushing.
  "Oh, you mean between me and Shinji?" he asked, "It went fine. Shinji's gotten 
much better since I last sparred against him, much much better. The school's in 
good hands with him at the helm,"
  "Shinji beat you?" Nene was very surprised.
  Ranma laughed, "C'mon. Y'gotta gimme some credit. Of course he didn't. He 
didn't even touch me. I do have decades of experience over him,"
  "Um, I guess I shouldn't be surprised," Nene said, "So, you're not going to 
take over the school? What do you plan on doing?"
  "Nah, the school's in good hands," Ranma answered, still smiling, "I'm going 
to help out. I'll just teach from time to time. Shinji can do all the 
responsible and stressful stuff like paperwork and such,"
  Ranma looked at his watch.
  "I guess I better head back to the restaurant now," he said, "I'm sure 
everyone's wondering what's taking me so long,"
  "Which restaurant?" Nene asked.
  "Togo's," Ranma said.
  Nene's eyes widened, "Togo's? That's on the other side of MegaTokyo. You came 
here all the way from over there?"
  Ranma nodded, "Yeah,"
  Nene sighed, "I guess I shouldn't be surprised,"
  "Well, I'm gonna head back," he said, "You up to getting dinner tonight with 
the rest of the gang?"
  Nene nodded.
  "Cool," Ranma said, "I guess I'll see you then,"
  After Ranma said his goodbye and left, Nene couldn't help but feel like her 
workday wasn't as bad as she thought it was. The fact that Ranma had gone out of 
his way to come visit her, made her feel even better.  
  She was glad Ranma was back.
  
  


<new stuff 2/4>




  Nene got back to her apartment a little past seven in the evening. Done with 
work, she was expected to call Akane up like she had said.
  Without bothering to check her email, Nene called Akane.
  "Akane, it's Nene," Nene said, glad to have caught Akane, "I'm done with work 
and I'm calling you like I said I would,"
  "How was work?" Akane asked.
  "It was fine," Nene said, "So, have you and the others decided on where you're 
all going out to eat dinner tonight? I can meet you guys there,"
  "Um, unfortunately, we won't be going out for dinner tonight," Akane said.
  "Y-you're not?" Nene asked, feeling a sense of disappointment. She had been 
looking so forward to tonight.
  Akane said, "Luna and Lina came back,"
  "They did?" Nene didn't really know how to react.
  "It's kinda strange, I mean what are the chances that the two of them come 
visit us the very next day after Ranma's come back," Akane said.
  "So what's going to happen now?" Nene asked.
  "Ranma passed on going out and getting dinner," Akane answered, "He's actually 
in the backyard right now with Shinji,"
  "With Shinji? What for?" Nene was confused.
  "Ranma and he have begun working at building two new additional rooms to the 
house. There're going to be two bedrooms. Now that Luna and Lina are here, and 
here to stay for God knows how long now that they realize Ranma's back, Ranma's 
decided it was best to expand the house. That way, here won't be problems with 
them having a place to stay, in case Ryoga ever comes back home. Afterall, who 
knows when Ryoga would come back home and would want to sleep in his own 
bedroom. Ranma's basically building a bedroom for young Asuka and another one 
for both Luna and Lina,"
  "So I guess there'll be no dinner for tonight?" Nene asked reluctantly.
  Akane answered, "No. As a matter of fact, everyone's already gone home. They 
went home a few hours ago. Ranma's been working on the new addition since around 
three in the afternoon," 
  "Oh," Nene said sadly.
  "What, have you eaten dinner yet?" Akane asked, "I was about to start 
preparing dinner for the children and everyone. I can prepare some extra food if 
you wanna come on over,"
  "Nah, it's all right," Nene said, "I can get some food here at the apartment,"
  "Are you sure?"
  Nene said, "Yeah, I'm sure. It's fine,"
  "All right," Akane said.
  "Um, are you guys doing anything tomorrow?" Nene asked.
  Akane said, "I'm not too sure. I think Ranma's going to be spending all of his 
time with Shinji working on the new addition to the house. I'll probably go 
shopping at the mall with Luna for most of the day since Luna seems to have this 
weird obsession for it,"
  "Oh,"
  "Anyway, I'm sorry our plans fell through and all-" Akane began.
  "Don't worry about it, it's fine," Nene said, "Maybe next week. There's always 
Friday dinner, right?"
  "Yeah," Akane said, "I guess I'll see you then,"
  "Okay, later," Nene said.
  "Bye,"
  After Nene hung up the phone, she couldn't help but feel a bit sad. It was a 
Saturday night and it looked like she would not be going out tonight. Once 
again, like most of her weekends, she would be spending her Saturday night at 
home.
  Sadly, forgetting that she was supposed to eat, Nene went to her computer room 
where she would most likely spend the rest of her evening hanging out until she 
went to bed.

  Nene yawned as she woke up at around one in the afternoon on Sunday. 
  Looking at the clock and noticing the time, she was surprised that even she 
was able to sleep for that long. She had only fallen asleep at around two in the 
morning so that mean she had slept for around eleven hours.
  To her, That was a lot of time wasted on sleep.
  Walking up to the window and looking outside, Nene wondered what she would do 
for the rest of the day. It was a very nice day out and she felt like she should 
go outside. The problem was that she had no idea why she should go outside in 
the first place. Walking around she considered a waste of time. She would only 
walk around if there was some place for her to be.
  Nene thought about heading off to the mall. Maybe she might bump into Akane 
and Luna there. The only problem was that she didn't like the thought of tagging 
along with the two of them while they most likely went clothes shopping.
  After a short while, she decided that it was probably better to tag along and 
be bored at the mall instead of being bored at home. Although she had her 
computer, she only liked spending time in front of her computer late at night. 
She had this belief that she should always do something else besides sitting in 
front of her computer, when there is light out. 
  Nene took a shower, needing it to wake herself up.
  She then went about searching for something to wear.
  Funnily enough, she did the 'sniff' test, something guys were notorious for. 
This was because she rarely did laundry and believed that clothes were only 
dirty if they smelled really funky. That was definitely something very few 
females ever did.
  She couldn't help but remember a time about a year ago when Akane was 
mentioning about that, about how disgusting it was that guys did that. Of 
course, Nene said nothing simply out of embarrassment. She tended to avoid 
confrontation and didn't want to be ridiculed.
  She smiled a bit. At least she didn't do things completely like a guy. Guys 
usually threw their dirty clothes on the floor. She at least neatly piled them 
on a nearby chair, which made it look as if she simply hadn't gotten around to 
putting her clothes away in her dresser draws.
  She also didn't wear the same undershirt or underwear more than once. Guys did 
that, which was absolutely disgusting in her book. No matter how much of a guy-
like lifestyle she had, there were some things she would never do, that being 
one of them.
  Before long, she was dressed in a part of jeans and a sweatshirt. She liked 
wearing jeans. It went along with whatever shirt or blouse she wanted to wear.
  Once dressed, she was out the door and on her way to the mall.

  Nene wandered through the mall.
  She only went to the mall about once a week. She only stayed there for around 
an hour before she would head home. This was because she only checked a couple 
of stores. She only checked the two bookstores. That was it. There was nothing 
else there worth checking out. 
  As she headed for one of the bookstores located on one end of the mall, she 
caught sight of two familiar faces, Shinji and Emiko.
  The two of them were walking ahead of her, hand-in-hand.
  Nene was a bit confused when she saw Shinji. Wasn't he supposed to be working 
on the house with Ranma? 
  "Shinji?" Nene called out.
  Shinji turned around and was pleasantly surprised when he recognized Nene.
  They three of the greeted each other warmly.
  "Nene," he said, "What brings you here?"
  Nene asked, "I was about to ask you the same thing,"
  Shinji said, "Nothing much. We were just wandering around trying to kill 
time,"
  "I thought you were supposed to be with Ranma working on the house," Nene 
commented, "That's what Akane told me. She said you were adding two bedrooms to 
the house,"
  Shinji nodded, "Yeah, we were. We finished this morning,"
  "F-finished?" Nene's eyes widened, "How could you two have-"
  Shinji smiled, "Ranma did most of the work. It was really cool watching him. 
He was cutting the wood planks perfectly with well placed chops by his hand. His 
hand! He was driving nails into the wood using his bare hands,"
  Nene smirked, "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Afterall, he did fix that 
junker of a station wagon a while back in only a day or so. I guess he works 
really fast,"
  "Yeah," Shinji said, "All that's left is putting up the tiles to the roof. 
Unfortunately, we can't put that up until tomorrow, because the store won't get 
the roof tiles that Ranma's looking for until tomorrow,"
  "Oh," Nene said.
  "When everything's finished, Asuka-chan will have her very own bedroom," 
Shinji commented.
  Asuka-chan was the name that referred to the younger Asuka, to prevent 
confusion. The Misato, Asuka, and Ritsuko that Shinji brought back from the 
other world were given the suffix 'chan' since they were, afterall, younger than 
their counterparts.
  "I'm sure she'll be really happy," Nene commented.
  "Yeah," Shinji said, "Asuka and Asuka-chan look as if they weren't getting 
along that much. I guess it's the age difference that makes their personality 
clash. Afterall, to Asuka, Asuka-chan seems like a little child, even if they 
are the same person,"
  The three of the laughed.
  "Nene, where were you yesterday?" Emiko asked, silent until now.
  "Didn't Akane tell you? I had work," Nene answered.
  Emiko bopped herself on the top of her head, "Oh yeah, she did mention that, 
didn't she?"
  Shinji gave Emiko a warm smile, "Yeah. You were busy feuding with both Asukas 
to have heard,"
  Emiko said to Nene, "It's kind of fortunate that you weren't around during 
lunchtime yesterday,"
  "Oh? How come?" Nene was curious.
  "I don't know what got into everyone, but shortly after everyone sat down and 
started eating, Misato blurts out how much she was in love with Ranma," Shinji 
said, "Akane then suddenly blurts that she has feelings. And then Linna. And 
then Sylia. And then Ritsuko. And then Priss. And the Rei. Rei!! And 
then....well, you get the picture. Before long, basically every girl at the had 
confessed their love or at least their feelings toward Ranma. It was really 
really awkward,"
  Nene's lips became a thin line. 
  God, those girls move fast, she thought. She had a funny feeling that it was 
all just a matter of time before the girls let their feelings be known, but not 
so soon. 
  "S-so what happened?" Nene asked curiously, "How did he react?"
  Shinji shrugged, "How do I know? I'm not in his shoes. All he did was excuse 
himself and step outside for a while,"
  Nene wondered if Ranma had come visit her during the time when he had stepped 
outside. Perhaps, due to all of the chaos caused from all those girls confessing 
their feelings toward Ranma at the same time, he sought refuge by visiting Nene.
  She dismissed the thought. That was nothing more than wishful thinking on her 
part. He was only visiting her to kill time and let things cool down back at the 
restaurant.  
  "So, what brings you here?" he asked, wanting to change the subject.
  Nene said, "I was on my way to the bookstore. I just wanted to see if there's 
any new computer magazines out,"
  "Well, if you want to check out what new magazines came out, you should check 
the bookstore by town," Shinji said, "Y'know, the one right by the music shop? I 
go there every now and then to see if any new boxing magazines came out,"
  Nene nodded, "I know which store you're talking about. I stop by there every 
here and there also. Unfortunately, the magazine I like they don't carry,"
  "Oh," he said.
  Nene said, "Well, I guess I'll leave you two alone and be on my way,"
  "Okay," Shinji said, "No problem,"
  The three of them said their goodbyes and parted.
  Nene watched as Shinji and Emiko, hand-in-hand, walked off, disappearing among 
the crowd. Seeing them as a couple made Nene feel a bit envious. Not that she 
wanted Shinji or anything like that, but seeing him with someone made her 
realize how much she was not with someone.
  "Nene?" a voice came from behind her.
  Nene turned around and found herself face-to-face with the younger Asuka, 
Asuka-chan. Nene and the younger Asuka were about the same height. Afterall, 
Nene was a bit on the short side. What was sad was that the younger Asuka will 
eventually grow up to be taller than Nene since the other Asuka was taller than 
her, albeit slightly.
  "Asuka-chan," Nene was surprised.
  "Ah, it is you," Asuka-chan said, "What brings you here?"  
  "I was heading to the bookstore," Nene answered, "How about you?"
  "We were just hanging around," Asuka jerked a thumb over her shoulder 
toward two individuals standing behind her.
  She also noticed that there were two girls around the same age as Asuka-chan. 
Asuka-chan introduced them. The two of them turned out to be two of her high 
school classmates that she bumped into at the mall and had decided to hang out 
together.
  "Did you see Shinji and Emiko?" Nene asked, "They're here as well,"
  Asuka-chan nodded, "Yeah. I bumped into them earlier,"
  "Okay, just making sure," Nene commented.
  They talked for a few minutes, talking about nothing much in general before 
they finally parted. When Asuka-chan and her friends disappeared into the crowd 
of people walking about, Nene felt sad again. Even Asuka-chan, a girl whom had 
been living here for only a little over a year seemed to have friends to hang 
out with.

  
  



<new stuff 2/5>



  For some odd reason, she thought about a fanfic she had read recently. It 
would be very nice if random guys, seeing her alone, would approach her and try 
and strike up a conversation with her. Since that never happened in real life, 
it made her realize just different real-life was from Fanfiction.
  Of course, fanfics usually had the roles reversed, where the girls usually 
approached the lead male character. 
  The brand of fanfiction she read had male lead characters. This was because 
she liked reading action-type crossover stories, not some relationship-building 
romance-type fanfics. It was merely preference on her part.
  Her life wasn't interesting enough that she would be the lead character in a 
story. Okay, perhaps there were some interesting things to it, like the fact 
that she knew Ranma and Shinji, but those two did wondrous things, things that 
made her secret life as a Knight Saber pale in comparison.
  Besides, that secret part of her life was no more. She didn't need to hang on 
to that part of her past. Heck, Asuka and Asuka-chan had even let go of the fact 
that they used to be EVA pilots, and that part of their life meant something 
extremely important to them.
  Compared to her friends' lives, she believed her life wasn't all that 
interesting. 
  
  Nene paused in front of a nutritional store.
  She had been self-conscious of what little weight she had grown and was 
wondering if she should go on a diet. To a guy, he would think she was crazy to 
think that. It was only two pounds. To a girl, it meant a whole lot more. It was 
two more pounds.
  Maybe she should get some kind of weight-loss supplement drink.
  After standing there for a minutes, she decided not to stop inside the store. 
She didn't want to carry whatever she bought through the mall. God forbid she 
bumped into someone she knew. Afterall, she had bumped into a few of her friends 
already.
  She went to the bookstore where she went about checking through the magazine 
racks. She wasn't looking for any particular magazine. However, when she caught 
sight a magazine for consumer products review, she decided to pick it up. She 
always liked reading reviews about all the newest gadgets that came out.
  Glancing toward the side, she saw a young couple sifting through the magazine 
rack. It looked like they weren't looking for anything in particular to get. 
Rather, it looked more like they were enjoying each other's company.
  Sighing, Nene decided that she didn't want to be at the mall anymore and 
bought herself the magazine. She had originally wanted to accidentally bump into 
Luna and Akane somewhere in the mall, so that she could hang out with them and 
pass some time. Now that she thought about it, that was a rather crazy plan.
  It made her wonder how many times she was wandering around alone somewhere, 
like a mall or such, and secretly hoping to bump into one of her friends. More 
times than she cared to believe. That was for sure. 
  Her stomach rumbled. Not having eaten in a while, it was only natural that her 
body be requesting food. The funny thing was that Nene, like the majority of the 
people who wanted to lose weight, was unaware that eating less actually made it 
harder to lose weight.
  She smirked as she looked down at her stomach. She was a bit surprised when 
she actually heard her stomach rumbled. That stuff never really happened in 
real-life. It made her think of a fanfic she had read recently about how a girl 
was talking to the lead male character about nothing in general and her stomach 
suddenly rumbling. That lead the lead male character to simply smile and use 
that as an opportunity to invite the girl out to get some lunch.
  "Man, what a good ice breaker," Nene laughed.
  The funny thing was that, considering the noise of all the people walking 
about in the mall, even if her stomach did rumble, no one would hear it. And 
even if the area was quiet, it wasn't as if she was talking to someone like 
Ranma at that point in time. 
  As she was about to exit the bookstore, she caught sight of Ranma entering. 
Because the magazine racks were located near the front portion of the wall and 
the cashier counter farther back, Ranma hadn't noticed her while she him.
  "R-Ranma," she said softly, her heart starting to race.
  What were the chances that she would bump into Ranma in a place like this. 
Ranma never read so it was very odd that he would be in a bookstore. The only 
time he ever read was when he was on the toilet. But then again, that was 
probably the only time any guy ever read, when they were going to the bathroom.
  She stayed where she was for a short while, merely observing him.
  Her eyes widened when she caught sight of him pull from the rack an adult 
magazine. Her mouth became wide as she watched Ranma ostentatiously skim through 
the magazine. She noticed he made no attempt to be more discreet about what he 
was skimming through.
  It made her a bit more self-conscious about herself because she realized she 
would never look like the girls that he seemed to favor in those adult 
magazines. Those damn adult magazines and model magazines were usually what made 
insecure females feel even more insecure, because it created a standard in 
beauty they would never be able to achieve.
  She noticed Ranma turn toward the couple that was by the magazine that Nene 
observed earlier. He said something toward the guy but had no idea what he had 
said. A second later, the guy, taking his girlfriend's hand in his, left the 
store.
  When they were gone, Ranma put the magazine back and proceeded to look through 
the portion of the magazine rack where the couple had originally been standing. 
  Ranma started laughing silently to himself.
  Nene swallowed the lump in her throat as she approached Ranma. She had no idea 
what she was going to say to him. 
  "Ranma," she said.
  Ranma turned toward her, "Hey, Nene. How're you doing?"
  "I'm fine, I'm fine," she said nervously.
  "How was work?" he asked, "Sorry about what happened last night. Akane told me 
about how you called last night wondering what everyone was up to. I didn't mean 
to get your hopes up about getting together for dinner and all. Sorry 'bout 
that,"
  Nene waved a dismissive hand, "Oh, it's fine. Um, I ate at home anyway,"
  "That's good to hear," Ranma said. 
  "Um, what brings you here?" she asked. She wondered how long it would be 
before they would have nothing much else to talk about and would have to part. 
Then again, with Ranma, it was really easy to keep talking to him since he was 
naturally easy to talk to.
  Ranma gestured toward the magazine rack in front of himself and said, "I came 
to get some home improvement magazines. There was this couple I asked to move 
because I wanted to look at some magazine they were standing in front of but 
they didn't so I grabbed some adult magazine and started showing pictures to the 
guy to make him uncomfortable and leave, which they did,"
  Nene said, "Nan, you're bad,"
  Ranma grinned, "Hey, I ain't no saint,"
  "So, you're here for home improvement magazines, huh?" she asked.
  "Akane told ya about how Shinji and I were building new additions to the 
house, right?" he asked, "Well, we've yet to put in the roof tiles. We'll be 
puttin' it in sometime tomorrow. Dunno when though. I've never done that stuff 
before so I'm here to get some magazines about how to do it correctly,"
  "I heard about the roof from Shinji," she commented, "I bumped into Shinji and 
Emiko. They're here in the mall as well. I even bumped into Asuka-chan, too,"
  Ranma nodded, "I bumped into Shinji and Emiko, too. They were wandering 
around. I didn't see Asuka-chan though,"
  "Okay,"
  There was a moment of awkward silence as Nene tried to think of what to say.
  "Hey, ya hungry?" Ranma asked from out of the blue, "I'm hungry and was gonna 
get something to eat. Wanna come eat with me?"
  "Um, s-sure,"

  Nene and Ranma were waiting in line to be seated. 
  They had decided to eat at one of the mall restaurants. 
  Nene couldn't help but feel happy. The two of them were together, like a 
couple. Sure, they weren't holding hands or so, but it didn't mean that random 
people might mistaken them for a couple.
  Ranma seemed oblivious of that. He also seemed oblivious of the obligatory 
glances females cast in his direction.
  "Um, so, how do you like it here, now that you're back?" Nene asked, trying to 
make conversation, "You've been gone for over a year,"
  Ranma said, "Not much's changed. I'm really surprised how far along Shinji has 
come. He's turning out to be a fine young man. I'm a bit sad that he quit 
school, but hey, sometimes school isn't for everyone,"
  "I was surprised when Shinji dropped out of college about a year ago," Nene 
said, "He's really smart and it seems like quite a waste,"
  Ranma shrugged, "But he's doing what he loves, teaching martial arts. As long 
as he's happy, I guess there's nothing to worry about. Heck, considering how 
much the school's grown, he's probably doing better than a huge majority of the 
people who've gone to college,"
  Nene's lips became a thin line. She had gone to college. And it was true that 
Shinji was better off than her. Heck, Ranma never even finished high school and 
he was doing better in society than her. He had his own house and business. In a 
sense, neither Ranma nor Shinji ever needed to worry about money and they never 
finished college. 
  If she thought about it, Nene was actually the least successful of the group. 
Asuka, Asuka-chan, and Rei were exceptions since they were busy with receiving 
their education. 
  Before long, the two of them were seated in a small booth near the back of the 
restaurant. When the waitress came by, eyeing Ranma longer than Nene wanted to 
allow, they ordered their meals.
  "I'll take the left side of this menu," Ranma said.
  "Um, okay," the waitress was surprised. She turned toward Nene, "And for you, 
ma'am?"
  "I'll just take a big salad," Nene said, "No dressing please,"
  "Okay," the waitress left.
  Nene sighed. She felt old. The waitress had said ma'am when referring to her. 
  "Somethin' the matter?" Ranma asked curiously.
  "Nothing really," she said after a moment, "The waitress called me ma'am,"
  "So?" Ranma asked.
  "It makes me feel old," Nene sighed.
  Ranma shrugged, "Well, you ain't all that young,"
  "Ranma," Nene's eyes widened, shocked at Ranma's tactlessness.
  Ranma held his hands up defensively, "Hey, don't misunderstand,"
  "How am I to misunderstand?" she narrowed her eyes, "You just said that I was 
old,"
  "You're older," Ranma tapped his head, "Mentally. Physically, you're young,"
  "Gee, like that makes me feel any better," Nene slumped down in her seat.  
  Ranma laughed aloud.
  "What?" she asked.
  "How old do you think you are?" he asked.
  Nene's eyes widened, "I can't believe you would ask me for my age!"
  "You're not as old as you think," Ranma said.
  "What do yo mean?" she was confused. 
  "When Urd resurrected you and everyone else, you were resurrected younger than 
you think you are," he said, "To put things in perspective, even though, 
mentally, I'm probably around a hundred years old, physically, I'm much much 
much younger than that. I don't know if you know this, but Urd actually 
resurrected everyone around much younger than they really were when you were all 
killed,"
  "What?!?" Nene's eyes widened.
  Ranma nodded, "Yeah. In a sense, much like myself, your age on paper and in 
computer databases is no longer accurate to the age you physically are right 
now,"
  Nene was silent.
  Ranma grinned, "What, you haven't noticed that you look much younger now than 
before?"
  "No," Nene said.
  Ranma tapped his index finger on her nose, "Well, you should check a mirror 
more often,"
  "Well, I have noticed that everyone did seem a bit younger," Nene commented, 
"But I figured it was just some kinda facial cream they were using,"
  Ranma scratched his head, "Lettme get this straight...you've noticed they look 
younger. And for over a whole year, you never bothered to ask? It never occurred 
to you that everyone was brought back younger than they usually were?"
  Nene gave a shy smile, "No,"
  Ranma laughed aloud. 
  

  
  
  
<new stuff 2/12>



  Ranma and Nene were served their meal shortly afterwards. 
  Ranma grinned as he looked at his massive order of food. He had ordered so 
much food that the waitress had to set up one of those makeshift tables so the 
rest of the orders to rest on top of it.
  "Salad, huh?" Ranma smirked, "You never used to eat salad,"
  Nene was a bit surprised about this. She never used to eat salad. Ranma 
noticed that about her? He actually paid her enough attention to remember that 
detail? Then again, Ranma was very observant and things rarely, if ever, escaped 
his notice.
  Nene said, "I need to watch what I'm eating. I need to lose weight,"
  She blushed when she said that. She couldn't believe she had actually said 
that aloud. Sure, she was comfortable around Ranma, but she never figured she 
would get so comfortable around him that she would blurt out one of her 
insecurities.
  Ranma gave Nene a curious look, as if scrutinizing her.
  "W-what?" Nene asked, nervously, not used to the attention he was paying her.
  Ranma said, "You, need to lose weight? Y'look fine to me,"
  "Um, thanks," Nene said, knowing Ranma was only saying it to be nice. For a 
person as observant as Ranma, it was obvious that he had noticed she had gained 
a slight bit of weight.
  Ranma went about eating his meal, Nene observing him for a moment before 
proceeding to eat her salad. As she ate, she was curious as to what Shinji had 
said earlier when she bumped into him, about how basically all of the girls 
confessed their feelings for Ranma yesterday. 
  She was curious as to how Ranma reacted to what had happened.
  "Um, y'know how I bumped into Shinji earlier?" Nene began.
  "Uh huh, what about it?" he asked.
  She paused for a moment.
  "Um, he said something about what happened yesterday," she began, "About how 
all the girls came out and told you their feelings..."
  "Yeah," he said, "And all of 'em basically at once. The only people that 
didn't say anything were Misato-chan, Asuka-chan, and Ritsuko-chan. Of course, 
that's understandable because they have no idea who I am since they're here 
because of Shinji, not me,"
  Nene asked, "What did you think about that, about them confessing..."  
  Ranma didn't seem to hesitate for a moment before saying, "I didn't like it,"
  "Y-you didn't?" Nene was surprised, "I-I figure you'd at least be flattered,"
  Ranma shrugged, "I'm flattered and all, but it made for a very awkward 
situation,"
  "How so?" she asked.
  "Well, you're the first person I'm telling this to," Ranma began, "I'm not 
interested in settling down or having a girlfriend or getting married,"
  "W-why not?" she asked. She had a funny feeling that that was the case with 
him, but neither she, nor anyone else, knew why.
  Ranma shrugged, "No real reason. Just a preference I guess. I guess it's 
something I've grown to like since long ago,"
  "What do you mean?"
  "I don't hafta answer to anyone about what I do," he smiled, "And I've gotten 
used to it and've grown to like it,"
  "T-that's the reason why you never got in a relationship?" Nene asked.
  "More or less," he said.
  Nene found herself unable to say anything. She had been wanting and trying to 
steel herself to let it be known to Ranma that she was in love with him, but 
considering his reaction to everyone having confessed their feelings to him, she 
figured it was best to not say anything instead.
  "Ranma. Nene," came a voice.
  Nene and Ranma looked up from their meal and found themselves looking up at 
Luna and Akane. The two girls had spotted the two of them through the front of 
the restaurant and had decided to approach them as they ate.
  "Hey, guys," Ranma greeted them, "What brings you here?"
  "We were shopping and spotted the two of you," Akane said warmly, gesturing 
toward a bag she and Luna each had.
  Ranma glanced at the bag but didn't seem all that interested in knowing what 
was in it since he already assumed it was clothes.
  "We were just having some lunch together," Ranma gestured toward Nene.
  "Can we join you?" Akane asked.
  Ranma shrugged, "It's okay by me. How about you, Nene? Ya mind if they join 
us?"
  Nene quickly said, "Not at all,"
  She couldn't help but feel a bit sad that Akane and Luna would be joining 
them. For a brief moment, it had felt like she and Ranma had been on a date. Now 
that Akane and Luna were there, that would no longer be the case.
  Before she knew it, Akane and Luna started talking to Ranma and he them.
  Quietly, she sat in the background and ate her meal, too shy to say anything. 
Perhaps it was because, unlike back then, this was merely a conversational 
situation.
  It made her realize that, unless there was a reason for her to talk, she was 
unlikely to indulge in conversation. She had trouble talking about nothing, 
which was basically the exact opposite as what the other girls seem to be able 
to do with ease.     
  She wanted to do something about that, but she had no real idea how.

  "What happened to your bracers?" Nene noticed, "You took them off,"
  Ranma smirked, "Wow, you noticed,"
  "Huh?"
  "You're the first person that noticed I took them off," he commented, "I took 
them off yesterday but no one seems to have noticed it or at least said 
something about it,"
  Nene blushed slightly. 
  Ranma and Nene were standing outside A.D. Police Headquarters. It was Tuesday, 
two days since they had bumped into each other at the mall. She had actually 
seen Ranma walking around two yesterday but had never bothered to stop and talk 
to him, unable to think of a good reason to simply walk up to him and talk to 
him. Today, she saw him walking around once again but noticed that he wasn't 
wasn't wearing his bracers, a good enough reason to stop him in the streets and 
talk to him.
  "Shinji and I sparred earlier and he wanted to see how fast I really was," 
Ranma said, rubbing at his bare forearms, "And since the bracers weighed around 
a thousand pounds each and slowed me down considerably, taking them off made me 
significantly faster," 
  "T-thousand pounds?!" Nene's eyes widened. She knew about Shinji wearing a 
weighted vest long ago, because of Ranma, but she never knew Ranma wore weighted 
bracers.
  Ranma nodded, "Well, not many people know about it. Sometimes, even I forget I 
was wearing them. Man, it would've been really nice had I remembered to take 
them off when fighting those Angels that were attacking this world. I would've 
kicked their asses all at the same time,"
  He chuckled slightly. Nene didn't know if he was telling the truth or not.
  He shrugged, "Well, maybe not all at once, but back then, had I remembered to 
take them off, I would've been easily able to defeat them one-on-one, that's for 
sure,"
  "Now that you took them off, how did the fight with Shinji go?" Nene asked, 
already knowing the answer.
  Ranma shrugged, "Same as usual. He wasn't able to hit me when I was wearing 
the bracers, let alone with them off. Heck, even after I beefed him up, he still 
couldn't touch me,"
  "Beefed him up?" Nene asked, "What, you gave him some kind of pep talk?"
  Ranma laughed. It was a hearty laugh, something that sounded very nice to 
Nene. It was rare to hear Ranma simply laugh and she had made him laugh several 
times already.
  Ranma reached into his pocket and pulled out a scroll, "I found this scroll. 
It's a scroll that shows you Martial Arts Calligraphy,"
  "Martial Arts Calligraphy?" Nene was confused.
  "It's this weird art that can unlock a fighter's potential," Ranma said, "All 
you need to do is paint a stupid looking face on the fighter's stomach and he 
becomes basically astronomically better than what he was originally. I remember, 
when we were young, Ryoga had the same face drawn on his stomach and fought 
against him. Man, let's just say it was no easy task beating him,"
  Nene was silent.
  "I also found this recipe for Super Soba Noodles," Ranma said, pulling out 
another scroll, "I used that on Shinji also,"
  "What's that do?" she asked.
  "I gives whoever who eats the noodles....um....oodles of power," Ranma 
smirked, "Get it? Noodles? Oodles?"
  Nene gave a shy smile. That was the stupidest joke she had ever heard. 
  "How do you make these Super Soba Noodles?" Nene asked curiously.
  Ranma said, "It's really funny how these noodles are made. All you do is make 
regular soba noodles like normal. However, you need to add in one table spoon of 
any clear soda in the broth. Pretty messed up, huh?"
  Nene scratched her head, "Let me get this straight. If I make soba noodles, 
and add one table spoon of a clear soda in the broth, eating it will make me 
super strong?"
  He smiled, "Yeah, pretty messed up, huh?"
  "That's insane," Nene said.
  "Of course," Ranma grinned, "It's so easy it's ridiculous. Of course, we don't 
have super strong people because, basically, who the heck would ever think to do 
something like that?"
  "Obviously," Nene said, wondering if she should give Super Soba Noodles a try.
  Ranma seemed to read her mind, "However, there is one side effect,"
  "Damn, and what's that?" Nene asked, knowing that there had to be a catch.
  "Impotence," Ranma said.
  "What?!?! And you gave that to Shinji?!?" Nene's eyes widened.
  Ranma shook his head, "No, it isn't true, but seeing Shinji's reaction after 
he took it was worth a million yen,"
  "So what's the real side-effect?" she had to ask.
  "Facial hair," Ranma said, "Like that of a beard and mustache if you don't 
shave,"
  Nene was silent for a moment, "That's not a bad side-effect,"
  Ranma shrugged, "Fine, you go take some of those Super Soba Noodles then. See 
how you girls would like it if you hafta shave daily like most guys,"
  "Hm, I guess you have a point," Nene said.
  Ranma scratched his head, "What's strange is that I remember the old letch, 
Happousei made those.....so why didn't he ever make them after his first bowl 
was accidentally eaten by Akane?"
  "Huh?"
  "Nevermind," Ranma waved a dismissive hand, "Anyway, when Shinji ate those, he 
got super strong. Probably strong enough to rival my strength now. I doubt he 
could rival Ryoga's strength. Ryoga's too stupid to know what's considered too 
heavy to life,"
  Nene looked around, expecting Ryoga to suddenly appear out of nowhere and 
punch Ranma in the face. To her and Ranma's surprise, Ryoga never showed up.
  "Shinji was still unable to hit you?" Nene asked.
  Ranma nodded, "Yep. He didn't hit me even once. Heck, he didn't even manage to 
get in close enough grab on to my shirt once in an attempt throw,"
  "Wow, you're amazing," Nene was in awe.
  "Yeah, I'm the man," Ranma grinned.
  Nene narrowed her eyes, "Nevermind. I take that back,"
  Ranma laughed again.
  Nene looked at the scrolls in Ranma's hands, "Now, exactly where did you find 
those scrolls?"
  "I don't know," he said, scratching his head, "For some odd reason, I 
conveniently found them. As to where, I have no real idea nor any recollection 
of exactly when or how or why," 
  Nene gave Ranma an odd look.
  After a while, she took it as a given.
  "So, did you eat the noodles and put whatever face drawing on your stomach 
like you did for Shinji?" Nene had to ask.
  Ranma grinned, "Yeah, I took the noodles, but I didn't put that ugly looking 
drawing on my stomach. That stuff's permanent,"
  Nene's eyes widened, "So are you saying that Shinji now has a permanent tattoo 
on his stomach?"
  He shook his head, "No. It magically goes away if you beat him. And since I 
beat him, it's no longer on him. However, after it disappeared, I put another 
one on him but on a different location,"
  "A different location? Where?" she asked.
  Ranma raised his shirt sleeve to expose his right arm. On there, right by his 
bicep, was a small dot.
  "You see?" he asked.
  "See what? All I see is a pin-sized dot," Nene said, wondering if that was a 
birthmark.
  Ranma nodded, "That's it. That's the mark. After I read through the scroll 
completely, it turns out that putting a dot on your right arm gives the same 
effects as that of a happy-face on one's stomach,"
  "This is crazy," Nene commented.
  Ranma smiled, "Right. The funny thing is that after eating those Super Soba 
Noodles and putting that mark on, I find myself actually weaker and slower than 
before. Kinda weird, huh?"
  Nene didn't know what to say.
  "I guess it's kinda like doing stuff like my working out and getting big 
muscles," Ranma said, "It's actually detrimental in my case,"
  "Let's just change the subject," Nene said, already confused, "All that you're 
telling me is making my head spin,"
  "Okay," Ranma said, "Whatcha wanna talk about?"
  "Well, first of all, how do you like being back?" she had been meaning to ask 
when she was eating some lunch with him in the restaurant the other day at the 
mall but hadn't been able to when Luna and Akane showed up and basically crashed 
the date, if one could call it a date.
  Ranma shrugged, "It's okay. However, I find myself itching to go on another 
adventure,"
  "After all that you've been through, you want to go through more?!" Nene 
gasped, "Are you some kind of masochist?"
  Ranma smirked, "I guess I'm not the kind that can stay in one place for long. 
I like constantly being on the go, and adventuring is probably the best thing to 
do, especially if I go to another world and do so,"
  "Have you?" Nene asked, "You've been gone for over a year,"
  Ranma nodded, "Yeah, I've been to a couple of different worlds already. When I 
was done with that world, I went back to Heaven where I would go out on another 
adventure,"
  Nene smiled, "You really like adventures, don't ya?"
  "It's something to keep me busy," he said, "Otherwise, I'd get bored with 
daily life,"
  Nene couldn't help but know exactly what Ranma meant by that. She found 
herself bored and wanting some excitement in her life, not so much like some 
adventure to save the world, but anything remotely exciting. Ranma's idea of 
daily excitement was way beyond her and anyone else's tolerance of excitement 
for a lifetime.
  Ranma's eyes lit up, "Hey, let's go on an adventure together,"
  "W-what?!" Nene stammered, shocked at the suggestion.
  "Yeah, why not?" he grinned, "It'd be fun. We can go to some world and mess it 
up really good and let Urd worry about the consequences,"
  "Mess up a world?" Nene narrowed her eyes, "Why the heck would you want to do 
that?"
  Ranma smirked, "Why not? I seem to have a knack for it. Why bother trying to 
stop the inevitable,"
  Nene sighed.
  "Besides," he added, "Dontcha feel good after you save a world or at least 
prevent it from going down the tubes?"
  "I'm sorry, but I don't have 'save a world' on my to-do list like you do," 
Nene commented, "My to-do list is usually, go to work, check email, go to sleep, 
and repeat. Throw in eating meals in between those tasks while you're at it. I 
feel happy when I go on to a particular web page and find out it's been updated 
with new stories. My standards for being happy seem to be a lot lower than 
yours,"
  "Didn't you like being a Knight Saber?" Ranma asked, "Didntcha find that 
exciting?"
  "Of course I found that exciting," Nene said, "It was very exciting. But don't 
forget, that was around fifteen years ago. I'm older now and have moved on. I'm 
not as young as I used to be,"
  "Actually..." he began.
  "You know what I mean," she said, "It's like you going back to your past and 
dealing with whatever antics and trouble you had to deal with then. What might 
have been exciting is actually very anticlimactic," 
  "I guess you have a point," Ranma said, scratching his head, "I was kinda 
disappointed fighting against Happousei and utterly demolishing him. Plus, I was 
easily able to deal with whatever situations were thrown at me, something I was 
barely able to do back when I was young,"
  "Exactly," she stated, "So you get my point,"
  Ranma smirked, "You know what that means, right?"
  "What?" she gulped, noticing the odd twinkle in his eyes.
  "We go to a totally different world," he grinned.
  Ranma snapped his fingers. Suddenly, a bluish portal opened up right before 
them. 
  Before Nene could protest, Ranma picked her up and jumped right into the 
portal.

  In a world that was every bit real as it was virtual, a young-looking woman 
ran through the pouring rain as she ran down a alleyway, hot on the trail of her 
target. She looked to be somewhere in her late twenties. However, even though 
she looked to be around that age, she was far older. In a sense, she was a bit 
like Ranma, her outward appearance hiding the fact that she was far older than 
indicated.
  Motoko Kusanagi, also known as 'Major' to her colleagues, was in the middle of 
a foot chase after the entity known as Net-Master. Her target looked like a 
human wearing a black trench coat, but she knew otherwise. He was nothing more 
than an android that possessed Net-Master's ghost, or soul as humans refer to 
it, and she didn't want him to get away. She had been after Net-Master for over 
ten years and she was finally going to catch him.
  Unfortunately, just before she was able to lunge forward and tackle him and 
bring the chase to a final end, a blue portal opened up right suddenly in the 
space between her and her target. Before she was able to react, two figures 
stepped forward from the portal and right in front of her.
  Since she was running at full speed, she was unable to avoid those two 
individual.
  The moment Ranma, still holding Nene, stepped through the portal, he saw 
something come rushing toward him. With lightning speed reaction, Ranma 
tightened his hold on Nene and jumped over the approaching figure.
  The shock of seeing something like that suddenly happen caught her off guard. 
Despite her superior augmented body, she still possessed a somewhat human mind 
which sometimes made human mistakes.
  The shock made her trip over her own feet where she ended up tumbling on the 
ground and crashed into a nearby heap of garbage bag. 
  "Oh shit," Ranma said.
  He placed Nene down on her feet. Nene, disoriented with what was going on, 
stayed right where she was, as Ranma rushed over to where Motoko was.
  "You okay?" he asked.
  Motoko didn't bother answer as she quickly got up to her feet and ran down the 
alleyway, in the same direction as her target had gone down. When she emerged 
from the alleyway and into the street, she scanned the nearby area, looking for 
clues as to where her target had gone.
  "You okay?" Ranma asked her again, walking up behind her.
  "Fuck!!!" she shouted when she noticed her target was long gone. She punched 
at the wall of a nearby building, her fist creating a small hole in the wall. 
She didn't even know if her target had turned left or right after he had emerged 
from the alleyway.
  Ranma regarded Motoko's back for a moment. He couldn't help but notice that 
the woman had a hairstyle that reminded him of Akane's late-sister, Nabiki. 
However, this girl had black hair and an aura of authority to her.
  Nene tried to take in her surroundings as she tried to figure out where she 
was. All she knew was that she was wet and that it looked as if they were in 
some kind of alleyway. 
  She glanced over toward Ranma as she saw him reach out and place a hand on 
that girl's shoulder
  "You okay?" Ranma asked.
  Ranma was concerned for the girl. She had taken a nasty spill and it was most 
likely because of him. He wanted to make sure that she was okay. If she wasn't, 
he would be more than happy to help her out and get her some medical attention.
  Motoko, very frustrated, turned her attention toward Ranma, the man that had 
prevented her from bringing a ten-year-long case to a final close. Not liking to 
be touched, she grabbed Ranma's extended arm and twisted it violently.
  She wanted to vent her frustrations and perhaps break the man's arm, just to 
show him how pissed off she was.
  Ranma was surprised when he suddenly found himself flipping head over heels. 
However, due to his superior training, he ended up landing on his feet again and 
countered that obvious attempted takedown.
  Landing on his feet, his body reacted before his mind could. His free hand 
bolted forward as he grabbed Motoko by her neck and shoved her backwards where 
he basically slammed her against the wall of the building she had punched.
  Ranma's lightning speed caught Motoko off-guard. Never had she seen someone 
move so fast. Of course, she had been unaware of Ranma's training, that he let 
his body react instead of his brain. That was the main reason why he was so 
fast, because having the mind make the body do something was significantly 
slower than having the body do what it wanted. It eliminated the middle-man that 
was that brain.
  "Ranma," Nene rushed forward, wondering what was going on.
  Ranma suddenly let go Motoko when he realized what he had done, "Um, sorry 
about that. I didn't mean it. Are you okay?"
  Motoko rubbed at her neck slightly as she eyed Ranma intently. Her augmented 
eyes scanned him. To her surprise, she was unable to detect a single cybernetic 
part on his entire body. What surprised her even more was that she was unable to 
detect if he was even human. 
  "Who are you?" she asked, her voice icy cold.
  "I'm Ranma Saotome. That's Nene Romanova," he said, "What's your name?"
  "Have you any idea what you just did?" she said, wanting to rip him a new 
asshole for making her lose her target.
  "Hey, I told you my name," Ranma said, "What's your name?"
  Motoko narrowed her eyes before she said, "Motoko Kusanagi,"
  "Nice to meetcha," Ranma said, "So, what did I do?"
  Motoko sighed, "Nevermind. It's not your concern,"
  Ranma scratched his head, "Okay. Um, are you okay? You took a nasty spill,"
  "I'm fine," she said, a bit annoyed with herself. She didn't like making 
mistakes. That was a human flaw that she wanted to get rid of.
  "Well, I'm glad you're okay. It was nice meeting you," Ranma said, as if he 
was dismissing her, her of all people.
  She watched as Ranma turned his attention toward Nene. She couldn't help but 
be very suspicious of that man. He moved faster than anything she had ever seen. 
He also appeared out of nowhere, like he had been using one of those thermoptic 
camouflage suits. And who was that girl that was with him. Scanning her, Motoko 
realized the girl was human. 
  Motoko did a quick search for 'Ranma Saotome' on the Internet. It was very 
easy for her to search the Internet since access to it was actually hardwired to 
her brain. After a few seconds of searching around, the name came up empty.
  "Who are you?" she asked again.
  Ranma turned to face her, "Huh?"
  "What's your real name?" she asked, very sure he was using some alias.
  Ranma looked confused, "You lost me,"
  "If you're not going to cooperate, I'm going to arrest you," Motoko said, "Who 
are you really?"
  Ranma laughed, "Arrest me? That's a riot,"
  "What?" Motoko was taken aback.
  Ranma crossed his arms in front of his chest, "Tellme, what did I do wrong?"
  "Plenty," she stated.
  Ranma turned around and toward Nene, "Nene, let's get going. I hate this 
stuff. Not one minute after coming here, I'm already stepping in some serious 
shit,"
  "Um, o-okay," Nene said, eyeing Motoko intently.
  Nene couldn't help but be very fascinated with Motoko. She could tell that 
Motoko was a woman of authority, like that of a policewoman if not of a higher 
rank. In a sense, they were kind of like the same people.
  "Where do you think you're going?" Motoko said, "I haven't finished talking to 
you,"
  "Go to sleep," Ranma said.
  He reached out and touched Motoko's sleep pressure point, three points on her 
right breast. However, after grabbing it, he found himself a bit surprised when 
he noticed Motoko didn't suddenly fall down to the ground asleep.
  Motoko's eyes widened as she suddenly realized she was being groped.
  Ranma proceeded to knead her breast, "Hm, I know I pressed the right points,"
  "You fuck!!!!" losing her cool composure as she tried to slap Ranma in the 
face really hard. 
  To her surprise, Ranma used his other hand to intercept it, his hand closing 
around her small but powerful forearms. She was stopped dead in her tracks.
  "Ah, now I know why you don't go to sleep," Ranma looked actually happy, "It's 
because you're a boomer,"
  "What?" Motoko said.
  "You're a machine, am I right?" Ranma asked.
  Motoko was confused. She didn't like being confused or not in control of a 
situation. Right now was one of them.
  Ranma let go of Motoko and said, "Look, sorry about that. I had accidentally 
mistaken you for human. But since you're not, the sleep pressure point doesn't 
work so it seemed like I was just groping ya,"
  Ranma looked at his hand. He couldn't help notice that Motoko's boomer body 
was remarkably realistic. Perhaps she had the body of a sexaroid. That would 
explain quite a bit. 
  Motoko continued to regard Ranma, as if expecting him to say more.
  Ranma then smiled.
  "Can we go now?"
  
  Ranma was grinning as he and Nene, both handcuffed with their arms behind 
their back, were being down the street toward a waiting patrol car down the 
block. By now, the rain had stopped.
  Nene looked worried, "I can't believe it. I've been arrested. Not only did I 
not want to be here, but I was arrested just a few minutes after showing up,"
  "Don't worry, if you don't wanna role play anymore, I'll just break us out," 
he smiled, "Just give me the word,"
  "And just how do you expect to 'break out' as you so put it?" Motoko smirked,  
a hand on both Ranma's and Nene's arms.
  "I'm a police woman," Nene pleaded toward Motoko, "Just check my 
identification. I have a badge and all,"
  "Never heard of A.D. Police before," Motoko stated, "And my search for it came 
up blank. Basically, you and your boyfriend here are liars,"
  Nene blushed a deep shade of red, "B-boyfriend?"
  Ranma continued to grin, "Y'hear that? This chick thinks we're a couple,"
  Nene continued to blush as Ranma continued to smile, enjoying role playing.
  "I suggest you wipe that grin off your face," Motoko said in a cold voice, 
"Before I wipe it off for you, the hard way,"
  Ranma didn't seem one bit intimidated by the threat.
  "You do know these handcuffs are useless on me, right?" Ranma asked.
  Motoko smirked, "Right, whatever you say,"
  Ranma spread his arms apart as the handcuffs securing his wrists suddenly 
broke. This shocked even Motoko, a person rarely shocked since she had basically 
seen quite a lot over her long life. Perhaps it was because she was witnessing 
Ranma breaking handcuffs capable of securing even the strongest cybernetic 
bodies created, and with relative ease.
  "See?" Ranma grinned.
  Motoko reached for her weapon, a modified revolver, and pointed it toward 
Ranma's chest as she took a step back. However, Ranma made no sudden motions 
toward her nor any indication of even caring about having a gun pointed.
  Ranma looked at the barrel of the gun. After a moment, he seemed to lose 
interest, "Go ahead an shoot me. Even if that gun packs the punch of a positron 
rifle, it won't even tickle,"
  Motoko, believing in the philosophy of 'shoot first, ask questions later', 
lowered her gun toward Ranma's leg and pulled the trigger. However, before the 
bullet was able to traverse the distance from the chamber and into Ranma's leg, 
Ranma shifted his leg slightly. The bullet missed his leg and ended up 
ricocheting off the sidewalk and hitting a nearby garbage can.
  She re-aimed her gun again, bringing it up toward his chest, and pulled the 
trigger. However, this time around, Ranma caught the bullet. She fired a couple 
more times, those caught as well.
  "You mind?" Ranma said in annoyance, "Who the heck are you anyway? You seem 
like some kinda cop chick, but not. Considering how you don't know me and are 
firing a gun at me, it's obvious you're dangerous. I oughta find your off switch 
and flip it,"
  "Why you!!" she shouted.
  Ranma dashed forward with lightning speed. Once again, Motoko was unable to 
react. In one swift motion, Ranma grabbed Motoko's gun and yanked it out of her 
taut grip, squeezing it and breaking the weapon at the same time. 
  He quickly grabbed her, sweeping her up off her feet, and tucked her under one 
of his arms. Because of the way he was holding her, she was unable to do 
anything but struggle. This was because both of her arms were bounded to her 
side, her back pressed against Ranma's side which prevented her from being able 
to kick him. As flexible as she was, not even a contortionist could kick him, 
given the way she was being held.
  Ranma, still holding Motoko, unbothered by Motoko swearing and struggling 
under his one arm, proceeded to in the direction of the patrol car.
  "Let go of me!!" Motoko shouted toward him, "I'm going to kill you!!"
  Several pedestrians stopped to see what all the commotion was. When they saw 
Ranma carrying Motoko, they didn't really do much but stare.
  "Don't worry," Ranma said glibly, "She's my, um, my little sister. She hangs 
out with bad people and doesn't wanna go home. Y'know how big brothers gotta be 
sometimes,"
  All the watching pedestrians seemed to nod in agreement, totally understanding 
what Ranma meant.
  "Ha ha," Ranma said to Motoko, "They believe me,"
  Nene blindly followed Ranma as he walked up to the obvious patrol car. 
Although it looked nothing like the kind of cars he was used to seeing, what 
with it looking far more advanced, it shared the colors of common police cars 
that was on his world.
  Walking up to the police car, Ranma looked inside. He was a bit shocked at all 
the electronics inside surrounding the dashboard.
  "Wow, look at all that junk in this thing," Ranma commented.
  Looking in, Nene found herself recognizing several pieces of equipment. It 
looked different from the stock equipment in the patrol car she sometimes had to 
drive from time to time.
  Ranma tried to open the car door. Of course, it was locked.
  "What do you intend to do?" Motoko asked in a cold voice, wanting to stall 
him. She had already sent out a call for backup from her partner in crime, 
Bateau, via internal communication. Because her brain was hardwired to the 
Internet, she could securely communicate with others also hardwired, that being 
her partner and everyone in the division she worked with.
  "I'm gonna throw you in the trunk," Ranma said, "But first, I need to pop the 
trunk,"
  Ranma jammed his fingers through the car window and reached inside. He opened 
the door from the inside. However, when he actually tried to open the door, it 
didn't really move. A bit annoyed he put a bit more strength into opening it 
than he realized, resulting in ripping the door right off its hinges.
  "Um, I think this car's doors open upwards, not like that of a car you're used 
to," Nene commented. After a moment, she added, "Well, I guess now that you 
ripped the car door off, I guess that's moot,"
  Ranma gave a meek smile, "I think you're right,"
  Motoko continued to struggle while taking in information. To her, the guy 
seemed to be all brawn and no brain. She had nothing on the girl so she had 
nothing to go by.
  Still holding Motoko, he peeked into the car and looked around for the latch 
that would pop the trunk. He found it after a short moment.
  "Cool, it seems like even though this car is different from ones I'm use to, 
it's design is relatively the same and fundamental,"
  Walking around to the back of the car, he threw Motoko inside the trunk and 
closed it on her. He punched a few holes on the trunk, so Motoko would have some 
air, in case the trunk was air tight.
  "I know it's gonna be embarrassing, but someone'll come along and help ya 
out," Ranma said, leaning over and speaking into one of the holes.
  As he did so, one of Motoko's slender arms darted out from the hole, fingers 
straight in the form of a knife-hand, as if she was trying to jam her fingers 
right into Ranma's head. However, Ranma leaned back as he saw the attempted 
attack.
  He stepped back as he saw the trunk slowly denting upwards from the inside. It 
only took a moment for him to realize that Motoko was trying to punch and kick 
her way out of the trunk from within.
  "C'mon, let's go get some food before she gets out," Ranma turned toward Nene, 
  Nene, feeling as if everything was surreal at the moment, said, "Um, okay,"
  Ranma and Nene proceeded down the street as pedestrians stared in confusion. 
One of them even said something.
  "What kinda brother does that to his little sister?"

  Ranma and Nene were walking down the street, drinking in their surroundings. 
Motoko was no where to be seen. 
  "This world is incredible," Nene commented, forgetting that she wanted to be 
back on her home world, "It's so technologically advanced,"
  "Yeah, if you think about it, this world is much like our world," Ranma 
stated, "It's probably what our world will be a couple hundred years down the 
line,"
  Nene looked about, "Are you sure most of the people walking about are 
cybernetic? They look completely human,"
  "Yeah,"
  "Wow, I'm really eager to see how advanced their computers are," Nene 
commented, "Ritsuko forwarded our world's technology quite a bit by 
incorporating her knowledge of MAGI with that world's technology. However, I've 
got the funny feeling that whatever computers that exist on this world, blows 
away our world's most powerful computer,"
  Ranma nodded, "That's for sure,"
  "How come you chose to bring us to this world, at this particular time?" Nene 
asked.
  Ranma said, "I only know about what's gonna happen on this world. I dunno much 
about this world,"
  "What going to happen?" Nene asked, curious. She had no intention on taking 
part and playing an active role on this world.
  "In a short while from now, all hell's gonna break loose," Ranma said, "Humans 
and machines are going to be going to war against one another. The machines are 
going to win but not before human basically scorch the sky in an attempt to 
block out the sun, the machines' source of energy. Unfortunately, machines find 
out that they can basically 'harvest' humans for energy much like they could 
sunlight. We're here to stop the war from ever happening,"
  Nene was speechless. 
  Ranma laughed, "I'm just joking,"
  Nene breathed a sigh of relief.
  "I made that up," Ranma said, "It's from this movie I saw from when I was 
young,"
  "Um, okay," Nene said, "So if that's not the case, then why are we hear?"
  Ranma said, "Well, you seem bored with your life so I figure this can help 
give it some excitement. Since you like computers and such, I figure we can take 
a trip together to a very technologically advanced world so you can see what 
kinda computers that exist on it,"
  "W-what makes you think I was bored with my life?" Nene asked, not really 
knowing how to react.
  Ranma nodded, "Bored? Yes, most definitely. You looked like you were just 
waiting around for something to happen. As to what happening, I have no idea. I 
just figure something like this might be a good change,"
  Nene was surprised at how right Ranma was. He had read her like a book. But 
then again, this was Ranma. One shouldn't be surprised that he should pick 
something like that up based on a few chance encounters with her.
  "Don't worry about stuff like work," Ranma said, "I can bring us back mere 
seconds after we've left. In a sense, you can stay here for basically all your 
life and then head back, and it would seem like you had never left. The only 
problem is that you'll go back older than when you left and people would wonder 
why you're suddenly old,"
  "Well, I have no intention of staying here," Nene said, "But now that I think 
about it, I am mildly interested in checking this world out,"
  "Cool," Ranma smiled.
  "Um, are you going to be with me all this time?" Nene blushed.
  "Of course," Ranma said, "I brought you here. I'll bring you back when you 
wanna go back. I have no qualms about staying here for as long as you feel 
like,"
  "Just like that?" Nene asked, "Just like that you can just up and go to a 
different world and basically 'live' there for God knows how long?"
  Ranma nodded, "Yeah, I can. I've done that before, so doing it now is no 
different,"
  "Um, how did we manage to get here?" Nene asked, "I noticed you didn't use the 
nanban mirror,"
  All Ranma did was grin.


<new stuff 2/13>




  Nene looked around as she and Ranma sat inside a random restaurant.
  She noticed that most of the patrons had openly noticeable cybernetic 
augmentations. For instance, she saw patrons wearing short sleeved shirts that 
revealed completely robotic arms. Many other patrons had other augmentations 
like robotic legs and optical implants and such. Little did Ranma and Nene know 
that they had come to a world where cybernetic augmentation were proudly 
displayed by everyone. 
  What was odd was that more of the patrons were paying her and Ranma more 
attention than they them. This was because Nene was completely human, something 
considered very rare nowadays. In that world, people getting cybernetic 
augmentation was as common as someone, say, getting their ears pierced.
  "What would you like to order?" a waitress approached their table, a young 
looking girl with two cybernetic arms. When she noticed Ranma and Nene, she 
couldn't help but stare for a moment.
  "Something the matter?" Ranma asked.
  "You're both 'Virgins', right?" she said.
  Nene nearly spit out the mouthful of water she was drinking when she heard 
that.
  Ranma gave the girl an odd look, "Huh?"
  "'Virgin', pure," the girl added, "You have no augmentations,"
  "Oh, I thought you meant something else," Ranma smirked.
  "What do you mean?" the girl gave a curious look. The term 'virgin', which 
referred to one whom haven't had sexual intercourse, no longer used on that 
world as that definition. It was a case where one definition replaced the 
definition of another word. It was similar to how the word 'cool' was rarely 
used to refer to temperature.
  "Nevermind," Ranma shrugged, "And you're right, neither of us have 
augmentations. So I guess, if the term fits, then we are 'Virgins',"
  He turned toward Nene and noticed her blushing deeply. After a moment, he 
realized why.
  "Nene, get your mind outta the gutter," Ranma said.
  He knew exactly what Nene was thinking about. He knew about how all the adult 
females, whenever they seemed to have too much time on their hands, and were 
together, actually theorized as to whether or not he had ever had sexual 
intercourse. Him claiming that he was a so-called 'Virgin', one that had no 
augmentation, was making Nene think she had finally found out the truth as to 
Ranma's having sex or not.
  "Just curious, is it hard to live without augmentation?" the girl asked. She 
touched her arms, "I don't know how I could possibly live without these arms. 
They're so convenient,"
  "Just curious, what do you find so convenient about cybernetic arms?" Ranma 
asked, "I guess from our point of view, we don't know what we're missing,"
  The girl extended her index finger where they noticed that it looked like an 
interface jack.
  "It's so easy to interface with everything this way," the girl said, "Heck, 
how do you manage to access the Internet without it?"
  Nene suddenly showed signs of concern, "Are you sure?"
  She had been very eager to check this world's computers and surf the internet, 
to see what kind of world this was. Ranma was the type of person that 
experienced the world by wandering through the streets and such. Nene was the 
type to observe it via computer.
  "I'm not too sure," the girl said, "I think you can use these things called a 
mouse and keyboard, but I have no idea where you'll find those things. I've only 
heard of those things. I've never seen them before though,"
  Ranma smirked toward Nene, "Wow, it seems like this world is more 
technologically advanced than any world we've ever been to,"
  "Huh?" the girl asked, wondering what the handsome man was saying.
  "Nevermind," he waved a dismissive hand.
  "Are you guys tourists?" the girl asked.
  "Yeah, I guess you can say so," Ranma chuckled.
  "Well, hopefully, you guys won't have too much trouble in town," the girl 
commented.
  "Thanks," the two of them said.

  Nene poked at her salad.
  "Why're you eating that stuff?" Ranma asked, "You never eat salad. This is the 
second time I'm eating a meal with you and the second time I'm seeing you eating 
salad,"
  "I can't help it," she said, "I need to watch what I'm eating. I'm gaining 
weight,"
  Once again, she found herself a bit surprised at how easily she could just 
confess something like that to Ranma. Was it really because Ranma made her feel 
so comfortable that she could tell him anything?
  Ranma said, "Bah, that's bull. You're fine as you are,"
  "Thanks," Nene said, smiling, "But I know I'm gaining weight and I need to do 
something about it,"
  "If you're so interested in 'losing weight' as you so say," Ranma commented, 
"They I suggest you eat more,"
  "Eat more?"
  "Yeah, eat more," he said, "I mentioned it before. You actually gain weight if 
you eat less. I know it kinda goes against logic, but it's the truth,"
  "Can you explain exactly how that works?" she asked.
  "The less often you eat, the more your body deposit fat reserves since it 
doesn't know when the next meal is coming," Ranma said, "However, if you eat 
more often, your body starts expecting a constant supply of food so it gets rid 
of its fat reserves since there's no need for it to store fat,"
  Nene was silent for a moment, "That does make sense,"
  Ranma smirked, "What's even better is that if you keep it up, your metabolism 
speeds up and eventually overtakes your intake of food. Before long, you can eat 
like crazy and not worry about what you eat,"
  Nene said nothing. It sounded too good to be true. What girl wouldn't like to 
be able to eat whatever she liked and not worry about gaining weight.
  "Or, if you want, I can just hit your pressure points that'll automatically 
speed up your metabolism," Ranma grinned.
  "You can?"
  Ranma nodded, "Yeah, I did that to Asuka a long time ago, when we went back to 
Asuka's old world in order to prevent Second Impact. That's why she can eat as 
much as she currently does and not gain an ounce of fat," 
  "That's why Asuka can eat like a pig?!" Nene's eyes widened in jealousy, "I 
thought it was because she was young and that her metabolism was naturally 
faster because of her age,"
  Ranma shrugged, "Actually, that's not the case. I sped up her metabolism 
temporarily. Because she ate so much because of the temporarily sped-up 
metabolism, she acquired her frequent eating habits. When the pressure points 
wore out, her eating habits made her metabolism naturally faster,"
  "Wow,"
  "If you want, I can do that for you," Ranma smiled warmly.
  Nene thought about it for a moment, "Nah,"
  "What?" Ranma was surprised.
  "I think I'll try and do it on my own," Nene said, "I'll take your advice and 
try and eat more often, as much as it seems to go against everything I believe. 
I guess it's because I'd like to see if I can do this on my own," 
  "Okay," Ranma smiled, suddenly finding himself giving her a higher opinion 
than the high one he already gave her.
  Together, the two of them ate their meal. Nene even went as far as to ask the 
waitress to bring her a small burger on top of her order of salad. The two of 
them ate their meal, seemingly enjoying each other's company. Before long, they 
were finished with their meal and given there check.
  Ranma smirked as he noticed something.
  "Hey, it looks like we're going to be doing some running," Ranma said.
  "Running? What for?" Nene asked.
  Ranma held up the check, still grinning.
  "We don't have any currency to pay for this meal. Looks like we're gonna hafta 
make a break for it when no one's looking,"

  "I can't believe what you made me do," Nene complained as she stopped to catch 
her breath, "You just made me run out on paying for that meal. That's basically 
stealing,"
  Ranma grinned, "So?"
  "I'm a policewoman," Nene stated loudly, "What kind of example am I setting if 
I, a policewoman, am basically breaking the law?"
  "Yeah, that's kinda ironic now that I think about it," Ranma said, "But 
there's nothing to worry about. It's not like we got caught,"
  "That's not the point," Nene said, "We should've told them we couldn't pay for 
the meal and did our time like washing dishes like I see in the movies,"
  Ranma continued to smirk, "Yeah, like either of us wanted to do that. Running 
out on paying for the check is much easier than working the bill off,"
  Nene sighed, shaking her head, "You still don't understand,"
  "Hey, I ain't no saint," Ranma smiled, "I do bad stuff when it's convenient 
for me,"
  After a minute or so, when Nene finally caught her breath, the two of them 
tried to think of what to do.
  "You wanna go look for an internet café?" Ranma suggested.
  "And how do we pay to use them, provided they actually exist?" Nene asked.
  Ranma smiled. 
  "No, I'm not going to run out on paying," Nene said, reading Ranma's mind, 
"That's just wrong. You may have no problems doing something like that, but I 
do,"
  "Yet she has no problem hacking into computer databases and changing records," 
Ranma commented just loud enough for her to hear, "From where I stand, Nene 
ain't no saint either. I guess she does bad stuff when it's convenient for her 
also,"
  "You're the one that asked me to do it which is why I did it," Nene said.
  Ranma laughed aloud, placing an arm around Nene's shoulders, "I'm just teasing 
ya,"
  Nene blushed a deep shade of red when she realized Ranma had his arm around 
her.
  "We need some money," Ranma commented, "Let's go rob a bank. That's an easy 
way to get some money and fast,"
  "What?!" Nene's eyes widened.
  "Don't worry," Ranma said, "I'll make sure nothing bad happens to you,"
  "That's not the point!!"

  Nene sat on a nearby bench and watched as Ranma crossed the street and entered 
a bank. It was the middle of the day.
  "Oh man, I can't believe it," Nene said to herself, "Ranma's really going to 
rob the bank. That's just plain crazy,"
  "Yes, it is," came a voice.
  Nene looked up. To her surprise, it was the short-haired woman Ranma had 
stuffed in the trunk of her patrol car not too long ago.
  "M-M-Motoko!" Nene gasped.
  Motoko narrowed her eyes at Nene as she stood before her, looking down at her. 
She was seriously pissed off. She had been out looking for Ranma for the past 
hour and was intent on killing him. Never had she been so embarrassed when she 
finally managed to break out of the trunk, only to see an amused Bateau, her 
partner, sitting nearby and smirking.
  "Looks like this 'Ranma' person got the better of you," Bateau had commented 
with a smirk. This had happened about an hour ago.
  "I'm going to kill him," was all Motoko could say as she flipped her car over 
on to its roof out of shear frustration before walking off in some random 
direction.
  Bateau didn't really know what to do so he opted to stay behind and flip the 
car back over and drive it back to the station. He knew Motoko really well and 
knew she needed time to cool off.  
  It was pure luck that Motoko ended up spotting Nene sitting on a bench as she 
was walking down the street trying to cool off. 
  Motoko leaned forward, bringing her face close to Nene's, "Guess what, you're 
under arrest,"
  Nene held her hands up defensively, "Hold up,"
  "What?" Motoko narrowed her eyes.
  "On what charges?" Nene asked, hoping she could talk her way out. Deep down 
inside, she knew it was fruitless.
  "On the charges that I'm pissed off and I can do whatever I want because I 
have the authority to do so," Motoko replied. 
  Nene gulped.
  "Where's your friend?" Motoko said, "And I suggest you think very carefully 
about what you're going to say,"
  Nene regarded Motoko for a moment, feeling a great sense of fear. How could 
Ranma not be scared of this woman? She looked absolutely deadly, like her icy 
stare could kill.
  But then again, what the heck did Ranma have to be afraid of? Perhaps he could 
deal with Motoko much better than Nene could.
  "Um," Nene pointed, "He's in the middle of robbing that bank,"
  Motoko gave her a curious look, "Robbing that bank?"
  "Um, yeah," Nene said, "We have no money so he said he was going to go rob a 
bank so he could get money. There was no way I can convince him otherwise,"
  "If you are a so-called 'policewoman', as you claimed," Motoko said with much 
skepticism, "Then shouldn't it be your duty to stop him?"
  Nene gestured toward the bank entrance a short distance away, "Okay, you try 
and stop him,"
  Motoko turned toward the bank, "I'm going to do just that,"
  She turned back toward Nene and slapped a pair of handcuffs on her, securing 
her to the bench.
  "What the?" Nene said.
  "You stay here, I'll deal with you later," Motoko said.
  Motoko walked off toward the bank.
  However, before she actually made it into the bank, she ended up literally 
bumping into Ranma as he was on his way out.
  "Well well well, if it isn't Motoko-chan," Ranma said, a bit surprised.
  "What did you call me?!" Motoko sneered.
  "I see you managed to get outta the trunk all right," Ranma said.
  "You're coming with me," Motoko said, "I'm taking you down to the station,"
  Ranma seemed somewhat amused, "Right. Whatever you say. Now, if you'll excuse 
me,"
  He walked past Motoko as she just stood there, shocked at Ranma's audacity. 
After he took a few steps, he stopped when he heard the sound of a click coming 
from behind him. He didn't need to turn around to know that it was the sound of 
Motoko training her gun on his back.
  "Take one more step and I'll shoot," Motoko warned him in a stern voice.
  Ranma raised his leg, and in a very slow and deliberate fashion, took an 
exaggerated step forward. To Motoko's surprise, she actually didn't pull the 
trigger like she had said. 
  Who the hell was this guy? He was either incredibly stupid or incredibly 
fearless. She wanted to believe it was the former but had the funny feeling it 
was the latter. 
  Ranma turned around to face Motoko, "Look, we started off on the wrong foot. 
Can we let bygones be bygones?"
  Motoko shook her head, "That's not an option,"
  "What, you're pissed off because I threw you in the trunk?" Ranma smirked.
  She gritted her teeth at the thought of being reminded what had he had done to 
her.
  "I wouldn'tve done that if you didn't shoot at me," Ranma said, "And as a 
matter of fact, you got off easy. If you were up against the corrupted version 
of myself, I probably would've erased you from existence,"
  "Is that some kinda threat?" Motoko challenged him.
  With lightning fast speed, Ranma dashed forward and grabbed the gun out of 
Motoko's hand. Not only was she shocked that she was unable to see him move 
until it was too late, but he had managed to close the distance between them 
without her seeing it. This was because Motoko and Ranma had been around fifteen 
feet apart when Ranma dashed forward.
  Motoko took a step back out of surprise.
  Ranma pointed the gun toward Motoko's leg in the exact same fashion she had 
done toward him earlier.
  "How about and eye for an eye?" Ranma said, "You tried to shoot at my leg. 
Luckily, I dodged it. How about I shoot at your leg now and see if you can dodge 
it? And after that, I try and shoot you a few more times like you did?"
  Motoko smirked, "You think something like that scares me? Just try,"
  She knew Ranma would not be able to fire a single shot. This was because her 
weapon was custom made for her and only she could fire it.
  Ranma narrowed his eyes at Motoko for a moment, "Man, you're one crazy girl, 
y'know that?"
  He didn't pull the trigger. Instead, he squeeze his hands on the gun, breaking 
it into tiny pieces.
  "Oops, I broke your toy," Ranma said, "Looks like you're unarmed now,"
  Motoko just stood there, wondering how Ranma had managed to do that with such 
ease. He was a human, right? It was obvious he didn't have cybernetic parts or 
she would have been able to detect them.
  "Please, leave me alone," Ranma turned around and proceeded to walk away.
  Motoko, fuming from being made a fool of, pulled out her last remaining 
weapon, a twelve inch military style knife.
  She dashed forward, blade pointed toward Ranma's shoulder blade. She didn't 
intend to kill him, but she intended to incapacitate him. Since she had no more 
guns, Ranma having destroyed both of them, she would have to make do with her 
last remaining weapon, her knife.
  Before she was able to stab Ranma, he turned around and intercepted the blade 
between his index and middle finger. This stopped Motoko dead in her tracks.
  Ranma narrowed his eyes. With a twist of the wrist, he broke the blade off, 
rendering Motoko's knife useless.
  "Fuck that, I'm throwing you in the trunk again," Ranma snapped, "You don't 
know when to quit, d'ya? You're goddamn worse than Lina and Emiko when I first 
me them,"
  Once again, before Motoko realized what was happening, she found herself 
swooped off her feet and tucked under Ranma's arm in the same fashion as before.
  At that moment, the sounds of sirens could be heard in the background.
  "Ah, y'hear that?" Ranma said, "That's the police on its way here. Why? Cause 
I just robbed this bank. Y'know what? I'm gonna just stand here and hold you 
like this until they arrive. Rather than throw you in some car's trunk, I'm just 
gonna embarrass you and let all your co-workers see you in this predicament. 
Heck, I'm even gonna spank you while they're all watching, just for show,"
  "You better enjoy it because I'm going to kill you afterwards," Motoko shouted 
at him in anger.
  "So far, you're '0-2' on that department," Ranma smirked, "Twice you tried to 
kill me, and twice you've failed. You're batting zero right now. And when I get 
away after I let you go, you'll be '0-3',"
  Motoko found herself turning red with anger as she tried to struggle to get 
free. Unfortunately, Ranma's strength seemed infinite and she couldn't budge one 
bit.
  "Keep on struggling," Ranma taunted, "Maybe you'll use up all of your energy 
and will then need to have your batteries recharged or whatever,"
  The sirens could be heard getting closer and closer.
  Ranma, still holding Motoko, crossed the street and over to where Nene was. 
Since Nene was busy the whole time picking at her handcuffs, she didn't notice 
Ranma until he was basically standing right in front of her.
  "Look who I bumped into," Ranma said. He then noticed the handcuffs, "What 
the?"
  "R-Ranma!" Nene was very surprised to see him so suddenly. She was also see 
Motoko again.
  Ranma looked at Motoko, "You did this to her, didntja? Man, leave her alone,"
  He leaned forward and used his free hand to break the handcuffs. After he did, 
Nene rubbed at her wrists slightly.
  "You okay?" Ranma asked, concern in his voice.
  "I'm okay," she answered. She regarded Motoko held snugly under Ranma's arm. 
She seemed completely helpless in that position. It was almost comedic, a stark 
difference between the Motoko she was looking at just minutes before.
  "Um, what are you going to do?" Nene asked, gesturing toward Motoko.
  "I'll let her go if she promises to behave," Ranma grinned.


<new stuff 2/14>


  
  Motoko smirked, "Okay, I'll behave," She said that in a very sarcastic voice. 
It wasn't as if he was going to let her go.
  Ranma gently placed her back down on the ground. Once again, she was shocked 
that he did so. This man was so unpredictable. His actions seemed simultaneously 
chaotic and calculated and it worried her somewhat.
  "Look, let's just start over," Ranma said, extending his hand toward her.  
  Looking at it, Motoko realized that it seemed like a friendly gesture on his 
part to shake hands. However, she made no motions to shake his hand. She 
promptly ignored it, purposely placing her hands on her hips as she regarded him 
intently.
  Now that she was able to get a good look at him, she noticed that he was 
taller than her, but not by much. Height-wise, he was perhaps a bit shorter than 
her partner, Bateau. His body was very well-built and lean. It gave off a great 
sense of power which confused Motoko since she couldn't understand how a body 
that small and lean could generate that much power. It also looked like it 
wasn't expected move that swiftly but, somehow, Ranma was able to move his body 
faster than her optical implants could detect.
  She glanced over toward Nene and noticed her giving Motoko a dirty stare. 
However, it was only for a split second for Nene turned away where their eyes 
met. Motoko wondered if that was jealousy she saw in Nene's eyes.
  So, it seems like that girl likes this guy and doesn't like the way I'm 
looking at him, Motoko thought.
  Ranma continued to hold his hand forward, "Are you going to leave me hanging?"
  Motoko narrowed her eyes, "And what makes you think I ever intend to shake 
your hands?"
  Ranma sighed as he placed his hands in his pocket and sat down on the bench 
next to Nene. He scooted closer toward Nene which allowed space for Motoko to 
sit if she wanted to. Of course, she stood right where she was.
  Several police cars came to a screeching halt in front of the bank across the 
street. This confused Motoko because Ranma seemed to show no signs of 
nervousness toward authorities. Perhaps that was why he seemed to be completely 
oblivious to the fact that she was, in essence, a police officer as well.
  "Um, maybe we should get going," Nene suggested nervously. 
  Ranma turned toward her, "We can leave if you want. But, like I said, even if 
they notice us, they can't do anything so there's really nothing to worry 
about,"
  "Um, I guess you have a point," Nene seemed to calm down. She believed Ranma's 
words utterly. Perhaps it was hearing him say that that made her feel much 
better, even thought deep down inside, she knew Ranma would make sure she be all 
right no matter what. 
  Motoko said, "You seem completely unbothered by the fact that the police is 
right across the street,"
  Ranma waved a dismissive hand, "Why should I be worried? What the heck can 
they do even if they realized I'm sitting right across the street?"
  Motoko narrowed her eyes slightly. Was that the same mindset Ranma had toward 
her? Did he consider her incapable of doing anything to him? 
  "Who are you and why're you here?" Motoko asked, keeping an open mind.
  "We're from another world," Ranma said, "We're just visiting,"
  "You take me for some kind of fool?" Motoko was offended.  
  Ranma shrugged, "Fine. Don't believe me. It's not like I'm gonna have any 
problems sleeping at night at the thought that you don't believe a word I say,"
  "Why you!" Motoko found herself very angry, her hands clenching into fists. 
  When she realized that Ranma was getting to her, she took a deep breath to 
calm herself down. Never had she gotten so riled up so easily by someone before. 
It was as if Ranma's unpredictable personality was the flamethrower against her 
icy exterior.
  Ranma smirked, "Man, you remind me of several girls I know,"
  Nene turned toward Ranma, "Reall