Besides, Ozzallos already done that one.
Isn't 'that one' a Ranma-chan fanfiction, though? Where she gets seduced to the Dark Side as it were? Interesting premise. I haven't read it, though. Not really what I was intending, here.
Much better, Hilda on the other hand seems to doubt that this will really work (un-surprising, considering how long she has been trying to get her daughter back on the path of EVIL). On the flip side, she thinks this is going to be a fun and entertaining.
The new chapter really ties Mara's plan together with the normal MO of the fiance brigade. Not that it won't go to the shitters like normal for their plans, I think Mara has a slightly better track record than them. One would almost expect them to learn, but they are very hormonal teenagers. Amusingly Akane's anti-perversion thing would have saved her a load of pain, in the future I foresee, but the other facets of her personality came out in full force.
Now the chapter makes sense AND makes me excited to wait for more!
I love it when authors get what I mean with my barely coherent rambling and awful alliterations.
Thanks! Good to see I can take feedback and fix stuff. I have a rough idea of where to go with the next few chapters, only the vision I have is more 'ooh cool' than 'eyy that's funny'. Might take a bit more time to work on them than I did rushing out the last two.
Update: New chapter. The plot Advanceth.
=============================================================================================================================================
EARLIER THAT DAY
A PENTHOUSE OF CONSIDERABLE SIZE
Ranma woke up and immediately regretted it.
There were several reasons. One, she was currently a girl. Two, it was almost impossible to think between the marching band, the NRA rally, and the Hell's Angels meetup occurring simultaneously in between her ears. Just possible enough for her cognitive processes to force her eyelids open. Add, then, to the band and the rally and the meetup, an unfortunate accident at Big Tim's Fireworks Emporium (
The Finest, Most Patriotic Pyroclastics this side of the Rockies!) and an unhinged Tibetian monk using her skull as one of those really cool-sounding gongs.
That was what Ranma felt like for the first few minutes she had as a free woman.
Three, as her eyes adjusted to the light streaming in from the skylight, she realized that
holy shit she was in a place that had a skylight. She knew of no place that she resided in regularly that had a skylight.
Fourth - and here, as her higher brain functions began to decalcify from perfect stupor, fear began to creep in - if she was in an unfamiliar place, in girl-form, and with a headache she normally would have chalked up to one of Shampoo's big maces whacking her over the head - what exactly had happened last night?
It was morning, right? Right. Light. And she was waking up. Well. Chalk another one up to Euclidean logic. Victory over the forces of entropy was surely imminent.
Oh, and while she was on the topic, fifth - and here her brain decided now was as good a time as any to overclock her self-awareness and dial up her fear into batshit cowering terror - Who, exactly, was holding her like she was a pillow?
"Mrmrmrmrmmmmm."
Someone who had no idea they were doing such a thing, lost as they were in the grip of blissful sleep Ranma had recently been ejected from, like an underage teenager thrown out of the local strip club after it became clear that the metaphorical teenager had only twenty bucks on him.
"Hrmrhrmhrrrrrrrrr. Iluvyoutoobelllllldaaaaaaannnnnndddddddddeeeeeeeeeee."
She was squeezed. Pulled closer. The other woman - it had to be a woman, just had to be - smelled like - what? Old. Not Old Spice, but something that had been since forever and would be for a long time coming. Like the manuscripts in an old library.
Well, that was all fine and dandy, but Ranma had no intention of staying like this. "Hey," she whispered. "Uh. Wake up."
"Ohnonononononooooooo hrhrhrrrrrrr. Zhouldnt. Kent. Kant. Immanuel. Hehehehehe hewassuchaprig. Rid belll? Heheheheeeeeeeee."
And with that, the woman flipped poor Ranma around before she could wriggle out of her grip-
And Ranma found herself looking straight at the sleeping face of her patron goddess.
She was very beautiful like this. Not sexy, just - quiet. Soft. The slight smell of time on her dark skin.
It was while Ranma was considering this that the logical part of her brain, the part that was supposed to string evidence together into sensible conclusions, suddenly had a miraculous breakthrough prompted by her remembering what happened last night.
Yep. That fuckin' happened. He could barely remember - oh Kami.
When she said that fuckin' happened - was that in both senses of the word? Uncertain.
Well. Only one thing to do then. Namely, scream like a little girl until her patron booted her out of bed.
And so she did just that.
A BIT LATER
They had not spoken for nearly an hour when Ranma, having dug through the strange apartment's fridge, said, at long last, "Uh, Urd?"
"Whaa?"
"There's no food in here."
"Really." The Norn of the Then cocked her head to the side, her platinum-white hair unraveling from its messy bun with the motion. "Ah. Right. Forgot to get groceries. Gotta do that."
"I mean there's nothing in here, just - water. That's really weird."
"Sorry. Sorry. Aesir don't eat n' stuff. Being. You know. Beings of pure spiritual energy n' stuff."
"Oh. So this is-"
"Divinities usually rent places for fieldwork. Used to use shrines or temples, but not a lot of those left in convenient places. Yeah. This is - well, it's not really
my penthouse 'cause I'm on a budget, but the goddess who normally resides here hasn't been on earth for a year or two, so she won't mind."
Ranma nodded, accepting the justification. Freeloading had been her default mode of existence for all her life. "Mm."
"Seven-Eleven a block down the street. You can go there. I'll scrounge up some cash for you."
"Thanks. Wait. Why am I going to get food? Why not you?"
"Because I'm not the one eating."
"So I've gotta cook my own breakfast?" Dang. This whole career change / kidnapping thing sucked. To never taste Kasumi's cooking again was a travesty words could not adequately express.
"I'm a goddess, Ranma. Not a live-in maid." Urd sipped her espresso, brushed a few stray strands of hair out of her face. "So, you can do that?"
"Yeah. Yeah. Lemme just change back into a boy first." She put the kettle on, waited for it to boil. "So, uh, Urd. You and I ditched the Tendos when I was a boy, right? So why am I a girl now?"
"Oh, I wanted to see if you could hold your liquor better or worse as a girl, or if your liver doesn't really change with the curse."
"So we-"
"I got you wasted and we watched some anime together. I think it was Trunks versus Frieza or something? All I know was that they went even further beyond Super Saiyan than previously thought possible…" She stopped. "Oh, yeah. You can't really hold your drink as a boy
or a girl. So I know that now, going forward."
"Oh. Okay. Sorry." The kettle was just about to boil, now. Probably time to pop the Big Question.
"Hey. Urd?"
"Yeah?"
"About last night…"
The phone rang. Urd glanced over at it. "I need to take that," she said. "Gimme a sec."
"And then can we talk about-"
"Yes yes yes," Urd said as she floated over to the receiver. Picked it up, then jerked away.
"Heyo, girlfriend! What's up? Oh. Right. Wow, little paranoid, doncha think? Putting cameras in - whatever. Look, I'm on a job so I figured you wouldn't mind if I just borrowed it." She listened, made a little flapping motion with her free hand. "Seriously? I cleaned it up, though. And it's not like it'll hurt the resale value, will it? This fucking place has a
pool. Yes. Yes. I swam in your pool. No, I did not. Why, should I bother next time? Not like anyone can see me. You're telling me you don't swim in the buff in that thing?"
Ranma almost knocked the kettle over. Recovered. Tried not to think about that.
"Ha! Fat chance. I'm a patron goddess now, remember? I've got a hero to manage." Urd gave the phone a face. Stuck her tongue out and blew a little raspberry. "Yep, that's right. So you understand, don't you? A guy like this - Yes. Yes, he is. No. No I didn't. We've barely known each other for two days. Oh, you're one to talk. Remember you and that one minor saint? Yeah, the one with his femur in some church in Budapest. You barely knew him for a week before you were gushing about how - yes. I do remember. Norn of the Then, remember? Point is you're one to talk about being a
putain, flower girl. Yep. He is a he. Most of the time. What? Yes I mean that. Poor kid's got a Jusenkyo curse - It's true! No, I can't lift it and neither can you. Yes. Not won't. I would if I could. Look, you want to see the truth of my situation you can come down through one of those toilet cameras and look with your naked eyes, can't you? Oh, yeah. Yeah, you heard me. Come on. I'll pound your thong-clad ass, bitch-" She stopped. Slammed the phone down. Turned to Ranma, a Kasumi-like smile on her face.
"Ranma," Urd said, "I just want to let you know we're going to have a visitor in a bit, so if you could just change that'd be real great."
"Whaddaya mean by 'a bit?'"
"Oh, she should be over right about-" There was a loud FWOOMPing sound down the hallway to the bedroom, like air being displaced. "-Now."
Which was, of course, the instant a woman dressed in a leather harness, a black bikini, and absolutely nothing else burst from the hallway into the room, screaming.
"URD! YOU REPREHENSIBLE SWINE!"
Urd whirled to face the woman as Ranma dropped to the ground - as a red rose, of all things, zipped by the spot where the Norn had been standing, embedding itself stem-first in the far wall.
Urd smirked. "Come
on, Peorth. That's the best you can do? I bet even Keiichi could do a better rose throw."
The scantily clad woman - Peorth? - swiveled around, then flew straight at Urd, tackling her and slamming her against the floor. Straddling the goddess's chest, she began delivering vicious backand slaps to her face, one after another.
"Thief!
Chatte! Socialist! Liberal! Newspaper Vendor! Demoness-"
That was as far as she god before Urd grabbed her wrist and squeezed. Peorth cried out not in pain, more annoyance, before Urd sprung to her feet and threw the other woman - a goddess, she had to be - a few meters straight upward into another skylight, where she shot out of sight-
Only to drop down faster seconds later, grabbing Urd's ankle before she could get out of the way, whipping her around in the same way and throwing her down the hallway. There was the sound of her hitting something, hard.
Peorth smirked, dusted herself off, looked around. "Ah, the trials and tribulations of having freeloaders as coworkers-"
And then she saw Ranma. Did a double take. Pointed at her with a face contorted into something out of
Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
"
Tabernac!" the goddess cried, her rich voice shooting up an octave to borderline
shrill. "And just what is a mortal doing in my extremely expensive penthouse
appartement?"
"Uh- I'm Ranma Saotome. Sorry about this?" Well, it worked with Akane - oh, no. It didn't. Nevermind.
"Ranma Saotome, eh?" Peorth cocked her bare hips to the side. "Well, then, little girl, I humbly regret to inform you that whatever monetary relationship you had with that over-tanned
putain, that you forget about it-"
"I'm a guy!" Ranma squeaked out, her braless breasts jiggling.
"With a rack like that?
Sacre Bleu! Perhaps you may have fooled Urd while she was intoxicated, but rest assured that I, Peorth, Goddess First Class, Empress of Desire, shan't fall for such base trickery!"
"Shan't?" Jeez, for a goddess she sounded awfully a lot like Kodachi. Same extra formal-speech, same high-pitched voice, but the French? The way she buzzed her consonants? A full-blown French Accent? That was new.
"Look, it's an ancient Chinese Curse! Here," she said, hefting the kettle. "Hot water! I'll show you-"
"Oh, spare me! As if I care! Man or woman, you are a
tresspasseur! A
flaneur! So if you would kindly - oh my."
For Ranma had just changed back into a man. Peorth looked him up, looked him down, settled on looking down at a very specific angle. Oh god was he still wearing his boxers?
Peorth grinned. "Ah. Monsieur Saotome. Forgive my cruelty. Urd, you see, sometimes drives me simply Up. The. Wall." She punctuated each word with a sashay of her hips.
"You are Urd's
amoureux, I assume? And here I thought she'd lost her, touch, the-"
She looked back at the hallway, hearing something, only for Urd to come speeding out into the living room, fist drawn, whipping forward to deck her squarely in the face.
Anime-style, she blasted back, leaving a Peorth-shaped imprint where she bounced off the wall before slumping to the floor.
Urd didn't give her a chance to recover, though, dodging a half-hearted leg sweep from the paler goddess, grabbing a glass table, and smashing it over Peorth's head before straddling her and pummeling her with VHS tapes she telekinetically grabbed from below the nearby TV:
"There! Is! No! Thing! Sex! U! Al! With! That! Boy! And! ME!" She screamed, then stopped. "I mean, I don't think there was, but-"
This, of course, was the exact moment Peorth chose to launch a vicious uppercut that clocked Urd and sent her flying back to flop onto the sofa. Peorth stood up, wiped her face with her wrist. Looked down at the broken tapes and gasped.
"
Zut! Merde! You've destroyed my tapes of
Dawson's Creek, Baywatch, and
Beverly Hills Cop! A collection of the finest media masterpieces of Midgard, destroyed by the wicked hands of a second-class goddess! I shall not forget this!"
An idea seemed to dawn on her, as Urd groaned, her sweater-and-pants combo torn in several crucial places that Ranma didn't want to think about. "Ah, but how could I have forgotten? Skuld's security system ought to be rid of you
immediatement!"
Urd shook her head. "You let Skuld install a home security system? Girl, that's gotta be the worst idea you've had since trying to seduce Keiichi."
Peorth blushed, full-body. "Oh! You big, stupid, poopyhead! You naughty nympho! Enough of this!"
She shouted at the top of her lungs in an operatic roar: "BASTILLE DE VAUBAN! FOUR GLORIOUS DAYS! ACTIVATE - CODE OMEGA!"
Urd kicked off the couch just as Ranma glanced this way and that. Machine guns? Lasers? Gas? "Get
down, Ranma!"
Nope. For Urd was half right. Peorth's installation of a home security system was not a bad idea. But Code Theta was one thing, and Code Omega was entirely something else.
As Urd dived over Ranma, the entire penthouse promptly went up in a small mushroom cloud.
A FEW MOMENTS LATER
Ranma woke up and immediately regretted - wait. Shit. He'd said that already.
He opened his eyes. It was dark. He couldn't move. Oh Kami, was he dead? It sure felt like it. His logical brain said that yeah, he had to be after whatever the
fuck Peorth just did.
Well. If this was the afterlife, it sure was soft. Sure smelled like old manuscripts - wait. Wait.
Oh.
Urd was crouched over Ranma, clutching him as tight as she possibly could without injuring him. It wasn't exactly the ol' 'girl falls on top of guy right in the boob zone' cliche but it was surprisingly close.
Urd kicked off, rolled Ranma over. Hugged him.
"Urd-"
"Oh, All-Father preserve us! You're, you're okay! I thought you were dead! I-"
"URD!"
She whirled to face Peorth. Both goddesses were singed and burnt, standing in rubble on the naked top of an apartment building. Urd clutched the slightly smaller boy like she was swaddling him. "What."
Ranma half expected the two to start fighting again, and decided he didn't want to stick around to find out. Maybe if he used the umisenken, that old ki-cloak trick he'd learned from Ryu Kumon? Maybe if he just hid himself in a very small place the bad women would go away and he could get on with his bizarre excuse for life as a free man.
"You will, of course, help me with the repair magic here. But before I reassemble my residence, I should like to know - if you are certain that there is nothing lovey-dovey between you and the boy - what exactly is he to you?"
"Oh," Urd said, smiling. "He's my hero."
ONE LONG EXPLANATION AND LIBERAL APPLICATION OF REPAIR MAGIC LATER
PEORTH'S ROOFTOP HOT TUB
Peorth hadn't even changed out of her outfit. She literally had thrown her floaty leather harness across the rim of the room, said, "That's all, darlings!" and hopped in.
Ranma, for his part, just sat there, submerged except for half of his head, and bubbled. Let the little jacuzzi jets batter his crotch and soaked underwear. Urd promised she'd buy him clothes later, but somehow, knowing her fashion sense, he didn't expect he was going to get much more net cloth out of the arrangement.
He hadn't had breakfast, he realized. Well, he also had like no appetite, so that was for the best. He was just going to watch Peorth and Urd… move.
Shampoo was curvy. Kodachi was toned and slender. Even Ukyo had her charms. But these gals - whoo. All that and more. Not that he was gonna say that. He wasn't a pervert. But - jeez. Looking at these girls - women - goddesses - in swimsuits that were more absent then present - how could you
not?
Urd sipped at her glass of water - Peorth wasn't going to let her so much as
touch her secret reserve of cognac after she'd cleaned out her wine fridge with nary a 'may I' last night - and sighed, finishing up her story of the last two days or so. "Yeah, so then I pop the trunk and whammo, Kodachi's gone. Mara musta been stalking me again, so she let her out, they wrote a stupid note together - ugh."
"Hm," Peorth nodded. "And so, you nabbed Ranma posthaste, broke into my apartment via the television with him, and treated him to jell-o shots. That's very -
Urd of you, playing flirtatious drinking games with an innocent young man while trespassing on private property in order to wipe your memories of your troubles, all culminating in a bender you have no memory of. Your charge's virginity, then, is trapped in a Schroedinger's paradox, neither popped nor unmolested. Goodness gracious."
"Pffffft," Urd pfffffted. "Whatever. They weren't
jell-o."
"And that ridiculous American car is where, exactly?"
"In your second reserved parking spot. What? Come on, you weren't using it, were you?"
"I suppose, having decided to steal my shit and drink my liquor, you also took my brand-new Mitsubishi Lancer for a fender-bending joyride, accruing license demerits the same way you pick up men?"
"Your what now? That dumb-looking car? Please. Why would I do that?"
"Oh, it matters little." Peorth leaned back, let her leg kick up and out, brushing Ranma's crotch with her painted toes on the way up. "Goodness. Well, I suppose I'll find out if the Tokyo Highway Patrol pulls me over later." She stretched out further, every part of her perfectly proportioned limbs and digits flexing and relaxing in synchronized movements before scissoring her legs together to dip them back into the hot tub.
Ranma sunk further in.
"Now, then. While it's admirable that you are finally doing some real work after failing to do anything administrative for the past year or so, at some point I have to reprimand you for not living within your budget. So once you've washed up, if you could simply leave, that would be most excellent of you."
"Nope. Sorry. Can't do it. Ranma needs space. I need luxury. Besides, you aren't using it, are you?"
"It's the principle of the thing, darling. While you were busy attempting to play fairy godmother to your perfectly independent sister, wasting your talents on ever-more-elaborate potions, I was manipulating the stock market in those twilight years before the bubble finally burst. One of us was productive and the other was not.
Je C'est la vie."
"Feh," grunted Urd. "So what, you just sit on this thing and wait for the price to go up, until you cash out minutes before the next bubble?"
"I
do. And why shouldn't I? Mortals do this all the time. Speculation is
L'fundament of the Midgard economy. Booms, busts - as long as you can anticipate them, sway them to your advantage, you'll never have to be audited by those dreadful hags in Accounting again! Plus, it makes a lovely vacation home. Not that I have much time for such things these days, being forced down into the deep bowels of Admin…"
"Skuld says you barely work at all. Just sit there and gossip about my mom."
"
Skuld," Peorth huffed, "thinks herself above the whims of passion, and above enjoying herself when faced with drudgery. I make no such pretensions. Really, she's just got an awfully overactive imagination. Perhaps I said something about the All-Mother once or twice, but only that at most."
"Sure. Sure. Y'know, for a supposed Goddess First Class, you really can get close to lying without trying very hard."
"Yes. Well. I exaggerate, or I obscure. But lying is not in my nature. Whereas for you-" Thinking, she turned to Ranma. "Say, my boy, did you
know that Urd is half
demoness?"
"Yeh. Think so." Under no circumstances was Peorth going to lean forward. The universe was just. Of this much he had to have faith.
"Ah! How wonderful. She must have let it slip on accident. Well, that's not even
half the story. Urd, perhaps-"
"No."
"But he really should-"
"No. No he doesn't."
"Ah, to not know that one could end up in the employ of-"
"Nyeh. Zip it," Urd snipped. She leaned toward Peorth. "Are you gonna keep giving me shit or are you gonna kick me out."
The brunette goddess laughed. "I was considering that. But you know, something
has come up. And I do feel so bad for your lack of luck in love, with the Accounting harpies, with everything, really. So - I would like Ranma here, in the official capacity of an Aesir-enlisted hero, to do something for me."
Saying this, she folded over, her bust just brushing up against her bare knees, bow-shaped lips inches away from Ranma's forehead. Ranma thought for a moment - then scrambled out of the hot tub insect-style, as fast as his legs could carry him, before smacking into a steel lounge chair and falling on his butt.
Urd tried not to laugh. "I think that's a pretty big no, Flower Girl. So, Rose-of-Versailles - being rejected." She poked the goddess in the side with her pointer finger. "What's that feel like? By a horny teenager, no less."
Peorth sighed. "Ranma, wouldn't you at least care to hear my proposition before you reject it out of hand? In exchange, I'll gladly let you and Urd freeload here-"
"No! Nononononononono! Imnotapervert! Imnotforsale! Mygirlboobsarebiggeranyway! I'M NOT A PERVERT!"
He said it so loud it
echoed, 'vertvertvertvert'. Peorth glared at Urd. Urd shrugged. "Akane," she said. "Not my fault. The other girl."
"Regardless," Peorth said, standing up and climbing out of the hot tub. "I have no desire to have such an impressionable boy be convinced that all goddesses want is worship in exchange for sexual favors. In any case, a first time with a goddess would ruin every mortal relationship you' have for the rest of your days. No, Ranma, I want to offer you a
quest." She snapped her fingers, and a few towels jumped from one side of the pool over to her. She tossed one to Ranma, and began to dry herself off.
"A what?"
"A quest! An adventure. A journey. A challenge. A heroic deed you will perform. Surely you've played a video game or two where such things take place? Read Record of Lodoss War or something like that?"
"Um." He had not. Fantasy was just - so unrealistic. Dragons, unfortunately, didn't look like that, and weren't that easily killed. "I get what you're saying? Like - rescuing a princess or killin' a dragon or retrieving some lost treasure?"
"Yes," Peorth cooed. "And the best part is, you can do it here in Tokyo!"
"Okay." This was sounding better and better. Marginally. Not even leaving the city. But, then again, this particular goddess struck him as unhinged in that sort of obsessive Kodachi way. Even threw roses and all that. "What's the catch? I gotta be a girl to do it?"
"Not even that. All you have to do-" here she reached down into her cleavage, Urd-style, and yanked out a slip of paper- "Is win a young maiden's heart!"
