Episode II
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: "Yappa Pa" - Doco (Ranma Season 1 Themesong)
Topic: Novel I
A Fanfiction by Eric Mesa
(C) 2003
All characters belong (in the US anyway) to Viz, LLC.

note: to distinguish differences in languages, if a character is speaking in a language other than japanese then his quotes will be surrounded by '^' and '^'

Episode 2

The punch missed Ranma by a split second. "Ranma, one of these days I want you to stop messing around and actually train with me," Akane protested, as usual. Yet, Ranma noticed, there was a little less edge in her voice this afternoon. He went back to his manga. The fact that he could be reading a manga and fighting her both amazed and enraged Akane. She was slightly turned on by his martial arts skills, but she felt as though he was making fun of her. She picked up her pace, but to no avail. Well, they had 15 minutes left, she'd get him by the end.

***

Akane was drenched in sweat. She wasn't even sure whether Ranma had even broken a sweat. "So, where're we going tonight?"

"Oh, get dressed to go a dance club," Ranma responded. When he didn't hear a quick response he looked up from the manga. Akane was giving him a look as if he'd said, "get your spacesuit for the moon."

"You-you dance Ranma?" she asked, just barely able to get the words out.

"Yeah well, it ain't nothin' special you know. But don't get to thinkin' we'll be doing any romantic dancing. We're going to a rave club. That stuff is practically the same as martial arts. Saotome School of Anything-Goes-Raving," he said with a smile.

She was still shocked, but she figured he wasn't lying. "Ok, I'm going to take a shower then,"

"Oh yeah, pops and your old man think that we should have a chaperone so Nabiki will be coming along."

***

Ranma was dressed in his usual red shirt and black pants. He had a couple of glow sticks in his pocket and some string to tie them up when they got to the club. Akane decided to wear a modest skirt and a red top. 'Wow, she looks hot when she dresses like a woman,' Ranma thought to himself. "Wow, you can actually look really hot," he commented.

"Actually look really hot?!?" she began to fume, but was thrown off when she saw her older sister's outfit. She had a short skirt on along with a shirt that exposed her belly button. "Daddy's going to let you out like that?" Akane asked, almost rhetorically.

"Oh, Daddy won't be seeing me in this, I think they'll be a little absorbed in you two and I'll just sneak around to the front," Nabiki winked, "now, go see them so that we can get out of here. Otherwise I'll charge for wasted time." With that she walked down the stairs and out the back door.

"Well, let's get this crap with our parents over with," Ranma said.

When they walked down stairs one would have thought they had announced that they were getting married. There were streamers all over the house. Tendou was crying out loud and a panda was holding a video camera. "Fer cryin' out loud pops! Turn that crap off!" He held up a sign that said, 'that's my boy! Finally show your manhood and begin your duties with Akane' "Aw, shoot, cut this out. Let's go Akane."

"Where's Nabiki?" Kasumi asked, coming out of the kitchen.

"I'm out here!" Nabiki called from the unlit porch. It was impossible to tell what she was wearing. "You guys coming or what?"

***

"We have a special gift for you, our patrons, tonight! All the way from America, the famous DJ Otaku!" The DJ stepped up to the DJ booth, put his headphones on, and turned on the music with one swift movement of his hands.

"^Back once again, it's the renegade master, people punisher: power to the people^" the music blared through the speakers.

Ranma, Akane, and Nabiki had just stepped into the club and were still getting their bearings. "You two kids go dance; I'm going to find us a table." Nabiki told the others. She stepped up to the bar and ordered a cosmopolitan.

Ranma activated his glowsticks and attached them to the string as if they were part of nunchucks. He began doing some katas to the music. Within minutes he had a circle of people watching him. Soon, nearly the entire club was watching his skills with the glowsticks. Although Akane couldn't participate at the moment, the fact that the entire club was watching her date made Ranma seem so attractive. Why didn't she feel like this at other times? 'I know why, because your damn macho attitude always gets in the way' But now...now she was fascinated with his moves.

***

Nabiki was slightly troubled. She felt a little empty as she saw all of the couples at the club and people who were just hooking up at the club. She took another sip of her third drink. The fact that she was having these feelings is what bothered her. She had more money than she'd ever had thanks to her shrewd attitude and charging interest even to her family members. She also enjoyed the fact that she was independent of others and completely unvulberable.

She took another sip and grew a little ancy over the feelings. She knew it'd be a long time before the alcohol could help her forget - she'd developed quite a tolerance for alcohol.

"Moshi-Moshi!" came a voice from behind. She turned around and was surprised to see the American DJ standing there. "^Do you speak English?^" he asked, "^my Japanese is not so good.^"

"^Yeah, I took a few years of English as my language elective. What do you want?^" she eyed him suspiciously.

"^Well, I was wondering if you didn't like my music or something. You were the ONLY person not dancing while I was spinning.^"

She continued to eye him. Was he trying to come on to her or something? Well, she could play along. "^Well, no one asked me to dance.^"

"^I see, you just looked a little sad,^" when he said the words she let her guard slip momentarily and showed her shock as to his proper reading of her feelings. Quickly she put her poker face back on. "^You look like someone who's missing love in their life. But who am I to say these things? I'm just a DJ. Anyway, I'm not sure why you feel that way, but if you can dance to techno music, I've got the need for some dancers to travel with me on my tour of Japan. Next week is going to be at some small town...I think it's called Hinata Springs. I need to check with my promoter. What do you think?^"

"^I don't know how those American girls are,^" she reponded, "^but I'm not about to go on tour with some strange DJ^" and she ended the conversation with a glance in the opposite direction.

"^Ok, well, I hope you have some luck with whatever's making you sad. I'll be back in town in a couple of weeks. I hope you dance next time.^" With that he left towards the VIP room.

As Nabiki watched him go she was steaming. What was wrong with her? Not only had someone been able to read her emotions, but she'd let herself slip too. Who the hell did that American think he was? Suddenly her drink wasn't intoxicating enough.

At that moment a shift guy showed up at the table. "Can I interest you in some happiness in dreams?" he asked while a displaying a white pill on his index finger. Nabiki decided to go ahead and buy one. Her reality seemed to be unraveling so why not go ahead and take a break from it? She downed the ecstacy with the rest of her drink.

end ep 2

author's notes: This is slightly different from the original episode 2 that I had planned, but after the first one got erased partially through my writing of it, I decided to redo part of it.

We'll be continuing with the club scene in the next episode. You'll notice that a pretty good part of this is about Nabiki, and that was my intention. This series will end up focusing quite a bit on the secondary characters too. However, the next one will bring us back to Ranma and Akane.

I hoped to really shock you guys with the fact that they are going to a club because on the one hand it really is out of character for Ranma, but if you've seen people raving, those who use the martial arts to dance tend to look really good.

The reference to Love Hina up there is just a small one. I don't intend for this to be a cross-over fanfic, I just wanted to mention it for fun.
DJ Otaku is a reference to my own DJ moniker. I just felt like inserting myself into it to help in a deus ex machina way and set Nabiki on her quest for the fanfic. Also, I've read a few fanfics with self-insertions and I thought they were pretty fun.

For a really good one check out the one titled revengefic under the Nekophobia fanfic by Dave Eddy. (Btw - that's an awesome fanfic too!)

Episode I
Now Playing: "Kung Fu Fighting"
Topic: Novel I
A Fanfiction by Eric Mesa
(C) 2003
All characters belong (in the US anyway) to Viz, LLC.

Episode 1

Ranma shot out his left arm in a punch. He was nearing the end of his training session for the day. He felt tired, but it was that tired feeling that one gets after working out where the bulding muscles more than make up it. Now it was time for his cool down. As he began to slowly stretch out his mucles his thoughts wandered to his many fiancees. It was quite mind boggling that so many girls were after him. Then what he had often said while boasting suddenly came to his consciousness: there were three insanely hot girls after him! He actually fell from his leg stretches.

"What's wrong Ranma? Can't keep your balance anymore?" Akane teased him. Ranma suddenly jumped up. He had been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he hadn't even noticed her entry. The fact that she'd gone undetected worried him. After all his training, he couldn't allow himself to slip. His previous thoughts quickly faded and he assumed his usual role with Akane.

"So, what're you doing here tomboy? Time to increase your uncute muscles?" The response was practically a reflex by now: a hammer materialized into her hands. As she neared to deck him with the hammer he began to back away. She wouldn't get him this time! Her first swing did indeed miss.

"Stay still!" she screamed as usual.

'haha!' he thought to himself, 'I'm actually goin' to completely evade gettin' hit!' However, a little black pig caused him to trip and as he lost his balance the hammer connected and he went flying out of the dojo.

"P-chan!" Akane exclaimed with joy, "where have you been? Ranma didn't hurt you did he? If he stepped on you I'll hit him again when he gets back. Let's go take a nice, hot bath," she began to say and the pig scrambled out of the house. 'I wonder why he always leaves when I mention that?' she mused.

***

Ranma walked in through the front door. He noticed Nabiki in her usual DK shirt and jeans reading a manga on the floor. 'Why couldn't she be my fiancee? Sure, she's an extortionist, but I haven't ever seen her punch anyone. And she sure is hot' His assesment of her beauty caught him off guard again. This wasn't like him.

He walked up to his room. Ryouga was sitting in a meditative pose facing away from the door. "Why do you treat Akane with such ingratitude? She doesn't deserve that!" Ryouga began his usual tirade. Ranma didn't feel like dealing with it today, especially since he was in a rare contemplative mood. With one swift kick he knocked Ryouga into the koi pond. 'Jerk needs more time as a pig anyway. I mean, how else will he ever get to see a girl changing?'

Ranma then turned his thoughts to his fiancees again. 'What should I do with the situation? I guess I should asses my sitation first. First of all there's Akane. She and I have shared some pretty intense moments. In fact, if it hadn't been for one wrong line by one or the other or meddling by one of the other crazy people in my life we may have admitted feelings for each other. Still, she's so butch sometimes. She always hits me and her food tastes worse than the American crap that's been opening up in the neighborhoods.

'Shampoo's got that really sexy long hair and she sure can cook. On top of that she's really into me. However, she's tried some really crazy things like the pork buns that to control my thoughts and all kinds of Jusenkyo promises that turned out to be extortion. Also, I'd have to deal with the old bag.

'Finally, there's Ukyou. I think that she has more claim to be my fiancee than Shampoo seeing as how my dad stole her Okinomiyaki cart in exchange for marriage. She's good-looking when she doesn't tape down her breasts. Her food is really great too. She's certainly less manly than Akane and never hits me - well, sometimes she hits me in a "get out" type of way like that crazy Elaine from that American sitcom.

'What do I do, it's so hard and since I was always trying to weasle my way out of things I never really paid attention to their attempts to go out with me...wait a minute! That's it...I'll just date all three of them and then decide who I should finally marry! Plus, I think that the fairness of dating them should allow me to get the other two off my back!' After finally reaching a solution that involved way more introspection than Ranma ever gave to anything Ranma was excited at having finally come up with an answer.

***

Dr Tofou was sick of always going to pieces whenever Kassumi called or visited him. First of all, it was unbecoming of a man and embarassing. Second, his patient's patience was wearing thin. If one of them happened to be in his care when she called or paid a visit then they usually ended up an example of malpractice. It was only because he was such a superb doctor that they didn't report him to the authorities. 'Well, I plan to change that!' He went to his office shrine to his father. It was nowhere as elaborate as the one that his mother carried around with her, but a shrine it was nonetheless. He added some fresh fruit and lit the candles. "Father, I know that even you were clumsy around mother, but I ask that you please send me some confidence and general common sense around Kassumi." After bowing to the shrine he turned on the electric candles, extinguished the flames and left for home.

***

A few hours earlier...
Akane sat in the tub enjoying the hot water. It always felt great, especially after a workout. She was glad that the water was currently working. Although she didn't mind the public baths, it seemed that the family was going so often they should be getting frequent bather's miles or something. Additionally, chaos always seemed to erupt whenever they were at the public baths. Things were especially bad when that old goat, Happosai, was with them. It was quite a chore to keep him on the male's side. 'Poor Ranma always has to babysit Happosai. No, not poor Ranma. Baka! Why does he always have to make fun of me? That pervert! And he's always picking on P-Chan. Hmph! If I see him before tomorrow morning it'll be too soon!"

***

Ranma decided that he would start with Akane. After all, they did have a bit of a history and he did have the beginnings of feelings for her. 'Sure, why not. I mean, she can be cute when she smiles,'

With his first choice made he began to search for Akane. Her door was open so he peeked inside. She wasn't in there. He looked into Nabiki's room. She wasn't in there either. The smell of rice and miso soup was pouring up from the kitchen. Everyone was probably downstairs hounding Kassumi, waiting for her to bring the food out. Ranma felt his own stomach growling. By instinct he began moving towards the kitchen. 'No, I've got to fight my hunger for just a second. If the others get in the way I'll lose my resolve.'

He searched the rest of the upstairs bedrooms. Finally, as he was passing by the bathroom the door opened and Akane appeared in her bathrobe. They looked at each other. "Baka-" she started.

"Hey, before you get mad and all, if you aren't doing somethin' tomorrow night...how'd you like to...well, do somethin', just me and you?" She stared at him in disbelief.

"Ranma Saotome, are you asking me on a date?" she asked and her attitude brightened a little.

"Yeah, well don't get all excited or nothin'. I just.." Her reddening face made him realize that he was falling into his usual pattern and that it was all about to be ruined if he didn't ditch his macho personality. "Ok, Akane, I'd really like to go on a date with you...if you want..." He was a little anxious about what she'd say. She smiled her insanely cute smile.

"Hey, you're letting your food get eaten by Mr Saotome in orderto ask me out?" And with that she turned towards her room to go change for dinner. Ranma wasn't sure whether this was a rejection or not, but he didn't think it was. However, what she had said was right. "Hey pop! You better get your grimy paws off my food!"

end ep 1

author's note:
So, there's my first episode. What do you think? I'm sorry it's low on action (especially being a Ranma fanfic, but I had to get the major premises out. Trust me, there's a lot of kung fu awaiting our protagonists. A few other notes:
-the speech and speech patterns of the characters is based on the dubbed version of the anime. We don't get into a dubbed vs subbed debate here, but that's what I'm basing it on. I'm trying my best to be conscious about the way they talk and not trying to project myself [too much] into the characters
-whenever the context of what I'm writing calls for things not dealt with in the episode then I'll draw on my knowledge of asian customs. (it's quite extensive between my natural affinity for all things asian and the fact that my gf is asian) One example of this is Dr Tofou's shrine. We know that his mother has one because of one of the episodes in season (1-3...can't remember, but it has to be one of those because those are the seasons I have), but we don't know that he has one of his own or even one in his office. However, I know that for those who engage in ancestor worship it's pretty common to have a shrine in the workplace, especially if you're the proprietor.
-baka, for those unfamiliar (and most of you should know what it means), means jerk in Japanese. This is a rough translation as I've also seen it translated to bastard, stupid, and other such derogatory things.
-Please contact me if you wish to copy any or all of this serialization.

Serialization
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: "Paperback Writer" - Beatles
Topic: Novel I
Ok, so I decided that I will go ahead and do the novel serialization that I mentioned in a post last night. It's going to be a fan fiction (I love those!) involving the main characters of Ranma 1/2. I know that there are tons of Ranma 1/2 fanfics, but that's symbolic of what an awesome series it is. It's goin to take place after the end of the anime series, but it's not going to require any familiarity with the ending of the series. This is for a couple of reasons:
1) I will only be using the primary characters so it won't matter if there are others introduced after the third season
2) I myself haven't actually seen the ending yet. I'm only on the fourth season. Still, I'm pretty confident that Takahashi Rumiko leaves things unresolved, especially between Ranma and Akane.

What will the series be about? Well, it's going to be a deepening of the characters. While Takahashi does allow us to see the characters grow a little, since the entire series takes place over just a year in the lives of the characters there isn't much room for growth. Also, for the series to retain its key elements, Ranma must remain oblivious to girls and alway fight with Ryouga, Mousse and the others. I'd like to have the relationships both between the characters of the opposite sex and the and the characters of the same sex.

I'm not exactly sure where I want it to go, but I think that the most successful style for my writing always tends to be to begin without an ending in mind and then as I get a feel for where the story's going I give it an ending to work towards so that it doesn't wander around aimlessly. This results in the beginning having some parts that my end up not relating to the rest of the story. However, sometimes I feel that some authors write this way. Sometimes the story just seems to make a lot more sense as it progresses until everything finally makes sense around the climax. With that said, it's possible that the next post may be the beginning of the story.

What I'll do is post them in "episodes" in the blog. (Appropriate since it's based on an anime q;o) ) Then after a few episodes I'll put them into a chapter and put the chapter up as a txt or html file that can be accessed from my main page. (Of course I'll put a link in here too for those of you who wish to go from here straight over there)