The Accidental Goddess

A Ranma 1/2 - Aa! Megami-sama FanFiction
By
D.F. Roeder

Based on the story idea, "New Life 1/2", by G. E. Jordan, Jr., 
and used with his kind permission. Thanks for your ongoing 
interest in this project.

Many thanks and deep bows to Vince Seifert for his expertise in 
networking, manga, character knowledge, and writing in general - 
this would be a much poorer work without him. [If you haven't 
read his "The Taming of the Horse," you should be drawn and 
quartered. :)]

Disclaimers: Ranma 1/2 and the characters therein are the 
property of Takahashi Rumiko, Shogagukan, and Kitty (Japan), and 
Viz Communications (USA). Aa! Megami-sama and the characters 
therein are the property of Fujishima Kosuke (Japan) and Dark 
Horse Comics and Studio Proteus (USA). No compensation has been 
or will be received for the composition of this work - it is for 
free entertainment purposes only.

C&C very welcome. Respond to FFML or privately to 
dfroeder@flash.net.

<thoughts>

____________________

Chapter One - The Alias
____________________


A twittering in the bowels of the complex alerted the huntress 
that she was closing in on her prey. She stealthily moved down an 
aisle lined on both sides with innumerable computer memory banks. 
At the end of the aisle a spiral staircase led down to a 
powerline junction. As she reached the bottom of the staircase 
she bumped her head on the thick overhead conduit.

"ITEEEE... umph!" She slapped her hands over her mouth, hoping 
against hope that she hadn't alerted the prey to her presence. 
Another series of twitters, much closer now, told her she'd been 
lucky. She silently thanked Kami-sama that she'd done those 
personnel file changes as a favor to the Goddess of Luck. She 
resumed her stalking, her face illuminated by the pulsing 
conduits in a random sequence of blue, green, and red.

She stopped after a moment and waited. A scuffling noise brought 
her attention to a side room off the main walkway. Written in the 
heavenly script, a sign affixed to the wall next to the door 
proclaimed, "Asgard-Midgard Data Uplink Relay Station - Section 
43, Level 37, Compartment 23." She paused as she noticed the trio 
of prime numbers comprising the physical location of the relay 
room. Because of her inherently mathematical mind, she took a 
moment to decide whether or not to ignore this fact.

Her people had a healthy respect for portents and omens, a 
respect learned through several lifetimes of experience... mostly 
bad. A significant lack of such experience during her 12 years of 
existence told her that it couldn't possibly mean anything, so 
she entered the room.

She shook her head as she realized that this was one of the areas 
of the complex that was overdue for a millennial upgrade. It was 
dark, but the red in-use lights on the relay panels cast a hazy 
and indistinct illumination. The floor was littered with old 
cables, making navigation somewhat treacherous. The banks of data 
relays resembled nothing so much as oversized old-style telephone 
switchboards; double-ended patch cords connected the data lines 
from one plane of existence to another. She shuddered to be in 
the presence of such old technology.

Putting those concerns aside, she scanned the room. The bright 
white coloration of her prey made it stand out like a beacon. It 
had obviously gnawed through several patch cords on the far wall 
and was chewing on another. The huntress set herself, a manic 
grin on her face, and began to edge around the room.

----------

"What did I say you had to do for me? I mean for this?" An 
elegantly beautiful teenaged woman with warm dark brown hair, cut 
to resemble a helmet, gestured smoothly at the computer in front 
of her and gave a wry grin as she glanced at her companion. Round 
black eyes twinkled in a face the color of creamed coffee.

"Hey! This was your idea! 'Something to pass the time,' you said, 
Nabiki." The companion, another teenaged woman, huffed and puffed 
in reflexive outrage. She was also beautiful, but where the first 
was elegant, the companion was exotic. Very large almond-shaped 
blue eyes sat in a petite elfin face. Alabaster skin was set off 
stunningly by hair so red it gave new meaning to the description. 
Both women had figures to die for.

"Sorry, Ranma... or should I say 'Ranko'? I have to keep the 
money rolling in," Tendo Nabiki smirked.

Saotome Ranma gave Nabiki a baleful glare. "Let's just get on 
with it. Okay?"

"Jeez, Ranma. You could take the fun out of a bowl of ice cream."

Nabiki turned back to her computer and waited while the Internet 
log-on finished. The assorted chirps, whistles, and blats of 
interfacing modems could be heard emanating from the machine. Her 
ISP main page came up, and Nabiki highlighted the URL navigation 
bar and began typing in the first of a series of numerical IP 
addresses.

"Okay. There's this person who's a friend of a friend of a person 
who still owes me big yen. This person has certain connections 
that allow for identities to be constructed. Of course, this 
isn't the big time, so these ID's won't hold up under a thorough 
check, but they will do in a pinch. Just don't get caught. If 
someone starts to do a check, grab your ID and hightail it out of 
there. Ne?"

Ranma began to feel a little nervous. "I thought this was just 
for fun."

Nabiki answered with just a smile as she continued to advance 
through deeper levels of the server she was currently accessing.

A screen came up showing a number of empty database fields. "Want 
a library card?"

"What for?"

"Good point." Nabiki squinted at the next address on her 
handwritten list. "Does that first number look like a '1' or a 
'2' to you?"

Ranma eyeballed the scribbles. "Beats me."

"Well... it looks more like a '2' to me." She typed 299.43.37.23 
into the URL field. The status bar read, *TCP/YP gateway active. 
Contacting uplink...*

----------

The huntress took her weapon out of its holder and hefted it, 
testing the feel and weight. She was almost in range. Steady... 
Steady...

She stepped on the plug-end of a cable, and the housing broke 
with an audible snap. The prey whirled around, then bounced off 
the panel and began to head for the entrance. Unfortunately, the 
huntress was already too close. She pressed a button, and the 
head of the weapon extended as she brought it down in an arc 
precisely impacting the prey on the cranium. Its eyes crossed, 
and the entire creature vanished with a 'pop'.

"YES!! I am a GENIUS!" Skuld, Norn Goddess of the Future and 
debugger extraordinaire, hopped around in glee. "That was the 
last one. Yay! I can go home, now. No more bugs for me, no more 
bugs for me, no more..." She wilted when she saw the damage the 
bug had caused, but upon closer inspection she decided that it 
wasn't so bad. All she needed to do was replace some patch cords.

She gathered a few of the loose cables off the floor and walked 
to the damaged panels. Skuld smiled when she saw that although 
the chewed-through cable ends were hanging loosely, the damaged 
connections were in close enough proximity that she could easily 
tell which two data lines were supposed to connect - the cables 
weren't long enough to accommodate any other possibilities. She 
proceeded to repair the damage.

When she got to the last damaged connection, she had a problem. 
The bug had managed to yank one of the cable ends out of the 
board. She bent down, picked up an undamaged cable, and stared at 
the board. There were several empty jacks, but there was no clear 
indication of where the plug had been. She peered closely at the 
numbers embossed in the metal over the empty jack holes.

"198... 213... 220... 256... 277... 299... 313... GAH! I'm not 
getting anywhere. TERMINAL!" A holographic computer interface 
materialized in front of the diminutive goddess. It looked 
similar to a laptop, but it was translucent and appeared 
intangible as it hovered in midair. *Password* blinked above an 
empty text field, and Skuld entered her email address. 
Remembering passwords was not one of her many talents, and she 
made life as simple as possible in that respect. *Access Granted* 
flashed up, and she began typing at an ungodly (or perhaps godly) 
speed. Soon, she had the history in line graph form of the past 
use of all the open lines on the panel she was repairing. None 
showed any use in the last 200 years, but subnet line 299 had a 
red indicator denoting a real-time current access attempt.

Skuld jumped for joy, "Luckeee!" and quickly stepped over to put 
the new cable in place. She pulled the remaining damaged line out 
and plugged one end of the new cable into the same jack.

Unseen by Skuld, the indicator for subnet 299 disappeared from 
the computer terminal, and the message bar next to it now read, 
*Incoming Midgard access status: awaiting authentication. Relay 
station supervisory mode in effect. Press Cancel or say 'No' to 
terminate connection. Press Enter or say 'Yes' to authenticate.*

With a big grin Skuld slammed the other end of the cable into 
jack 299. "YES!" she exclaimed in joy.

*Access approval logged: Skuld, Goddess, Category 2, Class 2, 
Limited.*

"Terminal off!" Skuld left the newly repaired patch panel and 
moved to pick up her debugging hammer. Pressing the button on the 
handle again, she watched the weapon retract into its normal 
size. She slipped the handle end into the carrier on her back and 
shoved it home with satisfaction. Images of 131 Flavors danced in 
her head as she left the relay room.

The red in-use light for subnet data line 299 glowed.

----------

Ranma locked her hands behind her head and leaned back in the 
chair. "What's takin' so long?"

"Patience. Sometimes these unnamed server addresses are buried 
deep and you have to wait to get access."

"What's a server, anyway?" Ranma asked while staring at the 
ceiling.

Nabiki rolled her eyes. "Saotome, do you know anything about the 
modern world?"

Ranma scowled as she cracked her spine across the back of the 
chair. "Excuse ME for bein' on a ten-year trainin' trip."

Nabiki looked at the redhead as she continued to arch her back 
and smirked. "By the way, Ranma. Nice tits."

"Thanks. I... WHAT?!" Ranma sat forward with a stunned look. 
Nabiki was having a hearty laugh.

"You're too easy, WAY too easy," Nabiki chortled.

Ranma huffed, but then grinned evilly. "I seem to remember you 
likin' 'em plenty."

Now Nabiki looked a little stunned. "Wha-WHAT?!" For once, her 
ubiquitous cool slipped.

"HAHAHA! You seemed to enjoy grabbin' me when I first got here. 
'Does this look like a boy to you, Daddy?' Squeeze, squeeze." 
Nabiki quickly found her center, but it took a little longer for 
the blush to recede and Ranma noticed. "Well, well. Are you 
embarrassed? Or did you really enjoy it?"

"Keep it up, Saotome. I haven't even BEGUN to dig into my hoard 
of goodies on you, yet."

Ranma fidgeted nervously, the humor of the situation rapidly 
receding. "Yeah, well, I'll have you know I... Ara?"

The screen on Nabiki's computer blacked out, and a very well done 
animated graphic began. What appeared to be a large seed sprouted 
and grew into an immense tree. Words faded into view below the 
tree, but it was written in a script Nabiki had never seen 
before. Before she could comment on the fact, the screen blacked 
out again and a message in mixed hiragana and katakana appeared.

*This terminal is not Yggdrasil direct-link compliant. Do you 
wish to use an interface in the native language of your 
terminal?*

Nabiki clicked the 'Yes' button.

"What's a Ygg..., um, a Ygg-thingy?" Ranma stuttered.

"Not sure, but it seems familiar," Nabiki said.

Another screen came up.

*Yggdrasil Personnel Database*
*Please enter the name of the person for whom you are requesting 
a file in the field below.*

Nabiki typed 'Saotome Ranko' in the blank text box and hit ENTER.

*File not found. Please select one of the options below.*

Nabiki clicked on 'New File'.

A screen with database input fields appeared.

"Now we're getting somewhere," Nabiki exclaimed. Ranma's 
alternate name was already in the name field. Nabiki selected the 
button next to female, but stopped at the next blank field.

"'Area of Influence'?" she said.

Ranma shrugged. "Martial Arts, I guess."

Nabiki grinned wickedly as she considered a way to pay Ranma back 
somewhat for her embarrassment of a few minutes ago. She typed 
'Sex' in the blank field.

"HEY!"

"Relax, Saotome. This has to be some kind of gag site. I mean, 
I've never seen an official site look this slick."

"Well..."

"Let's see... 'Category'. One, two, or three?"

"Uh... One!"

"'Class'?"

"One."

"'Limited' or 'Unlimited'?"

"'Unlimited', of course. Anything goes, you know."

Nabiki snorted. "First class all the way, ne?"

"Sure, and why not? With Pops around, things have always been 
last class."

"Point. 'Transport Medium'?"

"Uhhh... huh?" Ranma peered at the screen.

Nabiki hit the arrow on a drop-down box. "Hmmm. Water, sunlight, 
reflective surfaces, electrical wiring... televisions? Blah, 
blah, blah.... Well, perhaps we should stay with a common theme 
for you." Nabiki selected 'Water'.

Ranma squirmed, but let it pass.

"'Weapon'?"

"None."

"Not an option. See?" The drop-down box didn't have a listing for 
'None'. "There! 'Katana.' HAHAHA! Talk about a theme!"

Ranma scowled. "Having fun, Nabiki?"

"Un! ...'Age'?"

"Seventeen."

"Duh!" Nabiki went on to fill in all the little personal details 
of Ranma's identification. When those fields had been completed 
only two remained. The first was a drop-down box with the 
caption, 'Affiliated Deity or Deities'. Nabiki hit the down 
arrow, and she and Ranma scanned the selections.

"Who ARE these people?" Ranma asked.

"They're mythological gods and goddesses. Ah! I remember, now. 
Yggdrasil was called the 'World Tree' or something. It was part 
of Old Norse mythology."

"Old who?"

"You know, Vikings?"

"Oh... so which do I pick?"

"Errr... Let's look a bit." Nabiki continued to scroll down. She 
eventually hit the Norse pantheon. One selection was titled 
'Norns', and it listed three names. Nabiki's attention was drawn 
to a short line of blinking red text next to the first name.

     *Also "Cupid" of Love. ~_^ -Urd.*

"Here we go." Nabiki selected the 'Norns', which appeared in the 
field after the scroll list disappeared.

"Why them?"

"Well... I did list you as the Goddess of Sex, and Love is 
close."

Ranma scratched her belly. "I don't know if we should do this," 
she said worriedly.

"Relaaax. This HAS to be a gag site, especially with all this 
mythology stuff. Ne?"

Ranma nodded. "One more blank."

The last field had the caption, 'Authorization'. Nabiki humphed 
and studied the screen. On a hunch, she opened FILE: PROPERTIES. 
An inset screen with mountains of alphanumerical data came up. 
She slowly scrolled down, peering intently at the lines. She 
stopped and considered one line. She copied the line and canceled 
the screen. She pasted the information into the last field and 
hit ENTER.

"Probably won't work, but who knows?"

----------

In another part of the Greater Tokyo metropolitan area, three 
young women and one young man sat at a table in the dining area 
of a Shinto temple grounds house. Two of the women had strange 
markings on their foreheads and cheeks, and both were incredibly 
beautiful. The third woman was cute and exuded a boundless energy 
evident in the rapid-fire conversation she was having with the 
young man, her brother. The young man, small in build but 
reasonably handsome, waved his hands in front of his sister's 
face.

"Megumi... Look, I... Really, they shouldn't have... Megumi... 
Megumi... MORISATO MEGUMI!"

Megumi stopped chattering and looked at her brother. "Ne, Kei-
chan? What's wrong?"

Morisato Keiichi took a deep breath and puffed. "You won't let me 
get a word in edgewise, that's what's wrong."

Megumi reached over and tweaked his cheek as the other women 
laughed. "My, my! Aren't we a little temperamental today, 
brother?"

"Sis, it's just that I have my hands full doing motorcycle drag-
racing for the club. I don't have the time to take on funny cars. 
Do you understand?" Keiichi pleaded.

Megumi snickered. "Well... I told Tamiya-sempai I would try. He 
seems to think you can do no wrong on the racetrack... any 
racetrack!"

Keiichi puffed up a little at the praise.

"Yeah," Urd, Norn Goddess of the Past, chimed in, "unlucky in the 
bedroom, lucky on the racetrack."

"Oneesan!" scolded the third woman, Belldandy, Norn Goddess of 
the Present. Belldandy and Keiichi were beet red, while Urd and 
Megumi giggled. The good-natured ribbing and conversation 
continued, unaware of anything untoward.

----------

*Please indicate location of file subject.*

Ranma and Nabiki looked at each other and then back at the 
computer. Hesitantly, Nabiki began typing, *Japan, Tokyo, Nerima 
Ward, Furinkan-cho, Tendo Dojo*. The computer digested this for a 
moment, and then an architectural schematic of the Tendo compound 
came up. Several blinking points were scattered throughout the 
diagram.

*Please indicate by clicking which of the detected individuals is 
file subject.*

"Creepy," Ranma muttered.

"No shit," Nabiki said. She moved the cursor over to her room, 
took her mental bearings, and placed the cursor over the blinking 
point representing Ranma. She looked at the redhead.

"Well?"

"Heh, heh. Are you sure this is a gag site?" Nabiki shook her 
head. Ranma fidgeted. "Maybe we should forget this. This is 
really freakin' me out."

"I am inclined to agree. Now, how do I... oops." Anyone familiar 
with mouse operation can tell you that even the sleight weight of 
a finger is often enough to press a button. Ranma and Nabiki 
stared at the monitor in morbid fascination.

*File creation complete. Stand by for reality update.*

"Uh... Nabiki? What does that mean?"

Nabiki opened her mouth to speak but abruptly closed it when the 
room began to shake. She now found something different to say. 
"Earthquake!"

Ranma and Nabiki stumbled over the unsteady floor and stood 
underneath the doorframe to ride it out. The rumbling and shaking 
increased until they had to clap their hands over their ears. The 
activity abruptly ceased, however, and they slowly pulled their 
hands down.

Ranma was the first to speak, "What...," but didn't have the 
chance to finish as she was jerked off of her feet, flying 
through the air to hang suspended over the chair she had been 
sitting in earlier.

"Nabiki! Help... UNGH!!" Ranma arched her back as her body 
suddenly strained and stretched and a brilliant column of pure 
white light exploded into being around the floating girl. Nabiki 
cried out and shielded her eyes with her arm. The column crackled 
with energy for a moment and then dimmed to a vibrant blue. 
Nabiki lowered her arm to see Ranma slowly spinning within the 
column, arms out at an angle with fingers splayed and legs parted 
to shoulder width with toes pointing down. Her head was back as 
if being pulled, her mouth was open, and her sightless eyes 
stared up. Nabiki discovered that she was, for perhaps the first 
time in her life, truly terrified.

A flash of white washed over the column and a distinct 'CRACK' 
echoed in the very fabric of the room. Ranma's clothes 
disintegrated and swirls of misty white luminance gathered around 
her body. They slowly coalesced, resolving into an intricate 
robe, earrings, necklace, and fingerless gloves and toeless foot 
coverings. The clothing floated around Ranma as her red hair 
suddenly glowed and began to grow. It reached almost to her feet 
before it stopped and braided itself into one long rope. A broad 
and elaborately configured hair ribbon appeared and crowned the 
back of her head.

When the last of the accoutrements were in place, another wash of 
white light raced around the blue column, but instead of 
disappearing, it entered the column, spinning faster as it 
spiraled in towards the center. The light swirled and collected 
into three distinct bands, the middle one larger than the others, 
gradually moving to encircle Ranma's head. The top band abruptly 
rushed in and touched just below Ranma's left eye, forming a 
glowing inverted triangle. The bottom band of light repeated the 
process for the right eye. The remaining band swirled for a few 
seconds more, and then rushed in to touch the center of her 
forehead, creating a symbol of two interlocking circles on a 
horizontal axis, half of each circle entwined with the other. 
Ranma jerked and strained even harder at the last contact, and a 
shimmering of many brilliant points of light densely covered the 
surface of her form.

After about fifteen seconds the lights vanished and Ranma slumped 
forward, although she stayed suspended, spinning slowly. Nabiki 
thought that perhaps the event was over, but as she was about to 
move towards Ranma, a wind began to pick up in the room. The 
symbols on Ranma's face began to glow, and the interlocking 
circles started moving inward. Objects began to rise off of 
surfaces and collect in a rotating mass around the suspended 
girl, moving counter to her spin. When everything loose had 
joined the mass and her forehead circles had overlapped 
completely to become one solid, round mark, Ranma moaned and 
straightened.

Her head fell back once again, and a single beam of intensely 
white light shot out of the glowing circle on her forehead, 
passing out of view through the ceiling. After a couple of 
seconds, the beam vanished, the whirling objects crashed to the 
ground, and Ranma slumped forward again. The forehead mark 
separated into its constituent circles, losing its brilliance. 
Ranma slowly drifted down until her toes were only a few inches 
from the floor, one leg slightly pulled up such that the hollow 
of one foot rested on the instep of the other. Her clothes 
continued to float around her as if she were under water.

After several heartbeats of silence, Nabiki slowly rose and 
peered around at the mess. Familiar paths were traveled in her 
brain as she began to think about how Ranma was going to pay for 
this. That stopped when she realized Ranma hadn't actually made 
it to terra firma but was hovering over the floor. Ranma's 
clothes still floated around her. The material was of a 
shimmering green with water-blue-within-beige trim.

Nabiki studied the floating woman carefully, noting and storing 
details. She had always considered Ranma's girl form to be cute, 
but something had changed. Ranma was now almost supernaturally 
beautiful, like a haunting song or a dream that one can't quite 
remember. Nabiki had to fight an urge to kneel.

Some sixth sense kicked in and Nabiki realized she wasn't alone. 
Turning around she saw the entire household peering through the 
door at the levitating martial artist.

----------

The tableau in the old temple house was interrupted by a call 
from the bathroom. "Tadaima! I'm finally back!" Skuld strode into 
the room. "Did ya miss me?"

Belldandy rose to hug her younger sister, and Urd just barely 
managed to suppress a grin. "Hey, squirt. What took you so long? 
Just a few bugs, ne?" Urd smirked.

Skuld rounded on her oldest sister. "Just a FEW bugs?! I'll have 
you know I debugged 3,495 bugs, spread all over the system. 
That's what took so long. Think you could've done better, Miss 
SysAdmin?"

Urd casually waved her hand in the air. "Feh! I could'a done it 
in week instead of two, squirt."

"Don't call me SQUIRT, you old hag!"

Urd rose from her seat. "WHAT did you call me?!"

"Sisters!!" Urd and Skuld both quieted at Belldandy's word. She 
wasn't the oldest, but an irritated Belldandy wasn't worth 
experiencing. "We're all back together again, and I don't... 
Oh...! What...?" The three goddesses collapsed to the floor 
unconscious.

Keiichi rushed to Belldandy while Megumi checked out Urd and 
Skuld. Keiichi patted Belldandy's face and her eyes fluttered 
open.

"What happened?!" Keiichi asked.

"I... I don't know," Belldandy answered. The goddesses were all 
awake now and rising wearily to their feet. The phone abruptly 
rang in the hall.

"Guess who," Urd muttered.

Keiichi helped Belldandy to the phone.

"Morisato residence. Hello, Kami-sama. What just happened? 
Yes.... Yes.... I see."

Keiichi stood patiently and the rest of the household wandered 
over.

"Yes.... Oh, my! How did that happen? ...I see."

To the listeners, Belldandy's always-pleasant demeanor gave 
nothing away and was beginning to irritate the oldest goddess.

"Yes, Kami-sama. I'll tell them. Thank you for calling. I love 
you, too. Bye." Belldandy hung up the phone and turned to the 
rest. "Well, sisters, we have some work to do."

Urd's patience finally ran out. "Bell, what happened?!"

"It seems we just added a new goddess to the ranks." Belldandy 
moved back to the living area and began to pick up tea things. 
The rest followed her like puppies.

"Okaaay," Urd said, "that happens. But it usually doesn't cause 
the family to go 'night-night'."

"Mmm. Yes, but the new addition went from mortal straight to 
Class I, Category I, Unlimited."

The singing of crickets and a single bird call washed through the 
room, and then two goddesses simultaneously cried, "WHAT?!?!"

"Tha-tha-that's not possible!" Skuld exclaimed. "We have 
safeguards built into the Wish System to prevent it! I know, I 
put 'em there!" She wrung her hands.

"Super Genius strikes again," Urd monotoned.

"HEY! Not my fault, bag lady!" Skuld was turning purple as Urd 
snickered.

"Now, now, sisters. This wasn't processed through the Wish 
System. It came in from another direction," Belldandy said as she 
took the tea things into the kitchen.

Urd and Skuld scratched their heads. "The only Operators that 
have that have that kind of clearance are the three of us and 
Kami-sama," Urd mused. She whirled on Skuld. "RRRRRAH!"

Skuld backpedaled, waving her hands in front of her face. "I was 
here when it happened, right? Right?! Besides, I didn't do 
anything but debug and repair the damage they caused."

Urd appeared slightly mollified at that.

"I hope you haven't unpacked, yet, Skuld," Belldandy called from 
the kitchen. "Kami-sama wants you back for the investigation."

Skuld was crestfallen. "Awww, Oneesama! I just got home!"

"This is important, Skuld." Belldandy re-entered the living room. 
"You don't want to disappoint Him, do you?"

"...nnnooooo..." Skuld pouted. She turned and slouched back to 
the bathing room. "I guess I'll see ya when I see ya."

Belldandy turned to Urd. "Sister, we have a new goddess to track 
down." Urd nodded. "Have you ever been to the Tendo Dojo?"

----------

Nobody seemed willing to enter the room, so it was left to Nabiki 
to approach the levitating Ranma. With no small amount of 
trepidation she slowly moved to within a couple of feet.

"Ranma?" No response. Nabiki tentatively reached out a hand. 
There seemed to be a slight resistance in the air immediately 
surrounding Ranma, but it was negligible. Just before touching 
her, Nabiki pulled her hand back a little. Firming her resolve, 
she finally took hold of Ranma's hand. A slight tingle passed 
into Nabiki's fingers, and Ranma jerked awake with a gasp. Nabiki 
tried to pull away, but Ranma had her hand in a deathgrip.

Ranma blinked her eyes a few times and then focused on Nabiki. 
Surges of desire washed through Ranma's body as she gazed at the 
brown-haired girl. Some of that feeling passed into Nabiki, and 
she could feel her body responding. Ranma leaned over and cupped 
Nabiki's face with her free hand, and Nabiki became even more 
aroused at the touch. Ranma gazed into her eyes.

"Oh, Nabiki.... You are so beautiful." Ranma slowly leaned 
forward, and Nabiki's legs began to tremble. Ranma gently kissed 
her, and Nabiki's knees buckled, but before she could hit the 
ground, Ranma gathered her up in her arms and continued her 
attentions. The kiss became hungry and desperate as mouths parted 
and tongues twined. Ranma massaged Nabiki's body where she held 
her.

Ranma and Nabiki's tryst lasted for all of about five seconds, 
the strident clarion call of an unamused fiancee breaking the 
spell.

"RANMA! You PERVERT!! What the HELL do you think you're doing 
with my sister!" Tendo Akane, betrothed of the new goddess, 
suddenly found herself in the stratosphere of anger and well on 
her way to escape velocity.

Ranma jerked her head back and blink-blinked. Nabiki lolled in 
her arms, completely lost to the world. Ranma looked at Akane. 
Akane glared at Ranma and began to stalk her way. Ranma looked 
down at Nabiki. Her eyes snapped into focus as she realized just 
what had occurred.

"WHAT am I DOING?!?! YAAAAAHHH!!!" Fortunately, Ranma had drifted 
across the room to Nabiki's bed while she was otherwise occupied, 
responding perhaps to new and unknown instincts. Thus, when Ranma 
unceremoniously dumped the middle Tendo daughter out of her arms 
and began to buzz around the upper half of the room, Nabiki came 
to no harm.

"What's happening to me?! AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!"

The Tendo household, non-Tendos included, just stared as Ranma 
effortlessly defied the laws of gravity and wailed about her 
current state of affairs. The only exception was Akane. She 
brought out her No. 2 MacGregor mallet and attempted to swat 
Ranma to the floor. Akane wasn't having an easy time of it, 
however. Ranma seemed to instinctively zip away just as the swing 
would have connected. Akane finally lost control of the hammer on 
the downstroke, and in her attempt to regain her grip, she 
unerringly guided the head straight to her left kneecap. Akane 
howled, grabbing the knee up and hopping around on her right 
foot. It created a driving counter-rhythm to the lazy swish of 
Ranma's robe rushing through the air.

Current events caught up to the remaining two women. The shock of 
seeing Ranma flying through the air and dressed in VERY feminine 
clothing was finally too much. The last thought through Saotome 
Nodoka's mind before she fainted was, <That's not very... man... 
ly...>, and Kasumi just swooned (it seemed the proper thing to do 
at the moment). The women fell against each other and slid to the 
floor in a heap.

The fathers, not even bothering with the ladies, beat a hasty 
path to the phone. Surprisingly, the Tendo patriarch, Soun, 
reached the phone first. He dialed and waited calmly.

"Hello? Dr. Tofu? Yes, could you come over right away? There 
seems to be a problem with Ranma. The nature of the problem? 
......WAAAAAHHHHHHH! He's gonna fly away! The schools will never 
be joined, now! WA-WA-WAHAHAHAAAAAH!"

The Saotome patriarch, Genma, grabbed the phone away and began to 
speak. "Tofu-sensei? Listen, Ranma is... Growf, growf, garooowww, 
growf!" Soun's gushing tears had triggered Genma's curse, and 
Panda-chan began holding signs in front of the mouthpiece, 
occasionally growfing for emphasis.

At the other end of the line, Tofu Ono rhythmically beat his head 
against the top of his desk. <Two GROWN men. Oh, brother...> He 
hung up, grabbed his black bag, and left for the Tendos'.

____________________

END CHAPTER ONE

NEXT: Chapter Two: Tender Hugs and Kisses

Ja