Ranma led Xian Pu down a fairly busy thoroughfare. There were people everywhere on their way to work. Ranma was wearing a blue shirt with black slacks while Xian Pu opted for jeans and t-shirt. They walked along in silence, Xian Pu nervous with anticipation and Ranma with a nonchalant smile on his face.
Xian Pu strode up beside him. “So, where are we going?”
“To get some breakfast.” Ranma chuckled a bit.
“I thought you said we were going to headquarters?”
Ranma chuckled again. “We are. You’ll see.”
Xian Pu was about to comment further when Ranma abruptly stopped. “Here we are.” She turned and saw that they were standing in front of a Japanese House of Pancakes.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Xian Pu took in the place. It was a greasy spoon dive that looked like it had been torn down and rebuilt several times over. “This can’t be it.”
Ranma smiled. “Trust me. Let’s get some pancakes.”
Ranma led her in past several of the morning patrons finishing off their breakfasts. One of the elderly cooks looked up from his work. “Yo, Ranma!”
“Sekoi! What’s happening you old coot!”
“Miko’s been looking for you. She’s pretty pissed.”
“She’ll get over it. Tell her to keep washing dishes.” Ranma led Xian Pu past the cooks toward the bathrooms. There was a hallway there that ended in a phone booth.
Xian Pu crossed her arms. “This is supposed to be a secret hideout?”
“Never judge a book by its cover.” Ranma took a look around. When he was convinced no one was looking, he picked up the phone and dialed 911. The floor beneath them gave out and they were dropped down a long chute. Xian Pu was screaming her head off in Mandarin, while Ranma just yawned.
The chute ended and they fell to the floor. Ranma landed perfectly on two feet, while Xian Pu landed in a crouch. “That wasn’t funny!”
Ranma laughed. “You get used to it.”
Xian Pu looked around and found herself in one of the most sophisticated buildings she had ever been in. One of the walls was lined with powerful computers while another was lined with several monitors, all showing key events from all over the world. There were several people milling about watching the monitors and checking the computers. Suffice to say, she was impressed.
Ranma turned to her. “This more of what you were expecting?”
She nodded her head numbly.
A man in a black suit approached them. “Agent Saotome. Y wants to see you.”
Ranma nodded his head. “I kind of thought she would. Come on Shampoo, it’s time to meet the boss.”
Xian Pu followed. “Anything I should know?”
“Whatever you do, don’t call her ‘gorilla woman’.”
Xian Pu stopped in her tracks. “What? She related to Akane?”
Ranma chuckled. “It’s a long story from before even I started, and no she isn’t related to Akane.” They were approaching a large oak door.
“SAOTOME!!! GET YOUR BUTT IN HERE!!!”
“You sure she isn’t related?”
“I’m sure.”
Ranma pushed open the door and sitting behind a large steel desk was a middle-aged woman wearing a white dress. She had long blue hair that trailed down over the back of her chair. “Saotome…” She growled. “You better have a damn good reason why you haven’t checked in for the past two days. You’d also have a good reason for bringing some woman off the street into the heart of our operation.” She turned her glare to Xian Pu, who gulped from the intensity of the glare. There was also the fact that the woman’s grip on the table was leaving impressions in the cold hard steel.
Ranma nonchalantly tossed his pigtail over his shoulder. “As to why I haven’t checked in, I just barely survived an explosive encounter with the Tokyo Ninjas. As to this woman beside me, she’s my new partner.”
WHAM!!! Y slammed her fist through the top of the table. “WHAT!!! YOU’RE BRINGING A WOMAN OFF THE STREET TO BE YOUR NEW PARTNER!!! THIS IS TOTALLY AGAINST REGULATIONS!!!”
Ranma smiled his cocky grin and poured himself a glass of water. “She’ll be a great asset. She almost as good a fighter as me, and she has other talents that the agency may find useful.” He took a sip of the water.
Y calmed a bit. “Like what?”
Ranma smiled again. “She can get into places we’ve only dreamed of. She can get into meetings that I, with all of my contacts, can’t”
“So how can she do that?”
Ranma turned to Xian Pu. “Sorry, but she’ll need a demonstration.” Before Xian Pu could react, Ranma splashed her. She promptly transformed into her neko form.
Y stared in awe from behind her desk. “Another Jusenkyo curse! Her form would allow her to go almost anywhere!”
Xian Pu was backing away from Ranma slowly. “If he still has his neko-ken…” She thought.
Ranma turned and smiled at her. He knelt down and gathered her up in his arms. “Don’t worry, Shampoo. They’ve helped me a lot in that department. Plus the fact that I can rationalize that it’s you, and not a real cat.”
Xian Pu purred and rubbed up against him. “This I can get used to!”
Ranma scratched her behind the ears. “So here’s the deal. We bring in Shampoo as a full agent. She goes in as a spotter, sniffs out the security, and eavesdrops on important conversations. She reports back, and I move in with greater efficiency than ever before. We’ll be getting intelligence we only dreamed of before, because no one would think twice about talking around an ordinary house cat.”
Y leaned back and steepled her fingers. “Excellent. But what of Miko? You’ll still need someone to be your alter ego for your ‘meetings’.”
Ranma narrowed his eyes. “She can still serve in that capacity, but she doesn’t need to be informed of the missions anymore. She’ll only go out when we need someone in public.”
Y nodded. “Very well.” She pressed a button on the top of her desk. “Ms. Nokamura, bring some release forms and some hot water.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The answer came back. After a little bit an older woman brought in a stack of papers and a kettle. She sat them on the desk and left.
Ranma picked up the kettle. Y raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you think you should give the girl some privacy? I can handle pouring the water, you can wait outside, or at least turn your back.
The pigtailed martial artist shrugged. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”
“Ranma, we all know about your adventures in the feminine kingdom, but a girl has some modesty and would probably prefer to be allow to dress in private.”
Ranma rolled his eyes. “No. I’ve really seen her naked before. She used to surprise me in the bath all the time.”
Y’s eye’s widened in comprehension. “She was one of your ‘fiancés’, wasn’t she?”
Ranma nodded. “Got it in one guess.”
The blue haired girl scowled. “I’m not that dumb, Ranma. You’re cruising for another beating.”
Ranma chuckled. “You never caught me first time. Anyway…” He poured the contents of the kettle on the neko-Xian Pu.
Xian Pu stood up proudly. “Could someone get me a towel, so I don’t have to put my clothes on wet?”
Ranma’s eyebrows shot up. “Okay, so it’s been a while since I’ve seen her naked. She definitely matured well.” That and some other indecent thoughts crossed his mind.
Y opened a drawer in her desk, took out a white towel, and tossed it to Xian Pu. “Here you go.”
Xian Pu looked at her with a questioning glance. “Why do have a towel in your desk?”
Y waved her hand dismissively. “Almost everyone that has anything to do with water magnet over there does. We usually wind up innocent victims of the assaults from all things liquid.”
“Oh.” Xian dried herself and dressed. “Okay, now what are these forms?”
Y leaned back in her chair. “The usual stuff. Health release forms, life insurance, etc.”
Ranma handed Xian Pu the first form and a pen. “This one tells you how much you’ll get for signing over your soul. If I had known the going rate for a soul when I joined up, I would have held out for more.”
Xian Pu smiled and took the first of many forms.
An hour later, Xian Pu and Ranma emerged from the office. The Amazon was holding her hand in a claw-like position. “I think my hand is stuck in this position. Why are there so many forms?”
“Shampoo, meet government red tape. You and it will be intimately acquainted for the duration of your stay here with the JCIA. I usually ignore the mess and do my job anyway.” Xian Pu chuckled at something. “What?”
“I was just thinking about the irony. You, the man among men, working for a woman.”
Ranma shrugged. “Hey, it’s the twenty-first century. I couldn’t live forever in my father’s fifteenth-century ways. Besides, usually her husband is the one giving me orders.”
“So what’s the story with her being able to punch through solid steel?”
“Yura, that’s her real name, and
her husband, Tamuro, were members of
the first experimental agents called, ‘psionics’. They were genetically engineered to use their minds unconsciously
to manifest powers. They were given
special abilities that they didn’t have to concentrate to use.”
“So she got super strength.
What did her husband get?”
“He teleports between trash piles.”
Xian Pu stopped in her tracks.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Ranma kept walking. “Serious as a heart attack. The program WAS experimental after all.”
Xian Pu shook her head and caught up to him. “So where are we going?”
He gave her a genuine smile. “I’ve got a very top secret surprise for you. One that you’ll love.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll see.”
Ranma led her into another large room. All over, unorthodox explosives were going off, like a salt shaker destroying two dummies sitting at table, a shoe being kicked off a man in a lab coat’s foot blowing the head off another dummy, and so forth. There were also several hidden weapons being test, like a sword hidden I a purse. Xian Pu took the whole scene in with a mild bit of awe. “Wow. These could come in handy.”
Ranma snorted. “These toys? The newbie’s make these stupid things to justify their funding. I wouldn’t be caught dead using that stuff. The good stuff’s at the back, where the more mature scientists work.” He led her to the back of the room, where a squirrelly man with half glasses was playing with a myriad of beakers and test tubes. “Yo, Gos!”
The man turned and Xian Pu recognized him as Gosunkugi Hikaru. “Hello, Ranma. You here for another shot?”
Ranma shook his head. “None for me today. I still have to do some work tonight. I just need one for my new partner.”
Gosunkugi turned to the Amazon. “Ah, Shampoo! It’s good to see you again! You’ll love my greatest invention!”
Xian Pu began to get nervous when the man produced a syringe filled with a pink fluid. “What do you think you’re going to do with that?”
Ranma put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’ll like this.”
Xian Pu closed her eyes, anticipating the pain of metal being thrust into her arm and any nauseating or psychotropic effects from the unknown serum. She gritted her teeth and prepared for the worst.
“It’s over. You can open your eyes now.”
Xian Pu blinked. She hadn’t felt a thing. “What was that for? I don’t feel any different.”
Ranma smiled. “Gos. If you’d be so kind as to demonstrate for the woman the miracle of modern science.”
The thin man smiled. “Gladly.” He pulled out a water pistol and shot the Amazon in the face.
“What did you that for?!” She hissed. It took her a couple milliseconds to realize that the water had been indeed cold, and her last statement was in Japanese and now cat-speak. “I’m still a woman! You found a cure!”
Gosunkugi shook his head. “Not really. It’s a temporary cure, like the instant Nannichuan. This concentration
only lasts for twenty-four hours. I can
increase the concentration to where it lasts a month, but anymore than that and
it becomes deadly.”
Xian Pu stopped celebrating.
“Deadly?”
The scientist nodded.
“Yes. This is actually a special
hemoglobin that helps your body resist the change that the Jusenkyo curse makes
in your body. It works like a
reinforcement rebar that you put in concrete, helps to keep your body strong
and in one state. The problem is if we
put too much into you, your body repels all change, including waste disposal
and current blood/oxygen content. You would
go into suspended animation, and perhaps die.”
“Wow. And why did you develop this? I didn’t think you’d do anything that would benefit Ranma.”
The scientist scratched his head. “Ranma wasn’t the only one that JCIA approached from the Furinkan graduating class. They asked me to join their research department, since I already had a very comprehensive knowledge of science and magic. The funny part is, I made this formula to try and trap Ranma in his cursed form for good. It was to be my perfect revenge, but, like all my other plans, it failed. I had inadvertently created the reusable cure for his condition. It even reverted him back to his male form when I injected it into him as a girl. I was very disappointed.”
“So how come he isn’t trying to kill you right now?”
“After he saw that I had found the cure that would allow him freedom of form, he started treating me like his best friend. It irked me to no end. He kept on bugging me, and treating me nice, and you know what?”
“What?”
“Did you know this idiot actually grows on you?” He pointed to Ranma, who just smiled. “I actually started to see him as something other than an obstacle. We actually became FRIENDS. I couldn’t believe it.”
Ranma slapped Gosunkugi on the back. “And that brings us to the present. He gave me a cure that would let me stay a man when I want to, and still be able to use my girl form when my missions call for it.”
The scientist pushed his glasses back to the bridge of his nose. “Yes. He even let me ask Akane out after they were divorced for a while.”
“What happened?” Xian Pu asked.
“She said no. It was actually liberating in a way. It allowed me to move on with my life, knowing that I had tried and nothing would have happened if I had killed Ranma earlier.”
“I’m glad you didn’t kill me.” Ranma said aside.
Gosunkugi chuckled. “So are all the people whose lives you’ve saved since joining the agency. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I had known that I had inadvertently killed them all.”
Ranma smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Well, thanks. I need to go over a few more things with Shampoo before we go out tonight.”
“You kids have fun. Don’t stay out too late.” Gos waved them goodbye.
After Xian Pu and Ranma were back in the main corridor, she turned to him. “Where are we going?”
“Remember the bar I was at the other night?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going back, only this time as a girl. ‘Ranko’ is a favorite stripper there. Of course if any of the patrons try to take an privileges, they get their fingers broke.”
Xian stared at him in open shock. “You’re stripping!!!”
Ranma shrugged. “Only until I put them all behind bars or in the cemetery. Some of them I’ll send there personally, the perverts.” He scratched his chin and regarded Xian Pu.
“So what am I going to be doing?” Xian Pu asked.
Ranma gave her a sly grin. “How good are you at dancing?”
“Oh no!” She held up her hands and started to back away. “I’m proud of my body, but I’m not going to let a bunch of crooks see me in the buff!”
Ranma laughed. “You wanted to come with me. That means you have to face all the consequences that go with it. Besides, you get to keep all the tips. I make more than my paychecks on some nights.”
“The things I’ll do for you, Ranma.” She grumbled under her breath. Louder she added, “Okay. So what do I have to do?”
“First I’ll show you a few things the Triad likes, and then we go to work.”
What followed was probably the most unconventional training that Xian Pu had ever received in her life. She couldn’t remember the last time that she had spent an entire hour blushing the deepest shade of red imaginable as Ranma-Chan taught her the finer points of stripping.