Enter, Paladin By Kyokukou Disclaimer : I don't own the characters from Ranma 1/2 only the characters that I write myself . So please don't sue me ! But if you try to use my characters .....there will be ...unpleasant consequences if I find out . Do not repost or reprint this without my permission , however if you do ASK there is a good chance I will let you . " If you are reading this, the author likes you!" -The Author Chapter 17 I’m doing what again? Just a few more copies and he would have the last one done, and off to home! With Reiko, the kids and a nice, hot, bath! After a long day running upstairs and downstairs he was feeling rather nasty. But his wife did request that his paunch had to go, so no more elevators for him. Now, to finish the last of the reports. “ Pardon me for interrupting your work.” He looked up at the young man’s voice. To see a very odd figure. Dressed in a light grey leather jacket, with the hood drawn up despite being indoors. Standard loose fitting and faded blue jeans with the latest hyped basketball shoes. The kid couldn’t be older than twenty. “ Do not worry about it, I needed a break from the monotony.” He smiled and offered a polite bow. The kid returned the bow easily. “ Officer…” The darkened hood glanced down at his name tag. “ Yokoyama, could you tell me where or how I could find a specific person here in Nerima?” Ah, probably looking for a runaway family member. “ I assume you came to the police because this person might be of our concern?” “ Yes, he has a habit of being a sort of vigilante when the police aren’t fast enough for his tastes.” The whole time the young man’s voice never changed from a polite amicable tone. “ I’m afraid that we don’t have many vigilantes in Nerima. Not much normal crime here.” “ Normal crime?” The hood perked up a little. He was beginning to become distinctly nervous, his instincts were telling him that something was most definitely unusual about this person. “ Nerima is what we police here would like to think of as a happy statistical fluke. We happen to have the highest percentage of martial artists and ex- military in all of Japan. The result is that no thug commits a mugging or break in or such twice. The reputation of such also greatly aids to the sore lack of rapes and random assaults.” “ Really?” The hood cocked to one side slightly. “ That sounds nice. I might just have to look into getting a home here some day. But the man I’m looking for fits quite well into the marital artist category I suppose, if you look at him in a certain light.” “ I see.” He didn’t. “ Do you know this man’s name, and would it be too impolite to ask as to why you are looking for him at a police station? Has he committed some crime?” “ I don’t think he would knowingly commit any crime, Officer.” The young man placed a gloved hand causally on the desk. Years of police work had kept his senses keen in times like this. His peripheral vision alone was enough to notice that the little skin that showed between the white glove and the jacket was far too pale to be normal. What little of the young man’s face he could see through the shadow also seemed far too fair to be anything but irregular. The young man appeared to be an albino. That would explain the choice of clothing and the hood under harsh florescent light. “ I am looking for him at a police station because I know that the police, while they may not be involved with his comings and goings, should be aware of the more…unusual events of his life. I think his full name is something like, Saotome Ranma.” “ Unusual is the norm in Nerima I’m afraid. But I’ll see what I can do. Could I have some way to contact you, and your name please?” “ Are you sure you don’t know of him offhand?” The hooded young man pressed. “ Yes, I am sure. I would have to sift through many names from many ‘unusual’ incidents to find him if he indeed is involved. So sorry.” “ I see. Then I have no choice, Officer.” The hooded figure took a step back and turned on his heel. “ I’ll just have to find him myself. Sorry to have bothered you so late at night.” “ Have a safe night young man.” He answered, waiting until a full minute after the figure had closed the door before returning to his work. He hated lying, but after all it wasn’t a complete lie. There were four Saotome Ranmas listed in their records. One was long dead sometime in the fifties. One was actually a woman. Another was a young man, and the last was barely sixteen despite what his file photo looked. Each had records that were classified or restricted somehow. But what little he could gleam each of the four was not the one certain people were looking for. That was the third person in a month to have come looking for this Saotome Ranma person. Whomever he really was he better watch his back. Back to the stupid coping, then home and his family and a bath! * * * It felt so weird to be back in school. Granted, her unplanned and unwanted break from school had not been all that long, but it still felt odd to be wearing a uniform again, sitting in class and listening to a lecture. Kinda nice not to have to really worry about the rest of the day. Her next meal was only a few hours away, the one after that was already paid for and she had a home to go to. But her first ‘assignment’ by her ‘lord’ had come a lot sooner than either of them had expected. Ranma had said something about a familiar bad feeling and had given her a portfolio and only said to ‘follow it’. The bad thing was that he had dropped it off with her just before she had started off to school. So try as she might to listen about ancient history about the Kamakura period her thoughts kept wandering back to the portfolio. The moment the lunch period rang she practically bolted for the door. That thing was burning a hole in her backpack. However, her new home room classmates had other, more sociable ideas. She found her way blocked by a trio. Before he had enrolled her in school Ranma had given her a necklace to wear ‘when she was in public’. When she put it on and looked in the mirror she had seen a double image of herself. The starved image of herself and what she used to look like. Ranma had laughed at her surprise and told her to close her right eye. Then she only saw herself as she was before she became gaunt from starvation. So she closed her left eye and opened the right one, then she only saw herself as she was. Ranma explained that the necklace chain had a small spell on it that caused others to see her as she was a year ago. He said to use it until they had gotten her back to a healthy weight. She had asked if others saw the double image too. Her boss smiled and said that only the person wearing the necklace could see both the illusion and reality. It really had helped her social interaction not to look like a skeleton to others. The trio that stood in her way, however, was known behind their backs as the three prime evils. A girl named Yuki, and her two self styled suitors Samura and Omi. No one in the home room liked them, few respected them, and everyone seemed to fear them for some reason. The three prime evils reveled in it. She did not like them, respect them, and most certainly had nothing to fear from them. From her first day the trio had hated her. “ Oh do come have lunch with us, Tansaki.” Yuki smiled invitingly. “ Yeah, we have this great spot under the Oak picked out.” Samura added. “ We’d really like to get to know you better.” Omi added belatedly. How to get out of this politely? Though she really would enjoy offending the trio, she wanted to avoid a reputation that might support the stigma she already faced as a half-gaijin. “ I’m so sorry, but I have some extra work I’d like to do over lunch.” She tried, plastering on a smile. “ I really do better at reading when I’m alone.” “ Oh we can be quiet.” Omi replied a bit too fast. “ I really find that hard to believe.” A new voice added from behind her. She turned to find one of the other students whose name she already knew, a girl named Kei. Kei had seemed to take an interest in her from the first day she had met the girl. “ I can’t really remember a time when you three weren’t talking about one thing or another.” Kei continued, coming to stand beside her. “ I really think that Tansaki should choose who she wants to have lunch with. I also think that everyone here really wishes you three would open up the doorway.” As the trio closed in for verbal combat against Kei she took the opportunity to slink away down the hall and into a side corridor before someone else could catch her. She trusted her impressions of people implicitly. Whether or not her talents were mystical or psychic or thingamajig didn’t matter to her. What did was that she was never wrong in the end. What she got off of the trio sickened her. Sociopaths that were trying to use one another just as much as they tried to use everyone else. Yuki wanted to ‘get to know her’ just to get some dark secret from her or something else she could use aside from the meager leverage of her half-gaijin origins. Samura just wanted to use Yuki in every way he could, in fact she hazarded to guess that the boy had more control over the supposed leader than even he realized. Omi just wanted to get into Yuki’s pants, but he enjoyed the false power the trio had too much to make his move. Kei… she was one of the few who where hard to read, mostly because their own motivations were either so unknown to themselves or too variable. What she guessed was that Kei wanted to raise her standing with the whole social order of middle school by defending the half barbarian underdog. Hopefully that was it. People sickened her on a whole. So many selfish people infested the world that sometimes she contemplated some sort of fantastic genocide. But, the few actually benevolent people out there shined so much brighter than the dark blotches. Still, there were way too many dark blotches. She had worked with Nabiki because of her impression of the crafty woman. Most people have an ideal they would like to live up to, or a persona they put on for the world. Nabiki’s ideal was the emotionless genius that orchestrated everything. Nabiki’s persona was the calculating ice queen with the brains, brawn and skill to do whatever she wanted, and meet ANY goal she set. The impression she got from Nabiki was that she really was a caring, and deeply emotional person who really put those she cared for above all else, and merely rationalized her emotions so she could deceive herself into thinking she was still an emotional shut in caring for herself and no one else. The martyr that convinces herself she’s a detached opportunist. She liked Nabiki from the start. The longer she worked with and for the young woman the more attached the became to Nabiki. Her new boss, however, was something of an oddity. While she had little trouble discerning lies from truth in what he said, she could not get a solid impression of HIM. His motivations, his mind, his emotions. Not because he was one of the one in a million people who seemed to be immune to her talents. But because his mind was more like all the people in China whispering to each other at once. Everyone else had minds that practically sang out their intentions, emotions, motivations. Whatever Ranma’s mind was, it wasn’t like anything she had ever encountered before. Finally, she found a spot that seemed private enough, but not too much like a hiding spot. Opening her lunch and partaking of its tasty contents she tugged the portfolio out and opened it. A handwritten letter sat atop a thin stack of documents. ‘Leonorah- I know you trust your talents, so trust mine. I know there is someone(s) out there looking for me in a violent way. Now , I feel it’s very important that these people do not find out about the Tendo family. But I need to know who I am dealing with. Attached is the list of the ‘usual suspects’. Please use your skills and perhaps your talents to find out who they are and just how far they are in their search for me. Please, don’t endanger yourself in this. If one of them actually has found out about the Tendo family I’ll handle it. I just need all the information you can get about these people’s progress. Don’t be surprised if I’m hard to reach, I’m conducting my own search. Between the two of us this should not take long. -Saotome R. Well, at least he wasn’t planning on using her as an errand girl. Who could Ranma be worried about? The first sheet had a picture of an albino Chinese guy. The angle of the photo looked like it had been taken without the subject’s knowledge. Aside from his odd coloration she would have called him cute, even though he looked about twenty three. Under the picture was the name Paladin. Below that was a short paragraph. Paladin was a constant thorn in my side in Hong Kong. Even I do not know his real name. He has connections to gangs all across Hong Kong and into the fringes of Yakuza over here. He currently makes his living as either an assassin for hire or a gun runner with the ironic distinction of never using a gun himself. BE CAREFUL in this search. You know which gang rumor- mills will know if this kind of guy is in town. The second sheet looked much less imposing. The photo on it was of another albino, a girl this time who had an exotic beauty to her. Unlike the last picture this was not a clandestine shot, in fact the quarter of a face of the person standing next to her that had been cut out could have been Ranma’s, but she wasn’t sure. The caption read: Xain. Xain is(obviously) Paladin’s maternal twin sister. But that is where it begins and ends. She is the only reason why I did not kill Paladin in Hong Kong. He created a link between them , if he dies so does she. But not the other way around. She may or may not be in the country. If she is, she’s out to kill her brother. If you meet her make damn sure she knows you’re with me. This just kept getting better. Now didn’t it? At least the lunch was good. * * * “ I’m doing what again?” Ranma didn’t seem displeased at Soun’s words, just puzzled. “ You’re going on a date with Otama!” Soun grabbed Ranma in a headlock and started applying a fist to Ranma’s hair. “ Since when did she ask me? I don’t remember asking her yet.” “ Yet? OH hear that Tendo-kun!” Genma thumped his hand on Soun’s back as Soun laughed and became more vigorous in his manhandling of Ranma. “ She never told me anything about this!” Ranma protested, trying to gently shove Soun away. She really didn’t know how to feel about all of this. A part of her was pretty flattered to hear that ‘yet’. Another part was angrily whispering that it was merely a polite clause added to keep from offending her. The rest of her was wondering how Akane felt. ‘ Akane?’ She questioned. ‘ Yeah?’ ‘ What do you think about this? I mean..’ ‘ Go and have the best date you can!’ Akane replied excitedly, but something about it felt forced. ‘I’ll be in our garden and out of your hair. Starting now! Bye!’ ‘ Whoa, Akane!!’ But no reply came, and she felt control of Akane’s body revert fully to her. Looks like she was on her own. While their quick internal conversation had been happening she had missed some sort of scuffle. Soun was lying face down on the floor with Ranma posing triumphantly, one foot placed lightly on the fallen man’s back, the other bore his full weight on his father’s face. “ Oh yeah, try and noogie me!” Ranma crowed. “ You want some more Pops?!” “ Um…Ranma…?” She wondered how to broach the subject. He looked at her and lost the maniacal grin, softening to a sheepish smile as he stepped off of the two fathers. “ Er, you wanna?” He asked, approaching the door. “ I sorta agreed to.” She took a few steps toward him. She couldn’t remember being this nervous! “ Then let’s go.” Ranma announced cheerfully. “ Anything you wanna do? See a movie? Shopping?” “ Let him pick.” Nabiki stage whispered to her as she walked past the pair. “ Um…I’ll bow to Nabiki’s wisdom. You pick.” She said shyly. “ Hmm…” Ranma scratched the back of his head as they walked out of the Tendo home. “ That’s a toughie. Any particular point in history or the world you’d care to go?” “ Not really.” She replied without much thought. “ Err… that narrows it down.” Ranma continued to ponder as they started down the street. “ I’m still drawing a blank.” ” Well,” She began. “ Kasumi suggested to me that I ask you about magic.” “ Huh?” “ She thought I might miss sharing that part of my life with other people. I didn’t think you knew any magic.” “ Oh just lore mostly. I can weave a few minor spells, just tiny things. But I have been to a- hey!” Ranma’s face lit up and he stopped walking. “ Gimme a sec and I’ll be right back to pick you up. When’s the last time you went to a magefair?” “ Magefair, but those are only held once a year.” “ I know.” Ranma started jogging away. “ So I gotta hurry.” “ Alright, wanna change clothes before we go?” Someone behind her asked. She turned her head to see Ranma standing behind her. A quick glance back and she watched Ranma continue to run down the street. “ What the hell?” * * * “ Shit man. You put any more NOS in that thing and we’ll be scraping you off of the sides of buildings.” Tatashi slapped his good friend on the back as they shut the hood. “ I’m only up to three fifty horses. Just two fifty! I need more if I’m gonna do anything…did you hear something?” Shinta turned around suddenly, his eyes narrowed. “ I thought I heard someone laugh.” “ I didn’t hear anything, I think you’ve had the bass up too much lately. You’ll blow your windows out with that system of yours if you’re not careful.” Snatching up his drink on the way out he followed Shinta out of the garage and into the group’s main room. But for some reason everyone seemed agitated. Especially their leader, who held a piece of paper in hands that shook with anger. “ Whoa…what’d we miss?” Shinta asked for the two of them. Their leader took a deep, calming breath and folded the piece of paper before looking at them with eyes that held barely controlled rage. “ It seems we have been evicted.” Their leader began in deadly tones. “ Before you ask it’s not by Yakuza, or another group, no it is by one man. A guy outta Hong Kong, Paladin.” “ Paladin, who the hell is that?” He snarled. “ There’s ten of us, how can this one guy do this?” “ Yeah! What makes this Paladin guy such a big shit?” Their only warning was a brief bout of laughter from the garage. Then the air was filled with sounds of metal shrieking, and the walls shook like the building was coming down. It was over in perhaps two, maybe three seconds. Then the muffled laughter again. With a sound similar to an arrow striking Wood, half of a license plate appeared through the door they had just closed. The laughter faded away with distance. “ That was our first and final warning.” Their leader began again, the anger shaking his words. “ We gotta be out by tomorrow morning. Or we’re next.” “ My car…” Shinta stared at what he now recognized as his license plate, now lodged halfway through the door. With dread in his stomach he opened the door and looked back into the garage. Shinta’s car had been a tricked out Mitsubishi Skyline, now it was a mass of four centimeter wide divots that ran ten or twelve centimeters deep into the frame. The glass was a fine powder still hanging in the air about the ruined car that looked like a giant had tried to press it through a grill, several times, at random angles. The tallest part of the car now stood less than half a meter from the floor. Fuel spread out under the car like blood from a mutilated victim. The only thing left untouched were the nitrous oxide tanks, which sat next to the misshapen mass of metal. Apparently taken out gently before the sudden, vicious demise of the car. “ This…this Paladin guy…did this to a CAR in what…three, maybe two seconds?” He shuddered. “ That’s why we start vacating right now. I don’t know about you but I am still very addicted to breathing.” He felt the hand of their leader pat him once on the shoulder. “ Come on, we need your help. Let’s go.” “ What the hell is this guy?” One of the group breathed after catching a glimpse of the car. “ Some kind of demon?” Their leader paused for a moment. “ Regular people fear people like us. Then there are those we fear. Above them are those even higher on the food chain. Paladin is one of those few guys who’s so high up that I wonder if there is someone that he is scared of. Now let’s move!”