From his vantage point on the rooftop, the figure watched as the red-haired girl chased her foe down the street. The old man, so short as to be ridiculous-looking, was waving around a small white object. The figure's sharp eyes focused on the object, a cylindrical gilt-edged scroll. He smiled. It was almost time... "Give that back, you old freak!" cried the redhead angrily. "Not a chance, sweetcakes!" cackled the old man. "With this, I can have all the panties I've ever wanted!" The girl growled inarticulately and made a lunge for him, but the old man simply whapped her on the head with a pipe without even looking; this improbably sent her flying back to land on the street, momentarily stunned. The old man turned with a leer and stuck his tongue out at her...but his eyes bulged out a moment later as he was caught with a powerful kick from behind and sent flying. The girl blinked and looked at the figure, who was casually examining the scroll the old man had been holding a moment before. He was a handsome, somewhat effeminate-looking young man with a lean, powerful build, clad in baggy white asian-style pants and a blue scaled vest and bracers. Two long tendrils of hair curled below his ears, which had earrings, and he appeared to be using a pair of pantyhose as a sash. "P-pantyhose!" cried the girl. Without changing expression, the young man flicked a rock off the ground with his toe and batted it at her, forcing her to roll to the side. "Nice to see you again, fem-boy," smiled Pantyhose Tarou, as Ranma rose to her feet. "That's a matter of opinion..." growled the boy-turned girl. She rushed forward and made a swipe at him, but with an evil chuckle Tarou backpeddled out of range. "Give that back!" "Oh, I couldn't do that," he sneered. "Something this valuable... you'd probably waste it." "How'd you find out about it anyway?" "That's for me to know and you to find out, fem-boy. I have my ways..." Tarou chuckled evilly again. Actually, it had only been by pure chance he had heard from a peddler a story about the odd travelling group that he had recognized as Ranma Saotome and his friends, but Tarou was enjoying the upper hand immensely, and felt no need to mention this. He noted with great satisfaction that his sneering reply had angered Ranma even more, and she was now tensing herself for another attack. He shifted back into a more defensive position, awaiting the rush, when... "Just one second!" Both almost-combatants turned to see a growling Happousai. The old man was in a combat stance, and was surrounded by a glowing red aura. Enmity forgotten-or seemingly so-in the face of this common threat, Tarou and Ranma drew closer together as they faced the old lech. "Pantyhose, how DARE you attack your godfather so!" Tarou felt a surge of anger at the old man's words. Many people on the street had stopped (from a respectful distance) to watch the fight, but now Tarou felt their eyes on him alone; incredulous, laughing... "Don't call me that!" he snarled, clenching his fists. Ignoring Tarou's anger, Happousai directed his wrathful gaze to the girl. "And you, Ranma, how dare -you- try to steal my scroll!" "YOUR scroll!?" retorted Ranma. "Who fought that stupid monster to get it, huh?" But Happousai cared as little for his pupil's rage as he did for his godson's. After all, there were panties on the line. "Now," the old lech roared, "both of you will PAY!!!" He reared back, as best as his diminutive height would allow, aura hissing like a snake. Surging forward, he snapped out his palms and released a huge bolt of energy at his two adversaries. Ranma tensed to leap away...but then Tarou almost casually reached out, grabbed the back of Ranma's shirt and yanked her in front of him, allowing her to take the brunt of the blast. After a moment, he let his unconscious ‘shield’ drop to the ground in a heap, and looked down with a satisfied smirk. "And -that- was for betraying me to that psychopath Rouge, fem-boy." "PANTYHOSE..." growled Happousai, the reverberating tones of his voice telling Tarou even before he looked that his battle aura was growing into giant mode. The Chinese boy's anger once more flared, but he forced it down and remained outwardly calm as he turned towards the old lech once more. "Pantyhose?" he echoed mockingly. "Sure." Reaching into a secret pocket in his vest, he whipped out a pair and tossed it in the air. The angry red aura instantly disappeared as the perverted old man made a lunge for the undergarment...which gave Tarou the perfect opportunity he needed to plant a kick under his chin, sending him flying into the stratosphere with his new goodie. The old man already forgotten, Tarou started to unravel the scroll when a slight noise alerted his senses. Glancing over, he sighed as he watched Ranma clamber painfully to her feet. "You again?" he said in some annoyance. "You're worse than a cockroach, fem-boy. At least when you step on them, they stay dead." "Shut up, you jerk!" Ranma snarled. She took a slightly unsteady step forward. "Give me back that scroll before I have to hurt you." Tarou chuckled again, with genuine amusement. "You? Hurt me? You'd be lucky to do that in full health, and right now you can barely stand on your own two feet." Ranma's expression became, if possible, even more enraged, as Tarou had known it would. The best way to get Ranma to do anything, after all, was to point out that the hermaphrodite had no chance at it. Somewhat surprisingly, however, she didn't attack immediately. Instead, she retorted, "What are you gonna do with that scroll anyway? Change your name? What a waste." "Sort of like you curing your curse, eh, fem-boy?" Tarou shot back cooly. "Of course, if you'd had any brains in the first place you would have had that cured long ago, before your stupidity got Jyusenkyou destroyed. And, of course, there's also the fact you've had your piddly little curse for...what? Two years?...while I've had mine my entire life." He turned his attention back to the scroll, making as if to unroll it. Seeing this, Ranma threw caution to the winds and ran forward, hoping to get the scroll away. Tarou, of course, had been expecting exactly this reaction, and as the girl rushed in he snapped into a defensive stance. Once, twice, three times he blocked her strikes with his free arm, and then as she came in for a final blow he slipped to the slide, letting her own momentum carry her past him, and adding a backhand for good measure. "Getting a little slow, fem-boy!" he taunted, as Ranma skidded to a halt. With a growl, she spun around and launched a powerful haymaker, forgetting in her rage that as a girl she had considerably less reach. This was the mistake Tarou had been waiting for. With exaggerated casualness he stepped towards the attack and smashed a foreknuckle into Ranma's face, not even blinking at the fist prematurely stopped only a few inches from his own head. "Like I told you, fem-boy..." Pulling his arm back, he launched a fresh series of foreknuckles, most of which landed on his dazed adversary, and finished with a deadly duo-knuckle strike to the throat that sent the ostensible girl to her knees, gasping for air. It was doubtful whether she even noticed the kick coming, but she certainly felt it, flying back to collide heavily with the wall. Before she even had time to slump, Tarou was there, flicking a palm thrust which she clumsily blocked, then using the diversion to reach out, grab her face, and ram her head into the wall with terrific force. Ranma's eyes glazed over and she fell, dazed. Tarou smirked down at her. "...it's not a good idea to attack people when you're already half dead. Well, ta ta. I'd like to say it's been nice knowing you, but it hasn't. At least it'll be nice to have -never- known you." Quickly, he walked a few steps away, anxious to get this over with before the stubborn imbecile could try to continue the fight. Unravelling the scroll, he studied the archaic characters with a smile. No wonder fem-boy hadn't used the scroll yet. It was rather archiac Mandarin, and he no doubt had needed someone to correctly translate it for him. Tarou, whose travels over the last few years had made him fluent in most of the languages of East Asia, had no such difficulties. Still, he carefully read the short inscription, sounding out each syllable in his mind to ensure there would be no mistakes. Finally he was satisfied, and he read the chant aloud, pronouncing each word clearly and distinctly. The characters burned even as he did so, disappearing from the scroll in tiny wisps of smoke. As he finished, Tarou spared one moment to look triumphantly at his most hated enemy, who was slowly rising to her feet. "Nobody saved you this time, fem-boy," he sneered. "After all the times you've gotten in my way, how appropriate that you should deliver a solution to this problem even better than the one I had in mind before." Then he turned his attention back to the scroll. It was blank, seemingly innocuous, but Tarou knew it was simply waiting for the words, the words that during the last few days he had dreamed of uttering...how ironic, that this instrument of sheer, unparalleled power would succeed where his various plots and schemes had failed. But then, he knew better than most that occasionally crude power was the most effective solution... Ranma was up now, and Tarou knew he didn't have any more time to waste. Taking a deep breath, he said calmly, "Very well, scroll. Heed my words. My wish...my wish is that Happousai had never named me!" In response, the scroll started to glow. At first a soft glow, it soon strengthened and expanded, so that within the space of a few heartbeats it was nearly blinding. However, Tarou could not pull his eyes away, even as the light grew until it seemed that it consumed the entire world, and perhaps even beyond. Faintly, he could hear Ranma shout, though whether it was words or simply a cry of rage he could not make out. But all this meant nothing to him. Only one thing ran through his brain: exultation. He had finally done it. He had beaten all the odds. And he didn't even have to worry about building a new life for himself, because now he would have had an ordinary, happy one, the life his name had denied him. He would have friends, relatives, a home...he would see his mother again...this time, things would work out right. Pantyhose Tarou smiled, as everything went black... C&A Productions Presents A New Work of Ranma Fanfiction The Ties That Bind Written By Chris McNeil Original Concept Provided by Robert Morrison