Subject: [FFML] [shortfic] [draftish] A question best left unasked
From: rogerl@usit.net (Tim Williams)
Date: 9/20/1997, 10:27 AM
To: fanfic@fanfic.com

ok, here it goes, my first shot at a fan fic :) hope it doesn't cause you 
too much pain and all

*standard disclaimer here, think: don't sue me, it's not worth it*

*standard first fic (well, it's only half a fic, but anyway) warning here, 
think: I have an excuse for when you say you hate it*

ok, anyway, here goes 

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"What if?" A common enough question, but it seems to have so many variations 
that it is still quite popular... Well, I have a couple "What if?"s of my own.

What if Genma and Soun had chosen a different cave in which to imprison 
Happosai? 

What if that cave (which was in a slight valley) was then covered with a 
nuclear power plant?

What if over all those years, radiation was leaking into Happy's prison?

Ok, that's enough with the "What if?" let's get to the answers.

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        Ryouga Hibki crouched on top of a conviently located (and even more 
convenietly thick, that boy is heavy!) telephone pole as he vainly surveyed 
the dusk horizon one last time for any sign of the tower that would tell him 
he was nearing Tokyo, and thus the Tendo Dojo and the warm bed and bosom of 
his beloved Akane Tendo.
        At the thought of Akane's bosom, Ryouga's face took on a strange 
expression, ie. not a nose bleed.  In fact, he didn't feel at all inclined 
to have a violet reaction of any kind.  Actually he just had one thought on 
the whole thing: "Sweeto!"
        Wait a minute! Where did that come from?  
        Anyway, he was starting to not feel so well, after all.  His arm was 
still bothering him from where that... THING had gotten a bite out of him.  
Now he was starting to feel faintly dizzy.  Maybe he should get down from 
this perch.

                                        ***

        She stood on the street corner cursing her bad luck.  Of all things, 
letting the time get away from her like that and letting the sun set before 
she left work.  Now it was starting to get dark, and even in a moderately 
sized city like this, it was hard to find a cab this late, and it was 
dangerous to walk the streets alone.
        Too bad, because that's exactly what she was about to have to do.
        With a final sigh, she set off down the street in the direction of 
her tiny apartment, not even noticing the shadow that detached itself from 
the alleyway to follow her.

                                        ***

        Ryouga landed lightly beside the pole but wobbled a bit as tried to 
walk. 
        "Damn it, Ryouga, pull yourself together!" he thought.  "How are you 
ever going to get back into the warm bed... and loving arms... and soft 
cleavage... oh, sweeto!"
        Ryouga punched himself in the side of the head.  "Where is that 
coming from?"
        Suddenly, the uncertainty leaves Ryouga's stance and he senses that 
he must be somewhere else, soon.  He moves off in a seemingly random 
direction, but with directness and purpose... In short, not in a Ryouga like 
fashion at all.

                                        ***

        "Come on, lady, hand it over!" the menacing voice demanded.
        The poor victim slipped off her watch with shaking hands and held it 
out to her assailant.  All she can see of him is the knife, glinting dully 
in the hazy glow of city lights.  Bathed in the shadows of the alley, the 
woman is praying that he has all he wants, her purse, her watch, her 
necklace.  Praying quite hard.
        Unfortuneately... "Get down on the ground! Now!" The knife wavers 
threateningly and the woman quickly obeys, droping to the filthy ground on 
her stomach.
        "Heh, heh... *OOOFFFFF*" There is a thud and a shape lands beside 
the prone woman who is too frightened to look up.        
        A minute or two passed before a different voice says, "You can get 
up now, ma'am."
        Warily, the young lady looked up to see that the dark shape beside 
her was her former assailant, now unconcious.  Further exploration of her 
surroundings yielded more information, as well.  A young man(?) in a yellow 
tunic and black leggings wearing a bulgeing backpack and an umbrella was 
standing at the mouth of they alley.  She couldn't be sure if he was, after 
all, a he because of the cloth that obscured most of his face.               
    
        "What's a pretty young thing like you doing walking home alone?  
Where do you live? I had better escort you home to keep you safe from thugs 
like this one," the young man continued, guesturing at the fallen mugger.  
He helped her to her feet, retrieved her belongings, and followed her as she 
began to stumble toward home.

                                        ***

        Meanwhile Ryouga was thinking, "Man, what's WRONG with me, I mean, 
just last week I would have been on the ground with blood spurting from my 
nose at the sight of a woman like this... especailly one who's skirt is way 
up her back and... oh..." Unable to stop himself, Ryouga added, "Sweeto!" 
        The woman turned to look at him, still unsteady on her feet.  "What?"
        Ryouga inwardly berated himself, "Uh, nothing..."
        "Oh," was all the woman could think of as a reply, her wits having 
been stretched a little beyond their end this night.
        Soon enough, they arrived at the lower-middle class apartment 
building where the woman resided and she turned to him.  "Thank you for your 
help.  If you would like to come inside for tea or something, I'd love to 
have you."
        Ryouga wared within himself but eventually his desire for Akane won 
out.  "Um... no, gotta be going... could you just point me in the direction 
of Tokyo?"
        The woman proceeded to inform him that it was 40 miles due north and 
give him some rough directions (like they would help).  That finished, 
Ryouga stepped forward, gave the woman a hug and stepped away.
        "Thanks for the directions, and be more careful in the future!" and 
with that he sprang away to the roof tops.

                                        ***

        The young woman stared into the night after her departed savior, 
still too disoriented by the night's events to make her way up the stairs.
        "He was so handsome... I think.  He didn't take off that silly cloth 
the whole time... oh well... hey, isn't it a bit colder out here than it was 
a minute ago?"  With that the woman adjusted her clothes, only to find that 
she had less then she had started the night with.

                                        *** 

        Ryouga looked at the undergarmets in his hands and thought, "What is 
happening to me? Have I turned into some sort of pervert?  Everything was 
fine until... that day..."
                                        
                                        ***

        It was actually quite interesting the way some new discoveries come 
about.  For instance, take Ryouga's latest discovery.  The Baksi Tenketsu 
was developed by the Amazons for use in mining, but over the years, the 
Amazons gradually ran out of places to mine within their teritory so the 
technique was more or less relegated to the roll of a neat combat trick.  
That and the added endurance it provided, via the training, were enough to 
keep the technique from dieing out entirely.  
        The warriors still trained in the method for at least a century, but 
even the most destructive warrior woman used it no more than once a month.  
I mean, what's the point in using an attack that your opponent is just as 
imune to as you are.  The only fights where it came in hand where with 
outsiders, and those and dwindled greatly in past years as all outsiders 
soon became either to wise to encroach on the Amazon territory or too 
powerful to challenge.
        Ryouga, however, was a different story. 
        He had a much easier time of getting from place to place if he could 
just "remove" obstacles instead of walking around them, sometimes several times.
        That meant one thing: practice.  And lots of it, too.  With daily 
(sometimes hourly) use, Ryouga began to unlock some of the secrets of the 
Blasting Point that had been buried by the sands of time.  
        The greatest and most important of these was that an object had not 
one, but multiple points that would cause it to pulverise.  Each point had 
it's own unique "flavor" of explosion.  Over time, Ryouga managed to hone 
his skill to the point where when faced with, say, a 2 ton boulder, he could 
make it explode into millions of razor sharp pieces, fall apart into fist 
sized chunks, vanish into a mound of sand, or just fall in half, all with 
the touch of a finger.
        Besides that, Ryouga made another discovery, he found that he didn't 
get lost as bad undergroud.  That meant, when Ryouga was near to his 
destination (usually the Tendo Dojo), he would begin to "tunnel" instead of 
walking on the surface.  Three times out of seven he got where he was going 
in a matter of hours instead of days.  
        Though it took him quite a while to figure out exactly how far down 
he had to be to avoid the water pipes.

                                       ***

        Deep in his lair, the old one slept the sleep of the dead.  Which 
wouldn't be anywhere NEAR as frighting if he actually was dead. 
        Suddenly, there was sound in the crypt of the ancient master.
        A faint yell followed by one wall caving in.  Then a form... a human 
form walked into the forgotten prison with his lantern held high.
        "Hmmm, that's strange, this isn't the surface...." it said.
        Too late did it notice the wizened form on the ground now in the 
middle of a leap.

                                        ***

        Ryouga screamed as the... thing... latched onto his arm and then 
bounded away down his tunnel.  Fire crept into his arm where the bite was, 
pulsing and throbbing, filling his brain with desires and voices not his own.
        He had to get out of here, had to get back... to Akane... had to... 
find... some... panties...
        And with that he lapsed into unconciousness.

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Author's Notes:

        Ok, so my style needs a little work, I'm a bit rusty and all.  This 
whole thing was brought about by a thought that drifted through my head 
while I was mowing the lawn: "My pervert senses are tingling!" 
        Um, I'd apreciate any and all criticism (though, if you're going to 
flame, please note that I might steal parts of your letters and include them 
in future fics, and put your name to it... and give you a co-author 
credit... would you like that? to be associated with my bad writing?) and 
comments.  This thing didn't really get proof read, so it's a bit rough, and 
I need a better ending, but I'll probably repost this in a few days to a 
week with changes and revisions done, so fear not.  I'm still a little stuck 
on where to go from here, though I'm going to stick in a scene with Dr. Tofu 
analyzing the mutation of Ryouga's DNA.
        If you can't tell, this is meant to be very comic bookish in the 
American sense (heavy on the origial Spiderman).  I'd appreciate any ideas 
on "powers" I can stick in for Ryouga... though I'm not sure how being able 
to cling to breasts upside down will get worked in... Oh, well. 

Later all

Tim Williams

twillia4@utk.edu    rogerl@usit.net