All forms of C&C are welcome. 

Remember this is short story out of a larger shared writers universe 
called Superman Unbound or Unleashed.

Lois & Clark the new adventures of Superman is copyright to Warner
Bros. and DC Comics. 

 Ranma 1/2 is copyright to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogagukan, Kitty, and
Viz Video

Excerpt from year 2003 of
"A Small History of Anything Goes"  2035 edition
-------------------------------
The Secret Service are the first to formally request that Soun Tendo
fully train and certify a "Anything Goes" teacher. They send their
civilian Martial Arts adviser Frank Nash.  The man already a grand
master in Lima Lama has black belts in at least four other forms.
Including what is considered to be grand master skill level with a
Bowie knife. Frank is not happy when his promised 3 SA enhancement is
suddenly put on indefinite hold until he can become a certified
instructor in some unknown minor martial arts school in Japan.  Frank
hoping to win his certificate immediately challenges the school's
master Soun Tendo to a match. The next five minutes are very bruising
and embarrassing as he quickly realizes just how outclassed he is and
that Dan and several other agents whose skill he has "polished" in 
the past recognized this and have settled in to watch eating popcorn.
-----------------------------

Challengers and Masters
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Agent Dan Barr watched as Frank Nash paused at the gate slowly 
reading the sign posted on the Tendo's outer wall.  The confident 
smirk that was creeping onto the martial arts master's face replacing 
the irritated look was very familiar and made Dan smile.

Every member of the Secret Service had been anticipating what Frank
would do when he saw the sign. There was quite a betting pool running
about every imaginable aspect of this first encounter. 

Dan fought to keep the look of anticipation off his face as his 
friend changed course and following the sign's instructions headed 
for the  rear of the Tendo compound. He was going to do it, fighting 
the urge to float off the ground saying YES! Dan instead schooled his
features and followed a step behind.

The man who had been wiping the floor with any five Secret Services
agents for the past fifteen years wasn't known to have a fondness for
the agencies leadership and the idea of some beauracrat deciding he
needed more training to keep his job hadn't set well with him.  Frank
had liked it even less when they pointed out that the training had
placed his anticipated 3 SA enhancement on hold until he was 
certified a Qualified  instructor in Anything Goes.  After that 
particular revelation, one of his kinder descriptions of Soun had 
been "Idiot master" and it had degenerated from there.

Still trailing along a step behind his former instructor and current
friend Dan mentally commiserated with Frank's plight, but he could
understand the reasons for Soun's refusal to train or certify any
instructor that was already enhanced.  He hadn't understood at first,
at least not until he remembered a over heard conversation between
Soun and Kasumi.

Kasumi had pulled strings in both nation's government to get several
enhancements approved and had traded a donor session with General
Winston and Lucille to open three 3 SA enhancements for her family 
and two 10 SA enhancements for Japan.  Naturally it hadn't been 
Kasumi that had made the offer to her father, but the girl had been 
fit to be tied when she found out about Soun's refusal.  Dan had 
actually heard Kasumi almost arguing with her father as she begged 
him to take the low level enhancement. Soun's replies then, made it 
clear now, the Anything Goes Masters reasoning.

In spite of his fluency in Japanese Dan hadn't fully understood most
of the their discussion on Ki, but the core of his argument seemed to
be that for the first time in nearly sixteen years his Ki abilities
were improving and he wasn't going to risk that.  Overhearing that
conversation had been very fortunate.  Even understanding part of
Soun's reasoning Dan had spent nearly two hours just getting
permission for the new Anything Goes instructors to receive a post
certification enhancement.  Even then Soun had made it clear that
permission was only being given on a trail basis and might be removed
at any time. The Anything Goes Master would not give up his 
conviction that he needed to the keep his human Ki.  Soun also felt 
that his instructor needed to have a unmodified human aura and a deep 
grounding in Anything Goes aura manip...

Dan was jerked from his thoughts by Frank's sudden stop and the 
unexpected sound of him banging on a door.  Looking at his friend in
confusion Dan's hearing immediately started tracking the movement of
the Tendo's house keeper an eyebrow rose as he heard the sound of a
weapon's mechanism.  Taking a quick glance through the wall Dan
decided he didn't blame Ami, they were expected, but Frank's knocks
were not the normal announcement of an guest or the ringing of the
bell for a dojo challenger.  In fact they bore more than a passing
resemblance to an attempt to beat the door down.  A moment later he
heard a second click and saw the security agent's hand release the
Dragon Fifty back into it's hidden holster as she glanced at the
kitchen's security monitors and turned to answer the back door.

Turning from the house Dan automatically scanned the area pausing to
nod to Rising Sun who was hovering at 18,000 feet and nominally
watching the city, but actually paying more attention to her home and
dojo.  Lowering his eyes from the sky Dan glanced through the dojo
walls and noted Soun calmly reviewing a move with one of the embassy 
Marine guards.  Several other students were headed back from the dojo
entrance rearrangeing themselves to watch the coming challenge. 
Moving his focus to the surrounding residential structures Dan easily
picked out several hidden presidential class agents.  Most were on 
the nearby roofs and were accompanied by a couple of unenhanced 
agents, popcorn, a laptop and a small Yagi antenna.  The last no 
doubt set up to record the secure digital video about to be broadcast 
from the dojo.

The eyebrow went back up when Dan realized just how many Presidential
Ultramen were present, after a moment the eyebrow came down and he
smiled at his own blessing.  By chance Frank's introduction was also
his day to attend a training session and he hadn't had to make any
promises or call in any favors. From the look of things Superman,
Waldeker, GI Jane and Ultrawoman were going to be collecting favors
from the other Presidential Ultramen for the next few months.

A smiled crossed Dan's face changing quickly to a frown.  The smile
had come at the thought of Arnold or one of the other agents having 
to spend his weekend lifting a supertanker into orbit and had 
vanished as he remembered what several reporters were calling Agent 
Waldeker.  The video of his long crawl into orbit with the first zero 
gravity factory hadn't helped, he couldn't believe it was actually 
still driving down the stocks of the companies bank rolling the 
project.  No question about it stock market speculators were a 
flighty airheaded lot, but why couldn't they see past the comedians 
using the video for cheap jokes to the value of what Waldeker was 
doing?  There was no question that the video of the first few hours 
of Waldeker pushing on the huge hull with almost no descernable 
motion looked stupid and as one reporter put it "That has to be the 
most boring job on the planet, it's even worse than watching paint 
dry."  Dan's hands tightened into fist at the memory of the joke that 
always seemed to follow in some variant about "This was a job for 
Captain SPACED."

Dan made a mental note to take some of his free time and help the shy
superhuman with his chosen dream. Despite what the comedians were
saying Dan couldn't shake the feeling that Agent Waldekers brainstorm
and self created career might be more important than the work of all
the other enhanced agents combined.  

Forcing his mind off Waldeker Dan instead looked at his friend's back
reviewing what he knew of Frank's life history.  The fifty-eight year
old martial arts instructor had been hired nearly twenty years before
to take the edges off new agents and keep the "polish" on active
agents. His training methods invariable left his students humbled,
bruised, battered and improved. 

There wasn't an agent Frank trained that didn't dream of seeing him
taken down a peg. Sadly there hadn't seemed to be a way to do it in
the last ten years especially when you considered the fact that it
took at least six agents to beat him in a "fair" fight.  

Dan listened as Frank apologized in accented Japanese bowing several
times before he finally pulled the cord to the challenge bell and
turned to head for the dojo.  Following his friend and thinking about
the last challenge to Frank Dan experienced a moment of doubt and he
fingered the Arkansas Bowie knife just over a dozen other agents now
carried.

Despite his ego and habit of demonstrating just how good he was Frank
had hidden depths and skills, such as his knife fighting style.  Who
would have thought that a man who was a master in so many empty hand
forms would have been developing an original knife fighting style 
that was a match for an olympic class fencing style. 

It had been common knowledge that Frank was a Grand master in Lima
Lama and that he also held high level black belts in several other
empty hand forms, but no one suspected he had an interest in weapons. 

Frank had regularly demonstrated how to disarm or disable people
brandishing everything from an Axes to Whips, but he was never seen 
to actually use the weapons himself.  He always used a couple of
assistant teachers or one of the more skilled students to attack 
while he demonstrated disarming techniques.  Eventually Dan and 
several other agents had noticed this reluctance about weapons and 
put two and two together coming up with four.  Shaking his head in 
rueful memory, the plan would have been dropped if they had known 
there was an additional skill to be added. The proper equation was 
two and two plus one killer of a knife fighting style.  It never 
crossed Dan's, Arnold's or anyone elses mind that Frank was the type 
of person to focus on something to the point of refusing to handle 
any other weapon.

Setting Frank up for a challenge match with a ringer had seem like 
the perfect idea and Arnold's friend in the French embassy seemed 
perfect.  She had won a bronze metal fencing in a previous Olympic 
Game and she could do things with a sword that Dan hadn't seen, even 
in the special effects of a Zarro movie.  Setting Frank up for the 
challenge had been child's play given his ego and he had fell for it 
hook line and sinker. The look on his face when he had found out it 
was a fencing challenge had been priceless and made the agents acting 
as go betweens regret not having him under video surveillance. 

The actual match had made the conspirators regret they had used 
professional surveillance to record the fight.  Their shocked faces
were clearly visible around the challenge ring as Frank used nothing
more than his knife fighting style and a pair of Bowie knives to beat 
a French fencing champion armed with her sparring blade and a skill 
that had taken her to the Olympics.  The match had lasted roughly 
fifteen minutes and ended with the woman admitting defeat and then 
requesting training in the style.  Dan wasn't sure how, but all 
twenty agents present were "volunteered" to help. It seemed the last 
thing Frank needed to get his knife fighting style ready for students 
was about twenty well trained dummys to work out the final kinks and 
bugs.

Soun watched the man remove his shoes and enter the dojo using the
most complex and ancient form of the challenge.  His body reacting on
auto pilot following the correct forms as his mind raced judging the
other man's chi and skill.  There was a fading tinge of embarrassment
still evident even as the anger and determination slowly reasserted
itself in the man's movement and chi.  Soun fought down his own
irritation as he saw yet another master who was completely ignorant 
of his bodies life energy.  It was quite evident from both his 
movements and chi that Mr. Nash Frank was master level in no less 
than six forms of martial arts and yet his chi control and focus was 
worse than a ten year olds, specifically Akane's.  

Soun, unaware a smile had graced his face, at the memory of time 
spent training his youngest daughter, decided to start the match with 
a few chi techniques.  He had seen several short videos of Frank 
fighting including an impressive match where he defeated an excellent
swordswoman with nothing more than very large knives. He had used  
unknown style that was admittedly rather rough, but looked to hold 
great promise. 

Soun had been warned that Frank might challenge the dojo, not that he 
needed such a warning he had already decided it was a likely after 
seeing the echoes of his style in Dan and the other agents.  That 
belief had firmed into certainty after viewing the fencing video and 
had prepared for this day accordingly.  When he watched the fencing 
match he had thought the man was making unconscious use of his chi, 
but looking at him now and the poorly focused aura that surrounded 
him Soun's determination to make him a student increased.  He hadn't 
thought it was possible to reach the levels this man had with a Chi 
that unfocused.  Silently studying his new students aura for several 
seconds he decided it would be best to start the fight with a high 
level demonstration.  It would cut through the anger and give Mr. 
Nash a clear hint at just what the Anything Goes school could teach 
him.

His decision made, Soun focused and the wistful smile turned 
sinister, his hair started to flutter in an nonexistant breeze as his
facial features along with the rest of his body seemed to slowly
distort into something horrifying.  After a moment observing his
challengers body and Chi Soun stepped inside the man's stance and 
effortless flipped the frozen man's body. 

Frank climbed to his feet for the sixth time swaying slightly as he
slowly wiped the blood from his cut lip, careful to keep his eyes
focused on Master Tendo's feet his gaze never climbing above the
knees. He had found out the hard way looking at a larger portion of
Soun's body invariably pulled his eyes to the face and to him being
frozen. 

Soun watched his student wipe away blood and frowned he hadn't
meant to hit him that hard.  His challenger was good enough that when
he moved Soun was finding it hard not to react like he was one of his
current batch of embassy students with the beginnings of a three
percent kryptonian enhancements.

After a moment's thought Soun decided to end the match by taking a
page from Genma's book and mix it with some of the new techniques his
long time friend had returned with. Taking a deep breath and a moment
to focus his Chi Soun leaped easily clearing Franks head as his body
tucked into a spinning rolling ball that ended with him landing a 
step behind his challenger and facing his back. Soun frowned when he 
had to take a half step back to maintain his balance almost missing  
one of the  pressure points as he forced his chi into selected nerve
junctures on his students back.

Frank's mind raced as he watched every twitch in the Anything Goes
Master's feet and lower legs. He had to come up with some way around
this so called Demon Head attack, how could he fight someone when he
couldn't look at them.  It's first use had left him frozen in shock,
defenseless and a moment later sprawled on the ground.  The martial
arts master in front of him wasn't using it continuously, but he had
used it enough times to make clear the only thing Frank was safe
looking at was the legs.  Frank had never even imagined such an 
attack and wouldn't even have known the name if he hadn't heard one 
of the marines blurt it out before being silenced "Is that the Demon 
head? Didn't he use that to freeze GI Jane?"  

Not that knowing the name was helping and finding out it had stood 
off a Kryptonian was disheartening in the extreme.  He hadn't 
believed Dan and the other's agents veiled hints at the abilities 
associated with an Anything Goes Master.  Frank's own meager sources 
in Japan hadn't prepared him for this, nothing like mind attacks or 
maybe instant hypnosis.  Silently he vowed to look up his old 
Japanese Sensia and find out why they had told him the Anything Goes 
School was nothing more than perverts, thieves, conmen, flimflam 
artist and fakers using tricks more appropriate to a carnival side 
show. 

Frank blinked as Soun's legs suddenly vanished followed a moment 
later by gasps from several students.  He had just started to spin 
around in his search when he heard a soft thump and felt a almost 
simultaneous series of sharp burning stings across his shoulders and 
lower back. He tried to react with a spinning kick and a combo to his 
attackers chest and head, but instead collapsed when only his torso 
moved his legs frozen and his arms flopping numbly. He seemed to fall 
slowly as his unbalanced body tipped over hitting the mats on his 
left shoulder. 

Dan watched Frank fall yet again and looked down at his half empty 
bag of popcorn he didn't see his friend twitch several times, but he 
heard him say "I yield Master Soun."  Leaving his bag of popcorn Dan 
jumped to his feet and hurried over to his friend as Soun rolled him 
over and pressed several spots on his back.  He nervously bowed to 
Soun as Frank let out a hiss and clumsily came to his feet and 
staggard a slow circle shaking his arms and feet.  Finally the man 
seemed to feel confident enough in the control of his limbs to give 
Soun a deep bow and say "Master Soun I humbly request permission to 
train in Anything Goes."

Formally accepting his new student Soun studied his Chi and felt
vindicated. The respect he could see in Frank's aura wouldn't have
been present and more importantly this hatchling instructor would be
convincing himself that it was the almost mythical power of a
kryptonian enhancement that had beaten him.  

Turning down a enhancement and ignoring his oldest daughter's 
attempts to convince him otherwise had been the hardest thing he had
done in years.  Sighing Soun watched as Frank was almost mobbed by 
agents each trying to be among the first to rib him about his loss. 
Soun wanted an enhancement, but he didn't feel right in getting one. 
Not when he was going to require all potential Anything Goes
instructors to do without.  He wasn't a hypocrite like his
cursed master taking every advantage over his students.  He didn't
equate fearful disgust with respect.  He wouldn't place his own
desires ahead of the future of the school.  He wasn't his best friend
a prodigy in the art almost hamstrung by his own lazyness.  

Fighting back the tears Soun looked toward his wife's shrine and
remembered the vow she had require of him the day she agreed to marry
him.  A vow he had forgotten the day she died. Silently he remembered
that vow and renewed it again.  Promising his wife that he would have
something respected to leave her children, something that would cover
the secret shame of her family.
--------------------------------------------------------------------


This is a Fanfic set in the Superman Unbound Shared Universe.
----------------------------
http://www.geocities.com/supermanunbound/index.html
---------------------------

howard melton

God bless




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