La Femme Ranma
A Ranma � / La Femme Nikita crossover
Part 1: The Chase
By Akraen (S. Metcalf)
[email protected]-=- -=- -=- - * - -=- -=- -=-
Ranma took to the rooftops as he sensed the arrival of the gunmen yet again. It seems they were either determined to get him or kill him. 'At least I'm safe when I'm in my cursed form but I really don't want to be stuck like that!' he thought furiously to himself.
Sure enough, he soon witnessed more of the gunmen arrive in an assault manner below. ' This has gone on long enough! It's time to stop this one way or another!'
Quiet as a cat, he leaped down into the alley below on top of the man who was the last to enter. Methodically, he would take out a man silently, drag the unconscious man behind some debris, then continue his attack upon the next in line.
Four men away from the leader, the stealthy attack abruptly was stopped when the latest victim instinctively pulled the trigger when he felt the contact from behind. Instantly, the others dove to the side and turned to the sound.
Just as he was about to become shredded by bullets, a bang followed by a whizzing sound was heard as the first of the remaining team was taken down by an unknown assailant. Instantly the alley became chaos as bullets were shot in the battle for life. Without a weapon of his own, Ranma jumped for the high ground and soon was racing away along the rooftops to safety.
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"We're clear!" a voice shouted as the last of the machine gun wielding men fell to the alley floor.
"The target?" a disembodied voice inquired.
"Fled, condition and location unknown." the first voice replied.
"Unsatisfactory. You must acquire him into our control _quickly_ now that he has knowledge of our involvement. Take out the garbage then head for work."
"Sir? What about the ones he took out?"
"Dispose of them too." the answer was flat.
"...he didn't kill them, sir. Just knocked them out..."
"You have your orders." replied the voice and then communication was severed.
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"Whoever that was back there they saved my life. But are they allies or did they save my life because they hated the other group more?" Ranma mused to himself. He was tempted to go back and eavesdrop just to satisfy his curiosity but after being unable to sense their presence until the shot was fired he was a little unnerved by them.
A few minutes later and his senses felt the same tingling feeling that he had by now become accustomed to. He quickly darted out of sight and patiently waited in position for whoever had survived the battle in the alley. He was rewarded by his first glimpse at the third party in the triangle. He could easily distinguish these people from the other group by three factors. First was the more casual clothing they wore for greater annonimity. Second was the higher level of technology visible upon their agents. Third was the difference in the agents themselves. Although the people darting by him looked to be just as professional in expression and perhaps more so in reflexes and instincts, the difference with this group was that unlike the other group which consisted entirely of Japanese males in their 20s-30s this group instead had no common theme. Both men and women filled out the ranks. Nationality background was varied as the different skin, hair, and eye colors would attest to.
'What is going on here?!' Ranma thought frantically to himself as he studied them for an instant more before silently creeping away. 'These people are all professionals... _why the hell _are they wasting their time looking for me?!'
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"He's shaken us, sir!" the young male voice was trembling slightly at the knowledge of how this would upset the voice on the other end. "We either need more teams down here or else some equipment that picks up body heat... this guy moves almost like a cat!"
The following silence this pronouncement left in it's wake caused the tension to build up on each of the people who had been sent on this mission.
Finally a reply was given that shook each agent deeply, "We are sending another team in with the proposed equipment to handle the situation since you obviously cannot deal with it alone. You are to remain in the zone and support the new team as backup. Expect them in a day."
The men and women all shared looks of horror and fear with one another at the implied meaning.
"Understood, sir. We won't fail you again." the man replied in a calm voice although the hands holding his weapon were visibly shaking.
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Ranma snarled in frustration. No sooner had he gotten away from the second group than he ran into yet another team of the first group. He had managed to escape but it cost him a bullet wound to his leg. Luckily it didn't seem to have damaged him really and the bleeding hadn't been bad. He just didn't know how much longer he could handle this situation before either dying or needing serious medical attention.
'I can't go home to the dojo cause they might follow me and either hurt or capture the others.' Ranma thought sadly to himself.
Hurt, tired, confused, and (although he'd never admit it) scared... Ranma finally holed up beneath a bridge after first transforming into his cursed form. 'At least I'm safe enough to sleep when I'm like this. 'was his last thought before sleep claimed him once again.
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"Michael, Nikita... how'd the mission go?"
"Successful." was Michael's quiet reply closing off future niceties.
"That's uh... great... listen Operations wants to speak to you two. Rumor has it one of the teams in the field failed to pickup someone Section has their eyes on. A civilian if you can believe it..." Walter cut off as he noticed Michael's expression then continued, "Anyway, I heard they're sending in heat-seeking equipment along with their best agents now and that includes you two. Would hate to be those other guys though when Operations or Madeline gets hold of them."
"Who's team was it?" Nikita almost whispered.
"Tony's." Walter answered quickly then turned away in an attempt to ignore the shocked look upon her (and even to a small extent Michael's) face. Tony's team had a reputation for efficiency almost as good as their own.
Nikita and Michael stared at each other as the same thought went through each of them, 'who the hell _is _this person that he can elude one of the best teams of Section and requires special equipment for grabbing him?!'
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"The subject's name is Ranma Saotome. Up until recently he was wandering about with his father training in every deadly art form known to unarmed combat. If our sources are to be believed he has achieved the skills of at least black-belt with at least 20 of the different martial arts forms. This makes him very hard to apprehend. Combined with this extential knowledge are some special forms which even our most expert of sources find to be both never seen before and deadly in proficiency. Our team in the field was lucky enough not to have personally been victim to his skills but there was another factor there who weren't as fortunate. The tape you are about to witness is not to be talked about even amongst yourselves." the speaker motioned for the video to be displayed.
Soon several gasps were heard as those assembled within the room were witness to the first taped encounter between the subject and the outside factor at the warehouses.
On screen the target was surrounded by a group of 13 Japanese men, many of whom were extremely recognizable amongst the intelligence community. As the tape played on they notice the youth single handedly wiping the men out one by one with various art forms including unidentifiable forms. As the last man falls the tape follows the movements of the pig-tailed boy as he leaps straight up onto a nearby roof then roof-hops out of sight.
The video shuts off for a moment and the speaker resumes lecturring.
"What you have just witnessed was one of our field operatives who had the good fortune of being at the right place at the right time. If he hadn't been pushed backwards in the right direction by a large panda which must have escaped from a zoo we would never have become aware of his existence."
Several voices can be heard talking softly amongst themselves before the speaker resumes.
"After this initial contact we soon had a team posted upon the boy and his father full-time, suspecting the possible involvement of another agency at work. During the subsequent stakeout it was confirmed that the boy is a civilian despite the great skills he has attained."
The speaker paused and stared at the crowd for a moment then again motioned for the video to start running.
"The second group again located our target and after a quick meeting this short chase was filmed.."
The agents watch in awe as the boy somehow defies the laws of physics and brutally punches away many men in the blink of an eye then pick up and carry, _while running_, his overweight father and manage to slowly gain ground on the men while avoiding bullets. Suddenly, they see the boy twist around and a huge ball of... _something_ shoot at the secondary group blasting one man into the air and causing the others to relinquish the chase.
Upon seeing this gasps and even a few shouts ring out from the audience and rapid conversations about secret weapons can be heard.
The speaker stares around at the assembled men and women until they quiet down before he answers their question.
"Contrary to what you might think from watching that last clip he did not use a weapon." again murmuring breaks out and he raises his voice slightly accompanied by a glare, "We know this because our experts have gone over the footage frame by frame and have assured me the energy came from the boy himself. Upon seeing this footage it was decided we should not try to apprehend him in a straight forward manner. Therefore our team in the field were ordered to simply keep their distance and wait for a time when he was alone and had his back to them."
The man coughs slightly then looks around before motioning to the video once more.
"I will shortly show you the last bit of footage we have, but first let me explain why we are sending so many of you in and why we're allowing you to view it. Ladies and gentlemen what we have here is a _very_ deadly situation. Just as our team was waiting for the right moment, the child's father decided to make a run for it. He didn't make it. Instead the opposition captured him and forced him to reveal the location of the target. They then dragged the father to the spot the son was hiding and shot him dead. The last of the remaining footage will show you _exactly_ how dangerous the death of his father has made our target..."
As the assembly watched the screen they heard a man yelling for the target to surrender. As the tape continued they listen as the man details exactly what happened to the father and how he himself had killed him. The man continues to taunt and jeer where the target is supposedly hiding when instantaneously a wall of the building, the taunting man, and _everything_ behind him is _incinerated_ without any warning whatsoever.
Suddenly the room erupts in screams and gasps and several people actually fall out of their seats.
The speaker seems amused at the reactions and with a sardonic grin upon his face orders everyone to remain seated and quiet until the video is finished.
The video resumes and the agents watch as the other gunmen obliterate the walls of the building with their machine gun fire until all the guns run out of ammunition.
The men on the screen then reload and cautiously enter the premises. The video doesn't follow the men but the voices are still clear and distinct. From the sounds it is obvious the only person they found inside was a small girl and a hole leading out.
The camera reveals after a few moments the girl coming out of the building and starts to turn away when the girl suddenly starts to laugh re-drawing the attention back to her.
Upon the screen the girl says, "_SUCKERS_!" then blows a raspberry at the building she had escaped from then walked off laughing the entire way.
The speaker nods as he notices the looks of confusion upon the faces of everyone in the room.
"We almost decided to erase this part of the tape when one of our experts noticed something interesting."
The video splits to two screen shots. One of the pig-tailed black haired boy, and the other of the pig-tailed red haired girl.
"If you look closely enough you will notice a resemblance just from this. It becomes fully revealed though when you super impose one image upon the other."
As he says this the female face is moved over the male face and the room erupts into pitch silence as we notice the sizes match perfectly.
"Except for the different hair color and skin color and very other slight inconsistencies within the face it is a perfect match." the man looks around at the stunned faces before continuing, "so we had the voice experts compare her voice with that of the boy during an earlier meeting... they can't be sure thanks to limited vocabulary used in our footage but they said it is a strong possibility they are the same person. The accent used is _exactly_ the same in both forms. And before you ask which one is the real one we do not know due to the field team being unable to retrieve the target."
The speaker stops once more and takes a moment to look at each and every face within the crowd for a moment or two before passing to the next. Finally he decides to finish the briefing, "To wrap this up, we are sending you out to apprehend _unharmed_ a person who is almost unmatched in abilities and has the power to kill you without warning if angered, and can blend into the crowd easily. We have no idea if these are the extent of the target's abilities or if there are even more secrets we have yet to reveal. He or she could look completely different than both of the forms we currently have identified and somehow walk right by you without your knowledge."
"You each will be equipped with heat sequencing devices in the hopes of overcoming this chameleon effect. Three of you also shall be given a microscopic tracker device which you are to shoot the target with. They are harmless and shall probably be overlooked as a mosquito bite but will allow us to avoid losing him or her."
"Once you find him you have two choices. You can either use the stun gun we are equipping you with to try to stop him before he fights back, or you can attempt capture from afar by either putting something within his food or drink to make him sleep. Sleeping darts will not be issued as he would obviously notice them and consider it an attack."
The man stops and looks around at his best field agents and states, "Good Luck and Good Hunting."
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The assembled teams spread out and began to search for the target who seemed to have went to ground. About five hours into the hunt, a passerby who almost went unnoticed was spotted in one of the strangest accidents ever witnessed.
A hunched over old woman with greying red hair was hobbling down the street. One of the agents unknowingly had even helped her cross an intersection. Suddenly a taxi went screeching around the corner with windows open. Unerringly a filled coffee cup hurtled out of the cab and splashed the hot coffee all over the old lady.
Seeing everyone now staring at his obviously male frame within the tight matronly dress, the 'old woman' let out a curse and then jumped up onto a roof and then out of site.
The agents in the area all were staring gawking at where the impersonator had disappeared to when suddenly a loud voice cut into their thoughts.
"Please tell me _someone_ managed to tag 'her' before 'she' got away!" he said irately.
One by one the agents looked at the three people who had been equipped trackers.
The first two blushed and mumbled apologies as they looked away. The third one seemed about to do the same when she looked down at her hands. There, held out before her, arms outstretched, was the airgun used for shooting the tracker. As she stared at it she realized her fingers had miraculously closed the trigger even while she had been shocked by the encounter. Hopefully, she quickly turned on the tracking screen and stared down at the display.
After a little bit of silence a loud cheer whooped out followed by laughter as they realized the difficult task of finding their target had been accomplished. The cheering soon died down, however, once they remembered that meant they now had the task of capturing 'him' or 'her' to accomplish. The mood was decidedly bleak suddenly as they remembered what they had witnessed earlier in the briefing room.
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Ranma was mumbling to himself as he realized how close he had come to having it all end back there.
'I knew my curse acted like a magnet for cold water when I didn't want it but I never knew it acted like the reverse as well!' he cursed silently to himself.
He quickly brushed the dust from his hair he'd used to adopt the greying look and tore off the dress.
'I'm lucky to be alive... if they hadn't all been shocked by the transformation they'd have had me for sure back there.'
Ranma cursed as he rubbed the back of his neck, "Stupid mosquito's!"
'Enough of that you need to find a way to hide... _now_! They probably don't know about my curse fully yet so I could probably get away with the school girl act.' he mused as he watched two running home from school together.
Quickly he raced towards the nearest "girl's school", prepared to use for the first, and hopefully last, time the skills of Master Happosai himself when it comes to relieving girls of their clothing. 'Only I'm going to take their blouses and skirts instead of their panties and bra's' he noted to himself. 'He would be livid if he found out I used his special technique's in such a fashion.' Pleased at that thought, Ranma hurriedly set himself to the task and managed to relieve one girl of her blouse and another of a skirt without being spotted. 'I bet the old pervert will get blamed for this.. hey almost makes this whole mess worth it!'
Moments later a group of school girls left for home never realizing that a stranger had managed to 'join' the rear of the group as if a part of it.
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"Target is moving again, heading towards your position, Nikita."
"Only people moving towards me is a group of school girls. He wouldn't try that would he?" she asked incredulously only to receive the answer when the group walked by her and the tracker's voice noted that the target had past her.
She ordered the group to stop, telling them that she was an undercover officer and that a lot of local schoolgirls were being kidnapped and... shamed.
The whole group shivered at her words, and she quickly began asking them for names and addresses.
One by one the girls gave their information then were allowed to go home after a warning to look out for themselves. Finally only one red haired girl who wore a small beret was left. She stared at Nikita silently for a long time.
"You already know who I am." she said without emotion in her voice. Without waiting for any sign of reply she asked instead, "All I want to know is... who the hell _are_ you people and why would you waste the time going after me?"
After a long and uncomfortable silence she sighed and answered for herself, "No, I don't suppose you are allowed to tell even if you wanted to..."
Nikita gave no reply, hoping the other agents would hurry up and stun him... her... _whatever_ quickly before 'she' decided to make things ugly.
"Well I'd love to stick around and _not_ talk with you but I've got things to do, agents to avoid. You know... the normal things every teenager does after school..." 'she' adopted a sardonic grin and then departed with a final wave and a cheery "goodbye!" moments before the huffing agents arrived from their sprint to backup Nikita.
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"Please tell me you at least managed to confirm whether the two were the same person and the gender of our target if nothing else!" Operations fumed.
"I talked with 'her' up close and watched her leap away, and I can confirm without a doubt that she is a girl." Nikita stated with a firm resolve.
"Umm... I helped 'her' cross the street when I thought she was an old lady and I would agree with Nikita's decision."
"No, the target is definitely male. I witnessed what happened to him when the coffee washed, whatever he uses to disguise himself, that stuff off. And after it washed off he was definitely male and his hair was definitely black and his chest was flat."
"No way could her chest be flat. I saw her chest bouncing when she leaped away after our 'meeting' and there is no way she could have produced realistic enough breasts in the short period of time we lost her to have those be fake. No I am certain the person I talked to was female."
Birkohf ended the debate as he stated what had crept into everyone's mind, "This whole mess is giving me a headache. How could _anyone_ be able to fool our best operatives like this and at such close quarters? It's like he's some kind of chameleon!"
"Well there is one sure-fire way we can settle this debate and that is to capture him. And please people be quick about it, every moment we spend with all of you there is time wasted from other hot zones!" Operations said as he once again severed the audio link with base.
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"What now?" one of the agents asked as they watched from a distance as the target cheekily waved at them from a table within the semi crowded ice cream shop.
Michael thought about the situation as he stared at 'girl' eating merrily away at her eleventh ice cream scoop. 'It's obvious that she isn't planning on leaving any time soon. There are so many people in there that someone was bound to notice a grab and cause a stir but there wasn't enough people for them to get lost in the crowd... it's obvious that whoever this person is, he or she feels confident that we can't do anything to her.' he thinks for a moment more before he backtracks a bit,' yes she is confident... _extremely_ so...'
"Nikita, she's talked to you before... please go sit and talk with her and see exactly how confident she is... I'm betting she's so confident you could slip something special to her food without her senses picking it up, and with the way she's shovelling that food in she'd have it swallowed before she could see the change..." Michael smiled to himself as his partner nodded once before quickly heading across the street to join their target.
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"Decided to join me?" the girl asked with a giggle.
"You made sure there was nothing else we could do..." Nikita said with a smile and a shrug as she sat down and watched the dimminuitive redhead inhale her food at an almost _inhuman_ rate.
"I bet you're wanting to know my secret..." she replied with a smirk.
"Yes, but we already figured out you wouldn't tell us. So I'll just wait until when we finally get you and find out then." Nikita replied with a negligent shrug in return.
The girl seemed to smile at that and then winked at Nikita before ordering in a yelling voice yet another ice cream and another for her 'new friend'.
Nikita arched her brow but smiled back and said she'd go retrieve the desserts.
The girl simply accepted with an enigmatic smile upon her face and watched her go and retrieve the parfections.
"You eat your share first... some from each cup if you don't mind..." she said with a smile.
Nikita simply shrugged and began to alternatively eat from each cup.
Not taking any chances with the new spoons the agent had retrieved, Ranma used her old spoon to dig in as well and soon nothing remained of the cold and delicious treats.
Within seconds of finishing off the deserts, the world began to spin for Ranma. He stared at the woman across the table from him in both surprise and admiration.
"...how...?" he managed to croak.
Just before his world went black he heard her reply, "It was simple... I just put it in both cups so that we both would get the dosage no matter wha..." and saw her fall face down into the melted remains of her cup without another word, before he too lost the battle with sleep.
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