Story: Mercury Tendo

If there was anything that Nabiki Tendo valued, it was... money. Alright, that's kind of obvious, but she does value a few other things as well. Her intelligence, her looks, her family... but she also values SCIENCE.

The capital letters are important. Nay, they are essential!

Within her not-so-secret laboratory, Nabiki was luxuriating in three of her valued things at once. For one, she was wearing nothing but a lab coat, a pair of goofy glasses, a frizzy wig and a pair of sturdy gleaming white boots. She looked like someone had challenged a master cosplayer to play the role of 'sexy mad scientist' for halloween, and that cosplayer had gone forth to exceed everyone's expectations.

"Alright, so mother won't let me experiment on Ranma," Nabiki tutted away to herself. "So I can't figure out how he is <i>apparently</i> breaking the laws of physics and biology on a whim. That's fine. That's perfectly fine. There have always been impediments to scientific progress, and a mother's stern protection of a possible future son-in-law was certainly a believable one.

"Oh no, Mistress Nabiki!" Nabiki did a twirl and hunched over. "Whatever shall we do now? Mother is too clever by half, we will never, ever outwit her."

"Damn skippy you won't, young lady! And if I hear the words 'take over the world', even in jest, so help me..."

Right, ignoring the fact that mother probably has her laboratory under surveillance for the time being. Mostly because she would <i>never</i> find out how no matter how hard she looked. Nabiki did a little turn, and stepped back into character as the mad scientist.

And here we see part of Minako’s influence on Nabiki’s life. Because let’s face it who else would plant these ideas into her head.

"The answer is simple then," Nabiki said, cooly inspecting her fingernails. "We shall move our research into another field of study. For example, if we were to examine elements of the occult." There was the rumble of footsteps from up above. Nabiki sighed wearily. "Safe elements of the occult." The footsteps tentatively retreated. "Then we might begin to have an explanation for the mechanisms of Ranma's so-called curse. Rules, hard and fast, that we can use to develop a greater understanding and comprehension of all the mysteries of the universe. All in the name of SCIENCE!"

Declaration made, she began her plans. Moore's law surely applied here: Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from science. Yes, that had to apply here. It simply had to!

If only she knew that she lived in a universe that was literally fueled by love magic and that one of her aunties could, technically, cover for God if He ever took a sick day.

As such, Nabiki put her hand on her hip and confidently strutted across her laboratory, where that confidence really shouldn't exist because... see above.

"Now then," she said, opening a box on her work bench. "Supposedly, as according to a persistent, multi-generation rumour from Furinkan High School,there is such a thing as a 'Love Umbrella' in the school's loaned supply. According to the myth, should two people stand under the umbrella then they shall fall madly in love with each other." Nabiki rolled her eyes. "If nothing else, I'll be busting a piece of gossip, so this literally cannot be a waste of my time."

Of course, to conduct this experiment she had acquired a few umbrellas from school. Nabiki picked through them all and put a little label on the handles, as otherwise you couldn't tell them apart. At all.

...

Except... Except the one that... her common sense was screaming at her was clearly the love umbrella. It had the words "Together 4 ever" written on the side, it had little heart shaped attachments hanging from it., and all kinds of weird romantic doodles. It was so transparently the love umbrella that she really wanted to walk upstairs and hold it over her little sister and fiance to see what happened.

But... But true SCIENCE requires objectivity. It requires neutrality. It cannot be biased by one's personal perceptions. The data. Only the data matters. Only accounting for every variable. So she could not bias herself. She could not allow herself to think "this must be the love umbrella" because the second she did that then the experiments would be pointless. It was frustrating but... but she had to go through this properly.

For SCIENCE!

<hr>

"Admit it, you devious old hag. You got us lost, didn't you?"

Imagine, if you will, two peculiar young women walking by a particular dojo. The one who spoke was wearing splendid robes, and had long purple hair tied up behind her. The other, in front and holding a map, had a much lighter hair colour though its shape was much more wild and spikey.

"Who me? Getting us lost?" the girl with the map said. "Ohoho, now Princess, remind me again which of us was it that forced me to carry the map?"

"So you admit you got us lost?"

"Putting words in my mouth again, are we? How shameful for Royalty to behave that way, I wonder what <i>he</i> would think of this."

Then, quite suddenly, a shadow fell over both of them as, up in the tree above, a girl in a labcoat held out an umbrella even though it was not raining.

"You leave him out of this! Oh, at this rate we might not see him again. Trapped on this backwater of a planet, all the way out in this strange primitive city, far away from him and stuck with only you for company!"

"Hey, it's not exactly sunshine and roses for me either, your highness!"

The shadow shifts, notes are taken, and a new umbrella is brought out. This one, with hearts dangling from it.

"That is a shame to hear," the apparent Princess said. She stepped a little closer to her... acquaintance, and the two of them looked into one another's eyes. "You know, I feel at my most alive during our spats. Perhaps I should have realised sooner, that it meant something more."

"P-Princess...?" the other started to say, but the Princess put her finger to the other girl's lips and shushed her. An understanding blossomed between these two. Their bodies stepped closer, and they held onto each other while staring into the other's eyes. Then, they leaned forward, lips puckered -

The umbrella was then pulled away and replaced with another one.

"In your dreams!"

"You sicken me!"

Notes were taken, and the previous umbrella was moved back.

"Yet I cannot be without you even for a moment."

"You know, sharing Tenchi with you might not be such a bad thing..."

Meanwhile, the girl up in the tree continues taking notes and wonders whether this is a sign of the umbrella's magic, or of the mental instability of her test subjects? Well, there was only one way to find out. She pulled the umbrella away and tried out another one.

"What universe do you think you're living in? Share him?"

Then she put the other one back.

"We wouldn't be sharing him between ourselves, we'd be sharing each other with him."

"Oh, you're such a sweet talker! How did you become this wonderful?"

"Huh..." Nabiki mused. "Is this what it's like to develop a ship? Fascinating..."

<hr>

So, you know how it goes right? You're minding your own business, running that parfait store you've had for the last twenty or so years, when all of a sudden you feel a burst of energy and reawaken as a Demon God from beyond the fabric of this fragile world.

Most people call such a thing 'monday morning after summer vacation', but that's really more metaphorical than what's happening here.

"Oh yeah, that's right I came here to take over..." the newly awakened Demon Lord said. "Then some silly girls in decorated leotards and stupidly short skirts whooped my butt, and the butts of all my best soldiers, and I only got away because I played dead and pretended to be a human while trying to figure out a plan... but then ran out of energy and became yet another ordinary human."

He looked at his hand. For a moment it formed into a claw.

"Must be getting energy from someplace," he mused. Where could he be... "Oh yeah, that umbrella I 'donated' to the school. It must've been gathering energy by turning hate to love for a while now. Man, it must've had a really good spike of energy just now to make me reawaken. You know, the sort of hate that pans out over a trio of OVA series, several anime series, manga, movies and light novels and never really gets resolved over the course of any of them."

Still. That was enough energy to reawaken after all this time. He'd like to say that he'd go back to conquering the world, but he was a changed man by this experience. Humbled by defeat. This was a second chance. A new opportunity had been dropped into his lap. He could change. He could reform.

"Alright! Then I won't take over the world!" he swore. Then, fist raised to the heavens, he said "Instead, I'll take my revenge on those silly Sailor Senshi - and then take over the world! Hahaha!"

"Pardon me!" a young man said, nearly making him jump out of his skin. The Demon Lord turned around and beheld... a martial artist. You could always tell a martial artist if you knew what you were looking for. This kid here, he reeked of it.The way he moved, the demeanour he was putting off, the physique he had, but most of all the stupidly big backpack he was carrying. The boy walked up to him. No fear. None at all. Then looked up at him and said:

"Do you know the way to Furinkan High School?"

"Oh, Furinkan High School?" Ah, thank goodness. He wasn't nearly strong enough for a fight. Yet. "It's about three blocks away. Head right, and keep going in that direction. You can't miss it."

"Much obliged," the kid said. Then immediately went left and kept going in that direction.

"Grah! Humans! You try to help them and - Dammit! He completely ignored me! The only thing of worth in that direction is the Tendo family dojo!"

1. Ranma is busy trying to work out how Akane pulled that trick on him, and then all of a sudden Ryoga.
2. Akane catches Nabiki in the act - and succumbs to the allure of SCIENCE
3. Nabiki accidentally tags Ranma and Ryoga with the umbrella.
4. Something else