I vanish off the face of the net after tonight for the most part, until
mid January, so I'm posting a few fragments of things that either I
couldn't finish in time, or were too silly to finish.

This is one of the silly ones.

It qualifies as light froth at best.

       "MOUKO TAKABISHA!"

        "WRATH OF THE FLAME DUCK!"

       "BREAKING POINT!'

       "I AM THE BLUE THUNDER OF FURINKAN HIGH!"

        "SHERIFF LOBO!"

        "SHAFT!  HE'S A BAD MUTHA!"

        It was a typical day at Ucchan's Okonomiyaki.  At least this 
time Shampoo hadn't added marujuana to the okonomiyaki sauce 
again.  Ukyou dived behind the counter as all the chi attacks went 
off at once.  

       A few seconds later, the counter was just about the only thing 
left.  The entire building had been vaporized.  The store and 
everything Ukyou owned, except for one purple wrap around, a set 
of black tights, one bra, one set of panties, her shoes, her hair 
riboon, her giant spatula, and her bandolier of combat spatulas, had 
been annhilated.  Various male martial artists, now butt naked, 
were strewn through the wreckage.  

        As Ukyou stood up, for a moment, all she wanted to do was 
kill.  Kill them all.  Death to those who had destroyed her store.  She 
rushed out, and only indecision on who to behead first saved the 
life of any of them.  While she hesitated, torn between so many 
possibilities, she began to calm down.  

        There were better ways to deal with this.  Ukyou might not be 
as good a businessman as Nabiki, but you could profit from 
anything, even disaster, if you only put your mind to it.  The first 
step was to get the bucket from under the counter.  Quick splashes 
of water turned two of the offending men into a duck and a pig.  
She put the pig in a box and mailed him to a pig refuge in New York 
(the state).  She put the duck in another box and mailed him to the 
pig refuge too, making the return address somewhere in South 
Africa, just in case it bounced.  She took Kunou's wallet, extracted 
all his ready cash, gave him a reciept for the damage he had done, 
then dumped him in a passing garbage truck.

       Happousai called for sterner measures.  She lit up the 
wreckage of her grill and made a long rectangular okonomiyaki, 
then covered it with sauce to make a prayer strip, then stuck it to 
his head.  By now, she was starting to cheer up.  Happousai went 
into a bag for later disposal, after she carefully labelled the bag as 
toxic waste.

        The black fellow, who she thought was some American 
detective, was a little trickier.  She had never seen him before.  The 
first step was taking his gun and tossing it down what had once 
been the toilet.  She found some paper wrappings and made him a 
sort of diaper, so he at least wouldn't be butt naked when he woke 
up.  Finally, she took off her top and wrapped it around Ranma's 
waist so he wouldn't be butt naked either.  Not that she minded 
seeing him naked, but she knew it would embarrass him.

        She sat down on one of the low, charred tables and waited for 
him to wake up.  Ranma groaned, rubbed his head, and sat up.  He 
blinked, stared at Ukyou's chest, then blushed and turned his head 
aside.  "Uh...Ucchan...why aren't you wearing a shirt?"

        "Because you're wearing mine and you destroyed all the rest 
of my clothing, that's why."  Ukyou tapped her foot.  "You and your 
little friends levelled the place."

         Ranma looked around.  "Hey!  I didn't start it!"

         Her voice was hard.  "I now have no clothing except what I'm 
wearing, no store, no job, and no possessions.  I have enough money 
in the bank to buy a little clothing, but basically, you've wiped me 
out."

        "I wasn't the only one!"

        She sighed.  "I know.  But now I'm homeless, jobless, and 
almost clothingless.  And the others don't care.  I can badger them 
until the end of time, and at best they MIGHT apologize."

        Ranma stared at the ground.  "Yeah."

        Silence.

        "Well, you can come stay with me for a while.  Maybe we can 
con Kunou into rebuilding your store."

        Ukyou brightened.  "Thank you, Ranchan!"  She jumped over 
and hugged him.  Things were looking up.

*******************

Ukyou's New Job

by 

John Biles

******************

       Things weren't going too well for Arby's first japanese 
franchise.  The problem was that beef cost too much, nobody in 
Japan was used to eating roast beef sandwiches, and you don't go 
somewhere like Arby's if you're rich.  As a result, morale was 
down, business was low, and the manager, Kimiko, was about to 
pull her hair out.  

        She actually did pull some of it out when the entire staff all 
came up to her and said, "We quit!"

         "Why?  HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME?"

        "Dressing us up in Playboy bunny outfits to attract more 
business was the last straw," one of the men said.

         "This is worse than when I worked at Burger Pope and had to 
dress like a nun," one of the women said.

        They all walked out and Kimiko sat down at the table and 
cried and cried until the floor was an inch deep in water.  A 
splashing noise attracted her attention.  She looked up and saw 
Ukyou, who was looking at the floor.  "Pipe burst?"  Ranma was 
nearby, standing on a table.

        Kimiko nodded.  "Yes, of course.  Can I help you?"

        "I don't suppose you're looking to hire a cook?"

        "YES!  I need someone to man the register too."  

        "Does it require calculus?"  Ranma asked.

        Kimiko blinked.  "Not that I'm aware of."  

        "I can do it, then."

        Kimiko stood up and bowed towards the small wall shrine 
with a tiny statue of Arby's founder.  Thank you, kamis.  You have 
saved us!  "Okay, first thing to do is to get rid of all this water."

        It was the first time Kimiko had ever seen someone mop 
without actually touching the floor with their feet.

*****************

       Ukyou, Kimiko, and Ranma sat on the counter and played 
poker, since they had been open for four hours with no customers.  
Ukyou looked at her hand and smiled.  Four aces.  They're toast.  
She'd already wiped out Ranma, and now he was playing on loan 
money from her, but Kimiko was a much better player.  "I bet 500 
yen."

       Kimiko frowned, staring at her hand.  She had drawn a straight 
right off.  Ukyou was a good poker player, she knew.  She glanced 
over at Ranma, who had displaying multiple sweatdrops.  I don't 
have to worry about him.  Nervously, she twined a lock of her long 
blonde hair around her finger.  

        The front door rang, and they all suddenly sprang off the 
counter and tried to look responsible, which didn't work too well, 
even though they were all dressed in their spiffy Arby's uniform, 
complete with useless visor.  Gosunkugi ran in.  "There you are!"  
He nailed a voodoo doll to Ranma's cash register and set it on fire.  
"Now you will die in flames, Saotome!"

        Kimiko screamed loud enough to shake the heavens.  "No 
voodoo magic is allowed unless you BUY something!"  She grabbed 
the voodoo doll off the register, threw it on the ground, and poured 
Dr. Pepper on it.  

        "Oh.  Well, I'll have a #1 with curly fries, then."  Gosunkugi 
said.  

        Ukyou went to work cooking, and a few seconds later, his 
sandwich was ready.  Ranma got it and the fries, then waited for 
Gosunkugi to finish emptying his wallet.  Ranma swept up all the 
money and popped it into the register.  

       "Hey, it's not that expensive!"  Gosunkugi said.

        Kimiko put away her magic marker, with which she had just 
added an extra zero to the end of all the prices.  "See?"

        "Well, do I get my voodoo doll back?"

         She handed him the voodoo doll back.  "Here you go."  

         Gosunkugi nailed it to the register again, reset it on fire and 
began laughing while he filled his drink at the drink counter.  
Ranma sighed and switched registers.

******************

        "We need to drum up some business,"  Kimiko said.

        Ukyou nodded.  "We could have a sale on something."

        "We could offer a free attack on Ranma with every meal."

        "HEY!"

        "That would get Kunou's business,"  Ukyou said, then looked at 
the pile of clothing in one corner.  "What's that?"

        "That was the last gimmick.  We dressed up the staff as 
rabbits.  The Destiny Production Management Bureau runs a thrift 
shop, you see, and..."

         Ukyou looked over at Ranma and smiled.  "Oh, Ranchan..."

************

         Kimiko staggered on the high heels and reconsidered the 
wisdom of her plan.  It was drawing in customers, but now she 
understood why the entire staff had quit when she made them 
dress like this.  Given a choice between failing and having to 
commit seppuku and dressing like this, she'd chose dressing like 
this any day, though. 

        Ukyou cooked like a maniac.  It wasn't okonomiyaki, but 
cooking anything could make her happy.  She sang a happy tune 
and pushed the bunny ears out of her face again.  They kept 
flopping forward.  Then disaster struck.  "We're out of cheese!"

       For a moment, there was silence, and then the mob began to 
riot.  Tables flew out the windows.  Someone tried to commit 
seppuku, but failed when another person stepped on his head while 
trying to flee in despair.

        Ranma-chan fluttered her eyelashes at the mob.  "Would 
someone please get us some cheese?"  I hate this, she thought.  
Damn bunny outfit.  Damn job.  If I never see roast beef again, it'll 
be too soon.

        Silence.

         The entire mob rushed out, and for about a minute, all was 
quiet.  Then they returned and a storm of yellowish substances 
flew over the counter.  Limburger, canembert, cheddar, swiss, blue, 
chesire, you name it.  Ranma-chan went down under the barrage, 
her arms twitching feebly.  Soon, she had vanished under a pile of 
dairy products.   One crisis was over, but when Ranma-chan stood 
and shouted, "TENSHIN AMAGURIKEN!", it was clear that another 
one was just beginning.

**************

        Kimiko hung a new banner over the front door.  After 
listening to her two employees discuss their life, she had come up 
with a brilliant plan.

        A few minutes later, Kunou walked in.  "I want the special."

       "What's the special?"  Ranma-chan asked Kimiko.  They were 
back to their normal Arby's uniforms, for which she was grateful.  
If Kunou had seen her in the bunny outfit...she shuddered.  

       "A #3 with a special prize.  I'll go get it ready."

       Ukyou started cooking up a #3, which was soon ready.  Ranma-
chan took Kunou's payment and passed him his food.  Kimiko went 
over to Kunou and sat him down, then talked quietly with him and 
wrote down some stuff in a small notebook.  Ukyou and Ranma 
didn't pay any attention to this until it was time to go home.  They 
glanced up at the banner, which announced the special:  You got a 
date with the cute red-headed counter girl for only 300 extra yen 
with the #3 special.  

        Kimiko turned out to be quite aerodynamic.  

************

       Kimiko slowly dried herself out.  The only way she had been 
able to keep her new employees from quitting was to let them pick 
the next gimmick.  Ten hours in a dunking booth was enough water 
to last her for a lifetime.  Especially when Ranma had spent his 
entire day's pay dunking her over and over and over again.

       Still, things were looking up.  We will turn this around!  She 
stood and shouted, "BY MY OATH, WE WILL TURN THIS STORE INTO 
A VIABLE FRANCHISE!"  Lightning crackled down behind her, 
striking the puddle of water she was standing in.  She flew several 
dozen feet.

************

       


John Walter Biles :  MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas         
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu       
rhea@tass.org              http://www.tass.org/~rhea/falcon.html
rhea@maison-otaku.net      http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/

"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you
live near him."  J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit.