Engagement Contest Entry- It just keeps getting worse

[Rei-chan]

Okay, here is my entry into the contest. Not quite 3,000 words yet, but this is a prologue. I hope to have chapter 1 by the end of the week.
*******
“Okay, so far this day had consisted of merely being bored in my classes. We all know what that means, Akane. It is really about to hit the fan when we get home.”
Akane merely gave a long suffering sigh to Ranma’s rant about how today was really going to be the one to screw him over much like she has the last twelve times this had happened. Hopefully this one wouldn’t involve a ninja from another world that liked to wear orange. She was still wondered if that was a good career choice for the guy.
“Honestly Ranma, just because none of them showed up and the school didn’t become a war zone is no reason to suspect that the universe has it in for you.”
Ranma continued to merely shake his head and mutter something under his breathe involving cats and glue while they continued on the way home. Upon arrival they found the place rather quite, not exactly something that usually could be said about the Tendo residence, with or without the Saotomes living there. Just before they passed through the gate to enter the property Nabiki stepped out from where she was hiding beside the entrance. “Ranma, ten thousand yen for recon.” Ranma naturally handed her the money before he even had time to mutter about how bad a sign this was.
“Okay, it would seem that you have some new guests today. Thankfully, they are not all females so I don’t think they are all fiancées.” Ranma started to let out a breath to relax. “I believe a few of the men are fiancés.” Ranma’s head jerked up at that statement as his jaw became slack. Akane, deciding that rather than blowing up about this latest occurrence, mostly due to a doctor telling her she needed to watch her blood pressure more, poked his shoulder. “Uhm... Nabiki, I think your joke broke him.” Nabiki’s eyes gleamed with pure mirth at watching Mr. Unbeatable Hot-shot Martial Artist frozen in place. “It gets better, it would seem the men are here to court and possibly marry Ranko, I think your mother decided you were lonely.”
“Oh my, why are you all out here? We have so many people here to see Ranma and Ranko. Please come on in so that we may settle all this.” Kasumi had opened the door to see the lot of them still standing around outside. The two Tendo sisters began to enter the house but stopped upon noticing that Ranma had not moved so much as a single muscle from where he was when he was told the news. Sighing, all three girls returned and drug Ranma into the house. “Hm... Kasumi, if he does that again anytime soon, I will put him out in the backyard to act as a statue. I do believe it will really brighten it up out there don’t you?” Kasumi of course tried hard not to laugh too awfully much at Nabiki’s joke; it wouldn’t do to laugh at a person’s weak moments.

Moments later we see a functioning Ranma enter into the dining room where everyone was gathered. It would seem it was in keeping with his life’s theme of bizarre that most everyone there was fairly strong power wise. There was the girl with the purple eyes and dark hair that seemed to radiate a great deal of power despite her sickly appearance. She couldn’t have been much younger than Ranma, maybe a year at the most. Beside her, seemingly for moral support was a fairly mature looking woman with green hair and red eyes. Sitting not far from these two was another young woman, she seemed to be in a bit of a shock at Ranma’s appearance, and almost like she recognized him as someone she knew. Off to the other side of the room sat two women with the wildest and spikiest hair Ranma had ever seen. Most people would have found their red and cyan colored hair to be a bit of a surprise, but Ranma was used to the odd hair colors of others at this point. Finally, for some reason Mousse was there as well.
Kasumi, ever the good hostess, decided to introduce everyone to one another. “Ranma, I believe you know Mousse there. He is one of three gentlemen who were here to see you, not sure what the other two wanted as they went on their way.” Kasumi then indicated the young girl with the purple eyes. “Her name is Hotaru Tomoe. Next to her we have Setsuna Meioh. Over on the other side of the room we have Ryoko and Washu Hakubi. The one in the middle is Kagome Higurashi.”
Ranma, deciding to stick to his now routine greeting, went on to introduce himself. “Hi, I am Ranma Saotome. Sorry about this.”
Genma decided it was time to get Ranma’s attention and set him on about the task of correcting his fiancée problem so he could marry Akane. “Ranma, this women claim they have a binding agreement to be married to you. Since we all know this to be a baseless claim and the fact that you are suppose to marry Akane, I suggest you get them to leave soon.”
“Pops, are you implying I set myself up with more fiancées? You know damn well I have my hands full dealing with the ones I already have.” As a fight broke out between the two Kasumi came in and served some tea for the guests as they all waited for the squabble to end. Naturally it took its course to outside the house and let to a wet Ranma-chan and panda.
Ranma, realizing what had just happened turned around to look in at the assembled people and found that none of them looked too awfully shocked at what had happened. The two Hakubi women where laughing at what had happened. The one with the red hair stopping only to say she had a new guinea pig. The other two females that were there seemed to be only slightly less amused, though it seemed the one with the purple eyes had cheered up a bit. The girl in the middle was about the only one that really looked all that shocked. Mousse of course didn’t really react, having seen this routine so much he could predict almost blow by blow what would happen and how it would end.
After Ranma got cleaned up and reentered the room to deal with this latest fiasco he wondered if Nabiki had set most of these up. Almost all of the women in there had either immense spiritual or magical power. The only exception was that Ryoko, he couldn’t get a decent read off her at all. “Alright, so how did this wind up happening? Was I sold to you for fish, pickles, or something like a few bucks?” Washu was the first to answer. “Actually, we Hakubi are here due to an old agreement between our family and yours. Its rather outstanding agreement you understand, a few centuries old for all intents and purposes. Our family had an agreement that one day it would join with yours into a single clan.” Washu left out exactly why she and her daughter were there, thinking that the tale of Tenchi choosing some other woman was best left out of it all at the moment. Ryoko, needing to get it out of her system finally said what she wanted to. “So, you really a guy or a girl? I wanted to know before I got much further into this, after all a girl has to know how to approach her prey.” Ranma didn’t like the predatory look in her eyes, nor the fact that the eyes made him think of a cat. That tail/belt she had didn’t help his nerves much either.
"Okay so that explains you, how about you two?” Hotaru decided to go first for her side of the room, seeing as no one else volunteered. “I am here due to an agreement made between my father and your father. Apparently in exchange for being allowed to take some samples of your energy for his research you were to marry me. We just found the documents a few days ago during an attempt to clean up some of his old laboratories.” Ranma nodded to this, having recalled some quack that had him in a lab for awhile studying him as he practiced.
"And you Ms. Meioh?” “I actually have been engaged to you awhile it would seem and had completely forgotten about it. You would be amazed at what you find cleaning out your attic. It would seem it was an agreement between me and your father in exchange for some scrolls I had acquired recently.” She doesn’t mention that for her recently could have been in the last 400 years.
“Okay, that also sounds very likely. So how about you Ms. Kagome?” “Well it would seem that my grandfather arranged for us to meet actually Ranma. Unlike the others, I am here on more or less a prospective marriage arrangement, rather than already betrothed to you.”
“Well that is a first. Congrats, give her the prize folks.” Akane mutters from the back of the room, then tries to resist the urge to facefault when Nabiki walks up to Kagome and gave her a custom made pin that read ‘not quite Ranma’s fiancée #1’ on it. Nabiki looked at the others as they sweat dropped. “Ehh what can I say, I was prepared plus it was a wonderful time to use it.”
“I suppose you all are wondering about that incident with the water just a moment ago, well it’s a long story. I hope you all believe in magic because…” Ranma proceeded to tell them about what had happened to land him with the curse. ((Really, you think I am going to retype that mess up when everyone has it memorized by now?)) “So that is my story. Now then, uhm… what should we do now?”
Setsuna answered for her group, after a beep went off in her purse. “We will be heading home since it is getting late and we have some other business to attend to.” Kagome said that she actually would be staying at the dojo for the night, having already made arrangements with Kasumi concerning this. Ryoko and Washu informed them that they also had to attend to business elsewhere and would be returning shortly. “Sorry kid, but we do need to get back home. I am afraid the old woman here”, she points at Washu, “might try to experiment on you while you sleep otherwise.” Washu began to argue with her as they went out the door. Ranma thought he heard something about not treating one’s mother that way, but tried not to ponder it too much.
“Well if anyone needs me, I will be on the roof. I have some thinking to do.” With that, Ranma went outside and hopped up onto the roof to ponder. Several hours later, after everyone had fallen asleep Ranma finally spoke again. “Marla! Urd! Which one of you two set me up with this fiasco? I know the both of you have some odd interest in me, but is it really a good idea to keep setting me up with these disasters?”
Urd formed in front of the poor boy. “Come now Ranma, isn’t it more fun with a lot of people around. Besides, these ones will bring you new challenges I can promise you that.” Marla appears behind the boy. “Bah Urd, I told you this was a bit much. But if you keep pushing he is liable to wind up siding with us.” Urd of course couldn’t leave it alone here. “Now Marla, you know you were the one who set up that Kagome girl arriving here, plus you are also the one that put Cologne up to her plan too.”
Ranma got a bit weary at the mentioning of the old ghoul. “Cologne? Oh yes I remember now, Mousse was here for something but he didn’t really talk much during the meeting.” Urd nodded at this. “Let’s just say she hasn’t given up getting you into the tribe and decided on a new approach. By the way, Marla and I should be by in the next few days also posing as prospective fiancées.” Ranma just grumbles to himself about how he had to be the only person in the world that qualified for a wish from both rival offices and had to get these two as the ones to appear and deal with them.
Mousse had been helping out in the kitchen earlier and after everyone else had gone to bed had spent some time in the dojo just practicing and trying to calm his nerves. After all, it wasn’t every day you got to tell one of your most hated rivals that you had wound up engaged to them. Hopefully something would turn up and he wouldn’t have to explain it.

[Musouka]

Roast duck, anyone?

Marla! Urd! Which one of you two set me up with this fiasco?

Did you mean: MARA?

[Rei-chan]

Ehh I can never find a consistant version of her name so I went with the middle one. I have seen everything from Mara to Marlr so I wasn't sure of the spelling. I will correct that then on the next chapter.

[Daniel Jess Gibson]

Two stylistic comments.
Tense shifts and stay with one P.O.V. I think you're using Third person Omniscient, but you change that.
Please separate your paragraphs.
It makes it easier to read.
Overall good, but I can't figure out what's the angle for Urd and Marller/Marla/Mara (all are correct, but Marller and Mara are generally how they're written). Also, knowing those two, it's going to backfire on them, and they're going to be in the running too.
The one I feel sorry for is Akane (that's a miracle right there), these argeements all predate the Saotome-Tendo agreement and all of Genma's deals. And most of the prospects are less likely to beat up Ranma than his regular fiancees (Washu not withstanding and I don't recognize where Kagome is from), and most of them are of the `destroy the planet` power level, so the others are totally outgunned. New paradigm. Of course the alliances between/among the newcomers and any of the existing fiancees would be interesting. Washu helping Kodachi, that's just too scary a thought.
Of course if any of the girls' usual enemies shows up to this party, they're going to wish they hadn't.

[Metroidvania]

I also believe seperating the paragraphs would help.
And while your EDIT: patterns of speech (sorry for the typo, Daniel) are better to read, I'm a little uncertain about speech patterns of Ranma and Akane...they seem too...educated, at least in my opinion.
i.e.

“Hi, I am Ranma Saotome. Sorry about this.”

Usually, it's I'm with an apostrophe.

and I don't recognize where Kagome is from),

Inu-Yasha, most likely.
All in all, nice work Rei.

[Rei-chan]

Thanks, I was in a hurry when I posted it on the boards so it seems to have lost all my paragraph spacing. I will edit it tonight so it looks like it was supposed to. Yes, Kagome is indeed from Inu-Yasha just because I wanted to toss in some past life complications for Ranma to deal with. I know a lot of this is fairly cliched and overused, but its fun as heck. Thanks for the compliments and I do know my tense keeps shifting, I have a hard time staying in a single tense. I am used to writing as if everything is happening at this moment rather than it has already happened. Will work on that too before I put this out anywhere else, assuming I do put it out anywhere else. Won't deny I might need to dumb down Ranma but I don't really recall Akane speaking with contractions all that often.

[lwf58]

Ehh I can never find a consistant version of her name so I went with the middle one. I have seen everything from Mara to Marlr so I wasn't sure of the spelling. I will correct that then on the next chapter.

It's "Marller". That's official, because it's how Fujishima writes her name whenever he uses romanji. Any other versions are simply the result of poor understanding of Japanese conventions regarding the spelling of foreign words using kana, and were done by third parties. But they don't count, because if the creator of the series writes it in English as "Marller", that's how it should be. It's his character.
Examples:

[Innortal]

Not too bad if a bit weird.
Marller or Mara, depending on the source of the translation.
Plus, where are the rules for the contest entry?

[lwf58]

In the Site Announcements folder. The thread is:
http://www.fukufics.com/viewtopic.php?t=961
Please note that it's an admin folder, so while questions about the contest, sign-up messages, and other such on-topic replies are okay, absolutely no spam is permitted. Nor may forum members create new threads in that folder.

[DCG]

Good to see some people after ranma's girl side, all tho poor moose.
As for the blond demons name i use mara myself as common and Marller for office use, as when hilds calling her in.

[Rei-chan]

Heh, I know its Dec. 1st today but I really want to finish this story even if it is late for the contest entry now. Here is the next chapter. I admit I wanted the morning scenes to stretch out more, but I ran out of ideas on what to do to keep it going so I just kind of cut it off a bit suddenly for my tastes. Seems I come in about a thousand words short before the dead line.
Chapter 1
Ranma awoke the next morning to the ever predicable drop into the pond in the back yard. He hoped that some day he would at least get up and get the drop on his father once. “What was that for old man?” Ranma began her usual morning spar with her father. As she ducked under a swipe from her father’s left paw she was muttering in her head that yesterday had to have been just a bad dream.
“So Ranma, what are you going to do about all these new fiancées?” Genma used the pause in Ranma’s movements this gave him to slam him once more into the pond.
“Low blow pops.” Ranma jumped back out of the pond and proceeded to vent some of her frustrations on her father. Who knew a giant panda could be turned into a pretzel?
“Breakfast is ready everyone.” Kasumi’s call led to the usual stampeded of people to the dining table, though this morning it had an extra guest as well as a surprise. Kagome was sitting there eating next to Kasumi; quietly eating the food she had been provided. Nabiki decided to start the day off right with some interrogation.

“So Kagome, exactly why are you here again?” Kagome finished swallowing the food in her mouth before answering. “Apparently my grandfather arranged an omiai between me and the son of a friend of his. Ranma is the son of a Ms. Nodoka Saotome right?
“Yes, she is my mom. Why though are you agreeing to actually meet with me?”
Kagome looked over to Ranma. “It is because I didn’t really have anything else to do. You see there was a boy I was getting along with but he had to move away suddenly. I figured meeting someone near my age might at least help me get over the whole thing. The thing is that you remind me of him so much. You even sound the same.”
“Ranmaaaa. You didn’t leave this girl behind when you were younger like you did Ukyo did you?” Akane was standing over Ranma suddenly with her ever present aura of violence and hate. “Nah, I don’t believe I did. However she does seem to be reminding me of someone.”
“I hate to interrupt the possible reunion, but we have to be off to school. Kagome, won’t you be missing a day?” Nabiki asks as she begins to head for the door. “Not really, I have this week off due to some disease or other my grandfather decided to turn in. I will speak with you all later.” Kagome watched them leave as Ranma just stopped for a moment to turn back into her male form. Just before he got out the gate Kagome decided to try something just to test something. “Sit boy!” For some unexplainable reason, Ranma suddenly slammed into the ground and begin trying to check if something was around his neck.
“Ranma, what is wrong with you? Get up and let’s go.” Akane as usual was impatient and begin to head on without him as Ranma finally got up and chased after the sisters Tendo.
The three teenagers managed to get to school without much incident other than the ladle lady getting Ranma once more as they passed by. Another boring day of classes it would appear were about to be in order. There was a surprise due to them at about their third period of the day. It was supposed to be a science class, and rather than the usual teacher in walked that Washu woman from the day before. Ranma knew this was just a sign of some more trouble brewing. Akane however was trying not to pitch a fit about what she knew had to be some sort of setup.
“Greetings class, my name is Washu Hakubi. I am your substitute science teacher for the next few days. It would seem that your regular teacher suddenly came down with a case of Chulock Flu so I will be filling in for him. Now I want you all to open your books to page….” She stopped talking for a moment after taking a glance into the textbook she was expected to teach from. “Okay class, forget this book. Its way too antiquated to be teaching from, they only have 110 elements in it. I suggest you toss your books out the window. Today we will be learning how to create a miniature anti-matter reaction using common household items. I suggest you all take notes, I will only show you all how to do this once.” The class collectively gulped and knew it was in for a long day.
One blown up class room and a severely frazzled school later, the resident teenagers of the Tendo dojo were on their way back home. Nabiki, of course, had found the whole event to be quite hilarious. “And then she told you all the calculations and someone made an error?” Ranma grumbled something about thinking what happened was that blonde woman had called the teacher on some sort of advanced computer and it had led to the accident but there was no way to prove that. The group arrived home in time to see a young man standing at the front door about to knock.
Ranma believed he recognized the person they saw and decided to speak up first. “Is that you Keitaro? What are you doing here?” Keitaro turned around and looked at Ranma for a moment before remembering him from one of his flights across Tokyo. “Ahh Ranma. Do you happen to live here?”

“Yep, sure do. So what are you here for exactly?” Keitaro suddenly looks very nervous. “Uhm... it would appear I am here looking for you. My parents met a woman who convinced them there was a girl here who needed a companion. They forced me to come here and check out this supposedly lovely young woman that they want me to marry.” Ranma stood there for a moment before deadpanning. “Ranko Tendo right?” Keitaro’s only response was to nod his head. “Yeah, you would be looking for me then K.”
“… I should have known.” Akane was just a little too confused by the exchange not to speak up. “Exactly how do you two know each other?” Ranma decided to answer for the both of them. “We both met while flying through the air over the city. Unfortunately we met as we landed in a lake in one of the parks so he knows about the curse already.”
Kasumi opened the door to find the lot of them standing outside. “Please come in. I see you met one of the young men that were here to meet you from yesterday. Do you know if the other boy will be back?” Keitaro shook his head in the negative. “Not sure, he said something about making Shigure pay for setting him up on this before he walked off. I am unsure if we will be seeing him again or not.”
The group piled into the house and they sat around the table with Kagome in attendance as well. Keitaro decides to introduce himself to everyone that might not have been present the first time. “Name is Keitaro Urashima. I am currently on my fourth attempt to enter Todai, manager of the all female dormitory Hinata Inn.” Genma, who was originally going to tell the boy to pack up and head home, suddenly perks up at the mentioning of that last name. “The same Urashima clan that practices that interesting form of weaponless combat? Perhaps you should at least stick around and aid in Ranma’s training. I believe I recall that you are the successor to your schools style?” Keitaro doesn’t respond for a moment considering his families martial style is one of those supposedly hidden ones. “Uhm... actually that would be my sister Kanako. I haven’t practiced the art since I was 10. Ranma, is your father usually like this?” Ranma nods his head.
Before much else could happen, Keitaro’s legendary clumsiness kicks in and he winds up falling before he can take a seat at the table. Ranma, knowing Keitaro’s lack of luck tried to prevent him from falling exactly where he knew he would. Unfortunately this leads to both Ranma and Keitaro with a hand on either of Nabiki’s breasts. “20,000 yen each.” Nabiki didn’t even look flustered as she demanded the money from them for daring to touch her. However before either had a chance to reach for the money or pray for mercy from the horrors Nabiki could unleash upon them, Akane tagged the both of them with an uppercut. The two boys were sent flying through the wall and up into a low flight path across Tokyo.
“K, I have been meaning to ask you. How do you survive these? I know I can take them thanks to my training but you look as scrawny as a rail.” Keitaro shrugs as his response before the both of them find themselves planted head down in a vacant lot. After a few minutes of squiggling the two get up out of the ground and dust themselves off. “Ranma, why do we put up with this again?” Ranma just ponders that for a moment before he decides he hasn’t got any clue as to why they do and just shrugs. Keitaro decided he had best be hightailing it back to his dorm lest he cause more troubles after leaving the demanded money with Ranma to pay Nabiki. Ranma begins the slow hike back home.
As he was nearing home, Mousse stepped out to talk to him for a moment. “Ranma, I really need to tell you something.” Ranma, having caught onto what fate (Urd) was up to had some good idea. “Let me guess, in order to make it so I might run into Shampoo’s arms and be her husband Cologne has declared I am an honorary Amazon and that any man that has beat me in a fight is my husband right? Please tell me I am wrong and I might not tear out all your feathers.” Mousse is momentarily shocked that Ranma actually knew what he was about to say. “How did you know what I was about to…?” “Can it Mousse. With the kind of days I have been having I thought it was just a very likely possibility. You and Ryoga both know I am not as dumb as I let on. I would think that was obvious from our fights by now.” “True Saotome. Still what shall we do about this? I am not allowed back into the diner until you are either in Shampoo’s arms or I am married to you. Either way the old hag gets what she wants and your blood line is in the Amazon tribe.” Ranma ponders this for a moment. “I suggest we ask Kasumi but you might be able to stay in the dojo for now. Just be careful and don’t cause any more problems for this day please? I have already been slammed into the ground by some sort of magic, blown up by an anti-matter reaction, and been sent 3 wards away thanks to one misunderstanding. I don’t think I would take much more excitement today.”
With that out of the way the two continued to the Tendo dojo. Hopefully tomorrow would turn out better, though with the morning Ranma was going to be in for it was highly doubtful.

[Tovath]

so Ranma is Inuyasha's reincarnation huh. Why does the sit still work?

[Rei-chan]

I have two liable explanations for why the sit command still works. One is that Inuyasha's spirit is kind of whiped on this point and will always plant itself into the ground when that command is issued even if the necklace isn't there. The other one is under the assumption that he died with that necklace still around his neck and its magic continues to work even if it isn't physically on his body anymore. Go with whatever explanation floats your boat.

[Metroidvania]

Like the bit with Ranma knowing Keitaro......
But with Washu, wouldn't even a miniature anti-matter reaction cause the whole school to explode?
Some of the dialogue still seems too....worldly, but it's better than the prologue....
Other than that, not much else, like the update.

[Rei-chan]

It probably would, but you know with Washu around the conventional laws of physics and the like no longer really apply. I was kind of stuck on that, it was either an antimatter reaction or a minature black hole, but I saw no way of having her contain that anywhere near as easily so I went with the antimatter one. Thanks for the compliments. I wanted to toss Love Hina in here somewhere and Keitaro was the best choice since he has the most openly manipulated personality.