RANMA 'N' ROLL
			by Scott K. Jamison
(Note:  RAnma 1/2 and MegaMan per their owners, no infringement intended.)

				Part Five

	Ranma found Roll and Nabiki (the latter still droning Dr. Lee's 
praises) dodging ProtoMan's attacks.  The evil robot had briefly paused 
to don his normal attire.
	"Get her to safety!  I'll take it from here!"
	"Huh.  You're not MegaMan.  Outta my way."
	"You're going to wish I was MegaMan, protobreath.  Amaguri-ken!"
	A few dozen of Ranma's flurry of blows struck Proto, denting the 
robot's armor and sending him crashing backwards.
	"Hey, you're good!  But not as good as me!"  He unleashed a 
volley of plasma bursts and Ranma was hard put to avoid them.  
	The two dueled for several minutes, Ranma's superior skill and 
reflexes countering Proto's inhuman strength and serious firepower.  
Until at last the robot's blaster went #phftt#.
	"Out of juice already?  I'm just warming up!" taunted Ranma as he 
gathered his ki.  
	"Hey, tell you what, let's make a deal.  I never liked Doc Wiley 
much anyw--"  His words were drowned out by Ranma's ki attack, which 
punched ProtoMan through three walls.  Ranma leapt after him.
	Roll handed Nabiki off to her sister, then turned back.
	"Where are you going?"
	"To take care of some unfinished business."
	She found Dr. Wiley directing his troops from a secure room off 
his office.  At least it had been secure until she'd used her electronic 
lock override on the door.  (Dr. Light had installed it after Dr. Wiley had 
once tricked them into an electronically locked room.  Roll was thankful.)
	"My dear girl, what do you think you're doing?  Attacking a 
helplez old man!"
	"Your disguise slipped a while back, Dr. Wiley.  No more damsel 
in distress for me.  This time you won't be getting away."  She activated 
her electric knife attachment.  It made a wonderfully scary buzzing 
noise.  Of course, her programming prevented her from taking human life, 
even one as deserving as Dr. Wiley, but did he know that?
	"I zurrender!  Please don't uze that thing on me!"
	Apparently not.
	"Order your robots to stand down."
	"All robotz!  Ceaze fighting, authorization Wiley Omega.  By the 
way, Roll, did I mention thiz factory iz built atop a naturally 
prezurized zpring?"  He twisted a knob before the robot girl could stop him.
	Suddenly jets of water burst from all the ventilators, beginning 
to flood the factory.  Roll was caught in the face, and Dr. Wiley took 
the opportunity to flee.  Various intruders were forced into their cursed 
forms.  (Shampoo _would_ pick that moment to catch up with Ranma.)  
Others were merely forced back by the raging waters.  Only Genma in his 
panda form was strong enough to beat the flow, but he opted to carry the 
unconcious Ukyou to dry land instead.
	The heroes regrouped just in time to see Wiley's robots (much the 
worse for wear) boarding the Skullship.  The mad doctor's voice boomed 
from a loudspeaker.
	"Zo you thought you could beat me, hah?  Hah!  After a quick trip 
to the prezent to fix my botz, I'll go zomewhere elze in time.  You'll 
never ztop me! Hahahaha!"  The Skullship took off and vanished.
	"Where's Ryouga?"
	"Sorry, I lost him."
	"Gosunkugi you jerk!"
	Akane spoke to me! was his joyous thought.
	A few hours later, Dr. Tofu had safely removed the mind-control 
chip from Nabiki, an operation he would quietly repeat on a number of 
business and political leaders over the next week.  Her first lucid 
thought was, "someone will _pay_ for this."
	Most of the martial artists had gone home, including a recovered 
Ukyou, though in Ryouga's case it was P-chan's home.
	Roll had donned her mismatched Chinese clothes and lab coat 
(lovingly patched) and stood at the gate.
	"So where will you go?"
	"Everywhere, I guess.  It's a big world out there, and I'd like 
to see some of it, and maybe explore the concept of me having a spirit 
before Dr. Wiley changes the timestream completely."
	"He strikes me as the type who will always get stopped somehow, 
no matter when he turns up."
	"Bwee!" seemed to agree P-chan.
	"I guess.  But I'm stuck here in the past, and I'll never see Dr. 
Light or my brother again."
	"Oh, I wouldn't say that, Sis."  The speaker was a young man 
wearing blue armor.  Beside him was a robotic semblance of a dog in red 
armor.
	"Rock! and Rush!  Oh, I'm so glad to see you!"  Roll ran to 
embrace her brother.
	"Like what you've done with your hair.  Hey!  You're crying!  
Robots can't cry."
	"Rock you jerk.  I'm not just a robot anymore."
	"Yah!  Yah!" barked Rush, its chemical receptors picking up her 
human fragrance.
	"I must admit," said Dr. Light, walking up, "that I feel rather 
like Gepetto in the old story, not sure what my creation has become, but 
pleased none the less."
	"Dr. Light!" and Roll hugged him too.  "But how--"
	"We got a letter from a Mrs. Tofu telling us where and when you'd 
gone.  MegaMan ambushed Dr. Wiley the moment he returned to the present 
and was able to confiscate the time machine.  After that it was merely a 
matter of setting the coordinates to when Mrs. Tofu said she remembered 
us picking you up at."
	"Mrs. Tofu?  Oh, I see."
	Kasumi had come up, smiling her sometimes unnervingly benevolent 
smile.  She held out a package wrapped in tissue paper.
	"I packed these for you, as well as some food.  I thought you 
might have a use for them later."
	"Thank you very much."
	MegaMan strolled over to the pigtailed girl.  "You're Ranma 
Saotome?  I'm very honored to meet you, sir."
	"Likewise, I guess."  Somewhat startled at the respectful tone.
	"You know about Ranma?"
	"Are you kidding, Sis?  He's famous!  He stopped not one, but three--"
	"Rock!  That hasn't happened yet!  Remember the rules of temporal 
paradox."
	"Sorry, Dr. Light.  You can look up the records when we get home."
	There were more tearful farewells, but eventually the four 
visitors from the future returned to their own time.
	Peace reigned in the neighborhood for a while, but things 
returned to their normal chaos when...but that is another story.

_The Future_
	
	"I must have slipped a cog, not realizing I was dealing with 
*the* Ranma Saotome."
	"I couldn't put everything in your data base, Roll, and some of 
that material is highly suspect."
	"So, Sis, when you going to show us what's in that package?"
	"Oh, it's nothing special."
	"C'mon, let me see!  Huh?  What are...tampons?"
	Roll just giggled.
	"Dr. Light?  Why are you blushing?  Rush, do you know what these 
are?  Will someone please explain the joke?!"


			THE END

Comments and such welcome!

	A bit of author's notes.  MegaMan is a pretty bland cartoon, all 
told, though I does have a nice "Tezuka-homage" look.  Roll is one of 
those characters that never quite gets used to potential in an episode, 
(indeed the writers seem to shy away every time they realize they're 
letting her have too much of a role), so I thought it would be nice to 
get her out on her own for a while.
	I fiddled with the capabilities of her robot body a bit, since 
it's not really shown on the show what her powers and limits are 
exactly.  Certainly she has powers in some episodes that could have 
quickly solved the problems in other episodes where she didn't use them.
	It's also worth mentioning that I have never played the video 
games the cartoon is loosely based on, which could be considered the 
"manga" to the TV show's "anime".  Thus this story blatantly contradicts 
elements of the video game continuity.  (I suspect going with that 
continuity would have resulted in more action in the story...)

SKJAM!
"But most of all, I think that I am happy to be me."

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