Heh-heh. I hope you enjoy this. "The Truck" A Ranma 1/2 Shortfic "Saotome, prepare to die!" Akane looked on with disinterest as Ryoga challenged her fiancé to yet another duel. This was what, the third time this week? The only thing new was that Ryoga had managed to stay in the area for so long. In a flurry of punches and kicks, the two moved up and down the sidewalk by the canal. Beside Akane, Nabiki sighed wistfully. If only there had been some other people around, she might have made some money taking bets. Suddenly, Nabiki grasped her sister's shoulder, bringing Akane's full attention back to the fight. Ryoga and Ranma had moved out onto the street, having not been paying attention to where they were going. "Ranma, you baka! Get out of the street before..." Akane trailed off as a large truck appeared down the street, hurtling at incredible speeds. "Ranma, get out of the way now! There's a truck!" Akane's frantic warning had no effect, as the two were much too caught up in their duel to pay attention to anything else. Just before the truck impacted the two young martial artists, Akane squeezed her eyes shut. She had no desire to see what was about to ensue. CRASH! The sound of the collision filled the area. After a moment's pause, Akane heard her sister's voice. "Oh no! This is horrible, terrible! I can barely keep looking. Oh, the humanity!" Terrified by what would await her, Akane opened her eyes. The scene that greeted her was just as bad as she had feared. The truck was totaled. The entire front end was a warped bundle of metal, compressed tightly together by the impact. In the very front were two martial artist shaped depressions. While she gazed at the wreck, Ranma and Ryoga were trying to unwrap bits of metal from around themselves so that they could continue their duel. "This is all your fault, P-chan!" Ranma said while rubbing his arm. It was slightly sore after compressing the pistons of the truck's engine into an unrecognizable mass. "Wrong Ranma! You're the idiot who took the fight out into the middle of the street." Ryoga was meanwhile disgustedly trying to wipe some coolant off his face. It had splattered all over him when the truck had been crushed. Fortunately, the truck had been running for a while, and the coolant was plenty hot enough not to trigger the transformation into P-chan. It was then that Akane ran up. "Ranma you baka! I *told* you to get out of the way. Look what you did! That poor man could have been seriously hurt." Akane gestured to the driver, who was crawling from the remains of the cab, miraculously uninjured. Ryoga was about to go join Akane in heaping the blame on Ranma, when he noticed the tears streaming down Nabiki's face. "Hey, what are you so upset about?" Sniffing, Nabiki replied, "Like either of you have any money! You know who's going to end up having to pay for this thing, don't you? My family, that's who!" Noticing the driver, Nabiki dried her tears, put on her best scheming face, and sidled up to him. "Hey buddy, you don't think anyone's actually going to believe this, do you? They'll just think you're on drugs, or something. Let's cut a deal. You forget about the two of them, and we say you hit a couple of steel statues someone left in the middle of the road. I'll back you up, and if some 'mysterious party' hauled off the statues before the insurance investigator get here, well that's not your fault." The driver didn't answer. He was too busy staring in shock, as the man who just had a truck wrap itself around him and escaped unharmed was pounded into the ground by a schoolgirl with a giant hammer. All he could think was, 'Man, I have got to get me another route.' The End. Note: Sorry, but I just read one to many fics where Ranma gets maimed or killed by an auto accident. I thought to myself, hey why not let him win one of these fights? He can't lose to the truck all the time, right?