Standard disclaimers apply. If you recognize anyone here from an anime series, then I don't own them. If I did, then I'd be living the high life, sitting in a lounge chair and sipping root beer from a mug the size of my BMW, not writing this.

Director's Cut
Take 2

********************************************************************************** This was the moment of truth. The climax. The point of no return. This was the single moment where fate would rear its ugly head and make the final decision.
Black Dragon sat at one end of the table, his piercing gaze boring imaginary holes into his arch-enemy, the antagonist and bane of his career.
The director looked to side at his assistant, who if anything seemed more nervous than he was.

The producer looked up from the expense report, and raised an eyebrow.

BD deflated instantly. That was not a good sign.

"Now let's be completely honest here, Dragon," the fat, heavy-set man began, as he stood up from out of his chair.
"The recording you sent me was nothing short of ridiculous. It's quite obvious your project has failed."
The producer took a sip of his coffee, then continued.
"Your actors aren't even following the script, you destroyed the entire studio you were using, nearly all the studio workers are dead, and you've spent your entire budget allowance on the filming of the first episode."
Max was quick to defend his boss. "And you'll note that not a single one of those incidences is his fault!"
The producer shook his head. "You can say that, but it is up to the director to maintain order on the set. Your actors have no discipline, and you have no regard for the lives of your lower-level employees!"
The producer calmed down, then looked out the window. "I simply have to terminate this project. It's getting too far out of hand! Why, just last night I was kept up all night by two people 'fooling around' just outside my house! Later, one of them was identified as Saotome!"
The producer wiped his brow, then looked at Max. "Did they ever find out who the other was?"
Max nodded sheepishly. "I believe it was your daughter, sir."
The older man quickly fell over, knocking his chair on top of himself in the process.

Black Dragon leaned forward over the desk.
"You really shouldn't be facefaulting at your age, sir. It's dangerous for real people."
The producer recovered and stood up, dusting himself off.
"I'm sorry, but you're all fired! Now please go!"
BD sighed. "All right sir. I understand. But before I go, could I please have the honor of opening your window?"
The producer blinked, obviously confused. "Er, sure. Go right ahead."

True to his word, Black Dragon walked to the side of the office and opened the window, quickly stepping to the side as he did so. A thick green vine shot into the room, grabbed the producer, and dragged him outside before the overweight man could even scream.

Black Dragon dusted off his hands, and Max nodded approvingly.
"Good thing we had a plan B."
BD nodded. "Right. Make sure to write a letter thanking the Blue Seed 9 people for the use of their Aragami."

Max nodded and jotted the note down on a notepad as they exited the office.
"Let's see... we'll need a new producer... try to get someone from Disney. They have the real money."
Max nodded again. "What shall we do in the meantime? We're almost broke."
BD stopped for a moment. "Hmmmmm...... what's the average death rate of the studio workers?"
Max took out a spreadsheet and scanned it. "99%."
BD blinked. "Who survived?"
"The special effects assistant. He was sick."
BD looked thoughtful for a moment. "Take out life insurance policies on all the new hires, with me as the benefactor. Tell all the new guys that it's because they're so valuable."
Max and Black Dragon laughed evilly at the prospect as the note was written.

Max looked over the figures and smiled. "All right, that should easily cover expenses. Except we don't have a studio."
Black Dragon smiled. "No problemo."
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Waaaaagh!"
"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"
"Ack! Help!"
"Let go of me! Aaaaaaaaaah!"

With a futile scream of protest, another member of the cast of Geobreeders came sailing out of the studio doors, rolling and tumbling on the ground to a halt.
Maki Umezaki got up and shook her fist at the intruders threateningly.
"You won't get away with this! We've got rights! You'll be hearing from my lawyer!"
Max didn't even blink as Ryoga tossed Taba outside next to his co-workers.
"Yeah, well you won't be hearing from him, if he works up the guts to set up a meeting. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!"
Takami Sakuragi got up as the doors slammed shut. "Something tells me we'd better just leave."
"No way!" Maki growled. "These low-lifes are gonna eat lead, soon as I get my hands on an M-16!!"
Taba got up and rubbed his head. "Geez, those guys are tough. Wait... what's that sound?"

A low rumble soon turned into a heavy tremor, as the studio doors burst open and a river of cats ran down the Kagura employees.
Taba and the others had just started to peel themselves off the ground when the sound of gunfire filled the room, and they were again trampled, this time by the Hounds.

Irie turned back and yelled at their tormentors as his subordinates fled. "We'll be back! Your days are numbered!"
"Get lost, loser!"
A jet of purple flame shot out of a window, and nearly incinerated the executive, who opted to flee like his fellow Hounds.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Max blew some smoke from his left gauntlet as he walked back into the studio.
"Area clear sir! We can begin filming at your command!"
Black Dragon steepled his fingers together in a classic Gendo Ikari pose.
"Excellent. I trust there are no further problems?"
Max's smile faded. "Actually, there are."
BD would've facefaulted, but he wasn't an anime character. Instead he stumbled just enough to knock over a heavy camera, which crushed a hapless stagehand.

"Oh my God! Bill!"
"Don't worry, he was insured."

BD and Max snickered at that, before their faces turned serious.
"So what's the problem?"
"All the Ranma 1/2 sets were destroyed. Right now all we have are the Geobreeder sets."
"Which are?"
"An office, Taba's apartment, another office, and a construction site."
BD thought that over.
"Crud."
"My words exactly sir."
BD sighed and leaned back in his director's chair.
"Get Ranma and Kuno in here. Oh, and Ranko too. We'll have to go straight to the first Ranma/Kuno battle."
Max blinked. "And it'll take place in an abandoned construction site?"
BD nodded. "Right. Send someone to go get my actors."

One of the stagehands was sent, and a moment later Kuno came onto the set, rehearsing the script one more time before filming.
Then a scream, followed by an explosion echoed throughout the studio, followed by Ranma and Ranko appearing on the set, both looking flustered as they hastily adjusted their clothes.

"Did you kill him?" It was a rhetorical question.
Ranko's blush deepened slightly. "Well he should've knocked first!"

Max appeared, and handed Kuno a cat.
"All right, everyone on the set! We're going straight to the Kuno/Ranma battle!"
"Wait!!" Ranma looked panicked.
"What is it now?"
Ranma pointed a quivering hand at the cat Kuno was holding. "That's supposed to be a doll!"
Kuno nodded. "Yes, what do I do with this?"
Max shrugged. "We don't have the props, so we have to improvise. All we've got is lots and lots of cats right now."
"G-g-great......." said Ranko, from her position hiding behind Ranma.

BD yawned. "Can we get a move on? I'd like to wrap this up before the new backdrops arrive!"

Max shoved Ranma and Kuno on the set, right next to a service area. The cat started meowing indignantly, and Ranma tried his best not to flee in terror.

BD yelled into his microphone. "You know the lines people! Action!"

"Wh-what do you w-want K-Kuno?" Ranma stammered.
Kuno frowned, and thrust the cat into his face. "Here!"
*Pow!*
"K-keep that thing away from me!!"

"Cut! Kuno, don't shove it in his face, all right?"
Kuno peeled himself off the steel support beam. "What kind of a man is afraid of cats?"
"Hey!" Ranko called from the sidelines, "I'm scared of cats too! So don't make fun of him!"
Kuno grumbled something incoherent and collected the small kitten.
"Try moving ahead a little bit, okay? Action!"

Kuno rested his bokken on his shoulder and glared at Ranma.
"I want to know why I must give this to you! What is your connection to the pigtailed girl?!"
"What? None of your business!"
Ranma turned around and started to walk away.
"You'd better just forget about her. If I have anything to say about it, you'll never see her again."

Kuno started to respond, but at that moment the cat jumped out of his arms, and started running in Ranma's direction.
Ranma, predictably, jumped onto a nearby pile of concrete pipes out of fear, which offset the precarious balance that the studio's previous owners had set for the props. The heavy pipes started rolling off the set, knocking over equipment and crushing nearby workers.

BD watched as the small kitten ran across the studio, only to run through a wall and disappear.
Max looked expectantly at his boss, ignoring the panic of the employees below.
Black Dragon took a remote control out of his pocket, then pushed a small blue button. Almost instantly, a waterfall appeared above Ranma, drenching him to the bone.

"Cut! Ranko, your turn!"
Max gave him a look.
BD rolled his eyes. "Well we can't expect everything to go smoothly, can we? In situations like this, we must improvise."
Max shrugged. "I guess. We've been doing a lot of that lately."
Kuno pulled himself free of the oversized construction materials. "Are we still following the script?"
Ranko glanced at the director. "Yeah, I don't remember a scene like this anywhere."
BD rubbed his temples in frustration. "Look, here's how it goes: Kuno, you hug Ranko, Ranko, you slug him one, then a tub falls on his head and you get splashed with hot water."
Max tapped his employer on the shoulder.
"You have those events out of order, and we don't know where Nabiki is-"
"It's too late now! Action!"

Kuno, looking rather unsure of himself, quickly approached Ranko with his arms outstretched.
"Pigtailed girl! At last!"
Before he could get his arms around her, she gave him a haymaker to the jaw, sending him reeling backwards into a pole. The vibration caused a good 1/10 of the structure to collapse instantly, and a steel I-beam fell onto Kuno.
The impact of the beam hit a water line, which shot a quick spray of hot water onto Ranko.

BD blinked. "Uh, what happened to the tub?"
Max flinched. "We didn't plan any of that, sir."
Ranko looked worried. "Did I get that right? Or was I supposed to let him hug me, then hit him?"
Ranma looked at the remains of the set. "I wouldn't worry about it too much."
"Was the entire set rigged to fall apart like that?"
Max nodded. "Yes sir. That is more or less the Geobreeders theme."
"Crud. All right people, everybody take 5! Is Kuno all right?"
"There's a question I thought I'd never hear," Ranma commented.

Max walked up to the kendoist, who had obviously been knocked out by the beam. A quick electric shock woke him up, but he still looked dizzy.
"Kuno, how many fingers am I holding up?" Max held up a palm with his fingers spread out.
"Wh-what? Which hand?"
Max sweatdropped. "He's not okay!"
Muttering curses in some obscure foreign language, BD took out his remote control.
"Figures. I didn't want to have to do this, but..."
Pushing a yellow button on the top, a little antennae popped out of the device. "MEDIC!!!"

Those nearest to Kuno's body were wondering what was going on when a blue square appeared out of nowhere and expanded.
When Washu stepped out of it in full nurse garb, everyone in the vicinty dove for cover, as far away from Kuno's prone form as possible.

"What seems to be the trouble?"
BD gave his 'everything will be all right' look in response to the numerous worried expressions he was recieving.
"Kuno's barely conscious right now. We need him more conscious. And maybe give him a few painkillers too, he'll need them."
Washu gave a smile that sent chills down the spines of everyone present.
"Right away! It's no problem at all for the greatest scientific genius in the universe!"
Washu then gave her long, evil laugh (TM), and those closest to her shuddered violently. They quickly found things to do elswhere.
Taking out a large, liquid-filled cylinder with a vise on one end, she approached her hapless victim and clamped the vise over Kuno's arm. Then the mad scientist pushed a button on the side and stepped back.

Ranma cautiously looked at the label on the cylinder.
"Morphine X? Is that stuff safe?"
Washu grinned. "No, not really. But I won't let little details like that stop me!"

Once the canister had emptied, Washu packed it up in her dimensional pocket and started to step through her transportation gate.
"Just give him a good shock to wake him up. He should be fine...... for at least 8 minutes. I'll send you my bill. Bye bye!"
Everyone in the room collectively released the breaths they had been holding as she stepped through the portal and disappeared.

BD nodded in Max's direction, and his assistant raised a gauntlet in Kuno's direction.
A purple stream of electricity leapt out of Max's arm, frying 8 stagehands and missing Kuno completely.
Ranma shook his head. "You did that on purpose."
Max grinned sheepishly and fired again, this time only reducing 3 workers to ashes and striking Kuno directly.

The kendoist shot up like a cat poked with a cattle prod, his eyes wide.

BD nodded approvingly. "Good, good. Now Kuno, you....... ah, what are you doing?"
Kuno was in fact rapidly attacking Ranma, chasing the young actor/martial artist all over the set.
"Hey! We're not filming yet, stupid! Cut it out!" Ranma leapt up onto one of the support beams of the building.
"Die knife!" Kuno snarled, then leapt after him.

"Er, that's 'knave'," Max added feebly.

Kuno slashed at Ranma, and ended up cutting a wooden board in two.
"You will fly by the blight of the flu dunder!!" Kuno attacked again, his aim slightly better than his speech.

Max sweatdropped. "He doesn't appear to be fully coherent."
BD smacked himself in the forehead. "Nuts. Crud. Fudge. Bloody hell. Sentai."
Black Dragon snapped his fingers, and Max handed him a Coke, which he downed as quickly as possible.
"Well there's nothing we can do now. Action!"
Max blinked. "You're going to film this?"
BD gave him a flat look. "Do I really have a choice?"
"C'mon Ranma! Kick his ass!" Ranko cheered on her boyfriend.

Ranma ducked under a horizontal swing, and gave Kuno a punch to the gut. The kendoist didn't even flinch from the blow, and tried to bring his elbow down on Ranma's head.
Slipping between Kuno's arms, Ranma gave him a kick to the head, which propelled him away from his foe. Again this didn't stop Kuno who charged afterwards immediately.
Ranma jumped over him, then gave him a kick in the back, which sent Kuno crashing into a steel beam. Ranma glowed blue briefly, then threw a ki blast at Kuno, which destroyed the beam and sent Kuno off the building's structure.

"Wait! Wait! You don't know that attack yet!" Max yelled.
Black Dragon took a small vial of over-the-counter pills out of his jacket and downed the contents.

Kuno was only on the ground for a moment before he jumped up, then charged Ranma, who was still overhead on the building.
For reasons still not understood, Kuno didn't jump, and ended up running straight into a support beam.
At that exact moment the drugs wore off, and Kuno fell onto his back, unconscious.

Ranma walked up to Kuno's prone form cautiously, and poked it with his foot. When he didn't get a response, Ranma gave him a good kick to the side.
"Hmph. That was only 4 minutes. What a gyp."
"Ranma, there's something you should know about Kuno. When he gets mad, he's really hard to beat!"

Everyone in the studio turned to look at Akane, who was standing at one end of the decimated construction yard.
Realizing that she was the center of attention, she scratched the back of her head sheepishly.
"I'm sorry, did I miss my cue?"
*Crash*
There was a collective facefault from everyone present except Kuno and BD, the former because he was blacked out and the latter because he was overdosed on painkillers.
The vibrations caused one of the stage lights to fall from its mount, squashing a camera man.
Max stood up shakily. "All right. We can work with this...... boss?"
Black Dragon waved to him slightly. "Go get a stretcher for Kuno. Get a janitor in here to wipe up the blood and ashes. Get that tape into editing. Frame the cast of Geobreeders for the recent deaths and have them locked away so they can't mount a counter-attack against this studio. Give Ranma a raise. Make-"
"Er, why give Saotome a raise sir? He has a contract."
"DON'T INTERRUPT ME!!! I'M ON A ROLL HERE!! Now make sure there's fresh fruit in the dressing rooms. Oh, and plan a celebration buffet for the actors. Make it in honor of...... less than 82 work-related deaths this month."
"So far," Max added.
"Yeah, whatever. And get me some more o' this. That is some gooooooooooood sh-"
"Um sir, maybe you should lie down for a moment," Max sweatdropped as BD swayed in his chair unsteadily.
"Yes...... lie down...... that's a good idea......" *Thud*
Ranma walked by with Ranko hanging on his arm.
"Is the director out of it?"
Max nodded his head. "Yeah, and you're getting a raise. Send me a copy of your contract."
"Nice!"
Max rolled his eyes. "Yes, it is. And he'll certainly regret it when he regains consciousness."

Max took out a notepad and started writing down his employer's requests, when the remaining three studio workers approached him cautiously.
"Um, Mr. Nova, sir?"
"Yeah?" He didn't look up.
The camera man who had spoken gulped and started to shuffle his feet.
"Wh-when we took this job, we really weren't aware of how dangerous it was. Could we possibly be dismissed?"
Ranma chuckled. "At this rate, we'll need to raid the Bubblegum Crisis set for body bags."
Max looked up at the men and smiled. "Sure, no problem! Just step right over there, into our resignation office!"
The employees quickly bowed. "Yes sir! Thank you sir!"

After they rushed behind a heavy, iron door set on the side of the studio, Max went back to his writing. Casually lifting a gauntlet in the direction of the doors, a long metal tentacle lashed out, closing and locking the door.

Ranko frowned as screams rang out from behind the door. "That was mean."
Max didn't look up. "Their bloody demise is paying your contract, so don't complain."
Ranko sighed.
"Hey, Ranko! They've got ice cream over in the snack cart!" Ranma munched on a donut, and kicked aside a corpse that was getting blood on his feet.
"Ooh, ice cream!"

Max tallied up the total deaths. On the plus side, they had made over $80,000,000 on the various fatalities. On the minus side, the celebration luncheon would have to be in honor of less than 84 work-related deaths.
Max sighed. 'Sometimes I wonder if I get paid enough for this.'

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

Author's Notes:
Another take done! Now some of you might be asking, "Why the **** did you decide to continue this?" The answer is simple. People asked for it. Two people, to be exact, but it doesn't take much to motivate me. I'm wondering if I should really do another take. To tell you the truth, this stuff is starting to scare even me, and I wrote it! Oh well, you know where to send your comments.