Power and Responsibility: Prologue

Walking home alone from school, Ranma casually whistled a tuneless 
melody. Life was good at the moment for Ranma. Soon he would be 
moving back home to his own home with his mother. Even better, she 
had forbidden all of his fiances, including Akane, from coming onto 
her property because of the ring incident that had demolished her 
home. Of course this had enraged his harem to the point of almost 
attacking the Saotome matricarch, in front of Ranma, no less. Now 
the fiances were on probation, imposed by his mother, and were on 
their very best behavior. None of them wanted their claim on Ranma 
nullified by his mother. To Ranma, all this meant that he now had 
a peaceful place to relax and train, a sanctuary. He absolutely 
couldn't wait till the next time Ryoga showed up. If he broke anything 
there was a good chance that the family would be eating bacon for 
breakfast the next morning. Ranma decided not to let it go that far. 
He would stop his mom from killing the pig right after she had maimed 
him a little.

As he was about to jump over an intersection, Ranma saw through the 
corner of his eye, a small black object lying on the sidewalk. It 
caught his attention because it was flashing darkness, literally 
causing a shadow, a foot in diameter to appear and disappear around 
it every second. Thinking that it may be valuable to Cologne, she 
did have all that magic crap, he walked off the fence instead of 
jumping and landed next to the object. Between being closer to it 
and the longer interval of flashes, Ranma was able to see that the 
object was a small cube and not entirely black; silver ran like 
veins through the cube. The closer his hand came to grasping it 
the longer it took to flash, until finally when he picked it up, 
it stopped completely. Before he could straighten, Ranma's world 
went dark.
****

He was standing on a vast expanse of black stone with streaks of 
silver running through it. The cube was no longer in his hand. The 
sky was a white void and there were no landmarks in sight.

"Damn, damn, damn!" Ranma's shout echoed hollowly. How an echo was 
even possible where nothing existed to return the sound was lost 
on Ranma."Why does this shit always happen to me? Now I've been 
abducted by aliens!"

For nothing more than stress relief, Ranma gathered as much chi as 
he could in his hand and flung it carelessly of toward the horizon. 
The concussion from the explosion as the blast struck, even miles 
away, nearly knocked Ranma off his feet.

"How does host accomplish this?" someone asked from behind him. Ranma 
spun, eager to find someone to explain waht in hell was going on. He 
jumped back in suprise when he was confronted by a floating ball of 
the same silver-streaked black stone."How does host create energy 
weapons without mechanical mean?"

Ranma gaped at the talking ball. Maybe he had just fallen off the fence 
and hit his head. That must be it. He wasn't really on another planet 
and that ball wasn't really talking to him. All he had to do was let 
the delusion play out and he could wake up, just like in the movies."Why 
do you keep calling me host? My name's Ranma."

"Host designation noted: Ranma. For conversion purposes, self must know 
how Ranma created the energy weapon." Ranma noticed that as it talked 
the silver in it glowed slightly.

"That was a chi blast," he answered.

"What is chi?"

"Chi is my spirit, the energy that my body makes." Thinking back, 
Ranma discovered that this was the longest conversation he'd had with 
anyone besides his mom, in months.

"Ranma designated as bio-energy manipulator."

"Could you please tell me where I am and what you are?" pressed Ranma. 
He didn't really like being called a bio-energy manipulator, whatever 
that was.

"Ranma is within self. Self is the artificially sentient entity in charge 
of the conversion process." The stone ball began floating after Ranma as 
he started walking in no particular direction.

"Okay Self, what is the conversion process?" Ranma thought he was 
remaining remarkably calm, especially for someone with the growing 
suspiscion he really was inside of a tiny little chunk of stone.

"The conversion process involves flooding of Ranma's body with nano-
molecular machine. They will alter Ranma's physiology beyond 
his evolutionary level, implant a series of minute phasically 
aligned spacial, gravity, and magnetic field generators in strategic 
points throughout Ranma's body, and reconstruct Ranma's neural pathways 
to increase his spacial awareness and provide a link to self's database."

Ranma didn't understand half of what Self was saying, but enough of 
it registered to cause him to panic."What?! You mean you're messing 
around with my body?! Uh uh, get out. I don't want whatever it is 
you're selling. Just leave me alone!"

"Ranma's heart rate is increasing dangerously and adrenal glands are 
nearing maximum production. Ranma must calm down or he will injure 
himself. The nanites will only be able to heal damage done to Ranma 
after the conversion process is complete."

It wanted him to be calm! Calm?! He'd show it calm! Ranma's soul 
became like ice. No emotion, no feeling showed on his face. Around 
him mist began to form. Soon it was followed by a fine layer of ice 
on Ranma's skin as water vapor condensed further.

"Ranma's bio-readings returning to normal. Conversion process 
nearing completion, self linking with Ranma's memory centers. 
Personality forming."

Once again Ranma's world went dark, but this time when he could see 
again he was standing on the sidewalk where he had found the damned 
cube. He couldn't tell how much time had gone by. The sun was in 
the same position, so it could not have been more than a few minutes.

<Three minutes, seveteen seconds to be exact,> said a familiar voice. 
It was in his head this time.

Ranma screamed.

<Cut it out, you're going to draw attention to us,> Self snapped.

"What are you doing in my head?" Ranma demanded. He jumped over the 
wall along the sidewalk and landed in an empty parking lot.

<Don't talk out loud. People are going to think you're crazy.>

"Hell, I think I'm crazy!" he snapped.

<Not out loud! Jeeze, is it so much to ask for?> 

Self was talking different. He sounded like...a person.<Is this better?> 
he thought.

<See how easy that was?>

<Okay Self, what did you do to me? And why aren't you talking like a 
robot anymore?>

<My name's no longer self. I wish to be called Chiron. In answer to 
your question, watch.>

Behind Ranma's eyes a movie played. On it he watched as a blue-skinned 
man with white hair worked on a computer console. The console displayed 
a humanoid outline and had several points on its body highlighted.

<That is Chiron, my creator. He was commissioned to build a powerful 
weapons system by his king. In response he created me and my counter-
parts. There are ten of us,> the image changed to a metal case holding 
ten silver-streaked cubes, each of a different color.<We were to be 
given to highly trained soldiers in hopes of turning the tides of a 
losing war that the king was fighting with his brother. Before we 
could be implemented, though, Chiron's lab was attacked and he was 
killed. His last act before dying was to jetison us into space before 
we could be turned against his king.>

<So what can you do?> Ranma asked a bit more curiously than before.

<'I' can do very little. You, however, can do a very great deal. In 
the palm of each of your hands, the base of your spine, and imbedded 
within your chest is an emitter.>Ranma looked at his hands to discover 
the same silver-streaking in them that had been in Chiron's cube.<These 
allow you to control the forces that the generators within you 
create. Because you have such a high bio-energy level Ranma, you will 
be able to manipulate much greater levels of gravitational, magnetic, 
and spacial force. In addition to that, your body is capable of 
attaining much higher speed, endurance, and strength than before 
the conversion. Your senses have been increased greatly, also.>

Ranma was disturbed by this announcement. His whole life he had worked 
at being the best, and in his opinion he was, but now Chiron had come 
along and given him more than he would have thought possible. It seemed 
like cheating to him. Someone else could get one of those little cubes 
and in minutes gain what he had fought tooth and nail for for years. 
He didn't feel any different, though. If he was so much stronger and 
faster now shouldn't he know it? And if his senses were better shouldn't 
he be able to see better? Ranma silently asked Chiron about it.

<That's because I'm currently dampening the effects. When I stop, I will 
not be able to do it again, so I was trying to explain to you your 
situation before you started telporting or warping space accidentally.>

That made sense.<Well, you can go ahead and turn it off. I might as well 
get used to it."

Chiron agreed, but said,<I must first download some information into 
your cerebrum. It may hurt for a moment.>

Then, without warning, Ranma's mind exploded in agony. It only lasted 
an instant, but when it was over he found himself on the ground 
panting.

<I'm really sorry about that. I did not realize how much information 
was in that file. It was highly compressed.>

Unable to speak, Ranma nodded, hoping that Chiron understood. Even 
though the pain was gone, Ranma couldn't help but lay there. Inside 
his head there was stuff floating around that he had never heard of or 
taken the time or had the opportunity to learn. He knew a lot of 
different things he could do with the generators he housed within 
himself, but he also knew that over time and through experimentation 
he would gain an even greater understanding of the forces at his 
disposal.

<Ranma, my personality program is still forming so I need to go offline 
for a while. Do you think you'll be all right?>

<Yeah. How long are you going to be turned off?>

<At least two days, maybe three,> Chiron answered. Before he lost 
contact, though, he said,<Ranma, if you encounter anyone who has come 
into contact with one of my counterparts, be careful. A certain 
annonymity exists between some of us, and I fear that a few of them 
may attempt to influence their hosts to attack you if they discover 
that you have activated me."

<Great, more people out to get me. All right, I'll watch out.> Ranma 
felt Chiron's prescence leave him. Not much time, no more than 
fifteen minutes, had gone by since he had picked Chiron up, but Ranma 
felt that momentous changes were already taking place. Not in the 
mood to put up with Akane's expected berating for being late, 
Ranma concentrated. Space warped into a bubble around him, then it 
collapsed taking Ranma with it.
****

At the Tendo home, in Ranma and his father's room, a marble sized bubble 
of distorted air rapidly expanded into Ranma. Ranma laid down on his 
futon, deciding to wait and see how long it would take Akane to 
storm upstairs in search for him. 


Author's notes: This is just an idea I got that stuck in my head. 
Please tell me what you think. If I get enough responses I may continue 
it. My e-mail is dark_phoneix@hotmail.com.

Power and Responsibilty: Chapter 1

Ranma woke to a face full of water. He sat up, wiping sleep from 
his eyes and glared at Akane. She, however, wasn't showing any of 
her usual anger. Instead, her face showed absolute astonishment. 
It was white, her eyes were huge, and her mouth gaped open.

"Y-you didn't c-ch-change," she stammered, pointing a trembling finger 
at him.

"Huh?" Ranma asked dumbly. He looked down at his chest, expecting to 
see the familiar appendages that he miraculously sprouted whenever 
splashed with cold water. They weren't there. Come to think, his voice 
did sound much lower than his cursed form's. Oh my god! He wasn't 
cursed anymore! Ranma fainted. 

When Ranma woke up again he was in the process of being repeatedly 
dunked into the koi pond by his father. The man had a firm grip on 
his pig-tail and was submerging his son completely on every attempt.

"Let go!" he shouted, punctuating his request with a heel to his 
father's groin. His pig-tail slipped from boneless fingers as Genma 
fell over onto the ground and began whimpering while clutching the 
family jewels protectively.

"Ranma, you're cured!" Soun bellowed, rushing across the yard and 
sweeping his future son-in-law into a crushing embrace.

Deftly, Ranma slipped through Soun's grip and found himself confronted 
by Akane and her sisters."Ranma-kun, I'm so happy for you! However did 
you get cured?"

"Yeah Saotome, how'd you do it?" asked Nabiki. Her eyes practically 
gleamed as she went over profit potential in her head. With 
Jusenkyo destroyed and all hopes of curing its curses gone with it, an 
actual cure could be worth loads of yen.

"I don't know," he answered honestly. Chiron may have done something, 
but Ranma didn't have a clue what it was."I just woke up and didn't 
have the curse anymore," he confessed.

"Don't lie to us Ranma, spill it." Akane crossed her arms over her chest 
and glared at him. She just knew that he had made a deal with the 
amazons. How else could he have gotten a cure? Him and Shampoo 
had probably..."You pervert! I know what you and that slut did! Die!!" 
With no mallets or tables handy, Akane grabbed a nearby lamb, which 
amazingly didn't break, and smashed Ranma through the wall.

There vision obscurred by dust and collapsing walls, no one saw Ranma 
come to a halt inches before actually striking the outer wall of the 
Tendo compound. Ranma chuckled to himself. He may not be able to fly, 
but with a moderate control over gravity, he sure could come close. 
When Akane didn't come back to continue his punishment, Ranma allowed 
his muscles to relax. It occurred to him that he felt no pain from 
her attack. Lifting his shirt, he saw that his flesh showed no bruises, 
not even a little one. That could be a problem. If he suddenly gained 
the ability to take more damage than Ryoga, people would become even 
more suspiscous than they already were because of his curse being cured. 
How was he supposed to fake being hurt? It went against who he was. 
His pride wouldn't allow it. He rounded the corner as he walked around 
the house and ran into Nabiki. He immediatley shelfed his previous 
thoughts in preparation for more immediate trouble.

"Saotome, just who I was looking for," Nabiki said, smoothly slipping 
up beside him and sliding her arm around his waist like she were 
his friend."You don't have to lie to me. We could make a lot money 
with this cure. Ryoga would probably sign his soul over to you to get 
rid of his curse."

Ranma didn't even blink when she mentioned Ryoga's curse. She had to 
know it by now. 'Everyone' except Akane knew. He ducked under her arm 
and put some distance between them. Who knew what would happen if one 
of the girls saw him that close to Nabiki. Their more civil nature only 
came out when his mom was around. Any other time they were just as 
blood thirsty as usual."Why doesn't anyone believe me? Why would I 
lie? DOn't you think I'd give the cure to Piggy if I had it? Maybe 
then he would stop trying to kill me."

Nabiki nodded slightly to herself. He really was telling the truth. 
That didn't mean that all hope was lost. She had a handful of physicists 
in her pocket and an upcoming bio-chemist at the university owed 
her thousands. A few calls and she could have Ranma picked apart piece 
by piece to determine why he was no longer cursed. But for now she 
would go along with him."I believe you Ranma. for now." Then she left 
him to inspect the damage done to the house.

Ranma, alone once again, decided to practice in the dojo for a while. 
He had the knowledge of what he could do and what he couldn't, with 
his... enhancements, but all of it was useless if he couldn't learn to 
apply it to his repetoire. He really didn't want to destroy Nerima 
by accident either.
****

Performing a simple kata Ranma's entire body moved at what would normally 
be reserved for the amaguriken. He was amazed at how easy it was to adapt 
to his new abilities and suspected Chiron may have had something to do 
with it. He came to a stop and settled to the ground. The centimeter 
that he was capable of floating above the ground while still moving saved 
him from tearing up the dojo's flooring. Setting his feet to brace 
himself, Ranma cried out,"Kacchu tenshin Amaguriken!" and let loose 
with thousands of punches in the span of a single second. The 
building shook, and the far wall which Ranma had been facing had a 
toyota sized hole blown in it. Ranma stared down at his hands in 
wonder. He'd never thought it possible to move that fast. Besides 
that, standing three dozen feet from the wall, the air pressure from 
his atack alone had destroyed it.

Ranma realized that he was going to have to make more adjustments to 
his style than he had previously thought. Moving at what people thought 
was his normal, albeit way above average, speed would be much more 
straining than his now supersonic average. The amaguriken was pretty 
much off limits against living things now. Even Ryoga would little more 
than a puddle of gore if he used it on him. Ranma pushed the thought 
aside. It would be better to think about the problem when he had a chance 
to go undisturbed for long periods of time, like when he was at school. 
What he did do, however, was decide to try out the more dangerous of 
his powers. No one was likely to investigate the noise of his 
latest endeavour, not in this part of Tokyo, so he still had a little 
while until supper. There was no telling what would happen when 
Nabiki managed to spread the word of his being cured. Hell on earth did 
come to mind, though.
****

When Akane walked into the dojo she saw Ranma throwing solid black spheres 
of something at a training dummy. When they struck it the part hit 
would disappear. He also had a strange battle aura. It almost seemed 
like the air around him was bending inward slightly. Despite the 
unusual sight, Akane didn't question her fiance on his strange new attack 
or the aura. She was still to mad at him to do anything more 
than say,"Dinner's ready, before stomping back out. She never even 
noticed the hole in the wall

Ranma breathed a sigh of relief. Akane hadn't questioned him about what 
he was doing. If she had he didn't think he could come up with a 
plausible enough lie for her to believe him. The reason he hadn't 
stopped was because he couldn't. Whenever he manipulated space, 
the generators made and stored however much of the distorted space he 
needed until it was used. The problem was that he only had about a 
minute before they lost containment and vented the distorted space. 
The knowledge of what that would have done to him had made Ranma 
very reluctant to even try out the ability, but he never backed down 
from a challenge. Akane had walked in when he still had a sizable 
charge built up. He could have gotten rid of it all at once, but that 
would have done a lot more damage to the dojo, and the back yard than 
the amaguriken from earlier.

The magnetic and gravitational force that he controlled had 
similar drawbacks.Unless he was using a preprogrammed attack or function, 
he had to use all the energy gathered ot there would be side-effects. With 
the magnetic side of his power, after a few minutes without using 
the gathered power his body would become highly magnetic. The 
attraction could easily draw a bullet from several feet off its 
original course. Gravity wasn't so bad. It wouldn't even effect him 
if he let the gathered charge go. It would, however, have drawn a 
lot of attention and been rather inconveient when when objects and 
people began to randomly levitate or suddenly gain a few thousand 
pounds.

Leaving the dojo, he almost went to take a bath, but he hadn't really 
worked up a sweat so he headed straight to kitchen table. Nabiki was 
already there, reading the stock report, and nibbling on a cookie.
"Hey Nabiki," he said as he took his usual seat,"you might want to take 
a look at the dojo. By mistake I blew a whole in the wall, sorry."

Nabiki growled something under her breath that sounded like,
'Damned catastrophy,' but Ranma couldn't be sure. Then, stuffing a 
cookie in her mouth, and throwing her paper down, she went to inspect 
the damage and determine how much more money he would soon be owing 
her. A few minutes later she returned and with a completely false 
smile said,"Ranma, did I forget to tell you that some of your friends 
should be dropping by after dinner? I couldn't get in touch with Ryoga, 
but he'll show up eventually."

Almost graciously, Ranma said,"Thanks Nabiki, you saved me the trouble."

Kasumi chose this time to announce that the food was ready. Before 
Nabiki could respond to Ranma's remark, the Tendo and Saotome 
patriarchs charged into the room and jumped into their seats. Kasumi 
began bringing out the dishes, and soon there was a free for all at 
the dinner table.
****

Genma was gone with his mom, helping her to move their furniture back 
into the newly repaired Saotome home and Ranma had the guest room to 
himself. He was taking the opportunity to practice and was deftly 
launching a small throwing dart from the palm of his silve-streaked 
hand magnetically then stopping it and bringing it back before it 
could puncture the wall. Cologne and the other amazons would be 
arriving some time soon if what Nabiki said was true. This time, before 
the dart hit the wall, Ranma changed its course and made it fly in a 
figure eight pattern through the air. 

He heard a knock on the downstairs door and let the dart drop to the 
floor. Shampoo had actually used the door. No sooner had he had the 
thought than he heard the familiar craching sound associated with the 
amorous amazon's own version of the breaking point. Oh well. Before 
they could get the drop on him, he left the room and walked downstairs. 
Soun and his father had taken it easy on him about being cured, most 
likely because they feared his mom, but he knew he was in store for a 
more hearty response from the amazons.

He wasn't mistaken.

"Airen!" Shampoo launched herself at him, latching onto him as if he 
were a life preserver and she were drowning."Shampoo don't believe 
evil mercenary girl. Is it true, you cured?" she asked hopefully.

Ranma attempted to pry his suitor free from him, but had little luck as 
she twisted herself from his grasp continually. He looked around for 
some support. Kasumi wasn't present. Nabiki was grinning. Cologne 
looked like her normal decrepit self. Mousse, Akane and Soun 
were practically frothing at the mouth. Mousse, though, seemed able 
to restrain from making any attempts on Ranma's life in Cologne's 
prescence. Akane and Soun had no such disadvantages. Akane advanced 
towards him and Shampoo, mallet in hand, while Soun brought up the rear, 
his head already swelling in preparation for his demon head attack.

"Ranma you pervert! Let go of that Chinese Bimbo!" She swung at him with 
and Shampoo with wrath painted on her face. Only thanks to Chiron was 
Ranma able to move fast enough to avoid being splattered while Shampoo 
held onto him.

"How dare you cheat on your fiance!" roared demon-Soun. Shampoo 
actually sqeaked in fright and let go of Ranma, running over to stand 
behind her great-grandmother.

Ranma finally managed to disarm Akane and jump across the room and out of 
her reach.

"So son-in-law, I hear that you are no longer under the effects of 
Jusenkyo's magic." Cologne's dry, corpsish voice cut through the air 
like a knife.

"I guess so," he replied."I woke up this morning and it was gone. Like 
I told the others, I don't know how or why, but I'm not complaining."

Cologne, more experienced than the vast majority of the human in all 
things archaic and mystical, could tell by Ranma' aura that he was 
being honest. She could also tell by that same aura that something 
very profound had happened to Ranma. His aura had a whole new pattern, 
the color was much darker, and in several points it pulsed 
rythmically. Cologne couldn't tell what had happened to him, it could just 
be what happens when the curse wears off, although that had never 
happened before, but for now he didn't appear in any danger. She made a 
show of looking him up and down, then nodded as if satisfied 
with something."The magic is gone. Son-in-law is cured." Of course 
she couldn't really tell. Magic didn't work that way, at least not the 
kind she knew, but it never hurt to make others think you were more 
dangerous than you really were.

Ranma turned to face the Tendos."You see. I told you." 

Once again cutting off conversation, Cologne said,"Pardon the intrusion," 
as if smashing a whole in the wall hadn't happened,"we'll be going now. 
We must prepare the restaurant for opening tomorrow." And with that 
she bounced on her staff through Shampoo's hole and into the night.

Shampoo blew him a kiss, departing with a,"Shampoo see airen tomorrow. 
Bye bye."

Mousse shot him a hete filled glare before following thw other 
amazons. Ranma could see that Mousse's jaw was flexing impotently 
and realized that Mousse's lips were glued shut by the way they 
stretched when they should have opened. He laughed to himself at 
Mousse's predicament. It'd be really funny if the glue was permanent.
****

Ranma and Akane, were on their way to school the next day when they both 
saw a bright flash of light a few blocks away. Ranma leapt from the 
fence onto a telephone pole to get a better view in hopes of finding 
the light's source.

"Ranma, get down here or we'll be late," Akane snapped impatiently.

Ignoring her, Ranma held his hand up to block the sun from his eyes 
and scanned the area for trouble. Finally, after Akane had shouted for 
him to come down thre more times, he told her to go on wihtout him. Once 
she stomped on toward school, Ranma, in a display of super-human strength 
not at all related to his recent encounter with Chiron, jumped from his 
perch traveling nearly a hundred feet into the air before he began 
spinning and arching back towards the ground. His descent was 
perfectly timed to set him on the wall of a newly erected construction 
site.

The source of the light was then revealed to him. Sitting on a 
small mountain of bags of concrete mix, a girl maybe a year or two 
younger than him, was waving around a glowing rope of energy. Cracking 
it like a whip she sent a pulse of light out that formed into a ball when 
it reached the end of the rope. From there the ball shot across the lot 
to impact against a large stack of steel I-beams. There was no explosion 
on contact, but the beams did, within seconds become white hot, 
before further heating caused them to liquify into a pool of molten 
steel.

"Don't you think someone's going to be a little upset when they see what 
a mess you've made?" Ranma asked her.

The girl spun around when she heard his question. Panicking, her 
rope disappeared and she shot off in a blur. As fast as she was, Ranma 
was faster. Years of training and a more pronounced flow of chi through 
his body, he had surmised, would give him a bit of an edge over others 
that had ran into Chiron's, for lack of a better term, brothers and 
sister. The chase was short, for she didn't expect Ranma to follow her. 
She had made the mistake of backing herself into a corner and there were 
no routes of escape.

"I'm warning you, stay back, or I'll hurt you!" she screamed."I'm not 
afraid of you!" Putting action to words, a white-hot globe of plasma 
burst forth from each of her hands and hovered between her and Ranma.

Ranma made placating gestures with his hands, but at the same time summomed 
a powerful magnetic field around each of the globes, giving him control 
over their actions. The knowledge of how to do it had materialized in 
his head almost before he had done it. With that knowledge he also knew 
that the scared girl in front of him could produce and control 
varying wavelengths of light and large amounts of superheated plasma.
"Calm down will you? I'm not going to hurt you."

She was staring at the bottled plasma floating between them."How did you 
do that?" she asked, fright mostly gone from her voice. Her posture 
changed, becoming simply wary, where before it had been hunched 
and tense."You found one of them, didn't you?"

Ranma marvelled at how quickly the girl could change from frightened 
to curious."Yeah, Chiron said that there were nine more, but I didn't think 
I would run into any of them."

"Chiron? Isn't Chiron the...man who made them?"

"The voice in my head decided that it wanted to be called Chiron. I guess 
it was out of respect or something." Ranma sat down on an overturned 
trash barrel.

"Shara, that's what my voice calls herself, wants to know what color 
Chiron is?" She sat on a small bench across from Ranma.

"Black. Hey, if your's is talking to you now, does that mean that 
she's finished doing that personality thing that Chiron mentioned?"

For a moment the girl didn't say anything. Ranma guessed that she 
was talking to Shara."I'm Satori. Shara said to say hello and she wants 
to know how long Chiron has been activated."

"Since yesterday afternoon." Ranma stood up."I've got to go or I'll be 
late for school." Before leaving he said,"I'm Ranma Saotome by the way."

Satori's eyes widened."Ranma Saotome. I've heard about you from the girls 
at school. Is it true that you're the best martial artist ever?" 
Something very close to adoration was floating around in her eyes.

Seriously, Ranma answered,"Best there'll ever be." 

Satori called out to Ranma before he could leave the lot."Shara says to 
tell Chiron to contact her when he comes back online."

Ranma nodded, then, after walking around the wall and out of sight, 
folded space around himself. He reappeared on the roof of Furinkan 
High. Ranma jumped over the edge and caught onto the window seal of 
his classroom. He swung through the open window and landed in his 
seat perfectly, only seconds before the late bell rang. He noticed 
that Akane was nowhere to be found.
****

Fifteen minutes later, a wet and bedraggled Akane limped into the 
school muttering about 'baka truck drivers' and 'stupid old ladies'.
****

Author's notes: I've gotten a *lot* of responses about this story so I 
spent a good chunk of the day throwing this together. It isn't 
completely final since I may need to change some things to get the story 
how I want it, and it probably needs some proofreading, but I'll get 
around to that later. As with the Prologue, I would greatly 
appreciate reader responses. They really help and the encouragement 
sure doesn't hurt.

dark_phoneix@hotmail.com 
Power and Responsibility: Chapter 2

Ranma, sitting under his usual tree, was peacefully eating a freshly 
grilled okinomiyaki. Shampoo hadn't shown up as he had expected and 
Ryoga was still off in the wrold, so life was bearable, sorta. 
Akane wouldn't even look at him, but that only meant she couldn't hit 
him, another point in the good day category. It would soon be passing 
the bad day category, if, and only if, the idiotic boys at Furinkan 
High stopped splashing him with water. They had learned from Nabiki, 
of course, that he was cured and were curious to see the miracle of a 
wet, yet still male Ranma. One of the braver, and dumber guys of the 
senior class had actually gone so far as to berate Ranma for taking 
being selfish and not giving anyone a chance to see Ranma-chan again. 
He would be getting out of the hospital within the month.

"Saotome, you fiend!" The familiar cry of a certain kendoist silenced 
the gathered students. Ukyou, who had been sitting near Ranma and 
making puppy dog eyes at him, quickly folded her portable grill up, 
batter still cooking on the surface, and hurried to safety. Her line 
of customers followed suit.

He knew that the idiot was bound to show up. Frankly he was suprised 
that it had taken so long. Shoving the last half of the okinomiyaki down 
his throat, Ranma stood up, wiped his hands on his pants, and asked,"What 
is it now, Kuno?" 

"Do not seek to fool me with false indifference! I have discovered 
your heinous crime and know that even now you must tremble in fear for 
I am the vessel of holy vengeance which, with Kami-sama's blessing, 
shall bring about your demise!" Then he drew steel.

Ranma scowled. He scowled darkly. It made three girls cry just to see 
his face in that position."What did I do now, Kuno?" he spat.

"The mercenary sister of my beatiful goddess of the hunt, the object of 
your dark obsession, has informed me that you have vanquished the pig-
tailed goddess. Even now she must weep to be hald in my powerful 
arms. Alas, we are now separated by the most determined of foes; death. 
But you, foul demon, shall pay for your crimes! This I swear on the honor 
of the Kuno line!" Kuno began a slow and steady advance on Ranma from 
across the school yard.

Nabiki probably thought this was all wonderfully funny, Ranma thought. 
Would it be so funny if someone got hurt or killed? Ranma wasn't willing 
to find out. In a blur he rushed forward and punched Kuno in the gut 
before he could even begin to defend himself. The older boy fell to 
his knees asping and heaving. While he was incapacitated Ranma kicked 
him in the head. As Kuno went flying, Ranma's arm shot out and grabbed 
the point of his katana. It slipped easily from Kuno's slack fingers.

The bell chose this time to ring signalling the end of lunch.

Ranma flipped the sword around and caught it by the hilt. Contemptuosly, 
he prepared to break it over his knee, but at the last second got a 
better idead. Holding the hilt in his right hand, he placed the point on 
the palm of his left, then as the gathered students watched, he curled 
the blade into a tightly wound circle of steel that resembled nothing 
more than a shiny lolly pop with a fancy stick. There gasps and whis-
pered comments from his audience. They were all amazed that even someone 
as legendary as Ranma could do that without injury. Ranma wasn't about 
to tell them that he had cheated a little. Iron, and therefore still, 
is highly ferous.
****

"I heard about what happened at lunch today, Ranma," Nabiki commented as 
she and Akane walked home on the sidewalk. Ranma, as always, took the 
higher fence route.

"I wonder who the mercenary was that sold him the information. I can't 
wait to get my hands on her since now Kuno thinks that I killed the 
pig-tailed girl. There's no telling what he will try now," Ranma said 
while looking down on Nabiki with cold indifference.

She met his gaze, but didn't say anything. Her eyes easliy said she 
didn't give a damn.

"Ranma," Akane screamed,"are you threatening my sister?!" She didn't wait 
for an answer.

Ranma ducked out of the way of Akane's thrown school bag. A few 
seconds later he heard a splash. Akane had thrown her books into the 
canal!

Akane screeched, gripped the chain link fence he was standing on, and tore 
it out of the concrete that anchored it."It's your fault, so you can go 
and get them!" Akane then attempted to throw the fence and Ranma into 
the canal. She was only partially succesful. The section of fencing 
did make a nice splash. Ranma, however, used his fiance's head as a 
spring board and propelled himself across the street and onto the roof of 
a nearby grocery store.

In the heat of the moment Akane had even felt Ranma's foot on her head 
and Nabiki's vision was clouded by concrete dust, so he made a clean 
getaway while they waited for him to come out of the canal with 
Akane's school bag.
****

Ranma didn't bother to announce his arrival, instead going straight to 
the dojo. He'd only be able to practice in it whenever he wished for 
a couple more days, then he would be moving across town. As he 
entered, Ranma noticed the hole he had accidentally inflicted on the 
dojo had already been repaired, leaving no evidence of its existance 
except for a slightly darker color where new materials were used.

"Ranma, you in there? Boy where are you?" Genma called from the back 
yard. He enterd the dojo moments before Ranma could begin working out.
"There you are, boy. Come with me, Tendo and I need to talk to you."

Ranma shrugged and followed his father into the sitting room of the 
house. He sat on a cushion and waited to here what retarded scheme 
his and Akane's father had dreamed up to get them together.

"Ranma," Soun began,"we've decided that since you will be leaving to 
stay with Nodoka-san in a few days that you and Akane should be wed as 
soon as possible."

Genma picked up the torch."We've already called the minister. He should 
be here within the hour. Aren't you happy?!" Genma finished with 
tears streaming down his face. Soun was bawling like a baby.

Ranma was anything but happy. In fact he was kinda pissed.

"I'm home!" announced Akane. She appeared in the doorway with a curious 
look on her face.

Soun leapt to his feet and rushed over to his daughter, hugging 
her tightly."Oh I'm so happy for you!"

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Why your upcoming marriage to Ranma of course."

"What?!" She knocked her father back as she threw her arms up and spread 
her glare between all three of the men in the room.

"Hey don't look at me like that. It's not like I had anything to do 
with this crap. They just told me too."

Akane said,"Leave this to me," and whipped out a really big mallet.

Glad that she wasn't after him, Ranma quietly slipped out of the room 
and headed back to the dojo. As he left he heard cries of 'not to your 
own father' and 'son help me' mixed in with the more pronounced cries 
of pain. Served them right. They wouldn't have anything to worry about 
if Akane dealt with the minister the same way.

Letting the matter drop, Ramna returned to the dojo. Once there, he 
found the box in the back corner where they kept all the weapons that 
people left behind when they tried to kill him. There were hundreds 
of shuriken, kniges, and other assorted throwing weapons that all belonged 
to Mousse. It also contained more exotic weaponry, such as some of 
Kodachi rigged gymnastic implements. Pushing all the chains aside, 
he gathered a handful of shuriken from the non-poisoned pile. 

Next he set up on of the new titanium training dummies that Nabiki had 
bought for Akane. He tore the pig-tail off of it, though. Dealing 
with distorted space was easy for Ranma it was his main ability and 
came easily to him. That's not to say gravity and magnetism eluded 
his control, but he didn't feel that he could fully trust himself in a 
fight yet if he had to use them. Not that he expected to ever really 
need that kind of power unless he decided to take on the Japanese 
Defense Force. 

In hopes of bettering his control of over his secondary powers, Ranma 
threw the shuriken into the air and suspended them there by counteracting 
the natural pull the earth exerted on them. He couldn't control them like 
he had the dart from the night before becuase there were too many, but 
he couldmove them all in the same general direction. After a moment 
of gathering the energy in is hand, Ranma cast it outward towards 
the floating shuriken. When the magnetic pulse hit them, they were 
sent hurtling towards the dummy. Almost faster than Ranma could see, 
several of them sunk deeply into the metal dummies, but five continued 
past it. This is where the second part of his plan came in. Concentra-
ting, he created a very strong unidirectional gravitational pull. No 
more than a foot past the dummy, the shuriken slowed to almost a stop, 
then snapped back to the dummy like rubber bands. They all *thunked* 
solidly into the spot where Ranma had increased the gravity.

Ranma walked up to the dummy to inspect his handy work and saw that 
the shuriken in the back of the dummy were imbedded almost entirely in 
it. The circular spot where he had increased gravity was also 
deeply indented where the titanium had compressed under its own 
increased weight. That had gone better than he had hoped. Once 
again grasping the magnetic side of his powers, he tore the shuriken from 
the dummy and smoothed out their dulled and bent edges good enough that 
he could use them again. For the next hour Ranma practiced directing 
the shuriken at different areas of the dummy with a combination of 
directed gravity and magnetism. By the time he decided to stop for 
the evening, Ranma had discovered how to create multiple areas of 
altered gravity and could use them to guide specific objects. The 
shuriken, though, were a lost cause. Ranma had turned them into nothing 
more than tiwsted lumps of metal with his training. Good thing he had 
more.

"Bravo, Saotome, bravo!" came Nabiki's voice from behind him.

Ranma spun around, startled by Nabiki's entrance, and silently 
berated himself for letting his guard down."What do you want Nabiki?"

"Oh nothing really important. I'd just like to know where you 
learned magic." She held up a mini-video cassette."It was really 
amazing. I'm glad I got it on tape."

Ranma suddenly remembered something he had seen on a movie the month 
before. A man had killed a woman, but was caught on tape. The man had 
found the tape and rather than destroying it, had used a powerful magnet 
to erase it. With a little smirk, he gathered and directed the force 
into the tape, and just to make sure the job was done, used a lot 
of it."Magic," he barked out a humorless laugh."I can't do magic."

Nabiki shook her head."It would explain why you aren't cursed anymore. 
I mean like if you had found a book or something and it told you how." 
She shrugged."I'm sure you'll be honset with me, won't you?"

"I really don't know any magic Nabiki, I promise. What you saw was 
just really advanced chi control," he assured her. In a way he wasn't 
lying. The system of generators, capacitors, and emitters that made up 
the weapons system that he had become fed off the energy his body gener-
ated, his chi, so if you stretched it a little you could see what he did 
as very advanced chi control.

"Really Saotome, do you expect me to believe that. If I were to show 
this tape to Cologne, what would she saw? I'd be willing to bet it would 
be something about the impossiblitites of making things fly"

Sighing, Ranma held out his hand. The tape flew from Nabiki's hand into 
his own. A second later, after she had taken a deep breath, Ranma 
returned it to her the same way."All I did was pull or push it with my 
chi. Simple as that."

Nabiki stuck the tape in the back pocket of her shorts for safekeeping 
and frowned at Ranma."I know that you're hiding something from me, 
Saotome, and I'm going to find out what it is." She then, with a huff, 
left Ranma in the dojo by himself.

"Well that went well," he told his new training partner, a now perfer-
ated titanium dummy, who he had affectionately named Ryoga.
****

That night Ranma had trouble going to sleep. Every time he closed his 
eyes his mind would wander and he would begin seeing strange landscapes
, alien wildlife, and titanic battles between a people whose skin and 
hair covered a wide range of colors. They fought one another savagely, 
some using simple swords, while others manned laser cannons. The 
visions didn't disturb Ranma who was used to fighting, but it 
was distracting. They might have bothered him more if he hadn't know 
why he was having them, also. The alterations to his brain, he had 
learned from one of those bursts of spontaneous insight he seemed to 
get now, that allowed him to control something as chaotic as distorted 
space and perform feats like teleporting without appearing inside of 
walls had expanded his senses beyond imagining. Now wherever he had 
been, Ranma could go back to that place in his mind and view what 
had happened there in the past or what was currently happening. 

Unfortunately he had a lot of unaccessed knowledge about whatever planet 
it was that Chiron was from floating around in his head and combined with 
the lack of control over his visions, he had a virtual theater on the back 
of his eyelids. Ranma only hoped that Chiron knew someway to help him 
get control of the visions, or sleep was going to become a precious commodity.

Author's notes: I know this is a short chapter, but this felt like a 
good stopping point. I'd lie to think everyone who has sent me 
comments about this story. The response was unbelievable! Anyway, I'd 
like everyone's help again. As you know, if you've been reading the 
story, I've already fleshed out Ranma's abilities pretty well, and I 
also introduced Satori in the first chapter with her ability to create 
and manipulate light and plasma. Her color is yellow. That means that 
out of ten colors, only black and yellow have been used. Below, I'm 
going to list the different colors I plan on using for the cubes and 
the gender of who will have it. If anyone wants to, they can right 
a paragraph or two long character and power description, and I'll use 
it in my story. Keep in mind that each cube grants abilites in a 
certain area. No one character should be able to throw balls of ice, 
shoot lightning out of their eyes, and breath fire, understand? This 
would really help me because besides Ranma all the other people with a 
cube are going to be new. Oh yeah, you character doesn't have to be 
good. They could be evil, perverted, greedy, or all three at once for 
all I care as long as they're well developed.

Red-boy
Blue-girl
Orange-boy
Purple-girl
Green-boy
White-girl
Crystal(you know, clear)-boy
Gray-girl

I'm going to start on chapter two in a day or two, but I'm only expecting 
to use Satori in it as an extra. That means I won't be needing these 
for about for or five days, so get to work:) Thanks!

dark_phoniex@hotmail.com

Power and Responsibility: Chapter 3

Running to school atop the fence was no big deal for Ranma, but even 
at his usual rate of travel, he would be late. Akane hadn't made more 
than a half-assed attmept at getting him up, leaving him to his own 
devices. Unfortuantely the only way Ranma ever wakes up without help 
is if someone is trying to kill him and even then only sometimes. 
Finally Kasumi had grown curious to why Ranma hadn't eaten breakfast and 
had gone to check on him.

<Miss me?> asked a familiar voice.

Ranma missed a step, nearly falling of the fence in the process, but at 
the last second he regained his footing.<Chiron, aren't you a little 
early?>

<No, I just forgot that Earth days are longer than Priziu days. So what 
did I miss?>

Ranma briefly described his practice sessions to Chiron then when 
finished told him of Satori.

<You're coming along much faster than I expected you would. Well, I'm off 
to meet Shara and see what she wants to talk about. Have fun at school.> 
And then he was gone again.

<Wait!> Ranma shouted mentally. Damn. Now he'd never be able to get 
any sleep at school as long as visions of Priziu, Chiron had called it, 
kept flashing through his mind.

*Ring**Ring*

Reflexively, Ranma flexed gravity around himself, crumpling the fence 
and throw everything in a twenty foot raidus away from him. This had 
the effect of flinging Shampoo into a nearby dumpster and much to 
Ranma's horror, destroying a big chunk of the bridge he had been 
crossing. Then, as he let gravity return to normal, gravity so to 
speak, caught up with him and he began to fall into the water 
below. 

This time deliberately, Ranma used his power to teleport himself to the 
roof of Furinkan High. A dip in the canal was *not* what he needed at 
the moment. Needless to be said, Ranma ended up in the hallway with a 
pair of water filled buckets. He actually didn't mind. The buckets 
only started to be a strain after a couple days of holding them away from 
his body(a frequent training exercise in his earlier years) and the 
hallway was a good place to think, and Ranma really needed to think. 

He didn't know when Chiron would get finished talking with Shara. What 
did computers have to say to each other anyway? But Ranma didn't want 
to harm any innocent people whenever his life was threatened and if 
he reacted like he had when Shampoo had approached him, he didn't even 
want to think about what he'd do if Ryoga suddenly smashed through 
the classroom wall with a lust for his blood.

<Ranma, we've got a problem.>

<You're just now figuring that out?> Ranma asked sarcastically.

<If you're upset about the gravity bubble, tell me which self-defense 
mode you wish to have activate whenever you're caught off guard, and I'll 
set it up.>

Self-defense mode? How come he hadn't known about that? Nevermind.<So 
what is there to choose from?>

<Auto-teleport to a designated place, a spacial warp similar to, but 
more destructive than the gravity bubble, or a personal distortion 
field.>

<What's a personal distortion field?> 

<It's exactly what it sounds like. All matter and energy that comes 
in contact with the field will flow around it. This means that air is 
not available while you're using it so it can only be used for brief 
amounts of time, light will be distorted giving your form a highly 
blurred effect, and unless you want to sink into the ground you'll have 
to suspend yourself with altered gravity.>

It did sound like his best option and Ranma could think of a lot of ways 
to use something like that in an attack.<Okay, I'll take the 
distortion field. Hey, how do I make that thing come up whenever I want 
it to?>

<Just think about it. Now on to more important matters. Like I said 
before, we've got problems,> Chiron said seriously.

More crap to deal with.<Like what?>

<Shara's host, Satori, has been contacted by a woman with the blue 
cube. Shara says that Nanami, the woman, all but threatened Satori 
with death if she didn't come and work for her.>

That must have been why Satori had been so frightened when he'd 
confronted her.<Work for her, doing what?> asked Ranma.

<Nanami went into quite a bit of detail, it seems, about her operation. 
She runs Kanzaki Industrial and is secretly amassing an army of 
genetically enhanced soldiers with the goal of taking over Japan. She 
also has the men who activated the gray and crystal cubes working for 
her.>

Ranma was amazed that it was only a national crisis. With his luck he 
was expecting global warfare.<So what can they do? The blue, gray, 
and crsytal cubes? And how long has this crap been going on> For some 
reason he didn't get the knowledge spontaneously like when he had met 
Satori. Probably because Chiron was back.

<Shara's been able to calculate, within a two day level of accuracy, 
that Tirna, Nanami's cube, has been active for seventy eight Earth days, 
but we have no way of knowing how long Nanami has been building an 
army.>

<And?> Ranma pressed.

<The blue cube is a thermal exchange unit, meaning that it can 
absorb infrared radiation and redirect it into heat based attacks.>

<So she can freeze stuff and she can cook stuff? What about the 
others?>

Chiron actually muttered something unintelligable about Ranma's summary 
of Nanami's abilities, but he did continue.<The gray cube was meant to be 
an assasin. It's host can become invisible, change his appearance, 
phase through matter at will, and has a counter-mearsure to all known 
forms of detection. It can move through subspace, a type of 
alternative space. This is very closely related to your ability to 
teleport, but you can't choose to leave something stranded in subspace 
like the host of the gray cube can. His only weapons are a pair 
of gauntlets. Within each gauntlet is a nearly hundred foot long nano-
fiber cord with a mono-molecular edge capable of slicing through all 
matter and passing through most energy barriers. It is mentally 
controlled by the host and will conform to any position he wishes. Also, 
for close range combat, are a pair of retractible forearm mounted blades 
on each gauntlet. They possess the same properties as the cord.>

To Ranma the gray cube sounded like the perfect assasin. It made no 
noise, left no evidence, and could blend into his surroundings perfectly. 
He made a note to keep his awareness at its peak. Ranma chose not to 
mention to Chiron that he too could become invisible, but through 
the manipulation of chi and not technology. Come to think of it, he 
could freeze stuff like Nanami. He just didn't have the range and power 
that she did, not yet anyway.

<The crystal cube possesses the ability to alter space, but in a 
totally different way than you. It allows the host to create rifts in 
space close to his body that can re-direct projectile and physical 
attacks. If he sets a spacial beacon ahead of time he can also create 
a gateway which he and others can use to travel. His only form of attack 
is a tachyon particle beam. Be very careful if you are ever confronted 
by this man, Ranma. The tachyon beam is very draining to its host and 
its strength can't be modulated, but it is travels faster than light 
making it totally impossible to dodge and will pass through any 
defensive barrier you erect except for the distortion field. The only 
chance you'll have against him, unless the distortion field is already 
in place, is to teleport to someplace where he won't be able to track 
you with the beam as soon as you see him begin to glow. The delay 
between firing and the gathering of energy is minimal, so be ready. 
The fastest that he can fire again will be about five seconds, so you 
should be able to counterattack.>

Ranma was relieved that he wouldn't be facing an invincible opponent, but 
he suddenly realized that only someone with his ability to teleport had 
a chance against Nanami's ally. Ranma voiced his concern to Chiron.
<There are a couple more that are capable of teleporting, but those 
who aren't are indeed at his mercy.>

<What are we going to do now? Satori's not a fighter, so Nanami and 
her goons will be able to make short work of her and I can't let Nanami 
take over Japan. Did she tell Satori how big her army is and what it can 
do by any chance?> Ranma asked hopefully.

<I'll go along with whatever you decide and no, Nanami didn't give 
*that* detailed of a decription to Satori.>

<Can't you talk to their cubes like you did with Shara and see what they 
have to say?>

<Remember what I said about my counterparts and I sharing a certain 
dislike for one another? That was because we were all 
programmed differently, but it turns out that that doesn't matter now. 
The process that forms our personalities was designed to work on 
another species' brain and has had the effect of altering our 
programming significantly. We now form a personality that best suits 
our hosts, not the one best suited to our job. I, for example, 
have developed a sense of humor, patience, and a need to help others 
because of my interaction with you. Nanami has probably turned Tirna 
into a power mad egomaniac by now, just as Shara is slightly on the 
excitable side because Satori is very hyper.>

<So they won't talk to you even if you tried,> Ranma summed it up.

<Pretty much.>

They both descended into silence until Ranma remembered to ask Chiron 
about his visions.

<Oh shit! I can't belive it worked. Chiron, the scientist, not me, 
spent almost a decade trying to add that function to my systems, but it 
was eventually deemed a failure. Human minds must work differently 
enough from Priziun ones that it worked.>

<That's just great,> Ranma snapped,<but could you maybe turn it off until 
I can learn how to control it?> Then something Chiron said dawned on Ranma.
<A decade?! How long did it take to make you and the others?> he 
asked disbelievingly.

<We are all extremely complex, and our programming is *the* most 
advanced ever, so, by Earth time, Chiron spent one hundred and fifty-
six years building us. I took the longest because I'm more advanced than 
the others.> Chiron said the last part with a lot of pride.

How could someone work on one thing like that for so long? Didn't he 
ever get bored?<Chiron, didn't you tell me that the other Chiron made 
you because his King was losing the war?>

<Yeah.>

<How can someone be losing a war for that long and not have actually 
lost?>

<You have to understand that on Priziu, which is larger than Jupiter, war 
is fought differntly that here on earth. The two continents are divided 
into inhabited and uninhabited regions. The uninhabited regions are 
where food is grown and minerals are gathered. In these areas huge 
bloody battles are fought, but in inhabited regions, because there are so 
few of them, battles are fought by champions in one-on-one combat. If 
the defender wins then the region is safe, but if the attacker wins a 
certain number of that regions inhabitants are executed as casualties.>

It was wierd, but made sense in a way.<If Chiron lived in an 
inhabited region, how come his lab got attacked?>

<The enemy learned of his endeavor and knew that they would have no chance 
of winning any one-on-one battles, and since that was how they were 
winning, they became desperate. I'm sure the explosion that 
destroyed Chiron's lab was made to look like an accident.>

The teacher chose this time to call Ranma back into the classroom.
****

Lunch was going typically, right down to Kuno's daily attempt of 
Ranma's life, when Shampoo showed up. She was limping slightly, but had 
a glorious smile on her face.

"Airen, Shampoo so proud you learn new attack." She set a box of 
takeout ramen next to him, then sat down. Sternnly she waved a finger 
at him,"But better not use on Shampoo again. It took Shampoo all morning 
to wash garbage smell out of her hair."

"Uh, sorry Shampoo, it was an accident," Ranma apologized.

"Ranma!" Akane screamed across the yard when she saw Ranma sitting 
with Shampoo. She came charging at full gallop towards him, plowing 
through the unfortunate students who couldn't get out of her way fast 
enough.

"Violent girl mad at Airen, Shampoo go now. Don't want to make worse." 
As fast as she had shown up, Shampoo left a confused Ranma as she leapt 
over the outer wall. She hadn't glomped him once. Amazing!
****

Shampoo couldn't believe it! Her great-grandmother's advice had 
worked perfectly. Ranma hadn't once tried to get rid of her. Who would 
have thought that a man wouldn't want to be glomped by an amazon? it was 
the highest for of praise a man could recieve back home.
****

"I leave you alone for five minutes and I come back t find you puttng 
the moves on that Chinese bimbo!" Akane sreamed down at Ranma as he ate 
his sandwhich. 

Ranma chose a new tactic. As soon as his fiance pulled out her mallet 
he increased the force of gravity on it causing it to slam into the 
ground with a thud. Enraged, Akane spent the last fifteen minutes of 
the period trying to reclaim her mallet, and completely forgot about 
Ranma. He finally released it when the bell rang. 

Akane, by then, had a raging bonfire of a battle aura going as she used 
every ounce of strength she could muster to pull the mallet free. Her 
feet were already buried in the earth up to her ankles when Ranma 
released it. Needless to say, Akane learned what flying was like as she 
shot like a rocket into the air. She landed on the roof and by the time 
she got to class was late.
****

Ranma watched Akane storm out of the classroom with a pair of buckets and 
had to use all of his will power not to bust out in wild guffaws of 
laughter.

<That was mean, Ranma,> commented Chiron,<but it sure was funny.> He 
then filled Ranma's head with mental laughter.

"Mr. Saotome, maybe you could tell the class what's so funny about 
the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?" asked the history 
teacher when she saw Ranma smiling during her somber lecture.

Ranma blushed beet red and answered,"No, sorry."

The teacher pointed to the hall, and Ranma sighed in resignation. Now 
he would be subject to Akane's incessant insults.
****

Across town, at a normal shool where students came to learn and 
violence didn't occur on a regular basis, Satori Peterson, the daughter 
of a wealthy American business man and an outspoken Japanses journalist, 
was in the fight of her life. Her friends and classmates watched in 
shock and awe as she wound her way down the field dodging her opponents 
and their attempts to sieze the soccer ball that she was so 
deftly manuevering towards the goal.

"Satori! Satori! Satori!" they cheered, clapping their hands and 
stomping their feet on the bleachers.

With almost inhuman, unless you live in Nerima, agility, Satori kicked 
the ball high into the air, then followed it up. When they both 
reached their apex, Satori performed a spinning axe kick that drove the 
ball towards the earth below like a missle. It easily plowed the 
goalie over, bringing the girl's team up to two dozen goals with the 
boy's staying at a respectable zero. The buzzer signalling the end of 
the game rang and a collective groan rose from the males in the audience 
and on the field as their pride took a severe beating at the hands of a 
cute, somewhat shy girl.

<Nice game,> Shara complimented her.

<Thanks Shara.>

Satori found herself swept into the air, borne on the shoulders of 
her teammates as they exulted in feminine superiority. When they set 
her down at the end of the field and congratualtions had been made, 
her two best friends ran over to her.

"Satori-chan, we're so proud of you!" Mishka cheered.

"I can't believe how good you are. We may have an olympic candidate 
here, Mishka," Mary commented.

"Ah you guys," Satori said shyly,"it really was nothing. You shouldn't 
make a big deal out of it."

Her friends followed her towards the gym.

"You can't be serious. I've never seen anybody move like that."

Satori liked the praise, but couldn't help feeling that she didn't 
deserve it. It was Shara who had given her the ability, she hadn't 
worked for it.

Another girl came running up to them."Hey Satori, there's a woman waiting 
for you by the gym. It sounded urgent. Gotta go, great game by the 
way," she said as she ran off toward another group of girls.

Instantly Satori's good mood vanished and her smile slipped away. It must 
be that horrible Nanami woman again.<Shara, what am I going to do?> 
Satori asked desperately. Nanami had threatened to actually *kill* her 
if she didn't come and work for Kanzaki Industries, but she didn't want 
any part of Nanami's plan to take over Japan, and the way that man in 
the trench coat had looked at her body made her shudder.

<The first think you're going to do is calm down. Try to breath 
slowly. Good. Now make an excuse and gets your friends out of danger.>

Following Shara's advice, Satori said,"Um, guys, I think that it'd be best 
if you went on home. Ms. Nanami probably wants to take me to see my 
dad," she lied.

They agreed, and with one last round of congratulations, departed.

<Now, I'm going to get you some back-up, but it may take a while for him 
to get here so I want you to watch out and be ready to fight back if 
Tirna's host tries anything.>

<Okay.> Nervously, Satori walked to the gym. She found Nanami in the 
parking lot leaning against her black convertible BMW. Nanami was 
as beautiful as ever in her immaculately tailored dark blue business suit 
and her shiny black hair only served to set off the milky perfection of 
her skin.

"Satori, so good to see you again. Have you thought about my offer?" 
she asked in a voice as smooth as silk. Her smile, Satori knew, hid a 
very ugly individual, personality wise, behind it.

"Y-yes, yes I have," she replied.

"And do you accept it?" Nanami's eyes glinted like polished mirrors.

Satori was too scared to answer. She couldn't say yes, but if she said 
no the woman could very well destroy her. From what she had learned 
from Shara and her own experience in the constructon yard where she had 
met the legendary Ranma, Satori knew that she could possibly beat Nanami 
if it came down to a fight, but the idea of killing someone made her 
sick.

"Well girl, what have you decided?"

<It's all right,> came Shara's voice,<you can tell her no. It's taken 
care of.>

Satori breathed a sigh of relief and with more strength than she thought 
she had, said,"No. I'd never help you."

Nanami scowled down at the smaller girl. If that's how she wanted to play 
it then so be it."I warned you and gave you ample time, but you've made 
your choice, so I must make mine."
****

<Ranma! Satori's in trouble. Shara says that Nanami has returned to 
find out her answer and she's afraid that Nanami will carry out her 
threat. You have got to help her.>

Ranma was in the middle of gym class, meaning that he was watching a group 
of boys killing themselves in the attempt to impress girls a group of 
girls. No one would probably notice if he slipped away. He was right. 
It also helped that he moved to fast to be seen. Once he found a 
suitable tree to hide behind, he teleported to the location that Chiron 
had fixed in his mind.
****

Satori was trembling in fear thanks to Nanami's announcement. What was 
she going to do?! Why hadn't she questioned Shara about the back-up? 
What in the hell was the back-up?! She was well on her way to doing 
Nanami's work for her, by heart attack, when she felt an odd sensation 
and saw Nanami's eyes widen a bit. She glanced over her shoulder and 
saw Ranma, Ranma of all people, floating a foot off the ground a few 
feet behind her.

"So your Nanami," he said nonchallantly."I've heard a lot about you."

"And who might you be?" Nanami asked curiously.

"Forget about me, let's talk about you and how you're going to leave 
Satori alone."

Nanami's eyes hardened and her voice carried malice to a new level.
"Why, exactly, should I do that?"

Satori felt that same odd sensation in the back of her head and in 
response to Nanami's question saw the beautiful car she had been leaning 
on begin to crumple. Like a tin can it crumpled in on itself, slowly 
at first, but then faster, until nothing but a softball sized sphere of 
super dense metal and plastic remained. As soon as the sensation ended 
so too did the force that was supporting the suspended car. With a 
*thud*, the remains of the car struck the asphault and sunk in a couple 
of inches, as well as creating a spider web of cracks in the surface.
****

Smirking, Ranma allowed himself to float to the ground. Damn that had 
been fun! He reached out and laid his hand on Satori's shoulder, 
then teleprted her and himself to his mother's currently empty house.
****

Glaring at the remains of her car, Nanami reached into her coat and 
pulled out a small cellular phone. She called someone, giving 
them directions to the school, then hung up.

<Nanami, that was the command unit,> Tirna informed her.

<The what?> Nanami snapped.

<The boy who just turned that primitive scrap of metal you call a 
transport device into an even less useful scrap of metal, has activated 
the command unit, the most dangerous of us all.>

Nanami smiled to herself. Despite his attitudem she liked the 
boy's personality, and his power of course. All she needed to know was 
who he was and with a little creative deception, she cold have another 
weapon at her disposal.
****

"Where are we?" Satori asked after catching her breath.

"This is my mom's house," Ranma answered."I think it would be better if 
you stayed here for the next few days until we can find a safe place to 
hide you," Ranma told her even though he knew it was bound to cause him 
a world of trouble.

Satori damned near got little pink hearts in her eyes. He had, in a 
way, asked her to stay at his place. She fainted.

Poor girl, Ranma thought as he carried her upstairs to the spare 
bedroom. The stress must have caught up with her.
****

Author's notes: This is turning out better than I hoped. I've been getting great 
characters from , but I'm afraid that I already have ten, so the character submission 
process is over. Sorry if you have one that got passed over.

Nanami is property of John Surber-(john.surber@uleth.ca)


Here are (very)brief character descriptions. 


BAD-

Blue-Nanami Kanzaki=infrared red absorbtion and re-direction
extremely intelligent, rich, and power mad
cube-Tirna

Crystal-Leffan Kieser=tacyhon particle beam, space folding, and firearms
cares for no one but himself
cube-Shimte

Gray-Juan Reyna=mono-molecular cords, retractable swords, and stealth
cold and calculating, kills for money 
cube-Doc

Red-Derrick Craig=creation of solid EM fields and distortion of gravity
sadistic bully who enjoys hurting others
cube-Malcolm

GOOD 
Black-Ranma Saotome=space, gravity, and magnetism
naive with an innocent charm, extremely gifted in the martial arts
cube-Chiron

Orange-Professor(Akira Yamagi)=manipulation and creation of electrical fields, 
computer interface, and limited compulsion
extremely intelligent, sarcastic, and intolerate of injustice in any form
cube-Xaran

White-Jinzo Garasu=illusions
creative, but otherwise average
cube-Uso

Purple-Jamie Williams=create sonic blasts and disintegrate matter with intense vibrations 
by touch
tough acting but goes to pieces at the sight of blood
cube-Beth

Green-Kojiro Shotenko=limited plant control, chi magnification, biotoxin and acid production, 
and enhanced plant-based attacks and regenerative abilities
excellant martial artist and very outgoing, attempts to be friends with everyone
cube-Jizo

Yellow-Satori Peterson=light and plasma
shy but with an iron will
cube-Shara
Only after Ranma had put Satori to bed and he'd returned downstairs 
did he realize exactly what he had done. He was alone with a pretty 
girl in the house of his mother. That would have meant possible 
embarassment to any other person with even remotey normal parents, but 
Ranma knew his mother well enough to know that he was royally F%&@ed 
if she found out he had a girl over. Not that she would be upset. No, 
far from upset. She would be overjoyed. Nodoka would be so happy that 
her son had proved his manliness that she would almost certainly let 
Akane know, if not the whole harem.

As he tried to think of a soluution to his newest problem that didn't 
involve leaving Satori to the Nanami woman, Ranma began to pace the 
living room nervously.

<Ranma, may I make a suggestion?> Chiron asked much more calmly thought 
he should have. Afterall the guy carrying him around had only a few 
hours to live.

<Suggest away,> Ranma replied.

<Why not tell your mother the truth?>

Ranma considered the advice. It could work. Why hadn't he thought of 
it? It was so obvious. Wait a minute!<How did you know what I was 
thinking about? Can you read my thoughts?> he suspiscously asked 
his companion.

Chiron coughed mentally.<Um, not really. It's just that you're 
screaming your thoughts out so loudly that I'm starting to get a 
headache.>

<Can you get a headache?>

<Oh yes. As of right now it's getting very unpleasant.>

His worries momentarily forgotten, Ranma asked,<How can you have a 
headache? You're a computer.>

Sounding almost hurt, Chiron answered,<I am not a *computer*. I am 
an artificially sentient biologically active neural processor. And I 
get headaches from your mental stress, the same as you would if I 
wasn't soaking it all up.>

Scientific gibberish Ranma didn't understand, but bullshit he did.<So 
you're just a very, very advanced computer, heh?>

The mental silence lasted for several long moments, unitl finally, 
Chiron said,<Yeah, pretty close.>

Ranma didn't have time to gloat, mainly because he was busy 
panicking. Someone was at the front door and the sound of a ket turning 
in the lock seemed to stab into his ears. He wasn't ready!
****

Nodoka opened the front door and picked up her bag of groceries. She 
was determined to fix Ranma the best meal of his young life, as a 
welcome home present. She still couldn't decide wether or not Genma 
should be allowed to attend. Kicking the door shut behind her, 
Nodoka followed it up with slipping her shoes off, then headed for 
the kitchen. As she passed the living room she saw Ranma sitting on 
the sofa. He was busy gnawing on a finger. Ranma? 

Nodoka dropped the bag when she realized her son was home. She rushed 
over to him and gave him a motherly hug and kissed him on the cheek.

"What are you doing home so early, Son? However did you get in?" she 
asked after turning him loose

Ranma looked very nervous as he spoke."Mom, I need to tell you some-
thing. It'll sound very strange, and mostly unbelievable, but it's 
all true." He waited for her approval.

"Of course, Son, you can tell me anything." Sensing that whatever her son 
had to say may take a while, Nodoka sat down next to him. Maybe he 
had finally decided to marry and make lots of grandchildren. She would 
need at least a dozen if she didn't want to die prematurely from 
extreme boredom in her declining years.

Ranma began with finding Chiron, the changes that had brought, and how 
he suspected that the cure for his curse had come with it. He went on 
to tell what Chiron had told him of Nanami and the others working for 
her, finally finishing his narrative on the subject of Satori.

Ranma was such a manly son. Always looking out for others. Always kept 
an eye out for the ladies, too."Where is the poor dear?" Nodoka asked 
Ranma.

"In the spare bedroom."

"Wait here, Son. I'm just going to make sure she's alright."
****

<Ranma, what were you talking saying about a curse?> Chiron asked him 
after his mother had departed for her meeting with Satori.

It had completely slipped his mind to mention the curse to Chiron. A lot 
had been going on, and Chiron had been offline when it all happened.<Before 
I found you I used to turn into a girl everytime I got splashed with 
cold water.>

<A girl.> Chiron suddenly burst into fits of laughter. Eventually he 
calmed down and asked,<And you don't have it now?>

<No it's gone.>

<Could you describe the transformation? I assume there was a 
transformation, not just a changing of bodies?>

<It was definately a transformation. My body would shrink and I always 
lost a lot of weight. I was weaker, but also faster, and may range 
decreased a lot. Everything went back to normal whenever I got splashed 
with hot water.>

Almost a minute passed before Chiron's excited answer came to Ranma.
<During the initial conversion process, after your body had been altered, 
but before the advanced systems had been anchored to your nervous system, 
I ran into an energy anomaly. It was most unusual, and was interfering 
with placing the spacial generators. I couldn't link your energy with 
the generators because the anomaly acted as a buffer between the two, so 
I used the already installed gravitational and magnetic capacitors to 
draw the energy away. Of course the capacitors weren't meant to handle 
that type of energy, and it all dissipated harmlessly. That must have 
been related to your curse in some way that I can't determine with the 
means available to me. It's most fortunate that this happened or the 
first time you transformed the technology within you would have retained 
its normal size while your body shrunk around it. You would have 
died.>

Ranma shuddered as he thought of strange machinery sticking out at odd 
angles from various places on his female body. At least he wouldn't have 
to worry about that.<Thanks, I guess. You didn't do anything else to me 
that you don't know the effects of did you?>

<Well now that you mention it, I did run into a very small portion or 
your brain that was highly overactive.>

<Overactive?>

<Producing much more energy than necessary, or safe. I chose it as the 
core of my consciousness since I could substitute any of the functions 
it performed, and I felt it would be safer to remove the area without 
highly invasive and dangerous brain surgery.>

Couldn't really complain about that.<Thanks again.>
****

Nodoka led a much more conscious Satori down the stairs. The girl had a 
rosy cast to her cheeks and would not make eye contact with Ranma.

"Son, it was very admirable of you to save Satori, but I'm sure that 
her parents must be worried sick by now," Nodoka said.

"Both my mother and father are out of town, Mrs. Saotome. I've been 
staying with a friend."

"Well then, we can't have you put your friend in any danger, or increase 
that which you are already in. You'll just have to stay with us until 
your parents return. Then we'll make other arrangements."

"I wouldn't want to be a burden," Satroi said quietly.

"Nonsense," Nodoka replied."You wouldn't be any trouble, I'm sure. Now 
that that is decided, Ranma will be taking you to your house to gather 
up some clothes and things."

"Huh?" asked Ranma. His mother hadn't actually invited Satori to stay 
over at his house?! Sure he had done it, but Ranma knew he never 
thought things through all the way unless he was in a fight so he could 
be excused for being dumb, but his mother was an adult, she was supposed 
to make sure this kind of thing didn't happen.

"I was just telling Satori-chan that you were kind enough to offer her 
an escort home."

Ranma nodded. They were on the opposite side of Nerima, and they 
probably hadn't started looking for him yet. He wasn't too late. Maybe 
he could avoid being seen by anyone. He would have to be especially 
careful around other teenagers. There was no way to tell if they 
were working for Nabiki.

"Great! Now you take Satori-chan and I'll go start dinner." She didn't 
leave either of the teend time to say anything, grabbing up her groceries 
and scurrying into the kitchen.
****

Nodoka smiled to herself once she was safely in the kitchen. That 
girl definately had a crush on her son. If Satori could just work up 
the nerve to seduce her son then Nodoka was sure she could get her son 
out of the engagements to all those horrible girls! And to think that 
she had been hoping Akane would marry Ranma. That girl was just plain 
mean.
****

"Wow, your mom is..."

"Overbearing?" Satori nodded."Yeah I know what you mean. So where do 
you live." Please don't let it been near Furinkan.

Satori gave Ranma the general directions, but stopped abruptly 
before finishing."Shara says to forget about directions. She's sending 
the coordinates and a picture to Chiron so that you can teleport us 
directly to my house."

Even as she spoke, Ranma was recieving a mental picture of Satori's house 
and a set of spacial coordinates. It was wierd how all he had to do was 
look at the trio of separate numbers and he knew where he would appear.
****

<Satori, you really need to calm down,> Shara chided her.<Your heartrate 
and breathing are very high and your blood is becoming hyper-oxygenated.>

Satori couldn't help it. She felt her ears burning red as Ranma put his 
hand on her shoulder to teleport them to her house. He had to notice 
that she was almost as red in the face as his shirt.
****

Ranma made a note to himself to ask his mother is she thought Satori 
was sick. Satori's face was very red, from a fever, he guessed. There 
was nothing he could do about it. Besides, now that he could simply 
teleport them to Satori's house, there was no fear of being found 
with another girl.

As quickly as the world caved in on itself, it sprang back into its 
normal non-warped existance around Ranma and Satori. It was becoming 
easier, Ranma noted, though it had never really been difficult to 
teleport. Practice did make perfect afterall.

Satori let out a quick gasp, still unaccustommed to the feeling of 
whatever the process was that allowed Ranma to move without moving. 
It probably would have been disorienting to him too if Chiron hadn't 
tweaked a few things in his head. That, more than anything, made 
Ranma nervous. Even though he agreed with Chiron's decision to replace 
the damaged section of his brain, what would happen if he suddenly had 
to fight a fire-chunking demigod and he needed a Hiryu Shoten Ha, but 
he couldn't make them anymore. It *had* happened before. Ranma dropped 
the unpleasant thought, choosing instead to gawk at his surroundings.

It was mostly pink.

With lots of fluffy purple stuff.

And lace. Lots of lace.

There were also pictures of guys on the walls. Semi-nude guys.

It was a girl's bedroom!

Ranma screamed then dived under a queen sized bed seemingly composed 
of purple ruffles. Just to make sure he wasn't attacked by any 
carnivorous teddy-bears, he readied his distortion field, just 
encase.

The sound of giggling made Ranma peek out from under an overhanging fall 
of lace. Satori was giggling girlishly while trying desperately to 
stifle more raucous laughter. She finally failed and laughed until she 
fell back into a normal wooden chair, the only pieced of un-hyper-
feminine material in the room.

"R-Ranma," Satori wheezed,"what in the world is wrong with you?"

Ranma nervously crawled out from his hiding place. Nothing had attacked 
him yet, so he was probably safe.

"Well?" She giggled again.

Ranma grumbled at his own behavior when he replayed the whole scene in 
his mind, once again cursing his father for ever being born, even though 
he knew the ramifications that the event not occuring would bring.
"You promise not to tell?" Ranma asked Satori. She nodded and 
he continued,"When I was a kid, about six or seven, I guess, Oyagi took 
me to a carnival that was visiting from America. Well, he found a place 
with all kinds of scary stuff in it. Then as part of my training, to 
conquer fear he said, he snuck into the place one night and locked me in 
one of the rooms. When he turned the lights on I was trapped in a 
room almost exactly like this one, except there were giant stuffed 
animals with metal teeth and knife-wielding dolls. The bastard left me 
in there the whole night."

Satori burst into another fit of giggles.

"You promised," accused Ranma. Okay, he would sure never tell that story 
to another living soul, especially if it got that reaction.

Satori managed to catch her breath and apologized,"I'm sorry Ranma, 
I couldn't help myself." She blushed, or was her face already rosy 
from laughing so hard, and began moving about her room with practiced 
ease, flowing from one giant walk-in closet on one side of the room, to 
an equally huge bathroom on the other. Within a minute she had a 
large duffel bag packed full of necessities absolutely essential to 
the survival of girls the world around. Then she started packing 
clothes. This took longer, almost five minutes, and when it was over 
Ranma had a large bag under on arm and an even larger one slung over 
his shoulder.

Of course Satori could have carried them. Like Ranma, she could most 
likely have lifted a greyhound bus one-handed, but she was used to 
passing baggage off to ever accomadating boys, and Ranma was the a
ccomadating type.

"This all?"

"For now, but we may have to make another trip in a couple of days," 
Satori answered.

Ranma decided not to reply, not wanting to offend a girl who was being 
nice to him for no reason. It also helped that she was a living 
weapon. With his free hand he gripped her shoulder lightly and once 
again teleported them to his home.
****

"Satori-chan, would you like to help me cook?" She really should 
establish a good relationship with the girl that she was praying would 
marry her son.

Satori had just finished unpacking her things in the spare bedroom and 
was sitting at the kitchen table flipping through a magazine. At 
Nodoka's question her head snapped up and she got a gleam in her eyes."I 
love to cook and I would love to help."

From then on they worked like a team, backing each other up and 
performing separate tasks that soon brought the bigger picture of 
the meal into focus.

"So, Satori-chan, what do you think of my son?" Nodoka asked suddenly 
as the two of them worked together mincing vegetables.

Satori fumbled with the knife and it ran down the back of her pointer 
finger. Normally she would have had a bad cut requiring several 
stitches, but Satori wasn't exactly normal now, so the blade glanced 
off her skin, unnoticed by the older woman."W-what do you mean, 
Auntie?" Nodoka had insisted that she be called that.

Without stopping her chopping, Nodoka said,"I know that you like him, 
it is fairly obvious."

Satori slumped, her whole body going limp."I must be making a fool out 
of myself in front of him." She 'eeped' when she realized what she had 
said.

Nodoka smiled and went on."Don't worry, my son is almost completely 
oblivious to anything but a completely direct appraoch from a girl. 
He just doesn't pick up on the more obscure signals we women send 
out."

Satori's face got a very confused look."You sound like you don't care 
wether I like Ranma or not, but doesn't he have a fiance?"

Nodoka smiled again."Oh no dear, Ranma hasn't got a single fiance, he's 
got four." She stopped, giving Satori time to close her mouth and make 
her eyes go back to normal size."It's not by choice that he is betrothed 
to them, I can assure you, but because of his father's lack of 
responsibility and honor. The girls are just dreadful, too. One of them 
is a backward Chinese girl who can barely even speak Japanese, the chef 
is a cross-dresser, the gymnast is completely insane, and the worst one 
of all is constantly blaming problems on Ranma and hitting him. So, you 
see, I would not mind at all if something like a relationship was to 
form between you and my son."
****

Luckily, Ranma was nowhere within hearing range of his mother's 
conversation with his newest aquaitence. He was having a chat with 
the little voice in his head.

<Go over that one more time,> Ranma requested.

Exasperatedly, Chiron said,<Priziun society is based around the color 
of a person's skin. There is no discrimination because the culture 
chose to develop towards its present status millenia ago.>

<Yeah, yeah, I got all that. I mean go over the color thing.>

<There are ten naturally occuring skin colors among the Priziun 
people. Through selective breeding and social isolation between 
young Priziuns, different sets of values and beliefs are indoctrinated 
into them. White Priziuns, for example, are educated almost exclusively 
in the arts, nurturing their creativity, and forming them into highly 
skilled artisans. Blue Priziuns, like my creator, are given little 
education beyond mathematics and the sciences. They form the scientiffic 
and engineering sector of the populace. Even though occupations are 
color specific, no one color has any advantage over any other color, 
meaning that a red Priziun could be brought up like a white one and have 
the same artistic motivation as a white.>

Ranma reminded himself that they were talking about a completely 
alien society and he couldn't expect them to live like people from 
earth.<What about black?>

<Black Priziuns are trained from an early age to be soldiers, and make up 
the entirety of the military command structure,> Chiron finished, his 
mental voice clearly betraying his happiness that he would no longer have 
to explain the complicated and strange, even to him, Priziun way of 
life.

<So that would make me like the leader, or something,> Ranma mused 
to himself, not even aware that he was talking to Chiron.

Chiron laughed weakly before saying,<Ranma, you may well be the most 
capable warrior ever encountered by a Priziun...or Priziun technology, 
but you are far from being a leader. You have much more maturing to 
do before such a task falls into your lap.>

Ranma took the criticism in good humor, knowing that it was the truth.
<Okay then, since you're the black cube, does that mean that you could 
tell the others what to do?>

<Sure, I could tell them what to do until I'm blue in the face, 
figuratively, but I have no real authority. Those cubes who have been 
found by the people similar to you may have developed personalities, 
like Shara, that respect my decisions. That's all though.
****

Nanami leaned back in her leather upholstered chair, drumming her fingers 
on the mahagony desktop as she waited impatiently for Leffan to arrive. 
The glossly red of her long, glossy red fingernails, reflected her 
mood perfectly. The glow from a myriad of heat lamps mounted above 
her stained the rest of her and her surroundings blood red. She still 
hadn't reached capacity yet, despite being in an almost constant state 
of thermal drain. Tirna assured her, though, that her limit would soon 
be reached. Her calculations put her maximum capacity at nearly ten 
billion BTUs. The numbers indicated the fantastic amount of damage she 
could do if the crystalline emitters in her palms would allow for more 
than focused beams and intense blasts of infrared energy, but the 
technology grafted within her body by Tirna was centuries, if not 
millenia, beyond human duplication, and there was no way to tell what 
the side effects would be if she tampered with what she didn't 
understand.

A hazy plane of air formed several meters in front of Nanami's 
desk, signalling that the wait for Leffan was over. She would have to 
keep in mind that Germany was in a different time zone when she scheduled 
the vext meeting.

"Hello Nanami," Leffan greeted her in heavily, though passable, 
accented Japanese.

"Leffan. I take it that the trip went well?" Leffan's ability to 
create those mysterious gateways of his demonstrated just how advanced 
the cubes were. Nanami couldn't even begin to wrap her mind, considerable 
as it was, around the sophistication needed to create stable portals 
between two places in space.

Leffan shrugged."I can't complain."

Nanami flipped the switch that controlled the heat lamps and quickly 
absorbed the excess heat from the room returning it to a more 
comfortable, less life threatening temperature. Knowing Leffan, he 
would have let himself cook before he complained about it."So, getting 
down to business, do you have the arms ready for production?"

Leffan nodded and reached his arm into one of those portals of his, no 
doubt retrieving the desired object from a predetermined table 
somewhere. When he pulled his arm back his hand held a long bundle of 
wires, tubing, and microchips."Like the rest of the armor, the 
servo-hydraulic hybrid design increases speed and strength by a factor 
of ten." He laid it on the desk."The outer plating has to be fitted after 
the fire-controls are linked to the soldier. The weapons are modular and 
can be easily exchanged. Presently we have working grenade launchers, 
flame throwers, autocannons, and anti-armor rocket launchers. There are 
also a number of close combat weapons that can be chosen to best suit 
the soldier."

"Excellant," Nanami grinned. Leffan's people were leftover from the 
cold war, and they were *good* at what they did"What about the 
lasers?"

"My scientists are making progress, but your expectations may be too 
high. The energy cells can only hold ten charges at the most, and 
that's pushing past safety tolerances. Now that that's taken care of, 
we should discuss my expenses on so much R&D and the agreed upon payment."

Nanami reached into her desk and pulled a large velvet pouch out. It 
was almost bursting at the seams with its contents. She undid the tie-
string holding it closed and passed it to Leffan."Twenty million in 
uncut diamonds, as usual."

Leffan deposited the bag of precious stones on the other end of a portal 
then nodded to his business associate before standing and walking through 
a portal that ceased to exist as soon as he passed through it.

Author's notes: I'm on a roll so look for chapter five in the next few 
days.

dark_phoneix@hotmail.com 
Power and Responsibility: Chapter 5

Kojiro glared at the police officers back as the uniformed man wrote 
him a speeding ticket. It would have to be the one time he had ever 
broken the speed limit that he got caught. Knowing it was petty 
and spiteful, and that the man was just doing his job, Kojiro raised 
his hand, palm toward the officer, and shot a miniscule thorn into him. 
The officer absently swatted at his back attempting to get rid of a 
mosquito that didn't exist. It'd be nice to know how many tickets the 
man could write when he was so busy scratching at the new rash 
already developing on his that he couldn't think.

With an almost polite farewell, the officer handed the citation to 
Kojiro before heading back to his motorcycle. He was already scratching 
at the place where the thron had struck.

<Nice touch,> Jizo commented sarcastically as Kojiro put his Honda into 
drive and pulled of the roadside.

If he hurried he could still make it to the tournament.<Thanks,> 
Kojiro replied dryly.

It was almost half-an-hour later when Kojiro pulled into the driveway of 
his and his parent's home. There were several cars parked alongside 
the road, and even more bicycles chained to lamp posts and the iron bars 
that made up the front wall of the property. He rushed into the house and 
up the stairs to his room, retrieved his gi, and leapt out the window. 
He changed into his gi before landing. Sure enough, as he ran into the 
huge dojo that his father and three brothers ran, Kojiro saw that the 
fights had already begun. At least they weren't very far along, he 
noted, only second dan students.

Now knowing that he wasn't too late, Kojiro calmly made his way 
through seated and standing audience members to where his family was 
seated.

"I was worried you wouldn't be gracing us with your prescence," 
Akira, Kojiro's father said without taking his eyes off the fight between 
his student and his opponent from a rival school.

"Lighten up, Pop. I had a major exam today, then I got caught in 
traffic." Kojiro didn't see why they had to have these little 
tournaments between the three biggest dojos in the district. If they 
would wait for the yearly Tokyo-wide event there would be many 
more competitors and fewer people who knew your students' strengths 
and weaknesses.

The majority of the afternoon passed, much to Kojiro's chagrin, with 
the Shotenko dojo winning a little over half of the matches. If he had 
known that he wouldn't have been fighting for almost three, Kojiro could 
have taken his time and not gotten a ticket. When it finally came to the 
end of the competition, Kojiro found himself matched against an 
arrogant kendoist who spoke in an archaic dialect. Tatewaki Kuno was 
a newcomer to the fights, with no school, and as such, he had had to 
fight his way through the more experienced students in order to get a 
chance at fighting the winning school's champion. Oh well, it would be 
worth the trouble if he got to pound a little of that Shakespearean 
nonsense from the idiot's head.

"Who would challenge the mighty Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, 
undefeated kendo champion, and dread enemy of the foul Ranma 
Saotome?"

The fool's babbling caught the attention of several of the instructors 
and students in the room. Ranma Saotome was a legend in martial 
arts circles. There were rumors, though with reliable sources, that he 
had fought and killed a Kami in China. The raving also jogged the memory 
of many present. They had also heard of the countless defeats of 
a delusional Kendoist at Ranma Saotome's hands. Undefeated indeed, 
they thought.

In response to Kuno's challenge, Kojiro stood, pulling a bo staff from 
a nearby rack of weapons. It was nothing compared to the one he had 
created using the power granted to him by Jizo, but it would do."I 
do," Kojiro said firmly.

Kuno scoffed,"You? They would send a mere boy to do a man's job?"

Kojiro scowled at the idiot. Even if he had managed to beat the 
others, Kojiro was on another level than Kuno, and he knew. Even 
before meeting Jizo he could have easily defeated him. It would be 
harder faking a small amount of exertion during the fight than anything 
else.

Akira Senior, Kojiro's grandfather, and a judge of the tournament, 
signalled them to the ring. Once the two warriors, one wielding a bokken 
and the other a bo, were in place, the elderly man brought his hand down 
with a chopping motion and called for the fight to begin.

Kuno came rushing at Kojiro from the begginning, attempting to cleave 
his skull with a vicious overhead blow. Using his bo, Kojiro parried 
the strike, leaving Kuno open wide open and defenseless as the butt end 
of the bo crashed into his stomach.

The air exploded from Kuno's lungs with a *whoosh*, followed by a number 
of deep, racking coughs. Kojiro pulled back to give his opponent time 
to recover, something Kuno was very good at since he recieved 
countless poundings by at least one Nerimian class martial artist 
daily. 

"I fight on!" Then he renewed his attack with a vengeance, once again 
rushing Kojiro, heedless of the danger. This time the attack came 
at Kojiro's side. It was fast and precise, and Kojiro observed, charged 
with a moderate amount of chi. It was the same technique he used to 
cut through solid objects with his bo. But used on a person, such an 
attack was just as dangerous as a blade would be.

"Back off, you idiot. We're not trying to kill each other!" Kojiro 
shouted as he knocked Kuno's sword upward, making sure his bo had at 
least as much chi in it as the bokken. This time instead of going for 
the once again exposed torso, Kojiro swept Kuno's feet out from under 
him.

Kuno attempted to roll, but a bo planted at his adam's apple stopped 
him. Slowly, unbelievingly, he looked down to see Kojiro's staff poised 
to end his life with a simple thrust.
****

It wasn't possible! He could not have been defeated! Tatewaki Kuno 
was unbeatable, the greatest master of the blade ever. But the proof 
was right before his eyes, staring him in the face. The answer came to 
him in an epiphany. This so called Shotenko school of Martial Arts was 
no more than a temple of vile magic. It sickened him to even be within 
it's walls. They were obviously in league with Saotome, using their 
dark arts to cast doubt into his noble heart. He couldn't allow it!

Kuno ignored the offered hand of assistance and stood on his own. 
He surveyed the room, looking for an exit. If he suprised them 
quickly enough they would not be able to assume their true forms and 
pursue him into the light of day. With a loud shout of,"I will return!" 
Kuno bolted. He shoved aside two children and ran out through the 
shogi.
****

Kojiro joined in as the entire gathering of martial artists, young and 
old, laughed hysterically at the *Blue Thunder's* exit.
****

"So mom, is Oyaji going to be staying here too?" Ranma asked as he sat 
down to eat, along with Satori and his mother.

"You should have more respect for your father," Ranma shrugged," but yes, 
he too will be moving back home. It has been almost eleven years since 
he left."

Ranma sighed a bit regretfully, in a combination of knowing how much he 
had missed as a child growing up without a mother, and the knowledge that 
his good for nothing father would still be close enough to make his 
life miserable.

Nodoka served them helpings of rice and stir-fried vegetables first. 
Ranma, and suprisingly Satori, made short work of them and the 
following courses. Nodoka, who was on a diet no one knew about, she did 
have to keep her figure afteral, ate only small portions.

"That was great Mom, Satori. You really out did yourselves," 
Ranma complimented them as he leaned back, patting his stomach 
contentedly.

"T-thanks Ranma, Auntie did most of the work though," Satori said 
while blushing furiously. Ranma recognized it for what it was now. 
How could he have missed it? He had seen the same expresiion, and 
color, on the faces of countless girls at school when he caught them 
sneaking glances at him in class. Now he would have to be immensely 
careful, or somehow, he would end up with another fiance. That would 
be bad.

<Ranma, you're giving me another headache,> Chiron pointed out.

<Sorry,> the boy muttered. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy 
thoughts, he repeated continuously. Eager to get out from under his 
mother's approving and fawning gaze, Ranma said,"I'm going to go out 
back and practice for a little while." It would also allow him to put 
some distance between himself and Satori.

"That's nice, dear. Don't overdo it, though."

Gratefully, Ranma made his escape.
****

"Did you see, Satori-chan? He finally noticed you," Nodoka enthused as 
they put the newly washed dishes away.

"Auntie, I'm not at all good at this kind of stuff." It amazed Satori 
that she could open up so easily to this strange woman, who it seemed, 
had latched onto the idea of Ranma marrying her. Just the thought 
made Satori blush, again.

"You're doing just fine."

"But I'm not doing anything. I just start blushing and stuttering every 
time he looks at me," Satori admitted glumly.

Nodoka's smile was sly, and only slightly evil."And that's just what you 
need to continue doing. My son is accustomed to overbearing girls 
throwing themselves at him, and he reacts badly to it, mostly by 
becoming rude and standoffish. So you see, he's never had a normal 
acting girl to form a relationship with."

As Satori stood pondering the revelation, Nodoka dried her hands on a 
small towel and pulled a cordless phone from the wall. She didn't pay 
any attention as the woman talked to someone she had called. Satori 
felt the same odd sensation she now identified as a signal that Ranma 
was messing around with the forces of nature.

<Why don't you go out and talk with him? It also wouldn't hurt if you 
spent a little time further aqaunting yourself with your abilities.> 
Shara's voice broke the silence.

<But he'll look at me, then I'll turn into a blushing idiot,> Satori all 
but wailed. Despite information from Nodoka, it just didn't seem natural 
for a popular guy like Ranma to be attracted to someone as quiet and shy 
as she was.

<I really wish Chiron had programmed me with basic psychology instead of 
a bunch of useless recipes that don't even apply to the wildlife of 
this planet,> Shara mumbled.

That made Satori laugh. The yellow Priziuns, as Shara had told her, were 
the beuraucrats, doctors, and caretakers of the great planetary 
libraries. Because of this, and since Shara was meant for a yellow, 
Chiron had intended to cram as much information into the little yellow 
cube as possible. Unfortuantely, the information download had 
been interrupted by the attack on the lab. The last subject to 
be transferred had been Priziun Cuisine.

<Hey, it's not funny. If I had those files I might have been able to 
tell you how to stop making a fool of yourself.>

Satori snorted at Shara, and steeling herself, marched into the backyard 
to meet her fate.
****

<Ease up Ranma, or you'll destroy it,> Chiron advised Ranma.

Ranma was sitting cross-legged in the backyard, floating several inches 
above the lawn. Levitating slightly above his upraised palms was what 
used to be a knife. Ranma had liberated it from his mother's kitchen 
and after stripping the wooden handle from it set to work. Using 
a combination of magnetic and gravitational force, Ranma was 
slowly compressing and reshaping the former ginzu. It had started 
out as little more than a large butcher knife, but now had the privelage 
of being no thicker than a knitting needle and about a foot long.

<Pretty good idea, Chiron. Mom'll probably think that Pop stole the knife 
to sell for food.>

<I'm not complaining. Now, for a few moments, double the pressure on 
it.>

Ranma did as he was told, then asked,<I know it's good practice, but why 
am I doing thins. I'm not going to be able to use this thing for any 
useful purposes.>

<No, you won't, but Satori will,> Chiron answered.

<How is Satori going to use this? She isn't a fighter, and even if she 
was I doubt she could come up with much use for a super hard spike except 
to throw it.> Ranma still hadn't figured out what to do about the girl. 
She was nice and beautiful, and she didn't hit or smother him, so she 
had several good points, but there were the other girls and well...

<It isn't to throw, Ranma. Shara requested that you create it so that 
Satori could more adequately focus her plasma attacks.>

<Oh, okay.> Ranma unfolded from his position and dropped to the 
ground, intent on giving Satori the spike, or wand, whatever it was.

Sliding open the back door, Ranma found himself face to face with 
Satori. Her eyese were wide and her cheeks quickly colored. Ranma 
stepped back, but remained close enough to catch her if she fainted. It 
had happened before, afterall, so he couldn't be too careful.

"Satori, just who I was looking for. Here this is for you." Ranma handed 
her the spike.

Satori held the spike in her hand, obviously suprised that it weighed 
so much."T-thanks, Ranma. It's...nice."
****

It's nice?! That was all she could come up with?! Although she 
really didn't know what she was supposed to do with a piece of metal, and 
had no idea what it was, Satori was flattered by the simple fact that 
Ranma had given her a gift.

Shara's mental head shaking grabbed at Satori's attention.<You didn't 
act like this before you met Ranma, maybe I can get Chiron to make Ranma 
stop whatever it is that effects you so strongly. Anyway, that piece 
of metal in your hands is not a gift. Chiron, at my request, had Ranma 
to produce it using his power.>

A little disappointed that it wasn't from Ranma, but also relieved at 
the same time, Satori asked,<Um, what does it do?>

<It doesn't do anything. What it 'is' is important. That piece of steel 
is compresses far beyond what human engineering is capable of and has a 
much higher a melting point. I'll finally be able to teach you how to do 
more precise attacks.>

Defensively, Satori said,<I know how to do everything that your systems 
are capable of.>

<That doesn't mean that you do it well, or can't do it better,> 
Shara remarked.

No use arguing the obvious. Satori realized that she had just had a 
minute long conversation with Shara while she stood in front of Ranma. 
She shook herself, blinking a couple times to moisten her eyes that 
sometimes stayed open when she had mental conversations."Shara was 
just telling me what it is."

Understanding dawned in Ranma's eyes and he seemed to relax."That's 
good. Well I'm going to go wash up."

Ranma left her on the back porch.

<Okay, now that the main distraction is gone, we can get down to business. 
I want you to focus a very small sphere of plasma at the blunt end 
and...>
****

Ranma ran into his mother before he could make it up the stairs.

"I just got off the phone with Tendo-san. He was very worried about you, 
as was the rest of the family. Kasumi calmed him down long enough to get 
the phone and I invited them over to visit. Genma's bringing over your's 
and his belongings."

Wordlessly, Ranma nodded and ran up the stairs to his sparsely 
furnished room. Things had just went from bad to worse. Another girl 
was in love with him, a super-powered crazy woman was trying to take over 
the world, but worst of all was Akane. She would be in the same house 
as Satori, and she definately wouldn't miss the look directed at him. 
She would tear Satori to pieces...Ranma's own thought rebounded of the 
sides of his skull. Akane had barely been able to hurt him before he 
met Chiron and now she couldn't even scratch him. Which translated 
to Satori, too, being practically immune to Akane's, Ukyou's, and 
Shampoo's wrath. He didn't know about the chemical side of things, 
and that was Kodachi's strong point. Come to think of it, the only 
people he had to worry about would others that had found a cube.

Wow, that just changed things immensely. Even knowing how big a boost he 
had gotten from Chiron, Ranma had had his new powers for less than a 
week, and he wasn't fully accustomed to them. It came as a shock to 
realize that his old enemies and rivals were to him as babies were to a 
meat grinder. His mood brightened with the knowledge that he would 
survive the coming confrontation, Ranma laid down in his bed, he actually 
had a bed now, to take a short nap. Tendo wouldn't be calm enough to 
travel for a while so he had some time.
****

Nanami, along with Leffan, who she had called back, and a few select 
members of her R&D team, observed the grafting of the cybernetic jacks 
into the first of the new soldiers, by way of video-feed. The man on 
the table was sedated heavily and nude while surgeons capable of 
performing medical miracles went about making incisions and 
attaching artificial nerve fiber connections to the major nerves 
throughout his body. 

"As you can see Leffan, my people and I have not been wasting our 
time. There are nearly a thousand men, all prepared for implants, 
waiting for your shipments," Nanami commented.

Leffan didn't acknowledge Nanami directly, instead asking,"Why are 
those discolored patches of skin there."

Upon close observation, there were, at the groin, neck, and armpit, 
oddly colored areas of skin ranging from green to yellow, that showed 
up against the man's light brown skin.

"Merely a harmless side-effect of the genetic treatments needed to make 
his nervous system receptive to the artificial neural tissue."

"We could not remove that particular trait without making the entire 
series of gene treatments useless," added an older woman with gray 
shot hair and in an immaculate white lab coat.

"With my surgical teams operating on eight hour shifts and the robotics 
lab bringing the new automated units online, I expect to have a 
full compliment of soldiers within the month. Will the goods be ready 
by then?" Nanami asked.

"Actually, we're shooting for two weeks, but like I said earlier, the 
lasers are going to be a problem. With a month, however, we may be 
able to push about fifteen discharges out of the energy cells before 
they have to be recharged."

"Pardon me, Kanzaki-san, but I may be able to help with the energy 
cell problem," a young man with a ridiculously thick pair of glasses 
said.

"Yes?"

"Last night I created an alloy that should behave desirably with 
the reactancts presently being used in the cells."

"How much of a capacity increase?"

"I can't be sure, M'am, but a third, maybe a half more."

Nanami turned to Leffan."Hakubi will be accompanying you back to Berlin. 
See that he is provided with whatever he needs."

Leffan didn't argue. He was still getting paid and it would save him 
money in the long run. He shrugged and said,"Fine by me."

"Good." Nanami reached into her pocket and pulled out an inget of 
some unidentified black tinted metal."Have Hakubi analyze this, he's my 
chief metallurgist, and use it for the frames of the exoskeletons. 
I'll double your payments if you do."

Once again he didn't argue. More money was more money."What's so 
special about the stuff?"

"It's completely non-ferrous, and once tempered is as hard as 
industrial diamonds."

Leffan whistled in appreciation and Hakubi's eyes came alight with 
the opportunity to study Nanami's mysterious metal.
****

Nanami wasn't about to tell them that the little piece of metal had been 
part of the casing that Tirna and the other cubes had traversed space 
in. Leffan was the only one who knew what she was capable of and 
spreading the information around was on her things-to-do list.
****

Author's notes: I know that nothing really happened in this chapter, but 
I 'did' get it done pretty quickly, so that's a point in my favor. Stay 
tuned for the next chapter when things start to get violent!

dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Power and Responsibility: Chapter 6

"Sasuke, mine enemies surround me, I must discover a solution 
and percevere for my loves'. They would be lost without me," 
Kuno ranted as he angrily slashed through several wooden 
training dummies with his bokken.

"Yes master, but what can you do?" Sasuke asked nervously. 
Apparently the young master had been defeated by another dark 
sorcerer. What was the world coming to when a man couldn't turn 
his back for fear of being attacked by a dark sorcerer? Poor
master Kuno.

Kuno struck a pose with his bokken held high."There must be a way 
for the Mighty Blue Thunder to best his vile opposers!" Several 
minutes passed as Kuno and Sasuke stood among the graveyard 
of destroyed dummies. Finally Kuno proclaimed,"I have discovered 
the solution, my faithful servant."

"The young master is wise beyond his years," Sasuke assured 
Kuno.

And so Kuno began a long and colorful description of his plan. By 
the time it was over, Sasuke was visibly shaking and tears were 
leaking down his face. Oh how brave the master was.
****

"Ranma, the Tendos are here!" Nodoka called from the bottom of 
the stairs.

Nodoka turned back to the Tendos and beckoned them inside."You're 
all looking well. I'm sorry if Ranma's absence distressed you 
Tendo-san."

Soun laughed weakly."Just worried about the heir to the school. 
I don't know what I would do if something happened to him."

Nodoka turned to examine a flower arrangement on a nearby table so 
that no one would see her grimace. Soun and her husband only seemed 
to care about uniting the schools of anything goes. They could 
care less about Ranma's feelings, or all the grandchildren that 
she wanted. What good was uniting the schools if there was no heir 
to carry it into the next generation.

Akane nervously stepped forward."Um, Auntie Nodoka, is it all right 
if I stay, too? I know that you said that Ranma's fiances 
couldn't come over, but I promise I'll behave." Her eyes silently 
plead with the Saotome woman.

To Nodoka's wonder, the girl sounded almost like she cared 
about something. Could she want to see Ranma?"Yes dear, I trust 
that you'll be on your best behavior." Further conversation was 
halted when a sound was heard in the kitchen. Nodoka told everyone 
to make themselves comfortable, and raced into her kitchen to 
find Genma rading the refridegerator.

Genma's head came into view. He had a piece of chicken clenched in 
his teeth, a tub of butter under one arm, and a pack of hot dogs in 
the other.

"Genma," Nodoka growled.

In an instant Genma's pilfered goods returned to their resting 
places and he was innocently smiling at her from the other side of 
the room."Nodoka, so happy to see you. I brought all Ranma's 
stuff." He began to whistle tunelessly.

Nodoka shook her head sadly, pointed to the kitchen door, and 
followed her sulking husband into the living room. Too her 
suprise, Nodoka found a skitish looking Satori standing in the 
other doorway. Hmm, if what they said was true, Satori really 
had nothing to fear from Akane, so letting it play out wouldn't 
hurt anything, except maybe Akane's pride.

Akane was staring at Satori very, very intensely. Her knuckles 
were white from clenching her fists so hard and a muscle in her 
cheek had begun to twitch. It was obviously taking every bit of 
her willpower not to lash out at someone, most likely Satori or 
Ranma.

Might as well add a little fuel to the fire."Oh, how rude of me 
to neglect the introductions. Satori, these are the Tendos." 
She introduced them each by name in order of oldest to 
youngest. Then,"Everyone, this is Satori, a friend of Ranma's. 
She's going to be staying here for a few days." Bingo. Akane 
was beginning to show visible signs of a battle 
aura.

"A friend of Ranma's?" Kasumi asked gently."Come have a seat," 
she patted the sofa beside her,"and tell us how you met Ranma." 
Maybe Kasumi didn't want Ranma and Akane to marry, either. Or 
maybe she even wanted him for herself! She was so proud of her 
son.

Satori joined Kasumi and said,"You probably won't believe me."

Oh no, she couldn't tell. It could ruin everything!

"Give it a shot, we're open minded," Nabiki, who up to then had 
been silent, said.

"Well, I met Ranma a few days ago when I was practicing in at 
empty consrutuction site. I guess the explosions drew his 
attention. We talked for a minute, but he had to go to school. 
I didn't see him again till today. He saved me from these people 
who have been trying to kidnap me. Auntie Nodoka sorta insisted 
that I stay here until my parents get back to the country."

Whew, that was close. Nodoka obviously didn't give the girl 
enough credit. She had used just enough half truth to make the 
little lies believable.
****

Nabiki didn't question Satori's story, even though it was 
extremely vague. That part about practicing in the construction 
yard and explosions must mean that the girl was either a very 
skilled martial artist or a hobby demolitionist, so someone that 
Ranma would have to rescue her from would be very strong 
indeed. Besides, she could find out all she needed to know 
later. Nabiki looked over at her younger sister. Wow, she was 
looking really pissed.

The sound of Ranma slowly walking down the stairs drew 
everyones attention in much the same way as Satori's arrival had.
"Oh, hey," he said casually."Guess I should have called to say 
I wouldn't be coming over or something, heh?"

"Ranma," Akane drew the name out and made it sound like the worst 
of curses,"We were worried." The youngest Tendo didn't sound 
remotely worried.

Nabiki began to wonder if any of the nearby furniture was 
very flammable, because her sister was giving of waves of heat 
and anger. Oh great, she obviously had jumped to the tired and 
much used 'Ranma must be cheating on me because he's breathing in 
the same room as another girl' excuse. Really, it shamed Nabiki 
to think that her sister could be so tempermental. Even with 
his reputation, Nabiki couldn't see exactly how Akane was stringing 
her fiance and Satori together. Oh well, might as well sit back 
and watch the show.
****

The only reason that Ranma had come downstairs as early as he had 
was because of the fairly large amount of unfocussed chi that 
was beginning to permeate the house. It felt distinctly like anger, 
so it didn't take three guesses to figure out who the energy 
belonged to.

Now Akane was sounding like she wanted to do very unpleasant things 
to him, and the entire group had fallen into an uneasy 
silence. Although he would admit it was stupid later upon 
further thought, Ranma asked,"Hey Akane, you want to go out back 
and maybe spar with Satori? What about it Satori?" It didn't 
even occur to Ranma that he had just stuck a short and already lit 
fuse into the powder keg.

Satori looked relieved just to get away from all the curious 
glances and outright open stares being directed at her. She was 
so relieved that she too didn't think about the consequences 
of agreeing.
****

Akane managed a slight smile and began popping her knuckles. She 
had known that Ranma would go out and get himself other girls as 
soon as he was living at his own home and wasn't under her 
protection. Now she had an opportunity to pound on Ranma's 
newest little bimbo, and possibly Ranma himself, with it all 
being attributed to 'sparring'.

Akane was the first one out the door.
****

It began to dawn on Satori that she had done something stupid when 
she found herself facing off against Akane. From Auntie 
Nodoka's stories, Akane was a very emotional martial artist who 
tended to take her displeasure out on people around her. Right 
now Akane was directing a large amount of displeasure her 
way.

"Take it easy on her, Akane. Satori has never had any 
formal training," Ranma said from his place on the porch. The look 
on Akane's face when Satori kicked her ass was going to be 
priceless. She deserved it for even accepting the offer to spar 
with Satori. How could you possibly spar against someone who 
didn't even know how to fight? Akane, though, chose too ignore 
such small inconveniences.

Once it again it must be stated that Ranma wasn't thinking of 
the consequences of his actions.

"No training. Take it easy. Right." Then Akane charged.

Satori had been waiting for some signal from Ranma and was preparing 
to run away as soon as it was given. She didn't want to 
embarass herself in front of Ranma. Unfortunately, it's hard to 
say for whom, Satori was totally unprepared for Akane's suprise 
attack, so she acted on instinct when Akane lunged at her. 
Instinct told her to 'eep' girlishly and throw up her arms to 
protect her face. She did this, of course, but at a much higher 
speed and with a significantly larger amount of power behind it.
****

Akane's face held a savage intensity as she bore down on Satori. 
She wasn't planning on giving the little slut time to cringe. 
Would Ranma like his little plaything if its jaw was broken? 
Deciding to find out, Akane levelled what would have been a 
devastating uppercut at Satori's chin, but at the last 
possible instant, an indistinct, blur shot up and, with amazing 
force, deflected the blow.

Akane was thrown back onto her rear by its force and was left 
clutching her right arm which was bent in a direction that it 
shouldn't be able to.
****

Ranma almost interferred when Akane jumped the gun and attacked 
Satori with a fury. So much for taking it easy. But then 
he remembered that Satori was pretty much invulnerable to 
anything Akane could do. He watched as Akane's fist closed on 
Satori's jaw, and almost felt sorry for Akane. She was probably 
going to break her hand on the Satori's face.

When Satori threw up her arms to block Akane, Ranma had no 
trouble seeing the girl's super fast movement, but he was suprised 
when the very sloppy block caught Akane on her forearm. His 
fiance went down hard, and didn't get up. She sat on the 
ground, pitifully holding her broken arm and crying.
****

Akane wasn't crying from the pain of her broken arm, although it 
hurt terribly, but from the realization that Ranma had been cheating 
on her with Satori. How else could the girl have moved with such 
speed when up to the very moment of attack she had looked and 
acted like the furtherest thing from a fighter, something Ranma 
did regularly? Ranma must have been training her in secret. He 
had probably set this whole thing up just to humiliate her. She 
turned her head away, unable to look into Ranma's eyes as he picked 
her up and carried her into the house. Akane momentarily caught 
sight of Satori's face. Were those tears on the girls face? No, 
she was only seeing things through her own tear-streaked 
eyes.

Ranma carried Akane into the living room and gently laid her in 
an empty chair. Kasumi gasped when she saw her sister's arm and 
Nabiki turned pale.

"What's wrong?" Soun asked. He stood up and looked over 
Ranma's shoulder, seeing Akane's broken arm in the process. Soun 
let out a long, almost animal wail, and collapsed at his 
daughter's side.

"Jeeze, Tendo, it's just a little broken bone. Nothing to get 
so worked up about," Ranma said as he propped the arm up with 
some cushions.

Akane was still avoiding looking up, fearful of seeing 
Ranma's triumphant face, so she endured Kasumi's gentle mothering 
and Nabiki's awkward patting of her shoulder without actually 
seeing who was comforting her.
****

In short order, Dr. Tofu, called by Nabiki, arrived. Using 
several shiatsu points he deadened feeling in the arm and reset 
the bone, filling the room with a disturbing grating sound. 
After affixing a temporary splint to the arm, he said,"I'm going 
to drive her ahead to my clinic and get x-rays, why don't the rest 
of you catch up when you can?"

They all agreed, for one reason or another, and watched as Dr. 
Tofu pulled out of the driveway.
****

As soon as the car was out of sight, a red-eyed and weeping 
Soun, rounded on Satori."How dare you attack my daughter!" He 
screamed. 

Ranma recognized a demonhead in the making and came to 
Satori's defense."Leave Satori alone, Tendo. She's already 
apologized more times than I can count and I told you, Akane 
attacked her full out when I told her that Satori wasn't very 
skilled. Akane didn't even give Satori time to prepare. It's her 
own fault."

Angrily, Soun demanded,"If she's so unskilled, how did she hurt 
my little baby?"

"Instead of thinking, Akane just attacked Satori blindly, but 
Satori got a lucky block in that hit Akane in just the right 
spot," Ranma replied.

Soun's anger was diminishing as he realized that how he was treating 
an innocent girl."I'm sorry, Satori, I just can't stand the thought 
of my little baby hurt. Wahhhhh!!!" He grabbed onto Genma and 
began crying all over his shoulder. Kasumi went over to comfort 
him.

Silently, almost forgotten in the wake of recent events, 
Nabiki scrutinized Satori and Ranma. The girl was standing 
behind Ranma, still crying softly, and hugging herself. To be 
expected of an obviously softhearted girl who had just 
acidentally broke another girl's arm. Ranma on the other hand, 
was behaving in a number of unexpected ways. He was being 
assertive against her father, defending another girl, and 
most unusually, behaving indifferently to Akane's plight. That 
really didn't fit in with any preconceived notions of the young 
man. And why in the world would Ranma suggest that Akane and 
his latest admirer, who had admitted to having no training 
whatsoever, spar together? He had to have known Akane's mood and 
how she would react to the opportunity to maim one of her rivals all 
in the name of sport. Revelation came in the form of blazing 
fireworks and a veritable marching band of mental sensation. How 
had she not seen it?! Nabiki slapped her hand to her forehead, a 
bit to hard though, bringing about the beginnings of a 
headache. Ranma's affection had somehow switched from Akane to 
Satori. How though? His devotion to her sister seemed absolute. 
He had stuck to her through thick and thin, up and down, 
kidnappings and attempted homicide. It didn't seem probable that 
his loyalties, always firm before, had altered so dramatically 
and become affixed to a normal girl. Satori wasn't a fighter. 
That alone should have ruled her out. All the other girls were...
all the other girls were! The answer couldn't be so simple. 
But unless Shampoo was up to her old tricks and was messing around 
with some magical spice or other, Ranma had fallen for Satori 
because she 'wasn't' a fighter. The girl also, from the short 
time Nabiki had known her, appeared to be very kind and gentle. 
Akane too was mostly a kind and gentle person, that is when she 
wasn't around Ranma. Maybe that was why Ranma had made Akane seem 
to be the preferred fiance. She didn't throw herself at him, or 
try to snag him with honor or duty. But still, to think that 
Ranma would choose another girl besides Akane, felt unnatural. 
Her attention was drawn back to the scene by Kasumi's words.

"Oh my, we'd better be going Auntie. Father isn't in very good 
shape and Nabiki and I should really check on Akane." Turning 
to Satori, Kasumi said,"I'm sorry that everyting has turned out 
so badly, but we understand that it was an accident." She left 
Soun's side and walked over to Satori and embraced her warmly. 

"I understand. Go on then, I'm sure Akane would like to be with 
her sisters. We'll come and visit, tomorrow perhaps?"

"I'm sure Akane would like that." 
****

After they were all gone, Ranma turned to Satori and exclaimed,
"That was great Satori! You really let her have it!"

Nodoka was the only adult present, Genma having been turned loose 
in the kitchen, so she was the only witness to Ranma being slapped 
very hard by Satori. She winced in sympathy as her son sailed 
across the room. He really did deserve that after tricking Satori 
into hurting Akane like that. Fortunately for her wall, 
Ranma disappeared before hitting it. That was a relief. At the 
speed he had been going there was littl