I should probably wait a while and then reread this, rather than posting it immediately after finishing writing it, but gee, it's my first spamfic!  I can't resist!  Anyway, please let me know if it works okay, C&C appreciated.

A Very Tragic Story
by Thermopyle (thermopyle@tds.net)

Disclaimers at the bottom.

#####

He panted, inhaling and exhaling rapidly as he attempted to recover from
the latest attack.  His bones and muscles all hurt, he was sure the next
blast of magic would do him in.  The girls were faring no better, both
unconscious upon the road.  His brother stood nearby, his frustration at
not being able to help any for the battle evident.  The enemy was too
strong.

She had appeared out of nowhere, either having been invisible and
waiting for them, or teleporting to their location.  Neither one was
something he could accomplish, and he was the magic user of the group.
The first blast had burned his left arm, the sleeve of his shirt had
almost melted into his skin there, so fierce was the flame.  He'd
recovered in time to dodge the next strike, but everybody else was too
surprised, and the girls got hit.  His brother had attempted to take the
blow but had been too far away; the enemies subsequent attacks made it
clear that she knew of his abilities and was deliberately avoiding using
magic on him.

Now, they had no chance.  She kept teleporting about, striking down the
three of them and ignoring his brother completely.  None of them could
fight back at all.  If only his brother would get hit...

She appeared again, above them this time, hovering thirty feet up,
beyond the girls' range.  He didn't try to fire off a spell, as he had
before, she was too fast and would just teleport out of the way.  He
couldn't even see what she looked like, her robe covered her whole body
and the cowl most of her face, the only indication that their attacker
was female was the colored lips and hairless chin and jaw.  She smirked,
and he prepared himself.

"So, is this all you have?  I expected more.  What a disappointment.
Very well, let's end this."  So saying, she pointed one arm towards his
brother, and a globe of power shot from inside the dark sleeve.  The
feel of it was unfamiliar, he had no idea what she had just done, but if
she'd avoided his brother this whole time, and was now casting a spell
directly at him...

"Look out!" he yelled, but was paid no attention.  His foolish brother,
with a big grin on his face, stood up straight to receive the blast.
The triumphant look quickly faded when it hit, and his reaction to the
magic began.  Instead of quickly switching to a different body, a
monstrous body with immense strength and physical abilities as he
usually did, the change was chaotic, painfully slow.  Bits of different
transformations appeared all over as his body warped itself to some
unknown instructions.  His head and chest began one transformation, his
arms another, his lower body another yet, and they were all fluid, the
change was ongoing and didn't appear to be slowing down, but rather to
be speeding up.  From his brother screams, it was extremely, incredibly
painful.

He threw himself forward, stumbling towards his brother as best he could
despite the burns all over his body, the bruises and aching bones.  His
beloved older brother, who'd done so much for him, needed his help.

"I don't think so," said the woman's voice.  He twisted about in fear,
looking towards the sky in horror as some black...thing, a giant blob of
physical chaos, dropped down upon his screaming brother.  When it hit,
his brother disappeared, fading quickly from view even though his
anguished cries persisted for several seconds afterwards.

His brother was gone.

First came the disbelief, that it wasn't possible, it couldn't have
happened.  His brother hadn't just been sent through some kind of weird
portal to another place, possibly to his death.  Impossible.

As he stared at the empty patch of land, however, his feelings changed.
It was possible.  It had happened.  His brother was gone, and he would
have no way to return.  He refused to accept that the elder boy was
dead, however, instead, he was waiting somewhere beyond sight and sound,
waiting for his younger brother to come to his rescue for once.

Power, far beyond anything he'd ever known, began to fill him.  His
brother needed him, and this bitch was in the way.

Her mistake.

#####

Elsewhere, a fat, baldheaded man looked to the sky as a strange
crackling noise was suddenly audible.  A black rip appeared, like a
portion of space itself, and out dropped some...thing the likes of which
he had never seen, thrashing about as it fell.  It landed where expected
and he sighed, then moved to record the day's events, and what exactly
he had just seen.

How tragic.

#####

Later:

Another rip appeared, this one at ground level and in a safe location,
and three people stepped out.  The first was a man, and the second two
were both women.  With a short gesture from the man, the portal
disappeared.  Then the man closed his eyes for a brief moment, before
opening them and letting a relieved smile appear on his face.

"That way!" he said, pointing eastwards.  "My brother is that way."

The two girls, both with happy smiles upon their faces, smiled at having
found their lost love.  Together the three set off to find him.

#####

Ranma and Happousai both sat in the back yard of the Tendou home, mouths
open wide in astonishment, although at different things, to be sure.
The old man's eyes were filled with tears of pride and happiness, his
joy readily apparent.  Ranma's eyes were just full of stunned
incomprehension.

"I... I'm so PROUD!" said Happousai.  "I knew he'd come around one day,
but this, this is unexpected!  To think that he would not only come to
love the name I'd given him, but refuse to accept another from two
beautiful women!"

Ranma just watched in silence as Pantyhose Tarou, in his cursed form,
once again ran past, a man as well as two women with very strange
outfits waving whips around right behind him.  Pantyhose was in 
obvious need of help, but the situation was just too ridiculous to
believe, so all Ranma did was sit there and watch them run past.  
What an unexpected sight.

Again they came, Pantyhose Tarou still waving his signs about
frantically, the three people close on his heels and yelling the same
things for the umpteenth time.

"Carrot!"
"Carrot, come back!"
"Brother!  I've come to rescue you!"
<My name is PANTYHOSE!  PANTYHOSE TAROU!> flip <Ranma!  Old man!
SOMEBODY HELP ME!>


The end.

Author notes:  Did anybody not see this coming?  I wrote this with very
poor memories of what exactly happened in the first two manga volumes,
which is all I've read, so my vagueness isn't only to keep things a
(hopefully) surprise until the last minute.  I do know the names of
the characters involved, however, that was intentional.

Anyway, this is my attempt at an answer for how the spring Tarou got
dunked into was created.  I hope it seems more likely than the original
explanation, if not, oh well.  *shrugs*

Besides which, I just find the idea of a Spring of Drowned Carrot to be
funny, chaulk it up to an odd sense of humor if you must.

Sorcerer Hunters is by Satoru Akahori.  Ranma is by Rumiko
Takahashi.  I own neither series, nor the characters contained within.

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