Disclaimer:  This here Ranma 1/2 anime sure ain't
mine, not by a longshot.  

Timeline: 
G.I. Joe is around five months before the events in
G.I. Joe the Movie.  It has been a year and a half
ever since the episodes of Arise Serpentor Arise took
place.  

Ranma 1/2 is three weeks after Ranma's battle with
Saffron.  

The year is 1987

A G.I. Joe/Ranma 1/2 Crossover 
Crossing the Line
By Darksoar

Chapter 1:
Revelations and Transitions, 
Part One

It was a bright Sunday afternoon with beautiful
weather.  Birds chattered and flew about; a mild,
cooling breeze swept through the tranquil (for the
moment) district of Nerima.  A young Japanese
teenager, his hair tied in a pigtail and wearing his
usual Chinese silken attire, was lying on top of the
Tendo household roof.  

However, despite all this, Ranma Saotome was not
having a good day.
	
Correction, he was not having a good life. 

It had been only three weeks since the free-for-all
invitational disaster that at vaguely started out as a
wedding.  But that wasn't the real problem; the
Musabetsu Kakutou practitioner had dealt with worse.

Saffron.

Even the thought of the Phoenix God's name brought the
memories of the tragic battle that had taken place at
Jusendo.  There, Ranma had been forced to fight with
Saffron so that he could get the water necessary to
save Akane's life.  The last image of Saffron's face,
just before the Hiryu Shoten Ha struck him, was filled
with denial, anger, and shocked amazement.  Then he
had died.  

Only two days after their return to Japan and Akane's
miraculous revival, Soun and Genma sprung the surprise
wedding on them.  But that proved to be a disaster
when, informed by Nabiki (for a price, naturally), a
group of Ranma's various rivals and other 'fianc�es'
had crashed it, literally.  The end result was the
destruction of the Saotome family house and a further
straining of the relationship between Ranma and Akane.


For some reason, the disruption of the wedding had
turned his fianc�e into a vicious wildcat.  She had
jumped to the conclusion that Ranma had told Nabiki to
INVITE them to the wedding for the reason so it
couldn't be finished, and so Ranma could escape being
married to her.  This triggered an incredibly stubborn
"hate-Ranma" mode that Akane had been tuned in for
almost three weeks.  Ever since after the wedding, she
had been prone to abrupt mood swings, violent
tendencies, and unpredictable behavior, at least where
Ranma was concerned.  Thanks to that, he had sometimes
slipped back into his old routine of insulting her and
acting as if he didn't care about her feelings. 
Actually, Ranma wasn't sure what he felt for her as of
now.  But one thing was sure, her malice towards him
was getting tiresome, and he wasn't feeling too happy
about her.   

But that wasn't the most important of Ranma's concerns
though, and he could dwell on that another day.  Right
now, he had bigger problems that needed his attention.
 

Things had happened so fast that it wasn't until a day
after the catastrophe, Ranma had some rare free time
to himself.  He'd abruptly realized something that
shook him to the very core of his being.  That
something had bothered him immensely and it couldn't
be ignored.  

He had killed.

He, Ranma Saotome, had killed.  Against his personal
code of martial arts and honor, he had taken the life
of someone else.  The realization of that act began to
weigh down on his conscience, and despite his efforts
to try and ignore it, he couldn't.  He soon found out
that this time was very different from any of his
earlier battles.  Before he could easily blatantly
ignore and shrug off the consequences of his usually
rash choices.  But now, it was a whole different
story.

Ranma felt as if his soul was tarnished with the blood
of Saffron.  At first, he tried to vigorously scrub
his hands clean in the shower until they were red, but
to no avail.  The powerful, sharp guilt closed upon
him with claws of depression and self recrimination. 
The fact that Saffron had been reborn almost instantly
after his death or the fact that he had no other
choice available both did not help at all.  The result
of his victory haunted him in his sleep and also every
moment when his mind was idle.   

He began to have nightmares, each time replaying the
battle, each time with a different ending.  In some
he'd died, while in others, he'd failed to bring the
water to Akane in time.  A good portion of those ended
the same as the real event, except that Saffron's
death was grossly focused on and accentuated.  As a
result, Ranma had found himself waking in cold sweat
late at night.  

All those nightmares soon began to have a visible
effect on him.  Lack of a good night's sleep made him
easily irritable and more short-tempered.  To make
matters worse, his other fianc�es and rivals increased
their efforts to try and push Ranma and Akane apart.  

His sense of his own mortality was sharper now, and
more acute.  Instead of taking tomorrow for granted,
he'd begun to experience a new appreciation for life
he'd never known before.  Slowly, but steadily, his
view on life began to take on a gradual change.  Ranma
began to think ahead; about how to face the future
rather than just wallowing in the present, and about
how to learn from the past.  With this new philosophy
taking root, he took a long look at the past year; at
what had transpired ever since he and his father had
first arrived at Nerima.

Very quickly, he arrived to the conclusion that his
life up to this point had been...less than desirable. 
To his great dissatisfaction, he came to the startling
realization (for him) that ever since he was born and
up till the present, he had been controlled or
manipulated by others.  Since he'd never stopped to
see how his life was going, he hadn't been in a
position in thinking of ways to improve it.

But now he had.

It all started with his Pops.  Genma, Ranma decided,
wanted to let his son grow up to be extremely
dependent on him and also wanted his son to quickly
marry just so he could retire early in life.  Soun was
an emotional wreck with a total loss of self-control
who pushed just as hard as Genma for their two
families to be finally united.  

Nabiki was the manipulator of all manipulators, and a
master blackmailer.  Despite all of that, Ranma
grudgingly respected her abilities which placed food
on the table and just barely kept the Tendo's out of
poverty.  That respect was all that stopped him from
retaliating for all the things she had done to him; he
had realized a long time ago that he and his father
had added to her burdens, so he let her profit off
him.  Unlike his father, Ranma's honor demanded that
he do something in return for the Tendos in providing
free room and board.  That didn't mean that he had to
like whatever blackmail she did to him, though.  

Ranma managed a wry smile of amusement.  "I wonder if
Nabiki ever realized that all this time I've been
letting her get close enough to me to take all those
photos."  Shrugging, he filed that thought away for
later contemplation and went back to cataloging his
problems.  

Next on the list was, of course, the Amazons.  Since
the beginning, Cologne and Shampoo had given it their
all to try and drag Ranma back to China as Shampoo's
husband.  In that, they had attempted all sort of
things, from magic potions to enchanted items and
pressure points.  Lately, they'd been quiet for a bit,
but Ranma was positive that they were building up for
another one of their schemes.  While Ranma was
grateful of Cologne teaching him some incredibly
techniques, he'd be damned if he was going to let
himself be reduced to just being Shampoo's foreigner,
if highly skilled, husband.  There was no way in hell
that was going to happen. 

 Mousse had proven himself not to be much of a
problem.  In fact, Ranma hadn't suffered an attack by
the blind Master of Hidden Weapons ever since they'd
returned from China.  The young Saotome didn't know
why Mousse's aggression towards him was significantly
decreased, but he guessed that it had something to do
with the fact that he had destroyed Saffron in battle.
 The wedding could have done nothing but help with
that new line of thinking.  Even someone as blindly
obsessed with Shampoo as Mousse was couldn't have
blatantly ignored the fact that Ranma had been willing
to marry Akane. 

Thankfully, Ryouga himself had been scarce for a long
while now.  Ranma suspected that Akari had something
to do with that, and he was grateful for that.  In the
past, Ryouga was one of his biggest problems, and his
P-chan identity had greatly complicated Ranma's uneasy
relationship with Akane.  "Thank Kami-sama for small
favors," he muttered, and gave a quick nod to the
heavens, just in case Kami-sama himself was watching
him at that moment.  

As if to make up for Mousse's peace and Ryouga's
absence, Tatewaki and Kodachi Kunou had stepped up
their efforts greatly in order to "smite/slay the
horrible/horrid cursed Saotome/pig-tailed wench and
earn the affection of the pig-tailed goddess/the manly
Ranma Saotome."  It seemed that every time he was
male, Tatewaki would be attacking him at school and
Kodachi would be throwing herself at him.  When he
became female, then the opposite would occur.  To
Ranma, it was grating heavily on his already frayed
nerves and he was sorely tempted to dish out some much
needed payback.  Oh, he'd resisted (admirably, in his
own humble opinion), but the urge to beat both Kunos
into next week was almost more than he could stand.  

Even though he didn't hit girls, he was thinking that
he would have to make an exception for Kodachi.  That
laugh of hers didn't even sound ladylike, it chilled
him to the bone no matter how many times he heard it. 
In fact, it didn't even sound remotely human, so Ranma
was halfway to thinking that maybe slapping her down
for a while would be doing a service for humanity,
however brief.  Still, Ranma would only knock her out
as an extreme last resort; he understood that she
wasn't all that mentally stable.  Kind of like her
brother, she had the uncanny ability to warp reality
and make it fit into whatever delusion she desired at
the moment.  
   
With her brother, Ranma didn't have any qualms about
hurting him.  It was just that the damned idiot was so
stubborn and had an impressive capacity for
punishment.  Ranma would knock him down, and a minute
later the older boy would be up, spouting passages in
his pseudo-Shakespearean speech about how he would
free the pig-tailed goddess from the black-hearted
magic of Ranma Saotome.

As for his pal, the one he thought he could trust,
Ranma didn't know what he would do.  Although he was
angry at Ukyou for aiding in the disruption of his
wedding, he also could not, in good faith, blame her,
for he could see things from her angle.  Ranma was
lost; he had no idea even where to begin to handle
this situation.  He'd have to think about it more;
maybe he would ask Dr. Tofu for advice. 

He sighed.  Ranma was quite certain now that he didn't
want the situation as it was to continue forever. 
Before the battle with Saffron, he would have just
went on and blamed his curse for all of his troubles,
but now Ranma saw that line of thought was stupid. 
Not only did blaming the curse do anything for his
troubles, but it was a complete waste of time.  

Now, instead of lamenting about the past, Ranma was
now thinking about how to change his future for the
better.  He cringed inwardly as he reviewed his
actions earlier that year in which he had done in
order to try and get a quick fix for his cure.  He
shook his head, almost not believing all the
unnecessary trouble that had resulted.  While Ranma
was still not fond of his curse, he came to the
conclusion that if he had just thought to look ahead,
even a little, back then, more than half those
troubles would have been easily avoided.  

All this time, his key to victory in his fights was
being able to successfully adapt and counter his
enemy's fighting style, whatever it was.  Now, he had
an idea to apply that said adaptability not only in
battle, but in life as well.  His innate stubbornness
made it quite difficult to admit that he was wrong,
that he needed improvement in anything besides martial
arts.  But with his new perspective, Ranma was
determined to not make the same mistakes again.  

'Amazing how causing death first hand could change a
person's life,' he thought.  

To put it plain, Ranma was sick and tired of people
demanding that they knew better than him on how he
should live his life.  His resentment was building,
bit by bit, every time someone attacked him out of the
blue, every time someone tried to force their feelings
on him, and every time someone tried to make him do
things he felt he wasn't ready for.  For the past
three weeks, he'd been thinking on this; now he was
ready to start acting on it.  

"I'm through with this.  No one's gonna force me do
anything I don't wanna do.  I'm sick and tired of
taking all this crap everyone shoves off onto me.  I
ain't gonna continue to be a scapegoat and a prize to
win.  From now on, starting this very second, Ranma
Saotome is a new man," he declared, feeling better for
saying it out loud.  

His current line of thought was interrupted by a
annoyed sounding female voice shouting his name from
below.  

"Ranma, get your butt down here!  And I mean now, you
jerk!"  

"Saotome," he addressed himself, "looks like you've
got a chance to start practicing that new line of
yours right away."  

On impulse, he jumped to feet and shouted aloud,
"Stronger than a maddened gorilla, faster than a
moving snail, able to jump to conclusions at a single
glance!"  Ranma looked down into the Tendo's front
yard at his irate fianc�e and pointed straight at her
as he continued, "It's a bird, it's a plane, it's
Akane Tendo!"  'Hehe, call me a jerk for no reason,
will you?'

It seemed that his new resolution would face its first
challenge in the form of Akane Tendo's legendary
temper.  

Predictably, the irate girl got even more irate as a
furious scowl dressed her face.  "Baka!" she spat,
"What idiotic nonsense are you babbling about now?"  

"Nothin' that you'd understand," Ranma quipped.  

Her eyes smoldered; her fists clenched.  All that
anger really made her more uncute, Ranma decided. 
Then he said, "Hey Akane, don't take it so seriously! 
I was just joking with you, so relax!"  

Akane, he decided, wasn't showing any signs of
lowering her temper.  Ranma had known that she
wouldn't listen to anything else he would say; he knew
her well that when she was in a mood like this, Akane
would only focus only on his insults.  It was rare
that she would pay attention to any of his attempted
apologies or 'takebacks'.  Knowing exactly what would
happen in the next few seconds, instead of trying to
run away, Ranma took the exact opposite course.

He hopped down from the roof and landed a few feet
away from the angry girl, whose next words were, "Are
you calling me stupid?"  

Mindful of her proximity, Ranma folded his hands
behind his back and exuded an apparent air of careless
indifference.  Glancing at her, he asked, "Did you
call me a jerk just a minute ago?"  Which wasn't
really a question, but the pigtailed boy carefully
watched for the expected reaction. 

 He wasn't disappointed.  

"Ranma no baka!"  Mallet-sama appeared with a blazing
flourish in her waiting hands as Akane wound up to
take her wrath out on a very deserving (in her
opinion) Ranma.  

Within the two seconds that it took her to get within
striking range, a multitude of thoughts rampaged
through his mind.  Akane seemed to be charging forward
in slow motion as Ranma's lightning quick mind tried
to hatch a viable answer to the upcoming conflict.  

It had been a painful and frustrating experience every
time Akane had struck him with her damn mallet, and he
couldn't return the favor because of his personal
beliefs as a martial artist.  Needless to say, there
had been a few  times when he'd desperately wanted the
chance to get revenge on Akane for her impunity of
hitting him at will.   

Then a sudden thought struck him.  'Wait', he asked
himself, 'don't I usually dodge Kunou's bokken,
Mousse's weapons, and Ryouga's umbrella and bandannas?
 If that's so, why couldn't I dodge this mallet like I
did their attacks?  What's the difference between them
and her?'  

His answer was almost reflexive, and Ranma could
practically hear his father's voice in it.  'Because
she's a girl, and your fianc�e.  She's practically
your wife, and was almost three weeks ago.  If she
hits you, then it's probably because you deserve it. 
She's right and you're probably wrong.  Just take your
punishment like a man, and that'll be it.' 

With his usual stubbornness strengthened and given new
direction by his recently voiced resolution, Ranma
worked out an answer to that.  

'Bullshit, that's just plain bullshit.  I don't
deserve to be hit now, because I didn't do nothing to
her.  Sure I teased her, but she called me a jerk
first without me doing anything to her!  And she won't
even say that she did!  Fianc�e or not, I'm sick of
being pounded on for something so small.  It's like
she uses the tiniest thing as an excuse to pull out
that damn overgrown hammer and whack me with it. 
Well, I'm sick of that, and I'm sick of her doing
that, and I'm gonna do something about it!'
 
He quickly ran through his options.  Well, he still
couldn't get back at her physically, but just what if
he didn't let himself get hit at all?  Maybe if he
avoided the mallet completely until Akane ran out of
juice?  

'Hey, that sounds pretty good!  I'll give it a try,'
he thought. 

Time resumed its normal pace as Akane swung, aiming
for his head.  
	
Ranma, two months ago, would've tripped over his own
two feet in his haste to get away, and gotten
painfully smacked in the air for it.  

Today's Ranma, however, narrowed his eyes and smoothly
ducked the swing that was aimed at his head.  Before
Akane could recover, he jumped over her and landed
several feet behind her.  

When the expected impact didn't happen, Akane found
herself in a dizzying, brief spin and collapsed to the
ground, her world a revolving blur.  

The unthinkable had finally happened.

Ranma idly wondered for a second if they were enjoying
the sudden snow down there.  

He watched silently as Akane slowly got up, taking the
time for her dizziness to dissipate.  She turned
around and saw him there, free of any of the usual
marks that spoke of forceful impacts with a certain
oversized hammer.  Confusion, rage, and astonishment
fought for supremacy as she struggled to come to grips
with the fact that she had completely failed in
hitting him.  That wasn't supposed to happen!  

Noting the interesting array of emotions running
across her face, Ranma said, "I've decided to stop
being your personal punching bag anymore, Akane.  I
gotta warn you, starting today, I'm not gonna let you
hit on me whenever you feel like it, whether I've
deserved it or not.  How 'bout we talk it over?"    
	
Quickly shaking off the last of her disorientation,
Akane's wrath surged anew.  Ignoring Ranma's
suggestion, she pushed aside the confusion and shock,
summoned her trusty mallet yet again, and charged.    

Ranma remained silent, but he put on his best arrogant
grin on his face.  Akane saw that irritatingly
familiar smirk, and it goaded her to push the attack. 
She instantly made it her mission right there and then
to wipe that most hated of expressions off his face
anyway she could.  So with great resolve, sheer
contempt and anger for a certain Saotome family
member, she swung her mallet with righteous fury.

With such enthusiasm and determination, it was a real
shame that she missed.  And missed.  And missed again.
 With every miss, her frustration and anger increased.

Never changing his expression, Ranma twisted and
turned his body, ever so slightly dodging each mallet
strike.  He turned the attacks into such close misses
that each time that mallet swung by, he felt the brush
of air as it gently caressed his body.  Sometimes the
oversized hammer itself would make brief contact with
his silk shirt, but not once did it ever hit his body.

Her frustration grew as she kept swinging and kept
missing.  It fed her anger and increased it until her
self-control (or what little remained of it)
completely evaporated.  Everything else blurred into
the background; the only thing she could see was that
arrogant jerk in front of her.  Summoning all of her
anger, she raised her mallet for another attempt. 
"Die Ranma!"  

He promptly responded by pulling down his eyelid with
his index finger and sticking his tongue out.  

"Arrrrgghhhh!!" 

The futile assault continued.  Ranma was quite
surprised at himself for the ease he was avoiding the
attacks.  It was a mystery to him; how was he doing
this so easily when just two months ago any of Akane's
attempts would unerringly strike on target?  Why was
he able to dodge as successfully as he was doing right
now?  Why was it so easy, when it had been practically
impossible before?  Was it all because of that new
resolution he made?  Ranma found no quick answers to
his questions as he was forced to pay a minimum amount
of attention to his evasive maneuvering.  

After a good five minutes, Akane finally ran out of
energy and she stopped swinging her weapon.  Her
exhaustion and weariness had finally replaced all of
the anger within her and, without the anger to fuel
the mallet, it dissipated.  She stood a few  feet away
from Ranma, hands on her knees, hunched over trying to
get her breath back.

"Oh good, you're finally done.  It's about time. 
Well, later 'Kane, I've got something important to do.
 See ya!"  

With that, Ranma jumped onto the roof, grinning
wickedly to himself.  Ignoring the stream of vocal
wrath from below, the pig-tailed teenager engaged in
an abrupt session of roof-hopping.  As he did this, he
though back over to what had transpired.  Upon
reflection, his idea had worked out perfectly.  He
wasn't hurt, Akane wasn't hurt, and she was now too
tired to try and exact further 'vengeance' on him. 
Hmm, maybe not that perfectly because doubtlessly
later on she would take umbrage at him for his
unusual, though flawless, defense. 

But at least he had avoided getting malleted, which
was a definite improvement on the usual ending of such
matters.  As Ranma reflected upon his next move, a
sudden barrage of questions made themselves to him
known in midair. 

It was time to start getting answers to those
questions.  It was time to start planning.  By
tomorrow he would be ready to begin changing his life
for the better.

Now, where was a good place to do so?

/*************************************************/

Akane Tendo was at a complete loss for words.  She'd
been pissed off at Ranma before, and some of the
stunts he did had left her in absolute disbelief, but
this was different.

This took the cake.

She would have never thought of Ranma being able to
evade her mallet, let alone escape her without being
hit once.  It was such an alien concept that when her
emotions were spent, her thoughts went in circles of
denial and disbelief of something like 'I don't
believe...impossible, can't be...he got
away...missed...I don't believe...impossible, how
could he...'  

Akane thought she knew him pretty well, better than
the other girls who chased him.  Such was the case
that it was quite understandable that she was
completely thrown for a loop, and more.  

So like a statue placed at the middle of the Tendo
front yard, she stood there in shock, her mouth agape,
her shoulders hunched.  

Nabiki casually strolled out of the house and regarded
her unmoving sister.  Flicking her eyes to her
wristwatch, she quickly noted that Akane had been
standing there for an hour.  

Shaking her head, she turned and walked back inside,
muttering "Just this once, I don't want to know."

/*************************************************/  
 
Ranma was at the park, having arrived there hours
earlier.  He'd avoided being seen by the other Nerima
martial artists by using the Umi-sen-ken.  Here only a
few other people, mostly young couples and a peace
officer, whom Ranma was familiar with, named Ken
Takuki, were evident.  That was fine with him; the
less people, the less chances of being bothered.  He'd
come here in need of a quiet place to plan and
strategize his 'master plan'.  

Predictability.  Routine.  Old habits. 

All of these were his greatest enemy, Ranma decided. 
Unlike in a fight, where his prime advantage was his
adaptability, his actions and reactions were
predictable in his day to day living.  Several people
took advantage by preying on those.  He frowned,
remembering more...
	
Cologne and Shampoo, offering him a 'quick fix' for
his curse in order to try and secure him as Shampoo's
husband...
	
Nabiki trapping him into her schemes by challenging
him and by playing on his stubbornness...

Akane, fiercely pounding on him on a whim, taking
advantage of his utter reluctance to fight back
physically...
 	
Ryouga, playing on Ranma's sense of honor by sleeping
with Akane as P-chan...

Genma, purposely engaging him to other girls for
selfish reasons and expecting him only to honor one
engagement.  

Tatewaki and Kodachi Kunou, pursuing both of his forms
for their own lustful purposes... 	

Ranma was getting angry, incredibly angry.  In fact,
the last time he could remember being this mad was
when Mikado kissed him when he was in girl form.  
	
Several minutes passed.  With some effort, and by
using the Soul of Ice, he pushed it down.  Right now
he needed a clear head unclouded by any sort of
emotion if his plan was to work.  Chewing his lip, he
descended into deep thought.  After nearly half an
hour of intense mental work, he came up with something
promising.

"Well, if everyone wins by using me and my
predictability to get what they want from me, then
I'll stop offering them such obvious leverage.  Before
I start attacking, first I'd better strengthen my
weaknesses as best I can."  

Ranma frowned again.  He wasn't fooling himself; he'd
made a mental listing of what he thought of as his
'usual habits'.  Such a list tallied many items, and
to change them would be very difficult and could turn
out to be impossible on his part.  

Then his grimace transformed into a small, yet genuine
smile.  A burst of sudden laughter escaped from his
lips and he chided himself.  How could changing his
habits be any difficult than what he had experienced
and overcome in the past year?  Every obstacle and
challenge that had been thrown at him, he had faced
head-on and triumphed over.  It would be no different
this time.   

"I am Ranma Saotome," he declared to the open night,
"and I won't lose!"  Ignoring the startled looks and
whisperings of the other park visitors, he crossed his
arms over his chest and looked up into the darkened
sky.

"And the game is on," Ranma whispered, his eyes
gleaming with determination.  

End Chapter 1

Author's Notes:

Well, due to being sick for nearly a week really cut
down on my writing.  Also, a sudden hard drive crash
absolutely didn't help at all.  Thankfully, a partial
copy was on hand via diskette, and I just rewrote
everything from there on up.  Lesson learned, now I'm
backing my work on cd-rws now.  

Hope you enjoyed it.  Cya next time in Chapter 2 as
Ranma puts his 'master plan' into action.  C&C will be
much appreciated.  Thanks!  

	



		
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