The Final Chaos 1/2
by Rarstarr
Final Fantasy 7 and all characters and idea connected to it are the
property of Square Co. Ltd.
Ranma 1/2 and all characters and ideas connected to it are the property
of Rumiko Takahashi.
Both are used here without permission for the purposes of Fan Fiction.
Readers are warned that this fanfic contains material that may spoil the
plot of the computer game Final Fantasy VII. I apologise to any reader
still playing the game. This part contains spoilers.
*****
The Final Chaos 1/2
Part 4: Clash of the Heroes
"Tonight in the Battle Square, we have the ultimate fight." Dio's voice
boomed from the darkness. The Battle Square's arena was lit, but the
audience seating above it was darkened. One of the two entrance gates slid
open. "On this one side we have the Champion of Champion, Hero of
Avalanche, Cloud Strife."
Cloud's entrance was accompanied by much applause from the galleries. He
walked out, and simply drew his massive sword from his back.
"Joining Cloud are another two of the Avalanche Heroes, Yuffie
Kisaragi..." Yuffie dashed from the entrance way, then leapt into the air,
throwing her cross into the air. Landing next to Cloud she caught her
weapon as it fell. The applause renewed. "...and Tifa Lockheart!" Tifa
walked out calmly and took her place on Cloud's other side.
"The challengers in tonight's fight are a group of warriors who have spent
most of their lives training in the martial arts." The second entrance
gate ground open as the first closed. "First up we have the Master of the
Saotome school of Anything-Goes-Martial Arts, Ranma Saotome!" Ranma strode
out into the arena. The crowd's cheers once more gained volume.
"Next we have the heir to the Tendo school of Indiscriminate Grappling,
the ferocious Akane Tendo!" Akane stomped out into the arena, obviously
not happy about her description.
"Last, but most definitely not least we have the world's greatest
traveller, Ryoga Habiki." There was a pause, silence fell across the
stadium. "What do you mean 'he's lost'?" Ranma slapped a hand on his face.
There was a longer pause as Dio spoke with others.
Everyone looked at the entrance, then Ranma looked at Cloud and shrugged.
At that moment Ryoga made his appearance, parasol in hand.
"Here he is folks, Ryoga Habiki!" Dio boomed.
As the crowd cheered Ryoga lifted his parasol and spun it around
expertly. The others all went back into combat stances.
"And now remember folks, in this battle neither side is using Materia, so
it is a test of combat prowess only. And now... let the fight begin!"
Ranma and Cloud immediately leapt into the air towards each other while
Tifa and Akane charged. Yuffie drew back to throw her the Crystal Cross,
only to be assaulted by a volley of spinning bandanas, closely followed by
Ryoga.
Ranma twisted away from Cloud's slash, but was caught by the edge of blade
as he pelted Cloud with his high speed punches.
Tifa's slamming blow was countered by an uppercut from Akane, sending the
warrior flying back. Akane leapt forward as Tifa struggled to her feet,
only to be intercepted by a kick.
Yuffie easily dodged the punch Ryoga used to follow up his bandanas and
slashed at the martial artist, only to have her blow blocked by the
parasol. The pair circled for a few seconds.
Cloud and Ranma separated for a second, then joined once more. Cloud
dodged Ranma's high kick, then used the flat of his blade to flip his
opponent like a pancake. Ranma somersaulted to land on his feet.
Akane and Tifa grabbed each other and started wrestling, neither able to
get the upper hand. They continued to circle, locked together.
Yuffie rolled away from Ryoga's grab and threw her cross, which slammed
into Ryoga side. Unaffected by the attack he swept her up with his
parasol.
Cloud set his sword and charged towards Ranma, who slid under the attack,
sweeping Cloud's feet from under him. As Ranma rolled to his feet he was
horrified to see Cloud stumbling uncontrollably towards Tifa and Akane.
Akane's eyes opened in horror as the point flew towards her head. She
started to dodge, but not enough.
Everything seemed to stop as Akane's lost locks fell to the ground. Akane
easily threw Tifa off, then turned to Cloud. "How dare you!" she screamed,
blue fire erupting around her. She lifted her hands above head as if
holding something. "Thor's hammer!" she bellowed. Her aura crackled, then
lanced into her hands, becoming an ornate stone hammer. This she brought
down hard on Cloud, who collapsed to the ground, still crackling with
energy.
"First K.O. goes to Akane Tendo!" announced Dio.
"Be quiet!" yelled someone in the audience.
Ryoga, distracted by what had happened to his beloved Akane, suddenly
found himself knocked off his feet. As he leapt to his feet Yuffie threw
her cross at him. It slammed into the ground at Ryoga's feet, ricocheting
up to smash him in the chin. The lost boy flew back and hit the ground,
as much out of it as Cloud.
"Second defeat dealt to Ryoga by Yuffie!" Dio announced.
"We don't need the commentary Dio!"
Akane received a blow from the behind as Tifa rejoined the fight. Ranma
and Yuffie turned to face each other, both going into combat stances.
Akane grabbed Tifa arms, throwing her up over herself, but the older girl
grabbed Akane's shoulders and reversed the flip, sending Akane crashing to
the ground. Ranma, still in his combat stance started to glow as he
collected a massive Chi charge, opposite him red light shone from the
ground around Yuffie's feet.
Akane, still lying on the ground, grabbed Tifa's ankles, jerking her off
her feet. As Ranma gathered yet more Chi Yuffie held her cross before her.
A massive cone of light formed before the girl.
Tifa rolled to her feet, turning to face Akane as she too stood up. The
pair once more dived together, fists flying. "Mouko Takabisha!" Ranma
bellowed at the top of his voice. "All Creation!" screamed Yuffie. The two
beams raced across the stadium, striking their targets. When the light
faded Yuffie and Ranma lay on the ground unmoving.
Akane delivered a strong punch to Tifa gut, who staggered back, winded.
Tifa smiled as the red light burst out of the ground around her.
"Waterkick!" she swept Akane's legs out from under her, spraying water
into the air. "Meteodive!" She grabbed Akane, and slammed herself to the
ground, explosions going off around them.
Akane collapsed to the ground, defeated. "Healer," Tifa croaked, before
she too fell to the ground.
*****
Dio's healers were working over time trying to get the six warriors back
into shape, even Akane's hair was healed. They were lying peacefully in
the beds of the recovery room when the others barged in.
"Husband!" Shampoo cried, glomping onto Ranma. Moments later there was an
almighty crash.
"Akane's up," Cloud noted, propping himself up.
"Pity about Ranma," Tifa added, staring at the smashed bed, that the dazed
Ranma and Shampoo were lying on.
"Why violent girl do that?" Shampoo asked darkly.
"She's jealous!" shouted Yuffie from across the room, and got a section of
Ranma's bed for her troubles.
"Why'd you do that you tomboy?!" Ranma demanded popping to his feet,
"Ranma you jerk!" screamed Akane.
"Knock it off!" Cloud yelled. Silence immediately descended. "I don't know
how you two managed to train with all the fighting you do?"
"Think about it Cloud, think about it," Vincent commented.
Cloud shot Vincent a nasty look, then looked at the three Nerimans. "I
guess you're Shampoo, then, how did you get here?"
"I found her out in the forests," Red XIII volunteered.
"Shampoo, no know how she get there."
Cloud shrugged. "Well, now that we're all here, I think we should get to
the Highwind, and discuss this mess."
As they headed out Cloud listened to all the conversations going on.
"Husband miss Shampoo?" Shampoo obviously.
"No, not really." Ranma at his tactful best.
Crash! Shampoo hitting Ranma, Cloud could see a pattern developing.
"A...a..." Ryoga, trying to talk to Akane, but totally tongue tied.
"What is it Ryoga?" She seemed almost oblivious to the boy next to her.
"You an' Akane were fightin' real wild in there." Barrett.
"I think we both went berserk."
"I wonder if I can learn Thor's Hammer off Akane?" Yuffie, to no one in
particular.
"Ow! Marlene! Not the whiskers!"
*****
The large scientist sat in his opulent office, smoking a cigar.
Considering the fact that they hadn't had a supply drop in over three
years, this was a rare pleasure he allowed himself. A knock at the door
disturbed him. 'This had better be good,' he thought darkly. "Come!"
His chief scientist pushed open the door timidly. "Sir, we think we've
found the problem with the field."
"Spit it out!"
"Sir, the equipment seems to have malfunctioned during the original
capture process, what is within the field is not actually an infinite
point."
The boss started at the scientist. "Then what is it?"
"A infinitely microscopic transdimensional conduit."
"Nice bit of technobabble, so what caused this really small hole into
another world?"
"Something in the local area was attempting to cross the interdimersional
with streams of energy. When set about to capture the infinite point, we
created a point of least resistance in the fabric of reality and the
streams simply punched through."
The boss frowned. "How many streams? For that matter why would constant
streams cause a temporary instability?"
"There are three streams sir. A few days ago instruments detected a large
Mako surge beneath the base. It disappeared shortly before the instability
occurred, so we've theorised that the surge went down one of the streams,
and caused something to come back."
"What?!" the man demanded.
The scientist shrunk back. "We don't know, sir, but they punched their own
holes, three of them."
"Damn, now I have to contact the Shinra president and tell him that not
only have we failed, but we've started an invasion from another world. If
we're lucky we might manage to get jobs cleaning Shinra tower."
*****
The group stood around outside the Ghost Hotel, waiting for Cid to pay the
bill.
"I wish I had been conscious to see the rest of that fight," Cloud told
Ranma.
"I'm just glad you didn't hurt Akane to badly."
"She reacts badly to getting her hair cut."
Ranma smiled. "She used to wear it long, but during a dual I had with
Ryoga we accidentally cut a lot of it off. Compared to you we got easy,
but that was a long time ago."
Cloud chuckled. "You know Ranma, if you wanted to you could sell your
story. It would make a wonderful TV show, or maybe a comic series, so long
as you didn't say it was true." Ranma shot him a dirty look.
Yuffie stood next to Ryoga, looking him up and down. The lost boy was
doing his best to ignore her. She turned to Akane. "How did he manage to
get lost getting into the arena?"
Shampoo smiled. "He have very bad sense of direction."
Akane nodded. "Ranma told me his entire family is like that, except his
dog. Anytime Ryoga wants to get somewhere he either needs to be led there
or he turns up late, if he turns up." Akane looked at Ryoga, then sighed.
"You almost have to feel sorry for him." Yuffie sighed sadly, then
wandered off.
"What's up with her?" Barrett asked.
"Her father's been pressing her about marriage, so she's trying to find
someone," Vincent replied. "Cloud's taken, in a way, and she's seen enough
of Ranma's life to know that chasing him can be hazardous to your health."
"What about us?" Barrett asked nervously.
"You have a child that could easily be her little sister, and let's face
it, I'm hardly a prime catch."
"That doesn't leave many options, does it?"
"Unfortunately no."
"For her, or us?" Barrett asked, right before a kid ran into him from
behind. "Hey, watch it son."
"Sorry sir," the boy replied. Then ran past him yelling. "You can't get
me!"
Another kid popped out of one of the transit tubes. "Yes I can!" he
yelled, and tossed a small balloon. It arced through the air, totally off
target. Everything slowed as it fell, with unerring accuracy, to burst on
Ranma's head, soaking him.
Everyone gapped at Ranma, except Akane and Shampoo, who were used to it,
and Ryoga, who was suppressing his laughter. Ranma looked down at herself
in dismay. "Always at the wrong time," he muttered.
"So you don't change into anything, eh Ranma?" Cloud inquired.
*****
Author's Note
I just want to thank Eric McGinnis for his suggestions for the fight.
Unfortunately as I've said, I'm only familiar with the English Mangas, so
I didn't understand most of what he said.
As usual C&C and MSTs are welcome.
Next time: the plot.