The Art____ (prologue)     Art Chapter 2: Here's Ranma?
by GreggSharp     Metroanime@aol.com
  Ranma 1/2 created by Rumiko Takahashi, AMG created
by Kosuke Fujishima, etc.
  i don't have money so don't sue me, hire me and we
can BOTH make money.
yes, this is an Alterniverse sort of thing. The idea
was: with all the talk about dedication to the Art,
what other kind of Art could have required this much
dedication and training. This is the result.
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	"I gotta learn an Umbrella spell, or maybe a
Repel Water or something." A red-haired girl snarled
as she glared at the heavens for the brief downpour.
"Maybe a weave of Water and Air..."

	"Growf," was the only response from her 
companion, a large panda that didn't seem too happy
either.

	"So what's at this dojo that I gotta see
anyway?"

	"Growf."

	"You WOULD have to turn into something that
can't speak, wouldn't you?" The girl thought about
it and decided this was probably just another 'challenge
the dojo and learn the techniques' run. She had a bad
feeling about it, though. While Martial Arts were a good
way to keep body and mind focussed, it was the Art of
Magic that was her true dedication.

	The two were aware of the attention they were
receiving, though they'd walked some truly strange paths
where they'd have been ignored as unremarkable. A girl
who seemed to have a slight glow around her made more
visible by the overcast sky, having a conversation with
a panda, was not something you see everyday even in
Tokyo.

	"We gotta find some hot water," Ranma suggested.
"I don't want to use up the energy trying to cloak both
of us with a Hide spell."

	"Growfl?"

	"No, I'm not gonna do that. What happens if 
that crazy Valkyrie chick comes after us again? You
really want me to use up the energy needed to Shield
against her shakti?"

	"Gruf." The panda seemed disinclined to continue
even an attempt at conversation, shuddering at the 
mention of the Valkyrie.
---------------------------------
	Soun glanced at the table and noted that a
crystal was glowing. "At last, they're here in this
dimension!"

	"Kasumi!" 

	Kasumi looked up from where she was boiling
noodles in the kitchen. "What is it, father?" While
it was true that he was only a step-father, she'd long
ago accepted him as if he were her real father.

	"Nabiki!" Soun glanced in to find that Nabiki
was lost in cyberspace again.

	"Oh, is it that time already?" Nabiki glanced
at her watch and then her calender.

	"What time is what?" Soun always felt like he
were three steps behind in a game of chess when he
talked to Nabiki.

	"Never mind, daddy, I'll be down in a moment."

	"Akane!" Soun looked around, then checked out
the dojo. Sure enough, Shampoo and Akane were sitting
in full lotus positions facing each other. An occasional
spark or shimmer would appear in the air between them
as they psychically dueled.

	"Akane! Shampoo!" Soun called. He knew better
than to get between the two, one of those Lessons You
Learn While Waiting For The Casts To Be Removed.

	"What is it, dad?"

	"Shampoo turn make dinner tonight?"

	"There's a family meeting, NOW."

	Shampoo exchanged a glance with Akane as they
followed their father into the house. "You think this
time is that time?"

	"We'll find out? Why are you so anxious anyway?"

	"Not everything in life is fight, Akane. Not
only pleasures in life through conflict. Old amazon
saying: 'Don't discount simpler pleasures in life.'"

	"If it involves boys I don't see how it could
have ANY pleasure involved."

	"Maybe so, Akane, but you not going to dispute
simple part, ne?"

	Akane snorted as she entered, then assumed a
neutral expression. They'd agreed earlier to act 
surprised when/if this iinazuke thing came to pass.
---------------------
	"...and if my friend's son were to marry one
of you, the Tendo legacy would be assured." Soun looked
over his step-daughter, two daughters, and adopted
daughter.
	
	"Wait a minute, don't we get some say in who
we're supposed to marry!" Akane, as usual, was angry.

	"Hang on, sis, you never know, he MIGHT be
cute," Nabiki wondered if her sister had forgotten
about their conversation last year. There hadn't 
been any mention of the subject to Akane since then, 
though Nabiki and Kasumi had conferred on the findings 
of some of the divinations since then. Shampoo had been
told shortly after she'd returned from her tribal 
village. "Right, daddy?"

	"He'll be here any minute." Soun wondered
about it himself. He had been told years ago that due
to a misunderstanding with some otherdimensional Thing
that they weren't including personal names in any of
the usual correspondence. "Saotome and his son have
been off exploring the multiverse for the past ten years
on a training journey. They recently crossed into
Asgard."

	"Oooh, Asgard."

	"So they've been to Asgard, big deal."

	"Father, how old is this fiance? Younger men
are so...young."

	"Is he cute?" Nabiki silently congratulated
her half-sister. Kasumi made it sound like she was
condemning the idea as unworkable while still leaving
it open. They already knew quite a bit about what was
going on, but their father was enough of an emotional
wreck without realizing exactly how little control he
actually had over his life. She noted that she sounded
a little eager herself, and wondered how much of her
own attitude was an act.

	"I...don't know."

	"You don't know?" Nabiki stopped, he couldn't
be THAT clueless, could he?

	"I've never met him."

	Kasumi sighed and covered her face with one 
hand. Nabiki noticed the gesture and realized that
Kasumi was covering a smile. That they knew far more
about what was going on than father was hardly new.

	"Aiyah," said Shampoo, duplicating Kasumi's
gesture and managing to sum up the entire situation.

	"So what exactly are we doing here, anyway?"
The voice was of a boy, somewhat irritated. "Are we
going to challenge them for their secret scrolls or
what?"

	"Ah, that must be them!" Soun Tendo beamed.

	Nabiki exchanged a glance to Kasumi who nodded.
It sounded like their iinazuke hadn't been told yet.
This WOULD be interesting. Smiling, she ran to open
the door.

	Outside was a middle aged man in a white gi
that had a couple of oddly colored patches on it. Her
attention was largely captured by the young man who
was standing nearby, looking over the house with an
oddly distracted look.

	"Oooh. He IS cute," she called back to the
others. Turning back she noticed how shocked the young
man in question was. Leanly muscled, hair back in a
loose ponytail, filled out his clothing rather tightly
in all the right places.

	"Uhm. Then these are friends of yours, pop?"

	Nabiki smiled and invited them in, watching the
young man's butt as he passed her. Yup, he might not be
rich, but she WAS a teenage girl and money wasn't quite
everything. It came close, but it wasn't everything.

	Soun smiled as they entered the room, and almost
hugged Ranma, a warning glare made the older man 
reconsider. "So you must be Genma's boy."

	"Yeah. I'm Ranma Saotome."

	"RANMA!?!" Shampoo leapt to her feet. "Did you
say 'Ranma'?"

	"uhm, yeah. Is there a problem?"

	Shampoo's eyes went to Nabiki and made a silent
promise that they would speak LATER. "No, just old
story my great-grandmother tell me. Coincidence."

	Nabiki thought about this. Come to think of it,
they had always referred to Ranma after that first
meeting as the "fiance" or "male visitor" just in case
anyone should overhear or be scrying on them. Shampoo
hadn't been present for that first meeting.

	"Well now, Saotome, have you thought about
your decision?"

	"What decision would that be?" Ranma was
puzzled. He had a bad feeling about this.

	Even Akane got this without the whispered
commentary from Shampoo. Ranma hadn't been told why
he was coming here.

	"To pick your fiancee, of course." Soun noted
Genma casting a spell and a brief image of a shield
settling into place around his old friend.

	"WHAT?!?" Ranma went into obvious shock. He
looked rather panicked, the discipline necessary for
the Arts Magical having gone on coffee break.

	"This is my stepdaughter Kasumi, she's 19. This
is my daughter Nabiki, she's 17. This is my daughter
Akane, she's 16. This is my adopted daughter Shampoo,
she is also 16. Pick any one you want, she'll be your
new bride."

	"Eeep." Ranma glared at his father. "Pop, what
are you trying to pull? You deliberately didn't tell me
about this!"

	"You'd have cast a Hide spell and run for cover
if I'd told you," Genma managed, increasing the flow of
energy to his Shield spell just in case. "It's for your
own good, boy."

	"Shampoo think he kinda cute. Shampoo will marry
Ranma." Shampoo smiled while looking over Ranma like a
cat with a new playtoy.

	Akane was now looking shocked. "Shampoo, what?"

	"Now, now, as the eldest here, it is my duty to
fulfill family honor." Kasumi smiled in a sort of absent
manner, radiating niceness. That was one thing about
Kasumi's projective telepathy, she tended to project 
whatever emotion she was feeling the moment.

	"Kasumi?!?" Akane went from shocked to 
flabbergasted. Kasumi interested in a younger guy? Well,
it was also true that there wasn't a line forming at the
door.

	"Now now, maybe we shouldn't rush the poor boy.
After all he has three prospective fiancees and doesn't
know any of us well enough to make an intelligent 
choice. Waiting, say a month, that would be the sort
of reasonable decision a mage would make, right?"

	"Nabiki?" Akane vaguely remembered last year's
meeting, but couldn't understand what they were going
on about. Didn't they hate being forced into this 
situation?

	"Oh, don't worry Akane. We all know how you
hate boys," Kasumi said with a smile.

	"Kasumi right. Akane not worry about this. 
Shampoo win anyway."

	"I don't think so, Shampoo. You're right about
one thing at least, that Akane would definitely be the
WRONG choice here."

	"Waitaminnute!" Akane glared at her three
sisters. She didn't like being forced into a marriage,
but here she was being shoved out of it like she 
couldn't possibly compete in this arena. Pride was
in a battle with reason and reason was very rapidly
being knocked into submission. So she was being tossed
out like yesterday's newspapers?

	"Shampoo sorry, Akane. You no competition but
Shampoo not be mean, just not want see you hurt when
you lose."

	Akane growled and glared over at the boy whose
head kept jerking around to stare as each girl spoke.
His mouth was still hanging open.

	
	"Well, Akane, that pretty much settles it.
This way he only has to make a choice out of us three."

	"Uhm, right." Ranma finally shut his mouth. The
thought of three attractive women arguing about who 
would get to marry him was so far from his usual train
of thought that he was feeling a curious dislocation.

	"I'm a woman too, you know. If I want to marry
this jerk, I've got as much a right as anybody else!"
The message suddenly reached Brain that Mouth had gone
off on its own initiative. Akane immediately shut her
mouth, sat back down from where she'd raised herself
up to protest, and tried not to look at anyone.

	"That's my boy," Genma said, proudly beaming
at his son to have four women ready to be his fiancee.

	"You do your father proud," wept Soun Tendo.

	"What the heck happened," whispered Ranma.
This was almost as bad as what had happened on that 
trip to Faerie. Wait, that's it. "There's something
you all should know before you go volunteering like
that."

	Picking up his glass of tea, now quite cold,
Ranma looked over the four. He thought this would 
eliminate some or all of the prospects. "While we
were travelling, looking for new magic to learn
and practice, my old man heard some things about a
plane of existence known as the Faerie Realm."

	"The Land Of Mists & Change, Where Chaos
Dwells and transmutation magicks are at their strongest,
where the nature within shapes the nature without."
Nabiki smirked as she saw Ranma's surprise. "Hey, we're
a family of espers with a direct descent from a Norse
godling, don't expect us to be ignorant about such
things."

	"Mister Saotome, how could you do something so
dangerous? Don't you know that no-one who enters the
Faerie Mists returns unchanged?"

	"Ah, no." Genma held up a travel book. It could
be clearly seen that the text was written in Old 
Atlantean, but the picture labels were in Japanese.

	"I take it you don't read Atlantean."

	"Bingo." Genma said just before the cold tea
hit him. His form blurred and a four foot long weasel
was now glaring at his son.

	"Inner natures are revealed, huh, pop! Should
have known you'd have a totem like Weasel." Ranma 
poured the remainder of the tea on himself.

	Ranma's form shrank too, becoming just a little
over five feet in height. He became female, the hair
turning red, the eyes turning a brilliant blue, a faint
glow seeming to appear around her.

	"Interesting, looks like a power up." Akane
was interested in this, after all, if it had to do with
fighting she was quite intrigued.
	
	"My mother is a valkyrie in mortal guise," Ranma
said. "This form reflects that side of my heritage."

	"Well Ranma, why don't you go take a bath? We
need to talk to Daddy anyway."

	"OK," Ranma considered arguing but he wanted
time to think this over. This had not been expected,
the pattern of the past few years having become 
thoroughly disrupted.
	
	Kasumi led Ranma upstairs to where his room
was, and Nabiki waited until Ranma had come back down
and gone down the hall to the furo before she turned to
Shampoo.

	"Okay, Shampoo, spill the beans."

	"What you mean, Nabiki?"

	"You didn't react to him until you heard the
guy's name, then suddenly you're all anxious to get
connected. What gives?"

	Shampoo blushed. "Is like this, you know great
grandmama Cologne? She say watch for boy name Ranma,
he 'diamond in rough' - you marry him and much honor to
tribe."

	"Hmmm. Something more than I thought is going
on here." Nabiki steepled her hands and looked at 
Shampoo with a flat gaze. "You two," she indicated her
father and Ranma's father with her thumb, "get ready
to marry off a Tendo and a Saotome. Shampoo's great
grandmother wants Shampoo to marry a Ranma. The obvious
solution is to have Shampoo Tendo marry Ranma."

	"Shampoo think so too. Everybody happy."

	"Except," Nabiki glared at Shampoo. "It's too
contrived. I think I'm going to have to examine this
all very carefully. I do NOT like being manipulated.
I'll bet this was why Cologne hid the evidence of you
still having family until AFTER the adoption was done."

	"Aiyahh. You right."

	Nabiki stood up and fixed the two fathers with
the look that gave her the title "Ice Queen" of 
Furinkan. "You two hold off on your little plans, by
the time the month is out, I should have more info."

----------------------------------
ok, this isn't the best place to end this, i was
 planning to do quite a bit with this story arc, but
 it looks like there are seven other people now working
 on the same or really damn similar stories.
the end would have tied into Evangelion where all the
 humans (except Shinji and Asuka) have become "one with
 God". at this point the ones who weren't pureblood 
 humans + the aforementioned two would have been the
 remaining human race.
with THAT many people doing "Ranma the mage" stories,
 i'm certainly not going to contribute to beating this
 horse to death and will go on to work on Neutral Ground,
 Saint Ranma, Dragon's Destiny, and Nabiki Screws Up.
(This last is where Kodachi makes a really big offer to
 Nabiki, Nabiki gets Ranma clobbered really hard by
 Akane, Kodachi gets Ranma, and it is four days of 
 absolute Hell for Ranma before someone finally attempts
 a rescue. At this point Ranma's sanity is pretty much
 in the past tense. If someone's already doing this
 or some of the other plotlines speak NOW so i can
 concentrate on the remaining projects...)
Ja ne,

Gregg