Sitting at a cramped, cluttered desk, holding a laptop computer, Mihrna, Goddess of Messengers, was looking rather put out. With a sigh, she swept her arm across the surface of the desk, sending a large, and particularly ancient looking stack of detritus to the floor. The resultant crash was accompanied by the sharp, airy sound of something fragile, and probably vaulauble, meeting something hard and very immobile.
"Oops... I hope that wasn't something important." Mihrna muttered somewhat sheepishly, as she opened up the laptop on the newly cleared space. After plugging its modem into the side of a telephone which was perched precariously atop one of the other piles of rubbish, Mihrna turned it on. "Anyway, since it seems to be the season for reposts, I decided that this might be a good time to start sending this fic out again. Eimii would probably do it herself, but at the moment she's... otherwise occupied."
*****
"Truly thou shalt pay dearly for this mockery that thou has made of my noble personage! I _demand_ retribution for this outrage!! Have at thee, foul hellspawn!!" Kunou-chan thrusted her bokken in a sharp, precise motion, nearly cliping Eimii's right temple as the smaller girl duked to the side.
"Eep! Kunou-ch- kun! Please, can't we just talk this out?" Eimii awkwardly hopped over a leg sweep, only to slip on a loose roofing shingle. She began to fall backwards. "AAAAAAaaaaaaaauuugghhh..."
"Think not that thou may escape Kunou Tatewaki's wrath so easily, demon!" Undaunted, Kunou-chan leapt off of the dorm roof after her.
*****
"But anyway, this was the first piece of fanfiction that Eimii sent to the FFML, around two years ago. It's a Ranma 1/2, Ah Megami Sama crossover. All of the characters involved, with one or two exceptions, are the property of either Takahashi Rumiko, or Fujishima Kousuke, so please don't sue Eimii; I really doubt she could afford an attorney, and while it would probably be rather amusing, I don't think I want to see Eimii try to defend herself in court."
Mihrna inserted a worn, battered computer disk into the side of the laptop, handling it as if it might fall apart at any moment; after all, it looked like it might. "I tried to correct most of the glaring grammar errors that plagued the original copy of this, but I may have missed some. Otherwise, this fic appears in more or less the same form as it did two years ago. I'm sure Eimii would still love to hear anything you might have to say about this work, as she's still writing it, so please feel free to e-mail her with any comments, criticisms, or mad, mouth-foaming, rants that you might have for her. This part it just the prologue, but the first three chapters will follow within the next week or two..."
Mihrna paused, looking away from the computer for a moment, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Also, Eimii might _actually_ have chapter four ready for posting by that time, as incredible as that might seem to the people that remember this fic. At any rate, here it is, so on with the show."
As Mihrna was about to press the 'send' key, she noticed, an odd noise. Looking toward the dorm-room window, she saw a blur shoot by, followed by another.
"-AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaagggh......"
"-NONE SHALL DEFY THE BLUE THUNDERRRrrrr...."
Sighing once again, Mihrna stabbed the key, then turned off the computer and headed out of the room, towards the stairs. "Honestly, I hate loose ends..."
From: Eimii <eimii@selway.umt.edu>
All characters are the property of their creators, so please don't sue me. This is my first fanfic, so any C&C, suggestions, or flames that you might consider sending my way would be greatly appreciated.
~Eimii
PROLOGUE...
"The world is a dark and empty place."
Not a very original statement, but expressing the depth of Ryouga's
current depression would have taken vocabulary well beyond his regular verbal strata, and he really didn't feel like wasting the breath.
Ryouga glanced again at the crumpled piece of card stock clutched tightly in his right hand. The words written on it appeared floating behind Ryouga's eyes before he even had a chance to un-curl his fist.
'You, Hibiki Ryouga, are cordially invited to attend the wedding of Tendo Akane and Saotome Ranma, and witness the joyous union of the Tendo
and Saotome family lines. The ceremony will be held at noon on June 27th, 1996, in the Tendo Dojo. The reception will begin at 3:00 pm. Please be prompt and properly attired.'
June 27th, three days ago. And Ryouga hadn't even set foot in Japan
any time within the last week.
"GOD DAMN IT!!" Cried the lost boy as he drove his fist through the
nearby wall, tears of rage and sadness streaming down his cheeks. A
peculiar whirring sound caught his attention, and for the first time in almost a week Ryouga stood back and took in his surroundings.
He was in a maze of some sort. Row upon row of very futuristic, and
strangely organic looking modules lined the walls, all of them softly
droning in unison.
*Well*, Thought Ryouga bitterly, *I've really done it now*. It was clear
to him that, wherever he was, he was nowhere near the Tendo Dojo.
*Three days...* He had received the invitation almost two months ago, and had immediately set out towards the dojo in order to prevent this tragedy. And yet, despite all of his determination and advanced notice, all of his efforts had come to naught.
*Why??!! Why must I be cursed so?! What have I ever done to deserve
this??* Ryouga slumped forward, suddenly unable to find the strength to
go on.
"Oh Akane..." *Right now, because of my incompetence, you could
be...you and Ranma might be.......NO!*
"NOOOO!!!"
Ryouga stood ramrod straight as he howled his anguish at the sky. A
blinding green column of light and heat expanded outward from the lost
boy's form, scorching the walls and floor. Then, as the weight of his
emotions drew it downward unto the abyss of his soul, a ten meter wide
sphere of light descended upon Ryouga's now kneeling form.
"No..."
Somewhere within the Yggdrasl central data storage archives, there was an explosion.
Alarm klaxions blared, and panic and chaos reigned throughout the
heavens. System administration deities scrambled back and forth throughout the Yggdrasl complex, frantically trying to locate and contain the disturbance.
Several hours passed. Vital systems were slowly coming back on-
line, but much of the archives were consumed by the yet unexplained
explosion. The Yggdrasl logic systems were attempting to extrapolate from secondary data storage stacks, trying to fill in the gaps as quickly as possible. A particularly heavily damaged archive was the personnel archives. As many gods and goddesses were on hand at the moment, the computer asked that they log into the system so that it might fill in the missing profiles. After several more hours 97% of the deity profiles were sufficiently filled in to allow for easy identification. The last 3% were difficult, as these personnel profiles have been completely wiped, and the deities in question were not available to assist.
Having compiled a list of unfilled positions, the computer began to
access external files, in the hopes that there would be some reference to the occupants of the unfilled positions. This search was largely fruitless, as most personal and performance information was immediately routed to the personnel profiles for storage. In the end, the computer came up with nothing more than a piece of office joke mail, a list of comically exaggerated personality archetypes of various deitic positions. The computer then proceeded to scan the Yggdrasl complex for unidentified persons matching the archetypes of the various missing gods and goddesses.
Ryouga, meanwhile, had fallen asleep in one of many gardens in the
Yggdrasl complex. He was propped up at the base of a tree, snoring loudly.
<UNIDENTIFIED LIFE FORM #0047: MALE, HUMANOID;
ABNORMALLY HIGH LIFE FORCE READINGS; CURRENT
EMOTIONAL STATE: DEEP DEPRESSION>
<CROSS REFERENCING: DOCUMENT 0001>
<POSSIBLE MATCH FOUND ___ 'God of Unrequited Love: Man is this
guy a downer. The sort that can make you depressed just by looking at
him.'>
<POSITIVE MATCH CONFIRMED :: CONTACTING FOR DATA
COLLECTION>
Ryouga was roused from his fitful sleep when a computer screen seemed to
grow out of the tree trunk behind his head. Groggily rubbing his eyes,
Ryouga cast an irritated expression at the offending piece of hardware.
There was a prompt of some sort on it. The word [NAME:] was printed at
the top of the screen, with a blinking cursor after it. Ryouga shrugged
noncommittally, then decided that since he wasn't likely to get back to
sleep, he might as well play along.
"Hibiki Ryouga" he recited, and was pleased to find that the first line
now read [NAME: HIBIKI RYOUGA]. A new prompt had appeared, just
below the first.
[CLASS:]
Ryouga debated this in his head for several moments, then responded
"Umm, Middle?"
<SUBJECT RESPONSE "MIDDLE" UNKNOWN ARGUMENT ::
EXTRAPOLATING>
[CLASS: 2]
"Er, ok." remarked Ryouga intelligently. Then yet another prompt
appeared.
[CATEGORY:]
Ryouga's irritation was returning, as the initial novelty of this
situation was beginning to wear off. He was losing valuable sleep time
because this stupid tree wanted to play twenty questions! To make matters worse, Ryouga had absolutely no idea how to answer this latest query.
"I don't know." He spat sourly to the tree.
<CATEGORY: ? :: CROSS REFERENCING TO RELATED
POSITIONS ___ CONFIRMED 87%
CHANCE THAT POSITION GODOFUNREQUITEDLOVE IS A
CATEGORY 2 POSITION - CROSS REFERENCE BOOLEAN =
LOVE>
[CATEGORY: 2]
"Well, that was easy enough." Remarked Ryouga, as the number leapt,
unbidden, to the screen.
[LIMITED/UNLIMITED]
*Hmm...must be like a True/False question. Ah well, it's a good a way to
decide as any, I suppose.* Thought Ryouga, as he dug a coin out of his
pocket.
Ryouga flipped the coin into the air, catching it halfway through its
descent and slapping it on his other forearm. Glancing at the coin,
Ryouga spoke to the screen, "Hea...Er, I mean Limited."
[HIBIKI RYOUGA]
[CLASS:2 CATEGORY:2 LIMITED]
[THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION]
[HAVE A NICE DAY]
<SUFFICIENT MINIMAL INFORMATION OBTAINED ::
COMPILING>
A blast of pure white light erupted from the computer screen, catching the still somewhat drowsy Ryouga completely off guard.
Ryouga awoke several minutes later, a strange tingling sensation
momentarily surging through his body before fading. After reducing the
offending tree, now sans monitor, to toothpicks, Ryouga proceed to stalk
off in a random direction, muttering under his breath something about
"stupid trees" and "cheap shots".