This is my first post to the FFML. Please don't flame me.


TITLE: Hellmouth/Nanniichuan
AUTHOR: Cutter Kinseeker
E-MAIL: ckinseeker@hotmail.com
FEEDBACK: All comments are welcome, positive ones are preferred, but 
even negative comments are okay as long as they're constructive 
criticism. "It sucks and so do you" type messages will be met with 
extreme prejudice.
DISTRIBUTION: Ask me first.
RATING: PG-13 for adult language, adult situations, brief literary 
nudity, and mild violence.
DESCRIPTION: The crossover from hell. Ranma Saotome and company spend a 
week in Sunnydale, CA, after Nabiki acquires a series of mystic 
artifacts that Giles has an interest in. Lots of humor, some of it dark, 
plenty of action, the occasional serious subplot, but nothing too heavy 
on the senses. This work is essentially what all crossovers are: 
sillyfic.
DISCLAIMER: I did not write this. I swear. Even if I say I did, it's 
obviously a lie. You see, were I to claim any intellectual property of 
either Rumiko Takahashi or Joss Whedon, I would probably be sued into 
oblivion, then imprisoned for the rest of my short and miserable life in 
a cell, where I would quickly be forgotten and become forced to eat my 
own internal organs to survive. Therefore, I own nothing, I claim 
nothing, and this entire fanfiction is a figment of your own 
imagination.
SPOILERS: For Buffy, everything up to (but not including--that's 
important!) "Lover's Walk". For Ranma 1/2, everything up to and 
including "Team Ranma Versus the Legendary Phoenix" (aka "Ranma the 
Movie 3", or "One Grew Over the Kuno's Nest").


S   S
P   P
O   A
I   C
L   E
E
R


Chapter One
At Home and Abroad


	It was a quiet, peaceful day in the Tendo household. For many places, 
such a day might be seen as normal, or even dull. For the Tendos, a 
quiet day was anything but normal, and peace had become such a rare 
commodity that it could never be dull. But any place as inclined to 
violent confrontation as the Tendo Dojo quickly became inured to it; the 
inhabitants, being the survivors that they were, rapidly adapted to the 
violence, even came to regard it as normal.
	So, on this peaceful day in early autumn, a day that felt like deep 
summer, the Tendo family (and their eternal houseguests, the Saotomes) 
saw the quiet not as a respite from all of the insanity of the past two 
years, but rather as the calm before the storm. All of the other 
inhabitants of the Nerima Ward, knowing the propensity for strangeness 
(especially physically dangerous strangeness) that seemed to center 
around the Tendo residence, wisely avoided the place. The general 
consensus was that it was only a matter of time before something 
catastrophic happened; just because there were no explosions or heavy 
property damage *now*, didn't mean there wouldn't be some *later*, as 
seemed to occur so often in this area of Tokyo.
	Avoidance of the Tendo household was probably a good idea at that 
time--well, at any time, really, but then especially. Had anyone been 
nearby to see it, the glint in Akane Tendo's eyes would have clearly 
shown that she was spoiling for a fight. In the meantime, her ostensible 
fiancee, Ranma Saotome, was using all of his significant martial arts 
prowess to stealthily avoid her, and thus avoid a confrontation which 
would be followed by almost certain injury. The fact that she couldn't 
find Ranma to take her anger out on him made her even more frustrated; 
it was only a matter of time (very little time, certainly) before Ranma 
slipped and something disastrous happened.
	Akane's father, Soun, was doing his absolute best to enjoy the quiet. 
He and his best friend, Genma Saotome, Ranma's father, were whiling away 
the hours in much the same way as they always did, quiet or otherwise: 
playing shogii and cheating mercilessly. This cheating ranged from the 
sublimely subtle ("Oh, my, is it lunchtime already?") to the vastly 
obvious ("Look! It's Gojira!"), but it was always by an unspoken mutual 
consent. The old friends were so familiar with one another's fighting 
styles--indeed, with one another's cheating styles--that constant 
cheating on both of their parts was the only way to finish a game in 
under a week.
	Soun's eldest daughter, Kasumi, was happily ignoring the implications 
of the quiet hours as she cooked, cleaned, and otherwise kept the 
household running smoothly. Her silent efforts were often undervalued by 
the two families, but it was undeniable that any semblance of sanity the 
Tendo Dojo retained was due to her. At this particular moment, however, 
Kasumi was somehow managing to avoid both Akane and Ranma as she went 
about her household duties--an amazing coincidence, and one that seemed 
to happen a lot when the two were fighting (a not uncommon occurrence).
	The middle daughter, Nabiki, was doing her level best to keep her face 
straight as she waited for things to break down. Usually in firm control 
of her emotions, Nabiki was having trouble deciding if she should be 
angry (because of Akane and Ranma's continuing stupidity), worried 
(because said stupidity was likely to erupt into violence any moment 
now), saddened (because she knew that Akane and Ranma could be great 
together if they could get over their petty jealousies), or just amused 
(for all of the above reasons).
	Nabiki was having another problem at present as well. Through her vast 
network of contacts and informants, Nabiki had recently come into a 
collection of antiquities from the American Southwest--nearly a dozen 
pieces of pottery and jewelry believed to have been created by the 
ancient and long-lost Anasazi tribe. Knowing its incredible value, she 
had readily agreed to accept them as payment on a debt; now, however, 
she was beginning to realize how difficult it would be to unload the 
artifacts.
	Despite her mercenary nature, Nabiki was loathe to sell such priceless 
items to the black market, where they would either be resold to some 
rich collector and never see the light of day again, or melted down for 
their gold content and have the precious stones reset. Donating them to 
a museum was almost certainly out of the question; the tax write-off 
might be nice, but given a choice between a deduction and a pile of yen, 
Nabiki Tendo would take the yen and run. Keeping the things was no good 
either; pretty as they might be, she wanted to get some use out of them 
rather than let them sit up in her room and gather dust (not that 
anything in the house gathered dust thanks to Kasumi).
	It was a sticky situation for the money-minded girl. As she sat in her 
room, pondering stock options and waiting for the calm to break, her 
private phone line rang.
	"Moshi moshi," she answered blithely, thinking it to be one of her few 
school acquaintances or perhaps one of her informants with a new angle.
	"Um, konnichi-wa," said a nervous, strangely-accented voice. "Ah... 
Tendo Nabiki-san?" Nabiki frowned; the person on the other end was 
obviously not Japanese--his pronunciation was all wrong. After a quick 
second of calculation, she placed the accent.
	"[You're British, yes?]" she asked in mildly-accented English.
	"[Why- why, yes, I am actually... How did you... Oh, never mind.]" Her 
caller seemed a little flustered, as though she had thrown him off 
stride by recognizing his nationality and language after only a few 
words. "[Um, you see, the reason I'm calling you is... that is...]" 
Nabiki smiled; whoever this guy was, he certainly wasn't a professional.
	"[Perhaps you should start from the beginning,]" Nabiki seamlessly 
inserted into his chattering. "[After all, the international phone rates 
from England must be terrible this time of the day.]"
	"[I'm certain they are,]" said the impeccable voice with the slightest 
trace of mirth, "[but I'm calling from America--uh, California, 
actually. Over here, it's quite late. I decided that it would be best 
for me to call about this time so that it would be around mid-afternoon 
for you. Didn't want to wake you or anything; I find that people tend to 
be irritable about that sort of thing, especially if they have something 
you want.]"
	Nabiki's interest was piqued. A British gentleman calling from 
California in the middle of the night to talk business with her? It was 
all terribly cloak-and-dagger; and if there was anything Nabiki enjoyed 
more than making money, it was uncovering secrets.
	"[So this call is business then?]" she asked unnecessarily. "[What sort 
of business are we talking? And what is it you want from me?]"
	"[Well, you see, I represent a group of... mutually-inclined 
individuals... who wish to... preserve ancient cultures and 
antiquities.]" Nabiki lifted one eyebrow archly, knowing that nobody 
would see the gesture. It sounded like he was after... "[I understand 
that a set of Anasazi artifacts recently came into your possession.]" He 
was! Nabiki smiled broadly, but kept her voice tightly controlled; it 
wouldn't be any good if she sounded too eager to get rid of the things.
	"[Perhaps,]" she purred amicably, "[and perhaps not. It would all 
depend on what you have to offer in return.]"
	"[Hmm...]" the British man grumbled, and Nabiki could just see his face 
turning into a scowl. Her grin widened; the British were far too easy to 
bait--it almost wasn't fun. Almost. "[The first thing that would be 
required is that we meet in person. My... group... has instructed me to 
view the artifacts before making a purchase.]" Sensing her next 
question, he continued quickly. "[Should the artifacts be found to be 
authentic, my backers are willing to pay an amount of...]" And then he 
proceeded to name a sum in American dollars that caused Nabiki--a girl 
who was used to dealing with sums large enough to make bankers blush--to 
facefault.
	"[Shall I come to you?]" she asked, pacified by the promise of money.
	"[Only if it's more convenient for you,]" he returned. "[I'm overdue 
for a trip to Japan anyway...]"
	"[No,]" she broke in smoothly, an idea forming in her devious mind, "[I 
think it would be better if I came to you. I'm sorry--I never even asked 
your name. That was terribly rude of me...]"
	"[Perfectly all right,]" he said warmly. "[I'm used to far greater 
indignities at the hands of these Americans. My name is Giles--Rupert 
Giles...]"

***

	It was a quiet, peaceful day in Sunnydale. For many places, such a day 
might be seen as normal, or even dull. For Buffy Summers and her closest 
friends, a quiet day was anything but normal, and peace had become such 
a rare commodity that it could never be dull. But any place as inclined 
to violent confrontation as Sunnydale quickly became inured to it; the 
inhabitants, being the survivors that they were, rapidly adapted to the 
violence, even came to regard it as normal.
	So, on this peaceful day in early autumn, a day that felt like deep 
summer, Buffy Summers (and her eternal compatriots, the Slayerettes) saw 
the quiet not as a respite from all of the insanity of the past two 
years, but rather as the calm before the storm. Most of the other 
inhabitants of Sunnydale, knowing the propensity for strangeness 
(especially physically dangerous strangeness) that seemed to center 
around their ostensibly normal town, wisely stayed indoors. The general 
consensus was that it was only a matter of time before something 
catastrophic happened; just because there were no mysterious and 
unexplained deaths *now*, didn't mean there wouldn't be some *later*, as 
seemed to occur so often in this area of Southern California.
	Rupert Giles, resident librarian at Sunnydale High, as well as resident 
Watcher, was in a surprisingly good mood. The Convocation of Watchers 
had agreed to let him negotiate with a Japanese antiquities dealer for 
possession of a series of ancient artifacts believed to have mystical 
properties. Dealing with the paranormal always put him in a good 
mood--it was, after all, what he was trained for--and that mood was 
improved even more by the fact that the young lady he had spoken to 
seemed to be willing to let the objects out of her possession for a 
ridiculously low sum (low compared to what the Convocation had been 
*willing* to offer) in addition to plane tickets for herself and her 
family. Apparently, they hadn't been to America before, and she felt 
that it was the perfect excuse to get them out sightseeing.
	There was only one hitch: it was his responsibility to find a few local 
teenagers who could keep an eye on Miss Tendo's family while they were 
in the country. She had assured Giles that they would be no problem, but 
the tone of her voice--slight amusement mixed with mild worry--made him 
wonder. Perhaps he had metaphorically bitten off more than he could 
proverbially chew with that promise. Of course, he still had his duties 
as a librarian to attend to, duties that could not be shirked; school 
had been open for a little over a month now, and things were just 
starting to get back to normal after Buffy's reappearance, the discovery 
of the new Slayer, Faith, and Angel's reemergence.
	That idea set off bells and whistles in Giles' steel-trap mind. A 
devilishly clever plan began to occur to him, but he had to think it 
through before he could make it work. He had some time; Miss Tendo and 
her family wouldn't be arriving for over a week, and he could have the 
details worked out by then. If it worked, two problems would be solved 
at once. After all, vampire attacks had been almost non-existent for the 
past month and Buffy and the others had to keep busy somehow...
	As Giles plotted and planned, the people whose social life he was 
currently organizing walked into the library. Through the fog of his 
deep thinking, he could clearly hear Xander Harris, the resident clown 
of the Slayerettes, amusing the group with some tale or another. His 
body on auto-pilot, putting books back in their proper places, Giles 
picked up one of Xander's louder comments.
	"Guys, I don't know if you've noticed, but--it's been really boring 
this last week. I mean, not one vampire, not one demon, not one attempt 
to destroy the world... I'm starting to get a little lagged."
	"I like the quiet," piped up Xander's best friend, Willow Rosenberg, 
not nearly as timid as she had been two years before. Giles was 
privately proud of her progress, especially in the mystic arts. "It's 
kind of... quiet."
	"Thanks for the astute observation," sneered snotty Cordelia Chase, 
Xander's sometime love interest and more often hated foe. Giles' 
admiration of Willow was compounded by the constant sniping the more 
popular girl felt compelled to aim at the younger redhead. Willow wisely 
let the comment slide.
	"I think it's a nice change of pace," inserted the mellow tones of 
Willow's boyfriend, Oz--Giles started slightly as he realized that he 
didn't know Oz's last name. "Sure, it's a little dull, but it's peaceful 
too. The peace and quiet isn't a bad thing... taken in moderation, of 
course."
	"I agree with Xander," inserted the center of the group's 
activity--Buffy Summers, the Slayer. "It's dull, dull, dull. Oh, 
yeah--did I mention that it's dull?"
	"See," Xander said archly, "Buffy agrees with me. Geez, I just wish 
something would happen!"
	Giles' secret little smile deepened into an all-out grin as he 
contemplated the wisdom of being careful what you wish for. You never 
know--you just might get it.

***

	"You're what?!" exclaimed a stunned Akane to a perfectly calm Nabiki.
	"Going to California," said Akane's older sister in an even tone of 
voice. "I have a business transaction to complete, and the only way to 
carry it through is to go there."
	"I still don't see how you can afford it," said ever-practical Kasumi 
in her normal, never-surprised inflection.
	"It's free," Nabiki told the eldest sister, turning away from Akane who 
was rapidly degenerating from stunned shock to sullen silence. "And you 
know that I never turn down anything free."
	"My little girl is leaving me!" was all that a weeping Soun Tendo could 
manage to sputter out before he returned to tearing at his hair and 
gushing tears. Genma was doing his best to calm his oldest friend, but 
his heart wasn't really in it. All he could think about was a free 
vacation in America and how he could manage to mooch some of Nabiki's 
good fortune.
	Ranma, too, was silent, but for different reasons. After that debacle 
on Togenkyo Island, he would have thought that Nabiki would learn to 
avoid overseas travel--but, no, anything that she could do to earn 
another hundred yen... Ranma was sick of the whole thing. However, he 
could see several advantages in the mercenary girl's departure. He 
wouldn't have to worry about new scantily-clad pictures of his girl side 
appearing on the local black market for one thing; that would keep Kuno 
down to a controllable level--he was always stronger when he had a new 
picture of the "pigtailed girl" to energize him. And Ranma's various 
fiancees were also easier to keep at bay when Nabiki wasn't around to 
sell them information. Nabiki's departure for America might not solve 
all of his problems, but it would certainly make them less menacing.
	Ranma was so busy enjoying his daydream that he never saw the glass of 
water coming towards his face until it was too late to do more than yelp 
in panic.
	"What'd you do that for?" demanded a soaking girl-Ranma of his unseen 
attacker. He always hated to transform into his girl half; not only did 
it remind him of his failure at the cursed springs of Jusenkyo--a 
failure that had resulted in this hateful twilight existence--but it was 
just plain embarrassing to boot. He was a guy, damn it! Whoever had done 
this would pay--just as soon as he blinked away enough water to pick 
out... Nabiki?!
	The short-haired Tendo sister just smiled coyly at him, as though the 
slightly dripping glass in her hand didn't mark her as Ranma's 
antagonist. Ranma-chan frowned and shook most of the water out of her 
red hair, leaving her tightly-bound pigtail still sopping wet; she 
couldn't afford to show any anger towards Nabiki--the older girl might 
just have some piece of blackmail to use or an old debt to call, and 
Ranma always found such debts difficult to repay.
	"Sorry, Ranma," said Nabiki in tones that let him know she wasn't sorry 
at all, "but you weren't listening, and I had to do something to get 
your attention. I figured turning you into a girl was the quickest way 
to go about it."
	"You could have just tapped me on the shoulder, or yelled, or 
something," grumbled an understandably annoyed Ranma-chan. Nabiki put 
one finger to her temple in mock revelation.
	"I should have thought of that," she offered sweetly. "But, you know, 
that's really no way to talk to someone who just offered you a trip to 
America..."
	"What?!" exclaimed a shocked and surprised Ranma-chan. She finally 
looked around and discovered that most of the Tendo family and her own 
father were all staring at her in varying levels of envy (Genma), 
jealous anger (Akane), suspicion (Soun), or tranquillity (Kasumi). As 
Ranma looked up at Nabiki again, she began to get a familiar sinking 
feeling in the pit of her stomach, a feeling that usually meant trouble 
on the horizon...

Continued in the next message...


Cutter Kinseeker
-Chieftain of the Wolfriders
-Holder of New Moon, artifact sword
-Slayer of the dreaded beast Madcoil
-Keeper of Xander's firm belief that he could take Angelus with the help 
of a bunch of orderlies, cops, doctors, and nurses (KBD)
-Keeper of Xander's derisive sneer at Angelus (KBD)
-Keeper of Xander's jaunty stake-whittling tune ("School Hard")
-Keeper of Willow's longing gaze at Xander while he talks about the 
unattainable ("Some Assembly Required")
-Keeper of Giles' masochistic need to spar with Buffy
-Keeper of Cordelia's divine request for aspirin ("School Hard")
-Keeper of Buffy's need for a warning label (KBD)

"AYOOOOOOOOAAAAAAHHH!!!!"
          --Cutter Kinseeker

"From famine to feast and back to famine again."
          --Skywise

Visit the Holt of Cutter Kinseeker
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Chamber/2234/


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