A Promise Time Cannot Undo
By Kyle Emmerson (kyle_emmerson@yahoo.com)
and Knight Writer (Jedediah@tri-countynet.net)
Ranma 1/2 is the property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Viz
Communications, and Shonen Sunday Comics. We use the characters and
situations associated with the series without permission, and write this
only for personal enjoyment.
Prologue:
==============================================
Cologne stared down at the small stone altar, fear and exhilaration
racing through her ancient veins as her eyes traced the symbol of infinity
carved into the flat grey rock. It was nearly time.
Time, she thought with a derisive snort, a thing which I don't have
much of anymore. That damn boy had cost her dearly. She had failed to
bring him into the Joketsuzoku. After devoting so much of her remaining
time, he had still refused to come along willingly. Shampoo had
practically offered to be his whore over the years, and still he had
refused. Ranma simply didn't understand how degrading it was for an amazon
warrior of Shampoo's level and status to have to pursue a man, an OUTSIDER
no less, in such a fashion.
But now that didn't matter. No, not at all. Ranma would never know
of the unique power she had seen in him if things went on as they were. A
power she had never seen in any Joketsuzoku before, and one that Ranma
could give to their blood. No, to HER blood. Time-phasing would enter the
line through Shampoo's womb, and as such would secure her line's hold on
the council for centuries to come.
It wasn't something she had been able to discern very well at the
beginning. When Ranma had entered the village, she had merely caught a few
glimpses of him... or HER, rather. Needless to say, she thought nothing of
her in the beginning.
When she had managed to defeat Shampoo, Cologne knew the strange girl
had an ability that surpassed the rest of the young warriors of her tribe,
especially to do away with Shampoo in naught but a simple kick.
So, as the law of the Joketsuzoku stated, she could not be allowed to
live, and the task of her dismissal from the waking world was left to
Shampoo.
Even when Shampoo returned, with news of the truth behind the girls...
body. Even when she had been judged by the springs of Jusenkyo and cursed
to change in to a cat, she hadn't known for sure.
But she picked up signals eventually. When she had trained the boy in
use of the Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken, that was only the first step.
Originally, Cologne had never expected him to master the art so quickly,
yet he had. He had mastered it in defiance of Cologne's threats.
The whole plan concerning the Full-Body Cat Tongue was nothing more
than to get Ranma to give up his foolish male stubbornness, and concede to
his true destiny-- to be in her line. The knowledge behind the Kachuu
Tenshin Amaguriken was only given under the assumption that it would take
years to master.
Yet it took less. It took days. Days, in comparison to the six months
it took Cologne herself to learn.
That was when she first saw it. The ability. He was able to pick up
any technique she could dish out and master it within days. At first, she
thought it was pure luck, and decided to test her theory, by teaching his
friendly rival the Bakusai Tenketsu, a technique that could be mastered
easily within the space of a week.
But he had adapted without difficulty, even designing a defense for it
within minutes.
The nekoken had been even more of a surprise. With that technique, the
boy was able to act purely on instinct. With no conscious thought, but
pure, unadulterated combat.
Cologne hadn't been able to defend. A boy of sixteen, armed with a
combat style that, on any other man, Cologne could have defended against
with her proverbial eyes closed.
And that clenched it. Cologne stopped teaching Ranma the abilities of
the Joketsuzoku, with the exception of the Hiryu Shoten Ha-- another
technique that took some time to master, the the circumstances were...
Extenuating.
Nonetheless, she identified it. Though she was quite positive the boy
knew nothing of his ability, it was locked within him.
With no small amount of malice, Cologne had acknowledge the ability.
The boy could literally bend time. His enhanced agility, even his superior
speed that Cologne herself had trouble blocking against was proof. He
could speed it up and slow it down to his will, however, only on a local
level.
If his gift were mastered, he would be the most powerful ally-- or the
deadliest enemy her tribe had ever faced.
A single person. A single MALE could put an end to three thousand
years of Joketsuzoku history.
She snapped her eyes open and lay her eyes once again on the altar
before her. No. She wouldn't allow it.
Cologne took the knife from the left of the altar, whispering the
forbidden words she had memorized long ago. Each syllable, each tone, had
to be exact. For a spell such as this, there was no room for error. Even
the slightest mistake could spell either failure, or utter disaster. The
former meant only that her life would come to an end much sooner than she
had thought. The latter... Cologne didn't like to think about that.
The final words left her lips, and Cologne felt her mane of snow
white hair lift from an unnatural wind. Her skin tingled beneath the
simple robe she wore, the fine hairs on her arms standing on end from the
invisible tendrils of power around her. There was no turning back, now.
The pain of the knife was exquisite as its razor keen edge severed
the flesh of her wrists, warm blood spilling from the vertical wounds and
onto the altar below. The spell would kill her, success or no, but if
everything went right, it wouldn't matter. Everything would be as it was
supposed to.
Cologne stared down at her own lifeblood as it ran into the grooves
forming the infinity symbol, fighting to maintain consciousness as the
sygil filled. She imagined the scene she had researched over a hundred
times, the one point in time she had set out to change.
The image appeared in her mind's eye, a small cafe on the outskirts
of Tokyo. Every detail was placed exactly as she had always seen when
looking back, each tree, each leaf, each bird call coming in exactly as it
had before. At one of the booths sat a man in a simple brown gi, his long
black hair hanging to his shoulders and a moustache beginning to form on
his face. His eyes were tired and worn, and Cologne couldn't blame him.
Training for all those years under Happosai would be enough to break
nearly anyone.
"Can I get you something?" She saw Soun Tendo look up at the waitress,
and instantly recognized the smitten look in his eyes. This had to change.
The symbol flared to life, a hellish red light bursting forth from
the top of the altar to strike the ceiling with the howl of tortured
demons. The air above shimmered, and then began to warp, as the crimson
beam pulsed as if it were a beating heart. Cologne felt her life slipping
away, into the vortex forming above, and finally let it go...
And now the birds flew as they had before, chirping on cue. The trees
swayed in the breeze, just as it had done previously. The cafe stood on
the outskirts of Tokyo, betraying no change from before.
But there was a difference. However subtle, however insignificant, the
change had come.
"Waitress," a patron bellowed, attracting the attention of one
particular woman. "My coffee is cold!"
"Can I help you, sir?" Someone asked the young man called Soun Tendo.
However, rather than a beauty of his own age, she was no younger than
forty, and a beauty she wasn't.
Cologne had given her life to lower the temperature of a stranger's
coffee by a few fateful degrees.
=================================================================
"What the..." Ensign Sara Miller stared at the readout before her,
her mind frantically struggling to make sense of the data that, by all
rights, should be impossible. The buzz in Ops steadily grew as more and
more people saw the same data appearing on their own consoles.
"What is it, Miller?" asked a voice from above her left shoulder.
"Houston, we have a problem," she replied, moving so that he could
get a better look at her terminal.
Colonel Paul Houston leaned over the Sara's shoulder, his eyes
following the lines of text that scrolled across her screen. "Main
screen."
The main screen, situated at the forefront of the large oval Ops
Center, flickered to life obediently. The image of Earth appeared on the
twenty-by-twenty foot screen, a blue-green orb suspended in the endless
void of space. On the top right corner was ED-471, short for Earth
Designate-471. A crosshair appeared on the massive image, the meticulously
detailed graphic of earth spinning as the intersecting green lines locked
onto a chain of islands in the Pacific.
"A flux?" Houston asked, unable to believe what he was seeing.
"Yes, sir," Miller replied, her voice tense. "We're localizing it
now."
"Fuck," he swore under his breath. How could the agents miss this
one? "Quidley!"
"Yes, sir?" Corporal Al Quidley barked from across Ops.
"Send the order for all agents on ED-471 to evacuate, priority one!"
"Yes, sir!" Houston looked back at the main screen, an overhead
image of Japan having replaced that of the Earth. The crosshair moved
frantically across the islands, targeting computers working to localize
the center of the temporal disturbance. A small sector of one of the
islands expanded to fill the screen, the computer identifying it as Tokyo,
then further tracked it to a small place called Nerima...
=============================================================
"EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! PRIORITY-ONE SIGNAL FROM NEXUS OPS, ALL
AGENTS EVACUATE! REPEAT, ALL AGENTS EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!" Hikaru
Gosunkugi stared at the small communicator in his hand, his face paler
than usual. Evacuate?
In his whole four years as a Guardian, he had never heard the evac
order given, not even as a drill. This has got to be serious, he thought
as he reached into his wallet, Houston would NEVER give that order unless
something very bad was about to happen.
"Selma," he said, fishing out a small rectangle that appeared to be
nothing more special than a credit card. A form appeared from thin air
beside him, light twisting into the shape of a woman a head taller than
himself. Selma's dress was almost Victorian, a long black dress that hung
to her feet, with a white ruffled blouse above. Her red hair was pulled
into a neat bun atop her head.
"What is it, Hikaru?" the hologram asked.
"What the hell is going on?!"
"Nexus reports a temporal flux on this world," Selma said in her
crisp tones.
A flux? Here? "Where?"
"Ops has locked onto the source. Three blocks due north."
"Three blocks!" Great, Hikaru thought, first time I have to deal
with one of these, and it's in my own back yard! "Okay, do we have an
exact location?"
"An establishment called the Nekohanten."
"N... Neko..." Oh, SHIT! "Cologne..." he snarled. That petrified
monkey was the only one who could possibly be behind this. And that
meant...
"AKANE!" Hikaru Gosunkugi charged off in the direction of the Tendo
Dojo. Whatever this was about, it had to involve Ranma. He had to get
Akane out of there!
"Hikaru," Selma said, appearing beside him, "Houston has given the
order to evacuate. We really should go."
"NO WAY! I've got to help Akane!"
"Hikaru, this world is going into a state of temporal flux. We must
leave, now!"
As if on cue, the stars in the night sky above winked out of
existence. The flux was beginning...
===========================================================
Houston watched as the Earth appeared on the monitor again, a grey
cloud swirling out from Japan and moving to encompass the rest of the
world. Jesus, it's starting, he thought, running a hand through his sandy
blonde hair.
"Miller..."
"We're attempting to lock onto the flux point now, sir," she
answered, knowing what he wanted before he asked. The flux point was the
magic spot, the place in time where a change took place, sending the
future into flux to match the new event. Oftentimes the event was
something small and insignificant, nearly impossible to track.
First rule of detecting flux points, Houston thought with a grimace,
make damn sure that they don't happen. Boy, did we drop the ball on THIS
one.
"All agents in yet?"
"Seventy percent of agents on ED-471 have reported in, estimated
time to full evac: ten minutes," replied the static voice of the computer.
"Sir!" called a voice to his left. Houston looked over at the
ensign, a stout man with stubby brown hair.
"Yes?" What now?
"I'm tracking Agent Hikaru Gosunkugi still on-world," he replied.
"He appears to be... running?"
I had to ask, Houston thought as he ordered Quidley to open a channel.
==============================================================
"Gosunkugi, what are you doing?" Houston's voice boomed into his ear.
The signal was interspersed with static from the flux, the hissing and
popping growing steadily worse.
"I have to get Akane out!"
"Hikaru!" Houston shouted, "GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR AND GET OUT! THAT'S
A FUCKING ORDER!"
"I'm sorry, sir," Gosunkugi said, "I can't hear you! The static is
too bad!"
"GODDAMNIT, BOY, GET...."
Gah, he can get irritating, Gosunkugi thought as he switched off the
communicator on his wrist. The wall of the Dojo came into view, an eerie
green light shining from behind the stone. As he grew closer, he saw the
stone begin to fade, as if he were looking through a hologram. Swallowing
his fear, he charged through the wall and into the glow.
"AKANE!" There! He saw Akane standing in the green light, the rest of
the house around her fading into nonexistence. I KNEW it, he thought,
Ranma is involved! From the corner of his eye, he saw Nabiki fading from
view, as if every molecule in her body lost their adhesion and fell apart
on cue, her face locked in an expression of horror. Akane looked around,
then at him, brown eyes pleading for help.
No time now. Nabiki was gone, and he suspected Kasumi had fallen apart
before her, which meant Akane would be next.
He felt the tingle of changing time on his skin, and knew he had to
act fast before Akane became absorbed into the flux. Gosunkugi grabbed her
by the wrist, his heart skipping a beat at actually touching her, and sent
the extraction signal.
================================================================
"Got him, sir!" Miller shouted. "But I can't get him without--"
"Get him out!" Houston exclaimed in reply.
"What about..."
"Just do it!"
"Yes sir."
================================================================
Moments later, the storm ended. The chaos that happened at every time,
every place, and every moment in every aeon after the flux point, was
consequentially forgotten. The stars blinked back into existence as if
they had never left. The places, peoples and things returned into being,
with no memories of the chaos that had ensued.
But there were a few subtle differences. Subtle on a world-wide scale,
but to the hands of time, no difference was subtle.
On the new world that emerged from the chaos, in the time where the
main flux had occurred, Soun Tendo lived in a bachelors suite, single and
lonely. He never married, nor had he had children.
The Tendo Dojo did not exist, instead, the grounds had become a
fair-sized rock garden, with a small koi pond. Soun had never laid a foot
upon the grounds, and never would.
At Furinkan High School, there was nobody to take bets at a fight.
Tatewaki Kuno had no true loves, and Doctor Tofu Ono never steamed his
glasses up by being in the presence of anyone.
But, far away, in a place unknown by most of the residents of Nerima,
two souls reached a turning point in their lives. A turning point which
could have spun in a completely new direction, had an agreement of the
past been made.
==============================================
Author's Notes:
Kyle:
This idea has been in the works for quite some time now. It all
started a few months back, when I first suggested the outline for this
particular 'fic to Knight. He displayed some interest in the idea, and
soon later, we pounded out enough of a story to get going on it.
So this is the end result of a few months work. :P We truly are sorry
it took so long, but hey, it's here! :) We've got most of the story
outlined, and know how it's gonna end. What happens in the middle? Well,
you'll have to tune in to find out... But I can promise you this much...
It's gonna be a HELL of a ride. :)
Ttyl,
Kyle...
You can find a collection of both of our fics archived up at Sofaspud's
Couch at http://www.sofaspud.org