[FFML] [Ranma 1/2]A Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction: Teaser

Hi,
I know many people are waiting for my next chapter of [insert series title here], but recently my computer crashed, I've moved, I've been looking for a job, and my back-up floppy disk died. Luckily, I had a webpage with most of my work archived and especially lucky there were many, many kind people to help tracking down the only file I couldn't find.

Anyway, this is an idea, an old and much-used one, which has been sitting in my head for the past few months. Only recently have I begun to put it down onto paper.

I think other than a few short-stories kicking around in my subconscious, I'll now really only be writing this sotry and the stories so far archived on my page: http://www.crosswinds.net/~silentnova/entrance (If anyone visits, please sign the guestbook :).

Again with the anyway, I must say, unlike most ideas I send to the list, I've been having fun with this much abused and over-used idea. I hope you, the reader, find it as fun and exciting I have so far (heh, it's only a teaser: five pages long. There's yet not too much of either fun or excitement, but still, I've found it).

Now on with the story!

Troy

***

Check out my webpage:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~silentnova/index.html

I archive, write, link, and do almost all the wonderful things fanfic writers like. Check it out, today.
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-- Attached file included as plaintext by Listar --
-- File: authorthomasarohf.txt

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction
By Troy Thomas

Ranma 1/2 and its characters are the creations and properties
of Rumiko Takahashi. Excepting flames, if you have any
comments or criticisms, feel free to send them my way.

***

Genma Saotome stopped walking, and then turned to look at the
young man following him. "Are you prepared, Ranma?"

"This is Jusenkyou?" Ranma asked, stepping beside his father.
Before him, a vast field with thousands of shimmering pools
glistened in the midday heat. "You said this place was
dangerous! It's too quiet and peaceful to be dangerous..." He
scanned over the many pools, and then said, "Silent like a
graveyard."

"Oh good day, Honoured Tourists from Japan!" an elderly man
said, hustling up from behind the two. "You have come to see
Jusenkyou, Valley of the Pools of Sorrow?" He chuckled.
"Before anything else, don't forget advice I am sure caring
family gave before leaving home country." He gestured to the
pools. "Do not drink the water!"

"Who are you?" Ranma asked.

The little man bowed. "I am Guide of Jusenkyou. I have been
working here many years." Taking a moment to stare at Genma
and Ranma, he then slowly and carefully said, "You two wear
training gi's...I must emphatically give warning not to train
here!"

"Enough chatter, Ranma. We came here for a reason!" Genma let
fall his heavy backpack, and jumped up to a bamboo pole
standing up and tall from in the middle of a pool.

Ranma jumped up a neighbouring pole.

"No!" shouted Guide. "Come down, sirs! You should not be
training here! Jusenkyou is too dangerous!"

However, the father and son, rather than pay any attention to
the guide, watched each other warily.

"Are you prepared, my son?" Genma asked.

"Yes."

"Right. Now let's begin." Genma knees slightly tensed before
he sprung from the pole. "Oy shoh toh!" he screamed. However,
to his surprise, Ranma flipped off of his extended leg, and
pushed him down into the pool.

After landing gently on another bamboo pole, and hearing his
father splash down into water, Ranma turned about, and
awaited another attack.

A long moment later, he asked, "Pop? Are we finished
already?"

"Young Sir!" cried Guide. "Please come down. Do not, I
repeat, do not fall into any pools! Else you will forever
lose your body..."

"What?" Ranma turned his head, and gaped at the guide.
Suddenly, a huge and round black and white figure sprang
forth from the still water. "Panda?" Ranma asked, before
being knocked off the pole from a kick from the animal.

He felt the water surround him, and he saw the sky above
disappear into a wave of pool. Hitting the ground below, he
then pushed up, and gasped for air.

Guide removed his cap, and shook sadly his head. Slowly, he
walked over to the pool the girl was sitting, gently and
quietly beginning to speak, "Young Tourist, please come over
here. Do not think. Do not act. Come here, beside me."

He looked behind him, and saw the panda gripping its fur, and
saw its eyes, confused...frightened. "Please Good Sir, come
to me." He fell onto his bottom, and again sadly shook his
head.

When the two were sitting beside him, he said, "You two,
please do not think and do not act. I want you to listen, but
I don't want you two to do anything else." Guide gestured to
a pool. "A thousand years ago, a panda fell in and drowned.
Now whoever falls in is cursed with a body of a panda."

He gestured to another. "One thousand, five hundred years
ago, a young lady fell in the pool. Now whoever falls in is
cursed with body of a young girl."

"Every pool has tragic story. Every pool has curse." The
guide stood. "Please come inside. I must speak with you two,
but you two need to dry off first and not catch cold."

Dried off, she quietly sat alone near the guide's window. She
listened to the guide's words, which repeated over and over
in her memory, "The curse of Jusenkyou has no cure."

She remembered asking a question, "Are you sure?"

The answer, "Look, Young Customer." The guide had pointed to
a large bookshelf, which was only one of a dozen or two.
"These books, all about Jusenkyou, all as old or young as the
pool a book was written about. I have searched through all,
and found nothing. The guide before me found nothing, and the
guide before her..."

There had been a silence. "Remember and please heed my words.
Do not act or react. Only listen." Soothingly, Guide had
approached her. "No cure, and thousands of people have been
cursed. These thousands of people over thousands of years
have used their lives looking for cure. They found
nothing..."

She looked out towards the valley, and saw a young man.
"Who's that?" she asked.

The guide ran out of the hut, and she watched him approach
the young man and begin speaking with him.

Turning around, Ranma looked at Genma, whose eyes seemed
hollow and distant. "Pop?"

Gradually, the panda turned its head to face her.

His eyes...'I want to feel sorry for myself.' she thought.
'But Pop...' She smiled. "You still with us?"

"No matter. He will retain his human mind." the guide,
leading the young man into the hut. "He will always think
like a human, and not lose his mind."

"How do you know?" Ranma asked.

"Most books not written by human hand." the guide said. He
then gestured to the young man. "This Ryouga Hibiki. He
looking for young man named Ranma Saotome."

She looked outside, and then to Ryouga. "See the pools out
there? I used to be him, but now I'm me." She sighed. "I
don't know if that means he's dead or what, but I'm now Ranma
Saotome, formerly Ranma Saotome."

"Yes, Ranma, that is good way of thinking. Do not lose that
thought." said the guide.

***

"I'm a girl, and history...his story!" Ranma chuckled. "Never
noticed that before." She sighed, and looked at her three
companions: her father, the guide, and the young man. "You're
Ryouga from school, right?"

The young man looked at her, and nodded his head.

"Why'd you follow me?"

"I wanted to finish our man to..." Quickly, Ryouga corrected
himself, "I wanted to complete our duel."

"Oh." Somehow, she didn't feel he wanted to fight. "Our
duel..."

"The one you ran away from to this godforsaken..."

"Three days, Ryouga. That's how long I waited."

"On the forth day..."

"Young Tourists! Please no arguing. We nearing the village of
heroines, the Amazon tribe, protectors of Jusenkyou. We must
show peace." Guide said, removing his hat. "Please no
trouble, or we in big trouble."

A hut was hidden behind heavy forest underbrush, signalling
the beginning of the village. Soon the group began passing
dozens of houses, modern and ancient, and then approaching
what seemed the city's centre, they found a large and
cheering crowd.

"Wow." Ranma commented. Her stomach growled, and she looked
at her father, who was holding a paw to his stomach. "You
too?"

"Oh, we are lucky today! This is the annual martial arts
tournament, which the prize is this buffet of food!" Guide
exclaimed, pointing to a table with a large and colourful
assortment of food. However, his mouth dropped open when he
saw Ranma and the panda digging into the fruit. "Oh no."

"Is something wrong?" Ranma asked, an apple hanging from her
mouth.

>From the crowd's centre, a girl screamed enraged.

"She ask, 'Who are you?'" the guide translated. "Now she say,
'You eat my prize!'"

The crowd grumbled, and a few boos were tossed about.

"Some people don't think the food is hers." Ryouga said. He
looked around, seeing the crowd surround them. "I guess most
agree though." He inched closer to the guide. "Now what?"

"Okay, if this food is a prize, then all I need to do is win
it, right?" Ranma asked. 'Fighting is all I've grown up to
do.' she thought, sullenly. 'Might as well keep doing it.'
She cracked her knuckles.

Minutes later the crowd gasped, the rude tourist girl had
knocked out their champion.

"I win right?" Ranma asked.

Seconds later, her fallen opponent approached her, and then
lightly kissed her on the cheek. Again, the crowd gasped.

"What?"

"Young Customer, we must run!" Guide turned and pushed the
panda and Ryouga. "Run, she has given Kiss of Death! She was
defeated by outside, now she must kill outsider!"

"Eep!"

***

Three figures walked down a street in Nerima. The shortest,
who wore a slight smile, walked beside a young man, who wore
a small frown. Trailing behind, a panda walked on its hind
legs, watching the ground.

"How can you stand it, being a girl?" Ryouga asked Ranma.

"It's none of your business." she replied.

Ryouga turned around. "Where are we going?" he asked the
panda.

The panda held a sign up reading, "To an old friend's. His
name is Soun Tendo." The panda didn't look up from the
ground.

"Why are we going there?" Ranma asked. "We're going to be
only strangers to him..."

"I know my friend. Even if he doesn't believe I am Genma, he
won't turn us away."

"Right." Ranma looked away from her father towards a distant
sky, her smile fading with the setting sun. "Let's hurry up
then. It's going to start raining."

Her words shortly came true, and the chilled rain came
falling.

She waved her hand in front of her, pushing away Ryouga's
umbrella. "And I don't need that! I can stand getting a
little bit wet!"

"Sorry..." Ryouga hefted his open umbrella above him. "Just
trying to be nice."

"Right." Ranma returned her gaze to the sky.

***