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The FFML Refugee List
Disclaimer:
Ladies and gents, all characters contained herein belong to Rumiko
Takahashi, should they be Ranma, or Capcom, should they be Megaman X. All
rights to the respective owners. For X buffs out there, only the events
through X3 have occurred in the X timeline that I'm using. I've played the
others, but that's where I'm setting the timeline. You'll find out why
later. Now that that's out of the way...
*****************
Toltiir looked up sharply, hearing the distinctive sound of metal being
hit against stone. Finding the source of the sound was easy, since there
was
only one other person in the immediate vicinity, besides for 'Foxie'.
* * * * * *
Flashfyre5 Presents
* * * * * *
The armored humanoid approached Mimir's well with a calm certainty. He
had a big grin on his face, and his ice blue eyes glittered in the morning
sun.
* * * * * *
A Flaming Amarant Production
* * * * * *
His oversized, armored hands flexed every now and again, and the dark
red
jewel set in the middle of his forehead glinted, reflecting the sun. His
silver and purple body shone, clean enough to reflect.
* * * * * *
In association with Digital Wizardry Studios, Minnesota
* * * * * *
"Hey," Toltiir hissed at Great Fox, rousing him. "You know who this guy
is?" Great Fox looked up and located the unusual intruder.
"Yeah," Great Fox returned. "I met him on the job a few years back. He
had a different body, though." Raising his voice, he called, "Hey, Siggy!
How're you doing?"
"I'm fine," he replied, arriving at the well. "Been a while since we
met."
"Yeah. You got a new body," Great Fox commented. "It's a lot classier
than your last one."
"Thanks," 'Siggy' replied, his grin getting a bit larger.
"Excuse me," Toltiir interjected. "You going to introduce me?"
"Oh yeah, sorry," Great Fox said, chagrined. "Toltiir, meet Sigma, a
Greater Spirit from a remote little timeline. Sigma, this is Toltiir, Elder
God of Mischief."
"Nice to meet you," Sigma said politely.
"Pleasure's all mine," Toltiir returned, his politeness superficial at
best. "You wouldn't happen to be the Sigma that's been reincarnated more
often than any other being, would you?
"That I am," Sigma confirmed. "Ten times, last Wednesday. (Note: That
total is accurate as of MMX5)
"I've heard things about you," Toltiir said, distrustful.
"That's just from a mind-affecting virus that they put into his mortal
body when they reincarnate him," Great Fox explained. "He's actually a
pretty nice guy, once you get to know him."
"Thanks," said Sigma.
"No problem. What brings you here, anyway?" Great Fox asked.
"I heard that you guys were letting spirits in on your Bet. Care to let
me have a try?" Sigma asked.
"Sounds fine," Toltiir agreed. "You know the rules, right?"
"Yeah," Sigma confirmed, looking into Mimir's well. A few seconds
passed, and images flashed in the bottom until one finally made Sigma smile.
"This one," he said. "Crash it into the baseline."
"Crash?" Great Fox asked, surprised.
"Yeah. I always wanted to see just how tough the human race was.
Here's
my chance," Sigma said, smirking. Sighing, Great Fox pulled on the
indicated
timeline until it followed a course that would fuse it with the baseline.
"May Kami-sama forgive me," Great Fox whispered. Toltiir, knowing the
immediate effects of a crash, nodded in agreement.
* * * * * *
The Opening Bet
Prelude: Collision Course
A Ranma 1/2- Megaman X crossover
A fanfic for 'A Second Bet'
" " = speech
<" "> = panda board
< > = thought
* * * * * *
Ranma, standing next to his father, gazed at the 'mystical' training
grounds and snorted in derision.
"Don't look like much to me, Pop," he commented offhandedly. "Kinda
interesting, though. You ready yet?" Ranma asked, dropping his pack.
"Whenever you are, Boy," his father taunted, leaping atop one of the
poles. Ranma followed suit, finding that the bamboo poles were more
challenging to stand on than he'd originally thought.
* * * * * *
Unbeknownst to the inhabitants of Ranma's universe, another would soon
collide with it, changing it forever. This kind of thing, however, was not
uncommon. Fusions happened often, and crosses almost weekly. What made
them
unremarked upon is the Cosmic Law that all planes that dictates that all
crossings and fusions are to be magically softened to the point that none
can
notice them. In this case, the timelines were so close to convergence that
they were already affecting one another. In temporal terms, five minutes
until the fusion.
* * * * * *
Ranma leapt agilely, avoiding his father's axe kick and landing neatly
on
a nearby bamboo shoot. His father, recovering from the failed maneuver, did
the same, and they faced off again. This time, Ranma attacked his father,
feinting a chop with his right hand while truly attacking from below with
what would be a vicious snap kick. Genma, though, saw it, and deflected
both
blows, and the two found themselves regaining their balance upon the dried
bamboo.
* * * * * *
A provision made upon the Cosmic Law of Fusions, however, is that a
manipulated fusion need not conform to the 'soft landing' model, though it
would do so naturally. If, however, this effect is refused, the two planes
will 'crash' into one another, causing catastrophic damage and permanent
change to the now-united universe. The effect is similar to a crash between
a pickup truck and a sedan, the pickup being the baseline and the sedan
being
the fusing line. Though the truck will sustain considerable damage, it will
survive. The sedan, however, will be obliterated in the crash. In essence,
during a planar crash, the more potent timeline will absorb the other, at
significant cost to itself. This would be the case for Ranma's universe,
his
home plane being the more potent of the two lines. Time to collision: 3
minutes.
* * * * * *
Ranma grinned, enjoying the sparring match. He'd seen a few openings in
his father's forms, any of which would have allowed him to send the old man
into one of the springs below, but he hadn't. He was sure that Genma had
extended the same courtesy to him, as extended battle on the poles was more
than enjoyable. It was exhilarating, and Ranma could now see why this place
was mystical. Finally seeing a hole in his father's defenses that he simply
couldn't ignore, he side kicked the old man in the stomach, sending him
tumbling into a spring below.
"That all, old man?" he called, waiting for his father to surface. A
few
seconds passed, and Ranma began to grow uneasy. Finally, a panda wearing a
karate gi that was too small for it burst out of the spring, leaping for a
pole. Ranma, alarmed, leapt backwards onto a pole that was much farther
away
from the bear than he had originally occupied. Left alone, the panda
balanced atop a pole and assumed a kempo stance meant for power. Ranma fell
into a guarding position, not knowing what else to do.
* * * * * *
Time to collision: 30 seconds.
* * * * * *
"Pop?" Ranma called. "Where are you?" The panda seemed to try and say
something, but Ranma ignored it. Finally, something that he'd dismissed as
background noise reached him.
"Oooh, is very bad. Customer fall in spring of drown panda," the guide
to the grounds shouted. "Very tragic story of panda who drown there 3000
year ago. Now any what fall in spring take body of panda!"
"Pop?!" Ranma exclaimed, looking back to the bear. "Is that you?" The
bear tried to make more noises, then finally produced a sign out of nowhere.
<"Who were you expecting? A movie star?"> the sign read.
"Pop, look at yourself!" Ranma yelled.
* * * * * *
5...
* * * * * *
Genma examined himself, suddenly realizing what had happened. Seeing
the
Jusenkyo guide standing next to the pools and making his own connections,
the
panda made to leap.
* * * * * *
4...
* * * * * *
The guide, surprised and scared by the 800lb. mass of fur flying at him,
did the only thing a sensible person would do: he ran.
* * * * * *
3...
* * * * * *
Ranma, resting atop the pole, suddenly felt queasy.
"Pop," he called, catching the enraged panda's attention. "Something's
wrong!" Once the panda abandoned his rage, he too could feel the intense
uneasiness that suddenly engulfed him.
* * * * * *
2...
* * * * * *
As he stood still, waiting for an attack, Ranma's queasiness grew
swiftly. It felt almost as if something inside of him was changing,
twisting. Moaning, he gripped his stomach and fought for his balance.
* * * * * *
1...
* * * * * *
Losing the battle to stay aloft, Ranma toppled from the bamboo pole and
plummeted towards the springs below. As he fell, the queasiness inside of
him turned into a cold, hard knot of pure pain, twisting and growing as he
fell. Screaming in agony, Ranma fell.
* * * * * *
Collision
* * * * * *
For one eternal instant, Ranma's entire world was pain, in every sense
of
the word. He could feel his body and world warping and shifting around him,
and as a martial artist highly in tune with his world, this was a most
unpleasant occurrence. Then, as suddenly as it had hit him, it was gone.
In
blissful numbness, Ranma splashed headfirst into the spring below him,
beyond
caring what it would do to him.
Finding himself underwater and out of air, however, was something that
Ranma quite quickly decided was something he did care about, and swam for
the
surface of the spring. Surfacing, he gasped in a deep breath of sweet air,
ignoring the fact that his body felt very different.
"Oooh, very very bad," he heard the guide say. "Customer fall in spring
of drown girl. Very tragic legend of girl what drown there 1500 year ago.
Now, what fall in spring take body of girl!" Idly noting the guide's words,
Ranma glanced at his body. He saw breasts. Breasts which were attached to
'his' chest. From deep in his gut, Ranma screamed, shocked and terrified at
the change. After he'd exhausted his breath he took another, slowly and
deeply. Building his resolve, he climbed from the spring and looked the
guide in the eye.
"There any way to get rid of this?" he asked, barely keeping his voice
under control. He wanted nothing more than to take off after his moronic
father for bringing him here, but decided that that would solve nothing.
"No way I know to remove curse," the guide replied. "But hot water make
you normal again until splash with cold. I get some water for Customers?"
"Yeah," Ranma agreed with a feral look in his eyes. "We'll be in in a
minute or two." The guide, deciding that discretion was the better part of
valor, hurried off to his hut and shut the door. As soon as he did, the
sounds of battle broke out from the area outside his hut. Shaking his head,
the guide went to heat water in a kettle that he kept for just such
occasions. Just as it began to steam, the sounds of fighting died down and
the young Customer entered the hut, dragging the elder one. Silently, the
guide handed the kettle to the boy, who in turn poured half of the contents
on his unconscious father. Instantly, the panda resumed its human state,
still knocked out. Smiling in relief, Ranma poured the rest of the water on
himself.
As soon as the change happened, Ranma knew that something was Not Right.
It took a second for him to decide, but this body felt even more Wrong than
the female one. As good a martial artist as he was, his joints were moving
with absolute smoothness, and the aches that he'd sustained from his father
had vanished. Also, his center of balance was off, even further than it had
been when he'd been female. His legs weighed too much, the kettle was too
light, and he had something on his head. Also, the Jusenkyo guide, the
singular man in the world that had seen more bizarre physical
transformations
than anyone, was staring in surprise.
"Never see springs do that before," the guide commented, glad that he
was
already sitting down. Ranma finally braced himself for whatever had
happened
to him and looked at himself. His scream set off an avalanche on the far
side of a nearby mountain.
* * * * * *
The Apocalypse, as it came to be known, had much more far-reaching
effects than an odd body for one pigtailed martial artist. As two worlds
tried to merge without a magical cushioning, terrible things happened. In
places where two buildings would share one plot of land, they were often
both
demolished. The Vatican, for example, long considered holy by even Maverick
forces in the other world, had been left completely intact. However, two
identical stone complexes attempting to occupy a plot of land that was
barely
large enough to hold one ended in dire results for both. The entire
cathedral and all its surrounding buildings were flattened. None lived
through the disaster.
Great Britain suffered badly. Though it had suffered during the
Maverick
Wars in the divergent timeline, there was enough left in many places for
significant damage to be wreaked. Russia fared well, having been a major
battlefield during the Wars, as did Japan, for much the same reason. Much
of
Europe and Africa was heavily damaged, but damaged in ways that were either
easily replicable, in the case of the African nations, or the government was
mobilized quickly enough to repair and restore with relative ease, despite
the loss in life.
South America went relatively untouched, beyond the fact that much of
the
Amazon simply vanished in the moment that the planes fused. This was hailed
as a Godsend initially, as farmers were now easily able to farm the land.
However, the damage to the climate was horrific and, due to the vanishing of
the forest, the cures for AIDS and cancer were irretrievably annihilated.
Australia didn't change much, aside from the fact that Sydney was leveled.
Most of the Australians, being Australians, simply packed up what they could
and moved into the Outback. Nobody noticed, or cared, for that matter.
North America, however, fared the worst. For a long time, it had
remained aloof from the Wars, disdaining the use of reploids as a viable
source of labor. Canada had remained neutral, as always, and America had
just started to produce weapons, selling them to the highest bidder. Thus,
when the planes merged, there was no such thing as a city left standing in
the entire continent. Pristine monuments to democracy and capitalism
shattered, finding that it truly was impossible for two objects to occupy
the
same space simultaneously. The death toll was horrific, and few that had
lived in the cities survived. It took the United States decades to rebuild,
Canada a full century, and the Central American countries never truly
recovered, despite the dedicated work of their surviving populous.
Eventually, they united to form the Confederation of Central America. A
country founded upon the need for an oligarchy, the new country hoped to
prosper. Just the opposite happened. The rich drug barons that now
controlled the state grew even richer off Government funds, and nothing
significant for reconstruction ever happened. The Confederation disbanded
within the first decade of its existence.
All in all, the final death toll was estimated at 2.49 billion killed
from falling buildings, resultant chaos, or simply ceasing to exist.
Wide scale destruction was no the only catastrophe that occurred on the
Day of the Apocalypse. On a person-to-person basis, people were changed,
forced into bodies that they could not control, nor did they want.
Thankfully, this was a very small percentage of the remaining population,
but
it was truly unusual for a community to be free of any 'changed' members.
Many times this change was anything but beneficial. Some children were
changed into small construction reploids, barely possessed of an artificial
intelligence. A few older people found themselves aged greatly, and kept
alive only by the presence of nanoids in their systems. Young people found
themselves with cybernetic modifications. Middle aged people became defense
robots. Of course, this was not absolute. There was variance in all age
groups, but those that this happened to were very few and far between. In
fact, only a few thousand total were changed worldwide, with a mere handful
being different from the archetypes.
Their change, however, forever marked them as a symbol of the
Apocalypse.
Many people shunned and hated them, believing that those few changed
individuals had caused the event. Lives were upended. Faced with a sudden
hatred from those that they'd known and loved, many of the changed killed
themselves within the first year of their new existence. It became common
practice for a community to quietly celebrate the passing of a changed
person, however horrible that might have seemed to them before the
Apocalypse. Nobody cared. So many people were dead; what would a few more
matter?
* * * * * *
Ranma, in his girl form, stared at the still waters of the only spring
in
Jusenkyo that she could approach. She knew this spring, knew it intimately.
This was the spring that had cursed her, that had changed her life. She
hated this spring like nothing else, and yet it was the only one that she
could even get near to, no matter what she did. Kneeling, she looked at the
still waters more closely, making a decision.
<Can I?> she wondered. <Another dip in this thing and I'll never turn
into my other form again. The again, I'll be a girl for the rest of my
life.
Can I do that?> A minute passed as she stared at the spring. Finally
arriving at a decision, she pulled a water bottle from her pack and dropped
it into the pool. Using a dead stick to pull on a cloth loop tied around
the
thing's neck, she submerged it to fill the bottle. Pulling it from the
spring, she stared at it, finalizing her decision.
she thought as she screwed the top onto the bottle. <But maybe I will
someday.> Solemnly, she lifted the bottle by its cap and set it on a rock,
so the water on the outside would dry. <At least we get to go back to
Japan.
I wonder what Pop says we gotta do before we go home, though,> she
wondered.
Sighing, she dismissed it to the back of her mind and waited for her water
bottle to dry.
***Author's Notes***
This is the prelude to my Betfic, "The Opening Bet". I know that I
haven't explained much yet, but that will come in time. No, I haven't
described Ranma's other form, but his dislike stems mainly from the fact
that
he doesn't know how to deal with it. Also, I will be using 'she' to
describe
Ranma when he's in his female form, as well as the suffix "-chan" once I get
further along into the story. I know that I'm running this thing, but since
I'm not deciding upon the winner, I've decided to compete. If anyone doubts
my honesty in tallying votes, E-mail me and say so and I'll send you a copy
of all voting forms when the time comes. In any case, if you've got any C&C
or flames, send 'em to Flashfyre5@aol.com. I may seem weird for soliciting
flames, but I am of the opinion that it takes fire to temper steel, so to
speak. I'm posting this story on a chapter-to-chapter basis, so I'll post
whenever I get one done.
~Flash
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