[FFML] [Teaser: Crossover: R1/2 & The Slayers]The Slayers: Wild Chapter Two

Some pre-story notes,
It has been a long time since I've contributed anything to the list.

I've been writing, but only this story's chapter. Life has hit me hard, and I'm still in shock over the recent events in my life this past month of August.

Anyway, I wanted to send out a teaser for this chapter to let people who've been reading it, it's not been abandoned. It should be finished in a week or two; it's 30-40% complete, in any case.

Anyway, on with the story.

Troy

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Slayers: Wild
By Troy Thomas

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

***

Chapter Two: Teaser

Two young travellers, a boy and a girl, sat on top a large
stonewall watching people walk past.

The boy, Ranma Saotome, looked at the girl. "I need some
clarification here. We're in another world, right? Why does
everything seem the same, if you ignore the overuse of
magic?"

The girl, Akane Tendo, looked at the boy. "Everyone needs to
live, I guess." She returned her attention to the city street
below where people walked past with arms and eyes full, minds
set on walking to a destination, a place to go.

"It doesn't seem real, almost as though we can just sit here,
and then wake up." Ranma said, surprising himself with his
outward thought. "We need to find somebody who can get us
home, real or not." Jumping off the wall's top, landing on
the ground below surprising a passer-by, he looked up to
Akane. "Are you coming?"

The girl dropped from the wall's top, and then faced the boy.
"Where are we going?" she asked.

"I don't know, but it's somewhere." the boy replied. He
shrugged, and then smiled.

Looking past Akane, Ranma waved over an elderly man.

"Hi, we're looking for somebody who knows a lot about magic."
Ranma said.

The elderly man, wide-eyed and opened mouth, cackled. "Try
the moon!" he replied. "I'm sure there you'll get your
cheese's worth!"

The girl and boy stepped back from the old man, and waved him
on his way.

When certain the old man was out of hearing distance, Ranma
said, "Wow, I never knew anyone could smell that bad..." He
smirked at Akane. "I guess I should avoid asking the nuts,
huh?"

Ignoring the question, Akane approached a lady, who was
slowly walking away from her.

"Excuse me..." Akane said, catching the lady's attention by
waving at her. "Do you know where someone who knows a lot
about magic?"

"Pardon?" the old woman shouted. "You'll have to speak up! My
hearing's going!"

Raising her voice, Akane said, "Where can we," she gestured
to Ranma, who stepped beside her, "find someone who knows a
lot of magic?"

"What?" the lady asked, still shouting. She brought her hand
to her ear, and leaned towards Ranma and Akane. "Could you
speak up a little there, Deary?"

Before Akane could respond, Ranma leaned towards the old
woman, and screamed into her ears, "Is there a good magician
around here?"

Cackling, the old lady pointed across the road to a nice
little marble building. "That's Lord...deary, deary me, I've
forgotten his name! Don't you hate it when you forget
somebody's name?"

The lady grinned at Ranma, who shrank away from her at the
sight of her brown toothless gums.

"Yes, yes, he is the best magician in the city! Why once I
had this terrible ache in my hand..."

Ranma tried to listen to the elderly woman but let his
shoulders wilt, tiring of the woman's natter.

"And to that I say, the kids who are magicians these days are
only brats who don't know anything about respect!" The lady
wagged a finger at Ranma. "But you look a fine young man, and
your lady friend too!"

"You say a good magician can be found across the street?"
Ranma asked, shouting into the old lady's ear, seizing a
faint chance to end the conversation.

"Yes, he is great!" the lady replied. "I was just going over
there myself!"

Deeply suppressing a groan, Ranma took the extended hand of
the elderly woman, and then helped her across the street,
Akane trailing behind softly.

***

Ranma looked into the magnifying glass being held above his
nose, peered into the oversized eye of the quack, who was
called Lord Duck.

"Please do not look into my eye." Duck said, his voice a
strange clich� Transylvanian accent.

The mage leaned close to Ranma, who leaned away from Duck,
and was surprised when Duck wheeled about to bring Akane into
the magnifying glasses' focus.

"Now, you two are not from around here?" Duck asked Akane.
"Another world, from what I can see of the residual energies
sparkling and pop-poling off of your bodies?"

"We already told you we aren't from this world." Akane
answered, pushing Duck away, since he had propped the glass
up against her forehead and was looking through it with his
eye propped up against the glass. "We want to know how to get
back home."

"Home is where?" Duck asked, turning back to Ranma with a
large tongue depressor. "For that matter, where is here?" he
quietly wondered.

Ranma jumped up from his seat in shock when Lord Duck
instantly hopped in happiness. "Here is here, of course!"
Duck quickly ran out of the room. A second later, he re-
entered the clinic room with an opened notebook. "I need to
write this genius down...Hear is hear..."

Peering over Duck's shoulder at the notebook, which had just
been closed, Ranma read the title in his mind, "Duck's
Deductshins."

Annoyed, Duck turned his head to look at Ranma's head which
hung over Duck's shoulder. In an astonishingly tight speed,
Duck took away from Ranma's sight the closed book, and hid it
under his robes. "Why are you here?" he inquired, tapping his
tongue depressor, which he taken from just his robes, in his
hand.

"Um, we're looking for a way to go home." Ranma replied.

"No, no! Why are you here? How did you get here?"

"A little old lady told us about you?" Ranma offered,
wondering if he had given the right answer. "We walked here?"
He looked at Akane, who wore a look of genuine bewilderment,
which Ranma shared.

The tongue depressor broke atop Ranma's head. "No, no, no,
no! I want to know, how is it you came from your home world
to this world?" Duck shouted, glaring at the pigtailed boy.

"Well, why didn't you ask that from the beginning?" Ranma
shouted, returning Duck's glare.

"It was a weirdo who summoned us here..." Akane said,
remembering the strange events from only hours before.

"You were summoned?" Duck asked, looking at Akane with
happiness. "Well, if that's so, then you need only have the
ceremony instructions with you so I can study them and make a
procedure to return you home! It's so simple!"

"Alright! That sounds great!" Ranma exclaimed.

"Um..." Akane said, beginning to sound out a thought. "The
ceremony instructions? That's going to be a problem..."

"That's right! That nut's tower fell down..." Ranma said,
finishing the thought, slamming a fist into his open hand
punctuating his line. "That girl brought it down with that
magic blast."

"Oh, is that so..." Duck stated, realising a doubt about
Ranma and Akane. "I only just remembered. You two are from
another world, and that would mean you have no money. I was
so excited about talking with you aliens that I forgot to
ask."

"Money?" Ranma asked.

***

"Money." Ranma groaned.

Outside the mage's laboratory, Ranma and Akane looked towards
the sky.

"How can we make some money?" Akane asked.

Silence descended on the two teens, until a young man
approached the stairs where the teens stood. "Excuse me, but
you, Young Sir, have the look of a warrior..."

"And?" Ranma said.

The young man swept himself into a Western styled bow. "I am
a simple traveller who wishes for protection. I'll pay you
well, of course."

"Convenient." Ranma commented, looking at Akane, who appeared
perplexed. "I guess sometimes things just work out, when
you're not being summoned from another dimension."

"I'm so sorry to bother you on the street, Young Sir..."

"My name is Ranma."

"I am Cyan Phenix. Anyway, I wish again to apologise for
approaching you two," he said, taking a moment to look at
Akane, "here on the dusty street. I do know you warriors
prefer to do your business in the taverns..."

"Really?" Ranma inquired.

"Of course, from what I understand, you people like to do as
much as you can in those inns. Your information collecting,
you eating, your sleeping..."

Ranma looked at Akane. "I guess the next time we need to know
something, we'll just go to an inn."

"Thank you for your time, I must say once again. I went to a
tavern, but felt too intimidated to enter, so I moped about
on these streets, and by chance saw you two standing outside
the ill-reputed Lord Duck's home." Cyan said. "Anyone who
would dare approach the man living inside this building must
have a strong will and flare for adventure."

"What is it you'd like?" Akane asked.

"I wish for your help finding my father." Cyan replied. He
leaned close to Akane. "I am a young noble man, whose father
disappeared years ago. I want to find him."

"Right." Ranma looked at Akane. "Do we do this?"

"Yes. We really need some money...I don't know how we'll
survive otherwise."

"Wonderful!" Cyan gestured to a nearby inn. "With you two
nearby, I don't think I need to feel scared to enter an inn
now."

***

Zelgadis Greyweirs watched Ranma and Akane leave with a young
man from the mage's mansion. Stepping from the shadows, he
covered his face, and walked towards Lord Duck's manor.

***

"First, let me tell you a little about myself, so you won't
feel suspicious of me." Cyan said, to Ranma and Akane.

The three young people were sitting in an inn, off by
themselves in a lonely corner of the tavern's room.

"As I said before, I am a young noble man. I live in this
city with my mother." Momentarily, Cyan had a faraway look in
his eyes, as though he was remembering the past, an existence
further away than the dark side of the world. "Rather, I
lived in this city with my mother, but she recently passed
away."

"I'm so sorry to hear that." Akane said.

"Yes." Cyan looked at Ranma. "Anyway, with the death of my
mother, I have decided to find my father, or his grave, so I
can place to rest my past."

Taking from inside his clothes out, Cyan held in his hand an
old brown piece of paper. "My father quietly left my mother
late one night this letter saying he was going on a quest for
our namesake, the Phoenix, to ask for help. At around this
time, my family was in terrible trouble with an evil
sorcerer."

Cyan looked gravely at the letter, and then slid it towards
Ranma. "It would seem though, that it was my father alone who
was in trouble with the sorcerer. The magician never bothered
my mother or me once my dad had left."

"I would assume that if we're going to look for your father
that we'd be looking for trouble, hmm?" Ranma asked.

"Pardon me?" Cyan said. "What do you mean?"

Ranma began counting the points he wanted to make on his
fingers. "One, your family was being threatened by somebody.
Two, your dad left. Three, the stranger disappeared after
your dad left, probably after your dad. Four, now we're going
to go after your dad."

"Yes, it does seem troubling, but my resolve remains firm."
Cyan replied, slowly processing and analysing the information
in mind and spirit. "The letter says my father wanted to
visit a friend in the city before he left. Somebody named
Steiner."

Ranma waited for Cyan to offer more information, but realised
Cyan wanted him to read the letter.

The letter said, "My eternal rose, for ever in my memory in
bloom on ivory coast before the twilight over the sea, I fear
leaving your side. I have no choice. The evil chases me from
your side to find the phoenix, who would be our saviour in
trying times. I will first visit with our friend Steiner
before leaving the city, in preparation of a future I dare
not contemplate, but must, if I never return."

"Who is Steiner?" Ranma asked, on the second reading of the
parchment.

"My mother's friend, I suppose." Cyan answered. "I may have
met him, but I'm not sure."

"Where do we go to meet him?"

"Oh, I never thought of that! Maybe one of the servants knows
who Steiner is..."

"What is the Phoenix?" Akane asked, suddenly intrigued. "A
person?"

Cyan looked at Akane. "I don't think the phoenix is a person,
but we won't know until we find it."

Ranma and Akane stared at each other.

"I hope...this phoenix isn't anything like the last couple of
flaming birds we met." Ranma said.

End Chapter Two: Teaser

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