Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma ½ or the story lines I intend to cross over into it. I will say that I'm gonna cross over Final fantasy tactics and Final Fantasy 6 (or 3, as I know it) for some of the characters. I will probably add in a couple of OC's, but nothing you fine readers aren't used to J
A/N: As you guys probably guessed, I rewrote this story….I did in the past also, but I'm trying it one last time….I don't like quitting but I decided that if I can't do it now, I'm not gonna attempt it in the future….this one is gonna be short, but I'm also gonna see if enough people like it to write more….this is all dependant on the reviews I receive J
Chapter 1: Dreams
The gym was empty from the raids made on it earlier in the day, all that remained were the corpses from the students who died, and the group of martial artists that stood there now, calm but confused around the lifeless bodies.
Xian Pu, Ryoga, Ukyou, Akane, and Ranma all stood amongst the corpses and thought hard on their possible enemy.
"Who could do this? All these corpses have clean wounds, but they're all so...mutilated..." Ryoga said, crouching to see the corpse of Kodachi "the blackrose" kuno's many wounds, and gnarled limbs.
"Me no know," Xian Pu said, sitting on the stage.
"Yeah, me either," Ukyou said, poking a corpse with her giant spatula.Ranma Grabs the spatula and says in a nonchalant voice, "Don't disturb the dead...they don't like that."
"What, what do you mean?!" Ukyou yells at Ranma, but too late.Before anyone knows what's going on, the shadows come to life, sucking up everything into its never-ending void. Everyone watched in horror as the blood from the corpses was sucked up into the air, then shooting out into the darkness like a rocket. The void then began absorbing everything else, starting with Akane, who was watching the exit.
"Akane!" Ryoga screamed as he ran into the darkness to help Akane, the last anyone heard from them was their screams.
The darkness then came across the floor, forcing Ranma, Ukyou, and Xian Pu to run out of the back doors to the gym. Xian Pu turned down a hallway to the right, while Ranma and Ukyou continued straight. The darkness followed Xian Pu, but Ranma and Ukyou continued to run. After covering an impressive distance and making it to the gates to the school, they stopped to look back as they caught their breath.
"What..the hell..was that thing?!" Ukyou breathed between gasps.
"I...don't...know.." Ranma panted. The two hear running and look to see Xian Pu sprinting towards them, with the darkness on her heels.
"Run, I take care!" Xian Pu yelled to them, as she begins to lose pace.
They didn't even have to guess that she was tired; they just knew they had to run. Ranma and Ukyou ran a few steps before they turned to see Xian Pu get swallowed by the darkness as well. Her death screams were earsplitting, and shattered the silence of the neighborhood. Ranma and Ukyou began to sprint once again, but soon found themselves tired. Ukyou was the first to fuck up, as she tripped she let out a scream and the darkness took her as well. Ranma tried helping her, but the darkness already had her. As he turned to run, something grabbed his ankle and pulled him to the ground, where the darkness took him. He felt his flesh being ripped from his bones in a single, slow motion. He felt his blood rushing from his wounds as he slowly (and quite painfully) died.
Ranma woke up with a scream, feeling the sweat covering his body, he looked around. I'm..I'm alive. He thought. God, what a weird Dream...I wonder if it WAS just a dream?Ranma shrugged it off as he went to the bathroom to clean up. Afterwards, he went to the kitchen to see if Kasumi needed any help with breakfast.
Kasumi did her usual routines around the house, cleaned the living room, dining room, and drawing a bath in the furo, and then went about cooking. It's usually about this time that Ranma wakes up and asks her whether or not she needs help cooking, and she politely declines his assistance.
Ranma sneaks into the kitchen and cover's Kasumi's eyes with both hands. "Guess who, Kasumi." He teases.
"Hmmmm.." Kasumi smiles inwardly Lemme play along, she thinks. "Is that you, daddy?"
Ranma almost falls over from the shock of being confused with this girl's father. "N-N-NO!" He yells, releasing her eyes from his grip.
"Oh, good morning Ranma, you're up bright and early." She giggles from his expression and hands him the morning tea, "could you help me set up the table?" she asks as innocently as possible, which attracts a smile from Ranma.
"Sure," he says, taking the tea and walking into the dining area.
"Lord Velius, are you SURE we've found the blood angel?" A man draped in a dark, hooded cloak said, bowing down to his master, who wore a cloak of the same design, but of a dark green."Quacklain, do you remember last time we were awake? It's been a while, hasn't it? Trust me, 1000 years may have passed, but I can still sense the blood angel. Once we locate it, then what is our mission?" The man, Velius, replied with a tone of control."Milord, after we find it, we're meant to capture her and turn her into our Goddess, St. Ajora.""Good to know you still remember...now then, you're in charge of her capture.""Yes Milord."As the man, Quaklain, stood up to leave, Velius called, "Oh, and Quaklain?""Yes, Milord?""You know our policy on failure..don't disappoint me.""I won't Milord"
Ryoga walks into town for the zillionth time, but this time he has no interest in fighting for Akane, he has too many other things on his mind. He walks all over town, careful not to lose sight of the buildings, and eventually finds the cat café. He opens the door and walks in, only to find Xian Pu and Mousse gambling over a round of Poker.
"Hallo, pig-boy!" Xian Pu says cheerfully. "What you want?"
"I want to speak with Cologne...is she in, by any chance?" Ryoga asks as politely as possible.
"Yeah, lemme go get her for you, Ryoga." Mousse says.
Mousse gets up and walks out of the room, and immediately Xian Pu looks at his cards to find he has two of the cards she needs. She promptly steals them and replaces them with two of her own. Ryoga notices this and smiles, but when she sees his expression, Mousse walks in. Ryoga's smile only broadened, but Xian Pu held up some money and put her finger to her lips, signaling for him to keep quiet if he wanted some cash. He simply nodded and turned his attention to mousse.
"Well?" He asks, only getting a tap on the shoulder in response.
Ryoga turns to see cologne standing on a table, waiting to see what he wanted.
"Oh, cologne, hey, wanted to talk to you about something. What do you know about the 'Zodiac Braves'?" he asked.
"The...zodiac braves...hmmmm...well..." cologne ran the fingers of one hand through her hair (not on the top of her head, though, the stuff on her chin ) and paused, obviously deep in thought. "Hmmmmmmmm...I'm not entirely sure, but I think we may have contexts of that legend back at the Amazon tribe...I don't know off the top of my head." She said after a long moment of thinking.
"Ok, I'm gonna look for Ranma and Akane..I think they should know about this..this guy attacked me asking about the Tendos...he's stronger than anybody I've ever faced before, but he had this tattoo on his forehead that looked like the zodiac sign "Libra"...I gathered what I could off of that and learned rumors that there's 12 warriors that had markings similar to that called "zodiac braves"...but I don't know a thing beyond that."
"Ok, I'll gather what I can..Mousse?" cologne called on her employee, who immediately jumped up and went to see what the matter was.
"Yes, ma'am?" He asked.
"I want you to make sure Ryoga gets to the Tendo Residence..he has important business there, and we all know how bad his sense of direction is."
"Ha-ha, yeah, I'll take him there now..not like I can keep gambling, Xian Pu wiped me out with that Royal Flush!"
Ryoga smiled and the two men walked to the Tendo home.
Breakfast carried on normally in the Tendo home, what with Akane fuming at Ranma, Nabiki tallying her previous day's earnings, Kasumi smiling and serving the family, Soun reading the paper and Ranma/Genma Saotome gorging like there's no tomorrow.
Can you smell trouble? I think I can…but what could it be?? I guess we'll figure that out together soon enough, huh?
A/N: okay not the best start, I know, but it gets the job done and it introduces the possibilities of a new start to the story, ne? I'm scrapping the old one and putting up the new! This is gonna be slightly different but I'm gonna go in the same general direction as all this in the long run….I think….lemme know your take on it and I'll add it in to the newer chapters kk?