Preface: Don't own Ranma ½ nor Spider-Man, they belong to Rumiko Takahashi and Marvel Comics. This is another one of my Anime Addventure threads that I started a while back that was just sitting on my old computer. I found it while cleaning up my files and decided to revise it. Originally it was called "Altered Childhood" but I've since grown to despise the name.

A New Spin

Chapter 1: And Along Came a Spider…

In 1910, Adolf Hitler was a struggling artist who was unemployed and homeless. Twenty-three years later, he was named Chancellor of Germany and would unleash a genocidal war that would engulf the entire world.

To combat this terrible threat, the United States embarked upon an ambitious program to create physically gifted individuals who would be the core of a group of elite fighting force. They were to be the first of a new breed of genetically augmented warriors. Super Soldiers.

As a safety precaution, the revolutionary creator of the Super Solider Formula, Dr. Abraham Erskine never committed the entire miraculous compound to paper. Instead, he kept it in his brain. But this safety precaution backfired when a Nazi saboteur assassinated the brilliant scientist.

But his work wasn't lost completely.

There was one living test subject.

Steve Rogers was the sole recipient of Doctor Erskine's process and its inheritor. He became much more than a mere soldier for the United States. Instead, he became a living legend, an inspirational icon, and the enduring symbol for the ideals and principles of the United States. He became much more than a mere man or a soldier. He became Captain America, the Sentinel of Liberty.

And the United States Government saw the worth of the incredible physical enhancements bestowed upon Steve Rogers with his dazzling accomplishments and tremendous victories in the European Theater of War over the next few years. And so, they sought to recreate the lost Super Solider Formula and hopefully create more Super Soldiers.

Adriana "Ana" Soria was one of those who answered her country's call to arms to battle the Nazi menace. And she became one of those experimental subjects of the attempts to reconstruct the Super Soldier Formula.

In an attempt to maximize her genetic structure, her DNA was altered, her very genetic code was realigned. All human beings share a common genetic link within our primordial DNA, which is also shared with all terrestrial organisms. Much is said of our commonality to the simian branch; gorillas, monkeys, and orangutans. Less however is said that we share DNA with other organisms as well. Including that of arachnids.

Ana's genes were warped into that of a human-spider hybrid.

Along with the other survivors, she was promptly imprisoned by the military and over the decades, was forgotten by the bureaucracy.

Until she escaped...

Ten Years Ago

Genma felt his stomach rumble with discontent. He sighed and adjusted the rough burlap sack of struggling, pitifully mewling cats over his shoulder and rubbed his belly sadly. He was starving!

When he had decided to take his son and train him to be the greatest martial artist of his generation, he had anticipated that the boy would be forced to make sacrifices but he had failed to realize that he might have to make a few as well. Who knew?

He remembered those days when he was training with Soun and—he shuddered—the 'Master'. Those were good days. He had glossed over the lack of a roof over his head, no bed, no regular cooked meals, no baths, and even worse! No sake!

He readjusted the weight of the sack and grumbled. He had to get back home as soon as possible! Why not, after all he had sacrificed enough hadn't he? He had dedicated himself to his son's training for over a week hadn't he? It wasn't his fault that the boy was too slow to grasp the fundamentals of the Art and master the techniques! But no matter! Once the boy learned this unbeatable technique they could return home in glory and triumph. And more importantly Genma could have a regular three meals a day again. And maybe a snack or two in-between. Or three. Mmmm. Genma abruptly realized he was drooling and wiped the trickle of salvia.

He reached into his dirty gi and pulled out a tattered and battered booklet and examined it again. The Way to the Cat Fist. He chuckled. Clearly the gullible old fool he had bought this ancient martial arts technique from had never read the training manual or lacked the intestinal fortitude to subject himself to the training. Hah! Only his sharp eyes had spotted the booklet in the trash can that the man had been emptying out and only his quick wits had saved this incredible martial arts technique from being lost for all time! The idiot had bargained long and hard but Genma had bought it off of him for a pittance! A mere 10,000 yen! What a steal! he thought to himself triumphantly.

"Hi Pop."

Genma looked up to find his son Ranma sitting on top of a low stone wall, idly kicking his legs right where he told him to wait for him. Such an obedient boy, he thought fondly as he reached out and patted his son's head. "OK boy, I got what I needed. Let's get back to camp," he said.

Ranma nodded and jumped down. Then he glanced at the sack and pointed, "Are the kitties going in the big hole too with the others?" he asked.

"Yep."

There was a low grumbling noise. For a second, Genma thought it was his stomach again but Ranma clutched his stomach and looked up. "I'm hungry," he proclaimed.

Genma sighed. He had used his last 10,000 yen for this training manual. He frowned. He had been planning on using the cats for instructing Ranma in the Cat Fist but they were also the only available food around. I wonder how cat tastes? he speculated absently. Hmmm.

Then he spotted what appeared to be a foreigner walking ahead of them. What luck! The Gods were surely looking out for a needy and righteous person as himself.

Time to practice one of the Master's old training methods. If you can steal it, then it's yours. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, he thought with a smile.

"Ranma!" he said eagerly, "I have a little training exercise for you. Think of it as a game," he intoned solemnly as he extended a finger and pointed at the foreigner.

Ranma cocked his head, "A game?"

Although Genma Saotome was unaware of it, this encounter would fundamentally change the course of his son's life.

He would become far greater and far more powerful than Genma's wildest flights of fantasy.

He would face battles that would shape the course of history and redefine humanity's future.

Ana Soria hefted her backpack as she considered her options as she examined her map of Tokyo. She could go back to the United States. She was relatively sure that they weren't bothering to look for her anymore. But she wasn't completelysure and she wasn't looking forward to spending another few years locked up in a mental asylum just on the off chance they were. After all, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you.

This constant moving around and looking over her shoulder was getting really tiring however.

Ana sighed. She felt so alone. Isolated. Despite the fact that she looked in her late twenties, she was far older. She wondered briefly just how old would she grow? Would she grow older at all? It seemed like she had barely aged a day since the 1940's. She looked pretty damn hot for someone who could be a grandmother at her age.

That thought got her all depressed again. A grandmother. She always thought she would have children. Someday. Now? Maybe never. She felt the familiar pain of loss swept away by a growing swell of fury. They had stolen her life from her. She desperately wanted to lash back out and do the same.

Suddenly she heard a pair of feet running up to her. Reflexes kicked into gear and she spun around and swatted her attacker—she blinked as she got a glimpse of a child—aside. She winced realizing that she had put a bit too much oomph into that blow.

"Oh … shit," she muttered as she stared down at the prone body of a young boy.

Genma was horrified. His son! Defeated! By a woman! By a weak foreign woman no less! Oh the shame of it all! He really had no choice but to train the boy in the Cat Fist at all costs now!

He charged up and shouted, "Foolish boy! You should have avoided that attack easily! And—" he broke off for a moment to ascertain the boy's condition, "—getting knocked out as well!" he continued to shout at his unconscious son's body.

Ana visibly blinked. "Er … are you this boy's father?" she asked hesitantly.

Genma gave her a brief glance over his shoulder, "Yes I am! Oh the shame of it all!" he wailed before turning back to berate the insensible boy.

Ana wondered if this person might be a fellow escapee from a mental hospital. Only this person might have been placed in the asylum for a fairly good reason. She eyed him critically. He certainly looked disreputable enough.

Then she heard what he was calling her. The gaijin part wasn't too bad. She was a foreigner after all. The weak female bit however …

"Weak?" Ana purred. She cracked a few knuckles. She was going to really enjoy this.

Genma turned and smirked, realizing that the female was preparing to attack him. Foolish woman.

It was his last coherent thought for roughly thirteen hours before he woke up and opened two blurry eyes beneath the cracked lenses of his glasses. He sat up and pursed his split and bleeding lip and sagely concluded that the woman must have been some sort of demon/ghost/spirit who had cheated unfairly by using some sort of supernatural spell to beat the bloody crap out of him; because in a fair fight, he would have certainly have won. But clearly his amazing innate prowess had frightened the woman because she was long gone.

Congratulating himself on a job well done, he decided to reward himself and lay there for a while to recuperate. And figure out how to fix his dislocated arms.

It only took another hour or so for him to realize that his son was missing as well.

A/N: Adriana "Ana" Soria is an actual Spider-Man villain known as Queen. I had read the Spider-Man: Disassembled GN a while back and thought that her character was interesting. As you might have guessed, this takes place way before the whole Disassembled story arc, before she descends into becoming a genocidal super-villain.

9/2/2011 Update: A number of readers have mentioned that I made an error in that Adolf Hitler actually became Chancellor in 1933, not 1923 like I wrote. I had no idea that there were so many history buffs reading my stuff! But I have gone back and corrected it, many thanks to Penguin-sa and TVfan for mentioning it. TVfan also notes that the Nazis were already defeated by the time of Queen was mutated into a human-insect but mainly I mentioned the Nazis since they were so intertwined in the creation of Captain America who was the success that the US tried to reproduce with her. Also, I never understood how the writers missed the point where she was supposed to be some sort of human-insect hybrid yet Spidey is an arachnid and not an insect so for the point of simplicity, I made her a human-spider since I thought that would make more logical sense.