Cold Soldier
A Ranma Nibunoichi x-over
by Matthew Talbain
Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma Nibunoichi or the Metroid series.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Ah, yes, yet another story to add to my collection of plot bunnies. It's a damn, cold shame, ain't it? I'm working on all of my other stories, but real life, and too many ideas, is just kickin' me in the pants. Maybe I'll find some kinda dedication soon enough...
-----Prologue: A Heart of Cold Stone-----
In the district of Nerima, Tokyo, if you were to ask about a certain individual, a young man by the name of Saotome Ranma, you would receive a large number of differing responses. Some would say he was a menace, dragging chaos and violence through the town while stringing a number of women along with his misguided charms. Some would say he was a poor individual with no life, the target of bullies and scarlet women with no sense of the word 'no'. Others still would say he was a savior, a man who gave freely of himself to defend those who deserved the punishment in line for them, trying his hardest to uphold his honor, unable to follow his heart because his honor was holding him back.
Ranma Saotome was freezing to death, and he didn't even know it.
He was walking through Siberia, his trademark silks and a thick fur coat his only protection from the frozen wasteland's effects on his body. He'd been marching for days and days on end, stopping only to eat or take care of some other natural business that couldn't wait, but he still soldiered on without any idea that his body was slowly shutting down, bit by bit, with every passing second.
This wasn't always the case, no. As a matter of fact, only a few days beforehand, Ranma had been marching through the Gobi Desert, using the Soul of Ice to protect himself from the searing heat. And before even that, he'd been in Nerima, as he'd been for the past two years, satisfying the status quo by battling his rivals and evading his fiancées. It was an encounter with his mother that had led him to the unfortunate circumstances that were slowly killing the unsuspecting martial artist.
Nodoka Saotome, the mother of Nerima's infamous premier martial artist, was guilty of a number of very serious contradictions. She loved her son dearly, but she despised the curse that rendered him temporarily 'unmanly'. She wanted her son to be happy and joyful, but she distrusted him to make the decision that WOULD make him happy, meaning she was the one that made the decision that would lead Ranma to be a father, and Nodoka to grandparenthood. She held honor and justice as the highest ideals her son could adhere to, yet she expected him to choose a fiancée out of a number of already-dishonored contracts and agreements and make her a grandmother. In other words, she loved her son 'unconditionally' with the condition that he did what he could to remain male and father many children for Nodoka to spoil while upholding the family honor.
And Ranma loved her more than any other person in the world, with the possible exception of one Tendo Kasumi.
Thus would Ranma's love for his mother lead him to his demise, incidentally proving indeed that he could love someone to death; his own. He had been atop the roof, staring at the stars and wondering if his life could possibly get any worse, when he heard his mother enter the Tendo compound. He was about to dismount his perch and go to her when he heard the eldest Tendo daughter, Kasumi, open conversation with the Saotome matriarch.
Curious to know more about these two women he loved, he sat still, listening to his mother and Kasumi speak idle chit-chat. His heart filled with contentment at every praise Kasumi uttered of him, his chest puffed with pride when she spoke of his strength and his determination, and his eyes glowed with moisture at her lamenting the stress he was forced to deal with each day. And all of these warm emotions fell and shattered when, with a single careless comment, his own mother destroyed his very soul.
"That's all well and good, Kasumi, but if he were any kind of man a woman would be happy to marry, he'd have gotten up and found a cure to that...that...disfiguring curse of his."
He hadn't even waited a single night, not even a single hour. The moment his mother left, he dropped from the roof and hugged Kasumi tight, thanking her for her kind words and asking her to tell the others he was going out to search for a cure. He didn't wait for her to rebuke his mother's scalding, senseless remark, though, had he waited just a minute before fetching his pack and some supplies, and leaping out of the window, he'd have heard Kasumi's whispered desire that she be the one to prove his mother wrong by being happy to wed the poor martial artist.
Since then, he'd traveled across Asia and into Europe on occasion; it had been several months, and he'd become somewhat of a legend, the Red Hero, as they called him. He'd made it a point to aid those who needed it when he could; a run into a burning building, the scattering of a number of bullies, and the like. As a matter of fact, the only traditional heroic act he hadn't been noted performing was the iconic rescue of a kitten in a tree, but given Ranma's ailurophobia, he can be forgiven for the failure to truly live up to heroic standards.
He'd exhausted every trail to magical cures to magical maladies within Asia save one; the presence of a curious magical disturbance resonating with the geographic lei lines within the Earth's surface at some point in Siberia. Growing tired, and unaware that the fur jacket he'd been given by a young woman he'd saved from a wolf pack would be insufficient protection from the sub-zero temperatures of Siberia's cold night, he set off on this one, last wild goose chase to make his mother smile.
Which led to his current, unseen dilemma. He was freezing to death, and even contributing to his eventual death by maintaining the Soul of Ice. Had he learned a bit more geography in school, or perhaps taken the time to realize that the snow around him meant he wasn't in Kansas anymore, Dorothy, then perhaps he might have turned around. Or perhaps not; his mother's wishes came before his own.
You see, when Ranma was traveling through the Gobi, he entered the Soul of Ice to prevent his body from dehydrating by condensing what little aerial moisture there was on his flesh; it had proven remarkably effective, and he'd continued on a very rapid northern trip through Russia, following his ki to the Siberian disturbance, without deactivating the technique.
The Soul of Ice is a godsend in desert conditions, lowering one's awareness of the external temperature and lowering the ambient temperature to the point where the body can condense moisture, effectively making the trip a walk in the park. However, in sub-zero conditions, the technique becomes a nail in the coffin; the lowered awareness of the external temperature kept Ranma from realizing that his body was beginning to freeze, starting with his own musculature, all the while contributing to his own demise with the Soul of Ice's propensity for condensing, and in recent hours, freezing, moisture.
Ranma Saotome was going to die in five minutes, and nothing could save him bar a miracle.
His muscles finally gave in to the frost, and slowed down, causing him to blink and begin an internal diagnostic; how could his muscles be freezing if he felt like it was a nice, cool breeze? It hit him, all at once; he'd been killing himself since entering Siberia. He refused to cry, refused to give in to his fate. With renewed fervor, he plowed through the snow, rushing for that disturbance, his motions a feeble attempt to heat his body with friction. It wasn't working well.
He stumbled into the disturbance, his frosty ki mixing with a cold-ki front of unknown origins; a rip in the air, perhaps, or some cold, frozen wasteland in another dimension. He was bathed in the magical afterglow for mere moments, his ki's regeneration improving dramatically as he was filled with the flow of frozen planetary energy. Without his knowledge, he began to sink into the icy ground; he'd been standing on thin ice; saltwater. He sank in lower, the water on his body freezing immediately as it encased him, his cold-ki and the boosted energy from the planetary magic flash-freezing it to his flesh. He never even felt his own eyes freeze shut.
Ranma Saotome, premier martial artist and unwitting lady-charmer, was no more.
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Research-Class Frigate Dominion
Log 9.293.3
Glory to the Space Pirates!
We have at last penetrated the Galactic Federation's airspace and arrived in orbit over their homeworld! This heralds a great future for our the Space Pirates! Already we have assembled science teams to fall planet-side and begin to hack the remains of their planet's data network. The fact that the entire planet is coated in ice and glaciers is of little concern to us; the network remains active, though the few signs of life do provide some measure of worry; if anything could survive on that planet, then it must be hardy and formidable, indeed, like the Sheegoth of the Phendrana region of Tallon IV.
Log 9.479.3
We have received a disturbing communication from the rebuilt headquarters on Zebes; the Homeworld has been compromised. Reports indicate that there is a tremendous Federation presence on the surface, and the Hunter's craft has been sighted on security cameras in the inner workings. This does not bode well, nor do the reports of the failures of the science teams on Aether and Tallon IV. It is readily apparent, as the science teams have proven, that all Phazon onboard the Dominion has ceased emitting energy. This is disturbing, but not distressing; the Phazon was solely for the purpose of mutating some of the Earth-native lifeforms we have already encountered.
Log 9.183.5
The data network has at last been breached! We have already begun to download old Earth-designed weapon blueprints. We have also received an odd transmission from a drone left on Zebes; initial scans of the Hunter's armorsuit and its functionality. In any case, production of prototype armorsuits using the Chozo technology included in the transmission has already begun, as has production of several old-Earth weapons.
Log 10.249.1
Science team Bravo recently detected an odd energy anomaly in an area the network has termed 'Siberia'. Excavation of the site began, and in only two planetary rotations, we unearthed a young Terran male, somehow frozen naturally in a cryogenic state. We have turned him over to the Medical team, who have begun the slow process of unfreezing him while maintaining his unconscious state; we must engage in numerous tests to determine how he was able to survive on this planet, as he cannot have been frozen for long and still maintain the large energy signature he is emanating even now.
Log 10.493.1
It has come to our attention that, due to lack of resources, we have only been able to produce a single replica of the Hunter's armorsuit. Initial testing indicates that the suit is identical to that of Samus Aran, including its level of modular capability. However, all attempts to bond it to a willing test subject have failed; analysis indicates that Space Pirate genetics are too enhanced for the suit to bond with. We have received Command's approval, however, to inject the last of the Dominion's Chozo genetics supply into the human male; the process was a success, and we have begun attempts to bond the armorsuit to the human. We have named named Project Avenger, as he will be our answer to the Federation's pet Hunter!
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A/N: Yeah; you know it. Anybody else notice I seem to love killing, or almost killing, Ranma in every 'fic I write? Funny, that...