Reality as he knows it is no more, and Ranma Saotome finds that only he
has been...

Preserved.

Prologue...

'Where am I?' So many little sparks, like balled lightning he'd seen in
Texas once. "Time..." A voice, not a voice, coming from nowhere and
everywhere all at once. "...Changes." He wasn't the brightest cookie in
the flower pot, but he knew he was in for some excitement. Experience
told him that.

A flash of white, and he was shown Nerima, his own little suburban
corner of Tokyo. Odd thing was, everything was moving backwards.
Clocks, people, birds in flight. They all quickly disappeared up their
own existence. Skies turned black, before black ash clouds were sucked
into cone-like structures along with bits of ground turning molten and
running up the hillside and flowing back into the raw Earth. Then it
stopped, and returned to normal operating speed. But this time, it was
different. Two distinct stars fell to Terra Firma. From them came two
factions of warriors, animals yet not, machines yet not.

They fought a long and bloody war, such as it were. In defiance of the
natural order, the good guys lost. They returned to their home in the
stars, and fought another hopeless battle. This time, the good guys
won. The once entirely industrial planet became a floral paradise,
while Earth was a barren wasteland. Fast foreword many millions of
years, and humanity still came to existence. In fact, it bounced back
better than ever, as if the earlier disruption had forced destiny to
take drastic measure to keep on schedule. By the time humanity was
supposed to be coming out of the dark ages, The entire Solar System was
populated, and in counterpoint to the technology which had wiped out
most life, magic was the driving force of the universe.

Again, as if Destiny itself were trying to regain its balance, a war
again made the System nearly lifeless again, Earth the only planet
still supporting civilizations. Humanity progressed, much as he
remembered it. No matter how much it had changed in the past, Earth had
a path to follow, and Ranma smiled as Tokyo, the only home he knew,
rose. But something was missing.

"Hey, where's the Tendo Dojo?"

"Not all... is as it was."

He saw again, a vulnerable world, powerless in the face of evil.
Humanity was weak, and only a few could stand unaided, and even then
the outcome was always doubtful.

"Why is everyone so weak?

"Their power... The warping of nature... was lost... when the Moon
Kingdom... fell. The power... of the soul... never grew."

"They lost their magic, and they never developed their Chi. So what
now?"

"Make them... strong again... Strong against.... the Darkness... and
the Light."

"Nasty speech impediment you have there."

"Shut up!"

Meanwhile...

Optimus Primal had a whole lot on his mind. Actually, he had the Matrix
on his mind. He never really knew what it had on its mind, though he
knew it needed his assistance. He would always feel a tugging on his
spark when it did.

Primal was very spiritual for a Cybertronian. As a Maximal, he had
reason to be, since his kind were the most organic of the entire
Transformer race, right down to the cellular level. Which was funny,
because Maximals were the only Cybertronian species with a cellular
structure.

'Another shall... join you.'

"Join me... us?"

'One of Earth... as it once was... before the Beast Wars.'

"But, there were no humans on Earth during the Beast... oh. You mean
before we changed the course of history."

The core of the Matrix, which is Optimus Primal had been meditating in
front of, glowed even brighter than usual. From it emerged a powerful
figure. Black fur and braided mane, with red bits of metal streamlining
its form. Oh yes, and a pair of pure black wings. It was a pegasus,
easily twice the size of the techno-organic gorilla it stood before. A
new Maximal, but it transformed without the usual vocal phrase, and
became... a humanoid pegasus.

"Greetings. My name is Optimus Primal." Primal extended his hand, and
the new Maximal, recognizing the gesture, joined him in a handshake.
"Yeah, m'name's Ranma. Sorry about this." Primal had to admit, albeit
silently, that he was quite intimidating, as Ranma stood over twice his
height, and his equine hand, with its thick black fingernails, still
dwarfed his own meaty palm.

"I hope you don't mind, but I need to get to Earth ASAP." Primal
nodded, and led the newest transformer to a higher level, where
temporary quarters could be procured for Ranma. The talked as they
walked. "So the Matrix informs me that you were once human."

"Yeah, apparently when the Earth got scorched, it upset the natural
balance. Humans evolved late, but faster than before, sort of like
pendulum over swinging. Humans aren't as strong as they're supposed to
be, and they can't defend themselves like they used to. Awful decent of
this Matrix guy to let me fix that."

Matrix guy? It was obvious to Primal that this Ranma was rather
easygoing, "Can't understand how you lost that war so easily though."
If a little exasperating. About that time, true to Ranma's luck, a pipe
chose that moment to burst, hitting the Pegasus, and only him, with
cold water. Ranma was nearly swept off the land-bridge they had
strolled across, and he started cursing. Optimus was confused, as
Ranma's voice had gone from tenor, to soprano. His confusion only grew
as what stepped from the thick spray was not a black humanoid horse
with wings, but a red humanoid, and distinctly female, feline with
wings.

Same basic shape, with elongated feet, but an entirely different
species and gender, not to mention that Ranma was now half his size.
The long silver claws were still intimidating though. Ranma noticed the
gorilla-borg staring at him... her. She scratched the back of her head
nervously. "I'm still Ranma. Sorry about this."

Optimus Primal shook it off. It was just another transformation for a
species that made a habit out of it. Then again, never before had a
Cybertronian changed gender. Ranma looked down off the land-bridge and
whistled. "Helluva drop, there." Optimus suppressed a chuckle. "Well,
if you had fallen, you could have used your wings to fly back up."
Ranma blinked. "I have wings?"

Later...

Optimus Primal sighed as he leaned back in his command chair. Ranma was
a strange anachronism. He seemed to accept his new existence easily
enough, but he had zero experience with technology. Completely computer
illiterate. And he knew that Earth had a comparable level of technology
before the Beast Wars altered the timeline.

As he sat there, Ranma was out testing his new wings. Apparently it had
been something of a dream of his to fly unaided. He wouldn't be able to
do it as openly when he got to Earth, but Optimus was happy if he was
happy.

"Open me a channel to Earth." He ordered. Soon enough, he was face to
face with a holographic figure of a girl. "Greetings, Optimus Primal."

"Hello, TAI. May I speak with Optimus Prime?"

TBC...

Author's notes: Do NOT tell there is another fic like this! No, even if
there is, DON'T! Let me savor my creative juices. I didn't really mean
for the prologue to be this big, as I wanted the chapters to be larger
in comparison. What's going on you ask? I'll summarize. In this story,
the original Transformer (Autobots vs. Decepticons) cartoon, and the
characters of Ranma 1/2 occupied the same space-time continuum. But
when the Beast Wars (Maximals and Predicons) were fought on prehistoric
Earth, they changed the future. Now it's been changed to the Sailor
Moon continuum, with the new Transformers cartoon (Autobots vs.
Predicons.) and the events of Beast Machines (Maximal vs. Vehicons)
having happened on Cybertron. Essentially, I used all four of the
Transformers series' to connect Ranma to Sailor Moon.

I'm mostly familiar with Ranma 1/2. The original Transformers I haven't
seen in years, but I remember more than I probably should. I haven't
seen all of the Beast Wars episodes, but I've seen enough. I saw almost
all of the Beast Machines episodes. The new Transformers are herd for
me to catch everyday, but I get enough of it to get by on. And lastly,
Sailor Moon, I've seen most of the first and second seasons, a smidge
of the third and fourth, diddly of the fifth and sixth, some manga, and
a whole boatload of fanfics.