Ranma Leap

By Sen'nen Ryu

Prologue: Ranma's Break (From Reality)

Disclaimer: I do not own Sonic the Hedgehog or Ranma ½, they belong to SEGA's Sonic Team and Rumiko Takahashi respectively. I will make no profit off of this work, and make no claims on those copyrights.

Disclaimer 2: This fic has absolutely NOTHING to do with the TV show Quantum Leap. I apologize to any who may have been misled by the title.

A/N: Welcome, one and all, to my first fanfic, and it's a doozy. I plan on having it span many universes. First up, Sonic, starting a month after the events of Ranma ½, and just before the events of SA1. Read, and enjoy.

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Saotome Ranma awoke in the usual way, and, upon landing in the yard, easily defeated his father, Genma, before heading in to clean himself up and eat breakfast. This, of course, was not to be, as his morning bath was interrupted when Tendo Akane came back from her morning jog and entered the furo without even glancing at the occupied sign hanging on the door, and with a cry of "HENTAI!" Ranma took his regular morning flight on Mallet-sama Airlines.

While sailing towards the far side of Azabu Juuban from Nerima-ku, he decided to reflect on recent events. Things had not been going well for our pigtailed hero. Although Hibiki Ryouga had finally seen reason and decided that maybe Ranma wasn't at fault for everything bad in his life, he would still show up every so often with either his view of a legitimate reason to kill his friend (which was either wrong or blown out of proportion), or just some extra energy to burn off. Cologne and Shampoo still hadn't given up on bringing Ranma back to China as breeding stock, while Mousse was still dead set on sticking him in a bodybag. The Kunos had ramped up their efforts to kill and/or date him, depending on his gender at the time, and Pantyhose Taro still chased after him to get his name changed, as though Ranma could force Happosai to change it. Speaking of the old letch, he, too, had ramped up his attacks on the female populace, which led to Ranma having to step in more often, which led to missed school, which led to having his energy drained by Ms. Hinako, the chi-vampire teacher, which made it that much harder to avoid loosing his pigtail to the crazy Hawaiian-wannabe, Principal Kuno. Ukyo had settled down the most. While she no longer started any Fiancée Brigade battles, she still got jealous, and actively participated in them. She seemed to enjoy Konatsu's company, and Ranma had high hopes that Konatsu's attempts to gain her heart would succeed.

What of the Tendos, you say. Well, Kasumi was her same old somewhat-oblivious-but-uncommonly-perceptive matronly self, and Nabiki had backed off somewhat after the aftermath of the wedding incident, though she still sold pictures and ran betting on Ranma's fights. Soun and Genma got more insufferable over the wedding everyday, and his mother, Nodoka, proved no respite. Every time he visited her, she urged him to be manly and take all the women, until he couldn't talk to her anymore through her giggling over the grandbabies she wanted. What's that? Akane? Sure, he could have loved her once, but it seems that the ruined wedding attempt soured her on the idea, so she drove him away with (what else?) horrible beatings. It's gotten to the point where anything he does, offensive or not, is met with excessive force. It got worse when she discovered P-chan's secret through no fault of Ranma. Kasumi and Nabiki, knowing the whole story through various means, and recognizing the attempts at giving Akane a clue, quickly forgave Ranma. Soun went Demonhead, until he was reminded that he and Genma knew all about it and were not restrained by the same honor promise. This drove a huge wedge between Akane and her family along with the Saotomes. Ranma had hoped she would calm down, but as he landed in a pond, she decided that if Akane hit her one more time, she would stop playing nice.

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Once more male (thanks to a thermos of hot water carried in pocket space at all times), Ranma made it back to the dojo just in time to grab his school bag and leave for Furinkan with Nabiki and Akane, leaving him very sore with the latter for making him miss breakfast. Walking along the top of the fence as usual, he gave an unusually cold shoulder to all attempts to start conversation from Nabiki and Akane.

'Something is different… It's like he's about to snap,' Nabiki thought, though she reasoned that there was little she could do about it but hope that no one died when Ranma went crazy.

Things proceeded as per normal when they reached the high school, same flowery speech from Kuno, followed by a short fight and another launch for the kendoist/astronaut. It was still enough of a delay to make Ranma late for class, resulting in an accusation of delinquency and liberal application of the Happo Go En Satsu technique from Ms. Hinako. At lunch, when the Fiancée Brigade all tried to force their lunches on him. When Akane noticed he wasn't eating the food she prepared (that was currently devouring the steady stream of ants that came out to investigate it), she wound back Mallet-sama and sent Ranma flying once more.

Conveniently landing on the roof of the Tendo household, Ranma decided to skip the rest of the school day to plan the confrontation he was going to have with Akane.

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"Ranma, you pervert! Where are you?" Akane yelled upon entering the house.

"2,000," Nabiki replied from right behind her. She angrily dug into her pocket and retrieved the bills. "He's on the roof. I saw him glaring at you from the street."

"Oh, he was, was he? I'll give him something to glare about!" Akane yelled, running off.

Nabiki just shrugged, returned to her room, and turned on the external house monitoring devices. She could hear the beginnings of a major upset, and cursed her luck that she hadn't managed to bribe someone to put some of her monitoring equipment up there.

"Fine!" she heard from her street cam after the rooftop argument quieted down, "I know when I'm not wanted!"

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Ranma was furious. 'Say that to me, will she? The only reason they even still have a dojo, let alone a sign, is because I was here to defend it!' He angrily packed everything he owned, and then stored it in his pocket space. 'At least I didn't totally waste the last two years of my life,' he thought miserably as he leapt out the window.

"Fine!" he said, mostly to himself, "I know when I'm not wanted! I can take a hint! Saotome Ranma understands when he's overstayed his welcome!"

"Halt, Saotome, you vile sorcerer! The gods themselves hath gifted me with this powerful jewel in order to defeat you and free my fierce tigress and the fiery pigtailed goddess!" Kuno Tatewaki stood at the other end of the street, holding a fist-sized, brilliant green gem that, if real, was probably worth a fortune.

"Wasn't that thing going for 1,000 yen at the magical curio shop?" Ranma asked after a few seconds.

"It matters not, for when I invoke the gem's power, you will be overwhelmed! CHAOS CONTROL!"

Suddenly, the gem leapt from Kuno's hand and started to float in the middle of the street, drawing in energy from the surroundings. It seemed to take the lion's share from Kuno, though, as he fell unconscious. A vortex-like portal appeared where the gem was, and Ranma looked at it for a moment. He shrugged, produced a pen and some paper, jotted something down, stuffed it into Kuno's hand, and then jumped into the portal. Once the martial artist was through, the vortex stopped, and the gem, now dark, fell to the ground and shattered.

Nabiki, having seen the entire exchange, ran out to check on Kuno. Wait, that's not right… She ran out to read the note, hoping it would give her a clue as to where Ranma had left to that she could sell. Yes, that's far more likely. Unfortunately, her hopes for future profits were dashed, as she re-read the note and wondered exactly how much she actually knew about her favorite source of income. She dropped the note sadly, with the feeling that she'd never see Ranma again.

As the note lands, we see that it says, So long, and thanks for all the fish.

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Meanwhile, somewhere else that may or may not be the Hall of Justice…

Seven multi-colored jewels, spread throughout the world, sensed someone tampering with the Controller, and took action…

To Be Continued…

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A/N That's the prologue of my very first fanfiction that may or may not be Internet-worthy. Many people may get on my case for Ranma acting OOC; others may get mad that I had the Chaos Emeralds act on their own. To them, I say, if everything was the way it was supposed to be, than I would just be reprinting the regular stories. Therefore, things are that way because I said so, and that should be good enough for you. Edited and expanded, because people complained and were right. I can take criticism, but I tend to agonize over it before I can continue. I may or may not come back to the actual argument with Akane in a flashback, but I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for it, as I don't foresee the opportunity coming up for quite some time. Someone also seemed to get the wrong idea. This is not a "Ranma is involved intrinsically with the Sonic Universe" type fic, this is more of a "Ranma is an outsider who is just passing through" type fic. Cookies to those who know where the text on the note came from. Review if you want, flames will be used to roast marshmallows and warm my frozen feet.