Preface: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling. The various other characters belong to other people. Everything else is mine.

The Chronicles of the Technomancer

Chapter One: The Unhinged

The Outrider
Otherspace, Null Time

Ranma Saotome, once of the Anything-Goes School of Martial Arts grimaced as he felt sweat pouring off his body and trickling down his muscled frame. His entire body was held perfectly vertical with head facing down to the floor with his toes pointed up towards the ceiling and he was maintaining his position solely with one arm. He slowly unlocked his elbow and lowered himself inch by inch until his face was almost touching the floor and held himself for a breath, then two, three, four, and with his fifth exhalation, straightened his arm.

There was a ping and a flat transparent holographic screen appeared in midair. Ranma craned his neck to see a chibi-Washu looking at his feet in mild confusion. He grinned and flipped himself right side up easily. "Hey Washu-chan!" Ranma said as he picked up a towel and wiped himself down.

"Saotome," Washu-chan leered at his sweaty muscular chest before refocusing on his face, "Peorth has detected a new Nexus Point."

A Nexus Point, Saotome's eyebrows shot up and felt his heart begin to race. "I'm coming to the Command Deck."

He dashed towards one of the transport pads. Over a decade ago chronologically, an Emergence of a Higher Dimensional Being had occurred. A Being from the Realm of Chaos known as the Lord of Nightmares. Her Emergence had resulted in Chaos flooding the Multiverse and had resulted in Ranma and hundreds of others in being Unhinged from Time. It was only the intervention of the Ultimate Force from Yggdrasil that had prevented them from being Deleted. Or so a somewhat flaky Goddess who called herself Peorth proclaimed.

Frankly, Ranma had some doubts about her competence but she did seem genuinely interested in aiding them, when she wasn't making some sort of flowery speeches that brought back to mind images of the Blue Blunder. At least, Peorth was a lot cuter than Kuno. And wore significantly less.

With her assistance in plotting out Key Points of Time that had been damaged, the Unhinged would try to restore that event or at least try to minimize the damage. They had some successes. And some failures. And not a few causalities. But in the end, several of the Unhinged had been able to be restored back to their proper time and place. But not all of them, including Ranma.

But a Nexus Point was a very rare event. It was like a linchpin to multiple Timelines. It radiated outward from a single event, like the key domino that would affect not only that one dimension but dozens others as well. A Nexus Point would enable Yggdrasil to be able to restore more of the Unhinged from it's Memory Storage as it could devote more time and power from shoring up the structure of the Multiverse from unraveling itself and collapsing. As more and more of the Universes were restored, they might be able to restore enough to be able to return to their homes.

Ranma admitted to himself that once upon a time, he would have been desperate to return home but the years had shown him that his current life wasn't too bad. Better in fact, than his time in Nerima had been at least. He was a martial artist, one of the greatest ones in fact (in his not immodest opinion). His experiences throughout the various worlds had exposed him to martial art disciples and fighting styles long lost or forgotten or had never even existed in his own world. And he was saving not just the world but thousands upon thousands of worlds. That surely was the greatest duty of any martial artist wasn't it?

In the decade since the Unhinging, Ranma had seen around a dozen Nexus Points. And it was absolutely vital that they rescue it. Of the past 13 Nexus Points, they had been only able to save 8 of them. The remainder though had continued to spread the infection of Chaos like a universal cancer or a malignant disease, sowing destruction and devastation and death. So far, the Unhinged had managed to win more often than not, slowing down the spread of Chaos. But if the Chaos destabilized the Nexus Point, the tide could tip. Washu had once likened them to a booster shot of Order to the Universe. Hopefully, eventually they would be able to one day finally eradicate the Chaos.

He skidded to a stop on top of the marked area and it lit up and Ranma vanished in a stream of particles.

City of Canterbury
England, 1978
Universe R69-L464

Lucius Malfoy scowled as he consulted his pocketwatch once more. The damn idiots were late. Was everyone else in the entire world incompetent except for him? Was he asking too much that they actually arrive on time? Apparently so. He replaced the watch back into his robe when several cloaked figures came striding out of the fog and stopped a few feet away. One stepped up closer and nodded, "Malfoy."

Malfoy made a show of slowly reaching into his robe and extracting his pocketwatch and snapped it open, glanced at it, and then closed it with a click. Appearances, were everything after all. "You're late," he remarked snidely in a dismissive tone of voice.

"We had to be careful and Apparate well out of range of any Protective Wards these Mudbloods might have erected. Wouldn't want them to get an early warning now do you? It took longer than we thought to get here and the Muggles had some sort of traffic accident with one of their motor wagons," the cloaked man explained with a bob of his head.

"That's not my problem now is it?" Lucius Malfoy sneered, "And I told you already, these fools don't have any sort of early warning system up. Just some Privacy Charms and the Standard Defense Wards," he scoffed, "and I assume," he emphasized the last word meaningfully, "that you can take care of those."

Walter McPheer gritted his teeth, feeling the overwhelming urge to stick his wand up this pompous prig's nostril and loose a blasting curse. But he didn't dare. Pompous or not, this snob did happen to have the ear of the Dark Lord. And this mission was a viable one. Perhaps even important to the Cause. Of course, McPheer had sourly noted that Malfoy stood to profit a good deal from this success of this mission as well. But the money that would flow into his coffers would ultimately help fund the Dark Lord so he had reluctantly accepted this assignment.

Frankly, McPheer couldn't stand Malfoy. For all of his posturing and declarations of loyalty, Malfoy's greatest contribution was his money. He wasn't a soldier and McPheer had his doubts about his dedication to the Cause. He suspected that Malfoy would be the first to turn if things ever went south on them. He might be Pure … but in the end, he was weak. But even a weak tool could be useful, he told himself. And the Dark Lord would ensure Malfoy's loyalty. Deep down, he actually hoped that the blonde twit did turn and that the Dark Lord would permit McPheer the opportunity to kill him. He put aside the pleasant fantasy of Malfoy's slow death and instead replied, "Yes, we can."

Malfoy merely raised a fine eyebrow as if indicating his doubt. He theatrically scowled in what he thought was a perfectly menacing manner and threatened, "Remember, the Dark Lord does not tolerate failure."

McPheer tightened his hand into a fist, longing to slug this arrogant fool. "I understand," he gritted out. Like I don't know that you blonde haired twit.

Malfoy gave a sharp nod, satisfied the proper hierarchy was established. "Good. I shall be off then. Must establish my alibi after all," Malfoy replied and absently adjusted the perfectly tailored handmade dragonhide gloves and fastidiously brushed a bit of lint off a lapel before he Apparated away.

Yes, wouldn't want to get your bloody hands dirty with actual work now do you? McPheer darkly thought to himself. He glanced at his companions and gestured sharply. Several of them immediately broke off to move into their assigned positions. He pulled out his wand and waited for the others to get into position. If Malfoy wanted the bloody money that his distant relations had, the ruddy prat should have the balls to go and assassinate them himself, not send him and his men to do it for him.

McPheer didn't have too much of a problem with killing these Mudbloods himself, it was having to do it so that Malfoy could swoop in and steal their fortune by proclaiming himself as the sole surviving heir that rankled. One of these days though Malfoy, you're going to overstep yourself and if the Dark Lord was willing, I will be there to see it, he gritted his teeth and raised his wand like a baton before snapping it down. "EXPULSO!"

He heard the echoing shout of several other curses uttered at the same time lashing out and striking the front door of the manor along with his own. The Defense Wards were never intended to repulse such formidable force. They tried to resist, to retain their structure but ultimately they failed and shattered along with large oak doors and most of the adjoining wall. He licked his lips as he felt another of his compatriots casting the Anti-Apparation Ward, blocking any escape attempts. He hurried forward into the now defenseless manor, his wand at the ready, looking for his first victim.

The Outrider
Otherspace, Null Time

Ranma leapt out of the teleport ring the second he finished rematerializing, ignoring his habitual shudder at the thought of having his molecules scrambled.

On one of his earliest missions, one of his fellow (and now deceased) Unhinged took a perverse pleasure in showing him an American movie, "The Fly". Afterwards, Ranma tried his damnest to avoid using the stupid things even though Washu kept insisting it was perfectly safe. Like he was going to trust the word of a self-confessed mad scientist. Or not notice how she softly muttered, "Mostly," at the very end.

A life size holographic image of Peorth was already speaking as she indicated a graphic representation of a Timeline to the rest of the Unhinged, "—Universe R69-L464," she tapped a section that immediately highlighted itself. "The Nexus Point Mon Chers. This juncture indicates a World War between a separate sub-type of humanity who can manipulate magic and mundanes. It will result in the near extinction of the Wizards and the devastation of the world afterwards before culminating in the entire collapse of civilization and ecosystem approximately two hundred and forty-two years later. The human race will be être épuisé. Wiped out. Completely."

Peorth let that sink in for a moment before she continued, "We believe we have déterminer the key point. It involves approximately seventy-four years before the Wizarding War broke out with a Tom Marvolo Riddle," Peorth abruptly shrank to a chibi-form with an oversized head on a super-deformed body as a new life size hologram replaced her. Ranma made a face at the bald, pale man with no nose and a pair of slits for nostrils. Almost as weird looking as old Pantyhose, he thought to himself.

Peorth continued, as Riddle was replaced with a series of images of wizards dueling, battles of magical creatures against wizards, and crowds of witches and wizards shouting and gesticulating which she flipped through in turn, "who attempted to seize power of the Wizarding World and turn them into an army to control the Mundanes. He helped exacerbate a growing schisme in the Wizarding World of paranoia, racism, and bigotry towards all Mundanes. Although lé Sauvage was subsequently defeated and destroyed, bon vent! His ideals would continue to pervade the remaining consciousness of the Wizarding World even after his death.

"Continuing contamination from toxins and pollutants produced by Mundanes over the next few decades resulted in a pervasive destruction of various magical species and fauna that became extinct and the Wizarding World found their resource base for their various foods, goods, potions, and crafts shrinking or simply entirely depleted. All of this sowed increasing hostilité towards Mundanes.

"Several strains of magically resistant diseases swept through their population that was blamed on the loss of certain curative potions which they were incapable of creating without certain plants. Several magical communities began slowly expirant due to cumulative damage from toxic chemicals in their food and water supplies. All of this resulted in a series of increasing violent incidents towards Mundanes until a évènement déclenchant occurred and a state of open war was declared as the Wizarding World decided that the only way for it to survive was for the Mundanes to be éradiquer."

"What's our target?" a scarred Taichi Yagami demanded bluntly, getting down to business deciding that he didn't need to know all of the details. He left that stuff for others.

"Lui pron." Chibi-Peorth jumped to the side and was replaced with a static shot of a willowy dark haired woman. "Miranda Evangeline. She was assassiner during Riddle's first rise to power. According to Yggrasil's Predictive Analysis, had she survived, she would have a major role to play in preventing the outbreak of the Wizarding War in the futur. It is still an énigme, we have still not locked in on what she does but her survival is définitivement critical, our lowest estimates indicate that if you save her, there is almost a 47 percent chance that this War will not take place and the Human Race will not be destroyed as a result, s'il vous plaît."

Ranma frowned and scratched his head, "Wait, didn't we already deal with a Timeline like this…"

Washu shook her head, "No, that was the one where Axis Germany won World War II."

Ranma snapped his fingers, "Oh right," he said remembering it now. Too many parallel worlds. Too many alternate histories to keep straight.

"We are running short on time," Peorth continued, as she glanced off screen, apparently consulting another display, "you're going to have to perform a Crash Translation to Universe R69-L464," she informed them before adding, "Bonne chance, mon amis—"

City of Canterbury
England, 1978
Universe R69-L464

Walter McPheer cackled madly as he loosed a fiery whip from the tip of his wand that snapped out in a searing blast of flame, cutting yet another filthy Mudblood down. He bounded forward, seeing the teenager was still alive. The wound was cauterized so there was no chance of him bleeding to death. He might die of shock though. Couldn't have that now, could he? The boy was sobbing and struggling to crawl towards his fallen wand.

McPheer pressed his wand up against the boy's temple and unleashed a Reducto that blew his head apart. He picked up the wand and with an absent flourish, pocketed it. Always handy to have an extra wand, after all. So far, the kid had been the only person to put up a fight. Not much of one true, but at least it showed that he still had some of the Pure in him, McPheer noted to himself. Too many of even the Purebloods were cowards and weaklings. Like Malfoy.

He saw a movement out of the corner of his eye and wheeled, seeing a man hurrying a woman down the stairs. He spotted them and unleashed a series of sparkling fireworks that dazzled McPheer, causing his Cutting Curse to go wide. He cursed and frantically blinked, trying to regain his sight but all he could see was sparkles. Damn Mudbloods!

Gerald Pollock sighed as he continued to maintain the Anti-Apparition Ward. Really, even though he was the junior member of McPheer's group, he was always stuck with the scut work. Go stand guard Pollock. Go cook dinner Pollock. Go pick up the messages Pollock and you better not read 'em. Go clean the robes Pollock and make sure you get all the bloodstains out. It was always some damn thing.

He heard the screams and the breaking of objects and suppressed another weary sigh. Everyone was getting some action instead of him! He had begged McPheer for the chance to go on this raid but had been turned down flat. So now it was: Go and hold the Anti-Apparition Ward Pollock. Well, it was a step up. One of these days, I'm going to be the one telling the juniors to go—there was a flash of light from behind him. Pollock whipped his head around as a group of men and women emerged from a—a hole in space?

He snapped his wand around and fired off an explosive hex and got it batted away by some twig of a girl with a broom.

"This how you greet everybody asshole?" a dark haired man with a pigtail snarled as he cracked his knuckles as the deflected spell exploded in midair.

Pollock gaped for a moment before he recovered by chanting a spell that would melt all the flesh from their bones. But before he could even get halfway, the man snapped up an arm with an extended finger and he saw a bright flare of light and then he saw no more.

Ranma Saotome grimaced as he looked down at the crumpled figure with robes lying on the ground, the look of surprise on his face was marred by the neat little hole punched in the middle of his forehead and had exited the back of his skull by a highly focused ki-blast. Unlike the clumsy concussion force blast that he had learned in his teens, this one had been created as an assassination technique.

"I thought we were going to end up near this Evangeline girl?" Tai inquired looking around with a frown.

Washu was busy tapping her holographic keyboard. "There was some sort of subspace interference that knocked our exit portal off course. I think our new corpse was generating it."

Ranma scowled as he heard explosions. "And I think we're missing the party."

Washu nodded, her chin tightening grimly as her eyes flicking at the data rapidly scrolling across the transparent screens that were popping up one by one. "Detecting multiple discharges of magical energies, north by northeast. 200 meters," she recited and then narrowed her eyes at the new datum, "Four life signs just vanished from that location," she said grimly, "Make that five," she corrected.

Ranma cursed and took off, knowing that the others would be right behind him. Damn! Please let us be in time! Please!

McPheer swallowed a shout of rage as he felt the Anti-Apparition Ward ripple and then collapse. What was that moron doing?! I'm going to kill that incompetent fuck!

He heard shouts from his other Death Eaters. He squinted and saw the couple realize they could Apparate. The woman grabbed the man's shoulder and then they blinked out of existence. Shit!

He closed his eyes and tried to sense the direction of the 'portation. He flung himself after the fleeing couple.

He opened his eyes and saw the woman was staggering, leaning against a wall of the alley that they had appeared in and was sliding down, whimpering. Apparently the Apparating had taken something out of her, her companion was kneeling beside her and heard McPheer 'porting in. He snapped up his wand and tried for a disarming charm. McPheer allowed his wand to be flung away as he brought out the slain boy's wand with his other hand and barked, "Avada Kedavra!"

The sickly green light roared forth, catching the man who arched his back before he toppled backwards. McPheer smiled as he heard the woman's scream as she reached out for the now dead man.

She weakly raised her own wand but McPheer grinned as he instead cast the Expelliarmus Charm himself, disarming her in turn. She was panting, gasping as she clutched herself. McPheer wondered if she had been injured by one of his compatriots earlier because he didn't remember hitting her with one of his spells. He stepped closer and recognized her. "Well, well, hello Miranda," he purred and gave a quick glance at her companion. Oh yes, it was him alright. "I see you actually married that useless lump Linus after all."

Miranda glared at him.

"Pity," he shook his head. "The Kents should have stayed out of this. Funny, I would have thought a Ravenclod like you would have been smart enough to scarper when they started bad mouthing the Dark Lord. But then again," he paused and kicked the dead man and grinned at her outraged gasp, "the Kents always were a bunch of Blood Traitors. Hell, most of 'em are just squibs and mudbloods."

"And you and yours are nothing but filthy murderers," she snarled back and winced.

"Yes, maybe so," McPheer admitted. "You always acted like you were so damn smart, lording over all of us. But in the end, it doesn't matter does it? 'Cause out here in the real world, all that matters is power. And all of the brains in the world means squat," and stepped closer and pressed the wand against her temple. She was panting heavily, gasping and sweaty. He noticed that there was blood pooling out from her. Must have been wounded from before if she's bleeding that bad, he realized. "I'll make it quick," he promised with a malicious smirk, "for old times' sake. Since we were classmates and all."

She stared up at him with bloodshot eyes, "Go to Hell."

McPheer grinned widely, "You first Bitch. REDUCTO!"

"DIGIVOLVE!" Tai roared. Agumon roared as he metamorphized into Greymon who bellowed his challenge at the Death Eaters. He unleashed a blast of flame from his mouth that instantly incinerated them.

Another Death Eater tried to hex the gigantic dinosaur warrior only there was a puff of smoke and a small armored knight appeared to interpose itself with the curse. Looking up he saw a smirking young red haired girl with two long ponytails hovering on a broom. She touched some sort of metal charm on her bracelets and a gigantic metal golem appeared out of thin air. He barley had a chance to scream as he was crushed into paste beneath it's feet.

The Death Eaters were backing up, suddenly aware that they were facing something entirely new and entirely different and entirely terrifying. One of them turned and suddenly found himself facing a grim faced dark haired man in what appeared to be some sort of Muggle military uniform. He was holding the dead body of a young girl who looked like she was barely into her double digits. He leveled an accusing glare at the Death Eater and brought up a gloved hand. "Burn." he snarled and snapped his fingers and abruptly the man's clothing went up in flames. The Death Eater didn't stop screaming for a while.

Washu sighed as she gazed at the wave of destruction that her companions were unleashing, ruthlessly exterminating the Death Eaters. "We need one of them alive so we can question them remember?" she reminded them pointedly.

They all looked abashed, "Whoops."

Washu slapped her face with her hand, "Morons, I'm working with morons," she growled.

There was the distinctive shriek of the Reducto as the blast erupted from the tip of McPheer's wand. The burst struck and shattered stone. It took him a second to realize that his wand had been wrenched around. He found himself staring at a smirking Jap with bright blue eyes and a pigtail.

"Naughty, naughty," the stinking foreigner said, waggled a finger under his nose. McPheer struggled to break free but the man's iron grip refused to budge. He barred his teeth and performed an Apparation, side-slipping the Muggle's grip.

The Muggle blinked, flexing his now empty hand. "Huh. That's a new trick," he remarked absently.

McPheer loosed a jinx and a pair of hexes to simultaneously blind, remove the bones in his legs, and lacerate the man. All of which was dodged. This Muggle was somehow twisting in place, evading the blasts with contemptuous ease. He snarled as the man suddenly blinked out of existence and was suddenly only a few inches away from him. His hand was up and finger flicked him in his forehead. The impact somehow was able to cause him to go flying a few feet away onto his ass.

McPheer stared and touched his stinging brow in disbelief. How—how had this Muggle did that? He would have sworn on his magic that it wasn't Apparation. He didn't feel the telltale signature of it at all. Yet whatever it was happened to be a damn good imitation of it.

He growled and pointed his empty hand—he goggled at his hand. He quickly looked around and finally spotted his newly acquired wand in the hands of the Jap. He was twirling it around in his hand. "Not so tough without your little stick are you?" the Muggle remarked.

"Accio Wand!" McPheer roared and his wand leapt from the filthy Muggle's hand to his own. The man cocked an eyebrow curiously, "Well jeez, you're just full of little tricks ain't ya?"

McPheer shot out a series of ropes to bind the fucker. But he vanished again. McPheer heard a whistling noise and had enough time to look up to see a pair of feet descending to smash into his chest. He howled as he felt his bones snap. His wand was swept out of his hand again and he heard it snapped. McPheer shrieked again as his hand was subsequently crushed by a helpful foot.

Ranma Saotome glared at the cursing and sobbing Death Eater and then snorted, turning away, dismissing him from his mind. He pressed a metal pin affixed to his collar and there was a brief chirp. "Ranma here. I got her. She's in bad shape, needs medical assistance fast. Lock onto my homing signal," he reported and clicked off the com badge that Washu had pirated the design from another alternate timeline.

That one had been kinda cool with all of the starships even if they didn't seem to believe in hand to hand combat. Everybody packed these dumb ray guns. Well, everyone except for that one ornery bunch with the gigantic foreheads. Probably the reason why they were so damn surly was because their food sucked.

He checked the woman carefully. Fortunately over the years, he had picked up a bit of first aid out of necessity even though most of it was useless on himself.

McPheer couldn't believe it. He had been defeated—no, destroyed so easily by a damn Muggle. He glared at the man and gritted his teeth. The arrogant fool was ignoring him as if McPheer wasn't a threat anymore! He wouldn't stand for this! He extended his unbroken hand. There was after all, his other wand. "Accio Wand!" he barked.

Ranma heard the shout and felt the tremor in the chi around him that he had learned over the years indicated magic in use. He spun and saw the Death Eater seizing another wand that had flown to his empty hand and was aiming at him. Shit! I shoulda broken his other hand while I was at it! He coiled his legs, about to launch himself out of the way but realized that if he did, the blast would go and strike Miranda. There was only one thing he could do.

Millions of lives rested on him. Billions more yet to be born would depend on his next decision. In the end, there was no real choice. It was his duty.

He stood his ground as McPheer leveled his wand and bellowed, "Avada Kedavra!"

The greenish light sprang forth and Ranma was enveloped by the Killing Curse. He stiffened and then collapsed and so Ranma Saotome, once of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts died…

TO BE CONTINUED...

A/N: The entire concept of The Unhinged was derived from Marvel Comics "Exiles" which I thought was a cool concept. The Unhinged is an anime/manga version of it.

Ranma Saotome belongs to Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma ½, Washu is by Masaki Kajishima and Hiroki Hayashi's Tenchi Muyo!, Peorth was created by Kōsuke Fujishima for Oh My Goddess!, and I'm not sure who created Tai and Agumon but they're part of the Digimon: Digital Monsters line owned by Bandai. As for the other members of The Unhinged, they're as of yet unnamed but you might be able to guess to their identities which will be revealed later on.

The Death Eaters Walter McPheer and Gerald Pollock are my own original characters.

Also, my apologies in advance, but I do not know French nor speak French. However Peorth has a habit of sprinkling her speech with French words so I was simply trying to stay true to her character. I got most of this from a French-English Dictionary on the web so I do not take credit for if it is wrong. In case you were wondering, here's a list of all of the words and phrases I used.

Mon Chers My Dears

être épuisé wiped out

schisme schism

déterminer determined

lé Sauvage The Barbarian

Bon vent! Good riddance!

hostilité hostility

expirant dying

évènement déclenchant triggering event

éradiquer eradicate

lui pron her

assassiner assassinated

futur future

énigme riddle, enigma

définitivement absolutely, definitely

s'il vous plaît if you please

Bonne chance good luck

mon amis my friends

Oh and there is a secret code embedded in the numbering of Universe R69-L464. I'm sure quite a few people will crack it.