Ranma Leap
By Sen'nen Ryu
Chapter 2: On the Other Side
Disclaimer: The author does not endorse or condone breaking through to the other side, and refuses to accept responsibility for any and all injuries (physical or meta-physical), psychological scars, world-eating abominations freed, loved ones lost to the void, or poisoned Twinkees obtained therein.
A/N: What? You say it's weird that I took half a year between when I first posted, then just added a few lines and called it good? Well, you know. Inspiration.
{Japanese}
"English"
"Thoughts"
###
Sonic the Hedgehog was in deep contemplation. The strange water monster he had fought last night was a complete departure from everything that Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik had thrown at him before, and the ramifications were troubling.
*snore*
Alternatively, maybe he was just asleep. It's hard to tell sometimes with him. Suddenly, he was awakened by a loud noise out over the ocean. He saw a white bi-plane, smoking from the engine and sort of meandering across the sky. He could clearly make out Tails in the pilot seat.
"What? Tails?" As he said this, he suddenly noticed a second object diving in from above, and dropping like a rock. "Watch out! You're gonna crash! Agh!" He cringed as the missile-like object hit the plane's left wing sending out more smoke and sending it into a tailspin, then cringed again as he heard the plane crash on the Emerald Coast. "Tails… What am I going to do with you?" he shrugged, then took off down the coast.
###
Miles "Tails" Prower knew his experiment wasn't living up to his expectations. He realized that he still had to work on his apparatus to extract enough power from the Chaos Emerald to run his plane, but not so much as to overheat it. He tried to steer toward the beach, hoping the sand would somewhat cushion his fall, but the rudder had stopped reacting correctly, so it was anyone's guess where he would actually land.
As if he didn't have enough problems, the purple gem in the dashboard flashed, and his instruments read an enormous power output for half a second, frying the engine and turning the smoke black, before it settled back down to normal levels. This wasn't bad enough, no way, there was more, as a strange screaming human rammed through the upper left wing and stuck there, sending the entire craft spinning.
"Shoot," Tails muttered, dropping the controls in favor of making an escape attempt. Before he could unbuckle his seatbelt, however, there was a loud thump, and the plane landed, nose buried in the sand, and the left wing half submerged in the ocean. This didn't silence his unwilling passenger, however, if anything, the cries grew more outraged and higher-pitched.
Suddenly, what was left of the instruments registered a huge power build-up from the struggling form, so Tails grabbed the emerald and escaped the plane just before the entire left wing exploded, revealing the passenger to be a buxom redhead with her hair in a pigtail, who gracefully landed on the sand next to Tails. "Aw, man! That was really cool and all, but this'll take me weeks to repair!"
###
" I really should have thought this through," Ranma thought, as he was barely able to keep his form together using ki techniques while travelling through the gap between dimensions. Suddenly, he saw a window-like opening ahead of him, showing an unfamiliar seaside city as viewed from a point out to sea, and about a mile up. Unfortunately, his momentum carried him straight through, and did the only thing he could think of. {I regret nothing!}
He saw a plane passing by immediately below him. He realized he'd hit it if he didn't do something, so he tried to call up some of his ki for Herb's flying technique, but it reacted oddly as soon as it left his body, and he started falling a little faster, rather than slowing down. That's when he realized there was no avoiding it. So, he crossed his arms over his head and yelled, {Watch out!} hoping it would get the pilot's attention so he could take evasive maneuvers. Then, he noticed the plane was smoking from the engine.
He hit hard, his bracers barely making any difference as his forearms tore through the plane's wing, and his torso getting scratched up as he lodged in the wing. Absently, he noticed it was apparently a bi-plane, before it started spinning, and he quickly became too dizzy to think straight, hardly noticing that he was still yelling.
Suddenly, all motion stopped, as the plane landed, the left wing landing with a splash, and Ranma was a girl again, which actually made her slide down a little further until the hole in the wing caught on her wider hips. She calmed herself, slipping into the Soul of Ice, than decided to use ki to propel herself out of the wing, to try to minimize damage to the machine. Immediately, she noticed a problem as she started building up her ki, it was so much denser than usual, but by then it was already too late. Good news, she was out of the plane, bad news, half the plane was in shards spread across the beach. Right then and there, she decided it may not be a good idea to try to access her pocketspace. Who knows what could happen if she attempted it without figuring out this mess with her ki? The same with the Mokö Takabisha. No need to accidentally vaporize a city block, after all.
{…Oops, ehhehe,} Ranma mumbled, scratching the base of her pigtail, while taking in her surroundings.
She looked at the strange fox-like creature in front of her, than looked around for the pilot of the aircraft she had just crashed accidentally, grimacing in distaste at the ocean. Seeing no one else, she assumed the fox must be the pilot. When the fox spoke, however, she realized that she probably wouldn't be allowed to eat it, and that it was speaking English. Ranma only knew enough English to know when it was being spoken. She recognized that tone, however. She had used it herself countless times. The young pilot had tried something new, and it had blown up in his face. She gave him a sympathetic look.
Tails brightened up. This was an opportunity to make a new friend! He wasn't going to let a wrecked experiment that had already failed ruin it! "My name is Tails! What's yours?" Ranma thought for a second, and realized he must be introducing himself.
{I'm Saotome Ranma. Sorry about this,} she said, looking up at the plane. Tails gave her an odd look, and it dawned on her that he probably didn't know Japanese any better than she knew English.
"Tails!" a voice called out, causing both to turn their heads towards the blue blur on the horizon coming towards them.
"Sonic!" Tails yelled, catching the hedgehog's attention and inadvertently helping Ranma put names to faces.
"Hey, Tails!" he said, then spotted Ranma standing beside the fox. "Who's your friend?"
"I don't really know, Sonic. She doesn't speak English, and I've never heard her language before."
Ranma gathered from his gestures that the blue animal named Sonic had asked about her, so, after getting their attention, she patted her chest and said, {Saotome Ranma.}
"Well, Ranma it is then. Let's head back to Station Square!" Sonic replied.
###
Sonic, Tails, and Ranma were by the poolside in Station Square, a major city.
"Long time, no see, huh, Sonic?" Tails started off the conversation.
"I'm just glad you're okay," Sonic returned, "What happened, anyway? You're too good of a pilot to just crash like that."
"That was a test run using a new prototype propulsion system. It's got a few bugs to iron out," Tails explained.
"Why not just use my plane, the Tornado?" Sonic offered.
"Thanks, but you gotta check out my newest power supply! Ta-daah!" Tails produced the purple Chaos Emerald, causing Ranma to raise her eyebrow.
"Hmm, another one. It must be pretty valuable here, if the way they're acting is any indication. This one's different from the last one, though. It seems almost…alive," Ranma thought to herself.
"WHOA! A Chaos Emerald!" Sonic exclaimed.
"Yep! I just happened to find one of the 7 Chaos Emeralds during one of my test flights. This thing's got unlimited power, ya know…" Tails elaborated, "So I thought, why not use it to power my plane? Super charged!"
"So, wait, then what hit you?"
"Oh. You saw that, huh? It was really strange. The emerald flared for a bit, and suddenly, she hits my wing," Tails gestured at Ranma, "I'm hoping to find something in my lab that can double as a translator. Oh, wait, there's something I've just gotta show you there! It's in the Mystic Ruins. Let's go!"
As they walked toward the train station, however, a cup of steaming hot tea drops out of the window of an apartment building and drenches Ranma, triggering the curse and causing the anthropomorphs beside him to stare with their jaws on the ground. Suddenly, Sonic bursts out laughing, "Oh, there has got to be an interesting story, there!"
To which Ranma replies, {Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, fuzzball.}
###
But what of Ranma's former friends and family in his home dimension?
Nabiki sighed. It was going to be a long morning. Immediately after Ranma disappeared, she had made a lot of phone calls, inviting all who might be interested (save the Kunos) in learning of this event to the dojo the next morning. This information was far too important to charge for… well, beyond the 2000 yen admission fee. All she had to do was mention that it was about Ranma, and it would guarantee full attendance of the NWC… "Better have them all sign the waiver." Now, they were all gathered, waivers signed and money collected. Even Ryoga was found wandering in the front yard, and found himself divested of money and signing the waiver before being sat down and tied to Genma.
"Why Mercenary Girl make us come here? Where is Airen?" Shampoo started off.
"Yeah, sugah, this better be important!" Ukyo concurred.
"Who cares where that pervert went?" Akane huffed.
"You should, sister-dear, as it's your fault he left, and you'll have to answer to all his fiancées and rivals as to why he's gone." Nabiki retorted as two of her classmates rolled in a TV and VCR on a trolley. "Here, I've got a video of what happened after your little spat on the roof."
After the video stopped, all those in attendance (well, except for Mousse, who began dancing a victory jig, and was summarily clonked on the head with Cologne's staff) gave Akane the Evil Eye.
"Just what did you say that persuaded Son-in-law that jumping into a strange portal was preferable to living in the same universe with you?" Cologne demanded.
"Um… just… the things I always say when we fight…" Akane hedged.
"Which are?" Ukyo pressed, to which Akane's response was a mumble.
"What?" Konatsu asked.
"That… I didn't need him, I didn't want him, he's just a freeloader with no real value to the Tendo household, that he's a perverted idiot… the kind of stuff I always say…" Akane said, voice barely above a whisper, though it carried in the completely silent room.
"Ugh, we'll come back to my sister's stupidity and prejudice later," Nabiki said, "What did you mean by 'universe,' Elder? Do you know what kind of portal Ranma went through, and how we might get him back?"
"Indeed, child, what the elder Kuno used was a gem called a Chaos Emerald. Our universe used to have seven, but through mishap and misuse, they all were thought to be destroyed. That one ended up here is a miracle on its own, although you can't discount anything when Son-in-law's involved. Documents left by dimensional travelers suggest other universe may have their own Chaos Emeralds or equivalent items of power. Sadly, with no way of knowing which one he ended up in, there is no technique I have that can bring him back. We can only hope he decides to come back on his own and can recover the means."
A long wail of despair wrung out over Nerima-ku that morning.
A/N Well, here we go. I've finally started into actual crossover territory, and Ranma's hit his first barrier. I thought it was a fairly original twist. I haven't seen any crossover fics where the characters you're crossing can't understand each other, so hopefully, it'll be good for a gag or two until they can fix it. I will not be going back to Nerima again for awhile, so don't expect me to next chapter. Some might complain that I've left it short, again. To them, I say… Who made you almighty Emperor of how long my chapters should be?