Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma ½, Slayers, Sailor Moon. I wish I did but I don't.
Author's Notes: Well, here's the next chapter, as per usual with my fics; however, some small housecleaning first.
To start with, a big thanks to my pre-reader Miguel Dubón, who has once again done tremendous work with the editing of this story and Kof beyond.
Secondly, reviews. Reviews are great. It helps authors to find out what is good about their stories and what can be improved. I welcome any and all reviews including flames; the only bad review is no review at all. To all Americans, my little rant about Pluto was not aimed at every American, only those scientists that decided Pluto was no longer a planet, sorry if there was any insult taken.
Goku: Yes, the start of this story is somewhat cliché in the fanfic compendium for Ranma fics; however, it will become more original later on. I have big plans for this fic including several things that I have yet to see in Ranma fics.
Sowhtimlate: Thanks for the review, I will be taking liberties for the wow you gave me I'm using it as 'wow, I'm astonished at such a good fic'. Let me know if that's not what you meant by the wow.
Dumbledork: I agree there is a lack of Slayers/Ranma crossovers out there. Thanks for the review.
Crystalstorm: Thanks for the review; yes, it is a pity that there is no Sailor Pluto. I'm sure she would fire off a Dead Scream at the idiots who decided that Pluto wasn't a planet.
Griffenvamp: Thanks for the review; yeah, I do suppose you're right; it is the scientists [fault; curse them with the fleas of a thousand camels.
Dax: Thanks for the smiley face.
Ranko Lina Inverse: Hmm, interesting question, there is only one answer to that Sore wa himitsu desu (?). Sorry, that would just be revealing too much of the story so you will have to keep reading to find out.
Fatboy: Yeah, it was a rather well used start, though the story does get more original as it goes on.
Borg Rabbit: Fair statement, hopefully the next chapters will not disappoint
Rose1948: Thanks for the review, I am trying to make this fic contain the comedic elements of both Ranma1/2 and Slayers
Ranma-saotome-cursed-fighter: Do be honest I thought I had used a cliffhanger, oh well. Part of this fic runs as a mystery so I'm trying to keep the reader guessing in certain areas. Such as where Ranma ends up.
Zeke11: Thanks for the review
Killroy777: Er I'm not sure what that ok… means. So like another review I'm gonna take as meaning the fic is ok. Let me know if I'm wrong.
Anon: My apologies if I have offended you. It is ignorant to blame an entire group of people for something that only a small amount of the population has done. Additionally it was my mistake to make the statement that it was American astronomers who made the decision. Though I disagree with your opinion that Pluto is better of, I do respect your opinion.
With that, it's time to present the next chapter.
Key
"Speech"
[Thoughts
Panda Signs
Chapter 1a. What? – I'm a kid again, how did that happen?
Unknown to the majority of the population of Earth (also known as mundanes), there exists a series of small worlds in pocket envelopes of space-time, what we would commonly call alternate dimensions. These other worlds or realms are filled with many races and creatures that once existed on Earth, including Elves, Dwarves, Lycans, Werebeasts1, Giants, Dragons and others.
These realms have halted technological advancement to that of what mundanes would call the Napoleonic Era. Wooden sailing ships, cannons, muzzle loading muskets, these are the full extent of technology. This is largely due to three main reasons: firstly: some resources, which are key to the advancement of certain techs, are in short supply like sulfur and saltpetre, key components of gunpowder, mercury or quicksilver and rubber. The second reason is that several creatures make things like planes, tanks, and submarines generally useless. Dragons, behemoths and leviathans could easily replace these machines. Finally, and most importantly, Magicks.
Unlike Earth, these other realms continued the use and development of magicks, in many cases to the point where it could easily replace many of the techs mundanes use today.
On one of these realms, known to its inhabitants as Everhost, a little girl was having a bad day.
It had started like no other day she could remember in the four years that she had been alive. This day she would be traveling with her father to the city of Calidos to meet with a member of the nation of the conclave. This man, an old friend of her father, would be then taking her to her new home, the city of Sanctuary, where she would begin her life as a training mage.
However, the young girl was rather impatient and quite adventurous; as soon as the carriage taking her to Calidos stopped for a short break, the girl ran off. After running for a short distance, the girl came across a large rock and decided it would be fun to carve her name into it; pulling out a small knife, the girl proceeded to do just that.
Unfortunately for the girl, it was no ordinary rock, as she began to cut into to the rock it began to change into a rather large humanoid form. What was once a rock quickly became a twelve-foot tall blue skinned hill Troll.
Trolls are members of the Giantoid2 family, height wise standing in between Giants and Ogres. Trolls are generally stupid creatures, regarding anything they come across as one of three things: food, weapon or housing, and these three categories are often interchangeable. Trolls have frightening regenerative abilities allowing them to heal most wounds in a matter of minutes, even wounds caused by magicks. Trolls are generally weak to sunlight, which causes them to turn into stone. Only one species of Trolls does not have this particular weakness, hill Trolls. Hill Trolls have a special ability to turn themselves into stone to hide and heal major and life threatening wounds. The Troll that the girl had attempted to carve her name into was a hill Troll.
This particular Troll had in fact been hiding to ambush farmers who often take their flocks through this area because of its lush grass. When it felt something pressing on its back, it decided to investigate. Upon seeing the young girl, it decided that the fleshling would make a perfect snack.
Ranma groaned as he came to, rubbing his head he sat up and looked around seeing vast open plains instead of warehouses.
"Man, where am I? The blast must have sent me out of the city."
A puzzled look came across Ranma's face.
"Hey, why is my voice so high? There's no water here so I can't have changed."
Still feeling puzzled, Ranma decided to check himself over for injuries, only to find that he was a lot shorter.
"What the hell happened to me?! This is worse than those stupid mushrooms!"
Standing up, Ranma checked out his new youthful body.
"I can't believe this! I look like I'm five years old or something!"
Now beginning to panic, Ranma closed his eyes began checking his chi reserves.
"Well, I still got as much chi as before; man, what the hell did those jerks do to me?"
Feeling depressed, Ranma sat down again to sulk… er, brood… er, thinking about what he was going to do next.
[What am I going to do? I can't let the others see me like this.
Just as Ranma was thinking about this, a high pitched scream caught his attention. Ranma shot up and went racing off to see what was going on.
Ranma screeched to a halt as he came across the source of the scream and saw a huge monster standing over a young girl brandishing a large piece of wood. Ranma then raced forward and grabbed the girl and rolled out the way as the piece of wood slammed into the ground. Pushing the girl to one side, he got up and turned to face the monster, which was now standing there scratching its head. Dropping into a fighting stance, Ranma prepared to face off against the creature.
"Alright you, whatever you are, prepare to be beaten."
The Troll sweatdropped at the small fleshling as it shouted at it. It then shrugged deciding that it would now have two snacks instead of one. The Troll reached out and quickly snatched up Ranma and began to squeeze Ranma, crushing the life from him.
Ranma struggled trying to escape from the monsters grasp, tears of frustration rolling down his cheeks. Despite having large reserves of chi his small body was unable to utilize the potent forces within, all his techniques and training now useless due to his small, young, frail body.
A strange event would occur as Ranma was slowly being crushed to death, an event linked to Ranma's arrival in Everhost.
The meteor that struck Ranma was no ordinary hunk of stellar rock and ice, it contained something. Something that was created a long time ago, an ancient artifact that had long been lost to time. Created thousands of years ago, the artifact was one of a pair of power magickal artifacts created to use against the various evil forces that existed. During one of the great wars between the forces of good and evil, it was lost to the vastness of space, eventually being covered by rock and ice. The now formed meteor would come to rest in the shared orbit of Pluto and Charon where it would remain till that fateful day in which another meteor would knock it out of its orbit and on its way to Earth.
The artifact had a small amount of will, enough to drive to one of its primary functions: bonding with a host. On that fateful day, the meteor containing the artifact fell on Ranma; the artifact used a small portion of its own power to scan him. Discovering that Ranma contained a small amount of chaotic energy, the artifact decided that he would be a perfect host. It then fulfilled another of its primary functions: protecting its host. As Ranma's new six-year-old form became swallowed in the deadly energies unleashed by four bentos, a bomb, a chi attack, a magickal scroll and a magickal item, the artifact opened a rift into time-space catapulting Ranma into it.
As the Troll squeezed the life out of Ranma, the artifact's small amount of will once again used its function of keeping its host alive. As Ranma screamed in pain, the artifact appeared out of Ranma's body and unleashed a small but powerful beam of energy directly into the head of the Troll, disintegrating it. Even the Troll's powerful healing abilities were no match for the artifact's energy beam, the loss of its head killing it instantly.
As the Troll fell to the ground, the pressure eased off of Ranma allowing him to force his way out of the Troll's hand and tuck into a ball rolling with the impact of his fall. Coming to a stop, Ranma raised his head to check on the girl he had saved, noting that she was sitting on the ground in shock. Ranma then felt the last ebbs of his consciousness give out.
The girl's scream had also attracted another creature to the scene, a Golden Dragon. Golden Dragons are one of many different species of Dragons that existed on Everhost. Like Trolls, Dragons had immigrated to Everhost from Earth, taking up residence on the new realm. Unlike Trolls, who to some degree, all contain what would be considered super sentience, sentience that is beyond that of simple primal instincts. Dragons are divided into two separate groups: those having this super sentience and those who have what is called primal sentience.
Golden Dragons belong to the former and this particular Golden Dragon was heading from his own hunting trip back to his roost when he heard the scream. Upon investigating the sound and noting it was a mere human child about to be devoured by a Troll, the Dragon decided to simply ignore it.
This decision would be considered the norm for any super sentient Dragon. These races of Dragons have a general dislike for humans, who they see as greedy, wasteful creatures to be easily swayed by malevolent forces. Generations of conflict with humans over hunting grounds on other territories, along with humans hunting Dragons for trophies, magickal ingredients and body parts for weapons, had long soured the attitudes of Dragons towards humans.
However, as the Dragon was preparing to return to his original flight path, he noticed a second human child rush forward and prepare to fight the Troll. Laughing at the human's folly, the Dragon decided to watch the show. It was then that the Dragon noticed something odd: as the Troll grabbed the second human child, the human child's right eye changed colour from blue to violet. Anger swept through the Dragon as he saw the change followed by the powerful beam of energy that erupted from the child slaying the Troll. As the child fell to the ground and became unconscious, the Dragon swooped down and grabbed both the children in its claws and flew off towards its home.
Just as the Dragon flew into the distance, a frantic looking man rushed onto the scene. Spying the rapidly decaying body of the Troll, a chill ran down his spine. He called out his daughter's name praying to every God and Goddess he knew of that his daughter was safe and alive. His search was soon joined by the coach's driver; the two men searched across the field looking for some sign of life. After several hours, the man came across a broken knife, the same knife he had given to his daughter just days ago, the same one she used to attempt to carve her name into a rock which turned out to be a hill Troll. Bringing the broken knife to his chest the man fell to the ground and screamed out his daughter's name.
"ORPHELIAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!"3
The End?
Ranma: What the hell is going on here? First, I'm turned into a little kid again. Then I'm attacked by some monster and after it dies, I'm carted off by another one. And what was with the energy beam? Where did that come from? Well, you will have to find out in the next chapter; till then, see ya and pray for the best…
Aww, I don't wanna be monster food.
Well, is it good? Does it suck? Let me know.
Next up – A run in with Dragons, Ranma loses his memory (for real this time) and begins his new life on Everhost.
1 For the Purpose of this story, Werebeasts and Lycans are two different creatures; the main difference being that lycans have only 2 forms: the hybrid and human forms. They only change during a full moon and have little or no control when this happens.
2 Giantoids are one of many families of creatures, (terminology similar to that of feline, canine) it includes, Giants, Trolls, Ogres, Colossus, Cyclops and Troglodytes. Other families are: Humanoids, Gobliniods, Great Beasts, Beastials and Fairiekin.
3 The name Orphelia comes from one of my favourite Shakespeare plays: Hamlet.