Ling Lin: Next chapter! Here everything will finally begin. Enjoy! By the way I DON'T OWN RANMA 1/2!!! I wish I did though (sigh) Oh well.

Chapter 2

File # 2

Waking to torment

Night falls on the eve of battle: another point of No return. As "darkness crumbles away" into Daylight, here is the calm before the storm, a Time of hope and fear and of last-minute memories.

--Unknown

Nerima, Japan.

With a gasp, Genma Saotome woke up. Breathing hard, he stared up at the ceiling trying to remember where he was, who he was and why he was there.

I am in Nerima, Japan, I'm staying at the house of my friend Soun Tendo and his daughters Kasumi, Nabiki and Akane. I am 41 years old and I'm married to Nodoka and I have a son with her named Ranma. I am here because I was in a training trip with my son and ended up engaging him with Soun's youngest daughter Akane.

The man known as Genma sat up in his bed remembering his present time. He was a bit disturbed of what he saw in his dream. He never thought he had to live through all that again, even if it was only a dream. It felt so real. He could still remember how much pain he had been in after that and the stench of that damn creature.

He looked beside him where Nodoka was curled up under the covers, still as beautiful since the day he met her. He hoped that she wasn't dreaming anything involving their past, it wasn't good to remember those times, especially the emotional pain that it brought in the end. All those good men and women they hadn't seen in years. Carefully trying to get out of bed without waking her, he went to the bathroom at the end of the hall. Reaching the sink, he washed his face, he grabbed a towel at his left and dried himself up.

Lowering the towel he looked at himself in the mirror and sighed. Nodoka was still her beautiful self even if aged, but Genma, his age showed on every angle. He was no longer that slim athletic and really handsome young man, now he was fat with no hair, he wore glasses and he was not handsome at all. He didn't seem fit for fighting and there was no sign that he was ever a man who attracted women's attention. It seemed impossible that a woman like Nodoka would have fallen for him since he wasn't very bright either. Of course that was what he wanted everyone to believe.

The truth was, it was a disguise. His physique, his attitude, all of it. Genma Saotome wasn't supposed to age that way and he was not stupid. In fact he was considered one of the best fighters both on the field and mentally, but he had to remember that his mental capacity wasn't the same and that he did do stupid things for some reason. It was as if something was preventing him from thinking straight most of the time. So maybe he was a bit stupid after all. He sighed. Only the name was truly his. He was hiding himself from a danger that he couldn't fight, he wasn't strong enough, and besides, what he was really protecting was his son, Ranma. He couldn't let those creatures that had attacked him so long ago find Ranma. They wanted him dead for reasons Genma hadn't told him. In fact, he hadn't told Ranma anything. He was born and raised without knowing anything of The Guardians, or as they had liked to call themselves, The Asha'man.

Genma stared into the mirror and saw himself change. His hair grew back, the wrinkles disappeared and his extra weight was gone. There stood Genma, the real Genma. He had transformed back to how he was supposed to have aged, looking more like his son, he looked young because of his smooth skin but his eyes said differently, they said exactly how old he was, odd as that was, there was something about him that didn't let the age show naturally, he didn't know what it was though. He transformed himself back to the way he was because he wanted to feel who he was again even if it was for a brief moment. He wasn't really used to seeing this figure in clothes that weren't black since that had been the Asha'man's uniform.

Asha'man…I wonder if some of you still live.

The Asha'man. They had been a group of people, a small army in fact, that were trained to become protectors of worlds. They went through tough training in physical and mental fields. They needed to be perfect as warriors, know many things, be many things. They had to be willing to put their asses on the line for people they never met expecting nothing in return. It was a tough thing to do and striving for that sort of warrior perfection was a hard thing to achieve. Especially when the enemies you were supposed to face and beat the crap out of were getting more difficult to handle. But that was the price to keeping the inter-dimensional balance, the Asha'man's main goal. He had been hearing things that were happening in the world and many others, where the youths that were facing off the new evils were able to win by a hair. Others actually died after killing their opponent. For the Asha'man, that would only mean that they had to train harder and be better than before. That's if they hadn't died in the fight. But to join the group was not just simply sign up and start working, nope, you were chosen and then you were taken from your very own world into another, but the 'taking' wasn't something that you chose, you were just… takenThe organization had started a long time ago, it was a family thing where the leader was always of that blood and depending on the circumstances, the leader could be young or old, most commonly young. The organization could not be taken over by anyone else but the family line.

Genma doubted that it existed still. Oh, Lance had married Gwen and they had two children but Lance had died in a nasty fight with an enemy and Gwen had fallen ill and died. The remaining family survivor had been Lance's son and he had only been nine years old when it all happened. The boy had hidden himself in his room and in his father's lab for some reason before anything had happened. Extremely smart for his age he had also been really loud and demonic before that but something had changed him. Shortly after that, the tragedy with his family followed and because Genma and the others had been sent back to their worlds by force and without anyway of getting back there, none of them knew what had happened to young Casey Asha'man.

It was sad to think that also after being sent back, many of the others had died for different reasons. Among the deceased were his best friends Kent, Mikel and Bardock. And before them of course, his other best friend, Lance. He was sad for the other Asha'man of course, but those were the ones whose deaths had hit him really hard. He only knew that some people were dead but he didn't know if they had built up a family of some sort somewhere. How he knew they were dead was because the last person that he saw before he started a new life had ties with Lance's family. She had told him some things about the others but not much, and she had also told Genma to hide himself, but she didn't say anything else. So, that was why he was here now, trying to live a new life and trying to forget the other one he'd left behind. Not an easy thing to do.

"Ranma?" said a young female voice suddenly behind him. Genma almost jumped out of his skin; in fact he did just that transforming fast into the false Genma. He turned around to look at the girl rubbing her eyes sleepily trying to look at him. It was Akane, Ranma's fiancée. Akane was petit and pretty, with short black hair and black eyes. She was a sweet person but when pushed the wrong way she could have a really nasty temper. Ranma usually managed to do that which was the reason they were constantly fighting, but Genma was noticing that they were getting a long much better.

Lost in his thoughts, he hadn't noticed she was there until she spoke, but luckily for Genma, Akane hadn't noticed the change because she said, "Oh, Mr. Saotome? I thought you were Ranma. I must be really sleepy still to have been wrong like that."

"Yeah, well, you never know what your eyes can tell you when they aren't working right." Genma said feeling relieved.

"Yes I suppose." Akane said. "Oh, I'm sorry for intruding, I'll wait outside."

"Don't bother, I'm done here. I'll be going now. Good night, Akane." He told her while he walked passed her.

"Good night Mr. Saotome." She said.

Genma walked down the hall feeling his heart still racing. That had been a close one, he couldn't let anyone see him in that form again, especially if they were going to talk to him as if he was Ranma, if they anyone got a closer look, he would be in trouble. He didn't go to bed, he wouldn't be able to sleep if he did anyway, so he wandered the halls thinking and wondering about many things. He didn't notice where he was going until he was standing in front of the sliding doors that led into the dojo where Ranma was sleeping. He just stood there for a while then he reached one hand out to grab the door and slide it open. He stepped inside quietly, slowly looking for Ranma in the dark. He found him in the middle of the dojo sleeping calmly. Genma couldn't help but stand there looking at his son, his awesome son, and regret the life he had given him. Ranma wasn't unhappy -not that he knew of- but Genma knew about all the problems that he suffered and the things he had to do so as to not get himself hurt. And especially his almost double life he had to carry because of some stupid blunder that Genma was to be blamed for. Why did he have to take him to Jusenkyo? It almost destroyed Ranma's life. Now poor Ranma Saotome had to shy away from cold water because if he didn't he would turn into a freakin' GIRL!

Genma realized that he was clenching his fists in anger, he tried to relax and loosen his hands, but he soon clenched them again when he remembered that damned day. Genma's sudden act of stupidity caused his brain to actually collapse back then. Genma had taken Ranma away from his home and his mother when he was very young so he could train him in the martial arts. It had been a couple of years ago, when Genma took Ranma to Junsekyo located in China. He had heard that the place was a good training ground. They had met a guide there who told them stories about the place. Jusenkyo was a vast area with many small ponds with long bamboo sticks rising upward in the middle of each one. The guide had told them that in each one of those ponds, an animal or a human had died cursing its water. Genma and Ranma weren't listening to him and both jumped on the ends of the bamboo sticks with one foot and started to spar jumping from one bamboo stick to another without falling. The guide was urging them to stop and come down, but they weren't paying attention. Suddenly, Ranma jumped to hit his father with his feet causing Genma to lose balance and fall into one of the ponds. Ranma was laughing when suddenly a huge panda came out of the water and stood on one of the poles. While Ranma was freaking out, the guide was telling him that in the pond that his father had fallen in, a panda had drowned, so any one who fell into it would transform into a panda. Ranma, distracted, was attacked by Genma panda and was thrown into another pond. Coming out, Ranma had red hair and a feminine body, the guide told them the same thing except that the pond was where a redheaded girl had drowned. Since then, Genma and Ranma turned into those forms every time cold water hit them and turned back with hot water.

It was alright for Genma because he was just a panda, but Ranma had all sorts of problems by turning into a girl. There was this stupid guy called Kuno Tatewaki, who had fallen in love with Ranma's girl form and refused to believe he was actually a guy, Kuno's sister, Kodachi, had fallen in love with Ranma's real form and refused to believe that Ranma had a girl form. Both were crazy as hell. There was also this Chinese Amazon girl named Shampoo, who shortly after Ranma had first transformed into a girl, had wanted to kill Ranma girl because he had eaten her prize, Ranma defeated her in his girl form and Shampoo got really angry not knowing he was really a guy. She followed him to Japan to kill him. But she then found out that he was a guy, and fell in love with him because in the Amazon culture, if a man defeated a woman, he was a worthy husband. Also there was Mousse, who was in love with Shampoo and hated Ranma because Shampoo loved him and not Mousse. There was Hibiki Ryouga, Ranma's true rival, who had followed him to China and fell into the pond of the drowned pig because Ranma had unknowingly jumped on him and thrown him in. Now Ryoga wanted to defeat him more than ever and also fight Ranma for Akane's love, just like Kuno did, reason why Kuno hated Ranma's guy form. And there was Ukyo who also had fallen in love with Ranma and would do anything to get him in disregard to his feelings, just like Shampoo and Kodachi did.

There were so many problems, that it would take forever to list, mainly because Genma had caused it, like Ranma's phobia of cat's, or his engagement to Akane against both their wills. Not to mention he was engaged to other women he hadn't known about until those particular girls showed up not including the self proclaimed fiancés that were Ukyo, Shampoo and Kodachi. Poor Ranma called them friends, even though those people wanted to marry him against his will or kill him. He was a good person who didn't hate easily; he just had a problem of opening his mouth and putting his foot in it. He tried his best to live on, even with that curse, but it seemed impossible. Almost everyday Ranma had a new problem, new enemies, new things to add to his list of problems. But he lived on. Genma admired his son's strength and couldn't stand it that Ranma didn't show all of his feelings. Ranma always would just frown, make a disturbed face or simply smile, keeping everything else inside. Genma just wished he could help him, but all he could do was sit on the sidelines and watch. At least he protected him from an even bigger danger, a danger Ranma wasn't ready to face.

Genma moved silently closer to Ranma's sleeping form. He looked down at him with sad eyes and transformed back to his real self. He wanted to see Ranma through his real eyes. He sat down beside him and brushed away the bangs that were on his son's face. "I love you son, I will do everything in my power to protect you. I'm sorry for everything that I've done to you. I just wish you knew that, I wish that there was more that I could do." Genma closed his eyes unable to look at his son's face, " I hope you can forgive me one day for…everything."

He sat there until morning and when Ranma stirred and opened his eyes, Genma, disappeared.

Ling-Lin: FIN! Oh my God I finally finished this chapter! I can't believe I had it sitting there so long.

Athan: Hello, this is Ling-Lin's brother and beta reader Athan Mortis. I hope you've enjoyed the story. I worked very hard to make this story even remotely readable. So I hope you appreciate the effort that went into this.

Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else.
--Will Rogers (1879 - 1935) Bye!