Ranma BGC Xover. Title needed.
By Weebee.
Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, shape or form, own Bubblegum Crisis or Ranma 1/2. Don't sue, please.
Prologue.
On a small monitor screen, an image of a man was displayed as he drifted slowly to wakefulness. Within a few moments, his eyes snapped open and he slowly looked around. As he did so, anyone watching him carefully would notice odd jerks in his movement, especially as he raised one hand to his face. He ran it across the skin there, and then flexed it.
Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, he seemed somehow to miscalculate the strength of the action, and smash them into the bedside table. Oddly enough, this didn't seem to hurt his legs, but shatter the table instead. This stopped him in his tracks for several moments, and then he jumped the rest of the way to his feet. After this, he waved his hand in front of his face once more, tapped the side of his head, and snapped.
Within a few seconds, the man had charged at the door to the room, punching it off of its hinges easily and running through.
Chairman Quincy scowled, having seen quite enough of the video, and turned around. "And that's how this man broke containment?" He asked, astonished.
The two people in front of him, a man and a woman, nodded. "Yes, sir." The man said, sounding very nervous.
"How many did he take out?" The much older man behind the desk demanded, irritated.
The woman, who was wearing a well tailored business suit, answered. "One nurse, one neurologist and several injured guards." She admitted, reluctantly.
"I see." Quincy said, staring at the two people in annoyance. "You've been attempting to perfect this project for almost a year and a half, and you've gone through three subjects. I will tell you now that the only reason I am not cutting your funding this very instant is because Genom has sunk far too much into you."
The man gulped. "B… but chairman, we almost…" He started, before the older man's fist impacted on his desk.
"Almost doesn't cut it, Fukamoki. You will have two months to show me more results than an insane subject, or I'm cutting your funding entirely, and you will no longer have a job here." The man looked away from the two after saying this, and gestured towards his office door impatiently.
HR.
"That went well." The woman who had formerly been in Quincy's office drawled, as she and Mr. Fukamoki proceeded down the hall towards the elevator.
The man took off his glasses and sighed, rubbing at his temples. "Yeah, didn't it?" He asked, equally sarcastically. "I bet you're wishing that the finance department didn't shove you in here now, eh Tendo-san?"
The woman, now identified as Tendo-san, merely shrugged, pressing the button and waiting for the elevator. "It doesn't much matter to me either way." She admitted. "Though, of course, I'd like to see your project succeed if only because it will give me more respect through association."
He nodded distractedly. "There should be a meeting this afternoon of all of the staff. Will you be attending?"
She nodded. "Of course, wouldn't miss it." Stepping into the elevator, the two didn't notice a man who had been standing in the hall near the door to the chairman's office, who had been giving them odd looks the entire time.
HR.
About an hour later, Fukamoki, Tendo and several men and women in lab coats were sitting around a conference table, the former finishing a report on the meeting with chairman Quincy.
"So, sounds like that's the end of us." One of the researchers muttered. "There's no way we can get past the sensory mismatch problem in two months, let alone the other ones." The others nodded, but Miss Tendo interrupted, clearing her throat.
"I know I haven't been here long, but what do you mean, sensory mismatch problem?" She asked, calmly.
The researcher who had spoken up before didn't continue, but another, a rather attractive woman in her early twenties, did. "Well, you see Ma'am, it's basically a problem with human to machine interfaces. The mechanical parts tend to feed back too quickly sometimes, and too slowly at others. Combined with the knowledge of the change and the extra data being fed to the mind through the new components," She shrugged. "It's why people with more than 50% of their bodies modified tend to snap. They just can't handle it."
"So, it's a problem with mental adaptation to another body?" She asked, curiously.
"That's rather simplified, but essentially, yes." The woman said, nodding back.
"Hmm…" Tendo mumbled, thinking for a moment. "What if there was someone who'd already gone through something less extensive, and survived?"
"Less extensive?" Fukamoki asked, curiously.
"Our first subject had a cybernetic arm, he snapped just the same." The doomsayer from before piped up, but Nabiki shook her head.
"Not what I meant." She countered. "I mean someone who's had their entire body altered once before, and who also would probably welcome the cybernetics."
"Who?" Fukamoki asked, nothing else needing to be said.
Nabiki only smirked.
HR.
It had been two days since that meeting, and Sanji Fukamoki was beginning to regret his rash judgment to trust his new team's financial adviser so quickly. They had to, though, really. They couldn't even put out feelers to find another subject and secure one for testing in two months, normally, and if she had one that would agree and be secured right now, he really didn't have a choice.
Looking out of the passenger window of Tendo's car, he saw the suburbs of Megatokyo pass behind him, only to give way to some of the only clear land in modern Japan. He'd asked her where they were going earlier, but she hadn't answered. Now, however, his question was answered as the two of them pulled up in front of what looked like a martial arts Dojo, a small parking lot off to the side along with a one story house. 'She's brought me to see a martial artist?' He thought, confused.
Getting out of the car, Tendo noted that he was still nervously sitting in his seat. "Well, are you coming?" She asked, slightly impatiently.
At his nod, she started walking towards the Dojo, him following shortly after. As the two entered the large building, he looked about to take it in. There were twenty or so students practicing in the middle of the room, the only sounds to be heard in the room those of their feet slapping the floor rhythmically and the instructor's occasional shouted instructions.
On the walls of the room were various scrolls, including one that proclaimed it the "School of Indiscriminate Grappling," headed by a "Master Saotome."
Turning to the instructor, Sanji's eyes widened. The man wasn't standing at the front of the room leading the students through the moves, as he'd expected, but rather sitting there in what looked like an old fashioned non-motorized wheel chair. Looking the man over, he saw someone in his mid-20s, his long hair tied up in a pigtail that ran down his back and over the back of the wheelchair. Most of his face and upper body looked reasonably normal, with the exception of a long scar on part of one shoulder, until you realized that his right arm was missing, along with both legs below the knees.
The man seemed to notice Sanji looking at him, as he quickly turned his head away from his class after he and Nabiki had walked through the door. Eyes narrowing, the man motioned a student who had previously been standing behind him forward with his uninjured left arm. The two exchanged words for a moment, before the man started rolling himself over to them.
To Sanji's surprise, he did so by rapidly alternating his left arm on the left and right wheels of his chair, pushing them backwards easily. Honestly, it looked very awkward, but he was surprised at how much speed the younger man could get out of the maneuver. "Hey, Nabiki." He said, looking at Sanji's business partner suspiciously.
"Hello, Ranma. I see you're well." Nabiki Tendo said, bowing towards him.
He just shook his head. "You wanna go over ta the house for some tea?" He offered. "I figure ya got somethin ta con me out of."
Nabiki actually looked wounded. "Why Ranma, you've got me all wrong." She said, but the man didn't seem to be buying it. As the three started for the house, Sanji reached out to push the handles at the top of the chair, but Ranma shook his head.
"Don't worry about it, I can get around fine." The younger man said, almost seeming irritated.
The Genom scientist gave the brown haired woman walking next to him a confused look, but she just shook her head back. Ranma seemed to notice this interplay, but didn't bother to comment.
HR.
Several minutes later, Sanji found himself kneeling in the middle of a small living room, a cup of tea in front of him. Ranma was sitting in his chair across the table from him, and Nabiki beside him. "So, Nabiki, what do ya want?" The pigtailed man asked, easily.
"As blunt as ever, eh Saotome?" Nabiki asked, taking a sip of her tea. "But yes, I do want something." Noticing the man's eyes narrowing, she continued. "I think you'll like it this time."
Ranma snorted. "Ya mean how I liked yer sellin the Dojo grounds ta Genom?"
Nabiki frowned. "Ranma, the place was a total wreck. Besides…" She looked uncomfortably at his missing right arm, then over to a shrine that was set up across the room. "I thought you wouldn't want to have to remember the place."
Ranma looked away for a moment, and Sanji took the time to get a quick glance at the shrine Nabiki had indicated. It had several pictures lined up on it, including a blue-black haired girl, an older woman who looked slightly like Ranma, and a bald man with a bandanna wrapped around his head.
Ranma sighed. "All right, so what is it." He finally asked.
"Well," Nabiki started. "When we were teenagers, did you remember watching Ghost in the Shell with me and Akane?"
Ranma nodded, then smirked. "What, you gunna turn me into Kusanagi?"
"Not exactly." Sanji said, deciding to interrupt here. "What we wish to do to you is to install cybernetic components into your body, to enhance its abilities. Artificial legs and arms, Organs, even computer links and sensory enhancements."
Ranma looked at the two as if they were insane. "You're… kidding, right?" He asked, deadpan.
Nabiki shook her head.
"Nabiki, I've looked into prosthetics. They cost an arm and a leg, 'n they wouldn't give me nearly the movement or sensitivity I need." Ranma grumbled.
"That's the thing, Saotome. Genom's going to take the whole bill." Nabiki explained.
"Also, with the technology we're using, you should get enough control to do anything you would need to." The scientist added, hopefully.
Ranma sighed. "Okay, so what's the horrible downside?" At Nabiki's slight nervous look, he continued. "Ultimate technique, unbeatable, oh by the way, it makes you insane. Best training ground in China, and ya leave turnin into somethin else... There's ALWAYS a downside ta this type of stuff."
Nabiki winced, uncomfortable, and looked at the scientist for another explanation. Sanji answered, rather reluctantly. "All subjects of this process before you…" He stopped, trying to find a better way to say what he was about to, the continued. "…went insane."
Ranma nodded, rubbing his nose with his left hand. "So, why'd ya contact me for it?"
"The reason they went insane is because they had problems adapting to their new components. Basically, their minds couldn't take the switch." Nabiki said, then smirked. "I felt that your curse, as well as what happened to you seven years ago…"
"Ya figured I could survive it." Ranma replied. "Wow, Nabiki Tendo havin confidence in me? It's a miracle!"
Nabiki shrugged, not letting his attitude bother her. "Well, will you do it?" She asked.
Ranma thought for a moment. He knew that he should really just say no to Nabiki, flat out, but ever since the accident he'd wanted his legs back, if only so that he could practice the art again as well as teaching it. Also, he'd already trained at least a few students to the point where they could, theoretically, learn the school's final techniques by scroll. "Yer dependin on me sayin screw the odds, ain't ya?" He asked, scowling at the slightly older woman.
She merely nodded, smirking.
Ranma shook his head, marveling at her. "You're real hard ta figure out, ya know that?"
She shrugged. "Well, will you fall into my evil plan? This really could help you, if it works."
Ranma contemplated for several seconds more, but his conclusion had really been drawn when he'd thought of practicing the art again. Even after he'd started teaching students, the loss of both his true art and his family had left him missing something fundamental.
Even if he couldn't do anything to get Akane, Kasumi or his parents back, he could do something about this. Slowly, he nodded his head.
HR.
Several surgeons fussed over the still body of a young man, working with quick efficiency to connect several metallic components to the exposed nerve and muscle at his shoulders and hips. Most of the major work to reinforce his body had already been completed, and truthfully this group had done its job, and done it well, two times before.
"All right, that's the last major link for the right arm." One of them said, calmly, looking intently down at his work. Slowly, he looked over the joint where the arm and the shoulder met, ensuring once more that it fit together correctly, and looked up. "I think we can start the first stress tests."
Several of the other people in the room nodded, and one began tapping some buttons on a panel nearby. "All right, testing the nerve connections with some pre-measured stimuli." A few seconds later, he spoke again. "Pain, check. Heat, check. Tactile pressure feedback seems to be normal, Cold…" As he said the last, the equipment around him started to beep frantically.
Looking around, panicked, the doctor who had been at the console saw that all of the others were moving. When he'd sent the signal for cold, one that registered to the patient's sleeping brain as cold water, the patient had suddenly shifted. They had actually been briefed about Ranma's curse, and had ensured that all of the components would be compatible with the size of Ranma's female body, but now…
"Damn it, the artificial components, almost all of them are gone!" One doctor cried out, moving around the red haired girl who now lay on the operating table, the spots where her limbs used to be leaking a large amount of blood. Her face was contorted in pain, also, even through the anesthetics.
"Damn it, stop the bleeding, get some life support systems in here, now!" One of the men bellowed, and Sanji sighed, flicking off the projector that showed the scene to the boardroom full of his staff. "Apparently, the curse takes anything directly connected to his nervous system as part of his body." He explained.
"Well, we're screwed, then." The rather pessimistic man from the first meeting said, shaking his head. "If all of the components disappear when he gets wet, our super soldier isn't worth much."
Another scowled. "Can't we… I don't know, rewire his brain so he can't feel the water? I mean, it was just a nerve impulse that made him change last time."
Sanji shook his head. "This project's trying to keep as much human sensation as possible. If he snaps when he wakes up, and we've altered those signals, how do we know that it's just the procedure and not us messing with his sensory system?"
"Well, we can't exactly create another set of equipment for him to use, I mean we're so in the hole already that we had to use the last poor bastard's stuff for him already." One of them said, scowling.
"Actually," Nabiki said. She'd just been added to this meeting as a sort of courtesy, and everyone was surprised when she spoke. Ignoring them, she continued. "The equipment for the subject before last is still in your resource list. Do you still have it?"
One of the Genom researchers, a brown haired woman, shrugged. "Yeah, but it's a totally different system design. He's got a strength build, and it was meant for infiltration."
Nabiki shrugged. "So? If all of the components vanish when his curse is triggered, then what does it matter substituting a different set?"
"It would take his brain a lot more getting used to." The other woman countered. "Could drive him over the edge as much as screwing with his sensations."
"Not really." Sanji chipped in, as if he was suddenly having a moment of inspiration. "We don't have to trigger the curse until he's been awake for a while, and we could probably even convince the company stock holders that the multi-role capability was an advantage."
"Yeah, but we'll never be able to replicate it." The sullen guy contributed.
"Don't have to, just have to convince chairman Quincy to give you guys more money, and get usable data from Ranma." Nabiki said, with a smirk.
"Well, it's your call, chief." The other brown haired woman said, hands spread.
Sanji thought for a moment, and then nodded. "Okay, let's do it."
HR.
Vision came slowly and there were odd flickers around the edges as Ranma Saotome awoke for the first time in several weeks. Instinctively, he lifted his left arm to rub the sleep from his eyes, but something about it felt odd, both heavy and light at the same time.
Moving his hand away, he let his eyes range around, noting that wherever he was, the ceiling was disturbingly white. Shifting his left leg in preparation for getting up, he suddenly realized that he could feel the appendage, as it swung down out of the bed and made a soft clicking sound, resting against the floor.
Excitedly, he swung his other leg over the side, and pulled himself to his feet. It was only his long years of martial arts that kept him from tipping forward as he did so. Looking down, he saw that both arms and legs looked slightly bulkier than he'd remembered, and examining his hands revealed a complete lack of calluses. Even still, they looked real, scarily so, almost as if someone had cut them off of someone else and put them on his arms.
Shaking off those strange thoughts, he walked over to a mirror that was across from the bed, and looked in. Most of his body looked normal, and slowly, he began to smile. Hearing a strange sound outside of the room, Ranma turned around, just as the door opened and Nabiki walked in, that Genom doctor, he believed his name was Sanji, walking beside her.
Behind them, he saw several armed guards, two of which he instinctively knew were BU-55 C model boomers.
"So," Nabiki started, unsure. "How do you feel?"
Ranma scowled at her for a moment and raised his hands, just stopping as he saw the guards tense their fingers on the triggers of their weapons. Dropping his arms, he smirked. "Feel fine. So, what's goin on?"
Nabiki sighed in relief, quickly hiding the petrified expression she had been wearing when Ranma was glairing at her, and for some reason, the man next to her started to cry.
"Hey, is he all right?" Ranma asked, worriedly.
"Oh, he'll be fine." Nabiki said. "You just saved his career."
Ranma blinked at her in confusion, but just shrugged. "That's good, I guess." He muttered. "So, what now? I doubt I can just go home."
Nabiki nodded, then smirked evilly. "oh no, you've got a lot of work to do." She said, and Ranma suddenly felt as though someone had just walked over his grave.
END.
Okay, I really like this one for some reason, and boy do I have plans for it. In other words, if it's not shot down completely, it's probably going out onto my fanfic list. Still, don't let that stop you if you think it sucks.
Having said that, there is one thing I'd like to say. This fic uses BGC 2033 as a source, and only that. The idea of cybernetically enhanced humans going nuts was stolen from one of the other series, but I'm ignoring most of that other series since I never actually saw it.
Basically, if you see me diverging from canon, ask yourself this. "Was that Canon in the first 8 episodes?" if the answer is yes, please tell me so that I may correct the error I've accidentally made. If no, then I don't want to hear about it.
Well, that's all for now! Please, review and tell me what you think!