Star Trek: Ranma's Adventures 25– by DS Wynne
Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and other genres belong to their respective owners.
Note: This is a multi-genre story.
Part 25
Location: Nekomi Buddhist, home of the Norn Sisters.
"Okay, talk," Nabiki says, as she eyed Ranma and her 'doppelganger'. "How are you two connected, presuming that you are from the future?"
Sailor Minerva looks at Ranma, and saunters towards Ranma and leans on him seductive.
"Well, for one…Ranma is my…significant other," Sailor Minerva said, as she kissed Ranma on the cheek. "With Usagi's permission, of course."
Nabiki had a look of shock. What could she have seen in Ranma to warrant her-
Of course!
"Okay, Saotome. What did…will do to me to make me one of your girlfriends?"
"I didn't do anything, Nabiki!" Ranma protested.
"That is correct," Sailor Minerva says. "He didn't do anything. Sometime in the future, I wanted a child from him. However, over time, he became more than a donor to me."
Nabiki looked almost shocked by this admission.
"Do you…love Ranma?" Nabiki asked.
'Minerva looked at her younger self, and then at Ranma.
"I would trade all the gold-pressed latinum in the universe, if I could be his wife."
"…"
"Nabiki, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry about all the subterfuge, but I needed time to assess whether or not I can trust you with my secrets, which is why I hired you as my financial advisor."
"But…you let HER send me and Shingo to a hellhole for a few years!"
All eyes turned to Usagi.
"Miss Tendo, you and my brother tried to enter my realm without authorization," Usagi said. "The gateway to my realm was geared towards sending the intruder to a RANDOM dimension and time. Heck, I did not know that someone HAD activated the booby trap until you and Shingo managed to return home. That was very impressive."
"Impressive? How would YOU like living like an animal?"
"Actually, I have," Usagi replied. "It was all a part of my shamanistic training, of course…"
"So, Nabiki, what do you want to do now? Seriously, I can't allow you to simply do as you please."
"You think I'm a threat to you?"
"No, but I have enough enemies that will use you as a weapon against ME. Look, I still want you as my financial manager, and if you are curious as to what I'm up to, that's the only way to learn more. However, you will have to obey the terms of your non-disclosure contract."
Nabiki looks at Ranma, then at the rest of the group, and then at Sailor Minerva.
"I…I don't think I can," Nabiki said with slumped shoulders.
'Minerva goes over to her younger counterpart.
"I can help you understand your place in the world, if you let me help you."
"How?"
"Our powers are linked. We unite, then you will know, especially regarding trust."
Nabiki looked at her counterpart, and nods.
"Okay, let us touch hands."
Nabiki did as she was told. A moment later, a noticeable aura emerged, enveloping both ladies.
Nabiki saw her sisters, as they faced a nearly unstoppable foe.
She saw herself play a key role in establishing official "first contact" with the Vulcans.
She saw herself tearfully leave the Earth behind, as she and her sister Kasumi become more than human.
Nabiki saw herself roaming the cosmos, acquiring knowledge and dining with the gods.
She sees herself keeping watch on things back on Earth, as she sends puppets to do her bidding, mainly to harass Ranma.
She sees herself…making love to Ranma, loosing her virginity a second time (the first being with, of all people, Tatewaki Kuno, her husband…which made Nabiki ill).
Nabiki then sees herself giving birth to a daughter, who would inherit her father's looks, and her mother's brains, and would go on to become the head of a clandestine organization known as "Section 31"…
"Oh!" Nabiki said, as she feinted.
"Nabiki!" Shingo said, as he went to help his long-time companion. His long, wild hair flowed, as he rushed to get to her.
"She will be fine," 'Minerva says, as she steps back.
"Nabiki?" Ranma asked.
"I need some time to thinks about all this."
"You do that," 'Minerva says, as she grabs Ranma's pigtail. "Meanwhile, I need to reacquaint myself with an old friend."
"Hey!" Ranma yelled. "What am I? A piece of meat or something?"
"I'm not going to waste a visit, you know."
As Ranma is being dragged away, Keiichi looks at Usagi, who simply shrugs.
"You know, I think I need to reacquaint myself as well," Usagi said, as she followed 'Minerva and Ranma into one of the guest rooms.
Nabiki, upon seeing this, turns positively green.
"We better get the baths ready," Belldandy says. She was always thinking about the welfare of her guests.
Location: The Time Gate, Pluto (Penumbral Realm).
"Okay, now," Ranma said, as he directed the Victorian Gwyneth to fuel her energies into the seed. He was taking upon himself to teach her the finer points of Temporal Magic and Science, since she was tapping directly into the energies of the 4th Dimension…a side effect from growing up directly on top of a node (i.e. a temporal rift) during the mid-1800s. Rose was jealous of Gwyneth's relationship with Ranma, mostly because Gwyneth was learning more about all kinds of stuff, including concepts involving the Time Sphere. In response, Rose has been trying to get the Doctor to do stuff with her, which is why the two of them went off somewhere in the TARDIS, leaving Ranma and Gwyneth to their own devices.
On this day, Ranma was teaching Gwyneth how to use time to accelerate the growth of simple plants, without incurring "Paradox". Paradox, as Ranma puts it, is a negative energy wave that accrues when Reality "thinks" an impossible situation has occurred, whether the source of the cause is magic or hyper-science. A classic example of this usually involves time travel, when a person from the future travels back in time to kill his or her own father…before he or she is born. A milder form of it would be a failed attempt at re-shaping reality. Regardless, Ranma chose the Time Gate to teach Gwyneth, since it was one of the few places that Reality did not have a hold on.
Gwyneth held the seedling in her hand, as she caused the plant to sprout leaves.
"Good," Ranma said. "Be as one with the seed."
"It is amazing, Master Ranma," Gwyneth says. "To have access to such power…it must be quite a responsibility to have."
"Yep. But that's not best part."
"What is?"
"The best part is to use such power to…explore strange new worlds, and to seek out new life…and new civilizations!"
"I see. Is that why you are friends with the Doctor?"
"In many ways, yes. Imagine learning at the feet of historical figures, or visiting far off cities of legends. And along the way, you can make a difference by doing the right thing. It's…fantastic!"
Gwyneth giggles, upon hearing the Doctor's catch phrase.
"What?"
And then…
"What the hell are you doing here?"
Ranma and Gwyneth turn to see an irate Sailor Pluto. Her dark, green hair and red eyes, as well as some ridiculous outfit the woman wore, took Gwyneth aback.
"Hey, Setsuna. I'm just teaching my companion Gwyneth about the finer point of the Time Sphere."
"But HERE? And how did you get past the wards and the traps?"
"There were?" Ranma said with a perplexed look.
"Yes," 'Pluto says, as she went over to a spot in the room. "Like the one that suppose to be over here-"
ZAP!
"Oh, my," Gwyneth says, as Sailor Pluto was frozen in a Time stasis bubble. "Will she okay?"
"Yeah," Ranma said, thinking to himself that 'Pluto's credential as an expert in Time ought to be revoked. Otherwise, she would have already known that Ranma had circumvented her traps, and reset them to catch HER off-guard.
This was all a part of the lesson plan, of course.
Suddenly, the Time Gate sounds an alarm.
"What is that?" Gwyneth asks.
"Sounds like a disturbance in the time-stream," Ranma says, as he went over to the monitoring station. "With a press of the button here, we should see the source of the trouble-"
A holographic image pops up, as lines scrolled across. Then, what appeared to be a DNA helix appears within coils.
"Now, this, Gwyneth, is the time stream; it has no 'beginning' and no 'end'. It can be perceived only on the 4th dimension."
"Oh," Gwyneth says, as she recalled some of her lessons. "There are eleven dimension, but we perceive the first four: up and down, back and forth, side to side and time."
"Correct. There are varying models of the same thing, but this one is the most accurate. It's like the difference between the metric system and the American system of measurement."
"I see."
"Anyway, at the center of both the coils and the helix exist 'null zones'. Normal people experience time as going along the coils and helix. However, if one goes 'side-ways', then it's possible to go into the null zones. Now, normally there's nothing there, but it is possible to create entire worlds; Gallifrey was one such world before it…well…"
"It is okay, Master Ranma," Gwyneth says. "It's okay…"
"Well, let's see what's going on. Hmmm…"
"What is it?"
"Apparently, Rose and the Doctor somehow created a 'Paradox Backlash' in the year 1987, in the form of Reapers."
"'Reapers'?"
Ranma goes on to say that Reapers are Reality's way of trying to fix a temporal line conflict. Unfortunately, they are so dangerous that they will attack anyone. The Time Lords would have prevented such a thing from occurring had they still been around.
"What are we going to do?" Gwyneth asks.
"First, we need to take a quantum café called 'Al's Diner', and then help the Doctor and Rose deal with this problem. So, let's be off."
Gwyneth nods her head.
As soon as Ranma and Gwyneth leaves, Sailor Pluto is freed from her trap.
"Damn that Ranma!"
Location: London, United Kingdom (circa 1987).
The terrifying Repears were skulking the area, flying around consuming people, in the attempt to fix a problem concerning a weakened timeline. The Doctor and Rose, along with several of the locals, were holed up in a church. Luckily, the Doctor remembered that the older the structures, the greater the resistance from the attacks. The Doctor had hoped reconstitute his TARDIS in order to fix things. Unfortunately, it had gotten from bad to worse when Rose accidentally touched her younger self, increasing the level of the paradox backlash, allowing one of the creatures to get in.
"Everyone, get back!" the Doctor said to the remaining humans. He then looked at the creature. "Okay, you can't get past me. I'm the oldest thing here!"
And then the creature attacked, only to be stopped by a chronotronic beam weapon.
ZAP!
Ranma had brought along with him a few weapons specifically to destroy temporally based creatures. After all, he WAS 'Temporal Warrior' by definition.
Once the creature was destroyed, Ranma lowers his weapon.
"I go away for a few days, and you two get in trouble," Ranma smirk.
"Ranma!" Rose said, as she ran to hug him.
"It's about bloody time you show up!" the Doctor says. "I need help correcting this flaw in the timeline."
"Way ahead of you, Doc," Ranma said, as took off his pack, and opened it.
"What is that?" Jackie asked.
Ranma looked at Jackie and suppressed a laugh upon seeing her '80s hairstyle.
"It's a bomb."
"WHAT?"
"Let me see that," the Doctor said, as he went over to exam the device. "I see now. You want to initiate a 'temporal patch', by localizing the paradox."
"Yep," Ranma said, as he began to arm the device.
"Isn't that a bit extreme?" Rose asked. "And what about US?"
"With the TARDIS, I can re-weave the timeline manually. Still, there is that paradox to consider…"
"Way ahead of you," Ranma said, as he went over to Rose's father. "Rose's father? My name is Ranma Saotome. I don't have much time to explain, but…sorry about this."
"What do you mean…?"
Ranma's aura glowed, as he leaped into Peter Tyler's body.
"Dad!" Rose says.
"Peter!" said Jackie, Peter's wife.
"Now, Doctor," said Peter, in Ranma's voice.
The Doctor activates the bomb.
While there was no explosion, everything began to be consumed in a bright light…
A few hours earlier, a tragic scene replays itself, as Rose and the Doctor see Peter Tyler hit by a car, in front of the Tyler family's flat. Rose immediately went over to her father's dying form. He couldn't say anything, as he slowly faded away. The Doctor simply looked on…
Back in the present, Rose, still emotionally distraught, wanders into Ranma's London townhouse with the Doctor.
"Why are we here?" Rose says, as she and the Doctor enter the house. She didn't feel like seeing either Mickey or her Mum. Thankfully, it was in the middle of the day, so they were not around.
"Well, how do I put it," the Doctor says. "Your father is alive, but-"
"Where is he?"
"He's upstairs. But you have to understand-"
Rose immediately went upstairs, and checked out the rooms.
"Dad? Where are you?"
Finally, Rose went into the last room in the hall.
"Dad?"
"Rose!" Gwyneth says, as she was administering a bed-ridden Ranma. "I am glad that you are okay-"
"What's going on? Where's my father, and what's wrong with Ranma?"
"Ranma" sits up, and smiles.
"It's good to see you again, my little Rose."
Rose looks perplexed for a moment before realization dawned on her.
"DAD?"
Location: Battle Training Ground #44 ("The Hidden Leaf Village", Hokkaido).
Upon hearing the scream, Ranko, Ukyo and Haku followed the sounds. When they arrived at the source, they saw Naruto unconscious and tacked to nearby tree with a kunai, Sasuke unconscious and Sakura in near-hysterics. From the signs, a titanic battle was just fought.
"Haku, get Naruto down," Ranko said, as she and Ukyo went over Sakura.
"Sakura!"
Sakura immediately had her knife up at ready.
"Keep away from me!" Sakura yelled. "We don't have our scroll anymore anyway!"
"We're not here for your scroll," Ukyo yells.
"Sakura," Ranko says gently. "Tell me, who did this?"
Sakura could somehow trust this redheaded girl…
"Okay," Sakura began. "We thought that we were facing one of the other teams. Naruto and Sasuke…they fought REALLY hard. But…when Sasuke performed his 'Dragon's Breath' on our attacker, her…HIS face melted."
Ranko arched an eyebrow.
"He did something to Naruto, and then bit Sasuke in the neck-!"
"Let me see the wound," Ranko said, as moved Sasuke's head. She squinted her eyes.
Sure enough, Ranko saw the signs of a cursed seal of…Orochimaru.
"I have him down," Haku said, as he plops Naruto next to Sasuke. "What's next?"
"You and Ukyo help Sakura get these two to safety," Ranko says.
"I should go with you-" Ukyo began.
"No," Ranko said firmly, as she stood up. "I need to do this myself."
And with that, Ranko took off.
At the same time, Anko, the second Proctor, was in a struggle with a lithe male. He had long, dark hair and androgynous clothing.
Anko had used her "Hidden Shadow Snake Hand" to rip her former teacher from his resting place. Now, up close, she was determined to end Orochimaru's threat by performing a suicide attack known as the "Twin Snake Kills Each Other" technique.
"I'm going to stop you, once and for all!"
"Oh, really now?" said Orochimaru, as he faced behind Anko. "You really need to go over your techniques, Anko dear."
"What the-?"
Anko realized that she was dealing with a substitution and clone jutsu, as the fake Orochimaru dissolved.
"See? You can't possibly hope to defeat one such as I," Orochimaru, the master of the "Hidden Sound Village", as he took off his damaged "facial mask" to reveal his true face.
"Urgh," Anko said, as her old cursed seal mark, thanks to Orochimaru, returned. She crouched in pain.
"You know, it's a shame that you lacked the potential to be my apprentice, my dear Anko."
Orochimaru stood up.
"And soon, you and your kind will be no threat…and the Hidden Leaf Village falls-"
Orochimaru and Anko looked up, and felt a very strong presence.
Suddenly, a volley of vacuum blades came screaming towards Orochimaru, who leaped out of the way.
Ranko landed next to Anko.
"You just can't stay out of trouble, huh?"
Anko managed to look.
"I…knew that you'd be back," Anko replies.
"Humph," Ranko said, as she turned to face Orochimaru. "I thought you'd be happy with your little fiefdom, Oro-CHAN."
"You should know me better than that, 'Old Man'," Orochimaru replied. "So…the reports that you've been active lately are true."
"Uh-huh," Ranko replied, as she got into a loose fighting stance. "You and I have some unfinished business."
Tbc.