More Than Meets The Eyes: Prologue

Three men, all powerfully built and possessing bulging muscles, walked
down the streets of Tokyo, their massive sizes opening up a corridor
of humanity as they stalked their prey. Each wore a blue and black
body suit that conformed to their forms perfectly. The thinnest of
the lot, a man with no hair atop his head, wore mirrored shades to
conceal eyes that were slitted in a mix of reptilian and feline
features. The shortest man, barely reaching over seven feet, hid
behind loosely hanging auburn bangs a vestigial horn that sprouted
nearly an ince from his forehead. The largest of the men would have
appeared natural, if not for his immense size.

Their's was not a mission calling for stealth, no, if anything, the
three...men, were intended to draw attention and spread fear as well
as apprehend someone of great importance to their cause.

****

Ranma twisted out of the path of a volley of razor sharp bandannas,
alighting momentarily on the roof of a bakery. From there the
pigtailed martial artist leaped nearly straight up fifteen meters.

"Damn you, Ranma, don't run away!!! Fight like a man!!!" Ryoga
roared, tossing three more deadly bandannas at his hated foe. In mid-
air, Ranma was king, able to seemingly defy gravity at will, but he
hadn't counted on another attack while preparing to splash P-chan and
end the fight early. The trio of bandannas weren't a major threat,
not in the manner that Ryoga intended, though. Ranma was forced to
largely cancel his forward momentum to avoid serious injury, and even
then one of the projectiles managed to graze his shoulder, sending a
spike of pain through his entire left side.

Ranma landed awkwardly, his balance thrown off by the hasty aerial
manuever. His left arm hung limply at his side and blood flowed from
the deep gash, only to drip continuously from his finger tips. Ryoga
sneered, the advantage obviously his. With the tides of battle
turning, Ryoga's depression began to lighten. He knew that soon he
wouldn't be able to so much a create a battle aura, so with as much of
the anger and despair as he could summon from his psyche, Ryoga formed
a small, pitifully weak shi shi hokadan and flung it at Ranma, hoping
to at least force his enemy to dodge rapidly and further exacerbate
his wound.

Unexpectedly, Ranma did not dodge. He stood his ground, slightly
favoring his right leg, and with an almost casual grace, batted the
chi bolt aside. The sphere of green energy slammed into the koi pond,
throwing water and dead fish into a pillar of foam that didn't quite
reach Ryoga. Ryoga felt depression returning to him as the scene of
his attack being disregarded so calluously played through his mind
repeatedly."All I asked for was a little peace," Ranma began,"just
some time to myself." An angry battle aura of deep blue seeped from
his skin, brightening noticeably over the area of his damaged
shoulder. No one noticed the immediate cease in blood loss.

Ranma felt light-headed from loss of blood, but his chi bolstered
flagging strength and breathed life into a body screaming for
relief."A couple hours on the roof, maybe some time to work out in the
dojo. But no, it's always 'Ranma, prepare to die!' or 'Ranma, die!',
or 'Die, Ranme!'. Well, you bastard, I'm not going to die." As Ranma
spoke, his aura intensified, going purple as anger mixed with
confidence, then darkening to nearly black as rage replaced anger."You
are!!!"

It came in a rush, a tital wave of energy in the form of a beam as
wide as Ranma was tall and Ryoga had no defense against it. He didn't
think to dodge, not that he had the necessary speed to accomplish the
feat, anyway. The force of the blast actually halted momentarily as
it struck Ryoga, the human equivalent to three inch thick plate armor,
but it didn't stop, and with a final scream, the lost boy was reduced
to a half charred, half vaporized mass of cooked flesh.

Before the horror of his actions could set in, Ranma's mind collapsed
into itself, barely retaining enough energy to carry out basic
functions.

****

From a hundred miles into the interior of Japan, Zoalord Imakarum
Mirabilis viewed the event through the eyes of all three of his
minions. Each had sensory powers specific to its breed and when
combined into a single file, for lack of a better term, Mirabilis was
able to determine the boy's bio-energy levels, muscle mass and
density, as well as bone density. All other relevant information had
already been gathered by Chronos spies and reliable outside sources.

/Bring him in,/ the Zoalord telepathically ordered his field agents.
It was a real pity that the other one had been destroyed, his energy
levels being nearly as high as the main subject's, but that was the
way of life, the survival of the fittest.

****

The processing tank in which floated the comatose body of Ranma
Saotome was no ordinary zoaform production unit. Specifically
designed to heal and enhance the Zoalord breed, it was able to
introduce a much more varied array of genetic changes and frequencies
of energy to the subject.

"How many crystals will he need?" Mirabilis asked the gathered
scientists. Ranma Saotome wasn't meant to be a new Zoalord, he was
too young and mentally immature for that, but a general to direct the
forces of Chronos he would be. As a human, the boy had possessed bio-
energy manipulation abilities that exceeded all zoanoid breeds except
for the Zoalords themselves, strength nearly that of the strongest of
hyper zoanoids, and speed that rivalled all Chronos bio-constructs and
even the Guyver units. Bones nearly as tough as steel and skin as
resistant to blunt trauma as any Gregole zoanoid, rounded out the
sheer physical side of the mystery that was Ranma. Telepathic scans
conducted during the processing revealed an exceptional, if
underdeveloped mind capable of photographic memory and lightning fast
thought processes. Locked within the young man's mind were hundreds
of fighting styles and techniques that used and warped bio-energy or
the human body in ways never dreamed of by Chronos.

In short, Chronos had a weapon that unaltered could have been a
valuable asset, but now, with the Zoalord processing nearly complete,
they had an ace in the hole, an exceptional fighter with powers that
outstripped anything previously imagined. The power granted to
Saotome, Mirabilis reflected, made him greater than any other Zoalord,
but without the greater telepathic abilities that would develop with
age, Ranma would be as willing a sevant of his masters as the lowest
of zoanoids.

Zoacrystals were nearly impossible to produce, requiring huge amounts
of bio-energy to transmute the highly unstable naturally grown
crystals. The effort was worth the trouble, though. The crystals,
once finished, began to generate power and could be altered to give
Zoalords their control over gravity and space."With the exception of
his main crystal, the subject has been designed for three auxillary
crystals. Any more than three and the risk of overloading the
subject's body becomes too great," answered the scientist.

The wraparound visor that Mirabilis wore hid the shocked widening of
his eyes from the scientists, something he was immensely grateful for.
When he spoke, his voice was calm and level."Only three?" How could
Ranma function with only three crystals?

"Yes, my lord. One specifically keyed into gravitational fields, one
for spatial flux, and another to allow for the mass change from human
to Zoalord form. The subject's abnormal bio-energy levels have risen
dramatically throughout the processing and instead of altering this
trait, we allowed it to expand and simply built the emmiters for the
crystals into his new form. This saves crystals and makes him less
vulnerable to debilitating injury if one or more of his crystals is
severely damaged." The scientist shifted uneasily, hoping that he had
not presumed too far.

Mirabilis nodded, further astounded and disturbed by Ranma. The boy's
DNA, while slightly more developed than the average human, didn't
account for his powers and attempted cloning had met with utter
failure every time. Ranma would be a lost number, the only member of
his breed."Give him two more crystals, but keep them dormant. I will
teach him how to activate them if his others are ever damaged." Five
crystals was barely a third of the normal requirement for a Zoalord.

****

With the nutrient solution drained , Ranma's body rested in a on the
slimy bottom of the processing tank. Curled into a fetal position,
there were no obvious signs of the drastic changes wraught upon his
body on the genetic level. Even were he to stand and be seen
completely nude, no physical changes would be discernable. That, too,
was by design. Ranma was meant to blend into the population, a
sleeper to be awakened when the time was right. Until then he would
work in the shadows, undermining the governments investigation into
Chronos activites and distracting the Guyvers from their destructive
incursions into Chronos territory.

A telepathic command from Mirabilis and Ranma awoke. Slowly, so as
not to slip, Ranma stood, brushing back slick hair from his face in
order to see what of his surroundings his hyperactive senses hadn't
already revealed. He saw his master, a man looking to be no more than
twenty five years of age. Ranma knew that he could break the man
almost effortlessly if not for the power he held over him in the form
of fully developed telepathy, an ability that could cause him to
simply die with a thought.

Mirabilis and eleven other Zoalords had participated in the
reprogramming of their new tool. Together they had instilled
unquestioning loyalty with intense ambition without decreasing or
altering his overall intelligence. Sounding simpler than it really
was, the act had taken nearly a week by itself and left the
controllers of Chronos weak and exhausted. Knowledge of who he had
been was left intact and to it was added knowledge of his mission and
those he would command.

"Well, you made me what I am. If you managed that, the least you
could do is find me a towel," Ranma snapped.

Mirabilis raised a questioning eyebrow. He had a feeling that he and
his fellow Zoalords had gotten more out of this bargain than they had
originally intended.

****

Author's Notes: I've taken some liberties with a few of the aspects
of the Guver series, but not many and they're really so small that
you'd really have to know a lot about the series to catch them. This
is just an idea I had and used to take my mind off of a real whopper
of a headache. If you want to continue it, that's fine, if not, oh
well, no biggy. I just thought someone may like to work out how Ranma
could deal with the changes in his life and what him being evil and
working for an organization bent on conquering the world and enslaving
humanity would be like. The idea I have is for Ranma to do some bad
things, kill a lot of people, maybe even a guyver or two, then gain
enough telepathic independence to break control of his mind from the
Zoalords. Then he could go on a new mission against Chronos or
something. Heh, I just realized that Chronos is supposed to be
spelled Cronos in the Guyver series, oh well, don't feel like going
back and changing it.

Let's see, a standard Zoalord can do lots of stuff, but I'm gonna rank
Ranma up top with Arkanfel(think that's how it's spelled, but I
haven't watched or read any Guyver in a while, so I could be wrong).