Ranm, Child of the Sun
(Ranma 1/2 and Exalted crossover)
by Shea McIntee

Disclaimer: N3i+h3r Ranma 1/2 n0r 3xa1+3d b3l0ng t0 m3... y3+...
ph33r my wra+h!

stupid phreak...

Chapter 1

A man stood by a window looking out in a small room, which was
appointed in a spartan fashion. There was a small desk with a
rough chair behind it. A small shelf stood to one side, with a
few books and odds and ends neatly arranged on top of it. On the
other side, a suit of light chain mail that had obviously seen
heavy usage hung on a rack. Beside the armor, a sword, large and
equally worn and utilitarian, stood on a stand.

The man himself matched his weapon; warn and hard, yet still
razor-sharp in spite of the years. His hair was black, with
streaks of hard-earned gray cutting through. His face was lean
with a faint scar beside his left eye, running down his cheek; a
reminder of an old enemy.

He wore a uniform, more out of habit than necessity, with his
family crest, a striking falcon in gold on a blue field, over his
left breast.

He watched as a messenger ran into the small keep, and allowed
a cold smile to pass across his features. A messenger invariably
meant action... typically of a particular sort; the Immaculate
Order didn't concern themselves with most military mattes.

It had been many a year since his last active assignment and
his promotion.retirement to the post of garrison commander. He
missed the action, true, but he felt that he could do more good
as an able commander than a veteran uner incompetent or political
appointees.


The expected knock came at his door. Unmoving from the window,
he raised his voice.

"Enter."

The door opened and he could hear the light footsteps of the
young messenger come in.

"What is it?"

"Sir, I am sent to tell you that the presence of a
newly-awakened Anathema has been sensed near your post."

The commander paused, then inclined his head in the briefest of
nods.

"That is understood. The matter will be taken care of."

The messenger hesitated. Once it was obvious that there was
nothing else, his footsteps quickly died away with the sound of
the door closing.

The commander stared out the window, already planning the
sweeps that would be needed to find the target.

****

Ranma staggered upright and looked around. The hut was the
same; same murals, same ceiling design, same lack of furnishings.
But where was pop?

As he looked around for any clues, something nagged at him.
Then he saw it, or rather, didn't see it. There wasn't any trace
of a fire, and he knew he started one last night. What the hell
was going on?

The was a rustle at the door, and a harsh voice called out
something incomprehensible. He couldn't understand Chinese, but
he knew what it sounded like; this was some other language.

He whirled around to see a man dressed in an armored shirt and
carrying a spear. He was tall, with dark hair framing a face
that was almost cruel in expression. His clothes were worn and
made of leather, cinched with a swordbelt across the waist. The
man glared at him and shouted something else, gesturing with the
spear.

"Kyn te an cor, Anathema! Toren yn hap por kun shi necrae!"
[You're caught, Anathema! Surrender yourself and I'll kill you
painlessly!"]

Ranma frowned and scratched his head. He ventured a question.

"What do you want?"

It was pretty clear that the guy was upset about something.
Maybe Genma had 'borrowed' some food from him or something, or
maybe this was his house.

The man shook his head in anger and shouted at him again.
Ranma gave him an apologetic smile and shrugged his shoulders.
When the man didn't move, he tried to go past him, and only just
ducked the stab of the spear. If he hadn't moved, he'd have been
gutted!

"Hey! What is this about?"

When the man only answered with another thrust, he dodged to
the left and kicked hard at the spear shaft right above the man's
fist, throwing it against the far wall.

The man snarled and grabbed a sword from his side and rushed at
him. Ranma clapped his hands across the sword blade, halting it
in mid-slash, and, turning, threw him against the wall beside the
broken spear. The man started to stagger upright, and Ranma
punched him hard in the side of the head and watched him slump
down, unconscious.

Ranma knelt down and inspected the soldier, for, judging by the
cut of his clothes and his armor, that was his profession.
Definitely out cold. He seached through a pouch at the man's
belt, coming up with a small piece of some paper-like substance;
most likely some form of parchment (he'd seen enough of that with
all the old training scrolls he'd read). There was also a small
handful of strange-looking coins, and a small knife. Putting the
knife in his pocket with the coins, he opened the scoll and
examined it. The writing was, as he half-expected, was
incomprehensible, although it looked like some sort of short
letter. Judging by the man's military appearance, most likely
some sort of orders or dispatch. He stuffed it back in the
pouch, which he took and strapped to his waist with his belt.
Maybe he could find someone who could understand it.

As it was, he decided to abandon any speculation about where
his father was; judging by his experience (garnered from many
chases by local forces out for Genma's hide), where one soldier
(or policeman) was, many others wee near by. First priority was
getting out of the area, and then he could try to figure things
out.

Checking the fallen man again to make sure he'd be out long
enough to get away before any help could be summoned, he slipped
out the door into a twilight darkness.

****

Almost a week later, Ranma trudged through a wooded valley.
Since that incident a week ago, he'd been having to dodge patrols
almost constantly, and only his long experience with hiding in
similar circumstances and Genma's lessons in stealth and thievery
kept him free. Twice more he'd had to fight, once against a
single man armed, as the fist one was, with a spear and a sword,
and the second time against a pair of men, one armed the same and
the other with some kind of small bow. Both times he'd managed
to knock the others out, but the one with the bow almost got him,
leaving a thin red line in his left arm where he'd tried to
deflect an arrow.

He'd figured that either he and his father had somehow stumbled
into some sort of tribe or something, or that he was somehow
somewhere else; the latter seemed most likely, since he couldn't
recognize any familiar landmarks when he tried to retrace his
trail, and he hadn't seen any sign of anything familiar; no
occasional planes, no villages; nothing.

He reached the base of a mountain and started to climb. The
patrols were getting harder and harder to dodge, and he needed to
find a place to hole up for a while; a cave would be perfect.

He spotted a samll hole in the mountainside, and scrambling up
the rocky face to it, he entered and fell asleep against the
wall, curled up in a blanket taken from one of the soldiers
earlier.

****

Dagda Kar opened the concealed door that hid his mountain home
from any who might look for him, and nearly stumbled over a
blanket-wrapped figure. He caught himself and bent down to
inspect the boy, for a boy it was. He looked cold despite the
blanket, but what almost immediately attracted his attention was
the boy's forehead. On it shone the sigil of the warrior,
marking him as a Child of the Dawn. He sighed and picked he boy
up easily. Such was fate; if the Unconquered Sun brought such a
one to his door, it was only his duty to teach him.

****

Ranma sweated as he spun the staff-and-chain weapon called a
seven-sectioned staff around to block another strike from his
opponent. Anticipating the string of thrown stones, he curled
the weapon around himself, spinning like a top, then lashed out.
A clatter and a meaty 'thunk' was the satisfactory result, and he
lowered his weapon and stepped forward.

Suddenly, a thin blade spun at him, and he narrowly missed
getting shishkabobed by dropping to the floor. He tried to get
back up quickly, only to halt suddenly and stare cross-eyed at
the knife pointed at his nose.

"Never assume an enemy has only a single weapon, boy," a gruff
voice shouted at him from the other end of the dagger. "That's
a quick way to become a trophy! If you were that insistant on
being foolish... bah!"

The owner of the voice, a medium-small-sized and stocky man
with a thick salt-and-pepper beard and well-muscled arms, stepped
back and sheathed the knife abruptly in a gesture of disgust,
then relented and held out a hand to Ranma.

Ranma took it, and then suddenly pulled down hard and to the
left, propelling the man into his foot, and then tossing him over
his head into the opposite wall.

"And my honored teacher should remember his own lessons; never
assume an enemy's helpless," he said mockingly.

In response, the dwarfish man scowled at him from the floor,
and then borke out in a wide grin.

"Aye, lad. It's good to see that you remember the lessons
pounded into your think skull by this poor sap drafted into
teaching ye."

Righting himself in a half-flip, Dagda Kor walked over past
Ranma, who watched him warily, and picked up the sword nd the
staff from the corner into which it had been flung. He turned
around and handed the staff back to Ranma.

"Practice is over for now, la; 'tis time to hunt our supper."

"Oh, joy... more rabbits, I suppose?"

The man just laughed.

"Oh, get on wi' ye!"

Ranm gave a small smile as he took the passageway that would
lead him to the cave and the world outside. He'd been living
with Dagda Kor for almost ayear and a half, and he'd gotten used
to the man's gruff manner; he'd as soon insult you and compliment
you, much as his father once would.

When h had woken up in a strange room witha strange man
watching him, he'd assumed that he had been captured, and
promptly tried to escape. That attempt had ended in disaster, as
the apparently older man had moved far quicker than he'd thought
possible, and had soundly beaten him back into his bed, this time
to recover.

That had been his first lesson; never assume an opponent's
ability by their appearance.

When he'd recovered consciousness, the man had introduced
himself as Dagda Kor, and explained that he had found Ranma on
his doorstep, so to speak, and decided to take him in. When
asked why he'd done so, he had just smirked and held a mirror in
front of Ranma.

The sight of the strange glowing symbol on his forehead had...
surprised Ranma, to say the least. The man had explained that it
was the sign of one who was a reincarnated warrior, called an
'Exalted.' When he'd asked what exactly that was, the man had
promptly gone into a 'lecture mode' about long-lost kingdoms,
treachery, and similar stuff.

Ranma had asked him where in China he was; when the rather
confused response came (that 'China' wasn't known of, and that he
was in the Realms), he was, not suprisingly, unbelieving. The
man had questioned him further, and, when he'd mentioned the
small hut where he'd spent the night, had grown quite excited.
That place, he was told was called "The Gate of Persephone," and
was an ancient artifact that was result of an attempt to travel
in time, both to the distant past and the distant future.
Obviously, the man said, he had somehow triggered the gate, and,
since Ranma knew nothing of either the "Chosen" or the Great
Gods, he was probably froma future so far distant that all such
knowledge had been lost to the mists of time.

Since then, Dagda Kor had taken it upon himself to teach Ranma
what he would need to know to survive in a world different from
that which he was accustomed to. Lessons in everything from
languages (Dagda Mor had been able to speak with him through some
form of magic) to the manipulation of energies beyond the grasp
of mortals, of which ,he had been told, he was no longer among
the ranks of, having become a Child of the Dawn.

He walked out into the open air, and scrambled down the steep
slope of the mountainside in search of food. Hopefully, witha
little luck, he'd find more than rabbits this time.

****

Dagda Kor stood in front of his forge, inspecting the work from
yesterday before placing it back into the fire. The boy was
almost ready to leave, and he inteded to give him a parting girt
that was worthy of him.

The lad was perhaps his greatest student, and in his centuries
of life, he'd had quite a few. His grasp of anything relating to
combat, particularly in the field of unarmed combat, was
spectacular, and he'd had to work hard to provide him with a
challenge. He was a bit rough-edged, but possessed a naive
innocence that was charming. He had originally expected the boy
Ranma to do quite well, but the outcome was far beyond his
dreams, although, he thought with a chuckle, he could be
surprisingly mule-headed when it came to anything outside of his
physical prowess. Trying to teach him the manners and graces he
may need was well-nigh impossible, and instilling him with
ancient and hard-won lore was a lost cause.

However, it was nearing time for the lad to leave and seek his
own experience, and, most likely, attempt to find a way back to
his own time and place; the Gate of Persephone did swing both
ways, after all. He wished him the best of luck.

He brought his hammer down on the glowing-hot metal, folding it
over many times in preparation before it would be shaped into
it's final form. Still in the fire, the other pieces of his work
gleamed, soaking up the heat.

****

Several months later, which passed in a blur, Ranma returned
with the day's dinner, the inevitable pair of rabbits slung over
his shoulder, Dagda Kor already had the fire going. They ate
quickly and in silence, and then sat back to watch the fire burn.

"Lad, what do ye plan on doing wi' yer life?"

"Uhh... I suppose I'l just... uh..."

"Do ye have no goals, no ambitions?"

"Well... not really."

"Do ye wish to go home, perhaps? Or maybe do ye see yerself
ruling somewhere, or serving under such a ruler? When ye look to
the future, what do ye see?"

"I guess I'd like to be able to go home, but I don't know how
I'd do it... I guess I don't have much else planned, really."

The man sighed.

"Lad, lad... ye need to have somethingin mind, or else ye'll
wander around, doing nothing of worth. Do ye really want a life
like that?"

"Well, I hadn't really thought about it."

"It's getting time when ye should, me boy. In fact, I'm
thinking I'll soon be time for you to make your own way in this
world. Ye'd be still welcome here, but ye need to find yer
purpose, and ye won't find it here."

"I... understand."

"Nay, lad," and here his voice grew a little less gruff. "It's
not that I don' want ye hee, but that ye need to learn things
that I canna teach ye. Yer already me better in weaponless
combat, and ye fast approaching me wi' sword or stave. Make a
name for yerself out in th' world. Yer still welcome t' visit,
mind you, but living here any longer would stunt yer growth."

Ranma sat in silence for a moment, and then nodded. He'd grown
accustomed to the crotchety old (although he never say that where
he could hear it) man, and he'd miss him.

Mind swirling with questions and more questions, Ranma fell
asleep by the fire. The man across from him stayed up half the
night looking at him and thinking.

Author's Note: Well, I got some inspiration for this one over
break... let me know what you think! deus_ex_mach42@hotmail.com
Shea McIntee