And the World was Full of Stars
(Ranma 1/2 and RIFTS (Phase world, specifically))
by Shea McIntee

Disclaimer: Neither series belongs to me... I'm just a mere otaku...

Chapter 1

Ranma stepped through the portal, and onto...

Nothing?

"Wahhh!" he exclaimed as he realized the exit wasn't at ground level. In fact, it was
almost a hundred feet above it! He caught a brief glimpse of the terrain below him: looked
like a small valley with a bunch of pools with some sticks or poles sticking out of them.
And then it got a lot closer.

He stopped abruptly right above one of the pools and hovered for a moment before landing
on dry ground off to one side. That landing wouldn't have felt very good, in spite of his
superhuman endurance.

A few minutes later, as he inspected the area around him, a rather portly man dressed in
green rushed up to him. "Oh, sir! Be careful! This ancient cursed training ground of
Jusenkyo! Very bad you fall in spring!"

Ranma regarded him quizzically. "What happens if you do?"

The Jusenkyo Guide gaped at him for a minute. An honored customer actually listened
before falling in? That hadn't happened in all the years he'd been a guide, and the guide
before him, and... well, as far back as the records go. It simply wasn't done!
Experimentally, he splashed the young customer in front of him with some ordinary cold
water. He didn't change. He pulled out a small thermos and splashed it on him as well.
Still nothing

"Hey! What was that for?"

"Sir! You fall in spring, you get tragic curse."

Magic. He didn't do well with most magic. "What kind of curse, exactly?"

"Each spring hold very tragic story of something fall in and drown long ago. If customer
falls into spring, takes body of whatever drown in tragic legend."

Ranma winced. He could just imagine falling in... He pointed at the spring he almost
fell into. "What's that one?"

The Guide squinted at it. "Oh, sir, that Nynnichuan, spring-of-drowned-girl. Whoever
fall in spring, take body of a young girl."

Ranma shuddered. Darine wouldn't like that one bit.

"Thanks for the warning." Ranma turned to leave, and then stopped. "Is there a town or
village around here somewhere?"

The guide pointed off to the northwest. "Over there is home of Musk warriors, but they no
like visitors." He turned and indicated a nearby mountain. "That home of phoenix tribe,
but they very clannish, and no like visitors either." He pointed off towards the east.
"That direction amazon villagers. They fierce warriors. No others near here."

Ranma inclined his head briefly. "Thanks."

Maybe he could get directions at one of those amazon villages. He walked east, where the
guide had indicated. He didn't bother flying; he didn't want to attract notice, and he
wasn't in a great hurry... he had plenty of time.

As he moved out of sight, the guide walked slowly back towards the hut. This would need to
be recorded; a customer not receiving a curse!

He was so preoccupied that he didn't notice at first the two figures, one a fat middle-aged
man with glasses and a white bandanna, and the other young with black hair walk into the
valley. Both wore dogis, and the young one carried a huge pack. By the time he had seen
them, it was, inevitably, too late for them to pay attention.

"Sirs! What you doing? It very bad you fall in springs!"

'Splash!'

"Huh?... Wha?!?"

"Growlrr!"

"Wah!"

'Splash!'

****

Ranma walked into a small village that was bustling in activity. There was cheering and other
sounds of crowd activity off to the right, where the appeared to be some sort of contest or
something going on; Ranma couldn't get a glimpse. He contented himself to look the part of a
visitor, and wandered over there to look at the activity. A few minutes to satisfy his
curiosity before he went looking for someone to give him directions wouldn't hurt. Besides,
nobody noticed him, or, if they did, were too busy watching themselves to notice that this
particular visitor was stranger than most.

One, however did. A wrinkled short old lady watched him from her vantage point in a nearby
tree, distracted from the on-going tournament by a new face.

'Hmmm...' She looked him over, scanning automatically for a possible threat or benefit.
'Looks slightly japanese... at least a decent fighter judging by his muscle tone and gait...
rather young... probably an outsider adopted into one of the other villages...' She shrugged
and turned back to the spectacle in the central clearing. He wasn't a threat, and there didn't
seem to be anything alarming about him. There was something about him that attracted her
attention, but she put him out of her mind for now. Perhaps later she'd examine him, during the
feast or something... after all, traditionally, everyone was invited by the winner to partake of
the meal, including visitors... after all, many had walked from far away villages to watch or
cheer on their younger relatives, and had to walk an equally far distance tomorrow or late
today.

Meanwhile, Ranma had found a spot to watch the action below. It appeared to be some sort of
martial contest. There was a large group of women, ranging in age from perhaps sixteen to
twenty, off to one side watching, and two of their number fighting on a large log strapped
between two trees to form a challenge space.

'Interesting... the log make balance a very important part of the challenge, and lessens the
chance of a fatality from continuous damage by ensuring that a fight progresses swiftly.'

The two combatants were very different sizes, but seemed to be evenly matched. On his left, a
tall woman, perhaps twenty or so, stood with a tall cudgel, with both ends of the staff shaped
into a large bulb, which she spun like a double-mace or similar weapon. On the right, a younger
girl perhaps half her opponent's height and bright blue hair faced the audience and bowed before
turning again to the center of the log. She held a wooden shield that curved slightly outwards,
with semi-serrations along the edge that were designed to catch an enemy's blade and hold it fast
and a sword with a projection from the hilt that curved inwards towards the base of the blade,
which served a similar purpose, to either catch or break a blade. Against this opponent's weapon
they would be useless at best, but against a sword or thinner staff they would be deadly.

Both weapons were dulled; the sword was covered with a leather sheath that kept the blade
securely hidden, and the giantess' staffheads were covered in padded cloth, which most likely were
covered in metal bands underneath. This was clearly in good sport, for the two grinned in an
almost friendly fashion before advancing towards each other.

The two stood staring at each other's faces for a long moment, and then, on some unspoken signal,
struck. The taller girl's weapon whistled down, only to be expertly parried by a shield held at
the right angle to shed the impact off to the side. Her opponent's sword was likewise blocked by
the other end of the staff in a quick reversed strike that used the recoil from the failed impact
to increase it's speed, and then they sprang back a couple feet. As they continued to hammer at
each other, they appeared, to Ranma's eyes, evenly matched. Although the taller one had the height
advantage, the shorter one was faster, and often struck at her opponents legs, attempted to force a
stumble off the log. However, in the end, it was simple bad luck that defeated her. A large leaf
blew in her face as she blocked another blow with her shield, and her opponent took advantage of it,
quickly striking low while her vision was blurred. She fell off the log, but recovered and landed
on the ground feet-first, to be joined shortly by the winner of the bout. They bowed slightly to
each other before retiring together back to the group of women to one side. At some unseen signal,
two others left that group to jump up to opposite ends of the log, facing each other.

Ranma shrugged and wandered around. There was a large table off to one side with a equally large
variety of dishes on it. In chinese, it said in large letters:

--------------
| First Prize! |
--------------

Underneath it, it said . Ranma raised an
eyebrow at that, and shrugged. When on Phase World... [AN: Equivalent to "When in Rome..."]

He glanced around to make sure nobody was watching, and rummaged around in one of his pockets. He
had them enchanted to hold a large amount of material in stasis, and he thought that...

He pulled out a large container, and opened it to place a good 10-lb medium-rare steak (still
steaming hot), and placed it at the end. Might as well contribute.

****

Cologne blinked as she watched the newcomer that had attracted her attention earlier. While it
showed rather uncommon courtesy for him, as an outsider, to add to the feast, she was rather puzzled
as to where he got the large hunk of meat from. She shrugged. She must be getting old if she hadn't
noticed the pack that was now obviously on his back. She still didn't know why he attracted her
attention... maybe he was related to someone she once knew when she traveled outside the village.
She should arrange to talk with him at the victory celebration.

Cologne shook herself and turned back to the contest. Shampoo was coming up soon. The way the
bouts worked is that the pairs were chosen at random. The winner of each match stayed, and so on,
until there was a single champion remaining. The champion was given certain duties and
responsibilities among the warriors of the village, and received great esteem and respect in return.
It was a great honor to win the yearly tournament, and Shampoo had so far done excellently, defeating
most of her opponents with ease.

****

Ranma watched as the matches progressed. There were two competitors that seemed to be favored. The
first was an almost androgynous woman, perhaps twenty or twenty one, who wielded a tall thin staff -
made of solid iron, but she moved it like it was made of balsa wood. The other was somewhat shorter,
and more... well, curvy. She used a pair of colorful mace-like weapons, which appeared to be made of
a hard wood shell surrounding iron or lead, judging by the impacts it made.

It was perhaps inevitable that the final match would be between the two. The fight was quite long,
taking perhaps an hour or more in all. Ranma had to admit he was quite impressed. He had seen (and
done) more impressive things, perhaps, but, then again, he did have certain... advantages.

He frowned in puzzlement as he saw two figures enter the village. One wasn't all that unusual: a
young girl with brilliant red hair [AN: sorry, I'm going by the anime for hair color]. The other
was... he hadn't seen all that many pandas, especially ones with glasses.

Then he snapped his fingers. Of course... Jusenkyo. The panda was probably some guy that fell
into a spring. Seeing the Jusenkyo guide behind them only confirmed it. He wondered if the young
girl was also a victim; he did almost fall into the 'Spring-of-Drowned-Girl,' so it wasn't beyond
possibility.

His attention was drawn back to the tounament log, where the shorter girl (with the purple hair
arranged in an interesting style) was beating the other back. Eventually, her opponent reached the
end of the challenge log, and then slipped on the end and fell. There was a roar of applause, and
everyone clustered around the young winner.

Suddenly, silence fell as the young girl, evidently named "Shan Pu" or something like that, according
to the various yells earlier, stalked towards... the tables with food?

"*You!*" she confronted the young girl. "*Why are you letting your panda eat my feast?*"

The girl looked back, a blank and confused look on her face. The Jusenkyo Guide leaned towards her
and translated into Japanese. "Honored Sir, She ask why you let your panda eat her feast?"

Ranma noted the address, and assumed that this indeed was someone who had fallen into the spring he
missed.

'Poor guy... Wait a moment... panda eating... uh, oh...'

He turned around just to see the panda with glasses reaching for the large sirloin he had put there
earlier. Moving quickly, he grabbed it's paw and twisted it hard, flipping the human-turned-animal
onto the ground.

In the audience, Cologne raised her eyebrow as she noted this. Yes... definitely a fighter of some
kind. Rather nice of him to keep the animal away from the food.

'Wait...' she spotted the glasses on the panda and narrowed her eyes. 'That's no animal...'

Meanwhile, Shan Pu and the red-haired girl were facing each other on the log. Ranma guessed it was
an attempt to make up for the panda, but doubted the girl had much of a chance; Shan Pu, although still
a little winded, was more skilled than most on this planet, from what he could see.

To his surprise, it was much more even then he had thought, perhaps even a little unbalanced in the
other way. If both had been fresh, perhaps the outcome would have been different, but with Shan Pu
already tired from a full day of fighting, her opponent handily won.

The Jusenkyo guide reacted with horror as Shan Pu walked up to the othet girl and muttered something
in chinese under her breath and kissed her on the cheek.

"Oh, sir, that very bad! She give you kiss of death; promise to hunt you to ends of earth!"

Immediately the panda was right behind the red-head and dragging her off in a great hurry. Ranma
sweatdropped and watched them go. Tentatively he approached the nearest amazon, who was a rather
shriveled up old woman balanced on a staff, who had come up behind him.

"*Errr... excuse me? What was that all about?*"

The old woman sighed and pointed at the young champion, currently running out of the village with a
bag of supplies, hot on the trail. "*My great-granddaughter, Shan Pu, was defeated by that outsider
girl and gave her the kiss of death.*"

Ranma frowned for a moment. "*kiss of death? What's that?*"

"*The kiss of death is a promise by an amazon warrior to hunt the one who defeated her to the ends of
the earth, in order to alleviate the shame and dishonor of being defeated by a non-amazon woman.*"

He paused for a moment, and then remembered something he had noticed earlier. "*I could be mistaken,
but I believe that wasn't really a girl...*" Cologne gave him a puzzled look, and he elaborated. "*I
think that that was a boy or man. The guide from Jusenkyo did call him 'honored sir.' You could ask
him to make certain, though. Does that kiss of death thing apply only to women?*"

Cologne gave him a sudden shocked glance. "*That would make... a great deal of difference. Wait
here, child.*"

Ranma frowned a bit at the 'child,' comment, but kept his mouth shut as he watched her pogo over to
the middle-aged man who served as the Jusenkyo guide. After talking with him for a moment in a low
tone, she pogoed back over to Ranma.

"*Boy, I need you to run a quick errand for me.*" She scribbled something on a piece of paper and
handed it to him. "*Don't bother reading it... it's in a local dialect. Just catch up to my great-
granddaughter, the girl who ran out of here, and give this to here.*"

He scratched his head. "*What's so urgent?*"

The old woman thought for a moment, obviously considering whether he needed to know or not, and then
relented. "*She... did something... without... knowing a critical piece of information.*"

Ranma took a wild stab at it. "*Does this have anything to do with this 'kiss of death' and the red-
haired girl really being a boy? Perhaps this kiss thing only counting against girls?*"

She gave him a sharp look. "*Ask Shan Pu, when you find her. Tell her to go ahead and follow, but
to expect me to join her in a couple of weeks if she's not back by then.*"

Ranma, mentally, shrugged his shoulders. What the heck... it wasn't as if he had anything better to
do. "*Sure, sure.*"

With that, he jogged out the gate at a fast clip. He was going east, anyway.


Behind him, Cologne watched him go, and frowned. There was still something about him... She almost
called out to him to come back so she could ask him some question, but then shrugged. She had a feeling
she'd be seeing him again, anyway.

****

A Panda ran at a clip that would have impressed anyone watching. Unfortunately, nobody was watching, or
even present, except for the still-disoriented bundle on his back.

Genma didn't need this. He really didn't. He worked hard to train his son to become the greatest
martial artist in the world and support him in his retirement, and what happens? The boy runs away or
something. Ungrateful child. He was lucky he had come across his 'new' son soon after. He had found him
with almost complete amnesia near a wrecked dojo. The only things the boy remembered was martial arts and
his name, "Ryu". Genma had quickly made up a story on the spot, and had succeeding in convincing him that
he was his father, and that they had been separated in the woods nearby.

Later he had used his formidable talents at Anything-Goes Story Fabrication to recreate "what happened."
Best of all, it explained everything to Nodoka, if she noticed anything wrong. He let the boy keep the
name, and merely pretended that he had changed it before losing his memory, in honor of a great
accomplishment in martial arts. To cover that, he had brought out the scrolls for the Yama Sen Ken and the
Umi Sen Ken that he had hidden away and had proclaimed that "Ranma" had changed his name after mastering
the basics of the two schools. He also spent a few weeks 'reminescing' over important events in
"Ranma"/Ryu's early life, before the amnesia, making sure that the details were well-planted in his mind,
in case they came across anyone he used to know. The story was, in Genma's mind, perfect. And soon he
would be able to marry the boy to one of Tendo's daughters, and the boy would support him and carry on the
Anything Goes school. Nothing could go wrong now.


****

Ranma sneezed as he jogged away from the small village. There were still some possible watchers, so he'd
better stay on the ground for now. Still, he'd probably find the girl within a couple hours, deliver the
message, and then go on to Japan to find his family.

Unfortunately, he had never encountered the Amazons' 'Chestnut Fist Revised: Hot Pursuit' technique, and
thus was farther behind than he thought.

****

Days later, he was starting to worry. He could tell he was almost to the coast, and still hadn't caught
up with the girl. He couldn't understand it; she was traveling on foot, and still managed to go faster
than he did, even though he traveled the entire day (he didn't need to sleep).

He slowed down as he approached the ocean and saw a small silhouette with a distinctive hairstyle
standing on the beach. Finally! Later, he'd need to remember how she managed to move so quickly.

"*Shan Pu?*"

She whirled around in surprise, and then gave him a suspicious glare. "*Who are you?*"

"*Your great-grandmother send me to give you a message.*" He walked up to her and gave her the piece of
paper. She looked it over with a puzzled frown, which only deepened as she read. Then she gave him a
glare.

"*Is this true? The Ranma girl isn't a girl, but a BOY?*"

He nodded. "*Yep. Why does that make such a difference?*"

In answer, she handed him a book entitled "Book of Amazon Law." Her flipped through it and then found
the entry. He goggled. He'd been a lot of places, and seen a lot of strange things, but this was rather
unexpected. It made a kind of wierd sense though. Anyone who was strong enough to defeat an amazon needed
to be eliminated, either by killing or by getting them into the tribe.

"*Your great-grandmother told me to tell you to continue to follow, but that if you weren't back in a
couple of weeks, she'd be joining you, or something like that.*"

Shampoo gestured to the large body of water beside them. "*Ranma swam over to Japan.*"

He shrugged. "*Convenient... I needed to get there myself. I'll see you there, perhaps?*"

She made a vague gesture. "*Perhaps*"

With that, she started swimming. Ranma waited for her to leave, and then looked around to see if there
was anyone watching. He didn't see anyone, so he flew up high into the air and traveled at a modest speed
towards Japan. Why swim when you could fly?

****

Author's Note: Okay, I'm breaking here for now, I suppose. I also changed the prologue a bit.
Ranma was away for five years now, instead of the two or three I originally thought. And yes, the
amazons will be involved... and so will various other parties. And no, it hasn't been five years back
home. And as for 'who's Darine?'... well, you'll find out. deus_ex_mach42@hotmail.com