A SMARTALECK PRODUCTION
Heaven and Earth - A story of the dark side of honor, a love lost, a
soul consuming hate and thirst for revenge.
By Arun
arun2110@sancharnet.in
arundude1@yahoo.com
Prologue - revised version # 2
Completed on 04/14/2002
Disclaimer:
Ranma 1/2 is the property of Rumiko Takahashi and Viz videos. Flame of
Recca is owned by whoever created the show. I certainly do not own any
of it. The characters I introduce are mine and you can use them if you
so wish.
Author's notes:
Well, what can I say? Would 'mommy' be enough? ^_^
Seriously, I thought that I was plagirizing from Don Granberry's work,
'Comes the Cold Dragon', in the older version of Heaven and Earth and I
did not want that. No self-respecting writer wants to copy from another
and I knew that I was insulting Mr. Don Granberry by copying ideas (in
a most blatant way) without his prior consent. So, I scrapped that
version (And I wasn't getting anywhere with that plot, damnit! ^_^),
and created a whole new plot. One filled with hate, love, you know, the
works.
This prologue is dark and parts of the story will be too. Hope you have
the stomach for the stuff that's gonna happen later on. And please send
me some C&C, I can't improve without it and it'd help me write so much
quicker. ^_^
***
The trees were a blur. Specks of green, yellow and brown rushed by in
the blink of an eye, interrupted by bright patches of fading sunlight
in between.
Truly, the sunset at the Bayankala Mountains was of
breathtaking beauty, but Xian Pu did not have the time, or the frame of
mind to enjoy it. She was fleeing for her life, her hunter, as yet,
unseen, hot at her heels in pursuit.
Her breath came in ragged gasps, sweat pouring from every
pore of her body. Her eyes were wide and dilated, and her face
splattered with little droplets of blood, contorted with fear and
apprehension.
She glanced back once in a while, trying to catch a glimpse
of him, or was it her, and failed yet again, which only made the fear
in the pits of her stomach gain in strength.
As she ran, the green leaves in the trees and the brown,
dry ones on the ground rustled on their own accord once in a while,
breaking the silence of early evening in the forest around her. The
sound of her monotonous breaths was regularly interrupted with cracks
as wood splintered under the hunter's feet, who remained silent at all
other times, making her think that the little sounds made by the errant
footsteps were a game on his, or her part, meant to increase her fear
and drive her to the edge, which it did.
Colliding against yet another branch, which tore her
already ragged and dirty clothes to an even greater extent, Xian Pu
looked back, once more, to catch a glimpse of her pursuer. And like so
many times before, she caught none, but this time there was a snicker
to her left, which brought her up short.
"Who is it?" Xian Pu asked coming to a standing halt, ready
to flee, or fight at a moment's notice. Her grip on her sword tightened
considerably, her eyes darting about the trees and her breath coming in
quick, shallow gasps.
A distorted voice, barely recognizable as human, replied.
"Hahahaha! How does it feel to be the hunted, Xian Pu? I
bet that all of your prey has felt the same way you feel right now!"
The voice was male and Xian Pu could not help, but feel
that she had heard it somewhere before.
"Who... Who are you?" she panted, fear gripping her heart
tighter in its vise-like grip.
"I'm vengeance reborn, I am death incarnate..."
Bam! A tree to her left exploded at its base, sending sharp
pieces of wood and bark into the air in a brilliant shower of white.
"Do..."
Bam! Another tree, this time directly behind her, fell.
"You..."
Bam!
"Remember..."
Bam!
"Me..."
Bam!
"Xian Pu..."
Bam!
"Of..."
Bam!
"The..."
Bam!
"Joketsuzoku..."
Bam!
"Amazons?" the voice said, dripping with utter contempt.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
Every tree within a thirty yard radius of Xian Pu was
destroyed now. She, herself, was on her back, a painfully sharp looking
strip of raw wood sticking out of her leg, just above her knee. She
crawled away from the voice, rivulets of blood flowing from a cut to
her upper lip, where an errant chip of wood had struck and from the
gash in her thigh. She knew that voice and once, she knew the man
behind it. No wonder all fifteen members of her patrol had fallen so
easily.
"Ranma..." she whispered, respect and overwhelming fear in
her voice.
The air directly in front of her shimmered and Ranma
appeared, looking nothing like the eighteen-year old, carefree teenager
of three years back. His red silk shirt had been replaced by a jet
black one in those three years, for better stealth and his shoulders
had broadened so that he was now, a true man among men in the looks
department. His facial features had become more clear cut and his eyes
were full of loathing, so unlike the caring, compassionate ones she
once knew. The pigtail was gone too, replaced by a shoulder length mane
of black hair, which flowed without hindrance from his head to rest on
his shoulders. He had a brace of wood from a very rare and very sought
after species of tree, which was particularly useful in storing and
focusing ki blasts on both his hands. An errant beam of light from the
setting sun fell on his right hand as the trees rustled gently in an
unfelt wind and reflected off a metal brace, which rested just under
the wooden one. The metal was white, highly polished and highly
reflective in the shape of a dragon of ages long gone. Ranma moved his
hand unconsciously and a stray beam of light fell on her eye, blinding
her just a little.
"Glad to see you remember me," he spat, contemptuously. "Do
you like my new look?"
Xian Pu did not reply, retreating even further from him. If
the brutality with which her patrol had been 'dealt with' was any
measure of the things to come, then she was in for a world of pain
followed by a merciless death separated from her family and friends. He
had plenty of reasons to harbor a murderous rage toward her and had
purposely let her live through the slaughter of her companions in the
squad.
Ranma took a step forward, a small, dark smile on his lips
and Xian Pu cringed, prompting a derisive snort from him.
"Really, Xian Pu, for all the purported virtues that an
Amazon has, you and yours lack a lot of them," he said, stopping and
staring into her face. "I let you live through that," he pointed the
thumb of his left hand behind him towards where the remains of her
patrol were scattered over a half mile area, "'cause I have something
in mind for you..."
Xian Pu gulped.
Ranma snorted, again.
"Relax, will ya," he said, reverting back to his old form
of speech. "I'm not going to kill you... yet... Tell the Matriarch,
your grandmother, that Ranma of the Hokage walks on this Earth once
more and that his heart craves the blood of those who destroyed his
life. Tell her that for the crimes that the Amazons and theirs
committed against the Clan Hokage, the School Matsubetsu Kakuto Ryuu
and its practitioners, the life of all Amazons, both male and female,
are forfeit. Tell her, there is no place on Earth where she can hide
from me. Tell her I'm coming for her," he said and vanished, leaving
the startled, scared out of her wits Amazon alone, breathing a little
more freely than before, now that the danger was gone, to ponder the
latest developments and what they meant for the tribe's future
survival.
Seconds ticked by and Xian Pu remained as she was, her eyes
staring at the space where Ranma had stood as her breathing slowly
returned to normal. Finally, sure that the danger was long gone, she
stood up painfully on her legs, balancing herself on her sword. Just as
she took her first step towards the village, Ranma's voice echoed
through the clearing, again.
"One more thing," it said. "Die!"
Silence.
*It was just a ruse! He was going to kill me all along,*
Shampoo thought, hopelessly eyeing the sprawling expanse of the forest
before her, intent on catching a glimpse of his face one last time. She
was not going to beg forgiveness, for such was not the way of her
people, but she would be able to see the only man she had ever loved
one more time.
A huge ball of ki, slightly larger in size than a
Volkswagen, formed in the air ahead of her and exploded outwards, in a
searing hot pulse of energy that destroyed everything for hundreds of
yards around. The heat was so intense that it literally boiled the
flesh off her body.
The thunderous boom and the blinding light faded as soon as
they had started, revealing a thirty yard wide crater at the epicenter
of the blast. The air at the very center of the crater shimmered once
and Ranma reappeared.
"One down, Akane!" he said aloud. And even though his voice
sounded weak, it was loud all the same. Nevertheless, it was lost
amidst the roar of the inferno created by his attack and fed by the
wood in the destroyed section of the forest.
***
Notes:
Hope you enjoyed the story.
A big thank you to my pre-reading team. They are certainly the best
there is. ^_^
jakub [jpilecki@poczta.onet.pl]
Kaz [kazblah945@aol.com]
Madcat [madcat08@hotmail.com]
Brain [bmccullough@nucles.com]
James Merritt [j.merritt1@home.com]
Philip Penty [plainswaker@hotmail.com]
Zero [shinzero@home.com]
Alexander Cheezem [cheezeA@CLEMSON.EDU]
Getzeye [Getzeye@idx.com.au]
Lance Smith [darkdragon2002@hotmail.com]
Peter Blundell [peterblundell@operamail.com]
Malikite [malikite3@aol.com]
The story can be found at Lady Cosmos, The Penultimate Ranma Fanfic
Index, My website [when I get around to updating it, which won't be
soon] and the FFML (I think!).
Heaven and Earth - A story of the dark side of honor, a love lost, a
soul consuming hate and thirst for revenge.
By Arun
arun2110@sancharnet.in
arundude1@yahoo.com
Prologue - revised version # 2
Completed on 04/14/2002
Disclaimer:
Ranma 1/2 is the property of Rumiko Takahashi and Viz videos. Flame of
Recca is owned by whoever created the show. I certainly do not own any
of it. The characters I introduce are mine and you can use them if you
so wish.
Author's notes:
Well, what can I say? Would 'mommy' be enough? ^_^
Seriously, I thought that I was plagirizing from Don Granberry's work,
'Comes the Cold Dragon', in the older version of Heaven and Earth and I
did not want that. No self-respecting writer wants to copy from another
and I knew that I was insulting Mr. Don Granberry by copying ideas (in
a most blatant way) without his prior consent. So, I scrapped that
version (And I wasn't getting anywhere with that plot, damnit! ^_^),
and created a whole new plot. One filled with hate, love, you know, the
works.
This prologue is dark and parts of the story will be too. Hope you have
the stomach for the stuff that's gonna happen later on. And please send
me some C&C, I can't improve without it and it'd help me write so much
quicker. ^_^
***
The trees were a blur. Specks of green, yellow and brown rushed by in
the blink of an eye, interrupted by bright patches of fading sunlight
in between.
Truly, the sunset at the Bayankala Mountains was of
breathtaking beauty, but Xian Pu did not have the time, or the frame of
mind to enjoy it. She was fleeing for her life, her hunter, as yet,
unseen, hot at her heels in pursuit.
Her breath came in ragged gasps, sweat pouring from every
pore of her body. Her eyes were wide and dilated, and her face
splattered with little droplets of blood, contorted with fear and
apprehension.
She glanced back once in a while, trying to catch a glimpse
of him, or was it her, and failed yet again, which only made the fear
in the pits of her stomach gain in strength.
As she ran, the green leaves in the trees and the brown,
dry ones on the ground rustled on their own accord once in a while,
breaking the silence of early evening in the forest around her. The
sound of her monotonous breaths was regularly interrupted with cracks
as wood splintered under the hunter's feet, who remained silent at all
other times, making her think that the little sounds made by the errant
footsteps were a game on his, or her part, meant to increase her fear
and drive her to the edge, which it did.
Colliding against yet another branch, which tore her
already ragged and dirty clothes to an even greater extent, Xian Pu
looked back, once more, to catch a glimpse of her pursuer. And like so
many times before, she caught none, but this time there was a snicker
to her left, which brought her up short.
"Who is it?" Xian Pu asked coming to a standing halt, ready
to flee, or fight at a moment's notice. Her grip on her sword tightened
considerably, her eyes darting about the trees and her breath coming in
quick, shallow gasps.
A distorted voice, barely recognizable as human, replied.
"Hahahaha! How does it feel to be the hunted, Xian Pu? I
bet that all of your prey has felt the same way you feel right now!"
The voice was male and Xian Pu could not help, but feel
that she had heard it somewhere before.
"Who... Who are you?" she panted, fear gripping her heart
tighter in its vise-like grip.
"I'm vengeance reborn, I am death incarnate..."
Bam! A tree to her left exploded at its base, sending sharp
pieces of wood and bark into the air in a brilliant shower of white.
"Do..."
Bam! Another tree, this time directly behind her, fell.
"You..."
Bam!
"Remember..."
Bam!
"Me..."
Bam!
"Xian Pu..."
Bam!
"Of..."
Bam!
"The..."
Bam!
"Joketsuzoku..."
Bam!
"Amazons?" the voice said, dripping with utter contempt.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
Every tree within a thirty yard radius of Xian Pu was
destroyed now. She, herself, was on her back, a painfully sharp looking
strip of raw wood sticking out of her leg, just above her knee. She
crawled away from the voice, rivulets of blood flowing from a cut to
her upper lip, where an errant chip of wood had struck and from the
gash in her thigh. She knew that voice and once, she knew the man
behind it. No wonder all fifteen members of her patrol had fallen so
easily.
"Ranma..." she whispered, respect and overwhelming fear in
her voice.
The air directly in front of her shimmered and Ranma
appeared, looking nothing like the eighteen-year old, carefree teenager
of three years back. His red silk shirt had been replaced by a jet
black one in those three years, for better stealth and his shoulders
had broadened so that he was now, a true man among men in the looks
department. His facial features had become more clear cut and his eyes
were full of loathing, so unlike the caring, compassionate ones she
once knew. The pigtail was gone too, replaced by a shoulder length mane
of black hair, which flowed without hindrance from his head to rest on
his shoulders. He had a brace of wood from a very rare and very sought
after species of tree, which was particularly useful in storing and
focusing ki blasts on both his hands. An errant beam of light from the
setting sun fell on his right hand as the trees rustled gently in an
unfelt wind and reflected off a metal brace, which rested just under
the wooden one. The metal was white, highly polished and highly
reflective in the shape of a dragon of ages long gone. Ranma moved his
hand unconsciously and a stray beam of light fell on her eye, blinding
her just a little.
"Glad to see you remember me," he spat, contemptuously. "Do
you like my new look?"
Xian Pu did not reply, retreating even further from him. If
the brutality with which her patrol had been 'dealt with' was any
measure of the things to come, then she was in for a world of pain
followed by a merciless death separated from her family and friends. He
had plenty of reasons to harbor a murderous rage toward her and had
purposely let her live through the slaughter of her companions in the
squad.
Ranma took a step forward, a small, dark smile on his lips
and Xian Pu cringed, prompting a derisive snort from him.
"Really, Xian Pu, for all the purported virtues that an
Amazon has, you and yours lack a lot of them," he said, stopping and
staring into her face. "I let you live through that," he pointed the
thumb of his left hand behind him towards where the remains of her
patrol were scattered over a half mile area, "'cause I have something
in mind for you..."
Xian Pu gulped.
Ranma snorted, again.
"Relax, will ya," he said, reverting back to his old form
of speech. "I'm not going to kill you... yet... Tell the Matriarch,
your grandmother, that Ranma of the Hokage walks on this Earth once
more and that his heart craves the blood of those who destroyed his
life. Tell her that for the crimes that the Amazons and theirs
committed against the Clan Hokage, the School Matsubetsu Kakuto Ryuu
and its practitioners, the life of all Amazons, both male and female,
are forfeit. Tell her, there is no place on Earth where she can hide
from me. Tell her I'm coming for her," he said and vanished, leaving
the startled, scared out of her wits Amazon alone, breathing a little
more freely than before, now that the danger was gone, to ponder the
latest developments and what they meant for the tribe's future
survival.
Seconds ticked by and Xian Pu remained as she was, her eyes
staring at the space where Ranma had stood as her breathing slowly
returned to normal. Finally, sure that the danger was long gone, she
stood up painfully on her legs, balancing herself on her sword. Just as
she took her first step towards the village, Ranma's voice echoed
through the clearing, again.
"One more thing," it said. "Die!"
Silence.
*It was just a ruse! He was going to kill me all along,*
Shampoo thought, hopelessly eyeing the sprawling expanse of the forest
before her, intent on catching a glimpse of his face one last time. She
was not going to beg forgiveness, for such was not the way of her
people, but she would be able to see the only man she had ever loved
one more time.
A huge ball of ki, slightly larger in size than a
Volkswagen, formed in the air ahead of her and exploded outwards, in a
searing hot pulse of energy that destroyed everything for hundreds of
yards around. The heat was so intense that it literally boiled the
flesh off her body.
The thunderous boom and the blinding light faded as soon as
they had started, revealing a thirty yard wide crater at the epicenter
of the blast. The air at the very center of the crater shimmered once
and Ranma reappeared.
"One down, Akane!" he said aloud. And even though his voice
sounded weak, it was loud all the same. Nevertheless, it was lost
amidst the roar of the inferno created by his attack and fed by the
wood in the destroyed section of the forest.
***
Notes:
Hope you enjoyed the story.
A big thank you to my pre-reading team. They are certainly the best
there is. ^_^
jakub [jpilecki@poczta.onet.pl]
Kaz [kazblah945@aol.com]
Madcat [madcat08@hotmail.com]
Brain [bmccullough@nucles.com]
James Merritt [j.merritt1@home.com]
Philip Penty [plainswaker@hotmail.com]
Zero [shinzero@home.com]
Alexander Cheezem [cheezeA@CLEMSON.EDU]
Getzeye [Getzeye@idx.com.au]
Lance Smith [darkdragon2002@hotmail.com]
Peter Blundell [peterblundell@operamail.com]
Malikite [malikite3@aol.com]
The story can be found at Lady Cosmos, The Penultimate Ranma Fanfic
Index, My website [when I get around to updating it, which won't be
soon] and the FFML (I think!).