Ranma 1/2: The Sister

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, they are owned by
rich and powerful corporations who could squish me like a bug should
they so choose.

Chapter 6: It's snowing in hell.

Nerima Park: Under a Bridge.

Ranma was crying, and she couldn't stop. All the stress of the
last few months, coupled with the events earlier this morning had
destroyed all the mental barriers she had erected over the years. And so
she cried. She cried for everything that had happened, but also for
everything that she knew had happened but she couldn't stop.
"What have I become? I can't stand it anymore. Maybe if I leave
things will get better."
"That's a cowards way out."
Ranma raiser her head to stare at the young girl leaning against
one of the bridge supports.
"Who are you?"
"Does it matter? You look like you could use a friendly ear."
Ranma took a moment to consider her offer and examine this
'friendly' stranger. The long white hair reminder her of Koh-Lon but
the sheer amount of peace radiating off her was more like Kasumi after
bringing on chocolate. The long dress was a bit odd but after the last
year Ranma couldn't care less what another person dressed like.
"Take a seat, this could take a while."


Tendo Household:

It was only with the greatest feat of will that Setsuna stopped
herself from firing off a 'dead scream' at the groggy Akane. Nodaka was
appalled at Akane's behavior, after all she always seemed like such a
nice girl, and here she was insulting a total stranger she hadn't even
met.
"Akane! Apologize to her."

Akane blinked at Nodaka when Setsuan noticed that her eyes
weren't quite tracking, and they seemed a little unfocused.
"It's alright Miss Satomne, people with concussions often don't
mean what they say." Akane glared at Setsuna.
"Are you saying there's something wrong with me?" Akane began
glowing. "I'm the best martial artist in all of Nerima, there's NOTHING
wrong with me."

Inside Setsuna's head there was a little mental entry added to
Akane's name, delusional. Along with arrogant, sadistic, spoiled and
possible psychotic. Setsuna was well on her way to disliking the person
who had inflicted so much pain on her sister.


Under the Bridge:

"And that's pretty much what happened."
"That's quite a lot to happen to one so young, most Gods have
not experienced that which you have." The Mysterious Lady
smiled kindly at Ranma, amazed at what the young person before her had
endured.
"I just wish I knew why all this stuff happened to me!"
"Wish approved." Was the last thing Ranma heard as blackness
reached out to embrace her.



1200 ASM (After the founding of the Silver Millenium)

Ranko was pissed, really and truly pissed. She had been tacking
a string of murders for nearly two weeks without any results and
it was starting to get on her nerves. She knew she should have
left the matter in the hands of the local guard units but something
about the murders just wouldn't let her rest.
Currently Ranko was in a bar, it was a rather nice bar but it
was still a bar. Along one side was a rather large counter and behind
it was Jill. Jill was the bartender and owner of the place entitled
appropriately enough "Jill's Place" Jill was also a old friend of
Ranko,
but more than that, she was a fellow red head, a hair color that was
truly rare in the queendom.
"Hey Jill have you heard anything unusual lately?"
Jill looked at her friend, the last two weeks had been hard on
the small red head and Jill hoped that she might have good news for her
friend. "No I haven't heard anything about the murders Ranko."
Ranko seemed to slump in her seat, several times in the last two
weeks she had asked the same question and had been given the same
answer.
"Why don't you leave it to the guards Ranko. I highly doubt that
its a matter the concerns the Great Sailor Senshi."

Three Days Later.

"I really wish Jill had been right." Ranko muttered as she
tested her bonds for what seemed like the twentieth time. It had turned
out that the murders were part of a ritual to bind a entity of chaos
to the temporal plane preventing it from continuing to influence the
universe as it should.
The murders had been the result of failed bindings. The cult
behind it had decided that a Senshi would make the perfect host.
Ranko had been drugged and kidnapped once sleeping draught had taken
effect. Now she was tied to an makeshift alter, unable to escape.
"Now what?" Ranko regretted her statement as soon as she had
made it, saying such things was like spitting in the face of the
universe.
"Now we bind chaos inside your mortal form so it can no longer
cause havoc in the universe." Ranko glanced to her left, slightly
startled that someone had managed to sneak up on her. Standing not
three feet away from her was the high priest of the cult, going purely
by the amount of decoration on his robe.
"The other will come for me."
"Their efforts will be in vain, in a few minutes all will be
complete and chaos will be forever bound to this plane."
"You will not succeed." Ranko snarled.
"We shall see."
With that the high priest turned to regard about five other
priests who had entered while the two of them had been talking.
"Brothers, we shall begin the ceremony."

It lasted for what seemed like hours. The ceremony mostly
consisted of the required chanting and spell shaping. Towards the end a
cloud of shifting colors began to form and swirl around the alter.
Ranko could feel space beginning to warp around her, just as her sister
could feel and manipulate time she could feel and manipulate space. The
priests began to chant louder, the high priest began to counter chant,
forming an oddly musical harmony with the others. The cloud' swirling
became faster and faster, Ranko could literally see space folding in on
itself, it was beginning to make her physically ill.
The chanting began to reach a furious rate, the Head Priest
began gesturing in wild arch and the cloud began to settle on Ranko.
At first it was hardly noticeable, only a slight tingle running the
length
of her skin. Soon it became agony, Ranko could feel her skin freezing
and boiling without pattern or reason. In some places she thought it
felt like being caressed by a lover in other she felt long claws pierce
her flesh. Throughout it all she refused to scream, she would survive
this and avenge the girls who had been murdered.
Just as the chanting reacher a fever pitch there was a loud boom
and the Head Priest looked down to see a rather large hole in his chest.
He looked up in time to see Jill, having entered while everyone s'
attention was elsewhere pump another shell into the chamber of her
shotgun.
"Suck my boom stick!"
The ceremony quickly ended as priests ran for their (meager)
lives.

An Hour Later.

After having dealt with the priests and the city guard both red
heads were relaxing back at the bar.
"So Jill, where did you get the shotgun?" Ranko was nursing a
rather large glass of very old scotch. Normally she didn't drink but
right now she felt like it.
"Well Ranko I wasn't always a bartender you know. So what did
those guys do to you anyway."
Ranko was silent for a while as she thought back to the events
of only a few hours ago.
"I'm not really sure Jill, I'm going to have to go talk to the
Queen and try to find out."
"Perhaps you should stop by Mercury first, you wouldn't want to
trouble the Queen with something that could be nothing."

Mercury: Two weeks later.

To say that Ranko was pissed would be putting it mildly. The
normal time for a trip to Mercury was about one week. Her trip had been
extended by two weeks cause of several unconnected freak accidents. As
a result the ship she had been traveling on had run out of regular food
and everyone had to fall back to emergency rations. Reconstatuited Gagh
was one of the least edible foods in existence and of course that was
the only thing the ship had. To make matters worse the water
recrimination system had broken down on the seventh day, meaning there
were no showers.
Now hungry tired and dirty Ranko was being harassed by a customs agent
who thought the sun shone out of his arse.
"Look, I don't care if some new regulations were passed, get the
hell out of my way."
"Listen miss I don't care for you attitude one bit, now if
you'll please step into the next room we can begin the cavity search."
For Ranko this was the last straw, the merest flicker of
thought wrapped her in her 'working' clothes and she leveled a fist
crackling with energy at the customs officer.
"Would you care to repeat that?"
The customs officer, having never dealt with any of the Senshi
before regarded the outlandish outfit Ranko now wore and wondered how
much she cost for the night. Regreatably he uttered this out loud.
The resulting explosion took out three quarters of the building.

An hour later.

After having dug herself out of the ruins of the customs house,
Ranko had marched straight into the Mercurian palace. The palace
guard, having more experience with the Senshi decided that it would not
due to interfere with the obviously angry warrior of Pluto.
This helped facilitate matters when Ranko asked for directions
to the palaces library, the one place you could almost be guaranteed to
find the Mercurian princess. True to form Ami, crown princess of
mercury was indeed in the library. The problem was that the library was
rather large and had turned into something of a maze over the centuries.
Ranko was a little too angry to search the whole place for so
she decided to take a short cut. Leaping on top of the book cases she
took a deep breath before bellowing.
"Ami! Where are you!?!?"
"Ranko?!?" Ami voice answered from one of the farther portions
of the library.
"Should have known she was in that section."

Three long leaps later Ranko touched down in a small cul-de-sac
in what had been deemed the 'Venus' section. Ami was sitting at a
rather comfortable reading desk and seemed a bit flushed.
"Wha, what are you doing here Ranko?"
"Sorry if I'm interrupting your studies but I needed to consult
with you." Ranko's knowing grin revealed that she knew just what kind
of 'studies' the mercurian princess was involved in.
"Please sit and tell me what is so important that you had to
seek me out in person."
Complying with Ami's requests Ranko spent the next hour
recounting the events of the past month. When she was finished Ami
possessed a small glint in her eye.
"So you came here to find out if anything was wrong?"
"Yes."
"So why come to me? There are plenty of doctors and scientists
on Mercury."
"Your the best scientist on Mercury and the only one I trust."
"Well then, shall we go? The sooner we begin the sooner we can
resolve this."

The tests took several hours to complete, and Ranko's temper and
foul mood had begun to reappear as the hours wore on. Finally after
every conceivable test had been preformed Ami appeared with the results.
"From what I can tell your fine physically, mentally,
emotionally, but..."
"But?" Ranko could tell that she wasn't going to like what was
coming next.
"It's rather hard to describe, our bests guesses is that your
beginning to warp probability."
Ranko did a double blink.
"Can you repeat that in english?"
"The odds of an event occurring in your presence are beginning
to
be bent. For example the odds of all those little problems happening on
board that ship at the same time are so huge that it would be useless to
try and calculate them."
"So what your saying is that more and more weird things are
going to happen around me?"
"It's worse. It seems that the higher the odds of something
happening, the more likely it will happen in your presence."
"Is there anyway to stop it?"
"No, like it or not Ranko your cursed."


Modern Day: ten minutes later.

Ranko stared up at the bridge supports, she now knew why all
these things seemed to happen.
"A curse, why did it have to be a curse?"


To Be Continued

Authors notes: Sorry for taking so long to finish this one, writers
block and depression make for slow writing.
Three points go to anyone who get the Gagh reference.