Winged Entropy Chapter 1
Gundam Wing crossover with Ranma 1/2
by Naquiel

Disclaimer - Ranma and Gundam Wing don't belong to me so please don't sue.

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Chapter 1

Ranma woke up tired and aching. He stood up unsteadily, his centre of balance was out of place. His knees shook as he remembered, again, all that happened. He shed a few tears of loss.
He looked down and noticed that somehow, someway, he was now a five-year-old child. He was ready to snap with all of what had happened to him. A few more tears leaked out.
Hey, Saotome, chin up. I've gotta be strong, don't I. Ranma thought, admonishing himself. He paused and looked around.
All around him was ice, just ice. A lot of it was black with scorch marks and cracked.
He looked up and saw that the cave that he was in, was in fact an almost completely vertical crater. He gauged the distance and decreed it a possible jump. He crouched down and tensed his body. He pushed off with his legs straining and his will focused. His Chi enhancing his physical power.
He was unsurprised that he reached the lid of the crater, but was very surprised when he left it behind. He flew much further upwards than he should have, it was like being punted by Akane, he though with not a little pain at the loss of that period of his life.
With his up-high view, he could see that his cold prison was in the heart of a large volcano like structure, made entirely of ice, right next to Phionex Mountain. It was difficult to see as a lot of the ice had been covered in earth and grass. It was amazing in and of itself that a mountain of ice could exist for a decade or so, thought Ranma.
He saw the surrounding grassland, even Jusenkyo in the distance. The Musk citadel, which he should be able to see, was no where in sight. He also couldn't see anything of an Amazonian nature either. He would have assumed that the Phionex people would have built a memorial for their God. Here were many questions, and Ranma wanted answers. Like, how could he jump so high?
He spotted his landing spot. He had to be careful that he didn't slip on a patch of hidden ice or black ice, otherwise he could sprain an ankle!
He took a few more moments to scout the surrounding area, and plotted a path to the Phionex Mountain, perhaps he would get answers there.

Ranma was in front of the gateway to the mountain.
Odd, there are no guards, he thought. He walked along the rock tunnel, his steps resounding lightly along the tunnel. He felt cold, only an acknowledging cold, instead of the overwhelming cold he was subjected to previously. He felt that a chilly breeze was coming from along a tunnel to his right, he followed the light gust.
He walked along, still finding no resistance as he danced along, doing a kata suspiciously like a prance. He listened and heard no noises, except from some wildlife that had set up home in the tunnel: birds and some small mammals.
He followed the gust, past three forking paths, past thirteen, or so, doorways. He followed it faithfully, believing it to lead him to the answers he was seeking, needed.
Finally he discovered the source of the breeze, coming from an open doorway that opened into a large library.
Most of one whole wall had collapsed outwards, the reason for the wind. The hole overlooked the ice-volcano and from it Ranma could see how high the icy mountain was. It appeared to be only slightly smaller that Phionex Mountain itself, by a few hundred feet, or so.
It was amazing such a thing could exist. But, for now Ranma had better things to do than gawk at the natural or unnatural phenomenon.
He rummaged through the library, finding text on interesting martial artistries that he put aside for some light reading, eventually finding what he was looking for. A, very thick, leather bound diary.
The librarian, he deduced, would be the most likely person to have jotted down acurate details of the last momnets of the Phionex people, if they were truly extinct, and not merely no longer in the mountain.
He took the large book, with no strain, to a table. He flicked the pages, surprisingly crispy for a relatively recent design. He found an entry for the day of the fight:

Our imperial Lord and Majesty, Saffron, the God of the Phionex, has fell in his 358th generation.
He fought bravely against a landling, known as Saotome Ranma. A week hence, Our Lord demanded a map to the heart of Jusenkyo. As a sideeffect of this decree, a landling known as Tendo Akane was taken as a prisinor at Our Lords lesiure. The landling Saotome Ranma came and fought with Our Lord, interupting his metamorphasis into his adult form. After a long and grueling battle, the foul landling defeated our noble and righteous King with an underhanded magical attack.
Whoever and Whatever Saotome Ranma was, does not matter nearly as much as the fact, due to the nature of the attack, Our Lord Saffron, was incapable of regenerating or ressurecting, and therefore fell in the same moment, and due to Our Lords demise, we too are damned.
We are researching, hoping for some posssible way to resurrect Our Lord or to replace his function of temprature regulation for the mountain.
We can only hope that there is a way.

Ranma found another entry a page or so afterward that caught his eye:

We belive we may have found a way.
It is dangerous and uncertain but it is possible. We are working in conjunction with both the Musk and the Amazon, to create a weather shield around Jusenkyo and our territories. It involves a sustained Chi field...

Ranma gasped. They couldn't have been that stupid or ignorant of the concequences, could they have been?
Ranma knew more about sustained Chi fields than he would ever desire to. In order to make a sutained Chi field: five Rune Weapons are required in conjunction with a Rune ring. As he had discovered from one excentric sensei of his, Rune magic was ancient and dangerous, and was strictly forbidden to be used, even by the most meddling of wizards.
Rune magic always required an exceptional soul to use and create. It was because of this that humans rarely created them, as they would damn a soul to an eternal bonding with an indestructible metallic object. Few mages had the lack of a conscience to do such a thing. Rune magic also was very chaotic, involving the desires of the soul and the wielder. It was exceptionally dangerous to use Rune magic. Either they didn't know that or they had something that made them feel they had nothing to worry about!

...Utilising the magical properties of five Rune weapons and a final Rune juncture, a ring. Although normally, the Rune-orientated magicks are difficult, chaotic and hard to control, as well as the difficulty in finding an adequate soul for each weapon needed. We believe we have found a loophole in this.
The foul landling defeated a God; therefore, he must have an exceptional soul. We have decided unnamously to use the soul of the one who damned us by killing Our Lord. We will see if we can use only his one soul for the weather-shield.
We discovered many things long forgotton about Rune magick. Such as, it is possible to cut a soul into pieces that would regenerate on their own within a Rune weapon, but we don't have time for something that would take that long. So we decided something slightly different, to take some of his latent spiritual energies and place them within the weapon. We hoped to create induvidual personalities in each weapon, but despite the original being in an eternal sleep within Dragon Mountain...

So that's what they called it. So original, he scoffed and continued.

... Each weapon has developed an induvidual, interconnected conciousness, identical to the original, and desires for the original to be released. Even if we could, we wouldn't. The weapons are adamant, but we have had to igonore them. Winter is soon approaching, and we must setup the sustained Chi field.
The weapons are our only hope. We have no choice.

Ranma felt a pang of sympathy for them all, the Phionex that he forced into this situation, and the Rune-items that they created.
He went on to another entry.

Wre have everything in preperation. The Rune weapons are in a circle around our territories, the ring has been imprinted with all of the weather manipulation commands. We are almost done, almost ready.
If this fails we will lose our only remaining hope and the Phionex will fall, just as Our Lord did, to the cold and the ice.

Ranma frowned, would he help the Phionex under similar circumstances. Yes, well, probably. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He began to read the next entry.

The Rune Weapons do not work. We tried everything, but to no avail. The Ring's imprints were perfect, the craftsmanship flawless, all of the magical elements in perfect balance.
There has been a mountain-wide cry for the devices to be destroyed before they gain indestructability. They say this because they have been dissappointed and have lost all hope.
Tomorrow, we shall take the items and destroy the magical connection; that, bind the shared soul.

That was the last entry.
Ranma thought, what could have happened. Then thought it over, his rune-self was in danger, and it desired to free its original, himself, but couldn't.
Ranma pondered. It was possible that they tried to destroy the weapons and they retaliated. In fact it was likely that there would be a very fatal response from the Rune weapons. How, he couldn guess, a very long and cold winter. Hence why Dragon Mountain gained size. But the weapons wanted him out, so why bury him further. Perhaps it believed it was the only option, perhaps it was a sideeffect of their destruction, or perhaps, the weapons did so deliberately, wanting to hide the Mountain from interlopers, while at the same time destoying all human life within the valley.
He could think about it all day, but in the end, he didn't know and he didn't need to know right now.
His stomach rumbled.