Spatial Blizzards Chapter 1
Comic book crossover with Ranma 1/2
by Naquiel
Disclaimer - Ranma, X-men Evolution, Marvel Entertainment and DC Comics don't belong to me so please don't sue. And I will be rehashing it quite extensively. Similar to what has been currently going on with 'Greater Power' except with mutants and meta-humans and not Mages and magicians. Please not that I will be drawing from all that I know, and then adding bits in. please, avid DC and Marvel fans, I mean no offence by my manipulations of the original plots, characters, etc.
Comic series I'm going to rip off - Justice League of America, Witchblade, Tomb Raider, Fathom, and X-men: Evolution (Not a comic, but what the Hell!).
With the JLA it is when everybody's there and introduced, and Brainiac 13's been dealt with. With Witchblade, Tomb Raider and Fathom, it's set right at the end of 'Child of Two Worlds', a crossover between all three. And with X-men: Evolution, it's at any point after all the students are introduced.
~~~~#~~~~
Chapter 1
Superman, aka, Clark Kent, woke up suddenly in his bedroom, in the Fortress of Solitude. He had remained there since coming back from another mission with the JLA. Normally he wouldn't have been so tired as to go to the fortress, but recently, he had been having oddly disturbing dreams. Dreams of being a small boy tortured by a cruel and greedy father, made to go into hell, for the sake of a lie.
It was quite different from his normal dreams. He found the nightmares very disconcerting.
He got up from his bed, feeling strangely tired, and got dressed at his super-quick pace. He combed his hair carefully in front of his bathroom mirror.
The young boy, he thought, reminded him of someone, he just couldn't put his finger on it! Well, perhaps. The boy reminded him a little of Superboy, brash but with good good-intentions.
He walked silently and remarkably slowly for someone with super speed, to the Tele-porter.
In a few moments after entering the cylindrical tube, he reappeared in the JLA headquarters. He entered from the tube and made his way determinedly to Batman's rooms.
Batman, aka Bruce Wayne, was busy, taking notes, on the recent activities of certain criminal elements of Gotham and the world.
He noted that Poison Ivy had ceased all of her activities and seemed to be going to ground. Already, Penguin and Joker had divvied up her territory. And made it part of, their own territories. There was still a number of turf wars as Joker and Penguin defined the borders of their territories.
He also noted a reappearance by Two-face, who managed to build up a small power base in one of Joker's, less strongly controlled, territories.
He continued studying his data, until he heard a knock at his door.
"Enter."
Superman, in his red and blue garb, complete with red cape, entered into the room, heading straight for Batman. He gave a friendly smile at the impassive black and grey suited man.
"Hi. I was wondering, have you been having really weird dreams?" asked Superman, oddly serious, well, more serious than normal.
"No. Why do you ask?" asked Batman.
"Well, over the last few days, I've been having these really powerful nightmares. I'm not the kind that normally gets any nightmares, and there was this overpowering sense of awareness in it. I think they aren't natural! I think somebody, or something may be sending these nightmares to me!"
"Well," asked Batman curiously. "Tell me about them."
Ranma shivered silently, his body only protected from the cold by his worn blanket and scanty bandages, that barely covered any of his wounds. He was in pain that was the agonising reality to him.
Pain, discomfort and hardship, Pops had told him, that these things were to be the path that he would have to follow in order to become the best martial artist in the world. But, Pops never followed his own teachings, eating everything in sight, even so far as to steal food from his son, and abused his son, beating him up every morning.
A casual observer would do two things, realise how much of a sack of £$%* Genma Saotome was; and grab the nearest blunt, sharp or otherwise, object, chase after Genma and beat him soundly with said object.
Ranma sighed, wincing at the pain from his bruised ribs and strained muscles. He turned over, grabbing his single, threadbare blanket and stared at the early morning sky.
The previous night, another session of the Nekoken had left him drained of will, of emotion, of hope and blood. Genma just fished him out after a few hours, what felt like eternity, and throw him towards the direction of his blanket.
He stared, tiredly, at the fading stars and the crimson dawn that was spreading a cloak of red light over the sky. He focused on a cloud riding in the high winds. He focused until he could see it in almost perfect detail.
Inside the mass of water vapour was a force of, a so beautiful, nature. It was gentle, kind, loving, it was there! It was the comfort that followed him everywhere except in that god-awful pit.
He needed help; he needed love. He needed what a child his age shouldn't need to ask for!
He felt the gentle warmth of the sunlight, from the dawn, touching his cheek. It was golden, powerful, a nurturer and killer. Like so much of nature. He loved every facet of nature, it's unique ability to kill and create, it's kindness coupled by innate cruelty. He loved it, loved it like he could have loved his long-dead mother.
He needed someone who understood how alone he felt, how angry and sad. He needed someone who realised the most tender and secretive parts of him, parts that wouldn't show for fear of them being broken by his father's gluttony, or cruelty or hatred.
He felt a few blades of grass poke his back lightly as they went past the moth-eaten patches in his blanket, and into his cocoon. He breathed the scent of some wild flowers that grew in the clearing. His chest; was consumed, by a rain, of Sakura blossoms.
Despite his pain, he had never once felt so close to nature. He then heard something, which shattered that tranquillity.
His father was rousing, and by some odd quirk of fate, the cats in the pit yowled fiercely. A cry of pain: and fear. A scream, showing their desire to escape their own Hell.
His heart became shrouded as he though about those poor cats. They were dragged from their homes, pets and strays alike, taken from their personnel safety, and family, and brought to be the denizens in a sadistic hell-like pit.
Drawn by instinct, he reached out first to the sky, and it's clouds, a silent shout; an unheard scream, for help, for love, for comfort, for peace, for all the things he needed and was denied.
He felt something crumble. Something giving way under the power of his silent scream, and he let some soft sobs flow.
Storm woke up suddenly, another dream still playing itself in her mind. She was on an examination table in the X-men complex underneath the school. Other X-men were around her: Jean Grey, Scott, Spike, Charles Xavier, and Kit.
She put her hand over he mouth and unashamedly wept in an unusual extreme emotion display. Her nephew sat on the bed next to her and hugged her reassuringly. Kit mirrored Spike and hugged her from the other side.
Jean, Scott and the professor looked concerned at the now calm Storm. The professor was the first to speak.
"Storm, what happened to you. Spike informed me, that you suddenly fainted, outside your room after a close encounter, with his skateboard." Spike had the decency to look ashamed.
Storm took a moment to compose herself: "He is calling us in our dreams!"
"Who, Aunt M?" asked Spike.
"I don't know exactly..."
"Is it Magneto?" asked Scott impatiently, only to be given a reprimanding look from the professor.
"No, no-one we have met. He's a boy, young, oriental, in pain. He's calling us and he doesn't even know he's doing it!"
"Who else is he calling Oroo?" asked the Professor gently.
"For people connected to nature or elements that he can connect with. I'm one; I only got a vague mental vision of the others. I am one, of course, one gets his power from the sun, another is connected to plants and the last one is connected to his co-victims, cats."
"What do you mean?" asked Jean, following the Professors example and used a gentle tone.
"He's in danger, and pain. I can't remember everything but I do know that we need to help him. I can remember that he is being tortured by an evil man!"
"Evil?" asked Scott with a raised eyebrow.
"The child sees him as an evil man, his father. He has already made the child go through a thousand and one tortures in the name of the art! They are travelling martial artists." Storm paused and tried to collect her disorderly memories. She sighed deeply. "If you could have lived his life like I have, you would understand, how much he is in pain, mentally, emotionally, physically. We need to help him!"
The professor spoke up. "Why did you faint as you did, if he was communicating in your dreams?"
Storm looked the professor in the eye, "He's dying, Professor. Slowly, very slowly, but it's happening, and he isn't aware of it. What caused me to faint was the fact that hid despair became so great that he screamed, so loud that my mind couldn't take it. He focused it to me, a desperate plea for help! Professor, he's bleeding inside. He won't last more than a night or, perhaps, two!"
Superboy rubbed his head and smiled. "Surely you can hit harder than that?" he asked Croc-killer, a mutation of human and crocodile. Only a few seconds ago, Croc-killer tried to detached Superboy's head from his shoulders with a strong tail sweep. Needless to say, it wasn't too effective.
"Could we get this done?" asked Impulse impatiently.
"Yeah, yeah. Hold your horses!" replied Superboy absently as he dodged a huge claw club of a hand.
Robin (the third) looked at Superboy's fight and shook his head at Superboy's irresponsible fighting. He could see that Croc-killer was only still sanding because Superboy wasn't applying himself to the task at hand.
He and Impulse left Superboy to his fight with Croc-killer, with Wonder Girl left behind in case he needed help. They made their was from the side of the large warehouse where the fight was taking place, to a group of huddled figure, would-be victims of the Croc-killer.
The group had been herded there individually by the Croc-killer, who plainly wanted them for a gruesome snack.
The two young superheroes worked their way through the group checking for injuries and getting the scared men and women to run towards the exit and to safety. All but a few people, who were in to great, a state of shock to snap out of it just yet.
Robin and Impulse had their backs to Superboy as he came towards them.
"Hey, guys. You shoulda saw how far that Croc can fly when I use my Tactile Telekinesis to... throw... him... Hey, are you guys listening?" asked the irritated Superboy.
"Well, this is a surprising sight!" stated Robin as he looked at two huddled figures in the crowd of severely traumatised people. One had red hair and wore a skimpy green dress, and the other wore a black leather outfit, a kin of that of a cat's fur, complete with pointy ears and lithe form. "Poison Ivy and Catwoman!"
Superboy looked over Robin's shoulder at the two women, huddled in a foetal position, each with their eyes closed and whispering something just lower than they could hear. "Wonder what happened to them?"
Impulse sped at his normal speed towards the two women and noticed their lack of reaction, despite the sound and passing air they must have sensed. He moved so his ears were very close to their almost-silently mouths, to hear their whisperings.
When he moved away, he looked deeply troubled.
Robin broke the ice, "What are they whispering?"
"Well, I only listened for a while, but they were singing a rhyme or a song. I don't recognise it myself. Maybe you do!" Impulse began to recite the whispered phrase without any prompting. "'Within the flower there lies a seed; Within the seed there springs a tree; Within the tree there spreads a wood;' Yadda, yadda!" Impulse trailed off and waved his hand, uncaring. "Do ya know it?"
Robin and Superboy looked at each other, then at Impulse and shrugged.
Ranma whispered his favourite poem. The Spell of Creation, by Kathleen Raine, written in 1907. A poem that was within, in a secreted book that he was given by a sensei of one of the many dojos he had visited.
"Within the flower there lies a seed."
He whispered as his father took a small corpse from his shovel and dumped it, contemptuously, into a small dimple in the earth.
"Within the seed there springs a tree."
He didn't know Ranma was awake and could see him do the gruesome task of disposing of the cat's body.
"Within the tree there spreads a wood."
Ranma doubted he would have cared anyway. He never cared about Ranma as a person, as a boy, only as a weapon, a tool, and his legacy.
"In the wood there burns a fire."
The only reason he was dealing with the corpse was because it had been accidentally brought up with Ranma, and Genma found the corpse so disgusting that he thought it might carry a disease.
"And in the fire there melts a stone." He wouldn't normally have cared; however, he didn't want too many of the cats to die before he 'trained' in son in the Nekoken. He found a few dead cats to be an acceptable loss, especially when they weren't his.
"Within the stone, a ring of iron." He didn't seem to care that once, that dead cat could have been a little girl's beloved pet, or a lonely elderly woman's only companion.
"Within the ring there lie and O." He didn't seem to care that the cat could have lived in the happiest of homes, or a home where it's presence was required to keep a sense of balance between two frustrated parents.
"Within the O, there looks an eye." He didn't seem to care if he had taken the cat from it's mate and litter, or it's group of fellow felines, that were pining, perhaps dying, because of it's disappearance.
"In the eye there swims a sea." He didn't seem to care that the cat may have had a girl for an owner. A girl that could be crying, sobbing with the loss of her beloved kitten. A girl that, for all he knew, could have committed suicide because of it, or lose those close to her, or become so depressed that she couldn't live like a normal person without therapy.
"And in the sea reflected sky." Ranma felt nothing but pure compassion for the cats, all of them. The ones who cut him, he forgave, the ones who attacked him, he forgave, and the ones that killed their brethren in their panic and fear, he forgave and pitied.
"And in the sky there shines the sun." Genma had finished with his task and was lumbering towards his comfortable pallet. Ranma turned in his 'bed', bring his back towards the corpse.
"Within the sun a bird of gold." He continued, whispering it slowly to himself. Ranma noticed something, off. Some odd sensation, that drew him to turn over.
"Within the bird there beats a heart." Ranma got up, letting his threadbare blanket drop to the ground. He walked slowly towards the shallow grave, secure that his father was asleep, because of the loud snores coming from him.
"And from the heart there flows a song." He reached the shallow grave, both himself and the grave consumed by a ray of moonlight. He went down do his knees and looked down at the barely concealed body.
"And in that song there sings a word." He leaned back, closed his eyes, his hands on the ground just behind him, his shins and feet flush to the ground. He continued his recital, but followed an odd compulsion, and thought about the corpse, changing.
"In the word there speaks a world." He thought of the individual bones of the cat returning to normal. His awareness bloomed. The shattered pieces, of skull realigning, and fractured bones flowing back together.
"A word of joy, a world of grief." He thought of the nerves of the corpse, realigning, regenerating, and connecting back into the delicate network of nerves that they were originally.
"From joy and grief there springs my love." He thought of the tiny organs within the cat's rib cage, regenerating and flowing into place. Intestines weaving in and out, kidneys settling themselves, lungs expanding and contracting, with a regenerated diaphragm.
"Oh love, my love, there springs a world." He thought of the brain, the soft pieces of matter and tissue coming back together, regenerating the lost pieces. He thought of little electrical currents dancing from him to the brain of the cat, reanimating it's mind, yet keeping it suppressed until he was done.
"And on the world there shines a sun." He thought of the delicate face, the tiny hairs on it, and visualised the facial features reappearing. The cartilage flowing and hardening, the tissue and muscle linking together bones and allowing flexible joints.
"And in the sun there burns a fire." He thought of the effect spreading along the lithe, lean form, muscles and sinew purging themselves of impurities and becoming fresh tissue, un-ravaged by decay.
"Within the fire consumes my heart." He visualised the cat wrapped in a coat of skin, moulding itself to the body's frame perfectly. He thought of the hair that would grow from that skin, and he thought show silky soft it would be, how golden brown.
"And in my heart there beats a bird." He visualised the animal's claws and tail, both bone and flesh growing back. The tail being first of bony vertebrae then wrapped it a growing wave of muscle, and then of skin.
"And in the bird, there wakes an eye." He paused and frowned. He thought about a spark of life appearing in the once-corpse, in his mind. But could not, instead he thought of a spark of his own life force, going from him to it. Then he released the mental lock-down on the cat's mind.
He stopped reciting the poem and opened his eyes and looked down. To his surprise, yet not, the corpse was replaced: by a soiled golden brown cat. The cat in question was shaking dirt of his back legs and attempting to lick itself clean.
Ranma reached down and petted the unresisting cat. The domesticated feline purred, and leaned into his hand. He turned and looked fearfully at the mound of worthless flesh; that called itself his 'father' and then back to the small cat.
He picked up the cat and walked silently with his bare feet stepping lightly of the grass and soft earth, towards the trees.
As he and the kitten disappeared into the shadow of the grove he whispered the final verse to the poem.
"Within the eye, earth, sea and sky."
Under the Xavier mansion, a lady named Storm woke from another dream.
"Earth, sky and sea within the O."
In his bedroom in the fortress of solitude, Superman also awoke.
"Lie, like the seed within the flower."
In the JLA headquarters, Catwoman and Poison Ivy awoke from their trance.
Comic book crossover with Ranma 1/2
by Naquiel
Disclaimer - Ranma, X-men Evolution, Marvel Entertainment and DC Comics don't belong to me so please don't sue. And I will be rehashing it quite extensively. Similar to what has been currently going on with 'Greater Power' except with mutants and meta-humans and not Mages and magicians. Please not that I will be drawing from all that I know, and then adding bits in. please, avid DC and Marvel fans, I mean no offence by my manipulations of the original plots, characters, etc.
Comic series I'm going to rip off - Justice League of America, Witchblade, Tomb Raider, Fathom, and X-men: Evolution (Not a comic, but what the Hell!).
With the JLA it is when everybody's there and introduced, and Brainiac 13's been dealt with. With Witchblade, Tomb Raider and Fathom, it's set right at the end of 'Child of Two Worlds', a crossover between all three. And with X-men: Evolution, it's at any point after all the students are introduced.
~~~~#~~~~
Chapter 1
Superman, aka, Clark Kent, woke up suddenly in his bedroom, in the Fortress of Solitude. He had remained there since coming back from another mission with the JLA. Normally he wouldn't have been so tired as to go to the fortress, but recently, he had been having oddly disturbing dreams. Dreams of being a small boy tortured by a cruel and greedy father, made to go into hell, for the sake of a lie.
It was quite different from his normal dreams. He found the nightmares very disconcerting.
He got up from his bed, feeling strangely tired, and got dressed at his super-quick pace. He combed his hair carefully in front of his bathroom mirror.
The young boy, he thought, reminded him of someone, he just couldn't put his finger on it! Well, perhaps. The boy reminded him a little of Superboy, brash but with good good-intentions.
He walked silently and remarkably slowly for someone with super speed, to the Tele-porter.
In a few moments after entering the cylindrical tube, he reappeared in the JLA headquarters. He entered from the tube and made his way determinedly to Batman's rooms.
Batman, aka Bruce Wayne, was busy, taking notes, on the recent activities of certain criminal elements of Gotham and the world.
He noted that Poison Ivy had ceased all of her activities and seemed to be going to ground. Already, Penguin and Joker had divvied up her territory. And made it part of, their own territories. There was still a number of turf wars as Joker and Penguin defined the borders of their territories.
He also noted a reappearance by Two-face, who managed to build up a small power base in one of Joker's, less strongly controlled, territories.
He continued studying his data, until he heard a knock at his door.
"Enter."
Superman, in his red and blue garb, complete with red cape, entered into the room, heading straight for Batman. He gave a friendly smile at the impassive black and grey suited man.
"Hi. I was wondering, have you been having really weird dreams?" asked Superman, oddly serious, well, more serious than normal.
"No. Why do you ask?" asked Batman.
"Well, over the last few days, I've been having these really powerful nightmares. I'm not the kind that normally gets any nightmares, and there was this overpowering sense of awareness in it. I think they aren't natural! I think somebody, or something may be sending these nightmares to me!"
"Well," asked Batman curiously. "Tell me about them."
Ranma shivered silently, his body only protected from the cold by his worn blanket and scanty bandages, that barely covered any of his wounds. He was in pain that was the agonising reality to him.
Pain, discomfort and hardship, Pops had told him, that these things were to be the path that he would have to follow in order to become the best martial artist in the world. But, Pops never followed his own teachings, eating everything in sight, even so far as to steal food from his son, and abused his son, beating him up every morning.
A casual observer would do two things, realise how much of a sack of £$%* Genma Saotome was; and grab the nearest blunt, sharp or otherwise, object, chase after Genma and beat him soundly with said object.
Ranma sighed, wincing at the pain from his bruised ribs and strained muscles. He turned over, grabbing his single, threadbare blanket and stared at the early morning sky.
The previous night, another session of the Nekoken had left him drained of will, of emotion, of hope and blood. Genma just fished him out after a few hours, what felt like eternity, and throw him towards the direction of his blanket.
He stared, tiredly, at the fading stars and the crimson dawn that was spreading a cloak of red light over the sky. He focused on a cloud riding in the high winds. He focused until he could see it in almost perfect detail.
Inside the mass of water vapour was a force of, a so beautiful, nature. It was gentle, kind, loving, it was there! It was the comfort that followed him everywhere except in that god-awful pit.
He needed help; he needed love. He needed what a child his age shouldn't need to ask for!
He felt the gentle warmth of the sunlight, from the dawn, touching his cheek. It was golden, powerful, a nurturer and killer. Like so much of nature. He loved every facet of nature, it's unique ability to kill and create, it's kindness coupled by innate cruelty. He loved it, loved it like he could have loved his long-dead mother.
He needed someone who understood how alone he felt, how angry and sad. He needed someone who realised the most tender and secretive parts of him, parts that wouldn't show for fear of them being broken by his father's gluttony, or cruelty or hatred.
He felt a few blades of grass poke his back lightly as they went past the moth-eaten patches in his blanket, and into his cocoon. He breathed the scent of some wild flowers that grew in the clearing. His chest; was consumed, by a rain, of Sakura blossoms.
Despite his pain, he had never once felt so close to nature. He then heard something, which shattered that tranquillity.
His father was rousing, and by some odd quirk of fate, the cats in the pit yowled fiercely. A cry of pain: and fear. A scream, showing their desire to escape their own Hell.
His heart became shrouded as he though about those poor cats. They were dragged from their homes, pets and strays alike, taken from their personnel safety, and family, and brought to be the denizens in a sadistic hell-like pit.
Drawn by instinct, he reached out first to the sky, and it's clouds, a silent shout; an unheard scream, for help, for love, for comfort, for peace, for all the things he needed and was denied.
He felt something crumble. Something giving way under the power of his silent scream, and he let some soft sobs flow.
Storm woke up suddenly, another dream still playing itself in her mind. She was on an examination table in the X-men complex underneath the school. Other X-men were around her: Jean Grey, Scott, Spike, Charles Xavier, and Kit.
She put her hand over he mouth and unashamedly wept in an unusual extreme emotion display. Her nephew sat on the bed next to her and hugged her reassuringly. Kit mirrored Spike and hugged her from the other side.
Jean, Scott and the professor looked concerned at the now calm Storm. The professor was the first to speak.
"Storm, what happened to you. Spike informed me, that you suddenly fainted, outside your room after a close encounter, with his skateboard." Spike had the decency to look ashamed.
Storm took a moment to compose herself: "He is calling us in our dreams!"
"Who, Aunt M?" asked Spike.
"I don't know exactly..."
"Is it Magneto?" asked Scott impatiently, only to be given a reprimanding look from the professor.
"No, no-one we have met. He's a boy, young, oriental, in pain. He's calling us and he doesn't even know he's doing it!"
"Who else is he calling Oroo?" asked the Professor gently.
"For people connected to nature or elements that he can connect with. I'm one; I only got a vague mental vision of the others. I am one, of course, one gets his power from the sun, another is connected to plants and the last one is connected to his co-victims, cats."
"What do you mean?" asked Jean, following the Professors example and used a gentle tone.
"He's in danger, and pain. I can't remember everything but I do know that we need to help him. I can remember that he is being tortured by an evil man!"
"Evil?" asked Scott with a raised eyebrow.
"The child sees him as an evil man, his father. He has already made the child go through a thousand and one tortures in the name of the art! They are travelling martial artists." Storm paused and tried to collect her disorderly memories. She sighed deeply. "If you could have lived his life like I have, you would understand, how much he is in pain, mentally, emotionally, physically. We need to help him!"
The professor spoke up. "Why did you faint as you did, if he was communicating in your dreams?"
Storm looked the professor in the eye, "He's dying, Professor. Slowly, very slowly, but it's happening, and he isn't aware of it. What caused me to faint was the fact that hid despair became so great that he screamed, so loud that my mind couldn't take it. He focused it to me, a desperate plea for help! Professor, he's bleeding inside. He won't last more than a night or, perhaps, two!"
Superboy rubbed his head and smiled. "Surely you can hit harder than that?" he asked Croc-killer, a mutation of human and crocodile. Only a few seconds ago, Croc-killer tried to detached Superboy's head from his shoulders with a strong tail sweep. Needless to say, it wasn't too effective.
"Could we get this done?" asked Impulse impatiently.
"Yeah, yeah. Hold your horses!" replied Superboy absently as he dodged a huge claw club of a hand.
Robin (the third) looked at Superboy's fight and shook his head at Superboy's irresponsible fighting. He could see that Croc-killer was only still sanding because Superboy wasn't applying himself to the task at hand.
He and Impulse left Superboy to his fight with Croc-killer, with Wonder Girl left behind in case he needed help. They made their was from the side of the large warehouse where the fight was taking place, to a group of huddled figure, would-be victims of the Croc-killer.
The group had been herded there individually by the Croc-killer, who plainly wanted them for a gruesome snack.
The two young superheroes worked their way through the group checking for injuries and getting the scared men and women to run towards the exit and to safety. All but a few people, who were in to great, a state of shock to snap out of it just yet.
Robin and Impulse had their backs to Superboy as he came towards them.
"Hey, guys. You shoulda saw how far that Croc can fly when I use my Tactile Telekinesis to... throw... him... Hey, are you guys listening?" asked the irritated Superboy.
"Well, this is a surprising sight!" stated Robin as he looked at two huddled figures in the crowd of severely traumatised people. One had red hair and wore a skimpy green dress, and the other wore a black leather outfit, a kin of that of a cat's fur, complete with pointy ears and lithe form. "Poison Ivy and Catwoman!"
Superboy looked over Robin's shoulder at the two women, huddled in a foetal position, each with their eyes closed and whispering something just lower than they could hear. "Wonder what happened to them?"
Impulse sped at his normal speed towards the two women and noticed their lack of reaction, despite the sound and passing air they must have sensed. He moved so his ears were very close to their almost-silently mouths, to hear their whisperings.
When he moved away, he looked deeply troubled.
Robin broke the ice, "What are they whispering?"
"Well, I only listened for a while, but they were singing a rhyme or a song. I don't recognise it myself. Maybe you do!" Impulse began to recite the whispered phrase without any prompting. "'Within the flower there lies a seed; Within the seed there springs a tree; Within the tree there spreads a wood;' Yadda, yadda!" Impulse trailed off and waved his hand, uncaring. "Do ya know it?"
Robin and Superboy looked at each other, then at Impulse and shrugged.
Ranma whispered his favourite poem. The Spell of Creation, by Kathleen Raine, written in 1907. A poem that was within, in a secreted book that he was given by a sensei of one of the many dojos he had visited.
"Within the flower there lies a seed."
He whispered as his father took a small corpse from his shovel and dumped it, contemptuously, into a small dimple in the earth.
"Within the seed there springs a tree."
He didn't know Ranma was awake and could see him do the gruesome task of disposing of the cat's body.
"Within the tree there spreads a wood."
Ranma doubted he would have cared anyway. He never cared about Ranma as a person, as a boy, only as a weapon, a tool, and his legacy.
"In the wood there burns a fire."
The only reason he was dealing with the corpse was because it had been accidentally brought up with Ranma, and Genma found the corpse so disgusting that he thought it might carry a disease.
"And in the fire there melts a stone." He wouldn't normally have cared; however, he didn't want too many of the cats to die before he 'trained' in son in the Nekoken. He found a few dead cats to be an acceptable loss, especially when they weren't his.
"Within the stone, a ring of iron." He didn't seem to care that once, that dead cat could have been a little girl's beloved pet, or a lonely elderly woman's only companion.
"Within the ring there lie and O." He didn't seem to care that the cat could have lived in the happiest of homes, or a home where it's presence was required to keep a sense of balance between two frustrated parents.
"Within the O, there looks an eye." He didn't seem to care if he had taken the cat from it's mate and litter, or it's group of fellow felines, that were pining, perhaps dying, because of it's disappearance.
"In the eye there swims a sea." He didn't seem to care that the cat may have had a girl for an owner. A girl that could be crying, sobbing with the loss of her beloved kitten. A girl that, for all he knew, could have committed suicide because of it, or lose those close to her, or become so depressed that she couldn't live like a normal person without therapy.
"And in the sea reflected sky." Ranma felt nothing but pure compassion for the cats, all of them. The ones who cut him, he forgave, the ones who attacked him, he forgave, and the ones that killed their brethren in their panic and fear, he forgave and pitied.
"And in the sky there shines the sun." Genma had finished with his task and was lumbering towards his comfortable pallet. Ranma turned in his 'bed', bring his back towards the corpse.
"Within the sun a bird of gold." He continued, whispering it slowly to himself. Ranma noticed something, off. Some odd sensation, that drew him to turn over.
"Within the bird there beats a heart." Ranma got up, letting his threadbare blanket drop to the ground. He walked slowly towards the shallow grave, secure that his father was asleep, because of the loud snores coming from him.
"And from the heart there flows a song." He reached the shallow grave, both himself and the grave consumed by a ray of moonlight. He went down do his knees and looked down at the barely concealed body.
"And in that song there sings a word." He leaned back, closed his eyes, his hands on the ground just behind him, his shins and feet flush to the ground. He continued his recital, but followed an odd compulsion, and thought about the corpse, changing.
"In the word there speaks a world." He thought of the individual bones of the cat returning to normal. His awareness bloomed. The shattered pieces, of skull realigning, and fractured bones flowing back together.
"A word of joy, a world of grief." He thought of the nerves of the corpse, realigning, regenerating, and connecting back into the delicate network of nerves that they were originally.
"From joy and grief there springs my love." He thought of the tiny organs within the cat's rib cage, regenerating and flowing into place. Intestines weaving in and out, kidneys settling themselves, lungs expanding and contracting, with a regenerated diaphragm.
"Oh love, my love, there springs a world." He thought of the brain, the soft pieces of matter and tissue coming back together, regenerating the lost pieces. He thought of little electrical currents dancing from him to the brain of the cat, reanimating it's mind, yet keeping it suppressed until he was done.
"And on the world there shines a sun." He thought of the delicate face, the tiny hairs on it, and visualised the facial features reappearing. The cartilage flowing and hardening, the tissue and muscle linking together bones and allowing flexible joints.
"And in the sun there burns a fire." He thought of the effect spreading along the lithe, lean form, muscles and sinew purging themselves of impurities and becoming fresh tissue, un-ravaged by decay.
"Within the fire consumes my heart." He visualised the cat wrapped in a coat of skin, moulding itself to the body's frame perfectly. He thought of the hair that would grow from that skin, and he thought show silky soft it would be, how golden brown.
"And in my heart there beats a bird." He visualised the animal's claws and tail, both bone and flesh growing back. The tail being first of bony vertebrae then wrapped it a growing wave of muscle, and then of skin.
"And in the bird, there wakes an eye." He paused and frowned. He thought about a spark of life appearing in the once-corpse, in his mind. But could not, instead he thought of a spark of his own life force, going from him to it. Then he released the mental lock-down on the cat's mind.
He stopped reciting the poem and opened his eyes and looked down. To his surprise, yet not, the corpse was replaced: by a soiled golden brown cat. The cat in question was shaking dirt of his back legs and attempting to lick itself clean.
Ranma reached down and petted the unresisting cat. The domesticated feline purred, and leaned into his hand. He turned and looked fearfully at the mound of worthless flesh; that called itself his 'father' and then back to the small cat.
He picked up the cat and walked silently with his bare feet stepping lightly of the grass and soft earth, towards the trees.
As he and the kitten disappeared into the shadow of the grove he whispered the final verse to the poem.
"Within the eye, earth, sea and sky."
Under the Xavier mansion, a lady named Storm woke from another dream.
"Earth, sky and sea within the O."
In his bedroom in the fortress of solitude, Superman also awoke.
"Lie, like the seed within the flower."
In the JLA headquarters, Catwoman and Poison Ivy awoke from their trance.
