Mirror Account.

...

Chapter 3: Shit, meet Fan.

"You saw it, didn't you, Tank?" Morpheus was rapt as he stood at the helm of the Nebudchanezzar, his jackboot clicking rhythmically on the metal flooring in an effort to appease his nervousness.

"I saw the numbers, Morpheus. It's impossible." Tank was still staring at the monitors, not even looking up at the older man to see the expression that he knew was there. It was another One. "You're acting like you just saw a burning bush, or a stone spouting water, Morpheus."

Tank could hear the smile in Morpheus' voice. "No, Tank. It was just a girl." He abruptly stopped his tenuous rhythm, spun on his heel and turned towards the monitors and Tank. "How are Trin and Cypher doing?"

"They're almost there, Morpheus. The Oracle should be waiting."

The older man smiled again. "Yes, indeed."

Morpheus seated himself comfortably in the pilot's seat of the Nebudchanezzar and turned the autopilot off as he gunned the engines and headed for the source of the small blip that they had not picked up, somewhere on the easternmost of the continents.

***

Ranma stared at the blood that adorned her hands, not bothering to even touch the wet rag that Trinity had supplied her from seemingly nowhere as she sat in the back of the mysterious black Sedan and Cypher spoke to Trinity in hushed tones, assuming that she didn't hear him, acting as if she wasn't less than four feet away.

"Did you see that, Trin? Did you fucking see that?" She killed ten of them! She's incredible!"

"Calm down, Cy."

"But she killed them, Trin! Nobody's k-"

"Shut the hell up, Cy! She can hear you!"

Both woman and man turned to look back on Ranma as one as she stared at her hands, still covered in blood.

"Get your eyes back on the road." Ranma heard her voice cracking in grief, though she felt none. It was all an act in the end, wasn't it?

Cypher turned around but Trinity still kept her eyes on Ranma, staring daggers into her.

"They weren't human, you know."

Ranma looked up. "Like the guys that were chasing after you before, right?"

Trinity nodded.

"Well why is it so different." Ranma couldn't understand what wasn't human about those guys. They certainly looked it, and felt it as well. They had bones. She'd cracked every one of them.

Cypher snorted, not taking his eyes off the road.

"Take my word for it," Trinity's eyes bespoke sympathy. "You're about to find out more than you could ever want to know.

Unsatisfied, Ranma gave up the point for the moment, scrubbed the now-caked blood from her hands, and closed her eyes and took some much-needed rest as the car wound its way across Japan.

***

Ranma shifted uneasily, keeping his distance from Akane.

"How are you here?" He dared barely to even breathe as he forced the words out, wishing he had never turned the lights on, looking for his clothing, but not finding any.

The short-haired girl only looked at him confusedly, tears welling up in her big, blank eyes as the steam that her breath caused when impacting with the cold air of the room played down between her breasts, exciting Ranma, much to his own aggravation and embarrassment.

"We've been like these forever, haven't we, Ranma?" She got up, giving Ranma a full view of her body for the first time in years.

"Sit the hell down, Akane!" Ranma allowed some of his fury at the girl to show. She sat down with a little whimper, obediently following Ranma's order to the very letter. "You can't just barge back into my life like this. Especially not now! How the hell did you find me, anyway? I don't even know where I am!" He sat down on the bed, his back to Akane. She immediately put her arms around him as if by reflex and began kissing the back of his neck.

"Get the Hell off of me!" Ranma stood up abruptly, knocking Akane off of the bed, and the girl suddenly froze, not moving even a millimeter.

"Why do you push this away," A deep, familiar, grandmotherly voice queried from somewhere. "This is what you want, is it not? You loved her once."

"Cologne?" Ranma knew her tired old voice anywhere.

"No" An old, motherly woman stepped out of the bathroom. "I picked your brain, and chose a voice that was appropriate. Like you, I'm out of place here. You can call me the Oracle, for the time being."

"You did what?"

"I read your mind." The woman allowed herself a smile and pulled a chair that Ranma had not noticed before up to the bed. "That's not important, though. You're here because you're special. You're here because we can help each other."

"In other words, you want something from me." Ranma gave the woman a level stare, but could not seem to meet her gaze. There was something in her eyes that bespoke years beyond anything that Ranma could imagine.

The woman smiled obligingly. "It seems that it's time for you to go, and time for you to return. We shall speak later.

Akane resumed her motion and bore down on him as if on cue, kissing him savagely with a strength which he was unable to combat, and blackness came shortly after, followed by Glaring light. He was awake, released from the nightmare.

***

Tank pulled wickedly long needle out of the back of a gasping Ranma's neck, staring at the screens and trying to find out what happened. Finally, after seeing perfectly normal readings across the board, he gave up and asked Ranma.

"What do you mean 'what happened'?" Ranma was sitting up now, testing his slightly atrophied arms.

"Well...you didn't come out on a hard-line. You aren't dead. In the past, those two have been mutually exclusive. How'd you get out?"

"I just fell asleep. I passed out, I think." Ranma looked at Tank pensively. "Someone called The Oracle was talking to me. She seemed to know what was going on."

Tank's ragged face suddenly split into a grin. "Ah! She would, wouldn't she? You'd better head back down there. Morpheus'll be getting there any minute."

Ranma sighed and sat back down in the chair as Tank inserted the needle once more and the world pulled through that now-familiar inversion. When he 'awoke' in the bedroom, the Oracle was standing there, a curious half-smile on her face, but Akane was gone.

"Back so soon?" the woman said in a tone that told Ranma that she knew he'd be there. "That's good. Why don't you head down to the dojo for a while? This should be fun."

***

Ranma opened her eyes, feeling the car stop, and found herself outside the hotel that she had run to after meeting Trinity for the first time. "This is…"

"We're here." Trinity interrupted her, concise. "This is the Oracle's place in Japan."

As Ranma stepped out of the car, the sun caught her eyes and the wind blew, tickling her skin. That reminded her of something. She was stuck this way.

"I want my body back." She sighed as Trinity looked at her inquisitively. "Let's go. I wanna get this over with."

***

Ranma's heart leapt as he saw the familiar fiery hair blowing in the wind so far below from the window of the dojo.

"Cold water!" His voice came unintentionally as a sort of harsh general's bark. The oracle stood near him, unsurprised, holding a vase full of cold water. Ranma greedily snatched it out of her hands and dumped it over his head.

***

Trinity led the young girl to the front door of a pristinely clean hotel office and knocked gingerly. A young woman opened the door and smiled softly.

"The Oracle is still with you. She'll be with you in a minute." The amusement in her voice was plain.

"Huh?" The confusion on Ranma's face at the seemingly paradoxical speech of the woman was nothing short of comical.

"Articulate girl, aren't you? Wait a minute, ok-" A sudden earthquake rocked the hotel. "Never mind!" The woman laughed merrily. "She's done early." She beamed at Ranma and took her hand. "Come with me. There's somebody you should meet."

***

Ranma stood, soaked and male, and laughed more joyously than he had in as long as he could remember. He was still male! This had to be a dream! Leaving the Matrix must have cured his curse for good!

But who was the girl?

"She's here." The Oracle stood up and approached the door to the dojo as if in response to Ranma's own thoughts, which he no longer doubted was possible.

The Oracle slid the door aside to reveal a female version of Ranma, poised with her hand ready to knock on the door, a bemused look on her face. The look quickly dissolved into a piercing gaze of hatred as she made eye contact with Ranma.

"You!" The girl's voice was a snarl and her eyes bloodshot. "Give me my body back, you bastard!" She quickly took an offensive stance as her battle aura flared.

Ranma quickly turned to the Oracle to ask her to explain this, but found nothing.

He was going to have to fight for his life.

"I don't know who you are, or why you look like that." Ranma took a more defensive stance of his own, knowing that it would not matter in the least if this girl's aura was what it looked like. "But you'd better be able to back that up. I just got rid of that damned curse, and I'm not about to let you ruin this."

***

Trinity stood, watching the perimeter of the hotel, holding her cell phone at ready and waiting for the call that she knew would come, telling her to prepare the female Ranma for freedom, when Morpheus came up behind her and took her shoulder in his large, calloused hand.

"Where is she?"

It took Trinity a couple seconds to regain from the shock of being snuck up on as she pointed towards the hotel.

"Sorry for the scare. We found her, but something's odd.  The male's neurokinetics just shot up astronomically. Have you seen any agents or anything?"

Trinity shook her head, about to say that everything was quiet when the windows of one of the higher floors blew out, yielding two bodies, both hurtling towards the ground in slow motion, throwing punches at each other at blinding speeds, one in an ill-fitting dark suit, a female sporting a red pigtail, the girl, the other in Chinese clothing. It was Ranma, both Ranmas.

***

Onna-Ranma threw one, ten, a hundred punches at her seeming male counterpart as he blocked every one with an opposite fist. She kicked, and met the tip of his opposite foot. They fought seamlessly, neither one making a single strike, but both battering their hands and feet with parried and intercepted strikes. After what seemed like hours, the two of them hit the ground. Ranma looked around quickly to find a playing field where she could have the advantage, and spotted a swimming pool. She began a loping run for the pool and looked back to lead the male Ranma on, but he was on his way too, matching her step for step, and looking as confused as she felt.

"HALT!" The voice was deafening, and jarred both Ranmas out of their battle.

The old woman who they had both come to recognize as the Oracle stood next to the pool, staring at both of the drenched martial artists, and shook her head.

"I would let you two go on if I did not know what was going to happen. Now is not the time for this." She bent over the pool and took a female Ranma's hand, hauling her out of the pool with uncanny ease, and followed suit with the male Ranma.

"Ranko. Child..." The Oracle shook her head. "There is no Kaisui-Fuu, this time. There is no pill, no technique, and no pressure point. You are female. Face it."

The girl made a motion to leap at the male Ranma again. "This is all his fault!" Fortunately, an iron grip from the Oracle kept her from even moving.

"Go see Morpheus." The Oracle's voice, completely calm, heralded dire consequences if Onna-Ranma (No. Ranko, she told herself) did not do what she said. Thinking better of starting a fight with this woman, Ranko quickly made towards the figure of Morpheus with her usual loping run. Male Ranma made a move to follow but the Oracle stopped him.

"You don't hurt her, boy. Do you hear me? She is you, in every possible sense of the word. Put yourself in her shoes. She's got more of a hell than you or I can imagine sitting before her. You hurt her and you won't live long enough to regret it. Now go help her out." The Oracle smiled at Ranma as if he was a toddler who had just gotten sand in his eyes and patted him on the back. "You don't have much of an easy time coming yourself. Come back and see me together when she's situated."

Ranma nodded, only understanding what the Oracle was saying halfway, and ran after the red-headed girl, yelling out for Morpheus to get the rig set up to free Ranko.

***

Ranko, as she would have to call herself until she found a way out of this, watched the small bathroom mirror next to the ridiculous chair that Morpheus had her sitting in. Slowly, deliberately, her reflection winked and blew a kiss at her. She heard a chuckle somewhere behind one of the piles of equipment and the world inverted, allowing blackness to rain and pink goo to cover Ranko, head to toe.

Pink goo?

She looked around, having trouble focusing, and then felt something wholly unnatural in her mouth, pumping something into her stomach. She flailed madly, trying to yell, trying to fight it, and them something pulled.

Suddenly, she felt the pinpricks of a limb waking up and open air greeted her with a fire-water hello, burning her inside and out with a corrosive pain that almost made her lose consciousness. Something grabbed her neck, strangling her, and them she felt arms around her, holding her. A towel or blanket wrapped itself around her and she still felt the arms, strong and supporting, holding her. Finally, she felt the warmth of a bed under her, and allowed her mind to drift off to sleep. She couldn't handle this. What was going on?

***

Mouse kept his arms wrapped around the child even as he brought her to the bed and lay her down. This was the One? She was so frail! He watched all through the night, hours on end as she fitfully slept and sometimes even cried out.

"What are you dreaming of, eh?" He allowed himself one of his rare smiles.

Attuned ears picked his voice up as, almost simultaneously, Ranko woke up and Trinity walked into the room.

"It's a trip, eh?" Trinity looked at Ranko openly for the first time she could remember. "The guys never get how it feels." Ranko was sure that if she could see the woman clearly, she would have seen her wink.

A hand patted her arm, and then another.

"Sleep well. Mouse and I will be within hearing range if you need anything."

*********

Author's Note:

That was a short chapter, but I hope it will get longer.

C&C are wonderfulllll!

-Inu