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Prime Attitude
Chapter 01
Cory D. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(c) 2002
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Much to Ranma's shock, she was facing something she had never encountered before and had a hunch that there wasn't anyone she could turn to for help. She could feel herself floating in some kind of empty void, below her was what looked like a swirling vortex of bright blue energy. There were lightning like streamers of white and blue energy being flung out of it in every conceivable direction at once. They continued out until they vanished in the distance reaches of the odd space where she had found herself. There were so many that she couldn't have kept track of them even if she wanted to, some were big and easy to follow while others were small and barely noticeable even to her trained senses, going all over the place in strange zig zag patterns. Ranma was amazed to think she had reached this thing by going into a deep meditative trance and looking within herself, on the few occasions she'd done this there had been nothing like this. Where in the world had it come from?
Then the vortex of blue energy lashed out with a lightning bolt of bright blue energy that she had to dodge, but moving in this void of nothingness was difficult and she barely managed to twist herself out of the way. Then, to her horror, she realized that dodging may not have been a good idea as she suddenly lost control of what ever had been allowing her to hover over the vortex. It pulsed and another bolt of lightning lashed out to strike along her chest, back, and head in rapid succession. The pain was incredibly intense, but nothing compared to the pain she had felt during the transfer to this universe. It was enough to make her scream and the sound seemed to echo through out the void as she struggled against the energy coursing through her like a living thing.
Ranma struggled against the pain and just as she was starting to gain a bit of control over it she noticed that the lightning was reeling her in like a fish. By now it was to late to try anything to stop it and lets out a gasp as she is pulled into the vortex against her will. Like a roller coaster ride from hell, she was pulled through a long twisting tunnel that seemed to be surging with lightning as it twisted and writhed like a dying snake. She could feel the electricity as it flowed around her body, sparking and arching from her to the edges of the tunnel and back every few seconds. Then as suddenly as it started, it all stopped, all color, all sound, everything vanished as if had never been.
She found herself in the void again, but this was different than the other one, this was something she hadn't expected. There was this weird feeling all over her body and as she started to look around she noticed that there were stars flickering brightly all around her. She twisted around and noticed a bright red cloud floating through the sparkling void, reflecting the light from the stars all around her. It was a beautiful sight, one that took her a few seconds to recognize and even longer to accept. She was floating in deep space, how she had ended up here while searching her own mind was a mystery to her and should have been impossible.
"Hello Ranma Saotome."
Ranma twisted around and gaped at the small throne shaped asteroid floating nearby, she knew that it hadn't been there a few seconds ago when she was scanning the area. Sitting on the throne was a figure of indeterminate sex, he/she was covered in a shadow that kept her from seeing many details. It was leaning over from it's chair and seemed to be studying her. "Wha...?"
"No need to panic Ranma, I won't hurt you or attack you."
"Who are you?"
"I have no name, never really had a need for one over the long years of my existence."
"I need to call you something." Ranma insisted.
"Call me Aho then, it means 'blue' in your language."
Ranma smiled. "Aho it is, so what in the world is going on here?"
"You did something a little foolish and extremely brave, you dug so far into your soul that you managed to find the energy link that was given to you when you crossed the dimensional barrier. It wasn't expected that you would ever find it or if you did, it would be a couple decades down the road when you had learned to use this power with more skill."
"That blue vortex is giving me these new abilities McCoy told me about?"
Aho nodded. "Yes, its a link to a powerful source of energy that can do incredible things, the vortex is how your mind interpreted the link."
"Why was it given to me?" Ranma asked and crossed her arms.
"Chance mostly, it's an energy source that hadn't been used in eons and something no one from your dimension has ever touched."
"Take it back, my life is complicated enough as it is, this will just make things worse than ever."
Aho shook it's head. "I can't, once the link is established it is impossible to undue it. You formed the link yourself when you crossed over, it was an unconscious thing, but you did it nonetheless."
"Then send me home, I have a feeling you can do that, I don't want to be in this dimension. From what I've heard so far it's a horrible place to be, I have no family here, nothing to even call my own."
"Oh please Ranma, you have struggled against change for as long as you've lived, it's one of the few things Genma instilled in you. You are a well forged piece of metal Ranma, you won't just give up just because something has gotten a bit to hard to understand. We both know it, look at how long you struggled against your feelings for Akane, your hatred of your father, the fact that you can't find one tiny bit of love in your heart for your mother..."
"DO NOT BRING MY MOTHER INTO THIS!!!" Ranma screamed, she started glowing with a blue energy aura of static electricity.
"I am well aware of the truth Ranma, you need to stop lying to yourself and you know it too. I am now a part of you, I know your inner most feelings, you history, everything about you."
"I do love my mother!!"
"Believe what you will then, but you're only fooling yourself and causing more pain than there needs to be." Aho said coldly.
Ranma growled.
Aho's eyes narrowed and it sighed loudly as it came to a decision, it had hopped that Ranma would pull off a miracle, but it looked like it had been right all along. "You are here way too early Ranma, come back when you have better control of yourself and your abilities. I have looked at your destiny line and know that you will have a most interesting life from now on, go and forget the way back here until you find your true self. Your battle with Saffron will seem like
child's play once you mature into your full power. You will not remember how to get back here until you are powerful enough to get through a memory block I'm placing in your mind." With that said, it's eyes flashed a bright blue.
Ranma's eyes snapped open as she fell off the bed and hit her head on the floor, she shuddered as she recalled the level of power coming off that thing. To think that something like that even exists and it just sat there in all it's arrogance and lectured her on how good the future would be? What a load of bullshit, she rolled to her feet and looked around at the room's sparse surroundings and wondered if these people could have put her in odder looking room. That was when she realized that her eyesight had returned while she was meditating, at least something good had come out of that waste of time and true to the beings word she couldn't remember how to get back to where she was.
She looked around and found that she was in a lightly decorated room of some kind, the bed was typical American style with two thick mattresses, sheets, and a metal frame at the bottom, a simple gray carpet, wood paneling on the walls, a couple of odd looking pictures, and a silver metal like door with no handle at all. Looking it over she came across a small pad of some kind at the edge of the door frame and she walked over to give a closer look, there was a small window in the pad that had the word 'Locked' highlighted in green. Ranma wasn't all that good with devices like this but she did recognize them and knew how to bypass them somewhat easily. The old man was a thief after all and they had 'borrowed' a room from the large mansions upon occasion.
The door itself was like a half moon shaped closet door set into some tracks on the floor. She tried to grip the edge and pull it back into the wall even though the little window said the door was locked, but figured it was worth checking anyway. Deep down she knew that the thing was quite flimsy and good kick in the right place would get her out of the room in an instant. Then as she was considering doing just that she noticed a second door off to the right and slightly hidden down a short walkway. To her delight it led into the room's bathroom, with a grin she stepped inside and thought that this was a chance to finally get changed back into a guy. Then she recalled what she was wearing and gagged a little, though after looking in a nearby wall mirror she had to admit that it made her look good in this form fitting thing. This was all she had to wear as well, the main room didn't really have any extra clothes laying around and decked out in such a thing would draw way to much attention if she walked around in public, it was practically indecent. Akane would have slapped her silly for even thinking of wearing anything like this, though she had to concede that it would've been fun to get her to wear the thing.
Ranma shrugged and decided that turning back into a guy at the moment wouldn't be a good idea and pulled the jacket back on, at least it was some kind of covering and loads better than running around naked. She'd had enough of that when Mousse had challenged her to that first fight and slowly stripped her in front of the crowd with that stupid hook of his. Moving out of the bathroom she reached into a pocket and pulled out a set of green gloves and wondered how long they had been in the pocket. Tossing them on a nearby chair as she passed she didn't think she would be needing them for anything since all they did was lower her sense of touch. That was when the locked door opened and she turned to see who it was, she had to stare at the large blue furred thing in front of her, it had on a pair of glasses, shorts, and a lab coat. It stopped and smiled at her, showing a bunch of deadly looking teeth that looked like they could easily rend her flesh, luckily it had a tray of food in it's hands.
"How are you feeling Ranma?" McCoy asked, ignoring the look of curiosity that was written all over her face.
"Ah! Dr. McCoy! I nearly forgot that you looked like that." Ranma laughed nervously.
"Not a problem, I take a second and even a third glance to get used to."
"I'll say, give me a day or so and I'll adjust to this."
"How much of your eyesight has returned?"
"All of it."
Beast nodded and held up the tray. "I brought you some food, I wasn't sure what you like to eat for dinner, but since your Japanese we sent out for some food."
Ranma moved over to the tray and saw that it was a pretty typical Japanese fast food meal of rice, noodles, and a side dish of some kind. She grabbed the tray as her stomach growled. Grabbing the chopsticks she snapped them apart and breezed through the meal, slow for her, but way faster than what Beast had probably ever seen. "Mhis is fraet."
"How can you taste anything when you eat it that fast?"
"Gotta eat it fast or the old man will steal it." Ranma muttered as she finished off the meal, she considered licking the bowl clean, then did so.
Beast laughed. "We have some more if you want any?"
Ranma grinned. "Sure! I need to get out of this room anyway."
Beast moved over to the door and tapped in a quick code to open the door then led her out of the room and gave a quick tour of the level they were on, the lab area, library, landing bay, mess hall, and pointed out the Danger Room and it's huge main door. Ranma took it all in, not really commenting on anything, she could tell they were trying to hide something and didn't really care what it was. They obviously didn't really trust her and were going out of their way to make sure she didn't see anything really odd. So far she hadn't seen one window or door that would lead to an exit either, to her that meant she was underground or in an enclosed building of some kind. The food McCoy brought her had been good so she was willing to concede them a little leeway, but at the moment it seemed as if they were both trying to hide some secrets from each other.
Telling them about the person she had met while meditating was out of the question, it was none of their business and proving it was impossible. So she kept her thoughts to herself and followed along, the instant she saw a way out she would be out of here. So far they hadn't been treating her that bad, but they were keeping her from leaving and that was getting on her nerves, she wanted to find a way home as soon as possible. Blue boy here wasn't being all that obvious about it, but he was being careful not to tell her to much. These X-men had their secrets and they were taking steps to keep her from finding out what they were.
"Where does that door lead?" Ranma asked as the tour was winding down.
Beast turned to look. "That's the elevator that leads up to the main level, I can show you that later when you're feeling better. Right now I want to make sure your healing correctly, it was just a short time ago that you were nearly killed after all."
"I always heal fast." Ranma snorted.
"Maybe, but we also need to make sure you don't have a relapse of some kind. You just got your eyesight back as well, I still don't know how that happened so quickly, but we can check it out when you are ready for another examination after while."
"It was bound to happen eventually." Ranma said with a shrug, she didn't want to deal with an examination, but figured it would probably be a good idea.
There was a ding and Ranma turned to see a tall woman step out of the elevator, she had an outfit on that was nearly identical to the one she was wearing. The woman also had the same Ki signature she had detected earlier, the one that was slightly out of whack with her body, Ranma wasn't sure but there was a good possibility that someone had messed around with the way the girl's Ki worked. She also noticed that about the only thing on her whole body that wasn't covered in some way was her face, did the girl have some kind of thing about being touched? The girl was wearing a pair of gloves like the pair Ranma remembered tossing on the chair in her room earlier. This had to be the girl that had given her these funny clothes, she really tried not to glare at her to much.
"Well hello there, it's good to see ya up and about again. We were a bit worried about ya." Rogue said with a grin. "I'm Rogue."
The southern accent was pretty noticeable, but Ranma had heard a lot worse accents when ever a tourist tried to pronounce in Japanese. American tourists were always a laugh riot to listen to when they had no clue how to speak a language, talk slowly, loudly, and with authority and you can make yourself understood in any language, at least this seemed to be the universal rule. Ranma had seen it too many times to count, his old man was as guilty of that as any American, he still recalled the time he had tried to make that Chinese girl understand what he wanted. She had been agreeable at first, then he said something that set her off, this pissed off her family who were nearby. Ranma recalled being dragged out of that small village as his father ran for his life, the whole village had chased after them waving an assortment of weapons and screaming obscenities at them. *
"Thanks Rogue, I hope I get out of here pretty soon though, I don't like to be cooped up like this."
Rogue grinned. "Well you come with me, Beast here has always been over protective when he had a patient to take care of. I figure if you're good enough to walk around you're good enough to head up stairs and meet some of the others."
"Maybe a little, but Ranma was near death less than forty eight hours ago..." Beast started to complain.
Rogue waved him off. "Well she's standing here looking as good as new right now, so keeping her cooped up down here isn't really needed."
"But..." Beast started.
"Bugger off Beast, you worry to much." Rogue turned to Ranma. "Have you eaten yet?"
"Yeah, Beast here had the kitchen make up a pretty decent snack..."
"Excellent, then you have time to take a shower and put on some decent clothes and come up stairs and spend the night watching TV with the rest of us." Rogue declared and dragged a confused Ranma to the elevator.
"Um..." Beast tried to say again, then shrugged and headed of to his lab, if the girl was up stairs with the rest of the team then he had time to work on a few other things while she was busy. The blood sample he had taken from Ranma had turned up some pretty amazing things that he wanted to look at in greater detail anyway. Maybe a bit of extra work on that would turn up something of interest and then there was that curse of his/her's to think about, he had to see it in action to get better readings on it. Maybe he could find a cure for her...um, he would have to learn to call 'him' by the right gender as well. He kept picturing her completely naked in his arms while they were on the plane, 'she' had been 100% female. Those curves could not be faked.
"Oh my." Beast muttered and blushed under his blue fur.
**********
The elevator ride up to the main floor only took a few seconds and the doors opened to reveal a large room with couches and chairs all over the place. They moved out of this room and into a hallway that led to a different part of the house and Ranma realized that this place was huge. Even bigger with those levels below ground, she wondered just how large this place actually was and what everyone here did exactly. Ranma followed along behind Rogue until they wandered into the women's quarters on the other side of the mansion, the main entrance had to the hall had a large plaque over the door that this was no man's land. Ranma glanced at the sign but quickly decided that with her current form she didn't exactly qualify as a guy, but would have to tell Rogue about the curse eventually. A few minutes later they entered Rogue's room, this was the real thing, not the one she had been locked in down below.
As they walked Ranma noticed that Rogue hadn't made one comment about her curse, so figured that those two guys had kept their word about letting her tell everybody on the team. The dammed thing seemed to get her in so much trouble that sometimes it was hard to predict how things would go when she told someone about it. Some people didn't really care and took in stride, while others, namely Akane, used it against him to brand him as a monster that didn't fit her world view. There were days that he had wanted to strangle her just so that he wouldn't have to put up with her insults to his manhood anymore, but his family honor was at stake, the last shred of it in fact. He had earned his skill in the art through pain and blood and ten years of training with the old man. She was a gifted fighter, but would never reach his level with her current attitude, he refused to marry someone that treated him like that. Ranma figured all this crap with Akane had started because he kept the curse from her when they arrived at the Tendo's place.
These X-men were different though, they had experience with these kinds of things and if some of the things he had been able to piece together so far were to be believed, they had encountered things that even he found a little hard to believe. Still, he would take a chance, this girl was the one he had felt earlier as well and she was full of depression and sadness, broadcasting it out like a wave that he could feel at a hundred paces. It was of a similar type that he used to find Ryoga all the time, though this girl had nothing on the Lost Moron when it came to drowning one's life in pure depression.
"Here y'all go, just strip out of that thing and you can take a shower if'n ya like."
Shaking her head, Ranma sighed and turned to look at Rogue. "Rogue there is something I think I should tell you."
"What's that?"
"Um...I don't like to talk about it...to tell you the truth, I told the Doc and Xavier, but I doubt they've had a chance to tell the rest of you yet."
"Well don't beat about the bush, we need to get you cleaned up, so just spit it out." Rogue said.
"I guess you could call it one of my powers, though I call it my curse." Ranma muttered as she stepped over to the shower, started it up, and let the hot water heat up a bit.
"The professor said something about that, but didn't give any details, what was he talking about?" Rogue asked.
"Oh? Well it's a lot easier to show you than tell you. No one ever believes me until they've seen it work." Ranma said as she took off her jacket and fiddled with the odd suit until she figured out that it would stretch out enough to be taken off. Rogue didn't even blink as Ranma stripped it down to her waist and turned to turn the shower on.
"You sure you want me in here to see this?" Rogue asked a few seconds later as she showed the first signs of discomfort to Ranma's nakedness.
Ranma shrugged as she held her hand near the water and felt the heat coming off of it. "It won't matter in a moment. My curse is a shape shifting curse, I am normally male, but cold water changes me to female, hot water turns me back." Ranma said as she stepped under the spray of water, moving before Rogue could say anything, he grinned a bit sheepishly as her eyes tripled in size and she staggered back a few steps in shock. He had left the weird outfit hanging from his waist down so he wouldn't show off anything the girl would find offensive.
"Y-your, you...a man..." Rogue gasped.
Ranma nodded. "Yep, this is my true form. Male, and proud of it."
Stepping out of the shower Ranma guided the confused woman over to the bed and smiled at her as she all but fell down the instant the back of her knees touched it. He moved back to the bathroom with his 'arrogant walk' as Akane liked to call it, and shut the door. He could feel Rogue's eyes on his back for every inch of the way, Nabiki had done to the same thing when he wrapped a towel around himself and walked from the Tendo bathroom to his room every now and then. He'd never mentioned that he knew she was watching, just ignored her like he usually did so things didn't get any worse between them. Even Akane had commented more than once on his shamelessness at times, but he was comfortable with his male body so didn't really care if they liked to look or not.
Once he got the suit off completely, Ranma did a quick visual inspection of his body, he seemed to be the same as he had always been, though he was a bit sore here and there. Nothing seemed out of place so he figured that the increase in density that the Doc had mentioned wasn't that noticeable or wouldn't show up for a while yet. He was glad to be out of that suit though, he swore he hadn't stopped sweating since he put it on, he felt clammy and gross and had to smell ten worse. It reminded him of things that happened on the training trip and brought back far to many bad memories.
Visions of an ancient sewer in an unnamed city off the coast of China came to him as he stood there and let the water cascade around him. The sound of wolves and rats as they chased after him as he ran through that insane maze of darkness and hoped beyond hope that he would find the way out before he was caught. Ranma shook his head and blinked a bit of the water out of his eyes, and tried to will the horrid memories away. His memories have never been this 'real' before, it was as if he was there physically, he could recall every sound, smell, movement of that horrible run, with death just steps behind him nipping at his heels for days on end. His father had come upon this idea that the more he pushed his son the stronger he would be, survival of the fittest and all that crap. The city's sewer had been over run with animals and other dangers over the years, so there had only been one thing to do, toss in Ranma and meet him at the other end of the maze of crisscrossing sewer tunnels. The run had taken three weeks, far longer than the six hours his father had told him it would take and he had been on the run the whole time with wolves, gators, rats, and bugs out to kill him for food. He recalled shivering in fear as he hid in the small tunnels at night, the one's the wolves couldn't get into. Even to this day the sound of a wolf could send willies down his spine, a bug nibbling on a piece of him would wind up with a small Ki blast to relieve it of the burden of life, and he would go out of his way to avoid a gator unless he had no choice. Kodachi had no idea how close she had come to losing her pet gator Mr. Turtle that day.
He had survived though, but had to suffer a beating from the old man when he finally did get out, just for making him wait for so long. That had been the last of his traveling clothes and forced him to wander around in a Gi like the old man, that reminded him, he didn't like that suit he'd been wearing as a girl, even if it had made him look good. He needed something more to his tastes, he'd have to see what this place had available, or head into town to 'borrow' something? He shook his head and blanked his mind as he concentrated on getting cleaned up for the rest of his shower, then got out and dried off. Wrapping the towel around himself, he stepped out of the bathroom when he was done and moved into the bedroom where he'd left Rogue. He sensed someone else out in the main room as he stepped out of the bathroom, he spotted Xavier sitting in a kind of hovering chair beside the bed. That was when Ranma realized that the guy was crippled, he hadn't even thought about it before, but the strange hovering chair explained that odd noise he recalled from earlier when they first talked to each other. The guy was still trying to wrap his head in a layer of Ki too, he would probably have to do something about that.
"So this is what you look like in male form?" Xavier asked as Rogue gaped at him from the bed, this time because Ranma was naked under the towel.
Ranma nodded. "Yep, this is the real me. Where can I get some decent clothes, that body suit I was wearing as a girl won't work with me as a guy."
"Sure it will honey." Rogue said from the bed. "Several of the male members of the X-men wear a spandex uniform, even Wolverine and he's more macho than you are."
Ranma glared at her.
"Rogue..." Xavier said and glared at her.
"Sorry sir."
"The outfit might be a part of the uniform you wear as a member of this team, but I'm not a member, so I need something else." Ranma muttered.
"Quite so, but we've run into this problem before so I'll have some clothing made up for you down in the labs. Something you can wear in both forms, it will adjust to your altered sized and so forth, we just need to have you approve it. Put that spandex uniform back on, Rogue will show you how to loosen it once more and we can head down to the lab and have something made up for you."
Ranma didn't like it, but it was better than nothing and he already had some ideas about what he wanted, red and black silk danced in his head. He nodded as Rogue told him about a button on the belt buckle that would cause the spandex to expand a bit and allow him to put it back on. There was no way he was going to wear that thing as a guy, he would be too embarrassed, so he splashed a bit of cold water on his face and put the dumb thing back on. From there they headed back down to the lab with Xavier leading, they went into one of those rooms that the McCoy had avoided on the initial tour. It was a medium sized room with a large machine set against the back wall and curved around to a couple of computer stations along each of the side walls. The lights came on the instant the door opened and they crossed ther room to stand in front of one of the consoles near a small open booth. This was set in the center of the machine and seemed to be made out of glass of some sort, it had little glowing wires running through it.
"Is there anything you had in mind for clothing Ranma? I can make up just about anything with this? " Xavier asked as he typed on the keyboard a little.
"This is the machine that made the outfit you're wearing now." Rogue said. "I planned on using it at one time, but the colors green and black just didn't seem to fit me so I switched to this gold and green color for a uniform."
Ranma took that in and nodded, he thought about what he wanted for several seconds before deciding to go with what he knew. "This can make anything?"
"Almost anything clothing wise, I got it from an old friend of mine a few years back and it's been a life saver more than once, it saves us tons of money." Xavier explained as he ignored the strange look Rogue gave him when he said the word 'friend'.
"I need three things then, several sets of multi colored silk shirts and baggy black silk pants along the lines of what I was wearing when the Doc picked me up. Then I need a jacket of some kind, I like this one that Rogue loaned me, but it's far too constricting and wouldn't make it through a decent battle."
"Hey!" Rogue yelled.
"I get into lots of fights." Ranma explained.
Xavier laughed. "Ranma, that jacket is nearly indestructible. The only thing that could harm it is fire or a high level energy blast, it's pretty much immune to everything else, as mutants we have to take on threats that a normal human would never survive. Even that spandex is a kind of armor, though no where near as resilient as the jacket."
"Oh." Ranma muttered. "Well then give me a black leather jacket then."
"What else did you need?"
"Pants, shirts, and a coat, that about does it and if these things are as durable as you say then they will last me for some time."
"Make him up a uniform as well Professor, maybe as a parting gift or something." Rogue said with an evil grin.
"Sure, what would you like for a uniform Ranma." Xavier asked as he typed away on a computer and holographic display of various heroes popped up from a small circular area in the middle of the room, it showed some of the older X-men and other well known heroes in still pictures taken from a fight. They stayed up for a couple of seconds before vanishing and being replaced with a new hologram, Ranma watched and had to keep from laughing at several of the costumes. For some reason some of them reminded him of some of the different kinds of outfits Satsuki might have worn to hide himself from Kuno's wrath. There was one chick in purple that was wearing a bathing suit with butt floss and thigh high boots that Shampoo would have loved, then there was a few guys wearing that spandex stuff and looked like they were standing there in the nude with the suit panted on and seriously constipated, some girl in a yellow trench coat and...shorts seemed to be the most normal costume he noticed and even that was a bit weird.
"Do I have to?" Ranma asked, this was so dumb.
"Not at all." Xavier said.
"Then I'll skip this, is that all we have to do?"
"Nope, I have the machine getting ready to make the clothing, but it needs to do a body scan of you, just step into the booth and we'll let it get to work. Rogue, will you go and get a glass of hot water for Ranma so we can change him for the second scan."
"Sure professor."
Ranma blinked as she rose up into the air and actually flew out of the room as if it was the easiest thing in the world to do. "How in the world did she do that?!"
Xavier chuckled again. "She is one of our strongest members, she can fly, is invulnerable to damage, and super strong."
"Sounds like she would be a lot of fun to fight." Ranma said as she stepped into the small booth. "Do I need to take my clothes off for this?"
"No, since what you're wearing was made by this machine it can 'see' through them to get the proper measurements."
"Cool." Ranma said as the booth lit up and seemed to take pictures of her from all directions, the glowing wires seemed to light up even more as they lit up from the floor and made their way up to the top of the booth, then it was done.
Rogue returned a few seconds later, just as Ranma was stepping out of the booth, he took the glass and frowned as he looked down at the outfit, then poured the hot water over herself. Ranma shifted to male and growled as the suit didn't, it pinched in all the wrong areas and showed off portions of his body that shouldn't have been in that stupid outfit. He ignored Rogue's roving eye as he stepped back into the booth and let the machine have another go at him, he felt like a bug under a microscope now. He figured Nabiki would have been taking lots of pictures and selling them to highest bidder while doing cat calls to make him blush, supposedly the girls like those the best.
"We're done Ranma, the machine should have everything done in a few seconds." Xavier said just as the requested clothing materialized on a table in the middle of the room, right where the holograms had been before. "There you go, normally we just materialize the uniform right on you, but since you requested multiple outfits with special properties I had them placed there instead. We've also got your measure now so this shouldn't have to be done again for several months or so, that is if you stick around anyway."
Wandering over to the table Ranma grabbed up a copy of his normal out fit and noticed that there wasn't any underwear. For a second he thought about asking for some, but shrugged it off when he noticed that Rogue was still watching him, he would find a way to buy a few pair as soon as he could. "Where can I change out of this spandex thing?"
"Hold on." Xavier said and tapped a button.
Ranma gasped as his clothing shimmered and he was suddenly wearing a red shirt and black pants again, but something felt off about them. "These feel different than the one's I'm used to, but they should work fine, for some reason they weigh more than the one's I'm used to."
"Then if we're finished we can head upstairs." Xavier said and started for the door, but Ranma interrupted him before he got to far.
"Oops, I think I need one more thing." Ranma said suddenly.
"What would that be?" Xavier asked.
Ranma pointed down and wiggled his toes.
"Ah."
**********
Clad in a new pair of boots, Ranma headed for the elevator and went back upstairs to get a bit more to eat. He was incredibly hungry for some reason, even after eating that meal the McCoy had brought him earlier, and figured he could have eaten a whole side of beef with no trouble if given the chance. Rogue walked along beside him as they entered the kitchen and he could feel her eyes on him again, but he kept quiet and didn't say anything. She didn't seem to want to fight him and bringing it up might cause more problems than it was worth. He had learned enough lessons from Akane and the others to know he should keep his mouth shut, that way they wouldn't hit him for no reason. He opened the walk in fridge and found it stocked to the rafters, there had to be enough food to feed and army in there. Digging around for little bit he and pulled out enough materials to make a couple of large sandwiches.
Rogue just watched as he made a giant sandwich and scarfed it down in a few bites without even taking time to enjoy it. Then he made another one and at it as well, all in less than ten minutes and if he wasn't full after than she had a feeling their food stores wouldn't last to long. Ranma was on his third sandwich when a large man entered the kitchen and stalked into the room, he was wearing dark clothing, had black skin, and the letter 'M' tattooed over his right eye. Ranma noted that the guy carried himself like a trained warrior and if that huge gun he had on his shoulder was any indication, very dependent on high powered weaponry. The guy grunted as he spotted Ranma and studied the newcomer, what he saw was a surprise to say the least.
"Who is this Rogue?" Bishop asked.
'Oh goody, lets do all this useless male posturing now.' Rogue thought as she glanced over at Bishop. "Bishop, this is Ranma Saotome. He's from a long ways off, a different dimension to be exact."
"Why is he here?"
"We're giving him a hand, he needs to find a way home and doesn't have anywhere else to go while he's here."
"We have equipment that can cross dimensions, I don't see the problem." Bishop said, he didn't see why they had to let a security risk like this into the mansion. From the looks of things so far the kid had already been down in the uniform room. Why hadn't beast kept him locked up down in the sub levels where the kid couldn't escape and cause damage?
This was information to Ranma, Xavier hadn't said anything about having any equipment that could send him home. "Wha...?"
"Where would you have us send him Bishop?"
"Back where he came from."
"...and where is that Bishop? Do you know? We certainly don't and there are billions of possibilities and it would take years to just search randomly."
Bishop grunted and stomped out of the kitchen.
"Well he's certainly happy with life." Rogue muttered.
"What's with him?" Ranma asked around the last of his sandwich.
Rogue shrugged. "Bishop has these strange personality quirks, doesn't like many people, and tends to jump to conclusions about most everyone else he meets. Don't worry about him, he's new to the team so he'll adjust eventually."
"He's a member of the team?"
"Yeah, he handles the weapons and has the ability to absorb and redirect energy blasts."
"Who else is on this team of yours?"
"We have several members, Cyclops and Storm are our leaders, then there is Beast, Bishop, Wolverine, Phoenix, and a few others that aren't here right now. Sometimes Colossus, Shadowcat, and Nightcrawler join us, but right now it's just me and the others."
"What all can everyone do?"
"Various things, the professor told you about me and Cyclops, Storm can control the weather, Wolverine has a super quick healing ability that allows him to shrug off things that would kill just about anyone else, Bishop can absorb and redirect energy, and Phoenix is a powerful telepath and telekinetic."
Ranma blinked and shook his head. "Like any of that means anything to me, I'm just a normal person, I don't know what a telepath, a telekinetic or some of the other things that you've mentioned mean."
"Ah..." Rogue started.
"Don't worry, I've got to get used to this place before I can do anything else." Said Ranma. "What exactly is it you guys do?"
"Well we're trying to achieve the Professor's dream of human and mutant coexistence."
"Oh? How do you do that?"
"We try to keep other mutants from using their powers to harm others and help save the normal humans when they do."
"That sounds pretty good." Ranma said as he considered another sandwich.
"Not really, you see there are a good number of mutants that use their powers for bad or evil things and the humans tend to blame all mutants for the actions of these others." Rogue pointed out. "More than once we have seen a mutant get caught by frightened and angry humans and..."
"They are beat up or hurt?"
Rogue nodded and sighed. "For every mutant that can exist in society without getting into trouble, there are dozens of others that have been...beat to within an inch of their lives or even killed."
"That's pretty bad alright and your group is trying to make things more peaceful?"
"Yeah." Rogue said as Beast wandered into the kitchen.
"Ah Ranma there you are." Beast said as he came into the kitchen. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm still a little weak, but if I had to fight one of my rivals I wouldn't have much problem with it."
"Rivals?" Rogue asked.
"Yep, Ryoga, Mousse, Happosai, Cologne, Taro and a few others that aren't quite as dangerous as they are."
"Well there's no need to worry about them since they're a whole dimension away from here, for now Charles wanted me to introduce you to the rest of the team. He figures it will save a lot of time and arguments with those that don't know you are here in the mansion. "
"Sure." Ranma said with a shrug.
Beast led him through a part of the house he hadn't been to before and into the TV room where several people were sitting around watching the biggest television Ranma had ever seen in his life, it had to be taller than he was and built right into the wall. He ignored what they were watching and looked around the room as he recognized Bishop and the glare that had been leveled at him, but shrugged it off as he looked at the others. Ranma made a note to take the guy down a peg or two, he needed and attitude adjustment and fast. To his surprise none of others were wearing those hokey costumes, Ranma glanced back at Beast when he waved a hand at a couple sitting on the couch.
"Ranma, this here is Scott Summers and Jean Grey, in the chair over there is Logan, Beside him is Bishop, and over there is Ororo Monroe. They go by the names Cyclops, Phoenix, Wolverine, Bishop, and Strom."
"Why do you all have those weird names?"
"Huh?" Beast asked, caught off guard by the question.
"I don't understand why you use the second name, the Cyclops, Wolverine, and such. The only one here that doesn't is Bishop."
"Protection." Bishop said.
"From what?" Ranma asked back.
"Mutants are feared by normal people and since we fight people that could potentially hurt our friends and family we use the code names to protect those we care for." Ororo said.
Ranma cocked his head to the side in confusion. "Then why in the world are you telling me your names?"
"Charles said I was to introduce you to the team." Said Beast.
"I disagreed with this plan of action, but I had no say in it either way." Bishop said.
"Well...alright I guess, it's nice to meet all of you."
"Everyone, Charles said I was to inform all of you of Ranma's presence. He's from Japan, but it seems he's from a different dimension than us and needs a place to stay until he can figure out what to do or how to get home."
"Is he joining the team?" Scott asked.
"Not if I have to wear one of those goofy outfits I've seen." Ranma muttered a little too loudly.
"Hey!" Scott said.
Wolverine and Bishop just chuckled and nodded.
"Not to worry Ranma, you don't have to join if you don't want too. We were just looking out for the best way to help you and get you acquainted with this dimension as quickly as possible." Beast said.
"Alright." Ranma said. "I'll think about it."
"Good enough, if you want we can run some tests to see how you handle yourself."
"How?" Ranma asked and wondered if they were all going to gang up on him to see how he fought.
"We'll use the practice room where we can monitor your reactions in a controlled environment."
"Huh?"
"The Danger Room, kid. Where we all practice the use of our powers from time to time when we need to work on something, the room can handle a lot more punishment than the woods outside can and be repaired a lot quicker." Logan said as he puffed away on his cigar.
"What in the world is a Danger Room, Xavier mentioned it before but I didn't get a chance to ask about it."
"It's down on the second level, if you feel up to it we can run you through some of the programs any time you want." Beast said and pulled out his clip board to take down some more notes.
"Can I see this thing in action first?"
"Sure, any of you want to run through a program right now?"
Logan stood up and stalked out of the room. "Let's do it, I have some kinks to work out anyway."
The rest of the team decided to stay and finish watching their movie and fought over Logan's popcorn as Beast and Ranma jogged after Wolverine. Beast explained that most of the second level was devoted to the Danger Room itself, a large room about the size of a football field that could mimic any kind of environment they wanted with solid light holograms. Nodding, Ranma pretended to understand what it was as Beast chattered on as if nothing was wrong. A few seconds later they stepped into the control room, it was about fifteen feet long and had a row of computers running along the front wall where several large windows over looked an enclosed room with plane gray walls covered in strange weaving patterns.
Sitting down at the console Beast took a few seconds to boot the system up, Ranma looked out the window and saw that Logan was down on the floor putting on a goofy outfit. It was mostly yellow, but had slashes here and there, a pair of knee high blue boots, and a weird mask that explained the man's incredible case of 'hat' hair. Ranma had to admit that the guy did give that ridiculous outfit a dangerous quality though, as if he know that no matter what he was wearing he was going to kill something today. Finishing the boot up Beast tapped a few keys and lowered the lights in the booth then pressed a toggle switch.
"Logan, are you ready?"
"Go ahead fur ball."
"Alright." Beast said and tapped a button in front of him.
Ranma gasped as the whole room changed before his eyes, the swirls in the walls glowed for few seconds and wavered like a heat wave illusion before solidifying into a path of some kind. He wasn't sure where the illusion finished and the room began because he could see far into the distance as if they had actually outside in broad daylight. Ranma wondered how an illusion of a clear day was going to be dangerous, but decided to see what would happen since Beast was still messing with the computer. Down below Wolverine was going through some stretches while still puffing away on that cigar.
"There we go, that program needs to be updated a bit, the thing's so old that it these new computers have a hard time running it.'' Beast muttered to himself.
Down below the air shimmered and several Sentinels appeared, thirty foot purple and blue robots, and Ranma could see Wolverine snarl at them clear from the both as he ran forward. The robots reacted slowly, but as Wolverine got closer they started to perk up and pair off into teams as they moved to surround him. Their arms came up and started to fire blasts of energy at him, but he dodged them easily by rolling, jumping, and spinning out of the way of each shot. Ranma was surprised to recongnize some of the moves Wolverine was using. A martial system he had encountered somewhere along this ten year training trip, but he couldn't really place where. The robots quickly adapted and started to attack Wolverine in different ways and from varying directions all at once, one used a stronger blast as a second tried to block him from going beyond a certain point, while two others ejected some kind of gas out of their hands. Wolverine didn't even slow as popped a set of tiger claws out of the backs of his hands in mid jump and started to slice them to pieces and inch at a time.
Now Ranma was impressed, that kind of skill wasn't easy to come by and this guy was ripping his way through these things with ease, he must have known a variant of Kuno's tree slicing trick. He noted that every time Wolverine took out one of those robots he went for the back of the robot's 'neck', never the same way twice either, some times he would cut it with those strange blades of his, or would use himself as bait to get the other Sentinels to fire at him and jump out of the way at the last second so that they blasted the other Sentinel instead. Ranma recognized personal experience when he saw it, this guy had been fighting like this for a very long time. He also seemed to know some of the rudiments of Anything Goes style, using everything around him as a weapon, the air, the ground, even the robots themselves as weapons.
Another part of Ranma, a part he didn't think about all that much also analyzed what was being seen and started coming up with ways to battle something like this. Genma had trained Ranma to fight battles without thinking about the fight itself, just to react to the situation as quickly as physically possible. So Ranma was unaware that he was taking in everything he was seeing and learning from it like he was taught, how to defend, how to attack, and how the giant robots worked. Most of it was pretty logical, working as a team they would try to overwhelm or position their target in a position to kill him as easily as possible. Ranma noted that the Sentinels seemed to depend on their hand blasters the most, though he had spotted a gas attack, a javelin like attack that sent a long bar of metal towards a target, and even one that used a machine gun.
Wolverine took it all in stride and worked his way through the Sentinels slowly and methodically and even then they rarely seemed to get very close to killing him. Then to Ranma's surprise more Sentinels showed up, these looked different than the others. There were only four of them, but they were taller and faster than the others, Beast explained that these were a second generation Sentinel that had been developed several years after the others. They were faster, built out of stronger materials, and far more deadly. Ranma had agree as Wolverine's claws seemed to barely scratch them, their hand blasters were a lot more powerful as well, creating twenty foot craters in the ground when the blast damage cleared away.
These new Sentinels were pretty much immune to Wolverine's claws, but Ranma was impressed when he started using the robots against each other. Using himself as bait again he was able to take two of them out, but the last two seemed to have learned about that trick and refused to fire their weapons at each other. Instead they kept him running around between them by firing their hand blasts in rapid blasts that exploded all around Wolverine in a hail of death, Ranma was sure that Wolverine was going to be destroyed.
"We have to help him!" Ranma said suddenly.
"No need to worry Ranma, this is a training room, if Wolverine goes down the program will end and shut down." Beast said.
"But..."
"Logan helped design this adaptation at one time to catch people off guard, I've expanded upon it while we were watching the first battle, that way he won't know all the little tricks to take them down. This way he has to work at it." Beast then grinned, showing a lot of pointy and sharp teeth. "Sentinels also have the ability learn from each other and adapt their own programming to compensate for a weakness, unlike the first set that only had a series of attack plans and defensive measures built in, these new versions can learn how to create and pull off random plans of attack."
"They can learn? Um...Amazing?" Ranma muttered, he had no clue what was so hard about learning how to adapt, but from what Beast was saying, it was something these Sentinels normally shouldn't have been able to do. Ranma had no clue about any of this computer stuff, he'd never had any reason to mess with it while in the training trip and wondered if that was going to be a problem in this world. Even Akane and her sisters seemed to know how to use a computer, but to Ranma it was just a box that could show words and pictures, something completely useless in a battle to the death. This thing in front of him though made him rethink that kind of thing, maybe there was more to computers than he had realized.
"You don't have much experience with computers do you?"
"Not really, no. What use is a box in battle?"
Beast laughed. "Wolverine used to be the same, even today he won't use them all that much, but they do have their uses. Especially for holding and retrieving information and in a fight the right information can let you win with ease."
"Hmm...Nabiki has said something similar."
"Nabiki? Is this a friend?"
"I wouldn't call her a friend, but she isn't really my enemy either, just someone that likes to use other people for her own gain. She has ways of coming up with information that she uses to scam money and favors off of people, according to a couple of girls that work with her she pays pretty good wages too."
"I've known people like that, specializes in small time blackmail and random threats even if she has to create such things herself?"
"Yeah, that's pretty close." Ranma said with a nod.
"Did you learn anything from her?"
Ranma grinned and nodded. "She was always treating me like an idiot and using me so I pretended to be what she thought I was, after awhile it kind of became a habit. Even when I didn't need to do it, I watched her and her gang for several months before I figured out how she was doing some of the things she did and after that it was easy to predict her reactions. I didn't do it very often, but she was a puzzle that needed to be solved and after I did things became easier to live with. Her whole family was strange too, but she had to be the worst of the lot, the others were just...slightly delusional."
"And you were constantly around these people?"
"I lived with them, Nabiki was my fiancee's sister."
"This is the first I've heard of this." Beast said.
"It's the first time since I woke up that anyone has asked, I'll explain it all to you later, but right now Wolverine seems to have beat your program." Ranma said and pointed out into the Danger Room.
The crushed and mangled bodies of two Sentinels were sprawled across each other with a harried looking Wolverine standing on top of them looking like a wild animal, his uniform was nearly shredded off his body and Ranma could see blood running down his arms and legs. , Wolverine reminded him of the Musk in a number of ways, it was a sight Ranma figured Herb would have liked. He was slightly bestial and extremely violent, Beast fit right into that mold too, but his intelligence would have caused problems with the Prince of the Musk. Or would that be Princess of the Musk?
"Oh my, it looks like I might have made that a little too difficult for him." Beast muttered.
Pushing a button Ranma has watched Beast use earlier, he activated the intercom. "Are you alright Wolverine?"
Wolverine shook himself and said something, but it didn't come over the speakers so Beast lifted Ranma's finger off the button. "...fine, just a little more difficult than I expected. It was a good work out."
"Oh yeah, I knew I was forgetting something." Ranma muttered as Beast took over.
"I didn't think you would have that much trouble with the extra Sentinels Wolverine, you must be getting old."
"Ha! Fur ball don't push your luck." Wolverine said as he went in search of a new cigar and lit one up, puffing away contentedly.
"Want to give it a try, I'll tone it down since you don't have Wolverine's healing ability or endurance to take on that many foes." Beast said as he turned to Ranma.
"Don't think I'm such a weakling, I have been training in my family art for over ten years now and I can beat my father without much trouble and he's a Master." Ranma snapped and glared at the blue furred Doctor.
Nodding, Beast made a note to treat Ranma carefully, he didn't seem to take well to certain types of suggestions, quite like Wolverine had been during that first year. Beast was even willing to bet that Ranma would even have the same types of ideas about authority figures like Scott and Charles. "Sorry about that, didn't mean to imply anything, just thought you might want to run through a program."
Ranma nodded. "Why not, it looks like fun. Will I be fighting those Sentinels?"
"No, but something similar lines. I'm going to use them to figure out just how good you are."
"Sounds like fun, lets go for it, I need a little practice time anyway."
**********
To Be Continued...
Ending Notes - * One learns all the cuss words of a language ten minutes after entering any country, this is from the natives calling you certain things in the knowledge that you have no idea what they are saying. The citizens of every country on the planet do this, it's a law. ^_^
Prime Attitude
Chapter 01
Cory D. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(c) 2002
**********
Much to Ranma's shock, she was facing something she had never encountered before and had a hunch that there wasn't anyone she could turn to for help. She could feel herself floating in some kind of empty void, below her was what looked like a swirling vortex of bright blue energy. There were lightning like streamers of white and blue energy being flung out of it in every conceivable direction at once. They continued out until they vanished in the distance reaches of the odd space where she had found herself. There were so many that she couldn't have kept track of them even if she wanted to, some were big and easy to follow while others were small and barely noticeable even to her trained senses, going all over the place in strange zig zag patterns. Ranma was amazed to think she had reached this thing by going into a deep meditative trance and looking within herself, on the few occasions she'd done this there had been nothing like this. Where in the world had it come from?
Then the vortex of blue energy lashed out with a lightning bolt of bright blue energy that she had to dodge, but moving in this void of nothingness was difficult and she barely managed to twist herself out of the way. Then, to her horror, she realized that dodging may not have been a good idea as she suddenly lost control of what ever had been allowing her to hover over the vortex. It pulsed and another bolt of lightning lashed out to strike along her chest, back, and head in rapid succession. The pain was incredibly intense, but nothing compared to the pain she had felt during the transfer to this universe. It was enough to make her scream and the sound seemed to echo through out the void as she struggled against the energy coursing through her like a living thing.
Ranma struggled against the pain and just as she was starting to gain a bit of control over it she noticed that the lightning was reeling her in like a fish. By now it was to late to try anything to stop it and lets out a gasp as she is pulled into the vortex against her will. Like a roller coaster ride from hell, she was pulled through a long twisting tunnel that seemed to be surging with lightning as it twisted and writhed like a dying snake. She could feel the electricity as it flowed around her body, sparking and arching from her to the edges of the tunnel and back every few seconds. Then as suddenly as it started, it all stopped, all color, all sound, everything vanished as if had never been.
She found herself in the void again, but this was different than the other one, this was something she hadn't expected. There was this weird feeling all over her body and as she started to look around she noticed that there were stars flickering brightly all around her. She twisted around and noticed a bright red cloud floating through the sparkling void, reflecting the light from the stars all around her. It was a beautiful sight, one that took her a few seconds to recognize and even longer to accept. She was floating in deep space, how she had ended up here while searching her own mind was a mystery to her and should have been impossible.
"Hello Ranma Saotome."
Ranma twisted around and gaped at the small throne shaped asteroid floating nearby, she knew that it hadn't been there a few seconds ago when she was scanning the area. Sitting on the throne was a figure of indeterminate sex, he/she was covered in a shadow that kept her from seeing many details. It was leaning over from it's chair and seemed to be studying her. "Wha...?"
"No need to panic Ranma, I won't hurt you or attack you."
"Who are you?"
"I have no name, never really had a need for one over the long years of my existence."
"I need to call you something." Ranma insisted.
"Call me Aho then, it means 'blue' in your language."
Ranma smiled. "Aho it is, so what in the world is going on here?"
"You did something a little foolish and extremely brave, you dug so far into your soul that you managed to find the energy link that was given to you when you crossed the dimensional barrier. It wasn't expected that you would ever find it or if you did, it would be a couple decades down the road when you had learned to use this power with more skill."
"That blue vortex is giving me these new abilities McCoy told me about?"
Aho nodded. "Yes, its a link to a powerful source of energy that can do incredible things, the vortex is how your mind interpreted the link."
"Why was it given to me?" Ranma asked and crossed her arms.
"Chance mostly, it's an energy source that hadn't been used in eons and something no one from your dimension has ever touched."
"Take it back, my life is complicated enough as it is, this will just make things worse than ever."
Aho shook it's head. "I can't, once the link is established it is impossible to undue it. You formed the link yourself when you crossed over, it was an unconscious thing, but you did it nonetheless."
"Then send me home, I have a feeling you can do that, I don't want to be in this dimension. From what I've heard so far it's a horrible place to be, I have no family here, nothing to even call my own."
"Oh please Ranma, you have struggled against change for as long as you've lived, it's one of the few things Genma instilled in you. You are a well forged piece of metal Ranma, you won't just give up just because something has gotten a bit to hard to understand. We both know it, look at how long you struggled against your feelings for Akane, your hatred of your father, the fact that you can't find one tiny bit of love in your heart for your mother..."
"DO NOT BRING MY MOTHER INTO THIS!!!" Ranma screamed, she started glowing with a blue energy aura of static electricity.
"I am well aware of the truth Ranma, you need to stop lying to yourself and you know it too. I am now a part of you, I know your inner most feelings, you history, everything about you."
"I do love my mother!!"
"Believe what you will then, but you're only fooling yourself and causing more pain than there needs to be." Aho said coldly.
Ranma growled.
Aho's eyes narrowed and it sighed loudly as it came to a decision, it had hopped that Ranma would pull off a miracle, but it looked like it had been right all along. "You are here way too early Ranma, come back when you have better control of yourself and your abilities. I have looked at your destiny line and know that you will have a most interesting life from now on, go and forget the way back here until you find your true self. Your battle with Saffron will seem like
child's play once you mature into your full power. You will not remember how to get back here until you are powerful enough to get through a memory block I'm placing in your mind." With that said, it's eyes flashed a bright blue.
Ranma's eyes snapped open as she fell off the bed and hit her head on the floor, she shuddered as she recalled the level of power coming off that thing. To think that something like that even exists and it just sat there in all it's arrogance and lectured her on how good the future would be? What a load of bullshit, she rolled to her feet and looked around at the room's sparse surroundings and wondered if these people could have put her in odder looking room. That was when she realized that her eyesight had returned while she was meditating, at least something good had come out of that waste of time and true to the beings word she couldn't remember how to get back to where she was.
She looked around and found that she was in a lightly decorated room of some kind, the bed was typical American style with two thick mattresses, sheets, and a metal frame at the bottom, a simple gray carpet, wood paneling on the walls, a couple of odd looking pictures, and a silver metal like door with no handle at all. Looking it over she came across a small pad of some kind at the edge of the door frame and she walked over to give a closer look, there was a small window in the pad that had the word 'Locked' highlighted in green. Ranma wasn't all that good with devices like this but she did recognize them and knew how to bypass them somewhat easily. The old man was a thief after all and they had 'borrowed' a room from the large mansions upon occasion.
The door itself was like a half moon shaped closet door set into some tracks on the floor. She tried to grip the edge and pull it back into the wall even though the little window said the door was locked, but figured it was worth checking anyway. Deep down she knew that the thing was quite flimsy and good kick in the right place would get her out of the room in an instant. Then as she was considering doing just that she noticed a second door off to the right and slightly hidden down a short walkway. To her delight it led into the room's bathroom, with a grin she stepped inside and thought that this was a chance to finally get changed back into a guy. Then she recalled what she was wearing and gagged a little, though after looking in a nearby wall mirror she had to admit that it made her look good in this form fitting thing. This was all she had to wear as well, the main room didn't really have any extra clothes laying around and decked out in such a thing would draw way to much attention if she walked around in public, it was practically indecent. Akane would have slapped her silly for even thinking of wearing anything like this, though she had to concede that it would've been fun to get her to wear the thing.
Ranma shrugged and decided that turning back into a guy at the moment wouldn't be a good idea and pulled the jacket back on, at least it was some kind of covering and loads better than running around naked. She'd had enough of that when Mousse had challenged her to that first fight and slowly stripped her in front of the crowd with that stupid hook of his. Moving out of the bathroom she reached into a pocket and pulled out a set of green gloves and wondered how long they had been in the pocket. Tossing them on a nearby chair as she passed she didn't think she would be needing them for anything since all they did was lower her sense of touch. That was when the locked door opened and she turned to see who it was, she had to stare at the large blue furred thing in front of her, it had on a pair of glasses, shorts, and a lab coat. It stopped and smiled at her, showing a bunch of deadly looking teeth that looked like they could easily rend her flesh, luckily it had a tray of food in it's hands.
"How are you feeling Ranma?" McCoy asked, ignoring the look of curiosity that was written all over her face.
"Ah! Dr. McCoy! I nearly forgot that you looked like that." Ranma laughed nervously.
"Not a problem, I take a second and even a third glance to get used to."
"I'll say, give me a day or so and I'll adjust to this."
"How much of your eyesight has returned?"
"All of it."
Beast nodded and held up the tray. "I brought you some food, I wasn't sure what you like to eat for dinner, but since your Japanese we sent out for some food."
Ranma moved over to the tray and saw that it was a pretty typical Japanese fast food meal of rice, noodles, and a side dish of some kind. She grabbed the tray as her stomach growled. Grabbing the chopsticks she snapped them apart and breezed through the meal, slow for her, but way faster than what Beast had probably ever seen. "Mhis is fraet."
"How can you taste anything when you eat it that fast?"
"Gotta eat it fast or the old man will steal it." Ranma muttered as she finished off the meal, she considered licking the bowl clean, then did so.
Beast laughed. "We have some more if you want any?"
Ranma grinned. "Sure! I need to get out of this room anyway."
Beast moved over to the door and tapped in a quick code to open the door then led her out of the room and gave a quick tour of the level they were on, the lab area, library, landing bay, mess hall, and pointed out the Danger Room and it's huge main door. Ranma took it all in, not really commenting on anything, she could tell they were trying to hide something and didn't really care what it was. They obviously didn't really trust her and were going out of their way to make sure she didn't see anything really odd. So far she hadn't seen one window or door that would lead to an exit either, to her that meant she was underground or in an enclosed building of some kind. The food McCoy brought her had been good so she was willing to concede them a little leeway, but at the moment it seemed as if they were both trying to hide some secrets from each other.
Telling them about the person she had met while meditating was out of the question, it was none of their business and proving it was impossible. So she kept her thoughts to herself and followed along, the instant she saw a way out she would be out of here. So far they hadn't been treating her that bad, but they were keeping her from leaving and that was getting on her nerves, she wanted to find a way home as soon as possible. Blue boy here wasn't being all that obvious about it, but he was being careful not to tell her to much. These X-men had their secrets and they were taking steps to keep her from finding out what they were.
"Where does that door lead?" Ranma asked as the tour was winding down.
Beast turned to look. "That's the elevator that leads up to the main level, I can show you that later when you're feeling better. Right now I want to make sure your healing correctly, it was just a short time ago that you were nearly killed after all."
"I always heal fast." Ranma snorted.
"Maybe, but we also need to make sure you don't have a relapse of some kind. You just got your eyesight back as well, I still don't know how that happened so quickly, but we can check it out when you are ready for another examination after while."
"It was bound to happen eventually." Ranma said with a shrug, she didn't want to deal with an examination, but figured it would probably be a good idea.
There was a ding and Ranma turned to see a tall woman step out of the elevator, she had an outfit on that was nearly identical to the one she was wearing. The woman also had the same Ki signature she had detected earlier, the one that was slightly out of whack with her body, Ranma wasn't sure but there was a good possibility that someone had messed around with the way the girl's Ki worked. She also noticed that about the only thing on her whole body that wasn't covered in some way was her face, did the girl have some kind of thing about being touched? The girl was wearing a pair of gloves like the pair Ranma remembered tossing on the chair in her room earlier. This had to be the girl that had given her these funny clothes, she really tried not to glare at her to much.
"Well hello there, it's good to see ya up and about again. We were a bit worried about ya." Rogue said with a grin. "I'm Rogue."
The southern accent was pretty noticeable, but Ranma had heard a lot worse accents when ever a tourist tried to pronounce in Japanese. American tourists were always a laugh riot to listen to when they had no clue how to speak a language, talk slowly, loudly, and with authority and you can make yourself understood in any language, at least this seemed to be the universal rule. Ranma had seen it too many times to count, his old man was as guilty of that as any American, he still recalled the time he had tried to make that Chinese girl understand what he wanted. She had been agreeable at first, then he said something that set her off, this pissed off her family who were nearby. Ranma recalled being dragged out of that small village as his father ran for his life, the whole village had chased after them waving an assortment of weapons and screaming obscenities at them. *
"Thanks Rogue, I hope I get out of here pretty soon though, I don't like to be cooped up like this."
Rogue grinned. "Well you come with me, Beast here has always been over protective when he had a patient to take care of. I figure if you're good enough to walk around you're good enough to head up stairs and meet some of the others."
"Maybe a little, but Ranma was near death less than forty eight hours ago..." Beast started to complain.
Rogue waved him off. "Well she's standing here looking as good as new right now, so keeping her cooped up down here isn't really needed."
"But..." Beast started.
"Bugger off Beast, you worry to much." Rogue turned to Ranma. "Have you eaten yet?"
"Yeah, Beast here had the kitchen make up a pretty decent snack..."
"Excellent, then you have time to take a shower and put on some decent clothes and come up stairs and spend the night watching TV with the rest of us." Rogue declared and dragged a confused Ranma to the elevator.
"Um..." Beast tried to say again, then shrugged and headed of to his lab, if the girl was up stairs with the rest of the team then he had time to work on a few other things while she was busy. The blood sample he had taken from Ranma had turned up some pretty amazing things that he wanted to look at in greater detail anyway. Maybe a bit of extra work on that would turn up something of interest and then there was that curse of his/her's to think about, he had to see it in action to get better readings on it. Maybe he could find a cure for her...um, he would have to learn to call 'him' by the right gender as well. He kept picturing her completely naked in his arms while they were on the plane, 'she' had been 100% female. Those curves could not be faked.
"Oh my." Beast muttered and blushed under his blue fur.
**********
The elevator ride up to the main floor only took a few seconds and the doors opened to reveal a large room with couches and chairs all over the place. They moved out of this room and into a hallway that led to a different part of the house and Ranma realized that this place was huge. Even bigger with those levels below ground, she wondered just how large this place actually was and what everyone here did exactly. Ranma followed along behind Rogue until they wandered into the women's quarters on the other side of the mansion, the main entrance had to the hall had a large plaque over the door that this was no man's land. Ranma glanced at the sign but quickly decided that with her current form she didn't exactly qualify as a guy, but would have to tell Rogue about the curse eventually. A few minutes later they entered Rogue's room, this was the real thing, not the one she had been locked in down below.
As they walked Ranma noticed that Rogue hadn't made one comment about her curse, so figured that those two guys had kept their word about letting her tell everybody on the team. The dammed thing seemed to get her in so much trouble that sometimes it was hard to predict how things would go when she told someone about it. Some people didn't really care and took in stride, while others, namely Akane, used it against him to brand him as a monster that didn't fit her world view. There were days that he had wanted to strangle her just so that he wouldn't have to put up with her insults to his manhood anymore, but his family honor was at stake, the last shred of it in fact. He had earned his skill in the art through pain and blood and ten years of training with the old man. She was a gifted fighter, but would never reach his level with her current attitude, he refused to marry someone that treated him like that. Ranma figured all this crap with Akane had started because he kept the curse from her when they arrived at the Tendo's place.
These X-men were different though, they had experience with these kinds of things and if some of the things he had been able to piece together so far were to be believed, they had encountered things that even he found a little hard to believe. Still, he would take a chance, this girl was the one he had felt earlier as well and she was full of depression and sadness, broadcasting it out like a wave that he could feel at a hundred paces. It was of a similar type that he used to find Ryoga all the time, though this girl had nothing on the Lost Moron when it came to drowning one's life in pure depression.
"Here y'all go, just strip out of that thing and you can take a shower if'n ya like."
Shaking her head, Ranma sighed and turned to look at Rogue. "Rogue there is something I think I should tell you."
"What's that?"
"Um...I don't like to talk about it...to tell you the truth, I told the Doc and Xavier, but I doubt they've had a chance to tell the rest of you yet."
"Well don't beat about the bush, we need to get you cleaned up, so just spit it out." Rogue said.
"I guess you could call it one of my powers, though I call it my curse." Ranma muttered as she stepped over to the shower, started it up, and let the hot water heat up a bit.
"The professor said something about that, but didn't give any details, what was he talking about?" Rogue asked.
"Oh? Well it's a lot easier to show you than tell you. No one ever believes me until they've seen it work." Ranma said as she took off her jacket and fiddled with the odd suit until she figured out that it would stretch out enough to be taken off. Rogue didn't even blink as Ranma stripped it down to her waist and turned to turn the shower on.
"You sure you want me in here to see this?" Rogue asked a few seconds later as she showed the first signs of discomfort to Ranma's nakedness.
Ranma shrugged as she held her hand near the water and felt the heat coming off of it. "It won't matter in a moment. My curse is a shape shifting curse, I am normally male, but cold water changes me to female, hot water turns me back." Ranma said as she stepped under the spray of water, moving before Rogue could say anything, he grinned a bit sheepishly as her eyes tripled in size and she staggered back a few steps in shock. He had left the weird outfit hanging from his waist down so he wouldn't show off anything the girl would find offensive.
"Y-your, you...a man..." Rogue gasped.
Ranma nodded. "Yep, this is my true form. Male, and proud of it."
Stepping out of the shower Ranma guided the confused woman over to the bed and smiled at her as she all but fell down the instant the back of her knees touched it. He moved back to the bathroom with his 'arrogant walk' as Akane liked to call it, and shut the door. He could feel Rogue's eyes on his back for every inch of the way, Nabiki had done to the same thing when he wrapped a towel around himself and walked from the Tendo bathroom to his room every now and then. He'd never mentioned that he knew she was watching, just ignored her like he usually did so things didn't get any worse between them. Even Akane had commented more than once on his shamelessness at times, but he was comfortable with his male body so didn't really care if they liked to look or not.
Once he got the suit off completely, Ranma did a quick visual inspection of his body, he seemed to be the same as he had always been, though he was a bit sore here and there. Nothing seemed out of place so he figured that the increase in density that the Doc had mentioned wasn't that noticeable or wouldn't show up for a while yet. He was glad to be out of that suit though, he swore he hadn't stopped sweating since he put it on, he felt clammy and gross and had to smell ten worse. It reminded him of things that happened on the training trip and brought back far to many bad memories.
Visions of an ancient sewer in an unnamed city off the coast of China came to him as he stood there and let the water cascade around him. The sound of wolves and rats as they chased after him as he ran through that insane maze of darkness and hoped beyond hope that he would find the way out before he was caught. Ranma shook his head and blinked a bit of the water out of his eyes, and tried to will the horrid memories away. His memories have never been this 'real' before, it was as if he was there physically, he could recall every sound, smell, movement of that horrible run, with death just steps behind him nipping at his heels for days on end. His father had come upon this idea that the more he pushed his son the stronger he would be, survival of the fittest and all that crap. The city's sewer had been over run with animals and other dangers over the years, so there had only been one thing to do, toss in Ranma and meet him at the other end of the maze of crisscrossing sewer tunnels. The run had taken three weeks, far longer than the six hours his father had told him it would take and he had been on the run the whole time with wolves, gators, rats, and bugs out to kill him for food. He recalled shivering in fear as he hid in the small tunnels at night, the one's the wolves couldn't get into. Even to this day the sound of a wolf could send willies down his spine, a bug nibbling on a piece of him would wind up with a small Ki blast to relieve it of the burden of life, and he would go out of his way to avoid a gator unless he had no choice. Kodachi had no idea how close she had come to losing her pet gator Mr. Turtle that day.
He had survived though, but had to suffer a beating from the old man when he finally did get out, just for making him wait for so long. That had been the last of his traveling clothes and forced him to wander around in a Gi like the old man, that reminded him, he didn't like that suit he'd been wearing as a girl, even if it had made him look good. He needed something more to his tastes, he'd have to see what this place had available, or head into town to 'borrow' something? He shook his head and blanked his mind as he concentrated on getting cleaned up for the rest of his shower, then got out and dried off. Wrapping the towel around himself, he stepped out of the bathroom when he was done and moved into the bedroom where he'd left Rogue. He sensed someone else out in the main room as he stepped out of the bathroom, he spotted Xavier sitting in a kind of hovering chair beside the bed. That was when Ranma realized that the guy was crippled, he hadn't even thought about it before, but the strange hovering chair explained that odd noise he recalled from earlier when they first talked to each other. The guy was still trying to wrap his head in a layer of Ki too, he would probably have to do something about that.
"So this is what you look like in male form?" Xavier asked as Rogue gaped at him from the bed, this time because Ranma was naked under the towel.
Ranma nodded. "Yep, this is the real me. Where can I get some decent clothes, that body suit I was wearing as a girl won't work with me as a guy."
"Sure it will honey." Rogue said from the bed. "Several of the male members of the X-men wear a spandex uniform, even Wolverine and he's more macho than you are."
Ranma glared at her.
"Rogue..." Xavier said and glared at her.
"Sorry sir."
"The outfit might be a part of the uniform you wear as a member of this team, but I'm not a member, so I need something else." Ranma muttered.
"Quite so, but we've run into this problem before so I'll have some clothing made up for you down in the labs. Something you can wear in both forms, it will adjust to your altered sized and so forth, we just need to have you approve it. Put that spandex uniform back on, Rogue will show you how to loosen it once more and we can head down to the lab and have something made up for you."
Ranma didn't like it, but it was better than nothing and he already had some ideas about what he wanted, red and black silk danced in his head. He nodded as Rogue told him about a button on the belt buckle that would cause the spandex to expand a bit and allow him to put it back on. There was no way he was going to wear that thing as a guy, he would be too embarrassed, so he splashed a bit of cold water on his face and put the dumb thing back on. From there they headed back down to the lab with Xavier leading, they went into one of those rooms that the McCoy had avoided on the initial tour. It was a medium sized room with a large machine set against the back wall and curved around to a couple of computer stations along each of the side walls. The lights came on the instant the door opened and they crossed ther room to stand in front of one of the consoles near a small open booth. This was set in the center of the machine and seemed to be made out of glass of some sort, it had little glowing wires running through it.
"Is there anything you had in mind for clothing Ranma? I can make up just about anything with this? " Xavier asked as he typed on the keyboard a little.
"This is the machine that made the outfit you're wearing now." Rogue said. "I planned on using it at one time, but the colors green and black just didn't seem to fit me so I switched to this gold and green color for a uniform."
Ranma took that in and nodded, he thought about what he wanted for several seconds before deciding to go with what he knew. "This can make anything?"
"Almost anything clothing wise, I got it from an old friend of mine a few years back and it's been a life saver more than once, it saves us tons of money." Xavier explained as he ignored the strange look Rogue gave him when he said the word 'friend'.
"I need three things then, several sets of multi colored silk shirts and baggy black silk pants along the lines of what I was wearing when the Doc picked me up. Then I need a jacket of some kind, I like this one that Rogue loaned me, but it's far too constricting and wouldn't make it through a decent battle."
"Hey!" Rogue yelled.
"I get into lots of fights." Ranma explained.
Xavier laughed. "Ranma, that jacket is nearly indestructible. The only thing that could harm it is fire or a high level energy blast, it's pretty much immune to everything else, as mutants we have to take on threats that a normal human would never survive. Even that spandex is a kind of armor, though no where near as resilient as the jacket."
"Oh." Ranma muttered. "Well then give me a black leather jacket then."
"What else did you need?"
"Pants, shirts, and a coat, that about does it and if these things are as durable as you say then they will last me for some time."
"Make him up a uniform as well Professor, maybe as a parting gift or something." Rogue said with an evil grin.
"Sure, what would you like for a uniform Ranma." Xavier asked as he typed away on a computer and holographic display of various heroes popped up from a small circular area in the middle of the room, it showed some of the older X-men and other well known heroes in still pictures taken from a fight. They stayed up for a couple of seconds before vanishing and being replaced with a new hologram, Ranma watched and had to keep from laughing at several of the costumes. For some reason some of them reminded him of some of the different kinds of outfits Satsuki might have worn to hide himself from Kuno's wrath. There was one chick in purple that was wearing a bathing suit with butt floss and thigh high boots that Shampoo would have loved, then there was a few guys wearing that spandex stuff and looked like they were standing there in the nude with the suit panted on and seriously constipated, some girl in a yellow trench coat and...shorts seemed to be the most normal costume he noticed and even that was a bit weird.
"Do I have to?" Ranma asked, this was so dumb.
"Not at all." Xavier said.
"Then I'll skip this, is that all we have to do?"
"Nope, I have the machine getting ready to make the clothing, but it needs to do a body scan of you, just step into the booth and we'll let it get to work. Rogue, will you go and get a glass of hot water for Ranma so we can change him for the second scan."
"Sure professor."
Ranma blinked as she rose up into the air and actually flew out of the room as if it was the easiest thing in the world to do. "How in the world did she do that?!"
Xavier chuckled again. "She is one of our strongest members, she can fly, is invulnerable to damage, and super strong."
"Sounds like she would be a lot of fun to fight." Ranma said as she stepped into the small booth. "Do I need to take my clothes off for this?"
"No, since what you're wearing was made by this machine it can 'see' through them to get the proper measurements."
"Cool." Ranma said as the booth lit up and seemed to take pictures of her from all directions, the glowing wires seemed to light up even more as they lit up from the floor and made their way up to the top of the booth, then it was done.
Rogue returned a few seconds later, just as Ranma was stepping out of the booth, he took the glass and frowned as he looked down at the outfit, then poured the hot water over herself. Ranma shifted to male and growled as the suit didn't, it pinched in all the wrong areas and showed off portions of his body that shouldn't have been in that stupid outfit. He ignored Rogue's roving eye as he stepped back into the booth and let the machine have another go at him, he felt like a bug under a microscope now. He figured Nabiki would have been taking lots of pictures and selling them to highest bidder while doing cat calls to make him blush, supposedly the girls like those the best.
"We're done Ranma, the machine should have everything done in a few seconds." Xavier said just as the requested clothing materialized on a table in the middle of the room, right where the holograms had been before. "There you go, normally we just materialize the uniform right on you, but since you requested multiple outfits with special properties I had them placed there instead. We've also got your measure now so this shouldn't have to be done again for several months or so, that is if you stick around anyway."
Wandering over to the table Ranma grabbed up a copy of his normal out fit and noticed that there wasn't any underwear. For a second he thought about asking for some, but shrugged it off when he noticed that Rogue was still watching him, he would find a way to buy a few pair as soon as he could. "Where can I change out of this spandex thing?"
"Hold on." Xavier said and tapped a button.
Ranma gasped as his clothing shimmered and he was suddenly wearing a red shirt and black pants again, but something felt off about them. "These feel different than the one's I'm used to, but they should work fine, for some reason they weigh more than the one's I'm used to."
"Then if we're finished we can head upstairs." Xavier said and started for the door, but Ranma interrupted him before he got to far.
"Oops, I think I need one more thing." Ranma said suddenly.
"What would that be?" Xavier asked.
Ranma pointed down and wiggled his toes.
"Ah."
**********
Clad in a new pair of boots, Ranma headed for the elevator and went back upstairs to get a bit more to eat. He was incredibly hungry for some reason, even after eating that meal the McCoy had brought him earlier, and figured he could have eaten a whole side of beef with no trouble if given the chance. Rogue walked along beside him as they entered the kitchen and he could feel her eyes on him again, but he kept quiet and didn't say anything. She didn't seem to want to fight him and bringing it up might cause more problems than it was worth. He had learned enough lessons from Akane and the others to know he should keep his mouth shut, that way they wouldn't hit him for no reason. He opened the walk in fridge and found it stocked to the rafters, there had to be enough food to feed and army in there. Digging around for little bit he and pulled out enough materials to make a couple of large sandwiches.
Rogue just watched as he made a giant sandwich and scarfed it down in a few bites without even taking time to enjoy it. Then he made another one and at it as well, all in less than ten minutes and if he wasn't full after than she had a feeling their food stores wouldn't last to long. Ranma was on his third sandwich when a large man entered the kitchen and stalked into the room, he was wearing dark clothing, had black skin, and the letter 'M' tattooed over his right eye. Ranma noted that the guy carried himself like a trained warrior and if that huge gun he had on his shoulder was any indication, very dependent on high powered weaponry. The guy grunted as he spotted Ranma and studied the newcomer, what he saw was a surprise to say the least.
"Who is this Rogue?" Bishop asked.
'Oh goody, lets do all this useless male posturing now.' Rogue thought as she glanced over at Bishop. "Bishop, this is Ranma Saotome. He's from a long ways off, a different dimension to be exact."
"Why is he here?"
"We're giving him a hand, he needs to find a way home and doesn't have anywhere else to go while he's here."
"We have equipment that can cross dimensions, I don't see the problem." Bishop said, he didn't see why they had to let a security risk like this into the mansion. From the looks of things so far the kid had already been down in the uniform room. Why hadn't beast kept him locked up down in the sub levels where the kid couldn't escape and cause damage?
This was information to Ranma, Xavier hadn't said anything about having any equipment that could send him home. "Wha...?"
"Where would you have us send him Bishop?"
"Back where he came from."
"...and where is that Bishop? Do you know? We certainly don't and there are billions of possibilities and it would take years to just search randomly."
Bishop grunted and stomped out of the kitchen.
"Well he's certainly happy with life." Rogue muttered.
"What's with him?" Ranma asked around the last of his sandwich.
Rogue shrugged. "Bishop has these strange personality quirks, doesn't like many people, and tends to jump to conclusions about most everyone else he meets. Don't worry about him, he's new to the team so he'll adjust eventually."
"He's a member of the team?"
"Yeah, he handles the weapons and has the ability to absorb and redirect energy blasts."
"Who else is on this team of yours?"
"We have several members, Cyclops and Storm are our leaders, then there is Beast, Bishop, Wolverine, Phoenix, and a few others that aren't here right now. Sometimes Colossus, Shadowcat, and Nightcrawler join us, but right now it's just me and the others."
"What all can everyone do?"
"Various things, the professor told you about me and Cyclops, Storm can control the weather, Wolverine has a super quick healing ability that allows him to shrug off things that would kill just about anyone else, Bishop can absorb and redirect energy, and Phoenix is a powerful telepath and telekinetic."
Ranma blinked and shook his head. "Like any of that means anything to me, I'm just a normal person, I don't know what a telepath, a telekinetic or some of the other things that you've mentioned mean."
"Ah..." Rogue started.
"Don't worry, I've got to get used to this place before I can do anything else." Said Ranma. "What exactly is it you guys do?"
"Well we're trying to achieve the Professor's dream of human and mutant coexistence."
"Oh? How do you do that?"
"We try to keep other mutants from using their powers to harm others and help save the normal humans when they do."
"That sounds pretty good." Ranma said as he considered another sandwich.
"Not really, you see there are a good number of mutants that use their powers for bad or evil things and the humans tend to blame all mutants for the actions of these others." Rogue pointed out. "More than once we have seen a mutant get caught by frightened and angry humans and..."
"They are beat up or hurt?"
Rogue nodded and sighed. "For every mutant that can exist in society without getting into trouble, there are dozens of others that have been...beat to within an inch of their lives or even killed."
"That's pretty bad alright and your group is trying to make things more peaceful?"
"Yeah." Rogue said as Beast wandered into the kitchen.
"Ah Ranma there you are." Beast said as he came into the kitchen. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm still a little weak, but if I had to fight one of my rivals I wouldn't have much problem with it."
"Rivals?" Rogue asked.
"Yep, Ryoga, Mousse, Happosai, Cologne, Taro and a few others that aren't quite as dangerous as they are."
"Well there's no need to worry about them since they're a whole dimension away from here, for now Charles wanted me to introduce you to the rest of the team. He figures it will save a lot of time and arguments with those that don't know you are here in the mansion. "
"Sure." Ranma said with a shrug.
Beast led him through a part of the house he hadn't been to before and into the TV room where several people were sitting around watching the biggest television Ranma had ever seen in his life, it had to be taller than he was and built right into the wall. He ignored what they were watching and looked around the room as he recognized Bishop and the glare that had been leveled at him, but shrugged it off as he looked at the others. Ranma made a note to take the guy down a peg or two, he needed and attitude adjustment and fast. To his surprise none of others were wearing those hokey costumes, Ranma glanced back at Beast when he waved a hand at a couple sitting on the couch.
"Ranma, this here is Scott Summers and Jean Grey, in the chair over there is Logan, Beside him is Bishop, and over there is Ororo Monroe. They go by the names Cyclops, Phoenix, Wolverine, Bishop, and Strom."
"Why do you all have those weird names?"
"Huh?" Beast asked, caught off guard by the question.
"I don't understand why you use the second name, the Cyclops, Wolverine, and such. The only one here that doesn't is Bishop."
"Protection." Bishop said.
"From what?" Ranma asked back.
"Mutants are feared by normal people and since we fight people that could potentially hurt our friends and family we use the code names to protect those we care for." Ororo said.
Ranma cocked his head to the side in confusion. "Then why in the world are you telling me your names?"
"Charles said I was to introduce you to the team." Said Beast.
"I disagreed with this plan of action, but I had no say in it either way." Bishop said.
"Well...alright I guess, it's nice to meet all of you."
"Everyone, Charles said I was to inform all of you of Ranma's presence. He's from Japan, but it seems he's from a different dimension than us and needs a place to stay until he can figure out what to do or how to get home."
"Is he joining the team?" Scott asked.
"Not if I have to wear one of those goofy outfits I've seen." Ranma muttered a little too loudly.
"Hey!" Scott said.
Wolverine and Bishop just chuckled and nodded.
"Not to worry Ranma, you don't have to join if you don't want too. We were just looking out for the best way to help you and get you acquainted with this dimension as quickly as possible." Beast said.
"Alright." Ranma said. "I'll think about it."
"Good enough, if you want we can run some tests to see how you handle yourself."
"How?" Ranma asked and wondered if they were all going to gang up on him to see how he fought.
"We'll use the practice room where we can monitor your reactions in a controlled environment."
"Huh?"
"The Danger Room, kid. Where we all practice the use of our powers from time to time when we need to work on something, the room can handle a lot more punishment than the woods outside can and be repaired a lot quicker." Logan said as he puffed away on his cigar.
"What in the world is a Danger Room, Xavier mentioned it before but I didn't get a chance to ask about it."
"It's down on the second level, if you feel up to it we can run you through some of the programs any time you want." Beast said and pulled out his clip board to take down some more notes.
"Can I see this thing in action first?"
"Sure, any of you want to run through a program right now?"
Logan stood up and stalked out of the room. "Let's do it, I have some kinks to work out anyway."
The rest of the team decided to stay and finish watching their movie and fought over Logan's popcorn as Beast and Ranma jogged after Wolverine. Beast explained that most of the second level was devoted to the Danger Room itself, a large room about the size of a football field that could mimic any kind of environment they wanted with solid light holograms. Nodding, Ranma pretended to understand what it was as Beast chattered on as if nothing was wrong. A few seconds later they stepped into the control room, it was about fifteen feet long and had a row of computers running along the front wall where several large windows over looked an enclosed room with plane gray walls covered in strange weaving patterns.
Sitting down at the console Beast took a few seconds to boot the system up, Ranma looked out the window and saw that Logan was down on the floor putting on a goofy outfit. It was mostly yellow, but had slashes here and there, a pair of knee high blue boots, and a weird mask that explained the man's incredible case of 'hat' hair. Ranma had to admit that the guy did give that ridiculous outfit a dangerous quality though, as if he know that no matter what he was wearing he was going to kill something today. Finishing the boot up Beast tapped a few keys and lowered the lights in the booth then pressed a toggle switch.
"Logan, are you ready?"
"Go ahead fur ball."
"Alright." Beast said and tapped a button in front of him.
Ranma gasped as the whole room changed before his eyes, the swirls in the walls glowed for few seconds and wavered like a heat wave illusion before solidifying into a path of some kind. He wasn't sure where the illusion finished and the room began because he could see far into the distance as if they had actually outside in broad daylight. Ranma wondered how an illusion of a clear day was going to be dangerous, but decided to see what would happen since Beast was still messing with the computer. Down below Wolverine was going through some stretches while still puffing away on that cigar.
"There we go, that program needs to be updated a bit, the thing's so old that it these new computers have a hard time running it.'' Beast muttered to himself.
Down below the air shimmered and several Sentinels appeared, thirty foot purple and blue robots, and Ranma could see Wolverine snarl at them clear from the both as he ran forward. The robots reacted slowly, but as Wolverine got closer they started to perk up and pair off into teams as they moved to surround him. Their arms came up and started to fire blasts of energy at him, but he dodged them easily by rolling, jumping, and spinning out of the way of each shot. Ranma was surprised to recongnize some of the moves Wolverine was using. A martial system he had encountered somewhere along this ten year training trip, but he couldn't really place where. The robots quickly adapted and started to attack Wolverine in different ways and from varying directions all at once, one used a stronger blast as a second tried to block him from going beyond a certain point, while two others ejected some kind of gas out of their hands. Wolverine didn't even slow as popped a set of tiger claws out of the backs of his hands in mid jump and started to slice them to pieces and inch at a time.
Now Ranma was impressed, that kind of skill wasn't easy to come by and this guy was ripping his way through these things with ease, he must have known a variant of Kuno's tree slicing trick. He noted that every time Wolverine took out one of those robots he went for the back of the robot's 'neck', never the same way twice either, some times he would cut it with those strange blades of his, or would use himself as bait to get the other Sentinels to fire at him and jump out of the way at the last second so that they blasted the other Sentinel instead. Ranma recognized personal experience when he saw it, this guy had been fighting like this for a very long time. He also seemed to know some of the rudiments of Anything Goes style, using everything around him as a weapon, the air, the ground, even the robots themselves as weapons.
Another part of Ranma, a part he didn't think about all that much also analyzed what was being seen and started coming up with ways to battle something like this. Genma had trained Ranma to fight battles without thinking about the fight itself, just to react to the situation as quickly as physically possible. So Ranma was unaware that he was taking in everything he was seeing and learning from it like he was taught, how to defend, how to attack, and how the giant robots worked. Most of it was pretty logical, working as a team they would try to overwhelm or position their target in a position to kill him as easily as possible. Ranma noted that the Sentinels seemed to depend on their hand blasters the most, though he had spotted a gas attack, a javelin like attack that sent a long bar of metal towards a target, and even one that used a machine gun.
Wolverine took it all in stride and worked his way through the Sentinels slowly and methodically and even then they rarely seemed to get very close to killing him. Then to Ranma's surprise more Sentinels showed up, these looked different than the others. There were only four of them, but they were taller and faster than the others, Beast explained that these were a second generation Sentinel that had been developed several years after the others. They were faster, built out of stronger materials, and far more deadly. Ranma had agree as Wolverine's claws seemed to barely scratch them, their hand blasters were a lot more powerful as well, creating twenty foot craters in the ground when the blast damage cleared away.
These new Sentinels were pretty much immune to Wolverine's claws, but Ranma was impressed when he started using the robots against each other. Using himself as bait again he was able to take two of them out, but the last two seemed to have learned about that trick and refused to fire their weapons at each other. Instead they kept him running around between them by firing their hand blasts in rapid blasts that exploded all around Wolverine in a hail of death, Ranma was sure that Wolverine was going to be destroyed.
"We have to help him!" Ranma said suddenly.
"No need to worry Ranma, this is a training room, if Wolverine goes down the program will end and shut down." Beast said.
"But..."
"Logan helped design this adaptation at one time to catch people off guard, I've expanded upon it while we were watching the first battle, that way he won't know all the little tricks to take them down. This way he has to work at it." Beast then grinned, showing a lot of pointy and sharp teeth. "Sentinels also have the ability learn from each other and adapt their own programming to compensate for a weakness, unlike the first set that only had a series of attack plans and defensive measures built in, these new versions can learn how to create and pull off random plans of attack."
"They can learn? Um...Amazing?" Ranma muttered, he had no clue what was so hard about learning how to adapt, but from what Beast was saying, it was something these Sentinels normally shouldn't have been able to do. Ranma had no clue about any of this computer stuff, he'd never had any reason to mess with it while in the training trip and wondered if that was going to be a problem in this world. Even Akane and her sisters seemed to know how to use a computer, but to Ranma it was just a box that could show words and pictures, something completely useless in a battle to the death. This thing in front of him though made him rethink that kind of thing, maybe there was more to computers than he had realized.
"You don't have much experience with computers do you?"
"Not really, no. What use is a box in battle?"
Beast laughed. "Wolverine used to be the same, even today he won't use them all that much, but they do have their uses. Especially for holding and retrieving information and in a fight the right information can let you win with ease."
"Hmm...Nabiki has said something similar."
"Nabiki? Is this a friend?"
"I wouldn't call her a friend, but she isn't really my enemy either, just someone that likes to use other people for her own gain. She has ways of coming up with information that she uses to scam money and favors off of people, according to a couple of girls that work with her she pays pretty good wages too."
"I've known people like that, specializes in small time blackmail and random threats even if she has to create such things herself?"
"Yeah, that's pretty close." Ranma said with a nod.
"Did you learn anything from her?"
Ranma grinned and nodded. "She was always treating me like an idiot and using me so I pretended to be what she thought I was, after awhile it kind of became a habit. Even when I didn't need to do it, I watched her and her gang for several months before I figured out how she was doing some of the things she did and after that it was easy to predict her reactions. I didn't do it very often, but she was a puzzle that needed to be solved and after I did things became easier to live with. Her whole family was strange too, but she had to be the worst of the lot, the others were just...slightly delusional."
"And you were constantly around these people?"
"I lived with them, Nabiki was my fiancee's sister."
"This is the first I've heard of this." Beast said.
"It's the first time since I woke up that anyone has asked, I'll explain it all to you later, but right now Wolverine seems to have beat your program." Ranma said and pointed out into the Danger Room.
The crushed and mangled bodies of two Sentinels were sprawled across each other with a harried looking Wolverine standing on top of them looking like a wild animal, his uniform was nearly shredded off his body and Ranma could see blood running down his arms and legs. , Wolverine reminded him of the Musk in a number of ways, it was a sight Ranma figured Herb would have liked. He was slightly bestial and extremely violent, Beast fit right into that mold too, but his intelligence would have caused problems with the Prince of the Musk. Or would that be Princess of the Musk?
"Oh my, it looks like I might have made that a little too difficult for him." Beast muttered.
Pushing a button Ranma has watched Beast use earlier, he activated the intercom. "Are you alright Wolverine?"
Wolverine shook himself and said something, but it didn't come over the speakers so Beast lifted Ranma's finger off the button. "...fine, just a little more difficult than I expected. It was a good work out."
"Oh yeah, I knew I was forgetting something." Ranma muttered as Beast took over.
"I didn't think you would have that much trouble with the extra Sentinels Wolverine, you must be getting old."
"Ha! Fur ball don't push your luck." Wolverine said as he went in search of a new cigar and lit one up, puffing away contentedly.
"Want to give it a try, I'll tone it down since you don't have Wolverine's healing ability or endurance to take on that many foes." Beast said as he turned to Ranma.
"Don't think I'm such a weakling, I have been training in my family art for over ten years now and I can beat my father without much trouble and he's a Master." Ranma snapped and glared at the blue furred Doctor.
Nodding, Beast made a note to treat Ranma carefully, he didn't seem to take well to certain types of suggestions, quite like Wolverine had been during that first year. Beast was even willing to bet that Ranma would even have the same types of ideas about authority figures like Scott and Charles. "Sorry about that, didn't mean to imply anything, just thought you might want to run through a program."
Ranma nodded. "Why not, it looks like fun. Will I be fighting those Sentinels?"
"No, but something similar lines. I'm going to use them to figure out just how good you are."
"Sounds like fun, lets go for it, I need a little practice time anyway."
**********
To Be Continued...
Ending Notes - * One learns all the cuss words of a language ten minutes after entering any country, this is from the natives calling you certain things in the knowledge that you have no idea what they are saying. The citizens of every country on the planet do this, it's a law. ^_^