Prime Attitude

by CRose

This is the end of the second Arc of PA, Ranma meets the moste interesting people and an enemy returns for revenge

6. Prime Attitude II It's Clobbering Time!

**********

Prime Attitude II

Chapter 01 – Its Clobbering Time!

Cory D. Rose

ertle2@msn.com

(c) 2003

**********

Four Freedom's Plaza was quite big and the whole area reminded Ranma of several places he'd seen in Tokyo, nearly one hundred stories high and impossible to see the top no matter how hard you looked. Even then, he was still about a block from the place as the first rays of the sun crested over the city. Seeing the top of the building where a giant number four built right into the side of the building was quite a sight, and then he noticed that the 'four' was on all four sides of the building.

From this distance, the building almost seemed to gleam in the early morning light as he approached it with a steady pace, and wondered if someone who owned a building like this would even be able to help him. He had a feeling that getting in to see this Richards character would be a little harder than he thought, but he would still give it a shot. He had to get home. He had a promise to keep.

He shook his head and remembered that Xavier had told him that contacting Reed Richards was very hard unless you knew him personally. The professor had even told him that it might take several tries before he even got past the man's robotic secretary. Ranma just hoped that Xavier had remembered to call and let Richards know that he was coming to see him. As he got closer to the building he could almost feel some kind of energy around the building that made the city feel slightly different.

The people around him, who were out walking this early in the morning, seemed to feel it unconsciously as well. It was as if some line was drawn around the building itself. A person would walk down the street, pass though the invisible barrier and suddenly stand a little taller or walk a little more confidently. There was feeling of power about the building that he'd never sensed before and he wondered where it came from. Were these the kind of people he could trust?

He wasn't really sure, but he wouldn't know until he reached the building and got inside to make sure for himself. It didn't take him long to make it to the building and enter through the spinning glass doors. He was greeted by a large open lobby, tiled in shiny black tile and dozens of support beams, and not a single person in sight. There was a sign by the elevators that told him that he needed to go to the thirtieth floor if he wanted to even have a chance to talk to Richards.

With any luck he would be home in just a few hours. He wandered over to the elevators and chose one at random. The ride up to the thirtieth floor was uneventful, but he did realize that it was just after six in the morning and he might have to wait a couple of hours to even talk to anybody, but he didn't mind. Then, just as he was about to reach his destination the elevator suddenly slowed to a stop between the fifteen and sixteenth floors and the lights in the ceiling flickered a couple of times.

Then the elevator reversed direction and descended back to the first floor to let him out. He hit a couple of buttons, but the elevator refused to even close its doors. So he stepped out of the elevator to check and see if one of the other elevators would work, but the doors snapped shut before he was even a foot away from the door. Then he heard all of the elevators rise up into the building. "What the hell is going on?"

"Thank you for visiting Four Freedom's Plaza, please come again during regular business hours." A computerized voice said from a speaker just above the elevator.

Ranma glared at the speaker for a second and considered forcing the matter, but then he recalled what Xavier had said about him being persistent. If the arrogant jerk didn't want to see him, he would just have to make the guy do it, or break in and threaten him a little. He was probably like an older version of Gosenkugi after all, and all geeks were the same as far as he was concerned.

Then he calmed down, recalled what Xavier told him about overreacting to things, and remembered Bishop's over reaction to his little trick. His hands still felt dirty. How overreaction and hate was the number one cause of mutant dislike, so he needed to be careful not to cause a big problem. Reed Richards liked his privacy and was a very busy man and Ranma knew getting in to see him would a long shot.

"I'll find a different way then, it's not like I'm in that much of a hurry, though I might punch him one just to teach him a lesson about being rude to people." Ranma muttered to himself as he turned around and walked out of the building, and then he stopped and looked at the ceiling. Somewhere above him was an aura of immense power, the biggest aura yet.

"That aura is big and why is it familiar?"

"Howdy kid, can I help you?"

Turning around, he noticed that the doorman was standing right behind him, dressed in a heavy long coat of deep red with large silver buttons down one side, and appeared to be an elderly man. Ranma was a bit surprised that he hadn't spotted the guy earlier, though he hadn't been looking for him either. "Ah, I need to talk to Reed Richards. There is a chance he has something that might help me."

"Did you have an early morning appointment?"

"No, I didn't realize how early I was until a little while ago."

"He sees people at around mid morning unless something is going on or he's out with the team saving the world."

"Ah…"

"Please come back then." The old man said as he led Ranma over to the door and gently shoved him out of the building.

"But…" Ranma tried to say, but the door closed in his face just as the old man locked it and waved goodbye. He growled and stomped off.

**********

A Dream in the night can bring the most unexpected terrors.

A black and white colored Ranma stood in the middle of the street with a massive aura of blue energy flaring as he looked around in alarm. His eyes were glowing even brighter than his aura, so bright they were almost impossible to look at. He gazed into the sky as a shadow of black fire descends from the heavens like a falling meteor, slamming into him with the force of a bomb.

Shattering the ground and levelling every building for several blocks in ever direction in utter silence as an alien shadow reflected off the sky and laughed evilly. The silent destruction is nothing as Ranma's aura flickered and died for just a second, only to flare up again as a hundred times bigger, but there is a glint of evil in his eyes as he slowly walked out of the crater and people run from him in terror. The evil shadow reflecting off of him as he walks down the devastated street walking on the bodies of the dead.

"EGHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Franklin yelled as his eyes snap open.

He shivered and cowered down below his sheets to find some kind of comfort in his large empty bed. The door slammed open and his mother came running in looking around frantically.

"Franklin! Are you alright?!" She gasped as she threw the covers off and wrapped him in a hug. "What happened, why did you scream?"

"I had a dream…"

"It was only a nightmare, thank god…" She muttered in relief.

"It was True Dream, momma."

Sue Richards didn't seem to hear him though, this was a common occurrence with his parents, but Franklin didn't think much of it. He was only six years old; he didn't know better and thought it was normal. "The Ghost man is going to hurt the Blue Fire Man, momma."

She continued to hold him for a few minutes before Franklin drifted off to sleep again. Reed Richard's walked into the room a few seconds later, smoking his pipe, and looked down on his wife and son. "How is he?"

"He's fine now, just sleeping."

"What was he talking about?"

"He had another dream."

"A regular one?"

"No, I think it was one of those dreams, the one's that have you so worried and drive Jarvis up a wall in worry. What are we going to do if this gets any worse; you know what he did last time."

"No matter how long we wait his power just keeps growing. We just need to be careful; those Power kids have been a good influence on him. Maybe they can help him out with these dreams as well, help to calm him down when he has them and such."

"No…" Sue said. "I will not involve those children in our problem."

"Then we will just have to be careful and let him gain the control he needs."

**********

Breakfast burritos were not the best food in the world, but Ranma was hungry enough to eat them by the dozen. He tossed several wrappers in the trash as he walked down the street still eating his last half dozen. For some reason he was starving and needed a lot of food to keep his body going. After getting tossed out of Four Freedom's plaza he didn't know what to do, but figured he could walk around for a while before deciding to buy the burritos at a store down the street. Getting in to see Reed Richards was going to be a lot harder than he first thought.

Sure he could force his way in, blowing up everything in sight and starting a small war, but that probably wouldn't get him what he wanted. Being with the X Men taught him that much, force didn't always work, especially in this world. His old man would have been amazed at such a thought, then stolen the nearest plate of food and ran for it. That meant he would take his time and see what happened, but first, he needed to finish breakfast.

He found a bench and spent a few minutes relaxing as he finished his food and watched the world move by him in a bit of shock. Long ago he'd learned that big cities meant lots of people, even in Tokyo, there was something about New York that made it feel like it was about to explode. Large crowds of unwashed people stumbled by the bench stinking of various kinds of alcohol or other unsavory things.

How these people could stand living in that kind of filth shocked him even more. If there was one thing he disliked, it was being dirty. These people seemed to take it to the next level and it appeared that they were proud of it. No wonder Americans were had such a strange reputation around the world. He noticed the traffic was beginning to pick up as soon as sat there. With a sigh he stood up and made sure someone wasn't about to drop down on him from above and picked up his pack.

"You!"

Ranma spun around, taking a quick defensive stance as he instantly thought Ryoga was going to appear out of nowhere. Instead, he found himself a few feet away from the little blonde girl he'd met the day before. She was glaring at him in a rather familiar way, had her hands on her hips, and looked like she wanted to deck him. He relaxed and looked down at her for a second. "Katie wasn't it?"

"Geeze, it hasn't even been twelve hours and you can't recall what my name is?" She muttered and pouted a bit.

Standing just behind Katie were three other kids of various ages, two boys and a girl. The tallest, a boy, glanced at Ranma and gave him a weird look. "Is this the guy you were telling us about last night Katie?"

"That's him Alex." Katie said.

"He doesn't look all that tuff." Jack muttered under his breath and looked away. Ranma almost smirked at the kid.

"I'm Julie Power." Julie said and smiled at Ranma.

He glanced over the group and noticed that they were all giving off an aura that stood out in his senses. Katie had the strongest of the four; he was a bit surprised about that. The next strongest was the oldest boy, Alex. Then Jack was the third strongest, and finally Julie. Whatever their powers were their ages didn't seem to have anything to with their strength.

"So kids, what brings you out here this early in the morning?" Ranma asked.

"We're just heading to school, it is Monday." Katie explained. "We better get going too, the first bell is going to go off here pretty soon."

"We have a few minutes yet." Alex said.

"Yeah, it's not every day that some guy saves your sister." Jack said as he took a closer look at Ranma.

"He took on a Snark, that's no small feat."

Ranma just smirked; he always enjoyed it when someone complimented his skills. He was about to respond when he sensed something and turned to look across the street into an alley covered in early morning shadows. His danger sense was telling him to watch out for an attack, but the alley was empty. "You kids get out of here, there's something wrong."

The oldest, Alex looked across the street. "I don't see anything."

"I'm not sure what it is, but there is something dangerous over there."

Now all the kids were looking. Ranma could feel something looking at him, something dangerous. Alex and Jack backed up a few feet and started looking around to see of they could spot something that Ranma was missing, but all they could see were a few people walking along the sidewalk.

"There's nothing here Ranma." Katie said, though she was starting to get nervous.

Then Alex saw it and pointed. "There at the edge of that trash can across the street…" He yelled as a distortion in the air seemed to swirl around something and a red bolt of energy flew across the street.

With a burst of blue energy around his hand, Ranma knocked the bolt into the ground where it scorched the sidewalk and cracked it a little. He growled as he shook his hand and the kids all give him wide eyed looks of shock. "What the hell was that?"

"A blaster." Alex said. "Snarks use them all the time."

"I see the distortion now, when he holds still I lose track of him, but the instant he moves around…" He swatted another bolt to the side, right into the building behind them. "I can see him."

Katie looked around Ranma's leg and glared at the nearly invisible Snark. "Why is he still hiding?"

"We need to stop him before he has a chance to hurt anyone." Julie said and the kids all looked nervously at Ranma.

Ranma didn't seem to notice. "You kids all have powers, I'd advise using them if you have to."

"W-what are you t-talking about?" Julie stuttered out in shock and glanced at her brothers.

"I can sense your abilities, if you don't know about them you should figure them out quickly." Ranma snapped. "He's tired of hiding; I can see him moving now…"

The invisible Snark swirled into view as his invisibility vanished. Unlike a normal Snark, this one was at least twice as big and looked mean enough to break them into little broken bits. The kids recognized it as a commander, a Snark leader that led troops into battle.

"Time to die." It hissed, brought its blaster up and pressed a button.

"Ranma, he's just increased that thing's power output, those bolts are capable of killing us now. I think he had it set on stun before, but I don't know why."

"Where are the others?" Julie asked as she looked around. "Where's there's one there are usually two or three more."

Katie growled and fired a quick ball of energy from her stomach, but the Snark dropped and rolled before it could hit. Then it was up and sent a couple more bolts of energy flying across the street. That was all the people around them needed to see before they started to run. Once was and accident or but more than once meant they were all in danger and the whole block cleared of people in seconds.

Ranma seemed to flicker as the thing fired another volley; he grabbed Jack and Julie and pulled them out of the way before they could be hit, though Julie got pulled out of the air before she could get more than a few inches off the ground. The brick wall behind them developed a series of smoking holes. Alex picked up the bench and threw it across the street, but the Snark blew it out of the air before it could hit. Then over a dozen of the things appeared from all around them.

"We need to get out of here." Ranma snapped. "Down that alley, we can go over the wall."

The Power kids looked at each other, shrugged, and nodded. "COSTUME'S ON!"

Blinking, Ranma watches as the kid's clothes distort and swirl around them, leaving them in a copy of the outfit he'd seen Katie wearing the day before. Though they were different colors. Katie's was still yellowish gold with silver boots. Jack's outfit was a blue with silver boots, Julie's was red, and Alex's outfit was white. There were these simple looking pictures on their chests that Ranma didn't recognize.

Alex's attitude seemed to change as the costume appeared, making him more mature in some way that was impossible to describe. Counterweight pointed at the Snark as it moved to get to it's feet. "Destroyer! Blast the ground at his feet. Mass Master we need cover, Starstreak let's get to the top of that…"

They moved quick, Ranma had to give them that, but as his danger sense warned him of an attack from off to the side. His aura flared and he turned just as a blaster shot took him in the stomach and blasted him off his feet. "Crap!"

"Ranma!" The kids yelled.

Within seconds, it was chaos as Destroyer fired a blast at the ground and blew up the street at the Snarks feet just before Mass Master turned into a cloud of fog and blanked the whole street. Several Snarks were sent tumbling before they vanished. Ranma barely noticed as he flew into the fog as Starstreak grabbed Counterweight's hand to lift them of the ground in a stream of rainbow colored energy.

He could sense the kid's auras as they moved about the fog, though being within the aura of one of them was a bit hard to adjust to at first, but he adapted quickly. The Snake monsters had odd auras, whatever they using to mask their bodies from sight was hiding their auras as well. He wasn't sure what to do about that, but he would have to worry about it later on.

Energy bolts fired into the fog from three different directions as all the kids dived for cover. Destroyer fired out multiple blasts from her stomach as she ran through edges of the fog, grabbed the spout of a fire hydrant, disintegrated the cap, sent a blast of water into the street, and knocked a Snark off his feet.

Ranma rolled to his feet and was a bit surprised how close the X Men's danger room had gotten when he used it for training for a situation like this. He smirked as he saw the kids blasting the hell out of the Snarks they could see, dropping two or three every few seconds, then he saw the water from the fire hydrant and edged away from it. He flared his aura a second later, vaporizing the water on his body, and fired a blast down the street, and took out one of the Snarks before it could shoot Julie.

"We need to find a better place to fight, there's not enough room in this alley!" Counterweight yelled from above them as he threw a completely full dumpster down the street and took out a few more Snarks, even some invisible ones.

"There's an alley down the street, a big one with a dead end we can use!" Jack, Mass Master said.

"Go!" Counterweight yelled as Starstreak took off down the street.

Destroyer quickly disintegrated some of the debris all around her and sent a series of fireballs sailing down the street. They exploded and blew several Snarks off their feet, buying them the few seconds they needed to regroup and run down the street. As they ran Ranma was really beginning to wonder where they were all coming from, this was too organized to be a spur of the moment attack.

That and the kids were fighting like a group of well trained fighters, covering each other's back and making sure that no one got hurt while they fought, he was a bit amazed.

The Snarks took a second to regroup as well before they moved after them, but Ranma took a second to launch himself at the closest one and kicked it in the head, it was hard enough to stagger even Ryoga. It went down with a cry and a shower of missing teeth, rendering it instantly unconscious.

Ranma just took a second to smirk at the rest of them before he took off after the kids, he'd have to the rest of the thing's teeth out of his shin when he had a chance. Several blaster shots were fired after him, but he dodged them easily and ducked into the fog filled alley after the kids.

"Are you kids alright?" Ranma asked as he turned the dog leg and ended up at the end of the alley where the kids were discussing something.

"Yeah, those things set up a trap." Jack said as he reformed into a solid form, though the fog still remained.

"We've just got a few seconds before they get here. They have to be stopped." Alex said as he looked over at a nearby trashcan.

"They've got a glass jaw." Ranma said. "Took one down with a single punch."

"It's too bad we always meet up with them in groups like this." Julie said as she stretched. I get so tired of fighting these things."

There's only a few of them left now, we should take them down quickly, and then we might actually make it to school on time."

"Yeah right." Jack muttered and punched his a foggy fist into his palm. "I'd rather kick Snark butt."

Ranma laughed as he watched the corner for any sign of the things. "Where are they?"

"They'll come." Alex said.

"Those stupid things never give up, no matter how many times we kick their tails." Jack's voice said from out of the cloud of fog all around them.

"That's fine with me, they have glass jaws, one good hit and they go down with no problems." Ranma said.

"Humph! No matter how old they are boys are still boys." Julie muttered from a few feet away as she and Katie watched the end of the alley for any sign of movement.

"You should have heard him bragging last night." Destroyer muttered and disintegrated some bags of trash piled up next to the building.

Ranma looked around as he realized that they should have been fighting by then, but the lizard things weren't there to fight. "Where the heck are they?"

"You're right, something isn't right." Alex muttered as he glanced around, this feels like that time I was with the Warriors…"

"Alex, if you mention that time one more time I'm going to knock your block off." Julie muttered.

An explosion went off above them and the echoing laugh of a Snark as it moved around above them. Ranma and the others spun around and looked up at the flaming wreckage of a large water tower as it went up in a ball of flame. Its weight slowly made its damaged supports give way and shatter, dumping water on them from three stories up. The sound would have woken the dead. Cursing, Ranma realized he'd just made mistake that the X Men had tried to teach him not to make.

Obviously he hadn't learned the lesson well enough. Blue fire flared around his body as he suddenly realized that four children were about to be buried under a lot of debris. He shot forward faster than he'd ever moved before, grabbing Alex and Katie before they could even utter a word. Blue fire surrounded him as he channelled the power to his legs and shot off in the direction Julie was flying.

He wasn't too worried about the other boy; he was all smoke, that wouldn't be injured by the falling water and wood as it slammed into the ground. Even with all his speed, he wasn't faster than the outer edge of the water as it careened into his back and he felt the change overtake him. In his arms, Katie's eyes widened as she felt Ranma's body shift from hard muscle to something else. She yelled as he flipped in mid air, rebounded off a piece of debris, and raced down the alley as a wall of water surged after them.

"Blasted lizards!" Jack yelled out.

Ranma was a little preoccupied as she ran, so she didn't see Counterweight grab her shirt a little tighter. It came as a complete surprise when he yanked them into the air above the street. She nearly dropped the kids as they sailed into the air and the ground at the end of the alley erupted into a burst of laser fire. "What the hell?!"

"Ranma, I've made us light, just get us to the top of that building over there!" Alex yelled as he pointed down the street. He still hadn't noticed Ranma's change, but Katie had, and she was starting to panic a little.

Suddenly Starstreak came up behind them, grabbed onto the back of Ranma's shirt, and dragged them to the top of the building. Ranma landed heavily as Alex restored their weight, but she managed to do it without causing them any harm.

"Where is…" Ranma asked, but the two of them jumped back in shock as they realized that Ranma wasn't there anymore. Katie just looked confused as she looked around at Ranma from behind Julie.

"Who are you?!" Katie yelled and started to glow. "Where's Ranma?"

Ranma gave her a confused look for a second, then slapped her forehead and sighed. "I am Ranma, I've got this…"

"Ranma is a boy and you couldn't be a boy even if you wanted to." Julie said and glared at him.

"Don't make us hurt you, where is Ranma? Is this a trick by the Snarks?"

"I am Ranma." Ranma said.

"Liar!" Destroyer yelled and fired a ball of energy at Ranma.

"Katie no!" Alex yelled, but Ranma casually flipped over the ball, landed on the edge of the roof and crouched down.

"I think it would best if I got out of here if you aren't going to listen to reason." Ranma said.

Counterweight glanced at Ranma and narrowed his eyes. "You aren't going anywhere until we figure out what happened to our friend."

A weight settled over Ranma and he fell forward onto the roof and struggled to sit up. "What…"

"You just stay there." Destroyer said.

Grunting, Ranma managed to stand up under the weight the boy was exerting against her. She glanced at him and saw the surprised look on his face. Her blue aura flared around her for a second and the weight lessoned a little as she made herself stronger. "Those Snarks are still here; don't you think we should take care of them first?"

"The Snarks!" Katie yelled and ran over to the edge of the building. "What are we going to do?"

Ranma felt the weight field lift, leaving her free enough to run if she wanted to. Instead she turned and looked down at the street where she spotted several Snarks moving along the street. Most of the people had left the area earlier so they didn't have to worry about hurting them, but Ranma had a feeling these kids might react like the X Men did. "We can worry about where I came from later; right now we need to stop those things."

"We have to make them go back to their ship, but I still don't understand why they are here in the first place." Alex said. "They promised to leave us alone."

"I've found very few people ever keep their promises." Ranma muttered as he continued to watch the Snarks. "I count over fifteen of them down there and we need to stop them before they try to do something more drastic than tipping over a water tower."

"I say we go down there and beat them up." Mass Master snarled.

"We don't need to go that far…" Alex started.

"I think that is exactly what we should do too." Ranma said.

"What?!" The kids yelled.

"They think we are running from them. A frontal attack will catch them completely by surprise, give us the advantage, and give us a chance to make sure they won't bother us again."

"I don't know." Alex said hesitantly.

"Sounds good to me." Jack said as he hopped over the side of the building, turned to smoke, and then condensed down into a very small form. He slammed feet first into a Snark's nose snout.

Ranma blinked a couple of times as the Snark collapsed to the ground, completely out cold. "Well there's something you don't see every day."

"I don't know why, but they all just took off and vanished after I knocked that one out." Jack told them as he quickly reformed on the roof beside them.

"I've never seen the Snarks act like this before, but at least they're gone." Alex said.

"We need to get to school." Starstreak said and eyed Ranma again. "But I'd like to know who this girl is and where the heck Ranma got to."

"I am Ranma; I picked up this curse a while back that turns me into a girl whenever I get hit with cold water." She said with a shrug. "No big deal, I just need to get some hot water to change back into a guy."

"A curse? You don't expect us to believe that do you?" Alex asked.

"I don't care what you think about it." Ranma snapped back as she decided that it was time to leave. She hopped off the top of the building, dropped to the ground below, and landed easily.

Katie ran over to the edge and looked down at Ranma as the girl walked away with her hands in her pockets. "We have to talk to her!"

"Not now Katie, we need to fly if we are going to make it to school in time. We can look for her after school, there can't be that many red headed girls running around that look like she does."

"Do you really think that is Ranma? I've never heard of a mutant power that could make a guy turn into a girl with cold water."

"What are we going to do about those Snarks? I don't like this at all, they've got something planned."

"What can we do?" Jack muttered as he turned to smoke. "Let's get down into that alley there, change our clothes, and get to school. I don't want to put up with another of Dad's lectures today."

"Let's go, we can talk about Ranma later as well Katie, he or she has some explaining to do if we see her again."

**********

The park was relatively small, but big enough to attract a hungry morning crowd as a food cart sold them an early morning breakfast. Water logged and still female, Ranma stalked through crowd as she looked around for a place to sit and think. She had managed to go several days now without transforming, heck almost two solid weeks, but then it had to happen right in the middle of a fight and ruin everything.

She wasn't aware of it, but her damp clothing and her unbound hair was attracting the notice of a good number of people. They didn't seem to notice that she was angry, or that she was moving faster than the people around her, all they saw was a good looking girl in a wet shirt. A guy put his game face on and started towards her, but then stopped as Ranma suddenly glared at him from the corner of her eyes. He caught a brief flare of blue fire and decided that he'd better lay off.

Turning pale, he turned around and quickly made his way out of the park and down the street before he broke into a run and vanished. Ranma didn't even realize that she'd done anything other than glare at the unclean aura she'd just sensed heading her way. Grinding her teeth, she made her way over to an empty park bench, sat down with a sigh, and hung her head.

She closed her eyes and let her mind wander again and almost immediately felt the presence of a powerful mutant in the area. Without bothering to look up she used her senses to scan it a little more and realized that it was actually a mixture of a number of things. Not only was the mutant aura there, but when she looked a little closer she could sense its life aura as well. It just took a little more concentration to separate the two. Whomever the aura belonged to she could sense power and arrogance to some degree, as if the two were intertwined within his body, feeding off of each other.

Then she sat up, glanced towards the line of people waiting to buy some food, and spotted him. It wasn't all that hard really; his whole arm was on fire as he used the flames to make little sculptures for a pair of blushing girls. Even living at the Tendo's place Ranma hadn't run into too many playboy types, but those that crossed her path paid for it with a swift kick between the legs and this guy appeared fit that description to a tee. She growled under her breath as he glanced over in her direction and got a dreamy look on his face.

"Stupid curse." She muttered and tried to calm her mind. Being revealed like that in front of the kids had shaken her a little bit.

"Hello there Red, I'm Johnny Storm and I'm burning up for you."

She slowly opened her eyes to find that he was holding a flaming rose a few inches from her face and had this smirk on his face that actually reminded her of Kuno and what's his name, Piccole or something, the food guy. "Go away before I break your arm."

"Now that isn't anyway to talk to your biggest fan." Johnny said happily, completely ignoring her threat. Several nearby girls developed some respectable auras as they glared at Ranma.

"Go away." She muttered and waved her hand towards the street. "In that direction."

Johnny, let the flames consume his whole body and lifted up off the ground. "I know, I know, you want my autograph don't you…"

Ranma snarled as she sprang off the bench and punched him right in the nuts, retracted her flaming hand and patted out the flames. Johnny on the other hand slowly stopped burning, hung in the air for a few seconds holding 'little Johnny', and fell the ground writhing in pain. Ranma smirked evilly as she noticed the shocked silence around her. For some reason she was suddenly feeling a whole lot better, maybe that was why Akane tended to hit boys when she got mad at them.

Behind her, Johnny led out a long groan as he finally managed to get his strength back and found himself held by about two dozen girls. He grinned weakly and wondered why the red head wasn't there as well. How could she not like someone like him, he was famous after all.

**********

Reptilian forms swarmed throughout the room, moving from a series of large computers to a pyramid shaped device in the center of the room. Machinery hummed with life and power, growing louder and louder with ever passing second. Snarks were big creatures, about twice the size of an alligator and ten times as mean.

They were not patient creatures, but with the right motivation they could be quite innovative. At one point in time they had been some of the most dangerous creatures in the galaxy, but that title didn't apply anymore. Now they were a race in the midst of change.

Striving to make their race even stronger than anything in the galaxy. Their first try to accomplish this goal had them stealing the powers from Power Pack and giving them to a Snark prince, but in the end that failed as the powers turned on him and destroyed his body.

Ever since then the race had been looking for a way to stave their extinction by searching the universe for a way to achieve the power they needed to survive. Surprisingly there were many ways found, but all of them had major flaws that went against what they believed in.

A small weak looking Snark was taking readings from a gauge on the side of the pyramid and looked at the Snark curled up inside. Energies swirled around inside, bathing the Snark with things that should never touch a living things. After taking down the latest reading, it walked back over to the large computer and tapped a couple of buttons.

After several seconds the computer brought up the information and he grinned at the information. He reached into the white sash he was wearing and pulled out a small disk. "It's about time." He muttered to himself and walked back over to the machine.

He motioned to an elaborately dressed Snark up on the second level and held up the disk. Seconds later the disk was slotted into place the pyramid started to glow as energy rained down on it from a crystal set into the ceiling.

"Colvar?"

"We are almost there Prince Lokar."

"Lord Jackal isn't aware we are even here Colvar, if this fails we will be killed before we even have time to leave the planet."

"Yes sir, but the machine is working perfectly and as you just saw the second phase is about to begin."

"And Veil?"

"He is still asleep and the computer is monitoring the changes in his cellular structure at all times. It's working perfectly."

"Is there any deviation in the schedule?"

"Yes, it seems to be accelerating faster than expected, but that was how the first subject reacted as well." Colvar said. "I think Veil will be ready to leave the womb chamber within twenty four hours."

"Good, we must destroy those hatchlings. Revenge is all we have left." Lord Lokar snarled.

Colvar heard an alarm beeping over on the control panel and went over to take a look. "Hmm…"

"What is it?"

"A power surge of some kind, it's actually helpful to the process and could speed things up a little."

"Good." Lord Lokar said and stalked out of the room with a pair of guards on either side of him.

The surge worried Colvar a little, but he tapped a couple of buttons and the alarm turned off. He had his orders to carry out and that fool Lokar wasn't about to get in his way. Suddenly the hum of machinery picked up all around them, startling all the Snarks in the room. Colvar raised his hand and got their attention.

"We are beginning the final phase of the project!"

The Snarks all scrambled to get into position and Colvar just grinned at them, knowing that the fools would not be able to stop him now that the final phase had started. The first attack on the hatchlings scum was a test to see how much they changed over the last few years.

Then the second attack deliberately brought all of them into battle to see what they could accomplish. They were still studying the data gathered during the operation. The fifth opponent showed some interesting abilities that these humans didn't normally exhibit.

Surprisingly Lord Lokar didn't seem interested in the boy, but Colvar had taken a look at the readings and recognized the readings almost instantly. They bore a striking resemblance to an enemy of his people, Silver Surfer and Fire Lord. The only difference was that the boy didn't seem to be using his abilities all that much during the fight.

Colvar wasn't sure why either. If those readings were correct then the boy was gifted with a Power Cosmic. Something so rare that less than a dozen people in the universe could say the same thing. Whatever the answer was he would have to study it more before he carried out his final orders for the Great Skrull Empire.

**********

"You are perfect." A voice whispered.

Though his body remained asleep, the being known as Veil was no longer alone within his body. A purple cloud of something filled his mind and with every passing second he could feel himself dying little by little. At the same time he could feel his power growing beyond his understanding.

"What you once were I now become and I will get my revenge on that bastard that killed my last host."

"…" Veil started.

"You belong to me."

And Veil was no more.

**********

Male again, Ranma stood on the roof of the building and watched the traffic drive by below him. Even after all this time he was still amazed at the amount of traffic in this city. No matter where he went he there was always a car or two around.

A little while ago he started to sense something growing in the distance, so he'd jumped to this roof to look around. He wasn't sure what it was, but he could tell that there was a powerful being around. The energy he sensed was too big to be anything else.

It worried him even more because there was something familiar about it, but he couldn't place remember from where. Even back in Nerima he'd been able to sense when one of his attackers was in the area if he was looking for it. His new senses made reading auras incredibly simple. There were mutants everywhere, hiding in apartments, in houses, down in the sewers, and riding the subways.

For some reason they were starting to really stand out to him now, giving them a glow that a normal human didn't quite have. Now that the sun was up he could tell that a lot of them had gone back into hiding though, as if they feared being up and about during the day light. Except for that energy source growing in the distance anyway. Instead of hiding it was actually growing a little bit every few minutes.

"Well, well, what do we have here?"

Ranma turned around and found that a couple of guys holding bats had somehow managed to sneak up behind him, he scowled at them. He'd been so focused on sending his senses out to look at everything that he hadn't sensed them. He cursed his stupidity and took a closer look at the men.

"What do you want?"

"You freaks are always using the rooftops for your patrols around the city. We don't want your kind here."

"I'm tired of hearing you run across my ceiling nine and ten times a night, picking fights, and causing problems." The other one said.

For just a second, Ranma wondered what it was about this city that turned regular men into morons. The X Men barely gave any lip service to talking things out before they just started fighting everyone. The cops were trigger happy, and the super villains were actually better prepared than the regular criminals. Then there were people like this that went out of their way to pick a fight with people they didn't even know.

"I'm not in the mood for a fight." He said.

"We don't care; you freaks need to be taught a lesson." The first guy said. Ranma didn't even feel like giving them names.

Ranma sighed, shrugged, and casually vaulted over the side of the building and landed on a streetlight a few yards away and waved at the two men as they gaped at him. There was something in the city that seemed to make everyone more confrontational than the people needed to be. Normally he wouldn't have minded fighting them, but he needed to find out why that energy was so familiar.

"Later twerps, I got better things to do than beat you up." Ranma said as he started hopping from light to light. He ignored the cries and profanity the two men hurled after him and within a few minutes he was a couple miles away and getting closer to the energy source.

Eventually he landed at the edge of a large empty lot almost the size of a full city block. Spaced here and there were the remains of several large piles of abandoned junk. He spotted a pile of wrecked cars, old tubs, several washing machines, and even a mangled motorcycle half buried in the grass. Now that he was closer to the energy source he could tell that he might have encountered it before, but something about it that was completely different as well.

He wandered around the area for a few minutes trying to figure out what was going on when he found himself next to the large pile of cars. There were about twenty cars in various states of destruction piled several layers above him. The thing towered over him now that he was taking a closer look at it. Then he sensed something else and spun around to see The Torch land several yards away.

"Who the hell are you?" Johnny asked and formed a couple balls of fire in his hands.

"You." Ranma hissed as his anger flared again. "Go away…"

"You must be the one that Reed wanted me to check out. Surrender or I'll have to take you down hard."

Ranma almost laughed in the guy's face. A few months before he might have been intimidated by the appearance of a flaming man, but these days he had other things to worry about. "Typical mutant, jump to conclusions and damn the consequences, right?"

Torch didn't even think as he sent a wave of fire towards Ranma. "You will pay for that! I'm not a mutant!"

"Yeah right!" Ranma growled.

Flipping out of the way was child's play for Ranma; he had other things on his mind. Like wondering where the heck that little speech had come from. He didn't care about mutants one way or another, so why the hell had he said something like that and why was this hot headed idiot attack him? "Gotta do better than that!"

"It's time for you to go DOWN!" Johnny yelled as he flew into the air and fired a massive burst of fire towards Ranma. Instead of staying in one place Ranma dodged again, but this time he was standing right at the rear of the pile of cars and Torch's fire slammed into it. Normally this would have just blown up the back half of the pile or melted a hole right through it, but something else happened, something quite unexpected.

The whole pile suddenly shimmered and a massive alien sized space ship suddenly took the place of the pile of broken cars. Before either of them could fully understand what they were looking at, a hatch in the back opened up and a bolt of red energy flew from the opening, and slammed right into Torch's chest. Ranma recognized the energy bolt instantly and he wasn't very surprised to see the hatch open up completely to form a ramp down to the ground a small squad of Snarks ambling out.

Just out of the corner of his eye, Ranma could make out the stunned form of the flaming man and noticed for the first time that it was the guy that made a pass at him earlier. He wasn't thrilled to see the guy, but had to get the idiot out of the area before these things shot the two of them. He ran over to the guy before the Snark things could get a clean shot at him, dodged several energy bolts, and jumped the two of them to safety behind an over turned car. He could still sense the energy in the air too and now that the hatch was open Ranma could tell that the energy source was inside the ship.

"What a day." He muttered as he sat the guy on the ground and peaked around the bumper of the car. There were twenty Snarks at the base of the ship now and they didn't look to pleased. Three of them were heading in his direction and spreading out to each side of the car to trap him.

Johnny groaned and grabbed his head. "Did Ben tap me with his pinkie again?"

"One of those things shot you with a blaster." Ranma said as Johnny sat up.

Still a little groggy, Torch was about to attack again, just as the car they were hiding behind was blasted by laser fire. Ranma cursed and rolled out of the way, throwing a rock in mid roll and hitting the closest Snark in the head. It went down with a roar, sending laser fire into the sky. Torch reacted like a superhero usually does; he flew into the air, made himself a target, and blasted the ground in an arc that caught the other two Snarks off guard.

Then he launched himself into the sky and used his fire to create a giant number four. Ranma glared up at the guy and wondered what the hell he was doing wasting his time like that, they didn't have time to make flame art in the middle of a battle. Ignoring the moron, his aura flared up and he threw his hands forward.

"Möko Takabisha Revised – Continuous Beam!" Ranma yelled and sent a wave of energy slamming into the Snarks at the back of the ship, ignoring their laser fire as it missed him by inches, and kept it up until the last one fell to the ground smoking and unconscious. He let the energy go and was only a little surprised to find that he wasn't even tired after a blast like that.

"Good Work." Torch said as he landed nearby. "I think that's the last of them…"

"There's more inside, I can feel them." Ranma said.

"You can feel them?"

"Yeah."

"How the hell do you do that?"

"The same way you control fire, I just do it." Ranma snapped. This guy was really beginning to irritate him, the perverted womanizer. It was bad enough the guy pulled a 'Kuno' on him, now he had to put up with him following him around as well.

Suddenly a loud squeaking sound caught their attention and Ranma glanced at the ship just as a very large Snark ambled down to the ground. Ranma took a step back as he realized the energy he'd been feeling was coming right at him. Torch flew into the air and started throwing fire balls at the thing before Ranma could react.

"What the hell are these things?!" Torch yelled.

The Snark stood close to ten feet tall, and was covered in muscle, wearing a weird looking black and red armor that made him look dangerous enough to cause problems. Surprisingly enough the thing wasn't carrying any kind of weapons as far as Ranma could tell, but that didn't matter much when the gator guy was starting to remind him of Cyclops's energy levels.

"That's a Snark, but I've never seen one that big before."

Torch gaped at the thing and he recalled a vague memory from a few years back with similar creatures. "I've seen these things somewhere before, but I don't recall anything else."

"Who cares?!" Ranma snapped and formed a large ball of energy in his hands. "Blast the hell out of it and ask questions later! It's what all you superheroes do isn't it?"

Torch just shrugged.

Soulfire looked out of Veil's eyes and down at the creature that had killed his last host and sneered. "You will never have the power to destroy me mortal."

Ranma didn't stop to think about the fact that the monster had spoken English; instead he finished charging his Ki attack and fired. An intense beam of blue energy launched from his hands, the wave of released energy nearly blew Torch off his feet. Soulfire let the beam hit him and just smiled a reptilian grin as he glared down at his enemy.

"That won't work anymore you pathetic animal."

Grunting and gasping for air, Ranma glanced at the blisters forming on his hands and for the first time realized that he could quite possibly kill him self if he used too much of his power. He could already feel the damage he'd done to other areas of his body as the wave of energy had swept through his nervous system. Then the thing raised his scale covered arm into the air and a sphere of bright blue energy swirled into existence.

"You killed me once; you will never have the opportunity to do it again!" Soulfire screamed and a cascade of power dropped out of the palm of his hand towards Ranma.

Ranma's widened as he realized the energy he was sensing was nearly identical to the aura that old bum he'd accidentally killed. "YOU!"

Confused, Torch didn't think about what they were yelling at each other. Instead he fired his own wave of fire at the monster and launched into the air just as Soulfire's energy slammed into the ground where Ranma was standing and sent the him flying back.

Flipping away from the destruction around him, Ranma did his best to get control of the fight back in his favor. He growled and flared his aura so that he could block some of the flying debris before it hit him. His hands lashed out and started to grab rocks as they flew by. In an instant, they were hurled towards the monster just as it started to walk forward.

They bounced off its head and body, but unlike the other Snarks this one didn't seem to have the glass jaw. He saw some movement out of the corner of his eye as Torch swooped down and laid into the Snark. Soulfire's eyes flared with an internal fire for a split second and Torch's fire formed into a protective sphere. Then the monster waved his hand the ball of fire launched out and slammed into Johnny, sending him flying back.

"JOHNNY!"

Ranma heard the voice, but he ignored it as he jumped into the air, brought his hands around and gritted his teeth in pain as he fired a blast of energy into the ground at Soulfire's feet. The first blast had done a number on his hands, but not enough to slow him down. He was the best after all. Adapting techniques was a specialty of the Saotome School of Martial Arts, so instead of being the main attack, it was a feint.

Caught off guard by the ground exploding at his feet, Soulfire stumbled back, right into Ranma's foot. Unlike a normal kick, Ranma's foot was glowing as it hit. The resulting explosion sent Ranma flying back and made Soulfire's head slam into the hull of the ship with a loud thud. Ranma flipped, landed on his feet, and slid back for several feet before he stopped.

He glanced down at his pants and saw that he'd managed to damage them a little, but the dazed look in Soulfire's eyes told him all he needed to know. The thing wouldn't be standing for to long and with any luck, he would get that thing out of the alien's body. Then all he had to do was find to get rid of him forever.

"Let's finish this." He mumbled as he moved go in and finish the job, but a shadow passing over him made him look up to see a big orange rock like thing hopping over his head. Then it landed with a heavy thud that smashed the ground at his feet and punched Soulfire as he yelled. "IT'S CLOBBERING TIME!"

Suddenly Ranma realized that there were several powerful mutant auras in the area and he glanced around and got a good look at a blonde haired woman holding the Flaming Pervert. Standing over them was an older guy that looked like he was something out of a cartoon, stretched out in weird shapes, longer than normal arms, and looking right towards him. The guy said something and the woman glanced over at him as well.

A loud shout caught Ranma's attention and he turned back towards Soulfire and the weird looking rock monster just as it clutched its head and stumbled back. It tripped and Soulfire towered of him and formed a ball of blue fire and a feral grin.

"Damn it, I got distracted and that guy is about to get his ass kicked." Ranma muttered as he flared his aura again and blue light started to leak out of the corner of his eyes. "This guy has got to be stopped."

"Be careful, Blue Fire Man."

Ranma glanced down and spotted the little boy he'd met the day before, but this time he could see completely through the kid. "Huh, what happened to you?"

"This is my ghost form."

"Freaky, but cool…"

"That thing wants you to attack it, the more energy you throw at it the stronger it will get."

"How do you know that?"

"My dream told me." Franklin said. "Be careful what you throw at him, the others are on their way to help…"

"Who is?"

Franklin looked startled, glanced away, and vanished from sight before Ranma could do anything. He shook his head and noticed that the thing was trying to get up, but something Soulfire was doing seemed to be messing up the monster's ability to stand up. Ranma knew that was a little slow on the uptake at times, but it suddenly dawned on him what the thing was doing and how it was done.

It was absorbing their energy and redirecting it, or in this case, mixing his blue energy blast with the Flaming Pervert's fire blast to create blue fire. That in turn was being used in some way to affect the rock monster. Ranma relaxed just enough to let his aura vanish and wondered what he needed to do. He narrowed his eyes and took a closer look a the thing's aura and ruled out using the HSH on the green skinned body snatcher.

"Blast it…" Ranma muttered.

"Excuse me?"

Ranma eeped and slowly glanced to the side where he noticed the head of the cartoon guy, and then the neck receding back about twenty feet to the guy's body as it formed itself into a bed for the flame guy. "Um…yes?"

"What are they doing here?" Reed Richards nose stretched out and pointed at the Snark ship.

"They are after these kids I met this morning." Ranma said, lying a little just in case this guy wasn't trust worthy.

"Kids?" Where are they now?"

Ranma shrugged. "They were on their way to school a little while ago, I haven't seen them since, but they held their own against the little Snarks over there in the fight we had this morning."

"Those things are trouble, what do you know about that big one?"

"Not much, just that it possesses bodies." Ranma explained, feeling it wouldn't be a good idea to tell this guy that he'd killed that bum.

"A body snatcher, we've fought those before, but something about that thing is familiar."

"Have you met him before?"

"No, but the way it's fighting is familiar."

Glancing back at the rock thing, Ranma saw that the woman had entered the fight and was tossing the thing around without even touching it. "Whoa! How the heck is she doing that?"

"Invisible force field." Reed said as he tried to think of a plan. At first he'd thought the boy was responsible for Johnny's state, but it appeared that he wasn't after all. Instead, it was that Z'xrz creature after all.

"Oh, we need to make sure we don't throw anything at it." Ranma said.

"What do you mean?"

"Me and the flame guy over there both blasted it, but it somehow learned to use our abilities after that." Ranma said as Soulfire burst into flame and blasted the ground around him trying to find the invisible woman. "Hey, where'd the girl go?"

Reed ignored Ranma as he studied the Snark and frowned a little. "I think I know what we are dealing with, but I need to see inside that ship to confirm it. Help to keep him occupied while I check this out."

"How?"

"Hit him with something blunt, just don't throw it." Reed said as his body morphed, sat Johnny on the ground, stretched across the battlefield, and into the back end of the ship.

Ranma ducked as Soulfire was thrown into the air over his head, only to land several yards away and roll to a stop. It quickly climbed to its feet and glared at the blonde haired woman standing in front of the rock monster. For a second Ranma was reminded of the one time he'd seen Kasumi pissed off at one of his attackers, for almost breaking her mother's picture.

It wasn't exactly the same, but close enough for Ranma to decide that he didn't want to get on the lady's bad side. He yelled and shot forward at full speed and slammed Soulfire's head into the ground, caving the dirt in with the force of the blow.

"You are dead." Soulfire growled as Ranma released him and backed off.

"I don't think so."

Blue fire flared around the lizard's massive body, pumping up his size and making his eyes glow with evil. "DEAD!"

The world suddenly lurched and Ranma stumbled back as his sense of balance vanished in a typhoon of sensations. He fell down and grabbed his head as things started to crawl all over his body, in his hair, within his clothes, and under his skin. It felt Orange with a bit of sand.

"This body is designed to fight those brats, but they seem to be working on you just fine boy. I will consume you like I did all those other bits of meat…"

Ranma could barely tell what was happening to him as the energy washed over him. He knew that it had only been a couple of seconds, but it felt more like a couple of hours already, then ten minutes, then a couple of weeks. Then it stopped and he shuddered as the world swirled into focus and noticed that the blonde woman was standing above him.

"Are you alright?"

"I'll…live." Ranma muttered. "What happened?"

"That thing seems to be able to mess with our senses; Ben is distracting him right now.

Ranma nearly threw up as he forced himself to his feet and quickly pressed his thumb under his rib cage and twisted up. It was a pressure point that stopped him from tossing his lunch up. He didn't have time to be sick. Staggering back a couple of seconds he heard something odd and glanced over at the fight just as Soulfire exploded into fire and sent it right into the rock guy's stomach.

"BEN!" Susan yelled.

Then, with almost surreal silence Ranma watched as a large blue trash can covered in graffiti dropped out of the sky onto Soulfire. The sound it made was indescribable, but the fire instantly went out and the Thing shook stumbled out of the fire and looked around.

They glanced up to see a cloudy haze hovering above the battlefield, then the center of it flared with light and a rain of little fire balls slammed into the trash can. Within seconds it was reduced to bit of metal and they could see Soulfire being pummelled.

"What's going on?" Susan asked.

"It's the kids." Ranma grunted and tried to deal with this situation. "And they just made a mistake."

The Thing took advantage of the distraction and ran forward, attacking Soulfire with a backhand blow. Instead of flying back, the Snark's head barely moved as it grinned and fire flew from its eyes and sent The Thing flying off his feet. This was enough to make the bombardment stop, but Ranma could still feel Soulfire's energy growing.

That little lull in the battle was all The Thing needed as he dove back into the fight by punching Soulfire. This time he didn't hold back as much and sent the thing stumbling back. He pressed his attack by raining blow after blow down around the reptile's head.

"Ah sh…"

"Ranma what is going on?"

They looked down to see Starstreak in her purple costume looking at Soulfire fearfully. "These things are usually pretty easy to beat…"

"This one has powers." Ranma said.

"Its way to dangerous for children to fight." Susan snapped. "Go home!"

Starstreak ignored Franklin's mother as she focused on Ranma. "How do we beat it?"

"It absorbs energy I think, we have to beat it up until it fall over." Ranma explained as Counter Weight, Destroyer, and Mass Master landed around him and glanced over at Susan Richards.

"You're all children?!"

"We're Power Pack!" Counter Weight said dramatically.

"Children should not be in a place like this!" She yelled.

"We've been fighting these things for years and we will continue to do so." Counter Weight said. "We need to blast that thing, like we did to Jackal that one time."

"You kids stay out of this, I'm not sure what you can do to help, but…"

"We've fought a super powered Snark before." Destroyer said. "We can beat them, it just takes team work."

Ranma stared down at the little girl and didn't know what to say. Personally, he knew what they could do and didn't have any problems with them fighting. It's what he would have done after all, but the blonde woman was getting over protective.

Suddenly The Thing yelled and Ranma watched him fly overhead as Soulfire's energy blast sent him flying over head again. The energy quickly dissipated off Thing's body even as he landed. He slammed into the side of the space ship and went right through the wall.

It nearly tipped the ship over on its side. Then dozens of armed Snarks ran down the back hatch and started to fire at them. Ranma could just see that the guy had landed on a couple of Snarks near a computer set up.

Throwing her hand forward, Susan formed a wall in front of them and deflected the laser fire. "We need to get out of here!"

"We have a job to do." Counter Weight yelled and turned. "POWER PACK GO!"

"NO!" Susan yelled and Ranma made a grab for them.

He didn't want them to get hurt either, but the situation was beginning to get out of hand. Then he was a bit surprised when they flew over to a smaller pile of cars and dropped Destroyer on top of them. As the youngest of the group she looked a little odd as she knelt down, placed her hands the hood of a car and the whole pile started to glow.

Then she lit up like a little star and pile of cars vanished seconds later. Ranma had a feeling he knew where this was going and he decided to act before things got worse. His aura flared out rippling his clothing and sending a dust cloud flowing away from.

It caught Soulfire's attention as it glanced from him to the kids. "You will not hurt them!"

"Try and stop me."

Ranma shot forward at full speed. He had an idea in mind, but he'd never had a chance to practice it, but with the lizard's body glowing, it set up the conditions he needed. As he wadded into the fight the lizard's body continued to pour out energy. Ranma dodged the thing's attacks and led it into the Hiryü Shöten Ha's spiral.

For the first time in weeks he controlled the battle and it felt good to finally let loose with some of his most advanced techniques. Massive amounts of cold Ki flowed from his body, but he continued to move as fast as he could, dodging everything the Snark threw at him.

He could hear the kids yelling at him to get out of the way, but he ignored them. He would have to be careful when he set off the attack, but that was for later, right now he just grinned as he felt the atmosphere round them change and electrify.

"Hold still you hairless meat bag!" Soulfire yelled as it tried to tag him again, but Ranma wasn't paying attention.

They reached the center of the spiral and Ranma came to a dead stop and threw a spinning uppercut into the monster's jaw.

"Hiryü Shöten Ha!"

Normally the Hiryü Shöten Ha created a tornado based off two different types of KI mixing together to form an imitation tornado. Until today he'd never used it with his new powers and as a the massive bolt of lighting dropped out of the sky and slammed into Soulfire, he realized that he might have gone a little overboard.

The tornado that formed rumbled into life and rose into the sky with a clap of thunder that echoed over the city. Ranma watched at Soulfire's body lifted into the sky and HSH did what it was designed to do, drain and enemy of his energy and bleed it into the tornado.

Then Soulfire's body flared with light as he tried to fight and the bodiless being was sucked out into the tornado with a shriek of fear. In seconds the tornado tripled in size and shot several thousand feet into the air, expanding out and growing so loud that Ranma could barely hear anything at all.

The swirling air inside the twister was hard to see through, but he could see that the blonde haired woman had managed to get the kids under her force field and the thing was holding that to the ground with his body. The space ship was just out of range, but the force of the winds was ripping the outer layers of the ship's body off as it was made of paper.

He'd never seen a Hiryü Shöten Ha this powerful before. His mind flashed and he realized that it would just get much worse before it died down, unless she did something. He closed his eyes and cleared his mind, lifted his hand into the air, and wondered if he was about to kill himself.

Even back in his own world he'd never had time to learn this move, so he only knew the very basics, but he didn't have time to master it now. He would just have to do it and hope for the best. His senses lashed out and touched the tornado and he gave a mental yank, drawing the energy into his own body.

And he screamed.

**********

"That really wasn't a very smart thing to do Ranma."

"I did what I needed to do." Ranma snapped.

"On the other hand it was rather brave of you, one of the many reasons I chose you to channel my essence."

"Aho?"

"I really didn't plan on taking to you until you'd grown up enough to understand what was done to you. Your immaturity runs deeper than you can comprehend, but at heart you are a hero and that shines through."

"Where am I? I can't see anything."

"You are currently unconscious; I'm using our link to cross the bridge and talk to you."

"Why?"

"You charged that tornado with energy, and then made it worse by powering the tornado with Soulfire's body, a living energy being that can possess any mutant."

"So, he's gone now."

"Energy can not be destroyed Ranma, just altered into something else. You absorbed Soulfire's energy into your body to stop the tornado and save everyone's life."

"Oh sh…"

"Indeed, and other applicable curse words added into the mix."

"So what's going to happen?"

"I'm holding him prisoner so that he can not harm you, but I won't do so forever Ranma."

"Explain what the hell you are talking about!"

"This is your life Ranma, your destiny, so Soulfire is your problem to deal with. You have the power at your fingertips to annihilate Soulfire and kill him forever, but you don't know how to use that power yet. You use it like a sledgehammer to kill a fly; you have no fineness at all. Therefore, I'm going to use him to train you in a sense. One day I will release Soulfire and you will have a chance to beat him completely, but if you lose he will most likely kill you."

"You asshole."

"I am Aho." The voice said with a hint of amusement. "Think of this as the next level of your training Ranma, just like what Cologne did when she trained Ryoga to beat you in a fight."

"But…"

"Don't complain to me!"

Ranma wanted to deck his tormentor now.

"Get as angry as you want, I don't care about your wants or desires, I just want you to learn how to use the power I have given you. You need a path to walk, a purpose, so I'm giving you one since you haven't picked one out yourself."

"How long do I have?"

"Who cares, when I think you're ready I'll let him loose."

"What about the others, did I manage to save them?"

"Look for yourself." Aho said and Ranma found his eyes opening just a bright light flooded his eye.

"Agh!" He growled and grabbed the wrist holding the light to pull it away.

The light returned and Ranma managed to see that a guy wearing a lab coat was bending over him making a quick examination. "Hold still, I just need to finish this and I'll let you get back to sleep."

Ranma looked around and noticed that he wasn't in a hospital, but in what looked like a lab of some kind. There were machines all around him and he didn't have a clue what any of them did. "What's going on?"

"You nearly killed yourself when you pulled that stunt."

"The what?" He asked in confusion.

"The F3 tornado in the middle of downtown Manhattan, the news services are still talking about it three days later and have no clue how it formed on such a cloudless day."

"Who are you?"

"Reed Richards."

He glanced over at the old guy and realized that it was the man he'd been trying to get in contact with.

"You managed to save my whole team from that monster, single handedly, that was a very impressive feat considering I wasn't able to come up with an answer while I was checking out the ship."

"No problem, was anyone hurt?"

"The only casualties were the Snarks themselves and Shield took them into custody when the tornado died down. We've been looking after you ever since."

Grabbing the blanket, Ranma started to get up, but Reed stretched out a finger and expanded it so that he could press him back down to the bed. "I'm afraid you can't leave just yet, Shield would like to have word with you about where you came from, how you pulled off that tornado, and who you are."

"Why?"

"You aren't registered anywhere and it's as if you don't really exist. Your wallet had plenty of money in it and a card with Professor Xavier's personal phone number on it and he explained things a little, but for now we need to keep you here."

"I won't let you keep me prisoner." Ranma growled and tried to remove Reed's finger from his chest.

"You aren't a prisoner, we just need to have some questions answered and then Shield will let you go."

Suddenly the door to the lab opened with a loud bang and The Thing stalked into the room smoking one of his cigars. Following along behind him was a rather plain looking woman wearing a brown suit, glasses, and had her blonde hair up in a bun on top of her head. She was making notes on an a clip board as she walked and ignored what sounded like grumbling from The Thing. They made their way over to the bed and the woman glared down at Ranma with a hint of malice in her eyes.

"Um…hello?" Ranma tried.

"You aren't real."

"You don't say?"

Her eyes turned flinty and Ranma wondered what it was about women that always made them so angry for no possible reason. The guy made out of rock, like something out of an anime Ranma vaguely recalled, tapped him a couple of times in the chest. "Don't you go insulting the lady, boy. You caused quite a mess out there and we need to figure out what is going on, you have the answers, so give up." Then he blew a cloud of smoke in Ranma's face.

"Ben there's no need to be so rough…" Reed started.

"He nearly killed several people with that stunt of his." The Thing growled.

Ranma would be the first to admit that he'd changed recently, grown up a little because of some of the things that plagued his life, but sitting back and letting some arrogant jerk get away with insulting him was out of the question. His eyes lit up and sent a quick burst of energy right into Thing's eyes. The big lug stumbled back in shock and Ranma launched out of bed before anyone could move, bounced off the ceiling, grabbed Thing's head and shoulder, and used his momentum to yank him around and throw him across the room.

With a flash of blue Ranma's aura flared to life and lit up the whole room. "You will never talk to me like that again! It was, because of idiots like you always telling me what I should and shouldn't do, that nearly got a…friend of mine killed. IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!"

"Calm down kid." Reed said as he formed himself into a wall between the two men to keep them from going at it right then and there.

"Get out of my way Reed, the baby needs to be spanked." The Thing growled as he climbed back to his feet. "It's time to teach him a lesson."

"You may be big, but I've taken arrogant asses like you down before." Ranma snapped back.

The Thing grabbed the floor and ripped it up like a rug, tossing Reed into the air and out of the way, and then he threw a punch at Ranma. "Arrogant pup!"

Ranma dodged the slow blow, grabbed his arm and swung himself into the air, and slammed his foot down on the back of Thing's neck. "I can hit stone hard enough to shatter it, monster. I've seen a friend that can reduce a wall ten times your size to rubble with his finger! There is no way a wimp like you can beat me!" Ranma yelled as Thing collapsed to the ground.

Only to roll forward, grab Ranma by the shirt and throw him across the room almost negligently. "Didn't feel a thing, ya'pansy."

Reed finally managed to reform himself, and shook his head as he saw the barely noticeable grin on Thing's face as fought the kid. He stretched his head over to Miss. Cutter the representative from Shield. "Miss Cutter, it might take me a while to get them to stop."

"That boy isn't registered anywhere in the world Mr. Richards, we need to find out who he is."

"According to a friend of mine he's from a different dimension."

She glowered at him. "You don't expect me to believe that do you?"

"It's the truth and if my earlier readings are correct, that kid's power level is off the scale."

"That makes getting his records even more vital. He might be of use to Shield if we need to use him."

"That kid wouldn't let you use him, look how he's fighting Thing. I don't think he would back down from a fight even if he was on the verge of death. My friend, who first met him a few weeks ago, says the kid's martial arts training surpasses some of the best fighters in the world."

CRASH!

Reed turned to see Thing looking sheepish and a large body shaped hole where a window used to be. "Ooops."

"You idiot!" Miss Cutter screamed and ran to the window to see a blue comet arching out over the buildings. Then almost lazily it seemed to land on top of a nearby building across the street and land with quite an acrobatics display before coming to a stop.

Ranma glared up at the top floors of Four Freedom's plaza. For a second he actually considered firing a Ki blast through the window he'd just flown through, but then that woman was there looking out, looking down at him. He waved hat her. Then he gave Thing the finger, turned, and made a running jump for the next building. Most of the buildings had a similar size and height so he was able to make a break for it.

Obviously Reed Richards was a bust, he would have to try one of the other names on the list if he wanted to get home, but first he had several things he needed to do. Aho hadn't been kidding when he told him to learn how to use his new abilities. They were an extension of his strength now, it would mean a ton of practice. Something he had to admit he hadn't gotten much of lately. So he would have to rectify that.

As he ran his mind wandered through his last three fights and focused on that little blonde girl. He'd met her three times as well and he recalled the way her aura felt to his senses. It was the perfect way to track her and those others down, he needed to see if they were alright. At first he couldn't really find what he wanted, instead he spotted about a dozen more mutants running around acting like normal people, but a few minutes later he blocked them out and focused on what he wanted.

It was as if he could 'see' a beacon in the distance. He altered his course while still using the roof tops and made his way deeper into Manhattan until he reached an apartment building. He landed and let his aura die down and vanish as he looked around and realized he recognized the area from the day before when he dropped those two kids off with that woman.

He could sense the girl's aura several floors below him. Shrugging, he climbed over the side of the building and started scaling down the side of the building. Moving up and down walls was a skill he hadn't used in a while and bricks gave him some great hand holds. He didn't really care if anyone saw him, it wasn't like he was going to jump or anything and he wasn't to worried about falling.

He came to a window, glanced inside, and saw the kids from earlier sitting on the floor talking with each other. He knocked on the window, grinned, and waved at them when they gave him a shocked look. The little blonde one ran over and opened the window for him so he could get inside.

"I didn't know you could fly!" She almost yelled, but the older girl managed to cover the girl's mouth before she got to loud.

"I can't."

"Ranma?" Alex asked as he stood up. "Why are you here?"

"I wanted to see if you kids were alright. The fight with that thing got out of hand." Ranma said as he knelt down on the floor. "Was anyone hurt?"

"No…"

"That tornado was so COOL!" Jack said. "I've never seen anything like it before, swirling air full of lighting strong enough to drop that super Snark in its tracks."

"It's a move I learned some time ago, it has lots of uses against powerful fighters."

"I can bet, that tornado destroyed the lot and tossed several feet of top soil into the atmosphere before it stopped moving around." Julie said as Katie got away and glowered at her.

"Once we were sure no one was hurt we got out of there before anyone could catch us." Katie said. "A few minutes later the police showed up to see what the heck was going on. They were quite surprised to find that space ship and all those Snarks just lying around."

"We heard Shield took over the case." Alex explained. "Where were you after the fight anyway?"

"That Reed Richards guy took me back to his place I guess. I just left a little while ago."

"He's a good guy. He and my dad discuss things every now and then."

Ranma shrugged and stood up. "So long as all of you are alright I guess I better get on my way."

"Where are you going?" Katie asked.

"I'm not sure yet, I have to do a bit of training and find a way to get home. I figure the open country would be a good place to start, it'll give me time to think."

"Head west if you want to get out of the city, though it may take some time if you are on foot like yesterday." Alex explained. "You can buy some maps at the store down the street."

Ranma nodded and headed for the window. "Thanks kid, perhaps we can meet again sometime."

"Our parents aren't home at the moment, you can use the front door if you like." Jack said as he looked away.

Several minutes later Ranma was back at street level and waved goodbye to the kids, he wasn't sure where he needed to be, but west was as good an answer as any other direction. He'd lost his pack somewhere along the way and he would need to buy some stuff. There was a good chance that Richards or Shield would have it, but getting it back would be hard if he just asked them to give it back.

He grinned and decided that using the Umisenken to get his stuff back would be a lot of fun and there was no way they would expect him to come back less than an hour after he left.

**********

The End of Story Two

There ends the second story in the Prime Attitude story line, let me know what you think. This is a bit shorter than the first one, but I figured a short adventure would be a lot of fun to write. Yes that is a cliffhanger, and a very tiny possibility of a PA 3 with Spiderman, but I'm not sure if I'm up for writing it at the moment.

If anyone had any ideas I'd love to hear them.

The Kasumi thing, of course I made it up, but I figured it would be a good way to toss in some info on the Nerima crew for the story. Its got to have some differences after all.

Sue has always been a bit over protective in the books I've read, so I tried to portray that. Reed has a tendency to let the others fight while he fiddles with the science things. The Thing…well he's the Thing.

And what in the hell happened to Franklin…

**********

Omake:

By Gordon Stevenson

Ranma meets Stan Lee

Male again, Ranma stood on the roof of the building and watched the traffic drive by below him. Even after all this time he was still amazed at the amount of traffic in this city. No matter where he went he there was always a car or two around.

A little while ago he started to sense something growing in the distance, so he'd jumped to this roof to look around. He wasn't sure what it was, but he could tell that there was a powerful being around. The energy he sensed was to big to be anything else.

It worried him even more because there was something familiar about it, but he couldn't place remember from where. Even back in Nerima he'd been able to sense when one of his attackers was in the area if he was looking for it. His new senses made things like incredibly simple. There were mutants everywhere, hiding in apartments, in houses, down in the sewers, and riding the subways.

For some reason they were starting to really stand out to him now, giving them a glow that a normal human didn't quite have. Now that the sun was up he could tell that a lot of them had gone back into hiding. Except for that energy source growing in the distance. Instead of hiding it was actually growing a little bit every few minutes.

Suddenly Ranma heard a voice that seemed to resonate everywhere, including the inside of his head but it seemed loudest behind him.

"As stood on the rooftop, the Mighty Martial Artist Ranma Saotome pondered his fate as he gazed out over the New York skyline!"

"What the #@$%?"

Ranma spun around dropping into a defensive stance and found that an Old man had somehow come up behind him without Ranma sensing him or his aura at all, which was unusual. Ranma could usually sense the aura of almost anyone but when he tried to with the old man he got nothing?!

"Greetings True Believer!"

The old man stood there smiling at Ranma and from what little Ranma could sense he didn't detect any malice from the old man rather a sense of happiness and mischievousness that seemed to radiate from him.

The Old man stood a little over five feet tall and black hair on the top of his head and white hair surrounding the rest of his skull. The old man had a moustache of white something like Soun Tendo's but not as luxuriant. The old man had an amused twinkle in his eyes and he wore a large pair of glasses over them to help him see.

As Ranma studied the old man (and he presumably studied Ranma back), Ranma felt as if he head seen this old man somewhere before, he just couldn't remember where. The memory was niggling at the edge of Ranma's mind trying to get him to remember where he had seen this old guy before.

And then he had it! The fight with that mutant Soul Fire! The old man had been in the crowd of people watching the fight!! He was in the back of the crowd and was moving people out of the way from Soul Fire's attacks and helping them to reach safety.

Ranma remembered briefly seeing the old man helping people out and was glad that someone had some sense to help get other out of harm's way and then his attention was claimed by Soul Fire as their fight continued on till Ranma had beaten (and ultimately killed) Soul Fire.

Who the Hell was this old man? How the Hell did he find me? How the Hell did he manage to sneak up on me undetected? How does he know whom I am? And What the Hell was with that speech?

Suddenly Ranma heard the voice again that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere and the weird thing was the old man's lips weren't moving.

"Surprised the Mighty Martial Artist Ranma Saotome intently studied his visitor trying to determine if he was friend or foe! His powerful muscles were tensed and he was ready to leap into action at a moments notice!"

"What the Hell?" Ranma wondered. "Okay! That's it I've had enough of this!"

"Who the Hell are you Old man and how do you know who I am? And what is up with that voice?"

"Why I'm Stan Lee! And for how I know who you are why that's easy I'm the creator of the Marvel Universe!

Ranma goggled at the old man. "The What?"

"The Marvel Universe". The old man replied simply. "The place where you are right now". "And as for the voice that was just me doing some narrating".

"Hunh? Narrating? Have you gone senile or something old man? And that still doesn't tell me how you knew who I was"

"Senile? Not at all." Stan replied. "As for the rest let me explain and how I Know about you let me explain".

"You see, you were originally in your home universe right?"

Ranma nodded.

"Well the place your in now is called the Marvel Universe". "It's populated by characters from Marvel comics books…What you'd call Manga … Here there called comic books and the name of the company that owns the rights and privileges to the characters is called Marvel Comics. So they wound up calling it the Marvel Universe".

"Comics? Manga? Oh great another crazy old geezer for me to deal with". Ranma thought.

"I was the one that created a lot of the characters…people… in the Marvel universe so I'm recognized as the creator of the Marvel Universe".

"Then you're some kind of Kami then?" Ranma asked unbelievingly." There is no way in hell this old man is a Kami…I hope, though that would explain why I couldn't sense the Old coot's aura, he's probably masking it from me. He thought.

"In a sense yes I am. Stan replied. "I created or helped create most of the Heroes and Villains of the Marvel Universe". "So I guess I am the Kami of the Marvel Universe as you'd call it". Stan replied with a smile.

Ranma stared at the old man in shock. "Oh shit! My luck with Kami has been all bad, if my life is any indication!" He thought.

Noticing the shocked look on Ranma face Stan thought he'd better continue his story.

"I eventually retired from Marvel comics. However in appreciation for starting the whole Marvel Universe rolling and as part of my retirement package deal, I get to guest star in any production of the characters of the Marvel Universe".

"I've been an extra in several Movies, Daredevil, Spiderman and the Incredible Hulk and I've done the voice over or narrating of several cartoons based of Marvel characters. Anytime a marvel character is used I'm there as a thank you for creating the Marvel universe."

"And as for how I know all about you I'm always interested in comic book characters done by others so I read all the comics...er...Manga about you."

"You're telling me I'm a comic book character?!" Ranma screamed.

"That's right True Believer! So when I heard that these two writers were doing a fan fiction with you in the Marvel Universe, I had my lawyers contact the writers and put pressure on them for not including me in the fic as my contract with Marvel Comics implicitly states. As a result of that pressure here I am narrating the continuing adventures of the Mighty Martial Artist Ranma Saotome!"

"In answer to your other question, Narration is telling a story with an ongoing audio content. So while your in this fic, in the Marvel Universe, I'm here to tell your story to the reader in narrative style."

Ranma wondered how it was that he encountered all the Crazy, Senile old Freaks! First, the Old Ghoul, then the Old Pervert Happosai, now this Crazy old coot. "Man what is it that attracts all the old Freaks to me? Is my Karma that screwed up? I've got to get away from this Senile old Freak quickly I can't take much more of this shit!"

"Listen Old man I'd love to stay and here more but I gotta go and…uh…See someone about something…Yeah that's it! See you around old man!"

Ranma turned from the old man and began Rooftop hopping away from the old man and top speed, hoping to loose the old man or at least put as much distance as he could between them.

Leaping from roof to roof Ranma heard more of that "Narration" again.

"As he leapt over the rooftops onwards to his destiny, the Mighty Martial Artist Ranma Saotome was unaware of his encounter with destiny, in the form of a slight imperfection in one of the roofs which would catch the toe of his right foot throwing him off balance causing him to stumble and fall off the roof."

Ranma scoffed as he heard this bit of narration.

"Trip and fall off a roof? Yeah right! I haven't fallen off a roof since I was 6 years old! Stupid, Crazy old fart! What was it about old people that caused them to become such

a giant pain in the ass?! Ranma wondered.

As Ranma pondered Senile old people he touched down on a roof and prepared to leap on to the next to continue his journey. As he began his leap his foot caught on an imperfection in the roof with his right foot. This threw off his balance and before he could regain his balance he stumbled and fell off the roof. Just as Stan Lee had just narrated.

"#@$%*&% old man!! His stupid narration broke my concentration and caused me to slip and fall of the roof!" Ranma cursed.

"Well at least I don't have to listen to that old freak any more." Ranma thought as he prepared to try and stop or slow his descent.

As Ranma looked for something to grab on to he caught something out of the corner of his eye. There was Stan Lee dangling from the side of a building holding on to a rope…no…it looked like he was holding on to some gossamer thread or a hunk of a giant spider web.

Just as Ranma took in the sight of Stan Lee dangling from the side of a building holding onto a giant spider web, Stan began narrating again.

"Down, Down the hapless, helpless Martial Artist plunged helpless to stop his fall as there wasn't anything in reach to grab onto and slow his fall."

Ranma cursed again sure enough things were as Stan just narrated. A window sill that Ranma was hoping to grab onto and slow his fall, was suddenly too far away for him to grab a hold of and there wasn't anything else for him to grab onto.

"Senile old man is making things worse with his narration!" Ranma cursed.

"Faster and Faster Ranma fell plunging downwards towards the street far below, picking up speed as he fell and desperately trying to find a way out of his horrible predicament." Stan Narrated.

"Will you shut the Hell up old Man ?!?!!! Ranma screamed. You're making things worse with your stupid narration!!

This was true as what was a short easily survivable fall became a head long plunge as Ranma fell several stories towards the concrete below.

"Will the Mighty Martial Artist Ranma manage to survive dizzying fall towards the ground below or will he be too late to save himself?

"SHUT UP YOU BASTARD!!! Ranma screamed.

"Tune into the next chapter of Prime Attitude and see!"

"What the hell now?" Ranma screamed as his fall towards the ground seemed to go on forever. Where he suddenly found himself fading into the background and Stan taking up position in the foreground and posed for the audience.

"That's all for now True Believer! See you Next Time for another chapter of Prime Attitude! Excelsior!"

"You &%$#@ I'll make you pay for this!" Ranma's voice echoed from some distance away.