This is not a major update, just a little twitch to get some symbols displayed properly. Now the word stressing should work.
Disclaimer- I do not own Ranma 1/2. Rumiko Takahashi and those she's licensed do. I do not own the Black Jewels trilogy or universe. That is the property of Anne Bishop (a DAMN good writer) and her publishers. The characters of Sailor Moon also appear in this prologue. They're Naoko Takeuchi's. I have made no claim to either of these works, I'm just using them. The only things of note in this that are mine are Kagami and Azael (who doesn't even show up in the prologue). I'm not making any money from this (in fact, I'm taking a bit of a loss from doing it).
Warning-This fanfic, happening after the timeline of both Ranma 1/2 and Black Jewels, contains spoilers to both. If this troubles you, please do not read. Also, I will not censor myself. If you don't like the occasional swear (not common in this particular one, I'll admit), characters that you like getting poor treatment, or whatever else happens to pop into this, then I will not hold it against you if you stop reading. But do not complain unless it is something that can honestly make my work better. You have had the warning. You do not need to complain.
(Font specifics: "Blah" is speech. You know this.
Boo is either thoughts or stressed words, depending on the context.
-This- is an interruption.
/Huzzah/ is psychic communication.
If you have trouble with this, don't hesitate to e-mail me, I don't have much better to do.)
Conclusions
By Pale Wolf
Prologue
Dark's Gift, Light's Curse
Ranma's eyes bugged out as a slender knee dug into her gut, a pale hand shoving her upper body down onto the knee with force and savagery out of context to its delicacy. The knee and hand scissored into her, flipping her up, spinning forward, into the air.
Ranma tried to axe her legs down at her opponent, but the pale 19-year old girl simply backed away, letting the redhead slam her back into the pavement. The girl tossed back her head, letting her shimmering clearish hair catch the light as an arrow of flame slammed into a wall of air around her. She grinned as she turned to face the battered Senshi, her silvery eyes glittering. "Now Mars," she began, "that was a very stupid thing for you to do." She raised her hand, a sphere of red light forming above it. "Ikari Nami!" The light pulsed, then flared out in a wide wave towards the already-hurting Senshi of Mars.
It blew her back into a storefront, and through it, heavily scorching her arms where she'd tried to block. She was no longer conscious, lying sprawled in the store as local customers cowered.
She turned back to where she'd left Ranma, her grin not wavering as she noted the martial artist's absence. She shifted her attention to Hibiki Ryouga, who struggled to stand a short distance from the dent Ranma-chan had occupied. She smirked at the 'tough' seventeen-year-old. "Get it up, boy. You this bad with your girlfriend?"
Ryouga's face contorted in rage as he leapt up and charged her.
The girl met the charge head-on, stopping and at least reversing the force with a single simple palm strike to the Lost Boy's nose. He rocketed back, slamming into a parked car like a broken doll. A disturbingly cute pout crossed her face. "Done already? I'd hoped this would be more fun."
"Hold it right there!" a new female voice interrupted, prompting the pale girl to turn and see the other eight Sailor Senshi arrayed across the top of a building, their two-ponytailed leader starting off their series of poses. "Streets are for transportation, not fighting, and cute guys are for looking at and dating, not beating up! In the name of the Moon - and my boyfriend - I'll-!"
She'd have liked to finish her speech, beat the monster, and return to the arcade, but those goals had been heavily impeded by the way the girl, so fast she practically teleported, shot up right in front of Sailor Moon's place on the building, her sudden stop tearing grooves in the roof as her hand clamped onto Sailor Moon's face. She easily swung the Senshi around with that grip, casually tossing her, face-first, into the same car that Ryouga had been knocked out on, a chuckle escaping her small, perfect lips. "Do you expect to kill me with speeches?"
The pale girl had the distinct experience of being the target of seven growling, enraged Senshi (their leader's head was embedded in a car, and she looked unconscious anyway). She smiled brilliantly, and then blazed straight through the group, throwing herself forward once past them, catching her fall with her hands and using both feet to kick at the base of Sailor Mercury's spine, throwing her forward into Pluto. An odd contorting flip put her back on her feet, and she darted aside from a World Shaking and Deep Submerge, converging on where she had stood. A huge smile on her face, she bounced away as the Inners opened up, letting Uranus, Neptune, Venus, and Jupiter chase her around.
Saturn lowered her glaive, looking to Pluto as she and Mercury tried to disentangle from one another, getting in one another's way. "Pluto-mama?"
Mercury paused to blink at that, which gave Pluto the chance to pull herself free of the younger Senshi and stand. "Yes?" she queried as she finished collecting herself.
"Who is that?"
Pluto sighed. "Supposedly just a normal girl. Kotetsu Kagami. But she shouldn't be that powerful. She shouldn't even want to fight us! According to the Time Stream, she's in an arcade right now!"
Saturn smiled. "Ah. Good." As Mercury and Pluto blinked, her smile turned darker. "I wasn't sure it had worked, so that's good to know." She raised her glaive, the tip charging with black light as it pointed at Pluto's chest. "Nothing personal, Time Senshi, but you're a danger to my Purpose. Death Ribbon Revolution!"
Pluto and Mercury just managed to dodge aside before the tendrils of shadow ripped into them, even as two voices chorused:
"World Shaking!"
"Ikari Nami!"
Neptune came flying back towards them, propelled by the distinctive gold sphere of her lover's signature attack. Jupiter and Venus, meanwhile, were being thrown at them off Kagami's red ki-blast.
As the three Senshi crashed to the roof, and Saturn cautiously put up her glaive, Kagami and Uranus landed, side-by-side, from a leap.
Uranus snarled at the Senshi. "Where are the others, you bitches?! What did you do with them?!"
Kagami touched her arm gently. "They don't know. They're just puppets." Fighting off a smirk, the girl extended an arm to point at Pluto. "She knows. She's the leader."
Uranus smiled. "Thanks Neptune." Then she charged at Pluto, even as Saturn resumed her attack on the gaping Time Senshi.
Kagami slumped. "That's why direct control is so much better than illusions. It at least keeps them from going off on their own." She shrugged, raising her arms (although she was really just going to dodge a lot). "Oh well. Continue." Three attacks rocketed towards her at once. She ducked under them and began weaving around the follow-ups.
Pluto raised her staff to block Uranus's charge... then winced.
She'd forgotten about Saturn, and she didn't imagine she'd have a second chance...
"Silence Glaive Surprise!" She hated being a correct pessimist. The sphere of power slammed into her back, driving her forward.
Uranus took advantage of it, sneaking an arm around Pluto's neck and compressing the arteries in a sleeper hold.
Mercury took Saturn's glaive-butt in the stomach, folding over it, mostly unconscious. A light blow to the head finished her as Pluto fainted.
Uranus and Saturn whirled and charged in to pull the other Senshi off Kagami, Uranus taking on Jupiter while Venus was attacked by Saturn.
Kagami sidestepped Neptune's next Deep Submerge, darting in with an arcing palm strike for the Senshi's temple. It connected and knocked her out, and, bored, Kagami tossed a minor psychic attack at all four still-active Senshi, knocking them out. She chuckled, forming an extreme-low-power communication. /Go ahead. I'm done with them./
"Mouko Takabisha!" Ranma shouted.
Not from in front.
Not from behind.
Not from the sides either.
From below. The ki-ball tore the roof out under her, slamming into her legs and tossing her up into the air.
Kagami twisted to regain control of herself as Ranma lept from inside the store to land on the roof. Ranma refrained from any cheap shots, simply coiling herself into a speed-conducive stance.
Kagami landed lightly on the other side of the gaping hole in the roof, dropping into a loose stance of her own, frowning. "You have far more lethal attacks. I'd have survived, but why didn't you try to kill me?"
The redhead snorted inelegantly. "You're not here to kill. If you were, you woudn't have bothered leaving those girls in skirts alive."
Kagami shrugged, then sprang towards Ranma, who grinned and jumped to meet her.
They met in the center with a flurry of punches and kicks, while everything was blocked or dodged.
Slowly, Ranma's experience in midair combat began to tell, the martial artist catching Kagami's fist as it drew back. The pale girl smirked, and Ranma winced as both of them fell.
Kagami's fist uncurled and the hand clamped onto Ranma's wrist. Then she used that grip and her insane strength to twist them around so her legs were facing Ranma. The kicks began, coming in at a ridiculous speed, using the leverage of Ranma's arm to amplify their force (rather than just send them flying apart).
Ranma struggled to adjust her own angle as Kagami's kicks pounded into her small body. She was, unfortunately, unable to stretch either of their arms enough to do so.
As they fell through the hole in the roof (into a jewelery store), Ranma finally tugged her arm free... just in time for Kagami to kick her in the chin with both legs, blowing her back, head first, into a display window.
While Kagami landed in fine condition, Ranma took a nasty hit to the head, and slumped brokenly to the ground.
Kagami shook her head, turned towards the reddish-brown haired girl standing behind the counter, and shrugged. "You're insured, right?"
Osaka Naru blankly nodded.
Kagami grinned and raised her hand, the air in front of her twisting into a swirling black hole.
"You haven't won yet," Ranma growled from behind her. "Saotome Ranma doesn't lose!"
Kagami turned her head, keeping her arm and most of her attention on the black hole. She grinned. "That would sound more impressive if you could stand straight."
Indeed, Ranma was barely even standing, shaking and staggering as she tried to raise her arms. Then she stumbled, landing on her face. "If I could move a muscle without extreme pain," she commented into the floor, "I'd beat the shit out of you."
Kagami shrugged with a smile, turning back to work on her hole.
"Why?" Ranma whispered. "Why did you challenge us to this fight?"
Kagami looked back at Ranma. "Practice," she chirped.
As she turned back to the black hole, a silvery-gold object flew out of it, straight into her hand. She opened the hand and grinned at the object's new, blacker-than-black colour.
Then a swarm of identical objects rocketed out of the hole, shooting past Kagami. Gritting her teeth, the girl forced her way through the hail of... jewels? She lept into her hole, and the air twisted back into a normal state, sealing shut the hole.
The last of the jewels had slammed into Ranma's gut, throwing her right back into the display case. She looked down... then yelped as bolts of black energy began crossing her body.
Across the store, Naru twitched, her own scream joining in with the screeching energies, gray bolts playing across her. It didn't go on for long before the energy stopped and Naru slumped, clutching the now-gray jewel she'd caught from hitting her face.
Ranma, on the other hand...
Fighting back the scream welling up in her throat, Ranma convulsed, limbs and body slamming into the display case with discharges of black energy contributing to the damage even as they reshaped her body. She finally did scream as her body lengthened, increasing her height, while additional muscle mass joined what was already there. Her face grew, losing its 'cute'ness, maturing into beauty, while streaks of midnight black shot through her red hair. She struggled to end her still-ongoing scream, finally clamping her mouth shut as the black lightning subsided, weakly raising the once-silver-gold jewel that had hit her, now coloured a deep, comfortable, too-dark black.
Next Chapter! Two demons break out of a prison beneath the Vatican, as women the world over are remade by the jewels. But remade into what? Ranma discovers she can't change back into a boy. How? And what was Kagami practicing for?
Author's Notes (The thing to skip if you just don't care what I have to say.) E-Mail is at miraclewolf at
Welcome, one and all (which is probably the same thing), to my first submitted fanfiction, and the very first Ranma/Black Jewels crossover on the Internet (believe me, I checked). I am Pale Wolf. Let me get one thing clear right away:Kagami is not a self-insert-type, or anything like that. She beat Ranma, yes, but s/he worked for every iota of skill and power s/he has. Kagami has a huge natural advantage that completely overpowered every drop of Ranma's effort. And in the air, Ranma did have more skill, and might've won if s/he hadn't gotten overconfident. Also, please note that quite a bit of beating went on before the start. When it's not a spoiler, I'll go more in depth on why I brought her in. And no, she will not be the RanmaMatch(tm). And the Sailors? They show up a lot in my stories simply because they're a convenient device. My portrayal of them varies incredibly. Sometimes I'm nice. Sometimes they're just nuisance prancing justice freaks with a hell of a lot of firepower (their usual cameo persona). This is the one that varies the most. And sometimes they are... still prancing justice freaks (no amount of kindness will change that) but serve as major antagonists. Look for Darklight whenever I get it out, and another story that yet has no name, for examples of this. (Saturn usually gets the nicest treatment anyway-I think she's got more sense than most of the Senshi, I like her, and the series put her through multiple hells, so she deserves a break. You disagree? Deal. Or contact me and we'll work it out.)
Now, if you don't know Black Jewels, you'll be confused beyond belief. Fear not, your primer is coming. If you do know Black Jewels, you'll still be confused, but you'll at least understand some things you otherwise wouldn't have. Now, since the information provided on this is a little sketchy, I made stuff up to work with what I knew. And yes, Ranma is a Black. A Birthright Black. Jewels readers should know what this could mean. Also, this may not be clear (although if I've done my job right it should be), but Kagami challenged Ranma and Ryouga, and Mars got involved when seeing her beating the tar out of them.
My profile has my list of promises, and I don't feel like repeating them, so just note that if anyone wants to help my writing, such as pre-reading or revising, then you just need to contact me. And I apologize for any problems with this. Like most of my posts (until I get a pre-reader) it's the first draft. If you don't get anything, feel free to e-mail me and I'll see if I can explain without spoilers.
November 5, 2004-This is just a minor revision: slight cleanup on the language and minor twitches. These twitches? One: I changed Ranma-chan's new hair colour. That's it. Two: After going over the Black Jewels Trilogy, I realized I had to adjust Ranma's power level, so I changed the Birthright Jewel she got.