Title: Half Knight (5/?)
Author: Cyclone
Feedback: Please be gentle.
Distribution: Gimme credit and a link.
Rating: I'm gonna go say PG-13.
Spoilers: For Ranma, anything goes, pun intended. For Buffy, starts at Halloween and continues on after.
Disclaimer: The characters depicted herein belong to the almighty Joss. I'm just borrowing them for a while.
Summary: Xander wears an anime-inspired costume on that fateful Halloween.
Author's Note: Let's see if I can continue this one, hmm? Oh, by the way, it may get confusing, as I will use female pronouns when talking about female Xander.
It happened at lunch time.
Xander stared at the familiar figure. Yellow and black bandanna? Check. Fangs? Check. Huge backpack with red bamboo-style umbrella on top? Check. Utterly confused and lost expression on his face? Check.
"'Scuse me," he murmured as he rose to his feet and headed for the person in question.
"Xander?" Willow frowned and followed his gaze... and boggled.
"Uh, Willow?" Buffy asked. "Is that...?"
"I think it is."
"Wow, I knew he got lost..." the Slayer murmured, "but... this?"
"He's really lost this time."
"Hey!" Xander called.
Ryouga Hibiki turned in surprise, "Huh?"
"You look a little lost," Xander said in Japanese.
"Uh, yeah, heheheheh..." Ryouga scratched the back of his head nervously. "Could you, um, tell me how to get to the Tendou Dojo?"
Xander shook his head, "Um, you're in California."
"California?!"
Amy Madison stared at the exchange in disbelief, the bottle of water in her hand almost forgotten.
She'd thought something was up when Xander miraculously grew a pigtail over the weekend and started dressing... -- she paused to give him a once over -- ...like he did now.
Now, he was talking to Ryouga Hibiki.
Okay, getting her body stolen by her own mother wasn't exactly normal, but this was ridiculous!
She hurried toward them. She just had to hear what they were talking about.
In her path, almost unnoticeable, was a slight crack in the pavement from the earthquake last year. On one side, the pavement was slightly higher than the other, hardly enough to inconvenience anyone who was paying even marginal attention to their walking.
Amy wasn't.
She tripped.
It took a long moment for Ryouga to comprehend what had happened.
A girl had rushed over -- why, he couldn't guess -- and tripped, sending her bottle of water flying toward them. He'd instantly reacted, stepping back and whipping out his umbrella, but the young man who'd just informed him he was in California hadn't seen it coming.
The bottle struck, dousing the young man with its contents and turning him into a very... familiar... redhead...
"RRRAAANNNMMMAAA!!!" Ryouga bellowed. "How DARE you mock me with another stupid disguise!!! DIE!!!"
Ohshitohshitohshitohshit...
That pretty much summed up Xander's train of thought as she began dodging the lost boy's attacks.
This was not good. One, her curse had just been revealed to the entire student body of Sunnydale High. Two, she had a psychotic lost boy trying to pound her head into the concrete.
Xander leaped back and dropped into a stance. "C'mon, Ryouga," she said, "be reasonable. Not everyone with the same curse is the same person."
"Then how do you know my name?! You can't fool me, Ranma!" Ryouga shouted, snapping his umbrella open and hurling it at Xander.
Aw, nuts, Xander thought as he sidestepped the umbrella. He'd forgotten about that little detail.
He was about to turn his attention back to the fight when he caught something out of the corner of his eye.
Amy scrambled back, trying to figure out which way the wobbling umbrella was going to go.
Slender arms and a gust of wind threw her mind off-track as the world suddenly spun like a kaleidoscope.
"Huh?" she looked around. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The redhead carrying her landed lightly on the school roof and set her on her feet, "You okay, Amy?"
"Xander?"
"Ah... heheh... yeah," Xander scratched the back of her head nervously.
"You're going to explain this."
"Yeah, sure," Xander nodded, "but not right now, okay?"
"RANMA! How DARE you cheat on Akane! PREPARE TO DIE!!!"
"Gotta go!"
Xander somersaulted back to confront Ryouga, squaring off against him cautiously. Ryouga charged, swinging his retrieved umbrella at a frenzied pace.
"Damn it, Ryouga! Calm down and let me explain!" Xander tried again.
WHAM! CRASH!
Xander blinked as she staggered to her feet among the rubble her impact with the school had created. Rubbing her jaw, she snarled, "Lucky punch, Ryouga. Too bad you'll never land a second one."
Ryouga let out an inarticulate roar as he charged.
"Wow," Xander remarked as she dodged the next series of blows, absently swatting a handful of bandannas out of the air. "That's a great impression of a wild boar, Ryouga!"
"SHISHI HOUKOU DAN!"
Xander dodged and smirked.
"Hiryuu Shoten Ha."
"Well, now, I think we're going to have to do something about this. After all, can't have a graduation if the school keeps getting destroyed."
"Ah, yes, sir," Finch said.
"Contact the Tarakans. Put a bounty on this young man's head."
"Yes, Mister Mayor."
Ryouga ran.
People were trying to kill him, and he had no idea why.
No, actually, he DID know why.
"RANMA, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!!"
"You sure you're okay, Xander?" Buffy asked as she fussed over him. They were currently at Willow's house, as the school was temporarily closed for repairs.
"I told you, Buff, I'm fine."
"'A freak tornado created by a descending front of plasma ion particle streams from the mesosphere'?" Willow frowned as she read the paper. "Who comes up with these things?"
Knock knock.
Willow sighed as she answered the door, "Uh, hi."
Amy stepped past Willow and stood over Xander.
"All right, you. Explain."
"Eep!"
Author's Postscript:
Welcome to a world where the laws of physics do not apply, where the most insane things can happen on a regular basis, and where logic is a foreign concept.
Welcome... to the Anime Zone.