Disclaimer: Don't own Ranma ½ or Sailor Moon, and this is for my own entertainment. If one character-aspect vaguely resembles a pokemon, please don't shoot.
This is an alternate universe story with a Shampoo emphasis on interaction, initially. Ranma will show some dazzling responsibility to help a lonely lost person. I intended for it to be a one shot of 25 to 30k words, but I've gotten impatient, its about three quarters done. Depending on c&c I'll release a chapter a week. Thought I had a pre reader, but ran afoul of anti spam programming. Sorry.
Ifor ap Rhys (pronounced Ivor 'Price, a Welsh name) is my own invention. His situation is a fabrication based on my idea of a magical Stone Age North America combining with a falsified Druid/Wiccan heritage very loosely tied into Greek mythology. The members of the Stone Clan are descendants of Kronos, hence the association with flint. The tie-ins to Sailor Moon and Ranma are a convenience and timelines are trashed. There are also elements taken from fanfics that I don't remember the author's names for which I apologize. Finally since this was meant to be a oneshot, things will move rather fast at some points.
Regarding reviews:
Sonic 1(unsigned)-this was a prolog to what will be a oneshot split into chapters that I am about half way through as I read your review. It is a placeholder and teaser.
Daniel-Sorry bout that. Its been thirty years since I read Edith Hamilton's Mythology. However, I take the copout that I am making this all up with no referent in reality and hope that none of the nastier Greek deities get pissed (like Ouranos). So I will twist and outright fabricate the universe to suit myself, like Kuno, or worse. It's lies and made up, okay (breathes heavily).
Jerry-Thanks for weighing in.
Twelve Totems of the Stone Clan One Half:
Ifor's story
Ifor was walking down the gravel bar in the river behind the school, keeping a sharp eye out for fossils. This beat the heck out of sitting in eighth grade study hall. He had asked the superintendent at the end of science class for permission. It was always easy to get away alone. It was a small school, barely enough boys to support six-man football.
He hated having to associate with the inbred, snuff dipping, goat roping retards that comprised the male population of this rural school. Even though he had grown up here, he was an outsider. The other children made his life miserable because he had made the unfortunate choice to have a Yankee mother. His parents were great and his grandparents were wonderfully supportive. His little brother, Evan, and sister, Meadbh, were okay. But, they could never know about the prejudices aimed at his mother. He tried to defend their honor but usually wound up getting his ass kicked. Once, he was caught trying to clean up his wounds and had to explain it away as falling down the rocky hillside on the way home, to their farm, after school.
He wished that his mother would start home schooling him and his siblings, but she said that they needed the social interaction with children their ages. He 'hmmphed' at the thought. Children his age were just that, children. He had already passed a couple of sample college entrance exams with high marks. He wanted to take the entrance exams for real and apply for some scholarships, but the nearest college was an hour's drive away. He had thoughts of majoring in computer programming and studying nanotechnology. His hobbies were physics, paleontology and anthropology with interests in several other fields. All of this was aside from his involvement in the real family business. His mother was a Wiccan, descended from a long matriarchal line of benevolent witches. He was the only male to ever have inherited what had been a strictly female ability and was, unknowingly, the subject of discussion and prophecy across the US and much of Europe in Wiccan circles. He still hadn't gotten beyond calling up mana globes to light up the cellar where they trained, but he was told that his abilities would increase for five to ten years after puberty. He wanted to learn the offensive side, but his mother refused, saying that it wasn't time yet.
Anyway, on the gravel bar, he sat on a large rock, looking at his findings. He had half of a nautiloid, some snail shells and a very odd piece of flint. It looked like a hand worked amulet and was not like any Indian artifacts that he had found on the farm near the old Tonkawa village ruins. It was circular and had odd symbols chipped around the edges. A quartz crystal had grown in the center and a hole ran through the outside edge of the 'disk'. He unraveled the leather thong holding the flap of his canvas rucksack and fastened it to the amulet. He then put it over his head and the flint amulet came to rest over his heart. Ifor didn't notice the blue glow start in the quartz. He did notice the sound of thunder in the distance, up river. "I guess I had better get back to class," he thought.
Ifor headed up the washout between the willows at the bottom of the gravel bar, going to the stepping stones on the shallow side of the bar/island. He started to feel a little queasy and nearly jumped out of his skin when some rabbits ran between his legs. The reason for his nervous stomach became apparent when he heard/felt a subsonic rumble from upstream. He looked at the spot where the stepping stones were and saw that the water was a good two feet above them. "Oh, Mom! I don't want to die." Hearing a voice to his right, he saw an old Indian dressed in furs looking directly at him. Ifor couldn't understand a word, as the old man finished speaking. The man smiled a sad smile that he guessed was intended to be comforting. He pointed at Ifor's amulet and said something unintelligible, then faded away.
Ifor's chest began to burn and looking down he saw that the flint amulet was glowing and passed right through his shirt, seeming to be absorbed by his skin. His fright was so intense that he barely noticed the urine soaking his pants. As this happened, the rumbling grew stronger, until it was deafening. Water was running around his ankles now and, upstream, he could see the flash flood's crest foaming halfway up the riverbanks, far higher than his current position. He dropped his rucksack as the water began to pass his waist. A limb floating by caught his shirt and ripped it off, leaving a scrape on his side. This also had the effect of knocking him off his feet and he swam desperately, feeling himself rise up on the wave. Going under for a few seconds, he surfaced at the top of the racing wave and saw that he had already gone about a mile downstream. "Oh god, the waterfall!"
Coming up was a waterfall that passed over a limestone ledge in a drop of about twenty feet. Treading the water, Ifor watched for clues of the cataract to come and caught a large, painful breath as he felt himself drop into the roiling waters of the basin at the bottom of the fall. The currents battered him, knocking him further under as he clawed his way through the water, trying to find 'up'. Unknown to him, the amulet had finished becoming one with his body and he began to glow with a bright white aura. Feeling the currents ease and seeing the light penetrating his eyelids, he looked about and saw crystal clear water and the surface far above him. Oddly, there was a large brown bear swimming beside him and he reached out and caught the fur of the bears back as it swam toward the surface. When the bear disappeared from his hand, his burning lungs provided the incentive to swim madly toward the surface that was so close, not noticing the electric tingle in his skin, or the shifting of his body. Ifor broke the surface, taking gasping breaths. After restoring oxygen to his starved lungs, he realized that he was standing in a pool that only came up midway to his chest. "Wha…!" Something was different, he felt different all over, actually.
Looking around, he saw that he was in a spring with a bamboo pole sticking up from the center. Ifor heard a shout behind him and turned to see someone, an older boy, flailing through the air at him. He went under again, trying to get out from under the other boy. When they broke the surface Ifor thought, "How did I think it was a boy. That's a girl!" The girl looked at Ifor and acted like she just realized something and pulled open her robe or whatever she was wearing and screamed while looking at her chest. It was then that Ifor, scratching an itch, realized that some equipment that he was very fond of was missing. She joined the girl in screaming at the top of her lungs and began crying. The other girl saw this and calmed down and waded in the chest deep water and patted Ifor on the shoulder, speaking in a language that she couldn't understand. The bigger girl led the younger one to the bank and helped her out, making comforting noises in that foreign language.
A fat oriental man in some kind of uniform came up and spoke in what seemed to be the same language as the other girl. Ifor spoke to herself, "Where am I, this isn't home." The heavy person said, "Oh. Young person speak english. You fall in nyannichuan, spring of drowned girl. I telling other young person that who fall in spring take body of last thing drown in it." He removed his jacket and handed it to her, while continuing to speak, "You get old form back splash with hot water. But cold water turn girl again."
Saying this, he poured water from a teakettle over the two girls-now boys. The now taller, now male, boy spoke, "I talk engrish some, train in USA little while. Name Ranma. Family is Saotome and panda is daddyo Genma. What your name?" The younger boy spoke, "My name is Ifor ap Rhys. I don't think this is Texas."
Ranma asked, "How you get here, this China? What marks on chest?"
