"Who was that Eric?" Xavier said as he started to raise from the ground.
"Like I said it's Ranma's cursed form." Eric said as he too lifted himself from the ground.
"Well she said she wasn't so which is it?"
"I am sorry, but I am telling you all I know. From what I had gathered I was lead to believe that is was a curse." Eric said as he took notice that the surroundings once again took street they were on. "It would seem she was right she is gaining control of his body."
"Yes and that is what I am afraid of. We have to save Ranma before his body can no longer contain us." Charles said as he stood there contemplating on the problem at hand.
"Charles I think I know where she took him we have to hurry." He said as he started to move.
"Wait Eric remember we are at a disadvantage here. We are only a small portion of ourselves. We need a plan first.
----- Furinkan High -----
"Who or what the fuck are you." Ranma said as he was restrained to a wall.
"Oh come now Ranma. Wanda would not be please to hear such language coming from you." The female that stood in front of him.
"Answer the damn question!"
"Well you should know my name after all you gave it to me." She said as a tone that sounded sweet, but kept it's sarcastic tone as well.
"Oh please I am Ranko." Ranma said only to have his stomach hit with such force that it took the air out of him.
"NO. I AM!" She yelled as she pulled her arm back. "You arrogant bastard."
"What the hell are you talking about!" Ranma said as he was trying to regain his breath.
"You still don't get it do you." Ranko said as she took a seat on a chair that appeared. "I am not a curse to you. I never was to begin with."
"Oh yeah right. Me getting splashed by water and changing into a girl is blessing. Oh that's it."
"It is Ranma. You see years ago those pools were blessed. Only with the passage of time things change. The guide at that time changed the name from 'no longer cursed spring' to just 'cursed spring.' Since then everyone has been lead to believe that you changing forms is a curse." Ranko said as she watched him as he listen to her.
"If changing bodies wasn't the curse then. What was?"
"It's a fate worst then death Ranma. My fate I was the last to feel the true curse of those damn pools. To have everything you know and love move on as if you were dead, but you aren't. You are only confined to a pool of water for all time. That Ranma was the true curse. To be able to be alive, and not be at the same time. That was the true curse of those springs. When they were blessed however I had a chance to live again." She said as she tried hard not to cry, but was failing as they started to come.
"To live again?" The chained Ranma asked as he continued to take in everything she was saying.
"Yes a piece of my being would attach itself to whoever fell into it. Thus giving you a female form. Granted most of them tended to be "Musk.'." She said with a small shrug.
"'Musk'?"
"Don't worry Ranma you will probably never see one since they tend to recluses. Anyway as I said I would see what they see feel what they feel, but it wasn't the same. It never was until you." She said as she stood up. "I can't explain it. It was like everything that you would feel, I would feel too. You Ranma are the closest to having my life restored, and for the first time in centuries I felt happy." She said almost happy at the thought and even the discussion of it's remembrance. "And just like that.(snap) It was gone. You Ranma you threw me into this ... this... that thing on your neck."
"What?"
"When Eric implanted that device it created something like a black hole. And in the hole it locked me in and in there I started to make a form of my own. My own essence in here and soon I will have a body. Granted I can never get my original body, but then again your female body is a lot better then mine ever was." She said with a smirk.
"I didn't know." Ranma said in a low tone with his head lowered.
----- ????? -----
"O.K. friend in just a few minutes I will be operating on you, and hopefully you will awaken from this." The doctor said as he started to make his preparations. When he heard the alarm went off. (sigh) "Another one. Well I can't blame them Wraith is a mad man." He said as he went to the other room. Not noticing that their was a some movement from the table. It was just a twitch which came from the hand, but it was something that the sheet covered body had not done since it got here.
----- Furinkan High -----
"You didn't know." She said as she looked at him square in the eyes. "And just like that you think it is going to make me feel better, or even forget the hell you put me through!" Yelled as she was now inches from his face.
"No, but for what it's worth I am sorry." Ranma looked at her with his eyes not wavering from hers.
"Your sorry." She said as she chuckled sadly. "Oh how I hate that line. Leave it to a male to think that those two little words can fix everything."
"I am. I really mean it. You should know since you had seen everything before I got that implant. I unintentionally did to you what everyone had done to me." Ranma said as he now no longer could hold his tears as it started to fall from his eyes.
"He is right and you should know that even more then I do." The voice said as it brought her attention to it's owner.
"And what about you Eric. Would you have insisted that he get the implant if you had known." She said as turned to face the man that had imprisoned her in the device that had created.
"And why would you ask that. Harming you means I would be harming Ranma as well." Eric said with a stern voice.
"Even if it you knew that I am the reason Ranma here has the human gene as well." She countered the man that was before her.
"Eric." Ranma said as he interrupted the two. "Please tell Charles to come out from where he is hiding."
"Wh..hat?" Eric said as he was shocked Ranma would ruin their plan to save him. "But Ranma you will..."
"This is my mind Eric not yours or his. So please do as I say."
"Very well Ranma I will come out." He said as he stepped out of the wall that held Ranma.
"You know Ranma they were your only chance to be free, and you ruined it why?" Ranko said as she watched Xavier walk past her without doing anything.
"Because I will take responsibility for my actions. I will take your place in the device that imprisoned you." Ranma said as her looked at her right in the eyes. While ignoring the looks that the other two who were present.
"What. Just like that you are not even going to fight it." She asked as she was totally confused by this action.
"You shouldn't be surprised. You should know I did offer the same thing to Ukyo. I was willing to take her punishment for me." Ranma said as he watched her smirked at him.
"And you think I will be just like her. That this simple action of redemption would make me forgive you like she did. Is that it!" Ranko said was face to face him as their eyes lock onto one another. When it happened the ground stared to shack. "Oh God no not now."
"What the hell is going on!" Ranma yelled out when the chained broke open. Just as a black vortex opened up in the sky, and a huge gust of wind came. Which was leading up to the darkened vortex.
"Ranma you have to hurry and gain control over you body. Look!" There she stood almost transparent.
"What happening to her!" Ranma yelled out as loud as he could while trying to fight the winds from taking him
"You heard her, her essence is in that device I had implanted it would seem someone is removing it!" Eric yelled out as the winds continued to roar.
"You mean she is in there!"
"Yes!" Xavier said, and with that Ranma looked up into the darkened void in the sky as he made his choice.
----- ???? -----
"Sponge." The doctor said as his aide dried his forehead. "This is simply amazing how on earth did he get this implanted! It's connected to so many nerves it must have taken allot of time to get this in here." He thought to himself as he continued to removed the device.
----- ???? outside the base -----
"Heh nice try blue freak." Wraith said as he stood over the fallen form of the mutant dubbed X-3. He stopped talking when he notice that the exhausted mutant was looking past him. "You know I say it's about a good two miles up to that plane." He said as he saw the plane passing by. "Too bad you don't got the energy to make that distance." He said with a smirk as he kicked the fallen X-3 cross the face knocking him out. "Put him in the truck boys, and give him a good ol' hot foot to remind him that he can't escape." He said as he lit a cigar. "Stevenson!"
"Yes Sir." The solider said as he stood next him.
"Get the base on the horn, and tell them to get the girl ready she has herself a mission."
----- ???? -----
"Ya think they caught him yet Juggernaut?" The female voice said in the other cell.
"Most likely. When will that guy learn. This is what the third time he tried to escaped?" He said as he was relaxing on the bed while eating.
"Ah'm not sure ah lost count." She said as she put her book down. "Juggernaut Magneto was done in by them X-men, but what bout Ranma?"
"I think he gone too you remember how everyone was Quicksilver and his sister came back. Rogue why you asking about that?" He said as he stopped eating.
"It's ju... oh forget it." She said as she remembered how mad Wraith was when he ordered her to touch the arm of a sheet covered body, and nothing happened. "But Ranma's dead isn't he?" She thought as took the task as nothing, but Wraith using her for her mutation. It would have stayed nothing but that was until she saw what looked like a braided pigtail peeking out from under the lifted sheet.
"Hey girl." The gruff voice of one of the soldiers sounded. "You got yourself a mission so come on."
----- Void -----
"No I was so close." She said as she could feel her control over the body weakening.
"Hey!"
"Wh..what?!" She said as she looked up at and there he was in the entrance of the Void.
"Look I know I am a total crew up and this is probably my fault too, but I like to make it up to you. So what do you say." Ranma said as he extended his hand out to the girl that he had thought was a curse.
----- Furinkan High -----
"Well Charles what do you think is going to happen now." Eric said as they both notice that the winds were dying down.
"Well I..." He had started when he took notice that his hand was disappearing. Like how sand would move from one's hand except it was his hand that was moving. "I believe it doesn't matter anymore."
"It would appear that you are right old friend." Eric said as he too was going through the very same thing. "So what is happening to us?" Eric asked but was too late for Xavier was now gone just as he too followed.
----- ???? near base -----
"Sir." This brought Wraith's attention back as he turned to the solider that had addressed him.
"What is it?" He asked as he eyed the man that was driving the truck.
"I have just been informed that the girl has left approximately twenty minutes." He informed him.
"Good maybe then it won't be so boring. Once she gets the information we need we will get those muties, and that when the fun will really begin." He smirked as he thought on what he would do once he got his hands on the X-men, but more specifically the mutant that gave him three scars across his face. Wolverine.