Disclaim me do rey mi fa so la ti do.

I don't own Ranma or Tenchi or any thing else that may be hinted at in here. So much fanfiction has been written that is guaranteed that anything I write is probably plagiarism of some sort.

A Wild Horse and His Cabbit

Chapter4

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Washu ran into her lab, frantically slapping the acknowledge button on the blaring klaxon and bringing up her holographic computer interface. She was having a hard time believing the assumptive results on the screen. Two new cabbits? The Masu and etherium traces were definitive. Trouble was that all traces winked out a few seconds after initialization, suggestive of a young cabbit, or cabbits, not realizing the need for stealth mode until after transformation. Well, she would wait for detransformation and try to contact them. Meanwhile, a long talk with her daughter and a certain cabbit were in order.

A few hours later, Ryoko and Ryo Ohki were in Washu's lab. Ryoko was seated in the chair Washu used when she wanted her wayward daughter's undivided attention and to keep her from wandering off, should she turn her back. "Well, daughter dear, I'm sure that you wonder why I 'requested' an audience."

"What's going on, 'Mommy dearest', that keeps us from just having a talk by the lake?"

"Something came up that I need to know everything about before I have both Azusa and Tsunami breathing down my neck. What do you know about the existence of one, possibly two, wild cabbits on or near Earth?"

"Huh?" came Ryoko's brilliant answer.

"I mean, my sensors detected one very strong and one weaker cabbit trace before they went into a very effective stealth mode, and neither one was Ken Ohki's trace. I promised that I wouldn't create any more cabbits and the clone eggs don't activate unless the rest is destroyed."

Ryoko began to laugh. Hard. "Mom. Ho ho ho ha ha! I think that cabbit nature circumvented your design. You made them male and female and I found out in spades that Ryo Ohki there, had to be fertile."

Washu brought up her holographic terminal and a large ring settled around the cabbit. A few seconds later, "Goddess! Your right!"

"Yeah, just wait till she goes into heat in about fifty years. The smell is quite pungent and she won't come out of it for eighteen months! A few thousand years ago, Naga was chasing me, and Ken Ohki sensed that Ryo Ohki was in heat. The two of them dumped us off on an unpopulated world and ignored our links for six months while they bred like zikzoggs. When they showed back up in ship form they took us aboard and headed off opposite directions, to lose Naga for a while. I asked Ryo Ohki to put the egg in stasis when I found out that they were successful. Guess what! The egg being in stasis was enough to keep her from going into heat again. I guarantee that it'll happen again and Kenny boy 'will' show up the first time."

"Okay, that explains how it's possible, but tell me how I'm getting these indications now."

"Wellll, when Yosho chased us to earth, Ryo-chan jettisoned the egg chamber the first chance she had. She had taken a lot of damage and wanted to give her baby a chance to survive. I guess that the stasis field must have failed recently. I don't have a clue why you sensed two and I'm positive that there was only one egg." Ryoko looked at Washu and then the chair that she was seated in.

Washu said, "All right." The restraints were released.

"Ryoko, let's keep quiet for now about this for now. I hesitate to think what my sister or Azusa might say. I never intended for the cabbits to mix their genes. Where the Masu are concerned, one plus one could equal five. I need to get these two new ones into my lab for analysis. Yes. Ha ha a ha. New guinea pigs for the greatest scientific genius in the universe." Ryoko shuddered as the Washu dolls popped mini fireworks.

After Ryoko had left the lab, Washu strolled over to the 'detection' tank which was full of the latest quantity of Masu that she had surreptitiously obtained. The activity within indicated that the new cabbits were still on earth, just not where.


LinOhki was hovering in a low earth orbit, sifting through the data of the World Wide Web and several military databases. She had found Mount Horaisan in the first few gigacycles of analysis but had decided to download 'everything', the sum total of human knowledge committed to computer data with subroutines weeding out redundancies. After an hour of real-time searching, Prince Herb was located as well.

"Miyah miaow miyah." Sounded from the air, matching a little furry cat-rabbit girl on a monitor floating in front of Ranma. The girl just fell back into a chair that had appeared and they floated, chair, monitor and Ranma to a location near the top of the dome away from the other's stares and ears. Ranma's mind snapped into sharp focus. The sometimes confusing pictographic and formulaic mental communications from her partner became perfectly understandable. She saw how Lin-chan's personality or soul was setting like the top stone of a pyramid with subroutines taking care of everything else at once. Ranma then felt her own mind shifting and creating the structure to match, on a somewhat smaller level, what came naturally to LinOhki.

With wide eyes, Ranma began to fully communicate with, and understand, her partner. 'Lin-chan…I what is this? I can't describe it.'

'This is how we were meant to be, I think. But I can only believe that this must be what love is supposed like between siblings. The only thing that prevents us from being truly complete is something that I detected to the north in a pocket dimension. We must have it! Here's what we can do…' LinOhki placed her plan in front of Ranma, who quickly nodded her head in agreement when the cabbit was done.

As the information exchange began to speed up between LinOhki and Ranma on the mental level, other changes were happening at an increasing pace. They hadn't begun to show physically, yet, but Ranma began to feel a nervousness, a feeling of the need to panic about something, though she didn't know what, just yet. The semi-sentient magic of the spring had been frustrated by the eggshell of the cabbit and was unable to do a complete merge of the forms of the drowning creature and the young girl template. LinOhki was only subject to drowning in the early stages of development and quickly overcame the need for breathing after a few meals of exotic elements. Since the spell was incomplete, it went into abeyance.

The magic determined that the link between the two was sufficient to allow it to complete the transformation. It couldn't exactly duplicate the truly exotic Masu component of the cabbit, but performed an exchange that would be just sufficient to allow both to have a young girl form when they assimilated enough Masu for their shape shifting to occur.

Other elements were being magically exchanged in subspace and Ranma's incipient panic was quickly emerging in LinOhki's mind as well. She was losing half of everything that she had assimilated to her rapidly changing 'sister'. Fortunately, she still had several times what she needed to maintain her ship form, thanks to her gluttony on the road. She made a note that the two of them should revisit the mine in the near future, but her concern was for what appeared to be happening to Ranma.

Ranma felt a queasiness that extended all the way to the tips of her red hair. You weren't supposed to feel your hair, but she was receiving sensations. Colors began to have a taste and her other senses were changing and getting more sensitive as well. Everything began to seem larger and further off, but could be seen with greater clarity than ever before. Ranma's form began to change, morphing into a cabbit with bright red fur and sail-like ears, blue eyes and a bright blue gem on her forehead. She suddenly felt a tremendous hunger that took all of her will to suppress. An image of a beautiful carrot was supplied as a pictogram from Lin-chan.

Ranma began to panic now. She leapt from the chair to various protrusions and floating components until she stood on all fours, looking at her own reflection on the inner surface of the environmental dome. 'Lin…Lin I'm…'

'Yes. You're like me now. I think that the spring's magic just caught up to both of us. From what I can gather, hot water will make me a male cabbit. You may be locked in your form for now, but we 'will' get that artifact and unlock you. You deserve to have your birth form accessible."

LinOhki wasn't sure that she was getting through and a thought came to her. She continued to send reassurances to Ranma over their link and simultaneously opened a monitor to Xian Pu and Mu Tzu catching their attention with her image and scrolling Chinese kanji explaining what had happened. The two catgirls followed the monitor, which became a large crystal. They bounced up to where Ranma was mewing piteously on the ledge at the dome's boundary. They both came up short. It was Mu Tzu who began to cry in sympathy, while Xian Pu just reached out and took Ranma into her arms.

Ranma cried into Xian Pu's shoulder as the catgirl made shushing and cooing noises while the floppy eared, red furred cabbit cried and talked, though the only sound heard were 'miyahs'. "Xian Pu, some kami really has it in for me! First I had my manhood locked away, now I don't even have my humanity! Waahhh!"

Mu Tzu came up and began to pet Ranma as she was held by the other catgirl. She began to scratch Ranma behind the ears, finding a pleasure center. Ranma's cries quieted into cute little hiccuping noises as her ears were scratched and Xian Pu held her protectively. Xian Pu spoke quietly, "Grandmother and I did a horrible thing to you, little sister, and I hope you can truly forgive us. I swear that we will get you unlocked somehow." Ranma licked the girls hand while looking into her eyes with a soulful look that broke her heart. The catgirls sat on the ledge with the neocabbit curled up into Xian Pu's lap and Mu Tzu petting her. Soon, exhaustion overtook them all and they fell asleep, out of sight of the others. LinOhki reconfigured the spot for their comfort and went about preparing for what was ahead.


Herb, mint and lime were leaving the port city behind and following the direction that the locking ladle's compass function indicated. She was in the lead on the path that promised to be the shortest straight line path, when the sky suddenly turned dark and cloudy in the empty valley. Thunder echoed from one side of the valley to the other. An ominous feeling convinced her to look up at the cloud cover as some enormous spines began to lower themselves below the cloud deck.

A tremendous voice spoke from the clouds, "Prinncce Herrrb. Ifff youu wishh to ffind thee Kaiiisuufuu annnd a currre, doo nnnot rrresist coming aboarrrd."

"Who are you and why should I trust you?" Shouted the prince at the clouds.

"I cannn be a ffriennnd annd trrrusting iiss eassierrr than ttthhee alterrnativve." The clouds above cleared somewhat, exposing an artifact much larger than the Musk palace and the surrounding village combined. Her ki sense didn't indicate malice, but she felt an overwhelming power.

"Mint, Lime, to me. Very well, I am willing to negotiate, but do not cross me." Herb felt herself begin to rise and saw her retainers doing likewise. Anyone watching would have seen the trio disappear in a flash of light.


A large monitor formed in front of the crew slash passengers and LinOhki's image appeared. She decided against trying for understandable audio and just scrolled chinese text for KhoLun to read, 'Elder, I have acquired the Musk princess and the Chisuiton. She and her retainers are in stasis and can be attended to at our leisure. Ranma is having problems at the moment and I am acting out our plan in her stead. We will arrive at Mount Horaisan shortly. Elder, I feel that it is better that you retrieve the Kaisufu for Ranma.'

The old woman bowed her head and sighed. "Very well, LinOhki-sama." 'It looks like my great granddaughter has chosen more wisely than I. I think that I will make her my official heir apparent when we get back. I've become too calculating in my old age…and I can still give advice and be entertained by the children's mistakes.' She quietly chuckled to herself and made her own preparations.

Minutes later, KhoLun vanished while Genma watched from where he was eating and drinking sake. "Soon Ranma can be a man again and I can make him take us ta my old friend's home ta honor our agreement. If the boy's safely married, I should be able ta get No-chan ta forget about that damned contract. I'll surely be rich, too, if I take some of the devices here ta some of my contacts." A bottle of sake chose that moment to spill its contents into Genma's lap. He growffed and glumly began to eat the bamboo that had replaced the food at the table. 'My life sucks.' he signed to no one in particular. A certain cabbit ship snickered to itself privately.

End for now.