Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma ½ or Sacrifice™ or any related characters, terms or concepts.
Author's Notes: Wow, I didn't know this fic would turn out so popular! Just so you know, my "take" on the gods/creatures/spells of Sacrifice will be slightly-to-considerably different from the original game. If you dislike this, then just consider this story to be set after Eldred's battles with Marduk; all of the slain gods have returned and life has changed from the endless wars of the past. There will still be a lot of conflict though, and Ranma will end up creating his own unique Anything Goes/Magic crossbreed style.
By the way, here are the tallies of your votes. For a while, I thought it would be Pyro who won, but in the end the winner was the Master of Storms.
Stratos: 16
Pyro: 10
James: 8
Charnel: 7
Persephone: 4
Part One: I Choose You! Wind in the Mane of the Wild Horse
"Um… I can only choose just one of you, right?"
"Yes. We may no longer wage our endless wars of faith on each other" here Charnel directed a meaningful stare at Persephone, who ignored him and the glares of the other gods "but we still refuse to share our secrets. If you would learn magic from us, you may choose only one of us. The choice, in the end, is yours. But you may choose one and only one."
Ranma deliberated for a few minutes, thinking it over, then nodded.
"Alright, then the one I choose is…" He looked over them, as though he was hoping to see them sweat in anticipation. Naturally, if that was the case then he was destined to be disappointed. Other than a slight air of excitement and curiosity, the gods looked so calm and collected that they made Kasumi seem like a frenzied wild-thing.
"You. Stratos, lord of the heavens, I, Ranma Saotome, heir to the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, do humbly request that you tutor me in the ways of magic."
Having made that statement, Ranma sunk to his knees in a formal gesture, bowing his head as he did so. He looked up to five smiling gods.
"Be honest with me; that's the most formal and proper you've been in your life, isn't it Ranma?" asked Stratos.
"Yeah" Ranma grinned sheepishly and shrugged.
"Very well. I accept your request, and will tutor you in the Art of Elementalism."
Stratos reached out with a gloved hand and, with a little trepidation (this was an actual GOD after all), Ranma shook it.
This action prompted some minor but good-natured grumbling from the goods that hadn't been chosen, but they all congratulated Stratos on being Ranma's choice before disappearing.
"Come now Ranma. Your new home awaits."
Stratos gestured, producing a spinning portal of the same blue-silver mist that surrounded the island, and then walked into it, with Ranma following behind him.
It had been almost a month since Ranma had come to Otherworld (as it was generally called), and he was learning a lot. For the first week or so, Stratos had instructed him personally, not only on how to actually use magic and tap mana, but also on the basic nature and history of Otherworld.
Millions of years ago, Otherworld had apparently been much like earth, inhabited by animals, the indigenous sentients (the Fyllid, a race of humanoids with vaguely feline facial features) and a single god; the Creator. That all changed the day an evil wizard, now known only as the Betrayer, opened a portal to the Demon Realms in the land of Golgotha. In the ensuing battle, the Creator had been destroyed and the land had been torn asunder, reduced to numerous islands floating in a "sea" of ether (the blue-silver mist). After the war, the islands had all begun to change, assuming a "theme" that later served to denote them as belonging to one of the five gods (Stratos, Charnel, James, Pyro and Persephone) who had come afterwards.
Persephone's territory, named "Elysium", consisted of rich forests and fertile plains. Pyroborea, as Pyro's lands were dubbed, consisted of scorched and fire-blasted volcanic wastes. The Glebe was a great mass of rocky deserts and badlands, while Stygia, Charnel's territory, was a fetid and loathsome morass of swamps, meres and diseased, rotting plains. Empyrea, home of Stratos (and now Ranma), consisted entirely of high mountains and deep valleys. Strangely enough, it also served as the closest Otherworld equivalent to a sea, as many forms of aquatic life had adapted to surviving in the icy waters that pooled and gushed from the mountains.
Eventually, Stratos couldn't afford to spend all of his time teaching Ranma, as he had other duties to attend to. Instead, he directed Ranma to Castle de'Cuckoo, one of the finest magic schools in Empyrea. He had also presented an island, Dalara Peaks, to Ranma as his demesne- his own personal domain; a place where he had absolute authority and which would serve as a introduction to the other parts of an Otherworld Mage's life, specifically summoning and leading monsters as well as converting enemy souls for his own use. Ranma wasn't exactly ecstatic about this, but he was resolved to learn everything he had to so that he could get home.
Dalara Peaks was just a single (martial artist) jump south of Castle de'Cuckoo and also primly positioned to help Ranma learn how to command troops, with a Stygian island (Bleak Marsh) to the south-east, a Glebe island (Decennia) to the north-west, a Pyroborea demesne (Petroglodyte) to the south and an Elysium island (Marin Groves) to the east. Ranma himself specifically lived in a village called Sliverspine, set on a plateau near the top of the mountain.
Despite his initial trepidations, Ranma had adapted quite easily to life studying in Castle de'Cuckoo. Most of the students there –indeed, most of the students in any magic school in Otherworld- were off-worlders like him, come to study magic. A few were natives, and an equal percentage (but not the same percentage) would remain in Otherworld and continue controlling their demesnes here rather then returning to their homeworld and resuming their lives like Ranma intended to do.
His curse had earned him the temporary curiosity of the other students, but then so would his being the new guy, or his martial arts prowess. Most of them paid it no attention now, and a few of them were actually interested in studying it, either to learn how the magic works or how to cure it, and then getting good grades with their thesis's about it. Ranma himself was currently studying the textbook on first-level spells.
Despite the assumptions of many, including himself, Ranma Saotome was not stupid. In actual fact, Ranma's psyche, had it been left to develop properly, could have made him a genius jack-of-all-trades, capable of mastering absolutely any and every subject he bothered to put his mind to. Unfortunately, both for him and the world at large, his idiotic father has crudely manipulated that brilliant mind since Ranma was old enough to start being trained as the heir to the Saotome School.
All his life, he has been traumatized, beaten and forced to concentrate his entire mental prowess on a single subject; Martial Arts. The resultant mental scarring has effectively rendered Ranma Saotome an Idiot Savant; absolutely useless at any and every subject outside of his limited focus. Only in martial arts can his genius truly shine, but unfortunately martial arts are hardly the most sociable of foci. None of his "friends" have ever managed to notice this, naturally, and the only one who would have a clue is the one who damaged him in the first place.
But now, Ranma was attempting to master a different sort of Art; the Arcane Arts. The similarities were there, but so were the differences. The resultant paradox, coupled with Ranma's determination to master this despite all costs, was slowly allowing him to "think outside of the box", eroding some of that scar tissue and allowing him to unleash more of his true brilliance.
Not all of it unfortunately, such a degree of scarring ensured that Ranma would never truly be at his full potential outside of his foci (the martial and now the arcane arts), but he would be much better than he had previously been. Ranma himself knew none of this, all he knew was that subjects that had once been both boring and near impossible to grasp were getting slightly more interesting and easier to understand.
It had taken him roughly two weeks to first master the most basic magical theory, but once he finally understood that learning the actual spells was going much quicker. The Speed-Up spell, which hastened the target to a degree that almost matched his natural speed, had taken him mere hours to grasp, perhaps because he knew that simple cantrip would render him a truly deadly martial artist. The next cantrip was the Heal spell, which summoned magical energies to repair, restore and revitalise. The ability to instantly heal any wound and remove fatigue with a gesture was, naturally, of considerable interest to Ranma.
Having finished with the cantrips, it was time to move onto the first-level stuff. He'd just gotten the hang of the Lightning spell, now he was looking at two more 'esoteric' spells; Water Repulsion (primarily used to keep things dry; most Empyrean clothing had this spell enchanted into it as a matter of course) and Frigid Aura (froze nearby water droplets solid). In both cases, he hoped they'd help him from having to worry so much about cold water (an abundant resource in Empyrea) and thus his curse.
Ranma was distracted from his studies by having a pail of icy Empyrea water splashed on him.
"Waak! That's cold! What'd ya do that for?"
Ranma glared at her two closest friends on campus, who smirked back at her. Yuki and Yiku, off-worlders like her. They were members of a vaguely androgynous elf-like race, who had confirmed the rumours about being fraternal twins (Yuki the sister and Yiku the brother) but refused to either confirm or disprove the rumour about being lovers. They both had a mischievous streak a mile wide, and Ranma (with her seeming inability to dodge non-lethal attacks made by her "friends") was a favourite victim.
"You've been hitting the books so hard, you're starting to get dusty."
"Best take a break and come with us, else you'll get all musty."
Yuki and Yiku had an annoying habit of either speaking in rhyme, speaking in perfect unison or finishing off each other's sentences, something that didn't endear them to most of their fellows. Ranma, though, was used to dealing with much more annoying personal habits, so she was one of their best friends.
It paid off sometimes too; the pair were 3rd-level Elementalists, whereas Ranma was only a 1st-level. Of course, no one teased her about it. For one thing, they were all students in some way or another; secondly Ranma's physical prowess was far in advance of anything they could ever hope to match. On her first day, a notorious bully had splashed him, and then groped her female form. The resultant brutal beating had instantly earned Ranma a place in the school's social ladder as "Someone You DON"T Want To Mess With".
"Come on you guys, I have studying to do."
"Why Ranma, it seems you've turned"
"Into a bookworm. What happened to the phys ed champion"
"We used to know? We bet you"
"Don't have the guts to come with us."
"Ranma Saotome never backs down from any sort of challenge! I'm with you! Er… as soon as I've changed back anyway."
Yuki and Yiku smirked.
"Then meet us at your place in Sliverspine, most everyone's gone home for lunch or finished for the day anyway."
One quick change later…
"So, where are you two going anyway? What did you want me for?"
"We think it's time you put your learning to the practical test. We're inviting you to come with us on raid in Marin Groves. That is, unless you're afraid to come."
Ranma didn't particularly like the idea of leading his followers (who he'd become quite attached to in the short time he'd known them) to their potential deaths. But on the other hand, his ego wouldn't allow anyone to call him a coward, and he had to do this sooner or later. He agonized over it for a few seconds, then reluctantly nodded.
"Alright, I'll do it."
Well, that's it; chapter two finished. Next chapter: Ranma's First Raid! Will it be a disaster or a success? Will Ranma swear off commanding an army, or will he get a taste for blood? Reviews provoke me to write faster…