Chapter One
Disclaimer: First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.
He awoke to a cold wind thick with a musty stink, like the charnel breath from the mouth of a tomb. His skin was clammy, ripe with a fresh crop of goosebumps; his chest hurt, heart racing as though he had just run one of his pops' training marathons, performing jump kicks with a prisoner's ball and chain strapped to his ankle. He was nowhere he'd ever been before, the broken streets around him deserted, the towering buildings crumbling and jagged edged. Scattered higgledy piggledy around the crater he lay in were heaps of rusting metal it took his mind a long moment to recognize as junked cars, their tires hanging in rotting shreds from tarnished rims, their glass long since vanished into shards and splinters.
I don't think I'm in Nerima anymore, The thought popped into his aching head unbidden, and he slowly sat up. The time before his arrival was a blank, a void lit by flashes of pain and the impression of an unholy terror. Somewhere in that nightmare was the key to how he'd gotten... wherever it was he'd gotten. Something inside of him suspected the core involved Akane's cooking and her mallet, respectively.
But where was he? He gingerly picked himself up, expecting worse aches than the bumps and bruises he felt, relief warring with apprehension that he hadn't broken bones or torn muscles in his travel. Sure, he healed quick; but even his body could only do so much. On the flip side, if he hadn't taken a trip via Akane Express Air, then how had he gotten here?
And where is here? Even with his mind going a mile a minute, he kept wrapping himself up in that single, nagging question, like a dog around a pole. The street could have belonged to any of a number of cities, but he couldn't think of very many that had suffered this kind of devastation and neglect. This place had simply been forgotten, it looked like; but the faded remains of the storefront signs looked like Japanese, and Japan never just abandoned its towns like this. Maybe in some bigger country, like Russia or China or America, people could just move away after an earthquake or flood, but not in Japan. There just wasn't enough room.
He walked over to one of the derelict cars and peered inside, half dreading what he might find. It wasn't what he feared and expected; if there had been a body inside, once, it would have rotted away by now, like the leather upholstery had. The interior was in as bad condition as the exterior; this car had lain like this, forgotten, for an awfully long time. He looked around, counting the heaps of ruin; almost a dozen, on this street alone. They had all lain here an awfully long time.
He felt a tremor inside he barely recognized, so seldom had he felt it; not since he was a little boy, really. He was homesick, thoughts of Kasumi's cooking, or beating on his pops, or arguing with Akane rushing through his mind in a quick jumble. With resolve, he pushed them aside, to pour over later. A man didn't cry, after all. A man, finding himself in a scene out of I Am Legend or 28 Days Later, didn't wish he was safe at home, eating one of Kasumi's casseroles. A man girded up his loins, gritted his teeth, and made his own home out of rubble and pure machismo, even if he had to fight off a horde of zombie cannibals to do so.
Part of him wondered if there was a horde of zombie cannibals roaming the streets of this ruined city, and if so, if any of them were hiding in the shadows, watching him. The rest of him, that sense of driven self worth and ego the size of a blue whale, told him it was time to stop being such a scaredy c-c-c- such a wuss. There were no such thing as zombies.
Yeah, and two years ago there was no such thing as shapechanging curses, ghost c-c-c-felines, or mountains filled with bird-people. That traitor voice in the back of his head whispered. Some people might have called it conscience, or common sense. Ranma ignored it as much as he could, sure that whatever he wanted to do was the right course, and in the unforeseeable event that following his ego would get him into some hilarious bit of trouble, then he would be able to find his way out through skill, guts, or sheer awesomeness. As he had so many times before.
He squared his shoulders and brushed dust and crumbs of shattered asphalt off his red silk shirt, fisted his hands, and started off in the most likely looking direction.
SCENE SPLIT SCENE SPLIT SCENE SPLIT SCENE SPLIT —
It was impossible to be lost when you didn't have a destination in mind; after all, if you didn't know where you were going, then what did it matter if you didn't know how to get there? Ranma had to admit, an hour or so later, that the shattered storefronts and ruined cars were starting to look awfully familiar, as though he had passed this way before. Eyeing a certain crater, just the right size to accomodate a certain pigtailed greatest martial artist in the world, he had to admit he had possibly passed this way several times before. He was starting to feel a bit like Ryoga, horrifying as that thought was; like the world was rearranging itself solely to mess with him, turning left into right and back into forth. It was, of course, not his fault; the ruined streets simply looked too much alike, so that the most likely looking path taken each time turned back around, delivering him to the same intersection each time. He'd had to turn back a time or two, as well, unable to scramble or jump over the walls created by fallen buildings, or the canyons of earthquake gashes where whole sections of the street had fallen into the subway and maintenance tunnels that honeycombed the ground underneath most modern cities.
The end result was that the city was a maze, and he was stuck in it. He rubbed the back of his head irritably, feeling the beginnings of a migraine pounding in his temples. Breakfast seemed an awfully long time ago, and he hadn't had anything to drink since he'd woken up - not that he'd trust the water in a place like this, or thought it likely to find a can of barley tea chilling in some long forgotten vending machine. Although... he eyed the ruined stores speculatively, wondering if one of them might happen to be a grocery, and if so, how good the food inside might still be after how many decades this place had been abandoned.
On the flip side, eating centuries old canned Spam and Twinkies might actually be worse than Akane's cooking, not that he was entirely sure how. If he could just find his way out of the city, he could hunt a squirrel or catch some fish - it was, as his pops had pointed out many, many times in the past, good training. Genma was good enough he could sneak up on a deer and break its neck before it could catch his scent, but then his pops preferred to choose targets that were accustomed to humans feeding them, and were thus less likely to run if he made a mistake. Having a safety net of sorts was very important to Genma Saotome, and led to them eating a lot of roast pigeon while they were still on the road.
Somehow, the thought didn't quite bring about the same wave of homesickness that Kasumi's spiced carrot cake did.
Well, if the most likely looking roads had all ended up leading him in circles, that left the least likely looking road leading out of the intersection; most of the buildings had crumbled and filled the road with a sea of debris, but a narrow trail wound its way through the splintered concrete and protruding spears of rusted rebar. It was nothing for a martial artist of his skill to pick through, although he found his constitution tested by a heap of blackened skeletons, choking the trail as though someone had carelessly discarded them, and then dropped a building floor over them like a used handkerchief. The bones crumbled to dust as he touched them, leaving a smear of ash and dust across hands already gritty and torn from shifting bricks and cinder blocks out of his way. He rubbed the sweat from his brow and cursed under his breath.
Rubble shifted behind him, and he stiffened at a peculiar clicking sound. The trail hadn't been much wider than his shoulders, and yet his keenly developed senses were suddenly telling him that he was not alone... and that whatever was back there was big. He glanced over his shoulder; nothing but the winding trail, so twisty he couldn't see much more than a few feet. Again, that clicking sound. He looked up at the sky, a pale silver high above, and the cool breeze suddenly felt like ice against goosepimpling flesh.
This was probably the worst place possible to have a fight, especially with the way the Saotome School focused on acrobatics and aerial combat. Ranma turned his attention back to the trail ahead of him, moving quicker now. With greater speed came less caution, less chance to avoid the jagged spikes of rebar, and he winced as his clothes caught again and again. He could see long hours engaged in unmasculine labours ahead, darning his clothes by the light of a campfire, if he couldn't find his way back to the dojo or sucker someone else into doing it for him. He hated sewing.
The trail suddenly opened up, revealing a square - the courtyard to an office building, it looked like, although little was left of the ornamental statuary and fountain that had once graced it. Most of the plaza was taken up by a huge mound of dirt and rubble, a shape strangely familiar. The clicking from behind him, louder this time, and he took advantage of the open space to leap away, stretching his weary legs for the first time in what felt like hours.
He spun in air, seeing his pursuer for the first time. Slung low to the ground, six spindly legs protruding from a blue-black body segmented into three distinct shapes; bullet like head, slender thorax, bulging abdomen. Antennae flicked at the air, sensing disturbances in the air current and turning to follow him, mandibles large enough to cut him in half snapping open and closed like steel snips. He realized, now, why the mound looked so familiar.
It was a giant anthill.
"You have gotta be kidding me," he breathed softly. The GiAnt flicked its antennae at him and came forward, moving terribly fast for something the size of a small horse. Ranma flipped a chunk of concrete into the air with a toe, then spun and kicked it at the monster; the rock bounced off its head with a noise like a basketball hitting a car hood, and didn't look like it had so much as scratched the chitin. He backpedaled quickly as it charged, sidestepping at the last moment and running up its side, the hard shell slick beneath his soft shoes. It screeched to a halt, legs skittering on the plaza brick, and spun around. The antennae twitched madly, trying to seek out where the tasty morsel had gone, and then Ranma seized one in each hand and heaved backwards with all his might, stomping down hard on the head at the same time. With a sick crunch, the antennae tore loose, and the GiAnt twisted in response, its instinctive writhing like that of pain. Ranma was flung loose, easily somersaulting in midair and landing on his feet to rush back in. The GiAnt lunged, and Ranma dropped to his back to slide under the snapping mandibles and kick it in the chin, rocking the enormous head back on the thin, reed like neck. It gave him an idea, and he rolled away before it could smash its body down in an attempt to crush him. He slashed one of its legs with his as he rolled to his feet, the glass cutting kick he'd used to devastating effect on bottles in training proving its worth now as it sliced the leg clean off. The ant tilted towards him, recovering with the help of its other five legs, but too late; he was already airborne again, and moments later had run up its fat abdomen and along its narrow body. The ant tried to twist around, like a dog hunting fleas, but Ranma had wrapped his arms around its neck and begun to wrench.
With a pop and a flood of gore, the head separated from the body. Ranma tossed it aside as the mandibles continued to snap blindly, a satisfied sneer already gracing his handsome features. "How do ya like me now, sucker?" As if in answer, there was a chorus of clicks behind him. Stiffening, he slowly turned and looked over his shoulder.
The problem with ants of course, is that where there's one, there's a million. The other problem is that they communicate by pheromones, among which the most powerful is the scent they release on their death, warning others of their nest, summoning aid. The worst possible place to be, when soaked in an ant's death-stench, is sitting on the very doorstep of their anthill.
As Ranma was.
SCENE BREAK SCENE BREAK SCENE BREAK SCENE BREAK —-
It was hours later, and the sun was westering, clutching at the darkening sky with bloody fingers. Once again, he was lost; he wasn't sure how Ryoga stood that feeling every second of every day, never knowing where he was or how to get to where he wanted to be - if he could even figure out where that might be. Maybe Pig Boy just didn't realize it; you had to be pretty oblivious to get as lost as he did, after all, unable even to make his way to different rooms in the same house without wandering into a closet, or out the front door and down the street.
He had started somewhere near the center of the city, he figured; the ruins had been mostly office buildings, sky scrapers brought low by time and disaster. He was seeing more ruined houses now, so he was probably in the suburbs - although there was still the occasional dilapidated high rise to make him doubt himself. He hadn't seen the GiAnts for a while, though, so that had to be a good sign. It had taken all of his Saotome Secret Technique training to get out of that mess, and it might have been stickier still if the oversized insects could jump.
There were less wrecked cars on the road here; he took that as another sign of suburbia at first, and perhaps that was true enough. After walking a little further, though, he noticed that someone had been hard at work with those ruins; maybe an animal, savaging the mounds to mark its territory, the way bears and boars clawed at trees in the forest, but somehow he doubted it. There was a sense of organization to the marks, someone who had deliberately chiseled their way through the rusty shells to seek out good metal in the interior, savaging the outside to salvage the in. He paused by one overturned truck to look over the damage; he didn't know a lot about the insides of cars, being more concerned with how to avoid them or hitch a ride on their roof when he needed it, but he could tell someone had gone to great care and effort to dismantle parts of the chassis. So, there must be people around here... somewhere, he thought, feeling something like hope for the first time since waking up in a hole in the ground. It wasn't a particularly strong hope; he'd spent far too much of his life being hated, hounded, and hollered at to doubt the truth in the aphorism, "hell is other people." On the other hand, the way he'd felt like the last man alive standing on those deserted city streets, hearing nothing but the howl of the wind all around him, was enough to make him realize that the opposite could just as easily be true, too.
Just because they'd been here before didn't mean they were still around, though, and there was no hope of tracing their footsteps, however old or recent they might be, on the cracked and torn asphalt. He could only keep going, his steps weary, further on the road he'd chosen. With luck, it was the right one.
Luck was with him.
He literally stumbled over the sign, too tired and hungry to pay more than the barest attention to where he placed his feet; it wasn't much of a marker, after all, just a couple lengths of wood lashed together as a stand, with a yellow duck sitting on top. Glancing around, he saw several others nearby, strung out in a loose perimeter. They seemed to be centered on an old supermarket; he could see a light flickering in the shattered bay window, a flashlight beam playing around the inside. He felt hope rising in his chest again and broke into a run, waving his arms. "Hello! Excuse me, I need some help-"
Long training gave him the intuition needed; he hit the ground and rolled, mere instants ahead of the screaming projectile that tore through the after image of his head. Further down the road, it hit one of the wrecked cars and exploded with a loud crack and a shower of brilliant sparks..
"Can't you frigging read?" Someone shouted, voice oddly muffled. The shot and voice had both come from the grocery, and Ranma slowly rose to his feet. A figure hopped out of the shattered window, a lantern of some sort in one massive hand and some sort of gun in the other. Strangely enough, the gun hand was much smaller than the lantern hand; after a moment, he realized the stranger was wearing some sort of heavy mechanical gauntlet. That was hardly the only odd thing about them, of course; they were cloaked head to toe in a heavy cloak, with some sort of weird, alien looking facemask obscuring their features. "This is a Tendo Family claim! Push off!"
"T-Tendo Family...?" Ranma almost squeaked; that was about the last thing he'd have expected to hear. And that voice, muffled though it was by the mask, seemed strangely familiar... "Akane?"
He could feel the force of the stranger's scowl even before he saw it as she let the gun dangle from its strap and reached up to reveal a familiar pretty face. "Who are you?" She snapped. "One of Sheriff Kuno's boys?"
"Sheriff - what? Akane, what the hell is going on here?" He took a step closer to her, his hands raised in a gesture he would hate to have described as pleading. Akane held up her free hand in warning.
"I don't know who the hell you are, buddy, but if you don't get off my claim I am going to give you a beating your grandkids are going to remember - assuming you live long enough to have any." She snapped, sliding her feet along the gravel. Ranma blinked, recognizing one of Akane's kempo stances, and shook his head.
"Have you gone crazy? I don't understand-"
"Okay, I warned you." She tossed the lantern aside and suddenly launched herself at him, spinning into a respectable crescent kick. Tired as he was, dodging Akane wasn't much of a challenge; he slid to the side like water, letting her zoom past in a totally predictable Akane bull rush. Except this Akane had learned some new tricks, and she turned into a spinning backfist the moment he stepped aside, her giant mechanical hand slamming him into the air.
Holy shit, he thought as he flew. Akane just landed a hit on me. He rolled with the impact, rising to his feet and skidding to a halt well short of the wreckage she'd aimed him at. She smirked and thumped her bare hand into the mechanical one.
"Hmph, you're better than the sheriff's usual crop, aren't you? I should have known he wouldn't just keep watching his boys get their asses kicked every week but I gotta say, I expected better of him than trying to ambush me in the wild. At the very least, I would have thought he'd want to keep his victory to himself."
"I'm not - I don't even know what you're talking about! Akane, listen to me-"
"Talk to the power fist, buddy." She smirked and charged again, kicking off into the air and leading with a foot this time. Ranma backpedaled frantically, and Akane followed with a series of punches and kicks that came within a hair of taking his head off. He was faster than her - barely. It was more like fighting Ryoga than Akane, especially with that iron glove giving her already formidable punches an impact like a freight train. Its weight didn't seem to slow her down any, either; he felt the wind of its passage ruffle his pigtail as he slid under one of her backhands and rolled away, trying to grab a little more distance.
"Look, I don't fight girls-" he tried to say. She snorted, indelicately, and brought up her gun, holding it easily at waist level. He had a moment to see it more clearly than he really wanted to; it was thick, heavy looking, like it had been constructed out of salvaged drain pipes. It had two barrels, one atop the other, and both looked a mile wide when they were pointed at his had.
"Yeah, okay, you were just walking by and thought you'd take a look at what I salvaged today, huh? If you don't wanna fight, you can always start running. I might not waste a grenade in your back." She pulled the trigger, and as he ducked she let the launcher fall back on its sling and rushed at him again, giant mechanical hand leading the way. Grenade or power fist, it was a hard decision as to which he wanted hitting him least; so he sprang for the sky, hoping he would have an advantage over Bizarro Akane in the air.
"Man, and I thought you were macho and uncute before!"
"What did you call me?" Good news, it looked like she had the same temper as the Akane he knew. If he could goad her into doing something foolish... well, he wasn't entirely sure what good that might do, but he'd solved some seemingly insurmountable problems before by getting Akane to lose her cool, and things certainly couldn't get much worse.
Except that Akane seemed pretty well versed in aerial combat, despite the Tendo School - the one he remembered, anyway - being mostly ground based. She jumped after him, kicking and punching just as fiercely. He twisted away from her, and in desperation grabbed her the strap of her grenade launcher and used it as a fulcrum to fling her away. She rolled in air and landed on her feet, smirked, and came at him again.
Oh my god, she's as pig headed as Ryoga, too! Ranma despaired as he touched down and leaped again to get away from her charge. The likelihood of finishing this fight without either taking a horrendous beating, or administering one in turn, was rapidly diminishing. "Dammit Akane, can't you just settle down? I don't want to hurt you!"
"You, hurt me?" She was barely breathing hard, though her face had taken on that lovely shade of pink - from anger or exertion, it was difficult to say. "Don't make me laugh, you arrogant jerk!"
"I would think you've got enough to laugh at already, you thick-headed clumsy brick!" Did I really just say that? Ranma wondered. He'd let instinct take over for him; Akane insulted him, he insulted her back. Usually, though, Akane wasn't quite this... formidable.
Actually, he had to admit he kinda liked her better this way.
"That's it, jerk, get ready to die gasping!" Akane snarled, slipping her face mask back on. It was the closest she'd been to still since the fight started, and her cloak had blown back enough for Ranma to get a glimpse of the harness she wore, over top of a pair of faded coveralls that looked kind of like a military jumpsuit - tools dangling here and there from the straps, along with a trio of metal orbs that looked uncomfortably like grenades. She tore one free, the pin remaining behind on her vest, and - not foolish enough to chuck it directly at him, where he could catch it and toss it aside, she slammed it down at her own feet.
The explosion he'd expected wasn't forthcoming; instead, the grenade spun in a circle, spitting out a stream of silvery gray smoke that quickly formed a cloud, hiding Akane from his sight. Ranma backpedaled frantically, expecting her to attack from under cover - Ukyou had used that tactic often enough, camouflaging her moves with clouds of flour. One whiff as the breeze caught the cloud was enough to tell that this was something far worse than flour, though - immediately his sinuses began to stream, his eyes to itch and tear. Gas!
"Goddammit, Akane!" he yelled, or tried to. Thinking quickly, he started punching the cloud - faster and faster, using all the speed of his Chestnut Fist. The wind generated was enough to bore a hole through the cloud, keeping it away from his face enough so that he could breathe, and giving him a clear line of sight to Akane. Even through the mask, he could see her surprise; then she shrugged, and came at him again.
Well, shit. He could disperse the gas, or he could defend himself. Doing both at once was enough to strain even his awesomeness - but he could try. He lashed out with his leg, catching hers as she kicked at him, keeping up his makeshift fan. He could see her eyes widen as she tried to break free of his grip, but she couldn't punch at him without risking slamming her hands into the blur of his, nor could she kick with her leg trapped by his. Ranma mentally patted himself on the back; as long as he kept up his punching, she couldn't break free. Once the gas dispersed, maybe he could talk her down-
From the corner of his eye, he watched her power fist plough towards him, its armored bulk heedless of the whirlwind of his fists. It slammed through his guard and ploughed into his chest, and he felt himself weightless again, rising, soaring through the air -
He slammed into one of the wrecked cars in a shower of metal splinters, sending debris flying every which way as the rusted bulk crumbled under his impact. He gasped for breath, feeling the edges of his vision gray; his chest was a mass of fire, and he knew he'd have her knuckle imprints bruised into him for at least a day, probably longer. Despite himself, he was grinning.
"God... damn..." he panted, sitting up. Even with the distance between them - she had to have hurled him a hundred feet or more - he could see Akane's eyes, behind the goggles, widen in shock. Remembering how she'd been undisputed brawl queen of Furinkan when he first met her, she probably wasn't used to anyone taking so many hits and getting back up. For himself, he wasn't used to Akane, of all people, putting up so much of a challenge. The power fist helped, no doubt - but it wasn't like the battle dogi, or the super soba. It was simply an icing on the delicious beat down cake Akane herself had baked. "Oh brave new world, that has such people in it." It was something Kuno had said once after Akane had kneed his family jewels up somewhere around his sternum, and it seemed appropriate enough here.
"What did you say?" Akane seemed troubled. Ranma stood up, and she seemed downright disturbed. "Haven't you learned your lesson yet? Stay down!"
"Stay down? I'm just getting started." Ranma grinned, holding one hand to his chest. It ached like the school marching band had just used it to practice their goosestep march on, but he'd had worse. He was, after all, the best.
And it was time he showed this evil twin just what that entailed.
She grabbed for her grenade launcher, trying to reload it and fire before he could close the distance between them, but she was already too late. Ranma shot off the car like a rocket, blitzing through the dissipating cloud of tear gas and grabbing the gun before she could crack it open. A hard shove tore the strap free, and Akane cried out as she fell backwards. Ranma tossed the rifle over his shoulder and shot after her again, catching her before she could hit the ground, one arm around her shoulders and the other holding her power fist pinned against her chest.
"Now, are you going to list-" Nope, she wasn't done. Her free arm lashed out, and he jerked his head back to keep her from popping him in the nose. As soon as she had the breathing room she pushed off with her legs, wriggling out of his grasp and dumping herself on the ground. Before she could get to her feet, he grabbed her cloak and yanked her back to him. Rather than resisting, she came with the tug, one leg coming up and dropping in a perfect 180* arc; kicking over her head and down, with enough force to crush his skull if he hadn't released her cloak and gotten both arms up to catch it. "Goddammit, Akane-" She lashed out with her other foot, trying to kick him in the face, ignoring the fact that she would - and did- fall to the ground as soon as he released her leg to dodge it.
"How the hell do you know my name?" She screamed. "Who are you?" She arched her back and jumped to her feet smoothly, arms already up to guard. At some point in the melee, her mask had gotten knocked loose again, and hung around her neck. Her face was sweat stained and red, and her eyes were wide - not afraid, not quite yet, but frustrated and angry for sure. Ranma wondered if he'd ever seen anyone quite so beautiful before.
"I'm Ranma Saotome," he said. Out of habit, he rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry about this."