Z Fighter Ranma chapter 1

Z Fighter Ranma
A Ranma 1/2 - DragonBall GT Crossover Fan Fiction
By Michael A. Ivins

I do not own any of the characters from the Ranma universe or from DBZ. They are the property of their authors, publishers, etc. I make no money off the writing of this story.

Timeline notice: In the Ranma Universe this takes place just before the Saffron arc, so no failed wedding has taken place. In the Dragonball Universe it would be sometime during the GT series. (Bra is a girl in her late teens When Ranma visits.)

Chapter 1
The Return

The location was a vacant lot in the Nerima Ward of the city of Tokyo. This was one of the lots that were set aside by the city for the purpose of giving martial artists places to have their fights. This lot had been designated for that purpose in an effort to cut down on the amount of property damage that could result from fights between some of the more powerful of the martial artists in town.

In appearance there was nothing remarkable about this lot. It was a simple field with dirt and a few clumps of grass growing at odd locations. To make it a better fighting ground for martial artist the majority of the larger rocks had been cleared, making it more comfortable for barefoot warriors or those wearing thin-soled shoes.

That there had been a battle of a different sort take place was attested to by the presence of a peculiar design that had been scratched into the dirt near the center of the lot. Into the lines that had been incised into the soil some powders had been poured to fill them. These powders were mostly red but with a few other colors represented.

The composition of those powders was set according to a precise recipe. The composition of the ingredients was supposed to be especially conducive to the casting of magic spells.

One would have expected the rain that had fallen in the week since the event would have washed away the powder, but that had not happened. Instead of the magic powder being washed away, the rain water had soaked into the power. The result was that on the sunny day that came after the first light rain, the powder had hardened to a consistency similar to cement.

It was for this reason that the odd circle with the marked magic sigils and runes was still there. It could still conduct magical energies. A fat lot of good that had done.

The person who had dug the lines into the dirt and filled them with a mix of powders had believed that he knew what he was doing. He thought that he knew exactly what the spell he wanted to cast would do. He had been wrong.

FLASHBACK:

A tiny figure in a dark purple gi finished with his work. The gnome-like figure had used a garden spade to dig the channels for the lines of his spell circle. He knew that he would have to fight the person who he wished to punish and there must be no chance that his spell circle could be scuffed up or erased before he could recite the last words to activate the spell.

The aged martial arts master named Happosai had endured a series of ongoing frustrations when it came to the one he thought of as his student, Saotome Ranma. The boy refused to recognize the Master-student relationship. He also interfered with the old man's activities.

Happosai suffered from a condition that made it necessary for him to absorb female ki to maintain his health. He could get infusions of that all important life energy by absorbing it when he groped young women and girls. To a lesser extent he could get some of the same energy from fondling undergarments that had been worn by women or girls.

That was one of the reasons for Happosai's "hobby." Nearly every day, he would go out into the city to steal women's undergarments. He had developed a rare martial arts technique that allowed him to remove such garments from a woman's body without taking off her outer clothing. While it wasn't as much fun, he sometimes stole from racks that were used to let the garments to air dry on apartment balconies and the like.

Then there was the fact that Ranma had a Jusenkyo curse that caused him to turn into a busty young red haired girl when splashed with cold water. It wasn't fair that the boy was so unwilling to cooperate with Happosai. All the old man wanted to do was to grope the boy's girl form and to see him/her wearing some of the nicer of the "silky darlings" from the aged pervert's collection.

He'd show that ungrateful punk not to disrespect his master. This Curse binding spell would lock the curse forever. Let's see how the boy liked being a girl for the rest of his life. Now all he had to do was to get the boy to the vacant lot and trigger the spell when he was on the circle.

He had already issued a formal challenge for the boy to fight him tonight. It was perfect. He left the lot to prepare himself.

That evening the fight didn't go well for Happosai. The tiny man sometimes had to give credit where it was due and the boy had gotten better. Not as good as the Master, to be sure, but better than he was.

After spending time exchanging blows and ki attacks, the old man landed on the spell circle. There was no danger to him because the final words had not been spoken. This seemed to be just what he needed. He would speak those words and then leap away before the circle activated. The boy would follow and land on the circle just as the power began its work. Even if the spell activated when Happosai was still on the circle it wouldn't do anything to him because he didn't have a curse.

Timing was tight so the aged pervert spoke the final word of the spell. Nothing happened. There should have been something!

His dismay would have to wait. At that moment he could hear the words, "Moku takabisha!" He vacated his position on the spell circle.

Neither Happosai or Ranma were in position to sense it, but the ki blast did have an effect. There was a vibration that could have been felt if anyone had been there to feel it and a sense of power. Ranma leapt to the spot that Happosai had left and at that moment there was an immense flash of light that temporarily blinded all who had been looking at Ranma. When spectators could see again, Ranma was gone.

The aged Master of Anything Goes stared at the spell circle where Ranma had disappeared and shouted, "That wasn't supposed to happen!"

Because of the old man's agitation for his plan going wrong, Akane was able to walk up to him and grab him by the front of his gi. Ranma may be a baka and a jerk, but he was her baka.

The girl growled, "What did you do! Where's Ranma?"

"I... I don't know," the old man confessed. "It shouldn't have done that. It was just supposed to lock his curse. I swear that's all it was supposed to do, I swear!"

The black haired girl wasn't appeased. She ground out, "If you killed him, then you'd better run, because there is no place on Earth where you will be safe from me."

A hand on her arm caused Akane to turn her head. There she saw Nabiki who still seemed to be in control of herself. "Akane, you won't help Ranma by flying off the handle. Please calm down and we will try to figure out what happened and if possible fix it."

The Mercenary Girl pulled out a cell phone and announced, "I'm calling Cologne. She knows about magic, so maybe she can understand this. From what he said, the spell messed up and didn't work the way it should have."

About twenty minutes later the Elder arrived. She was alone, having left Shampoo and Mousse to run the restaurant while she was away. The old crone went immediately to the spell circle and studied it from a discreet distance.

After a few minutes of study she turned and announced, "I'm not sure what this circle would do. I recognize some of the symbols, but there are others that are unfamiliar to me."

She hopped on her staff over to Happosai and demanded, "What was this spell supposed to do?"

"It wasn't supposed to kill him!" the old man insisted. "It was a curse-binding spell. It was just supposed to lock his curse. I wanted to teach the ungrateful punk a lesson."

Holding her hand out, Cologne said, "Do you have the scroll you used with you?"

Somewhat meekly the tiny man pulled out the rolled up scroll and handed it to the Amazon Matriarch. Hopping from her staff down to the ground, she opened the scroll and began to read. After a few minutes of reading an expression of disgust settled on her features.

Finally after she had finished a quick scan of the contents of the scroll, she asked, "Happi, were you eating dinner when you first read the scroll, or was it like this when you got it?"

"It was like that when I got it," he responded. "Is that important?"

The disgust made it into the old woman's tone as she said, "This scroll is useless! There are grease stains on it and some of the writing is smudged. The worse part of that is that some of the symbols in the diagram of the spell circle are not readable."

Shaking her head, the Amazon said, "Let me guess. When you couldn't make out the actual symbol on the diagram, you substituted your best guess, didn't you?"

Looking acutely embarrassed, the little man dug his toe into the dirt and said, "Well, yes. I didn't think it would make that big a difference."

Shaking her head, Cologne said, "Because of the chaotic nature of magic, one must follow the instructions precisely. The only person who should be improvising the way you did is a Master Mage. Do you hold that rank?"

"Well... no, not really," he confessed.

"I thought not," the elder said. Her manner grim, the old woman said, "Even if you had a perfect copy of the scroll it wouldn't have done what you wanted. I'm guessing you didn't read the part at the beginning where it gave a full description of what the spell is supposed to do."

"I did read part of it," he said, his tone like that of a child being scolded for breaking one of his mothers dishes. "I sort of skipped ahead to the part with the directions on how to set up the spell."

Cologne sighed and covered her eyes with her hand for a moment. When she opened them she told the tiny pervert, "Ranma has the wrong kind of curse for this spell. It would have done nothing to him even if it had worked the way it was supposed to."

Looking back at the spell circle she said, "I am not advanced enough in the study of magic to properly evaluate what you have done. Judging solely by the result, I would guess that it was actually some kind of banishment you did."

"Miss Nabiki Tendo," the raspy voice called out in peremptory tones. "I need to borrow your camera."

Her initial inclination was to demand payment but she caught herself. This was not likely to be a good time for such behavior. Instead she asked, "What do you want it for?"

The old woman looked at the younger with a raised eyebrow. It would seem the that the mercenary did posses a sense of occasion. She knew when it was not appropriate to act the mercenary. Cologne replied, "This magic circle is beyond my skill to interpret. I didn't bring the books with me to Japan that I would need to figure it out. I am hoping that I can photograph it and email the pictures to Pao Dah, the lore mistress of my tribe. She should be able to study the pictures and determine what actually happened to Son-in-law."

"Email?"

"Do you find that so surprising?" Challenged the Amazon. "I didn't stay in Japan solely for the purpose of securing Ranma as Shampoo's husband. I was acting as a purchasing agent to help my tribe acquire some modern touches to add to the village."

"What kind of 'modern touches?'"

"I'm not going to tell you everything, but I can say that I have shipped photovoltaic solar panels to the village to give us electricity," she reported. "In addition, there was a satellite uplink and some computers."

The middle Tendo sister took that in and then handed the camera to the old woman. While staying off the actual circle, Cologne did a very thorough job of photographing the scene. The work she did bore some resemblance to a forensic expert photographing a crime scene.

When she was done, the Elder opened the camera and took out the memory card. She said, "I will return this after I have sent the images to my village." She pocketed the card and handed the camera back to Nabiki.

When the old woman hopped onto her staff in preparation to leave, Akane demanded, "Aren't you going to do anything?"

The elder turned her gaze on the girl and replied, "Miss Tendo, I am doing what I can. As Happosai just spectacularly demonstrated, playing around with unfamiliar magic can be extremely dangerous. I am not going to touch that spell circle until I know exactly what I'm dealing with."

"But..."

The Amazon held up a hand to cut the girl off. "If I try to do something now, without knowing what I'm doing, I could kill Son-in-law, assuming that he is not already dead. Or I could end up permanently trapping him wherever it is that the circle sent him. I'm sure you can understand why either of those possibilities is less than ideal."

After glaring at the girl for a few moments longer she let up and said, "The goal is to get him back safe and in good health. Our best chance of doing that lies in the steps I am taking. Now excuse me. Sooner I get these pictures sent off the sooner we can get Son-in-law back." She bounced away.

Akane watched until the old woman was out of sight and then turned. She directed a glare at Happosai, then stalked away out of the vacant lot.

The girl's feelings were in terrible turmoil. She didn't know what she should feel. At times she thought she hated Ranma and yet there were those times when she could believe that she loved him. It just wouldn't be fair to lose him before she knew exactly what it was she felt for the boy.

Five days later the NWC (not including the Kunos) were gathered at the Nekohanten, which was closed for business. Happosai was looking unusually subdued.

Cologne came bouncing in from the back. She stopped and then dropped to a chair and said, "I received my reply from Pao Dah. Happosai, it seems that what you accomplished was to open a portal to another world."

"Does that mean that Ranma is safe?" asked Nodoka.

"I don't know," the Elder admitted. "It is likely that the actual passage through the portal wouldn't have killed him, but I don't know what world it was he traveled to. That means he could have been dropped into the middle of an ocean, into an erupting volcano or in a jungle full of vicious wild beasts. He may have been able to survive, but I have no way to verify that."

"According to what the lore mistress could tell from an examination of the symbols, this is a most unusual type of portal," the elder continued. "This portal can open onto many different worlds. In fact it seems to cycle between as many as a hundred."

"Can you use the portal to bring him back?" asked Soun.

"I could if he is standing on the precise spot where he arrived or no more than a meter and half away from it," she said.

"Why would he leave?" Akane begged to know.

Cologne let out a sigh. After a moment she said, "He might not have a choice. If the place he arrived is dangerous, he might not be able to return there very often. There is also another factor."

The others had expectant expressions. The old woman said, "It is an established fact that time doesn't always flow at the same speed in other worlds as it does in this one."

"What does that mean?" Nabiki queried then added, "And how would you know that?"

"It may surprise you to learn that there are actually many stories of people who have traveled to other worlds and later returned," stated the Matriarch. "In some of those stories a traveler from our world went to another world and when they got back they found that decades or even a century or more had passed in the time they were away even if it only seemed like hours to the traveler."

Frowning she said, "Then there are stories where a traveler lived for many years in another world and returned to our world to find that only hours had passed here. The question then would be how long would you stay near the arrival point, waiting for someone from this world to do something before you gave up?"

"If he was smart, he would have marked his arrival point," she said musingly. "If it were I in his position, I would probably camp out near that spot for a day or two. Then I might make a point of returning there at least once a day for the next week or two. If I still didn't go back to my home, I might then make the trip back once a month while trying to find someone in my new world to help."

"If he is there longer than a year, he might just give up and try to make a life for himself in his new home. If it were I, then I might make an annual pilgrimage back to the arrival point. But if he does make a life there, he may decide that he no longer wants to return."

Genma angrily stated, "He must return. He has an honor commitment to marry a daughter of the Tendo family."

The old Amazon challenged, "Think about it and try to put yourself in his place. If he is in one of those worlds where the time passes faster than here it is possible that several years have already passed for him. If he believed that he'd never get back then why wouldn't he try to make a life for himself wherever he is?"

"He is stubborn," insisted Genma. "He would never give up on getting home."

"Perhaps," allowed the elder. "However there is an alternate to the scenario that I just mentioned. If he has landed in one of the worlds where time moves slower than this one, he may not even have realized yet that he isn't in Japan any more. I have no way of knowing without going there myself and that is an option that I do not favor."

"Is there any way to find out if he is still alive at least?" Akane asked.

"Without knowing which specific world he traveled to, no," the old woman answered. "I do have what I guess you could call an... intuition that he is still alive. Still, that is little more than a feeling and could be nothing more than wishful thinking."

Confused now, Akane demanded, "Does that mean that you're not going to do anything?"

"I am going to do what I can," the elder stated. "The Lore Mistress has given me instructions on how I can use the existing portal to try and bring Ranma back here. I plan to go to the vacant lot and cast the spell every morning for the next month. However, if the portal is not aligned to the proper world or if Ranma is not on the arrival spot, then it may not work."

"What if it takes longer than a month?" Nabiki asked calmly.

"Then we will need to call another meeting like this one," was the answer. "We can then discuss what we know and if anything has changed. At that time we can decide on whether I should continue trying to bring Ranma back or if we should depend on him to find his own way back."

Nodding, Nabiki said, "That seems reasonable."

On that note the people gathered stood up from their seats and they left the restaurant.

When the rest of the NWC had left, a purple haired Amazon girl turned to the elder and in Mandarin pleaded, "Please great Grandmother, tell me you will bring Ranma back."

The elder sighed again. (She seemed to be doing that a lot this evening.) "All I can promise is that I will try. There are many problems that could come up, many obstacles. Unfortunately, these are not the sort of obstacles you can kill."

Her expression grim, the old woman said, "There may come a time when we will have to declare Ranma dead or lost beyond recovery and your claim on him void for that reason."

"Great Grandmother, no!"

"You may say 'no' now, but how long are you willing to wait?" the elder asked, her tone gentle.

"I... I don't know," Shampoo finally answered.

"You can't wait forever," the old woman counseled. "I don't expect you to decide on this right now. You are too emotionally wrought up. This is a question we can consider again in a month or more."

"You said something about going to the world he was in now," Shampoo recalled. "I know you said you didn't like the idea, but what if you could send me?"

"That is another question we can revisit later," Cologne stated. "For one month I will try once a day to bring Ranma back. There is also the chance that he might find a way back on his own. If he is not back in this world by that time then we can discuss other options. One such option would be to send someone to go to the same world and try to fetch him back."

Shampoo clearly was not happy with this, but she agreed to abide by the elder's decision.

END FLASHBACK

The lot was still vacant and the spell circle was still marked into the soil. After the powders had set up, it would have taken a jackhammer to break up the lines of the circles. One could have pulled the forms of the symbols from their depressions in the dirt, but steps had been taken to prevent people from doing that. However, such steps were not actually needed. To open the portal, the sigils and runes had been required. Now that the portal was established, the circle was no longer needed to maintain it. It served mostly as a visual marker of where the portal was.

Cologne's efforts to pull Ranma back from whatever world he had traveled to were unsuccessful. She had no feeling of whether or not there was any result of any kind. She could feel nothing of any kind of presence that might suggest that Ranma was in the world that her spell went into. The trouble was that she didn't know if that meant that Ranma was dead or if she had just connected to the wrong world.

It was now about three in the afternoon and a light breeze was blowing bits of paper trash around. At that moment something happened at the site of the portal. If there had been anyone there to observe they could have heard a faint hum and a vibration. In the air over the circle, there was a shimmering that looked like the distortion of heat. The hum rose in pitch and volume for a moment until there was a bright flash of light, then all fell silent.

Bunched tightly in the center of the spell circle was a group of six people. As soon as they were sure they had arrived somewhere, they spread out in a practiced maneuver. They formed a rough circle with each member facing outward, all stood in a martial arts ready stance.

This was a gender balanced group of people. Three of them appeared to be male while three were female. One of the males had black hair pulled back in a pony tail that reached to the middle of his back. Two of girls had hair of a bright scarlet red while the one other woman and the two boys had pale blue hair.

All of the newly arrived dimensional travelers wore black denim jeans with tank tops in a variety of colors. Over those tops each wore black denim jackets that bore the name "CAPSULE CORP" on the back. One of the boys and one of the girls wore baseball caps marked with the same logo. All of them wore black leather combat boots. Each of the visitors had an odd furry belt around their waist. The color of the fur on the belts matched the color of the hair on the redheads, but was brown for the rest.

Both the black haired man and blue haired woman touched earrings. The earring morphed into a kind of headset which included a small metal shaft that extended out to the side of their left eye. From the tip of that shaft a holographic screen was projected. That screen displayed information gathered from a variety of sensing devices and was tied to a computer that each of them carried in stuff space.

The woman finally said, "There don't appear to be any people in the immediate vicinity, although there are some in the buildings. I don't detect any really high tech power sources and the pollution level in the air seems to be consistent with what you described for the city where you came from."

The man nodded while studying his own screen. "I can detect several power levels around the area." He pointed and said, "Over that way would be where the Nekohanten would be if we are in the right world. Over that way is what I believe to be Happosai, which would probably mean the Tendo dojo."

He glanced around and said, "The vacant lot looks like I remember it, but after so much time in your world, my memories might not be all that clear. None of the grass seems to have grown very much, so I would guess that it can't have been too long in this world since I left."

Continuing his scan, he said, "I'm picking up what looks to be some other high level martial artists, but nothing anywhere close to our level. Looking further out, I scan what I believe the Joketsuzoku village and those power levels I see there must be the Elders. They've got pretty good levels for humans. I'm pretty sure I've spotted Herb, there's another power signature in the area that is not familiar to me. He looks stronger than anyone I've seen so far in this world. It might be fun to go look him up and ask if he'd like to spar."

The blue haired woman laughed. "You never change."

"Yes I do!" he protested.

She just laughed some more and asked, "Did you spot that one you called the Lost Boy?"

Studying the holographic screen, he finally said, "He's not in Japan. With the way he gets lost, he could be almost anywhere. If he's in the form of P-chan I'm nor sure if I'd be able to detect him with this thing anyway. I'm not going to spend a lot of time looking either."

The bluette asked, "So how do you want to find out how much time has passed while you were away?"

With a shrug, the black haired man answered, "If things haven't changed too much, there should be a convenience store about two blocks that way." He pointed to the north. "We could go there and buy a newspaper to check the date."

"Sounds like a plan," the woman replied. She turned to the rest of the group. "Ok, everybody! This looks like we're in the right place, but we need to find out how much time has passed. We're going to go get a newspaper to check the date and to see what the current headlines have to say. It shouldn't take more than 20 minutes."

The man deactivated his holographic screen and said, "I also want to see if they have any Pocky. I mean they had some nice sweets in your world, but it was never quite the same."

One of the blue haired boys said, "Why don't you get enough for all of us?"

"If the store has enough stock," the older man replied. With that the man and the woman left the lot and went toward the store. The rest of the group produced folding lawn chairs from stuff space and settled themselves comfortably for the wait.

When the light had flashed in the vacant lot and the people had arrived there, Cologne at the Nekohanten had sensed the surge of power. From the direction, she was pretty sure that it had to have been from the Portal. Maybe Son-in-Law had managed to find his way back home on his own.

Determined to find out, the old woman went into the dining room and announced, "An emergency has occurred. We will need to close our doors. For those of you who have already been served, take-out containers will be provided. Those who have ordered and have not been served your meal, I will refund your money. Those who are waiting to be served, I give you my apology and offer to let you eat a free dinner special at some later date. I will give you coupons for that."

With those incentives it didn't take long for the dining room to be cleared out. When the last customer was out the door, Cologne said, "I sensed a surge of power from the direction of the vacant lot. I think something must have come through the Portal. Shampoo you come with me, Mr. Part Time, you stay here to start cleaning up."

"But..." the boy started to protest.

That protest was cut off by a rap to his head with the gnarled end of the Elder's staff. "I said you stay here and work. You can fight with Ranma later, if this even turns out to be him. It could be a false alarm, but I want to check to be sure."

The duck cursed boy grumbled, but went to get a plastic bus tub and began clearing the dishes from the tables. The women left and hurried to the vacant lot. What they found there was four people seated in folding lawn chairs. She was momentarily confused by the sight of two red haired women, but put that aside at the sight of a teenaged boy with pale blue hair.

GLOMP!

The young man in question was yelling, "What the hell? Somebody get this crazy woman off me!"

"Oh Airen!" The purple haired girl gushed. "Shampoo miss you so much."

The young man stopped struggling and looked at the face of the woman who was seemingly attached to him. "You're Shampoo?" Then he said, "Lady, I'm not who you think I am. Let go of me!"

In a tone of humor the old woman on the stick observed, "So, Son-in-Law, I see that you dyed your hair while you were away. I wouldn't have thought that blue was really your color."

A masculine voice now spoke in an amused tone. "Hello Old Ghoul! Hey Shampoo, why are you molesting my son?"

The purple haired warrior didn't let go of her glomp, but turned her head. She saw a man just above middle height with long black hair in a pony tail. He appeared to be solidly muscled and his face looked like a 25 year old Ranma.

Shampoo loosened her grip on the boy and said, "You not stupid panda man. Who is you and why you say you Ranma's father?"

Now chuckling, the man said, "Because that boy you are holding onto isn't Ranma. I'm Saotome Ranma. Sorry 'bout this.

Author's Note: Who is this blue haired woman who came with Ranma? Where has he been all this time and what has he been doing. Well the fact that he has come back with four kids would be a good clue.

This is another story that based off that list of concepts that I posted back in February. I'm posting it to see what kind of reactions I get to it. The title is pretty much of a giveaway as to what world Ranma was transported to. If I had a different sort of title, I might have left out the obvious clue of the jackets and hats the dimension travelers were wearing.

I would welcome suggestions for alternate titles for this story. Likewise I would like to hear if anyone thinks this story is worth continuing.