Ranma 1/2: Grand Tour 2b
	R.Takahashi owns the Nerima bunch. Aramar and
the Ninefold Worlds are my creation. No money made on
any of these though i may eventually try to do 
professional stories set in Aramar. My other works can
be found at the RAAC or on my website at 
http://members.aol.com/Metroanime/main.html
                   just to keep track of 'em:
Grand Tour, World 1: World Without Ranma
Grand Tour, World 2: Happily Ever After
------------------------------------------------------
Nabiki waited for the dizzy spell to pass.
Even as her vision cleared she was putting the
various details together. She was in an elevator
that travelled along the outside of a building,
giving her an excellent view of the city.

	It was clearly NOT Tokyo. The 
elevator was not nearly clean enough. A 
familiar looking building near the water
gave her the location when she was able
to see it. Sydney. She was in Australia.

	A quick check of her purse 
brought a mental cry of victory. An
electronic dayplanner, filled with names,
addresses, appointments, and some 
to-do lists.

	Her eyes quickly scanned the
day/date. August 31, 2001. 5:45am. 

	The elevator stopped. Nabiki and
the four other passengers got off. It was a
foyer of some office building, from the look
of it. Either new or it had been refurbished
recently.

	"Ms Wright! Over this way!"

	The yell brought her attention
to a young caucasian in what appeared to
be an Italian business suit.

	Nabiki glanced at her ring finger.
A nice little ring with a few stones. Not a
terribly expensive wedding ring, perhaps a
thousand American dollars, but maybe she
kept the real one in a safe place. So she was
married in this Alternate? 

	The young man proved to speak
passable Japanese, though little knowledge
of Japanese customs or business practices.
He immediately went into talk about her
business, and how glad he was to have a
chance to meet her before the contracts 
were signed.

	She allowed herself a smirk.
She was doing MUCH better than in the
last world, where Ranma had died in the
catfist training. Apparently upper 
management at least.

	She pretended bored indifference
to the errand boy while studying her manicure,
but drank in all the salient details. Her company
apparently dealt with microchip manufacture,
especially cutting edge technology called 
biochips. Mr Salk, the high priced errand boy,
was representing a company trying to get
exclusive rights in Australia for the chips.

	A few nods, a smirk, and an air
of amused indifference had the young man
doing all the talking and giving her a pretty
good idea of what she was doing here, and
why, who she was working for, and even
a few details of what her company was like.

	Apparently GENOM was some
sort of hot stuff in the technology department.

_/Nerima, Japan, Earth 2001 AD, Prime +313131\_
	Frostbite pondered. He was alone,
which meant that everyone else had Analogues
living in this Reality. However, there was no
sign of any of them at the Tendo Dojo. There
was only someone who fit Nabiki's description
of her father, plus some woman he had never
heard mention of.

	Curiously, Soun Tendo did not seem
to remember his daughters other than vague
memories. Frostbite didn't need to cast a spell
to recognize that some mind-altering magic had
been at work here, and both Mr and Mrs Tendo
showed signs of this alteration.

	Frostbite found a nice place out of
prying eyes, but where he'd be able to detect
anyone approaching, and decided to enter the
Reverie, a draconic talent for reliving memory.

	There was a particular speech he
wanted to remember exactly...

//////Reverie//////////
	The old cottage in the Hegemony,
a warm night  where the windows were open,
though wards against mischievous faerie and
other annoying pests were in place.

	Nimodes, a blind man stooped by
years, staring off into space. "Ah, young one,
the First Age is your birthplace, but this is
now your home. You want to know what 
happened to the people you knew, your 
friends, the one you sought as a lover,
and the simple truth is that they are all
dead and long turned to dust.

	"People often want simple
truths, but you find on examination that
very little that appears simple, is.

	"For example, you were born
in the First Age Of Man as people lump
together the unimaginably distant past.
Your culture, I see, lumped all sorts of
previous cultures together in similar
fashion. The Age Of Simple Tools, then
the Stone Age where the tools were being
made rather than simply applied, the
Bronze Age, and so on. Then future ages
referred to your time as the Age Of 
Electronics, as early as 2450 the 20th
Century was known as the Second Dark
Age and included the time from 1845 to
2014.

	"Each Age thinks itself the
pinnacle of development, that the problems
it faces are greater than any that others
have faced, and that they are unique in
the cosmos. Tell me, young dragon, can
you truly tell me what such a simple thing
as a breath is? You're wrong.

	"Now, you came specifically 
from a time the more astute historians 
came to call the Quickening. Ideas were
being formulated, technology developed,
and the seeds for the future planted during
the end of the 20th Century. Then, in most
timelines, came the Big Disaster that wiped
out most of the Earth's population and paved
the way for the survivors to gain a better
standard of living.

	"Don't worry about it, the same
thing happened a few centuries earlier. That
was the Black Death, and it was directly 
responsible for the Renaissance. See what
I meant about the arrogance of each age,
which is why history repeats itself..."
/////end Reverie/////////

	Frostbite looked up to see
that night had fallen. Still no sign of
his companions.

	He might have to go looking
for them.
------------------------------
	Kasumi stopped outside her
"husband's" vision and tried to cast a
small spell. Magic in the land of Aramar
was accomplished by a form of energy
outside the material universes, leaked
into the world through Chaos Taps
and Towers Of Magic.

	To her surprise, it worked,
and a small globe of light formed in
her hands. It lasted a few seconds
before it flickered out, and was not
nearly as bright as it should have
been, but it _had_ been there.

	This would be difficult,
she realized. She had to get to Japan
quickly, without speaking the local
language, without alarming people
who apparently knew her QUITE
well. She had no idea how to even
begin.
--------------------
	Shampoo came back from
the meeting to find her airen was still
trying to find something that was
definitely, personally, his.

	Ranma explained this odd
detail, and that he couldn't find even
old photographs that he'd kept.

	"Shampoo keep eyes and
ears open during meeting. Oh, and
the meeting was about dealing with
climate changes affecting the crops
and water system.

	"Ko La say something
about how long we be here, she say
it be over six years. You much help
with problems from Musk Dynasty
and Phoenix Mountain. You have
respect many amazons."

	"Well, of course." Ranma
shrugged. Their customs may seem
totally crazy, but the average amazon
was fairly sensible on day-to-day 
matters. "Any idea what the change
was in the timelines?"

	"Not know yet. Nothing
obvious." Shampoo looked over at
the various objects that Ranma had
pulled out for inspection. "Shampoo
supposed to visit Greatgrandma later
today, may find out then."

	Ranma was ambivalent
about that. It was their best chance
to get details, but Cologne wouldn't
be easy to hide details from. "Be
careful, Shampoo."

	"Great grandma not hurt
Shampoo, even if she realize this not
HER Shampoo." Shampoo considered
that. Well, maybe. She WAS a stickler
for the Law. "Shampoo be careful."
-----------------------
	The lunchtime crowd had
died down over the past two hours and
Ukyou had at last had a chance to go
over the information available to her.
Some of the information was disturbing.

	The license for the operation
of the cart had the same name as the
little sign for her yattai. Her first name,
but that was neither Saotome nor 
Kuonji at the end of it. She wondered
if this were one of those Alternates
she'd heard talk of from some of those
Amazon researchers. Timelines where
some fundamental forkroad in the
world's history had been altered.

	She'd heard of one that
Frostbite had run into back when he
was trying to get home himself. The
fork in the road had been something
very simple, an error in judgement that
had NOT been made. The result having
been that Nobunaga had unified Japan
under his rule, and Ieyasu had fallen in
honorable battle. Such a little thing...

	Ukyou searched through the
cart's papers and found a few notes in
her own handwriting, in Japanese and
English. The Japanese notes were personal
asides and thoughts, while the more
business related aspects were all in English.

	Then there was the newspaper
clipping. "Mall fast food, as you like it."
There was a picture of herself, next to the
cart, next to some guy with a spatula...

	Ukyou blinked. He had a bigger
spatula than she did. He had the biggest
spatula she'd ever seen. "Oh my."(1)

	She concentrated on the article,
talking about an amnesiac woman turning
up in Atlanta Georgia five years ago, who'd 
found love, a business, and success (not
necessarily in that order) and still had no
idea who she was other than her name
being Ukyou and that she was a skilled
maker of Japanese-style pizza. "So THAT'S
where I am," Ukyou noted aloud. Now
how to get back to Nerima and meet up
with the others.

	That she had turned up here,
apparently without any memory of her
past, only indicated that SOMETHING
had turned horribly wrong. 

	Ukyou decided to think about
it on the plane, she just needed to get to
the address on her driver's license, stow
the cart and its contents, and get to 
Nerima. She wasn't sure where Georgia
was, but she was betting it was a long
way from their assigned meeting spots.
--------------------------------------
	Nabiki closed the window on
her personal planner and thought about
what it had revealed. She had no past,
five years ago she had woken up in a 
hospital in New York City without any
idea of who she was or how she got
there. All she knew at that point was
that her name was Nabiki and that 
the young lady that was with her at
the time had seemed oddly familiar.
She and Kasumi had gone their
seperate ways, promising to keep
in touch, but losing track of each
other after Kasumi's marriage two
years ago.

	Nabiki had had little
problem in calling up and cancelling
appointments. Her other self would
no doubt have serious problems with
the repercussions, but that was 
nothing to the problems that would
result if they couldn't simply split
apart again and this Alternate's 
Nabiki merged fully with her.
------------------------
	Shampoo had learned a
LOT during the past year among 
the Delphins Amazons. Fighting
weird and powerful beasts, pirates,
entities, goblinkin, and other banes
to civilization...it had been a little
slice of Amazon heaven.

	There was an old story
among the Delphins, about a holy
warrior named Tania Evarre. This
woman had held a bridge against
an army of undead and the foul
sorcerer who'd raised them until
the town on the other side could
be evacuated. As her dwarven
companion had cut away the 
support and called for her to
run away, she had refused, as
some might get past her if she
left her post.

	According to the
ballad's chorus, "all through 
the night she held the damn
bridge." Her last words were
the ones that thousands of 
the Delphins had toasted to,
however. "All I have ever 
asked, is that when I reach
the journey's end: that the 
cause be just, the task 
completed, and that my 
companions hoist a tankard
to my memory."

	Shampoo thought
that any Amazon could 
appreciate that sentiment. It
was one of the stories that she
was planning on relaying to the
Elders when she returned.

	One of the tricks she
had learned was that of hiding
her ki, suppressing all trace of
her presence. It was a handy
thing, and had served her well
on many instances.

	Such as now, in her
cursed cat form, underneath her
greatgrandmother's house. 
Shampoo had noticed Elders
gathering and thought they 
looked like they were gathering
in secret.

	Sure enough, she
heard her own name, and Ranma's
being used enough to indicate that
this was one meeting she didn't want
to miss.

	"<So, what word from the
lands outside?>"

	"<They are moving.>"

	"<So.>" Cologne's voice
rasped out, it was obvious that the
intervening years had not been that
kind to her. "<So, we have here that
something must have happened. Who
is moving, and who is not?>"

	"<Akane Langley-Soryuu
is still in Germany. Doctor Tofu Oman
is still practicing his craft in Tibet. Soun
and Hinako Tendo are still in Nerima.
Genma and Nodoka Saotome are raising
their children in Juuban. Everything 
normal there, according to our agent.>"

	"<This is sadly not true,
Elder, for several of the others. The
one known as Nabiki Wright has 
cancelled all of her appointments and
declared a personal emergency. The
one known as Kasumi Larson has
been reported missing by her husband.
We have no agents to check in Atlanta,
so we have no idea about the chef.>"

	"<Perhaps, Cologne, the power
of that wishing sword was not as great as
you had been led to believe.>"

	"<Perhaps. I am unsure, myself.
Since some are still happily going through
their lives, I can only assume there was some
stimulus that awoke these others. Certainly
the third wish, that the tribe will survive, 
strengthen, and grow, has come to pass even
with some of the disasters of modern life
occurring around us.>" Cologne's voice
paused. "<Perhaps it was something in the 
wording, or perhaps it is something those
crazy Americans are doing. That still would
not explain my great-granddaughter and her
husband showing signs of breaking free.>"

	"<Whatever happened, it has 
certainly not weakened them.  Your Shampoo's
power level is nearly doubled. If this is also
true of her husband...>"

	"<Then we must find out what it
is that has occurred. Enough,>" Cologne
sounded weary, "<I am not as young as I
used to be, you know.>"

	"<Cologne, who of us is?>" There
was a soft laugh from several people. 

	Shampoo slipped away, the effort
of holding her chi in was beginning to tire her.
Besides, she thought she had enough 
information.
----------------------
	Above, three of the Elders looked
down at the floor and frowned. Just for a 
moment, it had felt like...

	Cologne in particular frowned.
How long had that girl been there, and when
had she learned to hide her chi? There was
a mystery here, and Cologne hated mysteries.
==================================
(1) yes, i put this in specifically to see if
anyone in particular is reading. i'm shameless,
what can i say? gomen ne.