[Ranma][Alt][draft] Ranmage.00.txt

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### Silly Disclaimer:                                             ###
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It wasn't me!  I didn't do it!  Nobody saw me do it!

This is just a silly disclaimer.  The serious disclaimer appears at
the bottom of this chapter, as it may contain spoilers.

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### Prologue:                                                     ###
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Saotome Genma tended his son with uncharacteristic concern, a touch
of pride and a great deal of confusion.  Since Ranma always soaked up
Martial Arts like a sponge, Genma was prepared to do anything (to
Ranma) to make him a man among men.  So he had tossed his son into a
pit of cats fully expecting him to master the cat-fist.  Having read
part of the manual, he expected a great many things to come of this
insane training.  He expected Ranma to learn to fight with the speed,
agility and ferocity of a cat.  He even had some idea of the power of
the neko-ken's claw attack.

The fireball that blasted through the covering over the pit caught
him completely by surprise.

Following the maxim of 'when in doubt, read the manual', a mortified,
and somewhat singed, Genma decided to abandon the cat-fist training
and concentrate on developing the boy's obvious chi-abilities.

It should be noted that while Genma knew several chi-based techniques
- indeed he had invented a move using a chi created vacuum - he was
far from being an expert on the theory.  At the time, Genma was still
under the impression that the Happo-fire-burst was a chi-blast.
However, it should also be obvious that such ignorance would not
prevent Genma from attempting to train his son, or succeeding.

In the months following his recovery, Ranma managed to master the
discipline needed to develop crude control over his newly awoken
abilities.  However, whether this success was due to, or despite, his
father's teaching is still debatable.

One truly good thing to come out of the incident was that Genma vowed
never, ever, to make another stupid mistake like *that* again.

Six years later, he took his son to train at Jusenkyo.

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Ranma and his father walked through the valley of Jusenkyo, on Mount
Quanjing in the Bayankala Range of the Qinghai Province of China,
barely listening to the rotund native guide.

"Here, sir, is legendary 'training ground of accursed springs'", the
guide said waving his hand towards over a hundred pools of water that
dotted the mist-cloaked valley-floor.

"Are you prepared Ranma?", Genma asked as he doffed his backpack.

"This place is... weird", Ranma said as he stared at the nearest
pools.  "It don't like the *feel* of it at all, old man."

"Nonsense boy.  You sound like a woman.  Aren't you prepared to give
your life for the sake of your training?"

Ranma shivered as he had a *very* strange premonition.  "My life yes.
My manhood is another thing altogether."

"You very strange one sir", the guide observed.  "This place very
dangerous.  Nobody use now.  Is more than one hundred spring here and
every one have own tragic legend."

"Ranma, follow me", Genma called as he leaped onto a pole.  Ranma
remained on the ground and walked between the pools.

"Ah!  Sir, what you doing?  Please sir, very bad if you fall into
spring!"

"Pop.  I really think we should listen to the guide.  There's
something strange in the water."  Ranma bent down for a closer look
at one of the pools which seemed to ... call to him.  Studying it
with his minds-eye, he noticed that there seemed to be strands of
chi flowing in the pools, although there was nothing living in the
water to make them - not even algae.  There seemed to be some sort of
pattern, but it was nothing he could make sense of.

Shrugging, Ranma started to rise.  It wasn't until he looked at the
pool with his true eyes that he noticed the reflection of a girl.
That was all the warning he had before his father took advantage of
his startled posture and kicked him into the water.

Ranma felt the pool's chi blend with his flesh; it felt like his
skin was being sewn with threads of white hot wire.  Then came the
soon-to-be-familiar sense of his body twisting into a new shape.

"Sir, what you do!?", the guide cried.  "That is 'spring of drowned
girl.'  There is tragic legend, very tragic, of girl who drown in
spring one thousand five hundred year ago.  Now whoever fall into
that spring take on body of young girl!  You see what I mean?"

Pulling open her gi, Ranma saw and was not happy about it.  "Pop!
When will you learn to listen to my 'hunches'?  Idiot father!"

Ranma leapt out of the water and launched a 'fist of air' attack.
The blast was much stronger than it should have been.  Ranma had
merely meant to knock his father out, not into ...

"That is 'spring of drowned panda'", the guide cried out.  "There is
tragic legend, very tragic, of panda who drown there two thousand
year ago!  Now, whoever fall in that spring, take on body of panda."

"Serves you right pop", Ranma growled.  "Jerk."  She turned her
attention inwards.  The strange pattern of chi she'd noticed in the
pool was now intertwined with her flesh.

Ranma looked at her father as the guide lead them back to his hut.
She recognised a similar pattern inside his aura.  She heard the
Guide's explanation, and when he poured hot water over her father,
Ranma noticed the way the pattern drew chi to power the
transformation.

It was the first time Ranma witnessed the magic of Jusenkyo, indeed
any magic, while calm enough to really notice what was happening; and
it was a revelation that Ranma didn't like one bit.  It meant that
the chi techniques he'd developed over the years were not martial
arts techniques at all, but magic - crude in comparison to the
complex web of the curse, but none the less, magic.  It explained a
lot of puzzling things he'd noticed about his abilities over the
years.

It presented Ranma with a dilemma.  He had always been proud of his
skills, and to find out that so much of his abilities were not what
he'd thought that they were made him feel as though he'd been
cheating all that time.

On the other hand, if he developed his magic ability, it might allow
him to unravel his curse.  He could already see that there were
things he'd never thought of doing, such as blending the various
aspects of ... the power formerly known as 'chi'.

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### Serious Disclaimer:                                           ###
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The characters and situations of "Ranma �" are the creation of
Takahashi Rumiko and appear in this fan-fiction in the spirit of
"imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."  (Not that my work is
anyway comprable to hers.)

The characters and situations of "The Blending" and "The Wheel of
Time" are the respective creations of Sharon Green and Robert Jordan,
and don't appear in this fan-fiction at all.  However, these works
inspired the system of magic used within this little tale.

This fan-fiction is produced purely for entertainment and should not
be reproduced in any form for profit.  It may be archived or posted
on a free site, so long as this disclaimer is attached.

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C&C appreciated.

Graham Kemp
gj_kemp@hotmail.com
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