Okay, I realize the FFML is in a bit of a crisis right now, and frankly I'm
more than a little concerned myself. But I'm gonna try to get these three
chapters out in a last desperate attempt.

I have no idea how the formatting is going to hold up here, I just hope it's
better than last time, cause I'd like to see this fic get read.



-Greg







Yes, chapter one is simply the teaser but Jon and I decided to go ahead and
leave it be and call it chapter one and start on two.









Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 is owned by Rumiko Takahashi and Viz Video and Gundam
Wing is owned by some other guys, to the point we don't own or claim any of
this. It's all written in fun, so enjoy!



The Devil's Symphony

Written by: Jon Hall

and Greg Housley



comments are appreciated!



    "Access denied."  The figure stood before the doorway puzzled, but
only for a moment.  The computer voice that had activated had not accepted
the code that he had been given to input.  The system parameters haven't
been changed yet.  They only change the pass codes every week so this one
should still work.  He reached up and punched in the eight-digit code again
and waited a second before the voice came back up again.  "Access denied." 
Duo Maxwell scratched his head in slight puzzlement as it only took him no
more than a fraction of a second to smile.  "Access denied, huh?"



    Duo reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small device no
larger than a miniature rubics cube and hooked it to the keypad.  A few
steps back and a puff of smoke later, the keypad was obliterated leaving the
doorway sliding open to admit the longhaired American.  "I got to remember
to thank those docs for these things." Duo took another of the devices out
of his pocket and kissed it lightly before putting it back into his pocket.
The devices were bombs that hardly made a sound as they emitted a heat field
so intense that it would cause about the same amount of damage as a regular
grenade, given the right setting. He smiled at the recollection.



    He had been on Howard's ship, the Peacemillion 2 when the docs had
been explaining the bombs to him and Wufei, considering that they were the
only two gundam pilots that were willing to take up the cause again.  "Heh,
talk about your Silent But Deadly!"  That remark had earned Duo a slap in
the back of the head, to which he still had no idea why. It was just a
stupid joke.



    He was in the Virazin Labs, home of the latest technologies of
genetics and mind tampering, as Duo liked to call it. He was fulfilling his
second part of the mission. The first part of the mission was to discover if
there had been truth to the rumors that there was a gundam being built there
in secret. Duo hadn't thought so but he agreed to take on the mission just
because he missed the excitement.  What he had found once he got to the labs
made him angry and horrified at the same time.



    He had walked into a large warehouse-sized lab where he found evidence
that left him speechless.  He had walked over to the line of terminals that
had been close to the doorway and began searching through recent documents,
or what was left of them.  The computers had been totally scrambled, but one
piece of information did catch his attention.  There had been a shipment of
gundanium alloy to the warehouse only a few months ago.  Most of the
information was scrambled, but duo could definitely make out the order for
the large flatbed freight truck used to ship out the materials only days
ago. Hmmm, same type of flat-bed that we used a lot to transport our
gundams.



    He just couldn't believe it.  They were really about to start another
war!  Why else would these people be building gundams?  Those idiots.  "Why
can't anyone just live in peace anymore?  War is not what we need right now,
especially without our own gundams to prevent it."  He then saw out of the
corner of his eye a large chunk of metal lying on the ground close to the
doorway that he didn't see before.  He walked over to it and picked it up,
immediately recognizing it as gundanium alloy and placed it in his pocket.



    Duo still felt the weight of the chunk in his pocket as he walked
through the doorway and into a large hall.  The fluorescent lighting made it
seem gloomy and bare, the simple colors making it look like a prison or
mortuary.  Doors lined the hallway leading into various laboratories dealing
with various genetic experiments.  It totally creeped him out.  It seemed
like a place where someone would find their doom, which was exactly why
Death had come.  Duo smiled at the thought.  What he was looking for was on
this floor.  He glanced to either side of him and saw a small computer
terminal embedded in the wall to his right. He quickly went over to it and
began to check through all of the lab descriptions for the floor.  He wanted
to make sure that nothing else had been changed as well.  If a single pass
code could be changed in just a few days, then there was no telling what
else had changed.



    His eyes began to scan the files as they ran over the computer screen
in sequence.

"C'mon baby, tell papa you ain't gone anywhere since I last checked up on
ya."  It took a few moments to go through the list until he found the one
that he was looking for.  Duo smiled to himself and, pulling a disk out of
his pants pocket he stuck it into the computer.  "Now let's see what we have
here."  He quickly skimmed through the information to see if he was right on
the money.  Bingo.  This was it.  "And save."  Duo saved the information to
the disk and quickly pulled it back out once it was finished.  It was a good
thing too, because the alarm chose to go off then.



    "Aw, fuck me."  He quickly put the disk back into his pocket and ran
back to the door from which he had come.  He stuck his head out to check his
clearance but quickly saw the security guards closing in on his location. 
"Okay, it's safe to say that I'm royally  fucked."  He spun around and
started to run down the long hallway.  The sound of footsteps closing in
caused Duo to stop.  "Shit, which one, there're too many fuckin doors! 
Lemme see, eeny meeny miney moe.  Good enough."  Duo punched the keypad to
the nearest door and jumped through with the door sliding shut behind him.



    He sat motionless waiting for the sound of the running steps to fade
away.  He slowed his breathing down to barely audible, the excitement making
him breathe heavily.  Once no more sound could be heard, he felt himself
sigh in relief.  "Shew, that was waaay too close."  He looked around his new
surroundings and confusion lit his face with each passing moment. 
"Where..in..the..hell^�?"  Centered in the large room was what looked like a
large ice cube in an aquarium-like tank.  But that in itself wasn't what
caused his confusion.  Frozen within the large block of ice was what
appeared to be a young redheaded girl.  Even though the distortion of the
ice made it hard to tell any specific details about her, Duo could tell that
she was quite attractive.



    He slowly walked up to the large tank and began examining the computer
vid-screens that surrounded the base of the tank.  He punched a few buttons
and got the information that he was looking for.  From the data that Duo
could gather, the girl had been frozen for around four hundred years. 
"Geez, a Stone Age babe!"  He quickly caught notice of one particularly
large red button that was simply labeled DO NOT PUSH.  "They have got to be
joking."  He rolled his eyes and continued to study the data on the large
icy specimen, his interest growing as he did.  As he read through all of the
studies of the frozen girl, he found that he would keep glancing back at the
big red button.



    He looked back up at the girl trapped in the large chunk of ice and
noticed something that he didn't see before.  There at the girl's side,
frozen in the six foot block of ice was a large staff with a crescent shaped
blade at the end.  Duo leaned in for a closer look but was startled as the
lights began to flicker wildly on the gauges and a large humming sound began
to broaden. "Uh-oh, what now." He looked down just in time to notice his
hand propped up on the big red 'DO NOT PUSH' button.



   "Oh shit."  He stepped back a couple of feet as the light around the
ice block began to glow red with melting heat.  The audible sound of
cracking ice began to echo off the bare room walls. It took only a short
moment before the ice cracked into a large puddle of water and the girl
within began to start moving. Duo's eyes widened as he noticed a small
sphere of light begin to form around the girls right hand. 'This ain't
good,' was all he had time to think before the tank shattered and the water
gushed out in all directions, completely soaking him. The girl slipped out
with the rush of water knocking him to the floor. "Hey!"



   It was over in a few short seconds and the only sound that Duo could
make was the forced breathing from the girl to the side of him along with
her strained coughs. "Oh man, my head." Duo thought aloud, but felt the air
catch in his throat as he realized the pitch was several octaves higher than
usual. "What the-" Duo quickly looked down at himself feeling a sense of
nausea as he did, something was wrong! He pulled himself up to a sitting
position and began to feel at himself. "Ahhh, what the-" Duo could feel the
blood drain from his head. "I got^�.. Boobs?" And he was out like a light.



   "Yeah you ain't the only one." The strange girl said to herself as she
finished hacking out the water from her lungs. She looked about her
surroundings and was surprised to see that not a damn thing looked familiar,
and then glanced over at the small girl lying on the floor next to her
unconscious. She would have been cute to the girl if she didn't know she was
really a guy. Yeah she had had a similar experience before. It had been
slightly different, followed by a large panda fleeing for its life, but the
look on the sleeping girls face had been enough to tell her what had
happened. 'Nian-ni-chuan strikes again.' She thought distastefully.  She
reached over and pulled the girl up to a sitting position and began to shake
her at her shoulders. "Hey! Buddy, wake-up! Hey!" The girl began to stir
within the strange girl's hands and finally her eyes began to flutter open.
For a brief moment the two stared at each other in silence^� "I've got
boobs." The girl announced, still in a state of shock. "Yes and a nice pair
at that, but look you're gonna have ta help me here." The girl simply
blinked. "For starters you can tell me where we are."



   Duo-chan slipped out from the strange redhead's grasp and took a second
to think.

"We're in sector 827A of Virazin labs, genetics department^�" Duo replied
with a somewhat distant tone.



   "Uh-huh," Was the only way the girl could think to respond. "And^� Okay,
so how did I get here and how long have I been in that chunk of ice?"



   "From what I could tell, somewhere around four hundred years, and I
have no idea why you're here."



   "Four^� Hundred^� Y-years?" The girl felt her heart catch in her throat.
"I've been frozen for four...hundred....years?"



    The redheaded girl slowly stood up and walked a few feet away, mildly
mumbling something to which Duo couldn't quite make out.  She began to rise
to ask a few of her own questions when there was the familiar beeping sound
of her watch.  "Duo..?  What's goin on in there?  You've got to get out as
fast as you can.  There's soldiers closing in on you and I mean fast!"



    Duo acknowledged the new information and caught the still mumbling
redhead by her shoulder.  "Look, I'd like to help you out, really, but we're
not in the most safest of situations right now.  So if you don't mind, what
do ya say we get the hell outta here?" The redhead solemnly turned and
nodded, and proceeded to pick up the crescent bladed staff that had fallen
out beside her.  They quickly made their way to the door to the lab and duo
looked out the window to see if there was any security still close by.  When
she was sure the coast was clear, she opened the door and motioned for the
redhead to follow her.



    They followed along the hallway and exited out the door from which Duo
had first entered in through.  She craned her neck around the corner of the
door and suddenly heard another beep from her watch.  "There's no one there,
just keep going down the hallway to your left and make a right at the
corridor labeled 736B, you'll be clear beyond that point.  Take the stairs
to the loading docks and we'll pick you up at the rendezvous.  Over and
out."



    Duo-chan glanced up and smiled as he saw the camera pointed in their
direction.  She then looked back at the redhead who still followed closely
behind and cracked a smile.

"Hilde; gotta love her."  The redhead simply shrugged and they began to make
their way on the route made out by Hilde.



   Their escape went unchallenged as they quickly made their way through
the abandoned halls. Duo led the girl down the designated course until
finally reaching the stairway Hilde had mentioned and they made their
descent to the first floor.



   It wasn't long before the two girls stood at the bottom of the stairway
looking out into the large room that served as the loading docks. Only a
handful of people was visible and all seemed preoccupied with their own
business. Duo looked back at the girl and winked. "Just play it cool and act
natural with me, then were outta here and it's smooth sailing, got it?" The
girl simply nodded. "Good, now follow my lead."



   They walked out into the room with a mild yet determined pace. Duo
found herself looking out of the corner of her eyes scanning to see if
anyone had taken notice. Astonishingly enough, no one had.  Duo smiled to
herself and continued her pace through the loading docks.  Crates upon
crates consumed the docks for thirty or so feet before the ramp descended to
the streets of the city.  Duo crept through the lines of crates that blocked
the view to the other loaders, but when an opening came up in between the
crates, she just walked with a confidence as if she belonged there.  She
glanced back behind her once to see if the redhead was still following and
was surprised to see the calm expression that the redhead wore.



    Finally they reached the ramps and quickly made their way down to the
street.  Duo quickly glanced around to get her bearings and then motioned
for her companion to follow.  "This way.  The rendezvous should be a short
distance away, so it won't take long to get there."  They began to run down
the street at a slow pace, just to make the trip quicker than just walking. 
Duo's gait heightened as she remembered what she had on her.  The weight of
the gundanium banged into her leg as she ran down the street. She felt down
in her shirt and smiled even bigger as she felt the small disk still in
there. But then her hand felt one of the newly acquired breasts and her mood
went downhill just as quickly as it had gone up just moments before.  "Why
me?"



    The redhead, on the other hand, seemed to follow at a distant pace,
her mind on other things.  Like maybe the four hundred years she's missed
out on, Duo-chan thought to herself.  She kept glancing at the crescent
bladed staff that she still clutched in her hand protectively.  For a
second, Duo thought that she caught a flash of anger in the redhead's, but
she didn't think to ask about it, because they had reached the rendezvous.



    As the two girls waited for the pickup, Duo finally took notice of
what the girl wore.

A red Chinese shirt and black pants that looked like they had seen better
days from the rips and tears all throughout the material.  Plus the fact
that the whole outfit looked like it was way too big for her anyway.  She
just stood against the fence behind Duo and stared at the staff, moving her
free hand along the blade, a tiny droplet of blood forming at her fingertip.
"Hey, you're gonna hurt yourself with that thing!"  But as Duo watched,
the droplet of blood fell to the ground, shattering in small icy slivers.



    The redhead raised her cut finger and stared at it for the longest of
time before looking back up at Duo-chan.  "It has the power to freeze. 
That's how I was frozen in the block."  Duo just simply stared back at the
girl as she looked back down at the staff and began to whisper something to
herself.  Duo slowly turned around to face the street, her face toward the
sidewalk.  She looked at her watch and saw that it was almost time for the
pickup.



    Just then a large brown van pulled up to the curb in front of Duo. 
She looked up in time to look into the eyes of Hilde and Lucrezia Noin.  Duo
looked back at the redhead as she distantly stared back.  "You comin?"  Both
Hilde and Noin looked at each other and at Duo with astonished expressions. 
"Who are you?"  Hilde took on a mad expression and advanced on Duo.  "I said
'who are you?' "  Duo backpedaled a few steps before stopping Hilde short. 
"It's me, Duo!  Who in the hell else would it be, Hilde?"  The dark-haired
girl only grew even more impatient.  "Duo is not a girl, for one thing.  And
where did you get his clothes?  What have you done with him, you bitch?!"



    "Now calm down, Hilde.  I don't know who you think I am but there's
only one person that I could be and that's Duo Maxwell."  Duo-chan's voice
took on a more serious tone as she progressed.  "Besides, Hilde, who else
would know about the time that you smuggled all of that information off of
Libra just to help out us Gundam pilots?"  Hilde stood frozen in her tracks.
She didn't know what to think.  What the hell's going on? She thought to
herself.  A small snicker could be heard behind her as Noin assessed the
situation a little quicker than Hilde.  Duo only grit her teeth and clenched
a fist at hearing the laughter.



    Finally Hilde stammered herself back to slight sanity.  "Wh..what
happened to you?"

Duo-chan looked at the ground shyly, clenching both of her fists.  "I don't
know yet, but

I'm gonna find out."  Duo looked over to where the redheaded girl was
staring at them with an only half-distant expression.  Hilde looked over the
girl for only a second before turning to Duo again.  "And who's the red?" 
Duo's gaze neever left the girl, whose own eyes had shifted back to the
crescent-bladed staff in her hands.  The words that came out of her mouth
were too low for any of the company to hear, the tone itself reaching their
ears told them that the words were longing and tearful.  "I'll tell you on
the way back." Duo said finally.





    "You found her where?!"  Hilde's voice had risen up to another peak
and could have shaken the van were it not for the van already vibrating from
the motion that is was currently in.  Noin had been driving with the other
three passengers in the cargo area of the van.  The outburst started only
moments after the van had begun its motion.  Duo had to backpedal a little
more, also, waving her hands in front of her in defense.  "Whoa, Hilde, take
it easy for a second, would ya?"  Hilde dropped her voice to a hoarse
whisper. "She might have been one of those genetic experiments that the lab
was cooking up. She might be dangerous or worse, an enemy."  Duo-chan
scratched her head, looking up in thought.  "Well she doesn't look like a
genetic experiment, does she?"  Duo looked at the redhead, who was sitting
quietly in the back corner of the van, still clutching the staff in her
arms.  Her eyes seemed glued to the side of the van, as if staring off into
space.



    "Besides," Duo continued, leaning back against the side of the van
with her arms behind her head, "I think I saved her life."  Hilde sat
motionless as Duo went on.  "She was being studied at those labs, Hilde, not
created.  And from what I read of the data on the studies, it looked like
she had been in that ice block for over four hundred years." Hilde's eyes
moved over to the girl in the corner once again to find her in the same
position as before, staring at the wall.  "But who is she?"



    Duo looked back at Hilde for a second and then to the redhead in the
corner.  "You know, I forgot to ask her in all of the rush to get out of
that place."  Duo-chan moved back to where the redheaded girl sat staring at
the wall and sat down in front of her.  Her eyes focused on Duo as she sat. 
Hilde was close behind Duo and sat down against the opposite wall as the
girl.  Duo was the first to speak.  "Hey, red.  I'm just curious, since I
forgot to ask you earlier when we were out of the labs, but what's your
name?"  The girl stared at him quietly before looking down at the staff in
her lap.  "I'm Ranma Saotome. Sorry about all this."





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