[FFML2] [Ranma]Diffrent paths prologue [draft]

Different paths:



     It was just a usual day in Nerima, or so I thought. I never

suspected that anything was wrong. That was until he disappeared.

We went to school, just like every other day. He acted the same

during every one of his morning fights and he even insulted me

like every other day, and I flattened him the same way.

     We walked home together. He practiced out in the back yard,

we came to except it. When it started to rain, he went into the

dojo. He must have left then, no goodbye, not taking anything, no

note. I still miss him, it's been about 3 weeks now and he hasn't

come home. We checked everywhere, we just couldn't find him.

     I don't know what to do, everyone says I can't hold onto the

past, he's gone and I have to move on. I decided that I will move

on, but I won't ever let go of him.



     -excerpts from Akane Tendo's diary



An Anime Junky Confederation production:

Different Paths Prologue

By:Dev Hunt

"I'm on a magical mystery tour"



Somewhere



     A man staggered along an alley, bloody and tired. He had a

gunshot wound to the arm and a cut in his forehead. He just

narrowly escaped the police when they stormed the resistance's

headquarters.

     He limped along, tired, beaten, the only one left alive. He

was lucky, a loose floor board was his savior. He barely made it

out of the complex. He came across a vacant lot, a man with a

familiar pig-tail was standing there. In a dirty cloak and

brownish clothes, he was looking at something in his hands.

     "Ranma!" The man yelled happily. He rushed forward as fast

as he could, "I thought you were dead!"

     "Kenchi," Ranma said quietly, turning his head. "You're

suppose to be dead."

     "We'll I'm not." He said, coming up to Ranma. "I fell

through some looses floorboards and escaped."

     "Great." Ranma said, not very enthusiastically.

     "What is it?" Kenchi asked, "Aren't you happy to see me?"

     Ranma sighed and turned to Kenchi, "Kenchi, do you trust

me?"

     "What kind of question is that?"

     "An honest question."

     "Well, of course, why wouldn't I?"

     Ranma sighed again, "You do know your dead-man, don't you?"

     "What!"

     "They have your ID, if you go anywhere, they'll kill you on

site. If you lucky."

     "How would they?.. Oh my god." Kenchi drew back, "You..your

the one that betrayed us, weren't you?"

     Ranma's head bowed and he looked at the ground, "I'm sorry."

     "How could you?!" Kenchi screamed, "Florn, Acchika, and the

others, you kill betrayed them all!! Why?"

     "I have to get home."

     "We were your home!"

     "No you weren't! My home isn't here, it's in Nerima. I have

to go there, and I can with this." He held up a pipe with runes,

wires, and a button on it.

     "Still, this is my home."

     "It's going to be gone in a few years."

     "How do you figure that?"

     Ranma sighed once again. "The mana lines are weak and

breaking apart. The world will fall apart in 2 maybe 3 years at

best."

     "Then I'm doomed to die?"

     "I guess, unless you want to come with me." Ranma offered.

     Kenchi thought about it before answering. "Fine, what have I

got to loose?"

     "Good." Ranma pointed the pipe and pushed the only button. A

blue portal formed where he pointed. He walked up to it and

stepped in. Disappearing.

     Kenchi looked at it for a minute before limping though it

too. The portal closed behind him.



******



     The Coffee shop overlooks the city's harbor. It's in a nook

in the side of an apartment complex. The coffee is cheap and

there is a bus stop across the street. Service is good and the

place is clean. It was the perfect place for two people to talk.

     "Okay Ranma, I want the whole story before you go home. I

at least deserve that."

     "Fair enough Kenchi." Ranma took a sip of his coffee. "How's

the gunshot wound?"

     "It's doing fine, your heal spell does.. Hey! Don't evade

the

question." Kenchi sat there in a clean, black shirt and blue

jeans with a brown, canvas coat on the back of his chair.

     Ranma shifted in the same clothes he always wore, the just

looked a little cleaner. "Roughly 5 years ago, I was pulled

through a dimensional rift. It landed me in a place where

dimensional travel was possible, but they haven't reached that

point yet. All that was missing was for someone to pull

everything together. Unfortunately, war broke out before someone

could figure it out."

     "Then how did you get out of there?"

     "I worked on the research staff to try and create a portal.

We almost had it too."

     "How was it completed?"

     "We were at a point where we could open a rift, but we

couldn't figure out how to target where it opened to. That was

the one piece of technology we didn't have."

     "So did you volunteer to go?"

     "No. I broke in one night and sent myself through. You see,

the device would fit in a backpack but it needed a frame for the

portal to open in. I created a duplicate of the device, opened a

portal and went through."

     "So what happened after that?"

     "It was one long journey from one dimension to another,

looking for technology to go home. I wandered for three years,

trying to find a targeting system." Ranma took another sip of his

coffee. "I learned a lot in my travels. Science, Mathematics,

Psychology, Magic, and Engineering. I condensed the size of the

dimensional transporter, D-hopper for short, so it's hand held."

Ranma pulled out the pipe from before. He concentrated for a

moment before a view screen appeared right above the pipe.

     "This will take us to your home dimension?"

     "Yep, I already set it for home."

     "You never did tell me why you betrayed us Ranma." Kenchi

put down his cup and looked at him coldly.

     "That, was the second hardest thing to do in my life."

Ranma said sadly.

     "What was the first?"

     "Telling Akane that I loved her."

     "Akane?" Kenchi thought for a minute, "Hey, isn't that your

fianc� from your home dimension?"

     "Yea. It's to late now, by now she's probably in love with

someone else."

     "You still haven't answered my question." Kenchi finished

his coffee and sat there with undivided attention. "I'm waiting."

     "Okay. It was because I needed scanning equipment to get

home. Midgram Corporations had that equipment, but they wanted

something from me."

     "What scan did you need to get?"

     "Every person has a dimensional signature specific to their

dimension. Take this room, everything in her has a specific

dimensional signature. You and me have a different signature. The

scanning equipment Midgam had was able to get an exact reading of

my dimensional signature."

     "You trusted their readings? Are you insane?"

     "No, of course not. I calibrated and ran the scans myself. I

read the technical manuals and checked every part. I have the

correct reading."

     "The trade-off was information on the resistance group.

Wasn't it?"

     "Yea. ID's of every member, meeting locations, and

intelligence reports. That's why our raids weren't as successful

as they could have been. A few extra guards here and there,

nothing you would notice, and removal of certain goods made the

raids not pay off as much."

     "You know that Florn loved you, right?"

     "Yes I did know, we bunked together a few times but we

didn't let it get in the way of work."

     "How could you betray someone you loved?"

     "She was going to die anyway. Her memory loss was dramatic

and she was really unhealthy. Her DNA was breaking apart in her

cells. She was barely able to do anything."

     "Did Tanya know?"

     "Yes. She was the one who reassigned her to work with her.

She would just lay about while we went about our business. It

was terrible to do but it was a lost cause."

     "Yea, that was why so many joined. A hopeless cause is

better then none at all."

     "That is true." Ranma finished off his coffee and stood up.

"You ready to go?" He asked.

     "Yep." Kenchi stood up and they both left the shop.

     They ducked into an alley and Ranma took out the D-hopper.

He open a portal home and they both disappeared. One was finally

home, the other was along for the ride.



End of Prologe