Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ A Mind among Men ORIGINAL ❯ Engage!(ment) ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

A Mind among Men ORIGINAL
A Ranma Fanfic
Written By : Noaki (Noaki@juno.com)

Disclaimer : I do not own in any way shape or form any
part of Ranma. I only use it's characters and some of its
storyline. Haven't I said this already?

Conversation Key :
[" "]=Thoughts
" " =Speaking
{" "}=Telepathy
(" ")=Panda Signs
\" "/=Other Languages (Usually Chinese, but will be stated)

Chapter One
Engage!(ment)

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After falling in the cursed springs at Jusenkyo Ranma and Genma set out on the long trek back to Japan. Of course the random rainstorms keeps them in their cursed forms. As they came upon a small village, they heard the sounds of weapons clashing. Of course Genma's sense of hearing did not compare to this sixth sense of nearby food...

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Ranma-chan stood by in awe at the two women locked in combat atop of the log. The guide was saying something about Amazon combat, but Ranma was too busy watching the small purple haired girl wielding two heavy steel maces weave inside of the larger woman's attacks. Just then he noticed his father running straight for the food. ["Figures that dumb bear can't wait to eat... He really should wait until some is offered at least."]

Just then the purple haired girl knocked her opponent off the log. She turned towards the crowd in a victory pose. She turned to look towards her prize, only to find a panda wolfing it down. Images of various uses of panda skin immediately came to mind.

Genma looked up and wondered why everyone was staring at him. ["Well the way I eat is kinda of impressive.]" He motioned for Ranma-chan to come join him. ("This is good!") said the sign he held up. He quickly flipped it over. ("Ranma, Come eat!").

Ranma-chan immediately sweatdropped at the stupidity of her father, when she noticed a sign in front of the table her father was at. Running over she picked it up, and looked at it closely. She then knocked the panda over the head with the sign repetitively screaming "Pops you idiot, this is the first prize for the fight we just saw! Are you trying to get us in trouble?".

The panda immediately held up a sign ("If you win, then everything is OK!").

Everyone that could read Japanese face-faulted.

A shriveled old woman stepped forward looking at the two strange people standing next to her great granddaughter's prize. \"Who are you and what do you think you are doing?"/ she asked in Chinese even though she knew they spoke Japanese.

To everyone's surprise (especially Genma's) Ranma-chan turned to face her and started to speak in near perfect Chinese. \"I am sorry if we have caused any trouble. Since this is the first prize for the tournament, if I can win there should be no problem, right?"/

The old woman was in slight shock at the perfect Chinese of the obviously Japanese individual, but replied \"IF you can win, I see no problem. But my great granddaughter is no push-over."/ Turning to the crowd she exclaimed \"This young girl had challenged Xain Pu to combat for the prize. Prepare the battle log!"/

"I'm not a girl..." Ranma-chan muttered as she walked over towards the log.

["What was that about?"] Cologne wondered after overhearing Ranma-chan's words. She watched the two walk through the parting crowds to the battle log.

Ranma-chan and Shampoo both jumped up onto the log, an impressive feat in and of itself considering how high up the log was.

Shampoo pulled two more mace out of nowhere and took up a strong offensive stance. ["I will take this outsider out quickly,"] she thought as she waited for Ranma-chan to get into a stance too.

Ranma-chan took up a stance that, to the untrained eye, was nothing more than just standing there.

A referee jumped up to the middle of the log. \"Participants ready?"/ she asked. When both fighters gave a short nod she did a back flip off the log while yelling \"FIGHT!"/

Immediately Shampoo jumped into action with a fast charge forward followed by a high swing of her maces.

Ranma-chan rolled onto her back and quickly tuned the doge into an attack by stabbing out with her foot at Shampoo's midsection.

Shampoo swung her other mace towards Ranma-chan's leg in defense, making the other girl halt the attack or receive a serious injury. She then thrust forward with her other mace down towards Ranma-chan.

Ranma-chan quickly hopped to her feet then did a flip over Shampoo, rotating in mid air to stay facing her opponent. She landed then had to do another quick flip as Shampoo lashed out with a sweep kick.

Shampoo laughed to herself. ["If I keep this up the outsider will have no chance!"]

Ranma-chan stood there in a defensive stance, faking breathing hard. ["I don't really want to hurt her, but I can tell how upset she is getting with me for not launching any serious attacks..."]

Shampoo leapt forward again, thinking her opponent was exhausted, only to have Ranma-chan duck and roll under her attack and clip her shoulder with a sharp kick. She stifled her cry of pain, but was unable to hold onto her mace.

Suddenly Genma leapt high about the crowds, a bucket of steaming water in hand.

"Ranma since you are obviously a weak little girl, I shall help you!" he cried as he threw the remainder of the hot water he used to change back at the red head standing on the log.

To everyone's surprise the young woman on the log changed into a young man with black hair. Anyone that knew about the cursed training grounds pretty much knew what happened.

Ranma's opponent, Shampoo, was wondering what was happening when her great grandmother, Cologne, yelled up at her. \"That boy has obviously fallen into the spring of the drown girl! You know what will happen if you lose now!"/

Ranma was curious to what that meant when Shampoo attacked with new fury. Pushing his speed to the limits he dodged every attack and did a back flip to the end of the log. ["I have to beat her, but I really don't want to hurt her. How can I do tha... I know!"] he thought.

Shampoo was making a charge at the boy that made Cologne proud when all of a sudden a deep cyan light surrounded both fighters.

Cologne was stunned at the fact they were both emitting a battle aura, so she began to probe them to see how. ["That's not a battle aura!"] she thought, ["That's psychic energy. That boy obviously has a few tricks!"]

Ranma grinned as he struggled to keep the young Amazon from breaking free of his mental grasp on her. ["Damn this is hard! I really need to work on doing more than telepathy!"] he thought. Using as much willpower as he could muster, he lifted her off the log, moved her five feet over, and dropped her down gently, before he collapsed from the strain.

Everyone was surprised to see the Amazon warrior all of a sudden just float up and off the log. They wondered why the challenger collapsed after he won. They weren't very surprised when Cologne nodded towards Shampoo. Shampoo walked over to the collapsed boy, bent down, and gave him a kiss.

Ranma was just stirring, when above him he saw his opponent. ["I hope they don't take losing too bad here."] was his first thought. His second thought came when he sensed the emotions being put out by the young woman, ["What the..."]

Genma snapped back from wherever he takes a trip to in that head of his. Where had his son learned THAT? And why was the Amazon he beat now hugging him with a grip that would make a vice seem weak.

"Wo ai ni Airen!" Shampoo exclaimed, as she hugger her 'husband'. This boy was a much better catch that boy Mousse that had been hounding her. She didn't mind losing after Cologne gave her the short explanation of what he just did. That and the boy was cute!

Said boy heard the phrase and translated it to himself. "It's you I love Husband!" Ranma passed out.

Cologne and Genma pried Shampoo off of Ranma and carted him off to a tent.

- Two Hours Later -

Ranma woke up to find Shampoo dozing next to him with her arm over his chest, hugging him lightly. Some of the dreams he had felt coming from her were VERY disturbing. For instance he now knew her shoe size, she had dreamed of shoe shopping while dangling off her Airen's arm. That was one of the more decent dreams she was having. The the realization of what happened hit him.

"Oh, so your awake now Ranma," Cologne said. "Allow me to catch you up to some events that happened while you slept."

"I think I understand already," Ranma started. "If I had beat Shampoo while female, she would given me the Kiss-of-Death and hunted me to my death. But since I really am male, and we are already on Amazon land, she had to take me as her husband. I also know that by your laws we are married. You really should have waited until I was awake before you preformed a ceremony," he finished. Turning to Genma, who was hiding in panda form in the corner, he said, "I can't believe you gave your consent to this. You always said that a martial artist should never give into threats of pain. But you get one threat from someone with a spear and you marry me to keep from being poked."

By this point both Cologne and Genma's mouths were hanging open. "H.h.h.how did you know all that?" they both stuttered at the same time.

"Shampoo has had dreams about what has happened. Those are some of the more decent ones she has had over the past few hours..." Ranma answered. Getting blank looks from both of them he finished in a way that surprised the big time.

["I can see Shampoo's dreams,"] Ranma said telepathically to them.

Genma passed out, knocking over a glass of water onto Ranma. Cologne scrambled out of the way of the falling panda.

Shampoo woke up as she felt Ranma change to a female. "Nihon Airen!" she stated as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

Cologne came out of her stat of shock and said, "Do you know what I am thinking right now Ranma?"

Shampoo looked slightly confused. "Why would honored elder ask Airen question like that?"

Ranma-chan replied, "She asked because I was able to tell her about most of what has happened while I was asleep". Turning to Cologne she said, "And to answer your question, no. I can't read minds yet. I can fell strong emotions and can see the dreams of people sleeping near me. I can barely life objects and can only use slight telepathy."

Shampoo asked, "What you talking about?"

Cologne replied, "It seems your husband is a psychic. He knows all about the things that have happened over the last few hours he has been asleep. He was able to see the dreams you were having and learned all about the marriage."

Shampoo nervously turned to Ranma-chan and asked, "Airen saw ALL of Shampoo's dreams?"

Ranma-chan slowly nodded. "Yup, I saw ALL of them..."

"Sorry," Shampoo said as she blushed a deep red.

"That's OK. I like you too, just not THAT much yet," Ranma-chan said.

Cologne broke the not-quite-tender moment, "Well, ummm, your father has insisted that you continue your training. We will all be leaving tomorrow morning for Japan. You should probably get some more rest."

Ranma-chan nodded in agreement and turned over to sleep some more as Cologne left to take her own advice. Ranma-chan was slightly surprised when Shampoo put her arm over her and pulled closer. ["I guess it's OK since we are married. I don't like the idea of being forced into marriage, but I know she really loves me, and I do like her alot. Maybe after I get to know her some..."] she thought as she looked at the sleeping Shampoo's face. ["Well at least she accepts my cursed form, better than I do even"]. Ranma had started to come to terms with his curse. ["I still hate changing to a female, but Shampoo doesn't see it as me losing my manhood. I could be worse, at least I'm still human. I could turn into a pig or duck..."] With those thoughts she fell asleep.

- Middle of that night -

Ranma-chan woke up to find herself bound and gagged. Looking up she saw her father, in panda form, looking around to make sure no-one was watching.

("We are leaving,") the sign Genma held up said.

Ranma-chan tried to protest, but since she couldn't talk with the rag in her mouth, she had to give in as the panda picked her up and slung her over one of his shoulders.

Suddenly Ranma-chan got an idea.

{"Cologne, my father has me bound and gagged. He says we are leaving. He has been having dreams of a place called Nermia recently. Maybe that is where he is taking me."}

Cologne woke up after hearing Ranma's words in her head. Looking out a window she could see a panda with a girl over it's shoulder on a distant hilltop, heading east. She rolled back over in bed to fall back asleep. ["So Genma thinks he can just leave us like that? We will head after them soon. This will be a good chance to improve Shampoo's tracking skills."]

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Notes:

Freezing then lifting Shampoo pushed Ranma's mental powers. He really sucks at stuff like that right now.
Ranma can't ream minds yet, but he can read strong emotions (Love, hate, and nervousness mostly) and can see other people's dreams.
Ranma can project words, ideas, and simple images to other people's minds. That's as far as his telepathy goes right now.

Many people have said that Ranma is OOC because he accepts the engagement to Shampoo. Remember though that Ranma can't stand to hurt people's feelings, and now that he can tell exactly how strong those feelings are, he can't just tell Shampoo off. Also Shampoo accepts him and his curse... he sees how hard that would be to anyone else, and respects her alot for it. He doesn't like the idea of being married but he accepts it. He also knows how futile it would be to try and change things, because everything happened on Amazon land. He is more thoughtful than the Ranma in the manga, and thinks things through a bit more. He will still have a problem with foot in mouth tho. As for his fighting, he is psychic and still getting used to it. All the emotions he was feeling during the battle were very distracting (Try doing something like boxing while listening to 7 or 8 different songs at once).

The changes to this chapter are mostly spelling and grammar. I did write out the entire fight scene on the battle log. I might be making some more changes soon.

Noaki - Noaki@juno.com