Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Phoenix ❯ Chapter 1 ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: I make no attempt to own any of the characters within the following story except for my own. All Ranma ½ characters belong to Takahashi Rumiko and Viz Video. Please don't sue; you won't get much. By the way, its an alternate universe/shameless self-insertion that came to me, and is inspired by a number of other works where Ranma either embraces his female half (i.e. Girl Days or Kikuko), is locked in his female form (Relatively Absent), or it's a permanent curse. If you don't feel like reading it, or disagree with the author's ideas, you are in no way, shape or form obligated to read.

Flames will be used for heating.

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Ranma sat shivering in the doorway of an abandoned building near Misawa AB, trying to stay warm, as the first real snow of winter fell. Stupid old man, stupid cursed springs, stupid honor, stupid contract, stupid, stupid, stupid me for falling into that damned spring, she thought, cursing the day she fell into the spring. It was rotten luck that the bamboo staff was about to collapse; that her panda of a father got a lucky shot in when he leapt out of the Spring of Drowned Panda, surprising the young martial artist and bringing about her current predicament.

She had been fortunate to have been helped out by the Amazon tribe that lived near the Valley of Woe. One of the Amazons, Balm, virtually adopted the new girl. Balm had been in the same situation-a male doctor who had visited Jusenkyo, and happened to have fallen in the same spring-and helped Ranma immeasurably to cope with her new body and hormones. In fact, Balm was particularly able to calm Ranma down when the latter had her first period.

Kuh Lon offered to adopt the redheaded girl into the tribe, but Ranma refused, instead wanting to go back to Japan to look for her mother. This brought the sixteen year old to her current situation-huddling in a doorway for warmth as the Northern Japan winter set in. She coughed, and spat out a ball of green goo. "Great," she muttered, "I'm probably going to die out here."

* * *

Lieutenant Christopher Marx, USAF, was walking back from town, when he noticed a flash of red huddled in the corner of the old IJNAF headquarters building. He hustled over and found a young girl, no more than 17 years old sitting in the doorway, shivering. He knelt down next to her, and placed his hand on her shoulder. "Do you speak English," he asked in extremely rusty Japanese.

Ranma looked up at the bespectacled gaijin. "H--Hai. A little," she replied, coughing.

Marx slipped off his nomex flight jacket and placed it around her shoulders. "Let's get you some place warm," he said as he helped her up. He felt her skin through her thin silk clothes; it was burning hot, contrary to her shivering.

"Y-You're not going to do anything perverted, are you?" She mumbled drowsily. Hypothermia and illness were beginning to work their evil magic on the redhead.

The only thing Marx understood in Ranma's statement was "pervert", but he got the gist of the question. He shook his head. "No, just don't want to see you getting ill. I want to help you."

Ranma nodded, and let the American pilot help her. They tried walking, but her feet weren't cooperating. "Alright," Marx muttered, "this is not going to work." He knelt back down and slipped the pigtailed girl over his shoulders in a fireman's carry, and started into a trot towards the main gate.

The two Air Force cops at the main gate saw the Lieutenant trotting up with a bundle over his shoulders. They noticed it was a girl as he got closer. "Hey, LT, what's up with the girl?"

"I found her in the doorway of the old IJN building. I think she's sick, and suffering from exposure."

"You want us to call the medics and have her taken over to the hospital, sir?"

Marx shook his head, which rubbed Ranma's ribs, and elicited a quiet moan from the semi-conscious girl. "No, Airman. I don't think that would be a good idea yet. But thanks for the offer. But a ride back to the Q would be an immense help."

"Roger that, LT. Why don't you two wait in the gate shack; it'll be warmer, and I don't know where the flight chief is."

Marx carried the pigtailed martial artist into the gate shack, and set her in the one chair there with a quiet sigh of relief. Ranma was still breathing, which was a good sign, but still pale and feverish. Marx knelt down next to her, and placed an arm around her shoulders to help warm her up.

One of the Security Forces 6-pack pickups pulled up and the cops helped Marx place Ranma in the backseat of the truck. He climbed in next to her, and the flight chief climbed in behind the wheel. "Ok, Sergeant lets go." The flight chief shifted the truck into gear and pulled away from the gate. As they proceeded through the snow-covered streets of the base, Marx looked at his charge, and pushed a stray red-haired lock out of her eyes. The motion wasn't lost on the master sergeant behind the wheel. He'd done the same thing to his daughter while she slept. He smiled quietly to himself, at the Lieutenant's actions and his own thoughts as they pulled up in front of Marx's building.

"We're here, sir," the flight chief said, pulling Marx back to reality. "If you'd like, I'll carry her in, while you go open up your room."

He thought about it for a moment, before Marx reached into his pocket for his keys. "Good idea, Sarge," he said as he climbed out of the truck and headed into the building. The flight chief slipped Ranma over his shoulders and carried her in. Marx had already pulled down the covers, and was filling improvised hot water bags in the sink.

"Go ahead and place her on the bed."

"Roger, sir." The sergeant placed her reverently on the bed, and backed up. "Got her, sir?"

Marx came out and started placing Ziploc bags full of hot water around the semi-conscious girl. "I'll be fine, Sarge. Worst case scenario, I'll call the medics and have her transported."

"I wish we had done that in the first place, sir, but it's your call."

"Thanks for your concern, Sarge, and your help." The flight chief left Marx to his task. Gently, Marx opened the wooden ties on Ranma's red silk shirt. The lack of a bra made him pause, but the Lt. had dated women before who tended not to wear certain undergarments either-but generally only on a date. He removed her soaked slippers and slid down her black silk pants, noting boxers instead of panties. Those he removed as well.

There was nothing sensual or erotic about what the Lieutenant was doing, just medically sound. He had a patient to treat for hyperthermia, and was going to do so in a manner consistent with training in an earlier part of his life. He replaced the bags at strategic locations, where blood vessels ran closest to the surface of the skin. After placing the bags, Marx covered his unintentional guest with a thin cotton sheet, wool blanket and thick comforter. He then dragged his desk chair over, and settled in for a long winter's night.

* * *

Warm. For the first time in a long time, she felt warm. She shifted contentedly in the bed-wait a minute, a bed? Ranma opened her eyes and was greeted by the sight of a Mitsubishi A6M Zero attacking a Boeing B-29 Superfortress. She closed her eyes for a moment and reopened them, looking around. She was in unfamiliar surroundings. Ranma noticed her savior sitting in a chair, asleep. She sat up, and that was when the covers slid off-and Ranma realized that she was naked.

She was about to scream bloody murder, when the logical part of her brain replayed last night's conversation. Feeling a particular part of her anatomy, she found nothing to indicate anything happened last night. Ranma looked again at Marx asleep in his chair. "Good morning," she called. No response from the slumbering pilot. She called again; still nothing. That was when she remembered something Xian Pu taught her. With a smile, Ranma got out of bed, and wrapped the sheet around her body like a toga-for her piece of mind, it was sufficiently thick enough not to reveal anything, but just suggested-and walked over to Marx. She leaned in close to his ear…and shouted "Wake up!"

Marx flew out of the chair and spun around to face his guest, who smiled cutely at him. "You're awake," he said.

"Hai. Thank you for…"

Marx held up his hand, interrupting her. "Slower, please." Ranma repeated her thank you, and expressed her gratitude in slower Japanese. One of the things that her mentor Balm and Kuh Lon went over with the new girl was basic courtesy, and when and when not to throw insults around. "You're quite welcome. I'm Christopher Marx."

"R-Ranma."

"No family name?" She nodded, sheepishly. "Would you like to tell me about it? Talking helps sometimes." Ranma nodded again, and was about to begin, when Marx interrupted her again. "Let me get you something to wear." He opened one of his wall lockers and rummaged around before coming out with a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. "Here, they'll be a little large on you, but they'll be more comfortable than that sheet. I'll just be in the kitchen area," he said, as he handed her the PT uniform before ducking behind the wall, letting Ranma change in privacy.

"Marx-san," she called, "you can come out now." Marx came out, with two mugs of hot cocoa in his hands. He handed one to his guest, and sat down on the edge of his bed. Ranma sat in the chair, facing her host. She took a deep breath and looked nervously between the lieutenant and the beverage in her hand, trying to this gentleman what happened, how it happened. A small voice inside her head told her that honesty was the best policy. Marx hadn't taken advantage of her while she was out, and dealt with her courteously, even if a little shyly.

Ranma sighed and began her tale of woe. "This body is the result of an ancient curse. I was born a boy…"

Marx interrupted for a moment. "This would explain the lack of bra and the boxers." She nodded, sheepishly. "Go ahead."

"Since I was five years old, I've been training with my father in our family's school of martial arts. We traveled all over the world, training with martial arts masters and learning from what training manuals Oyaji could get his hands on. Of course little things like international borders wouldn't stop him. I just hope he's got what's coming to him.

"Anyway, we were in China for the last leg of our training. Pops got a hold of a guidebook, but can't read a lick of Mandarin. Well, he saw 'Training Ground' and thought it would be a good place to train. We arrived there, and started sparring, when the Guide there started babbling about how the springs were cursed.

"Well, it didn't sink in until I knocked Pops into the Spring of Drowned Panda." Ranma smiled bitterly. "It suits Oyaji too-he's fat and lazy like a panda.

"He leaps out of this spring in his cursed form, and takes me by surprise with a lucky kick, knocking me into the Spring of Drowned Young Girl. I was shocked when it happened. But when the Guide said that no one he's seen some out of that spring change back with hot water, that the curse is permanent, I freaked out.

"I ran, just ran away from Pops and the Springs." Ranma chuckled bitterly. "I used to say that 'Ranma Saotome never loses,' but this time I lost. I lost my manhood to a curse. Oyaji was training me to be a 'man amongst men', but I couldn't bloody well be that any more as a girl. Weak and worthless in my father's eyes.

"I ran all day and most of the night, until I dropped from exhaustion. An Amazon scouting party found me that night and brought me to their village. Seems they were used to dealing with the victims of the springs. I spent almost a year there, learning what it means to be female. Two of the Amazons, Balm and Kuh Lon, were a great help."

"So what prompted you to leave?" Marx asked, entranced by this story. For him, it was like something he'd seen on TV; but to meet someone to whom it actually happened to was something else.

"I was born a guy, so the way the Amazons treat their men as second-class citizens disturbed me. There were even some that tried treating me that way, because I wasn't a natural woman, despite the fact that I go through the same things they do once a month. I left because of that, and because I wanted to find my mother.

"I found her, purely by accident in the Juuban section of Tokyo. We talked for quite awhile, but she reminded me of a contract I signed before Oyaji and I left; that I was to be a man amongst men or I would commit seppuku. She made me an offer- death or dishonor." Tears were starting to form in Ranma's eyes. "I…I couldn't commit suicide. I'm only 16 years old; I have a whole life ahead of me. I wanted to live, so my own mother expelled me from the Clan and disowned me.

"No one will give a ronin work, so I wandered around the country."

"And that's how you wound up in Misawa; sick, exhausted, and ready to die." Ranma nodded, the tears starting to run down her face. Marx set aside his empty mug, took his guest's hands and pulled her out of the chair, into a hug. He let her cry herself out. She sniffled, and looked up at Marx with her crystal blue eyes. "Ranma," he said, "we have a problem, thanks to your mother. You have no family name, so that I wouldn't be able to adopt you. All your papers are for a person that technically no longer exists. I hate to say it, but Ranma Saotome died when you came out of that Spring." He thought for a few moments, the cogs in Marx's mind working slowly. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "There is a way we could make you visible to the state again. Marriage."

"Marriage?" Ick, no way; I'm a guy!"

"That was true until you came out of that Spring."

"But…"

Marx slowly shook his head. "I'm sorry, Ranma." Tears began anew for the redhead, as she came to realize that it was time to live a different life. Marx pulled her back into a hug, holding her tightly, whispering soothing words in her ear.

"M-Marx-san…"

"Please, call me Chris."

"Chris," she said, almost as if she was savoring the way the unfamiliar word sounded to her ears. "If I were to agree to this, would you be the one I was marrying?"

Marx smiled at her. "Ranma, I wouldn't be suggesting this if I wasn't willing to be your husband." He lifted her face up; wiped away a few stray tears, looked into her crystal blue eyes, and…was interrupted by the legendary Saotome stomach making its presence known by demanding it be sated.

Ranma gave her sudden fiancé an embarrassed smile. "You wouldn't happen to have any food around, would you?"

Marx gave his guest an equally sheepish grin. "Ah…we'll go eat over at the mess hall. All I've got is some week old take out, that's slowly turning into a science experiment. Something that'll have to be rectified. Along with your lack of clothes."

Ranma sighed and was about to protest, when her stomach quite loudly made its own protest about not being fed yet. They both chuckled, and Marx handed her a couple of pairs of socks and her slippers, along with his nomex jacket. "These should help keep you warm, until we get you outfitted at the Exchange." Ranma slipped the socks and slippers on, then the jacket, which was like a tent on the redhead's petite frame. Marx grabbed his leather A-2 jacket and keys. "Ready?"

"Hai." The left the officers' dorm and trudged through the snow over to Marx's antique Willy's GP. Ranma climbed in as Marx scraped off the windshield and then fired up the old jeep. Pulling out of the spot, Ranma asked "Christopher-kun, if you have a car, why were you walking last night?"

"I walk sometimes to clear my head. Sometimes it'll be to the flightline to watch fighters taking off; sometimes it'll be off base. And it was lucky for you that I was walking off base." She nodded, reflecting on the implications of what might have happened had he not been walking by.