Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Total Shock ❯ Eternity PT 2 ( Chapter 10 )

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

Kuno filtered out along with the rest of the crew into the city crowd, with his gaze cast towards the sky.

“Can you believe that? There were real live humans spies onboard! Man, I've never been that close to the action before,”

“What could they have been doing onboard the Cerellius, anyway? It was like they just appeared out of nowhere, stayed the night, and left.”

“What do you think, Kuno?”

“Huh?” Kuno asked as he looked down at his companions. One, a young man with a head full of bright crimson hair was looking at him excitedly. The other, a blond with his hair in a ponytail, was giving a rather impassive look. Kuno wasn't sure which one had asked the question.

“About the spies,” the other boy said, exicitedly.

“Oh, that,” Kuno laughed. “I don't believe that for a second. You know the guys up top, they'll do whatever it takes to make the crew work harder, even if it's lying about human spies being aboard the Cerellius II of all things!”

“Yeah, but…” The red head started. He huffed and frowned. “Neither of you is any fun at all,” he crossed his arms.

“That's not true. We're just realisitic,” Kuno snorted. “Spies. Human spies. Can things get any more fantastic than that?” He chuckled along with the blond.

“Next we'll be getting Juraian ambassadors, am I right?” the blond snickered. The red head only blushed as he followed the other two.

---

As Ranma led his companions through the dense vegetation, Nabiki looked around, taking in the jungle. She'd never been in a jungle before, and most of the various plants were variations of things she was sure she might have seen in textbooks or something.

“So just what is it you're showing us, anyway?” She asked.

“Well, it's like I was saying last night,” Ranma said as he glanced back at Ryoga.

“You mean that weird water stuff you were talking about, right?” Ryouga asked.

“Yeah,” Ranma grunted the affirmative as he turned to face forward. He stopped every few seconds and would sometimes make a slight change in direction. “It's just over here…” He parted some more vegetation and walked into a clearing with the other two just behind him. In the middle of the clearing was a tree that was situated over a huge pit. The roots were visible and pit was filled with the light green water Ranma had seen the day before.

“I still don't know what this is,” Nabiki said as she crossed her arms, unimpressed.

“That water is breathable,” Ranma said simply. “I seem to remember it having something to do with Mana, but that's it.”

“Breathable?” Nabiki asked, raising an eyebrow in slight interest. Ryoga walked over to it slowly, knelt down and ran his finger through it. When he brought it up, his finger was completely dry. He stared at it in silence as he tried to figure out what it could be.

“Yeah,” Ranma said as he took a few more steps towards the tree. He walked into the water and started wading through it. “Also, I feel some strange kind of pull from down here,” He said.

“Some strange kind of pull?” Ryoga asked.

“It's something that I know, but don't,” Ranma said, in a strained voice.

“That's all I seem to hear these days,” Nabiki grumbled. “Okay, so how does this help us?”

“What?”

“Just how does this get us any closer to finding Kuno and sis, getting that sword, and getting home?”

“I don't know…”

“She's right, Ranma,” Ryoga said as he stood up. “This might be interesting, but we're on an alien pl…well, we're not on Earth. Things like this that we've never seen before are bound to show up.”

“Well… yeah, but…”

“But nothing,” Nabiki said. “We need to get back to those things. I'm sure that those… escape pods have some form of computer. They might be able to tell us where-“

“Now wait a minute here,” Ranma interrupted rather loudly. “I said I had a feeling that there was something down here that might be able to help us. I'm not leaving until I investigate it, and that's that.” Nabiki sighed as the pig-tailed boy crossed his arms in defiance.

“Fine. We'll go back without you, and make progress on our own,” She said. She turned to look at Ryoga. “You know the way back, right?”

“Err,” Ryoga said, suddenly nervous and rubbing his head. “I…well I guess I could find where we were, but…it'd be hard…”

“I know where it is,” Ranma said. “But I'm not leaving until I know for sure what I feel down here isn't gonna help us.” He turned and went deeper into the water, up to his waist. Nabiki's eye twitched at his response.

“Listen, you idiot,” she started. “It's your fault we're lost in this stupid jungle on the moon in the first place, I really don't think you should do anything but try your hardest to get us home right now.”

“My fault?” Ranma asked angrily. `Wait. Did she say moon-'

“Whenever some wacko comes looking for revenge against you, everyone else gets caught up in it. I don't know your history with that weird copy of you, but it's your careless actions that brought me and my little sister here!”

“I seem to remember there being a reason we had to fly to Fukuoka. If you had left me alone, then maybe the only person here right now would be me!”

“Hey, hey, that's enough already!” Ryoga yelled. “You're both to blame for my being here, but it only makes sense!” The other two stared at him in confusion at his last statement. “Look; that guy sent Ranma, me, and Kuno to the past. Not just last century and not to the beginning of time, but to a specific time period, and gave us a specific goal. The more I think about it, the more I think he made sure the five of us were together on purpose.” `Kuno probably figured out some measure of his plan as well…' He took a few tentative steps into the water. “Now let's just get this over with so we can get the hell out of here!” The other two were silent for a while as he continued to make his way to the tree. Ranma finally glanced at Nabiki then shrugged and dived down into the water, with Ryoga in tow.

Nabiki stood there, with her arms crossed, waiting to see if they would come up. When neither did, she sighed and walked into the water. It was much warmer than she thought it would be, but cooler than the morning heat at the same time. She looked at it for a few moments before she slowly and completely submerged herself. When she looked down, she could see both Ranma and Ryoga smirking at her from under the water. There was a tunnel of sorts that went below the tree. It was littered with roots, but that was it. The two boys swam down the shaft and she followed them, looking around as she took in the roots. She blew some bubbles and watched for a little bit as they slowly floated up.

When they reached the bottom of the shaft, there was another corridor. This one had a visibly slanted floor. Ranma looked around and nodded before he started swimming the length of the corridor. Nabiki blew some more bubbles as the air in her lungs started to become stale.

`If I drown down here, then there will be a special place in hell for you, Ranma,' She thought as she followed the two. She closed her eyes, blew the last of the air out of her lungs and deeply inhaled the liquid. There was an odd feeling in her chest as the heavy material filled her lungs, but aside from that, she didn't feel any different. She opened her eyes and blinked a few times, then shook her head. `Well, breathing underwater was bound to happen sometime,' she sighed and followed the other two. Within minutes, the greenish haze of the water vanished and she could see clearly. `Huh, what is this stuff, anyway?' she thought as she did a little rotation in the water.

After what seemed to be around ten minutes, they reached the end of the corridor and the three looked around. Ranma was looking up for some reason, but she couldn't see anything in particular that would interest him. The ground, however… Nabiki slowly knelt down and noticed a hole barely wide enough to fit one person. She waved her hands and both Ryoga and Ranma came over to join her. They looked down at the hole, then at each other. The three nodded and Ranma descended into the hole, followed by Ryoga. Nabiki followed the two and found that it didn't go nearly as far as the last one had, but it led to a corridor identical to the one they had been in initially.

`What the hell?' Nabiki wondered as she suddenly felt the gravity shift. She had come out of the hole head first, but was now… descending back towards the hole.

`This is definitely not natural…' Ranma's voice echoed in her head.

`As if that long hallway wasn't clue enough?' Ryoga's voice accompanied it seconds later, with an incredulous look on his face.

`Err, well…' Ranma rubbed his head. `What I meant was that this is more artificial than I'd thought.' Nabiki looked back and forth between the two as she realized that neither was moving their mouths.

`Why the hell am I hearing their thoughts?' She felt her own voice echo then, and her eyes widended. `Wait, what?'

`It's probably the water,' Ryoga `said'. `I do seem to remember something about mana having strange effects on humans.'

`How wonderful of you to remember something so potentially useful when we are already SUBMERGED in the stuff!'

`Hey, hey! It's not like I can control it!' He defended.

`Whatever. What do you guys think this is? Something like this has to stick out in your memory,' she thought.

`You'd think so, but…I'm not sure.' Ranma responded.

`Really.' Nabiki shook her head. `You're useless,'

`Whatever,' Ranma turned away, annoyed.

---

At the end of that corridor, there was another hole. It was above them this time, though. Ranma swam up through the passage, and was met by air this time. He exhaled the liquid and inhaled air as his two companions followed him out.

“Oh great, another hallway,” Nabiki growled. The room was pitch black aside from where they were, as it lacked the glow from the water they where in before. There was enough light from the water that was in the tunnel. Ranma ignored her and looked around in annoyance; by this time he was starting to wonder if they had really gone down there for nothing.

“But it feels really strong now,” He muttered.

“Ranma!” Ryoga's voice called out. He was standing behind them, looking at a strange device. Ranma smirked at Nabiki and then quickly ran over to join him. “Hey… wait a minute…” Ryoga said as he looked at it.

“What is it?” Ranma asked as he stopped and looked down at the device.

“The instructions…they're in Japanese!”

“Oh wow,” Nabiki said as she walked up behind them. “Maybe we're in a studio.”

“It says to push the button and take the ring of the pact, then run…And it's written to Ranma. Apparently, from Ranma,” Ryoga said aloud.

“Well then, I suppose this means we're on the right track after all, aren't we?” Ranma asked.

“You should be careful. If that bastard set this here…” Ryoga started in warning.

“But wait. It looks too old to have been set here by that guy…” Nabiki spoke up.

“He probably went back further on accident or something. Who knows?” Ranma tried to take the ring but jerked his hand back after a visible electric shock. “Gahh, he wants to make sure we don't take it without pushing the button.”

“Why wouldn't he just put a trigger on the ring, then?” Nabiki asked. “It's written in Japanese. We're the only people who'd know how to take it.”

“But it would be fairly obvious, right? There's a button. You push it.” Ranma pushed it. “And you grab the ring. Simple.” He pocketed the ring in his uniform and turned around. “Now, it said to run, right?”

“It did. I wonder why…” Nabiki had a sudden feeling of foreboding.

“Let's just go,” Ranma said as he started jogging away. Nabiki and Ryoga followed after him. All seemed to be going well, for about three minutes, when their gravity shifted again and they comically fell onto their heads and landed in heaps on what had been the ceiling before. There was suddenly a deep rumbling noise and the air pressure changed.

“What's going on?” Ryoga asked as he rubbed his head.

“Did the air pressure just change?” Nabiki asked.

“Yeah…”

“That's not supposed to happen underground, is it?” She asked.

“Well no, not really. Not unless…” The deep rumbling noise got louder and closer. “Not unless…” The rumbling noise got louder and suddenly the sound of rushing water became audible, very quickly. The three turned in time to see a deluge of green water rushing towards them.

“This is all your fault, Ranm-”

---

Nabiki sputtered and coughed up a bit of water as she struggled to open her eyes. She groaned as she rubbed her head, but only managed to blink her eyes a few times. `It hurts all over…' She thought. `What the hell happened?'

“That was a rush,” came a voice from nearby. “But don't ever ask me to do it again.”

“Yeah, right…” came another voice. Nabiki groaned again as she tried to open her eyes again.

“Ryouga… Ranma?” She called out. “Are we still alive?”

“She's awake,” Nabiki heard Ryouga's voice and swelled with relief. They hadn't somehow gotten separated by the rushing water, after all.

“Ugh,” She finally managed to open her eyes, and was rewarded with a bleary visage of the sky. Her eyes opened a little bit more as she realized that the sky was dark, alit with stars and the Earth, signaling the moon's artificial night time. “How long was I out?”

“Not much longer than us, actually,” Ranma's voice supplied. She knew even without seeing him that he was shrugging.

“Any idea how far we are from those escape pods?” She asked.

“Well, the funny thing is…” Ranma started, “We're not even in that jungle anymore.”

“What?” Nabiki blinked in confusion, sitting up. She shook her head to get the last vestiges of weakness out of it, and tried to take in their surroundings. The three were at the base of a raging waterfall that was responsible for the mist around them. Apparently, this was normal water that was responsible for the noise around them. The area around them lacked the numerous trees and other various vegetation that were common in forests. There was a trail that lead away from the base of the mountain, as well as a crude, wooden sign post. Ranma and Ryoga were both sitting next to her, crosslegged. “So there are native people down here, too?” She asked in an exasperated toned.

“Yes, but…” She turned to face Ranma and waited for his response. The teen fidgeted a bit and she looked at him expectantly. “I don't think we'll have to worry about that,” he said, as if resigned to some horrible fate.

“What?” She asked, confused. “Why not?”

“Well you see…” he started. Ryoga snorted and took over.

“You're an alien now,” The fanged boy supplied. Nabiki took a few seconds to process that information and after repeating his words in her head a few times, an eyebrow rose in confusion.

“Huh?”

“Look at your hair,” Ranma said. She did as he said, specifically by grabbing some of it and pulling it down for her own inspection.

It was pure white.

“What on Earth…” She started in a low voice.

“We're not on Earth,” Ryoga reminded her.

“Don't nit-pick.” Nabiki blinked as she moved her hand back to an ear. As she'd expected, it was more like that of the natives' ears - elongated and pointed, which she admitted reminded her of some kind of fantasy creature more than an alien. “So I'm an Elf now. Wonderful.” She sighed as she let her hand fall to her side. She glanced at both Ranma and Ryoga, but was disappointed with what she found. “So why am I the only one again?”

“Well…” Ranma started. “We're not sure. We had to double check to see if it was you in the first place…”

“Wait a minute,” Nabiki said. “That water.” She looked at Ryoga, “Didn't you say that the water affected humans in a strange way?”

“Well yeah but nothing on this scale,” the lost boy muttered.

“Well what were you expecting?”

“Well for one, the ability to breath under normal water was a common side effect for most of the humans we, er, used,” He said, frowning.

“So what, now I'm elf-fish?”

“Eh?”

“I mean…Fish-elf?”

“Well, we don't know if its something you can do, and it's not something you can test without putting yourself in a potentially lethal situation…”

“It might wear off, you never know,” Ranma suggested, hoping to lift her spirits.

“Yeah, and you've invented the cure to Jusenkyo curses.” Nabiki shook her head as she stood up. “Whatever. This isn't the weirdest thing that's happened to me.”

“It's not?” Ranma asked in confusion. He couldn't remember the last time something like this had happened to her; she was usually watching from the sidelines, so when?

“The weirdest thing that's ever happened to me is being thrown back in time with you idiots,” She reminded him. “Changing shape like this was normal in Nerima, remember? Actually, this is less weird than some of our… friends,” She continued, thinking of Taro. “I figured it was inevitable I would get caught up in this nonsense, but I thought Akane would first…” She muttered.

“Oh. Right, well…” Ranma stood up. “I guess we should get going…”

“Eh?” Nabiki looked up.

“Well, now that we have this ring…” Ranma patted his pocket, “We can start heading north.” Ranma gestured towards the sign. “According to that thing, North is in that exact direction, and is a village we can get rather quickly,” Ryoga stood up and walked over to join Ranma, and Nabiki stood up to follow him after a while.

“It wouldn't be a bad idea to stay somewhere with a roof over our heads, but… why the heck to the natives of this planet live in villages?” She asked as they all started walking down the trail. Ryoga furrowed his brow in concentration, apparently trying to come up with an answer.

“Well from what I can remember of Lunarian history, These people came from a very, very distant planet that had apparently been destroyed, in search of a new one. They used a magic comet or something to get here from there and landed on Earth. Eventually, Humans scared them away and they used their comet's magic to terraform Luna, and the rest of the planets. The natives of Luna with the exception of those that live in the capital are unique because they retain the ways of those who originally came to this system. The others have all become more like humans in that they all live to further themselves, rather than to live in harmony with nature…the one trait they share, however, is their aversion to humans.”

“Huh… how did humans scare people away? Do we even have the power to do that at this point?”

“Well…” Ryoga started, “I'm not sure…”

“It wasn't so much being scare of them than it was growing tired of them. The humans were responsible for the destruction of The great Kharlan Tree. Their wars used up an abhorrent amount of mana, killing off the original tree, and it wasn't until millennia later that a small group of humans and half humans, working together, fixed the problem. The Lunarians themselves weren't responsible, but they didn't try to fix the situation either when they could have, so they weren't exactly the saints they claimed to be. It could have turned out much worse, ending with the destruction of Earth and the end of both races.”

The three walked in silence after Ranma's explanation. Nabiki was looking at the ground in wonder as she followed the two, trying to digest the tale. Ryoga was cocking his head to the side, apparently trying to match Ranma's explanation with his own memory. After a few minutes of this, he visibly gave up and continued walking in silence.

“Wait a minute…” Nabiki started. “You said half humans. What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“They were…” the strain could be heard in Ranma's voice as he tried to remember what it was. “I can't remember…”

“Oh.”

After that exchange, the group walked in silence.

---

Hours later, Nabiki sighed as she followed her companions along the path.

`If I live to be thirty, I'll be satisfied,' She thought grumpily as she was distracted by the horizon. The sky was brightening as the last of the stars were blotted out by the light of dawn; the morning sun would soon be rising.

“How much longer?” She asked, exasperatedly.

“Not much, I figure,” Ranma said, as he continued walking.

“Right. What are we going to do when we stop, again?”

“Well…” Ranma started. “We're heading to another village, see. If what we saw at that sign post is true, then we should be there just after the sun has risen. We need to get better traveling clothes for one; these uniforms have had their fair share of wear and tear in the last two days,”

“And once we have better suited clothes is when we'll begin with your crash course in martial arts,” Ryoga added.

“Oh…” Nabiki's face fell. “Wonderful.”

“Isn't it?” Ranma asked, sounding a bit too happy for his own good.

“Shut up and keep walking,” Nabiki snapped out. Ranma chuckled in response, but acquiesced to her request.

---

Ranma walked into the hamlet, with Nabiki lagging a bit behind.

“Nothing like a morning walk to clear your mind,” Ranma started conversationally.

“Hey,” Nabiki groaned as she finally caught up. “Can we sit down for a while? I'm kind of tired from that walk,” She groaned.

“Hmm, maybe you should have waited with Ryouga outside the village,” Ranma-chan said as she started surveying the community.

“There was no way I was letting you pick out everything we got,” Nabiki said.

“Well yeah, but it's not like you can speak Lunarian,” Ranma shrugged. “You'll have to rely on what I tell you anyway, right?”

“Well…Dammit…”

“Why don't you just wait here,” Ranma insisted. “I'll go get what we need.” She turned towards one of the wooden buildings that had a particularly large sign out front, but Nabiki grabbed her arm.

“No.” Ranma raised and eyebrow and shifted a little, to see her better. “I mean… I'll come with you. Just… just let me catch my breath, okay?” Ranma pulled away.

“I'll only be in here,” She said, pointing to the building.