Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Wanderings ❯ Chapter One ( Chapter 1 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

---Disclaimer---

Ranma 1/2 and all its associated characters and locations are used without permission and belong to their respective copyright holders. Anything else (Teh Sthlhu, The Four Empires, Typhon Sidhe, Leannan Sidhe, Ceoeff, Merac, Hiwt, etc.) is owned by me. So there! ^_^

---Title---

Wanderings: Chapter One
(Rewrite of The Wandering Saotome)
A Ranma 1/2 Altaverse
By Dr. Suekeiichi Kaiton
(Skaiton@netscape.net)

---

"...And out of Darkness came Light;
A warrior of might midst the plight;
'Round his head was a crown
Made of purest gold,
And polished like mirror-glass.
(Or so I've been told)
He rode on a ship high in the sky,
And there was no wave he could not ply,
Onward he rushed to his Doom.

The Enemy did turn
And cowered like a worm
As the King returned to the place of his birth.
For through Death and hardship he'd proved
His honor,
And courage,
And worth.

High in the hills,
And low in the seas
Did their battle rage on
'Till all their strength had been gutted and gone.
Out of the sea he did rise,
Sun on his shoulders,
And Stars in his eyes.
He had dispelled the gloom."
- From the 'Warrior' manuscript

---Sidhe Kingdom, Western Lands---

It was past noon before anyone in the palace thought something may be wrong with the lord. Maids had set out a glorious spread of food for his morning repast, as he typically was quite hungry after a night of orgiastic dalliance, and specifically remembered not to wear any undergarments. This was in the event that Lord Typhon's lust had not been adequately slaked by his conjuration the previous night. The assortment of servants and concubines stayed by the table for three hours past the morning, periodically cycling the food as it grew cold, but no sign of the tall warlord could be found. By the eleventh bell, the maids had cleared away the food and rumors began to circulate on the mystery of the Lord's behavior. It was when a servant came to the Mistress's suites to see if he was there, that the Lady Leannan took notice of her husband's disappearance.

With no other leads to his whereabouts, the Lady Sidhe found herself walking down the winding staircase to his conjuring room and inner sanctum deep below the palace. It was the last place she'd have willingly gone in search for her 'darling' husband but she knew, just as did virtually everyone else in the palace, that without his merciless tactics and iron will the lands under his control would rebel within hours. Unfortunately, his ruthlessness was a necessary evil in the workings of state. Thus, swallowing her pride, Leannan opened the meters-thick stone door to the sanctum.

The scene that met her eyes was one of startling normalcy. The sanctum was intact save for a few scratches on the floor and a few remnants of blood from his no-doubt violent coupling the previous night. As for her husband, his naked body was rolled on its side by the conjuration circle, the red eye facing her from between his shoulder-blades. The racks of chemicals and mystical items were undisturbed, as were his bookshelves and desk. Nothing was wrong physically with the room.

Crossing to Typhon's body, she found it looked slightly different, as if it had regained the past few decades worth of age. His hair was of a substantially darker hue and his skin appeared less sallow and thin but other than those superficial changes he looked the same. Rolling him onto his back she noticed numerous shards of bone littering the area around him, none bigger than perhaps three centimeters. Concluding that he had taken a midnight repast, she swept the fragments into the glowing indentations in the floor and inspected his form.

Something was definitely wrong with Typhon Sidhe she concluded after a careful examination of the man's sleeping form. The body was exactly the same, right down to the earring, bracer and necklace. The scars were in the same places she remembered, even the thin line of white tissue on the underside of his penis she'd made the first time he'd asked her to perform fellatio. Even though all the evidence confirmed that this was indeed her lord, something was off with his aura and power levels; they kept shifting from one extreme to the next. However, other than his younger appearance, Leannan could find no outside reason for her intuition.

There was one way to find out for sure, but she did not welcome it because it would require her to come into direct mental contact with the slimy essence of her husband. Still, it would solve one or two of the mysteries surrounding his behavior and aural patterns. Still, with his mind numb to the outside world, it left her free to take her pleasure from his insensate but fully functional body. Licking her lips in anticipation of the reward she had so justly deserved the past few months, she too disrobed and mounted her tyrant of a husband.

Several moments and several climaxes later, Leannan Sidhe was prepared to join minds with Typhon by way of her fey bondage. Lying naked atop her husband, she clutched his head in her hands and, with equal amounts of trepidation and distaste, brought their foreheads together. By his forced bond their minds became one in that brief flash of memory and emotion and Lady Sidhe was cast adrift in Typhon's mind until grabbing hold of an anchor in the form of her own memories. By grasping hold of that which indiscriminately identifies herself as a distinct being from the mindscape swirling around her, she effectively by-passed all of his mental barriers and entered his psyche. Due to the closeness of the contact and the ability to know many things about one another that they would rather keep private, neither had instigated such a connection for the past hundred years.

Then, as her self solidified in his mind, her feet met glowing marble and she touched down in what could only be described as a Palace of Mind. The place, wherever it existed, was bright with the sunlight streaming through a packet of dense clouds and there was the pleasant babble of running water off in the distance. Leannan appreciated the landscape and the chamber or temple since the structure was open to the wind if such things as environment could be said to exist within the mind, yet was distrustful because she would meet her betrothed. The loathing in her soul for the creature that took shape as her husband was limitless but superficially her mind must love the degenerate that killed and raped under the guise of Lordship.

She turned to the doorway where he always seemed to appear, the doorway into his mind, but nothing entered save the echoes of a great battle waged. Running to the space as a shimmering sundress appeared around her nudity, she ran through the wavering mirror of obsidian and into Typhon's mind where the darkest creatures dwelt. Instead of the dangerous and deadly swampland and desert of his consciousness what she found gave her pause. Pause and hope deep within her breast.

The room appeared to be round in shape with a ceiling open to the night sky as stars reflected their pale light upon the glass floor of the dais. Underneath the glass, blackness wavered and slathered for meat as a duel took place atop the highest steps. Within the sparkling impossibility of the chamber, the Lady Sidhe walked crisply up the flowing glass of the steps and was able at last to confirm the distant hope that had kindled fire in her heart. In the centre was a naked body, the body of Typhon Sidhe, The Crimson Warlord, The Fey Warlord, also known as The Crimson Eye. The body was shifting in appearance from the old and repulsive Typhon to the younger variant she had witnessed in the sanctum, the change in cheek-bones and hair color enough to accurately mirror the terrific battle taking place before the blank, open eyes of the corpse.

As she observed it, there were two human shaped clouds of light battling for supremacy and, as each gained the upper hand, the appearance of the body would shift. As near as she could tell on the left was Typhon Sidhe, tall and proud even if only a jumble of light and smoke, and on the right fought a figure too small to be adult yet too powerful to be child. As she watched Typhon manifested his Sword of Souls, a relic of the Warlord Age, and ran at his diminutive opponent with the weapon jutting from his hip in proper form. However, the shorter 'soul' was too spry and leapt over his attack, executing a powerful kick to the back of the neck which would have killed the fey if he were still alive and of physical form. Typhon slashed randomly at the darting figure but his opponent was wise to the way of swords and stopped an over-head slice with a barehanded block, clapping his hands over the middle of the blade and snapping it in two. The taller spirit tossed the weapon aside and they resumed their starting positions.

It was then that she approached the battlefield. Walking over the moving sky as it was reflected off the rushing waters, she stood between the two and put her arms out to ward them off one another. Both figures stopped as she came into view and hesitantly strolled to her so that they were all gathered around the deathly pale body that they strove for, yet could not attain.

"Ah, Leannan! Excellent work, love, once we dispose of this usurper I can return to my body proper." Typhon's voice was radiating from the churning, rolling cloud form at the centre of his ghostly outline. There were no features on his 'body', it remained a faceless and neutral representation of a soul with enough substance to battle with the other. "Let us make all haste! I have eaten not a bite since last yesterday afternoon...at least I believe it was yesterday. No matter, once I regain control we can return to reality."

The Lady broke her glance from his soul and turned to the other. "This I would gladly do, my Lord Typhon yet I wish to know what manner of opponent can so perplex my master." She knelt by the short figure and placed her 'hands' on his shoulders. "Who may you be, wanderer?"

"I'm Ranma Saotome of the Saotome School of Anything-Goes Martial Arts!"

"That is a name unfamiliar to me, wanderer, and a title I have heard not. What is your age?" The figure's silhouette looked down at the rolling starscape.

"I'm twelve years old."

"Only twelve? How did you defeat that man over there last night?"

"Last night? All I remember 'bout last night was seein' a big c-c-c-c-c-cat...whew...and goin' into the Neko-Ken." Ranma's soul grew green and despondent as he spoke the last.

"What is the Neko-Ken, Ranma? I have never heard of such an attack." Leannan stood patiently as the boy detailed what the technique was capable of and how it was triggered, her eyes growing bigger at each new piece of information. "I see..."

"Nice Lady?" He pointed at Typhon. "Can ya tell the jackass over there ta stop tryin' ta kill me? I don't know what his problem is!" Leannan stood again and crossed to her husband.

"What happened? The boy is only twelve, my Lord, how could he have slipped through your mental barriers?"

"Last night I accidentally conjured him from the Lapis Woods of Teh Sthlhu, crazy he was I tell you, he cut my body to ribbons and _ate_ me. He ate my body whole! There must be a spell placed on him for I could erect no defense against his assault." The shards of bone lying around his body in the sanctum must have been from Typhon's old body, the body the 'Ranma' must have ingested.

The situation was all starting to come together in Leannan's mind as Typhon and Ranma's accounts filled in many gaps. From how she understood it, Ranma was under an enchantment called the 'Neko-Ken' that turned him into a sparda and as he was chasing after a female sparda was transported to Typhon's sanctum. Taking the conjuration as a form of encroachment on his control of the female, he attacked the 'Alpha' male that Typhon represented in power levels. Once he had emasculated and consumed his fallen opponent he ate the rest of him, incidentally swallowing and digesting Typhon's fey focus, necklace, and bracer. Once the digestion process was complete Ranma's body became Lord Sidhe under the power of the focus and jeweled bracer. As it stood then, Typhon's spirit was trapped inside Ranma's transformed body and was fighting for control.

That proved to be the most interesting point for Leannan as it explained exactly why she was feeling such hatred and revulsion for Typhon's very existence, neither spirit was in control yet so the compulsion to love her Lord had not yet settled upon either. After that revelation her path was clear.

"My Lord Typhon, perhaps I can yet persuade the youth to depart. Allow me the chance?" She watched as his soul's color turned from its usual red to an oily green as her opinion of him decreased. At least her plan was working. Turned back to Ranma as he lay on the floor of the metaphysical battlefield, limbs akimbo, she pulled him in close to her breast and held him fast, whispering her plans in his ear under the guise of comforting nothings.

"Enough coddling, woman! He must face his erasure like a man!" Typhon barely waited until she was out of the way before he rushed in with another sword, preparing to strike down the youth before he could react.

Ranma, however, was in no mood for game any longer, not after what Leannan had told him of Typhon's unsavory habits and cruelty. He waited until Typhon was fully devoted to his attack and unable to block or avoid before he brought his hands up. Typhon, interpreting the gesture as a plea for peace and mercy, howled as he raised the blade for the deathblow...

Time stopped.

The sword clattered to the glass floor of the 'room' from numb fingers. He looked down at the jagged piece of steel jutting grotesquely from his chest and could feel the burning metal inching upwards against the thin membranes holding his lungs together with each breath. The strike itself had shattered his sternum from which the blade projected and buried itself as far as his spine. No sooner had the blow been dealt then his body came into being, looking every bit as depraved in death as he had been in life. Blood was beginning to bubble up his throat.

"How...?" He fell to his knees. "How did this...child...get the better of me? Me!"

"You have grown too fat and confidant, 'Lord' Typhon. You failed to realize that because of this split in your mind, your spells of compulsion have been neutralized." The Lady strolled up to his side and stabbed him between the ribs, a hateful rictus twisting the beautiful features of her face. "You will pay for what you have done to me, Typhon, in death you shall suffer."

"That's for all the kids ya killed!" Ranma spat in Typhon's face as he fell flat on his stomach and thrust the mortal blade right through him, shearing his spinal cord in half.

"I see, Leannan, you have allied yourself with this brat in order to overthrown my kingdom yet you will fail."

"Do not flatter yourself, Typhon, I did this because you are no longer the man I agreed to marry so many ages ago. Fair thee well in the depths of perdition." She kissed him one final time on the lips and he died. An anti-climactic and pathetic death for a man who deserved no better, she thought as she wrapped an arm around Ranma's shoulder and lead him to the corpse whose features showed youth and vigor, kindness and wisdom.

"What happens now, Nice Lady?" Ranma felt comforted when she held him, she was warm and caring like Mother. "Do I get to go home yet?"

"Not yet, young Ranma, for there are still many things you have to do in this world." She knelt before him again and felt the compulsion begin to take effect. "When you wake up in reality, you will not be a little boy. When you wake up you will be all grown up."

"Yeah! I wanna grow up so I can be strong and protect the weak! Pops always told me it was a martial artist's duty to protect those weaker." There was a sparkling innocence in his eyes as he spoke, the charm of childhood that Leannan feared would all but disappear when he awoke. When they returned he would be in the grown body of Typhon and have the knowledge and powers of the fey by virtue of the earring; in fact, Ranma would be a more powerful fey than Typhon ever was due to the mingling of his power with Leannan's. He would be, for all intents and purposes, Typhon free of the detritus of his mind.

"Your father was right, Ranma, it is important to fight for those who cannot defend themselves! It is important to preserve righteousness wherever one finds it! Remember these things when you awake, Ranma, and the world will become a better place with you in it...trust me."

"Okay, Nice Lady!" Ranma smiled at her then, a genuine smile, and hugged her as hard as he could. "I love you, Nice Lady, you're just like Mom." She kissed him on the forehead and smiled when he giggled and tried to wipe it off, saddened by the loss of his childhood she began to cry. Ranma, noticing that his comforter was crying, caught three tears in his hand and unconsciously froze them to glass with his powers. "Don't cry...here." He held out the gift on a silver chain.

"Thank you, Ranma, but it is almost time for you to go." She took the pendant of tears and held his tiny hand in hers before they parted. "Go now." She stood and began to walk back to the doorway back to the Palace of Memory, purposefully not looking back as the child Ranma was destroyed forever, the last death caused by Lord Typhon Sidhe.

No sooner had she left the mind of her lover then she fell to the polished floor of the sparkling realm and began to weep. Her arms fell to the marble and they made streaking noises as she pulled them back as she curled into a ball and wept for the murder she had just committed. It had been a murder of love, a killing premeditated three hundred years in the past as the last vestiges of the man she loved evaporated into the cloud of evil that consumed them both.

---To be continued---

I thought I'd make this chapter a bit shorter because I don't want to write a scene break and only have a few pages to do what I want. I'll keep these chapters rather short until we come to the real body of the story, the Phoenix, Amazon, return to Earth, etc. I hope that this chapter diverged enough from Grum's 'Chains' for everyone, I bet none of you saw the appearance of an adult Ranma in the future. Yes, Ranma will be thrust into a series of events he has no understanding of as Leannan leads him through the proper etiquette and procedure for ruling his kingdom. Due to the synergy of Typhon and Ranma in the same body mixed liberally with fey magic, Ranma will have more mastery over the fey abilities than Typhon ever had and put them to good use. I decent length of time will pass between the events of this chapter and the next as we pick up with Ranma as he tries to negotiate a lasting peace with his neighbors. Long live the King! The Crimson Warlord! Ranma Typhon Sidhe!