Crossover Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Path of Chaos: Ascension of Supremacy ❯ Chapter 07a ( Chapter 10 )

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

PATH OF CHAOS

- Lord Rance

Disclaimer: Seriously, I don't own any of the anime characters that
appear in this entire fanfic, otherwise I'll just make sure you'll know
if I do make new characters.

Author Notes: The path of Chaos is filled with multiverses! The Vandread
Universe is set at the Vandread: Second Stage, and made into an
alternate universe somewhere in its first episode. ^_^

I would like to thank Cory D. Rose (http://shi_hanna.tripod.com) and St
Longinus (StLonginus@aol.com) for pre-reading this stuff.

Ancient Language (used by gods and goddesses, Ancient Gods): ++

Phone Receiver: ##

Telepathy: {}

Thoughts: <>

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CHAPTER 7A - THE NEXT FRONTIER: RANMA IN SPACE!!!
======================================================================== =====

All Ranma saw was a blue swirling... thingie, as he called it. On his
shoulder, Rin-Ohki clutched on like her life depended on it. Ranma
sighed as he let himself get sucked into the whirlwind of energy vortex.

One thing he learned in all of these was never to play tag with Ryoko in
Washuu's laboratory. The red-haired scientist was tinkering with her own
devices called a Wave Balance Maintainer or something. Ranma was never
in sync with scientific terminology anyway. He knew enough to get by.
Washuu was trying to build a transponder that will slowly fix the tear
between two parallel worlds. Mainly the one he's from, or what's called
the Main World, and the world he is in, or rather 'was in', at least to
stabilize it enough to give him time to fix both of the worlds he
learned to love.

Washuu reminded him that in order to stabilize both worlds, he must find
the dividing point. There were two types of world divisions, alternate
universes and parallel universes. The alternate universes divide itself
from the original timeline and become independent from it. Certain
decisions and key points of history determine the differences. These
have no problems within it, and are capable of surviving without any
accidents. The parallel universes were almost the same with the
alternate universes, only they remain linked to their original timeline
and failed to disconnect it. As time passes, the synchronization between
the parallel and original universe will overlap each other, creating a
chain reaction similar to a spatial disintegration. The links that
maintain these parallel universes are usually a mystery. They are
somewhat 'man-made' and not natural. That was why parallel worlds were
supposed to be unstable to begin with.

There was a problem though, when Washuu told him about fixing the split
worlds, it would mean that the parallel world will cease to exist as it
joins back to the original one... back to the same old world Ranma came
from.

It is going to be hard for him. Anyway, back to the problem at hand.

After more than twenty years of stay in China, Ranma, Rin-Ohki, Ryoko,
Ryo-Ohki and Inuyasha decided to return to Japan. They arrived just as
Spring was spread all over the island, with the cherry blossoms in full
bloom. A big welcoming party awaited them in the Shrine, which by now
was called the Masaki Shrine after the original owners donated the land
to the priests. Yosho sported a black mustache, accenting his age (as
if). Koneko was already fully-grown, actually in her thirties already,
her childhood innocence was lost. The girl Ranma and Yosho saved from
those monsters all those years ago decided to live her life helping to
take care of the shrine with the priests. The old miko Kaede passed away
six years past, her ashes were preserved among the graves on the
clearing down the steps to the Shrine. The Shikon no Tama was left in
the care of Yosho, who hid the gem together with the Tenchi-ken. Sango
and Miroku already opted to leave after Kaede's peaceful passing to the
other world, but not before getting married and having two children of
their own. They both aged rather well according to Yosho, but already
sported some graying in their hair. A letter from the couple said that
they were doing well in Kyoto, with their own shrine and all. Washuu was
still there, annoying as hell as always.

There was a new addition to the group, a certain woman named Kagero.
From what Yosho has been able to pry from her, she was from a powerful
clan of ninjas called the Hokage, which were decimated by the Imperial
Force of Japan prior years back. Kagero refused to speak more than that,
but she was welcomed wholeheartedly by Yosho.

As to how Ranma ended up in here...

Ryoko tackled Ranma into the device Washuu toiled hard for a few months
after her release from that space pod. The redhead was actually doing a
test-run on the contraption, and was too late when she noticed Ranma
flying uncontrollably into the core of her project. Ranma and machine
got into contact and presto, a weird blue portal sucked Ranma in.
Rin-Ohki quickly followed her partner into the outer edge of the rift,
but was sucked in as well. Ryoko was too shocked to make a move.

Now, here they were. Lost in the middle of a dimensional rift of some
sort, waiting for the end of the tunnel to appear. Lo and behold, a
breach opened up and spit them out in a dark place... for some reason
the stars were brighter here... wait. SPACE?!

Ranma whirled himself around, dislodging Rin-Ohki who was protesting in
their mind link. Both the master and the cabbit floated jerkily in the
darkness of space while they struggled. After a short moment, Rin-Ohki
was the first to calm down, having some information regarding how to
navigate her own mass against the weightlessness in space. She looked
over her still struggling male master and snorted mentally. With a
mental image if how stupid Ranma looked while he contorted in the middle
of space, Rin-Ohki instructed the pigtailed young man into manipulating
his own body in space. She also informed him that stopping his breath
won't matter at all, since his body has no actual need of air at all.
Ranma slowly stopped flailing and concentrated on the information being
laid out to him by his partner. He eased his whole weight and willed it
to move to one direction. He smiled as he watched the stars move, which
meant that he was moving as well. Rin-Ohki clutched unto Ranma's
shoulder again, as he practiced his movements in space. After a few
moments, Ranma was able to achieve a good enough speed to rival space
ships from Earth.

<Speaking of Earth, where am I anyway?> Ranma thought to himself. On his
shoulder, Rin-Ohki shrugged.

Ranma stopped his movement and took a good look around him. The stars
were more abundant and brighter out here. He didn't recognize any of the
planets near him, at least not from the pictures he saw during Science
Class back in Furinkan. Rin-Ohki automatically catalogued and compared
the star systems visible around them to her own universal map, courtesy
of Washuu. She informed her master that they were at least in the
outermost side of the Milky Way, on the opposite outer arm of the galaxy
from the Solar System. When Ranma asked her how far that was, she just
answered, 'a really really long way'.

The red-tailed neo-alien asked the cabbit why the heck she hasn't
transformed into a gigantic space ship like her cousin Ryo-Ohki does,
but she just answered that she lost a lot of energy with her energy
shield that she brought up when she got sucked forcefully into the
wormhole. While Ranma was sucked initially without any trouble, Rin-Ohki
was sucked in a later time where the hole was rapidly closing. The flow
of energy was too strong, and if the cabbit wasn't able to erect her
shield she might've been torn apart by strong currents of spatial
distortions caused by the closing rift.

Ranma sighed as he mentally accepted Rin-Ohki's explanation. He also
felt relieved that she went through the trouble of going with him, even
without any knowledge of what they would find on the other side.
Loneliness was one thing Ranma can live without. He sighed as he thought
of the different things that happened to him these past few years. For a
while, Ryoko had become too passionate for him to stop her advances. He
even got to the point of using Akane's existence to momentarily stop
Ryoko from taking his heart. He just can't live if he knew that there
was no chance of him taking the cyan-haired woman with him back to his
world, once it becomes one with the parallel world he was in. He can't
build up Ryoko's hopes up too high as of yet, not until he's sure he can
have a relationship with her.

Oh, and the wings... man everything was screwed up.

An accident in China, where he accidentally unleashed a bit of the Wings
of the Light Hawk that Tenchi had mentioned once to him before. At first
it was a rush of power, then afterwards for some reason, his body
started to absorb the Wings a bit differently. Even Ranma felt the flow
of energy altered as he tried to stop the flow of the Wings into his
body. When it was all over, everyone was shocked, while Ryoko was
snickering like hell, when his back sprouted two enormous wings of pure
energy, which glowed and cackled once in a while as he flapped it gently
against the wind. Not that he really needed it or anything, he could fly
well without them, but it's there now, and there's nothing he can do
about it, even if it was for show. Washuu judged it as one of the quirks
of his Masu heritage, which assimilated the Wings accidentally because
of the whirling aura of Chaos that seemed to revolve around Ranma's
existence. He could reabsorb them into his back if he wished, but he
learned to let them out once in a while, since it hurt his back if he
didn't.

As they both floated along, contemplating on what they should do, a
bright flash of light disturbed their train of thought. Ranma turned his
head towards his left and saw other small flashes of light, which
Rin-Ohki communicated to him as small implosions, grazed his point of
view. With a mental agreement with Rin-Ohki, Ranma flew towards the
disturbance, intent on finding out what it was and also if there was
someone out there who could help him go home anyway. Turning to the
cabbit, he mentally told her to prepare for an energy transfer directly
from him. Ranma needed her to transform now.

A white space vessel was defending itself with desperation as multitudes
of attacking red-tinted drones were systematically attacking its outer
hull. Around it, its smaller space crafts in different colors called
Dreads were frantically hunting down each and everyone of the drones
that seemed to gather around their own white base. A lone humanoid
shaped robot called Vanguard was hacking away at its enemies ahead of
the white space vessel.

In the cockpit of the Vanguard, a small-bodied young boy sweated as he
quickly eased his robot over the area where they last detected the
distress beacon they detected in space. The enemy ships seemed to have
converged themselves to that direction, with the intent of taking the
beacon for their own. He finally spotted a small capsule, roughly the
size of the total height of his Vanguard in size being carried by four
of the red-type enemies. Several others circled around the group
protectively.

"Hey! You're not gonna get away with that! It's ours!" The boy shouted
over the com as he sped towards the beacon. The enemies seemed to have
heard his declaration as six broke out of the formation and turned to
engage the lone Vanguard. The enemies fired volley upon volley of shots
on the helpless robot. Suddenly, a bright light covered the area and the
robot disappeared, turning into a gigantic mechanical crab. It activated
its green shield and its orbital lasers locked unto the multiple enemies
and fired. The red drones protecting the beacon were also destroyed,
leaving the cargo into the hands of the larger red mechanical
spacecraft. Inside the cockpit, the boy and a blonde-haired scantily
clad young woman clutched unto each other.

"Ne, Hibiki... you owe me one..." The voluptuous woman purred as she
slid her body on the boy's.

The boy named Hibiki pushed the woman away. "Feh, you're late."

"By the way, I was wondering if you would want to give me a baby..."

"WHAT?!" Hibiki screamed as he pushed himself further away from the
blonde. "Now is NOT the time to talk about this!"

Just as they were about to bicker, the screen in front of them flared to
life, exposing an image of a dark moss color haired girl who was glaring
at them. "Hibiki, Jura, you have to return to the Nirvana with the cargo
NOW! The enemy are setting themselves up for the strike!"

"Roger!" Hibiki and the woman beside him named Jura chorused.

Before they could set to work, a red beam struck them, immediately
separating their vehicles and sent them hurtling in space on opposite
directions.

"Jura? Jura! Are you okay?" The black-haired woman screamed in the
communications. A low moan answered her.

"Ouuuch... yeah, Barnette I'm okay. What happened?!" Jura screamed as
she shook the cobwebs in her head.

"Mr. Alien, are you okay?" A perky redhead with blue eyes glanced at her
console, desperately trying to rouse her favorite male.

"Damn it!" Hibiki groaned as he readjusted his Vanguard's balance. It
finally stopped spinning aimlessly. "Where's the pod?" he growled out as
he searched his surroundings. He spotted his target just in front of
him, but before he could do anything, several of the drones circled him
once again, firing mercilessly.

A dark blue Dread, carrying the same perky redhead that seemed to cling
unto the pilot of the Vanguard, quickly turned her ship and headed
straight for the defending robot.

"No! Mr. Alien!" The redhead screamed as she nose-dived towards Hibiki's
position.

Hibiki braced himself as he saw the dark blue Dread straight for him.
"Oh no... Dita..." he deadpanned silently.

As the two crafts made contact, an outer compartment of the Dread opened
up and allowed the Vanguard to board inside. It's wings spread out and
modified itself into the arms and the hands, followed by a full spin of
the two adjacent front panels of the area near the wings. They turned
into legs and the feet, completing the change. The result was a gigantic
blue mecha with two large laser cannons attached on its back.

Meanwhile, outside the reaches of sensor range from both sides of the
conflict, Ranma and Rin-Ohki watched the fireworks from their position.
Once or twice Ranma was tempted to step into the fight and was about to
help the ships from the huge white mothership. He watched in his cabbit
ship's viewscreen how the robot and some of the smaller colored
spacecrafts combined and transformed into bigger and more powerful
forms. But for some reason, they were dislodged when that red beam of
light hits them. The red droids, as Rin-Ohki classified them because
they were no life signs in them, and the ships were fighting for the
small capsule that was emitting a distress signal.

Rin-Ohki's ship form was a little similar to her cousin Ryo-Ohki's, with
big differences. For one, the Environmental Chamber Crystal of Rin-Ohki
was diamond in shape and black in color, instead of round and red
colored like Ryo-Ohki's. The four crystals that jutted out on the sides
were slanted backwards, while two on the upper part were slanted
backwards as well. One huge shard of silver crystal pointed itself
towards the front, completing the sleek aerodynamic design of the ship.

"Have I ever told you how wonderful you are, Rin-chan?" Ranma said in
awe as he examined the cabbit's ship form.

"MIYAH!" A happy sound indeed, coming from an extremely proud cabbit.

Ranma snickered as he patted a floating silver crystal with Rin-Ohki's
smiling face on it. "How's the situation outside?" he asked after a few
moments of rubbing the crystal.

"Miya, miya miya miyaaaah!!" The meows of the cabbit echoed all over the
place as she informed her master of the battle's condition.

Ranma requested a zoom in on the newly formed mecha, the giant blue one.
He watched as another red beam lanced into the mecha, grazing its right
arm (front view of mecha, Ranma's perspective). The giant robot froze
and floated unmoving as the main enemy, which Ranma deduced because it
was the largest and for some reason resembled a gigantic dark blue Manta
Ray, wrapped it with its tentacles and slowly dragged into its open
mouth, which was laden with sharp pointy teeth.

"Uhm, Rin-Ohki... I think we have to get into the fight, now." Ranma
informed his ship. The cabbit meowed loudly and sped towards the
conflict, all the while powering up its lasers.

In the blue Vandread mecha, Hibiki and Dita looked helplessly as they
approached the mouth of their enemy. Half of the controls were frozen,
and were glowing red... the same color as the beam that hit them.
Suddenly, blue streams of light flashed on their screens. The next thing
they knew, they were already free, while the giant Manta Ray ship jerked
its decapitated arms around. Their sensors bleeped as it detected
another presence in the battle area.

"What was that?" Hibiki asked to nobody in particular.

Dita looked into their radar, and pinpointed the source of the beams.
She summoned another vid-screen window and zoomed in on the
silver-colored crystalline ship that was firing randomly at their
enemies. It was moving quite fast, almost as fast as his Vandread's
other form, the Eagle-shaped one.

"Are you alright... Hibiki, Dita?" A cool and calculating voice cackled
from the communications. The image of a blue haired girl with some
device wrapped around its right eye (viewer's perspective) looked at
them impassively. But Hibiki and Dita knew better. The girl was nervous.

Hibiki nodded. "Yeah, we're okay Meia. Who's that?" He indicated to the
newcomer.

Before the girl called Meia could answer, a male voice sounded off from
the comms. "Hello, whoever you are in the white ship. I saw that you're
under attack, and I was wondering if you need some help." Another window
popped out of the screen and displayed an image of a young man with
dark-tinted glasses covering his eyes. He had black hair that was tied
in a pigtail.

"This is the Nirvana, BC responding, who am I speaking to?" The voice
that belonged to the sub-commander, BC as recognized by Hibiki, spoke.

The young man smiled softly. "Saotome Ranma, and my ship is called
Rin-Ohki... well we can talk later after we've beaten these... things.
Right?"

"Affirmative." BC replied.

"Cool! Another alien!" Dita squealed as she wiggled on her seat, much to
Hibiki's discomfort.

The Dreads and Hibiki himself watched in awe as the glittering crystal
ship fired multiple bursts of laser beams all over the place,
effectively blowing up the red drones that tried to flee from it in the
first place. The Vanguard pilot suddenly felt hope course through his
veins as he watched his enemies disappear one by one.

Hibiki glared at the giant Manta Ray ship in front of him. "A dream is
something you see when you're asleep... while I have my eyes open, I
will not let you guys do as you like!" He ground out as the whole
Vandread suddenly jerked and glowed in a bright light. The reddish
consoles suddenly turned blue, and they were able to move their limbs
once again.

"We did it!" Dita smiled as she felt the controls unfreeze once again.

"Alright..." Hibiki grinned as he prepped the giant laser that was
attached on the mecha's back. He willed it forward and stabbed it into
the gaping mouth of the ship in front of him. "I don't have the time to
deal with a dream!" He fired and watched as the whole ship contorted
weirdly and exploded.

Ranma whistled as he watched the mecha emerge from the explosion
unscathed. The rest of the enemy forces stopped moving as the main enemy
was eliminated. On his screen, a window opened and revealed an image of
a silver haired female with a green oval gem on her forehead. She had
dark tanned skin and was looking at him coolly.

"Now that is done with, tell us what you were doing in this space. We
did a preliminary scan before and only found the pod, which we recovered
I might add, as the only one present here. You came out of nowhere,
Saotome-san." BC said in a grave tone.

Ranma hid a grimace under his cheerful smile. He knew he would get into
trouble with this. "Rin-Ohki is really really fast. Also, I have some
stealth technology that she might've left on just in case situations
like these arise. She likes to stalk and do a surprise attack on her
enemies."

BC adopted a curious look. "Why are you referring to your ship as if it
was alive?"

The pigtailed alien sighed and scratched the back of his head nervously.
"You see, well... how do I explain this..." He was cut off when Rin-Ohki
miyah'd loudly. On the screen, BC's eyes widened slightly.

"What was that?!" The sub-commander of the Nirvana asked.

Ranma groaned. "I can explain it to you when we're face to face. Right
now, I have no choice but to seek shelter in your ship for the time
being. Rin-Ohki's power reserves are barely above the safe zone. She
needs to rest after this... and a lot of carrots." He mumbled the last
part.

"What makes you think---" BC began, but was interrupted when an old
wizened voice called out to her.

"Enough of that BC... just let him in already. He helped us, so the only
logical solution to this is to let him stay with us for the time being."
The screen changed its image to an old woman's face that was half-hidden
in a black hood. The old woman looked kindly at Ranma, saying, "Forgive
my sub-commander, young male, but she's a bit high strung lately. I am
Magno, captain of the Mejer Space Pirates, and also this ship Nirvana.
Come on and dock with us... it's the least we can do for saving us in
our predicament before."

Two hours later, Ranma found himself within the large mothership,
Nirvana. He looked around as he got out of the airlock Rin-Ohki created
that was connected to the outer hull of the ship. Although Ranma can
just phase through the wall without any preamble, he just felt that he
can still be as human as possible for these people. No need to freak
them out... he still hadn't thought of an explanation about Rin-Ohki
when the cabbit reverts to her small form. He also has a problem about
his curse. Ranma mentally slapped himself... he'll think of the answers
for those later.

He looked around and saw lots of girls, most of them have the same faces
for some reason, with different hair color and hairstyle, and were
pointing various weapons towards him. Ranma laughed internally at that.
He couldn’t really be hurt by normal weapons anymore, but no need to let
them know about that. Sighing dramatically, he raised his hands in the
air and smiled softly. His dark bracers were exposed in the air, and
reflected a faint image of every face the women in front of him have.

"Well, what a welcome." Ranma said sarcastically. He looked around
warily and concluded that... this was a piece of hell. Most of the crew
was female... rather... there was probably only one male that he has
spotted behind the mass of females in front of him. He wore a strange
orange tunic that covered a black overall, with a blue bandanna wrapped
around his arm. His hair was in wild disarray, and he was standing close
to a red-haired girl, who was a little taller than the boy. A blonde
long haired woman stood a little to the left of the two, wearing a tight
black dress that was parted on the front, exposing her assets
generously. A black haired girl stood close to the blond, pointing a
futuristic gun at him. They were watching the scene curiously. For some
reason, she looked just like his female form, even down to the eye
color.

"Wow! How are you Mister Alien!" The redhead bubbled towards Ranma as
she held out her hand as a gesture of peace.

Ranma gawked at the ditzy redhead, and was reminded by two things. First
was his female form, and the eye color even matched. But her clothes
were way too daring for his taste. Second was... Shampoo?! The way the
girl hopped excitedly towards him reminded him of the Amazon. He shook
his head as he sniffed indignantly, "Hey! Who're you calling 'Mister
Alien'?!"

<Although…> Ranma paused in his thoughts. After all, he was really an
alien after all, literally. Before he could organize his thoughts,
though, another voice broke through his contemplation.

"Who are you? Are you another man from Talaark?" A blue haired girl that
reached above her shoulders pointed her... rings at him? Weird... and
there was a black device that was strapped on one side of her face. Her
white tight bodysuit hugged her curves real well.

Ranma frowned slightly. "Talaark?" He asked innocently, "What's that?
I'm from a planet called Earth..." Ranma stiffened when everyone
bristled as he mentioned Earth. Everyone firmed their resolve to shoot
him if he moved the wrong way in the next few seconds.

"A spy?! Meia, he's a spy!" The blond woman shouted towards the blue
haired girl. She glared at Ranma hatefully, as she pointed her own ring
thingies (what's up with that?) at him.

"What do you mean a spy? Are you aliens or something? Were you attacking
Earth?" Ranma asked rapidly.

"HOW DARE YOU!" The blue haired girl called Meia shot a beam from her
rings, which passed by Ranma's head by a few inches. "You've been
attacking us to collect our body organs, you murderers!"

Ranma blinked. "Collecting body organs?" He shuddered slightly. "Ewww...
that's gross. Why would I do that? Where the heck am I anyway? What year
is this?!"

"What are you talking about?!" The dark haired girl growled out.

Before Ranma could reply back, a soft tapping noise interrupted. He saw
a figure in dark brown cloak walk over to them. A silver haired woman
with dark skin and a rather voluptuous body supporting the figure.

"That will be quite enough. I invited him here to personally thank him
for his assistance, and not to do him any harm." An old voice firmly
said behind the hood that covered most of her face. The figure was
female, and an old one as well, probably the oldest and most likely the
leader of the group. Everyone seemed to have relaxed and lowered their
weapons when the old woman said so. She lifted her head up to look
directly at Ranma's face, trying to look past the dark tinted glasses
the pigtailed boy has on his face.

"Follow me, boy... BC you come with me as well." The old woman told him
as she turned and hobbled back to the entrance. The silver haired woman
nodded to Ranma hesitantly and began to follow as well. He fumed
silently at the 'boy' remark... it reminded him too much of the old
gho--- err Cologne. Ranma shrugged and walked towards where the old
woman has walked through.

Ranma was led towards the Tactical Meeting Room. He followed the two
women in front of him as they walked through the doorway.

"So, boy... where are you from? Oh, where are my manners... I am Magno,
leader of the Mejer Space Pirates from the planet Mejer." The old woman
finally said after a short while of gazing at him.

Ranma smiled slightly and replied, "I'm from a planet called Earth, but
I think everyone here doesn't appreciate that. If I may ask, Magno-san,
are you by any chance... not humans?"

Magno sighed softly. "We're humans, dear boy... and about the Earth, the
enemies attacking us are from there, our own home planet. You see, we
just recently found out that Earth has been 'harvesting' various body
parts from numerous colonized worlds. We still don't understand why..."

Ranma looked shocked. "B-But why? Wait... what year is this?"

Magno looked at him skeptically. "It has been hundreds of years since
Earth sent colony ships towards the outer galaxies for colonization. As
for the exact date, we do not have it. Why is this important?"

"Oh crap..." Ranma gasped, looking horrified. Before anyone could ask
him about his remark, he spooled his emotions and stated, "Man... my
life is screwed up."

"Miyah!!" A sound that startled BC and Magno greatly, making them jump.
Seeing this, Ranma smirked as he turned to his side and gestured to the
furred animal that suddenly appeared there. The long eared cabbit
eagerly jumped on Ranma's outstretched arm and climbed to his shoulders.

"What is that?!" BC almost screamed out, but managed to control the
volume of her shout. Her hand itched to her whip at its slot on her back
as she glared on the innocent looking cabbit that rested happily on
Ranma.

The pigtailed boy sighed and replied, "That's Rin-Ohki. She's my
companion."

"Rin-Ohki?" BC asked. "I thought your vehicle was named Rin-Ohki? Why
would you give your space craft and pet the same name?"

Rin-Ohki's ears perked up. "MIYAH!" She said loudly as she eyed BC under
with half-lidded stare.

Ranma chuckled. "You just insulted her. She's not a pet, rather a
companion and a close friend. You see, she has unique capabilities that
you can't possibly understand and believe if I just simply tell you, but
she is also my space craft that you saw before."

"HA!" BC snorted as she gripped her whip behind her. "Now I know you're
lying about everyth---"

"Commander!" A voice interrupted them.

Magno looked skeptical as she responded, "What is it? Parfait?"

The screen in front of the meeting room flared to life, exposing the
face of a brown haired girl in twin pigtails looking apprehensive. Her
eyeglasses glinted as she said, "Commander! The silver crystalline ship
that was docked with the Nirvana suddenly disappeared!!!"

"Unbelievable!" Magno breathed out as she stared at the silver-furred
cabbit. "Such an interesting life form she is!" Turning to the screen,
she waved her hand absently, "Don't worry, I know where it is. I'll
explain it all to you later."

"Hai, commander!" Parfait nodded, looking at Ranma oddly for a second
before her image disappeared.

BC's head snapped to her superior. "Commander! You can't possibly
believe this... *man*..."

Ranma's eyes narrowed at BC. "You're one to talk. Do you honestly think
you can hide in that ridiculous get-up forever?"

BC's glare returned full force on Ranma. "What do you mean?!"

Magno looked at BC, then at Ranma. "Yes, what do you mean?"

Crossing his arms across his chest, Ranma snorted. "I am a martial
artist, and I am trained to detect life energy. Especially now, since my
power reawakened. My senses became more sensitive than before." He
looked over to BC, who just looked confused, "Some martial artists tend
to go further than just identifying and pinpointing where life energies
are... some can distinguish them, male or female."

Magno gasped as BC paled.

Smirking at BC, Ranma nodded, "That's right. Unless you managed to fake
even your internal life energy, or ki, I can see clearly that you're
male. You don't have female ki. I should know, I spent half of the last
ten or so years of my life as a female."

Magno turned to her subordinate, who backed away slowly. "Is this true,
BC?"

BC shook 'her' head as she pointed to Ranma. "He must be breaking your
trust over me! It must be his plot!"

Ranma just sighed. "Oh please, really, do you need proof? Do you want me
to remove those protrusions in front of you?"

Seeing BC pale further as she clutched on her... ahem... breasts
protectively, Magno shook her head. "Amazing... you are one interesting
specimen, Ranma-san. You were able to detect BC's disguise that
quickly."

BC eyed Magno fearfully. "Y-You mean... you knew?!"

Magno just nodded. "I already knew before, but I still gave you the
benefit of the doubt. I am one of those who believed that men aren't
that bad once you get used to them. I know you are a man, but what I
don't get is, why the hassle?" She began shivering slightly, because of
trying to stop her tears or because of anger, we do not know.

Ranma placed his hand on Magno's trembling shoulder. "Relax,
Magno-san... BC is not really malevolent. I won't tell anyone anyway...
she (snicker) probably just wanted to find out about something here. I
detect that much in her (snicker again) aura, am I right, BC?"

BC still looked angry at Ranma, then slowly deflated as she figured that
it won't work.

The old woman sighed. "I kept your secret this long BC. You're my most
trusted companion... I don't doubt your loyalty for a second. I'm not
going to go around and blab it, so don't worry."

BC's eyes widened as unshed tears filled them. She bowed her head
slightly as she whispered, "Arigato, Commander."

"Now..." Magno faced Ranma, "I welcome you again to Nirvana. I'll have
you meet the crewmembers later. It is going to be... interesting... with
you around, Ranma Saotome."

Ranma just smiled innocently.

======================================================================== =====

A little later, in a vacant room...

"So... this was the thing that those weird robot things and you've been
fighting for? What is it anyway?" Ranma asked curiously as he looked at
the capsule in front of him. For some reason, it reminded him of
Washuu's pod, of all things.

A long black haired man in a white trenchcoat over black overalls with
bangs covering one eye nodded at him. Ranma learned that his name was
Duero, one of the Talaark Elite. "Yes, it's an escape pod." He said
stoically.

The idea of men and women living separate from each other gives Ranma
the creeps. Especially when he heard from Duero that man-to-man
relationships were common in his home world. He has nothing against
those, it's their life after all, but he's got his own preferences.
Whether he strongly denies it or not, he likes females, definitely.
Although he doesn't go around announcing it over to everyone, unlike
Kuno back in his own time.

Ranma was fairly disturbed when he learned from Magno's stories about
how bad the situation in Mejer and Talaark were. It even went to as far
as convincing the opposite sex that they were mortal enemies against
each other. As for reproduction, Mejer women take ovum from each of the
donors and splice it together, then inject it back to the 'mother' of
the two women. The 'father' is going to be called the 'Homme'. The
impregnated 'mother' carries the child in normal term, as like in Earth,
and gives birth normally. All Mejer offspring were unsurprisingly
female. The Talaark on the other hand used cloning and machines to do
the term period of pregnancy. They were also divided in classes, which
pretty much maps out the future of each of the men born in Talaark. Yes,
all Talaark offspring were male, as opposed to Mejer's female. Each was
taught how to fear and hate the other sex, eliminating contact and
possibly any interaction between them. Although Magno was from Mejer,
her views about men and women were unlike typical Mejerian thinking. In
fact, she believes that men and women should work together.

A young girl with long brown hair tied in twin pigtails adjusted her
eyeglasses as she continued typing furiously on the keypad in front of
her. She was Parfait, the head over all mechanic and engineer of the
ship. When Magno introduced him to the crew, Parfait immediately
launched a lot of questions as to the whereabouts of his ship. Ranma
made a slight mistake of telling the mechanic about one of the abilities
of Rin-Ohki. To the cabbit's dismay, not only does she have to dodge
those hands with owners making cooing noises and telling her how cute
she looked, Parfait was severely interested when Ranma mentioned that
she was a different form of crystal life form. The spectacled girl would
ask frequently if she could examine Rin-Ohki in her workstation, which
was adamantly refused by Rin-Ohki with a lot of hisses.

Most of the ship's female crew including the blond male named Bart, the
so-called helmsman of the Nirvana. The red-haired girl, whose name was
Dita, stayed behind Ranma, trying to get a good look at what Parfait was
doing. Beside her, a very young girl named Paiway, who has long dark
hair tied in twin ponytails dressed in a nurse outfit took notes in her
notebook. The long blonde haired woman named Jura stood beside her
constant companion, the short black haired Barnette. Meia was
indifferent as she hung back from the crowd, trying to look nonchalant
about everything. She was watching Ranma like a hawk though, much to the
pigtailed hybrid's dismay.

Rin-Ohki was content in staying on his shoulders, resting her tired body
after her intense transformation. She suddenly stiffened and hissed as
the front panel of the capsule opened, which also made a hiss.

They all looked cautiously inside and saw a sleeping figure of a young
female. She has long dark blue hair that was tied in a ponytail. Her
body was covered in a tight white bodysuit. After a few moments, the
young girl twitched and slowly opened her eyes, which to Ranma's
surprise were dark red. A yelp from Dita and Paiway behind him made him
look back, and saw the speeding figure of the pilot of that strange
giant robot he saw before. Ranma remembered his name as Hibiki (which
for some reason, didn't settle for Ranma at all... he was wondering if
the boy has any connections with a certain half-pig).

"Lemme see! Outta my way and lemme see too!" The small boy shouted as he
shoved his way towards the pod. When Dita and Paiway went out of the
way, Hibiki shot forward at great speed. Ranma dodged away from him
nimbly and let the long haired boy bump himself unto the pod. Hibiki
yelped as he almost went inside the pod because of his momentum.

Hibiki looked up from his perched and stared at the red eyes of the girl
from the pod. "What? What is it?" Hibiki said uncertainly as he backed
away.

The girl was a little frightened. Her triangular earring lit up emitted
a soft glow, revealing some sort of a hologram of a yellow blob
creature. It talked in some staccato tones which was undecipherable by
human ears, but for some reason the girl understood it. Ranma thought
that the blob thing might have a connection with the girl in telepathic
sense, much like Rin-Ohki with him.

"You... you saved me?" The girl asked Hibiki hopefully.

The boy stammered backwards. "Not... not really! You see... we all
helped each other... and..."

The blue-haired girl smiled slightly as the blob finished 'talking' to
her. "Really, Q?" Facing Hibiki, she squealed as she leapt towards him,
enveloping him into a tight hug, "You saved me, my lord prince!" Hibiki
sputtered as he tried to get away from the hug, but it was all in vain.

"Lord---" Barnette gasped.

"PRINCE?!" Jura finished for her.

Dita twitched as she watched the scene in front of her. "NOOOOOOO!!!
Mister Alien will unite with Dita!!!" She finally screamed for the
insanity of it all.

"I feel a battle coming... this needs to be looked into, Pai-check!!"
The young nurse Paiway gleefully exclaimed as she held her notepad close
to her.

"Where have I seen this before...?" Ranma muttered to himself,
remembering a certain leotard-clad girl with a crazy laugh back in his
time. Rin-Ohki miya'ed in amusement as she caught a glimpse of what
Ranma was thinking. Someone heard Ranma’s comment though...

"What was that, Saotome?" Meia asked curiously.

"Saotome?" The newly awakened girl fervently asked in disbelief, as her
hug slackened and finally let go of Hibiki. She stood up shakily and
staggered to where Ranma was. The pigtailed boy started slightly as he
saw her approach him.

Composing himself Ranma nodded, saying, "Yeah, I'm Saotome Ranma."

The girl sagged as her shoulders shook. Dita spoke up, "Is there
something wrong? Do you know him?"

The girl chuckled at the same time sobbed, as she looked up. Her
teared-up eyes gazed softly on Ranma, who was paralyzed on the spot.

Ranma blanched and immediately made warding signs with his hands as he
slowly backed away, saying, "Ack! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Whatever I did,
I'm really really sorry!!!" He figured he said something to make the
girl cry, and apologizing profusely was his only way to cope with the
situation.

She shook her head. "No, no, Ranma! You haven't done anything wrong! I'm
just glad to finally find you after all these years!"

"Eh?" Everyone mouthed as they watched the confrontation.

The girl's eyes slowly drooped as consciousness slowly left her as she
struggled to say, "I... I have a lot of things... to tell you...
Ranma..." She slowly fell down, but was caught by Ranma's arms. The girl
absently wrapped her arms around Ranma's neck tightly, to the pigtailed
boy's distress. Rin-Ohki even jumped aside and miya'd in protest as she
was almost knocked out.

Everyone was frozen to the spot while Ranma looked back at them
pleading, "Help..."

======================================================================== =====

"Her name is Misty Cornwell, age fourteen." Duero announced as he
tallied his findings on a small pad.

Paiway smirked as she tsked lightly. "Actually, she's fourteen plus the
sixty-three years of being frozen in the pod, with the total of
seventy-seven years old, kero!"

Most of the more curious crewmembers like Dita, Jura, Meia and Barnette
were present in the medical lab. Hibiki and Bart were curious as well,
so they accompanied the group there. Duero and Parfait were tinkering
with the lab's equipment in properly restoring Misty's life signs back
to normal levels. Years of cry-statis did Misty's body no good. Paiway
was assisting Duero as his nurse. They were all eagerly waiting for
Misty to reawaken. For some reason, Ranma and Rin-Ohki were absent.

Nobody bothered to think about the two weird newcomers' disappearance
because they were more interested in the newly 'thawed' girl in front of
them rather than guarding the two. Finally, her eyes fluttered open as
she moaned. Her earrings lit up and the yellow blob with eyes appeared.
The girl smiled softly as she muttered, "It's all right, Q..."

As the girl tried to sit up, she quickly wrapped her arms around
herself. "It's cold!" She shivered slightly.

Duero quickly produced a small blanket and wrapped Misty with it.
"You've been in cryo-stasis suspension for a long time. The feeling
should pass after a short while."

The blue-haired girl sat up and gazed at Duero appreciatively. "Hey,
you're cute! What's your name?"

The Talaark Elite was momentarily surprised at how Misty acted. His
training in his home planet hasn't given him any insights on how he
should respond to Misty. Before he could answer, Bart's question saved
him the trouble, "Hey, you're from a place where males and females were
together right? How did they do that?"

Misty's head snapped towards Bart and her face adopted a scowl. "What do
you mean?! That's how it was supposed to be! You must be some kind of an
idiot."

Bart's visage dropped as Hibiki chuckled on his side. Misty smiled
widely when she spotted Hibiki and turned to Duero, asking, "Hey, who's
he?" as she pointed to the boy.

Duero cocked her head to one side. "If you aren't talking about Bart
then I suppose you meant Hibiki..."

"Hibiki..." Misty sighed deeply. "What a wonderful name!"

Meia saw the irritated look Dita and Jura gave Misty. She sighed as she
silently went out of the door and left the impending doom she felt
inside the room. Sure enough, a shout from Dita was heard as the door
slid shut behind her. Meia finally remembered their new arrivals aside
from the strange girl that came from the pod. Her brows narrowed
dangerously. She quickly set off to find the other two 'guests', namely
Ranma and that strange looking partner of his.

The Dread team leader finally found her quarry in the small botanical
garden in the middle of the Nirvana. The ship has its own built-in
greenhouse, complete with a small river that flowed in the middle of the
greenery that spread across the small area. She spied on Ranma and the
furry animal that he carried with him carefully, gazing at the waters in
front of him. The animal was currently laid on his lap, as he sat
cross-legged on the grass. She could hear him humming. Meia's eyes
widened as she recognized the tune he was humming under his breath... a
song that she recognized since it was a tune from her own jewelry box.
She kept this box inside her room, and never let anyone see it. The box
itself was a gift from her Homme, and she treasured it greatly. The song
was... 'What a Wonderful World'. She could hear him muttering
afterwards, because the greenhouse produced a dome that was perfect in
amplifying sounds.

Ranma's eyes followed the lazy waves of the water as it reflected the
dark area of space from the dome above him. He stroked Rin-Ohki lovingly
as he let her rest after that wonderful transformation before outside in
space. He let her borrow some of his energy when she did, and it all
turned out all right. As he gazed at the reflection of the stars on the
water, he suddenly has a vision of Ryoko. As he did so, he suddenly
wondered what she would be up to. Ranma hoped it wasn't some
foolishness. He idly hummed a tune that he heard from the radio back in
his own time.

"Well... this is just great... I'm flung into this time and now I have
no way to get back..." Ranma muttered loudly as he continued to look at
the water. Rin-Ohki had opened one eye and stared at Ranma with it.

The pigtailed boy sighed. "I don't belong here... we don't belong here
Rin-Ohki. I feel lonely here..."

"Miyah..." Rin-Ohki replied as she raised her head. She rubbed her face
on Ranma's abdomen, purring as she did it.

"I'm sorry..." Ranma shook his head. "I'm really pathetic, aren't I?"

The cabbit stopped rubbing and glared at him. "MIYAH!" She meowed loudly
as she swatted her ear on Ranma's chest. The boy chuckled at her.

"I know... but that still doesn't change the fact that I have a weird
kind of luck..." Ranma smiled sadly at the cabbit. "Although, I feel
better because you stuck with me even with that condition of mine." He
bent down and kissed Rin-Ohki's nose, much to the cabbit's surprise.

"Thank you, Rin-chan." He hugged the cabbit closer to him softly as he
continued his gaze at the water. "Sleep now... you'll need your strength
sometime."

With a soft meow, the cabbit snuggled into his embrace.

"Saotome." A soft but firm female voice almost made Ranma flinch, almost
but not quite. He slowly turned around and saw the blue-haired pilot
with that weird gizmo on her face, Meia.

"Hello there." Ranma said neutrally.

Meia almost fidgeted, almost but not quite as well (heh). "I'm...
sorry... when I shot at you before. I was mad at those constant attacks
that the forces from Earth has been throwing at us." She almost mumbled
the words.

Ranma tore his dark-tinted-glasses-stare at Meia and turned to the
waters once again. "You had your reasons. And you have your customs. I
heard about Mejerian women hating men because of their differences. I
still don't understand why that is."

The Dread pilot wondered on his words, and mentally shrugged. She has no
time for that. All she wanted right now was to pump as much information
as she can from Ranma so that she could assess whether he was
trustworthy or not. Momentarily looking at the small animal on his lap,
she pointed at it as she asked, "I was meaning to ask you... what is...
that?"

The young man smiled. "She's not a thing, if you're going to ask. She's
my partner... a special life form. She's the space craft you saw out
there before."

Meia nodded as she sat down a little far away from Ranma. "I heard about
it from the commander. It must be convenient to have such a handy
device."

Ranma shook his head. "You're wrong about that. As I said, she's not a
thing... she's a living being, and she's my companion. We have a mental
link with each other that lets us communicate without words."

The boy sighed, making Meia look at him curiously.

"I guess I'm kinda out of place here..." Ranma said hesitantly. "Back
where I come from, I'm used to seeing men and women go hand in hand when
they go through life. I'm also used to seeing the blue sky when I look
up. I miss Ry..." His voice faltered as he smiled to himself.

Meia cocked her head to one side. "Where DID you come from, Saotome?"

Ranma snorted. "Please, just call me Ranma. Calling me that way reminds
me way too much of pops. As to where I came from, are you sure you're
prepared to hear it?"

"I wouldn't have asked if I'm not." Meia said contritely.

The pigtailed boy turned his head to Meia. His tinted eyeglasses
reflected the girl's face, which quite made the Dread pilot feel
conscious about herself. She doesn't know what's going on inside Ranma's
mind.

"You know I'm from Earth already." Ranma finally spoke. When Meia
nodded, he continued, "It's not really the question of where I'm from,
it's WHEN." He absently readjusted his black bracers, which caught
Meia's attention. She noticed them only now, and they were of different
qualities than the other bracers and other wrist ornaments she has ever
seen. She vowed to ask him about it later on. She was more interested in
what Ranma had said about the 'when' he was from.

"Why am I even telling you this?" Ranma asked more to himself than to
Meia. "I guess I'm lonelier than I thought I was. I think that
subconsciously, I have this need of someone to talk to." Ranma shifted
to one side. "You must be asking yourself, 'what the heck is this male
taking about?', well... I'm not from here, really. Not from this
time..."

"Are you trying to take me for a fool?" Meia asked angrily. "Are you
telling me that you are some sort of a time-traveling person?! That's
absolutely the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life!"

Ranma quickly turned to Meia, freezing her on the spot. Slowly, he
lifted his hand to his glasses and removed them. To Meia's further
shock, twin orbs of golden pupils looked back at her. The blue-gray that
surrounded those twin orbs in his eyes heightened their luminance as he
pinned her in his look.

"Wh-Wh-What the hell?" Meia tried to back away, but her body failed to
move.

Ranma just sighed as he looked back to the water and pocketed his
glasses. "There are a lot of things out there that you don't know,
Meia-san. Magic, forbidden martial arts moves, magical curses, gods and
goddesses... there are a lot of those. My life has been so chaotic as
far as I can remember. Back on Earth, everything seems to spiral out of
control when I'm around. I have abilities people cannot understand.
People like you... that's why I keep it to myself. You must be thinking
I'm a demon now."

Meia seemed to have settled down a bit, but her expression was still
that of a guarded one. She was about to scoff at the audacity of the
male beside her, but she was suddenly reminded of her own loneliness.
The anger and pain she felt when she was the only one to survive that
fateful planetary explosion that rocked the planet she was from. Her
Homme and mother both died in that accident, with the efforts of letting
her live on. Meia tried to stay with them, but her mother seemed to have
given her own life to save hers.

She spent years trying to cope with it. During those times, Meia lived
to see herself die somewhere. Suddenly, that chance came when the
commander of the Mejer Space Pirates came to her one day, asking her if
she was content on how she lived her life. Her induction to the group
gave her the opportunity to fight and the chance of dying in a glorious
death as well. But every time, it was denied from her. Instead, she just
kept on living.

Meia finally got into her conclusion about Ranma.

Ranma is weird. Yep, especially those eyes of his.

Still, Meia felt a tug in her conscience about giving someone the
benefit of the doubt. She remembered she felt this way towards that
other male, Hibiki, and the other males that came with him. She thought
they were worthless, but it turned out that the women needed them after
all.

"You okay?" Ranma voice broke Meia's thoughts, causing her to look at
him.

"What?" Meia asked intelligently.

Ranma smiled softly. "I said... are you okay? You were silent for a long
time."

Meia nodded in understanding. "Oh... I was just wondering if you were
crazy or not."

The boy snickered, then it turned into full blown laughter. At first,
Meia was put off because she thought she was the one being laughed at,
but Ranma's mirth was contagious, making her giggle softly with him
after a while.

Ranma finally got his laughter under control. "I get that a lot, believe
me." Ranma said seriously afterwards.

Meia looked at Ranma. "How... I mean... your eyes..."

The pigtailed hybrid nodded. "Ah... that. You see... my parents were not
human. I haven't met them, if you're gonna ask. My father's dead, I
think, according to what I can deduce. My mother's somewhere out there
according to some people, probably looking for me as well." Ranma looked
at Meia, who was in the middle of opening her mouth to ask something,
"Yes, my father's a male, not an Earthling though, but male. My mother's
not an Earthling either, but she's a female. Someone told me I got my
mother's eyes somewhat."

"I... I see..." Meia was boggled at the thought... male and female
together? She has seen that video clip from the ship's old archives
pertaining to a scene where a family, comprised of a father, a mother,
and a daughter were celebrating Christmas. Even with that evidence of
their ancestors living together, it still bothers her to think about it.

Ranma sighed audibly. He saw Meia's expression of disbelief, which he
assumed to be about males and females being together. His mind cleared
as the three small circular silver gems on his forehead glowed softly,
which was still unnoticed due to his bangs covering them.

"I see that you still can't accept men and women come together, right?"
Ranma asked Meia, who just stared at him. He didn't wait for a response
as he continued, "Men and women lived together where I come from.
Without either one, they can't pro-create. That's why they were
dependent and in need of each other. Sure, some women tend to choose to
partner themselves with another woman, or men with another man, but it's
not the natural order of things somehow. I'm not saying it's wrong, or
impossible, but it feels... unnatural for some reason." Ranma shook his
head, wondering how he got to think of those things. He was unusually
contemplative today, and that also didn't feel natural to him. A gasp
from his side caused him to look over at Meia, who was now pointing at
his forehead.

"What?" Ranma asked, a bit afraid as to what Meia was trying to say. She
looked really upset about it, which didn't settle any better for Ranma
at all.

Meia continued to point, but replied, "You... you have... three
glowing..."

Ranma's face lightened up in comprehension. "Oh... THAT. Don't mind
it... it's just one of those things that make me weird..."

"B-But..." Meia tried to force herself to comment about it. Sure, she
has seen other people with ornaments like those. The gem on the
sub-commander's forehead was a stick-on and a face ornament after all,
just like earrings. But Ranma's gems were too... real to be comfortable
with. And they were glowing!

She was about to say more when the lights went out. She almost screamed
in fright when the gems on Ranma's forehead still shone in the darkness,
a shiny silver light that seemed to sparkle every now and then.

But Meia shook her head. The power all over the ship seemed to have
turned off all of the sudden. She quickly stood up and went to the
nearby console on the side of the greenhouse. The back-up power should
be able to keep the communicators up and running.

"What's happening? Why is the power out?" Meia asked to the console.

There was a few seconds of silence before the voice of Parfait answered.
"A self-preservation program from the message node we got from the pod
with the girl. A virus broke loose into the system and infected
everything! Now we don't have power, and it seems that Dita, Ezra and
Hibiki are trapped in the elevator. Wait, hold on..."

Another round of silence followed afterwards. Meia was about to ask
again when the console cackled to life, "Oh no! Ezra's going to have the
baby NOW!!!"

"Oh great!" Meia silently cursed to herself. She was about to run to the
elevator area to help rescue the trapped crewmembers when all of the
sudden, the ship was rocked with explosions. The Dread team leader
yelped as she lost her balance and fell backwards, only to be caught in
the arms of one Saotome Ranma.

"Be careful..." Ranma chided softly as he helped Meia get firm footing.

Meia blushed slightly. "T-Thank you..."

"You're welcome." Ranma nodded. "We're under attack too, right?"

"Bad timing...." Meia hissed as she changed her direction to the Dread
Docking bay.

Ranma just looked confused and shrugged. Rin-Ohki meowed on top of his
head, seemingly as confused as he was.

======================================================================== =====

Inside her Dread, Meia has just come out of the hangar bay, which had to
be manually opened because of the power failure. Once she got outside, a
painful headache erupted in her head. There were a lot of enemies in the
vicinity, and worse is that they were severely handicapped. Dita and
Hibiki can't be with them, because they were still trapped in the
elevator. They would just have to survive without relying on uniting
into a Vandread for this encounter.

Barnette and Jura were having their own sets of problems with their
enemies. The red cube type drones have faster reflexes, and were more
attuned in fighting by groups. Soon, most of the Dread pilots suffered
lots of damages, and Ezra was still struggling with her baby. Dita was
doing her best, while Hibiki fainted a while ago. Duero, Magno and
Paiway were in the Medical Room, trying to instruct Dita on how to
deliver Ezra's baby. Initially, it was Hibiki's job, but due to lack of
experience associating with females, the sight of the panting Ezra made
the boy lose his consciousness.

Ahem. Getting back to the problem outside the Nirvana...

The situation seemed difficult for the Dread forces, but they were still
able to repel the attack in most parts. However, just as much as the
Dreads suffered, the Nirvana itself incurred a lot of damages. The
meager shield the ship tried to erect upon itself by the power left in
its reserves was bypassed in most cases. The outer hull suffered a lot
of superficial damages. Bart was at the helm and was complaining how
painful the hits were because of his physical connection to the ship.

Another powerful stream of laser fire rocked Meia's ship, causing it to
corkscrew for a moment as it stabilized itself. The Dread Team leader
growled in the unfairness of it all as she listened to her teammates
screaming in the comm lines while she monitored the progress about
Ezra's ongoing childbirth. Both situations were in peril right now, and
she felt quite defeated at the endless bouts of drones sent to them by
their enemy. It was then that things got uglier, as several of the
drones came together and formed the Vandread clones once again.

Meia growled under her breath. "This is just isn't my day!"

The light blue-haired girl tried her best, really she did, but the
clones were a bit too much for their smaller and weaker Dreads. Slowly
but surely, the number of defenders dropped one-by-one. Soon, only
several were left outside of the Nirvana, and most of them were severely
damaged as well.

Meia's Dread was hit with laser volleys rapidly. Her ship creaked and
groaned in protest as most of her Dread's statistics turned red.

"Is this it?" She whispered to herself, pounding on the frozen controls,
"Is this my end?" Her eyes widened as she spied the clone version of her
own Vandread, but much darker in color. It poised itself in front of her
crippled ship, and powered up its cannons. Meia whimpered as she closed
her eyes shut in preparation for her end.

The sound of laser fire followed by a loud explosion that rocked the
insides of her Dread caused her to flinch. But to her surprise, she
still felt alive and well. Slowly, she opened her eyes and focused her
sights in front of her. Meia gasped at what she saw.

A figure floated in front of her ship, with his arms crossed in front of
him. A flicker of silver bubble radiated in front of him as he protected
her ship from the laser fire that came at her. He was dressed in a black
and red battle suit, which clung to his figure, proving he was male. His
raven hair was tied in a tight pigtail that was floating behind him as
well. Not only that, but also some kind of red protrusion was attached
on his backside, and was twitching from side to side.

It was Ranma.

Meia did a double take.

It was definitely Ranma, but he was out in space, without a space suit
on. Before she could react about it though, Ranma was suddenly covered
in a bright silver glow and balls of light erupted from his hands. The
gigantic form of the Vandread Meia clone in front of them was peppered
with shots and collapse into itself. It exploded mere seconds after
Ranma fired at it.

"Did you see that?!" Meia's comm unit cackled to life as her ship's
meager auto-repair systems managed to salvage and reroute energy to the
communications and propulsion, allowing her to move at least. The voice
belonged to Barnette.

"What was that?!" Jura's voice sounded off from the comm.

Another stream of red laser streaked past Ranma, missing him by mere
inches it seemed. Ranma adjusted the black bracers on his wrists and
quickly flew towards the source. Meia saw a Vandread Jura clone nearby
firing multiple shots at Ranma, who either dodged the beams or deflected
it with his... shield? Meia's head was spinning with information. When
Ranma said he was different, she didn't think it was something this
major. Ranma can survive in the vacuum of space, can maneuver himself
also in space, can fire weird beams and balls of some sort, and was able
to generate a shield. Since when did a human been able to do THESE?! Was
he even human?!

Ranma frowned as his energy balls were deflected harmlessly by the
reddish shield generated by the giant crab like behemoth in front of
him. He stopped advancing as the several mirror things that rotated
around the ship pointed themselves toward him and fired successive red
beams of light. He twisted and turned over and under the beams as he
tried to avoid getting hit. He also made sure none would hit Meia's ship
in the process. Her ship was not a pretty sight to look at, and even
though he knew next to nothing about machines, he knew she was in
trouble. The laser fire will not affect his battle suit whatsoever, but
the idea of getting hit by those largish beams are a bit too...
exuberant for his tastes. He calmly brought up his silver shield as he
failed to dodge one of the beams, which hit his barrier and throwing him
back a few feet back.

The pigtailed hybrid narrowed his brows as he cupped his hands below his
waist, concentrating dark energy between them. Sure enough, a small ball
of dark cackling power converged into his open palm, gathering itself
for release. When Ranma was satisfied by the amount of energy, he
brought his palms in front of him and released the dark beam of energy.
The beam came out of his palm and covered at least two and a half meters
in diameter, even bigger than Ranma's overall height. The beam lanced
towards the shielded Vandread clone, its shield shattering uselessly
against the dark energy. The beam hit and went through the clone,
causing it to explode fantastically. Ranma smirked at his handiwork.

Ranma kept himself within Meia's range, deflecting laser fire and
everything that came towards her ship. The pigtailed boy quickly spun
around, narrowly missed by several thin red beams. He stopped his spin
and rocketed forward, slamming his fist against the metallic hide of a
cube-type drone. As Ranma backed away, the drone exploded and two more
behind it went along the aftershocks. Ranma fired several small silver
energy spheres above him, hitting four approaching drones without even
batting an eyelash. He suddenly held out a hand in a chopping position,
holding it above his head. A moment later, crunching metal vibrated in
Ranma's body as a cube drone passed overhead, slicing it open in half.

Meia slowly piloted her ship, following Ranma's flight pattern. Her ship
was quite a wreck, and it wouldn't charge its laser capacitors anymore.
She can move, but she can't fire anymore shots. It would have to be
repaired, but she was in the middle of battle. She unconsciously kept
Ranma's fighting figure in front of her screen, relying on the
protection he seemed to have offered when he stood in front of her
Dread. She could see him twisting, spinning and firing those glowing
spheres of light that seemed to bore through the enemy ships without any
trouble. Although Ranma did take some time taking down the Vandread
clones, especially the ones copied from Vandread Jura's form, Ranma was
basically dancing in space. For some reason, the enemies seemed to think
Ranma was a bigger threat than the rest, so they decided to converge on
the small humanoid that destroyed a lot of their forces. Ranma just
obliviously continued throwing ki blasts here and there, destroying all
of the drones that came to approach him and Meia's Dread.

Ranma boggled when he saw two large Seed ships approaching the Nirvana.
He slapped his hand to his forehead as he muttered something that cannot
be heard. With a momentary look of concentration, Ranma's body faded
from Meia's view, eliciting a gasp of surprise from the Dread leader.
She frantically looked side to side, trying to find a glimpse of the
boy. Her search was rudely interrupted when one of the approaching Seed
ships suddenly went up in an explosion that rocked most of the drones
around it and destroyed them. Soon, the other ship's outer hull heaved
forward, distorting its surface with small dimples of some sort.
Suddenly, a beam punctured from one of the dimples, and bore a hole in
the Seed ship's hull. With that, the last large enemy ship exploded as
well.

The boy Meia was searching for suddenly reappeared in front of her
sights once again, making her jump back slightly. Ranma's clothes were
singed a bit, as small burn holes were sported all over his body. The
holes slowly knit themselves together and disappeared, leaving nothing
but the perfect condition of Ranma's battle suit in the beginning of the
battle. Ranma patted himself down and readjusted his dark glasses, which
were a bit off on the side. He slumped down on the nose of Meia's Dread,
tiredly spreading his arms all over the front part of the ship. If he
could pant, he would've done so.

Ranma just shook his head as he removed the cobwebs that decorated his
eyesight. The internal defense system of those big ships punched a
wallop into his battle suit, which gave him quite a scare for a while.
He teleported inside the ships and destroyed them from within, blasting
everything around in random. The Seed ship was far from defenseless in
the inside, with its multiple laser turrets firing rapid blasts towards
him with pinpoint accuracy. The power of the lasers, plus the huge
number of the turrets in the first place, blasted Ranma momentarily. He
recovered as the lasers batted him around, and in a ditch effort erected
his shield. It worked, but it also strained him badly. He had to blast
the inside quickly, and he did so. He succeeded in destroying them. Now
he was tired as hell, and just wants to sleep it off.

The other Dreads were still busy fending off some of the drones that
didn't attack Meia's position, but they were commenting at how great the
work Meia's Dread was doing. Apparently, they thought it was Meia who
was doing the job. Ranma kept close to her ship, maybe to avoid being
seen or something.

Meia shook her head when she saw Ranma had sat down on her Dread's nose,
looking around idly. The protrusion on his backside, and she dared say
that it seemed to be a red tail, was swinging from right to left
rapidly, like an excited cat or something. After a moment of glancing
here and there, Ranma turned and looked at her directly. He opened his
mouth to say something, but stopped as he realized something. There was
no air in space, and sound can't be transmitted. He closed his eyes in
contemplation for a moment, with Meia watching sharply. Suddenly, Ranma
dove towards her, making Meia almost back away. He kept moving towards
her, and she feared that he might bump himself on the head or something.
Just as Meia thought Ranma was about to get himself a nasty bruise,
another weird phenomenon occurred. Ranma's body didn't even stop as it
made contact with the hard plastic glass on her Dread's cockpit.
Instead, he went THROUGH the glass without any problems, stopping when
half of his body was inside and was facing her.

"Yo, Meia-chan!!" Ranma greeted cheerfully, with all his half-body
glory. The other half of his body was still stuck out in space, his red
tail lashing side to side.

The girl just blinked her eyes owlishly at first, then when she
recovered from her shock, she screamed real loud. Actually, she tried
suppressing that urge, but seeing Ranma's body like that, it just made
her want to scream. Ranma blanched and covered his ears as Meia
continued to scream bloody murder in the not-so-spacious cockpit, making
the sound louder than normal.

"Hey, relax you uncute tomboy!!!" Ranma screamed back angrily as he
clutched at his ears mournfully. He boggled when he realized what he
just said, and boggled some more when he saw Meia staring right back at
him with a curious look on her face.

After a few moments of silence, Meia finally opened her mouth and asked,
"What's a tomboy?"

Ranma's eyes widened dramatically as he tried very hard not to
facefault. Doing so at his position would really hurt. "Errr...
nevermind about that." He muttered loudly. It figures that a planet full
of women wouldn't know the term at all.

Meia nodded absently, but then suddenly remembered what happened
earlier. She eyed Ranma's half body warily and asked, "H-How... oh hell
I shouldn't be surprised right? I mean, I just saw you appear in front
of my ship, which was quite ways away from the Nirvana, take down most
of the enemies with your weird energy balls, generate a shield, able to
pass solid matter like now and evidently can survive in the vacuum of
space. You have really weird eyes and have a really weird symbol made up
of three silver gems on your forehead. Apparently you also have a red
tail sticking out your spine, and you have a weird life form for a
partner... what's next?"

Ranma could've laughed out loud at the sight of her expression. He
replied seriously, "I also change into a girl with cold water."

Meia was thoughtful for a while, then turned a glare at Ranma. "Yeah,
right. And I'm really a male under my flight suit."

Ranma sweatdropped as he laughed weakly, pulling on his pigtail in
embarrassment. "Heh heh, well... I'll show you later. Uhm... can you...
keep all of these a secret?"

Meia stared at Ranma.

Ranma stared right back, a hopeful expression on his face.

The girl finally let out a snort, followed by a chuckle. "You must have
an interesting life, Ranma." Her serious visage didn't last long as she
found herself laughing at the puppy-dog look on Ranma's face.

The boy just rolled his eyes. "You have no idea." Ranma deadpanned.

The sound of static from the comms was broken when a loud wail echoed
all over the comm system. When the cry came about, the ship's power
recovered itself.

"So... the password was the baby's cries." The voice of BC intoned in
the comm.

In the cockpit, Ranma saw Meia relax significantly, probably because the
race against time for the baby has finally come to an end. To Ranma
though, hearing the baby stirred something within him, and internally he
was greatly joyous about it. His own childhood was not really that all
nice and dandy, but the thought reminded him of his lost mother. Nodoka
was somehow a nice mother, despite her being a surrogate. Not to mention
her ideas of manliness were borderline scary sometimes. But what
bothered Ranma the most was that he suddenly felt a pang of regret and
longing to meet his real mother, the one rumored as the goddess of Chaos
herself. After hearing that, his chaotic life was finally justified for
him. He was chaotic, and he will live without knowing the full meaning
of being 'normal'.

Ranma heard faintly from the comm that the baby was female. It still
marveled him how advanced technology has become in the future. To be
able to travel into other planets, not to mention other galaxies, it was
a dream for those scientists back in his own time. For him, it was still
a dream. Then having heard of how these men and women reproduced, even
with the restriction of a couple being the same gender, it left Ranma
feeling amazed. These people have found a way around the workings of
nature, but of course it left its mark on them. All born from Talaark
were male, and also from reproduction factories as well, while in Mejer
the babies were all women. Added to the mark was the fact that they
treated each other as enemies.

The boy finally recovered his bearings and got a glimpse of a small but
bright smile adorning Meia's face. For some reason, Ranma blushed
lightly when he saw it. The smile was probably out of relief for the
baby and its health, Ranma decided for himself. But still, that smile
was akin to the smiles he longed to see on the faces of those few people
who he really wanted to see happy.

Later on, back in the Nirvana, Meia was bombarded with congratulations
regarding her great efforts in battle. Everyone concluded that it was
Meia's Dread that destroyed most of the enemies. The fact is, nobody
really took a closer look on who was doing the firing. Besides, with
Ranma so close to the Dread, they understandably have mistaken the
situation. Regardless, with Ranma's small nod in her direction, Meia
just accepted their praises. Before her ship entered the landing docks,
Ranma already disappeared all of the sudden from her ship, momentarily
startling her. She saw him again amongst the crowd, hanging back behind
them. He held his strange animal once again, cuddling it into his chest.

Due to his request of keeping his abilities discreet for the moment,
Meia held her tongue when she was showered with praises. Kami knows she
doesn't deserve any of them, but Ranma gladly gave her the spotlight
without a hint of doubt in his features. He even smiled and waved at her
from his position. Though before he disappeared from the cockpit, he
told her he would explain and show her some of his abilities once they
get some time together, away from the public eye. She could understand
his fear, for she felt scared and initially she wanted him to go away
from her. That alone was enough for her to give him a chance. Besides,
she owed him her life because of what he did. She didn't want to
alienate Ranma just yet, part of it was because she was curious as to
how he had achieved such things. Added to the fact that he mentioned he
wasn't human, her curiosity was gnawing in her mind. She just had to
know about him.

The deciphered information that came with Misty's pod was finally
processed. Magno and BC watched as the ship's chief engineer tinkered
with the keyboard in front of them. They planned to show this
information to everyone aboard the ship. Parfait reconfigured Nirvana's
computer system and had it reset into general viewing. All of the
screens all over the ship turned into a general viewing and started the
information's playback.

The message, all in all, was really not good. It was a recording of
historical events which were catalogued somehow, but it started late in
the year 2080's. A scientist from the ninth planet of their original
Solar System, Pluto, explained how the Earth became too obsessed in
further exploiting their evolution. It came to a point where everything
stopped and Earth's resources dried up. Colonization ships were launched
into different parts of the universe with hopes of letting the Earth
civilization survive.

A serious threat came to Earth's space, which was called the Venomoids.
The Tekkamen, who to the surprise of those who were on Earth, were some
of the humans sent to Jupiter in hopes for colonizing the planet,
followed the Venomoids. It seemed that the crew of that mission was
taken over by these aliens, by use of pods of some sort. The aliens
transformed the humans into fighting machines, and set to attack Earth.
Luckily, one of them got away before his transformation was complete,
and fled to Earth, in an attempt to thwart the Venomoids' plan. He was
called Blade, and together with the last of the Earth's humans, they
battled against the threat and triumphed. A few minor squirmishes and
clean-up job with the Venomoids kept the Earth Defense Force busy. After
all of these, Blade simply disappeared afterwards.

The Earth finally developed the almost discarded Space Ring that was
thoroughly roughed up during the war with the Venomoids. They divided it
into five parts, and made them into Space Colonies in space. Each one
has a different country representing it. They also developed the mobile
suits, which were used as transportation in space or in defense. The
mobile suits were humanoid shaped robots piloted by humans. They were
based according to the first battle suits made from Earth. The greatest
mobile suits ever developed were called the Gundams, and were
specifically used for combat.

New menaces managed to appear, as to which a convention of all the
Allied Defense Forces that were against the threat to be assembled. Most
of the members have their own battle suits, mechas, and giant robots at
their disposal.

The war that followed was called the Robot Wars. The most Earthlings and
Spacenoids (those people in the Space Colonies) battled against each
other. Beliefs clashed against each other. The Spacenoids believed that
they have as much right as the Earthlings to rule the Earth itself. The
Spacenoids also developed some sort of telepathic powers... they dubbed
those people as ESPers (not Espers, mind you). Despite this, some
Earthlings and Spacenoids allied themselves with the resistance itself.
During this weak time for the Earth, other alien threats known as the
Guests, the Zentraedi, and a lot more arrived. Luckily, the group of
defenders succeeded in repelling the invasion force. A short moment of
peace reigned afterwards.

After a few years, the greatest work of Earth was finally unveiled...
the Paeksis core, which was a strong source of bio-energy that can fuel
their ships. They made two of them, one was installed in the ship
Nirvana was before it transmogrified. The other was left on Earth, and
was now being used to harvest the same colonies that were sent out.
Ironically, since the Earth's evolution stopped at one time, they have
this idea of keeping themselves alive through transplants and such.
Thus, the 'Harvest' was implemented. They planned on taking back
different organs from the people they have sent out before.

It was then that a great scientist by the name of Hakubi Washuu appeared
in Pluto. She explained how the Earth was already doomed and that they
needed to muster enough forces to halt its advances on its mission. She
also revealed that behind the scenes, a powerful entity has long taken
over the council of Earth, effectively destroying everyone that seemed
to get on his way. She said that it was this entity's plan to implement
the Paeksis cores' creations, and also the Harvest Project. Professor
Washuu only mentioned him as 'Kagato', which she was certainly has been
acquainted with. She held a certain loathing against him, but she failed
to reveal it. There were also a number of things that Professor Washuu
said Kagato owed her for, like the Paeksis fo example. She has vowed to
look for a way to get the Paeksis that was left for Earth back from
Kagato's clutches. Why? She didn't say much about it. Professor Washuu
just mentioned that she (yes, she referred to the Paeksis as a 'she')
was very important to her, and it was imperative to have the Paeksis
back.

Professor Washuu also mentioned looking for someone, an acquaintance of
some sort, who disappeared because of an accident years back. She said
that this person could help them all in this war against Earth. Before
she disappeared, she left all of these in another information cache
within the pod's own. With these informations and the hope of maybe
finding the person needed for the war, Misty was taken into cryo-stasis
and was sent into space to call out to the colonists that were sent out
years ago. Nobody knew what happened to the ones in Pluto, especially
since it has been more than half a century since contact has been made
back home.

At this, Ranma stiffened beside Meia as the girl looked at him with an
unreadable expression on her face. He stood and raced forward blindly,
absently brushing off female obstacles along the way. Meia was left
behind, her heart sinking in sadness. She knew exactly how he felt, for
she too lost a planet for a home, and her loved ones as well.

Ranma didn't know where he was going, but he felt that he needed to go
away. He wanted to go to Earth, but for what purpose? The message has
been years already, and who knows what happened to Earth during those
lost years? And Kagato... his eyes narrowed at the thought of his name.
He knew of him, the one who was Washuu's assistant back in her academy
days. He betrayed Washuu by imprisoning her in that ship, as well as
stealing Washuu's project/child Ryoko. Then Kagato unleashed a
brainwashed Ryoko to attack Jurai, all for the pursuit of power. In the
end he failed, having underestimated the Juraian Prince Yosho's power.
The rest was history.

His advance was stopped when he bumped into something. Reacquainting his
senses to his surroundings once again, he saw that he just crashed into
the blue-haired girl that was recovered from the pod. He also
unconsciously caught her as she fell back because of the collision. Her
eyes were closed shut.

"I-I'm sorry! Are you alright?" Ranma asked worriedly.

Misty opened her eyes and saw a pair of shades looking at her. She
instinctively wiped a tear from her face, something that she was doing a
bit earlier as she listened to the general broadcast of her ancestors'
message. She had come to this window to watch the stars outside, and was
greatly saddened by the lost time she managed to incur while she was in
cold sleep. Her only family in Pluto must've been gone already. She had
met Washuu once or twice in the past, the professor was often busy
fixing the machines up and keeps them in running order. Misty also
figured that the red-haired genius was searching for someone, because
sometimes when things were not really hectic, Professor Washuu was
calculating coordinates and such in her weird transparent computer. The
rumors said that she was searching for her lover, who was lost in
another dimension. Some speculated that a friend was caught in an
accident pertaining to one of the redhead's inventions, and Washuu was
trying to bring that person back. It was later when Misty heard Washuu
mumbling something about a certain 'Saotome Ranma' that seemed to invoke
some emotions from the scientist. Mist tried searching for something
regarding that 'Ranma', but was later caught by Washuu when Misty's
search became too intruding. The scientist forgave the embarrassed Misty
about it, and told her about who this Ranma was. Misty was told that
Washuu knew Ranma way back. One has to have an open mind, especially
when around the redhead. Strange things happen to most of her
experiments, and that's what caught Ranma. Due to some circumstances,
Ranma was swept into a vortex of spatial distortion. Washuu could easily
build a device that could take him back, but the problem was finding
where Ranma was thrown by the accident. He could've been anywhere, thus
Washuu continued her almost impossible search until she finally
disappeared once again.

The blue-haired girl finally realized that she and Ranma have been
frozen in their position for a few minutes. She suddenly slipped out of
his embrace and turned her back to him as she hid her blush. She
remembered his question about her welfare, and she replied, "Oh! Uhm...
I'm alright. Thank you for catching me, Ranma."

"Are you okay?" Ranma asked hesitantly. He saw how red and puffy the
girl's eyes were, evidence that she was crying before.

Misty nodded, her back still on Ranma. "H-Hai. I'm just... reminiscing,
about the lost time, and also my family back in Pluto."

Ranma sighed. "I... I think I understand what you mean."

"I know." Misty replied. "Someone has been searching for you, Ranma.
Remember Washuu-sensei?"

"Washuu." Ranma smiled slightly. "Of course I do."

Misty continued, "She came to Pluto and helped us in developing our
technology. She made that pod I came from by the way. She escaped Earth
before it was thoroughly overwhelmed by that hidden menace we've never
been able to detect. By the time she reached us, it was too late to do
anything about it. We can't muster enough resources and manpower to
battle against the forces of Earth. Washuu-sensei still hasn't stopped
searching for you though... I heard that you were in an accident that
made you disappear. She said that you have the power to help us reclaim
Earth again. She installed information regarding Earth and its state in
the information in my pod. Before she disappeared, she told us some
information regarding the enemy. Kagato, her former assistant and the
one who imprisoned her, was the culprit of this... nightmare."

"I know of him." Ranma stated. Oh, how he knew of Kagato... the jerk!
Brainwashing Ryoko like that... ordering her to kill against her will...
he shall pay! Ranma shook his head slightly. He was starting to sound
like Kuno, which was a scary thought.

"I... I'm sorry, Ranma. But I... can't really speak about those right
now. I feel..." Misty paused in her ranting and thought about it for a
moment. "Can you give me some time to sort my feelings first? I'd
appreciate it..."

"Uhhmmm... sure. I understand." Actually, Ranma had no idea what she was
talking about, but obliged her anyway. He looked down to his arms, and
saw Rin-Ohki sleeping peacefully. He shrugged as he excused himself from
Misty, off to find Meia. Right now, she's probably the only one he could
talk to about anything anyway. Besides, he still has to show her his
curse...

Ranma and Meia were walking side to side when they arrived at the
clinic. The cabbit was draped on Ranma's shoulder, still sleeping, as
they ventured to their destination. Meia wanted to see the new baby,
while Ranma was just plain curious, as well as bored out of his wits.
Ranma bumped into Meia while he was searching for her in the hangar bay.
He was pulled towards the greenhouse once again, and was asked a
multitude of questions. Again, Ranma asked Meia's vow of silence
regarding his abilities, which the girl readily accepted. Meia was most
surprised when Ranma turned to a girl via the water in the artificial
river that flowed in the middle of the greenhouse. Meia asked for a lot
of repeat demonstrations of the curse, thoroughly fascinated by the
change. Her animosity towards males in general has been toned down
significantly, probably because she couldn't really fault Ranma about
it. Although Meia was more at ease when Ranma's female, his male form
was also tolerated at most. Meia asked Ranma to stay male as much as
possible in the meantime, so that she could get used to the idea of
living with them. Ranma readily accepted, of course. They will try and
keep the secret as long as they can for the moment, until Ranma has
established that he has no intention of conquering them or something.
Meia wasn't really fascinated with the idea of lying intentionally to
her superiors, but Ranma's look of resignation to his fate gave her
feelings a one-eighty.

When the clinic door slid open, they were treated to the sight of Misty
kissing Hibiki, with Dita and that weird egg-shaped robot Pyoro gaping
behind them. Ezra was on the bed and the baby was sleeping on a nearby
carriage. Ranma and Meia froze at the door, just as Misty pulled back
her head with a soft pop. Hibiki fell down on the floor bonelessly as
Dita screamed in frustration.

"Wow... reminds me of a situation I was in before..." Ranma muttered to
himself. Rin-Ohki miya'd in agreement as she snuggled into Ranma's chest
some more. This looked like the incident back when Shampoo gave him the
Kiss of Marriage.

Meia on the other hand grumbled. "I did not just see that."

Ranma smirked at her. "Yep, you did. That's how women on Earth were
usually like... well... depends actually... hmmm oh heck whatever."

"Dita's in shock." Meia commented.

Ranma chuckled. "Just you wait, she's gonna scream bloody hell in a
little while."

Sure enough, Dita broke out of her shock when Misty turned to her and
commented something about the kiss being delicious.

"NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Dita's scream echoed all over the Nirvana.

======================================================================== =====

On another galaxy, a group of five unlikely heroines were currently
lounging in their headquarters.

"Anyone want some tea?" A pink haired girl with flowers decorating her
head asked cheerfully at her teammates.

A tall red-haired girl with a black hat and a monocle over one eye was
idly fiddling with her gun. Her generous assets were half exposed
outside the uniform she wore. She raised her head and responded, "I'll
have one, Milfeuille."

The pink-haired girl nodded enthusiastically. "Hai hai, Forte-san!"

"One here with lots of sugar as well." A small short blue-haired girl
with long white rabbit-like ears replied with a smile to the pink-haired
girl, whose name was Milfeuille.

"Okay, Mint-san... but remember that too much sugar is bad for you."
Milfeuille responded.

A blond-haired woman, also with large assets, dressed in a red tight
dress with two huge customized clips on her hair shook her head
morosely. "No thank you." She said with a shrug. She faced Milfeuille,
who was still smiling, and said, "Milfeuille... how can you be so happy
so much during a time like this? Our last mission was a failure you
know."

But that didn't dampen Milfeuille's spirits. "But Ranpha-san... we did
catch the bad guys, right?"

The blond named Ranpha sighed. "Milfeuille, those men were undercover
agents. We just blew their cover when we busted them."

Milfeuille's eyes watered a bit. "But... but..."

"Ranpha." Forte's low voice cut through their conversation. "Leave the
poor girl alone. Go on, Milfeuille, have the tea ready."

The pink-haired girl immediately brightened as she nodded, "Hai!
Forte-san!" She pulled five cups from... nowhere... as well as a pot of
tea already made. Strange... it all appeared out of nowhere.

Ahem, anyway. As Milfeuille continued her work, Mint turned to the last
member of the group, a cyan-haired young girl with red eyes. Her hair
was tied up in a twirly ponytail behind her back, and her head was
decorated with a white tiara of some sort, which extended down to the
sides of her face, covering her ears and a small part of her cheeks.
It's more of a mini-helmet than a tiara, actually. She held a magenta
colored stuff toy... a fat chicken with black tight swirly eyes and the
letter Z embroidered on its chest. The stuff toy housed the intelligent
AI that was recovered from a guided missile that failed to explode. The
AI became sentient and was installed inside the stuff toy, who later
called itself Nomad. Apparently, it is male. The girl suddenly stiffened
and stood up from where she was sitting.

Mint cocked her head and asked, "What's wrong, Vanilla?"

Vanilla's red eyes widened in shock, much to the nervousness of the rest
of the group, even Milfeuille. Vanilla was known to have shown little to
no emotions at all, even during the most dangerous missions they were
in. She doesn't even laugh, but she did a small smile once. But that was
it.

Everyone stared at the wide-eyed expression of Vanilla and strained to
hear her whispered words.

Vanilla said under her breath, "Kami-sama..."

======================================================================== =====
== To Be Continued... ==
======================================================================== =====

Author Rants:

I did a large rewrite on Vandread's ongoing timeline. The battle on the
first episode was mostly on Ranma and Meia's point of view.

Meia's OOC?

Hmmm... maybe. But when Vandread: Second Stage started, her views about
males and such already changed, and she was showing a lot more emotions
than before. Another male's appearance, with a personality to boot,
would change a person. She's exasperated, irritated, joyous and worried
for Ranma all at the same time.

Ranma confided to her because... well, just because! Ranma needed
someone to trust in this timeline, and Meia was in the right place at
the right time. Who's he gonna trust, Paiway? Yeah right. Kero!

Oh by the way, a question from the previous chapter about Kiima's
youthful appearance. She's somewhere in seventeen years of age,
approximately. As to how she got there? Well, just a speculation, but
because the Phoenix people were a non-fertile race, Saffron would've
done something to prolong the lives of his subjects. Kiima should be the
one who will be the first to be bestowed with long life, because of her
position and duty to the Emperor. She appeared in Canon Ranma looking
approximately in her twenties to twenty-five years of age.

Vanilla's last words, about Kami-sama? Heheh... it's not the Kami-sama
everyone would be thinking about now. She's a holy and religious person,
one who could probably detect powerful entities.

Next up: With Ranma's appearance in Nirvana, their normal everyday lives
are turned into amusing daily phenomena. While the crew has decided to
go back to their home system first (Talaark and Mejer) and inform them
of the impending 'Harvest' of Earth, with Ranma in the ship, nothing
goes their way.

Ranma will finally get to talk seriously with Misty, and the girl will
tell him about the secrets Washuu imparted on her before the redhead
disappeared.

What is the Paeksis? Ranma will find out that the Paeksis Cores (yes,
the two of them in existence) have a direct connection back to him.

If that wasn't trouble enough for him, the appearance of five young
girls turns his already inverted life upside down again, and again, and
again.

"Kami-sama..."

"What do you mean, Kami-sama? I am NOT Kami-sama!"

"Saotome, who are your... acquaintances?"

"I swear! This is NOT what it looks like! Honest!"

Ja ne.

- Lord Rance

In case you need my email for some reason at all, here:
lord_rance@yahoo.com

For those who will send flames, well, I'll just douse it with my trusty
bucket of cold water!

"I swear!! This ain't what it looks like!!!" - Ranma Saotome