Arthur Harvey Edwards (the First Lord of the Dark Forces) This is the introductory text of my first Ranma fanfic. The actual first chapter is currently being revised; it will appear on r.a.a.s sometime soon... Dear Reader: I am quite sure that at least one point in following the (mis)adventures of Ranma and company weird ideas began percolating in the depths of your brain, mostly categorizable under the Alternate Scenarios (Special/Exotic) department. For instance: How, I found myself asking on multiple occasions, would the various characters react if Akane were to die or be slain? What sort of person would be able to get Kodachi off Ranma's six? If characters from Mortal Kombat cameoed what would happen? To say nothing of Metroid, Acheroni, and maybe the odd yautja or three. This work is an attempt to answer some of these questions. The answers thusly presented are but one set of the numerous possibilities, so if you have any comments - any at all - feel free to enlighten me. It's also a not-quite- shameless excuse to intro some people who I think would fit in real well here. WARNING! This is a fanfic, and one that does gross things to some of the basic premises the Ranmaverse operates under (but then, I'm sure you figured that last bit by now) As such, it might mount equally disturbing assaults on your sensibilities. Within these pages will be found graphic depictions of violence (and maybe a dash of explicit sexual content). That's why this statement is here. It is the Rubicon, the event horizon, if you will, that delineates the point of no return. But enough of this psuedolegal stuff, you want the story! Setting note: The year has been set as 1998, so as to allow for certain technological advances and other events. This change aside, the Ranma universe is pretty much unaltered. -Introductory crawl text- April, 1998. The new American president is just over halfway through her first term in office, NASA and its Russian counterpart have begun construction of the first permanent orbital habitat... In addition to these and other events two interesting, if not disturbing, phenomena reared their proverbial heads. The first was a direct consequence of deregulation: with the governmental leashes much loosened if not cast off altogether, corporate warfare took a new and far more literal turn. Second (and it could be said that this was an inevitable byproduct of the first) was the rise of companies who earned their keep contracting troops in numbers ranging from solo operatives to entire regiments. The best-known of these merc contractors was founded in the early nineties - shortly after the near-debacle that was the United States government's response to the Cartel-instigated assassination of FBI director Jacobs and its ambassador to Colombia, to be precise - by Nelson Katzadoulos. With this individual as money man and silent partner, and the famed Col. Emile Lazarus handling operations, the Lazarus Military Operations Group was born. It was understandable, considering the situation, that the Group wasted no time establishing bases and offices across the globe (and above, if various rumors are to be believed). It was understandable as well that the nerve center for the Group's activities in Asia was established in the city that was, for all intents and purposes, the financial capital of the Pacific Rim. However, for certain of the younger residents of one of Tokyo's suburbs, the dynamics of their peculiar set of relationships and rivalries bore more significance than any of these happenings. This would change eventually - but none of them had any idea how imminent this 'eventually' actually was... --- Soundtrack Opening theme: standard Ranma 1/2 or title track from Jungle Strike, Super Metroid, MK2, or Urban Strike Assassination track: 'The Ambush' or 'The Laser-Guided Missile' (_Clear and Present Danger_) or 'Star Bright Angel' (Robot Carnival) Dark Wedding BGM: Maridia (Super Metroid) Closing: 'Ground Zero' (Shinobi III) or MK2 ending theme --- Introductory animation proposal [Run standard Ranma 1/2 opening animation. At the final frame - the one with Akane and Ranma leaning back-to-back - the action freezes. After two seconds a bullet hole, such as would be made through glass, appears centered on the former's head. [Camera zooms thought the hole, into the blackness... then pulls back out onto a full-front view of a man in urban fatigues aiming a sniper rifle. He lowers the weapon, permitting us to see his face: camo 'paint' aside he is a young man of no unappealing aspect, with eyes the color of a polymimetic killer from a certain Scwartzenegger movie. The screen fades to black as he snaps off a 'hang loose' handsign. [Black screen, with blinking underscore cursor at upper left ( _ ). The following is typed (cyan text) as we watch: 23 Febuary 1998 Lazarus Military Operations Group - Special Operations Command Security clearance: OMEGA Code: Ristar Mission profile: assassination Target: Akane Tendo (see following) Operational notes: deep-black, minimum personnel exposure [This remains onscreen for about six seconds, with the cursor right on the tail of the last 'e', before fading to... [Dawn view of Tokyo, obviously from a camera in the door of a 'copter in flight. First, the letter 'B' fades into view, then other letters and characters, at random, until we see the following (white chars) superimposed, centered horizontally and just above-center vertically, over the backdrop: Black Operations 301 [Fade to black.] --- Chapter titles One: Preliminaries Two: The Curtain on Ristar / Arrangements / Recon in Force Three: The Bloody Afternoon Four: Aftermath Five: Complications [STYLISTIC NOTE: text tightly bound by [ characters [like so] is characters' thoughts (italicized); text bounded by underscores, _like so_, is either italicized or not, depending on context. - Black Operations 301 One Preliminaries [You're the new corporal for Grey-Second?] the sergeant managed not to say when the man walked into the office; instead he gave the new arrival a once-over. The man was young, he noted immediately; couldn't be too much older than nineteen and had obviously worked to earn those dual chevrons... These and other details, he filed into memory. "...reporting as ordered," the latter finished. The sergeant stood, extended a hand. "Apone." The other shook it. "Chekov." "Welcome to SOG Alpha." The sergeant also managed to keep any comments he might have had about the man's full name - which so happened to be Chance Sergeyvich Chekov - to himself. "Glad to be here, sarge." "I want you back here at eight-thirty to meet your squad." It was just after nineteen hundred local. "Yessir." She had failed. As usual, Shampoo understood the immediate 'why': interference. There was something else which bothered her, too. [Why,] she asked herself as she had done so often before, [Ranma not realize I'm the only one who really loves him?] Sighing, she returned her attention to cleaning up the tables. It was something on the last table, the one closest to the kitchen, that grabbed her attention: a magazine, forgotten by the businessman who had been seated there only twenty minutes earlier. Out of curiousity Shampoo leafed through it, stopping someplace near the back. "What is it, child?" "Just this ad, great-grandmother." "Hmmm." Cologne perused the one-eighth-page item. "They just might be what we need." "What?" "You shall see, child. Close up the restaraunt; I'll be back soon." With that Cologne left. Shampoo blinked. What was great-grandmother talking about? For what could she possibly need these Lazarus people...? "You're in luck, corporal." The logistics officer - identified by her nametag as Brandt - ceased typing on a keyboard. "We can secure you a studio in the Yin-Yang Apartments." On receiving an approving nod, she resumed typing for a few seconds. "Here we go," she continued. "Room 305. All you'll have to do is present some ID; they're expecting you." "Waitasec, where's that?" Brandt explained. "Thanks." Chance picked up his duffel and headed for the elevator. So far this tour was proceeding smoothly, with none of the hassle he'd half-expected and worried about for the first ten minutes of the long transpacific flight. [But then,] he cautioned himself, [this is just setting up; the easy part.] The elevator came to a smooth halt at ground level, the door irising open to permit egress. As he crossed the lobby he noted, out of the corner of one eye, a short old woman (complete with staff longer than her height) walking - or was she hopping? - from the receptionist/information station towards one of the publicly-accessible elevators. He wondered who that could be for a second before stepping out the front door and jogging off on the itenary that logistics officer had provided. "Excuse me," asked Ryoga, "but could you tell me where I can find Nerima?" "Certainly." The driver pointed south-southeast. "About sixty-four kilometers," she added before rolling up the car window and accelerating off. [Sixty-four kilometers.] Ryoga adjusted the straps on his pack and began walking, a fixed determination burning in his mind. That was almost a long distance for him, but he'd make it. Once there, he would repay Ranma for the humiliation he had endured at their last confrontation... [And he just had to get lucky while Akane was watching! Well, not this time.] Gritting his teeth, he lashed out at a nearby sign and continued on his way. He did not notice that he had mangled the sign beyond readability. Neither did he notice that it proclaimed the distance to Tokyo (and consequently, Nerima) as sixty-four kilometers - in the opposite direction. "So, what do you think?" "I've heard about this guy." Drake mounted another target sheet and worked the controls to send it about twenty meters downrange before sliding a fresh clip into his sidearm. "Our version of varsity, right?" He caught Apone's nod right before firing twice. "Where'd he end up?" "Here." More shots could be heard now; others had arrived to make use of the firing range. "In fact..." - the sergeant timed it for effect - "...he'll be replacing Izzard." "What?" The pronouncement had had the desired effect: Drake was sufficiently surprised that his aim shifted fractionally before the gun - a Beretta 98C, an evolution of the -92F adopted by the US Army - fired. It wasn't that Izzard was going to be replaced - the medics had downchecked him after their helicopter had crashed during a training exercise, leaving him with compound fractures of one leg - but Drake hadn't expected _this_ particular substitute... "Are you sure this is such a good idea?" he managed to say. "Quite." Then Drake understood: he - and by extension, Grey-Second - were being entrusted to give one of the Group's current crop of 'varsity' special operatives some for-real experience. Later, he would realize just how well the term fitted his squad's new corporal; a service profile would be available for his perusal. For now, however, he nodded and hit the recall switch. Much to his chagrin, the third bullet - instead of joining the others in a neat group at the center of the 'head' - had ended up going through a shoulder. He _hated_ it when the sarge did that. Less publicly visible than Lazarus' soldiers were their 'operations managers'. A slightly inflated term, it was used to identify those low- to mid-level executives who served as the Group's interface with its various clients. When Cologne was cleared past ground-level security, she took one of the public- access elevators and eventually arrived at the third-level office of one of these individuals. Nodding approval at the decor, she followed a hand gesture to a seat. "I remember you," the man - Rawlins - noted after introductions had been exchanged. "You run that restaurant on Parino Street." "Yes." Cologne then explained what had brought her here. [Hmmm...] Rawlins tapped out a nameless tune on the arm of his chair. [Unusual...] "I simply don't understand those two." "You're not alone," noted Genma sympathetically. "He's my own son and sometimes I have no idea what goes through his head. They've been engaged for... how long now, six months? Nine?" Soun nodded. "And look at them..." As if to underline his point, a loud scuffling noise broke out upstairs. Neither he nor Genma bothered looking; everyone in the household had heard it often enough to know what it was. "Quite." A last, crashing sound, then the two men saw a form go flying off over the courtyard. Both of them sighed, then went back to the game-in-progress. "I wonder how many people are that rude to their fiancees." Soun didn't notice that the board had been turned round. [Why,] Ranma asked himself, [did Dad set me up with such an uncute...] - the specific noun he wanted in this case was more easily found in English - [...bitch?!] Getting to his feet after uncermonious contact with a sidewalk, he dusted himself off, wondering what had possessed his father to get him into this mess to begin with. And, as an afterthought, himself for not really taking firm action to get out of it. All things considered, it was perhaps not the best of times for someone on a balcony to accidentally drop a glass of iced tea over the side. Cologne had taken all of fifteen minutes to explain just what she wanted. For his part Rawlins had remained attentive, occasionally taking some notes. "You are aware," he now explained, "of how much this might cost." "How much?" The Lazarus representative's answer made Cologne sit back and think. Fifty thousand American dollars was a lot of money, a quantity it would perhaps take months of brisk business to put together. But, she eventually decided, worth it if they could solve her problem... "Done." "Very well." A handshake, and Cologne was out of the office, headed back home. "So, they kill her now?" Shampoo wanted to know forty minutes later. "Soon," came the reply. "But...but I want to kill her! And that spatula girl too!" protested Shampoo. If anything, the string of past failures had only focused her determination. As far as she was concerned Ranma was her husband, and no unfeminine Japanese girl was going to ruin that relationship... "Why leave it to Lazarus soldiers?" Cologne nodded sympathetically. She hadn't wanted to hire someone else to do this... but at this point, no other options had readily presented themselves... "We shall see, child." Having duly filed the contract, and run the credit check mandated by current procedure, Rawlins' next step was to hand the ball over to an appropriate operations unit. Merely a matter of dialing a particular number. "He isn't here at the moment, sir," was the reply to the opman's first question; "Down at dinner" was the answer to the next. Sure enough, a trip to the cafeteria turned up the sergeant in question. "What's going on, Rawlins?" "New contract. Something right up your alley." "Really?" The explaination gave Apone cause for real puzzlement. Across the length of his career with the Group - he had, in fact, been there virtually from day one - he had not encountered something like this. [A civilian?!] he refrained from blurting out with some effort. [We're going to sanction a _civilian_?] "This is a little strange," he said. Rawlins nodded agreement. By the end of the meal, the two men conceded that the whole thing _did_ have the faintest of fishy smells, that perhaps it would be best to task one of the newer operatives with it. "Do you have someone in mind?" "Yes, sergeant, I do." The rest came a second or two later, coincidentally timed as if to answer a puzzled expression. "Izzard's replacement." The place was known by a variety of names. Whatever one chose to call it - Limbo, Void, Continuum, whatever - it could be best described as being at once everywhere and nowhere, in between everything without actually being part thereof. A casual visitor would have noted that it was for the most part a forbidding place, floating islands amid a background of odd colors and continually-swirling patterns that would probably induce nausea if looked at too long. More extensive study would have uncovered the perhaps-surprising fact that this no-space was home to forms of life native and otherwise. In a certain locale a young man sat before a large crystal, intently watching the scene depicted within. There was no audio: it was a pain to set up, and unnecessary in this case. Another young man wearing a yellowish tunic and bandana, obviously the subject of the depiction, looked about for a few seconds before punching a nearby boulder. In and of itself, that was unremarkable. Two other things _were_: first, the man seemed uninjured as a result of this action; second, that a spiderweb pattern of fractures had formed on the boulder. The observer noted to himself that this might be worth investigating. Of course, Apone had his suspicions about the reasons for having the operation dumped in the new corporal's lap. Shortly after dinmner he was back in his office; the file was just where he had left it, and now he had time and reason to reread it. He took a few seconds to study the color photo attached to the first page. [I wonder,] he mused, repeating an earlier thought, [how many girls wanted to accompany you to your senior prom.] The rest of the file was of more professional interest and not unimpressive. "Graduated high school in '97 with distinction," he read aloud. "Excelled throughout B&AIT with recon as his MOS - made corporal, in fact, a month before commencement..." And of course the proficiencies made sense, in their own little portion of the page: Expert Close/Unarmed, Distinguished Rifleman, Master Pistol. And next to them was a notation that stopped the sergeant dead in his tracks. [Have Light?] Had to be some sort of special program, he knew at once. There was, oddly enough, no elaboration; maybe it could be looked up later... "Jesus," he hissed, leaning back in his chair. 'Varsity', Drake had called the guy. [How fitting.] The Yin-Yang Apartments, as brochures advertised and Chance discovered, was a split-tower thirty-story building in the middle of a quiet residental area. 305 was a corner studio, and taking possession was a matter of a handshake and a transfer of keys. Half of the necessary setup work had been completed. The rest would be done soon. --- With the school's gates rising before them and the sun now peeking from behind some scattered clouds, Akane and Ranma shrugged resignedly. The gauntlet for which they steeled themselves each morning awaited; unfortunately there was no way around, not since Kuno had made that pronouncement in a speech class a while back. And so just getting to class _on time_ was a hassle. Chance was running early, of course. He was also taking an alternate route this morning, and it so happened that same ran in front of Furinkan High. It was perhaps sheer coincidence, then, that he happened to be there just in time to hear the scuffle. Evaluating - or perhaps sensing? - it to be of potential interest, he climbed a nearby tree for a better vantage point. And it was certainly interesting. A pair - one male, with black hair and a pigtail; the other female, with short bluish hair - were literally battling through a gauntlet numbering in the dozens... and actually making progress. [Fools,] he mentally breated the remaining members of the 'gauntlet'. Could they not see that a less... direct approach might be in order? As they had managed to do time and again previously, they had managed to get past the crowd. And, of course, Kuno was waiting at the foot of the steps. They hoped he would just leave it at the poetic mouthings and other lines. It was a futile hope. Deciding after another several seconds that he had seen enough, Chance dropped lightly to the sidewalk and resumed jogging. At this rate he'd arrive with five minutes to spare instead of the preferred ten. What he was not aware of, of course, was the other pair of eyes that had been watching. In that particular reigon of the Void, the same young man was watching the fight in a viewing crystal. [Yes,] he silently affirmed, [maybe it would be worthwhile to pay a visit. Some of the locals seemed to- who was that?] Someone - purple hair, jeans, denim jacket, sneakers - had been observing as well, and had now seen fit to leave. [Hmmm...] The lull in the fight ended just then, prompting the observer to put that question aside for the time being. It would be something else to check out when he got there. "So what-" "-did we do? Teape and I got into their fraternity house about zero three- hundred the next morning and... you saw _Godfather_, right, Drake?" "Uh, yeah... but why...?" By way of answer Chance just smiled and drew a finger across his throat. "Isn't that a little extreme?" a third person wanted to know. She, like the others, was interested in the tail end of the story. "Actually, no. What happened was that the slopes got up and were wondering why their beds were so damp..." Drake got it right then, as did everyone else; the laughter lasted about twenty seconds. "That's sick..." someone muttered. "But it worked, Marcs. For some reason the frats laid off hassling our people in town." "Corporal," boomed Apone from somewhere nearby. "We need to discuss something." "What?" Chance asked forty seconds later and some rooms down the hall. "An assignment just came down for you specifically." A pause. "How many people have you killed?" "None yet." "That's going to change. All you have to do is track and sanction this person." The sergeant swiveled the terminal's monitor round to show a reproduction of a student file - specifically, the photo at upper-right. "Her name is Akane Tendo. Age sixteen, attends Furinkan High School, resides..." Chance was barely listening. In his memory he replayed the incident he had earlier observed, watched as the target and her companion fought their way across the school's front yard. [So, that is who I am to kill...] The next thought in his mind was that it might be an interesting operation.