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Power and Responsibility: Prologue

Walking home alone from school, Ranma casually whistled a tuneless
melody.  Life was good at the moment for Ranma.  Soon he would be
moving back home to his own home with his mother.  Even better, she
had forbidden all of his fiances, including Akane, from coming onto
her property because of the ring incident that had demolished her
home.  Of course this had enraged his harem to the point of almost
attacking the Saotome matricarch, in front of Ranma, no less.  Now
the fiances were on probation, imposed by his mother, and were on
their very best behavior.  None of them wanted their claim on Ranma
nullified by his mother.  To Ranma, all this meant that he now had
a peaceful place to relax and train, a sanctuary.  He absolutely
couldn't wait till the next time Ryoga showed up.  If he broke anything
there was a good chance that the family would be eating bacon for
breakfast the next morning.  Ranma decided not to let it go that far.
He would stop his mom from killing the pig right after she had maimed
him a little.

As he was about to jump over an intersection, Ranma saw through the
corner of his eye, a small black object lying on the sidewalk.  It
caught his attention because it was flashing darkness, literally
causing a shadow, a foot in diameter to appear and disappear around
it every second.  Thinking that it may be valuable to Cologne, she
did have all that magic crap, he walked off the fence instead of
jumping and landed next to the object.  Between being closer to it
and the longer interval of flashes, Ranma was able to see that the
object was a small cube and not entirely black; silver ran like
veins through the cube.  The closer his hand came to grasping it
the longer it took to flash, until finally when he picked it up,
it stopped completely.  Before he could straighten, Ranma's world
went dark.
****

He was standing on a vast expanse of black stone with streaks of
silver running through it.  The cube was no longer in his hand.  The
sky was a white void and there were no landmarks in sight.

"Damn, damn, damn!" Ranma's shout echoed hollowly.  How an echo was
even possible where nothing existed to return the sound was lost
on Ranma."Why does this shit always happen to me?  Now I've been
abducted by aliens!"

For nothing more than stress relief, Ranma gathered as much chi as
he could in his hand and flung it carelessly of toward the horizon.
The concussion from the explosion as the blast struck, even miles
away, nearly knocked Ranma off his feet.

"How does host accomplish this?" someone asked from behind him.  Ranma
spun, eager to find someone to explain waht in hell was going on.  He
jumped back in suprise when he was confronted by a floating ball of
the same silver-streaked black stone."How does host create energy
weapons without mechanical mean?"

Ranma gaped at the talking ball.  Maybe he had just fallen off the 
fence
and hit his head.  That must be it.  He wasn't really on another planet
and that ball wasn't really talking to him.  All he had to do was let
the delusion play out and he could wake up, just like in the 
movies."Why
do you keep calling me host?  My name's Ranma."

"Host designation noted: Ranma.  For conversion purposes, self must 
know
how Ranma created the energy weapon." Ranma noticed that as it talked
the silver in it glowed slightly.

"That was a chi blast," he answered.

"What is chi?"

"Chi is my spirit, the energy that my body makes." Thinking back,
Ranma discovered that this was the longest conversation he'd had with
anyone besides his mom, in months.

"Ranma designated as bio-energy manipulator."

"Could you please tell me where I am and what you are?" pressed Ranma.
He didn't really like being called a bio-energy manipulator, whatever
that was.

"Ranma is within self.  Self is the artificially sentient entity in 
charge
of the conversion process." The stone ball began floating after Ranma 
as
he started walking in no particular direction.

"Okay Self, what is the conversion process?" Ranma thought he was
remaining remarkably calm, especially for someone with the growing
suspiscion he really was inside of a tiny little chunk of stone.

"The conversion process involves flooding of Ranma's body with nano-
molecular machine.  They will alter Ranma's physiology beyond
his evolutionary level, implant a series of minute phasically
aligned spacial, gravity, and magnetic field generators in strategic
points throughout Ranma's body, and reconstruct Ranma's neural pathways
to increase his spacial awareness and provide a link to self's 
database."

Ranma didn't understand half of what Self was saying, but enough of
it registered to cause him to panic."What?!  You mean you're messing
around with my body?!  Uh uh, get out.  I don't want whatever it is
you're selling.  Just leave me alone!"

"Ranma's heart rate is increasing dangerously and adrenal glands are
nearing maximum production.  Ranma must calm down or he will injure
himself.  The nanites will only be able to heal damage done to Ranma
after the conversion process is complete."

It wanted him to be calm!  Calm?!  He'd show it calm!  Ranma's soul
became like ice.  No emotion, no feeling showed on his face.  Around
him mist began to form.  Soon it was followed by a fine layer of ice
on Ranma's skin as water vapor condensed further.

"Ranma's bio-readings returning to normal.  Conversion process
nearing completion, self linking with Ranma's memory centers.
Personality forming."

Once again Ranma's world went dark, but this time when he could see
again he was standing on the sidewalk where he had found the damned
cube.  He couldn't tell how much time had gone by.  The sun was in
the same position, so it could not have been more than a few minutes.

<Three minutes, seveteen seconds to be exact,> said a familiar voice.
It was in his head this time.

Ranma screamed.

<Cut it out, you're going to draw attention to us,> Self snapped.

"What are you doing in my head?" Ranma demanded.  He jumped over the
wall along the sidewalk and landed in an empty parking lot.

<Don't talk out loud.  People are going to think you're crazy.>

"Hell, I think I'm crazy!" he snapped.

<Not out loud!  Jeeze, is it so much to ask for?>

Self was talking different.  He sounded like...a person.<Is this 
better?>
he thought.

<See how easy that was?>

<Okay Self, what did you do to me?  And why aren't you talking like a
robot anymore?>

<My name's no longer self.  I wish to be called Chiron.  In answer to
your question, watch.>

Behind Ranma's eyes a movie played.  On it he watched as a blue-skinned
man with white hair worked on a computer console.  The console 
displayed
a humanoid outline and had several points on its body highlighted.

<That is Chiron, my creator.  He was commissioned to build a powerful
weapons system by his king.  In response he created me and my counter-
parts.  There are ten of us,> the image changed to a metal case holding
ten silver-streaked cubes, each of a different color.<We were to be
given to highly trained soldiers in hopes of turning the tides of a
losing war that the king was fighting with his brother.  Before we
could be implemented, though, Chiron's lab was attacked and he was
killed.  His last act before dying was to jetison us into space before
we could be turned against his king.>

<So what can you do?> Ranma asked a bit more curiously than before.

<'I' can do very little.  You, however, can do a very great deal.  In
the palm of each of your hands, the base of your spine, and imbedded
within your chest is an emitter.>Ranma looked at his hands to discover
the same silver-streaking in them that had been in Chiron's cube.<These
allow you to control the forces that the generators within you
create.  Because you have such a high bio-energy level Ranma, you will
be able to manipulate much greater levels of gravitational, magnetic,
and spacial force.  In addition to that, your body is capable of
attaining much higher speed, endurance, and strength than before
the conversion.  Your senses have been increased greatly, also.>

Ranma was disturbed by this announcement.  His whole life he had worked
at being the best, and in his opinion he was, but now Chiron had come
along and given him more than he would have thought possible.  It 
seemed
like cheating to him.  Someone else could get one of those little cubes
and in minutes gain what he had fought tooth and nail for for years.
He didn't feel any different, though.  If he was so much stronger and
faster now shouldn't he know it?  And if his senses were better 
shouldn't
he be able to see better?  Ranma silently asked Chiron about it.

<That's because I'm currently dampening the effects.  When I stop, I 
will
not be able to do it again, so I was trying to explain to you your
situation before you started telporting or warping space accidentally.>

That made sense.<Well, you can go ahead and turn it off.  I might as 
well
get used to it."

Chiron agreed, but said,<I must first download some information into
your cerebrum.  It may hurt for a moment.>

Then, without warning, Ranma's mind exploded in agony.  It only lasted
an instant, but when it was over he found himself on the ground
panting.

<I'm really sorry about that.  I did not realize how much information
was in that file.  It was highly compressed.>

Unable to speak, Ranma nodded, hoping that Chiron understood.  Even
though the pain was gone, Ranma couldn't help but lay there.  Inside
his head there was stuff floating around that he had never heard of or
taken the time or had the opportunity to learn.  He knew a lot of
different things he could do with the generators he housed within
himself, but he also knew that over time and through experimentation
he would gain an even greater understanding of the forces at his
disposal.

<Ranma, my personality program is still forming so I need to go offline
for a while.  Do you think you'll be all right?>

<Yeah.  How long are you going to be turned off?>

<At least two days, maybe three,> Chiron answered.  Before he lost
contact, though, he said,<Ranma, if you encounter anyone who has come
into contact with one of my counterparts, be careful.  A certain
annonymity exists between some of us, and I fear that a few of them
may attempt to influence their hosts to attack you if they discover
that you have activated me."

<Great, more people out to get me.  All right, I'll watch out.> Ranma
felt Chiron's prescence leave him.  Not much time, no more than
fifteen minutes, had gone by since he had picked Chiron up, but Ranma
felt that momentous changes were already taking place.  Not in the
mood to put up with Akane's expected berating for being late,
Ranma concentrated.  Space warped into a bubble around him, then it
collapsed taking Ranma with it.
****

At the Tendo home, in Ranma and his father's room, a marble sized 
bubble
of distorted air rapidly expanded into Ranma.  Ranma laid down on his
futon, deciding to wait and see how long it would take Akane to
storm upstairs in search for him.


Author's notes: This is just an idea I got that stuck in my head.
Please tell me what you think.  If I get enough responses I may 
continue
it.  My e-mail is dark_phoneix@hotmail.com.