-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Power and Responsibilty: Chapter 1 Ranma woke to a face full of water. He sat up, wiping sleep from his eyes and glared at Akane. She, however, wasn't showing any of her usual anger. Instead, her face showed absolute astonishment. It was white, her eyes were huge, and her mouth gaped open. "Y-you didn't c-ch-change," she stammered, pointing a trembling finger at him. "Huh?" Ranma asked dumbly. He looked down at his chest, expecting to see the familiar appendages that he miraculously sprouted whenever splashed with cold water. They weren't there. Come to think, his voice did sound much lower than his cursed form's. Oh my god! He wasn't cursed anymore! Ranma fainted. When Ranma woke up again he was in the process of being repeatedly dunked into the koi pond by his father. The man had a firm grip on his pig-tail and was submerging his son completely on every attempt. "Let go!" he shouted, punctuating his request with a heel to his father's groin. His pig-tail slipped from boneless fingers as Genma fell over onto the ground and began whimpering while clutching the family jewels protectively. "Ranma, you're cured!" Soun bellowed, rushing across the yard and sweeping his future son-in-law into a crushing embrace. Deftly, Ranma slipped through Soun's grip and found himself confronted by Akane and her sisters."Ranma-kun, I'm so happy for you! However did you get cured?" "Yeah Saotome, how'd you do it?" asked Nabiki. Her eyes practically gleamed as she went over profit potential in her head. With Jusenkyo destroyed and all hopes of curing its curses gone with it, an actual cure could be worth loads of yen. "I don't know," he answered honestly. Chiron may have done something, but Ranma didn't have a clue what it was."I just woke up and didn't have the curse anymore," he confessed. "Don't lie to us Ranma, spill it." Akane crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. She just knew that he had made a deal with the amazons. How else could he have gotten a cure? Him and Shampoo had probably..."You pervert! I know what you and that slut did! Die!!" With no mallets or tables handy, Akane grabbed a nearby lamb, which amazingly didn't break, and smashed Ranma through the wall. There vision obscurred by dust and collapsing walls, no one saw Ranma come to a halt inches before actually striking the outer wall of the Tendo compound. Ranma chuckled to himself. He may not be able to fly, but with a moderate control over gravity, he sure could come close. When Akane didn't come back to continue his punishment, Ranma allowed his muscles to relax. It occurred to him that he felt no pain from her attack. Lifting his shirt, he saw that his flesh showed no bruises, not even a little one. That could be a problem. If he suddenly gained the ability to take more damage than Ryoga, people would become even more suspiscous than they already were because of his curse being cured. How was he supposed to fake being hurt? It went against who he was. His pride wouldn't allow it. He rounded the corner as he walked around the house and ran into Nabiki. He immediatley shelfed his previous thoughts in preparation for more immediate trouble. "Saotome, just who I was looking for," Nabiki said, smoothly slipping up beside him and sliding her arm around his waist like she were his friend."You don't have to lie to me. We could make a lot money with this cure. Ryoga would probably sign his soul over to you to get rid of his curse." Ranma didn't even blink when she mentioned Ryoga's curse. She had to know it by now. 'Everyone' except Akane knew. He ducked under her arm and put some distance between them. Who knew what would happen if one of the girls saw him that close to Nabiki. Their more civil nature only came out when his mom was around. Any other time they were just as blood thirsty as usual."Why doesn't anyone believe me? Why would I lie? DOn't you think I'd give the cure to Piggy if I had it? Maybe then he would stop trying to kill me." Nabiki nodded slightly to herself. He really was telling the truth. That didn't mean that all hope was lost. She had a handful of physicists in her pocket and an upcoming bio-chemist at the university owed her thousands. A few calls and she could have Ranma picked apart piece by piece to determine why he was no longer cursed. But for now she would go along with him."I believe you Ranma. for now." Then she left him to inspect the damage done to the house. Ranma, alone once again, decided to practice in the dojo for a while. He had the knowledge of what he could do and what he couldn't, with his... enhancements, but all of it was useless if he couldn't learn to apply it to his repetoire. He really didn't want to destroy Nerima by accident either. **** Performing a simple kata Ranma's entire body moved at what would normally be reserved for the amaguriken. He was amazed at how easy it was to adapt to his new abilities and suspected Chiron may have had something to do with it. He came to a stop and settled to the ground. The centimeter that he was capable of floating above the ground while still moving saved him from tearing up the dojo's flooring. Setting his feet to brace himself, Ranma cried out,"Kacchu tenshin Amaguriken!" and let loose with thousands of punches in the span of a single second. The building shook, and the far wall which Ranma had been facing had a toyota sized hole blown in it. Ranma stared down at his hands in wonder. He'd never thought it possible to move that fast. Besides that, standing three dozen feet from the wall, the air pressure from his atack alone had destroyed it. Ranma realized that he was going to have to make more adjustments to his style than he had previously thought. Moving at what people thought was his normal, albeit way above average, speed would be much more straining than his now supersonic average. The amaguriken was pretty much off limits against living things now. Even Ryoga would little more than a puddle of gore if he used it on him. Ranma pushed the thought aside. It would be better to think about the problem when he had a chance to go undisturbed for long periods of time, like when he was at school. What he did do, however, was decide to try out the more dangerous of his powers. No one was likely to investigate the noise of his latest endeavour, not in this part of Tokyo, so he still had a little while until supper. There was no telling what would happen when Nabiki managed to spread the word of his being cured. Hell on earth did come to mind, though. **** When Akane walked into the dojo she saw Ranma throwing solid black spheres of something at a training dummy. When they struck it the part hit would disappear. He also had a strange battle aura. It almost seemed like the air around him was bending inward slightly. Despite the unusual sight, Akane didn't question her fiance on his strange new attack or the aura. She was still to mad at him to do anything more than say,"Dinner's ready, before stomping back out. She never even noticed the hole in the wall Ranma breathed a sigh of relief. Akane hadn't questioned him about what he was doing. If she had he didn't think he could come up with a plausible enough lie for her to believe him. The reason he hadn't stopped was because he couldn't. Whenever he manipulated space, the generators made and stored however much of the distorted space he needed until it was used. The problem was that he only had about a minute before they lost containment and vented the distorted space. The knowledge of what that would have done to him had made Ranma very reluctant to even try out the ability, but he never backed down from a challenge. Akane had walked in when he still had a sizable charge built up. He could have gotten rid of it all at once, but that would have done a lot more damage to the dojo, and the back yard than the amaguriken from earlier. The magnetic and gravitational force that he controlled had similar drawbacks.Unless he was using a preprogrammed attack or function, he had to use all the energy gathered ot there would be side-effects. With the magnetic side of his power, after a few minutes without using the gathered power his body would become highly magnetic. The attraction could easily draw a bullet from several feet off its original course. Gravity wasn't so bad. It wouldn't even effect him if he let the gathered charge go. It would, however, have drawn a lot of attention and been rather inconveient when when objects and people began to randomly levitate or suddenly gain a few thousand pounds. Leaving the dojo, he almost went to take a bath, but he hadn't really worked up a sweat so he headed straight to kitchen table. Nabiki was already there, reading the stock report, and nibbling on a cookie. "Hey Nabiki," he said as he took his usual seat,"you might want to take a look at the dojo. By mistake I blew a whole in the wall, sorry." Nabiki growled something under her breath that sounded like, 'Damned catastrophy,' but Ranma couldn't be sure. Then, stuffing a cookie in her mouth, and throwing her paper down, she went to inspect the damage and determine how much more money he would soon be owing her. A few minutes later she returned and with a completely false smile said,"Ranma, did I forget to tell you that some of your friends should be dropping by after dinner? I couldn't get in touch with Ryoga, but he'll show up eventually." Almost graciously, Ranma said,"Thanks Nabiki, you saved me the trouble." Kasumi chose this time to announce that the food was ready. Before Nabiki could respond to Ranma's remark, the Tendo and Saotome patriarchs charged into the room and jumped into their seats. Kasumi began bringing out the dishes, and soon there was a free for all at the dinner table. **** Genma was gone with his mom, helping her to move their furniture back into the newly repaired Saotome home and Ranma had the guest room to himself. He was taking the opportunity to practice and was deftly launching a small throwing dart from the palm of his silve-streaked hand magnetically then stopping it and bringing it back before it could puncture the wall. Cologne and the other amazons would be arriving some time soon if what Nabiki said was true. This time, before the dart hit the wall, Ranma changed its course and made it fly in a figure eight pattern through the air. He heard a knock on the downstairs door and let the dart drop to the floor. Shampoo had actually used the door. No sooner had he had the thought than he heard the familiar craching sound associated with the amorous amazon's own version of the breaking point. Oh well. Before they could get the drop on him, he left the room and walked downstairs. Soun and his father had taken it easy on him about being cured, most likely because they feared his mom, but he knew he was in store for a more hearty response from the amazons. He wasn't mistaken. "Airen!" Shampoo launched herself at him, latching onto him as if he were a life preserver and she were drowning."Shampoo don't believe evil mercenary girl. Is it true, you cured?" she asked hopefully. Ranma attempted to pry his suitor free from him, but had little luck as she twisted herself from his grasp continually. He looked around for some support. Kasumi wasn't present. Nabiki was grinning. Cologne looked like her normal decrepit self. Mousse, Akane and Soun were practically frothing at the mouth. Mousse, though, seemed able to restrain from making any attempts on Ranma's life in Cologne's prescence. Akane and Soun had no such disadvantages. Akane advanced towards him and Shampoo, mallet in hand, while Soun brought up the rear, his head already swelling in preparation for his demon head attack. "Ranma you pervert! Let go of that Chinese Bimbo!" She swung at him with and Shampoo with wrath painted on her face. Only thanks to Chiron was Ranma able to move fast enough to avoid being splattered while Shampoo held onto him. "How dare you cheat on your fiance!" roared demon-Soun. Shampoo actually sqeaked in fright and let go of Ranma, running over to stand behind her great-grandmother. Ranma finally managed to disarm Akane and jump across the room and out of her reach. "So son-in-law, I hear that you are no longer under the effects of Jusenkyo's magic." Cologne's dry, corpsish voice cut through the air like a knife. "I guess so," he replied."I woke up this morning and it was gone. Like I told the others, I don't know how or why, but I'm not complaining." Cologne, more experienced than the vast majority of the human in all things archaic and mystical, could tell by Ranma' aura that he was being honest. She could also tell by that same aura that something very profound had happened to Ranma. His aura had a whole new pattern, the color was much darker, and in several points it pulsed rythmically. Cologne couldn't tell what had happened to him, it could just be what happens when the curse wears off, although that had never happened before, but for now he didn't appear in any danger. She made a show of looking him up and down, then nodded as if satisfied with something."The magic is gone. Son-in-law is cured." Of course she couldn't really tell. Magic didn't work that way, at least not the kind she knew, but it never hurt to make others think you were more dangerous than you really were. Ranma turned to face the Tendos."You see. I told you." Once again cutting off conversation, Cologne said,"Pardon the intrusion," as if smashing a whole in the wall hadn't happened,"we'll be going now. We must prepare the restaurant for opening tomorrow." And with that she bounced on her staff through Shampoo's hole and into the night. Shampoo blew him a kiss, departing with a,"Shampoo see airen tomorrow. Bye bye." Mousse shot him a hete filled glare before following thw other amazons. Ranma could see that Mousse's jaw was flexing impotently and realized that Mousse's lips were glued shut by the way they stretched when they should have opened. He laughed to himself at Mousse's predicament. It'd be really funny if the glue was permanent. **** Ranma and Akane, were on their way to school the next day when they both saw a bright flash of light a few blocks away. Ranma leapt from the fence onto a telephone pole to get a better view in hopes of finding the light's source. "Ranma, get down here or we'll be late," Akane snapped impatiently. Ignoring her, Ranma held his hand up to block the sun from his eyes and scanned the area for trouble. Finally, after Akane had shouted for him to come down thre more times, he told her to go on wihtout him. Once she stomped on toward school, Ranma, in a display of super-human strength not at all related to his recent encounter with Chiron, jumped from his perch traveling nearly a hundred feet into the air before he began spinning and arching back towards the ground. His descent was perfectly timed to set him on the wall of a newly erected construction site. The source of the light was then revealed to him. Sitting on a small mountain of bags of concrete mix, a girl maybe a year or two younger than him, was waving around a glowing rope of energy. Cracking it like a whip she sent a pulse of light out that formed into a ball when it reached the end of the rope. From there the ball shot across the lot to impact against a large stack of steel I-beams. There was no explosion on contact, but the beams did, within seconds become white hot, before further heating caused them to liquify into a pool of molten steel. "Don't you think someone's going to be a little upset when they see what a mess you've made?" Ranma asked her. The girl spun around when she heard his question. Panicking, her rope disappeared and she shot off in a blur. As fast as she was, Ranma was faster. Years of training and a more pronounced flow of chi through his body, he had surmised, would give him a bit of an edge over others that had ran into Chiron's, for lack of a better term, brothers and sister. The chase was short, for she didn't expect Ranma to follow her. She had made the mistake of backing herself into a corner and there were no routes of escape. "I'm warning you, stay back, or I'll hurt you!" she screamed."I'm not afraid of you!" Putting action to words, a white-hot globe of plasma burst forth from each of her hands and hovered between her and Ranma. Ranma made placating gestures with his hands, but at the same time summomed a powerful magnetic field around each of the globes, giving him control over their actions. The knowledge of how to do it had materialized in his head almost before he had done it. With that knowledge he also knew that the scared girl in front of him could produce and control varying wavelengths of light and large amounts of superheated plasma. "Calm down will you? I'm not going to hurt you." She was staring at the bottled plasma floating between them."How did you do that?" she asked, fright mostly gone from her voice. Her posture changed, becoming simply wary, where before it had been hunched and tense."You found one of them, didn't you?" Ranma marvelled at how quickly the girl could change from frightened to curious."Yeah, Chiron said that there were nine more, but I didn't think I would run into any of them." "Chiron? Isn't Chiron the...man who made them?" "The voice in my head decided that it wanted to be called Chiron. I guess it was out of respect or something." Ranma sat down on an overturned trash barrel. "Shara, that's what my voice calls herself, wants to know what color Chiron is?" She sat on a small bench across from Ranma. "Black. Hey, if your's is talking to you now, does that mean that she's finished doing that personality thing that Chiron mentioned?" For a moment the girl didn't say anything. Ranma guessed that she was talking to Shara."I'm Satori. Shara said to say hello and she wants to know how long Chiron has been activated." "Since yesterday afternoon." Ranma stood up."I've got to go or I'll be late for school." Before leaving he said,"I'm Ranma Saotome by the way." Satori's eyes widened."Ranma Saotome. I've heard about you from the girls at school. Is it true that you're the best martial artist ever?" Something very close to adoration was floating around in her eyes. Seriously, Ranma answered,"Best there'll ever be." Satori called out to Ranma before he could leave the lot."Shara says to tell Chiron to contact her when he comes back online." Ranma nodded, then, after walking around the wall and out of sight, folded space around himself. He reappeared on the roof of Furinkan High. Ranma jumped over the edge and caught onto the window seal of his classroom. He swung through the open window and landed in his seat perfectly, only seconds before the late bell rang. He noticed that Akane was nowhere to be found. **** Fifteen minutes later, a wet and bedraggled Akane limped into the school muttering about 'baka truck drivers' and 'stupid old ladies'. **** Author's notes: I've gotten a *lot* of responses about this story so I spent a good chunk of the day throwing this together. It isn't completely final since I may need to change some things to get the story how I want it, and it probably needs some proofreading, but I'll get around to that later. As with the Prologue, I would greatly appreciate reader responses. They really help and the encouragement sure doesn't hurt. dark_phoneix@hotmail.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Power and Responsibility: Chapter 2 Ranma, sitting under his usual tree, was peacefully eating a freshly grilled okinomiyaki. Shampoo hadn't shown up as he had expected and Ryoga was still off in the wrold, so life was bearable, sorta. Akane wouldn't even look at him, but that only meant she couldn't hit him, another point in the good day category. It would soon be passing the bad day category, if, and only if, the idiotic boys at Furinkan High stopped splashing him with water. They had learned from Nabiki, of course, that he was cured and were curious to see the miracle of a wet, yet still male Ranma. One of the braver, and dumber guys of the senior class had actually gone so far as to berate Ranma for taking being selfish and not giving anyone a chance to see Ranma-chan again. He would be getting out of the hospital within the month. "Saotome, you fiend!" The familiar cry of a certain kendoist silenced the gathered students. Ukyou, who had been sitting near Ranma and making puppy dog eyes at him, quickly folded her portable grill up, batter still cooking on the surface, and hurried to safety. Her line of customers followed suit. He knew that the idiot was bound to show up. Frankly he was suprised that it had taken so long. Shoving the last half of the okinomiyaki down his throat, Ranma stood up, wiped his hands on his pants, and asked,"What is it now, Kuno?" "Do not seek to fool me with false indifference! I have discovered your heinous crime and know that even now you must tremble in fear for I am the vessel of holy vengeance which, with Kami-sama's blessing, shall bring about your demise!" Then he drew steel. Ranma scowled. He scowled darkly. It made three girls cry just to see his face in that position."What did I do now, Kuno?" he spat. "The mercenary sister of my beatiful goddess of the hunt, the object of your dark obsession, has informed me that you have vanquished the pig- tailed goddess. Even now she must weep to be hald in my powerful arms. Alas, we are now separated by the most determined of foes; death. But you, foul demon, shall pay for your crimes! This I swear on the honor of the Kuno line!" Kuno began a slow and steady advance on Ranma from across the school yard. Nabiki probably thought this was all wonderfully funny, Ranma thought. Would it be so funny if someone got hurt or killed? Ranma wasn't willing to find out. In a blur he rushed forward and punched Kuno in the gut before he could even begin to defend himself. The older boy fell to his knees asping and heaving. While he was incapacitated Ranma kicked him in the head. As Kuno went flying, Ranma's arm shot out and grabbed the point of his katana. It slipped easily from Kuno's slack fingers. The bell chose this time to ring signalling the end of lunch. Ranma flipped the sword around and caught it by the hilt. Contemptuosly, he prepared to break it over his knee, but at the last second got a better idead. Holding the hilt in his right hand, he placed the point on the palm of his left, then as the gathered students watched, he curled the blade into a tightly wound circle of steel that resembled nothing more than a shiny lolly pop with a fancy stick. There gasps and whis- pered comments from his audience. They were all amazed that even someone as legendary as Ranma could do that without injury. Ranma wasn't about to tell them that he had cheated a little. Iron, and therefore still, is highly ferous. **** "I heard about what happened at lunch today, Ranma," Nabiki commented as she and Akane walked home on the sidewalk. Ranma, as always, took the higher fence route. "I wonder who the mercenary was that sold him the information. I can't wait to get my hands on her since now Kuno thinks that I killed the pig-tailed girl. There's no telling what he will try now," Ranma said while looking down on Nabiki with cold indifference. She met his gaze, but didn't say anything. Her eyes easliy said she didn't give a damn. "Ranma," Akane screamed,"are you threatening my sister?!" She didn't wait for an answer. Ranma ducked out of the way of Akane's thrown school bag. A few seconds later he heard a splash. Akane had thrown her books into the canal! Akane screeched, gripped the chain link fence he was standing on, and tore it out of the concrete that anchored it."It's your fault, so you can go and get them!" Akane then attempted to throw the fence and Ranma into the canal. She was only partially succesful. The section of fencing did make a nice splash. Ranma, however, used his fiance's head as a spring board and propelled himself across the street and onto the roof of a nearby grocery store. In the heat of the moment Akane had even felt Ranma's foot on her head and Nabiki's vision was clouded by concrete dust, so he made a clean getaway while they waited for him to come out of the canal with Akane's school bag. **** Ranma didn't bother to announce his arrival, instead going straight to the dojo. He'd only be able to practice in it whenever he wished for a couple more days, then he would be moving across town. As he entered, Ranma noticed the hole he had accidentally inflicted on the dojo had already been repaired, leaving no evidence of its existance except for a slightly darker color where new materials were used. "Ranma, you in there? Boy where are you?" Genma called from the back yard. He enterd the dojo moments before Ranma could begin working out. "There you are, boy. Come with me, Tendo and I need to talk to you." Ranma shrugged and followed his father into the sitting room of the house. He sat on a cushion and waited to here what retarded scheme his and Akane's father had dreamed up to get them together. "Ranma," Soun began,"we've decided that since you will be leaving to stay with Nodoka-san in a few days that you and Akane should be wed as soon as possible." Genma picked up the torch."We've already called the minister. He should be here within the hour. Aren't you happy?!" Genma finished with tears streaming down his face. Soun was bawling like a baby. Ranma was anything but happy. In fact he was kinda pissed. "I'm home!" announced Akane. She appeared in the doorway with a curious look on her face. Soun leapt to his feet and rushed over to his daughter, hugging her tightly."Oh I'm so happy for you!" "What are you talking about?" she asked. "Why your upcoming marriage to Ranma of course." "What?!" She knocked her father back as she threw her arms up and spread her glare between all three of the men in the room. "Hey don't look at me like that. It's not like I had anything to do with this crap. They just told me too." Akane said,"Leave this to me," and whipped out a really big mallet. Glad that she wasn't after him, Ranma quietly slipped out of the room and headed back to the dojo. As he left he heard cries of 'not to your own father' and 'son help me' mixed in with the more pronounced cries of pain. Served them right. They wouldn't have anything to worry about if Akane dealt with the minister the same way. Letting the matter drop, Ramna returned to the dojo. Once there, he found the box in the back corner where they kept all the weapons that people left behind when they tried to kill him. There were hundreds of shuriken, kniges, and other assorted throwing weapons that all belonged to Mousse. It also contained more exotic weaponry, such as some of Kodachi rigged gymnastic implements. Pushing all the chains aside, he gathered a handful of shuriken from the non-poisoned pile. Next he set up on of the new titanium training dummies that Nabiki had bought for Akane. He tore the pig-tail off of it, though. Dealing with distorted space was easy for Ranma it was his main ability and came easily to him. That's not to say gravity and magnetism eluded his control, but he didn't feel that he could fully trust himself in a fight yet if he had to use them. Not that he expected to ever really need that kind of power unless he decided to take on the Japanese Defense Force. In hopes of bettering his control of over his secondary powers, Ranma threw the shuriken into the air and suspended them there by counteracting the natural pull the earth exerted on them. He couldn't control them like he had the dart from the night before becuase there were too many, but he couldmove them all in the same general direction. After a moment of gathering the energy in is hand, Ranma cast it outward towards the floating shuriken. When the magnetic pulse hit them, they were sent hurtling towards the dummy. Almost faster than Ranma could see, several of them sunk deeply into the metal dummies, but five continued past it. This is where the second part of his plan came in. Concentra- ting, he created a very strong unidirectional gravitational pull. No more than a foot past the dummy, the shuriken slowed to almost a stop, then snapped back to the dummy like rubber bands. They all *thunked* solidly into the spot where Ranma had increased the gravity. Ranma walked up to the dummy to inspect his handy work and saw that the shuriken in the back of the dummy were imbedded almost entirely in it. The circular spot where he had increased gravity was also deeply indented where the titanium had compressed under its own increased weight. That had gone better than he had hoped. Once again grasping the magnetic side of his powers, he tore the shuriken from the dummy and smoothed out their dulled and bent edges good enough that he could use them again. For the next hour Ranma practiced directing the shuriken at different areas of the dummy with a combination of directed gravity and magnetism. By the time he decided to stop for the evening, Ranma had discovered how to create multiple areas of altered gravity and could use them to guide specific objects. The shuriken, though, were a lost cause. Ranma had turned them into nothing more than tiwsted lumps of metal with his training. Good thing he had more. "Bravo, Saotome, bravo!" came Nabiki's voice from behind him. Ranma spun around, startled by Nabiki's entrance, and silently berated himself for letting his guard down."What do you want Nabiki?" "Oh nothing really important. I'd just like to know where you learned magic." She held up a mini-video cassette."It was really amazing. I'm glad I got it on tape." Ranma suddenly remembered something he had seen on a movie the month before. A man had killed a woman, but was caught on tape. The man had found the tape and rather than destroying it, had used a powerful magnet to erase it. With a little smirk, he gathered and directed the force into the tape, and just to make sure the job was done, used a lot of it."Magic," he barked out a humorless laugh."I can't do magic." Nabiki shook her head."It would explain why you aren't cursed anymore. I mean like if you had found a book or something and it told you how." She shrugged."I'm sure you'll be honset with me, won't you?" "I really don't know any magic Nabiki, I promise. What you saw was just really advanced chi control," he assured her. In a way he wasn't lying. The system of generators, capacitors, and emitters that made up the weapons system that he had become fed off the energy his body gener- ated, his chi, so if you stretched it a little you could see what he did as very advanced chi control. "Really Saotome, do you expect me to believe that. If I were to show this tape to Cologne, what would she saw? I'd be willing to bet it would be something about the impossiblitites of making things fly" Sighing, Ranma held out his hand. The tape flew from Nabiki's hand into his own. A second later, after she had taken a deep breath, Ranma returned it to her the same way."All I did was pull or push it with my chi. Simple as that." Nabiki stuck the tape in the back pocket of her shorts for safekeeping and frowned at Ranma."I know that you're hiding something from me, Saotome, and I'm going to find out what it is." She then, with a huff, left Ranma in the dojo by himself. "Well that went well," he told his new training partner, a now perfer- ated titanium dummy, who he had affectionately named Ryoga. **** That night Ranma had trouble going to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes his mind would wander and he would begin seeing strange landscapes , alien wildlife, and titanic battles between a people whose skin and hair covered a wide range of colors. They fought one another savagely, some using simple swords, while others manned laser cannons. The visions didn't disturb Ranma who was used to fighting, but it was distracting. They might have bothered him more if he hadn't know why he was having them, also. The alterations to his brain, he had learned from one of those bursts of spontaneous insight he seemed to get now, that allowed him to control something as chaotic as distorted space and perform feats like teleporting without appearing inside of walls had expanded his senses beyond imagining. Now wherever he had been, Ranma could go back to that place in his mind and view what had happened there in the past or what was currently happening. Unfortunately he had a lot of unaccessed knowledge about whatever planet it was that Chiron was from floating around in his head and combined with the lack of control over his visions, he had a virtual theater on the back of his eyelids. Ranma only hoped that Chiron knew someway to help him get control of the visions, or sleep was going to become a precious commodity. Author's notes: I know this is a short chapter, but this felt like a good stopping point. I'd lie to think everyone who has sent me comments about this story. The response was unbelievable! Anyway, I'd like everyone's help again. As you know, if you've been reading the story, I've already fleshed out Ranma's abilities pretty well, and I also introduced Satori in the first chapter with her ability to create and manipulate light and plasma. Her color is yellow. That means that out of ten colors, only black and yellow have been used. Below, I'm going to list the different colors I plan on using for the cubes and the gender of who will have it. If anyone wants to, they can right a paragraph or two long character and power description, and I'll use it in my story. Keep in mind that each cube grants abilites in a certain area. No one character should be able to throw balls of ice, shoot lightning out of their eyes, and breath fire, understand? This would really help me because besides Ranma all the other people with a cube are going to be new. Oh yeah, you character doesn't have to be good. They could be evil, perverted, greedy, or all three at once for all I care as long as they're well developed. Red-boy Blue-girl Orange-boy Purple-girl Green-boy White-girl Crystal(you know, clear)-boy Gray-girl I'm going to start on chapter two in a day or two, but I'm only expecting to use Satori in it as an extra. That means I won't be needing these for about for or five days, so get to work:) Thanks! dark_phoniex@hotmail.com