Power and Responsibility: Chapter 3

Running to school atop the fence was no big deal for Ranma, but even
at his usual rate of travel, he would be late.  Akane hadn't made more
than a half-assed attmept at getting him up, leaving him to his own
devices.  Unfortuantely the only way Ranma ever wakes up without help
is if someone is trying to kill him and even then only sometimes.
Finally Kasumi had grown curious to why Ranma hadn't eaten breakfast and
had gone to check on him.

<Miss me?> asked a familiar voice.

Ranma missed a step, nearly falling of the fence in the process, but at
the last second he regained his footing.<Chiron, aren't you a little
early?>

<No, I just forgot that Earth days are longer than Priziu days.  So what
did I miss?>

Ranma briefly described his practice sessions to Chiron then when
finished told him of Satori.

<You're coming along much faster than I expected you would.  Well, I'm off
to meet Shara and see what she wants to talk about.  Have fun at school.>
And then he was gone again.

<Wait!> Ranma shouted mentally.  Damn.  Now he'd never be able to get
any sleep at school as long as visions of Priziu, Chiron had called it,
kept flashing through his mind.

*Ring**Ring*

Reflexively, Ranma flexed gravity around himself, crumpling the fence
and throw everything in a twenty foot raidus away from him.  This had
the effect of flinging Shampoo into a nearby dumpster and much to
Ranma's horror, destroying a big chunk of the bridge he had been
crossing.  Then, as he let gravity return to normal, gravity so to
speak, caught up with him and he began to fall into the water
below.

This time deliberately, Ranma used his power to teleport himself to the
roof of Furinkan High.  A dip in the canal was *not* what he needed at
the moment.  Needless to be said, Ranma ended up in the hallway with a
pair of water filled buckets.  He actually didn't mind.  The buckets
only started to be a strain after a couple days of holding them away from
his body(a frequent training exercise in his earlier years) and the
hallway was a good place to think, and Ranma really needed to think.

He didn't know when Chiron would get finished talking with Shara.  What
did computers have to say to each other anyway?  But Ranma didn't want
to harm any innocent people whenever his life was threatened and if
he reacted like he had when Shampoo had approached him, he didn't even
want to think about what he'd do if Ryoga suddenly smashed through
the classroom wall with a lust for his blood.

<Ranma, we've got a problem.>

<You're just now figuring that out?> Ranma asked sarcastically.

<If you're upset about the gravity bubble, tell me which self-defense
mode you wish to have activate whenever you're caught off guard, and I'll
set it up.>

Self-defense mode?  How come he hadn't known about that?  Nevermind.<So
what is there to choose from?>

<Auto-teleport to a designated place, a spacial warp similar to, but
more destructive than the gravity bubble, or a personal distortion
field.>

<What's a personal distortion field?>

<It's exactly what it sounds like.  All matter and energy that comes
in contact with the field will flow around it.  This means that air is
not available while you're using it so it can only be used for brief
amounts of time, light will be distorted giving your form a highly
blurred effect, and unless you want to sink into the ground you'll have
to suspend yourself with altered gravity.>

It did sound like his best option and Ranma could think of a lot of ways
to use something like that in an attack.<Okay, I'll take the
distortion field.  Hey, how do I make that thing come up whenever I want
it to?>

<Just think about it.  Now on to more important matters.  Like I said
before, we've got problems,> Chiron said seriously.

More crap to deal with.<Like what?>

<Shara's host, Satori, has been contacted by a woman with the blue
cube.  Shara says that Nanami, the woman, all but threatened Satori
with death if she didn't come and work for her.>

That must have been why Satori had been so frightened when he'd
confronted her.<Work for her, doing what?> asked Ranma.

<Nanami went into quite a bit of detail, it seems, about her operation.
She runs Kanzaki Industrial and is secretly amassing an army of
genetically enhanced soldiers with the goal of taking over Japan.  She
also has the men who activated the gray and crystal cubes working for
her.>

Ranma was amazed that it was only a national crisis.  With his luck he
was expecting global warfare.<So what can they do?  The blue, gray,
and crsytal cubes?  And how long has this crap been going on> For some
reason he didn't get the knowledge spontaneously like when he had met
Satori.  Probably because Chiron was back.

<Shara's been able to calculate, within a two day level of accuracy,
that Tirna, Nanami's cube, has been active for seventy eight Earth days,
but we have no way of knowing how long Nanami has been building an
army.>

<And?> Ranma pressed.

<The blue cube is a thermal exchange unit, meaning that it can
absorb infrared radiation and redirect it into heat based attacks.>

<So she can freeze stuff and she can cook stuff?  What about the
others?>

Chiron actually muttered something unintelligable about Ranma's summary
of Nanami's abilities, but he did continue.<The gray cube was meant to be
an assasin.  It's host can become invisible, change his appearance,
phase through matter at will, and has a counter-mearsure to all known
forms of detection.  It can move through subspace, a type of
alternative space.  This is very closely related to your ability to
teleport, but you can't choose to leave something stranded in subspace
like the host of the gray cube can.  His only weapons are a pair
of gauntlets.  Within each gauntlet is a nearly hundred foot long nano-
fiber cord with a mono-molecular edge capable of slicing through all
matter and passing through most energy barriers.  It is mentally
controlled by the host and will conform to any position he wishes.  Also,
for close range combat, are a pair of retractible forearm mounted blades
on each gauntlet.  They possess the same properties as the cord.>

To Ranma the gray cube sounded like the perfect assasin.  It made no
noise, left no evidence, and could blend into his surroundings perfectly.
He made a note to keep his awareness at its peak.  Ranma chose not to
mention to Chiron that he too could become invisible, but through
the manipulation of chi and not technology.  Come to think of it, he
could freeze stuff like Nanami.  He just didn't have the range and power
that she did, not yet anyway.

<The crystal cube possesses the ability to alter space, but in a
totally different way than you. It allows the host to create rifts in
space close to his body that can re-direct projectile and physical
attacks.  If he sets a spacial beacon ahead of time he can also create
a gateway which he and others can use to travel.  His only form of attack
is a tachyon particle beam.  Be very careful if you are ever confronted
by this man, Ranma.  The tachyon beam is very draining to its host and
its strength can't be modulated, but it is travels faster than light
making it totally impossible to dodge and will pass through any
defensive barrier you erect except for the distortion field.  The only
chance you'll have against him, unless the distortion field is already
in place, is to teleport to someplace where he won't be able to track
you with the beam as soon as you see him begin to glow.  The delay
between firing and the gathering of energy is minimal, so be ready.
The fastest that he can fire again will be about five seconds, so you
should be able to counterattack.>

Ranma was relieved that he wouldn't be facing an invincible opponent, but
he suddenly realized that only someone with his ability to teleport had
a chance against Nanami's ally.  Ranma voiced his concern to Chiron.
<There are a couple more that are capable of teleporting, but those
who aren't are indeed at his mercy.>

<What are we going to do now?  Satori's not a fighter, so Nanami and
her goons will be able to make short work of her and I can't let Nanami
take over Japan.  Did she tell Satori how big her army is and what it can
do by any chance?> Ranma asked hopefully.

<I'll go along with whatever you decide and no, Nanami didn't give
*that* detailed of a decription to Satori.>

<Can't you talk to their cubes like you did with Shara and see what they
have to say?>

<Remember what I said about my counterparts and I sharing a certain
dislike for one another?  That was because we were all
programmed differently, but it turns out that that doesn't matter now.
The process that forms our personalities was designed to work on
another species' brain and has had the effect of altering our
programming significantly.  We now form a personality that best suits
our hosts, not the one best suited to our job.  I, for example,
have developed a sense of humor, patience, and a need to help others
because of my interaction with you.  Nanami has probably turned Tirna
into a power mad egomaniac by now, just as Shara is slightly on the
excitable side because Satori is very hyper.>

<So they won't talk to you even if you tried,> Ranma summed it up.

<Pretty much.>

They both descended into silence until Ranma remembered to ask Chiron
about his visions.

<Oh shit!  I can't belive it worked.  Chiron, the scientist, not me,
spent almost a decade trying to add that function to my systems, but it
was eventually deemed a failure.  Human minds must work differently
enough from Priziun ones that it worked.>

<That's just great,> Ranma snapped,<but could you maybe turn it off until
I can learn how to control it?> Then something Chiron said dawned on Ranma.
<A decade?!  How long did it take to make you and the others?> he
asked disbelievingly.

<We are all extremely complex, and our programming is *the* most
advanced ever, so, by Earth time, Chiron spent one hundred and fifty-
six years building us.  I took the longest because I'm more advanced than
the others.> Chiron said the last part with a lot of pride.

How could someone work on one thing like that for so long?  Didn't he
ever get bored?<Chiron, didn't you tell me that the other Chiron made
you because his King was losing the war?>

<Yeah.>

<How can someone be losing a war for that long and not have actually
lost?>

<You have to understand that on Priziu, which is larger than Jupiter, war
is fought differntly that here on earth.  The two continents are divided
into inhabited and uninhabited regions.  The uninhabited regions are
where food is grown and minerals are gathered.  In these areas huge
bloody battles are fought, but in inhabited regions, because there are so
few of them, battles are fought by champions in one-on-one combat.  If
the defender wins then the region is safe, but if the attacker wins a
certain number of that regions inhabitants are executed as casualties.>

It was wierd, but made sense in a way.<If Chiron lived in an
inhabited region, how come his lab got attacked?>

<The enemy learned of his endeavor and knew that they would have no chance
of winning any one-on-one battles, and since that was how they were
winning, they became desperate.  I'm sure the explosion that
destroyed Chiron's lab was made to look like an accident.>

The teacher chose this time to call Ranma back into the classroom.
****

Lunch was going typically, right down to Kuno's daily attempt of
Ranma's life, when Shampoo showed up.  She was limping slightly, but had
a glorious smile on her face.

"Airen, Shampoo so proud you learn new attack." She set a box of
takeout ramen next to him, then sat down.  Sternnly she waved a finger
at him,"But better not use on Shampoo again.  It took Shampoo all morning
to wash garbage smell out of her hair."

"Uh, sorry Shampoo, it was an accident," Ranma apologized.

"Ranma!" Akane screamed across the yard when she saw Ranma sitting
with Shampoo.  She came charging at full gallop towards him, plowing
through the unfortunate students who couldn't get out of her way fast
enough.

"Violent girl mad at Airen, Shampoo go now.  Don't want to make worse."
As fast as she had shown up, Shampoo left a confused Ranma as she leapt
over the outer wall.  She hadn't glomped him once.  Amazing!
****

Shampoo couldn't believe it!  Her great-grandmother's advice had
worked perfectly.  Ranma hadn't once tried to get rid of her.  Who would
have thought that a man wouldn't want to be glomped by an amazon?  it was
the highest for of praise a man could recieve back home.
****

"I leave you alone for five minutes and I come back t find you puttng
the moves on that Chinese bimbo!" Akane sreamed down at Ranma as he ate
his sandwhich.

Ranma chose a new tactic.  As soon as his fiance pulled out her mallet
he increased the force of gravity on it causing it to slam into the
ground with a thud.  Enraged, Akane spent the last fifteen minutes of
the period trying to reclaim her mallet, and completely forgot about
Ranma.  He finally released it when the bell rang.

Akane, by then, had a raging bonfire of a battle aura going as she used
every ounce of strength she could muster to pull the mallet free.  Her
feet were already buried in the earth up to her ankles when Ranma
released it.  Needless to say, Akane learned what flying was like as she
shot like a rocket into the air.  She landed on the roof and by the time
she got to class was late.
****

Ranma watched Akane storm out of the classroom with a pair of buckets and
had to use all of his will power not to bust out in wild guffaws of
laughter.

<That was mean, Ranma,> commented Chiron,<but it sure was funny.> He
then filled Ranma's head with mental laughter.

"Mr. Saotome, maybe you could tell the class what's so funny about
the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?" asked the history
teacher when she saw Ranma smiling during her somber lecture.

Ranma blushed beet red and answered,"No, sorry."

The teacher pointed to the hall, and Ranma sighed in resignation.  Now
he would be subject to Akane's incessant insults.
****

Across town, at a normal shool where students came to learn and
violence didn't occur on a regular basis, Satori Peterson, the daughter
of a wealthy American business man and an outspoken Japanses journalist,
was in the fight of her life.  Her friends and classmates watched in
shock and awe as she wound her way down the field dodging her opponents
and their attempts to sieze the soccer ball that she was so
deftly manuevering towards the goal.

"Satori!  Satori!  Satori!" they cheered, clapping their hands and
stomping their feet on the bleachers.

With almost inhuman, unless you live in Nerima, agility, Satori kicked
the ball high into the air, then followed it up.  When they both
reached their apex, Satori performed a spinning axe kick that drove the
ball towards the earth below like a missle.  It easily plowed the
goalie over, bringing the girl's team up to two dozen goals with the
boy's staying at a respectable zero.  The buzzer signalling the end of
the game rang and a collective groan rose from the males in the audience
and on the field as their pride took a severe beating at the hands of a
cute, somewhat shy girl.

<Nice game,> Shara complimented her.

<Thanks Shara.>

Satori found herself swept into the air, borne on the shoulders of
her teammates as they exulted in feminine superiority.  When they set
her down at the end of the field and congratualtions had been made,
her two best friends ran over to her.

"Satori-chan, we're so proud of you!" Mishka cheered.

"I can't believe how good you are.  We may have an olympic candidate
here, Mishka," Mary commented.

"Ah you guys," Satori said shyly,"it really was nothing.  You shouldn't
make a big deal out of it."

Her friends followed her towards the gym.

"You can't be serious.  I've never seen anybody move like that."

Satori liked the praise, but couldn't help feeling that she didn't
deserve it.  It was Shara who had given her the ability, she hadn't
worked for it.

Another girl came running up to them."Hey Satori, there's a woman waiting
for you by the gym.  It sounded urgent.  Gotta go, great game by the
way," she said as she ran off toward another group of girls.

Instantly Satori's good mood vanished and her smile slipped away.  It must
be that horrible Nanami woman again.<Shara, what am I going to do?>
Satori asked desperately.  Nanami had threatened to actually *kill* her
if she didn't come and work for Kanzaki Industries, but she didn't want
any part of Nanami's plan to take over Japan, and the way that man in
the trench coat had looked at her body made her shudder.

<The first think you're going to do is calm down.  Try to breath
slowly.  Good.  Now make an excuse and gets your friends out of danger.>

Following Shara's advice, Satori said,"Um, guys, I think that it'd be best
if you went on home.  Ms. Nanami probably wants to take me to see my
dad," she lied.

They agreed, and with one last round of congratulations, departed.

<Now, I'm going to get you some back-up, but it may take a while for him
to get here so I want you to watch out and be ready to fight back if
Tirna's host tries anything.>

<Okay.> Nervously, Satori walked to the gym.  She found Nanami in the
parking lot leaning against her black convertible BMW.  Nanami was
as beautiful as ever in her immaculately tailored dark blue business suit
and her shiny black hair only served to set off the milky perfection of
her skin.

"Satori, so good to see you again.  Have you thought about my offer?"
she asked in a voice as smooth as silk.  Her smile, Satori knew, hid a
very ugly individual, personality wise, behind it.

"Y-yes, yes I have," she replied.

"And do you accept it?" Nanami's eyes glinted like polished mirrors.

Satori was too scared to answer.  She couldn't say yes, but if she said
no the woman could very well destroy her.  From what she had learned
from Shara and her own experience in the constructon yard where she had
met the legendary Ranma, Satori knew that she could possibly beat Nanami
if it came down to a fight, but the idea of killing someone made her
sick.

"Well girl, what have you decided?"

<It's all right,> came Shara's voice,<you can tell her no.  It's taken
care of.>

Satori breathed a sigh of relief and with more strength than she thought
she had, said,"No.  I'd never help you."

Nanami scowled down at the smaller girl.  If that's how she wanted to play
it then so be it."I warned you and gave you ample time, but you've made
your choice, so I must make mine."
****

<Ranma!  Satori's in trouble.  Shara says that Nanami has returned to
find out her answer and she's afraid that Nanami will carry out her
threat.  You have got to help her.>

Ranma was in the middle of gym class, meaning that he was watching a group
of boys killing themselves in the attempt to impress girls a group of
girls.  No one would probably notice if he slipped away.  He was right.
It also helped that he moved to fast to be seen.  Once he found a
suitable tree to hide behind, he teleported to the location that Chiron
had fixed in his mind.
****

Satori was trembling in fear thanks to Nanami's announcement.  What was
she going to do?!  Why hadn't she questioned Shara about the back-up?
What in the hell was the back-up?!  She was well on her way to doing
Nanami's work for her, by heart attack, when she felt an odd sensation
and saw Nanami's eyes widen a bit.  She glanced over her shoulder and
saw Ranma, Ranma of all people, floating a foot off the ground a few
feet behind her.

"So your Nanami," he said nonchallantly."I've heard a lot about you."

"And who might you be?" Nanami asked curiously.

"Forget about me, let's talk about you and how you're going to leave
Satori alone."

Nanami's eyes hardened and her voice carried malice to a new level.
"Why, exactly, should I do that?"

Satori felt that same odd sensation in the back of her head and in
response to Nanami's question saw the beautiful car she had been leaning
on begin to crumple.  Like a tin can it crumpled in on itself, slowly
at first, but then faster, until nothing but a softball sized sphere of
super dense metal and plastic remained.  As soon as the sensation ended
so too did the force that was supporting the suspended car.  With a
*thud*, the remains of the car struck the asphault and sunk in a couple
of inches, as well as creating a spider web of cracks in the surface.
****

Smirking, Ranma allowed himself to float to the ground.  Damn that had
been fun!  He reached out and laid his hand on Satori's shoulder,
then teleprted her and himself to his mother's currently empty house.
****

Glaring at the remains of her car, Nanami reached into her coat and
pulled out a small cellular phone.  She called someone, giving
them directions to the school, then hung up.

<Nanami, that was the command unit,> Tirna informed her.

<The what?> Nanami snapped.

<The boy who just turned that primitive scrap of metal you call a
transport device into an even less useful scrap of metal, has activated
the command unit, the most dangerous of us all.>

Nanami smiled to herself.  Despite his attitudem she liked the
boy's personality, and his power of course.  All she needed to know was
who he was and with a little creative deception, she cold have another
weapon at her disposal.
****

"Where are we?" Satori asked after catching her breath.

"This is my mom's house," Ranma answered."I think it would be better if
you stayed here for the next few days until we can find a safe place to
hide you," Ranma told her even though he knew it was bound to casue him
a world of trouble.

Satori damned near got little pink hearts in her eyes.  He had, in a
way, asked her to stay at his place.  She fainted.

Poor girl, Ranma thought as he carried her upstairs to the spare
bedroom.  The stress must have caught up with her.
****

Author's notes: This is turning out better than I hoped.  I've been getting 
great
characters from , but I'm afraid that I already have ten, so the character 
submission
process is over.  Sorry if you have one that got passed over.

Nanami is property of John Surber-(john.surber@uleth.ca)


Here are (very)brief character descriptions.


BAD-

Blue-Nanami Kanzaki=infrared red absorbtion and re-direction
extremely intelligent, rich, and power mad
cube-Tirna

Crystal-Leffan Kieser=tacyhon particle beam, space folding, and firearms
cares for no one but himself
cube-Shimte

Gray-Juan Reyna=mono-molecular cords, retractable swords, and stealth
cold and calculating, kills for money
cube-Doc

Red-Derrick Craig=creation of solid EM fields and distortion of gravity
sadistic bully who enjoys hurting others
cube-Malcolm

GOOD
Black-Ranma Saotome=space, gravity, and magnetism
naive with an innocent charm, extremely gifted in the martial arts
cube-Chiron

Orange-Professor(Akira Yamagi)=manipulation and creation of electrical 
fields,
computer interface, and limited compulsion
extremely intelligent, sarcastic, and intolerate of injustice in any form
cube-Xaran

White-Jinzo Garasu=illusions
creative, but otherwise average
cube-Uso

Purple-Jamie Williams=create sonic blasts and disintegrate matter with 
intense vibrations
by touch
tough acting but goes to pieces at the sight of blood
cube-Beth

Green-Kojiro Shotenko=limited plant control, chi magnification, biotoxin and 
acid production,
and enhanced plant-based attacks and regenerative abilities
excellant martial artist and very outgoing, attempts to be friends with 
everyone
cube-Jizo

Yellow-Satori Peterson=light and plasma
shy but with an iron will
cube-Shara