A Ranma 1/2 fan fiction By Dmitri 'Ranshin' Antonov The Guardians of earth Chapter one: Life Changes Ranma Saotome awoke in his futon covered in sweat and breathing heavily. The images from the dream he just had still blurred in his mind. The dream did not feel very important to him, yet the images of it replayed again and again in his head. *What kind of a dream was that?* Ranma thought, obviously shocked at what he had dreamed. *Jeez, that was one weird dream* He tried to get it out of his head, but he could not. The more he tried to reject the images the worse the images got. He could not get the room out of his head. The weird looking figures. The caskets on the platforms. The writing on the walls. This did not make sense. Shouldn't a person forget a dream quickly after waking up? Yet he could not get this dream out of his head. The more he thought about it the worse his thoughts became. Was this something that had to do with him? He asked himself again why he would dream something so...unnatural. This word did not make Ranma uncomfortable for his life is more than unnatural. Ranma could not remember what exactly happened in the dream. Only hazy visions that pester him to no end and don't go away. After a while of trying to clear his mind of the offending images he decided to try to sleep. He shouldn't lose any sleep over this. So Ranma lay down on his futon, closed his eyes and got ready for sleep to overtake him. He didn't get any sleep that night. The next morning a break of a window could be heard and someone could be seen falling into a little koi pond. After a splash is heard every occupant of the Tendo home would this that this was Ranma Saotome. Yet, in the pond you could see a very fat looking panda with a bump on his head and a sign in his paw that said 'ouch'. Then out of the broken window jump a figure with a pigtail hanging at the back of his head, and he has a lazy looking look on his face and has bags under his eyes. This was due to the fact that Ranma didn't get any sleep last night. "Servers you right for trying to attack my while I could have been asleep." Ranma said lazily. "I get woken up by either you kicking me out the window or Akane splashing me with cold water." He said with a hint of anger in his voice. He was too damn tired to fight today. Not a wink of sleep and people expected him to not be angry? He may be a top notch martial artist, but even they can get tired. He gets into fights every day. Of course he gets tired! And to boot it all off, that weird dream did not help one bit! Before going back inside the house Ranma gave his panda of a father a kick to the chest and sent him into the pond again. Ranma went into the bathroom to take a good, cold shower. For god sakes he really needed one. He went into the dressing room and took his tank top and boxers off. Then he went into the bathroom itself and put on a cold shower. His body didn't really react to the cold water, except for the way it should. His male body turned female like it always has whenever it came in touch with cold water. He didn't feel too cold though. His body had gotten used to so much cold water so it didn't really bother him. While he showered, the dream he had came back to him. Hitting his brain full force. The thoughts and the images of his dream replayed in his mind once again. This time though it was more clear. He couldn't hear any voices, but he knew that the two figures standing in the middle of the small hall were speaking. He saw a few different colours in the room. Shining bright as the sun. Ranma stayed in his trance like state for over ten minutes before finally realizing that he should go and have some breakfast before going to school. Ranma ate like he usually did, like a starving horse. He didn't eat as much as he usually did, but no one noticed. On his way to school Ranma ran on the fence like always. But this time he didn't pay any attention to what was going on around him. For some odd reason the dream flashed through his mind once again. *What's going on!?* he thought. *Am I going crazy?!* Ranma didn't like what was going on with him. Some kind of weird dream always showed again and again in his head. It would leave him alone for a while but then hit him again like a hammer. Whenever he thought the dream would stop showing or when he forgot about the dream it appeared again. What kind of dream was this? Did this dream want Ranma to remember itself? Or was he just going insane? He didn't know and he didn't really care. His life had only gotten worse after the failed wedding. Akane got more violent, the others got more desperate. But some good things did happen. Nabiki laid off more, and left him alone. Kasumi was even nicer to him. His mom was having second thoughts about the engagement, and for some reason he hadn't seen Ryoga for a while. After the fiasco Ryoga actually came up to Ranma and apologized. He even promised to never willingly go to bed with Akane as P-chan. Ranma didn't know why the change, but he liked it. Maybe he and Ryoga could become friends again. That's something that Ranma's seriously been lacking. Friendship. Ukyo had become more desperate to get him, so their friendship was out of the question. Shampoo was more persistent, she bugged him all the time. Kodachi was never an option. Akane has been abusing him more than ever since the failed wedding. She blamed it all on him. Everyone did, well almost everyone. When they got to school Kuno did his usual routine of attacking Ranma spouting some stupid poetry, and then getting knocked out due to getting Ranma's foot in his face. Class was pretty normal, except for the fact that Ranma paid attention. A couple of weeks after the fiasco he had decided, after a quick talk to his mother, that he should study if he hoped of taking care of himself. Ranma had started to get better at school pretty fast. Now instead of his usual F's and lucky D's he got B's and if he studied really hard and got really lucky he got an A. This of course made Akane jealous, because the teachers all praised him for his grades. She had always had A's and B's. And of course when Akane gets jealous she gets angry, when she gets angry she lashed out. And of course for that Ranma is always her target. So Ranma flies a little more these days for no good reason. On the way home he was whistling to himself, walking on the fence, his hands in his pockets. He had already forgotten about what had happened today and about that dream of his. Forgetting the dream was a bad idea. Because while he walked on the fence, completely off guard, the dream hit him full force once again. This time Ranma could hear something beside seeing. He could hear the two figures talking. He couldn't understand what they said though. Then he heard a few flashes and booms and other stuff while the lights flashed. He could see seven bright colours flashing: Red, Blue, Yellow, Grey, Brown, Silver and Green. They all flashed one at a time. Then all of a sudden Ranma was brought back to reality. He was walking on the fence, on his way back to the Tendo dojo. He didn't understand this one bit. The same dream, in his head. Replaying again and again. What the heck was going on!? Had this something to do with him? Someone who didn't like? That sure is a big list. A new one? Someone who wanted his head on a platter, maybe? He didn't know and he didn't understand. Maybe he didn't want to understand. But he was going to find out. He wanted to know what was going on. He really wanted to know what was going on. When he got home he went to the bathroom before anyone noticed him. He walked into the changing room and took his clothes off. Before going to the bathroom itself he went to the almost full sized mirror on the wall. He checked to see if any scars, cuts or bruises were there. Just in case. But he was happy to find none. Then he noticed something, he had some strange looking marks on his fore head and on the back of his hands. They were really hard to notice, because they were very faint. On his forehead was a kanji that he couldn't read because it wasn't clear enough. There was also a 'V' like just below the kanji, it ended at the centre of his eyebrows. And at the back of his hands were also 'V' like marks. In the middle of the marks were also a kanji, but he couldn't read it. Ranma wondered what was going on. He seemed to wonder many times today. Nothing was normal. He was used to some abnormalities but this was the 'coup de grace'. He didn't understand anything. He wanted to, yet he didn't want to understand. Like two voices in his head, both his own. His instinct, and his wisdom. His instinct wanted to understand, to know what was going on. And his wisdom wanted to forget, to let this pass and let himself forget about all this. For now he didn't know which voice to trust, so he went into the bathroom and climbed into the tub. He was glad Kasumi always had it filled. While he relaxed in the tub his mind wavered off. And he fell asleep. He dreamt the same dream again. This time clearly. There was nothing he couldn't see and nothing he couldn't hear. He saw everything and heard everything. Yet he didn't understand what this had to do with him. Ranma let himself dream. He didn't know he wouldn't remember the whole dream when he would wake up. And he didn't know that while he dreamt, his marks glowed. The 'V' like marks glowed in a light blue type colour. And the kanji glowed in pure light yellow. And the kanji could be seen clearly. It said 'Lightning'... After sleeping in the tub for about a half hour Ranma woke up. He had a strange dream, the dream was...he couldn't remember. He had dreamt, he knew that. Yet, he didn't remember what the dream was. He filed that as three things. Normal, strange and freaky. He didn't know which was more true. He didn't care. He climbed out of the tub and dried himself off. Then he got dressed and before leaving looked in the mirror. What he saw was that his forehead still had those faint 'V' type lines and the kanji was there also. The force of the dream hit him again that day. He remembered it. All of it. He didn't know what was going on, that was familiar. Yet one thing was clear, he couldn't let other people see those marks. He had to hide them, just in case. He opened a shelf that contained bandages and such. He found some special bandages that he wrapped around his hands so no one would see the marks on his hands. Then he tied a bandage around his head like a bandana. Then he looked in the mirror. Nothing, the mark couldn't be seen. Happy about that and promising himself to find out about the marks later, he went down to have breakfast. When he came to the living room dinner was just starting. He sat down next to his old man and Akane. Genma noticed the bandages Ranma had on and just had to ask. "What happened to you boy?" "I cut myself during a little training pop. Nothing serious." Ranma replied. "What kind of training were you doing boy?" Genma asked him. Ranma had to think quick. But thanks to his new memorising abilities and his newly developed fast thinking abilities he quickly answered. "I was trying to come up with a new attack pop." "What kind of attack?" Genma asked his son yet another time. Ranma had an easy answer to that question. The attack he revises the most. "A new version of the Hiryu Shoten Ha." "Ok, boy." Genma let the subject drop. A full stomach was the most important thing to him anyway. Ranma ate his food with more force than ever before. He ate at Amaguriken speed. Which was a surprise because he didn't need to do that to beat his father. He ate all of his food, the extra bowls he asked for and almost all of his fathers food. He had never been this hungry before. Only once maybe, when he was doing some very serious training. When he finished his food he left the table with a "Thank you" to Kasumi and his mom for making the meal. He went into his room and closed his door behind him. He laid down onto the bed and let his mind wander. *What is going on? I don't remember being that hungry. Is this because of the marks or something? Maybe it's connected. I'll find out. I will. But not now. I'm tired* And after that Ranma fell asleep. Authors Notes: Did you like it? I decided to try to write this fic in 'prose' style. Instead of my usual 'script' style writing. Please review, I could really use some reviews. Please tell me what you think. One more thing. I really could use a pre-reader. So if anyone is a volunteer please tell me. You get to read the chapters before they're posted. ^_^ Anyway, Ranshin is outta here! I've updated this thing. It wasn't as long as I wanted it to be.