The Brothers Saotome -- A Self-Insert Anime Fanfiction Multi-Crossover {Ranma 1/2, Sailor Moon, Gold Digger, etc.} Disclaimer: Aside from the characters that my friends and I portray, all characters, references to other anime series, etc. are property of their respective owners. Don't bother trying to sue me, I'm broke.... Main Character's Ages At Start of Story: --Jonathan Veon (Ryu): 17 --Joshua Foster {Duo}: 17 --Joshua Garret {Ken}: 16 ()- other languages, FYI's ~~- thoughts <>- Sound effects **- Written Dialogue *********** Prologue: There is a plane of existence that goes by many names in the multiverse. Some call it Paradise. Others call it The Eternal Kingdom. But some of the native inhabitants of this land have given it a new title... dull. Since the gods and goddesses of this realm were immortal, it was inevitable that the more fun-loving ones would run out of things to do, and get bored. And because of this, my friends and I were taken for the ride of our lives! But, like all big-time adventures, ours began as a routine day in our lives.... *********** (Foster's POV) ...at School. Lunch period had ended for the unwitting adventurers, and we were headed towards our last classes of the day. "I love A-days. Programming's no problem, and I get free Dr. Pepper from Mr. Thomas!" "Sigh." my friend Garrett sighed, "We know this, Foster. You've only reminded us a few million times." Garrett was one of my best friends, despite comments like these. He was such a killjoy at times. "Wish I got free Dr. Pepper in my class. Maybe then it might be easier to listen to." This came from my other side, which was currently being occupied by my other best friend, Jonathan Veon. Nicer guy you can't imagine, if you can stand the constant 'I don't have a girlfriend, woe is me' spiel. "Heh. That's one of the reasons I picked a lot of computer classes - no problem staying awake. Well," I paused, thinking of possible exceptions, "usually, at least." We said our "see ya laters" and split up to be bored out of our skulls, or entertained in various ways as the case may have been. Class went by swiftly (Mr. Thomas was never one for a long lecture, probably due to his noticeable speech impediment), and after completing my assignment for the day I decided to tool around on the Internet for awhile. Fanfiction is my chief source of entertainment these days, what with my lack of cable TV to provide me with my anime jollies. At one point, I remembered some fanfic or other that I wanted to look up and did a search for it. The first two links the search engine brought up were nada, so I clicked on the third. The only thing I can remember distinctly about what happened then was that Something Had Happened. You know, one of those moments where you thought something like 'Oh, CRAP!!!' The last thing I saw before blacking out was a strange hole-looking thing opening up in my computer screen and then, darkness. I guess I must've blacked out because I came to. When I did, I noticed three things: 1. I was in a forest. On the ground. And there was no forest-y noises going on (which I had learned to recognize, courtesy of the Boy Scouts of America). 2. Two other people are here as well, as unconscious as I apparently was just a minute ago. 3. They were my best friends! For some reason, whatever brought me to this place did the same for Veon and Garrett... After I revived both of them (which was a major chore on Garrett's end), we started to discuss what to do next when the last person we ever expected to see appeared before us. Xelloss Metallium. ********** (Veon's POV) Although Foster and I had no trouble attaching a name to that ever smiling face, it still shocked us to no end to see him floating above us. "Ah there you are. Did you have a nice nap?" Xelloss quipped as he floated down to our level. "Usually I'm not so direct with those I'm dealing with, but in this case I thought I'd make an exception." "And just what do you mean by that?" I asked. "That is....a secret." It was around this point that I realized that this was definitely not a dream and that the Anime laws of Physics were in full swing. (Considering the fact I had just facefaulted and that it HURT!) "But anyway, time to work." With that he began making some very unique hand gestures in our direction while chanting some words we didn't recognize. After he finished, he disappeared without a word, and we were stuck figuring out what to do. After we took a few minutes to digest all that we had seen and experienced, we picked a random direction and headed off towards the unknown. I could have sworn I heard Xelloss say something like, "When this is all over, you will know the truth...my son..." But when I turned around, he wasn't there. An hour or so later, we began to notice that everything around us was starting to look bigger for some reason. Stopping for a drink at a small lake, we found out why; things weren't getting bigger, we were getting smaller! And if that weren't enough, we looked like we were part of an anime ourselves, large eyes and all. We had been animized (for lack of a better term) and had regressed to about 5 years or so in age. This just wasn't our day! Finally, after several more hours of walking (you really can't cover much ground with such a short stride), we came across a woman who was walking home from the market, arms filled with grocery bags. We wouldn't have paid her much mind, except that we noticed she had a lonely expression on her face. Acting on an impulse, I suggested that we go and see if we could give her a hand. We did, and soon we found ourselves in the home of Mrs. Nodoka Saotome. "Whatever were you boys doing out at this time of night?" she asked, concern evident in her voice. "Well," I said, "we were kinda...sorta...looking for a place to stay." It wasn't really a lie since we were without living quarters in this new world that we found ourselves in. When Mrs. Saotome delved deeper into the subject we started to tell her a story that was as close to the actual truth as we could get; that we had been roaming the countryside for sometime without a mother or father to take care of us. Now don't get me wrong, we didn't intentionally mean to sound so downtrodden, it just ended up sounding that way. But in any case, our housing problems were solved when Mrs. Saotome actually offered to take us in as her sons. This raised some questions on our end of course... "Not that I mind Mrs. Saotome," Foster said, "but why would you be so willing to take in three kids that you've only just met?" Mrs. Saotome chuckled before replying, "Well, my husband thinks our son can be a great martial artist, so he takes him on these training trips every now and then. Because of this, I sometimes get lonely waiting for their return. But if I had other children to help keep me company it might not be so bad. Besides, I couldn't leave three nice boys like you out there all alone. It just wouldn't be right. Oh, by the way, what are your names?" Thinking quickly, we each came up with names for ourselves. I became Ryu, while Foster and Garrett became Duo and Ken. Mrs. Saotome then completed our new identities by making us her adopted children that very night. Genma took his wife's actions surprisingly well, she only had to unsheathe the katana once to get her point across that we were staying and that was that. Ranma didn't mind the whole 'brother' thing since he now had other kids to play with, and Genma got over his disappointment when he watched us roughhousing in the yard one day (hey, 5 yr. olds that can do pro wrestling moves means something, right?) and began to teach us the Anything Goes style. This is how life was for us for about two years; then Pop took us on the training trip that would change our lives forever. The trip across China... *********** Don't Panic! More's on the way!