Also, I'm thinking I'm going to make Duel Whites a side story of this one. Both of them involve Ranma being Imortal.
This chapter is a lot of back story, back story and more back story. But it's long enough for me to consider it a chapter.
Chapter Seven
Videl watched as Ranma faded from her view. With that creepy little smirk she always wore, she waved and muttered a goodbye. She faded from existance. Videl stood in mild shock as the police entered the building and found the remaining leader thief on the ground uncouncious.
Snapping out of her stupor, Videl quickly ran out to her jet copter. After a few quick words with the cheif deputy, or in other words him thanking her and her graciously accepting the thanks, she got into the jet copter and flew off toward the school building.
She decided not to enter the class room as the bell was just about to ring. This bell would signal the end of the day so she simply wandered the hallways nearby her classroom.
The bell rang.
The students walked out of the room, each with red eyes from their long naps. The last ones out were Gohan, Erasa, and Ranma.
The second Ranma walked out of the room she leapt on her.
"Ranma HOW in the HELL did you DO that?" She cried.
"Do what Videl?" Ranma asked curiously.
Videl bathed in her anger. It wasn't actually anger. The actual anger was a mask. Her anger masked fear. Ranma was NOT normal. She had scars all over herself. She claimed to be 1,300 years old! She beat Dam in a fight without breaking a sweat! She could turn herself into a freaking ghost! Was there anything she couldnt' do? Ranma was very much a force of unimaginable power.
"Come with me... please? I need to talk to you." She asked almost timidly.
"Ok... sure." Ranma replied, surprised at Videl's sudden change in attitude. They walked off toward Ranma's locker, leaving Erasa and Gohan behind.
"What are you?" Videl asked anxiously.
"Uh... I'm a girl, last I checked." Ranma replied casually.
"No... give me a straight awnser. What are you? How are you doing these... these things!" She demanded.
"Oh it's no big deal. Just a few years of training." Ranma replied in her still casual voice.
"Ranma... please tell me! What are you!? Your starting to... tofreakme out a little..." Videl finished. She managed to keep her angry overtone but she soon found herself on the end of a peircing gaze. Ranma eyed her warily.
"Your afraid of me. Your afraid I might do something stupid? What with all this power, why not?" Ranma said. Her tone had changed drastically. She sighed.
"Why don't I just take over the world? It's not like I couldn't. I'm strong enough... I could you know. Videl. I could become the most feared person in the world. I could become a queen and wage wars with other nations or even worlds... but why not?" Ranma said.
Videl was slightly confused. This wasn't exactly what she was thinking and she was also not getting the awnser she expected. She had expected an outright denial. "I would NEVER hurt an innocent person Videl. You don't need to be afraid of me." Or, "Videl... didn't you just see what I did? I am on your side here! Why would you be afraid of me!?" But not this.
"Videl... the truth is... I've seen what happens to rulers. To monarchs. They become hardend. They want power. I have enough of that allready. I have no need to govern the lives of others. Heh... you probably wern't thinking like this were you? You were just afraid I would become a criminal. What would happen if I were evil? If I were a theif or a bully? Videl. I'm not saying don't be scared of me. You have every right to be. I am everything I claim. I have lived for 1,300 years. I'm am quite possibly the most powerful person you will ever meet. But I'm not evil. Not yet. So please. Just try not to be afraid of me..." She said plainly.
"I... I never said I was afraid of you! Just that you... scared me a little... Whats... whats it like to be that old?" She asked.
"Trust me... you don't wanna know. To many years of pain and hells. I have to die twice before I can live in a different body. Once here and once in other world. And then... then I can have my peace. But I wont' die unless its in combat. So I got a few more years on me, wouldn't you say?"
Videl took all this in stride. A thirteen hundred year old teenager. "Well... Ranma... what are you going to do? What do you keep on living for? I would never want to live for that long. A good two hundred years would be more than enough for me. Then I'd want to start growing old. What do you wait here for?"
"Hmm... I actually have an old score to settle. And an old love to meet." Ranma replied.
The bell rang as they both quickly realized they were late.
Ranma grinned. Seeya!
She faded from existance again.
"She is definantly gonna have to teach me how to do that." Videl thought as she ran for her locker. "... But what did she mean by... not yet?"
--
"Stupid little girl. Why did you have to go and remind me of this...?" Ranma asked.
School had just ended. Ranma had spent the entire day using her most beloved technique. Soul of Ice. Forcing herself to forget memories of a time when she had gone insane with anger and powerlust. Directly after she had found that Majin Buu had been sealed away, she had gone to a planet on the opposite end of the universe. A mystic dagger, given to her by a passing merchant had corrupted her mind without her knowing when she was around four hundred.
She had gone crazy with powerlust. And she gaurded the dagger with her life. She quickly became a ruler of a small nation and instantly it rose in the ranks of the strongest nations on the primitive world she had very temporarily inhabited.
Her nation became a place of inventions and machinery and martial arts. While other nations had sword masters, she had sword gods.
She quickly brought the entire world under her rule in a matter of four years.
One day a young girl of about thirteen wandered into her private quarters. The girl was very sick and had gotten lost when she left the hospital ward of the palace to explore. When she had wandered into the queen of the world's bed chambers she did not even know.
She saw the dagger, sitting on a pedestal nearby her bed. She walked over to it, entrance by the beauty. She touched it just as Ranma walked in.
Ranma was on her in seconds. Ranma hit her and put her in a coma for close to six months.
She was shocked at her own actions. She had killed in battles before on the planet. She had killed many times. But never an innocent. Never had she hurt an innocent. Now this plain, peasant girl, who had done nothing wrong at all, was suffering because of her powerlust.
Ranma became angry and knew the cause of her anger. The dagger had to go.
It took almost every ounce of her current power, but she broke the magic of the dagger with pure ki.
It put her in an unconcious state for an entire two days.
When she awoke, she immediatly went directly to the family of the girl. Needless to say the family became as rich as she herself. When the girl awoke Ranma personally began to train her as a successor. The girls name had been Lediv. Or at least had been pronounced that way. Language differences. And when Ranma began showing Lediv some of her more uncanny abilities the girl had said almost the exact same thing to her that Videl had.
Also curious. Lediv was Videl spelled backwards... fate is a twisted little person.
Ranma finally managed to get the memories out of her head. It took her forever and a day but she did finally get them out.
She decided that it was high time she found out how Ryuso and Luna were doing. Perhaps talking with the incarnation of her love would be a good way to calm herself down.
The town of Nerima looked exactly the same as it had seven years ago.
Ranma loved this town. It seemed unable to fall. The town had been around for the thirteen hundred years she had been around and then some.
She loved the moving roads too. Not many towns had been around long enough to have aquired the money to have them installed.
She waited on the road until it reached the turn for the road to the dojo. She stepped off and let the next road take her on. Once she arrived she heard something that caught her ear.
"Damnit Gigi! She's my kid now leave'r alone!" Ryuso's distinct voice shouted from behind the fence. Well... fence. It was actually a wall. The dojo stood but it was now dwarfed by the most luxurious mansion in the entire neighborhood.
Ranma jumped on top of the wall.
"Eh... redecorated I see." She said quitely as she looked at the new surroundings. They had managed to keep the pond as well. Apparently all they had done was built another two floors on top of the bottom one because the mansions first level looked just as it always had.
"Ryuso's kid huh?" Ranma thought. It almost angered her. She had never had a child. And she couldn't really. What hell would it be to watch your child grow, live, and die with you the age of 18 through their entire life? No... Ranma couldn't have a child.
"Hey who's there?" Enma's voice called out. "I know SOMEONE is out there." The voice said.
Ranma had placed herself behind a tall tree that stood near the corner of the yard. A tree she definantly didn't remember being there with her last visit. She had hidden in hopes of someone detecting her. She wanted to be sure no one was slacking off.
And sitting up in the tree directly above her, stood Ryuso.
"Hey! Your Ranma!" He said happily. "Your slacking off if you think that was a good hiding place."
Ryuso jumped down and turned toward her while carefully cradling a small boy in his arms.
"Heh... your right. If I thought that was a good hiding place I would be slacking off. At least your not." How are you?" She asked.
"I'm eh... grounded. I've been sleeping on the couch for the past two nights. But what about you? What happened to you after Cell seven years ago?" Ryuso asked.
"I was.... well I'm not sure but I woke up and I was here about a week ago. It's only been a short while to me and P-Chan since the fight with Cell." Ranma replied. "Now about this sleeping on the couch..."
"Yeah yeah... Luna.... she won't let me sleep in the bed because I accidentally punched her boss through a window six stories up... Me and her got married if you didn't know. It took a while. Though. But now were good. And little Akane here..."
Ranma, who had been on the verge of interupting, choked on her breath. "A... did you say... Akane?" Ranma asked as soon as she was done with her wheezing fit."
"Yesss.... why?" Ryuso asked curiously.
"Uh... well nothing... nothing... so Luna doesn't study martial arts any more? She has a job?" Ranma asked, trying to find a quick way to change the subject.
"Yeah... well she would... and did up till she had the baby. But then stuff got too hard. She's pretty much fully taking care of the baby or working. She enjoy's it though. She's a professional recipe maker... can you believe it?" Ryuso asked. "Oh you'd never actually tasted her cooking before had you?"
Ranma was impressed with Ryuso. He was much more mature then he had been several years ago. And possibly more mature then she had been after about three hundred years... She knew he would face harder times if he managed to be unlucky. If his male side died while he was in his female form then he would be just like her. Alone and forever young.
But for now... he acted more mature than she did a the moment... though Ranma was a girl of a thousand faces.
"No... no I hadn't. But when I was about your age I went through the same thing and if I remeber right... her cooking was akin to that of panda dung.
Ranma laughed.
"Well yeah... bout that. But now it's amazing... " He said happily.
After a short period of silence.
"So how good are you?"Ranma asked. "What say you too a little match?"
He smiled. "I could take you..." He smirked.. and then left it at, "buuuuttt... I don't hit girls... sorry!"
Ranma was almost taken aback. She herself would never have turned down a challenge. She would have accepted and then found a way to win without hitting the girl... which usually turned up embarrassing the hell out of herself.
"Hmm... well I'll live with that... your afraid of losing... ok... thats allright." She said trying to goad him into anger.
"You hit it right on!" He replied.
This tiime Ranma WAS taken aback... was this her Reincarnation? Or not?
"Honestly, you'd beat me too a pulp if you didn't hold back so whats the point? I'll fight pheonix gods, I won't fight an older me."
His sence of logic stunned her. How come she didn't understand that at his age? ... How come she couldn't back down from a challenge even now? What had happened so differently?
"I... I gotta think about something Ryuso... I'll, come back and see you, some.. some time..." Ranma said dejectedly as she walked off.
She dissapeared.
Ryuso was confused... what did he do to maker her so... dejected was the only word for it. Was him turning down her challenge that big of a deal?
--
Gohan trained at home happily, glad to finally have some free time. School was so much easier than the homework he was used to. Suddenly he felt an aura.
A yellow helicopter was headed for her house.
It landed nearby him when the driver noticed that he was below.
"Videl... what're you doing here?" Gohan asked.
"I was... looking for Ranma... I talked with her a little while ago but she left. Do you have any Idea where she is?" She asked anxiously.
"Uh... actually," Gohan replied, "I think I sense her aura on the... heh, somewhere in Tokyo."
"Tokyo? ... Normally I wouldn't believe you, but Ranma is... a little different isn't she?" Videl asked.
"Heh... you don't know the half of it..." Gohan replied.
"Well... I was... kinda wantin... her to, you know... teach me. But... I don't know if she will. She wouldnt' teach the class at school...
"I could take you too her if you wanted me too." He said plainly.
"Eh.. ok... how? My copter would be faster then any way you know of I think." Videl said.
"Ah... I'm not quite as good as Ranma but I know my way around. Here." He held out his hand.
"Huh?" She asked.
"Just hold my hand and we'll be there in a few seconds." He said.
"Ooookay..." She replied unsure.
She touched his hand. And in a few moments her entire surroundings changed completely.
BANG!
Gohan was toppled as the red-headed girl formally known as Ranma slammed into them.
"Damnit! Gohan! I swear you and that instant transmittion technique are more trouble than your worth." Ranma replied angrily as she got up.
"Sorry, sorry. Videl wanted to talk to you and you were like, two hundred miles away!" He said.
"Well then teach her to fly! Do things conventionally! I only ever teleport if its an emergency!" Ranma cried.
"Well then howd you get here so fast?" He asked increadulously.
"I flew." She replied.
Videl, having stood and peacefully enjoyed the bouts of what seemed like long time sibling rivalry, now decided to speak.
"Didn't I just talk to you, Lediv? Ech... er... eh... Videl. Sorry." Ranma stuttered.
"Yeah... Well..., I was wonderin... if you would be able to train me?" Videl asked, gaining confidence.
"HELL NO! Erk!... I mean... eh... no... no I can't Videl... sorry... I.."
Videl pouted.
This time she managed to pull off a good puppy dog face.
Ranma would not give in but her thoughts were something along the line of, DAMN THE PUPPY DOG FACE! Which Ranma had to strive with all her power to turn down. She suddenly thought she knew what parents delt with.
The measly seventy or so years she spent as a man had all but destroyed any hope of her being fully able to ignore the effects of the dreaded puppy-dog face... and also destroyed any hope of her ever perfectly mastering the technique. Though she did a pretty good faking of it when she wanted.
"BUT WHY NOT!?" VIdel cried.
"Because... I can't teach." Ranma said plainly.
"If your telling me that in thirteen hundred years you've never taught someone then--"
"No Way! Of course I've taught... it's just, when I teach... the people who learn always end up... well... Look I don't like to teach people because my teaching is sorta cursed allright? When I teach something it... my teaching is evil to people who aren't strong enough to handle it." Ranma replied.
Her teaching actually did seem to be cursed.
She had taught many people... usually just one person at a time. She actually had it numbered at eight hundred and thirty four people... but around four hundred of those people went insane. They began to lust for power. After all, they were so strong why not? Once bullets began to ricochet off of their bodies they tended to let it go to their head.
So about four hundred years previous, Ranma had stopped teaching.
"About half the people I've taught went on to become major world leaders and in the end started wars that ended hundreds of lives. I'm not fond of the idea of another one. All the people I've taught have died now and I don't want to let another one loose on the world.
"I've seen a lot of freaky things in the past couple of days and bullets bouncing off people's bodies I can even believe but their are limits! It's not like I could destroy a planet or anything!" Videl said.
Ranma and Gohan both sweatdropped.
"You wanna tell her? Or should I?" She asked Gohan.
He just sighed.