A New Adventurer In Van'adiel

By Seras4545

Disclaimer: I in no way own or claim to own any form of Final Fantasy XI or any Final Fantasy title, Ranma 1/2, or any other anime series that may find it's way into this story. All I own is that which comes from my imagination.

A/N: I know that I've said this before, but once again I'm sorry for starting yet another new story. In an effort to make up for this, I'm going to try to make this fic as good as I possibly can. Hope you enjoy this story.

A/N (12/27/08): sorry for my absence from the fanfic writing world, ive got a lot going on and have had little time or patience to write. Im currently on leave, which is vacation for all you who are not military savvy, and not currently in the presence of my girlfriend, so now I have a little time to devote to my writing. If anyone is interested im an E-4 in the united states navy and for those familiar with the organization, im an ET Nuke. So that should explain why I have so little time to myself. Anyways, i was going over all my stories and decided i should update some of my free running stories first so i can get back into my writing groove. So, without further ado, im gonna rewrite this chapter a bit and add a new one if i feel capable.

Chapter I: Immersion

On a cool summer's day one could almost relax in the somewhat peaceful district of Nerima. There was a nice breeze, a not too oppressive sun, the smell of spring still in the air. Yes, one could definitely relax and have a pleasant day here. At least, so long as one wasn't the unfortunate Ranma Saotome.

"RANMA NO BAKA!!!" An Irate blue haired woman screamed in rage as she pulled a large mallet out of thin air. The young man with dark well kept hair and shocking blue eyes and a well toned body, Ranma Saotome, who was the target of this anger flinched as she swung the mallet in an arc designed to deliver maximum air time to it's target. And so, Ranma exited the house he was in via the roof by what was commonly known by him as Angry Akane Airlines, or AAA for short.

Ranma thought over what he could have possibly have done to make Akane angry. He assumed the lotus position in midair to meditate on what he had done up till now. Hmm... Lets see... Woke up, fought pops, took bath, went to school, avoided rivals and fiancées, grabbed quick lunch from vending machine, school again, walked back to the dojo, went to get snack from refrigerator... Nope, nothing that I can think of to have made Akane that angry.

Ranma scratched his head in confusion. Why was she so angry all the time? Now that he thought of it, ever since the failed wedding it had taken less and less provocation to make Akane angry at him. Now it seemed that all he had to do was show his face.

Ranma sighed as he repositioned himself and made a landing that would make a cat envious of his agility and dexterity. A few people looked up at the unexpected arrival of the dark haired man from the sky, but soon returned to relaxing in the shade of the trees in the park he had landed in. Ranma brushed some non existent dust from his clothes and looked around, trying to determine where he had ended up this time. As he looked around he recognized some of the land marks.

Hmm... I'm near Hiroshi's house. Maybe he'll let me play that game that he had been talking about for the past few weeks to let off a little steam. It sounded kinda fun, just going around adventuring and pretty much doing what you wanted to do.

Having made up his mind Ranma set off for Hiroshi's house.

o0o

Ranma knocked on the door and within moments Hiroshi answered. Upon seeing his friend Hiroshi broke out in a smile.

"Hey Ranma! How ya doin' ?" He asked cheerfully.

"Um, good I guess. Just took another trip via AAA." Ranma answered, trying somewhat successfully to return Hiroshi's smile.

"Oh. Well that sucks. Guess she just gets mad at anything having to do with you, huh?"

"Yeah, seems like it. Hey, do you think I could hang out here and let out a little steam?"

This not being the first time Ranma has come over to play games after a fight with Akane, Hiroshi just nodded and let Ranma in. He and Ranma walked into the living room. Ranma liked this room, It was large, roomy, had plenty of light from the windows, had lots of plush comfy furniture. And against the wall was a tv unit filled with everything gaming. Cupboards filled with games, cd racks brimming with the entertainment filled discs, and consoles galore. After Ranma's first few visits he and Hiroshi had worked a few odd jobs and had earned enough to invest in a second TV and a second copy of his favorite console, XBOX 360.

Plopping himself down on one of the couches Ranma took the control that was attuned to his XBOX and turned it on, turning on the console at the same time.

Ranma looked at Hiroshi who was watching Ranma with amusement. He had never thought before a couple years ago that the macho, kickass, ungodly strong and fast martial artist would have an interest in games. But apparently they posed him a challenge when almost nothing else did. They challenged his intellect, with the basic assumption that the person playing had the intellect to defeat the game. At first Ranma had quite a problematic time as he had no experience with games and so had the playing style of a three year old. But that soon changed as Ranma got the hang of it and soon had beaten almost every game in Hiroshi's collection, some of which even he hadn't been able to beat. The ones that Ranma couldn't beat were the games that never actually ended, such as Morrowind and Oblivion and Everquest. Funny enough, these games proved to be the most fun, even though they couldn't be beaten, to Ranma as they provided him something that he lacked in real life. The freedom of choice.

"Hey, Hiroshi, you didn't happen to get a second copy of that game you've been talking about lately, did you?"

Hiroshi smiled and nodded. "I thought you would never ask. It's a pretty difficult game sometimes if you prefer to be a loner, but I'm sure that will pose little challenge to you Ranma." Difficult was an understatement. With the exception of a few job classes the game was nearly impossible to play solo due to the limitations put on players. And Ranma always preferred to rely only on himself. Hiroshi went to one of the cupboards and pulled out a game case and a strange looking helmet and tossed both to Ranma.

Ranma caught both deftly. He took a quick glance at the game case. Final Fantasy XI. Then he looked at the helmet and was confused.

"Hey, Hiroshi, What's this helmet for?"

"Oh, well, Square Enix has come a long way and FFXI is the game they have devoted a lot of time and money developing. They had been researching how to make it more interactive and stumbled on how to link the mind to the console. Effectively, that's your controller for the game. just hook it up to the front port on the controller and put it on after putting the game in the console and it will sync with you."

Ranma blinked. What?

"So, basically, my mind will be put inside of the game? I will be a part of the game?"

"That's one way to put I guess."

"Cool. This will be the perfect way to escape for awhile."

Ranma quickly took the disc out of it's case and slipped it into the tray of the console and closed it. Then he hooked the helmet into the port on the controller and put the helmet on his head. Immediately he saw a bar with a percentage next to it filling.

16 percent...

59 percent...

82 percent...

100 percent...

When the bar hit 100 percent Ranma felt a disconcerting pull on his mind and then found himself in a star filled void, standing on a neon blue platform. Before he could take note of what had happened a voice boomed through the void.

"Welcome to PlayOnline Viewer. I notice you do not have an account with us, do you wish to create one?"

Before Ranma could reply a semi-transparent window opened before him and had what looked like buttons on it labeled 'yes', 'no', and 'Login Using Existing Account'.

Ranma hesitated a second, then pressed 'yes'. A light pulsed out from the button when he pressed it and the window disappeared.

"CONGRATULATIONS!! You are the 10 millionth to request an account with PlayOnline for the game Final Fantasy XI. You are hereby awarded a lifetime free account. Please fill in your information here."

Once again a window opened in front of Ranma, asking for various bits of information. Already familiar with this, Ranma quickly filled in the information with the keyboard that also appeared in front of him.

Once that was done, the window and keyboard disappeared and PlayOnline Viewer appeared, with several places he could go. He was about to touch the button 'Immerse In FFXI' When he heard a chime and noticed his mailbox flashing. He opened it expecting only the usual welcoming mail from the administration and was surprised to find another mail with the subject 'if u could make a wish'.

Ranma opened it and read.

'If you could make a wish, wish for anything you could think of, what would it be? Please Reply'

It was signed with 'Urd, Goddess second class, limited, Demon first class, unlimited.' Deciding that it just had something to do with the game, he ignored the titles and answered. After all, he was new and making friends was important.

'If I could wish for anything, huh? Well, I wish I could start over in a new world, with a new life, away from the one I have.'

He sent the mail and waited. After about five minutes he shrugged and left the mail interface and pressed the immerse button. Immediately he felt he had forgotten something important, as if he was being cut off from some vital part of himself. He had a feeling he wouldn't need to worry about Akane for a while.

o0o

Hiroshi watched as Ranma put the helmet on and soon the light on the controller went blue and Ranma slumped in his seat, his mind now elsewhere. Hiroshi smiled as this happened, knowing the new way of interface would throw Ranma through a loop, though he would get used to it soon.

Then suddenly there was a flash and the smell of burning ozone and when Hiroshi could see again, Ranma was gone. The helmet was slag and the half melted light on the controller was blinking red, synchronized with the blinking light on the console.

"Ah crap... this isn't good." Hiroshi said as he called PlayOnline Admin.

o0o

In Yggdrasil...

Urd blinked at Ranma's reply, though she had expected something like this.

"Very well. Have fun, Ranma-kun." She said as she activated the Ultimate Power.

She sent a reply mail. 'Wish Granted'.

o0o

Ranma Found himself looking at another interface. A sign above him said Character Creation. There was a model of himself standing on some kind of pad and to the right and left were several controls and a keyboard in the middle. Ranma approached and looked the controls over. The left controls were to change things such as race, job class, name, and displayed stats. The right was to change physical characteristics. Ranma looked at himself and decided to have a little fun. He made his ears a little more pointed, like an elf, his eyes a little more slanted and made his eyes a little deeper blue. He made himself a little taller, though not much. Finally after making some various other small insignificant changes, he came to the last option. 'View Cursed Form'.

"What the hell?" Ranma exclaimed as he saw this. He looked to the left and saw that his race was 'Cursed Martial Artist' and was blacked out so as to be unchangeable. His job class was changeable, however and so found the one he thought would fit him best, Monk, and then traveled to the next option, gender. This too was blacked out and Ranma was not surprised, now. Apparently the weirdness of his life had followed him somehow. Well, he was done now. He clicked the view cursed form button and saw that his cursed form looked much the same, though she was a little... Enhanced was all he could think of. The shade of her eyes was several times deeper than his male half, making them a deep sapphire blue. Her figure was even tighter than before, though her breasts were a little smaller and more pert than before the game. She shared the changes he made to his male half, but she was also a little taller. Several new options had appeared with the change but decided not to even venture into manipulating the anatomy of his female form. He entered his name and pressed enter. He was presented with a list of servers to choose from, so chose the first that appealed to him, that of Kujata. Then he was presented with several locations to start from and decided on what he thought was the best situated location, that of Sand'oria. And off he went...

o0o

In the administration building of Final Fantasy XI an alarm went off and all hell broke loose when it was found that a mind was trapped within the game. An immediate recall of the helmets was issued but the damage was done. Ranma was already in the game, and his presence would continue to alter the game as frustrated programmers watched.

o0o

A/N: Ok, not sure where I'm gonna go with this but I'm always thinking. Hope you like it so far.