DISCLAIMER: Many of the characters and situations described in the following fic are owned entirely by Takahashi Rumiko, a woman I have the greatest respect and admiration for. Her creativity has even inspired the creation of a whole new branch of the Trek Universe, Therefore, any mentions of historical moment from Trek, Trek-Tech and characters and ships, which I shall endeavor to keep at a minimum, is entirely intentional. Within this story are characters who are from the Trek Universe, but not of Trek. These are my creations. All other characters that are integral to this story are her property. This is a work intended to share a concept, and perhaps my story telling abilities, There is no money to be earned by me or by anyone else from this work. I might also add, Paladin, Team Paladin, the Starship Purcheron and her crew, and Miss Kitty as she is here, ARE my property, and not to be used with out express consent from myself. I have worked hard to develop these characters and hope to use them in published works eventually. I choose to share them and their attitudes with you here. The character from OH! My Goddess belong to who ever owns them… sorry but my copies of this series mysteriously disappeared during a move
I would also like to add the following. NO the character of Jerrod Randolph Macon, A.K.A. Paladin is in no way related to T.N.G.'s Silver Paladin. That character was little more than a pirate, my character is intended to embody the true spirit of the word paladin.
Also, for the Trek nitpickers out there. I'm sorry to rain on your parade, but. There is no such thing as a society that doesn't use some form of currency. Roddenberry's vision of the future is a wonderful vision, but impractical as far as money is concerned. It is a socialist utopia, and it cannot work. Any historian or economist can tell you that. Even the most primitive cultures on the planet barter with each other for goods and services, and that is the earliest form of currency. Let's face it, even the People's Republics around the world, (Read as oppressive communist governments, where if you speak out against anything, you wind up run over by a tank.) Even they have currencies that the civilian public uses for internal trade.
Capitalism may not be perfect, but it's better than anything else around is right now.
Most likely the currency used in the world of Trek is closely related to various forms used in much of Sci-Fi, a credit system, there may be no hard currency, but there is a form of monetary exchange.
Internally to this story, there are some glaring examples, (to some) of extreme OOC, as well as outright character revision. As this is intended to be an original telling with some new characters with a minor twist here and there to aid in making the whole thing insensible… inchoate? …to the world of Rumiko's vision. There has been some comment that her characters aren't the way I have them here. And why would Ranma have a crush on Nabiki?
Okay, think about this. You live in a house with three very pretty girls. One of them you can't bring yourself to look at in any way other than as a big sister/mother figure. Then there are the other two, the youngest that you happen to be engaged to is violent, quick tempered, never lets you answer any question be fore she belts you and you are forcing yourself to love her.
And there is the third one,she doesn't hit you. She isn't very nice to you, but you think you know why, and she doesn't hit you. She was also the only one that seemed excited when you arrived dressed up for the occassion and didn't hit you. And lastly, she doesn't hit you, ever.
I'd have a minor crush on her myself if I were Ranma.
Let's face it, Nabs, if she were a real person, would be a major babe.
And finally, for convenience sake. ( ) author's commentary.
Sound effect ::
Chinese \ \
Japanese usually spoken planetside
English generally spoken aboard ship
And now for sumpin' gnu.
On with the tale
PALADIN ½ - SHE'S THE ONE
PROLOGUE
Japan: Christmas Eve: 23:59 1992
Every family has a Christmas Tradition. Kimiko Tendou had begun the Tendo Family Tradition before Nabiki had been borne. Every Christmas, friends and family would gather for a Christmas Eve party and at midnight everyone would make a wish. Most of the time those who wished were pleasantly surprised to find their wish answered.
Ranma looked on at the rest off the partygoers, and wondered how it could have happened. He and everyone else just knew that Tofu would eventually get the nerve up and start dating Kasumi, his future sister in law. And now it didn't seem likely. Tofu's mother had arranged a marriage for him and he seemed to be quite taken with his fiancée. Kasumi, to her credit was being the perfect hostess, as always. Looking at the clock he prepared to make his Christmas Wish.
Smiling at the various people who had arrived for the Tendo family celebration, Kasumi looked around the dojo with a small ache in her heart. She knew that everyone had always assumed that she had some deep feelings for Tofu, she had long since given up her teenaged crush on the older man. While she was more interested in finding a man her age or older, she was not at all interested in a man more than twice her age. She did like Tofu as a friend, but no more than that. The ache in her heart was for Ranma, she felt he was a very sweet boy who was misunderstood.
As Kasumi looked around the large room she noticed that her future brother in law was by himself. She also noticed that the Kuonji girl was attempting to get close enough to do something foolish. Glancing at the table that held refreshments Kasumi noted they needed to be replenished again. Smiling more deeply, she made her way to intercept Ukyo before any fighting could erupt, as Kasumi did this she thought a bit more about Ranma. Her sister, Akane, was again ignoring him in favor of spending time with her friends. The smile on her face dipped slightly at that thought. Common belief also held that Kasumi was usually off in her own world, never noticing the bad things that might be happening. That wasn't the case at all. She knew most of what happened to Ranma wasn't really his fault, and her sister referring to him as an idiot or pervert was equally inaccurate.
Even after living with the Tendo family for most of the past year, Ranma still looked lonely. Carrying an empty tray toward the kitchen for more snacks she glanced at the clock. Kasumi prepared to make her Christmas Wish.
Akane had just told a joke about her fiancé, and how he was a pervert to her friends who laughed politely. The girls that were Akane's friends knew better. They also knew better than to disagree with the hot-tempered girl. Looking at the clock Yuka and Sayuri prepared to make their Christmas Wish.
Akane wasn't bothered too much that her friends didn't find the joke all that funny. When she had looked up the words hentai, pervert and ecchi in the dictionaries, she found that there were no references to things like Ranma had done. But she did see things that she had done, and thought about and couldn't believe it. The publishers of the dictionaries were wrong, they had to be. 'There was NO WAY' Akane thought, 'these definitions can be right. Doesn't everybody have a can of aerosol whipped cream in their bedroom to take to over night visits to friends houses?' After all, Ranma had seen her in the nude, the lecher.
Sayuri and Yuka would have been dismayed to find that Akane thought things like that.
Akane herself looked to see what her friends were looking at and saw the clock. There was nothing she could wish for that she would receive anyway, that didn't stop her wishing though.
Nabiki was troubled. Her family had very little money to cover the upcoming bills and taxes. Betting had been down since they were out for the holidays. She was desperately planning and discarding new ways to make money as she looked around the room. She'd been discarding a lot of these plans and ideas because they took unfair advantage of Ranma. For some reason Nabiki couldn't bring herself to torment him anymore. He'd been living with them for nearly a year and every week nearly; Ranma did something more wondrous than the previous week.
More and more Nabiki found herself thinking about Ranma in unsisterly ways that weren't at all unpleasant for him. At least she didn't think they'd be unpleasant. These were ideas like two people naked and sharing a nice bath, or sharing a warm bed or …she shook herself 'What's the use? He's engaged to Akane and barring a major blowup on her part, which isn't impossible, he's devoted to her and the whole stupid agreement. DAMMIT!' Nabiki thought
Glancing at the clock she prepared to make her Christmas Wish.
Genma had been frustrated for more than half the previous year. The boy still hadn't given in and married Akane. He just knew beyond any doubt that Ranma and Akane had been made for each other. (Read that as a match made in Hell) Remembering back to their first day, Genma thought there had to have been a better way to have the engagement become a wedding before Christmas. (Too late Genma! Brain dead panda.) Gazing at the clock he prepared to make his Christmas wish.
Ryoga had just barely made it in time to the dojo; it had taken him since late November to arrive. He'd attack his enemy now, but he had made a promise to Kasumi to behave this time. Taking a sip of his punch he noticed the clock and prepared to make his wish.
Daisuke and Hiroshi were known as friends to Ranma. They didn't know why, as the pigtailed fighter never talked to them about much, and only hung around them at school. But they didn't mind that. The party meant free food and they got to see all the pretty girls that demanded attention from Ranma. Some of them wore pretty revealing clothes too. Of course, they also liked the fact that Ranma turned into a girl when splashed with cold water; they always felt that Ranma was a prettier neo-girl than most of the real girls they ever saw. Noticing the clock they got ready to make their Christmas Wish.
The Kuno siblings, Tatewaki and Kodache were sitting together, neither talking to the other. Each buried in their manic thoughts of twisted logic and honor. Devising plans for the next encounter with the vile/beguiling pig-tailed girl or evil/divine Ranma Saotome. These thought processes were accompanied by the strangest smell of something burning. So lost in their pursuit of a lucid thought they failed to notice the time.
Ukyo had spent the majority of the evening trying to get near Ranma. But every time she had managed to get near enough to touch him, Kasumi would ask her to help with bringing more refreshments out. She knew it was just coincidence that Kasumi was always just in time, and couldn't refuse to help. Kasumi's lazy sisters wouldn't be caught being helpful. Ukyo resigned herself to helping out. Hoping that Ranma would notice and decide she was the best choice. Catching the time on the clock she prepared to make her wish.
And so the guest list went. Each of them noticing the time and thinking of what they would wish for.
Right at the stroke of midnight, the entire group thought their wishes as they counted down the time. Of course that didn't include the Kuno's, so lost in their minds of their plans of retribution and poetic protestations of love for the pigtailed haunter of their dreams and nightmares, depending on his form, they completely missed the countdown.
Shinosuke wished he could remember his name, and who had invited him.
Happosai Wished for another girl to be living at the Tendo home.
Cologne Wished for a better way in dealing with Ranma.
Shampoo Wished to be loved in return.
Kasumi Wished for a friend for Ranma.
Akane Wished for a way out of the stupid engagement to the PERVERT.
Ukyo Wished to be loved back as much as she loved.
Nabiki Wished for a better way to make the money to save her family and Ranma. She could care less about the panda.
Genma Wished to begin again and fix his mistakes with the introduction to the Tendo girls.
Ranma Wished for a guy that would come and save Kasumi from her trap.
Soun Wished for another bottle of saki.
Ryoga Wished that Akane could be his.
Hiro and Dai Wished for a splash of water to get Ranma before the party ended.
Yuka and Sayuri Wished for Ranma to have someone to care for him as much as he cared for Akane.
Hinako Wished for some candy, or to be able to get closer to Soun. She didn't mind which came true.
The fish in the koi pond wished to not have their world disrupted so much with people falling in.
Nadoka Wished for a grandchild. This isn't unusual, she is always wishing for grandchildren.
Nadoka also wondered where that sweet little redheaded tomboy, Ranko was. She had not been around for the whole party. Nadoka had been under the impression that Ranko was part of the household.
If it hadn't been for the fact that all these people were wishing at the same time, in the same location as Nerima's chaos magnet. Not forgetting that each of them, apart from a few, were of extremely dominating personalities. But this wishing didn't stop at this party, all over the town of Nerima others were making wishes, and in some manner, through some strange and bizarre quirk of fate. One could even blame the chaos itself for demanding a way for order to come; all of these wishes at the party and around the town had one center to them in some manner, Ranma.
All of them would have gone unnoticed by the Yggdrasil. The most powerful computing device ever created. But with the sheer number of wishes and power of the chaos that surrounded Ranma Saotome, alarms began going off all over the Heaven plane.
This was big; the system automatically froze the moment of the wishing so the goddesses could be summoned to confer on this situation. Peorth, system manager of the Yggdrasil, called them to meet and sent them a memo to check the quality of the wishes involved.
Upon seeing the enormity of the wishes and how inter-related the majority were, Urd, goddess of the past and her two sisters, Belldandy, goddess of the present, and Skuld, goddess of the future, began to unravel the most useful of the wishes from the most selfish. This situation was unprecedented. Of all the times this particular reality of their multi-verse had been restarted for the protection of the one who was Destined to eventually ascend to the ranks of the Norn, this was the first time that such a confluence of desires combined to make a major single WISH. This had to be addressed.
They had also been monitoring something else that had come into this same reality two months prior. While new things come into being in every reality all the time, usually as a result of the Yggdrasil being used to answer someone's wish, this was completely different. A world nearly three hundred light years from earth had been colonized by a small group of people numbering less than five thousand. These people hadn't been born in this reality, nor had the Yggdrasil created them. They came from another multi-verse apparently on their own.
It had taken Skuld some time to decipher a way to peer into their minds and see what their intentions were, and once that had been done these people impressed even their Father. Bell had personally been entranced and delighted by one of their group. A small creature that nearly every one of the new people cared for, as if she were their own child. And all of these people deferred to one individual among their group as leader and brother. The creature was his daughter in a very new way that not even Skuld could answer how it had happened.
His fellows most often called him Paladin, the leader of these people; His daughter was named Miss Kitty. She used to be a normal healthy very spoiled and loved house cat. Now she was something totally different.
The reason the Norn were so impressed with the leader of these people was the matter of his birth. Or more specifically, after they had managed to access the various personnel files stored in the computer systems on the big ship and the administrative complex the new people were constructing, the creation of his family line.
Jerrod Randolph Macon was the descendant of what the new people called the First. In their universe the prime source for the latter years of the twentieth and early part of the twenty-first centuries Eugenics wars. Robert Macon had been a gift to the Progenitor of the family name, The first Jerrod Macon. A gift of tremendous magnitude for a wealthy man who could afford to indulge his wife, whom he loved more than anything, a woman incapable of bearing children, who wanted to carry a child.
The geneticists that worked for Macon Industries had labored for years prior to this looking for genetic markers to inherited diseases and related maladies. They had been attempting to find a way to make the entire race immune to various forms of malignant disease that could be linked to genetic predisposition, such as cancers, heart disease, renal and kidney failures, and a multitude of brain dysfunction's. In the process of their researches, one Dr. David Starkweather Andrews discovered a way to map the entire human genome, this lead to other insights and advances in the medical fields. When Old Macon approached Andrews about his wife's request and strong desire, the gengineer jumped at the opportunity. The ethics of this decision were a big problem, so Andrews did what hundreds of other researchers had done in the past and still do today.
He tossed ethics out the window and went ahead with his own plans of creating the perfect human. The year 1973 was the year that The First was born, within five years several of the more wealthy nations around the world had managed to obtain the techniques and technology used to create Robert Macon. One of the earliest nations to manage to follow suit was Pakistan, the people were poor, but the government was very wealthy. They were the birth country of Khan Noonian Singh, one of the instigators of the Eugenics Wars.
Unlike Robert, the other Enhanced, as they grew to be called, were raised to be warriors with obsessive natures concerning competition, conquest and held the belief that being physically and mentally superior they had to RULE. It was their DIVINE RIGHT.
Robert had been raised with an overwhelming respect for life, and though he may be physically and mentally superior, he wasn't better than anyone else. The laws of the land and world applied to him just as anyone. Jerrod Macon felt it proper to instill the Honor Codes of the Paladin, the Samurai, and more importantly the American Cowboy.
These codes all held that Might for Right is the true path.
These and later other codes were combined to form the Macon Family Code of Ethics and Honor. The members of this line called it the Macon Way. Basically, this code commanded that they seldom take credit for their own creations, and take the blame for the whole company when something fails. While this sounds like good practice, few follow the principle. To always render aid to those in need, fight for the rights of others, placing your own convenience and comfort beneath theirs.
Feed the hungry, clothe the naked and help to heal the injured and ill. In many ways the Macon Way is much stricter than any other form of Honor. One of the more strict codes was to never issue a challenge, but never refuse one.
One of the more ridiculous parts was, if the girl is pretty, and she isn't dating, it's perfectly all right to entertain her in any way that presents itself. But, don't take advantage of her, and never have premarital zug-zug. (Blatant theft, see Caveman, Ringo Starr A.K.A. Richard Starkey , Barbara Bach, and featuring Richard Moll as the Abominable Snowman.)
To reduce the history of this dark time even further, Khan challenged Robert for domination of the Standard humans. Robert had been trained in the martial arts as had Khan and his followers. But Robert was there to protect those who couldn't defend themselves; he would not yield.
Khan and his followers lost every battle between themselves and the First, his techniques more refined, his own followers more dedicated to Freedom than the evil of planet wide slavery. Gradually Khan fled to his own lands, finally running to the International Spaceflight center where he and a score of his remaining Enhanced stole a small freighter and fled the earth completely, vowing to return one day.
The battles of the war had caused Robert to become something he hated, a killer. He had lost count of the number of dead, but he had been damaged deeply by the war. As a result of his pain and the war, Robert led the call for laws to prevent any such creation of people like him ever again. Then he found out he would not be the last of the Enhanced humans, he would become the father of a line of them. The tinkering with the Macon DNA would breed true for at least one hundred generations, and all born would be male. The First had a decision, never pass on his genes in the only immortality a man can know or develop a pact with his son and grandson to be followed until the manipulations became regressive traits.
Since it was too late as he had a child by this time, the pact was chosen. The Macon line would be continued by one birth per generation, no more than that. Given how the larger problem could manifest, humanity would be in jeopardy in very short order if they didn't keep to this agreement. So another line to the Code was added.
And this now brings us to the eleventh generation of the Macon Line and his accidental daughter, Paladin.
The Norn goddesses decided that the only way to meet all the new wishes would be to not directly manipulate the events this time around themselves as they had in most of the others. But this time, invite this remarkable leader to help them. He might succeed where their own attempts had failed at one time or another. The reasons for these failures were most likely the result of third party intervention by the Demon plane or the fact that their primary subject in this reality was surrounded by chaos.
Having decided what they would do, they needed one other thing to make it work. One of the rules was that they couldn't interact with mortal subjects unless there was a minimum of at least an unspoken wish or desire. The more selfless the better.
So they waited, with the Tendo party on hold in stasis while they determined whom the wish would come from. The portion of reality that the newcomers were in running at normal time while they monitored.
It wasn't very long before they received one of the most precious wishes a child could ever make. On the face this wish would be selfish, but the flow of the desire makes it selfless at the same time. Bell adjusted the monitor to zero in on the wishmaker and was thrilled that it was the darling new creature.
And the little ones wish was one Bell would grant without thought, but it would require work on the part of Kitty's father. Skuld increased the volume on the monitor so they could hear it better.
They heard the slightly lisping felinoid voice speak in clear English, "I wish I had a Mommy."
"What a wonderful wish to use to answer the WISH of the group surrounding Ranma." Bell said to her sisters and stepped to her mirror. Bell had a plan, very unusual for the Granters of Wishes from the Heaven plane.
To have a plan that is, one that might even work.
'Ye of little Honor have a care. The True chosen of the Gods will confront thee in thine own lair.' (Quote from the BIG Book of Gsevenisms)