The Hazzardous World

Chapter 1

It was a sunny day in the Nerima district of Japan. This was quite normal, but unfortunately this was not a normal day. In the hallowed halls of Furinken High School a number of reporters had gathered to report on the ruins that had been found by a local student.

Tatewaki Kuno, leader of the Kendo club, and president of the school counsel was basking in the spotlight, his well paid henchperson was by his side as usual, he was raving on about how he had discovered the ancient ruins. Nabiki had been paid well and backed up his story even though she knew that it had been Ranma Saotome and his friend Ryoga Hibiki’s fighting that had caused the ruins to be unearthed.

Saotome was standing behind the tape that had been erected to prevent students from destroying the artifacts before they had been properly studied. This precaution was enforced by several armed guards who were posted outside the opening during school hours, and some really high tech cybernetic organisms that coincidentally looked like a famous American actor. They were called Turminetors. Something about copyright infringement or something.

Ranma was disgusted, he knew that he was the one who had found the ruins, but he decided that it was better to let Kuno have the credit for the discovery rather than have to deal with Nabiki. He owed her too much money and she had his little ‘secret’ guarded well, for a price. But he knew that if he tried anything she would reveal it to the world and he would be laughed at and called a freak.

The only other people who knew about his condition were his friends Ukyo, Ryoga, and of course his lousy no good father Genma. Ukyo knew because she was his friend and was present at Jusenkyo when the ‘accident’ happened. Ryoga and his father on the other hand had been up close and personal when they were thrown into the cursed springs by enraged Amazon women. Depending on the different springs that they were thrown into they changed into their cursed forms whenever they got splashed with cold water. Genma became a panda, Ryoga became a pig, and Ranma became a buxom redhead. All in all they had accepted their changes and had learned how to hide them and deal with them.

Unfortunately one day Ranma was outside and it began to rain. He managed to get to the boys washroom without being seen. However when he used the hot water to change back into a guy he was inadvertently infront of the only one way mirror in the boy's bathroom. Nabiki had had it installed quite a while ago, when she realized that a lot of the gossip and secret trading that the male population of the school did was in the bathroom.

So far she had been able to get only a few good rumors and one pretty minor secret. On this particular day she was just about to leave her observation post and head off for class when a young red headed girl came running into the bathroom. She had watched with great interest as the girl stuck her head under the hot water tap and turned it on. What had startled her was the fact that when the head came back up it was now that of the young Saotome.

That lunch hour she had approached him. Within five minutes she had hammered out a deal. He would never go against her will. Her will was that he let Kuno beat his male form up and fondle his female form. Somehow she had managed to convince Kuno that she was good luck and as long as he paid her he would be invincible against Ranma.

Ranma was no slacker he could take Kuno easily. He was considered a master martial artist by most people who actually were privileged to see him fight at his full strength. But Nabiki had stipulated that Kuno must win their confrontations.

Ranma had figured a way around this little problem by getting his friend Ryoga to beat Kuno to a pulp in retaliation. Since Nabiki had nothing on Ryoga he was free to pulp Kuno to his hearts delight.

The Hibiki mind was an interesting thing indeed. On the surface it looked as though Ryoga was pretty stupid and irrational. If one looked closer however, I mean really close as in staring directly into his eyes you could almost make out the faint resolution of what looked like a C:\ prompt however there was one major difference. Whenever something happened the operating system would call this one routine over and over again. This routine basically just told the operating system to activate the angry routine then go pound something. This Hibiki OS amazingly enough was less stable than MS-DOS 1.0 if it is possible. Because of this lack of good programming and stability his internal navigation frequently crashed and the end result was that he got lost easily. He had to be led to and from school, wherever he went he had to wear a tracking device and an electroshock collar so that he could be found easily and that he wouldn’t leave Nerima. It had become commonplace to see Ryoga to be wandering hopelessly lost through even the toughest neighborhoods.

This was not a problem for either himself nor Ranma because they were exceptional martial artists and could handle themselves in even the toughest situations. They had trained together in an ancient Amazon village under a master by the name of Cologne. Only after Genma stiffed her out of half her desired fee for training were the boys and Genma thrown off a cliff into the Jusenkyo springs.

Undaunted by this 'minor' setback Genma continued his search for even more devastating techniques, he proceeded to try to teach his son the dreaded Neko Ken. Of course like a true man he failed to read the instructions carefully, and didn’t notice the large warning at the bottom of the page. This caused Ranma to develop an intense fear of cats.

Ranma’s fear of cats is so deeply rooted that if he is exposed to cats for a prolonged period of time, he begins to believe that he is a cat, and goes around shredding people and furniture. Genma has not told Ranma about the number of times that he’s brought home dead mice and birds.

Ryoga had been travelling with the Saotomes because he couldn’t find his way home, so he decided to stick with them until he could find his way back. He had even agreed to move to Nerima with them when Genma found a job there as a martial arts instructor.

Unknown to either Ranma or Ukyo there was a reason why she was living with the Saotomes. She had been sold by her father when she was very young, over time she had become a very accomplished chef, mainly because being the only one of the four who could cook. Her specialty was okonomiyaki.

Over time Ukyo had grown to love Ranma, but he did not return the love because he did not know how she felt, and he just wanted them to be friends. She was contented because even though he didn’t feel that way about her, she still believed that he was hers and to that end she had forcefully kept the female population at bay by declaring that Ranma was hers, and that nobody but her would have him. Ranma totally unaware of this was confused when whenever he went to ask a girl for a date she immediately refused saying that she had something better to do.

It was lunchtime now, and as usual it looked like a fight scene from a good Jackie Chan movie. Bodies littered the floor, there were a few high powered martial artists that were fighting to get the little food that was handed out during lunch time at the cafeteria. This was principle Kuno’s solution to the schools financial budget, cut way back on food at the cafeteria and put the surplus money into school repairs and exploding pineapples.

Ranma generally stayed away from the mayhem although he would sometimes jump into the fray to help somebody out or if he saw something he absolutely wanted, but usually he avoided it since Kuno was usually fighting and he had to lose against Kuno, so best not to tempt fate. He had his source of food. Ukyo. She always packed him and Ryoga a lunch every day.

“Hey Ranchan.” Ukyo called from across the room.

“Hey Ucchan, over here.” He called back.

Ryoga who was sitting with him, was sort of uncomfortable around Ukyo. She was his best friend but he felt more for her than just friendship, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her. Another fault in the Hibiki OS if in the presence of a cute girl which he liked it would crash completely leaving him practically helpless. If said girl whom he liked (or any girl for that matter did anything remotely sexy or showed off a bit too much skin the OS would blow the stack crashing the entire system until such time as it would receive a hard reboot IE Ranma's foot to the back of his head.)

Ukyo never caught onto this minor fact however since she enjoyed showing off her great body. As a great woman once said 'If you've got it, flaunt it.'. To this end Ukyo had the tendency to wear tight spandex pants and revealing low cut shirts.

Ukyo just sat there and stared at Ranma while he was eating, and Ryoga just sat there starting at Ukyo's cleavage who was staring at Ranma.

“Saotome you cur. I shall defeat you again.” Kuno bellowed from across the cafeteria. He charged at Ranma who slowly stood up to receive his punishment. Unfortunately Kuno slipped on some food that had been dropped during a previous fight. His bokken came down and would have impacted on Ukyo’s skull if Ranma had not acted and kicked Kuno into the wall.

Nabiki walked over to the table where the group was seated. She looked over at the unconscious Kuno who was imbedded upside down in the wall. Then she turned her gaze to Ranma.

“It seems you have broken our deal, I will speak with you tonight behind the gym.” She walked over to where Kuno was stuck in the wall and grabbed him by his gui and haled him out of the lunch room.

“What was that all about Ranma? What’s this deal she’s talking about?” asked Ukyo looking concerned.

“N… Nothing I just owed her some money that’s all. She’s going to want to collect now, that I’ve beat up her boss.” He tried to hide his concern that their secret was going to be revealed. He continued to eat his lunch as if nothing happened. He was going to have to kiss some serious ass that night, or kill them both. In reality he’d rather have killed Kuno than kiss his ass. Nabiki's might have been nice but definitely not Kuno's.

School was over now and everybody had gone home. Everybody except Ranma, Ryoga, Ukyo, Nabiki and Kuno. At the moment Ranma was being chased around by Kuno and Nabiki. Their little chat had gone awry when Kuno would not listen to Ranma’s lame excuses and had attacked him. He had been chasing him around the grounds for the past ten minutes. Nabiki had been chasing the both of them because even though she would deny it she secretly wanted Ranma, one of the most handsome boys in school, to kiss her ass. Suddenly there was a bright flash of light.

Ranma looked behind him and found that Kuno and Nabiki were frozen in mid stride. He walked up to them poking Kuno and Nabiki a few times before convincing himself that they were indeed frozen. He cracked his knuckles.

“Oh man this is perfect.”

After beating on Kuno for a full 15 minutes, without him moving once, he heard a voice.

“Huh? You want me to go where? Why?”

He cringed and held his ears in pain.

“Alright, alright already, sheesh you don’t have to yell so loud.”

He headed towards the ruins as the voice had instructed. The cyborgs were also frozen in place. This was a good thing considering that if they weren't they would be shouting at him with a horribly thick accent then trying to stomp his guts out. As he entered the ruins there was a faint mist which partially covered the floor. He kept walking forward cautiously, and the column at the far corner started glowing. He stopped in the middle of the room and just stared. The column split open and more mist poured out of it along with a young girl around his age.

She was a bit shorter than he was, but well muscled. She didn’t have a particularly lady like figure, she was kinda flat chested, and her thighs were kind of thick. Her hair was dark blue and it was cut short.

The girl took a step out of the column and stumbled into his arms.

“Oh Ranma, how I’ve waited through these long days and nights for your return. For ten thousand years I’ve waited and you’ve finally come.”

He scratched the back of his head.

“Um sorry but who are you?” he asked her.

“You mean you’ve forgotten me you jerk!” She pulled out a mallet from nowhere and started pounding him to the ground.

“What was that for you stupid tomboy!” he yelled back at her.

“I am truly sorry, but time runs short. With my remaining strength I must send you to El Hazzard.”

“What? Where? Who?”

The girl took a step back and raised her hands into the air.

“Wait!” he yelled, but it was too late. A blinding light swept over him then proceeded to sweep over campus. Only a select few had disappeared when time returned to normal.

In a spiraling vortex, Ranma and the rest fell towards a destination unknown.

Kuno was laughing his head off.

When the vortex opened it was about five feet off the ground. Ranma and Ryoga fell out. Right into a puddle.

After the transformations took place, Ranma now a girl and Ryoga now a pig looked up to see themselves in a strange forest. Ranma looked around suspiciously. He'd spent quite a bit of time in the woods with his father and they'd traveled to many different places, however he couldn't recognize any of the plants or animals that he saw around him. His thoughts about where exactly they were were cut off when he heard the tortured squeal of what sounded like a pig coming from near by. He turned to see what looked like a boa constrictor with purple skin and a feathery tuft around it's head, trying to crush the struggling piglet while at the same time swallowing it whole. The pig was trying it's best NOT to get eaten and seemed to be loosing.

Ranma ran over and snatched the small black pig out of the snake's jaws. He quickly checked it over to see if it had any holes in it which would indicate the snake was poisonous. When he didn't find any he turned to look at the snake. It apparently was not amused that it had lost it's meal. However it apparently had enough sense to not pick a fight with the young girl infront of it. It slithered away cautiously in disgust.

Ranma turned to the pig.

"Well let's just say you owe me one." He said.

In reality Ryoga owed Ranma many more than one. Being a small black piglet tended to put one on the lower end of the food chain. Quite a few times Ryoga had wandered away from camp and had accidentally got splashed. Sometimes Ranma or Ukyo had seen him transform and were quick enough to snatch him out of harms way before he could be grabbed by a nearby hungry beast. Other times it was a miracle that they were able to find him at all before something or somebody decided that it would be pork on the menu today.

"I guess we'd better try to find sombo..." He trailed off as he heard a shrill scream come from somewhere nearby.

He grabbed Ryoga's clothes and quickly stuffed them in his backpack. He shouldered the pack and quietly cursed his female form. Ryoga's backpack was heavy and his female form while excessively fast was not particularly strong. His father had often chastised his son on this fact exclaiming that women are intrinsically weaker then men and must be protected.

As he rushed towards what he thought was the area of the scream his danger senses started going haywire. There was definitely a large fighting force assembled nearby. He was about to turn around and go the other way when he heard the scream again. He looked down at the pig who seemed to be really alert.

"Well P-Chan I guess you know what we've got to do." Ranma said to the pig. He snorted back. He really didn't like the name, but since Ranma was a friend he didn't have much of a choice. The real reason he didn't like the name was because it was oh so true.

Ranma ran towards the scream ignoring his danger sense and the fact that the backpack was really really heavy. He exploded out of a bush into a small clearing.

What they saw was a young girl approximately 18 or 19 years old sitting on the ground surrounded by four things that looked strangely like giant bugs. They varied in size from around 6 feet to over 7. Most had purple exoskeletons but there were some who were yellow or red. The purple ones looked like they were attacking her. Two red and three yellow bugs seemed to be standing watch at the far end of the clearing.

“Hey!" Ranma shouted. All of the bugs turned to look at him. Ranma shrunk back a bit. Well he'd gotten their attention off the girl.

^ 9 to 1 odds Jeese Ranma what the hell were you thinking?! You're no Bruce Lee. Well might as well give it a shot. ^

"Yeah you, Hey I’m talking to you.” Yelled Ranma.

They all took a step towards her. Ranma looked a little worried.

^ Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. ^ He thought.

The bugrom started to advance upon her. Ranma sprung into action. She started running towards the giant bugs.

“Ok Ryoga this is it. I’ll take these eight, you take that big one with the teeth.” He raised the little pig above his head then threw it at the biggest and definitely the meanest looking bugrom. A high squeal was heard upon impact.

Ranma became a blur as he slashed through the first bugrom with relative ease. The wolf's fang technique his father had taught him was quite effective in removing the bugrom's arm and a good portion of it's torso. While he was readying for another attack he quickly stole a glance towards the young woman. She was just sitting in the same spot obviously mesmerized by what she saw.

This quick glance would turn out to be a costly one as when he turned back he only saw a bugrom fist sailing towards his face. He tried to block the punch but only managed to get a piece of it. The blow spun him around just in time to catch another fist in the gut.

^ Oh man this ain't going good. I wonder what Bruce Lee would have done now? ^ He looked up and through his slightly distorted vision he thought he could see Bruce standing there.

"What you need is emotional content young one."

"What I need is for you to get out here and help me!" Ranma half yelled.

"What can I do? I'm just a figment of you're delusional mind. Besides I've been dead for over thirty years. Remember emotional content, emotional content." The figure repeated over and over as it disappeared.

^ Emotional content my ass. ^

By this time the remaining bugrom had caught up to the rest and all seven of them were circled around Ranma striking out whenever he got near them or shoving him towards their comrades. He was managing to avoid or block most of the hits, however he was still taking a beating.

^ Wait! Emotional content. That's it! ^ Ranma looked jubilant for a second before a bugrom fist implanted itself in her face.

"Alright that's it! Now I'm really fucking pissed off!" She yelled.

The bugrom temporarily stopped their attacks noticing that the young girl had started glowing greenish blue with hints of black.

^ If Ryoga can do it so can I. ^

"Shi shi hokoudan!" Screamed Ranma.

A column of energy shot straight up about a hundred feet. The bugrom stepped back in shock. After it appeared it was over they advanced again intending to really do some damage.

Ranma looked up to see the bugrom advancing on him again. Well they were in for a surprise weren't they. He could feel the heavy chi begin it's decent. The bugrom blissfully unaware of their impending doom continued advancing cautiously towards the young girl.

"You're dead." She said in a totally emotionless voice.

The bugrom looked up only to see a convex thing coming towards them at high speed. Some of them tried to run. It proved futile as the energy crashed into the ground. All seven bugrom were instantly 'pureed'.

"Wow" Ranma said. "I feel so relaxed." He turned to see how Ryoga was doing.

He looked over to where Ryoga had been thrown. There he saw a pissed off little black pig jumping up and down on the chest of the dead bugrom. Both onlookers laughed a little.

“Oh Fatura, you’re all right.” Said the young woman sitting on the ground.

“Fatura? I’m sorry miss you’ve got me confused with someone else.”
“I I don’t understand.” She got up and walked over to Ranma. “You look exactly like her. You even talk and sound like her. No wait you can't be her. My sister can't fight like that.”

"Like I said I think you've got me mixed up with someone else."

"Oh my where are my manners." The girl took a step back. "My name is Kasumi. Thank you for rescuing me."

"You're welcome. My name's Ranma Saotome." Pointing at Ryoga "The porker over there's Ryoga Hibiki." Ryoga gave a short snort, then turned on his big I'm a cute little pig routine.

"Oh how cute." Kasumi said as she rushed over and picked the pig up. Thank you for saving me little piggy. I'm going to have to reward you. She planted a small kiss on the pig's snout.

Hibiki OS

Warning Warning OVERLOAD IMMINENT. GPF. System Shut down.

"Oh my." She said.

"Anyway we were wondering if you could tell us which way to Tokyo."

"Tokyo?" Kasumi asked obviously a little puzzled.

"Yeah you know Tokyo Japan." Ranma said his hopes falling.

"What's a Japan?" Kasumi asked.

"Is this Earth?" Ranma asked.

"This is Roshtaria silly." Kasumi smiled tweaking Ranma's nose downwards.

"No I mean what planet is this?" His hopes they were still on Earth had already hit rock bottom and were getting a shovel.

"Planet? This is the holy world of El Hazard."

"Oh fuck." Ranma mumbled.

"Oh my!" Kasumi said startled at Ranma's language. "Young ladies shouldn't use that kind of language."

"I'm not a lady I'm a guy! I'll tell you later." Ranma said.

"A guy?" Kasumi started.

She was interrupted by shouting coming from across the clearing. Both of them looked up to see a man in his late thirty's with longish brown black hair and a mustache running towards them followed by several armed guards.

"Princess Kasumi! Princess Kasumi!" The lead man was yelling.

"Over here Soun!" Kasumi yelled back as she waived her hand in the air.

The man finally made it to the spot where Ranma, Ryoga and Kasumi were standing. He latched onto her in sort of a death hug and started crying his eyes out.

"Oh princess we were so worried when you left so suddenly." He managed to choke out between sobs.

He managed to look to his right finally noticing the other person Kasumi was with. It was a young girl with red hair carrying a giant backpack and holding a small black piglet. Wait RED hair.

"Princess Fatora!" He yelled and latched onto the girl.

Ranma shoved him off.

"Now wait a ... mph" He was cut off by Kasumi's had over his mouth.

"My sister has had a grueling ordeal. I think it would be best if we all went back to the palace and rested before we ask her any questions."

Soun suddenly straightened up and became quite regal.

"As you wish princess. The transport is this way." Soun bowed indicating the direction of the transport.

On board what looked like a flying boat Kasumi, Soun, Ranma and Ryoga were in Kasumi's private chambers. Ranma had just finished giving both of them a condensed version of his life including the ill fated trip to Jusenkyo and their curses. Sufficed to say neither of them were inclined to believe his obviously fabricated tale. There was a knock at the door.

"Come in." Kasumi said.

It was a servant girl and she was holding kettle.

"I brought the hot water as the princess requested." She said and laid the kettle at Ranma's feet, bowed and walked out the door backwards closing it as she stepped through.

"Finally I've had enough of this." Ranma said as he poured the water over her head. The now male Ranma turned and poured the water over the pig.

The naked Ryoga ducked behind Ranma and pulled his clothes out of his pack and doing a quick change.

Both Kasumi and Soun just stared open mouthed at the two men.

"This is going to get weird." Kasumi said.

Soun just nodded his head.

Authors notes.

Man this was hard. I had a really bad case of writer's block. I had to resort to my old tactics.

Step 1 Get really stinking drunk

Step 2 Hope that I get a good idea

Step 3 Hope that I can remember what the idea was after I sober up.

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