The Nekoken Natural
A Ranma / Sailor Moon spamfic
By Peter Ahlstrom
[email protected]
A Ranma/Sailor Moon spamfic. This takes place rather early on in the SM timeline (this should be obvious) and rather late in the Ranma timeline (exactly when doesn't really matter).
Ranma 1/2 is the property of Rumiko Takahashi and her licensees; Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi and her licensees.
Saotome Genma grinned and rubbed his hands together in anticipation as he approached the covered pit. Finally the training had paid off, and he had no doubt it would be worth it. It had taken weeks of setup to get everything in place...so many cats to borrow, so many fish sausages to liberate...not to mention the precious time spent waiting for the cats to get to the right level of starvation. At least Ranma had gotten in some good strength training while Genma supervised his digging of the pit and the placing of the covering boards. Ranma was so willing to train; the boy was making Genma proud.
The first five tries had been failures, but that was to be expected.
Fortunately Genma had enough starving cats in reserve to stretch out the training over several days. Each time he had wrapped Ranma up in the sausages and thrown him in the pit, then swung the lifted board back into place. Each time the yowling, hissing, and screaming had risen to a crescendo, only to finally ebb into the single whimpering cry Genma knew belonged to his son. It pained him to hear his son crying like a girl, but he'd get rid of that behavior soon enough.
Today, though, was different. When the noise finally died down it was not a child's crying that was the single remaining voice emanating from the pit. Instead, it was a yowling that was remarkably catlike. Success at last! The ultimate martial arts technique would now be a part of the Saotome legacy forever.
After removing the first board, Genma couldn't see into the pit clearly. He frowned and began removing the remaining boards, one by one. Finally there was enough light down there to see clearly what had happened.
Genma blinked. Then stared. Then blinked and stared some more.
The manual hadn't prepared him to expect anything like *this*...
#
The wind served to dry Ranma's cold, wet clothes and hair somewhat as she rapidly roofhopped in the direction of Furinkan High School. "Uncute Tomboy," she muttered. "Couldn't wait until at least lunch to mallet me into the canal. Now I'm gonna be late." Not that she really cared.
When she was about a minute from her destination, Ranma heard the laughing shouts of a struggle in the dead-end alley just ahead. Sounded more like a mugging than a fight. Ah well, even if she wouldn't have an opponent capable of a Ryoga-caliber challenge, it was Ranma's duty to help out whoever was getting picked on.
"What the heck ya think you're doing?" she yelled, coming to a stop on the roof at the end of the alley, facing down at the group of boys positioned between her and the street. They were laughing and kicking around someone or something on the ground at their feet, yowls of pain echoing through the alley.
Wait...yowls?
The biggest boy snorted and turned around, facing the end of the alley, then looked up. Seeing Ranma standing there with her hands on her hips, he smirked. "What you gonna do about it, little girl?" He moved forward, revealing a white shape sprawled on the ground.
A c-... a c-c-c-...
Shampoo? She was getting beat up by a bunch of kids? Maybe she was sick or something.
Ranma took action. "I'm a guy!" she shouted, leaping from the roof and landing a kick to the lead boy's chin, who then went flying over the group. With a cry of "it's Saotome Ranma! Let's get out of here!" the other boys wisely ran off, dragging their leader with them. Leaving Ranma alone with Shampoo.
"No need to thank me," Ranma said nervously, as she jerkily started backing away from...wait a minute, this wasn't Shampoo. The ears were all white. Shampoo would have known to run back to the Nekohanten at this point, but this c-c-c... this c-c-c... had risen to its feet, its tail sticking straight up, and it was slowly walking toward Ranma, its head cocked to the side.
Ranma felt her back hit the wall.
"C-c-c-c-c-c-c-c..." she stammered. Her eyes started to glaze over. The creature in question took a few more steps. Ranma started shaking uncontrollably. She felt a rush of heat to her forehead.
#
Artemis had no idea how he'd ended up in this alley. He'd gotten separated from Minako at the train station and had decided to follow a little black piglet wearing a bandanna. He had soon lost both himself and the piglet and now wasn't sure how far away from the train station he was. And then when he'd turned around to leave the alley he'd found the exit blocked by a group of rough-looking boys.
Sailor V would have come in handy right then, but thankfully this other girl had showed up. Artemis was glad to have been rescued from the group of cat-shavers before they had actually gotten anywhere. He was proud of his well-groomed coat and planned on keeping it that way. Now safe, he wanted to continue looking for the train station, but something about his savior of the moment made him pause. He stared at her inquisitively.
"C-c-c-c-c-c-c-c..."
Artemis took a few more steps forward. The girl was now pressed against the wall, breaths coming raggedly, eyes getting wider and wider. He'd never seen a reaction like this before from a human. But that wasn't what kept him staring. There was something about her...that red hair...those blue eyes...
Suddenly he saw a yellow crescent symbol flare on her forehead, and now it was *his* eyes' turn to widen.
Was this the princess? He and Minako had been heading toward the Crown Arcade to find the other senshi detected with the help of the Sailor V game, and he knew that Luna should have already contacted Sailor Moon. But this girl...she had the symbol, but the hair was all wrong...
No, this couldn't be her. Could it? Maybe her hair changed when she transformed...
Artemis stepped ever closer. The girl was now shaking violently and gibbering uncontrollably. With a final cry of "C-c-c-c-CAT!" she--
--disappeared.
Artemis jumped back. The girl's clothes fell to the ground, bundled around something struggling to break free. Then a feline head popped out, followed by the rest of the red-haired cat.
A red cat with a yellow crescent on its forehead.
Artemis stared, his ears twitching up. A flood of forgotten memories surged through his mind.
His mouth dropped open. "Daughter?"
---------------------------------------------
Author's note: Well, that's it. Yes Ranma is the reincarnation of someone from the Silver Millennium. This time, he's a reincarnated Moon Cat. I haven't seen this done before so I thought it would be fun.
If I were to continue the fic, I would have Ranma at first only turn into cat form while in Nekoken state, reverting immediately upon falling asleep or getting knocked unconscious. Supposedly Artemis and Luna would eventually train him to control the transformation and also to remain sentient while a cat. Water wouldn't bring him out of it; instead it would switch him between a male black cat and a female red cat. While in cat form he still has the advantages of the ki-claws of the Nekoken, though it's more limited since he's the size of a cat. It would turn out that the Nekoken was supposed to be a technique of the Moon Cat Senshi (why should all Moon Cats be hyperintelligent advisors?). It was supposed to be impossible to train humans to use it; the fish-sausage training method had been thought up later by someone very twisted. The original training method used by the Moon Cats was far less destructive and emotionally scarring.
Ranma's personality undergoes no shift after he regains all of his Silver Millennium memories. This is simply because he'd been born only a couple of months before the fall of the Moon Kingdom. And because I hate the fics where Ranma or anyone else undergoes a complete personality change upon remembering a past life. ^^;;
As for the present, Ranma will obviously start fighting the badguys on the side of the Senshi. And I'd have to come up with some sort of interesting plot.
But I'm not going to write any more on this. Mostly because I don't know near enough about Sailor Moon. In fact I've never seen a single episode, and have only read a few manga volumes standing in the aisle at the Virgin Megastore. Before I started reading Ranma crossovers a bit over a month ago I had no desire to have anything to do with Sailor Moon, but since then I've become rather enamored of the possibilities it has.
Unfortunately there are already far too many mediocre Ranma/SM fics out there so I would hate to add to their number. But if anyone likes the premise of this spamfic and wants to do anything with it, go ahead! Just let me know what you do.
And oh yeah...this is my first fanfic.
Peter Ahlstrom
[email protected]
7 Oct 2001