I don't own anything but the plot. All the characters in this story belong to their respective owners, yada yada yada. On with the story.

Ranma the Predator: Homecoming

Shampoo was running for her life. She knew that if she slowed down even a little or tripped, she would die. Her whole family was dead, except her grandmother and her because of the creatures chasing her. As she ran, her mind wandered back to when the Great Serpents first showed up.

A group of explorers had found a lost temple in northern China, about ten years ago, a temple that shouldn't have been there. It had elements of multiple cultures and was estimated to be older than any known civilization by over 4,000 years. The team had radioed back that they wanted to explore the temple, but even though the find was theirs, they didn't have the authority to do so. So they had to wait for authorities to show up. The last transmission they sent was to say that the group sent by the Chinese government had shown up and they were going in. They were never seen or heard from again. Shampoo took the news pretty hard as her mother was one of the guides for the first team of explorers. Every single group sent to see what happened to the previous group disappeared.

Finally, the Chinese government sent in one of their best strike teams. Only one man made it back to tell the story of what happened. He told of terrible creatures, Great Serpents he called them, that had decimated their group. Their weapons had proved useless as the beasts were too fast for them to get a good shot off. He died soon after of natural causes. After all, an Alien bursting from your chest naturally ends your life. That had been eleven years ago. Shortly after that, the Aliens, as people started calling them, traveled to the near by countries such as India, Korea, and Japan. Then they traveled to Russia by way of Siberia, and then they spread to Europe. In the short span of ten years, most countries had been wiped from existence, destroyed by the unstoppable Aliens. There had been a few victories, but they were not that common. As of now, only the world powerhouses, such as America, England, and Japan remained more or less intact.

Shampoo's focus slipped during her mental wanderings, causing her to trip on an exposed tree root. As she tried to get up, she cursed herself for not paying attention. She froze when she heard a growl from behind her. She turned around quickly and saw one of the beasts she was running from closing in fast. She grabbed a nearby rock and threw it with all her strength at the beast, but it just shattered against its incredibly hard head. She let out a scream as it jumped at her. But her scream of fear turned into a gasp of surprise as it jerked and headed another direction, as if something had slammed into it. She looked closely at the beast and her eyes widened as a spear slowly materialized with a little light show. The spear had impaled the Alien through its hind-legs. Green blood dripped from the wounds, hissing as it hit the ground. It hissed as it grabbed the spear and wrenched it from its legs. Shampoo looked in the direction that the spear had come from, but she saw nothing. As she continued looking, she saw a shimmer of light and a masked humanoid appeared. He, she knew it was a male from his body type, was huge. He looked to be about seven feet tall and was wearing a futuristic yet primitive body armor. The armor consisted of a breastplate, shoulder-guards, groin protection, shin-guards, bracers, and boots. All of it was black and silver, with red lights on all the pieces of armor. Suddenly, two blades, about a foot-and-a-half long each, shot from on top of his right bracer. With a loud roar, he charged.

Ranma cursed his luck. He just missed his target with his spear-gun, he never missed. He was pissed and he was going to take it out on the wounded Kainde Amedha. He deactivated his cloak, triggered his wrist-blades, and charged in. The beast turned towards him and hissed threateningly. When he got close enough, it struck at him with its deadly tail. Ranma dived over the tail, cutting it off as he passed over it. The Alien roared in pain as its main weapon was taken off. Ranma landed, but immediately rolled away to avoid the acidic blood spurting from the end of his prey's tail. He dashed in and slashed its chest with his claws, spilling even more of its blood. He back-flipped away from the dieing Alien, his eyes catching a flash of purple to his side as he did. He risked a look and saw a stunningly beautiful human girl that was watching the fight with no small amount of awe. His motion tracker went off as the Alien made one last lunge at him, but he jumped forwards towards the girl, effectively dodging the strike. He twisted in mid-air so that he landed facing his prey. He saw that it was almost dead and stalked over to it. He raised his wrist-blades above his head and slashed down at its exposed neck. However, the Alien had one last trick to play. Just as the blades were about to sever its neck, its hand shot out, its fingers puncturing Ranma's leg. Ranma roared in pain as he grabbed the now dead arm and pulled the fingers out of his leg. He inspected his leg with his mask and found it felt worse than it really was. No bones were broken and no arteries severed. He cleaned and wrapped the wound with bandages from his med-kit and walked over to the girl. He was about ten feet away from her when he remembered something. Kainde Amedhas never hunted alone.

Ranma's senses went into overtime as he searched the surrounding area with his ki and his scanners in his mask. He felt something to his left, but it was gone when he turned. He started backing up to the girl, keeping his guard up. All the while, Shampoo was keeping an eye out as well, tipped off by her savior's wariness. From out of nowhere, an Alien jumped from a tree, but Ranma was ready. He pulled out his staff and smacked it out of the air, with an audible crunch as its back broke. Ranma spun the staff, retracted it, and put it away before resuming his search. He felt three more of his prey coming at him and smirked under his mask. He pulled out a disk from his belt and used his mask to target the Aliens. He threw the disc and it went spinning through the air towards the Aliens. It sliced through all three of them with the greatest of ease before returning to Ranma, who caught it easily and returned it to its place on his belt. Suddenly, his mask started showing him lots of dots converging on his position. He turned to the girl and pointed to the tree.

"Climb!" he growled at her.

Shampoo nodded as she got up and used a low branch to haul herself into the tree. When she was twelve feet up, she turned so she could watch the fight.

Ranma pulled out another rod and extended it, revealing his glaive. He gave it a few practice swings and twists before settling into a defensive stance. The Aliens came at him in waves, at least ten strong each time. Ranma twisted and ducked, all the while slashing and thrusting at his prey. About twenty seconds into the fight, his glaive was knocked away and he was hit by a tail-strike, sending him flying backwards. He rolled to a stop and caught the Alien who had leaped at him by the tail, using it to give the others a major beat down. He started spinning the Alien around and around, hitting at least four other Aliens each time, sending them flying through the air, until the tail of the one he was using as a makeshift weapon broke. Ranma dropped the tail and got into a new stance. Suddenly, glowing red claws appeared around Ranma's fingers. He dashed forward, cutting off the heads of three of his opponents. No blood was spilled as the claws cauterized the wounds instantly. Ranma turned as he felt one coming at him and caught it in mid-air, his head just out of range of its 'tongue'. Said tongue was currently trying to puncture his skull. He head butted the Alien as the second mouth went back in; an audible crack was heard as the Alien's neck broke. Ranma threw the body away, not noticing as it hit the tree Shampoo was hiding in.

Shampoo gave off a yelp as she hit the ground, having been knocked from her perch by the body. She gasped as she realized that her yelp had attracted the attention of the Aliens. She looked around desperately for a weapon to fight back with. Her eyes spotted her savior's glaive that had been knocked away earlier. She rolled over to it and grabbed it before using it to slice an Alien's throat out, the blood just barely missing her. The thing gave a shudder before dieing, but Shampoo had already turned to the next one. Between the two of them, the Aliens were quickly dispatched. As Ranma threw the body of the last Alien away, he turned to face the human girl he had fought with. He looked at her in a new light, as he had been sure that she was unable to fight. However, she had not only killed many Kainde Amedhas, but she had actually saved his life once. One of the Kainde Amedhas had gotten a lucky tail-strike in on his injured leg, causing him to falter. If it hadn't been for the girl throwing his glaive like a spear, impaling the Kainde Amedha, he would have been killed. She was currently slumped up against one of the only undamaged trees in the area, exhausted from the fight.

Ranma started walking over to her, but as he approached, the girl started to shy away. Ranma stopped and considered what to do. Looking around, he made up his mind. Seeing as she had fought befitting a Yautja, he would treat her as one. He reached up to his mask and unhooked it. He pulled it off and attached it to his belt, within easy reach.

Shampoo was relaxing by the tree she had slumped against after the fight when she noticed that the creature she had fought beside was approaching her. Images of what he had done to the Aliens came to her mind and she tried to move away from him, however, she was stopped by the tree. She calmed slightly when he stopped and reached up to his mask and pulled first one tube out of it, then another. Her fear was replaced by curiosity as she started to wonder what lay beneath the mask. As he attached the mask to his belt, she gasped in surprise. He was human! However, upon closer inspection, Shampoo noticed that his skin was different; it was tougher looking and had faint spots and darker patches of skin in places. His hair was also different; it looked more like wire than like normal hair. He had the scars from many, probably uncountable, battles upon his skin. He had one mark on his face, though, that didn't look battle related. It went from the top of his lower lip to under his chin in a straight line. She wondered what could make such a mark, if not a weapon. She saw that he was looking at her curiously, but now she wasn't afraid.

Ranma, seeing that the girls fear had gone, walked closer to her. He knelt next to her and checked her for outward injuries, but he saw none. He would have to have his mask on to check for internal injuries, but he was sure that she hadn't received any from the fight that were life threatening.

"Are you alright?" he asked her gruffly.

Shampoo looked at him, nodding her head numbly.

"Yes, I think so," she told him as she used the tree to stand up.

Ranma nodded and turned his head to look for anything out of place.

"We should go. I'll take you to your pack," Ranma told her as he turned back to her.

"Sure," Shampoo replied, slightly confused by his mention of a pack. "Though I don't know how we're going to get to Japan. That's where my tribe went after these things appeared," Shampoo told him while pointing to the dead beasts.

"Don't worry about that, I have a ship," Ranma told her as he stood up. "Can you walk?"

"Yeah, sure," Shampoo told him as she stood up. However, when she took a step, she fell to the ground in pain. "Arghhhh!"

Ranma quickly put his mask on and used it to scan her leg. He quickly found the problem.

"Your ankle's broken," he said bluntly. "I'll splint it then we can go."

"No, I'll be okay," she said as she got to her feet again. She managed to take two steps before she fell to the ground again.

Ranma just shook his head.

"Stupid girl."

"You know, I never got your name," Shampoo said from her spot on Ranma's back.

"I never gave it," Ranma told her as he kept walking back to his ship.

Shampoo rolled her eyes. "Well, what is it?" she asked him.

"My name is Ranma of the Dark Blade Clan. I am a Yautja Warrior-Hunter," he told her proudly.

"What is a 'Yautja'?" Shampoo asked him as she had never heard of them before.

"The Yautja are a nomadic culture, but we have one planet that we more or less call home. Every being is a warrior; even our scientists could kill a human with his bare hands. In the entire universe, there are no hunters better then us," he told her as he walked.

Shampoo thought about what he told her and what she had seen of him fighting verified his statement. He had done what no one on the planet had done before. He had taken out an entire pack of Aliens, almost entirely by himself.

"So, you're an alien?" she asked hesitantly.

"No, I'm a hybrid. I am mostly human, but thanks to gene-splicing, I have been gifted with Yautja DNA," Ranma clarified. "I was taken as a child by the only female Hunter after she saw me kill a Kainde Amedha when I was six."

"What's a 'Kainde Amedha'?" asked Shampoo.

"They are what you humans call 'Aliens'. They are the ultimate prey," Ranma said as he patted his trophy, the head of the first Kainde Amedha he killed during that encounter, the one that had wounded him.

Shampoo fell silent after this and Ranma continued walking until he reached a fairly big clearing.

"This will do," he said as he lowered Shampoo to the ground. He stood back up and typed in a command on his wrist computer. Shampoo looked around for whatever was suppose to happen, but didn't see anything. She looked up to mention this to Ranma when her mouth fell open in shock. There hovering several hundred feet up was a spaceship.

"Where…where did that come from?" she asked Ranma as he typed in another command.

"From orbit around the planet," he told her simply.

Shampoo was shocked even more by this. She hadn't even heard it come down. If she hadn't seen it, she wouldn't have known it was there.

"Nice ship," commented Shampoo sarcastically as they went inside.

"It is far better than you humans could ever produce," Ranma told her as he set her down on a table in the medical center. He quickly set about setting her foot and securing it. He was impressed by her when she didn't even flinch when he set her ankle. There was only one other human he had ever met that had the same courage and toughness. Shampoo noticed that he was looking at her longer than usual.

"What is it?" she asked him.

"You remind me of someone," he told her as he went back to work.

"Really? Who?" asked Shampoo curiously.

"No one of concern to you," he said sharply. He then stood up as he finished. "There, now come with me. I'll need you to show me where to go."

Alright, I managed to finish this chapter. I'm not sure if I'm going to pair Ranma up with Shampoo or if I'm going to pair him up with another character. Tell me what you think.

Love it? Hate it? Please review. Flames will be used to light my incense. (Indian Spice, for now.)