Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma ½™ or Warhammer Fantasy Battle™ in any way, shape or form. Fan-art based on this series –and suggestion on how to represent Ranma and the Fikskulls in games of Warhammer- would be greatly appreciated.
Author's Notes: Well, the votes are in and WAAAGH Ranma won by a landslide. Hopefully, this will be another successful story- I really don't feel I have the talent to do what it takes with this. As this story progresses, I intend to have two changes come over Ranma:
-Firstly, I intend to have him pick up some various magical items (weapons, armour, talismans etc). The only problem is that I haven't a clue what to give him. Suggestions?
-Secondly, I intend for Ranma to become a "psuedo-Shaman"; learning to tap into the Martial Waaagh –the collective ki/battle aura of fighting Greenskins- and using that for ki techniques of his own creation. I need ideas for this though; possible attacks, their names and their effects. For example: "Mean Green Fighting Machine"- a temporary burst of superhuman (even by Ranma's standards) strength and durability), coupled with the ability to produce short-ranged energy waves.
Chapter 1: Ranma Gets Green
Akane looked down once again at the ornate ring now adorning her left thumb. That weird street vendor who'd given it to her had sworn that it would grant her a single wish, but she had to be careful what she wished for.
"I wish… I wish… now what should I wish for?"
"Akane! Hey Akane, wait up!"
"Ranma…" she growled. She and Ranma had been fighting all day- again. It started this morning, when Ranma refused to eat the breakfast she had begged Kasumi to allow her to make. Then, on the way to school, their argument about her cooking attempts had been interrupted by Shampoo, who Ranma had refused to give the boot despite the fact she landed her bike on his face and then glomped him- the pervert. Couple this with the fact the two had started carrying out a "conversation" via thrown notes which had ended up in her being sent to stand in the hall and hold buckets for disrupting class, and the fact that at lunch Ranma had refused her cooking to go eat Ukyo's, and Akane was furious.
"Go away Ranma! I'm trying to decide what to use this ring on!"
"Come on Akane! You've got the cure to my curse right there in your hands! Wish me back to normal- come on, I'm begging ya!"
Now, this might seem a rather excessive bit of acting on Ranma's part, but let's not forget that this is the guy who actually went on a date with Tatewaki "Blue Blunder" Kuno in his girl-form to try and get a cure. If the choice was between his dignity and a cure, dignity would lose every time. Of course, the choice between a cure to his curse and protecting the innocent was a much harder choice. He was on Akane –not literally- from all sides, cajoling and pleading to the best of his ability (which, it has to be said, wasn't that great) to persuade her to use her wish to remove Jusenkyo's influence from him, unaware as always that he was trying to quench a fire with gasoline. The more he talked, the madder Akane got, and the madder she got, the more he talked until finally Akane's limited control snapped.
"I wish you'd just GO AWAY!" She screamed, and lashed out with her left hand to deliver a resounding slap to the cheek. Unfortunately for both of them, she failed to notice that the jewel in the ring on her thumb had begun to glow with a brilliant, blinding light until, at the exact moment she hit Ranma, it flashed with a sudden blinding explosion of brilliance. When Akane could see again, Ranma was gone and a quick glance at her thumb revealed that the once-gleaming jewel was now dead and cold. As she took in the empty street, a single word slipped from her lips, embodying Akane's reaction to perhaps the greatest mistake she had ever made in her life.
"Oops."
Ranma had no idea where he was and very little idea about what had just happened. Though he had definitely felt Akane's hand contact with his cheek, the pain that would have normally breached even his spectacular resilience to physical damage had been non-existent. Instead, he'd been blinded by a spectacular flash of light and now he found himself tumbling literally head over heels through an infinite void of swirling colours, accompanied by an unpleasant feeling of weightlessness. Slowly he found himself stop spinning until he was facing forwards- as much as that term could be applied to this place. The swirling of the colours suddenly became more violent in their motion, until Ranma had to shut his eyes for fear of losing his lunch. When he opened them again, he found himself drifting through a vastly different place.
Below him, an ocean of crimson stormed and raged, great frothy waves rising and falling in violent masses. Completely out of his conscious control, Ranma felt himself flying downwards towards the red fluid, close enough that one particularly violent wave sent a shower of spray that caught him. He unconsciously licked his lips, grimaced and spat- the fluid below him was blood. Onwards he flew above the ocean of blood, until he spotted what looked like small patches of land- though a closer look revealed these to be small islands of human –and inhuman- skulls, floating in the crimson fluid.
As he flew onwards, these grew not only more frequent in number, but also larger in size. As he neared the largest island yet, so large he couldn't see the other side and rising into an equally impressive mountain, a massive roar split the air, so loud and deep Ranma felt it in his very bones more than he heard it. A quick examination revealed the source; perched upon the very pinnacle of the mountain of skulls, was a throne of bronze the size of a small city and high as an ordinary mountain, decorated with numerous engravings of skulls, weapons and scenes of carnage. But it was the sight of what was seated upon the throne that made Ranma's breath catch in his throat.
It was a towering creature; of such size it dwarfed the throne that was evidentially its perch, in form akin to a heavily muscled man clad in blood-splattered armour of bronze and black steel, with the head of some terrible beast- vaguely wolf-like, with a plethora of sharpened horns. In its hands it clutched a gory brass greataxe that could have split a mountain in half. It raised this terrible weapon into the air and shook it as it voiced another thunderous roar, and brave as Ranma was even he quailed before the sheer rage and hate in the monster's voice. Compared to this thing, Ryoga's grievance with him was nothing, the fury of Mousse as meaningless as the wrath of a flea. And much to his horror, he felt himself rocketing upwards uncontrollably until he was roughly on eye level with the beast. Fortunately he both eluded the creature's notice –it was staring at the blade of its axe with great intensity- and continued rocketing upwards until the scene below him faded from view. Then, in a state where he still had momentum but no direction, he found himself viewing a new vista.
Below him stretched a great forest, spreading out in all directions towards the horizon. As he drifted through the trees, he held back the urge to vomit in disgust at what he discovered. The trees, the skies, the very earth was rotting- great openings like infected sores speckled the trees, with viscous slime and obscene parasites spilling forth. Similar wells of foulness emerged here and there in the ground, and Ranma winced as he zipped past one such pool of pus and bile just before it erupted in a noxious geyser. Hideously diseased beasts wandered through the forest, in a variety of forms that Ranma had never even seen before.
Soon, he was before another giant throne, this one even bigger than the one before had been and forged from rusty, pitted iron. It was caked in slime and foulness, the corruption welling from deep within and spilling down its sides. Ranma's attention however was firmly fixated on the occupant of this throne. It was perhaps larger than the last abomination, though it looked less warlike. It was essentially human, though its form was hideously swollen and deformed with the visible symptoms of every disease Ranma knew existed, and quite a few he didn't. Its leathery green flesh writhed with maggots and dripped with pus and blood, and it was all Ranma could do to keep from vomiting as the stench of decaying flesh and putrescence washed over him like a sudden wave of putrid water.
Thankfully, he was carried past the creature without it noticing, and yet again the vista below changed as he flew onwards. Now he was in some immense hall, drifting through great clouds of coloured and strangely scented smoke. Not that the smells were unpleasant like before- in fact the odours vaguely reminded him of a massive garden, filled with thousands of different flowers and with each and every single one in full bloom. Compared to just before, it was quite a welcome change. From below wafted a strange sound- of chorus of pleased moaning and ecstatic sighs, punctuated by the occasional nerve-racking scream.
The throne this time was built from jade, gold, silver and precious stones- a truly worthy example of the name. Reclining casually in it, clutching a massive sceptre of jade, was a giant figure who –to Ranma's shock- resembled in every detail bar two a perfect blending of the forms of Shampoo, Ukyo, Nabiki, Akane, Kodachi and Kasumi. The first difference was that it had two pairs of short, curving horns growing through its long, luxuriant hair. The second was that it seemed to have a bust size equivalent to that of the six girls combined. Despite his normal resistance to feminine charms, Ranma couldn't help staring at the creature until well after it had disappeared from view.
The fourth vista was, in a word, chaotic. Great swirling semi-fluid masses of flame in all the colours of the rainbow drifted through the air at various speeds, metallic-hued rainbow bolts of electricity arced and surged from place to place- sometimes striking downwards, sometimes striking to the side, sometimes striking upwards and great monoliths of carved rocks drifted silently through the infinite void. For some strange reason though, Ranma felt strangely comfortable here.
The throne this time wasn't a throne as such, more an immense pillar of stone rising up from the infinitely vast depths below. Perched upon it in a pose reminiscent of a meditating Yogi was a great spindly creature, surrounded by a coruscating aura of colours. Ranma drifted past it nonchalantly- after all, none of the others had noticed him, only to swallow as one immense eye suddenly sprang open, fixing its inscrutable gaze upon him. Ranma felt a strange swell of alien emotions in his mind, evidentially emanating from the creature before him, of which the one emotion he most recognized was something akin to amusement. The creature waved a spindly claw, and Ranma suddenly felt himself seized in an iron grip and rocketing away from the creature.
Faster and faster he flew, over more and more alien vistas. He saw forests where plants, animals and minerals merged and mated with each other and great fortresses that dwarfed Tokyo in size besieged by armies of hideous mutants. He saw bizarre creatures fighting each other savagely upon mountaintops in the midst of furious lightning storms and mountains composed entirely of crystal. Over lakes of fire and ice he flew, past armies of strange animal-men and over plains where baroque castles drifted across the grass.
As he travelled, the landscapes actually become slightly more normal, until he was travelling over a vast icy tundra, where the creatures he had seen before warred with fur-wearing men and women on horseback. Over mountains and deep forests he flew, past a city where men in brilliant armour rode steeds that bore the wings of great white eagles. A massive mountain came into view, a mighty fortress of a city perched upon its level top- all of it scarred and battered, as though it had only recently been freed from a siege. All of this and more passed below Ranma's eyes as he finally felt himself starting to go less forward and more downward; he was starting to land.
"Waaagh! Who'z next? Cummon! I'll take ya all on! I'z da leader of dis tribe, and I challenge anyone who wantz ta fight!"
Big Boss Gragtar Fikskull, leader of the Fikskull Orcs, roared again and brandished his two-handed choppa in challenge. As the previous challenger crawled away whilst the boss's attention was occupied, Gragtar glowered at the other Orcs and snorted disdainfully.
"Ain't dere anyone whut's got da guts ta face me? Cummon! I dare ya! I'll fight anyone who finks dey're tough enough ta face me!"
"Aaagh!"
The Orcs started in surprise as the sound of someone screaming in what –to them- sounded like a battlecry suddenly filled the air and they looked around eagerly to see who the next fighter would be. Gragtar, on a whim, looked upwards and was thus the first to notice the streaking blur coming through the sky and heading straight towards him. A clumsy but powerful leap carried him backwards as, with an enormous crash, the flying thing landed mere inches before where he had been standing before, digging a deep crater in the ground with the force of its impact. As the Orcs blinked incredulously, a runty human in weird looking –even by humie standards- clothing slowly rose from the crater, pausing only to spit out a mouthful of rocks and dirt.
"Not one of my better landings. Where am I anyway?"
"Waaagh!"
Gragtar had no idea who this humie was, where he'd come from or how he'd gotten here. Well, how he'd ended up flying through the air and surviving the worst crashlanding he'd seen since that incident with the drunken Doom Divers anyway. More to the point, he didn't care. A human in Orc country was just asking for a fight- and Gragtar was just the Orc to oblige. Shouting the battlecry of all Greenskins, he gripped his choppa in both hands and swung it in an over-head arc that would split the humie in two. At least, that was the plan. What happened was that the human simply twisted his body so that the blow whistled past him harmlessly. At least it caught the humie's attention; he casually twisted around to face the incredulous Orc Big Boss.
"What was that for?"
"Whutcha mean? Yer da wun whut challenged me!"
"Challenged you? I didn't do nothing!"
"Enuff talk! Fight!"
Gragtar roared and swung his choppa sideways, aiming to cut the weird humie in half at the waist. The mob bayed with bloodthirsty eagerness, then stopped dead as the humie caught Gragtar's choppa with a single hand, stopping it dead without the slightest sign of strain. Gragtar snarled and tried to tug it loose for another swing- he may as well have been trying to haul Morrslieb down from the sky for all the good he did.
"Leggo! Zoggin' humie!"
"Only if you promise to stop swinging it around like that- you could hurt someone with this thing you know."
"I'll hurt ya awright! I'll split ya in two!"
"Fine, you want to fight, then here I come!"
Still holding onto the choppa with one hand, the humie suddenly spun around and lashed out in a sideways kick that smashed into Gragtar's head, roughly where his ear was, and sent him flying backwards with such force that he hit a nearby boulder and smashed several cracks in it before falling to the ground. The humie smirked and flicked his nose with his thumb while bringing the choppa to rest against his body. When Gragtar failed to do more than lie there and groan, an outburst erupted from the Orcs.
"He beat da boss!"
"Took 'im down wid wun kick!"
"Ya know whut dat means?"
"No, whut?"
"It means dat Gragtar ain't da boss no more!"
"So who's da boss now?"
"Whoever gives dat humie a good kickin', dat's who! Geddim!"
Ranma didn't have the faintest clue what had just happened or where he was, but he understood what was about to happen all too clearly. He took up a fighting position, still unconsciously holding the crude greataxe he'd took from his beaten opponent, and mentally prepared himself as thirteen of the strange green creatures charged him. As he dodged blows that could best be described charitably as crude but enthusiastic –rather like Akane he couldn't help thinking- and retaliated with powerful punches and kicks of his own, he noticed that each of the creatures fighting him was larger than the ones that were standing around and cheering. None of them were as large as the one he had fought first though.
Contemplative mood over, Ranma resumed devoting his entire attention to the fight- he'd been trained since birth to do this sort of thing and he wasn't about to lose. Especially seeing as how the other guys were wielding weapons. An axe-kick to the jaw sent one green-skinned creature flying out of the melee, several busted tusks dribbling from its lips with a faint spray of blood. He sidestepped one opponent that tried to brain him and retaliated by swinging the greataxe so that the blunt end whipped up with crushing force between his enemy's legs. While his enemy was stunned he then whipped the blunt end around and brought it smashing down on the back of his stunned opponent's head.
A one-handed Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken to the ribcage took another out of the fight. He twirled the greataxe and sent it flying towards another beast, smashing it unconscious but disarming himself in the process. Of course, that actually meant he was more dangerous now. When two of the hulking brutes dove at him from opposite directions he grabbed them by the fronts of their shirts, ducked and heaved in a single movement, resulting in them smashing heads together with enough force to knock them both unconscious. The few opponents remaining didn't last much longer, and soon all thirteen of them were piled in an unconscious heap at Ranma's feet. He dusted his hands off with a smirk and made a "come on" gesture towards the creatures, which had fallen into silence from shock.
"Alright, who's next? Come on, I'm just getting warmed up! Who else wants to fight me?"
There was a general chorus of sounds along the lines of "nu-uh" before an unseen creature spoke up from somewhere in the crowd.
"Ain't got no arguments from us boss. We getcha."
"Huh? Why did you just call me boss?"
"It'z da law." Croaked a gravely voice. The creatures literally jumped in sudden fright, falling over themselves to clear a path as a particularly old and wizen creature stepped forwards. It carried a staff made from bones bound together with sinews, and sinew streamers dangled from the top, bearing a variety of bones, fangs, pebbles and other such knick-knacks. It wore the pelt of a boar as a sort of crude helmet. It stepped right up to Ranma and rattled its staff dramatically before wheezing out a series of words.
"Da old boss is beaten. All da uvver challengers 'ave also been beaten. Dat makes you da new boss. All hail Big Boss… uh, whut's yer name?"
"Ranma."
"All hail Ranma, new Big Boss of da Fikskull Orcs! Waaagh!"
"WAAAGH!"
'What have I gotten myself into now…?'
Okay, first chapter up- hope it didn't suck too badly. Review please! I'll only continue if you're interested, and I'll only know if you're interested if you review! Warhammer fans: any guesses as to who the four "creatures" Ranma saw on his journey were?
For non-Warhammer fans, I'll try to explain the more "setting specific" stuff I may mention at the end of each chapter. If there's anything I missed, just review and let me know.
Morrslieb- the second of the two moons of the Warhammer world, smaller than the primary; Mannslieb. Morrslieb is a dark moon, shedding little light, and is associated with death and madness. It is said to be formed entirely from Warpstone, a powerful corruptive mineral composed of solidified magic.
Doom Divers: the crew/ammunition of a Goblin warmachine- half catapult, half giant slingshot. Doom Divers are Goblins that strap on a set of crude parasail "wings" and a pointy metal helmet then let themselves be shot out of the Doom Diver as kamikaze living missiles.