Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2, Gundam Wing, and Sailor Moon belong to a bunch of other really rich people. Situations and characters therein also belong to them. This story is for free distribution and enjoyment of anyone who can stomach it. ;)

Prologue

By Michael Fetter

Nerima crater, the sight of it was overwhelming in grief. Heartless machines stomped through the once active city and crushed the spirit of the people without a thought to the direction of the world was shaping. Humans are necessary, integral, parts of creation for more than just reproduction. Machines could copy themselves, but it is humans that achieve cognition, true thought that challenged the expanding universe. For that reason machines do not cry once they have passed over a city of lives, snuffed in a moment.

The surrounding cliffs made a circle, corralling the destruction, and folded the breeze coming away from the sea. Kasumi stood at the edge of one part of this cliff, her hand leaned against one of the trees that had survived the mobile suit attack by the Bartam foundation. Her long brown hair floated on the wind gently wrapping about the area. Years of sadness had left an emptiness in her eyes that seemed to always seek something to attach to.

"Mama?"

A small hand gripped Kasumi's and drew her attention away from the sizeable blemish in the earth to a small girl staring up at her. Purple that would always imply sadness, born in a time of pain, the effects of which were far reaching, settled into the little girl's eyes.

Smiling gently while knowing the truth of those eyes, Kasumi stroked her hand through little Hotaru's short black hair. It was cut almost like Nabiki's had been. Her twelfth birthday had not been too long ago, but Hotaru was already much more mature than Kasumi would want her to be. Living as the earth rebuilt itself for a second time brought out much of the ugliness in others that would be unavoidable for a little girl. "This is it, Hotaru-chan."

Dust swirled in the center of the valley to spiral upwards and settle down once again after blooming outwards. It was fifteen years ago that those horrible machines pounded down houses and shot apart the simple dreams that had kept Kasumi going.

"Uncle Ranma was here?"

Kasumi was slightly startled to hear the name, but it brought a sweeter smile to her lips. "Where did you hear that name?"

Looking slightly apologetic, Hotaru hugged her mother's arm and stared at the new warmth in Kasumi's eyes. "I heard you. Late at night, after you put me to bed. I hear you sometimes praying to the moon for Ranma to continue to look after us."

"I do," Kasumi nodded and stroked Hotaru's black hair again. There was no way to forget Akane's fiancé, Ranma. Some thought Ranma was a man of action, but really he responded to any attack against his family. Kasumi had no doubt that Ranma would have been happy to live a simpler life after some day marrying Akane. But that had been denied to them all.

On the night of the first attack, Ranma, and the household, had felt the trembling of gravity boosters against the streets while mobile suits landed. They were meant originally as labor robots to help with construction of the ring colonies out in space. Then the military adopted them into combat situations for protection among the space colonies. With the means now present in space for retaliation against the earth government, the colonies declared war. The resulting destruction killed millions of people and destroyed four whole colonies and dozens of cities on the earth.

As the first war ended, military bases were moved and a destruction of all mobile suits, including the Gundams, was ordered. It was foolish for anyone to think all peoples would comply.

The second war was briefer, but far less discriminate. Cities with military presence were not the only ones targeted by an insane little girl, but also those who would not support their cause.

Ranma and his friends had resisted the invasion. Most were killed within moments, but somehow Ranma was able to press on. Without a mobile suit of his own, a lone man staring up at huge machines of destruction, Ranma sacrificed everything to give Kasumi and a few others the time to get away. Kasumi's brave little brother watched friends and fiancées slaughtered before his eyes.

In her eyes, Kasumi could still see the figure of Ranma in the distance as she ran away from her home. She'd stood close to where she was now, watching as the pigtailed martial artist leapt into the air like a red seed of vengeance, almost hovering for a moment, before rocketing back into the earth with an inhuman cry of anger. She wondered when Ranma had conceived the attack, but the resulting column of blood ki stretched for two blocks, consuming the mobile suits and whatever flew overhead. Like dominoes, every mobile suit in the area suddenly went critical, strengthening Ranma's final attack, expanding the area of destruction to reach the ends of the city.

There was nothing left after that. The Gundams from the previous war returned to finish the colony revolt and Nerima was added to the list of atrocities caused by the Bartam foundation.

Hotaru knew little of this, being born two years after the last war. Kasumi's husband, Ono Tofuu, died sometime later in the smaller rebel skirmishes. To her knowledge, Kasumi was now the only survivor of Nerima.

"What was he like, mama?"

Thinking back to the smirking pigtailed boy, Kasumi thought of the best ways to describe Ranma. "He was,"

Hotaru waited to hear of this person who had reached angelic levels in her mother's heart.

Almost chuckling, Kasumi embraced her daughter closely and stared back out into the crater, seeing the city before its destruction in her mind. Gently, and with all honesty, she said, "He was a man amongst men."

Space Colony 352 - Notter Research Laboratories

"Check oxygen mix for zero one and reduce gamma by point five six." Male voice.

"Monitors show stable. Control curve increasing to seventy." Female voice.

"Program pilot response activation test is moving to level five." Male voice.

Technicians were seated in an observation booth, separated from the test subject floating in a tube of protein mixed oxygen solution. The slight orange tinge made it a bit sickly to look at, but the subject inside didn't notice. Short black hair waved gently as he made small movements, reacting to input sent through electrodes attached to his body.

Inside the darkness he saw only what the doctors wanted him to see. Since gestation, his body began to experience tests and experiments that molded his body to respond as expected without command. Tiny images of life were destroyed with every move because the doctor's demanded it. The subject performed his duties because he was ordered.

"Increased energy output to compensate." Male voice.

"Perfect." Male voice.

Eyes still closed, the subject heard a door open in the observation area and a new voice was within his hearing. A new and yet familiar female voice. "Now that ain't any way ta treat my main man. Shame on you."

There were explosions that suddenly rocked the labs. The subject drifted about within the tube without control. His body remained in a standing position, uncaring if something may happen to him.

Communication was cut and the liquid he floated in began to drain out the bottom. The dark world fell away and the subject expelled the liquid oxygen to breathe natural air for the first time in his life.

Someone strode forward and grabbed the headset covering his eyes and removed it, tossing it negligently to some corner of the experimentation chamber. The subject's vision was blurry for a moment as it became accustomed to the florescent lights of the outside. He could see shapes, both big and small, near and far.

"Time to wake, sleeping handsome," the female voice chuckled lightly, sweet and slightly husky in a seductive manner.

The subject, RS01, focused in on the short girl before him. Dressed in a lab coat over a black suit that held a number of illegal weapons for the colonies, the young girl sported a roguish grin on her pretty face. Blue eyes complemented a mop of red hair pulled back into a pigtail.

"What is your designation?" subject RS01 inquired of the girl.

She grinned and grabbed his arm to guide him out of the area while sirens blared angrily. "Already hitting on me, eh? I call myself Scarlet, sweet talker. Now we better book before we get into real trouble."

Subject RS01 nodded and followed Scarlet out into the world of people.

End Prologue

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This is the beginning of a Net Story I'm creating. This means the story's direction is open to readers. All you have to do is send me an email with your ideas for handling the story and I will try to meld it into the story. In other words, it's a community project of sorts.

Ja ne.