The Evil Midnight Lurker what Lurks at Midnight
presents
An Extremely Pointless Crossover
BIO-BOOSTED RANMA: GUYVER 1/2
by W. Samuel Ashley
PART ONE:
FIRE IN THE SKY
It was a quiet, peaceful night in the Nerima
ward… by local standards. After nearly two years of regular
nocturnal violence, those townsfolk who could not learn to sleep through
anything had given up and moved. The following sounds in particular
had become as much a part of the music of the night as those of passing
cars:
“RANMA NO BAKA!”
*WHAM* *CRASH* *TINKLE*
*THUD*
“Kawaiikune otemba…!”
*SWISH* *THUD* *SWISH* *THUD* *SWISH* *BONK*
“YEOW!”
Any local who had been conscious would
have recognized and ignored the familiar sounds of Ranma Saotome and
Akane Tendô quarreling. Ranma himself was all too used to it;
being punched through Akane’s closed window and landing in the yard
was second nature now. He’d even managed to avoid landing in
the koi pond tonight. Unfortunately, insulting Akane was also
second nature to him, resulting in the usual hail of thrown weights.
Muttering mild obscenities, Ranma decided
against reentering the Tendô house. Wincing, he felt the spot
where Akane’s last barbell had connected. Stupid girl… I
can’t believe she thought I’d be willin’ to eat
that thing! How could anyone mistake baking powder for rice
flour? An’ I’m pretty sure that “sauce” was
dish soap… and of course when I refuse t’ place my life in
danger by taking a bite she gets upset about it. This is
ridiculous… things were goin’ so well, and now we’re right
back where we started! It’s as if the Mount Phœnix mess
never happened…
Since his first trip to China, Ranma’s life
was a never-ending battle. If it wasn’t Kunô or Ryôga
challenging him, it was some supernatural creature or other… minor
demons, ghost cats, people who’d fallen in Jusenkyô springs
where something really bizarre had drowned. None of them had ever
been a serious threat; even Ryôga and Tarô, probably the most
powerful of the lot, seldom came close to winning. That changed the
night the winged warriors came to town, hunting the Jusenkyô
Guide’s daughter; the birdmen themselves weren’t so dangerous,
but their ruler, the Phœnix Prince, Saffron…
He had the power of…well, of a god,
healing faster than Ranma could hurt him, slinging incredible bolts of
phœnix-flame. In the end, though, he’d gone down to
defeat. Barely.
In the end…to save Akane’s life, Ranma
had had to cross a line he’d hoped never to come near.
He’d killed the phœnix-god, practically ripped him apart bare-
handed.
Sure, Saffron’s phœnix powers had
brought him back to life as an infant. But…Ranma hadn’t
known that would happen, had he? He’d done the deed, believing
it would stick.
He now knew, beyond doubt, that under the right
circumstances he could kill.
Those circumstances…all revolved around one
person.
The battle, and the wedding disaster that
followed, had altered Ranma’s relationship with Akane. For the
first time, they’d really begun to break down the walls of pride and
stubbornness thad had kept the two at odds since the day they met,
eighteen months before. They had been able to go almost a whole
week without quarreling…
And then Kasumi left for medical school, and
everything fell apart.
Doctor Tôfû’s clientele
doubled, but that was only to be expected… the problems began
when the issue of homemaking came up. Kasumi had done nearly all
the cooking and cleaning for the Tendôs and their houseguests for
years; now she was gone and others would have to cope. The
Tendôs and Saotomes worked out a reasonably balanced schedule of
chores; Genma had to be watched closely to ensure his participation, but
everyone was used to that. The real snag was the question of
cooking. Genma and Sôun pleaded ignorance, Nabiki insisted on
an unacceptably high allowance hike to take the job, Happôsai
refused outright, and Ryôga wasn’t consistently
available. That left Akane or Ranma.
The entire Tendô household quailed at the
thought of eating Akane’s “food” on a regular basis; even
Ryôga covertly approached Ranma and begged him to keep Akane
out of the kitchen. Fortunately, Ranma’s early life on the
road, combined with his training in various esoteric martial culinary
arts, made him a more than passable chef. Most of the martial
styles had more to do with using food in combat than as edibles, but
discipline demanded that the practitioner be able to prepare his weapons.
To maintain their newfound harmony, Ranma tried
to teach Akane to cook. Gods, how he’d tried… for three months
they’d slaved over the stove, her frustration and his disbelief
growing as Akane proved totally unable to follow even the simplest
recipe. Did the fault lie in Akane’s terminal impatience or
Ranma’s teaching skills? Neither could tell, and in the end it
made no difference. Tempers frayed, walls snapped back up. Once
again, the two were barely on speaking terms.
Ranma sighed and lay back on the lawn.
This was a welcome break from the daily insanity of the Tendô
household: a warm summer night, clear stars, no insane pseudo-fiancees
trying to poison him, and no maniacs challenging him for Akane’s
hand. Just peace, quiet, and the unchanging stars…
Unchanging? Then what was that bright red
spark?
It was moving. Just an airplane…
shouldn’t its lights be flashing?
The spark dimmed, disappeared. Probably a
meteor. Ranma yawned, considered his options, decided to sleep
where he lay.
I should’a thought of this long
ago…
A faint, high-pitched whistling sound brought
Ranma awake. Although it originated above him, it bore no
resemblance to the familiar sound of a person on the downward arc of a
crosstown uppercut. It did, however, appear to be produced by a
falling object.
Ranma rolled as the object plummeted directly
toward him; overcompensating, he smashed into an ornamental stone
lamp. His yell of pain was followed by a heavy thud.
Clutching his much-abused head, Ranma shakily
got to his feet. The thing had imbedded itself in the lawn exactly
where his head had been. He staggered over to take a closer look,
while above him Akane slid her broken window open. “Keep it down out
there!” she yelled. “Some of us are trying to
sleep!”
Ranma ignored this. Akane watched,
puzzled, as he kneeled and pried something out of a hole in the
turf. As he turned the object over to examine it from all sides,
she anime-hopped to the ground and joined him.
“Nani…?”
“I dunno,” Ranma replied.
“It just fell out of the sky… nearly brained me,
too.” He continued his inspection.
The object was nearly a foot across and vaguely
hexagonal. Six pieces of plasticlike red material partially encased a
dark mass, unidentifiable in the dim light; the most prominent feature
was a large metallic hemisphere centered on one side. The polished
orb was divided into an inner circle and outer ring by a thin band of
transparent crystalline substance.
“This red stuff doesn’t really feel
like plastic,” Ranma noted. “More like… what’s
that stuff insect shells are made of?”
Akane sighed. “Honestly, Ranma, if
you put half as much energy into studying as you do into martial arts
you’d know these things. It’s called chitin.”
“Whatever… and if you put half as much
energy into martial arts as you do into schoolwork,” Ranma found
himself saying, “you might not be such a klutz.”
Dammit, how do I turn my mouth off?!
Akane pulled her giant mallet out of hammerspace
and bashed Ranma across the lawn. He landed roughly in a well-lit
corner, his head smashing into the mysterious object. Something
inside it went *click.*
Ranma rose, woozy after the third head injury in
fifteen minutes. In the glow of the streetlamp the material gleamed
within its casing, a tightly-packed mass of motionless black earthworms,
glistening with moisture.
The object clicked again, hummed. Steam arose
from its interior. The crystal band glowed, casting a halo into the
night.
“Ranma!” Akane ran up, “What did
you…?”
“Whaddaya mean what did I do?!
You’re the one who—” Ranma broke off as the dark mass
begin to move, the “worms” slithering faster and faster around
one another. “Akane, keep back!” he shouted.
“I think this thing’s…”
The chitinous casing snapped open, fell
away. The wormstuff within gathered itself into an amorphous,
tentacled glob and lunged at Ranma.
“…ALIVE!” he finished, as it
began to engulf him.
Wasting no time in screaming, Akane joined
Ranma’s effort to pull the thing off. Despite their combined
strength, it clung resolutely to Ranma, spreading over his body.
“Get away, you idiot! This thing
might… go after you next…” Ranma’s voice
muffled as the glob rose to cover his mouth. The metallic disc,
still attached to the creature, slid over Ranma’s forehead as the
rest of his face vanished beneath the glistening black wormstuff.
Ranma stiffened and stopped moving. Akane
ripped at the creature, then let go as it began to secrete a mild acid,
burning her hands.
Now was the time for screaming—but
this was Nerima; there was no one to hear.
High above, however, someone unused to ignoring
cries for help heard and responded. Shô Fukamachi, known to a
select few as Guyver I, had almost given up his aerial search when
Akane’s screams reached his ears.
That better not be what I think it is,
Shô thought as he veered toward the sounds below. Please,
let it be just a simple mugging… and not another life destroyed by a
Unit.
In a walled yard below, Shô’s fear
assumed the solid form of a statue covered in Guyver muscle tissue.
A screaming teenage girl beat her fists against its chest only to pull
them back in apparent pain.
Dammit, I’m too late! The Unit’s
been activated… and someone else has paid the price for my
carelessness. I’ve got no choice… whoever they are,
they’re a part of this now. But why hasn’t anyone
noticed? There’s not a single light on for blocks… of
course, that’s a good thing under the circumstances. He
dropped to the ground at the opposite end of the yard and released his
armor.
Even in her panic, Akane’s sensitive ears
did not fail. She spun to face the intruder, hyperdimensional hammer in
hand. Before her was an unremarkable boy about Ranma’s
age. Behind him there was… what? Was the fading glow
real or a product of her overstimulated imagination?
Shô, for his part, saw a brown-haired girl
in pajamas holding a very large hammer that he was certain hadn’t
been there as he landed. That and the anguish and suspicion on her
tear-streaked face suggested he’d better talk fast.
“Who are you and what are you doing
here?” Akane snapped, brandishing her hammer. “If you
have anything to do with that… thing… you’d better pray
Ranma’s all right!”
“Take it easy there…” the
stranger replied. “I didn’t do anything to your friend,
but I do know what’s happening to him. He should be all right
under that stuff; he’s just unconscious. I’m here to
help.”
“Then start helping by getting that glop
off of him!”
“That’s not possible now. See for
yourself; it’s beginning to merge with him.”
As Akane looked on, the wormstuff covering Ranma
began to change. Patches were melting, ropes of tissue running into
one another and becoming the same shade of red as the casing. It
congealed into gelid orbs at three points on his head; translucent pink
plates had formed over his eyes. Silvery spheres emerged over his
mouth, temples, and waist. Spikes protruded from his forearms and
the top of his head.
“What’s happening to him? What
is that stuff? Tell me, or I swear I’ll break every
bone in your body!”
“…A suit of living armor,” the
stranger replied. “A biological weapon. Your friend will wake
up after it finishes forming, and he’ll be able to remove it
himself. Until then, you should really put that hammer down and try
not to make any threatening moves.”
“And what’s that supposed to
mean?! You think I’m just going to stand here and let this
happen?”
“There’s nothing either of us can do
about it. As for the ‘threatening’ part, that’s
really for our protection. The armor is going to activate before
your friend is fully awake, and until he comes around it’ll attack
anything it perceives as dangerous. Right now, that includes
you.”
“I’m a student of the Tendô
School of Unclassified Martial Arts,” Akane stated. “I
can take care of myself.”
“Not against that you
can’t! Short of a nuke, the Guyver armor is the most powerful
weapon on Earth—I don’t care what kind of martial art you know,
if you get that thing angry it will kill you! Do you want
your friend to wake up standing over your dead body?”
That brought Akane up short. She had the
sudden, overwhelming impression that the stranger was speaking from
personal experience; pain was clearly written in his eyes. “N-
no… and he’s not my friend,” she added reflexively.
“How do you know so much about this, anyway? Who are
you?”
“My name’s Shô. Shô
Fukamachi… and I know what I know because the same thing happened to
me a few months ago. I think I should save the explanations until
your friend… Ranma?… is awake to hear them. It’s a
long story, and I’d rather not tell it twice. The armor’s
almost complete; he should regain consciousness in a couple of
minutes.”
Akane turned back to Ranma’s still-changing
form. The red patches, which at first had been semi-fluid, were
hardening and… unmelting was the best way she could describe
it, like a wax candle dripping in reverse, contracting into smooth plates
of red chitinous armor covering the underlying black tissue. The
armor plates were arranging themselves in a vague imitation of human
musculature. The overall effect was of some bizarre cross between
human and insect, but the “face” bore no resemblance to
anything she’d ever seen. Its only recognizable features were the
eyeplates; below them, instead of a mouth and nose, two small silvery
spheres of unequal size were set in a gap in the armor. To each
side of these was a hollow hexagonal protrusion. The spikes on
Ranma’s forearms had grown into swept-back swordlike blades; the
crest on his head was thinner, though longer, and did not appear
particularly sharp.
Shô watched the process as intently as the
girl; he’d never seen the armor formation before, having of course
been unconscious when it happened to him. As they waited, he activated
the telepathic transceivers on his back.
Makishima, can you hear me?
The calm, powerful voice of Agito
Makishima— Guyver III—echoed in his mind. I’m
receiving you, Fukamachi. I’m clear of the Kronos patrols, and
the case is safe. Have you recovered the missing Units?
Not quite. I found one of them, but
too late; it’s been activated.
…Unfortunate. Who’s the
victim, and where did you end up?
All I know so far is that his name’s
Ranma and he’s got an extremely distraught girlfriend.
He’s still out of it. We’re on the northwest side of
Tôkyô…middle of Nerima ward, I think.
Does the girl know anything?
She saw the whole process, and she
isn’t too happy about it. I think we just got stuck with at
least two new members.
This is getting out of hand, One. If
our group gets much larger we won’t be able to stay
undercover. Do you think they’ll be of any use to us?
‘Use?’ Makishima, if we
don’t help these people Kronos will either kill them or recruit
them. Which would you prefer?
Point taken. I’m going to drop
the case off with Murakami and the others, then head over there and
continue the search. You stay with those two, and I’ll meet
you when and if I find the other Unit.
Right. I’ll contact you if
anything comes up.
As Shô broke off communication, the red
Guyver reached full form and came alive. The girl gasped as its
eyes and control medallion glowed.
“Just stay calm,” he reminded
her. “It’ll be another minute before your friend wakes
up.”
“Are you sure he can’t hear us?”
“Very. The armor’s in control
now… watch.” The Guyver turned its head, looking slowly
in every direction. Sensor discs on the sides of the head slid back
and forth in their grooves, probing for anything that might constitute a
threat to the host. Finding nothing, it relaxed and simply stood
perfectly still.
Ranma struggled back to consciousness from the
depths of a nightmare. It was a terrible and bizarre dream, a murky
vision of slow death at the ‘hands’ of an unstoppable tentacled
monster… or had it been a dream?
And how had he fallen asleep standing up?
As his vision cleared, Ranma could see that he was still in the
Tendô yard; Akane stood near him, her face unreadable.
Someone he’d never seen before was behind her. The light
seemed odd somehow; everything had a distinct pinkish tinge. And he
felt… different.
“…Akane?” Even his voice
rang oddly in his ears, with a slight synthesized sound to it; he had the
odd impression that he’d spoken without using his lips, tongue, or
throat at all. “What’s happened to me?”
The stranger stepped forward.
“You’re wearing a suit of armor. It’s distorting
your senses slightly; don’t worry, that’s normal.”
Ranma looked down at his hands. The palms
were covered in black, glistening ropy tissue; the fingers and backs were
sheathed in red armor. Memory returned with a shock: these were the
same materials that the thing that attacked him had been made of!
“Normal for what? What is this
stuff, and why don’t I feel like I’m wearing
anything?” His entire body appeared to be covered by the
“armor,” but as Ranma touched his arm with a finger he could
feel the contact with both. “And how do I get it off?!”
he continued, pulling at the plate covering his left forearm.
“Not like that,” the stranger informed
him. “You have to will the armor off. It’ll
obey your mental commands.”
“…Okay, it’s worth a shot.
But if this doesn’t work, you’re in serious
trouble.” Ranma concentrated, focusing his mind and spirit
into a single white-hot thought: GET OFF!
The results were… unexpected. A brief
flash of vertigo was followed by a moment of sensory deprivation, in turn
succeeded by a rush of air and the feeling of something pulling away from
him. Ranma heard Akane gasp; as his other senses returned, he
noticed she was looking past him.
Ranma turned and seriously considered gasping
himself as he saw the glowing, armored figure floating a few feet
away. Before he had time to get a closer look, the thing drifted
down to the lawn… and then through it, vanishing silently and
without trace into the ground.
Too stunned to remember to be angry, Ranma
turned back to Akane and the stranger. Akane’s expression
mirrored his own, but the boy was remarkably calm; Ranma gathered his
scattered thoughts and addressed him.
“…Right. You wanna explain what
just happened, or should I just pound you into the ground?”
Akane exploded. “RANMA…!
Mister Fukamachi saved you from that monster… you should be thanking
him, not making threats!” She hefted her hammer, preparing to
clobber Ranma if he so much as opened his mouth.
The stranger caught her arm.
“That’s all right… Gods know, if someone who knew what was
going on had been there when that happened to me, I’d want
some answers in a hurry. I’ll try to explain everything, but
could we go inside? Staying out here isn’t a good idea…
you never know who might be listening.”
Ranma shot a glance at Akane, then
shrugged. “Well, we could talk in the dojo… there
aren’t any holes in it at the moment, so if we keep quiet no one
would hear us. Not that anyone in this town is likely to be
awake.”
“I was just going to ask you about
that…”
As the girl and the new Guyver led the way into
the dojo, Shô paused for a moment and looked up at the stars.
‘There are only three Units on
Earth.’ Everyone knew that; Kronos, Makishima, Murakami,
me… and everyone was wrong.
What are we going to do with twenty of the
damn things…?
In a vast subterranean complex beneath Mount
Minakami, in the Takeshiro region of northern Honshu, a man with mauve
skin and a startling shock of white hair was on the verge of apoplexy.
“How, damn it?” he raved.
“How could they possibly have known about the shipment?
The entire Ruwenzori dig was under our heaviest security; the Guyvers
couldn’t have known about the second ship, let alone the
Units! And yet they intercepted our helicopter and blew it out of
the sky… and stole the cargo!” He whirled, glaring
at the office’s other occupant, a short balding man in ornate
robes. “They’re still reading every move we make, even
without Makishima’s inside help! How is this possible…?”
“Calm yourself, Commander Guyot,” the
older man replied. Light glinted off the crystal embedded in his
forehead as he turned away. “A security investigation can
wait; our first priority must be the recovery of the Units.”
Richard Guyot took a few deep breaths and
relaxed slightly. “That’s already being taken care
of. I’ve got search teams sweeping the Tôkyô area
and most of central Honshu… not that they’re likely to find
anything; Murakami will sense any Zoanoids a mile away, and we don’t
have enough unprocessed troops in the area to cover a city block.
No, our only real option is to find the security leak and backtrack from
there…”
“And what about the existing leak?
Could Makishima have confederates in the organization?”
“Definitely not. When his cover was
blown I checked out everyone who’d ever had any contact with him.
Makishima kept everything to himself, with one exception: Marmot
3765.”
Doctor Barcas thought a moment. “The
test subject who stole the first three Units?”
“Yes. I’m certain now that
Makishima was responsible for the security breaches that let him escape;
but there were no others involved. Makishima seems to have chosen
3765 for his resourcefulness and his short lifespan… something he no
doubt neglected to mention.”
“If Makishima was not responsible, then
there must be another traitor in Kronos.”
Guyot scowled. “That’s just as
impossible! With the increased security since his defection, any
traitor would have to be a Zoalord to avoid…”
He broke off, stunned. “A
Zoalord. Not Makishima at all… Murakami. That damned
guinea pig Murakami!”
“And how could he have learned of the
shipment?”
Guyot ignored Barcas’s question and jabbed
at his desktop visiphone. “This is Commander Guyot. I
want a record of every unusual Zoanoid death in the past two weeks,
concentrating on anyone involved with the Ruwenzori dig and the destroyed
helicopter… Yes, immediately!” He turned back to
Barcas. “I think you’ll have your answer in a
moment.”
Three minutes later, Guyot’s printer began
to spit out medical reports. He skimmed through them, discarding
most; finally he was left with three. “Here we are…
Ramotith 338, returned to Japan after three weeks security duty at the
Babylon Site; killed in battle with Guyver Three and Murakami on June
twentieth, no surviving witnesses. The first link in the
chain.”
Barcas raised an eyebrow. “Even if
they somehow tortured information out of him, that guard would have known
nothing about the Ruwenzori dig. Where do you think this is
leading?”
“From him it leads directly to his superior
officers. Gregole 57, head of Relic Site Security Operations;
showed up at work as usual on the twenty-third of June, died at 3:34 P.M.
of no apparent cause. His staff described him as uncharacteristically
listless and stiff; there being no way to do an autopsy on a fully-
processed Zoanoid, his death was assumed to be the result of unnoticed
genetic defects.”
“Curious… go on.”
Guyot flipped to the last page.
“57’s contacts included Broyze 94, supervisor of all
archæological operations. 94 knew everything about the
Ruwenzori Site and the airlift… and according to this he died not
fifteen minutes ago, five minutes after the destruction of the
helicopter. Observed symptoms prior to death: unusually tired,
slow, and stiff; and he’d been like that for five days, since the
twenty-fifth.”
“I see. You postulate a chain of
information… but 57 and 94, at least, were loyal to us. How
could the Guyvers have gained the information and left them alive?
They would have reported any such encounter immediately!”
“I told you, Barcas… not the Guyvers
but Murakami. That clever bastard found a new use for his
compulsion power… one that never occurred to any of us, since we
have no need for it.”
Barcas started.
“Interrogation…!”
“Precisely. He learned the identity
of the head of security from the guard before killing him; then tracked
57 down, probably at his home, reamed out his mind, and kept him under
control long enough to steer him to work. Murakami killed 57 from a
distance, making sure that no one suspected they’d ever come in
contact. Then he simply did the same to 94… and held him in
compulsion for five days to prevent him from scrubbing the mission.
Very impressive for a prototype.”
“This may work to our advantage.
Murakami does have unusual endurance, but after five days, he must be
exhausted… I would be very surprised if he could formshift, let
alone take control of another Zoanoid. He’ll be suffering from
sleep deprivation as well; he can’t possibly remain awake much
longer. With Murakami out of the picture, it should be child’s
play to find and capture them!”
“I hope you’re right. If we
don’t recover at least one Unit-G before Lord Arkanfæl
awakens… we’re both dead men.” But if we do,
Guyot thought, I’ll make sure Arkanfæl never sees the light
of day again!
We all thought there were only three Units on
Earth…
What in hell are they going to do with
twenty of the damned things?
Next…
Akane and Ranma get a crash course in the true
history of the human species, while Shô learns more than he wanted
to know about extreme martial arts; the Radicals plan for the future;
plus, the action-packed debuts of Guyver Red, Ikazuchi no Guyver,
and the ZoaGuyver. All of which leads up to the Second Great
War of the Guyvers in Bio-Boosted Ranma, Part Two: WE DIDN’T
START THE FIRE!
NOTES FROM DEEP LEFT FIELD
This was the first fanfic I ever wrote.
Looking back on it, I’m more than a bit embarrassed, even after a
slight rewrite…but not quite enough to drop it entirely.
It’s been languishing for several years now, but somehow…maybe
this time it’ll really work. Maybe.
Ranma-wise, this is manga continuity with a
little anime influence (like most of my Ranma stuff), all the way up to
and past volume 38. The Guyver plot is pure manga, but diverges
right after Shô’s battle with Aptom II—in this version,
the “radicals” (as Dr. Barcas termed them) managed to escape
from the Minakami area without ever running into the renegade Basement
scientists. Of course, this means there’s no Guyver Gigantic
available…
Oh yes: this fic uses the original manga
spelling for certain terms, rather than the godawful Viz
translation. Thus Kronos instead of Chronos, Guyot for Gyro, Barcas
not Valkus, etc.
Expect to see some weird stuff with the
Guyvers. If they adapt to suit their host, what happens if the host
is a highly trained, incredibly dangerous martial artist who could defeat
Zoanoids without the armor…?
Comments, questions, or gouts of phœnix flame may be directed to 73310.3217@compuserve.com; please put “To Sam” in the subject line, as it’s a shared address.
—Sam Ashley
V2.0: 5/20/2000
“Now you’re a tiny two-headed bluebird who can
only speak high-school French!”
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