She was surrounded by a horde of bugs. Things that had a face and fur reminiscent of a rabbit or some other innocent woodland animal - combined with the body and legs of, say, a cockroach. And they were bugs, at that... bugs in a grand program that had to be eliminated for the sake of all. The bugs were hardly bigger than her feet, but that made them no less offensive to her. They gleefully hopped and scuttled everywhere about her, daring her to do something in return. Well... it was her job, after all. She was one of the system debuggers. She had come prepared to accomplish quite a bit of debugging. She wore a white bodysuit, one that featured what might have been considered an extra layer of armor around her chest and shoulders. A red collar, choker, skirt and knee-high boots, along with elbow-length white gloves trimmed by piping of that same red color, rounded out the outfit. Magenta-colored ribbons were tied in large bows at her back and upon her chest... where a polished heart-shaped jewel-brooch - amethyst, matching the blue-violet color of the roughly triangular markings on her face almost hidden behind strands of her dark hair and the tiara concealing her forehead - also rested. All in all, the 'uniform' resembled the 'sailor suit' girls' school uniforms that happened to be used in several schools throughout Japan. Skuld gave the bugs milling about her feet one final look of disgust, then reached for the small debugging hammer she kept strapped to her back. By appearance alone, somewhat like the bugs, Skuld's hammer might have appeared not to be much of a threat. Small, with a long, thin handle and made of a durable, lightweight metal, her debugging hammer had been designed more with functionality in mind than appearance. Skuld's only concern was that the hammer did its job whenever she called for it. She raised the hammer high above her head. "In the name of Yggdrasil, I will punish you!" But before she could bring the hammer down upon any of the dreaded bugs, a familiar voice - both somewhat sultry and featuring a touch of bemusement - echoed through the chamber within which Skuld stood. "I thought the Sailor Senshi didn't use hammers?" The would-be Sailor Senshi blinked, then frowned, still not completely aware that her dream had just been compromised. That voice... where did she know that voice from? "Who said I can't? This is *my* dream! I can-- *urk*!" That was the point at which all of the bugs decided to gang up and dogpile on her. Skuld was jolted out of her dream, and back to the waking world. She abruptly drew her head up from the midst of all the mechanical clutter on her desk. A quick check revealed exactly whom she had figured she would see: Urd, standing behind her. "I *hate* it when you do that," Skuld growled as she made an effort to brush the raven strands of hair from her face. "Always the innocent, huh?" chided Urd. "Anyway, this time it's not my fault. Belldandy said you could probably use a little cheering up and nominated *me* for the job." The young Goddess sighed. Belldandy would do that, of course. Then again, even the whole of NIT would be hard-pressed *not* to notice the inexplicable depression she'd been feeling for the past few days. Maybe it was a subtle sign of something to come... or something she'd forgotten. But none of her reminders, technological or otherwise, gave her a clue. Still, she would be out of character if she let her eldest sister get away with ruining her dream. A look of annoyance flashed in her brown eyes. "I don't need cheering up. And I already told you to quit messing with my dreams! You don't see me messing with *yours*, do you?" A perfectly reasonable question to ask, or so she thought. Urd grinned. "That's because you would faint in embarrassment if you tried." Whether or not that was currently true, Skuld didn't feel like arguing the point. She snorted. "Go bother someone else. I've got a lot of important work to do." To show this, she grabbed the two closest unfinished pieces of machinery on the desk and pretended to attempt to fit them together. "Sure you do," Urd's infamous smirk had arrived. "That's why you're in here sleeping, right?" Simmering, Skuld gestured toward the door. "OUT." Whoever said the younger siblings were always the more obnoxious ones? Urd - who unlike her sisters, sported a slightly more exotic look, with platinum hair, piercing green eyes and tanned skin - was also an incurable meddler. As it happened, Urd had the distinct reputation of being the Goddess most likely to elicit the remark, "Oh, no - not HER!" whenever she appeared... and secretly, she was proud of that reputation. Urd shrugged and left the room. Skuld turned back to her latest projects. After a while, however, it became annoyingly obvious that she was having trouble maintaining her concentration. She found her thoughts wandering, dwelling first on Megumi's whereabouts, switching by association first to Keiichi, then Belldandy and back again. Anything to keep from thinking about whatever in the world it was she was supposed to be doing, she mused. "You have new mail," her modified computer suddenly chorused. That did it. Whatever previous few shards were left of her concentration disappeared completely. She wheeled her chair over to the computer station and called up her e-mail client. The message waiting in her inbox caused her to perform an about-face. This was good... no, *great* news! After so long... about seventeen years, to be exact... She *had* to tell Belldandy and Urd! An Aa! Megamisama / Ranma 1/2 Crossover Instruments of Change Part One written by Mike Koos ------------------------ In truth, the temple Morisato Keiichi and the Goddess Belldandy had come to call their home had seen very little renovation in the time that passed since the Ultimate Force guided them here. It was as if Keiichi had chosen to take up residence in a warehouse or loft that had much more space than he had furniture. That particular fact mattered little to Keiichi, though; for as long as Belldandy was with him, any place had the comforting feel of home. A presence of warmth and security that seemed to accompany the Goddess wherever she went. Keiichi was content to remain with Belldandy forever, even if he was only a Mortal. He insisted on believing that their love for each other would someday overcome that obstacle, as well as all the other problems that existed, and that hope gave him the strength to endure all of the unusual circumstances that the arrival of Belldandy and her sisters had triggered. He also liked to believe that there were few things 'out there' that could surprise him any longer. If he continued telling himself this, over and over, maybe - just maybe - it would become true. Well... he had to try, nonetheless. Wouldn't living with three Goddesses ideally put Luck on his side? On second thought, thinking that way would probably bring the Universe down on him that much faster. Not to mention that Kami-sama likely wouldn't be happy with that line of thought, either. Which was just as well, since trying to imagine everything that could possibly happen to him, every single possibility, gave him the makings of a large headache. In the end he usually figured it was better not to worry about it and just let everything happen as it would. Skuld raced into the room of the temple which Keiichi and Belldandy had turned into a 'living room' of sorts. "Oneesama!" she exclaimed brightly. "We've found her! We know where she is!" Urd, who had situated herself off in the far corner of the room to read a magazine, glanced at her youngest sister with her usual nonchalance. Keiichi simply blinked, in an innocent, slightly bewildered manner. Belldandy looked up from her seat at the table. "Found who?" "Our sister!" Skuld could barely contain her excitement much longer. "Ranmira!" "You have *another* sister?" Keiichi asked in disbelief as he rose from the table. If this 'Ranmira' truly was one of Belldandy's sisters, why hadn't he heard Belldandy, Urd or Skuld mention her before now? It occurred to him to wonder if there were any other members of Belldandy's family he was unaware of - though he chose to shelve that question for the time being. Skuld nodded. "Yes." But before she could explain further, Urd intervened. "Ranmira's only a little bit older than Skuld. She's somewhat like Belldandy, but likes to stay out of the spotlight. Quiet, too. You hardly ever know she's there." Keiichi registered shock at that idea. It was difficult *not* to notice Belldandy, Skuld or Urd, and here they had a sister who preferred to blend in with the background? "And then Skuld lost her," Urd was saying, accusingly. "I did *not* lose her," retorted Skuld. She wasn't responsible, at least not directly, for her sister's disappearance. Why did Urd continually insist on blaming her? At the time, she'd done everything she was supposed to do... For Keiichi's benefit, she explained. "Ranmira was assigned to a position at the same Goddess Relief Office in which Belldandy worked. I'm told she got through her first few calls okay, then while she was in the process of granting a wish..." Her voice trailed away. Belldandy picked up where Skuld left off. "There was a considerable outbreak of bugs in Yggdrasil," she said, sadness evident in her voice. "The file that stated where our sister was and what wish she was granting, was lost in the confusion. That was almost seventeen years ago, and no one has seen or heard from her since." Skuld's excitement was back. "But now we know where she is! I just got an e-mail from the sysadmins. They told me they've definitely found Ranmira's assignment file! As soon as they finish checking the file's integrity, they're going to send me a copy so I can look through it." "About time," Urd minced. "You've kept her waiting long enough." "But even if her file was missing, wouldn't she have checked in by now or something?" asked Keiichi. Urd shrugged. "Probably can't, because of whatever the wish was that she granted," she replied, with a furtive glance at Belldandy. Who shook her head. "It's standard Goddess Relief Office procedure to check in every so often, no matter what the wish is." Belldandy paled. "Dear me. I hope Ranmira isn't in any trouble." "Yeah," Urd snorted softly. Status as a Goddess aside, her last impression of Ranmira was that her younger sister didn't have all the necessary skills she needed to survive, alone, in this world. She hoped she was wrong. ** ** ** Thankfully, Ranmira's file turned out to be intact. Since the Yggdrasil system hadn't stored the file in a proper place, chances had practically increased with each passing day that something would eventually overwrite it, given the mind-boggling amount of information the World Tree processed in even a few hours. It was nothing short of a major miracle that the whole file had somehow survived, unprotected as it was. But it had, and Skuld now knew what her sister had done. NAME: Ranmira CLASSIFICATION: Goddess of Change. First Class, Second Category, Unlimited. As for the wish she had granted? One of the slightly less-common types of wishes; the type that required a Goddess to 'pretend' to be a Mortal for a time for one reason or another to fulfill. Those wishes were similar in a vague sense to the wish Belldandy had granted Keiichi, except that the Goddess Relief Offices had provisions and procedures for the type of wish Ranmira had granted. But not *Keiichi's* wish. Oh, no. Skuld sighed. Getting worked up again over that particular part of the past wasn't going to help anyone at this point in time, particularly not her lost sister. At least *one* of her sisters' lives stood a chance of returning to normal. She knew that Ranmira and the woman to whom she had granted that wish were most likely no longer in the same area in which they had encountered each other close to seventeen years ago, so Skuld had opted to have a trace run on their current locations, and then asked for all the relevant information on each of the people affected by the wish. There *had* to be a reason why her sister had failed to check in... Skuld had read the results of her checks with increasing interest. *This* was what had happened as a result of that wish!? Something wasn't right here. Well... as far as anyone could tell, nothing terrible had happened to Ranmira, as Belldandy had feared, so their errant sister would have a fair amount of explaining to do. First, however, she had to find Ranmira's exact location. Ranmira apparently liked to move around quite a bit. Add to that a magical instability affecting her Mortal form, and it became nearly impossible for any scans to obtain a precise lock on her. The best Skuld could come up with was the general area - a section of Tokyo known as 'Nerima.' "Aww, at this rate, it'll be another seventeen years before I find her!" an impatient Skuld muttered. Wait - she had an idea. Rather than scan for Ranmira herself, why not scan for someone who would be likely to remain close to the Mortal Ranmira was 'portraying?' Within an hour she was walking through the streets of Nerima. Strangely enough, not that many people seemed to pay much attention to her, whenever she wasn't taking her accustomed shortcuts. How odd, she thought. What she didn't know was that the people of this region had seen enough weirdness in their lives that even someone with Skuld's appearance and debugging hammer at her back, innocently minding her own business, wasn't too out of the ordinary. Not that it made much difference here; Skuld was only here to find her lost sister, for the moment. And Ranmira - not to mention her 'friend' - were moving around a lot today, annoyingly enough. It wasn't easy for her to remain on their trail, but she was determined to find Ranmira. Seventeen years was too long a period of time to unintentionally lose contact with a close relative... Deciding to take the easier route over walking, she leapt into a park fountain and disappeared, much to the surprise of those who had witnessed her 'magic act.' ** ** ** "RANMA!!" Saotome Ranma knew the voice and angry yell all too well; they belonged to the girl who had been forced to become his iinazuke despite the fact that neither of them had agreed to the match. The agreement for Ranma to marry Tendo Akane had evolved out of their fathers' ideas, and now, they were stuck with it. Not that life had been boring for either of them. There had been no shortage of misadventures or challenges for both Ranma and Akane, Ranma with his infamous Jhusenkyou curse more often than not finding himself in the very center of it all through faults of his own. Akane would be the first to point out how Ranma was overconfident, egotistical, self-assured and too full of macho pride for his or anyone else's own good. Ranma *was* a skilled, strong martial artist, but he tended to place action over thought... which in his case usually led to many of his problems. Like the problem of the evening, for example. Ranma and his father had left home on a training expedition - one could never have too much training, in Ranma's not-so-humble opinion - and Akane, out of a sense of responsibility, had gone along with them. Ranma had been dead-set against her joining them, even though he knew both his father and hers would overrule him in the end... because Akane's presence on the expedition meant that sooner or later the tomboy would want to cook for them. It wasn't that Akane lacked skill in cooking; she merely had a habit of rushing through her preparations, accidentally swapping one ingredient for another or otherwise causing general havoc in the kitchen with temporary lapses in good judgment. What Ranma found most annoying was that he was usually the first person Akane turned to for a taste-test. He hadn't given her that chance today. When Ranma and his father, Genma, returned from their very first sparring practice in the middle of the nearest clearing within the forest, Akane had a surprise to offer them: she had cooked dinner for them. Ranma had impulsively insulted her cooking before anyone could suggest he try it, which set Akane's fury in motion again. And now, the Tendo girl wanted nothing more than to mallet him into next week... which was nothing new, actually. Ranma wondered why he hadn't yet built up an immunity to being pounded by that blasted wooden mallet of hers. Skuld stepped forth from a river in time to see Akane chase Ranma toward the river, a short distance downstream. Then she saw Akane mallet Ranma into the river - impacting against the boy's face, no less! - and storm off. she thought, wondering for a second how the short-haired girl would fare as a debugger. She shook her head, forcing her thoughts back to the matter at hand. It wasn't the girl she had come to see. It was the boy. Saotome Ranma. Or rather, Ranmira. Big sister had gone and granted a wish that established her as someone's son. The sight of the girl who emerged from the river, spitting out water and sourly wringing her clothes dry made Skuld start in astonishment. Ranma's female form, the result of a curse afflicting him due to a visit to an ancient Mortal training ground whose pools of water absorbed ages-old magic and imbued those who fell into each pool with a form derived from whatever had first visited those pools after their magical charging, looked precisely like a slightly younger version of Ranmira... with shorter hair and none of the facial 'markings' that linked her to Yggdrasil. Ranmira's presence had caused the curse to change what would have ideally been a female representation of his male form to take an appearance very much like her own. Hmm... it wasn't like Ranmira to be vain, so this had to be the curse's magic reflecting the power of the individual Ranma secretly was. Skuld had read most of the details about Ranma's curse and life from the archive files kept on Ranma. Ranma, it seemed, was something of an opposite of the sister she remembered, in attitude, behavior and more! How could this be? Ranma noticed the unusual girl walking toward her and hesitated. There was no flash of recognition, Skuld saw; she had expected no less, attributing it to one of the Goddess Relief Offices' provisions which applied here. The red-haired girl froze on seeing the hammer Skuld carried, however. "Ranma," Skuld tried to put forth her best calming voice. She figured she understood why Ranma had reacted the way she did - after all, who *wouldn't* be a little nervous around hammers right after being hit in the face with a large wooden mallet? Ah, Belldandy was far better at setting people at ease than her... "I'm not here to hurt you. I only want to talk." Ranma blinked. "Uh... about what?" "Close your eyes," the goddess instructed her. For some reason Ranma couldn't fathom, she did as Skuld asked. Skuld touched an index finger to the center of Ranma's brow. An amethyst diamond-shaped mark flared to life there, locks of Ranma's red hair curling up and back toward her scalp to keep the mark from being obscured. Still other locks of hair grew longer; her braided pigtail grew until it extended down past her waistline. Ranma's clothes changed to a variation on the outfit she had worn, with a Goddess in mind, and her body matured slightly as well. A single amethyst triangle appeared just below and to the far side of each eye... though Skuld had failed to notice that none of the marks had indicated much of a communication with Yggdrasil, as she would normally have expected. She had other things occupying her mind... "Oneesama!" Skuld blurted. It was Ranmira, all right. What she had done was summon Ranmira's true form forward, placing Ranma's body and memories in temporary storage using an inescapable method of calling her forth - just in case there was some reason Ranmira didn't want to be brought 'out of hiding.' "I'm glad you're all right!" Her sister merely gave her a confused, blank stare, withdrawing a step. "Do I know you?" Ranmira slowly glanced down at herself. "Wh-who am I?" ** ** ** The young raven-haired Goddess walked dejectedly into the temple only to find Urd, Belldandy and Keiichi off-handedly waiting for her. True, transferring to another room in the temple would have saved her the trouble of having to face them for a while, but shifting from one location to the next definitely wasn't the same as trudging around whenever she was depressed. "Well?" asked Urd, pointedly. "Did you find her?" She nodded, making a move to leave the room. Belldandy imposed herself in her younger sister's path. "Skuld... is everything all right?" An inward sigh; she'd always had problems hiding things from Belldandy, but her behavior in this case was a blatant giveaway. A quick glance at Keiichi told her he was concerned, as well. Skuld didn't immediately answer. "Oh, oneesama..." she said at last. "I found her, but... but...... she didn't remember me when I called her forth! In fact, she didn't remember anything at all!" "Dear me," Belldandy hesitated. Urd appeared pensive. "No wonder she hasn't checked in." A thought struck her. "You said she was portraying a Mortal boy right now, right?" "Yes." "And didn't you say her files were intact?" "Her assignment information file, yes." Urd exhaled. "Did you recover her memory file?" "Memory file?" Keiichi glanced at her. Skuld looked as though she were going to slap her forehead. "Argh! How could I have forgotten that!?" Again, she explained for Keiichi's benefit. "Standard Goddess Relief Office procedure in cases like Ranmira's is to limit her powers and place her memories of being a Goddess in a compressed data file, so she won't be tempted to become too involved in Mortal affairs." Keiichi shuddered slightly at the impersonal sound of the words. "Normally, she can still access her memories, but usually only for special circumstances, such as if there's a *great* need, or for the automatic check-ins." Skuld plopped down into a seat at the table and sighed. "I should have realized any memory files might have been misplaced as well." So should the sysadmins, she frowned, when they recovered Ranmira's assignment file. She was going to have to have a talk with them... "But... if it took seventeen years to locate her assignment file..." Keiichi thought to point out. "Not to worry!" Skuld told him. "The assignment files normally contain links to any existing memory files, since they're written while the memory files are being stored. At the very least, we'll have two places to start looking: in the area where her assignment file was found, and wherever the links in the assignment file point." Belldandy spoke up. "Is Ranmira in any immediate danger?" Skuld thought back to the malleting Ranma had taken in the face from the short-haired girl. "No. No, I don't think so." ** ** ** True to Skuld's claim, it hadn't taken long to locate Ranmira's memories and restore them to a location in the system where her sister could access them once more. Though it had taken longer than she had privately expected - a little over a day. But what did it matter? They knew where Ranmira was, had restored her memories, and now everything could return to normal... at least, as far as Ranmira was concerned. Big sister hadn't yet learned of the events of the past seventeen years, including Keiichi's fateful wish... She took the time to observe Ranma for a while, waiting until the boy was alone. No sense revealing what or who Ranma really was to the boy's acquaintances when it wasn't absolutely necessary. Besides, here was an ideal chance to see the kind of person Ranma was for herself. But after a while of watching Ranma, and how the boy behaved, she was even more convinced that Ranma was more or less an exact opposite of Ranmira. Normally, Ranma should have turned out similar to Ranmira - in fact, that had been part of the wish! - but, because Ranmira had been severed from her memories, the Mortal Ranma had easily fallen victim to the only influence he'd had: Saotome Genma, Ranma's father. After glancing through the files describing in detail Ranma and many of his acquaintances, not to mention their relationships with him, she was again shocked. Ranma could definitely stand to have Ranmira's influence returned to him. The sun was setting, and the young Goddess reflexively yawned. She hoped Ranma would be alone, soon...... and long before Ranmira's Goddess Relief Office summoned their errant Goddess back to check in. It was better to let Ranmira become reacquainted with her memories before that happened. Finally, Ranma stormed down to the river and stood there, fuming over his latest argument with Akane while skipping stones across the water. Skuld waited to make sure no one else was near, then approached. "Ranma," she spoke quietly. "Aww, man," the boy winced. "Not you, again. I don't know who you are or what you did to me before, but--" His voice fell short as he recalled the girl had only encountered him in his female form, though the girl - whom he now felt even more of a sense of familiarity from, for some inexplicable reason - seemed to know exactly what he was referring to. How did she know? How, in fact, did she know him? The girl simply met his gaze. "Ranmira," she commanded. "Remember." And Ranmira did. Ranma changed first into his female form and then became Ranmira once more. The triad of markings on Ranmira's face glowed momentarily as her memories were returned to her. Ranmira blinked, staring at herself, her surroundings and, finding Skuld, ending on her. "Skuld?" she asked. Skuld rushed to hug her. "Oneesama! You're back!" "I... uh, suppose so," Ranmira replied haltingly, returning the hug. "What's going on? My mind is so... hazy." Ranma's memories were still integrating themselves into her mind. How to tell her what had happened? Directly, and from the beginning. "You've been separated from your memories for the past sixteen, almost seventeen years." "I... have?" The last thing Ranmira recalled was the wish, and granting it. A Mortal named Saotome Nodoka had been chosen to receive a wish. Nodoka had been sad; her husband Genma was pressuring her to have a son at the time and the last thing Nodoka had wanted was to have any children they had turn out to be exactly like their father. Ranmira had listened to Nodoka recounting her fears, and granted the wish that followed. "Oh, you're so nice and well-mannered. I wish I could have a son like you..." And after that, there was only Ranma... until now. "An outbreak of bugs at the time you were granting that wish caused your files to be misplaced. We've been searching for you all this time." That didn't sound like a good thing to Ranmira. "Am I going to be all right?" she asked her sister, concerned, trying to keep her voice from going hoarse. "As far as we can tell, your assignment and memory files are intact and unharmed. But your Relief Office wants you to have a checkup on your next check-in just to be sure." Ranmira sighed. "I suppose I should do that as soon as possible. Perhaps I will have time to visit Urd and Belldandy and catch up on the past sixteen years while I'm at it." "Umm, about that," Skuld hesitated. "They're here, on the Mortal plane." "They are? Even Urd?" That it was Skuld who had come to retrieve her and not Belldandy came as a bit of a surprise... aside from her, Belldandy was the only other one of her sisters who had regular experience with being on the Mortal plane. Skuld was supposed to remain close to the Yggdrasil systems, part of their first line of defense against bugs in the systemry - of which Ranmira had been a part of before taking a position at one of the Goddess Relief Offices alongside Belldandy, and Urd... well, Urd wasn't likely to remain on the Mortal plane for long. The fact that all four sisters were on this plane all at once was a rather unusual coincidence. Nothing like this had ever really happened before! Skuld nodded. "Believe me, it's a long story. It all started with a boy named Morisato Keiichi..." ** ** ** Akane was seated by the campfire when Ranma returned considerably later that night. "Oh, it's only you." She frowned. "Your father's out looking for you. He got real worried when you didn't come back." Suspicion, crossed with a measure of irritation, became a part of her features. "Where have you been, anyway?" Ranma took a seat beside her. "Oh, here and there," he said enigmatically. "Akane?" "What?" "I'm... well, I'd just like to say that I'm sorry. For tonight, and everything I've done since we met. I'm gonna try not to be such a jerk from now on." Akane blinked. She was speechless for a moment. Had that come from *Ranma*? "Y-you mean that, Ranma? Is that a promise?" "Essentially, yes." She was still skeptical - this *was* Ranma, after all. But there was also something different about him, like the way he'd looked at her. "So what brought *this* on?" If this was another one of the baka's stupid jokes... he'd act like he was truly sensitive to how she felt, and then once her guard was down, *pow*! Ranma would ruin it by insulting her or saying something else insensitive. She wasn't in the mood for anything like that, so if Ranma stayed true to form he was going to have her fist planted in his mouth. "Let's just say I've realized who I'm really supposed to be." Ranma, acting even more enigmatic, stared off into the starlit sky. Akane wasn't sure how to react. Ranma's behavior was starting to unnerve her... Unseen by either of them, a lone figure watched them from a distance. "So *this* is where you've been hiding," Marller murmured to herself. "This ought to be interesting." (end) ------------ Credits: Written by: Mike Koos Prereaders: Richard Beaubien, Jonathan Ng, Shadowmane, Tom Williams, David Wills Special thanks to: Christopher Angel, Ed Little With apologies to Takahashi Rumiko and Fujishima Kosuke... All parts of this series are available at the RAAC archives at ftp://ftp.cs.ubc.ca/pub/archive/anime-fan-works or from my WWW pages at http://www.fanfic.net/~makoto/ Comments and questions welcome. * Mike ('Kino Makoto') Koos: makoto@cal.net * http://www.fanfic.net/~makoto * * "I can do nothing to stop you. Your background music is too strong * for me." - Sam Johnson, Whose Line is it Anyway?