Time, Out of Mind A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Alan Harnum This copy of the story is from my centralized fanfiction archive at http://www.thekeep.org/~harnums/fanfic. I can be reached by e-mail at harnums@thekeep.org All Ranma characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi, first published by Shogakugan in Japan and brought over to North America by Viz Communications. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely on purpose, and is meant to deliberately insult them. Unless they resemble you, and you're, like, a really big biker with a black belt or something, in which case they're not supposed to resemble you at all. This fanfic is not to be used for any purpose that violates the Geneva Convention. -WARNING- This fic contains the following: -Motorcycles -Wet T-Shirts -Darkness -Self Insertion -Really, really bad use of simile and metaphor -An inconclusive ending -Pointless warnings You have been warned. We take no responsibility for hair loss, brain damage or shrinking of ventricles caused by this fic. ---------------------Terminus Est-------------------------------- The rain hammered down upon the earth like the drummer in the garage band of the gods. Accompaniment was provided by thunder, visual effects by lightning. The water gathered in puddles in the streets and swelled high in the gutters, for the fallen leaves of autumn blocked the sewer grates like a linebacker made of damp vegetation. Through one of these puddles, the tires of the motorcycle passed, spraying damp water and the unpleasant debris that gathered in it such as cigarette butts and false eyelashes. The rider swore as the legs of his jeans were soaked quite badly. He was already damp to the skin from the pounding of the rain, his short hair slicked to his head as if by an overdose of Dep, his glasses nearly fogged to opacity. Thankfully, there was no one else on the streets, or there might have been a bad accident. "I have got to get some contacts," the rider said, pulling the bike around a corner. Beneath his long leather coat, the black sheath slapped against his hip like an angry woman at the end of a bad date, you know, when the guy tries to kiss her anyway and she really gives it to him. The night sky was dark as a white cat dipped in black paint, lit occasionally by flashes of lightning that looked like rips in the tuxedo pants of some really, really huge guy. "Please, let me be in time," the rider said. Up ahead, the white wall that surrounded a two-story Japanese house loomed. The wall continued to loom as the rider approached, because he couldn't see anything with his glasses this fogged. Thunder rolled in the sky like a god choking on a turkey bone, one of those little pointy ones like the one your dog got caught in his throat after he dug through the garbage after Thanksgiving, you know, those ones. The wall continued to loom, until it decided to loom into the front end of the motorcycle. Through a loop in space-time that caused a momentary suspension of the laws of physics, the rider was not reduced to tomato sauce, metaphorical tomato sauce, I mean, because you wouldn't want to put it on your spaghetti unless you were Hannibal Lecter or something. Instead, he was thrown over the wall to land with a splash in the pond below. Behind him, the motorcycle exploded like the head of a Fist of the North Star character, if FotNS characters were made of metal and had oil instead of blood. Sputtering water like a faulty fountain, the black-clad rider pulled himself out of the pond, combing his fingers through his hair, plastered to his scalp like plaster to a wall. He reached down to his hip and felt the handle of his weapon. Good. Still intact. Faithful and true his weapon was, just like Ol' Yeller, except that it hadn't yet gone rabid and had to be shot. He crossed the rain-slicked grass of the yard and pounded on the front door with his fist. "Open! You must open!" he called. A window opened above. "Do you know what time it is?" someone shouted. "No!" the black-clad boy called back. "But-" "IT'S THREE IN THE MORNING!" the angry female voice screamed back, promptly following it with a hurled frying pan that bounced off the boy's head like something heavy and metal bouncing off something soft and fleshy. "But I must speak to Ranma Saotome!" "Ranma Saotome?" "Yes! It's desperately important!" "HE LIVES NEXT DOOR, YOU IDIOT!" the voice screamed. "Oh." The boy turned and began to walk away, right before he was promptly hit by a thrown dresser that fell from the window like a descending eagle made of heavy oak, if the eagle didn't have any wings and was filled with clothing. "Ow," the boy said, from his new home underneath the dresser, which had smashed him into the soft, muddy earth of the house's yard like a dog turd hit by a sledgehammer. After he managed to stop the funny bright lights dancing in front of his eyes, the boy stood up and painfully dragged himself out of the yard. His black boots splashed through the puddles on the sidewalk as he walked, spraying water everywhere like a St. Bernard with an underbite. He stepped in through the gate of the next house, walked up past the bushes that stood like leafy green sentinels, if the sentinels were unarmed and totally useless at defending anything, and banged on the door. The door was slid open almost instantly with a shush sound, like when you drag a big roll of wallpaper across a shag carpet. "Hello there!" said the tall, cheerful teenage girl with her brown hair tied back into a ponytail standing illuminated in the doorway. Perky was a word inadequate to describe her. She radiated a kind of vacuous good cheer without any real effort, rather like a tree turns carbon dioxide into oxygen without any real effort. "Kasumi Tendo?" the boy asked wearily, as the rain fell down upon him, dampening his blond hair so that different bits of it alternately stuck up in spikes or fell down against his scalp. He pulled off his glasses and began to clean them against his wet t-shirt, squinting up at the girl with a pair of blue eyes roughly one-tenth the size of hers. "Yes, that's me!" Kasumi said. She was one of those people who managed to add an exclamation mark to every sentence, including such ones as "we're sorry to inform you your puppy has been hit by a truck" and "unfortunately, the cancer appears to be terminal." "I'm sorry for waking you," the boy said, putting his glasses back on. "But I bring an urgent message." "You didn't wake me!" Kasumi said. "Well, you're a very early riser then," the boy said. "Oh no!" Kasumi said. "I don't ever sleep! What if someone came in and dirtied the house while I was asleep, and then the next morning I slept in late and father and Akane and Nabiki and Ranma and Genma had to get up to a dirty house? Why, I'd never hear the end of it!" "How do you stay up?" the boy asked. "I drink ten cups of coffee every hour!" Kasumi said, and giggled like a circus freak. "Yes," the boy said. "If I may introduce myself, I am Aran Harnumo. I have a desperately important message for Ranma Saotome." "Oh my!" Kasumi said. "Ranma's asleep right now! Perhaps you'd like to give me the message, and I'll tell him in the morning!" "Oh man," Aran said, shaking his head. "He's really gotta know this. If I don't warn him before he gets married to Akane Tendo..." "Oh my, Ranma and Akane got married two weeks ago!" Kasumi said. "Damn daylight savings time," Aran muttered. "But I guess I'm not too late... they must be delaying." "Do you mean that evil plot by forces from beyond space and time to make sure Ranma and Akane never marry?" Aran snapped his fingers. "That's the one!" "Because when they have a child, he'll be the one who settles forever the debate over whether Coke or Pepsi tastes better?" "Precisely!" "The one led by that awful man who runs around with with a turnip-shaped growth on his scalp as a sign of his devotion to the forces of darkness?" "Yes!" "Well, Ranma already defeated him!" Kasumi said. "So there's nothing to worry about!" "But... what about the henchmen? And the monsters? And the kidnapping to the Temple of the Jade Monkey? And the final battle atop Skull Mountain!" "Those already happened!" Kasumi said. "Although Ranma said the mountain didn't really look like a skull. More like a femur." "The expedition to the Subterranean Caverns of the Monstrous Mole-Men?" "That too!" Kasumi said. "The tear-filled, angsty parting scene between Ranma and his mother, as he goes off to face the foe who may kill him?" "That happened!" "But... but..." Aran said. "But I didn't get to do anything! I didn't get to wield my magical sword, Nosethumper, or use my special attack that I named by combining random phrases from a Japanese dictionary! I didn't even get to be engaged to Nabiki or Ukyou!" "But Nabiki got engaged to Konatsu, and Ukyou ended up running off to China with those three nice fellows from the Musk Dynasty!" Kasumi said. "Oh," Aran said. "How did that happen?" Kasumi began to explain, as Aran stood on the doorstep getting more and more soaked. "What a truly remarkable story," Aran said at the end. "I think the most surprising part was the one with Pink and Link, and Genma and Soun." "I was a little sad when Happosai got strapped to that missile and shot into the centre of the sun!" Kasumi said. "Yeah," Aran said. "Well... uh... I guess that's it. Certainly an incredible series of events. Wish I'd been around to participate in them." "I'm sorry you were too late!" Kasumi said cheerfully. "Guess I'll just go and stand in the rain some more till I die, okay?" Aran said with a weak smile. "Alright!" Kasumi said, and closed the door. ********* Back inside, Kasumi walked back to the kitchen. "What a nice young man," she said. "I hope he finds a cardboard box to shelter under. Now, where is that book Dr. Tofu lent me?" She found the heavy, leather-bound volume on the kitchen table and sat down to begin reading. Outside, dogs began to howl, and a voice began swearing in accented Japanese, gradually retreating as if the owner were being chased by, say, a large pack of hungry dogs. "Now where was I... oh, yes, here we are... Ia, Ia, Cthulhu F'tagn... P'nglui M'wagalnath R'lyeh... Ia, Ia, Shub-Niggurath! Oh my!" ********* The amazing adventures of Aran Harnumo went on to shock and astound millions. Well, they probably would have, if he hadn't been caught and eaten by the wild dogs an hour after he left the Tendo house. His last thought was this: "Puppy Chow for a full year, till he's full grown..." It is a terrible thing to die. It is an even worse thing to die with a really bad commercial jingle stuck in your head while being eaten by wild dogs. The Moral: Life really sucks sometimes. Getting eaten by wild dogs isn't too good either. The Puppy Chow song is really kinda catchy. THE END This fic was brought to you by too many late nights, the letter Q, and the Ichor God Bel-Shamharoth.