[grit][fanfic] Steve's Story
Steven Scougall
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STEVE'S STORY
A GRIT fanfic
By Steven Scougall
September 1996
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THE BEGINNING
'The dance of the universes'
Many moons past the GRIT was without form and void,
or, indeed, existence.
And the universes danced on in their infinite dance,
but two of them, the UseNetVerse and the RanmaVerse got a
little bit intimate in one of the slower dances and decided
to find a spare bed somewhere.
Lots of really interesting things subsequently
happened.
In short, a new universe was spawned. A universe not
entirely unlike our own, and not entirely unlike the
RanmaVerse either. People in both appeared, controlled by
vastly powerful entities known as the RL controllers, who
existed in a sort of anarchic state most of the time,
except for when their sort of leader Heavensrun decided
that enough was enough and that he should exercise his
Admin power. Which didn't happen all that much.
One of the controlling entities, well known for his
bad hair and occasional agressive headband, decided it was
time to add a little extra history, modelled on his own
life.
STEVE'S STORY
"Before the GRIT, there was..."
A young four year old stared up at his father.
"But... all of us... to Japan? Why?"
"Because, Steven, I have to. My boss has told me I
have to go. You have to come too."
Steven's even younger brother of two years simply
continued to blankly stare at the two, a big smile on his
face while trying out the latest bits of English he'd just
learned.
"Daddy going to Japan? Whee! FUN!"
"See? Richard likes the idea," said his father
encouragingly.
"Richard," started Steven sourly, "can't even use the
toilet, let alone understand that Japan is really far away
and that we won't be coming back and besides he doesn't
even have any good friends to leave behind and probably
never even see again."
He stared at the wall for a while, not really
listening to his father's explanation that he had no choice
and life was usually unfair and that besides he was only
four years old despite the way he could read long sentences
already.
His father left the room, leaving the two to ponder
upon his Words.
Steve stared at the wall for a while, along with his
brother.
"Going to Japan? WHEE! FUN! FUN!"
"Shut up Richard."
"You're mean." Richard stuck out his tounge at his
brother.
"Shut up Richard."
Richard started to cry. The brothers' mother swept
into the room and picked Richard up. She gave her other
son a Look.
"What have you done to him this time, Steven?"
"Just told him to be quiet."
"Steve was really mean," blubbed Richard.
Steven distantly stared at the wall again, this time
listening to his mother talking reasonably at him. He'd
heard it all before, he wondered why she was bothering to
tell him again.
Three years later...
"We're going back... home? But this is home! Here!
In Tokyo!"
Steven's father sighed. "We were never going to stay
here for very long, Steven. We have to go back to
Australia sometime. We can't stay for any more than
another year."
"Then stay another year! All my friends are here!
Bianca's here! Max's here!"
"It's time to go back home. Maybe we can come back,
sometime in the future. But we have to go back home. I've
already told work we're leaving in July."
"Don't wanna," grumbled Steven. But not too loudly,
he'd learned long ago that the line never worked and
usually earned him a screaming from one of his parents. He
sighed, and looked out the window at the wide Roppongi
street. He didn't hear as his dad left the room.
Just over that street was the edge of the Azabu Juban.
Fifteen minutes walk brought him to his school, Nishimachi.
He remembered how he'd stop at the little shop on the way
to school and buy a rice ball for lunch.
He remembered all the people at his school. Mr.
Laudenslager had been a real terror for the first graders.
He still remembered his friend Max being asked to empty out
his bag, and how Max had said, "uh... Steve's birthday
present is in there." Steven remembered the way all heads
had turned to look at him. Mr. Laudenslager had said
something to him but he forgot what. He'd been too
embarassed.
He remembered practicing his hiragana and katakana in
this room, while looking out the window. In winter he'd
wish for snow like that one November's day, while carefully
tracing out each character, mouth open, forehead wrinkled
in concentration. Hiragana 'Ne' and 'Re' had been quite
hard to differentiate, he remembered.
He'd have to tell everybody he was going, that he
wouldn't be back next school year but gone, perhaps
forever. He'd have to say "Goodbye, forever, good luck
with your life," not "see you again next year." He
wondered how they'd take it.
He wondered how Bianca would take it. They'd been
good friends. He at least had the yearbook with the photo
that had both of them in it to remember her by. He smiled,
at nothing in particular.
Upstairs a commotion suggested that his father and
mother were trying to tell Richard that they'd be going
back to Australia. His brother wasn't taking it too well.
He probably couldn't even remember living there, he'd been
only two when they'd left for Tokyo.
Their shouting woke up Peter, the newest addition to
the family, who started screaming and shouting himself. It
was too noisy for Steven to think any more.
'Urusai,' he thought to himself, pleased that he was
speaking Japanese and he knew what he meant.
"Who?" asked Steven, staring at a confusing crowd of
faces. People he'd grown to know over the past couple of
years.
"Don't you remember? He was in our year two class,"
said Rob, the quiet one.
"I came in halfway through that year, remember?"
"And you couldn't subtract properly. What did you do
in Japan, anyway? They didn't teach you maths, that's for
sure." This was John, the bespectacled brain of the fourth
year class, and one of Stevens' really good friends.
"Huh. At least I could spell. You couldn't even
spell 'pot' properly."
"Did you do Kung-fu instead or something?" asked Matt.
"That's Chinese, you moron. You get Karate in Japan
instead," chipped in someone else.
Things would have progressed to a half-hearted
bickering and possibly a scuffle, but not today.
"And you pronounced that wrong, too. Anyway," said
Steve, trying to bring things back on topic. "I still
don't remember this guy. What exactly happened to him,
anyway?"
There was a pause.
"Weren't you listening to Mrs. Boyle?" asked Rob. "He
drowned."
"He's dead?"
Steven stood with his friends, staring at a little
plot of earth beside the little peace tree. The last
resting place of the drowned boy that he never really knew.
And yet... he felt sorry for this boy. Drowned and
dead, before he was even ten. Before he could know
anything of life. There were so many things to do and see.
He especially knew that, he'd been in another country for
three years.
There were so many things to do in life. So many
things to see. The world was so varied. And to be cruelly
cut down before you could even begin to understand this...
He'd never really known the boy. But he felt sorry
for him anyway. He stared at the ground, where the boy lay
forevermore.
"Goodbye," he said. "I wish I had something I could
remember you by."
Years later...
"I don't believe it," said Steven. "To be here, back
at Nishimachi."
His mother just smiled at him as he explored the small
school. He'd been so happy here all those years ago. It
had been a good idea to send the kids here instead of ASIJ
or Sacred Heart or wherever. Besides, this school was much
closer and much easier to get to. The kids could walk it
in five minutes.
It was good to be back in Japan again. The kids were
getting over their culture shock. Their house was also
amazing. And Jeff was getting into the new job at the
Embassy, and at least wasn't hating it with a passion.
Steven stopped gawping as a memory rose. He looked
over at a corner of the campus. It had been built over,
there was a really large gym over where there had once been
empty space. And over there... he wondered. He went over
to check, to see what had happened to a place that was
probably just a memory now.
It was amazing. He called his mother over.
"Look Mum, this is the single room 'hut' where I used
to come for speech therapy. See? They've built a large
spiral stairway right over it and you can't get to it
anymore, but it's still there, just behind the Matsukata
house, beside this new gym. I wonder if they still have
the how to juggle poster on the door." He thought,
remembering. "I never could get the hang of that."
"You look really happy to be back."
"I am! This was a really great place! But... it's
all so different. They've got this new gym and extended
that building, completely covering where we used to play.
I wonder if there's a good wall anywhere. Maybe I can
teach the people here how to play Tips."
A hesitant female voice spoke up behind him. A voice
that sounded strangely familiar.
"You... you can't be... Steven Scougall?"
He turned and looked at the girl talking to him.
Who's this, he wondered. Come on, she knew him, so she had
to know him from when he was here before. But he couldn't
for the life of him remember who she was. The buildings
looked the same... but the people didn't.
"Remember me? I'm Karis Campbell. Do you remember
Bianca Spencer?"
Bianca... Bianca... The name seemed strangely
familiar somehow. But how?
"You two were such good friends."
He flipped furiously through the yearbooks his mother
had kept throughout the years. He'd forgotten they had
these. He'd been too busy making a new life, making new
friends, learning their games... settling down. Forgetting
a life in another country, until it seemed almost unreal.
For gods sake, he'd forgotten all of the writing and had
mistakenly remembered 'niko' as cat.
"Neko, baka," he muttered to himself, as he went
through the pages, from the back as he usually did when he
was just scanning through magazines. Probably a hold-over
of when he was in Japan the first time, with the way the
Japanese started from the other side of the book. He
refused to think of it as backwards. "Cat is 'neko' in
Japanese. Not 'niko' at all."
Towards the front of the yearbook, he finally found
what he was looking for. The Kindergarten year. He stared
at the huge number of photos. There had certainly been a
large number of kids in their class. Quite a lot of them
were still at Nishimachi.
But he was looking for a specific photo.
In the background the TV blared Peter's favourite TV
show, Dragonball. "...Let's fly fly fly, makafushigi..."
He mouthed the familiar words as he looked among the
photos...
And there it was. Actually, he was surprised. It
wasn't two photos, on different parts of the page, but just
one photo. Him he recognised almost instantly. His hair
had grown a bit darker and there was nothing he could do to
it anymore, it always sprang back into its usual bad shape.
There was another in the photo. A girl, a big smile
on her face, resting on his shoulder. Light hair, he
couldn't tell the colour, the pictures were black and
white. Probably blond. The name given for her was Bianca
Spencer.
So this was who Karis had been talking about at
Nishimachi today. He wished he could remember who Bianca
was, wished he could remember anything... but there was
nothing. Obviously they had been good friends. There was
this photo and Karis had seemed genuine enough about it.
He wished he could remember.
He stared a long time at the photograph, trying to
remember. But the memories were gone. He did something he
almost never did anymore. He cried.
More years passed. Steven gradually built a wall
around all the painful memories. He'd found it hard when
he learned his friend, all the way from pre-school
probably, Peter Osicka, had died in a car crash. But he
just stared at the floor when he heard the news, not
letting himself crack. He was barely fifteen and so many
things had happened.
It had been harder when Mr. Zielinski, the English
teacher at Nishimachi, had died, but he'd managed to get
over that.
He still wondered about Bianca. He wondered if they'd
been good friends or not. He wondered where she'd got to,
if she remembered him or had forgotten him as he'd
forgotten her.
It had been weird to meet another friend from
Nishimachi, when they were both nineteen, just a year and
ago. Chris had stared at him for a second or two and then
said he remembered everything about Steven. Steven still
wished he could remember anything about Chris from fifteen
years ago.
Here he was, in Japan again. But this time,
completely on his own. Not coming with Dad's job, but by
himself, for himself. And one of the first things he'd
done was to come to see Nishimachi again.
He looked around, his long coat fluttering in the
wind. It all seemed so *small*. The first time he'd been
here, he could remember it seemed huge, but now... A
thought struck him. He went over to the spiral staircase
behind the Matsukata house and looked.
Incredible, he thought. The little building is still
here.
"Steven?"
He recognised that voice. He turned and smiled. He
switched to Japanese, it was easy enough, now. No more
mistakes with 'niko' and 'neko.' He grinned at that
memory.
"Hotta-san! It's good to see you again!"
They talked of times past, of Hotta-san's piano
tutoring. Steven had been glad for that, it had given him
something new. A clue to his future, now his present.
They caught up on the here and now.
"There aren't many people that you knew still here.
All your old classmates are now in University, most of them
overseas in America."
"Well, I heard David Priest is still here, and I also
heard Mr Fujino and Tanaka-san are still here. A shame
about Tanaka-san, though. Getting a stroke is never good
for anybody."
They stared at the ground for a moment. They both
knew Tanaka-san, almost a fixture at Nishimachi, was in a
very bad way, walking so slowly, as if life was too much of
a burden. But he still kept going, thought Steve,
impressed. He still taught.
After a silence, they found other things to talk
about.
"Where are you staying while you're here?"
"I have this small apartment in Nerima."
Hotta-san sucked air through his teeth. "Nerima?"
"Is there something wrong with Nerima?" Steve was
curious. He hadn't heard about this.
"Well... strange things happen there. I've only heard
the stories, but I heard there was an actually a small
trench war there not too long ago. And there was
definitely something to do with a blimp and a large
tower..." Hotta-san grinned. "Sounds ridiculous, doesn't
it?"
"Yeah."
"Anyway, good luck while you're here."
He had to find out. Hotta-san had piqued his
interest. A trench war, a blimp, a tower... as he'd said,
it sounded ridiculous. But he'd asked his neighbours, and
they'd said it was all true. They advised him to stay away
from certain places, restaurants, a number of houses and
above all Furinkan school.
He'd listened to their dire stories of a group of
teenagers chasing each other all over the place, jumping
off roofs, running on fences. Some of the stranger ones
said that cold water changed them to animals or changed
their gender.
He'd listened, smiled, and said "I hear you" and "I
understand" a lot. If all this was true then he finally
knew why his apartment was so relatively cheap to rent.
That is, cheap for Tokyo. It would still rent him a nice
spacious apartment five minutes from the city centre back
in Canberra. At least here he had enough left over after
rent to live comfortably, if a bit cramped.
It was certainly getting stranger about Nerima.
People were now starting to talk about sightings of
werewolves wearing glasses and all-scale war centred on a
certain address, something like the 'Tendo dojo.' There
was talk about more gaijin in the area, who could speak
Japanese with ease and who angered extremely quickly. And
what looked like a pyramid had appeared overnight.
His rent had gotten even lower. He had briefly
thought about moving out and getting a larger apartment,
but thought better of it for he already knew many of the
locals and neighbours. And Dr. Tofu was a good doctor, if
a bit eccentric at times. And with everything so weird
around here nobody commented on him being a gaijin anymore.
One fateful day, while he was shopping for food, he
found himself passing by a large traditional looking house.
Sounds of extreme violence were coming from the other side
of the walls, and he thought he heard something that
sounded exactly like '@bap.'
He wasn't surprised when he found the sign saying this
was the 'Tendo dojo of indiscriminate grappling.' So...
this was the place all the trouble seemed to center on, if
all the stories were to be believed.
He heard the sounds of scuffle coming towards him, but
this one was outside the household. He decided to retreat
to a safe distance and watch how things turned out.
Pretty soon, he could discern voices. He was
surprised. They were speaking in Japanese, but he could
tell they were gaijin. It was odd. They had such heavy
accents, yet it just seemed perfectly clear what they were
saying. One of the speakers even had what sounded like a
New Zealander accent. It was if he was hearing them both
in Japanese and English at the same time.
"Scougall-san!" Steve actually jumped in surprise,
the voice had come almost right by his ear. "What are you
doing here?" He turned, it was Mitsuya-san, the man from
room three, but almost unrecognizable. He was wearing a
fedora pulled almost over his eyes and a long trenchcoat
almost to the ground, and wore very expensive sunglasses.
"Well... ah... I was just shopping. I was thinking
about going to see Dr. Tofu and was walking this way when I
came across this dojo."
"Hmph. A likely story. You know I've told you
several times not to come by this way. It's too strange."
"What I find strange is such obiovusly gaijin voices
speaking such good Japanese, almost perfect in fact, yet
with such heavy accents."
Mistuya-san nodded. "That is one of our concerns. By
the way, do you know what accent that is?" He indicated
the one wielding the wet smelly fish.
"If I didn't know better that's the New Zealand
accent."
"Ah. I see. I shall see you later, then, Scougall-
san."
"See you later."
With a wave, Mistuya-san was gone.
Steve turned to watch the two. From listening to
them, he determined that one of them was called Jason.
This must be the one with shoulder length hair. The
other... he tried to translate what they were calling him.
Possibby 'Insane Punk.'
The 'Insane Punk' said something about someone else,
Steve wasn't listening too carefully and there was of
course that accent. Something about a guy called 'Ranma.'
A young teen with his hair pulled back in a pigtail
suddenly jumped over the wall, furious. "What did you call
me?" shouted Ranma.
"Ah... well... er..." started the insane one. He
gestured with his fish. He didn't get much further for
Ranma gave him an almighty kick. The New Zealander shot up
into what looked like low Earth orbit and disappeared over
the horizon. Ranma hmphed and went back inside.
Another one that looked exactly like Jason appeared
through the doorway and said something. He sounded the
same, he looked the same, he had the same hair, the same
face, everything. A slight difference to the pronunciation
suggested this one was called 'Jacen.'
Mind whirling, and completely forgetting about his bag
of shopping, Steve watched closer. Something strange was
going on, for sure.
A female voice shouted something about someone called
Ryouga, there was an almighty '@bap' sound and a bald guy
in a cape came flying from the grounds. And then, in
defiance of all physical laws, the bald one stopped in mid
air. He said something about 'nanobots.'
Steve took a step back and fell over his bag of
shopping. He scrambled up, grabbed his bag, and continued
backing away. This was all too weird. He had to get away.
He tripped over and fell backwards again.
"Oh my," came a female voice. "Are you alright?"
If he was feeling better he might have properly
noticed her and spoken a bit more nicely. As it was...
"I've just fallen over and hit my head on a bag of
shopping. Of course I'm not alright."
He shook his head, trying to clear the ringing in his
ears. "Look, miss, do you know anything about that place
over there, and why there are so many gaijin that speak
Japanese so... strangely?"
"I live there," she said. "The gaijin there are
friends of our family, I suppose."
"But they're ruining the place!"
"I don't mind cleaning up."
He gaped at her. They were doing more than getting
the floors dirty, he could hear that.
"And when things get too messy our repairman Rol helps
out, and if we talk to Jason sternly enough he can also fix
things with his Admin power."
There were more sounds of random violence. There was
a shout. "RANMA NO BAKA!" The one called Ranma came
sailing up out of the house and disappeared into another
part of Tokyo, screaming most of the way.
"Oh dear. He'll probably want some hot water when he
gets back, too. I'd better put the kettle on. Anyway,
nice meeting you..." she looked at him questioningly.
"Scougall. I'm Steven Scougall. Nice to meet you.
I'd better go see Dr. Tofu, my head's quite sore."
"He's a good doctor. And so funny. Nice meeting you,
Scougall-san." And with a wave she left.
The same woman came in to see Dr. Tofu while he was
there. He found out two things, that her name was Kasumi
Tendo, and that the doctor went mad the instant he saw her.
He still had the bruises to prove it, and his joints were
queuing up to complain.
Back at the apartment block, Mitsuya-san was sorry he
hadn't warned Steven about Dr. Tofu earlier.
"He's a really good doctor, most of the time. But
when Kasumi Tendo visits him, he just goes crazy, and makes
you worse than how you came in. I went in with a sore foot
once and came out doubled over and a bent neck. I still
had the sore foot."
"What is it with Kasumi and the doctor?"
"They like each other, and somehow this makes him
crazy when she's around. I guess he's very very nervous
when she's there."
The conversation drifted around to slightly more
personal topics.
"What? You aren't married? You don't even have a
steady romance going?"
"I had a sort of crush on this girl at residential
college when I was at University. I never really talked to
her properly though. It's funny - she could be here in
Tokyo right now, she said something about trying to get an
Enlish teaching job in Japan. I never heard how that
turned out. I'd be scared stiff if I saw her."
"Go for it! My cousin tells me this story about a
ronin and the manager at their apartment block. It took
them so long, but eventually, he asked her... Very
romantic..." Mitsuya took time out to get a tissue and
blew his nose noisily.
Steve smiled sadly to himself. "Nah... It doesn't
feel right. I don't know how she feels about me at all.
Probably just friends. Leaves me just by myself."
He slipped into English, mutterring, "I've never had
much luck with women really," he said absently. Seeing
Mitsuya's blank look he translated, then explained.
He found himself drawn to the Tendo dojo again, the
next day. There was just something about the place.
Something strange was going on and he was going to find out
some more.
He ran into Kasumi again, but at least this time he
hadn't fallen over. This time he found it much easier to
be courteous and nice and to actually notice her. This
time he asked her about Jacen and how he was related to
Jason. He thought they were twins, it was the only
sensible explanation.
Of course it wasn't that simple.
"Oh no," she said. "Apparently Jason picked up a
cloning chamber somewhere and Jacen is a clone of him."
"Clone?"
"It was to combat Alexis and his clone." She frowned.
"Well, it turns out now it wasn't a clone but it seemed
like it at the time."
"I don't believe this. I mean, clones? It just
sounds so..."
"Ridiculous?"
"Er."
"There are some other clones around the place too."
"There are way too many clones around here," grumbled
Steve.
Someone that looked exactly like him, right down to
the bad hair, wandered up to him. "I agree," said the
apparition.
"So do I," came another voice from his back.
Steve whirled. There was another person that looked
exactly like him. While his back was turned he missed the
sudden appearance of another nine people that looked
exactly like him.
"In fact..." started one of them.
"Perhaps there are too many?" suggested another.
Steve found himself staring at the large number of
people that looked exactly like him. Just what the hell
was going on?
He didn't notice as Kasumi hurriedly left. He didn't
notice as most of the warring people in the Tendo dojo
turned to notice this upstart and his eleven clones. He
hardly heard as the most recent nine copies of him
disappeared.
The crowd started towards him and his two clones. One
of them said something about keeping Four to Twelve around
for this encounter. He didn't really notice that, either.
But he did notice as he got pummelled,
malletted, @bapped, and just generally beat into the
ground.
Eventually the beating stopped and the crowd started
fighting amongst themselves again, drifting back towards
the Tendo dojo. The three seemed temporarily forgotten.
"Okay," said Steve, standing up and brushing himself
off. "Why don't you two introduce yourselves?"
The two stared at each other.
"Well..." started one. Steve noticed this one's hair
was ever so slightly longer than his. So... not a perfect
copy.
"It should be perfectly obvious," said the other.
This one looked nastily agressive. "We're clones of you."
"I thought it wouldn't be something as simple as long
lost triplet brothers."
"Anyway," said the longer haired one. "I showed up
third, so you can call me Steve Three or San-ban. He
showed up second so he's either Steve Two or Ni-ban. You
of course are just plain Steve, Steve One, Ichi-ban, or
sometimes we will refer to you as our original.
"Now it is time to introduce ourselves to the rest of
them." He indicated the Tendo dojo.
"They beat us into the ground! They're not going to
be friendly! They're downright hostile!"
"Nah, that's just their habitual greeting for
newcomers."
"They think I'm joining them?"
"But of course! Why else do you think you now have
clones?"
Ni-ban hmphed and ran into the melee. His shouts
could be heard above the general noise. He hadn't lasted
long before a loud SPLAT could be heard, such as of a wet
smelly fish hitting a human, and Ni-ban arced out of the
ground, entering low Earth orbit like the Insane Punk had,
and disappeared over the horizon.
"No doubt straight to Jusenkyo," commented San-ban.
"'Land of cursed springs'?"
"We'll find out. Come on, let's stroll in, and try
not to be too annoying." San-ban strolled over to the
Tendo household and let himself in.
Steve stood there a moment. So... a life choice. No
doubt his life would be really different if he went in
there. But perhaps it was time for a little change anyway.
(END)
Standard waffling:
There you have it. Yet another GRIT side
story/fanfic, this one explaining a bit behind Steve and
where his clones came from. There should eventually be a
part two, that details Steve and his clones during the GRIT
clone wars. Beyond that, I won't be writing any more GRIT
fanfics. (There is a massed sigh of relief from the GRIT
haters.)
Standard Legalese:
A lot of the characters and events from the early
parts of this story are taken and/or based on actual people
from my own life. Occasionally I've made the minor details
up since I can't remember them right.
I hope nobody wants compensation...
My exact entrance into the GRIT has been changed
slightly. The major details are all the same, though.
And of course all Ranma 1/2 characters and places are
from Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma 1/2 series and used here
without her permission. Such characters and places are
copyright lots of people, not least Rumiko Takahashi and
Shogakukan.
The Dragonball theme is also used without whoever's
permission I'd need to use it. *Sigh* I'm building up a
large list of offences here, aren't I? And regards to the
DB theme, I've put it down as well as I can remember it. I
don't have any tapes of it handy.
Other standard things:
Tell me what you think. I do need comments and
criticism to get better. You can contact me at this e-mail
address:
s940...@student.anu.edu.au
Most of my fanfics are at my homepage. The URL is:
http://www.geocities.com/tokyo/2262/library.html
Thanks for reading.
Till next our future pathways cross,
Steven Scougall
(s940...@student.anu.edu.au)
(http://www.geocities.com/tokyo/2262/)