[Ranma/SM][FanFic] Destiny - Prologue
Arun M. Prabhu
Destiny
(rewrite)
By Arun "arun...@yahoo.com"
Prologue
This is a Ranma One-Half - Sailor Moon crossover with a pinch of
Ramayana.
Disclaimers:
I'm penniless... The horror! The horror!
All characters from Ranma One-Half and Sailor Moon belong to their
respective owners. I do not own them.
The Silver Millennium...
The trees were green and their flowers beautiful. The air was fresh
and the roar of the Ganges audible. The birds sang and the monkeys
made merry. The sky was blue and the ground, dark and fertile.
It was sanctimonious and serene.
Grass grew everywhere on Senbagakadu and on this particular clearing,
as on every other, the grass grew bountifully, with the lone
eight-foot high termite mound sticking out like an ugly blemish on a
sylvan artist's colorful painting.
"Raja Chola!"
It was a man, dressed in tiger skin, who spoke. He carried a trident
of energy in his left hand, a cobra lay coiled around his neck, and a
faint, almost invisible scar on his right cheek.
He looked divine.
His wife stood by his left side. She was dressed in transparent silk,
wore a bracelet of energy not unsimilar to her husband's trident, a
necklace beaded with Imperial Jade, an earring strung with a diamond
of the first water and a parrot on her right shoulder.
"Raja Chola," the man repeated again, "thine prayers wert heard. Thou
wert judged against the scales of infinity and wert not found wanting.
Come forth and receive thine three boons."
The termite mound glowed golden and cracks appeared on it. Golden
light diffused out of the cracks, which spread and widened, until the
mound disintegrated into nothing.
Out of the crumbled dirt emerged Raja Chola, covered from head to toe
with dust and naught a shred of cloth on him. His beard was long, and
his eyes, cold and merciless.
He walked and his muscles rippled in controlled symphony, raw power
coursing through them. He looked young, but was ancient.
He knelt before the two Gods, bowed his head and spoke.
"At long last, O' Great Shiva, You embellish me with thine presence.
I'm truly blessed."
It was a lie. Shiva had come not because he wanted to, but because
under the terms of The Covenant, he had to. Raja Chola, as filled with
hatred as his heart was, had attained nirvana.
Shiva nodded.
"Sing a song for us," he asked, shooting a glance at Parvati, his
wife, through the corner of his eyes.
And Raja Chola sang.
The song lasted long and was beauty given words. The trees in the
forest grew visibly and the animals, enchanted by Raja Chola's voice,
congregated around him. When it ended, he bowed.
"Arise! Ask and it shall be granted."
The words were simple and the environ even more so. Yet, to Raja
Chola's ears, they were music. He had been waiting for millennia to
hear those very words and he smiled. Vengeance was within reach and
very soon, it would be his.
"Grant me immortality," he said, in a slightly condescending tone.
There are no compacts between lions and men, and wolves and lambs have
no concord, after all.[1]
"Ye know that immortality cannot be bequeathed on one who is not
divine," Shiva replied after a pause.
Raja Chola nodded.
"Very well." He took a step forward, arrogantly daring Shiva to raise
his hands against him, for even if the God wanted to, he could not.
The Covenant and fear of Raja Chola's true power would be enough to
stop all such thoughts as soon as they formed. "May Death never look
at me to my face!"
Shiva nodded, albeit reluctantly.
Raja Chola smiled. All he had to do was get the next two wishes right
and the doom of the Gods will be in his hands to decide at his
leisure.
"May no man, God, Ashura, spirit, or animal be able to kill me."
Again, Shiva nodded.
"May I be crowned king of the Ashuras."
Shiva looked at his wife and in a rare show of affection, grasped her
hand in his. She applied gentle pressure on his hands in loving
support.
"Art thou sure about thine wishes, Raja Chola?" he asked. There was
still hope that Raja Chola might not cross the Rubicon.
Raja Chola nodded.
"Very well," Shiva said, "thine three boons, I grant thee."
As soon as Shiva spoke, Raja Chola was lifted off the ground. Golden
motes of light blossomed around him and on the center of his forehead,
an inverted triangle, a tattoo of his new station and power, glowed
for a brief moment and vanished. His mouth opened in a silent scream
of ecstasy and the forest came alive, singing in praise of its new
king.
That night, in the royal palace on the Moon, Serenity dreamt. It was
a dream both beautiful and cruel, majestic and horrifying, and it
portended the terrible things to come.
*****************************************************************
Two years later... Three, since the formation of the Greater Moon
Kingdom...
"Your Majesty! We are ready."
'Three simple words,' Serenity thought, 'three simple words and on
them rests the fate of my people... The Gods are cruel indeed.'
"I'll be with them shortly," she replied to the soldier, casting a
glance towards the frontline as a particularly large explosion shook
the earth, or rather, mars.
Three years had passed since the foundation of the Greater Moon
Kingdom and already, its last days were upon them. The enemy had
appeared at the borders of her kingdom one day and attacked without
warning. There was no defeating them: Her loyal friend and advisor,
the Queen of Mars, had died trying just that on the plains of Saturn.
And everywhere they went, they spread death and destruction.
Now, barely six months later, her kingdom teetered on the very edge
of oblivion, with but a silken strand to hang on. The only course of
action that held any shred of hope was the spell they were preparing
to cast, and should it fail, the Moon Kingdom would fall and all of
humanity would go down with it.
She turned away from the death and destruction in front of her, and
made her way unhurriedly to the casting grounds. On her arrival, the
mages parted and she took her place in the center.
Slowly, small sparkling, swirling light blue clouds of magic took
shape on the grounds, and united to form a huge whirlpool of
restrained power. Just as the spell neared completion, one of the
mages screamed in agony. Some of the magic disappeared as he screamed
and Serenity spared a glance in his general direction.
A six-armed aberration, the enemy's foot soldier, removed his sickle
of obsidian from the mage's upper torso and the wizard fell dead.
Without sparing his victim a second glance, the enemy turned his
attention to the others, slaughtering his way mercilessly through
their ranks. And everywhere he went, death followed.
Within seconds, the Lunar and the Mars Royal Guard rallied and
engaged him, but it was already too late. Too many were dead and the
spell could no longer be cast.
Ear splitting screams shook the very foundations of reality as the
enemy danced the dance of death with the Guards, and Serenity fell to
her knees, weeping. Hope was lost and everything had been in vain.
"Daughter..."
Serenity did not stir.
"Daughter..." the voice repeated again.
Serenity looked around. The voice seemed to be coming from
everywhere.
"Daughter..."
'There it goes again,' she thought, shaking her head, as the voice
seemed to originate in her mind.
"Daughter, listen to me!"
Serenity laughed, bitterly.
"And now, I'm going insane," she muttered; complained to herself.
"Can things possibly get any worse?"
Silence.
"All is not lost," the voice said, finally breaking the lull in her
thoughts.
Revulsion, hatred and a little of her old self took form in her mind.
If they thought they could defeat her with little mind games, they
were wrong. She was not going to give up so easily.
"Name yourself, coward! Who are you?" she screamed, defiantly, just
as another huge explosion in the background sent large, smoking clods
of earth into the air. The explosion was deafening and her voice even
more so.
The owner of the voice introduced himself telepathically in her mind.
"But..."
"Trust your heart, daughter. It never lies."
Pause.
"You are what you say you are," she stuttered, when finally, she
summoned the courage to speak. To say that she had blasphemed was
putting it lightly.
Nod.
Pause.
"How can I defeat Raja Chola? He is so very powerful..."
Smile.
"Powerful, he is, but all-powerful, he is not. Filled with hate, he
is, but hateful, he is not. Scorned, he was once, but scornful, he'll
never be...
"Chola is many things, but he is not without weaknesses. Even now,
you can imprison him."
Serenity weighed her thoughts. Finally, she spoke.
"Will he escape?"
Silence.
"Then, he will come, and kill my family and my people in the future."
Silence.
Serenity sighed, resigning herself to fate.
"Very well. I'll do what I must do..." she said.
"What one must do and what one does is seldom the same... Are you
prepared to trod the path your doom leads you?"
She nodded without hesitation. Her mind was made up. If there was
even the barest chance of defeating Raja Chola, she was going to take
it no matter what the cost. No price could be too high for the lives
of her people.
"Then, all is well."
Was it approval that she sensed in his voice, she wondered.
"Look into yourself and tell me what you see..."
Serenity followed his advice and looked. Inside her, she found a
throbbing mass. It was composed of swirling strands of the purest
white tainted with colors from the entire spectrum. It was...
"I can see..." she said. Her eyes widened in wonder and her voice was
filled with disbelief. "I can see my soul..."
Nod.
"Focus on the Ginzuishou and cast the spell," the voice instructed
her.
She nodded and concentrated, never taking her eyes off her soul.
Energy begun to pool through her, around her, and as she watched, the
individual strands ballooned, sparkling out of existence one by one.
It begun at an unremarkable pace at first, but within moments, it
exploded into scarcely believable proportions.
The Ginzuishou glowed an angry, indignant shade of crimson, and a
vortex of magic, more powerful than the one before by several orders
of magnitude, arose. The battlefield shuddered and in the far off
distance, Mount Ares blew off its upper slopes in a blinding flash,
spewing an incandescent mushroom cloud of dust and smoke into the red
Martian sky.
Finally, the Ginzuishou could contain the magic no longer and it
exploded outwards. There was a flash of gold and then... Peace.
"Sleep!" the voice said before completely fading altogether, "sleep
and I will look after you."
Serenity nodded drunkenly and staggered. She was dying, she knew, but
before that, she had to see the world she had wrought. She opened her
eyes, staggered a couple of steps and looked around.
Her eyes and ears took in the sights and sounds, and she saw that
everything was beautiful.
Finally, she caught sight of her son, who looked majestic in his
armor. He ran towards her at breakneck speed and she smiled wryly,
staggered a couple of steps towards him, closed her eyes forever and
collapsed on the ground dead.
*****************************************************************
Notes:
The old chapter was boring. The new chapter is not. What more can I
say? :p
1. For those of you who do not recognize this, it's by Homer.
Author's notes (Old one):
This is going to be one long story and it might even be a year or
more before I complete it. I got this idea while reading Alan Harnum's
'Waters Under Earth', which is one of he finest pieces of fan fiction
writing you'll find on the net. I thought: why not take certain
aspects of Ramayana (the Indian epic, literally meaning the story of
Rama) and combine it with a not so usual Ranma and Sailor Moon
crossover. For the record, Ashura, in this story, means Anti-God.
This story can be found these webs: Lady Cosmos, Penultimate Ranma
Fanfic Index, Getzeye's Fanfic page(http://getzeye.anifics.com),
Yoruko's Den(www.geocities.com/yoruko7), Darkensis Fanfiction Archives
and my web.
And finally, a big thank you to my pre-readers: Jakub, Alex, Pete,
Yanei, Malikite, Lance Smith, Don Morales, Chelsea and Joseph. I
couldn't have done this without them. ^_^