The Great Crossover Crisis

Introduction: Hey there! Well, this will probably be one of my most 
challenging projects to date. With Dual Destinies nearing its end (I 
promise that I will finish it off!), and my other stories are also getting 
huge followings, I have finally caved in to the requests of having my 
alternate Ranmas meet. I have written to have four of my Ranmas 
come together into this miniseries. Now this won't affect the 
individual stories, but the readers will like how each Ranma and their 
different personalities clash together. You will also see some other 
anime characters as I begin this tale that I call the Great Crossover 
Crisis.

<" ">: Chinese language
* *: Thoughts
D-Ranma: Dragon Ranma from Dragon Child
T-Ranma: Techno-Ranma from Ranmatech
B-Ranma: Ranma from Fighting Blind
Kojiro: Ranma from Cat Fist Fury

As always, Rumiko Takahashi and all those other anime and manga 
writers created all the characters mentioned in this story. In the words 
of Stan Lee, 'Nuff said.

                                  Prologue
                         A Really BIG Bug in the System!

Universe A
     In a plane that was far removed from the infinite and often tangled 
mess that is reality, a goddess by the name of Skuld, was currently 
making some minor… adjustments to the Ultimate Force System, the 
super-computer that ran just about everything in her universe. Well, 
it would be more accurate to say that she was just getting rid of a few 
bugs. Of course her method of debugging the system left much to be 
desired. With her atomic Bug Smasher Mark II held up high, she was 
bopping those little critters out of existence like some weird parody of 
Whack a Mole. Unfortunately, for every bug she clobbered out of 
existence, several more would pop up and start playing havoc with 
the system.
     Meanwhile, down below on the human plane, a certain martial 
artist who happened to be a master of the Neko Ken, was sitting in 
the restaurant of his longtime friend and sometime fiancée.
     "Hey Ucchan! This is really great! Just what I needed after that 
White Claw mess." Kojiro Shinkara, formally Ranma Saotome, 
enjoyed his okonomiyaki as Ukyo watched him.
     "Thanks Ko-chan." Ukyo said as she gazed dreamily at her 
fiancee's hybrid form that he was currently in. 

Universe B
     In another universe, a second Skuld was also doing her own 
version of 'Whack a Bug' as she continually smacked the bugs as 
they appeared. She smiled as another of those pests bit the dust, 
then frowned as three more appeared near a console which had the 
files of a certain blind martial artist. She hefted her mallet and charged 
at them.
     Down on this Earth, a blind but very talented practitioner of the 
Unseen Light Martial Arts walked home beside his adopted cousin 
Shampoo.
     <"I think you are doing very well. You and the others will be ready 
to face off against Kodachi.">
     <"It's all thanks to you Ranma."> Shampoo replied as she 
snuggled up close to her cousin and hoped future husband.

Universe C
     A third Skuld was smacking away at a console, trying to clear out 
the bugs, but was so far getting nowhere. Like her counterparts, this 
goddess of the future was also getting close to a certain console that 
contained the files of a Ranma Saotome.
     On Earth, the dragon of the Saotome clan was busy playing with 
his kid sister.

Universe D
     Yep! You guessed it! This Skuld was also hard at work smashing 
bugs and not making much progress. She too was dangerously close 
to a certain console.
     Somewhere out in space, a ship was racing along. It was 
streamlined and shaped like something out of Star Wars. Inside the 
cockpit, Ranma was looking over the navigational charts for the 
quickest route to the nearest intergalactic trading station. His ship 
was in need of a few replacement parts and he thought that he could 
go get them on the weekend, as he had no classes to teach. After 
plotting a course to the station, he reached for the controls to engage 
his quantum-phase drive.

     Now, in normal circumstances, these four Ranmas would never 
have had the slightest chance of ever encountering each other as the 
Ultimate Force System in each universe kept their realities separate. 
However, due to a certain and almost unbelievable coincidence, four 
separate goddesses of the future were about to cause one heck of a 
glitch and throw into the system, the proverbial monkey wench. Or in 
this case, the hammer.
     "I GOT YOU!!!" All four Skulds yelled out simultaneously as they 
smashed their hammers on top of a huge bug on each of their 
consoles. The gigantic glitches disappeared in a cloud of smoke, but 
unfortunately, the Skulds had put a little too much force into their 
blows. The hammers crashed through the top panels and gave the 
delicate circuitry beneath a nasty jolt. Sparks began to fly and wisps 
of smoke began to appear. 
     "Uh oh!" The four Norns of the future said as they stepped back. 
Alarms began to ring out and it wasn't long before their older sister 
Urd joined each counterpart. Simultaneously, the same scene 
unfolded.
     "Skuld! What the heck did you do?"
     "I'm sorry! I was just trying to get rid of all the bugs and I…" 
Skuld looked over to the ruined panel which was seemed to be 
moaning in pain.
     Urd gasped as she ran to the smashed equipment and began 
typing on a nearby keyboard. She frowned as she saw the readout. 
"Oh no! Skuld! Do you realize what you've done?! You have just 
caused a mutltiverse rift! We're not talking about between two 
parallel universes! You've connected four universes together and 
opened up rifts in several others!"
     "I didn't mean it!"
     "Never mind that now! Come here and help me! We have to try 
and seal up those rifts before any of them lose elements of their 
realities!" 
     All four Skulds nodded as they rushed to their sister's aid. 
Working feverishly at the controls, the four universe pairs of 
goddesses raced to seal up the accidental tears in the space-time 
continuum.

Universe D
     Ranma wondered what was going on when he saw a huge tear in 
space in front of him, just as he activated the quantum-phase drive. 
He was pressed back into his chair as his ship was suddenly sucked 
into the hole, which then sealed itself up.

Universe A
     Kojiro waved goodbye to Ukyo and then began hopping rooftops 
back to his apartment. He had decided to switch back to his human 
form as the okonomiyaki chef had started to become a little too 
amorous. It was then that he noticed something sparkling in the 
distance. Curious, he ran toward it. When he made a leap that would 
place him on a roof near the light, it then suddenly exploded into a 
huge rip in reality. Kojiro was unable to reverse his forward 
momentum in time and was instantly sucked into the gap. The hole 
remained for a few moments more before closing up.

Universe B
     The blind Ranma was sitting on the roof of Pepper's Place and 
playing his flute. It was then that he suddenly stopped as his 
extraordinary senses picked up something… odd. It felt to him as if 
the entire fabric of his environment was coming apart. Strange 
energies were being emitted from… somewhere. Ranma shook his 
head in order to clear it, but his senses began to feel as if they were 
on overload. Whatever this power was, it wasn't anything like he 
sensed before.
     Ranma got to his feet, trying to get down from the roof, but his 
seventh and sixth sense weren't cooperating. He had also lost his 
sense of balance as he began to feel a jumble of conflicting energies. 
He held his head with his hands, trying to focus through the 
pounding that began to ring in his ears. He was so confused by all 
the spiritual static that he didn't notice a hole had formed behind him. 
When he turned around, he stumbled forward and was enveloped 
into the fissure before it closed up.

Universe C
     Ranma was flying high over Juuban. He always loved to take 
evening flights before going to bed. He had been thinking about 
taking Kisara with him one of these days, when his ki suddenly 
began to feel erratic. For a moment, he thought he was over Jusenkyo 
again. 
     "Whoa!" Ranma found himself dropping like a stone, as his inner 
energies were no longer focused to keep him aloft. Something had 
interfered with his concentration and was a mixture of magic and 
strange energies. 
     The young dragon warrior looked down at the approaching 
ground, then his eyes widened. It wasn't the fall that bothered him. 
As he was part-dragon, Ranma could survive a drop from five 
thousand feet without any problems. He had done it before in the 
Dragon World. No, it was the sudden appearance of a rip in the sky 
below him that caught his attention. Before he could react, he fell into 
the rift and was gone from sight.
     Meanwhile, back at the Ultimate Force System in the four 
universes, each Skuld and Urd were wiping their brows as the rifts in 
the connected realities were closed.
     "Whoa! That was close!" Urd commented.
     "Yeah." Skuld agreed as she looked over to the damaged console. 
She began typing a few commands to see the extent of the damage 
and assess what was lost. She then cried out in dismay. "Oh no! We 
weren't fast enough in sealing those rifts! We lost one element from 
our reality!"
     "What?!" Urd exclaimed as she rushed to the still intact 
viewscreen.
     In the other three universes, the same scene was happening with 
the other Skulds and Urds. They each discovered that one person 
from their dimensions had been sucked into the rifts and was now 
tumbling through the chaotic web of limbo where all realities 
intersected.
     In the Universe A, B and C, the goddesses knew that those three 
Ranmas would perish unprotected in that myriad of disordered and 
frenzied energies. Already, the blind Ranma and Kojiro was 
screaming in agony as they felt their bodies and minds being torn 
apart, little by little. D-Ranma wasn't suffering as much, but even a 
Blood Bonded martial artist would not survive for long in limbo.

Simultaneously, in Universe A, B, and C…
     "Skuld! He'll die out there!"
     "Wait a second!" Skuld exclaimed. "I'm picking up three other 
people that have the similar dimensional signatures!"
     Urd looked down at the console and nodded. "Those must be his 
dimensional counterparts from those other three universes. Looks 
like one of them is protected inside a ship. Do you think we can 
transport our guy into that craft?"
     "I think so!"
     "Do it! We can then pull him out once we transport the craft to a 
neutral area of limbo."
     In limbo, T-Ranma was quite surprised when three other people 
suddenly appeared in a heap behind him in the pilot cabin of his ship. 
However, he only spared them a glance as he fought to regain control 
of his craft. He couldn't tell exactly where he was, but he was certain 
that this definitely wasn't hyperspace. On his main viewscreen, he 
could only see an infinite web of energy lines and flashes that go on 
and on. His navigational circuits were totally fried and he could only 
hope for the best as he engaged the quantum-fold drive to blast him 
back into real space.

In all four universes…
     "NO!!!!!!"
     Both Urd and Skuld screamed as they saw the craft jump forward 
and disappear into an adjacent timeline.
     "Skuld! Where'd they go?"
     "I don't know!"
     "What?! What do you mean you don't know?"
     "The console that was damaged had our dimensional trace on him. 
I've lost track of him and his counterparts! And it also looked like 
they've been swept into one of the side timelines and then into a 
nexus!"
     "So right now they're bouncing through several universes?"
     "I'm afraid so, and the worst part of it is… I don't know how to get 
them back!"

To be continued…

Author's Notes
     Well, people have been asking me to do crossovers with several 
series and I think our intrepid four will be having the wildest rides of 
their lives. Which universe will they crash into first? As they battle 
their way through these adventures, the four will begin to learn about 
one another and their shared history.