Two Halves, One Power Chapter 1, First Third

[Sailor Sedai (Ellf)]

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and Ages pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In an Age called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose up in the Mountains of Dhoom. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time, but it was a beginning.

Born atop the accursed mountains, it gusted down into the Great Blight and headed west. The Blight, a desolate wasteland that was so tainted by the Dark One a person could taste it in the air. The wind blew past the encampment at Jor’rob’kar and into the face of a pigtailed youth.

Ranma Saotome ignored the gust as it passed him over, causing his silken clothes to flap in the breeze. He was far too busy staring at the billowing smoke towards the east. The smoke was too light to be a forest fire, and besides, from the way it looked around the place where he was, there weren’t any forests nearby to catch aflame. Therefore it must have come from some sort of civilization. It was also on the way out of this sickened area, he assumed, and from the feel of it, there was indeed something there. He didn't know exactly how he could sense that far, nor did he care. He just knew he could.

Taking off running again, Ranma instinctively dodged the minor dangers of the Blight, and the major dangers themselves seemed to not know he was there. His speed increased as he continued his sprint, the distance between him and the pillar of smoke was now less than five hundred meters. At this distance, what appeared to be an encampment became visible.

It was fairly large, from where Ranma stood he could barely make out the other end of it nearly half a kilometer away. Ranma counted about twenty makeshift shelters before he stopped, and there were plenty more. The shelters were made out of simple cloth and something to hold them up... possibly bone as there was no wood to use around here. How anyone could stand to stay in an area this... this wrong was beyond him, yet there this encampment was. The pigtailed boy picked out four spots where smoke rose from what were obviously cooking fires, and one spot where there was a larger fire. The smoke combined above to make the cloud that allowed him to see this encampment. Ranma couldn't make out clearly the residents of the site, but he could see the outline of a large group of humanoids towards the center of it.

Ranma drew closer to the encampment, and the wind blew towards him again.

The smell of cooking flesh reached the pigtailed boy's nostrils. It did not smell like any familiar meat that he had tasted before, yet the smell made him shudder. Ranma realized that there was only one time he had smelled this smell before: during the battle with Saffron. This was the smell of burning human flesh. Then Ranma saw it clearly. There, on the edge of the camp. Where one would be playing lookout. It was an abomination, a humanoid creature standing at about nine and a half feet tall. Where a normal human head would be there was the head of a ram. Ranma had never seen a creature like this before, yet a burning hatred for it rose in his gut.

The word “Oni” sprang to mind as he looked at the creature. Just because it did not look like the stereotypical Oni of legend did not mean that it could not be it. Judging by the smell of the burning meat and the creature's maw, it likely ate humans. He let out a silent prayer for those eaten by these creatures. Ranma looked over the size of the camp. From its size, at least a hundred of them set up here. Possibly there were even more of the beasts.

Ranma let his senses flow over the camp, and he gasped. Just like the surrounding area, the “Oni” felt wrong. Their auras felt tainted by what he could only call evil. The mixing of the three different auras: human, animal, and this taint, only verified to him what he knew before. These creatures were monsters, and it was the duty of a martial artist to destroy such things.

Within the sea of tainted ki a faint light flickered, a lone candle contrasted against the threatening night. Ranma knew this to be one thing. Someone was left alive. He was going to make sure that they stayed that way.

As Ranma began to move closer to the camp, thunder echoed over the wasteland and it started to rain. Her crimson hair whipped back in the increasing wind, and she pulled off the baker's peel from where it was on her back, its sharp edge gleaning in the light from the lightning.

A flash of lightning... it was darker now than before. Very little light came from within the camp itself now that Ranma was closer to it. She made it to the edge of the encampment, her eyes adjusting for the light.

Lightning flashed again, and Ranma back-flipped five feet backwards. In one fluid motion she threw the umbrella on her back tip-first at her assailant. The goat-faced Trolloc crumpled to the ground as the umbrella struck its skull, snapping its neck upon the impact of the weapon. Ranma picked up the umbrella and snapped it open, using it to shield her from the rain.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are...” Ranma felt around with her ki senses as she twirled the several hundred-pound umbrella. There had to be more Oni around here somewhere; after all, she was only on the edge of the camp. The survivor or survivors had to be here too, otherwise destroying this camp would not accomplish much. She decided to head towards the center of camp.

Ranma lashed out with her right leg, catching a wolf-headed Oni in the neck as it tried to sneak up on her from behind. The monster arced up at an angle over the camp, and when it landed it caused one of the shelters to collapse in on itself.. Two inhuman howls echoed back from the landing point.

Ranma ducked down as a sword whizzed over her head and used the umbrella as a pivot and swung the baker's peel at the creature horizontally, decapitating it. Rolling to the left, she avoided another strike and reciprocated with the umbrella. They were swarming her now.

Disgust flowed through Ranma as she dodged another strike. These creatures were numerous, this could take a while. Decapitate one, and two more showed up. They weren't challenging, just tedious. Ranma let herself sink into the combat.

Duck. Two kicks, one to the groin, one to the head. Stab this one's sword into that one. Come on you fools, come to me. Throw the umbrella like a spinning top, two spat-shuriken. Roll left. Remove weapon. Elbow to the eye. Spinning slash with peel. Need to get to that human ki source. Dodge right. Throw sword backwards. Snatch arrow and return it. Uppercut one into orbit. Amaguriken into neck. Not hot enough to Shouten Ha. Dodge forward and throw Oni back. Left sweep combined with a slash. Throwing the peel as a large spat-shuriken. Oni no BAKA! Eugh... not doing that again.. Twenty foot vertical leap, bonboori to back of head. Retrieve peel and flat-side sweep.

Ranma left a trail of corpses in her wake as she fought her way towards the center of the encampment. Yet more still came to the slaughter.

Ranma stabbed down with the Oni's sword into its own foot and then disemboweled the creature, stabbing through it into the one behind it. She released the sword and her free hand snatched the returning umbrella out of the air and drove it into the skull of a mountain lion-headed Shadowspawn.

Ranma was now at the edge of the circle around the center of the encampment. The center sat at about fifty meters in diameter and at the center of the center was a bonfire, still burning despite the rain. Trollocs still advanced towards her and she took out two more before hearing a raspy voice yell out something unintelligible and the creatures backed off. Barely winded, but grateful for the time to rest she turned towards the voice as the ichor that was blood of the Oni dripped off her weapons and knuckles.

“[Hold your ground, human, lest you want this child to die.]” The voice came from a creature at the center of the encampment. It wore black armor and apparently floated about six inches off the ground. The wind did not touch the cloak that was over the creature's armor. A flash of lightning revealed its face: pale, deathly white skin was visible, and the creature had no eyes! None at all! In one of its hands it held a blade, holding it up to the neck of the young blonde girl whose face was covered in bruises. “[One nick from my blade is all I'll need, human. Leave here, and the child will live.]”

Ranma's eyes narrowed. It was obvious that this creature was not human, and she suppressed a shudder as she met its gaze. It felt even more tainted than the Trollocs themselves, and it was obviously threatening the life of a child. The child obviously understood what the creature said, but Ranma did not.

“A martial artist protects the weak.”
“Death is lighter than a feather, but duty is heavier than a mountain.” These two mantras echoed through Ranma's mind as she drew on her ki. The creature would not get a chance to even move an inch. Ranma saw what she would do with perfect clarity.

“Kijin Raishuu Dan Revised: Kage Kitte!” Ranma's arms arced quickly, and unlike the unrevised version of this technique, there was no vacuum wave. Instead a silver light arced out through the little girl and into the creature holding her.

**************************************

Lina du'Elis dared not show her fear to the Trollocs as their raid took her caravan by surprise. Not even as she watched her brothers be slain in their attempts to protect her did she even bat an eye. Even as she was beaten, and dragged from her home, forced to watch as the Trollocs tore strip after strip of her parents' skin from their bones, she remained stone faced. She knew and accepted her fate. She was a Kandori woman, despite the fact that she had only seen eight summers, and she would not give these Shadowspawn the satisfaction of seeing her fear.

Even now as she hung helpless, held by a Halfman with his Thadan'kar forged sword at her neck, she refused to give in to her fear. Sure, it had hurt a bit when the creature had lifted her, but it was nothing compared to what she had been through the past week. Sure she was beaten, wet, and in all likelihood about to die. Still, it was better to die this way and have her soul lifted to the Creator rather than making it to Thadan'kar.

Then Lina saw the reason for her current predicament. She saw her. She was a vision of loveliness that would rival any Domani woman, despite the fact that her clothing marked her as a warrior. Lina's merchant trained eyes recognized Sharan silk when she saw it, and she idly wondered what a noblewoman was doing here in the blight, fighting Trollocs, and winning. Beyond that, what was she doing fighting with an umbrella and a shovel? Dark blood matted the noblewoman's clothes, fists and weapons.

The Halfman barked out something in that horrible Trolloc tongue before turning to the noblewoman. “Hold your ground human, lest you wish this child to die.”

Lina stared as the noblewoman stopped her assault on the Trollocs that were around her. The Shadowspawn had backed off so that they were in a semi-circle around the flame-haired woman. The Fade continued to comment. “One nick from this blade is all I need, human. Leave here and the child will live.”

Lina wanted to call out to the noblewoman at that moment to let the Fade kill her, for she knew if the woman left, Lina would have a fate far worse than death. Unfortunately, her throat was raw from lack of water, and she could not talk higher than a whisper.

All Lina could do was watch as a glowing aura appeared around the woman. This was no mere noblewoman, this was an Aes Sedai, one that fought like a Warder. The Aes Sedai raised up her arms and pointed at Lina and, the girl guessed, the Myrddraal. The Aes Sedai said something that Lina did not quite understand. A silver light followed the foreign statement, that leapt out through the air in the form of an arc. It was heading straight towards Lina.

As the light passed through her, Lina's world faded to black.

**********************

Lina blearily opened her eyes and sat up. She then promptly began to blink as her eyes adjusted to the brightness of the morning sun. She was sitting by a burning fire that had a makeshift spit cooking a rabbit constructed over it. The smell of the roasting rabbit wafted over to her, and as her stomach growled, she realized how hungry she was. Working the spit was the Aes Sedai from the night before. She seemed to be focussed on the rabbit.

On a closer look at her, Lina realized that the woman couldn't be that much older than her. Her clothing was definitely silk, and the umbrella that she used the night before was in pristine condition despite looking like it was made out of paper. The shovel looked like no shovel she had ever seen before. In fact, if it weren't made out of metal, she would have assumed it was a baker's peel. It was too flat on the bottom edge to dig any hole properly.

The woman smiled as she noticed Lina being awake. She walked over to her and sat down.

“Ohayou gozaimasu. Ore wa Ranma da. O namae wa?”

“What?” Lina did not understand a word that was said from the Aes Sedai. She knew that she was supposed to be more polite to Aes Sedai, but she had no clue what the woman was saying.

The woman's smile fell for a second as she breathed out a sigh. Then she perked back up. “Ore wa Ranma,” here the woman beat her breast softly. “da. O namae wa?” She gestured towards Lina.

“Oh, your name is Ranma, Aes Sedai.” At this Ranma Sedai nodded. “My name is Lina du'Elis.” She followed Ranma Sedai's example and thumped her chest at that.

*********************

So the little girl that Ranma had saved had a name. Lina du'Elis. It would be a difficult name to say for Ranma, as she was used to saying things in Japanese. Hell, communicating with the girl would be tough. Whatever the language was that Lina spoke, it was not one Ranma had heard in her lifetime. It was not English, Mandarin, Korean, nor Cantonese. Were it one of those, Ranma would have some luck talking with her, but she would still be able to communicate.

What was that word that Lina called her? Aes Sedai. Flashes of men and women doing amazing feats with what was apparently their ki appeared in Ranma's mind. A man leading a charge under a banner that had a red Chinese dragon on it, a circle reminiscent of the yin-yang, minus the eyes. Seven colors, Red, White, Blue, Yellow, Green, Brown, Grey, and a hidden darkness.

Whoa, what was that? Ranma's confusion over what just happened caused her to ignore Lina for a little bit. The event was similar to getting information about the Trollocs, but it was far more intense. Ranma now knew what Aes Sedai were. They used something called the One Power to do feats that were in no way possible with ki. There used to be male Aes Sedai, but they were gone now. Aes Sedai today were all women who use a place known as the White Tower to train. Though now the Tower was split into two, one in a city known as Tar Valon...Ranma's head started to hurt. Information overload. Sort through that later. Food time is now.

Ranma took the rabbit off the spit and carefully cut it in two using the baker's peel that Ukyo left her. She offered half to Lina who quickly took it and began to daintily pick at it.

“[Thank you, Ranma Sedai.]” There it was again, and Ranma had no way of correcting her. Ranma was no Aes Sedai. She couldn't even use the One Power. Everything she did at the Trolloc camp came from within her. No outside sources here. Just... purely her...

Ranma shook her head and continued eating, staring into the fire. She would have to take Lina over to the stream that she found to get her some fresh water after she'd eaten. Ranma bemoaned not having anything to store the water in, let alone heat it up in. Ranma would be stuck in her female form for a while. This was just as well as she would not be able to explain the curse to Lina at all. The poor girl would probably freak out. Just like Akane did, or perhaps she would react like Ukyo... making the curse into a game. Lina was a kid, after all. As long as she didn't react like Shampoo, Ranma would be fine.

Thinking about her fiancées depressed Ranma. Which in turn caused her to think about the others that she left behind in Nerima. Hoping to one day see them again, she steeled her heart against the depression and offered up a prayer to the kami. She finished eating.

After finishing her rabbit, Ranma stood up, and she stretched. The fire burned still in the center of the makeshift camp that she made hours before. The area around felt better, less tainted here. Thus the reason she stopped. There likely would be a settlement nearby. Ranma took a look at Lina, halfway done with her part of the rabbit, she would probably have to be carried if Ranma wanted to go at full speed.

Still, the communication problem irked her. She wanted to be able to talk to the little girl and have her understand what Ranma was saying. Ranma would have to either teach the girl Japanese or learn the girl's language. Both were significantly difficult considering the communication barrier, and Ranma had no idea how long the girl would be with her. Ideally Ranma would drop her off at the next settlement and hopefully they would be able to find her parents there.

Ranma patted Lina on the head. “Like that rabbit there?” She said with a smile.

“[I'm sorry Aes Sedai, but I don't understand what you're saying.]” Lina had a look of confusion on her face.

Ranma pointed at the rabbit. “Rabbit.” She licked her lips.

“[Oh, do you want my rabbit, Aes Sedai? It was very good.]” Lina held out her rabbit to Ranma.

Ranma shook her head. Pointing again at the rabbit, she repeated. “Rabbit.”

A look of comprehension dawned on Lina's face. “[Oh... Rabbit.]” Lina nodded. “[Rabbit.]”

Ranma's face lit up with a wider smile than before as she repeated Lina. “[Rabbit.]” Her head then chose to explode with pain. The world swirled before her eyes before fading to black.

*******************************

In this place, he was known as Conner Ri'Sean, openly a male channeler who came to the Black Tower to train. He followed his orders and quickly raised from Soldier to Dedicated, and now he was an Asha'man under the M'hael.

Conner saw a lot of himself in Taim; thus the reason that he chose to serve in his platoon rather than Logain's. Both he and Taim served as second fiddle to someone more powerful than himself. Both he and Taim sought to gain power over the person that was better than themselves. Taim's platoon served his needs well. Yes, of course the Lord Dragon was head of the Asha'man, but everyone in this platoon served the M'hael without question.

Taim obviously wanted to have the Lord Dragon's throne for himself, and Conner was perfectly happy to help the M'hael gain that throne. Provided that he managed to get some of the glory gotten during the taking.

Today had been the Lord Dragon's big day. It was the day that he would attempt to cleanse Saidin, the male half of the True Source. What an attempt it was. Massive amounts of power had been channeled through the Choedan Kal to where the Lord Dragon had been at Shadar Logoth. He was sure that the pull on the Power could even be felt in Illian. It amazed him that anyone could draw that much of Saidin for as long as the Lord Dragon had, and from the reports of his peers, Rand al'Thor had successfully cleansed the taint from Saidin. This was a feat that he had not thought was possible, but it was proven to be able to be done. It had to have tired the Lord Dragon out, using that much of the One Power at a time.

There was just no way that he would be able to channel that much again for quite some time, but about two hours ago, from a different location, a large release of Saidin came from further north than al'Thor had been at. The Lord Dragon had been west of the Black Tower, and this felt like it came from at least as far as the Borderlands, perhaps even the Blight itself.

Thus the reason that the M'Hael had gathered Conner and his fellow Asha'man into the main room of the Black Tower. Theories would have to be decided, and a team would likely be sent to investigate. Conner was certain that he would end up on the investigation team.

Standing near the M'Hael were a couple of Dedicated, whose names Conner had yet to learn. They did not matter nearly as much due to their rank and the amount of power that they could hold within themselves. A few Soldiers brought drinks in, carrying them on trays using nothing but weaves of Air. Everything was a part of training, after all. More Asha'man stood towards the center of the room, and they looked at each other with knowing caution.

Taim himself looked pensive. His face was clouded with both confusion and trouble. Conner could tell that the M'Hael was nervous about something. He held back a smirk. Taim began to call the meeting to order.

“We all felt what happened earlier, and I suppose that we are all grateful to al'Thor for pulling off the impressive feat that he did. It is clean. Saidin is clean. None of us have to worry about going mad for channeling anymore.” Taim adjusted the dragons on his sleeves and adopted a look of steel. “Apparently al'Thor disappeared after he finished cleansing saidin. It's possible he's dead, but there was no body for anyone to recover. Still, I doubt he was the source of the large amount of channeling that came from the north.”

“My Lord M'Hael, if the Lord Dragon was not the source of the channeling to the north, what was?” An Asha'man whose name escaped Conner asked.

“Davies,”Ah, that was his name. “We shall send a few Asha'man up there to investigate. I'm fairly certain that those who I send will be competent enough to find out what caused the source there and if we can use it. After all, with al'Thor out of commission, someone needs to pick up the slack.” Taim's voice was even throughout his entire speech. “I'll send a team of four Asha'man up there to find the source of the channeling. Ri'Sean, al'Nea, Kajima, and Malevin, you four are going to be my eyes and ears there. Look through the area and see if you can find any leads as to what caused the channeling. If the channeler is still there, see if you can convince him to come back with you, and bring back that sa'angreal he was using with you. It would be a good thing to have that in the Black Tower's possession.” Somehow the Black Tower's possession sounded a lot like Taim's possession to Conner. Still, he would do as the M'Hael asked.

“Yes, M'Hael. We shall leave at once.”

(By the way, no Italics here... I don't want to go back and add them.)

[borgrabbit]

I am encouraged by the fine start you have here and pray you continue to write this story further and your other stories as well. The story may be a little spare on back story and a little incomplete, but, it is an enjoyable start.
I saw no great errors in spelling or grammar and have no problem with the plot.
Ciao

[Ahye]

Good start. No obvious grammer or spelling mistakes, and what looks like an interesting plot. A number of questions pop up though of course. How did Ranma get there, why does he have the baker's peal and the umbrella? This seems to be set post cannon for Ranma, and very interestingly it's set post (current) cannon for WoT. All crossovers I've seen aside from this one use WoT starting at the beginning, or almost at the beginning. Also, the language difficulty is a nice touch. Its reasonible for them not to understand each other. Most other crossovers always seem to just magically have everyone speak the same language. The only downside I see so far is the memory flashes Ranma is getting. They seem perhaps a little too convienent, and he seems to grasp all the details a little too quickly. Still, overall it looks like it could be a very good fic to read. I look forward to seeing more of it.

[Sailor Sedai (Ellf)]

Heh... as for how Ranma got there, that's explained in the prologue... which can be found on my Fanfiction.net profile.

www.fanfiction.net/~ellf

As for why Ranma is having those memory flashes, there's a very good reason.

The Peel and umbrella, along with the other things he has are things he finds in the prologue.

[Ahye]

Read over the prologue. That resolves the issues with him having the items. Still a little odd him having the flashbacks and his very quick comprehension of them, but I figure that'll be explained in following chapters. The prologue had a few errors in them. I noticed a couple words that might have been supoposed to have hyphens in them had a zero instead in between the words. I did have one thought come to mind though, if Ranma was frozen in a block of ice at the end of his fight, shouldn't he have the Gekkaja with him also? I suppose he could have dropped it or something though, and it's not like he needs much in the way of powerups anyway. As I said before, this looks like a well written story so far. Can't wait to see more of it.

[Sailor Sedai (Ellf)]

I realize that I have a bit more corrections to make to the scenes.

I have a few errors in there. The flashback bits need to be a little better.

[borgrabbit]

Second reading plus reading the prologue.

its sharp edge gleaning in the light from the lightning.

gleaming

She was sitting by a burning fire that had a makeshift spit cooking a rabbit constructed over it.

A small rephrasing? She was sitting by a burning fire, looking at a rabbit cooking on a makeshift spit over the dancing flames.

Hopefully, the flashes of knowledge (injected by fourth wall nanites?) will become more understandable in the coming two thirds of the chapter. Is Ranma's last blackout an epiphany of language? I would chafe at extended linguistic difficulties and hope for a good kick in the deus ex machina to fix it.