Infinity's Shore: Deathplane Chapter 1
By James Barnhill 
(Mantech399@juno.com)

Special thanks go out to my prereader Jerry, the Ranma Fanfic Forum and
all 
the readers who gave me the ideas and motivation to continue.

Disclaimer:  Good, they haven't found me yet.  I tell ya, hiding inside
Chernobyl 
is not as easy as it sounds.  Though the three eyed mice make for good 
company.  Now I don't own any of these characters, nope, not at all. 
Just 
remember, you never saw me, and you don't know where I'm hiding.

Psychological disclaimer:  Alright already!  Yeash, some people can be so

demanding at times.  I mean whats wrong with me keeping a secret or two 
from the readers?  But if its necessary that you must know then Ill say
it.  I'm...
..insane!  *cricket chirping can be heard amid the silence*
What, you already knew that?  So I was that obvious.....dang it!

-------------------------------------------

No sooner had Ranma uttered the name then he found one of Wiseman's 
hands clamped around his neck in a vice-like grip.  Ranma choked and 
sputtered, using what strength he had to try and pry Wiseman's hand off
his 
neck.  Wiseman said something else but Ranma couldn't hear any of the 
words above the sudden noise from his heart, desperate for oxygen he 
kicked out with both feet but didn't feel any of the hits connecting,
then, just 
before he could lose consciousness he felt himself being flung away into 
the emptiness.  Choking he tried to get himself under control while
looking 
all around him.

"Enjoy the view, Ranma.  This is what you will be looking at for the rest
of your 
existence."

Ranma turned around as fast as he could but couldn't tell exactly where
the 
voice had come from.  At one point he felt something brush against his
head 
but when he reacted with several punches to that space his hands met
empty 
air.  Did he imagine it?

"I've been waiting for this chance to show you the true depth of my pain.
 And 
now, I have all of eternity to 'demonstrate'."

Ranma's danger sense tingled and, hesitantly, he looked up to see Wiseman

looking down on him with one hand raised he snapped his fingers to
Ranma's 
confused expression.  With a growing sense of dread Ranma tried to move 
away from Wiseman and again looked all around him for any sign of
anything 
else in the immediate area that could possibly harm him.  But he could
see 
nothing that immediately leapt out from the infinite darkness yet still
his nerves 
were tingling as if an attack were coming.  When it started he had no
idea what 
was happening as there was a sudden pain in his chest, as if a spike of
steel 
were being pressed into the skin covering his ribs, threatening to smash
into 
his chest and destroy his heart.  After a short while he experienced
difficulty 
breathing as the pressure continued to increase in leaps and bounds while
his 
heartbeat began to feel like it was slowing down in response to the force
being 
applied to it.

The pain made him want to curl up into a ball, to do SOMETHING that might

alleviate the pressure as it continued to build.  In desperation he
started to take 
random swings around himself, hoping to hit whatever was causing the 
pressure but succeeded in only hitting empty air.  Occasionally though he
would 
feel something move against his face like a cloud of dust that caused him
to 
cough and hack until tears came to his eyes and his lungs felt like they
were 
coated with the strange material yet he continued to punch and kick in
every 
direction he could think of to alleviate the pain as much as to disperse
the cloud 
of dust.

After his hundredth punch the muscles in his back seized up, sending more

tendrils of pain through his spinal column into his brain where it was
transferred 
to his vocal chords as he managed a strangled cry of agony.  In short
order the 
muscles in his arms and legs seized up, then began to spasm in short fits

causing him to convulse and flail around like some fish about to die. 
Through 
all of this the pain in his chest soon faded into the cocaphy of sensory
signals 
overloading his brain.  It was through all of this that he began to feel
as if his 
internal organs were catching fire and slowly burning underneath his
skin, 
managing to look down despite the sharp pain in his neck he thought he
saw or 
imagined smoke coming from under what was left of his blood soaked shirt.

Fighting the pain within his mind didn't work, it merely went around the
blocks in 
his mind to strike at his inner core.  Then, when his life seemed to be
fading and 
his eyes unconsciously began to close, the pain stopped.  Stunned, numb
from 
the lack of sensation coming from his limbs he merely gasped in relief
but tried 
to keep his guard up, weak though it was, in case the pain came back.  He
didn't 
know what he could do, but there had to be something.  As the residual
pain 
ebbed, allowing his mind to clear he could hear Wisemans voice, much
further 
away in the void.

"Painful, is it not?  That is the sensation of coming back to life, it is
one I am most 
familiar with.  In time the pain fades if you die and are brought back
enough times, 
like me.  What you experienced was the sensation of your unique soul
being torn 
from your body, strand by delicate strand.  Fortunately for you you
weren't dead long 
enough for more then one such strand to be torn away, therefore you
experienced 
both the strand being torn and retied to your body.  But I wouldn't let
my guard down 
if I were you.....I have so much more pain to show you."

Ranma stared at Wiseman with every bit of anger he had ever felt at his
life and the 
Senshi in general.  But there was little he could do as weak as he was,
at the 
mercy of a being that had supposedly died and come back so many times
that dying 
itself meant nothing to Wiseman.  While still weak from the pain he felt
earlier he 
didn't quite so much see as feel the space around him slightly distort as
if 
something was approaching him, automatically he lashed out and again met
a 
cloud of dust that sent him into a fresh coughing fit that made his chest
ache and 
his eyes tear.  When it had passed he saw that Wiseman was within arms
reach, 
apparently looking Ranma over like a biology student would regard his/her
first 
dissection.

"Get away from me!"

Wiseman leaned forward to look Ranma directly in the eyes.  "How will you
make 
me?  I could kill you right now with but a single move, break your neck,
tear your 
heart out, reopen the wound in your neck, slash your wrists.  Even with
your ki 
reserves you don't have enough power to heal such injuries, nor would I
be inclined 
to heal your injuries and bring you back from Death's door.  But there
are many 
other ways I could kill you that would not require so much bloodshed,
psychological 
techniques  that would make you doubt your own life and identity.  The
only reason 
that you continue to live is because I do not want to spend the rest of
my existence 
in this hell hole without something to do that would pass the time much
more 
quickly, you are going to provide me with endless decades of
entertainment until 
such time as either you or I die from energy loss."

Peering into the strange purple featureless face that Wiseman possessed
Ranma 
totally believed that the person/being floating before him would in fact
kill him if he 
did anything wrong.  He had a sudden memory of Setsuna when she subtly 
threatened his life while asking him to live in Jouban.  At the time he
hadn't quite 
gotten the idea of subtle threats as most of the threats he had ever
heard in his life 
had come from enemies who were quite open with the fact that they wanted
to kill 
him, but he had agreed because in part he didn't want to hurt people. 
But this thing 
before him was threatening his life, wanting him to do nothing more then
act out 
whatever sick entertainment this creature wanted.  He was to be nothing
more then 
a puppet for this things supposed needs, and there was nothing he could
do about 
it!

"Fuck you!"

"I'm afraid I no longer have the equipment to do anything approaching
that anymore.  
Would you care to guess why or is that feeble mind of yours incapable of
deducing 
the facts from our last encounter?"

Amid the residual pain a memory flashed into existence before his minds
eye.  A 
platform, the Senshi attacking Wiseman while trying their best not to
harm Serena's 
daughter.  Then going through the Time Gate to appear sometime after the
Senshi 
managed to get Little Lady out of the fight.  Above them all a portal
opened, widened, 
as he started to attack Wiseman so as to give the Senshi the time they
needed to 
attack.  Then his own surprise to find Wiseman dodging his attacks, even
his own 
special ki attacks.  But that wasn't the important part, the way he was
dodging the 
attacks were like the moves Genma used to evade his attacks during the
morning 
sparring sessions.  It finally hit him, Wiseman knew the Anything Goes
style.  With 
that realization he redoubled his attacks until both he and Wiseman were
a blur of 
punches, kicks and blocks all of this occurring on and above the platform
as they 
both concentrated on one another totally oblivious to the power of the
Senshi 
around them combining for that final attack.  Then, something, a movement
or 
feeling too brief to describe made him jump out of the way just as the
Senshi's 
combined powers channeled through Sailor Moon suddenly struck out. 
Despite 
that sense of danger a minute fraction of that final attack still hit
him.  Before 
blacking out he thought he could hear Wisemans agonized screams as his 
shrouded body burned away to nothing.

The memory faded away, replaced by the ever present darkness of this
place as a 
low growl before him reminded him of Wisemans continued existence. 
Hesitantly 
he answered.  "You died, when the Senshi's combined attacks hit
you....and..."

"INCOMPETENT.  Their attacks only grazed me, while you were all blinded a
future 
version of Pluto appeared next to me as I was preparing my counterattack
and 
killed me with her dammed Dead Scream attack, sending me to this hell. 
If 
everything went right, if I had only been more cautious then even your
interruption 
wouldn't have mattered any.  All that time, all those resources and
people, for 
nothing."

"You were trying to kill everyone you lunatic!"  He was answered with a
bolt of magic 
that snapped his head back, further and further until the muscles in his
neck and 
upper back had to strain to keep up with the motion as the vertebrae
comprising 
his neck began to pop and creak until he could feel his vertebrae almost
give out 
when the force let up, allowing his head to come back to its usual
resting position.

"You have no right to judge me, not when you allied yourself with the
Senshi!  Never 
in a millennium would I think that anyone with half a brain would believe
any of the 
Outer Senshi's lies.  But I have met several of your kind before."

"What do you mean by 'several of my kind'?"

"What do you think, child?  I mean several Ranma's, all of whom I met in
their 
respective universes, all of them as weak as you, some weaker when they
found 
out what I was looking for and tried to stop me."

"How can you be so....so....casual with human life?!"

"Because I have lived for thousands of years with just one goal to keep
me alive.  
The death of Crystal Tokyo and its Senshi defenders.  Nothing will ever
stop me 
from hunting each and every one of those spoiled brats to the ends of the
multiverse.  
NOTHING!  Your para-selves learned the hard way not to cross my path, its
not like I 
didn't try to warn them but like the thick skulled neanderthals they are
they couldn't 
resist challenging me again and again in order to defeat me.  With the
amount of 
attention that brought my way it became more and more difficult!  The
people, or 
creatures I tried to hunt down were not inclined to meet with me while
the eyes of 
other sentient beings were watching our transactions, to gain their trust
I had to kill 
each Ranma one by one as I and they met and they inevitably made my life
miserable.  
But I will never allow it to disrupt my sleep for I have killed billions
to come where I am 
now, every time I tried to keep myself from killing those para-selves of
yours something 
would interfere and make the entire equation of non-interference that
much harder to 
follow."

"So cry then.  Just shut the hell up!"

"You would like that wouldn't you?  Its easy to believe that entities
like me are nothing 
more then evil incarnate, its that much easier to kill us when nothing is
there to hamper 
your conscience and make you hesitate for just a fraction of a second as
you try to 
decide whether the creature before you is actually sentient enough to
have feelings and 
emotions  like you, then whether or not its possible that you could
reason with them.  Is 
that it?  Do you stay up at night wondering if everything you've done for
both your 
supposed friends and the Senshi was really worth the pain and loneliness
that you had 
to deal with?  Do you have any idea how many members of my family were
brainwashed 
by the Senshi into the ideal citizens so that they might live in that oh
so perfect world?!  
ALL OF THEM!  EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM WAS EITHER KILLED OR 
BRAINWASHED!  All of that, all of the pain and suffering caused by the
Senshi is also 
your fault, Ranma."

"You could have left Crystal Tokyo alone, left it in peace so that your
family could have 
lived.  But you just had to force everyone into that stupid plot of yours
for revenge against 
all life!  How do you explain yourself?!"  Before he could react Wiseman
was an inch 
away, in the next instant as Ranma tried to raise some sort of defense he
felt 
something gauging into his cheek as he spun away.

"Don't you dare judge me, tool!  The Senshi used you just like they used
me.  Willingly."

When he stopped spinning, or atleast when the sensation of spinning
stopped he 
tenderly felt his cheek, feeling the four deep gauges extending from his
ear to his lower 
jaw.  Hissing at the contact of his fingers against the raw exposed
nerves he quickly 
pulled his hand away.  Turning his head this way and that he caught sight
of a purple 
image approaching him.

Ranma took up a defensive stance, not knowing what good it would do him
here but not 
willing to give up.  "STAY BACK!"

"You want to kill me?"  Wiseman stopped several feet from Ranma with a
hand lightly 
cupping its chin.  "Good.  Maybe if I beat on you it will make the
centuries pass until 
both of us are finally dead.  Or possibly knock some sense into that
thick skull of yours."

"Going senile Oldman?"

Laughter met Ranma's remark as Wiseman moved back some distance away. 
"Hardly, 
I've had nothing to do but organize the memories of my life while this
'diseased' place 
drains what life force is left to me.  Though now Ill be comforted with
the knowledge 
that I wont die alone here."  With that Wisemans purple form moved
further and further 
away until he was merely a faint pinprick against the uniform darkness.

Then Wiseman was gone, leaving Ranma all alone in the darkness.

----------------------------------

Seconds ticked off methodically became minutes, those minutes eventually
added up 
to hours, and then...then he lost track of the time since Wiseman left
him alone.  
Counting off the seconds mentally became a exercise, something to do as
he waited 
for the strained muscles in his body to relax and heal enough so that he
could try 
something.  Keeping time mentally just kept his mind from wondering back
to those 
fights he participated in and all the different, though limited, routes
he could have 
taken.  But, but, it always came back to the word 'but' whenever he
allowed his mind 
to wonder over those hurried hours where survival itself seemed to hinge
on split 
second decisions that when carried out seemed to require hours of walking
and 
slow action.

After some unknown time he tried to move around though pain flared up in
his 
abused muscles as he tried to make some sort of headway in the darkness
around 
him.  Occasionally his wondering hands would touch something but before
he could 
reach back for that object it was gone.  Hours passed while he tried to
make some 
sense of the place, searching but never quite sure if he was actually
moving 
somewhere or just floating in that same spot where he had suddenly come
into 
being and the objects he had felt occasionally were but debris that had
managed 
to float close enough for him to feel.

While searching he couldn't help but remember his early childhood when
he'd 
been scared of the dark, not because he thought there were monsters
hiding in 
his closet or some such but for the very reason that he couldn't see
anything 
around him.  For him it was the most terrifying thing in the world to
wake up and 
find ones room plunged into total darkness, from time to time hearing
things like 
crickets and what not.  When Nodoka had found out she got him a night
light to 
use.  One night Genma found the night light and took it away, saying that
a true 
martial artist wouldn't depend on such crutches.  

That night he woke up from a nightmare, when Nodoka came into the room to

find it dark she asked him where the night light was.  The only other
time he had 
heard his mother yell at Genma was after he signed the seppuku contract.

Nodoka and him had yelled about it but he couldn't hear the words through
the 
wall, all he could tell was that both were angry with one another.

Thinking it was his fault he cried himself to sleep that night, only to
be awaken 
by Nodoka moving the window curtains aside to let in the moonlight.  He
tried 
to look like he was still asleep but she must have known because she then
told 
him that as long as he could see the stars he didn't have to worry about
his 
surroundings.  

It was nonsense, pure, utter, nonsense.  But at the time it had helped
him to 
sleep at night.  Even now he would have given almost anything to have a
star, 
or at least some point of light he could use to see his surroundings.

"Enjoying yourself?"

Ranma quickly turned around, straining with his eyes to see the distinct
purple 
glow of Wisemans face and hands but complete utter darkness was all that 
presented itself to him.

"If you keep twirling like that I will have to snap your neck before I
get sick just 
from watching you."

"Where are you?!"  No sooner had the last word left his lips before he
found 
himself staring into a dark purple palm that just barely touched his
nose.

"Its easy to be brave when you can see what your fighting.  I learned
long ago 
to discount such limited senses in favor of everything else."

Ranma kept his eyes on the palm as it slowly withdrew, several inches
away 
the hand darted back to pinch his nose before he could even blink before
it 
was gone.  Letting what remained of his ki flare to life around him like
some 
red fog he charged forward toward where the hand had disappeared,
striking 
out blindly in a flurry of punches and kicks that met only empty air.

"No wonder Pluto killed you so easily.  You kept relying on those feeble
senses 
of yours to tell you when something was happening you forget the senses
you 
were born with!"

No more then a whisper alerted Ranma to the attack before it came, he
spun 
around just out of reach of the attack as it passed his left ear, then
using the 
motion of the dodge he tried to propel himself toward Wiseman to again
meet 
empty air.

"Because of you all those people on Tugenkyo are dead, slaughtered most 
likely be the Senshi to create their 'pure' future.  All of that because
you could 
not control the rage you feel."

"How do you know about Tugenkyo?!"

Harsh laughter met Ranma's question as Wiseman replied from some position

some inches from his right ear.  "Before I brought you back, I copied
your 
memories.  I haven't had anything to laugh at in a looong time!"

Letting out a cry of incoherent rage Ranma gathered what ki he had in his
hands 
and fired it off toward the mocking voice, the projectile continued on
its path until 
it hit something and exploded, ripping away the night to reveal Wiseman,
and, 
behind him, tens of thousands of dead bodies that lay still in the space
all 
around them.  He couldn't help but look all around him while the light
started to 
fade, noting how many still creatures their must be, only then did he
realize that 
those objects he had touched were most likely the dead mummified bodies
of 
one of these creatures that decayed to dust.

"Now you've seen 'one' of the Silver Millenniums dark secrets."

------------------------------------

Dead, thousands of dead creatures that hung motionless or moving very
slowly 
through the air as if their last act of life had been to try and get away
from their 
prison, instead they had continued to float through this dead universe
because 
of some obscure law that would never allow their escape.  Down, left, up,
right, 
front and back there were more and more dead creatures that like him had 
been imprisoned here for reasons that he could not possibly learn now. 
No 
two were the same species either or if their were two from the same
species 
he would have been hard pressed to identify them as they were occluded
from 
his sight by other beings the size of skyscrapers complete with large 
multijointed arms...or legs.  Wiseman called this place a prison but
prisons 
usually didn't have prisoners buried IN the facility, at least none that
he'd ever 
heard of.

With the light from his ki blast quickly fading everything was again
plunged into 
total darkness.

Ranma didn't want to move, didn't want to accidentally brush against one
of those 
dead bodies and reduce it to dust.  The thought of being among so many
dead 
bodies of so many different creatures lent the place the feel of a tomb
where before 
it had felt more like a great big empty room that lacked gravity, now he
knew better 
no matter that he wished he didn't.

"This is one of their minor secrets."

Wisemans voice as it gave that simple statement was enough to make him
shudder.  
A 'minor secret'?  Before them were thousands, perhaps hundreds of
millions of 
corpses, each of them had been a living creature at one time.  And
Wiseman 
explained it away like someone reciting a bit of ancient history that
didn't concern 
them.  That wasn't right!  Each of those corpses had been alive at one
point, each 
had been sent here for reasons he would never know, yet each creature
must have 
had loved ones or something to live for.  

What did they do in their final moments?  Did they call out for help in
the vain hope 
that someone might overhear them and come to their rescue?  Or did some
of them 
try to eat the creatures around them to gain some form of sustenance as
desperation 
overrode whatever morals they held dear?

But none of those questions took into account the possibility that all of
these creatures 
may have been killed then sent to this place so that no one except the
Senshi's next 
victims could ever find them.  "And I should believe you?"

"What choice have you got?  For better or worse were stuck together until
one of us 
dies from energy loss."

"I don't believe you, there has to be a way out."

"Possibly, but I've been here ten years.  In all that time I have failed
to find a 
imperfection within the warped space of the macro-universe.  Given that
glassy eyed 
stare of yours Ill explain this place to you.  You, Ranma Saotome, are in
a failed 
experiment of the Silver Millennium.  The goal of that experiment was to
produce a 
faster then light gateway to another star through which they could ship
their excess 
population to populate it and soon after to create another portal and on
and on and 
on for the purpose of creating a system they could use to colonize the
rest of the 
galaxy.  The reason they needed a faster then light system was so that
they wouldn't 
have to give the other star systems political autonomy, so that the
current Serenity 
could rule over all of her loyal subjects no matter the distance.  Thirty
years of space 
warping created a wormhole whose ends circled the planet Pluto, the
experiment 
up until that time was a unmitigated success.  Something happened when
they 
sent a object through one mouth of the wormhole, instead of coming out
the other 
end it somehow exploded amid flight sending out a hail of shrapnel that
killed 
several of the key scientists.  Those that survived tried changing the
wormhole but 
this created a instability that destroyed one end of the tunnel but
miraculously left 
the other intact.  In the course of their investigation of the surviving
end they found 
that it had somehow gotten tangled within a universe that never was
created, a 
dead universe you could call it.  In time they discovered how to alter
both the portal 
and the universe it led to so as to produce specific effects and
conditions, this 
made it ideal for storing hazardous materials....and people."

Ranma shuddered involuntarily at the cold edge the voice held as his
senses 
reached out to find the source of the voice.  Sight wouldn't work here no
matter 
how sensitive his eyes got to even the faint light that Wisemans body
gave off.  
Sound wouldn't work for a similar reason that in this place their was
really no 
friction with which to generate sound, no scraping cloth as one walked,
no sounds 
of steps falling against concrete or floor material, by floating you
essentially didn't 
produce much if any sound at all.  Touch would only work for several
seconds if 
he actually managed to touch Wiseman by accident, then he would somehow 
have to move fast enough to catch the thing before it could move far
enough away.  
Smell wouldn't work either cause their was too much dust in the air, and
he didn't 
really know what Wiseman smelled like so there was a better then average 
chance that Wiseman, if he had a smell, would probably be just like the
air they 
both breathed.  That left ki.  With enough practice he had managed to
harness his 
ki, and during his forced stay in that apartment he had had time to dwell
on some 
of the deeper aspects of ki and its possible uses, one of them being a
sort of 
experimental sense enhancement that would allow him to sense anything
living 
within a certain radius, the radius depended upon how far he could
stretch his ki 
field which was a problem given how little ki he had at the moment. 
Another 
problem was that if he got too deep into the meditation technique needed
to 
harness what ki he had then he might miss the interaction between his own
ki 
field and the living object.  Or he could accidentally kill himself by
wasting all of 
his ki.

"This was all kept secret from the general populace so as not to disturb
them but 
the Silver Millennium just like any other advanced civilization had to
deal with its 
share of weapons too hazardous to leave near any of the habitable
planets, let 
alone the asteroid belts where one explosion could produce a fatal meteor

shower for any planets unlucky enough to be orbiting near that area, then
there 
were the hazardous chemicals and magical items that were either too old
or 
unstable to be used anymore.  Items like those were the first to be sent
into this 
universe, oddly enough even though I found the records from the initial
system 
setup to dispose of that material I have failed to find any traces of it
here.  Some 
of the other files I found about this place talked of it being used as a
prison for 
those criminals who were amazingly enough immune to the effects of the
Silver 
Crystal and its 'cleansing' effect.  After this place was filled with air
they just 
herded the prisoners in here so that

"......Anger clouded my judgment then.  But you of all people could never

understand, not now, but maybe later."

-------------------

Amid Wisemans story Ranma listened with half his attention while thinking
and 
berating himself.  After taking most of Herb's ki he felt invincible,
powerful enough to 
take on the Senshi without anyones help.  But what did he do?  That last
meeting 
with the Senshi he lost his temper, allowing his own anger to take
control of him a 
second time so that his rational mind could lay back and enjoy the
feeling of rage and 
power that flowed forth as he jumped and flew into the air.  He wasted
his only 
chance to destroy Pluto, all for some flashy attacks!  Saving his
borrowed ki and 
carefully dolling it out after thinking about each attack would have left
him with 
enough power to attack the Senshi, and especially Pluto.  Instead the
murderous 
rage in control of his mind squandered the power by blasting youma to
gory bits, 
youma who were by definition cannon fodder lived up to their purpose of
distracting 
him for the time necessary to both deplete his borrowed ki reserves and
keep his 
attention off the Senshi who before then were probably getting into
positions which 
Pluto dictated for them to be in from where they could attack him while
he recovered 
from the strain of using so many emotion draining attacks.

And now, now because of his incompetence, not only was he possibly stuck
in this 
hellish limbo with something that was supposed to be dead but everyone
that he 
left on Toma's floating island were most likely dead.  Dead!  Because he
had to go 
off and perform some macho last stand to possibly draw off Pluto when he
didn't 
even know if she would immediately follow him, instead she and her allies
might 
have stopped to incinerate the floating island before coming to attack
him.  What 
might have happened if he stayed with them to fight off the Senshi?  All
they would 
have needed were several minutes for the Mages to enact the spell. 
Several 
minutes that he could have spent actually defending people.  But
no.....no......

It was his fault that they were dead.  The cowardice that he believed
that only Genma 
had was now his own.  What other way could he explain running away from
the real 
fight, leaving people who weren't accustomed to fighting in such a dirty
way, who 
hadn't known any form of real war for hundreds if not thousands of years.

And he left them there, to fend for themselves!

With these thoughts and many intangibles running through his mind Ranma
soon 
curled into a fetal ball from which a keening wail issued from, stilling
Wisemans 
personal history as Ranma faced every memory, every thought that for
years he had 
stuffed away into the darker corners of his mind instead of looking at
and finding 
how indecisive he'd been for all of his life after signing his fathers
honor contract.

"Pitiful, just like the others, only long after you have made a mistake
do you even 
realize that a mistake was made."  Wisemans body faded from view, leaving
Ranma 
to fend for himself against the tide of bitter memories for which he had
no real 
defense against.

His wail of pain soon became the indistinct sobbing of a child who had
just 
understood every mistake it made, whether or not it could be helped or
avoided 
these memories stabbed deeply into the minds self confidence, creating
cracks in 
its basic foundation as even more memories tinged with bitter pain and
despair 
were remembered and passed over for the next at a ever increasing pace
that soon 
over whelmed him until...nothing.

Amid the darkness, with the faint echoes of a dead things laughter and
the 
mummified corpses of thousands of creatures he drifted, at times feeling
groggy 
and disoriented, other times all too aware of how hopeless his situation
was.  
Thoughts of suicide to end this torment were brought up and subsequently
rejected 
afterwords followed by thoughts that only served to deepen his depression
and 
again bringing up the thought of suicide that would be turned down in a
seemingly 
never ending loop of angst fueled despair.

"I can guess what your thinking, your mind is wondering over your failure
to protect 
your allies who are now dead, the remains of their bodies scattered along
the winds.  
While YOU, are trapped, with ME.  It isn't comfortable learning that you
lost, is it?  
When I brought you back to life I made sure to use some of my magic to
copy all of 
your memories into myself.  It has made for....interesting viewing, much
like the old 
movies I used to watch all those millennia ago when I was still human. 
Rather 
comedic really, your life, all that time you spent sleeping or getting
into trouble could 
have been better spent learning about the world.  But that hardly matters
now, does 
it?  As we are both stuck in this place for the rest of our lives while
our life force is 
slowly siphoned off the only activity we can carry on is regretting our
existence."

---------------------------------------

Authors Notes:  Well thats it for chapter 1 of this 'branch' of the
Infinity's Shore storyline.  
Its not how I wanted it to be, but this is sufficient for a roughdraft. 
What Im looking for 
now is C+C and ideas on how to make the story better (or should that be
darker?), for a 
bit of inspiration I have turned to H.P. Lovecraft stories and while his
works are indeed 
dark not all of his ideas can be applied to this particular story branch.
 But for you fans 
of H.P. Lovecraft please keep in mind I mean no offense it is just that
the few stories I 
have read use situations that cannot be easily applied to an infinitely
black void.....
though the story 'Colour out of Space' does present some interesting
ideas, the 
libraries and book stores in the area I live in are not that well
stocked, the bookstores 
concentrate on magazines and newspapers while the local libraries have
very small 
sci-fi and horror sections while their romance section appears to be
quite extensive...0_o;

Now if you have an idea but your not sure how to tell me then dont worry
and just tell 
me, Im not any good at giving C+C myself....never have been....just the
wrong social 
angle I guess.  So dont worry about offending me, some of the flames Ive
gotten 
have already toughened my skin up to some degree and Im use to hearing
insults 
(its a part of daily life for me).  But seeing how this paragraph
probably isnt inspiring 
any great confidence Ill just stop right now:)

For those of you that havent noticed Ive changed my E-mail address, yet
again, to:  
Mantech399@juno.com
Because Onebox changed from a free E-mail service to a paid service, just
my luck, 
fortunately I managed to get everything out of their before they shut
down the account, 
but if you sent an E-mail to me at my old account within the last four
weeks then I didnt 
get it, sorry about that...Ive been tryin to tell people about the change
but my local ISP's
been kicking me off.

Well thats enough complaining from me.

Ja Ne

P.S.  Until otherwise this chapter is to be considered a roughdraft, I
just wanted the 
rest of ya to know why this chapter was so terrible compared to previous
ones.
As it is right now I have the second chapter done and enough material for
two more if 
people are willing to overlook gaps in the storyline.  If everything goes
right final drafts of 
this chapter and chapter 2 will be ready for Tannims next update (knock
on wood).

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