Ranma looked down at the girl snuggled against him. It made a slightly silly
looking picture; the other girl was about a foot taller, so her legs stuck 
outquite a bit. But no one was complaining.

He wasn't sure what to think of Aya. True, she had helped him. But still, 
whatdid he really know about her? Not a whole lot. She certainly didn't match 
any Pokewomon he knew of; when he tryed scanning her with his pokedex the 
whole screen filled with error messages. And she just giggled when she saw 
it.

Then there was this "second greatest Pokewomon master" thing. What could 
being second greatest accomplish that being first couldn't? What could any of 
that accomplish in this situation? And why wouldn't she tell him the answers 
to those questions?

Ranma seriously considered abandoning her, and seeking out a cure on his own.
But he didn't, for several reasons. He still couldn't think of a place to 
start looking, for one. For another, it was always safer to have allies in a 
place like this, and she at least seemed to be on his side.

And at least it was never boring being around her...

>--*--<

            P O K E W O M O N    U N I V E R S E

                            --CF--
                        (chaos factor)

                    Episode 2 - Fall to Grace

            By Morgan

>--*--<

Ranma and Aya made their way down a narrow path. It wasn't one of the safer
ways to get through the forest, but until they found one of the main paths
it was the best they had.

Ranma sighed.

Aya turned to look at him. "Why so somber?" she asked.

"Just wondering what happened to my pop..." said Ranma.

"'Pop'?" asked Aya.

"My father. He was there at Jusenkyo, but when I woke up, he had disappeared."
Ranma sighed again.

"That's odd. I didn't see anyone else there-" Aya said, then stopped 
abruptly.

Ranma gave Aya an odd look. "How would you have seen anyone?"

Aya just stared out at the path for a minute, trying to think of a way to 
explain. "I had... a vision, you might call it. That someone important to me 
was about to be cursed by Jusenkyo. But you were the only person I saw there."

"How could I be important to you, when we just met?" asked Ranma.

"Because you're important to everyone," Aya replied.

Ranma wasn't quite sure what to think about that. He was about to ask another
question when Aya made a shushing gesture.

"I hear something up ahead," whispered Aya.

Ranma tried to listen, but his hearing wasn't as good in his normal form.

The two crept forward, listening carefully.

After a couple of minutes, Ranma figured out what the noise was. 
"Buzzbreasts!" Ranma hissed.

Aya nodded. "And it sounds like they've already caught someone!" She stood up
and began running... *towards* the noise.

Ranma just gaped at her for a second, then ran after her, wondering if she 
was some kind of insane he hadn't guessed previously. But it wouldn't be right 
to let her go alone...

>--*--<

Pia had fought hard against the buzzbreasts, but there were too many of 
them for one pokewomon to fight. As things began to go dark, she wished she 
hadn't run away from that boy she had been given to, hadn't tried to go it 
alone...

Then a girl came running into the clearing.

This came as rather a surprise to everyone, including the buzzbreasts. While
they weren't the most intelligent of pokewomen, they did know that most 
others ran *away* from them, not towards. But they wouldn't let the 
opportunity slip, having already neutralized the pia. They rose up, preparing 
to attack from all sides, so there would be no way to dodge all their stings.

And then the wind changed.

--A terrible, merciless void, looking at them, looking *through* them, a 
force that would destroy them without even realizing, let alone caring--

The buzzbreasts fled as fast as their wings would carry them.

Of course, there wasn't actually a merciless destroyer coming after them, but 
no  one was going to tell that to the buzzbreasts.

>--*--<

By the time Ranma reached the clearing, everything was quiet.

Seeing that the pia was shivering, Aya had wrapped the pokewomon in one of 
her blankets, and was whispering sweetly into her ear as she cleaned the 
many stings on her body. *She seems to be having an aggravated reaction to 
the poison...*

Ranma blinked a bit, having expected to see at least a fight in progress, 
before Aya yelled for him to come over.

"She got hit with a really bad poison, and I don't know how to treat it. We 
need to get her to a pokecenter quickly," said Aya. "Can you get out one of 
your pokeballs for us to carry her in?"

"Okay..." Ranma opened his pack and started digging for a pokeball.

Aya whispered to pia some more, then stepped away.

Ranma, having retrieved one of his pokeballs, pointed it at the pia and 
pushed the button, causing her to vanish into it in a flash of light.

Aya looked around. "Um... do you know how to get to a pokecenter from here?" 
she asked sheepishly.

Ranma thought about it. "Professor Mahogany's lab is near here. He should be 
able to help." *And maybe he'll be able to suggest something for me too...*

The two began running, this time with Ranma in the lead. Since he was in the 
habit of actually going directly to places, they made better progress.

>--*--<

After several hours the two (and one passenger) reached Mahogany's lab. Aya 
was worn out from all the running; it wasn't a way she normally travelled. 
Ranma, having dealt with his father in a hurry, was doing a lot better.

Mahogany met them at the door. "Well, what brings the two of you here in 
such a hurry?" he asked amicably. He didn't actually recognize them, but he 
generally enjoyed meeting anyone who would come all the way out here to see 
him.

"We have this pia..." began Ranma.

"She was attacked by buzzbreasts," continued Aya, "and she's reacting very 
badly to the poison. Can you help her?"

"Not a problem, not a problem," said the professor. "If you'll just come 
inside..."

>--*--<

Mahogany put the pokeball Aya handed him into a machine, frowned at the 
display, pushed a few buttons, then nodded, satisfied. "She'll be fine now. 
It'll take a while longer for her to be healed, but you got here before any 
serious damage could be done."

Aya sighed with relief.

"Ah, Professor..." Ranma began.

"Yes?"

"There's another problem I have. This one's a bit more complicated..."

Mahogany gestured for them to sit down at the table, and Ranma began to 
tell him about what had happened to him at Jusenkyo.

>--*--<

"Hmmm, very interesting," Mahogany mused. "I've heard of this phenomenon, but
I've never met anyone affected by it. Even when I was a boy everyone had 
learned to avoid that place."

Ranma shrugged, and sighed a little. *Stupid old man...*

Mahogany continued. "In any case, I'll have to do some tests before I can 
tell you anything. Why don't you stay here for a while? I have a spare room 
you can use while you wait."

Ranma said that was okay, and Mahogany pushed a button on the wall. "Leen 
will show you to your room," he said, indicating the purple-locked pokewomon 
who had just entered.

As Ranma and Aya followed her out, Aya remarked, "I just hope it has a bed."

Mahogany chuckled.

>--*--<

Several hours passed. While Aya and Ranma slept (and they actually were 
sleeping, noted the surprised professor), Mahogany ran a series of analyses. 
Since he had the time, he also did some checking on Aya.

The results were... interesting.

Ranma's scans didn't reveal anything helpful. Despite all the ways science 
had advanced in the last hundred years, the magical aspects of pokewomon 
biology still defied understanding, and the Jusenkyo curse seemed to be 
wrapped up in that side of things. As a male, Ranma scanned as a human; as 
a female, Ranma scanned as a pokewomon. Nothing in either form that 
indicated a cause for the change.

Aya was in many ways much more understandable, but she too held strange 
secrets. She was definitely a pokewomon, but she matched no known type. Parts 
of her genetic code seemed to be unstable, but she was suffering no ill 
health from it. Her resistance profile was bizarrely skewed. And some of the 
neurological structures he was reading... well, it was surprising she was 
even  coherent if the readings were correct. Even the way she looked raised 
questions.

On a hunch, he ran a search for a particular sequence that showed up 
frequently in her genetic code. But it just raised more questions. The genes 
bounded by that sequence controlled over 90% of the unexplained features of 
her biology. It wasn't normal for things to separate out so neatly.

The door creaked, alerting him of someone coming in. "Leen, I-" Mahogany 
started, stopping as he realized that the person who had entered was *not* 
Leen.

Aya ahhhhed in delight as she saw the vast array of displays and equipment in
the lab. She began looking over the monitors, occaisionally nodding or making
"hmmm" noises.

Mahogany watched her and wondered. *She acts like she knows what she's 
looking at... unusual even on it's own.*

Then Aya came to the last display, and her eyes widened. "Oh! You're trying 
to make an evolution stone out of my DNA!"

Mahogany blinked. He actually *hadn't been trying to do that... but as he 
looked, he realized there was a possibility there. If these sequences were 
extracted, they could drop right into the genetic code of other pokewomen.

Aya in the meantime was still talking. She mumbled, almost like she was 
talking to herself. "A Chaos Stone, to create Nephilim. Like me."

*Nephilim?* He didn't recognize the word. And that didn't happen often.

"They'd have extra elemental abilities, like me... and they'll be able to 
control them better, just like me." Aya began to giggle. "They'll have some 
better resistances, just like me! And they'll look more human, just like me!"

Mahogany watched Aya, who was standing right next to him now. Tears were 
running down her face from the strength of her laughter.

"*AND* they'll... oh. Oh my."

Suddenly, Mahogany felt a strange feeling. Specifically, that of cold metal 
against his neck.

And then there was nothing...

Aya put the hand taser back in her pocket and went to work. This could be 
very helpful, but she would need to act quickly.

>--*--<

Ranma woke to the somewhat annoying feeling of being shaken rapidly by Aya.
"Whatisit?" she yawned.

"Come on, we need to leave now," Aya said.

"But we just got here..." Ranma replied, which prompted Aya to shake her some 
more. "Okay, okay..." She got up and began picking up the few items that they 
had unpacked. "Why now anyway?"

"Just hurry!" said Aya, running out the door.

About the time Ranma finished, Aya came back in, holding the pokeball with 
the pia they'd found. "Ready?" she said, looking around.

Ranma picked up her pack and nodded, then yelped as Aya began dragging her 
out. "Hey!"

Seeing that Ranma was moving, Aya let go of her.

As they left the lab and got on the south path, Ranma decided to try and 
get some information again. "So, what's this about anyway?"

Aya grinned, happier now that they were moving again. "I've got something 
for you!"

"What?" asked Ranma.

Aya tossed a small translucent-golden sphere to her.

Acting on reflex, Ranma caught it. As soon as it came into contact with her 
skin, she froze. Strange impulses traveled through her body, and her eyes 
were filled with light that she realized she herself was creating. *I'm 
evolving?*

In a moment it passed, the sphere having disappeared. Ranma looked down at 
herself, and couldn't really see any difference apart from some of her fur 
having moved around. "What was that?"

"Something helpful," Aya said, smiling even wider. "I'll explain later."

>--*--<

Mahogany woke up, sprawled on the floor of his lab. (Though, he noted 
groggily, someone had apparently put a blanket over him.) "She hit me with 
some kind of electrical attack... but she read as a metal/fire type, how 
could she do that?" he mumbled, even though there was no one there to hear 
him.

He pulled himself up, still a little shaky but rapidly steadying. Everything 
seemed to be in order... Except that she seemed to have used the equipment to 
synthesize some DNA, apparently to make some of that 'Chaos Stone' she had 
mentioned. Not very much judging by the amount of materials missing.

She hadn't sterilized the equipment properly though.

Mahogany considered putting out an alert on them, but the thought disapeared 
from his mind in favor of another concern - now he was more determined than 
ever to understand the mysteries of this pokewomon's genes.

>--*--<

After lengthy analysis, Mahogany decided he needed to put his theories to the 
test. Rerunning the synthesis program Aya had used, he made a dose of the 
Chaos Stone and gave it to one of his pokewomen, Leen.

This is where some would say he made a mistake, for one simple and surprising 
reason:

She loved him.

Leen really, truly loved Professor Mahogany. She was devoted to him in a way 
going far beyond the usual between a pokewomon and her tamer, and she would do 
anything to protect him.

And that's why she could never, ever tell him that she was no longer compelled 
to obey him.

It would only bring him unnecessary pain.

>--*--<

In a dark room miles away, a man sat watching his own array of monitors. As 
he  sat there, one of them activated, showing the contents of the screen in 
Professor Mahogany's lab. He recognized the sequence it show, knew it very 
well indeed, though he hadn't expected to see it again.

"Well," he said to the darkness, "it seems one of my brother's children 
escaped after all..."

<--*-->

[End theme - "Demolition Man", Def Leppard]

end episode 2 - chaos factor

<--*-->

Disclaimery bit: Ranma Saotome created by Rumiko Takahashi. Pokewomon created 
by  a variety of people as a parody of a certain highly marketed game. 
Professor Mahogany created by some of those people. Shadowy figure created 
by... someone. And Aya Kusanagi created, obviously, by Aya's parents. (But 
still authored by me.)

Notes... will be put in when I do the final draft, but right now it's almost 
2AM.

-Morgan.
August 20, 2002
1:34, not quite the oh-my-god-what-are-we-doing-up-this-late-ning...

<--*-->

"Destination anywhere
So far gone, I'm almost there
Can't you see, I can't deny
I'm out of here like I'm on fire"
   -"Demolition Man", Def Leppard