Julia and Ranma were bonding, which in and of itself wasn't a bad thing. It's how they were bonding that was freaking Bast out. She held no illusions that Ranma's charming personality wouldn't eventually win over the older woman's friendship, but she had expected it to take days, if not weeks for that to happen.
It hadn't even been twenty-four hours since the two met, and already they bonded in a deeper aspect then even Bast thought possible. Bonded as warriors, as fighters, as two spirits striving towards the same goal. She wasn't a warrior, such a title falling to her co-wife. As such, she couldn't have foreseen this situation developing, but she knew if her co-wife ever found out she would laugh in her face about it.
Looking ahead in time, Bast shuddered. Left alone to their own devices, Julia would eventually fall victim to Jonathan's curse and be flung to Jade, pretty much what would have happened in the original timeline of this universe. However, since Ranma wasn't born on THAT Earth, he could see her as plain as anyone else on Jade could. Which really, really sucked.
Oh, sure Julia would be grateful that at least some one in her immediate family on Earth (Ranma fell into that category easily) could see her for more then one day out of the whole year. This is were it got difficult. At the moment, Xane, the only girl Bast could see with a possible chance at snaring Ranma, reminded him far too much like Shampoo. Clingy, seductive, pretty much everything he had learned to fear while living in Nerima. Despite the fact he no longer lived there, or could even go back there didn't mean anything to the boy. He had taken those lessons to heart, and was thus vary wary about forming any such relationships with anyone who reminded him too much of life in Nerima.
Well, at least as he was now.
Back to the problem at hand. While Ranma did his duty in taking care of Brittany, raising her to be perhaps one of the best all around fighters on the planet, if not the galaxy (When compared to such threats as the Dynasty), he in his ignorance destroyed Julia's and Theo's marriage by constantly being in Julia's presence when ever he took a trip to Jade to explore and, or train Brittany.
Hell, the boy was ignorant of Julia's growing feelings towards his person until after Julia's divorce, and by two whole years to boot! Heck, he wouldn't even realize it if Julia hadn't jumped his bones one night Ranma was visiting.
Back to the present, Bast found herself in quite the pickle. Her main objective would be complete; Brittany would marry, sire many children, and manage to defeat the threat that would have killed her otherwise. (What that threat is, is none of yah business! Yet, anyway) The divorce would hurt Theo considerably, even more so when he figures out she's grown to love Ranma as much as she use to love him. Logically he realized the feelings she held for himself transferred to Ranma bit by bit, each and every time she saw him during her exile. How could he compete with that? Ranma could see her any time he pleased, while Theo was forced to enjoy her presence only one day out of the year.
Bast shivered. Theo wouldn't be at all happy, at least at first. He had become a dear friend to Ranma, a friendship that was strained nearly to the breaking point when he discovered Julia's interest in him, but he would eventually recover and move on. Eventually marrying a nice Were-panther by the name of Pantha, a single mother who lost her husband in a hunting accident. Thorpan would pretty much be the same, despite his mother's remarriage, and in fact he would later gain a half brother and sister before kids no longer were an option for the aging Were-panther and the mage.
Gina would be the most effected, for obvious reasons. She wouldn't understand at first, and in her own childish ignorance she would place the blame for their parents break up on herself, thinking if she had been a better behaved girl none of this would have happened. She would withdrew into herself much like she had done in the main time line, eventually coming out of it when Brittany convinced her to experiment in HLS. From that point on she would view herself in a much lighter tone, though she refused any more 'experiments' as her sister put it.
While Brittany would come out pretty much the same, she wasn't all that different from the main line except for certain tastes, worse eating habits, and being one of the best fighters all around. Her experiment with Gina made her realize, belatedly I might add, that she wasn't a lesbian. From that point on she pursued boys and boys only. She would eventually marry, though just who was unclear at the moment, since the farther and farther Bast looked ahead the images would get skewed due to free will of those involved.
Brianna's existence was uncertain at this point, but Bast was willing to bet she would come about. Until she was formed though, Bast couldn't see what effect her presence would have on the Diggers.
Julia and Theo managed to later form a tense friendship, mainly for Gina's benefit when they cured her of the curse.
Julia's changes didn't happen until a year or two after the Lich King cursed her, and the changes themselves weren't noticeable by all save the most observant, or a bored Godling seeking to pass the time. It started out innocently enough, just a starry gaze, a certain look, a gentle smile for the pigtailed boy (well, man at the time) whenever he would visit her to spar and what not. Many of those visits resulted with the both of them collapsing in exhaustion, the rest of the nights spent staring at the stars and simply talking as the two waited for their wounds to heal enough for them to move. As this happened more and more often (Hey, Jade was a place Ranma knew nothing about, so he was really interesting in learning all he could there. After all, he knew a lot about Earth and its fighting techniques, so Jade was something new and exciting for him), Julia's feelings for him would grow, while the loneliness of being separated from her family caused her to distance herself from Theo bit by bit.
Two years later she finally decided to divorce Theo, seeing as how they were separated by this damnable curse she wanted him to get on with his life instead of pining after her. After all, she didn't think she would ever be uncured. Another two years later, Ranma had visited and the two had gotten into another one of their spars, ending predictably with both being unable to move as they both collapsed to the earth. Well, it would have been typical, but Julia had bought a healing potion and used it after their fight was over. Since Ranma was rather weak and unable to really fend himself at the time, Julia mauled him in a sexually oriented fashion. Ranma sure as hell didn't complain after she spent the first few minutes 'convincing' him.
Their fate wasn't certain, though Bast could swear she saw Julia happily pregnant in the far future.
Thinking over these changes, Bast was left with a tough choice. She could just leave things alone, and let them run their course, or she could interfere and try to stop Julia from breaking away from Theo. But how? All these events centered around Jonathan Diggers becoming the Lich King, and she didn't disillusion herself into thinking she could stop it from occurring. She had tried in the previous time line, and aside from the final recipient of his curse, she couldn't stop him, at best she could only delay him by a few months, but the end result would be the same.
Of course, if the blast hit Theo, Gina, or Brittany they would die. No if ands or buts, they would simply cease to be. Which really only left Julia or Ranma to take the blow, and Ranma was out of the question, since he hadn't even started training Brittany at the time, which would more then likely lead her down the same path as before and cause her death.
Now that Ranma is there, could she do more? Well.. she couldn't risk having Ranma present for that incident, if he some how took the hit for Theo he would be sent back to his home Universe, and since she was already in trouble with Father for taking him from that Universe to begin with, she didn't think she'd be able to return him to the Gold Digger universe period.
Tough choices. At least for now she didn't have to make any choices, the events that caused this to happen were still a little over eleven months away. Plenty of time for her to decide whether or not to change the future.
***
Bast grabbed the remote control, turned off her HDTV and went to get a few hours of rest, completely missing the small bug that crawled out of her TV set a few minutes later.
Let's look towards:
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(Posted Sat, 17 Jan 2004 15:42)
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