After tossing some ideas around and throw out what doesn't work, I came
up with what I think might work.

    Before I go on, who here has actually finished Chrono Cross?  Though it
is never a prerequisite for my stories (I interpret and change a lot of
stuff anyway), it'd certainly help when discussing character motiviation and
whatnot.

    I plan to have Kid meet Ranma in a fairly ordinary circumstance.  Ranma
was walking and knocked a girl in the waterways that abound Nerima (doesn't
seem too unusual for Ranma, he knocked Ryouga into Jusenkyo without
noticing).  The girl, of course, is Kid, and insists that Ranma have to take
her to lunch.  Now of course Ranma is poor and couldn't pay, and Kid notices
this, and she pays instead, since she is, after all, possibly the greatest
of the Radical Dreamers (the game downplays her agility and abilities by
giving her some pretty inferior/trivial (do you know she's the fastest
character out of all 42 characters?) stats, but story-wise she's always
supposed to be one of the best).  Ranma thinks this girl is strange, and
rightly so, since he didn't know that Kid was bored stiff from her
neverending and futile search for *Him*, and she enjoys anything that might
break up the monotony.

    Then I'll wave my hand and say somehow the people from Chrono Trigger
just happens to show up in Nerima (note that Kid does not time travel), and
I'll further wave my hand some more and say Kid is after them, for she
decided to take the role of the Assassin of Time herself if Serge can't do
it.  This part gets into some very messy interpretion of Chrono Cross,
because this is the part where the plot writers can't even seem to have a
consensus.  My reasoning is that Kid does have a dark side to her heritage,
being the one born from the Crimson Flame.  She's not interested in
destroying the world, because that is not her enemy, nor does she really
care what happens to it.  But after finding the truth of Project Kid, she
would not forgive the heroes of Chrono Trigger for manipulating her life as
a tool to save the world.  She doesn't want to kill them, but she wants them
to learn that they've no right to play around with people's life like that,
even if it's for some greater good.  Of course, this fateful battle would
happen in the Tendo Dojo (where else?  ^_^).  I interpreted Kid's presence
in 2000 AD as indicated by the game as her ability to put her body into a
state of stasis as opposed to time traveling.  As such, her body is left at
a state of minimal energy (like hibernation), and she only has the physical
strength of a normal girl at this point.  I assumed the heroes of Chrono
Trigger to be at better than Ranma in terms of physical condition
(comparable to Herb, I'd say).  And Ranma can obviously tell such things, so
he's of course surprised to see this girl with the strength of a normal
person able to fend herself against people in better physical condition than
he.  And no, this is not going to be a fighting-oriented story, but I wanted
to write about a dreamy kind of fighting style.  Intangible, dreamlike, a
style that no one can truly get a handle on.  Obviously this is a very skill
oriented style, perhaps similar to Ranma's style?  She only needs a fraction
of physical abiltiies to achieve the same kind of fighting ability as
another person.  There is a fundamental flaw, for that you cannot produce
more damage than what physical ability you've, and therefore she cannot
actually break down any kind of defense with her physical abilities alone.
You may find that it's strange she would adapt such a passive style, for Kid
after all is a girl with more fire than Akane (though I don't think she's
necessarily a tomboy).  My reasoning is that she wants to stay more or less
passive until she wants to go on adventure again.  Another interesting thing
I've thought of, but not sure if I'll actually use, is that this style would
be of no use against Ranma (but I can't see any reason why these two would
fight, unless Ranma wants to train or something), because he's, to use a CC
terminology, 'touched by the flame'.  Though the English's version's
assumption that the Unstealable Gem was the Frozen Flame is wrong, I do
think it draws a good analogy between the Frozen Flame and Kid.  Flame is
certainly an appropriate description of her, and while she doesn't grant
people's wishes like a genie, she makes miracles happen, through her
actions.  She's intangible to most people, like Serge said, she's a piece of
a star that's fallen from the sky.  But the people she cares about, those
she met on her adventure whom she finds interesting, they can catch that
shooting star.

    Anyway, I'm not sure how to wrap up the Chrono Trigger part.  Perhaps
that will be dealt with in another side story altogether.  But at any rate,
I think Kid would like to be around Ranma, because all kinds of weird and
exciting things happen around Ranma, and Kid is tired from her futile
search, so she wants to take a break and go on adventure again, only this
time it's with someone else.  What will actually happen, I do not know at
this point, but I think ultimately I want Kid to learn that the *He* she was
searching for is not necessarily just Serge.  It's anybody that she mets in
her endless journey that she cares about.  As for Ranma, I think he'd
appreciate just have a female companion that doesn't cause him any real
troubles (Kid's love to Serge is near the realm of insanity, if you ask me,
and yet it's not possessive or even reciprocal...  At any rate, no fiancee
problem here.), just someone to call a friend who cares about him.

    And, going back into the earlier idea of 'touched by the flame'.  CC
maintains that being touched by the flame is sort of like having a genie
around to grant you wishes.  Of course Kid doesn't just magically grant
wishes on demand, but I think it's not unreasonable for the great adventuer
Kid to find a way to get to China (yeah, she can just buy a plane ticket
too, but I think that'd be kind of boring.  She wouldn't want such a boring
solution either.  ^_^), though I'm not sure if miracles alone is enough to
cure Ranma!  :)

    Anyway, that's the rough idea.  I certainly won't be writing this until
next week the latest due to a whole mess of projects and whatnot, but let me
know if you're interested.  Feedbacks and whatnot are welcome too on my
ideas.

Don