________________________ / \ | Vengeance And A Half | \________________________/ Thanks to my pre-readers: Ben aevan http://aevan.virtualave.net Kevin D. Hammel http://www.anime.sobhrach.com/~khammel/ Blood Blade http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/5920 Visit my website at dzillman@ozemail.com.au http://www.ozemail.com.au/~dzillman/fire What has happened: The time travel of Prince Diamond and the Inner Senshi at the end of Sailor Moon R has caused a paradox. Now the Outer Senshi are awake, the Death Busters are active, and the Dark Moon Family are still trying to conquer the world. In a desperate bid to stop a Daimon from gaining her Heart Crystal, the Outer Senshi were responsible for Akane's death. Now Nabiki has achieved the impossible and convinced Ranma and Ryoga to join forces. But in the quest for vengeance, anything is possible. Part 2: A Cold Day In Hell ========================== To someone dedicated to the culinary arts, the quest for a perfect bowl of ramen and the perfect service to a customer can be just as challenging and important as the immaculate performance of a Kata to a martial artist. Shampoo, unfortunately, was a martial artist and not a chef. For her, the endless, Ranma-less days working in the Nekohanten seemed to stretch on forever. The delivery of three excellent bowls of her great grandmother's ramen in a fashion that approximated truly good service did little to raise her cheer. A week without Ranma was just too long to cope with. Every time someone entered the store, Shampoo's eyes lit up and she looked over to the door, only to be disheartened as yet another ordinary customer walked in. Last time she had delivered ramen to the Tendo's, Kasumi had told her that she had just missed Ranma. Her beloved husband had stepped out the door only moments earlier, heading off with his father to train in the mountains for a week. That had been a full ten days ago, surely he should be home soon! Shampoo gave a sweet smile as she seated the latest customer, but her mind was on Ranma. She knew what it was like at the Tendo's, she had been through this routine often enough. Ranma would come back from his training, tired and hungry. In an evil attempt to poison Shampoo's husband, the violent tomboy there would cook something terrible. Without a doubt, it would take less than a hour from the moment Ranma stepped through the Tendo's gate to when he appeared through Shampoo's infinitely more hospitable door for some real food. Filling the newest customer's order, Shampoo backed away from his table and leaned against the bar next to where her great grandmother was having a puff on her pipe. "Is quiet tonight, great grandmother." Cologne eyed her charge and smiled on the inside. So, Shampoo thinks to go chasing after Ranma, does she? Strength was not all it took to lead in the Joketsuzoku. One needed brains also, and that was one area Shampoo was oddly reluctant to train. The girl needed to learn compromise and gain equal skills in verbal sparring. "But still too busy for only one of us..." "Shampoo think not too busy. Shampoo think that..." Cologne smiled slightly. Good child, you caught it that time. Never state your intentions too clearly, it makes it too easy for people to see ways around them. Blowing a smoke ring, Cologne watched as Shampoo waved goodbye to one of the regulars. "But it is a lot of work to maintain this place." Shampoo's brow furrowed. She could tell Cologne was testing her again, but she was not sure what was the right answer to that statement. Shampoo always preferred the simplicity of battle to all this talking. That was why she liked Ranma: he was good at fighting and did not think too much either. Not like Mousse. Mousse was always trying to think of some tricky new attack to catch his opponent unawares. Where was the strength in that? When the thoughts clicked into place in Shampoo's mind, her face lit up then immediately schooled itself into nonchalance. Cologne almost burst out laughing, Shampoo was wearing her most neutral expression that told everyone in the world: I have something devious in mind, so I'm not going to look devious. No, no, not at all, not me. Nodding to Cologne, Shampoo placed one finger delicately on her lips and pretended to tilt her head to one side in thought. "Great Grandmother right. Is much work. Is more work with Mousse away today. Shampoo glad she strong, young Amazon. Shampoo handle all work by herself. Let poor, tired Elder to rest, yes?" That did motivate a chuckle out of Cologne, but she quickly covered it up with a suck on her pipe. Not particularly subtle, but she was getting better. Cologne just hoped that she did not try anything so obvious as impugning weakness once she returned to their village. A comment like that - made to the wrong person - might very well see Shampoo out in the challenge circle trying to defend her honour. Reaching for the bait that Shampoo had dangled so obviously in front of her, Cologne took the chance to let her great granddaughter do the man- hunting she so obviously desired. "Oh, dear! I'm not that old and weak yet! I'll show you, Shampoo! For tonight, I shall run the whole Nekohanten by myself!" Perhaps the sarcasm was just a little too thick, even Shampoo noticed and turned her head to look in askance at her elder. "Great Grandmother no sound serious." Cologne reached over and patted the young Amazon's hand. "I'm not really, but you're getting better at talking to others. You definitely need to work on the way you suggest things, and you still need to practice your facial expressions, but I see improvement. Now, there are two spare ramen here, getting cold. Why don't you see if Ranma really is at home?" "Aiyaa! Great Grandmother so smart!" Watching Shampoo flounce off to get her bonbori and the delivery box, Cologne sighed. She felt so old sometimes. Was she really that much smarter than everyone, or had breeding purely for strength weakened other areas that the village's leaders needed? When Shampoo ran out the door, Cologne began mixing up some more ramen. What they really needed was a skilled fighter who was also very intelligent. Someone that could strengthen all areas of the bloodline. Cologne did not like the chances of finding any males around here that even surpassed average intelligence. Just to prove her point, a group of six youths had just entered, each loudly discussing the various merits that Shampoo possessed. At least, they discussed those things that teenage boys tended to find most meritorious. The journey from the Nekohanten to the Tendo dojo was not a long one, especially for someone of Shampoo's fitness and stamina when mounted on a bicycle. In mere minutes, the girl was standing the transport to the side of the gate and walking inside. Even though she ate it every day, the ramen smelled very good to her, and she knew from experience that her husband would find it irresistible. She just hoped that the violent girl would be there to watch as her husband wolfed down yet another meal of hers. While she hated to see Ranma being struck, every blow that the tomboy delivered brought him one step closer to Shampoo's arms. Skirting around the house to where the sounds of fighting emanated, Shampoo ended up at a corner of the house, watching Ranma and Ryoga having another one of their common fights. Watching as the lost boy fought her husband, she was again impressed by the skill that Ryoga managed to muster. Here was a man that would make almost any Amazon proud. Tall, strong, and built like a figure from legends. Yes, Ryoga would make _almost_ any Amazon proud. But never Shampoo, for she knew that she could never settle for second best, and no matter how good he may be, Ryoga would always be second best to her husband. Standing still, Shampoo was trying to decide what was strange about the fight occurring in front of her. Surely they fought all the time, it could not be that. Then it struck her: two things were very odd. First was they were still in the yard. In the whole time they had not started running around the buildings or headed for more spacious grounds where Ryoga could do his more destructive moves like the Bakusai Tenketsu. Secondly, strangest of all, they seemed to be pulling their punches. They were not pulling them much, but they were definitely not fighting with their usual all-out intensity. For a moment Shampoo was held by a wild idea. Anyone that did not know them better, might almost suspect that the two boys were sparring, not fighting. True, their idea of sparring would leave most people crippled in the dust, but for these two shinning examples of what martial artists can be, it was really only a practice bout. Watching them further, and seeing the way that they acted around each other, Shampoo gradually became more and more sure that they were practising, not really challenging each other. Fearing that one of Akane's many suitors may have renounced her - hence allowing the friendlier relationship with Ranma - Shampoo skipped out into the open holding her delivery box. "Airen! Shampoo bring too delicious ramen for dinner!" Placing the food on the ground, she watched as both combatants immediately made a bee-line towards her. If she timed it just right, she should be able to land right on his lap as he bent to pick up his bowl. Right about.... now! With a move like lightning, Shampoo popped forwards and tried to cuddle into his neck. Tried to, that is, because somehow she missed. Blinking several times, Shampoo looked around and spotted Ranma kneeling next to Ryoga, both shovelling the food down their throats as fast as it would go. He dodged her? Ranma had moved around her when she tried to show her affections? He had never done that before. Not only had he never succeeded in avoiding her hugs, he had never previously tried. Something was seriously wrong here. Walking back to her husband with a sensual step, Shampoo tried to run a hand through his hair as he ate. Again he avoided her touch, this time scooting backwards with tiny motions of his toes; a technique for movement that he had learned when he studied for the Martial Arts Tea Ceremony. "Airen? What wrong? Why you a... av... move away from Shampoo?" There was something cold about his voice when he replied. Something business-like and hard that he had never used before, especially when he was talking to her. "I'm busy, Shampoo. Ryoga's spent all morning teachin' me his latest technique, and now we gotta do some sparring to warm up. I ain't got no time for games now, OK?" With that, Ranma finished the last of his ramen and placed the bowl back in its holder. "Thanks, Shampoo. I really needed that." She started to reach out for him, but part way through the gesture, she hesitated. Something about him suggested that it would not be a good time to be touching his arm. Not good for her, that is. He did not say anything or do anything. He just stood there waiting for Ryoga to finish slurping the last of the soup before resuming their training. "What Airen train for? What Airen train with Lost Boy for?" That stopped them both for a moment. Although they had been walking back to the middle of the yard, the halted and slowly turned to face her. "Do you see that, Shampoo?" He pointed to the rubble of the dojo. "I did that Shampoo. That's why we're training." Shampoo shrugged. It was hard to miss the fact that the Tendo's dojo had been reduced to rubble, but she just assumed that it was a little bit more extreme than the usual damage it suffered. After all, it was only a building. "Shampoo see building in dirt. Why Ranma train?" Ranma looked like he wanted to speak, but words would not come. After a moment, Ryoga placed a meaty hand on his shoulder and turned to face Shampoo. "Akane's gone." The stupid tomboy was gone? Shampoo did not understand. She thought that the tomboy liked Lost Boy. Why would they only be training now that she was gone? Not only that, but if Ranma took the opportunity to destroy the tomboy's dojo while she was gone, she would still surely notice upon her return. Something was not adding up here. "What you mean gone?" "I mean... I mean that she's..." Ranma interrupted. His voice was still and cold. "He means she's dead. Akane is dead." His voice started to break at the end, but Shampoo's thoughts were whirling too rapidly for her to notice. Her main rival was dead? Akane was no more? A smile blossomed across her face as she fully realised what this meant. "Tomboy dead, and Shampoo no need give Kiss Of Death? Shampoo so happy! Airen come back to China now? No-one keep Airen with Violent Tomboy any more?" Ryoga looked at her aghast. How could she possibly say something so insensitive? How could she be so happy at the thought of her rival being dead? He might have threatened to kill Ranma for so many months, but finding out about Akane's death had changed something in him. He realised that killing Ranma would not bring back the happiness that he had lost. Challenging him, fighting him, that had been real happiness. Seeing how greatly Akane's death had scarred so many people, he had almost been willing to take a vow never to kill again. But that would have let her murderers go free and unpunished. Even worse, if he and Ranma did not stop them, then who possibly could? Countless other people would die in Tokyo before the matter was ended. All these thoughts tumbled through Ryoga's head in an instant. In that same instant, he realised what Ranma was thinking. The woman that they both loved was hardly in the ground, and someone was celebrating her death? Ranma had not lived with the thoughts of killing as long as Ryoga had. To Ranma, killing and revenge were still linked in his mind as something just and right. Looking at Ranma's face, Ryoga knew that he could not let the boy act on his impulses towards Shampoo. "Run!" He cast over his shoulder as he interposed himself between Ranma and the Amazon. Shampoo instinctively retreated a couple of steps, but confusion and a failure to understand Ranma's hidden nature kept her around. Suddenly, Ranma surged forwards. He was fuming and flailing his arms madly, trying to thrash his way through Ryoga, but there was no style, no class to his efforts. Ryoga knew that Ranma could have avoided him and done anything he desired to Shampoo if his mind was clear and he truly desired it. But this Ranma was a different animal. This Ranma simply wanted to grab something and pummel it into nothingness until his own grief vanished along with it. Waving his clenched fists, Ranma glared at Shampoo past Ryoga's shoulder. The whole time he was leaping at her, only to be body checked by the larger boy. "How could you say that you bitch? She was your friend! I loved her! I'm going to find the people that did this, and I'm going to bury them! I'll put them six foot under! There's not even going to be enough left to bury once I'm through with them. You hear me? "And if you're not with us, you're against us! You understand? Next time I see your ugly face, you better be fighting beside me, or I'll plant you along with the rest! I'll take you apart limb by limb! I'll tear them all to shreds! Do you hear me? "Akane! I swear I'm going to send your murderers to escort you to heaven! Every single one of them, all lined up for you! I will not stop! I will never stop! I will fight until they are all dead! Dead! _Dead_! DEAD!" By now she was running madly, Ranma's shouts only heard through the distance. It should have been a day of joy, her greatest rival for the heart of a man was dead. Instead, her rival became infinitely harder to beat. Now that Akane was dead, she could do no wrong. While Akane was alive, there was the chance that Shampoo might win Ranma away. Now that Akane was dead, she had Ranma body and soul. His whole life contained nothing but the deaths of the people who killed the woman he loved. Leaning against the wall of a building, Shampoo sniffled a couple of times. He had said it earlier, shouted it for the whole world to hear. Ranma had loved Akane. He was willing to sacrifice everything that he had, everything he was, for revenge. Worse still, Ryoga was on his side, and if there was another specialist on revenge that was half as good as Ryoga, Shampoo could not think of them. There would be blood on these streets, and - despite the fact that she felt she had lost him forever in those few moments - Shampoo desperately hoped that none of that blood was Ranma's. Whoever had told her that one live friend was worth more than a hundred dead enemies was right. Whoever had killed Akane had surely signed their own death certificates. Even worse, they had signed Ranma's. The man Shampoo loved was dead, and she could only hope that he might come back to life in time; returning someday when this need for revenge had been burnt from his soul. Whoever that had been in the Tendo's yard was not the Ranma that she knew. He was gone, sacrificed on the altar of pain. By killing Akane, they had killed Ranma and Ryoga. When they killed the man Shampoo loved - even though they killed him indirectly - they drove that same stake through Shampoo's heart. She could not return right now, but she would return. She would return and fight by the side of her husband until either she or their every enemy was dead. She was an Amazon and understood the ways of honour. While she had thought it was a boon that Akane had died by hands other than hers, she would have traded her own life to spare Ranma his current suffering. The Amazons taught that you capitalised on every advantage that you got. If Akane had died in a car accident, Shampoo would have consoled Ranma. But she had not, she had been murdered, and Shampoo had just stained herself in the eyes of the man she loved. Pulling out one bonbori, she relished the feel as she tightly gripped its shaft. As an Amazon, she would stand with her husband until their deaths. She did not know who had hurt her husband so, but be they man or beast, they had made themselves an implacable foe. She had once hunted Ranma across the breadth of China and Japan, simply for the slight of beating her in formal battle. For hurting her husband, and causing her to stain her own honour, Shampoo would hunt them to their dying breath. You could run, but there was nowhere you could hide from an Amazon on the warpath. * * * For the last two days, Ami had been walking on eggshells, trying to carefully avoid something that she could not even identify. The Senshi had been back in the present for a week and there was an annoying tickling sensation at the back of Ami's brain saying that something was wrong. Something was out of place. Unfortunately, with the presence of rampaging demons, witches, and evil revolutionaries - not to mention the fact that one of their own was still brainwashed and an enemy agent - it was too hard to actually find out that what her subconscious was saying was actually wrong; there were just too many obvious problems at the moment. Now, as she walked down the street to Juuban High School, Ami heard a voice that brought a smile to her face as she returned the greetings. "Hello, Makoto-chan! How are you today?" The tall girl gave a short sniff then shook her head and grinned down at her friend. "Better thanks, Ami-chan. I can't believe I had to stay away from school for a whole week just because of some silly cold... Not that I'm really complaining about missing school." "Well, I don't think that it helped that we've been running around in the cool air every night since we got back. You just haven’t had a chance to properly recover." "At least we're winning those fights. This bug has kept me in bed every day. If those Black Moon guys ever managed to do as well as the common cold, we're done for!" Both girls laughed appreciatively. They were still smiling happily as they walked through the school gates, only to be immediately brought up short by a group of three teachers. There were both the boy's and girl's physical education teachers, as well as the burly science teacher, the one that like to talk about everything in terms of martial arts. None of the teachers looked happy, and Ami was sure that they were focusing all of their attention on her friend. "What are you doing back here, Kino-san?" Makoto looked down at herself and looked for something wrong. She was in exactly the same uniform as Ami; bright blue skirt, white blouse a blue sailor style collar; of course, Makoto's was significantly larger to accommodate her extra height. Still confused, she checked her hair to make sure that was tidy; it was still in its habitual ponytail. If she was neat and tidy, what where they complaining about? Surely they were not upset with her because she had been away for a week, sick in bed? "Ano... To go to school?" Gently, Ami's Phys-Ed teacher reached over and took her elbow, pulling her away from her friend. Makoto moved to join her, but the other two teachers interposed themselves. "You're not going to give us any trouble, are you, Kino-san?" Unconsciously, Makoto lowered her chin protectively and clenched her hands into fists. The way that the teachers were holding themselves brought back too many memories of how other fights started for her to be able to ignore it. "I don't want any trouble. I just want to get to class." Mentally, Makoto hit herself in the head and said 'Wow, I can't believe I said that.' "You know you're not welcome here after what you did. Just turn around and go home. If we catch you trying to sneak onto school grounds again, we'll call the police. Do you understand?" Backing away slightly, Makoto mutely shook her head and looked at Ami in confusion. The pretty brunette just stood there, mouth gaping at what she heard. Everyone stood like that for a moment, until one of the teachers began to move forward, planning on encouraging the unwelcome girl to leave the hallowed school grounds. Seeing Makoto tense at this perceived threat, Ami found her voice. "You'd better head off now, Mako-chan. I... I'll see you after school, OK?" The words seemed to break the spell that held everyone, and they briefly focused on Ami. Seeing her friend nod, Ami smiled briefly, but that smile turned sour when she watched Makoto sadly turn and leave the grounds. As the taller girl walked away, head hanging, the last she heard from the teachers was one of them berating Ami. That alone was almost enough to make her go back and try and teach those snobs a lesson. How dare they talk to her friend that way? And what business was it of theirs if the she and Ami wanted to hang out together? Most importantly; why didn't they want her at Juuban High? Whiling away a whole day with nothing to do was something that Makoto had often dreamt about, but the reality appeared to be less inviting than the dream itself. She could hardly go and visit any of the arcades, as they were not allowed to have children on the premises during school hours. That left wandering the malls nearby, and that was nowhere near as much fun without someone like Minako along to brighten things up. Perhaps the worst thing about the day was the simple waiting. The dread of the unknown. What was Ami going to find out today? Why were the teachers treating her like some sort of violent maniac? They had even made sure that they would be able to gang up on her three to one. Makoto could not understand it, she had hardly done any fighting at all in Juuban, and almost all of that was before she met Usagi, happening in the first few days after she transferred there... Actually, Usagi had found Makoto and more importantly, Makoto's well prepared Bento box. The end of the day saw Makoto standing on the other side of the street to the school, watching all of her classmates coming out. Strangely enough, those few that showed any sign of recognition all seemed to shy away from her, as though they feared her. This in turn caused the teacher standing near the gate to give her dark looks, but the man could hardly do anything since she was not on the school grounds. When she finally saw Ami coming out - obviously having decided to forsake her usual afternoon tutorials in favour of her friend - Makoto brightened into a smile; her first genuine one since she left the school that morning. Giving the girl with deep-blue hair a wave, Makoto straightened up and waited for her to cross. Her smile dimmed slightly when she saw the teacher obviously trying to dissuade Ami from meeting her, but words alone could not stop her friend from crossing the street. When Ami reached her friend, she immediately took Makoto's hand and began leading her away at a rapid pace. Even without being told, Makoto could guess that there was no point waiting for Minako or Usagi; with their sterling attendance record, those two were probably in detention making up for time they missed at the start of the day. At the speed they walked, even the long legged Makoto was stretched to meet the pace Ami was setting, and her concern was raised even further by the look of concentration that Ami wore. Once they were a few blocks away from anyone that was likely to hear what they were saying, Ami slowed back to a normal pace and began to lead them back to her home. "Mako-chan, have you noticed anything strange since we got back from Crystal Tokyo?" "Do you mean anything other than the fact that Emerald is still alive, there's a bunch of killers out there pretending to be us, or someone else is summoning hordes of demons? Other than that, no, not really." In a most unusual display of frustration, Ami clenched a small fist and frowned. "No, of course not. You've been sick all week and in bed. I can't believe that I did not notice something was wrong earlier. I've been trying to put the pieces together and I didn't even know what the puzzle was." "Err... Was there something I should of mentioned?" "No! I'm sorry, Mako-chan. I just feel so stupid for not noticing it before. I think something happened when we came backwards. Things seem to be a little... off." "What do you mean? Are you talking about how everyone treated me like I had the plague just because I missed a week of school?" "It's not just that, and that's the problem. I think we're going to have to get together tonight, even if we do have to fight something first. We can’t afford to keep putting it off like we have been. What we saw at school today was something big... really big, and I don't think that you're going to like it." "Hey, come on Ami-chan! I'm Sailor Jupiter, I'm supposed to be the tough one right?" "You... You got expelled from Juuban for fighting..." Makoto stopped dead in her tracks. "What!? That's crazy!" Ami stood in front of her friend and sadly looked down at her hands, unable to meet the other Senshi's eyes. "You got expelled for fighting... with me." "No way! You're kidding, aren't you, Ami-chan?" Despite the tone of pleading in Makoto's voice, Ami slowly shook her head in negation. "About two weeks after you transferred to Juuban, you apparently attacked me in the playground. You... err... you dislocated my left knee. That's why they expelled you." "What!? I'd never do anything like that!" Feeling the frantic grip on her shoulders, Ami looked up into Makoto's eyes and could see tears beginning to form there, matching her own eyes. "I know you wouldn't, but... everyone else thinks that you did. That's why they were so upset with you." Makoto was stunned speechless, and stayed that way as they resumed walking. Eventually Ami picked up the conversation again, filling the void. "That's not the only thing I've noticed, but it is the biggest. Have you noticed that Luna and Artemis have been missing? Even Mina- chan and Usagi-chan haven't seen them in a week. If they don't turn up tonight, I'm going to get Usagi to try and call them on the communicator. We need to be able to speak to them; they have to know more about what's going on than we do." They kept talking, trying to find other areas that things had changed, but with Makoto living by herself, it was not as though she had many chances to notice changes in the world. They had moved onto discussing plans for the inevitable Droid or Daimon attack tonight when a sharp voice rang out across the street, capturing both their attentions. "You stay away from my daughter, you violent maniac, or I'll call the police!" Both heads instantly tracked to the sound of the voice and set upon Ami's mother. She was standing at the entrance to the building in which they lived, and glaring at Makoto with a look that could melt plate steel. "I'm warning you! Get away from her now, or that's it!" Reluctantly, Ami stepped away from Makoto and moved towards her mother. Quietly, so that only Makoto could hear, Ami tried to cheer her up. "Don't worry, she's probably just upset about that school thing. I... I'll see you tonight." Hesitantly, Makoto raised her hand and gave a small wave. "See you... Later, I guess." Although she knew that she had not done the horrible things that she had been accused of, it drove a stake through Makoto's heart to watch the way that Ami's mother protectively gathered her into her arms, the whole while glaring at Makoto. Past the occasional sound of traffic passing between them, Makoto could hear the words that Ami's mother was saying. Some part deep inside her even suggested that Mrs Mizuno was saying them loud enough specifically so that she could hear them. "Oh, my poor girl. Are you all right now? Did she do anything to you this time?" Ami said something, but she was facing the wrong way, so Makoto missed it. However, there was no way she could miss the way that the protective mother was directing her hatred at her. "It's all right dear. You don’t have to try and defend her. She can’t hurt you now. Come on in, everything will be just fine now that we've gotten you away from that horrible delinquent." When Ami and her mother walked inside, Makoto slowly turned and walked off. It was bad enough trying to fight demons. Why did they have to try and fight everyone else too? It was not fair! Makoto did not have a mother like Ami, she had no-one to stand up for her and say everything was all right. She had to struggle by in the world, and now someone had changed all the rules on her. She had worked so hard to make friends with all the Senshi and be part of the team, and now even that had been taken away from her. Makoto just wished there was some way that she could contact Sailor Pluto and find out what was going on. Perhaps she could set everything straight. Maybe Luna would know how to contact the mysterious time Senshi that they had only recently been introduced to. Unknown to Makoto or any of the Inner Senshi, at that very moment, an unconscious Sailor Pluto lay on silk sheets in a luxurious bedroom. She was unconscious, and had been so for the whole week. Despite all the efforts of Michiru - which did not amount to much given her reluctance to contact a real doctor - the woman remained in a coma. If Makoto intended to rely upon Sailor Pluto for answers, they may be a long time in coming. * * * Ryoga cursed his luck as he walked down yet another street that looked exactly the same as the one before it. All this, just because he spotted some woman that looked like Ranma and tried to follow her instead of the real thing. By the time he had caught up with the red- head, and established that she was not the arrogant martial artist, he was already lost. Well, _he_ was not lost, he knew exactly where he was: he was right there. It was Ranma that was lost, and Ryoga had no idea where he needed to go to find Ranma. Even if they were on the same side now, fighting to avenge Akane, Ranma still caused him problems. It was all Ranma's fault, and he was supposed to be Ryoga's ally! Looking around, Ryoga mused on just what a difference it made fighting _with_ Ranma rather than against him. Last night Nabiki had convinced Ranma and himself to work together, and today he had seen just what Ranma could do when he was really pushed to it. There were times when even Ryoga had to admit that Ranma was impressive, and this had been one of them, no matter how much that admission stuck in his throat. After agreeing to work for Nabiki to find Akane's killers, Ryoga had handed over the scroll that detailed how to do the Shi Shi Hokodan. Ranma had studied it for hours, listening to everything that Ryoga said, only speaking to ask questions. They worked like that for several hours until Kasumi had chased them off to bed like a mother hen. Sunrise the next morning saw once bitter enemies standing side-by-side, working on Ranma's mastery of the Ki attack. Dwelling on the loss of Akane, neither boy had been at a loss for the volume of heavy Ki needed to fuel the Shi Shi Hokodan. By the time Kasumi had prepared breakfast for the reduced family, both teenage martial artists were throwing Ki blasts into the rubble of the dojo. Having seen the speed that Ranma had mastered the Shi Shi Hokodan, Ryoga was almost glad that he had not challenged Ranma with it. Surely he would have had no more than one or two battles advantage before Ranma would have learned the technique by himself. While Ryoga had no doubt that he was the superior martial artist and that Ranma only managed to win because he cheated every time, he could not fail to acknowledge Ranma's ability. It had taken Ryoga days to master the technique, over a week to reach his current level. Ranma was his equal overnight, with both of them capable of doing the basic technique as detailed on the scroll. Neither of them had yet mastered the Perfect Shi Shi Hokodan; the true form of the technique. But what they had would let them fight demons on a more even footing than they had even considered possible a month ago. The rest of the day had been spent in the pleasant bliss of trying to beat the stuffing out of Ranma. They had both toned down their blows, but Ryoga had found an almost primeval joy in hitting the smaller boy - even if it was just training. Without Ranma's constant taunts, Ryoga almost managed to avoid the berserker fury that often captured him in battle, and he could feel his technique firming up even as they practised. Today would have been a rather decent day if Shampoo had not come along and ruined it. After a short rest and a filling meal by Kasumi, Ranma and Ryoga had been poised to start on the first phase of Nabiki's plan. While she was trying to correlate data - whatever that meant - the two of them were going to patrol inner Tokyo during the evenings, looking for demons on a more-or-less random basis. It was not the best way to do things, but it got them out of the house, and neither Ryoga nor Ranma could bear to sit still and think that there was someone else out there that might get hurt like Akane was while they stayed and home and rested. Well, that _had_ been the plan, until Ranma had wandered off without Ryoga and planted that look-alike to fool him. Now Ryoga was wandering around Tokyo, trying to find Ranma or demons or Senshi, or even just an accurate map that showed the right city. A cry from up ahead brought Ryoga from his revive and he looked around, trying to track the source of the sounds. Surprisingly enough, even someone as directionally challenged as Ryoga managed to spot the woman that was being accosted. Not more than a hundred meters ahead of him, a gorgeous woman in what seemed to be an evening dress was floating in the air. That in itself would have been enough to make him investigate, but the sight of the woman frantically trying to defend herself with a black basket ball against a hideous, slavering demon made his blood boil and rational thought depart. Ryoga closed the range to just a little over fifteen meters, sprinting down the street and making sure that he kept them both in clear sight. For a short moment, Ryoga's confidence in right and wrong was momentarily shaken when he saw the beautiful woman with the long, pink hair firing black bolts of energy at the demon. Could she be one of the witches that Nabiki told them controlled the demons? If she was, why was the demon attacking her? That answer was easy enough to see when a second woman came into view. Although she was shorter than the first, she was no less striking of appearance. Unfortunately, where the floating woman in the evening dress seemed to embody the word beautiful, the woman on the ground had to rely on her clothing to capture attention. With flame red hair - longer than Ranma's and flowing freely - and a small red dress of almost matching colour, this woman was the obvious controller of the demon, as she kept shouting orders to it. Ryoga did not have to watch for too long to see that it was a slightly less than even fight. Both of the women were throwing energy blasts at each other that were digging up the road and knocking serious chunks out buildings, but only the witch had a demon. The other woman - the poor, beautiful damsel in distress - was being forced back. Ryoga grinned, bearing one nasty looking fang as he brought his hands together in front of him. No-one had noticed him yet, and he was sure that he could help even things up just a little, even without that useless Ranma. "SHI SHI HOKODAN!" The glowing green sphere of depression and anger slammed straight into the side of the demon, knocking it over when it was caught unawares. The creature might not be able to fly, but it certainly had been throwing something at the woman in the air, and Ryoga had just managed to remove that additional distraction for her. Already his plan was working: go in, keep hitting things, and eventually you will win. When the Witch turned and took in the second target, both Ryoga and the woman he was rescuing took the opportunity to try and melt her into the pavement. The pale woman in the short dress was too wily and quick to be taken in by that, and she leapt into the air, easily avoiding both strikes. Things got messy from there on. The demon quickly regained its feet, and showed that it had really only taken fairly minor damage from the blast. Everyone else in the battle seemed quite content to stay at range, but Ryoga knew that he would need to close quickly. The Ki blasts that he was throwing around were too draining. He did not yet have the practice to be able to keep them up for long, and if he needed to be able to fight, he could not afford to exhaust himself with them yet. Ryoga was just preparing to charge the demon and see how it liked a close range Bakusai Tenketsu when one of his Ki attacks missed. While missing was not exactly uncommon, he had never seen this sort of effect before, and apparently neither had anyone else. The pretty little statue that his floating friend had been guarding happened to be in the path of his green blast. Rather than being smashed into millions of shards like he expected the crystal to do, it grew. A single hit from the Shi Shi Hokodan somehow made the elegant crystal statue of a woman grow by over two feet. Where before it had been almost six feet tall, now it just topped eight. Whatever marvel of artistry the floating woman in formal wear had created, the Witch was an art critic of legendary proportions. Infuriated by the growth of the crystal, the Witch redoubled her attacks, forcing the defender back and away from the statue she protected. With this opening, rather than have the demon charge Ryoga, the Witch ordered it to destroy the crystal statue. Before Ryoga could get within arm's reach to stop it, there was a terrible shattering noise, and both the demon and the statue exploded. Small crystal shards stung his skin, but Ryoga shrugged them off, inured to the unpleasantness of exploding rocks long ago. Once again, Ryoga found himself grinning in battle. The woman he was rescuing did not appreciate the fact that her statue had been destroyed, but that could not detract from the fact that they now outnumbered the Witch two to one. Gathering energy so he could send a blast forward, forcing the Witch to dodge while he tried again to get in hitting distance, Ryoga watched as the Witch beamed a sinister smile at his ally, completely ignoring him. "While we work to fulfilling our Mistress' goals, I do not think that she would appreciate having an enemy as strong as you to be allowed to gain a foothold. Be warned! The Death Busters shall stop you wherever you try to gain power!" Insulted by the fact that someone would ignore him in favour of the person he was rescuing - even if she had done vastly more property damage than he had managed in the same time - Ryoga unleashed his Ki. Yet again his foe avoid it; this time she simply vanished into thin air, leaving him alone on the deserted street with only a flying, pink haired stranger for company. Looking around, Ryoga tried to find sight of another enemy, but came up empty. Empty, that was, until a perfectly formed face suddenly dropped into view right in front of him. Ryoga stuttered for a moment, grasping vainly for coherent thought as he took in the beauty before him. Her soft pink hair was done up in two pony tails, starting in short bundles on either side of her head. She had fine, delicate eyebrows, a perfectly formed, petite mouth, and a pair of the largest, most expressive red eyes that he had seem on anyone short of Akane. Not that Akane's eyes were red, but they were big and... Ryoga realised that he was beginning to babble out loud and closed his mouth with a snap. He felt his cheeks begin to redden as they always did under the scrutiny of a pretty woman. Nervously, he brought his fingers together and began to twiddle the nervously in front of him. Suddenly, the pert little mouth opened in a happy laugh; glorious, but not quite mocking in the way of Kodachi, and possibly tainted by sadness in its core. "Oh, Little Man, you are so modest! Imagine one such as you coming to save myself, Black Lady!" Wrenching his eyes away from her captivating face, Ryoga tried to find something else to look at that would allow him to think well enough to be able to speak. For a moment, his eyes tracked down her long neck, and across the top of her chest and shoulders. She stood almost as tall as he did, and the way that the fine, translucent red fabric revealed just a touch of cleavage threatened to send him unconscious before he looked away. After a embarrassing period of staring, he was able to concentrate on the shattered remains of her statue as they quickly vaporised into the early evening air. "I... I'm Hibiki Ryoga... Are... Are you all right? Did they hurt you?" "I'm am quite unharmed, I assure you. It would most assuredly take an effort on her behalf to harm one such as myself, but your concern is quite touching I assure you, Hibiki-san." "R-Ryoga, please." She favoured him another smile, and his blood pressure went up another ten points. "Ryoga-san, then. It is most unusual to find a knight upon Tokyo's streets. Most everyone seems to only care for themselves. I... I did not expect that anyone would do such a thing for me..." "Oh! I would have done it for anyone!" "Oh..." Black Lady's smile slipped slightly, but she was still happy as she turned away from him and gestured peremptorily in the air. Immediately, the strange, black, floating basketball scooted over and hovered next to her. At this distance, he could see that it had a pair of large eyes painted on it, and a set of silly looking cat ears on top. "Come, Luna-P. We must return to Wiseman." As she lifted into the air again and floated off, Ryoga wondered if he would ever see her again. True, her laugh echoed across the buildings in a disturbing manner, but she was polite to him, which is more than he could say about most people. He hoped that she would not be attacked any more this evening, because he was sure that he would not be able to find her again of his own volition. Setting off, Ryoga left the ravaged section of street behind him. If he stayed where he was, there was no chance of finding Ranma. His only hope was to keep walking until he ran into the boy again. Ohhh, the trials of working with Saotome! Casting a glance skywards in the direction Black Lady had flown, Ryoga mused quietly to himself. "I wonder why she had that black tattoo on her forehead?..." * * * Tomoe Hotaru lay on her bed and took a look at her door before settling back down. Her door was closed, but she was still nervous about what she was going to do. What if someone came in and saw it? Worse still, what if they recognised it? Then again, what if they did not recognise it? Would she be doomed to a life of wondering what her new knowledge meant and how she got it? It had been a whole week since the Incident - she even capitalised it in her head - and she had not managed to gather up the courage to do what she knew she could. A week ago she had collapsed, fainting in the middle of the street. No-one really noticed it except her, after all she was the sickly little Tomoe girl, she was always fainting. That's what everyone in her class said. Even she would not have been too concerned about it, if it was not for the fact that she had just been blessed by a goddess or something at the same time. Hotaru did not read many Shoujo manga, but Hotaru knew enough to understand what had happened. Somehow, out of all the girls in Tokyo, she had been chosen to be a magical girl defender. Only... couldn't they have chosen someone else? She was not sufficiently silly as to lie to herself about her physical abilities. Hotaru knew that if her new role as a magical girl entailed anything more strenuous than walking along, she would shortly collapse. Maybe... Maybe the goddess or the aliens or whoever gave her the powers did so because she was good and pure and nice. Again, while she could honestly say that she was a nice person, Hotaru was sure that there were others out there that would be much better, much nicer than her. Like Minaguchi Yuko in 3-D. She was always organising cake days and things like that for charities. Why wasn't she chosen to be a magical girl? "Mouu..." She quietly lamented. The only reason that she could come up with for her to be picked was her special 'healing hands'. If she really tired, she could help people get better. It took all her effort and usually it was enough to make her collapse, but if she tried, she could heal cuts or scrapes. But if that was why she had been chosen, surely she would have been told about it. All she knew about were her powers, and none of them included healing. The closest she seemed to get to that was the Silence Wall, and all that was good for was protecting things, it did not do a single thing to make them get better. Mind you, the Silence Wall was much better than her other abilities. The Silence Glaive Surprise, she just might see herself being able to use, she knew that with practice she could easily reduce the destruction to a hundred meters, maybe even less. Unfortunately, at the moment she lacked that practice, and destroying a dozen city blocks did not strike her as the way for a good and proper magical girl to behave. But seriously, what was the possible use of the Death Reborn Revolution? An attack that could destroy the entire planet!? Why on Earth would she ever use that? Hotaru could not even begin to think of a situation that you would even need a tenth of that power. To make things worse, she did not even have a name! What sort of Goddess knocks you out on the street, gives you all these powers and does not even give you a name? How was she supposed to be a real magical girl without some really cool name like Moldiver? She guessed she could call herself Pretty Hotaru the Magical Girl, but it was a bit long winded. Besides, she did not have a talking pet cabbit like Pretty Sammy did in the anime. Until this evening, she did not even know what she was supposed to do with her powers. But earlier, before she went to her bedroom to rest, she had seen her father watching the television. His rapt attention was captured by the brief segment of amateur video that showed some other, bigger girls attacking a woman with their magic. That was when she realised that she had a mission. She knew why she had her powers: she was supposed to stop the fighting! She was supposed to be the one to protect the innocent, to uphold the law, and serve the people. Hotaru just wished she really was certain, and not just trying to convince herself with her own words. If she was wrong... then she might end up hurting someone, and she did not want to do that. Hotaru had been hurt enough at school to know how little she enjoyed it, and the thought of inflicting pain on someone did not sit well with her. But then, if the only way to save the city from the warring magical girls was to show that that she was top cookie, that was what she would have to do. Hotaru pushed aside the though of just how she would get them to stop. The first time she tried to fight them, they would either kill her, or she would level a dozen city blocks. That is no way to try and talk reason to someone. A final check to see that her door was still closed and that she was alone, and Hotaru was ready. She could not say why she thought she had suddenly become a magical girl. She was just so sure that it was the truth. Not being able to summon a Henshin stick would be like finding out that she did not really have lungs and a mouth, and could not breathe. Thought became action, and Hotaru lifted her palm, revealing a shiny, dark blue stick. Her Henshin stick was not much larger than a novelty pen, and it was fat just like them too. She might have preferred a Hello Kitty figurine on end, but she knew that the Fluorite stone embossed with the bright blue emblem was what should have been there. Studying the stylised symbol, Hotaru tried to remember her English lessons but she could not quite recognise it. It looked like a cross between a 't' and a 'h', with the crossbar appearing in the top of the 'h''s main upright. When she could not remember the letter, she even checked her text book, but going through the alphabet there did not yield any better results. Perhaps it was something in an alien language, and she had been chosen by them to make the Earth safe for them to visit. Hotaru wished once more that she knew why she had these powers. At least now that she had summoned an unquestionably solid object from thin air, she knew that she was not going crazy. In the back of her mind there had been this little voice suggestion that her new memories were just a hallucination, but now she knew better, and there was only one step left to take... "Saturn Eternal Power! Make Up!" She knew that she had several forms she could transform into, each one more powerful than the last, but if she was going out to fight bad guys, by golly, she would take all the help she would get! Placing one hand in the air, Hotaru rotated on the spot, feeling her clothes vanish, only to be replaced by new ones in a cascade of colours. Shaking her short hair out of he face, Hotaru placed her feet firmly on the floor and held her weapon in a comfortable parade rest sort of posture. It worked! Quietly crowing with delight, Hotaru crowded over to her mirror to check out her image. Oh! She looked so cute! She had to be the best looking magical girl that she had ever seen! She had smart looking, knee high boots that laced up. They had sensible, low heels on them too, perfect for running and fighting; not that she would be doing much of that, but it was the thought that counted. She was sure that her father would have said that the skirt was too short, but she liked it; it made her look more grown up. She must have looked at least thirteen, maybe even fourteen! She had two, big pretty bows, one on her chest, and one on her back, and the ribbons on that one went all the way to her knees! Giving a soft "Ohhh", Hotaru leaned in towards the mirror to get a better look at the gem sitting in the middle of her chest bow. It was big and clear, covered in bright, spiky angles, and really pretty. She had a gold tiara, and even little diamond shaped earrings. Best of all, she had a pair of wings! A short flutter, not enough to lift a small bird, and she was aloft, holding herself a foot above the ground, entranced by her image in the mirror. This was so cool! She had a magical girl outfit, a big weapon, magical powers and she could fly! What else could she ask for? A name! That was what she needed now. If she was going to go out there to right wrongs and triumph over evil, she needed a name that was as good as she looked. Touching down again and giving the mirror a smile with more confidence than she ever could have mustered before, Hotaru reflected on the problem for a moment. Well, there was Sailor V... but she had a mask, and did not look too much like Hotaru. Besides, Sailor H did not really give the right impression, especially with a skirt that short. Hmmm... Silence Glaive. Silence Wall. Saturn Power, and Saturn was the planet of Silence her memories told her. She would be... "Silence Girl! Bringing peace and justice to Tokyo!" Spinning around, Hotaru felt dizzy with happiness. All her life, things seemed to go badly. She was always sick, then there was that terrible explosion in her father laboratory that put her in hospital for so long. Even her mother... she could not remember her mother, she had died so long ago. But now there was this! Hotaru was a magical girl: Silence Girl, and she was going to be able to help people anywhere they needed it! Remembering how much she had hoped that her healing abilities would have been helped by her magical girl status, Silence Girl put away her weapon and smirked. A week ago, Tomoe Hotaru would have called that a physical impossibility. Silence Girl was a magical girl, and she could easily make an seven foot weapon simply disappear. Taking a moment, Silence Girl smiled and hugged herself, rocking backwards and forwards. All her manga said that magical girls had to hide their real identities, so she could not tell anyone she was Silence Girl, but she knew she was special. No matter what anyone else ever said from now on, she was special. Holding her hands out in front with her palms up, Silence Girl concentrated on her healing powers. In a few short moments, a dim white glow appeared over the palms of her elbow length gloves. She did it! She could feel the healing power there in her hands, and it was so easy! She could keep it up for minutes! She might even be able to heal something really big, like a broken leg, maybe even more! Ohhh, she felt so special! She could really help people now, she... She abruptly sat down on the bed, healing aura vanishing. She felt too tired to keep that up for long. "Well, never mind! I can still do all sorts of other cool stuff. What else can I do? I can... I can sense evil..." Then she did. She felt it. In her house. Below her floor, in the walls, the floor and the furniture. A seeping, malignant, warping evil growing from the basement. An evil she could feel centred on her father as he walked around in the kitchen preparing a late night snack. "Oh, Father..." Without fanfare, the magical girl uniform faded back into her normal clothes that she had been wearing and Tomoe Hotaru curled up into a little ball rocking back and forwards on the bed. She did not want to be a magical girl anymore. She wanted her father back. She did not want to see evil everywhere. She did not want to see her home and father turned into one of the bad guys. There had only ever been one person in her whole life that loved her. She could not remember her mother, and none of the other children at school liked her because she was weak and different. It was always her father. Her father was the one that talked to her, that loved her, that cared for her. He was the only truly good person she knew. Tears trickled down her cheeks but Hotaru did not try to wipe them away. What had seemed like such a great gift only moments ago was now a curse. Now she could see that something had happened to her father. He had seemed anxious and preoccupied recently, but she thought that it had been to something to do with the lab explosion. Now she could see that it was something more. Something had tainted him, taken away the good, loving man that was her father. For all her wonderful powers, there was nothing she could do to help him. He had been there for her whenever she was tired or weak, but now she could not be there for him. All her magic powers had let her do was see what was wrong. All she wanted was her father; even the ignorance she had minutes ago was better than this. She would have been happy until... Until whatever warped him came for her too, but at least then, they would have still been together. Between quite sobs, Hotaru continually begged. "Take it back. Take them all back. I just want my father back. Please, take away the powers. I don’t want them anymore..." * * * Finding one person in a city the size of Tokyo was almost an impossibility. With so many people, and such a large area, the possibility of a chance encounter had to be incredible. Simultaneously searching for another group of people at the same time did not really change the odds all that much. If one of the people you are trying to find is Hibiki Ryoga, then the odds of finding him actually _in_ Tokyo become much worse. If he was the target of your quest, then you really should include all of Japan and China, and possibly a few other countries just to make sure. If, on the other hand, the renowned Hibiki-san is also searching for you, then the odds become truly astronomical. If this was the case, you really ought to give up and go home. Perhaps read a good book or twelve, or take up a new hobby - like making paper from the trees you grew yourself. There would be plenty of time. Because there is one certainty in this universe, and that is the fact that Hibiki Ryoga in almost never where he wants to be. The key word is _almost_ never... When Ranma walked past a corner of a faded red brick building and a solid wall walked into her, she felt the odd stirring of destiny in the air. There would not be half a dozen people in the city that would be that solidly built, and she was sure than none of them would be able to walk into her with as little warning as this person had done. Slowly swivelling her head, Ranma turned and looked off to her right. Green leggings tied with rope? Right so far. Tracking up the body, she caught sight of Ryoga's confused expression and sighed in a mix of exasperation and relief. The dolt had not even notice the fact that he knocked her over! "Oi! Ryoga! Where'd you go?" Looking down at where Ranma was picking herself off the ground, Ryoga gave her a brief glare. "Ranma! We're supposed to working together! Why did you run off like that?" Standing toe-to-toe with the much bigger boy, the fiery redhead gave him a royal blasting. "I ran off? What sex did you think I was when we left the house? A boy! And who did you follow the first chance you got? Some six foot gaijin redhead! She didn't look a thing like me. So what are you complaining about me running off?" "What? You saw that? Well why didn't you say something?" "Why didn't I?... I was shouting at the top of my lungs, but you were too pig-headed to notice. Have you gone deaf or something? How many times did I have to say 'Ryoga, over here' before you noticed?" "So you just let me follow the wrong person? Ranma, I ought to..." "No you idiot! I managed to keep up with you until some kids splashed me with water. Next thing I know that gaijin's there, but you're missing. Did you finally wise up and figure out it wasn't me?" "Well, yeah, so I headed back to the Tendo Dojo and---" Ranma cut him off with a slicing motion of her hand. "I don't even wanna know where you ended up then. I..." "You what?" Ranma knew that the odds were too great on her finding Ryoga this afternoon. Luck alone could not have brought them together. It must have been an act of the gods. Those same gods were obviously still looking over her shoulder, because they had just delivered retribution into Ranma's hands. With a finger that trembled with excitement, Ranma indicated what had captivated her attention down the street. Five girls, all in distinctive sailor suit costumes. The dreaded Sailor Senshi. Killers and worse, they were the architects of Ranma's pain, and she intended to extract the cost in the coinage of blood. Looking at the girls talking with such happiness and liveliness, Ranma had no difficulty at all in summoning a ball of green Ki into her hands. There they were, alive and well, and the only reminder of Akane was a grey tombstone and her pain. In nothing more than a whisper, Ranma offered a short prayer. "Akane, prepare to receive your first escorts into the afterlife." A quick glance showed that Ryoga was just as prepared as she was. Their enemy might have stopped to talk for a moment, but it looked like they wanted to leave any moment now. At only twenty meters from their prey, there was no way that they could miss. Surprise would be complete, and soon they would have their revenge. How tough could five little girls be? "Hit the tall one on three. I'll take the blondes, you take the brunettes." Without taking his eyes off the girls, Ranma felt Ryoga nod and counted quickly. "1... 2... 3! SHI SHI HOKODAN!" Twin balls of Ki flew out and knocked over the tall girl with the green skirt and pink bows like a target in a shooting gallery. Twin screams of rage instantly told the Senshi where their attacker were, but by then it was too late. Quite possibly Cologne and Happosai were the only people in Japan that were their equals in the Art, and if either of the elders had been there, neither would have lifted a finger against Ranma or Ryoga. In close combat, the Senshi's fighting skills paled to insignificance against Ranma and Ryoga. Years older and having both trained since before they could walk, either boy had hundreds of times the fighting experience than the entire Sailor team combined. They were fast and strong, capable of meeting any martial artist on their own terms and beating them. They were water and earth, elemental forces of vengeance, unstoppable by ordinary humans. However the Senshi were far from ordinary humans. They were a team, five bodies all part of the one whole. When they fought, it was not as individuals, but unified towards the greater good. They were strong because their hearts were pure, and they had were the inheritors of the greatest magical powers that the wisdom of the Silver Millennium had been able to create. Sailor Jupiter might have been felled by that first attack, but they were far from defeated. In this, the first conflict between them, both sides made the almost fatal mistake of underestimating their opponents. For Ranma and Ryoga, things seemed quite simple; they were the premier martial artists of their generation, and they had complete surprise. Having knocked down one enemy with their first attack, they were fully intending to bull their way through the remainder with equal ease. Despite the strong examples set by Ukyo and Shampoo, neither Ranma nor Ryoga could get past the fact that these were just girls; girls who did not even hold themselves like real martial artists. Mercury's computer had failed to alert the Senshi to any magical threat in the area, and as such, they were caught flat footed. So used to fighting the magically endowed Negaverse and Dark Moon Family, the Senshi had forgotten the danger than mere humans could be. But then, the Senshi were all young girls and even Makoto, the most rambunctious of them, had never began to approach the level of someone who excelled in the art and dedicated their life to nothing else. Regardless of the fact that Senshi were caught by surprise, they reacted like the smoothly running team that they were. The martial artists held the high ground initially from surprise and unexpected effectiveness, but that soon faded as the Senshi showed them the effectiveness of magic. In no way was magic a substitute for the effort and training of martial arts: it was a completely separate path to a level of power that Ranma and Ryoga never even considered. All told, the battle could not have lasted more that thirty seconds. As soon as his Shi Shi Hokodan left his hands, Ryoga charged the two brunettes, feeling the blood sing in his veins as the familiar battle lust overtook him. He was dimly aware that Ranma was beside him, but that no longer mattered. All that mattered was the fight, the feeling of flesh under fist as he battered his way through his opponents. This was the way that it had been ever since he was young, and his battles with Ranma had only strengthened his rage. When Ryoga fought, there was only the battle; nothing else mattered. That was why Ranma had so often managed to trick him into a pool of water, but it was also the reason that he never stopped until his was crippled and unable to move. While Hibiki Ryoga still breathed, there was no defeat. One meaty fist knocked the one with the short hair flying. Reorienting onto the slightly taller brunette with the long flowing hair, Ryoga whipped up one leg and tried to separate her head from her shoulders. Amazement at the fact that she dodged did not even reach Ryoga's conscious mind. The idea that people could dodge his blows was firmly entrenched in his psyche from past battles. Avoidance would only get this girl so far before he managed to tag her, and no little girl would get up from a blow by someone as strong as him, surely. His enemy said something in the midst of reeling back from him, but Ryoga paid it no mind. Gnashing his teeth and snarling, Ryoga barrelled through for another attempt to pin the sailor in red. He missed her again, and ended up with his fist buried to the elbow in the wall behind her. "Stand still and let me kill you!" The girl finished her chat and took his brief pause as time to tag him on the forehead with a sheet of paper. Obvious she expected it to do something more than annoy him, because she stopped dodging for a moment to admire her handiwork. "Bad move, girlie!" Ryoga's straight right punch caught the brunette squarely in the forehead, jerking her chin backwards, and knocking her onto her bottom. That stunned Ryoga: the fact that this slight little girl had clearly survived such a strong punch was even now getting back to her feet. He was still grappling with the fact that a weak looking person like her could easily take what would have stunned Ranma when a pair of ferocious kicks landed into his side and sent him skidding across the ground slightly. Dusting himself off slightly, Ryoga gave the other girl a smile. 'Well', he thought. 'They're all tough customers. Not strong enough to hurt an Hibiki, though.' The short haired brunette who had kicked him was still holding her leg in the air, seemingly stunned by the fact that she had failed to either cave in his ribs, or to even get his attention with her powerful blows. Now that they knew him for the threat that he was, none of the girls were too keen on letting him touch them again. After several charges against one or the other, Ryoga suddenly noticed his feet getting heavy. A quick glance down showed him that his feet were encased in ice; ice that was growing at the end of a long spurt coming from the hands of one of his opponents. "Ice? You'll have to do better than that to keep me here!" To demonstrate just how futile her efforts were, Ryoga' bent down and slammed his fist into the clear ice at his feet. While more ice began to form over his shoulder and arm, Ryoga stared in amazement. He cracked it! That was all. Before, he had demolished an entire ice rink with a single blow that was weaker than this one. How could ice possibly be so strong? His brief indecision was enough to seal his fate, as the sailor's cocoon of ice continued to enshroud him, forming a complete shell. This magical ice, whatever it was, was so hard that no matter how he strained, Ryoga could not form the leverage to break it. Even the breaking point seemed to be able to do no more than shatter a little bit surrounding his finger. It was a start, but at that rate, their enemies would finish them off well before he escaped. Growling through the ice, Ryoga's eyes sought Ranma and prayed that Ranma would make these girls pay dearly for his and Akane's lives. Ranma's fight had started similarly to Ryoga's. However, no matter how contorted with rage she was, Ranma could not loose herself in the battle like her now-ally Ryoga. She was not laughing and joking like she normally did in a fight, but she managed to keep a small part of herself detached, observing everything that was happening and absorbing it for future review. It was the key to Ranma's staggering ability to learn new moves. She never saw something just once, for after a battle she would replay an enemy's moves back to herself again and again until she could see it in her sleep. Her two enemies were a fine pair for a martial artist of her calibre to fight. Both young girls, they could not have been more than fifteen, and neither of them looked like they had ever really fought a single day in their lives. There was one girl with enough blonde hair to give Shampoo a run for her money, and another with the strangest hair style Ranma had ever seen. Basing her decision on the repulsive aesthetics of the hairstyle, Ranma ran straight past the girl with the red bow in her hair and delivered a snap kick to her friend's chin. 'Glass jaw', Ranma idly noted as the girl flew up and backwards. She was obviously unconscious from the way her arms limply flowed around. No-one could possibly move like that when they were conscious; at least, no-one Ranma had ever heard of. Turning her attention back to the girl in the orange skirt, Ranma lashed out with a kick to the back of the girl's knees than took her to the ground. Faster than Ryoga and blessed by the fact that she was really only fighting one opponent, Ranma quickly established the advantage over her opponent. She was fast enough to dodge out of Ranma's Amaguriken after only half the blows had landed, but even then she did not have Ryoga's constitution; or possibly she was reeling in amazement. Certainly, it did not make a great deal of sense to Ranma that the girl backed off slightly and tried to blow her a kiss. Grimacing at the thought that this was another one of the crazy girls that seemed to plague her life, Ranma came in low and fast, hoisting her for a hip throw the moment that she winked and began to draw her hand away from her mouth. With an amazed look on her face, the girl in the orange skirt sailed across half the street and slammed face first into the ground in a very inelegant landing. Taking advantage of her brief victory, Ranma accounted for the others on the battlefield. Ryoga was keeping two girls on the ropes, the girl with the silly hair was standing shakily and wailing. Most amazingly, the girl that both she and Ryoga had hit with the Shi Shi Hokodans at the start was trying to get back to her feet. What did it take to keep these people down for the count? Even the scant moments required to take in that little information almost proved to be too much. Only a deeply ingrained sense of danger and the rapidly spoken "Venus Crescent Beam!" allowed Ranma to dodge a bright beam of yellow coming from the fingertip of her enemy. Cursing herself for a fool, Ranma charged back at the girl, crossing the short meters between them before she finished firing. 'Of course they had beam attacks, you idiot', she thought. 'That's what killed Akane...' Now a red haze covered Ranma's eyes and the rest of the world vanished. For a while, it had been like any other fight but that single thought of Akane had driven reason before it. All that mattered was breaking this human shaped thing in front of him. Shattering it into a million pieces, making it hurt a thousand times over for every second of life that they had deprived Akane. When Ranma popped herself upright in front of the girl, she still had her arm out, looking shocked at the fact that she missed her target. Capturing the sailor's extended right arm under her left, Ranma held it close to her body. Turning her body to force the arm painfully in its shoulder joint, Ranma brought her left leg up outside her arm and dropped it cracking down on top of her victim's head. Not satisfied with the way that the sailor started to go limp in her hands from the blow, Ranma tried it a couple more times, alternating with kicks to her face on the return. Despite the pain and the debilitating position she held the other girl in, Ranma could feel her enemy begin to struggle again. Perhaps she had realised that Ranma intended to beat her to death like this, and going limp would just make it easier for her. Before she could escape, Ranma used one of many moves she would never have tried against Ryoga or any of her normal opponents. Supporting herself on her right leg, Ranma dropped her full weight onto her left leg as it was crossed over the other girl's arm. Held between the girl's shoulder and Ranma's grip, it was the joints in the captive arm that gave way under the attack, simultaneously dislocating both shoulder and elbow. That was the reason Ranma would never have done it to her old opponents: no matter how good modern surgery was, no-one would ever fully recover from that move. Ranma's prey gave a satisfying - if high pitched - scream as it fell to the ground, clutching its ruined right arm. Grabbing a handful of thick blonde hair, Ranma yanked her back to her knees and bent down behind her. Shifting her grip slightly, Ranma placed one hand across her jaw, and put the heel of her other hand against the agonised girl's forehead. This was another move she had never even considered needing before. No-one recovers from a broken neck, and until Akane's death, Ranma would have been happy living her entire life without killing anyone. "This is for killing Akane. You and you're friends will never kill anyone again!" The thought of killing this first time made Ranma pause for just the slightest moment. A single instant where her whole life of being friendly and forgiving rebelled against this final, irrevocable act. That instant was enough. Enough so that someone unseen in her rage managed to draw themselves together and put together a credible attack. The words "Supreme Thunder" did not impact on Ranma's consciousness. Her whole word was centred around the one frail neck she held in her grasp and the life that now hung in the balance. The words might not have registered but the electricity associated with them certainly did. Acting like she had just grabbed a live power cable - which was not far from the truth - Ranma's back arched and her muscles tensed, throwing her half a dozen meters down the street. Blue electricity danced along her for long moments, making her convulse like an epileptic watching a dozen strobe light arrays. Finally the pain stopped and self preservation made Ranma roll to one side as soon as she was capable of controlling her limbs. Smoke drifted off her body in a few places, testament to the electrocution she had just received, but Ranma knew that the pain of sudden movement was a small price to pay. As if on cue, a glowing yellow disc carved a small chunk of the street out then returned to the girl that had thrown it. Rising to one knee, Ranma twitched slightly as her muscles tried to shake off the effect of the lightning attack. A look around the near deserted street revealed that things had not gone as well as they had expected. Astonishingly, the girl in the green skirt was standing. She did not look happy, but she was far from being the blasted corpse that Ranma expected the Shi Shi Hokodan to cause. Ranma's first victim was on her feet, giving a scowl that would have made Akane proud. Worse still, both of the dark haired girls were looking at her with blood in their eyes. They did not look unhurt, but the Ryoga Popsicle behind them testified to who had won that fight. Ryoga down, she was hurt, and all they had to show for it was a crippled girl and an 'almost'. Gritting her teeth, Ranma stood and faced off against her enemies. She knew their reputation. They would kill her in cold blood the first chance they got. Heaven forbid what would happen to Ryoga if she ran off. There was only one choice, and Ranma did not like to make it: in her injured state, Ranma needed to get through their line, rescue Ryoga and escape. She smirked when she realised just how impossible it sounded. That smirk irritated the bad guys no end, and aside from the orange skirted cripple, they all attacked. No longer in the hyper-sensitive state she had started the battle in, Ranma could no longer closely follow the intricate moves that each of them made before they blasted out their energies at her. That did not mean that she was incapable of dodging, and the time required to create the attack let Ranma dash off to one side, heading past the red skirted girl who had just tried to roast her. Her zig turned into a zag when the second round of fire came in. Diving full length, Ranma just sailed under the multicoloured pyrotechnics that were aimed at her. Touching the ground almost right between the brunettes, Ranma tucked into a curl and rolled up onto her feet, conserving her forward momentum so that she could lift the big icicle containing Ryoga off the ground. Taking advantage of the fact that Ryoga's icy prison had almost stopped her, Ranma grunted and threw herself up and back. This time she went overhead as the girls tried to fry her. Ranma hit the ground running and swung into the first alley that she could find. The turmoil of the rapidly moving girl must have confused her enemies, because the first footfalls of pursuit silenced almost immediately. Ranma was tempted to stash Ryoga and try to get back into the battle, but she heard the silly looking blonde calling out another attack. Fearing that the sailor planned to blast through the corner of the building hiding her, Ranma took off down the street, her fingers slowly melting the ice holding her only ally. She had seen the powers of a Venus Crescent Beam and a Moon Tiara Action, she had no interest in finding out what a Moon Healing Activation would do to her. Especially since the scream behind her made it sound like one sailor was putting the other out of her misery. What cold hearted team would turn their attacks on another member? They might not have won this battle, but they did not really lose it easier. A hot bath would melt Ryoga out, and Ranma had seriously wounded one of Akane's killers. It was a start, and next time, Ranma and Ryoga would be able to do even better. The sight of a female Ranma carrying Ryoga encased in a block of ice should have been one to raise eyebrows and elicit comments of concern. In most homes it would have been sufficient reason to call the hospital, sending the whole family into a panic. In the Tendo home it was greeted by a quiet "Hello Ranma-kun. The furo is available if you want it." Having lived with the strangeness associated with the extraordinary martial artists for months now, Kasumi was quite willing to take a few things in stride. She was as well aware as anyone else that encasing Ryoga in a block of ice for ten minutes would do nothing more than make the boy mad. As for their allegedly male guest coming home as a girl... that was par for the course around here. "Thanks Kasumi. Could you call Pop and Nabiki? We'll be ready in ten minutes." "Certainly, Ranma-kun. Have a nice bath." Ranma nodded and continued up the stairs to eventually drop Ryoga - icy covering and all - straight into the hot bath. Water splashed everywhere, including over the now male Ranma, but the bathroom stayed drier than it often did when the two boys met there. So often in the past, the bathroom had been the scene of battles but today Ranma simply sat patiently, occasionally draining off the cold water and replacing it with new hot water. When Ryoga's head was finally clear he looked at Ranma and opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out. What could he say? The man he had hated more than anything in this world had saved him from death today and had just sat by him, ensuring that he safely recovered. Ryoga tried to say something else, only hesitating when Ranma stood up. "I know what you mean, Ryoga. Ain't no need to say it. You would have done the same thing for me." As much as Ryoga hated to admit it, Ranma was right. Ryoga would have done the same thing for him had their situations been reversed. Even before Akane had died, Ryoga was aware that he would have fought beside Ranma if he needed to. Now, there was no question of need. They were united against a common enemy. Shaking the last of the ice from his legs, Ryoga stepped out of the bath and dried himself off while Ranma waited in the changing room. They had not discussed it, but they both knew that the whole family would want to know how they had faired on their first night of protecting Tokyo. At the very least, Nabiki would surely pump them dry of every detail they could remember. Anything they told her now would surely come back to help them next time as her analytical mind put the puzzle pieces together and found out all the secrets of their enemies. With a slight swish, the changing room door opened and they walked down to the living room where Kasumi, Nabiki, Soun and Genma all awaited them. The mood was heavy and tense, as it would be considering the fact that the boys had initially expected to be out for several more hours, and no-one had even considered having Ryoga come home in an ice-cube. Nabiki gestured to a couple of spare spaces around the table and the weary warriors sat. "I think we can assume that something happened. Do you want to tell it to me from the start?" Both boys began talking at the same time, but Ranma overrode Ryoga and forced his version to be the one they listened to. "Well, after we left here, Pig Boy, sorry, Ryoga got lost. I figured on taking a look around the city for a while by myself. After a bit I spotted Ryoga, then them sailors. Well, few fought them, but they got Ryoga and I almost nailed one of them. She'll be out of it for a while. I think that's about everything." Nabiki smacked her head with her palm and moaned. That was supposed to be a detailed report? She was about to launch into Ranma when Ryoga pushed him aside and took centre stage. Not only was he a better storyteller than Ranma, he also possessed vital information that Ranma was not acquainted with. After telling everyone about Black Lady and Ryoga's own - slightly more verbose - description of the fight, it was Nabiki and Genma's turn to try to make sense out of what they heard. With a polite nod of her head to let Genma proceed, Nabiki continued to touch type notes as they spoke. Here was the point where Genma's years of experience showed over Ranma's youth and talent. They had already established that Genma was not capable of matching Ranma in a fight, but he had the wisdom of years on the road under Happosai. Step-by-step, Genma led them through the fight. Under his patient coaxing, the two boys revealed every move that they made, and every attack that their enemies had done. Once he had constructed a timeline of the events from a martial perspective, he handed it back to Nabiki. Grinning like a shark, Nabiki went to work on her houseguests like they were defendants at a murder trial. Every detail, she questioned. How long was it between fighting Black Lady and fighting the Senshi? How long did each fight last? What was each person wearing? What sort of magic did they use? How much damage did things do? Who gave orders and who followed them? Anything and everything was prized out by her intense questioning and stored into her laptop. Nabiki's arm might have been broken, but that was no reason that she could not operate a computer. She had never needed one before to keep up with things as simple as running a gambling ring in the school, but for something as important and complex as this, she wanted every benefit she could get. For that reason she had spent a fair portion of the money she had accumulated and acquired the computer. She was already making a map with all of the known sightings of demons and Senshi, and eventually she hoped to be able to predict their movements. Finally, hours later, Nabiki was finished. Kasumi had managed to serve dinner some time during the questioning, and everyone was feeling very tired. The sheer emotional impact of their first battle - a success by almost any standard - was draining. Bidding everyone good night, Nabiki wandered off to bed. At the entrance to the room, Nabiki halted and looked back at the assembled people. "Each one of these girls is as fast as Ranma, and as tough as Ryoga, maybe not quite as strong." She held her hands up to block the protests of egotistical martial artists. "Guys, that's based on what you, yourselves, told me. Is there any way that we can beat them?" Ranma, Ryoga and Genma all nodded as one and spoke in one voice. "Training." "Training? You're telling me you can train so that you can beat five girls, any one of which might be able to win against you?" Again they nodded, but this time it was only Genma who spoke. "They need magic to be that good. Us... These boys... They only need themselves. We'll work and we'll train, and some day they will be good enough to beat one of the Sailor Senshi any day of the week." Slightly abashed, Nabiki nodded then turned and left the room. Ranma and Ryoga were about to follow her when Genma placed a hand on his son's arm. "Boy, I want to speak to you for a minute. You can't go to bed yet." "All right, but make it fast." Ranma's normally low tolerance for his father was rapidly diminishing as exhaustion crept through his body. Genma nodded and gestured Ryoga to follow them up the stairs. After leaving Ryoga in the guestroom that he would share with the Saotomes, Genma took Ranma down the hall slightly more and pushed open the door to Akane's room. He did not turn on the light switch, instead looking at his son in the shadowed darkness of the room. "What are we doin' here old man? You know I don't like comin' in here. It reminds me of..." Genma nodded, streetlight reflecting off his glasses. "I brought you here so that you could think about Akane when I talk to you. So that you can remember her. Remember why you are doing this." He paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts then went on. "You fought tonight, Boy. Fought well too. You make your father proud. Did you enjoy it, Boy? Did you enjoy fighting for real, not just training all the time? Did you like it when you put those moves into real use? "I... Yes, It felt good. I enjoyed it. I know I shouldn't but I did. No! I was doing what was right, that was why I enjoyed it! There's nothing wrong with tryin' to defend people." Genma nodded, a veritable sage. His voice dropped to a conspiratorial tone. He spoke enticingly, encouragingly as though he was trying to get Ranma to join him in the way that he felt. "How about when you had that blonde girl in your grip? I heard what you said, you just kept hitting her. Didn't it feel good, to feel the way that she hurt, for hurting you and Akane? How about when you had her by the neck? Feels nice, doesn’t it? You can feel her life in your hands. Every breath that she takes, it's a gift from you. Makes you feel like a real man doesn't it? Being able to kill someone, it makes you feel... stronger... better..." "I... That is... When she... But I..." Turning his head in apparent disgust, Genma studied the side of the room while he covertly watched his son. Subtly trying to lead him into apostasy, all the while hoping that his son understood what the art really was about. "But what? But you waited? But you couldn't do it? But you don't want to kill? Not even the girl that killed Akane? What kind of a man are you?" "HEY! I am a man! I just... It took me a while. I was going to... I just couldn't do it straight away." Nodding once, Genma flicked on the light and walked up close to his son. "That is what I wanted to hear. If you enjoyed it... If you felt no concern at killing someone... Then I would have failed and you would be no man at all. "I've done many bad things in my life, many you are aware of, and many more you will hopefully never know. But I have never killed anyone. I came close on several occasions. Times when killing seemed the only way out. I will never condemn you if you kill these girls. They are murders, cold-blooded killers who are beyond the reach of the law. "There is no point in trying to stop these women if you just turn yourself into a heartless killer like they are. Always remember that Ranma. Are you doing what is right?" His eyebrows lowered and his fists clenched. "I am, Pop. I know what I'm doing is right, and I'm the one that's gotta do it." Taking his son by the shoulders, he turned him gently to face the mirror over Akane's dresser. "Don’t tell me, Boy. Tell him, that man you're looking at. You can lie to other people, but never, ever lie to yourself. I'm going to leave now, Boy, but you stay here for a bit. Just stay and ask yourself: Are you doing what is right? Is this what Akane would have wanted you to do?" Ranma started to answer, but Genma walked away. "You can tell me what you want. But you've got to be able to look in that mirror, and tell him to truth. You've to be able to look yourself in the eye and be proud of who you are. Somedays, I can't. Somedays, I look at the boy I raised, and I can stare at the mirror and say I did a good job. "Don't lie to yourself boy. Take a lesson from you father. It never helps anything." With that, Genma closed the door and left Ranma alone, staring at his own reflection. His reflection blinked back some tears, and Ranma ran a hand across his face. "I miss you, Akane... Uncute tomboy..." Steeling himself, Ranma gripped the edge of the dresser and caught his eyes in the mirror. "I know Akane would want me to help other people, to keep them safe. I know getting rid of those girls is the only way I can do it... So that's what I've got to do. And that's someone I can be, someone who has to kill murderers to save everyone else." When he walked out the door, Ranma slowly closed it behind him with nothing more than a quiet click. Somehow, outside the room, things seemed a little less close, a little less intense. Placing two fingers on the duck nameplate, Ranma whispered in the silence of the hall. "Thanks, Akane. I... I'll see you again tomorrow." * * * Outside it was a lovely morning to walk to school. The sun was shining and it was pleasantly warm. There was not a cloud in the sky, and it was one of those rare Tokyo days where the wind has come in just right overnight, cleaning the sky of pollution. _Outside_ the Tomoe home it was a lovely day... Inside the house was another matter. Everything looked nice, a perfect example of a single parent home in a reasonably well-off area. The house was clean, the people smiled and the food was good. What more could anyone ask for? Tomoe Hotaru knew the answer to that question. She had tried her powers again this morning, desperately hoping that the feelings of evil she had sensed before were merely the product of her tiredness. Regrettably, that was not the case. Her home was like a thin watercolour painted over an unseen canvas of evil. The first time that you scratched at the paint, the truth was revealed. She could not see it now, her eyes were as blind as everyone else's to the hidden truth, but that did not change the truth. The truth was that her father had somehow, sometime been taken over by the forces of darkness. Casting silent eyes across the breakfast table, Hotaru thought it must have had something to do with her father's "lab assistant" called Kaolinite. Hotaru was old enough to realise that her father might not want to stay single forever, but she could have found almost anyone that would have been better for him than this woman. Her skin was pale and dead looking, and she dressed like a... Well, Hotaru was brought up not to say those sorts of things. What was worse was that when Hotaru had used her magic to examine the woman this morning, she had seen a different sort of evil within Kaolinite. Her father's was an evil that had grown inside him and taken over, she could still see the good within in him; at least, she thought - she hoped - that she could still see it. Kaolinite was like a plant that had been nourished from birth. She was evil through and through, and Hotaru had a horrible feeling that she must be one of the reasons that Hotaru had received her magical girl powers. She was someone that Hotaru might one day have to face to save Tokyo. Neither her father nor Kaolinite commented when Hotaru failed to finish her breakfast. While it might have been the fact that the sickly girl often was incapable of finishing a whole meal, Hotaru believed it was their new preoccupation. Ever since Kaolinite had moved in with them and her father had redoubled his efforts in their basement laboratory, he had been distant. Hotaru's father no longer seemed to care for her in the way that he once did. Hotaru could only hope that when she saved him from the evil that was claiming his soul, then perhaps he would come back to her. After brushing her teeth and checking the last of her uniform, Hotaru nervously hopped from foot to foot. She wanted her father to come upstairs again and take her off to school, however it seemed that today he would be staying in his lab the whole time. It used to be that he would usher her off to the school every day, often walking with her. Since he worked at her school, it made sense, though these days he avoided his work more than he attended it. "Please, Daddy. Come up from your laboratory today..." It was more of a prayer than a request and it went unheard by gods and men alike. When the time for her to depart for school came and went, Hotaru stood in the hallway, nervously shuffling from foot to foot. She did not want to go down stairs to the basement. She had terrible memories of an explosion and pain, but if her father did not come up, it meant that she needed to go down. No matter how much she wanted to go off to school and ignore the terrible things that were happening in her home, Hotaru could not do it. The thought of her father being taken over by something evil hurt her heart like nothing else could. If there was the slightest chance that she could save him, she had to take it. Gathering up her courage, Hotaru looked around for Kaolinite and then tiptoed to the front door where her school shoes sat. She knew that it was not safe to walk around in the lab barefoot because of the danger of broken glass or spilled chemicals, so she carried her shoes to the staircase down and put them on. Swallowing despite her suddenly dry mouth, Hotaru pushed open the door and began her descent. The staircase was clean, painted and well lit, but something about it seemed to be as ominous as any of the scary movies that she had ever seen on television. With one hand on the railing, she walked down, her shoes softly clicking on the concrete, muted in the distance by the growing sounds of bubbling and brewing. It was her first sight of the laboratory for quite a while, and somehow she was surprised by just how mundane it appeared. To Hotaru's uneducated eyes, her father's subterranean laboratory was almost identical to the science labs that they had at school. The one thing that was here that was not at school was her father, and that made all the difference. "Daddy..." When he turned his head and looked at her, the expression on his face could have been described as concerned and compassionate. Anyone other than Hotaru probably would have described it that way, but she knew this man too well. She could see the concern there, but there was no compassion, merely a hint of irritation. "What is it, Hotaru? Are you too ill to go to school?" "No. Daddy, I..." "What is it?" That trace of impatience was growing. Unable to stop herself, she ran over to him and hugged him around the waist, burying her head into the comforting warmth of his lab coat. "I want to help you, Daddy. I can feel it. Kaolinite... she's doing something to you... I can feel the evil in you, but it's not you..." Unseen by the small girl, every trace of compassion dropped from the elder Tomoe's face, and anger flashed across it. No matter what his face showed, Tomoe kept his voice calm and kind. "Shhh. There's nothing wrong with me, Hotaru-chan. You're just feeling confused, I'm sure." "No! No, you have to believe me. I've seen it. There's something in you, something trying to take control." He forced a chuckle, then moved his daughter to sit on one of his stools. "Believe me, Hotaru, there is nothing wrong with me at all. I feel fine. Everything will be all right. How did you see this evil?" Hotaru ignored the alarm bells that began to ring in her head. "I... I got special powers last week... I can see all sorts of things... Where are you going, Daddy?" He was walking to the stairs, facing away from the girl while he spoke. "You're just excited, Hotaru-chan. I'll get Kaolinite. Together we will make you see that there is nothing to fear." "N-Nothing to fear?..." "Kaolinite! Get down here!" With that he turned and faced her again, his right eye glowing a strange, demented green. All pretence had gone from his expression. His smile was more of a leer or a gloating smirk than one of love, and he stood where he could bar her exit from the room. "We need you, Hotaru. You shall be the vessel that holds our mistress. When Kaolinite gets here, we shall make you understand. You will never want to leave again." Tears began to track down her pale face at those words. He couldn't be doing this! Not her father! Not to her! In a motion that was almost subconscious, Hotaru lifted her right hand to the ceiling and spoke the words; not as a war cry but more a cry of hope. "S-Saturn Eternal Power! M-Make Up!" Tomoe Souichi watched with a detached air as his daughter transformed into one of the Sailor Senshi. He was not sure that he could place the costume, but surely they were the only real magical girls around, and his daughter had just demonstrated unquestionable magical power. Idly he wondered if that was why he had been chosen, because of his daughter. He pushed that thought aside; it did not matter, only reclaiming the child mattered. "What are you going to do with that thing? Poke me? Or are you going to blast your poor, dear Daddy into little pieces?" Damn that Kaolinite! What was taking her so long? "Y-Your not my Daddy!" "No, I'm not, but he is in here. Deep inside me, and if you kill me, you'll kill him too. Can you do that little girl? Can you kill the daddy that loves you so much? Just give in. It's so much easier. We'll take away all your pain and worry. Soon you'll be happy again, and all this will seem like a bad dream." He took a step towards her, and she lowered the Silence Glaive to point at him with death and destruction hovering just beyond her tear- streaming eyes. "S-Stay away from me!" Another step. "You won't hurt me. You've already lost. I can hear Kaolinite now." Was that the door opening? Was Kaolinite about to come down the stairs? Hotaru was shaking so badly she almost dropped her weapon. When her father suddenly rushed towards her, she yanked up the pole arm and shouted instinctively. "No! Silence Glaive Surprise!" For an attack that powerful, it was almost anticlimactic. She had deliberately avoided him with her deadly power, but there was nothing that could protect the house above their heads. With a sickening slowness, the house began to fall apart in dreadful silence. It could not have taken more than five seconds, with the two of them watching stunned the whole time. Pieces began to lift out of the ceiling, the foundations, the walls; each dissolving away in a silence so complete it was almost painful. All too soon it was over, and Hotaru wiped some of the tears from her face with the back of her glove. She thought it would be hard to do what she had just done, but the power came easily and simply. It frightened her to think that she could level most of Tokyo with less effort than it took to walk across it. "You missed me, little girl, and that's the last mistake you'll ever make." With a voice that sounded as weak as she felt, Hotaru made one final wish that her father was all right and that someday she could come back and help him. "I didn't miss. I did it on purpose. I... I love you, Daddy." With that she gave one quick beat of her wings and floated out of the open-air basement. Seeing his target escaping, Tomoe lunged for her, missing her boots by a foot or more. Standing in the ruin of his once elegant home, Tomoe began bellowing insults and abuse at her as he stood underneath. She hovered only for a moment, then scooted off to the street. A single glance told him that it would be some time before he could climb out of the hole that he was in. The stairs to ground level were sheered cleanly three-quarters of the way to the top. Blocks from her house, Hotaru began to tire, causing her to land and transform back into her school uniform. She was shaking, badly, and it was not just due to the fatigue. If she had not sent most of the power straight up, who knows how many people she might have killed? Even now, she might have killed someone. Had Kaolinite really been at the stairs? Had she even been in the house at all? It was never like this in the Shojou manga that she read. The good girls never had to worry about this sort of thing. She could not even go to school, that would be the first place he would look. With her arms wrapped around her middle to fight off the cold that seemed centred in her heart, Hotaru walked down the street. Her big purple eyes were constantly welling tears, and her head was bowed. It was not fair. It just was not fair... * * * "Jupiter! Mars!" A single call from their leader brought them up short, and the two Senshi looked back at where their team mates were clustered in a tight huddle. Indecision wracked them for long moments. The red haired girl and her companion - who were obviously new Generals from the Negaverse - could not be far away. If the two of them gave pursuit now, they could catch them both. Then again, loyalty was not a highly recognised quality in the Negaverse, and the little female General was likely to ditch her companion just to gain the opportunity to circle back and attack Moon and Mercury while they were busy. The need to protect their friends and keep watch on the beaten Sailor Venus won, and the two Senshi quickly closed ranks. They stood with their backs to the small huddle in the middle of the street and steadfastly kept watch. Those two Generals might have managed to ambush them once, but they would not get the chance to again. Not with a pair of pretty soldiers on the lookout. As soon as she had finished trying to blast the red haired girl with her companions, Sailor Mercury had dived straight for Sailor Venus. Venus was in terrible shape - Mercury could not remember the last time that she had seen anyone so beaten - short of the time that she had visited her mother in the emergency ward of the hospital. Sailor Mercury's mother was a doctor, and when you added that to Mercury's native intelligence, limited medical knowledge and the superb scanning capabilities of the Mercury computer and visor, it resulted in Sailor Mercury being the default medic for the Sailor Senshi. Her intelligence did not give Sailor Mercury the years of experience that were really needed for treating these sorts of wounds, nor it give her the ability to close herself to the pain that her friend was feeling. Once - less than five minutes ago - Sailor Venus had been one of the most attractive girls that Mercury ever knew. Venus' normal name was Aino Minako; a bright, bubbly, blonde girl who defined the word cute. Unfortunately, her quest to become an idol signer may have been cut short by the way that horrible girl had pounded her nose flat. Mercury could think of only one reason why most of the bones in her face were not a shattered ruin, and it was the same magical reason that had kept Sailor Mars and herself going after those devastating hits of the man they had fought. Sailor Mercury had not even realised she was shaking and staring ineffectually at Venus' dislocated arm until she felt Sailor Moon's hand descend on her shoulder. "I don't know what to do, Sailor Moon. I... I can give her first aid, but we have to get her to a hospital." Lifting the distressed Senshi away from her crying friend, Sailor Moon showed her the Moon Wand. "It works to heal people who were possessed by youma. Maybe I can heal Venus. If I can't then we'll take you straight to the hospital. I promise, Mina-chan. You'll be OK, I promise!" Venus nodded her ascent, watching Sailor Moon through watery eyes. Blood continued to flow from her nose, staining the front of her sailor suit, but Venus felt hope as she watched Sailor Moon begin to inscribe a shining circle in front of her with the Moon Wand. "Moon... Healing... Escalation!" Sailor Venus gave a short scream as her arm shifted under the guidance of the magic, and quickly lost consciousness. Despite her friend's obvious agony, Sailor Moon completed her spell, grabbing Mercury in a hug when she finished. "It worked! It worked! You'll be all right, Venus! Oh no. She's still knocked out... Jupiter, can you carry her? We have to get out of here." Three girls nodded in unison and soon the troop was heading through the city for somewhere that they could rest. As they ran, Sailor Mars stayed right beside Moon, her eyes constantly scanning the buildings for any sort of threat. "Let's head back to my place. We should be able to get some quiet there for a while." Mercury threw in her two cents also. "She's right. We have to talk about what's going on. Mako-chan and I found out something really scary at school. Can you call Luna and get her and Artemis to meet us at the Shrine?" With a nod, Moon keyed her communicator and listed for her advisor's voice. "Who is this?... Your... Your Majesty! You're alive! Where are you?" Sailor Moon spared a moment from her running to glare at the communicator. "What do you mean 'where am I'? Where have you been for the past week?... Wait! Don't tell me now. We just had a run in with some more Nega-creeps, and we're going to be at Rei's temple. We'll see you there!" On the way to the Hikawa shrine, Sailor Moon gently tried to ask Mercury how she failed to detect the approach of a pair of Negaverse Generals. "I didn't fail, really! I'm sure that they weren't Negaverse. I don't know what they were, but the Mercury computer was set to detect any approaching magic. Whoever they were, they were not Negaverse Generals, they just did not have the power." Jupiter snorted. "Tell that to my poor tummy! Whatever they shot me with sure felt like a magical blast." "Sailor Jupiter! You have to believe me! Whatever they used, it wasn't magic." Moon smiled and patted her friend on the shoulder as they ran. "I believe you, Mercury. You've never lied to us... So what was it?" "I... I don’t know. My computer was set to look for magic powerful enough to be a threat, but it did not find it. All I can think of is that they must be normal humans, somehow." The tall, brown haired Senshi looked down at the comatose bundle in her hands and sighed. "Normal people do not throw energy blasts, and they sure can't take on five Sailor Senshi and do what they did to poor Venus. They weren't _normal_ humans by a long shot." It was a mystery of the modern world how an ordinary sized housecat could move quickly enough to keep up with a running girl, or how the Moon cats were able to come from whichever part of the city they were in to the shrine in such a short time. No matter what the mystery involved, the five untransformed Senshi had only been in the shrine for a matter of minutes before the black cat ran in through the door, panting and sounding like a distraught English nanny. "Oh, Your Majesty! I'm so glad that I found you! I've been so worried. I was out looking like you said all week and... Oh, I say. Princess Jupiter, Princess Venus. It's an honour to see you here too." Silence greeted her statements; silence and five gaping mouths. Minako had recovered enough that she was awake, and while her nose and arm no longer hurt, she felt incredibly tired. Despite that, there was no way that she was going to rest while everyone else found out what was going on. Minako's personal advisor, Artemis was still missing, so it was concern that made Minako the first to speak. "Where's Artemis, Luna?" "Well, he's outside at the moment." Usagi threw up her hands in exasperation. "Artemis, you silly cat! Come in here! We need everyone if we're going to figure out what to do." In mere moments the white cat was around the doorway, bowing and thanking Usagi. She just waved at him to be quiet, when his tail stood out straight like a rod and his eyes went wide. "Princesses Venus, Jupiter and Moon all in the room at the same time? This must be more serious than I thought. And things were bad enough before..." Before anyone else could speak, Ami coughed to get their attention. "Before we go any further with what happened this afternoon, I think I better tell you about what happened to Mako-chan and I at school." Both cats slunk back, and Artemis even went so far as to cover his head with one paw. Both were clearly expecting sparks to fly between the girls at any moment. "Oh, dear. What happened between you this time?" Watching the cats reactions, Makoto and Ami were the only people who were not stunned. Ami continued. "I think something really bad happened when we chased Diamond back here. Something serious that seems to have affected everyone aside from us." Her audience gripped her words, and Ami looked over to the cats. "Have you heard anything from Sailor Pluto in the last week? Do you know how we can get in contact with her?" "Sailor Pluto? No... We haven't been able to find any of the Outer Senshi that you asked us to look for. I'm sorry, Your Majesty." Before Usagi could blurt out the obvious question, Ami kept control of the questioning and tried to maintain some semblance of order. "Who are the Outer Senshi?" "Why, the Senshi for the four Outermost planets of the solar system, Sailor Mercury. Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Do you remember when the summon call came?... Surely Your Majesty remembers ordering me to find the other Senshi?" Usagi shook her head numbly. She still could not grasp what was happening, and the concept of four more Senshi was quite overwhelming. Not to mention the fact that Luna kept calling her "Your Majesty" all the time. Ami took a deep breath. "This is what I was saying. Because the cats stayed here, they don't remember things the way that we do. I guess Mamoru-san should be all right since he came with us, but we'll have to wait and see. Perhaps if I start at the beginning, then we can see where things started to change... "Let's see, just after we finished fighting Emerald, she ran off back to the future. So Chibi-Usa told us that she had stolen a time key from Sailor Pluto, and she needed us to help her. After---" "Just a moment, Sailor Mercury," Artemis interrupted. "Who is Chibi- Usa? And how did she steal a time key from Sailor Pluto?" Usagi frowned and little thunderclouds appeared in her expression. "She's my daughter from the future, you silly cat. Or have you forgotten that already?" Artemis cringed backwards and almost ran from the room. "I'm sorry, Your Majesty! I'm sorry!" "And stop calling me 'Your Majesty'!" Both cats blinked in silence. "But... What should we call you then?" "I don't know... How about 'Usagi' like you usually do?" "I never! Not even in private! I have always respected you, Your---." Seeing the threatening look in her mistress' eyes, Luna cut herself off. "I mean, I have always respected you, Usagi-sama." "That's just as bad..." The blonde grumbled. Despite the tendency for the conversation to wander off track, Ami resolutely forced it back to the main issue: what was going on, and what had happened. In short order, the facts of the matter had become clear to everyone. With a careful line of questioning and by supplying her own answers wherever she could, Ami artfully reconstructed the events of the last six months. Six months of history changed by their time travel. Six months ago the Negaverse had begun its invasion under the command of Queen Beryl. Since Luna's memory had been only slightly impaired, she had quickly recognised the Moon Princess as Sailor Moon. Naturally, at this point she had contacted Usagi and given her the transformation broach. It was on that first fateful night that things had began to change. Rather than encourage Sailor Moon to find the evil that she had detected, Luna had convinced the girl that she was too important to risk without having Senshi with her as support. The easily frightened Usagi had been effortless to convince, and the next day at school she had found a reason to regret that decision for the rest of her life. The youma in the Osa*P jewellery shop had killed Usagi's best friend, Naru. From that day forth, Artemis and Luna spun a story of a different Sailor Moon to the one that all the girls knew and loved. She was colder, harder and less trusting of the world. In the girl's timeline, it had been Usagi's naive, caring nature that had won over Kino Makoto so quickly. In this world, the girl that was Sailor Jupiter never gained that friend who convinced her to lose her violent ways. Learning that Sailor Moon was actually the Moon Princess, Sailor Jupiter had insisted on using her own title of Princess Jupiter. In times of great stress, sometimes the tall Senshi would work with the Moon Princess and her trusted allies, but those were few and far between. The debacle with Sailor V and Artemis was even worse. Artemis had the misfortune to provide bad advice on a few occasions, and to console caution at other times. Branded a coward and incompetent by the Moon Princess, Artemis was banished from her sight forever. Insulted by the way that her friend and advisor had been treated after what appeared to her as accidents, Sailor Venus had left as well, with Princess Venus working independent of both Jupiter and Moon. Relations between the Senshi were not good, and showed no signs of recovering. Hamstrung by the lack of support and sometimes clashing against their erstwhile allies, Beryl's defeat did not come quickly or easily. It was not until the Black Moon Family was operating in Tokyo that the Moon Princess managed to get the breaks that she needed to counter Beryl one-on-one. Then, in a rare instance that all the Sailor Senshi had gathered in one place, disaster had struck a week ago. The girls had been standing around arguing when they felt pain spike through them and they collapsed to the street. Neither cat could do anything as they watched their charges writhe in agony. The girls were beginning to fade from view when they all felt it: the summon call to the Outer Senshi. The summoning call was supposed to free the Outer's memories; awakening them to their power and destiny. Unfortunately it had been cut short. Now, no-one could tell whether those girls were active or not, nor what memories and powers they had gained from their repertoire. Theoretically any of the Senshi could have been able to send the summoning, but they were all accounted for and in terrible pain. The dying, vanishing, Sailor Moon had bid Luna one last request: she had to find the Outer Senshi and serve them as well as she had served herself. Even to her last breath, that Sailor Moon had ignored Artemis. Before the cats disbelieving eyes, all five of the Inner Senshi had finally vanished without a trace, leaving the felines to find and care for a new set of charges. With the information provided by the Senshi around them - who had also related their much more pleasant history - Luna had come to the only possible conclusion. "If you really did time travel and meet Sailor Pluto, then she must have been the one to summon the Outer Senshi." Usagi smiled, and looked up from where she was patting Artemis in her lap. He was obviously nervous, but the chance to be forgiven of his failings was a dream that had haunted him for months. "Why would she do that? I mean, it's nice to have extra help, but why then?" Luna nodded and began to pace. It was Artemis who nervously spoke. Although his voice was quiet initially, it grew in confidence as Usagi did not curse or kick him as she had in the past - his past. "I think the answer to that is in two other questions: Why did she stop? And, why do you remember everything wrongly?" "Hey! My memories aren't wrong! It must be yours." "Usagi, he's right." Ami countered. "Sanity is always defined by the majority, and we are the only people who remember things differently. Either we're crazy or Diamond - and us - caused some sort of paradox. Only Sailor Pluto would have seen it, and she must have realised we would need all the help we can get." The black cat nodded sagely as it stopped pacing. "Yes, that would also explain why she summoned all of the Outer Senshi. It might also explain why she stopped part way through, but only Sailor Pluto knows time travel well enough to be able to say for sure." "You say that as though summoning all of them is a bad idea." Luna looked up at Ami in confusion, then she hung her head. "That's right, your memories of the Silver Millennium are not all there. It means that she summoned Sailor Saturn." Surrounded by blank looks, Luna jumped onto Sailor Jupiter's lap for some petting and took a moment to appreciate the luxury of having all the Senshi on one team like they were supposed to be. "If the Inner Senshi were policemen, the Outers were soldiers. I mean no disrespect, but because of their isolation, they tended to have stronger powers. You girls have pistols, the Outers had rifles, and Sailor Saturn was a little girl with an atomic hand grenade. "Sailor Saturn came into her powers too soon. She was too strong to be compared to anyone else and everyone was... Well... We were a bit afraid of her. Sailor Saturn lived alone almost her whole life. She was a very shy, insular, young girl, and she liked to stay that way. "What was worse was that she liked to play with her power. I'll admit that sometimes the Senshi would put on a display or perform some marvel with their magic, but Sailor Saturn was different. She was like a child in a sand pit who delighted in dropping rocks to see what they did. With her sort of power, even a planet the size of Saturn could hardly contain what she sometimes did for fun." Usagi covered her mouth with her hand. "She never... She never hurt anyone... Did she?" "When she played, no. Like the other Outer Senshi, she understood what being a soldier meant, and there were occasions when she had been required to weigh the life of a few people against a risk to the whole system. "Her judgements were always backed up by the Queen afterwards, but she was always so... eager. There were times when she was literally minutes away from cleansing an entire planet to protect the Kingdom." "Wh-What stopped her?" "They found an alternative. The first time six Senshi managed to defeat the alien that was attacking us on Mars. The second time, Sailor Mercury and a team of scientists managed to find a cure for a plague... on Earth." "On Earth? But what about the people? What about the Senshi there?" Luna looked sheepish. "If I remember her words correctly, 'they were expendable'." "That's terrible!" Usagi wailed. "But, what if she's awake here, now?" "We have two choices, since I know she will see either the Black Moon Family or the Deathbusters as sufficient cause to attack. Both of them at the same time... We can either hope that she failed to gain any of her attacks, which makes her useless as a Senshi, or we can hope that she gained none of her old personality. I'm afraid that neither of those is particularly likely." With a feeling of dread in her stomach, Usagi pressed on. She was not the cold, callused girl that Luna knew. She was still the carefree Usagi that her friends knew. Despite that, Usagi had a horrifying fear that she already knew what the cat was going to recommend. "What was the other choice?" "We work on the assumption that she retained at least some of her memories and capabilities. In that case, we have to subdue her before she can destroy us all." "You don't mean..." "I do. Sailor Saturn is as surely our enemy as any of the Witches. Just the same as that boy and girl who attacked you earlier." --- End Of Chapter.