Cat Girl Nuku Nuku Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ HailStorm ❯ Chapter 3

The Saotome Legacy - Hailstorm
http://www.geocities.com/laqjr/myfics/TSL/DMS/DMS03.ht ml

Inspired by Jonathan Ford's story "Who's your Daddy?"
Found at http://tannim.anifics.com/Daddy/Daddy.html

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Chapter 3

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Disclaimer

I do not own Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon or Ranma Nibunnoichi. Characters used without permission.

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Today turned out to be very peculiar...

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Ami walked slowly down Yamano Street, pondering the events of the last few days. It seemed an epidemic spread across Tokyo nearly overnight, and most people were sick in bed for their second or third day. Though Ami did have a few of the symptoms of the quickly spreading sickness, she was not so unwell as to be unable to attend school. However, the school closed early due to the overwhelming number of absent staff, so she headed to the library to see if it remained open.

The last few days were uncomfortable for Ami. Her mother still woke her up early every day, and every day the woman would show her some new wat to hold herself, make an attack, or defend herself, and expect her to remember each stance or movement by making her practice them all in different kata. This all forewent the fact that Atsuko always left her some strange task or extra training regimen to perform, and because of the last droid attack only four days ago and the plague saturated city, her mother rarely came home before midnight anymore. Yet despite this, if Ami did not perform the extra training prescribed by her mother, Atsuko made her swim twice as many laps (or more), or assigned her some other exercise likely designed solely to exhaust her.

Training under Atsuko was not for the weak in health.

Though Ami saw her mother every morning when the older woman woke her up for training, Ami could not bring herself to dredge up the argument between them to apologize for her behavior. The time just seemed inappropriate for meaningful discussion.

The truth of the matter was Ami felt scared of her father. Before, the man had no meaning in her life, being someone who she never knew, never met, and probably never would see. Now, he knew her secret, which not only meant he knew about her and where she lived, he also knew one of her deepest secrets, placing her in his mercies. What if he told someone her secret? What if he used her secret against her?

Really, it was an irrational fear, but years of not knowing her father and never having thought of him left Ami with no idea of what to do now that he reentered her life. Partially, anyway. He still hadn't shown up at the apartment, and Ami so far only saw him at the youma battle, but she knew he'd be showing up more often now that he fancied himself her protector. He made that obvious to her when he shielded her from the droid's attacks at the cake shop. And he's standing in that abandoned lot across the street, too, so-

What? Ami quickly hid behind the corner of the building next to the abondoned lot- the next intersection read 35th Street- and carefully inched around the corner to see what he was up to. A dirty and unkempt man, harried from days of travel, stood before him, carrying a huge travel pack and holding an umbrella that went out of style long ago, shouting some sort of challenge. Her father's clothes appeared damp, but no open water sources were nearby.... What were they doing? Ami stepped out from behind the building to find out more from them, decreasing the displacement between them and herself.

The travel worn man shouted, "You can't hide anymore, Ranma! This is for abandoning Akane!" He leaped high into the air and fell toward her father's position, who jumped away before the man landed. A huge creater formed ander the man's feet when he landed.

Ranma? Is that father's name? Is Akane my mother? The sight of such an impossible leap and an equally impossibly large impact crater stunned Ami to immobility.

"Ryoga, you jerk! What're you trying to do? I left Akane long ago! She knew we'd never be together. I thought you'd be happy to have me out of the way!" Ranma growled as he wearily circled Ryoga, unknowingly blocking Ami from Ryoga's line of sight.

Ryoga glared at Ranma while shouting, "It's all your fault, too! If you hadn't left, Akane wouldn't have married Sanji! I'm going to kill you, Ranma!"

Ryoga's anouncement shocked Ranma, giving him the time to charge and attack her father. Ami watched as they fought swiftly at speeds she dared not hope to achieve. Their movements were easy enough to follow, but Ami could not possibly catalogue all the different attacks or blocks either party used. By the time she identified a specific strike or block, both combatancts had already performed two or three more interactions.

Her father shouted something akin to "Roasted Chestnuts", then launched a high speed volley of punches before jumping back and away from the other man, who he identified as Ryoga. Ami looked around Ranma at Ryoga, who took two or three bandanas off of his head while glancing in her father's direction.

"This time, I'll get you, Ranma," he said. "There's no more running away now. Let's finish this the way it started all those years ago."

"I've never run away from a fight, Ryoga, and I'm not gonna start now." Ranma dug his heels into the ground and took up an unfamiliar stance. Ryoga frowned.

"You ready, P-chan? 'Cause this is really gonna hurt! There's no way you're gonna beat me!" Ranma shouted.

Ami stood still, clueless as to what they were talking about and hoping neither had noticed her yet. Participating in high speed martial arts battles is very hazardous to one's health, and Atsuko probably wouldn't be happy with her if she started getting into fights that didn't involve her.

The bandanas in the other man's hands disappeared from her sight as the two men engaged in another round of combat. Though both were very good and fought very hard, Ami easily saw and readily understood that her father was steadily giving ground and on the verge of letting down his defences. Was he trying to lose?

The other man in the yellow and black clothes, Ryoga, landed a solid punch to Ranma's gut, sending him flying to land around 15 meters in front of her. He rolled up onto his knees and clutched his stomach, spitting out phlegm and some blood. Ryoga picked up a nearby stone, about the size of her computer tower, and threw it up in the air. When it fell back toward him, he casually swung at it with one of the newly reappeared bandanas and cleaved it in two. The two halves of the rock crumbled upon impact with the ground.

"This time, Ranma, there's no getting away," said Ryoga, casually spinning the bandanas, then letting them loose with quick flicks of his wrist. The bandanas flew straight toward her father, who had managed to roll away in time, but now they were headed toward her....

"What.. are those?" voiced Ami, completely frozen by the gruesome thought of extremely sharp bandanas cutting her into pieces. What would her mother think if she came home decapitated? She'd never hear the end of it at school!

What am I thinking? I'll be dead. That was it. She was going to die, and not of old age, or even from fighting youma, demons, or droids. Some stupid piece of cloth would be her undoing, who would have thought?

"Ami!" She heard her father's voice distantly, and there was an impact, and suddenly she lay staring up at the sky. The sun's brilliance burned her eyes in its path of ascension. What had saved her?

She looked down to see her father above her, having tackled her away from the strange headgear projectiles.

"Ami, are you alright?" Ranma let go of her and touched her shoulder softly.

Suddenly she was filled with anxiety at how close her father was. Who was this man who had saved her life so easily? She backed away from his touch. "I'm okay now," she said.

The man did not relax in the slightest at her pronouncement. He instead turned away from her and looked at Ryoga, who stood dumbfounded. "Ryoga! You could have hit her with those! I'm gonna kill you!" he shouted before leaping at the man. Ryoga picked up and opened his umbrella, blocking Ranma's strike, then bounded over the wall behind him. Ranma followed closely behind.

"Wha.... What happened?" For a few moments, Ami could only stare at the debris around her. Deciding that going home would be the best way to spend the rest of her day, she stood up, picked up one of the yellow and black spotted bandanas which lay embedded in the ground, then stalked toward her home.

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Wh en she arrived home, Ami immediately thought of turning back to go out. There, on her doorstep, was someone she just could not deal with today. It was.... Minako, with Artemis on her shoulder and a large bag hanging from her arm.

"Minako, why are you here? I told you, I'm not sick!" Minako was the only other girl on their team who didn't get sick from the bug floating around, so she had taken it upon herself to go on a crusade to each of the senshi's homes and make sure they 'got well soon'. Minako had already visited Makoto and Rei, and planned on stopping by her house before going on to Usagi's. Ami tried to convince the girl she wasn't sick by any means, but Minako just couldn't take the hint, no matter how blatantly obvious it was given.

"Come on, Ami! Can't I just stop by for a visit? Wow, you live in such a nice apartment, it looks bigger than my house. Are you sure this is an apartment?" Minako said. She looked around while waiting for Ami to unlock the door.

"Yes, Minako, this is just an apartment, even if it is big. Alright, come in. The house is a mess, though, I haven't gotten around to cleaning up the rooms yet." Ami unlocked the door and went inside.

"Oh, that's okay, Ami. Hey, I brought you something, in case you're not feeling well. I know how you love sandwiches and, well, soup is supposed to be the best thing to eat when you're sick, so I decided to combine them to make something better." Minako peeked around one of the doorways to look into the living room. "Wow, that's a big TV. I wish my TV was that big."

"You... what? You combined a sandwich and soup? Ah, um." Ami wasn't sure how to continue, and didn't want to know how Minako had managed to put soup into a cutlet sandwich. Such matters were very dangerous topics of discussion. She very discreetly dumped the contents of the... sandwich... in the waste disposal.

"Oh! A 20 disk CD player. I brought some soothing music you might like, wait, here, let me get it...." Minako dug into her bag while Artemis crawled toward Ami.

"Be careful, Ami! Minako's on a rampage today. She already blew up Makoto's favorite blender and Rei's stereo system.... Who knows what might go wrong now?" Artemis said from below her.

Ami started at seeing the white cat. "Oh, I forgot all about you, Artemis," Ami said. "Cats aren't allowed in the apartment complex, neither are any other pets. And my mother doesn't like cats, either." A crash resounded as Minako's disks spilled all over the floor.

"I'll get them," the blond girl shouted, and Ami rolled her eyes as she watched Minako crawl around the floor picking up the various optical disk media.

"Minako, Ami says cats aren't allowed in the apartment," Artemis started as he walked toward his ward.

"What? Oh. Well, then I guess we'd better go, huh?" Minako appeared to be embarrassed as she looked up from grabbing the last of her CDs. "Sorry Ami, I'm such a klutz some time. Um. I'll just come back later and check on you then, okay?" She stood up and, after stuffing all her CDs in the bag, picked Artemis up and placed him on her shoulder again.

"That won't be necessary!" Ami hastily said. "I mean, um, my mom's a doctor, so she takes care of me. I don't get sick often, anyway."

Minako laughed. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Well, call me if you need anything. I'm going to Usagi's house, then."

Ami walked her to the front door.

"Well, bye Ami. See you later, then," said Minako.

"Bye Minako. See you in school," replied Ami.

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Am i greatfully closed her Geometry book and took a deep breath. She'd managed to complete chapter 12, with the theorums reguarding angles whose rays formed tangents with a circle.... Granted, the assignment had been in chapter 3, dealing with centroids and medians of a triangle, but the coursework simply was not accelerated enough for her, and Ami liked to work at her own pace. Maybe next week she would borrow a few books on prospective geometry and begin on that until the class caught up with her. Certainly that would be much more entertaining than completing the math book and sitting in class with nothing to do.

Two hours had passed since Minako left the apartment. Supposedly, the girl was to come back for another visit to check on her, but Ami planned to be asleep by that time. She just lay her head on the pillow when her communicator beeped at her. Picking it up and pressing the button for audio, she heard Minako say, "Hey guys, Esmeraude's got Chibi-Usa at the pharmacy in Juban General hospital! I've got this one covered, though. Don't worry about a thing!"

Ami immediately got out of bed and left for the hospital.

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"M ercury Bubbles Blast!" she shouted, creating a fog in the dimly lit pharmacy of Juban General Hospital. Hopefully, the hospital wouldn't be too damaged by their battle, and her mother wouldn't find out they were here.

"Everyone, you shouldn't have come here, you should all be in bed," Venus said matter-of-factly.

"Venus," began SailorMoon, "thank you for fighting alone and protecting Chibi-Usa."

"Don't worry, you're not in danger anymore now that we're all here," Ami said to Chibi-Usagi.

Esmeraude, impatient with the fog, shouted, "Droid! Attack them now!" She disappeared in the slowly dispersing mist.

"Mars Fire Surround!" Mars shouted, blasting the droid to impede it. SailorMoon didn't look to well, and staggered a moment before Tuxedo Mask caught her.

"SailorMoon, don't get sick now! I want you to get well soon," Tuxedo Mask said in what Ami supposed was an encouraging speech.

SailorMoon stood up from Mask's arms, struck a small pose, then shouted, "Moon Princess Halatation!" She extinguished the droid, and another dark crystal shard shattered.

"Rrr, you're really getting on my nerves! I'll get you all later, I must be going to do other things. You won't win next time, Senshi! O-hohohohoho!" Esmeraude disappeared.

Mercury sighed, then looked past where SailorMoon and Tuxedo Mask were making out. There, in the doorway, was her mother. Atsuko nodded to her, an indicator that the woman approved, well, something anyway. She quickly disappeared around the corner.

"If you guys don't mind, I'm going home now, I don't feel well," said SailorMoon from within Mamoru's embrace.

Ami could not have agreed with her more.

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Au thor's Notes: (Do they seem longer to anyone else?)

Wow, I have some readers! I'm in someone's favorite authors list, too! Yay!

Uh oh, Ryoga's back in town! What does this mean for Ami and company? Will any more of the Ranma crew be making appearances in the near future? And what's the situation with Akane? What will happen next? And why don't I ever finish a chapter with a good cliffhanger? (Well, personally, I liked how this chapter ended, but it's still not a cliff hanger...)

Anyway, on to more serious stuff now. For those of you who are wondering, the identity of Ami's biological mother will not be revealed/confirmed until either
a) the Senshi go to Crystal Tokyo, or
b) about halfway through SailorMoon S (I'm not telling where).
Most likely it's gonna be choice (b). As an effect, the real mother won't be revealed in Hailstorm, as BSSM-S will be covered in a seperate story, but she may or may not be mentioned or seen in Hailstorm.

The new ending came to me by way of divine inspiration and lack of sleep. Strange combination, ne? Unfortunately, I think that's how many of us gain creativity throughout our lives, and stress is never a good thing, especially when self-imposed.

On another note, yes, I know I'm mixing Japanese and English names liberally, and I know I'm using 'Tuxedo Mask' while also using 'Mamoru' and 'SailorMoon'. I just think it sounds better than 'Tuxedo Kamen'. And I don't feel like looking up, copying, and pasting a long string of Japanese Romaji every time one of the Senshi attack, so I'm using the English names for their attacks. This likely will not change in the future.

Oh yeah, for those of you who wonder (if there are any who care) about the 20-disk CD player, well, they're nothing special. I went to Best Buy a few days ago and they had a 400-disk CD player on sale (yes, four hundred). So, 20 CDs aren't really special or anything.

Now, what I'm not sure of is if I want to continue this after SM-S. I like the idea of going all the way through the series until episode 200, but I don't feel like churning out any chapters dealing with BSSM-SuperS (Chibi-Usa+Helio Season, the unicorn stuff). Sorry, I'm just not a Chibi-Usagi fan.

So, what do you say? Should I go ahead and do SuperS, or should I blurb over it and skip ahead to SuperStarS? Or, I could end the story during or following the SailorMoon S Season. We'll see when I get there, ne?

Remember to review! I live on criticism.

(PS, feel free to review more than once. I know the system's weird, so if you want to specifically criticise a certain chapter, just post whatever chapter it is in your review.)

C&C welcome at laqjr_200@hotmail.com