Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ A New Future 2 - First Blood ❯ Sometimes the label defines reality.... ( Chapter 12 )

This was originally published by me under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice to make things clearer. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi, Naoko Takeuchi, or anything in the GURPS Ogre and GURPS Tales of the Solar Patrol settings published by Steve Jackson Games. Everything else is mine.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When the call came on the Senshi communicator she had been given, Ranma was very pleased at the interruption. It had been a month — a month — since she'd received Usagi's blessing to join the Senshi in battle, and there'd still been no call from Akari that Ryoga had returned. There had been three battles with the strange battle animals, but Ranma's services been required only once, so her given word had held her on the sidelines, a frustrated spectator.

Things hadn't been going so well on the home front, either. Ranma's sense of duty had pulled her to the Cat Café once a week for updates on how the Amazons' move to Japan was going, and the fawning — well, not fawning but very, very respectful — attitudes she'd picked up from the Amazons that waited on her hadn't made the visits any more comfortable. She didn't expect the visit she was going to need to make to the Amazons' new home for honor's sake to be any better.

Then there was Akane. As Ranma had hoped, Xian Pu's presence had been a true irritant to her lover, testing her ability to stay centered and let go of her emotions beautifully. But as Ranma had feared, Xian Pu's true happy personality and sharp mind had quickly won her former `rival' over, and then the two had joined forces to get Ranma out of her shell. It had been almost a relief when Ku Lon had quietly taken her aside on her next visit to the Cat Café and asked her to stop pulling Xian Pu off her assigned place as her guard, because of the strain it put on her partner — almost; Xian Pu's open friendliness without the sexual come ons and bubbly bimbo act was immensely relaxing to someone that could now recognize the emotions saturating the ki everyone radiated as naturally as breathing. Still, as welcome as it was it hadn't helped Akane's training after the short-lived jealous reaction.

So now here she was, getting plenty of practice in maintaining her own emotional control as day followed day and she ran through kata after kata waiting for the call from Akari that never came and her own impatience and frustration ratcheted higher and higher. Well, maybe this time she'd actually get a chance to relieve some of that stress in battle.

Bouncing over to where the communicator sat beside a water bottle, she grabbed it up, hit the `accept' key, and smiled as the face of Sailor Mercury appeared on the tiny screen. She'd gotten to know the studious young woman well over the past month, spending several evenings a week at her apartment near the university reading the Mercury Computer's records of the Life Dancers. “Ami, what's up?” she asked eagerly, then winced. “Mercury, I meant Mercury!” she hastily added.

The blue haired, blue eyed young woman tried to frown repressively, then shrugged. “And don't forget it,” she said. “Anyway, there's a new attack. Uranus and Neptune are on their way, but we may need some backup so if you could get here —”

“Yes!” Ranma shouted, pumping an arm in victory, then blushed. “Uh, that is, I'll be right there,” she hastily added, ignoring Mercury's little chuckle and hitting the button that activated the tracking function as Mercury's image disappeared from the screen.

Okay, let's see which of my `keepers' are on watch today, she thought. That wouldn't be much of a problem, the neighborhood was heavily slanted toward university students and so mostly emptied out during mornings and early afternoons on weekdays. Dropping into a lotus position, she closed her eyes and extended her newfound ability to sense living beings out ... and out ... and there, on the roof of the building across the alley and several floors up was Mu Tse. But they usually came in pairs ... and there, another floor up on her own roof was another human life sign, young, female, someone she didn't recognize. No, wait, she'd picked up on the girl following her, Xian Pu, Chibi-Moon and Saturn when she'd joined that first fight. Good enough.

Rising from the lotus position, she walked over to the mini-dojo window and opened it. “Hey, Mousse, get down here!” she yelled up toward the opposite building's roof. For a long moment there was no response, then the long-familiar figure stepped up to the edge of the roof and at Ranma's waved invitation bounced down between the alley's walls and through the window. Ranma shook her head slightly, still finding Mu Tse's appearance odd — the coke bottle glasses gone and the long, flowing hair trimmed to a little below his shoulders now that he was no longer putting on the act of the lovestruck fool (not that he didn't still get slightly glassy-eyed around Xian Pu, his act hadn't been all that far of a stretch).

Flipping through the open window, Mu Tse bowed. “Princess Yasuko calls me?” he asked.

Ranma stiffened, then relaxed as his gently mocking tone registered. “Don't let the ol' ghoul hear ya talking like that,” she said with a smile, punching him lightly on the shoulder.

The Chinese teenager shuddered theatrically. “Not a chance!” Then, sobering, he asked, “So, Ranma, what's up?”

“I just got a call,” the redheaded girl replied, holding up the Senshi communicator. “There's a new attack going on, and I'm gonna provide backup as usual. After the way you guys panicked the last few times I headed out usin' the Umisenken, I thought this time I'd give ya a heads up first.” She blushed slightly as she remembered the oh so polite dressing down Ku Lon had given her after she got back from the last fight.

Mu Tse nodded. “Thanks, I appreciate it. Where's the attack?”

“Dunno, this thing doesn't give distances.” Glancing down at the communicator, Ranma turned slightly and pointed toward the wall to her left. “But it's in that direction.”

“Good enough,” Mu Tse said with a shrug. “Go ahead, we'll catch up. The fight shouldn't be all that hard to find.”

Ranma nodded, and vanished into her personal little twisting, spinning top imitation to emerge dressed in the white leotard, blue skirt and sleeveless jacket, and red boots, glove and headband that Chibi-Usa and Hotaru had come up with for her costume, her hair free of its usual pigtail. Vanguard glanced over at Mu Tse, daring him to say anything, but he just looked back calmly so she sighed and turned toward the window. Just as she was starting to pull the Umisenken around her, Mu Tse spoke up. “So, Ranma, how long till you lose that pretty red bow at the back?” His princess simply glared at him for a moment before fading out of sight to the sound of his light chuckle.

* * * * *

Stepping to the edge of the roof of a one story building, still wrapped in the cloak of the Umisenken, Vanguard looked down at the fight taking place below and a half-block over, Sailors Uranus and Neptune slightly apart and firing their attacks down the street toward what looked like man-sized, two-legged, armless walking piles of rock. As she watched, Uranus sent another World Shaking down range, and Vanguard winced as the street buckled and twisted before the attack rose to smash into one of their foes. From the looks of the street, it was far from the first World Shaking Uranus had used. The mobile rock pile was knocked backward by the attack, and then Vanguard blinked when it exploded, shattering the windows in the building to its side. That's new — self-destructing enemies, she thought.

Glancing around, the redhead sighed with relief when she located Mercury, crouched and slightly behind a car behind her fellow Senshi, energy eye screen in place and hunched over her Mercury Computer. Okay, everyone's good, so let's find a better lookout point, Vanguard thought, glancing at the buildings around. Locating one across from the three Senshi and a story higher than the roof she was on, she leaped for the nearest telephone pole.

Flipping up onto the roof of her new watch point, Vanguard froze in place as soon as she landed, suddenly tight as a bow string. Apparently, she wasn't the only one who'd thought this made a good place to observe the fight, because there was already a film crew on the roof, the large, ungainly camera on a tripod focused down on the three Senshi in the street below.

Vanguard watched the three-man crew at work for a few moments. She could just slip away, it was what her hind-brain was shouting for — but suddenly, she was tired. Tired of hiding in the apartment when Akane and Nabiki were at school, tired of never going anywhere alone, tired of watching every man around her like a hawk, fighting against the urge to flinch whenever one brushed against her on the street, tired of the well hidden worry from Akane (her lover was doing very well at purging her ki of all emotion) and less well hidden worry from Nabiki. Just — tired.

Right. An unseen impish grin spreading on her face, Vanguard made sure that the Umisenken was firmly in place, then just as firmly ignored the butterflies in her stomach and quietly slipped behind the man that was apparently in charge — at least, he was the one that was directing where to focus the camera. “Hi,” she said, dropping her invisibility shield. “Good, aren't they?”

The man seemed to levitate and whip around at the same time, and Vanguard's hasty grab was the only thing that kept him from stepping over the edge and plummeting to the sidewalk two stories below. She yanked him back, and found herself flat on her back feeling slightly smished from having him land on top of her. Every muscle tensed as she forced herself not to throw him off, hurt him, kill him ... she settled for whispering, “Owie!” Then, as he simply lay there staring into her eyes, she asked, “Uh, could ya get off a' me?”

“Oh, I'm sorry!” he exclaimed, rolling off of her. The eyes of his two companions widened as they took in her costume and their right hands, tucked up underneath their coats by their armpits, drifted down to their sides, empty.

Vanguard sat up, blushing as she pulled her skirt down over her red bicycle shorts even as she felt herself relaxing, then flipped to her feet. Looking at the roof top and reaching up for the currently nonexistent pigtail, she rubbed the back of her neck. “That wasn't as funny as I thought it would be,” she muttered. “Sorry `bout that.”

One of the other two started to chuckle. “Oh, I don't know—I suspect Inouoe-san will be telling this story for the rest of his life,” the other one said, grinning. “Believe me, he's going to get plenty of laughs!”

Inouoe glared at his two subordinates. “Maruyama-san, Sano-san, get back to work — Sano-san, take over the directing.” The two men nodded and hurriedly turned back to the camera on its tripod. Inouoe turned back to the redheaded girl, now blushing even harder. “Don't worry about it, Vanguard, it should be as good a story for you in years ahead. But what are you doing up here? I would think you'd be down in the street with the Senshi.”

“Nah, I'm the backup,” Vanguard replied, grateful for the change of subject. “Speaking a' which ...” She quickly hurried over to the edge of the roof and looked down at the three Senshi, just in time to see another of the rock-things self-immolate. Whew, still good. Ya got careless there, Ranma, keep yer mind on the fight! Dropping onto her hands and swinging around to sit on the edge of the roof, she watched as a Deep Submerge flew down range to knock several rock piles around like ten pins, though this time none of them blew up.

Much less gracefully, Inouoe sat down next to her. After a moment, he said, “Vanguard, something that's been on my mind since your first appearance —”

“As opposed ta my second appearance?” Vanguard broke in to say, and Inouoe chuckled.

“Yes, since the beginning. Why don't you have a battle cry of some sort, or shout out your attacks?”

“Why? The Senshi don't.”

“Not now, but they did when they were younger. What's cute and endearing in a young girl seems rather stupid in a young woman,” Inouoe responded with a shrug.

“Like I want ta be `cute and endearing'. Besides, it was pretty stupid when they first started, too,” Vanguard instantly disagreed. “But when ya hand enough power ta take on a small army ta school girls and tell `em it's up ta them ta save the world, yer gonna get some stupid stuff just like they read about in the comics — just ta make all the pain and fear bearable. Thanks ta my life I don't need it, already got all the practice I need.” Glancing at the man sitting beside her and catching the expression of surprised respect, she carefully hid a smirk. No need ta mention that came from Ami — Mercury, dammit, she's in action. A quick check — yup, the blue-haired Senshi of Ice was still behind the car, energy shades in place and working on her portable infomat.

Inouoe was silent, thinking over what she'd said. After a few moments, he nodded. “Makes sense. Still, I wish you had followed the tradition of the younger Senshi.”

“Really? Why?” Vanguard glanced at him in surprise, then refocused on the battle zone below. One of the things had managed to get close enough to Uranus that she actually had to use the Space Sword like a sword — how had it managed to do that? Not that it mattered, and at least Uranus was smart enough to jump away just as it exploded, rode out most of the shockwave, Senshi healing factor should take care of the shrapnel wounds....

Inouoe watched the Senshi with the short blond hair lever herself back to her feet. “Have you been to a movie since you started joining the fights?” he asked.

Vanguard shrugged. “Nah, got more important things ta do. Why?”

“Because if you did, you might find the audience reaction to your fights interesting.” He fell silent for a few moments, then sighed. “Don't get me wrong, they're happy you win, but ... you scare people, Vanguard.” When she turned her head to stare at him, he shrugged. “It's true. You're ... intense, totally focused, absolutely ruthless. Combine that with the way you can't be seen unless you wish and your claws ... even the way you use your claws seems almost like an animal.”

Vanguard forced her gaze back on the fight below ... there was something about it that was nagging at her, something she ought to be seeing....

“Ya could be right — if ya got claws, the fact they are claws means yer gonna seem kinda like an animal. Not sure what I can do about it.”

“So don't have claws,” Inouoe said simply.

“And what do I fight with if I don't use `em?” Vanguard asked shortly. “I'm good with my fists, but not that good — not against things like this. My hand'd break before they did.” Too bad Ryoga isn't here, he'd turned these walking rockpiles into so many sandboxes.

“Oh, use them, but do they have to be claws?” Inouoe asked. “Why not knives, or short staves, or nunchaku — even swords?”

Vanguard twisted to stare in shock at the older man. “Why the hells didn't I think a' that?” she asked when she finally got her voice back, smacking her forehead with her palm. “Of all the stupid, blind ...”

Suddenly, she caught something out of the corner of her eye, something weird about the side of the building across the street. It was as if she was seeing a patch of heat distortion slowly slip down the wall toward the sidewalk behind Mercury.

Closing her eyes, Vanguard quickly extended her life sense out, farther ... there was Mu Tse and his fellow Amazon warrior, hiding on the fire escape for this building on the wall facing the alley. Further ... and her eyes flew open. “Oh crap, these things have camouflage! Gotta go!” And as Inouoe stared in shock, the redheaded teenager pushed herself off the edge of the roof, vanishing from sight as she fell.