Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Princess of the Moon ❯ Chapter 08 ( Chapter 9 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

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Princess of the Moon
Chapter 08 - Hurt Feelings
By Cory D. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(c)2002
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Ever have the skin flayed off your body in one inch segments? Jedite wasn't sure where Queen Beryl had come up with the idea, but that was exactly what was happening to him at that very moment. At least that is what his brain was telling him as he screamed and writhed in phantom pain, she had cast a spell on him to make sure he felt every cut and burn that his mind was telling him about. At the same time he was suspended above the floor of the throne room as Black lighting swirled around his body and enacted even more of his punishment for failing to kill the girls. He had thousands of years of practice when it came to being ruthless and evil all in the name of his Queen, but all of that paled in comparison to what Queen Beryl could do when she was really angry and right now she was very, very angry with him and his constant failure.

It had only been an hour or so since she had pulled him away from the battle and he had spent that whole time in constant pain and agony. What had him worried was that this was the little stuff, the things she did to those while she was trying to come up with a decent punishment. With her this angry Jedite was pretty sure he knew what she was going to do with him and it frightened him more than Matallia did and that was saying something. He screamed some more and strained against the bonds hold his body in place, unable to even think straight for several seconds as the pain overwhelmed his mind. It ended eventually, but he didn't know how long it lasted, feeling one's ribs pulled out one at a time tended to be quite painful.

Illusions and mind traps had always been Queen Beryl's domain and she used them well, cloaking herself in various ways and knowing how to cloud men's minds and such. He had been a victim of such a spell several thousand years ago and hadn't been able to break her hold him yet, not that he tried much anymore, after all this time redemptions was more of dream than something that he could achieve on his own and it wasn't like the others would help him out. He hated what he had become, but used it to his advantage whenever he could, that was why he had plans in place for just such an occasion that he hadn't even told the other General's about. He had used his powers to set it up the day they broke through the barrier and made their first trip to Earth, cast all the spells, and then erased most of the deed from his mind so that his plans could not be divulged under torture like what what's being done to him. The only thing he could remember was what activated it and why he had put it in place.

If his plans went into effect, it meant that he had 'died' at the hands of one of the Generals, Queen Beryl, or Matallia herself. Those were the main five on his mental list, though there were about twenty others that he had added over the last few months so that all his bases were covered. Though considering his luck lately the damned thing might not work, but it was all he had left now that Beryl had stripped him of his powers and position. His Youma Army had been decimated and virtually destroyed the instant Beryl had recalled him, being split up into three groups and spread out among the other Generals as nothing better than slaves and cannon fodder.

He moaned in pain as he felt the magic that was sparking the pain centers of his mind surge for a half second before they slowly fade away and vanish, slumping against the force holding him because his body didn't have the energy left to hold him in place, he wasn't all that surprised when this too vanished. Hitting the floor from ten feet above it wasn't a lot of fun when he did it face first, so he moaned in pain as he lay there. From the feel of things his nose was broken and he could feel the blood gathering up behind the blockage in his nose and hoped he didn't drown on his own blood, the plan wouldn't work then, he didn't have his own name on the list.

"Get up Jedite!" Queen Beryl snapped.

When he hadn't moved after a couple of seconds, two of the larger guard Youma stomped forward and dragged him to his feet and held him in place by the back of his shirt. He groaned as his hair was grabbed and pulled back with enough force to nearly rip it out of his head, Beryl was glaring at him. The look he was getting was one he had seen several times over the years of his enforced exile to this dimension, one that he had dreaded getting, but secretly hoped for as well. It meant his plan would work so long as no one had messed up the spells without him noticing and Kunzite was the only one with the skill to do that with is forecasting magic. They got along as well as the other General's and he figured things were safe.

"You have proven to be a waste of time Jedite, you showed lots of promise over the years, but the instant things got tuff you seemed to cave in without much of a fight." Beryl said.

Jedite would have rolled his eyes, but thought such a maneuver would only make things even worse than they were. "I..."

"SHUT UP!!" Beryl snapped.

To Jedite's surprise, the guard holding him reached around and...broke his jaw with its fingers. He would have screamed, but his mouth would no longer open and all he could let out was a loud moan of pain, it didn't even have to be faked. The first signs of panic were just beginning to set into his brain as the pain hit him, tears threatened to trickle out of his eyes and he prayed his final plan worked. He had been protected by his magic for so long that he had forgotten what it was like to be without it at a time like this. He had to force his eyes to raise and meet Beryl's again as she charged up the black crystal ball in front of her, it was crackling with dark energy and making her freakish beauty even more menacing.

"I don't care what you have to say about your actions Jedite, you were given plenty of warning and told what would happen if you failed to obey me. Look where your arrogance has gotten you now Jedite, stripped of everything that could save you, no powers, no magical items, nothing at all. I have thought about this for the last few hours and decided on your punishment. During the course of your assignment you have cost us from getting the energy we needed to take over this world, you have cost us high ranking Youma like Titus, and you have wasted your powers playing around with little girls instead of focusing on your mission. I have therefore decided that you will be placed in 'Oblivion!"

Jedite winced as the Youma around him started to mumble in fear, that was about what he had expected of course, but he still didn't like the idea of it being used on him, it left things open for Beryl to retrieve him at some later date to use incase something bad happened. His plan would make that impossible, but she didn't nee do know that. She had always horded supplies for when things were hard to get and personnel fit that bill, there were hundreds of low level Youma that had been placed in Oblivion as well for when she would need them. Her hand reached out and seemed to lightly touch the black crystal in front of her, it sparked for several seconds as it built up power. He tried to get out of the guard Youma's hands, but they held him in a grip tighter than steel and in his weakened condition that was all that was needed, then the crystal flared and fired a wave of energy at him and the guard threw him into it. His world went black as the energy hit him and he felt his body jerk to a stop, it wouldn't move or budge in anyway and he knew he was inside a crystal and it felt like he was underwater with all sound and sight cut off.

Then the pain hit him and it was like he was swimming in molten lava, but he endured and concentrated everything he had left on his emergency plan, he had to work fast or the Oblivion would over take him permanently. It was supposed to activate several minutes after he ceased to be and being subjected to 'oblivion', forever locked in a crystal prison and unable to do anything about it counted quite high on his list, even his thoughts were slowed down and there was only a few minutes available before he wouldn't be able to do anything. Then as the pain slowly faded to a background annoyance he had to wait an eternity for the tug on his soul that he had been waiting for. Seconds later he realized that he had made a minor mistake, just a tiny one, but it was enough to cause him more problems and he silently cursed to himself for not thinking of it.

He let out a silent scream.

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*Two Hours earlier*

Nodoka Saotome hadn't enjoyed life much over the past ten years as she tried time and again to track down her son, only to be blocked at every hint and clue she came across by a man she despised with every fiber entire being. She had been forced to make compromises and deals with people so that she could keep up the chase against a foe that could use the law to block her every move. Even her family could only do a tiny bit to help her when the government told you in a polite way to give it up or else. So she had taken a job that would allow her to do two things at once, look for her son and make enough money to be considered relatively rich and be able to support an underground search outside of the law. She was an Artifact Hunter, going all over the world in search of various items and using her time while out of the country to do some quite searching for her son with her own money and supplies.

She had gotten pretty good at finding things over the years and learning about a world that most didn't have a clue about. Most of her work kept her outside of Japan, though every now and then she would get a request for something that would lead her back to the country of her birth. That was why she was currently standing in the shadows of a building situated at the Airport where she had just got done witnessing something that she thought she would never see. A Magic battle between the warriors of an extinct kingdom and an unknown man with incredible amount of power who had been out smarted by his opponents.

Now that everything was done she had taken a chance to pull her binoculars out to watch the girls talking among themselves after the battle, at their feet was a man dressed in a tuxedo of all things and who appeared to be injured. If she hadn't seen the beginning of the fight when she first arrived she would have laughed them all off as crack pots, but they all seemed to wield around a kind of magic with elegance and poise of professionals. It had been the most wonderful thing she had ever seen and knew that these girls were going to change the world if they kept this up. They all had a kind of presence that could be felt even at this distance, she was already magically sensitive due to the nature of her family and some of the training she had undergone over the years, but this put her miniscule magical abilities to shame. It was like comparing a torch to a two story high bon fire, they had her out gunned at every turn except one.

It was painfully obvious that these girls were completely untrained fighters and was placing them at a disadvantage, only the red headed girl seemed to have any ability and that was in hand to hand combat only. Thought that ability was quite substantial, she had put that guy to shame in pure skill. She was good to, but Nodoka didn't know whether to acknowledge the girl's skill or her power up for her abilities. What had her more shocked about the girl was that she was using Anything Goes maneuvers that she had seen her estranged husband use and those weren't things that could be learned through trial and error, they had to be taught. There was something in the back of her mind that was trying to point something out as well, but she just couldn't place what it could be.

Hopefully it would come to her eventually, but for now she had other things to worry about. She had been at home working on one of her projects when she heard the challenge from that other magic user to the Scouts and the consequences of their failure if they didn't show. Getting here had been pretty easy, though she had lucked out when she avoided the mass sleep spell that that been cast across the airport to keep the people from interfering, she thanked her mother for teaching her how to avoid something like that when she was younger. Once in the airport she had made her way from building to building until she spotted the fight starting up and she had barely avoided being blasted by one of that evil guy's magical blasts, the large hole in the wall to her left was all the sign she needed to stay out of the way.

For the last few minutes she had been studying the girl's costumes and some of the items she had seen them use with her equipment, it was almost like she was on assignment looking for one strange item or another for her boss. The blonde had a tiara that turned into that magically powered disk, she had nearly cut the guy's head off with it when one of the others had him distracted. The Blue haired one had what looked like a little calculator of some kind, Nodoka wasn't sure what it was, but was pretty sure that it was a lot more than that. Especially with all that time the girl had spent tapping at it during the fight as she tried to get everyone to work as a team to defeat the evil guy, that one would take her a little while to figure out. The one in the red skirt didn't seen to have any kind of magical device, but seemed to tap into the element of fire for her magic. That one would be easy enough to defend against in a fight if she had the right books back at the house.

The one wearing the red leather seemed to have access to even more power than the others, she had increased speed, strength, and stamina well beyond the others. She also seemed to have access to a powerful magical attack that she had avoided using until the very end there, preferring to use her hands and feet instead. The girl also seemed to be the leader since the other girls were doing what she told them to during the fight, Nodoka wondered if she should let the girls know that she had seen the fight for several seconds, before shaking her head. No, she decided, she would look into this a little more before doing anything else. She was bound to run into these girls again now that she was back in Japan, turning she walked away from the scene jotting some notes down in a little hand held pad she carried with her at all times. She was going to have to look into contacting that red head when it came time to talk to them

**********

"So what do we do now?" Starfire asked.

"We might as well head on home, there isn't anything else we can do here and I think the Police will wake up pretty soon." Mercury said.

"Lets head out and leave her here." Mars said and pointed at Sailor Moon as she had been cradled Tuxedo Mask's head in her lap and sniffled.

"You be quiet Mars!" Moon snapped and glared at the dark haired girl.

"To bad Mask ran away from you, isn't it?" Mars shot back.

"B-B-B-B-B-But..." Moon stuttered, then her eyes grew big and misted up.

"Oh great, now you did it." Starfire muttered.

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!" Moon started crying, tears spraying out of her eyes.

Mars rolled her eyes and started to inch away from the girl.

"Well lets get out of here." Starfire said and bent down to pick up Moon as they all moved to leave the Airport. They were soon jumping from the tarmac to the roof of a building and moving out into the city at close to seventy miles per hour.

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Ranma was not in a good mood as she stepped out of the shower, she kept going over that fight in her mind, seeing every mistake and screw up they had made during the battle. Jedite had nearly taken them down, all because they couldn't work together like they should. Luna had been telling her that she had to take command of the Sailor Scouts now that she was considered the princess. Ranma didn't agree in the least, if she had a chance she would be leaving this group to do what they wanted as soon as she could, but that was impossible, she had given her word and that was something she wouldn't break. With a sigh Ranma once again remembered that promise she had made to help the Scouts with this battle, she wished she had never made it in the first place.

Grabbing a towel she proceeded to dry off and put on the short robe Rei had given her earlier. She was to tired to even put her hair up in it's normal pig tail so she left it down and walked out to the living room where the rest of the girls were sitting around the table talking about the fight. Ranma still didn't feel like she was a part of this group, the other three girls all got along decently, but Ranma just had problems relaxing in their presence. She just didn't feel like one of them no matter how much she tried or they told her so. The cats were sitting on the table as the girls discussed the fight, they turned to look as Ranma came in.

"Hi Ranma." They all said.

"Hey, so what are you talking about? We all need to get a bit of sleep."

"Jedite of course." Rei snapped.

"Ah." Ranma said as she sat down.

"What did you think of our fight Ranma?" Luna asked.

"Personally? I thought we could have done a lot better than that."

"What?!" Rei yelled. "How dare you say that, we kicked his ass all over the place and saved the city!"

"Yeah right, we spent most of the battle running for our lives as those planes chased us around. Then we got lucky when I finally figured out how to fire off my own lame magical blast and even that wasn't enough to take him down. He was able to put up that shield against all of us until the end there when we finally managed to get our act together enough to work as a team for a couple of minutes." Ranma snapped back.

"You're the one that wanted to take Jedite on alone Ranma." Luna said.

Ranma glared at the cat.

"What?!" Rei yelled. Ami and Usagi just kept quiet and watched as their friend yelled at Ranma for all she was worth.

"You girls have power, but you have no skills to back it up. You run around in a circle firing off blasts of energy and hope to get the monster before it gets you. Jedite nearly had us because he developed a plan of attack and stuck with it, because of that he nearly killed all of us."

"How dare you say that!!" Rei yelled and stood up.

Ranma raised an eye brow. "I've been able to hold my own against Jedite in the past because I followed defined attack plans that he didn't know how to defend against, I made a mistake with this fight when I thought I could do it again. He was ready for me and had taken the time to boost his power enough to catch me off guard, those planes were a great distraction and if they had worked..."

"But we won Ranma." Usagi said quietly.

"Yes we did, when we started working together as a team, me and mask distracted him, Rei planted that ward on his back to freeze him in place while you led that plane right over him. None of us could have done that on our own, but the fact that we acted like such idiots for most of the fight is what gets on my nerves."

"Ranma, you had no idea what you were going to find when you go there. No one knew what Jedite was planning but him and there was no way you could have devised a plan for that." Ito said as she flicked her tail.

Ranma shook her head. "We knew where the fight was going to happen and didn't take the time to scout out the area ahead of time, or to even sit down and plan out any kind strategy. Ito, how are we suppose defend this planet from evils like this if we don't have the proper training to take on something like this?"

"We all did a good job Ranma, we won, Jedite is gone and we can breath a little easier now." Usagi said.

"Sure we won, but I wonder if we could have gone about this in a different way. Everything we did in this fight went against my martial arts training, I'm glad we won, but what about when the next bad guy shows up?" Ranma snapped as she stood up and walked out of the shrine, jumped to a nearby fence, on to a roof, and vanished from sight before the others could comment.

Usagi frowned and turned to look at Luna and Ito. "What did she mean?"

Luna sighed. "Usagi, Ranma is our princess, but she does so very reluctantly and we did kind of force her into the role. She's been trying to lessen the danger for us by taking on a more responsible role as well."

"So what Luna, Ranma is a part of the team now. We may not get along with her very much, but she can be to damned hard core at times." Snapped Rei.

"You girls don't understand Ranma like I do. Ranma is a fighter Rei, she has been training since she could walk, this fight was a major one and she had to go against her principles to let you others to even come along. It took a lot to make her changer her mind." Ito said.

"What?!" Rei snarled.

"Rei, calm down and let me finish!" Ito snapped. "Ranma didn't want to endanger any of you, none of you know how to fight hand to hand like she does..."

"We are reincarnated soldiers from the Silver Millennium Ito, we know how to do this stuff!"

"No you don't Rei, you have access to your magic abilities, but that is it. Everything else you do is purely on instinct, the way you move, the way you react, and even the way you fight is done purely on instinct." Ito said, then she asked all of them. "When have any of you actually trained?"

"We train two or three times a week!" Rei screamed.

"Doing what? Accessing your power? Ranma wakes up in the morning and practices, she spends all day doing little things to practice as well, running on fences, over the roof tops, tossing pencils around like throwing spikes, and two or three hours a night practicing her special abilities. Then she does it again the next day, Rei you've complained about Ranma's habits from time to time since she showed up and in that whole time her schedule hasn't changed a bit. She trains and trains and trains and never stops for a break or a day off, it's in her blood."

"Everybody, lets finish talking about this later, we all need a little sleep and arguing won't fix things." Usagi suggested and headed off for home. They could talk about this tomorrow and have the time to get over their anger.

"Alright, but we have to decide what to do about this. We are team, if Ranma is our leader she needs to lead us, not coddle us like babies." Rei growled.

Luna nodded as she jumped to Usagi's shoulder and looked at all of them. "We can meet here tomorrow to discuss this some more."

**********

"Nephlite!" Queen Beryl screamed.

In a flash of dark light a tall man appears before Queen Beryl's throne and bowed. Like Jedite he was wearing a gray uniform with black edging, he was over six foot tall, had long brown hair, and an evil glint to his eye. "My Queen, you called?"

"Nephlite, I am assigning you with Jedite's task. What is your plan for stealing energy from the humans?" asks Beryl.

Nephlite grins and looks up into the darkness that is the room's ceiling. "All the human's lives are controlled by the stars, their goals, their thoughts, their actions, all of it is controlled and shaped by the heavens. Every one of them follows the path they were set upon at birth and follow it until the end of their lives, at one time during the course of their lives they will reach a peak of skill and energy that rivals everything before that! I will track these people down and gather every bit of that energy for our cause. We can't fail!"

Suddenly there is a high pitched laugh echoing through out the chamber and a swirling vortex of flower petals appears above and behind Nephlite, he turns to glare at the blond haired being hovering behind him, he appears to be relaxing in an invisible chair and smirking at his enemy. "Nephlite, you really think that will work?"

"Can it Zoicite!"

"But you sound so perky and confident of your goals Nephlite...almost like Jedite! Do you plant to follow in his foot steps perhaps? I know, you want to end up 'canned' just like hew was don't you?" Zoicite laughs and vanishes as quickly as he appeared.

Nephlite growls, Zoicite had been dogging his steps for centuries now trying to goad him into attacking him and he was extremely tired of it. He would have to take steps to make sure the asshole left him alone to do his job, but it would take time because the fruit had some high powered protections to back him up when the going got tough. Turning back to Queen Beryl, he ignores the amused look on her face as he struggles for control. "By your leave, your Majesty?"

"You may leave Nephlite, but do not make the same mistakes that Jedite did or I will kill you before you've even realized you've failed."

"Yes my Queen."

**********

At one in the morning the best place in all Tokyo to go for a little privacy, for those that had the ability to reach it, was the very top of Tokyo Tower. The thing had stood in the same spot for over thirty years and was one of the highest free standing metal structures in the world, rivaling even the Eiffel Tower. It was used for many things, TV broadcasting, radio, and tourism. Getting to the top at this time at night was nearly impossible, but the thing was lit up enough that Ranma had no problems finding enough places to jump to using Ki charged jumps to reach the very top in a matter of minutes instead of using the stairs that were guarded by a few security guards.

There were lights running along all the metal beams and cross structures from its base clear to the top, giving it a white and yellow look to it that many of the residents of Tokyo liked to look at during the night. To Ranma it was good cover and allowed her to blend in a bit as she moved up the side, she stayed in costume for the climb and eventually landed near the top on one of the support braces near the antenna. She was still angry at herself and the Scouts for provoking her like that and had to resist the urge to pound the whole thing into tiny bits of metal, but even her increased strength wouldn't be enough to pull that off. There were things she had to think about, those girls she fought with were at times way to immature for her to understand. She was older than them by over two years even if she had been held back a bit because her old man hadn't sent her to school enough. There wasn't a sound to be heard, but Ranma knew someone was standing behind her and watching silently.

"Why?" She snapped without looking back.

"Because you are the princess and it's your job to prepare them Ranma, they can't learn on their own, you have to train them, to help them understand."

Ranma turned and looked behind her to see the Scout that had done this to her, the green haired chick, Sailor Pluto. "You..."

"Ranma, if you ever want to even have a chance to be yourself again you need to weather these difficult times and move beyond them. Eventually you will have the power to fix all of your problems, it will just take time and patients."

"Those girls are too young to be doing this kind of thing Pluto, why did this have to start now? They were nearly killed tonight you know, I didn't like taking them into that kind of danger but everyone insisted."

"You pulled them through it Ranma, just as any leader would have done. As for why they have to start out at such a young age, I had no control over when the Dark Kingdom would appear. When they did the Scouts had to be activated, I would have done so even if they were in grade school."

"What about their safety?! They could die Pluto!"

"If not them, then who would you suggest Ranma? They are the only thing that stands between these monsters and the rest of the world Ranma."

"Then you should have prepared them!!" Ranma snarled. "I'm prepared, I've been through hell and back for my abilities. How can you expect them to just go out and be able to fight these things when they have no training at all?!"

Pluto controlled her temper, but nearly snapped her Key Staff in half as she did so. "Ranma, those girls are reincarnated souls, I had no control over who they became in this life. All I knew was when they would appear, the cats were supposed to have the ability to track them down and activate them completely, but during the years they were in those stupid stasis tubes their memory was affected. It took Luna months to find Usagi and even then the girl isn't exactly the ideal Sailor Scout, but she's trying her best and doing a good job despite her failures."

"I have to get them ready Pluto and I don't have the time to do it, the next threat is already on the horizon and there is no way those girls can fight it as they are now."

"Then train them to fight properly Ranma, just do your best, it's all you can do, things will work out in the end." Pluto said and vanished back into the Time Stream before Ranma could say anymore.

"Bah!" Ranma snorted and turned to look out across the city one more time, there was something out there that she would have to fight and giving in to those cats wishes was not the answer to these problems. Deep down it felt wrong to follow Luna and Ito's advice blindly, she trusted them, but they didn't know everything and that would cause problems in the end. They wanted total obedience, if she was like those other girls she would have probably gone along with it, but after ten years of hell she had learned a few things that those cats just didn't understand. Something wasn't right about this situation and she had no clue what it was, just a feeling deep in her gut that wouldn't go away. One thing she did know was that they hadn't killed Jedite, no matter what Rei wanted to believe, his body hadn't been there when the fog vanished, but the girls had still called it a win. He wasn't dead and that meant that there was a chance that he would turn up some time in the future to attack them again. There had to be some way to prevent that, but everything was so screwed up right now that thing just looked bleak.

How were they going to get out of this mess? Ranma had a feeling that she was going to be spending quite a bit of time training the others to protect themselves, but how was she supposed to speed up ten years of training into a few short months? There was no way she could do it, Rei might give her a chance to train her, but the girl didn't like her very much and that would cause problems in the end. Ami would go along with it so long as it was a logical solution to a problem, then there was Usagi and her infamous lazy/klutz streak. The girl had all the worst symptoms of a growth spurt, increased hunger, the inability to wake up even after twelve hours of sleep, and pure laziness. Ranma had never had the opportunity to act that way when she went through some of those a few years ago, the old man would never have allowed her to forgo training just because she had been a little tired at the time. Being tossed out a three story window while dead asleep taught one to wake up real quick and react even faster or there would be a lot of pain involved. Unfortunately that kind of tactic wouldn't work with Usagi so she would have to come up with something else to get her motivated.

All this thinking wasn't working, she needed someone to talk to for some advice, even the old man had been useful for teaching her when not to do something. Pluto sure as hell hadn't been of much help. She stepped forward and dropped off the edge tower, bouncing from strut to strut to slow he her decent and control the fall with ease. As she fell she continued to think about the problem, there was one thing she could do, but the power drain on her Ki would be enormous and it would take a day or two to recover from it. Ranma shrugged that off, it would be worth it for some good advice from someone that wasn't out to use her as some kind of pawn for their own needs. She touched down and sprang forward using her Sailor Scout enhanced speed to hit speeds that no regular human could ever reach, she vanished in a cloud of dust as she ran.

She hit the park just down the street from the temple and raced into the trees at the back of the park, during her morning runs she had stumbled across this isolated spot near the back wall that would be perfect for using this technique. Coming to a stop she looked around to make sure no one was around, taking the added advantage of using her Ki to scan the area for conceal themselves. Once that was done and she was satisfied that she was alone, she sat down on the ground in a senza position and started to meditate, taking several minutes to go into a deep trance like state. She had only done this on a few occasions and those had been under controlled circumstances, hopefully it would work like she wanted, but the distance was so vast that she had some doubts. Ranma delved deeper and deeper until she felt her aura flare around her in a bright visual display of energy, drawing this in she focused it and sent her mind out in a wave.

'Master Cologne can you hear me?!'

'Cripes child, no need to scream so loud my brain melts!' Cologne snapped back almost instantly.

Ranma nearly fell over, he had never been able to get her to respond so quickly or so clearly. 'Hello Master, its been a while.'

'Indeed it has child, where are you sending from, you've never been this clear. Even when you were sitting right next to me.'

'I'm in Tokyo.'

'...in Tokyo?'

'Yes, I'm surprised I've been able to contact you so quick.'

'Ranma you're screaming at me from half way across the world, every Elder within miles of me can probably hear you.'

'One second, let me focus a bit more...how's that?'

'Much better, now what did you want?'

'I've run into a problem and I don't know how to deal with it, I though you might be able to help me out or offer some advice.'

'What might that be?'

'Well I found out what Jusenkyo did to me for one, it seems it gave the soul of some long dead girl that used to belong to this Magical Kingdom...you know now that I say it, that sounds kinda ridiculous.' Ranma mused to himself as she blushed in embarrassment.

'Magical Kingdom? Do you know what it was called?'

'Um...The Moon Kingdom.'

"Hmm...I haven't heard of it, but name rings a bell, I'll have to ask our historian about it. Maybe she can find something on it, I'm a warrior, not a book worm you know. So what is the problem?'

'Well, there is this series of monsters attacking the city here, me and these other girls have to battle them and the only thing they have to do it with is these magical attacks. They've been doing a tolerable job of holding the attacks off so far, but they were nearly killed tonight and I was helpless to do anything for them.'

'What kind of fighters are they really?'

'The second level students could kick their asses, they are completely dependent on their magic.'

'What about the monsters? Are they magical or simple demons?'

'I'd say mostly magical, they don't act like demons are supposed to and have way to much power at their disposal.'

'Would you like me to send you a squad of Amazons? They should be able to hold them off easily enough.'

'No, but I do need some help dealing with this, I don't know what to do.'

'Ranma you spent ten years with that bastard making all the decisions in your life, use this as a good example to get to know yourself a bit better. You don't make a decision unless you completely understand the situation, tell me were you leading this team of girls into combat?'

'Yes, they think I'm some kind of long lost princess for that magical kingdom, ain't that a hoot?'

Cologne barked a laugh over their mental conversation. 'Indeed, it is funny. Tell you what, my grand daughter and a friend have been tracking your father in Nerima lately, look them up and see if they can give you a hand.'

'Alright, I've got to head over there and take care of a problem anyway.'

'Well I've got to go Ranma, you may be able to shout at me from half way across the world, but I can't keep it up for long.'

'Sorry, I'll try to be more careful next time.'

'Bah, more careful.' Cologne muttered and cut the link.

Ranma opened her eyes and stretched a little and thought about what Cologne had said, she hadn't really been that much help, but two things had become clear. Shampoo was floating around Nerima somewhere with a friend, she wondered what would come of that if they ever caught up with her old man. The second was that her Ki reserves were growing in size, a mental conversation like that should have drained her just a few months before, but now she was only mildly tired, though she could still sleep for a week easily. Ranma sighed and stood up, she wasn't sure what to do about these girls, but the team needed to be trained or they were going end up being hurt or killed eventually. After that Ranma figured she would be able to leave them without feeling guilty about it, but for now she had a few things to take care of.

She would have to travel to Nerima as well, if she could find Shampoo she could finally get these girls trained properly and wouldn't have to do it alone. Shampoo had been training the younger generation in her village for several years now and knew some of the tricks of the trade, that way Ranma figured she could take care of several things at once. There were several other items to consider as well, like what to do about her old man once they met once more. Ranma understood that there was no way that he would even listen to her, he never had and never would, it was a fact of life she was happy to be away from. Something about the old man had been making her nervous for the last few years, she wasn't sure what it was, but just the way he'd been acting lately was so different than she remembered from early in the trip.

The old man was going to be causing some problems in the near future, the jerk had to be close to finding her by now and going back to Nerima would make that even more likely. That meant she would have to be really careful while traveling in Nerima, luckily the old man was an idiot, it wouldn't' take much to trick him if she stumbled across him. She would be looking for Shampoo and she was tracking the old man, so the chances of them coming across each other was pretty good. Ranma started walking out of the park and headed for the shrine, it was time to make some plans and do a couple of other things as well, then she heard a voice as she was exiting the park and turned to see Ami heading her way. She was walking along looking at her computer.

"Hi Ami."

She looked up as she saw Ranma and put up her computer. "Ranma, are you feeling alright? You were a bit mean to the us earlier..."

"Sorry Ami, but I'm worried about you girls." Ranma muttered and looked away.

"Why? When we are transformed we are a lot faster, stronger, and more powerful than we are in our normal forms." Ami pointed out and Ranma could hear the anger in the girl's voice, a very rare event, but Ami could get mad when the situation demanded it.

"I'm not insulting you or the others Ami, we barely defeated Jedite tonight because he knew more about us than we did about him and that placed in a very dangerous situation. We were at a disadvantage and that places us all in even more danger."

"But we still defeated him Ranma, we did a good job."

"Of course you did, I never said any of you did a bad job or screwed up did I? My complaint is that he came so close to actually killing us when we should have been able to take him down easily. We weren't working as a team and it gave him the advantage."

"Then we'll do better next time Ranma, with every battle we get better and stronger."

Ranma shook her head and looked out over the city, though it was still dark out, it was as clear as day with her strange new ability to see in the dark. "We need to train Ami, how to fight as a team and improve our fighting ability for when we fight alone. All of you have said that there was at least one time or another that you've had to fight a Youma on your own, if you girls will allow me to I'll train everybody to do this and survive."

"I agree that we need the extra training Ranma, but you need to learn to work with us instead of just telling us what to do. You haven't even tried to make friends with any of us yet, you just sit around being depressed and act like you aren't one of us." Ami snapped. "You're wrong about that Ranma, you are a Sailor Scout no matter what you say and you keep trying to turn us away, make us dislike you or even hate you and I don't understand why."

"Ami you don't understand..." Ranma tried, this was getting dangerously close to areas she didn't want to think about.

"No you don't Ranma, you are a better fighter than all of us, but we know next to nothing about you. You won't hang around with us like Usagi and Rei do and you go out of your way to distance yourself from us, this needs to change Ranma."

"Why? If I train all of you to be decent fighters you can be the team you were before I showed up and..."

Ami glared at Ranma and stepped a little closer. "And what Ranma, leave? You don't like to think you need anyone do you? You're wrong, I don't know where you got that idea, but you are wrong, you say we are a team, well you are a part of it as well and if you don't work with us then how can we learn to work together?"

"Once I'm done training all of you, I won't be needed anymore.."

"No, even if you leave you will always be a Scout Ranma, leaving won't change that, it will only leave a hole in the team that needs to be filled."

"I don't understand this, why do you want me to stay around? Rei had made it pretty clear that I'm not wanted around. Usagi has been ignoring me since I pulled those practical jokes on her and you've barely said two words to me since I joined up. I feel like a useless cog in a machine Ami, I don't belong here, I would think all of you would want to get rid of me."

"You're repeating yourself Ranma, and if you keep it up I'm going to slap you. Right now Rei wants to beat you up and Usagi is just confused, please think about what you are doing and come to your senses." Ami snapped and walked off before Ranma could say anything, then she stopped and turned back for a second and frowned. "I consider you a friend and I don't want you to leave and if you took a bit of time to talk to us we would talk to you."

Ranma sighed as Ami left and started walking again, she wasn't sure who to be mad at, both Pluto and Ami had taken the time to yell at her. She knew they were right, but apart of her didn't want to have anything to do with this, her hand was being forced and that pissed her off, she didn't like to be forced to do anything. If this step had been her choice she might have thrown herself into it willingly, but a part of her resented Pluto for her actions that first day. She didn't want to spend the next few years fighting these monsters, didn't want to be a magical girl at all, but she was and Jusenkyo had turned her into one. That was another reason to turn her back on them all, but she had given her word and that was something she could not break, ever. Even worse was the fact that her magical power seemed to be growing in power since she could now see in the dark so easily, it didn't matter if she was transformed or not, the magic was always there and ready for use.

Ranma walked around for the next few hours before heading back to the Shrine, she was surprised to see Grandpa Hino waiting up for her, he was sitting on the top step of the stairs as she approached from below. He had a determined look on his face and his eyes hid something as they looked at each other for a few seconds. Ranma didn't like to admit it, but this old guy had a back bone of steel and it affected everyone around him. Ever since she had met the guy she had been slightly intimidated by the aura of peace he was constantly putting out to sooth those around him. That aura wasn't there as he sat on that step, Ranma could feel his anger as he tried to suppress it and control it.

"I followed you and the girls tonight Ranma, you would never believe what I saw at the airport."

"Um..." Ranma started, this wasn't good.

"You and my grand daughters friends all used these small sticks to turn into the Sailor Scouts and went off to battle this guy with even more magic, he was trying to kill all of you like it was a game and everybody was playing along. Isn't that just a hoot? What I don't understand is why this kind of thing was kept from me, would you know anything about it, Rei refused to talk, so I'm forced to come to you for information? You are the leader after all, why were those little girls placed in that kind of danger? Hmm...?"

Ranma gulped and could have sworn that they old guy's eyes turned a deep red as they stared daggers into her brain.

"Well...I can't say Grandpa Hino, the girls asked me to keep things as secret as possible and won't break that promise."

"YOU WILL TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW, YOUNG MAN!!" Grandpa Hino screamed out what few people knew about, she had told him after all.

"No, I won't, I made a promise to them and I won't break it. Not for you and not for anyone else." Ranma said and glared right back.

"Don't force me to do something I don't want to do Ranma, you won't like it." Hino said with a growl of anger as he slowly stood up.

"Forget it."

All was quiet for a few seconds, then with a ragged breath grandpa Hino sighed and nodded. "Get out of the shrine, you are no longer welcome here Saotome." Then he turned and walked over into the bushes, picked up Ranma's pack and tossed it at her. "Leave now and don't darken my shrine again you've brought enough darkness into my home."

She couldn't say much of anything as lightning flashed in the sky and thunder rumbled over the city. Looking up into the sky it started to rain on her as she shrugged on her pack and descended the steps that led up to the Shrine and looked back one last time before turning her back on it and heading back for the park to set up her tent. She had lived out on the road all her life, this would be no different and it would allow her the freedom she needed to get things done. The only thing holding her here was that promise and she would stick to it until she finished what she needed to, then she could finally move on.

**********

There were times when life really sucked, Ranma knew this almost intimately because of the number of times her life had been ruined in one form or another. Getting kicked out of the Shrine had been really unexpected, she had been living there for several months now and it had almost become her new home. There was a part of her that wasn't all that surprised though, she had been run out of more dojos and temporary homes in her life than she could count, though this was the first one that it was her fault instead of the old man and his thieving ways. He normally stole money and scrolls if he had the opportunity, Ranma knew she had gotten very tired of running from people that treated her with kindness because they blamed her for things that her father had done. What a crock of shit, in one night she had managed to ruin everything she had accomplished and now she was homeless again and had nowhere to turn.

The girls were mad at her for yelling at them for being happy that they won that fight with Jedite, kicked out of the shrine and a warm bed just to keep their secrets, and now she was alone again. As she trekked down the street she let the rain drip off her soaked body and thought dark thoughts. Ever since she got her curse things had just gone from bad to worse to just plain weird, she had always tried to live and honorable life, but it seemed at times that most everybody else lived by a different set of codes. She felt out of her depth, why was it so wrong to keep secrets if you had promised to do so? The biggest question was what she was going to do now, she had to keep her promise to help the Scouts in this battle, find a cure to this damned curse that was ruining her life (again), and someplace to live.

The last was easy enough to do, there was the park just down the street, where she had talked to Cologne just a few hours before. The rest was walled off and the closest entrance was just down the block and she reached that in just a few minutes. Now all she had to was to find a place to set up her tent and wait for this damned rain to quit while she got a few hours of sleep. That battle had nearly drained her and she had some practice to get to later on this morning, she knew that things would look better later though. She jumped over the closed gate and landed on the other side, looked around with a sigh, and headed up hill and into the woods that made up most of this park.

She had spent enough time here that she could find her way through it without any trouble and there seemed to be enough light illuminating the area that it was easy to see where everything was. A few minutes later she found a secluded spot that over looked the city, the trees were blocking most of the rain so she quickly set up her tent and crawled inside and sat down. Seeing outside was easy, but sitting inside the tent seemed to make everything darker so she reached into her pack turned on a small electric lantern that she had stored away in her pack and dug around her stuff to see if everything was still there. It took her several minutes for her eyes to adjust after nearly being burned out by the bright light, but they eventually adjusted and she remembered that darkness was kind of optional for her now. After several minutes she was sure that it was, even all that information that had been given to her was still in the side pocket. This included the bank account and checkbook that had come with it, she had never had one of these and hadn't really had any reason to use it while staying at the shrine. Now that she was homeless, again, the money in that account would come in handy, it would only last so long though and she would have to get a job of some kind to live on while she was helping out these girls.

"Ranma are you in there?"

The voice caught Ranma by surprise, she hadn't expected to be followed after being kicked out of the shrine. "Ito?"

"Can I come in?"

"Sure, I don't mind."

She watched as the tent flap moved to the side and the red cat, soaked to the bone and looking really peeved, padded into the tent and sat down on the edge of the sleeping bag Ranma had rolled out earlier. She was dripping water all over the place as she glared at her and tried to give her the evil eye and failed completely. "I'm sorry this had to happen, I've never seen Mr. Hino quite that mad in all the time I've known him."

"He didn't give me any time to say anything." Ranma said. "The one answer he wanted I couldn't give and he wouldn't accept anything else."

"I know, I was there when Rei got home and he started yelling at her for going into danger like that. Those two were still yelling at each other when I left a little while ago."

"I hope things work out Ito, this wasn't the way things were supposed to happen and now it could make things even worse."

"I'll stick with you Ranma, I am your adviser after all, where you go I go and I can help you with a few things. I am a magical cat after all, we do have some advantages over you normal humans after all."

Ranma pulled a scroll out of her pack. "So what do you think I should do now?"

"I'm not to sure, there are several options open to you now that the shrine is no longer available." Ito said as she lay down.

"There are?" Ranma asked with some surprise.

"Oh yes, we just need to decided what to do now. The others will have to be told of course, Luna can help us hunt up some place for us to live for a while..."

"I won't freeload off the others Ito, I've had enough of that over the years and won't do it anymore."

"That's fine, there's also school to worry about now that you aren't at the shrine."

"I can skip several months of school if I have to, there are other things to worry about now."

"True, but school is still important, have you made any plans for tomorrow?"

"Naw, I haven't had time to much of anything yet. Though I might look up a friend over in Nerima..."

"What?! That place is the local center of insanity and chaos, what in the world is over there that would make you risk running into your father and that insane family?"

"Shampoo and a friend, they've been tracking my father for some time now to see if he could lead them to me."

"Are they enemies?"

"No, they are my friends and with their help I might be able to help the Scouts better protect themselves."

"How did you meet these two?"

Ranma grinned. "After I was cursed I spent several months roaming around China learning to live with this body, but after a while I started to wonder if I hadn't made a hasty decision about abandoning my father at Jusenkyo."

"I certainly hope you know better by now?" Ito said with a sniff. Ranma just smirked as she reached into her pack and pulled out a small towel and used it to dry off the soaking wet cat. Ito sat there in a huff and didn't complain about the rough treatment, that rain had been pouring down pretty heavily.

"Now I know better, I went back to Jusenkyo and learned from the guide there that he had ended up in this nearby village."

"This is the village where you met Shampoo?"

"Yep, though at the time we were more enemies than anything else. You see I stumbled into the village and found my old man locked in a cage, they were getting ready to kill and eat him for some feast that he had ruined months before. At first they hadn't planned to do more than kick him back out into the wilds because they thought he was a normal panda, but he is an idiot and started trying to talk to them with these signs and made the mistake of pissing off the village elders. They found out about his curse and that he was a man, they don't treat guys very well in that village and only the best were allowed to even train as martial artists. Even then they weren't trained as well as the women since they ruled the village, my curse actually helped me out when I arrived, but not before pops decided to steal some of the their treasures and run with them."

"You're kidding?"

"Nope, the moron didn't get to far with them and his punishment was to be turned into a panda permanently and killed for food. He was a man after all and had committed a crime that was punishable by death, I arrived just before they were going to carry out the sentencing."

"This isn't what you told that Nabiki girl the other day."

"I only gave her an abridged version, she didn't need to know everything about me, we had only just met and didn't see any reason to tell her. I did learn a few things about giving out information to complete strangers while wandering around for all those years."

Ito nods. "So what happened?"

"Well I had by that time picked up a bit of Mandarin and made the mistake of telling one of the guards that the panda was my father in his cursed form. The guard was named Perfume and she didn't even give me a chance to explain anything else and attacked my with this nasty looking sword. After ten years on the road she was barely a threat, but the attack came out of nowhere and she nearly beheaded me and I got angry at her for it and gave her the beating of her life. I used to believe that hitting girls was a bad idea, but there are times when you have to protect yourself no matter who is attacking, boy was this a bad idea, but again I wasn't really thinking things through at the time."

"Bad idea? Sounds to me like you made the right decision, the only other thing you could have done was run away and that isn't in your character."

"Well the Amazons, as the people in the village are called, have these rules that they live by because of the primitive conditions of the area. When an outsider female defeats one of the female Amazon warriors they have two options, killing them or inducting them into the tribe as new blood. Perfume wasn't about to do something like induct me into the tribe and after she had been beaten one of her friends, Shampoo, beaned me across the head with one of her bonbori and distracted me as Perfume gave me the Kiss of Death."

"Bonbori? Kiss of Death?" Ito looked a little pale.

"A bonbori is kind of mace with the club end made out of multiple layers of cloth and filled with sand and tightly bound to a handle, they can weigh anywhere from five pounds to over a hundred by adding weights and changing what they are made out of. Anyway, after knocking me down Perfume told me I had better run so I could live longer than a few minutes, she meant it too, but this was a challenge I wasn't about to just run away like some coward. It goes against everything I've ever been taught, seconds later she attacked me again, it was like the beating I'd given her hadn't even happened and this time using lethal attacks, I got mad."

"Mad?"

Ranma nodded with a grin. "Turns out it was a one of the few good ideas I had during the whole thing, I met her head to head, shattered her swords and beat her up again. Though since I was mad I started breaking bones, both her arms, a leg, and several ribs that put her down several minutes later. We had attacked a crowd by this time and they cheered when Perfume went down and stayed down. One of the elders came forward, examined the girl, and declared me to have proven my right as a woman before the whole tribe and made me an Amazon on the spot to have the courage to stand up to them."

"What kind of silly thinking is that?!" Ito almost yelled.

"It seems the Kiss of Death is just another way to induct girls with the proper attitude into the tribe, it also proves their skill and bravery to all the witnesses. It got the old man a stay of execution while they tried to figure out what to do with him now that he had a tie to the village, old fart never even thanked me for it either. After that one of the Elders, her name was Cologne, said that as a member I could stay in the village and learn their ways or leave and go out into the world as an Honorary Member, I decided to stay for a while and see if I could make a home there."

"Fascinating, what happened to your father, I know he's over in Nerima now."

"I'm not sure how he escaped actually, after I had learned about everything he had done to me over the years I lost all my compassion for him and told them to keep him locked up for as long as they wanted, the only thing I asked was that that he wasn't killed. Cologne agreed and he stayed in the cage the whole time I was there, I tried talking to him several times, but he kept ordering my to do things to get him out and insulting me. After awhile I got tired of it and stopped trying, at the same time Cologne and the other Elders were teaching me their village's style of martial arts and how to perform several different types of Ki attacks. These scrolls are some of the ones I haven't mastered just yet."

"Oh, when will you be heading to Nerima?"

"Probably in the morning, it seems like the best time and there is someone else there that I have to look up."

"Another Amazon?"

"Naw, a Doctor."

"Are you sick?"

"No, but if you recall I noticed the other day that I've been having problems with my emotions lately, highs, lows like tonight, lots of anger and it's been affecting my magic and making them unstable."

"What?! Why didn't you $%&@ing tell me this?! I can help out with that kind of stuff you know!" Ito yelled and popped a paw full of claws as she glared at Ranma, which looked kind of funny since she was still wrapped up in the towel.

"Hey, you cut that out. This is also a Ki problem and there is a Doctor in Nerima that knows a lot about Ki and how it works."

Ito lit up in a red glow that made Ranma back up a little, he could see that that cat was seriously pissed off. "Tell me what has been happening, NOW."

"Okay, okay, no need to get your tail in a kink. Whenever I use my Ki or magic abilities I can feel this wrongness inside of me, like everything is out of balance. It's not enough to affect my fighting, but if it keeps up there is a chance that in the future this might change. I'm hoping the doctor can explain why this happening. The magic is the worst of the two, it surges and is hard to keep control of when I have to use it in a fight."

The cat, still glowing, sighed and nodded. "I'm not sure what the problem is, unless you're leaving something else out..."

"No, it's just a minor irritant right now. I do know that it gets worse when I'm angry, the last time I went to Nerima and got in that fight at the Tendo place I nearly lost control of it and almost killed someone, but I managed to wrest control back before it became a problem."

"Ranma, that was like three days ago."

"It was? Man it feels like it was last month." Ranma said and giggled a little.

"I think I might be able to help you a little though, you need some rest and lately you haven't had much, so go to sleep. I'll wake you up later."

"Give me about four hours, the sun should be up by then and I can start off for Nerima."

"Alright, now get some sleep."

With a shrug Ranma crawled into her sleeping bag, turned off the lantern and got comfortable. "Ito?"

"What?"

"Quit glowing or I'm going to toss you outside."

The red glow vanished and Ranma was soon asleep, the cat was still in a bad mood though as it curled up in the corner of the tent and watched Ranma as she slept. She had never seen the girl in this bad of a mood and wondered if there was anything she could do to get her to cheer up. Getting kicked out of the shrine was a pain, but it wasn't like the girl hadn't spent the last ten years on the road under that abusive monster. She would have to find a place to stay now, one of the Scouts would be the logical choice, but with them all mad at Ranma right now she didn't know if that was a good idea or not. Plus Ranma said she didn't want to freeload off them so they might have to find a cheap apartment to live in, they did have a little money to use in an emergency and as a Ranma's adviser she had access to some special resources.

**********

The trip back to Nerima was uneventful, instead of taking a bus Ranma decided that since she was homeless there was no point in being in a hurry so she walked there with Ito riding on top of her back pack. Ranma spent most of that time going over the last few days in her mind and wondering why she had made certain decisions, taken this action instead of that one when she knew the other one worked better. Alienating the Scouts had not been a good idea and she hadn't even really thought about what she was doing, just mouthing off to shield herself from her feelings. That little problem would have to be fixed as soon as possible, but for now it would have to wait.

Getting away from the Scouts was a good idea, she needed a break from all this monster crap and with the main bad guy defeated it would be a few days or so before the next one showed up. At least that was what she figured, either that or it would show up tonight, why give them a break when a quick attack would be useful. From what she had seen of Blondie so far they weren't really into tactics, instead they just over powered their opponents and took what they wanted like a gang of bullies. There wouldn't be any problems and if there were she still had her communicator, though admitting that the sparkly pink thing belonged to her was right up there with accepting the curse. She had quietly turned it off when Ito wasn't watching last night, the girls could do without her for a day or two. There was no way in hell, she had to live with it, but she would never give in to it and planned to fight with ever last breath she had before she gave up her manhood completely.

"Fucking old man and his ideas." She muttered under her breath.

Nerima was the same as she remembered it from her last trip, full of old expensive houses and dojos. She passed by several and considered challenging of them for a free meal, but decided that could wait until later and if it was really needed, it was kind of underhanded and it wasn't as if she didn't have any money now. Of the 50,000 yen she had been given she had only spent about 4,000 of it and most of the wages the Grandpa Hino had been giving her for working at the temple, though there was a little of that left as well and should last her a few days yet. She didn't really care about money really, it was there and it got her food, what else was there to say. If she needed more she could always go out an win a few pit fights for the hell of it and they paid off good in certain areas. Easiest way to fund a martial arts trip really, go in, beat up some guy who thought he was hot shit and walk out with 4 or 5 hundred thousand yen, have the old man steal most of it and get blind stinking drunk.

The ole man would die when it was time, she would make sure he never got a chance to use her again. That was one of the other things she had to blame on him, she couldn't think of herself as a guy while in this form and no matter how hard she tried nothing could change that fact. She sighed and decided that a distraction was in order before she became suicidal again, but what could she do? Without breaking stride she was airborne, Ito screamed and dug her claws into the back pack, and they landed on top of the fence. She didn't hesitate as she started to walk along the rickety thing and whistled a tune. With only one visit to Nerima so far she was a little lost, but she didn't mind, all she had to do was find a policeman and ask for directions.

"Ranma if you do that again without warning me I'll claw your foot off, understand me?" Ito hissed in her ear.

Sweatdropping, Ranma nodded nervously and giggled a little.

"Good, now where are we going now?"

"Nerima."

"We are in Nerima, where are we going now that we are here?"

"I need to talk to that doctor and to find him I need to find Nabiki, she should be in school right now and she showed it to me when were here last time."

"Alright, what's it called?"

"Furinkan High School, it shouldn't be to hard to find with a name like that."

"That one is a little odd, but you do have one other little problem to deal with." Ito said mildly.

"What would that be?" Ranma muttered as she walked along the fence, over the canal, and down an alley.

"It's a school day."

"Yeah, so what?"

"You aren't in school..." Ito said and left it hanging.

"Of course I'm not in school, I...oh crap." Ranma muttered as a man dressed in a blue uniform and an authoritative looking hat stood on the ground beside her and glared. "Truancy Officer?"

He narrowed his eyes and nodded. "Come along. Now."

"I'm on my way to Furinkan High School."

"Is that where you go usually?" He asked.

"No, but I'm going to check it out while I'm here meeting a friend of mine." Ranma said nervously and played with her pig tail.

"Do you have a permission slip from your old school?"

"Um...no?"

"Why not?"

"Um...it took longer to get here that I thought it would?"

"Really?" He asked in a disbelieving drawl.

Ranma nodded helpfully and grinned.

"What is your name?"

"Ranma."

"Family name?"

"...Masaki." Ranma growled out, remembering at the last second to use the name she had given herself at Jubaan High.

"Miss. Masaki, I believe I will escort you to Furinkan to confirm this story." He said with an evil 'I don't believe you' grin.

"You don't have to do that, I can make it on my own, I'm not that far away."

"You're absolutely right about that, you're only a few blocks away from Furinkan. Now come along, it should only take a few minutes to get there."

"Just point me in the right direction and I can go on my own." Ranma growled, this guy was starting to get on her nerves.

"No, now come along." He said and motioned for her to get down off the fence and follow him.

"...grumblecursesnarlgrumblesnarlcurse..." Ranma muttered some unpleasant things under her breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing!" Ranma said sweetly.

"Uh huh, no tricks or I'll send a slip to your current school and have you in detention for the rest of the year."

"Yeah, yeah."

They walked along for about ten minutes before Ranma recognized where she was and saw the school in the distance. The gates were closed, but those kinds of things had never stopped her before, one simple jump and they were breached easily enough. That plan was foiled when the guy grabbed her elbow and dragged her over to a small security phone beside the gate and called someone inside the school. Ranma saw a shadow appear at one of the windows on the first floor and the gate opened to admit them. Students started to appear at the windows to watch, the main gate was never opened until the end of the school day. She had to grin though, every time she visited a new school she made a big entrance and was the talk of the school for a day.

"The Assistant principle would like to see you." The guy dragging her said with an implied threat.

'Some people take their jobs way to seriously.' Ranma thought to herself as they entered the main building.

There was an old man with little in the way of hair waiting for them as they entered the main office. The officer pushed her towards a nearby chair, designed to be very uncomfortable, and told her to sit while this problem was dealt with. Now that she was free, she considered running, it wasn't like she wanted to go to transfer to this school, she just wanted to talk to one of the students. She decided to play along for now, but the instant they tried to do something strange they were going to be less one person. There were skills that she had that could get her out of a locked jail cell, breaking out of school was child's play. She grinned evily up that to guys discussing her life while she was sitting in the say room, it reminded her of other events in her life that the old man had pulled off.

After about ten minutes the officer left and glared at her when he walked out and went back out into the streets to find more kids to harass. The old man came out of his office and looked her over. "Miss. Masaki?"

Ranma nodded.

"Records show that you have been attending Jubaan High and didn't show up this morning. They have been informed that you are here, do you understand?"

"Sure."

"Now what was so important that skipping school was needed to come here?"

"...I came to talk to a friend about something that happened last night."

"And what was that?"

"It's none of your business, that's what."

"Don't be uncooperative, this school is used to dealing with a rougher type of student and you have no idea how tired it get when I have to deal with and attitude."

"What happened to me is none of your concern, all you need to know is that it has affected whether or not I will be returning to Jubaan High."

"What is your father's name?"

"He left me for dead while we were in China and I would rather die than be put back in his care." Ranma growled and let some of her true anger show in her eyes. The Vice Principle stepped back in shock and nodded.

"We've had cases like this before, then what is your mother's name?"

"I don't know." Ranma mumbled. It was a little lie, but something that she didn't want to get into at the moment.

"What?!"

"You heard me." Ranma muttered.

"How can you not know your mother's name?"

"My old man, the one that abandoned me, took me from my mother for a training trip ten years ago. I was only five at the time, I don't remember her name alright?"

"Then well have to call child protective services to find her for you or place you with some foster parents."

"I have been on my own for over a year I can take care of myself and I have plenty of money so making ends meet is no problem. You know I'm old enough to be on my own." Ranma growled and stood up.

"You've been living on your own for over a year?" He asked in surprise.

"Yes."

"What kind of job do you have?"

"Until last night I was working at a shrine for room, board, and a small salary." Ranma growled and cursed herself for saying that.

"You were kicked out of the shrine?"

Ranma growled again and nodded.

"So you came here to talk to one of your friends about a place to stay?"

"Yeah." Ranma lied, but figured it might get this guy off her back.

"Who?"

"Nabiki Tendo."

Ranma was a bit surprised when the guy nodded as if he had expected that answer and motioned for her to sit down again. Something about his attitude had changed the instant she said Nabiki's name, the guy scared or nervous. What was it about her friend that made a guy like this nervous? It had been in the way his stance shifted, the way his eyes had gotten bigger, the sudden nervous sweat he'd developed. Ranma tried to think back to the day the two days they had spent together a few days before and couldn't think of one thing that would make this guy react like that, she was only a student and he was a teacher. Out of the corner of her eye she even saw that the secretary had gone a bit pale and her eyes were darting around. These adults were scared of Nabiki, what was it about the girl that made them act like this?

"Ito, why are they so scared of Nabiki?" Ranma whispered to the cat still curled up on her pack.

"I don't know Ranma." She whispered. "She seemed like a very pleasant girl when we met her a few days ago."

The Vice Principle came back out of his office and frowned at her. "Miss. Tendo will be here in a few minutes, Miss. Masaki."

"Thank you." Ranma said.

"Complete your business as soon as you can. Normally I would make you spend a day on one of the classes for ditching school, but if you've really come to see Miss. Tendo about something you are in more trouble than I thought. Wait out in the hall please." With that he waved her out of the office and went back to his own to slam his door.

"Thanks!" Ranma said sarcastically and moved to the bench outside the office to wait.

About five minutes later Ranma heard some foot steps coming down the hall and turned to see a confused Nabiki heading her way. Standing up and shouldering her pack again and getting another threat from the sleepy cat, Ranma smiled and waved at the girl. "Hi Nabiki."

"Ranma, what in the world are you doing here?"

"Looking for you actually."

"Then why did the office have me called out of class?" She asked with a glare.

"I got caught by the Truancy Officer..." Ranma mumbled as Nabiki blinked and laughed a little.

"I take it you had to talk your way out of being forced to attend classes here for the day?"

"Yep." Ranma nodded and sighed. "It's not even noon yet and already I'm tired."

"You do sound tired. So what did you need to see me for?"

"I got kicked out of the shrine last night..." Ranma started.

"You need a place to stay, but our place out of the question with Genma stinking up the place; right?"

"Um....actually I hadn't thought of that."

"Huh?" Nabiki muttered.

"I wanted to go and visit that Doctor friend of yours, but you never said where he was located."

"You went through all this just for an address?"

"Um...yeah, this is kind of normal for me actually." Ranma muttered and blushed a little.

"Right, you do tend to attract certain kinds of people don't you?"

Ranma sighed and nodded.

"Well I'll point out the way for you, normally I would charge someone for my help, but I owe you a favor and this can go into helping me repay that." Nabiki said as she led them out the front door of the school and pulled out a note book. After scratching out some notes, she gave it to Ranma with a grin. "Here you go, directions to Dr. Tofu's place just down the block."

Resisting this strange urge to hug the girl, Ranma waved as she vaulted the gate and ran off with a wave. "Bye!"

To Nabiki's surprise she found herself waving back and smiling. With a violent shake she put the Ice Queen mask back on and stalked back into the school and told herself that getting involved with that girl was going to cause a lot of problems. Her heart on the other hand told her to shut up, this was the first friend that she gotten past the mask in years and that Ranma would make her happy. She ignored it though and headed back to class to think about how she could use this to her advantage and make a little money. Surprisingly she could only think of one way and the possibility of getting any money out of Genma was impossible, the man was a freeloader and a waste of skin with no money to his name. So she shrugged, felt a little guilty, and headed back to class.

**********

To Ranma's surprise, Dr. Tofu's place was only a couple blocks from the Tendo home and that was about as close as she wanted to get to that place without a reason. Just a few days ago she had been forced to defend herself against almost everybody that lived at that place except for Nabiki and that other girl that had the peaceful aura. Shrugging a bit of apprehension she crossed the street and entered the main gate to the small clinic. The sign outside said that he specialized in Acupressure, Acupuncture, and Moxibustion healing, this came as a bit of a surprise since Nabiki had said that he might be able to help her with her magic control problem. Shrugging as she entered the office she saw that it was a pretty typical doctors office, there was a main waiting room, and admissions desk with and old woman handling some paper work. They had just opened so there weren't any patients waiting around yet, she looked up as Ranma entered and looked around.

She was a bit surprised at the large back pack and the red cat eyeing her from around Ranma's head. "My I help you, dear?" She kindly asked.

"I need to see a Dr. Tofu about something."

"Of course, just sign in here and I'll let him know you are waiting to see him. We just opened."

"Sure."

Ranma looked around the front room and saw that there was a bench running along the wall and several loose chairs for people to use while they waited. There were several plants spaced around the room and hard wood floors that looked like they saw a lot of use. For the most part the place looked pretty professional and well kept, but she was beginning to wonder how a guy like this could help her out with a magic problem. She looked up as the old woman came back into the room and handed her a small clip board. Ranma took it and looked the thing over.

"Since you are a new patient we need you to fill that out for us to set up a file on you and treat you right."

"Gotta pen?"

It didn't take her to long to fill out the paperwork, pretty normal stuff really considering she couldn't remember half the injuries she had taken over the years. She finished it about ten minutes later and handed it back to the old woman, who took it and started entering all the info into a computer of all things. "Thank you."

"Sure."

Something touched her shoulder, she turned to see what it was and saw a skull looking back at her with it's hand on her shoulder. There were a couple of cracks along an eye ridge.

"GYAAAAAA!!" She yelled and attached herself to the ceiling before she looked down.

"Hi!" Said a man in his early thirties, he was wearing a blue doctors smock, a pair of glasses, and holding a human skeleton in his hands as he laughed.

"Um..." Ranma said with a sweat drop and moved a few feet away while still clinging to the ceiling.

He held up the skeleton with a grin. "Don't mind Betty, she just wanted to say hello to the new patient."

The old woman cackled from the other side of the room.

"What the hell did you do that for?!" Ranma yelled and dropped to the floor and glared at the guy.

"Just a little joke. Hi, I'm Dr. Tofu, what can I do for you?"

Ranma huffed and relaxed a little, the guy had snuck up on her without her even noticing and that was very hard to do. She could tell from the way he was standing that he was a master level martial artist, though he tried to hide it. "Nabiki said you might be able to help me with a little problem, but I'm not sure if you can."

"Oh? What kind of problem?"

"Controlling the energy in my body while I'm fighting, it surges quite a bit whenever I have to use certain abilities."

Tofu leaned forward and Ranma could see his aura flare a tiny bit. "Your aura is a bit unusual, are you having problems controlling your Ki? That just takes time and practice to master normally, I don't see anything wrong with it."

"I'm fine with Ki, I've been having a bit of trouble with my magic and that's what I'm having problems with."

"Magic? Well I might, but it's not my specialty I might have to let you talk to one of my old teachers. They have more experience with magic than I do. Well, come on back, I'll examine you in a bit more detail and see if there might be anything else that might be causing the problem. Have you ever had a full physical?"

Ranma nodded absently, she had expected to spend the next several days here in Nerima so this didn't bother her that much. They headed to a room in the back of the small clinic, it held three small areas sectioned off into bed spaces for incoming patients. Dr. Tofu led her over to the first bed and told her to sit down while he ran her through a quick physical. Half an hour late she was dressing, cursing the doctor under her breath, and glaring at him as he wrote something down on his clip board. "You didn't have to do that you know."

"You're a first time patient, I have to know what kind of shape you're in and if you have any medical conditions I have to cure before we can determine what is causing you to have problems."

"Not to worry, you won't have to do that again any time soon. All girls have to go through it eventually, you're not the first and won't be the last."

"Yeah, yeah." Ranma muttered and tried to ignore Ito as she hid inside the backpack and giggled herself silly. "Have you been able to figure out why I'm having my little problem?"

"Not yet, but this is just the first exam, there may be more we have to do before I can figure it out."

"I thought so, how long do you think?" Ranma asked as she buttoned up her shirt and adjusted the long sleeves.

"A day or two, will you be in town for very long?"

"About a week or two, it depends on what happens, but after that I have to head back to Jubaan."

"Alright, I should have something for you by then. Stop by when you can, oh, where are you staying until then?"

"At the park or a local empty lot, wherever I can set up my tent and camp out."

"No friends or family to stay with?"

"My friends are in Jubaan and my family...doesn't exist anymore so I'm on my own at the moment."

"Well if you need a place to stay there is the Tendo Dojo a few blocks...is something wrong?"

"I won't stay at the Tendo place, we've had problems in the past and I don't need to make them worse." Ranma said flatly.

"I see, well then good luck to you Ranma I hope you find a good place to stay while you're here. I don't think this problem is anything to worry about yet, but you still need to be careful."

**********

As the door to the clinic shut behind her Ranma stopped as a strange feeling made the back of her head tingle, there was something out there watching her, she could feel it. Ito had stayed in the pack to keep her from being pummeled by Ranma for laughing at her, but she could tell that Ranma had other things on her mind right now. Sending her senses out to scan the area, Ranma was surprised to find that there were four sets of eyes watching her, one from the roof of the clinic, one from down the street, one from the roof down the street, and someone to far away to pinpoint. She took her pack off and sat it to the side and pretended to stretch. "Ito, stay here and guard the pack, I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Sure..." Ito whispered, but Ranma had already jumped into the air and launched herself for the roof of the clinic with a yell.

The instant she landed, Ranma spotted a girl moving across the roof, she was wearing a lot of concealing clothing, baggy pants, a large shirt, and a wrap around cloak that hid everything else except the small pack the girl had slung over one shoulder. She stopped and took a fighting position as a couple of small balls in her hand, they were half black and half white. Ranma figured they might be smoke bombs of some kind and prepared to stop her if he had to, these things were tricky and hard to defend against with an opponent you didn't know. They started to circle each other slowly and Ranma could tell that the girl was a somewhat skilled fighter, but didn't spend enough time on her forms to be an expert at hand to hand. The little balls in her hands were being held carefully, as if ready to use at a moments notice so they probably weren't smoke bombs like she had thought and had to be some kind of weapon then, something to be wary of until she knew what they were.

"Why are you watching me like as spy?" Ranma asked.

"I thought you might be someone I know, but I was mistaken and was moving to leave when you jumped up here. Over."

"Who did you think I was?"

"That is none of your concern, just leave now and you no get hurt. Over."

"Well I certainly don't want to fight you..." Ranma started, but she was interrupted by a purple blur that crashed into her from the side before she could react to it.

Glomp!

"RANMA!!" It yelled as they crashed to the ground.

"SHAMPOO!!" Ranma gasped out, recognizing the voice almost immediately.

"You know Shampoo?! Over." The girl in the cloak screamed and popped several more balls out of her sleeves and threw them all at once. Ranma tried to get out of the way, but Shampoo wasn't paying attention and the little black and white balls rained down on them before they could do anything.

"Shampoo so happy to see friend Ranma again!" Shampoo squealed happily.

BOOSH!!

"BWHAHAHAHAHAHAH!! Now you will pay for your crimes Shampoo! Over." The crazy girl cackled as she stalked forward to find Ranma and Shampoo struggling to get up. She pulled out a watering can and covered them with a layer of water. "This was to to easy plan. Over."

Shampoo growled as she tried to move, but the poison was already taking effect and she could already feel her strength leaving her body.

"Now listen up, this is Mandragora Root, is deadly poison. Over." The girl said as she sprinkled water over them.

Ranma struggled against the poison as the plant seemed to grow over them instantly, forming into some kind of crude human shape that clung to their clothing and started to emit the some kind of pollen. She could feel the poison taking affect already, draining her of strength. "I'll..."

"Now listen real good, you die in ten minutes or when root is taken off and it screams,
then you die instantly. Revenge! Over."

"No I won't let you..." Ranma said as she struggled to her feet and the girl looked at her in amazement, she had never seen anyone get up after being poisoned with Mandragora root.

"Impossible..." She muttered, produced another ball and flicked it Ranma.

She was blacking out even as the ball hit her in the chest and exploded in a large puff of smoke, with a gasp everything went dark and she fell down just as a forth person joined them on the roof, grabbed the cloak's hood and threw the girl off the roof before she could do anything. Twin screams of shock echoed over the building just as Dr. Tofu ran out on the roof and saw what was happening. The new girl nodded at him and handed him some ear plugs to put in Ranma's ears as she did the same with Shampoo. They didn't have any of the poison in their system so the screams didn't affect them as the oddly shaped roots were yanked off and thrown away, still screaming. After that Ranma and Shampoo were taken into the clinic and an antidote administered as they slept it off.

A little while later, after taking care of some more patients, Dr. Tofu come back into the room to check on the two girls. "Hello again, I never did get a chance ask what your name was."

"Perfume." The girl says as she watches over Shampoo.

"Good afternoon Perfume, there's no need to worry, we got the Mandragora root antidote into to them before it was to late. They should be just fine with a little more rest." Perfume nodded and continued to look worried as Tofu checked the girls over and took their vitals again. "They should be waking up anytime now."

"I know, me and Shampoo didn't expect Pink and Link to show up after all this time, supposedly they had given up trying to kill Shampoo. I wonder what made them change their minds? We had other things we needed to do first, but those two never give up trying to kill Shampoo, at least until last year when they vanished."

"Well you be careful, that girl that attacked you was using some pretty rare poisons. I'm lucky I had the antidote on hand actually." Tofu said with a shrug. He was about to say more, but Shampoo and Ranma started to wake up so he went to make one last check on them.

Ranma groaned as she opened her eyes and looked around to see Dr. Tofu and someone she hadn't seen in a very long time. "Perfume?" She mumbled.

"Hello again Ranma, I apologize for getting you caught up in our mess."

"Eh, it doesn't matter. How's Shampoo?"

"Shampoo head hurt, will break Pink and Link like twig and stomp on them!" Shampoo groaned and snarled, and finally whimpered a little. "After head stop pounding."

"You've survived this attack before Shampoo so I know you can do it again." Perfume said with a smirk. "Ranma, we've been trying to find you for some time now."

"You have?" Ranma asked, her head hurt like there were a dozen Colognes was pounding on it with her staff.

"Followed after you when your father ran off from village, but the one time you show up in Nerima and meet up with your father, we missed you completely."

"How?"

Perfume blushed a little. "We was asleep, you showed up the one day we decided to take a break."

There was a strange catch in Perfume's voice, but Ranma didn't know if she was lying to her or not so she didn't worry about it. "Don't worry about it Perfume."

"Ranma hide from Shampoo." Shampoo accused from the next bed. "I'll hit you with a bonbori if you do it again sister."

"Ah...sure thing Shampoo. So why were you following the old man anyway?"

"We thought he would lead us to you, but he just came here and took a seat at that Tendo place and never moves his lazy butt unless he's going out for a drink with that other male that lives there. Very, very boring to watch." Perfume muttered.

Ranma laughed a little. "That sounds just like pop. Did you know he disowned me?"

"What?!" Tofu yelled from where he was sitting.

The three girls jumped in surprise and glared at him.

"What do you mean he disowned you?!"

"Could you not yell, my head hurts enough as it is Doc." Ranma muttered.

"Sorry, but why would he do that?"

"Pops doesn't like to admit up to his mistakes and tends to make things all my fault even when he was the one on making it."

"So?"

"You wouldn't believe me and I have no way to prove it to you." Ranma muttered.

"Well you tell me anyway, I have to do something about this..."

"You will do nothing Doctor, I have already cut all the ties with my family and changed my name. I am the first of my new family so there is nothing to worry about, I just live on my own and have done so for over a year now."

"How do you make ends meet?"

The horrid headache spiked for a few seconds and Ranma had to rub her forehead. "I was working at a shrine over in Jubaan, but I was kicked out of there last night, but if I really need money I can do some pit fighting. That's how me and pop used to get a quick buck while on the road."

"How did you pay for my bill earlier?" Tofu asked, he seemed to be searching for something.

"I've got a lot in savings, I just used my card to pay it."

"Fine, now about this other thing you can't tell me?"

"I can't prove it, so I'm not going to say anything more on that."

"But..."

"You stop prying." Perfume said and pulled a large scimitar out of thin air with a flick of her wrist.

"If you know what a Jusenkyo Cruse is Doctor I can tell you, but if you don't there isn't a thing I can do to make you understand." Ranma said as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Sorry, but I've never heard of it, but I have heard the name Jusenkyo before. I'll have to look it up in my library."

A thought occurred to Ranma and she looked around. "How long was I unconscious?"

"About four hours, why?" Perfume asked.

"Can someone step outside and bring my backpack in here, my cat is inside it and she might be a little hungry by now."

"I remember bag, I'll go get it." Perfume said as she stood up and walked out of the room.

"Well I have a couple of other patients to look in on Ranma, I'll be back in a half hour or so, okay?" Dr. Tofu said as she backed out of the room, he would also be heading up to his library to look that name and see if there was anything there that would make Ranma act like that.

"Sure thing Doc." Ranma said and absently waved goodbye. "So Shampoo, what was the real reason you were trying to track me down?"

"Shampoo no know what you mean." The purple haired girl said, but she wouldn't meet Ranma's eyes.

"Shampoo?"

"Shampoo miss only friend and decided to go after her and become wanderer like sister." Shampoo said.

"A Wanderer? You?" Ranma muttered. "Bwhahahahahaha!!"

"NO LAUGH AT SHAMPOO!!" Shampoo yelled and thumped Ranma over the head with one of her bonbori, then winced as her head started to throb from the noise level and had to lay back down to make it stop. Then she sighed when she noticed that Ranma was out cold again.

Perfume came back into the room struggling to lift Ranma's pack and muttering about how she was a strong Amazon and no stupid heavy pack was going to defeat her. "Grunt! Shampoo...you have...to stop...beating up everyone you...grunt...meet in this city." The pack slammed to the floor beside Ranma's bed with a loud thud, she had to bend down to see if the floor had cracked under all that weight. Luckily it seemed to have survived the heavy object and she breathed a sigh of relief as she stood up, but then that pack started to move on its own and that top flap moved back. A red cat peaked her head out with and irritated look on it's face and looked at Perfume and Shampoo and wiggled her whiskers at them.

They blinked.

"Um...meow?"

"Oh really?" Perfume asked as she bent down to glare at the cat. "Ranma said you might be hungry, are you hungry?"

Ito looked innocent and pretended to be a normal cat, but she had a feeling she had just blown it.

**********

Ring, Ring, Ring..."Hello?"

"Nabiki, that girl you told me to follow got into a fight over at Dr. Tofu's clinic with some other girl on the roof of the clinic that was wearing a lot of clothes."

Pulling out a pad and a pencil Nabiki started to take down notes, she wanted to know what Ranma was going to do now that she was here in Nerima again just a few days after that fight she'd had with her sister and Ryoga. She needed to find out if there was any way to make a profit off of this without alienating her in the process. Friends were a rare commodity that she didn't give up unless she really had to and she figured that there might be a way to keep the girl around so they could get to know each other better. Then she had to figure out a way to pay Ranma back for saving her life the other day, she was still having nightmares about that thing that had tried to attack her.

Basic skills in martial arts was not the proper level to be at when a super powered monster was trying to kill you. The nightmares has gotten so bad that she had gotten her father to show her some more of the art and help her get some of her confidence back. The last couple of days had given her a lot of time to think about things since she now had chronic insomnia and had been averaging about four hours a night. Her sister Kasumi hadn't picked up on it yet, but she had to find a way to get around those nightmares or her sister would take steps. Kasumi meant well, but she had been reading those books from Dr. Tofu for so long that she considered herself to be and authority on some problems. Nabiki had been forced to go through several weeks of counseling when her mother had died in the hospital and Dr. Tofu and she had no intention of ever doing so again. She knew what her problems were and didn't need to tell some stranger what they were just yet. Now that Ranma was back in town she might have a way to get herself out of the house and pay her back and relieve some of the pressure.

"Was there anything else about the fight that you noticed?" She asked.

"No ma'am, just those three girls fighting off that one in the cloak and nearly loosing due to the gas and poisons being tossed around."

"Are they still there?"

"Yeah, I snuck in and heard Dr. Tofu talking about holding them until tomorrow."

"Excellent, I'll give you a bonus the next time we see each other."

"Thanks Nabiki!" The girl said and hung up.

Nabiki put her cell phone away and finished taking down the last of her notes and pulled out the file she had made up on Ranma, something she did for everyone that caught her interest in one form or another, to add in the newest information she had acquired. She took a second to lock her door before she started though. There was no way she was going to trust Genma when he was in the house and she had new information on Ranma that would allow her to be found. That man gave her the creeps, he seemed to be more than the simple vagrant that she originally thought he was and no matter how much she tried, she couldn't seem to find any information on him that would prove it. He kept secrets and always seemed to have something up his sleeve. Three to five times a week he would go out to one of the local bars to take in the atmosphere, even taking daddy along every now and then before they returned blind stinking drunk and passed out in the dojo.

On more than one occasions the security system she had installed around the house had detected him moving around early in the morning. She had no clue what he was doing, but usually he would go to the kitchen and finish off all the leftovers before anyone else had a chance to eat them. At other times he would leave the house at two in the morning and vanish for about three hours before he returned with a small bag of something under his arm. The security system hadn't been able to get a good look at what he was bringing into the house though, just that it was about the size of a small back pack and that he always took it back to his room and seemed just a little to pleased with himself. A constant search of the guest room had failed to turn up that bag or any of it's supposed contents. What was even worse was that her daddy just didn't seem to think that there was anything wrong with his old friend, they were buddies that had gone through hell together.

She had tried to get the to talk about what happened to them during their training, but they just shuddered and refused. Instead they would change the subject or go and play a few games of Go before going out to drink. There was a secret there that she wanted to know, but so far she had failed to get past their defenses along with some mutterings about the Master and his Ways. She had some idea what had happened to them though, at least some guesses, and figured that it had been bad and that Ranma had been put through something similar. Thought it didn't help that Genma always talked about his son as if he was a retarded moron that couldn't do anything right unless he was there to guide him in the right direction.

It was a giant load of bull shit, but there wasn't anything she could do about it at the movement. She would have liked nothing better than to kick the guy out on the street and get rid of him, but there was just no way to it. With her notes finished she stood up, grabbed a few things, unlocked the door, and headed down stairs to talk to Kasumi for a second. Genma was in his usual place playing Go with her daddy, they were cheating each other too, a sight she had grown used to over the last few months with Genma around. Maybe if she could find a way to get him to find a job, that would get him out of her hair and prove that he wasn't the freeloader he seemed to be. Ever since he had arrived he had forced them to make twice as much food as normal, eating as much in one sitting than the whole family ate at the same time. Even Kasumi had complained about the amount of rice she had to cook up on a daily basis and that was rare for her sister the space case.

Pretending to ignore the slob, she entered the kitchen and saw that Kasumi was cleaning up a mess by the fridge. "Hi Sis."

"Hi."

"I'm going to be out of the house for a while and you don't need to make me supper if you want to."

"Where are you going?" Kasumi asked as she put away the mop, tossed some of the water out side into the grass, and put away the bucket.

"A friend of mine has been injured, I was going to go and check on her." Nabiki said and wondered if she had given to much away.

"Alright, I'll still make you something to eat though, if you don't Mr. Saotome will take care of anything extra."

Nabiki smirked. "I know, I'll be back later on tonight."

"Bye, have fun." Kasumi said and waved as Nabiki went to put on her shoes and left the house. Though she did take a second to glare at Genma before she left, the longer he lived with them the clearer and clearer it became that certain decisions were going to have to be made. And soon.

Dr. Tofu's clinic was the same as normal when she entered the front room and saw his old secretary sitting behind her counter drinking some tea. She looked up and smiled as she recognized Nabiki from the few times she had visited in the past. "Hello Nabiki you haven't been by in a long time, how are you today?"

She shrugged. "Pretty good I suppose, do you have a patient named Ranma here? She's a friend of mine and I wanted to check up on her."

"She stopped by this morning and had a little accident, I'll see if she can see anyone yet. The last I had heard she was unconscious and her other friends were watching over her." The old woman said as she got up and headed back into the clinic.

A few seconds later she came back with a purple haired Chinese girl dressed in some kind of white leather and silk armor on her heels, the girl was armed to the teeth. She turned to Nabiki and looked her over for a few seconds. "What you need see Ranma for?"

"She's a friend of mine and I wanted to know if she was okay. Why?"

"Ranma awake right now, but the poison is still being neutralized..." Shampoo said.

"Poison?!" Nabiki gasped. "I thought she had just been hurt in a fight, no mentioned poison to me."

"Is true, follow me, but be careful around Ranma. She has many enemies in this part of the city."

Nabiki nodded as the girl used one of her bonbori to point down the hall. "That way."

"Thank you."

As they entered the room Nabiki saw that that there was another girl sitting on a nearby bed next to the one Ranma was in. She was Chinese as well and wearing the same kind of armor the purple haired girl, though this one was of red leather and white silk. There was a strange character written across their breast plates, but she had no clue what it meant. Ranma was looking a little bruised, but otherwise alright as she sat in bed with that strange red cat of hers splayed out on the pillow nearby. Ranma looked up as she entered and smiled as she recognized Nabiki.

"Hi Nabiki, what are you doing here?"

"Well I heard you had been injured and came by to see how you were."

"Ah, nothing to worry about, I just underestimated someone and they caught me off guard. I'll know better next time they show up."

"What happened anyway, I thought you were just going to go and see Dr. Tofu to have him look at the other problem." Nabiki asked.

Shampoo and Perfume blinked and turned to look at Ranma and in an eerie unison asked. "What other problem?"

Ranma sweatdropped and started laughing nervously. "Um..."

"They don't know? Sorry Ranma, I thought they knew." Nabiki muttered.

"What wrong with Ranma?" Shampoo asked, she looked worried.

"It's nothing Shampoo, just a little problem I've been having with controlling some of my more potent abilities."

"You not practicing enough?" Perfume asked as Shampoo nodded.

"This isn't about practicing, I'm getting power surges when I use my special abilities and thought there might be a medical reason for it, so I came here to see if Dr. Tofu could find out anything."

"Is dangerous?" Shampoo asked, actually used to things like magic because of her great grandmother.

"Not really." Ranma lied, it wasn't dangerous for her, but it might be for anyone that got on the way if she ever lost control of the surge.

"So why did this girl attack you earlier Ranma?" Nabiki said as she sat down on one of the other beds.

"One of Shampoo's enemies I think, she mistook me for someone else and tried to kill me with a poison of some kind." Ranma said with a look towards Shampoo.

"She was Pink, twin sister to Link, both are old enemies of Shampoo. We been fighting for years now, ever since Pink tried to poison Shampoo when we just children. When Link, Pink twin come by a few minutes later, she gave me antidote to poison, but Shampoo confused and angry so she kick Link ass. They've been out to get ever since." Shampoo said.

"It's been years since that happened, why are they still trying to kill you?" Ranma asked.

Perfume snorted. "It's Shampoo's fault, Pink and Link are specialized in using poisonous
plants and martial arts. When ever Shampoo had to go back to their village to get something she would look the twins up and attack them to keep them out of her hair while she was there. This usually meant that she knocked both of them out and stomped on them a few hundred times to make sure they stayed that way. It's only in the last few years that they have been getting really vicious though. Shampoo had managed to get them to lay off last year though, I think she did something to make them mad again. Shampoo?"

Ranma glanced over at Shampoo, but she was blushing and trying to look cute for everyone.

"The bonds of sisterhood are a beautiful thing." Shampoo said and rubbed her toe on the ground in front of her nervously as she grinned at them.

"See?" Perfume said as she rolled her eyes.

"Ranma, you have weird friends." Nabiki muttered, she'd never heard of anything like this before.

"I'll have to agree with you there, Nabiki, I have lots of odd friends." Ranma said. "Is this Pink going to come back?"

"Yes, though I'm not sure when." Perfume said. "She knows that we are here now and will become even more dangerous, we have to be very careful. Those two are very dangerous, even the Elders tend to treat them as carefully as they can."

"They can beat the Elders?" Ranma asked in surprise.

"No, but they might get lucky, they know how to find and grow all kinds of really rare plants by modifying them with their Ki to make them grow faster. Even the Elders can't keep track of all the different kinds of poisons those two know about. Their mother, Blink, has been sent to take revenge on more than one outsider in the past and they know everything she does." Perfume said.

"How do we defend against someone like that? I have my speed and can probably dodge most anything they throw at me." Ranma muttered.

"Stomp on them, they like bugs that just won't go away." Shampoo muttered darkly as she twirled her bonbori absently.

There is the sound of the old doors to the clinic being broken down just as Ranma was about to say something. She moves off the bed as Shampoo and Perfume stand up with their weapons in hand, Ranma notices that Perfume had pulled out a couple of nasty looking scimitars that were gleaming in the overhead light. They run out of the room to see what is going on, Nabiki hangs back when she realizes that this might mean a fight and she couldn't to anything to help out as she was currently. Ranma leads the way out into the main room just in time to see that same girl in the cloak standing in the door way with a pair of short swords in each hand. Those patients that had been in the front room had already fled, even the old secretary so Ranma didn't worry about them as she glared at the cloaked figure.

"Pink. Why are you doing this?" Perfume asked in Chinese as she readied her scimitar for battle.

"Revenge and satisfaction. Over" Pink said as she grinned.

"Where is Link? You two always work together." Shampoo asked.

Ranma looked confused. "Can you please speak a language I understand?" She muttered.

Turning towards Shampoo, Pink smirked as she tensed. "Your heathen friend seems to be a bit confused, but most of these barbarians are very stupid so what does it matter? Over."

"You leave sister Ranma out of this Pink, you are the one causing all the problems and we will stop you if we have to." Shampoo yelled as she readied her bonbori for battle.

"TIME TO DIE SHAMPOO!!" Pink yelled as she launched herself toward Shampoo with a big grin on her face. "Over."

**********

"Where is she?" Luna muttered as she paced back and forth on the coffee table, her tail twitching in agitation.

"Luna, Rei's grandfather kicked her out of the shrine." Usagi said, she looked worried as she glanced at her friends.

"This is my fault." Rei muttered darkly. "She was a pain, but I didn't want her to be kicked out like this.

"This isn't your fault Rei, its just the way things turned out. You know how stressed she was with us always doing everything we could to push her into acting like our princess." Ami said, she still hadn't forgiven Ranma for yelling at them, but she has come to terms with it.

"But Ami, she was kicked out because she wouldn't' tell grandfather about our fights or explain anything. It's bad enough that I've been grounded until further notice." Rei grumbled, she hadn't been grounded in years.

Usagi hugged her.

"What do we do if another monster shows up?" Ami wondered. She was used to working with the other two and didn't want to go back to like it was when it was just her and Usagi, luckily they had found Rei right after that or she might have been overwhelmed by all these attacks by now. With Ranma around the fighting had gotten to be a lot safer, she didn't know what she would do if Ranma decided not to come back.

"Do any of you know where Ranma went?" Luna asked as she glared at them. "We have to find her, she could be in danger."

"I thought she would ask to stay at one of your houses when Grandpa kicked her out." Rei muttered and glanced around. "She didn't show up?"

"No." Usagi said, she was feeling really bad about this. Ranma was a pain in the ass, but she had been something the team needed against Jedite. She was strong enough to take on most anything by herself, but with her gone things were back to the way they were before she showed up and they were all worried.

Ami pulled out her small computer and started typing, but after a few minutes she came up with nothing. "The computer can't find her anywhere nearby, if she's left town it will take a few days to find her."

"Did any of you try calling her on the communicator?" Luna asked.

"I did, but I couldn't get her to answer it." Rei said.

"I did too, but she wouldn't answer me either." Usagi said.

"Then all we can do is hope that she contacts us, but in the meantime I'll set my computer up to scan for her out past the city limits. It should only take a few hours to set up a program to do it." Ami explained as she donned her glasses, they gleamed.

"I can understand Ranma being mad, but why didn't that idiot Ito contact me?" Luna muttered darkly. "Now for something else I wanted to know, how did Grandfather Hino manage to keep up with you and see that fight?"

"Grandpa is a very skilled martial artist Luna, he doesn't show it very often, but he can defend himself against most anyone. Remember he was doing a little training with Ranma as well in the mornings to get a little better control of his Ki." Rei said.

"Ranma has those skills because she's a Scout, Right?" Usagi asked.

"No, her skills are all learned. When she transforms she becomes a lot stronger than even us because the transformation makes us about fifty times stronger and faster than we are in our normal form. With Ranma this is huge amount and she has to be really careful when she is in Scout form not to cause accidental damage." Ami explained as the nibbled on a cookie.

"She hasn't really told us much about herself has she?" Usagi said.

"I had noticed that, but didn't really think much of it and figured that she just liked to keep her life private. How about you Luna? Did Ito ever say anything about Ranma's life?"

"I know more than you do, but that is almost nothing to worry about. Ranma is still struggling to overcome being considered a Princess. She does not like that idea, if she had I would have tried to make her take up the duties of our Princess, but since doesn't I had to back down."

"She is very much a tomboy that's for sure, but I thought that was because of the last few years being trained as a martial artist." Usagi said. "I know, we can find her a boyfriend and get her over this silly phase to cheer her up! How about Umino?"

Luna started hacking up a fur ball in shock. "Um...U-Usagi..."

"Hey, that's a great idea." Rei said with an evil grin.

"Ranma doesn't..." Luna tried again.

"We have to find her first." Rei muttereed.

"Then we can find her a dress, and some make up, and it will so perfect!" Usagi squealed.

Luna sighed, they just never listened to her at all.

**********

The little bell above the door jingled as it opened and the tall man in an expensive suit walked in and looked around like he owned the place. He was about six foot tall, had long curly brown hair, and was wearing a pair of sunglasses as he smiled. The real estate agent that looked up when he entered, gasped, and developed little hearts in her eyes and blushed a little as she took in ever square inch of him. She stood up, adjusted her business suit and walked over to him with an inviting smile. "Hello, may I help you?"

He smiled a little more and bowed. "I was looking for a private house to rent for a few months."

"How private?"

"Isolated from the neighbors."

"Those are pretty expensive, but we have a few available if you want to take a look at them. How many rooms were you looking for?"

"Three to six would be perfect." He said with a grin.

She nodded and motioned for him to follow her to a desk. "Just follow me, we can get the paper work set up and we can go out and look at all the sites if you want, Mr..."

"Sanjouin Masato*, I'm setting up a place where I can work from home and want a little privacy." He said as his eyes glinted.

**********

From outside the clinic looked as normal and peaceful as it always did, but if one had wandered by at just the right time in the afternoon they would have been greeted with a sight they had never encountered before. First came a series of screams that always preceded a fight, then a sound like a bunch of silverware being sharpened at a high rate of speed. In any part of Tokyo these sounds would have caused quite a bit of horror and fear among those that witnessed it. Here in Nerima it was a whole different story, neighbors barely blinked an eye at the sound, though several did pull out video cameras and point them at the building. People passing by hopped up on a nearby wall and pulled out a bag of popcorn to pass the time while the fight was on. This was for the sounds of the fight alone, but experience had taught them all that it would erupt out onto the street in a matter of minutes.

Inside the clinic Shampoo was slowly backing away from Pink's lightning fast attacks as she blocked the blades with the metal handles of her Bonbori. She was surprised at how much better the girl had gotten since their last fight a few years ago. Pink seemed to be a lot faster and even more driven by revenge, it was an odd sight to see the peaceful girl trying to kill someone like this. Shampoo was the only girl they had ever acted like this against, whenever the two met they ended up fighting like cats and dogs. Pink's sister Link was nearly as bad, but she tended to be a bit more accepting about things, though she still had the same unwavering dislike for Shampoo. Other than that the two girls were well respected in their village of Yaocaicun a couple days walk from Shampoo's village higher up on the mountain.

Shampoo's fight with Pink took a turn for the weird when Pink suddenly developed four arms, each hand holding a long curved knife and redoubled her attack. Backing away in shock, Shampoo could do nothing but block the incoming knives and slowly back away under the quick attack. Then she growled, spun her bonbori around slammed the weighted maces into Pink's body and forced her to jump back, her cloak swirled about her body like a shield as she landed on the other side of the room. When it was thrown to the side Pink and Link were standing there glaring at the purple headed Amazon. Pink still had her two long curved knives, but Link was there as well and she had put her knives away and pulled out a couple of small colored balls in her hands. She smirked at Shampoo as she sent them flying right for the girl's head with a quick flick of her wrist.

"Get out of way!" Shampoo yelled as she used her Bonbori like a bat to hit one of the two balls Link had thrown. She tackled Ranma and Perfume even as the ball was exploding across the side of her weapon in a wave of pink colored gas, they went flying out of the window of the clinic, and out into the street even as the other balls exploded all around them. The ball Pink had thrown hit the floor where Shampoo had been standing and exploded in a puff of blue smoke, they two mixed to create a special kind of gas Pink and Link liked to use in their fights.

One red head, and two others girls flew out of the clinic at the exact same time that a group of guys from the Furinkan Long Distance seniors track team. They were jogging by doing their daily five mile run when they were caught in the middle of the fight and the gas wafted out of the clinic and around them as they gasped for air. Ranma was shocked when the guys all started coughing like they were about to cough up some major organs, then they all staggered to a stop and dropped to their knees. Ranma was about to go and help them when she noticed that they were all starting to look really weird and drool.

"What is that stuff?" Ranma asked, it didn't look like that strange root Pink had used on her earlier.

"Shampoo does not know, Pink and Link are expert in using plants, herbs, and poisons in their attacks. They are champions of village back home." Shampoo explained. "Win many village tournament this way, but no know secret of gas attack."

"Shampoo's right Ranma, these two tend to have a very eccentric view of their abilities and like to use them to make sure outsiders don't stay very long at their village." Perfume said. "Their have been rumors about them experimenting on some people, but even I know they aren't that sick."

"Is potent drug, last for several hours and make one have funny dreams." Shampoo said as she watched the guys stagger to their feet with blissful looks of ecstasy on their faces.

Jumping out of the clinic with their weapons drawn, Pink and Link looked around to see the guys and snapped their fingers. "Drat. Over." They muttered together.

A couple of the guys fell over and started to giggle, drooling all over themselves in their drug induced high. The rest just wandered off and talked to bushes, small pets, ferns, and poles along the way, it was all caught on film by the hidden watchers who were grinning madly. They hadn't had fight like this in years and they could sell it to the TV networks for a fortune, with a bit of editing of course. Pink and Link turned as more balls appeared in their hands and prepared to throw them again. This time Ranma paid attention to the balls themselves and saw that they were a different color than the others. Jumping up from where she had landed Ranma ran forward and launched herself about ten feet into the air, pulling her knees up to her chest as her arms shot forward to throw a couple of rocks she had picked up. The rocks flew out and hit both girls in the head as she came down before they could react. It was enough of a distraction that it allowed her to come down on them and bounce off Pink's head, flip over them, and land behind the to do a fast leg sweep to send both girls to the ground in a pile of cloth and limbs. Whatever was in those balls was proving to be very dangerous, she didn't even want to see what these did. It was just to dangerous to everybody, that meant that she had to get all the innocents away from the fight.

"Move, we have to get out of here." Ranma yelled as she jumped to a nearby wall and almost laded on a guy eating some popcorn. He gave her a thumbs up and offered her some, but she was to busy to notice.

"We stop now!" Shampoo said as she pulled out her sword from subspace, it's long curved blade glinted in the sunlight as she spun it around and nearly castrated one of the runners as he staggered by.

"HEHEHEHE…HEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!" The stoned runners laughed out as he stripped all his clothing off to see if he could find a would, found nothing, and streaked down the street and into traffic to prove to the world that he was still whole.

SKREEEEEEEEEEEETCH!!

Being missed by inches the guy fell down and lay there laughing. "HAHAHAHAH...ouch...HAHEHEHEHE!"

"You will not get away with that! Over." Pink yelled as she tripped Shampoo and threw several balls into the air, grabbed her sister, and jumped to the roof of the clinic. "We will return to complete this! Over."

The balls landed, but Perfume was already there and jumping out of the way and over by Ranma as they exploded in a wave of dark smoke. Then seconds later the smoke seemed to spark and burst into fire that consumed the smoke in a giant fire ball. They dived behind a wall and let the wave of fire roll by before they jumped up to see that everyone had cleared out of the area, well except for the odd runner, but they were all stoned so it didn't matter since they were all having such a good time. Surprisingly enough the fire hadn't damaged the clinic and only caused a large discoloration on the pavement in front of the door. Ranma realized that it hadn't been that dangerous, but more of a distraction while Pink and Link got out of there. She cursed to herself and went to make sure that Shampoo was alright.

"Those two are tricky." Perfume snapped as she stood up.

"Why did they run like that?" Ranma wondered out loud.

"They were low on ammunition, they usually have about a dozen of those balls with them at any one time. Usually it is more than an enough to take out a fighter, we managed to dodge almost everything they had." Perfume explained.

Shampoo nodded as she walked over. "Shampoo usually take bag from girls when knock out, forgot to do it this time. Never seen balls of fire though, that new."

"We have to stop them before they can get more of those thing." Ranma said and was about to jump up on the roof and go after then, but Perfume stopped her.

"Don't worry about it. Pink and Link are a pain, but they would never kill anyone but another Amazon unless it was life for death. Even those runners were only drugged, they will be fine when it wears off. They will also take the rest of the night off to tend to their wounds and make up some more of those balls and that gives us a little time to rest before they strike at us again."

"But..." Ranma tried.

"Perfume right, we check on Tofu and others in clinic first." Shampoo said and gave Ranma a shove. "You still need rest from Mandragora root, that come first along with hot meal, then Pink and Link get stomped on."

"Um...right." Ranma said and headed into the clinic.

**********

In the dock yard a storm was raging across the bay, lightning flashed from cloud to cloud and the winds produced six foot waves that were crashing against the docks where ships huddles in fear. All in all it was a pretty normal storm for this time of year and no one was particularly worried about, though there was one ship that had been docked for a couple of months now that no one had touched since it was towed into the dock, tied up, and forgotten about after the police got done with it. It was a huge rusted ship that at one time had been a cruise liner. Recently it had been in some kind of scam that ended up with hundreds of people adrift at sea when something had revealed the plot. Thought the police had been baffled about how over a thousand people had thought this piece of scrap was a normal cruise liner with a crew and everything.

Ever since it had been towed her by the tug boats and tied to the dock, rumors had arisen that the ship was haunted and teenagers liked to use the ship as a kind of test to prove themselves by spending the night in the rusted hulk. There were even stories that the ship had been the scene of a battle with the Sailor Scouts, but very few believed it, they were only an urban legend after all. This particular ship was currently the subject of multiple flashes of lightning as they arched across it's hull and struck it's rusty decks antenna as they rose into the sky. Under normal circumstances this wouldn't have mattered all that much, but some rumors are true and just the right kind of circumstances were in place to bring about the impossible.

Like will always attracts like, so when the dark energies of two dead Dark Kingdom warriors found and merged with themselves on the deck of the ship where the final battle took place, the energy coalesced and merged as the rain washed across the broken and dented deck and had lightning charge it with pure energy. As all three of these things came together a dark miracle happened and the water started to bubble and flow in a different direction than the rain was flowing. Seconds later it started to rise up like a snake, undulating chaotically as it struggled against the natural flow of the water and formed presidue legs and arms. Then a head and details like fingers and toes started to form on the water like body. It stood there for several seconds as the final details finally formed to reveal a female form with short wavy blonde hair and a thin build. It relaxed a little and the water altered slowly to look like skin, taking on a tanned look and well formed curves.

A dark gray general's uniform formed around her as she opened her arms and let the rain fall down on her, she gloried in the rain and started to laugh and spin around even as black leather boots formed on her feet. Dancing across the deck she celebrated a return to life and started to accumulate some energy, but the limited amount availible wasn't enough to keep her going for long. Still, she wasn't hampered by any of the old restrictions either, she could feel the perfect kind of energy out there for the taking and all she had to do was find it. There was just one little problem, she was weaker than any Youma she had ever encountered or could even remember. Her memories were a bit hazy as well, she seemed to have two different sets, where one set belonged to someone named Titus and someone else named Jedite. She wasn't sure who was who, but knew that it had something to do with Jedite. She shook her head and could feel her memories starting to slowly integrate themselves back into her mind.

She was way to low on energy at the moment, no matter how much she absorbed out of the air from all the lightning, it wasn't enough and would need to be replenished if she wanted to survive the night. As Titus she would have had enough energy to go without feeding for several weeks, but she had just been reborn in a way and had to start her life over with some kind of energy that would work just as good or better than the dark energies she was used to. She moved across the ship and sensed that there was movement down in the lower section of the rusted hulk and that it was alive, it's life essence was calling to her as she stood there. A few minutes later she was moving through the lower decks of the ship tracking the life forces by feel alone, the lack of the lighting made it pitch black down here. She rounded a corner to see a flash light shining down the corridor a little ways away, whoever it was they hadn't seen her yet and she wanted to sneak up on them and see what was going on before she made her move.

Standing against the wall she willed her body liquify and seemed to shrink in on herself as she lost her shape and spread out across the floor and crawled snake like down the hall and looked around the next corner carefully. She smirked to herself as she caught sight of a guy and a girl kissing passionately, there seemed to be something in the air around them that was activating her energy radar as she flowed forward and rose up behind the distracted couple in a wave and enveloped them before they could react. They didn't even have time to scream as she sucked the dry. She grinned as their odd energy was pulled from their bodies and made them glow brightly, a wave of something passed through her new body that was unlike anything she had ever felt before. Moving off the couple as they passed out she took human form again and staggered off as she made her way to the deck to get back out in the rain again.

Taking that energy was unlike anything she had ever done before, the dark energies of the Dark Kingdom tended to make a person more aggressive and dangerous. This made for some very dangerous beasts and warriors roaming about the Dark Kingdom, which was exactly what Queen Beryl had wanted, but this energy was different, she had never really thought that different energies would have a different effect on one's body. She shook her head as she stumbled onto the deck and out into the rain and breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever she had just taken had been more powerful than anything Jedite's old plans had ever netted in energy. She felt full and powerful again as she walked along and let the water cascade across her body and let the water wash away her tension. When she reached the side of the ship that was nearest the dock she spotted a large number of cargo boxes sitting next to the ship, these things were about fifteen feet long by ten foot tall by eight foot wide. Large enough to ship a car in with room to spare and they were piled up so high that they were even with the deck of the ship in places. With a casual jump she was on top of one and ran to the end and jumped to he next one, and the next, and so on until she was bouncing across the roofs of the dock area buildings.

Now that she had some freedom she wanted to do a couple of things, the biggest one was to get her revenge on those Scouts for being the cause of death for both Jedite and Titus, but first she wanted to learn about her powers and to perfect them before she took on those girls. That meant getting out of the Jubaan area and going somewhere to perfect her abilities a name cropped up in her spotty memories as the perfect place to go, she wouldn't stand out, she could practice strange attacks out in the open and no one would care, and she could take a couple of years to recover. Now all she had to do was find the place, she knew it wasn't near the docks though so she would have to find a map of Tokyo and find the right district. It even rolled off her tongue with ease, Nerima.

"OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH!!!" She laughed out loud, it just seemed like the right thing to do.

**********

"Damn!" Ranma muttered as she stood up and looked in the direction of the docks.

"What wrong Ranma?" Shampoo asked.

Ranma wasn't sure what to tell Shampoo, on one hand she wanted to tell her about everything that happened to her in the last couple of months. On the other she had to keep people from knowing about her status as a Sailor Scout, even if it meant holding back in a fight or not transforming in front of people. Keeping the very promise that had gotten her kicked out of the shrine in the first place. Right at that moment she didn't know what to think, she could feel this odd dangerous feeling heading right for Nerima. If it had been going towards Jubaan she would have just let the others take care of it since all the monsters usually went there, but this one was the first to leave the city and head out this way and she had to wonder if this new general she was waiting for had more brains that Blondie. Luna had also explained to her at one time that as she grew in power she would be able to detect things like this, it meant she was slowly growing more and more in touch with her powers. That was something that gave her mixed feelings.

On one hand she was proud that all her training was working out, but on the other hand she was a little ticked off. Being a girl just didn't suit her and the more she struggled she didn't want to deal with it at all, but no matter how much she tried to fight it she had found that she it came down to adapt or die. That kind of reminded her of all that time she had spent with the Amazons, they had helped her out quite a bit, especially Shampoo. She glanced at the worried Amazon and debated what to do, if she kept quiet she would have to fight the thing by herself. Normally this wouldn't have mattered, but to keep her secret she would have to fight it while untransformed and that would take hours. She would need a little help to speed things up and keep the innocents safe from this thing. "Send out your senses, can you feel that dark energy heading this way. That aura?"

Tilting her head, Shampoo frowned and tried to tap the limited Ki abilities that her Great Grandmother had been teaching her how to use over the last year or so. She had always been astounded by how easily Ranma could use them, picking up moves almost instantly and mastering them completely within a few days. At first she couldn't really feel anything except that Ranma had incredibly huge amount of Ki just under the surface, but as the seconds ticked by she began to feel something else off in the distance. Whatever it was the thing was full of dark energy, not really evil, but darkness that could very easily turn to evil if given half a chance. "Is aura of darkness?"

"Yeah, and it's heading this way." Ranma said.

"I can't sense anything Ranma." Perfume said as she tried to see what they were doing, but her Ki abilities were really limited. She was a fighter, but Shampoo was a champion fighter and had been taught how to use the Ki in her body to fight. Something Perfume had never had a chance to achieve to their fullest, instead she was using a kind of self taught ability to use her Ki.

"Delve deep into your body and find your center, then latch onto it and expand your senses out from your body." Ranma said absently as she continued to monitor the Youma heading this way. Why in the hell did it feel so damned familiar? Was it one that she had fought before this and had somehow managed to survive through some quirk of luck and wanted to get it's revenge? Or was it something else she had encountered before, but didn't have a chance to take down like the others? Jedite had been into disguising his Youma as some kind of human as they worked. This had also made them a little easier to find, but that was because of Ami more than anything else. So who or what was this?

Perfume blinked in surprise at Ranma's comment and did as she suggested, the Elders had never bothered to tell her how to scan her surroundings before. They considered it a special ability to be given to a rare few and she wasn't on that list. At first she didn't quite understand what Ranma was talking about, but after a few minutes of intense concentration she found what she was looking for and managed to do exactly what Ranma suggested. It was really easy and she gasped as the world opened up around her, she feel the blast furnace of raging Ki that was Ranma, the campfire that surged within Shampoo and her own candle's level of power. In the back room was another source of Ki that could only be Doctor Tofu, his energy was just a little bit bigger than Shampoo's level, but tightly controlled.

"I'm sorry Ranma but I still can't figure out what you're looking at."

"You will get it, your Ki control needs more time to grow, but for now you should only be able to sense things around you, perhaps everybody within the building. That's the first step, after that it gets easier and easier with every use. There is a monster coming towards Nerima and it's giving off a lot dark energies."

"A monster?" Perfume asked. "What kind?"

"We call them Youma, they usually appear over in another district, but for some reason this one is making a bee line for this area instead. This isn't good, a regular human can't fight these things head on, they are very strong and incredibly dangerous to normal people and can cause untold amounts of damage if you aren't prepared for them, even death. Those like us who have trained in martial arts like we have our whole lives should be able to defend against it to some degree so long as it doesn't drain our life energies from us."

"Shampoo never sense anything like this before, can feel darkness within the Ki that remind of Musk warrior from long ago, though. Some of it same, mostly different."

"You mean that possessed Musk warrior we were forced to kill about ten years ago when it tried to kill everyone in the village?" Perfume said, she would never forget the day when this thing had appeared out of nowhere and started killing them with ease and for no reason other than to kill. It hadn't even possessed a mind to speak of, but was nothing more than an engine of destruction that destroyed everything in it's path. It had taken down almost a third of the warriors in the village before it was stopped by an Elder and even then it's death had taken the old woman with it when she used a secret technique to make it's head explode. Seconds after it's head was removed it's whole body had convulsed and exploded, leaving a ten foot crater where they had been fighting.

"That day Shampoo mother die, she remember that day well even though try to forget. Day mother killed before her eyes. Monster stood in front of Shampoo for several seconds, remember how it felt when it was that close. This energy make Shampoo feel the same, but it also different, as if only a small part of creature like mad man."

"Shampoo you have got to work on your Japanese." Perfume said.

She nodded and blushed. "Shampoo try, need practice to figure out odd language."

"It will be here in an hour if it keep up this speed." Ranma said.

"We prepare to kill?" Shampoo asked.

"Can you track it if we split up?" Ranma asked.

"To to easy." Shampoo said as she waved her hand back and forth and grinned.

"Then try to figure out where it it's most likely to stop and help protect the innocent bystanders that will be in the area, they have probably never encountered anything like this before."

"Where will you be?" Perfume asked.

"I will be calling on some friends and get them to help us out, they owe me a favor from when I helped them out last night. They can also kill these things while you two can help out by keeping others from getting hurt." Ranma said as she walked over to her pack.

"We can take care of this thing on our own Ranma." Perfume said. She did not like being regulated to a position that protected innocents, but left her out of the battle.

"These things can drain the life out of you with a simple touch Perfume, but if you want to fight you can do so after all the innocents are out of the way." Ranma said, her voice taking on an aura of command popping without her knowing about it. One of the things Cologne had taught her was that most Amazons were arrogant to a fault. She hadn't come right out and said it, but there had been several stories that described the blindingly stupid ways most Amazons went about doing things. More often than not this kind of thinking tended to get the girls killed in a situation that they didn't need to die in. This fight wasn't exactly something to shrug off, but they would have to prove that they could keep up with the Scouts before she would allow them to do more than protect the bystanders.

"Shampoo is Amazon, can kill any monster that challenge her!" Shampoo snapped and pulled her sword from where she had stored it earlier.

"Then act like one and follow my lead." Ranma snapped right back.

"We will prove ourselves Ranma." Perfume said.

That's fine, but remember that the innocents come first, then the monster can be killed."

"Understood." Perfume said with a nod. "Shampoo lets get going, you still have an idea where this thing is right?"

"Yes."

They jumped to the roof of the clinic and took off, heading for the edge of Jubaan and Nerima as they tried to figure out where it would most likely come first. Ranma nodded as she pulled out the stupid looking communicator she had been given, it was pink and had these glittery little suns on it. The mere sight of the thing made her shutter at times, but she had come to terms with being a Scout and did have fun with it at times. She had turned it off last night to make sure she wasn't bothered by the other scouts for a little while, she had needed a few hours to herself so that she could calm down and think about things on her own. She touched a button and activated its 'Message Recall' function, it had taken nearly an hour for Ito to explain why she had to carry the silly thing with her at all times when there was a perfectly good phone nearby. There were about ten messages waiting for her as it quickly booted up and she hit a few other buttons to open them and see what they had to stay. Someone must have been waiting for it to do that because it beeped at her almost instantly, with a smirk she tapped Mercury's symbol.

"Ranma! Where have you been?!" Ami yelled.

"I was taking care of a little personal business, but something came up while I was doing so. What's up?" Ranma said.

"Everybody is worried about you."

"I know, I'm sorry about that, I just wanted a few hours to myself to calm down after getting kicked out of the shrine."

"You could have come to either me or Usagi, we would've helped you out." Ami snapped and tried to glare at Ranma, but she didn't do a very good job of it.

"We don't have time to worry about that right now, turn on your computer, there is a Youma heading for Nerima."

"What? Why didn't I detect it?" Ami muttered as she brought out the small device. "Where...ah, there it is, it doesn't seem to be a Youma like what we usually deal with. It's energy readings are all wrong, more powerful in some ways and weaker in others."

"Can you and the others give me a hand with it?"

"It's heading for Nerima? Is that where you are right now?"

"Yep."

"It will take us about forty to fifty minutes to get all the way over there Ranma, that should give us just barely enough time to intercept it."

"That's what I was thinking as well, me and a couple of friends are going to keep it occupied until you get here to fight it."

"Were on our way, but we will have a little chat with you when were done Ranma." Ami said, getting the glare right this time.

Ranma smirked and nodded. "Sure thing, contact me when you get close and we can meet up somewhere."

"Agreed." Ami said and turned disconnected the communicator.

Ranma watched for a few seconds as Ami contacted Usagi and Rei, though really, really ugly, their little communicator's were pretty useful for the most part. They allowed for instant contact at any time so long as they were turned on, and even showed when one of the others was in use by making one the Scout symbols light up when they talking to one another. She put it away, moved her pack inside where it would be a little safer and told Ito to stay while she went to fight this monster. A part of her wasn't all that worried, but the other part of her was worried that this could be a retaliatory attack by Jedite for what they had done to him. It didn't seem possible, but they hadn't been able to find his body and left a lot of unanswered questions to sort out. If it was him or one of his monsters the Scouts would be in for a real fight this time. The Youma wouldn't be trying to get or protect the energy they usually collected, this time it would be out to kill them at any cost.

She jumped back to the roof and sent her senses out, due to her powers she could see perfectly even though the sun had finally gone down for the night. Off in the distance she could just make out Shampoo and Perfume as they tried to head off the darkness heading their way. Ranma also noted that it was the same direction that Pink and Link had been heading when they ran off a few minutes ago, if those four met up things could go from bad to worse in an instant. Breaking into a run she had a bad feeling about this fight, something about it didn't feel right. She focused her Ki and started to pick up speed, moving at a blurring pace across the roofs and leaving shattered roof tiles every time her foot landed and rebounded. It was possible to move faster, but she could feel the magic in her body surging a little and knew she was pushing it. Any faster and she wouldn't be able to control the magic as well as she was, it was mixing with her Ki a little more everytime she tried to use it. There had to be a way control this without going to extreme lengths to do so.

Leaping across an intersection, landing on a fence, running half a block, scaring a group of girls as she ran past, and launching back to a roof made her smirk though. No matter how odd her magic was acting, her martial arts abilities were just getting better and better with each passing day. She was right on the verge of learning how to project her Ki as well and once that happened she would have a new weapon to add to her abilities. She could form a Ki ball and shape like she did in her exercises in the afternoons, but projecting it like a weapons was still out of reach, but sooner or later she would master it. The last few days had been so distracting though, she hadn't had a chance to really practice the kind of technique she had been trying to develop. Cologne had described the process, but using Ki like she wanted to had certain draw backs that she hadn't been ready for at the time. Grandpa Hino's Ki techniques had been what gave her the idea, and that pure Ki idea would make an incredibly strong attack if she could learn to harness it correctly, creating a weapon that could kill a Youma in one massive blast.

She knew sent her senses out again and knew she was very close to the Youma now, so she landed on the roof of a small run down apartment complex to get a better look at the area and see if she could spot it. These areas of Tokyo were so packed that getting around was almost impossible and fighting had to be done out in the streets instead of in a dojo or an empty lot. There were so many innocents around that getting them clear would be impossible, there was no way they could move this many people out in the short time they had. They would have to revise the plan and get the Youma to leave the area before they took it out. Looking around she spotted Shampoo and Perfume a few roofs over, they were talking to each other, and made her way over to talk to them. They looked up as she landed and waited for her make her way over to them as they gazed across the city trying to find the Youma. She could tell that they didn't think they could move all these people either, they rarely had to deal with this kind of crowding over in China and they were packed in like sardeens here. Their village was crowded, but nothing like Japan was even during the best of times.

"There are to many people, we have to find a way to get the Youma to follow us away from here. Did you spot any parks nearby?"

"No." Perfume said and Shampoo shook her head.

"Then let's go out and look for one." Ranma said and jumped across the street to another building and started looking. When she was out of sight she pulled out the communicator and turned it on. "Ami?"

"Ranma? Where are you? We are on our way, but I figure we are still about half an hour away." Ami said as Usagi and Rei crowded around behind her to look at Ranma on the screen.

"I was just at the area where the Youma was going to end up and it's a crowded Apartment area, thousands of people. We need to find a park and lead him there somehow."


**********

Pink and Link landed on the edge of a roof, looked around to see if any of the traps they had set up to deter unwanted visitors had been tripped while they were gone. Everything looked like it had when they left so they opened the hatch to the roof and went inside what had been their home for the last week or so. As an old apartment complex this place had once been able to hole ten or so residents easily, but over time it had simply worn out and become less and less suitable for human habitation so the city had condemned it and put it on the list for buildings to be removed and temporary housing built in it's place. Only that had been a couple years ago and it had been over run with bugs and squatters that didn't have any other place to stay. Luckily no one had been there when they arrived and filled the whole building with natural pesticides to get rid of all the bugs.

Most of the inside was a hollowed out shell with only the walls left standing, but it was perfect for their use. They had dug up the floor at one end of the room and planted one of their special gardens, it was coming along fine as it just started to bloom with plants that weren't normally seen outside their village. Within a few more days they could begin collecting some of the leaves, dry them out, and add them to their special attacks. They had also managed to acquire a small table, a couple of chairs, and a couple of long folding tables from a nearby trash can. Pink walked over to one of the chairs and removed her cloak and laid it across the back of the chair, she was not pleased at all as she sat down with a sigh. Their revenge on Shampoo hadn't gone as well as she thought it would have even with all of their poisons and special spores to use. Instead they had been forced to retreat when things got a little hairy and they ran short of ammunition.

"Damn it! Over!" Pink snapped.

"We will do better next time sister." Link said as she rolled out her bed roll and lay down. She was wore out and needed a few hours of sleep. "We also need to restock on your weapons. Over."

"I know, I can't believe that we tossed off all those things and didn't even get one of those girls. Over." Pink said and flopped down in the chair with a sigh.

"We will get them tomorrow. If it had been just Shampoo we would have gotten her, but that red headed girl was something else. She is a master, even you should have been able to see that. Over."

"I know, but she was so young looking. Who would think a girl that young would have so much skill? Over."

"I don't know, but I thinks she might have been that girl that spent a few months in Shampoo's village. The one that had the all the Elders shocked out of their minds. Over." Link said.

"Maybe, but this is ridiculous. With our poisons and special attacks we should have been able to take out all three girls, instead we had to run away. We've taken down two and three dozen Muck fighters during a single attack and these three managed to dodge and evade everything we throw at them? Over."

"That red head fights like an Elder, my sister, she's tricky and dangerous and Shampoo is learning from her even as we speak. Did you not see the different way she was moving during the battle? The way she watched us and her surroundings all at the same time, she has improved as well. Over."

Pink nodded, they had been fighting Shampoo for years and knew each other's moves almost by rote. "We have to try something different the next time we attack them. Over."

"Like what? Over."

"Spore cloud? Over." Pink suggested.

"Maybe, but they seem to have some kind of weird luck..." Link said, but stopped as she sensed something and rolled to her feet. "What's that? Over."

"Huh?" Pink said and looked around. Other than a couple of the candles they had going, the room seemed to be empty. "I don't see anything. Over."

"No, I can sense something watching us like old Master Blink used to do before she would ambush us and throw poison ivy powder at us. Over." Link said in a hiss.

"You were always better at detecting that kind of thing, where is it? Over." Pink asked as the came to her feet and grabbed a small ball out of her shirt.

"I'm not sure, it seems to be all around us for some reason." Link said as she grabbed her own ball. "Could it be those girls? Did they follow us here? Over."

"No way, they couldn't have done that without me seeing them. Over." Pink said, she was starting to get worried now that she could sense something watching her as well.

They watched the room around them for any kind of hint that somebody might be hiding in the shadows, but it seemed to be as empty as it normally was. That didn't seem to make them feel any better though and they slowly moved to stand beside each other, nervously moving the small balls around in their hands. For some reason they could also feel the change in the room around them, something had entered the abandoned place either before them or after they entered. Gulping in fear they decided that it would be a good idea to get out of there and find some place else to camp out just to be safe. Normally they would have fought for the room, but this wasn't something they could fight off like would have normal people breaking in. They could feel it as it seemed to move about them, moving around along just out of sight.

"Is time to go. Over." Pink said.

"Agreed sister, lets go. Over." Link said as they stood up carefully and inched their way towards the door of the a abandoned building, then they changed direction in an instant.

Breaking into a run they headed right for a close by window, it lead out into the front yard of the abandoned building. They figured it would be easy enough jump through it without any problems, after all it was only glass and whatever was in the room with them seemed to be much more dangerous. They freeze up and skid to a halt as the sound of running water fills the room, like someone had flushed the toilet. Then they notice some water flowing along the edge of the floor and quickly climbing up the wall in a shimmering wave. Pink and Link blink and back away from thw window as it's completely covered in seconds, then some of the water seems to flow back out onto the floor and forms a pool. The pool rises up and takes human shape for a few seconds before solidifying into a solid form complete with gray clothing, breasts, and blonde hair.

"Why hello there." The blonde says with an evil smirk. "You're not leaving so soon are you?"

"..." Pink and Link say as they back away clutching at each other.

"Well no matter, you two will do perfectly for my little plan and your already dangerous enough that I won't have to brain wash you or anything. You just need some guidance and the proper motivation and all will be perfect, then it will be time for my revenge."

"I-I'm sorry, but we have our own revenge to take on someone, so we can't help you. Over." Link says with a cute grin.

"Y-yeah. Over."

"What's with this 'Over' crap and I don't care what you had plans to do, you are mine to do with as I please." She snapped.

"&%#$ off! Over!" Pink yells as they throw the last of their special balls at the ground, near it's feet. The balls explode and send out a wave of colored smoke, like with Shampoo, the instant they mix together they spark and turn into a wave fire. The blast, unlike last time is going off inside a building and the thing is caught up in the fire instantly, it screams in shock at the sudden fire. As they turn to run they can just make out it's form within the fire as it tries to survive. Then it stops struggling and seems to shimmer for a second as the fire vanishes almost as quickly as it appeared and the blonde headed girl smirks as she stalks toward them with no apparent damage.

"That wasn't very nice, but I will make sure that it is the last time you have a chance to pull it off. I was going to let you live and help me with my own plans, but you just pissed me off so say your prayers girls because you are both dead."

Pink and Link clutched at each other and whimpered as she got closer and closer, her arm extending out and solidifying into a rather imposing looking sword of solidified water. She spun it around a couple of times in her hand to test it's balance as she smirked, liking this new form better and better with each passing moment. Then there was loud crashing sound as one of the windows, the same windows that she could have sworn she was blocking off to keep people from interfering in this attack and to keep things private, broke inward with a shower of shards as a body jumped through it and landed in a crouch. Turning to look at the new comer, she noticed that it was a woman, about thirty five or so with dark red hair, wearing what looked like a pair of kaki shorts, a t-shirt, a belt, and an oversized coat. The woman was also holding a wicked looking sword as she glanced around the place to see what was happening.

"Who the hell are you and why are you interrupting me?"

"I am Nodoka, Devil Hunter and Explorer and you are Evil! I will purge the world of your dark deeds and make sure you never cause harm to the innocent again!" Nodoka yelled with an evil grin, she loved that speech.

She sweatdropped. "Well I haven't chosen a name for myself just yet so you will just have to call me nothing until I do." She said. That didn't sound right, but she shrugged it off, it wasn't like she was at full power right now anyway.

"Huh?"

"I haven't picked out a name yet, alright. I don't feel like Titus anymore and I sure as hell don't want anyone to call me Jedite or any other version of that word. I'll figure something out eventually, but if you insist on a name you call me...Hmm...how does Jade sound?" She asked pleasantly.

She hadn't been in very many fights as an actual Devil Hunter, but Nodoka suspected that the demons were supposed to be more blood thirsty. They weren't supposed to be nice and civil as they threatened your life, so she shrugged and decided to see where this would go. If it had been some gun wielding bad guy she would have been in her element, playing with him until he was begging to be taken down. The few times she had gone up against a demon had been very stressful and dangerous, several people had been killed while she tried to deal with the situation. This girl in front of her was different though, Nodoka could feel it in he bones, she was using something other than demonic energy. That would mean this fight could go to either of them, demons and spirits could be hurt by her sword, but she could tell that this one wasn't in as much danger as regular monsters.

"Jade will work, now, give up and let me put out of your misery as quickly as possible." Nodoka said.

"You don't actually expect me to do that do you?" Jade asked in surprise as she twirled her sword around a little absently.

"Not really, but I have to ask, it's one of those things." Nodoka said with a shrug, pretending to be a lot more confident than she really was.

With a shrug as well, Jade gripped her sword, glared at Nodoka and ran forward with a scream of rage. Nodoka did the same and they met in the middle of the floor, swinging their swords as only two completely inept female sword fighters could. They ended up knocking each other's swords out of the others hands and looked down at their hands in shock. Jade sighed and wondered how she could have gotten so many of Jedite's memories and a bit of his magic, but none of his skills, life sucked sometimes. Titus had never used a sword either, she preferred to throw boiling balls of water at her opponents or massive amount of water, whichever was easiest to use at the moment. Cursing under her breath Jade walked over to pick up he sword and heard Nodoka moving around.

Cha-Chink!

"I should have just use this in the first place, but I had to try the sword first just to keep up appearances and such." She said to Jade's back. "It's magical to a degree, giving me quite a bit of skill whenever I go up against a real demon of some kind, you on the other hand aren't a demon, so nothing happened."

"Huh?" Jade said as she turned around and had a strange looking pistle grip shotgun shoved in her face with an evilly smirking Nodoka at the other end as she pulled the trigger and blew Jade's head off in a massive spray of water. The rest of Jade's body followed suit a few seconds later, splashing to the ground as it failed to hold itself together. Nodoka, not being satisfied with that, aimed the gun at the ground and fired several more rounds into the large puddle of water on the floor and blowing giant holes through the wood itself. With a sword she sucked, with a real weapon she could take down criminals by the score. In an even more astonishing surprise, she was actually licensed to carry the things around because her family was one of the top five devil hunting families in Japan and were given special allowances. Luckily she wasn't the only member of her family to be a Devil Hunter, or things might have been a lot worse. It wasn't her fault that her training has suffered over the years as she went to school and searched for Ranma.

Satisfied with her handy work she turned to look at the two girls she had saved and waved at them, but they finally fainted as this included waving the gun back and forth by accident as well. "Well I didn't expect that." She muttered as she quickly reloaded another ten shots of her special ammo and smirked. It was good to be a modern woman, she got to use up to date tools in her job and she just got so much satisfaction out of blowing a demon away with her shotgun as others did slicing them to pieces. Once that was done she looked around with little surprise to see that Jade was beginning to pull herself back together once more.

"I thought so, she is so much more than she appears to be. I think this is going to be fun." She said and cocked the shot gun and aimed.

**********

The Scouts had arrived a few minutes ago, though they had been running a few minutes late because Moon had taken a wrong turn when she asked for directions from some guy camped out at the edges of Nerima. So they didn't know where the Youma was, neither did Ranma, who met the girls on top of the apartment complex and none of them were in the best of moods now. Ranma had just been returning from looking around when she spotted the girls landing on a nearby roof and hopped on over to talk to them. "How is everybody doing? " She asked nervously, recalling that she had to make up with the girls for her actions the day before.

"Hi Ranma, where is this thing we have to fight?" Moon asked as they looked around.

"I don't know, you should have seen or sensed him by now, but he vanished a little while ago and I can't find where he went." Ranma said.

Mercury pulled out her computer and started to scan the area. "...there is nothing on the scans, are you sure this is where is was headed? Could it have changed directions?"

"Changed directions? Sure, but it should be around her somewhere."

"I don't sense anything either, but that might because Meatball Head here got us lost on the way here." Mars said as she glared at the cringing Moon. Then she spotted Shampoo and Perfume heading their way, roof hopping as easily as they all did. She kept her surprise to herself though, Ranma could do the same thing after all. "Who are they?"

"Those are a couple my friends, they don't know about Starfire so I'm going to stay like this unless it's an emergency. I can still help out, I don't need to transform to do that." Ranma said.

They nodded and waited for the girls to reach them before Ranma stepped forward, waved at them, and introduced them when they got there. "Shampoo, Perfume, these are some friends I called you here about." She said and waved her hand. "These are the Sailor Scouts, Moon, Mars, and Mercury. They are going to help us take this thing down before it hurts anyone."

"What's with the to to short skirts and funny clothes?" Shampoo asked, only to have Perfume hit her across the back of the head.

"You never pay attention to the news do you Shampoo?" She said. "These girls have been fighting those demons around the Jubaan distract for the last few months, they get mentioned on the news now and then. Usually for their ability to level whole buildings and destroy massive amounts of property during their battles while wearing short skirts and giving all kinds of panty shots."

Shampoo nodded, she remembered seeing something like that a few days back and wanting to join in. "That to to good sign of powerful warrior, but why wear silly clothing to do job, has no protection to speak of."

"Don't worry about it Shampoo, for some reason the clothing is actually stronger than it looks. I've even wondered about it at times, it just works, don't ask me how though." Ranma said with a shrug. "Did you find anyplace where we might be able to fight this thing or even see it?"

"There is a small clearing a few blocks that way, but it's not a park like what we were looking for so I don't know if it will work for what you want or not." Perfume said as Shampoo stepped forward and started to study Sailor Moon's skirt, lifting it up to get a better look. Rubbing it between her fingers and testing its strength.

"Um..." Moon said as her bottom was shown to the world, she sweatdropped and glanced at Ranma.

"Where was this place?" Mars asked as she stepped up beside Ranma, distracting her when Moon was looking for help, and ignored the little glance Perfume gave Ranma to see if it was alright if they talked. Trust had to be earned after all, she could understand that.

"Ranma..." Moon tried again as Shampoo started to examine other areas of the fuku, looking for something. Moon squirmed as the girl's hands went everywhere at once, touching places that shouldn't have been touched by a total stranger.

"Several blocks that way, it's more of an over grown garden behind this run down house than a park though. It didn't look like what you wanted though." Perfume said as she watched Shampoo's curiosity get the better of her.

"Let's go and check it out while Moon and Mercury try to find the Youma." Ranma said as they jumped to the roof of the next building and headed over to check on this run down house.

"EeeeeeeeP!" Moon said and slapped Shampoo's hands away from the breasts.

"Where opening, see no way to take off." Shampoo said as Moon blushed.

"Huh?" Moon asked in shock, thinking Shampoo might have been on of 'those' perverts.

"How get weird clothes on?"

"You pervert!"

Shampoo blinked as she pulled out a Japanese to Chinese dictionary and looked up the odd word.

Mercury tried to ignore Moon as she wrote up a program to look for that Youma, she had noticed earlier that they had been able to track it easily enough. It had shown up as a Youma even with it's odd energy signature, but now it had vanished and she was using those earlier traces to write a program that could track it. She wasn't sure, but she was beginning to think that it's energy had gotten so low that the computer couldn't track it any more. That meant that it was either dead or so weak that it couldn't even beat a normal human in a regular fight anymore. Or would have to work at it anyway and they were in Nerima, the place was infamous for it's super powered martial artists.

If it was low on power, then most of them should have been able to take this thing down. She had never heard of a Youma this weak though, why would the Dark Kingdom have sent it here if it wasn't strong enough to defeat the locals? Frowning she continued to write the program, it was a little more difficult than she had thought, luckily the Mercury computer made making these programs very simple. The little thing never failed to surprise her, it was small, had a thousand times the memory of a reguar computer, and access to information that was simply increadible. Even after all these months of working with it she had yet access even a thousandth of it's abilities. It even had remote accessing programs that allowed it to tap into the local internet or other computers and scan through their memories without tripping their security measures or anything.

She watched the little map in the corner as it tracked Ranma, her friend Perfume, and Mars as they headed for that lot that was mentioned. It was even scanning Moon and Shampoo as they moved around on the roof beside her. With a final click of a key she finished her program and activated it. The map in the corner expanded out a little as it picked up a very faint signal about a mile away from her current location, a close look at the map showed it to be inside some kind of building. There was also three locals in there, two of them appeared to be staying very still, as if they had been drained and a third target that was weaving around the faint signal.

**********

They arrived at the lot a few minutes later and Ranma was a bit skeptical that it would work for their plans as well. It was surrounded by trees, but as they jumped the crumbling wall and they landed inside it was obvious that the place hadn't been used in years. That in itself was a big surprise, why would anyone own such a place and not use it? As they moved through the trees she sent her senses ahead of her to 'feel' the grounds for anything that might have been out of place, but as far as she could tell the place was just what it appeared to be, completely abandoned. There was a small single story house buried among the trees off to the left, sealed up and ready to used at a moments notice. Though as she wandered around the back yard she noticed that the place was like a large over grown garden that hadn't been trimmed in years and had taken over everything around it. She moved carefully through the trees and found an old stone path of some kind, there was an ivy covered old stone bench that was half buried in flowers and grass.

Tree's were everywhere and made her wonder if they did use this place for the fight just what kind of maneuverability they would have. The girls were still novices at fighting in close and she didn't know if they could take this thing down without hitting each other with their own attacks and dodging the trees at the same time. Though taking cover behind a tree would be easy enough, she thought as she stepped past the over grown bench and looked into the next section and blinked. It was a large open yard, there was only one tree here and it rose up into the sky and seemed to take up most of the area. There was over grown walks all around it, but the treed itself had to be six foot across at least and nearly sixty or seventy feet high. Even more amazing was that the tree didn't really stand out among the other trees from the outside, she hadn't noticed it on the way here either. This was just what she wanted and she considered it a bonus that it was within an enclosed area like this.

"It's perfect." Ranma said.

"I think so too, though my powers will be next to useless in here." Mars said as she entered the area from the other side.

"We didn't get this far into the yard the last we were here." Perfume said as she walked up behind Ranma and looked around.

"Mars, is there something odd about that tree or is it just me?" Ranma asked as she pointed at the large one in front of them.

"This used to be a shrine, that tree would have been considered sacred in some way and I can sense something different about it as well. As is if it was more than it seemed..." Mars said as she walked forward and touched it's bark carefully.

Beep, beep.

Mars stopped and glanced at Ranma as she pulled out her communicator. "Mars here."

"Mars, Mercury has found the Youma. It's about a mile from where we are right now, but it seems to be really weak." Moon said.

"Where?" Ranma asked as she walked over.

"An old building of some kind, were not sure though, it seems to be inside with three other people. Two of those haven't moved in the last few minutes." Mercury said and relayed the address to Mars.

"We're on our way, we have to lead it back here to take it down." Mars said.

"It's to far away." Mercury said as she ran. "We can take it out where it is so long as we get those three civilians out of there."

"Let's go." Mars said as she ran for the nearest wall.

Looking around the area Ranma decided that there was something about this place that needed looking into when this was over with. She took off after Mars, Perfume had followed after her, so Ranma had to do some catching up. Channeling some Ki to her legs as she ran and quickly doubling her speed as she leaned forward to go even faster. Within seconds she was at the wall and jumping to a nearby roof top using her ability to see in the dark to her advantage and catching up with everybody else. So it only took them about three minutes to reach the building the Mercury had found, she was standing out front running one last scan as everybody arrived. They heard a gun go off inside the building, a sound that only Ranma, Shampoo, and Perfume had ever heard before.

"That was a gun." Ranma said.

The Scouts blinked in surprise and hesitated to go in with that thing in there, they were resistant to magic attacks, bullets were a whole different kettle of fish. Mercury finished her scan and put her computer away. "All entrances to the building, except one, are sealed somehow and would take us several minutes to get through. There is a window on the other side of the building that has been shattered, it's wide open and will be the easiest way for us to get inside."

Moon stepped forward and glanced nervously at Ranma. "Ranma, I want you and your friends to help out those civilians as we take out that Youma. Alright?"

Frowning, Ranma decided that she would stay out of this to keep her identity and the others secret. "Sure, We'll be your back up though."

"That will work." Mercury said and motioned for Moon and Mars to follow her as they jumped to the roof and made their way around to the back window.

Shampoo and Perfume glanced in surprise at Ranma as she stood there for a few seconds. "That's long enough, let's get those innocents out of there and join the fight."

They grinned and nodded.

**********

Duck, weave, and throw. Jade followed that pattern as she threw her fist out and sent a ball of hot water at the annoying nat in front of her. They were dodged and Jade sighed as the butt of the shotgun was shoved into her gut, brought back and slammed into her chin to send her stumbling back. She would have desolidified, but that was when Nodoka would reverse the gun and blast her in half with a smirk. Jade stumbled to a stop and shook her head, her energy levels were running almost empty and she hadn't been able to get over to those girls to get a recharge and a couple of attempts to drain Nodoka had proven to be impossible. That gun was to swift on the draw and to distracting to ignore as she tried to drain the woman. She sighed as she created another ball of hot water and tried to focus.

Nodoka on the other hand was just smirking as she dodged and rolled around the room taking pot shots at the odd creature in front of her. She could sense that the thing was growing weaker, it had already slowed down to normal human levels and was having problems holding it's form. It looked like Odo did during one of those Star Trek DS9 episodes she had seen a few years ago when he had stayed in one form for to long. The skin was turning watery and dripping on the floor as it moved, though the power of those projectiles was just as strong as ever. Running forward she fainted to the left, faked it out, and jumped straight up using her Devil Hunter agility to get above it, aimed her shot gun and blew it's chest out of it's body.

Surprisingly it only stumbled back as it came out of it's back and left a gapping hole that she could see through. Staggering forward Jade growled as her vision wavered and saw the last thing she wanted to see in this situation, Sailor Scouts jumping through the window. There were only three of them, but in her current condition she couldn't have hurt them if she wanted to, she was so screwed, screwed beyond belief. She had to get out of there, collapsing into a large puddle she spread out across the floor and entered the open ground where all the plants were growing from the floor. It happened so fast that there was nothing any of them could do before she was gone.

"&%#$!!" Nodoka yelled.

"She's getting away! Mercury, where did she go?" Mars yelled as she looked at the odd little garden.

"She left to much of herself here in the room, that's all I can read and it's going to turn to normal water here pretty soon." Mercury said as she scanned the room.

Ranma, Perfume, and Shampoo all entered the room and looked around in surprise to see that the fight was already over. They sighed in disappointment, though Ranma notice the older red headed woman standing off to the side reloading a shot gun of all things and frowned a little. She didn't know what to think of the woman, she could sense a bit of power in her though. It was a bit unfocused so Ranma wasn't sure if she actually knew how to use it or not, from the looks of the shotgun she did know how to defend herself though so there wasn't much of anything to say. Ignoring the woman, Ranma glanced across the room and saw Pink and Link sprawled out on the floor and smirked, dismissing the red headed lady as she focused on someone she did know.

"Look who we have here." She said with an evil smirk.

Everyone turned to look as Ranma walked over to the twins and kneeled down. "What should we do with them Shampoo, they are your enemies."

"Stomp on them, they is just annoying girls." Shampoo said with a sniff.

"I don't care, they are a pain in the ass." Perfume muttered as she fingered her sword and glared at the girls.

"You won't hurt them!" Nodoka snapped as she stalked forward and glared at the three girls that weren't in fuku. She hadn't expected to meet up with the Sailor Scouts this early, but she wasn't about as something like this happen.

"I don't care what happens to them, but they were trying kill us earlier tonight and I don't want to deal with that kind of crap again and if that means kicking their ass now, so be it." Ranma said as she stood up, glancing at the girls at her feet.

"Stomp on them hundred time each, take out for rest of week." Shampoo said again.

"I'll go along with Ranma on this one, they are a pain, but if they leave me alone I'll leave them alone." Perfume said.

"What's going on?" Moon asked as the others stepped over to see what had everybody so mad at each other.

Shrugging, Ranma pointed at the two girls on the floor. "These two were trying to kill me, Shampoo, and Perfume earlier today before that Youma showed up. We were looking for them when we stumbled across this Youma and had to deal with it first, I never expected to find them mixed up in this though."

"What about you?" Moon asked Nodoka, who was clutching her shotgun and looking from girl to girl.

"I thought it was a demon and came to slay it, but it turned out to be something else that was immune to my devil hunting sword." She said as she walked over to pick it up, with a thought it started to glow and vanished from sight.

"What do we do now that the monster is gone?" Perfume asked and looked around.

"There is nothing more we can do, but it is weak enough that it won't be bothering anyone for a few days at least, possible a few weeks if it goes into hiding." Mercury said.

Shampoo nodded and ignored everyone else as she knelt down and lifted Pink and Link up by their armor and slammed them up against the wall. "Quit faking nap, you breathing change."

Ranma smirked a little more and nodded, she had been wondering when someone else would notice.

"Hello Shampoo. Over." Pink and Link said in unison as they opened their eyes at the same time and frowned at their enemy.

"Shampoo tired of dealing with girls, leave alone or else." She said, slamming them against the wall with every world.

"There's no need to be so violent." Nodoka said with a disapproving frown at the Chinese girl.

"They are giant pain in Shampoo's ass." Perfume said.

"Well were done here, so were going to take off." Moon said with a wave and a grin as they walked out, they had to get back to Jubaan as quickly as they could and Ranma could deal with the rest of this on her own. Ranma waved back and indicated that they would talk to again tomorrow as they left, then turned back as she heard a snarl. It seemed Shampoo had pulled her sword after dropping the twins and was being held in check by Perfume as Nodoka stepped between them and raised her gun.

"Don't even try it." Nodoka snapped. "They are leaving here with me, they seem to need some help anyway and since you won't do it I will have to."

Smirking at Shampoo, they followed along behind Nodoka as they inched their way out of the room. They stuck their tongues out at Shampoo and gave her the red eye before they vanished around the corner though, where Nodoka couldn't see their actions. Nodoka stopped for a second and glanced back at Ranma for a second before she left, something was telling her to talk to the red head, but she had to take care of this first. She also knew that the girl wouldn't be here if she returned so she shrugged it off and decided to worry about it later. They left the house a few minutes later, to her surprise Pink and Link actually stayed with her as they walked back to her place. Maybe the girls needed a friend or a good meal, she would have to wait and see.

Back with Ranma, she was smirking again as Shampoo pouted a little. "Well that wraps that up, those two should be occupied for a while if they stay with the old woman."

"She seemed to know you Ranma, those weren't just casual glances she was giving you." Perfume said.

"I don't know from where." Ranma said and shrugged.

"We should have stomped on them." Shampoo muttered from nearby.

Ranma chuckled as they walked out. "So what now?"

"I'm a little hungry." Perfume said, she couldn't remember the last time she had a decent meal.

"Sounds good to me. Any idea where you want to go?"

"Sure, but we need to go back the clinic first." Ranma said. "I left my pack there along with my cat. Can't go out to eat without either of those."

**********

To Be Continued...

End Notes - This took a lot longer to get out than I had thought it would, but it's quite a bit bigger than normal and takes things in a new direction while keeping to the basic Sailor Moon story line. This chapter was more original work than normal though and allowed me to have a bit of fun with the characters and expand the plot a bit.

*Sanjouin Masato is from this link http://www.tcp.com/doi/smoon/episodes/sm014.html