Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Princess of the Moon ❯ Chapter 09 ( Chapter 10 )

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

Notes - Well it's been forever and a day, but the next chapter is here. Thanks to all my prereaders and and everyone that offered me a bit of advice on this chapter to help round it out and get it finished.

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Princess of the Moon
Chapter 09 - Usagi and Tennis Equal, What?
By Cory D. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(c)2002
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Jumping the wall that surrounded the abandoned house where she had decided to spend the night in a graceful hop, Ranma landed on the grass and headed into the trees around her. The sun had gone down some hours ago, but she still smiled to herself as this was the first she had time to relax in several weeks. The last week had been one long battle or the anticipation of battle and it had been wearing on her nerves, making her broody and mean to everyone around her. At the moment she didn't really want to think about the argument she had gotten into with Ami just the day before or the fight that had brought certain people back into her life. Instead the thoughts were just flying through her mind faster than she could suppress them. People like her best friends Shampoo and Perfume who had helped her out when she had needed it the most. Or her parents, who she still didn't want to deal with. She remembered that contract she had found stored in her father's pack and what it had represented, how could she trust anyone that would willingly do that to her. Then that strange web site that her mother had supposedly set up to find her, Ami had found it for her that one day at the library. Even after a few weeks she still wasn't sure which version of her mother she could trust.

The web site suggested that she was an unwilling victim of her father's schemes and was the version that Ranma wanted to believe, and yet when she had seen the woman for the first there had been something about her that didn't seem right. She wasn't sure if it was the fact that the woman had barely glanced at her, the fact that she had been taking Pink and Link's side of things, or something else she wasn't fully aware of yet. Ranma shook her head, her mother was a total mystery to her at the moment and the more she thought about the woman the more she wanted to find out the truth and now that she thought about it there wasn't really anything keeping her from going to see her. She hadn't completely given up the Saotome name even if she was currently using Mazaki to make her life a little easier. For it to stick she would have to be removed form the family register and no one in their right minds would believe that anyone that looked like her was actually a man. There was no way that would work and she kind of doubted that the old man or his mother would do it for her. It would take some time, but she would track the woman's house down and have a little talk with her to find out the full truth, that web site was enough to make her doubt herself. When she was ready to meet her of course, at the moment she needed to get her life in order and find her center again. Then there was her father, the idiot panda, the moron, and living embodiment of stubbornness that refused to accept responsibility for what he had done to her.

It had been his idea to go to that region of China and find those springs and see what the legendary training ground was all about. Ranma hated being a girl, everything about it just felt wrong and whenever she tried to act like the man it was like things seemed to spiral out of her control and kind of wondered if falling in that spring might have had more than one curse attached to it. People started treating her with disrespect if she tried to exert her male personality and called her a tomboy and laughed as if her opinion on the matter didn't matter in the least. Sure in the last several months she had made some friends, more than she had in her life, but a portion of her soul tried to keep them at bay because they didn't quite fit in roll she wanted them to. The biggest bombshell had been the powers she gained whenever she transformed into Starfire, or Sailor sun. When she was transformed she felt whole and complete as if nothing in the world was wrong and it scared her to the farthest depths of her soul to feel that way.

She had tried to fit in with the rest of the Scouts when that talking cat had given her the key to her powers and even helped them out in their fights. The fights with Jedite had been a lot of fun and helped get her mind off the fact that 'he' was now a girl and it was currently impossible to change back. At least she had kept most of her height, though the sudden lengthening of her hair to a longer than normal length had taken a few weeks to get used to. The extra hair had weighed just enough to throw off her balance when she wasn't paying attention and had cost her a fight or two during the early months of her wanderings. She had came within an inch of cutting if off at one point before she decided that it would be like admitting defeat to do that and learned to live with it.

The cursed springs transformation had almost driven her insane when she fully realized what had happened and her old man had come within an inch of dieing at her hands. Abandoning the jerk and wandering around China for all that time had been both good and bad for her. Ranma sighed and shook her head, during those months she had tried to find a cure, but few people even believed in magic and those that did had no clue what a Jusenkyo curse was or how to cure something like it. More than anything in the world Ranma wanted to become a man again, to have that feeling of confident strength flowing through 'his' body once more, to be able to accept what society wanted from him and not be forced into a subservient role that demanded that she submit to the dominance of a man. Such bullshit like that wasn't as bad these days as it had been and he had been exposed to things during her wanderings, but there were times that she had to physically restrain herself from breaking some guy's jaw.

She hadn't bothered to tell Nabiki and Rei that her trip to the Amazon village had been because she wanted to die. What purpose would it have meant to tell them that? She had known that was where her father was of course, but with his views on things she had not clue how he would react if she went to him. Instead she had been planning to beat up some of the locals and see about getting a Kiss of Death from one or more of them. More than one village had mentioned them and their odd laws, warning her away from the insane woman who thought they could rule the world if they only had larger numbers. The fight had been quite a surprise for her, those girls had been *good*, far better than she had thought they could ever be, but in the end she had humiliated several of them according to plan. They had gotten up and given her the Kiss of Death and changed their tactics from defend and drive off to lethal attacks that didn't' require fancy jumps or dodges. They went right for the quickest kill and for a second Ranma had considered just holding her arms wide and letting them do just that, but a small burst of pride had forced her, at the very last second, to take them on and show them what she could do when motivated enough.

It told her to fight them with everything she had and to die with the tiny bit of honor she had left. Ranma had to grin at the memory, the hatred that had been in their eyes as they attacked had instantly changed into respect as she held her ground and formed a basic Ki aura round her to fuel her attacks. The old man had only taught her some of the basics of increasing her speed and strength the last time they had been Tokyo and spent a couple months using an abandoned apartment, but it had been enough to weave and dodge through the girls. Something within her would not just give up no matter how screwed up her life was and in that instant she decided that she didn't want to die at their hands, she had better things to do. She would show them that even a weakling could take down the vaunted skill of the Amazons that had turned the villages around them into cowards.

Ten seconds into this fight and she barely noticed that it had acquired a sizable crowd of onlookers. With precise blows she shattered swords and sent girls flying into trees with Ki charged blows, though they went down they refused to just give up and instantly entered the fight once more. She had decided that a change of tactics was in order and took the fight to the air. Amazon Wu Shu is a powerful ground attack martial art, but it had certain weaknesses while in air just like a lot of other fighting styles and the Saotome art took advantage of this with ease. Within seconds she had two of them landing on the ground unconscious, killing went against her code even if the these girls had no such problems. Twenty minutes later it was over and she found herself standing in the middle of the village with a pile of unconscious girls on the ground all around her.

That had been an exhilarating fight and she stood there panting for breath as she watched the girls to make sure were indeed out cold. Then she had spotted some movement from the crowd and saw several old women heading towards her. Even from this distance she could feel just how strong they were, which came as another surprise since she had rarely ever met anyone that was still a strong fighter past a certain age. As they approached the oldest looking one was balanced on a tall stick and bouncing forward like it was a pogo stick. They checked the girls over and seemed surprised to find that all of them were alive and gave her odd looks, as if measuring her worth. With a high hop the one on the stick landed in front of her and Ranma moved into a defensive stance, she knew there was no way she could defeat all of them.

"I'll take you on too." Ranma gasped out, she was tired, but knew she could take some of these old women down if she had to.

"So you speak Japanese girl, that's unexpected but at least we can talk to each other. I'm quite impressed with what you did here, there are few that can take on so many and survive the Kiss of Death."

Ranma had to smirk. "I am the best."

The old woman cackled. "I'll bet you believe you are. Well girl you have a choice to make."

"What kind of choice?"

"You can run for your life or you can accept the second half of the our Kiss of Death law."

"The second half?" Ranma asked warily. "What is that?"

"I can't tell you, make a decision right now."

Ranma remembered that she had considered running and shook her head, that would have been the worse thing she could have done. The whole village had surrounded her by that time and getting out would have been impossible. So she had chosen to stick it out and fight to the end and take as many of them with her as she could, which turned out to be the right thing to do.

"I accept the law then, bring it on, I'll show you what a real fighter can accomplish." She muttered and prepared to give it her all when they attacked her. She nearly wet herself when the whole village let off this bone chilling war cry and started chanting something in Chinese. The wind could have knocked her over with little effort at that exact moment.

The old woman cackled. "Well said girl, well said, they greet you as an equal and potential member of the tribe. You have shown that you have great skill, that you honor your opponents lives by not killing them, and your courage by standing your ground in the face of total destruction. You are now released from the Kiss of Death and offered a place within our village. I am Elder Cologne."

Shampoo, who had been watching from the crowd had told her later that she'd had the funniest look on her face when she realized that she wasn't going to be killed right then and there. Ranma remembered being teased about it for days on end, but that first night had been a giant party, complete with a feast and many congratulations for her accomplishment. Later on she had explained to the Elders why she had been there and what for when they dragged the truth from her with sneaky questions. They had been kind of shocked at first, but quickly changed their minds when they found out about Jusenkyo and what it had done to her. They had decided to keep her around as an ally since she intended to get her manhood back and had Cologne teach her some of their art and special attacks. The biggest thing she had learned though was that if she gave up there would never be a cure for her curse so she had thrown herself into the training during her short stay. That old woman's training had brought out more of her skill than her old man ever had, she still hadn't mastered more than a couple of techniques when she felt this desire to go back home. One thing that Cologne had refused to teach her was a Ki attack, those were things that only full members of the tribe could learn. So instead she had learned some new ways to focus her Ki and how to speed herself up quite a bit and a couple of other things like how to project her voice with her Ki. One area that Cologne hadn't been all that helpful with was the curse, they had a few ideas how it had been locked, but no real way to prove it without certain items they didn't have.

She was pretty sure that it was the magic inside her pulling her to come and take up her position as Starfire, but still wasn't sure. Things had progressed from there, to when she met up with the scouts, to school and when she changed her name to Mazaki. Now that old man Hino had kicked her out of the shrine she had to find a place to live and a part of her didn't want to end up living in a tent at the side of the road. Her pride wouldn't let her ask the other Scouts for help so she had to find some other solution. For now she was satisfied to stay here in this abandoned yard and plan her next move and get some needed rest without Rei constantly harping on her about things.

Now that she had a chance to relax a little she was feeling a lot better and the world didn't look so bad as it had just a few hours ago. She had even had time to think about what she was going to do next, with her friends here she had some options that weren't available before and she wanted to take advantage of them. The biggest thing was to make up with the Scouts, she had been pretty mean to them and they didn't deserve that. They were a couple of years younger than she was after all, barely even teenagers and they didn't have the experience that she did. Well except for Ami, she acted like she was far older than she looked at times.

After all that fighting and her own doubts about this situation she had fallen into a rather bad attitude that her father would have called 'the useless actions of a weak willed woman' and let her emotions control all her actions. After all these months she had come to understand that her negative emotions were causing most of these problems and had to use her iron hard will power to focus past the dark thoughts in her head and move on with what she had to do. She needed this break more than ever before. Now that she had accepted things, just a little, she knew that another change was needed to get her mental and physical balance back, that had been nearly completely destroyed by Jusenkyo. With Shampoo and Perfume here she would be able to do that once and for all and complete some training she had been forced to skip over when she left the village. They understood what was going on with her since she had long ago explained what Jusenkyo did to her, though it didn't stop them from teasing her all the time.

She had her secrets sure, but the only one of the Scouts that knew anything was Rei and she hadn't told the others what she knew. Deep in her heart Ranma knew that she was going to have to tell the others the truth one of these days. The longer she waited the easier it became to keep it secret, she had a feeling that if she didn't tell them, they would find out on their own eventually, and things would go from bad to worse in quick order. Still, this didn't feel like the right time to tell them, they needed a little more time to come to terms with her as a person before she started telling them secrets. A few days on their own without her around would do them a lot of good, a chance to relax and have a little fun among themselves. It wouldn't last to long, but that didn't matter so long as they were having a good time. That kind of thinking was why was just returning from her little trip after the fight with that odd Youma. She had told Shampoo and Perfume to return to that huge tree they had found earlier and wait for her to go and get them some food.

It hadn't taken to long to get everything she needed, that was why she was holding two large bags of fast food in one hand and had her pack strapped to her back as she walked along, thought to herself, and wound down from the fight. Getting the pack back from Tofu had only taken a few seconds and after a short run over the roofs she had managed to find just the right kind of place to eat. On the way back she had started to think about that house again, there was just something about the place that seemed to draw her in and she wanted to find out what it was. She had never been there before as far as she could tell and yet it felt familiar to her, the house stirred some long forgotten memory in her head. The large tree made her think of more peaceful times from when she was just a little boy running around and playing among the trees.

How that was possible she had no idea, but hopefully she could find out what she needed to know by searching the area and exploring among the garden, but right now she wanted to eat something. She moved out of the trees at a slow walk and onto the path that led to the center of the garden where the huge tree was situated, over looking the whole city from it's upper branches like some kind of protective guardian. She grinned as she realized that her strange new night vision was still working perfectly, giving her a kind of low light vision that allowed her to see perfectly even among the darkest shadows cast off by the trees. A little ways ahead she could see the fire that Perfume and Shampoo had started while she was gone. For some reason it just looked out of place with things, but Ranma knew it was pretty late and that most people couldn't see in the dark like she could.

The girls looked up as she walked toward them, shrugged off the large pack and held up the bags of food even as she was sitting down in front of the fire. "I managed to get us some food, though I had to pay a little extra to get it this late at night."

"That's fine Ranma, what did you get?" Perfume asked as she leaned forward.

"Some hamburgers, french fries, and ice cream sundaes for desert." Ranma said as she handed each of them two hamburgers, a bag of fries, and a large sundae.

"What this?" Shampoo asked as she eyed the food like it was going to attack her at any moment.

"It's food."

"It look like charred meat on low class bread with bits of blood, yellow stuff, and...a slice of cucumber?" She said as she used a nail to lift up a pickle and frown at it cutely.

"This is warriors food Shampoo, it tests your nerves and stomach to eat it." Perfume said with a smirk as she started to eat her hamburger with a few fries with the determination of someone that had eaten them before and knew what they were. "We don't get a chance to eat things like this back home at the village Shampoo. Live a little."

"Shampoo rather live." She dead panned with a wary look at Ranma.

Ranma had just shrugged, scarfed her food in a matter of seconds and moved on to the ice cream with a look of pleasure on her face. She ate this slow, enjoying every little bite she could. "Eat up Shampoo, it won't hurt you and it's actually pretty good and I know you will like the ice cream. You have to eat it before it melts though, so hurry up. See, Perfume is already ahead of you."

Perfume ignored Ranma as she tried to lick her ice cream bowl clean of every drop, it had been several years since she last had the stuff.

Giving the odd thing in her hand an experimental bite, Shampoo found that it wasn't bad and ate it in a rapid pace. She took one bite of the fries and tossed them in the fire though, muttering about poison foods as she picked up her own ice cream and took a little bite, blinked in surprise, tried another bite and grinned as she all but swooned with pleasure. Grinning she copied Ranma's actions with the ice cream, making it last several minutes by savoring every last drop of the stuff. Perfume just looked down at her empty cup and sighed, she wanted more ice cream and didn't have any money to go and get some. With a sigh she stood up and pulled her camping gear our of stuff space and rolled the sleeping bag out as she laid back.

"So what do you think?" Ranma asked Shampoo.

"Shampoo like white cream." She said with a grin and licked her spoon happily.

"I've never met anyone that didn't like ice cream." Ranma said with a grin and licked her own spoon clean.

"So why did you want to come back here Ranma?" Perfume asked from her back, propping herself up on one elbow.

"I'm not sure, there's something about this place that makes me want to look around and see what there is to offer. Mars said it used to be a shrine so that might be part of what I'm feeling, but I've never felt anything like this before and want to find out why." Ranma said with a shrug.

"It feels normal to me Ranma, this place is an over grown wreck that just needs to be cleaned up a bit. Even that run down house over there is in serious need of some repairs along the roof and porch area. It would take a few weeks to get it into anything we could use to live in, right now I'd be afraid to go inside, the roof would probably fall on us."

Shampoo licked her bowl clean and sighed happily and completely ignored the conversation going on around her. She wanted more ice cream figured Ranma would have gotten more for herself and hidden it away somewhere, so she grabbed Ranma's pack and started to look inside it for more of the stuff while Ranma was talking to Perfume. Humming happily she started to unpack the things to see if there as any hidden at the bottom, setting various things to the side in her search. Black pants, shirts of various designs and colors and other odds and ends. Ito didn't even stir from her nap when Shampoo pulled her out, she just purred a little and curled into a tighter ball as she slept. Not to be deterred, Shampoo forged on in her quest to find what she was looking for when she found something weird and pulled it out to hold the little package up to the fire light.

"I can't really describe it really, the closest I can get is that this place makes me feel like the heavy load of responsibility I have on my shoulders isn't there anymore. There has to be a reason for it around here somewhere, but for now it also makes a good place to camp out without being bothered by the local police." Ranma said, remembering a time before this curse happened, when he and the old man had spent a month living in a mansion. The old fool had stripped the place bare of everything valuable by third week and made a small fortune at the local pawn shops, he had been hiding from the police too. Though they had been after Genma at the time, at least this time she wouldn't have to sneak around all the time just to get out of the area.

"Oh that, I hadn't really noticed, but now that you mention it I do feel a little better for some reason. As if I didn't have to worry about the constant danger we're in from Pink and Link being on the loose." Perfume said as she glanced at Shampoo and blinked.

"I'm not sure what to think of those two, but they went home with that woman so they should be out of your hair for a while at least." Ranma said.

"They tricky, we should have just stomped on them and knock out old woman for interfering in woman to woman fight." Shampoo grumped, taking a second to open the colorful little package and tossing the plastic in the fire to melt.

"Oh get off this stomping thing Shampoo, it's getting old and those two need to be dealt with before they accidentally cause any major harm to any of us." Perfume said, wondering what had caught Shampoo's attention. She was like a cat, constantly distracted by the littlest things and playing with it until she broke it in some way.

"Humph! Shampoo try talk, they never listen anyway." She said as she crossed her arms and looked way with a sniff, waving the colorful little pieces of cloth in her hands trying to figure out what they were. They had little pictures on them and looked like some kind of clothing, but she had never seen anything quite like them in the village.

"Well you can go out and look for them Shampoo, I'm going to get a few hours of sleep. They wore me out and I need to catch up on what little sleep I've been able to catch over the last couple of weeks." Perfume said. "What the hell are you playing with now?"

"No know, found in Ranma pack." Shampoo said.

Ranma looked over and noticed that her pack had been unpacked and all her stuff was on the ground. Then she saw what Shampoo was waving about, stretching and folding in her hands and blushed. "Shampoo stop playing with your panties!"

"Pan...ties? What that?"

"Your underwear! Stop that right now!" Ranma gasped, turning even more red.

"They no mine." Shampoo said and tossed them on Ranma's head. "They in your pack, they belong to you."

"WHAT!!!" Ranma screeched and started grabbing the things in shock.

"Panties?! Ranma, since when do you wear girls underwear?!" Perfume gasped and started laughing. "You were rumored to be the only girl in the Village that refused to wear the normal clothing among the other girls, you were famous for it. When did you change your mind? What are you wearing now?" Perfume gasped out between cackles.

"I DON'T wear things like this!" Ranma yelled, as she turned red and thought 'Unless she was forced to like with that school uniform and even those were as plane as she could make them'. She could see two other packs of the things sitting in among her clothes with things like Hello Kitty written on the outside of the packages. Perfume grabbed one of the flimsy things out of Ranma's hand and held it up to the fire with a wide grin.

"These are so cute! Look at these little kittens playing all over the back side! What will they come up with next!?" She gasped and giggled a little more.

"Shampoo have no idea what talking about." Shampoo muttered darkly as reached the bottom of Ranma's pack and found all the weights, but no ice cream, her quest for more had proven futile and she sighed in defeat. So she put everything back and gave it back to Ranma and pulled her sleeping bag out of nowhere. Tossed it on the ground and stripped her dress off to reveal that she didn't like to wear undergarments of any kind, and crawled in. "Shampoo want more ice cream."

"Shampoo you slut, I told you not to do that while we were here. You've already given one old man an eyeful when you used that tree in his back yard for a bed!" Perfume yelled.

"Shampoo always sleep like this! It save clothes from wear out..."

"You're a slut and you know it!" Perfume shot back with a smirk.

"You take back!" Shampoo yelled and jumped to her feet with all parts jiggling. "Shampoo no know what slut is, but know insult when she hear one!"

Ranma's jaw hit the ground and she twitched as her eyes automatically tracked every little movement of the naked girl in front of her.

Jiggle, jiggle.

"Hah! You tramp, I'll show you how it's done!" Perfume yelled back as she jumped out of her sleeping bag and ripped her clothing off as well and showed off her...talents.

Blood exploded out of Ranma's nose as she experienced hormonal overload from seeing two naked girls right in front of her. She fell over and twitched a little as they grabbed up pillows and started hitting each other with loud shrieks that only girls could do. She shuddered as she lay there, paralyzed by the sight, the next few days were going to be really interesting if Shampoo did that every night, she thought to herself.

Twitch...gurgle...faint!

Shampoo and Perfume stopped after one last pillow shot and smirked at Ranma, the whole village knew that Ranma was a man in a woman's body due to Jusenkyo. It had become a game among the girls to see who could make her faint the fastest. Imagine their surprise when something so simple as being naked could have such a dramatic effect on the boy turned girl? They had giggled about it for hours before implementing a teasing campaign against her, popping up at oddest times and showing off their nakedness to stun the girl at the most convenient times, then it was time to move onto phase two. They giggled evilly as they moved towards Ranma with one goal in mind, even after all this time Ranma still hadn't figured out that they did it on purpose.

"What now?" Shampoo asked as she took off Ranma's clothing and held up a pair of ragged looking boxers with a frown.

"What we always do of course." Perfume said with a cackle as the tossed the offending garment in the fire with a shudder.

"We no have usual items."

"Then we will have to improvise a little, but first we need to clean her up and prep her, the girl doesn't take care of her body at all except to exercise."

"To easy with Kachü Tenshin Amaguriken training."

Perfume just nodded as they pulled something from stuff space and smirked as she flipped it open and pulled out a little pencil and licked the end of it with an evil glint in her eye. Shampoo did the same, except she pulled out a razor and some shaving cream and began applying it to Ranma's legs in quick smooth motions. They giggled to themselves for the next few minutes as they worked, the shadows rolling over then and leaving just enough light to see their naked shadowed forms moving about Ranma at high speed, their eyes glowing as they worked and giggled occasionally. Lightning flashed as one of them held up what looked like some kind of panty, it almost glowed.

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Dressed in a baggy yellow and red outfit that looked like it was made out of plastic than actual cloth, Akira Tanaka trudged through the older portion of the Nerima sewer tunnel system with a frown on his face. As a middle aged man he looked kind of average, with a slight beer belly, five-o-clock shadow, and a bow legged walk he had developed over the years on the job. He had a helmet on his head with a florescent lamp set in the center to light his way as he moved deeper and deeper into an area of the tunnels that hadn't been touched in close to 60 years or more. He was one of the Tokyo's best sewer engineers and always got sent on jobs like this and had been doing them for over twenty years now. Over all that time he figured he'd seen and experienced just about everything one could down in these tunnels, but even he had to admit this had to be the oldest section he'd ever explored. The maps they had given him weren't exactly accurate either, but that was kind of common due to all the little underground projects the seemed to pop up here in Nerima, so he was sketching out a new map as he walked.

Six hours ago his office had started receiving complaints about all the water backing up and flooding people's homes. The thought of it just made him grin, the smell alone as this happened must have happened while most of them were asleep. Of course they had woken him at four in the morning to go out and see what the problem was so he wasn't all that happy at the moment, but he liked his job so a little inconvenience every now and then was to be expected so this wasn't the first time either. The big question was where was he to start, there were six ancient pumping stations down here that needed to be checked and if he had to check them all it would take most of the day and even then there was no guarantee that he would be able to figure out what the problem was. His faulty map wasn't helping either, according to it he should have reached the first station by now, but for some reason he couldn't even hear it running. These things were huge, they had to be as they moved thousands of gallons of water along per second and kept the pipes pressurized enough to keep the fire hydrants in running order. This meant they were loud, very loud, but the silence down here was just a little bit eerie.

After about another ten minutes of walking he finally reached a large door set into the side of the tunnel. Taking a rag out he moved to the door and wiped a couple decades of grime off the number plate set in the middle of the door and confirmed that it was the door he was looking for. This would lead to the pump station he was looking for and confirmed that the thing wasn't even running at the moment. If it had been running he wouldn't even be able to hear himself think straight, he wondered what had happened to make it quit running completely. These things were designed to run on even they had sprung a giant leak and only then stopped when the water got deep enough to activate a fail safe. With luck all he would have to do was get it running again and he could go back home, but now he was beginning to doubt that plan was going to work Shrugging his back pack off he opened it up and removed a large iron key and inserted it into the door's lock and was pleasantly surprised when it actually turned. Grinning at this bit of luck he put everything away and gave the door a hard yank and opened it for the first time in years. The thing was heavy and he had a hard time stopping it once it began to move, it pushed him back several feet before it stopped.

The foul air on the other side was another surprise, it was worse than normal, almost like someone had decided this would be a good place to dump something they shouldn't have. Here in Nerima that meant it could be anything from some girl's messed up cooking to a decomposing body, this town had a little bit of everything and it just depended on the time of year. He really hoped it wasn't a body though, those things caused more problems than they were worth at times. He tried not to think about it to much as he made his way down the small tunnel and stepped onto the raised plat form that was about twenty feed above the main floor of the pumping station. He moved over to a small railing that allowed him to see what was down below, but was forced to depend on his helmet light to scan over everything down on the floor below. Without the pump running the lights wouldn't work, so he had to depend on his helmet light until he figured out how to start the thing again. Light reflected off the water that covered the floor below, but a glance over at the back wall illuminated the painted on ruler that was used for just such an occasion. According to it the water was only a couple feet deep so he wouldn't have any problems other than being forced to get dressed in his 'wet' suit, a plastic like cloth outfit that went over his current clothing. Then he looked to the far side of the room along one wall and finally got his first good look at the pump.

It was about fifteen feet high and had over a dozen different pipes connected to it from all different directions. If he remembered right there was one large pipe leading out the back of the thing that went right to the next pump station. As he looked out over the area he debated whether he should call in and see if they could send some more people down here to help him out, this job was looking like it was just a little to big for him to fix on his own. After a couple of minutes he decided to see if he could get the water along the floor drained at least and see what kind of damage he was dealing with. As old as it was he kind of doubted it could be drained without the pump running, most of these tunnels had been build way back in the forties when the Americans had occupied the islands and given most everybody some kind of job to do. This place was from before even then so the normal set of things he could do were very limited, the original designers hadn't included things he really needed. There were a few though and he really hoped they still worked after all this time.

A little while later, dressed in his 'wet' suit he moved over to the rusted over ladder that descended to the floor below. Once he determined what was wrong he would have to head back to his truck and grab the appropriate tools. He nodded, that would be a good time decide if he would need a little help with this as well. One thing he had already decided to bring back with him were several battery powered lanterns to light this place up, he felt like he was in a tomb for some reason. He stepped off the ladder and into the water and noticed that it came to just above his knees and was completely black with dirt and grime and other things he really didn't' want to think about at the moment. Carefully choosing where he placed his feet, he made his way across the chamber and over to the large pump. The giant rusting hulk just sat there as he used his helmet light to get a closer look at it and he quickly spotted the problem, it wasn't like it was hard to miss either. There was a five foot hole in the side of it and he knew he couldn't fix something like this on his own. These old machine's didn't have the interchangeable parts the modern one's had, they would have to replace the whole machine and that would take a few weeks at least. People would not be happy about this at all.

Akira groaned, if this one had gone it meant that the others, which were just as old or older had been forced to take on the extra pressure. There was a good chance that they had all broken down like this. He would have to go and confirm what had happened to them as well, shaking his head he turned to leave and felt something brush along his leg. Gasping in shock he jumped back and nearly bounced off the giant pump. He could feel his heart thundering in his chest as he moved the light from his helmet across the water to see what it was and got a second shock as the water around his legs seemed to solidify. Then the water in front of him rose up and took on an almost human form, where it's eyes should have been were two glowing green spots that seemed to be looking right into his should.

Akira screamed, but the water held him solid and even prevented him from tipping over or diving to the side. The thing reached out with one of it's arms and grabbed his throat and he could feel it draining his life. He screamed again, but this time it wasn't as loud and he was swiftly loosing consciousness. A few seconds later he slumped and the thing cocked it's head to the side as it reformed into Jade and stood on top of the water as if it was solid ground. The mans energy had been just what it needed, but something about it hadn't been right. Almost as if it was impure or something. She couldn't quite put her finger on what the problem was, but instantly knew that she had to have a specific kind of energy to survive. Those two on the ship had the kind of energy she needed, but this man did not, but she didn't understand what the difference was. All three of them had been human, two of them had been male, and yet this older male was different. Why?

She felt a surge of energy off in the distance and her head snapped around to look in it's direction and for just a second she could feel and old enemy, Nephlite, casting a powerful spell of some kind. Fuzzy memories surfaced, bit they were somewhat indistinct, but she was positive that he'd just cast a spell that was used quite a bit in the Dark Kingdom. It had something to do with protecting one's territory. Shaking her head she reminded herself that getting involved with the Dark Kingdom would be incredibly stupid after what she had been forced to deal with lately. Looking around she floated up to the overlook and landed on the edge, moving over to the man's pack she pulled out a crude map and quickly located where she was. It would be a simple matter to get out of here without having to resort to the pipes again. Then she would have to experiment a little to see what kind of human energy she needed to survive in this world. Revenge on the Scouts was going to have to wait, she saw that now, first she would have to find a way to secure herself in this world. Then she could worry about revenge, until then she would have explore around and see what this world had to offer.

Even as Jedite he had never taken the time to really look around, she had been to focused on the mission and with each failure the pressure just gotten heavier and heavier until Beryl had basically killed him. Now that he was in control of his body, his mind merged with the mind of the Youma Titus, there was this different perspective on things. She would have to bide her time though. She contemplated the shape shifting possibilities of Titus's powers as she walked along the tunnels and headed for the surface. There were so many things she could do now, she didn't have to worry about what everyone around her thought about her actions. Nor did she have to think about what kind of lethal spell would be enough to help her gain more power and favor from Beryl.

Jade froze in mid step as it donned on her for the first time that she was free of Beryl's influence, her orders, free from the Dark Kingdom, completely. She hadn't really taken that into account when she woke up earlier, now that she was thinking a little more clearly she had to make sure she stayed free of Beryl's influence. Grinning a little bit she wondered if this might be her chance to do something else other than follow orders, to carve out her own Kingdom right here in the middle of Tokyo. As Jedite, a General of Queen Beryl's army, he had been instrumental in creating the Youma along with the others. Sure Metallia had helped out with her own extraordinary powers, but he had been given the task of figuring out a way to create the things. Nephlite, Zoicite, and even Kunzite had also lent a hand, but over time they had given their army of Youma personal touches as each of them experimented with the Youma life form. Centuries of study had allowed her to understand what each of them had changed in their Youma and how to pull them of. She had the knowledge to what she was thinking, all it would take is power and she could easily start building an army. It was an idea she liked, one she liked quite a lot and there was nothing that Beryl could do to stop her especially if that bungling fool Nephrite was handling the energy draining portion of the plan.

**********

It had been a great idea to find a remote house like this through a realtor instead of wasting magic to create one, then hide it, then cast a whole bunch of spells to punish intruders. It would have pissed off Queen Beryl more than he wanted to, so he had taken this rout instead and gotten a good deal in the bargain. He'd spent most of the day finding the place and casting several magical spells around the area to make sure no one even remembered it anymore. Now that a large evasion spell had been cast on the house even the neighbors, a few hundred feet away, didn't recall much of it and even then it took magic just to enter the place. It was a two story church that hadn't been used in years, surrounded by it's own little park complete with trees and a large garden that added to the privacy he required for his work. He was planning to use the stars to find the perfect targets for his mission and the church had taken a bit of work, but now it would work to make sure his magic would be amplified as much as possible as he tapped into the Power of the Stars.

This was his specialty, he'd been doing it for centuries now and new every little detail of the skill. The house had taken about a week to construct and he'd spent a couple of days playing around with his new found freedom to make the place more to his liking and still stay within the rules. Already his mind was making plans for this place as he wove the final levels of a powerful spell engine he would use to find his targets, this way he wouldn't have to cast the main spell more than once. All he would really have to do is channel a bit of power to the engine and it would do the work for him, it was perfect and allowed him to horde as much magic as he needed.

His position as the next General in charge came with a number of perks that Jedite had liked to throw in the other General's faces from time to time. The biggest was that he got to keep five percent of all the energy he collected from each successful take. It wasn't much on the surface, but when he could grab enough energy from one person, even more than what Jedite had grabbed from a whole crowd, he would have quite a bit after several attacks. It was so easy to do that he knew he couldn't fail, but he had one large problem to deal with, the Sailor Scouts and that red headed girl that had shown up Jedite at every turn. Even in the end Jedite had gone down at Beryl's hands, though he suspected the blonde moron had pulled something to save his life. It was something that any of them would have done if the situation demanded it and he had been up against a wall, so to speak.

Still, he wasn't like Jedite, when it came to a threat like this he wouldn't just brush it off because the girls were all teenage girls in revealing clothes, he had other ways of dealing with them now that he had seen them in action against Jedite. They had shown on several occasions that they were quite dangerous to people they didn't like, but they were also untrained in their magic and even basic tactics. Except for the red head of course, she was the obvious leader and the one that led the rest of them during a fight. She was the most dangerous one of the four of them, he would have to find a way to work around those bitches. They had seemed to find every other plan that Jedite had enacted and had some kind of uncanny ability to find their Youma. He suspected that it was that red headed girl, she had the most magic of the group and might have some kind of ability to detect their Youma within a certain range.

The red head was the newest member of the group, there had been three of them before she showed up and they had still been a pain in Jedite's ass. Could they all share some kind of ability to track them down in some way? He would have to find some way to test his idea some time, but right now he had to get on with his mission. Beryl was getting very impatient and testy lately, she hadn't expected him to take over two weeks to get ready before he even implemented his plans. With a shrug he moved into the room that used to house the main portion of the church, he had spent a great deal of time in this room preparing it for his upcoming mission. The floor was painted black to give it a bigger look, the black went up the wall and around the windows to let the light in into the room.

The ceiling was a typical gothic design that he had adapted into a kind of white marble with his magic. The over all effect was quite impressive, even to him, and gave the room a very distinguished feel to it that reminded him of something that he had seen long ago. Shaking his head he stepped into a magical circle in the back corner of the room and looked up at the ceiling, channeling a large amount of magic. The room shimmers around him as it takes effect and seems to transport him into space as the stars start to sparkle in the air around him. Nephlite looks around and nods to himself, this was just what he wanted, with all the city lights around his house, using the stars in the sky around his house would have been impossible. So this would do and might even work even better as a focus for his spell.

"All the world is ruled by the stars, from the lowly animal to the greatest of hunters, the stars rule them all." Nephlite says as he begins to glow, his eyes lose their irises and turn pure black with an unearthly glow. "Now Archer Sagittarius, guide my power and point me to the one person in all the city that will soon reach their ultimate potential! Show Me NOW!"

The stars flicker around him as the power of his spell goes off and begins to form into a picture of light. Nephlite is surprise when the energy begins to waver, but he frowns and adds more power to it and forces the spell to work and within seconds he is looking at a picture of a teen aged girl with long, light brown hair done up in a pony tail and a completive spirit. She is dressed in a tennis outfit and holding a tennis racquet in mid swing. The nature of the spell isolates a person and identifies them for him and he grins evilly and laughs as he is given the name *Rui Saionji.

"Rui Saionji you are about to aid me in my mission with your very life!" Nephlite said with a patented evil villain laugh.

He let the spell go and the room returned to normal, it had even given him the girl's location. All he had to do was go and get her and everything would be perfect by this time tomorrow. On the way to the front door he transformed his clothes into a suit and taking on his Sanjouin Masato identity, adjusting his sports jacket, he stepping out side he looked around and realized that he had forgotten something. The one thing he needed the most of all at that exact moment. Standing in the driveway he looked down in the spot where he would have parked a flashy sports car if he had remembered to buy one along with the house, but no, he had more important things on his mind at the time. Grumbling to himself at forgetting such an important detail he sighed and walked off the property with his hands in his pockets.

**********

Dressed in her bright yellow pajamas, Usagi shuffled into her room and yawned as she wavered back and forth on her feet. This day had just been one long drain on her energy, she almost wondered if a Youma had come along and taken some of her energy when she wasn't paying attention. As she pulled the covers back she noticed that for once Luna wasn't around to pester her about finishing her homework and grinned a little. That was one hassle she didn't want to deal with right then. Crawling into bed and snuggling under the covers she was halfway asleep with in a few seconds. At the same time a portion of her mind went over the days's events, including what had happened to her right after school. Her mind wandered as she suddenly thought about what had happened...

Slumping along, Usagi was reminded of why she hated school so much. This whole day had been one hassle after another, after nearly being late once again she had managed to make it to her desk just as the bell rang. But not before she took out three desks, two of the boys, and the vice principle in one teeny tiny mistake and earned detention once again. Then if that hadn't been enough, Ranma had shown up this morning and she had spent the rest of the morning worrying about her friend, detention, and this surprise test that had been sprung on her at the last minute. Life was so unfair. She looked at the test again and whimpered a little at the twenty circled in red at the top and slumped over even more, now all she wanted was to catch a few hours of sleep before her mother found out about this little set back.

She could barely keep her eyes open as she made her way home, resisting the temptation to go and visit Rei and see how she was doing. Instead she was ready to fall into bed and sleep until it was time for dinner where she would have to show her test to her mother. She sighed loudly as even her twin pony tails slumped down to the ground as she walked along. It didn't help that her hair was filled with chalk dust from all the erasers that had been thrown at her to keep her awake during detention, one could barely tell that her uniform was supposed to be blue. Teachers were such a pain, if she hadn't been forced to go to school she would have been infinately more happy. Still, she did like having her friends around to talk to while she was there so it was perfectly fine to go for that reason. Now if only she could get them all to go to the same school, even Rei.

"Usagi!"

She concentrated, placing one foot in front of the other as she went and taking extra careful care not to run into anyone like she did the last time this happened. Dragging her book bag on the ground wasn't that good for it, but she had other things to think about right then, like sleep and this annoying voice that seemed to sound like someone calling her name. That was impossible of course, there weren't any students left in the school at this time, well except for the clubs anyway.

"Wait up! Usagi!"

Coming to a stop, but not standing up straight, she looked over her shoulder to see who was yelling at her. The voice seemed familiar for some reason, though annoying, but her mind was to sleep deprived to push the information through until she got a look at who was yelling. Naru, the super happy, completely awake girl who just had to bother her at time like this. What the heck was she doing at school this late in the afternoon? Usagi tried to growl but it ended up being a giant yawn instead. Naru didn't notice as she ran up and smiled at her friend's blood shot eyes. She looked like she normally did, with shoulder length red hair, a bow in her hair, and the normal school uniform.

"Usagi! Rui is playing tennis over at the courts, come on lets go and watch!" Naru exclaimed as she grabbed Usagi's arm and pulled her along.

"But..." She tried as he feet dragged along the ground and Naru babbled at her.

"She's been playing for a the last few years, training everyday and she is almost as good as a pro. Another few years and she will be able to enter tournaments! The school has been taking steps to get her the training she needs to make it, even giving her a pro tennis coach!"

"I need..." She tried again as Naru picked up speed and Usagi's feet left the ground and started flapping in the wind, there was a nice dust trail though. It was going to be one of those days, but at least it was Naru, anyone else and she would have had to ditch them in favor of her bed. The breezed around the side of the school and over to towards the tennis courts where a couple dozen girls were standing around waiting to play a practice game. There were three courts inside a tall fenced in area and all of them were being used at the moment. Naru slowed down as they neared the fence around the court and slammed Usagi's face first up against the fence by accident.

Several of the girls gave them weird looks, but Naru ignored them as she started jumping up and down.

"Who was this again?" Usagi asked as the wind made her long pony tails flap back and forth.

"My sister! Rui!" Naru yelled happily.

"Sister?! Since when do you have a sister?!" Usagi yelled in shock, her tired body temporarily forgotten. "I've known you for years and you never told me anything about a sister!!"

"That's Rui over there in the white headband, were not really sisters, but our parents are good friends so we've been playing with each other since we were kids!"

"Um..." Usagi says, she was at a total loss now. Her and Naru have been friends for several years and yet she had never heard of this girl.

"Go Rui Go!" Naru cheered her friend and jumped up and down happily.

Unsure what to do, Usagi peeled her face off the fence and stepped back to watch Naru's friend play and had to admit that the girl seemed to know what she was doing. Usagi smiled as the ball went back and forth between the two girls and realized something really quick. Tennis, when you aren't playing it yourself, is really boring. Usagi fought the urge for as long as she could, but in the end she couldn't help herself as she stumbled over to a nearby tree, sat down, and fell over even as she started to snore. No one seemed to notice as Naru was yelling loud enough to make scene and embarrass her friend. Umino, a fourteen year old boy with super thick glasses and a wild hairdo, wandered over to the snoring blond and wondered if she had some weird form of Narcolepsy. He kicked her foot a few times just to see what would happen, then started to take notes when she didn't wake up right away.

Naru continued to cheer her friend and forgot about Usagi for a little while as Umino wandered over to find out what she was up to. She thumped him over the head when he started talking about how the wind could affect the spin on a tennis ball and cause some pretty wild twists and bounces if one wasn't careful. Then moved on to a subject that seemed to fascinate him for some strange reason, earth worms. Naru had to thump him a few more times to drive him off before going back to cheer for her friend.

**********

The convertible was red, fast, and one hundred percent gas guzzling pride as it pulled out of the car rental place. It's tires smoked as the car accelerated through traffic with a disguised Nephlite behind the wheel grinning like a madman, his long brown hair streaming out behind him as he ran a couple of red lights. Now that he had his wheels he could set his plan in motion and as he switched gears with a loud grinding sound, he had to remind himself that he didn't have a clue how to actually drive and copying what he'd seen on TV just didn't seem to work. It was down right weird, but about twenty minutes later, with about two dozen near misses and three panicked pedestrians, he peeled into the school and hops out. Several of the girls, who are bored, notice the sweet looking hot rod and the guy that was driving it, they develop little hearts in their eyes and sigh.

"Whose that cute guy?" One squeals, catching the attention of everyone else.

"Where?!" Usagi yells, startling Naru and Umino as she appears out of nowhere.

"He owns his own business I heard!" Several people say as Nephlite swaggers forward with his hands in his pocket, his sunglasses glinting in the sun.

Naru and Usagi turn around to see a tall, cute guy with long brown hair heading their way! "I'm in love..." they mumble and take in all the little details. They are paying so much attention to him that they fail to notice the smoke rising from the engine of the car he arrived in. Though Umino sees it and wonders why the guy got the car if he didn't know how to drive it properly.

With a smirk he suddenly leaps over the fence, flips in mid air, and lands on the court near Rui Saionji who looks a little startled. Before she can say anything one of the coaches that had been observing the match got in the guys way. "You can't be here without permission! Leave now!"

Ignoring the coach and brushing the guy to the side, Nephlite focuses on his mission and gives Rui a fierce look and says, "Your racket."

Somewhat startled, she shows it to him without a second thought and lowers it a second later as her coach gives her a weird look. Nephlite walks across the court and 'borrows' one of the other girl's rackets and takes up a position. "Alright Rui, I've heard stories about you from some of my students, so I want you to give me your best serve and lets see what you can do!"

Still a little shocked, Rui glances at her coach and at his nod, nearly as confused as she is she does just that. Nephlite focuses his magic to put on a bit of a show of power and easily knocks it back at twice the speed she had it at, striking Rui's arm. At her shocked look and rather large bruise forming on her arm she glances at the tall brown haired stranger. "Who are you anyway?"

"I'm Sanjouin Masato, a professional tennis coach from America and I wanted to see what you can do."

"A coach?" Rui mutters.

"Now, you should be able to put a little more weight in your serve and gain enough power to match even a professional tennis player." He reaches out to pick up her racket and twirls it around a few times as he pretends to test it's weight. Holding his hand out, he thinks, 'I charge this racket with the power of the stars and the Dark Kingdom!' A small red symbol appears on it and fades almost instantly, taking less than a second before handing it back with a very charming grin that makes Rui blush a little. Now Remember what I said, put more weight into the serve!" Nephlite bows, then leaps back over the fence, hops in his car, and roars off campus while still in first gear, making most of the students in the nearby auto body shop wince in sympathy for the car.

Rui's eyes go blank for a second as she stands there holding the racket, then she slowly moves to pick up a ball, tosses it in the air, and gives it an over head serve. She hits it so hard that it flies across the court and makes a hole in the ground on the other side and destroys the tennis ball almost completely! The crowd is amazed and begins to cheer, even Rui's coach looks on in shock and wonders what has come over his student. It isn't like he hasn't told her the same thing on several occasions before this, but she's never been able to get it just right no matter how much she practices. Now some stranger comes out of nowhere, tells her the same thing, and she's suddenly able to hit the ball that hard. He cheered happily as she did it once more, this time accidentally embedding the ball in the fence after it rebounded off the court. Naru on the other hand is shocked as she grips the fence and watches her friend, a worried look on her face as they observe the suddenly cruel glint in her eyes. The person she has known for so long just doesn't seem to be there anymore, she seems to have changed into something completely different.

"This just isn't like her..." Naru mutters to herself.

**********

From out of the shadows, came a feline form as stalked through the over grown grass at the edge of the park. It's eyes reflecting the light from the moon as it shined down upon the city, but it wasn't enough to reveal it's shadowy form if anyone saw it. Stalking out of the grass, it looked around for a second to see where it was and raced up the street behind the buildings, keeping to the shadows to make sure it wasn't spotted. A few minutes later it stopped in front of the Crown Arcade and looked up at the closed sign on the doors and sat down. Looking around, Luna made sure now one was about as the symbol on her forehead lit up and sent a beam of golden light into a small, almost invisible sensor just above the door. It lit up the night around her, but after a couple of seconds the metal cage lifted up just enough for her to walk under. The glass doors opened as well and the internal security system of that the building used was altered not to detect her as she entered.

The inside of the place was quiet and dark with all it's games shut down, but she raced across the arcade until she hopped up on the Sailor V video game. Touching the screen with her paw activated a touch sensitive screen, it lit up and illuminated the room for a second as the computer it was connected to quickly booted up. Luna was still astounded that the only place in Juban that had a decent computer that the Scouts could have easy access to was in an Arcade, but it had only taken a bit of fiddling with the internal layout of the Sailor V game to set up what she wanted and connect it to the satellite hook up on the roof that was unobtrusively pointed right at the moon. The screen blinked and she touched the cursor, the screen scanned her paw print.

*Name and Password.*

"Luna, Password: The Kitty Meows at Moonlight." Luna said.

*Hello Luna, how may I help you?*

"Things have been going rather badly lately."

*How so?*

"Ranma was kicked out of the shrine and is off in Juban somewhere and I don't know what to do about it."

*Ranma will do what is expected of her, you don't need to worry about that Luna, but she must be handled carefully or you will lose her completely.*

"What must I do exactly?" Luna asked.

*I have been trying to find out what I can on Ranma and who she might have been in the Silver Millennium, if it is who I think it was, then we need her for the plan to work.*

Luna was shocked, the plan was something that even she didn't fully understand. It had never been fully explained to he either, but she did know that they could lose some of the Scouts and still pull it off if they were careful, how could one person have so much influence? "How is that possible?"

*We're not sure, but if we lose her cooperation then accomplishing the plan will take far longer than was originally determined, it's even possible we might have to take a few chances that could work for or against us. Her strength and skill are paramount to the plan. We do know that she has some kind of major role to play, but we don't know what that is exactly, she must stick with the Scouts for it to work though.*

"I'll do what I can..."

*At the moment that isn't a problem, she will return and help out, but we can't see what the future might be just yet so be careful how you treat her.*

"Yes sir, anything else?"

*There have been some magical energies moving around Juban over the last few days, but they were cloaked and barely detectable.*

"I'll have Mercury scan for them, she might have a little better luck since she's closer to the source."

*Perhaps, but you also need to know that another Scout has been detected.*

"REALLY?! That's great, where can I find her?" Luna shouted.

*She is to far away at the moment to get an exact fix, but you will be informed as soon as she can join up with the team.*

"Alright." Luna said with a nod. "Do you know which one it is?"

*No, but there are only two left to find so it has to be one of them.*

"Jupiter or Venus."

*Yes.*

The lights flickered for a second and the screen darkened, cursing, Luna knew that the connection had been lost. They wouldn't be able to talk again for a while, running across the arcade, she made her way outside and looked up into the sky and nodded. There were clouds covering the moon as a small storm rolled over the city; turning to the arcade she fired another beam from her forehead into the sensor and let the doors shut even as she ran for home. She wanted to make it back before the rains started, being wet was one thing she hated above everything else, that or being caught doing something that a cat shouldn't be able to do. Across the street, if she had been paying attention, she might have seen her worst nightmare come true as a giant fat gray cat watched her from the shadows with an odd look on it's face before looking back at the Arcade. It was sitting on another cat as it cleaned itself absently, its eyes gleamed brightly as it watched Luna run down the street.

*********

Ranma's eyes snapped open and for several seconds she could only lay there trying to figure out what in the world had happened. She didn't remember going to sleep, and yet here she was wrapped in her sleeping bag next to a nearly dead fire. Groaning she snuggled deeper into the sleeping bag to try and get warmer, but her mind was trying to tell her something. She thought about the last thing she could remember and blushed a little as she realized with a mental flash that it was a couple of totally naked Amazons hitting each other with pillows. Blushing even more, her face turning bright red, Ranma hid deeper in her sleeping bag and hoped she hadn't done anything to get the girls mad. It would explain why she didn't remember what had happened after that and it certainly wouldn't be the first time an Amazon had knocked her out for looking to close.

Her eyes snapped open as she recalled the last time this had happened over a year ago. Almost hesitantly her hand inched up her body and touched her chest and felt something she kind of expected, but dreaded more than anything else. Her fingers traced down her stomach and confirmed that it had happened again and cursed silently. Why Amazons thought doing this to her was funny she would never know, but it didn't take much exploration to find out what she wanted to confirm. It was silk, barely reached down to her thighs, hugged her body like a glove, and that she was wearing PANTIES. Letting out an exclamation of surprise she tried to grab the material and rip it from her body, there was no way she would be caught dead in this outfit. Then she heard the giggle and knew it was already to late as her sleeping bag was picked up and with a yank completely pulled off of her.

"Hey!" Ranma yelled as she fell to the ground and landed on her shoulder and rolled to her feet.

"Ranma is to cute in that outfit, it perfect." Shampoo said with a grin.

"Oh indeed, to to cute Ranma." Perfume said as she pulled a camera from nowhere and took several shots before Ranma could even blink.

Shuddering, Ranma looked down to actually see what she was wearing. It turned out to only be mildly bad, but even that was to much for her to take. It was a typical Chinese short dress made from shimmering red silk with a flower design woven right into the upper chest starting at her left breast and weaving around her body and ending on her right hip. "AGHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! WHAT AM I WEARING?!" Ranma screamed as she waved her arms up and down.

Which wasn't a good idea in that particular dress as it lifted up and down to show off the white panties she was wearing. Screaming, Ranma ran around the area like a maniac for several minutes, Perfume laughed so hard that she fell down and continued to laugh. Shampoo just smirked and enjoyed the show and wondered how they could get Ranma next time. No matter how often they did this Ranma just never seemed to learn, maybe next time they would use a see through nighty with a G-string panty, all in blue. Back in the village all the girls had some form of lingerie laying around for that special time and Ranma had been dressed up in almost all of it at one point or another. Then with a casual toss she threw her Bonbori right into Ranma's path as she ran around a tree and tripped her.

"Wha? Aghaaa!" Ranma yelled as she planted her face in the grass. Ranma ended up flat on her chest with her ass in the air, the dress riding up a bit to reveal the Hello Kitty panties she had on. She groaned in pain as Perfume took the opportunity to take a few more pictures. "I'm going to get revenge, you do understand that, right?"

"Oh I'm looking forward to it Ranma, where's the fun of doing this if we only get to see it once?" Perfume said and patted Ranma's rump a couple of times and giggled.

"Shampoo like Panty, they look comfortable." She said, which set Perfume off again.

All this noise attracted Ito, who had been asleep inside Ranma's pack again, she stuck her red furred head out and got her first look at Ranma's new clothing, position, and panties. Ranma ignored the sudden onslaught of snickers that were eminating from her pack as she stood up, glared at her friends and stalked over to her pack to grab something decent to wear. Upending her pack, Ranma dumped out one snickering cat and the rest of her clothing and ignored the set that seemed to be covered in cat hair. She didn't care who saw her at the moment since the dress was worse than going naked, at least in her opinion, and stripped down completely and quickly got dressed in her normal out fit. The only difference was that this one was all black with silver edging, she had spotted it while wandering around the mall with Usagi and Rei one afternoon and taken a liking to it instantly. She completely missed Perfume using the last of her pictures to get a few shots of her naked.

"Ranma are we going to be coming back here?" Perfume asked.

"I was planning on it, this is a good place to stay and it's isolated enough that we won't have to worry about people walking off with our stuff." Ranma said as she snapped on a pair of heavy metal bracers she hadn't worn in a while. They were a bright silver with dueling dragons etched into the metal, the details made them hard not to admire.

Nodding, Perfume put the camera back where she had gotten it and went to finish picking up her camping equipment. "Where are we going to leave hour stuff?"

"There's that big bush over there, we can leave our stuff behind it for the day I guess." Ranma said with a shrug. Though in her mind she was still plotting her revenge, it would have to be something they would never forget, back in the village she never had a chance because all the other girls were working against her, but here in Tokyo they didn't have all the other girls to keep her in line.

Shampoo and Perfume edged away from Ranma and develop large sweat drops as she started to cackle a little maniacally.

"Shampoo think it good idea to leave Ranma by self for while." Shampoo said a little nervously.

"You might be right, lets go before she comes to her senses and tries something weird." Perfume said. They ran off and a few seconds later jumped the wall to vanish from sight.

Still giggling, Ranma finally came back to her senses and noticed that the girls were gone and cursed. They'd gotten away, but
there would be time to make them pay. "Did they say where they were going Ito?"

"Sorry Ranma, but they just ran off. It must have had something to do with your insane cackling a few seconds ago." Ito muttered and wondered if she should have take a few seconds to get out of the area as well.

"Oh well, I'll just pay them back later."

"Well you need to get over to Juban today Ranma."

"Why?" Ranma asked in surprise. "I need to wait for that Dr. Tofu guy to get done with those tests."

"Because you have to go and talked to your friends."

"Why?"

"After yesterday's fight you need to sit down and talk with the rest of the Scouts and let them know what all happened yesterday."

Ranma looked a bit confused. "But they were there, so I don't need to tell them anything."

"They may have been there, but they will have questions to ask you, especially about your two new friends, those other girls, and that strange Youma we encountered. The meeting is a way to let everyone get a handle on what happened when they were away from the main fight or to find mistakes and correct them."

Nodding, Ranma shrugged and sighed. "I normally do that kind of thing on my own, but I was a little distracted last night so it's a good idea. Maybe it will help get the others to fight a little better as well."

"They just don't have your experience Ranma, give them time and I guarantee that they will get better than you expect."

"Fine, fine, I'll head back to Juban for the day, but I'll have to get back here tonight since I don't have a home currently."

"Don't worry about it, I will make some arrangements to get a place to stay." Ito says.

"How the heck are you going to do that? Your a cat!" Ranma snaps.

Ito laughs. "I have my ways, so let me get to work and by the time you get back tonight we can get set up."

She didn't really want to think about how a cat was going to get her a place to stay, but decided to go along with it. They had their tents after all so it wasn't like they couldn't just camp out here if they needed to. She nods, waves goodbye and runs across the property, through the trees, and jumps the wall. With a huff Ito wanders back over to Ranma's pack and hops back inside and lays down for a little nap before she sets to work. She was a Mooncat, and adviser to potential royalty and figures it won't take much to set things up, all she had to was call Control and they would do the work for her.

Several minutes after that Ranma rounds a corner and sprints down the road at a high rate of speed, dodging various people, hopping over a car, several pedestrians, as she runs from an angry dog that she seemed to have picked up a few streets back. She hadn't meant to step on it, but the thing had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Glancing back she grins a little as the tiny little hair ball tries to keep up with her, it's miniature legs pumping as fast as they can as it chases her, it's loud 'Yip Yip Yip' bark just loud enough to be annoying. Jumping in the air and doing a flip, she lands on a fence and takes off in the direction of Juban, but she was still about an hour or so away at this pace.

"Yip Yip Yip!"

'Life has certainly gotten interesting lately.' Ranma thinks to herself as she picks up a little speed and soon vanishes in the distance.

Percy, the Shitzu skids to a stop and struts back home with its head held high. It had shown the upstart what happened when they messed with Him.

**********

There is a light wind blowing over the court yard to Rei's temple a couple days later as the girls gather for a meeting/study session. Rei is not in a good mood to begin with, her grandfather had promised to keep her identity a secret along with the other girls, but was still angry. She had never seen him truly angry before and somehow the deal with Ranma had set this off. Ranma had been kicked out of the shrine and no matter how hard she tried he would not relent, saying that Ranma had betrayed his trust and that was all he would say on the subject. Then he had grounded her for two full months for allowing herself to be placed in such a situation and not telling him about it. He hadn't decided on what the punishment would be, but if Ranma's name was even mentioned around him she would earn even more punishment. Which was how a two week grounding had turned into two months.

The only thing was currently allowed to do was go to school, do extra chores, and Scout related activities. Everything else was forbidden, that was why her friends were even allowed here at all. Grandpa Hino had stated that he would be off the grounds for a couple of hours to give them time to talk and him to do some more thinking. Luna had shown up first, impatient as ever to hear any new news that might be able to be of use. Then Ami had come in reading a chemistry book and eating some ice cream, some how walking and reading at the same time. They gathered around the table in the front room while Rei passed out some cookies she had gotten for the meetings. Luna jumped up on the table and cleared her throat as she glanced at everyone.

"I talked to Central Control last night." Luna says.

"Central Control?"

Luna nods, but doesn't say anything else. "It concerned Ranma. It seems we have to be very careful with her right now or things could go bad for us. If we lose Ranma and she doesn't come back, Central thinks that defeating this threat will be nearly impossible."

Rei snorted. "Yeah right, Ranma isn't exactly a team player Luna."

"Ranma knows she was too rough on you and Ami talked to her about it."

"She made her thoughts quite plain Luna, she doesn't want us around, we just get in her way."

"Don't be that way Rei, you know that Ranma didn't think we were ready to be at the Airport and I think she was right." Ami said with a little force.

Rei gasped. "What?! How can you say that after the way she yelled at us?!"

"Ranma is a trained fighter and she still had problems with Jedite and his planes, we went in with no plans and tried to do what we have always done. Shoot it until it's dead, but with Jedite that didn't work, he was expecting us."

"We kicked his ass!" Rei nearly yelled.

"Yeah!" Usagi agreed, not having followed the conversation past the first few words.

"We need to be prepared for the next attack and if we don't alter our plan of attack, we will be placing ourselves in more danger than we need to be in. Ranma doesn't have the ability to use tact to explain things, she just knows how to fight and tell others when they can't. I've been looking into martial artists since Ranma showed up to see if I could understand her better and she shows all the signs of a rather horrible childhood."

"We know all this Ami, Ranma explained some of her upbringing to us the other day." Rei pointed out, though conceding that it certainly wasn't the full truth.

Ami nodded. "Ranma didn't even come close to telling us everything and I don't blame her very much. Her father taught her how to fight for years and didn't seem to even treat her like a girl. She fights from a head on position, and takes life from the same position without knowing any of the social niceties that go along with such a thing."

Nodding, Rei conceded that as true.

"So we need to try and plan our next attack in some way, that way we can do two things. Increase our chances of winning such a battle and to prove to Ranma that we aren't useless in a fight."

"How do you plan to do that?" Luna asked, a bit surprised at where this conversation was going. The last time they had talked about Ranma they had all been just a little peeved at the red headed girl's actions. Rei was acting as she always did, but Ami wasn't being as angry as she had been the last time they talked. Then in the other corner Usagi was eyeing a manga that Rei had left out before they showed up, her hand slowly inching towards it.

Ami pulled a few sheets of paper out of her school bag and sat them on the table and just knew she was going to have to talk them into this carefully. "We need to begin small and work hour way up, the first thing is learning some basic tactics. I was thinking that instead of yelling out our plans while we are standing in front of the enemy, we could make up some plans before hand and give them simple name. That way we could call out, 'plan 1' and attack the monster using that, perhaps even some hand signals* of some kind. There are a whole set of them available in the Mercury Computer if anyone wants to learn them, the Lunar Guard of the Moon used to use them in dangerous situations according to the files."

For some reason Usagi looked horrified as she tried to assimilate all that and her brain started to freeze up, instead she turned, and dove at Rei's bed. Rei's head snapped to the side as she saw a trail of yellow hair flow out behind the diving girl. Her hand snaked out and grabbed Usagi's ankle and stopped her in mid dive and slamming her down on the ground with a thump.

"Rei?!" Usagi wined as she strained for the manga.

"USAGI! Pay attention!"

"But..." She wined and nearly started to cry. "I don't want to learn all that stuff! Let's just go and get some ice cream instead?!"

Luna sighs and hangs her head. "You have to be more serious, this isn't a game you know!"

"Calm down you two, this will take time and we can do it slowly so that no one is overwhelmed. With Ranma gone at the moment we can make we can make up for lost time and turn ourselves into a force to be feared by all the Youma, no matter how strong. Usagi, you can learn these, they can be incorporated into your style just as easily as those poses you do when you transform." Ami said mildly, it wasn't the full truth, but enough to help keep Usagi from backing out completely.

Glomp! Usagi hugs Ami. "Your my only friend Ami!"

"Um..." Ami says, just a little rattled.

"Do you want to learn these hand signals and tactics today?" Rei asked, thinking of all the work she had to do now that she was grounded and giving a little wince. One thing her grandpa was good at was giving her work to do around the shrine, there was always something that needed fixed or cleaned with just the two of them there.

"No, not today since I have something to do later on, but I was thinking that over the next couple of weeks we could start working on them. The Dark Kingdom seems to only send a Youma every few days so we should have time to slowly adapt them into our fighting style. I figure it will confuse them enough for us to get the upper hand. I really don't think they are taking us seriously or they would be using more resources to find us." Ami said with a shrug.

"Where do we start then?" Rei asked as she looked at one of the signals and stuck her arm out. Nearly hitting Usagi across the nose and scaring her enough to make her gasp and fall down.

"Usagi, what are you doing?!" Rei growled. How in the world this girl could be a Scout was a total mystery. She could understand Ami, she had a lot of brains and took the job seriously, but when it came to the super klutz here she had her doubts.

"But Reiiii!" Usagi said as she held up the manga she had been reaching for. "Hiro just insulted Akira and they had a fiiiight."

Rei's eye twitched, at least Ranma didn't steal all her manga when ever she had the chance.

Ami sighed and handed a sheet with pictures on it that described the signals to Usagi. "Lets just learn the signals printed on this page while we have the chance, there are only forty three of them and about twenty five apply to our use. Those are the one's I highlighted for you, you should have them down in no time if you practice a little. We don't need to learn the number signals yet, so that leaves us with fifteen to learn, we can all do that in next to no time. Eventually we need to learn what all of them mean and that will lead us right into the next lesson on basic tactics. It would be a good idea if Ranma learned these too, but since she isn't here we need to work that much more."

Beep, beep!

"Oh thank god!" Usagi says as something in her purse beeps at her, blushing as she stands up in a swirl of hair, pulls something small out and looks at it for a second before she tucks the device back inside. "I have to go and visit a friend, I'll look these over later. Bye!" She yells as she runs out of the room leaving the page sitting on the table. Ami adjusts her glasses and frowns a little as Rei growls.

"You know, I expected her to do that the instant you mentioned learning new things." Rei says a few seconds later and heaves a sigh and rolls her eyes.

Ami nodded. "I'm kind of curious about when she started carrying a pager around in her purse, she's never mentioned it before."

"Her father got one for her the other day, it's bight pink and has little rabbits all over it. As far as I know she's only given the number to her friend Naru." Luna says with a cat shrug. After all this time she was getting used to these kinds of things. "She showed it me and stated, 'It's not a Sailor Scout device so I'm not going to give the number to just anyone.' and gave me this regal looking sniff and stalked off."

"She'll have lost or broken it by the end of the week." Rei snapped.

"How do you figure that?" Ami asked.

"She's a klutz, she'll fall down or drop it somewhere and shatter it into a thousand pieces."

Luna sighed and wondered where Ito was.

**********

"Usagi, I'm so worried about Rui, she's so different now! Just a few days ago we were joking around together and having fun, but now it's like she's a completely different person and I don't know what to do about it." Naru says and flops back on Usagi's bed.

"How's she changed? She seemed to get so inspired from what that brown haired hunk said to her a few days ago."

Naru thinks back to when they were kids and remembers the first time they met, when Rui had chased away some boys that were picking on her between classes. Over time they had grown closer and closer and even when they were older and Rui had taken up tennis they had played around on the courts to pass the time. It had always made them happy to pal around together, but now things were changing and she couldn't understand why. "Usagi, she's changed, there is this cruel look in her eyes now as she practices tennis. And that serve of hers, its gotten strong enough to hurt someone. She won't even think about going home either, all she does is practice constantly. Even her parents have gotten worried about her, when they tried to take her home the other day she threw them off the court and told them to Mind their own business!"

Usagi gaped. "No way?! Really?"

"I don't know what's wrong..." Naru says and starts to cry a little.

"Oh, Naru..." Usagi says and hugs her friend. "She's still at the tennis courts at school right?"

"Yeah..."

"Then let's go and see what's wrong with her, this doesn't sound right."

Naru nods and stands up. "Let's go, she'll listen to the two of us."

About half an hour later they arrive at the courts to see Rui in the same court they had seen her in before, playing against a couple of guys. Rui tossed the little yellow ball high in the air and hits it towards the boys. They scream and dive out of the way in fear as it blasts a small hole in the court just at the edge of the out of bounds line. There are several there already, the fear in the guys faces is enough to shock Usagi as they slam into the fence.

"Rui!" Naru yells, but the girl doesn't seem to hear her as she lets off a cruel laugh. "I thought you were PROFESSIONALS! That was pathetic, where's all this vaunted skill you are supposed to possess, what use is it if you can't even return my SERVE?!"

The guys throw their rackets down and runs off the court.

"Giving up already? Am I to much for you to even play against?" Rui laughs again and bounces a ball.

If Usagi hadn't been paying attention to the little details she might have wondered where the ball even came from considering Rui hadn't even moved off the court or moved to grab a new one out of the can by the fence. Instead they barged in just as the guys were leaving, or in this case limping and in some cases holding each other up. Naru ran over to her friend and had to suppress a shudder as those evil eyes turned towards her and she felt something she hadn't felt in a couple of months, not since her mother had been possessed by that monster.

"Rui, you have to fight it, I won't let you go!" Naru yelled and made a grab for her friend's wrist, but Rui jerked away with a snarl.

"Naru?" Usagi asks, not understanding what her friend is talking about.

"Leave me alone!" Rui screams as her body suddenly begins to glow a deep red and she pushes Naru away from her with little trouble.

"Oh this is all I need." Usagi mutters, suddenly beginning to understand what the problem is. She reached for her communicator, but hesitated as she stood there with Naru able to see her every move. "Naru, listen to her!"

Several miles away in his secluded house Nephlite looks up from where he is reading the newspaper and nods as he stands up and walks across the room and enters the specially designed chamber to see that it was time. He grins evilly as he calmly walks over to the center of the room and begins to emit a black aura of power. Within seconds he is synched with his web of power and he latches onto the signal that his victim was putting out in waves. "Here energy has reached it's PEAK! TESUNII COME FORTH AND DO YOUR MASTER'S BIDDING!" He screams. With a mighty push of is power the whole room begins to tremble as the orders are sent forth and the command sent across the city, right to the Racket that Rui was at that moment holding so tightly that there wouldn't have been a way to remove it from her hand.

The racket flares with evil energy and in the blink of an eye Rui is drained of her energy and the aura flaring around her vanishes into the racket. As she faints the Racket warps and contorts in her hand until she lets go and falls to the ground and the Racket quickly turns into a monster. It is over six foot high, vaguely female and it wearing a black body suit with large red shoulder pads that stick out to the sides. In it's hand is a phantom Racket made of fire with what looks like a tennis ball stuck in the center where the strings should have been. The thing's head is it's most distinctive feature though, it has long elf like ears that flare off to the sides with red dangling earrings, a pointed chin, green irisless eyes that glow with power, and small fangs jutting out of her mouth.

"TESUNII!" It yells out as its form becomes complete and looks around to see Naru and Usagi gaping at it and it lifts its racket and in one fluid motion sends a beam of energy flying at them.

Usagi panics and pushes Naru out of the way just as it hits the ground right where they had been and sends both of them flying into the fence. Groaning in pain Usagi shakes her head a little as she sits up and looks around to see that Naru is out cold on the other side of the court. She reaches into her skirt pocket and taps a button on her communicator to let the others know there is a problem and wonders if she'll be able to take this thing on before the others get here. Pulling out her locket she yells out "Moon Prism Power!" and transforms into Sailor Moon.

"You DARE desecrate these grounds with your unwanted presence?! I am Sailor Moon and in the name of the moon I will punish you!"

Tesunii yawns and sends a black ball of energy right into Sailor Moon's chest even as she is finishing up her speech, the energy
forms around her and takes the shape of a giant tennis ball with just her hands, boots, and head sticking out of the things. It waves the racket around and Moon screams as she is lifted into the air and bounced a couple of times before being sent careening all over the tennis court, bouncing off the ground, the fence, even the net before landing on her face and taking a bad bounce and rolling over onto her back. A rose flies out of the nearby trees just as Tesunii is about to finish off Sailor Moon once and for all. The flash of read passes right in front of her face and startles her enough to look into the trees. "Who dares to interfere?!"

"You don't want to know monster!" Tuxedo Mask yells as he vaults the fence and lands beside Sailor Moon and smirks a little at her predicament.

"So you want to join you friend, is that it?" Tesunii screams as she spins her racket in her hand and sends another ball of black energy fling at him.

"Ha! You're not fast enough to get me with one of those!" He yells and side steps it and as it blows a hole in the back fence large enough for him to run through.

Growling in anger, Tesunii snarls and is about to attack again when Tuxedo reaches into his cape and pulls out a cane that extends across the court in the blink of an eye and slams into the monster's stomach with enough force to make it lose it's concentration and the giant tennis ball around Moon vanishes almost instantly.

"Lets work together on this one, Sailor Moon." He asks as he helps her to her feet.

"You got it, this thing is dust!" She yells as she pulls her tiara off her head and begins to charge it.

Tuxedo Mask puts his cane away and replaces it with a rose and sends it flying across the tennis courts so that the end with the petals hit the thing in the face to temporarily blind it. Tesunii screams in rage, hold her hand out and fires a blast of black energy right at Sailor Moon in a blind attempt to hit her. The Youma's instincts are good enough to come close, but Tuxedo Mask steps in front of Moon at the last second and takes the blast for her. "Now Sailor Moon!" He cries even as he is blown off his feet and through the hole in the fence that had been created earlier.

"MOON TIARA ACTION!" Moon yells and sends the disk of light right at the Youma, and is shocked as the thing bats the tiara out of the air and into the concrete at it's feet. "Whaa?"

"Do you think I'm going to be taken out by a stupid little toy like that?!" Tesunii growls out as it tosses the remains of Tuxedo's Masks flower to the ground to join the bent and twisted Tiara.

"WHAT'S GOING ON?! THE TIARA ALWAYS WORKS!" Sailor Moon screams and backs up a step, shock written all over her face.

Tesunii pops her knuckles a bit and smiles evilly. "Do you think I'm that weak?"

"Oh crap…" Moon mutters.

The Youma's body flares with energy and gains even more mass as it grows about three feet higher. A volleyball sized black energy tennis ball appears in her hand and she tosses it into the air. "This girl's main talent was a serve, so lets see just what kind of damage it can do."

Using the oversized racket, Tesunii sent the ball of energy right at the two defenders and Tuxedo Mask suddenly grabs Sailor Moon and tosses her to the side just as the ball hits the ground where they were standing just a second before with a massive explosion that destroyed all the concrete on that side of the court, ripped the net to shreds, and blew the back part of the fence into several shredded pieces of metal. Tesunii laughed at the destruction and turned to the side and looked up on top of the fence where Nephlite was floating in the air looking down at the destruction arrogantly. "You missed them."

"Yes Master, but they won't survive this fight for long."

Nephlite looked down at the bruised and bleeding form of Sailor Moon as she dug herself out of the pile of rubble that had washed over her as it was pushed by the explosion. Her outfit was ripped in several places and she had blood running down the side of her face from where a piece of shrapnel had glanced off the side of her head. He marveled at the amount of protective magic that must go into these girls outfits to keep them from being killed by the attack.

"I can't be taken out by an attack like that." Moon said hesitantly, her fear evident now that she could see that there was new General to fight.

"Well Sailor Moon, I must say I'm impressed that you survived that. I have tripled Tesunii power levels and based them upon your fights with Jedite. He may have underestimated you, but I won't. Look around, your friend isn't even here anymore and you are all alone and you won't leave this battle ground alive." Nephlite said with an evil laugh. "Tesunii finish her off quickly, with her death it will make taking out the other Scouts easier."

"Yes Master, with Pleasure." Tesunii said as she formed another ball of energy and laughed evilly.

Sailor Moon whimpered and backed up a bit as she looked around and saw that Tuxedo Mask really wasn't there anymore, except for a large piece of his cape that seemed to be sticking out of a pile of rubble about ten feet away. Tesunii's laugh attracted her attention and she saw that it was powering up another blast. This wasn't looking good at all and she had no clue how to handle the situation. She wanted to go and check on Tuxedo Mask and see if he was alright and if she tried she would die at the hands of this thing before she made it more than a few steps.

"Well Sailor Moon, it's time to die." Nephlite said and motioned for Tesunii to finish the job.

That was when a blast of energy slams into the Youma and sets off the explosion of energy it had been collecting in it's hand. It screams out in shock and Nephlite stays safe behind a shield and growls in anger as he spots the one person he hadn't been able to get a decent read on yet.

"STARFIRE!!" Sailor Moon yells out as she runs over and hugs the girl.

"Idon'tknowwhatiwasgoingtodo,theycameoutofnowhereandattacked fornoreason!Evenmytiaradidn'twork.Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!"

"C alm down Sailor Moon, I'll take this thing down and make sure it doesn't hurt anyone ever again." Starfire says. She has no idea how to comfort a crying girl, the idea is totally alien to her.

Sailor Moon steps back and nods, sniffling a little.

"Go and check on Mask to see if he's alright under those rocks."

"Oh my gosh! I nearly forgot about him!" Moon screams and runs over to the pile where his cape is sticking out.

Starfire turned to look at Nephlite and frowned; now where in the world had she seen this doofis before?

The Youma, having survived Starfire's attack and it's own misfired attack and still hadn't been destroyed. It stood up, still standing over nine foot tall, and glared at the little bug that had just tried to kill it. "You are so dead."

"I kind of doubt that." Starfire said as she turned to glare at the over sized monster and the jewel in her tiara started to glow.

Nephlite backed off a bit and hovered higher in the sky as he felt a build up of energy coming from the girl. This one had caused Jedite quite a bit of trouble, literally attacking the blond general and using her bare hands to beat the guy to within an inch of his life. At first he hadn't believed it, but if the power level he was sensing was even a fraction of what she had used against Jedite, he would have to rethink his whole energy gathering plans. Luckily this first attack was just an experiment to see how it would work beyond the planning stages. "Beryl will not be pleased." He muttered under his breath and noticed that Moon had dug her boyfriend out of the rubble and was holding his hand as she tried to wake the guy up.

On the other side of the court Ranma growled as she looked the moronic Youma over and jumped forward just as Tesunii flung a black ball of energy at her. Ranma wasn't sure what it was, but she slammed her food down on the ground and flipped to the side and dodge it before it could hit her. He Tiara flashed and a beam of silver energy fired out and hit the Youma with enough force to mangle it's body. Her grin was visious as the thing screamed in pain and exploded in a wave of dust. Then she slowly looked up at the long haired General and flared her aura to let him know that he was next.

"Starfire!"

Nephlite looked at who had yelled and cursed as he spotted Mars and Mercury standing beside Sailor Moon and they didn't look like they were in a good mood. "Damn it!"

"Come on down and lets finish this." Starfire said.

"We will finish this at another time." He yelled and vanished from sight.

Sighing a little, Ranma walked over to the others. "How is he?" She asked and pointed down at Tuxedo Mask and noticed with some surprise that even with his mask off she couldn't tell who he was. "Anybody know who he is?"

"He has the same kind of cloaking magic that we do Starfire, so unless we see him transform, we can't tell who he is." Mercury said as she scanned the guy.

"What happened?" Mars asked.

"One of Naru's friends was attacked, they seemed to have made it through the battle with only a little damage." Moon said as she looked over at the two unconscious girls. "I'm not sure why Rui isn't waking up though."

Mercury jumped over to the girl and made a quick scan. "It seems that only a tiny bit of her energy was returned when Starfire took out the Youma."

"That thing must have been using all that energy it collected to fight with." Mars said and muttered a few curses under her breath.

"Will she live?" Ranma asked.

Mercury nodded as she started to scan Usagi's friend. "Naru will be fine as well, she's only had tiny bit of her energy taken and will wake up feeling fine."

Starfire sighed. She had thought she might have arrived to late. "That's good."

"Tuxedo Mask on the other hand has taken quite a bit of damage. That first blast must have been something. The amount of damage on this side of the court is almost twice as high as it is on the other side and I'll bet he took a good portion of it to his side and back."

"At least he will live." Starfire muttered and wondered why Moon looked like she was so worried about the guy. "Moon, are you alright?"

Mercury and Mars both turned to look at the blond and saw how worried she looked. "He saved me a couple of times before the fight got so dangerous, I'm just scared he might have been hurt really badly."

"I think he has the same kind of healing abilities we do Sailor Moon, he's just taken quite a beating." Mercury explained as she finished her scans and put the little computer away.

"Did anyone happen to get that guys name?" Starfire asked.

"Why?" Mars asked.

"I could swear I've seen him somewhere before..." Starfire muttered.

"I saw him a couple days ago." Moon said. "That was the same guy that said he was a tennis coach and had a little talk with Rui while she was at practice after school."

Mercury noded and brought her computer out again. "Did he give his name?"

"Um....he said his name was...Sanjouin Masato." Moon said as she bit her lip in consentration.

"What are we going to do now?" Sarfire asked as she paced back and forth with her hands on the back of her head and noted the approaching sounds of sirens in the background.

"We need to get out of here before the police show up or we won't ever make it home." Mars said as she started to hear the sirens as well. "Lets all meet at the shrine..."

"Sorry, I can't go there anymore." Starfire said with a sigh.

Mars blinked and remembered that her Grandfather had kicked Ranma out for refusing to reveal everyone's identity. "Then...we need to meet and talk about this somewhere else."

"What about your place Moon?"

Sailor Moon shook her head. "My parents are home waiting for me to show up like always."

"Mercury?"

The blue haired scout wanted to tell them to forget it, but knew that the chances of her mother being home were actually kind of small. Ever since that Saotome woman had shown up a couple weeks back the two older women had been spending a lot of time together. There had been a couple of nights that her mother didn't even return home unil midnight or more, before getting about four hours sleep and going to work for a twelve hours shift. She didn't mind all the much, the Saotome woman was pretty depressed and had downed more than one bottle of sake while gazing at that postcard she carried with her all the time. "We can meet at my apartment, but we have to be careful if we do."

"Your mother?" Mars asked.

Mercury nodded. "That and my mom's friend has been around the place a lot lately."

"Will that be a problem over the next couple of hours?" Mars asked.

"There shouldn't be, but mom's friend happens to be that woman we ran into yesterday. That red headed woman with the sword and Kimono."

Starfire had to resist the urge to facefault and missed the odd look that Mars shot her. "Then we will have to be as quick as we can."

"Agreed." Mercury said. "Let's get Mask out of here, those sirens are only a couple blocks away now."

"I have to stay here and make sure Naru is alright." Usagi said as she detransformed. "I will have to keep her company, so inform me what happens at the meeting."

Starfire nodded and followed Mercury and Mars as they left the area at a full run and quickly vanished from sight. Usagi sighed, she had been able to tell there was something going on there between Ranma and Rei, but had no clue what it could be. She'd worry about it later, right now she needed to make sure Naru and that other girl were taken care of as the police and couple of ambulances showed up and a crowd started to surround what was left of the Tennis Court. Now all she had to do was lie convincingly enough not to make people suspicious, it was a talent that she did not like and yet had become quite good at over the last few months as Sailor Moon.

**********

Sipping at her coffee, Nodoka kept her emotions calm as she tried to think of a way to solve a couple of mysteries. Yesterday she had seen something that she hadn't expected to see and in her mind she had convinced herself that it was just wasn't possible. Even after everything she had said to her friend about her son, she hadn't wanted to belive what she already knew to be true. After visiting ancient cities, finding magical items and even being decended from a devil hunter clan, she had managed to fool herself into thinking that certain things were just impossible. But now, after seeing that girl in action for a second time she was absolutely possitive that she was using the Anything Goes system, the same one that Genma claimed wass the most dangerous martial art in the world. She had known about the red headed girl ever since the fight at the Airport, but never allowed herself enough time to really think about her in any detail. Maybe her subconscous mind had tried to protect her from coming to this realization, she just didn't know. Yesterday that had changed when she saw the girl in combat up close and been shocked to discover that she was using advanced forms of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, forms that she had only the vaguest knowledge of, and kicking ass doing it. There should have been only two people in the world that knew that style, Genma and her son, the one that claimed to have turned into a girl while in China. Glancing to the side and looked at the post card again and wondered if the words were true after all, she had read the thing a million times and memorized every word, every crease in the paper. It was the only contact she had ever recieved from her son in over eleven years and was the only proof she had that he was still alive.

Mamma:

I'm sorry to say that I am currently unable to live up to this contract like you wanted due to this little sex changing curse that the old man gave me. Heh, He has his own to deal with as well, so it's for the best. As such, to prevent my death I herby refuse to ever use or acknowledge the Saotome name again or until such time that I believe that it would be safe to use it again. Your ex-son...

Ranma

It was short and to the point and every word of it made her heart burn with a fury that had grown through the years, a fury that she blamed on Genma. That man had ruined her life, runied her sons life, and if her thoughts were right and that red headed girl that looked so much like she did when she was just a teenager, had also managed to turn her son into a girl. She sighed. That girl yesterday had been a high level master of the Art, but her eyes had been empty, as if she belived that she was alone and had no one in the world she could trust. If that girl really was Ranma there would be some adjustments to make, but after eleven years that wouldn't be to hard and with her connections there had to be a cure for her out there somewhere. They hardly knew each other, the biggest problem would be explaining all of Genma's lies. That bastard would have done everything in his power to make Ranma just like him, if that was indeed the case there was no way she could ever get her child back. Male or female, his mind could quite possiblely be so warped by now that the mere sight of her would send him into a rage.

There was a bit of doubt in her though and the more she thought about it the more she hoped that it was true. If she was Ranma, that meant that she wasnt' with Genma anymore and was on her own. Perhapse, with luck Genma's influence over her was no longer as strong as it used to be. She glanced over at her couch where Pink and Link were sleeping and wondered if her instincts had been right about these two girls. They hadn't been up and around all that much since yeasterday and figured that they were exsausted to some degree and hoped they might be able to provide her with some answers. She was a complete stranger to them and knew they probably wouldn't be around the house for very long once they woke up. They had their own plans and goals to accomplish, but a part of her had told her to make sure they survived the encounter with those girls. Over the years she had developed a kind of sixth sense that drew people to her that might be able to help her find her son and that very thing had started humming during her fight with that demon that had named itself Jade and tried to drain them all of energy and kill them all.

The monster was out there still and she had no way to really track its movements, she had come across the thing completely by accident. Perhaps she would get lucky again, but she doubted it, she had more important things to do than hunt down something that wasn't a demon taking a human form. She glanced over at her sword as it hung on the wall across the room and recalled how it had failed to work it's magic and give her the skills needed to fight the thing. It only worked on demons and other forms of undead, that thing had been alive. She was lucky that she carried her shot gun around with her wherever she went, it had saved her life on more than on occation. Only a few minutes before she had finished cleaning and reloading the thing and taken a break.

She stood up and wandered out of the room and headed outside to get the mail, it was late enough in the afternoon that a couple of things she was waiting for should have arrived by now. The sun was setting as she looked up into the sky to see the clouds take on a blood red hue as the last rays of the sun were finally extingished for the day. It was quite a sight and probably the reason she had let her guard down as something grabbed her by the hair and threw her into the air. Reflexes kicked in and Nodoka didn't cry out as she rolled in mid air and landed in a crouch and slid back a couple more feet. She turned to see who had thrown her and gasped as she came face to face with the one man on the planet she would have gladly tortured to death.

Genma Saotome.

He was still a hulking brute of a man and she again questioned what she had ever seen in the man. His dirty white Gi was well worn and stained with sweat and who knew what else as the man pushed his glasses back upon his face and grinned evily at her. "Hello No-chan, long time no see."

Nodoka reached for her sword and realized that she had left it inside the house and that she was almost completely defenceless. "Genma."

"I will make this quick and to the point woman, where is Ranma? Tell me or I will beat you to within an inch of your life."

"I haven't seen him in over ten years, how the hell could I know where he is now you putrid mass of shit?" She asked mildly. Though scared out of her mind, she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

"The boy has vanished and you are the only person he might possibly have come to see, I've made sure he can't go anywhere else. Now where is he, it's been weeks and he doesn't have the skills to survive on his own for this long. That means he had help and that only leaves you. NOW WHERE IS HE?!" Genma bellwed at the top of his lungs.

Nodoka backed up a couple of steps as she felt the power wafting off the man as his Ki swirled around him in an aura that was just one step away from becoming visible. Even back when they had been living together he had never shown this much power before and she wondered if he actually become an even more dangerous fighter over the years. She had thought he was at his peak back then, but it seemed she might have been a little hasty in that assumption. There was no way she could win this battle as it was, all her equipment was in the house or down in the second level basement where she kept her special items and 'He' was in the way.

"I haven't seen my son Genma, you made sure of that as well. If he had come here I would have had him out of the country and into a safe place faster than you can eat."

"Lies!" Genma yelled and Nodoka nodded to herself as she realized that he had been drinking. This kind of act was something that her coward of a husband would never do unless he was possitive he could win or he was to drunk to think straight. His drunkeness had been one of the main reasons she was ever able to get as close to him as she had over the years. That was where that other bastard came in, the one that had kept her from catching up with Genma every time she got close. Gendo Saotome, the family stratagist and criminal. Nodoka shook her head and glared at her 'husband' and wondered what he had in mind.

Genma growled like an animal and launched himself forward and for an instant Nodoka recalled when he had been like this on their wedding night. She had no doubts that he would quite willingly rape her if he felt up to it and ten years on the road had given him a lot of muscle, though the pot belly was a welcome sight as well. It meant that he was just as lazy and dishonorable as he had always been and would need to be punished for what he had done. To bad all he her weapons were still in the house, but she had learned over the years to never go anywhere unarmed. It was to dangerous to do so with Gendo Saotome always keeping an eye on her. She growled and let her anger show a bit and her hand went behind her and reached into the large bow she was wearing with her kimono. Half a blink later she had a small gun out and aimed it at Genma as he bore down on her.

Then she yelled "Die!" And pulled the trigger.

What came out of the gun wasn't what Genma would have expected, Nodoka had been planning to meet her husband for over ten years now she had numerous plans in the works. Her Hold Out gun was an idea she had been using for over five years. Her skills in martial arts and even magic were only low level and she had been forced to depend on the items she used in her job. That was were her gun came from, like her shot gun, this little pistal was magically enhanced to give her the advantage against and unsuspecting opponent. As the bullet left the barrel in a loud bang a wave of magic accompanied it like an air distortion. The bullet grazed the side of Genma's shoulder as he dodged to the side and did little damage, the air distortion on the other hand ran into him with the force of a kick from a horse.

Nodoka grinned as she saw Genma thown back several feet as his shoulder explodes in pain, his Gi ripped to shredds around his arm, and a spray of blood as the wave ripped the wound in his shoulder wide open. He ends up on his back as the echo of the gun shot fades away and takes a second to figure out what has happened and he growls as he sits up and goans in pain. His arm is a mess of small cuts and one deep wound that is sending blood running down his arm and dripping off his elbow to the ground. He turns to glare at his wife and goes into a blind rage as she cocks the gun for another shot. "What is that thing, woman?"

"I use it to fight the demons you and your brother have sent here over the years. It also comes in hand when I'm out on a job for the museum."

Genma staggers to his feet holding his bleeding arm. "If you think something like that will stop me from taking what I want you better think again woman."

"Looks to me like I might have the upper hand her after all." Nodoka said with a grin. She had three more shots to go and if they all hurt him this much she might actually have a chance to destroy this bastard once and for all.

"Don't get your hopes up to much woman, you caught me by surprise once, you won't get a second chance."

"Who's the one standing here bleeding?"

Fury still evident in his eyes, Genma just grinned and stood a little staighter and moved his wounded arm around as if wasn't injured at all. "It will take more than a cut and a little bruising to stop me." His aura flared into the visible spectum, pulsing with a yellow glow that lit up the area.

Cursing silently, Nodoka gripped her gun a bit tighter and aimed it at his chest. "Then we shall see just how much damage you can take!"

Genma crouched a little and grinned.

She pulled the trigger in three fast shots that flew at him in quick order, and watched as Genma fadded from sight and the magically charged bullets flew through the space he had been in just a tenth of a second before. Cursing some ore she tossed the gun away as it's ran out of ammo and pulled long knife out of her sleeve and felt a bit of a chill go down her spine. He was using techniques he had told her were sealed for being to dangerous, but it looked like he had lied about that too. She couldn't remeber the name of this particular move, only that she had no way to defend against it with only her knife as a weapon. "Where are you?!"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Said Genma's disembodied voice.

She couldn't trace it to where it might have come from, but she figured he would nearby attempting to frighten her and ambush her. She had learned a few knife fighting techniques when she had been training to become a devil hunter, so she flailed about for a few seconds trying to hit him at random and backing away from where she had been standing. Then a flash of movemet caught her eye and there was a sharp pain in her wrist as the knife was knocked away and she was thrown to the ground. She lands hard and turns to get up just as Genma reappears standing above her, she gasps and starts to crawl away. Genma just stands there looking like he's about to kill her and she hopes that she can at least get away. Rolling to her feet she reached up to the bun where her long redish brown hair was wound up on her head and pulled out a couple of longer than normal hair needles. Her hair fell down her back in a wave as she took up defensive position and glared at Genma.

They were her last resort weapons and the ones that she would use to make sure she had a chance to get out of a situation like this. She snarled and moved, using what little training she had with these weapons, to get into a position where she could strike this man that she hated with all her soul. She went for his eyes, about the only place that the needles would do any kind of damage. He was quite drunk and now angry, she hopped that it would give her enough of an advantage that could at least shove one of the neeedles through his ear and into his brain. In the next insant she knew she was in trouble as she realized that he was so drunk that he wasn't even bothering to hold back like he always did. His after image just wafted away even as his fist impacted her gut and sent her crashing to the ground with a cry of pain.

"Where...Punch...Is...Punch...He?!" Genma screamed as he held Nodoka by her air and screamed in her face, punching her with every word. A calm, logical part of Nodoka's mind wondered when he had develped that insane glint in his eyes and then dismissed it as irrelivent because she was about to die and knew it.

"What this? Over."

"Yes, what fat man do with nice lady. Over."

Genma's head turned to look behind him and he spotted Pink and Link standing nearby giving him a rather cruel look. They had a pair of Scimitars out and were ready to attack him. "Stay out of something that is not your buisness or you will join her next."

"Fat man no know when up against womans of Amazon Tribe?" Pink said with and evil grin. "You learn hard way. Over."

Genma tossed Nodoka to the ground and stands up, flaring his Ki just enough to show these girls whos the leader around her. "Leave, or die."

"Fat man smell like he need more beer." Link said as she pinched her nose. "Over."

"Girls, run, he's a monster you can't beat..." Nodoka tried to warn them, but it came out in a gurrgle of noise through her broken nose.

Snorting, Genma hunched over and vanished from sight right before the girls got to him. They didn't have long to wait for his attack though as their weapons shatter in their hands and they were kicked the length of the yard. Pink and Link didn't stand a chance against him as slammed into the house with enough force to crater the wall with their bodies and they slipped and fell to the ground unconscious even as Genma was dismissing them and turned back to his 'wife'. "Now, woman, tell me what I want to know or I will start breaking your bones one at a time."

"I-I don't know..." Nodoka moaned out in fear and tried to crawl away.

Her hair was grabbed and used to drag her back and Genma snarled in her hear, the stink of hard liquer wafting about him as if he had bathed in the stuff. "WHERE?!"

Then to her surprise, Genma gave a grunt and was almost catapulted across the yard. He only gasped in shock at the attack and managed to twist around in mid air and bounce off the gate and launch himself into the air to survey what was attacking him. The yard was clear as far as he could tell, but there was someone here with quite a bit of power and it certainly wasn't these weak and useless women that were keeping him from finding his son. He landed and shouted. "Whoever did that just signed their death warrent, get out here and face me like a man and not a coward!"

"HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!" Came a laugh that sent a chill of fear through Genma's spine. He turned as white as a sheet as he traced the laugh to the roof of the house and saw the Demon he and Soun had killed over ten years ago. Happosai was crouched in the shadows, his form barely vissible except for his glowing white eyes as they glared at him. The small old man moved forward and glared down at his former student and grinned as he puffed on is pipe and blew some panty shaped smoke rings. "Hello Genma, long time no see."

"You!" Genma growled. "You are no match for me now old man, I've learned tricks and techniques that you can't possibly have counters for. I will make sure you stay dead this time."

"You haven't even been alive fifty years Genma, my ex-student, what makes you think I taught you everything about my school?"

Genma growled.

"You aren't even a licenced teacher for Anything Goes, you were never able to pass my test. What makes you think you have a chance to now?"

"What are you doing here?" Genma yelled.

Happosai cackled. "Why to see you of course, do you think I would just let you get away with trying to kill me without getting a bit of revenge?"

Genma flared his aura and fired a beam of Ki at Happosai so fast that he was nothing bit a blur. "I'll kill you first!"

The old man just continued to smoke his pipe and glare as the Ki blast hit him and blew a large hole in the roof of the house. The smoke of the explosion quickly disappated as Happosai jumped down off the roof and tapped his pipe out. He glanced over at the three women and narrowed his eyes as he wondered what had happened to the student he had trained a decade before. He had heard of a persons personality changing, but this was a bit much to believe. At one point in time Genma had almost been as head over heals in love with Nodoka over there that the two had been all but inseperatble. What he had just witnessed was like night and day compared to what he remembered of Genma. "Genma, Genma, Genma even after ten years of training and you still make the same mistakes? You were always kind of pathetic, but that shot was probably the most inelegant and screwed up use of Ki I have ever seen."

Genma turned even whiter as he turn around and ran from the property as if all the demons of hell were on his tail. Happosai sighed as he twirled his pipe and wondered for a second if he should follow the moron and decided against it. It was pretty rare that he was on the side of light, so to speak, but Nodoka and those two chinese cuties over there needed to be 'nursed' back to health and he was just the man to do the job. Grinning he hopped over to Nodoka and examined her a bit to see how well Genma had worked the woman over. He winced at the amount of blood on the woman's face, but it was from a broken nose so it just looked worse than it was and the rest was just severe bruising. He had treated himself for such inujuries enough times that he had the process for fixing it down to an art. He noticed that she was also semi-conscious now and used that to his advantage as he tapped a presure point on her chest to deaden her body of pain and copped a feel at the same time.

Even as he was tapping the point his other hand reached out and reset her nose with a crunch. The blood flow stopped almost completely a few seconds later as he tapped a second set of points and prodded her Ki paths into sending healing Ki throughout her body to fix up the buises that covered her body. She wasn't a well trained martial artist, but the fact that she even had Ki paths to manipulate kind of surprised him, but he would worry about that later. Picking her up he hopped over to the house in one high jump and quickly carried her inside lay her on the couch. A quick search of the house let him find her room and she was placed in her own bed a few seconds later. Then he moved out to check on the two down teens, they had just taken quite a blow to the back and from what he could see they had taken the hard landing like well trained martial artists.

Within minutes they were all inside the house and in bed sleeping off what Genma had done to them in his drunken stupper. Happosai shook his head, Genma was a theif and con man, but that cold blooded killer was something all together different. Genma's aura has been amped up to the max during that fight and Happosai had to admit that the boy's Ki blast had been impressive even with all the flaws he had spotted in it's creation. He figured Genma had stolen it from someone at some point or coppied a move that he saw and tried to add it to his own list of techniques and it had backfired on him. Happosai hopped up on the table, filled his pipe, and sat down to think over what he was going to do next. That was when he spotted the post card sitting on the table and picked it up to see if it might hold some clue to this mystery of his, and to snoop of course.

"Changed into a girl..." Happosai muttered. "That moron went to Jusenkyo. I wonder what kind of curse Genma has?"

**********

To Be continued...

End Notes - Well after a long period of fighting my Writers Block I have managed to get this chapter finished up and sent out. This is a miracle if you ask me, I thought I'd never get it done to tell you the truth. I took forever and even when I got the first draft done I had to go back and hack off the ending because it was way to close to the original battle in the Anime so I amped it up and added more Ranma to the mix, I couldn't let Usagi do everything and with Ranma there things will be changing for the Scouts here pretty soon.

A couple chapters back I had a fight with Genma and that Ninja and now Genma is terrorizing Nodoka, so I bet you are asking yourself what is going on? Well I won't reveal all, but as this is a Sailormoon crossover I decided to alter Genma's history a bit. Its only a side story and a bit darker than expected, but he has some issues to work out and leave it at that. He absolutely refuses to believe that he was the one at fault for Jusenkyo and has lied to himself so much that he actually believes it now. Ranma and Genma will have a reconing, but it's a ways off yet and will end with surprise ending that I have in mind. (Now just how long will it take me to actually reach the end?) I've actually been considering cutting or reducing the size of the rainbow crystal arc, but that mostly deals with Zoicite so I don't know just yet.

*Saionji Rui - http://www.tcp.com/doi/smoon/dict/dict-4.html (it took me a couple of hours to find this girl last name)

*Hand Signals - http://www.millenniumsend.com/user/pender/articles/hands.html I can't say all of these will be used by the scouts, but this kind of what Ami looked up on the internet and a few of them will apply to the girls as the story continues. Giving them some depth and more characterization. Ranma will know most of these already, having spent a little time with the Japanese armed forces learning from one of the teachers during the training trip. Giving her knowledge in other areas one wouldn't normally expect.

**********

Small Omake

The stars flicker around him as the power of his spell goes off and begins to form into a picture of light. Nephlite is surprise when the energy begins to waver, but he frowns and adds more power to it and forces the spell to work and within seconds he is looking at a picture of a teen aged girl with long, light brown hair done up in a pony tail and a competitive spirit. She is dressed in a tennis outfit and holding a tennis racquet in mid swing. The nature of the spell isolates a person and identifies them for him and he grins evilly and laughs as he is given the name *Rui Saionji.

"Rui Sainji you are about to aid me in my mission with your very life!" Nephlite said with a patented evil villain laugh.

He let the spell go and the room returned to normal, it had even given him the girl's location. All he had to do was go and get her and everything would be perfect by this time tomorrow. On the way to the front door he transformed his clothes into a suit and taking on his Sanjouin Masato identity, adjusting his sports jacket and grabbing his keys. He flung the door open and leaped into the air...and landed in a massive face plant right in the middle of the driveway, skidded ten feet until he finally collapsed into the grass laying on his side and groaning. Thanking all the gods that Zoicite hadn't been there to see it happen.
The sprinklers turned on and instantly soaked him, the broken one by his head popped up a second later and shot him in the crotch.

"Owie."

Next time he would remember to get the car before jumping off the porch.

**********

Yeah, that was it!