Can It Get Any Worse?: Prologue[Ranma][Sailor Moon][some other stuff][x-over]
Can It Get Any Worse?: Prologue
"Hey, watch it!" I screamed as I narrowly avoided a bolt of lightning.
Why won't the damned devil hunters ever leave me alone? I'm not even a
demon. There isn't a trace of demonic energy or blood within my body
or soul, so why do all the nutjobs with a little magic come after me?
Turning to face my attackers, I came face to face with the bane of
demons the world over. The Sailor Senshi. It's funny. I've always been
repulsive to the 'good' guys and all the really 'evil' horible
creatures from the various levels of hell have treated me like their
little brother. You tend to pick up all kinds of useful information
from demons who have just gotten their asses kicked and feel like
whining.

I never really believed the stories about the senshi, though. I mean,
what kind of idiot mixes it up with the denizens of hell wearing
nothing but a skimpy jumper and an almost nonexistant skirt? Okay, I
have met plenty of people stupid enough to do that in my eighteen
years of life, but none of them were actually able to survive despite
their stupidity. Then again, if the stories were true, these bitches
were packing some heavy duty firepower. That lightning bolt had been
pretty heavy on the magic.

"Um, why are you girls trying to kill me? Sailor Jupiter, right?" I
asked pleasantly, all the while building my power levels up from a
resting to active state and wrapping myself in as many planes of
protective force as I could muster on such short notice."What's a cute
girl like you doing throwing around lightning bolts at a nice guy like
me?"

Sailor Jupiter appeared dumbstruck, a heavy blush coloring her cheeks.
Holy shit, it worked! Sailor Moon, at least that's who I assumed the
blond chick with the odangos was, looked down to a small black cat and
asked,"Are you sure that he's evil? What has he done to deserve being
dusted?"

Nasty creatures, cats. Never had much use for the little buggers.
"Don't be a fool, he has evil rolling off of him in waves," the cat
hissed. Well I'll be damned, a talking cat. For the record, the 'evil
rolling of me in waves' isn't really evil. I personally think that I'm
just further along the evolutionary ladder than everyone else and
anyone remotely sensitive to it gets jealous on a subconscious level
and automatically thinks I deserve to die. Oh well, that's life.

"But Luna, what kind of speech can I make if he hasn't done anything
bad yet?" Sailor Moon whined to her cat, the apparent brains of the
operation.

Meanwhile, I was throwing myself to the pavement to avoid a geyser of
liquid ice and a beam of plasma. What a day, what a day. I was up and
on my feet before they could reach capacitance again. Here goes."All
right, I tried to be Mr. Not Kill Anybody, but since no one wants to
cooperate with me, I'm just going to have to get serious!" I snapped.
By now I had gathered a substantial amount of energy around myself. It
took very little effort when these girls were practically bleeding
power into the air.

The next salvo of magical projectiles flowed around me doing nothing
but ruining a perfectly good arcade.

"Nooooooo!!!!!" Sailor Moon shrieked, staring at the burning pile of
rubble down the street. Tears streaked her cheeks and her lower lip
trembled. She turned to me and shouted,"Y-you m-meanie! For destroying
my favorite arcade and ruining a place of enjoyment for countless
children I, Sailor Moon, shall destroy you!"

"You're joking, eh?" I retorted."You're blaming that back there on
me?" I gestured to the rubble."I'd say it was your friends who ruined
your precious arcade. Isn't that right Mercury, Mars, Venus?"

"Stop trying to confuse me, enemy of fun!" Oh boy, real brainchild
here. Now I would like to coin a new term. Magical howitzer. That's
the only thing I can think of to describe this girl. I'd never felt
anything like it before. Not that she had an unusual amount of magic
within herself, no, she was just the owner of one hell of an energy
crystal, but Kamis above and below, if I could handle that much raw
energy at once I am pretty freaking certain that not many entites
short of the All Mighty Himself could face me.

The only thing that saved me was the already active protective
barriers I'd enacted and the ridiculous amount of time it took for
Sailor Moon to activate her attack. Well, the first one might have
helped if I had stood there and let myself get blasted out of
existance. I was on the roof of the 711 across the street and wrapped
in shadows before anyone knew what had happened.

So much for a nice liesurely visit in Tokyo. Hawaii is nice this time
of year, I hear. Yes, I always have wanted to learn to surf.

"Hmmm-mmmm," came the quiet cough from behind me.

I whirled, confronted by yet another of the senshi. Me and my sweet
tooth were really going to get me killed one day. I hadn't really
needed that gallon of triple chocolate fudge ice cream...No, I think I
did. Screw this. I told them I was going to get serious. Not my fault
no one ever takes me seriously. My attack came from either side of the
green-haired and until now never before seen senshi. Too bad that both
blades of energy passed through her harmlessly.

"I'm not really here," the senshi informed me.

"Wow, I was wondering why those didn't hurt you. I'm just such a
complete idiot that I couldn't tell for myself." So I was in a bad
mood, sue me.

"Nothing is stopping me from summoning the others and having you
eliminated," green hair warned.

I snorted,"Please, I'm about to piss myself at the very thought." I
sobered though. This wasn't some off the wall preprogrammed spell-
slinger. She really knew how to handle her power and she didn't seem
hostile, yet."Really, the only I don't totally outclass is Sailor Moon
and she doesn't have the speed or control to make a difference while
I'm tearing her and her friends into little pieces. So, what do you
want?"

Green hair nodded, in satisfaction if I'm not mistaken."You are most
likely correct in your assumption, but in such an instance I would
have full access to my temporal powers and would be able to easily
able to destroy you myself."

"Temporal mage?" She nodded again. Almost as useless as cats. Heh,
never thought taking the time to study up on time manipulation through
magic would be helpful. I'm not attuned enough with the cosmos and all
that jazz to truly manipulate time, but I'd bet my life on being able
to defend against the stuff. Not that this unusual senshi needed to
know that.

"To the point," she continued."I'm aware of the skill and power you
possess and know of the trouble you have faced with lesser devil
hunters since you were a child. It is within my power to grant you a
certain artifact that would mask your true identity and distort the
unusual energy pattern generated by your body that misleads so many
others."

Too good to be true, way too good to be true."And the catch?" Here it
comes.

"As you must have seen, my fellow senshi are not lacking in power.
They simply do not have the knowledge and discipline to properly use
what they have. The very nature of my power bars me from taking a hand
in their education. If you would teach them, I would be willing to
make good on my offer." I couldn't detect any falsehood in her voice,
but illusions aren't all that trustworthy.

"If, and only if, the deal is made in blood." Time for the clencher.
"Magically binding with exceptions made if any one of them can not
actually learn." She scowled."Hey, Sailor Moon takes the whole blond
thing to the limit. I'm not going to have myself eternally bound to
teaching an idiot."

"Deal." Then I felt the lines of force connecting the illusion before
me to the mind of its caster strengthen and snap taut as the real
thing teleported to the rooftop. Nice spell.

Silently, the unnamed senshi drew a small jewel-hilted athame from
some form of pocket space and lightly ran it across the back of her
left hand. Good, she wasn't one of those fools that slashed their palm
open whenever one of the various reasons to use blood arose. I did the
same with my own vorpal bladed athame. It was a much plainer affair
than my counterpart's but I bet hers couldn't call up a higher level
demon just by carving a smiley face in the ground.

We rubbed the backs of our hands together, mentally aligning the
magical force surrounding both of us and allowing them to mingle
together for the barest instant. No conflicts. I nodded. The agreement
was made.

"The artifact you spoke of..." I prompted.

"Oh yes." The green-haired woman's arm disappeared into another
spatial pocket and rummaged around for almost a minute. When she
finally pulled her arm free a bra and two pair of panties hung from
her arm along with the black metal ring clasped in her palm. The
undergarments vanished almost to fast for me to have seen but the ring
remained."I assume you know how to change the color of metals."

"Yeah, that's kid stuff." It really is. I accidentally learned how to
do it when I was five.

"Wear the ring on any finger you want to and simply change it from
black to white. Your identity and prescense will be totally disguised.
Return it to black and the effects will be negated."

I accepted the ring and slid it onto my right ring finger. It fit
perfectly.

"You'll need these also." She drew a manilla envelope from yet another
spatial pocket and gave it to me."Inside is the address and keys to
your new apartment and an ATM card. Rent is paid for and I'll be
monitoring all expenditures, so don't get carried away. I'll arrange a
meeting with the senshi and inform you of the time and place within a
day"

If the deal wasn't sealed against anything but the destruction of the
universe, I would be pretty worried right about now. It was just too
good. I felt the beginnings of another teleport spell and quickly
asked,"Who are you?" She did know quite a bit about me. It was only
fair.

"Sailor Pluto," was the only response I got before she faded away. I
was hoping for a name and a phone number. Not my fault that she was
hot.

The senshi who were now to be my students were nowhere in sight.

****

I sought out my new place immediately. Not that I didn't just love to
prowl the streets of Tokyo at four a.m., but a few hours of sleep
never hurt anyone. It took an hour of roof hopping, and occassional
bursts of flight to find the apartment. It was in one of the more
expensive areas of Tokyo. Sailor Pluto must really have money to burn.
Well furnished with all the latest high-tech junk, a tv with a few
thousand channels(thirty of which were porn), and a very well-stocked
fridge. This was too good.

****

Early the next morning a horrendous scream combined with a moderately
powerful 5.0 earthquake shook Tokyo and its surrounding suburbs.

****

Goddamnit!!! I knew it was too good to be true. Damnit, damnit,
damnit!!! Arrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

The change is complete. Absofuckinglutely complete, right down to the
plumbing. How could one little ring, barely enchanted, work such a
dramatic shift? I really don't care. Now I have to turn into one of
the sweetest pieces of ass I've ever seen just to teach a bunch of
inept devil hunters how to do their job. Oooooooo, Pluto is so dead.
Just as soon as the agreement is fulfilled.

****

The busty redhead's image disappearred from the gateway, replaced by
that of a taller, black-haired male. Sailor Pluto, a.k.a. Setsuna
Meiou, didn't think she would be dropping by earth for some years to
come. Not on the same continent as Ranma Saotome, anyway.

****

Author's Notes: I've been suffering from really bad writer's block for
a while now. That combined with being cut off from the internet by my
mom the super psycho mega bitch has really kept me from writing or
getting any inspiration. Hopefully this will be the start of at least
a semi-regularly released piece of fiction. If not, I'm sorry. This is
written in a style that I'm not really all that familiar and I'm not
all that happy with the story, but it got me out of my funk so any C&C
on ways to improve it would be really appreciated. Not that I get too
many chances to check my e-mail, but I go back to college in a few
weeks(praise all the various gods and demons worshipped by all you
religious types) and will have true access once again.

dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 1[Ranma][SM][x-over]
"Why did she make us meet here?" Usagi whined. She was still dressed
in her pajamas and had static electricity crackling through her
unbrushed and unmeatballed hair. The other girls, with the exception
of Ami, were looking equally bedraggled. They hadn't stopped searching
for the new agent of evil until well after sunrise. That had been
three hours ago.
Rei, baggy eyed and more ornery than ever, looked at her semi-friend
flatly and said,"This is Setsuna, she wouldn't tell us if the end of
the world was three minutes away. It probably has something to do with
that guy, though."

Makoto sighed wistfully."I really wish he wasn't some sort of horrible
demon/monster thing in a human suit, because he was a major babe." She
blushed at the memory of the compliment he had paid her.

"Oh shut up," someone snapped from behind them. They all turned with
varying degrees of sluggishness to see the new arrival. She was short,
red-haired, and made all the girls except for one who will remain
nameless(she blushed instead) nearly insane with jealousy."So that's
Pluto's name, eh? Setsuna. Anyone know her last name?"

****

I was not in a good mood. Three dozen pigeons could attest to that, if
they weren't piles of ash and feathers now. And that bus really
shouldn't have gotten in my way.

"Who are you?" black hair and baggy eyed asked in an 'Oh please give
me a reason to kill you' voice.

I might not be able to get to Setsuna, but there were plenty of
targets around here for a little petty vengeance."I'm the retard that
Setsuna tricked into trying to teach you girls how to use your powers.
You all are the sailor senshi, right?" There was a very strong
resembalance between these girls and the senshi from the night before.
At least they could do a passable glamore spell on their own, at least
one strong enough to mislead me. My life would have been a good deal
easier if I had ever been able to do more than make a pimple
disappear.

"What?" the same girl continued.

"Okay, I'll go slowly so no one misunderstands the words that are
coming out of my mouth. I am named Ranma. I use magic. I like to blow
stuff up and kill people that piss me off. I got suckered into
teaching you all how to do your job." I formed a globe of prizmatic
light in my left hand and tossed it into the air. It exploded into
hundreds of motes of light that blossomed into flowers wherever they
struck the ground. A simple illusion that faded quickly, but it served
to get the point across.

"Wow, that was so pretty!" tall, blonde, and 'blonde' exclaimed."Are
you a new senshi? What's your planet? Do you have a cat like Luna or
Artemis? What color is your skirt?" And the deluge continued for all
of three minutes without a single break to breathe.

I noticed that the other girls were all giving the air head looks of
disgust at least as malevolent as mine. Goodie, dissention within the
ranks.

"No, I would kill myself before I let myself be caught dead in one of
those things you call an outfit," I said, finally managing to break
the torrent of neverending questions."I am going to teach you girls
magic. Does anyone not understand that?"

Lo and behold, the girl of a million questions raised her hand."Do you
mean we're going to learn to pull rabbits out of hats and stuff?"

I looked at a girl with short blue/black hair. The spark of an unusual
intelligence burnt within her dark eyes. Wonderful. At least one with
more brains than a turnip."Could you explain to her that I am supposed
to teach you magic? You know, wrath of the kami kind of stuff."

Non-stupid was explaining while I was being eyeballed suspisciously by
three other girls. To break the uneasy silence I asked,"About the
skirts, do you where those by choice or are they some kind of required
senshi uniform thing?"

They all had the slightly shell shocked expression of someone who just
found out that they're gay. Finally the tall brown-haired girl
answered,"They come with the transformation."

"Transformation?" Great. Now they spring something like a magical
transformation on me. Setsuna was really racking up uncool points.

Long black hair elbowed tall brown hair and she remained silent."Look,
I don't have a choice in the matter. I made a blood pact with Sailor
Pluto. You know who I'm talking about? Tall, has green hair, and
really needs her ass kicked."

"Well, that is true," muttered long black hair.

Before I could get any more info, the smart one called,"I think she
understands now." And it only took five minutes.

I pointed to tall brown hair and said,"She just mentioned a
transformation. Would someone like to explain that a little better?"

"I can do that." Ah, Setsuna was actually stupid enough to show up. I
may not be able to hurt her, but boils and oozing sores don't really
count. No wait, the forces surrounding the image were skewed. It was
just an illusion. Damn, guess I'll have to settle for the gentler
curses.

"That was a real nasty trick you played on me, Setsuna," I
commented."One day you'll regret it."

Setsuna just nodded and introduced me to each of the girls. With names
to put to the faces the glamores were completely broken and I could
easily place them from the night before."The transformation is a short
cut method that allows the senshi to access their power and provides
them with certain spell templates that require no actual casting to
invoke. The transformation automatically includes a glamore and
magical body armor."

I nodded as she explained. The practice wasn't unheard of, at least it
wasn't in the time when most of my more potent tomes of arcane
knowledge were written. I'd never read of such an overall effect
though. Magical body armor? Heh, heh heheheh. My full blown laughter
stopped Setsuna from continuing."Those little pieces of ribbon and
spandex are magical body armor?"

"I'll have you know that during the Silver Millenium that style was
highly fashionable," Setsuna retorted tartly.

Sigh."What effect does the stuff have besides being every fifteen year
old's wet dream?"

"Lessens physical and mystical blows and quadruples overall physical
abilities." This time Ami answered. She had definite potential, both
in power and the full range of mental faculties needed to grasp the
more difficult points of advanced sorcery.

Hmm, maybe I could alter that part of the transformation spell to give
them some decent armor, maybe an actual weapon besides that ridiculous
sceptre of Usagi's."Well then. That's all I need to know I guess. You
can run along now, Setsuna. I expect you'll be needing to hop on the
toilet in about..."I looked at my watch,"six seconds." Six seconds
passed in silence then the illusion of Sailor Pluto abruptly vanished.

"What did you do to her?" Minako gasped.

"Explosive diarhhea." I grinned evilly. The girls all sported looks of
shocked horror."If you knew what she did to me then you wouldn't think
I'm such a horrible person."

I was ignored for a few minutes while a spontaneous debate on what
punishment Setsuna deserved for sticking them with a psychopath like
me. They could at least have the good sense to call me sociopath like
I deserve. I'm not really crazy, really, but I have an image to
maintain.

"Enough of this crap. We have all day to work on deciding what to
teach to whom and I don't plan on wasting it. Get those pen things
that you use to become senshi out and hand them over." They were all
reluctant, especially Rei, but my hard, glowing-eyed stare diffused
that situation. I have to give whoever made these things some credit.
No one would ever think that they were powerful magical tools, novelty
vibrators yes, but never what they truly were.

"Well, here goes nothing," I said, making sure that I had all four
pens and a locket firmly grasped in my right hand. A flash of green
light and a screeching/crunching sound were the only visible effects
generated by the destruction of the henshin rods.

I expected gasps and maybe a few screams, but not Rei lunging for my
throat with claws extended. Despite my suprise, I was easily able to
erect a barrier capable of holding off a completely ignorant,
nonmagically enhanced mortal. This girl has some serious anger control
issues.

"Calm down, damnit. I had to do that. It released your magic into you
without leaving behind a conduit for it to be stolen or controlled by
someone else." Geeze, this was going to be a long decade.

I wasted the next hour determining that each girl had an extreme
elemental affinity that was so ingrained that almost all other magic
was beyond their ability to use. Not my fault. They would all be
extremely good at what they could do, though. Usagi was going to be a
problem. Not just because my left shoe was more intelligent than her,
but because as her control over her true powers grew, her control over
that giant energy crystal she wore as a broach would lessen. She
probably would have been more effective if Setsuna had just excluded
her. I guess I shouldn't complain, I do afterall have all intentions
of taking that crystal with me when I finish this job. None of the
senshi will be able to use it anyway and they don't have to turn into
a freaking girl so they won't be hunted 24/7. Yes, with that crystal
world domination may not be too far over the horizon.

"Finally, we can get to the actual learning. This is a very weak spell
that is useless as anything but a magical flashlight. It may not even
be that good if you generate a dark color." I drew my athame and made
a few quick passes in the air, leaving ribbons of white and green
light."Stare at the patterns until your eyes water so badly that you
can't see anymore. When you've done that do it again and again until
you understand how to do what the instructions say." Sure, this is the
hard way, but I'll be damned if I'm going to make it easy on them. It
would take just as long either way, and this method makes it easier to
learn the more complex stuff.

No one even questioned me. I spent half an hour focusing the spiritual
energy that permeated this shrine through my athame and using it to
rework the spells that I had absorbed from the henshin rods. No
exertion at all on my part and I had changed the Sailor Senshi from
sex objects into armorclad and nicely armed devil hunters. I'd let
them activate the spell themselves sometime later and see how they
liked it. I had barely finished when Ami beckoned me over to her.

A fist sized sphere of soft blue light was slowly orbiting her head.
She was a fast learner. She was even making it move."Nice work. It's
good to know that someone here actually deserves the power they were
gifted with," I sighed.

"This is what the spell is supposed to make, sensei?" she asked shyly.

I nodded and said,"Yep. You caught on quickly. No other spell is even
a fraction as easy to learn as this one, but at this rate you may get
another weak illusion finished today."

Ami beamed at my praise. I was about to go check on the progress of
the others when she shyly said,"Ranma-sensei, I know that you're not
very happy to be teaching us, and that you were tricked into it, but
could you try to be patient with us? Especially Usagi. She isn't as
...dumb as she looks or acts. We've all been through a lot together
and she's never let us down."

I nodded without comment. It wouldn't do to upset my only promising
student. I decided that maybe it wouldn't hurt to be a 'little' nicer
to the girls, but Usagi, in my opinion, was still dumber than my shoe.
Rei was the next to successfully cast the spell. Not suprising now
that I knew she had some pretty extensive spiritual training. Her
natural auraul color was blood red. I was starting to notice a pattern
with this whole color scheme. Next came Makoto with deep green
followed by Minako with warm yellow, and finally Usagi with virgin
white.

"It's pretty late, at least too late for you to learn another spell."
That wasn't entirely true. Ami had managed to learn the flower trick,
but she was vastly outgunning her friends with her learning curve.
Setsuna probably wanted the purely offensive and defensive to be the
main focus. Good, as soon as she got of the toilet she could look back
and see me spending weeks on useless crap. Of course if she understood
more than her temporal magic she could easily know that there wasn't
much other way to teach the senshi.

Before I made my escape I asked,"Do any of you have any actual combat
training?" I wasn't hoping for much, but sometimes even I can be
suprised. Why was I going to teach the senshi how to fight? Beats me.
I guess I like to do a good job, even if I was tricked into it.

"I know how to do this really neat super kick thingy that helped beat
a youma a long time ago." I ignored Usagi's babbling and waited for
anymore responses.

"I have my first dan in kempo," Makoto volunteered. Hallelujeuh!

"I'm a black belt in karate," Rei answered. Praise Bill Gates!

See, never have any hope and anything short of death is a pleasant
suprise."Good. Tomorrow we start the physical side of your education."
I didn't give them time to ask any questions. I sunk into the shadows
and rose beside a trash can in the park across the street. All in all
not too bad of a day. Setsuna should be noticing the mutant lice any
time now.

****

Far off in space in the really darks part where evil tended to
spontaneously appear for no reason but to give super hero types
anxiety attacks nothing was happening and all was right with the
galaxy.

****

Deep under miles of ocean, nothing was stirring, not even a giant
squid, much less a force for evil.

****

Several abandoned fortresses and castles from the time of the Silver
Millenium remained abandoned.

****

Thanks to an industrious American named Quinn Malory there were no
unusual dimensional invaders eying our own little piece of semi-
quantum stability. They were all too busy fighting off a prolific race
of eyeball eating things with an unreasoning hatred of humans that
young Quinn was inadvertently leading on a grand tour of the known
multiverse.

****

And besides a small city in southern California with an extremely high
vampire to human ratio, there was very little active involvement with
the forces of hell.

****

So, why was Setsuna getting the Inner Senshi a classical sorcerous
education?

****

Ranma didn't care for the whole safety of the world, cosmic balance
between good and evil crap. He figured if things ever got bad enough
where life on Earth was threatened, he could just call up a gateway to
an alternate earth or maybe try to break into heaven. Everyone has to
have a hobby.

Disgustedly, Ranma threw down the tv remote and stalked into the
kitchen. He would never have guessed that unlimited access to as much
free porn as he could stand would take all the fun out of actually
watching it. Damnit, Setsuna was just asking for a viscious case of
crabs.

****

Across Tokyo in a suprisingly large house for such a crowded area, one
Soun Tendo, emotional wreck extraordanaire, was rereading his mail.

Tendo, bringing Ranma from China


Saotome,

"Oh happy day! Girls! Kasumi, Nabiki, Akane! Come here! Your father
has an announcement to make!

****

"I said no and I mean no!" Ryoga shouted in fury."I would rather die
than pretend that I was Ranma! Do you hear me?! I would rather DIE! Do
you have any idea what he would do to me if he found out I was
impersonating him again?"

"What could be worse than turning into a pig when you get splashed
with cold water?" Genma asked dumbly. He had to do something or the
schools would never be joined. If they could get rid of the boy's
directional curse and have those fangs ground down, Nodoka may even be
fooled.

"I don't know," Ryoga said calmly before exploding,"Maybe being a pig
all the time!!!"

The boy had a point."What if I taught you secret techniques so
dangerous that I sealed them away years ago? Techniques powerful
enough to defeat even my misguided son."

Ryoga lowered the umbrella that was about to crush Genma's skull and
asked,"What techniques? Magic?" He shuddered at the thought of using
something as horrible as magic.

"No, you dolt! Martial arts techniques, not that magic crap. The Umi-
senken and Yama-senken are powerful beyond belief and can only be
truly mastered by someone both strong of body and mind." Genma looked
at Ryoga doubtfully as he spoke the 'mind' part. There really wasn't
much choice though.

"And all I have to do is pretend that I'm Ranma and you'll teach me
how to defeat the real Ranma?" There had to be more to the deal.

Genma forced a laugh."Well of course you'll have to marry one of
Tendo's daughters. I hear that they're all more than nice to look at,
especially the oldest."

The mention of marriage led Ryoga's small mind straight to what
married people are supposed to do. Before he could even respond, a
fountain of blood erupted from his nose and he passed out.

The boy would do for now. Genma hoisted Ryoga onto his shoulder and
started jogging toward the coast of China.

****

Across the pacific ocean, Bill Gates, the only man richer than the All
Mighty, chuckled darkly as the latest version of Windows was shipped
out. Try to take away his monopoly would they? Try to split his
company into mere shards of its greater whole? Ha, they would all pay,
and their little dog too.

****

"I still don't think we can trust her," Rei said. She was tossing her
sphere of light from one hand to antoher.

"She finally managed to get Setsuna," Minako commented."That makes her
ok in my bag." She didn't notice the stares her comment recieved.

"Setsuna wouldn't have gotten her to teach us if she wasn't
trustworthy," Makoto added.

"And look what she got for her troubles," Rei retorted.

"But from what she says, Setsuna did something pretty bad to her. She
seems nice enough to me even if she is a little rough around the edges
and way to masculine for someone so pretty." Thankfully no one took
notice of the last part of the remark from the nameless senshi.(Oh
come on, it isn't like this is supposed to be hard to figure out)

"Okay then, what happens if we need to fight a demon, or rescue people
from a burning building or something?" Rei sounded desperate to find
some unexplicable fault with Ranma.

"That is pretty important. I'm sure that she'll tell us about that
today," Ami said.

Usagi was too busy showing Luna her own light sphere to contribute
anything meaningful to the conversation.

****

Send C&C to dark_phoneix@hotmail.com please
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 2
I didn't exactly burst through the door to my apartment, but I did
enter with full powers active and senses at their peak. I wasn't
really worried. Probably some demon or another stopping by to pay me a
visit. Yep, two demons actually.
"Ranma," one of them said politely,"would you like to share our meal?"
He, at least I think it was a 'he', never can tell with those chaos
demons though, lifted the remains of a human heart. I was about to zap
someone when I noticed they had laid a tarp out so that none of the
blood got on my carpet.

"Uh, no thanks. Not into cannabilism. So what brings you by the
neighborhood? Oh, and by the way, who are you?" I had mostly relaxed,
keeping only a trace of power with me just encase someone decided to
crash the little party.

"Don't tell me you don't recognize your old pal Phil?" he asked
feigning hurt feelings.

"Ah, Phil, what happened to the scar?" I never meant to cut his head
in half, eight year olds tend to over react when the boogey man crawls
out from under their bed.

Phil reached across the bloody tarp and patted the other chaos demon
lovingly on he bare, boil covered scalp. Now that I looked closely, I
could see a slight set of breast on the other one. Wow, that's like
finding a human woman with basketball sized implants.

"Cindy here is an excellant demonic healer," Phil cooed. Demons
getting sappy, what was the world coming to? Nevermind, stupid
question.

"Hi Cindy, nice to meet you." I threw myself onto the giant sofa and
flipped the tv on."Not to sound like an ungrateful host, but what are
you two doing here? Tokyo is pretty much the devil hunter capital of
the world."

"That's why we're here," Phil sounded scared, probably for
Cindy."We've been attacked by three different sets of them. I think
the last ones were the Sailor Senshi, but they were different than
what the stories say."

I grinned sheepishly."That's my fault, about the senshi. I made a deal
with one of them, a powerful temporal mage, to teach them magic in
exchange for a way to mask that damned demonic prescence that I give
off. Turns out that I got screwed over in the deal. The thing that
hides my true prescence turns me into a girl. Guess I should have
known better than to make a blood pact."

Phil was looking at me in sympathy, horror, and not a small amount of
anger."You're actually teaching those little girls how to be better
killers? Ranma, I thought you were smarter than that." Not many people
can get a moral dressing down from a demon that's feasting on
someone's heart, my nextdoor neighbor for all I know.

"Look at it from my perspective. I'm human. I figured maybe with
Pluto's help I could actually settle down for a little while, have a
relationship that lasted for more than a weekend, and get a job.
Always have wanted to try my hand at assasination." There's supposed
to be this big time law firm out in L. A. that specializes in super
natural stuff. They occassionally put word out that they were
recruiting."But the ring she gave me turns me into a girl whenever I
use it. This isn't exactly fun on my part. Sailor Pluto is probably
wishing that she had never met me now, though." I grinned maliciously.
"Remember that big book of curses I found in your closet last year?"
Phil nodded."She's currently on number seventy three."

The breath hissed out of Phil and Cindy's lipless mouths in their form
of laughter."Where'd you put the nipple?" he asked, the topic of mine
and his senshi problems forgotten for the moment.

I tapped the end of my nose."It should fade away in a few months, but
for now it'll be hard as hell to cover up."

"When you say she's on the superfluous nipple curse, do you mean
you've done all the ones before that to her?" Cindy asked. She too
must have a copy of that book.

"Yep, all in two weeks, too." I watched tv while the demons finished
their meal. When they had cleaned up their mess, they joined me in the
living room."Where you been lately?"

"Family reunion," Phil answered."My great-great aunt was in charge
this year and she picked a plane so far from earth that we had to
sacrifice ten virgins just to get there. She was 'accidentally' left
behind when everyone else went home." Phil shuddered."It was a
horrible place, Ranma, all covered in wild flowers and cute little
birds."

I mysef don't really have anything against flowers or birds, I do
however know the effects they can have on some demons. I grimaced in
sympathy. Back to more important issues."I know for a fact that the
senshi won't be out for the next few hours and they don't go out in
the morning. I've been regularly kicking their asses and calling it
physical training." It really was but Phil didn't need to know that."I
wouldn't bet on any one of them being able to stand right now."

"Could we crash here? Cindy and I both had to use a lot of energy to
escape."

"Sure, no problem. I don't have a spare bedroom, but this couch is one
of those fold out deals."

Cindy was in the bathroom doing whatever female demons do to get ready
for bed when Phil slipped over to me and my latest attempt to locate
Setsuna's home. The spell collapsed before it even got close. Oh well.

"Ranma, I didn't want to mention it in front of Cindy, there's no
reason to frighten her, but there were some other guys out tonight.
They were all nontalented humans, I'm sure, but they had some unusual
weapons with them. They tried to get us when Cindy was unconscious
from the energy drain of a spell, but when we got away they turned on
the devil hunters. Just figured you might not want to get too
comfortable in that women disguise. They probably won't care if you
come across as good or evil."

"What kind of weapons?" I asked while using a small hand broom to
clean up the chalk dust from the spell. I think that I had spotted the
same guys Phil was talking about last week, real military types, but I
needed to be sure.

"Looked like a new kind of stun weapon that throws weak energy bolts.
Not particularly strong by itself, but they could lay down continuous
fire and there were at least a dozen of them."

I nodded. That kind of firepower can add up quick like."This place is
safe, I'm sure. If you want to you and Cindy can just stay for as long
as it takes to fully recover and I'll help you leave the city. I don't
really get much company, anyway."

****

"Listen up girls," I said to the gathered senshi. I'm proud to say
that Ami and Makoto were taking the time before lessons began to
practice what I had already taught them."If you ever run across a
couple of demons with yellow hamburgerish skin that drips puss, don't
try to hurt them unless they're trying to tear someone's heart out.
Even then I just want you to scare them away." I had talked this out
earlier with Phil, just encase he ever needed to hold up in my
apartment sometime.

"We fought some like that last night," Usagi said cheerfully.

"Yeah, those are the same ones I'm talking about. They're friends of
mine and the only reason that one of you girls isn't short a heart
this morning is because they were tired from fighting off earlier
attacks by more wannabe devil hunters like yourselves."
3...2...1...bingo!

"Friends?!" Rei exploded."You're friends with heart eating puss
demons?" she demanded.

"Actually they're heart eating chaos demons. Puss demons are much more
lumpy and have a gray complexion. And yes, I'm friends with them. I'm
friends with lots of demons. You don't think some little old lady
working in a tea shop taught me magic, do you?" I snapped.

Rei seemed no less angry, but her enthusiasm was greatly
deflated."But...demons..."

"Not all demons are bad," I said carefully."Sure some of them may eat
a person occassionally, but who here doesn't like to eat a
cheeseburger every once in a while. It's not there fault that they
were made that way. I would have died years ago if demons hadn't saved
my life." I let that sink in before continuing."I'm not saying don't
kill demons. No, if you see one minding it's own business just scare
it off. They tend to go into hiding for a while if confronted by
someone strong enough to take them out. Demons in the process of
killing, eating, or hunting people, they're fair game."

"You can't tell us what to do," Rei almost shouted. Angry tendrils of
flame were writhing around her hands. Oh ho, what have we here? She
couldn't honestly be planning to challenge me. Only Usagi had that
potential, and that was years and a brain transplant down the road.

"Well, not really, but my advice is still worth listening to. Mostly
because almost all demons you find just walking around not trying to
do demonic things are suppremely confident in themselves, which mean
they have power, maybe more than you can handle. None of you girls
should forget that you're just beginners in the heavy sorceries."

The next few hours were spent going over simple katas for the energy
swords that I had included in the new senshi transformation. I didn't
really care whether they cut their own feet off with the things or
not, but it was so fun watching Usagi try to fight a tree, I just
couldn't help myself. I wrapped up the session by introducing them
each to the first part of a new spell. They were far enough along that
I had broken their education up to the elemental affinities that they
so strongly possessed. Their limitation was going to save me years of
time.

Ami caught up to me before I left and asked,"Earlier today when you
said that demons saved your life, why did they do it?"

"They thought that what my father was doing to me was atrocious and
that children shouldn't have to suffer like I was." She gave me a
blank stare full of horror. Oops, I think I gave her the wrong
idea."He was trying to teach me a new martial arts technique. It
involved throwing me into a pit of starving cats while wrapped in fish
stuff. I was six at the time, so you can imagine..."

She lost the repulsed look and got one of profound sympathy."Was your
father a demon?" she asked in a whisper."I promise not to tell
anyone."

"No," I laughed,"he isn't a demon. He's just the biggest moron ever."
I patted her shoulder."Thanks for caring though." My fading into the
shadows didn't really suprise her. She was far enough along and
sensitive enough to trace my path through the darkness.

****

Over the next few weeks the senshi continued to learn from Ranma. With
the exception of Usagi, they were all steadily improving, Ami most of
all. Setsuna found herself the victim of three hundred and seventeen
temporary curses, a new world record. A race of super powerful
dimensional space slugs landed on earth with the intention of
conquering it for its use as a vacation spot. Fortunately the invasion
fleet arrived in the oven of a noted French restaurant and was never
heard from again.

The population of the United States of America embraced Windows X with
the same whole hearted enthusiasm that they always have for new and
mostly useless crap. Unfortunately, Windows X allowed Bill Gates to
take control of all electronic equipment larger than a wrist watch.
The United States was promptly renamed the Land of Gates. The new
Wizard of Gates immediately began funding an advanced genetic research
program with the mission of reingineering Janet Reno into a sasquatch.

****

"Anyone want to go out for ice cream?" I asked.

The girls were all pretty perky because I hadn't made them do anything
but memorize part of a spell. I had never invited them out with me,
though, and I wasn't sure how they would react. It was damned funny
the way Usagi's eyes glazed over and she began drooling.

"Ice cream!" the blonde cheered.

Mental note: use ice cream to make the idiot learn. All I had to do
was work out some kind of controllable mental suggestion that wouldn't
allow her to eat ice cream...hmm, that bore definite thinking over.

"That'd be great," Minako said with much greater control than I had
expected.

The ice cream parlor was about to close when we finally arrived, but
when the man behind the counter saw Usagi he threw a knife across the
room and pinned the sign that a younger man was turning to say Closed
to the wall.

"Are you stupid, Hiroshi?" the man snapped."Who do you think I get
enough money from to pay you?" he asked, all the while discreetly
pointing to Usagi.

This was scary."What's going on," I whispered to Makoto.

"Oh, nothing really. Usagi only put his children through college and
kept him going through that last recession." The way she said this
with such nonchallance was by itself amazing. If the girl ate that
much ice cream, how did she maintain her figure(only interested out of
curisouity, not feminine vanity)?

"Oh," was my only response.

Over the next hour I witnessed something that will remain in my memory
for however many millenia I shall live. Usagi Tsuniko, one of my least
favorite people in existance, consumed three times her own body weight
in a combination of forty six different kinds of ice cream and a vast
array of toppings. At first I assumed that she may be able to convert
mass to energy, that would explain her high energy levels, but I ruled
that out pretty quickly. That much energy would have turned her into a
human glowbug, permanently.

I thought my two gallons were respectable, but the condescending sneer
the girl levelled at me was as humiliating as anything I could
remember.

****

My first run in with the militarty guys came a few days later. I was
just stepping out of a corner convenience store with a few necessities
when men and women in black fatigues overlaid withsome kind of plastic
body armor came swarming over the walls on repelling lines and filled
the street with three large vans which poured forth more of the
soldiers. Heh, guess they thought I was pretty important. I counted
sixty visible individuals and three snipers positioned further down
either side of the street.

"Hey, nice night out, eh?" I asked innocently, staling for as much
time to erect my defenses as possible. Ooo, a helicopter. I'm moving
up in the world.

"Place your hands above your head and slowly walk into the light,"
ordered a man who sounded like he had had a baseball bat shoved up his
ass at birth.

Now these guys obviously had some pretty reliable sources of
information and they were extremely well trained if they were willing
to hunt down demons without magic, technology be damned, so what made
them think having my hands in the air would matter one way or the
other when I started blowing stuff up.

"Nice guns, coulda swore those were illegal in Japan," I commented as
I complied with the order, first setting my groceries out of harm's
way on a newspaper rack. Phil had been right on the money when he
described the weapons they carried. I could feel the electric charge
contained within them. I couldn't stop a derisive snort from escaping.
Completely non-magical. Phil must have been good and tired before he
ran into the goons. They probably were effective against vampires and
the like, though.

"Do not speak unless you are spoken to," baseball bat ordered.

Blah blah blah. Poor guy's one of those dips who gets off on telling
other people what to do, or I'm not about to throw this fireball...
"Kiyaaahh!" Heh, bet they weren't expecting that! The ball of emerald
green fire grew from a pinprick of light a meter from my chest and
into a two foot sphere of controlled death in a fraction of a second.
This was going to be a majorly bad way for all these relatively
innocent people to die.

Tiny bolts of electricity rebounded from my personal shields for
another second or two before the sphere exploded. I couldn't make it
take out the snipers without killing a few dozen families, so I guess
word would be getting back to the guys in charge what I was capable
of. If only they really knew.

Around me and my little calm piece of space, green and purple fires
raged, slowly eating away at anything living. The screams were ear
splitting and lasted for nearly a minute. When I cut power to the
magical fire, the street was littered with the clothes, armor and
weapons of all the dead soldiers, and there were three vans with
government tags on them sitting as pretty as you please in the middle
of the street with no evidence that they had ever been occupied.

I wondered if they were really government sanctioned or if the plates
were false. If they were false then I had just pissed off a really
rich man or woman that had more money than they know what to do with
and could expect to deal with more of the same shit on a regular
basis. If they were government, everything would be the same as above
except I would most likely be killing more of them next time.

****

I decided I'd better warn the senshi, just encase they, too, were now
in season. The shrine where Rei lived was the only place I knew of to
find any of them, so I headed there as soon as I returned my groceries
to the apartment.

The shrine was closed for the night and I had to knock on the door for
a few minutes before anyone answered. I remembered to go girl only
moments before the door opened. It was that little old man I'd seen a
few times while teaching the senshi. He seemed nice enough and never
butted into other people's business so I had nothing against him. Too
bad he was so old, he would have made an excellant sorceror.

"Ah, young Ranma, what can I do for you at such a late hour?" he asked
cheerfully. The old guy gave me the once over, but I couldn't really
blame him, not when I spent a considerable amount of time in front of
the mirror every morning checking out my own bod.

"Is Rei here? What I need to tell her could wait till tomorrow if she
isn't, but it's important that I speak to her if she is." I felt him
sloppily probing my aura as I spoke. Hmm, he most definitely had had
more than the spiritual training expected of a shinto priest.

"Of course she's home," the grandfather replied. I think he was Rei's
grandfather, anyway."Come in, come in." He led me through the spacious
interior living quarters and stopped in front of a traditional sliding
door."I'll leave you two to your girl talk."

As the little old man made himself scarce, I knocked on the wooden
frame of the paper door."It's me, Ranma, open up."

A few seconds later the door slid open and Rei stood staring at me in
a pair of baggy red and black pajamas."What do you want?" She didn't
sound happy.

"Lighten up. I came to warn you since I don't know where the other
senshi live. I was attacked by a company of commandoes tonight. From
reliable sources I have info that they're going after anybody with
supernatural abilities, good or bad, regardless of intentions. Call
the others on that cute little wristphone thing and tell them to meet
at the shrine at 6:30 tomorrow morning. And from now on don't go
anywhere by yourself, always have at least one other senshi with you.
Oh yeah, feel free to kill as many of them as you can if they do try
to take you in." I finished and turned to leave, catching the barest
hint of a nod from the girl.

**** Send me C&C at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 3[Ranma][SM][x-over]
"Rei told us why you wanted to meet so early, Ranma," Ami said. I
think she was the only one of the senshi capable of forming coherent
words right then.
"Good. She might have already told you, but from now on always travel
in at least pairs. That probably won't really help you if these people
are seriously interested in grabbing you, it will however give one of
you a chance to escape and tell me. You girls aren't my favorite
people, but I still have that deal to teach you magic and you're all
basically good at heart, despite your many many faults, so I will come
to the rescue." Ugh, I hate playing good semaritan. Not that I would
leave anyone to be experimented on by a bunch of incompetent
scientists.

Usagi sniffled in fear, I thought. Then she said,"Y-you really care!"
That diving glomp/bear hug of hers is pretty effective."Does that mean
you don't hate me? Would you like to come to dinner with me tonight?
The other senshi and me are going to the mall tomorrow, wanna come?"

Ami to the rescue. I saw the soft blue light of a spell form in her
hands and the next thing I know, Usagi is snoring on my shoulder. Ami
was too good to be stuck with this bunch. I started making plans to
begin giving her private lessons. She was far enough along to learn
from books without my help and if she improved as quickly as she had
so far, I would soon have a teaching assistant. Listen to me, sounding
like a real teacher. Setsuna will be getting that demonic yeast
infection I'd been saving for a special occassion.

"Nice work, might want to work on the amount of visible energy
produced by the casting," I told Ami. I didn't exactly drop Usagi.
It's not my fault that she lost muscle control when she fell asleep.
All that grass and mud broke her fall just fine.

"When she wakes up, tell her she was just dreaming, will ya?" I asked
no one in particular."We're going to go off the lesson plan today,"
damnit I just keep getting worse every day,"and I'm going to try to
teach you all a very minor shield spell that you can keep active all
day without draining your own energy. It'll give you a little
protection from the weapons the hunters are using. Don't worry about
waking Usagi, she won't be able to grasp this for at least another
month."

The senshi would be starting school again in a few days and out of the
kindness of my heart I had been giving them half days. I kept this in
effect even with the present threat. They wouldn't be very effective
if they were burnt out, afterall. They were piling out of the small
back yard to the shrine residence when I mentally impressed a desire
to talk to Ami on her mind. It's not mind control, especially on
someone as intelligent as the Senshi of Mercury, and she knew what it
was anyway.

She was still trying to stuff books into her backpack when she walked
over to me. That's something I don't understand about the girl. She's
smarter than me(really sucks to admit that), and I finished high
school when I was eleven, so she could have easily been through collge
and making lots of money somewhere by now."Sensei? Did you send me a
mental summons just now? I'm not sure if I wasn't just imagining it,"
she said as shyly as ever. Real confidence problem with her.

I made sure none of the others were in hearing range and said,"Ami, as
I'm sure you've noticed by now, you are making much better progress
than your friends. Rei and Makoto aren't bad, but honestly, you're the
only one of the senshi that I would have willingly chosen to teach.
You're a natural sorcerress. If you would be willing to take the time,
I could teach you at a much faster pace than the others. That would
help everybody. You could help me teach your friends in the afternoons
after school starts and I could teach you in the evening."

Ami didn't take any time making her mind up, contrary to the hemming
and hawing I had expected. She nodded her head enthusiastically and
said,"That would be wonderful!"

It's not like I had anything better to do, so I said,"I don't have any
plans tonight. It would be as good a time to start as any."

"That's fine. My mother is carrying an extra shift tonight at the
hospital so she won't know if I stay out late."

She ran and caught up with the other senshi and told them something
along the lines of she was getting some extra tutoring or something. I
couldn't tell exactly with the traffic going by the sidewalk.

****

"Setsuna got it for me," I told Ami when I saw her staring at my huge
apartment in awe."Heh, I bet she wishes she had been a little more
forthcoming with me now."

Ami looked at me oddly and asked,"Why's that?"

It probably wouldn't be good to tell her what a mess I had made of her
semi-mentor."Oh...nothing. Complex magical stuff you wouldn't
understand." Well that was partially true."Make yourself at home. I'm
gonna fix a sandwhich, want one?"

"Sure, that'd be great." She sat down and began flipping through the
channels on my tv. She looked shocked. I understood the feeling. I
never would have believed there were three thousand channels.

We ate our sandwhiches and finished watching a news program on the
Sailor Senshi. I couldn't help but laugh at some of the ideas people
had about these girls. Secret government super soldiers was the best
though. I mean, super soldiers, it was too funny to believe. I had to
keep myself from falling over laughing because Ami appeared flattered
by the show and I didn't want to hurt her feelings.

"You're going to need an athame before we can go much further," I
commented when the program was finished.

"A what?" Ami asked.

"Ritual knife. It helps to focus energy into finer and more coherent
patterns. There are a lot of spells that can't be performed without
one until you have a lot of experience." I pulled mine from it's wrist
sheath."You've seen me use it to draw the spell patterns in the air?"
Ami nodded."I could have done it without the athame but it would have
taken more energy and the image wouldn't have remained legible for
nearly so long."

"Uh, where can I get an...athame?" she asked.

"I'm pretty sure there are at least a few shops in Tokyo that sell
them, but for now I have one you can borrow." It took a minute of
digging through my luggage to find the plain copper bladed
dagger."Copper doesn't draw and focus as much energy as iron," I told
her."It'll be easier to learn with it."

Ami took the proffered blade and tested the weight and feel. As she
stroked it through the air a blue spark leapt from the blade. It's
nice to be right all the time.

"What do you think about ice flame?"

****

Wouldn't you know it would be just like Usagi to decide to walk to the
store for a quick ice cream fix in the middle of the night? I knew I
should have put that mental block on her earlier. Ami, being the only
member of the senshi to know where I lived, arrived early, like 6
a.m., beating on my door frantically. It was their first day of school
and I was sleeping in late, content with the knowledge that I didn't
have to see the meatball head for an extra six or seven hours.

"All right, all right!" I shouted."I'm coming! Hold your horses!" I
threw open the door, an invisible blade of force gathered in my free
hand.

Ami rushed in, nearly knocking me over in my sleep fogged
mind."Usagi's missing," she informed me."We always get her up
especially early on the first day of school and the beginning of the
new semester so that she can find her way to her classes. It was my
turn today," she rambled on while I was getting dressed. One day I was
going to get caught without that damned ring on and there would be a
world of trouble for me. Thankfully she didn't see me in the darkened
apartment until I had activated its enchantment.

"Are you sure she didn't just go to school on her own?" Even I knew
that idea was a joke.

The look she shot me made me proud. It was my 'what kind of idiot are
you' stare.

I didn't waste any time. If Usagi felt sufficiently threatened and was
frightened enough she could start up the magical howitzer act again.
She still had more than enough control over that crystal. They,
whoever they were, would probably just kill her instead of trying to
subdue an energy and speech spouting weapon of destruction."Where are
the others?"

"They're waiting down in the lobby. Luna and Artemis are with them."
She knew that I didn't like the moon cats and that they didn't like
me. I think they could smell a similarity between my female form and
my natural male form.

I nodded and we headed out the door. The senshi were indeed waiting in
the lobby, already transformed into full battle armor with their
weapons drawn and a primed spell crackling in the free hand. Ami
activated the modified transformation sequence and within minutes I
was leading four pissed off senshi down the nearly abandoned street.
If it had been any of the other girls I would have had to perform a
spell to locate them, but Usagi and her crystal were easy enough to
track down that I could just follow my nose, figuratively, of course.

At the speed we were travelling we arrived in the warehouse district
within half an hour. That's quite an accomplishment when you consider
that it was on the other side of the city with all those big buildings
in the way.

"No mercy. You see someone in black, they die. If any of you have a
problem with that then go home now and leave the rescuing to me." I
thought that at least Minako and probably Ami would bale out. I was
wrong. If anything, they're expressions became more fierce and they
followed along right behind me. Damn, how can someone like Usagi
inspire such loyalty? Must have something to do with pity.

There wasn't much I could do about any surveilance cameras, not while
keeping myself wrapped in the equivalent of a magical nuclear
bombshelter, but the people set to keep watch were another story. I
dropped three of them before the senshi even knew they were being
watched. A man rose up from a pile of garbage to my left while I was
flinging silent blades of air into a building across the street that
had housed two lookouts. Before I could react, Makoto had roasted the
man alive and we were moving on.

I hung back and let the senshi work off a little steam on the next
dozen. They worked better than I would have thought. I choose to
believe much of that was due to my influence. I didn't spend any time
looking for a way into the windowless warehouse that my senses told me
was our destination. A flexing of magical muscles, you could say, and
I ripped the shorter wall off and threw it onto another warehouse.

Oh boy, what a slaugter! I had inadvertently freed a whole freakin
bunch of captured demons, super powerful martial artists, and devil
hunters. They were all in a bad mood. They were all much more powerful
than their captors. The senshi and I flowed through the massacre,
looking for Usagi before we let ourselves have any fun.

The girl in question was unconscious and strapped down to a metal
table with some kind of force field generator forming a bubble around
her. Technology may be improving, but it is certainly no match for
good old human ingenuity combined with lots and lots of power. I would
have used some of that power to destroy the bubble if Ami hadn't found
the power switch and flipped it off. Sigh, at least I got to kill some
people.

By now the various groups had gathered together. Demons of at least a
dozen varieties were feasting on dead and dying men and women. Devil
hunters, who I guess had been confined in the same kind of force field
Usagi had because they weren't holding back on their mystical
retribution, were taking turns blasting their captors. The martial
artists, some I actually recognized, were just beating the ever living
shit out of their victims. I saw a couple moderately powerful chi
based attacks in the melee.

Someone was going to learn a lesson not to mess with their betters. A
little technology just wasn't going to cut it.

With Usagi over my shoulder, I said,"We better get out of here before
the demons and devil hunters notice each other." Rei started to
protest."Remember the minding their own business rule? That's still in
effect. Some of those demons are children that were probably taken
right out of their beds in the middle of the night. Besides, the cops,
and very likely the government are going to be showing up soon. I
don't want to be here when they do."

I got silent and grim nods from the girls and we bean to cut out way
through the mob. Along the way I saw a pair of chaos demons trying to
get out through the hole I had made in the wall. One was injured and
being helped along by the other.

"Phil!" I called out."Is that you?" The demons turned around and
started waving to me. Yep, it was Phil and Cindy."Be on your best
behavior, girls. These are friends of mine."

"I can't believe she's friends with demons," I heard Rei mutter to one
of the other senshi.

"Ami said that she told her demons saved her life when she was a kid,"
Makoto responded. Good girl, Ami is.

We caught up with the pair of demons and I passed Usagi to Makoto,
throwing Phil's arm over my shoulder."When did they get you?" I asked.

Cindy answered,"Phil was having a craving for liver the night before
last and it'd been a while since I had any, so we went out and..." The
female demon finally seemed to notice the company I was keeping.

"Don't worry. They won't bother you," I assured her."Senshi, meet Phil
and Cindy. Phil is one of my oldest friends and Cindy is his
girlfriend." I still haven't figured out how Phil managed that."Phil
and Cindy, these are the Sailor Senshi. I'm still teaching them
magic."

"Hey," Cindy said awkwardly."Sorry we got off on the wrong foot last
time. I guess I can understand where you're coming from though." Cindy
must be one of those human rights demons.

"Yeah," Phil agreed, groaning through the pain of a smashed leg.
"Thanks, by the way, for getting us out of that hell hole." That got a
laugh from me and the girls.

The streets were slowly starting to feel with morning commuters and
people going about their business. We were already drawing more than
our fair share of strange looks. "Cindy, can you heal Phil up good
enough to hold him over until tonight?"

"No problem," she responded.

"Good. You two are going to have to hide out somewhere today. My place
is too far away and there are too many people out on the streets
already." I had already begun mentally going through likely places for
them to lay low.

"That alley over there," Phil pointed to the alley in
question."Someone must've dies there recently. It's still got a fair
amount of negative energy swirling around. Cindy'll be able to work
better there."

"Right," I agreed. The senshi stayed where they were as Cindy and I
helped Phil across the street. Once they were comfortable I spun a
kind of illusion that wasn't really an illusion, just a kind of
blurred after image of the buildings beside it that would encourage
people's eyes to skip over it. I couldn't do much better than that.

"They seemed pretty nice," Minako said when I returned. They had
changed back into cute little school girls, complete with uniforms and
school bags. Usagi was still out of it and in her pajamas. I sure as
hell wasn't going to volunteer to do the honors.

"They are. Most demons are like normal people. It's the screw ups that
give them all a bad name. I'm sure you all have plenty of time before
school starts, but she," I indicated Usagi,"isn't even dressed..."

Ami spoke up."It is my turn to get her ready. If we hurry we won't be
late."

I left them to decide how to work out their arduous task of taking the
meatball head to school. Ami sure wouldn't ba able to carry her across
town, not without transforming. I wondered what they would tell her
parents. Sleepwalking, most likely.

****

I was sitting in one of those tiny little street corner cafes sipping
a cup of atrociously sweet coffee and watching an old episode of
Dragonball when the broadcast was interrupted by a special news
report. Turns out that those dead guys were government afterall. They
were claiming that a terrorist death cult that the guys had been
investigating had made a preemptive strike and slaughtered them all.
All the shredded and partially eaten, blown up, and burnt bodies leant
that story a lot of credit.

I was just hoping that they had kept whatever file they had on me in
that warehouse. Doubt it, though. Life had been getting a little
stagnant lately. A couple years of making the hunters into the prey
would be fun. I could even get the senshi and some demons in on it.

****

"What happened?" the Emperor demanded shrilly.

The older man dressed in a cliche black suit bowed repeatedly, finally
bringing himself to say,"The base was overwhelmed, sir. We have only
fragments of the remaining security tapes, but it appears that case #
54687, Ranma Saotome, led case #'s 34532 through 34535 on a rescue
mission for case # 34531. In the process they freed all captured
individuals."

"Fools, all fools," the Emperor snapped."You were specifically
instructed to enlist the aide of all supernaturally gifted citizens in
Japan, not to hunt them down like demonic scum! Now you and your
incompetents may have made an enemy of Our most potentially powerful
allies."

"Yes, your Highness. Whoever misconstrued your decree shall be
immediately dealt with," the man replied.

"Of course this fiasco was not your fault, correct? No, not your fault
at all. I want those who were held against their will contacted and
properly reimbursed with whatever they feel they are owed. The time is
coming when We will need them all to fight for Us willingly. Now get
out."

(I have no idea what Imperial protocol is in Japan. This will have to
do. Oh and I know that the Emperor is really just some kind of
figurehead, but this is my story so he could be a three headed monky
if I wanted him to.)

****

"Ami, I want you to take Rei, Makoto, and Minako through the first
spell I taught you last night. I'm going to try to get Usagi caught
up." Somehow.

"I still don't see why you get special lessons," Rei muttered. She
likes to do that a lot, talking about people behind their backs, I
mean. Enhanced senses can pick up all kinds of nice things.

"Ranma-sensei just thinks that I learn faster," Ami resonded to the
jab. That Ranma-sensei bit is pretty cool. Not too many people give me
much respect. I admit that not too many people who know me are human,
though. If I had been in Ami's position I would have just told Rei the
simple truth that I was ten time's the sorceress she would ever be and
for her to kiss my ass. Too bad there aren't more people like me in
the world.

"Now, Usagi, I'm going to draw this spell in very simple pieces. I
want you to tell me when you understand one so that I can add the next
part." At this rate she would be able to cast the spell in a week.

"Sure thing Ranma," she said cheerfully, showing no sign that she had
been kidnapped only hours earlier."Thanks for rescuing me. Those men
were going to dissect me. What does dissect mean? Would it have hurt?"

I sighed. Another long day in a series of long days.

****

C&C welcome at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 4[Ranma][SM][x-over]
"Guys," Usagi squealed as she ran into the latest meeting of learn to
be a sorceress,"you won't believe what happenned!"
Since no one appearred to want to take the cue, I asked,"What, oh what
has happened?" in a voice as falsely interested as I could muster.
Needless to say, Usagi thought I really cared.

"When I got home there was this really nice woman in a limo waiting
for me. She says that she works for the Emperor of Japan! Isn't that
great? She told me that all that stuff that happened last week was
just a big misunderstanding. You know, when I was kidnapped? The
government is going to give me lots and lots of money!" she exclaimed
happily.

I could see that I wasn't the only person not completely thrilled by
this development. I had used several different methods of concealing
my route to and from the shrine to keep the other girls from being
discovered. The government obviously knew of Usagi and I, but they
could still have been in the dark about the other senshi. Now though,
if they hadn't known before, they most likely would now.

"What else did they say?" I asked with deliberate calm.

"Ms. Tokaguwa, that's the woman's name, said that from now on they
wouldn't bother us or anyone else like us. In fact..." And she went on
to describe what her limited grasp of the situation would term a
police force to fight demons and other evil supernatural bad guys.
Those last few words were direct quotes, by the way.

"What about the rest of us?" Makoto asked."Don't we get money too?"
Heh, could my little angels be getting greedy?

Usagi's face screwed up in puzzlement."Hold on, I'll go get her and
you can ask her." And she ran back out of the shrine.

Well, so much for secret idenities. Usagi returned, escorting an
attractive woman who looked nice and trustworthy but gave off some bad
vibes. Not 'I like to torture people' but something closer to 'I like
to watch people be tortured'. As long as she didn't bother me, I
couldn't care less.

"I'm sure you girls will be compensated just like young Usagi here,"
Ms. Tokoguwa assured us. I'm not about to turn down free money.

"I'll take mine in cash," I said. The woman agreed much too readily to
my snide demand. People in positions of power like hers don't normally
take that kind of treatment very easily. Something was up. I sat back
and listened as all the girls were assured by Tokoguwa that they would
be treated with the respect they deserved and all that crap. I didn't
interrupt for fear of being stoned. They weren't exactly greedy, just
damned close.

Once we were alone again, I told them,"When something appears too good
to be true, it normally is." I didn't say anything else on the matter.
With the exeption of Usagi(again), they all seemed to get the gist
after a moment of thought.

****

"Not that I don't appreciate everything," Ami said one night a few
weeks later,"but don't you think a spell that slowly freezes a
person's brain over a period of months is just a little...evil?"
Despite her reservations over learning it, she had knocked it away no
problem.

"Yeah, I guess. I learned it from this ice nymph that had gotten
dumped by her human lover. She made it extra special just for him.
Even if you never use what I teach you, Ami, the more you know the
better equipped you'll be in the future to handle unusual situations.
One day you may feel like freezing someone's brain, who knows?" Not
that those were adequate explanations for a very painful and
debilitating way to die. Ami seemed to except them, though, so I'll
leave it at that.

Later, out of nowhere, Ami informed me,"Luna and Artemis don't trust
you. They think you've killed Sailor Pluto and are trying to corrupt
us." I probably shouldn't have left the furballs behind when we went
to rescue Usagi. Setsuna's tongue was a bit too swollen for it to work
properly. Neither of which were my concerns, except for the swollen
tongue being my fault.

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked, honestly dumbfounded by the
confession. I was also worried. I hadn't felt a lessening in the
ring's enchantment, but those cat's could be more sensitive to that
type of magic than me.

"Well, you do seem pretty cynical, and not really nice most of the
time." Ami answered."I don't think you're trying to corrupt us,
though, because I know that we're not a threat to you, so what'd be
the point? You could have killed us at your convenience. And Setsuna
has gone months without talking to us. No, the cats just don't like
you for some reason." An adequately accurate analysis.

"Thanks," I said dryly causing her to blush."Do you think that they'll
try to turn the rest of the senshi against me?" That would result in a
case of stir fried kitty cat.

She shook her head."No. If you have Pluto's support, they'll stay out
of your business as long as you don't endanger Crystal Tokyo. If
anything, your teaching us magic helps to ensure its creation." This
was new to me.

I asked,"What's Crystal Tokyo?" I was thinking a moon cult or
something. Maybe try to get back to their Silver Millenium roots and
all that.

"Setsuna didn't tell you?" I shook my head."Oh. Well, it's the
reestablishment of the Old Moon Kingdom on Earth with the Prince and
Princess becoming the rulers of Crystal Tokyo, the capital city in the
future."

"Is Setsuna the Princess? Who's the Prince?" This really blew. I don't
want to live in a utopian society like the Silver Millenium. Not that
peace on Earth and good will towards man isn't a good thing, I just
don't want everything to be perfect. Where would the fun be in that?

"Usagi is the reincarnated daughter of Queen Serenity of the Moon
Kingdom and Mamoru is the reincarnated Prince of Earth..." she trailed
off when she saw the unbridled horror in my eyes."Are you all right,
Ranma? Do you need to lie down?"

Good Lord, what was Setsuna thinking?! It took a minute to get the
uncontrollable trembling under control."Ami, please tell me that this
is all some elaborate practical joke. Usagi isn't really going to be
in charge of the WHOLE planet, is she?" There was still hope if this
Mamoru guy wasn't a total blockhead. I didn't have much hope.

Ami nodded and I fought down the urge to cry."Where's Mamoru?" I asked
desperately. That little bit of hope I mentioned, it was in serious
jeopardy of withering up and turning to dust.

She shrugged."He sorta took a trip to America and broke off contact
with Usagi. He said he needed some space." Yeah, Usagi did seem like
the smothering type."With the problems in America now, we don't know
how he's doing." Heh, Bill Gates had really screwed that place up.
Might be a nice place to spend a few weeks relaxing.

I sighed."No offense, but I have all intentions of leaving this planet
if Usagi ever comes into power." I can't see how that could possibly
happen, even with Setsuna manipulating things. That's it! Setsuna
plans on running things from behind the scenes!

Ami frowned at me, her brow scrunching up cutely. Gah, I really need
to get some soon."Usagi isn't as bad as you make her out to be, Ranma.
She can't help it if she's clumsy and a bit flighty. Setsuna assures
us that she'll grow out of it." Setsuna again. The senshi trusted her
way too much. Good thing she's out of the picture for a while.

I acted apologetic, saying,"Maybe, maybe not." To change the subject,
I asked,"Wanna try to squeeze that flight spell in before you go
home?"

****

"Damnit, old man!" Ryoga shouted."I am not going to pretend I'm
Ranma!" He turned to leave but was hit in the back by a small car. He
picked himself up off the street with much more grace than anyone hit
by a giant chunk of metal has any right to do.

"I taught you the forbidden techniques, boy!" Genma roared."Now you
have to fulfill your part of the bargain!" He would have to be
careful. Ryoga was behaving even more erratically since they had been
caught by those people with lightning guns.

"Those forbidden techniques that were supposed to be able to let me
defeat Ranma couldn't even break us out of one little cage," Ryoga
snapped, dusting his tunic off and glaring at the older man. His
umbrella was held at his side and had begun to glow a malevoelent
yellow.

"It wasn't a cage, you idiot! We were trapped in some kind of energy
barrier. I didn't create the umi-senken and yama-senken to combat
things like that. Ranma is made of flesh and blood. He'll go down just
like any other person."

"So how come you haven't beaten him already and forced him to marry a
Tendo?" Ryoga demanded.

"I may be stubborn but I know when I'm outclassed," Genma responded
bitterly."My son was trained by the Master," shudder,"and kamis know
what else. The last time I fought him I was in the hospital for three
months and it took me another month after that to pee without sitting
down. I 'know' what the boy is capable of and I 'know' that you can
beat him." Genma knew no such thing. Ryoga was simply gullible enough
to believe it."I'm an old, fat man well past his prime. Your stronger
and tougher than a tank. That combined with the secret techniques
means you can't lose!"

Ryoga's rage quickly fled, a mental condition that really needed
looking into, Genma thought."Are you sure?"

Genma smiled and said,"Sure, would I lie to you?"

****

I was still having problems accepting Usagi as future ruler of the
world. I could have killed her, but that would have been a complete
violation of the pact between Setsuna and I and the things she could
do to me through such a connection would make my little joke curses on
her look like child's play. I had started looking for alternate planes
of existance similar to Earth last month. Now I was making a point of
spending at least an hour every night in search of a suitable home.

"No, no, no. If you do it that way Usagi you'll make you arm melt," I
chided Usagi gently. I'd learned that any firmer tone than that would
make the girl cry."You have to form the proper image in your mind, not
just push the energy into your hand, here I'll show you-" The arrival
of Grandfather Hino and his announcement cut me off.

"Sorry to intrude, children, I just thought you should know that there
is a giant robot rampaging through downtown Tokyo. Back to chores," he
said and scampered back inside.

"We have to do something!" Usagi shouted. I'd bet my left arm that she
was worried about the malls.

"Don't look at me," I said when I noticed four pairs of eyes turned in
my direction."The fighting crime and evil bit is your jobs. I'm just
along for the ride." Times like this I think back to when I agreed to
take this job and I wish I could reach back two months and smack
myself.

"We're the Sailor Senshi for a reason," Rei stated vehemently."Some
stupid robot can't stop us. Let's go!" Yay, yippee, and all that. At
least she didn't make a stupid speech. Saving it for the robot, I'd
say, not that a robot would care.

"I have a suggestion," I volunteered."Unless you want there to be a
lot of smashed building and dead people, you might want to try to fly
there instead of running or taking the bus. A couple of you should
carry Usagi." Now I know why she had those wings on her last costume;
she's completely hopeless with a flight spell. We'll just ignore the
fact that I was acting like a leader here. Thanks.

****

Mysterious Background Music:

:Go Go Bible Rangers, Mighty Praying Bible Rangers!:

"Form Mecha Jesus!" shouted the Turquoise Bible Ranger."That creature
is a work of Satan and must be destroyed!"

"Praise Mecha Jesus! Divine Left Leg of Smiting is go!" proclaimed the
Marroon Bible Ranger.

"May Mecha Jesus guide us in the cleansing light of his death rays!
Right Leg of Holy Wrath ready!" The Purple Bible Ranger turned on her
stereo and started listening to Christian rock. The external speakers
broadcast the horrible sound to the evil robot and made it scream in
pain.

"Lick the balls of Mecha Jesus, um, oh shit, forget I said that! God
is good, yeah, God is good, that's what I meant to say! Left Arm of
Supreme Ass Kicking powered up." Reformed Crackhead Bob, also known as
the Magenta Bible Ranger said.

"The Word of Mecha Jesus is law! Right Arm of Gay Bashing fully
Operational!" said the Rust Bible Ranger.

"And I'll form the head!" Shouted the Beige Bible Ranger.

Then they said in use,"Mecha Jesus is go!!!"

(Yeah, yeah, it's stupid and blasphemous and really dumb and done in
bad taste. I like it. I might have the Bible Rangers make other guest
appearances later on in the series, never know though.)

****

We got to the area where the robot was last reported being seen and
found nothing but a twitching pile of semi-melted chunks of metal that
had once possibly been an giant evil robot. Then again, it could have
been an exploded alien space ship or a lot of buses all stacked in a
pile and stomped on by the All Mighty. I'm going with the giant evil
robot theory though.

Littered all over the ground were small pamplets stating the glories
of God and following in His light. They also had an explicit threat to
all evil doers(exact words) that the Bible Rangers and Mecha Jesus
would destroy then if they went against the Christian way printed on
the back. I didn't know whether I was dreaming or stuck in a really
bad Gojiro(Godzilla in Japan, right?) movie until I heard a group of
eye witnesses talking about a giant robot wearing a robe beating the
other giant robot to death with a giant book. They went on to say how
they would be going to church from now on. I just tuned them out.

"Looks like you ladies have some competition and they're spreading the
word," grin,"against evil." Before Usagi could get into another
session of 'isn't that great', I said,"Of course these new ones
probably don't like anyone who uses magic, seeing as how the bible
says witches are bad and that they should die. I've read that they're
were a bunch of witch burnings in Europe and America a couple of
centuries ago. Heh, the Bible Rangers," and I had to add just a tiny
bit of scorn into it,"might be thinking about reviving the old
practices." Good old Usagi started to gnaw on her gauntleted fingers
nails.

****

'And in further news, The Wizard of Gates, conqueror of the United
States of America, has announced his plans to turn Mexico into a theme
park. When contacted, the President of Mexico was unavailable for an
interview, but we at CNN's Tokyo branch have exclusive information
that places Mr. Santiago(I have absolutely no clue who the President
of Mexico is, sorry) in Brazil. Experts believe he has gone into hid-'

I turned the tv off and flipped out of the couch. My life is sooo
boring. I sleep, eat, play nursemaid, eat, teach, sleep, and the cycle
continues. Will it ever change? Not likely. Hell, as far as I can see,
everything is just gonna keep getting worse. Even further worsening
Setsuna's state of existance isn't really fun anymore. I'm just
keeping the current curses I placed on her active out of spite.

Seems that there are a few more senshi that no one deigned to mention
to me earlier. Good ole Ami finally mentioned it in passing, thinking
that I already knew. I'd actually heard of the Senshi of Saturn, at
least through obscure references in some really ancient tomes and even
on a sanscrit tablet an old possessed woman let me see once. The
Bringer of Silence, real hero down in hell. Not silence the concept,
but Silence the demon kami of destruction. The Silver Millenium must
have had some real heavy hitters to leash an entity that powerful. I
chose not to inform anyone that little Hotaru probably didn't have
long to live. No one can remain in contact soul-to-soul with that much
force without fading away.

I'm really glad they were off racing in Europe or wherever it is that
people care about that crap. From what Ami told me, Neptune and Uranus
weren't the kinds of people I got along with.

Ami was turning out better than expected. Even with her affinity based
handicap, she was beginning to grasp the concept of other spell types.
It'd be years before she's anywhere near as good with them as she
already is with water and ice, but those of us with the gift for magic
don't really age all that much. She has plenty of time.

****

"Ranma, I tried that internal viewing spell you showed me last week on
Usagi," Ami confided worriedly."She has some kind of blockage in her
brain. I don't know what it is, I'm not profficient enough with the
spell to tell. I know it's harmful though." Her eyes were red-rimmed
and bloodshot. She must have really been worried.

I almost joked about the girl having a brain tumor and that being why
she's such a dingbat. Then I thought about it and decided not many
people besides myself would find that funny instead of really mean.
And, possibly, the thing really could be why Usagi was so stupid."I'll
check it out tomorrow. There's nothing I can do for her tonight. Do
you feel up to learning tonight?" Hey, I'm not entirely unsympathetic.
I knew this guy once who had a tumor growing on the end of his dick. I
felt really sorry for him and his wasn't even life threatening. Ami's
friend could be dying, the least she deserved was a little kindness.

"Yeah, I can manage."

****

"I'll be damned!" I exclaimed. That thing in Usagi's head wasnt a
tumor at all. It was the most complex magical ward I had ever
encountered. I'm talking MAJOR. It had to be divine in origin. I
wasn't about to get any closer to it than I already was.

The moon cats were present for the little examination."What?" Luna
asked impatiently."Did she suck a cherry up there? I always warned her
about eating so fast."

"Lady," I said to the cat,"I don't know why that was put in there. I
don't care, really, it's none of my business. And I am not going to
try to take it out." You don't mess with these kinds of things. They
sorta have an astral no trespassing sign on them. Just looking at it
made my hair stand on end as if I were about to be struck by
lightning.

"What is 'it'?" Artemis demanded. He sounded more worried than angry.
His fear was echoed in the appearances of the other senshi.

"'It' is a block or ward put in her brain by the All Mighty, you know
the big guy upstairs? I don't feel like getting blasted out of
existance so I'm just going to pretend like I didn't see it and go on
with my life." Shit, they were looking stubborn.

"We can't just leave it in there," Makoto said."If you won't try, we
will. Just tell us what to do." Didn't even think about going to a
doctor. Usagitess must be spreading.

"Do you not understand? There is no one in existance capable of
removing that thing except for the guy who put it there. If you try to
take it out or dissolve it, you get a one way ticket to meet the guy
who put it there. I can't make it any plainer than that." I was about
to pull Usagi out of her spell induced nap and get on with the lessons
when Luna coughed.

"Does it have any particular shape?" she asked, sounding curious, and
a little smug.

Shape? I hadn't really looked at it hard enough to determine it's
exact shape. Why would I? It wouldn't hurt anything, though, so I
said,"Rei, could you tilt her head back a little so her eyes aren't in
the way?" Once my instructions were carried out I again altered my
senses to see the energy flows within the girl's brain. I continued to
sharpen the definition until I could see the sharp edges indicative of
unbelievable power. It did have a sorta curvey hump thing going
on."Turn it a little to the right and lean her forward some." Was it
my imagination or was there a crescent moon shaped ward inside Usagi's
brain? I looked closely then shifted my gaze to Luna and Artemis then
back to Usagi.

"Someone want to tell me why she has a crescent moon up there?" I
asked, tapping her forehead with my index finger.

"Ah ha!" Luna cheered, dancing a little jig. Don't ask. I wouldn't
have believed it possible either. She eventually stopped dancing and
began recieving completely blank stares from all of us, including
Artemis. She coughed to clear her throat."Queen Serenity, Usagi's
mother is Lord Kami's seventeenth removed granchild. He must have done
this as a favor to Serenity during the reincarnation. He always was
partial to her."

Wow. That explained the energy tolerance. I wish I had some of His
blood. It's not fair."That's great. Now we know that Usagi is only
slightly more divine than normal people. Does it matter? I'm sure as
hell not summoning the Creator of reality to get the thing removed. He
probably wouldn't like me too much." So I haven't been the nicest and
most law abiding citizen.

"There's no need for that," Luna said confidently."If it is indeed a
crescent like you say, it was specifically keyed into mine and
Artemis' telepathic power, as limited as they are. My mind will act
like a key."

It's her life. I for one decided to back away and wrap enough force
around myself to bend space. I looked down as something brushed my
feet.

"Mind if I wait in here with you?" Artemis asked."Luna may be
confident in her abilities, but I'm not."

"Sure. Just don't try using me for a scratching post."

"Luna mind meld!" Luna shouted. A beam of yellow light shot out of her
forehead and struck Usagi's.

"It's really called a Melmackian head lock," Artemis said."Luna is
just a little," he held up a paw and rocked it side to side,"you
know." I could believe it.

A bright, but not blindingly so, flash of light burst from Usagi's
forehead. It took shape into a house sized crescent of almost solid
energy and then blazed into space. For the record, that much energy,
properly harnessed and placed within the proper spell pattern, could
melt Japan. No wonder Usagi had problems.

**** C&C welcome at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com

Later!

Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 5
With no small amount of awe, the senshi and I, along with a pair of
talking cats watched Usagi's eyes flutter open and I could easily see
a glaze fade from her eyes that I had never even noticed was there.
Must've been something important locked away in there.
"Are you well, Usagi?" Luna asked worriedly. If she had been human she
would have been biting her nails.

"Yeah, sure. Why is everyone looking at me like that? Do I have
something on my face?" No one responded. A plane of air in front of
Usagi solidified and became reflective. She examined herself in the
makeshift mirror and shrugged when she found nothing wrong. I
absolutely know that I hadn't taught her how to do that. Sure Ami knew
how, but hers are always slightly blue tinted. This one was completely
colorless.

If her overall intelligence improves along with her magical
capability, there may yet be hope for the world."Hey Usagi, what's
three plus three?" I asked.

"Six," she responded without thinking. I couldn't help myself. I
looked into the coudless blue sky and mouthed the words,'Thank you'. I
got over the shock faster than anyone else and spent an hour quizzing
Usagi. The girl had a lot of magical knowledge pertaining to white
sorcery in her head. That's all the mystical info she had. The three
nonaligned spells I had managed to cram into her divinely thickened
skull were forgotten. I patterned her a pure white spell that yours
truly created, one designed to keep boogey men(they really exist) from
congregating under your bed. She literally sucked the pattern out of
the air!

All other attempts at getting the same results with varying classes
and levels of magic were complete failures. She wouldn't be much good
in a fight against anything non-hellspawned, but watch out if you are!
This development had several other advantages. Usagi was no longer
terminally braindead, or so I gathered from our short chat. The Silver
Imperium Crystal was about as useful to her now as a chunk of
concrete. And I didn't have to teach her anymore! I didn't count the
few hours it would take to teach her all the white aligned spells I
knew that she didn't.

The senshi decided to take their leader out to celebrate. I didn't
want to be within range of that much concentrated girlishness. No more
wasting time and energy on finding a new home and now I could really
accelerate the lessons for the others. Two or three years and I'd be
gone.

I opened my door and nearly tripped over an envelope that had been
slipped under the door. I didn't immediately open it. Once the pit
that is my stomach had been adequately satisfied and I'd reverted to a
guy, I got around to it. Turns out Setsuna's webbed fingers don't stop
her from writing afterall.

Dear Bastard,

I may not be able to do anything to you now, but when the conditions
of the pact are met, you are mine!

,Your executioner Setsuna Meiou

The words were barely legible and there were traces of slime on the
note. I didn't fail to get the message. She couldn't mess with my past
or the pact would never have happened and we wouldn't have met and I
wouldn't have made her life hell. She couldn't sic the senshi on me
because they already liked me more than her and I did have the ring.
I'm pretty confident that I can fight off a temporal assault. I'm not
stupid enough to have absolute confidence against a Temporal mage
safely hidden away at the Gates of Time, a place where I won't be able
to reach when the pact is fulfilled.

Only option with one hundred percent survival rate? Separate myself
from her sphere of influence. In other words, move to another
universe.

****

A lot more time went by than I would have thought before the
government called up begging me and my 'proteges' to pull their asses
out of the fire. Fools should have known better than to perform a
seaince(you know, hold hands in the dark and chant to call up spirits
and other bad stuff) on a secret warlock burial ground. What were they
trying to do, see what they guy wiped his ass with? Any spirit that
has been emtombed for as long as this one had isn't going to be good
for much more than that.

"I'm game," I said to the senshi."It's a paying job and really
shouldn't be too hard. All we have to do is rescue a group of
scientists. None of you even have to do any work, just come along to
make sure nobody interferes with me when I'm busy." Bad things can
happen when people do that. I think that's what sunk Atlantis.

The man in charge was kind enough to have a helicopter ride out to the
site arranged for us. It was one of those expensive deals that is
quieter than a hummingbird. I was hopping around in my seat like a
nervous child by the time we arrived at the closest possible landing
site. This was the kind of find that people like me, wizards,
sorcerers, warlocks, etc, all dreamed about. The practice of
separating oneself from reality at the moment of death had been
stopped millenia ago, once it was discovered by some halfway
intelligent wizard that the spirit left behind within its own tiny
little bubbleverse suffers immense pain for eternity, kinda like hell,
only worse. If you could find an ancient tomb like this, and had the
proper training, which I did, you could use the energy to forge a
magical tool of immense power. Ever heard of excalibur?

The raw power of Usagi's crystal, which I now have reason to believe
may be one of those magical tools created at a very powerful tomb, is
nothing compared to the 'pure' energy that can be found contained
within the bubble that contains the spirit. I don't know why it works
that way. No one does. I once read a theory that only went so far as
to guess that since there were no other forces within the
microverses(better term in my opinion) besides the relatively weak
energy of a single spirit, that magic is distilled into its most basic
form.

Whatever the reason, I was getting me something special today. I
really couldn't decide what I wanted to make it into. Now that I think
about it, what I would be getting my hands on today would be a tiny
piece of creation itself. I would get to actually Make something.
Whatever I wanted(within reasonable limits). Poor Setsuna, she was
going to be one miserable bitch come tomorrow.

"You certainly are excited, Ranma," Ami commented moments before the
aircraft began landing.

"This is sorta like my birthday times a million," I confessed. None of
them would understand what was happening, not even Usagi and her
little cranial library. White magic doesn't work well when interfering
with reality. Makes me wonder why someone created the crystal just to
hand it over to the All Mighty's bastard...nevermind, answered my own
question.

Ami only gave me a puzzled look. The other senshi were too busy
staring at the column of rainbow light rising from the top of the
little mountain we would soon be flying to, under our own power.

****

"Don't let anything within twenty feet of me," I ordered."Not a cute
little butterfly or a flying saucer. If the Emperer himself shows up
and wants to kiss my feet, vaporize him." I pointed to the five
scientists trapped within the column of light being given off by the
breached tomb. They didn't look happy. In fact from the screaming and
incoherent begging, I got the impression that they would have peeled
their own skin off If it would have helped them escape."I don't want
to end up like that, and I hope none of you do."

"What if it's a cute little kitten?" Usagi asked. She may not be an
idiot, or an inept sorcerres any longer, but she was still an
airheaded teenage girl.

"If it's your own mother," I insisted. She glared at me. I smiled
pleasantly and she turned to look at the screaming people. She nodded.

Finally prepared, I made a small cut on the inside of my left forearm
and thoroughly coated the blade of my athame in my own blood. The air
crackled with energy and the ground trembled as I began to chant in a
language so dead and ancient that I didn't even know what continent it
originated on. As the ritual continued, the world fell away from my
perceptions. Soon all I could sense were tiny flares of energy far
behind me that signified the senshi standing guard. Within moments
even that small bit of sensory input faded away. My mind, with the
full backing of every shred of power I could muster, was now being
propelled through that place between existances where an instant can
last an eternity and infinity can go by in the blink of an eye. For
obvious reasons, I have no idea how long I travelled this way.

When I found my target my powers were nearing their limit. That didn't
matter, the hard part was over. Mentally, because I had no form here,
I reached out to the pathetic little ovoid of milky colored wavering
light. The shock of contact was almost orgasmic in its intensity.
Carefully, so as not to lose too much energy, I opened a gateway in
that microverse smaller than an electron. Despite the surrounding
environment, I'm sure that no time passed between that action and a
streak of blue light created by the escape of the soul trapped within
being jettisoned back towards the relatively more pleasant realm of
hell.

With the soul gone, the microverse collapsed in on itself, becoming
nothing more than a mote of intense light. Within my mind I pictured
the form I wished that energy to take. I decided earlier to follow the
example of the creator of the Silver Imperium Crystal. Properly
aligned, I could use such a crystal, one of my own making, to imitate
almost anything that I could create now. And I wouldn't be limited to
a simple energy source. No, my crystal would act as a lens for my own
energy. No danger of burning myself out that way. Combine it with the
Silver Imperium Crystal...well I'm not really greedy, I don't want to
challenge the All Mighty.

The milky, multi-faceted crystal took shape in my mind and formed
simultaneously in reality. Exhausted, I let consciousness fall away,
avoiding a potentially painful reentry into my body.

****

I couldn't have been out long. The sun hadn't moved perceptibly at
all. I stood shakily, hastily absorbing my crystal into my hand. I was
too tired to try using it at the moment. The flattened mountaintop had
been exposed to an awesome amount of heat, enough to leave it bubbling
in most places and a thick layer of volcanic glass in the areas that
had cooled. The senshi were all safely ensconced within shields of
varying colors. I winced as I took in the sight of five badly charred
individuals standing where the scientists had been transfixed. They
weren't suffering any longer. Heh.

"Oops," I said.

"'Oops' is all you can say?!" Rei shouted at me. I did deserve a
little verbal abuse."Why don't you come over here and have a look at
what you've done?"

Not in the mood to argue, I slowly gathered up some of the energy
floating around, there was lots to go around, and tested out my new
lens. Even with my diminished energy levels and physical exhaustion, I
was able to cool the molten rock with hardly any effort. I staggered
over to Rei, who had lowered her shield once the danger from the lava
was gone. She silently pointed to the bottom of the mountain, then
swept her arm from side to side.

"Oops," I repeated. What else can you say when you've just
accidentally transported a mountain, yourself, and a gang of
sorceress' in training to another universe? They didn't know we
weren't in our own dimension. The senshi weren't that sensitive. They
probably just thought we were somewhere in China or something. I
hadn't even noticed the subtle differences in the ambient energy at
first. All that late night exploring had paid off, sorta.

With the lens' help, I began restoring my reserves of energy at a nice
break neck pace that would have turned me into a cinder unaided. How
was I going to break the news? Better yet, how were they going to
react when they found out that I wasn't sure if I could get us home?

Transdimensional plane hopping isn't to be taken lightly. Home
coordinates and destination coordinates have to be firmly established.
I hadn't done either. I was about to spill my guts when an idea struck
me. Why did this have to be my fault at all? I could blame it on one
of the senshi, Usagi would work best, and be just another unfortunate
victim. Hell, for all I knew, this really wasn't my fault at all.

"Wait a minute," I said suspiscously,"who didn't follow instructions?
Which one of you let something get too close?" I demanded. No one came
forward, not that I had expected anyone to. I let them get indignant
and angry at one another, with Rei looking ready to bitch slap Usagi,
before deciding to play peace maker.

"I'm sorry I blamed you guys," I said understandingly."There was a lot
of area for just five of you to cover." I felt a little bad about
manipulating them, but it saved me a lot of trouble and didn't strain
their friendships.

They accepted that explanation readily enough."Where do you think we
are, Ranma?" Minako asked.

I shouldn't keep the truth from them. Here it comes."We're not really
on Earth anymore. Actually, we're not in our home universe any
longer."

Ami was the first to understand the implications of that statement. In
a frightened whisper, she asked,"Ranma, do you know how to get us
home?"

Ah, geeze. They all began giving me the frightened puppy dog look,
complete with big giant, moistly shining eyes."I know 'how' to get us
home," I answered honestly."I just don't know where home is."

****

We were all sitting around a good sized fire that I had made when the
temperature started to drop as evening approached. Usagi was crying on
Rei's shoulder.

"I can find our home dimension, eventually. It'll take a shit load of
searching, but I can do it. Problem is that I don't have the necessary
tools to do that. We're gonna have to hope this world is at least
partially civilized, because I know how to magically polish and silver
a mirror, but I don't have any idea how to get the quality of glass
needed for the proper spells. That's only one essential item. I can
probably improvise most of the others, it'll just take longer." To
tell you the truth, I didn't much mind being on this world, wherever
it was. The naturally occuring free energy that powered most magic was
of a higher level and quantity here. The air was actually fresh, too.

"And I called Shingo a goat faced punk this morning," Usagi told Rei's
shoulder. We ignored the blubbering girl.

"If we can find food and water, this shouldn't be too bad an
experience," Makoto said with false cheer."I haven't been camping in
years."

"That's the spirit. Tomorrow I'll find us something to eat and I'll
work out a spell to lead us to the nearest people." If there were any
people."Well, I'm beat, g'night." For lack of anything better to sleep
on, I conjured up a cushion of air and made myself comfortable.

****

Three days later, after fighting off swarms of mosquitos and living
off berries and a variety of wombat that I had convinced the girls was
giant rabbit, we found a dirt road. It was the first sign of
civilization and cheered the senshi and me up significantly. My
tracking spell was generally effective. I think that the population
was just too spread out for it to work as well as I'd hoped.

"Time to take a vote," I announced. Little things like that keep
people happy."Which way do we go?" I was pretty sure they would say
east. West led towards some unpleasant looking mountains. Unanimous
decision. East.

Some time later, I asked,"Why don't we just fly?" I was embarassed
that I hadn't thought of it earlier.

The girls all blushed. Yep, they were asking themselves the same
question.

"One of us should have thought of this earlier, like three and a half
days ago," Makoto said, raising her voice so she could be heard over
the wind.

It's hard to say for certain, but I'd estimate we were travelling at
about a hundred kilometers an hour. Plain dumb luck should lead us to
something besides more road. Roads much longer than what we'd already
travelled weren't very practical unless they had towns or some kind of
hotel or supply depot along the way. That would be even more important
in a preindustrial society. I'm starting to sound like Ami. Not the
worst of the choices.

I didn't comment on that topic, instead asking,"Have any of you
noticed the higher energy index of this planet?" I hadn't mentioned
this earlier and was wondering if any one of the girls was naturally
sensitive enough to pick up on the fact without it being pointed out
to them.

Suprisingly, they all said they had felt something unusual. Minako,
Makoto, and Rei had only felt a slight charge in the air. Usagi and
Ami were seeing things as brighter than normal even though the light
level was so close to our natural sun as to be indistinguishable and
thought they saw and felt odd little crackles of energy when they
worked magic. Now that Usagi was a mostly normal girl, I had a much
weaker urge to murder her. She was turning out to be a dependable
teammate too.

Argh, this camaraderie crap is contagious!

****

Our little dirt road joined with a much larger one made of
painstakingly carved granite blocks interlocked with one another like
pieces of a puzzle. The different shades and colors of the stone made
the road more than an impressive piece of civil engineering. It was
actually a work of art.

"I wish I had my camera," Minako lamented after a suitable amount of
time gawking. Geeze, it was a road, not a naked woman.

"Just get a clear picture of it in your head and whenever we get home
you can imprint it on photographic paper," I assured her."I taught you
that spell the week before last.

"Oh yeah, I kinda forgot about it. Thanks for reminding me."

"This really is an astounding structure," Ami said, while viewing a 3-
D image generated by her computer."I've been able to distinguish over
seven hundred varieties of granite here. That shouldn't be possible."

"This isn't Earth," I reminded."This isn't even our universe. For all
it's similarities to Earth, there could be just as many differences.
This is just a minor one." If something like this was gonna happen, I
wish it could have a waited a few years or at least until the girls
really understood what was happening.

The Road ran perpendicular to our dirt one, heading off as far as the
eye could see to the north and south. A few miles further east,
through a stand of some kind of blue leaved trees, there was an ocean.
It could have been a really big lake too, if lakes ever got that
choppy. I hadn't been to the beach in years."Before we head out again,
do any of you want to go for a swim?"

Minako was the only one reluctant and that was because she didn't have
a swimsuit.

"Don't be silly," Makoto said teasingly."It's just us girls here." We
all nodded encouragingly at her. Inside my head there was a giant evil
grin.

"I guess," she seemed more embarassed at her reluctance itself than
the prospect of being nude in front of her friends.

I checked to make sure the water wasn't posionous or infested with
microscopic piranha or any other unpleasnat suprise before letting the
other girls into the water. The water was only slightly salty. I
turned back toward the other to make sure they made it into the water.
Hint, wink, nudge, grin. All of the senshi are really much more mature
physically than your standard everyday sixteen year old girl. And
they're hot. No two ways to say it. And they all had pierced nipples.
What in hell?!

"What in hell?!" I shouted, forgetting to ride out the next wave and
nearly choking on a mouth full of seawater. I was quickly rescued,
needlessly, by three of the senshi. I let Rei give me mouth to mouth
for a few seconds before pretending to start breathing again.

"Are you hurt? What happened? Why did you go so far if you can't
swim?" I endured their barrage of worried questions, slightly touched
that they cared. Don't make a big deal out of it.

I told them that I had stepped into a hole and lost my footing. They
believed me. Then I pretended to just happen to notice the
piercings."Um, why are your nipples pierced? Not that they don't look
great and all, you girls just don't seem like the type."

They all looked at Makoto. She blushed, finally answering,"We were
having a sleep over at my apartment and I fixed a bunch of snacks and
punch and stuff like that. I spiked the punch a little..."

"But none of us knew that and we all spiked it a little too," Rei said
guiltily.

"We still can't figure out who's idea it was," Ami said,
absentmindedly toying with the small gold ring in her right
breast."All I can remember is waking up and they were already there."

"I remember most of it," Usagi added.

"And since we already had had it done, we decided to keep them,"
Minako finished.

Well. Well, well, well. Maybe my little students weren't so innocent
afterall."That's cool. When we get back home, I might see about having
it done too." Not that that statement was in any way honest. I use too
much direct energy to ever have any kind of metal in such close
contact with my body. In fact, Makoto probably would have electrocuted
herself by now if she wasn't so closely bound to her element.

My last comment broke down into a debate on whether gold or silver was
better, then if hoops or bars were more attractive. I was really
enjoying myself. They just kept playing with their tits! A storm
coming in off the ocean interrupted the little party. A bitterly cold
wind preceded the black clouds. With no shelter in sight and having no
desire to be stranded in such bad weather, I said,"Get your stuff
together and I'll make us a little magic tent." Previously, before the
ritual that had secured my crystal(I still haven't been able to think
of a good name for it) it would have been an exhausting experience
maintaining any kind of spell within a storm as fierce as this one
promised to be. Now I could use the excess energy that I would have
had to fight to keep the spell cohesive to actually hold it in place.

The dome was pretty spacious, with a sand bottom that was partially
wet. I covered most of it in an invisible cushion of air, but at
Usagi's request, I left enough of it exposed for her to build sand
castles.

"So these last few nights when we were all being chewed up by swarms
of mosquitos, you could have just made this?" Rei asked, deceptively
calm.

"Uh huh," I answered, lounging comfortably on the air cushion.

"Why didn't you?" Still much calmer than she felt.

"No one ever asked and I've already taught you the spell that keeps
insects away. Ami used it. I guess you forgot. Sorry." I sounded
sleepily disinterested. Rei lunged at me, more playfully than the last
dozen or so times. I lazily raised my hand and allowed a tiny, almost
imperceptible arc of electricity to fly from it and directly to Rei's
right nipple ring. She yelped like a kicked dog and screeched in pain.
"Play nice," I warned the glaring girl. Waving a finger that trailed
sparks into the air. I hadn't really hurt her, I knew. She could have
brushed her hair and gotten more of a charge than what I just used.

Rei had a maniacal gleam in her eyes that amost made me raise my
shields. I noticed that she was lookin at Usagi instead of me and
relaxed. Fire being the girl's element, it was difficult for her to
create any kind of electrical energy, but when she managed to call it
up, Rei's effort was a sizable charge about ten times stronger than
what I used on her. I winced in sympathy for Usagi and covered my
ears.

The scream was blood curdling and Usagi's spasming leg caused her to
destroy what she had claimed to be a copy of the palace she had once
lived in during her previous life. It had looked pretty good. A few
minutes later I was forced to restrain the two girls who were really
going at it.

"It was just a joke!" Rei swore vehemently."I didn't mean for it to be
that strong, Usagi. I promise!" The big hand print on the side of her
face would definitely leave a mark.

Usagi glared at her friend, all the while rubbing at her pained
nipple. What had I started? I sighed and let fly with another charge
of electricity, equal to what Rei had used on Usagi. Rei flopped
around like a fish out of water. When she stopped screaming, both her
and Usagi were glaring at me."Hey, don't look at me like that. I did
it to Rei because she was trying to gouge my eyes out again. Rei did
it to you out of sheer bitchiness. I did it to Rei again so that she
would have the common sense not to try it again."

The other senshi had watched in a mix of fascination, awe, and horror.
I couldn't blame them for protectively covering their chests with
their arms. Those things are a lot more sensitive than a guy's. For
obvious reasons, I know all to well.

"I'm sorry that I started this crap. There. Now I'm going to go to
sleep and we're going to forget that this ever happened." I made
myself comfortable and closed my eyes. Things would be back to normal
tomorrow, if a little strained between Usagi and Rei

****

C&C welcome at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 6 [Ranma][SM][x-over]
Within hours of setting out the next morning, we found, at last, a
destination. The city sat behind massive walls of the same type stone
and construction of the road. Ninety meters high and half that thick,
I couldn't help but be impressed by the work. The city itself was
huge. The buildings were all low to the ground and constructed of a
single color of stone. When viewed from above, the buildings took on
the same pattern of organization as in the road. Oh yeah, there wasn't
anyone living in the place. There could have been people, or six
tencacled clams or whatever passed for intelligent life on this planet
hiding somewhere, but I didn't see any signs of them. Windblown dust
had gathered in corners and between buildings, suggesting significant
age.
"Did we scare all the people away?" Usagi asked sadly. I shook my
head. I was still feeling a little sorry for Usagi after last night's
unfortunate incident and I didn't want to make her cry by rebuking
her.

"Look around," I said once Usagi's attention was focussed
elsewhere."No one has lived here in a long time." Besides the dust,
though, there was no debris or litter. There was nothing except stone.
Wooden window casements in some of the dwellings we passed had rotted
away to nothing. I wouldn't even have known that any had ever existed
there if not for Ami pointing it out. That little computer of hers has
to be magically augmented, I just don't know how.

"This is a nice place," Makoto said after we had walked into a sizable
square with a still functioning fountain that sprayed a fine mist into
the air."Why would anybody abandon it?"

"Who knows?" I shrugged."A plague could have killed off the
inhabitants ten thousand years ago or they could have decided that
living in such a colorful place was aggravating. We'll never know." I
didn't feel any magical agent at work, so how could the stone this
city was composed of have escaped the relentless erosion of nature,
especially a place so close to an ocean that would bring in frequent
storms and a steady and continuous salt spray to further speed
destruction?

"Then I," and Usagi did a little semi-speech,"shall claim this the
City of Usagi!" She raised her arm and swirled it around, collecting
energy and forming it into an extremely skillful construct. It was
well done, the flag of silver with her picture on it, though not
really suited to my tastes.

I watched, with the senshi as witnesses, as Usagi flew to the top of
the highest structure and planted her flag. The silver fabric caught a
nonexistant wind and unfurled completely, giving off a radiant glow.
"Maybe it's something in the air," Minako supplied to the silence of
big eyes and giant sweat drops.

"What do you think?" Usagi asked, streamers of pure happiness twirling
around her. Sometimes there can be such a thing as too Good.

"Uh, it's great, Usagi," I replied."What made you think of such a
wonderful name?" Everyone else just nodded along with me.

The girl shrugged and smiled."It just felt right." She shivered."I
just couldn't stand for such a pretty place to be so lonely and
abandoned." As long as she didn't try to clean it up and make all nice
and shiny, I couldn't care less what she called it.

"The next one is mine," Rei snapped, irritable that she hadn't thought
of claiming the city first. Those two have a really weird love-hate
relationship, kinda like the one my mom had with the old bastard, but
without the sex.

All the senshi, even Ami, then called dibs on who would name what.
Poor Minako looked like a sulky little kid when she found out everyone
was ahead of her. Ha, watch this."You all have your fun. If we don't
find anyone to tell us otherwise, I'm claiming and naming this
planet." Ha ha ha."Ranma has a nice ring to it, don't you think?" The
choking noises made by Rei and Makoto were worth letting myself get
caught up in the small lapse into silliness.

****

Ami and I were the only ones who had decided not to go explore the
city in more detail. We were sitting outside the wall at a small fire
and eating berries from a big leaf I had wrapped them in. There
weren't any wombats around and I didn't feel like hunting much.

"Ranma, if the whole planet is like Usagi's city, we're screwed," Ami
said around a mouthful of berries. I congratulated myself on getting
Ami to say 'screwed' within a normal conversation. A little time and I
could maybe get a few curse words worked into the senshis' vocabulary.

"Yep," I agreed."Of course I get to be Emperor of Ranma, then." Ami
smiled worriedly. Heh."Really though, if it comes down to the wire,
and I can't find what we need, I can just tear a hole into another
universe." My crystal and I can do that, for the record. Not me alone.
No one has that much power, even Silence and Saturn."That would
destroy this planet. That's a last resort measure, though, because we
could end up somewhere worse. I'm on good terms with the inhabitants
in the Hell of our universe, destroying an entire sentient species by
accident though," I shook my head,"Would get me personal attention
from the Prince of Hell himself."

Ami was staring at me when I looked up to get some more berries."You
mean you've really been to hell?" she asked disbelievingly."I thought
all those references were just jokes."

"No really, I have. It's not a bad place to visit, a little warm for
my tastes, but nice, in a...red sort of way. The Dark Prince isn't a
bad guy, he just got stuck with a crappy father." I've had my fair
share of bad parenting, so I know.

"But the...tormenting of lost souls...and eternal damnation..."

I waved that off."Hell isn't what people think it is. You have to do
something 'really' bad to go to hell. Trust me, if you're there, you
deserve it. I was just babysitting Nicky, so I'm the exception."
Nicky's a nice kid. Too bad his brothers hit him with that shovel.

"Who's Nicky?" Ami sounded resigned, like she just couldn't help but
believe me.

"The Dark Prince's youngest son. He's a bit on the goofy side, not
really Prince of Hell material. I've heard that his mother was a goat,
so you can't really expect much." The berries slowly dwindled away in
the silence. I hope the other girls can find themselves something to
eat or their going to throw a fit."Ever hear of Hitler?" Stupid
question, I know. I told her about his twice daily anal pineapple rape
and had her cracking up pretty good by the time the girls came back, a
monstrous watermelon held between them.

"Look what we found!" Usagi exclaimed. That was a big damned
watermelon. We made a feast of it, sporadically interrupred by a
shootout between Rei and Usagi with peach pit sized seeds. I showed my
little group of girl scouts how to remove the moisture from thin
slices of the melon, producing a huge quantity of dried watermelon
chips. I didn't ask Usagi why she carried garbage bags in her purse,
it seemed like a waste of breathe. No more picking berries for a
while.

****

Weeks later, with no other sign of civilization besides the Road and
Usagi's city, I started to get worried. My companions and I were all
in relatively good spirits, though for how long I couldn't guess. I 'm
really thinking about getting rid of this damned ring and letting the
senshi know who I really am. It's not like they could destroy me, and
I'm the only one with the know how and power to get us home...Truth
is, I'm really horny. I could probably have seduced Ami in my girl
form, I just think she swings that way for some reason, but that would
make things way too awkward and I'd much rather be a guy for the
occassion.

I'd continued instructing the senshi in the arcane art and was
pleasantly suprised that the higher energy levels of Ranma world(has a
nice ring to it) made learning spell patterns easier for some reason.
Ami knew, if knot well enough to properly use, all of the ice and
water based spells that I did. She was getting completely separate
lessons from Usagi in white magic and myself in the darker aspects.
Rei and Makoto were far enough along with their studies to help each
other witht the more difficult heat/electricity spells that were most
familiar. Minako consistently insisted that her's was the power of
love and I couldn't really make her understand that most of her magic
was centered around high energy plasma.

****

"What are those?" I asked Minako and Makoto as we sat in the cave I
had found. Night had fallen and everyone was relaxing. They were
playing some kind of card game. I couldn't see well into there little
corner of the cave because of the shadows cast by the light spheres
they were using. I didn't want to play, I have the worst poker face
ever, I was curious and bored.

"Pokemon cards," they answered simultaneously. The duo took turns
describing the layout of the game. I nodded and said yes and no
whenver appropriate, but my attention wasn't really with them. I was
busy discreetly watching Rei give herself a sponge bath. I wanted to
cry. It's all so unfair. When they finished, I made my escape into the
cool night.

I climbed to the top of the rockoutcropping that housed the cave and
slipped the ring off, feeling the instant change from male to female.
If I hadn't accepted this thing, I would not have had a way to truly
hide from devil hunters, then again, I would be somewhere now having
fun doing 'something' or someone.

If I hadn't been so wrapped up in my own problems, I would have heard
or sensed Ami's approach. When her head popped up over the rim of
slightly flattened ledge made by the jutting rock, I froze, unable to
move or think. Well, the secret was out, I guess.

She continued to climb, unaware of my appearance. It wasn't until she
was almost all the way up when she began," Ranma, I-" and a cloud
moved just enough to bathe me in moonlight. She, too, froze. I thought
she would fall, but she powered up a flight spell and floated over the
rim and to her feet. Hmm, why wasn't she screaming and trying to blast
me?"R-Ranma, what are y-you doing? Is that an illusion?" She didn't
come any closer and I could sense the building of defensive barriers
around her.

"No Ami, this isn't an illusion. This is my true form." I quickly
slipped the ring on and changed back into a girl."This is just an
altered state." At least I had managed to speak.

"But, but Luna said that you were evil all those months ago...and then
you showed up as a girl..." Things must have started to add up in her
head.

"Luna was wrong about me being evil," I informed her heatedly. Damned
furball."I just have a demonic presensce."

"That's why you hate Setsuna so much, isn't it? She tricked you into
teaching us and you had to honor the agreement, but you couldn't do it
in your true form, so she gave you the ring. You didn't know it would
make you a girl, then?" Wow, she inferred most of it out of that one
little piece of info. Good girl.

"That's mostly right. The agreement was to teach the senshi so that I
could have the ring. It was supposed to mask my presensce so that
devil hunters would leave me alone. They've bothered me for years, you
see. Sailor Pluto didn't feel like telling me that it would have to
change my gender to be effective." That reminded me that with me out
of the same general area as Setsuna, the power to all the curses I had
stuck her with would be gone. They had probably all faded away by now.
Shit.

Ami didn't speak right away. I remained silent as she walked up to me
and sat down."I won't tell the others. I think you would be suprised
if you did. Luna has been wrong before. The others are open minded and
genuinely think of you as a friend, they'd accept you without much
trouble, I'm sure." She sounded like she believed what she was saying.
I didn't.

I chuckled and said,"You forget that I'm really a guy and that I've
seen you all naked A LOT and listened to you talk about nipples and
stuff. I'm not sure if it wasn't a punishment more than a pleasure. I
don't think most girls would see it that way, though." I did have to
sleep, afterall, and all kinds of bad things can happen to a person's
resting mind and body.

"It's up to you. Your secret is safe with