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 me," assured Ami."And I
don't know about you," she said shyly, in a whisper,"but I liked it
when you saw me nude."

Alarm bells and all kinds of flashing lights were going off in my
head. I wasn't entirely sure whether Ami was squeezing my crotch
either. This wasn't supposed to happen, not with Ami. I could see
Minako, the future slut, making a move like this, but not AMI! I was
suprised, not stunned into inaction. I switched back to my true form
and saw that Ami didn't take exception to it. Yay!

****

Insert Lemon scene here. I can't write them seriously whenever I try,
so make use of your imagination until I can get someone to do one for
me.

****

It's amazing the amount of tension one can relieve through sex. When
you've gone months without it while being in a highly sexual(from a
guy's perspective) situation, you feel like a totally different
person. I didn't even let myself notice all the knowing looks I was
getting from the senshi, even Usagi. Ami was a real screamer.

Isn't today a great day? All sunny and breezy, not a hint of a cloud
in the sky, a giant spaceship slowly descending to the ground. I
rubbed my eyes and shook my head. Yep, still there.

"Look alive, girls!" I shouted back towards the cave. The senshi
scrambled into the clearing in full battle regalia. I didn't need to
point out the ship.

"Do you think this is their planet?" Usagi asked."They can't have my
city!" She looked ready to blast the ship.

"It doesn't matter if it is," I heard Ami reply."If they're friendly,
anyone with the ability to build a ship that size could get Ranma the
supllies he needs to find home." I turned and winked at the Senshi of
Mercury, causing her to blush rosily.

The ship was too close for comfort by now and a deep humming whine
filled the air. The thing was going to set down right in front of us.
The closer it got the easier it got to appreciate the true magnitude
of the ship. It was shaped like a giant saucer with a sharply curving
protrusion flowing downward, from which were attached to uprising
tubes that glowed with energy.

"Look," Rei pointed."There are words on it! In English!" She was
right. It read U.S.S. Enterprise.

****

C&C welcome at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 7 [Ranma][SM][x-over]
The spaceship never actually touched down, hovering twenty feet above
the tree line. As soon as the vessel was stationary, five short
columns of sparkling blue and white light formed a haf dozen meters in
front of us. The columns of energy each deposited a human being.
Teleportation through technology, amazing. I was still working on my
own teleportation spell using what I had seen of Setsuna's as a guide.
It had a few bugs to work out.
What do you say to humans with a lot more technology than those from
your own planet? The three men and two women from the ship didn't
appear threatening and weren't armed with any kind of weapon that I
knew up. Those things at their waists did hold a lot of energy,
though. Here goes nothing."Hey, nice to meet ya," I said.

The man in the red jumpsuit stepped forward and cleared his
throat."I'm Commander Riker of the Enterprise. This star system is in
inmenent danger from a nearby black hole. Do you need assistance?"

Blackhole. That would not have been fun."We didn't come here by ship,
Commander Riker," I replied. Now to see if they believe in magic
here."My friends and I were transported from our home dimension by
mistake when a containment spell I was performing went arry.

To my suprise the Commander just nodded and tapped a small device
attached to his suit."Eleven to beam up, Ensign." Not bad, but the
senshi's are better."You do wish to return to the ship with us,
correct?"

Stupid question."Yeah." The girls behind me squeaked in fright when
the teleporter grabbed them. I thought it felt pretty good, sorta like
the bubbles in a hot tub. When the blue and white lights dissipated,
the senshi, the Commander, and I were standing on a raised platform in
a stereotypical futuristic space ship. All cool earthy colors and
smooth, flowing lines.

"Welcome to the Starship Enterprise, ladies. You are currently being
held within a containment field. As soon as you've been checked out in
the sick bay and given clearance, Captain Picard will see you." I
nodded and smirked at the senshi. They were a little overloaded at the
moment. Too much input all at once.

A man in a yellow suit did something to the console in front of him
and the teleporter dumped us in the sick bay. I could still feel the
energy field around us and could have easily nullified it, but that
would probably leave a bad impreesion with our hosts.

An attractive middle aged woman in a blue lab coat approached the
field."Hello, I'm Dr. Crusher. If you all would just lay down on those
examination tables, we'll be finished in a few minutes." I complied
and the senshi followed my example. Whatever the doctor did, it didn't
even take the predicted few minutes.

"All right," the doctor said, typing in a command on a touch sensitive
flat panel. With the command the energy field surrounding us
disappeared."You're all in perfect physical health. The Captain wishes
to meet with you in his ready room and since I don't have anything
better to do, I'll show you the way."

"Is this ship from Earth?" I asked after following the woman through a
couple of corridors. I'd already seen a blue guy and a green woman.
They weren't demonic in origin, so I guessed they were aliens.

"Yes," answered Dr. Crusher."Well it was built in one of the ship
yards orbiting Earth. May I ask why you wish to know?"

"It's just unusual. The Earth we come from is way too primitive to
possibly build something like this." Useful exchange of information.

"I was under the impression that you and your friends were involved in
a reactor containment failure that somehow transported you to Berov
IV." The doctor gave us all a confused glance.

"Heh heh. The Commander must have misunderstood." I don't really know
what a reactor containment failure even is."I was working a
containment spell, as in magic, to release the spirit of an ancient
warlock without blowing up the countryside that held his tomb.
Something went wrong and poof, here we are."

I got another confused and slightly skeptical glance. Squeezed into a
tiny elevator, Ami finally spoke up."What does the ship use for
propulsion? I didn't notice any exterior thrust apparatus."

The doctor laughed and said,"Engineering isn't exactly my area of
expertise. As I understand it, though, the Enterprise uses a
matter/anti-matter reactor to provide propulsion through particle
drive or warp space manipulation."

For someone who doesn't know what she's talking about, Dr. Crusher
sounded considerably knowledgable on the subject. Ami's eyes were
shining with interest. Oh boy.

The elevator stopped and we stepped into what I assume was the bridge.
There sure were a lot of controls and people and a really big tv
screen."This way."

****

The Captain was an older man who was as bald as a cue ball. I repeated
my story, this time in more detail, while the senshi gawked at a
particularly ugly alien named Warf and a guy named Data who I'm
absolutely sure wasn't alive.

"And your certain that you didn't somehow travel into the future with
your...magic?" asked the Captain cautiously.

"Positive. For one thing, our future has her," I pointed to Usagi who
smiled and waved to the Captain,"as Queen of Earth. I'm told that
she'll grow into the role and I can tell that that hasn't happened or
someone here would have recognized her. Mostly though, I just know
that this isn't my universe of origin. The energy is off a little. Ami
says that its a quantum variance or something like that."

"If I may," the woman named Diana interrupted,"Ranma is being truthful
in this matter, or she has been so heavily programmed that she
completely believes what she's saying." Sure hope she isn't psychic.
All kinds of bad stuff could see the light of day.

"Yep, that's me, Ms. Honesty. Really, though. I appreciate you and
your ship saving us from the black hole, and don't want to be
ungrateful, but the sooner we get home the better. All I need is a
mirror, some candles, and a few crystals, quartz if you have them."

"How would those items...Oh yes, magic. I'm sure they can be found. In
the meantime, could you demonstrate to us your magic. We've
encountered a number of powerful entities over the years who possessed
powers that could have been ermed as magic."

****

Talk about hard to please, I had to eventually start blowing stuff up
and flying around on the holodeck to convince the Captain that I
wasn't just some kind of hoax. That holodeck place really kicked ass.
I had Ami download the plans for one from the ship's computer once we
were assigned quarters, not that I expected her to be able to build
one with the junk back on our Earth. This is one hell of a space ship.
It's big and luxourious and I wouldn't mind staying on a few years,
but duty calls. Sigh.

Of all the advanced technology on this ship, I have to say that the
food replicator is the best. Anything you want to eat with no more
hassle than it takes to say a couple of words. Usagi did short her out
for a couple hours with the ice cream addiction, but the guy with the
freaky sunglasses fixed it up.

Speaking of Usagi, the girl was getting treated way better than she
deserved. I shouldn't have mentioned that she was royalty.

We were invited by the Captain to see the destruction of the star
system we had just left. The observation deck was full of ship staff
and off duty workers who turned out for the spectacle. I didn't really
care much for seeing what could have easily been my fate. I went along
because the experience could be valuable. Ami had mentioned that black
holes severely distorted time, and anything I could get together to
fight off Setsuna, if the need arose, was worth looking into.

Ami squeezed her way through the crowd and managed to lean against me.
She's a nice girl, and I like her as a friend, but I don't really want
to get into a serious relationship with her. Casual sex and friendship
is good, commitmitment is bad. I just hope she feels the same. For
now, though, I didn't mind the few odd looks from the other senshi or
the crew of the Enterprise. I was mostly accustommed to being female
and I wasn't really a lesbian, so...Why not enjoy it?

She hugged me."Thank you so much for bringing us here, Ranma." For the
last few days, when we hadn't been making woopy in my quarters, the
girl had been sponging up knowledge from the computer at such a rate
that Data, the Android(real fancy robot) that I thought was a dead guy
at first, commented that among humans, he had never seen as fast a
learner."When we get home I am going to be able to change the world."

Our little side trip to this alternate dimension could be the cause
for the rise of Crystal Tokyo. With everything Ami has learned, she's
assured me that she can end world hunger, stop pollution, fix the
weather, and recolonize the solar system. The little minx is plenty
grateful to me."No problem, not that I did it on purpose or anything."

She shrugged against me."It's the results that matter, not how they're
arrived at." I hope Setsuna sees it that way or I may be making a
return trip to the Enterprise.

****

"You're pretty tough," I admitted to Data. We were sparring in one of
the holoecks. I was kicking his robotic ass. I hadn't had a purely
physical fight like this in years, though, so I was enjoying myself
immensely.

"Thank you." He leapt for me, using sheer mass to knock me off my
feet. Whatever this guy is made of, it's a lot heavier than anything
I've ever dealt with.

Once I had solid ground under me, I flexed my muscles and threw the
android into the wall. I'll say one good thing for Happosai, he
trained me well. I almost wish he hadn't tried to take over my younger
body. Oh well, the past is the past.

"If I may ask," Data began, picking himself up and dusting his uniform
off,"how is it that a human of your size is capable of withstanding
the stress of direct combat with me? The only other lifeform of
similar size to you that I have encountered were the Borg and they
were highly augmented with cybernetics."

"It's all in the training," I answered."There's a certain peak that a
person reaches where their body simply can not improve upon itself any
longer, with the proper training, a that person can use their internal
energies to strengthen their body. I've done it for so many years that
I don't even have to use my chi to get it to work."

Data nodded."Chi being the spirit force of a living individual."

Data had duty in a few minutes and I had volunteered for some tests
that the doctor wanted to run on my brain. They still didn't really
believe that magic was real, as if the senshi's transforming without
any visible energy source wasn't proof enough.

****

Within a week of searching, I had narrowed our home dimension down to
three possibilities. These last three were so similar to each other in
the most significant ways that I was having problems getting past this
last hurdle.

The door to my quarters slid open without prompting and Ami threw
herself off of me, forming a caccoon within the blacket and hiding
inside. Captain Picard stepped into the room and sat in a chair near
the door.

I tried not to glare too hard at the man. He'd done a lot to help the
senshi and me, the least of which was solving a our lives. I'd been
'this' close, though.

"I've just recieved orders from Starfleet Command. The Enterprise is
to head to the nearest starbase immediately, with our newest guests
under close guard, where you will be turned over to Starfleet
Intelligence for debriefing. I won't assume to say that the experience
would be pleasant. For now, I will be following these orders to the
letter. I suggest you and your friends jump to another dimension as
soon as possible. The replicators can provide you with whatever you
need." And he stood just as quickly as he had sat and left the room.

Well, damn."You'd better download as much info as you can, Ami, while
I gather up the others." She had already summoned her computer and was
interfacing with the ship's systems.

I dressed quickly and went to wake my students. None of them were
happy, but they forgot their desire to pound me when I passed the news
on.

Usagi stared longingly at the replicator, tears gathering in her eyes.
I didn't even want to know how much ice cream she had forced the poor
machine to make her.

"I thought you still weren't sure where home was," Rei said.

"I'm not. There's only three choices. Thirty three percent chance of
getting it on the first try. If it's not the right one, the odds keep
going up until we hit the jackpot." Heh.

Ami was dressed and had backpacks for each of us. The Captain 'had'
said we could use the replicators."Everyone grab one," she ordered.

****

I had been performing the location spell in an empty cargo bay. My
quarters would do this time. The circular mirror surrounded by
replicated(those machines are damned convenient) crystals stopped
reflecting light as soon as my energy, augmented by my Crystal, began
to pour through it. Each of the senshi held a colored candle
represenative of her color. They lit them with a spark of magic, as
directed by me, and the light generated by the flames was redirected
staight into the crystals. A five point star formed above the mirror,
it's corner the now glowing crystals.

I didn't really need the senshi to do what I had them doing. They felt
useful and it eased the strain on me slightly. Win/win situation.

"Jump into the mirror," I told them. One by one, starting with Rei and
ending with me, we jumped through the mirror and appeared in a lightly
wooded area on the edge of a larger forest.

Damn, this wasn't the one. Ami and Rei looked at me. They, too, knew.
I told the others and endured their disappointment.

"All we have to do is find another mirror and some more crystals and
I'll try again. Chances are fifty fifty that it'll work next time."

****

There was definitely people on this planet, enough of them that I
could eacily detect several of the larger populations. We were in the
boonies and flying to save time. Minako suddenly dropped from my
periphrial vision. I stopped sharply and glided down towards where she
would have gone down if her spell had lost power. I found the girl
sitting on the ground with an unusual looking little dog creature. It
was barking happily and licking the girl's face like candy.

"Damn," Makoto hissed. First time I'd ever heard her use that
particular word."It's a pokemon, a real live pokemon! Hey Minako, it's
a Growlithe." She set down beside the blonde and between them they
lavished an almost indecent amount of attention on the...pokemon.

"Oh my gosh!" Usagi exclaimed."Shingo has a stuffed pokemon just like
that one!" And she joined the first two. That thing was seriously
eating up the attention.

When I thought about it, I knew that it was theoretically possible for
something like an anime to truly exist in another universe, but what
were the odds of stumbling across such an occurrence? I asked Ami and
she just shrugged.

"Are they dangerous?" I asked. I'd seen the commercials for the show a
couple of times and some of those little creatures had real power.
Neither Rei nor Ami, the only senshi not trying to mother the
Growlithe to death, knew any more than I did about pokemon.

"I wish I had a pokeball," Makoto said. I think it's some kind of dog
treat.

"You don't need one," Minako told her."This one has imprinted on you
like normal puppies. He must have just hatched." That thing didn't
look much like a bird, but who was I to say where little pokemon came
from.

"I wish I had one." That innocent statement by Usagi totally halted
any further progress for the day. Usagi and the other senshi, I just
enjoyed myself watching Makoto try to teach hers to talk, searched the
forest for more pokemon. The future Queen was attacked by giant birds,
giant insects, and a walking tree. Despite these difficulties, she
returned with a stupid looking lamb thing. Ami came back next. She had
a giant butterfly resting on her right shoulder and a big egg covered
with held under her left arm. She gave me the egg.

"Thanks," I told her with real gratitude. I have absolutely no idea
what to do with a pokemon. I don't get gifts often enough to accept
them casually."What do you think it'll be?"

"Minako says that there's no way to tell just by looking at the egg. I
tried to scan it, it's so thick, though, that I couldn't get a
reading." She was leaning against me with her butterfly sleeping in
her lap when Minako finally came back. The girl led behind her a small
parade of pokemon. Two different birds, one like Makoto's, one of
Usagi's lambs and two giant caterpillars.

"Yes, yes, I know I'm good," she said and settled down on a cushion of
air of her own creation, with her cadre gathered around her. I don't
mind taking along a pet when we jumped again, there was no way we were
going to have this zoo with us.

I was the only person awake at the makeshift campsite, pokemon
included, when Rei stomped into the clearing. She didn't have a
pokemon and didn't look too happy about it. The light given off by the
last embers of our dying fire was enough for her to see the horde of
pokemon collected by her friends. Then she saw me grinning at her. The
girl turned around and stomped back into forest.

She didn't return again until midmorning and the squirming rat she
held to tightly couldn't possibly have been a pokemon. Turns out that
it actually is a pokemon. Is every animal on this planet a pokemon?
That must really suck for people when wild animals with the power that
Makoto said some of them had went on the rampage.

****

C&C welcome at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 8 [Ranm][SM][x-over]
For reasons best left unsaid, the girls decided that wanted to stay on
Pokemon world for a while. Ah, nevermind. They wanted to make their
pokemon stronger and Ami was determined to discover how such creatures
could be so alike in reproductive and evolutionary manner, but so
totally different in physical appearance and varying intelligence.
What did this transalte into? A very long stay in a little city named
Hickory, that's what.
Minako and Makoto, in order to fuel their desire to learn as much
about the creatures as possible, took jobs at the local pokemon
center. They don't even have a freakin hospital for people, yet every
damned town has a pokemon center to heal pokemon who've been injured
in battles. Usagi has gone off on a pokemon journey-yes, a pokemon
journey with her electric lamb to become champion of the Pokemon
League. Rei and her rat, that flea bag evolved into the most hideous
wolf rat/beaver thing I've ever seen.

And me, what do I do all day? I kick the ass of every pokemon I can.
I'm getting famous for it actually. The Pokemon League(the entire
economy of this planet is based around pokemon) has even started
building a pokemon gym in Hickory for other humans to come to fight
against pokemon. And my egg? Three weeks and not so much as a crack. I
would have thrown it out as a dud weeks ago if Nurse Joy(they even
clone the same nurse to serve at every pokemon center) hadn't checked
it out and ok'ed it.

I walked into the bedroom that Ami and I shared in the town's boarding
house. She was just wrapping up a conversation with Usagi on their
wrist radios. She saw me come in and said,"Usagi is in the running for
Pokemon League Champion. She's sending us tickets."

"Isn't that a little fast? She's only been gone two weeks." Damnit, if
Makoto had never seen that stupid puppy, we would be home now. I
should look at the bigger picture, like how we're safe from demon
attacks and crazed temporal mages here, but all these pokemon are
annoying.

"I don't think she sleeps very much. That and a little magic,
probably, is how she managed to build up her pokemons' power so
quickly. The preliminaries aren't for another month and I have an
invitation from Professor Oak to visit his laboratory. Do you want to
go with me? We can take our time and you can make a few appearances at
the other gyms along the way."

Weeks alone with Ami? Sure, no problem."Yeah. When do we leave?" Maybe
I would get to see what was in that egg.

"Tomorrow, if that's ok with you?"

****

"What's this?" I asked Ami as she handed me a black and silver
backpack.

"Professor Oak sent them. They're called pokegear. We can keep our
food and pokemon and stuff in them. I bought us some pokeballs encase
we see something interesting along the way." Ingenious devices,
pokeballs. They have a huge storage capacity and a pokemon kept inside
of one needed no food. I plan on taking some back to Earth to sale to
the military. Imagine, every soldier carrying a tank in his pocket.
The prison system could definitely benefit.

"Cool."

We weren't bothered by many wild pokemon while walking through the
tall grass that the Pokemon League kept growing everywhere. I have a
feeling that they were scared of me. I let Ami and her Butterfree
named Sparkles handle those brave enough to attack us. She really got
a kick out of the experience and I could literally feel, if barely, an
increase in the pokemon's power after every battle.

The first night we camped out at the base of a small mountain in the
middle of the forest. Ami had caught a little ball of rock with arms
that she insisted I accept since my egg was such a late bloomer.

"It's small now," she assured me,"but they get big and strong. Here,"
she said, flipping through her pokedex until she found the desired
picture."See, Geodude evolves into Graveller and Graveller evolves
into Golem."

It did look a little more impressive, if still not able to strike fear
in the hearts of men. I read through the listed attacks of the
creature and decided I might as well go with the flow. Ami healed it
from the beating Sparkles had given it and I stored it in a pokeball.

Ami made Sparkles go for an evening flight to stretch it's wings while
we made like wild pokemons.

****

"I admit that me and Slammer(I let Ami name my Geodude) get along
well, but there is no way I'm going to take that gimp fish." How such
a lame pokemon could survive when surrounded by so many that were so
much more powerful than it, I'll never know.

Ami sighed. Slammer had caught this one. She just seemed determined
that I should keep it. She pulled out the pokedex and scanned through
it for a couple minutes."This is what that gimp fish will evolve into
after two more level gains."

The snake like dragon pokemon couldn't be the product of a Magicarp. I
flipped to the Gyarados' preevolutionary form. It was a Magicarp. How
could it gain so much mass in the short time that pokemon evolution
takes?

"See the techniques," Ami pointed out."It learns some of the strongest
and it can be taught almost any technique from other pokemon." For
some reason Ami was determined that I had my own squad of powerful
attack pokemon. I couldn't use them in a fight, not a serious one, and
I wasn't obsessed with them like Minako and Makoto.

"Okay, you convinced me." I'm seeing a disturbing pattern arising.

"Good. It's getting late. Do you want to camp out again or head on
into town?" I don't know if getting laid did it or if she was just
growing up, but Ami's confidence was steadily building, both in
dealing with me and the world in general.

"Camping's fine. We can stop by the gym in the morning and I can show
how much better humans are than pokemon." That was my mission. Pokemon
held too much value and humans too little on this world.

****

Back on Earth, Genma was introducing his 'son' to the Tendo family.
Ryoga was taking the best way out of the situation that he could see.
He was unconscious.

"He's just tired," Genma said. Underneath the table he was repeatedly
pinching the imposter. He just wouldn't wake up.

"Oh, how you must have struggled to reach us at last," wailed Soun.
His old friend and the future heir of the combined Saotome-Tendo
schools of martial arts had been late. He had endured constant anger
and mistreatment from his daughters because of his attempts to marry
one of them off.

While the two old men exchanged small talk, Nabiki caught her sisters'
attention and led them into the kitchen."That boy with Dad's friend is
not Ranma Saotome," she whispered to them.

"How do you know, Nabiki?" Akane was the most offended by her father's
stupid decision. For weeks she had been stewing on the problem and had
decided to either disown her family or murder Ranma, if she was chosen
to marry him.

"I didn't want to any of us to be engaged to a psychopath, so I had
him checked out by a friend of mine at the Nerima Police Department.
Ranma Saotome, son of Genma and Nodoka Satome, looks nothing like that
weeny out there. The man we're supposed to be engaged to is some kind
of government special agent with the Bureau of Intelligence."

"Then you mean that father's friend is trying to trick him?" Kasumi
wondered aloud.

"That could be." Nabiki nodded."Or Dad could be going along with this
whole scheme. If Ranma is important enough to be a government agent,
he wouldn't have any problem convincing his father not to do something
stupid like force him to marry a girl against his will."

"Those sneaky, baka bastards!" Akane shouted. There was no stopping
the girl now. She charged into the parlor and grabbed Ryoga by the
scruff of his neck and started shaking him roughly. Slowly, the boy
regained consciousness."I know you're not Ranma!"

Ryoga's eyes filled with panic and began darting from side to side
nervously."I don't know what your talk-" Genma didn't finish the
statement. Akane tossed Ryoga into him, headfirst.

"Akane's right, Dad, the real Ranma Saotome doesn't even look like
this guy. See." She held up a picture taken from Ranma's
dossier."That's the real Ranma."

"Saotome," Soun wailed,"are they telling the truth?!"

Genma had been edging towards the door, but a slight miscalculation
had brought him up against the wall instead. He looked for any kind of
help, but Ryoga had passed out again and no one was looking very
sympathetic or pacifistic at the moment.

****

'And a newcomer to the world of pokemon competition, Usagi Tsuniko!'
the announcer shouted after introducing the girl's opponent.

Usagi waved to the screaming crowd, soaking up the attention. Her
opponent across from the battle ring stood on his platform looking
impatient and annoyed. He hadn't gotten so much as a clap from the
million people watching from within the enormous stadium.

'This battle will consist of three pokemon per trainer! Trainers
ready?' Usagi and her opponent nodded.'Then let the battle begin!!!'

The entire stadium went dead quiet. In the silence that followed,
Usagi shouted,"I choose you, Dandelion!" From the pokeball held in her
hand, a massive Venusaur materialized.

Pedro, almost simultaneously announced,"George, I choose you!" A
roaring Onix appeared.

In the front row, directly behind Usagi, Ami whispered,"Usagi's
Dandelion has a major type advantage over Pedro's George. This match
should be a snap."

I nodded agreement. Reluctantly, I had picked up a considerable amount
of info on pokemon from Ami, her pokedex, and our temporary companion,
Professor Oak. I looked down towards the battle that was about to
begin. I felt sorry for Dandelion. What kind of stupid name was
Dandelion for a giant plant monster?

"Dandelion, use your razor leaf attack!" commanded Usagi. From
Dandelion's leafy back, sprayed hundreds of stiff, razor sharp leafs.
George, that's another crappy name for such a huge pokemon, was too
slow to avoid the attack and had pebble sized chunks taken out of
almost every area of his rock body.

George wasn't totally defeated. Pedro ordered,"George, dig under
Dandelion!" The giant rock snake dove into the air, only to come down
like a bullet, burrowing his way underground. Dandelion began too look
for a place to avoid the incoming attack, but as the ground started to
shake beneath Usagi's pokemon it lost its footing and was hit full
force by George's explosive resurfacing.

Dandelion didn't look nearly as hurt as George, though, and when next
commanded to attack, its razor leafs sent the Onix into a dead faint.

The battles were pretty interesting, especially between the strong
pokemon that just stood back and shot energy attacks at one another.
Usagi won all of her battles for the day, working her way into the
semifinals.

****

"Aren't my pokemon just the best?" Usagi cheered. Her pokemon really
were some of the better ones on the field, at least as far as I had
seen.

Along with Professor Oak and some family friends of his, including a
boy who was competing against Usagi, we all headed to the Indigo
Diner. Usagi wanted to go there because the food was served by
pokemon. I just wanted something to eat. I think Ami was of my
thinking on this one. The service and food was better than I had
hoped.

The boy with the Professor, Ash I think, had his Pikachu out and was
feeding it from the table.

"How's Pikachu doing, Ash?" asked Professor Oak.

"He's really excited about tomorrow. We're going to win for sure!"

Usagi butted in,"Not if I have anything to say about it!"

I convinced Ami to sneak away with me before Usagi started up the
fireworks. We discreetly said our farewells to the Professor and Ash's
mother before heading to the pokemon center/motel we were rooming in.

We were discussing something about the benefits of missionary versus
doggie style when the watch uplink to my pokegear started beeping. I
checked the indicator light. About time that stupid egg decided to
hatch!

"Let's fly, Ranma!" Ami said."No one will see us as dark as it is."

I was more excited than I should have been, myself. Flying cut the
trip down to less than a minute. I opened the door just in time to see
the first large cracks appearing in the egg. I sat down next to it to
watch, Ami holding my hand excitedly. For several minutes the egg
didn't do much more than rock around and crack. It should have been a
pile of dust with the number of fractures it was sporting, but it
somehow maintained its shape.

When it did open, the shell fell away into dust like I had been
expecting. The pokemon 'expanded' once out of its egg, because it was
three times the size of the egg itself."What is it?" I asked Ami as I
picked up little bat-winged monstrosity. It was about as high as my
knees and covered in short, course black fur. From both of it hands
and feet extended inch long claws that had the irridescent property of
mother of pearl. It looked like a little baby demon.

Ami's pokedex came up with a big fat blank space. Looks like I have
myself a new kind of pokemon."What are you going to name it?" Gender
was another unknown.

I looked down at the little demonlike creature who was already asleep
in my arms."Demon, I think. It has the look." I turned it so Ami could
get a better look at it, carefully so as not to wake it. I hope this
thing grows up fast. I don't like children much more than I like
getting struck by lightning.

"Professor Oak's computers can probably determine what type it'll be
and what would be best to feed it," Ami told me as I laid Demon on a
sofa cushion. There's a thought. What if demons are the pokemon of my
world?

****

Demon didn't stay in the cute phase for long. By the end of the next
day he was as tall as my male form and had a fifteen foot wingspan.
Those little claws were six inch long knives now. The Professor's
computer did indeed determine Demon's type. He was a Dark/Fire type
pokemon and it calculated that pokemon high in fiber would be the best
meal it could eat for the next few weeks. I didn't want to have the
local population of domestic pokemon wiped out, so Ami and I took it
out to a nearby forest with some of those tree pokemon and turned it
loose.

Truthfully, when it came back, Demon had grown over a foot. Heh, this
joker was gonna be big.

****

Today was the last day of the League Championship. I zapped Demon into
a pokeball and went to see Usagi compete. Ash and his mom had left
earlier in the morning. He hadn't taken his lose to Usagi all that
well.

'We're down to the final four trainers, ladies and gentlemen.' Like I
needed the announcer to tell me that when the giant tv screen had the
trainers' names and pictures on it. I ignored the next few minutes of
cheering and drivel from the announcer. Ami tugged on my arm to get my
attention and pointed to the arena.

Usagi was wearing a long, flowing dress of the same silver substance
created by her white magic back on Ranma World when she had claimed
Usagi City. Her opponent was a grizzled old man who leaned heavily on
a gnarled wooded cane.

'Trainers, choose your strongest pokemon, for this will be a one match
battle!'

Usagi and the old guy messed around with their belts, choosing the one
pokemon they wished to use.

'Let the battle begin!!!'

"I choose you, Dragonite!" shouted old guy. Dragonites look kinda like
Puff the magic dragon to me, so it's hard to take them seriously, but
they're supposed to pack some real power.

"Go Zapdos!" The bird that flew from Usagi's pokeball looked like it
was composed of chained lightning.

Ami was shocked."Usagi actually caught one of the legendary birds."
She shook her head in suprise. These legendary birds must have been
famous or something, even though I'd never heard of them, because the
crowd went wild after a few moments of silence.

Usagi's electric bird didn't give the Dragonite much of a chance. As
soon as the battle began, it unleashed a massive bolt of lightning at
its opponent. It was an attack I would have been proud of. Poor
Dragonite was still twitching as the team of fat little pokemon with
egg pouches carried it away on a stretcher.

"I'd better go feed Demon," I told Ami."I should have plenty of time
during intermission." I know that when in a pokeball a pokemon doesn't
get hungry, but Demon was still young and I didn't want to stunt its
growth.

****

Twelve feet tall, thirty foot wingspan, and foot long claws. Demon is
going to live up to his name. I got back to my seat just in time to
see an Onix get blasted by a geyser of water. Even I know not to put a
rock pokemon up against a water one. It was down to Usagi and a boy
named Jiro.

Once again I tuned out the announcer until the fight actually began.

Usagi sent out Dandelion and Jiro used a Charizard named Torch. Ouch,
bad news for meatball head.

"Torch, let it have a taste of you fire blast attack!" Jiro commanded.
From Torch's mouth exploded the kanji symbol for fire, in the form of
a solid flame. Dandelion used its tentacle things to pull itself
mostly out of the blast's path, but one side was badly singed and the
pokemon was crying out in pain.

Usagi cried out to her pokemon,"Dandelion, hang in there, I'll save
you!" I could feel the workings of a major white casting. Usagi raised
her arms into the air. Arcs of golden energy leapt from hand to hand
as Usagi chanted. A deep groaning hum feeled the air as Usagi pointed
her hands, palms flattened, at Dandelion. A beam of gold and silver
light shot from her hands and collided with Dandelion. The pokemon's
wounds faded away in an instant and it was on its feet roaring.

"Use your solarbeam!" Usagi called to it.

The giant flower on Dandelion's back opened up and pointed towards
Torch, who at Jiro's prompting had taken to the air in order to avoid
the beam. The initial strike did miss, but Dandelion continued to
power the beam and scythed it through the air. Torch couldn't maneuver
fast enough and was hit in the back by the laser.

When the Charizard struck the ground it didn't move, the only sign
that it still lived was the slow rise and fall of its barrel-like
chest.

'Incredible folks, absolutely incredible! Never before have we seen
such Trainer to Pokemon interaction, but the question is, will the
judges disqualify Trainer Tsuniko for use of an unclaimed...pokemon
healing ability.'

Silence.

'Yes, the judges have ruled in favor of Trainer Tsuniko! She is this
year's Pokemon League Champion!!!'

****

I still hadn't trained Demon not to eat other people's pokemon, so he
couldn't come to the party thrown in celebration of Usagi's victory.

The senshi of the day was glowing with pride and surrounded by her
pokemon whom she continuously petted or praised. Minako and Makoto
managed to get off of work to be at the celebration and were having
their ears talked off by Usagi whenever she wasn't administering to
her menagerie.

Nature called and I was about to answer, when I passed close enough to
Usagi and her friends to hear some of their conversation.

"Can you believe it? I wonder who the father is." That was Makoto.

"I thought that her and Ranma were together, you know, like Haruka and
Michiru," commented Usagi.

"Well obviously she isn't just a lesbian," Rei, with her super rat,
snapped. Something was wrong. Very very wrong."She couldn't be if
she's pregnant.

Pregnant. Ami. Pregnant. OH SHIT!!!

I don't remember much after that, because thankfully I fainted.

****

C&C welcome at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 9 [Ranma][SM][x-over]
"Now that Usagi is famous, I think it'd be best if we left. Demon will
have the whole region depopulated before long, too." I hadn't
mentioned any of the conversation I'd overheard about Ami's condition.
What was there to say? I'd gotten Ami pregnant. She knew about it, if
she'd told her friends, and didn't seem to be acting any different.
Mature and intelligent as my lover was, she was still a sixteen year
old girl. In her situation, I would be flipping out. Whatever we
decided to do with the kid, it wouldn't be on this planet, a place
where animal eggs were given more attention than babies.
Demon gurgled happily, swinging a lamppost around trying to hit Rei's
rat. The pokemon's massive frame must top at least twenty feet now.
The wings, when unfolded, cast shadows over huge areas of ground, not
unlike a large cloud. He, and I had finally learned Demon was a he,
had figured out how to retract his two foot long claws. I hope his
growth slows down some, or he'll eat me out of house and home. My
other pokemon were virtually forgotten with Demon's birth. I'm
probably just going to give them away before we leave, or let Ami have
them.

"But, Ranma, I have a worldwide tour to go on!" Usagi protested.
Taking care of pokemon and living on her own had helped the girl to
grow up quite a bit, but not enough.

"If you were to disappear right after winning the championship, then
reappear next year to compete in the next one, don't you think it
would make people think you were all mysterious and stuff?" Makoto
asked. That was a pretty good idea, especially because by next year
the girls would be strong enough to bring Usagi to PokeWorld without
my help. I certainly have no intention of returning.

"Well, that does sound neat...but the Pokemon League is going to make
a doll to look like me. Can we at least stay until they get it right?
Please?" A few more days wouldn't hurt, unless Demon decided to raid
the pokemon center. A little time to think about how to talk to Ami
about the pregnancy would be good too.

"Only a few more days," I answered. There was a loud crash, followed
by a metallic screeching behind me. I whirled around, expecting to
come under attack, I'd been getting complacent, only to see Demon
using his lamp post to smash a large hole in the street."Bad Demon,
bad!" I shouted. I floated over to him, rising slowly until I could
look him straight in his basketball sized black eyes. I glared at him
and asked,"What have I told you about smashing stuff? Bad Demon." I
pointed at the pokemon and said,"No supper for you tonight." Do not
say a word. Demon's lower lip began to tremble, for all of it's meter
long length, and great big fist sized tears gathered in his eyes. He
snuffled and let out a high keening sound, revealing his foot long
fangs. I couldn't stand to see the big guy cry like that so I said
gently,"All right Demon, you can have supper tonight, but this is your
last warning. No more smashing other people's stuff!" Demon's tears
disappeared like they'd never even existed and his big black lips
split into a razor sharp grin of contentment.

As I descended to the ground and walked towards the senshi, Demon
spread his wings and took flight, nearly blowing me over with the gail
force wind kicked up by the takeoff. The senshi were all grinning at
me when I returned. Crap.

"Mama Ranma, you're so mean," teased Minako, who broke into giggles as
I momentarily choked on my tongue.

"You shouldn't have gone so easy on him, Ranma," Rei chided,
absentmindedly scratching her giant rat behind the ear.

I waved it off and said,"He's already bigger than almost every other
kind of pokemon on this whole world and not showing any sign that his
growth will slow down or stop. I don't want to have a hundred foot
pokemon decide that it doesn't love me anymore and try to make a meal
out of me." I could take him down if Demon ever turned on me, but I
doubt he'll ever do anything like that."And he was crying," I added.
The thing may look as evil as any true demon, but Demon had the heart
of a puppy.

I caught sight of Ami giving me a considering look, very much unlike
the mock looks of suprise and shock from the other senshi. Yes, us two
were definitely going to have a talk. Soon. As soon as I could figure
out what to say, anyway.

****

"Ranma is an evil sorceror?" Nabiki asked in confirmation to Ryoga's
earlier comment. Genma had escaped from Akane as soon as she had
stopped hitting him with her mallet. Ryoga just sat in a chair,
looking none the worse for wear even though Akane had tried to beat
him into a pulp.

Ryoga nodded eargerly. They surrounded him. All three girls kept
looking at him. Ryoga could barely breathe."He cursed me to turn into
a pig whenever I get spalshed with cold water," Ryoga growled
weakly."That was the last time I fought him. The time before that he
made a demon appear." Ryoga shuddered."It tried to eat me." He raised
his tunic up above his chest. There were a trio of thick scars running
from just below his collar to the waist of his left side.

Nabiki didn't believe a word of it. Ryoga himself seemed convinced
that he spoke the truth, though."Are you sure you weren't attacked by
a bear?" she asked as she walked to the sink and filled a glass with
water.

"Bears don't breathe fire and fly," Ryoga answered."Hey, you don't
believe me!" he realized.

Nabiki was back with the water. She didn't wait for permission,
immediately upending the contents on Ryoga's head. The boy
disappeared, leaving only a pile of clothes with a little moving lump
at the bottom. A minute later, a small pot bellied pig wormed it way
from under the clothing.

"Well I'll be..." Nabiki sighed in suprise.

"Oh my, aren't you cute!" Kasumi swept the pig into her arms and began
rocking it like a baby.

Akane started screaming.

****

With time to prepare, I arranged for the portal from PokeWorld to be
vertical instead of horizontal. Falling face first in the dirt isn't
my idea of fun. I had Demon and Slammer with my still unused Gyrados
stored in pokeballs along with some supplies recommended by one of the
Joy's that would help to care for the creatures. The other senshi made
their own arrangements. Usagi, unwilling to give up any of her army,
and I do mean that quite literally, had two duffel bags full of
pokeballs. She's spent the entire night carefully labelling each ball
and looked less than happy to be awake.

"No one's forgetting anything?" I asked. That would be great, having
to jump back to retrieve a shoe or something, not that I would do it.

True to character, Usagi ran upstairs and came back down with another
pokeball."Wouldn't want to forget Psyduck," she explained.

The mirror portal was open five minutes later and we stepped through
into another dimension. This wasn't our home, either. That meant the
last choice was the money shot. At least we didn't appear out of
midair in the middle of traffic or anything.

****

I didn't notice anything unusual at first, busy as I was trying to
feed Demon. It was when I reflexively attempted to draw energy to
replenish that spent on flying. I got nothing. I could feel the power,
I could even see it if I tried, but it would not obey my will. This is
worse than it sounds.

"Girls," I roared, risking the use of some of my remaining power to
make my voice audible to the spread out senshi,"don't use any magic!"
Demon's huge expressive face began to look anxious so I returned him
to his pokeball. Before going in search of the girls, I drew my
Crystal from within my arm and pocketed it. I don't even want to
imagine how painful having it within my arm would be when my power
finally bled away.

I found Rei and Usagi, silently gathering them to me. The other three
found us while we were looking for them. They all looked confused and
a little afraid."I don't know what kind of shitball this world is, but
it's got some seriously screwed up energy problems. Save all your
energy for as long as possible, because you won't be able to get any
more for a while." If only the Silver Imperium Crystal still worked
with Usagi's magic, she could have kept us charged. As things now
stood, even with the power of my Crystal backing me, I didn't have
enough energy to key Usagi's crystal to my aura.

Usagi nodded."I thought something felt odd." Her brow furrowed in
concentration."I can't draw any energy at all."

I had the others try and they all came up with similar results. We
still had the pokemon if the natives got hostile, if there were
natives. We, however, didn't have a way home. I wasn't going to
mention that fact until later. Usagi obviously had the same thought I
had. She started crying. Then I had to tell everyone why she was
crying. My life blows ass.

****

No nice comfortable magical dome or cushion of air for us. Nope, just
hard ground and hungry mosquitos. I used my chi to start a fire for
warmth. Yeah, I still have that, for as much good as it does us. Ami
beckoned to me. Eager to get away from the gloomey girls, I followed
her until we were far enough away that even the occassional night
breeze wouldn't blow any part of our conversation across the meadow we
were camped out in back to the girls.

"Ranma, if magic doesn't work here, why is your ring still working?"
Ami asked. I hadn't even thought of that!

I kicked in the mystical senses and scanned the little band of white
metal around my finger. Damn. The minor enchantment that I still
hadn't figured out, was nearly gone. If I had thought about it soon
enough and deactivated the enchantment, there might have been enough
power left in it for me to open a portal home big enough for me to
squeeze through. I could have easily retrieved the girls then. Now,
well now it was practically useless and I would be back to being a guy
full time in a couple hours. Good thing the senshi couldn't attack me.
Ah, all those damned pokemon. My life blows ass.

"It's almost dead," I replied."This ought to be interesting." I still
had Demon in my pocket. If necessary, I could have him hold the girls
off long enough to explain the whole fucked up situation.

I must have sounded pretty pitiful. Ami reached out and patted my hand
reassuringly."Let's go back and I'll explain everything to them.
They'll understand, I'm sure."

****

Ami and me walking back into camp holding hands(Ami's idea, I assure
you) got the others' attention faster than if I had grown an extra
head right there on the spot. That's not saying much with them in
their present mood.

"This is very important, so pay attention," Ami said, looking
pointedly at Usagi. The blonde girl stopped polishing the pokeball in
her hand."Good. Everyone remember that man we fought the night before
Setsuna arranged for Ranma to teach us magic?" They nodded. And Ami
began to explain, all the while sitting a little ahead of me on the
ground, protectively, I think. She finished a lot faster than I would
have, but by using just the right words to get the point across.

I did my part then. Instead of changing the ring black, which would
have used the remaining charge, I slid it off my finger. Their were a
couple of gasps as I changed back into a guy. No pokemon battle
orders, though. That was good."Hey," I said."It's still me, you know.
Like Ami said, Luna just goofed up. It's not really her fault, her
brain is a lot smaller than a person's afterall." I probably shouldn't
have insulted Usagi's pet/advisor. Then again, why not? The cat 'had'
been at fault.

I was stared at for a few minutes, until Rei, of all people, said,"I
always did think you were strange, even for a girl who had demons for
friends. It makes sense now that I know you're a boy. No sefl
respecting woman would scratch herself like you do."

Wow, I'd expected her to sic her rat on me at any time, not
acknowledge me as something other than evil incarnate.

Usagi's eyes narrowed and she glanced from me to Ami and back
again."So..you two..." She made a lewd gesture."Ah," and an airheaded
smile of such magnitude to almost need sunblock in its prescense
appeared."Ranma is the father!"

I felt like slapping myself. No, they weren't going to try to kill me,
they were going to embarass me to death.

Ami looked at Usagi in utter confusion, then at me."Uh, Usagi, what on
Earth are you talking about?" she eventually asked.

"But...I overheard you and Professor Oak talking about the baby and
you said that you didn't know who thae father was...and...oops, I
think I made a booboo." The meatball head hung her head in abject
embarassment, her face crimson.

No one could even begin to appreciate the relief I was feeling at that
moment. Ami actually laughed, a little forced, but a laugh
nonetheless."The Professor and I were trying to figure out what
combination of known or possibly undiscovered pokemon mated to spawn
Demon."

****

With the flippers gone, Setsuna could finally walk properly again.
Using the Time Gate no longer caused her agony since she didn't have
hundreds of different energy patterns rampaging through her body.
Ranma would pay. The rules banned her from contacting her future self
for direct aid or information, but they didn't say anything about not
travelling to the future herself.

First, before making the trip, she stopped by the drugstore and bought
a tube of hemarhoid cream. The silver mists of the Gate parted before
her and she used its magic to zoom in on Usagi's classroom. No Usagi.
She checked all the others' classes too. Nothing. Something 'could'
have interfered with the senshi and kept the busy, or Ranma could just
as easily murdered them all and voided the pact. Well, Ranma would
suffer for eternity at her hands if that were true. Homes and hangouts
came next. Finally, desperately, Setsuna opened herself fully to the
Gate's temporal magic and allowed her mind to be buffered by the Winds
of Time while she searched for the senshi. Impossibly, that search
turned up nothing also. If the senshi had died, they would have left
remains, even if only a few scattered particles, but there was
NOTHING. They had no future, not even one as worm food. If Setsuna had
not had clear access to the past of each of the senshi, she could not
have even been sure they had ever existed.

What had Ranma done to them?

****

I've always been a sorcerer first and a martial artsit second, but I'd
still hazard to guess that not ten people on Earth could challenge me
in straight physical combat. Chi is a major factor for the truly elite
martial artists, and would have been for me if I had so much access to
magic.

Early the morning after the revelation of my true identity, I awoke
and began reaquanting myself with my chi. It was still there, like
always, just not overly flexible due to inactivity. The simpler
exercises taught to be by Happosai were a good way to get the energy
pumping. I moved through those and to amazon attack augmentation,
finally, when the girls were greeting the morning, my father's
forbidden techniques. I'll say this for the old bastard, he wasn't a
complete imbecile in his younger days. I'm glad mom gave me a copy of
the scrolls that contained the techniques before the cancer got her.
Bad memories.

"You said not to use our magic," Makoto accused a little suspiciously.
The senshi were handling my true form much better than expected. If I
had known they'd take it so well, I could have been a man a hell of a
lot more than I had the past four months."Shouldn't you follow you're
own rule?"

I didn't turn around to face her immediately, towelling myself off and
putting my shirt on first."That wasn't magic," I answered with a
smirk."I was using my chi. It's not as powerful or as versatile as my
magic, it does replenishes itself, though."

"Like in the animes?" she asked.

I nodded."Mostly. I can't pull off anything like on Dragonball Z. I'm
closer to Fist of the North Star levels in that respect, I'd say. I
don't know how long we'll be stuck here without magic. If you want,
I'll start training you to manipulate your chi. The process takes
years, but it it's worth the effort."

"I'll try," Ami commented as she sat up and brushed the fur from
Makoto's big dog off of her clothes. That little puppy had gotten
something like ten times bigger when it evolved.

The martial arts lessons I'd been giving the senshi back on Earth had
been meant to eventually lead up to some rudimentary chi training in
order to give them the slightly expanded senses that make gathering
energy for magic easier. Now, when they couldn't use their magic and
pokemon can't always be relied upon, they'd be getting more than the
basics.

"Tonight, after we stop and make camp, we can begin the breathing
exercises. Today we should just try to ascertain where we are. And I
need to feed Demon." Not to mention get us some food. The few supplies
we had brought wouldn't last long.

Demon was eager to fill his truck sized stomach and decided that my
walking speed was too slow. I fit in his hand comfortably enough. He
was about to carry us into the forest when I stopped him. If he went
crashing through, knocking down trees, there wouldn't be so much as a
squirrel to be found.

I pointed up and said,"From the air, Demon, from the air." He nodded
his understanding and with a great woosh of displaced air, we were
aloft. The trees here were not closely spaced and the canopy was
easily seen through. Gliding silently, Demon riding invisible thermal
updrafts, I spotted a dear. Before I could signal Demon to pounce, my
pokemon opened its maw and a thin jet of flame flew from between it's
swordlike teeth and burned the dear's head cleanly off. The carcass
had barely fallen to the ground when we landed. Demon sounded like a
tree limb hitting the ground, not the ten ton monster he really was.

I'd been wondering when Demon would begin to manifest the fire and
dark(whatever that meant) attack powers that Professor Oak's computer
had predicted. I think that had been the flamethrower.

"You can go ahead and have this one, Demon. We can get one for us
little humans later," I laughed. Demon was eyeing the surrounding
trees hungrily, but he needed to eat meat to, not just wood fiber.

Demon shook his head and nudged the dear carcass with his left
arm."Raaaaaannnn Maaaaaaagh." My mouth snapped shut audibly and I
stared at Demon in shock. He grinned at me and tore a tree out of the
ground. He had talked! Demon had talked to me! He'd said my name!

Demon had eaten half the tree and all of its leaves when I finally
regained enough sense to dress the dear. It was a big beast and would
feed us for days. Demon could have swallowed it in one gulp.

****

"Go on, Demon," I called to my pokemon. None of the girls believed me
when I told them that Demon had said my name. I was about to prove
them wrong."What's my name?" I asked, pointing to myself.

"Raaaaaannnn Maaaaaagh," Demon spoke, his voice a whisper compared to
his normal full throated, earth shaking roar."Raaaaaannnn Maaaaaagh,"
he repeated. I patted his flank affectionately. Hey, I never had a
puppy when I was a kid, I'm just making up for lost time.

"Hahahahaha! Told ya!" Demon's much deeper, rock grating laugh echoed
mine.

"How come my pokemon never talk to me?" Usagi asked."It's not fair!"
And she started to cry.

Minako tried to comfort Usagi by saying,"I did hear about this talking
Meowth when I was working at the pokemon center. You have one of
those, don't you? You could teach it to talk."

Usagi wailed,"I traded my Meowth for a Bellsprout! Wah!"

I let Demon fly around a while so his trees could properly digest,
then put him in his pokeball. Once Usagi was reasonably calm, we broke
camp and went off in search of civilization and a means of returning
home.

****

Author's Notes: I've had Ranma's personality changing slowly
throughout the story, but I think it'll being pretty static from now
on. I can't figure out what the world they are on should be and I need
some help coming up with a reason why magic doesn't work. C&C welcome
at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com This'll probably be it for a week or two.
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 10[Ranma][SM][x-over]
I knew the senshi and I kept ending up in forests evertime we jumped
dimensions because I had searched for Earth and those planes most
similar to it had most of the same features. That knowledge didn't
stop me from hoping that this world would have something besides
forest for a thousand miles in all directions. I mean, a city could be
built in this dimension and not in the others.
No such luck. If anything, the sparse forest seemed larger than the
others. Without magic for flight, we were in for a long, long journey.
The pokemon didn't mind giving us rides, and Kamis know that Usagi had
enough pokemon to carry a mountain with us, but even with that
advantage, it was slow going. If only the flying pokemon were larger,
they would have been suitable transportation. Without a designated
place to land, though, a flying pokemon couldn't use its extraordinary
ability to travel at supersonic speeds and would tire quickly when
carrying a load. Demon could have flown us all if his wing structure
had allowed for places for us and the gear.

Gyrados, dragon snake thing that it was, didn't ever actually touch
the ground, sorta hovering a few inches in the air. I, at least, was
riding in style. Poor Rei couldn't ride her rat, despite its huge
size. She'd had to borrow one of Usagi's, a Rhydon.

"I should be able to do this," Rei said, irritated that she couldn't
master the breathing techniques I had been teaching."All those years
as a temple maiden, learning to manipulate the sacred flame, and I
can't so much as get a spark." She adjusted her seat on the Rhydon.
The poorly woven mass of straw didn't do a good job of protecting
Rei's soft skin from the Rhydon's rock hard hide. Her stubborn pride
wouldn't allow her to accept a different pokemon as conveyance.

I sighed and tried to explain."I told you it could take years to
learn." Ha, I learned in three weeks! What can I say, I'm gifted."And
stop trying to manifest the chi. All I want you to do is learn to
evenly space and control the depth of each breath you take." Harder to
accomplish than one may think.

Later that day, the forest ended entirely, opening into a plain
covered in waist high grass for as far as the eye could see. This was
getting ridiculous. Even on Ranma World, a planet abandoned for untold
centuries, there had been a dirt road. That still bothers me
occassionally. A plain dirt road would have been overgrown within
months of disuse. Ranma World was strange. I'll just have to accept
that.

"It'd be stupid to go back and waste a week's worth of time," I said,
as leader(how that happened is as big a mystery as the dirt road).
Part of it involved being more experienced and knowledgable, only a
part though.

"I agree," agreed Ami."At the very least we should journey far enough
onto the plain to determine whether or not there is enough wild game
and fresh water to support us and our pokemon." The suggestion was
perfectly reasonable and we didn't argue with its logic.

"To the grass!" Usagi declared, waving her arm wildly through the air
from the back of her Dandelion. I think she believed there to be a
possibility of wild pokemon in the grass. Makoto brought it up,
though.

"Well, there could be," Usagi muttered. Hell, there really could be.
No way would I admit to that slim chance, not if I wanted to stay sane
through the rest of the trip.

****

Times like this made Setsuna wish she wasn't so cronically cryptic and
mysterious. Her future self had to know what had happened to the
senshi. With rules as concrete as the ones she lived by, Setsuna
didn't even think about asking.

Viewing the senshi's pasts up until their disappearance took almost as
much time as if she had jumped back and watched each scene unfold. She
was pleased to see how much the girls had improved and couldn't even
find anything to complain about in the changes made to their
transformation spell by Ranma. The kidnapping of Usagi by government
agents came as a shock, even to Setsuna, but Ranma, leading the
remaining Inner Senshi, had freed the Princess, in the process
releasing dozens of dangerous demons and Nerimians(a sub-species of
human nearly as bad). Ranma's doing, and without doubt premeditated.

As she watched the last few weeks before the senshi's disappearance,
the puzzle began to come together. Ranma was slowly, with admirable
patience, subverting the girls. His discovery of Usagi's mind block
was too coincidental to be a coincidence.

When the government contacted the senshi and Ranma, Setsuna debated
whether or not she should begin reviewing the past of the Emperor and
his men, but ruled it out due to a lack of time(yes, she was actually
running out of time). The big break came when Ranma's services were
requested by his conspirators in the closing of a ruptured tomb
belonging to a long dead warlock who had died in personal battle
against Queen Serenity a century before the fall of the Moon Kingdom.

Setsuna was truly frightened for the first time in centuries. Ranma
was involved in too many random occurences and coincidences pertaining
to the senshi and the Silver Millenium. Why had she ever trusted him?
The answer was even more frightening. She, the manipulator, had,
herself, been maniuplated. So subtle had the manipulation been, that
even her temporally honed senses hadn't detected the outside
influence.

Who could Ranma's backer be? Another Dark Intelligence like Metallia?
Enemies from the future? The possibilites were too numerous to count.
She really had her work cut out for her.

(note: I always have thought of Pluto as something of a manipulative
bitch with way too much time on her hands, literally.)

****

It's pretty easy to get tired of grass, especially when there's
nothing 'but' grass. That's why I was damned excited when Demon and I,
flying ahead to scout for a water hole, found a river. It wasn't a
meager little stream either. The wide expanse of water moved at a
smooth, if slow pace. This was more than just a break in the scenery.
Town and cities are built on rivers. They make natural shipping
routes. Following the river would be our best bet at finding other
people.

Demon made good time back to the senshi and I informed them of my
discovery.

"Biiig Waagguuuurrr," Demon said, reinforcing my claim. The pokemon
was learning to speak at an amazing rate. The shape of his jaw,
combined with his unusual teeth and tri-forked tongue, made
pronounciation difficult, but not impossible for the pokemon.

"What are we going to build a boat with?" Minako asked. I goggled at
her. That sounded like an Usagi question, a predivine mind block
removal question.

Usagi answering and making fun of the other blonde was scary."Minako,
why would we need boats? We have plenty of water pokemon. We'll make
great time on them.

Minako blushed deeply and said,"Oh yeah." Twilight zone moment.

****

A river can get as boring as grass after a while. This one was working
itself up to that when, at the edge of the horizon, the river began to
widen dramatically, either forming a lake or emptying into a river. It
wasn't this change in the natural scenary that got the attention of
the senshi and I. The really, really big city floating in the air
above the lake/bay did. I left Gyrados with a command to remain in his
current position, and pulled Demon out of the hat. I wasn't the only
one to take flight, via pokemon. Usagi on her Zapdos, Ami on Scyther,
and Minako and Makoto on the latter's Aerodactyl, all formed a V wing
formation behind me. Rei must not have cared to leave her Slowbro,
that or she didn't want to borrow another pokemon. She really should
have taken the trouble to catch a few besides the rat. Useful
creatures pokemon, make cats looked damned pathetic.

That thing 'was' a city and not some vast mirage. At first I thought
that the city was a giant airship of somekind, a product of advanced
technology, but as the buildings came into sight, I couldn't believe
that a society with the ability to make a floating city would settle
for thatched roofs on the makority of the dwellings and wood fires for
cooking and heat. It was a moment after that little deduction that I
switched my perceptions over to energy patterns, almost giving myself
a mystic whiplash with the violence and speed of the change.

Ah. Son of a bitch! All over the city, within large marble buildings
with a disturbing similarity to the ancient temples of Rome and
Greece, were vast arrays of spell constructs. They were so large and
crafted with such skill that they were capable of levitating a city
the size of Tokyo and all its surrounding suburbs. The fact that they
somehow had a complete monopoly on all the energy available for
sorcery on this whole freakin planet didn't escape my notice.

I raised my arm and swung it around in a circle, a predetermined
signal that meant to get back to safety. It probably scared the senshi
more than was necessary, but people in that city were most likely
armed with some nasty magical weapons, and the last thing I needed was
to have to save them from getting blasted into ash if one of the
locals saw us and got nervous.

"It's in there, ladies." Blank stares, even from Ami. I really
shouldn't have expected much more than that. None of the girls were
far enough along to see what I had."I meant the cause for our loss of
energy. The energy required to levitate that much mass is vast, and
whoever built it decided to make the whole world their battery."

"Maybe we could ask them to land for a few minutes and let us
recharge," suggested Usagi.

"Na uh, very, very doubtful. From what I can see, the place isn't
built to be landed. The spells active in the consturcts holding the
city afloat aren't the kind that can be turned off on a whim either.
Land it and the city breaks into a lot of little pieces. Cut the
constructs off for even a moment and wham, really big splash." The
obvious answer was to destroy the city and, with the more powerful
pokemon as precision artillery, it could be done. Not that Usagi would
ever let her pokemon be resonsible for such an atrocity.

"Don't even mention it Ranma," asserted Ami, to my suprise."We've all
just had the same thought and none of us would do that." I've heard
about sorcerous lovers, those actually in love and who have lived
together for a long time, being able to read their mates thoughts.
That Ami was doing this to me, that was as disturbing as finding out
that I was relatively powerless here.

No, what was 'really' disturbing was that I could do the same thing
with her, now that I thought about it. In fact, Ami was silently
congratulating herself on taking such a bold stand with me. Before I
could let myself even think about the implications of the next couple
of thoughts about to appear in my brain, I said,"Sorta figured that.
What else can we do, though? How else do we get the energy we need to
go home?"

Ami shrugged."There has to be someone that maintains the constructs
you mentioned. They would surely know of a way to siphon energy from
them without damaging their integrity." She had a point."All that
energy would be too valuable to allow to remain in stasis."

I nodded."That is a possibility. Another possiblity is that there is a
magical cannon that shoots nuclear fireballs up on those walls
somewhere and the person operating it may be instructed to vaporize
anything that moves." Extremely unlikely possibility, but still
possible.

I turned my attention to a crashing splash of water and saw Demon and
Gyrados playing water volleyball with Slowbro. Who had taught them
that? Why in hell were they playing water volleyball? I shook my head,
telling myself that we had more important fish to fry. No pun
intended.

"Hey, leave him along, you big meanies!" cried Usagi as she ran away
from the little meeting, pulling out Dandelion and a pair of
Dragonites that I didn't know by name. As if there wasn't enough crap
to deal with. I pulled Demon and Gyrados' pokeballs from my pocket and
activated the retrieval beam on each. The crimson beams of energy
reached my pokemon and dematerialized them just as a Usagi's trio
reached attack range.

Usagi attempted to glare a hole through my head as she walked stiffly
away from the river bank.

I waved my arms helplessly."You can't blame them for having a little
fun. Your pokemon didn't seem to mind," I said calmly, trying not to
laugh.

"He was probably too scared to move. Next time you better tell those
brutes of your's that I won't go so easy on them!" the meatball headed
warrior for love, justice, and the pokemon way, loudly proclaimed.

"Don't worry, I'm sure they'll do their best to avoid your wrath." I
said it with such sincerity that she had to know I was blowing smoke
out of my ass. She just glared at me, absentmindedly stroking the
pokemon stored at her waste belt.

"And back to the matter at hand..." Rei said angrily. Can't blame her
for that one.

"I have an idea that could solve the safety issue." Guess who. Yes,
you're absolutely correct. It's Ami! You win a tootsie roll!"One of us
will simply fly within range of the city, carrying a pokemon capable
of teleportation, and use it to escape if the need arises." Good plan.

"So which one of you wants-" They were all staring at me. I knew what
that look meant."That's not fair! Demon is way too big to be
teleported by any of your pipsqueaks!" They didn't stop staring. I
could have refused, I guess, but the combined stare of five determined
girls, one of whom you may have growing feelings for, is kinda
overwhelming."Damnit, you all owe me one."

Ami winked at me and her grin was positively wanton. What had I made
this sweet, innocent girl into? Hell if I cared.

The other girls either didn't see the exchange or chose to ignore it.
Thankfully.

****

Wouldn't you know that Zapdos, Usagi's thunder bird, was also capable
of teleportation. Why a creature capable of flight would develop such
a skill is beyond me. I mean, it's not like the thing had any natural
predators. At least this way I didn't have to put up with Makoto's
Alakazam. That thing was wierd. What purpose did having two inverted
spoon shaped fingers serve, anyway.

"Okay, Sparky, let's see if anyone feels like killing us today." The
peal of thunder, Zapdos' version of a chirp, didn't indicate that the
bird cared very much for its new nickname."Don't get touchy. It was
meant as a compliment."

Despite it's attitude, Zapdos loyally followed my orders. We got close
enough to the city for me to brush the crenelated upper wall and to
wave to a bored looking guard wearing stiffened leather armor who
lazily carried a crossbow over his left shoulder. The guy might very
well have pissed his pants, so great was the fear on his face.

I was also able to get a better view of the city's internal order. It
was a nice, clean place, especially by the medieval standards it
appeared to be built around. People who saw me on the glowing bird
dropped what they were carrying and ran around screaming in abject
terror. Compared to these people, the guard had been enormously brave.
Wusses.

Most important of all, beyond even laughing until my chest hurt, was
the discovery that there were no items with any mystical charge
whatsoever. The constructs holding the city up were it. Good news.

****

"They ran like I was Barney himself," I reported back to the senshi.

"Uh, who's Barney?" Minako asked in confusion.

Oops."An American creation. You wouldn't understand. I should have
said Death or Destruction, those would have made more sense to you,
sorry. Anyway, we should be safe. They don't have anything more
advanced than a crossbow, weaponwise, and their fighting ability isn't
even worth mentioning." I hadn't actually seen them fight, but when
the whole general populace, even the guys, runs screaming from you and
a measly bird a tenth the size of Demon...

"Poor Zapdos, did he hurt you?" Usagi asked her pokemon. We ignored
her.

"Crossbows aren't really such a minor threat when you consider that
all of us are defenseless except for you. Pokemon can't keep us safe
from the bolts without risking themselves. I wouldn't even ask any of
my pokemon to do that." Ami was turning out to be an annoying voice of
reason. Almost as if she were my conscience. I fought down the urge to
cry. What had I done to deserve this?

Trying to salvage my good mood, I said,"Don't worry about that. I can
keep anything slower than a high power slug from getting near any of
you. Not that anyone up there has the balls to shoot at us."

"Oh please," Rei scoffed."Don't try to convince me that you can move
'that' fast!"

To demonstrate my speed, I mooned Rei for a second, flipped her off
for a second, and mooned her again, for a second. This only took me
four seconds. Rei was nearing the purple range of color. Probably from
rage, but I here from reliable sources that my ass is pretty nice, so
it could have just been her feminine modesty...Doubt it though.

"Okay, maybe you are that fast," Minako said, blushing. Ami did not
look happy. Have I ever mentioned that my life sucks ass?

"Having along a couple big, evil looking pokemon wouldn't hurt
either." If only we had had enough rock pokemon we could have just
made a living wall, but we didn't, and besides, they're not really all
that fast."Demon and Gyrados are good choices. Any others?"

Usagi launched into a recital of at least fifty pokemon she thought
were scary. Once again, she was ignored.

****

Since there was no visible gate, ramp, or any other conceivable
entrance to the city, we just flew up to the side and glided to the
street nearest what I assumed was the headquarters. The streets here
were easily wide enough to accomodate Demon once the pedestrians had
run away. As predicted, they screamed like maniacs as they departed.

"So, should we just walk up the steps and knock on the door?" I asked.
The building we stood in front of was large and overly decorated. It
could have been someone's house, but the statues of people in robes
with books and other stuff in their grasp indicated otherwise. The
gold-veined marble that the building was constructed from did look
pretty cool, though.

"Why not?" Minako asked. She was the last one to put her pokemon away.

****

Author's Notes: So far this story has been recieved much better than I
thought it would. Thanks! I've gotten a lot of requests for back-
ground info on Ranma, so I'm thinking about maybe doing a few prequel
chapters on his earlier adventures, but that could change. I asked for
suggestions for what world Ranma and the senshi should be on and the
best one was Slayers. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the
geography of that universe and my memory is really fuzzy on that
damned complicated stucture of gods it has, so I'm just making my own
world from scratch. My mom's got some sort of pinched nerve in her
back(seriously makes her into more of a bitch) and the medication
she's been taking knocks her out at night. The house could burn down
around her and she wouldn't make a peep, so as long as my family
doesn't rat me out, I should be able to start making some regular
posts at night and sometimes in the afternoon since the library a
couple miles from my house just got online last week. C&C welcome at
dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 11 [Ranma][SM][x-over]
The large wooden double doors at the top of the wide steps swung open
before we were halfway to the top. Soldiers in black and green
uniforms armed with either shields and some kind of sidearm, a sword,
axe, or mace, and others with crossbows poured out onto the steps
ahead of us in double ranks. They formed a wall of men to block us,
with shields held in interlocking positions on one level of steps and
the crossbowmen a couple above it. Without our pokemon clearly
visbile, it seemed that there was a little bit of courage floating
around this place afterall.
The girls were behind me encase of a projectile attack, but as close
together as the soldiers were, even if the steps were relatively wide,
I planned on just hitting them with a extra large vaccum blade. The
steps would be slippery with all the blood and other bodily fluids,
none of it would be ours though.

"Halt!" was the simple command barked by a guy wearing the same
uniform as his underlings, with the exception of a silver star over
his heart. He stood in the doorway, well above what would soon be a
massacre if his men attacked.

They obviously spoke Japanese, even though they looked European in
origin. That's been another little mystery of this whole dimension
hopping trip. This would be the second world, excluding the one with
the space ship because they used some kind of implant to translate,
that spoke Japanese. I would have previously said that the senshi and
I would have been lucky just to run across a world that spoke a
language as common to us as Swahili. Sigh. No point in complaining
about fortuitous coincidences, I guess.

"Nah, I don't think so," I said in a voice as close to that of the
man's as possible."We'll be needing to see whoever's in charge. Now."
That came across with a kind of implied threat that had gotten me
through the gates of Hell once.

Heh. He wasn't used to being disobeyed, that's for sure. Minako and
Makoto snickering behind me probably contributed to the man's face
becoming a mottled portrait of red and purple splotches. Talk about
high blood pressure. Ami soon joined in. I think that Usagi was just
too worried about whether or not the man's head was going to explode
to make fun of him.

"Ah, damnit," I sighed. I wasn't in the mood for really getting
violent and I could feel Ami's accusatory stare pressing against the
back of my head."Go Slammer!" I cried, turning lose the large Golem.
The steps shuddered under the fantastic weight of the compact, yet
massive pokemon. Oh yeah, lots of running, screaming men. Pokedot face
managed to stand his ground, though the large stain spreading across
the front of his green pants sorta gave away his fear.

Pokemon, or something very much like pokemon, had really put the fear
into these people. I was almost starting to feel sorry for them.
Still, it was funny.

"Begone foul demon, I abjour thee!" Pisspants screamed, his voice
trembling pathetically. He'd drawn his short sword, not that it would
do much more than break against Slammer's shell/hide/armor, whatever
the stuff was.

"Bwahahahahaha!" I roared, laughing almost uncontrollably. Slammer
pounded on the ground and spit a couple rocks at Pisspants' feet. That
broke the man. He ran screaming back into the building, not bothering
to close the doors behind him. Slammer reluctantly returned to his
pokeball. He was having fun. I really should let him have more time
out.

"That wasn't very nice, Ranma," chided Usagi."He didn't look very
healthy. What if you made him have a heart attack? If I was a doctor,
I could tell you for sure, but I'm almost certain that his head was
about to explode." Damn, I'm good! The other senshi had to turn away
and start coughing to cover up their laughter.

"He was going make a fuss and I would have had to kill some people. I
think Slammer and I did a pretty good job." Usagi had the grace to
blush slightly."Well," I gestured to the open door,"shall we enter?"

****

The inside of the building was nice, in a stuffy, old way. Tapestries
hung from the high ceilings, depicting the floating city hovering over
various location, only one of them water. Most, though, showed men
fighting hordes of ravening demons. I recognized most of the breeds,
all of them in the lower echelons of the demonic heirarchy. None were
particularly powerful, maybe a few times stronger than a normal man
and occassionally armed with a few killing spells, but when looked at
from the perspective of normal men with no magic to speak of, an army
of them type can be intimidating.

The bottom floor was nothing but a single cavern like room, supported
by marble columns. A spiral staircase rose to the next floor and
above, wrapping around one of the marble colums.

"My pokemon do not look like any of those beasts!" Usagi loudly
proclaimed. She was right, they really didn't. She stroked her
pokeball belt. For a few delicate moments, I feared that she would
unleash the beasts in the room. It's not a good idea to smash the
support columns for a large, seven story stone structure.

"I know a guy who runs a hot dog shop in New York," I said, stabbing a
finger at a short little demon with purple skin covered with pink
patches of hair who weilded a war hammer nearly as big as he was,"who
is really one of those. Makes great hot dogs. Heh, and you can be sure
that they don't really have dog in them. His species go into
convulsions when anything canine gets near them." Useless piece of
information, I know, but I felt like saying it.

"Hmm, he's sort of cute," Rei commented. That goes to show just how
bad her tastes are. I mean, look at the ugly monster rat of hers.

"Yeah, sure. Anyway, let's not stand around here." I didn't look back
to see whether the girls were following me, I could feel their
prescenses, and it's more effective being dramatic like that.

I was expecting some kind of landing or doorway leading off from where
the second floor should be. There wasn't one. I would have been able
to sense any hidden doorways. We kept on going. No third, forth,
fifth, or sixth. The stairs topped off on the seventh floor. There
must have been a back entrance to the other floors. Space in a walled,
floating city had to be at a premium, it wouldn't be wasted so
stupidly.

A brass railing surrounded the top of the stairs. The floor in
question was a smaller, columnless version of the bottom floor. The
tapestries were different, though, and it was furnished with a number
of desks of varying quality, and sitting behind most of them were men
in green, black, and purple robes. They looked up at me with little
interest and went back to doing their jobs.

Pisspants was wildly gesturing, spittle flying from his mouth, to an
older man with silver-gray hair and a wrinkled face worthy of the most
worldly of prunes. The bare floor was polished to a mirror-like shine.
It's a bit irritating to see yourself looking at yourself when you are
trying to look serious and vaguely threatening. I managed, and
amazingly, so did the senshi.

Mr. Wrinkley, it fits, waved Pisspants off with an imperious flick of
his wrist, somehow getting his aged faced to look disbelieving. This
didn't seem like the best place to pull out one of my pokemon. The
floor probably wouldn't support Slammer or Gyrados and Demon couldn't
squeeze into this confined space for all the pokemon on Pokeworld. The
others had plenty of ugly pokemon if the need arose, though.

"Hey," I greeted politely. As politely as I ever get, at least."You
must be the guy in charge. I'm Ranma." Pisspants seemed torn between
attempting to murder me and rewatering his breeches.

"What are you?" Wrinkley asked."Mr. Dumas(love that commercial) here
seems to think that you and your lady friends," and the bastard raked
a lecherous stare across the senshi,"are demons in disguise as
mortals." When his attention returned to my face, my eyes were burning
with black and red fire. He swallowed heavily and pulled back in his
heavily cushioned chair a little.

I always have been good at making lasting impressions. Just look at
Setsuna. Anyone think she'll ever forget me?"I could say my friends
and I, and I'll rip your heart out if you ever look at them like that
again, are travellers from another universe. Though it is true, I
doubt you would believe the story." Happosai's trick was working
pretty good. Next step. The air around me darkened slightly, giving my
features a shaded appearance."What matters to you and all the people
in this city, is that the creatures we command are not demons, but
beings from another plane more powerful than demons. If the need
arose, we could bring down this puny little floating dirt ball. In
return for not doing this, all we ask is help in restoring our energy
to a level that would allow us to go home. The spells keeping this
city afloat make that impossible. So, if the city were to explode,
there would be no more spells and we could leave. If we get the needed
help, no one has to die." I'm not the most terribly diplomatic of
people, running more towards a terrible diplomat, really. I didn't
want to make the head honcho shit himself, so I cut off the demon
illusion.

A rustling of cloth and the scrap of chairs across stone alerted me to
the mass evacuation of this floor. They weren't as indifferent as they
had appeared. It couldn't have worked out better. Soon the whole city
would know that I'd hijacked the boss' place.

"Cowards!" Dumas, and what a fucked up name that would be if this were
an English speaking floating city, called to the escapees. His head
really did look like it was about to explode.

"The, ah...terms, of your arrangement include help, you say?" I
nodded."What kind of help would that be?" Old people simply weren't
supposed to act this way. It was just too out of character. He was
being obsequious and sounded more like he was trying to kiss my ass
than save his own.

"I need to draw power from one of the spell constructs that levitate
the city. Simple as that. I don't know how to do that without making
it drop like a rock, though. If that's going to happen, why not just
blow the place up now and get the trouble out of the way?" I paused,
waiting for any objections. This wasn't as fun as I'd thought it would
be. An amazon elder would have this guy for lunch."Someone has to
mantain the constructs. They would know more about them than me. There
could be alternatives to the first plan."

"And if there isn't anyone who can teach you to manipulate
the...constructs...properly to send you home?" Only the barest hint of
steel was present in the old guy's voice.

"Boom!" I chuckled as the horribly lined face went from grey to semi-
transparent."My friends would probably hate me, with good reason, but
they have important destinies on our world, save humanity and rebuild
civilization kind of stuff. If they're trapped here, that isn't going
to happen."

"Ranma..." growled Rei. I 'think' it was Rei, but the tone was so low
that any of the senshi could have produced it.

"See?" I asked, gesturing behind me."They don't like this part of the
plan. They don't have a choice, so don't get any hopes of subversion
going." Just so you know, I'm bluffing.

"I believe that the constructs you refer to may be the Wings of God,
our most holy objects. Their Caretakers are rather militant in their
belief that only they should ever have contact with the Wings. I fear
none of them would help you." Wrinkley wasn't lying. Damn.

"Well, you better get up off your scrawny little ass and find one that
'will' help us, before the alternative becomes more attractive."
Wrinkley didn't seem able to decide if he should stand or crawl, but
finally decided his dignity couldn't take the beating it would recieve
from his ego if he were to crawl away. Heh, I bet no one has told this
guy what to do in years and years.

Once the old man reached the stairs and the sound of his slippered
feet could no longer be heard, Usagi snapped,"Ranma, how could you be
so mean to such an old man?" If blondey started acting like Rei the
wonder bitch, I was going to find myself a nice set of ear plugs and
nail them in place.

"I did get a little carried away, I admit. I did get the idea into his
little old head, didn't I?" I took a seat on the edge of Wrinkley's
desk.

Minako shivered, hugging herself."When he looked at me, I almost felt
his slimey old hands grabbing me. Ugh." The senshi nodded in
agreement, even Usagi who had sorta taken up for him.

"Usagi, why did you take up for him with Ranma if you felt so
uncomfortable with his attitude and nature?" Ami asked. The straight-
forward question forced Usagi to think about her answer more than she
would have to a question from me meaning the same thing but voiced in
different words.

"I guess he just looked so old and fragile, at first, then he 'looked'
at us like that and I didn't really associate the two images, one of
the old man, and the other of the perverted old man, as the whole
image."
AAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! It's
the end of existance!

Really, though, what the shit was up with Usagi? That answer had been
inspired."Usagi," Rei asked, gently(yeah, wow),"did you hit your head
and not tell us about it?"

"No, why?" Maybe there was some kind of time-release intelligence
booster in that mind block we'd gotten rid of. There weren't any
better explanations even worth pursuing.

Worried glances and resigned shrugs were exchanged.

****

The first three Caretakers that Wrinkley(never did learn his name)
brought in weren't the religious fanatic types I had expected. The
first didn't appear to have bathed in at least a decade, his beard was
filthy, reaching almost to his waste, and a fist sized boil grew from
his left cheek. You could literally see the thing throbbing! I had to
break his arm when he tried to rape Minako right there on the floor.
Women must have one screwed up place in this society, or these
Caretaker freaks held lots of power.

After number one ran away bawling like a baby, Wrinkley escorted the
second guy in. He at least knew how to use soap and kept any thoughts
about messing with the senshi to himself. He kept his thoughts to
himself right up until I asked him about recharging my energy. Then he
wanted Rei as a sex slave. This was really getting aggravating. I
didn't even have to hurt him, he ran away screaming when I started
glowing. Rei's super rat may have contributed.

Number three was a nice old man who really wanted to help us.
Unfortunately, he was a nice old man with bills to pay and wanted lots
of gold. Since I didn't have lots of gold I didn't even have to scare
him off.

"This isn't working," I said sourly to Wrinkley."Are there any of
those bastards that aren't corrupt? Just one?" Wrinkley had built a
small barrier of desks and books between himself and I, out of some
hope it would protect him from me, I guess. Heh. I let him have his
comfort.

Wrinkley spread his hands and looked apologetic."The Caretakers with
the necessary political power to have even a chance at meeting your
ultimatum are the corrupt ones." Then he started bowing to me. Respect
is good. Even fear is good. Ass licking, brown nosing just isn't any
fun.

I sighed."Well, find me a Caretaker with absolutely no political power
who isn't a pervert and get his ass up here. No freaks, either!" I
called to him as he scurried down the stairs. I almost felt sorry for
all that running I was forcing the old man to do, but at his age
exercise is a rather important activity...

Ami separated from the senshi, who were talking about various ways to
make their pokemon hunt down the earlier Caretakers who had visited,
and intercepted me while I paced from one end of the chamber to the
other."You've got to relax, Ranma." She ran her hand down my back.
That's really not fair."You're much too tense. We'll find someone to
help us get home, I'm sure."

I allowed Ami to drag me over to a chair and seat me. Her small,
delicately boned hands felt wonderful as they massaged the rigid
muscles in my back into a semblance of normalcy. Ack, she's doing it
again!

Ami chuckled lightly as I tensed, and I couldn't help but lean back
and enjoy the treatment. Could she have heard my thought? I mentally
shook my head. We were friends, lovers, companions, not a couple,
though.

*Silly Ranma, what do you think a couple is?* laughed Ami's voice in
my head. She squeaked in fright as I disappeared from the chair. Her
head swivelled rapidly from side to side, seeking me out.

I was planted firmly in the upper corner where the two walls
furtherest from the girl were. This was too much, too damned much! We
couldn't be bonding on THAT level! As people, in form and spirit, we
were too different. Hell(I guess that's a pun, sorta), I'm virtually
assured reincarnation as an upper demon lord shall I ever die. Ami,
well Ami fights for love and justice. The two just don't mix.

I stayed in my darkened corner for however long it took for Wrinkley
to return. When I heard footsteps echoing from within the stairwell, I
slipped from my perch and rushed to the seat I'd had when Wrinkley
left. Ami was back with the senshi, looking a bit dejected, but I
could feel the determination she held for something. Me.

The man Wrinkley led into the room was in his early-to-mid thirties,
with an unremarkable face, crowned with muddy blond hair. His eyes
were the same color blue as the robe he wore.

Wheezing and sweating profusely, Wrinkley managed to say,"This is
Caretaker Telerin. He works as Keeper of the records at the Supreme
Temple." He plopped down in a discarded chair."You asked for someone
with no power and I found you one with so little that this chair
outranks him."

Telerin didn't exactly turn a look of hatred onto Wrinkley, but it was
damned close."You can leave us now, Chancillor." I think that was a
title, not a name.

I briefly outlined the situation to Telerin and waited for his
demands."Fascinating." That was a suprise."And you could recreate the
Wings of God, the constructs as you term them?"

I shrugged."Now that I've seen the spell, sure, if I had enough of
that crystal they're made from to work with. Why?" I allowed a glimmer
of hope to wiggle it's way to the surface of my mind.

"As the Chancillor so eloquently stated, I have virtually no political
power within the Caretaker organization. The reason for this isn't
incompetence on my part, no, my opinions aren't held in high esteem by
my fellow Caretakers. If you speak truly, my radical views could be
confirmed." Telerin looked a little happy and significantly more
hopeful than I.

"What radical views would those be?" I didn't wnat to get caught in
some internal power struggle with a bunch of amazingly corrupt
priests.

Telerin shrugged."There's nothing really radical about them. I simply
do not believe that God created the Wings of God. I have found several
references within our most ancient manuscripts that speak of people
with awesome powers. They were called Magi'i, and you sound very much
like one of them. I believe they created the Wings of God to give
Chicago a means to escape constant demonic invasion."

Chicago? Oh goody, we could very likely be trapped in an alternate
future within an alternate universe. But Chicago? When has Chicago
ever had anything but Rust demons and Wind sprites? Then again,
Chicago could have been the world capital of magic here."Well, then,
will you help us? I may even be able to prove you right before this is
all over."

****

Author's Notes: Any good ideas on a history to explain why Chicago is
a floating medival city now? Am I moving too fast with Ami and Ranma?
Need some help everyone. In other news, I have a mostly completed
prologue to a Ranma/X-men crossover in the works. It may even be
posted along with this. It's gonna be a kind of alternate universe
that starts off with Ranma being twenty and married to Kasumi, but
he's probably going to get dumped into the normal Ranma world. I just
love those kinds of fics. Don't you? Until next...C&C welcome at
dark_phoneix@hotmail.com

P.S.- I don't have a website. I've never made one before and don't
have the slightest clue how to do a decent one. Any suggestions would
be helpful. You know, what programs to use, what site provider is the
most reliable, that kind of thing.
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 12
"Ranma, hurry," Makoto called to me. Telerin and I were discussing
some of the eccentricities of the strange religion that had sprung up
around the spell constructs and how the citizens of Chicago lived.
Thousands upon thousands of years must have passed since the Chicago I
knew existed. The culture here had absolutely no memory of its origin.
There was a knot of girls gathered around south facing window. Telerin
and I walked over, still talking."Chicago is constantly on the move,"
the Caretaker explained."When resources begin to grow scarce, teams of
men are gathered to make excursions to the surface."

I had figured something like that."What about food? There must be a
lot of people to feed in a city this size." There were small gardens
behind most houses, but they couldn't possibly support the multitudes.

"Perhaps I should rephrase my last response. The teams of men are
trained foragers that work in groups of several thousand, at the very
least. Littered across the world are tracts of land completely barren
of life, despite our passage having been centuries ago." Okay, that
was a pretty good answer.

"And what happens when the city is over open water?" That comment
about the land being barren after Chicago's passing was unusual, but I
decided to drop it for now.

Telerin shrugged."Chicago is adequately supplied with fishing vessels.
Fish, and especially whales, have many useful bodily components." I
hadn't seen any harbors, and boats didn't just park themselves in a
gargae somewhere. That was another unimportant issue.

We were right behind the girls now. They made a path for me, either
unconsciously or intentionally blocking Telerin's further
approach."Wow, nice mob." Mob didn't really describe the mass of
screaming maniacs that was slowy crawling towards this building. I
squinted and sharpened my vision as best I could with chi."It's
Stinky!" Sure enough, the first Caretaker we had met was leading the
ravening army of idiots towards us, waving his unbroken arm wildly
above his head.

"He works fast," commented Telerin, finally managing to squeeze his
way through the girls' defense."What did you do to the Tyrant?"

Tyrant didn't sound much like an insult when Telerin said it. It
sounded like a title."I broke his arm in seven different places."
Telerin looked at me in horror."What?"

"He-he's t-the Tyrant. The Tyrant is the spiritual leader of the
entire city of Chicago!" I don't think Telerin was too happy to be my
associate anymore. In fact, I think Telerin was seriously thinking
about jumping out of the unglazed window and ending what he felt would
be a significant amount of future pain.

I laughed at the distraught man. I couldn't help it."What kind of
idiots are you people, to let a monster like that come to power?" The
sneer on my face was a nice addition to the derisive tone I took. The
odor alone should have kept the pervert out of office.

Telerin seemd unfazed by my attitude. He looked mournfully down at the
approaching horde."My life hasn't really been very enjoyable, anyway.
Maybe I'll be reincarnated as a bird or something."

Ah geeze, he was about to start crying."Cheer up," I said."Stinkey and
his crowd aren't going to bother us, I assure you." This is where
having legions of pokemon comes in handy. The deeply ingrained fear of
all non-human(with the exception of horses and a few chickens I saw
earlier) life the people of Chicago seem to have, doesn't hurt one
bit.

So much for cooperation from the population."Time to turn loose the
pokemon," I informed the senshi. They were each carrying their six
strongest, most fearsome beasts, with the exception of Rei, who's
super rat was the only occupent on her ball-belt. Usagi had thrown a
bitch fit about leaving all her others behind, but we'd convinced her
to leave them under guard with a couple of Dragonites.

Chances were that no one would bother our pets, then again, those
tapestries had depicted men doing battle with demons. That must have
been a long time ago.

"I don't understand what-" That was as far as Telerin got, seeing as
how twenty eight pokemon were materializing a few hundred feet in
front of the mob. He screamed, like I'd expected, and tried to bolt
for the stairs. I reached out and grabbed him by the hood of his robe,
jerking him back to the window. He screamed again when I made him look
at the pokemon who were doing their best to look mean.

"Calm down, man, calm down!" I shouted in his ear."They're not
demons!" He probably thought I sounded like a lunatic, trying to
convince him that Demon and the other pokemon weren't actually demons.

Telerin screamed. I slapped him. He didn't stop screaming. I finally
just gave up and decked the wuss."I guess we should try out the cute,
cuddly ones next, eh?" I asked as we watched the mob come to a
screeching halt. It didn't really slow down all that fast, mobs don't
do that, but they took a lot less time than I had imagined. Demon
threw his head back and cut loose with an absolutely huge column of
flame. I was really proud of him. The other pokemon followed his lead
and within seconds there were all kinds of deadly energy attacks
blazing through the sky.

Poor mob, I almost felt sorry for it. All those people that got
trampled as it turned around and ran for its collective life probably
weren't feeling too well either.

****

"Setsuna, how could you trust someone who so blatantly associated with
demons?" Haruka shouted, shocked at Sailor Pluto's(the single person
whom was never ever supposed to be wrong) blunder and the toll it had
taken on the ranks of the senshi.

"Don't question me, girl," commanded Setsuna rigidly. She couldn't
blame Haruka for being mad about being taken out of her car in the
middle of a race, it had then hit the wall and exploded, but she
wouldn't allow the lesser being to question her."I am not totally
infalable. Whoever manipulated me into contacting Ranma must be
unimaginably powerful. I fear that even if the Inner Senshi were here,
this new threat could simply ignore us."

"What about Crystal Tokyo? Can't we get some help from the future
senshi? The way I understand it, the Inners bailed them out of a
pretty bad situation before Haruka and I awakened." Michiru reached
out to stroke Hotaru's hair. The little girl had taken a turn for the
better after the phenomonal growth spurt last year that had returned
her to preadolescense, but now her health was worsening almost by the
day. Setsuna believed Ranma or his master to be the blame for this,
too.

Setsuna shook her head in frustration."As of right now, the Inner
Senshi have no future. Therefore, there is no Crystal Tokyo."

"Is there anything we can do?" Haruka asked, her hands gripping the
arms of her chair tightly enough to make the wood creak.

"We have one chance and one chance only," Setsuna answered. The Outers
leaned forward in anticipation of the solution."I can send you two
back in time, without your powers, and hope that you'll be able to
manipulate other magical warriors into destroying Ranma before his
powers are fully realized"

"Why wouldn't we have our powers?" Haruka asked, sounding angry, but
inwwardly frightened. She'd been an absolute bitch to almost everyone,
and relied heavily on the security of being able to transform into
Sailor Uranus. Afterall, who in their right mind messes with someone
capable of calling up an earthquake with a snap of her wrist?

Setsuna sighed."Since you already exist in the past you will be
travelling to, the link between your planets belong to your past
selves. Unlike the Inner Senshi who are true sorceresses, you three
get your power from a direct mana-bind with your respective planet."

Michiru asked,"Won't this course of action violate the blood pact
between you and Ranma, Setsuna?"

"No, as long as I don't directly participate in harming or killing
Ranma, the pact remains intact." Setsuna had made the mistake of
underestimating Ranma and the amount of spite he carried within her
heart. He would pay, oh he would definitely pay. With his miserable
life.

"Hotaru can't come with us, then," Haruka said firmly. They all knew
that the little girl's power as Sailor Saturn was the only factor
keeping her alive.

"Of course not," confirmed Setsuna.

****

"Oh, Ryoga, ohhhh!!!" Kasumi moaned into her pillow as Ryoga thrust
into her for the last time, spilling his seed deep into her womb.
Still trembling as tiny orgasms rocked through her, Kasumi drew Ryoga
into a pssionate kiss.

The eldest Tendo was just drawing back for a breathe of air when her
door banged open. Ryoga sqeaked in fright and attempted to hide under
the covers.

"There you are," Nabiki snapped. She was dressed in a leather neglige
and had a coiled bull whip hanging at her hip."It's my night with him,
Kasumi."

Kasumi looked down at Ryoga, his cock still held tightly within
her."But, Nabiki," Kasumi whined,"I thought you had a date tonight.
Can't we make work something out?"

Nabiki shook her head."I'm horny." She walked over to the bed and
grabbed Ryoga by the ear."Come on, lover boy."

Ryoga finally spoke."Um, can-can I have a break, please?" His face was
flushed and his left eye kept twitching. Between them, the Tendo
sisters hadn't let him get a night of sleep in almost a week.

Nabiki shook her head. She reached down and carressed Ryoga's dick,
still hard and ready to please."No, I'm afraid not. Akane's waiting
for you in my room and she's a little desperate for relief. You should
do just the trick. Then it'll be my turn for a few hours." Ryoga
looked like he would cry."Don't worry, Kasumi, I'll bring him back in
the morning," she assured her older sister.

****

Downstairs, Soun Tendo cowered in his closet, weeping uncontrollably.
He clutched his head in a desperate attempt to keep out the horrible
sounds coming from upstairs. It did him no good.

****

Telerin came awake with a start and hurriedly surveyed the room. When
he found no demons-or pokemon, he calmed dramatically. I couldn't
spoil the moment, so I said,"No, it wasn't a dream."

The man didn't even scream."What are they? The old tales claim that
demons have no masters, yet you and your women clearly control those
creatures."

I ignored the growls of promised pain to come from the girls. Telerin
was just not at his best today."Demons do, in fact, have masters. But
that's beside the point. Those creatures you saw are called pokemon.
They're animals on the last world we visited. Most of them are too
cute to believe, but we picked our meaner looking ones for today, just
encase crowd control became a problem."

"So they're not going to eat my soul and wear my skin as a trophy?" ha
asked hopefully. Where had he been getting his information? Sure,
demons ate souls, well most of them did, but none of them wore human
skin. From a demon's point of view, wearing a human's skin would be
about as bad as draping themselves in used tampons.

"No, Telerin, none of that. The big one with the wings that started
out blowing fire into the air, he eats other pokemon sometimes, but
that's nothing for you to worry about."

"That pokemon is a menace," Rei snapped. She had her super rat in her
lap and was scratching it affectionately behind the ears. It had burn
slave spread across it right side and most of its fur had been singed
off, making it even uglier.

"Demon isn't the only fire pokemon, you know?" I think Rei was just
jealous that her only pokemon was so small that it could fit between
the teeth of Demon. Telerin started to look panicky again."Don't
worry, Telerin, Demon is just the name of one of my pokemon. He's not
really a demon." I wonder if Ami could whip up some homemade prozac,
or maybe some perkeset(not sure on spelling), because we needed this
guy sane and if he started freaking out every time we mentioned
pokemon, we might as well toss him out the window and find another
Caretaker.

"Well if that monstrosity hadn't decided to show off, Ratty wouldn't
be burned, now would he?" I'll be glad when some of the girls' pokemon
mate and start laying eggs. Rei really needs something to focus on
besides that beaver-toothed rodent.

I waved the matter aside with a dismissive gesture I just knew would
piss her off."Give it a potion and a few hours sleep and it'll be
fine." Back to scaredypants."How about we head on down to those
archives you mentioned earlier? I need to look through them and see if
there is anything I'm forgetting to ask you."

"Anything to get out of this place before another mob shows up."
Telerin stood, then his eyes got that nervous quality to them
again."It doesn't really bother me, since I'm of the much smaller
order of Caretakers that remain celebate, but your women aren't
properly dressed to move through Chicago. We would be able to pass
with much less attention being drawn if they were better conceiled."
He didn't even know how close he was coming to getting mauled by a
pack of angry senshi.

"We'd better clear something up real quick. These girls aren't my
'women'. They're my friends and students for the most part, and royaly
of a sort on our home world. Actually, if those Wings of God things
weren't annuling their powers, each of them would most likely be able
to destroy this city by themselves, so treat them with some respect."
There was just enough implied threat in my voice to get the message
through.

Telerin coughed, then looked at the group of senshi who stood glaring
at him."I'm terribly sorry for my earlier behavior, ladies, and your
clothing is nice, I assure you, but no woman in Chicago is allowed out
in her undergarments. Unfortunately, what you are now wearing is quite
a bit more revealing than the standard undergarment would be."

The senshi were nodding reluctantly. I thought they all looked pretty
good, myself. They wore colors that matched their elemental
affinities, an unconscious action I think. The shirts and tank tops
were pretty tight and the shorts and skirts could have been longer,
but back in Japan and PokeWorld, those clothes hadn't been anywhere
near daring."What would you suggest they wear?" I asked.

Telerin looked around the room. There were lots of cloaks and robes
laying around, some left behind in the evacuation and others hung on
racks."If you ladies kept the hoods drawn and altered your stride
adequately, we could all pass for men. 'That' would save us a lot of
hassle when we get to the Archives."

I nodded and began collecting armloads of the garments. I wasn't the
only one to do this and we soon had four giant piles of black, green
and purple robes and cloaks. The senshi took way longer than I thought
necessary to find stuff that fit them. When they finally did, though,
we headed down the stairs with Telerin in the lead.

****

"Your mirror should allow you to find Ranma, Michiru," Setsuna told
them."It's power is directly related to your soul, so it will still
work, as will your sword, Haruka. Once you find the boy, do not harm
him," the temporal mage stressed."Break this vial over his head and
use a rag to smear it as thoroughly as possible over his body. If the
contents touches you, whatever it touches will have to be cut off or
every devil hunter in Japan will be after you." She handed Michiru a
small glass vial with a clear fluid inside.

"We understand," the two senshi said almost simultaneously.

Setsuna didn't bother to transform to her senshi state, simply
summoning the time key and opening a portal to seventeen years in the
past. The Outer Senshi lept through the portal holding tightly to one
another's hand.

The portal had just closed when Setsuna realized what a horrible
mistake she had just made. She was the reason that Ranma was so well
liked by demons! Without her interference, Ranma Saotome would have
died during the cat-fist training. Setsuna fainted, all the while
screaming at the injustice of it all.

And so the cycle continues.

(I think it's sorta funny to have Setsuna be the cause of her months
of torment, don't you?)

****

Author's Notes: Short chapter, I know, but a good stopping point. C&C
welcome at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 13 [Ranma][SM][x-over]
"Amazing!" Ami exclaimed."This Newspaper goes back to the year 2098."
We had been rummaging through the lower floors of the Archives for
about half the day, finding all kinds of useless crap. Most of the
stuff was just books and magazines stored in the library that the
Archives had become and it was all in English. Ami and I were the only
ones who could read any of it. Telerin was stunned speechless by that
alone, saying that the language had been dead in Chicago for millenia.
I hurried over to the girl, leaving behind Telerin and his crash
course in pokemon accustommization. Usagi was really getting a kick
out of showing the man all of the cute pokemon in her pokedex."What
have you found?" I'd found records at least three hundred years more
recent than Ami's paper and none of it had shed any light on the
changes that occured to Chicago to make it into it's present day city-
state.

Ami pointed to the headline of the yellowed piece of crumbling paper.
Everything down here was remarkably preserved, at least. The headline
read,'Self proclaimed Queen of Earth, Usagi Tsuniko, defeated at
last!'."Ami, whatever you do, don't tell the others about this," I
ordered. Ami would have known better than to do that, but I had said
it by reflex.

"I wasn't planning on it, Ranma. It just suprised me, that's all." She
laid the paper down and looked at me imploringly."Ranma, if some form
of senshi existed in this universe and they were deposed like that,
couldn't that happen to us when the times comes on our world?" She
didn't seem like she could accept the possibility.

I shrugged."Anything is possible, I guess, just look at this place, an
actual floating city, but I really doubt that will happen on our
Earth. Usagi and the rest of you senshi, along with the army of
pokemon that Usagi plans on breeding, will be more than powerful
enough to take over the Earth when the time comes. And besides, you'll
have me on your side." What better insurance could you ask for than
that?

Ami smiled at me, patting the bench beside her. Obviously, I sat down,
wrapping my arm around her waist in the process."I'm sure you're
right, dear, but that isn't supposed to happen. Usagi is supposed to
become ruler by complete consent of the people of Earth, not through a
long, bloody battle."

The 'dear' comment about made me do my little disappearing routine
again, Ami's arm around me and the warm emotions I felt coming from
her stopped me. I'm doomed, I know now. Absolutely doomed."That's a
long time away and in a completely different plane of existance. The
people of Earth may accept Usagi with open arms. If they don't, well,
maybe I can arrange for you to be in charge." DO NOT SAY A WORD!!!

The girl squeezed me around the waist and laid her head on my
shoulder. Oh well, might as well live with it as best as I can.

"Ranma..." Ami murmurred into my shirt warningly.

"Just being pessimistic, ignore me." Communication isn't going to be a
problem like I hear it is in a lot of other relationships.

****

"Now is the time, Master," Lady Kima said, bowing to Lord Saffron. Her
white and purple-speckled wings were folded tightly against her back
and a plain hilted sword hung at her hip.

"And the senshi?" Saffron asked, his voice rising and the light
emitted by his body darkening to red in anger. He hadn't forgotten his
ill treatment during the Silver Millenium by the Sailor Senshi and
their Bitch Queen. If anything, the ancient resentment had festered
and grown through each of Saffron's incarnations.

"Gone, my lord. We know not where. Only the temporal mage, Setsuna
Meiou, remains and she appears to be thoroughly preoccupied with more
pressing matters." Kima hadn't forgotten the old tales, stories told
by mothers to frighten newly hatched Phoenix People. Her race had been
visciously oppressed for a thousand years, and their lord and master
had been enslaved by their Fire Witch. Now, with their power gone from
the world, Lord Saffron's empire would know no bounds.

"Then, my loyal servant, send emissaries to the Musk and Amazon
nations. Tell them of our plans and invite them to join the cause,"
the Phoenix King ordered.

"As my lord commands," Kima stated before rising from her knee and
marching to the open window. Once there, she unfurled her wings and
stepped off of the railless balcony.

"The world shall be mine!"

****

Setsuna screamed a lot that day. Then came the overwhelming urge to
blow something up. After that she seriously contemplated suicide. If
only she had thought about her actions. If only she had considered the
consequences of those actions. Now though, she had perpetuated a time
loop and to attempt to change that loop after its initiation would be
very, very bad. What could she do? Any action she took would cause a
paradox that would change her memory along with everyone else's. Ranma
would still be in the picture as the Inner Senshi's teacher and she
would have no knowledge of his true intent.

Haruka and Michiru had arrived from their little trip minutes after
their departure. The couple had a nice bronze tan and several bags of
cloths. Retro seemed to be in style again. They'd found their less
than illustrious leader ranting and raving like a madwoman. Before
they could help her, though, she'd teleported herself back to the
Gates of Time and continued her breakdown.

(Note that time does not pass in the Gates of Time as it does in the
rest of the universe)

Several months later:

Setsuna sat on a badly soiled sofa, watching an episode of Welcome
Back Cotter. In her left hand a two-liter coke bottle rested, ready to
be poured at a moments notice, and her right hand sported the leading
end of a three mile long fruit roll up fruit snack. Her Sailor Pluto
uniform hadn't been changed since she'd planted herself on the couch
and her growing bulk was threatening to burst it at its seems.

****

I'd quickly changed my planned approach to the whole Chicago problem.
The people just wouldn't cooperate. And they were idiots. I don't mean
ignorant, but with the ability to learn, these people were just
idiots. Telerin appeared to be about the most intelligent person in
the whole city and look how life had treated him.

Caretakers were expected to provide their own lodgings with the money
they drew as a weekly stipend. Telerin's stipend barely allowed him to
maintain a closet-sized room and leave him enough food to survive on.
We certainly wouldn't be staying with him, and since we needed his
help, he had to stay with us.

He didn't much like the idea, but he didn't really have a choice.
Stinkey was out for our blood, Telerin's included. So, with each of us
burdened with bundles of ancient documents and books that I hoped
could shed some light on a way to transfer energy from the constructs,
we snuck from the Archive building after night fell and the attendent
guards went home. Why have guards in the day time if you're not going
to have them at night? Idiotic people.

Telerin took a lot of convincing, but I finally managed to persuade
him to climb into Demon's hand. I stepped up onto the other one and
the giant pokemon gently closed his hands until we were each held
snugly in his grip. Telerin managed not to scream during the whole
flight, another point in his favor.

Usagi's Dragonites flew up from the dark sea of grass below to greet
us. Telerin did scream then, but stopped himself before I had to get
involved.

"So this is what true ground feels like," the Caretaker mused out loud
after we'd set up camp for the night."From all the stories I hear from
foragers, it's supposed to be like being stuck in a pit of tar. Not
that I know what that feels like, but they described that too..." He
walked off into the gloom, muttering to himself.

A couple hours later, when I had nearly convinced Ami to slip off into
the grass with me, Minako said,"Guys, come look at this one." Why the
girl hadn't volunteered her knowledge of English to me earlier I don't
know, but Usagi's explanation of her friend's stay in England as a
fighter for love and justice had got boring fast, so I couldn't be
blamed for that.

I cursed and detached from Ami. Minako was reading by the fire. The
sheet of plastic she read from was the standard replacement for paper
after about 2100. The material was tough, resistant to heat, and gave
one hell of a paper-plastic cut, whatever. I scanned through the
document she handed up to me, reading the first few lines to
myself.'Wide scale nuclear bombardment over majority of Africa and
Asia. Experts expect fallout to cover much of the globe, concentrated
mostly in southern Europe and the desert regions of Australia'.

No wonder magic started being more commonplace here. Planet sized
disturbances like that can cause all kinds of nasty side effects. Just
look at the invention of the television. Do you think that half the
world used to sit on its collective ass before the little moving
piture box was invented. The prevalence of magically gifted children
coming into the world would lead to a more indepth study of magic, and
a revival of much of the old knowledge.

The fact that the world was going straight down the toilet probably
prompted a lot of people to start looking for into alternatives
lifestyles, too.

"Sucks, don't it?" I asked, handing the plastic sheet back to
Minako."I can't believe they actually nuked more than half the world's
population over fishing rights. But if you look at it from a certain
perspective, that could have been nature's way of saying that you're
all too stupid to live. Seems to me like something should have
happened to all the old people in charge of everything, though, and
not the normal people. Oh well, not my problem."

"How could you say that?" Usagi almost shouted. Leave it to her to
feel compassion for people who'd been dust for so many freakin years.

I shrugged."Don't whine, Usagi, it'll give you wrinkles." 'That' shut
the future queen up faster than if I'd stapled her lips together.

Ami and I slipped back into the grass, leaving Minako with
instructions to keep any more discoveries to herself until morning.

****

"Ranma, I think you may need to do something about Demon," Makoto said
a couple days later. We were steadily moving through the material from
the Archives, our fourth load, and Telerin was almost adjusted to
being around pokemon."He's still growing and I noticed him looking at
Fluffums," an ugly little Snubull,"like she was a snack. If this keeps
up, Demon may actually eat one of our pokemon."

This had been coming for a while. Demon was maybe a third the size of
Gojiro now and eating huge swathes of grass daily."I'll take him back
to the forest and let him hunt himself stupid, how's that?" I asked.

"That's fine with me," Makoto answered, turning back to her breakfast
of rabbit stew.

I told Ami about my little side trip and she insisted that she go
along. I didn't really mind, but I went through the motions of refusal
anyway."But this is supposed to be one of those male-bonding things,
between Demon and me," I protested.

Ami looked at me, her eyes flat, but a tiny smile gracing her small
mouth."Ranma, don't even waste your breath. Demon can carry me without
any trouble and it wouldn't hurt him to become more aquainted with me.
We are going to know each other for a while. Besides, I can be reached
on my communicator if there is any trouble here at the camp."

I gave up, abandoning my last few arguments. Ami didn't need any
verbal confirmation, reaching up and giving me a quick hug when she
felt my capitulation.

****

Hunting hismself stupid turned out to take Demon longer than I had
imagined. Ami and I mostly had the days to ourselves and used them for
lots and lots of cardiovascular exercise. I was starting to get a
little sore, when after two and a half weeks, Ami's communicator
started buzzing.

Ami held the watch-like device at an angle so whoever was on the other
end couldn't see her unclad body and asked,"What's wrong?"

I peaked over her shoulder and saw Minako in the little screen."I just
thought you and Ranma would want to know that the stuff we picked up
last night has begun to use some Japanese. I think we're getting
pretty close to the actual cause for Chicago to go airborn."

I sighed. The vacation and countless hours of wild sex were at an end,
at least temporarily."We'll be there as soon as I can round Demon up."

Minako nodded, blushing as Ami turned the screen at an angle that
showed way too much of me to be decent. The screen went blank.

"That wasn't very nice," I chided."I feel so violated. And think about
poor Minako, she'll never be able to find anyone even close to my
standards." I didn't really mind, but this had 'I've been naughty,
please spank me' written all over it.

****

"I just discovered the most amazing thing," Kasumi said excitedly to
her sisters."If you turn Ryoga into a pig them change him back,
'Little Ryoga' is fully recovered and ready for more." She held a
weakly struggling P-chan under one arm.

Soun banged his head on the coffe table really hard, rendering himself
unconscious.

Nabiki waved Kasumi's discovery off."Old news, big sister. I've known
that for weeks," she confessed.

Kasumi looked at her middle sister in a heartbroken sort of way and
her lower lip began to tremble. With pearly tears in her eyes, she
asked,"A-all this time, a-and you didn't tell me?" She turned her gaze
to Akane who was in the process of slipping a home movie of her and
Ryoga into the VCR."Not you too, Akane."

"Sorry, big sister. I just didn't think about telling you." Akane
actually hadn't felt much like sharing.

Kasumi sniffed."Well fine, I'm going to go lock myself in my room with
Ryoga and I'm not coming down to cook for anyone for a week. See how
you like that!" The eldest Tendo, P-chan now squirming desperately
under her arm, stomped upstairs and slammed her door.

"Geeze, who unplugged her vibrator?" Nabiki asked caustically.

Akane shrugged and made herself comfortable just as the screen began
to display her movie. The Tendos, with the exception of Soun, had
never been happier and they didn't plan on ever letting Ryoga escape
their grasp. Who knew how many days he would be gone if that happened?
The thought was unbearable.

****

"Are the advanced parties armed and fully supplied?" asked General
Marthalus. His iron-grey wings were still powerful, despite his
advanced age, and the glint of steel that could occassionally be seen
between his feathers indicated him as a master of the Raging Storm
school of Phoenix Combat.

"Yes, sir. We have also recieved a shipment of herbs from the Amazons
that will give out warriors extended stamina and endurance during
battle. I took the liberty of having it rationed among the men, after
proper testing, of course," Commander Berhid answered. Most of his
body was covered by intricately worked armor fashioned from minute
metal scales and the only weapons he wore came in the form of metal
gauntlets that lent strength and power to his natural talons.

"Excellent. If at all possible, I would like to speak with the Musk
and Amazon Commanders. I'm sure they would appreciate a chance to send
their people along with ours. Their skills would greatly compliment
our warriors. That is all," finished the general.

"Right away, sir."

****

"It has been decided," Cologne said to her heir."You will accompany
the first squad of Amazon warriors that will travel with the Phoenix
People." The Matriarch of the Joketsozuko Amazons led her great-
granddaughter to the building adjacent to the armory. This one held
the magical artifacts and enchanted weapons collected over the
millenia by the tribe.

Shampoo glanced across the room. Along the walls hung items of power
that she couldn't even begin to control. Iron bound trunks and strong
boxes held within them smaller, more valuable items and some even
contained martial arts scrolls, the most valued treasure of the
Amazons. Her eyes alighted on a particularly deadly looking sword. The
light reflected from its razor sharp blade in a cascade of bright
colors and an inner fire burnt within the hen egg-sized ruby attached
to its hilt.

"Ah, I see you've noticed the contribution your young friend Ranma
made to the tribe." The boy had been a powerful sorceror and martial
artist and many of the tribe had set their sights on him almost as
soon as he'd walked through the gates. Cologne had put a stop to those
notions almost immediately. Ranma felt pure evil to her senses, and
when attention was called to that fact, so to did the other elders
notice. Cologne saw deeper though, as her three centuries of training
allowed. Ranma's heart was pure, if slightly shadowed, and his evil
prescence was nothing more than some kind of curse he wasn't even
aware of.

"Aiyah, Ranma made this?" Shampoo asked in wonder. She'd sparred with
the foreign boy a number of times and had hoped their relationship
would go further, but the few times she had lured him to her bed
hadn't been enough to keep him in the village.

"Yes, dear child. Ranma made that sword. It was part of a deal to
instruct him in our deepest arts. I believe we came out the betters in
the deal, but Ranma appeared satisfied." Cologne cackled. Not many
within the tribe had any of the Gift for sorcery, and none of them
could create an object nearly as powerful as the one before them.
Trading it for a few advanced martial arts techniques that would go to
the grave with their owner was a small price to pay.

"What does it do, great-grandmother?" She reached out to touch it,
running her hand along the silver wire wrapped hilt.

"At it's user's command, the sword begins to give off enormous heat or
equally massive amounts of chill. It only lasts for an hour before
needing to recharge for a full day, but you can see the advantage a
sword like this would be in battle, especially to a weilder versed in
the Hiryu Shoten Ha and Soul of Ice." Cologne had tried the weapon out
for herself, and with a little practice, had been able to create the
cyclone without moving from where she stood.

"But that's not why we're here," she reminded the much younger woman.
She walked over to a large trunk and opened it with a tap of her
staff. It contained the more useful temporary curses that could be
derived from boiled down Jusenkyo water. She grabbed a handful of the
packets and moved on to another trunk. From this one she retrieved a
wax encrusted bar of waterproofing soap.

"What am I to do with these, great-grandmother?" Shampoo asked in
confusion as the ancient woman passed the materials up to her.

"Those will allow you to temporarily take the form of Phoenix People.
Combined with the waterproofing soap, you and your fellow Amazons will
be able to travel with our allies without slowing them down." Shampoo
nodded her understanding."Good. Now on the way out, grab Ranma's
sword. Tomorrow morning I will teach you how to properly harness its
power."

Shampoo grinned in anticipation. Finally she would be going into
battle.

****

Author's Notes: I know that Demon is getting big, and he's going to be
levelling off in size now, I think. Anyone remember that episode of
Pokemon with the giant Dragonite? That's about how big Demon is gonna
be. Ranma and Ami are pretty much irrevocably linked now, so that's a
done deal. Does anyone think I'm taking the Ryoga/Tendo girl bit a
little to far? In the next few chapters the valley of Jusendo is going
to be taking the world by storm, obviously aided by magic to some way
avoid all the nasty technological weapons we have. C&C welcom at
dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 14[Ranma][SM][x-over]
Cologne's eyes narrowed as she examined the blue crystalline egg that
Saffron had produced. Though not a sorceress herself, Cologne could
feel the magical energy bound into the egg, layers upon layers of
intricately woven force. The entire crystal was energy, energy given
form and purpose, but energy nonetheless. What that purpose was
remained a mystery."How is this object supposed to aide us in the
coming war?" It would have to be something similar to the hand of the
Goddess coming down to smite their foes, otherwise their superior
skill and power would be totally overrun by sheer numbers and the
amount of machinery that the Chinese and other world governments could
throw at them.
Saffron's voice was respectful as he addressed the ancient Amazon. He
may be an immortal demi-kami, but that little old lady could very
likely hold her own against him."It is a simple tool from the long
dead Silver Millenium. One was placed on each inhabited world and
through a series of spells that I am unfamiliar with, negated all
artificial electricity and suppressed all chemical reactions explosive
enough to power a projectile. These crystals kept the ruling family
and its allies in power for more than a millenium, suppressing any
development of technology that may have eventually challenged their
power."

Herb, the young Dragon Prince of the Musk Dynasty, said,"This single
crystal, it will render all modern technology useless?" The situation
was almost too good to be true. When the only thing that can possibly
win you the war shows up right when you need it most, something isn't
right.

Cologne understood just how 'not right' things could quickly become.
"Saffron, if I may be frank, why would you seek an alliance with my
people and the Musk?"

Saffron chuckled."I understand my peoples' strengths and weaknesses
better than anyone. We have greater numbers than either of your
peoples combined, a greater range of mobility due to our wings, and a
higher ratio of magic weilders. Even with my power, great as it may
be, combined with the nullifying effects of the crystal, there would
be very little chance of a succesful military campaign within China,
muchless the entire world. Your Musk, Herb, are all possessed of
extraordinary abilities, some of which allow them to fight foes with
much greater skill than themselves and still emerge victorious. Your
power, too, is nothing to be frowned upon. The Dragon blood runs
strong within your veins." Saffron turned to look at the
Matriarch."The skills, powers, and magical weapons of your tribe may
be the greatest advantage of all, though, honored elder. Your fellow
Amazon leaders are each near the equal of Herb, and you may be my
eqaul, if for a short time. Together we shall be unstoppable."

Cologne saw the logic in the abbreviated explanation, but asked the
relevant question."And who shall lead this new Jusendo Alliance?"

"I shall, of course," Saffron answered.

****

We'd reached the point in our research that for a significant amount
of recorded history, no hard copies existed. A metal bin filled with
tiny ceramic disks, discovered by Minako as we searched for the
missing documents, had turned out to be some kind of back-up database
and Ami's computer was running around the clock to decode the
information. This break in activity allowed the senshi and I, with
Telerin tagging along, though not really wishing to, to explore our
temporary home in more detail.

Maps found in the Archive had helped tremendously in locating our
general location on this Earth. The river that cuts through the giant
field of grass, that's the amazon river. Yep, the one and only, the
river that was 'supposed' to flow through the rain forests of South
America. That was all gone, though, thanks to a mutated strain of bole
weevil introduced to the continent by ecological terrorists. What they
were hoping to accomplish besides destroying all kinds of potential
cancer cures and eliminating a very large oxygen factory, I don't
know.

"Earth, your's, not mine, is similar to that of my Earth's past?"
Telerin asked late one evening. He was really starting to integrate
into our little group, so much so that I had observed him playing with
some of the pokemon, the idea of which would have sent the man off
screaming like a frightened child. He'd also participated in a few of
the sporadic martial arts lessons I was forcing on the senshi.

"Yeah," I confirmed."I can't really be too sure about some stuff,
mostly because the time differences are still to great, but the
geography and general culture appear to be an almost exact match. The
differences were most likely small and insignificant. That's why it's
hard to believe that a planet that was practically covered with humans
and all the things we like to have around us, cars, building, etc.,
would go down the hole like this one." Weeks of looking for some tiny
remnant of civilization had turned up completely zilch. I would have
been happy to find an old rusty spoon.

Telerin turned a little defensive thanks to my last comment."Chicago
may not be terribly civilized to you, Ranma, but it's all we have and
when you come right down to the point, the last home of humans on this
entire planet. Our way has helped us to survive for millenia and we'll
continue to do so."

I waved my hands around, trying to head of any argument."Look, Chicago
is nice, sorta, but the Chicago I know on my Earth would completely
overwhelm you. The thing that upsets me, though, is that the Archives
have plans and instructions for the building and operating of most
advanced technology. If you and your fellow Chicagotians(big shrug,
good enough) had just tried, the whole place could have been a
paradise when compared to its current state."

The older man seemed to slump, withdrawing within himself."I know. I
too have seen the knowledge you speak of, and I know what we are
missing out on, but what can I do about it?"

I shrugged and let that conversation lapse into silence. No sense in
making the guy any more depressed than he already was. The ground
beneath my feet shook slightly and I looked over to where Slammer was
trying to teach Minoko's Geodude, a poor pokemon named Darling, how to
create small earthquakes. My Golem noticed my attention and waved one
of his massive stone arms in my direction. I returned the gesture and
went looking for something to do.

Something found me, in the form of Ami and Rei. They were both
breating hard and their faces were flushed with excitement and
exertion."Ranma," Rei called, waving her arms to get my attention.

I jogged over to the girls, giving them time to catch their breath.
"Trouble?" I asked. I'm gonna have to get one of those wrist radios
whenever we get home, or the senshi were going to run themselves
ragged getting in touch with me.

Ami shook her head and began,"The Chancy we left at the camp with my
computer and the disks, it signalled that my computer has found a
match to the parameters I set it to scan for." She smiled at me, in
triumph mostly, but the gleam in her eye told me there was more to it
than that. She's mentioned introducing me to her mother a few times in
the last week. I think that was somehow involved.

"I just know that Grandfather is worried sick about me," Rei said."The
others are out gathering their pokemon together now." Her hand went to
her belt where a lonesome pokeball hung. Usagi has three eggs produced
by her horde. Hopefully the princess will give those first few to Rei.
The girl was just a little 'too' attached to her rat.

"Couldn't Chancy be in trouble and calling for help?" I asked,
unwilling to get everyone's hopes up for nothing.

Ami shook her head."No, she didn't look worried on the communicator
and she was waving my computer around and pointing at the indicator
light," clarified the Senshi of Mercury. Even the pokemon get
communicators. It's not fair. Eh, probably can't get tv signals
anyway.

"If we fly in spurts, allowing the pokemon to rest for short periods
of time, we should be able to get back in a couple of days," I said. I
was much more eager to get back and get the information needed to get
us home than I let myself show. I suppose Ami could feel the
restrained excitement, but their was no holping that, now. Without the
power of magic coursing through my body like I had become accustommed
to over the years, a part of my being felt withered, nearly dead. This
world was getting to me.

****

Usagi flung her arms around the rotund little Chancy, picking it up
and twirling it though the air."Thank you so much, Cinderella!" she
exclaimed happily. Every one of her pokemon had crappy names like
that. They didn't mind, though, so I never said anything about it.

"Do you recognize this?" Ami asked Telerin, pointing to the floating
3D image generated by her computer. The device was round and made of a
series of metal disks, each lessening size as they neared the pointed
top. It slowly turned on an invisible axis, giving full view of the
symbols carved in its shining surface.

Telerin nodded, a look of forboding coming across his face."It's
embedded in the Altar of the Wings, in the main temple. That temple is
guarded constantly, day and night, ever since an attempted break-in
over a centruy ago."

I shrugged that little inconvenience aside."Well, what are we waiting
for? Let's go turn the dial, or whatever it is we have to do, and get
our asses home," I suggested.

"It's not as simple as that, Ranma," Ami objected."The key sequence,
due to the immense number of possible combinations, is going to take
my computer days, if not weeks to decipher." I knew she regretted the
words, that didn't make me any happier.

"We've waited this long, a few days won't matter."

****

Cologne reported the development back to the Council as soon as
possible. They weren't happy about the demands, but they saw that to
decline the offer would be foolish. Saffron would be in charge of the
war to come, and he and his people would hold Asia and Europe at its
completion. Herb had been furious and nearly to the point of throwing
a royal temper tantrum, good sense won the day, though, and he finally
agreed to take North America. The Amazon Nation would have plenty of
resources and room to expand in South America and Africa. Jusendo,
though, would retain its original borders and the areas controlled by
each people would stay intact.

Cologne and the other Elders didn't expect reace to last long between
the three factions once the war was over, but that situation would
have to be attended to at a later date. A much later date. They were
looking at several decades of genocide as it was, therewas no need to
plan for more.

Leaving the Council Chamber that night, Cologne passed the training
field where the first group of warriors that would soon be departing
practiced. Her great-granddaughter stood far apart from the others,
the mystic sword created by Ranma held before her. Cologne stopped to
watch her heir.

Shampoo's face tightened and a mask of concentration slipped across
it. Then, in a blur, the girl's arm whipped out, passing the sword
through the air several times, all the while alternating its blade
from hot to cold. In a handful of moments a gale force wind erupted in
front of the Amazon, followed almost immediately by a cyclone that
grew from a pencil thin mass of swirling air, to a three foot wide
conflaguration. With deft movements, Shampoo directed the cyclone,
forcing it to slowly lower itself until the deadly attack was
paralledl with the ground.

Sweat soaked and panting, Shampoo halted the continuous amaguriken
speed sword strokes, causing the cyclone to rapidly dissipate.
Whistles and cheers greeted the young warrior, courtest of her
fellows. With a smile, Cologne departed. She knew that her great-
granddaughter could just as easily have created a tornado a hundred
times that size.

At her doorstep, a thought struck her. If they could find Ranma and
enlist his aide, his weapons alone could end the coming conflict years
sooner. His repore(spelling is wrong, I know, but I don't feel like
using the spellchecker) with demons, abominable as the creatures were,
could also prove extremely valuable.

Maybe she should send Shampoo on a separate mission. She and Ranma had
been close during his stay in the village and the relationship, as one
sided as it had been, was a close enough link, that the girl could
successfully scry him.

****

Demon came flying into the camp, well as close as something his size
can manage, early the second morning after we had returned at
Darling's request. The giant pokemon had finally ceased growing, at
least noticeably, and had even learned to drain the life and energy
from the surrounding grassland, sharply reducing his daily food
intake.

Today, however, he had something large and furry clasped in his
enormous fist. As he lumbered to me, I caught sight of a yellow furred
head, a head belong to a species of feline demon that I had once had a
run in with. Demon dropped the groaning demon at my feet and said,"No
anmaal." He gently nudged it with his foot, the claws thankfully
sheathed."Likez prrrsun." With a shrug of massive shoulders, he
hunched down and waited for my examination.

I guess he wanted me to tell him whether he could eat the thing. I
looked up at him and said,"Sorry, buddy, but these aren't food." He
looked regretful and was about to go hunt, mostly for fun, when I
asked,"Did you see any more like this?"

Demon nodded."Thhot wrayy," he said, pointing south, toward the
forest. I'll be damned, demons, here. Telerin'd told me that there
hadn't been a demon sighting in over a millenium. I jumped up, barely
reaching Demon's shoulde,r and scratched him behind his ear. His purr
made the ground tremble.

"You did good, Demon. Let's wake this guy up and see what he has to
say for himself." I retrieved a bucket of water from the river and
poured it on the demon. We didn't hae anything that could properly
bind a creature of its physical strength, not that Demon nor I would
have any trouble with this pathetic creature.

Cats don't like getting wet, and this one wasn't an exception. It came
awake with a YOWL, which promptly became a scream of bestial fear when
the first sight it saw was Demon, sitting cross-legged with his chin
resting in the palms of his hands. I reached over and grabbed the
demon's shoulder, careful not to badly startle it and possibly lose my
arm.

"Don't worry, he won't hurt you," I told the demon. It turned around
and was hit full force by my demonic prescence. Most demons of this
species would have positively delighted in torturing me for days, but
this one just grinned and extended its furry hand. He probably thought
I was a shapeshifter in human form.

"That'sss one hell of a pet you got there," it commented. He swept an
appreciative glance over Demon now that he knew the larger than life
pokemon wouldn't attack him.

"It's more of a mentor/child relationship," I shrugged."Anyway, what
in Hell are you doing on this piece of shit world?" Demons are by
their nature innately magic, so even being on a magically deviant
world like this one would be painful and over time, debilitating.

It growled."My brothersss and I were trapped here nearly a full moon
ago. And you?" I could see a few patches of fur that had begun to
become discolored and others where the fur was thinning and would soon
fall out completely. Staying here was hitting this guy harder than I
would have expected.

"My friends and I were transported to another plane. In attempting to
reach our home, we have become trapped here. We may have found a way
to unlock the spell that keeps our magic bound and will soon be
travelling home. You and your brothers are welcome to replenish your
energy if we succeed," I told him. The girls probably wouldn't like
it, especially since these weren't the kinds of demons that minded
their own business and worked nine to five jobs. Speaking of the
girls."My friends are all human, and female, by the way. Don't get any
ideas, though," I warned."Blood magic won't work here any better than
any other kind, and if one of them were harmed, well that would be bad
for your entire race."

It bowed, not even attempting to dispute my demands. It's not hard to
see why the demons that come to this Earth always try to attack
Chicago. Eventually they must feel the forces centered around the
floating city and attempt to seize it, for their very survival. Oh
boy, Telerin wasn't going to like this. Maybe I could pass the demons
off as pokemon...

****

The girls hadn't got back from their dip in the river by the time that
the demon, whom I now know to be named Hersh, and I, via Demon,
departed for the cave that Hersh's fellow demons were living in.

"So, who's the Demon Lord on your plane?" I asked. FYI, that's always
a good question to break the ice with the denizens of Hell.

"Xochial," Hersh answered."He isn't going to be happy that we have
been gone so long." Xochial is one of the first demons to ever teach
me any magic and he is the original owner of the athame I now use. I
hadn't seen him in a few years.

"How is Xochial doing?" I asked. Demon Lords can travel between
dimensions pretty easily thanks to the thin barriers between realities
that exist within Hell. Every dimension has a single Demon Lord as its
main bad guy. He, she, or it, is more powerful on this plane and all
demons native to it obey that demon without question. Most Demon Lords
stay on their own plane where they're nearly(and I mean that the
universe almost has to be destroyed to take them out) immortal, but
Xochial and the Dark Prince(nope, don't know his name, but it's
probably something stupid like Escobar) are friends and drop by to
exchange pleasantries every so often.

Hersh looked at me funny and asked,"You know my Lord?"

"Yeah, he practically raised me for a couple years. Taught me all
kinds of neat stuff." I flicked my wrist and my athame appeared in my
hand."He gave me this when I turned thirteen." The vorpal blade was
almost as indestructable as Xochial himself, and when the proper
magical energy existed, I could summon at will nearly any demon from
his realm of my choosing.

Hersh's eyes widened as he took in the sight of my simple athame. In a
single movement full of feline grace, he prostrated himself across
Demon's arm and reverently asked,"Oh, he who is like a son to my Lord
and Master, please allow Hersh to serve you?"

Wow. To say the least. I reached down and pulled the demon to his
feet."None of that, man." It's nice to know that Xochial cares so much
for me, a mere human."We're all friends here, right?"

Hersh nodded his head violently enough to make his semi-stiff cat ears
flop around wildly."Yes, yes of course."

"Well then, since you see it my way, let's find your brothers and see
if we can't get you home. I owe Xochial a lot and this may help to
even things out a little."

****

Author's Notes: Nothing has really happened that was too important to
Ranma and the gang in the last few chapters, but they go home next
chapter, with an army of pokemon and cat demons at their back. Won't
that be fun? I know that the war being planned by the inhabitants of
Jusendo seems a bit hard to pull of, but consider, the world will be
in chaos. No technology of any kind more advanced than pre-gun powder
Europe in a world almost completely dependent on the modern
conveniences. The Amazons, Musk(who for the purposes of this story
number in the thousands and not three), and Phoenix Peoples just have
to come through and slaughter the tattered ruins of civilization and
maybe the occassional group of organized people that manages to pull
itself together.

Send C&C to dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 15 {Ranma][SM][x-over[
Hersh's brothers were in full battle armor when Demon dropped us off
at the rocky clearing at the mouth of their cave. They must have been
preparing to mount a rescue mission for Demon's latest catch. To their
credit, the demons didn't even run away as Demon came into view. It
was understandable, though, that they would draw their weapons and
spread out into a loose formation that wouldn't hamper their ability
to haul ass if the need arose.
Hersh sprinted to the pack leader, a tall black cat demon with shaggy
black fur and a blood red chain mail shirt. They exchanged several
hisses and growls, what passed for a language, I guess, then the big
black demon slowly approached me, his three inch claws fully withdrawn
in a show of peace.

He bowed his head slightly and said,"We are at your ssservice, Lord
Ranma." Well, this was just getting better and better. The guy was at
least seven feet tall and out massed me by a good fifty kilograms, but
he hadn't attempted to challenge my status as interim leader.

We exchanged pleasantries, a few old war stories, and finally got down
to business. I informed the leader of the coming escape attempt and
invited him and his brothers to join us. The same no harming the girls
policy was in effect, and they couldn't bother the pokemon, for their
own health.

"I'm going to have to go ahead of you and smooth things over with the
girls," I told Squirm, the pack leader. I won't even begin to
elaborate on how he got that nickname."They're the Sailor Senshi and
don't really like demons too much. I have a lot of influence over
them, though, so just behave and they'll leave you and your brothers
alone." The pack of demons had been getting their gear together while
we talked and they all waited at the cave mouth for further
instructions.

Squirm didn't like fraternizing with the enemy much at all. He was an
intelligent demon, though, and saw that there was little alternative,
and besides, he had to obey my every command."I'm gonna leave Slammer
behind. He's a sort of rock demon and will be able to lead you and
your packmates to my camp."

I unpacked my Golem and gave him his marching orders. He nodded, as
much as a semi-rigid boulder can nod, and walked over to look at the
demons. He'd never seen real ones before so he was curious. The cat
demons obviously respected, or at least feared Slammer, lowering their
eyes whenever his gaze met theirs.

****

No one was happy, especially Telerin, when I made my announcement. Rei
the most vocal of all, threatened to unlease Ratty on the demons if
they got within a mile of her. I had to laugh as that comment, I
couldn't help it, sending the temple maiden off in a huff of rage. I
ignored Telerin, his face a pale as a ghost. He would just have to
deal with it or he could go home.

"Ranma, it's too dangerous to bring that many demons here," insisted
Makoto. I knew otherwise. The demons were all weak and fading faster
by the day. Makoto's meager martial arts skill could probably have
allowed her to take out a half dozen of the felines before they
swarmed her. With the pokemon, no worries.

"Don't sweat it," I retorted."They're weak and we have all these
pokemon, including Demon," that's saying a lot,"and myself. If by some
freak occurence of nature, the demons did turn on us, they wouldn't
live to regret it. That's not a problem, though. These are servants of
a friend of mine. They sorta know of me by reputation and will obey my
every command." It took a little more insisting on the girls' part,
and a lot of begging to get Ami to have anything to do with me that
night, a man can get used to certain things after a while, but they
eventually conceded to give my 'friends' a chance.

Slammer, a long line of cat demons trailing behind, arrived at the
trampled down area of grass that I like to think of as home. The giant
rock had a little spring in his step and a twinkle in his diamond
coated eye. I decided to let him stay out in the open for a while.
Being out of his pokeball was doing him a lot of good. I'd let Gyrados
out later and let him have a few days to relax in the river and gorge
himself on fish.

Squirm sought me out immediately. He was most impressed by Slammer's
destructive abilities and wished to know where he could get one of his
own. I told him I didn't know the exact planar coordinates, but did
give him a general idea of where PokeWorld was. If they ever do run
across PokeWorld, the demons are probably going to have more trouble
not getting caught as pokemon than anything else.

I was going to have to have a talk with Slammer and find out how
Squirm knew of his pokemon powers."Get you brothers settled in and
I'll introduce you to the girls." They were waiting for an all clear
signal a couple kilometers into the grass. The precaution had been
mostly for Telerin's sake. The girls just went along to make sure the
guy didn't do anything stupid.

****

"This will help me to find Ranma?" Shampoo asked. In her hand she held
a large glass bead slightly larger than her thumb. From within the
trasparent bead, faint pulses of light, yellow and green, came
intermitently and it gave of an soft warmth.

"Yes, child. Once you leave the confines of this valley and its
various mystic wards, the Orb will guide your to Ranma Saotome. Trust
your instincts because they are what the Orb works with. You have a
month," finished Cologne. They both knew what happened in a month. The
first attacks would begin in a few days, but they would be night
raids, carried out in secret and designed to destroy supply and ammo
dumps so that when Saffron's artifact was put into use, its effects
would be magnified by the internal chaos already present within the
Chinese Republican Army. A month and the crystal egg would be
shattered, throwing the Earth into an artificial, century long dark
age.

"I won't fail, great-grandmother," assured Shampoo. Across her back,
its pommel covered to conceal the burning light within the giant ruby
and the ruby itself, rested Ranma's sword. Shampoo's status had
increased enormously thanks to her prowess with the magical blade and
her ability to summon and control winds greater than even her great-
grandmother.

"Be well then and return safely," Cologne said in parting. She took to
her staff and was gone from Shampoo's sensory range within moments.

"Well Shampoo old girl, your finally out on your own," the young
warrior commented to herself. The narrow mountain pass that led into
China proper, wasn't far ahead and if she pushed herself, she would be
able to reach it before nightfall.

****

Shampoo found Mousse waiting for her as she reached the almost
unnoticeable crevice formed by a fault in the surrounding mountains
that led into China. The Hidden Weapons Master had always been more of
a nuisance than a friend, especially during the short time that Ranma
had stayed with the tribe. Ranma had done something to the boy,
though, fixed his eyes with magic. From then on, Mousse had been like
love starved puppy, following Ranma around the village constantly. He
hadn't even taken offense when it became public knowledge that Shampoo
had been bedding the foreign sorceror.

Once Ranma left, though, Mousse had returned his full attention to
Shampoo. She couldn't even deny forming a relationship with him
because of his poor eye sight, not since Ranma fixed it. Not only was
he persistent, Mousse was also a skilled warrior, a very skilled
warrior when his eye sight improved. Shampoo had worried that Mousse
would challenge her for marriage and quite possibly win the fight.
That hadn't happened. Now what was the young man doing?

"Shampoo, is it true that you leave to seek Ranma?" Mousse asked, his
voice was oddly serious, none of its normal obsequiousness present.

"Yes. Great-grandmother and Council of Elders wish to bring Ranma to
our side before the war starts. He is a powerful sorceror and warrior
who would give the Amazon Nation several advantages." Shampoo feared
that Mousse may have chosen this time to challenge her, thereby
delaying her mission to find Ranma to the point where to attempt it
would be useless.

Mousse nodded and stood, taking his weight off the rock wall."I shall
accompany you, then." The former blind boy had a canvas travelling
pack at his side. The only reason he wouldn't keep it in the warped
space within his robes where he stored his weapons was if it contained
food, something which spoiled quickly in the unstable space.

"Mousse," Shampoo warned,"Ranma is a powerful warrior-"

Mousse interrupted,"And nearly invincible as a sorceror. I know that,
Shampoo, and I have no wish to harm him. I owe Ranma more than you can
imagine and if my aide will bring him to the safety of the village
before the war throws the world into chaos, then I would risk my life
to see it through." He spoke as a warrior, one of the greatest in the
village, not as a love starved freak. Shampoo nodded, and silently,
they passed from Jusendo, a tiny refuge of magic and martial arts, to
China, the sprawling and overcrowded nation that would soon learn to
fear the Amazons of old.

****

Haruka and Michiru, lesbian senshi extraordinaire, were shopping at an
adult book store, very discreetly, when something exploded outside,
throwing chunks of shrapnel and asphault through the blacked-out
windows of the store. Haruka threw down the double dildo she had been
examining and reflexively dived for Michiru, knocking the girl out of
the path of a burning rubber women.

"We've got to transform!" Michiru shouted over the clamour. Haruka
nodded her agreement and they pulled out their henshin rods. A few
seconds later, Sailor Neptune and Uranus were in the street. The
pedestrians of Juuban, by now well aware of the daily threat posed by
exploding objects and energy hungry creatures from other dimensions,
had cleared the area in record time.

Warily, the duo approached the large crater that had formed in the
center of the four-lane street. The flying debris had stopped flying
by now, and they could easily see the metallic sphere that rested
within the crater. What was it? An invader from beyond? Martians?

The sphere split in half like an egg and the two senshi gasped at what
they saw. Another senshi. Her fuku was silver, to match her shiny
silver hair, and the bows and body suit were a mixture of blue and
black. The woman stood up, stretching regally, and her face became
clear to the senshi. Wow, she was hot! And she sorta looked like
Setsuna.

"You two," the new senshi snapped, finally opening her eyes,"what has
my bratty little sister screwed up now?" She rose from the crater,
floated over the bubbling asphault at the edge of the crater, and
landed lightly beside Uranus and Neptune.

Haruka and Michiru didn't answer immediately, too busy oggling the new
arrival. Finally, Michiru got enough sense back to ask,"W-who's your
sister?" She knew the question was a waste of breath. This woman's
sister absolutely had to Setsuna.

The senshi rolled her eyes."Setsuna Meiou, Sailor Pluto, Guardian of
the Time portion of the Gates of Time and Space(um, hey Carrot, got
that idea from Insertion, just now catching up on it and hope you
don't mind)," she answered. Setsuna's sister gestured with her left
hand and a smooth shaft of unadorned metal appeared in the air above
her. She snatched the object from the air and said,"Nevermind. Since
you two halfwits can't stop staring at my breasts, I'll just have to
see for myself." The Senshi of Space rapped the end of her staff on
the ground and a hole of the purest black appeared beneath the three
senshi.

****

Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus clung to each other in gibbering
terror as they slowly rose from the floor, alongside the Senshi of
Space. They were in the general vicinity of the Time Gates, as
indicated by the eerie lack of natural light and the perpetual
waterless mist that covered everything.

"She never was very original," Setsuna's sister said. With a wave of
her arm the mists parted and the three senshi got an eyeful of
Setsuna, now about three hundred and fifty pounds heavier than the
last time they had seen her, shooting up a hit of heroine. The garbage
surrounding the Senshi of Time's sofa, if that's what the thing was,
had reached near mountainous proportions and absolutely reeked.

"By the All Mighty's Sacred Jewels!" the new senshi roared."Setsuna,
what in Hell happened to you?!" She began pointing her staff at
garbage heaps, causing each one to disappear into nothingness,
followed shortly by the tv, refridgerator, and the sofa that sumo-
Setsuna had been occupying.

Setsuna fell to the floor with a squeal not unlike that of a stuck
pig, and looked at her three guests in illdisguised horror. She stared
at her sister for about three seconds, then covered her grimy face
with equally grimy hands and began crying softly.

"Ah geeze, little sister, you know how long it took you to lose all
the weight last time," sighed the Senshi of Space. She turned to the
other two senshi and said,"Here, have fun." She waved her staff and
another hole opened beneath the girls, swallowing them into the void.

"Oh, Katya, it's so horrible, I..." And Setsuna launched into a full
recounting of everything that had happened since she'd contacted
Ranma, leaving out only some of the more embarassing curses."And now
they're gone, gone from the time stream as if they never existed!" she
wailed as a closing to the story.

Katya shook her head and chuckled."Little sister, leave it to you to
never consider the obvious." Setsuna had always been a brilliant
child, and so Temporally grounded that the Time currents couldn't even
hope to effect her, but she was stubborn, short-sighted, and as
arrogant as any ten queens.

"How can you laugh about this?" Setsuna whined."The senshi and the
Princess are gone! Crystal Tokyo will never be! All is lost!!!
Wah!!!!" Katya patted her distressed sibling on her back, lightly so
as not to get anything of questionable sanitary origin on her gloves.

"If the girls are not within your domain, then they are within mine,"
Katya answered."Ranma, from your description, could likely open a
dimensional portal. If he was as powerful as you say, and was
attempting to close a breached tomb, he could easily have misdirected
some of that energy and unwittingly opened a portal to another plane."
The fact that her sister hadn't even considered this possibility was a
good enough reason for Katya to believe Setsuna was in serious need of
a vacation. The roundabout attempt on Ranma's life while he was
nothing but a child said that her little sister needed psychiatric
help.

What was really bad about the situation, though, was that Ranma was
probably innocent of trying to corrupt the senshi. He might have been
a little rough around the edges, thanks to his demonic upbringing, but
he'd been relatively civil and his instruction of the senshi had been
top rate, even going so far as finding the princess's mindblock and
having it removed. The curses may have been a little over the top, but
Setsuna had deserved it, sorta. You just don't manipulate someone into
a situation where they have to change genders to fulfill a blood pact.

Setsuna looked up, hope lighting her eyes from within. The tears she
had shed made oily tracks in the dirt and bits of food that covered
her face.

****

"Okay, you and your brothers can have the guards," I told Squirm.
"Just don't let the senshi hear them scream, okay?" Squirm nodded
eagerly."They get kinda offended by that kind of thing." Not that I
liked the idea, but some of the cat demons were at the point of
starvation, and when a being has to eat, it has to eat. There were no
alternatives.

Ami and the other senshi were turning the enormous combination lock
into a position that would free up enough energy for us to escape to
our home. The hundred and forty-nine metal disks had to be perfectly
aligned and it was taking time. Telerin, careful not to look directly
at any of the demons that were now quietly streaming into the streets
of Chicago to feast on the incapacitated guards, walked over to me and
said,"There are only three disks left to align. Ami says that you
should be able to begin gathering energy in less than a minute."

I nodded and stepped into the ring of light generated by one of the
spell constructs that hung from enormous chains embedded in the
temple's ceiling. I wasn't taking any chances. I had the Silver
Imperium Crystal in my pocket and was going to use the first of the
energy I absorbed to key the crystal into my aura. If I'd done that
sooner, we wouldn't have been in this mess.

"All right, Ranma!" Makoto shouted. I felt as much as heard the
metallic click emitted by the key structure. The crystal above me,
glowing blue and white, suddenly began to pulse and the energy began
to flow. I sucked the energy from the air as fast as it was produced,
all the while keying Usagi's crystal for my use.

My energy capacitance is vast, and with it completely drained, I took
almost two minutes to reach my storage limit. I signalled to the
senshi and stepped out of the beam of raw, concentrated energy. Usagi
was the next to bathe in the flow. I didn't see who came after her,
since I ran out to Squirm and said,"Get your spell-casters cleaned up
and I'll take them to recharge."

The three demons that followed me into the temple were old for their
species and one of them had the mange, I think. Ami was just stepping
out of the beam of energy as we entered. I had the demon sorcerors to
wait for Rei once Ami was finished then gave them the go ahead.

They didn't take but a few seconds each, not because any of them were
particularly weak, but because all demons naturally learn spells as
they age and such natural magic is very efficient. For these three to
be able to travel dimensionally, they had to be 'old'.

****

"Tell Xochial that I may pay him a visit sometime soon, now that I've
got this planar travel thing worked out," I said to Squirm. He and his
fellow demons were travelling back to their master's realm and I
didn't think the girls, or myself, much cared to see the ritual that
would open the protal they would use.

"Squirm owess hisss life and that of his packmatess to Ranma and hisss
femalesss. If you ever need my help, the Master'sss blade will call
me. Farewell." I shook the demon's hand and jogged over to Demon. My
enormous pokemon was lazily chewing on a car sized boulder when I
arrived. He swallowed his midday snack hurriedly, and held his hand
out to me.

****

"You sure?" I asked. Telerin was dead set on coming with us. I didn't
mind really, but I had some concerns about his ability to adapt to a
culture so unlike that of Chicago.

Telerin nodded."My life here is not anything special. I would much
rather travel to your world and learn of my ancestors." I had to agree
with him. His life really had sucked here on this backward Earth.

"You'll have to get a job," I told him. He shrugged."Well, I guess you
can stay with me, if the apartment is still mine." I really doubted
that one. Then again, time flows differently between universes. We
could arrive at home and find that three seconds has gone by, or just
as likely have missed three thousand years. Oh well, anything was
better than this shit hole.

The preparations had been made and I'd gotten a serviceable mirror
from one of Squirm's sorcerors, so we would be leaving soon. I'd
absorbed and magically linked my crystal and Usagi's(it mine now, ha
ha ha) and absorbed them into my body. Hey, it may be paranoid, but
Setsuna's abilities aren't fully known to me and she could have
figured out when we would be returning. I was just making sure I was
prepared to defend against anything she could possibly throw at me.

"I just know Mom will love you," Ami said as she came up behind
me."She may try to claw your eyes out for a few minutes, but once
she's calmed down, we'll be able to explain things to her and
everything will be fine" Oh great, very reassuring.

"That's nice," I lied. I knew she knew it. It's not like I had ever
expected to have to meet the parents of the girl I'd been screwing for
the last few months. I felt Ami's ire rise and began thinking happy
thoughts and some more naughty ones. Whew, disaster averted.

"And I arranged this one special, just for Shingo," Usagi was saying
to Minako."It's a Charmander egg. Won't he just love that?" Oh crap.
She was already making plans. Her brother would probably blow up their
house or something if he had a fire pokemon. You can't expect a child
to act responsibly when he has access to a living weapon of
destruction.

"Shingo is a good kid," Ami commented after reading my thought."He
might burn the carpet a little, but that's about it." We shared a
laugh and went about gathering senshi for the trip home.

****

Author's Notes: I said they would be going home this chapter, sorry,
plans sorta changed. They'll be arriving back on Earth at the
beginning of the next, though, and that's when the shit's gonna hit
the fan. What side will Ranma and the senshi take in the coming war?
I'm not sure yet. Will Setsuna regain her figure? Maybe in a decade or
three. Anyway, C&C on how to proceed from here on would be nice. E-
mails that just tell me that you like the story and hope I write more
of it are cool, and they do fuel my ego just a bit, everybody likes to
be praised, but real input is what I need now.

C&C me at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com

Later!
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 16 [Ranma][SM][x-over]
I was the last to step through portal, right after Telerin. If
something went wrong, I didn't want any of the girls trapped here
without anything but pokemon as company.
The portal deposited me on a huge area of brown and yellowish stone
that looked as if it had been ground down and polished to a mirror
sheen. This was where the mountain had been that had been transported
us to the first world. There was a twenty foot high chain link and
razor wire fence surrounding the entire surface. The government hiding
their screw ups, I guess.

"Wow, if this got wet, we could slide around forever. Wouldn't that be
fun!" That was Usagi. As jubilant as ever, she may be, but that little
idea she'd just spun out of the wide open expanse that is her mind
could actually be profitable. The government wouldn't sale, anyway.

"Yeah, Usagi, that would be fun," I answered her."But right now, we
should probably be getting back and seeing if everyone thanks that
we're dead. If we've been gone long enough for a fence that size to be
put up..." I left it hanging, knowing she could finish the concept.

"Oh no! My parents must think I'm dead!!! Wah!!! I bet Shingo took my
room!!! Who's been feeding Luna?! Waaaahhh!!!" We all watched Usagi
run around in circles, pulling wads of her own hair out and
occassionally slipping on the smooth surface below.

"We might all be dead, legally, I mean," Makoto said cheerfully. She
didn't have any parents to worry about so the idea must have been
pretty novel to her."My apartment was paid off for six months when we
left, so it should still be there."

I just stepped back and let the senshi worry themselves sick about
what their parents thought, how much makeup work they would have from
school, that was a big one for Ami, and all kinds of little stuff.
Usagi for instance, declared that she was going to break her ice cream
consumption record everyday of the week for a month.

"Anyway," I said loudly,"we should be getting back now. I'm sure that
there are people who want to see you and we really shouldn't wait
around here for some of those commandoes to come after us. We were
working for the government when a mountain, along with us, vanished.
They probably covered it up and made everything out to be one big
accident." Oh let them try, just let them try. I was itching for a
chance to loose my power on something and in the process blow it up.

Minako rose into the air slowly, as if unsure whether or not the spell
would work."This feels great!" she exclaimed."I didn't realize how
boring life can be without magic!" That degenerated into a match of
airborne tag, somehow. I let myself be brought into the game just for
a chance to chase Ami around for a couple minutes.

Finally, and this was like two hours after we'd gotten home, I managed
to convince the girls that we should be leaving. With her magic back
to full strength, Usagi was able to store all of her pokeballs in a
spatial pocket and eliminate any need for us all to split the burden.
I'm going to have to get Ami to show me how to make one of those
pockets someday. The senshi each have one naturally. It's not fair.

"You can't let your pokemon out to play either, Usagi," Rei warned.
Her two new pokemon eggs hadn't hatched, but already her attitude was
improving. Amazing. She had a point. Most of our pokemon would appear
demonic to the citizens of Juuban, who had endured years of silly
looking demons and daemons. My Demon would cause a city wide panic and
probably warrant an attack by the Bible Rangers.

Hmmm, maybe Demon could make an appearance afterall. I could have him
wonder around Tokyo eating trees and cars and as soon as the Bible
Rangers showed up, he could roast them alive in their robot. Yes, I
think I will. That way my good deed for the century will be taken care
of.

****

Katya led her sister, a much cleaner, though still obese, over to the
Gates of Time and Space. The Senshi of Time's uniform had been
mystically tailored so that the ruffles and bows managed to hide most
of the rolls, but the green-haired senshi was still looking like
something of a rolly polly.

Katya looked at the simple ring of metal and frowned. She pulled a
hanky from thin air and spit on it, then began buffing a small panel
at the top of the ring that had become tarnished. It'd read 'Gates of
Time', but when Katya finished and moved back, the panel said 'Gates
of Time and Space'."Little sister, couldn't you have at least kept the
thing clean?" The Senshi of Space asked.

Setsuna shrugged, setting three of her chins to bobbing."I didn't
think you had been reincarnated. If the other senshi had seen that,
they would have asked unpleasant questions." Setsuna had really just
wanted all trace of her sister gone from her sight. Katya had always
been prettier, better in every way, and all the nobles had always
asked her to dance. Setsuna couldn't help that she had an attitude
problem. It ran in the family. But 'Katya' hadn't gotten that
particular Meiou trait, no, she was too good for an attitude.

Katya sighed."I suppose that makes sense. Now that I'm back, though,
we should be able to find our missing senshi." Katya made her silver
staff appear and tapped the edge of the ring, realigning her powers
with the Space half of the Gates of Time and Space.

Setsuna glowered at her sister's back. Why did Katya get the
impressive staff, while she was stuck with a giant key with a heart on
it?

"I'll just start by perusing through the nearer dimensions. They are
most similar to our own plane and more likely to draw accidental
travellers," Katya said.

Leave it to her older sister to just barge in and ruin everything.
Ranma 'had' taken the senshi, Ranma 'was' evil, and Ranma 'must' die!
The answer came to an unasked question came to Setsuna then. Katya was
being manipulated just like she had. That must be it! Well, she'd show
her sister, she'd show her who was the better woman.

"This may take a while," Katya told her gently."If you want, you can
sit down." That much weight must be killing her ankles.

****

The key still unlocked the door to my apartment and my stuff was still
there. I hadn't expected any of the food in the fridge to be good, but
the soft drinks I'd left in it were fine. I passed them out to the
senshi and said,"You can't just go up to your parents and say, 'Hey
look, I'm alive!'. That would be bad. There would be heart attacks and
stuff like that."

Ami asked,"How should we break the news? I don't like sitting here
when I know my Mom is nearby and believes me to be dead." Ami's mom
sounded like a nice lady from what she'd told me, but I didn't want to
be the one held responsible for her daughter's disappearance.

"How much do you care about your secret identities?" I asked. My idea
would work, if and only if the girls let their parents in on their
little secret.

"You're not serious?" Rei snapped. What's her problem? Her grandfather
already knew that she was Sailor Mars.

I shrugged."Why not? They're bound to find out someday. Hell, they may
know now." Adults aren't stupid, they just have problems seeing the
world around them sometimes. Besides, the government(I'm really
starting to hate that word) could have broke the news and used it as
an excuse to exonerate themselves of responsibility.

"It's fine with me," Makoto shrugged. Ha ha, real funny.

"Ranma, you haven't really been raised by normal human beings," Ami
said gently. "Parents try to protect their children from harm. I know
that my Mom would do everything in her power to stop me from being a
senshi. She's just overprotective." She had a point. Demons did tend
to live more for the moment and future existance be damned, but I knew
where she was coming from. The short time I'd spent with my own Mother
had had its share of arguments and lectures related to my way of life.

"How can they stop you?" I asked."I don't mean for you to attack your
parents." Geeze, they'd all got that impending violence look in their
eyes."We'll just explain how the world needs you and tell them that
lots and lots of people will die without your help. Usagi, you being a
princess might help some too."

Now that I'd introduced a way for them to guilt trip their parents
into letting them be superheroes, the senshi got all excited and
wanted to get started. Teenage girls sure can change their minds fast.

****

(This takes place a couple days before Ranma and the gang get back to
Earth)

With the help of the one use Phoenix Person curse packets that Cologne
had given to Shampoo, and some duck ones that Mousse had 'borrowed'(no
one really used the duck ones anyway), the pair of Amazons reached the
Chinese coast within a week. After resting and taking a short amount
of time to get a bearing from the Orb, a duck and a winged Shampoo set
out for Japan.

Shampoo couldn't get enough of flying and the personal freedom it
brought her. She also liked being able to talk to birds. They were a
scittish, airheaded lot, but they were always so happy and the way
they talked about their babies and nests brought a smile to the
serious amazon's face. She could even talk to Mousse in his duck form.

"Shampoo no speak stupid language good," the winged Amazon told her
companion in Japanese.

In duckish, Mousse said,"If we are to move around in Japan well enough
to find Ranma, we must be able to speak the language. I can't always
translate for you." Mousse wasn't flying alongside his love, instead
he was held tightly in her arms, right against her generous bosom.
Mousse's little wings simply couldn't keep up with Shampoo's. He
didn't care. He was in heaven.

"Shampoo know that stu-," She stopped."Damnit, I can not speak
Japanese. It makes me sound like a complete idiot. I don't know how
you learned it. Stupid language for a stupid people," Shampoo
grumbled."With the exception of Ranma. Being raised by Hell beasts
must have burnt the dumbness out of him."

Mousse did the equivalent of a duck growl."Ranma was never a dumb
beast!" he exclaimed."Ranma is a great and powerful sorceror."

Shampoo patted the duck on his head and said,"Of course, Mousse,
whatever you say."

****

Usagi's parents were the first of the adults to arrive at my
apartment. They looked depressed and I could feel the emotion bubbling
beneath the surface of their thoughts. They wanted to know what I had
called them for, who I was, and all kinds of other crap. I just told
them that others would soon be arriving and that it would be easier to
explain once and not have to answer the same questions repeatedly. I
had wanted to tell them individually, but the girls had out-voted me
and since they were the backbone of the plan, I had to go along with
them.

Minako's dad knocked on the door a few minutes later. He explained
that his wife was out of the country on business and then followed the
Tsuniko pattern pretty closely. I gave him the run around and turned
him loose to talk with Usagi's parents.

Ami's mother wasn't very happy being called in the middle of a shift
at the hospital, but the urgency I had expressed got her attention
enough to see what I had to say. Ms. Mizuno was an older version of
Ami, still very attractive and looking younger than her forty odd
years. It's good to know that Ami will still be hot in a thousand
years.

Grandfather Hino was the last to arrive, and he was a little cheerier
than I had expected. Then again, he was a partially trained sorceror
himself. He might have felt Rei's prescence and figured out what was
about to happen. Lot of wasted potential there.

"Okay," I said to the little gathering. They were arranged around my
living room and Minako's dad had been flipping through the porn
channels on my tv when he thought no one was watching. I reminded
myself to tell Minako about that."I appreciate you all being able to
make it here tonight and the reason for the secrecy will soon become
apparent." Well, I haven't hosted very many secret identity coming out
parties before. You can't expect me to be good at it.

"Could you get on with it, please?" Ms. Mizuno asked. I got the
distinct impression that she had thrown herself into her work to take
her mind off of her daughter's disappearance.

We had determined, thanks to a calender and a newspaper, that we'd
been gone for a little under six weeks."Recently, I believe, each of
you lost a child." There were sharp intakes of breath from three of
them, a smile from one, and a glare from the other.

"If you've brought us here to remind us of our loss," began Mrs.
Tsuniko, standing up and pulling her husband with her,"we'll be going.
And you can expect a call from our lawyer!" she hissed.

"Hey wait, you got it all wrong!" I said. Stupid plan, I should have
never let them talk me into it."Ah damn, girls, come on out," I
called. Screw it. Usagi and I can fix anything less than a stroke.

The senshi, except for Makoto who had gone to her apartment with
Telerin so as not to complicate anything tonight, came out of my
bedroom in their civilian forms. They must have heard that things
weren't going too well for me or they would have been transformed like
the plan had originally called for.

There were squeals, gasps, a scream, lots of wailing from Minako's
dad, and tears, bunches of tears. I just stood back and enjoyed the
show.

"Usagi, you are so so so grounded!" Mrs. Tsuniko shouted in between
hugs and kisses."You're never leaving your room again!"

"Waaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!! My baby girl came back! Waaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!"
Minako was starting to turn a little purple within her father's
crushing grasp.

This was ridiculous. I eventually gave up and went to the corner
convenience mart to pick up some snacks. When I got back they were
finally starting to lose some steam. I was in the middle of eating a
sandwhich when everyone pulled themselves together and the girls were
able to escape from their parents long enough to gather together.

"Um, Mom, you see, we were gone because, well, it's kinda hard to
explain...Ranma?" Usagi finished, pointing at me desperately. All eyes
turned towards me. Hey, this wasn't my part.

I sat there, my sandwhich stuck in my mouth, for over a minute while
they just stared at me. I got tired of it and finished that
bite."Fine, if you all are to chicken to say it, I will. Parents and
grandparent, your children and grandchild were gone because they are
the Sailor Senshi and we had all been trapped in another universe. I'm
Ranma and I teach them magic. We got back a few hours ago." The
silence was truly profound. I heard crickets chirping, despite being
well above street level and far from any park.

"Usagi is Sailor Moon, and the reincarnated Princess of the Moon
Kingdom, and she first lived during the Silver Millenium about...ten
thousand years ago, I think. Ami is Sailor Mercury, advisor and
guardian to the Princess. Rei is Sailor Mars and I think she was
guardian and assassin for the royal family. Ami's computer is a little
sketchy on that one." I ticked off the next finger."Minako is Sailor
Venus, also an advisor and guardian to the Princess. That about sums
it up, well excpet for Makoto who is Sailor Jupiter, but she's an
orphan and didn't want to intrude on the reunion." The following
'blink blink' was actually audible.

Ms. Mizuno's eyes narrowed and she looked at her daughter closely,
nodding to herself. Grandfather Hino just smiled at Rei and grinned
knowingly at me. The Tsunikos decided to blink a few more times, then
together, they seemed to actually accept what I said as true,
apparently fitting suspiscious little instances together into
something that proved me as not insane.

Mr. Hina did't quite want to believe me, though."Are you a lunatic? My
precious little Minako," Heh, Minako turned red,"would never fight
monsters. She's too nice to do that. Why, if she breaks a nail, we
have to listen to her whine about it for days." That last one was most
definitely true.

I made a curvy little gesture with my hand and the senshi clasped
their hands together and murmmurred the activation phrase to their
altered senshi transformation. There wasn't any twirling involved, and
pretty ribbons didn't turn into magical underwear. Nope, my
transformation spell was much faster and more practical. A flash of
light, white for Usagi, red for Rei, yellow for Minako, and blue for
Ami, and the girls were gone, replced by Sailor Senshi. Their color
coded body armor, glowing with power, covered most of their bodies,
leaving only their upper arms and parts of their thighs unprotected by
the actual armor. Planes of force covered the bare flesh with
invisible barriers. Each girl's visor partially covered her face, but
enough was visible that their identities, when the glamore was not in
effect, were clearly recognizable.

Mr. Hina's head *thumped* as he passed out, slumping out of the chair
he had occupied and colliding with my coffee table. That would leave a
mark.

"These costumes are much better than the old ones, don't you think?" I
asked, drawing the still conscious adults' attention away from the
senshi."The skirts had been so tiny before, you really should be glad
that I did that." They all nodded to that. I think they were stunned
speechless. Maybe they hadn't believed me before the demonstration,
afterall.

****

The moment of truth. The others, parents and grandparent in one case
in tow, had left my apartment. Except for Ami and Ms. Mizuno. Yes, now
you see. BIG moment of truth. Just encase my lover's warning hadn't
been jokes, I'd woven a couple barriers around myself. Not that I
expected the women to get through my defenses, but eyes take so long
to grow back that I didn't want to risk losing one.

Ami was in her mom's grip, being rocked back and forth by the happy
woman."Oh Ami, I missed you so much," was repeated constantly with a
few,"I'm so proud of you,"'s thrown in for variety. Ami broke away
from her mother and stood up in front of her.

"Mom, no one was really properly introduced to Ranma," Ami said."He's
taught us so much and without him we may have been in a laboratory
somewhere being experimented on now instead of back home." I smiled
and waved, deciding I should just keep my big mouth shut.

"You're an adult, and you understand what it feels like to care for
someone in a mature fashion," Ami continued.

I had to say it or Ami would beat around the bush for hours."Sorry
Ami, your Mom is starting to look impatient," I said. Ami looked
really, really relieved."Ms. Mizuno, your daughter and I have been
sleeping together for a while now and are, well, I guess in...l-l-
love." THAT was majorly hard to squeeze out."When magically gifted
people become truly involved and committed to one another, they
sometimes form a bond that links their thoughts together and
eventually their lives. Ami and I have such a bond. It's permanent. So
you see, we, actually Ami, would like your permission for us be
engaged with the intent to marry when she finishes school." Whew, I
said it, and much better than I would have believed possible.

Ami grinned sheepishly at her mother. Ms. Mizuno then proceeded to
examine me like a piece of meat. I was getting nervous when she
finally said,"I guess you'll do. Now come give me a hug." I didn't
have much choice. I let her hug me. In my ear she whispered,"Thank
you, Ranma, you don't know how much this means to me."

****

"Hey Setsy," Katya said to Setsuna, who was eating a bag of chips and
reading a magazine while her sister looked for the senshi.

"Don't start calling me that again," Setsuna snapped. During her
entire childhood, Katya had only called her Setsuna three times. It
had been Setsy all the other times.

"Now that I've got your attention, I should tell you that the senshi
and Ranma have returned to this universe. Actually, I just watched the
senshi reveal their identities to their parents. Then Ranma announced
to Ami's mother that he and the Senshi of Mercury were soul- bonded
and that they were planning on getting married. Isn't that sweet?"
Katya loved weddings. She would arrange a nice ceremonial meteor
shower for the couple whenever they got around to tying the knot.

Setsuna dropped her chips and magazine and stood up in a flurry of
wobbling blubber. What had Ranma done to her senshi? How could he have
brainwashed Ami, the smart one, so easily? He had to die! She called
the Garnet rod to her chubby little hand and disappeaared with a pop.

"Now what is she up to?" Katya asked the space where her sister had
been sitting.

****

Author's Notes: I said that lots of stuff would happen this chapter,
but I was wrong. That happens a lot when I write because I never
really plan what the next chapter is gonna be about. That's part of
why I never finish a fic. Next chapter, I promise, will be full of
Setsuna getting her ass kicked and all kinds of other interesting
stuff. I think that I took the whole revelation of the identities too
lightly and faster than I should have, but now it's over and the story
can move along with the world domination part. C&C me at
dark_phoneix@hotmail.com

Later
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 17 [Ranma][SM][x-over]
I was still puzzling over Ms. Mizuno's unusual behavior, she hadn't
even attacked me, when both my natural senses and those attuned to the
renewed wards I'd placed in the apartment started shrieking. It's
kinda like a loud siren that only I can hear, but has saved my life a
couple dozen times. I jumped to my feet and had layered myself in
barriers as strong as any diamond but as insubstantial as mist when
the threat to my life appeared.
The large creature held a staff of some kind and was dressed in the
parody of a Sailor Senshi uniform. Despite its appearance, the
creature did have access to power, as evidenced by the temporal
acceleration field that crackled on the end of the key shaped staff.
Those are nasty pieces of work, capable of aging or unaging matter at
something like a thousand times natural speed.

I activated three of the semi-sentient guardian spells that I'd put in
place encase Setsuna ever decided to pay me an unfriendly visit.
Around the creature, three fist-sized spheres of golden light
appeared. They moved at extreme speed, something I could barely keep
up with, and silently conferred with each other. When they agreed on
which preprogrammed capture and elimination pattern to use, the
spheres whirred around the still falling figure and before it could
come within striking distance of me, they had wrapped it in a web of
cohesive light, burning the creature and holding it immobile at the
same time. I should teach that spell to the senshi, encase they're
ever visited at home by their otherworldy enemies.

"Ranma!" it growled at me. Heh, it even sounded like Setsuna. I let
the guardian spell lapse into simple balls of incandescent light,
giving me a clearer view of the false senshi."I'll kill you!" it
shouted, struggling wildly in its bonds. The smell of burning flesh
wasn't going to do my carpet a bit of good.

Damn, now that I looked closer, the thing looked like Setsuna, too, in
a horribly obese fashion. Oh, cool. Hehehehehehehehe!"Is that you
Setsuna?" I asked. I know for a fact that I didn't curse her to be
overweight, since that would have been an direct threat to her life
and a violation of the pact."Shit, it really is you. What happened to
you?" Setsuna used to be hot, but now, now she was...well she probably
didn't weigh quite as much as me and all the senshi combined.

"I won't allow you to get away with this!" Setsuna exclaimed in
fury."The senshi will break free of your control!!! They will destroy
you!!!" I'd better get her out of that web, or she's going to start to
cook soon. I really don't want to try getting fat drippings out of the
upholstery.

I didn't use my own power, pulling directly from the Silver Imperium
Crystal and amplifing the energy through my crystal, to set up a
containment barrier as strong as I knew how to make. It should hold
her, temporal abilities and all. My little guardians faded back into
dormancy and I realesed the light web that had held Setsuna airborne.
The milkily transparent energy bubble that appeared almost as soon as
the web disappeared didn't allow the Senshi of Time(and pudding) a
chance to move so much as a sausage like finger.

"What am I supposed to do with you, now?" I asked. She was beating
against the barrier's side with her staff, to no effect. I couldn't
even hear her screams of rage. Maybe if I accidentally let it roll out
the window. Nah, better not. Oh well, it'll make a great conversation
piece.

****

Ami's mom decided to drag her now very sexually active daughter to the
drug store to pick up some condoms. She wasn't paying very much
attention to her daughter's protests.

"But Mom," Ami whined desperately,"we use protection. Honestly, Ranma
knows how to stop me from getting pregnant just by using a couple
shiatsu pressure points." Kami-sama, this was embarassing.

"I don't want to hear it, Ami. Ranma seems like a very nice sorceror,
and I'm sure he knows how to do all kinds of interesting things, but
I'm not taking any chances with my daughter." Noriko was leading her
daughter by the hand, a method unused since the girl had had to be
dragged to the dentist when she was seven.

"That's not all, Mom. I know this magic spell that stops me from
ovulating. If I'm not ovulating, I can't get pregnant, so don't you
see, this is a waste of time. Please, I might see someone I know in
there!" If Ami wasn't such a nice person, she would have blasted her
mother. Unfortunately, Ami was nice, and the thought never really got
past her subconscious mind.

Noriko looked at her daughter and snapped,"I want you to stop doing
that immediately. Who knows what long term effects that could have? I
want lots of grandchildren one day, and I won't have you sterilizing
yourself by accident!"

Ami gave up, hanging her head in misery. She should have just kept her
big mouth shut like Ranma had wanted and none of this would be
happening. They reached the drug store and Ami was led straight to the
contraceptives aisle.

"Now, just look around and see what kind you like and find the
appropriate size. I suppose I should make an appointment at my
gynecologist for you, too." Noriko sighed. She was happy for her
daughter, truly happy, proud too, but why couldn't the girl have kept
her mouth shut and not made her mother worry about all this crap.

Ami's face was bright red, and the color didn't show any sign of
lightening. She scanned through the brands, sizes, and varieties as
quickly as possible. Redder than ever, really closer to a bright
purple, Ami asked,"Mom, are there any besides these?"

Noriko looked puzzled."Couldn't you find at least one kind that was
okay?" Geeze, there were dozens of them."I've always liked the ones
witht he little bumps on them, myself, but that's up to you."

Ami's eyes bulged."Mom!" she shrieked in a whisper. What had she done
to deserve this?

Her mother patted her arm gently."Now that your all grown up, we can
talk about things like that. So, what is it going to be?"

Ami looked the wall over again and said,"There aren't any that will
fit Ranma." Noriko had to lean close to her daughter to hear the
barely whispered words.

Now it was Noriko's turn to blush."Well, I've always heard that it's
not the size that counts, but how you use it," she said awkwardly.
Poor girl. Maybe they could stop by that sex shop down the
street...No, it'd gotten blown up a couple days earlier.

Ami looked at her mother like she was crazy."No, Mom, all of these are
too small." Ami just wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

Noriko's blush deepened. She reached out and pulled the largest size
available from the wall."Certainly he isn't bigger..." Ami nodded. The
silence stretched for almost a minute. Finally, Noriko said,"They 'do'
stretch quite a bit."

Ami nodded, now almost blue in the face."They don't stretch 'that'
much," she told her mother.

Noriko replaced the package and said,"Ami, honey, walk to the end of
the aisle then back again, okay?"

Ami shrugged. This was all just too weird. She walked to the end of
the aisle, like her mother had asked, then returned. She couldn't help
the confused expression she gave her mother on the way back.

Ami didn't appear to be bo-legged, and she wasn't limping noticeably.
"You win, Ami. Just make sure to be extra careful with that spell."

Ami nodded in relief, feeling euphoric because of all the blood in her
head.

****

Shampoo and Mousse, now both in human form, stood atop the high rise
office building, surveying the open night sky that was brightly lit by
the lights of Tokyo. Neither of them had ever imagined such a sight,
and within their hearts, were sad that soon, all of this wonder would
be gone, dead or destroyed by the Jusendo Alliance. Though neither one
of them mentioned it to the other, they would each cherish the memory
until their dying day.(enough sappy shit)

"If the Orb is correct, Ranma should be in that building somewhere,"
Mousse said, breaking the long, drawn out silence that had grown
between the pair. The Orb was literally pointing at Ranma with a
glowing finger of light. No matter what direction they turned, it
continued to point towards that building.

Shampoo nodded."Yes, but the Orb does not tell us where, and the
structure is enormous. We could not possibly search for him without
alerting the inhabitants. It would be far wiser to wait for him to
come to us." The perch they had chosen looked directly down to the
entrance of Ranma's home. He would have to leave eventually.

"I agree. I'll take first watch while you get some rest. I'll wake you
in a few hours," replied Mousse. Shampoo agreed and went to where they
had set up their bedrolls. Mousse had no intention of waking his
beloved. She needed her sleep more than he did. He would watch over
her in this foreign and wonderful city and make sure that no harm came
to the young warrior woman.

****

I started to get a little tired a couple hours after catching Setsuna.
I altered the barrier spell so that it would periodically refresh the
enormous senshi's air and placed her in front of the wide screen tv
she had so generously provided so many months earlier. I turned that
tv to the raunchiest porno I could find, a really nasty one with a
woman screwing dogs."Have fun," I told Setsuna.

I was about to step through the doorway into my room when an image of
a beautiful silver-haired woman, dressed in a black body-suit/armor
ensemble appeared in the air before me. It was an illusion, I knew, or
the wards and my senses would have alerted me. If Ami and I hadn't
been an item, I could easily see myself going after this one.

"That's not really much of a punishment for her," the illusion
commented."When we were younger, she used to sneak off with father's
hounds every chance she got." The woman grinned evilly and attempted
to look over my shoulder at the imprisoned senshi.

"I'll go find something else, then. After I find out who you are?" If
she was even remotely who her clues hinted at, Setsuna even had
problems not pissing her family off. Hmm, maybe that's why the Senshi
of Time doesn't get along with people very well. She's into dogs. Heh,
I know a few canine demons I could introduce her to that she would
just love.

"Katya Meiou, Sailor Pluto, Senshi of Space, and older sister of
Setsuna Meiou. And you would be Ranma. Setsy has told me about you.
Thankfully, for both of us, I like to make my own judgements about
people." It was obvious who got all the manners, brains, and pretty
much everything else worth having in this family.

"So, you don't plan on doing anything stupid, like trying to kill me?"
I asked. If this Katya's power was actual Space manipulation like
Setsuna's was Time, then I felt much safer around her. True, I can't
create my own spatial pocket, and I'm still working on that
teleportation spell, but as far as offensive and defensive uses of
spatial manipulation, I'm much better than average.

Katya shook her head."No, I just came to ask for my sister. She's
suffering from a bit of a psychotic episode, I fear, and I need to get
her some treatment before the condition becomes permanent. Not that
she is really worth the effort, but you wouldn't believe how tedious
it is to find a replacement temporal mage. Just between you and me,
the last time Setsuna had to take a century off, she was raising a
litter of human/Plutonian hunting hound hybrid puppies."

I had to lean against the wall so I wouldn't fall over, so hard was I
laughing. Oh wow, that was so, so good!"Are you serious?" I asked.
Setsuna may be bad, but that last one seemed a little below even her
standards.

Katya nodded."Oh yes, quite serious. It caused the biggest scandal
throughout the kingdom. Pluto was even attacked by a militant animal
rights organization. They said she had taken advantage of the hounds."

This was a Sailor Pluto I could get along with.

****

Along with thirty experienced Amazon warriors, Cologne journeyed to
Jusekyou. No one in their right mind would fully trust Saffron, and
the Amazons were making as many contingencies as they could. Today
they would be gathering as much water from the more valuable pools as
safely possible, especially the pools that gave extraordinary
abilities to their victims. Some of the water would be boiled down and
processed by the village sorceresses, creating the temporary curses,
but much of it would be placed within sealed urns where it would not
lose its potency.

Plans had been made to continue doing this right up until the end of
the coming war. That way a sizable stockpile of the mystical water
would be in Amazon hands in both South America and Africa encase they
either needed it to help fight off attacks by the Musk or Phoenix
People, or if they were denied further access to their home valley.

"I want double loads of the giant prehistoric sea turtle water." No
one knew how a turtle the size of their main village had ever managed
to drown in a pool large enough to hop across, but no one really cared
either. They would change the marker to that spring and gather as much
of it on each trip as possible. There would be no ocean tranportation
more advanced than a sailboat once Saffron's artifact was activated,
and the Amazons needed to be able to communicate quickly and
efficiently between their promised continents when the time came.

As Cologne supervised the work effort, she mentally sought out the
pool of drowned girl. This part of the plan was an absolute secret,
but the elders had decided, quite unanimously, that they would be able
to better lead their forces if they were in younger, more resilient
bodies. Herb had already promised the use of the locking kettle,
though he didn't know what the Amazons planned for it. It would be
good to be young again. Maybe she could even get Ranma into the sack.
Shampoo sure had enjoyed the experience.

When she found the pool in question, she formed a chi image of herself
and left it in her place as she sprinted for the pool. She returned, a
sack of cursed, or blessed water, depending on how you look at it,
hidden within her robe before the image had even begun to fray.

****

That night, the combined Council of Elders for the entire Amazon
nation threw a slumber party. They brought their favorite young men
from the surrounding villages and had their way with them all night,
repeatedly.

****

"There he is!" Shampoo exclaimed happily. She pointed over the side of
the building. Mousse followed the gesture and sure enough, there was
Ranma, walking out of the entrance to his apartment building.

Shampoo wasn't very happy with Mousse, it had been her duty to keep
watch, too, but she gave him a little hug of gratitude nonetheless.
She would have been asleep then if Mousse had obeyed her order.

"Hurry, Mousse," Shampoo said as she leapt over the side of the
building. It was only about ten stories above the pavement, something
she could possibly have handled without assistance, but using Ranma's
sword to call up an undraft left that question unanswered. She slowly
floated to the sidewalk, unseen by the few pedestrians in the street,
and closely observed by Ranma.

Mousse settled to the ground beside her, a length of chain he had used
as a repelling line disappearing back into his robes.

"Shampoo, Mousse, what are you two doing here?" Ranma asked in
Japenase.

****

"Shampoo, Mousse, what are you two doing here?" I asked, grinning at
the pair of Amazons. Shampoo had handled the sword with ease and
skill. I'd sorta traded it to the Amazons for instruction in their
advanced martial arts techniques. I'd gotten the better of the deal,
in my opinion. What is one little enchanted sword when compared to the
physical conditioning and chi focus I had gained in return? Not much.

Shampoo rushed forward and threw her arms around me, kissing me
soundly on the mouth with lots of aggresive tongue action. When she
pulled away, she said in her native dialect of Chinese,/I'm glad to
see that you're well, Ranma./

Mousse stepped forward and extended his hand, I accepted it and the
Amazon said,"It has been too long."

I exchanged greetings then asked,"Not that I'm not glad to see you
two, but why are you here? A journey all the way from Jusendo is no
small undertaking." I could already tell that something major was up.
The Elders would never have let these two, the most promising young
Amazon warriors in the entire tribe, travel all the way to Japan to
see me unless the matter was urgent.

"Perhaps somewhere more private would be best," suggested Mousse. Once
I'd fixed this guys eyes, he'd really gotten his head on straight. Of
course I may have accidentally fixed that too. I've refined my healing
spells a lot since then.

I led the Amazons back to my apartment. This was important. Katya
could keep the senshi entertained for a while. Shit, how am I going to
explain Shampoo to Ami? Sigh. I'll think of something.

Once they were seated, Shampoo said,/Ranma, we need you back home,
badly./ My Chinese isn't bad, but it isn't anything special either.

I held up my hand and said,"Sorry, Shampoo, but could Mousse explain?
If this is important, it'd be better for me to precisely understand
the situation." She didn't look like she liked the idea, she was an
Amazon female being told what to do by me, a guy.

"Ranma, Jusendo is about to go to war with the world. Lord Saffron, a
living phoneix and leader of the Phoenix People, has negotiated an
alliance between himself, Prince Herb of the Musk Dynasty, and the
Council of Elders. He has in his possession a magical artifact that
will render all modern technology and weaponry completely useless. We
were sent to invite you to return to the village with us and to use
your power to aide in the coming struggle. The main reason, though, is
that the Elders fear that Saffron and the Musk will turn on us when
the war is over. Your abilities as a sorceror would prove invaluable
to the tribe, especially in crafting weapons of power for our warriors
to use," Mousse finished, taking a deep breath.

What can you say when you've just been invited to participate first
hand in World War III? The idea was appealling. Very, very appealling.
With Demon and the other pokemon, maybe a few powerful demons, and the
Sailor Senshi, we could pull the rug right out from under this Saffron
guy. Yeah, that would be good, kinda like liberators of the world.
That way Usagi could come into power as the new ruler of Earth, like
Ami had said she was supposed to, with the public's consent.

"Saffron, you say he is an actual 'Phoenix'?" I asked to stall for
time while I thought. Setsuna certainly wouldn't like it if the senshi
and I took this little shortcut to global power, making all her plans
for Crystal Tokyo useless. The world would be in absolute chaos if
technology just stopped working, and I for one don't want to be on the
losing side of a battle just as civilization slips back into the dark
ages.

"Saffron is a Phoenix, like those of legend. I saw him working out
once. He turned a large mountain into slag in less than a minute,"
Mousse answered, his voice edged with fear. I nodded to that. This
Saffron sounded like an overgrown fire elemental. Well, I could handle
that easily enough.

I remained silent, sending urgent thoughts across my bond to Ami. With
luck, she would pick them up and mention it to Katya. The spatial mage
would be able to teleport the girls to my apartment and save me the
trip to them and back. Once I was sure I had sent as strong a message
as possible, I said,"I just invited some friends of mine, powerful
sorceresses actually, to join us. They all have powerful friends
themselves and I would rather they fight with us than against us."

Mousse nodded, realizing that I had all but agreed to join them, then
translated to Shampoo what I had said encase she hadn't understood it
all.

In my best Chinese, I said,/Shampoo, one of girls coming here my
fiance. I love very much. You understand what happened between us was
only one time thing?/ Shampoo nodded glumly./Cheer up. If they join
us, Amazons be unstoppable./ That did seem to brighten the girl's mood
a bit.

A few seconds later, a hole in space opened up in my ceiling and five
senshi, all in full battle armor, along with Katya in her original
uniform, floated to the floor. They were ready to fight, with energy
blades drawn and fully primed spells ready. Ami in particular had a
nasty one ready, a modified ice flame that burnt the heat from
someone's body, leaving them as living statues of ice.

Before Shampoo or Mousse could get vaporized, I stood up and waved the
senshi off."Sorry about that, guys. I didn't mean to worry you." They
resheathed their swords and all the spells except for Ami's went dead.
I looked at her and grinned and she, too, killed her spell."These are
friends of mine. Mousse, Shampoo, meet the Sailor Senshi, my
students."

The Amazons waved in a kind of numb shock.

Ami stomped over to me and began beating me over the head with a
lamp."Don't you ever do that again unless your in major, major
trouble, you hear me, mister!?" she shouted."I was worried sick!" The
power of guilt is considerable. Nervously, aware that I was being
stared at angrily by lots of powerful sorceresses, I reached out and
pulled Ami into a hug. She collapsed against me and started crying.
Damnit, extreme guilt is even worse. I bent down and whispered all
kinds of assurances and promises in her ear. Finally, when she was
calm and merely clinging to me, I relaxed and began to rub my aching
head. That lamp had been one of those new age, solid steel deals with
the sharp edges.

Katya, trying to snap us out of an embarassing scene, asked,"Ranma, if
you're not in trouble, why did you call so urgently?" Katya and I were
going to get along really well.

I grinned lopsidedly at her and the senshi."Who wants to help take
over the world?" I asked. 3...2...1...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wasn't disappointed."WHAT!?!?!?!?" The exclamation came from all the
senshi, including Ami who was pressed against my chest and Katya who I
had thought was too grounded to react so strongly. Three of the
windows in my apartment exploded.

****

Author's Notes: How will the senshi react to Ranma's question? Will
Rei remember her pet fire elemental Saffy-chan from the Silver
Millenium? Just what did Ranma promise Ami to get her calm? These
questions may be answered in the next chapter, but they may not. Ah,
screw it, yes, they will be answered. I'm not good at being
suspenseful or dramatic so I shouldn't even try. This, with maybe one
more chapter released later tonight will be the last of this fic for a
few days while I go to visit my grandma before I go back to college.
She's pretty cool, the only member of my family that isn't somehow
disfunctional, and likes to give me money, so I don't really mind
being cut off from the internet or cable to see her. C&C me at
dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 18 [Ranma][SM][x-over]
After the senshis' outburst, I began to do some damage control."Don't
look at me like that. I'm serious. Someone with some serious magic
power is going to be making a bid for global domination in..." I
looked to Mousse.
"Two weeks," he added helpfully.

"In two weeks. He's gonna be able to kill the world's technology with
some kind of ancient spell or something. If we get in on this, once
the world is really conquered, with lots of oppression and all the
other crap associated with someone getting their ass kicked, we can
come in with pokemon and magic blazing, take over for ourselves, and
put Usagi in power. But the clincher is that we make it look like
Usagi is liberating the world from the bad guys. That way you come
into power centuries before you're supposed to and all of Setsuna's
plans get screwed as a side bonus." I think I presented the case
rather well.

Katya laughed."Oh I just love you," she said fondly, earning a glare
from Ami. That comment was just the right catalyst to get things
moving in the proper direction.

"Who is going to try to take over the world, Ranma?" Ami asked."And
how is he going to 'kill' the world's technology?" This couldn't have
gone better if it had been scripted.

"A phoenix, a kind of really strong fire elemental really, over in
China who has the backing of the most powerful martial artists and
naturally powerful people in the world. I wouldn't say he's actually
gonna kill technology. From what Mousse says, Saffron has found some
really old artifact, probably from the Silver Millenium now that I
think about it, and that it will render all modern technology and
weapons useless." Now all I needed was for someone to ask why we
shouldn't fight against Saffron and try to stop him from disabling
technology.

Rei was kind enough to do that for me, and I didn't even have to ask.
Heh."Simple. Once Saffron is eliminated, Usagi, and the rest of us,
will have our very own army of super warriors. That can come in handy
for all kinds of things. I know with absolute certainty that about
eighty-five years from now this planet is going to be invaded by an
army of demons, demons that don't like me anymore than they do any
other human. Well, it may be ninety years. I'm not too sure, the
scrolls were badly weathered and my Chinese isn't all that great." I
wasn't even lying. An army of blood-thirsty demons really was going to
be invading. I didn't actually find out from a scroll, but you can't
go around letting people know that the Dark Prince is giving you hints
about the future.

"Wouldn't Setsuna have told us about something like that?" Minako
asked. Better and better.

Katya answered this one."My younger sister has been a bit short
sighted in a long term way. She has worried far too much about
manipulating the past in order to achieve a goal much farther into the
future than she should have strived for. The strain of that and a few
recent events have been too much for her and I'm sorry to say that
I've had to have her committed to a psychiatric hospital. With
electroshock treatments, the doctors think she'll make a full
recovery, in about a decade." Oh that was smooth, very smooth. Isn't
sisterly love wonderful?

"See, if we help take over the world now, we'll be helping to save it
and humanity in the long run. So, who's in?" I wasn't going to give
them too much time to think too carefully about this. We needed to get
to the Amazon village and consolidate our power as quickly as
possible. To top the deal off, I said,"It'd be safer for your parents
too. If they stayed here in Japan while the war is going on, they
would be in lots of danger, from starving people that can't function
without the internet and microwaves, to Jusendo death squads. If
they're in Jusendo where no one but the people on our side can go,
they'd be as safe as anyone can possibly be." Ah ha ha ha, way to go
me.

"You say that they're martial artists?" Makoto asked. She had that
look in her eye that sorta says 'I'm determined to get my way and
you'd better not try to stop me'.

I nodded."Oh yes, every single person is a martial artist of at least
world class proficiency. Shampoo, she's sorta like the princess of a
tribe of Amazon warriors. They're led by women and a lot of the
advanced martial arts I learned is Amazon in origin." Well, Sailor
Jupiter was sold.

"Jusendo is too too beautiful," Shampoo added."Always like spring
time. And womens very respected in tribe, especially sorceresses.
Sorry Shampoo's Japanese so bad," she finished with a grin.

I think that one pulled in Minako and Rei, two very strong-willed, if
a bit flightly young women."And there's lots of room for our pokemon
to roam around, too," I added. And Usagi's eyes lit up like
headlights.

Ami could read my face and feel my emotions too well for me to even
attempt to manipulate her, not to mention how smart she is. I probably
couldn't really have manipulated her no matter what our relationship
was. So, I just said to her,"This really is for the best. Your mother
being a fully trained doctor would be enough to get her a seat on the
Council of Elders. That's the women in charge." Not that I intended to
let any of them tell me what to do.

Katya once again chose to be helpful, saying,"Why don't we let the
girls talk it over amongst themselves and you and I can discuss some
business that we need to take care of?" I nodded and we left the girls
in a tight little group to convince each other that they should join
up. I gathered up Shampoo and Mousse as we headed to the kitchen.

"Ranma, we weren't really supposed to pick up anyone but you," Mousse
said, a little overwhelmed by the last few minutes of conversation and
events. I don't think either of the Amazons even noticed that their
war was being stolen right out from under them.

I shrugged."Don't worry about it, Mousse. The Council definitely won't
be displeased with you or Shampoo if you come back with not only me,
but a whole squad of sorceresses. Oh, and lots of pokemon." He looked
at me funny and I remembered that no one else even knew what the
creatures were. I guess I'd just gotten so used to them being around
that I forgot that no one else on Earth had any of them."Pokemon are
really powerful animals," I told him."I have one that's over a hundred
meters tall and breathes fire, another that can cause earthquakes at
will and is nearly indestructible, and a dragon pokemon that I've
trained to control the elements of nature. The girls in there each
have there own, none as strong as mine, but they have more of them.
Usagi has hundreds. If we really wanted to, the senshi and I could
conquer the world with just the pokemon we have."

Mousse's eyes had glazed over some and a tiny line of drool was
leaking from Shampoo's mouth. For effect, I continued,"Usagi's pokemon
are almost steadily producing eggs, so think, we could have every
Amazon in Jusendo equipped with his or her very own living weapon."
Any objections to bringing the senshi and anyone they wanted to
accompany them went right out the window with that last one. I'm
getting pretty good at this.

"There are three other senshi to consider," Katya added."Uranus and
Neptune aren't as powerful as the Inner Senshi are thanks to your
instruction, but they are a force to be reckoned with. Poor Saturn
doesn't have long to live, I fear."

Damn, I'd forgotten about those three completely."About Saturn, Katya,
I believe I can stop her health from detereorating further, but she'll
lose most of her power." I'd come up with a way to break the link
between Saturn and Silence before the incident at the mountain had
thrown us through the multiverse. Just got a little side-tracked is
all.

The Senshi of Space looked at me in confusion."Every incarnation of
Saturn always dies of a wasting sickness. How could you stop a cycle
that has continued for untold eons?" She didn't sound scornful or
unsure, just suprised and hopeful.

"You didn't know that Saturn gains her power from being directly
combined with Silence?" She shook her head dumbly."Silence is a really
powerful Infernal entity that used to go around destroying worlds, a
really, really long time ago. He disappeared, though, and then Sailor
Saturn, the Bringer of Silence appeared shortly thereafter." I had
pieced this all together on a rainy day shortly after learning of the
existance of the Outer Senshi."If I broke the link, she wouldn't be
any stronger than any of the other Outer Senshi, but she wouldn't die,
and as much as I hate to say it, if I had to choose between a year of
absolute power or a couple millenia of some power and a normal life, I
would get rid of absolute power in a heart beat."

"Well then, we'll be making a stop, you and I, by young Hotaru's home
after this meeting." Katya's voice brooked no argument.

"That's fine with me. We are probably gonna have a bunch of family
members and friends tagging along with us to China, so we should
figure out how to get them there. We could probably use the pokemon,
though it would badly exhaust them, to make the trip, but you have
that nice teleportation spell, and I only need to see it a few more
times before I can do it myself. Feel like being a mystic taxi
service?" I asked. Katya's teleportation spell wasn't just a way to
get around from place to place. If used properly, you could remove
someone's heart before they could blink or just as easily cut someone
in half with a thought and without any evidence that you caused the
death. Very versatile spell.

****

"I'm free! I'm free!" Ryoga exclaimed in joy. He wasn't wearing
anything but a tiny pair of leather briefs and a rubber hood, but he
was free."Now, Ranma and Genma Saotome, for making my life hell and
leading me into the life of a sex slave, you shall die!!!"

What Ryoga didn't know was that he was standing on the launch platform
for the Wizard of Gates' newest series of orbital laser cannons. This
one even included its very own nuclear ballistic missles. Because of
this added weight, the rocket thrusters on cargo vessel were
exceptionally large.

'5..4..3..2..1, and launch is a go!' came the voice over the
Microsoft(once known as Apple Headquarters) Space Center's speaker
system.

Ryoga looked around, finally ripping the hood from his head to
increase his periphreal vision. He seemed to notice just how unusual
his surroundings were when he felt an inordinate amount of heat coming
from above. He looked up just as the rocket engines ignited.

"I'll get yu for this, Raaannnnmm-" the scream of rage was cut off by
its source being severely overcooked.

****

Ami, being the closest to me, was chosen to act as emissary. Yeah, way
corny, but their words, not mine."We all agree that fighting with you
and Saffron, with the later intent of supplanting Saffron as ruler
would be the most beneficial for the world in general."I nodded,
grinning at her knowingly. They had all been ready to jump in a boat
and paddle to China before their little meeting."We all want to bring
our families and friends with us, though," she added. All in all, not
a very long list of demands.

"Sure, no problem. You'd all better start rounding them up. I imagine
that the friends will want to bring their families also, and so on and
so forth. If you girls want to pull this off, you'd better get busy.
Katya and I need to see about the other senshi." We were probably
going to end up with a few hundred, if not more, useless people, but
those relatively few people were being backed by serious power. The
Council would see that and not bitch or moan too much.

After some grumbling at the work ahead of them, the senshi, except for
Ami, all went to do as I had told them. I hope they didn't botch it
and get us all in trouble. My fiance(sounds nice doesn't it?) pulled
me back into the kitchen and asked,"You and that girl, Shampoo, you
two have been together, haven't you?"

That came faster than I'd expected."Yeah, but it was years ago, and
I've already made it clear to her that you and me are inseperable. She
understands. You're not jealous, are you?" Of course she was jealous,
I could feel it in her, despite her efforts to bottle the emotion up.

She paused for a few moments and eventually nodded."I can't help it.
She's so beautiful and a powerful warrior like you." She shrugged."I
guess I'm being silly. I know that you wouldn't cheat on me, I can
'feel' it in my bones, but I still worry."

I hugged her reassuringly and whispered,"Don't worry, you're the only
one for me. Besides, Shampoo may not know it yet, but she's in love
with Mousse." I'm not sure how long I let the embrace last, but I
missed the warmth of Ami's body pressed against mine when we
separated."You should probably go and break the news to your mom.
Please try to convince her that I'm not evil." I just knew that Ms.
Mizuno was going to blame this on me, even if it was my fault.

"I should give her some time to gather any medical supplies she might
need."

I wonder how all those adults are going to feel about being railroaded
into such a drastic change of life by their children.

****

I let Katya ring the door bell at the Ten'ou home. This, apparently,
was where the rug-munching(not that I have anything against this
particular hobby, as long as the muncher and munchee are both in the
mega-attractive category) senshi, with their ward Hotaru, lived. After
a few more buzzez from the bell, the door was opened by a blue- haired
young woman who, from descriptions given by the other senshi, I
recognized as Michiru, a.k.a. Sailor Neptune.

She first saw Katya and stepped back in suprise. When she saw me she
reached her arm into another one of those spatial pockets and pulled
out a henshin rod. Damn Setsuna and her crazy, paranoid, dogfucking-
self.

Katya reached out and grabbed Michiru's arm."Hold it right there,
young lady. I don't know what my sister has told you about Ranma, but
he's on our side. Setsuna is just slightly bonkers right now and I'm
filling in for her. Won't you invite us in?"

Warily, Michiru stepped back, not turning her back to us. Once we were
in the house, I said,"I've come to cure Hotaru. She'll die without my
help." I've been playing hero a lot lately. The feeling of
accomplishment can grow on you after a while.

Hearing my claim, the Senshi of Neptune blinked and jumped slightly as
if startled by something. She still didn't look ready to trust me,
though.

"Where is the girl?" Katya asked. I have a feeling that she knew
exactly where Hotaru was, but for the life of me I can't figure out
why she asked. I sure could feel the virtual bleeding off of power
from Silence. There was a very faint undertone of another life force
going with that power. Hotaru must be fading extraordinarily fast if I
could feel her life leaving her bodily that easily.

Michiru remained silent, but she led us down a wide hallway with some
expensive looking paintings on the walls and up a spiral flight of
stairs. From the top of them we went down a dimly lit hallway to a
room located at the end of the corridor. Quietly, Michiru opened the
door and we walked into an even more dimly lit bedroom. A small, very
frail looking girl with short black hair laid in the bed, sleeping.
Her breathing was irregular and I could feel the uneven flows of
energy throughout her body. Talk about cutting it close.

"What are you going to do?" Michiru asked, breaking her silence. She
glanced worriedly at the small figure who was covered up to her neck
in thick blankets."Please don't let her die."

For all spells with patterns more complicated than the mind can safely
coordinate, what do we use? That's right, our trusty athame. In a
single motion too fast to be seen by either senshi, I drew the demon
forged blade. Michiru gasped and Katya raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Dont't worry, I'm not going to hurt her. This will help me cast the
spell that will separate her from Silence."

Katya walked Michiru over to a small couch set in the corner of the
room and firmly planted the worried woman. I began drawing symbols in
the air, some gold and some silver. All of them contained as much
power as I could concentrate through my crystals without giving any of
the senshi or Hotaru brain damage. As I continued to draw the
extremely complicated spell, forming a net of overlapping words of
power, I began chanting. The chant held no power in itself, this spell
was my own creation and I don't really like binding power into words
for it is too easy to make a costly and dangerous mistake that way,
but the chant allowed my mind to focus sharply enough to finish the
last few passes of the spell. When I had it completely patterned,
there were no distinguishable lines, just a solid mass of gold and
silver energy floating before me. This spell would have absolutely
exhausted me before aquiring my lens crystal, now though, I was only
slightly winded, and that was mostly mental fatigue.

A slight tendril of energy connecting Hotaru's soul with the spell was
all that was required to activate it. As the amassed energy, enough to
decimate Tokyo if properly used, hit the girl, she convulsed once and
was still. Michiru screamed in the background. I ignored her, keeping
my attention on my subject and making sure she didn't have an
unforseen reaction.

A minute passed, then five, ten, twenty, an hour. Then, when I was
about to give up and cancel the spell, Hotaru convulsed once more, and
from her sweat covered brow, rose a three inch high little amalgam of
insect, mud, and mucus. It floated into the air and was held tightly
in place by the containment portion of my spell.

"Release me at once, puny mortal!!!" Silence roared in a squeak barely
worthy of a mouse. Heh, life hadn't been too good for it lately,
either.

"Hey, I'm Ranma. You should really thank me for releasing you from
your prison. I believe you, too, would have died with this latest
Saturn." That was true. From the power I'd felt leaking from the girl,
I'd thought Silence was still going strong, but that obviously had
been the entity's death throws. Thirty thousand years and numerous
reincarnations had not been kind to Silence. Now free, he was already
starting to regain his power. The process would probably take a few
centuries, but I wasn't about to leave a creature like this around
that most likely held grudges and would eventually be able to destroy
the planet I lived on.

"Ha! Your primitive mind can't even begin to grasp my power! Release
me or I shall destroy you!!!" Silence squeaked again. Obnoxious little
bastard. I reached out and thumped it on the forehead. It
squeak/roared again and lashed out with a finger-sized bolt of energy
that fizzled out a foot from my face. That effort left Silence barely
substantial enough to exist.

I briefly wondered if I should keep him as a pet. A magically modified
pokeball and a few years of study and I would be able to control the
entity. That's a lot of trouble, though, so I just used all the energy
from my recently completed spell to form a barrier much like the one
I'd used to confine Setsuna when she had attacked me. I compressed it
as much as possible and fed enough raw energy into it to keep Silence
fed for a few years. When I was done there was a snow globe sized
force bubble containing what had once been one of the deadliest beings
in existance. I attached a kind of mystic note to the sphere and
chunked it through a small tear in reality that led directly to Hell.
Nicky would get a kick out of the little guy.

Teary-eyed, Michiru and Katya approached me at Hotaru's bedside. The
little girl's complextion had already improved and I could sense that
her body, as tired and worn out as it was, would make a full recovery
in time."I have the skill to fix actual injuries and cure diseases,
but Usagi is the only person I know with enough skill in white magic
to speed up the recovery process from something like this. We can
bring her by tomorrow."

Michiru nodded, looked at the floor, then rushed me. She gave me a
crushing hug of gratitude and got my shirt all wet with tears."Thank
you, oh thank you!" she cried softly. I'm not one for great big
emotional scenes, Kamis know that I have enough trouble dealing with
Ami, so I just nodded and tried out my new teleportation spell for the
first time. The hole in space deposited me in my bathtub instead of my
living room. Pretty good for a first try.

****

Author's Notes: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I managed to get this whole
chapter done in a little more than two hours! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I'm
proud of myself. Anyway, this was supposed to be posted in the
morning, also being the last chapter until thursday night at the
earliest. That changed when I came down stairs this morning and it was
raining outside. Now that my truck has been taken away from me by my
bastard father, my mother(a.k.a. supreme high super bitch) was going
to drive me to my grandma's. Well, she didn't want to get out in the
rain, so I'll be stuck here. She's made me drive to the store when
there was a tropical storm floating over the entire state and she
couldn't drive me forty miles to see my old, most likely not going to
live for too many more years grandmother. It'll come back on her one
day, though, when I put her in the dirtiest, most disrepu- table
nursing home I can find(the kind that doesn't turn the old person over
but once every six months). I'm sure that no one really wants to hear
about my fucked up family, so I'll just drop the matter. All the
suggestions I get now, with the story in its present state, will help
me a bunch. Like always, send C&C to dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 19 [Ranma][SM][x-over]
I don't know how they managed to pull it off, but somehow, the senshi
convinced their parents, a large number of family members, and lots of
friends along with their families. The Outer Senshi, all orphans, and
not the most sociable of people didn't invite any friends, bringing
the number of travellers up to two hundred and sixty seven. It's an
absolute wonder that those government agent guys hadn't caught on to
the little exodus. The senshi had even kept their identities secret.
Good thing they're finally learning to do these things on their own.
The crowd milling around the Cherry Hill Park were beginning to get
anxious. I think they were told that the war would be breaking out at
any time. If Mousse's report was accurate, though, a little under a
week remained until Saffron destroyed nearly a thousand years of
civilization. A large truck, one of several that Ms. Mizuno had
bringing in all kinds of medical supplies, pulled up onto the grass
and Ami's mother stepped out of driver's cab. Where does a doctor
learn to drive a big rig?

"Ranma, if this is some practical joke, I just want you to know that
I'm going to skin you alive," Ms. Mizuno told me."Four missing
shipments of medicine and medical supplies tend to upset people.
Shouldn't we be leaving?" She's nice, in a take charge and bull your
way through everything kind of way.

"If this is a joke, you're gonna have to stand in line to take your
turn murdering me. All these people are getting restless and I can
feel the fear radiating from them. It wouldn't take much to turn them
into a lynch mob." If everything went to schedule, Katya, with
assistance from me as a power source, would be making a mass-teleport
to Shampoo's village in an hour.

Ms. Mizuno nodded and went to see about getting her stuff unloaded. I
quickly 'ported back to my apartment to see how Ami was progressing
with her computer."Well, how's it going?" I asked. She had found
information on the likely artifact that Saffron planned to use. It was
some kind alien egg modified both technologically and mystically to
hold amazingly complex and highly specific spell patterns. Saffron's
was a population control model, designed to limit the resistance that
a planet would be able to offer if a conflict ever broke out.

"I've been able to find plans for a generator that derives a usable
electric charge from raw magic and a type of view screen that utilizes
water and refracted light over long distances. That's all in the
database from the Silver Millenium that I can build with today's level
of technical sophistication. The information from the Enterprise I
downloaded may be able to be used to work out some rudimentary energy
shields and a laser-like weapon called a phaser. I'd need to talk to
Katya about helping me locate the parts for them, though, since most
of the important components are in high security laboratories around
the globe." Wow, and all I'd wanted was a way to get controllable
electricity to power all of Ms. Mizuno's doctor crap. She'd bitched at
me about using magic, so I'd turned to her daughter for help.

I shook my head."You always do so much," I said."Come on, we'll get
you everything you need before the deadline." Ami flushed at the light
praise. I grinned at her, and arm in arm, I 'ported us to the park,
careful not to be seen by the crowd. Appearing before them out of mid-
air would be a quick way to light a short fuse.

****

"Luna, I don't think this is very wise," cautioned Artemis. The two
cats were creeping through the mists that led to the Gates of Time and
Space.

"Quit being such a scaredy cat, Artemis," Luna hissed at her
companion. "We have to find Sailor Pluto, the Time one, not that
slutty sister of hers, and get rid of Ranma. He's going to ruin
everything!" Luna could barely even bring herself to think about what
her senshi were going to help accomplish. World domination. The phrase
left a bad taste in the moon cat's mouth. She should have seen through
that girl disguise. This was all her fault. She had to fix it.

"I know that, Luna," snapped Artemis."I'm not a total fool. I just
don't think we should try to use the Gate. Neither one of us has the
proper magic or expertise to do it, so why even try? What happens if
we get sent into sapce, or back into a past where dinosaurs still
lived? The mosquitos back then were bigger than we are now. The
mosquitos! Think about the giant reptiles that could step on us!"

Luna smacked Artemis in the face with her tail and proceeded to ignore
his babbling. She'd been around Usagi long enough to be able to
completely blank her mind from such annoying chatter."How hard can it
be? I'll figure it out and send you through to rescue Setsuna."

Artemis looked at Luna like she was insane."No," he said firmly."I am
not going to let 'you' play with the controls and have 'me' end up
with the consequences. You figure out how to work it and I'll send you
through."

"Fine then, if you want to be such a pussy, I won't stop you."

****

"No," I repeated, not intending to do so again,"you can not take your
car, Mrs. Tsuniko. I know that it was expensive and that you love it.
I also know that it will be a useless scrap of metal in less than a
week. Don't you have some furniture or family heirlooms you would
rather take? Tools would be good. You should spend any money that you
have saved up, too. It won't be good any longer than the car will." I
didn't leave the woman any room to object.

People had sold property, liquidated assets, and cleaned out bank
accounts, using the money to buy all kinds of things, from crates of
toilet paper to truck loads of food. Every time I think about it, I
can't figure out how the senshi managed to convince so many people to
come with us. Oh well, with five minutes till departure, there wasn't
time for anyone to back out and get their stuff back. I had
reluctantly agreed to bring back anyone that changed their mind once
we were in China. Then those that still had unfinished business wanted
to come. Before I knew it, I had three short trips back to Japan
scheduled in the next few days.

Usagi's mom walked over to where her family, sans Usagi, had made
themselves comfortable. Mr. Tsuniko had taken my words to heart and
purchased some high quality hand tools and lots of lumber. There was
also a very large manually powered ice cream churn in their
belongings. Usagi's influence, without a doubt.

Shingo, Usagi's little brother, was having a quiet conversation with
the baby Charmander that the White Sorcerress had given him. Unless
you looked closely, it would look like he was talking to a doll. I was
already starting preliminary plans to begin teaming up the younger
children with pokemon. That way, by the time they were old enough to
fight, they would be able to go into battle with the powerful
creatures.

I felt Katya's presence appear next to me suddenly and refrained from
spinning around to confront her. Damnit, if someone saw her do that,
we would have a riot on our hands."Don't worry, Ranma, I made sure no
one was looking in this direction," she said.

"You ready?" I asked her. I was beginning to grasp the more intricate
levels of the teleportation spell I'd picked up from the Space Senshi,
but my control wasn't good enough that I would trust myself with so
many people and material over such a long distance. Katya was going to
be getting a lot of energy crammed into her for this, though, and I
didn't want her to lose control either.

She shrugged."Sure. I've already scouted the area out. I'm just going
to pull the whole park area out and replace it with a section of open
ground near the east end of the village. That place isn't really a
village, you know," she said, referring to the Amazon village."There
are several thousand people staying there and it has grown noticeably
since last week. It's more of a city."

The village never had been much of a village, but now with war
preparations being made, I imagine the place would be swelling up
pretty quickly. Good thing we were marking out our little piece early.
"Wouldn't it be easier to just move the people and stuff?" I asked. I
certainly wouldn't want to attempt to move that much matter.

Katya grinned at me."You just stick to your side of the job and I'll
worry about mine. I've been manipulating space for thousands of years.
With you to back me, I could probably move the moon." I don't want to
think about what kind of trouble 'that' action would cause.

After a few placating gestures, I said,"Whatever. I'm gonna go make
sure the senshi are in place." I was worried more about the Outer
Senshi. Haruka was a belligerent bitch that needed her ass kicked, and
I'm sure I'll be doing the honors sometime in the next few days. She
would disobey orders meant for the safety of others just to aggravate
me. Michiru and Hotaru were much too happy with me to be anything but
perfectly agreeable.

Hotaru was a real suprise. Though her power was nowhere near what it
had been when she had imprisoned Silence, for a mana-bound individual,
the girl was extraordinary. When she fully matured, she would be
nearly as strong as my senshi, and she hasn't got a bit of the Talent
for magic in her. I'd also took the time and effort to study her
glaive. It acted like a very weak version of my lens crystal,
amplifying the senshi's power by about fifteen percent, but the main
enchantment was something I suspect Katya was responsible for. The
blade of the glaive encased slightly warped space, giving it a cutting
edge that would shear through all but the most powerful of barrier
spells. The girl would need proper training from the Amazons to use it
effectively. She's young, she'll learn.

"Hey, Ranma!" Hotaru called to me, waving enthusiastically. She was
already in her altered senshi state. I couldn't stand to leave the
Outers looking like they did while my senshi looked so much cooler. No
one seemed to realize that a senshi stood in their midst, assuming she
was just a little girl dressed up like her favorite heroes.

"Hey, Hotaru. Do you remember what you're supposed to do?" Her and the
other senshi would form a protective ring around the entire park once
it was transported. They'd keep any overzealous Amazons from harming
anyone while I explained the situation to the Elders. I probably
should have done so earlier, but I didn't want to give them even the
smallest chance to object. With nearly three hundred people on your
door step, most of them loaded down with supplies and other useful
items, it can be hard to turn them away.

"Uh huh," she said, nodding to emphasize her response."I'm supposed to
keep any Amazons from hurting anyone here. I shouldn't kill anyone
either, right?" Hotaru was of the same mindset as me on the subject of
killing. If you've gotta do it, do it and don't regret it, but if it
can be avoided, do that. An extreme view for a twelve year old kid, I
know, yet a useful rule to live by.

"That's right," I answered."And try not to hurt any of the Amazons in
a fight or they may try to kill you, no matter what." Oh...shit!"Um,
gotta go, Hotaru. I'm counting on you." How could I have neglected
that little fact. It would be just like Haruka to get a few score
Amazons after her head.

****

Kasumi glanced up from washing the dishes as the overhead fluorescent
lights in the kitchen momentarily flickered and dimmed."Oh my," she
said to herself. Akane must be trying to hardwire her mechanical bull
directly into the Nerima electrical grid again.

Kasumi was about to search out her youngest sister when Nabiki walked
into the kitchen, She was wearing a pair of shades and had her purse
slung negligently over her shoulder."Hey, Kasumi, I'm going to take a
quick trip to the store to pick up a few cases of emergency batteries
encase Akane screws the transformers up again. Are there any
particular sizes that you need?"

Kasumi frowned in concentration."Well, a few of the twelve volts
wouldn't hurt and we never did get the large car battery recharged for
'Big Paul' after Akane's last power outage." She couldn't think of
anything at first."You are going to get plenty of D cells?"

Nabiki nodded and looked at her sister like she was stupid."The
charger is out in the tool shed. You should probably take care of 'Big
Paul' before Akane shorts out the entire district."

Akane hadn't been the same since Ryoga's unfortunate misplacement,
none of them had, but the youngest Tendo had taken the absence of her
playmate especially hard. The electric bill had more than trippled in
the last two weeks. Nabiki was already whoring herself out to three of
the richest men in Tokyo. If things kept up at their present rate, she
would soon be working for a couple women too.

****

The sense of disorientation was stronger with this 'port. Must have
something to do with the size of the load. I didn't wait for anyone to
get themselves killed, taking to the air and heading straight for the
Council building. Amazons were already beginning to notice the new
Jusendo Park and the outcry soon went out for the warriors to
assemble. News travels fast.

The 'village' had indeed grown. It had done more than grown. The
Amazons now occupied about ten times more space than during my
previous visit nearly three years earlier. The Council building hadn't
moved, though, and I slipped through its wards easily, wards that I
myself had placed to protect the building. No one had even looked up,
so excited were the Amazons by the park appearing, so my arrival went
unnoticed.

Heavy wooden doors swung open easily and I stepped into the single
roomed building. Back against the far wall, a large, slightly concave,
polished ebony wood table supported by three stone pedestals. Behind
the table, where normally a dozen ancient Amazon women, and in time of
trouble twice that many, were fifteen young women no younger than Ami
and no older than me. Um, I don't know all the Amazon laws of etiquet,
but I do know that these ladies would be in major trouble if they were
caught in here.

Being such a kind gentleman, I cautioned,"If the Elders catch you in
here, heads are going to roll." If they didn't understand Japanese
that was their problem, at least I was taking the trouble to warn
them.

"Has it been so long that you don't recognize me, Ranma?" the black-
haired, attractive Amazon sitting in Cologne's Matriarchal position
asked. There was a strong resembalance to Shampoo. Her Japanese was
excellant. Cousin, maybe?

I shook my head. I don't think I slept with her, no, I know I didn't.
There was only Shampoo and that Lotion chick."I'm afraid that you have
me at a disadvantage..." I prompted. They were all grinning at me
mischeviously. Sigh. Ami isn't going to like it here, I'm afraid, even
if women are in charge.

"Why, Ranma, I'm your old friend Cologne," the girl demurred.

"Damnit, quit fooling around," I snapped."I need to speak with the
Elders before some friends I brought with me start blasting Amazons
into atoms." I hadn't heard any explosions or screams of pain, yet.
The senshi were completely capable of killing silently, so you see,
that wasn't much of a reassurance.

The girl claiming to be Cologne sat up straighter in her chair and her
eyes narrowed."Ranma, what are you talking about?" she asked, her tone
commanding.

Screw it. I walked over to the table and teleported, switching myself
into the girl's place and setting her, chair and all, on the other
side of the table. I ignored the gasps and looked at the black-haired
girl. "Little girl, if any of my friends are hurt because you're
trying to have some fun, there won't be enough of you left for the
real Cologne to get her hands on." The other girls were trying to move
now, trying but not succeeding. By force of will, I was holding them
in their padded stone chairs. I had to increase the force, though, as
they began applying impressive amounts of chi force. These weren't
average Amazons, that's for sure.

Cologne-wannabe sighed and said,"I really am Cologne, you fool. These
other ladies are the Coucil of Elders. We used the water from Jusenkyo
to regain our youth in order to better lead our tribe in the coming
war." That 'was' possible, but I knew that using Jusenkyo in such a
way was terribly taboo for the Amazons. She sounded sincere. Not about
to take any chances, I scanned the so-called Elders with chi and
mystical senses. Oops.

When next I spoke it was from the original side of the table, with
Cologne in her proper place and the other Elders not glued to their
seat."Sorry. How was I supposed to know? By the way, Cologne, you're
pretty hot." Dumb look."That means you're very attractive. Now that
the formalities are over, get your unwrinkled ass out here and help me
calm everyone down."

I didn't wait to see if I was followed. By the time the not so old
Elders piled through the double doors of the Council building, I was
hovering twenty feet in the air with my arms crossed. I said,"I hope
you ladies can keep up with me." I could have levitated them with me.
I didn't because I figured that the Elders should get to use the
bodies they had traded in their old ones for.

****

Much to my suprise, not so much as a punch or fireball had been thrown
in my absence. I found Shampoo, a broad smile plastered across her
pretty face, introducing the senshi to her fellow warriors. The Elders
had made good time and arrived, panting, less than a minute after me.

"It seems that your fears were unfounded," Cologne said. She was the
only one of the Elders that showed no visible strain. All of them were
used to bodies that required less energy and weren't properly managing
their chi flows to enhance them. Cologne was the exception, not that I
expected anything less from the ancient troll.

"Yeah, I guess." Better to be safe than sorry, or so the saying goes.
People were wandering around the edges of the teleported park, clearly
afraid to go much farther, but still curious about their new
surroundings. Katya, bless her heart(that's just a saying, I don't
give blessings), had volunteered to get the refugees situated
properly. I never have been much of a people person.

"They are not fighters," Colonge said bluntly. After a pause she
continued,"Oh, I see. Fellow sorceresses?" For someone with none of
the Talent, Cologne was amazingly sensitive to it.

"Yep, my students actually. They're each class-bound, white, fire,
air, etc...One of them is even the future ruler of the world." I was
saving Ami for when the eventual attempted seduction came, as I knew
it would.

Cologne looked at me blankly, a gesture copied by the other
Elders."Oh, I didn't tell you?" They all shook their heads."Well, it
goes like this. Saffron doesn't sound like the kind of guy I could be
around without gutting, so I'm just gonna kill him when this is all
over and put Princess Usagi on the throne as ruler of the world. She's
a reincarnated princess from the Silver Millenium, that was a long
time ago, and really easy to maniuplate, if you know how." Ice
cream."Isn't that great?"

****

Author's Notes: I know I skipped a lot of stuff involved with getting
everyone together, but I'm eager to get to the actual taking over of
the world part of the story, and I'm sure you all are too, so don't
get too uspet with this chapter. How should the Elders react to
Ranma's little announcement? Better yet, how many of them will have to
be eliminated to get the point across? Next chapter Cologne is gonna
find out who the senshi are, too, and we might even see Saffron, not
that I'm going to let him know about the senshi yet.

I want to have lots of supernatural resistance from around the world,
but I don't know most of the good comics or animes that I could use
characters from. I'd greatly appreciate suggestions for these people.
Please include the series they're from, a short personality
description, and a bio with powers listed and stuff. Like I did with
Power and Responsibility(I really do plan on continuing that,
eventually) I'll even accept original characters if they're good. It
doesn't matter wether they're good or evil, demonic or angelic, just
which side they fight on. Thanks!

Everyone who contributes stuff I use will get full credit for it.

Send them and C&C to dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 20 [Ranma][SM][x-over]
One of the Elders turned out to be a low class sorceress. She chose to
test her power against mine, despite the stupidity of the action. I
didn't even bother to deflect the bolt of condensed air that she
threw. The blurry sphere smashed against my shields, throwing up a
small cloud of dust and tearing a few chunks of sod from the gournd.
"Don't get pissy," I told them, staring all the while at Cologne."I
already know that Saffron will end up in charge at the end of the war.
Your whole tribe will be better off with Usagi in power. She's
compassionate, tolerant, caring, and all kinds of other things that
the Phoenix isn't." I shrugged."And look at it like this, her kingdom
will be a matriarchy," yeah right,"so women will hold most of the
power. Amazons will be in much better positions than they would have
if the Musk or Phoenix People remained in power." I sure thought I was
making sense, but all the Elders except for Cologne were pulling up
every ounce of chi or magic that they could.

"Perhaps we should discuss this with...this Usagi. Maybe she will see
reason," Cologne said slowly. She was regretting sending Shampoo and
Mousse to find me now. She just doesn't know how lucky she is. If the
Amazons along with the others from Jusendo had attacked us, the senshi
and I, our pokemon included, would have laid down some unholy
asskicking on them.

I waved that suggestion aside."Don't bother. She's just a child. Think
of me as her business manager. I make the decisions and she sits there
and looks pretty. In a few decades, maybe things will change. She 'is'
a direct descendent of Kami-same." Like the great-to the twentieth
power-granddaughter. Still, that does qualify as blood relation, if
barely.

"Why the nerve of this 'boy'," a small red-headed Elder with big tits
spat."You don't know who you're dealing with." She was almost ready to
spit nails. Heh. I grinned at her, illuminating my eyes and making
them glow with green and golden fire.

"Maybe you don't understand what I'm saying," I drawled."I'm not
taking charge of the tribe. You ladies can make all the decisions.
When the war is over and done, that is when you're gonna sit back and
let us take over. And don't even think about double crossing me. Usagi
has an army of extra-dimensional animals that even I would have
trouble dealing with. If something were to happen to her, well there
would probably be a few Amazons left after they got through with you.
Cooperate and that army, along with all our magic will be turned
towards saving Amazon lives. Otherwise, as much as I'd hate to do it,
I'll just kill you all and start the takeover now." If I were female
then they would probably be able to swallow this much easier. Hey,
that's a good idea. Good me.

I still wore the black ring given to me by Setsuna. I liked the way it
looked, so sue me. It had recharged itself over time. I repeated the
simple mental cantrip that would change the metal of the ring white
and the change overtook me. I became, Ranma Saotome, mega-babe. The
Elders gasped, gawked, or did a combination of the two. Except for
Cologne. She's a steady one, that's for sure.

"Now that I've revealed my true form, does anyone feel more like
cooperating?" Cologne probably wouldn't buy this, but by now she had
to have seen that there was no reason to resist my course of action.
It would benefit the Amazons in every way.

The green-haired sorcerress wannabe whispered,"That is not the magic
of Jusenkyo at work." No shit, ya dumb bitch. Did anyone else not see
a large amount of cold water fall on me?

"Ranma, if that is your real name, why did you first visit our tribe
as a man?" Cologne asked. I'm gonna have to make her something special
for going along with me."You must have known that you would be better
treated as a woman."

"It's fun to pretend to be a man every so often. Most of the rest of
the world gives them more respect and power," I said mischeviously,
like I'd played a joke on someone."You girls wouldn't believe what
guys talk about when they're alone." That comment got some knowing
looks and a few sets of raised eyebrows.

"And your...fling with my great-granddaughter?" pressed Cologne. Maybe
she had been taken in too.

"I like women. As a man that looks like my male form, it's not too
hard to find willing women. Can you blame Shampoo, I do have a nice
ass. Don't you think?" This is fun!

****

By the time we'd walked back to the Council building, I'd pretty much
convinced the old coots that I was the real deal. One of the elders
though, the one who didn't like 'boys' kept checking out my rack. That
was going to need some attention or Ami was likely to use the brain
freeze spell on someone, possibly me.

"Sure, since the senshi are all female, males aren't likely to get too
far ahead in the future." I probably should have gone to the Musk with
my offer. They respect women more than Amazons respect men.

All the Elders exchanged odd glances after that comment. I let my
senses range over them. They'd suddenly began to feel a small bit of
fear. Why would that load of bull about men being second class
citizens bother 'this' group of dikes?

"Senshi? Do you refer to soldiers or 'Sailor Senshi'?" Cologne asked
evenly. Her voice was tight, tension actually coming to the surface of
her mind.

Something that I didn't understand was going on here."The Sailor
Senshi. My students. What's the big deal?" I'm not truly empathic,
having to combine my higher senses with magic to sense true emotions,
but I could nearly smell the surge of fear and anger that the Elders
released before they could control themselves.

"Ranma, Saffron has spoken in great detail about the Sailor Senshi,
his captors during the ancient times before even Jusenkyo existed.
None of us believe that any other woman could come close to acting the
way he has said, but his hate borders on the insane." Cologne was a
virtual fount of knowledge. So Saffron came from the Silver Millenium.
That would bear definite looking into."If he were to discover the
senshi here..." she left the statement hanging, attempting to convey
danger, I think.

"So? The senshi don't look anything like they did in their former
incarnations. I've even changed their armor. As long as none of your
Amazons starts flapping their jaws, he won't ever find out, at least
not until I'm ready for him to." If Saffron caused this much worry,
his power must be considerable. A fire-kami, not just an elemental?
Maybe, maybe not. If he was as powerful as everyone seems to think, he
wouldn't need the Amazons or Musk. I'll deal with him when the need
arises. To assuage the Amazon's fears, I said,"Don't worry. I can
handle Saffron. My pet dragon could probably handle Saffron." Gyrados
was reasonably strong with ice and water, the elemental opposites of
fire.

Mentioning Gyrados quickly changed the topic of discussion. A few more
assurances that Saffron wouldn't come streaking out of the sky without
warning and turning the village into a pit of lava and we were talking
about pokemon."We got lost in another dimension and the place turned
out to be crawling with the things. People keep them as pets mostly,
but their power can grow to be quite formidable." They weren't quite
ready for Demon. Slammer, yes, he would work nicely.

"Where are these pokemon?" another busty Elder asked. Ami had already
confirmed that the pokeballs would work even after Saffron's
technology suppressor went active. There would have been a whole bunch
of pokemon to feed and shelter otherwise.

I pulled Slammer's pokeball from a rudimentary spatial pocket(yes, I
was finally developing my own). The pocket was small, barely large
enough to hold my three pokeballs and a handful of weapons I thought
may prove useful in the near future. It was growing, though, and would
reach a size comparable to the senshis', or so Katya told me."They're
kept in these devices. They work kinda like Mousse's Hidden Weapons
technique, warping space inside to make much larger objects fit."

Cologne nodded, as if she had expected nothing less."Would a
demonstration be too much trouble?" I had been about to offer just
that.

****

The bakusai tenketsu training field seemed like the best place to turn
Slammer loose for a little demonstrative mayhem. We didn't need for
anyone to see the pokemon and have a fit about demons."Go Slammer!" I
called, activating the pokeball. Slammer materialized from the crimson
light, a ton of diamond hard living stone.

"Gooooooooo Leeeeeeemmmmmmmm!!!" Slammer roared, pounding the ground
with his fists, shivering the stone beneath our feet. He and I had
worked that out as a sort of battle cry last week. He always had liked
to show off whenever he got the chance.

"As you can see, Slammer is most...impressive. His animate nature
negates the bakusai kentetsu and he gives off no heat, so a renegade
Amazon would have more than her share of trouble harming him." They
had to know I was emphasizing just how powerless they were. As I said
before, being female was making this much easier. The Elders would
probably have been much more distrustful of me in less stressful
times, but they were so desperate to see reality the way they wanted
it(this being not having a man in charge) that they'd practically
ignored my blatant manipulation.

"What exactly is this pokemon capable of?" I wonder. What do giant
rock creatures do?

"Slammer, smash stuff," I commanded, grinning at him. I think the
pokemon winked at me, but I can't say for certain. The next few
minutes involved Slammer picking up huge boulders and smashing them,
throwing them , and exploding them into various sized pieces of
rubble.

"Just think how useful he'll be in urban warfare," I commented as
Slammer was digging a tunnel."Slammer can just shake the city to
pieces and none of your warriors ever get hurt." I felt like a
salesman, and in a way I was, a salesman selling himself(herself,
whatever) as head honcho.

While the Elders had a little pow wow to draw out the length of their
total autonomy, Cologne walked over to me."I commend you, Ranma. You
come across a little strong as a woman, but they bought it, hook,
line, and sinker."

"You Amazons have such a hard time seeing that men are your equals
that I decided to bipass the whole problem. Besides, you know it as
much as I do that my plan and prescence will benefit everyone, not
including Saffron." Stupid old women, making me become a chick again.
Ami would be getting her Ranko back, at least. For your own health,
just forget that I ever mentioned that.

"For a man," Cologne grinned, making herself look even more like
Shampoo,"you have an amazing grasp of the overall situation. Now, how
do your other pokemon compare to Slammer and the enhancing curses of
Jusenkyo?" Down to business, again.

I thought that question over for a minute before answering."That
chimera one, the yeti-riding the whatever thing, could probably take
out some of the weaker ones that the senshi have, but most of the
pokemon have powerful projectile attacks that would take it out before
it got close enough to use its physical strength. Mine would dessimate
it. The Ashuru curse is very powerful, but that one changes
personality too much to be useful. I'd say that it could, one on one,
defeat all but the girls' strongest pokemon. Once again, mine would
win." What can I say, I have good taste in pets. The only other
halfway beneficial curse I knew was the elf curse. I didn't mention
it, though, as I knew Cologne wouldn't even consider allowing anyone
to use it. That particular curse turned its victim into a psychotic
elven death mage that I would have had major trouble defeating before
aquiring the crystals. As a matter of fact, I had had to defeat that
damned elf when some little old chinese man had fallen into it during
my last stay in the village. That's the kind of coincidence that I
really hate.

"There are a few others, but none as powerful in combat as those you
mentioned. Do these pokemon breed?" she asked. Already looking for a
way to get your greedy little paws on the pokemon, eh?

"Yeah, they lay eggs occassionally. Ami and Usagi have worked out a
breeding program that will keep the pokemon at controllable levels."
Usagi was only allowed to have pokemon of the opposing sexes capable
of breeding out when we were fighting or needed particular eggs."For
now, those eggs will be going to the people that came with us from
Japan. Eventually we may begin introducing them to Amazon warriors.
The fighting type pokemon will be of particular interest to you and
your people, I believe." Cologne wasn't happy with the pokemon being
held just out of her grasp. She covered it up well enough that only
someone as sensitive as me could have felt the emotion, though, and we
continued to discuss the important matters of the next few days.

****

"I'm home!" Nabiki announced, stepping into the house and dragging a
suprise behind her. The lights weren't flickering any longer, which
meant that either Akane had electrocuted herself or succeeded. Kami-
same knew she wouldn't have just given up."I've got a suprise!"

Kasumi came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a small towel, her
face flushed and her brow slick with sweat. Akane, equally bedraggled,
followed behind the eldest Tendo."Oh, hello Tatewaki," Kasumi greeted.
"What brings you here today?"

Kuno's brow furrowed in immense concentration, finally he gave up and
said,"I haven't a clue."

"Nabiki," Akane growled,"you're not serious are you?"

Nabiki shrugged."Why not? He's got the necessary equipment, and lacks
the intelligence of a rock. He may not be up to Ryoga's standards, but
we can make due with him for now."

Kuno looked from Akane to Nabiki and back again,"What speaketh thee,
my love?" he asked, puzzlement overriding the usual urge to shower
Akane Tendo in love.

"Nothing," Akane snapped at the boy."But it's 'Kuno'?" persisted
Akane.

"Well if you don't want him...I suppose Kasumi and I can share him. Is
that okay with you big sister?" Kasumi nodded.

Tatewaki was such a nice young man, volunterring to take care of their
womanly needs. She would make sure to make his first experience with
her especially memorable."Oh yes, of course."

Nabiki looked at Akane."It would be your turn first, you know?"

Akane was obviously torn between revulsion of Kuno and the almost
uncontrollable urge to screw anything that walked, man, woman, or
beast. If only their father hadn't run away, she wouldn't have to
stoop to 'Kuno'. She shuddered, but said,"Okay, you win. Go strap him
in and I'll get ready."

Nabiki, as last to use Ryoga, was responsible for readying their toy
for its next use."Come along, Kuno, I have a suprise for you."

Kuno scratched the back of his head in confusion."Perchance, none of
you lovely ladies has partaken of the twisted fruits of my dear
sister's labor, have thee?"

"Don't talk, Kuno," Nabiki ordered.

****

As Tatewaki leaned against the wall Nabiki had chained him to, he
attempted to piece together the puzzle presented to him by the unusual
behavior displayed by his love and her sisters. Was there a gas leak
nearby? That must be it. Why else would Nabiki chain him to a wall and
force him to where a rubber body suit? He would have to arrange for
Sasuki to fix the faulty pipe just as soon as he was released.

The door opened, temporarily lighting the dark room and showing a
backlit figure who's features Tatewaki couldn't make out. The figure
reached over to the wall and switched on a set of dim red light.

Tateaki nearly suffered a massive coronary at the sight of Akane, his
love, wearing a tight leather corset, her breasts spilling over its
top. In her left hand the girl held a stiff riding crop and in the
other a coiled bull whip.

****

"Heeeeeeeeeeellllllllpppppppppp!!!!" Tatewaki bellowed."Someone, save
meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"

**** My old hut had been refurbished after the decision to bring me
into the Alliance was made. Ami and I were due a little quality time
together since we'd been working our asses off getting crap togehter
and making sure no one screwed up and got us all in trouble, and we'd
just finished taking advantage of some of that time.

I was female, the ring has its advantages, as I may have previously
mentioned, and it doesn't take nearly as much work to get off lots of
times as a girl. Ami's head rested against one of my bare breasts and
I was starting to get randy again, but I'd wore the poor girl out. I'd
have to wait a few minutes, at least.

"Mom tried to make me stay in the tent with her," Ami was saying, her
breath teasing my nipple. Those things are much too sensitive."All I
had to do was mention how much inventory she had to take with all the
stuff she stole from the hospital and she forgot about me completely."
She laughed. Ami, devious? Real turn on, that.

****

Warm, contented sleep. I don't experience it often, not often enough
to take it for gratned. With Ami snuggled against me, I was sleeping
soundly. That changed when all four wall of my hut exploded, sheered
away by a powerful chi blast. My mind, fuzzed by sleep and sex, didn't
immediately grasp the situation. Reflexes, developed over years of
constant danger, did prompt me to raise a semi-decent body shield.

Objects, enchanted objects, bounced off this shield almost before I
could form it. Figures, at least a dozen, formed a ring around the
remains of my hut. They were swathed in baggy black clothing, all but
hiding their identity. All female.

When you're suprised, and, yes, a little afraid, you don't act as you
would in more controlled conditions. Three of the women exploded into
clouds of gorey mist as I encased them in bubble of true vaccum space.
They didn't even get a chance to scream. Power, from my own reserves,
from the surrounding environment, and energy from the Silver Imperium
Crystal flooded through me, in turn passing through my lens and
gaining in strength by a factor of ten.

I spared a moment to glance at my love. From her arm and chest,
shuriken, each dark stained and glowing malevolently, protruded. She
didn't move, her life force barely remained within her body. It was
fading. My Ami was dying.

I had to save Ami. She was all that mattered. Instantly the energy
that throbbed within me extended, wrapping my fiance in a web of solid
energy, cutting her off from time, removing her from existance. The
All Mighty could not take her if he couldn't reach her. A handful of
seconds had passed. The Amazons were closing in, weapons, all holding
enchantments of some kind, drawn. The element of suprise was lost to
my attackers, those who had harmed Ami, now that my perceptions had
been thrown into overdrive with the step-up in power and cold rage
that consumed me.

Knowledge of the Infernal Gateways, combined with my recently learned
teleportation spell, came together in my mind and a thought later a
doorway stood open before me, a doorway to Hell. Demons raved and
tortured souls cried out in unending agony. I ignored the piteous
screaming. The nine remaining Amazons, now all nearly within striking
distance, froze, first in fear of the vision that was all too real,
and then as I took away control of their bodies.

"ARISE!" I commanded, my voice booming, the air around me humming with
crackling energy waiting for release. I gave the energy its freedom,
using it to increase the power of my demonic prescence a hundredfold.
"COME TO ME!!!" They had no choice but to obey.

They came, a horde of ravening, soul-starved beasts. A thousand demons
attempted to pile through the tear in reality. I only allowed the
strongest, the most sadistic to cross. The price of the Hellborn is
high. Someone was going to pay.

****

The explosion woke the lighter sleepers. The cries of the damned got
to the more firmly entrenched. My command raised the dead. It was the
continuous scream of nine Amazons being tortured and repeatedly raped
by the denizens of Hell while the sky burned with black fire that
brought me my audience, though.

Many who saw the demons at work became violently ill, others lost
consciousness, and some watched in sick fascination. No one had the
nerve to approach me or my minions.

As my captured Amazons neared death, I returned the spark of life to
their bodies and healed their wounds. Dawn approached, the torment
continued. The sun rose and the sky barely lightened, obscured as it
was by the Death Flame. The flame would soon leave this world, though,
its job completed as each tortured Amazon's soul twisted, became a
thing barely resembling its former self.

They would live. They would also be absolutely insane. Karma? If their
soul ever escaped Hell, pond scum would be above their place in
existance.

Even demons can be sated, and when a demon feeds off pain and
suffering, it gains most greatly from inflicting pain itself. My
demons reached their fill almost exactly as the death spell that hung
in the sky departed. Nine Amazons, nine Elders, each a mass of poorly
healed scars and neverending anguish, remained twitching upon the
ground.

****

Author's Notes: I was going to handle that last part differently, but
I drank a little too much last night and my buzz was strong enough to
mess me up a little(I don't drink to the point of being drunk, I do
stupid things that I can't remember if I do). After rereading it this
morning, and fixing a lot of spelling and grammar errors, I decided to
leave it how it was. Offer still stands for character submissions.
I've already gotten a few really good ones, but most of them don't
really describe the character, original or from some other series,
well enough for me to decide what to do with them. That last scene was
a bit dark, wasn't it? I normally don't do that. I think I may start,
though. It's fun. C&C me at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Can It Get Any Worse?: Epilogue
The world around me was a blur. I had no sense of reality other than
that created by the site before me. Ami, my Ami, entombed within an
enormous crystal, a crysatl that could never be destroyed without my
assistance. Kami-sama? He'd get one hell of smack down if he messed
with it. Then I would be destroyed, of course, but he'd still get his
ass kicked.
Ami's pokemon surrounded the crystal, mewling softly, stroking the
smooth surface worriedly. They'd emerged from their pokeballs without
anyone's assistance, and after my little display, no one had the balls
to mess with the creatures.

What could I do? Nothing. The shuriken that had struck Ami, shuriken
that I should have protected her from, had been poisoned both
conventionally and mystically. I could, and already had, eliminated
the mundane poison from her body, but the magically created poison had
bound itself to Ami's soul. To remove it would be to remove her soul.
Oh Kamis, what am I going to do?

Shrieks of insane rage and hate momentarily intruded upon my grief.
That would be the Elders. They would come to regret their younger
bodies now, all strong and resilient. They would survive, for it was
the Amazon way to take care of their own, but their lives would be of
endless mental torment, anguish not of the body but of the soul.

Enough useless staring. I straightened, refilling reserves of energy
spent on manipulating several levels of existance. Usagi may be able
to help. Her White Magic is more effective than mine and her knowledge
of it outstrips my own by leaps and bounds. The ground beneath my feet
was a churned mess of blood, splintered bamboo, and a swirling miasma
of dark energies(demonic shit). Cloven hooves and reptilian feet had
torn the sod to shreds.

Those who had stayed to witness my grief, the few not too scared of me
to hold their own, slowly backed away, never quite meeting my eye.
They would spread the news. Before the end of the day I would be,
within the minds of the inhabitants of Jusendo, twenty feet tall with
glowing pits of fire for eyes, dragging a harem of weeping virgins
behind me.

The senshi were in a little group, huddled together in fear and
sadness, attempting to comfort one another. They didn't draw away from
me, exactly, but there was a definite wariness in the red-rimmed eyes,
a tautness to tear streaked faces. They were my friends, sorta, they
would come to understand.

"Usagi," I begged,"please see if you can help her?" I don't know what
I would do without Ami. She was my better half, literally. The only
reason I even cared about this stupid war was so that she would be
safe and comfortable in the years to come."I can't do anything," I
said, fighting down the urge to cry. I had to be strong.

The ditzy blonde's back straightened and she pulled away from her
fellows. She nodded to me and as I led her over to Ami's prison, I
felt her priming several healing spells of amazing power and
complexity, far above anything I could produce. If she needed energy,
I would provide her with enough to destroy this world, even at the
cost of my own soul.

Usagi fought down a sob as she caught sight of her long time friend. I
had healed the wounds of her body, yet blood still coated her leg and
torso. The sorcerress scanned my fiance in much the same way as I had,
if not a little more thoroughly. She reached the same conclusion that
I had. Shaking her head, Usagi turned to me and whispered,"I'm so
sorry, Ranma. There isn't anything I can do. We can't even allow her
to die in order to be ressurected. The poison would destroy her soul."

There went hope. I stared at Ami, the world collapsing around me. I've
only ever been truly happy for the few months Ami and I were together.
She'd changed me. Without her...

...without her there was going to be a lot of dead people real soon.

****

Cologne had first felt the chi force induced vaccum exlposion when
she'd been preparing for bed, a young man under either arm. They
couldn't possibly be THAT stupid, could they? She dropped her latest
conquests and ran, glowing with chi, at the fastest speed a non-
Talented human could manage without ripping their own tendons to
shreds. Despite the effort, she was too late.

By the time she reached Ranma's hut, three Amazons, and she suspected
they were Elders, were nothing more than clouds of bloody mist. Ami,
one of the senshi and the sorcerress whom Ranma had soul-bonded, was
down. Even from the distance Cologne had stopped, she could sense the
workings of something dark and insidious within the girl. A poison she
knew of quite well was at work. Poor Ranma, she was a lost cause. More
important at the moment, though, was the poor Elders that were about
to become fish bait.

Cologne knew better than to try to reason with Ranma. In his present
state of mind that would just get her in on whatever horrible thing
his grieving mind could come up with. She wasn't prepared for the
enormous outflow of energy directed by Ranma. It nearly blinded her
chi senses. Reeling from the shock, she caught sight of Ami,
momentarily surrounded by a crystal of huge proportions, fading away.

Now that Ranma had preserved Ami, Cologne guessed, he would be truly
making his displeasure known. She'd expected torture, not summoning
the ranks of Hell to defile and torment her fellow Elders. Through
more than three hundreds years of life, Cologne had seen and
experienced very nearly everything imaginable that a person born on
Earth could hope for. She wasn't prepared for the sight of the demons
at work.

She watched, along with a few Amazons and visitors, throughout the
night, vomitting at least a dozen times. What had the foolish, may
their souls one day know peace, women hoped to accomplish? At least
the entire ruling body of Amazons wasn't insane.

Cologne finally decided to make herself known to Ranma. She'd just
watched him beg Usagi, another sorcerress, one apparently even more
powerful than he in the White magic, to heal Ami. What a fine Amazon
he would have made with such devotion and power. It was after Usagi
failed to do anything that Cologne hopped across the small clearing
created by rampaging demons.

****

"What?" My voice was flat, my eyes cold. Cologne, backbone of the
Amazon Nation, stepped back and swallowed. If she had any sense she
would be running for her damned life.

Cologne reached out and pressed a small glass vial containing a dark
reddish liquid into my hands. Either the liquid or the vial itself
were somehow enchanted, not that I could divine either's purpose."It's
a poison. The Matriarch and Elders of the tribe, over two thousand
years ago, developed it from dragon's blood, one of Saffron's
feathers, and the heart of a newborn babe. I know of no cure." She
would live. Cologne isn't stupid, she knows well enough how I think.
By giving me this vial of poison, she gives me the means to search for
an antidote. She must think that that act alone will save her tribe.
Nope, she's wrong on that account. Very very luckily, I don't think I
can kill all the Amazons without alienating the senshi, and very
likely Ami when she is revived. And I can't alienate the senshi,
really just Usagi, because I will most likely need her help to deal
with this toxin. Less vital, but still important, the senshi have to
stay here, in Jusendo, to continue the war.

I turned my back on Cologne and walked back over to the senshi. Haruka
stood slightly apart from the group of mourning girls, her arms
crossed and a scowl on her petulant face. I glared at her. She ran.

"Usagi, take a look at this. It's the poison used on Ami." Damn, I'm
starting to sound like one of those emotional burnouts that uses too
much negative chi. Well, fuck it, I have a reason. I extended the vial
to her, but as soon as the girl's eyes alighted on the tiny container,
she threw herself backwards, shrieking just a little louder than a
banshee.

I shunted the vial into pocket space and brought the girl to her feet
before the stunned senshi could even react."R-Ranma, t-that's s-s-so
horrible!" Usagi wailed. Now that I think about it, that poison
practically reeks of ritualized magicks, dark magics. Mostly Death,
but the was some Blood and diluted Demonic magic in the pattern. I can
see where something like that would be unpleasant for a sorcerress of
Usagi's perusasion and calibre.

So much for any help."Sorry," I muttered."I'll be leaving now." Yeah,
I'm getting out of town. I don't know how much longer I can control
myself, not around all these Amazons. I have to get away, far, far
away.

The senshi didn't try to stop me, or even call out any denunciations.
Hell, why should I worry about alienating them? They were already
looking at me like I was a whole different person.

****

Three pokemon, a few changes of clothing, some food, and every single
magical artifact the Amazons had possessed(at least the ones that
weren't stupid or too weak to be of use) were all that I carried out
of the village with me. Ami was at the Gates of Time and Space. Katya
was responsible, she'd take care of my fiance. Not that there was much
upkeep involved in dealing with someone in complete stasis.

****

A few days later, while I was killing time incinerating a tree, limb
by limb, I felt the massive magical discharge I'd been expecting. The
wave of power that swept the globe was relatively weak, but the fact
that it covered the entire planet was impressive, to say the least.
Afterward, I couldn't detect any noticeable difference in the Earth's
energy field. Ami'd said that it wouldn't be detectable. Ami...

...Shit, I gotta stop moping and find something to help her. I'm good
at magic, maybe the best, Kamis know I'm the strongest on this planet,
but I'm not arrogant or stupid enough to even begin to believe that I
know all the spells that have been developed over thousands upon
thousands of years.

The world was going to hell now. Food would run out, water would stop
flowing, and medical care would soon be sliding back into the stone
age, meaning that people are going to die. With no electricity or
technology of any kind, people are not just gonna die, they're going
to become paranoid, savage, jealous animals. People like myself, the
martial artists with true chi force and magic talents who previously
remained hidden or withdrawn, we would survive. We would even prosper.

Someone had to know something that could counteract the poison. If
only the stuff wasn't so evil, I could have had the Dark Prince or
Xochial check it out. To them, though, the poison would be nothing
more than a shot of liquor. Damnit, I need to find an angel or
something along those lines.

****

Author's Notes: I just had the idea to make this the end of CIGAW.
Don't start calling for my blood or planning my death. Part two, 'The
World at War' will be coming along in a couple of days, along with the
side stories involving Ranma's past. I really need those characters
now because Ranma is going to be travelling around the world, meeting
people and looking for a cure to the poison. Rephrase; I need really
well developed characters with descriptive backgrounds so that I can
work with them. Thanks! C&C me at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com