[XOver][FanFic] Retake, chapters 11-12 + omake

[Gregg Sharp]

Retake 11

"Wild Pitch"

Metroanime Misproductions

DISCLAIMER: An unintended fic that is well out of control.
This certainly is not for everyone, and was mainly intended as a number of
ideas which somehow ended up here.

----------

Her name was Akane Tendo, youngest of three daughters of Soun Tendo - an
overemotional man who had mainly *not* raised his daughters. She had spent
most of her young life being mistaken for a boy and being cast in school
plays with the male roles. She normally suffered from Rage Disorder, a hate
for the male gender in general (excepting a few individuals such as Doctor
Tofu), and her hobby was breaking things (bricks, boards, and boys mainly)
using her family's school of martial arts.

Normally she would be cast in a love-hate relationship with an arranged
fiance who had never had the chance to develop anything approaching
emotional maturity due to an abusive childhood. Akane was beset with a
number of problems in her life that would plant the seeds for her to go
completely and violently insane later on. Delusional kendoists and a beating
on her self esteem for example. She would be trapped in this relationship
with neither herself or her fiance able to grow as individuals, continually
lashing out and seeking to either hurt or one-up the other,

Except that things were going a little different for Akane.

She had just begun being hassled by a crowd of hormonally addled boys and
one deluded kendoist, when the whole thing had been brought to a screeching
halt. Her self-image had been battered by losing a fight and seeing her more
cerebral sister get a powerup, and then by being being killed herself.

She also had been the recipient of two major healing spells, had been
brought back to life and her consciousness installed in a synthetic catgirl
body that had a calming effect on her psyche. Other than she was currently a
tigergirl, Akane had no idea about *this* part.

She was incorrect, but she was pretty sure that the gaijin alien prince was
in love with her. Just that knowledge was proving a pretty reassuring and
confidence-building thing for her at a time when most of the other things
she'd been confident about had been thrown into disarray. When she had been
thrown out of her house and effectively disowned by her father, she had
found refuge in the arms of that very gaijin.

This all added up to an Akane Tendo who was smiling confidently, cutely
showing a fang in the process, her tail making slow movements behind her, as
she got ready to face a Terminator unit in some light sparring.

She was, after all, the Heir to Tendo School Of Anything Goes Indiscriminate
Grappling. She was also a superpowered tigergirl at the moment, who quite
frankly felt more alive and aware of her environment than she'd ever managed
before.

She was Akane Tendo, hear her roar!

"Meow."

Akane covered her mouth and looked briefly embarrassed.

"Anytime," said the Terminator, trying to crack his knuckles. "Fess: please
note to add sound effect generator so I can crack knuckles. Yah?"

"Noted," said the voice from mid-air.

Ranma came into the room, noting that there was something going on, and that
the Fist Of Northstar cast were watching it. Well, if it was interesting to
*them* then he was interested!

"Sparring match," announced Fess. "Reinforcing outer perimeter. In this
corner: one of our finest armor reinforced multifunction combat androids -
Arnie-02!"

"Yah, I haff already said I am ready." Arnie-02 chambered. "Besides you only
haff the two combat androids so far."

"And in this corner, representing the Anything Goes school, the challenger -
Akane Tendo!"

Ranma looked around, then remembered. That tiger (shudder) was Akane! Who
was going to fight the Terminator?! Man, this was gonna be embarrassing.

"I'm rrrready," Akane said, already rushing forward.

Arnie-02 sidestepped, grabbed, and spun. Akane found herself heading for the
wall at high speed.

Synthetic tissue sent signals simulating feline reflexes.

Akane twisted in midair, her body absorbing the impact and then springing
away with a surprised yelp. Her arc descended towards the cyborg, who leapt
forward to meet her in midair.

Ranma's jaw dropped. AKANE?! The girl who had given such a pathetic show in
the dojo (and therefore needed to be challenged to do better) dodged the big
cyborg and flipped around him in midair to attack from the rear?!

The two landed lightly on the floor and rushed towards each other again,
charging in two blurs.

Kasumi stepped in, saw what Akane was doing, turned around and left again.
Mumbling something about how Akane gets to be a superpowered catgirl, and
Nabiki a superpowered cyborg, whereas what did she get out of all this?
Kicked out of her house and a hangover. Kasumi was not a happy camper.

Meanwhile Arnie-02 was in the process of trying to hit Akane, who was
flipping and ducking and rolling out of the line of fire but unable to
really get a decent hit in herself.

Kenshiro exchanged a look with Rei and the two turned and left, Mamiya and
Yuria in tow. Ranma was curious and tagged along, though he did take one
backwards look at where Akane was continuing to do acrobatic flips around
the slightly slower android.

Akane exulted. This was something she'd never felt before. It was as if mind
and body were one, and gravity was almost something she could ignore.

A moment's inattention and a jarring impact to her middle threw Akane
backwards. She was slow getting up but realized in that moment that the
punch had been gauged to this tigergirl body. If it had been delivered to
her original form, it would have torn right through her but this form only
had a stomach-ache and bit of nausea.

Realizing that, Akane also realized that when she went back to being plain
old human Akane Tendo that she'd miss this strength and clear-headedness.
How strange.

------

"Well, since you're just visiting, i was hoping you could help me with
something," Greylle said. "This is a marionette version of Makoto Kino, aka
Sailor Jupiter II. Each of the Sailor Marionette series has a special
enhancement to try to make up for the lack of magical Senshi powers. In
Makoto's case, she has something called 'photographic reflexes.' If she sees
a manuever or attack while she's in Analysis Mode, she can immediately add
it to her arsenal."

"I see!" Rikku chirped and posed. "So you want to see me do my Mug
technique."

"Well, your Mug and what she might be able to add of Rei's 'Waterfowl Fist'
and Ken's most basic 'Hokuto Shin Ken'," Greylle held his hand up before
Kenshiro could object. "i'm not talking about your head-exploder or anything
sealed or absolutely secret. Things like your 'One Hundred Fist' technique
for example. Heck, if you could just show her some of Toki's 'Gentle Fist'
techniques it would be a big help."

Ranma looked over the tall pony-tailed girl and wondered how *she* rated.

Kenshiro shrugged. If it helped then this would still only be a partial
repayment. First he'd have to see these "photographic reflexes" and then
what could be done to increase that poor girl's ki.

--------

The Noachian era had been a time when large rocks (planets) had been
repeatedly slammed by smaller rocks (asteroids and planetsimals) making all
sorts of interesting changes to the landscape.

Other than the Pacific Ocean, which had disgorged the Moon, there wasn't
that much on Earth that could be traced back to that era. Mars and the Moon
were different stories altogether.

Water had once run free on Mars during a brief era in which volcanoes had
belched out more of an atmosphere than it had now and asteroids had played a
game of planetary tag. That water had either escaped into space through
attrition or had frozen. There was a lot of water in the icecap, and there
was a very muddy frozen ocean under a place known as Veritas Borealis.

Getting to this frozen water, carting it out, and making something useful of
it was a lot easier if you didn't need things like water or food or oxygen.
Which was why the robots hummed a happy little tune as they ran something
unthinkable on a place like Earth.

It was an Ice Mine.

Other robots fused silicates together into glass. More robots took the thick
plates of crude glass and laid them into position on a metal latticework
extruded and fitted by other robots. Other robots came by later and placed
another metal latticework over the glass to hold the whole thing in place.

While most of the robots were about as smart as an assembly line robot in a
modern car factory (ie: not at all) the AI robots like the Workspiders were
happy. To work and to be doing something useful = happiness. A simple enough
equation, the Workspiders would not have been surprised if most humans could
understand it.

So Mars was seeing a slower change than it had in the Noachian era, though
it promised to be nearly as sweeping in scope, but there was one difference
that would not have been foreseen even by such visionaries as Arthur C.
Clarke.

It was a happier change.

Another thing likely unforeseen by visionaries was that despite having eight
limbs, each of which terminated in something akin to a Swiss Army Knife full
of grapples and tools, Workspider-03 could *not* carry a tune.

"Whistle while you work - dum de dum dum dum da dum! La da da de la da da de
however this song goes..."

-------

Yuka and Sayuri waited outside the school gates for Akane. Seeing a
redmaned, tigerstriped, catgirl stagger in was hardly what they'd expected.

"Uhm, Akane?!" Yuka blinked. Had Akane been *that* jealous of their
hardsuits that she had to get a powerup like this?

Sayuri closed her eyes. She could not believe how weird things were getting.
Bad enough Yuka was into this stuff, now Akane was getting weird. Weirder.
Whatever.

Akane, for her part, grinned back at her friends. The sparring had ended
with her getting pinned by the Terminator until she admitted defeat, but it
had been thrilling nonetheless. Her strength and speed were much greater,
her sense of balance and reaction time incredible. A sense of oneness -
where mind and body and spirit had been forged whole into a weapon.

Yuka noticed that Akane seemed to have a certain glow about her indicating
she'd found something to make her quite happy. It was something that
transcended the tiger stripes and fur. Something that she had rarely seen in
Akane and not in that measure before. "So, uhm, Akane how come you're..."

"Furry?" Akane held up a hand to display tiger stripes and her clawed
fingertips. "Well, it's like this..."

------

Hotaru checked her clothing and straightened it as best as possible.

She had considered this nice kimono that Amaterasu-sensei had provided,
black with gold dragonflies and a red sash. Very nice and tasteful. Also
quite difficult to move in. While appropriate to meet one's iinazuke for the
first time, it would also require her to make mincing steps. It also might
not be appropriate for an American anyway.

She had considered her old school uniform. A comment from Amaterasu earlier
had been remembered about how unflattering that was, so that too had been
discarded. Her new school uniform had the benefit of being red white & blue
and therefore likely to appeal to an American, but she still wasn't too sure
about it.

There had been some consideration of a casual outfit she had recently
purchased. The black turtleneck and black jeans had a certain appeal, and
were certainly easy to move in. Unfortunately it didn't seem *quite*
appropriate even if the iinazuke *was* American.

Which left the current outfit, which had the benefit of being both formal
and casual. The red and white outfit common to a shrine priestess was also
easy to move around in. Relatively. Amaterasu had said that she looked good
in it, and while Hotaru wasn't 100% sure about that, she wasn't sure she
should discard that advice.

Of course, if Hotaru Tomoe had felt like consulting Amaterasu regarding this
little trip, she had no doubt that the sun goddess would have counseled
waiting for a more auspicious time.

Hotaru, however, had not had any friends for a very long time. When a
question to Amaterasu had asked if the goddess thought that Hotaru could be
friends with this fiance, the goddess had absent-mindedly replied that they
*had* been friends, and more than once. That, in fact, the main problem she
would have to overcome with this particular American would be his tendency
to look on her as a beloved little sister.

The young girl was nervous enough. Waiting around had just been making her
stomach upset. As she understood it, she now had a new lease on life and as
such it was time to actually live it.

Besides, one of the benefits of being around magic mirrors and the like, you
could check out a few things and she'd seen something in one of those images
that had given her hopes for something that would interest a young girl like
herself a lot. She'd seen herself, a little bit older, a little bit more
elegant, sitting next to her fiance in some sort of high tech lounge, and
looking practically joyous.

Hotaru Tomoe couldn't think of a time when she'd been joyous. She wanted to
give it a try.

Which brought her to wearing her Shinto shrine maiden "uniform" and standing
before a concealed metal door and punching in a passcode. Magic mirrors
*did* have their uses after all.

"Excuse me," said an unfamiliar voice.

Hotaru tried not to startle or look like she didn't belong here. "Uhm, yes?"

"I'm Doctor Mizuno," said the woman. "If you're going below, I might as well
accompany you."

Hotaru considered briefly, then nodded. For all she knew this woman worked
there.

A little blue "gem" on the door twinkled.
:Scan completed.
:Identification: Doctor Kumori Mizuno, pediatrician affiliated with Juuban
General Hospital, mother to Ami Mizuno.
:Identification: Hotaru Tomoe
:Aural Pattern: Minor Silver Millenium Pattern in Mizuno. Major Silver
Millenium Pattern in Tomoe. Tomoe has awakened as Sailor Saturn.
:Akashic & Overdimension Patterns: No evidence of demonic possession or dark
taint.
:Items scanned. No weapons.
:Mana levels: dormant in Mizuno. High in Tomoe.

The door thunked and slid into a recess, having determined that neither were
currently a threat.

The elevator did a more detailed scan. Both were exhibiting life-signs in
keeping with a high state of anxiety. Power levels on the younger of the two
were dangerously high, ridiculously low on the older one. This caused the
problem to be brought to Fess attention. Who merely noted who the younger
one was and issued a "stand down" order to various security protocols.

Neither Hotaru nor Kumori Mizuno realized that they'd been scanned and
analyzed, and merely waited for the elevator doors to open.

They slid open and almost closed again as the two gaped at the scene.

Stepping quickly in the corridor, the young and inexperienced Hotaru gaped
at something she'd never considered possible though there had been some
glimpsed shapes in the mirror.

The far more worldly and sophisticated Doctor Mizuno *also* gaped. Not
having expected quite this despite flying submarines earlier.

Little toaster shaped robots trundled along the corridor at high speed. A
robot with an amazing resemblence to "R2-D2" from "Star Wars" sped along the
corridor, pausing only to let one of those smaller bots zip past. A giant
mechanical spider of some kind slowly picked its way through the crowded
intersection to disappear down a side corridor. A little floating triangle
shape was using a pair of extensible arms to engrave a bas-relief into the
corridor walls, humming what sounded like Mozart.

There were a pair of Terminators standing guard outside one doorway and a
floating spherical robot that bobbed merrily along in the air past them.
There were robots trundling on treads, rolling on wheels, and walking on
legs.

Just when the two were sure they'd seen everything: a large dog wearing a
WWI aviator helmet gave the two Terminators a snappy salute before marching
off down a side corridor.

A woman with long green hair walked up to them and seemed to stare briefly.
"Hotaru Tomoe. Kumori Mizuno. Please accompany me."

"Uhm, you are?"

"Setsuna Meiou version II. If you will accompany me?"

"'version II'?" The doctor looked from the woman to the obvious robots and
back. "You're a robot."

"Synthoid or synthetic lifeform would be more correct," responded Setsuna.
"My internal systems resemble those of a human to a higher degree than would
be indicated by the term 'robot'. If you two will accompany me, a briefing
would likely be of benefit."

With a helpless look between them, Hotaru and Doctor Mizuno hurried after
the "synthoid".

The meeting room turned out to be a cafeteria. A practically mummified old
woman grinned briefly at all of them, causing Setsuna to display her first
hint of emotion - surprise. There was also a younger woman who seemed to be
having a very bad headache from the way she was holding it and groaning.

"Fess, request identification."

The voice speaking out of midair caused one raised eyebrow (the old woman),
one further huddling down and complaining about the noise (the young woman),
and two people practically jumping out of their shoes (Hotaru and the
doctor).

"The young lady with the hangover currently waiting for water to heat for
some medicinal tea is Kasumi Tendo. She's currently staying here with her
two sisters because of an unfortunate instance regarding medical treatment
and those sisters being returned from the dead through our medical
facilities. The distinguished elder is a representitive of a hidden Chinese
society that has managed to maintain a discrete existence despite the
People's Revolution. Cologne of the Nichieju is here as a cultural
ambassador and advisor."

Cologne considered briefly, then decided she *liked* at least one aspect of
this high technology center she'd found. It was polite.

Doctor Mizuno had heard something in there that caused her to stop any
further introductions. "Medical facilities? Returned from the dead?"

*Ping! Ping!*

The old woman looked over to where a dollsized android with a timer had just
signalled that the hot water was ready. A moment later the kettle started
whistling. With a few quick gestures she got the cup of hangover remedy
(also good for concussions) in front of the stricken young lady. That did
not mean she wasn't paying attention to the conversation behind her, of
course.

"Yes, Doctor," responded that baritone. "Though mainly they're under
construction and will be moved to the Arcadia when it has been completed."

"Arcadia?" Hotaru wanted to know, a dream of being on a starship returning
to her.

"Yes, Tomoe-san," said Fess. A hologram showing the interior of the main
hangar appeared. "As you can see, construction of the vessel is only 35%
complete."

"Medical facilities?" The Doctor was not easily put off.

"Currently the medical facilities are capable of only minor repairs and the
construction of bionic replacement systems. We just had a case of patient
Nabiki Tendo." Fess began putting up different holographic shots, showing
the patient going from being a burned carcass through her bionic
reconstruction into a lifelike cyborg.

*THUD!* Hotaru was not nearly ready for that level of gore. Kasumi had
glanced up and had likewise fainted on seeing the pictures of what Nabiki
had been reduced to through the application of fire and shrapnel.

Cologne and Doctor Mizuno had rather different reactions.

---------

Greylle had been surprised, pleasantly for once. He'd come up top in order
to deal with the problems he was sure Akane would face. Actually, she didn't
seem to be getting bothered at all.

The guys were put off by her fangs and claws, and therefore were keeping
their distance. The teachers were put off by her failure to wear a Furinkan
school uniform, but had become sufficiently shell-shocked that this was a
minor consideration.

The girls, in another unexpected development, were of two schools on this.
One: Akane had been saved from death by her true love (which left Greylle
wondering how they had attributed this feat to Ranma but who could
understand women?). The second group seemed actually envious. He had had no
idea racial dysphoria was widespread within Japan, but from the comments
there were a number of girls here who felt that the bigger bust and
overwhelming levels of cute a catgirl had were something to admire and wish
that they themselves had.

Then an annoyance popped in. With his father.

"Aw c'mon. Ya got that girl training in Hokuto Shin Ken and Nanto Sei Ken,"
whined Ranma. "I just wanna learn a few special techniques, y'know."

Glancing back at where the eldest Saotome was trailing along listening,
Greylle wondered if either knew why they were also called *secret*
techniques. "Special techniques, huh. You just gonna keep going, dancing to
your father's tune, until i show you something, is that it?"

"Ranma, don't bother. Martial arts *baseball*? If he can show you one move
that the Anything Goes school doesn't do better, I'll..." Genma considered
insulting and belittling this gaijin as an effort to get him to reveal his
potential. It worked with Ranma, after all. The Saotome patriarch tried to
think of something calamitous to threaten. "I'll go on a diet!"

That drew a few gasps from the people who knew Genma.

Greylle's eyes narrowed. This could *not* be passed up. "Okay. Let's see how
you like THIS Ultimate technique. A woman named Urd taught me it."

"A woman's special technique. This WILL be lame," began Genma, who was
following his own technique of insulting your opponent until they lost their
temper. It *usually* made them sloppy. "Not that some pansy American foreign
dog could do anything better."

Greylle put his hands together in the proper patterns, summoning mana.
"Spirit of thunder, who races in the sky,
and shakes the ground and the air..."

Clouds scudded in from all directions, turning black and swirling about
overhead.

"with your great power
become thunderbolts in my hand..."

Genma looked up and saw lightning beginning to form a cat's cradle between
the various tufts of cloud. "...okay, now maybe this is a bit much..."

"you - the power that shatters everything!" Greylle brought his hands up in
supplication to the heavens, then down to point at Genma. "Gods and spirits
of justice! i ask for holy judgement upon Genma Saotome!"

The ground began to shake and a cold wind began picking up in intensity.

Genma started looking for a bolthole, then decided to attack the youth doing
this, thereby stopping this long-winded special technique.

"Cosmic Justice!"

Lightning flared from the clouds, twisting together like some divine
drillbit as it speared down.

Everyone covered their eyes as the light grew blinding in intensity.

Greylle looked about. There was Ranma, the Tendo girls (Nabiki still ticking
off the things she repented as a spell called 'Cosmic Justice' sounded quite
dangerous), and the few other spectators. Where was Genma?

"Bweeeee!"

Oh. Hmmm. Must have had a Cosmic Irony angle in there as well. Hmmm. (Thud!)

Ami sighed and picked up the fallen boy.

"Is he okay?" Akane demanded, wondering if maybe she should take the boy off
Ami's hands. After all, he *was* her boyfriend. Kind of. Well, maybe. Sorta.

"He overdid it again, channelled too much magical energy." Ami let out a
very human sigh. "Can you tell the teachers I'll be right back?"

"No problem," answered Akane, still wondering if maybe she should administer
first aid.

"...and for all these other things, I do repent," finished Nabiki, rather
than take the chance of herself becoming a little black pig or worse.

"Bwweeeeee! Buqiii! Bwee!" A little black pig seemed very unhappy about this
turn of events.

--------

Doctor Mizuno watched with some degree of horror. Her daughter and her
friends were those Sailor Senshi? They fought demonic beings from a previous
age? They endangered themselves regularly against evil? They had awfully
darn silly attacks, no sense of tactics whatsoever, and ludicrous battle
costumes?

Cologne hadn't even heard of the Sailor Senshi before and was properly
mortified. This young woman was a doctor and one of her daughters was one of
those girls on the screen? Young girls who fought demonic beings from a
previous age? Who had awfully darn silly attacks, no sense of tactics
whatsoever, and she dearly hoped Shampoo didn't see this. Otherwise Shampoo
would likely get a costume like that herself.

Hotaru wondered why they hadn't come and gotten her. If that was how they
fought, they needed all the help they could get.

Kasumi briefly wondered if she would be expected to dress like that. She'd
have to insist on a mask, otherwise she'd never be able to manage a skirt
that short. Mainly though she sipped on her tea and was grateful that her
stomach was settling and her headache was settling down to a dull roar.

"That's the end of the available data on the Sailor Senshi," said Setsuna as
the screen went to a stillframe. It had only taken an hour to come up with a
composite that matched the data available on this timeline and display the
summary. Of course, it had been thrown together on the fly but they'd had to
wait for Kasumi and Hotaru to recover. "They vanished in the assault on
Beryl's base. It has been determined that they are not dead, but their
current whereabouts are unknown."

Doctor Mizuno excused herself. She had to sort all this out in her mind.

--------

Someone was calling him. Persistant. Annoying. "Fess."

"Sorry but this *was* on my list of priorities for you," said the computer.

Greylle yawned. "Uhm. Alien invasion? Dark Kingdom attack? Second Impact?
Giant asteroid? Akane's cooking?"

"Actually, sir, it's the Prime Minister. Washington is rather upset with you
claiming Mars."

"Put them on." Greylle tried unsuccessfully to suppress another yawn as the
video and audio pickups were engaged and a holographic "screen" was
displayed. "Ohayo, PM. Morning, Prez."

The Japanese prime minister looked as if he had gas. The United States
President looked annoyed.

After waiting for the bluster to abate a bit, Greylle held up a hand. "Okay,
getting around all this 'national security' and 'rights' and other Orwellian
doublespeak with emotional buzzword crap, you think it's unfair that there
are currently bases being built on Mars and in Martian orbit and that I've
got probes in the Asteroid Belt?"

Another wave of indignitation and talk about things that frankly mattered
damn little to the recipient of those messages.

"Fine." Greylle held up a hand. "Fess, can you project an image of those
secondary sites?"

"Yes, sir."

"i'm not a sir, i work for a living," mechanically replied Greylle. "Dorsa
Brevia region. Show site 3."

A topological map appeared in the hologram.

"What's this?" The American president asked, peering at the odd image and
apparently listening to someone out of sight.

"It's a 3D representation of a lava tunnel in the Dorsa Brevia region of
Mars. By the time you can get men there, i can have cracked nitrogen and
oxygen out of the various materials there and have an airlock installed.
This will give you an enclosed Earth-type atmosphere in a natural enclosure
of two hundred meters wide, three hundred meters across, and two kilometers
long. i suggest you bring plants that can handle cold and low water. Lichens
work pretty well." The display changed to show the section mentioned.

The American President continued to make demands. "We demand access to your
technology! We have a right to..."

"NO YOU DON'T!" Greylle yelled at the display, momentarily losing his
temper. "You want to know *why* i'm keeping this technology secret? Look at
this. Fess, display mechanism 'Curative Chamber'."

"I don't see why..."

"Consider this little gadget," said Greylle, noting idly that Doctor Mizuno
had stuck her head in to see what the yelling had been about and was staring
at the two people displayed. When had *she* shown up? "Here we have
something that eventually could be used to extend life. DNA forms fractal
patterns which then constructs the organism. That DNA breaks down
eventually, error messages increasing in number, and you either have cancer
or the breakdowns that lead to the problems of old age. This kind of gadget
could be upgraded by me to scan a subject's DNA and then come up with a
nanomachine treatment that could go into every cell, repair the damage, and
then harmlessly be eliminated by normal biological methods. What would be
the effect if this treatment, horrendously expensive as it would be, able to
extend a lifespan to a thousand years, came into the open market?"

There was silence from the two leaders as they tried to process such an
unthinkable thought.

Doctor Mizuno cleared her throat. She was reluctant to speak in front of the
two, but this was within her purview as a physician. "Those who could not
afford the treatment would demand it. Birth rates would skyrocket if this
treatment did not somehow sterilize the patient. Riots, food shortages, and
more riots."

"Thank you, Doctor." Greylle said with a nod. "i can't release portable
fusion generators for much the same reason. There are terrorist
organizations that would not hesitate to take advantage of such things.
We're working on a few projects that *could* be released slowly into general
use and will do so. Anything we do release has potential for misuse so we're
not going to release anything without careful consideration."

--------

Doctor Mizuno had come in because it was something to concentrate on beyond
her daughter apparently being a "sailorsuited warrior of love and justice"
who was currently MIA and replaced with an artificially created at least
partly organic artificial intelligence.

She watched as this young man managed to politely (for the most part)
stonewall the American President while managing to make vague comments to
the Japanese Prime Minister.

Doctor Mizuno nodded as a site on the Martian South Pole boundary was ceded
to Japan. Borehole complex and water mines? Sounded odd but he was giving a
gift to his hosts, and that was how the Doctor understood it. What the PM
seemed to understand that the American did not was that if they had a
livable area waiting for them on Mars, everything else could follow. This
young man wasn't offering a free ride, he was trying to offer a hand up.
Quite a difference.

The boy was also speaking English. She could follow his lip movements. She
was hearing him in Japanese and she was betting that the Prime Minister was
also hearing Japanese. The American President, in the typical manner of
Americans, was assuming that everyone was speaking English.

Martian colonies. Knowledge of her daughter's extracurricular activities
that even her mother had only vague suspicions of after the fact. Robots of
all shapes and designs. Artificial lifeforms and medical miracles from what
little she'd observed. That this boy was facing two world leaders with such
calm and showing no particular deference to either. A resurrected AEGIS. All
pieces of a puzzle that the pediatrician was trying to fit into place.

She was aware of the girl with the apron watching from the doorway. Doctor
Mizuno had seen large numbers of girls just like her: the archetype of the
Japanese housewife. At this point, she couldn't tell if this was an android
or a real girl except for the obvious signs of shock. In way over her head
apparently.

The younger girl, dressed as a Shinto shrine maiden, still in the kitchen
apparently. She'd been slightly scandalized at seeing the length of the
skirt on the senshi uniforms and had protested that she had bony knees.
Well, Doctor Mizuno had been a little scandalized herself. If she had seen
Ami running around in a skirt that short and a tight fitting top like that,
she would have had a few protests about it.

Considering the puzzle before her, an idea took shape and she looked towards
the ceiling. "Uhm, Fe-su?"

"Yes, doctor?" A pleasant baritone spoke out of midair next to her, causing
the pediatrician to nearly go for an orbital insertion herself.

After her breath was under control again and she was no longer clutching her
chest, the Doctor tried to regain some quiet dignity and remember what the
question was. "Uhm, can I ask a question?"

"You can ask all sorts of questions, but I am afraid your security clearance
is insufficient for a wide range of topics to be answered," came the amused
reply.

"You're a robot?" The Doctor was considering possibilities. Was she, the
aproned girl, the old woman, and that young shrine maiden the only humans
here? How sophisticated were these AI? From what she had seen, very - which
brought up some philosophical questions.

"Actually I am an AI construct. There are robot bodies I could fit in, but I
am currently at the hub of some sophisticated networking systems throughout
this complex. In a very real sense, I *am* this complex."

"How many humans are here at this complex?"

"Define human. Define here. There isn't any reason for you not to know, but
I'm a little unclear as to what precisely you mean."

"I'm really not up to complex philosophical debates here," said Doctor
Mizuno. "I just found out my daughter has been playing sentai hero when she
vanished and that this boy apparently had a relationship with her in another
life. My ability to deal with strangeness is getting a little overloaded."

"Then answering would probably be a bad thing," replied Fess in a reasonable
tone. "Would a nice cup of tea help?"

"Actually, it might." Doctor Mizuno looked at the floor. "They *never* told
me there would be days like this in medical school."

"I've just contacted Hotaru in the kitchen. She'll put an extra cup out for
you and Miss Tendo," advised Fess.

The Doctor walked slowly back to the kitchen to find that Kasumi had already
reached there and there were indeed three cups of tea set out in tetsubin
cups. The older woman was not present. Her eyes darted to the side and she
saw a formal teaset had been set to the side. "Someone getting married?"

Seeing blushes on *both* girls, the Doctor decided she wasn't going to
inquire any further. She was already feeling that she'd wandered through the
Twilight Zone and somehow Rod Serling was not going to be able to explain
any of this.

"So, Fess, how would you detail the inhabitants of this complex?" Sitting do
wn and gratefully accepting the tea, Doctor Mizuno wondered how to get in on
the search for her daughter. So far, allying with the guy out there seemed
her best chance but how to do it? She didn't want to wait around for a
decision based on what the "Ami" had said yesterday.

"Three humans, one Silver Millenium reincarnated human, one dimension
travelling alien reincarnated dragon from the Silver Millenium who is also a
specialist in White Magic, three marionettes, two ARNIE type androids, one
Workspider, four databots, one R2 unit, one android WWI Flying Ace, four
paintbots, three Type II Workbots, six Welderbots, three K-9 units, one
Timer class cyberdoll, two Maid class cyberdolls, one Defender class
semi-autonomous powerarmor, and myself. Not counting those without any true
AI at all."

Doctor Mizuno shook her head. Information overload. Maybe she ought to
consider just getting back to work instead of taking personal time off.

---------

"Fess, relay the information about the two sites going to the United States
and Japan from my conversation with those two."

"Yes, Greylle. Do you think it will satisfy them?"

"No, not really. I would expect that the Emperor and *his* allies will.
Strengthen our defenses will you? I'd expect ninjas and Yaks from various
corporations and possibly special forces from the States come to 'liberate'
the sort of technology we've got here." Greylle slumped in his seat. "Fess,
how old am i?"

"Currently you are sixteen years old."

Greylle glared at one of the walls. "No. Overall. How old am i?"

"I'm not certain of that data," came back a hesitant reply from Fess.

"Close to two hundred years back in that Third Labor timeline," speculated
Greylle. "Seventy years on Gehenna. Twelve years as Orion in that timeline
where I was Minako's pet dragon. Ten years as a very ersatz Ranma Saotome in
that other timeline. Nineteen years in that Sabre Marionette world. Twenty
years here and there. Close to ninety years as the incubus in so many
different timelines i can't remember them all. i'm *old*, Fess. There are
times i feel considerably older than that."

"I see..." Fess said. "You're likely tired from insufficient rest after
casting that high level spell."

"Maybe," Greylle conceded. "After everything went to crap in that Fourth
Labor, i was ready for rest eternal. Actually hoping for it to some extent.
i'm tired, Fess. i just don't know if i can stay the course any more."

"By the way, Hotaru Tomoe is here."

Blinking, Greylle tried to process that change of subject. He'd thought they
weren't going to build a false Hotaru because there had been something about
the real one being around still. "Hotaru the marionette?"

"No, the human Hotaru Tomoe. Scans have revealed no presence of the Mistress
9 persona."

"Hotaru?" Greylle thought back. "Ah well, back into the role i guess. You
know, Fess, she's kind of like the little sister i've never had."

"I don't think she's thinking of that sort of relationship," said Fess,
really uncertain about how to broach this subject.

"Hmmm. Well, it looks like most of the projects are going well and don't
require *my* immediate intervention. Just be sure to do something about the
security uprating. It's best if we could finish the Arcadia or the Mars base
first so we could relocate if need be. Though *i* am stuck in Nerima for the
foreseeable future."

Fess checked a few things before responding. "Actually, Project Slideway
should be ready for testing this afternoon."

"Good," admitted Greylle. "That *would* vastly simplify things if that was
operating."

--------

Akane leapt, twisting about in midair, then brought her arm down in a
precise manuever.

The volleyball was intercepted by Minako, who managed to return it with a
sliding roll.

Most of the other players were gaping as Minako Aino managed to keep apace
with Akane Tendo, and they were both operating a good deal of the time
having leapt higher than the net.

Then Makoto (on Minako's side) began playing in a similar fashion. Then
Usagi (on Akane's side) joined the festivities.

Yuka was wishing she could get her power armor. Sayuri was grateful Yuka
couldn't.

Haruka (on Minako's side) didn't like feeling left out. Michiru (on Akane's
side) likewise.

"Maybe a game of Wreckball would be better," suggested Rei from the
sidelines.

"Wreckball? What's that?" Sayuri pounced on the cue of something to
concentrate on besides *this* weirdness.

"Something a little like soccer, I think," said Rei, having only seen a
brief notation on one file. "There's three forward linesmen, two guards, and
a goalie, on each side. One scores points by kicking or throwing the ball
into the goal net without the goalie catching or blocking it."

"Sounds simple," agreed Sayuri, wondering if this was something they played
in Juuban.

"You can tackle, kick, hit, clothesline or otherwise attack anyone carrying
the ball. Which is another way to score, by the way. You can get penalized
for attacking someone besides the ball carrier, but the referee has to catch
you doing it. Someone physically ejected from the field is considered out of
bounds." Rei considered adding that from what she saw in the clips that went
with the article that personal grudges abounded.

"Shampoo think this sound like fun. We play?"

"Yuka, if you even *think* of volunteering us for this sport, I'll never
speak to you again," said Sayuri quietly. Especially considering how the
volleyball game was going, Sayuri felt that if they tried this 'Wreckball'
she'd likely end up hospitalized. At *least.* Considering what had happened
to Akane and Nabiki, however, something even more horrible might occur.

Ukyo and Shampoo nodded at each other, then took opposite sides in the
volleyball game.

"Tiger Acrobatic Forearm Smash!"

"Rolling Hyperspeed Defense!"

"Jupiter Lightning Return!"

"Amazon Flying Leap Volley!"

"Spatula Slam!"

Hiroshi and Daisuke stared. Usually they would be making comments about the
girls and how this or that girl looked cute or more risque remarks. Instead
they were just sort of gaping at the display and wondering what they could
do to avoid getting bounced around like that ball. (Which they were pretty
sure would happen if they tried being too suggestive with any of the girls
spending large amounts of time in the air above net level.)

---------

"Why robot girls?" Doctor Mizuno wasn't entirely sure *why* this bothered
her more than the Terminators or robot dogs or robot spiders or other robots
but there was a definite higher number of robot girls running around.

"Oh, well, i know more about marionette technology than other kinds, and i
just started building the replacement Senshi just to help cover for the lack
of the originals. Then they started building these Rei Ayanami - i got them
to stop after twenty of them."

Doctor Mizuno and Cologne both looked at the common sight of these albino
fourteen year old girls, one of whom was fitting parts of a really big
cannon together.

"The Rei units, one through twenty, are basic marionettes set up with an
Ishii Kairo. One of them attends school then downloads her experiences to
the others. Unfortunately the rest of them want to follow suit." Greylle
shrugged to indicate how little control he had over aspects of this
situation. "As for the Sakura, Maid, and Bunny types: the same thing
occurring. i encouraged the original more advanced units to upgrade
themselves and their operational parameters. The unfortunate thing is that
they keep coming up with experimental systems to work out and develop these
other series of units as test models."

Cologne mused as she watched several nubile blond girls working on welding
armored plates to the hull. "Where do they get the designs?"

"i've travelled. Some of those are based off designs from those travels and
others off of TV or movies that they themselves have watched." Greylle
shrugged.

"Doesn't it worry you that you're giving machines such power?" Doctor Mizuno
looked at an automated construction device and pictured the sort of wounds
those pincers and welders could inflict.

"i have safeguards in place, and the experimental models have similar
safeguards put in by the ones that came before. It's based on an imprinting
routine used where i learned to make marionette androids." Greylle sighed.
"Yeah, i *could* make self-aware androids specifically designed as war
machines, but they wouldn't be nice people."

"Ah," said Cologne, nodding.

"Besides, if you were worried about raw *power*, i hear Hotaru's around
someplace." Greylle looked up. "Fess, is Hotaru around?"

"Yes, Greylle," came the reply.

The Doctor debated for a moment before asking. "The little girl in shrine
outfit? What has she got to do with 'power'? Does she have some spiritual
sense?"

"No." Greylle considered then shrugged. "This is all confidential but you'd
probably figure it out anyway. Each of the Sailor Senshi has a magical
affinity to a certain element or type of magic, however instead of spells
what they access is channelling the energy into a specific pre-set attack or
form. Sailor Mercury, your daughter, is cold water: mist, fog, ice. There's
another one who does just water but i've never understood *why* they had two
Senshi for the same element. Mars-Fire, Jupiter got Plants and Lightning
which *has* to be some Japanese thing because it makes no sense otherwise,
Moon - Healing or Purification, Venus - either Metal or Love and i know that
doesn't fit the pattern at all but then the progenitors of the Silver
Millenium wasn't that consistent."

Cologne cut him off with a wave. "Yes. Yes. We've seen the summary of these
Senshi."

"Well, OK, Cologne - then there's Pluto. She does Time. Which brings us to
Sailor Saturn. The Senshi of Death and Destruction, whose power can destroy
a planet." Greylle waited for them to catch up.

Cologne's eyes nearly popped out. "That girl?!"

"If she were sufficiently motivated, yes." Greylle sighed. "Fortunately
she's a very nice girl when she's not possessed by demonic entities."

"I suppose that would help, yes," said the Doctor as she tried to reconcile
the shy little girl she'd spoken to earlier with someone who could end all
life on the planet.

"How do you know so much about them, and us for that matter? I didn't tell
you my name," Cologne asked quietly as she wondered about inducting that
girl into the Amazon tribe. Very very carefully to be sure.

Greylle considered what story to tell them. That he could have used magic?
That he knew them in a previous life? That they were fictional characters
from where he had originated? (Though in at least one timeline in which they
were real *he* had been a fictional character. That had been rather alarming
at the time.)

"Greylle, the probe of anomalous area south of Tokyo has produced odd
results," said Fess' voice. "This is most puzzling."

"Bring up a holographic display. Pardon me, ladies, but this is the best
lead i've had so far." Greylle expected the two to leave. He was
disappointed in that regard.

Fess hesitated but this *was* a priority. "As you can see the probe was
relaying video normally until it reached this fence, then was crossing over
the fence from the other side of the property without sufficient time lapse
or apparent interruption from the transmission."

"Time of lapse?" Greylle shelved the two hangers-on for the moment.

"Less than .002 seconds," responded Fess.

"Hyperspatial shunt around the manor?" Greylle asked. "Freeze frame on the
approach of the manor."

"Possible, but no energy release was detected."

"So we're looking at folded space of some kind, used as an anti-intrusion
barrier, of about 500 feet of space." Greylle looked over the old style
manor with its neatly trimmed lawn and hedge-gardens.

"A bit more than that actually," Fess replied. "That's a three story
manorhouse built in the manner of the American Southeast - period circa
1860."

"What's important about this?" asked the Doctor who was mainly focussed on
this possibly being a lead to her daughter's whereabouts as opposed to terms
like 'folded space'.

"That's what we're trying to determine," admitted Greylle. "We don't want to
tip our hand too early, there's *something* there that's trying to remain
hidden and has a lot of raw power. Experienced more with magic than with
technology like the probe."

"How much raw power?" Cologne was still dealing with the idea that the girl
with the really strong aura from earlier was able to lay waste a planet.
Perhaps it was an exaggeration on this boy's part?

"Quite a bit. The shielding is too tight for me to gauge accurately by
magic. Though my area of specialty is healing magic, not divination,"
Greylle absently answered while studying the image of the house. "The only
way i could tell through magic that the place was even there was when i was
bringing Akane back from the dead."

"It's hard for me to tell when you're joking," began the doctor.

Greylle blinked. "Hmmm?

"I don't think he was joking," followed Cologne as she looked back out at
where the ship was being built. "He seems the sort to do eleven impossible
things before breakfast. Why such big guns, child? No deficiencies that I
need to apprise Shampoo of, are there?"

"Hmmm?" Greylle blinked again, his concentration on something else entirely.

"No, that's right, when the tour group went past the shower we *did* get a
decent look," said the old matriarch with a grin.

"Hmmm," hmmmed Greylle, heading for the door. "Maybe if we used a satellite
in geosynch... Have to use passive sensors, but..."

Both women looked once more back to where a space battleship was being
constructed, then hurried to catch up.

Greylle walked from the hangar to the kitchen, still considering approaches
to the problem.

Hotaru and Kasumi looked up from their tea party and stood up as if they
wanted to say something, then each motioned for the other to go first.

"Greylle," said Fess, sounding suddenly upbeat. "Security precautions have
been upgraded. This facility is also now hardened for biological, chemical,
EMP, and nuclear attacks."

"Good, good," absently said Greylle.

"Are you expecting a fight?" Cologne wondered aloud. Privately she was
wondering that if Shampoo changed her mind and decided to grab this boy
instead of the other one, could they get some shelters like this made under
the village? It could be quite a good thing to have just for the peace of
mind value. Maybe she ought to send a message to the village in case one of
the others would do the trick. Sash would be a good choice. Maybe Lotion or
Clover. Hmmmm.

"No," answered Fess. "Not at present. There have already been attempts to
breach the security of this base, but only one has been successful."

Knowing exactly what the computer was talking about, Cologne shrugged. "I'm
old. I can't always wait around for permission."

Kasumi came to some decision. "Excuse me, why is everyone's lip synch off? I
feel like I'm watching some dubbed TV series."

"I am currently maintaining a field that utilizes micro force fields to
modulate wavelengths and alter a spoken language to another. Cologne is
speaking and listening to conversations in Mandarin Chinese. Greylle is
doing the same in English but through an earpiece and subvocalizer. Everyone
else is speaking Japanese." Fess thought it was a little distracting, but
good practice for when the inevitable dignitaries showed up.

Hotaru took another sip of tea. "Fess-sama. Is there a place where I can..."
Hotaru's voice went down to a whisper.

"...maybe some mini-drones..." Greylle speculated about using burrowing or
near orbital insertion of stealth probes.

Fess replied to Hotaru by manipulating the air just a few inches from the
girl's ear. Her life signs were indicative of heavy embarassment, and so it
was worth some consideration.

Cologne, Kasumi, and Doctor Mizuno silently wondered why Hotaru was so
embarassed to go to the bathroom, and why she was taking that teaset.
Greylle didn't notice.

"About this magic that you mentioned," began Cologne. She was more
comfortable with martial arts or magic than technology, but could see the
use of all three.

"Hmmm?" Greylle blinked, realizing he was just going around in circles. "Oh,
healing magic. You know: curing diseases, healing wounds, removing minor
curses, curing blindness or deafness, that sort of thing. i can raise the
newly dead under very specific circumstances. Things like that. i'm not
powerful enough yet to do regeneration or restoration spells."

To say Doctor Mizuno was interested would be like saying the sun was warm.
Cologne also was tallying up uses for this young man and how many Amazons
she could get over here. Preferably with one or two married to him.

"Do you have any magic you can show us," began Mizuno.

Greylle picked up a teaspoon.
"Gather ye the mana flow,
Bring it forth in magic glow.
Light!"

Staring at the glowing spoon, the two wondered how to secure that sort of
talent for various patients that they knew of.

Kasumi merely raised an eyebrow. She liked doctors and was interested in
medicine. This seemed quite handy. Perhaps her Father's marriage engagement
between her and this gaijin had benefits and possibilities she hadn't been
aware of previously.

-------

Watching a holoscreen that Fess had thoughtfully opened for her, Hotaru
finished setting things up and reflected that this did appear to be a good
match. "Okay, I'm ready here. Can you signal him, please Fess-sama?"

"Just Fess will do," responded Fess. "I'll let him know."

Hotaru began fidgeting. If only she were older, she knew she could get him
to view her as something besides a little sister. If only...

If things had gone normally, Hotaru would have died and been reborn as a
baby. She would later be able to advance her age to what she'd just lost
through her own power. Adding two years was relatively simple.

-------

"We have just received confirmation that the initial test of the Slideway
has been successful," Fess said. "It will still take some time before we're
ready for massive transports or sending living subjects."

"Slideway?" Cologne asked.

"Did you notice that the Arcadia hangar did not have an exit?" Greylle
asked. "The ship's too big for a normal hangar. So we're using a micro jump
when it is ready. Same technology different application. Instead of using a
ship to leap, it's just a room. Position is set three ways and we won't be
able to operate it regularly due to the orbital positions of the planets and
the differing rotational periods, but on occasion you'd theoretically be
able to enter a room here, sit down in a crash couch, and then exit on Mars.
Takes a lot of power but it would cut time and other costs down enormously."

"Oh, Greylle, Hotaru would like to see you in the auxilary meeting room,"
Fess interceded.

"Ah, excuse me, ladies." Greylle bowed to the three women and left.

"You said 'eleven impossible things before breakfast'," said the Doctor
eventually.

Cologne checked the clock. "Well, before lunch at least."

"Fess," asked Mizuno-sensei of a wall, "is Hotaru in some sort of trouble?
I'm a pediatrician, after all."

Fess opened a holoscreen.

-------

Even Ranma Saotome, Heir of Martial Arts Eating In A Disgusting But Rapid
Manner, was appalled.

Akane belched. She looked a little embarassed afterwards, but everyone would
admit that it was a mighty belch.

Yuka and Sayuri looked down at their empty plates and consoled themselves
with the diet they had unintentionally gone on by sitting near Akane. Though
the smell from a certain yattai operated by an enterprising classmate was
suggesting their diet need not go on for long.

Ranma looked down at the broken ends of his chopsticks, noting that not only
were the ends of the chopsticks sheared off but most of his bento (box
included) was also missing.

Hiroshi and Daisuke noted the complete absence of their bento box lunches,
box and lunch both being conspicuously absent from the table in front of
them.

Ukyo merely grinned and made another fresh piping hot batch of okonomiyaki
as she noted that lunches were not only missing from Akane's table but two
neighboring tables.

"Ahhh, that was good," said Akane, licking her fangs. Then blinking. "Why is
everyone looking at me?"

Shampoo merely grumbled about her great-grandmother saying that *she* wasn't
allowed to turn into a catgirl. No. Shampoo had to be more responsible.
Couldn't even get a power armor suit like those two schoolgirls. Shampoo
never got to have any fun! Life was so unfair! And now she had to go buy
lunch from stupid Spatula Girl!

Nabiki merely smirked from three tables away. One of the nice androids
(Makoto) had made these bento lunches this morning, they were quite good,
and she'd known darn well something like this was coming. Just Akane's
natural competitiveness and that she was currently so much more free with
her emotions, particularly the "positive" ones.

The middle Tendo daughter frowned slightly as she realized something and
glanced over at the table where Ranma was yelling at Akane, and Akane's
reply was to grin and shrug and say something indistinct. Nabiki thought
back and realized that Akane was "mellow" - she wasn't nursing that little
flame of anger constantly in her heart the way that she had been since grade
school. There was this content air about Akane instead, as if she were
unconcerned with such things as the current addition of fur, ears, tail and
claws.

Akane, unconcerned by her sister's scrutiny or her fiance's comments about
her pigging out. She was pleasantly full and would prefer finding a nice lap
or sunbeam to curl up in and skipping afternoon class. Oh well, maybe after
school.

-------

Greylle went to the appointed room to see what "little sister" Hotaru was up
to. He had met Hotaru on, gee, it must have been six or seven wildly
divergent timelines now. He hadn't gotten to know the marionette Grape well
in that Sabre Marionette world. The sailorjin world with Saturn Hotaru had
been scary: that Hotaru had been extremely confident and aggressive. For the
most part she was a quiet sort that triggered all sorts of protective
instincts.

Entering the room, Greylle noted that Hotaru was shifting around
uncomfortably and looked different. Of course that was possibly because she
was sitting on her heels in some formal Japanese position. Her clothes
weren't quite so bulky on her for some reason, maybe she'd gotten them
adjusted by sweet-talking Fess.

Fess' voice whispered to him through the earpiece. "You're supposed to take
a place directly across from her, sitting in the same fashion, and say
nothing."

Greylle nodded, understanding that the Japanese were very fond of ceremony
and being inscrutable. This was apparently important to Hotaru, so he'd go
along with it. As he'd said to Cologne - Hotaru was a nice girl when she
wasn't demonically possessed.

Hotaru took boiling water off a hotplate, poured it into a cup
(unfortunately splashing the water everywhere), took a wooden spoon full of
loose tea, dumped it also into the cup, then used a whisk to stir it around.

This was worth staring at. Water and bits of tea stem decorated the table.
Hearing a noise, Greylle looked over at where Hotaru was almost in tears.
Tabling for the moment the question of what she was trying to accomplish,
Greylle wanted to offer some encouragement but remembered Fess saying that
silence was necessary. So he simply reached across the low table to briefly
touch her hand, smile and nod.

Hotaru essayed a weak smile back and continued on with what little she could
remember of the ceremony but her nervousness wasn't helping.

-------

Cologne watched with a certain degree of puzzlement. "I have long heard that
the sharing of tea in the tea ceremony is heavily laden with meaning. That
every move carries a meaning and is meant to carry great significance, that
even a tiny change in the positioning of the hands can alter greatly the
message being given by the girl performing the ceremony. Exactly what is she
conveying with this?"

Still wincing, Doctor Kumori Mizuno felt like covering her eyes rather than
watch any further. There was a certain fascination like viewing some
horrible plane crash or automobile accident. Especially now as the girl
somehow managed to dump the cup of tea while trying to set it in front of
the boy, landing it in his lap with obvious results. "Other than she's
nervous, not really familiar with what she's doing, and just knocked over
the pot. I think maybe my professional services may be required at this
point."

"The boy *does* look like he's in serious pain at this point," said Cologne,
silently awarding the American some points for trying to assure the young
lady he was all right despite being curled up around the splashdown site.
"What's she trying to do now?"

"It looks like she's trying to get his pants off," said the Doctor. "Do you
suppose she did that on purpose? Girls today can be *so* forward."

"Hmmm," hmmmed Cologne. Maybe she ought to suggest this tactic to Shampoo?
"Well, being forward is a good thing. You're only young once you know."

"Well, there goes his pants," the doctor noticed. "I think she's trying to
check his wound."

"He's not being very cooperative." Cologne said, pouring herself some more
tea. My goodness, this was entertaining! She hadn't seen something like this
since Lilac and Douglas began *their* courtship. Hopefully this wouldn't
turn all syrupy sweet like *that* had.

Being a physician, Doctor Mizuno knew that it was impossible for someone to
spontaneously combust from the force of one's blush. Hotaru seemed ready to
test that as she suddenly realized what she was doing. Fainting was probably
not her best choice of actions however. Now it was the Amerikajin who was
turning redder than a firetruck. Considering how he was in his shirt and
underwear with a girl draped over him, this was understandable. "Didn't she
look younger previously?"

"Definitely, but I would guess that going from twelve to perhaps fifteen is
a small change to someone with her reputed power level," opined Cologne.

"My services appear needed." The Doctor got up, inwardly gloating. This was
just the opportunity she needed to check out the medical facilities.

Kasumi got up. She'd be able to check out the medical facilities in detail
if she offered to help.

Cologne grinned secretly. If there were medical facilities here, she'd be
able to see exactly what could be done with them.

---------

Fess checked the position of the V-1 space vehicle, en route to Venus.
Likewise the X-1 which was more than halfway to a particularly interesting
looking pair of asteroids. That was followed by checking the newest set of
marionettes being manufactured with Ishii Kairo.

Nonthreatening packages were a consideration when dealing with humans not
quite ready to deal with Artificial Intelligences that had superhuman
strength among other things, hence the: Maid series, Bunny series, Sakura
series, and now the Kitten series.

Most of Fess' attention was on Project Slideway. Building up the transport
chamber so that the next available point could see a large amount of
equipment and supplies transferred was a priority. Pressure loss needed to
be allowed for in case there were any leaks for the brief moment that there
was a connection between Mars and Earth. Not to mention the shock buffers,
as there was a number of differences in velocity between the two planets.
Which was why, ideally, this project would be discontinued as soon as a ship
was actually ready to make the leap.

It just wasn't as efficient or safe.

Tomorrow was the day that Greylle had to leave the complex, go back to his
tiny apartment, and stop contact with the base. Whether he'd be able to keep
his hands off was another question.

Registering Hotaru Tomoe as a transfer student to Furinkan, especially now
that she was apparently sixteen years old, was likewise simple. Fess simply
made the request of the appropriate authorities and the Emperor's office
sent back that it would be taken care of and that he wished that Tomoe-san
and Shard-san would have a joyous courtship.

Fess also continued directing various simple construction robots to
reinforce security measures, building the Arcadia, and monitored the
development of the healing chambers. He was a Faithful Cybernetic Companion,
after all, mult-tasking was natural to him.

--------

Next: Back To School

Chapter 12: "Dragon Ascending Pitch"

DISCLAIMER: Most characters owned by other people, which is the nature of
fanfiction after all.

---------

Of all his favorite places to be, high school wasn't.

College was better for actually learning something, less formal settings
were better for socializing, and despite the usual anime series - a high
school really wasn't the ideal place to defend the Earth from alien
invaders.

Furinkan was hardly a typical High School, but it was likewise not
especially worthy as either a place of learning or a place of social
interaction.

Returning to the "hallowed halls" after a month's absence, Greylle had found
the entire thing an enormously bad situation. On a most basic level, he
needed to feel useful and keep busy. Preferably without being overwhelmed.

The first day back had seen a lot of questions as to why he was back and
when could they get tours of the complex.

Nabiki had sold the official story: that he was entirely cut off from those
resources as part of a deal with the Japanese government. Now he had to go
back to being the baseball star.

Shampoo had gotten into a big fight with Ukyo over Ranma. The two had
started out rivals, become friendlier, and were now back into bitter
rivalry. Most of the time.

Genma had discovered that his transformation into a little black piglet was
an override on his Jusenkyo curse. Now whenever splashed with cold water, he
turned into a pig instead of the huge bear-creature that he had been. Soun
was delighted as Pig-chan didn't shed as much and certainly ate less.

Soun was pretty much inside the house alternatively sulking because he'd
thrown his three daughters out, and delighting in how this gave the girls a
chance to "bond" with Ranma and/or the gaijin as part of his plan.
Especially as the story was that the gaijin had moved back to a tiny cramped
one-room apartment. One of his girls would be alone with the boy of her
choice, nature would take its course, and there would be a wedding!

Hotaru had transferred in and spent a lot of time being ignored by most of
the boys present. She *did* vow to try again on the tea ceremony, or maybe
she should use a Western approach. Her boss Amaterasu just seemed to laugh a
lot whenever the subject came up.

Ami and the rest of the ersatz Senshi transferred to Juuban for some reason.

Yuka waxed eloquent about her power armor. Sayuri grumbled about her own
power armor.

Akane grumbled about how Ranma couldn't seem to look her in the eye anymore.
Also that the boys seemed to stare at her chest a lot. But then so were a
lot of the girls for some reason. Oh and then there was that weird boy in
the back who kept trying to tie something to her tail and plucking hairs.
Hikaru something.

There *had* been some changes but some things had remained the same in the
month gone from Furinkan.

He was still assigned to 1-F, which for some reason only known to the
Japanese was on the third floor. (The seniors, class numbers like 3-D, were
on the first floor.)

Okay, there was now five floors (not counting the two basements) which could
be reached by escalator or elevator or stairs. There was the heated outdoor
pool (which actually helped to maintain temperature in the underground base
by pumping excess heat out into the piping), there was the baseball field
and the track area unchanged from previous (at least as far as the eye could
see), there was the astronomy section with its telescope dome and
planetarium level, there was the metal shop and mechanics bays for those
inclined to learn such things, the home economics area had apparently been
upgraded from comments though he hadn't seen it yet, and there was the
library.

The technology had been aimed at late 20th Century, which meant in this case
that while the rest of Tokyo was in 1992, Furinkan Senior High School was
currently using brand new equipment that ranged from c.1962 (the kitchens
and cafeteria) to 1999 (the computer lab and library) to one area which was
closer to 2011 in tech level (the astronomy department used fiberoptic and
computer assisted visual range enhancement components that were a bit much
for 1992 - especially with a link to a lunar orbit space telescope that
nobody had bothered to tell him about).

The word, it seemed, had gotten out. Some administrators had been bragging
about how Furinkan (one of the worst schools in academic performance in
Greater Metropolitan Tokyo) had recently gotten some major overhauls
courtesy of a mysterious sponsor/benefactor.

So Greylle was at least a little amused, despite his funk over being cut
off from what he considered the important stuff, at hearing about eminent
researchers or respected professors who were practically lined up to come
teach at Furinkan.

Of course there were the old teachers, who might have stood a little more
proud and straight, but were the same droning bores that they had been prior
to the makeover. Which meant that Ranma was still falling asleep in class,
of course.

Some of the new instructors were as bizarre as anything that could
reasonably be found in a nation as conformist as Japan. Tekiko Tokusei (aka
T2) was the new astronomy professor, newly arrived from Osaka, and someone
who was frequently trying to find away into the base below the school. A
space otaku who would rant for hours about the lack of hard science in
science fiction movies and series, but wax eloquent about Oort Clouds and
Dark Matter, though she frequently had to be pried away from "her" precious
telescope.

Astronomy had become very popular at Furinkan. Some cynics would say it was
because Tokusei was a bouncy little girl deemed cute by many. Others because
of the high tech equipment. Greylle had come to the conclusion within five
minutes of meeting the woman that it was because she was genuinely
enthusiastic about her subject, and both qualities were quite apparent.

It was *Senior* High School in Japan, and therefore not mandatory. "Middle
School" - what was called Junior High in America, was the last grade
required of the students. Many kids who had family businesses to attend to
never went into the last three years. Which was Ranma's usual attitude: he
was attending under duress and saw little use for high school. In his
experience: Ranma + School = Trouble. Also pointless, especially since
Jusenkyo and being dragged to the Tendo house. A brief conversation with
Ranma had given Greylle an insight there: Ranma felt that since his life had
been mapped out with no room for him to manuever - why make any more effort
than was absolutely necessary?

So Ranma was one of the few students who did not find the new classes on
astronomy, the computer lab, the library with its computers and huge
database on nearly every subject imaginable, or even the bays where
automotive mechanics could be taught to be of interest. His father had
ingrained into every fiber of his being that only martial arts mattered.
Only the actual fighting part of martial arts mattered - and that itself was
for any and all challenges *must* be accepted and anything that could be
done to win *must* be done.

Greylle wondered, upon being confronted with this, if it were possible for
his opinion of Genma Saotome to get any lower. At least the current P-chan
was keeping himself well away from the school.

Of course, since he'd forgotten to bring a pocket translator, he was stuck
with his fractured Japanese trying to understand a lot of things and only
partially succeeding.

--------

Evening had arrived at the complex, and several things had occurred. The one
with the most far reaching consequences had seen everyone normally allowed
access to the complex gathered in one room. There was also someone not
normally allowed access, but Fess hadn't been able to find a way to resolve
the desire to remove that person without revealing the sensor upgrades.

Ranma was bored. School was boring. Ryouga hadn't been by lately. There
wasn't anyone to fight, and he was getting tired of being ignored. He was ho
ping this would be *something* interesting.

Yuka was wearing her power armor, looking a lot like Linna from "Bubblegum
Crisis." Not because anyone was expecting problems, but because she thought
it looked cool.

Hotaru was present by Fess specifically requesting that she dedicate a
building, so she had practiced the appropriate ceremonies and had brought
the requisite materials.

Kasumi was present because she was still trying to find a way to request a
powerup. She was in many ways a traditional Japanese housewife, but there
had lately come a spark deep down within her of desire for more. To learn to
be a healer using the advanced techniques available. To fly like Nabiki
did - without a care in the world. To have the overwhelming levels of cute
and cuddly that Akane's tigergirl body seemed to put out continuously.

Cologne was present because Kasumi made a nice cup of tea and even if this
complex was awfully technologically dependent, she found herself in the role
of wise elder/instructor with a number of respectful young pupils listening
to her. Okay, maybe those pupils *were* machines or catgirls or strange
albino types. That didn't mean she didn't enjoy having conversations with
them. And she thought it likely that two of the catgirls and one of the
albinos would accompany her back to the village at the appropriate time.
Just the thought of what a twist in the shorts that would give some of her
rivals was worth a grin.

Shampoo was present because Ranma was present. Besides, Ukyo was here and
there was no *way* that she would allow Ukyo any quality time alone with
Ranma.

Ukyo was present because Ranma was present. Besides, Shampoo was here and
there was no *way* that she would allow Shampoo any quality time alone with
Ranma.

Akane was confidently crouched atop one of the crates and sniffing every so
often. She smelled pork and something else. Something that raised the fur on
her back if she could just figure out what it was.

Genma had unsealed a special technique to hide in his P-chan form in one of
the crates and get into the complex. Now he just had to grab some of this
equipment, change back, escape the complex, and he'd be *rich!* Any moment
now. Any moment.

Nabiki seemed to have some clue as to what was going on and kept fiddling
with a camera in her possession. She'd also watched a series called
"Slayers" recently and now would respond to questions with an odd wink and
the comment: "THAT... is a secret!"

The lights flickered and then went off, this accompanied by an odd lurching
sensation.

"Transfer complete," said Kiyuri, one of the Maid series who had just been
standing and observing until now.

Cologne pogosticked to one of the previously dark porthole style windows so
quickly that she left an afterimage. The others were more sedate, excepting
Ranma who continued to look bored.

Genma saw the abandoned tea and saw his chance. With a triumphant "buqii" he
knocked over the teapot, changed back to human, grabbed one of the smaller
boxes, and dashed out the door, closing it behind him. There was a short
corridor and another door, which came open quickly. Visions of riches
filling his head, he dashed out across the desert. About fifteen meters from
the doorway he was aware that something was *very* wrong.

"Stupid Oyaji!" Ranma tried to open the door but it seemed locked. Kiyuri
was immediately there to block him from trying a second time.

Kiyuri shook her head. "Please, Saotome-san, do not endanger your friends'
lives by forcing the door."

"Son in law," said Cologne drily, "you try to force that door open I'll show
you a few shiatsu manuevers you won't like to be that acquainted with. Look
out the window."

"Stupid Oyaji," repeated Ranma, wondering what the old ghoul was going on
about. It wasn't like... Ranma stared as he could get a decent look out the
window.

Reddish sands blew in sheets and Ranma could feel the deep cold penetrating
through both sets of windows. The sun looked awfully small in the sky and
the whole thing had an odd quality about it. "Uhm..."

Nabiki was rushing from one window to another, snapping pictures.

"Cargo transfer initiating," said Kiyuri, activating a conveyor to take the
packages into a holding area outside the transfer room. "Oh, welcome to
Mars."

"Mars? Like in: Mars? Like in the planet?" Ranma repeated.

Cologne stared out at where robots were chasing Genma who was still trying
to get away from the station and apparently hadn't quite realized why he was
having trouble breathing. "Ranma, normally I might feel that your father had
gotten what he deserved. However in this instance I think some additional
pain might be required."

"Huh?"

"Weather conditions outside the dome are typical for this time of year and
location," Kiyuri informed them as Ranma's father was finally caught and
brought back to the airlock. "Genma Saotome is still alive but is suffering
from: frostbite, pressure bruising over his entire body, carbon dioxide
poisoning, and..."

Anything that made an android pause struck the others as being of severe
interest.

Cologne was the first to ask. "What is it, child?" After all, the girl was
only sixteen in appearance but as she understood it had only been built a
week ago.

"...traces of human protein in his digestive system," Kiyuri said, blinking
rapidly. "Well, at least we know where Akane's original body went now."

Several people wanted to be ill at that revelation. Akane among them. Vows
of vengeance would come later.

"It is now official though, Genma Saotome is now registered as the first man
to walk the surface of Mars," finished Kiyuri. "Too bad, Ranma-san, you were
originally going to get that honor."

"O-YA-JIIII!"

*BONK!* Cologne withdrew her staff after lightly rapping Ranma on the head.
"Get in line, son-in-law."

---------

Greylle had no intention of using the crystal imbedded in his chest. The
crystal sometimes seemed to have other ideas.

Flashes of heat or tickles of energy came from it on occasion. Most of these
times he had no idea what the dang thing was trying to notify him of.
Changing to his natural dragon shape would have let him know if there were
spirits in the area, however changing to dragon anywhere inside metropolitan
Tokyo was likely to produce some results he wouldn't care for.

Besides, there were things he was more concerned with.

Finding a junkyard had been difficult, but once he had, Greylle was able to
finally gauge his strength a bit better. His human form could press a little
over 6 tons as near as he could tell from the way the hydraulic gauge shot
into the red. He could also haul six blocks of compacted cars atop each
other and heft it over his head, though keeping them balanced made the whole
thing difficult. Having one fall on his foot hurt, but didn't seem to do
much in the way of permanent damage.

Clearly - getting a decent workout and trying to build up his strength would
be difficult without access to the technology of the base. Otherwise he'd
just rig up some extremely high gravity area and be able to get a workout
that way.

Setting the cubes to the side he let out a deep breath. Greylle also figured
he'd have to work on toughness, speed, and baseball skills. Again: with the
base he'd be able to do something. Otherwise this was going to be a real
problem. As an age category 5 (or was he 6 now?) dragon, he'd be difficult
to injure and bleed huge amounts when something *was* able to injure him. As
a human, he was simply about as tough as your average ridiculously powerful
martial artist.

"RANMA! PREPARE TO DIE!"

Greylle blinked. He was over six feet tall, blond, blue-eyed, and more
thickly muscled than Ranma. Heck, he didn't even have a pigtail! How could
*anyone* mistake him for Ranma Saotome?!

Throwing knives crashed into a variety of objects with a lot of pinging
noises.

Greylle groaned. Well, now that he saw who it was, the mistake was
understandable. "Mousse, put your damn glasses over your eyes!"

"Your tricks won't avail you, and I'll free Shampoo from whatever hold
you've got her under," said Mousse while throwing seven throwing knives, two
hatchets, fourteen shuriken and a stale looking cheese pizza.

Greylle blinked at that last. "i have *got* to learn that Hidden Weapons
style."

"You acknowledge that it is a superior martial art?" Mousse stopped in
mid-leap, astonished that the foe he'd been tracking had that much humility.
Unfortunately he landed in a stack of radiators while he was distracted.

"Uhm, depends on what you use it for," Greylle admitted. "i don't think i
would want to *master* it, but it seems that it would have a lot of uses
outside of combat."

"Umf," said Mousse as he tried to untangle himself from where his robes had
gotten stuck by some protruding metal edges. The result being that he had
radiators dangling.

"Just the possibilities of being able to carry extra backpacks or another
load of camping gear. Or when i'm practicing Martial Arts Housekeeping away
from the house." Greylle could see *lots* of possibilities. In a world like
Rifts Earth, for example, being able to produce a spare rifle and handful of
e-clip ammo out of nowhere would be incredibly useful.

"Martial Arts *Housekeeping*?!" Mousse blinked. That sounded incredibly
lame. "I'll pay you for mocking me!"

"i wasn't going to charge you for it. Not that i was mocking you." Flicking
his wrist, he summoned his baseball bat. Though that was magic and not
martial arts. "After all, if i knew how to combine Hidden Weapons and
MA:Housekeeping, i'd be able to use Special Attack: Do You Want Fries With
That? Ya-TA!... huh?!"

Mousse had had his mouth open as he charged forward. Suddenly the myopic
martial artist went down with his mouth stuffed to the bursting point with
crinkle-cut crispy-brown french fries.

"How the heck did i do that?" Greylle wondered as Mousse started choking.
"Oh. Hang on Mousse, i'll do the Heimlich Manuever. i think it's like *so*."
*CRUNCH!* "oops."

-------

A set of oil barrels shot into the atmosphere of a cloudy planet, though
their speed at that point had been reduced to about the speed of a fast car.

Internal mechanisms popped tops and contents were scattered as gravity
caused the battered metal to speed up and begin the re-entry burn.

The powder from within the cannisters began raining down. Some burned up on
their own entry, their own speed still too great for the ultrafine particles
to last. Others drifted within clouds of carbon dioxide and sulfuric
compounds and their cargo was at last delivered.

Bacteria that could thrive in volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean or
in rocks found themselves once again in an environment that they could
thrive in.

A single surviving barrel lowered itself slowly into the crushing pressures
of the rocky surface. A mechanism dug deep, and then began sending out
tendrils into the volcanic rock around it. From these tendrils it would seek
out and leech metals and minerals to expand itself and eventually reproduce.

Other tendrils slowly extended as the machine found and began working those
native materials into its being. These extended out into the terrible heat
and poisonous atmosphere, in order to pull that atmosphere into filters.
Carbon was useful and could be put to use within the machine itself. Sulfer
could also be made of use, eventually, but for now it would simply be
concentrated and ejected.

As the lower tendrils continued to feed and distribute raw materials, flat
surfaces were extended from the upper tendrils to increase surface area for
both absorbtion and release purposes.

Eventually it could reproduce itself and begin spreading its influence, but
right now the machine was having enough of a time in the harsh environment.

On Venus, the first tree drank of its environment and began to thrive.

---------

Greylle sighed deeply as he got back to his teeny tiny apartment. Mousse
would survive, of course, but there had been a problem he hadn't foreseen.

When the Master Of Hidden Weapons had been brought to an emergency room,
they had taken off his robe. That turned out to be a bit of a problem.

Mainly removing Mousse's robes had been a problem because of them removing
from his person some items concealed there, and removing the robes had also
caused the Hidden Weapons style to go inactive. Which made a certain degree
of sense, Greylle supposed, he just hadn't realized what all the myopic
martial artist had on him.

The swords, daggers, shuriken, maces, blowguns, nunchakus, ton fa,
chainsaws, explosive eggs, and spears were all considered deadly weapons for
some odd reason. The various small appliances had ID numbers which were
being checked against lists of stolen items. The training potties,
umbrellas, children's toys, and a complete set of Tiffany 8 track tapes were
being considered as mere curiosities.

The explosives, on the other hand, were generating a bit of interest. As
Mousse was a Chinese national, he had to have smuggled all this into the
country. As soon as his ribcage was rebuilt and he came out from under the
anesthetic, Mousse would likely have to answer a whole lot of questions.

Greylle guessed that taking Mousse to the Emergency Room had been somewhat
of a tactical blunder on his part.

Stretching out in the small area of a studio apartment, he idly wondered
what it was he was forgetting. There was something he should be doing, but
what was it?

--------

Ranma sulked. There had been the chance to be the First Man To Walk The
Surface Of Mars. The first human being to walk on an entirely different
world, not just the moon, but another world! Not that it mattered that much
to him, but he could see where when he was old and gray he could've sat down
with his kids and told them about that. Respect. Something that he'd rarely
gotten in his life, *could* have been his. "Stupid oyaji," he muttered.

Cologne frowned slightly as the shifting sensation occurred again and the
familiar weight of Earth's gravity took hold. Pity about that. Once she'd
heard their was an entire section of Mars named Amazonis Planitia, she'd
wanted to go see it. Apparently a large flat plain that had the biggest
mountain on the planet on one end. Intriguing name, even if the place itself
sounded positively dismal. No pressure suits her size, and not enough time,
and the robots had insisted there really wasn't much to look at.

Kasumi breathed a sigh of relief. Relative safety. She'd been quite aware
that if you went through the foot thick wall of the enclosure, you'd be in a
poisonous atmosphere. As Mister Saotome had knocked over her kettle, Kasumi
found herself really wanting a nice cup of tea to get over this ordeal.

Nabiki pondered this latest development. Life on Mars struck her as being a
hardship, difficult and uncomfortable. This sort of thing was not for her.
Though she *could* see herself opening a casino that overlooked some of that
landscape. Exoticness was a big draw. No, Mars was not for her. Instead she
wanted to focus on the revelation that Genma Saotome had done something
horrible. Scanning revealed the chemical tags, and so she had to think of
some measure of revenge. That could have been *her* after all.

Akane wasn't aware of her own continual flicking in and out of her fingers,
a figurative baring of claws. Her old body was *gone* and now she knew what
that odd scent was. It was her own original body having been digested. To
say that she was displeased by her father's favorite houseguest would be to
almost criminally understate the case. Her tail was making sharp twitching
motions and there was a line of fur all along her back that was ruffled. If
Genma had been conscious he would have been quite nervous.

Genma was unconscious. He also had frostbite, pressure bruising, bleeding
from various openings, and was having some trouble breathing despite the
oxygen mask placed on his face. When he woke up he'd be in severe pain.
Walking unprotected on Mars was not particularly healthful.

Hotaru wondered if her sempai was okay. She was hoping to make friends with
some of these girls, but wasn't sure how to open a conversation with any of
them. The shrine miko considered that the difference between associating
with twelve year olds and sixteen year olds hadn't seemed that great prior
to making that leap, but now she was running into problems. Though mainly
she was ignored. She didn't have Akane's exoticness, and the other girls
were mainly off in their own groups discussing things that didn't seem that
interesting. Why was shopping such a big deal?

Yuka within her hardsuit happily hummed a song from an early '70s anime that
she only vaguely remembered. Hidden bases, Martian colonies, powerarmor, and
magical princesses? This was cool!

Sayuri tried to pretend that her friend of several years was not
experiencing some second childhood. Hidden bases, Martian colonies,
powerarmor, and magical princesses? What kami had she offended?

Ukyo had something else to hold against Genma Saotome. If they hadn't had to
return quickly she could have fixed everyone some okonomiyaki. Nabiki could
have gotten pictures. The advertising potential was enormous. Add to that
depriving Ranma of the opportunity to be the first Man On Mars? Oh yes, pork
okonomiyaki was looking more and more like a plan nowadays.

Shampoo didn't understand a lot of these events. She did know that
Great-Grandmother was upset with Ranma's father, and Ranma was upset with
his father, and Tigergirl was understandably *beyond* upset at Ranma's
father, and Spatula Girl, and well practically everyone else. Spooky Girl
wasn't upset, but Shampoo thought that maybe she was out of the loop too. It
would be nice to get back to the complex where everyone spoke Mandarin and
their lip-synch went to hell, but Shampoo was having trouble figuring out
how she could use this situation to get Ranma to realize he was her husband.

Kiyuri was a Maid unit equipped with an Ishii Kairo. She merely observed all
the interactions and tried to interpret them as best she could.

It took less than five seconds for the Slideway to pull them back, but in
another way it was a very long trip back to Earth.

------

Harry of Pungo, wizard at large, pondered this current mess.

The dragon was altering things, which would have brought all sorts of
magical retribution and the world would have been returned to normal after a
conclave of wizards had been brought together over the dead body of the
dragon if the dragon had been acting like your typical rogue wizard.

Except that these things were *not* being accomplished through draconic
ability or magical energies. This area was getting stranger and stranger,
but mostly magic was not being used.

The dragon now had a Class One Magical Artifact grafted to his chest, and
apparently no control over said artifact.

There was a Shinto shrine which had a mirror which was an interface device
for a Goddess First Class with Unlimited License.

There had been some healing and resurrection spells, but nothing major and
there had been no consequences from those actions.

Harry's spells had allowed him to spy on one of the resurrected girls, and
he'd learned from her that the dragon was actually a timetravelling alien
magical prince from the future. He wasn't sure he believed it but it was
clear that Nabiki Tendo believed it.

That this alien had technology capable of duplicating some really high level
magic had become apparent and was frankly causing Harry some hesitation at
this whole mess. Androids with souls? Teleportation tunnels? A spaceship
seen in one girl's memory?

So Harry had done what intelligent people have done since antiquity when
faced with a problem that puzzles the heck out of them. He handed the
problem off to someone else and went off to have a beer.

Which brought someone considerably more powerful and experienced to the Land
Of The Rising Sun.

Morgana Le Fey had been around quite some time and was considerably mellower
than she had been when Arthur and his folk had been around. She felt that
she'd gotten a bit of bad press there, but then she *had* been pretty nasty
during a period where nasty and brutish were pretty much requirements of the
era.

Within the past century, the most violent and hurtful thing she'd done was
give a curse of chronic flatulance to a clerk at Blockbuster Video who had
given her some late fees that she'd not earned. She had instead used the
woman as an experimental subject and been amused by the woman's performance
on several occasions thereafter.

Instead Morgana had been engaged in the magical equivelant of high energy
particle physics. There were several questions in the universe that both
physics and magic had trouble answering and she'd gotten curious about
finding those answers.

The nature of Dark Matter, for example. Scientists and mages could only
detect 4% of the universe. Look at the galaxies and how they move and you
could calculate the mass. So where was the other 96%? Morgana suspected that
Avalon had survived and likely accounted for a tiny little fragment of the
mass, but was now out of synch with Earth.

(There was actually some crossover with some physicists and astronomers
studying each others works and a few dabbling in magic. Naturally there were
some wizards running around studying physics and astronomy.)

There were also questions like Dark Energy, which could be postulated in a
similar manner from the Dark Matter as long as one didn't confuse it with
necromantic or similar magic. There were quantum black holes and their
larger cousins. The nature of gravity: was it a force as Newton theorized or
a warp in the fabric of space-time as Einstein suggested. And if the latter,
why did mass have that peculiar effect anyway?

After decades of trying to work out a spell which would stop and collect
enough neutrinos to actually determine what they were and how they'd look,
Morgana was hoping that this little interlude would help inspire her.

Yeah, yeah, another alien prince time traveller with magical powers and a
bunch of girls after him. Boring! The elf prince sort of thing had been
around for some time.

Okay, the Mars colony was different. Tigergirls were also not done too much.
The girl with the polearm *was* intriguing in a way. Snappy dresser too.
Hmmmm.

--------

Greylle opened the door and blinked for a moment before motioning the girl
in. "I not late you expecting is. What you up?"

Hotaru nodded, her homework level was nearly overwhelming and she'd just
been to Mars and back, but Fess had asked her to deliver this package.
Unfortunately her English wasn't even as good as his Japanese. "-Fess
deliver speak.-"

Taking the package, Greylle determined it was three of the silver ingots he
was supposed to be taking internally every so often as a dietary supplement
for dragons of his breed. He'd have to switch to his larger form to swallow,
much less digest them. "Thank you. Japanese you speak please."

Hotaru wanted to say many things, ask many questions. Unfortunately, with
the language barrier how could she even phrase them? "Sempai..."

"Hotaru-chan?" Greylle looked her over. She was nervous about something. She
also looked *very* different at 16. Something a little like Mistress 9, but
without the ridiculously long hair and a far gentler manner.

The young woman fidgeted as she considered what to do or say. Inside she was
still twelve, or younger considering the amount of time she'd been
influenced by Mistress 9. She wanted a friend very desperately, and a
fiancee (if done properly) could be a friend you had a longterm agreement
with. She was completely uncertain of how to proceed.

Greylle took the girl's hand and led her into the tiny room, noting that
she'd probably visited that makeover machine. Otherwise Hotaru wouldn't be
wearing makeup normally. Not having any idea what to say to her, he simply
went for the most obvious thing.

Hotaru got even more nervous. Was this it? Would she be able to prove that
she was *not* some kid sister? Would this hurt? She had some idea of what
was required, even if she hadn't taken those classes and was a little vague
on a lot of details.

The dragon knew how to set Hotaru at ease. Though why she was blushing was a
puzzle, there were things that he knew how to do. A nice hot cup of
chamomile tea. There was an old Japanese proverb: "If a man has no tea in
him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty." While he knew a few
Westerners who might disagree, this *was* Japan. "In Tokyo wear a square
hat," or however that other proverb went. The sharing of tea was a terribly
important part of a number of Japanese social conventions.

Hotaru found herself presented with a hot cup of some sort of tea, that her
host had used a microwave to warm up. How terribly Western. No sense of
ceremony at all. The idea that it might have been alcoholic and the
disappointment that it was *not* were brief concerns that nonetheless
managed to further confuse her.

"It late, Hotaru. Time is..." Greylle went suddenly very still, his eyes
wide.

The sometimes Sailor Saturn blinked. The tea tasted okay to her. Greylle
lapsed into English abruptly. Hotaru could only get a few words out of the
babble.

Greylle was suddenly excited as the whole thing clicked together. "-That's
it! TIME is the answer! Sailor Moon was trying to manipulate time one way,
Pluto was there and not where she could help out, there were distractions
all over the darn place. Maybe an attack by a Dark General. They ended up
stuck in time - suspended between moments as opposed to having their pasts
rewritten as 'normal girls'. Stuck there they wouldn't be able to get free!
If they're in zero time Pluto could have gotten them out, but she could only
do it if she was *outside* the cage! Otherwise no time passing means they
aren't even aware they're trapped!-"

"I think I'm going to have to take Fess up on the offer of English lessons,"
said Hotaru. School was difficult enough having skipped four years. Now
this. She tried a tentative smile back at her beaming fiance.

"-What i'll need is some way of breaking through the timeslip, maybe if i
cast a Dispel Magic and can get it amplified by the Silver Crystal...-"
Greylle was working out angles enthusiastically while scribbling out a note.
"Hotaru, take you note to base. Show there. Greylle get to base of Beryl on
own but need transport for Senshi if we succeed. Understand?"

Hotaru caught that, though Greylle's Japanese was getting difficult to
understand. "You know where the Senshi are?" On seeing a tentative nod,
Hotaru clapped her hands together in delight. She'd be getting more friends
soon! "So we'll go on that camping trip next Sunday?"

Greylle nodded, then wondered why Hotaru was blushing. Waitaminute. Wasn't
"kyanpu" camping? Oh. Hotaru wanted to see him in dragonform. Well, that was
understandable. Dragons were pretty cool.

-------

Mister and Mrs Tsukino had been a little put off by the meeting they'd
arranged with their vanished daughter. Okay, more than "a little" put off.

Shingo had tried teasing his big sister. She had raised an eyebrow and
commented about how illogical that process was.

Usagi had passed every test they could think of. This *was* their daughter.
However the past year had changed her incredibly. This was only the third
day that they had been together, and she was beginning to act a little more
like the Usagi they knew.

Except for her grades being nearly perfect. And excepting that she was
extraordinarily calm. And an excellent cook, even if she tended to favor
Thai dishes over Japanese. Or that she was graceful and agile in ways that
their clumsy daughter could only have hoped to have been.

That and while she admitted to being their daughter, she insisted that she
was not the same daughter that they had known.

It had taken a day and the help of one of Usagi's friends to convince her to
come home with them. Three days after *that* and she was still surprising
them.

Shingo was frightened of her at first. This couldn't really be *his* big
sister. As she slowly opened up, and became more openly affectionate, he
gradually started warming to this big sister who knew so much more than he
remembered.

When she cut her finger, there had been no bawling, just a quick act to put
a bandage over the wound and then clean the blood from the knife she'd been
using.

When Usagi ate it was a calm and dignified manner, chewing each piece of
food precisely.

However all three of the other Tsukino family members agreed that however
weird it was, this was definitely a quieter Usagi in their midst.

------

Greylle had just let Hotaru out of his apartment and was wishing her goodbye
when a rose slammed into the concrete and actually imbedded itself there.
"-Hey! Watch it! You could hurt someone with that!-"

Hotaru frowned. She didn't like people attacking her sempai.

"That is my purpose!" The guy in top hat and tuxedo declared, cape blowing
dramatically behind him. "How dare you add this innocent girl to your
conquests! Enemy of women! Enslaver of innocents! You have gone on far
enough!"

Greylle blinked. "-I didn't catch that, but it sounded like Tatewaki Kuno's
speeches being recycled.-"

Tuxedo Kamen blinked. "Somehow I think I've just been insulted."

Looking over the guy, Greylle had to admit that Tuxedo Kamen didn't look
quite as ridiculous as he could have. Though wearing formal dinner attire to
a fight didn't strike him as being terribly practical, Endymion had never
been a front-line fighter. "-So what's your gripe with me anyway,
Endymion?-"

"-For enslaving the Senshi, perish monster!-" A rose was thrown.

Greylle blocked it, then winced and pulled the stem out of his arm. Of
course, as he was a dragon, there was a lot of blood.

"Saturn Power, Make Up!" Hotaru thought it fairly silly that in this day and
age she should get her superpowers through makeup, but she'd complain about
it some other time.

"She's a Senshi?!" Tuxedo Kamen stared for a moment. Then returned his
attention to the evil monster who had done whatever he had done.

"Sailor Saturn," Greylle held up a hand. "This fight mine is. Excuse me."

Tuxedo Kamen was waiting for some energy attack, it was a typical youma ploy
after all. Instead what he got was the boy conjuring up a baseball bat and
racing forward. Kamen pulled his cane out of subspace. "Have at thee."

-------

Ranma froze as a concept that he had resisted for a long time finally forced
itself into conscious consideration. Watching Akane the tigergirl had caused
him to consider what his cursed form looked like.

A catgirl?! For an ailurophobe, this was not a pleasant idea.

This whole situation was decidedly weird to Ranma. Not that things hadn't
turned weird before getting to Nerima, it had been Jusenkyo that had seen
the weirdness escalate to insane levels.

"Oh dear!" Kasumi tripped. Naturally she was carrying a glass of cold water.

Ranma-kun vanished. Ranma-chan appeared. A trembling hand checked her ears.
Yes, soft and mobile triangular ears. The other hand checked the tail while
freeing it from the confines of his pants. Yup. Therefore...

The catgirl screamed as if a lost soul. Cat = panic = got to get away.
However *she* was the cat and therefore she couldn't get away. Therefore...

Ranma had never gone into the catfist this quickly before. Lost and alone,
the kitty looked around for someone trusted or at least liked. Since there
was no one really present, it was time to leave.

-------

Hotaru watched as two skilled people briefly fenced. One using a baseball
bat, the other using a cane. Hotaru watched as the superior strength of the
bat-wielder launched the cane-wielder nearly the length of the floor.

"-i don't want to fight you,-" Greylle told the boy.

Tuxedo Kamen struggled to his feet. "I will do whatever I need to do to free
Usagi."

"-Fine, be at Beryl's cavern as soon as you can. i'm heading there myself
immediately.-" Greylle turned to Hotaru. "Hotaru. Need Fess send transport
base of Beryl to go."

Hotaru silently added some kind of translation device to what needed to
accompany them but nodded.

With that, her fiance leapt over the railing and shifted, having remembered
that silver dragons could polymorph to something other than a human form.
Unfortunately he wasn't very good at it and the eagle was roughly the same
mass as Hotaru.

Hotaru quickly took the stairs, glancing back once at this attacker as he
complained about not having a way to get to Beryl's island on his current
budget.

-------

The evening had turned to night before he judged it safe to return to
dragon. The dragon flew much faster, but could also use the leylines to
"jump" along them.

It was just beginning to lighten again when he caught sight of the island
and was buzzed by a series of vehicles.

One jet switched to gerwalk mode, revealing that Snoopy had probably been
watching Macross. The yellow submarine landed in the snow and then tilted at
a twenty degree angle. The jetcycles revealed that the Outer Senshi (minus
Hotaru) had chosen something a bit faster than their internal flight
mechanisms.

Considering their relative speeds, the vehicles had already landed and their
passengers disembarked before he could land.

When he *did* land there was a sudden shooting pain in his side.

Sailor Saturn threatened to use her Silence Glaive if the tuxedo wearer did
that again.

*i have to do this as a dragon,* Greylle sent to the group, noting that he
still had his armband and the glowing stone embedded in his chest. He also
had an armor piercing rose imbedded between two scales and was beginning to
get quite upset with Mamoru Chiba.

Akane sniffed all around his legs briefly before seeming to go off into deep
thought.

Greylle looked over the crowd and wondered exactly why everyone and their
Great-Grandmother had come along.

Cologne looked over the dragon and wondered exactly what she could do to add
his genes to the village. The only people missing were most of the Sailor
Marionettes and it looked like Sabre Mercury had brought Dr. Mizuno.

Ukyo announced that unless something was going to happen *now* she was going
back to sleep in the nice warm submarine.

*Yes, well,* sent the dragon, *what i'm going to do is tricky and will
require me to use the Eternal Silver Millenial Crystal (aka the Ginzuishou)
to try to breach the time bubble.*

"Return that Crystal to Sailor Moon!" Tuxedo Kamen tried to run forward and
snatch it. It didn't come popping out to his hand, and shortly after that
was obvious there began the most curious chase scene.

Said chase scene consisted of Sailor Saturn chasing Tuxedo Kamen around,
doing her level best to brain him with the business end of her Silence
Glaive. Cologne watched for a moment before reaching out with the end of her
stick and hitting a paralysis shiatsu point on both of them.

"It's cold and it's early and I'm getting too old for this," Cologne
informed everyone.

*You Cologne? Getting old? Hah!* The dragon grinned down at the ancient
Elder. *Just as well you're here though. Most likely this was just after a
very nasty battle or it occurred at the very tail end of a long battle. So
they'll either need medical attention or may come out of it still thinking
they're in a fight. Everyone who can't dodge a mana bolt stay up here. i
have to go into the cavern where the fight occurred to cast this at zero
range for the maximum potential effect.*

Cologne nodded, another glint in her eye. Yes, Sash would be a good choice
for this dragon. Or perhaps Sugar. Salt and Pepper? She might be a three
hundred plus year old traditionalist within the Chinese Amazons, but she
found herself warming to this ice dragon. Having him marry into the tribe
sounded like a good way to increase the strength of the tribe immensely.
Besides, then she'd have someone to talk to who could live as long as she
could.

Greylle took a quick look around, then ducked into the cavern.

=============
omake omake omake

"A *Worse* Father Than Genma?" Raideen asked, wanting to make sure he'd
heard right. "Or do you mean a *Better* Father Than Genma?"

"It sort of altered as it went along," admitted Toltiir. "People like Sailor
Pluto whom you'd expect to be poor parents, and they're doing a better job
than the original father: Genma Saotome."

Hesta clucked softly. "I think altering the three Tendo girls would be more
interesting. Their mother's death alters the three. The oldest tries to
become the perfect Japanese housewife, like her mother. The middle goes into
a moneyhungry mercenary possessive mode where everything is seen in terms of
profit. The youngest is a creature of passionate rage and self-absorbed ego.
How easy it would be to alter it so that the kernel that forms the basis for
their later development shifted to another focus."

"Maybe some other time," Toltiir said, though admitting that Hesta's idea
had some merit. The idea of a Kasumi who was off at college or work when
Ranma arrived, or a Nabiki who was a rabid manga artist/fangirl, or an Akane
who was studying to be a concert pianist - it had some definite appeal.

"With the test point being when Ranma meets the Tendos for the first time,"
said Raideen thoughtfully. "Well, if you want a potentially nasty
possibility, and as long as this is just a simulation. What if I got *this*
individual to be Ranma's guardian and sensei."

"You could do that?" Toltiir was a little surprised. "I didn't know you knew
him."

"He owes a favor to someone who owes a favor to me," Raideen supplied.

--------

Son Of A Worse Father Omake, by Gregg Sharp

DISCLAIMER: Original characters by others put through my blender.

--------

Genma whistled happily. He had just sold Ranma, soon he was going to steal
him back. A simple enough transaction. It's not like a sophisticated
Japanese citizen like himself couldn't outmaneuver some gaijin peasant.

"Pop?! You *sold* me?!" Ranma stared, wondering why he had to have a father
who was such an idiot.

"It's for your own good boy," exclaimed Genma. Now he had the cash needed to
rent a house, get that pit dug, fill it with all the cats in the
neighborhood, and he'd be ready to teach Ranma the Cat Fist.

The fat man nodded. "Nine years learning what I can teach you of martial
arts. Then you go back to your father for one year before you make a choice
as to what path to take."

"NINE YEARS?!" From a five year old's perspective, nine years was an
eternity.

Genma smirked. Two days tops, then Ranma would learn this invincible style.
By the time this idiot realized Ranma was gone, they'd be far far away.

Ranma watched his father leave with a certain degree of horror. He'd been
sold before, but not like this. NINE YEARS?! By the time he got done with
that he'd be... OLD!!

"Your father tells me you want to be the greatest martial artist in the
world," said the fat man. "Is that what *you* want? It will be long and
painful."

The boy drew himself up and jerked his thumb towards his chest. "Yup! I'm
gonna be the BEST!"

"Hmmph," said the fat man, blurring as suddenly the land around Ranma
blurred as well.

"Aghhh!" Ranma managed before mainly getting imbedded in the ground by
really high gravity.

The fat man, now colored blue and having long trailing antennae that somehow
gave him a "catfish" sort of appearance tsked at the sight. "Well, I'm going
to fix dinner. If you're hungry, I'll leave a plate out."

"Nnnngh," Ranma said, trying to crawl forward. "Uhnnnn."

The fat man looked back. "If not, I'll have to see if Piccolo can take over
your training until you're ready to start some *serious* martial arts
training."

"Unnngghhh!" Ranma tried to move repeatedly, feeling squished by his own
body weight. "Hey, I'm... Ranma Saotome... and I don't..."

---------

Close up of a calender as the pages begin blowing away in the breeze, cue
music:

"With the same foolishness as walking blindly through a maze,
I stepped straight into a world containing only heartache,
Forever chasing an endless dream."

Images of a little boy growing up, being given a lot of very tough training
by a tall green fellow with pointed ears and antennae by the name of Piccolo
Daimioh.

"Don't waste your time,
All day, all night, all the time."

The prior images are replaced by images of the boy of about twelve, now much
tougher and more muscular, chasing first a monkey and then a beetle like
creature while the catfish-man (Kaioh-sama) watches.

"Don't waste your love,
It's a truth which never lets go."

Ranma is shown sparring with one figure after another, some male, some
female, some human-like, some far from it.

"Break the darkness,
Break it through the night!"

Ranma is shown getting the snot beaten out of him by a short guy with spiky
black hair and a very big attitude. As the music fades out, he holds up a
sign that reads: [Maybe I can settle for being just really damn good?]

----------

Light flared and Ranma walked through the shimmer without a backwards glance
at his "fathers" for the past few years. Piccolo, Kaioh-sama, Vegita. Not
exactly a group that was into goodbyes or touchy-feely exhibitions.

Now all he had to do was find his biological parent. Someone he frankly
wasn't that fond of. Genma had sold him off. Now he had a year to find him
and decide whether to return to where he could be one of the elite Z
Warriors or stay here and...

Ranma spat as he considered what Kaioh-shin-sama had said. His father wanted
him to be a martial artist that could be pushed around, who could provide
for his overweight lazy father by being bossed around and engaged to some
"destined fiancee" who was going to push him around and insult him all the
time.

Some of the people were staring at him. He was wearing the black sleeveless
outfit he'd gotten from Kaioh-shin-sama. Since it would regenerate from darn
near dust, it was his most practical outfit. He had no idea how many of the
red practice uniforms he'd gone through.

Then he felt it. Several high chi signatures, though they felt a little off.
One big dark chi, and a something else. Perfect. He could use a good fight,
it always settled his nerves.

--------

"Ahahahahahahaha," laughed Jedite. He wondered why he hadn't thought of
using spiders as the basis for youma previously. "You fell into my trap,
Sailor Moron! Now, youma, slay them all!"

Four little girls who hadn't been fighting evil for very long screamed as a
slavering eight limbed giant spider began moving towards them while they
were stuck within webbing.

"Oh man, this is pathetic." *SQUISH!*

The four girls screamed again, this time because bug splat had just flown
out from a point of impact.

A fifteen year old boy straightened up and regarded Jedite. "Was this *your*
monster?"

Jedite saw all the energy this boy had and realized how much Beryl would
reward him for capturing it. "Yes. And your energy belongs to the Dark
Kingdom!"

Ranma grunted as the pain of a chi-draining technique hit him. ~Well,
classify him as the bad guy. Hitting him with a chi attack would probably be
a bad thing. That leaves physical attacks. Too bad: for him.~

Jedite had a moment to blink before the boy was suddenly in front of him, a
fist heading for his face at high speed.

*CRUNCH!* (Fade, dissolve.)

"Fire... soul..." Mars finally wiggled loose enough to beginning burning
webs away.

Jupiter got a good look at their rescuer as the tension cut from her prison.
Tall. Muscular in lean way. Deep blue eyes. Ruggedly handsome. Tall. Thick
hair. Healthy looking. Tall. Exquisitely sexy. Talking to Mercury.

Jupiter blinked. How had Mercury got there before her?!

"Hi there, I'm Sailor Mercury. Thank you for rescuing us!" She looked up
into those blue eyes and found an addition to her previous activities was
mandated. Study, plan to be a doctor, and now - get a studly boyfriend!

"Excuse me," said Mars, sliding into place and somehow cutting in front of
Mercury. "I just wanted to thank you personally, maybe we could get dinner."

"Hey," exclaimed Jupiter, feeling left out and trying to cut in front of
Mars.

"It was a pretty wimpy monster," said Ranma sadly. "I didn't get a chance to
really unload."

"Oh we get those all the time," said Jupiter, thinking quickly. "They're
always attacking around here. If you want to stick around you can kill the
next one too!"

Ranma turned a joyous smile on the green-clad girl that caused four little
girls' hearts to melt into puddles. "Really? All right! Thanks!"

---------

Calendar pages start flying by in the breeze again, though slower than the
first time.

Scenes of Ranma out on dates with most of the Senshi, with Ranma looking
puzzled for the most part. Ranma getting into big fights and enjoying
himself immensely. Ranma flattening Dark Generals. Ranma using a Kamehameha
Kaioh-ken San Bai Da to open up a section of Beryl's base so that the Senshi
don't have to deal with annoying youma.

The Senshi practically falling apart when Ranma announces he's leaving again
to find his father.

Ami finding his mother after Ranma leaves and announcing herself as Ranma's
girlfriend. Followed by Makoto discovering what Ami has done and announces
that *she* is also Ranma's girlfriend. Followed in its own turn by Minako
announcing that she's Ranma's fiancee! Nodoka Saotome dancing around with
little fans because her son is *so* manly.

The Doom Tree saga occurs, Ranma crosses paths with the Senshi again. More
fight sequences. Ranma is introduced to his mother. His mother starts
hinting very strongly that any of the four girls trying to marry him would
be a good catch.

Sailor Pluto wanders in, checks the effect on Crystal Tokyo, starts actively
trying to fix Ranma up with ANY of the Senshi.

Genma is found in a wharfside bar in Yokohama. The name Tendo Dojo comes up.

--------

A fairly sizable house in Tokyo's suburb of Nerima, where the occasional odd
thing was known to happen.

"WHAT?!!!"

Such as the house visibly shaking from three girls exclaiming at once.

"You've never met him?" Akane looked at her father as if she could scarcely
believe this latest development. On second thought, considering that bit
with the "make millions in your own home" get rich quick scheme he'd bought
into, maybe it wasn't that far a reach.

"Nope. Genma lost track of his boy for several years, but now they've been
reunited and he's bringing his son by." Soun smiled at how well they were
taking it.

"Father, father, father," Kasumi shook her head. "I hope he's not younger
than me. Younger men are so... boring." How odd: as soon as she said that
she could swear that she heard a cat laughing in the distance.

A voice spoke from the front lawn. "This better not be a trick, old fool."

"That must be Ranma," said Nabiki, already moving at high speed towards the
door.

A moment later she ran *back* into the living room. "THERE'S A MONSTER IN
THE FRONT YARD!"

The recipient of a Yeti-carrying-an-eel-and-duck-riding-a-bull curse
shouldered his way through the front door and looked around at everyone. [Hi
Soun. Brought the boy.]

The young man walked in and caused three girls to almost forget that there
was a huge misshapen monster in their living room. He was tall and buff and
studly and dressed in a school uniform. "Can someone get some hot water so
that he can talk at least. Not that I really want to *hear* anything after
that last bonehead manuever."

"Muaaaaw," said the creature, somehow managing to sound angry and upset.

"Are you?" Soun looked over the figure and felt a ki signature radiating off
this boy that was stronger than even the Master's. Dare he hope?

"I'm Ranma Saotome. You're Tendo-san. I think my Pop wanted me to challenge
your dojo, he hasn't told me *why* it's so important to come here yet."
Ranma looked them all over. Pathetic. Not one decent fight to be had here.

Kasumi ducked to her kitchen to fetch hot water and not incidently hide her
blush.

Nabiki was eyeing the boy in the tight uniform, realizing that it was
probably so tight because they didn't make them in his size, and that he
made all of the boys at Furinkan look like starving dogs. He certainly
passed the studmuffin test, now if he could just give some indication of how
intelligent or wealthy he was.

Akane gaped. She was able to read some level of martial arts skill, thereby
knowing exactly how much force to use against her horde of "admirers"
without permanent injury, but what she was reading just could not be real!
Could it? How to get him out to the dojo so she could check? Ah, he thought
he was here for a challenge?

"At last you're... URK!" Soun attempted to do a flying crying glomp, a more
difficult manuever than it sounded. He ran into a hand that was considerably
harder than concrete. Soun Tendo went night-night.

"Was that the challenge?" Ranma sounded puzzled. He was a trained martial
artist. If attacked, he would defend himself before he even registered what
was going on. Had someone tried to catch him unawares?

"Okay, then I challenge you!" Akane smirked. Not only would she be able to
see how good this guy was, once she'd beaten him this engagement would be
off.

"Fine. Where?" Ranma shrugged. Maybe this girl was concealing her power.
Really really really well.

"Dojo. Now!" Akane's smirk went to a nearly feral grin. She loved it when a
plan came together.

The minotaur was looking panicked (as a matter of fact, he had adopted a
pose recognizable as "The Scream" to art enthusiasts) before he started
waving a sign around (accidently imbedding it briefly in the ceiling).
[Don't do it! You'll die!]

Nabiki went briefly into the kitchen and came back with some beans to throw
at the obvious oni that had come to visit if he caused any more damage to
the house.

Ranma walked into the dojo and stretched. He wondered where the repellor and
hardening fields were. Otherwise this place would be way too flimsy to be a
*real* dojo.

"Ready," said Akane, getting into position and pose.

"Whenever you are," replied Ranma. When was this little girl going to show
her power? She was certainly confident enough.

"Hiyaaaa," Akane started forward.

Ranma's arm seemed to blur for a second.

--------

Nabiki and Kasumi gaped as the minotaur grabbed the kettle, upended it over
himself, and turned into a portly man with evil piggy little eyes.

"Thank you. I am Genma Saotome," said the man, bowing slightly.

"Genma! So good to see you," Soun exclaimed, holding an ice pack to his
head.

"No time, we've got to save your daughter's life!" Genma turned and began a
dash towards the dojo.

Ranma came out of the dojo, someone draped over his shoulder. "Man. She
*sucks.*"

"Aaaaa! My little daughter is dead!" Soun began wailing.

"Pop, why did you want me to challenge this dojo? I stopped her with a
forehead flick. This wouldn't even make a decent warmup."

"Oooo," said Akane. "I'll try the red dress, mommy."

Akane was quickly laid down and got Soun's ice pack on her forehead.

"Well, son, these are my daughters. This is Kasumi, she's 19. This is
Nabiki, she's 17. This is Akane, she's 16. Pick whichever one you like..."
Soun noticed Genma making shushing gestures behind Ranma's back.

Ranma made a face. "I'm not a cannibal, Mister Tendo."

"That wasn't what he meant," began Nabiki.

"Oh?" Ranma thought a bit then brightened. "Oh! This is like that society on
Yellow Island, isn't it? Oh well that's different! I was worried there for a
moment."

Kasumi's blush increased as the boy eyed Nabiki and herself for a few
moments.

"...but I don't like brussel sprouts," Akane informed everyone during the
silence.

"You two are actually okay with this?" Ranma asked. The one girl was
blushing and looking down at the floor. Kinda like Ami. The other met his
eyes and seemed to be a bit more like Rei.

"Family honor is involved," said Kasumi, though she was really hoping more
would be involved.

"Well, I'd kind of like to get to know you first," said Nabiki after
continuing to consider this boy.

Ranma shrugged. "Okay. Fine."

"You're going to choose which one to be your wife?" Soun asked in the
silence.

"HUH?!" Ranma was flabbergasted. "WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"

"...boys are icky! I like girls." Akane said in a little girl's voice.

"What did you think he meant?" Nabiki wondered aloud.

"You know like Yellow Island," said Ranma absently, giving his father a look
that seemed to promise unspeakable violence was in the offing. "You defeat a
dojo there, you get one of the students to be your indentured servant for
five years during which time you take them on as a student as well - then
they go back and make their own dojo stronger or they renew for another five
years."

"No, the arrangement was to marry one of my daughters. So which will it be?"
Soun wondered where Yellow Island was. If the Master had ever gone there
he'd likely never have come back.

Ranma considered something, then doused his father with cold water. "You're
able to take more punishment as a minotaur, Pops."

The minotaur turned to flee but was stopped by Ranma grabbing his tail. The
minotaur's churning hooves began to seriously tear up the floor.

Ranma held up a finger. "Let's see. There was the 'I need to gauge your
skill level so I'm going to take you to this *cursed* training ground in
China' crap. Remember *that* good idea, Oyaji? If you'd gotten me cursed the
Beijing circus would have a stuffed minotaur on exhibit, you know? Then
there was the Amazon village, remember that one? Oh yeah, 'let my son fight
off the entire damn village because I couldn't keep my hands off the feast'
or something along those lines wasn't it?"

"Huh?" Akane sat up abruptly, then winced and wished she hadn't. "Hey! I'm
not beaten yet! I... how did I get into the living room?"

"Mister Tendo, did you know that my *Mom* is the 'head of clan' for my
family? Carries the sword and everything. If she doesn't give her approval,
it doesn't happen. She's *already* engaged me." Ranma explained this while
casually keeping the minotaur in place.

"WHAT?! GENMA! IS THIS TRUE?" Soun glared at his old friend.

"Excuse me, but he's had this coming for awhile." Ranma let the minotaur go
momentarily, then re-snagged him in the back yard. With a quick flick of his
arm, he launched the minotaur into the air.

"Hey, you, our fight isn't over yet!" Akane didn't want to admit defeat
until this guy moved at least. The last time he'd just stood there as far as
she could tell.

"Ka ME!" Ranma brought his hands back and cupped them, looking at the
distant speck in the sky. "Ha ME!" A bright glow formed and then filled the
space between his hands.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!" Akane started forward then realized what she was
looking at. "Oh."

"HA!" Ranma wasn't bothering with a powered up version of the kamehameha.
The basic was enough. Turning, he addressed the Tendo patriarch, beginning
to hover in the air preparatory to flying off. "Just letting you know. Three
strikes. He's out. It'll probably take him a day or two to get back."

Soun considered. "So, uhm, which daughter did you..."

"Oh he wants..." Kasumi blinked repeatedly. Three strikes and he was willing
to blast his father somewhere out into the Sea Of Japan. What would be left
of her house if Ranma was engaged to Akane with *her* temper? (Sudden image
of her sweeping out a bomb crater.) "Nabiki! Definitely Nabiki." Nabiki
needed someone to rein her in, so this was a perfect arrangement.

Nabiki looked at the boy hovering in midair. She tried manipulating or
pushing this boy around and he'd push *back!* And she didn't like hospitals.
Admittedly Akane had attacked *him* and he hadn't done much, but could she
keep control of a situation with a guy who could fly and throw energy
bolts?! "Akane! He definitely wants Akane!" Akane was the toughest
physically out of all of them. If any of them could survive the courtship,
it would be Akane! Besides, Akane needed someone she could beat on who
wouldn't get injured.

Akane blinked repeatedly. A martial artist who could throw energy bolts and
fly? Then her earlier estimate had been correct? The throbbing headache was
caused by someone so good he could *casually* defeat her? He'd HIT her? No
way would *she* end up with someone like that! Nobody could hurt Kasumi
though! She was too sweet and gentle for anyone to harm. "Kasumi! He wants
Kasumi!"

Soun blinked, thinking back to an earlier statement. Maybe if they got a
chance to know each other? And if Ranma's mother got to know the girls, then
surely they'd win her heart. "Why not go with that Yellow Island thing?"

Kasumi blinked in the middle of pushing Nabiki forward. Nabiki stopped
trying to push Akane forward. Akane stopped trying to push Kasumi forward.
"WHAT?!"

--------

Kasumi looked sadly back at her house. Nabiki sniffled at the thought of
dismantling her network of spies, informants, and purchasing agents. Akane
grumbled LOTS.

"I can't believe we were sold off like that, there are laws you know!" Akane
was not a happy camper by any stretch of the imagination.

"At least we get out of it during school time," said Nabiki. "Though I've
got to rebuild everything at Crossroads Senior."

Kasumi turned and began trudging along, the picture of dejection.

"Well, when I start training you, you'll be able to fly here during your off
time."

Kasumi came to a complete stop and stared up at Ranma, pictures of Peter Pan
flitting through her head. "Fly?"

"Yeah, you said something about taking us on as students, didn't you?"
Nabiki considered what it would be like if *she* could fly. The business
opportunities were high.

"So you're our sensei?" Akane mused. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad
thing.

"Yeah, I didn't realize I'd be taking on so many students," said Ranma from
where he hovered.

"Many?" Nabiki asked.

"NI HAO, AIREN!" A crowd of girls in Chinese clothes exclaimed in unison.

"How am I gonna explain *this* to Mom?" Ranma asked the heavens.