Fission

By HomerNet

Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and Sailor Moon are properties of their respective owners who are not me. This is an original work by the author and any resemblance to the works it derives from is totally intentional and meant as a form of praise and flattery. No money is being made off of this in any way.

Author's Notes: I keep writing fics I keep SWEARING I'll never, ever write! But this one just called out to me, darnit!

Chapter 1: Fuel

Ranma was having one of his usual bad days. One of these days, he mused, I'll learn to keep my big mouth SHUT!

The mostly calm thought process he was now enjoying wasn't really due to any relaxing environment or position. Running pel-mel across rooftops while avoiding spatula shuriken, spiked gymnastics clubs, and the occasional Amazon arrow isn't exactly relaxing. The casual demeanor to his thought process was simply due to repetition; he'd done this same thing, or similar, far too many times to have to even worry about where to put his feet, let alone focus on the situation.

This gave him ample opportunity to examine how he came to have two of his fiancee's and The Black Rose after him with rather deadly weaponry. Tensions had been rather strained at lunch, after all. Kodachi tended to do that all by herself, then add Ukyo, who was already a bit irritated at Akane's latest attempt at cooking (an okonomiyaki that was, naturally, a total wreck), then Shampoo dropped in. Add the fact that all four of them had brought food for Ranma to eat, throw in a pinch of jealousy, stir...

Tape! he thought, I'll just use tape over my mouth, keep a role in my pocket, like that gaijin guy on TV, wasisname, Muh-gai-vur!

Suggesting that they all just get a room wasn't the smartest thing he could have said. He, of course, meant that they should take their argument where the Average Civilian wouldn't be pestered by massively overpowered martial arts. The Fiancee Front had taken it to mean that he wanted them to treat them all in a "manly" fashion (as his mother would say) and the implication was that he wanted them all at the same time. He had, of course, not realized that this was the conclusion they had come to, so he wouldn't have known that suggesting that the "go do it without him" would have sparked the response it did.

That is to say, like a match being lit at the tip of a gas pump nozzle.


Usagi didn't often visit Nerima.

This was less due to the fact that she didn't really care one way or another whether she went there, and more a bit of rare (for her) common sense.

There were rumors that the Nerima ward had strange goings-on. Energy-vampire teachers, rooftop leaping superhumans, the occasional monster or demon. Most people would wave off these rumors and go anyway. Concidering that Usagi was one of the active participants in the same types of rumors regarding Juuban ward, she paid damned close attention to said rumors and steered clear of the area by the simple expedient that if she didn't see it happening, she didn't have to get involved. Simple logic, but it kept her life simple.

Well, as simple as her life can get what with being Sailor Moon and all.

In fact, the only reason she was in the area at all was because Mamoru, or Mamo-chan as she liked to call him, had needed to pick up something from a college friend of his in the area. She had accompanied him in the hopes of sneaking an ice cream date in, something he was hinting at already thinking of already, when he got a call on his cell phone from another college friend, this one a student at Nekomikoka U. They needed some help with getting some friends out of a tight spot. She had heard her boyfriend expressing disbelief and incredulity, spouting surprised phrases such as, "Billboard?" and, "Where did they get a JET engine from?" and the clincher, "She flashed WHAT at them!"

After being on the phone for more than five minutes, he sighed, "Usa-chan, can you hang out for a bit here? Some friends of mine need a ride, and there won't be enough room for you and I DEFINETLY don't want to...inflict some of these characters on you."

Giving him a tight hug, she thoroughly confused Mamoru's friend Kai, who had been eavesdropping. "I saved the world several times now, I'll be OK 'till you get back."

"I had to wait two lifetimes to be with you, it just seems like forever when we're apart."

Kai didn't know whether to barf at the WAFFyness of it or call the psych unit.

In the end, Kai hadn't called the psych unit, and Usagi eventually decided to browse the small shops that lined a nearby street. The contents of the shops boggled her mind sometimes, and she wondered who in their right mind would enchant something so simple as a toy fishing rod, something any kid might want to buy, with a very powerful love spell not once but MASS PRODUCE said toy fishing rod and have them sold like cheap tourist trinkets. And they were genuine magic, too. Her Ginzuishou had reacted slightly when she approached them. She had considered calling the cops, but who would believe her?

The author would like to point out at this time that the Nerima division of the Tokyo PD had a VERY experienced Magic Control unit and would have shut down the shop for inspections if she had simply left an anonymous post-it with the words, "There's magic at this store" and the address on the police station's front door. Usagi can be forgiven for not knowing this, as she is, as has been mentioned, somewhat inexperienced in the ways of Nerima.

She had just about reached the end of the street when her communicator bleeped at her.

Major fads in electronics was not something that Usagi paid a whole lot of attention to, especially given that her "night job" afforded her access to technology at least 500 years more advanced than the top-of-the line equipment used by the top universities in Japan, the United States, or anywhere else on Earth. (There was, of course, Washuu's lab, but as Washuu kept that in a subspace pocket who's door was on Earth, that didn't qualify) Pagers, then later cell phones had made it considerably easier to explain away the occasional chirps and dings that came out of the pocket she kept her Senshi communicator in, as a result, nobody looked at her fishy when she ducked in a walkway between two buildings that was, perhaps, nine feet wide to dig out her communicator.

She popped it open, "Moon here!"

"Moon! We have a priority one emergency!" said the tiny face of Sailor Mercury from the small round screen on the communicator, "Three youma are attacking civilians in a mall, no energy drain, just an attack!"

As Usagi grimaced she heard a tiny, "Venus Love-me Chain!" in the background followed by an explosion. Mercury flinched forward, shielding her eyes from falling debris.

"Where are you!" said Usagi urgently.

"It's the new mall about four blocks from school, do you know the one?"

Usagi nodded and said, "Yes!" just in case the nod didn't translate too well through the tiny screens.

"I've already called in the Outers, but we could use your final attacks!"

"I'll be there as soon as I can, but I'm a district away," said Usagi, slipping into her rarely seen Princess persona, "Get the civilians out of there, take the youma out if you can, and keep the combat contained!"

"Understood, Mercury out!" the screen went black as the link was cut.

Looking around, Usagi decided that this was as good a place as any to transform if she went further back between the buildings.

Digging out her Ginzuishou, she clutched her purse close and said, "Moon Prism Power Make-up!" The sound of her voice completely covering the sound of a pipe being snapped by a spatula shuriken.


Ranma frowned as he realized what section of town they were in. It was a smaller shopping district, not nearly as big or flashy as the Ginza, but a place for a great many innocent bystanders to be. Where innocent bystanders were, Ranma knew from experience, there was often a good chance that said bystanders could get hurt. He risked a glance back to see if his "admirers" had cooled off any. That errant glance was enough for him to miss a pepple that had rolled into his path since the last time he had taken this particular route, causing him to reflexively buckle his knee to keep the weight off the rock.

The had two consequences, one of which he would discover in approximately twenty seconds, but the immediate consequence was that it forced him into a tumbling roll and he went right off the rooftop he was on. Given that he regularly executed drops and falls, even unplanned, from far greater heights than a three story building, it was no panic for him.

This was about the time he realized what the second consequence would be.


Usagi's body went slightly limp as her form raised into the air, her regular day wear dissolving in a burst of light as ribbons swirled around her. She felt a bit of water hit her as she slowly spun, but didn't worry about it as she had been in the midst of raging infernos during transformations and nothing untoward had happened. Ami had once theorized they could transformed in nearly any environment they could draw enough breath for the activation phrase, but nobody particularly wanted to test that theory.
Ranma, ever the expert martial artist, looked down and instantly processed the area where he would be landing.

He saw Ukyo's spatula shuriken embedded in a wall, no doubt only there because it had missed his head when he dropped due to the pebble.

He saw the water coming out of a pipe, noted that it was most likely cold water, and spraying out right where he would land. Aw, man! the thought registered briefly, Can't I just stay a guy for ONE full day?

He also saw what looked like a girl, floating, bathed in light and ribbons and not a whole lot else, EXACTLY where he was going to hit the ground.

"HEY, LOOKOUT!" he shouted.


Usagi's eyes snapped open in the midst of her transformation to see a person headed through the air straight for her. Her eyes went wide...
When Ranma changed from a boy to a girl or vise versa, he rarely felt anything other than the water and the temperature therof. In fact, he sometimes didn't even notice that if he was daydreaming or distracted.

This time, however, it felt like he had bit down on aluminum foil, hard, then stuck his finger in a light socket.


Usagi normally didn't really register what happened when she transformed. There was always the gentle caress of magic, the surge of power, and, of course, the slightly breezy feeling one gets when nearly naked.

This time something else happened. There was a sensation not unlike being completely doused in water that was then hit with an electric charge.


The outside observer (that would be you, gentle reader) would at this point expect something silly to happen like often does in these kinds of stories. Ranma-chan wearing Sailor Moon's outfit while Sailor Moon would be wearing Ranma's usual cloths, for example.

That is not what happened.

The outside observer, instead of aforementioned silly happening, saw the physically impossible as Ranma passed right through the transforming Usagi.


Both Ranma-chan and Sailor Moon collapsed to their knees, muscles unlocking slowly and the shock of the unusual change wearing off. Breathing heavily, they simultaneously turned around and said, "Are you alright?"

They blinked at each other. "Uh..." grunted Ranma, dispelling the brief thought that maybe some sort of weird magic mirror clone type thing was going on as Sailor Moon didn't mimic her.

They remained locked in that tableau for only a moment longer as the battle cries of Ranma's suitors echoed down into the alley from the rooftops above. They weren't quite there yet, but would be in seconds. Ranma-chan knew she had just seconds to hide and didn't want to use the Umi-sen-ken in front of a stranger. "Er, I gotta go..." she said.

Sailor Moon blinked, remembering that she had to be somewhere, like, now if she wanted to save lives. "Rrrright, me too!"

Had either of them been more learned in the ways of physics or magic, they might have known that what they just did was impossible and dangerous and they should be checked out by the authorities on either subject immediately. (That being Ami, a.k.a. Sailor Mercury, and Cologne, a.k.a. Really Old Goul)

Instead, they respectively leaped off in different directions, doing their best to hide their transit, one from pursuers, one from the general public.

Of course, given that either of them dealt with the impossible and dangerous on a regular basis, they might not have cared anyway.