Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma 1/2 or Sailor Moon or other characters that may be noted from time to time in the author's notes as originating elsewhere. This piece of work is purely for entertainment purposes.

Minako's Story
by Lerris Smith

-«Previously»-

Minako, Neri, Ranma and Kanna formulate a plan to use a store of magic that Neri's mother left behind on everyone in the hopes that it will even the odds in the coming fight. Neri is forced to finally explain the second part of the magic that Ranma is under and the consequences for Ranma should Minako and him try to pursue a normal relationship. Buried under the rubble of Kasan, progress is made on ship construction. At the gates of time Ami continues her tedious and time consuming work at constructing a basic interface from scratch that will obey her in the hopes of finding Minako and Ranma.

-«Chapter 11: Execution»-

It was nearly three pm and everyone that was going to eat lunch from the kitchens had done so, when Minako, Ranma, and Neri walked into the grand hall. On the surface, their revised plan seemed reckless, but they were counting on Neri's magic to keep others out of the fight, and they hoped that in memory of their loyalty to the Queen some might even help out.

Minako was transformed and wearing the formal gown of the first princess of Venus, while Ranma was male and wearing his dark outfit with the tiny roses, one on each side of his collar, and the rearing unicorn on the back marking him as the leader of the home guard. Neri wore a royal violet outfit that covered her except for her hands and face. The way the outfit rippled made one wonder if it was thicker than it looked, or perhaps made of something other than ordinary cloth.

Venus spoke first, "As crown princess of Venus, and heir to the throne of Venus, I demand that you, Duke Trenan step down, and answer for the crimes of treason, genocide, and kidnapping of royalty."

Duke Trenan sneered, "Ridiculous. I will do no such thing. Guards! Seize them!"

The visible guards near them hesitated, until a half a dozen came at them, while the others hung back. Ranma had grappled one and used him to knock three others out when he felt himself locked in place. Neri, seeing the aged figure against the wall glowing with power shouted and pointed, "Kill the mage! He's got Ranma."

Venus shouted, "Crescent Beam!" and a 2 inch bar of light shot at the mage, met resistance for all of about a second, before plunging through his heart. In a heartbeat Neri was facing two gaurds of her own. She managed to kill one with a deft stabbing of one of her knives into his back while the other one was surprised that his own sword slipped off whatever she was wearing.

After finding himself free, Ranma quickly knocked the other guard out. By then nineteen guards dressed in dark clothes seem to appear out of nowhere, and start firing blasters at them. Minako took a hit, but seemed to be okay. Whatever magical protections she got being transformed, apparently didn't care that it was not her normal fighting outfit.

Ranma went hand to hand with the closest six of them, while it was all Neri could do to fight another without getting blasted. Resigned, Ranma lauched vacuum blades at the one near Minako and the one that was about to kill Neri. A part of him was dimly surprised that the blades only cut about half way through his intended targets, but the larger part of him was simply content that they were out of the picture.

He dodged, twisted, and tried to take out another one with a pressure point, but, unfortunately, it didn't work. As he dodged another blast, he heard Venus shout, "Venus love me chain encircle!" and saw the chain form in a circle between them and their attackers, before it began to spin at high speeds as it expanded cutting another four of them in half.

Ranma yelled, "Moko Takabisha," and was really glad of the power boost this form gave as the two foot globe of power incinerated five of the six he was facing, while a high kick broke the neck of the last one. He had thought they were home free with only seven remaining when he saw the bar of violet power emerge from the Duke's hand instantaneously followed by a sonic boom that caused Minako to twist to the direction of the sound. She glimpsed a ship floating outside the window in the distance, before a lance of violet power that would have severed her in half originally burned a hole clean through her stomach.

Without thought or any attempt to control his power Ranma launched four vacuum blade attacks in rapid succession, the first of which cut the duke and his throne in half, while the the remaining three went through six of the last seven shadows and much of the wall behind them. A bolt of power from across the room took out the remaining one as the elderly man who threw it approached the princess only to be caught short by a look from Ranma.

Neri said hesitantly, "I think Sandar is on our side," as she looked at the man.

Ranma turned Minako over gently to see that the hole was complete and perfectly round, running through where her large intestine and stomach came together. He could actually see through the princess once he tore a section of the strangely resilient gown out of the way. Around the wound he could see the soft glow of golden power caress but not close the wound in her. Ranma looked at the man that had used magic against the other and asked, "Can you heal her?"

"No, I cannot. Before I could even begin to apply my limited skill at healing I would have to get past her personal power, and doing so would undoubtedly kill her. It is all that is keeping her alive now, I think."

Ranma nodded, and before Neri could so much as blink Ranma had stolen one of her knives. He then ripped off the sleeve of his right arm and pushed back the one to Minako's left, before creating two long, shallow, and perfectly straight cuts on both of their arms, but whereas blood began to seep out of his arm, none escaped her own, and a shallow line of golden power shown where he had cut. Ranma yelled, "Damn it Minako. I don't give a damn about the consequences! Now let your arm bleed before it is too late!"

Tears fell from the unconscious princess's eyes as blood began to seep out of the wound which Ranma quickly pressed his own cut arm to. As their blood mingled, white sparkles of power danced where the pairs blood mixed and dripped onto the ground before finally stopping about twenty seconds later.

Sandar asked in awe, "What has he done?" Then louder he asked, "What has the boy done?."

Neri snapped, "Not now Sandar!" She turned to Kanna who was approaching and said, "Get two litters and have people you trust bring them to my room."

Kanna nodded and moved back into the crowd to issue commands to the servants. Neri turned back to Sandar, "For the moment you are in charge. You will maintain order and do what is necessary to insure the succession, and then, when I have time, you will explain in detail why you hung back when your princesses life was in danger."

"It was not my place..." Neri glared at him, and around the room others glared as well, yet many of them too looked down in shame. He said, "It will be as you command, Duchess Trenan."

With great care Ranma and Minako were carried on litters and gently placed on Neri's plush king sized bed. When they were done Neri shifted them with great care and intertwined the fingers of his right hand with her left. She could see a faint line of the white scar they would likely bear for life before it was hidden where their arms came together. She could also see, that despite the hole in Minako's stomach, she seemed to be resting peacefully and so was Ranma.

She stared at the wound in Minako's stomach for hours. It was strange that it had not healed faster, yet she thought that was due to the taint involved with whatever spell he had used to try to kill her. Regardless, it was getting smaller, slowly.

It would seem that Ranma had heard last night, despite pretending to be asleep, despite their attempts at whispering and had acted without hesitation. She wondered if the magic even mattered in this case, when it seemed Ranma already loved her enough to do what he did, knowing the consequences. Well, it was not a question she would find the answer to today.

-«oOo»-

It turned out that the ship who's deceleration had triggered the sonic boom that had accidentally saved Minako's life had come from Kasan. The eleven babies and two adults that were on it were apparently the only survivors from the capital city.

Kanna quickly took charge of the infants and transfered them to the nursery. Given the lack of formula since the disaster, the head of the nursery had taken to blending the leftover soup from lunch into a puree. They seemed to like it well enough, even if she had to thin it more to make sure they could swallow it okay.

Sandar directed the guard to help unload the extra equipment in the ship to make way for relief supplies, before sending two dozen guards and a medic with the old man and his grandson and telling them to focus on helping the half of the planet furthest away from them, as well as getting as detailed of overview of the current situation as possible. The atmospheric craft left available to Trenan were all in use, and none of them had a fraction of the speed of the interstellar craft. The old man planned to first focus on the automated farms around the planet, either distributing supplies from them, or getting them working depending on what he found. It was a simple choice really, as Trenan was nearly out of food.

-«oOo»-

One week into ruling her duchy, and Neri had learned to appreciate one piece of magic above all, and that was the truth spell. The mage that was locked in the magic proof room was one of the first to be executed after undergoing it. Of the household staff and guards, another forty seven hanged before it was over, twenty five of which knew or had help to cover up the death of her mother. It turned out that Sandar was not really loyal to anyone, but would obey her as long as he was paid. It would do, for now.

Of the guards in the outlying districts that they had been able to test, most were loyal to the royal family. Sandar was earning his pay well, all in all, as they were rotated through the castle on one excuse or another, and she and Sandar or sometimes Kanna and him would sit and ask each one if they intended harm to the crown or their new duchess. Each brief meeting was concluded with a simple charm to make them forget the meeting. The few that failed that test were thrown in jail. They had a total of eighteen in there at the end of the second week of her reign.

Of course, normally such tactics were not allowed on Venus, but once they were done there was at least acceptable proof that they were plotting, and little time now to deal with them regardless. She suspected that most of them were guilty of treason, but she simply didn't want to take the time, again, to keep proving it to justify their executions, particularly when their were so many other demands on her time.

One week became two, and she took it on herself to do almost all the tending of Ranma and Minako. She could not risk Ranma getting cold water on him, as she had no idea what it would do. There was too much magic involved and she understood so little of it. Still, the healing part of the magic was clearly working as Ranma's unconscious state could attest to. The real question was why were they had made no progress beyond the slight bit after Ranma had saved her.

Devan, a master healer that Kanna recommended, had come into the castle at the end of the second week. He had flown all over the country in his little atmospheric craft doing what he could, and had only returned at her request.

He stared at the pair for several minutes before saying, "The young man generates enough healing ki to heal ten people and sends it all to the princess, yet that spot barely heals. As it is, I'm not sure who will win the battle, but then I wouldn't have expected any of this." He stared at the spot for several more minutes, once holdings his hands together face down just above the wound before turning back to Neri and saying in an urgent almost panicked tone, "I need to see the Duke's body now. I think I know what he did."

Neri nodded and followed the doctor out before locking the door behind her. Only Kanna had the other key to the rather thick magically reinforced door. At Devan's suggestion, they gathered Sandar and the other two remaining court mages, as well as two dozen guards. Devan had the guards gather the several bags of thermal incendiary they had on hand as well as a half dozen shovels. Neri was curious as to why, but kept them moving and didn't ask questions. If Devan knew what to do, they were not going to waste time with questions.

Duke Trenan had been buried on his personal estate, almost forty miles away, at the request of his only other living relative, one cousin on his mother's side. Still, forty miles was nothing for the assault hovercraft they took. When they got out and found the grave, Neri was not disappointed that only a single shovel marked his grave. It was as if the grave digger had decided that he would not use something so tainted again and simply left it sticking into the ground.

Devan walked up and said, "My lady, he must be exhumed."

Neri said, "Do it."

It took almost an hour to bring the former Duke's simple wooden coffin to the surface and open it. Within a few minutes of opening it, Devan said, "It is as I feared, In his last shot the Duke apparently did a very dark thing. He tied part of his very soul into that magical attack. It is likely why it was powerful enough to breach the princesses magical protections."

"What do we do?" she asked simply.

"Burn his corpse. Burn it as hot as you can burn it. Use every incendiary here and have the mages add to the fire. Once his corpse is non existent, his soul should have insufficient purchase to maintain a grip on this realm, and the princess should be able to heal."

"Do it."

They had to back up almost five hundred feet from the fire fueled both by science and magic. There was nothing left when done, and the grass had been killed for almost two hundred feet all around.

Neri asked, "Was that enough doctor?"

Devan said simply, "Let's go find out."

-«oOo»-

Devan and Neri returned to her room. Devan looked closely at the wound and while it had not closed, he could see it closing ever so slowly again. He said, "It will be okay now I think, although I would still like to know how he is able to give so much healing ki to her. Normally that doesn't work nearly so well, and most of it is wasted, yet he isn't even awake and hasn't been for what two weeks? I still can hardly believe that she survived that."

Neri said, "It is a bit of magic that is gone now. I can't say more."

"If you say so. I think they will wake by tomorrow, yet it might be weeks yet until they get their strength back. I'll check back then unless something comes up before."

Neri gave the doctor a brief polite hug before saying, "Thank you doctor."

-«oOo»-

Ranma yawned and woke to gaze down at the woman he loved with all his heart, with all his soul. He gently ran fingers over where her injury was, and was delighted to see unbroken skin and then his stomach complained loudly of its more basic desires, yet he did not stop softly caressing where the wound was. The sound, or perhaps the touch, caused Minako to wake up with a beautiful smile that suddenly seemed to dim. Neri was nearby and said, "I'm glad you're awake. I will have some food brought in."

-«oOo»-

Time passed and Neri moved into her father's rooms, while Minako and Ranma took hers. She had not wanted to, but they were hers by right, and, at least they had been her mother's too. As she lay back on the bed her mother had slept on, she tried to think positive thoughts. Her land was doing well. The princess and Ranma were both healthy, and there seemed to be no side effects to that stew made those weeks ago. Of course, there was still the question of long term effects, but there was little she could do about those, if any were to turn up.

There had been some banditry, and even a few of Beryl's troups that were still somehow on planet causing problems, but the guards and even the common people left around the planet were rapidly eliminating those problems. They had survived the near destruction of their entire planet, and been saved only by the grace of the kami and their princess. They had also been saved, when so many others had not. They were taking no chances of squandering that gift, even if some grumbled quietly that they wished it had been before so many had died.

As to the Princess and Ranma things were less good. Ranma tried everything to please her, irregardless of form, and was gently rebuffed every time. Minako had accepted the title of queen, once the Duke of Yanil and the Duke of Saan arrived to support her claim. It seemed both had managed to survive in deep underground bunkers along with their closest family. They also both insisted that it was her duty to take a husband and produce an heir. In fact, they insisted at every opportunity and it was growing extremely irritating for the young queen.

One day, Ranma had left her side to practice the art. Even magically devoted to her, his love for the art was still there, and he practiced with a vigor that continued to astound her. Of course, she thought, it was at least partly to protect her, who he had no choice but to love.

Neri knocked on her old door and said, "It's me."

"Come in."

The brown haired girl walked over to the blond, set down beside her on the bed, and said, "How long are you going to make his life miserable?"

"It is not right. I can't take advantage of him, no matter how much I might want to." Minako pulled her legs up to her as she sat on Neri's old bed.

"You have a duty as their queen to give them an heir. Now you can either ignore both your and Ranma's heart and marry someone else for that, or you can ignore your duty."

"Huh? Ranma's heart, but that isn't real."

"I saw you both beforehand. He cared for you a very great deal, and probably even loved you. I know he did not hesitate even a fraction of a second before doing what he knew would activate the magic."

"It is still not right."

"Nor is it right to make him miserable. I think he would love you either way. Why don't you accept his love? At least then you can be happy."

"But what if.."

"What if this wears off one day and he hates you? Unlikely, and aren't you willing to risk that much for him?"

Minako pulled the other girl into a loose hug before saying, "Thanks. I should have known you'd have thought this stuff out."

-«oOo»-

Another month passed before the Royal Wedding of Ranma Saotome and Minako Aino. The festivities were still minimal, as nobody wanted to devote still scarce resources that might be needed by their people, yet the ceremony was precious nonetheless. Still, people wondered why the bride had a single tear run down her cheek when the groom kissed her so delicately. Most thought it was because she was so happy.

Ten months later Minako gave birth to a healthy baby boy she named Jeran. Two months after that and they moved back to the partially rebuilt castle in the capital city of Kasan. Plans were made to create a monuments for those that died in Beryl's invasion, but construction would still have to wait until all the major infrastructure was repaired. As her mother would say, "Care for the living first. Mourn the dead when there is time."

Eleven months later, or two years two months since they were sent back, in what Minako thought would have been about the time of her own twentieth birthday, she gave birth to a daughter, who she named Nodoka after Ranma's mother. Unlike her brothers sandy blond hair, she had a bright strawberry blond color.

They would have birthdays twenty four days apart, at least by Earth's calendar. It was actually thirty nine Venusian days. After a bit of editing by one of the castle staff, the little calendar program was able to easily keep track of days not only with respect to the nine planets of this time, but in the calendar system that was part of her own time as well. She wasn't sure the numbers had a lot of meaning, but they at least helped her relate, and that was good enough.

Shortly after the birth of her daughter, the repairs were far enough along that Minako gave permission to use their only interstellar craft to scout nearby space. The mission died rather rapidly after discovering that outside of this little solar system space curved onto itself, and that none of the other planets in system were remotely habitable. In short, they were trapped in a bubble, until the day came when their saviors returned them.

-«oOo»-

Ami cursed fluently. They had been here two hundred and twelve days. The tea was long gone of course, leaving them to only water and the seemingly never ending supply of MREs. Once or twice Ami had been tempted to restore the system to a workable state, just to go get that food Makoto prepared, but Setsuna kept pointing out that if they realigned themselves back with the flow of time in the rest of the galaxy they would lose probably a day of precious Earth time before it was over. Damn her for her being right, again.

Ami supposed that the cursing was one of the few benefits of hanging out with Setsuna for so long, since you could learn a lot of very creative ways to curse, especially after the thirty fifth failure. The time gate system was complex beyond imagining, and it was never meant to be reversed engineered. Of course, twenty seven of those failures she had known would fail before she began, but seeing the frustration on Setsuna's face made the attempts worth it regardless.

The other benefit from her enforced captivity in this timeless place was Setsuna agreeing to teach her a few tricks about her transformation as well as some staff fighting. She even found a pair of crystalline rods, one about her height, and another a bit shorter than Setsuna's. She had said they were training staffs, but still essentially unbreakable. She even thought Mercury might be able to fire spells through hers, with enough practice, but there would be no increase in power or anything like she, herself, gained from using her garnet rod. No, the main use of learning staff fighting for the Senshi of Ice was to relieve the stress of fighting with that stubborn computer, especially when she knew now that most of its design was her own. Of course knowing that didn't mean she could remember any useful details.

She was finally ready for her thirty sixth try, and this time she was fairly certain it would work. She tapped the sequence into her laptop that loaded the minimal control interface, before bringing up the the high level controller she had coded from scratch on her laptop. Much of the time had been required to build failsafe after failsafe into the new system, since she had to be sure, to not even accidentally come close to violating any of the directives in the gates that would result in their deaths. Text scrolled by, all showing the startup tests passing one after another as the power of the time gates went from the minimal quiescent level that held time here at a near standstill compared to the outside world, to the full power that was enough to rip the planet they were on in two, were it to ever become unbalanced.

The surprising part was that this level of power was only a fraction, perhaps only a fourth of the total power they could generate on Pluto, for she had found dozens of smaller fusion reactors that had been mostly installed below the level the main reactor was on. Setsuna had remembered them as one of her projects that she had never explained, and had been unable to finish all those centuries ago when Beryl destroyed the Moon Kingdom, and killed the other Senshi.

Finally, almost two hours after the process started, it ended, and the laptop announced that the system was ready. With the system up and running she executed her search program and waited. Before long, an image of Sailor Neptune and Sailor Jupiter appeared on the screen.

-«oOo»-

Neptune stared at the traitorous mirror. They had been here thee days and they had not seen anything. Worse, Setsuna never brought that food she promised.

Finally, as she was about to give up, the image showed Minako, in princess form in a castle with Ranma at her side, just before she was almost decapitated from the man sitting on the throne. Ranma somehow quickly dispatched the remaining enemies, and the view switched to their wedding for several minutes, and then to their firstborn, and finally to their second born before going dark.

Haruka said, "She has been busy." Michiru nodded.

-«oOo»-

The view at the gates switched to Rei and Usagi, who somehow had a decent sized fire going. They watched Rei as she sat in trance for almost an hour, while Usagi struggled to remain quiet. Unfortunately the view faded out to indicate that they had reached current time for them. Ami then directed the high level interface on her laptop to use all known information about Minako's current location to find their space time coordinates. Given that she had bypassed essentially everything except the core directive protection systems, it almost had to work.

All in all, she was rather impressed with herself. She had gotten around the limitation that whatever deity kidnapped Minako and Ranma had somehow hard coded into the gates normal high level interface by reverse engineering her own interface from scratch in only two hundred and thirteen days. Of course, had she her full memories from the Silver Millennium she expected that she could have been done it faster, but one had to work with what one had.

Still, she couldn't help but be amazed at the gates of time, and humbled as well, for while she was able to understand the high level interface and even some of the low level systems, the crucial core systems and the core directive protection systems were a mystery to her, and if her guess was right, were not even a product of Silver Millennium engineering. Her last thought, before she decided that a nap was in order, was to wish she had coded the progress bar to display percentages with two decimal points.

Glossary

Anfala: The country of Anfala sits on a peninsula in the southeastern corner of the main continent of Venus. Castle Anfala sits at the far southeastern corner of the continent.

Ceras Tree: Blue green trees unique to Venus. Their wood has magical properties, including the ability to retain magic applied to it.

Duke Trenan: Ruler of Anfala. He has a daughter named Neri.

Kasan: The capital city of Venus. It is situated in the just south of center of the main continent on Venus. Beryl destroyed it just before the end of the silver millennium.

Nara Wynneth: Neri's mother, wife of Duke Trenan. She was killed by the Duke prior to the beginning of the story.

Oceana: Planet of the oceans. Neri's homeworld. Due to the limited land masses a great many cities on the planet are built under the ocean near the coasts. The people have the unique ability to breathe underwater.

Ojousan: A polite form used to address someone elses daughter.

Sandar: Court Mage in Anfala.

homeguard: Those elite knights chosen to guard the royal family. They had three commanders, one each to act as the head of the others to guard the queen, the king, and the princess.