Notes - This story has been revised from what was originally posted some months ago. The original version was a total mess that didn't make much sense if one looked at it closely. Over the next few weeks this story is going to be edited and rewritten into a far better story. Feel free to send me comments on this or any of my stories, I always like to hear from people.

Due to the size of this there is a good chance that I will probably miss a mistake here and there. Let me know if any major one's are found. Check out my site to find out which chapters are edited and ready to be sent out.

Site - http://shi_hanna.tripod.com

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Strange Days

Chapter 02

By: Cory D. Rose

ertle2@msn.com

(C)2003

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By the time Amy made her way back to the camp, she was just in time to see Cologne thrashing Genma for unlocking one of the most dangerous techniques in history. The beating was brutal, savage and as little scary, after all Genma-panda was holding up signs that said 'I'm just a cute little Panda', 'Don't beat the Panda', and 'Help!!' Amy held in a giggle at just how funny it looked for a panda to pull signs out of nowhere with writing on them. She had always wondered where they came from before she was taught about magical subspace pockets, but she was pretty sure that Genma had no clue what those were.

"Hey Cologne, what technique are you talking about?" Amy asked.

"I won't go into details, but it is capable of destroying this entire planet if used incorrectly or by the wrong people who wouldn't care one way or the other. It's far to dangerous to let this fool keep it and any way, it has been sealed away for longer than human history just to make sure it isn't used to set in motion the genocide of the whole human race."

"Hmmm...You know that sounds like a couple of techniques that I know of, they usually go by names such as 'Galactic Ken' and 'God Wave Ken'. They usually draw energy directly from a planet itself and can be used in incredible ways, to blow up planets, to level cities, and to kill demons. I have visited several worlds where these techniques are used by a good number of fighters."

"Do you know these techniques?"

"Of course, I once had to blow some space ships out of orbit to forestall an invasion an protect this primitive society that was struggling to break out of the bronze age. I believe I used the 'Nova Canon' for that one." Amy stated calmly.

"That's insane! You can't just use these techniques carelessly. They could kill millions of people in a single shot! I forbid you from using those while you are here. Do you understand me?!" Cologne yelled.

"I refuse." Amy said and crossed her arms. She had no doubts who would win a fight between the two of them in her current shape, but she wasn't going to back down either.

"They are too dangerous..."

"Only, and I mean this, if they are used by irresponsible people, idiots, or those who combine those two traits. Ranma here is an ideal candidate for someone who should be taught the techniques and be trusted to use them wisely. His father on the other hand is a horrible choice. He has shown more than once, in some of the files I have read about him, that he is untrustworthy, manipulative, and a total coward."

"Growf!" Genma huffed and held up a sign that said 'Hey! I'm not that bad!'

"Now listen to me..."

"Don't worry about it Elder, I'll make sure Ranma and Genma understand just what it is that they have unleashed."

"That's not good enough. The knowledge must be wiped from their minds..." Cologne said and pulled some shampoo out of her sleeve with a determined look on her face as she eyed the panda.

Genma-panda started to sweat. Amy wondered where it kept getting that tire from too. She wondered when the fool had learned that hidden weapons technique. Or were there other ways to do that?

"You aren't touching my head Old Ghoul!" Ranma-chan shouted out as she stumbled into camp looking a little harried. She saw Amy Lee and blushed a deep red as she made her way over to the tent and grabbed a thermos out of her pack, opened it up and splashed herself with hot water. A now male Ranma tossed the thermos to his Oyaji and he used it too transform back as well.

He made a point of not looking at Amy while the started to take down their tent. Amy just looked at him confused for a few seconds as she tried to figure out what he was thinking. Then she smirked and figured he must have watched her as she was in the waterfall, this merited looking into, she had thought he avoided things like that even though he had a tendency to get into strange situations.

"Come on Oyaji, we need to break camp and head back home." Ranma declared.

"We aren't done talking about this son in law!" Cologne yelled.

"Why? We still have a few days left for training left." Genma said in a confused voice. "Are you being a coward again and trying to shirk your training, I won't allow that boy!"

"I spotted some police coming to investigate the giant hole Amy made last night when she arrived."

Genma paled, he avoided the police whenever he could just to be on the safe side. "Agreed, lets move out." Said the man who probably had several warrants out for his arrest, Amy could see that he was sweating quite heavily as he stuffed his stuff in his pack.

"This isn't over you two, I will make sure those techniques are sealed back away before your end up killing some one with them." Cologne snapped and waved for her grand daughter to follow her as they left the area. Shampoo looked a little sad as they left, and stomped off her foot as the old woman ignored her. She waved at Ranma as they left, much to Ranma's annoyance.

It only took them about fifteen minutes to break camp and clean the place up before they headed out, Ranma motioned for Amy to follow them and she was happy to comply. Surprisingly Ranma and Genma both took to the trees and were soon racing out of the area at speeds animals would have envied. She was a little slower than the two men because it had been a long time since she had practiced tree hopping, but she was fast enough to keep them in sight as they made their way out of forest. Amy also had to grin as she raced along beside them. She hadn't done anything like this in years. It took only a couple of hours to make their way out of the forest and headed back into Nerima.

Amy was finally able top catch up to them as they left the forest and took the time to chat with Ranma. Ranma's endurance was simply amazing to her, he was barely winded after a run like that while she was gasping for air. Amy had always been in good shape, but this was pushing her limits and proved to her that she had let her endurance training slip. She has always been good for short spurts of high intensity activity, but she seemed to have lost her endurance over the years.

"Hey, Ranma, do you know of anyplace that I could stay until I could get set up here?"

"I'm not sure, the Tendo Hall has an extra room, but it wouldn't be free. Nabiki would charge you rent if you stayed and who knows what Hopposai would say if he came back and saw you in his old room."

"That's a possibility, but I don't want your fiancée to jump to the wrong conclusions. From what you've said so far, she won't be too responsive to you bringing home some strange girl."

"I...don't think that will be a problem Amy." Ranma said quietly.

"Why is that?" Amy asked, picking up on the pain in Ranma's voice.

"Um...Akane and I decided to call off our engagement without telling the others."

"What brought that on and why tell me?"

"After Saffron we really tried to get closer, but her temper quickly returned and I got tired of being pounded for barely reasonable reasons. I snuck into her room one night and we had a little chat after she got done pounding me and calling me names." He said and looked a little sad.

""I'm sorry Ranma. I know you cared about her."

"We still talk and stuff like before, she still hits me too, but we gave up on the families being united several months ago. It took me a while to get over her, but I threw myself into my training and have accepted it. Nabiki and Kasumi know about it, but they are still a little upset with us for breaking a promise made on the honor of both families."

"What about the other 3 girls?"

"Shampoo won't give up as you saw earlier, and Ukyo has backed off a little, but they haven't given up yet. Kodachi has been pretty quite lately so I don't know what is up with her."

"Have you picked anyone yet?"

"I don't want any of them. Shampoo is untrustworthy and down right obsessed. Ukyo, it's like marrying my sister really. I could have liked Shampoo, but she spent several months trying to kill me and she knows some pretty vile cuss words from several languages. I must have heard all of them while she attacking me, she has so much pride as a fighter that losing seems to be worse than death to her." Ranma shrugged. "Is it true what Cologne said about you being from a different dimension?" Ranma asked, changing the subject.

"Yeah, but I may be staying her for a long time." Amy said as they hopped up on a wall along the canal.

"Why's that?"

"The easiest way to fix the problem of my being here is to slot me into the flow of destiny just like everyone else."

"...Um..."

"You don't understand?"

"Nope!"

Amy smiled, "I live, by definition, outside of destiny so that I can make changes to worlds without destroying them completely. Every one that lives has a destiny and affects those around them by their actions. If I had one of those the amount of damage I could do would be impossible to comprehend. I am a wild card that is sent into areas where the flow of destiny has been altered. Usually I have some idea of what I will be dealing with, but this situation is really weird..." Amy suddenly cut off and screeched as a bucket full of water flew out of nowhere and drenched her and Ranma as they ran.

Ranma laughed as they continued to run, he had learned to just shrug off things like this over the last year since there wasn't any way to avoid them. Scowling in irritation, Amy caught up and growled at Ranma, but all she did was sniggered at her.

"I know, since it is getting on towards evening now and I don't have any place to stay, how about I borrow your tent and I can set up camp in a park or something." Amy snapped in irritation, she hated to be wet. She flared her aura as they ran, quickly followed by Ranma when she saw what Amy was doing, and they spent a few minutes drying their clothing.

"What about tomorrow?" Ranma asked as they jumped onto the roof of a house and went roof hopping.

"Well, I have a kind of magic pocket filled with special devices that I use to set up in new areas like this without causing problems. All I need is a bank and about 20 minutes use of an ATM machine and I can have an account set up with enough money to live by. It pulls the funds out of my secured accounts in my main dimension. It's a little more complicated than that, but I can have several hundred thousand yen here and ready for use in just a couple of hours if I need it."

"RANMA, PREPARE TO DIE!"

Amy and Ranma look up and spot Ryoga launching off a nearby wall, his umbrella leading the way and with a look of pure rage on his face. Skidding to a stop they drop to the ground and Amy jumps backwards as she tries to remember what she can of Ryoga, but all she comes up with is that he is tough and gets lost easily.

"You womanizing bastard, how dare you hurt Akane in this way! DIE!"

"What the hell are you talking about P-Chan?"

Oh yeeeaaahhh....giggle. Oooh, what cute fangs...where the hell did that come from! Amy whacked her head a couple of times as she giggled.

Ranma easily dodges the umbrella and jumps into the air, the wall behind Ranma explodes as Ryoga's weapon hits it and sends shrapnel in all directions. Ranma Dragon kicks Ryoga in the head and slams him to the ground before bounding out of the way of Ryoga's counter attack, a Breaking Point strike that sends a wave of concrete surging at Ranma.

He just hops in the air and dodged Ryoga's follow up attack and they land, jump at each other and continue to pound each other several minutes. Ranma doesn't even realize that he is unconsciously tapping into the technique the had been learning over the last few days, but Amy notices and decides that Ryoga doesn't stand a chance.

Amy, feeling like she has had enough for now calls out to Ranma. "Hey, do you want me to help?"

"Naw, I got it, it's just Ryoga after all." Ranma yells back with a smirk.

"Asshole, I'll show you!" Ryoga screams. His attacks become even more destructive than before as more walls, rocks, a tree and car feel his wrath. Ranma on the other hand just dodges all of it like it was nothing as he defends himself while taunting the Lost Boy.

"Okay, it looks like your Oyaji went on ahead without us several minutes ago and without even noticing the fight, I'm going to go and find a bank so I can get things settled up, alright?"

"Go on ahead and I'll see you later, or tomorrow!" Ranma yells out as he Wheel Kicks Ryoga with a Ki charged foot and sends him flying back and into a tree. Ranma grins and dives in for more, he always enjoyed his fights with Ryoga even if the moron picked the worst times in the world to attack him.

In the meantime Amy hops up on a roof and runs off towards what looks like the most likely place to find a bank ATM. She had wanted to continue to watch the fight, but she knew that longer she was here the worse things were going to get and she wanted to avoid that if at all possible.

**********

In a flare of light, Zephyr appeared in an alley way and looked around the area until he spotted a small truck parked by the trash cans beside a restaurant. It was a city vehicle that was pulling a tar machine used to cover streets and parking lots. He grinned at his luck and reached into his pocket to pulled out a small glowing seed, it resembled something one would find in a fruit or vegetable, but a little large than normal.

Walking over to the trailer he calmly walked around it until he spotted the intake spout. He reached out and grabbed the spout cover to open it and burned his hand, cursing he created a small dagger of energy and cut the top off and dropped the seed in to the machine and vanished an instant later. He had other troops to send out after all.

After several minutes the machine started to vibrate violently as it was ripped itself apart from the inside out. The tar machine seemed to glow as it twisted and heaved until it turned to energy that formed itself into the monster. It stood several feet high and its feet seemed to merge right into the ground as it stood there.

It didn't walk so much as ooze along the ground as its featureless head looked around and gathered information. Without a sound it reached out and launched several dozen balls of tar into the building and ripping it to pieces and pinning several customers to the walls. It oozed into the destruction and proceeded to drain them of their life force energies and added it to its own.

Its main orders were to make as much of a disturbance as it could while draining energy and power from those around it. So it picked up the truck and tossed it out of the alley and into the on coming traffic with a massive crash, causing an almost instant traffic jam and pile up to provide it with more victims to drain. From there it proceeded pick people off at random and drain them when they tried to run or hide.

With every victim it would pause and send the energy back to its Master before taking the next living source of energy. The process took only a few seconds so it didn't have to pause all that long and used this time to smash more cars and toss them into nearby stores and businesses. If it could have, it would have been grinning from elation and relief that it hadn't ended up as pink cotton candy like the last monster sent out to do this. It shuddered at just thinking of poor pinky.

Police and fire trucks were soon on the scene swarming across the destruction like ants, the monster drained these too. The Police had their guns out and were firing on the tar monster and watching in disbelief as their bullets passed through its body harmlessly while they were dropping like flies. In the background the Fire Department personnel were taking care of care fires created by the destroyed cars and stores. Then the wounded and all the other casualties that had been caused in just the last few minutes were taken care of. All around them those few people who were still around were evacuating as quickly as they possibly could, very few of them made it before they dropped from being drained.

It wasn't long before the cheers arose as the cities heroes were spotted heading for the area some minutes later...

**********

Amy had decided to do what she needs to do by doing it the Nerima way and jumped to a nearby roof and several minutes hopping from house to house, for a second she considers flying, but rules it out unless she runs into an emergency. She was a long way from getting back to full power and she didn't want to waste what little Ki she had left unless she had to. She could not remember the number of time she had been without enough energy to protect herself in a fight. And that was just because she had used it all somewhere else.

As far as she knew, flying was not available to most of the fighters in this dimension anyway and this would allow her a surprise technique to use if she needed it. Amy does do a small test and finds that she is still able to fly as she launches herself over an intersection, no one notices as she does this by hopping over the street from roof to roof. For awhile she runs for the sheer fun of it, making sure not to damage any of the roofs as she landed on them and made her way across all of Nerima, completely forgetting what she was going to do in the first place.

It was about twenty minutes later when Amy lands on a roof at the edge of Nerima and hears some odd noises from below, yelling and screaming, she looks down into the alleyway below her and spots several men gathering around a crying young girl trying to crawl away from them. She looked to be about 14 or 15, was wearing a school uniform of white and brown, had black hair, and her shirt had been ripped from her shoulders to reveal a white satin bra and a large pair of breasts. The men were boasting about how fun she was going to be at their party tonight when they got the surprise of their lives.

Amy landed in their midst's with a growl of rage and launched into an attack that sent the attackers flying into the walls of the alley and with in seconds over half of the men were down and out of the fight. An elbow to one's face sent him flying back into his fellows with a grunt of pain, a well placed kick broke one's jaw, then she used a rebound from that to flip back and go low to sweep the feet out from the final attacker. Amy flipped to her feet and glanced around for any more attackers before going to check on the girl. For some reason the girl looked a little familiar, but Amy couldn't place her.

The girl watched in fascination as her tormenters were dealt with in seconds and soon the only thing she could hear was their moaning in pain. Her savior stood proudly over the 10 men and glanced in her direction and smiled. "Hi, are you alright?"

"I - I'm fine, this is a regular occurrence, though normally they don't usually get so violent."

"These are violent times, miss...?"

"Tomoe Hotaru."

"Call me Amy Lee, now can I help you get anywhere?"

"I was heading home when they jumped me, it's only a few block from here so there won't be any more problems."

"..." For some reason Amy didn't believe her.

"So was there any particular reason they were after you, or was this just a random attack?"

"I...don't like to talk about it anymore." Hotaru said quietly as she stood up and tried to salvage some of her shirt to cover herself, it didn't work very well. A cold wind hit her suddenly and she shivered a little. Then she gasps in surprise as Amy shrugs off the shirt she had borrowed from Ranma and drapes it over her shoulders with a shy smile.

"There you go, that should hold you over until we get to your place." Amy says as she stands back and looks the girl over.

Hotaru puts on the over sized shirt and blushes a little as Amy reaches out and quickly ties the shirt closed. She can't help but notice that Amy is only wearing a thin muscle shirt under the shirt and that it barely covered her breasts and allowed Hotaru to see that Amy is all muscle and power. "Um...are you sure you want to help me..."

"No problem. A little cold air won't hurt me that much and it's only for a few blocks. But first I need to do something." Amy grins and skips over to the men she had just beat up and proceeds to strip them down to their underwear and shreds the rest of their clothing into tattered cloth. She takes their wallets and all the valuables they had on them. It turned out to be several watches, a couple of rings, and a few other odd items of value. She spits everything down the middle and hands half of it to a stunned Hotaru who has no clue what to do with it.

"They deserve an object lesson for trying to hurt you in the way they did, so we are going to take the spoils of war." Amy grinned cutely as she counted the money.

Hotaru giggled and pocketed the small stash in her skirt pocket and the headed out, she wasn't about to complain when Amy had helped out. Running from those girls had been getting pretty bad lately. They deserved to be taken down a peg or two. She pointed the way home and they made good time, but about 10 minutes later Amy got this look in her eye and grabbed Hotaru's arm. She dragged Hotaru into a nearby restaurant and proceeded to order enough food for several people.

"What's going on Amy?"

"Those guys wanted to show you a good time right, so it's only fair that we enjoy their money, neh?"

"Right!" Hotaru said happily.

They ordered a large breakfast.

"Tell me about yourself Hotaru."

"I'm in my last year of high school and will be taking my placement tests for collage soon."

"What are your interests?"

"Right now I will be taking music classes for the violin, Michiru-mama has been teaching me for a couple of years now."

"Are you any good?"

"I am about average for my age." Hotaru said.

"That's cool, I never could pick up a musical instrument worth a crap, but I can play."

"How good are you?"

Amy grinned, "About average for my age."

"Okay, maybe my answer was a little vague. I am good enough to be in a recital. So just how good are you at fighting?"

"I'm probably one of the top 10 fighters on the planet." Amy said with pride.

"How do you figure that?" Hotaru asked curiously.

"I can throw Ki attacks."

"I have never heard of anybody that could actually do that, I thought it was as impossible as magic."

"Naw, it just takes practice and the proper training mostly, it took me about 6 months to learn how to use and detect Ki in myself."

"Cool, I bet Haruka would love to talk to you about that kind of stuff, she is into martial arts and would love to learn that."

"Well see, it takes a certain kind of dedication to learn how to use Ki in a combat situation. Lets head out, were starting to get some funny looks since I am all but hanging out of my shirt right now." Amy smirked and winked at Hotaru, who blushed instantly. They paid the bill, had their extra food boxed up for eating later, and headed out again.

From there it didn't take them all that long to get to Hotaru's house, it looked to Amy like it could hold over 20 people easily. Amy also frowned as her danger senses went off, not exactly extreme danger she realized. Just a feeling of power, lots of it and tightly focused.

"Would you like to come in Amy?" Hotaru asked as she opened the door.

"Naw, I have to get back to what I was doing before I found you. I hope we can meet again Hotaru, I liked our talk." Amy said as she got her shirt back and walked away.

"Me too Amy." Hotaru called as Amy walked off.

Hotaru sighed and wondered why she had been feeling ill at ease with the girl ever since she had met her, almost as if she was in danger for some reason. She shrugged and went inside to meet her adoptive parents Haruka and Michiru. Michiru stepped out of the kitchen with her dinner and started to set the table since she was late.

"Good morning Hotaru, did you find what you were looking for?"

"No, I ran into a bunch of guys that wanted to beat me up."

"What again, I thought Haruka took care of that."

"There were ten of them and they were trying to really hurt me, this girl saved me and bought me breakfast." Hotaru said and held up the packages with a nervous grin.

Michiru looked at her homemade breakfast and frowned.

"I'm hungry enough to eat a little I suppose."

Haruka appeared as if by magic and started to eat all the food in sight. "whasth yoth ehter thin ungry eforeth?"* Haruka said with her mouth full of bacon and eggs.

*"What, You've never been hungry before?"*

**********

Amy felt pretty good for having saved the girl, but still she wondering why she seemed so damned familiar to her. She just couldn't put her finger on what it was, but something was there. Then as she jumped to a roof and started to head back towards Nerima Amy felt something was out of place and turned back the way she had just come from. She spotted the flashes of colored light in the early dawn light about a mile away from her current position.

It kind of looked like someone was using large fire works on the ground between buildings. Sending her senses out she quickly spots the magical energies and wonders what is going on. It takes her only a few minutes to cross to the distance at top speed and land on a roof so that she can get a good look at the battle taking place below her.

Amy gasps as she sees 5 young girls in Fuku throwing magical blasts at a monster that seemed to be made out of tar and rock. It counter attacked by throwing large balls of tar in an attempt to glue them to a wall or the ground. 'THE SAILOR SCOUTS ARE HERE TOO?! I THOUGHT THIS WAS A RANMA DIMENSION?!' she nearly screams in surprised shock.

Then the names Hotaru, Michiru, and Haruka flash though Amy's mind and nearly fainted again. No wonder those names had seemed so familiar, the only reason she hadn't recognized them in the first place was that she didn't think the Sailor Scouts were even around. This was going to make things a whole lot more complicated if she had to deal with the trigger happy Scouts.

"So you are the one Sailor Mars warned us about." Said a male voice from behind and to the side from where she was leaning over the edge of the building.

Amy spun around just in time to snatch the dozen roses out of the air before they could impale her. She tossed them over the edge of the roof casually, but keeping a couple of them to study later on since she could sense quite a bit of power imbued into them. "What the hell? Why are you attacking me, I haven't done anything to you or anybody else?"

A man wearing a cape and a full tuxedo stepped out of the shadows and if Amy hadn't known just who this was, she would have been rolling on the ground laughing hysterically. He looked like an even bigger idiot up close than he did on TV. What was that name she had heard once? "Oh hi Cape Boy, I have no idea what you are talking about." Amy said and grinned prettily.

"Call me Tuxedo Mask, and you are a killer who needs to be brought to justice." With that he jumped forward and swung his cane like a sword.

"Huh?" Was all Amy got out before he attacked, she was more than a little confused by his actions since the Sailor Scouts were supposed to be the good guys. Why was she being attacked for no reason? Was this one of those dimensions where the Scouts were evil and out to rule the world or something? Then Amy's fighting instincts took over and she reacted as the trained fighter she was, ducking under the cane swing and slamming her palm into Cape Boy's stomach with enough force to nearly blow him off his feet. This was followed by a quick blow to the back of his head as she spun around him and sent him down into lala land.

Not feeling particularly charitable about being attacked for no reason, Amy quickly stripped him of his cape and ripped it to shreds, then used these to tie him up. This wasn't good enough in Amy's opinion so she stripped him of his tux as well and left the guy tied up in his underwear. Someone would find him eventually.

As she was doing this she was doing this she was watching the fight below them, the Scouts were being picked off one by one by the monster. Amy recognized one of those silly spots where Cape Boy was supposed to hop onto a nearby lamp post and spout off some useless poetry to inspire the girls to win the fight. Unfortunately he was a little 'tied' up at the moment, Amy giggled to herself.

It seemed that Sailor's Mars and Venus had been taken out pretty quickly and were currently hanging on the wall of the building by a large piece of tar. Sailor's Moon, Mercury, and Jupiter were wearing the monster down by firing their magical blasts at the thing when Amy saw something that she was half expecting. After all it fit in with the Sailor Scout plot line that such a thing had to take place every few episodes.

Sailor Moon launched a very powerful blast of magic that seemed to barely hurt the monster when it hit and then she tripped over her own feet. She screamed as she saw the monster toss another ball of tar crackling with dark energy. Sailors Mercury and Jupiter didn't have time to react to Moon's danger since they were in the process of dodging out of the way of their own dangers. Then they saw a red and black blur launch itself off the building next to them.

Amy didn't even notice that she was in motion until she was moving towards Sailor Moon's position. This made her feel a bit silly. Her low power reserves sparked to life even as she grabbed the girl and carried her out of the way of the monsters attack. It passed by harmlessly and impacted against the far wall and created a large hole.

She came to a stop several feet from the monster and sat Sailor Moon on the ground. The girl had a look of surprise on her face as they looked at each other. Amy figured it was because Cape Boy hadn't saved her. "You'll be fine from here Sailor Moon. I'll try my hand at this monster if you don't mind." She whispered in the girl's ear. Before she turned away from her and decided which attack to use on the thing. She hadn't had this much fun in years.

Bringing her arm up, Amy focused her powers into her palm and drew in the magical energy swirling around the area. If Scouts hadn't been firing off large blasts of magical energy for the last few minutes she doubted she could have fired off even a small blast of energy. The fact that most of it was a mixture of negative and positive energy that her body could be automatically converted for her use didn't seem to faze her, a blazing aura of red power formed around Amy as she quickly gathered the latent energy.

The scouts were shouting in the background, but she ignored them for the moment. She would talk to them when she was done showing this monster who was boss. This took all of 3 seconds, then Amy let fly what she called a Mini Blast. This was highly condensed beam attack shaped like a beach ball sized sphere of red lightning. She had always been pretty impressed with how much her attacks looked when she fired them off.

It sheared through the tar monster's next attack and struck it in the chest, Amy snapped her fingers and grinned as the resulting explosion went off. The alley way was decimated as the ground shook from the blast and Amy was surprised to find no sign of the monster at all. The only thing left was a destroyed tar making machine that was smoldering and slightly melted. Of course the crater left behind was a good example of just how much damage it had sustained so Amy felt in assuming that she had driven it out of the machine.

Amy turned around to see if Sailor Moon was alright, just in time to scream in agony as she was hit in the chest with one of Jupiter's lightning balls and flung the length of the alley to crashed into the wall hard enough to shatter it. Amy slid down the wall and lay there trying to figure out what was going on, what had happened? She could just make out the scouts yelling at each other in the back round and she wondered if fhe had been attacked by the monster. Then she heard what the Scouts were saying to each other and knew the truth.

"Don't be stupid Sailor Moon! She is a killer sent to take us out! Kill her now and we'll be safe..." Mars yelled from her spot on the wall, still caught in the monster's tar ball.

"I can't believe you did that Jupiter! She just saved our lives and you just blast her for it?!" Sailor Moon screamed at the pony tailed girl.

Jupiter frowned at her friend and glanced over at the red head's body.

"Guy's, her readings are all over the place. Her body is full of both dark and light energy and her injuries are healing at an accelerated rate. She will be up and moving in a matter of minutes." Mercury said to all of them.

Amy didn't need this right now. If her body took to much damage, it would shut down completely to repair all the damage. It was a fail safe that allowed her to stay alive when she had pushed herself to far. This shut down tended to make people think she was dead and she hated waking up under ground or in a coffin several months after she had 'died'.

If they hit her again, that is what was going to happen to her and after taking this kind of abuse that was the last thing that was going to happen today. Deciding to take a chance, Amy concentrated and flooded her body with what little Ki she had managed to save up over the last 2 days and used up the rest of the power she had just gathered for her earlier attack.

"Something is happening, her power level just jumped 30% and it's rising at 2% per second!" Sailor Mercury shouted.

Amy rolled to her feet and concentrated on pulling in all the rest of the available energy around her, she really didn't need to die right now. Her aura flared up and sputtered for the several seconds that she was vulnerable to the Scouts attacks, then it steadied itself and started to hum softly. She glared at Sailor Moon and her friends, "I never thought helping the Sailor Scouts would be contrived as a killing offence. You're supposed to be the good guys, not trigger happy terrorists! I hope you have your insurance paid up Scouts, because up until a few minutes ago I was willing to be friends with you, even help you. No More! You made an enemy today and you better hope you can live with it!!" Amy growled out and vanished as her aura flared, leaving the Scouts with shocked looks on their faces. Sailor Moon looked as if she was about ready to start crying.

"MARS, THIS IS YOUR FAULT!!"

"MMMPHHH!!" Tuxedo Mask tried to say from his spot on the roof, but no one heard him.

*********

Zephyr was happily cycling energy into a storage crystal and humming an old American rock song, Rebel Yell or something like that as he worked, he was out of tune but he didn't care all that much. He is standing in a small room surrounded by several platforms worth of glowing crystals. His tar minion had been taken out easily enough by that red haired girl, but she seemed to have something against the Scouts and that meant that she wouldn't be helping them all that often.

Their pathetic showing against Tar Baby had been proof of that and he knew his next monster was going to be strong enough to defeat them easily, so long as the girl didn't show up again. He had gotten a good laugh at what the Scouts had done when they attacked the red head, she had been pretty pissed off at them when she teleported out of the area, enough to threaten them too.

He hummed some more and grabbed up another crystal to be filled, Tar Baby had taken more energy than he had thought he could. He idly wondered why the Scouts had been such a problem in the past, if not for that girl they would have been taken down easily. They had no combat training and barely seemed to know how to use their powers. They were unorganized and tended to work against each other when it counted. How they had survived so long was a mystery to him, but his Master had said to be careful, they were more than they seemed.

"Zephyr."

"Master?"

"Use all that energy to Awaken Black Razor."

"...as you command Master."

"Also, check on that 'host' warrior that was sent to take care of the Guardian of Time, it hasn't been heard from since it was sent out."

"Of course Master."

Zephyr turns and raises his arm, a blast of dark energy fires from the palm of his hand and strikes two of the glowing crystals on a platform behind him. They shatter in a burst of energy that fills the room. He absorbs the energy into himself and grins at the sheer amount of power now available. He pulls a vial of black liquid from his coat and charges it with the energy that he just absorbed.

The vial is about 12 inches long and it's hard to tell what the thing is made out of. He concentrates and floods the vial with dark energy for several seconds before teleporting it to a park in the center of Juban. He figured that the Scouts would get a kick out of Black Razor. She always did have a pretty good idea how to cause trouble.

*********

Amy reappeared in the park that she had passed while running with Ranma a few hours earlier, she was gasping for air and had blood running down her cheek from a cut on her forehead. Jupiter's blast had taken almost all her energy, every muscle in her body hurt from the fight. Then she noticed that there was a person in front of her and looked up to see someone that she recognized. The green pants and bandanna gave it away almost instantly and she wasn't all that surprised to finding him here.

He had a habit of showing up in the oddest places and at the worst possible time to cause Ranma no end of trouble. She smiled evilly at the shocked expression on Ryoga's face just as she collapsed at his feet, the fight with the Scouts finally taking its toll on her much abused body.

Once again, Amy's eyes opened and she saw the sun shinning down on her, she groaned as she remembered what those damn Scouts had done to her. She was going to make them pay for attacking her without cause, though she had no intention of killing any of them. She was willing to give them the benefit of doubt and assume they made a mistake. She didn't work that way, she would get her revenge on by using their civilian identities against them.

She sat up and gasped at the amount of pain she was feeling, almost dieing twice in less than 12 hours was taking it's toll on her. She needed rest more rest than what she had gotten, but right now she needed real food to help replenish her energy reserves.

"How are you feeling?"

Amy turned and saw a shirtless Ryoga sitting in front of a small stove heating up some water. "Ryoga?"

He looked confused for a second, and then shrugged. "What happened to you?"

"I got in a fight with the Sailor Scouts."

"The Sailor Scouts?"

"Yep, they accused me of being a murder and proceeded to launch their attacks at me until I was forced to retreat, it pissed me off to no end."

"What did you do to make them think that?" Ryoga asked as he stood up and poured the two of them a bowl of ramen.

"I have no idea actually. I was roof hopping when I stumbled across the fight when I was roof hopping and decided to watch. Then Cape Boy sneaks up behind me and starts tossing roses, of all things, followed up by trying to brain me with his cane." Amy pulled one of the roses out of sub space to show Ryoga.

"Cape Boy?"

"He wanted to be called Tuxedo Mask actually. There was no way in hell I would do that."

Ryoga laughed and finished off his ramen, "Then what?"

"Then after I took him down and tied him up with his own cape after stripping him down to his boxers. I looked back down at the fight and notice Sailor Moon is about to be hit with this giant ball of tar, so I jump down and save her as easy as pie and blast the monster out of existence a few seconds later. As I'm turning to check on the other scouts, Jupiter hits me with her lightning ball attack. Because of what's happened to me lately, I didn't have any of the strength left to defend myself like I normally would. After the attack I used the last of my energy to translocate myself out of the area, I appeared here and collapsed."

"I've met the Scouts one several occasions and even helped them before, they seemed nice enough to me. Are you sure it was them?"

"Silly Fuku and short skirts, giant pink hearts?"

"That sounds like the girls I'm thinking of. By the way what were you doing with Ranma earlier?"

"At the time I was considering renting a room at the Tendo Dojo and he was leading me there. Before I can do that though, I need to find a bank and have some of my money sent here so that I can get set up. You know, buy some new clothing and return this outfit of Ranma's back to him." Amy looked down and noticed that the neat outfit she had been loaned was no longer in very good shape. It was covered in dust, ripped, and looked like it had been in more than one explosion. "Okay, buy Ranma a new outfit too."

"You do know that Ranma has 4 fiancée's right?"

"Yeah he told me about them..."

"Then why are you trying to marry him?" Ryoga growled.

Amy chocked on her noodles and started to laugh so hard she fell over. "Wh-wherever in the world did you get that idea?!"

"I have never met a girl that wasn't chasing after Ranma. I guess I'm jumping to conclusions." Ryoga bushed and scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.

Still giggling, Amy sat back up and dusted herself off and looked up at the sun, it looked to be about 8AM in the morning, from the looks of things she hadn't been out that long. "Thanks for breakfast cutie, I'll be around for a while if you're ever in the area again. I'm going to head out and find a bank ATM."

Ryoga turned a deep shade of red and stammered out, "I-isn't it a little e-early r-right now?"

"Naw, I have a few things to do today."

"Just head up the block and hang a right, head past the school and cross the street. You can't miss it." Ryoga said, laughing nervously and grabbing the back of his head again.

Amy waved thanks and headed off, 4 hours later, 3 cities, the ship yards, and a farm house she found herself in the heart of Juban, in front of the Crown Arcade. Cursing Ryoga under her breath and wondering how the moron's direction curse had affected her, Amy looked across the street and saw an ATM. She looked up at the sky and thanked god that she had finally found what she was looking for, who would have thought it would take this long?

She jogged across the street and pulled a small wallet out of nowhere. From this she pulled a small card that looked like an ATM card and inserted it in the slot, the machine scanned the card and seemed to take several minutes to process the card. There was a program built into the card that invaded a banks computer and set up a rather large account under her name.

The ATM eventually spat out a credit card and a large wad of bills that she instantly counted. She put everything back into her sub space pocket when she was done. Then she headed back over to the arcade and saw a good looking blond man sweeping the walk out front. He smiled at her as she walked up and stopped sweeping.

"Good morning."

"Good morning, you wouldn't happen to no where I could find a mall around here? I managed to ruin my new clothing in a fight."

"A fight? Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I wasn't hurt to bad, but my poor clothing took a beating and I'm to far from Nerima to get a proper change of clothes." Amy lied through her teeth with a grin on her face. She would be fine in a few days.

"No problem, there is a mall a few blocks from here, but if you are looking for more outfits like that one I can steer you towards a store that specializes in that type."

"That would be great! This wasn't even mine in the first place so I have to replace it. Also, when will you be opening up, I could use breakfast, well, a snack at least." Amy smiled again. This mixing of dimensions was pretty weird, but she knew one thing, all the guys and girls were really cute.

"We're already open I was just sweeping to get things ready for the lunch rush, by the way I'm Motaki."

"I'm Amy Lee."

"Come on in Amy, take a seat over there and I'll get you something to eat." Motaki said.

As she was entering the arcade, Amy took off the coat like shirt and was glad that she had the muscle shirt on underneath it, it was in better shape than the coat, but showed off a lot of skin and it showed off her breasts. It was a little indecent, but she didn't mind and Motaki seemed to enjoy the view, he couldn't take his eyes off her breasts even as he was making her a milkshake and a ham sandwich. She spent the next half hour chatting with they guy and eating, it was pretty different experience for her. It had been a long time since she could to anything normal like sit around and just flirt with a guy.

Amy was putting her coat shirt back on as she left when she suddenly remembered that this arcade and the mall she was heading for were both Scout hangouts. If she came back here some time in the next few days she would have a good chance of catching them off guard, she smiled evilly, now all she needed was a chain, a gag, and some whip cream. The smile was enough to scare Motaki though, and he backed off a little as Amy started cackle when she waked out of the arcade.

The Mall, that's what the sign said above the entrance said. It caused Amy to shake her head when she saw it. How original, she thought as she went inside with the other shoppers. Once inside she found the mall guide map and spent a few minutes memorizing it, from there it was a 3 hour spend-a-thon to get everything she needed. She bought several pair of black pants, a dozen dragon shirts, and several pair of red and black panties (something she had gone the last couple of days without since she couldn't stand wearing the boxers Ranma had offered her). And socks, running shoes, and a pair of combat boots that she would need to make some alterations to.

From there she found a specialty store and had a 2 special coats commissioned with a special kind of inner liner with hundreds of small pockets, doubly reinforced with Kevlar. When she got them she would have to add her own personal touches to them, but by then she should have gotten herself settled down somewhere she could work on them in private. She paid a little extra to have them made with quality, style, and strength since she didn't want them falling apart a week after she started using them.

She also picked up a large backpack, a sleeping bag, and other odds and ends she might need, gloves, sunglasses, string, a small stove like Ryoga had been using, etc. Everything went in the pack and by the end of the shopping spree she was carrying a very heavy bag, it must be noted that like Ranma and Ryoga, she had no problems lifting it or carrying it. This was better than using the stuff Ranma had loaned her to camp out with wile she was looking for a place to stay. Most of that was sitting in sub space waiting for her to pull it back out and use it.

While at the specialty store Amy had changed into one of her new outfits, black pants, boots, a black t-shirt and black, green, and red silk coat etched with flowers. Checking over everything in her mind, Amy then decided that she had one more stop to make and headed towards the Glamour Salon, she hadn't been pampered in ages and wanted to spend a couple of hours relaxing before she headed back to Nerima.

Amy was just finishing with the salon and paying her bill when she sensed the Youma manifesting itself nearby. From the power reading she could tell that it was more powerful than the one she had faced earlier. She shook her head and cursed under her breath at the odd timing of the event. The girl that had done her hair gave her a strange look. "What's wrong, did I mess up?"

"Huh, oh, no nothing like that. I'm a martial artist and I have this danger sense that helps me protect myself and those around me from all sorts of dangers. It just started to go off like fire alarm. I think there is a Youma in the area from all the dark energy I'm sensing right now." In the back round they could hear the faint sounds of screaming crowds and people running for cover. "See? Get your customers to cover. I'll see if there is anything I can do to help out."

With that Amy grabbed her pack and raced out of the store, her mind running through the possible types of monsters she would be facing. She also hoped she could kill the thing before it hurt to many people or the Scouts showed up, the way things were going Amy had a feeling that they would only make matters worse. Streams of panicking people were running at her and she was forced the access her Ki and run along the wall, defying gravity for almost 40 yards before she flipped off the wall. Then the Monster came in sight and she had to stifle a giggle, it was probably the stupidest thing she had ever seen.

It was over twelve feet high, solid purple, and bore a striking resemblance to the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man(tm). Someone had been watching Ghost Busters lately. She shrugged and continued to observe it's movements for several seconds while trying to decide on a course of action. Her hyper senses were detecting faint bands of energy being pulled into the monster from nearby people that had gotten to close to the thing.

"Hey, Tubby, pick on someone half your size why don't you?!" Amy yelled to get its attention.

She then crouched down, tossed her pack to the side, and began to power up as quickly as she could. An aura of red power exploded around her and shattered several of the nearby store windows in the back lash, she smiled evilly as she was finally able to access a good amount of her powers now that she had gotten a little rest, that sleep had done her a world of good. She reached out with her powers the flicked her wrist, every human, animal, and bug in a 50ft radius of Amy vanished to the parking lot outside the mall in a flare of light. The monster turned to her and screamed in rage and fired off a gigantic blast of energy from it mouth. Amy almost smiled in ecstasy as she realized that the poor sap was using pure life force energy to fuel the blast instead of the stuff that other monster had used against her.

A sword of glowing red power formed in Amy's hand and she sliced through the attack like it was nothing. the power turned into a cascade of lightning flowing all over her body an arcing into the crystals on her bracers and filling her reserves and absorbing it into her own body. "Come on sucker, is that the best you can do?"

Another roar and an even bigger blast was launched at Amy, she grinned even wider and dropped her guard. She spread her arms as the blast hit her, instead of being flung back or even injured, the monster watched as its enemy stood her ground wrapped in bolts of lightning. This caused the crystals to ignite and flare up as the pure life energy was absorbed. The energy was used to repair her crystals. They burst to life and Amy's power levels began to increase exponentially as they repaired themselves.

The cracks vanished as the power increased. Eventually the very foundation of the mall began to shake as she continued to absorb more and more energy. Then the ultimate rush of power waned and she launched forward so fast she broke the sound barrier, slamming into the hapless monster with enough force to send it flying across the mall and through several walls. It didn't take this too well and died before it could recover, Amy came to a stop and asked Aho and Midory how they were doing.

'Well Amy, we are glad to be back, it was total luck to come across a monster like this one. I mean how often does one find a source of life energy like this without killing someone?' Aho's female voice said.

"Well fought Amy, but you used far too much power against that thing. Remember what I and the others have taught you." Midory's male voice said within her mind, like always it sounded irritated with her performance in the fight.

"I know. I just needed to let loose and blow off some steam. The last couple of days have been pretty hard on me." Amy said as she grabbed her pack and headed for the roof of the mall. Several minutes later she launched herself skyward, screw being cautious in this situation, and flew several miles before landing inside a park and running for the trees. Just inside the tree cover Amy slowed to a stop and vanished into the woods, she needed to cover her tracks and cursed herself for not thinking beyond the fight.

*********

Ami Mizuno is sitting in the library reading a book and studying for her up coming entrance exams to collage when she heard the beeping of her communicator. She quietly looks around before she opens up the cover on her watch, a small screen winks on and the face of Sailor Mars appears. Ami hides her irritation at her friend.

"What's wrong?"

"I've found a Youma at the mall, that red head appeared out of nowhere. She is fighting the thing right now, I watched as she vaporized nearly 2 dozen bystanders! Get over here and help me stop her!"

"I'm on my way." Ami said and shut the communicator. If Mars was right, it would mean that they had misjudged that girl's intentions the yesterday, especially Sailor Moon. That was kind of odd since Moon was so good at reading people. There had been no evil or malice in her until they had attacked her from behind and nearly killed her.

Mars and Jupiter had been the only ones that thought the girl was a threat and both had been chewed out by Usagi at the meeting afterward. Now it seemed that Mars may have been right, but to Ami something wasn't adding up. Ami ducked out of the library and headed for the mall, she ducked into an alley on the way there and pulled out her pen to transform into Sailor Mercury.

She quickly runs to the mall at a dead run. Tapping her earring so that her eye shield come down and she uses this to access her mini-computer while she is moving to scan the area before she arrived. Through sub vocalized commands she set it to focus on and around the mall area and inform her of everything that was going on.

Almost immediately she gasps at the amount of power she is picking up from inside the mall and almost all of it matches the kind used by that red headed girl that Mars was telling them to be wary of. It is nearly 12 times as powerful as the last reading just a few hours ago. Somehow the girl had managed to power up and probably heal herself again, if Mars was right about the girl this was a very bad thing.

As she entered the parking lot, she saw Sailor Jupiter holding back a crowd of on lookers. She waved Mercury over and pointed behind her. There were about 30 to 35 people being treated by doctors behind her.

"What happened?" Mercury asked, continuing to scan and log information, most of the people that were being treated seemed to have trace amounts of the red head's power clinging to them.

"I'm not sure. According to the crowd these people just appeared here in a flash of light just before all hell broke loose inside mall. Mars went inside almost immediately. Then the explosions started to go off.

"Explosions?"

"Yeah, little one's, Mars says our killer was fighting a Youma in there, she was winning too. She seemed to be absorbing the monsters energy attacks, her power increase leveled a couple of stores according to Mars' last report a few minutes before she called you."

Mercury listened with half an ear and impute the information into her mini-computer even as it scanned. She detected the signs of a small fight, and numerous broken windows within the mall, but no major damage to anything else except a couple of stores. "According to this most of the mall is intact, just broken windows and some walls."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, who said that everything was leveled?"

"Some of the people in this crowd, Mars never said anything about anything being leveled now that I've had time to think about it." Jupiter said.

Mercury glances at a small bar graph on her computer and compares it to the other readings she had earlier, the red head was moving. Looking up at the roof of the building Mercury watches as a flare of red energy envelops the red head as she stands at the edge of the roof and launches into the air and quickly vanishes into the distance.

No one else seems to see her so she just notes the time down and relaxes again. They were not ready for a direct confrontation with the girl just yet. She would let the others know about it later. "Readings are going back to normal Jupiter, whatever happened in there has ended. Our target has vanished as well. I got a minor reading off to the east in Nerima."

Sailor Mars is coming out of the mall just as Moon and Venus arrive, gasping for air. The crowd cheers as Moon moves through them, Venus signs a few autographs after she looks to Mercury to see if they are still needed. She smiles when Mercury shakes her head and goes back to the crowd.

"What happened guys?" Sailor Moon asks.

"Some kind of marshmallow Youma, the red head took it out before I could even get there. I've never seen someone use so much power to blow away a simple Youma." Mars says.

"I took some readings and found that she was almost 12 times as powerful as she was when we attacked her yesterday. Readings indicate that the red head either absorbed the monsters powers or somehow increased her strength in some unknown way within the last few hours. After the fight her power levels continued to climb as she headed for the roof. From there she seemed to disappear, I picked up a faint reading a few seconds later in the Nerima ward."

"Nerima? What in the world is there?" Venus asked.

"Isn't that the place that is like, the third weirdest spot in all of Tokyo?" Jupiter asked.

"Yes, it is nearly as odd as Juban and Tomobiki."

"Let's get over there and take her out, she is trying to kill us I tell you. We need to..."

"Quiet Mars, we are in this situation because of your rash decision." Moon said and stalked off to leaves Mars and the others behind.

"Excuse me?" Mars squeaks out. 'Since when did the Meatball Head say things like that?'

Mercury and Jupiter just blink in surprise and shrug, there were times when Usagi was just to hard to read.

*********

After making some alterations to her clothing, giving the midnight black shirt a silver edging she examined herself and made sure it all looked good. Then she put a hair band in her hair and walked out of the park with her sunglasses on. She quickly noted that she was indeed back in Nerima as she had thought when she landed and adjusted her objective to a nearby restaurant called the 'Cat Cafe'.

It took her a second to remember why the name was familiar, but figured it wouldn't be a problem if she was careful. She walked in and immediately noticed that the place was packed with customers and very Chinese, she turned to a tall man wearing a pair of coke bottle glasses waiting to greet her and told him table for one. In Chinese.

*Table for one please.*

*We don't get that many customers in here that speak this language, it is good to hear it again.*

*No problem.* Amy said as Mouse lead her to a corner table and handed her a menu.

*What can I get for you?*

*Well, how about 4 bowls of the house ramen. I am very hungry.*

*Sure thing, and call me Mus Tse.*

"Mousse?"

"I know, it's a bit weird, but it's how it translates into Japanese."

Moose led her over to a table and she sat down, placing her pack beside her. Within a matter of minutes he was back and placed 4 bowls in front of her and quickly disappeared. Amy scarfed down the first two in a matter of seconds and took several minutes finishing off the remaining two. Because of where she was she didn't want to be here any longer than she had to be.

If Shampoo decided to attack her while she was there Amy was worried about what would happen to those around them. Grabbing the bill, Amy turned to the cash register and frowned when she noticed that Shampoo was manning the device. This was the girl who had said she was going to kill her if they ever met again, and yet she hadn't even looked in her direction the entire time Amy had been there. Weird.

Strolling over, preparing to defend herself, Amy walked up and handed over the bill and the money. Shampoo didn't even blink, she took both and handed her some change and waved her off. Amy was confused, but decided to go with it, maybe Shampoo wasn't in the mood. Shrugging, Amy headed outside and shouldered her pack and started toward the Tendo Dojo, she was looking forward to seeing Ranma again. It wouldn't be until later that Amy remembered that she was dressed up a lot differently than she had been the last time Shampoo saw her. The glasses and hair band were enough to disguise her from Shampoo's notice.

**********

The walk from the Cat Cafe to the Tendo Dojo takes about fifteen minutes and Amy takes her time wandering around the neighborhood and getting a lay of the area. She finds Dr. Tofu's clinic and moves on to find Uchan's place as well. Amy was glad it was still vacation time from school or she would have had to wait several more hours for Ranma and the others to get home from school. Grinning in relief, Amy knocks on the front gate of the Tendo Dojo and waits as she hears someone coming. A beautiful brown haired girl opens the door, Amy bows and introduces herself. "Good Afternoon my name is Amy Lee, Is Ranma or Nibiki in?"

"Oh my, Ranma or...Nabiki?"

"Yes, Ranma is a friend of mine and he said that you guys might have room to rent for a few weeks while I get settle here in Japan. He mentioned that I would have to rent the room through a Nabiki Tendo."

"They are both here, I'm Kasumi Tendo, please follow me."

"Thank you Kasumi, I hope I'm not interrupting anything important am I?"

"Not at all."

Amy notes that the older girl has a fantastic body and moves with a grace even more pronounced than some of the better fighters she had met, there was a hidden skill there that very few would have noticed if they hadn't been looking. The fact that this was Kasumi of all people surprised Amy, but she put that to the side as she wondered what style of Martial Arts the girl had studied to become that graceful and unassuming. Amy was pretty sure it wasn't Anything Goes, she didn't move like Ranma had yesterday. "Can I ask you a question Tendo-san?"

"Go ahead."

"What style of Martial Arts do you practice? You are very graceful and move in a manner that reminds me of trained fighter, but I can't place it."

Kasumi stiffens and looks around, as if expecting someone to jump out of the wood work of the beautiful house. She nervously hunches up and shivers, Amy springs forward and wraps the girl in a hug, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause you any pain, you don't have to tell me. I won't take any offence, I was just curious."

"I-it's alright, it has been several years since anyone has even noticed me as anything other than the nice lady in the background. Even longer since anyone has taken the time to notice that I still practice the Martial Arts. I am a Master of Ti Chi and Anything Goes Homemaker Ken. The last was taught to me by my mother before she passed away about 7 years ago."

"Homemaker Ken...as in house cleaning, cooking, and such?" Amy let Kasumi go and stepped back, still holding her hands and looked her in the face.

"I practice almost everyday as I move around the house dusting, mopping, cleaning, washing. It's amazing what can be turned into a kata."

"That is amazing, I thought I had encountered all of the different styles of Martial Arts in my time, but I have never heard of that one. Do you ever spar?"

"You want to spar with me?" Kasumi asked in surprise and blushed.

"Yes, if you like, I always like to test my skills and learn new styles to make life interesting again."

"It has been a long time since I had anyone to spar with, I may be out of practice..."

"Nonsense, and even if you are I'll bet you would love the challenge. I can see it in your eyes. You're as lonely as me."

"As lonely as you? What caused that?"

"I am under a kind of blessing/curse and it has dominated my entire life for years, I can't get close to anyone for more than anything closer than friendship or a quick affair in fear of having my world crash down on me in grief again. I have to be careful just who I allow into my heart." Amy said.

"What kind of curse?" Is it anything like Ranma's?

"I can not die, ever, I am immortal. I had to watch everyone in my family grow old and die before my eyes, as I stayed just like this. If I fell in love with anyone I had to watch them grow old and die on me time and again and each time the grief was even worse than the one before. So I have to isolate myself and try to keep my distance as much as possible and still have a few friends that I know that I can talk to."

"Do you always tell complete strangers that?" Kasumi said with a smile.

"Nope, just those people who can take the knowledge and who I want to have as a friend. I don't like to keep secrets from my friends."

"Of course I'll be your friend Amy, I like you already."

"I would like that as well Kasumi, lets head on inside."

They entered the house and Amy noted that the place was bigger than it seemed, it had a large living room and a set of stairs that led upstairs. On the far side of the living room were a set of sliding doors that led into a large back yard and she could just make out a large Dojo off to the side, probably connected to the house in some way. An older man with long hair was staring at her from in front of a game board of some kind, there was a panda stealing playing pieces and rearranging the board.

"Mr. Saotome, you shouldn't do that, where is the challenge?" Amy admonished him.

Genma-panda started to sweat as Soun whipped back around and glared at him. Genma-panda held up a sign, 'I have no idea what you are...flip...talking about...flip...I'm just a cute panda!' Soun used the distraction to make the board more to his own favor and grinned as he wasn't caught. Genma-panda glared at his friend as he rolled around with the tire that he had pulled out of nowhere and grophed at him.

"Amy, Ranma and Akane are out in the Dojo practicing if you want to go and see them. I also found a note from Nabiki that said that she would be back in a couple of hours, she had some errands to run." Kasumi said as she suddenly reappeared beside Amy and handed her a cup of tea. Amy shook her head as she realized that she hadn't even noticed the girl leave the room or switch sides on her as she talked to Ranma's father. Kasumi giggled and disappeared into the kitchen.

She made her way through the house and out into the back yard and over to the Dojo, the sounds of frustrated anger could be heard inside as Ranma was probably dodging away like mad as Akane tried to hit him. A situation the Amy remembered tended to piss Akane off to no end. Amy found the main door and quietly slid it open and stepped inside, she was right on all accounts. Akane was so enraged that she was like a berserker on steroids, wild swings full of power and no form, sloppy kicks strong enough to shatter stone, and had an aura of pure rage surrounded her.

On the other hand, Ranma was bouncing around her like a giant cricket, ducking under kicks, vaulting over punches, and dodging at such speeds that he had multiple images of himself moving all over the place. Ranma's form was magnificent and inspired, Akane's was fraying at the edges as her frustration grew, this continued until Amy decided to stop the completely useless sparring match. She stood up, gathered her Ki and clapped her hands once. Like a thunder clap, the noise filled the Dojo and caused both fighters to lose focus and fall on their faces in shocked surprise.

A startled Ranma stared at her for a few seconds before he recognized her. His glare changed to a grin as he lost his train of thought and started to look a little embarrassed. Akane saw this and just glared pure hatred at her, figuring that Ranma had found yet another fiancé or girlfriend to play around with. Amy on the other hand was looking at Akane, the girl was cute, but she couldn't see anything about her that would make Ranma so infatuated with her, she figured it must have been one of those circumstances things.

"Ranma, I'm disappointed in you, you're hurting Akane by playing with her like this. You should know better, her fighting abilities are horrible from what I saw, she is consumed with rage and totally unfocused. Congratulations, you made her into the perfect victim." Amy said arrogantly, smirking at Ranma.

"What?!"

"I'm not a V-victim!"

"Really Akane, can you even take a punch anymore? Can you remember the last time you broke a bone or performed some kind of body hardening practice?" Amy said. "Since I came out here to spar, I figure I can do so with either of you. Akane, I challenge you to a no holds bared match, winner is the last one standing and has to...oh, I don't know...kiss Ranma's when he is a girl."

"What?! Who in the hell are you to call me that!"

"Hey!" Ranma yelled and blushed.

*********

To Be Continued…