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 too 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 06
By: Cory D. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(C)2003
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She stood up shakily and wondered what had happened, there had been a slight disorientation just as she was about to look into a strange anomaly, she remembered pain and agony like the cold embrace of death. After that had come even more pain with every movement she made, she had collapsed after that and then she awoken like this. She was Sailor Pluto again, she was in uniform and standing before the Time Gate as if nothing had happened. It felt wrong somehow, but she couldn't put her finger on why, just that something was out of place. She could feel something in the air and she needed to know what it was.
The Gate opened at her command and she focused on the present time line, what had changed and when. She delved into the past and watched the Inners as they went about their business as normal, school, boys, flirting, and more boys. That was pretty much normal and something she had seen hundreds of times so she just skimmed over them and moved on. Sailor Pluto stood back and probed deeper into the time line, what was wrong, why was she felling like this?
She reset the Time gate and started to scan the time streams in a more in-depth and through way. After several minutes of searching she was presented with hundreds of intersecting lines of fate. Skimming through them with practiced ease, she narrowed things down to only a few minor possibilities. They all involved a man who...
He was a man dressed in gray and black cloak like garments. He stood over 2 meters high and carried a large backpack over his shoulder like it was not even there, but if one was to look closely, they would see that it was straining the straps to their very limits. He was walking through the night darkened forest like a wraith, stepping into and out of shadows with every step.
In his wake was a dreadful sight, animals and plants were strewn to and fro as they died in agony. Why was the question, he didn't touch them, he didn't seem to target them, he only walked by and they died agonizing deaths in a mater of seconds after he passed by.
In the distance a large mountain came into sight, just as he was leaving the forest he looked around just a couple of trees died and fell under their own weight. It caused a horrendous crash as they took of the several others with them. He ignored the destruction after that and continued forward in a determined way. Pluto wasn't sure who this was but he was having a major effect on the time line, more than anyone she had ever seen, his mere presence was enough to warp reality to his wishes.
It was a disturbing sight to Pluto, she continued to watch him as the gate sped things up by several hours. He had finally reached the base of the mountain and looked upon it with a look of great suffering that seemed to clothe the man in fog. He looked up into the sky and with a tensing of his powerful legs, he launched high into the air, landed on a small crag and rebounded farther up the mountain side.
He never hesitated as he jumped from spot to spot, never faltered, and never missed his landing point and in a mater of minutes was several thousand feet up the mountain and moving faster than the human eye could follow. Pluto was amazed. She hadn't seen anything like this in centuries. He eventually landed on a small ledge that would have been hidden from below and glanced around casually, his powerful form almost glowing with power. A few feet away there was a large door designed to blend in with the mountain coloring, there were small symbols carved into the stone on and around the door.
With a grunt, he un-shouldered his pack and sat it at his feet and opened it. He pulled out a large leather bound book. He flipped through the book for several minutes until he located a certain page, read out the garbled words on the page, and pointed his hand towards the door. The symbols started to glow an angry red and exploded violently, debris of centuries came crashing down around the man as she stood there batting the larger pieces of stone out of his way until he had finally cleared the area of loose stone.
He grunted in frustration as several larger pieces of stone had fallen down and covered the door way during the explosion, but he just frowned and casually kicked the one and two ton boulders off the edge of the ledge. The door was now in pieces, there was a dark colored smoke slowly making its way out of the opening and rising into the sky. He smiled, picked up his pack, and quickly entered the doorway. The screaming soon started and didn't start for the longest time, but it was replaced by the most maniacal laugh anyone had ever heard...
Pluto had to stop watching after a while, what she had seen wasn't something she wanted to remember. She also felt really strange, but she was getting used to it and made a note to look into it later. In the last 10,000 years she had never caught a cold or been sick with anything so she was a little worried. She would have to talk to Mercury at some time to see what was wrong, she thought as she shut down the gate for the day.
*********
Amy adjusted her blonde wig to make sure it would stay on for as long as it would be needed, checked her borrowed school uniform and made sure her breasts looked larger with those false gel breasts she had put into her bra. She looked like a short haired version of Minako and figured that Rei wouldn't recognize her if she was careful.
She had put a lot of thought into this plan and figured that neither Rei or Minako wouldn't be willing to just give themselves to her no matter what. That didn't matter to Amy that much, she just did it to irritate them and give them something to be mad at her about. She didn't mind, that was why she had done it in the first place, Sailor Mars was next on her list.
She giggled and started to get into her roll as the ultimate perky blonde, she would have to be convincing if she was to succeed, but she had done this before. She had expected Ranma to run back up, but he seemed to vanish the instant Amy mistakenly mentioned that the Scouts had two cats running around that helped them on occasionally.
Amy had found him on the roof about an hour later, looking like he had just kicked a dog. She sat down and hugged him until he calmed down a little. She had completely forgotten just how much Ranma feared cats. It also seemed as if his fear of cats was pretty bad in this dimension. So she told him to sit this one out and left before he could protest. The uniform and wig had come from Nibiki and had only cost her 5000 yen, but she figured since the money went towards the Tendo house hold it wasn't so bad.
Kasumi had helped her get dressed up and loaned her the gel cups, a surprising thing to find out about the quite girl as well. She had quickly agreed and handed them over without a word of protest. Amy had explained what she was going to do. They had giggled over it for a couple of hours before Amy had to leave. After that Amy had nearly walked into Akane, who didn't recognize her and went from confused to instantly hostile, a state that Akane had been in for some time now.
Amy had kind of regretted that thing with the card that riled Akane up so much, but had never expected it to last this long. Amy had tried to explain what was going on, but Akane, as usual had ignored everything and tried to kill the pervert that had invaded in her home. Amy had finally been forced to toss the girl in the koi pond and vanish before she surfaced. Ranma had gotten the mallet again when he fell off the roof laughing at Akane in the pond instead of him. It was quite a change from the way things normally way.
The stairs to the temple were steep and about 300 of them leading to the top of a hill and though the main gate that lead into the small court yard of the temple. Amy continued to get into character as she climbed, putting on a vapid expression of total ditz-hood, wiggling her hips as she had been trained to by her sex-ken master, and chewed on her bubble gum. Blowing a bubble she topped the stairs and walked through the tall entrance gate. An old man, maybe 4ft high noticed her and was instantly by her side looking up at her.
"Well hello there! How can I help you, do you need a blessing, a charm, a job as a temple maiden." He said suggestively.
Amy giggled, rubbed the top of his head and blew another bubble. The old man seemed to blush and ate up the attention. "Actually I need a spell scroll."
"A spell scroll?"
"Yep," Giggle. "A spell of good fortune for my grades, the charms just don't seem to work." Giggle, blow bubble that sticks to her nose, and blush.
"Grandpa!" The raven haired beauty yelled from inside the temple.
The old man starts, laughs, and starts to run as the girl grabs a broom and chases him around for several minutes. Eventually she stops and makes her way back over to Amy giving the old man an evil glare. She tosses the broom to him and turns to Amy. "Can I be of assistance?"
"I need to get a spell scroll."
"A scroll?"
"Yep." Amy grins.
"Well how about a charm instead, the scrolls are bit expensive."
"Tried charms, they don't work at all."
"Well okay, the scrolls are 10000 yen apiece."
Amy nodded and pulled out her wallet, grabbed out 12000 and handed it to Rei. "Here you go, there is a little extra there for a really good one designed for giving good fortune, I really, really need it."
Rei takes the money and points to a small concession stand along the side of the temple. "Meet me over there in a few minutes, I have to go and get the scroll out of the temple itself."
"Of course." Amy says, blows a bubble, winks at Rei and wanders over to the stand. Rei sweat drops and heads into the temple looking a little harried.
Amy, in full tease mode, leans against the counter and hikes up her uniform skirt and adjusts her thigh high stockings and giggles quietly as the old man falls over and starts to twitch, holding his nose. Ranma, who had been following Amy, saw as well and caught himself as he almost fell out of the tree and turned a solid red. Amy's disguise was hard to spot unless you knew what to look for and Ranma had almost lost her on several occasions, but she had the greatest ass he had ever seen and her wiggle was hard to miss no matter what she was wearing.
Back at the concession stand, Amy accepted the scroll from Rie, waved goodbye, and seemed to bounce out of the area as she dashed off giggling. This left Rie with a big sweat drop forming and she muttered under her breath about Usagi's ditziness being contagious or something. Rie sighed as the strange girl finally left, pocketed the 12000 yen and moved to head inside and put the money away when a chill went down her spine. She spun around to look for the danger, but when she spotted it, she froze in shock.
"SWEETOOOOO!!!!!!!!"
Rei spun around as this brown and black blur jumped off the top of the temple and headed right for her. She tried to block whatever it was, but it swerved around her arm and attached itself to her chest. Her head snapped down and noticed an old man with a perverted grin leering up at her, he was nestled between her breasts...fondling...her...and...Squeezing her...
Rei screamed and tried to hit the old man, but he flowed out of the way of her fist, hopped back and held up a bra and panties. They were familiar, but she couldn't quite place them, then she felt a draft. The wind was blowing lightly enough to make her hair shift, and the old man bounded away cackling at her shocked expression. Rei growled and her vision went red with anger and she burst into a red aura of rage, grabbed her broom and headed off after the old pervert. Several seconds later about a dozen other half naked girls made their way though the temple grounds as they chased after Hopposai.
*********
Ami knocked on the door to Makoto's apartment and heard her call out to wait a few seconds, it ended up being closer to several minutes before the girl opened the door. When it was opened and a very dishelved Makoto grunted as she let Ami in, a strange smell hit her and she shook her head to get rid of it. Makoto was wearing a house worn coat and looked as if she had been in a wild fight. Her hair was down and a complete mess, her eyes were blood shot and there were bags under her eyes that told Ami that she hadn't gotten much sleep lately. Ami gasped and quickly shut the door for the overly slow Makoto. She helped her friend to the couch and sat her down without much effort.
"Makoto what happened?"
"I don't want to talk about it." Makoto said.
"Please, let me help, what happened to you?"
Ami had never known her friend to let herself go like this, it was uncanny. Then Ami caught the smell, alcohol, she gaped and looked around at the beer cans all over the kitchen. "You've been drinking!?"
Makoto grunted and waved her hand, her head was pounding.
"Why?"
"To forget, it didn't work to well."
"I don't understand."
"I have to forget what that girl did to me, it was horrible Ami, beyond anything I have ever experienced before."
"...but she didn't even hurt you all that bad, nothing worse than any Youma has ever done and a number of those were far worse than this."
Makoto shuddered and tried not to think about it again, it didn't help all that much and she ended up curled into a ball on the couch. Ami was at her side instantly, and she was beginning to understand what was going on. She grabbed Makoto and held her for several minutes as she whimpered drunkenly.
"It was the other aspect wasn't it?"
Makoto nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"Please tell me why you are so bothered."
"I...I like boys, boys only Ami, what she did was uncalled for."
"I felt it too; it wasn't all that bad Mako-chan."
"No you don't understand, I...have never felt anything like that in my life and I loved it. God help me I loved every second of it and I feel dirtied by the experience because I want to feel that again and again. I can't get the lust out of my mind, the ecstasy as my body quaked against my will or when I touched my self."
"Oh, that feeling." Amy blushed and hopped her friend wouldn't look in her purse.
"I like boys, I like boys, I like boys." Makoto chanted into Ami's shoulder.
Ami, blushed as an idea suddenly came to her, she shivered and tried to ignore the feelings she was starting to feel. Unlike Makoto, she had no qualms with having a relationship with another girl so long as there was love involved. Licking her lips and using all of her will power to keep control of herself, Ami sat her friend up and pull her to her feet. She pulled her friend to the bathroom, blushed a little, and pushed her friend inside.
"Mako-chan, take a bath and clean yourself up, you stink. You have nothing to worry about either. We'll talk when you get out here okay?" With that she closed the door on the bewildered face of her friend and went to make some tea. About 40 minutes later Makoto came back out into the front room dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Ami decided to tell her friend about her feelings on what had happened, the brown haired girl was more than a little surprised. She would never have thought Ami had it in her to do something like that. It went against everything she knew about the girl.
"So you're saying you could actually do it with another girl and not feel bad about it?"
"Yes, I think if I like them enough I could do it easily."
"I don't think I could..."
"You like men too much."
Makoto blushed and nodded.
Beep, beep, beep...
Ami growled suddenly as her communicator went off, she tapped the answer button and looked at the screen with a frown.
"Ami, Moon here, we have a situation in the park."
"What's up?"
"Amy Lee is here as well as several Youma, she has just cast some kind of spell."
"Makoto and I are on our way."
"Hurry up! I'm not sure I can do this one alone." Moon said and cut the communicator off.
They got up and ran to the park...
*********
Walking down the street Amy stopped at a small stand and purchased a large lemonade and a candy bar. She was feeling good and figured she would have things cleared up by the end of the day if everything went as planned. She had asked Ranma to take a few minutes to talk to Usagi after last nights meeting, that should have riled the fire headed Mars to no end and was exactly what she had wanted. It would force the girl right into her plans. She was considering this when she suddenly felt the presence behind her, a dark presence.
Pretending not to notice she kept going until she reached a public bathroom and dashed inside, found a stall and changed out of her disguise and into her normal out fit. The wig and everything else went into subspace before she left the bathroom. A few minutes later the red head stepped out and walked away, she cursed as the dark presence seemed to keep up with her. That meant that it knew who she was or that it could track her somehow.
The streets were too crowded for a full scale battle, but a plan was forming in her mind and she began to see a way to kill two birds with one stone. This presence was sneaky, but she knew it wasn't a major threat, that meant that she could proceed with her original plan and include it into the mix and see where things went from here.
Sending her senses out, she smiled as she instantly located Ranma following her, just behind the dark presence. Amy grabbed her bag so that she wouldn't drop it by accident and launched herself into the sky with a mighty jump, bounced off a building, and landed on top of the gate to the park to get a look at what was following her. When she saw nothing she hopped off the gate and ran deeper into the park.
The air above the gate distorts and wavers for a brief second and a woman in a black dress appears, hovering in the air emitting an evil aura of power that scares the hell out of everyone that can see her, any number of dark shapes flutter down to the ground all around her, they have no main shape and blend into the back round and it is hard to look on them directly. She points and they launch after Amy, some taking to the air, others loping along the ground like deformed dogs.
"Go and get her, but don't hurt her because we need to use her for our plans."
They all nod and take off. One of them runs through the park and right through a picnic with a blonde haired girl and her boyfriend, they are thrown off their feet and hurled back several feet.
Usagi growls and wonders how she is the one that is always interrupted when she is spending time with Mamoru, does it happen to the others Scouts? Almost never, maybe once or twice, then it always comes and seeks her out to ruin her relationship with Mamoru. Climbing to her feet she takes off after the dark shapes, they eventually enter the woods at the edge of the park lake and spread out through the trees. Once she is out of sight, she quickly transforms into Sailor Moon and takes to the trees too. She can hear a fight the distance and catches, she catches a flash of red hair jumping and dodging wildly just at the edge of the lake.
They had come at her from all directions just as she reaches the edge of the lake in the middle of the park. The fight is furious as Amy Lee dodges and attacks with blinding speed, the creatures are like shadows and seem to just absorb the blows and attacks like they were nothing much. Amy curses and wonders where she went wrong in assuming this threat would be a push over, she hadn't expected for her follower to have these kinds of monsters at the ready.
Weaving around she charges up some power into her hands and feet and starts to cause damage to the shadow like creatures. She fails to notice the one behind her as it lashes out with a blow to her back and sends her flying into the lake with a huge splash, the rest of the creatures suddenly stop and seem to glare at the attacker, it sweat drops and hangs its head.
Usagi nearly falls out of the tree she is in, she turns her head and watches the lake and hopes Amy Lee is alright. A hand grabs her and pulls her to safety and looks back in the eyes of Amy's friend, Ranko. "Wha..."
"Are your friends coming?"
"I called them a few minutes ago?"
"Good, we have to help Amy. I can feel the evil power in the air and it is strong enough to make me worry."
"Evil power?" Moon asked.
A flash of black energy erupts over the area and the woman appears again, she lands and thumps the shadow thing on the head and scowls out at the lake, which is calming down.
"I told you not to harm her!"
There is no sign of Amy Lee as the waves settle down and Usagi begins to worry, but Ranko holds her in place and motions for her to be quiet. Usagi doesn't understand but agrees for now, unless something comes up. Ranko just nodded and watched, she was worried for Amy as well, but knew a hit like that wouldn't have her all that much so she figured the girl was planning something. Several of the flying shadow creatures begin to strafe the lake looking for the girl and get their answer when they are suddenly blasted out of the air. Then the energy forms a pattern under the water, flares up, and a pentagram shaped beam of energy launches into the sky and vaporizes several more of the creatures.
Water is blown thousands of feet into the air as Amy Lee, glowing like a demon from hell and humming with contained power slowly rises out of the water inside the pentagram beam. More of the shadow creatures launch themselves at her and impact on the beam only to vanish. Amy pulls out a scroll, breaks the seal, and begins to chant in a language that no one recognizes, but the effect is immediately seen.
The scroll suddenly bursts into flame and turns into a large symbol of Mars that launches into the stratosphere, rising for what seems like several minutes and explodes over the city like a giant firework. Usagi is shocked as she finally loses her balance and she falls out of the tree, landing on her face. Ranko curses her luck and vanishes back into the woods so that no one can see her, but not to far.
"Ite!" Moon says as she sits up and rubs her back.
The woman and her creatures spin around and take notice of Sailor Moon, the creatures growl and launch themselves at her, but she screams and scrambles back just as a red blur grabs her and launches them at a tree and from there into the sky. Moon opens her eyes and sighs as she finds herself in Ranko's arms. They flip around in mid air and land on the other side of the lake just as Tuxedo Mask finally finds them and lands nearby and tosses a dozen roses into the shadows. This has no effect of course and the shadows are soon converging on them.
Ranko tosses the stunned Sailor Moon into Mask's arms and hops off to see if she can help out Amy as she hovers above the lake.
"She's all yours now Tux Boy." Ranko calls back with a laugh.
"We have to stop those creatures. They are some kind of Youma." Moon says as she gets back on her feet.
"What about the girl?" Tuxedo Mask yells as they begin to fight the shadow monsters that are getting to close.
"She saved me, she is not the enemy, now help me out here!" Sailor Moon yells out.
"But..."
"Move it!" Usagi yells, over the years she had been forced to be the leader of the scouts, she didn't like it, but she did do the job. She pulled out her scepter and fired off an attack at the monsters blowing several into tiny little pieces that rained down on the landscape. One by one the rest of the Scouts arrived and helped to clean up the monsters. Jupiter got two and electrified the lake, Mercury got one and froze the lake.
Mars fired off several shots and ended up taking out one and setting the rest of the trees on fire while Venus took out the last 3 in quick succession with her chain attack. The woman who seemed to be leading the monsters simply shrugged at being defeated and quickly vanished in a burst of dark light, she was pulling several of Masks roses out of her shoulder as well.
Above the lake Amy flared with light and looked right at Sailor Mars as she arrived and smirked at her just as she vanished completely. Mars froze in shock and had to dive out of the way of an attack just as Neptune fired and helped her out. With Uranus' help the Outers also helped to contain the growing fire that had been started in the woods.
Mercury had her computer out and was scanning everything she could to try and get a better idea of what was going on. Sailor Saturn came in last and stood guard over Sailor Moon while Mask searched the trees for more enemies, a rare sight indeed. Then they all noticed the little golden sparkles that were drifting over the city and wondered what the hell they were and what they could mean.
"Mercury what is this stuff, it just vanishes when it hits you?" Jupiter called out.
"I'm not sure what they are exactly...energy of some kind..." Mercury said and started to grumble to herself as she worked. "They are particles of pure goodness, totally harmless to all living things, it will also counteract an of the evil energy it might come in contact with."
"Why the hell would that bitch cast a spell like this?" Mars yelled, she felt strangely ashamed of her actions of late, though she wasn't about to admit it to anyone.
*********
Moving as quietly as she could, Amy tiptoed her way into the back yard of the house and stood before the koi pond with her hands behind her back. She watched the fish play in the moon light as she stood there and wondered if what she had done earlier was going to be enough. Casting that spell had taken allot out of her and it would be several days before she could do any kind of major sparring because of it.
Unlike Ranma, she depended on her Ki to help her in her fights and to keep her alive, it was her very essence. It was like a force of nature that could ebb and tide like all things in nature, it was one of her main weaknesses, though she rarely needed to even think about it since she could store large amounts of the stuff away for later use. Ever since coming to this world her power levels had been idling at about 20% her normal strength and it was causing her a number of problems.
Lately, due to correcting some of the damage her crossing over had caused, she had been forced to use her powers at a larger than normal rate and it was beginning to show. She could steal it if she really needed to, but that wasn't right and she couldn't count on the monsters to pop up every other week just to give her a recharge, even if there was such a thing as the Monster of the Week.
She needed a new power source, but to switch would mean stranding herself here for at least 20 years while it rebalanced itself. A quick pull of outside energies was easy, but it want pure energy and would be less and less effective as time went on, she needed something that was native to this dimension and something that her enemies couldn't block or use against her.
Ever since crossing over she had been able to feel the darkness growing all around her and affecting people on a subconscious level. Akane was a good example of this and it worried Amy that Akane hadn't reacted in the way she thought the girl would. She had thought that getting her to be a better fighter and training her, Akane would be able to better control herself.
Unfortunately the girl had done the exact opposite and moved down into pure rage and had been getting worse and worse. The growing darkness had been weakened by her spell, but it was still there and had only been set back a little, the feelings in the air hadn't changed very much.
Those shadow monsters had been an unexpected set back, they had been far stronger than she had expected. As the darkness grew, so did its power and those that used it for their own ends. All of these problems could be traced back to her when she was thrust into this dimension against her will. No matter how she looked at it the whole thing seemed to be her fault. Amy walked over to one of the larger stones and sat down on it in a lotus position. She didn't know what to do, staying her for several years didn't bother her that much, but she wanted to be happy with her decision.
If she was rejected by everyone for doing so she would have to vanish off the face of the planet. To stay here after she had caused anyone pain went against everything she believed in, she had live for far to long to not care about things like that. It was always easier to leave and let things get back to normal after she was gone out of everyone's lives, and yet there was that one little hope of hers keeping her here currently.
Sure she had this mess to settle, but after that she had to make a choice and she didn't want to make something out of nothing like she had on several other occasions in the past. Amy sighed, she always grew depressed when she began to like being in a particular dimension better than others. So far her ride had been fun and exciting. The Scouts were a great challenge and would soon be punished so that she could make peace with them, if possible. Then there was her other friend, Ranma, the boy was as striking as she had always believed. She was drawn to him like a moth to flame and made her like him, even love him in ways she hadn't explored in years.
"Cough, cough."
Amy turned around and spotted a young girl standing near the house, she was glowing in a way that a human could never accomplish. She had long white hair and little symbols on her face, Amy recognized her instantly. "Hello Bell."
"Good evening Amy."
"I expected you or one of the others some time ago."
"We decided to see how you would handle things."
Amy laughed and nodded.
"Why have you never accepted the position that Father offered you all those years ago?"
"Oh Bell, is that all you wanted to ask?"
"Not at all, but if you had you could have corrected this situation easily."
"True, I would also have to give up a good number of my friends to work for you. I would have to follow all orders and not question anything that I was doing, then I would have to fight in your wars and kill demons and other nasties because they are counter productive to your Father. No thanks, I had my caring soul ripped out of me years ago Bell. I may have gotten a little of it back because of this, but I will not be used as a soldier in someone else's battle."
Bell grinned tiredly. "You just don't understand what was offered to you Amy, a home..."
"A prison."
"Friends..."
"Who would abandon me the instant they were told to because I have such strange views."
"Amy..." Bell started, then shrugged it away. "...never mind, lets get onto business then. Your spell is working very well and has cleaned up over half of the darkness let loose by your crossing over."
"That much, I expected a third, if that."
"Well we boosted the power of the spell to help the balance."
"Oh? I didn't expect that either..."
"Amy you don't need to by so cynical..."
"Yeah right, after what happened last time I worked for you guys as a freelance agent? You betrayed me and left me to live forever in that dead world after you lost. I won't go through that again."
"That was in another dimension Amy and wasn't us."
"Baka, you do know that you are all the same people whatever the dimension your in. You all act the same, react the same, there is no difference between any of you. The only reason I haven't lost my temper yet is because it was a long time ago and I decided that it was done because of a group decision and not as a personal slight against me. That doesn't mean I will ever place any trust in you or you people again."
Bell sighed and looked sadly at the pissed off girl in front of her and nodded. She phased out of existence and vanished without a thought and didn't see Amy sigh in return. She didn't see Amy wipe a tear off her cheek and go back to meditating for the rest of the night or hear any of the thoughts going through Amy's mind as she struggled with the weight of the world on her shoulders. The sound of foot steps alerted Amy to another visitor, but she recognized this one and smiled affectionately.
"Amy? Are you okay?" Ranma asked.
"I'll be fine, it took a lot out of me to cast that spell and I will be out of action for a little while. My whole existence is dependent on my Ki and I over used it today, I'm weaker than a normal human right now."
"Oh, I've done that a couple of times when I was learning how to control my Ki."
"I wouldn't have done it either except that I must halt the flow of darkness entering this world before things go from bad to worse."
"I said I would help you and I meant it Amy, we are friends aren't we?"
"Of course we are, Ranma no Baka." Amy said grinning.
"Hey!"
Amy giggled and instantly felt better. "What time is it?"
"About two in the morning, why?"
"Why aren't you asleep?"
"Um..." He blushed.
"Oh Ho! Secret date huh? Who was it?" Amy asked in quick succession and pounced on Ranma, throwing the stuttering boy to the ground and tickling him as quick as she could.
"Hey!...hhahahahahhahahahahah..."
Amy stopped laughing suddenly and paled as she felt a surge of dark power that covered the entire city. She jumped off Ranma and spins around just as Ukyo and Shampoo arrived and interrupted them, what they were doing there at that time in the morning was a complete mystery. They saw Ranma apparently having his way with yet another girl, and attacked Amy instantly. She started to dodge and weave around both girls, but her energy reserves were nearly drained because of that spell.
**********
To be continued...
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 06
By: Cory D. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(C)2003
*********
She stood up shakily and wondered what had happened, there had been a slight disorientation just as she was about to look into a strange anomaly, she remembered pain and agony like the cold embrace of death. After that had come even more pain with every movement she made, she had collapsed after that and then she awoken like this. She was Sailor Pluto again, she was in uniform and standing before the Time Gate as if nothing had happened. It felt wrong somehow, but she couldn't put her finger on why, just that something was out of place. She could feel something in the air and she needed to know what it was.
The Gate opened at her command and she focused on the present time line, what had changed and when. She delved into the past and watched the Inners as they went about their business as normal, school, boys, flirting, and more boys. That was pretty much normal and something she had seen hundreds of times so she just skimmed over them and moved on. Sailor Pluto stood back and probed deeper into the time line, what was wrong, why was she felling like this?
She reset the Time gate and started to scan the time streams in a more in-depth and through way. After several minutes of searching she was presented with hundreds of intersecting lines of fate. Skimming through them with practiced ease, she narrowed things down to only a few minor possibilities. They all involved a man who...
He was a man dressed in gray and black cloak like garments. He stood over 2 meters high and carried a large backpack over his shoulder like it was not even there, but if one was to look closely, they would see that it was straining the straps to their very limits. He was walking through the night darkened forest like a wraith, stepping into and out of shadows with every step.
In his wake was a dreadful sight, animals and plants were strewn to and fro as they died in agony. Why was the question, he didn't touch them, he didn't seem to target them, he only walked by and they died agonizing deaths in a mater of seconds after he passed by.
In the distance a large mountain came into sight, just as he was leaving the forest he looked around just a couple of trees died and fell under their own weight. It caused a horrendous crash as they took of the several others with them. He ignored the destruction after that and continued forward in a determined way. Pluto wasn't sure who this was but he was having a major effect on the time line, more than anyone she had ever seen, his mere presence was enough to warp reality to his wishes.
It was a disturbing sight to Pluto, she continued to watch him as the gate sped things up by several hours. He had finally reached the base of the mountain and looked upon it with a look of great suffering that seemed to clothe the man in fog. He looked up into the sky and with a tensing of his powerful legs, he launched high into the air, landed on a small crag and rebounded farther up the mountain side.
He never hesitated as he jumped from spot to spot, never faltered, and never missed his landing point and in a mater of minutes was several thousand feet up the mountain and moving faster than the human eye could follow. Pluto was amazed. She hadn't seen anything like this in centuries. He eventually landed on a small ledge that would have been hidden from below and glanced around casually, his powerful form almost glowing with power. A few feet away there was a large door designed to blend in with the mountain coloring, there were small symbols carved into the stone on and around the door.
With a grunt, he un-shouldered his pack and sat it at his feet and opened it. He pulled out a large leather bound book. He flipped through the book for several minutes until he located a certain page, read out the garbled words on the page, and pointed his hand towards the door. The symbols started to glow an angry red and exploded violently, debris of centuries came crashing down around the man as she stood there batting the larger pieces of stone out of his way until he had finally cleared the area of loose stone.
He grunted in frustration as several larger pieces of stone had fallen down and covered the door way during the explosion, but he just frowned and casually kicked the one and two ton boulders off the edge of the ledge. The door was now in pieces, there was a dark colored smoke slowly making its way out of the opening and rising into the sky. He smiled, picked up his pack, and quickly entered the doorway. The screaming soon started and didn't start for the longest time, but it was replaced by the most maniacal laugh anyone had ever heard...
Pluto had to stop watching after a while, what she had seen wasn't something she wanted to remember. She also felt really strange, but she was getting used to it and made a note to look into it later. In the last 10,000 years she had never caught a cold or been sick with anything so she was a little worried. She would have to talk to Mercury at some time to see what was wrong, she thought as she shut down the gate for the day.
*********
Amy adjusted her blonde wig to make sure it would stay on for as long as it would be needed, checked her borrowed school uniform and made sure her breasts looked larger with those false gel breasts she had put into her bra. She looked like a short haired version of Minako and figured that Rei wouldn't recognize her if she was careful.
She had put a lot of thought into this plan and figured that neither Rei or Minako wouldn't be willing to just give themselves to her no matter what. That didn't matter to Amy that much, she just did it to irritate them and give them something to be mad at her about. She didn't mind, that was why she had done it in the first place, Sailor Mars was next on her list.
She giggled and started to get into her roll as the ultimate perky blonde, she would have to be convincing if she was to succeed, but she had done this before. She had expected Ranma to run back up, but he seemed to vanish the instant Amy mistakenly mentioned that the Scouts had two cats running around that helped them on occasionally.
Amy had found him on the roof about an hour later, looking like he had just kicked a dog. She sat down and hugged him until he calmed down a little. She had completely forgotten just how much Ranma feared cats. It also seemed as if his fear of cats was pretty bad in this dimension. So she told him to sit this one out and left before he could protest. The uniform and wig had come from Nibiki and had only cost her 5000 yen, but she figured since the money went towards the Tendo house hold it wasn't so bad.
Kasumi had helped her get dressed up and loaned her the gel cups, a surprising thing to find out about the quite girl as well. She had quickly agreed and handed them over without a word of protest. Amy had explained what she was going to do. They had giggled over it for a couple of hours before Amy had to leave. After that Amy had nearly walked into Akane, who didn't recognize her and went from confused to instantly hostile, a state that Akane had been in for some time now.
Amy had kind of regretted that thing with the card that riled Akane up so much, but had never expected it to last this long. Amy had tried to explain what was going on, but Akane, as usual had ignored everything and tried to kill the pervert that had invaded in her home. Amy had finally been forced to toss the girl in the koi pond and vanish before she surfaced. Ranma had gotten the mallet again when he fell off the roof laughing at Akane in the pond instead of him. It was quite a change from the way things normally way.
The stairs to the temple were steep and about 300 of them leading to the top of a hill and though the main gate that lead into the small court yard of the temple. Amy continued to get into character as she climbed, putting on a vapid expression of total ditz-hood, wiggling her hips as she had been trained to by her sex-ken master, and chewed on her bubble gum. Blowing a bubble she topped the stairs and walked through the tall entrance gate. An old man, maybe 4ft high noticed her and was instantly by her side looking up at her.
"Well hello there! How can I help you, do you need a blessing, a charm, a job as a temple maiden." He said suggestively.
Amy giggled, rubbed the top of his head and blew another bubble. The old man seemed to blush and ate up the attention. "Actually I need a spell scroll."
"A spell scroll?"
"Yep," Giggle. "A spell of good fortune for my grades, the charms just don't seem to work." Giggle, blow bubble that sticks to her nose, and blush.
"Grandpa!" The raven haired beauty yelled from inside the temple.
The old man starts, laughs, and starts to run as the girl grabs a broom and chases him around for several minutes. Eventually she stops and makes her way back over to Amy giving the old man an evil glare. She tosses the broom to him and turns to Amy. "Can I be of assistance?"
"I need to get a spell scroll."
"A scroll?"
"Yep." Amy grins.
"Well how about a charm instead, the scrolls are bit expensive."
"Tried charms, they don't work at all."
"Well okay, the scrolls are 10000 yen apiece."
Amy nodded and pulled out her wallet, grabbed out 12000 and handed it to Rei. "Here you go, there is a little extra there for a really good one designed for giving good fortune, I really, really need it."
Rei takes the money and points to a small concession stand along the side of the temple. "Meet me over there in a few minutes, I have to go and get the scroll out of the temple itself."
"Of course." Amy says, blows a bubble, winks at Rei and wanders over to the stand. Rei sweat drops and heads into the temple looking a little harried.
Amy, in full tease mode, leans against the counter and hikes up her uniform skirt and adjusts her thigh high stockings and giggles quietly as the old man falls over and starts to twitch, holding his nose. Ranma, who had been following Amy, saw as well and caught himself as he almost fell out of the tree and turned a solid red. Amy's disguise was hard to spot unless you knew what to look for and Ranma had almost lost her on several occasions, but she had the greatest ass he had ever seen and her wiggle was hard to miss no matter what she was wearing.
Back at the concession stand, Amy accepted the scroll from Rie, waved goodbye, and seemed to bounce out of the area as she dashed off giggling. This left Rie with a big sweat drop forming and she muttered under her breath about Usagi's ditziness being contagious or something. Rie sighed as the strange girl finally left, pocketed the 12000 yen and moved to head inside and put the money away when a chill went down her spine. She spun around to look for the danger, but when she spotted it, she froze in shock.
"SWEETOOOOO!!!!!!!!"
Rei spun around as this brown and black blur jumped off the top of the temple and headed right for her. She tried to block whatever it was, but it swerved around her arm and attached itself to her chest. Her head snapped down and noticed an old man with a perverted grin leering up at her, he was nestled between her breasts...fondling...her...and...Squeezing her...
Rei screamed and tried to hit the old man, but he flowed out of the way of her fist, hopped back and held up a bra and panties. They were familiar, but she couldn't quite place them, then she felt a draft. The wind was blowing lightly enough to make her hair shift, and the old man bounded away cackling at her shocked expression. Rei growled and her vision went red with anger and she burst into a red aura of rage, grabbed her broom and headed off after the old pervert. Several seconds later about a dozen other half naked girls made their way though the temple grounds as they chased after Hopposai.
*********
Ami knocked on the door to Makoto's apartment and heard her call out to wait a few seconds, it ended up being closer to several minutes before the girl opened the door. When it was opened and a very dishelved Makoto grunted as she let Ami in, a strange smell hit her and she shook her head to get rid of it. Makoto was wearing a house worn coat and looked as if she had been in a wild fight. Her hair was down and a complete mess, her eyes were blood shot and there were bags under her eyes that told Ami that she hadn't gotten much sleep lately. Ami gasped and quickly shut the door for the overly slow Makoto. She helped her friend to the couch and sat her down without much effort.
"Makoto what happened?"
"I don't want to talk about it." Makoto said.
"Please, let me help, what happened to you?"
Ami had never known her friend to let herself go like this, it was uncanny. Then Ami caught the smell, alcohol, she gaped and looked around at the beer cans all over the kitchen. "You've been drinking!?"
Makoto grunted and waved her hand, her head was pounding.
"Why?"
"To forget, it didn't work to well."
"I don't understand."
"I have to forget what that girl did to me, it was horrible Ami, beyond anything I have ever experienced before."
"...but she didn't even hurt you all that bad, nothing worse than any Youma has ever done and a number of those were far worse than this."
Makoto shuddered and tried not to think about it again, it didn't help all that much and she ended up curled into a ball on the couch. Ami was at her side instantly, and she was beginning to understand what was going on. She grabbed Makoto and held her for several minutes as she whimpered drunkenly.
"It was the other aspect wasn't it?"
Makoto nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"Please tell me why you are so bothered."
"I...I like boys, boys only Ami, what she did was uncalled for."
"I felt it too; it wasn't all that bad Mako-chan."
"No you don't understand, I...have never felt anything like that in my life and I loved it. God help me I loved every second of it and I feel dirtied by the experience because I want to feel that again and again. I can't get the lust out of my mind, the ecstasy as my body quaked against my will or when I touched my self."
"Oh, that feeling." Amy blushed and hopped her friend wouldn't look in her purse.
"I like boys, I like boys, I like boys." Makoto chanted into Ami's shoulder.
Ami, blushed as an idea suddenly came to her, she shivered and tried to ignore the feelings she was starting to feel. Unlike Makoto, she had no qualms with having a relationship with another girl so long as there was love involved. Licking her lips and using all of her will power to keep control of herself, Ami sat her friend up and pull her to her feet. She pulled her friend to the bathroom, blushed a little, and pushed her friend inside.
"Mako-chan, take a bath and clean yourself up, you stink. You have nothing to worry about either. We'll talk when you get out here okay?" With that she closed the door on the bewildered face of her friend and went to make some tea. About 40 minutes later Makoto came back out into the front room dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Ami decided to tell her friend about her feelings on what had happened, the brown haired girl was more than a little surprised. She would never have thought Ami had it in her to do something like that. It went against everything she knew about the girl.
"So you're saying you could actually do it with another girl and not feel bad about it?"
"Yes, I think if I like them enough I could do it easily."
"I don't think I could..."
"You like men too much."
Makoto blushed and nodded.
Beep, beep, beep...
Ami growled suddenly as her communicator went off, she tapped the answer button and looked at the screen with a frown.
"Ami, Moon here, we have a situation in the park."
"What's up?"
"Amy Lee is here as well as several Youma, she has just cast some kind of spell."
"Makoto and I are on our way."
"Hurry up! I'm not sure I can do this one alone." Moon said and cut the communicator off.
They got up and ran to the park...
*********
Walking down the street Amy stopped at a small stand and purchased a large lemonade and a candy bar. She was feeling good and figured she would have things cleared up by the end of the day if everything went as planned. She had asked Ranma to take a few minutes to talk to Usagi after last nights meeting, that should have riled the fire headed Mars to no end and was exactly what she had wanted. It would force the girl right into her plans. She was considering this when she suddenly felt the presence behind her, a dark presence.
Pretending not to notice she kept going until she reached a public bathroom and dashed inside, found a stall and changed out of her disguise and into her normal out fit. The wig and everything else went into subspace before she left the bathroom. A few minutes later the red head stepped out and walked away, she cursed as the dark presence seemed to keep up with her. That meant that it knew who she was or that it could track her somehow.
The streets were too crowded for a full scale battle, but a plan was forming in her mind and she began to see a way to kill two birds with one stone. This presence was sneaky, but she knew it wasn't a major threat, that meant that she could proceed with her original plan and include it into the mix and see where things went from here.
Sending her senses out, she smiled as she instantly located Ranma following her, just behind the dark presence. Amy grabbed her bag so that she wouldn't drop it by accident and launched herself into the sky with a mighty jump, bounced off a building, and landed on top of the gate to the park to get a look at what was following her. When she saw nothing she hopped off the gate and ran deeper into the park.
The air above the gate distorts and wavers for a brief second and a woman in a black dress appears, hovering in the air emitting an evil aura of power that scares the hell out of everyone that can see her, any number of dark shapes flutter down to the ground all around her, they have no main shape and blend into the back round and it is hard to look on them directly. She points and they launch after Amy, some taking to the air, others loping along the ground like deformed dogs.
"Go and get her, but don't hurt her because we need to use her for our plans."
They all nod and take off. One of them runs through the park and right through a picnic with a blonde haired girl and her boyfriend, they are thrown off their feet and hurled back several feet.
Usagi growls and wonders how she is the one that is always interrupted when she is spending time with Mamoru, does it happen to the others Scouts? Almost never, maybe once or twice, then it always comes and seeks her out to ruin her relationship with Mamoru. Climbing to her feet she takes off after the dark shapes, they eventually enter the woods at the edge of the park lake and spread out through the trees. Once she is out of sight, she quickly transforms into Sailor Moon and takes to the trees too. She can hear a fight the distance and catches, she catches a flash of red hair jumping and dodging wildly just at the edge of the lake.
They had come at her from all directions just as she reaches the edge of the lake in the middle of the park. The fight is furious as Amy Lee dodges and attacks with blinding speed, the creatures are like shadows and seem to just absorb the blows and attacks like they were nothing much. Amy curses and wonders where she went wrong in assuming this threat would be a push over, she hadn't expected for her follower to have these kinds of monsters at the ready.
Weaving around she charges up some power into her hands and feet and starts to cause damage to the shadow like creatures. She fails to notice the one behind her as it lashes out with a blow to her back and sends her flying into the lake with a huge splash, the rest of the creatures suddenly stop and seem to glare at the attacker, it sweat drops and hangs its head.
Usagi nearly falls out of the tree she is in, she turns her head and watches the lake and hopes Amy Lee is alright. A hand grabs her and pulls her to safety and looks back in the eyes of Amy's friend, Ranko. "Wha..."
"Are your friends coming?"
"I called them a few minutes ago?"
"Good, we have to help Amy. I can feel the evil power in the air and it is strong enough to make me worry."
"Evil power?" Moon asked.
A flash of black energy erupts over the area and the woman appears again, she lands and thumps the shadow thing on the head and scowls out at the lake, which is calming down.
"I told you not to harm her!"
There is no sign of Amy Lee as the waves settle down and Usagi begins to worry, but Ranko holds her in place and motions for her to be quiet. Usagi doesn't understand but agrees for now, unless something comes up. Ranko just nodded and watched, she was worried for Amy as well, but knew a hit like that wouldn't have her all that much so she figured the girl was planning something. Several of the flying shadow creatures begin to strafe the lake looking for the girl and get their answer when they are suddenly blasted out of the air. Then the energy forms a pattern under the water, flares up, and a pentagram shaped beam of energy launches into the sky and vaporizes several more of the creatures.
Water is blown thousands of feet into the air as Amy Lee, glowing like a demon from hell and humming with contained power slowly rises out of the water inside the pentagram beam. More of the shadow creatures launch themselves at her and impact on the beam only to vanish. Amy pulls out a scroll, breaks the seal, and begins to chant in a language that no one recognizes, but the effect is immediately seen.
The scroll suddenly bursts into flame and turns into a large symbol of Mars that launches into the stratosphere, rising for what seems like several minutes and explodes over the city like a giant firework. Usagi is shocked as she finally loses her balance and she falls out of the tree, landing on her face. Ranko curses her luck and vanishes back into the woods so that no one can see her, but not to far.
"Ite!" Moon says as she sits up and rubs her back.
The woman and her creatures spin around and take notice of Sailor Moon, the creatures growl and launch themselves at her, but she screams and scrambles back just as a red blur grabs her and launches them at a tree and from there into the sky. Moon opens her eyes and sighs as she finds herself in Ranko's arms. They flip around in mid air and land on the other side of the lake just as Tuxedo Mask finally finds them and lands nearby and tosses a dozen roses into the shadows. This has no effect of course and the shadows are soon converging on them.
Ranko tosses the stunned Sailor Moon into Mask's arms and hops off to see if she can help out Amy as she hovers above the lake.
"She's all yours now Tux Boy." Ranko calls back with a laugh.
"We have to stop those creatures. They are some kind of Youma." Moon says as she gets back on her feet.
"What about the girl?" Tuxedo Mask yells as they begin to fight the shadow monsters that are getting to close.
"She saved me, she is not the enemy, now help me out here!" Sailor Moon yells out.
"But..."
"Move it!" Usagi yells, over the years she had been forced to be the leader of the scouts, she didn't like it, but she did do the job. She pulled out her scepter and fired off an attack at the monsters blowing several into tiny little pieces that rained down on the landscape. One by one the rest of the Scouts arrived and helped to clean up the monsters. Jupiter got two and electrified the lake, Mercury got one and froze the lake.
Mars fired off several shots and ended up taking out one and setting the rest of the trees on fire while Venus took out the last 3 in quick succession with her chain attack. The woman who seemed to be leading the monsters simply shrugged at being defeated and quickly vanished in a burst of dark light, she was pulling several of Masks roses out of her shoulder as well.
Above the lake Amy flared with light and looked right at Sailor Mars as she arrived and smirked at her just as she vanished completely. Mars froze in shock and had to dive out of the way of an attack just as Neptune fired and helped her out. With Uranus' help the Outers also helped to contain the growing fire that had been started in the woods.
Mercury had her computer out and was scanning everything she could to try and get a better idea of what was going on. Sailor Saturn came in last and stood guard over Sailor Moon while Mask searched the trees for more enemies, a rare sight indeed. Then they all noticed the little golden sparkles that were drifting over the city and wondered what the hell they were and what they could mean.
"Mercury what is this stuff, it just vanishes when it hits you?" Jupiter called out.
"I'm not sure what they are exactly...energy of some kind..." Mercury said and started to grumble to herself as she worked. "They are particles of pure goodness, totally harmless to all living things, it will also counteract an of the evil energy it might come in contact with."
"Why the hell would that bitch cast a spell like this?" Mars yelled, she felt strangely ashamed of her actions of late, though she wasn't about to admit it to anyone.
*********
Moving as quietly as she could, Amy tiptoed her way into the back yard of the house and stood before the koi pond with her hands behind her back. She watched the fish play in the moon light as she stood there and wondered if what she had done earlier was going to be enough. Casting that spell had taken allot out of her and it would be several days before she could do any kind of major sparring because of it.
Unlike Ranma, she depended on her Ki to help her in her fights and to keep her alive, it was her very essence. It was like a force of nature that could ebb and tide like all things in nature, it was one of her main weaknesses, though she rarely needed to even think about it since she could store large amounts of the stuff away for later use. Ever since coming to this world her power levels had been idling at about 20% her normal strength and it was causing her a number of problems.
Lately, due to correcting some of the damage her crossing over had caused, she had been forced to use her powers at a larger than normal rate and it was beginning to show. She could steal it if she really needed to, but that wasn't right and she couldn't count on the monsters to pop up every other week just to give her a recharge, even if there was such a thing as the Monster of the Week.
She needed a new power source, but to switch would mean stranding herself here for at least 20 years while it rebalanced itself. A quick pull of outside energies was easy, but it want pure energy and would be less and less effective as time went on, she needed something that was native to this dimension and something that her enemies couldn't block or use against her.
Ever since crossing over she had been able to feel the darkness growing all around her and affecting people on a subconscious level. Akane was a good example of this and it worried Amy that Akane hadn't reacted in the way she thought the girl would. She had thought that getting her to be a better fighter and training her, Akane would be able to better control herself.
Unfortunately the girl had done the exact opposite and moved down into pure rage and had been getting worse and worse. The growing darkness had been weakened by her spell, but it was still there and had only been set back a little, the feelings in the air hadn't changed very much.
Those shadow monsters had been an unexpected set back, they had been far stronger than she had expected. As the darkness grew, so did its power and those that used it for their own ends. All of these problems could be traced back to her when she was thrust into this dimension against her will. No matter how she looked at it the whole thing seemed to be her fault. Amy walked over to one of the larger stones and sat down on it in a lotus position. She didn't know what to do, staying her for several years didn't bother her that much, but she wanted to be happy with her decision.
If she was rejected by everyone for doing so she would have to vanish off the face of the planet. To stay here after she had caused anyone pain went against everything she believed in, she had live for far to long to not care about things like that. It was always easier to leave and let things get back to normal after she was gone out of everyone's lives, and yet there was that one little hope of hers keeping her here currently.
Sure she had this mess to settle, but after that she had to make a choice and she didn't want to make something out of nothing like she had on several other occasions in the past. Amy sighed, she always grew depressed when she began to like being in a particular dimension better than others. So far her ride had been fun and exciting. The Scouts were a great challenge and would soon be punished so that she could make peace with them, if possible. Then there was her other friend, Ranma, the boy was as striking as she had always believed. She was drawn to him like a moth to flame and made her like him, even love him in ways she hadn't explored in years.
"Cough, cough."
Amy turned around and spotted a young girl standing near the house, she was glowing in a way that a human could never accomplish. She had long white hair and little symbols on her face, Amy recognized her instantly. "Hello Bell."
"Good evening Amy."
"I expected you or one of the others some time ago."
"We decided to see how you would handle things."
Amy laughed and nodded.
"Why have you never accepted the position that Father offered you all those years ago?"
"Oh Bell, is that all you wanted to ask?"
"Not at all, but if you had you could have corrected this situation easily."
"True, I would also have to give up a good number of my friends to work for you. I would have to follow all orders and not question anything that I was doing, then I would have to fight in your wars and kill demons and other nasties because they are counter productive to your Father. No thanks, I had my caring soul ripped out of me years ago Bell. I may have gotten a little of it back because of this, but I will not be used as a soldier in someone else's battle."
Bell grinned tiredly. "You just don't understand what was offered to you Amy, a home..."
"A prison."
"Friends..."
"Who would abandon me the instant they were told to because I have such strange views."
"Amy..." Bell started, then shrugged it away. "...never mind, lets get onto business then. Your spell is working very well and has cleaned up over half of the darkness let loose by your crossing over."
"That much, I expected a third, if that."
"Well we boosted the power of the spell to help the balance."
"Oh? I didn't expect that either..."
"Amy you don't need to by so cynical..."
"Yeah right, after what happened last time I worked for you guys as a freelance agent? You betrayed me and left me to live forever in that dead world after you lost. I won't go through that again."
"That was in another dimension Amy and wasn't us."
"Baka, you do know that you are all the same people whatever the dimension your in. You all act the same, react the same, there is no difference between any of you. The only reason I haven't lost my temper yet is because it was a long time ago and I decided that it was done because of a group decision and not as a personal slight against me. That doesn't mean I will ever place any trust in you or you people again."
Bell sighed and looked sadly at the pissed off girl in front of her and nodded. She phased out of existence and vanished without a thought and didn't see Amy sigh in return. She didn't see Amy wipe a tear off her cheek and go back to meditating for the rest of the night or hear any of the thoughts going through Amy's mind as she struggled with the weight of the world on her shoulders. The sound of foot steps alerted Amy to another visitor, but she recognized this one and smiled affectionately.
"Amy? Are you okay?" Ranma asked.
"I'll be fine, it took a lot out of me to cast that spell and I will be out of action for a little while. My whole existence is dependent on my Ki and I over used it today, I'm weaker than a normal human right now."
"Oh, I've done that a couple of times when I was learning how to control my Ki."
"I wouldn't have done it either except that I must halt the flow of darkness entering this world before things go from bad to worse."
"I said I would help you and I meant it Amy, we are friends aren't we?"
"Of course we are, Ranma no Baka." Amy said grinning.
"Hey!"
Amy giggled and instantly felt better. "What time is it?"
"About two in the morning, why?"
"Why aren't you asleep?"
"Um..." He blushed.
"Oh Ho! Secret date huh? Who was it?" Amy asked in quick succession and pounced on Ranma, throwing the stuttering boy to the ground and tickling him as quick as she could.
"Hey!...hhahahahahhahahahahah..."
Amy stopped laughing suddenly and paled as she felt a surge of dark power that covered the entire city. She jumped off Ranma and spins around just as Ukyo and Shampoo arrived and interrupted them, what they were doing there at that time in the morning was a complete mystery. They saw Ranma apparently having his way with yet another girl, and attacked Amy instantly. She started to dodge and weave around both girls, but her energy reserves were nearly drained because of that spell.
**********
To be continued...