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 12
By: Cory D. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(C)2003
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The day started out simply enough for every one, but it was soon to be one of the most interesting ones to date, one that no one would forget for a very long time to come. Ranma awoke earlier than normal and snuck out of the room he shared with his father, he didn't want to wake up his father and turned off the small alarm clock the old man used to get up. He knew that this would only buy him about 20 to 40 minutes before he woke up naturally, but it was enough.
Ranma grinned as he came down stairs. He had a sparing match with Amy this morning. She had agreed to give him a good fight and to give him far more than the old man ever could. His battle with Saffron had been a major turning point in his strength as a Martial Artist, he had tapped into a power that few humans could even conceive of, let alone even use.
Of course over the last few days, ever since he had gotten his past life memories returned to him, he had begun to understand just what it was he had used to win that fight. He had tapped the very power of this planet and used his body to focus it. Those magical theory courses he had taken back in the Silver Millennium had been put to good use after all.
According to Amy that was the first sign that he was more than human, if even a cute one. He blushed a little at that thought, she had said that all of the Sailors were the same as him, reborn to preserve the last memories of a fallen kingdom, even rebuild it if things turned out the way they wanted them to be.
This idea was, in his mind anyway, a very bad one on a number of levels. He remembered having numerous arguments with Sailor Pluto about her so called grand plan. Her initial objectives were fine with him, but to take it as far as the Princess was supposed to...no way would removing all the evil and dark thoughts from the human soul be a good idea.
It would be like cutting off one's own foot, nearly impossible to live without and still be able to enjoy life. Ranma shook his head as he entered the dojo and gaped suddenly as he saw a sight that just baffled him, even if he had seen it on several occasions now. Amy was sparing with...Kasumi!
The elder sister was moving in the slow deliberate forms of Tai Chi and warding off Amy's quick blows easily. Ranma watched them for several minutes and started to find that Kasumi was using several different forms of Martial Arts, all of them were highly defensive and completely lacking in any kind of offensive attacks. Amy would throw a quick punch at a hole in her defenses and Kasumi would just twist in an odd way, grab her wrist and toss her away.
Foot sweeps were simply hopped over, kicks were redirected, and punches were used to pull Amy into a surprisingly hard throw. Of course the most surprising thing he had noticed was that Kasumi had an aura, of nearly clear power swirling around her that she used to defend against Amy Ki enhanced strength and speed. By its feel, Ranma assumed it was a manifestation of Kasumi's gentle nature in some way. After about 10 more minutes they wound down and stopped, both of them breathing hard.
"Amy you don't have to handicap yourself so much when we spar."
"Yeah I do, your improving at an amazing rate Kasumi, but my handicap is also helping me to train."
"I know, but I just cant see how you can use your Ki to make yourself heavier, especially since you insist on wearing that heavy clothing of yours all the time."
"Heh, everything is training Kasumi, simply walking to the market with 2 or 3 hundred pounds pulling you down will make you as strong as an ox."
"I guess so...oh my, it's time to get breakfast ready." Kasumi said and dashed out of the dojo.
Amy shook her head and glanced over at Ranma as she unfastened her jacket and lay it in one corner of the dojo. She adjusted her pants and t-shirt and made sure her shoes were in good condition. She teased Ranma a little by doing some provocative stretching techniques she had learned from a friend and gave him a good look at her flexibility.
"Are you ready?" Amy asked seductively, smiling at Ranma's stunned reaction.
"H-hai." Said Ranma gulped and blushed.
"Then lets go to that park down the block, we are going to cause some damage to the area and we need to make sure no one will be hurt."
They ran out of the dojo and roof hopped to the until they found themselves standing in a small open field, the wind was blowing through the area just enough to move the grass and made the area look peaceful and quiet as the sun rose in the distance. Of course, peaceful wasn't what either of them had in mind this day and they were glad that they wouldn't disturb anyone with this fight. It was a day of training and fun, and they were going to do everything in their power to do just that.
Ranma was in his usual red silk shirt and black pants. They were facing each other and took a few seconds to try and determine how the other would be fighting. This was going to be a fight that Ranma had wanted for some time now. A chance to see just what Amy could do in combat. He had accused her of depending on her Ki to much and told her that it had affected her physical combat skills. This was a lie, even he knew that she had to be very good to access the amount of power she did with ease, but he wanted to fight her and she was stubborn, very stubborn when she didn't want to do something.
"Now!" Amy yelled and ran forward.
The crashed together with at speeds that would have done the flash proud, each using their enhanced abilities. Ranma gasped as he was suddenly punched in the chin and wheel kicked, sending him back several yards. Only years of training allowed him to flip and land on his feet easily, he shook the cobwebs out of his head and glared at Amy.
"Do not treat me like Akane. Ranma, I am a Grand Master of several different styles. Just like you, I am faster and it is much easier for me to hit you than Akane, especially when you start to fight me like you do her." Amy smirked.
"Point taken, let's go again."
They flashed forward and came together with a crash that echoed over the area and used their momentum to launch into the air. Ranma was a bit confused at first as they rose off the ground, but them he realized that Amy was teaching him how to fly as they fought! He grinned as he noticed his aura starting to mirror Amy's as they moved. This also made him noticed that he was using the 'Ascension of the Dragon God' technique with ease, as if he was simply breathing.
It was so simple to use now, he wasn't tired and he could feel it renewing his energies almost continuously. They came back down, landed and jumped into the air again and lashed out at each other. Amy was pressing him hard, though his defenses were impossible to break through. He grinned and upped his aura a little more.
Amy followed suit and kept him guessing at just how much she was holding back. She had been fighting enemies much more powerful that Saffron over the years and had learned how to augment her powers to any situation. At certain speeds she could do things that made Ranma's techniques look like simple kata.
There were several that increased the scenes and slowed things down so that she had time to analyze any situation, though there had been very few times for her to use it lately. Ranma was moving at a crawl to her eyes, his arms and legs leaving ghost like after images, showing off holes in his defense that were almost impossible for anyone else to hit.
Her fist lashed out and hit Ranma in the shoulder as her leg came up and parried his wild kick. She continued the motion, spun around used her other leg to hit him in the jaw, but he dodged and counter attacked. Amy flowed around his attack as they landed and spun into a blindingly fast foot sweep, but again Ranma dodged it by hopping over it. He smiled in victory as he balanced on top of her head for a second before spinning his body around and wrapping his legs around her and rolling her over to slam her head into the ground.
They crawled back to their feet and appraised each other again. Amy was impressed and a little flushed. Ranma was as good as she had though, even better than her in many areas, but she had experience on her side. She was also doing this to have a little fun so hadn't taken it too seriously, now she would have to. Ranma had scored the first take down and even bruised her head. She took a stance to a move she knew he wouldn't know. After all she had invented it at time when she had taken on an opponent like Ranma. She smirked and tensed as she watched his eyes study her.
Ranma rushed forward and hopped about 10 feet into the air and used gravity to his advantage. Amy's stance looked like something out of Aikido, but that style was only effective if one was on the ground and over head attacks were to his advantage against that style. He contorted in mid air and brought his hands forward instead of his feet and went in for a grab to execute a simple Judo throw to catch her off guard. Amy seemed to phase out of existence as she spun on the...ball!? of her foot and round housed him in the back of his head with her other foot, sending him plowing into the ground and ripping his shirt to shreds as her hands blurred into claws.
He groaned and sat up groggily and shook his head, there was blood running down his chin from the unexpected attack. "I thought that was an Aikido stance?"
"It is, but the style is weak against over head attack, always has been, but I found that if one was to adapt certain forms and blend them into Aikido as an offensive attack one could do the most amazing things."
"An offensive Aikido?"
"Yep, I don't know much about the styles history here, but where I come from it was originally like all the others, used to hurt and kill. Over time it became obvious that it had its strengths in defensive attacks only. I thought this a bit strange and studied the style deeper than most of the others and developed a number of actual attacks that could be used defensively."
Ranma nodded, hopped back to his feet and sprang at Amy, again they blurred as their attacks left the visual spectrum. This time they stayed on the ground and fenced back an forth for several minutes, each taking as many hits as they were giving. Ranma was growing frustrated as the attempted to begin the first steps of the Hiryü Shöten Ha technique.
But Amy wasn't putting out a visible Battle Aura for him to use as the primer. So he had to adapt something on the fly and called up the Soul of Ice technique and focused. He saw Amy's eyes narrow at him and he grinned, she had been keeping her reactions totally unnoticeable, she must be growing tired to make a mistake that simple.
Fists of pure blue fire flew forward and fired off two beams of power that Amy barely dodged, she had been expecting Ranma to fire off his most basic attack first, the Möko Takabisha blast. The attacks hit the ground around her feet and Amy found her feet encased in ice an instant later she failed to keep her balance and was tripped just as the second impact flowed over the first and encased her lower body.
Pain flared in her legs a few seconds later and Amy decided to use her Ki abilities. Her aura burst forth and destroyed the ice around her as she grabbed onto the ice fragments with her aura and rolled forward into a crouch and pointed an arm at Ranma. The ice fragments flew forward through the spot where Ranma had been, she spotted him nearly 40 feet above the attack and instant later.
Growling in pain Amy called out 'Air Vortex' as she stood up and let off a bright red aura of power. A column of wind swirled around her and rose up into the sky to grab Ranma before he could dodge. The look of shock on his face was all Amy needed to see, she grinned. Ranma, now nearly 300 feet in the air was falling from the top of the spiral, but he concentrated and allowed his Ki to take on a certain shape and felt his body fill with power. He flipped around and landed lightly on his feet as his fall was quickly reduced to a slow crawl.
"I knew you had learned how to do the beginnings of a flight technique."
"You used it a little while ago."
"Heh, you learn even faster than anyone I have ever met."
"I am the best." Ranma smirked.
"Of course you know I am learning your moves too?" Amy smirked right back and batter her eye lids at him and formed the beginning ball of the Möko Takabisha .
"Huh?"
KA-BOOM!!!!!!!
Ranma and Amy staggered around as the blast shook the park and set of alarms all across the district. They glanced around and saw a massive column of smoke rising into the sky at the edge of Nerima and Juban. Amy focused on the sight and brought her powers to bear. "It seems that the Scouts are fighting in the ruins of what used to be a factory."
"We need to get over there and help them!" Ranma yelled.
"Of course." Amy shrugged as if it was a forgone conclusion.
They blurred and bounced to the roof of a nearby house and quickly made their way to the area. They shifted in mid air and came down in their disguises. Ranma as the white cloaked female Guardian Knight and Amy as Nova. The two red heads reached open ground and took to the air. Guardian Knight jumped up after her and wobbled for several seconds as she attempted to fly and soon had it down enough to take off after Nova. They stayed at about 30ft above the ground and weaved in and out of the buildings as they slowly turned into run down homes and shelters that bordered the factory area.
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Sailor Moon was not having a good day. she stood watching Jupiter fight a massive monster with Mars giving her a hand. They were circling it at high speed and tossing out attacks every few seconds, but it was proving to be a useless tactic. Apparently these things were still immune to their attacks as it was like spraying water on cement, a barely noticeable effect.
The monster itself was one of the grosser ones she had encountered as it was made out of some kind of nauseating black substance that smelled worse than a sewer. It was so bad that she was over 30ft away and she still had to hold her nose to keep from gagging, and of course Mars was flinging fire at it and cooking it.
Behind her the Outers were fighting another of the monster with more success than they were having, but that was only because they had tossed accidentally blasted it into some kind of chemical that exploded when hit by their attacks. Mercury could have told her what it was, but she had been knocked unconscious by the blast as she was shouting out a warning.
Venus was there as well, but she was laid out against one wall, her arm at an odd angle and bleeding from the beating she had taken when she had been attacked out of the blue. She had barely had time to send out the call for help before she was too involved in the fight to give details.
"MOON GORGEOUS HEART ATTACK!!" Moon screamed out when she saw an opening.
Her blast erupted forward and slammed into the monster Jupiter had just knocked over, it hit and sheared off most everything from the stomach up. Of course this was hardly a good thing since it some how managed to heal itself almost instantly. She figured that it had something to do with its liquid like body, even if it did stink. Mars and Jupiter sighed as it got back up and called up super charged versions of their first level abilities. they had been fighting for nearly an hour now and were running out of power. A BURNING MANDELA and a JUPITER THUNDER CRASH hit it and punched it through the wall.
Jupiter groaned and fell to their knees as the monster oozed to what could be considered a standing condition. It burped as if laughing at them and swung its arms forward and through gallons of sludge at them. Jupiter and Mars dove to the side, but Moon was too slow and she was hit and hurled back into the Sailor Uranus and accidentally saved the short haired blonde from being hit as well. Though lucky, it also knocked Moon out and she collapsed to the floor next to Venus. Neptune distracted their monster while Uranus got to her feet and powered up another shot, she took the time to charge one as powerful as it could get and slammed her fist into the ground.
The giant ball of energy ripped up the floor even as she fell to her knees in exhaustion. The blast hit the monster in its back and exploded. Liquid monster rained down around the area in a nasty smelling rain that hit everyone on the ground floor. The Scouts had got one of them, but they would need a bath to get rid of the smell, that is if they could take out the other one, it was using a whip of liquid to hit Mars across her face and send her flying into the wall with a scream of pain.
A second whip surged out and grabbed Jupiter by her ankles and lifted her off the floor, spun her over it's head and used her like a club to hit Neptune as she tried to protect Uranus. Neptune pulled out her mirror and fired off one of her larger attacks, but the monster opened a hole in it's chest and let it fire though its body harmlessly. She screamed in frustration, these monsters were far more powerful than what they had been dealing with lately. It took a few precious seconds to calm down and get professional again, but when she did, she gasped.
In that short amount of time, Jupiter had been freed by a girl in white armor and a cloak baring the Moon Kingdom symbol. She was standing over Moon as she sat the girl down gently and turned to look around the room. Neptune saw another girl, this one in a red outfit, walk out of the shadows emitting a red aura of power that washed over the area as she walked forward and stood beside Neptune.
"It took out Mercury right away didn't it?"
"Yes it did, how..."
"...did I know? She is the only one of the Scouts that could freeze the thing and make it solid enough to do any damage."
"We never had a chance to even try and wake her up, they attacked us as soon as we even considered it."
"I have an ice beam attack that I can use, but it is no where as strong as Mercury's attack. Go wake her up and get her on her feet, she is the only one that can do what is needed here."
"Who are you to give me orders?"
"Me? I am the one that can kick your ass if you don't do what I say! Mercury is down and you need her and you are standing her arguing with me when you know I am right!" Nova snarled.
"Oh please, go try and scare someone else."
Nova shrugged. "Guardian Knight!"
"What?"
"Go and wake up Mercury, the Outers are failing to comply with their orders to protect the Princess."
"How dare you?!" Neptune growled.
Nova vanished from in front of Neptune and appeared in the air, hovering in front of the monsters face with her left arm held forward. A beam of bright blue fired out and the entire factory was almost instantly filled with a chill as the thing nearly doubled in size as it froze solid. Guardian Knight shook her head as she tried to get Mercury to wake up and wondered just how she should go to do so.
She also watched Neptune out of the corner of her eye and felt sorry for the girl, she was so obsessed with wearing that stupid outfit and was willing to kill anyone that got in her way to do her job. From what they had seen of the battle, Uranus was the same way and had deliberately placed her allies in the path of danger to make the monster give her a decent opening.
Mercury stirred and blinked her eyes open to see a red headed girl in white kneeling beside her and shaking her. Not knowing what was going on she rolled to the side and hopped to her feet in a combat crouch she had learned. Her body hurt, but if this was a new enemy she wasn't going to...oh...it was that girl that helped them before. Mercury sighed and blushed at her mistake. "Um...sorry."
Ranma laughed. "Good reflexes there, but a little slow, you need to practice a little more. Nova says you need kill the final monster."
"Huh?" She asked and looked around. Her eyes went wide at the sight of nearly all the Scouts down, again. She noticed the still form of her best friend and gasped. "Sailor Moon!" She ran over to her friend and instantly stumbled back a few paces and gagged at the smell wafting off of her friend.
"Sailor Mercury, I need you to fire off your strongest ice attack, I can't hold him to much longer!" Nova yelled out.
Mercury turned and took in the situation and nodded as she remembered what she had been about to do before she had been knocked out. She ran forward and powered up, shouted out and fired off a massive blast of ice that turned the factory even colder as it was launched. Nova grinned as the monster finally shattered into billions of tiny fragments and cascaded across the floor.
"Excellent work Mercury." Nova called out and gave her a thumbs up, making the girl blush.
"Mercury we know nothing about her, for all we know she could be a spy or an assassin out for the Princess!" Neptune yelled.
Nova shook her head and held the bridge of her nose in frustration. "Moron." She muttered.
"She saved our lives Neptune." Mercury countered.
"We don't know anything about her."
"So what, we don't know anything about you girls either." Guardian Knight said as she knelt by Sailor Moon and Venus, Ranma had Venus' arm in her hands and was about to set the break. "Hold still Venus, I need to reset your arm for it to heal itself."
The blonde sighed and nodded, gritting her teeth. The squeal of pain and crunch of bone was very loud in the empty and frozen factory, but it was over quickly and Venus sighed in relief as much of the pain disappeared. This of course set something else off as well and it caught Ranma by surprise. Neptune rushed forward and kicked her away from Venus and sent her flying into a nearby wall.
"Neptune, would you have preferred it if we had let you die?!" Nova yelled out as she rushed over to Ranma. She was a little dazed and hadn't had time to do more than roll with the attack, there was a little blood running down her chin.
"Neptune? Why is whenever we find someone that might be an ally you and the others always consider them to be enemies!?" Jupiter snapped.
"We know nothing about them!"
"They have saved out lives on several occasions already."
"I don't care." Uranus said as she sat up. "They are keeping secrets and are going out of their way to provoke us, just like red here did at the meeting at the school."
"I do not trust anyone I don't know anything about." Neptune said.
"This is stupid, we have helped you out when you needed it and you say we are untrustworthy. No wonder Amy Lee is so mad at you. It seems she was right in seeking her revenge against you. I always thought she was going over board, but this reaction of yours borders on total paranoia. Let's go, they obviously don't need our help since they were winning before we got here." Guardian Knight yelled out.
"I agree, I thought I was doing the right thing, but this..." Nova turned to leave, her aura flaring. Her and Guardian Knight soon disappeared out a window and made their way to the roof across the street.
"Well that was a waste of time." Guardian Knight said.
Amy grinned. "The Outers have always been that way, they used to be the guards that stopped all the attacks that happened from outside the solar system and they did it alone and usually won. They are dependent on no one and never will be, I think when they were reborn they were given similar attitudes as what they had before they initially died."
"That explains a little of what just happened, am I to assume that we are not going to just leave them?"
"Correct, I noticed that the Inners were trying to be a little nicer than Neptune and Uranus so I figure that they would be willing to allow us to help them."
"That's what I noticed too."
"Oh how cute, even after all that, you're still willing to help them." Said a very evil sounding voice from above them.
Amy and Ranma spun around and looked up at the man floating above them. He was the one that they had only glimpsed on a couple of occasions before this. He was wearing a black and silver outfit complete with a cape that was fluttering in the wind. He had a highly focused black aura that was almost tangible in it's evil power. His eyes were blood red and there were several scars running down his face.
"I believe I will start with you two since you are the ones that are keeping me from taking out the Scouts and for all your power you are no match for me." He laughed, evil villain laugh #126(you are so dead). He held his hand out and black lightning formed around his arm and fired at them even as they were jumping to the side. Seconds later the entire building was vaporized in a giant explosion that continued out ward, leveling most of the building around it.
"I am Zepher and you two are going to pay for messing up my plans."
There was rubble for thousands of feet in every direction, twisted girders sticking up out of some of the larger mounds and smoke rising into the sky from the giant fire that was raging. In one spot the rubble shifted and was moved aside from underneath and a body pulled itself from its tomb of crushed concrete. She gasped for air as she stood up, her red armor was decimated and her red cape had been ripped off of her to leave a tiny piece that remained to flutter in the weak wind.
It was hard to breath she realized, she must have some broken ribs and possible a punctured lung. She looked around and noticed Ranma pulling herself out of a small hole nearby, they hobbled over to each other. "Are you alright?" They said in unison and giggled, though Ranma looked around nervously.
"My powers are healing me as we speak, but it will be a while yet before I can do much, I don't know if we have all that much time." Nova said.
"I managed to get to cover before I was in to much danger, but that blast was far stronger than I would have liked."
"The Sailors deal with beings like this all the time, but this the first time I can remember the enemy ever showing this much power so early in the game."
"Do you feel that?" Guardian Knight asked suddenly and started to look around.
"Yeah, it's coming from over there." Amy pointed to their right. "I can feel the Scouts over there too. I think they're fighting it."
"Can you tell which ones?"
"It feels like all of them, I am even picking up Cape Boy and he doesn't show up all that often any more."
"Cape Boy?"
"Huh...oh, Tuxedo Mask if I remember right, I had a fight with him the first time I encountered the Scouts."
"Oh yeah, that guy you were telling me about that...snicker...throws red roses like one would throwing spikes?"
"That's him, lets get over there and see if we can help out."
"But your injuries..."
"Are will be almost gone by the time we get there, most everything can be fixed in a matter of minutes if I am not out of energy or in several pieces."
"Oh..."
"This situation is coming to a head, I can feel it, we need to power up."
Ranma grinned, "I've been looking forward to this."
"I agree, I need an opponent that can put up a fight and this Zepher seems to be a good match."
"Can I go first?"
"Sure, I hogged the spot light in the factory and you haven't been able to do anything major yet have you?"
"Nope."
"Hey now, don't look hurt, I just keep stumbling over them..."
"I don't believe a word your saying." Ranma said with grumpy look.
"Okay, okay lets go and have some fun with the super powered bad guy and work off our stress okay?"
Ranma was gone before Amy could finish the sentence and she looked around in confusion, then she spotted her flying away from her in a column of blue power. "Hey!" She yelled and launched after her, a grin plastered to her face.
Within a few minutes they both landed and ran the last few hundred feet on foot and managed to get a good look at the battle scene. By this time all of the Scouts except for Venus and of course Pluto was fighting Zepher as he floated above them, blasting them as they got close. Amy spotted Moon and Venus sprawled out across a large slab of stone, both heavily wounded.
"The Princess in down." Guardian Knight said quietly.
"So is Venus and the rest of the Scouts look like they are in pretty bad shape."
"Why haven't they retreated?"
"They will fight to the bitter end if need be."
"I didn't think they had it in them."
"You didn't?"
"Well, the Outers would, but I've had the most contact with the Inners and they tend to be a little flightily from what I've seen of them so far. Those few days we followed them around gave me a rather low opinion of them."
"Heh, yeah I can understand that. It's still a little hard to believe that those girls are the Scouts, but it does make a great secret identity though."
"What do think of Zepher so far?"
"He is strong, but to dependent on his powers. He seems to use them for everything from flying to attacking."
"...lets go and help them." Ranma said.
"Right, but lets circle around the area and come at him from the sides, then let you have him from there."
Amy took off running and made her way across the devastation, all the while keeping her eyes on the battle. There was something wrong here, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was. It took her about 3 minutes to get into position, bus she saw that Ranma-chan was in place. The waved at each other and powered up for several seconds and yelled out their attacks.
"NOVA CANNON!"
"KNIGHT SLATHER HERALD!"
The Scouts took advantage of the attack to add their own in by yelling...
"JUPITER OAK EVOLUTION!"
"MERCURY AQUA RHAPSODY!"
"URANUS SPACE SWORD BLASTER!"
"NEPTUNE SUBMARINE REFLECTION!"
"TUXEDO MASK BOMBER!"
"MARS FLAME SNIPER!"
The timing was perfect and Zepher was hit with enough power to level a small city. Zepher screamed and was thrown into what was left of one building. Mercury pulled her mini-computer out and began to type as fast as she could, but she soon went pale and gasped. "He is still alive under all that, we did hurt him though, but I can't tell how much."
"What happened to the Princess? Was it the initial blast or this Zepher?" Guardian Knight asked as she came up.
"She was hurt trying to protect Venus when the first blast went off, we managed to survive thanks to Saturn, but she was taken out as well. She is either d-dead or buried under all this rubble. She appeared just after you left and threw up a protective dome just as it hit."
"How did she know?"
"We have no idea how she was able to just appear like that and help us, I really hope she is not d-dead."
"I doubt it, you Scouts are really hard to kill and are all experienced fighters." Though Ranma had to bite her tongue to keep a remark about their Fuku from coming out.
"Where is your friend Guardian Knight?" Neptune snarled.
Ranma blinked. "What is wrong with you? We are trying to help you and you keep trying to get rid of us."
"I don't trust you!" Uranus yelled.
"..." Ranma frowned. He could understand some of them not liking Amy, she had been harassing them lately, but this was more than simple distrust it seemed to be some kind of blind hatred. None of these girls even knew that Amy was Nova, and yet they were treating her the same way. Why? His thoughts were interrupted by Zepher digging himself out of the destroyed building. He stood up, popped his neck and stretched his back as he dusted his black and silver uniform off.
"That actually hurt."
Ranma stepped forward, "It was supposed to you moron." She kneeled down and picked up a small piece of black cloth and held it up. "Ah, look at this we managed to ruin his shirt."
Zepher growled at the irritating tone in the girl's voice, he threw his arm forward and fired off a blast of energy. Ranma vanished even as his arm was moving, a smirk on her face as she reappeared beside him surrounded in a giant aura of blue energy. She kicked him in the knee and punched him across the jaw as he fell, sending him into the dirt again.
"You bitch, you are going to pay for that!"
"Oh pwease don't hurt me Mr. Bwad man, my mommy will be oh so upset." Ranma lisped in a childish tone.
Zepher rolled to his feet and jumped at Ranma screaming in fury and barely noticed as Ranma smiled evilly and copied his attack, they met in a rush of pure speed, exploding into a series of kicks and punches. Seeing an opening Zepher fired off a blast and gasped as his shot went through an image of Ranma that was slowly dissolving in the air. The air exploded out of him as she rammed her knee into his stomach, elbowed him across the chin and grabbed his wrist as her aura flared up again.
With a mighty heave Zepher was lifted off the ground and body slammed into a nearby pile of rubble. He screamed in pain as something pierced his side, but he had to suddenly roll off of whatever it was as the girl brought her hands together and yelled out "Möko Takabisha!" A wave of blue energy enveloped the rubble where he had been and exploded. Zepher fired back, but she dodged it easily.
Who the hell were these girls, they were far stronger than any of the other Scouts, were better trained, and had enough brains to plan ahead. The pain in his side was proof of that, they were a better challenge than any of the Sailor Scouts, but he had an ace up his sleeve and was willing to use it if need be. Zepher came up and laughed at his red headed opponent.
"Well red, I am impressed. I did not expect to get such a good fight out of you."
"Heh, that's why you're bleeding right?" Ranma grinned.
"My body is already healing this minor damage, but you have earned a rare thing this day. I want a challenge from you before I kill you and I plan to get it." With that Zepher began to power up and his aura went from a grayish black to pure black, an evil grin on his face.
Ranma copied his movements and powered up both her magic and her Ki aura, exploding in a blinding blue radiance that vaporized the rubble around her for several feet. The Scouts, who had backed off to tend to their wounded were shocked at the amount of power being displayed.
The blue haired Scout was gaping at the information on her computer, only Sailor Moon had ever shown powers stronger than this and that was when she had gone up against the Dark Kingdom to defeat Metalia. If Sailor Moon was awake she knew that they could win with the Silver Crystal, but this Guardian Knight seemed to have the power to hold her own against super powered foes.
"You don't stand as a chance against me little girl." Zepher said.
"This little girl just kicked your ass, Zeph-chan." Ranma said cutely.
"Why you..." Zepher's pure black aura surged even higher as he grew more and more angry.
"As a matter of fact, I think this shouldn't last all that long, your not that strong compared to me."
"CHAOS WAVE!" Zepher yelled and brought his hand forward, a black vapor seemed to spring up around the area, and waves of dark power fired out. Ranma's aura flared and sent out it's own waves that crashed with Zepher's attack and canceled it out. Glaring at each other, Zepher and Guardian Knight flashed forward and came together with a sonic boom. To the Scouts it looked like they had vanished from sight, only to reappear in small flashes of light before vanishing again.
The sight stirred memories for all of them, but Jupiter was actually the most affected. She started to recall portions of her past life that she had totally forgotten about, her training and life before she was forced to become a Scout and protect the Princess. Mercury also remembered something, but was to shocked to react as thousands of images entered her mind and overwhelmed her. For the others it was more awe than anything else, the Outers were an entirely different story all together and they ran off when they caught something nearby.
For Ranma, she was hopping around like a frog on a hot plate as Zepher fired off blast after blast, demolishing the entire area. She dodged, taunted him, weaved, taunted him, and fired back every now and then. They were flying in a circle, crashing into each other every few milliseconds, but in the end Zepher fell into Ranma's trap as so many other had. She stopped and relaxed just feet from him and grinned evilly, just enough to make him pause, and look confused as she seemed to throw her arm in the air for not particular reason.
"HIRYU SHOTEN HA!"
The effect was more than any of them were expecting, Ranma included. There was a deafening rush of air as the giant tornado formed and pulled Zepher into the sky, slowly beating the crap out of him with his own power. Ranma stood at the bottom and used her Ki to lift and hurl large chunks of broken buildings into the funnel.
Zepher was at the winds mercy and he flared his aura to full power in an attempt to gain control, but only succeeded in making the attack more powerful. The rest of his power was sucked out of him and this in turn made the tornado grow out to giant propositions.
The Scouts grabbed the wounded and headed for cover while Ranma stared in awe at what she had created. Never had the attack gotten this big before, even against Hopposai in full 'I will have my revenge' mode. Then Ranma was hit from behind by a piece of stone and lost her concentration, the blast lost its focus and surged.
Ranma shook herself awake just as she was lifted into the funnel and thrown into the sky, she screamed for a second in surprise, but clamped up when she saw her target being pummeled by all that debris she had sent into the funnel. She pulled in her aura so that she wouldn't add any fuel to the fire, bounced off some debris and attacked Zepher without pity.
*********
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
*********
Strange Days
Chapter 12
By: Cory D. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(C)2003
*********
The day started out simply enough for every one, but it was soon to be one of the most interesting ones to date, one that no one would forget for a very long time to come. Ranma awoke earlier than normal and snuck out of the room he shared with his father, he didn't want to wake up his father and turned off the small alarm clock the old man used to get up. He knew that this would only buy him about 20 to 40 minutes before he woke up naturally, but it was enough.
Ranma grinned as he came down stairs. He had a sparing match with Amy this morning. She had agreed to give him a good fight and to give him far more than the old man ever could. His battle with Saffron had been a major turning point in his strength as a Martial Artist, he had tapped into a power that few humans could even conceive of, let alone even use.
Of course over the last few days, ever since he had gotten his past life memories returned to him, he had begun to understand just what it was he had used to win that fight. He had tapped the very power of this planet and used his body to focus it. Those magical theory courses he had taken back in the Silver Millennium had been put to good use after all.
According to Amy that was the first sign that he was more than human, if even a cute one. He blushed a little at that thought, she had said that all of the Sailors were the same as him, reborn to preserve the last memories of a fallen kingdom, even rebuild it if things turned out the way they wanted them to be.
This idea was, in his mind anyway, a very bad one on a number of levels. He remembered having numerous arguments with Sailor Pluto about her so called grand plan. Her initial objectives were fine with him, but to take it as far as the Princess was supposed to...no way would removing all the evil and dark thoughts from the human soul be a good idea.
It would be like cutting off one's own foot, nearly impossible to live without and still be able to enjoy life. Ranma shook his head as he entered the dojo and gaped suddenly as he saw a sight that just baffled him, even if he had seen it on several occasions now. Amy was sparing with...Kasumi!
The elder sister was moving in the slow deliberate forms of Tai Chi and warding off Amy's quick blows easily. Ranma watched them for several minutes and started to find that Kasumi was using several different forms of Martial Arts, all of them were highly defensive and completely lacking in any kind of offensive attacks. Amy would throw a quick punch at a hole in her defenses and Kasumi would just twist in an odd way, grab her wrist and toss her away.
Foot sweeps were simply hopped over, kicks were redirected, and punches were used to pull Amy into a surprisingly hard throw. Of course the most surprising thing he had noticed was that Kasumi had an aura, of nearly clear power swirling around her that she used to defend against Amy Ki enhanced strength and speed. By its feel, Ranma assumed it was a manifestation of Kasumi's gentle nature in some way. After about 10 more minutes they wound down and stopped, both of them breathing hard.
"Amy you don't have to handicap yourself so much when we spar."
"Yeah I do, your improving at an amazing rate Kasumi, but my handicap is also helping me to train."
"I know, but I just cant see how you can use your Ki to make yourself heavier, especially since you insist on wearing that heavy clothing of yours all the time."
"Heh, everything is training Kasumi, simply walking to the market with 2 or 3 hundred pounds pulling you down will make you as strong as an ox."
"I guess so...oh my, it's time to get breakfast ready." Kasumi said and dashed out of the dojo.
Amy shook her head and glanced over at Ranma as she unfastened her jacket and lay it in one corner of the dojo. She adjusted her pants and t-shirt and made sure her shoes were in good condition. She teased Ranma a little by doing some provocative stretching techniques she had learned from a friend and gave him a good look at her flexibility.
"Are you ready?" Amy asked seductively, smiling at Ranma's stunned reaction.
"H-hai." Said Ranma gulped and blushed.
"Then lets go to that park down the block, we are going to cause some damage to the area and we need to make sure no one will be hurt."
They ran out of the dojo and roof hopped to the until they found themselves standing in a small open field, the wind was blowing through the area just enough to move the grass and made the area look peaceful and quiet as the sun rose in the distance. Of course, peaceful wasn't what either of them had in mind this day and they were glad that they wouldn't disturb anyone with this fight. It was a day of training and fun, and they were going to do everything in their power to do just that.
Ranma was in his usual red silk shirt and black pants. They were facing each other and took a few seconds to try and determine how the other would be fighting. This was going to be a fight that Ranma had wanted for some time now. A chance to see just what Amy could do in combat. He had accused her of depending on her Ki to much and told her that it had affected her physical combat skills. This was a lie, even he knew that she had to be very good to access the amount of power she did with ease, but he wanted to fight her and she was stubborn, very stubborn when she didn't want to do something.
"Now!" Amy yelled and ran forward.
The crashed together with at speeds that would have done the flash proud, each using their enhanced abilities. Ranma gasped as he was suddenly punched in the chin and wheel kicked, sending him back several yards. Only years of training allowed him to flip and land on his feet easily, he shook the cobwebs out of his head and glared at Amy.
"Do not treat me like Akane. Ranma, I am a Grand Master of several different styles. Just like you, I am faster and it is much easier for me to hit you than Akane, especially when you start to fight me like you do her." Amy smirked.
"Point taken, let's go again."
They flashed forward and came together with a crash that echoed over the area and used their momentum to launch into the air. Ranma was a bit confused at first as they rose off the ground, but them he realized that Amy was teaching him how to fly as they fought! He grinned as he noticed his aura starting to mirror Amy's as they moved. This also made him noticed that he was using the 'Ascension of the Dragon God' technique with ease, as if he was simply breathing.
It was so simple to use now, he wasn't tired and he could feel it renewing his energies almost continuously. They came back down, landed and jumped into the air again and lashed out at each other. Amy was pressing him hard, though his defenses were impossible to break through. He grinned and upped his aura a little more.
Amy followed suit and kept him guessing at just how much she was holding back. She had been fighting enemies much more powerful that Saffron over the years and had learned how to augment her powers to any situation. At certain speeds she could do things that made Ranma's techniques look like simple kata.
There were several that increased the scenes and slowed things down so that she had time to analyze any situation, though there had been very few times for her to use it lately. Ranma was moving at a crawl to her eyes, his arms and legs leaving ghost like after images, showing off holes in his defense that were almost impossible for anyone else to hit.
Her fist lashed out and hit Ranma in the shoulder as her leg came up and parried his wild kick. She continued the motion, spun around used her other leg to hit him in the jaw, but he dodged and counter attacked. Amy flowed around his attack as they landed and spun into a blindingly fast foot sweep, but again Ranma dodged it by hopping over it. He smiled in victory as he balanced on top of her head for a second before spinning his body around and wrapping his legs around her and rolling her over to slam her head into the ground.
They crawled back to their feet and appraised each other again. Amy was impressed and a little flushed. Ranma was as good as she had though, even better than her in many areas, but she had experience on her side. She was also doing this to have a little fun so hadn't taken it too seriously, now she would have to. Ranma had scored the first take down and even bruised her head. She took a stance to a move she knew he wouldn't know. After all she had invented it at time when she had taken on an opponent like Ranma. She smirked and tensed as she watched his eyes study her.
Ranma rushed forward and hopped about 10 feet into the air and used gravity to his advantage. Amy's stance looked like something out of Aikido, but that style was only effective if one was on the ground and over head attacks were to his advantage against that style. He contorted in mid air and brought his hands forward instead of his feet and went in for a grab to execute a simple Judo throw to catch her off guard. Amy seemed to phase out of existence as she spun on the...ball!? of her foot and round housed him in the back of his head with her other foot, sending him plowing into the ground and ripping his shirt to shreds as her hands blurred into claws.
He groaned and sat up groggily and shook his head, there was blood running down his chin from the unexpected attack. "I thought that was an Aikido stance?"
"It is, but the style is weak against over head attack, always has been, but I found that if one was to adapt certain forms and blend them into Aikido as an offensive attack one could do the most amazing things."
"An offensive Aikido?"
"Yep, I don't know much about the styles history here, but where I come from it was originally like all the others, used to hurt and kill. Over time it became obvious that it had its strengths in defensive attacks only. I thought this a bit strange and studied the style deeper than most of the others and developed a number of actual attacks that could be used defensively."
Ranma nodded, hopped back to his feet and sprang at Amy, again they blurred as their attacks left the visual spectrum. This time they stayed on the ground and fenced back an forth for several minutes, each taking as many hits as they were giving. Ranma was growing frustrated as the attempted to begin the first steps of the Hiryü Shöten Ha technique.
But Amy wasn't putting out a visible Battle Aura for him to use as the primer. So he had to adapt something on the fly and called up the Soul of Ice technique and focused. He saw Amy's eyes narrow at him and he grinned, she had been keeping her reactions totally unnoticeable, she must be growing tired to make a mistake that simple.
Fists of pure blue fire flew forward and fired off two beams of power that Amy barely dodged, she had been expecting Ranma to fire off his most basic attack first, the Möko Takabisha blast. The attacks hit the ground around her feet and Amy found her feet encased in ice an instant later she failed to keep her balance and was tripped just as the second impact flowed over the first and encased her lower body.
Pain flared in her legs a few seconds later and Amy decided to use her Ki abilities. Her aura burst forth and destroyed the ice around her as she grabbed onto the ice fragments with her aura and rolled forward into a crouch and pointed an arm at Ranma. The ice fragments flew forward through the spot where Ranma had been, she spotted him nearly 40 feet above the attack and instant later.
Growling in pain Amy called out 'Air Vortex' as she stood up and let off a bright red aura of power. A column of wind swirled around her and rose up into the sky to grab Ranma before he could dodge. The look of shock on his face was all Amy needed to see, she grinned. Ranma, now nearly 300 feet in the air was falling from the top of the spiral, but he concentrated and allowed his Ki to take on a certain shape and felt his body fill with power. He flipped around and landed lightly on his feet as his fall was quickly reduced to a slow crawl.
"I knew you had learned how to do the beginnings of a flight technique."
"You used it a little while ago."
"Heh, you learn even faster than anyone I have ever met."
"I am the best." Ranma smirked.
"Of course you know I am learning your moves too?" Amy smirked right back and batter her eye lids at him and formed the beginning ball of the Möko Takabisha .
"Huh?"
KA-BOOM!!!!!!!
Ranma and Amy staggered around as the blast shook the park and set of alarms all across the district. They glanced around and saw a massive column of smoke rising into the sky at the edge of Nerima and Juban. Amy focused on the sight and brought her powers to bear. "It seems that the Scouts are fighting in the ruins of what used to be a factory."
"We need to get over there and help them!" Ranma yelled.
"Of course." Amy shrugged as if it was a forgone conclusion.
They blurred and bounced to the roof of a nearby house and quickly made their way to the area. They shifted in mid air and came down in their disguises. Ranma as the white cloaked female Guardian Knight and Amy as Nova. The two red heads reached open ground and took to the air. Guardian Knight jumped up after her and wobbled for several seconds as she attempted to fly and soon had it down enough to take off after Nova. They stayed at about 30ft above the ground and weaved in and out of the buildings as they slowly turned into run down homes and shelters that bordered the factory area.
**********
Sailor Moon was not having a good day. she stood watching Jupiter fight a massive monster with Mars giving her a hand. They were circling it at high speed and tossing out attacks every few seconds, but it was proving to be a useless tactic. Apparently these things were still immune to their attacks as it was like spraying water on cement, a barely noticeable effect.
The monster itself was one of the grosser ones she had encountered as it was made out of some kind of nauseating black substance that smelled worse than a sewer. It was so bad that she was over 30ft away and she still had to hold her nose to keep from gagging, and of course Mars was flinging fire at it and cooking it.
Behind her the Outers were fighting another of the monster with more success than they were having, but that was only because they had tossed accidentally blasted it into some kind of chemical that exploded when hit by their attacks. Mercury could have told her what it was, but she had been knocked unconscious by the blast as she was shouting out a warning.
Venus was there as well, but she was laid out against one wall, her arm at an odd angle and bleeding from the beating she had taken when she had been attacked out of the blue. She had barely had time to send out the call for help before she was too involved in the fight to give details.
"MOON GORGEOUS HEART ATTACK!!" Moon screamed out when she saw an opening.
Her blast erupted forward and slammed into the monster Jupiter had just knocked over, it hit and sheared off most everything from the stomach up. Of course this was hardly a good thing since it some how managed to heal itself almost instantly. She figured that it had something to do with its liquid like body, even if it did stink. Mars and Jupiter sighed as it got back up and called up super charged versions of their first level abilities. they had been fighting for nearly an hour now and were running out of power. A BURNING MANDELA and a JUPITER THUNDER CRASH hit it and punched it through the wall.
Jupiter groaned and fell to their knees as the monster oozed to what could be considered a standing condition. It burped as if laughing at them and swung its arms forward and through gallons of sludge at them. Jupiter and Mars dove to the side, but Moon was too slow and she was hit and hurled back into the Sailor Uranus and accidentally saved the short haired blonde from being hit as well. Though lucky, it also knocked Moon out and she collapsed to the floor next to Venus. Neptune distracted their monster while Uranus got to her feet and powered up another shot, she took the time to charge one as powerful as it could get and slammed her fist into the ground.
The giant ball of energy ripped up the floor even as she fell to her knees in exhaustion. The blast hit the monster in its back and exploded. Liquid monster rained down around the area in a nasty smelling rain that hit everyone on the ground floor. The Scouts had got one of them, but they would need a bath to get rid of the smell, that is if they could take out the other one, it was using a whip of liquid to hit Mars across her face and send her flying into the wall with a scream of pain.
A second whip surged out and grabbed Jupiter by her ankles and lifted her off the floor, spun her over it's head and used her like a club to hit Neptune as she tried to protect Uranus. Neptune pulled out her mirror and fired off one of her larger attacks, but the monster opened a hole in it's chest and let it fire though its body harmlessly. She screamed in frustration, these monsters were far more powerful than what they had been dealing with lately. It took a few precious seconds to calm down and get professional again, but when she did, she gasped.
In that short amount of time, Jupiter had been freed by a girl in white armor and a cloak baring the Moon Kingdom symbol. She was standing over Moon as she sat the girl down gently and turned to look around the room. Neptune saw another girl, this one in a red outfit, walk out of the shadows emitting a red aura of power that washed over the area as she walked forward and stood beside Neptune.
"It took out Mercury right away didn't it?"
"Yes it did, how..."
"...did I know? She is the only one of the Scouts that could freeze the thing and make it solid enough to do any damage."
"We never had a chance to even try and wake her up, they attacked us as soon as we even considered it."
"I have an ice beam attack that I can use, but it is no where as strong as Mercury's attack. Go wake her up and get her on her feet, she is the only one that can do what is needed here."
"Who are you to give me orders?"
"Me? I am the one that can kick your ass if you don't do what I say! Mercury is down and you need her and you are standing her arguing with me when you know I am right!" Nova snarled.
"Oh please, go try and scare someone else."
Nova shrugged. "Guardian Knight!"
"What?"
"Go and wake up Mercury, the Outers are failing to comply with their orders to protect the Princess."
"How dare you?!" Neptune growled.
Nova vanished from in front of Neptune and appeared in the air, hovering in front of the monsters face with her left arm held forward. A beam of bright blue fired out and the entire factory was almost instantly filled with a chill as the thing nearly doubled in size as it froze solid. Guardian Knight shook her head as she tried to get Mercury to wake up and wondered just how she should go to do so.
She also watched Neptune out of the corner of her eye and felt sorry for the girl, she was so obsessed with wearing that stupid outfit and was willing to kill anyone that got in her way to do her job. From what they had seen of the battle, Uranus was the same way and had deliberately placed her allies in the path of danger to make the monster give her a decent opening.
Mercury stirred and blinked her eyes open to see a red headed girl in white kneeling beside her and shaking her. Not knowing what was going on she rolled to the side and hopped to her feet in a combat crouch she had learned. Her body hurt, but if this was a new enemy she wasn't going to...oh...it was that girl that helped them before. Mercury sighed and blushed at her mistake. "Um...sorry."
Ranma laughed. "Good reflexes there, but a little slow, you need to practice a little more. Nova says you need kill the final monster."
"Huh?" She asked and looked around. Her eyes went wide at the sight of nearly all the Scouts down, again. She noticed the still form of her best friend and gasped. "Sailor Moon!" She ran over to her friend and instantly stumbled back a few paces and gagged at the smell wafting off of her friend.
"Sailor Mercury, I need you to fire off your strongest ice attack, I can't hold him to much longer!" Nova yelled out.
Mercury turned and took in the situation and nodded as she remembered what she had been about to do before she had been knocked out. She ran forward and powered up, shouted out and fired off a massive blast of ice that turned the factory even colder as it was launched. Nova grinned as the monster finally shattered into billions of tiny fragments and cascaded across the floor.
"Excellent work Mercury." Nova called out and gave her a thumbs up, making the girl blush.
"Mercury we know nothing about her, for all we know she could be a spy or an assassin out for the Princess!" Neptune yelled.
Nova shook her head and held the bridge of her nose in frustration. "Moron." She muttered.
"She saved our lives Neptune." Mercury countered.
"We don't know anything about her."
"So what, we don't know anything about you girls either." Guardian Knight said as she knelt by Sailor Moon and Venus, Ranma had Venus' arm in her hands and was about to set the break. "Hold still Venus, I need to reset your arm for it to heal itself."
The blonde sighed and nodded, gritting her teeth. The squeal of pain and crunch of bone was very loud in the empty and frozen factory, but it was over quickly and Venus sighed in relief as much of the pain disappeared. This of course set something else off as well and it caught Ranma by surprise. Neptune rushed forward and kicked her away from Venus and sent her flying into a nearby wall.
"Neptune, would you have preferred it if we had let you die?!" Nova yelled out as she rushed over to Ranma. She was a little dazed and hadn't had time to do more than roll with the attack, there was a little blood running down her chin.
"Neptune? Why is whenever we find someone that might be an ally you and the others always consider them to be enemies!?" Jupiter snapped.
"We know nothing about them!"
"They have saved out lives on several occasions already."
"I don't care." Uranus said as she sat up. "They are keeping secrets and are going out of their way to provoke us, just like red here did at the meeting at the school."
"I do not trust anyone I don't know anything about." Neptune said.
"This is stupid, we have helped you out when you needed it and you say we are untrustworthy. No wonder Amy Lee is so mad at you. It seems she was right in seeking her revenge against you. I always thought she was going over board, but this reaction of yours borders on total paranoia. Let's go, they obviously don't need our help since they were winning before we got here." Guardian Knight yelled out.
"I agree, I thought I was doing the right thing, but this..." Nova turned to leave, her aura flaring. Her and Guardian Knight soon disappeared out a window and made their way to the roof across the street.
"Well that was a waste of time." Guardian Knight said.
Amy grinned. "The Outers have always been that way, they used to be the guards that stopped all the attacks that happened from outside the solar system and they did it alone and usually won. They are dependent on no one and never will be, I think when they were reborn they were given similar attitudes as what they had before they initially died."
"That explains a little of what just happened, am I to assume that we are not going to just leave them?"
"Correct, I noticed that the Inners were trying to be a little nicer than Neptune and Uranus so I figure that they would be willing to allow us to help them."
"That's what I noticed too."
"Oh how cute, even after all that, you're still willing to help them." Said a very evil sounding voice from above them.
Amy and Ranma spun around and looked up at the man floating above them. He was the one that they had only glimpsed on a couple of occasions before this. He was wearing a black and silver outfit complete with a cape that was fluttering in the wind. He had a highly focused black aura that was almost tangible in it's evil power. His eyes were blood red and there were several scars running down his face.
"I believe I will start with you two since you are the ones that are keeping me from taking out the Scouts and for all your power you are no match for me." He laughed, evil villain laugh #126(you are so dead). He held his hand out and black lightning formed around his arm and fired at them even as they were jumping to the side. Seconds later the entire building was vaporized in a giant explosion that continued out ward, leveling most of the building around it.
"I am Zepher and you two are going to pay for messing up my plans."
There was rubble for thousands of feet in every direction, twisted girders sticking up out of some of the larger mounds and smoke rising into the sky from the giant fire that was raging. In one spot the rubble shifted and was moved aside from underneath and a body pulled itself from its tomb of crushed concrete. She gasped for air as she stood up, her red armor was decimated and her red cape had been ripped off of her to leave a tiny piece that remained to flutter in the weak wind.
It was hard to breath she realized, she must have some broken ribs and possible a punctured lung. She looked around and noticed Ranma pulling herself out of a small hole nearby, they hobbled over to each other. "Are you alright?" They said in unison and giggled, though Ranma looked around nervously.
"My powers are healing me as we speak, but it will be a while yet before I can do much, I don't know if we have all that much time." Nova said.
"I managed to get to cover before I was in to much danger, but that blast was far stronger than I would have liked."
"The Sailors deal with beings like this all the time, but this the first time I can remember the enemy ever showing this much power so early in the game."
"Do you feel that?" Guardian Knight asked suddenly and started to look around.
"Yeah, it's coming from over there." Amy pointed to their right. "I can feel the Scouts over there too. I think they're fighting it."
"Can you tell which ones?"
"It feels like all of them, I am even picking up Cape Boy and he doesn't show up all that often any more."
"Cape Boy?"
"Huh...oh, Tuxedo Mask if I remember right, I had a fight with him the first time I encountered the Scouts."
"Oh yeah, that guy you were telling me about that...snicker...throws red roses like one would throwing spikes?"
"That's him, lets get over there and see if we can help out."
"But your injuries..."
"Are will be almost gone by the time we get there, most everything can be fixed in a matter of minutes if I am not out of energy or in several pieces."
"Oh..."
"This situation is coming to a head, I can feel it, we need to power up."
Ranma grinned, "I've been looking forward to this."
"I agree, I need an opponent that can put up a fight and this Zepher seems to be a good match."
"Can I go first?"
"Sure, I hogged the spot light in the factory and you haven't been able to do anything major yet have you?"
"Nope."
"Hey now, don't look hurt, I just keep stumbling over them..."
"I don't believe a word your saying." Ranma said with grumpy look.
"Okay, okay lets go and have some fun with the super powered bad guy and work off our stress okay?"
Ranma was gone before Amy could finish the sentence and she looked around in confusion, then she spotted her flying away from her in a column of blue power. "Hey!" She yelled and launched after her, a grin plastered to her face.
Within a few minutes they both landed and ran the last few hundred feet on foot and managed to get a good look at the battle scene. By this time all of the Scouts except for Venus and of course Pluto was fighting Zepher as he floated above them, blasting them as they got close. Amy spotted Moon and Venus sprawled out across a large slab of stone, both heavily wounded.
"The Princess in down." Guardian Knight said quietly.
"So is Venus and the rest of the Scouts look like they are in pretty bad shape."
"Why haven't they retreated?"
"They will fight to the bitter end if need be."
"I didn't think they had it in them."
"You didn't?"
"Well, the Outers would, but I've had the most contact with the Inners and they tend to be a little flightily from what I've seen of them so far. Those few days we followed them around gave me a rather low opinion of them."
"Heh, yeah I can understand that. It's still a little hard to believe that those girls are the Scouts, but it does make a great secret identity though."
"What do think of Zepher so far?"
"He is strong, but to dependent on his powers. He seems to use them for everything from flying to attacking."
"...lets go and help them." Ranma said.
"Right, but lets circle around the area and come at him from the sides, then let you have him from there."
Amy took off running and made her way across the devastation, all the while keeping her eyes on the battle. There was something wrong here, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was. It took her about 3 minutes to get into position, bus she saw that Ranma-chan was in place. The waved at each other and powered up for several seconds and yelled out their attacks.
"NOVA CANNON!"
"KNIGHT SLATHER HERALD!"
The Scouts took advantage of the attack to add their own in by yelling...
"JUPITER OAK EVOLUTION!"
"MERCURY AQUA RHAPSODY!"
"URANUS SPACE SWORD BLASTER!"
"NEPTUNE SUBMARINE REFLECTION!"
"TUXEDO MASK BOMBER!"
"MARS FLAME SNIPER!"
The timing was perfect and Zepher was hit with enough power to level a small city. Zepher screamed and was thrown into what was left of one building. Mercury pulled her mini-computer out and began to type as fast as she could, but she soon went pale and gasped. "He is still alive under all that, we did hurt him though, but I can't tell how much."
"What happened to the Princess? Was it the initial blast or this Zepher?" Guardian Knight asked as she came up.
"She was hurt trying to protect Venus when the first blast went off, we managed to survive thanks to Saturn, but she was taken out as well. She is either d-dead or buried under all this rubble. She appeared just after you left and threw up a protective dome just as it hit."
"How did she know?"
"We have no idea how she was able to just appear like that and help us, I really hope she is not d-dead."
"I doubt it, you Scouts are really hard to kill and are all experienced fighters." Though Ranma had to bite her tongue to keep a remark about their Fuku from coming out.
"Where is your friend Guardian Knight?" Neptune snarled.
Ranma blinked. "What is wrong with you? We are trying to help you and you keep trying to get rid of us."
"I don't trust you!" Uranus yelled.
"..." Ranma frowned. He could understand some of them not liking Amy, she had been harassing them lately, but this was more than simple distrust it seemed to be some kind of blind hatred. None of these girls even knew that Amy was Nova, and yet they were treating her the same way. Why? His thoughts were interrupted by Zepher digging himself out of the destroyed building. He stood up, popped his neck and stretched his back as he dusted his black and silver uniform off.
"That actually hurt."
Ranma stepped forward, "It was supposed to you moron." She kneeled down and picked up a small piece of black cloth and held it up. "Ah, look at this we managed to ruin his shirt."
Zepher growled at the irritating tone in the girl's voice, he threw his arm forward and fired off a blast of energy. Ranma vanished even as his arm was moving, a smirk on her face as she reappeared beside him surrounded in a giant aura of blue energy. She kicked him in the knee and punched him across the jaw as he fell, sending him into the dirt again.
"You bitch, you are going to pay for that!"
"Oh pwease don't hurt me Mr. Bwad man, my mommy will be oh so upset." Ranma lisped in a childish tone.
Zepher rolled to his feet and jumped at Ranma screaming in fury and barely noticed as Ranma smiled evilly and copied his attack, they met in a rush of pure speed, exploding into a series of kicks and punches. Seeing an opening Zepher fired off a blast and gasped as his shot went through an image of Ranma that was slowly dissolving in the air. The air exploded out of him as she rammed her knee into his stomach, elbowed him across the chin and grabbed his wrist as her aura flared up again.
With a mighty heave Zepher was lifted off the ground and body slammed into a nearby pile of rubble. He screamed in pain as something pierced his side, but he had to suddenly roll off of whatever it was as the girl brought her hands together and yelled out "Möko Takabisha!" A wave of blue energy enveloped the rubble where he had been and exploded. Zepher fired back, but she dodged it easily.
Who the hell were these girls, they were far stronger than any of the other Scouts, were better trained, and had enough brains to plan ahead. The pain in his side was proof of that, they were a better challenge than any of the Sailor Scouts, but he had an ace up his sleeve and was willing to use it if need be. Zepher came up and laughed at his red headed opponent.
"Well red, I am impressed. I did not expect to get such a good fight out of you."
"Heh, that's why you're bleeding right?" Ranma grinned.
"My body is already healing this minor damage, but you have earned a rare thing this day. I want a challenge from you before I kill you and I plan to get it." With that Zepher began to power up and his aura went from a grayish black to pure black, an evil grin on his face.
Ranma copied his movements and powered up both her magic and her Ki aura, exploding in a blinding blue radiance that vaporized the rubble around her for several feet. The Scouts, who had backed off to tend to their wounded were shocked at the amount of power being displayed.
The blue haired Scout was gaping at the information on her computer, only Sailor Moon had ever shown powers stronger than this and that was when she had gone up against the Dark Kingdom to defeat Metalia. If Sailor Moon was awake she knew that they could win with the Silver Crystal, but this Guardian Knight seemed to have the power to hold her own against super powered foes.
"You don't stand as a chance against me little girl." Zepher said.
"This little girl just kicked your ass, Zeph-chan." Ranma said cutely.
"Why you..." Zepher's pure black aura surged even higher as he grew more and more angry.
"As a matter of fact, I think this shouldn't last all that long, your not that strong compared to me."
"CHAOS WAVE!" Zepher yelled and brought his hand forward, a black vapor seemed to spring up around the area, and waves of dark power fired out. Ranma's aura flared and sent out it's own waves that crashed with Zepher's attack and canceled it out. Glaring at each other, Zepher and Guardian Knight flashed forward and came together with a sonic boom. To the Scouts it looked like they had vanished from sight, only to reappear in small flashes of light before vanishing again.
The sight stirred memories for all of them, but Jupiter was actually the most affected. She started to recall portions of her past life that she had totally forgotten about, her training and life before she was forced to become a Scout and protect the Princess. Mercury also remembered something, but was to shocked to react as thousands of images entered her mind and overwhelmed her. For the others it was more awe than anything else, the Outers were an entirely different story all together and they ran off when they caught something nearby.
For Ranma, she was hopping around like a frog on a hot plate as Zepher fired off blast after blast, demolishing the entire area. She dodged, taunted him, weaved, taunted him, and fired back every now and then. They were flying in a circle, crashing into each other every few milliseconds, but in the end Zepher fell into Ranma's trap as so many other had. She stopped and relaxed just feet from him and grinned evilly, just enough to make him pause, and look confused as she seemed to throw her arm in the air for not particular reason.
"HIRYU SHOTEN HA!"
The effect was more than any of them were expecting, Ranma included. There was a deafening rush of air as the giant tornado formed and pulled Zepher into the sky, slowly beating the crap out of him with his own power. Ranma stood at the bottom and used her Ki to lift and hurl large chunks of broken buildings into the funnel.
Zepher was at the winds mercy and he flared his aura to full power in an attempt to gain control, but only succeeded in making the attack more powerful. The rest of his power was sucked out of him and this in turn made the tornado grow out to giant propositions.
The Scouts grabbed the wounded and headed for cover while Ranma stared in awe at what she had created. Never had the attack gotten this big before, even against Hopposai in full 'I will have my revenge' mode. Then Ranma was hit from behind by a piece of stone and lost her concentration, the blast lost its focus and surged.
Ranma shook herself awake just as she was lifted into the funnel and thrown into the sky, she screamed for a second in surprise, but clamped up when she saw her target being pummeled by all that debris she had sent into the funnel. She pulled in her aura so that she wouldn't add any fuel to the fire, bounced off some debris and attacked Zepher without pity.
*********
To Be Continued...