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 13
By: Cory D. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(C)2003
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About a half mile away from the main battle, Amy Lee was making her way across the ruins when she spotted something at the edge of her senses. She had been so distracted lately she had forgotten about that little patch of nothingness that had been following her around, but now she had time to take a much better look at it she was able get a reading on its power signature.
Whatever it was, she was going to have to make sure they stopped following her around, she had much better things to than deal with something like this. She watched it for several seconds, not caring in the least if something inside it saw her watching it. Nor was she disappointed when it suddenly surged with power and moved faster than she could keep track it.
Her eyes narrowed as she increased her power a tiny bit and continued to watch the area with all her senses. Then there was a barely registered sound from behind her and she dropped into a quick roll, moving to the side just before the ground where she had been standing exploded violently.
Rock and debris rained around the area as Amy came to her feet, the shock wave of the blast washed over her and nearly blew her off her feet at the exact same time. Dust tended to stay in the air for several minutes after it was stirred up, so she wasn't able to see much of anything at first.
Then a form appeared as it started to walk out of the dust cloud, Amy gasped as she saw just who it was that had attacked her. It was someone that she hadn't thought about in a long time now, she had been to busy with other things to even worry about some of the other enemies she had made during her stay in this dimension, her enemy was Shampoo.
She was dressed in a white, form fitting armor, and covered in items of power attached to her body in several places. The aura coming from most of them was enough to make Amy consider the purple haired girl a serious threat. She had never considered that the Amazons might have this many magical items in their hidden vaults, if she had Amy figured she might have borrowed some of them by now.
Shampoo wasn't carrying her bonbori either, instead she seemed to have an entire arsenal of weapons on her, all of it giving off a magical aura. Amy sighed, Cologne must have decided to make sure her granddaughter had a better chance to beat her.
Amazons must kill outsiders if they are of the same sex and beat them in combat, how such a stupid law could have come into existence was beyond Amy`s understanding. Amy looked Shampoo over and sighed tiredly, why did she have to go to these lengths for something that she had cause in the first place. There was a look in Shampoo's eyes that promised that her death would be as slow as possible, this was surprise considering what Amy did know about Shampoo.
She had been under the impression that most Amazons were not this murderous, Cologne certainly hadn't seemed this bad the last time they had talked. Then again, the Amazons were still a primitive society; she growled and decided that she had to deal with this like Ranma would. She could not kill even if it seemed to be the best way to end this mess. It would alter the balance that she was trying to preserve. Ranma's code of ethics was rubbing off on her.
Amy sighed and shook her head. "Shampoo, do we have to do this?"
"Shampoo kill girl who is taking husband, Shampoo kill girl who took Shampoo honor and pride as an Amazon. Use magic to fight magic."
"Shampoo I don't want to hurt you, but I will fight back if you continue this, please just back down and neither one of us have to get hurt."
"Shampoo kill outsider who steal husband."
"I haven't taken Ranma from you Shampoo, he wouldn't respond to me even if I tried to, he's as dense as stone when it comes to that kind of stuff. We are only friends."
"You lie! Shampoo watch and see how he act around you."
"Huh?"
"Ranma like you better than all of us, he isn't rude and abusive, he doesn't run from you when you are around. He doesn't insult you like he does stupid Pervert Girl or Spatula Girl, he laughs and plays with you. He is closer to you than all of us combined."
"We are only friends Shampoo."
"You lie."
Shampoo's voice was hollow and Amy could see that her aura was once again infested with large amount of black, but this time they were growing more powerful by the second. This was bad, Amy knew she could hold her own against Shampoo easily in regular combat, but she had been training with Cologne lately and her influence was showing. Amy's thoughts were derailed as Shampoo surged forward, her sword appeared in her hand for a slash and pierce attack that would remove her head and split her heart in twain if it hit.
Amy hopped backwards to avoid the sword, but Shampoo turned it into a feint and did a round house kick to her head. This hit Amy in the chin and sent her sprawling, but she rolled to her feet again and was instantly on the defensive as the purple haired girl pressed the attack at ever faster and faster speeds. Amy backpedaled and analyzed Shampoo as she attacked with an almost silent and deadly accuracy that was simply amazing, her hollow eyes were a dead give away.
The darkness and those magical items were controlling her in some way. Amy's magic senses were picking up the fact that over half of the medals and trinkets on her armor were glowing with power, but the dead and glazed look in the purple haired girl's eyes were almost frightening. Amy wondered what that old bat had done to her own grand daughter to bring her to this state, had it been done willingly?!
This kind of control also meant that the poor girl would give no mercy in this battle and it would be up to Amy to defeat her or die trying, there had to be some way out of this mess without one of them dieing. Amy was brought back to the battle as Shampoo suddenly blurred from sight and slammed several hundred punches through her defenses like it was nothing.
Amy cried out in shock and pain as she stumbled back, and jumped back nearly a hundred feet and let her aura flare forth and finally allowing herself to power up a little more. That was something more than a simple Amagurikan attack, the speed had been nearly triple the speed Amy had been expecting.
"Okay Shampoo, you asked for it." Amy growled and prepared to take Shampoo down as quickly as possible, but then a blast of pink energy slammed into her from the side.
Amy's eyes widened as she found herself in the center of a super powerful explosion, only her armor and aura protected her from it and even then she could feel it. Whatever it was the explosion leveled what was left of the area around her, but the blast itself was enough of a shock that it vaporized most of her Nova armor and left her in a shredded shirt and pants that barely covered her modesty.
Her identity as Nova vanished and left only Amy Lee in it's wake, but this barely registered to Amy though, she was in a bit of shock. A portion of her mind suddenly wondered how Shampoo had known who she was, had the been around even then? Amy couldn't remember ever feeling the presence when she transformed, but she had been a bit busy at the time.
"What the hell is going on here?" Amy cursed under her breath as she lowered her arms and looked around cautiously.
"Why it is time for you to die so that I can remove your presence from the time line, demon. You have managed to wreck nearly all of my carefully crafted plans in just a matter of weeks." Cackled an obviously insane voice. "For that you will die, maybe then I can get everything back on track again."
It was Pluto, the one Scout that Amy hadn't encountered yet, but she could see that there was something wrong with the woman. In just the few seconds that she had to study Pluto, Amy could see that she was looking...a little evil. Her hair was a mess, her eyes were bottomless black pits, her Fuku was actually dirty and the smell wafting off of her was enough to drop a dog at 20 paces.
Amy kept her shock at the woman's appearance to herself and looked the poor girl over with her aura sight, Pluto was swathed in colors, but the silver of her goodness and black of evil seemed to be waging a war all around her, there was something else there as well. Amy had no clue what it was, but she knew she had never encountered anything like this and briefly wondered if she was the cause as well, her presence seemed to be directly linked to most everyone around her an effected everyone in different ways.
Then reality intruded and Amy was reminded of Shampoo as the girl's sword came down out of no where and bit into Amy's shoulder, making her scream in agony. Amy went down and was able to see both Shampoo and Pluto flare up with dark power and fire off blasts of energy, further confusing Amy. Pluto simply aimed and fired her staff while Shampoo's fired out of her sword. Amy had a split second to see the energy ripping the ground apart as it moved toward here and instinct took over, she leaped straight up and used the concussion wave of the blast to push herself into the sky.
Pluto's screech of anger surprised Amy, but she shoved it to the side as she flared her aura back up and flew higher into the sky, she stopped 200 feet above the girls. She checked her shoulder carefully and saw that it was bleeding heavily, but already starting to.
"What the hell happened to these two?" Amy muttered. This was far worse than what had happened before. This wasn't just out of control behavior anymore. It was on a whole new level of destruction and hate. Then Amy watched as Shampoo did something, she wasn't sure what, but knew it wouldn't be very good.
Shampoo crouched down and glared at Amy, said something under her breath and jumped into the sky. Amy tensed as she rose nearly half the distance towards her, flared with energy of some kind, and started to fly. Whatever had happened to these two was doing a fine job of controlling them. Amy could barely recognize them as who they used to be. Dropping into free fall, Amy engaged Shampoo by firing a blast of red energy at her that was easily dodged. Amy, trained for fighting in the air like this by Ranma, flowed into her attack.
Both girl's slammed together with an explosion of energy, they spent the next several minutes trading blows and flying all over the sky. Amy had decided to abandon all sense of caution. Shampoo was just too strong for her to even think of it. Sure Amy knew she could have simply killed the girl, but that was the last thing she would do, but Shampoo had been increased so much that it was quickly becoming the only option.
They blurred from sight for a split second, setting off a sonic boom, they reappeared above the ground a few dozen yards from Pluto, though they barely noticed as they fought. Amy used her momentum to grab and body slams Shampoo across a fallen wall. Pluto didn't care about being fair and used Amy's attack to fire off her own. Luckily Amy looked up just in time see it and vanished just as the attack slammed into Shampoo's prone body. Amy bounced off a nearby wall and rose into the air, she brought her hands around and fired off a `NOVA CANNON` attack.
Her attack slammed into Pluto just as she was about to fire off another `Dead Scream' and sent her flying back to sprawl into the dust, Amy landed nearby and glared at the woman. Off her right she could see Shampoo glowing as she crawled to her feet, Amy shook her head in amazement at the arsenal of magic the girl was using to fight her.
It had been a long time since she had fought a battle like this, one where she dared not kill anyone. She knew she had to wear them both down before they would be vulnerable to certain things, that was going to take awhile because they just had far too much magic available to them. There was a tingle on Amy's neck and she spun around just in time to see Neptune and Uranus running towards them.
Oh, this was all I need, Amy thought to herself. Her hands were tied and she could not either kill of them, yet they had no such thing holding them back. She really wanted to kill them too, it was time to change the rules. Amy blurred and vanished before the Outer Scouts could get a bead on her, but reappeared about 500 feet away with her aura flaring around her. She crouched down and used her will power to focus her power to the next level, she didn't like going above a certain level in power because there was price to pay.
That price was usually paid in lots and lots of pain, the increased power would rip her body to pieces if she wasn't careful. The ground rumbled as she powered up, rocks and dust rose into the sky and everything around here seemed to turn blood red even as her eyes started to glow. Her hair started to shift under the power of the aura and even the weakest willed Ki users would have felt the skyrocketing power.
It was over a few seconds later as Amy stood in the middle of an expanding circle of dust, she was floating a few inches off the ground with her eyes glowed an angry red and a smirk on her face. Pluto looked confused, the others all looked like she had put on a show and didn't care. Amy's hands were spread out to the sides as she hovered there and two long sword like bars of red light extended towards the ground and humming loudly.
Uranus and Neptune didn't hesitate to attack and threw out several blasts, but Amy's swords came up and deflected each attack to the side as it came at her. Pluto got over her confusion and did the same, but her attack had the same luck.
The oldest scout stood there for several seconds, the hatred on her face obvious to all. Then she screamed and a black aura of power sprang up around Pluto and she leveled her staff at Amy and grinned evilly. "ULTIMATE DEAD SCREAM!" She yelled. Her staff flared with black lightning and fired off a massive ball of power. It flew out and vaporized everything in it's path, Uranus and Neptune were blown back several yards as the powerful blast rocketed past them.
Amy, watched impassively as the giant ball of black lightning traveled towards her. Still floating in the air, she flashed to the side and ignored the destruction of the somewhat intact building at the very edge of the ruins as Pluto's attack hit it. Amy could also now tell that this was the same type of power that Zepher had used to level the area, what the hell was going on here? Pluto was trying to remove her because she thought there was a threat to Crystal Tokyo, wasn't she? The same type of energy meant that Pluto was working for the other side didn't it? Amy's eyes narrowed and she looked a little deeper into Pluto's aura. It would need to be prodded a little though.
"Pluto, call off the Outers or I will do more than dodge." Amy said quietly.
Giggle. "Why should I do that? With you dead everything goes back to normal."
"Not until all the dark power is sent away Pluto."
"Your the cause, no more problems when you are gone."
Amy spotted the Inners heading in their direction, behind them she could see a massive battle going on between Ranma and Zepher. Of the Inners, Mars and Venus were missing, the others were all there and conscious. Then she spotted Tux Boy, he must have had the day off from collage or something, she thought to herself. Then there was the other problem, Shampoo was stalking towards her again, having finally recovered enough to continue the battle. Uranus and Neptune finally caught up to Pluto and stood beside her as they both glared at Amy.
"I recognize you now. You're that bitch that hit us with that weird attack the other day." Uranus growled.
"Want to go through it again, its strength depends on how much power I am focusing at the time. It should be enough to make you into raging hentai's for several days at this level. Just imagine chasing guys around campus all day trying to steal their underwear so you can `play` with them?" Amy grins lustfully.
"You are going to die for what you did to us." Neptune says coldly.
"As if I've actually hurt any of you." Amy snaps out sarcastically.
"Please stop this senseless fighting, we need to fight Zepher and help Guardian Knight. We also need to find Nova, she is missing." Sailor Moon said and managed to actually look worried.
Before anyone can even decide what to do, Shampoo jumps into the air and comes down right in front of Amy, her sword out and flying to cut and slash. Amy blinks at Shampoo increased speed and hops back, she brings her own energy blades up and deflects Shampoo's attack in a shower of red and black sparks as the blades meet. This hadn't happened in their earlier fight, so Amy figured that the darkness in Shampoo had started to grow out of control.
Growling, Amy increases her speed and leaves after images of herself as she deflects Shampoo's blades. Then two then start to move away from the others, the swirl of steel and red energy is all that can be seen of them as they battle. Sailor Moon and the others look confused. They don't understand why this strange girl attacked Amy. Then the unexpected happens, Pluto giggles and fires another ball of black lightning out of her staff right into the two battling girls.
"No!" Mercury and Jupiter yell out in shock.
Sailor Moon has all of a second to gasp in shock as she witnesses one of her friends brazenly kill someone in cold blood. The blast is pretty extreme and sends a shock wave out that destroys even more of the area and leaves a forty foot wide crater in its wake. The Scouts are blasted off their feet and can only stare in shock as Pluto fires several more blasts into the hole, to make sure, Uranus and Neptune grin evilly as they also take the opportunity to fire out some attacks as well.
"What have you done..."Sailor Moon gasps.
"The time line is now secure, the evil is dead, dead, DEAD." Pluto says in her high and mighty voice, but it's ruined by the insane grin on her face. She vanished back into the time stream a few seconds later with a flick of her wrist.
"That's one problem down, now let's go and take out Zepher." Uranus says happily, she and Neptune run off towards the battle off in the distance.
"What are we going to do Sailor Moon?" Mercury asks.
"I..."
"Do you think she was strong enough to survive that? She was a pain in the ass, but she didn't deserve that."
"Mercury, can you scan the area and tell if she survived?"
Mercury pulls out her computer and scans the area for several seconds, and frowns. "This is weird."
"What did you find?" Jupiter asks.
"She seems to be alive, but her energy signature is a acting weird."
"She's alive?" Gasps Moon.
Mercury looks at the still smoking crater and points at it. "She is at the very bottom of that mess, but her energy signature is almost nonexistent one second and then back to were it was while she was fighting that girl."
"Can we get her out of there?" Moon asks.
"Well..." Mercury begins, but is interrupted by a large explosion in the distance and all of their communicators going off.
"What's up?" Jupiter asks into hers.
"We need help here. Guardian knight was holding out against the bad guy and had actually just defeated him. Then the Outers appeared and fired at her just as Zepher's was taken out permanently and started firing on her. Guardian Knight took the brunt of the blasts and is hurt, the Outers are now fighting the whatever it was that took over for Zepher and are losing pretty badly, me and Venus are helping, but with Knight out of this..." Mars says.
"Have any of you seen that other girl, Nova?"
"She seems to have vanished completely. She may be dead from the initial blast since she was apparently at the very center of it."
"Then were in deep sh..." There is an explosion and the screen goes blank just as the ground around them rumbles. The Scouts gape at the giant column of smoke rising into the sky from where Mars was calling from.
"Those Outers are beginning to get on my nerves." Moon says.
"Wh-what?" Gasps Mercury, she can't ever recall a time when Moon was actually mad at any of them.
"We keep getting close to winning when they show up and start attacking everything in sight that isn't a Scout. How can we win if we can't trust the allies that show up occasionally, we aren't the only super powered group in all the world." Sailor Moon says. "Their not all enemies, we have to trust some of them."
"Agreed." Mercury and Jupiter say at the same time. "What do we do about Amy?"
Moon looks down at the carter and frowns. "Leave her, we have to take care of that monster first, then we can worry about her. You said she was alive and with those healing powers of hers she should be alright."
Mercury nods. She is once again shocked by how her friend can be a complete idiot at one point and a decent leader the next. "Then let's get back over to Mars and Venus, things will get out of hand soon if we don't bring the Outers under control in some way."
"Right."
They turn around take off back towards the fight they had just left and are soon to far away from the crater to see it's center shift and a form rise out of the destruction. What little dust that is in the air wafts away suddenly as Amy slowly stands and waves her hand, her whole body hurt in places she hadn't touched in years.
There is a flash of black lightning and an old man appears at the edge, he looks down at the two bodies below and smiles at Amy as she notices him. Several smaller demons drop in around the hole and spread their various wing like appendages while the old man hops down to Amy and grabs her by the throat and lifts her up off the ground. She is too weak to much of anything, not even put up a decent resistance.
"You just continue to surprise me Amy, there doesn't seem to be a limit to the amount of resistance you will put up, is there?" The old man growls out, but Amy is unable to respond as his hand clenches on her throat and cuts off her air completely. Her eyes do crack open and she pales at the sight of the old man. "How can you survive this kind of punishment, your powers were cut off almost totally when you were sent to this world. You should have barely enough to live, let alone fight like this."
Amy grinned, her eyes unfocused and croaked out her answer. "You are t-to dependent on your m-magic."
"I am all powerful, bitch. I beat you as easily as I have anyone else that has ever dared to attack me."
Amy giggled, painfully. "You found one of the f-few weakness that my powers have and used it against me, you old fucker. You sure as hell didn't beat me like you think, just damaged and used my body."
He clamps his hand and cuts off Amy's air as his eyes flare with black electricity, the smaller demons around them howl excitedly. "Answer me or you die right now, you only live at my sufferance bitch."
"I am a World Guardian. Do you think I'm dependent on only one form of power or magic to survive? I h-had to learn how they all worked before I could even become a regular fighter, it t-took years to do it and earn my position you idiot." Amy gasped out, clawing his hands.
"I blocked all your major powers when I broke you, there is no way you could have done something like this!"
"Heheheheh...you didn't do a good enough job asshole. SPLIT BREAK!" Amy yelled, and vanished out of the old man's hand.
"What the...?"
"We'll meet again." Amy's voice seems to echo around him.
"It just might be sooner than you think, bitch."
The old man growls and vanishes in a wave of power and the little demons vanish with him. All is quiet as the dust finally starts to settle, leaving a lone body in the crater, broken and bloodied almost beyond recognition. One of Shampoo's magical items begins to glow for a second and she vanishes in a flash of light.
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A few minutes before...
Ranma was beginning to feel like he was in a Dragon Ball anime as he fought Zepher. They had been going at it like crazed killers for nearly twenty minutes now and all he had managed to do was bruise his knuckles and get slammed into the ground a few times. Of course he was giving as good as he got and had sent the jerk into the ground a time or to himself. Currently they were glaring at each other while floating about two hundred feet above the ground, Ranma glowed a bright blue and Zepher a deep black.
"It seems that even with this newfound strength you are no match for me girl, give it up."
"I never give up asshole, you are going down."
"Yeah right, nothing you've tried has worked yet. You and these Scouts are as good as dead, none of you will be alive to witness the coming awakening of this planet."
"I think I'll put you to sleep instead, it would be a relief on my ears not to have to listen to your voice anymore. Don't get me started on how ugly you are..." Ranma said, shuddering.
Zepher flared up in anger and fired out blast of black lightning, but Ranma vanished long before it hit. They had played this game several times already and had started to get a good idea of how the other fought and reacted. Zepher decided to alter the pattern and sent out a wave of black electricity in all directions, this caught Ranma cold.
She was just above, behind, and to the right of Zepher getting ready to attack when he did this. The electricity worked like high voltage lines and had him screaming as she fell out of the sky and plowed into the ground, again. Gritting her teeth in pain, she rolled to his feet and fired off a blast of energy, but Zepher blocked it as easily as he had the others.
"This is getting old, do something interesting little fly, there doesn't seem to much you can do to me anyway." Zepher taunted, he grinned evilly when Ranma glared up at him.
Ranma cursed and dug for more power as she jumped at Zepher, who was laughing at her. Instead of counter attacking with that electric wave again, Zepher met her head on and they were soon trading blows at speeds that broke the sound barrier. Their battle ranged all over the place as they fought and counter attacked, partially destroyed buildings were leveled as Ranma cursed under her breath. She was losing and didn't know what to do, she briefly considered using the Final Attack, but decided against it. The Scouts were still in danger and if she quit the rest of the planet was doomed.
Then an idea came to Ranma as she landed in a relative open area and stood ready for his attack. Zepher fired off several blasts that Ranma dodged and flipped over as he flew right at her. She relaxed as he got within fifteen feet and waited for the final blow to fall.
The look of delight and evil glee on his face was visible to anyone that was looking. Zepher raised his hand and brought his fist down to crush her skull. His fist was an inch from her skull when she shifted and split into two identical girls, they smirked as they instantly started to attacked him. Zepher knew that one of them had to be a fake, but which one?
That was all the distraction Ranma needed as his hand glowed with power and suddenly lashed out and slashed through Zepher's throat like a hot knife through butter. Ranma had noticed early in the battle that the bastard was regenerating smaller wound and able to shrug off bigger ones in just a few seconds, but Ranma had a feeling that the more damaging the wound, the longer it took to heal and this was a fatal one. She didn't give him a chance to even try as she brought out her swords out of subspace and yelled "KNIGHT SLATHER HERALD!"
Zepher screamed as he was split almost completely in half from just above his crotch to above his head, and a wave of dark power enveloped him shot up into the sky. Ranma brought her swords around and fired a second time and cut the asshole into several pieces that swirled into dust, she watched this impassively as she sank to her knees. She had nothing left as she sat there gasping for air, behind him he could feel the Scouts heading in her direction and was glad there was someone that could take over is something unexpected happened.
"SPACE SWORD BLASTER!"
"SUBMARINE REFLECTION!"
"Wha...?" Was all Ranma had to get out as she was blasted in the back, she screamed as her armor was vaporized in the duel attack and lost consciousness as she landed at a stunned Sailor Mars' feet, smoke wafting off her damaged body. Mars was to shocked to speak and could only look on as Uranus and Neptune sauntered up, as if they expected to be thanked for killing the one that had just saved their bacon.
"What the hell do you thing your doing?!" Venus yelled as she ran over to Ranma to check her out. She was a little surprise to find her still breathing, the wounds to her body were pretty bad though and it would only be a matter of time before she breathed her last.
"This girl and that other red headed bitch are working together. The other one beat me and Neptune up the other day. They are playing you girls for fools. They are out to destroy us and the Princess. We will make sure that doesn't happen and with all three of these meddling idiots out of way things are safe again." Uranus snapped.
She ground to a halt as evil laughter filled the air and they all looked up to see an old man hovering in the air, little wisps of hair sticking up at odd angles and evil red eyes flared like twin novas. "Hello ladies, especially Uranus and Neptune here, your doing a fine job working for me and I need to repay you for that. The two of you have managed to kill or stop two of the three girls on this planet that had even a slight chance of defeating me and my men."
"Who the hell are you?" Yelled Mars.
"You may call me Master."
The two Inner and Outers looked at each other and attacked as one, firing off blasts at the same time.
"SPACE SWORD BLASTER!"
"SUBMARINE REFLECTION!"
"MARS FLAME SNIPER!"
"VENUS LOVE AND BEAUTY SHOCK!"
Everything hit him right in the chest and exploded with enough force to blow the girls off their feet, but they scrambled back up and gasped as Master continued to live. He wasn't even damaged, his clothing wasn't singed or cut, and there was no blood or visible damage anywhere on him. He was now surrounded in a large sphere of black electricity that had smaller bolts arching into his body as all that power was converted to energy to give him more power. "That was truly pathetic. Is this the best you can do? That girl who just killed Zepher would have been a better challenge. After all she used her hands and feet to fight instead of depending in her powers like you losers do."
"Well, Master, lets see what you have in the way of hand to hand then. I am the best fighter here and will be more than happy to fight you." Uranus smirked and said in a condescending voice.
His sphere of electricity flared and fired a bolt of power at the Outers and the battle was on. They dodged and moved in to attack as the old man showed off dexterity far above someone his age. Mars pulled out her communicator as Venus tended to the charred body of Guardian Knight, even with all that damage the dammed disguise field was still working.
"The others are on there way Venus."
"Can Moon get here in time to help us stop this guy?"
"I hope so, this guy is a lot stronger than the one GK here took out."
"True, but his time Moon is conscious and ready to let loose with the crystal."
"She is also mad at the Outers there, should we even help them?"
"Sure, they may not help us all that often, but we are apart of the same team."
"Like the Outers even care about that...lets go!" Mar's yelled just as Neptune was back handed and was blown back in wave of black electricity, her body wobbling in the air as she passed over head. Master's evil grin sent a chill down their spines even as he took out Uranus with a boot to the head. She collapsed on the spot, out cold.
"That was pathetic, I can't believe you girl's defeated all those other dark powers. I might as well put you girl's out of you misery just to save you pain and embarrassment as I pick you apart, just for the fun I will have doing it." He pulled a large cigar out of his coat, lit it, and took a large drag off of it, his eyes glowing red.
Mars is at a loss as things went from bad to worse, they couldn't fire magic at him because he just shrugged it off as if it was useless against him and hand to hand seemed to be out of the question since Uranus was the best on the team with Jupiter a close second, and she was failing horribly.
She looked up a few seconds later to see Sailor Moon, Mercury, and Jupiter all run into the area and take in the scene with more than a little disbelief. The self proclaimed Master had Uranus lifted off the ground by her throat and was slowly crushing her throat, he turned to look the new arrivals over and smirked evilly.
"Tell you girl's what, I want to see what you've got before I kill you and since these two idiots are out of the way and Pluto doesn't seem to be around, I'll give you all one free shot to take me out. If you are even able to hurt me, I'll back off and let you girls have week free of attacks and a chance to rest before I start up again. How does that sound?"
"No deal, you are going down now!" Usagi yelled and pulled out the Silver Crystal and held it up.
"Nice trinket you got there, but it is nothing compared to me little girl." Master laughed.
"COSMIC MOON POWER!!"
"JUPITER CRYSTAL POWER!!"
"MARS CRYSTAL POWER!!"
"VENUS CRYSTAL POWER!!"
"MERCURY CRYSTAL POWER!!"
The crystal flared into a silver sun between Moons hands as she brough them forward, the other Scouts sending their powers to the crystal as well and making their Fuku glowed bright silver. With a surge of power, the crystal flared and fired right into Master and exploded. Moon kept it up when she noticed that nothing was happening to her target, the force field he was using was pretty impressive if he could stand up to the Silver Crystal like this.
Sailor Moon kept this up for several minutes, pumping more and more power into the blast. Master grinned and lifted his arms to the sky and formed a large ball of black lighting and let it rain down on the Scouts, instead of exploding it started to grow as it collected power and formed into a dome of arching energy nearly a block wide and about forty feet high before going off with the force that laid waste to even more of the area and leveled a couple more buildings. Master stayed around to gloat for a few minutes before vanishing. He would take a week of before taking over the world since his plans seemed to be working so well.
*********
There is a flash of light in the front court yard of the Shrine and the Scouts appear, floating in mid air, each of them is lined in blue energy for several seconds before dropping them into a pile on the ground. Two more flashes are seen as Guardian Knight appears nearby with Amy kneeling beside her. Though the girl's are still in shock they are awed by the sight that is several miles away and easily visible from the top of the shrine steps.
Master's blast had created a giant crater that had a column of smoke rising into the atmosphere. They could make out the signs of military copters and vehicles heading into the area. The Shrine shook as a small earthquake rocked the area and made the girl's pale.
Mercury hissed in pain as she pulled out her computer and gasped as it fell into pieces in her hand, she started to cry. This set the rest of the girls off for several minutes as they realized that they would now be dead if not for Amy appearing at the last second and teleporting them out of there. The price for their lives was far steeper that any one of them had wanted to pay though, they had lost the Outers. Neptune and Uranus were dead, vaporized for being to far away when Sailor Moon tried to shield them.
Off to the side Amy's own crying could be heard as she held Ranma in her arms, the look of grief on her face was enough to hurt even the Scouts as she rocked her friend. Sailor Moon staggered over to Amy and wrapped her in hug and cried along with her. Amy's clothing had seen better days and was barely holding up after her battle with the three outers, and a magically powered Shampoo, her shirt was mostly intact because of the metal lining she used to give it some weight, but her pants were now gone, shredded into a pair of skimpy shorts that let everyone know that she was wearing black silk panties.
"Sailor Moon, I need you and the others to take care Guardian Knight until she is better."
"You can't go back into that fight Amy. You were beat by the Outers if what I saw is right, how can you beat that monster?"
Amy laughed, bitterly as she kissed the top of Ranma's head. "I am from a different dimension Sailor Moon, I would have been more than happy to keep my nose out of your business, but you attacked me because of what Mars saw in a fire reading. You jumped to conclusions and tried to kill me, then he Outers did the same, none of you even took the time to get to know me. My friend even tired to help you along because she didn't like what I was doing to get revenge on you for even attempting to kill me."
"Ranko?" Moon said.
"Yes, she is my friend, the first I've had in years. This situation is my fault too, I must move to fix it before anymore die."
"How can this be your fault?" Venus asked.
"In my home world, the dark powers are far stronger than they are here, we usually work in teams of 10 to 20 to defeat even one of the simple monsters you Scouts are attacked with. I was attacked one night when I was out feeling sorry for myself and getting drunk, I put up a good fight, but was easily defeated in my inebriated state.
What followed, I won't go into, but the torture lasted several weeks and was performed by experts in physical and magical aspects of the art. I know I didn't break, but they didn't ask me any questions either, after that the main boss named Siefried beat me to within an inch of my life and tossed me right into the ether that resides between dimensions, what most call Limbo.
"That bastard did something to me and sent me to this world, where my presence warped the local balance of power and gave a super charge to the dark powers that resided here. I have no clue how that happened either. Outside of you girls, I have been trying to minimize my effects on this plane by trying to bring the balance back. I was making great progress until I cast that spell over the lake and thought I had succeeded. Then Zepher did something very bad. He opened a gateway and brought forth the powers from my world to use in this one."
"Guardian Knight here, I trained her in a specialized fighting style that is common with the elite fighters of my world. She took to it with an ease that even impressed me and I am one of the strongest fighters in the last few centuries. She took out Zepher even after he had been charged by one of the dark demons from my world and those suckers are very hard to kill.
My kind was created to kill them or die trying. We were bred in laboratories for the job. I am also the last of my kind Sailor Moon, I must do this. The one you just fought and lost to is the dark demon I mentioned, if it worked like its kind usually does, it has taken over the minds and bodies of everybody in the group your fighting and super charged their powers."
"You know who this dark demon is don't you." Sailor Moon stated.
"I don't know how he pulled it off, but you are fighting Siefried, the bastard that sent me here."
"Can you defeat him?"
"I don't know, he found a way to block my primary powers when he kidnapped me, but I found a way to get around that and access them again." Amy says.
"Amy this can be settled another way, you don't have to die."
"You don't understand Sailor Moon." Mercury says.
"What do you mean?"
"Her crossing over is what set Pluto off on this weird thing she is on, once Amy defeats Siefried Pluto should go back to normal."
Amy smiles and nods, there was little more to it than that, but they didn't need to know the details. She stood and lifted Ranma's limp body in her arms as she headed into the Shrine, her aura forms around them as she moves and her clothing reforms into the Nova Armor.
Venus, Mars, and Mercury face fault in shock as her cape waves in a nonexistent wind. Moon just smiles sadly and hopes everything will turn out for the better. None of them notice the shadow that is watching them from the top of the Shrine, but it knows that now is the perfect time to take care of it's revenge and jumps off the roof.
**********
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 13
By: Cory D. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(C)2003
*********
About a half mile away from the main battle, Amy Lee was making her way across the ruins when she spotted something at the edge of her senses. She had been so distracted lately she had forgotten about that little patch of nothingness that had been following her around, but now she had time to take a much better look at it she was able get a reading on its power signature.
Whatever it was, she was going to have to make sure they stopped following her around, she had much better things to than deal with something like this. She watched it for several seconds, not caring in the least if something inside it saw her watching it. Nor was she disappointed when it suddenly surged with power and moved faster than she could keep track it.
Her eyes narrowed as she increased her power a tiny bit and continued to watch the area with all her senses. Then there was a barely registered sound from behind her and she dropped into a quick roll, moving to the side just before the ground where she had been standing exploded violently.
Rock and debris rained around the area as Amy came to her feet, the shock wave of the blast washed over her and nearly blew her off her feet at the exact same time. Dust tended to stay in the air for several minutes after it was stirred up, so she wasn't able to see much of anything at first.
Then a form appeared as it started to walk out of the dust cloud, Amy gasped as she saw just who it was that had attacked her. It was someone that she hadn't thought about in a long time now, she had been to busy with other things to even worry about some of the other enemies she had made during her stay in this dimension, her enemy was Shampoo.
She was dressed in a white, form fitting armor, and covered in items of power attached to her body in several places. The aura coming from most of them was enough to make Amy consider the purple haired girl a serious threat. She had never considered that the Amazons might have this many magical items in their hidden vaults, if she had Amy figured she might have borrowed some of them by now.
Shampoo wasn't carrying her bonbori either, instead she seemed to have an entire arsenal of weapons on her, all of it giving off a magical aura. Amy sighed, Cologne must have decided to make sure her granddaughter had a better chance to beat her.
Amazons must kill outsiders if they are of the same sex and beat them in combat, how such a stupid law could have come into existence was beyond Amy`s understanding. Amy looked Shampoo over and sighed tiredly, why did she have to go to these lengths for something that she had cause in the first place. There was a look in Shampoo's eyes that promised that her death would be as slow as possible, this was surprise considering what Amy did know about Shampoo.
She had been under the impression that most Amazons were not this murderous, Cologne certainly hadn't seemed this bad the last time they had talked. Then again, the Amazons were still a primitive society; she growled and decided that she had to deal with this like Ranma would. She could not kill even if it seemed to be the best way to end this mess. It would alter the balance that she was trying to preserve. Ranma's code of ethics was rubbing off on her.
Amy sighed and shook her head. "Shampoo, do we have to do this?"
"Shampoo kill girl who is taking husband, Shampoo kill girl who took Shampoo honor and pride as an Amazon. Use magic to fight magic."
"Shampoo I don't want to hurt you, but I will fight back if you continue this, please just back down and neither one of us have to get hurt."
"Shampoo kill outsider who steal husband."
"I haven't taken Ranma from you Shampoo, he wouldn't respond to me even if I tried to, he's as dense as stone when it comes to that kind of stuff. We are only friends."
"You lie! Shampoo watch and see how he act around you."
"Huh?"
"Ranma like you better than all of us, he isn't rude and abusive, he doesn't run from you when you are around. He doesn't insult you like he does stupid Pervert Girl or Spatula Girl, he laughs and plays with you. He is closer to you than all of us combined."
"We are only friends Shampoo."
"You lie."
Shampoo's voice was hollow and Amy could see that her aura was once again infested with large amount of black, but this time they were growing more powerful by the second. This was bad, Amy knew she could hold her own against Shampoo easily in regular combat, but she had been training with Cologne lately and her influence was showing. Amy's thoughts were derailed as Shampoo surged forward, her sword appeared in her hand for a slash and pierce attack that would remove her head and split her heart in twain if it hit.
Amy hopped backwards to avoid the sword, but Shampoo turned it into a feint and did a round house kick to her head. This hit Amy in the chin and sent her sprawling, but she rolled to her feet again and was instantly on the defensive as the purple haired girl pressed the attack at ever faster and faster speeds. Amy backpedaled and analyzed Shampoo as she attacked with an almost silent and deadly accuracy that was simply amazing, her hollow eyes were a dead give away.
The darkness and those magical items were controlling her in some way. Amy's magic senses were picking up the fact that over half of the medals and trinkets on her armor were glowing with power, but the dead and glazed look in the purple haired girl's eyes were almost frightening. Amy wondered what that old bat had done to her own grand daughter to bring her to this state, had it been done willingly?!
This kind of control also meant that the poor girl would give no mercy in this battle and it would be up to Amy to defeat her or die trying, there had to be some way out of this mess without one of them dieing. Amy was brought back to the battle as Shampoo suddenly blurred from sight and slammed several hundred punches through her defenses like it was nothing.
Amy cried out in shock and pain as she stumbled back, and jumped back nearly a hundred feet and let her aura flare forth and finally allowing herself to power up a little more. That was something more than a simple Amagurikan attack, the speed had been nearly triple the speed Amy had been expecting.
"Okay Shampoo, you asked for it." Amy growled and prepared to take Shampoo down as quickly as possible, but then a blast of pink energy slammed into her from the side.
Amy's eyes widened as she found herself in the center of a super powerful explosion, only her armor and aura protected her from it and even then she could feel it. Whatever it was the explosion leveled what was left of the area around her, but the blast itself was enough of a shock that it vaporized most of her Nova armor and left her in a shredded shirt and pants that barely covered her modesty.
Her identity as Nova vanished and left only Amy Lee in it's wake, but this barely registered to Amy though, she was in a bit of shock. A portion of her mind suddenly wondered how Shampoo had known who she was, had the been around even then? Amy couldn't remember ever feeling the presence when she transformed, but she had been a bit busy at the time.
"What the hell is going on here?" Amy cursed under her breath as she lowered her arms and looked around cautiously.
"Why it is time for you to die so that I can remove your presence from the time line, demon. You have managed to wreck nearly all of my carefully crafted plans in just a matter of weeks." Cackled an obviously insane voice. "For that you will die, maybe then I can get everything back on track again."
It was Pluto, the one Scout that Amy hadn't encountered yet, but she could see that there was something wrong with the woman. In just the few seconds that she had to study Pluto, Amy could see that she was looking...a little evil. Her hair was a mess, her eyes were bottomless black pits, her Fuku was actually dirty and the smell wafting off of her was enough to drop a dog at 20 paces.
Amy kept her shock at the woman's appearance to herself and looked the poor girl over with her aura sight, Pluto was swathed in colors, but the silver of her goodness and black of evil seemed to be waging a war all around her, there was something else there as well. Amy had no clue what it was, but she knew she had never encountered anything like this and briefly wondered if she was the cause as well, her presence seemed to be directly linked to most everyone around her an effected everyone in different ways.
Then reality intruded and Amy was reminded of Shampoo as the girl's sword came down out of no where and bit into Amy's shoulder, making her scream in agony. Amy went down and was able to see both Shampoo and Pluto flare up with dark power and fire off blasts of energy, further confusing Amy. Pluto simply aimed and fired her staff while Shampoo's fired out of her sword. Amy had a split second to see the energy ripping the ground apart as it moved toward here and instinct took over, she leaped straight up and used the concussion wave of the blast to push herself into the sky.
Pluto's screech of anger surprised Amy, but she shoved it to the side as she flared her aura back up and flew higher into the sky, she stopped 200 feet above the girls. She checked her shoulder carefully and saw that it was bleeding heavily, but already starting to.
"What the hell happened to these two?" Amy muttered. This was far worse than what had happened before. This wasn't just out of control behavior anymore. It was on a whole new level of destruction and hate. Then Amy watched as Shampoo did something, she wasn't sure what, but knew it wouldn't be very good.
Shampoo crouched down and glared at Amy, said something under her breath and jumped into the sky. Amy tensed as she rose nearly half the distance towards her, flared with energy of some kind, and started to fly. Whatever had happened to these two was doing a fine job of controlling them. Amy could barely recognize them as who they used to be. Dropping into free fall, Amy engaged Shampoo by firing a blast of red energy at her that was easily dodged. Amy, trained for fighting in the air like this by Ranma, flowed into her attack.
Both girl's slammed together with an explosion of energy, they spent the next several minutes trading blows and flying all over the sky. Amy had decided to abandon all sense of caution. Shampoo was just too strong for her to even think of it. Sure Amy knew she could have simply killed the girl, but that was the last thing she would do, but Shampoo had been increased so much that it was quickly becoming the only option.
They blurred from sight for a split second, setting off a sonic boom, they reappeared above the ground a few dozen yards from Pluto, though they barely noticed as they fought. Amy used her momentum to grab and body slams Shampoo across a fallen wall. Pluto didn't care about being fair and used Amy's attack to fire off her own. Luckily Amy looked up just in time see it and vanished just as the attack slammed into Shampoo's prone body. Amy bounced off a nearby wall and rose into the air, she brought her hands around and fired off a `NOVA CANNON` attack.
Her attack slammed into Pluto just as she was about to fire off another `Dead Scream' and sent her flying back to sprawl into the dust, Amy landed nearby and glared at the woman. Off her right she could see Shampoo glowing as she crawled to her feet, Amy shook her head in amazement at the arsenal of magic the girl was using to fight her.
It had been a long time since she had fought a battle like this, one where she dared not kill anyone. She knew she had to wear them both down before they would be vulnerable to certain things, that was going to take awhile because they just had far too much magic available to them. There was a tingle on Amy's neck and she spun around just in time to see Neptune and Uranus running towards them.
Oh, this was all I need, Amy thought to herself. Her hands were tied and she could not either kill of them, yet they had no such thing holding them back. She really wanted to kill them too, it was time to change the rules. Amy blurred and vanished before the Outer Scouts could get a bead on her, but reappeared about 500 feet away with her aura flaring around her. She crouched down and used her will power to focus her power to the next level, she didn't like going above a certain level in power because there was price to pay.
That price was usually paid in lots and lots of pain, the increased power would rip her body to pieces if she wasn't careful. The ground rumbled as she powered up, rocks and dust rose into the sky and everything around here seemed to turn blood red even as her eyes started to glow. Her hair started to shift under the power of the aura and even the weakest willed Ki users would have felt the skyrocketing power.
It was over a few seconds later as Amy stood in the middle of an expanding circle of dust, she was floating a few inches off the ground with her eyes glowed an angry red and a smirk on her face. Pluto looked confused, the others all looked like she had put on a show and didn't care. Amy's hands were spread out to the sides as she hovered there and two long sword like bars of red light extended towards the ground and humming loudly.
Uranus and Neptune didn't hesitate to attack and threw out several blasts, but Amy's swords came up and deflected each attack to the side as it came at her. Pluto got over her confusion and did the same, but her attack had the same luck.
The oldest scout stood there for several seconds, the hatred on her face obvious to all. Then she screamed and a black aura of power sprang up around Pluto and she leveled her staff at Amy and grinned evilly. "ULTIMATE DEAD SCREAM!" She yelled. Her staff flared with black lightning and fired off a massive ball of power. It flew out and vaporized everything in it's path, Uranus and Neptune were blown back several yards as the powerful blast rocketed past them.
Amy, watched impassively as the giant ball of black lightning traveled towards her. Still floating in the air, she flashed to the side and ignored the destruction of the somewhat intact building at the very edge of the ruins as Pluto's attack hit it. Amy could also now tell that this was the same type of power that Zepher had used to level the area, what the hell was going on here? Pluto was trying to remove her because she thought there was a threat to Crystal Tokyo, wasn't she? The same type of energy meant that Pluto was working for the other side didn't it? Amy's eyes narrowed and she looked a little deeper into Pluto's aura. It would need to be prodded a little though.
"Pluto, call off the Outers or I will do more than dodge." Amy said quietly.
Giggle. "Why should I do that? With you dead everything goes back to normal."
"Not until all the dark power is sent away Pluto."
"Your the cause, no more problems when you are gone."
Amy spotted the Inners heading in their direction, behind them she could see a massive battle going on between Ranma and Zepher. Of the Inners, Mars and Venus were missing, the others were all there and conscious. Then she spotted Tux Boy, he must have had the day off from collage or something, she thought to herself. Then there was the other problem, Shampoo was stalking towards her again, having finally recovered enough to continue the battle. Uranus and Neptune finally caught up to Pluto and stood beside her as they both glared at Amy.
"I recognize you now. You're that bitch that hit us with that weird attack the other day." Uranus growled.
"Want to go through it again, its strength depends on how much power I am focusing at the time. It should be enough to make you into raging hentai's for several days at this level. Just imagine chasing guys around campus all day trying to steal their underwear so you can `play` with them?" Amy grins lustfully.
"You are going to die for what you did to us." Neptune says coldly.
"As if I've actually hurt any of you." Amy snaps out sarcastically.
"Please stop this senseless fighting, we need to fight Zepher and help Guardian Knight. We also need to find Nova, she is missing." Sailor Moon said and managed to actually look worried.
Before anyone can even decide what to do, Shampoo jumps into the air and comes down right in front of Amy, her sword out and flying to cut and slash. Amy blinks at Shampoo increased speed and hops back, she brings her own energy blades up and deflects Shampoo's attack in a shower of red and black sparks as the blades meet. This hadn't happened in their earlier fight, so Amy figured that the darkness in Shampoo had started to grow out of control.
Growling, Amy increases her speed and leaves after images of herself as she deflects Shampoo's blades. Then two then start to move away from the others, the swirl of steel and red energy is all that can be seen of them as they battle. Sailor Moon and the others look confused. They don't understand why this strange girl attacked Amy. Then the unexpected happens, Pluto giggles and fires another ball of black lightning out of her staff right into the two battling girls.
"No!" Mercury and Jupiter yell out in shock.
Sailor Moon has all of a second to gasp in shock as she witnesses one of her friends brazenly kill someone in cold blood. The blast is pretty extreme and sends a shock wave out that destroys even more of the area and leaves a forty foot wide crater in its wake. The Scouts are blasted off their feet and can only stare in shock as Pluto fires several more blasts into the hole, to make sure, Uranus and Neptune grin evilly as they also take the opportunity to fire out some attacks as well.
"What have you done..."Sailor Moon gasps.
"The time line is now secure, the evil is dead, dead, DEAD." Pluto says in her high and mighty voice, but it's ruined by the insane grin on her face. She vanished back into the time stream a few seconds later with a flick of her wrist.
"That's one problem down, now let's go and take out Zepher." Uranus says happily, she and Neptune run off towards the battle off in the distance.
"What are we going to do Sailor Moon?" Mercury asks.
"I..."
"Do you think she was strong enough to survive that? She was a pain in the ass, but she didn't deserve that."
"Mercury, can you scan the area and tell if she survived?"
Mercury pulls out her computer and scans the area for several seconds, and frowns. "This is weird."
"What did you find?" Jupiter asks.
"She seems to be alive, but her energy signature is a acting weird."
"She's alive?" Gasps Moon.
Mercury looks at the still smoking crater and points at it. "She is at the very bottom of that mess, but her energy signature is almost nonexistent one second and then back to were it was while she was fighting that girl."
"Can we get her out of there?" Moon asks.
"Well..." Mercury begins, but is interrupted by a large explosion in the distance and all of their communicators going off.
"What's up?" Jupiter asks into hers.
"We need help here. Guardian knight was holding out against the bad guy and had actually just defeated him. Then the Outers appeared and fired at her just as Zepher's was taken out permanently and started firing on her. Guardian Knight took the brunt of the blasts and is hurt, the Outers are now fighting the whatever it was that took over for Zepher and are losing pretty badly, me and Venus are helping, but with Knight out of this..." Mars says.
"Have any of you seen that other girl, Nova?"
"She seems to have vanished completely. She may be dead from the initial blast since she was apparently at the very center of it."
"Then were in deep sh..." There is an explosion and the screen goes blank just as the ground around them rumbles. The Scouts gape at the giant column of smoke rising into the sky from where Mars was calling from.
"Those Outers are beginning to get on my nerves." Moon says.
"Wh-what?" Gasps Mercury, she can't ever recall a time when Moon was actually mad at any of them.
"We keep getting close to winning when they show up and start attacking everything in sight that isn't a Scout. How can we win if we can't trust the allies that show up occasionally, we aren't the only super powered group in all the world." Sailor Moon says. "Their not all enemies, we have to trust some of them."
"Agreed." Mercury and Jupiter say at the same time. "What do we do about Amy?"
Moon looks down at the carter and frowns. "Leave her, we have to take care of that monster first, then we can worry about her. You said she was alive and with those healing powers of hers she should be alright."
Mercury nods. She is once again shocked by how her friend can be a complete idiot at one point and a decent leader the next. "Then let's get back over to Mars and Venus, things will get out of hand soon if we don't bring the Outers under control in some way."
"Right."
They turn around take off back towards the fight they had just left and are soon to far away from the crater to see it's center shift and a form rise out of the destruction. What little dust that is in the air wafts away suddenly as Amy slowly stands and waves her hand, her whole body hurt in places she hadn't touched in years.
There is a flash of black lightning and an old man appears at the edge, he looks down at the two bodies below and smiles at Amy as she notices him. Several smaller demons drop in around the hole and spread their various wing like appendages while the old man hops down to Amy and grabs her by the throat and lifts her up off the ground. She is too weak to much of anything, not even put up a decent resistance.
"You just continue to surprise me Amy, there doesn't seem to be a limit to the amount of resistance you will put up, is there?" The old man growls out, but Amy is unable to respond as his hand clenches on her throat and cuts off her air completely. Her eyes do crack open and she pales at the sight of the old man. "How can you survive this kind of punishment, your powers were cut off almost totally when you were sent to this world. You should have barely enough to live, let alone fight like this."
Amy grinned, her eyes unfocused and croaked out her answer. "You are t-to dependent on your m-magic."
"I am all powerful, bitch. I beat you as easily as I have anyone else that has ever dared to attack me."
Amy giggled, painfully. "You found one of the f-few weakness that my powers have and used it against me, you old fucker. You sure as hell didn't beat me like you think, just damaged and used my body."
He clamps his hand and cuts off Amy's air as his eyes flare with black electricity, the smaller demons around them howl excitedly. "Answer me or you die right now, you only live at my sufferance bitch."
"I am a World Guardian. Do you think I'm dependent on only one form of power or magic to survive? I h-had to learn how they all worked before I could even become a regular fighter, it t-took years to do it and earn my position you idiot." Amy gasped out, clawing his hands.
"I blocked all your major powers when I broke you, there is no way you could have done something like this!"
"Heheheheh...you didn't do a good enough job asshole. SPLIT BREAK!" Amy yelled, and vanished out of the old man's hand.
"What the...?"
"We'll meet again." Amy's voice seems to echo around him.
"It just might be sooner than you think, bitch."
The old man growls and vanishes in a wave of power and the little demons vanish with him. All is quiet as the dust finally starts to settle, leaving a lone body in the crater, broken and bloodied almost beyond recognition. One of Shampoo's magical items begins to glow for a second and she vanishes in a flash of light.
**********
A few minutes before...
Ranma was beginning to feel like he was in a Dragon Ball anime as he fought Zepher. They had been going at it like crazed killers for nearly twenty minutes now and all he had managed to do was bruise his knuckles and get slammed into the ground a few times. Of course he was giving as good as he got and had sent the jerk into the ground a time or to himself. Currently they were glaring at each other while floating about two hundred feet above the ground, Ranma glowed a bright blue and Zepher a deep black.
"It seems that even with this newfound strength you are no match for me girl, give it up."
"I never give up asshole, you are going down."
"Yeah right, nothing you've tried has worked yet. You and these Scouts are as good as dead, none of you will be alive to witness the coming awakening of this planet."
"I think I'll put you to sleep instead, it would be a relief on my ears not to have to listen to your voice anymore. Don't get me started on how ugly you are..." Ranma said, shuddering.
Zepher flared up in anger and fired out blast of black lightning, but Ranma vanished long before it hit. They had played this game several times already and had started to get a good idea of how the other fought and reacted. Zepher decided to alter the pattern and sent out a wave of black electricity in all directions, this caught Ranma cold.
She was just above, behind, and to the right of Zepher getting ready to attack when he did this. The electricity worked like high voltage lines and had him screaming as she fell out of the sky and plowed into the ground, again. Gritting her teeth in pain, she rolled to his feet and fired off a blast of energy, but Zepher blocked it as easily as he had the others.
"This is getting old, do something interesting little fly, there doesn't seem to much you can do to me anyway." Zepher taunted, he grinned evilly when Ranma glared up at him.
Ranma cursed and dug for more power as she jumped at Zepher, who was laughing at her. Instead of counter attacking with that electric wave again, Zepher met her head on and they were soon trading blows at speeds that broke the sound barrier. Their battle ranged all over the place as they fought and counter attacked, partially destroyed buildings were leveled as Ranma cursed under her breath. She was losing and didn't know what to do, she briefly considered using the Final Attack, but decided against it. The Scouts were still in danger and if she quit the rest of the planet was doomed.
Then an idea came to Ranma as she landed in a relative open area and stood ready for his attack. Zepher fired off several blasts that Ranma dodged and flipped over as he flew right at her. She relaxed as he got within fifteen feet and waited for the final blow to fall.
The look of delight and evil glee on his face was visible to anyone that was looking. Zepher raised his hand and brought his fist down to crush her skull. His fist was an inch from her skull when she shifted and split into two identical girls, they smirked as they instantly started to attacked him. Zepher knew that one of them had to be a fake, but which one?
That was all the distraction Ranma needed as his hand glowed with power and suddenly lashed out and slashed through Zepher's throat like a hot knife through butter. Ranma had noticed early in the battle that the bastard was regenerating smaller wound and able to shrug off bigger ones in just a few seconds, but Ranma had a feeling that the more damaging the wound, the longer it took to heal and this was a fatal one. She didn't give him a chance to even try as she brought out her swords out of subspace and yelled "KNIGHT SLATHER HERALD!"
Zepher screamed as he was split almost completely in half from just above his crotch to above his head, and a wave of dark power enveloped him shot up into the sky. Ranma brought her swords around and fired a second time and cut the asshole into several pieces that swirled into dust, she watched this impassively as she sank to her knees. She had nothing left as she sat there gasping for air, behind him he could feel the Scouts heading in her direction and was glad there was someone that could take over is something unexpected happened.
"SPACE SWORD BLASTER!"
"SUBMARINE REFLECTION!"
"Wha...?" Was all Ranma had to get out as she was blasted in the back, she screamed as her armor was vaporized in the duel attack and lost consciousness as she landed at a stunned Sailor Mars' feet, smoke wafting off her damaged body. Mars was to shocked to speak and could only look on as Uranus and Neptune sauntered up, as if they expected to be thanked for killing the one that had just saved their bacon.
"What the hell do you thing your doing?!" Venus yelled as she ran over to Ranma to check her out. She was a little surprise to find her still breathing, the wounds to her body were pretty bad though and it would only be a matter of time before she breathed her last.
"This girl and that other red headed bitch are working together. The other one beat me and Neptune up the other day. They are playing you girls for fools. They are out to destroy us and the Princess. We will make sure that doesn't happen and with all three of these meddling idiots out of way things are safe again." Uranus snapped.
She ground to a halt as evil laughter filled the air and they all looked up to see an old man hovering in the air, little wisps of hair sticking up at odd angles and evil red eyes flared like twin novas. "Hello ladies, especially Uranus and Neptune here, your doing a fine job working for me and I need to repay you for that. The two of you have managed to kill or stop two of the three girls on this planet that had even a slight chance of defeating me and my men."
"Who the hell are you?" Yelled Mars.
"You may call me Master."
The two Inner and Outers looked at each other and attacked as one, firing off blasts at the same time.
"SPACE SWORD BLASTER!"
"SUBMARINE REFLECTION!"
"MARS FLAME SNIPER!"
"VENUS LOVE AND BEAUTY SHOCK!"
Everything hit him right in the chest and exploded with enough force to blow the girls off their feet, but they scrambled back up and gasped as Master continued to live. He wasn't even damaged, his clothing wasn't singed or cut, and there was no blood or visible damage anywhere on him. He was now surrounded in a large sphere of black electricity that had smaller bolts arching into his body as all that power was converted to energy to give him more power. "That was truly pathetic. Is this the best you can do? That girl who just killed Zepher would have been a better challenge. After all she used her hands and feet to fight instead of depending in her powers like you losers do."
"Well, Master, lets see what you have in the way of hand to hand then. I am the best fighter here and will be more than happy to fight you." Uranus smirked and said in a condescending voice.
His sphere of electricity flared and fired a bolt of power at the Outers and the battle was on. They dodged and moved in to attack as the old man showed off dexterity far above someone his age. Mars pulled out her communicator as Venus tended to the charred body of Guardian Knight, even with all that damage the dammed disguise field was still working.
"The others are on there way Venus."
"Can Moon get here in time to help us stop this guy?"
"I hope so, this guy is a lot stronger than the one GK here took out."
"True, but his time Moon is conscious and ready to let loose with the crystal."
"She is also mad at the Outers there, should we even help them?"
"Sure, they may not help us all that often, but we are apart of the same team."
"Like the Outers even care about that...lets go!" Mar's yelled just as Neptune was back handed and was blown back in wave of black electricity, her body wobbling in the air as she passed over head. Master's evil grin sent a chill down their spines even as he took out Uranus with a boot to the head. She collapsed on the spot, out cold.
"That was pathetic, I can't believe you girl's defeated all those other dark powers. I might as well put you girl's out of you misery just to save you pain and embarrassment as I pick you apart, just for the fun I will have doing it." He pulled a large cigar out of his coat, lit it, and took a large drag off of it, his eyes glowing red.
Mars is at a loss as things went from bad to worse, they couldn't fire magic at him because he just shrugged it off as if it was useless against him and hand to hand seemed to be out of the question since Uranus was the best on the team with Jupiter a close second, and she was failing horribly.
She looked up a few seconds later to see Sailor Moon, Mercury, and Jupiter all run into the area and take in the scene with more than a little disbelief. The self proclaimed Master had Uranus lifted off the ground by her throat and was slowly crushing her throat, he turned to look the new arrivals over and smirked evilly.
"Tell you girl's what, I want to see what you've got before I kill you and since these two idiots are out of the way and Pluto doesn't seem to be around, I'll give you all one free shot to take me out. If you are even able to hurt me, I'll back off and let you girls have week free of attacks and a chance to rest before I start up again. How does that sound?"
"No deal, you are going down now!" Usagi yelled and pulled out the Silver Crystal and held it up.
"Nice trinket you got there, but it is nothing compared to me little girl." Master laughed.
"COSMIC MOON POWER!!"
"JUPITER CRYSTAL POWER!!"
"MARS CRYSTAL POWER!!"
"VENUS CRYSTAL POWER!!"
"MERCURY CRYSTAL POWER!!"
The crystal flared into a silver sun between Moons hands as she brough them forward, the other Scouts sending their powers to the crystal as well and making their Fuku glowed bright silver. With a surge of power, the crystal flared and fired right into Master and exploded. Moon kept it up when she noticed that nothing was happening to her target, the force field he was using was pretty impressive if he could stand up to the Silver Crystal like this.
Sailor Moon kept this up for several minutes, pumping more and more power into the blast. Master grinned and lifted his arms to the sky and formed a large ball of black lighting and let it rain down on the Scouts, instead of exploding it started to grow as it collected power and formed into a dome of arching energy nearly a block wide and about forty feet high before going off with the force that laid waste to even more of the area and leveled a couple more buildings. Master stayed around to gloat for a few minutes before vanishing. He would take a week of before taking over the world since his plans seemed to be working so well.
*********
There is a flash of light in the front court yard of the Shrine and the Scouts appear, floating in mid air, each of them is lined in blue energy for several seconds before dropping them into a pile on the ground. Two more flashes are seen as Guardian Knight appears nearby with Amy kneeling beside her. Though the girl's are still in shock they are awed by the sight that is several miles away and easily visible from the top of the shrine steps.
Master's blast had created a giant crater that had a column of smoke rising into the atmosphere. They could make out the signs of military copters and vehicles heading into the area. The Shrine shook as a small earthquake rocked the area and made the girl's pale.
Mercury hissed in pain as she pulled out her computer and gasped as it fell into pieces in her hand, she started to cry. This set the rest of the girls off for several minutes as they realized that they would now be dead if not for Amy appearing at the last second and teleporting them out of there. The price for their lives was far steeper that any one of them had wanted to pay though, they had lost the Outers. Neptune and Uranus were dead, vaporized for being to far away when Sailor Moon tried to shield them.
Off to the side Amy's own crying could be heard as she held Ranma in her arms, the look of grief on her face was enough to hurt even the Scouts as she rocked her friend. Sailor Moon staggered over to Amy and wrapped her in hug and cried along with her. Amy's clothing had seen better days and was barely holding up after her battle with the three outers, and a magically powered Shampoo, her shirt was mostly intact because of the metal lining she used to give it some weight, but her pants were now gone, shredded into a pair of skimpy shorts that let everyone know that she was wearing black silk panties.
"Sailor Moon, I need you and the others to take care Guardian Knight until she is better."
"You can't go back into that fight Amy. You were beat by the Outers if what I saw is right, how can you beat that monster?"
Amy laughed, bitterly as she kissed the top of Ranma's head. "I am from a different dimension Sailor Moon, I would have been more than happy to keep my nose out of your business, but you attacked me because of what Mars saw in a fire reading. You jumped to conclusions and tried to kill me, then he Outers did the same, none of you even took the time to get to know me. My friend even tired to help you along because she didn't like what I was doing to get revenge on you for even attempting to kill me."
"Ranko?" Moon said.
"Yes, she is my friend, the first I've had in years. This situation is my fault too, I must move to fix it before anymore die."
"How can this be your fault?" Venus asked.
"In my home world, the dark powers are far stronger than they are here, we usually work in teams of 10 to 20 to defeat even one of the simple monsters you Scouts are attacked with. I was attacked one night when I was out feeling sorry for myself and getting drunk, I put up a good fight, but was easily defeated in my inebriated state.
What followed, I won't go into, but the torture lasted several weeks and was performed by experts in physical and magical aspects of the art. I know I didn't break, but they didn't ask me any questions either, after that the main boss named Siefried beat me to within an inch of my life and tossed me right into the ether that resides between dimensions, what most call Limbo.
"That bastard did something to me and sent me to this world, where my presence warped the local balance of power and gave a super charge to the dark powers that resided here. I have no clue how that happened either. Outside of you girls, I have been trying to minimize my effects on this plane by trying to bring the balance back. I was making great progress until I cast that spell over the lake and thought I had succeeded. Then Zepher did something very bad. He opened a gateway and brought forth the powers from my world to use in this one."
"Guardian Knight here, I trained her in a specialized fighting style that is common with the elite fighters of my world. She took to it with an ease that even impressed me and I am one of the strongest fighters in the last few centuries. She took out Zepher even after he had been charged by one of the dark demons from my world and those suckers are very hard to kill.
My kind was created to kill them or die trying. We were bred in laboratories for the job. I am also the last of my kind Sailor Moon, I must do this. The one you just fought and lost to is the dark demon I mentioned, if it worked like its kind usually does, it has taken over the minds and bodies of everybody in the group your fighting and super charged their powers."
"You know who this dark demon is don't you." Sailor Moon stated.
"I don't know how he pulled it off, but you are fighting Siefried, the bastard that sent me here."
"Can you defeat him?"
"I don't know, he found a way to block my primary powers when he kidnapped me, but I found a way to get around that and access them again." Amy says.
"Amy this can be settled another way, you don't have to die."
"You don't understand Sailor Moon." Mercury says.
"What do you mean?"
"Her crossing over is what set Pluto off on this weird thing she is on, once Amy defeats Siefried Pluto should go back to normal."
Amy smiles and nods, there was little more to it than that, but they didn't need to know the details. She stood and lifted Ranma's limp body in her arms as she headed into the Shrine, her aura forms around them as she moves and her clothing reforms into the Nova Armor.
Venus, Mars, and Mercury face fault in shock as her cape waves in a nonexistent wind. Moon just smiles sadly and hopes everything will turn out for the better. None of them notice the shadow that is watching them from the top of the Shrine, but it knows that now is the perfect time to take care of it's revenge and jumps off the roof.
**********
To Be Continued...