I don't own 'Sailor Moon' and 'Ranma½' it belongs to their respective creators.
Thanks to my prereader Drkjester
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Chapter 2
Mercury was confused. The young man that was standing next to the main entrance to the ballroom had given her a weird feeling for the past year. Ever since he came in to the palace he seemed odd. It was nothing that he did or how he acted, he was exactly like all the other guards, but still…
She was jumpy. Things in her planet had felt weird, for the past five years, she tried to figure out what, but all her investigations lead to dead ends. All her investigations showed that all was like it always had been, that nothing had changed. Her special operatives had followed her instincts and instructions to the letter, but still they found nothing, that was unnerving to her on her own planet. But the feeling that something was wrong, that something was different, had not gone away.
She looked towards the guard. She had come to the conclusion that he was some how connected with her uneasiness. 'I'm still getting the same weird feeling from him and today it's stronger than ever. He acts the same as always, he does the same things that he did on every other day I have seen him. So what was unnerving me on this entire situation? He can't be a dark enemy; otherwise our Queen would have discovered it from the beginning. But what is it, that makes me feel like that when I see him?' She tried to concentrate on her feelings, but the thing that unnerved her slipped away, like every other time. She took another look towards him then shrugged. Mercury started to move towards the inners, 'It's probably nothing, like every other time I tried to figure it out.'
Nearing the group of the inner senshi she spotted her Queens daughter and bowed respectfully towards her.
"Oh Mercury! Mercury did you know that my prince is coming to see me today? Isn't it wonderful? My Endymion will visit me today and my mum says that today is the day that we will be engaged and Earth will finally join our beautiful kingdom. Isn't it wonderful?"
"Yes, it is my Princess. It is wonderful to know that you will finally get the man that you love." 'Just like all the other guys before him.'
"Yes, yes I love him very very much, but my mum says that I should keep a level head and not waist too much time with him. She says that he is useful for now but I should not attach myself too much. I still don't understand what she meant by that."
"I know, but I think that our Queen knows for the best. After all isn't she all knowing?" She had her doubts about that but she buried them deep where no one could see them. After all, the Queen had ruled for so long.
"Of course, my mum is all knowing. Did you know that my mum said that I would be the mother for the new Princess for Earth and I will be the new Queen? But isn't Beryl the Queen of Earth? But still she said that I would… Ah it doesn't matter I'm going to get my ice cream and then I'm going to meet my prince." With those words she ran away, without even paying any more attention to Mercury.
Mercury could only shake her head and try to smile. She had a really funny feeling about all this. She tried to ponder on it but then forcefully ejected it from her mind. 'It is not my business to question my Queens motives. She would never do anything that is even remotely questionable. Right?' Then she turned her head towards the guard, he still seemed somewhat strange today. 'No I'm not going to ponder about him any longer today, I have enough headaches as it is.' She shrugged and continued her way towards her fellow senshi. Once there she immediately bowed towards her Queen and stood by others and smiled. 'It will be another glorious ball in the Moon Castle. It's always a pleasure being here, but I really should spend more time on my planet… Arrg… today is the time I spend here and try to relax.'
"Isn't it going to be a beautiful ball?" asked a voice behind her.
She turned around and smiles. "Yes it will be." She took a critical look towards the girl standing before her. "Well Venus you look stunning as ewer." Venus blushed a little but still stood as her haughty self.
The first sounds of the orchestra that played for tonight sounded across the room. "Should we not go to the dance floor, we do want to have full use of this ball?"
"Yes, of course." answers a mildly blushing Venus.
With all the inner senshi there, they were all soon in the dance floor and dancing away the evening. They were all laughing and having a great time. It was so good to just dance.
While she was dancing Mercury noticed that the guard that gave her the funny feeling was watching them and shaking his head. She looked around but nobody seemed to either notice it or not pay any attention to it, and everything else seemed perfectly fine. So she tried to ignore it like everybody else but she couldn't. When the current music piece was over she started slowly creeping towards the guard. She made certain that nobody noticed her and most certainly not the guard. 'He is really acting strange; he has never acted this way. He is always been acting like all the other guards, never wavering, never losing concentration, never looking around.' She was puzzled. Now that she thought about it no one had ever acted this way. No one was ever distraught like this in their presence. 'Wait, there was; there was the operative that researched the happenings on my planet. But they never found anything unusual and that operative died in a landslide.' A sudden sigh awoke her from her musings. She turned towards the origin of that sigh and found that that sigh had come from the young guard. She started to pay closer attention to the guard trying to figure out what is going on. She thought to start collecting data on him right now, but the guard was back like he was before. 'Arrrg… What is the matter with me, I told my self that today I will take time off and enjoy the ball.' She through a blink towards the guard. ' Well it is not like he is here to do something bad, the Queen would have found that out long time ago.' She shook her head and started to return to her fellow senshi. When she was about to reach them she felt like someone was eying her and evaluating her. She turned around and notices that the guard was looking towards the big ballroom window. She was about to shrug it off and start to turn around when she saw that he directed his head towards the big clock in the hall and muttered something.
"What was that? He really is distressed." she mused to herself. She directed a closer look towards him.
Around the planets that were part of the Silver Millennium there was something strange happening. All around in the planets orbits, silvery dots appeared that were growing into a silvery vortex.
The orbital installations and the ships around there were trying to figure out what was going on, but they never knew what hit them. It was over before it began. For them at least it was quick and relatively painless.
It all happened, because from the silvery vortex came out big black ships that breathed fire and everything that was in orbit was destroyed within seconds. After the destruction of everything that was in orbit the ships positioned themselves so that they could start the bombardment of the planets. After all their Queen had demanded that the planets were bombed to submission for preparations for take over. 30 seconds after the destruction of every orbital installation the first volley was fired towards the planets, particularly targeting the power grid, but when a city or some other big thing was blown up it really didn't matter to the crews of the ships. When a city did blow up by a misguided bomb, it didn't matter, where that bomb came from there were many others to do the job right. It was a very poor comforter for the people that were on the planet.
Within two minutes the power grid on Mercury failed. With it all the atmospheric replenishes, atmospheric shield generators and planetary cooling systems ceased to function. Several of them were destroyed just like some of the cities. Many of the power stations were near cities or some other important installation never the less they were targeted and destroyed. The blast and heat waves ravaged them and the secondary explosions from the stations did nothing to improve the overall chaos. To make it worse the targeting was not that accurate.
Venus was ravaged by huge tsunamis due to hits in its oceans. All the cities that were near the coastline were washed clean of everything, including buildings. The power grid had failed with the first strike. Do to lack of any kind of protection the bombardment did heavy damage to the planet its self. The ground shook uncontrollably and the volcanoes that had been dormant for countless millennium were awoken once again. The air was full of ash from the volcanoes and from the fires.
With the first strike Mars was covered in fire. All the mining and factory building went up as if one big gunpowder cask. All it took was a reasonably big explosion to set it of. That the bombing was global did not help at all. As for the power grid it really did not have even a chance to survive. Everything on the surface of Mars was wiped out. The Mars castle outer dome shattered and everything that was there was burnt. With that the last of the greenery that was on Mars was gone.
Jupiter like all the other gas giants had floating islands around it. Those islands could take a pretty good beating before they gave in, but that's only if they are properly maintained. In the first strike one of the islands took a severe beating and the big islands plummeted fast into the depth of Jupiter. The resulting explosion caused a big shudder across the planet picking up and destroying other islands. And most of the power grid went with the shudder of the planet. The emergency shields activated where they were needed and most of the islands survived the shudder keeping the bleeding grid together. The bloom of the explosion from the islands reached far into space, but in its wake it took out one third of the fleet that attacked Jupiter. But the rest of the fleet didn't seem even to care they just reformed its lines and continued the job of pummeling the planet to submission.
Saturn was not better off; its islands were on fire. The good thing in the bad situation was that the islands were not breaking up and none of them were falling into the planet. But the very bad thing was that the power grid was taking severe punishment. Some of the islands already were loosing their atmospheric shielding but other did fine. The emergency generators for the shields did their jobs. The senshi of Saturn was outside of her castle and did her best to shoot down as many attacking ships as she could. But it wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough. She needed a miracle to survive this and she was sure that, that miracle was not coming.
Uranus and Neptune were probably the worst of the lot. With barely the minimum of maintenance for the island controls and safety the islands, the islands were taking a heavy beating and breaking apart. The power grid failed spectacularly when on every island the lights went out with only the second salvo from the attacking ships. The emergency backup generators were in disastrous disrepair and did a really poor job to contain the atmosphere. But still something was better then nothing. From the senshi there were no sign. On Saturn there were bright flashes leaving the planets surface and destroying enemy ships, here there was no such thing.
As for Pluto, with in moments when the bombardment started it was over. The domed habitats were wide open to cold vacuum of space. The planetary castle was in ruins and there was no sign that there was anything living down there.
Ranma looked up and caught the Mercury eying him. He tried to be as normal as the rest of the guards, but he knew that he did a poor job of it. There was no way that Mercury would not become suspicious. 'All I need is just few more minutes.' To his amazement Mercury just turned around and walked back towards her fellow senshi and started chatting with them. 'What the..., I should be glad that it what like this, but it is very worrisome when things start to go too easy.' He eyed all the senshi. 'Easy is my first notion when something really is starting to go wrong. I really hope I'm wrong, but this is me for crying out loud, when something is going to easily there is some price some where that I have to pay.'
He paid close attention to Mercury and the Queen. If the Queen was notified soon, then what Mercury did would no longer important. The hands were then dealt out and it could no longer be changed. Still when Mercury was among her fellow senshi she still threw him some curious blinks.
Suddenly the ballroom door were thrown open and a purple-headed woman ran in front of the Queen and bowed down.
Ranma sighs and mutters: "It's over, the hand has been dealt."
The purple-headed woman in front of the Queen started to speak with almost shaky voice. "My Queen, we have been attacked."
"What to you mean we have been attacked? It's all quiet and peaceful in here. There is nothing wrong in my Moon."
"No my Queen. The planets have been attacked."
"So, one of the planets has been attacked. We send the senshi to deal with the little skirmish that happened there. It is not a reason to barge in to a royal ball like that and spread disturbing rumors that something like that has happened."
"No my Queen, its nothing like that. I mean it is… Ah… mm… I mean all the planets have been attacked. All of them simultaneously."
"Pfhahaha. No. That cant not happen, nobody has a fleet big enough to carry out something like that. It is good joke but it's the wrong place and time for something like that."
"My Queen this is not a joke. The ships that are attacking us are caring the symbol of the Earth Queen Beryl. And some how she has managed to collect enough ships to carry out an attack like that."
"Are you really telling me the truth?"
"Yes my Queen. The ships have destroyed everything that was in orbit around the planets and are currently finishing the bombardment of the planets. They are currently preparing to send in their ground forces. They want to take the planets or if they cant destroy everything in there."
When those words were spoken there was gasps and shocked expressions everywhere. Majority did not believe anything what was said. It was simply not possible for something like that to happen. The phrase: "Our society is so peaceful and is founded on love" was so ingrained into their minds that something else was not possible.
Ranma watched as the Queen started to look around herself searching something or somebody. Ranma knew exactly what or whom she was currently searching for. She was searching for Pluto to fix things or for Pluto to give her advice what she should to now and how she should act.
"My Queen it is only time before they come after this castle to take for them selves or destroy it if they can not capture it."
The Queens eyes lit up as she remembered something. She turned around and walked towards the wall where she opened up a hidden panel and pushed the button that was in there. "No. They cannot take this castle; the shield generators that are inside the castle will make that impossible. Now nothing can get in or out."
There was an approving murmur from the high society guests and from the royal court. They still thought that it was an elaborate entertainment. The only ones that seemed a little distressed were the senshi of Mercury and Jupiter.
Mercury stepped forward and bowed down to the Queen like it was the custom. "My Queen. When no one can get out how can we get back to our planets?"
The Queen looks towards Mercury and smiles. "It is not important what happens to your planet now. It can always be restored to the glory it was before."
"But my Queen the people on the planets. What about them?"
"They will propagate once again when it is all over. The only thing important now is the safety of the Moon and the Moon castle. If we survive then it will all be all right. Isn't it so my fellow guests."
Again there was an approving murmur from the people round the Queen.
Suddenly there was a flash and sparks were flying out of the wall were the hidden panel was.
The Queens face paled but she collected herself though she was still a little shaky. "Wh… What happened?"
The purple-headed woman ran towards the information console that was in the corner of the ballroom. She fumbled around with it for little time and her face vent ashen and she stutters out. "M… My Q… Qu… Queen. The primary power plant for the castle was just destroyed. It was outside of the shield and the feedback from its destruction fused the castles shield generator."
"How did that happen?" the Queen shouted across the room. The purple-headed woman only shook her head; she had no idea how it could happen. Seeing that the Queen fumed. "Well it is no matter the castle is still protected with a redundancy shield. It will take a long time before it is down. By that time we are long gone from here."
The people around the room were confused, but they thought that if the Queen wanted them to leave then they would leave. But if they had seen the toothy grin from the purple-headed woman they would have been a little worried. The only ones that noticed that grin were the Queen and of course Ranma. But Ranma noticed also that Mercury had seen it. The shocked expression in her face told him that much or she started to suspect, that the Queens actions were not for their benefit.
"Where is my daughter?" asked the Queen from the purple-headed woman.
"She is in the courtyard of the castle with her … 'Prince' Endymion." The purple-headed woman gave the Queen a meaningful look and chuckled.
"Yes that is to be expected. Well go get her and we will start with the preparations for our leaving."
The purple-headed woman nodded and started towards the door. But before she reached the door the entire castle shook and there was a loud bang from the courtyard.
