Disukurama: I don't own these, never claimed to own these. Not mine.
Chapter 3: Dodge like you want to live!
The next morning the sun was shining and the birds were chirping in the trees. Nodoka and Cologne were in the kitchen cooking breakfast when they were startled by a scream of primal terror. Then some banging like something was being tossed against the wall or things being overturned, and finally a yellow and black streak down the stairs as a terrified cheetah ran down them with a purple haired girl chasing him with a wicked silvered knife.
What happened was that Shampoo had gotten up before Ranma but she was still in a half asleep state. As she was stumbling around she accidentally stepped on Ranma's tail. He screamed, she screamed. Lots of bumping around ensued with his desk being knocked over and a lamp breaking. Ranma finally took off out of the room when Shampoo finally remembered her knife.
Needless to say Nodoka was less than impressed. A few rules were established that morning.
1) Shampoo was not allowed to sleep with Ranma until she felt comfortable enough to NOT bring weaponry to bed with her.
She grumped at this because she always slept with her bonbori. They were like her teddy bear.
2) All silvered weapons must now be kept under lock and key with the other weapons.
She complained that she'd be defenseless if she was attacked by a werewolf. Nodoka countered that it was a good show of faith and to build trust. When her great-grandmother stepped into the conversation she never knew what hit her. She said that she'd have a way that Shampoo could fight but still not harm her Airens. Nodoka was a bit leery of it but eventually relented when Cologne assured her that the weapon could be keyed to not harm certain people.
Then she turned her focus towards Shampoo going to school. The railroading that occurred pretty much had Shampoo into a school outfit faster than you could say 'Aiyah.'
So it was that Ranma and Shampoo were off to school on this fine day. Ranma was wearing a white shirt and black pants while Shampoo was wearing the sailor style girl's uniform. Where Cologne got such a thing in her size on virtually no notice she really didn't want to know. Since they had started off early they had plenty of time to get to school. Shampoo was trudging along, dragging her feet and picking at her school uniform. She really didn't want to go to school.
"Stupid school Shampoo kill."
"Yeah I know, I'd rather be anywhere but school, but do you really want to face your great-grandma if you don't go."
"Great-grandma scary when she no get what she want." She briefly remembered the last person who defied her great-grandmother it took a month for their hair to start to grow back. She shuddered. "Shampoo go to school but no like it."
They walked past Makoto's apartment without incident. They continued to walk towards school and had gotten about two blocks farther when they heard somebody yelling from behind them.
"Hey wait up!" Makoto shouted.
They stopped and turned around to see Makoto barreling down on them. Her clothes were in disarray like she had just thrown them on. Her hair was sticking out all over the place and she was desperately trying to comb it out while she ran. She only had to run a bit more before she finally caught up. She didn't appear to be out of breath so they turned around and continued onto school with her walking beside Ranma. Shampoo was walking on his other side but her gloomy aura kept Makoto from going any closer.
"Wow I didn't think I'd catch you. I'm not even out of breath this is great. Do you think it has anything to do with having our cheetah sides unlocked?" She felt better this morning than she had in years.
"I dunno. I really don't feel any different. Then again I haven't had to try and do anything in my normal form so I can't say one way or the other." In his hybrid and cheetah forms however that was a totally different story though.
"I think it's cool though. I may even try out for the track team." She could just see herself blowing everybody away with her superior speed.
"Shampoo think is too too cool power up." She wished she could get a cool power up like that. It just wasn't fair.
"Then why were you sleeping in my bed last night with all that weaponry?" Ranma wasn't really that mad. Honestly he wasn't.
"She was sleeping in your bed!" Makoto shouted. Damn she worked fast.
"Shampoo know Ranma for long time, know he never hurt Shampoo. Shampoo also see what Ranma do when in Neko ken. Shampoo want trust airen but no know if can trust cat yet. Shampoo know cat no like Shampoo." She looked dejected and absentmindedly kicked a wall causing it to collapse. "Shampoo just want be with airen."
Ranma who had experienced Shampoo's unique style of door construction wasn't phased a bit by this display. He just knocked a few of the flying pieces of concrete away so they wouldn't hit Makoto. Of course Makoto didn't know anything about the breaking point training and was shocked by this casual display of destruction.
Ranma continued on as if nothing had happened. "Don't worry too much I won't bite ya. I don't think it works that way. Hell if I go full cat I'm more likely to give you a tongue bath than try to eat you." He snickered a bit at this. "And you've got a lot less hair than we do when we're transformed." He remembered hacking up a hairball this morning in the bathroom. It was probably in his best interest if he didn't mention that little fact.
Shampoo and Makoto blushed hard both of them imagining him doing just that. Running his long rough tongue over their...
They walked the rest of the way in silence nobody willing to say anything. When they got to the school gates Makoto grabbed Shampoo's hand and started dragging her off to the office.
"You go on ahead Ranma I'll take Shampoo to the office." Realistically she just wanted to avoid Ami until class started. She really didn't want to try to explain all of this until she'd had a chance to try and figure out what to say. She was working on how to realistically fit alien abduction in there.
When he got to the classroom he noticed a blue haired girl, Amino or something like that. Weird she looked a bit like Akane except without the 'all males are perverts and must be castrated' look on her face. She was just sitting there reading a book not even looking up as he passed her. She was kinda cute though.
He mentally slapped himself at that thought. He already had two knockouts engaged/married to him. Any more and they'd have to carry him from room to room on a stretcher when his wives are 'in the mood'. Even with his lycanthropic heritage he didn't think much of his chances for survival.
She looked up at him and then went back to reading her book. Slowly other students began to trickle in and take their seats. Ranma just ignored all of them. Makoto was one of the last ones into the classroom. Well her and the other two blonds the one with the stupid meatballs on her head and the other with the large red bow. There were a couple of people who were shocked by Makoto's new hair colour, but by and large most people just ignored it as a good dye job.
When the teacher came in she announced that they had another transfer student. When Shampoo stepped into the room most of the boys went wild.
"Nihau, My Name is Shampoo, I is happy to be here." She put forth tons of bubbly 'I'm too cute to be real' vibes. The male population of the classroom just melted. Well most of them melted, Ranma of course was not affected and the real perverts.... well they had to go change their shorts.
"Ok Shampoo take your seat over behind Ami." Shampoo bowed and walked over to the empty seat and sat down.
"Alright class let's begin..."
Over the next few hours various subjects were taught. Shampoo proved that she wasn't totally clueless as she was able to answer a fair number of questions regarding various subjects such as math, science, history, and geography. When it came to language the teacher recommended that she get a tutor. Ranma was not allowed to sleep as notes and letters seemed to keep hitting him just before he could nod off. Most of the notes asked him if he was single, did he have a girlfriend, who did his dye job, etc. He didn't respond to any of them, it was none of their business anyway.
Finally lunch time rolled around. Most of the students decided to go outside to eat. Shampoo, Makoto, and Ranma went outside as well. When they got outside one of the blonds, the one with the stupid meatballs on her head was waiving them over.
"Time to face the execution squad. Now remember no talk about were cheetahs or anything like that do you understand?" Makoto really didn't need this.
"No problem. I really don't want any more people than necessary to know about this." Ranma really didn't need a fireball up the ass today as he assumed (and rightly so) that the girls they were going over to meet were her teammates.
"Shampoo think they other scout. Shampoo no say anything but back up if fight."
Makoto was shocked that Shampoo had figured it out so quickly but surmised that if one of them were found out it wouldn't be too hard to guess who the others were. "There won't be a fight. There are too many people. At the meeting tonight maybe but not here in the schoolyard." She at least hoped there wouldn't be a fight. They wouldn't bring up anything of a sensitive nature but stranger things have happened.
When they finally made it over to where the girls were sitting the blond with the red ribbon in her hair was almost vibrating out of her seat. When they sat down she was the first one to speak.
"Mako chan, don't tell me you got a boyfriend before me!" The world wasn't fair.
"Ranma? Oh yeah we're going out now. Boyfriend girlfriend thing you know."
All of them started talking at once. Usagi about how cute it was and how cute he was. (but not as cute as Mamoru) Minako lamenting how Makoto got a boyfriend before her. Ami didn't really say anything, just interjecting every now and then to keep the girlish talk to a minimum.
"Actually he is Shampoo Airen too." Shampoo just couldn't let this go. She had to stake her claim too.
As the only one who understood Chinese Ami felt that she had to clarify this a bit.
"What do you mean he's your husband?" Makoto was dating a two timer adulterer?
"What!!!" This was from the other girls. The other students had long since learned to ignore weird shouting etc from this group of girls so this outburst didn't even garner a first look from everybody around them.
After Makoto cleared the ringing from her ears she, Shampoo, and Ranma proceeded to explain their convoluted relationship, including the arranged marriage, Amazon laws, and what they planned on doing about it. Makoto basically told them what happened last night (implying that that was the reason she couldn't respond to the scout communicator) but leaving out any mention of feline activities.
The responses were mixed. Usagi was saying some junk about love conquering all, Ami questioned the legality of such an arrangement, and Minako wanted to know if he'd be willing to take on a third wife.
After she'd said this everybody just stopped and stared at her. Those that knew her knew she was hard up for a boyfriend but they never knew she was this desperate. Those that didn't well Shampoo grabbed onto his arm quite quickly. Ranma just put his head in his hand and kept muttering something about 'not again.'
"What? If he's got enough for two girls why not one more?" Seemed perfectly logical.
"You actually want to be in a polygamous relationship?" Ami was wondering just how desperate Minako was.
"Well it's with Makoto, and she's my friend, I really don't mind sharing."
"You're nuts! I've got to share him with Shampoo and now you want to join too? No way go get your own boyfriend." She grabbed onto Ranma's other arm and let out a low growl. If anybody was listening it would not have sounded like anything human vocal cords were capable of producing. Fortunately only Ranma heard her.
"But Makoto love conquers all."
"Then she can share Mamoru."
"No not my Mamo chan!"
"My point exactly."
"Oh well it was worth a try." Mentally Minako was snapping her fingers.
"So we're meeting at Rei's tonight?" Makoto really really didn't want to do this, but unless they wanted to play dodge the fireball they had better get this one secret out into the open.
"Yeah usual time too." Ami still had a lot of ass chewing to do. She had thought up a really great speech and didn't want to waste it.
Just then the bell rang signifying that lunch was over. They all filed back into class.
The rest of the day passed pretty much without incident. Other than more notes and Shampoo proving that she could speak English better than she could speak Japanese, nothing much happened.
When classes finally let out Makoto, Shampoo and Ranma left together. Ranma and Shampoo changed into their street clothes so that their uniforms wouldn't get damaged if there was a fight. Since Makoto was in such a rush this morning she didn't have anything to change into. Ranma led them to an abandoned lot a short distance from his house. The lot had a high wall surrounding it, although several sections of it were damaged and never repaired from the various senshi battles over the years. The grass hadn't been mowed in quite some time and it had quite a few weeds in it. When they got to the center of the lot Ranma shifted into his hybrid form. He motioned for Makoto to do the same.
"Alrrrright I'm going to teach you the Saotome Final attack. This may seem stupid and a waste of time, but trrrrust me it's not. Alright now get into this stance." He demonstrated by getting into a stance. Makoto copied him. Shampoo who'd seen this move before just watched from the sidelines.
"Ok now this move is based on speed, skill and evasion."
"When do we use this move?" To use a new move successfully you must know the situation it was invented for.
"This is prrretty much a last ditch move when you've tried everything and nothing worrrrks."
"Alright now what?" She asked.
"Alright watch as I perrrrrform the move firrrrst then see if you can copy me ok?"
"Ok."
"Alrrright." He crouched down a bit further. "Rrready, set.... Rrrun away!" And run away he did. He ran towards the wall but stopped before he could cross it. Makoto facefaulted.
"That was the stupidest move I've ever seen!" This was a famous final attack?
"Is very good move. Shampoo think stupid at first too but great- grandmother explain that staying to fight when no hope of winning is stupider."
"It's all about knowing when to fight and when not to fight. If you know you can't win a fight the Final attack is about getting enough distance between you and your attacker until you can figure out something else to do."
"So basically if the meeting tonight goes to hell we run away?"
"Prrretty much. I rrreally don't know how much magic can hurt us but I'd rather not take a chance."
"But they'll chase us. When we're transformed as sailor scouts we're much faster than a normal human."
"Makoto you do rrremember that we're werrre cheetahs. I took a little jog last night on my way home and there's no way anything short of a speeding carrr could catch us and I wasn't even going full out."
"If you..." She was so rudely cut off by a cry of
"World Shaking!"
It was only due to their superior reflexes that they were able to dodge the blast. The ground where they were standing was torn up and yet another senshi made hole was punched into the wall. When they looked over to where the blast originated from they saw that Neptune and Saturn had accompanied Uranus.
"Final attack!" Ranma shouted before grabbing Shampoo and Makoto and taking off at top speed away from the outer scouts. Incidentally running over Uranus and in the process shoving her head into the ground.
"Damn they got away!" Haruka screamed as she pulled her head out of the ground. She was furious the monsters got away.
"Don't worry too much we'll find them eventually. We're late for the meeting." Mirachu gently chided her mate.
Hotaru was busy healing the minor scratches that Haruka got when Ranma trampled her.
"When I find them again... Ohh I'll thrash them with my bare fists!"
The outers left the lot and detransformed in an alley nearby. They got into Haruka's car and careened uncontrollably... I mean drove safely and within the limits of the law towards Rei's temple.
Ranma ducked into an alley and changed back. Makoto followed suit soon after while Shampoo stood guard at the entryway to the alley.
"Well looks like we lost them."
"Wow so that's how fast we can run?" Makoto was wanting to try that for herself. He almost ran all the way to Rei's temple in only a few seconds.
"Nah I was holding back a lot. Also I had to carry you two remember?"
"Sorry about that. Uranus is usually trigger happy. I just never thought that they'd find us this quickly."
"I'm used to people out to kill me. Story of my life actually, one more isn't too big of a deal."
Makoto looked around to get her bearings. "We're almost at Rei's temple, we should be able to just walk there." She looked at Shampoo. "Shampoo if you could stay out of sight, I'd appreciate the backup but I don't know how much help you could be." Especially when they started throwing around magic that could easily level a city block. There's no way a normal human could possibly be capable of that much damage. (Makoto seems to have conveniently forgotten Shampoo's little display this morning)
"Shampoo best fighter in village, can fight really good." She pulled out her bonbori for emphasis.
"They are still my friends so please don't hurt them." Still everybody can get lucky sometimes and as much as she wanted to let Shampoo pound Haruka into a fine mush for the world shaking she knew that Usagi would throw one of her hissy fits. Honestly she just didn't want to hear the whining.
"Shampoo promise no hurt friends."
"Ok then. Ranma could you wait just outside the door please. Umm we've got a couple of cats so I don't really want you to freak out and you can't go around in hybrid form until we explain this."
"Ccc cats. Umm sure I'll guard the door then aheh." Why oh why did it have to be cats.
Makoto nodded and started up the stairs to the Hiakawa shrine. She led them around to the fire room where they usually held their meetings. When she looked back Shampoo was gone. She looked all around for her but couldn't see any trace of her. Ranma pointed off to the side towards a copse of trees. She squinted as hard as she could but still couldn't catch a glimpse of Shampoo's hiding place.
"She's there trust me." All that hiding in preparation to kill him had really increased her hiding skills.
Makoto nodded and opened the door. Ranma stood off to the side. She entered and closed the door behind her leaving it open just a bit so that Ranma could hear her if she got into trouble.
Amazingly enough she was the last one to arrive. Usagi and Rei were fighting over one of Rei's manga that Usagi wanted to read. Luna was busy scolding her charge, something about that's not the way a princess should be acting. Her fur was looking a little more ruffled than normal. Ami was typing away on her computer looking at something. Makoto hoped that she wasn't scanning for eavesdroppers or no matter how good Ranma and Shampoo were at hiding they'd be caught. Minako was holding Artemis in her lap and softly petting him. If she didn't know any better she would have thought that he was just a normal cat, who like most cats, was an attention whore. Chibi Usa was scarfing down cookies that Rei had put out proving once again that she was her mother's daughter.
Ami was the first to notice her. Contrary to what Makoto was thinking Ami wasn't scanning for intruders she was going over her speech.
"Well this is new. You're late Makoto." Ami was just getting warmed up.
"Did you bring any of your muffins?" Usagi of course was thinking with her stomach again. If one didn't know better they'd assume she was Ranma's long lost twin sister.
"Ahh no. I didn't bring any today. I kinda had a lot on my mind." Makoto was sweating now. These were her friends and she had the unfortunate knowledge of just how they react to strange or unusual circumstances. Shoot first, keep shooting, hope it dies, figure out if it was friendly at the last moment then hopefully turn things around.
She decided that the best thing to do for now would be to sit down. Hopefully she'd be able to roll out of the way of any magic that they decided to throw at her. When she'd finished smoothing out her skirt she'd found that Artemis had wandered over to where she was. He sniffed her a couple of times before saying.
"Do you mind if I sit in your lap tonight?" Makoto always gave the best ear scratches. Minako would pet him but never scratch behind his ears unless he told her to.
"Ahh I guess not." Makoto was a little nervous. If what she thought was going to happen happened Artemis would be in the line of fire.
Artemis hopped into her lap. She immediately started petting him remembering to go from the top of his head all the way to the base of his tail. She scratched behind his ears just like she knew he liked. He started purring just like a normal cat. She briefly wondered what it felt like to be petted. She'd have to get Ranma or Shampoo to try petting her when she was in full cheetah form. She looked up to find Minako glaring at her. Artemis was supposed to only go to her to be petted. Makoto shrugged her shoulders and mouthed the words 'just this once.'
Before she could do anything else Ami decided that now would be the best time to start.
"Makoto last night we called you because a youma was attacking innocent people." She had to add the innocent part just to make Makoto feel guilty. "However you never showed up and you never even answered your communicator even just to tell us that you couldn't make it." Artemis was starting to rock his hips in concert with her petting. "What would have happened if you didn't show up? What if it had magic resistance? None of us can fight as well as you can. What would you have done if it killed one of us?" Artemis was really going now. Minako had noticed it and was looking at him strangely. "Your irresponsible actions could have gotten us all killed. You are a sailor scout and as such you have a responsibility to the team." About this time Rei noticed what Artemis was doing and got up to get a hose. "If you're going to ignore all of your responsibilities to your friends and go gallivanting around with your fiance then maybe you've got your priorities wrong." Usagi had noticed what Artemis was doing now because he was getting quite vocal about it. Luna was just turning her head towards the sound. "So the next time this happens we may just think about getting somebody more..." She was cut off by Artemis finally letting loose.
"Oh Mako Chan!" Oh that was some good petting.
"Eeeeew kitty sperm!" And this was her last school uniform too!
"Artemis you pervert!" Minako was horrified. She knew that he often went out to nail a couple of the strays around her place. He was a tom cat and that's what she thought all tom's did. This was totally different, he'd never tried to screw a human before.
"Artemis you flea bitten, no good excuse for a cat. HOW DARE YOU CHEAT ON ME!" Luna was furious, just because she didn't like him, and they weren't exactly going out didn't give him the right to go humping Makoto's leg like some kind of dog. She pounced and managed to tackle him off of her lap. They fought for a while eventually spilling out into one of the side rooms.
"Well that was certainly different." Usagi was thanking her lucky stars that she had gotten a female cat. Bestiality just wasn't her thing. Running her mind through the gutter made her give Minako a strange look. After all Artemis had to learn that from somewhere.
Makoto was busy trying to clean her skirt. She eventually gave up and decided that this was as good a time as any. Hopefully they were off guard long enough that she would be able to escape if they decided that she was a fake and needed to be toasted.
"Umm well there was something else that happened last night. I really don't know how else to do this so I'm just going to show you and then try to explain." She paused to let this sink in. "Please don't hate me."
Grasping the transformation she changed into her hybrid form. Last night she got the idea to sew some Velcro into her uniform so that only the Velcro would come apart and the clothes wouldn't be destroyed. She started to grow up and out and her ears shifted to the top of her head. The Velcro did it's job and prevented any new rips from forming. The last thing that happened was yellow fur with black spots sprouted all over her body. The change seemed to take forever to her but in reality only took about 30 seconds. She saw her friends eyes widening in terror and it broke her heart.
"I am Makoto Kino and I am a were cheetah."
Fate didn't really mind being poked with a stick. No really it didn't. The fact that it decided now would be the best time for Rei the most hot headed of the Senshi to come back with the hose and see a monster in Makoto's clothes. She immediately jumped to the most logical conclusion.
"Monster! Mars planet power Make up!"
Fate decided that poking her with a stick might be fun for a while decided that this was a most excellent time for the outers to show up.
"So that's where you went monster! I'm going to kill you and make a rug out of your hide!" Haruka wasn't really mad it's just how she normally was.
Her cry had the effect of galvanizing the other scouts to action. Several transformation phrases and flashy light shows ensued.
Deciding that now would be a great time to use the Saotome final attack she prepared to run. Before she could move more than a foot something tingled in the back of her head and she dodged to the side just in time to avoid the ice shards that Mercury had thrown at her. Then she dodged out of the firebird's path, and finally hopped over the love me chain.
She barreled through the door incidentally shoving Haruka's head through the wall and took off running at top speed. The tears in her eyes, added to her muddled thoughts. She didn't care where she was going just as long as she was able to get away. She knew that things were going to go bad but to actually have all of her friends turn on her hurt a lot more than she thought it would.
Back at the temple Ranma was slightly stunned. He had been listening at the door and had heard pretty much everything. However when Makoto went through the door she had knocked him across the yard. He'd been hit a lot harder by Ryoga so he wasn't really hurt. Even now the bruise was visibly healing. He got up and dusted off the sawdust on his clothes. He looked up to see a couple of the sailor girls coming out of the now broken door. They weren't a concern to him right now he had to catch Makoto.
Quickly shifting to his hybrid form he took off at the fastest he dared to go inside a city trying to keep up with his fast moving fiancée.
At the temple Minako was the first out the door. She saw Ranma shift to his hybrid form and take off in the direction that she thought she saw the monster run off to. Damn why do all of the hunky guys have to be monsters or bad guys. She could throw off another love me chain but if that monster that had been impersonating Makoto could dodge it her chances of catching him would be pretty slim.
She decided to detransform along with the rest of them. Rei was ranting about monsters and how the hell she was going to explain to grandpa about the door. Everybody was looking at Ami with expectant looks. When something strange happened they usually looked to her for answers.
"I haven't got a clue my computer wasn't scanning when she changed. I don't know if it was really Makoto or not." Ami was confused. She didn't like not knowing something, and not knowing if her friend was a monster or not was currently driving her crazy. She quickly brought up the scanning program to see if she could find any trace of them.
"I still say we kill them and figure it out later." Haruka said just before she winced. Mirachu was busy pulling splinters out of Haruka's face and Hotaru was healing the damage.
"I really think that would be a bad idea." Setsuna said before taking a sip of her tea.
"Ahhhhhhhhh!" Screamed Usagi. It wasn't a matter of what Setsuna said or how she said it. It was more a matter of where she said it from. About a foot behind her and to the right. She was wearing a grey striped business suit and sneakers. Her hair which was normally kept loose was done up in a loose ponytail. She had a green tea cup in her hand which was a match for the green teapot that was now on the table.
Ami quickly did a few chest compressions to get her friends heart going again. She glared at Setsuna.
"Don't ever do that again that is a DIRECT ORDER!" Usagi was so scared that she didn't even notice that she'd slipped into princess mode until Setsuna nodded her head.
"As you wish princess I'll just scare the others then." Damn and it was so fun scaring her because she jumped so high.
"And why can't we kill it! It obviously knows who we are now and we're all in danger." Damn those splinters hurt.
"Not really. Killing Makoto will solve nothing. Don't worry you just hurt her feelings that's all, she'll get over it eventually." She took a sip of her tea already predicting their response.
"But that wasn't Makoto, her hair is brown and she doesn't turn into a cat monster!" Usagi was just starting to snap out of it and boy was she scared.
"Usagi it really wasn't her fault that she was born a were cheetah." She really regretted not teaching them that not everything that wasn't human was evil. Oh well a crash course in it wouldn't be too bad.
"What do you mean was born a were cheetah? Why did she wait till now to tell us. Just who's fault is this!" The normally soft spoken Ami was really acting out of character.
Setsuna took another sip of her tea. There was a noise off in the storage room but she ignored it.
"Well to answer your questions I guess I'll have to take them one at a time. Her parents were both were cheetahs so naturally Makoto was born a were cheetah. As for why she hasn't told you until now, well when she was five or so her parents gave her a magical potion to lock her into her human form." She paused to refill her tea cup. There was some more bumping coming from the storeroom. "Last night she was introduced to her fiance, you already knew that of course. What she didn't tell you is that her lycanthropic nature was unlocked as well, that's why she didn't come when you guys called her last night." The bumping got louder and there was some squeaking with it. "As for why she was telling you now, my guess is that she didn't want her friends to try and kill her." She smiled. "I wonder where she got that idea from?"
Everybody that was listening was stunned. What they had done was just now hitting them. Rei winced as she remembered throwing a fire soul bird at her friend with intent to kill.
"What about the third question?" Ami was trying to figure out who was to blame for this.
"Oh the 'who is to blame for all of this?' question? Why Ami chan you are of course." She snickered internally while keeping a stoic straight face.
"What! How can this be my fault?!"
"Back in the silver millennium the sailor scout of Mercury was bored one day so she decided to create the lycanthropic races for something to do. Queen Serenity was furious that Mercury would be so callous as to make an intelligent species." She paused as if remembering something that happened before their ancestors were out of diapers. "In the end though the newly created lycanthropes proved to be a great boon to the kingdom. Their strength was equal to or greater than most magically enhanced humans. They were great guards, soldiers, spies, etc. They were well liked within the kingdom. Of course with all peoples there were some bad apples." She took a sip of her tea. "In the final battle with Beryl the werewolves and the were rats were on the other side." She paused to remember the look on Mercury's face when she first saw her creations turning on her. "Well to make a long story short some lycanthropes survived and have been living here on earth ever since."
"But if..." Ami started to say but was cut off by what sounded like a cat yowling the theme to star trek... horribly off key.
"You know I would have thought Luna had a much nicer singing voice." Setsuna idly commented.
Minako and Usagi immediately picked up on this and got up to retrieve their just copulated felines. Rei jumped to her feet to go get a broom to swat them with as she would be the one stuck cleaning up the mess.
"Bad Artemis! Twice in one day no less. You're grounded mister, no more pussy for you." Minako could be heard shouting in the back room.
"Luna you... I thought you hated him... you're a slut! Wait a minute does this mean that I can sleep with Mamorou now?" Usagi had had a long talk with Luna before about taking her relationship with Mamorou to the next level. Luna had basically said to do as she did.
"Just do as I say not as I do." Luna was hanging her head. She had just rutted like a common alley cat and with Artemis of all cats! Damn she felt like she needed a shower, preferably in carbonic acid.
Back in the main room Setsuna was still trying to convince Haruka that killing Makoto would be a bad thing.
"But she's a monster."
"She's still a sailor scout. If you kill her Usagi would be mad."
"But..."
"Haruka papa just let it go. I think it's kinda neat that she's a were cheetah." Hotaru was wondering how she could get Makoto to bite her so she could be a were cheetah too.
Usagi, Minako, Rei and the cats came back into the room. Luna was trudging along with her head bowed almost to the ground. Rei had a scowl on her face, nothing unusual there. Minako was doing a good Rei impersonation. Strangely enough Usagi and Artemis had the exact same stupid grins on their faces. Of course Artemis looked a little worse for wear.
"Looks like somebody just got laid. Way to go Artemis!"
Everyone stopped and stared at Chibi Usa.
"What? Oh come on at least he manages to get her in tune in the future." Luna's 'singing' during sex was famous throughout the palace in the future. It was a good thing their kittens decided to stay home. It was bad enough when her parents were going at it. It was a good thing aunty Ami explained the birds and the bees to her after she'd walked in on her own parents. Although what a riding crop, whipped cream and an inflatable sheep had to do with procreation even she didn't know.
Luna and Artemis blushed nuclear red at this.
"Well my time here is almost up, I should be getting back to work."
Of course Ami was the only one still coherent enough to think straight spoke up.
"What can you tell us about this new enemy?" Not that she expected any logical or straightforward answers from Pluto but she'd been pretty open about Makoto so she had to try her luck.
She put her index finger to her chin and started to hmm and haw for a while. Finally she spoke up.
"Well some of them have damage resistance and others have magic resistance, other than that I can't tell you anything more."
"But that doesn't tell us anything more than we already know." This coming from Rei who if Setsuna started saying 'That's a secret' she would ram the time key in a very unanatomically correct way up her stuffy ass. Hopefully she'd hit the stick that was lodged up in there.
"Hmm well don't kill Makoto that would be bad." She got up to leave but paused. "Oh yes two more things." She turned towards Haruka, Mirachu and Hotaru. "Haruka you aren't infected, don't worry you won't be getting any harrier any time soon. Hotaru don't you even think about getting Ranma or Makoto to bite you." Hotaru had the decency to at least blush.
"Now before I go..." She snapped her fingers and five grey boxes of various shapes and sizes materialized with the symbols for Mercury, Venus, Moon, Mars, and Neptune on them. "These weapons have minor enchantments on them to increase their durability. They should help with the monsters that have magic resistance." When everybody crowded around the boxes she made her getaway.
When she got back to the time gate she rewound time to the exact moment she left. She focused on the fire room. Turning up the volume she waited for...
"I"VE BEEN GYPED!" Screamed Usagi.
Setsuna chucked a bit and then tuned in on the beginning of the Ranma Makoto chase. She pulled up her lazy chair and a bucket of popcorn and sat back to watch the show. This job had it's perks after all.
As soon as Makoto was through the door Ranma had started to chase her. Unfortunately for him it took a few seconds to change into his hybrid form so that he would stand a chance of keeping up. During that time she had gotten a huge lead and was still accelerating.
Even though she couldn't access her senshi powers in her hybrid form some of the magic that made her sailor Jupiter managed to leak through and increase her speed and endurance by just a touch.
Ranma wasn't the premier martial artist of his generation for nothing however. He'd learned long ago how to channel his ki to help increase his speed and strength. So here they were racing through the streets of Tokyo at well over 200 KM/h dodging people, cars, trains and buildings. To Ranma it was a rush he wasn't even going at top speed yet but he didn't dare go any faster lest he miss one of his dodges. Already he'd almost hit four drug dealers, two cars, and a gay parade. He had no idea how Makoto was missing this stuff especially with her eyes full of tears and all. Damned weepy girls and their stupid feelings. He just hoped that this was her top speed, he didn't want to try and find out what his maximum was either. Well that and even with increased toughness and speed healing, he really didn't feel like picking stones out of his ass if he wiped out at this speed.
Makoto led him on a merry chase all the way to the outskirts of the city. When he was sure that the collision chances were dropping off he started to accelerate to try and catch her. To his great surprise and horror she was speeding up too. He poured on the speed to try and catch her but encountered a lot of resistance and couldn't go any faster. It was like the air itself was acting like water keeping him from going any faster. No matter how much power he put into it he couldn't seem to increase his speed. It looked like Makoto was also hampered by this. Good now he stood a chance of catching up.
As they passed the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto he finally got a good idea of how fast they were going, and it was @#$@ fast. He noticed that Makoto was no longer crying and was now just running, apparently enjoying the sensation of pseudo flight that these great speeds afforded to them.
He'd enjoy this experience a hell of a lot more if he wasn't chasing her stupid ass all over Japan.
He decided that he'd try throwing something at her to get her attention.
After the first three rocks flew out, encountered wind resistance and flew back and nailed him in the head he decided that maybe he should just try and catch her.
About halfway to Kyoto he managed to tap her once on her shoulder. She quickly glanced over her shoulder and saw him running there. She gave a little smile and started pouring on the speed. Where she got the energy he had no idea, it wasn't like he was tired yet but he wouldn't mind stopping. Infinite senshi magic versus a huge ki supply. Ki runs out, magic does not. Ranma decided that he had to end this quickly. Engaging the neko ken he used his ki claws to slash the heavy air in front of him. The resulting sonic boom and speed increase almost sent him ass over teakettle. He zipped past Makoto briefly catching her in his wake and then had to immediately cut his speed so that he wouldn't get too far in front of her.
Makoto decided that this was a good time to stop headed over to a clump of trees. She finally stopped in a wooded glen it was surrounded by trees so it afforded a lot of privacy. Both she and Ranma were panting heavily gulping in huge breaths of air, they were quite winded from their long run. It took over two minutes before Makoto finally got back enough breath to speak.
"Wow you're fast! How'd you do that?"
"Do what?" He was confused. She was the one that was fast.
"You broke the sound barrier! I couldn't get up enough speed to do that!" Not for lack of trying though. After she'd gotten over the fact that her friends had just tried to kill her she'd noticed how fast she was going and tried to see what her maximum was. She felt herself pushing up against the super compressed air that was the sound barrier but no matter how hard she pushed she couldn't seem to break through and go supersonic.
"So that's what that was." Ranma said while stroking his chin. "Wow."
"Yeah wow. You're going to have to show me how you did that." The other girls would be soooo jealous if she told them she could run faster than sound... oh wait that's right they were trying to kill her.... crap.
"Well I don't know if I can teach it to you. I just kinda grabbed the neko ken and slashed the heavy air and then boom." He'd rather not try that again until he got some more control, wiping out at that speed had got to hurt. That and creating sonic booms at ground level probably wasn't the most eco friendly thing that he could do.
Just then Ranma realized that he was all alone in a secluded clearing with Makoto and nobody around for kilometers. Normally when this happened Ryoga or somebody would come around to break things up or ruin the mood. Yeah Ryoga should be around any time now. Any time like right about now.
Speaking of Ryoga, he was currently lost in Vancouver. Of course he thought he was somewhere in Tokyo. Oh well same difference. He's still not important to the story.
Back in the clearing Ranma was getting nervous. Here he was all alone with one of his (admittantly newer) fiancées and there was nobody to break them up if something should happen. He was starting to sweat profusely his eyes nervously darting left and right. He had to think of something quick.
"Umm do you know where we are?"
Saved.
"Well no not really. I was kinda focused on chasing you and I didn't really pay attention to where we were. Uhh do you want to look around for a bit so see if we can find where we are?"
Makoto looked up to the sky where it was getting fairly dark, although it didn't seem as dark as it should have been. She'd have experiment with her night vision later though.
"I don't think we should. I'd hate to trip and fall at the speeds we'd be running at." Road rash at mach 1. She didn't know if she'd be able to survive that but it was probably best not to try.
"So what do you suggest then?" He had a good idea what she was going to suggest and he didn't like it one bit.
"Well we could stay here tonight and go home tomorrow."
"Uhh yeah that'd be a good idea I guess." Just his luck no water in sight.
"So I guess we should get closer, you know to like share body heat or something." Makoto had just realized what she'd just said. She started blushing not that Ranma would notice especially in the low light and through her fur.
"Well what if you change into a cheetah, You're smaller that way and wouldn't give off so much heat." And that way nothing could happen.
"Good idea." She looked at him like he was supposed to do something.
"What?" He wanted to know why she was looking at him.
"Turn around." Was he really that dense?
"Why?" Why couldn't girls just tell him these things instead of making him guess.
"I've got to take off my clothes so that I don't rip them when I change. I know we're engaged but I don't want you to see me naked yet. Now turn around!" Although seeing him naked wouldn't be such a bad thing.
Ranma 'Eep'd' and spun around so quickly he left miniature dust devils in his wake. She giggled at his shyness. She stripped and folded her clothes up so they wouldn't get wrinkled and then quickly shifted to her cheetah form before she could chew on any more of her foot.
Ranma hesitantly turned around when she nuzzled his arm. He laid down on the ground and shuffled over a bit but stopped just before touching her. Makoto would have none of this and pressed herself into his front. Taking the not so subtle hint he draped his arm over her and pulled her close. As long as he kept thinking of it as sleeping with a pet and not his fiancée he was just fine.
Makoto felt really comfortable sleeping this way. She had her legs tucked underneath her so she really didn't feel the ground and Ranma's much larger form enveloping her made her feel warm and protected. She could really get used to this.
'Maybe this engagement wouldn't be so bad after all.'
Not long after she thought this she fell to Morpheos' embrace.
Back at the shrine Shampoo had witnessed everything and was still trying to figure out what to do about it. She'd seen Makoto and Ranma run off and she knew there was no hope in hell of catching them, so now she had to decide what to do.
Long after the last of the girls left Shampoo was still watching. She'd made it a point to memorize the faces of the girls and which skirt colours they matched up to. She wasn't sure if they were her enemies yet or not but trying to kill her Airen's had pushed them towards the 'Shampoo kill' side of things. She was just contemplating going home when a presence and a slight rustling to her left caught her attention.
Spinning as fast as he dared on the branch she was on she came face to crotch with a sailor scout. She was older looking than all of the other girls she'd seen, but she was still wearing the same type of outfit she remembered Makoto wearing when she changed into sailor Jupiter except the colours were different. The only noticeable features she had were her long green hair and her red eyes. Shampoo was almost certain that she'd be able to pick her out of a crowd since outside of the Amazon village that hair colour/eye colour was not normally found in Japan.
Then she spoke in perfectly fluent Mandarin. "Don't fear, I am not your enemy nor do I wish to become your enemy. I have done my best to smooth over the rift that was created tonight but there will still be some mistrust for a while I'm afraid. It is my hope that you will be able to help fix things. What I'd like to offer you is a way to join your husband and co wife in fighting this new threat." She then made a hand motion and a pen shaped stick appeared in her hand. "This will allow you to fight alongside your chosen's without revealing your identity."
Shampoo took the pen and looked at it. It was about 10 cm long with a gold stylized number 4 with an irregularly shaped circle around it on top. The shaft was purple with neon green swirls traced through it. Finally there was a yellow post it note with the activation phrase stuck to the handle.
"Shampoo thank honored senshi for gift but Shampoo have one question."
"Of course."
"Shampoo want know if you know so much why you no stop when senshi try kill Shampoo wife?" Ok so that didn't come out as well as she wanted it to but she still was forbidden from speaking Chinese while she was here.
Setsuna sweat dropped and scratched the back of her head. "Umm actually I was planning to but I was kind of late." Damned traffic jam.
"Well now it's getting late and I think you should be getting home. Don't worry Ranma managed to catch Makoto and calm her down. They're out near Kyoto and should be back tomorrow."
Shampoo turned briefly to look at a noise she heard over by the shrine. When she turned back Pluto was gone. She tossed the pen in with her Bonbori and jumped out of the tree and started off towards her home. She vowed that tomorrow night Ranma would have a purple haired bed warmer.
Damn it she wanted to be first.
At the swirling mists of the time gate Setsuna dropped herself bonelessly into her lazy ass chair. In reality she hadn't been late, it was all a well crafted scheme to get Makoto and Ranma closer together, while pulling a guilt trip on the rest of the senshi so they wouldn't go and off any were cats. Killing your allies was usually a bad thing.
She twirled another henshin rod between her fingers. Back during the days of the silver millennium the mages attempted to duplicate the senshi's transformations using the moons of the larger worlds as power focuses. Sufficed to say the results were less than stellar.
Leaning back she pressed a button on the chair and was immediately treated to a full body massage.
As Setsuna was slowly falling asleep she thought of what was going to happen tomorrow and reminded herself to bring her camera.
Authors notes:
New and improved with details and hopefully better scene transitions. I'll get out a good chapter yet!
Many thanks to Cory D Rose and Rajon Rucker for prereading and helping to fix me's horreeble anglish
please send all comments and critisism to
nealharris@otakumail.com
If you're going to send criticism don't just say 'it sucks' tell me why it sucks and I'll try to fix it.
Ranma even with his powerup is still not all powerfull. It was just to allow him to keep up with the Senshi.
Speaking of Senshi yes Shampoo is now a sailor scout but well.... Defective Senshi. Oh the fun one can have with magic that goes wrong.
I'm writing as fast as I can however I can only write in between calls and if the call volume is too high I may only get a page done a day at best. Next up is cat's tail. I may go back through my previous chapters and add details and fix the scene transitions. If I do this the new chapters will be a while in coming. Quality over quantity I guess.
Chapter 3: Dodge like you want to live!
The next morning the sun was shining and the birds were chirping in the trees. Nodoka and Cologne were in the kitchen cooking breakfast when they were startled by a scream of primal terror. Then some banging like something was being tossed against the wall or things being overturned, and finally a yellow and black streak down the stairs as a terrified cheetah ran down them with a purple haired girl chasing him with a wicked silvered knife.
What happened was that Shampoo had gotten up before Ranma but she was still in a half asleep state. As she was stumbling around she accidentally stepped on Ranma's tail. He screamed, she screamed. Lots of bumping around ensued with his desk being knocked over and a lamp breaking. Ranma finally took off out of the room when Shampoo finally remembered her knife.
Needless to say Nodoka was less than impressed. A few rules were established that morning.
1) Shampoo was not allowed to sleep with Ranma until she felt comfortable enough to NOT bring weaponry to bed with her.
She grumped at this because she always slept with her bonbori. They were like her teddy bear.
2) All silvered weapons must now be kept under lock and key with the other weapons.
She complained that she'd be defenseless if she was attacked by a werewolf. Nodoka countered that it was a good show of faith and to build trust. When her great-grandmother stepped into the conversation she never knew what hit her. She said that she'd have a way that Shampoo could fight but still not harm her Airens. Nodoka was a bit leery of it but eventually relented when Cologne assured her that the weapon could be keyed to not harm certain people.
Then she turned her focus towards Shampoo going to school. The railroading that occurred pretty much had Shampoo into a school outfit faster than you could say 'Aiyah.'
So it was that Ranma and Shampoo were off to school on this fine day. Ranma was wearing a white shirt and black pants while Shampoo was wearing the sailor style girl's uniform. Where Cologne got such a thing in her size on virtually no notice she really didn't want to know. Since they had started off early they had plenty of time to get to school. Shampoo was trudging along, dragging her feet and picking at her school uniform. She really didn't want to go to school.
"Stupid school Shampoo kill."
"Yeah I know, I'd rather be anywhere but school, but do you really want to face your great-grandma if you don't go."
"Great-grandma scary when she no get what she want." She briefly remembered the last person who defied her great-grandmother it took a month for their hair to start to grow back. She shuddered. "Shampoo go to school but no like it."
They walked past Makoto's apartment without incident. They continued to walk towards school and had gotten about two blocks farther when they heard somebody yelling from behind them.
"Hey wait up!" Makoto shouted.
They stopped and turned around to see Makoto barreling down on them. Her clothes were in disarray like she had just thrown them on. Her hair was sticking out all over the place and she was desperately trying to comb it out while she ran. She only had to run a bit more before she finally caught up. She didn't appear to be out of breath so they turned around and continued onto school with her walking beside Ranma. Shampoo was walking on his other side but her gloomy aura kept Makoto from going any closer.
"Wow I didn't think I'd catch you. I'm not even out of breath this is great. Do you think it has anything to do with having our cheetah sides unlocked?" She felt better this morning than she had in years.
"I dunno. I really don't feel any different. Then again I haven't had to try and do anything in my normal form so I can't say one way or the other." In his hybrid and cheetah forms however that was a totally different story though.
"I think it's cool though. I may even try out for the track team." She could just see herself blowing everybody away with her superior speed.
"Shampoo think is too too cool power up." She wished she could get a cool power up like that. It just wasn't fair.
"Then why were you sleeping in my bed last night with all that weaponry?" Ranma wasn't really that mad. Honestly he wasn't.
"She was sleeping in your bed!" Makoto shouted. Damn she worked fast.
"Shampoo know Ranma for long time, know he never hurt Shampoo. Shampoo also see what Ranma do when in Neko ken. Shampoo want trust airen but no know if can trust cat yet. Shampoo know cat no like Shampoo." She looked dejected and absentmindedly kicked a wall causing it to collapse. "Shampoo just want be with airen."
Ranma who had experienced Shampoo's unique style of door construction wasn't phased a bit by this display. He just knocked a few of the flying pieces of concrete away so they wouldn't hit Makoto. Of course Makoto didn't know anything about the breaking point training and was shocked by this casual display of destruction.
Ranma continued on as if nothing had happened. "Don't worry too much I won't bite ya. I don't think it works that way. Hell if I go full cat I'm more likely to give you a tongue bath than try to eat you." He snickered a bit at this. "And you've got a lot less hair than we do when we're transformed." He remembered hacking up a hairball this morning in the bathroom. It was probably in his best interest if he didn't mention that little fact.
Shampoo and Makoto blushed hard both of them imagining him doing just that. Running his long rough tongue over their...
They walked the rest of the way in silence nobody willing to say anything. When they got to the school gates Makoto grabbed Shampoo's hand and started dragging her off to the office.
"You go on ahead Ranma I'll take Shampoo to the office." Realistically she just wanted to avoid Ami until class started. She really didn't want to try to explain all of this until she'd had a chance to try and figure out what to say. She was working on how to realistically fit alien abduction in there.
When he got to the classroom he noticed a blue haired girl, Amino or something like that. Weird she looked a bit like Akane except without the 'all males are perverts and must be castrated' look on her face. She was just sitting there reading a book not even looking up as he passed her. She was kinda cute though.
He mentally slapped himself at that thought. He already had two knockouts engaged/married to him. Any more and they'd have to carry him from room to room on a stretcher when his wives are 'in the mood'. Even with his lycanthropic heritage he didn't think much of his chances for survival.
She looked up at him and then went back to reading her book. Slowly other students began to trickle in and take their seats. Ranma just ignored all of them. Makoto was one of the last ones into the classroom. Well her and the other two blonds the one with the stupid meatballs on her head and the other with the large red bow. There were a couple of people who were shocked by Makoto's new hair colour, but by and large most people just ignored it as a good dye job.
When the teacher came in she announced that they had another transfer student. When Shampoo stepped into the room most of the boys went wild.
"Nihau, My Name is Shampoo, I is happy to be here." She put forth tons of bubbly 'I'm too cute to be real' vibes. The male population of the classroom just melted. Well most of them melted, Ranma of course was not affected and the real perverts.... well they had to go change their shorts.
"Ok Shampoo take your seat over behind Ami." Shampoo bowed and walked over to the empty seat and sat down.
"Alright class let's begin..."
Over the next few hours various subjects were taught. Shampoo proved that she wasn't totally clueless as she was able to answer a fair number of questions regarding various subjects such as math, science, history, and geography. When it came to language the teacher recommended that she get a tutor. Ranma was not allowed to sleep as notes and letters seemed to keep hitting him just before he could nod off. Most of the notes asked him if he was single, did he have a girlfriend, who did his dye job, etc. He didn't respond to any of them, it was none of their business anyway.
Finally lunch time rolled around. Most of the students decided to go outside to eat. Shampoo, Makoto, and Ranma went outside as well. When they got outside one of the blonds, the one with the stupid meatballs on her head was waiving them over.
"Time to face the execution squad. Now remember no talk about were cheetahs or anything like that do you understand?" Makoto really didn't need this.
"No problem. I really don't want any more people than necessary to know about this." Ranma really didn't need a fireball up the ass today as he assumed (and rightly so) that the girls they were going over to meet were her teammates.
"Shampoo think they other scout. Shampoo no say anything but back up if fight."
Makoto was shocked that Shampoo had figured it out so quickly but surmised that if one of them were found out it wouldn't be too hard to guess who the others were. "There won't be a fight. There are too many people. At the meeting tonight maybe but not here in the schoolyard." She at least hoped there wouldn't be a fight. They wouldn't bring up anything of a sensitive nature but stranger things have happened.
When they finally made it over to where the girls were sitting the blond with the red ribbon in her hair was almost vibrating out of her seat. When they sat down she was the first one to speak.
"Mako chan, don't tell me you got a boyfriend before me!" The world wasn't fair.
"Ranma? Oh yeah we're going out now. Boyfriend girlfriend thing you know."
All of them started talking at once. Usagi about how cute it was and how cute he was. (but not as cute as Mamoru) Minako lamenting how Makoto got a boyfriend before her. Ami didn't really say anything, just interjecting every now and then to keep the girlish talk to a minimum.
"Actually he is Shampoo Airen too." Shampoo just couldn't let this go. She had to stake her claim too.
As the only one who understood Chinese Ami felt that she had to clarify this a bit.
"What do you mean he's your husband?" Makoto was dating a two timer adulterer?
"What!!!" This was from the other girls. The other students had long since learned to ignore weird shouting etc from this group of girls so this outburst didn't even garner a first look from everybody around them.
After Makoto cleared the ringing from her ears she, Shampoo, and Ranma proceeded to explain their convoluted relationship, including the arranged marriage, Amazon laws, and what they planned on doing about it. Makoto basically told them what happened last night (implying that that was the reason she couldn't respond to the scout communicator) but leaving out any mention of feline activities.
The responses were mixed. Usagi was saying some junk about love conquering all, Ami questioned the legality of such an arrangement, and Minako wanted to know if he'd be willing to take on a third wife.
After she'd said this everybody just stopped and stared at her. Those that knew her knew she was hard up for a boyfriend but they never knew she was this desperate. Those that didn't well Shampoo grabbed onto his arm quite quickly. Ranma just put his head in his hand and kept muttering something about 'not again.'
"What? If he's got enough for two girls why not one more?" Seemed perfectly logical.
"You actually want to be in a polygamous relationship?" Ami was wondering just how desperate Minako was.
"Well it's with Makoto, and she's my friend, I really don't mind sharing."
"You're nuts! I've got to share him with Shampoo and now you want to join too? No way go get your own boyfriend." She grabbed onto Ranma's other arm and let out a low growl. If anybody was listening it would not have sounded like anything human vocal cords were capable of producing. Fortunately only Ranma heard her.
"But Makoto love conquers all."
"Then she can share Mamoru."
"No not my Mamo chan!"
"My point exactly."
"Oh well it was worth a try." Mentally Minako was snapping her fingers.
"So we're meeting at Rei's tonight?" Makoto really really didn't want to do this, but unless they wanted to play dodge the fireball they had better get this one secret out into the open.
"Yeah usual time too." Ami still had a lot of ass chewing to do. She had thought up a really great speech and didn't want to waste it.
Just then the bell rang signifying that lunch was over. They all filed back into class.
The rest of the day passed pretty much without incident. Other than more notes and Shampoo proving that she could speak English better than she could speak Japanese, nothing much happened.
When classes finally let out Makoto, Shampoo and Ranma left together. Ranma and Shampoo changed into their street clothes so that their uniforms wouldn't get damaged if there was a fight. Since Makoto was in such a rush this morning she didn't have anything to change into. Ranma led them to an abandoned lot a short distance from his house. The lot had a high wall surrounding it, although several sections of it were damaged and never repaired from the various senshi battles over the years. The grass hadn't been mowed in quite some time and it had quite a few weeds in it. When they got to the center of the lot Ranma shifted into his hybrid form. He motioned for Makoto to do the same.
"Alrrrright I'm going to teach you the Saotome Final attack. This may seem stupid and a waste of time, but trrrrust me it's not. Alright now get into this stance." He demonstrated by getting into a stance. Makoto copied him. Shampoo who'd seen this move before just watched from the sidelines.
"Ok now this move is based on speed, skill and evasion."
"When do we use this move?" To use a new move successfully you must know the situation it was invented for.
"This is prrretty much a last ditch move when you've tried everything and nothing worrrrks."
"Alright now what?" She asked.
"Alright watch as I perrrrrform the move firrrrst then see if you can copy me ok?"
"Ok."
"Alrrright." He crouched down a bit further. "Rrready, set.... Rrrun away!" And run away he did. He ran towards the wall but stopped before he could cross it. Makoto facefaulted.
"That was the stupidest move I've ever seen!" This was a famous final attack?
"Is very good move. Shampoo think stupid at first too but great- grandmother explain that staying to fight when no hope of winning is stupider."
"It's all about knowing when to fight and when not to fight. If you know you can't win a fight the Final attack is about getting enough distance between you and your attacker until you can figure out something else to do."
"So basically if the meeting tonight goes to hell we run away?"
"Prrretty much. I rrreally don't know how much magic can hurt us but I'd rather not take a chance."
"But they'll chase us. When we're transformed as sailor scouts we're much faster than a normal human."
"Makoto you do rrremember that we're werrre cheetahs. I took a little jog last night on my way home and there's no way anything short of a speeding carrr could catch us and I wasn't even going full out."
"If you..." She was so rudely cut off by a cry of
"World Shaking!"
It was only due to their superior reflexes that they were able to dodge the blast. The ground where they were standing was torn up and yet another senshi made hole was punched into the wall. When they looked over to where the blast originated from they saw that Neptune and Saturn had accompanied Uranus.
"Final attack!" Ranma shouted before grabbing Shampoo and Makoto and taking off at top speed away from the outer scouts. Incidentally running over Uranus and in the process shoving her head into the ground.
"Damn they got away!" Haruka screamed as she pulled her head out of the ground. She was furious the monsters got away.
"Don't worry too much we'll find them eventually. We're late for the meeting." Mirachu gently chided her mate.
Hotaru was busy healing the minor scratches that Haruka got when Ranma trampled her.
"When I find them again... Ohh I'll thrash them with my bare fists!"
The outers left the lot and detransformed in an alley nearby. They got into Haruka's car and careened uncontrollably... I mean drove safely and within the limits of the law towards Rei's temple.
Ranma ducked into an alley and changed back. Makoto followed suit soon after while Shampoo stood guard at the entryway to the alley.
"Well looks like we lost them."
"Wow so that's how fast we can run?" Makoto was wanting to try that for herself. He almost ran all the way to Rei's temple in only a few seconds.
"Nah I was holding back a lot. Also I had to carry you two remember?"
"Sorry about that. Uranus is usually trigger happy. I just never thought that they'd find us this quickly."
"I'm used to people out to kill me. Story of my life actually, one more isn't too big of a deal."
Makoto looked around to get her bearings. "We're almost at Rei's temple, we should be able to just walk there." She looked at Shampoo. "Shampoo if you could stay out of sight, I'd appreciate the backup but I don't know how much help you could be." Especially when they started throwing around magic that could easily level a city block. There's no way a normal human could possibly be capable of that much damage. (Makoto seems to have conveniently forgotten Shampoo's little display this morning)
"Shampoo best fighter in village, can fight really good." She pulled out her bonbori for emphasis.
"They are still my friends so please don't hurt them." Still everybody can get lucky sometimes and as much as she wanted to let Shampoo pound Haruka into a fine mush for the world shaking she knew that Usagi would throw one of her hissy fits. Honestly she just didn't want to hear the whining.
"Shampoo promise no hurt friends."
"Ok then. Ranma could you wait just outside the door please. Umm we've got a couple of cats so I don't really want you to freak out and you can't go around in hybrid form until we explain this."
"Ccc cats. Umm sure I'll guard the door then aheh." Why oh why did it have to be cats.
Makoto nodded and started up the stairs to the Hiakawa shrine. She led them around to the fire room where they usually held their meetings. When she looked back Shampoo was gone. She looked all around for her but couldn't see any trace of her. Ranma pointed off to the side towards a copse of trees. She squinted as hard as she could but still couldn't catch a glimpse of Shampoo's hiding place.
"She's there trust me." All that hiding in preparation to kill him had really increased her hiding skills.
Makoto nodded and opened the door. Ranma stood off to the side. She entered and closed the door behind her leaving it open just a bit so that Ranma could hear her if she got into trouble.
Amazingly enough she was the last one to arrive. Usagi and Rei were fighting over one of Rei's manga that Usagi wanted to read. Luna was busy scolding her charge, something about that's not the way a princess should be acting. Her fur was looking a little more ruffled than normal. Ami was typing away on her computer looking at something. Makoto hoped that she wasn't scanning for eavesdroppers or no matter how good Ranma and Shampoo were at hiding they'd be caught. Minako was holding Artemis in her lap and softly petting him. If she didn't know any better she would have thought that he was just a normal cat, who like most cats, was an attention whore. Chibi Usa was scarfing down cookies that Rei had put out proving once again that she was her mother's daughter.
Ami was the first to notice her. Contrary to what Makoto was thinking Ami wasn't scanning for intruders she was going over her speech.
"Well this is new. You're late Makoto." Ami was just getting warmed up.
"Did you bring any of your muffins?" Usagi of course was thinking with her stomach again. If one didn't know better they'd assume she was Ranma's long lost twin sister.
"Ahh no. I didn't bring any today. I kinda had a lot on my mind." Makoto was sweating now. These were her friends and she had the unfortunate knowledge of just how they react to strange or unusual circumstances. Shoot first, keep shooting, hope it dies, figure out if it was friendly at the last moment then hopefully turn things around.
She decided that the best thing to do for now would be to sit down. Hopefully she'd be able to roll out of the way of any magic that they decided to throw at her. When she'd finished smoothing out her skirt she'd found that Artemis had wandered over to where she was. He sniffed her a couple of times before saying.
"Do you mind if I sit in your lap tonight?" Makoto always gave the best ear scratches. Minako would pet him but never scratch behind his ears unless he told her to.
"Ahh I guess not." Makoto was a little nervous. If what she thought was going to happen happened Artemis would be in the line of fire.
Artemis hopped into her lap. She immediately started petting him remembering to go from the top of his head all the way to the base of his tail. She scratched behind his ears just like she knew he liked. He started purring just like a normal cat. She briefly wondered what it felt like to be petted. She'd have to get Ranma or Shampoo to try petting her when she was in full cheetah form. She looked up to find Minako glaring at her. Artemis was supposed to only go to her to be petted. Makoto shrugged her shoulders and mouthed the words 'just this once.'
Before she could do anything else Ami decided that now would be the best time to start.
"Makoto last night we called you because a youma was attacking innocent people." She had to add the innocent part just to make Makoto feel guilty. "However you never showed up and you never even answered your communicator even just to tell us that you couldn't make it." Artemis was starting to rock his hips in concert with her petting. "What would have happened if you didn't show up? What if it had magic resistance? None of us can fight as well as you can. What would you have done if it killed one of us?" Artemis was really going now. Minako had noticed it and was looking at him strangely. "Your irresponsible actions could have gotten us all killed. You are a sailor scout and as such you have a responsibility to the team." About this time Rei noticed what Artemis was doing and got up to get a hose. "If you're going to ignore all of your responsibilities to your friends and go gallivanting around with your fiance then maybe you've got your priorities wrong." Usagi had noticed what Artemis was doing now because he was getting quite vocal about it. Luna was just turning her head towards the sound. "So the next time this happens we may just think about getting somebody more..." She was cut off by Artemis finally letting loose.
"Oh Mako Chan!" Oh that was some good petting.
"Eeeeew kitty sperm!" And this was her last school uniform too!
"Artemis you pervert!" Minako was horrified. She knew that he often went out to nail a couple of the strays around her place. He was a tom cat and that's what she thought all tom's did. This was totally different, he'd never tried to screw a human before.
"Artemis you flea bitten, no good excuse for a cat. HOW DARE YOU CHEAT ON ME!" Luna was furious, just because she didn't like him, and they weren't exactly going out didn't give him the right to go humping Makoto's leg like some kind of dog. She pounced and managed to tackle him off of her lap. They fought for a while eventually spilling out into one of the side rooms.
"Well that was certainly different." Usagi was thanking her lucky stars that she had gotten a female cat. Bestiality just wasn't her thing. Running her mind through the gutter made her give Minako a strange look. After all Artemis had to learn that from somewhere.
Makoto was busy trying to clean her skirt. She eventually gave up and decided that this was as good a time as any. Hopefully they were off guard long enough that she would be able to escape if they decided that she was a fake and needed to be toasted.
"Umm well there was something else that happened last night. I really don't know how else to do this so I'm just going to show you and then try to explain." She paused to let this sink in. "Please don't hate me."
Grasping the transformation she changed into her hybrid form. Last night she got the idea to sew some Velcro into her uniform so that only the Velcro would come apart and the clothes wouldn't be destroyed. She started to grow up and out and her ears shifted to the top of her head. The Velcro did it's job and prevented any new rips from forming. The last thing that happened was yellow fur with black spots sprouted all over her body. The change seemed to take forever to her but in reality only took about 30 seconds. She saw her friends eyes widening in terror and it broke her heart.
"I am Makoto Kino and I am a were cheetah."
Fate didn't really mind being poked with a stick. No really it didn't. The fact that it decided now would be the best time for Rei the most hot headed of the Senshi to come back with the hose and see a monster in Makoto's clothes. She immediately jumped to the most logical conclusion.
"Monster! Mars planet power Make up!"
Fate decided that poking her with a stick might be fun for a while decided that this was a most excellent time for the outers to show up.
"So that's where you went monster! I'm going to kill you and make a rug out of your hide!" Haruka wasn't really mad it's just how she normally was.
Her cry had the effect of galvanizing the other scouts to action. Several transformation phrases and flashy light shows ensued.
Deciding that now would be a great time to use the Saotome final attack she prepared to run. Before she could move more than a foot something tingled in the back of her head and she dodged to the side just in time to avoid the ice shards that Mercury had thrown at her. Then she dodged out of the firebird's path, and finally hopped over the love me chain.
She barreled through the door incidentally shoving Haruka's head through the wall and took off running at top speed. The tears in her eyes, added to her muddled thoughts. She didn't care where she was going just as long as she was able to get away. She knew that things were going to go bad but to actually have all of her friends turn on her hurt a lot more than she thought it would.
Back at the temple Ranma was slightly stunned. He had been listening at the door and had heard pretty much everything. However when Makoto went through the door she had knocked him across the yard. He'd been hit a lot harder by Ryoga so he wasn't really hurt. Even now the bruise was visibly healing. He got up and dusted off the sawdust on his clothes. He looked up to see a couple of the sailor girls coming out of the now broken door. They weren't a concern to him right now he had to catch Makoto.
Quickly shifting to his hybrid form he took off at the fastest he dared to go inside a city trying to keep up with his fast moving fiancée.
At the temple Minako was the first out the door. She saw Ranma shift to his hybrid form and take off in the direction that she thought she saw the monster run off to. Damn why do all of the hunky guys have to be monsters or bad guys. She could throw off another love me chain but if that monster that had been impersonating Makoto could dodge it her chances of catching him would be pretty slim.
She decided to detransform along with the rest of them. Rei was ranting about monsters and how the hell she was going to explain to grandpa about the door. Everybody was looking at Ami with expectant looks. When something strange happened they usually looked to her for answers.
"I haven't got a clue my computer wasn't scanning when she changed. I don't know if it was really Makoto or not." Ami was confused. She didn't like not knowing something, and not knowing if her friend was a monster or not was currently driving her crazy. She quickly brought up the scanning program to see if she could find any trace of them.
"I still say we kill them and figure it out later." Haruka said just before she winced. Mirachu was busy pulling splinters out of Haruka's face and Hotaru was healing the damage.
"I really think that would be a bad idea." Setsuna said before taking a sip of her tea.
"Ahhhhhhhhh!" Screamed Usagi. It wasn't a matter of what Setsuna said or how she said it. It was more a matter of where she said it from. About a foot behind her and to the right. She was wearing a grey striped business suit and sneakers. Her hair which was normally kept loose was done up in a loose ponytail. She had a green tea cup in her hand which was a match for the green teapot that was now on the table.
Ami quickly did a few chest compressions to get her friends heart going again. She glared at Setsuna.
"Don't ever do that again that is a DIRECT ORDER!" Usagi was so scared that she didn't even notice that she'd slipped into princess mode until Setsuna nodded her head.
"As you wish princess I'll just scare the others then." Damn and it was so fun scaring her because she jumped so high.
"And why can't we kill it! It obviously knows who we are now and we're all in danger." Damn those splinters hurt.
"Not really. Killing Makoto will solve nothing. Don't worry you just hurt her feelings that's all, she'll get over it eventually." She took a sip of her tea already predicting their response.
"But that wasn't Makoto, her hair is brown and she doesn't turn into a cat monster!" Usagi was just starting to snap out of it and boy was she scared.
"Usagi it really wasn't her fault that she was born a were cheetah." She really regretted not teaching them that not everything that wasn't human was evil. Oh well a crash course in it wouldn't be too bad.
"What do you mean was born a were cheetah? Why did she wait till now to tell us. Just who's fault is this!" The normally soft spoken Ami was really acting out of character.
Setsuna took another sip of her tea. There was a noise off in the storage room but she ignored it.
"Well to answer your questions I guess I'll have to take them one at a time. Her parents were both were cheetahs so naturally Makoto was born a were cheetah. As for why she hasn't told you until now, well when she was five or so her parents gave her a magical potion to lock her into her human form." She paused to refill her tea cup. There was some more bumping coming from the storeroom. "Last night she was introduced to her fiance, you already knew that of course. What she didn't tell you is that her lycanthropic nature was unlocked as well, that's why she didn't come when you guys called her last night." The bumping got louder and there was some squeaking with it. "As for why she was telling you now, my guess is that she didn't want her friends to try and kill her." She smiled. "I wonder where she got that idea from?"
Everybody that was listening was stunned. What they had done was just now hitting them. Rei winced as she remembered throwing a fire soul bird at her friend with intent to kill.
"What about the third question?" Ami was trying to figure out who was to blame for this.
"Oh the 'who is to blame for all of this?' question? Why Ami chan you are of course." She snickered internally while keeping a stoic straight face.
"What! How can this be my fault?!"
"Back in the silver millennium the sailor scout of Mercury was bored one day so she decided to create the lycanthropic races for something to do. Queen Serenity was furious that Mercury would be so callous as to make an intelligent species." She paused as if remembering something that happened before their ancestors were out of diapers. "In the end though the newly created lycanthropes proved to be a great boon to the kingdom. Their strength was equal to or greater than most magically enhanced humans. They were great guards, soldiers, spies, etc. They were well liked within the kingdom. Of course with all peoples there were some bad apples." She took a sip of her tea. "In the final battle with Beryl the werewolves and the were rats were on the other side." She paused to remember the look on Mercury's face when she first saw her creations turning on her. "Well to make a long story short some lycanthropes survived and have been living here on earth ever since."
"But if..." Ami started to say but was cut off by what sounded like a cat yowling the theme to star trek... horribly off key.
"You know I would have thought Luna had a much nicer singing voice." Setsuna idly commented.
Minako and Usagi immediately picked up on this and got up to retrieve their just copulated felines. Rei jumped to her feet to go get a broom to swat them with as she would be the one stuck cleaning up the mess.
"Bad Artemis! Twice in one day no less. You're grounded mister, no more pussy for you." Minako could be heard shouting in the back room.
"Luna you... I thought you hated him... you're a slut! Wait a minute does this mean that I can sleep with Mamorou now?" Usagi had had a long talk with Luna before about taking her relationship with Mamorou to the next level. Luna had basically said to do as she did.
"Just do as I say not as I do." Luna was hanging her head. She had just rutted like a common alley cat and with Artemis of all cats! Damn she felt like she needed a shower, preferably in carbonic acid.
Back in the main room Setsuna was still trying to convince Haruka that killing Makoto would be a bad thing.
"But she's a monster."
"She's still a sailor scout. If you kill her Usagi would be mad."
"But..."
"Haruka papa just let it go. I think it's kinda neat that she's a were cheetah." Hotaru was wondering how she could get Makoto to bite her so she could be a were cheetah too.
Usagi, Minako, Rei and the cats came back into the room. Luna was trudging along with her head bowed almost to the ground. Rei had a scowl on her face, nothing unusual there. Minako was doing a good Rei impersonation. Strangely enough Usagi and Artemis had the exact same stupid grins on their faces. Of course Artemis looked a little worse for wear.
"Looks like somebody just got laid. Way to go Artemis!"
Everyone stopped and stared at Chibi Usa.
"What? Oh come on at least he manages to get her in tune in the future." Luna's 'singing' during sex was famous throughout the palace in the future. It was a good thing their kittens decided to stay home. It was bad enough when her parents were going at it. It was a good thing aunty Ami explained the birds and the bees to her after she'd walked in on her own parents. Although what a riding crop, whipped cream and an inflatable sheep had to do with procreation even she didn't know.
Luna and Artemis blushed nuclear red at this.
"Well my time here is almost up, I should be getting back to work."
Of course Ami was the only one still coherent enough to think straight spoke up.
"What can you tell us about this new enemy?" Not that she expected any logical or straightforward answers from Pluto but she'd been pretty open about Makoto so she had to try her luck.
She put her index finger to her chin and started to hmm and haw for a while. Finally she spoke up.
"Well some of them have damage resistance and others have magic resistance, other than that I can't tell you anything more."
"But that doesn't tell us anything more than we already know." This coming from Rei who if Setsuna started saying 'That's a secret' she would ram the time key in a very unanatomically correct way up her stuffy ass. Hopefully she'd hit the stick that was lodged up in there.
"Hmm well don't kill Makoto that would be bad." She got up to leave but paused. "Oh yes two more things." She turned towards Haruka, Mirachu and Hotaru. "Haruka you aren't infected, don't worry you won't be getting any harrier any time soon. Hotaru don't you even think about getting Ranma or Makoto to bite you." Hotaru had the decency to at least blush.
"Now before I go..." She snapped her fingers and five grey boxes of various shapes and sizes materialized with the symbols for Mercury, Venus, Moon, Mars, and Neptune on them. "These weapons have minor enchantments on them to increase their durability. They should help with the monsters that have magic resistance." When everybody crowded around the boxes she made her getaway.
When she got back to the time gate she rewound time to the exact moment she left. She focused on the fire room. Turning up the volume she waited for...
"I"VE BEEN GYPED!" Screamed Usagi.
Setsuna chucked a bit and then tuned in on the beginning of the Ranma Makoto chase. She pulled up her lazy chair and a bucket of popcorn and sat back to watch the show. This job had it's perks after all.
As soon as Makoto was through the door Ranma had started to chase her. Unfortunately for him it took a few seconds to change into his hybrid form so that he would stand a chance of keeping up. During that time she had gotten a huge lead and was still accelerating.
Even though she couldn't access her senshi powers in her hybrid form some of the magic that made her sailor Jupiter managed to leak through and increase her speed and endurance by just a touch.
Ranma wasn't the premier martial artist of his generation for nothing however. He'd learned long ago how to channel his ki to help increase his speed and strength. So here they were racing through the streets of Tokyo at well over 200 KM/h dodging people, cars, trains and buildings. To Ranma it was a rush he wasn't even going at top speed yet but he didn't dare go any faster lest he miss one of his dodges. Already he'd almost hit four drug dealers, two cars, and a gay parade. He had no idea how Makoto was missing this stuff especially with her eyes full of tears and all. Damned weepy girls and their stupid feelings. He just hoped that this was her top speed, he didn't want to try and find out what his maximum was either. Well that and even with increased toughness and speed healing, he really didn't feel like picking stones out of his ass if he wiped out at this speed.
Makoto led him on a merry chase all the way to the outskirts of the city. When he was sure that the collision chances were dropping off he started to accelerate to try and catch her. To his great surprise and horror she was speeding up too. He poured on the speed to try and catch her but encountered a lot of resistance and couldn't go any faster. It was like the air itself was acting like water keeping him from going any faster. No matter how much power he put into it he couldn't seem to increase his speed. It looked like Makoto was also hampered by this. Good now he stood a chance of catching up.
As they passed the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto he finally got a good idea of how fast they were going, and it was @#$@ fast. He noticed that Makoto was no longer crying and was now just running, apparently enjoying the sensation of pseudo flight that these great speeds afforded to them.
He'd enjoy this experience a hell of a lot more if he wasn't chasing her stupid ass all over Japan.
He decided that he'd try throwing something at her to get her attention.
After the first three rocks flew out, encountered wind resistance and flew back and nailed him in the head he decided that maybe he should just try and catch her.
About halfway to Kyoto he managed to tap her once on her shoulder. She quickly glanced over her shoulder and saw him running there. She gave a little smile and started pouring on the speed. Where she got the energy he had no idea, it wasn't like he was tired yet but he wouldn't mind stopping. Infinite senshi magic versus a huge ki supply. Ki runs out, magic does not. Ranma decided that he had to end this quickly. Engaging the neko ken he used his ki claws to slash the heavy air in front of him. The resulting sonic boom and speed increase almost sent him ass over teakettle. He zipped past Makoto briefly catching her in his wake and then had to immediately cut his speed so that he wouldn't get too far in front of her.
Makoto decided that this was a good time to stop headed over to a clump of trees. She finally stopped in a wooded glen it was surrounded by trees so it afforded a lot of privacy. Both she and Ranma were panting heavily gulping in huge breaths of air, they were quite winded from their long run. It took over two minutes before Makoto finally got back enough breath to speak.
"Wow you're fast! How'd you do that?"
"Do what?" He was confused. She was the one that was fast.
"You broke the sound barrier! I couldn't get up enough speed to do that!" Not for lack of trying though. After she'd gotten over the fact that her friends had just tried to kill her she'd noticed how fast she was going and tried to see what her maximum was. She felt herself pushing up against the super compressed air that was the sound barrier but no matter how hard she pushed she couldn't seem to break through and go supersonic.
"So that's what that was." Ranma said while stroking his chin. "Wow."
"Yeah wow. You're going to have to show me how you did that." The other girls would be soooo jealous if she told them she could run faster than sound... oh wait that's right they were trying to kill her.... crap.
"Well I don't know if I can teach it to you. I just kinda grabbed the neko ken and slashed the heavy air and then boom." He'd rather not try that again until he got some more control, wiping out at that speed had got to hurt. That and creating sonic booms at ground level probably wasn't the most eco friendly thing that he could do.
Just then Ranma realized that he was all alone in a secluded clearing with Makoto and nobody around for kilometers. Normally when this happened Ryoga or somebody would come around to break things up or ruin the mood. Yeah Ryoga should be around any time now. Any time like right about now.
Speaking of Ryoga, he was currently lost in Vancouver. Of course he thought he was somewhere in Tokyo. Oh well same difference. He's still not important to the story.
Back in the clearing Ranma was getting nervous. Here he was all alone with one of his (admittantly newer) fiancées and there was nobody to break them up if something should happen. He was starting to sweat profusely his eyes nervously darting left and right. He had to think of something quick.
"Umm do you know where we are?"
Saved.
"Well no not really. I was kinda focused on chasing you and I didn't really pay attention to where we were. Uhh do you want to look around for a bit so see if we can find where we are?"
Makoto looked up to the sky where it was getting fairly dark, although it didn't seem as dark as it should have been. She'd have experiment with her night vision later though.
"I don't think we should. I'd hate to trip and fall at the speeds we'd be running at." Road rash at mach 1. She didn't know if she'd be able to survive that but it was probably best not to try.
"So what do you suggest then?" He had a good idea what she was going to suggest and he didn't like it one bit.
"Well we could stay here tonight and go home tomorrow."
"Uhh yeah that'd be a good idea I guess." Just his luck no water in sight.
"So I guess we should get closer, you know to like share body heat or something." Makoto had just realized what she'd just said. She started blushing not that Ranma would notice especially in the low light and through her fur.
"Well what if you change into a cheetah, You're smaller that way and wouldn't give off so much heat." And that way nothing could happen.
"Good idea." She looked at him like he was supposed to do something.
"What?" He wanted to know why she was looking at him.
"Turn around." Was he really that dense?
"Why?" Why couldn't girls just tell him these things instead of making him guess.
"I've got to take off my clothes so that I don't rip them when I change. I know we're engaged but I don't want you to see me naked yet. Now turn around!" Although seeing him naked wouldn't be such a bad thing.
Ranma 'Eep'd' and spun around so quickly he left miniature dust devils in his wake. She giggled at his shyness. She stripped and folded her clothes up so they wouldn't get wrinkled and then quickly shifted to her cheetah form before she could chew on any more of her foot.
Ranma hesitantly turned around when she nuzzled his arm. He laid down on the ground and shuffled over a bit but stopped just before touching her. Makoto would have none of this and pressed herself into his front. Taking the not so subtle hint he draped his arm over her and pulled her close. As long as he kept thinking of it as sleeping with a pet and not his fiancée he was just fine.
Makoto felt really comfortable sleeping this way. She had her legs tucked underneath her so she really didn't feel the ground and Ranma's much larger form enveloping her made her feel warm and protected. She could really get used to this.
'Maybe this engagement wouldn't be so bad after all.'
Not long after she thought this she fell to Morpheos' embrace.
Back at the shrine Shampoo had witnessed everything and was still trying to figure out what to do about it. She'd seen Makoto and Ranma run off and she knew there was no hope in hell of catching them, so now she had to decide what to do.
Long after the last of the girls left Shampoo was still watching. She'd made it a point to memorize the faces of the girls and which skirt colours they matched up to. She wasn't sure if they were her enemies yet or not but trying to kill her Airen's had pushed them towards the 'Shampoo kill' side of things. She was just contemplating going home when a presence and a slight rustling to her left caught her attention.
Spinning as fast as he dared on the branch she was on she came face to crotch with a sailor scout. She was older looking than all of the other girls she'd seen, but she was still wearing the same type of outfit she remembered Makoto wearing when she changed into sailor Jupiter except the colours were different. The only noticeable features she had were her long green hair and her red eyes. Shampoo was almost certain that she'd be able to pick her out of a crowd since outside of the Amazon village that hair colour/eye colour was not normally found in Japan.
Then she spoke in perfectly fluent Mandarin. "Don't fear, I am not your enemy nor do I wish to become your enemy. I have done my best to smooth over the rift that was created tonight but there will still be some mistrust for a while I'm afraid. It is my hope that you will be able to help fix things. What I'd like to offer you is a way to join your husband and co wife in fighting this new threat." She then made a hand motion and a pen shaped stick appeared in her hand. "This will allow you to fight alongside your chosen's without revealing your identity."
Shampoo took the pen and looked at it. It was about 10 cm long with a gold stylized number 4 with an irregularly shaped circle around it on top. The shaft was purple with neon green swirls traced through it. Finally there was a yellow post it note with the activation phrase stuck to the handle.
"Shampoo thank honored senshi for gift but Shampoo have one question."
"Of course."
"Shampoo want know if you know so much why you no stop when senshi try kill Shampoo wife?" Ok so that didn't come out as well as she wanted it to but she still was forbidden from speaking Chinese while she was here.
Setsuna sweat dropped and scratched the back of her head. "Umm actually I was planning to but I was kind of late." Damned traffic jam.
"Well now it's getting late and I think you should be getting home. Don't worry Ranma managed to catch Makoto and calm her down. They're out near Kyoto and should be back tomorrow."
Shampoo turned briefly to look at a noise she heard over by the shrine. When she turned back Pluto was gone. She tossed the pen in with her Bonbori and jumped out of the tree and started off towards her home. She vowed that tomorrow night Ranma would have a purple haired bed warmer.
Damn it she wanted to be first.
At the swirling mists of the time gate Setsuna dropped herself bonelessly into her lazy ass chair. In reality she hadn't been late, it was all a well crafted scheme to get Makoto and Ranma closer together, while pulling a guilt trip on the rest of the senshi so they wouldn't go and off any were cats. Killing your allies was usually a bad thing.
She twirled another henshin rod between her fingers. Back during the days of the silver millennium the mages attempted to duplicate the senshi's transformations using the moons of the larger worlds as power focuses. Sufficed to say the results were less than stellar.
Leaning back she pressed a button on the chair and was immediately treated to a full body massage.
As Setsuna was slowly falling asleep she thought of what was going to happen tomorrow and reminded herself to bring her camera.
Authors notes:
New and improved with details and hopefully better scene transitions. I'll get out a good chapter yet!
Many thanks to Cory D Rose and Rajon Rucker for prereading and helping to fix me's horreeble anglish
please send all comments and critisism to
nealharris@otakumail.com
If you're going to send criticism don't just say 'it sucks' tell me why it sucks and I'll try to fix it.
Ranma even with his powerup is still not all powerfull. It was just to allow him to keep up with the Senshi.
Speaking of Senshi yes Shampoo is now a sailor scout but well.... Defective Senshi. Oh the fun one can have with magic that goes wrong.
I'm writing as fast as I can however I can only write in between calls and if the call volume is too high I may only get a page done a day at best. Next up is cat's tail. I may go back through my previous chapters and add details and fix the scene transitions. If I do this the new chapters will be a while in coming. Quality over quantity I guess.