' thoughts'

"Languages not Japanese," the characters will be speaking the language that is first mentioned after this italic appears unless stated otherwise.

You know the rest.

"Never stop training. Complacency makes you weak!"- The Lady of

Absolute Balance to Princess serenity and her Senshi while training them as she fired a huge bolt of mana at them while they were eating.

Kasumi had gathered all the search and scry soldiers tasked with finding her baby in the punishment room.

Normally she was more lenient but this involved the newly found Sonia and she was very mad that she had found her daughter in the condition she had found her in. Actually that was an understatement.

"You all had one task. One!" Her voice was devoid of it's usual warmth as she enlarged the picture showing Terrabelle holding Hestia in a magical hologram. Hestia looked exactly like Sonia, "Find my daughter or the egg that she hatched from. Now some of you have found the egg fragments and got me leads on where she might have been, so you can leave." Only ten out of two hundred people left. "As for the rest of you. You have the skill to find a magically shielded bio-bomb the size of a handball in a plane of ever shifting fluctuations from this one but you can't find a naga child in this one? You're some of the best scryers and searchers in the Bureau. I know you were slacking off. If you weren't my baby would have long since been found and certainly not in the fragile mental state she's in! She's afraid of people, she's been hurt, she's been hunted for Kami-sama's sake!" All soldiers winced. "None of that would have happened if you had not been slacking off or deemed the search a low priority or a waste of time." She glared at the soldiers and as one they shrank back from the fury of their usually benign Admiral General. "But I won't dispose of you, you're much too valuable. Actually, I'll eliminate up for your backline fighter weakness." Some looked relieved, others knew better. "However I'll replace the the pain nullifiers in the regeneration circle with agony enhancers and nullify your shields. Enjoy." She smiled icily.

An array appeared on the floor under the gathered and another one appeared over them. Mirrors appeared between the arrays trapping the soldiers on all sides, cuting off their view. The mirrors began to glow and the screams began.

Kasumi watched coldly as the punishment continued. Ranma looked on from the sidelines, reminded once again how ruthless his wife was when she needed to be.

A couple hours later the bombardment stopped. Then the screams began anew as the soldiers were healed fully. The punishment being over the mirrors turned to mist and dissipated and the arrays disappeared. The punishement had made them tougher in the worse possible way.

Surprisingly all the soldiers were still conscious.

This time Kasumi's face melted into an expression of concern as she said, "I hope you all learned your lesson by experiencing a fraction of my pain. Next time I ask you for help I expect it to be given seriously." With that she turned around and strode out of the room. Ranma waited a minute before following.

Ami was being patient with Sonia who she had finally gotten to sit at the table. Her patience paid off as the little naga was only fidgeting nervously and not close to tears or looking for means of escape. 'An improvement over an hour ago,' Ami thought with a small smile.

Suddenly she felt intense heat and cold radiating from her mana core. The feelings seperated from her core and intensified forcing their way out of her body in an uncomfortable and painful manner. Being a a Senshi she was able to stay conscious long enough to see two eggs the size of ping pong balls manifest themselves. One was red with yellow spots and orange stripes; the other was white with a crystal blue band around the top and spearmint green band around the bottom. Ami managed to catch both before she passed out.

Sonia who had been watching the whole thing was confused. 'Why did the nice magical lady fall asleep? What are those two ball things?' she had many questions and wondered if this lady would listen when she talked. It never occured to her that most people couldn't understand her.

The Inner Senshi minus Ami were sitting at an outside table of a restauraunt discussing boys, school and Usagi's newest change. As similar things had happened before they weren't phased when two independant shadows appeared. One small shadow appeared in front of Usagi and spat out a thick manilla folder.

A man in a silver dress uniform stepped out of the other shadow, which was man-sized, chuckling as if he had heard a really funny joke. The man stopped chuckling as he looked intently at Minako.

Minako also stopped talking and stared at the man who while his face was obscured by the shadow of his hair, had piercing blue eyes clearly visible . Minako had already been holding the Venus crystal when he appeared now gripped it harder as a look of utter comtempt appeared on her face.

"So this is where you've been you Venusian bimbo. You look the part now, good for you, now you won't dissapoint your opponents." The man casually insulted her in Venusian.

"Muryouzu. I heard you were married now. Send your wife my condolences. Poor Terrabelle, having you for a husband in not one, but two lives. I can only imagine the horror." Minako sneered in Shadowspeak.

"I heard your husband managed to give you the slip in this life," Minako visibly flinched. "I'll have to congratulate him when I see him again."

Minako stood up as Venus," You know where he is you, bastard?" she asked with a mix of desperation, hope and anger as she held her head so her bangs were covering her face.

"Of course, I do. I just finished talking to him. He just had a breakthrough in artificing. Although someone really should make him take it easy. He's nigh onto killing himself working so hard." Muryouzu casually replied.

"You...you..." Venus was shaking furiously. "YOU TELL ME WHERE MY HEPHY US RIGHT NOW!"

"Now why would I do that? After all, your infedelity is the stuff of legends." He smirked knowin he was getting her riled up.

"You know very well what happened and how those rumors started. I never would have cheated on Hephaestus. He was everything I ever wanted.***" She snapped her head up and glared at him with eyes glowing gold. "He was everything I needed; everything I didn't know I needed,*" she whispered in a small voice. She glared at Muryouzu, "You know damn well what happened, you insolent shadowstalker! If you won't tell me..." Suddenly her fuku dispersed into little motes of light which then converged onto Venus's form in flash. When the flash resolved Venus stood in what looked like an orange bodysuit with golden links visible around her shoulders, chest, hips waist and crotch. She held a golden mace in one hand and a fire orange morning star in the other.

"...I'll beat it out of you!"

"You're welcome to try, changeheart. I'll even tell you if you last more than twenty minutes, because I'm such a nice guy." He smirked smugly. "But you've been slacking off, I can tell. You won't last more than 15 Terran minutes. I'll even use a Terran timer, since I'm such a nice guy."

He pulled out what looked suspiciously like a kitchen timer and and set it to 20 minutes. He then put it...somewhere and settled into a loose stance and reverted to Japanese as he pulled out a whip and dagger. "Come, Venus. Show me how badly you want what I can give you."

Commander Venus screamed at the top of her lungs "**I'll show you. You'll tell me what I need to know. I'll beat you to a pulp if I have to.**" With that Commander Venus Charged forward at Tenebrae's Senshi . "**Muryouzu!**"

Muryouzu, of course, met the charge head on. "Let's what you've got, Aphrodite!"

Venus swung her mornig star in an upward arc while thrusting with her mace. As Muryouzu deflected the chain of the morning star with his whip and blocked the mace with his dagger, both he and Venus disappeared in a flash of light and shadow.

"What just happened?" Rei asked.

Surprisingly it was Makoto who answered. "Just Tenebrae pushing Venus's buttons again. "

Usagi put her hand to her cheek and tilted her head to the left. "Really, they're so rowdy. Well as long as she's not hurt too badly it's okay." She then waved over a waiter.

Rei asked, "Aren't you worried she'll kill him?"

"No, she's not that strong," Usagi snd Makoto answered simultaneously.

"No, he was just getting her passionate. She is the senshi of passion after all. Besides she'll probably come back with new techniques." When the waiter arrived she said "yes I'd like a to go bag for my friend she had to leave early. Oh and put some cake in there." The waiter nodded and left.

"Usagi-chan, you do know how she gets after she encounters him don't you?" Makoto asked.

"Yes she gets all frustrated and needs cuddles from..." Usagi's face lit up in realization. "Well, she better last more than twenty minutes. I'm not her cuddle-type." Usagi webt back to eating her food.

"Neither am I." Makoto said takibg a bite of her cake.

"..." Rei suddenly remembered what this was all about. "Oh, crap." She lost her apetite as she remembered her training experience. She slid her plate over to Usagi as she recalled the horors Balancia put her through.

Ami woke up and found that she had been subconsciously channeling her magic into the two ovoids in her hands.

She sighed, "...I guess I didn't expel my excess magic before the build up became independend of my core. Hm...the manifestations are still dependant on my magic, which means..." Ami's eyes widened in horror. "I'm to young to have children!" She cried in Wisetongue.

Now to understand what Ami is going through you gave to understand that when a mage casts a spell there is generally excess mana in their system. This mana tends to build up until it manifests itself in any number of ways. To prevent this a mage can expel their built up mana consciously. However if the mage is a girl and their astral and aural body is ovulating the manifestations tend to be something called spellchyldren: permanent manifestations born from magic and bodies of a mage . If the girl is physically ovulating that all but seals it. Ami had the (mis) fortune of having all three of her ovulations aligned. While it is true that Mizuno Ami is a mage, Sailor Mercury was a channeler in the past and tends to fight as such in the present. This results in her drawing out excessive, though considerably less than her fellow inner senshi due to her control, amounts of mana to power her spells. The fact that she drew from not only her mana core but that of a *planet* only excacerbates things. Now spellchyldren can comes about by spontaneous birth, manifesting into eggs, popping into existence or other ways. As they are not constructs, the magic of which they are formed gives them a physical form genetically made up of the mage and their destined one as the mana field copies and merges their genetic and magical patterns into the chyld. Things were a little more complicated when a planet was involved. In Caster society Spellchyldren are recognized as the offspring of the mage. Spellchyldren like natural born children have to be taught how to do things and be taken care of like them. Unlike them Spellchyldren pick up languages quickly. Caster's have a slightly different phenomenon which is how Sonia came about but more on that later. As it was Ami had just found out that she was going to be a mother once the eggs hatched. She, a high scool student with sure entrance into Todai, had to take care of two beings dependent on her.( A/n: Yes, yes I am perfectly aware that this is not necessarily how Mage Manifestation works, but this is my story so deal with it.)

"Well, so much for being married before having kids." Ami sighed.

"Auntie 'Gelia?" A soft sweet voice asked in Old Terran.

Momentarily stunned She turned to Sonia whom was looking at her and the eggs she held in her hands curiously. "*It's Auntie Ami now, honey.*" Ami corrected her gently in Old Terran.

"Oh. What are those Auntie Mi-Mi?" Sonia asked, not missing a beat.

"These are what my chyldren will come from."

"Why?"

"Because I built up to much excess mana without discharging it."

"Why?" Sonia asked in Nihongo.

"I forgot to fight like a mage because I was a channeler in the past and have been fighting that way."

"Why?" Sonia asked.

Noticing Sonia speaking nihongo Ami responded in that language and pulled out a recorder and starteted ti record the conversation." It was easier to just go with my instincts. "

"Oh." Sonia nodded solemnly.

"Sonia." Ami said gently.

"Yes Mi-mi-obatan?" Sonia asked. "My tongue feels weird..." Sonia then said sticking out her tongue trying to look at it but retracting it quickly and scrunching up her face, which looked absolutely adorable.

Ami passed off Sonia's sudden understanding of nihongo as a magic thing and left it at that.

"Come on Sonia-chan, I'll need your help." Ami said.

"Really?!" Sonia said with Sparkling eyes. No one had ever asked for her help before.

"Really. Now..."

Venus dodged a whip slash, danced away from a dagger thrust and jumped over a tendril of darkness retaliating with what looked to be a tentacle of light but were really several beams of varying wavelengths woven together which exploded, with a bright flash, into several photonic blades a foot away from Muryouzu. While Muryouzu was distracted by that she lept away an and crossed the handles of her mace and maul.

The chain of her morning star lengthened and wrapped around her in a circle, glowing red, and the ball at the end turned into a spiked heart glowing red and orange. She uncrossed her weapons' handles and prepared to thrust her mace, which glowed white-gold at the spiked heart. She recited a quick Beauty-song Incantation and began to glow in a platinum aura. "*My passion come to the fore and strike down my enemy with your strength. Give my heart and core your power while I make use of it to strike down myne enemy. I am the passionate one. You are my strength. Now bind and Vanquish my enemy!" She thrust her mace at the spiked heart, and when the two made contact both the chain circle and the light shot forward.

Muryouzu, having finished with the distraction, brought up his shield of shadows just in time. Unfortunately, for him, it was blown away and he was slammed backwards by the sheer magical power and skidded on the ground.

When he pulled himself up he was covered in burns, cuts and bruises. He was also laughing. "Heh heh heh heh heh. A ha ha ha ha ! So this is what it's like when you're all riled up? If I'd have known you were this fun I'd have invoked your passion long ago!" he said in Venusian. He looked at the timer then put it back wherever he held it. "*And you even managed to last fifteen minutes, here I was worried I was wasting my time."

He smiled savagely and stepped slowly towards her and darkness surrounded him, appearing as a mass of inky shadows. "Now that I know what you can do" he said switching to Japanese, " I'll show you what I can do."

"You know nothing of my power, nothing!" Venus replied.

"Oh yeah? Well let see how you handle mine!" He smirked and disappeared.

Suddenly Venus felt a sharp pain in he chin and found herself fifteen feet in the air. Acting in instinct she flipped forward and slammed her morning star handle up and to her left hearing the satisfying sound of bone on metal. As she was about to follow through with her mace she felt three sharp stinging pains on the wrist of her mace hand, she gripped it tighter due to her training. Howerver she left herself open to the tendrils which grabbed her and flung her one hundred feet higher. She manifested chains around herself and set them to spinning. Both to slow her descent and to give her protection. She then proceed to fire out hearts and rays of lights from everywhere she could. Which was from surprisingly a large amount of places her fingers, her feet, her joints, her eyes, her mouth, her chest etc. Goodness, she had hearts and lasers coming out of her hair and pores. She was a whirling dervish of destuctive magic. Which just happened to look like she was a disco light.

Muryouzu, after admiring the lightshow from atop a floating shadow that was out of Venus's range, set up a recording spell proceeded to counter Venus's barage. In the most humiliating way possible.

He manifested a shadow that looked suspiciously like a fish and blocked every thing Venus threw with it and when the barrage died down, He jumped up from the shadow he was perching in and smacked her down to the ground with the now comically large fish.

As Venus crashed to the ground hard enough to make a crater the timer went off.

Muryouzu hopped down to the crater to see Venus, with a fish shaped bruise on her cheek, struggle to her feet. She was clearly exhausted, but she got up anyway and started to shakily step towards Muryouzu. Her battle clothes had reverted to her civillian guise, but she didn't care. She was on a mission and a little thing like fatigue wouldn't stop her from accomplishing her goal. "I'll make you," she wheezed, "I'll make you tell me where Hephaestus is." She said her eyes full of determination and passion. "I must not-I have to..." she tripped on the edge of the crater and found Muryouzu supporting her .

She, quite reasonably, tried to squirm away.

"Whoa. Easy there Aphrodite, you've proven yourself. I'll tell you where your Hephaestus is. After holding your own against me, you've earned it." Muryouzu said gently.

"Thank you, Muryouzu, you bastard." Minako murmured.

"Maybe you ain't such a lost cause, after all. Still a bitch, though." He replied only to find Minako had fainted. "Feh. Always have to have the last word." He then teleported them both to the Balance Bureau.

Dr. Reginald Raven Scrovenough was not expecting the husband of his Admiral General to just pop into his workshop carrying a blonde teenager over his shoulder. But he was a soldier and scientist he waved it off. Doctor Reginald had a plain face. Rectangular with a large nose and thin lipped. He had thick curly scarlet red hair and a light beard of the same color. He had a wide burly build that one would expect from a blacksmith. On his planet it took four years to become a doctor. He had earned both his engineering an medical doctorate in the span of two years. An impressive feat for some one who was now twenty. Especially when you consider how advanced and complicated their medicine is compared to Earth's.

"Hey doc, present for ya!" Ranma said cheerily as he layed the girl down on Dr. Reginald's precious work bed.

"What?" He asked in a deep, low, rumbling voice that was honestly, absolutely, manly. (A/n: *wrests the keyboard away from Lady Red Scythe* Enough of that.) He was wearing an open lab coat over a black t-shirt and thick jean-like pants.

"Brought yer Soulmate." He then handed him the Venus Crystal, "Upgrade this into a sentient focus for her will ya. I gotta go. I'll be back to pick her up tomorrow." He slowly faded from existence with an ominous smirk.

He scratched his head and asked the air, "What the Tartarus?"

Venus, meanwhile was having a very dirty dream and moaning and muttering things that left the Doctor blushing. As he went over to her to try to wake her up he found himself pulled into her embrace and her snuggled up beside her. He tried to escape but she was surprisingly strong and he could only get out if he wanted to hurt her. So he resigned himself to his fate of being snuggled.

-Meanwhile in Kasumi's quarters-

Ranma , who was exhausted from using energy he was not accustomed to, passed out on Kasumi's workbed. Fortunately, Kasumi wasn't there, else she would have yelled at Ranma for deigning to sleep on her workbed.

-Somewhere on Earth-

Kasumi climbed on to the plateau. She wiped sweat off of her brow as she caught her breath. She walked to the middle of the plateau her clothes changing into a imperial gown as she went and took out a key from underneath her collar. She stuck the key into the air, and as she turned it a door like rift began to appear. She pushed the "door" open and closed it behind her.

- The next morning-

Minako woke up in the arms of a burly man. She started to panic, but then she saw his face and relaxed.

"Hephaestus," she whispered stroking his face. 'So, the reincarnation healed pains of past lives, that's good it always caused you trouble,' she mused silently.

She released her hold on 'Hephaestus' and went across the room where she knelt in the way of a Japanese bride being presented to her husband.

Dr. Reginald woke up to find the girl Ranma brought in in the japanese bridal bowing position. He responded in the most reasinable way possible for a scientist. He jumped out if bed and asked briskly, "Name?"

"Aino Minako," Minako said a little surprised at his tone.

"I'm Dr. Reginald Raven Scrovenough. Call me Dr. Raven or Dr. Forge. I'll need your measurements." He said walking ovrr to a computer-like machine.

"Okay," Minako blushed as she rattled off her measurements.

Dr. Forge nodded as he input the data in the machine.

The machine generated a garment of some kind.

"Don't just sit there. Strip..." he commanded.

"Wh-wha-what? This is all so sudden. I haven't even gotten to know you in this life. Though I suppose because we were so passionate last time this is to be expected. But I expected, at least, a nice dinner first" Minako blushed as she babbled.

"...and put this on." Dr. Forge said after Minako finished her rant. He handed her the garment. "I'll need to run a few tests if i'm to upgrade your focus." He said pointing to the venus crystal in a scanning device.

Venus let out an almosot disappointed sigh as he turned back to the keyboard, "Oh."

"Why were you in that position when I woke uo Minako?"

And thus Minako explained everything to Dr. Forge.

Ranma was showing the footage of his fight with Venus to soldiers in the recreation room, when she came in wearing a black bodysuit.

"Ah. Aphrodite! Just who I wanted to see," Ranma splashed cold water on himself and changed to his female form, surprising Minako a little .

He grabbed a microphone stand and set it in front of him and rewinded the recording to where he slapped her with the shadow fish and set it on a loop.

"Hit it!"

A soldier went over to a piano-like instrument and started to play it, quite deftly, as Ranma began to sing.

"What is this feeling, that's put you in your place?" Ranma sang as the screen showed Venus tumbling to the ground.

"A hot red burning on the side of your face." The screen now showed Venus getting slapped.

"You feel the blood rush to your cheek," Ranma rubbed his cheek. "Tears start to feel your eyes," he pantomimed rubbing his eyes. "Your lips are trembling but you can't speak." He pouted and put a finger to his lips. "You're trying, oh you're trying not to cry~~~"

"You just got slapped" he pantomimed slapping someone, "across the face my friend." He swung the shadowfish that was suddenly in his hand. "You just got slapped." He put a hand on Venus's shoulder. "Yes that really just happened."

"Well everybody saw it. Hah!" He stepped away from Venus and spread his hands to indicate the soldiers in the room. "Everybody laughed and clapped." The soldiers chuckled as Ranma clapped. "Because it was awesome, the way you just got sla~pped!" Ranma sang dramatically."Yes, it was awesome the way you just got slapped." Ranma finished softly.

All the soldiers applauded ignoring Venus's outrage.

I wonder where Kasumi went? How mysterious.

On a different note you'll notice that Kasumi is not the type of leader most would think she is. But despite the beginning of this chapter, she is a charismatic leader. Her soldiers are only afraid of her wrath.

You'll also notice that Ranma is a jerk. That, dear readers, is canon. Don't believe me? Read Ranma 1/2. Ranma's no saint among sinners. He's a cocky, insensitive, egotistical, borderline sexist jerk who generally does the right thing. He's a good person but he is a person, that means he's flawed.

Yes, Kasumi has a ruthless streak and Ranma is a jerk. When I write about I do not just focus on and exaggerate their charms or good points. They have to have flaws as well. So if you want write after reading my stories remember to give your main characters flaws and if you can keep the flaws from canon instead of ignoring them. I know, I know it's harder to write stories like that but those stories are always more interesting in the end. I'm not saying you can't downplay flaws or butterfly effect away tragic ones. Just keep in mind that everyone has flaws in their personalities.

Oh, in case you were wondering, no one is safe from getting their butt kicked. No one, not even Kasumi, Ranma, or Balancia.

I'll be fleshing out Balancia next and highlighting her cruel, yet utterly effective, teaching methods.