Chapter 4
Disclaimer. All the characters mentioned or displayed in this work of literature are the explicit and copyrighted property of another. This
piece is not being displayed for profit or advertisement. It is entirely the work of an enthusiastic and amateurish fan.
---
Your strong scent, I'm always
Searching for it
Can you hear my voice calling out?
I love you so ...
Where are you now,
My lovely princess?
Answer me...
The crowd goes wild as the Three Lights hold the last not of their song. I remain quiet and hidden, tucked away safely within the interlocked steel beams that comprise the ceiling of the auditorium beneath me. I've been here for the last hour, diligently watching the crowd and the band, ready and eager to act if I need to.
I have also decided, that if a monster does attack, I'll let it rampage enough so that the rest of the show gets canceled. They call that singing? Sounds like escapee's from the root canal wing on the hospital, or something. I'm tempted to throw something at them to get them to stop and claim self defense in court.
Fortunately (Or maybe unfortunately) nearly the entire concert has gone bye without anything to interrupt it. No sailor scouts of any type have shown up, unless the three on stage count, which I'm still not sure about. As the Three Lights take their bows before the roaring fans, I shrink back into a corner of the ceiling to avoid being in front of a light by accident when they come back on. That would be an embarrassing way to go.
A minute or two later the lights are on, despite the crowd's roars for an encore. Thank the gods for small mercies.
I idly scratch my chin for a moment and indulge myself in a yawn when something strikes me. I should be paying more attention to the audience. That was where I had hidden, the scouts had hidden, and that strange chick Iron Mouse had hidden at the last show. There's a good chance someone else is hidden here this time.
What a brilliant idea. I'll just...
I forgot. How am I suppose to see anyone in this mess of people? The crowd below me is a jumbled menagerie of insanity. There are literally hundreds of people here, and all of them are moving/shouting/pushing around.
So much for just watching the crowd. Oh well, might as well just give it a shot at the very least. Maybe something will come up. The exit will probably be the best spots to watch. Sooner or later everyone goes to the exits. I casually swing around to position myself where I can see all of the exits. There are three of them, one at each corner farthest away from the stage, and another directly opposite the stage between the other two. I start at the one on the left.
Lets see. Fat one in a Three Lights t-shirt, skinny one in a Three Lights t-shirt, middle sized one in a Three Lights t-shirt, tall one in a Three Lights t- shirt. I sense a trend developing. Lets scope out the one on the right now. Short one in a Three Lights t-shirt, medium sized one in a Three Lights t-shirt, brunette in a Three Lights t-shirt, evil looking foreigner in lingerie with a funky trench coat type thing, red head in a Three Lights t-shirt, black haired girl in a Three Lights...
Wait a second. I strain my neck quickly as I try to penetrate the mass of people to find the one I'm looking for. There she is, right at the door: foreigner with some kind of skimpy leather ensemble laced up the front tightly under a strange long sleeveless overcoat. She's gone in a second, my sight cut off by the wall above the exit. My eyes narrow. It's not totally outrageous, but the last chick, Iron Mouse, and been wearing a strange lingerie type outfit too. I better keep my eyes open for that one.
I turn my eyes slowly towards the center doorway. And fall out of the rafters in shock. My feet just barely moved quick enough to latch on and keep me from belly flopping onto the concrete fifty feet below.
A blond with two strange ponytail type haircut leaving the just as I was looking.
The same blond that had been at the airport.
The same blond that had been at the last concert.
I'm becoming despairingly sure that I'm going to need to look into her in a bit.
---
Tap. Tap. Tap. My feet against the concrete as I walk.
The night around me is dark. It's nearly September, but the summer had been hot, and the night stays warm enough to be enjoyable. Its not often you get to enjoy a night like this. I certainly wasn't. There were too many things going on around here. Too many strange people.
That blond with the ponytails. Who is she? Why is she wrapped up in all of this? She seems like just an ordinary girl. In fact, so far all of the sailor soldiers, good or bad, have felt perfectly normal. Not at all like all of the other strong opponents I had fought against. Like Saffron: when I had fought the phoenix king his aura had radiated from him like the sun. But despite the fact that these girls were pumping out blasts of astonishing power, they didn't feel any different then any other girl off the street. I was getting a head ache from this.
"Hey, you," a big man with a knife demands hisses at me from the shadows of an alley. "Give me your wallet or I'll..."
SLAM
I remove my fist from the new indentation in the hapless fools face and go through his pockets with practiced ease.
Well, lets see. Two hundred dollars? Neat. Now I can get some food. What an idiot. I wasn't even in my girl form. Well, at least he had the guts to try it with a guy instead of some helpless looking girl.
I tuck the money away in my front pocket and keep on walking.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The other girl. That Iron Mouse. Who was she? Why did she attack at that concert? Right before she had started it all, she had said something. Something about eleven sailor crystals. What are sailor crystals? And who did she say she was going to give them too? Something about someone being pleased. The name had begun with a 'g', I remember that much. But what had it been? Galatea? Galinti? Man, who knows.
The Three Lights. Who are they? Why are they mixed up in this? Thy had they grabbed the blond at the airport? Why were they attacked at the concert? What's there connection to the three chicks that had dealt with Iron Mouse? Had that been them?
I sigh and stoop my head as I keep on walking through the pleasant night.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
There was one more person involved in all of this, though I had only seen her that one time at the airport. The honey blond in the centurion school girl outfit. Why had she attacked that man? What was that golden thing she had grabbed at the end?
Why do I feel like I know her from somewhere?
That last part stops me in my tracks. I feel like I know her from somewhere? Hesitantly I nod to myself. Yes. Yes I do feel like I know her from somewhere before? But where?
Sighing I tilt my head back and look at the stars. Across the sky they dance, in their eternal waltz through space. The dippers, Polaris, Andromeda, Sagittarius, Gemini, Draco...
Wait a second? How do I know all these names? I don't have any specific memory of having them pointed out to me, but I'm suddenly confident that if I had enough time I could name every last speck in the sky.
Oh well, it must have been something that my dad showed me when I was young.
I almost growl at the thought of my father. Bloody stupid panda. He better hope I never catch up with him.
Suddenly I'm aware of how early in the night it really is, and I don't want to go back to where I sleep. It was only ten, and I had two hundred dollars in my pocket. I feel like I should stay out a bit tonight. But where to go...
On the block ahead of me, I hear a sudden roar of laughter. Shaken from my reverie, I look up and am confronted by a small group of three people, laughing and shouting into the night stumbling, with their arms around each others shoulders, down the street a block from where I am.
A club. The perfect place to go to kill time. I've been in a few bars over the years, and despite the fact that they bring back memories of Genma, I still find them to be okay places to kill an hour. There's something about the people, the atmosphere. Its just relaxing to be in.
Once upon a time entering one of these places would have been a hassle. Due to perfect shape that I keep myself in I look a lot younger than I am. However, despite the fact that I look younger than I am, I still look old enough to get into these places now, and the bouncer only gives me a once over before nodding me in. The bar itself is smoky, I think more from the fog machines around the dance floor than people killing their lungs. The sound system in the corner lies silent, no one around or behind it. They probably only broke it out on weekends in order to keep the cost down. That's just fine with me. All I want to do is sit down, relax and have a ...
"RANMA!" a voice shouts behind me. The shout is quickly followed by an Amazonian glomp. I freeze. No. It couldn't be...
"I've missed you Ranma. How've you been?" Mousse whispers in my ear seductively. Its alright. I won't do anything violent. I'll respond to this in a mature and reasonable fashion.
"GET HIM OFF OF ME!!!!!" I screech and start running around the dance floor, desperately trying to shake him off. This is so not cool. I mean, I can understand him getting depressed after Shampoo ran away with Konatsu. I can even understand him foreswearing women forever, and declaring himself a homosexual. Hell, I've seen the way men in his tribe get treated by women. But why did he have to start chasing me?
"Oh how I've missed you, Ranma!" he chirrups cheerfully as he clings onto me using the secret Amazon glomp technique (tm). "Let's run away together, my pigtailed love."
Oh. That is so it. I alter my flight to take me close to the bar where a bartender stands gawking, unsure whether or not to get involved. Once there I latch onto a mug filled with cold beer, and dump it on myself.
"EEK!" Mousse screams and releases me. Thank the gods that when he foreswore women, he meant all women. I wouldn't be able to take it if he chased me in both forms. "Do you have to do that?" he whines as he backs off.
"YES!" I bellow, panting desperately. It's been so long since that kind of thing has happened, that I've forgotten just how utterly disgusting it is. Next to where me and Mousse have stopped, the bartender looks at his beer carefully, rubs his eye, and then decides that a guy changing into a girl when doused by beer is an SEP (somebody else's problem), and ignores it completely.
After I've gotten myself under something that resembles self control, I told the barkeep my order, and left the bar with two pitchers and a mug. Mousse follows behind with half a pint of some excessively harsh whiskey. I let him come along, though I have to be careful. I wouldn't put it by him to use a flaming shot to change me back into a guy so he can glomp me.
"I'm sorry about that by the way," Mousse tells me after we've found seats. The entrance to the club is just a few feet. It's an old habit, sitting near the door. I've been attacked so often by now, that keeping an exit nearby has become almost a second nature to me.
"Sorry about what?" I ask as I begin my battle against the brew before me.
"My hello. I hope you don't tell anyone about it." He looks a little nervous, and glances around a bit before leaning in so he can whisper. "I have a steady boy friend now. I really like him a lot, but just seeing you again..." He trails off for a second. "It was just like old times."
"Yea. Really brings back the memories, doesn't it?" I smile slightly, and Mousse leans back with a grin on his own face.
"Yea," he chuckled. "Remember how your girlfriends would always act after I did something like that?" He wouldn't be laughing if that kind of thing had happened to him. I think I still have some bruises from that one time...
"So you have a steady now?" I ask. The years had finally managed to give me a small amount of social skills by now, and I got the basics for polite conversation down. Ask a question, wait for an answer, answer any question on theirs, repeat.
"Yea," Mousse smiles distantly. The years have been kind to him, and he finally got glasses strong enough to give him regular vision, though I never imagined that they made glasses that powerful. They were nearly an inch thick, and were almost wired to his head. He still wore those same old white robe things. If you listened carefully, you could just barely make out a chink when he walked. He must still have some of those hidden weapons he's so fond of. I honestly can't imagine how hard it must be to move around with all the weight Mousse used to carry around on him. It boggles the mind. "He's a great guy. An accountant." Mousse hesitates for a second before continuing tentatively. "And how about you?"
I shrug a bit before swigging away at more of my beer. "Nothing yet. It's hard to get attached really. I don't stay in any one place for very long, really."
Mousse hesitates for another second before swallowing and asking one more question. "And your dad...?"
He doesn't finish the question as the glass in my hand shatters. A few splinters of the cup work themselves into my hand, but the calluses there are so thick that no blood is even drawn. "Lets change the subject," I tell Mousse, before grabbing the pitcher in front of me and drinking straight from it.
"Yea," he agrees. "Sorry I brought it up."
----
"So then I says, I says to her. I says, 'girl, I ought'ado tha thin' to ya fa tha,'" Mousse tells me drunkenly. He waves his mostly empty glass of whiskey as he goes on about some meaningless confrontation with the fairer sex. I ignore him for the most part, nodding or grunting when it looks like he expects some kind of response from me. I for the most part am happily on my second pitcher of beer, and feeling mellow and quiet.
I think that's part of the reason I like drinking so much. My entire life it has always been react, react, react. I have to be on constant guard against attacks from all sides. I have to be quick. I think that's part of why I always got my self in trouble with my mouth. I've been trained to move fast, and in order to react quick to a verbal attack you got to say the first thing that pops into your head. But now, with enough alcohol in me to dull down even my enormously trained reflexes, I can slow down enough to bite back all my quick jibes and insults. Maybe if I had drank more back in Nerima...
No. There's no use thinking about the past.
Nearly an hour and a half have passed since I began my binge. The music equipment in the corner still remains silent, but the fog has drifted off. Apparently some people complained about it and the bartender had shut it down. The club has filled up a bit more and a steady buzz of back ground noise is present, like the droning of a hive of bees.
In front of me Mousse has started crying something about his mother. "I only wanna be happy. Is tha ta much ta ask? So wha if I'll never make gran'kids?" I shake my head as he begins to bump his head on the table, but stay quiet. I'm not really in any position to offer advice on that kind of thing.
For the most part of the night, my mind has been on one thing. The strangely dressed woman at the airport. I don't know why I've been thinking about her. I should be thinking about the sailor scouts that I know are going to my school. The one that had tried to pick a fight with me during class. But I can't. The honey-blond in the gold. Who was she? I know I've seen her before, but where?
I shake my head at myself. I should just relax, and enjoy the beer. That's what I should do. I lift the pitcher to my lips again. Behind me the bouncer moves a bit as another person enters the club. A short woman enters, lugging a guitar case behind her. The case seems strangely huge in comparison to the person carrying it. She turns to speak to the bouncer as I finish my drink, wipe my lips, and then
prepare for another.
"Excuse me," she says to him. "I'm looking for the talent agency, 'Where Stars are Born'. Could you tell me how to find 'Where Stars are Born?"
---
"Do you know the place where stars are born?" she says. "Strong stars, weak stars, their light, their power, all of it is born from there."
---
The pitcher of beer slips from my fingers. Behind me, the bouncer says something to the wondering guitarist, but the words are meaningless to me.
Gods and goddesses above. How could I have forgotten?
A meeting returns to me. A boy in the throws of a drunken despair at a bar. A woman in a wild goose chase for an unattainable place. A meeting.
"Galaxia," I whisper.
---
An immense palace, stretched out in front of me. It is huge and all encompassing, but it isn't real. It's just a front, a cover for what lies beyond it. A cliff above an abyss. An abyss filled with stars.
---
"Ranma?" a voice startles me out of myself. Mousse is in front of me, his eyes blurry and watery from his drink. "Ranma are you okay? You're scaring me Ranma." I can hear the worry in his voice.
"I...I have to go," I answer numbly. Galaxia. "I have to go right now." I shrug Mousse's hands off of me effortlessly. My hands dip into my pockets of their own accord, and take the money they find there. I toss it onto the table without looking at it. I can't even remember how much it is. Galaxia. Turning away from the hurt eyes of Mousse who cradles his hand which has somehow become broken against his chest. Galaxia.
I leave the bar, and wander into the night.
The sky above me is dark. I don' know when it happened, but the sky has become overcast above me. A roiling smear of clouds is the only thing that greets me when I look up. But that doesn't stop me from pointing up into the sky. I know without the shadow of a doubt that if you were to trace a line from my finger into the void of space, it would eventually impact with the center of the galaxy. The Zero Star of Sagittarius. Where I am suddenly sure that it is possible to find Galaxia.
Now I have even more questions.
---
"Alright class," I begin blearily. "You all know what to do. If there's any questions, I'll be over there soaking my head." The girls give me weird looks as I slump down after giving them their instructions.
Hangovers suck.
After last nights revelations I had come back to my office, breaking in quietly so as to not disturb the janitors, and had sat down to do some serious thinking. Or I intended to do some serious thinking, but instead ended up falling asleep in my chair. Now I'm back at work, and desperately trying to figure out what's going on around me.
Galaxia had attacked the young man at the airport. She had torn him into pieces smaller then the ones I had torn Saffron into, and taken some strange glowing yellow thing out of the remains. Then she disappears. Enter the Three Lights. The run on just as Galaxia is leaving, to take away the blond that had fainted. Later on, at their concert, a strange girl who was probably working for Galaxia attacks. The blond from the airport intervenes in a skimpy school girl outfit, along with her friends. The strange girl working for Galaxia attacks, and is defeated by three more girls in skimpy outfits, who may or may not be the Three Lights in drag. The Three Lights then transfer to a school. Within this school is at least one of the girls from the concert, a short haired blond with a short fuse.
I think the headache from my hangover is getting worse. This is all just so strange I could just scream.
And despite it all, I can't help but think about Galaxia. What was she doing? Did she send that Iron Mousse? Why did she attack that young man. She had seemed so nice when we first met. Had she changed? Or had she always been this way? Perhaps she's being controlled. I've had to deal with mind control before.
I rub my head a bit, and take a drag from the water bottle I had gotten. I wish I had some Flintstone vitamins. Hangovers are caused by two things. Loss of fluids and the deficiency of several common vitamins. I have water for the fluid, but I really need something for the vitamins. Oh well. At least things couldn't get much worse than they already are.
I'm about to stand up and get back to work at my job, when it hits me. I almost gasp as a wave of... something... rolls through me. It's not ki, or chi, or even magic. I've been hit by all of those before. This is something so different.
I have to investigate.
"Class," I call, and all of the girls turn to look at me. "I have to go make some phone calls. Keep up the good work."
"Yes, teacher," a dozen or so of them sing out, giving me weird looks. Maybe there's some kind of bug going around? Funny, they kind of remind me of the looks my old fiancés used to give me. Whatever.
I leave the field quietly, moving quickly but not running. I could still feel the power, whatever it is. It was kind of warm and sort of pulsing like a heart or something. It's really hard to describe. I circled the outside of the school, trying to pin point it down. As I turned a corner I could just barely make out a couple of voices. It sounded like they were coming from the roof. It sounded... like... screams...
I start to run. Damn it. What was I thinking? I should have been running from the start. With all the strange things going around, this is why I got the job, to be close when this kind of thing happens. I round another corner of Juuban High, and then I see it. The girl from the concert before, in the weird overcoat and the skimpy lace up whichimicallit. She was floating near the edge of the roof, and in front of her...
Two girls, dressed in the skimpy school uniform, suspended from the air by strands of hair from the floating girl. Even as I watched their bodies begin to disintegrate. I stood frozen in shock as they vanished until all that remained being two glowing crystals, and then those disappeared too.
No.
I am in the air before the conscious thought crosses my brain. I could clear four story building roofs when I was a teen, and now that I'm so much older, I am more than strong enough to make the height. I come at the floating woman, who was now laughing, with all the power of a tsunami. My spin back kick sends her ricocheting across the roof top like a deranged and oddly dressed pin ball. I finish my jump with a light landing on the railing of the school roof. I try to control my rage, and I manage to keep most of it locked up, but enough escapes into my aura to make it visible.
"Who dares strike me!?" the pinball screams as she tries to regain her feet. "I, Sailor Aluminum Siren will punish them in the name of Galaxia!"
My heart grows cold. Galaxia. That seems to be proof enough that Galaxia was involved in this. And seeing how this Aluminum Siren just knocked off two more girls, I'm going to have to assume that Galaxia is on the side of the bad guys.
I hop off of the iron railing and begin to move towards Aluminum Siren. "What are you doing here?" I ask. I'm dimly aware of their being more people on this rooftop, but even as more burst their way up through the door to the stairs, it doesn't matter. There is only me and Aluminum Siren.
"I am collecting sailor star seeds for the Lady Galaxia, and her Shadow Galactica!" she begins to declare shrilly, and I attack her mid sentence. This time she's ready for my assault though. She's no amateur
Despite her build and gender, her style reminds me of old school Ryoga. She is tough. Even though the blows I land on her cause her to flinch, they hurt my hands. She's fast too, but not as fast as me. She's not as skilled as me either, but that doesn't stop her from being good.
I was mid air with my legs extended to the sides in a perfect aerial split dodging a really nasty kick when a voice penetrates my battle fever. "We can't get a shot in! Get out of the way!"
I disengage from the combat with speed born from years of practicing the Anything Goes final technique. Aluminum Siren finds herself off balance from the lack of target, and two shouts ring out.
"Serious Star Laser!"
"Gentle Star Birth!"
The bracer around Aluminum Siren's wrist shatters, and then she is no more.
Despite the fact that she was a woman, and despite my dislike for killing, I can't really find it within myself to feel the least bit sorry for her.
---
The gym around me is silent except for the sounds of my breathing. I was practicing tonight. Not practicing my physical skills, but something infinitely harder.
My breath is even and gentle as I reach within myself and focus on my chi. The flows of the chi within the body are wild and chaotic. It rolls through and around your body like the tide, flowing and ebbing. With each measured breath, I try to stop that flow, to control it. Only after I have controlled it will I be a master of the art.
It's never been done before, as far as I know. It'll be cool to be the first.
The meeting between me and the scouts on the roof, after the defeat of Aluminum Siren, had not been pretty. I had been shocked to see the flirty blond, Aino I think her name was, there, but not terribly surprised to see the blond with the two strange ponytails. I think that maybe she's the center of all this.
That feels kind of weird, actually. For nearly all of my life I've had to put up with being the center of attention. I always hated it. But now that it looks like fate, or whatever, has decided to make someone else in the middle of all the chaos, I feel kind of empty. Maybe I'm being silly.
After the confrontation, we all went our different ways. The three in a different uniform then all the others, the leather ones, had jumped off the building and disappeared in a ball of light. I had nodded at the blond with the short hair, Haruka I think it was, and she had nodded guardedly back. My exit was less cool. I just used the stairs.
I sigh. Damn it. With all these things going on, I can't concentrate. It's useless to practice meditation when I'm all riled up like this. I think I'll just practice some chi and ki control.
The clock above me reads a very late time. I don't think I'm going to sleep much tonight.
To be continued.