The ancient crone named Baba Yaga cursed and spat saying, "You foolish bones! You damn foolish things! You have ruined everything! Wherever you are, whenever you are I spit on your names! I send you a curse in the names of all the dark gods. Let them hound your steps and try to destroy you, let them bring you to me kneeling and bloody. Then and only then will I personally end your miserable little existences by rending your souls into tiny little gibbets and casting them into oblivion!"

Baba Yaga's Curse: Friction with the machine

Chapter 1

2027 – 8 miles southwest of Falls City in Karnes County, Texas

A small compound of tents can be seen surrounded by a razor wire fence and four guard towers. The towers bristle with weapons and the only exit is a well guarded a set of gates. Outside the gates is a checkpoint with a large metallic tank and a pair of twin gleaming metallic robots armed with high energy weapons. A group of people trudges towards the gates with despair in their eyes. An elderly man looks behind the group and says, "It is finished now. The uranium diggers are complete and the machine to pull everything up is done. They don't need any of us anymore. When we go through those gates they will kill us."

A few of the group members silence him and they all continue dejectedly towards the checkpoint knowing that this may be the last time they see each other alive. Suddenly the robots at the checkpoint start looking around and the silver machine flies overhead at high speed. It explodes in a gigantic burst of plasma and then a small black haired girl with white feathered wings and a purple outfit lands right next to the group and yelled, "Silence wall!"

The twin robots and the tank open fire on the group, but the invisible wall protects them from all harm. Moments later another voice yells out, "Eruption!" and hot magma bursts forth from the ground incinerating all three machines. The speaker, s grayish pink haired girl dressed in green and brown, quickly flies past on butterfly wings to be joined in the air by a red haired girl surrounded in plasma flames and flying with flaming wings. The two girls use their combined might to destroy the guard towers and then they take on a squadron of flying machines. When the girls are finished they land softly on the ground and there is only silence.

The red haired girl lands and looks at her black haired friend and speaks, "Saturn, what's going on?"

"Thirty people here. Not sure about tents Sol-San." The red head nods and speaks in a strange language to her friend in the one still flying in the sky. The grayish pink haired girl responds in the same language and then flies in towards the tents. The red head follows close behind watching her back. The two girls find survivors and the red head directs them out of the compound and towards the rest of the humans standing at what is left of the checkpoint.

A female refugee steps towards Hotaru and says, "My child is in there. Have they seen my child?"

Saturn yells towards the Red head using the strange language again and the girl flies over the tents again at high speeds looking in each one. Finding nothing she flies towards the refugees and lands next to the woman. Speaking English the girl says, "I'm Sailor Sol. I work closely with Commander John Conner. He sent us to help you. Can you tell me where your child might be?"

The female human looks at Sailor Sol and says, "I'm Samantha. My boy is called Ian. He is prone to hiding and won't come out unless I call. I need to go in there and call him. Can you come with me?"

Sol nods and takes her hand. "It will be all right ma'am we will find your boy."

The two walk towards the tents while the pink haired girl flies up into the air and watches the skies for activity. As they walk Samantha calls out her son's name. A male voice calls back telling her that he is inside one of the tents. Samantha starts to walk towards the tent, but Sol grabs her shoulder and stops her. Then Sol mutters something silently and a plasma flame surrounds both women. Sol walks into the tent with Samantha behind her and then the tent explodes in a gigantic explosion. When the explosion is over Samantha and Sol can be seen standing in a small crater virtually unharmed. Unharmed until Samantha's hand turns into a silver blade and she attacks. Sol senses the attack and grabs the blade throwing Samantha across the compound. Samantha goes flying into one of the perimeter fences and her body turns into a sliver liquid which is able to flow through. The creature that was Samantha walks back through the fence and towards Sailor Sol. Moments later it is hit by a hot ball of plasma and is no more.

Sailor Sol sighs and then walks slowly around the camp shouting, "Ian! Are you here Ian? It's okay to come out now. After some minutes she stops shouting and walks back towards the checkpoint. When she arrives she addresses the group of humans, "That was a T1000. It is the most advanced infiltration unit created by Skynet. It killed Samantha and took her form possibly with the knowledge that the resistance was interested in shutting down this facility and saving you. Do any of you know if Samantha really did have a young boy named Ian and if so where he might be?"

The elderly man who had been pessimistic about the group's survival approached Sailor Sol and said. "The tent you went to would have been the one he was in. He's not alive anymore. In fact he probably hasn't been for about a week or so. That was when the machines found our secret tunnels and stormed in killing all of the children. It was punishment for our escape plans. Now we know how they found out. Now we know why Samantha's son survived the attack when no one else did. He was a machine! They were both machines, just damned machines!" The old man broke down in tears and then he yelled at Sailor Sol saying, "Why didn't you come earlier! Why couldn't you have come when my grandson Charlie was still alive?" He swung at Sol and missed and then a young brown haired woman came from the group came and put her hand on his shoulder escorting him away. She came back and said, "I'm sorry about that Miss Sol. He's, well we've all bee through a lot. We are all very grateful and would like to thank you for coming and saving us. It's just hard for us."

Sailor Sol looked in her eyes and saw the pain and loss in them. She saw it in her eyes and in the old man's and in every person she had seen in this world. They all had lost something and she couldn't do anything at all about that. She spoke softly and said, mostly to herself, "Protect the weak you always said that pops a martial artist's duty. But, I can't protect them all. Even with all this power…"

Sol's reverie was broken by Beryl, "Reinforcements will be coming soon Sol. We need to be gone."

"First we complete the mission. These people have been working on a machine called The Digger. Isn't that right Miss?"

"Shaw and its Mrs. Shaw my husband may be dead, but I'll carry his name anyway. You're right Miss Sol ever since we were brought here we have been mining Uranium and working on the construction of that thing. It is designed to gather all the uranium from the mine without human assistance. If you look close you can just see the glint of metal from here."

Sailor Sol said, "Is that so. Well then I think we have a solution for the machine." She motioned to the young black haired girl with wings and pointed to the glint of metal. The girl leveled her pole arm and shouted, "Silence Glaive Surprise!" The Glaive was not leveled very high off the ground, but that did not matter. The Silence came forth and it consumed the ground in front of it making a large trench. It continued farther away making a gigantic tunnel devouring with its hunger until it met the machine called the digger and devoured that as well. Then when it was finished devouring the digger The Silence dissipated.

The group of humans stared in awe at the destruction that had been caused, but they were not allowed to stand there gaping for long when Sailor Sol said, "Alright people listen up! As I said before we have been sent by John Conner and the resistance. We have rescued you and now it is time to get to a safe haven. There are no more machines in the camp so gather whatever necessities you need and meet us back here at this checkpoint in one hour."

When she was done speaking Sailor Sol flew into the air and patrolled the skies for danger while the human refugees found what they needed in their tents and prepared for a long march. When they were finished Sailor Sol met them at the checkpoint with the other two girls. "Alright people listen up! On my right in the green and brown outfit and sporting grayish pink hair is Sailor Terra. On my left in the purple and black outfit and sporting black hair is Sailor Saturn. I am Sailor Sol and the three of us will be with you for the duration of a five day hike to the rendezvous point. From there you will be taken in trucks to a safe haven. Until we get you to that haven we are in charge. We tell you where to eat, where to sleep and what do. There will be no questions asked. If any of you are going to have a problem with that speak up now so that we can leave you here and save the rest of the group from a horrible death that you might cause!"

No one in the group seemed inclined to have problems and so they all followed Sailor Sol as she walked off. As they marched a light came into some people's eyes a light that hadn't been in them for a long time. That light was hope.

Six days later Ranma Saotome alias John Conner sat in a desk in his private office. The room's walls were covered with many maps of the United States and the rest of the world. On each map were the known locations of Machine facilities and lines were drawn on each one to show the limits of Machine patrols. A few small dots here and there on each map represented Human Resistance outposts. A few other dots represented known human incarceration camps. Ranma sighed as he stared at his maps then he sighed again as he looked at a single white wallboard where he had written two numbers. The first number was the amount of humans in the resistance and the second represented a guess at the numbers of humans left in the incarceration camps. The second number went down every day as the machines slowly eradicated their human servants. Unfortunately the first number was going down as well.

Ranma sighed again and looked at Commander Sarah Conner's report. He thought to himself, My mother. She's my mother I have to remember that. When I am John Conner she is my mother and I am her son. Then he read the report:

EYES ONLY TOP SECRET

To: General John Conner

From: Commander Sarah Conner

RE: St. Louis mission

The most recent mission in St. Louis was mostly successful. With inside help we were able to tunnel in to the production facility and save all of the human workers. By using dogs we were able to find the terminator infiltration units and destroy them. We were also able to use charges and destroy the production facility. The problem arose just as we were escaping the facility one of the factory workers approached the rescue team and exploded killing four of our men and wounding three of the workers. After the explosion I noticed a small pool of silver liquid. Recognizing that the liquid was pooling towards itself I quickly gathered the rest of our team and the workers together we double timed it to the checkpoint. Our retreat was hounded by the T-1000 the entire way. Still we were able to make it to the checkpoint and from there we made haste to a safe zone.

John this incident does not mesh with our information. The St. Louis factory was in the process of making more HK fighters and bombers as well as the newly advanced T-850 series of infiltration terminators that we assume may be immune to our K-9 units and their senses. The facility has been destroyed, but there was no evidence of any mimetic pollyalloy facilities or any computers on site capable of creating said devices. This means that the T-1000 was most likely not from this facility and unless you have hacker reports that suggest otherwise this may mean that Skynet has created more missions than we ever realized.

John please be very careful without the Senshi protocol you are not safe from a T-1000 unit.

General Conner finished reading the report and glanced at his hacker report. It suggested that Skynet was just starting experimentation in time and space displacement and had made a few halting steps towards the creation of a mimetic pollyalloy. Somehow he knew that his mother was right Skynet was using time travel devices in the future to try and stop him now. Anger burned in his very soul as he remembered his past. A past that he hadn't actually lived through but whose memories had been given to him. He remembered that past just like it was yesterday:

She is standing on the gigantic orbital platform. Gleaming towers and defense turrets shine and the solar fleet stands ready. An honor guard surrounds her and marches her towards a set of gigantic stairs leading to a high platform. At the top of the platform is another young looking lady wearing red robes. She holds a double bladed plasma sword in one hand and the other is holding a single slim rod. Taya knows the woman well from thousand of broadcasts when she was a child and hundreds of briefings. The woman on the platform is her supreme commander the Princess of Sol. Taya freezes at the bottom of the steps wondering if she is worthy; wondering if she will be able to fill the princess' shoes. The princess smiles at her and then she nods. Taya walks slowly up the stairs towards the Princess each step reaffirming her own confidence; confidence in her fighting skills, diplomatic abilities and in herself. By the time she reaches to top of the podium she is practically glowing with confidence and pride.

Taya bows low and the princess and tells her to wait where she is until she calls for her. So she and the honor guard stay at a respectful distance. The princess limps slowly forward on the platform with the help of a young seneschal and begins her speech. "My loyal soldiers I have been with you for almost three hundred years. I have been with you during our finest hours among the moons of Jupiter. I have been there with you at the most trying battle of Callisto. I have been there for all the ups and downs, through horrible and bloody combat and quiet diplomacy. My tenure as princess has been the most satisfying and wonderful thing I have ever been given the privilege of doing while at the same time it has also been the most grueling and even heart wrenching job I have ever been given. In all of those times the best and the worst, the one thing that kept me going was our ideal; the ideal that we have all known and understood throughout our lives. Solis Custodes Omnis!"

The honor guard around them, the crown gathered below and even Taya herself repeated back in a crescendo of sound, "Solis Custodes Omnis!"

The princess waited for the roar to die down before she continued on. "But, as you may all know I have become ill. A strange sickness has grown within me that even the power of the Sun can not cure. As the sickness gained strength I set out to find a replacement; a person who could complete the most grueling physical tasks and understand the most subtle diplomacy; a person who would truly understand our ideal and continue to uphold it for all time."

The princess gestured and nodded to Taya who then came forward onto the platform as well. The princess held Taya's hand and said, "To all the loyal soldiers of Sol most of you know this woman standing next to me is. Many of you have fought by her side in battle. Many of you have seen her brilliant tactics near Uranus. For those of you who have not had the honor of serving under her and those of you who have please allow me to introduce to you all for the last time to General Taya!"

The crowd exploded into applause once again and the princess said, "Now comes the time for me to pass my mantle on and to give you a new princess, one with vitality and vibrancy, one with intelligence and power." The Princess held out the rod and slowly handed it to Taya. Taya held the rod up high and felt the power of sol within the little rod and stared at the princess. Then she looked at the rod in her hands again and suddenly all of her confidence was gone. If she did this, if she used the rod the princess would die.

A tear came to Taya's eye and she started to lower the rod. She didn't feel worthy anymore, not at all, but the Princess looked at her and whispered. "You must do this. I will die soon anyway. Someone must be the princess and I have chosen you. You are worthy to be my successor."

Taya held the rod up and said the words, "Solar Strength Makeup." Suddenly the magic of Sol surrounded Taya and transformed her. She was garbed in elbow length white gloves and a bright yellow leotard with a red skirt, a spectacular yellow diamond tiara rested on her head and she was suddenly wearing a pair of red high heels. Then in her hands was a red and yellow double bladed sword. She ended the transformation in a battle pose.

The Princess of Sol stood next to Taya and she was now dressed in loose flowing white robes. The Princess started to fall, but Taya caught her. In her Taya's arms the princess looked directly into her eyes and said quietly, "Remember always remember Solis Custodes Omnis." Those were her last words.

Suddenly the honor guard surrounded Taya and the seneschal said loudly and clearly, "The Princess is dead! Long live Princess Taya!"

The assembled crowd shouted back in a crescendo of sound, "Long Live Princess Taya!"

Ranma broke out of the memory and said to himself, "This is about Skynet isn't it?" He knew the answer already he knew why the memory had come to him. It was because Taya's entire purpose had been to a protector, a watcher that was the promise she had made to her princess a promise to a dead woman. Skynet had originally been designed to do the same thing. It had been designed to protect and watch over the human race, but it had completely turned on that duty and while that pissed Ranma Saotome off it sent Taya into a veritable volcano of anger and this new tactic of using time travel was just the icing on the cake. It was just one more reason to want the machine and its allies destroyed forever.

Ranma took a number of cleansing breaths and then a phone on his desk rang. He picked it up and heard his own female voice say, "Yes?" That was when he realized that he was a girl and wearing the Senshi outfit. He quickly changed back into his John Connor disguise and tried again saying, "Yes?"

It was Beryl on the other end. She laughed and said, "Sir Lieutenant Colonel Peterson is here for the briefing on the extraction mission in Las Vegas."

Ranma stared at his desk trying to remember which mission that was then he saw a manila folder with Las Vegas stamped on its edge. He picked it up and opened it on his desk thanking the gods that Beryl had once been a megalomaniacal queen and that said experience lead her to be the worlds most efficient Office Manager as well as a great fighter. He said, "Alright send him in. Oh and Master Sergeant when is the next practice session?"

"It should be on your right sir. Hotaru just gave me the updated training schedule for all base personnel an hour ago."

Ranma smiled again. When he originally had met Hotaru she had been a sickly black haired girl. Now with his training she had become almost as good as Beryl and had gained a knack for teaching advanced combat skills to others. He had no idea what he would do without either of the two girls. "Alright, thank you Beryl."

Beryl said, "You're welcome sir." Then her voice became husky as she included, "Maybe this time when we're done we can shower together..."

Ranma stiffened when he remembered the last time that had happened. The two other girls had splashed her with warm soapy water and then chased him around flinging more soap on him. He had retaliated and it had become a soapy nude battle that he had barely extricated himself from before, well before… Ranma forcible broke himself out of that second reverie and held his nose saying, "That will be all Master Sergeant!"

"Very well sir." The voice on the line teased. Then a tall brown haired man walked into the room and saluted. Ranma looked up at the rigid young man realizing that it was Lieutenant Colonel Peterson. Something felt wrong and that strange power he had gained was acting up, but he ignored it, figuring that he would examine the power later during practice.

"At ease."

The young man sat down and Suddenly Sailor Saturn appeared in front of him. The black haired girl shouted, "Silence Wall!" and then the Lieutenant exploded. "The explosion expended itself on Saturn's protective barrier while everything inside was left unharmed. Saturn dropped the barrier and embraced Ranma with a wash of tears going down her face. "Thank the gods you're alive Ranma-san uh I mean Conner-San!"

Ranma accepted the embrace with a bit of shock. He tried to comfort the girl and as her tears dried a little Sailor Terra flew though the demolished doorway and into the room they both said, "Okay what the hell just happened here?"

Saturn seemed happier as she let go of the hug and then she beamed at Earth. "It worked! Your theory was correct, you figured out a way to use the strange chronological energy we have running through us and it worked!"

Ranma looked confused and said, "Okay Hotaru, but, what exactly does that mean."

"It means that we can travel through time and that Beryl's theory might be true."

Ranma and Beryl looked at each other with confusion plain on their faces. Ranma used his General Conner voice to say, "Okay Commander Tomoe why don't you start again this time you can start from the top?"

Hotaru just giggled and hugged Ranma again. "Yes Sir, General Sir!" She said smiling at him and then she kissed him on the forehead, the nose and finally full on the lips. It was electric and powerful. Ranma felt himself stiffening and then the kiss was over. Hotaru stepped back and said almost lecherously, "Shall I continue on down sir or should I just stay at the top?"

Ranma was too shocked to say anything other than, "Gah!"

Beryl stepped forward and said, "Terra, I know your English can be bad, but even you should know that he meant that you should tell us the entire story."

Hotaru beamed at Beryl and said, "I know that Terra-san, but I've wanted to do that ever since Sailor-Sol saved my life. You know how prude and shy she-he can be. Plus, I wanted to make up for all that time he's been gone from us. It's been years"

A tear came to Hotaru's eye as she finished speaking and Beryl walked over to her and hugged her saying, "No harm I understand." Then she put her lips close to Hotaru's ear and said, "But I get one too after you're done telling us the details."

Hotaru stepped back and said, "From him or me?"

Beryl licked her lips and said lasciviously, "Both!"

"Beryl-san!" Hotaru didn't look nearly as shocked as she sounded. Beryl wondered about that for a moment and then she saw some people coming from another office. She sighed and said, "Play time is over Saturn. I'll prop what's left of this door up and then Master Chief Beryl can deal with the commotion.

Hotaru sighed wistfully as Sailor Earth propped the door up. Then Earth changed into Beryl changed and walked out the door and explained the situation to the new comers. After a bit more chaos and an announcement to the entire base about the incident there was finally time for Hotaru, Beryl, and Ranma to sit back down around Ranma's desk.

Hotaru looked at her friend sadly and said, "This is hard for me. Very hard, so please let me tell it all the way through. You can ask me questions when I'm done."

The other two nodded and Hotaru started her tale, "It all started today. You see Ranma-san didn't originally survive the explosion. We tried and tried to heal him, but shrapnel had pierced his brain, heart and lungs. He wasn't conscious and without his Senshi powers to aid us there was nothing we could do.

"After that we buried him in Japan near the old location of Tokyo. We came back here and tried to pick up the pieces, but neither of us could disguise ourselves to be John Conner. We tried to keep the death a secret, but without a real person it just wasn't possible this time. Too many people knew he had been here on this base and the machines themselves started to circulate a rumor. Once people realized that John had been killed they lost their spirit and will. Beryl and I tried to fight anyway, we tried to keep the resistance together, but Commander Sarah Conner was killed in an assassination attempt as well. Without her our voices were not enough. We were shouted down and most of the resistance stopped fighting back and instead retreated to the Carlsbad safe zone, thinking that it would truly be safe from the machines."

"In the end only Beryl and I were left fighting. For awhile it seemed like the safe zone would truly be a safe zone and then one day the machines massed a massive force and set out directly towards the safe zone. Beryl and I fought the army for what seemed like days. Destroying their air support and ground units, but they just kept on coming and then it happened. We were only 15 miles from the safe zone when we saw the gigantic nuclear blast. The army had just been a decoy, a decoy to keep Sailor Saturn and Sailor Earth busy while the infiltration units set the bomb. We had defeated an entire army, but we had lost the war. My hope almost died that day, but Beryl convinced me to go on. She convinced me that maybe we could do something. That maybe the new power we had originally felt when we came to this world would be useful."

"Without any people left to protect we stopped fighting the machines and started to experiment with the power. After two practice sessions we realized that the new power was chronological in nature and so our hopes rose even more. We spent even more and more time using the power and it did not subside."

"We continued to use the power and determined that we could use it to travel through time, but not for long distances. We could only go back or forward in time for short distances at most a few minutes. Each time we used the power we reached a limit and it was like we were missing a piece of the puzzle."

"That was when Beryl theorized that we were not using left over power from the Gate of Time, but that instead when we had used our power to try and destroy the Gate we only partially succeeded. She suggested that somehow when the artifact had disintegrated from our attack it had immediately tried to reintegrate itself. The problem being that we were right there and so when the gate reintegrated itself it put its pieces into us and that was why we were able to access this new temporal power even when we weren't in our Senshi forms."

"Still, without you we were only two thirds of the gate. We needed the third piece of the gate to truly access the power. We traveled to Tokyo hoping that your body would contain that last piece of the gate. Imagine our surprise when we arrived at your grave and found one third of an archway sticking up from the ground proving that Beryl's theory was correct."

"About an hour after we arrived an entire squadron of machines attacked. By then they had created battle tanks capable of withstanding our attacks and could use their own technological devices to teleport anywhere on the planet. We still weren't sure if we could use your portion of the gate, but we didn't want the machines to gain possession of it either. So, we followed your example and improvised. Sailor Terra held onto your portion of the gate with one hand and I held her other hand. She channeled her power through that portion of the gate and into me while I used my power and envisioned the time and date that I wanted to arrive at."

Hotaru finished her tale by saying, "It worked and now here I am."

Beryl spoke up first, "What about the Hotaru who was just here? Shouldn't there be two copies of you now or something?

"No, I arrived within her body. That is what happened on our previous attempts to travel into the past. We always ended up in our own bodies. You theorized that it might be some type of anti-paradox effect."

Beryl smiled and said, "Hmm, yes that makes some sense. It doesn't completely eliminate paradox, but it does prevent you from meeting or interacting with your past and future selves.

Ranma looked at Beryl with confusion and said, "How do you know all this stuff?"

"It goes with the territory. Remember that I was a megalomaniacal queen out to rule the world and defeat the people who were reborn in the present from a past where their own Queen had trapped my empress and me in an otherspace dimension."

Ranma looked at her and said, "You mentioned that the first time you told me about your past. To be honest I still don't quite understand it all. I don't suppose switching this conversation to Japanese would help with it or the whole time travel thing?"

"No not really."

"Alright let's just move on then. I think what you're saying is that as long as we are together we can travel through time even without the Skynet device?"

"That's right Ranma-san."

"Okay, one more thing. Just before the Lieutenant exploded I felt a strange power inside me acting up. It also happened in Texas when the child blew up and the T-1000 attacked me. What do you think? Is my portion of the gat reacting to someone or something else that has traveled through time?"

"It does seem possible."

"I concur Ranma-san."

Ranma pondered that for a moment and said, "So we have an early warning device and we should start heeding it immediately. Any time you feel your portion of the gate reacting you should transform immediately and put up a shield. Hopefully that will prevent any more successful assassinations on us."

Beryl said, "But will that be enough? We know now that sometime in the future the Machines will complete their time travel device and will be able to use it many more times than we ever suspected. That means even though we can avoid personal harm our plans could be foiled through other means just through the machines own knowledge of past events. We need to stop their time traveling and we need to stop it right now."

"How can we do that Beryl-san?"

"I don't know we already determined that a direct attack on the Cheyenne Mountain complex would be suicidal. We can teleport to the front gates, but without more knowledge of the internal base we wouldn't get inside without fighting an army of machines and going through a veritable maze filled with traps."

Ranma looked at a chart in his office with man power and supplies. He looked at the map of human slave camps and resistance outposts. He looked at it all and said, "It's not possible. We don't have enough support troops and equipment right now and we just won't have enough men or equipment for at least two years. Maybe we could rush things, but I doubt it and Sarah Conner agrees."

"We need more time." Ranma sighed looking at a digital display on his desk it read 2:00 P.M. July 14, 2027. Suddenly the idea came into his head. "That's it time!"

The other two girls stared at him for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. Ranma took a deep breath and said, "Alright we can't just enter the facility right now and destroy Skynet or its time travel machine. Heck, the time machine doesn't even exist yet, but we could go back in time right? Back when Skynet didn't exist and then we could destroy it couldn't we?"

Beryl shook her head and said, "Wait, didn't Commander Conner herself tell us that she went in with her son and a terminator unit. They destroyed Cyberdyne System's main labs and research and yet it was able to recover in only a year right? Doesn't that the future is fixed?"

Ranma said, "Maybe you are right Beryl, but we should try. If it doesn't work we know that Skynet is using Cheyenne Mountain as its base of operations. We can go there in the past and figure out where it is. Once we know Skynet's location we can travel forward in time again perhaps all the way to 2029 where we will then be able to destroy it and the time machine. Either way we will destroy Skynet once and for all time."

Hotaru and Beryl voiced agreement with the plan and Ranma said, "Alright now all we need to do is learn how to use the gate and its power right?"

Hotaru nodded once again and Ranma smiled to himself. He thought that the day had gone quite well all things considered after all he should be dead and he wasn't, plus they now had a plan to defeat Skynet and its time travel device. It was a perfect plane. What could go wrong?

Author's Notes:

Baba Yaga's Quests will remain unchanged, but I have decided that I will work on this again and so I have cleaned this chapter and added a prologue which is a somewhat changed version of the epilogue in the Quests. I have done all of this in preparation for future chapters to come. The terminator arc will likely take at least two more chapters to finish up and then Ranma and the gang will be off to other horizons.

I hope to see you there.

Q