Ruroni Ranko
Chapter Seven

by Skysaber
aka Jared Ornstead

During the mushroom incident events diverge from normal and enemies try to take advantage of our pigtailed hero. Unfortunately for them, attempts to get rid of him often go disastrously wrong.

When the glass flew apart Ranma was already sprinting, with Rae held protectively in his arms, to a safer location. The shards of glass flying past were individually enough to destroy his present dream body, so he was forced to block with his sword held in one hand while he cradled his date with the other as he sprinted to safety.

Luckily, he had learned long ago to knock out an entire hive of bees without getting stung. The difficulty here was similar; higher in that he was using only one hand, not two, and lower in that bees dodged, changed course, and flitted about while trying to reach you and shards of glass did not.

However, the enraged martial artist following them was a different story.

Realizing that his attacker was serious was a bit of a stretch for the young samurai. The types of death-duel he'd fought were silent matters of nearly invisible fast strokes and constant pressing for advantage.

Stopping to gloat was not on the agenda, nor was posing with a half dozen swords coming out each sleeve so your opponent could see that you've mastered the 'feathers of wings' resemblance and guess that you've got a bird-based fighting style, and thus reason that you've got bird-motion based attacks featuring sweeps and jabs.

Hey, it HAD been awhile since he'd last fought Mousse.

However, Ranma had ALSO sword an oath - or rather, his father Seijuro had sworn that as long as they were courting him, the Sailor Scouts would have the swords of the Hiten Mitsurugi for their protection.

Thus, they WOULD!

That was not negotiable, debatable or subject to sudden withdrawal. It simply would be fulfilled, there was no doubt of that. Failure was, to use a cliche, not an option. But for a samurai, like Ranma, failure was also an impossibility. He would either succeed or die trying, which was not any form of failure to abide by his code.

Ranma would not ever break his oaths. No, not even the ones Seijuro made on his name. And right now this crazed bird-guy was attacking, declaring lethal intent both by his words and use of edged blades.

Rae was therefore in danger.

Therefore, she would be defended, to the death if necessary. His own if required.

Actually, a quick death of this attacker was preferable, as Ranma realized that his clone body could not take a hit. Even a hard block was probably beyond his current ability. Therefore, he decided to end this swiftly, depositing the pretty Sailor of Fire off in a side corridor and reversing course to suddenly assault their attacker.

"Hiten Mitsurugi style: Dragon Hammer Strike!!"

The godlike speed of Hiten Mitsurugi was enough to land a solid blow on nearly anyone, but as it turned out, the demonically empowered Mousse was one of those rare exceptions. A fan of swords blocked the attack that really ought to have split the nearly blind man's skull in twain, and the dark magic powered Amazon male replied in turn with a flurry of spiked maces on chains that shot out into Ranma's stomach and blew the dream body backwards to smash into a wall and vanish in a 'poof' of momentary refractive glare.

Across Nerima and Juuban, six other dream bodies of Ranma looked up, in the direction of the unexpected fight. Making a quick judgment call, the four with other dates gave those girls notice of what was happening and went on their guard to protect them. The other two, the ones from the Mirror Mansion, dropped what they were doing and began to race that way at once.

One of them got splashed by the ladle lady on their way out of Nerima.

The dream clone with Amy, being the one closest to the fight, got up and performed a small number of hand seals. "Summoning The Beast Within! NekoKen!"

Right there in the middle of the park, a huge feline composed entirely of blue lightning appeared on the smooth green lawn and roared. That Ranma instantly gave it orders, "Go and defend Rae Hino, at once!"

And the lightning cat raced off. But being somewhat contrary (as cats often are) it gave itself silent permission to make a small stop along the way there.

"We've got to go help them!" Amy insisted as the cat launched itself off to race toward that studio.

Her copy of Ranma nodded. "I must inform you that, as much as I would like to, I may not be able to defend you. I cannot take any damage or I'll vanish."

"But Rae is in danger!" the bluenette insisted.

"Then we shall go." And he went with the girl to guard her as she ducked into a private space and transformed.

To no one's surprise, the declaration from Amy was repeated almost word for word with Serena, and soon two Sailor Scouts and their escorts were heading toward that studio.

Other dates were also informed, as a precautionary measure, and they had their own reactions to this bit of news.

OoOoO

Akane Tendo was not a happy girl.

While her older sister Kasumi was hobnobbing with powerful business tycoons and getting treated to rare delicacies of strange and expensive food dishes while multimillionaires surrounded her with appreciative glances, Tatewaki had turned his eyes off of Akane for a moment and his guards had thrown her out for making a disturbance.

She hadn't known there was a pig pen anywhere near the Kuno estate.

Hauling herself out from where she'd landed face-first into the muck and mire, clothes filthy beyond description and the smell assaulting her nostrils, she caught sight (using watery eyes) of a traditional bathhouse and made right for it, just as the stuff got into her wounds and made her lose all sense of reason in her haste to get washed...

Somehow forgetting completely that she'd left her purse, with all of her money and ID, back at the house.

OoOoO

Darien Shields unlocked and opened the door to his lonely apartment. Ever since that accident where he and his family had been driving along, skidded off the side of a slick road and drove into that pit of starving cats left behind by an insane martial artist who'd just gotten done torturing his son there, he'd lived the life of an orphan.

In some ways he was lucky not to wind up in an animal hospital. But when he'd woken up after getting badly mauled in the same pit of cats where his parents had gotten chewed to death, he'd at least locked down the animal behavior behind a sheltering wall of amnesia.

It would be nice to recall who his parents were, but it was nicer still not to require a scratching post and a flea collar.

So completely were his memories of that day buried that he wasn't even particularly frightened by cats anymore. What residual phobia remained had vanished under careful psychiatric treatment. And for that, he counted himself lucky.

Then, stepping into his room, a primal fear caught hold of him by the neck and lifted his hackles. Turning, horror movie slowly, toward the window he caught sight of his fear, a glowing cat composed of solid lightning simply radiating the essence of feline, and the man hauled back his head and yowled. "MeEOooOooOW!!"

Now standing on all fours, Neko-Darien hissed at the intruder, "Mrrr! Fft! Fft!"

Ranma's lightning neko bounded into the room and subdued the rival feline, trapping its face under a paw. Then, after explaining that IT was Alpha Male, allowed the other up, after informing the subservient creature that it would be following to help defend the pride's queens against a threat.

OoOoO

One of Jedite's earlier schemes was a "You too can be famous" scam for draining energy from an entire stadium of well-wishers, and a packed throng of would-be famous people, all of whom were driving themselves to their limits trying to get ahold of the major superstar contract that was offered to the lucky pair of winners.

Actually, many things had been adjusted just a bit by the cascading ripples through time, and, due to prevailing circumstances, everything had been going splendidly for the Dark General. There had been such a rush of eager non-redheaded Japanese girls hoping for a studio contract that the project had grown beyond Jedite's original intentions. So more and more studio people had gotten involved and eventually blown the whole thing up to monstrous proportions, including a televised broadcast and a panel of professional judges to preside over the event.

The potential energy gains had been vast. Had it succeeded, the Negaverse would have had all of the energy they needed for quite some time to come. So, in response to that, established remnants of the Silver Moon warning system had momentarily called Sailor V back from England to deal with the threat personally, and Artemis had swiftly taught her a Sailor Teleport just so she could achieve that without having to go through the delay of flight or the awkwardness of trying to beg her parents for money to buy tickets.

The ever-plucky Sailor V had arrived in time to run into Serena on a sidewalk, just as preliminary registrations started. The moon cat Luna had sensed odd vibes from the other blonde girl (who was in costume, but under the effects of a disguise pen), and so sent her own charge into an alley to transform and disguise to follow her - which had them both picking up odd vibes from the other.

Naturally, this led to the extremely odd occurrence of Sailor V, under disguise to be a normal girl so she could pass as one contest hopeful among dozens, being followed by Sailor Moon, who just happened to be in disguise to be a normal girl passing herself off as a contest hopeful, both hunting youma but unaware of the special nature of the other Sailor near her, and wondering if that other Sailor wasn't a disguised youma, just as the true enemy who was running the contest announced that all entries had to be in teams of two.

The two stalking Scouts had stared at each other, caught alone together while all others around them immediately paired up. Like twins, they rubbed their heads in identical motions as they wondered how to get out of this, but both bowed to the inevitability of their alibis as contest hopefuls, and as soon as that they were a team, each one suspecting the other of being the youma the whole time.

Had Artemis come along he would have put an end to the Luna inspired nonsense and those two girls doubtless would have made contact and joined one another, finding the true threat much earlier and connecting as fellow Scouts, but that much more sensible white cat had stayed behind in England, fearing that his charge might not have enough energy to make that teleport while carrying him.

So those girls went through the motions of entering and trying to win the contest, each one trying to figure out what the other was up to while they got the preliminaries out of the way.

Since Jedite was in charge, nobody got eliminated in the first stage trials as he was trying to build up as big a crowd of contestants as he could, so everybody advanced to the final round and at the end of that day two Sailor Scouts went to their respective homes, each churning up inside with wonderings over what the other was up to.

A few days had been spent in tense frustration as they'd tried to find out, each one spying on the other in a rather comical fashion. Yet in the end, both of their hunts proved fruitless as they weren't investigating the actual source of the evil, only each other. And due to the cosmic coincidences involved, all they did was find out how much alike they were - and assumed that was deliberate imitation because they'd each caught the other spying from time to time, and so consequently assumed some nefarious design behind it.

In that way, the final day of the contest and the springing of Jedite's trap arrived.

Disguise pens being disguise pens and arising as they do from the super-powerful Silver Moon Kingdom they actually impart some of the needed skills to fill out the roles their disguises were to play. So, on the day of the actual contest when both girls (in their different homes) had held up their pens and shouted out, "Moon Disguise Power! Change me into an up-and-coming superstar!" they got more than fancy clothes and good makeup.

And so, once they'd arrived on stage, they'd both danced and sang flawlessly with effortless movements, economy of motion, and a beautiful symmetry to all of their actions while they performed, each one going through her part of a marvelous paired act while quietly waiting for the other girl to monster out and start gobbling energy.

Naturally, it was the show host who turned out to be the youma, monstering out after having drained most of the participants and all of the studio crew and audience.

Being Sailors, both girls were astonishingly resistant to energy drain compared to normal people. So they were the only ones still on stage by the time the youma made her switch from innocent show host to deranged killing machine, catching both of her remaining guests by surprise as, until that point, they'd still been deeply suspecting each other.

Luckily, both girls had already transformed to full Sailor costumes before coming to the studio, wearing those under their disguise illusions, each knowing there'd be a battle and wanting to be ready for it on a moment's notice.

Sailor V, being a veteran of these attacks for some time now, held onto her wits and gave the monster a severe pounding right off the bat. Her display of courage helped with Sailor Moon's sudden bout of shock, getting her to rally very quickly.

Twin attacks followed, and youma dust was the end result.

Coincidentally, cameras following automatic programs caught all of this action even after their crews had succumbed to energy draining attacks.

Now this could have gone any number of ways, most of them bad.

What was oddly fortunate for the two young blonde girls was that all this time they hadn't thought to drop their disguises during the battle. Now a strange thing about how the Sailor costume magic worked was if the Scouts didn't want to be recognized, they wouldn't be recognized, even if they had to beat up a monster in front of a nationwide broadcast, as they had that day. And, this time working to compliment that was a core principle behind how those disguise pens worked, namely, whatever you wanted to be disguised as, you WOULD be recognized as by whoever viewed you, until that disguise was dropped.

Normally those features didn't work well together, and so the more powerful magic of the Sailor costume took precedence, overriding the disguise in times of battle. But both of those girls deeply wanted to be stars, and so they got recognized - just not as Sailor Scouts. Their costumes correctly read their intentions NOT to be seen as Scouts in that case and so in spite of using Sailor Scout magic attacks on live TV, they didn't get recognized as magical girls, but instead as the ordinary, blonde, teenaged girls they'd gone disguised as, namely themselves as up-and-coming superstars.

Of course, it probably helped that Serena had panicked after the fight was over and run to hide in the girl's restroom while she got over her initial shock at having done a youma battle on nationwide TV. She did her de-transformation there, while Mina did exactly the same thing in a different girl's bathroom on the other side of the studio. So none of their transformations were actually done before witnesses.

Both blondes had sighed with relief and gotten ready to go home. But so large had this project grown that its momentum continued on, even after the Dark General dropped the scheme after his youma was defeated, with a bunch of embarrassed judges getting up off the floor to proclaim that peculiar pair of young girls were the winners due not only to their having the best act by far, and continuing on even after the other contestants dropped, but from being able to shift their act seamlessly over to deal with an intrusion onto the set by a surprise monster, obviously sent down from special effects to spice up the occasion.

Several of the contestants wanted to force a redo of the auditions because of what they thought was a building fault leading to a gas leak that made everyone sleepy, but the producers insisted that the triple whammy of those two blondes had all of the others beat in spite of any technical difficulties the show might have experienced.

So the girls got contracts as major teen superstars, just like Jedite had promised. The general had made those promises with no intention of carrying them out. But this time he had made them using so many studio resources and such a highly publicized campaign that the parent company couldn't back out of it.

Almost as a counterbalance to this amazing stroke of luck for both of them, neither girl had recognized that their partner was a Sailor Scout in all of that confusion. And so Sailor V, who was still getting resettled, having only just now to her homeland, and was being kept frantically busy most of the time anyway, hadn't joined the rest of the Sailor team as yet.

In fact, both Scouts were so embarrassed over having suspected the other of being the youma that whole time that they'd suffered some emotional backlash from it, dropping the other off of her own threat radar completely and no longer suspecting her of anything. An amusing irony that was actually preventing them from linking up as Sailor Scouts.

Mina's parents were overjoyed that their precious daughter got selected to be a star by a major studio in Japan, though they were a little confused as to how that had happened when they were in England, and the girl had to work her tail off to get the Dark Syndicate finished off early so she could return to Japan to start her career.

Serena's parents were dumbstruck. Even after watching the videos of the show they could hardly believe that their often inept and bumbling daughter had performed so well as to have gotten an actual teen idol star contract, and at a major studio as well. Of course, they responded by instantly signing her up for all sorts of lessons, including everything a young teen idol needs from dancing and singing to other forms of music, and particularly acting.

Wanting their little girl to live as normal a life as possible, Serena's parents also hadn't withdrawn her from ordinary school as yet, in spite of pressure by the studio to do so and convert her schooling over to full-time tutoring, which did a better job in less time and also freed up her schedule tremendously, adding flexibility to provide room for her growing film and music career.

For right now the Tsukino family had determined to make life as normal for Serena as possible, and were even insisting on free time to spend with her friends. What that meant for the studio angle was that far more had to be crammed into less time, and that was giving the poor girl a significant burden trying to keep up with it.

It was all such a heavy load Luna was forced to relent and make available some Silver Moon study aids or her young charge would've been unable to carry on in her Sailor duties. She even went so far as to do a few small adjustments via her Luna Mind Meld to reawaken some of Serena's talents from the Silver Moon Kingdom. After all, every one of the Scouts back then had been accomplished singers, musicians and dancers. It was how the Royal Court spent much of their time, after all, and as planetary princesses they'd all been trained up to a high degree of accomplishment in those arts so as to not embarrass their homes with their performance at the palace of the Queen.

Thanks to that, Serena began to excel at her acting and musical career to a degree that astonished everybody, including Luna (perhaps especially Luna. Her parents had had faith that great potential lay deeply buried in their daughter, and had tried to awaken it from time to time, while the black cat openly doubted that potential's existence fairly often). Her schedule as a brand new superstar was still hectic, but thanks to the 'friends time' her parents insisted on, she was even able to make room in her day for a significant sized date with a potential future husband.

Girls at her school were equal parts jealousy and admiration.

The five million dollar paycheck for her first project would have been a source of considerably more envy, had not both girls' sets of parents immediately locked the money in accounts for their daughter's futures.

Serena was so bummed that in spite of being a millionaire she was still dependent on her allowance to play video games. But she was also grateful that she had the job in the first place, and had given profuse thanks to her cat for her help on getting the skills to keep up with that.

While Luna had to have her tail tweaked to provide that extra help, Artemis gave Mina hers as a reward for finishing off the Dark Syndicate so quickly, and between those study aids and the white cat's own rusty but still serviceable attempt at mind meld awakening her old life's musical skills, the ever-plucky teen wasn't lagging far behind Serena. She was, in fact, working twice as hard and catching up rapidly. It helped that her parents had agreed to the private tutoring and so she had more time to spend on it. In fact, she'd been working so hard that she'd taken the previous day off due to overwork and had slept through both Jedite's message and the battle that followed, her overworked cat resting right beside her. But, her day of rest over, it was back to the studio grind.

So, that was how superstar teen idol Mina Aino happened to be walking down the corridor when a demonic Mousse attacked.

OoOoO

Sailor Mars was known for her fiery temper, also for her warmth toward those she loved, and both of those were being triggered right now.

If your favorite star, a celebrity, had just shown up in your life one day and asked you out to dinner you'd have a reaction. Now, Ranma strictly speaking wasn't a star, but his mom was and the tale of his kidnapping was known to practically everyone in Japan, and that alone made him a celebrity of sorts - but he was also, by all that she'd seen so far, almost certainly the son of her favorite actress.

She was growing warm to him already, even before he'd gone and saved her from a surprise youma attack. He'd no sooner dropped her in a corridor than she'd found a girls restroom and popped in, with a fully transformed Sailor Mars darting out only a moment later, already in a fine temper at this intrusion into a date that was already earning seven pages in her journal - at least!

Sadly, she wasn't in time to do a simultaneous strike with Ranma. The Godlike speed of the Hiten Mitsurugi just gave her no chance to go and do a costume change and still have enough time to couple her attack to his strike, though if she had there was a decent chance that the demonically possessed boy could not have blocked both of them at once.

The results of that could well be imagined. One attack or the other would almost certainly have dropped the blind Amazon in his tracks.

Needless to say, the only companion Ranma had had for his fights over the past eleven years or so was his adopted father, who regularly matched his speed those times he did not surpass it. Seijuro was almost a force of nature in his attacks, and so coordinating along with him had by and large proved unnecessary. Each man took his opponents down swiftly and completely, and any exceptions could be adapted to on the fly.

Having taken only one blow before evaporating into mirror glare, Ranma hadn't had time to revise this strategy based on his enemy's observed speed or tactics. So Mars was left nearly alone to face this foe, who'd charged her before she could even get ready her entry speech about how ticked off she was at him ruining her date.

She'd just rounded the corner to do so when he was, all of a sudden, charging at her in a fury of chains and blades, freezing her to the spot as she felt his killer intent. She saw her life flash momentarily before her eyes when an orange beam of light smashed into his unprotected side and threw him down the hallway and out the far end's window.

"Meteor Beam!!" came the somewhat belated cry of a blonde girl in a sailor costume with a mask standing down the corridor from Mars. The girl quickly posed with a V over her eyes. "Code name: Sailor V! The soldier of justice, the sailor-suited beautiful soldier. I am Sailor Venus!"

Mars was about to respond, opening her mouth to identify herself when a chain lying unnoticed at her feet twitched into sudden life, lashed about her ankles and hauled her out of the building via the hole Mousse had recently been thrown through.

After being catapulted out the window, the lovely Sailor of Mars saw the possessed young man below her, waiting with his arms upraised to receive her on a forest of knives. Not about to be defeated without making her enemy pay of it first, she formed her fingers into a familiar sign and cried out, "Mars Fire Ignite!"

Mousse smirked, release the two dozen or so weapons he'd been holding in one hand to call forth an inch thick steel sewer lid, clasped in an oven mitt on that hand, his remaining weapons still poised to skewer the little sailor-suited girl.

Mars screwed her eyes shut, knowing that this was going to hurt and fearing she had no way to live through it when a mighty roar split the heavens and suddenly she was held in the mouth of a giant cat made entirely out of lightning, his jaws closed on the back of her sailor collar as he carried her away in a giant leap, his terrible claws having slashed apart the chains drawing her down onto the knives of the Amazon male.

Mousse, for his part, hadn't been nearly so well protected by his improvised shield as he had hoped. The Sailor strike had burned a hole through it instantly, carrying on with nearly undiminished force after having melted the sewer lid to white hot slag covering his left arm and causing the supposedly heat-proof oven mitt to combust with his hand still inside.

An ordinary man would have died twice over from such an attack. Even a seasoned martial artist, such as he was, could hardly have survived even the contact with the molten metal, much less the fiery attack that had caused that as merely secondary damage on its way to impact on the main body.

He should have been a torch. No, he should have been completely incinerated by that attack before he even had an opportunity to scream.

Instead, after the fireball had vanished, Mousse was left still alive and undamaged beyond what appeared to be minor burns over his body. The molten metal, which should have instantly cremated that body of his body it touched, was instead molding to his side, giving him a layer of flexible steel coating and protecting that half of his upper body. And he showed no apparent concern for what should have been causing him agony.

'MAJOR youma!' was the thought running through both Sailor's minds.

"Venus Crescent Beam, Smash!"

That blow of laser-light craters the ground, but Mousse was no longer on it, jumping high to divert his hostile attention to the source of this most recent attack.

"What are you doing?! Defend her!!" Mars shouted, once she'd noticed that the great lightning cat at her side was crouched and ready, snarling at their enemy, but not moving to help the embattled Venus.

"Mars Fire!" She shot off her own attempt to intercept the blade-user as he lunged toward Venus, who was escaping too slowly to do any good.

To her surprise that blast caught him unprepared and sent him crashing through the wall of the building, allowing Venus the time she'd needed to escape. Probably her ration of good luck got used up there, as the lightning cat still hadn't moved and was apparently ignoring her orders.

"Venus Crescent Beam!" that pretty sailor shouted as she just reached the ground, catching Mousse coming out of his hole, having anticipated that action.

The blind martial artist simply blurred, disappearing from out in front of the attack and reappearing by her side. Venus screamed as a large spiked mace, certainly weighing more than she did, crashed into her side at rocket-like velocity and sent her sailing, then rolling across the turf to wind up by the side of Mars.

" Help me, dang you! I can't keep throwing these forever!" the black haired Sailor shouted to the lightning cat as she brought her hands together once again, "Mars Fire!"

To her surprise and infinite relief, the lightning cat lunged forward, racing along under and slightly behind the spinning bolt of fire, using that to cover it's approach to target, where it lunged and assaulted the sometimes duck just as he was raising a large medieval tower shield to block this second blast of fire. The fiery attack once again melted that defense, sending another blob of molten metal to cover and protect his right side this time and not even stopping his furious charge.

However, the assault of the mystical feline appearing right in his belly was not welcome nor expected. Lightning claws caught and tore the martial artist, rending flesh and spraying blood around the courtyard as the seeming-tiger wrapped itself around the poor possessed boy and applied the deadly close combat damage of every pointy surface it had.
Cats can maul and rend most ferociously with that kind of contact, and this one did.

"Hiten Mitsurugi style: Dragon Hammer Strike!!"

This time the blow from Ranma's sword split Mousse from top of the head down to mid-breastbone, opening up his brains and other internal organs to daylight, and came near to cleaving him in half.

To the horror of those looking on, Mousse continued to fight, leaping upwards and clear of both opponents, sending a rain of shuriken down on Ranma's clone and the lightning cat, and the spread of those several hundred missiles caught a wide enough area as to hit and disperse the samurai's nearly arrived dream body once more, while the nick that caught the cat was simply shrugged off.

The demon possessed martial artist paused at the top of his arc, standing in mid air to laugh as his flesh resealed and healed itself, completely closing up his wounds in a matter of seconds.

"Mercury Bubbles, Blast!!"

Fog instantly shrouded the area, through which the newly arrived Sailor Mercury and her allies could see just fine, but totally blocked the sight of any others within its area.

Coming to help Sailor Mars assist a newly conscious Venus to her feet, the pretty Sailor of Mercury apologized, "I'm sorry I'm so late. I came as quickly as I could."

"Ha!" the floating martial artist sent a rain of chains and blades down on their position, having listened closely for the noise. The three Scouts just barely dodged out of the way, Mercury almost getting clipped by a falling weight that had 'Ten Tons' clearly marked on the side.

"Don't speak or he'll know where to find us!" Sailor Mars shouted, wise enough to be already dodging out of the way of the next series of attacks. Using her sight to take a position sheltered behind a large, double-wide refrigerator, she continued, "He's listening for us. So when you speak, he knows where to attack!"

"Right," Sailor Mercury called back, nodding, then winced as a hail of small knives and other weapons patterned the area around her, clanging off the giant ten ton weight she was sheltered behind. She flinched noticeably when a particularly large safe bounced off of her shelter and then fell nearby.

Venus, crouching behind one of those giant, decorative stone carvings of a cat that had recently been used as a missile weapon to try and hit her, wisely held her comment.

With a maniacal gleam to his eyes behind a pair of now-glowing glasses, Mousse suddenly sprouted giant fans from each of his oversize sleeves and the gusts of wind he produced with a few powerful blows were enough to strip the protecting fog cloud away.

That revealed two Ranmas, newly arrived from Nerima (having traveled faster than some of those closer by, due to a fortuitous train passing by in the right direction - the fact that it had never stopped to pick them up was a bonus in their eyes). One, having been splashed by the ladle lady on their way out, was a girl. But both had a determination in their eyes that wouldn't stop at murder as they landed, then leapt off to attack in unison.

"Now Tensie!!" Nephlite shouted, safe on the sidelines, right before disappearing.

Black energy drained off in cloudy streamers from Mousse, who went from grinning and gloating with a demented leer over his eagerly anticipated defeat of Ranma at last (the other attacks and encounters having come to fast for even a moment to savor) to being reduced to a pathetic, unconscious shell and dropped like a sack of dead rats by a youma that emerged from his glowing glasses.

Mousse fell thirty feet with both of Ranma's male and female dream bodies were still in the air, and the creature that formed in his place was almost seven feet tall with stark white skin, large pointed fan ears, fangs, claws and glowing green eyes that had no pupils. Her body was coated with the same molten-metal armor than had formed around Mousse, and every part of her was studded with knives and swords and other blades, while large maces and devilishly spiked chains dangled from both hands.

A familiar pair of golden glasses rested on her face as she met the attack, oozing confidence as she faced the pair of approaching blurs.

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

I have never seen a story where Serena actually won that StarQuest thing Jedite ran and actually went on to get the contract and start a career as an idol. There probably is one, I merely have not seen it. But, not having seen or heard of one, I wanted to do it! Even if it could only be a fairly minor part in a much larger story like this one. And I didn't want to deprive Sailor V of living her lifelong dream either.

Also, Tuxedo Mask lost his parents to the same pit where Genma had been teaching his son the Cat Fist? And his amnesia was a side effect of that boy himself learning the technique? How often have you seen that done?

Sometimes this fic is almost too fun to work on. I love it!

Sorry for the delay on posting this. It was going to be out, oh, months ago now, but writing got briefly interrupted by a professional project, but as you can see I am back to this once more. And I'm happy to be doing it.