Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction / Ah My Goddess Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Why Sailor Pluto Hates The Bet ❯ Episode 8: The Traveler, Part II ( Chapter 9 )

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Ranma 1/2: WHY SAILOR PLUTO HATES THE BET

by P.H. Wise

Episode 8: The Traveler, Part II

Disclaimer: Sailor Moon is the property of Takeuichi Naoko. Ranma belongs to Takahashi Rumiko. Evangelion belongs to Gainax. The Bet concept and the accompanying cast and background of Mimir's Well belong to Metroanime.

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High atop the mountain training ground called `Terror' (don't ask), a wind began. The wind was... was... um... I'll start again.

***********

Scene One: Take Two

Setting: The training ground on the peak of Mount Terror (don't ask)

Weather: Clear

Wind: None

Humidity: 20%

Ryouga gave the harness a doubtful look. "That looks... painful."

His cross-temporal twin shrugged. "Do you want revenge on Saotome or not?"

"..."

"That's what I thought. Now get in the harness."

"..."

"You can always blame Ranma for it later."

Ryouga nodded, setting his jaw with determination as he climbed into the harness. As the first boulder hurtled down towards him, he seethed with rage, thinking to himself, `Damn you, Ranma Saotome! I will never forgive you for the offense of this training exercise!'

**********

Dawn burst forth over Tokyo in a spectacular array of light and colour, filling the whole of the sky with its splendour. Darkness lifted, the shadows fled, and the sunlight filled the city. As usual, Ranma had little time to appreciate the sunrise, this time on account of her father flinging her bodily out the window of the guest room. She hit the koi pond with a tremendous splash.

"What'd you do that for!?" she yelled, almost on reflex, as the cold water jolted her into a state of total wakefulness.

"You're sloppy, boy!" cried Genma as he jump-kicked down from the window. Ranma brought her arms into a defensive `x' in front of her body, letting Genma's foot connect for a moment before flinging her arms forward (and Genma away from her). He landed on one of the rocks surrounding the pond.

"A REAL martial artist could have evaded being pistol-whipped by a little girl! Ranma... you break your father's heart!"

Ranma glared at her father, a sickly green aura of depression growing around her. "Oyaji," she began, her eyes taking on a peculiar luminescence, "LEAVE ME ALONE! SHISHI HOKODAN!" With those words, Ranma sent forth an intense blast of green energy. Genma, stunned by his "son's" unexpected display of ki, didn't even try to dodge. As he went flying off into the distance, the words, "Ungrateful boy!" could be heard on the wind.

Ranma blinked in surprise, her depression lifting in an instant. "Hey!" she exclaimed excitedly, looking down at her hands, "I did it!"

She frowned. "... wait, HOW did I do it?"

Any further thought on the matter was cut off when Kasumi's cheerful call rang out across the yard. "Ranma! Breakfast!"

********

They sat down for breakfast; Ranma, Soun, Akane, Nabiki, and Kasumi. Although the food was good (as usual), it didn't seem to help much so far as Soun's mood went. Tears streamed from his eyes as he ate, the very picture of a man nobly enduring the strangest of emotional disorders. Although most of them were content to ignore him, Kasumi wasn't quite so ready to do so.

"Is something the matter, father?" she asked.

Soun then began to weep in earnest. "My daughter's fiancé is stuck as a girl!" he wailed, "Now the schools will never be joined!"

Kasumi smiled comfortingly. "There, there, father," she said.

Nabiki smirked. "You know, lesbian marriages ARE legal in certain parts of the world."

Soun brightened immediately at that. Akane, however, wasn't quite so keen on the thought. "Do I even want to know why you know that?" she asked.

Nabiki winked and leered at Ranma, saying, "Well, you know, a girl's gotta keep her options open."

Ranma blushed.

"Daddy, tell her that she can't marry Ranma unless Ranma goes back to being a guy!"

Soun laughed cheerfully. "Now, now, Akane," he said, "If Nabiki is willing to make such a sacrifice for the sake of the schools, I don't see any reason why I should prevent it."

"I don't believe this! I'm surrounded by perverts!

Ranma frowned thoughtfully. "Why is it a big deal?" she asked.

Akane gave Ranma the kind of look that one would give a very small child when explaining something extremely obvious, "Because it's perverted!"

"Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Think about it lo..." Ranma frowned, trying to recall the word, "log... logos... logically. Yeah, that's it."

Nabiki interjected, a look of mock-surprise on her face: "Ranma, you know such a word?"

"Urusei," hissed the pig-tailed martial artist. "But really, think about it. Girls. Two of them. Together."

Akane gaped at Ranma for a moment. "... Ranma, do you remember what I told you about how you're a girl now?"

"Yeah?"

"Forget it."

Ranma opened her mouth to respond, perhaps to make a witty comment along the lines of, `you are SO uncute,' but was, alas, cut off by the sudden and violent destruction of a small section of the wall that separated the Tendo property from the street. Through the newly made hole in the wall comes a very peculiar party. Three was their number, and the number of their party was three. Four was most certainly not the number of their party, nor was two, excepting only that one would pass it on the way to three. Five was right out. The first of them was a VERY pretty young girl with purple hair and generous endowments. The second was a warm water penguin on a leash and choke-chain. The third, a withered old troll of a woman hopping around on top of a staff three times her size.

The purple-haired girl lowered the bonbari that she had just used to smash the hole in the wall. "See?" she said, a smug look on her face, "Shampoo make door for great-grandmother!"

The penguin warked.

Silence hung in the air as the Tendos stared at their visitors, totally nonplused. The silence was shattered a moment later when Kasumi smiled angelically, commenting, "Oh my, it seems we have visitors," as she casually set three extra places at the table.

After recovering from a mass facefault, Soun directed a stern look towards the unannounced guests. "Now see here, the sign out front clearly states that if you wish to challenge the dojo, you must come in through the back gate."

The old woman didn't even grace him with a reply. Instead, she bowed respectfully to Kasumi (but only to her) before pogoing over to Ranma. She then poked the pig-tailed girl a bit while looking her over from head to toe.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing, old ghoul?"

*THWAK*

"ITTE!"

"Respect your elders, girl."

The purple-haired girl winced in sympathy.

Another few moments passed before the old ghoul was finally satisfied with her examination of Ranma. Leaning forward on her staff, she smiled knowingly. "I suspected as much. Well, Ayanami, aren't you even going to say hello to your own mother?"

"WHAT!?" came the general cry. Genma went pale.

Soun burst into tears. "Oh how horribly tragic that your wife has aged so poorly, Saotome! Now the schools will never be joined!"

Nabiki blinked, not entirely sure what Ranma's mother and her aging poorly has to do with the schools being joined, but at the same time, not caring enough to point out this lack of connection to her father.

Ranma glared at Genma. "Pop, is this old hag really my mother?"

Cologne whacked Ranma upside the head with her staff.

"ITTE!"

"Respect your elders, daughter."

"Whatever. So pop, answer me. Is this woman really my mother?"

Genma promptly jumped into the koi pond and held up a sign. <I'm just a cute panda!>

A look of nausea flashed across everyone's faces then at the thought of Cologne and Genma together.

"Damnit, there's no way I can believe that an old hag-" *thwack!* "-like you could possibly be my mother! Admit it! You're really Wrinkle, come to send me away to a paradox realm for kicking reality in the head by using too much Vulgar Magick!"

At this point, everyone looked at Ranma as if she had sprouted a third eye. "Ranma," Nabiki began, "What the HELL are you talking about?"

Cologne frowned. "I'm not Wrinkle. My real name is Lillith. You can call me Cologne if you like."

Ranma's mouth dropped open, and for a moment he looked rather like a fish removed from the water. `Lillith? She's not Wrinkle, she's LILLITH?' she thought, almost giggling at the thought. She then voiced the one word that summed up the way the day was going thus far: "... Shit."

"If you're quite done, daughter, I think it's high time you and I had a good long talk. We have much to catch up on."

Shampoo stage whispered: "Great-Grandmother very scary when she not get her way. Is best to do as she say."

Mousse warked, and in response, Shampoo gave a savage tug to his leash (and subsequently, to his choke chain). Mousse fell silent.

"... I'm no one's daughter, old hag." *THWACK!* "Itte!! Stop doing that! I said I'm NO ONE'S daughter! I'm a GUY!"

Cologne smirked knowingly. "Indeed? We'll need to talk about this confused sexuality of yours as well, then." she grabbed Ranma by the ear and forcibly pulled her away from the breakfast table. "Come along, daughter."

"But my breakfast...! And I AIN'T your daughter!"

That knowing smirk still on her face, Cologne ignored Ranma's protest and proceeded to drag the pig-tailed girl out of the room.

*************

* MEANWHILE *

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On a sunny little beach in the Bahamas, Queen Beryl smiled contentedly as she sipped something vaguely alcoholic from one of those cool little glasses with a tiny umbrella in it. "Remind me to thank Roseite for having such a wonderful idea," she said to the youma attendant who stood close at hand. "Tokyo is both overrated and too well defended. THIS was the place to conquer."

"As you say, your highness," said the youma attendant, who knew better than to disagree with her queen.

Beryl nodded. "Yes, it IS as I say, isn't it? That's the beauty of it." Bikini-clad and lounging comfortably on a very expensive version of a full-length reclining pool-side chair, she was the very image of monstrously unsexy contentment. Unless you happen to care for dangerously slinky with bony protrusions growing out of the shoulders, that is. Of course, all of this is more or less irrelevant, seeing as how the good queen of the Dark Kingdom doesn't really have much to do with this chapter, but hey, I needed a quick transition scene, and this serves well enough.

********

Even as her royal slinkiness sunned herself on a beach in the recently conquered Bahamas, Meioh Setsuna was smiling pleasantly as Kay, a middle-aged man clad in a black suit with sunglasses, handed her a small briefcase.

"Everything's in order, Setsuna," said Kay, stoic as always.

His partner, Jay, chimed in then: "Yeah. We got everything you asked for right here, uh, Setsuna,"

Setsuna bowed slightly as she accepted the briefcase. "My thanks to you both. I owe you one, Kay."

"Not a problem."

And as Setsuna vanished into the air, Jay directed a nervous glance at his partner. "So... who was that, and why did we just give her a briefcase full of sensitive MiB equipment?"

Kay shook his head. "Don't ask."

After a moment of silence, Jay spoke again. "Damn but that girl was fine. Do you think...?"

"No."

********

The day was in full bloom, then. The sun shone brilliantly through the patchy clouds, and the leaves of the trees rustled as the wind danced gently through them. A handful of sakura petals drifted by on the breeze, coming to rest on the surface of the Tendo's koi pond.

"So then, daughter," Cologne began, sitting next to Ranma on the side deck of the Tendo home, looking out at the yard, "Where have you been all this time? Too busy to give your mother a call?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, old ghoul. I ain't your daughter. I'm Ranma Saotome, and I'm a GUY."

Cologne cackled at that. "Is that what you're calling yourself these days? Very good, daughter." Her face took on a sly expression. "But we both know that you have had many names over the millennia. Many names indeed. Ashtoreth. Demon. Ishtar. Az. Mother. Destroyer. And always, Warrior."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"It seems you have forgotten much. Don't be afraid, daughter. It will all come back to you in time. But for now, I see that you've slipped up considerably in your training. I intend to correct this."

Ranma cocked an eyebrow at that. "Training?"

Cologne smiled.

The door to the house slid open, and out stepped Kasumi, carrying two cups of tea. As she opened the door, the rest of the Tendo family, having had their ears pressed to the door at just that moment, came tumbling out. Looking sheepish, they promptly made their way back inside, pretending that nothing had happened at all.

"Cologne-san, I thought you might like some tea," said Kasumi, smiling sunnily.

"Thank you, child," said Cologne as she accepted the tea. "It's good to see that at least SOME of your Father's children remember their manners."

"Hey old ghoul, what's with those marks on your face, anyways? They're the same as Kasumi's, aren't they?"

Kasumi went pale at that, and quickly made her exit.

Cologne smiled knowingly. "They are the marks of my station, daughter. You have a mark of your own, you know. The mark of YOUR station. Which brings me back to the subject of your training..."

Ranma shrugged. If she was going to get some training out of it, this couldn't be ALL bad...

********

"Daughter, calm yourself. Return to the exercise."

"I don't see how this is helping me, old ghoul. And don't call me `daughter!'"

"Respect your elders!" *THWACK*

Ranma and Cologne were in the dojo. Ranma knelt on a mat in the center of the room as Cologne pogoed about in front of him. Off to the side, Shampoo sat watching.

"Grandmother would be wise to heed Great-Grandmother's advice."

Ranma directed a glare at the purple-haired Amazon. "God damnit, don't call me `Grandmother!'"

"Why not? You is great-grandmother's daughter. That means, you is grandmother."

Ranma ground her teeth, and a flickering red aura began to swirl around her.

"Good! That's it, Ranma. More depression. More anger. More frustration. Emotions that feed the desire to isolate yourself from others will strengthen your AT field, while the opposite - love, joy, acceptance and the like, will produce an anti-AT field, which I don't think you are quite ready for yet."

"I hate you, old ghoul."

Cologne cackled.

"These emotions, though... depression, anger, frustration. They aren't me. Isn't there some other focus I can find?"

"What would you suggest, daughter? Can you think of something else that will fuel your desire to remain separate from Others?"

Ranma grew thoughtful. "... hmm," she murmered.

********************

***** ELSEWHEN *****

********************

A little girl watched in horror as a darkness beyond all knowing collected within the chamber of her father's experiment. Tendrils of dark power pulsed outwards. She could hear her father's screams. A scientist was torn apart before her eyes, and somehow, she knew that the darkness was coming for her next. It surged towards her, shattering the chamber that had been meant to contain it. For an instant, the dark power flooded through her body. Her world exploded into a haze of pain and otherworldly hatred. "OTOUCHAN!" she screamed. Or tried to. A queer silence had fallen upon the laboratory, and though she screamed with everything that was in her, no sound came forth. There came a flash of purple light, and Tomoe Hotaru knew no more.

********

She ran.

She had tried to face the beast. Tried to save her friends. She had failed. All dead. All dead except for her, and that wasn't to last. Narkissos was hot on her heels, reaching, grabbing. She felt its hand grab ahold of her hair, and with a horribly painful yank, Aino Minako fell to the ground. The monster scooped her up by the throat, preparing to crush the life from her. There came a flash of light, and she knew no more.

********

In the Juuban general hospital, a woman lay dying. The birth had gone poorly, and the doctors couldn't stop the bleeding. The baby also lay dying at her side. The beautiful baby girl that she and her husband had not even named yet. And yet in that moment, a wave of peace came upon her. She looked down at her daughter and smiled. "I love you, little one. Makoto. Your mother loves you."

The baby vanished.

*********

Mizuno Ami trembled as the creature that had been her teacher pushed her face against the computer screen. "You cannot escape, Ami. Give your energy to the Dark Kingdom!"

Dark bands of energy reached out from the computer, and yet they could not find purchase upon her. Light burst forth from her forehead as an ancient sigil flared to life. The youma cast her to the ground.

"I see," it said. "You're one of THEM. Queen Beryl will reward me for your death."

Ami stared defiantly up at the monster, even as it flung a serrated, magically reinforced report card at her neck. She felt it connect, sliding through her flesh with obscene ease. It struck bone and stopped. Unable to breathe and bleeding heavily from her throat, Ami knew that she was going to die. This creature had killed her... killed her...

The youma jumped in surprise as the dying figure of Mizuno Ami vanished in a flash of light.

********

At the gates of time, Sailor Pluto stood before four glittering cylinders, a smile on her face. Within each tube was a human form, suspended within a curious healing liquid. Bacta, she believed it was called.

It would be some time before they were ready, but she was now well on her way towards repairing the timeline. Although it was now impossible to restore the timeline to what it once was, it WAS possible for it to reach the same destination. The placement of these missing pieces upon the board would see to that.

The path to Crystal Tokyo, and to the survival of the human species, was once again becoming clear.

END EPISODE 8

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