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 11: True Colours, Part I ( Chapter 12 )

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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The only noise was the wind as it whispered through the redwoods. Beams of light and shifting shadows undulated in time to the swaying branches. The smell of life filled the air, and growing thick upon the ground was ferns, sorrel, and red-speckled leaves of three. Silence lay heavily upon the forest; a living silence, and full of sound. In the distance, the shady brook sang the ancient song of water over stones.

A young girl suddenly gasped for breath. She inhaled in quick, frantic gulps, like one who, after having been held under water almost to the point of drowning, suddenly finds herself on the shore and gloriously alive and sobbing with relief. She opened her wild purple eyes and sat up. She had been lying in a bed of leaves at the base of a particularly large redwood tree, and they crackled when she changed position. At first, the world was a confused blur of unfamiliar sounds and colours. After a few moments, it resolved into something that she could make sense of. Glancing about, the dark-haired girl wondered aloud, "Where am I?"

A voice spoke out from close at hand, soft but very clear. "Everyone! She's awake!" The voice was followed by the sound of approaching footsteps. More than one set of footsteps, at that. After a few seconds of anxious waiting, the girl was relieved at the sight of three other girls, each of them a few years older than she was. The first had blue eyes, long blonde hair, and was wearing a simple sundress. The second was a brunette with green eyes, clad in a white blouse and blue skirt combo that looked like it had seen better days. The third had short blue hair, blue eyes, and was wearing an off-white shirt and a pair of blue shorts. Although she wasn't sure how exactly, the dark-haired girl knew that she was safe with these three. "Where are we?" she asked.

The blue-haired girl was the one who responded. "We're not entirely certain. It bears some resemblance to pictures of the redwood forests on the west coast of the United States, but I..." The blonde girl interrupted her at this point. "What she means is that she has no idea where we are." The blue-haired girl shrugged and glanced upwards. The dark-haired girl followed her gaze. Her eyes widened. There were two moons in the sky, one white, the other so dark as to be barely perceptible against the black of space. Nemesis.

After several long moments of silence, the dark-haired girl spoke again. "Who are all of you? I feel like I know you..."

The brunette smiled, and though her stature was somewhat imposing, she had gentle eyes. "I'm Kino Makoto," she said. The blonde chimed in next, "Aino Minako!" "Mizuno Ami," said the blue-haired girl.

The dark-haired girl smiled. "I'm..." she paused suddenly as a violent flood of memories surged into her mind. "I'm..." (Saturn.) She shook her head, trying to clear it, and as she did so, she saw herself. Her life. Her... (Bringer of death.) Flickering at the edges of her peripheral vision, she thought she saw a terrible glaive with the doom of the world upon its edge. She saw herself, sad and alone. (Chinmoku no Messiah.) She saw her friends, the other Princesses of the solar system. She saw the distance they had to maintain from her because of their position and hers. (The soldier of ruin.) Beryl. The fall of the Moon Kingdom unfolded before her eyes. The seven shadows. Metallia. She saw her own death. (Death... Reborn... Revolution...) And her birth. Her father. Her second death. But... how...? She suddenly realized that the other three were looking at her with great concern. She waved away their concerns. "I'm Tomoe Hotaru."

The other three smiled. A gentle rain of redwood leaves descended from above, jarred loose by the sudden movement of some scurrying animal. A bird chirped in the distance.

Hotaru shook her head. "This can't be right. I remember..."

Ami's expression didn't change. Makoto flinched.

Minako nodded, her smile fading somewhat. "We all do," she said. "Twice, even."

"Why are we here?"

Minako shrugged. "Who knows? We were dead. Now we're alive. Maybe we've been given a second chance."

"Don't you mean third chance?" asked Ami.

"Whatever."

Hotaru's smile returned then, and at full force. She knew who these girls were now. Indeed, she now wondered how she could have failed to recognize them before. She glomped the lot of them, laughing aloud as she did so. "Jupiter! Mercury! Venus!"

Makoto gently ruffled Hotaru's hair. "Welcome back, Lady Saturn."

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Ranma 1/2: WHY SAILOR PLUTO HATES THE BET

by P.H. Wise

Episode 11: True Colours, Part I

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*** At Sailor Pluto's home in Asgaard... ***

Shadows crawled across the room as the Thing Which Man Was Not Meant To Know and Meioh Setsuna rutted like ... actually, now that I think of it, I don't think there are words in the English language to describe such a thing. It's best not to think about it, I suppose. In any case, they were getting it on.

"OH, LHU-CHAN!" she cried. Cthulhu would have grinned if he'd had a mouth instead of a mass of writhing tentacles (no, not THAT kind of tentacle you pervert!) in the same approximate region. "Yes! Aaaah! AAAAAAH..."

And that was when Meioh Setsuna broke.

Cthulhu blinked. In his horribly misshapen arms, his lover's legs had fallen off. *OOPS,* thought the nightmarish creature, projecting its thoughts aloud. It looked closely at her hip sockets, and again, if it had had a mouth instead of a mass of writhing tentacles, it would have frowned. Cthulhu didn't remember goddesses having metallic skeletons (it'd eaten enough to know, after all). Or wires running through their hip sockets. Or mechanical joints. Or... wait a minute...

It came to `It' in a flash of sudden, horrible realization: this was some kind of android that It been sleeping with. *WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?* it roared telepathically.

***FLASHBACK***

Setsuna stood at the door to her bedroom. She had just invited Cthulhu home for the first time, and she was drunk off her ass. Just as she was reaching for the door, she appeared before herself in a flash of light. Yes, you heard that correctly. Setsuna appeared before Setsuna in a flash of light. The other her was clad in a black business suit, white shirt, black tie, and wore a pair of rayban sunglasses. Despite the inherent impossibility of a business suit that flattered a woman's figure, somehow, this one managed to do just that.

...

She stared at herself for a long moment.

Yeah, she looked pretty good.

The moment passed. "Whatrrre youu doooing heeere?" she slurred drunkenly.

The other Setuna - Future-Setsuna - smiled. "I'm going to prevent you from making the biggest mistake of your life," she said as she held up a curious silver pen. She pressed a small button on the back of the pen, and it emitted a brilliant flash of light.

Future-Setsuna's smile widened. "Alright Setsuna. I can't have you remembering this, as if you do, Cthulhu will read it in your mind. I was never here. You slept with Cthulhu, and continued to sleep with it for several weeks. When the time comes, your memory will return to you."

Past-Setsuna nodded lazily, her eyes unfocused, staring at nothing. Future-Setsuna nodded in a satisfied manner. She snapped her fingers, and in a flash, a third Setsuna appeared. Serial number 29341G, Model 33-S, designation: Setsuna. Future-Setsuna took hold of Past-Setsuna, and the two of them vanished. A sultry smile spread across the 33-S's face as she opened the door to the bedroom where Cthulhu was waiting, stepped within, and shut the door behind her.

*** END FLASHBACK ***

Cthulhu cast the sexaroid's broken body off of the bed as it rose up to its full, terrible height. *SETSUNA,* it roared, and the resonance of its telepathic call shook the building to its very foundations.

Meioh Setsuna, daughter of Chronos, stepped out of the shadows. "Party's over, Lhu-chan."

Cthulhu reared back, and then thrust its great misshapen arms forward towards her. They burst into a mass of writhing tentacles, each with the gripping strength of a giant anaconda.

Setsuna checked her watch.

On they flew, crossing the distance between them in the blink of an eye. And yet, when they reached the place where she had stood, they met only the empty air. "Over here," she called, now from the opposite side of the room. Cthulhu whirled around, bellowing its rage. The walls began to crack, and plaster rained down from the ceiling.

"Three... two... one..."

And that was when the temporal portal opened. "Goodbye, Lhu-chan," said Setsuna.

A terrible blast of infernal flame poured out from the portal - a portal opened directly to the innards of a giant Sloar. The dying screams of hundreds of Shubs and Zhuuls came floating through the portal along with the blast of flame. The Great Cthulhu ROARED in pain as the devouring flame tore through its misshapen body. There was a tremendous crack like thunder. The portal closed, and as its light faded, it could be seen that no sign remained of the Great Cthulhu. The broken 33-S was gone, and the bed had vanished completely. Gone. Lost. Roasting forever in the depths of the Sloar.

Setsuna smiled mysteriously as she left her apartment, shutting the door behind her.

Toltiir looked up. "Is it done?" he asked.

"It's done," she replied, "And now that It is no longer interfering in the time-line, we can get down to business..."

********

"Old Ghoul, gimme that map!" Ranma yelled as she burst into the Cat Cafe. The dinner rush was well under way, and though the place was insanely crowded, her voice still rang out clearly over the din.

Cologne pogoed out to meet her `daughter,' leaving Shampoo and Mousse to handle the restaurant for a few minutes. "Hmm? I thought you had decided to rescue your fiancee."

"Yeah, well that was before I found out that her getting kidnapped by demons was a `happens every week' kinda thing. Are you gonna give me the map or not?"

"My apologies, daughter, but the map is no longer in my possession. You recall the group of rowdy visitors that I mentioned?"

Ranma blinked. "Yeah, I remember somethin' about that."

Cologne gestured towards a position directly behind Ranma. "They're here."

Ranma turned around, and came face-to-breasts with a ... she looked up. Oh, right. Ok, face-to-face now, and with a drop-dead gorgeous platinum-blonde woman. A woman clad in vaguely ceremonial clothing that bore more than a slight resemblance to armor. A long, flowing, off-white cape, flowing hair, pointed ears, slitted, blood red eyes. But perhaps the most noticeable feature (especially as far as Ranma was concerned) was the damn well near palpable aura of power around her. Whoever this woman was, she RADIATED power in a way that made Ranma dizzy even thinking about it. She held the map in her left hand, and her eye was twitching with annoyance.

Face to face with Herb, `Prince' of the Musk, Ranma said about the only thing she could have in that situation.

"Shit."

An expression of distaste crossed Herb's face as the two stood there, each taking the measure of the other. And that was one Mint spoke up. "She has boobies!" he cried, staring slackjawed at Ranma's chest. Lime stepped into the restaurant from where he had been waiting outside. "Where!? I want to see the boobies too!"

Dead silence fell over the crowded restaurant as every eye in the establishment turned towards Herb, her retainers, and Ranma.

Crickets chirped in the distance.

Herb's eye continued to twitch to twitch.

Heedless to his own danger, Mint went on, now speaking directly to Ranma-chan. "You're a woman-person, right, onee-chan? This is the first time I've ever interacted with a woman-person! You have very nice breasts. Can I feel them?"

Lime voiced his agreement: "Me too! He can't feel them unless I get to!"

Ranma's battle aura flickered into being as she turned her baleful, blood-red gaze upon the two hormonally imbalanced males. "No," she replied, making no effort to conceal the outrage that she felt at such a suggestion, "You can NOT!" And at the word `not,' a terrific gust of wind surged out from her, blasting the two beastmen into the far wall of the Neko-hanten.

Herb glanced at Ranma's forehead. Her eyes narrowed. "That sigil..."

An expression of weary resignation settled over Cologne's features. Quickly, she pogoed out of the room. The crowd of diners wasted no time in making their own departure. This was Nerima, and despite the fact that most of them were also accomplished martial artists (even if their fighting styles were along the lines of martial arts origami), they had no desire to be in the way of these two if things continued in the direction that they seemed to be going.

"Alright, whoever you are," said Ranma, thoroughly annoyed with these `unruly visitors.' "Hand over the map and I won't have ta hurt ya."

Herb's eyes narrowed further. "The map is mine by right. Stand aside, woman. I don't have time to waste on such worthless business."

That went over well. Yeah. "Kusoyaro!" Ranma yelled as he leaped to attack the Chinese princess. Herb caught the pig-tailed girl's fist in the palm of her hand. Ranma's eyes widened, both in surprise and in pain as Herb slowly began to crush her fist. Several loud, sickening pops echoed through the building. The pig-tailed girl's eyes flared as she projected her AT field outward. Within those undying red eyes, whirling arcane patterns seemed to form. Herb was hurled backwards as the peculiar barrier snapped into being around Ranma's body. The dragon-child's feet never left the ground, however, and in their wake, they left deep gouges in the floorboards. She came to a halt some ten feet distant from Ranma's glowing form, licked her lips, and smiled.

"Had enough?" Ranma asked, feeling smugly superior after that display of power (and trying to ignore the throbbing pain of her broken hand). "Give up the map, and I'll let ya go."

Herb held up her hand, palm facing towards Ranma. She spoke not a word. And no words were necessary, for the will was more than enough. An intense blast of pure ki lanced out from her outstretched hand. As it met Ranma's shield, the shield flared violently, sending off a spectacular shower of sparks. Ranma gritted her teeth as she poured her concentration into maintaining the barrier.

It wasn't enough.

The AT-field failed: the blast struck Ranma full in the face, and carried her some fifty feet backwards (and through the back wall of the nekohanten). Her smoking form came to rest in a pile of trash-cans behind the restaurant.

...

...

...

Some time later, Ranma woke to the altogether unpleasant sensation of having her broken left hand repeatedly poked by an ancient staff.

"GYAAAA! THAT HURTS!" she yelled, clutching her hand protectively and sitting up as quickly as she could manage. Garbage was strewn across the ground, and she was in serious need of a bath. The source of the poking, of course, was Cologne, who was now looking down on her with an interested expression.

"That was very foolish, daughter."

Ranma grimaced as she sat up, using her unbroken hand to brush some bits of trash out of her hair. "Yeah, who asked you, old ghoul?"

And for once, Cologne DIDN'T bop him over the head. Instead, she smiled. "You haven't changed," she said fondly. "Still the same stubborn, foolhardy, headstrong girl I remember. Even after spending the first sixteen years of this life as a boy."

Ranma's eyes widened. This was the first time that Cologne had acknowledged HIM as anything other than `daughter,' even if she did call her a headstrong girl first. Cologne took Ranma's broken hand between her own withered hands. The healing itch flooded through her hand, and she watched in disbelief as the fracture set itself and then was knit back together by some unseen force.

There was a long silence. Ranma stared at Cologne, and Cologne seemed content to let her stare. The pig-tailed girl opened her mouth several times as if to speak before shutting it again. Yet eventually, she could not stop herself from asking: "... Are you really my mother?"

Cologne smiled, and for an instant, she was a middle-aged, red-headed Japanese woman... but only for an instant. "I've had many names, daughter. Ask your father about a woman named Nodoka." At that, the kindly expression on her face melted away as if it had never been there, replaced once more by the calculated expression that Ranma was more used to. "Don't rely too heavily on your Sister's power, daughter. Learn to use your own."

And with that, the old troll turned and pogoed away, leaving Ranma there in the alley, sitting in a pile of overturned garbage, staring in open-mouthed wonder.

********

"Any luck yet, Ami-chan?"

Ami shook her head as she continued to watch the display of her mini-computer. She, Hotaru, Makoto and Minako were sitting by the shady brook thar ran through the heart of the redwood forest, and she had been scanning for signs of civilization for nearly an hour now with no luck. No settlements within a hundred miles of their position. She had adjusted the search to expand the radius to include the whole of the world, but it wasn't looking good. Even if she found a settlement, at this point, it would be too far away to do them even the slightest bit of good.

Setting her mini-computer down on a nearby rock and leaving it to continue its scan, Ami took a mental stock of their situation. While the water in the brook was drinkable, they had no food and no shelter. The only other articles of clothing that they had access to was their sailor fukus. Although it was only hours since their initial awakening in these woods, their situation was not looking good. She shook her head. It was no good dwelling on THAT. `Not when there are three MUCH more pleasant things to dwell on...' Ami blinked, her cheeks heating in an intense blush. Where had THAT thought come from?

Makoto sat down on a fallen log, some two feet distant from the edge of the brook. "So..." she said, "Anyone got any idea what's going on yet?"

After taking a moment to regain her composure, Ami turned towards the others. Once, she never would have imagined that she might have to lead the group. Now... she swallowed her nervousness and spoke. "I have a working hypothesis, but nothing concrete. Based on the strange fluctuations in space-time that the Mercury computer has picked up while searching for settlements, I believe that something's gone wrong with the time-gate. It would explain our overlapping, contradictory memories. And Pluto's intervention would also explain how we got here and why."

"Very astute, Mercury," came a voice from behind the four. There, standing some ten feet away, was Meioh Setsuna. How she had gotten there and when was anyone's guess.

"Setsuna-san!"

"Setsuna-mama!" cried Hotaru as she ran to embrace the green-haired woman.

Setsuna smiled and returned the embrace. "I'm very glad to see that you're well, Hotaru-chan," she said. Her smile faded as she went on, "but the happy reunion will have to wait. We are all in great danger. Through the interference of a malevolent outside entity, the timeline has become badly corrupted."

"Corrupted?" Ami asked, her curiosity plain to see. When Setsuna dropped the mysterious act and spoke plainly, it meant you were in serious trouble.

The time-guardian nodded. "What is, was, and will be has been changed, and a new timeline created in the place of the old."

"In this timeline, the four of you are dead, and long before you ever had the chance to become Senshi. I have corrected this, and restored you to the state that you should be in. This includes your memories. Don't be alarmed if you notice memories that seem to contradict each other. Both are true." She paused for breath. "Unfortunately, the new timeline is highly unstable. Without direct and drastic intervention, there is now a 99% chance of the universe being destroyed within the next month."

The three inner senshi gasped in horror, while Hotaru's expression was more along the lines of `mildly put out.' After a moment, Hotaru's expression changed to genuine concern. "What about Haruka-papa and Michiru-mama? Why aren't they here with us?"

Minako nodded her agreement. "And what about Usagi-chan, Rei-chan, Chibi-Usa and Mamoru-kun?"

Setsuna sighed. "I don't know what happened to Usagi. So far, I have seen no sign of her at all. Chibi-Usa is dead, and even I cannot bring her back from paradox. The only way of returning her to life is to correct the timeline. The others... the others are alive, but ... changed, both mentally and physically. They may not remember any of you."

There was silence for a long moment as the four senshi digested this information. They exchanged glances, and it was Ami who finally spoke.

"What do you need us to do?"

********

Humming quietly to herself, Kasumi Tendo cleaned. It was hard work, this assignment, and she disliked being away from home for such an extended period of time. Especially when she knew that Keiichi was waiting for her... but he understood the importance of this mission. Skuld was a bit less understanding, but even she wouldn't disobey the direct order that she'd been given by Kami-sama not to visit her sister until the events had taken their course.

So she cleaned. And hummed. And radiated tranquility in a typically Kasumi-like manner. It would be time to start dinner soon, but she didn't need to worry about that just yet. With Akane's kidnapping, much of the stress had vanished from the life of the undercover Goddess. No more cooking attempts. No more need of divine intervention to keep her family alive. As much as she felt guilty for thinking so, the periodic kidnappings of the youngest Tendo daughter amounted more or less to vacations for her. No stress. No worrying. No...

Ranma came bounding in through the front door, the wind of her passage knocking over most of the furniture, and coating the entire room with a generous amount of dust.

Kasumi's eye ALMOST twitched.

...

Well...

Almost no stress.

********

"Yo oyaji!"

Genma looked up from the game of shogi that he had been playing. Soun took the opportunity to quickly rearrange the pieces on the board. His son-turned-daughter stood some short distance away. A handful of sakura petals drifted by on the wind, gently coming to a rest on the surface of the koi pond. As the slight ripples of their landing spread across the pond, Genma frowned. "What is it, boy?"

A doubtful look flashed across Ranma's face for a moment, and she remained silent a moment. Genma quickly grew impatient. "Spit it out, boy."

The pig-tailed girl's doubtful look vanished. "Do you know some lady named Nodoka?"

Well, wasn't that interesting. At the mere MENTION of the name, Genma's eyes widened in terror, and his skin turned positively WHITE. "Wh... where did you hear that name!?"

"It don't matter. So do ya know her?"

He began to sweat. He glanced at Soun, but Soun was no help.

Ranma's eyes narrowed. "So you DO know her. Who's Nodoka, oyaji?"

"No...Nodoka is..." He looked frantically around, trying to find some way to distract the boy from this line of questioning. No dice. "Nodoka is your mother, boy. But don't let that fool you! If she were to see you as you are now...!"

Soun nodded his sage agreement, doing his best to appear wise and knowing. "Saotome speaks truely. Long has the dreaded Nodoka Saotome been shrouded in secrecy, but at last we divulge her TRUE horror! Legends speak of a terrible woman with hair like fire, striding across the land like a goddess with sword in hand. They say the only thing more terrible and pitiless than her gaze is the edge of her sword."

Ranma stood there a moment, totally nonplused. "What the HELL are you two talkin' about?"

Genma shook his head gravely. "Boy, you'll be happier not knowing. If she were to see you as you are now... oh it breaks a father's heart! To see my one and only son transformed into a weak and helpless girl! Condemned to commit seppuku should he ever encounter his mother!"

Ranma's eye began to twitch. "Helpless, am I..." she trailed off, her blood red eyes widening in a lock of shock. "Wait a minute, SEPPUKU!?"

Genma nodded sagely. "You signed the contract with your own hand. You agreed that if you weren't a man amongst men when your training journey was over, you would commit seppuku."

*FLASHBACK*

"Ranma-kun!" Genma called, producing the seppuku contract. "You like finger painting, right?"

"Yes, daddy!"

"Good. Come finger-paint on this piece of paper."

"Haaaai!"

*END FLASHBACK*

"Where are you going, boy!?"

Ranma didn't bother looking back as she rushed upstairs to pack his things. A few minutes later she was walking out the door, clad in a fresh set of clothes and with an enormous pack on her back. "Kasumi! I'm going on a training trip to reclaim my manhood. I'll rescue Akane if I see her."

"Hai, Ranma-kun!" came Kasumi's cheerful reply.

And with that, Ranma left the Tendo home behind her. She didn't get very far before she was met by Ukyou, Asuka, and the two mooncats.

Ukyou smiled, folding her arms as she leaned against a lamp-post. "Did you really think we'd let you go without us, Ranchan?"

Ranma blinked in surprise. "You guys..."

Asuka smirked. "Cologne told us what happened at the Neko-hanten. So, do you even have the slightest idea of where to begin looking, wonder-girl?"

Ranma sweatdropped.

"That's what I thought. As it happens, Luna and Artemis can lead us to the Kaisuifu."

"You're kiddin', right?"

Ukyou shook her head. "No joke, Ranchan. They know where it is. And if we can get there before Herb and the others..."

Ranma's expression visibly brightened. "I can become a guy again, and I won't have to kick Herb's ass to do it!" The others rolled their eyes.

As the group began its journey, Luna and Artemis exchanged glances. Although they didn't speak anything aloud, both knew the thought that was passing through the mind of the other: `Kaisuifu, at the resting place of Sailor01.'

END EPISODE 11

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