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 6: Angels, Evas, and Cross-Temporal Spores ( Chapter 7 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

key:

Ryouga = native Ryouga

Ryoga = the Ryouga from 'Sailor Ranko'

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

High above the district of Nerima, a cloud began to form. It was much like any other cloud; fluffy, swirling out in a spiral pattern, and a shade of pink so painful that any who were unfortunate enough to look upon it instantly went blind. A perfectly normal cloud, all in all. Really. From this cloud descended a kind of... spore. A ... PINK... spore, to be exact. Yes, gentle reader, from that horribly pink cloud descended a sickeningly cute pink-haired, red-eyed little girl named Chibi-Usa, Mary Poppins style.

Clutching firmly to the (pink) umbrella that was slowing her descent, Chibi-Usa heaved a sigh of relief. She had made it! Now all she had to do was...

"SUCKER!" cried a two hundred foot tall creature that resembled nothing so much as a bizarre cross between a female human and a lollipop as it flung a handful of disturbingly phallic lollipops at Sailor02.

Sailor02 ROAAARED in fury as the disturbingly phallic lollipops struck it dead on and exploded on impact. The force of the blast knocked the pretty Evangelion back through several large office buildings.

Chibi-Usa sweatdropped. What the hell was this!?

"I can't beat her, Luna! She's too strong!" cried Asuka from the entry plug of Sailor02.

#You can do it, Sailor Mars!" came Artemis' voice from their headquarters beneath the Crown Arcade Center, #We believe in you!#

"In other words, we're not going to help you, so nyaa nyaa?"

#Well, I thought MY way of saying it was a lot nicer than that...#

"..."

"SUCKER!" cried Sucker once more as she blasted Sailor02 off her feet with another volley of exploding lollipops.

#Quickly, you have to stop her, Sailor Mars! She's escaping with all of that stolen Candy-Energy!"

Sailor02 rose to its feet, then, and just as it was about to launch into pursuit of the youma... it ran out of power and shut down.

"... I hate my life," said Asuka, grinding her teeth as she watched the youma flee.

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

Chibi-Usa was not the only one to watch this scene, however. Besides half the population of the city and at least twelve major television news networks, there was another pair of eyes observing the happenings of the day.

Frowning thoughtfully, a girl with long purple hair leapt down from the tree that had been her vantage point for the duration of the battle between the pretty Eva and the giant youma. "Come, stupid Mousse." she called, her voice thick with a Chinese accent. Without waiting for 'Mousse', the Chinese girl turned and began to walk away.

A rustling noise came from the tree where she had been sitting, and a moment later, a warm-water penguin tumbled down to the street, waarking loudly as it chased after her.

--------------------------------------------------

Ranma 1/2: WHY SAILOR PLUTO HATES THE BET

by P.H. Wise

Episode 6: Evas, Angels, and Cross-Temporal Spores

--------------------------------------------------

Within her dark throne room, Queen Beryl gazed into the crystal bong set before her throne, attended by nearly a hundred courtiers and assorted servants. She didn't notice any of them, however, as she was somewhat preoccupied with steepling her hands in front of her face and smirking in an annoying fashion.

"Giovannite!" she called out in an imperious tone. "I command you to come forth!"

*dead silence*

Queen Beryl frowned. "Giovannite? Come forth or I shall have you flayed immediately!"

Several courtiers coughed nervously.

"Your pardon, my queen," said a young female courtier, "But Giovannite is currently unavoidably detained. He no doubt regrets that he will no longer be able to serve your royal slinkiness."

Queen Beryl's eye twitched slightly. "How has he been detained? Why could POSSIBLY be more important than attending my every whim!? Where IS HE!?"

"In Hell, my queen."

Beryl blinked. "Truly? Which one?"

"I believe it was the Hell of the Free-Floating Mallet-Sama, your majesty."

The queen pondered this turn of events for a few moments. "...

...

...

Oh well, I suppose he had it coming. ROSEITE! I COMMAND YOU TO APPEAR BEFORE ME!"

At those words, two things happened. First, the entire court facefaulted, and second, a loud and annoying laugh filled the chamber.

"OOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!!!" laughed Roseite as she appeared in a swirl of black rose petals. "What is your command, my queen?"

Beryl cringed, gritting her teeth as the echoes of THAT LAUGH faded to silence. When the last echoes had faded, she began to speak. "Your plan to use the fifth youma to gather energy has proven fruitful, Roseite. I expect that you will have no trouble dealing with the Sailor Senshi?"

"None whatsoever, my Queen."

"Very well, then. Go forth and gather MORE energy for the glory of the Nega.. I mean, the Dark Kingdom! And while you're at it, I've detected a strange energy signature coming from a little girl who fell out of a time vortex. Capture her for me, would you?"

Roseite laughed. Yes, THAT laugh, and it caused everyone in the room to cringe as she slowly faded in a swirl of black rose petals.

Silence hung in the throne room for a few moments after her departure before Beryl spoke again: "Remind me to have her shot when she returns."

**********

Morning came at the Tendo dojo much as it usually does. It began with a loud splash, followed by an emotionless female cry, 'What'd you do that for?" which in turn was followed by the sound of Tendo Akane's laughter.

Grumbling to herself and brushing a few strands of now very wet blue hair out of her eyes, Saotome Ranma clambered out of bed. "Every single morning and she NEVER gets tired of it... stupid sexless tomboy..." She continued grumbling (though anyone listening would think it odd that her grumbles sounded so toneless - it wasn't just that her heart wasn't in it - it was more that, from the sound of it, she didn't have a heart to put in it in the first place) as she made her way over to the bathroom and got some hot water from the sink to restore herself to her proper gender. Now in a considerably better mood, Ranma smiled as he went about getting ready for school. He had just managed to put on one of his Chinese clothing sets, when he was ambushed by his overly-zealous father. He never saw the panda-sign coming, and as such, it sent him flying out the window and straight into the koi pond with a tremendous splash.

Grumbling, wet, and female for the second time that day, Ranma went in and ate breakfast. He was able to get some hot water from Kasumi to change back before setting out for school. Unfortunately, en route to school... there's the ladle-lady!

Ranma tried very hard not to destroy anything as she resigned herself to simply going to school as a girl for the day. Oh sure, she could stop at Doctor Tofu's for more hot water, but then there was also the canal between there and school, and Ranma really didn't want to bother with it at this point.

******

By the time Ranma got to class, she had dried off somewhat. Still, that was the least of her worries at that point. While some of the people in class knew about her transformation, most did not. Particularly, Onizuka- sensei did not.

"... And who are you?" he asked, an eyebrow raised at the bedraggled pigtailed girl.

"Ranma Saotome," she replied. THAT certainly got her more than a few strange looks. Still, Onizuka-sensei took it in stride. With a shrug that said, 'OK, whatever,' he told her to take her seat.

Fairly quickly, Ranma had nearly a dozen notes on her desk, most of them asking variants on, "Who are you and where's Ranma?" while the rest of them asked more personal questions, along the lines of, "What are your three sizes?"

As she clenched her fist around one of the offending notes, a dull red aura sprang up around the pigtailed girl. No, this day was NOT going well.

The day dragged on, and though the classes changed, the teacher did not. No one else was willing to teach this particular class, after all. It was at some point during mathematics that Ranma began to nod off. Alas, her retreat into Morpheus' embrace was cut short when Hiroshi, a boy who sat nearby, elbowed her awake, whispering frantically, "Trying to sleep in class, are you crazy!? Word is that at his old school, Onizuka-sensei beat up his entire class for not paying attention!"

Muttering her thanks, Ranma turned and sized up the teacher. After a moment's consideration, she decided that although she could probably take him on, it would be better NOT to get into a fist fight with your sensei.

Had it ended there, the day probably could have been salvaged. Alas, Hiroshi chose that moment to lean over towards Ranma and whisper, "Say, you want to go out for some tea later?"

Ranma's vision went entirely red at that, and she just LOOKED at Hiroshi, her face completely expressionless.

Hiroshi couldn't explain WHY, but he suddenly became terrified of the blue-haired, pigtailed girl sitting next to him. He spent the next ten minutes whimpering and cowering under his desk, no matter how the teacher tried to coax him out.

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

*** Later ***

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

A purple-haired girl stood on the roof of Furinkan high school, clad in a Chinese dress with a yin-yang symbol on the front (all in all bearing no small resemblance to the uniform of the Mamono Hunter in the neighboring ward). School had just ended, and she was watching the crowd carefully as the students filed out. At her side stood a warm water penguin with the word, 'Pen2' written on its metal collar.

As Akane and Onna-Ranma emerged from the building, the girl smiled. She watched as the two girls departed from the school grounds before speaking her thoughts aloud. "Is no doubt: that girl Ayanami. Great Grandmother be very proud of Shampoo when Shampoo tell her!"

At her side, the penguin let out a doubtful WAAAARK.

Shampoo directed an annoyed look at the creature. "Shut up, stupid Mousse. Shampoo not need you start acting like stupid Lillim. That girl DEFINITELY Ayanami."

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

*** Meanwhile, in Heaven ***

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

Meioh Setsuna grimaced. The summons had reached her some ten minutes earlier (just as she was climbing out of bed). She couldn't remember much of the past few days, but the throbbing headache she was experiencing, combined with the fact that she had been summoned to Kami-sama's office, lead her to believe that whatever had happened, it hadn't been good.

She stood now outside the door to His office, awaiting permission to enter.

She did not wait long - it was only a few moments before His secretary smiled and informed her that, "Kami-sama will see you now."

The double-doors swung open, flooding the waiting room with light. Swallowing nervously, Setsuna went in. Not even the daughter of Chronos could face the All-Mighty stoically.

For being the office of the Great I Am, it was actually quite plain. Once you got passed the whole glory of the Lord thing and the circles of seraphim singing unending hymns of praise that could be seen through the window, that is. But really - a supremely comfortable leather office chair, a nice desk (on which Kami-sama's personal computer was set up), a water cooler (with both hot and cold water options) in the corner, and a coffee maker set up on a small table next to the water cooler.

Oh, and we can't forget God, now can we? Yeah, She was there. And Canadian. And I suppose the four living creatures bear mentioning as well, each with four wings and four faces (human, lion, ox and eagle), with humanoid bodies save for the cloven feet and the fact that they were glowing like hot coals. Oh, and beside each creature were wheels within wheels that sparkled like chrysolite.

"You called for me, Father?" asked Setsuna in a nervous voice.

"I did," said Kami-sama. "Setsuna-chan, we need to talk."

"Is this about my going back in time and changing history?"

Kami-sama smiled. "No, Setsuna-chan, I don't mind about that. What I'm more concerned with is your relationship with the Things Which Man Was Not Meant to Know."

Setsuna blinked, her headache instantly clearing as the memory of the past few days came flooding back to her. "... Lhu-chan?" she asked.

God inclined Her head. "You know very well that the Elder Things have a very different way of looking at the world than any other creation of mine, right?"

Setsuna nodded, not liking where this was going but keeping quiet about it regardless.

"Cthulhu is the type of creature that will be perfectly happy making love one moment and devouring all that exists the next. I don't want to see you hurt, my daughter. Not to mention that since Cthulhu was the one who sent your timeline straight to hell (figuritively speaking, fo course), he probably won't be too keen on the idea of letting you set things straight."

She sniffed, her eyes tearing up as she looked into God's compassionate face. "So I have to stop seeing him?" she asked in a trembling voice.

"I'm afraid so. You've got the Sight, Setsuna-chan. What is happening right now two days hence if you don't end your relationship with Cthulhu?"

Setsuna began to cry. "Right... right now... two..." she sniffed, "Two days hence, I'm dead and Cthulhu is going on a rampage through Heaven. It takes seven days for the hosts of Heaven to finally destroy the creature, and at the cost of nearly ten thousand angels and some twenty seven gods and goddesses." As she spoke her voice became more and more thick with emotion, sounding perfectly miserable by the word `twenty'.

Kami-sama nodded sadly as She embraced Her daughter. "I'm sorry, Setsuna-chan. Some times these things just don't work out."

One of the living creatures whispered something to Kami-sama, who seemed to brighten up after hearing it. "Now there's an idea! Setsuna-chan, have you ever played skee-ball?"

Setsuna blinked in surprise, her eyes still wet with tears. "... Skee-ball?" she asked.

Kami-sama grinned.

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

*** Back on Earth ***

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

"Tadaima!" called Akane as she walked through the front door of the Tendo residence, echoed half-heartedly a moment later by Ranma.

"Okaeri!" came Kasumi's voice from the kitchen.

"Kasumi, could I get some hot water?" asked Ranma as she stepped into the kitchen, followed closely by Akane.

"Hai, Ranma-kun!" replied Kasumi as she handed him the tea-kettle that she had prepared for just this occurrence. Ranma nearly ALWAYS needed hot water upon returning home. "Here you go."

"Arigatou, Kasumi," said Ranma as she poured the hot (but not scalding) water over her head and restored herself to her birth gender. Once the change was complete, he breathed a sigh of relief. "Man, that sucked. I hate bein' a girl for that long!"

Akane smirked. "You'd think you'd be used to it by now."

Ranma gave her a sour look. "It ain't something ya get used to. I can't figure out how you can stand how COLD it is to be a girl."

"Cold?" asked Akane.

"Yeah! Whenever I'm in girl form, it's always freezin'. Like I'm buried in ice or somethin'."

Akane exchanged worried glances with Kasumi.

"This happens every time you change, Ranma-chan?" Kasumi asked.

Ranma nodded. "It goes away when I change back... though it's been takin' longer to go away than it used to. It ain't just the cold, though. It gets real hard to feel stuff."

"Feel stuff?" asked Akane.

"Yah. Like happiness n' stuff. Emotions. I can still feel `em, they're just kinda dulled, like they can't reach through the ice."

"Ranma-chan," said Kasumi, speaking slowly, clearly concerned, "What you're describing isn't normal. Not for girls, not for boys."

Ranma frowned. "... Ya mean there's somethin' wrong with my curse?"

Akane looked at Ranma very carefully then. Her anger briefly warred with her growing sympathy for the pig-tailed boy... and then her expression softened. "It might be the way it's supposed to work, Ranma."

Kasumi nodded in agreement. "Ara, it's a curse isn't it? Maybe the ice is a part of that."

Luna padded into the room then, walking right up to Kasumi, pawing at her legs and meowing cutely.

Kasumi glanced down at the black moon-cat with a smile. "Hello, Luna. Would you like some milk?" she asked.

"Meow!" said Luna, and Kasumi smiled back cheerfully.

There was a long silence.

Eventually, a BIIIG sweatdrop appeared on Luna's head, and she said, "... Yes, please, Kasumi-sama."

Kasumi nodded at that and quickly retrieved a saucer full of milk for Luna.

Ranma rolled his eyes.

"So how was school, Ranma?" Kasumi asked as she straightened up.

Ranma opened his mouth to respond, but got no further than, 'It was...' when Nabiki walked into the room and started rummaging around in the fridge. Glancing from Nabiki to Kasumi and back, the pigtailed boy shrugged helplessly before continuing. "It was pretty bad. I had go as a girl all day today, ya know? Every single time I changed back, I'd just get splashed a few seconds later, so I figured, hey, what does it matter anyways?"

Kasumi nodded, and managed to add a hint of `motherly' to her concerned look.

Ranma went on. "I guess it wouldn't have been so bad if Hiroshi hadn't asked me out on a date. I was ready to kill 'im! Only reason I didn't was that I didn't wanna get in ta more trouble than I'm already in."

The look of concern grew on Kasumi's face (much like a small parasite or a fungus). "Is that why you were so relieved to change back?" she asked.

He nodded, and then, after struggling with himself for a few moments, managed to open up enough to confess: "I... I'm worried about turning into a girl, ya know? For real, I mean. What if I start ... liking guys or somethin'?"

Nabiki joined the conversation then. With a smirk on her face, she said, "You DO turn into a girl, Saotome. Every time you're splashed with cold water."

Ranma directed a dark look at the middle Tendo sister. "That AIN'T what I meant."

Kasumi and Nabiki exchanged glances. Kasumi nodded, and after a moment, Nabiki walked up to Ranma. "So how did it feel to have Hiroshi ask you out, Saotome?"

Ranma took a step back and grimaced. "Why?"

"Call it curiosity."

"I ain't all that good at talking about my feelin's. Not to mention all my feelin's are kinda muffled when I'm in girl form."

"Indulge me."

Ranma glared at Nabiki. Trapped and with no way to escape from the situation save using the Saotome ultimate technique, Ranma gave in. "I felt disgusted," he said.

"You didn't even think he was the tiniest bit attractive?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"And did you feel at all attracted to any of the other people in your class?"

Ranma blushed at that and remained silent.

Nabiki raised an eyebrow. "Was it Akane?" she asked.

Ranma flushed a shade of red so deep that it very nearly seemed purple at that, and that was all the answer Nabiki needed. "I don't think you have anything to worry about, Saotome. It looks like you hit the spring of drowned lesbian."

Ranma blinked, and Kasumi put a hand to her mouth, a shocked expression on her face. "Nabiki!" she said, sounding scandalized.

Nabiki laughed as she left the room.

"Ranma..." said Akane, staring at the pig-tailed boy as though she had never seen him before.

Luna, meanwhile, peered up at Ranma thoughtfully from her saucer of milk. 'The princess only feels attracted to the prince! That proves it! Alright, I'll call Artemis, and we'll get rid of her male form forever!'

Although he didn't know why, Ranma felt a cold chill run up his spine.

******

Some time later, there came a knock at the door. As Nabiki was already on her way out, being on her way to a meeting with an important contact, she went and answered it. What she saw was perhaps not a sight that she had EVER expected: there in the doorway stood a girl of perhaps ten summers at most aiming a pistol at her head. It wasn't the pistol being pointed at her that really got to Nabiki, however. Rather, it was the sheer amount of PINK that the girl exuded. Pink hair. Pink ribbons in the hair. Pink clothing. A pink pistol. "Give me the ginzuishou!" cried the little girl.

Nabiki choked and fell over, unable to process so much PINK.

Chibi-Usa frowned, her eye twitching slightly as a sign of her irritation. With a shrug, she stepped over Nabiki's prone form and walked into the house.

Oblivious to the presence of the pink-haired little girl, Akane came into the house from the dojo, where she had been working out (read: breaking bricks and grunting). Still clad in her gi and exhausted from her exertions, Akane did not even notice Chibi-Usa's presence. Not until it was too late, anyways.

When Chibi-Usa saw Akane, her eyes went wide, and her face lit up with an expression of joy. Quickly putting her gun away, she leaped into the older girl's arms, glomped her harder than any Amazon, and shouted at the top of her lungs, "MOMMY!!!!!"

Akane sweatdropped, and there is a long silence before the explosion occurred.

"Akane, how could you! You're too young to be raising a child!"

"WAAAAAH! Now the schools will NEVER be joined!!!"

Ranma made his own appearance then, poking his head into the area from the outside. "What's goin' on?" he asked, and in that moment, he too was caught in the storm and was lost.

"Ranma, what's the meaning of this? How could you allow Akane to have a child with someone else! ... Wait, unless you're the father?"

Nabiki, who had finally recovered, smirked.

Kasumi put a hand to her mouth and gasped.

"Oh happy day!" cried Soun, "The joining of the schools is secure! Let me get a look at my grand-daughter!"

"That's my boy!" said Genma, puffing his chest out proudly, "A tribute to the Saotome name!"

At that moment, Ryouga came bursting through a nearby wall. "RANMA! HOW DARE YOU HAVE A CHILD WITH AKANE! PREPARE TO DIE!"

A second later, Ryoga burst through the wall on the opposite side of the room, calling out at the top of his lungs, "WHERE IS THE TANAKA DOJO IN HOKKAIDO!?"

A butterfly flaps its wings in Hong Kong, and in Central Park we have rain instead of sunshine. Chaos was not quite done with Ranma and Akane just yet, however, for at that moment another young man made his entrance. A Chinese youth clad in white robes and wearing a pair of ridiculously oversized glasses appeared in a puff of smoke. "RANMA SAOTOME!" he bellowed, sending a volley of arrows at the pig-tailed boy from beneath his sleeves, which Ranma promptly dodged, "FOR THE CRIME OF MAKING MY BELOVED SHAMPOO DEPART FROM OUR VILLAGE, PREPARE TO DIE!"

"What the hell is going on!?" Ranma demanded to know. Akane's bewildered expression was his only answer as the scene degenerated into total chaos.

Chibi-Usa recovered then from the surprise of seeing her mother to take action. She HAD to get the Ginzuishou, so she whipped out her pink pistol, pistol-whipped Ranma with it. When the pistol hit Ranma, there came a flare of pinkish light as a `sleep' enchantment was triggered, knocking the pigtailed boy into a deep and restful slumber.

Chibi-Usa then threw her pistol up into the air and laughed as it transformed into a tricycle with an oversized side-car. Quickly dumping the unconscious Ranma into the sidecar, Chibi-Usa leaped onto the tricycle and began peddling away for all she was worth.

It was nearly a minute before anyone noticed that Ranma was no longer present. "YOU THINK YOU CAN ESCAPE ME, SAOTOME!? BECAUSE OF YOU, I'VE SEEN HELL!" cried Ryouga as he charged off in a random direction.

"CURSE YOU, RANMA!" yelled Ryoga as he charged off in the opposite direction. "I WILL rescue Akane from you!"

"SAOTOME! I HAVE COME TO RESCUE THE PIG-TAILED GIRL FROM YOUR FOUL SORCERIES THAT SHE MIGHT KNOW MY DIVINE MANLINESS!"

And so it went, with nearly the entire Nerima Wrecking crew chasing after the little girl on a tricycle who had kidnapped Ranma.

Image: The tricycle climbs over a rise, the NWC in fast pursuit. It begins to pick up speed as it goes down hill. As bystanders turn to look, their brains are instantly fried by the overload of pink; only those with the strongest of wills can avoid being reduced to a vegetable state at the sight of her. Curiously, the Nerima Wrecking Crew is immune to this effect.

~Here he comes, here comes Speed Racer

He's a demon on wheels!~

Image: Chibi-Usa laughs madly, shouting out, "He's mine! MINE! If you don't give me the Ginzuishou, then from now on, he's MY fiancé!!!!!" as she pedals like a DEMON ON WHEELS!!!!!

~Go speed racer! Go speed racer!

Go speed racer, Go!!!!!~

And that was when the now human-sized Sucker appeared in front of the tricycle. Just behind her, Roseite materialized in a swirl of black rose petals. "OOOOOOHOHOHOHOHOHO!" she yawped, twirling her ribbon through the air for effect. Everyone winced.

"We've found you at last, little rabbit!" said Roseite.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!" Chibi-Usa screamed as the tricycle came ever closer to the youma.

"AAAAAAAAAAH!!" cried Sucker as she realized that she was directly in its path. Naturally, she made no move to attempt to get out of the way. She screamed all the way until the tricycle bumped into her and stopped dead. "...Oh, I guess I'm OK."

There was a mass facefault.

Once everyone had recovered, Roseite posed dramatically. "To think that it has finally come to this! The noble young maiden faces off against a horde of angry barbarians, her only companion the faithful youma guardian that was good enough to accompany her!"

******

Meanwhile, Artemis was doing his level best to get Asuka to launch in Sailor02 once more. Naturally, she was refusing.

"Artemis, I am NOT going to pilot that THING again! NEVER AGAIN, do you hear me!? SO LONG AS THAT ROBOT IS WEARING A SAILOR FUKU, I WILL NOT BE ITS PILOT!"

"But Asuka, you're the only one who can do it, and the others need our help!"

"Screw the others! I'm going home!" the red-head announced as she spun on her heel and began stalking angrily away from the moon cat.

Artemis produced his communicator. "Um, Luna? I think we may have a problem."

#Never mind that, Artemis!# came Luna's voice through the communicator, #Get over here right now! I'm going to need your help for this!#

"Right. I'll be there in a moment!"

******

By the time Artemis arrived, the scene had degenerated into an all out brawl. Fists and energy blasts and vacuum blades flew every which way. Chibi-Usa, Kasumi and Nabiki watched from the sidelines, looking totally nonplused. Akane, strangely enough, was nowhere to be seen.

Shielded by the chaos of the battle, Luna and Artemis snuck up behind the still unconscious Ranma, dragging a bucket of cold water along with them. Straining with all their might, they managed to dump the bucket over onto the pigtailed boy. A strange rippling of the flesh signaled the change as Ranma shifted from a black-haired, blue eyed boy to a blue haired red eyed girl.

"All right," said Artemis, "Do you have the compact?"

"Just a moment," said Luna. She then began back-flipping like a monkey on a hot griddle (don't ask - I don't know what this looks like either).

"No, not this... "*flip* "hmm, I didn't know Asuka was into THAT kind of manga." *flip* "No, not that either..." *flip* "oh, so THERE'S where Akane's homework went..." *flip*

After about twenty seconds of this, the moon compact finally fell out of Luna's subspace pocket.

"Here it is, Luna! Quickly, before she wakes up!"

"Hai, Artemis! On the count of three!"

"One!"

Both cats began to concentrate intensely, their crescent moon marks shining as they gathered their power.

"Two!"

"Three!!!"

And as one they cried, "MOON... PRISM... HEALING... ANTI-MALE-NESS... PRINCESS... RESTORATION... DEFIBRILLATE!!!!!!!"

At that moment, the noise of combat ceased. Everyone turned to look as a great sparkly light washed over Onna-Ranma. There was a strange moment where a translucent image of Otoko-Ranma sat up out of the unconscious body of Onna-Ranma and began screaming, writhing and trying to escape. It only lasted a moment, however. The translucent Otoko-Ranma exploded into a thousand motes of light, all of which settled back into the still form of Onna-Ranma. There came then a tremendous flare of red light which sent both Chibi-Usa and moon-cats flying even as it disintegrated the tricycle. A strange glowing sigil appeared on Ranma's forehead, and as they looked upon it, Luna and Artemis were filled with a sense of mounting horror.

"... Oops." said Luna.

END OF EPISODE 6

---------------------

Sorry to end it right there, but hey, I can have a cliffhanger from time to time, can't I?

Comments? Criticisms? Do you like it? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! Let's keep it civil, please. Flames will be laughed at. MSTies will also be laughed at, but in an entirely different manner than flames. 8)

stillwell_phw@hotmail.com