Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ A Soldier's Duty ❯ Chapter 18

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

A Soldier's Duty, chapter 18

"If the heart of a man is depress'd with cares, the mist is dispell'd when a woman appears." -The Beggar's Opera (1728)

"Hey, waitaminute, this was only supposed to last twelve chapters!" - the author.

"I am not a thief, I'm a Wealth Redistribution Specialist." - Tandel the Lynx

DISCLAIMER: Characters and settings used in a eclectic manner ahead. Some scenes by Skysaber, others by myself.

---------

Ami *could* have spent time analyzing this dream, fitting it all into either a Freudian or Jungian philosophy. She had tried this earlier with some success.

Her blue-maned catgirl sister would be her emotional feminine inner "wild child" - an affectionate bundle of energy. One who had clearly stated her interest in Grey-san, which might mean that she herself *was* interested in him on some level. Though it would clearly not work due to a lack of things in common.

"The Queen Of Hearts,
She made some tarts,
All on a summer's day,
The Knave Of Hearts,
He took those tarts,
to his seraglio to stay!"

Ami was pretty sure that this was *not* how the original had gone. Nor was she a "Replacement Tart, Third Class" as those playing cards had continued to insist.

Only the fact that her cute and cuddlesome emotional self had functional claws and wasn't afraid to use them had kept Ami from being taken "off to the Tart Factory"!

No, this was *not* how Lewis Carroll's work had gone. Ami was quite sure of it.

---------

Grey held his hands out to either side and tried to quell the butterflies battling in his stomach. Or at least get them to declare a cease-fire.

"You're a cleric, which means you have to channel magical force from offplane," lectured a white teddy bear. "Let the power flow through you as if you're a pipe carrying water. The words and gestures are needed mainly to ease and shape the flow."

Grey tried to shut out the annoyingly cute voice of the shikigami.

Mamoru didn't drink, except the occasional cup of rice wine during Shinto ceremonies and festivals like the Sakura Viewing parties, and even then he barely imbibed enough to observe the event. Listening to a care bear lecturing a minor Knight on AD&D game mechanics, Mamoru briefly toyed with the idea of hitting a bottle of aforementioned rice wine.

The stuffed dog waggled its tail. "Rowf."

Mamoru groaned.

"Are you sure about this, Endymion?" Grey asked. "If this works, you'll have to solve the problem and say the magic words. Usagi isn't going to be happy either."

Mamoru winced. "Chibiusa is my daughter. In the future, at least. I can't leave her to roll around in some room waiting to have the blueberry juice squeezed out of her."

"Fine," said Grey, taking a deep breath. "Let's try this."

"No," argued the teddy bear. "There is no 'try' - just do."

Mamoru hefted Rei's stereo remote and considered using it as a missile weapon briefly.

"Open gates of time and space,
Into dreamscape prison place,
Travel now, bringing key,
Unfairly prisoned may be free."

The book began glowing as the magic was channelled into it. Mamoru stopped considering braining a teddy bear, and just glared once before entering "Chibiusa & The Chocolate Factory."

---------

"I'm not sure about this..." Celeste hazarded.

Jared shrugged, working controls. "Look, it's perfectly alright. I'm NOT screwing around with anything, I'm just making sure I'm NOT failing in my own duties! I'd be a perfectly pathetic leader if I'd failed to tell my followers what was expected of them. And I'm NOT blowing the test, either! Just giving him the basics to do his job and fulfill his duties right."

Celeste squirmed, she hated to be overruled and had come to consider this simulation as her own province. Meddlers were not welcome. She sighed. But then this case could hardly count as meddling. Jared was right, he had a perfect right. Even a responsibility.

As someone used to coping, she resolved to just accept this one.

Jared hit the 'Enter' Key.

Celeste sucked in her lower lip, questioning. It would occur as soon as he'd resolved his current crisis, but there were aspects of this she wasn't sure of. "But are you *sure* of the choice of messenger?"

Jared's grin was back in place as he leaned back. "Well, in a way it was *Grey* who chose him..."

------

Morrigan frowned.

"Come in, Little Red Riding Hood."

"Boy, have *you* got the wrong girl," remarked Morrigan Aenslad, unfolding her wings.

The wolf in the gray wig and comforter blinked. "'Ey now, Little Red Riding Hood, Wot happened? You got quite a bit bigger." The wolf licked his lips hungrily.

Morrigan was a succubus. She therefore had some shapeshifting abilities. She lengthened her teeth and made them all sharp and sparkly.

"Uhm, say, Little Red Riding Hood, uhm, those are some pretty sharp looking teeth you've got." The wolf frowned a little, not used to being confronted with bigger teeth.

"The better to rend succulent wolf flesh from its bones," said Morrigan. Another gesture and her hands shifted to long claws that looked stained with old blood.

The wolf considered those claws carefully. Reminded him of his mum, it did. Not to mince words, but she was a real bitch. "Oh my, Not So Little Red Riding Hood. What nasty looking claws you've got there."

"The better to slash open wolves and make sausages out of their innards," speculated Morrigan, who caused her eyes to glow a brilliant red.

"Oh dear," said the wolf. "You aren't Little Red Riding Hood at all are you?"

"Nope."

"Is it too late for me to run screaming from the house?"

"Nope."

"Oh," said the wolf. Who then leapt from the covers and proceeded to flee at all speed back to his den.

The moral of the story being that it's possible to get a clue before it's too late.

---------

The first girl's voice was soft, quiet, and *usually* emotionless. There was a hint of emotion there now. "I wish to register a protest."

"What Wonder Girl here said!" The second voice was usually quite emotional, and was neither soft nor quiet. Nor was it usually.

Celeste groaned and put the simulation on automatic. "What NOW?!"

"Me and Wonder Girl have been in the running here, howcum *we* aren't in the simulation?"

"At the beginning of all this, neither of you made the appointment," Celeste countered. "You were late and disqualified."

"We gave a message to that blonde girl that we'd be a little late," Asuka Langley Soryuu replied, her haughty edge beginning to show signs of coming apart. "We had a chance to verify what would happen if we were returned to our original timeline, just as if Grey had never come cruising in and mucking things up."

"Oh," said Celeste, figuring that someone was about to become unglued.

*Sniffle.*

For Rei Ayanami, the tear tracks forming and trembling were the equivelant of Asuka ripping clumps of hair off and going into a fetal position. "I... don't want to be a mass murderer..."

"Yeah, and the idea of me..." Asuka went into the ending of Evangelion in great detail. "That is NOT something I want to have happen."

"Don't worry. You won't remember any of it," Celeste said, completely without guile. "Standard policy."

"That's not the point," argued Asuka, her eyes getting wild. "That's completely NOT the point. Look, Shinji's a spineless wimp. Kinda nice, but that's it. But... and then... and in a... ocean of blood and..."

Celeste looked on in some concern as Asuka started twitching a lot. Perfectly normal end to an Evangelion timeline, why be upset over it? "It would only be a few years. Shinji has no skill at farming or food gathering, and his medical knowledge is minimal."

Asuka whimpered, the facade of the Germanic primadonna she'd once been crumbling away entirely.

Rei let out a deep breath. "Well, if we can't find another means, how about we simply transfer to a timeline that doesn't end quite so... unhappily?"

"It's your native timeline, and how things would normally have turned out." Celeste pondered for a few moments. "I'll see what I can turn up."

---------

The book glowed, dissolved, and Mamoru appeared with Chibiusa.

Or at least a four foot girth blueberry, with Chibiusa's head, feet, and hands sticking out of it.

Chibiusa was very... well, upset didn't seem quite to cover it. Bawling was likewise inadequate. Loud will do for now. Yes, Chibiusa was very loud. Extremely and unequivocally loud about it. Also inarticulate for the most part.

Grey signalled Mamoru, who rolled his daughter off into a room where a talking teddy bear could try and calm her down.

"I didn't expect *that*," confessed Mamoru on his return.

"So that's my granddaughter. Healthy set of lungs at least." Grey shrugged. "Either Queen Serenity or Usagi can try returning her to normal."

Mamoru winced at the thought of Usagi finding Chibiusa like this. The teasing would likely continue for some time.

"Well, at least we know that anything that happens to them in these 'Dreamscapes' carries over now." Grey tried to put a positive spin on it.

"Who are *you* going after? You're going to upset some girls just because you're not going after them first." Mamoru tried to think of a way around it.

"Look at this situation," Grey said, holding a book open. "I don't think I can wait."

----------

Hotaru looked through the bars of her cage at the "pie pan" that bore a vague resemblence to a coffin without the lid.

The Witch checked the pot bubbling on the stove and tasted the mixture. "Perfect."

"I really don't think this is appropriate behavior," squealed an eight year old Misato Katsuragi from HER cage.

"Human flesh contains all sorts of health risks. A balanced diet would be much better for someone of your age," a likewise youthened Ritsuko Akagi tried. "If you let me go, I'd be happy to see if I could find you the proper ingredients."

"Abandoning your friends to be my dinner? My badness, what an evil young thing you are," the witch said, turning to regard the caged kids. "I'm sorely tempted. However, once you've been converted in my oven - you'll make a most excellent side dish."

Maya Ibuki merely glared at her former sempai and refrained from pointing out that visiting the Shrine to spy out the situation had been HER idea. Therefore, their being included in this ridiculous situation was all the fault of one Ritsuko Akagi.

"Now, who should I start with?" The Kaolinite lookalike considered the four little girls. "Would it be better to save the sweets for later, or maybe a tender young morsel, or even start with... Yes, you'll do."

A knock on the door interrupted the dinner preparations.

"Go away! I'm just fixing dinner!" The Witch yelled, counting on the mute spells to keep her dinner from screaming for help.

The knock on the door sounded again.

"Oh fuss and bother," grumbled the witch as she walked to the door. "If it's not one thing, it's another."

Hotaru ignored the whispered recriminations between two of her fellow prisoners. If only she could transform as she had that once, but how had she actually done it? And as soon as they'd been caged, they'd turned younger like this. Maybe this was to keep her from being able to transform?

"Whatever it is, I don't need any," said the witch, opening up the door just a crack. "Oh. HELLO!"

"Hi, i'm from the Witches' Anti-Defamation League, and in order to keep public opinion from escalating against Witches, i'm here on their behalf to request you cease and desist in certain practices and dietary choices."

Grey knew that you had to adapt and go with the setting to some extent. Once he'd gotten here, he'd found himself a little peasant boy in threadbare clothing. So he'd tried shaping and summoning the power before getting here, and thought he had a plan. The spell had brought him something unexpected, but the wording had been for an escape. So maybe...

Finding himself grabbed up and thrust within a cage was a bit unnerving, particularly with the smells in the tiny cottage.

"Sempai, you came for me?" Hotaru asked through the intervening cage bars.

"Some rescue," Ritsuko moaned.

"Wan! Wan!"

The Witch looked puzzled and went to the door, peeking out. Then turning pale (including her hair) and leaning against said door. "D-d-d-dog. BIG dog. Big big big dog."

Grey reached out to hand something to Hotaru as soon as the Witch's attention was off them.

Hotaru frowned at the pen in her hands. Did her sempai want her to make out a Will?

"Say the words," said Grey. "I've never used one, but they should come to you automatically."

Hotaru's eyes widened. She had this sudden urge to say something silly. "Saturn Planet Power. Make UP!"

"Eeeek!" The Witch was a little surprised at the sudden lightshow. Not to mention that dinner now had a polearm. "Little girls shouldn't play with blades. Let Granny take that nasty bad stick away, dearie."

"Silence Glaive Surprise!"

The Witch was VERY surprised, though briefly.

----------

Edema had selected attempting to clean the Pheonix Mage's toes via suction applied to his lips, and was in the act of so doing - hands roaming all over those areas where permission was most in question, and figuring that after all of her trouble chasing him that a little paralysis powder had certainly been in order and not at all worse than what he did, when Thor wandered by.

The redhaired thunder god saw the two, had the Pheonix Mage's reputation run briefly through his mind, waved his hammer idly over the couple, and said "get a room." Teleporting the pair of them off to the bed of a love hotel in that sort of heaven with their wedding certificate floating idly down over the pair of them.

Edema's eyes were wide with shock as her lips had frozen in mid tonsillectomy.

The paralysis powder used to get the mage to sit still in one place long enough for her to smooch him chose that moment to wear off - probably the adrenaline had something to do with it.

Jared spoke around the encumbrance of Edema's lips. "I think I'm going to go insane now. I think I've earned it. No offense to you, but..."

Edema rose up on her hands, a blush stealing over her dark face, stammering, realizing she was lying atop him. "Sugah, Ah..." Words failed her.

The Pheonix Mage's voice was tight with strain. "Funny thing, Belldandy was talking the other day with Urd. I overheard there's no such thing as divorce in a Norse culture, the closest thing is to kill your mate. Much as people suspect it of me I have no intention of doing that to you."

The drow made an effort not to touch her throat in relief at that thought, and failed. "Ah... thanks."

"Don't mention it. You aren't evil, you *can't* be a target. Uhm, but there is one thing..."

"Yah?" Edema was having her own reaction shock, nice of him not to want to kill her...

"Can you do me a special favor?" His voice was tight with barely contained strain, looking straight up at the ceiling as it to control his urge to run screaming from the scene by avoiding thinking of it.

"Anything, Sugah." That not killing her line was still undergoing review. Very kind of him. She was not sure she would be so forgiving in his position. Speaking of position she blushed to the roots of her white hair, remembering what their current one was.

"Thank you." He raised his arms around her and she felt her magic resistance fail as a wash of energy overcame her briefly. When she came to he was panting in relief from reaction at his near escape to a terrible situation no violence could resolve. She blinked her green eyes at him.

He cleared his throat, then sighed again in relief and held her. "Nothing personal. My mom just insisted that I never marry an elf not of my own subspecies. Sanzennin family vows and all that. I hope you don't mind."

Edema briefly realized that she was no longer drow.

The realization was brief because the Pheonix mage started kissing her neck. Her blush resumed and thought fled.

Her prince had returned and was paying close attention to her.

Somewhere far distant, Ataru Moroboshi screamed in wrath and frustration. Someone had *his* harem.

-----------

"Waaaaaaaa! It didn't work!"

Grey shrugged. He had reverted back to 15 years of age shortly after Sailor Saturn had removed an evil witch from the story. Unfortunately, the results hadn't gone quite as well for everyone else.

Ritsuko Ikagi was a fairly cute, eight year old girl. Still. Her age hadn't altered since entering the dreamscape.

Hotaru Tomoe had partially returned to her own age of fourteen from the eight or so she'd been stuck at once she'd entered the cage of the wicked witch. She guessed that she was twelve again. Nor was she happy at all about this, though not turning into a sobbing wreck like Ritsuko.

Misato Katsuragi had apparently gone halfway in reverting towards her original age. She looked high school age. She had gone out to find a vending machine that had beer and get smashed.

Maya Ibuki had lucked out, mainly. She was perhaps in her early twenties when she had started out in her mid-twenties. She was still quite upset with Ritsuko and was making comments about reform school and orphanages. Which was not calming the former Doctor Ikagi down at all.

Hotaru merely hugged her puppy dog, and wondered why Mamoru Chiba kept staring at it. That and grinned a lot because her sempai had decided to rescue *her* first.

Grey decided not to bother with explanations. Hotaru was happy, Endymion looked weirded out, and he had other emergencies to deal with.

Rei seemed OK, though Mamoru insisted that "Hokuto No Ken" (Fist of the Northstar in English) was not exactly a happy setting to be trapped in.

As Mamoru was still reluctant (for reasons Grey wasn't sure of) to rescue Usagi at the moment, that meant that he had to try and break another out of her dreamscape. The logical choice seemed to be...

--------

Edema was tortured.

The former drow girl cried. She'd spent a life of agony proving to herself and others that there was no need to assume a dark heart existed beneath a dark skin. She'd named her business to reflect that, it had been her life.

It hadn't been much of a life from many others' perspective, but it was something. Enough to distract her from much of the pain, at least. Tears continued to trickle down cheeks robbed of their dark color as she considered the work of a life lost in a single mistake.

Beside her in bed, the Pheonix Mage rolled over and an arm went across her. Instantly he was awake. The tenseness of combat faded, then returned, then reduced to partial power all in an instant. "What's wrong?" He asked her, senses flaring.

A proper Southern Belle either rages at her husband or is cheerful for him,... no, that's not quite true; She also depends on him. Edema was torn between the proper Southern response and her own uncertainties. "Ah, Ah don wan ta be a burden on ya, dahlin. Go back ta sleep."

With eyes closed to hide the pain she decided she would go along. He had sworn oaths, after all. She would respect that. Yes, she would support him in public, never letting anyone know, least of all him. This was her blunder, after all, the price was hers to pay.

Hers alone.

Perhaps someday the pain would fade.

She began to feign sleep to lure Jared to do likewise. She felt him shift and tried to quell the terror. She *liked* him, but was not experienced with anyone else making her situation better for her.

Then again, it was the exception to that lying in bed with her. ~Women do not lie awake at night crying when 'nothing' is wrong. Considering what just happened, whatever it is is my responsibility even if it not my fault. If magic would have fixed it, she would've done that herself, so go the old fashioned way. Begin diagnosis of problem. 'Nothing' Meaning in Lingua Par Women: I don't want you to be aware of it. Possibilities: One, it has to do with me directly and thereby by default is beyond my security clearance. Two, it is too massive for her to deal with and by extension not to be trusted to me for fear I will either be hurt by it or make it worse. Three, she finds it embarrassing and fears for our relationship. Discard option three as it fails to fit situation parameters. Hmm? No, make that a tentative discard. It doesn't fit her
well but we are dealing with the source of all illogic. Examine all data strings to determine which path is more fruitful.~

He watched her breathe, observing how careless she was in the act of being asleep - a sure sign that she'd never had to do this before. It made sense, who did she have to trust? It was her against the... ~Contact!~

Edema, for her part, was stiff with fright. Torture by her matron mother and elder sisters in her youth had left her more than physical scars. Gentle contact was unresponsive in her, and a thick streak of paranoia prohibited her from participating in anything rough enough to get her
going on the end she needed to be to get anything out of it. Surprise and elation in her had made an exception *this* time, but she hoped it wasn't an exception. As to the rest...

Between an early teens spent ducking ambush and death at every hand by everyone she might remotely consider under better circumstances, the next several decades spent among halflings who were... eckk! Not interesting. Then leaving with the carefully constructed image of a bad girl but nothing behind the shell to back her in actually *being* that kind of girl...

Edema, for all her boldness, used that boldness and loud talk about unpopular preferences to conceal her shield her pride. She had never 'done it' before in her life.

Jared, for his part, was connecting facts almost as quickly as she was. Some were observable to a new husband, others he had overheard, still more he could deduce. ~She's terrified, has no idea what this means, and is without firm rooting in the world. Everything she knows has been cut out from under her, and was so lately at odds with me she doesn't have a clue what I can be like under better circumstances. Hmm. Diagnosis tentatively complete, begin selection of ideal remedy. Few enough under the title of 'Build Someone A New Worldview', but... Aha!~

He sat up.

Edema consciously fought against stiffening up, deliberately loosening herself and preparing for what she thought was inevitable. It was gospel that men only wanted one thing, after all. She began to consider what to do from bits of information gathered from hundreds of seedy conversations that were the result of holding up her image.

What she did not expect was for him to begin talking. "My grandparents escaped from Krynn, you know."

Edema blinked her eyes open, no longer faking sleep, and not knowing what to make of that statement. He was not playing with weapons, casting spells, or doing anything lecherous - all of which placed him firmly outside her limited experience with the public persona of the Pheonix
Mage.

He gave her a friendly sort of look, open and while not exactly vulnerable, had some guards down. "They were being held in Ishtar, both of them. The Kingpriest had them under lock and key as being questionable sorts. My grandfather, of the improbable name of Sunrise, was a Paladin
of an order that allowed elves. My grandmother was a mage of the White Robes, a fancy way of saying a good aligned magic user, but magic use was suspect in Ishtar then. Both were Dimernesti, coastal elves, able to breathe both air and water, arrested while on land and presumed up to no good by guards who were the least bit overzealous. They might have come to trial but the Folly of the Kingpriest came then. Watching the flaming, falling mountain come down upon Ishtar from out of the windows of their cell they were whisked away by the blending of his prayers and her spells, and thus missed seeing the Cataclysm from ground zero."

The Mage sighed, examining his hands while twiddling his fingers. "So they came to the world where I was eventually born. Being of lawful bent and temperament Sunrise did not get along well with other elves, including my grandmother, and soon left her. They weren't married then or
even terribly close, not even friends. So he traveled wide, mostly with humans. One such quest left him in the company of a lawfully-minded human from the orient. The pair got along famously and after many adventures Sunrise accompanied his friend back to his homeland to assist a country torn in the brewing of a dynastic dispute."

He raised his eyes to the wall, seeming to see beyond it a near infinite distance without seeing anything at all except in memory. "When the dust had fallen Sunrise's companion was named Emperor. In part due to his bloodline but mostly because of my grandfather's ability to keep his
friend alive in spite of an endless succession of ninja assassins. He always said detect evil is an ability most useful when applied liberally."

A glance toward Edema was quickly averted down to the sheets. "Due to owing him his life, the new Emperor elevated my grandfather to the nobility, with hereditary title and lands. That might have been the end of it, producing a small surge of half-elves who would have rapidly
disappeared in a wider population, if my grandmother hadn't showed up. She'd spent the intervening years among elves of that world, but had felt lonely for someone who knew of her homeland and could relate to her past home and experiences without a befuddled look on their faces, so she'd sought out my grandfather."

The Mage was back to looking at his hands. "Anyway, retaining the substance of elvan ways but adopting many of the forms of their neighbors, they prospered, bore children, eschewed local politics, produced goods, and survived. It only required a few centuries for my family to be in a fairly unique position. The first emperor had been so enamored with my grandfather that he demanded that he marry his daughter. My grandmother slipped in the protest that she was with child and could not their children marry, and after the hundred years that it took for my
grandfather's eldest to grow to a marrying age the imperial family had looked forward to the event for so long that it became tradition. Every elvan generation since then has married the imperial line somewhere - one of my half-sisters from my father on my side. All of us kids had been taught in adventuring classes and a few had risen to become notable heroes, which was not by itself so unusual. The truly amazing part, to the humans that is, was that a measly few hundred years is not a terribly big deal to an elf and all those heroes, including my grandparents, were still around."

Another glance was risked at her, and this time lingered. "For a culture that reveres age this caught alot of respect. The first emperor of the present dynasty was long in his grave, many of his triple-times removed grandchildren had died a hundred years ago, and yet there was Sunrise
walking around hale and healthy as can be and had known him personally. Needless to say my family fairly *reeked* of honor."

The deep sigh he gave had much pain in it. "Which is hard for an elf to take, let me tell you. A land with that lawful a bent is stressful to us. My grandmother copes by spending much of her time in estates underwater off a shore our lands control, where she is fairly certain of not having to expect visitors who'll demand rote and ritual till she wants to scream."

His gaze wandered back toward the wall again. "On the other hand, as you know, elves rarely have that many children. Our clan has always been small, though my grandparents have been wise in insisting their children always married elves, whether imported from other lands or the result of permanent magical change. It wasn't hard to demand 'Excuse me, but you can only marry my daughter if I can cast this spell on you that will make you live fifty times as long and look like us.' There were men who fought each other for the privilege."

He drummed his fingers against each other, looking up. "Yet by remaining aloof from the local power struggles we had become obsolete before I was even born, relics if you will, regarded with some amount of awe but no feeling of relevance. My grandfather had been sent away out of court many long years ago. Other clans more willing to play power games beat us out of trade routes, land, townships, and holdings, using influence at court to secure them for themselves. Ninja over the years had stolen everything we had of worth. We'd become rich in honor yet poor in everything else."

Now he was examining bedsheets. "And many of us descendants were just too stressed by the ritual formality of our homeland that we couldn't take it." He closed his eyes. "It got to my grandfather, too. He was Head of Clan and felt the responsibility for salvaging everything was his, so he leaned all the more heavily on us trying to make us conform to what he thought was right."

The look he directed toward Edema had some real tears in it. "Do you know what the choice of my class was? A monk renounces all ties to his family, that was its central appeal to me back then."

The hurt reflected in those blue eyes stunned her, as it reflected so much of Edema's own.

Another huge sigh was made on his part. "But my clan still had some hold on me, the vows of a Kensai are quite clear and being an elf of a clan of elves meant the connection remained in everyone's eyes in spite of whatever vows I'd made. So, to erase some of their shame in me and to give direction to my wandering they put me on a mission to regain many of the family artifacts that had been stolen over the years."

Jared's lips quirked in a slight grin. "Which was all to my taste as those artifacts had chiefly been sold or stolen over and over again and were scattered far overseas, as far away from my homeland and they could be. It suited me nicely."

Edema's eyes were wide in shock at the admission.

He chose to glance once more on her. "It wasn't at all unusual. My family uses fertility spells and has an average of six children per couple. As we are artifacts of great cultural heritage even the ninja clans feel reluctance to kill us, but the atmosphere there is so intolerable that
barely two children in ten remain home. I have a cousin almost as successful as I am. I haven't seen him in many years. The last time I ran into him he was a knight of greater fame than I was a monk, riding a great feathered serpent. We ran into each other on a trip being summoned
to our homeland and he couldn't shut his mouth about how much he hated the place."

The Mage grew very composed as he continued, closing his eyes and softening his voice. "Even my father's first wife ran out on him. She couldn't stand it anymore. Since my clan numbers quite a few mages of some repute she was sought, and when that failed to immediately turn up results a replacement was sought. In fact, a *duplicate* so that none would ever know she'd escaped the clan." He paused a moment here. "After summoning and binding a succubus with fell and powerful spells sufficient to hold and mold her, a quiet ceremony was held and she was made to alter
her shape to that of the lost wife and take over so no one would notice."

Edema was shocked at the amount of pain written there, as he said. "They really worked her over, changed her alignment, did a terrific job, but could never quite forget themselves that she was a fake, even after she did." Tears streamed from his eyes. "None of my brothers and sisters were ever normal in the eyes of the clan. My mother did a terrific job, she was more a supporter of the elvan ways of the clan than they were sometimes, but none of the others ever gave up on the thought that my siblings and I were half demon blood."

The statement shocked the sorceress. "Ya'll have got *demon* blood in ya?" The idea did not seem to fit with the sparkling, splendid image presented by the Pheonix mage.

That same mage nodded. "Fully half. I've ceased to let it trouble me. A very long while ago I realized that if I knew who I was myself I had nothing to prove to anyone else, and a lot of soul searching later I realized that I had nothing to prove to myself. I knew who I was, and those who refused to accept that were not worth the bother."

He chuckled sadly and softly with closed eyes. "I've made only two trips home. The first was after *many* long years. I'd grown to forget what they were like somewhat, and all flushed with success I felt they would be impressed that I was coming home with the riches of adventuring all
over me. I'd even reclaimed a clan artifact I'd been sent for and determined the fate of a lost cousin of mine, avenged his murder even. They said all the right things about that, but no sooner was I home then it was back to being ordered around, the unclean son of a demoness, and
my wealth suddenly became theirs. When I left again I was penniless, even though a few of the magic items they took were made of the fires of my own resurrection by the ring of the pheonix where I'd died in battle to save my friends."

He calmed down in the rush somewhat, still speaking with closed eyes. "No longer a full monk, I trained as a Wu Jen, an oriental mage who *also* dissolves all ties to family clan, and as a druid, something western and *foreign*. So foreign they had no hold on it. Yet the second time they called I still came, accompanied by my cousin who road the winged serpent. We responded to a call to battle, the clan was at war." He paused and took a deep and steady breath. "I was by then a warrior of fearsome aspect and a mage of no small repute, as well as a druid able to
command the the entire establishment as a Heirophant. When I came it was with my band of adventuring friends by my side, we were a fearsome force and one to be reckoned with. Again they took all of my belongings they could lay hold on, but I had hidden most of them."

His gaze alighted on the woman by his side. "Do you know what they did? My comrades and I were looking *forward* to a major land war! I could've won it almost by myself, and the friends I adventured with were also of great capability. Do you know what part in the war they gave us?" He paused, waiting for her answer. When she couldn't reply Jared went on. "None. They wanted nothing of us personally. I alone could've walked the battlefield and trounced half the enemy troops. My clan's forces were pitiful in comparison even to that enemy. Do you know what they asked us to do?"

He sighed and paused, deeply into his story, looking away through the wall. "My eldest brother had been kidnapped and tossed into hell by an enemy spellcaster. He was a ninth level paladin, of no small repute but pitiful compared to what I am and nothing compared to the knight who was
my cousin and was WITH me then. But it was our sole job, given to us by my grandfather, to venture across the planes and fetch him. Because HE was of my father's first wife and all of the clan pined, awaiting his return. All of the victory would be on his shoulders, and we were not to dare win the fight without him present to take full credit."

The Pheonix Mage's head was now bowed fully toward the covers. "We walked away. I don't even know if my clan won that war, or even survived it. I know for certain that my eldest half-brother was never rescued from hell by my cousin or I."

The gaze finally came to rest on Edema gently, with remorse yet kindness mingled in those blue eyes. "You know what? My grandfather is actually a good man, a paladin whose powers *demand* he serve good, but blind in so many ways. He sees something he thinks of as good and pursues that. In this case it was the clan, preserving his family. But he was so driven toward what he *thought* would achieve that goal that he was doing things that were destroying that family and making that very goal impossible. There comes a certain myopia to those who see a step toward the goal as the goal itself, they become blind to other things. It is the primary fault of good people trying to do what they think of as good, I know I've done it myself. The trouble comes that the longer it goes unquestioned the larger that myopia grows, until it can finally block out all of the goodness it was placed there by."

The Mage lay down again, pulling the covers up to his chest. "There are people who think they are good, yet crawl so slowly away from it even as they still believe in their own goodness. It then comes to haunt the very forces *of* good because some of these people gradually getting more blind in pursuit of their desires are doing that which is at least selfish and sometimes evil, yet claiming they are good all the time. It has been a very great while since I've seen my grandfather, nicknamed 'Gloom' by my siblings, call upon any paladin powers."

Blinking up at the ceiling, he said. "The only prerequisite to being evil is to forget what is wrong and what isn't, and the longer your goals go unquestioned, the longer your myopia grows, the worse it gets. I heard someone describe it once: Good and Evil is not a balance, it is a slide. Unless you are constantly climbing you are going down."

He rolled over to look at her. "You have fought your entire life climbing up that slide. You don't need some of the baggage that's been hauling you down."

She lay there looking at him for some time. "Ya'll meant more ta this than a bedtime story, dahlin. Ya'll had a greater point than that."

He sighed, snuggling dreamily into his pillows again. "I wasn't born a bright elf. Neither were you. We all had traumatic pasts with families whose goals did not include any love for us. But it matters not so much what our troubles were, only how far we rise above them, and we can't do
our best holding hurts close to our chests. There comes a time to let them go."

She lay there, considering this.

"And?"

She was good, she was. It called to mind that she was a mage herself and a veteran of her own fights where cleverness meant as much as skill to survive. He drew forth a yawn sleepily. "I have a spell called Blessed Forgetfulness. It was designed by angels to cure victims of demonic
torture and other such things, and what it does is take the barbs away. It works to heal the mind the same way other spells heal a wounded body. The facts are all still there, but the memory isn't still causing hurt anymore. Like leaving a particularly troublesome deformity behind. It just stops having power to focus and control your life. I can let you look over a copy of the spell in the morning. Naturally, when I tried to cast it on Grey it was a total disaster, but so far nothing has been much help to him. I begin to have idle curiosity whether Kami-sama could do that guy a favor and not have it go sour, miss the target, or get lost the first time Grey turned around."

Edema fought hard against a smile. "Ah could let Fleece know ya'll maht be interested in the odds. Just fo curiosity's sake."

Jared murmured sleepily into his pillow. "The actual hard part would be finding a way to get Kami-sama to do Grey a favor. He has His own ways, and I don't claim to understand them. Oh, and in my pack I have some ointment of scar removal, you can use that in the morning."

Edema was just coming more awake. "Hold on there, dahlin. this heah's our weddin night. Twould spoil the whole thang lettin ya'll go ta sleep without a proper goodnight."

Jared smiled into his pillow. ~Assessment of resolution: From crying and withdrawn to amorous and trying to be helpful. Definite upswing noted. Continue to apply kindness and understanding while patient is being observed. Build structures of love off of which to base further treatment
as other problems arise.~

~Victory!~

-------

Grey groaned and pulled an arrow out of his shoulder, wincing as the barbs worsened the wound. "That... was bad."

Maya supported her fiance as they went past Mamoru in order for him to sit in one of the chairs. "That was very brave!"

"-Maybe. i was *trying* to sneak, however. Hit a place on the deck covered in soapy water, and everything else just kinda happened.-"

"Ah," said Maya who hadn't really caught any of that as he'd spoken in English.

"So, Maya was in 'Treasure Island' and captured by the evil pirates?" Mamoru scratched his head. He hadn't remembered cannibal zombie pirates in the original story. Particularly ones that acted as if from the 'Evil Dead' movie. Though zombies around large bodies of salt water was a bit of a hazardous occupation anyway. "-What happened then?-"

"-i managed to trip, grabbed a rope which snapped, and i went swinging like Tarzan across the ship, grabbed Maya before she ended up in the stewpot, and our combined weight when we hit the far wall broke us through. Did you know that zombies are injured by salt water?-"

"-I think I read that somewhere,-" agreed Mamoru. He looked at the little hearts in Maya's eyes and was again glad this wasn't happening to HIM.

"-The pirate king hit the water and boiled away to nothing. Ouch that hurts.-"

Mamoru sighed, got a pair of pliers, and pulled another arrowhead out of Grey. "Hang on. You've got two more."

Maya gently hugged her fiance. "Nobody's ever rescued me from hentai cannibal pirate zombies before!"

"Yes, I would imagine that's fairly rare," indicated Mamoru as he tried to dig out another arrowhead. "-How many of them had bows anyway?-"

"-Only twenty or thirty. The rest had cutlasses and other stuff. i didn't really get a chance to reconnoiter before everything hit the FAN! Eeeeeouch, that smarts.-"

"-That one was fairly deep,-" indicated Mamoru.

"-Well, at least Maya didn't get hit.-"

Maya's eyes teared up. Nobody'd ever taken arrows in the back for her before. Especially while rescuing her from hentai cannibal pirate zombies on their ghost ship.

"-Well, are you ready to rescue Usagi yet?-"

"-Uhm, actually I thought I had, only it turned out to be...-" Mamoru's voice trailed off and he jerked his head towards the outside.

Usagi stood there, wearing a gown far more ornate than she had as Princess Serenity. Not quite as ridiculous looking as some Victorian gown, though the trailing sleeves and multiple layers looked clumsy at least. It was also what Usagi Tsukino was surrounded by that caused Grey's eyebrows to lift.

Seven short fellows, miners from their simple clothing, carrying nearly their own weight in steel weapons and armor, kneeling to their princess.

"-None of them look particularly Dopey or Bashful,-" remarked Grey. "-More like Deadly, Dour, Dreadful, and a few other adjetives. They all look kinda Grumpy, but no Sneezy.-"

Mamoru considered again the keg of rice wine he knew would be in the shrine office for ceremonial functions. "You know, we used to just have to worry about yoma out to harvest energy."

"-Mamoru-san, I'm tired, I hurt, and I've got a long night ahead of me. Could you try at least using less difficult Japanese?-"

Usagi bade her loyal subjects rise, and wondered exactly what use she could put five expert miners and two engineers to.

Oh, and could she wear something that didn't threaten to constantly trip her up?

--------

Edema's smile was that of supreme satisfaction. She stretched in the luxuriant manner of a cat and continued to smile in that way that advertised "Victory" while she went about the usual business of her day.

She was humming softly in a self-satisfied way.

The counter help at the Heart of Darkest Chocolate were eying her suspiciously and gossiping among themselves as to the cause, though the lack of sunglasses and her color alteration drew almost as much speculation. They were assumed to be connected.

Edema softly smiled, and got a hungry gleam to her eye that had nothing to do with chocolate, as she had a scoop poised and was paying no attention to it.

Her skin color got forgotten by the trio of gossiping soda girls.

Edema, whose cream colored dress no longer contrasted but served as an accent to her skin, gave a soft sigh of pleasure and brushed a strand of vibrant red hair out of her eyes, her thoughts on other things.

Her peace came not only from... certain things, but a chance comment made by Jay-chan that was proving its own warm glow. She could no longer be assumed by default to be a bad guy from association. Her number of enemies, not to mentioned misunderstandings, had just dropped
considerably, and her potential allies grown exponentially.

Safety, or near so.

It was a thought that had never occurred to her, but the idea of no longer needing to be so defensive was almost as delicious as...

The counter help got more fuel to their gossip about as the dreamy smile passed over the Heart's proprietress' face.

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

Grey had been startled to learn he was already considered a part of Rei's dreamscape.

"Get him!" One huge mutant bodybuilder exclaimed to another. "With him captured, we can blackmail that Rei girl to work for us!"

The giants had longer strides, but also *much* bigger masses and weren't nearly so motivated as Grey was.

If he were Ranma Saotome instead of Grey Le Shard, he'd have beaten the giants senseless in a casual and irritating style. If he were the Pheonix Mage, there would be little bits of evil giants raining down over a large piece of the city. If he were Mamoru Chiba, he'd probably throw roses and building-leap away.

Grey fled at high speeds, noting absently that he'd try out for the track team if he could find a way to duplicate this feat without having five 12ft tall refugees from "Mad Max" chasing his butt.

"shhuuuuuuuuuu SHOU!"

The giants stumbled to a halt. "Uh oh," said one of the brighter ones.

"We were just making sure you two got together," tried a second giant. "Really."

"We're not scared of you!"

The two slightly brighter ones got away from the three others, including the one who had said that.

There is something called a "Darwin Award" - an honor given posthumously for someone who has committed a blunder so amazingly stupid that they have done the gene pool a service by removing themselves from it.

"Shouuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!" Rei landed on the far side of the three Darwin Award nominees.

The one who had spoken of lack of fear raised a section of sewer pipe he was using as a club. "Hah! We're too strong for a little girl like you!"

Rei didn't turn, walking away from the three as if they were of no consequence.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!" The pinheaded giant exclaimed and started to run forward. Only to suddenly die in a very graphic and messy manner.

"Urk!" "AAAAaa!" "Oh no, not again!"

Rei continued walking only to address the two who were attempting (unsuccessfully) to merge with the landscape. "Southern Cross School - Southern Crane Fist. I... AHHHH!"

The two giants whimpered as they saw the shredded remains of their fellows, and the girl who *had* been ignoring them. Now that she was upset what would she do?!

"I broke a nail, damn it!" Rei fretted, ignoring the way the ground then shook from the simultaneous double facefault from the mutants. "It's turning into one of *those* days, isn't it?"

"Maybe we should play dead?" One giant whispered.

"Better than being the real thing," muttered the other.

-----------

There were places in Heaven of transcendental beauty or gleaming perfect splendor. There were areas that resembled some vision of Viking Heaven as dreamed of by Jack Kirby, and there were Olympian areas of folded space that hurt mortal eyes. There were areas of just plain multidimensional alienness like Mimir's Well, and there were areas of Zen simplicity like the Ice Falls.

The Alley Of Lingering Smells was not (as the Pheonix Mage put it) a slum. It was, however, considerably less than perfect. Unless you happened to be cut of the same mold as Phillip Marlowe, Sam Spade, or several other such characters. In which case it provided a place to be comfortable among all the gleaming perfection.

So there were the faded and stained brick edifices of places like the Rival Relief Office and places like "Milly's Diner" - which catered to those who wanted to remember the imperfect food and simpler life that one could find in something akin to a truckstop.

The whole area of the Alley was imperfect, but in such a way that it was merely comfortable to those used to a mortal existence or exotic to those who weren't. One wit had likened it to a favorite recliner - old and beaten and threadworn but still the one that everyone gravitated to when one wanted to relax.

Naturally, some thought of the Alley as a blemish amongst all the gleam and sparkle. A slum in Heaven. A zit on the face of Perfection.

The inhabitants also were a bit less than perfect. Well, at least the regulars were.

Mambo Jack, for example, was a South Pacific urban legend of male virility. Kitchiri, the well intentioned but incompetent goddess of bimboness. Tennyson, the beholder god of "live and let live" philosophy. Grey, a silver dragon of many Aspects currently out on a Labor. Each had their rough edges: Mambo's lack of manners, for example, or Tennyson's unfortunate tendency to drool.

And then there were others like Hebe and Amaterasu.

Amaterasu was the Japanese sun goddess who had once locked herself in a cave because others were making fun of her. After some assertiveness training and associating with Valkyries, she had become less of an easily wilted wallflower and more of a warrior-goddess. She tended not to hang out with her own pantheon, most of whom she had little patience or tolerance for. She was high up within the Goddess Relief Office, and only showed up in this area at all because the RRO would come up with some interesting trinkets and tales from time to time. Ulterior motive? No, of course not.

Hebe was of the Greek pantheon, and was a wallflower from *way* back. Quiet as a churchmouse, mainly dedicated to her field of proficiency - the upkeep and maintenence of the home, demure, polite. Hardly something to inspire armies to invade or anything of the sort. A bit earthy around people she knew, however.

"...and how much good is any of that? Even when I go butting in and interfering, Rei was brushing off my advice up until she got hit with that love potion."

Hebe smiled and nodded.

"Speaking of THAT did you ever see such a mangled set of commands?" Amaterasu shook her head. "First there's some leftovers from that mind erasing and imprinting done by that Lethe daimon. Then you add this crap with the love potion and suddenly it's all messed up. Love potions *never* work right, that's why they're so cheap at all these magical stores. Might as well have used passion spice or that red thread thing..."

Hebe smiled and gestured at the plate glass window of "Mimi's Authentic Elven Waybread". The glass briefly fogged.

----------

"Rei," Grey said while panting, "i'm so glad you're OK."

Rei walked forward, smiling oddly.

"Uhm, Rei? What are you doing?"

Rei brought her hands up. "Shuuuuuu- SHOU!"

---------

Amaterasu blinked as Grey's clothes came apart in tiny little pieces.

"As you can see, Ama," Hebe continued, walking by the image, "Rei seems to have the situation well in hand. Or is at least trying to."

"..."

Hebe looked back, seeing a chase scene where Grey (obviously thinking Rei had flipped out) was running while trying to cover his anatomy, while Rei pursued with slow inevitability. "Her approach needs some work, however."

"..."

"Give her an 'A' for effort, 'D-' for application," Hebe critiqued. "If she catches him with *that* kind of seduction effort, he'll be permanently scared off. Guys like him can handle aggressive up to a point, but she's crossing that line by damn near a light-year."

"..."

"And slicing that door to shreds with her hands? Think *that* image is going to be easily forgotten? He's got enough imagination that he can see it happening to him. Nope. I'd say she's got her hands full. Well, almost *that* time."

"..."

Hebe glanced over at her friend of several centuries. "Ama, you've been married TWICE. You had a fling with Zeus, hung around with Apollo and some of the other stud-boys and we both know damn well how *crude* we Greeks can be. Stop staring. You've seen naked guys before."

"..."

"Yeesh, Ama. It's like you haven't..." Hebe thought. "Damn. Well, I guess it *has* been a couple of centuries at least, hasn't it? Not since that... No, you didn't get to first base with him did you?"

"..."

Hebe sighed, and because she *was* Amaterasu's friend, used her own hankerchief to wipe the little trail of drool. "Ama. Remember your dignity. He's a *mortal.* You'd have to use an avatar just to get past necking without accidently incinerating him or something."

"..."

Hebe dismissed the vision, then settled back against the wall to let her friend collect what was left of her wits. It looked like it might take awhile.

------

Mamoru saw Grey return, clutching shredded clothing, wearing only an expression of terror, with Rei steadily advancing towards him. "I don't want to know. I am *not* going to ask."

Rei froze on seeing Mamoru and her bedroom. "It wasn't a dream?"

Grey shook his head frantically. Mamoru simply said "no."

Turning bright red for the brief moment she was still in the room, Rei vanished quickly into the bathroom.

"-Uhm, are there any clothes here?"-

Mamoru shook his head once. "The only clothes here are Rei's clothes."

"Oh great..."

"Sempai, did you...?!" Hotaru's eyes grew large.

Grey attempted to cover himself with the shreds of clothing he'd been able to keep. He wasn't nearly able to recover any shreds of dignity at the moment.

"Man, I needed that... Hel-LO!" Misato looked over the guy with the ridiculously tiny shreds of what looked to be a shirt once upon a time.

"-Would someone at least close the damn door, i'm getting a draft here.-"

Mamoru took a moment to step next door, ring the temple bells, clap his hands three times, rubbing them up and down, and give thanks that this had NEVER happened to him.

Misato got a mischievious glint to her eyes. "Gee, ya look kinda cold there. Maybe..."

"...sempai?!" Hotaru said in a very small voice.

Now crouching in a tiny ball, Grey grumbled. "-Some clothes please? A guy could catch pneumonia or something.-"

"-Oh stop whining, you're a boy you know,-" Misato quipped, looking through Rei's closet. She paused to leer suggestively at him. "-Yup, definitely a boy!-"

Hotaru decided to look elsewhere, though privately she was cursing her newly youthened state. If she were fourteen again, she'd be in a far better position to appreciate this, or so she thought.

"My goodness, look at some of this stuff!" Misato held up something that Hotaru supposed was clothing. Except that the areas of coverage seemed a bit off.

"That looks kind of..." Hotaru wasn't sure what to call it.

"Yeah, it IS kind of," snickered Misato. "Oh, maybe this would look good on him!"

"That's a girls' yukata," pointed out Hotaru.

"Like he's gonna be able to tell?" Misato smirked a lot. She was *just* drunk enough that this was quite amusing. "Why do I think you're not going to be any fun?"

"-Clothes? Please? Something? Somebody?-"

"Waaaaah!" Usagi came in the door, saw all this going on, and her pigtails stuck briefly straight up.

"-Oh great. NOW what?-" Grey asked his knees. "-Heck, what *is* the word for clothes in Japanese anyway?-"

Mamoru re-entered the room at a run upon hearing Usagi scream, saw what Misato was holding up, and decided they should be elsewhere. "Uhm, Usako, we should be seeing if those dwarves are done building their de-juicer for Chibiusa."

"Yeah, I think so..." Usagi said, covering her eyes and leaving.

Rei stepped out of the bathroom, noticed Grey was still naked, and noticed the piece of clothing Misato had now pulled out of the closet. "Eeeeeek!"

"-Clothes?-"

"Can you imagine him in this?" Misato said with an evil gleam.

Hotaru glanced at the things Misato was examining, then quietly found a long sleeved T and a pair of jeans to hand to her sempai.

"Thank you, Hotaru-chan," Grey said, reached for the clothing, saw Hotaru's eyes bug then went back to covering himself. Then grabbed the clothes anyway and tried to set a speed record for leaping into a pair of jeans.

Misato waited until Grey had the pants on, noting that what would have been tight on Rei looked uncomfortably so on the boy. "Oh, don't worry about it. I'm sure Rei is more than happy to have you get inside her pants."

Rei had thought she had been about at the limits of embarrassment before. She considered bopping her former teacher on the head for proving her wrong.

Grey zipped up, eeped, unzipped and tried to shift around before zipping back up. Without looking obvious. He failed miserably, and eyes were tearing by the time he unzipped. "-This isn't going to work...-"

"-Damn, that looked like it hurt,-" remarked Misato. "Maybe we ought to go with the priestess robes. They ought to fit at least."

"Hey, those jeans cost me a LOT! You're gonna bust the seams!" Rei said, though her gaze never left certain portions of anatomy.

"Sempai, are you hurt?" Hotaru winced. Okay, it was *obvious* that that hurt. Maybe even worse than the arrow wounds.

"-This has *not* been a very good day,-" complained Grey, not that anyone was currently paying attention to what he was saying. Noticing one of the book-prisons nearby, Grey grabbed it, hoping that jumping into *this* dreamscape would at least get him some clothing.

================

OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE

"Yeesh, that Ranma fella sure got a passle of problems," the stranger in the hooded robes said in an obviously fake accent, looking at the Well from a distance.

The long neck craning out of the mists was the why. Currently no one was allowed near the Well Of Mimir, after a minor imp had thrown one of Bast's favorite cats into a Ranma timeline.

"Not all the time," said the dragon. "It's just that the more chaotic and strange timelines are the ones that get the most attention. Some are relatively peaceful."

"A peaceful Ranma timeline?" The robed mortal said it as if the entire concept was alien.

"Relatively," repeated the dragon. "Observe."

------

The pudgy man in threadbare clothing ran up to the ledge. "RAN! Get back here! This is not over by a long shot! Listen to your father, boy!"

Ran rolled his eyes in mid-leap, landing lightly in the saddle and reaching for his thick gloves. "Get off that noise, old man! You know the old saying as well as I do."

Gen yelled and waved his fist at his wayward son. "You get down here! You have greater responsibilities than to go joyriding across the continent!"

Ran waved at his father, only using one finger. "Don't care for any more of your schemes, old man, no matter what it is. Just came by to say goodbye, and now we're out of time. 'Dragonriders must fly when Thread is in the sky!'"

With that, his green dragon lifted off and went Between. Now was not the time for yet another idiot scheme from his father. Nor time for that old rivalry with Ryo from Fort Hold, nor the curious relationship between himself and that green rider Uccha, or even that friendly young Healer he'd met from Honshu - Kasumi. No, now was the time to fly and fight Thread.

This would probably be one of the last Threadfalls, but even then - why return back to his father's care when the old man was definitely persona non grata in three Holds? He'd had enough of that, and Ran was making a name for himself - not interested any longer in trying to redeem his father's.

Nope. Thread was falling, and he was the rider of the green dragon Akane. Now was the time to fly.

--------

"You see," said the dragon. "Same spirit, same soul, many of the same elements. However, the Pern dragonrider Ran is much more at peace."

"Boring," countered the stranger. "And it's a darkline. Ranma doesn't end up with a HUMAN Akane, after all."

"If that's your definition of a darkline, yes." The dragon sighed. "As to the boring part, admittedly it doesn't feature gender-changing curses, and until the Abominators injure that Healer friend of his, he isn't nearly as violent. An adventure is someone else having a hard time, after all. No, the life and times of Ran of Honshu doesn't feature quite the same flavor of insanity you might expect. There is still conflict, however."

"I don't even consider that a Ranma timeline. No Kodachi or Tatewaki Kuno. You can't consider it a Ranma timeline if he doesn't get cursed and isn't an obnoxious jerk."

The dragon considered the odds of just tail lashing this fellow out of the area. Would he get in trouble, or wouldn't he? "Well, if *those* are your only objections."

-------

"Stupid old man. Ya just had to steal food from THEM!" Ranma knelt by the gravesite. "Ya never could think past yer belly, could'ja? Now look at what's goin' on. They cursed you to lose weight, so you could eat all you want but never digest anythin'. We almost made it back to civilization though. Don't know if the docs could'a done something but we almost made it.

"Of course, they cursed me as well, damn 'em. Said that bein' the son of a thief and a thief myself, I needed a new life. And that cause I wasn't manly by THEIR standards, that I ought to be 'un' manned." Ranma looked down at her hands. "Accordin' to THEM, I'll get more 'girly' the longer I'm like this. The only cure from what they were sayin' is for me to act manly by THEIR standards. And then if I do something 'unmanly' like insult someone, steal, or hit someone 'without just cause' - then I'm back to bein' a girl. And if I've really screwed up, they said I'll get even more girlish, whatever *that* means."

Ranma looked down at the hastily dug grave. She wouldn't cry, it wasn't manly. THEY had a largely stoic warrior culture, similar to samurai in some respects. Well she'd beat this thing. She'd *be* a samurai and beat the curse, then she'd go back and beat the snot out of that old witch doctor.

-------

"Where's the Kunos, the Tendos, the Chardins, the Golden Pair?" The robed mortal was demanding of the dragon. "What makes this a real Ranma timeline?"

"There's your curse. He meets the Kunos, does a formal challenge of Tatewaki, defeats him *in Kendo*, and thereby earns Kuno's enmity. He never gets involved with the Tendos, the Chardins, Happosai, the Golden Pair, or those because his father never told him about the Tendo arrangement." The dragon gestured and the view changed. "See. He starts to lose some of his bad habits and we see less and less of the redhaired girl. Flavors kind of 'Ruroni Kenshin' but not bad overall."

"Not a comedy, more a character study." Holding both thumbs down, the robed man made a disgusted noise. "If Akane doesn't get Ranma, it's not a real Ranma story. And none of these wimpy Akane stories either, no fair exchanging Akane and Kasumi's personalities. Remember: Akane always wins and is never wrong."

"Gotcha."

--------

The blue haired girl in the blue and white sailor seifuku backed up against a wall, shaking her head. "No, please..."

The teenage girl raised her cane. "That's enough! Freeze card, your power be confined!"

"Noooooooo!" Sailor Mercury screamed, her body dissolving into white mist which quickly resolidified in a different form.

Akane held up the Freeze card - engraved with the image of a sleeping Sailor Mercury. "All right, *another* easy capture. Maybe the next one..."

--------

"What the HECK was THAT?!"

The dragon blinked down. "Akane learned the ways of magic, and approached it with the same fine attention to detail she uses in cooking, as well as the same obstinate manner she insists on using in trying to breathe water in order to swim. So she follows the instructions in some old scrolls by a guy named Clow Reed where he was making notes on how he created a Key Of Clow."

"Ranma is the FIGHT Card?!"

"She got some details wrong," the dragon said. "Her first capture was unintentional. She turned her eldest sister into the Cooking Card. She also hasn't found a way to permanently release anyone, though she currently thinks that if she's defeated, her cards will be released. So far nobody's managed."

"But that's..."

"Tatewaki became the Sword Card, Kodachi is the Ribbon Card, Genma escaped after seeing his son turned into a playing card, Kasumi is the Cooking Card. Nabiki panicked on finding out that little sister's playing at magic was for real and Kasumi was now just a card in a deck. She shouldn't have told Akane she was going to try and stop her. So Nabiki ended up the Sneak Card. Akane's been challenging youma, the Sailor Senshi, Devilhunters, and anyone else she thinks she has a chance of defeating her."

"But..."

"She's never wrong, she's never been defeated. Of course, at this point she's gone off the deep end. Usual obsessiveness level, don't you think? She's got Ranma. Hmmm. Looks like she just got Sailor Mars/Fire Card too. Racking up quite a score, isn't she?"

"NO! NO! NO!"

The dragon snorted a cloud of frost. "Okay, if *that* didn't work, then how about this one?" Upbeat and brassy theme music began to play.

---------

"Yo, Pops, are you sure about this?" Ranma pulled the car up to the front curb, eyeing the place. "Well, it's fairly sizable for Tokyo, but it's kinda declasse too."

Genma wasn't sure how far he could press this stranger. If only he hadn't lost Ranma all those years ago. Now, reunited when the boy had dropped by to say hello because it was his 16th Birthday, the Ranma he was facing was almost entirely different from the child he'd wanted to raise as a socially inept, dependent, martial artist.

Ranma opened his door, stretching out as he uncramped himself. "So, what kinda treasures are in this place, ya been kinda vague so far."

"Uhm, *great* treasures. You'll see," Genma said, heading for the front door at full speed.

Ranma stared for a moment, then shrugged with a smirk. Tapping a cufflink, he spoke quietly into it. "Y'all there?"

Curiously enough, two voices emanated from the cufflink a moment later. "Am listening." "Hai, Ranchan!"

Ranma's smirk deepened a little bit and he twisted the cufflink to "Transmit Only." Just in case the old man was selling him out.

The interior of the house wasn't as bad as the outside. Kinda homey, actually. At the doorway, Ranma turned and thumbed a remote at his car. The door shut and the alarm system bleeped. Just in case.

Then some human water fountain tried to grab him.

--------

"Hey, I didn't mean to hit him that hard, he kinda startled me." Ranma spread his hands as if to say "what else could I do?"

Akane glared. Not only was she (or one of her sisters) supposed to be engaged to this BOY, he had just used some underhanded sneaky manuever to knock her dad out!

"So, uhm, Ranma?" Nabiki decided to cut to the heart of the matter. She thought he was fairly cute, his clothes were fairly expensive, and that watch certainly was. Was he rich, or wasn't he?

"Yeah?" Ranma looked the place over and decided that if these people had a treasure, it would have to be a secret because their security was nonexistent.

Soun awoke, groaning. "What hit me?"

"Sorry about that," Ranma said. "You startled me. Not a healthy thing to do. So, Pops, you wanna go ahead and tell me where the treasure is?"

"You will marry one of Soun's daughters. Who are, after all, treasures." Genma tried to look solemn and all-knowing from his position behind the table.

Ranma stared for a moment, then chuckled. "Yeah right. Ya had me goin' there for a minute. Now come on, ya been telling me about some great treasure I was supposed to inherit..."

"That would be the Tendo Dojo, after you've married one of my little girls. This is Kasumi, she's 19. Nabiki is 17, and Akane is 16. Pick which one you'd like and she'll be your new bride."

Ranma's smile slowly evaporated. "Ya gotta be kidding me? Why would I even *want* a dojo?"

That question seemed to catch Soun AND his daughters off guard. "B-because it's a matter of honor. You MUST marry one of my daughters and carry on the School of Anything Goes Martial Arts."

Ranma scratched his head. "Well, if it's Anything Goes, I've already got it, and a dojo would just kinda be superfluous to that kinda style wouldn't it?"

"GENMA?!" Soun rounded on his old friend for an explanation.

"Errr, six years ago, I, uhm." Genma began sweating heavily as he tried to cover himself.

"Six years ago he sold me to some guy to pay off his bartab," Ranma said smoothly. "The guy he sold me to tried to use me in a scam, then leave me off with some police. 'Cept I didn't want to be left behind. Food was better, and this guy happened to have tricks that Pops here couldn't pull off if his life depended on it. So I stuck around, applied the old 'anything goes means *anything* can be martial arts training' schtick, and trained with this guy and his gang for awhile. At age 16, I seperated from my sensei, and last I heard he was going into retirement. At least if Zenigata will let him."

"Errr, so. That's nice? Which daughter did you say you'll take?" Soun glared at his friend's son. There were only three answers he was prepared to accept.

Ranma shrugged and stood up. "Don't see any reason to remain. By selling me, Pops essentially sold me out of the clan. Far as I'm concerned, the guy he sold me to is my new clan. So it's not Ranma Saotome no more. It's Ranma Lupin, adopted son of Arsene Lupin III."

"Lupin?!" Kasumi blinked in astonishment, having read of the masterthief's exploits.

"Lupin?" Nabiki mused that over and considered that this might be a *very* good match.

"Lupin?" Akane said. Well, he couldn't be much of a martial artist then. Waitaminute, that meant that this Ranma was an international thief too! Therefore it was the duty of a true martial artist to apprehend him. "Well, I'll just call the police. Stay there and I won't have to hurt you."

Ranma's smirk returned. "Just try."

*SPLASH!*

"Wow, good aim!" Nabiki said after a moment. "Dead center in the koi pond."

Ranma straightened his vest. "Hey, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing with class."

---------

"No, this is STILL wrong! Akane never makes mistakes! She's perfect and unsullied. Sweet and demure. Even tempered and gentle and trustworthy! She's a perfect virgin goddess!"

"Which Akane are we talking about... ?!" The dragon lunged forward, snagged the cloak, and tugged it away. "AHA! i thought so!"

"Hey! That's mine! Give it back!"

"Got lost again, eh, Ryouga?"

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