Notes – Welcome back to the battle royal! Since it's been a while since I

posted chapter 7 of this it might be a good idea to go back and review the

fight. As this chapter progresses it takes a lot of twists and turns.

**********

The Replacement

Chapter 08

Cory D. Rose

[email protected]

(c) 2003

**********

"Ayeka just gathered up Azaka and Kamindake and went to get the boy." Katsuhito said to the group.

They nodded; unsure just who the two new people were, but figured the girl knew what she was doing if she took them along. Sailor Moon was beginning to wonder just who these people were now that she had a chance to think things through a little bit. They had arrived here to help Ranma.

Instead, they were being told to wait while one of them went to get Ranma. Sailor Moon would have preferred if it were one of the Scouts though. She didn't really know who these people were. The old man seemed like the leader of the group, but she could tell that most of them wanted to go out and fight this Ryoko person.

That thought made her wonder just how Ranma was doing out there. Through her link with Ranma, she could tell that he was unconscious, but seemed to be all right other than that. He didn't even seem to be in any pain.

She glanced at the Scouts and saw that Venus and Jupiter were talking to each other while standing off to the side. Mars looked like she was on the verge of yelling at someone as she glared at the ground at everybody, and Mercury was assisting Washuu with another scan of the area.

"Sailor Moon." Venus said quietly as she and Jupiter walked over.

"What's going on?" She asked.

"We need to go and get Ranma ourselves. I don't trust that girl at all and did you see those things she took with her into the forest?" Jupiter told her. "Two large floating logs with their names painted on the sides. They almost reminded me of the Droids from when Rubius was around."

"We should be the ones to go and get Ranma." Venus insisted.

Moon nodded. "I know, but we also need to be here for when this Ryoko starts to cause problems."

"Then let us go and get Ranma, he can help us out by turning into Vulcan. Those large energy blasts of his will come in handy against someone that can fire off a similar level of fire power." Jupiter insisted as she pointed at the burning forest behind them. "Remember what Ranma accidentally did to the school the other day."

"And what about that other problem Mercury told us about? Some other person was possessed too?" Sailor Moon asked.

With a shrug, Jupiter folded her arms and glared out at the burning trees. "What about it, we can handle anything that gets in our way if we have to."

"We need to stick together if we want to be of any help at all. If you aren't here when the fighting really starts we will be in trouble."

"Are you feeling alright?" Venus asked suddenly.

"Huh?"

Venus shook her head and decided that insulting Moon's intelligence would not be a good thing to do right then. Sailor Moon usually didn't think like that and it had her worried. "Nothing just thought of something surprising."

"We need to get out there and help." Jupiter insisted.

Suddenly Sailor Mercury ran over to them. "Sailor Moon, that second dark energy source is on the move and it's heading right for Ranma."

"What?!" Moon yelled. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, it's still a little too hard to read, but Washuu thinks that it would be best to get more people out there to make sure that no one is injured."

"That's all I needed to hear." Sailor Moon said as she turned to Venus and Jupiter. "Go and help him as fast as you can!"

"Right!" They yelled and ran off into the forest in a blur of motion.

"Is there anything else that you two are doing that might help us?" Katsuhito asked. He seemed to appear right behind Sailor Moon.

"Aghaaa!!" She screeched and jumped about a foot in the air. "Don't do that!"

The old man grinned. "I did not mean to scare you." He lied.

"Washuu says that she is attempting to get her sensors back on line so that she can monitor the fighting better. Whatever happened out there knocked them off line and she is attempting to reprogram them to work around the interference. If it works she says we will be able to see what is going out there as well."

"How will she do that without sending a camera out there to see them?" Moon asked.

"Sensors are more powerful than a camera Sailor Moon." Mercury said. "They can do a lot of amazing things."

Washuu nodded.

"Um…okay." Moon said, though she looked a little confused.

**********

Azaka and Kamidake, Princess Ayeka's two large wooden guardians, floated through the trees several yards behind Ayeka as she moved through smoke filled woods. So far she hadn't been able to make much head way though the smoke that seemed to hover throughout the area. "What do you think is going on?" Azaka asked as they moved past some more smoldering bushes and over

turned trees.

"I have no idea, just that the explosion woke me up." Kamindake said.

"Moron, we were on guard duty."

"Right right, we hadn't moved from our posts in three months at least and you're still calling it guard duty?"

"Hey, you were sleeping as much as I was, don't deny it." Kamindake commented smugly.

"Humph! I have no idea what you are talking about."

After several seconds of walking along in silence, Ayeka stopped to look around. The two guardians continued to hover around the area and noticed that most of the trees in this area have been levelled, several of them are even still being consumed by the fire.

Over half of them are barely standing and there seems to be a fine layer of ash and smoke floating just above the ground. Kamindake floated forward and commenced a more thorough scan of the area as Azaka hovered near Ayeka in case something dangerous appeared. He prepped his laser to protect her at all costs. "Is this the place?" He asked.

"Yes it is." Ayeka said as she looked around. "We need to find a boy, about sixteen or so. Black hair and well built."

They looked about the devastated area, the blasted trees, and the rising stench of burnt plants and floating ash as it slowly drifted to the ground to cover everything in a fine layer of gray dust. Kamindake moved over to Ayeka. "Scanners are having problems working in this environment. I'm getting a lot of conflicted readings. It's as if something is blocking my scanners."

"Are you scanning for the boy himself?"

"No, just a human bio signature, they are easier to pick out in an environment like this."

Ayeka nodded slowly and looked about the area a little closer. "This is the area that the blue haired Scout told me that we could find that boy and Washuu confirmed it as well. Where could he be though? Do you detect any holes in the ground that he might be hiding in?"

"It's the ash, it's giving the scanner a lot of feedback." Kamindake said. "I'll need a few minutes to work around the problem."

"Be quick about it."

"Danger Princess." Azaka said suddenly, making Ayeka spin around to look at him as he floated beside her.

"What is it?" She asked, but stepped back as she caught sight of a monster.

Standing several yards away was a very large thing that covered in layers and layers of shadows, so many that it was hard to tell what it was. She could make out just enough to tell that it was covered from head to toe in long grayish fur.

It was squatting on it hind legs as it watched them from between a couple of trees and Ayeka was sure that it was even bigger than it seemed. Its glowing red eyes narrowed as it stood up to its full height and looked down at them. Its shape was hard to make out as well because of all the shadows that covered its body.

Even the flames from the burning trees were not enough to light up its body. Azaka shifted so that it was just in front of Ayeka and Kamindake moved into position just to the side and powered up its laser as well. The crystal jewels set into the wood of their bodies, just above their names, started to glow with energy.

"You have one warning, leave or you will be punished!" Azaka yelled.

"You think you can stop me with those pathetic weapons?" It growled. "I have become more powerful than you can ever imagine and all I have to play with are a pair of scratching posts?"

"Whatever you are, leave this instant and you will not be harmed." Ayeka demanded in her full princess voice.

It snorted and licked its very large, very pointed teeth and seemed to grin at her. "You will learn our true power soon enough, but first you have to deal with my new sister. If you survive then maybe we can fight." It said with a hint of amusement in its voice.

Ayeka realized that the thing was mocking them and saw red as she yelled out. "Azaka! Kamindake! FIRE!"

A barrage of laser fire erupted from each of the guardian's jewel sensors and started slicing the area up, almost instantly turning the nearby trees into piles of shredded wood. By the time they stopped, there was no sign of the creature. Azaka and Kamindake moved away from Ayeka and scanned the area again. "There is no sign of the creature Princess." Azaka reported. "There is no sign of a body either."

"Sensors seem to be working again Princess. I've located our original target for this mission." Kamindake said.

"You found the boy? Excellent! Lets go and get him, we need to get back to the house so we can keep Ryoko from killing him."

They quickly made their way through the burning trees and found a large mound of dirt shoved up against a small cluster of trees. There was a trench cut in the earth leading up to the trees with a completely naked body half buried in the dirt at its base.

Ayeka took one look and blushed as she realized that the boy lying on the ground in front of her had a body that looked like it was molded out of stone. Coughing to hide her growing blush, she pointed at him. "Azaka, Kamindake, lift him out of there carefully with your force fields and bring

him along."

"Vital signs are surprisingly strong. Subject will be awake in a few minutes if we leave him here to recover on his own." Azaka stated as he finished his scan of the boy.

"It would be best to wait, Princess. The thing from before might still be around and if we are busy carrying the boy we can't protect you." Kamindake explained.

Scowling, Ayeka resisted the urge to over ride her guardian's protection program. She did not want to be out here and with Monster Woman running around more powerful than usual; she didn't want to be here any longer than she had to be. That meant that here was only one course of action left to her and she really, really didn't want to do it. "You two keep watch, I'll carry him."

"Yes Princess." The guardians chorused as they moved into protection mode again.

On one hand if she hadn't known who the boy was she might not have had much of a problem touching him. On the other hand, this pervert had seen her naked in the bathroom and barely escaped with his life when Ryoko was firing energy blasts at him. Just looking down on him and ignoring his muscular backside made her want to kick him. "Were there any broken bones?"

"No princess, he's in perfect health, just unconscious, and will wake up in two minutes if brainwave activity remains the same as Lord Tenchi's profile." Kamindake said.

With a little shudder, she reached down, grabbed his arm, and pulled the body over onto its back and she choked down a gasp of shock as she finally got a good look at him. Every square inch. 'Don't think of him as a boy.' She chanted repeatedly in her head as she used her Jurian will power force herself to lift him up onto her back and hold him in place. Ignoring the feel of his naked backside resting on her hand or his muscular arms draped over her shoulders.

"This is disgusting!" She snarled, just to let the guardians know what she was thinking. 'Think of Tenchi-sama, Think of Tenchi-sama, and Think of Tenchi-sama!' She chanted to herself and began to walk back to where Tenchi and the others were waiting.

"Are you alright Princess?" Azaka asked. "Your face is flushed."

"It's n-nothing." Ayeka said. "We need to hurry, this guy is too big...er, heavy for me to carry for long."

"We are just a few minutes away Princess." Kamindake said.

"Thank god." Ayeka muttered. Carrying a naked man on her back was proving to have several distractions that she hadn't considered before. 'He's ruining my robes too.'

The trees opened up before her and they found themselves in a small clearing that looked like the fire hadn't touched it yet. However, there was quite a bit of smoke in the air around them. There was just enough in the air to obscure everything in a hazy mist.

For just a second all was peaceful, then she heard a noise she really didn't want to hear and looked up into the air above them. Just as a bar of blue light fired down from the sky, hit the ground about ten yards away, and exploded. Azaka and Kamindake did what they could to shield the princess from the blast, but they weren't fast enough to stop the blast wave from crashing into them.

This sent her and Ranma flying back several feet where they landed in a hard and fell to the ground. They rolled for several feet before they stopped, but they eventually came to a stop. Ayeka wasn't sure how but Ranma had landed on top of her and she started to blush as she realized what they looked like.

Then Ranma groaned, rolled off her, and sat up clutching his head. Ayeka sighed in relief and hoped that no one had seen that. "What they hell hit me?" He pushed himself up and shook his head to clear the cob webs that had developed.

"Get off me."

He looked down to see that he was sitting on Ayeka's stomach and that he was completely naked. "Yah!!" he screamed, jumped off her, and flipped in mid air to land several feet away. "What the hell do you think you're doing you pervert!"

"You're the one calling me a pervert?!" Ayeka growled. "You jerk!"

"I'm the one that ended up naked in your lap!" Ranma yelled back angrily.

Up above them Ryoko hovered in the air as she gaped like a fish at the sight of a naked Ranma strutting around. 'I knew he really was a pervert.' She thought to herself as she glanced over at the bright red blush on Ayeka's face and grinned evilly.

The princess stood up slowly and took a second to dust herself off as she did what she could to control her blushing. It didn't help that Ranma didn't seem to have any modesty at all, as he stood there naked as the day he was born and didn't even attempt to cover himself up. Not a care in the world.

"How dare you?!"

"Hey you're the one who took my clothes." Ranma snapped. "Give them back and I'll get dressed."

He took a second to look around and remembered that he had been fighting with that girl. A quick look into the air above him was all he needed to see her watching the two of them fight.

"I DID NO SUCH THING!" Ayeka yelled.

"Then why am I naked? Plus you can't seem to take your eyes off me, I can tell when a girl is looking at me. Your eyes have been below the waist line this whole time, that's a pervert in my book."

"HAHAHAHAHA!" Ryoko laughed as she slowly floated down towards the ground in a sitting position. "He's got you there princess."

Ayeka glared up her rival as Ryoko decided to fight them face to face, it would be more fun that way.

"Hey, there you are." Ranma said as he stepped forward. "That last blow was quite powerful, but as you can see I'm still in one piece."

Leering down at Ranma, Ryoko grinned as she made a show of checking the boy out by flying around him a couple of times. "You are still whole, but that won't last for to much longer. Some things have changed while you were unconscious."

"It'll take more than you've got to beat me." Ranma said as he crossed his arms and nodded arrogantly. "Bring it on!"

"HAHAHAHA!" Ryoko laughed as she formed a ball of energy between her hands and fired another beam at him. Just a few feet away from Ranma the beam split in half, one part heading for him and the other one flying right at Ayeka who had this confused look on her face.

Ranma dodged, diving to the left just as he heard some kind of shout and the air was suddenly full of large balls of flying electricity. They flew overhead just as Ranma landed and rolled to his feet and skidded for several feet. Over by where Ayeka he caught sight of a yellow chain made out of hearts retracting from where it had just blocked the second half of Ryoko's

attack. He wasn't sure if it was Jupiter and Venus because of all the smoke in the air, but he was reasonably positive.

"Interfering bitches!" Ryoko screamed from somewhere overhead.

He glanced up at the voice and saw a ball of energy forming between the hands of a shadowy looking Ryoko. If anything, the amount of smoke in the air had almost tripled in the last few seconds. Then he saw a form heading for him through all the smoke. He could tell it was one of the Scouts, but didn't really have a clue which one it was. All he knew was that she was in Ryoko's line of fire and that she was about to take a hit.

A part of him said to keep his head down and that the Scout could take care of herself. While another part of him sat on the idea and said to rescue her before she got hurt because of him. In a blink of an eye he jumped into the air and saw that Ryoko had fired at almost the same time. As

he hurtled through the smoky air he saw that it was Sailor Venus and that she had just realized she was about to be hit.

Gritting his teeth he landed next to her, took her in his arms, and jumped across the clearing just as the area exploded. This sent bits of dirt and grass flying in all directions. Cradling her in his arms he used his body weight to alter his jump and landed several feet from where he should have

landed. It proved to be a very good idea as it too exploded in an even bigger explosion than the first one did. He dropped to the ground and covered Venus to shield her with his body.

She screamed as a third blast hit almost right next to them and sent them rolling several yards before Ranma was able to stop them. Then he picked her up and got behind a tree for a bit of protection. Not much compared to Ryoko's blasts, but enough to keep her from seeing them. Ranma

looked around the edge of the tree and watched as Ryoko hovered a few yards in the air looking for them.

"Are you alright?" He asked the shivering girl in his arms. It was a little hard to tell, but he figured she was all right since he didn't see any blood and she wasn't crying.

"Hu...umin...a." Venus stuttered out and gave him a weird look.

He turned back to look at the Scout and wondered why her skin was all red like that. "Those explosions seem to have given you a first or second degree burn, Venus."

Venus sighed and just looked at him with suddenly sparkly eyes and a weird grin.

"Venus?"

"Ranma?" She said calmly.

"Are you alright?"

"Ran...ma?" She said huskily.

"You are okay, right?" He asked again, this time with a bit more forcefully. He wondered what in the world was wrong with her. None of his other Fiancée's had acted like this when they were hurt. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw that Ryoko was moving across the cleaning, forming a ball of energy between her hands.

Ignoring Venus for a second, he squinted, and was able to barely make out Ayeka and Jupiter as they were moving from between a couple of trees on the other side of the clearing. He nodded as he noticed that they were keeping several trees between them and Ryoko, but it wasn't enough, but she had just spotted them.

Ranma sat Venus on the ground as quickly as he could and was in motion before he even had time to think. He dashed across the clearing, springing from behind the tree, and almost flying across the clearing in the blink of an eye. He didn't even hear Venus yell out for him to come back,

but he did hear Ayeka's voice.

"Azaka, Kamindake, no!"

He didn't notice as his aura formed about him as he ran or that it drew the full attention of all three girls. All he saw was that Jupiter and Ayeka were in trouble and that he had to help before they were hurt. His aura drew Jupiter's attention the quickest, she turned, and saw him running at her glowing like a blue star. Her jaw dropped as she realized he was completely naked and that he was heading right at her.

"Oh My GOD!!"

Ranma grabbed her in his left arm, just as he used his right to grab Ayeka. Who had been struck dumb from the sight of a naked man running right at her. They screamed in unison as Ranma suddenly jumped into the air and cleared several yards before making it back into the trees to the trees around them.

In the air above them, Ryoko dissipated the ball of energy she was holding, and started laughing as she thought about what she had just seen. She had only seen Tenchi naked on a few small occasions so she was a bit startled to see that the princess had frozen up just like always did when

Tenchi was around. It was like a live action game and she was a spectator to the whole thing, she had to see more.

Therefore, she floated higher into the air to see if they were still running through the forest around the clearing. After several seconds of looking around, she decided that they must have stopped and hidden from her direct line of sight.

So she descended to the ground, it was time to play a different game. As she was landing in the middle of the clearing, sparkles of light started to rise from the ground and she collected a few in her hand and formed her energy sword.

She waved her hand forward and the rest of the lights rushed off into the forest in the direction Ranma had taken the girls. "That pervert is going to pay."

Ranma skidded to a halt a little ways away and found himself standing on at the edge of a cliff that over looked the whole valley where the Masaki shrine was located. He could hear Ryoko laughing somewhere behind him and took the opportunity to set the two girls on the ground at his feet.

They were both blushing furiously and looking away from him as he turned around and headed back into the woods around them. "You two stay here. I'll be back in a few minutes and try to stay away from that loony."

"Where are you going Ranma?" Jupiter asked as she tried to fight off the urge not to look at a guy she was still a little mad at. She felt funny, and tried to keep her emotions from showing up in her voice. Ayeka, who was beside, her just nodded and fiddled with the hem of her robe.

"I had to leave Venus back there by a tree when I saved you. I need to get back to her before anything else happens."

"You aren't going like that are you?" Jupiter asked as her eyes started wander down, then jerked her head back up and blushed.

"What do you mean?" Ranma asked, tilting his head to the side.

Now Jupiter looked a bit bewildered. "Um...I mean the way you are dressed." She started blushing even redder than before, but decided not to look away because she liked what she was seeing and was having problems remembering just why she was angry with him in the first place.

"Dressed?" Ranma asked and looked down. "GHAAA!"

The girls giggled as Ranma blushed. "Um...I forgot in all the excitement."

"It couldn't have been all the exciting." Jupiter said with a giggle.

"Oh, ha ha." Ranma snapped, actually understanding what the girl was saying for once.

Standing up, still blushing, Ayeka meekly removed the outer part of her robe and handed it to Ranma. "Here, put this on at least."

"Thanks." Ranma said as he folded it a couple of times and quickly tied it around his waist like a towel. "I'll be back as soon as possible."

The girls nodded as Ranma ran back into the forest, and then Ayeka looked at Sailor Jupiter. "Is he always like that?"

"Not really, although he doesn't seem to have any problems running around liked that does he? I wonder where he got it from, or it just proves that he really is a first class pervert." Jupiter said with a grin. "You should have seen him when he's working out with one of my friends."

"I can imagine. I've never met anyone like him."

"He's certainly a strange one that is for sure. I need to get back there and help him fight that woman, he has no clue what he's fighting against and I don't think he cares either. He's just having fun."

"Ryoko likes to pick fights for fun too, she scares her 'prey' half to death by almost blowing them up, and then pushing them until they collapse. Only then does she move in for the kill. That's what she used to do before she was imprisoned. Now that her old tendencies back because of that evil energy, we may have to run for it. I have no idea how strong she is in this state either. Ryo-Ohki is the one I'm worried about though."

"Ryo-Ohki?" Jupiter asked. "I haven't heard of him before."

"She's Ryoko's pet, sort of, its the best way to describe her. Ryo-Ohki can eat anything and has the ability to turn into her space ship."

Sailor Jupiter gaped at the purple haired girl. "You're kidding right?"

Ayeka shook her head.

"Gods, we have to let the others know."

"That might be a good idea."

Some distance away from the girls, Ranma growled as he glared at the level of destruction around him. He hadn't wanted to say anything to the girls, but he had never expected things to get this bad when he decided to fight this girl. He wasn't quite sure what was going on, but she was too dangerous too just let go, but he really didn't want to hurt her either. Things had gotten so out of control that now he would need to transform into Vulcan just to stop her.

Was a nice friendly sparing match too much to ask for? Lately his life had taken on a surreal quality, he had come here to have some fun, and let off a little steam by fighting what looked like a tough opponent. But the level of power she was using now was impossible to imagine and those

special abilities of her were keeping him on his toes.

She had him out classed, just as Saffron had dwarfed him in sheer power when they had fought. He could admit that at least, it didn't mean he was going to roll over and die though. It just meant he had to take her seriously after all and he couldn't ever recall taking a girl serious in a

fight before, but she had earned that at least. Clenching his fist, he said his transformation phrase and held his hand in the air.

"VULCAN KNIGHT SENSHI, MAKE UP!!"

In an instant he could feel his aura surge with power and expand out in a flash of bright blue light. It appeared to shred the robe he borrowed and expand into a bubble of energy to intense to look at. When it receded half a second later, he wearing a blue version of the outfit Jedite and the others used to wear. A thick cape of blue material with a white inner lining that seemed to shimmer as it rippled in the wind.

Then a blue facemask formed across his face to cover his eyes and cheeks, but leaving his hair wild and free. Finally, a small blue glowing jewel formed on the left breast of his outfit and started pulsing. This created an eerie glow within the smoke filled air for yards in every direction.

Growling, Ranma's aura expanded out and obliterated a couple of nearby trees as he looked around for Ryoko. It was time to finish this fight once and for all. A list of tactics and possible actions started to scroll across his vision as he searched the area with his visor.

It ran its own scans to keep him informed of possible situations and changes in the battle. A few seconds later the scan stopped and a small map appeared and told him where Sailor Jupiter, Ayeka, and Sailor Venus are all located. He was only a little surprised to find that Venus had been moving around after he left her to save the other two girls. So he only had to go a little ways to get to her.

A bigger surprise was that Ryoko wasn't showing up on the scanner. A tiny symbol appeared off to the side of the map, right beside a small icon with information scrolling through it. He somehow just knew that it was a communicator link and that someone was trying to contact him. He glanced at the symbol for a second without blinking and it suddenly expanded into a little representation of Sailor Mercury's head.

"Vulcan?"

"Hello Mercury."

"Can you tell us what is going out there? We are having some problems getting decent readings."

"I'm not to sure yet. I came up here to have friendly little spar and it turned into this giant mess. I really didn't want to have to fight this battle as Vulcan, if you know what I mean." He said.

"I understand. We think that dark energy that corrupted Nabiki and Ryoga has somehow managed to get Ryoko as well, that may be why she's started to act the way she is."

"Are you sure?" Vulcan asked in some surprise. "She's stronger than when I first started fighting her, but her personality doesn't seem to have changed too much."

"It hasn't?" Mercury asked. "You said Nabiki and Ryoga had changed quite a bit."

"I know, Ryoga was more violent and Nabiki was out to kill me, but other than that they were about the same."

"We'll look into it later. Anyway, I needed to let you know that there are two people affected by this dark energy out there. Ryoko has to be stopped as quickly as possible because she is the most dangerous one to you and the others at the moment, but there is a second person out there that we haven't been able to identify yet. Ayeka may have seen something, but we can't

contact her to find out either."

"I just talked to her a few minutes ago."

"Where her guardians with her? Katsuhito described them as a pair of large floating logs with their names pained on the sides. They are a pair of Artificially Intelligent robots or something."

Vulcan glanced off to the side and saw the smoldering pile of wood and plastic that had to be two guardians in question. "I have two weird looking logs burning away here next to the small path I'm on." He walked over to examine them and saw that something had used them for a scratching post. Large divots of wood had been slashed right out of their wooden forms.

"Vulcan, those things don't look like they were taken down by Ryoko. She's been blowing everything up."

He blinked. "You can what I'm seeing?"

"Affirmative. Little Washuu here has a visual on her computer screen of what you are seeing."

"How did she do that?"

"BWHAHAHAHA! I AM THE GREATEST SCIENTIFIC GENIUS IN THE UNIVERSE! THAT'S HOW!" Washuu said over the communications band and he shuddered at the sound

of her voice.

"Ah...okay."

"Vulcan, Sailor Moon, Mars, and I are on our way. We will be bringing along some help as well."

"Alright." Vulcan said with a smirk as he looked up into a nearby tree and saw that Ryoko was waiting for him. "I'll keep her occupied until you arrive."

"Be careful Ranma." Sailor Moon said over her own communicator and the little window vanished as Mercury logged off as well.

He looked up into the air above him as he suddenly sensed something dangerous. Ryoko was back and she was looking down on him. At first he wasn't' sure what she was going to do, but then she vanished from sight and reappeared right in front of him. Her arms were crossed over her chest and there was a dark glow about her that seemed to saturate the very air around her.

"Where did a little pervert like you find those clothes?"

"Found then beneath a tree." He said snidely. "Are you done playing around yet, or do you need to blow up some more trees to prove how strong you are?"

"Little pervert I haven't even powered up to my full power yet and you are already running away from me like the coward you are. What the hell makes you think you are more than a glorified chew toy to me?" Ryoko asked with a smirk.

For the first time since the fight began Ranma noticed that she had cat like eyes, pupils and all. He tried to ignore them as he realized that she must have be part cat in some way, but not enough to make him afraid of her.

"Then lets see what you can really do if you set your mind to it. I came out here to fight you and even though the circumstances seem to have changed and you are more powerful now, you're still going to lose." He stated with every bit of arrogance he could put in his voice. Arrogance was something he was very good at. He grinned. "Or are you afraid you are going to lose to me?"

Ranma watched Ryoko and the area around them, at the same time as he realized that little balls of light were floating around them and wondered where they had come from. He listened to the roar of the fire as Ryoko glared down at him with enough malice to make him think he might have gone too far.

Then she made a move and kicked at him, he grinned, and casually caught her ankle to yank her off balance. He wouldn't have been able to do this without powering up to Vulcan, she was just too fast, but she was the one that forced him to fight this way so he wasn't going to complain.

"Gotcha!" He snarled and lifted her off the ground and with a flick of his wrist started to spin her above his head. It was a dirty move with a lot of flash, but he was a student of Anything Goes after all. He chose his target and tossed her directly at a nearby tree, knowing that it probably wouldn't stop her, but this was only the distraction for his real move. A ball of blue light formed between his hands as she slammed into the tree and he fired a beam of blue energy.

Ryoko growled as she flipped in mid air and landed against the tree feet first. She was in a crouch, and defying gravity as she glanced at Ranma. Then she narrowed her eyes as she sensed the build up of energy and activated her shield to block the blast. Blocking Ranma's attack would be

simple enough since she had done so a few times already. Then, even as it formed in front of her, she got a bit of a shock, as his power level seemed to skyrocket just as it left his hands.

It slammed into her shield hard enough to make it buckle under the force of the shot and caused the tree she was standing on to crack with a loud bang. It fell over with an ominous creaking sound and slammed to the ground with a rumble.

She fell to the ground with a curse and instantly rolled to her feet as Ranma landed where she had just landed and created a small crater with his kick. She twisted around in the air, formed a ball of energy, and fired off her own shot.

Ranma just grinned up at her as the blast passed right through him and his image faded from sight. She vanished a second later as Ranma appeared beside her and attempted to hit her across the jaw with a palm strike. When she reappeared a few yards away, she only had a glimpse of his second attack just before she was hit with a massive kick to the stomach that sent her flying into the ground. She landed hard and bounced a couple of times before she came to as stop.

It wasn't enough to hurt her though and she slowly got back to her feet and watched him for any signs of movement. Her eyes lit up with energy as she growled in anger as this image of him vanished as well. For a second she wondered if he had somehow figured out how to teleport like she did, but then he reappeared several feet above her.

He flipped silently through the air, landed with a gentle tap of his foot on the ground, folded his arms, and smirked at her. What little pain she was feeling quickly faded into anger as she realized he was mocking her again.

But she was still amazed that he had managed to get through her shield and actually hit her a few times. The shield was hard to maintain constantly, so she had to be careful when she used it, but that blast and the follow up attack had been quite a shock. "How did you do that?" She

snarled.

"You underestimated me again and paid for it. I really didn't want to fight you in the first place but I was forced to and now that we've started I have every intention of finishing this fight." Ranma said.

Inside his mask, the LED screen was giving him a list of possible attacks that he had never heard of before, but he somehow knew how to pull some of them off despite that. He wasn't sure where he had seen them before, but there were memories floating around in his head that seemed to confirm that he had learned them at some point.

His eyes focused on one of them and he read a quick description to make sure he was thinking of the right move. The screen lit up and started to list a number of ways for him to use the technique. He recognized some of them, but he noticed a few others that he couldn't place and his memory of them was somewhat blurry on details.

When the fight was over he would have to spend some time looking at the techniques to see just what they could do. He watched Ryoko with his other eye as the information scrolled across his vision and plotted his next attack. There were already several courses of action available to him. Some of them might even hurt her if he wasn't careful.

"I guess I'll have to stop holding back." Ryoko said as she stepped into a stance, brought her hands up to her waist, and an aura of power formed around her.

As she charged up Ranma decided on a course of action and reached deep inside to tap into his own Ki reserves once more. He needed something powerful if he was going to stop her. The girl was strong, he would give her that, but there was no way she was going to beat him. Then he noticed that she wasn't paying as much attention to him as she had been a few seconds before.

He was about to attack her again, when she stopped what she was doing and turned to glare at the house for a few seconds. "You should not have done that Washuu!" She screamed and suddenly split into two different two Ryoko.

Ranma hadn't seen this coming and lost his concentration as he took a step back in shock. He'd never had an opponent that was able to make a perfect clone of themselves in the middle of a fight. Cologne had once used that Splitting Cat Hairs technique, but this was something completely different. He could sense energy from both of them, as if she really had split in two. Both of them even had those jewels.

One Ryoko turned to the other one and folded her arms. "I'll go and see what happened to Ryo-Ohki, you finish fighting the plebe here."

"No problem." The first one said. "I owe him a proper beating for all of his perverted actions."

The other one floated higher up into the air, smirked, and vanished from sight. Ranma used his senses to make sure she didn't just appear behind him as he kept watch on the other one. As far as she could tell they had been identical, even in power level. After a few seconds, he relaxed a bit as he realized that they weren't going to double-team him. "What's going on?"

"That's none of your concern. Now let's continue this where we just left off." Ryoko said as she held up her hand.

He kept calm as the area around him suddenly lit up with hundreds of little balls of orange light. They were far more intense than they had been the last time he saw them. It was the same thing she liked to do when she was about to form her energy sword.

A move he had seen her use several times already. So what did she think she would gain by using it on him again? He wasn't sure what she had in mind, but she seemed to have lots of dirty tricks up her sleeves. Was she going to attack him using a move that just didn't work against him? Or was she trying to do something else? He wasn't sure so he took a second to form his own ball of energy.

Ryoko kicked off the ground, flying at him faster than he had ever seen her move. He threw the ball forward and let it blow up a few feet from her with a bright flash of light. She yelled out in shock and slowed to halt in mid air, teleported to about twenty feet in the air, and tried to get her eyes to work again. Ranma launched himself into the air, his cape flaring around him and used all his momentum to kick her in the stomach using one of his new moves. "THUNDER KICK!"

A peal of thunder accompanied the blow and sent her flying into the sky. He rolled forward and did a few flips as he fell to the ground and landed. He wondered how high up she would go before she managed to get control and came back down. He didn't think that the kick would hurt her to much, but its effects would keep her distracted for a while at least.

When Vulcan had given him these powers, he hadn't really given him any special attacks as far as he knew. Instead, it seemed that the guy had focused on augmenting Ranma's abilities. Now that he was learning to use his powers more effectively, he wondered if he was wrong.

The Thunder Kick was designed break through a person's defence. Then it delivers a massive amount of force to the victim's body. It was similar to that kick in the Yamasen-ken maneuvers created by his old man, only a lot more effective. He wasn't to sure about the peal of thunder, but he did know one thing about the move now that he had used it. "THAT WAS DAMN COOL!"

**********

Several hundred feet away, just down the side of the mountain and well out of the way of the fire was the house that Tenchi and everyone else lived in. By the time Ranma was kicking Ryoko into the sky, Katsuhito had managed to get Washuu to set up a tent and some tables for them to work at.

Washuu was at her holographic computer monitoring the battle and getting as much information as she could. Her sensors were still being blocked, but with every passing minute she was learning how to filter out more and more of the interference. Katsuhito was directing Sasami and Mihoshi, who had appeared from within the house a little while after the fight started, as

they set up the medical supplies. Most of them were hoping the supplies wouldn't be needed when the battle was over though.

On the other side of the tent Sailor Moon, Mars, and Mercury were all using the mini computer to try to figure out what was going on out in the forest as well. All they really knew so far was that Ranma had transformed into Vulcan and was currently fighting Ryoko. Mercury was using her link with his visor to watch the battle, but it was moving so fast that she couldn't keep up with it. The interference was also causing her some problems as they all tried to watch.

This time he seemed to be holding up a bit better than he had when the fight first began. Ryoko was taking more blows and they could see the surprise in her face, as he was able to defend himself from her attacks. Usagi was a bit worried about Ranma, but Ami had asked her to wait while Venus and Jupiter scouted out the area to see if they could even help.

Mercury took a second to compare her notes to whatever Washuu was doing to clear the interference before she turned to her friends. "I've got some current readings finally."

"What did you find out?" Moon asked.

"Ranma just used a move I've never seen before. Some kind of kick that sent Ryoko flying into the sky, but I didn't have the right programs running so I didn't see just how high he sent her."

"That's great!"

"I can still feel the darkness moving around out there as well." Mars said. There was a worried tone to her voice as she paced back and forth. "I don't like leaving Venus and Jupiter alone out there where these things can attack them at any time they want."

"Neither do I." Moon said.

"We need more information." Mercury explained. "I still don't know what we are dealing with."

"Let's just go out there, help save Ranma, and stop that monster from hurting him anymore. That's what we always do." Moon snapped.

"We need to be more careful Meatball Head!" Mars snapped.

Sailor Moon just sighed and started to worry again. She had only known Ranma for a few weeks now and she wasn't sure what she should be doing now. Ever since Mamoru had left her, she had been on an emotional rollercoaster. There were times when she really liked to be around Ranma. Well most of the time, but her mother had told her that Ranma was her soul mate for this

generation and that changed things completely.

Even Ranma was a bit skittish about the link that they shared with each other and constantly tried to hide his feelings from her. He really wasn't very good at it. Mamoru had years to learn and by the time they met he'd been able to keep her from even sensing him.

She broke out of her thoughts and looked up as the alarm on Mercury's computer started going off and drawing everyone's attention. Mercury moved as fast as she could to check on the alarm and nearly dropped it a few seconds alter. "Ryoko is heading this way for some reason!"

Katsuhito whipped around and looked at Washuu. "Why is she heading this direction?"

The red headed scientist turned to look at them and sighed. "Ryoko just tried to call Ryo-Ohki to her while she was fighting the boy."

"And?" Rei snapped.

"Well normally it wouldn't have mattered, but I haven't been able to figure out what possessed Ryoko in the first place. So right now she is really pissed off and doing everything in her power to kill this Ranma. Ryo-Ohki is Ryoko's partner and you know what that cabbit is capable of when Ryoko is telling her what to do. They are linked together to make them a more efficient team after all."

"I don't understand what this has to do with Ranma." Mercury said as she entered the information into her computer.

Washuu fidgeted a little. "Well Ryo-Ohki can turn into a space ship you see."

"So what?" Mars snapped at the red headed girl.

"When transformed, Ryo-Ohki can sit in high orbit and fire lasers at anything on the ground." Washuu explained as she held up the little cabbit. It was inside a small ball of energy and looked like it was asleep. "I placed her in stasis a few minutes ago to make sure that Ryoko couldn't turn the ship's lasers on Ranma."

"Just how powerful would you say those lasers are?" Mercury asked.

"Hmm…the last time I checked her weapons systems could blow away most of this mountain in one shot." Washuu said.

"What?!" Sailor Moon screamed and started to run back and forth. Then Sailor Mars just grabbed Moon's back bow and kept her from leaving the tent. "We have to help him!"

"Calm down Sailor Moon, he isn't in danger now that the cabbit is in stasis." Mercury said.

"Oh he's in plenty of danger." Ryoko said as she appeared over one of the tables. She glanced around at all of them and glared at the Scouts. "Who the hell are you people and why are you wearing those ridiculous outfits?!"

"We're the Sailor Scouts!" Sailor Moon yelled and posed. "I'll punish you for desecrating this forest and attacking my boyfriend!"

The rest of the Scouts sweatdropped suddenly and gave their leader a weird look. Ami in particular scowled at Sailor Moon for a few seconds before she said anything too rash. She turned to her computer and focused on Ryoko.

"Err…I mean my friend." Moon clarified as she noticed the looks the girls were giving her.

"Those two up on the hill were useless against me and went down easy enough, I doubt you can put up a more interesting fight." Ryoko said snidely.

"How dare you?!" Mars yelled, but stuttered to a stop as Ryoko's energy blade suddenly appeared about a millimetre from the tip of her nose. "Eeeep!"

"Ryoko, you need to calm down." Katsuhito said as he stepped forward and motioned for Tenchi to stay back behind him.

"Well if it isn't the old man." The space pirate snapped as she moved the blade away from Mars and swished it through the air a few times. "I owe you a severe beating for seven hundred years of boredom."

The old man just frowned and adjusted his glasses, making them gleam as he glared at her. "You do realize that you have been possessed don't you?"

Ryoko snorted. "Oh, as if it's all that hard not to notice."

"Let us help you."

"Sorry, I have several centuries of fun to catch up on as soon as I get my revenge." Ryoko said, but then suddenly threw her hand to the side and launched the energy blade at Washuu.

The scientist had started typing the instant she knew that Ryoko was coming and used her computer to make sure that she didn't appear instantly. Delaying her arrival by about two minutes and buying enough time to make sure she could get the girl under control, but she hadn't expected Ryoko to do what she just did.

Just as she was about to hold up a small remote control device, the blade of the energy sword went right through it and almost ripped her hand off with it. The red head stared at her hand for a second and made sure she still had all her fingers before she even looked down at the pile of melted plastic and circuits on the ground a few feet away. "Hey!"

"Better luck next time, Mom!" Ryoko said with a laugh.

"Quit ignoring me!" Sailor Moon yelled and pulled out her sceptre and held up. "You're asking for it."

"Ryoko, we can help you." Tenchi said as he stepped forward. He ignored the look his grandfather was giving him.

"Sorry Tenchi, but being possessed and all, I have to do this, and so be a good boy and go inside where you will be safe." Ryoko said as she looked at him lustfully.

"But…"

"Remember to cover yourself with honey. I'll be by to help you clean it up later." Ryoko said and licked her lips.

Tenchi paled a bit and moved back several steps. "Um…heheheh."

"Ryoko that isn't very nice." Mihoshi said. "You need to use chocolate instead of honey, it lasts longer and tastes better."

Everyone turned to look at the ditz, but she just grinned at them.

"Where's Ryo-Ohki, Washuu?" Ryoko asked. "Don't make you turn all this power on you just to make you answer the question."

"I placed her in stasis."

"Release her."

"No, not while you are in this state." The red headed scientist said.

"I'm not going to ask you again." Ryoko threatened and reformed her sword.

"You can't fight all of us." Sailor Mars yelled as she formed a bow and arrow made of fire and aimed it at Ryoko.

Washuu pulled out a pair of small glasses and sat them on the edge of her nose as she looked at Mars' bow. "How quaint, ethereal energy manipulation with just a touch of what the locals call magic."

"We use planetary mana." Mercury said absently.

Katsuhito took a boken out of the sleeve of his robe and got into an attack position. He was sure he could get in a few blows before Ryoko had a chance to counter attack. By then, with any luck, Washuu would be able to place her in stasis as well. "You aren't strong enough to defeat all of us Ryoko."

"Maybe I couldn't have done it yesterday, but today is a completely different story old man. So it looks like we have to fight, which one of you wants to go first?"

**********

From the woods around the lake Sol crouched among the shadows and watches the fight at the house. He was not in a good mood. Just a few minutes before he had spotted one of the Sailor Scouts as she pranced around in the woods with a weird look on her face.

Just seeing her had ruined his whole day as memories of his time as one of the advisors came back to him again. Every time he thought about those times he started to get even more angry. The only thing that had kept him from killing her on the spot had been the fact that she wasn't the one that ruined his life. No, that punishment was going to be reserved for someone else completely.

Long claws sprung out of his paw as he dug them into the dirt and glared at the house. There were three more Scouts there and he could feel it as they started to use their powers. It meant even after being possessed, he still had a connection to the magic that made him one of the Advisers.

He could make out Mars as she formed her fire bow and knew that a

massive amount of firepower was about to be used. Back in the Silver Millennium the Scouts rarely ever had to use their high-level powers, so just using the bow meant that they thought that the girl that they were

fighting was very dangerous. Oh how right they were, he just wished could have joined her, but he was being told to wait for a better chance.

He'd watched Ryoko fight the boy for the last half hour or so. Therefore, he knew what she was capable of when push came to shove. Then as he watched, the people over by the house tried to talk to each other.

Sol suddenly stopped and looked about the area as he felt something familiar. He wasn't to sure what it was, but it was nagging at his memory. Then he took a closer look at the Scouts and he realized he didn't recognize one of them.

The blonde-haired Scout with the odd hairstyle seemed to draw his eye as he watched. Something about her nagged at his memory and he just couldn't place it no matter how hard the tried to think. She was the strongest of the group, generating an unseen aura that dwarfed the house behind her in sheer size. He stood up for a better look and tried to remember who she might be,

but he wasn't getting anything.

Then he noticed something else and took a closer look at her as she waved her sceptre around and pointed it at Ryoko. "The PRINCESS!" He snarled and bared a set of deadly looking teeth. "She has the Crystal with her!"

'We could put that to a very good use.' A voice in his head told him.

"What did you have in mind?" Sol asked it.

'The crystal would allow us to take the next step without all this useless silent maneuvering.'

"Then let's see how well she guards that thing."

'Good idea.'

Sol smiled and the crescent moon on his large forehead glowed a little. He hadn't given into the shadow as much as Ryoko had, so he had quite a bit of control over his actions, but not enough to disobey anyway, not that he wanted to. "Let's see how chaotic we can make things after Ryoko starts to fight them. The crystal will be easier to take once the girls are distracted."

**********

Ranma panted for air as he scanned the area around for any sigh of Ryoko. He had gotten her with the Thunder Kick; but she had just teleported from high in the sky and ended up right beside him to counter attack.

From there they had used physical blows for several seconds as they tried to get the upper hand. His cape had developed a long rip down the back when Ryoko had pulled her sword out of nowhere and almost impaled him.

There was a large hole in the ground nearby with a bunch of smoke wafting out of it from where he had tried to Ki blast her, but he had known that it wouldn't affect her very much. He still had the feeling that she was playing with him, but he wasn't going to admit that to anyone.

So he watched the area with all his senses and tried to predict what she would do next. He was almost positive that she would attack him from the air again. She liked to drop large energy blasts on him occasionally, just to keep him moving around and guessing what she might try next.

Unfortunately, she had vanished after he hit her with the Ki blast and now he couldn't sense her either. Her Ki had completely vanished as well and no matter how hard he strained he just couldn't locate her. The fire that had been burning all around him was beginning to die down a bit, but left more smoke in the air than he liked.

He didn't like to fight blind, but the longer this situation went on the more he was depending on his blind fighting skills. The only thing keeping him from using them completely was his visor. It had the ability to see through the thick blanket of smoke that filled the air around him. He was using it to make sure Ryoko didn't sneak up on him as he slowly moved through the smoke. His cape fluttered in the slight wind that the fire was kicking up.

"Where the hell did she go?" He wondered aloud.

His visor was telling him that the area was clear, with no sign of Ryoko anywhere. Then he caught some movement out of the corner of his eye that the visor wasn't showing and he turned just slightly to get a closer look. For just a brief second he saw Ryoko just hovering in the air glaring down at him. He wasn't sure, but she seemed to be thinking about something.

A bead of sweat trailed down the side of his face as she vanished again and he still wasn't able to follow it. Then he saw her high in the air behind him and he turned to look at her just as she vanished again. She was trying to stay out of his line of sight for some reason and he didn't like it.

For some reason it reminded him of the Hell's Cradle attack his father had developed a few months before. His visor flickered for a second, but he ignored it since it wasn't giving him the information he needed. He was about to turn it off the little map appeared and informed him that people were heading his way.

Then he felt something grab his ankles and he looked down in shock to see Ryoko's forehead and eyes sticking out of the dirt. Her hands grabbed his ankles as she lowered out of sight and he started to sink into the ground. He struggled to free his feet as he sank, but it was like trying to lift a mountain, they just wouldn't budge.

"What the hell!" He yelled as his waist phased into the earth and he started to go numb. Then he tried to grab onto the ground to stop from sinking any further and they passed through as well. "SHIT!"

Just as his chin was about to pass through the ground as shadow rose up from the ground nearby and formed into Ryoko. She started to laugh as he struggled. "Let's see you get out of this you little pest!"

"This won't stop me!" He managed to yell just as his head went below the ground.

"BWHAHAHAHAHAH!" Ryoko cackled. "That's the end of you."

Ranma struggled against the rock, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get the right amount of leverage he needed to move his arm and break the rock around him. She had phased him right into the stone itself and was letting it slowly entomb him.

A certain part of his mind was a bit surprised that his visor was still working and feeding him advice on the situation, but even then it was telling him how to free himself. It informed him that he only had a little while to free himself and he knew it. He could only hold his breath for a

few minutes before he would need to escape or die.

By sheer force of will, he calmed himself down and tried to think his way through what the visor was telling him. Then he thought of something and he started to concentrate. His old man had taught him a number of meditations techniques over the years and one of them fit this situation perfectly.

At first, nothing seemed to happen, but then deep within him something shifted. He wasn't sure what it was, but knew it dealt with his new abilities and that something was guiding him. Gritting his teeth, he focused as hard as he could and his battle aura started to form around him.

Up above Ryoko stopped laughing as she felt the ground around her feet shift, just slightly, and she glanced down at the ground in disbelief. She took a step back to wait for it to happen again. "There's no way…" She muttered in shock.

Then after several seconds, it settled down and she breathed a sigh of relief. There was no way he could escape from this. She had phased him into solid stone and left him there. Straightening up, she looked off towards the house where her clone was currently fighting against several opponents and she wondered if she go and help.

"VENUS CRESCENT BEAM!" Sailor Venus screamed as she ran out of the trees and blasted Ryoko right in the chest. "I'll kill you!"

Ryoko really hadn't been hurt by the blast, took several steps back, and let the power of the blast wash over her. "On the other hand…" She reminded herself. "There were still a few people around to play with." She watched as the blond girl started to dig at the dirt. She sneered and folded her arms. "He put up a good fight, but he wasn't really a match for me."

"Ranma!" Venus yelled. She wasn't really paying attention to Ryoko.

"You will not ignore me!" The space pirate yelled and raised her arm up. A large ball of energy formed in her hand as she glared at Sailor Venus.

"JUPITER OAK REVOLUTION!"

Her head snapped around just as Jupiter fired off her own attack and sent two dozen balls of magical electricity flying. They started to slam into her, bouncing her back and forth as they exploded all around her body. Then she dropped her hand and let the energy blast fade away as the area around her filled with tiny little floating logs arcing with energy. They started to blast her at the exact instant that the first attack hit her and she was forced to struggle against the attack.

Her scream of "Ayeka!" was lost among the sound of detonations that accompanied the combined attack. All she could do was endure the energy storm as it tried to rip her into little pieces and cook her.

The two girls ran out of the forest a few seconds later. They slowly walked over to where Venus was trying to dig Ranma out of the ground. She hadn't been able to make much headway though since it turned to stone a few inches down.

They looked down in shock as they realized there was a good chance that Ranma really was dead. It had been almost three minutes since he went under and there hadn't been a sign of movement since then. Behind them Ayeka's attack finally ran out of energy and Ryoko dropped to the ground with smoke wafting off her body.

My god, I've never actually seen Ryoko kill anyone before." Ayeka said. She looked a little green.

"We've never had anyone die before." Jupiter said.

"He's not dead!" Venus growled as she dug weakly at the stone. She had no idea how far down Ryoko had sent him, but she intended to continue until she found him.

"Come on Venus, we have to get back and help the others, there's nothing we can do here." Sailor Jupiter said sadly. She could almost feel the grief that Venus was feeling at that moment. "Come on Venus, let's go."

"I will not give up…" Venus yelled and suddenly pitched head first into a hole as the ground around her gave way with a rumble of falling rock.

"Venus?!" Jupiter yelled as she ran forward and knelt at the edge of the hole.

Ayeka moved over to see what was going on as well, but she didn't make it far as the ground beneath her gave out as well. She squawked loudly as she found herself in freefall for just a brief second. Then she landed in pile of soft dirt and nearly had the wind knocked out of her.

He stared up at the top of the hole about ten feet above her in confusion. It took her a second to figure out that she was lying at an angle with her head pointed towards the ground, but she managed to roll around and slide down the side of the pile of dirt until she hit a spot that would

support her.

A few yards away Venus stood up on top of her own pile and looked up at Jupiter's head, as it seemed to hover within the hole. "What the heck?" The blond Scout muttered.

"I thought you said Ranma was buried down here?" Ayeka asked as she looked around at the walls. They looked like someone had used a chain saw to carve them out of the rock.

"He was!" Venus yelled. "I saw him sucked right into the ground by Ryoko just a few minutes ago."

Jupiter hopped over the edge and landed right next to Venus and almost ended up on her back side when the dirt shifted under her feet. She barely managed to keep her balance as she waved her arms for a few seconds. Then she slid down the side of the pile and walked over to Ayeka. "What is this place?"

"I've never even heard of it before." Ayeka said as she touched the wall. "Hey, this stone is warm to the touch."

Jupiter gave her an odd look as she touched the wall. "What the heck?"

Venus glanced at her friend and decided to check out the other side of the pile to see if there was any sign of Ranma. He had to be down here somewhere. She slid down to the floor and made sure she didn't accidentally trip over anything. Almost immediately, she noticed that the cave had a

large hole in one wall that was hidden in a dark corner. "I found something!"

Seconds later Ayeka and Jupiter found themselves looking into a small tunnel filled with powdered dirt. Venus couldn't figure out how this hole in the ground had appeared out of nowhere like this. "What in the world is going on?"

"I think Ranma might have done this." Jupiter said.

"How?!" Venus yelled. "He has a powerful energy blast, but nothing that can do this."

"I'm not sure, let's head down the tunnel and see where it leads."

"I'm almost afraid what we might find down there." Venus muttered. Now that she was close to finding Ranma, she was having second thoughts for some reason.

"You do realize that Ranma probably made that hole don't you?" Ayeka asked as she poked at the wall.

"Well yeah, but…" Venus muttered.

"Remember what he looked like when he saved us a little while ago." Jupiter reminded her friend.

Venus blushed. "That isn't fair!"

"True, but boy was it worth it." Jupiter said happily.

"Come on you two perverts, let's see if he's down the hole." Ayeka muttered and cautiously stepped into the tunnel.

"Oh like you didn't get an eye full too." Jupiter said to the Jurian princess.

Ayeka blushed. "I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Uh huh!" Both girls said and giggled.

"Ayekaaaaa!"

The princess froze as she heard her name called and turned around to see Ryoko floating down from above them. Venus and Jupiter just gaped at her as she descended. The possessed space pirate came to a stop several fee from them and glared. Her clothing was beginning to look a little ripped and shredded, it even had a bit of smoke still coming from it.

"I hit her with ever thing I had!" Jupiter muttered.

"Ryoko always did recover faster than a normal person would." Ayeka muttered.

"It wasn't good enough was it?" Ryoko asked snidely. "You girls are getting on my nerves. I just want to kill the pervert, is that to much to ask?"

"I won't let you!" Sailor Venus yelled.

"Ryoko, you need to calm down and let us get that thing out of you." Ayeka said as calmly as she could. Even she had to wonder if she could take on Ryoko when she was as demented as this. This sort of behavior was what made her brother Yosho imprison her for seven hundred years.

"Princess, you are so asking for a royal spanking." Ryoko snapped.

"Do not believe that I will go down that easily." She said haughtily. "I am a princess of royal blood. You are no threat to me."

Ryoko just laughed. "You aren't strong enough to beat me Ayeka, you never were, and you never will be."

They glared at each other and for a second Venus wondered why they looked like they were trading electricity with their eyes. Then Ryoko dismissed Ayeka by looking away and waving her hand. "Bah, you are beneath my notice now. The boy is my only concern, so where did you three hide the body?"

"We haven't found one yet." Jupiter snapped.

She glared at them and looked around a little more. "This cave wasn't here when I was down here a little while ago, it was solid rock. So where is he? I will finish him off."

"We won't let you hurt him anymore." Venus said.

"We will protect him." Jupiter said.

"I don't need anyone's protection."

The girls gasped and turned to see Ranma walking out of the tunnel in front of them. His outfit shredded in several places. Along his arms, legs, and even his cape looked like it had seen better days. His hair was a mess and one of the visors' lenses over his eyes was cracked. A line of blood ran from the side of his head and down his neck. Other than that, he looked like he was

in decent shape.

"Ranma!" Venus yelled and ran over to him. "Are you alright?"

"Not now Venus, we need to stop her first." Ranma muttered and yanked his arm way from Venus.

She looked a little hurt.

"Are you alright Ranma?" Ayeka repeated Venus's question.

"I'm fine." He said as he used the torn sleeve of his jacket to wipe the blood off the side of his head. "It'll take more than being buried alive to stop me."

"You really should learn not to piss me off pervert." Ryoko growled as she formed a ball of energy in her hands. "This hole you seem to have created will be your tomb."

Ranma started to laugh. "You pathetic little moron, do you think I would have walked out here without a plan?"

Ryoko hesitated. "Yeah right, you can barely stand as it is."

He smirked as he bent over a bit, bringing up his hands and forming two balls of Ki in his hands. "You keep underestimating me."

"YOU'RE A PATHETIC WIMP!" Ryoko screamed and fired a beam of energy at him.

His hands came together and compressed both balls of Ki until they popped like bubbles, but then Ryoko's beam slammed into a field a few inches from Ranma. It deflected to the side and into the wall, digging a large hole. "I'm learning your tricks. Every time you use them I get a little better at reading how you move, at finding weaknesses and if you keep this up I'm going to learn how to do all your little secrets." Ranma threatened her.

Ryoko's eyes started to glow brightly as she got angrier and angrier. She started to growl deep in her throat as she glared at Ranma. Her fists clenched and she ground her teeth as she tried to control herself. "I am going to make you pay for what you did to me!"

"You just jumped to conclusions and threw a temper tantrum." Ranma mocked her. "You. Can't. Beat. Me."

"AGHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Behind Ranma, the girls all started to power up as well as they realized that Ranma intended to end this fight here and now. Ayeka's clothing shifted as she finally donned her Jurian battle armor as she watched Ryoko seething anger as Ranma insulted her.

She noticed something, stepped a little closer to Ranma, and whispered something into his ear. Ayeka made sure Ranma knew what she was talking about and he glanced at Ryoko. A second later he narrowed his eyes and nodded. She moved away from him and prepared to attack Ryoko with

everything she had left. There was no other option.

Jupiter stepped to the side, focused on Ryoko, and prepared to fire off her attack one more time. There was no way they were going to let this monster get away from them. At the same time, Venus moved a little closer to Ranma, and prepared to use her magical attack on Ryoko. This time she would use her most powerful attack to make sure she went down.

Then they watched as Ryoko's eyes changed color, they had been white up until now, but they flickered and turned bright red as completely lost her temper. "ALL OF YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!"

Glancing over at the girls, Ranma hoped they had the strength to survive this fight. Ryoko had pushed him to the limit and he didn't have much more to give. "Bring it on you wimp! You glorified Tomboy! I bet you couldn't hit the broad side of a barn!"

Shaking in rage Ryoko's shadow formed around her like an aura until the only thing visible was her body shape and a pair of glowing red eyes. There was a feeling in the air as she continued to draw in more and more energy. However, for some reason, Ranma didn't look very concerned about the development. He was grinning instead, as if his plan was working perfectly.

Ranma got into the classic Ki blast pose and formed a ball of energy between his hands as he smirked at the woman floating in front of him. "I wonder if I should thank you?" He asked with a rather disturbing grin that would have reminded Soun of Genma, if he had been there to see it.

With her hands above her head a ball of energy started to form from her upraised hands. Ryoko surveyed the group in front of her with contempt as she gasped for air. She cocked her head to the side and glared at them. "What makes you think that?"

"Because of you I just learned something new and you are about to experience it."

She snorted. "Why in the world would you even bother? Are you going to use the same lame attack you always seem to use? I already know you can throw energy blasts. Big deal, I've seen slugs that were more dangerous than you."

Suddenly the light in the cave begins to alter and warp around Ranma as the ball of Ki starts to get brighter and brighter. Then lines of energy flow around his body and arcing into the air around him. It rises several feet above him and falls back down to his body in a constant display of power that started to frighten the girls as they watched.

His clothing fluttered around him as the energy built up into a loud moan of power that rebounded of the walls of the hole. The one remaining lens on his visor lit up, glowing just as brightly as the ball of energy does and displaying just how pissed off he is. "Actually I told you about the attack because I needed to distract you for a second."

"VULCAN METAL STORM!" Ranma screamed out as he thrusts his hands forward and

sends a blast of golden energy at Ryoko. Unlike his previous blasts, this one seems to be about ten times more powerful than anything he'd thrown at her so far.

Ryoko isn't even impressed as she fires her own blast into the center of Ranma's and for a brief second stops its forward progress. Then the two beams start to shake and shiver just as they compress against each other, forming a large ball of multi colored energy.

The two of them start to lose control of the beams as the energy continues to build up. Ranma's arms begin to shake as he struggles against the flow of energy building up all around them. By this time Ranma can't see Ryoko anymore and he glances out of the corner of his eye at Ayeka.

"I have an idea."

"How can we help?"

The Scouts nod and step a little closer.

On the other side of the large ball of energy Ryoko is cursing under her breath. She is absolutely amazed that this is happening and doesn't really know what to do next. No matter what she sends at him he seems to keep just out of reach.

The growing ball of energy begins to light up like a small sun and she snarls in anger and cuts off her beam. Then she dives behind the pile of dirt just as it's explodes, sending quite a bit of dirt high into the air. It rains back down a few seconds later, filling the air with dust and ash

from the explosion.

"Now!" Ranma yells.

Suddenly a golden chain made of tiny hearts whips in from out of nowhere, wraps itself around Ryoko's neck. She is suddenly yanked about ten feet into the air and even before she has a chance to land her body is hit with an electrical explosion as Sailor Jupiter attacks her. Right in the middle of that, Ayeka appears in the air above her and screams.

Ryoko's head snaps around as she struggles to free herself from the chain, but before she has a chance to teleport, Ayeka's scream startles her. The Jurian Princess has a sword in her hand and does a quick attack to sever both of Ryoko's hands right above where the jewels are sitting in her

wrists. Ryoko watches in shock as her hands are removed from her body. All her newfound power begins to vanish even before she hits the floor.

In the midst of all that, she barely manages to avoid Ayeka's final swing as she attempts to remove the third jewel at the base of Ryoko's neck. Ayeka slowed to a stop just as Ryoko slams into the ground and watches for a second as Venus and Jupiter jump forward to attack her.

Jupiter pummels her with an electric attack and Venus tosses out a Love and Beauty Shock that injures the space pirate even more. Ayeka concentrates and forms a small swarm of little logs around her in the air and lets them charge up for a few seconds.

The instant Venus and Jupiter see this they jump out of the way and she gives a mental command to the logs to make them fire. It wasn't the first time she had used the particular attack on Ryoko, but its affect was quite different than it normally was.

All the little logs flare up and fire off a beam of laser light. It dropped on her like lightning, slamming into Ryoko's prone form, making her scream out in pain for the first time all day. Ayeka lets the attack run for about ten seconds before she powers down to get a better look at Ryoko.

She couldn't have held it for much longer anyway.

As soon as she finishes she spoted Ranma looking at her he stood on the floor of the cave. She lands next to Ranma and handed him the sword. "Thanks for letting me borrow it."

Ranma nodded as he took the sword and swung it around a few times. "No problem, now lets finish this."

"Right."

Then the girls back off as Ranma turned and walked over to Ryoko and glared down at her. He holds the sword up for her to get a closer look at it, reflecting her image in the metal of the blade. Ryoko just used her legs to back up a few feet and took a second to replace her hands, using the same trick she had used when Tenchi removed one of her hands in their first fight.

She took a second and noticed that his armor was almost completely destroyed after it had been used to shield him from this latest explosion. Even his mask was giving off the occasional spark as he glared down at her, telling her that the visor was no longer working properly.

She hadn't taken much damage though because she had time to take cover before it went off. Unfortunately she hadn't realized that they'd had enough time form a battle plan like this to catch her by surprise. Now she knew she was in trouble and she would have to act quick if she wanted to

survive this.

"Now…" Ranma started.

"All of you are going to pay for this humiliation." Ryoko threatened them.

Ranma just snorted. Unlike Ryoko, he had just dodged the blast as best he could, but his armor had taken quite a beating. Almost half of his cape was missing, and the other half wasn't in very good shape. There were large holes in his pants and jacket as well. The one remaining piece of his

visor was also shorting out as it flickered on and off.

Ryoko moved around a little, holding her ribs, and turns to look at Ranma as he stand in front of her. She doesn't even have time to react as he almost casually takes a swing at her head with the sword. The sound the blade makes as it cuts through the air is the only warning she has of the attack.

She leans back as the blade passes through the space where her neck had just been and can feel the air as it passes by. Ranma spins the sword around a couple of times before he places the sword back in his sub space pocket and smirked at her.

A few seconds later the girls all walk over and stand behind Ranma. Sailor Venus goes to grab his arm, but stops in mid motion, blushes a little as she recalls something, and stands beside him without touching him.

Jupiter glances at Venus, shakes her head as if she was dizzy, then makes sure that Ranma knows she's there too by standing on the other side of him as they all look at Ryoko.

"Got you." He informs her as he steps to the side and looks around in the grass for a second, ignoring the confused look on Ryoko's face. Then he reaches down between some rocks at the edge of the grass to pick up something.

She staggered to her feet and wonders why she feels even weaker now. "You haven't won yet you pervert, not while I'm still alive. I'm still not sure how you pulled this off, but don't think you have me defeated just because you took my power jewels."

He turns to look at her. "When you split earlier I hadn't realized that your jewels weren't glowing anymore, even when you used your powers. I was too busy running around acting like an idiot to really notice it. Then Ayeka here mentioned that fact to me a few minutes ago and the rest of us quickly came up with a plan to take you down. It was easier to pull off than I thought." He said as he held up the jewel that had been on her throat.

She carefully reached up to her throat and realized that she had let her guard down. He'd been able to get close enough to swing the blade like a bat. Thus, allowing him to knock the jewel off her throat with the very tip of the blade without even scratching her. She steps back as the girls move to surround her and power up their attacks.

"I win." Ranma says as he raises his fist with the jewel and it starts to glow with energy. "I don't normally hit a girl like this, but I'm going to make an exception and just knock you out. After that I'm going to go and deal with your other self."

Ryoko sneered at them and folded her arms. "Not yet you haven't, you just said it yourself, I'm only one of two and you have to beat both of us to truly win this game. Her jewels are still working perfectly and when we merge back together she will be even stronger than she was before!" Ryoko yells and vanishes before any of them can stop her.

"DAMN IT!" Ranma screamed as soon as she isn't there anymore and looks around for a sneak attack, but is a bit worried when she doesn't appear. "Where did she go?!"

"To find the other Ryoko!" Ayeka yelled as she realizes what the clone had meant when it was talking to them.

"Let's move!" Venus yells and takes off at a run with Jupiter following along behind her.

**********

Mars, ever impatient and determined to protect her princess at all costs, growled under her breath as she watched the hovering girl. As far as she was concerned, Ryoko was just another Youma, and wouldn't be alive for much longer if she had any say at all. So what did the rest of them seem to be doing about her?

Not a damned thing, and it was pissing her off to no end. The strangers didn't seem to think this situation was that big of a problem either, but she couldn't tell why. The red headed woman that the Mercury was hovering around seemed to think she knew everything and didn't hesitate to tell anyone that would listen. Mars had tried to tell Moon and Mercury that the woman seemed to have a dangerous aura about her as well, but neither of them was listening to her.

She wanted to throttle Sailor Moon for being a ditz in general, but there wasn't all that much she could do at the moment. Mars glared at Ryoko some more as her and the red head argued about some cat or rabbit thing. They were tossing names around so fast that it was little hard to keep up with what they were saying. She considered talking to the others for a second, but then decided that doing that wouldn't work either. They didn't have anything in common except this woman and her connection to Ranma.

Then on the other hand, Mars just didn't trust them. A few seconds later Ryoko stopped yelling, floated up into the air, and looked out into the forest. She turned back to them, and suddenly formed a small ball of energy above the palm of her hand. "It looks like I'm going to have to speed things up a bit."

"Let's just talk about this." Moon told her. "We don't have to fight."

Ryoko just rolled her eyes as she turned and looked at Sailor Moon like she was an interesting bug. Then the ball of energy suddenly grew in size and she threw it at Sailor Moon. The blonde pony tailed Scout didn't react like she should have. Mars just stepped in front of her, formed a bow of fire, and attacked all in one smooth motion. She had to protect her Princess at all costs. "MARS FLAME SNIPER!"

"Mars! No don't attack!" Moon yelled half a second later.

Neither of the girls listened to Sailor Moon, so she had a front row seat as the two attacks slammed into each other just a few feet from where Mars was standing and they exploded. All the girls, except for Washuu, screamed in shock as the force of the blast swept through the tent.

Sailor Moon and Mihoshi were blown off their feet when the tent was ripped out of the ground and sent flying into the sky. Mars used her body to protect Moon from the force of the blast and received the most damage. By the time it stopped, her hair was a mess and several holes had appeared in her uniform. Still on her feet, she slumped a bit as the effects of the explosion finally receded.

At the same time, every thing that wasn't over a hundred pounds was sent flying into the air with the tent. Washuu quickly erected a force field to block as much of it as possible before it managed to hit anyone. Tenchi pulled Sasami to the ground to protect her and Katsuhito just stood there and seemed to ignore it. Anything that might have hit him just curved around his body and continued on its way once it was beyond him.

Sailor Mercury, who was using Washuu's force field for cover continued to scan Ryoko as best she could, looking for any weakness that they could exploit against her. So far she hadn't managed to find anything that might even be considered a weakness. She tensed up a little when she noticed that Mars was heading back over to Ryoko and she didn't look happy at all.

"I've had enough of you." Sailor Mars growled at Ryoko.

The woman hovered a foot or so off the ground and looked around her, quite surprised that the explosion had done so little damage. At the very least, she had expected it to hurt one of the girls, knocking one or two of them out, a broken bone, or even killing one of them. But they all appeared to be in perfect health. She sighed and muttered a few curses under her breath.

"You girls have got to have more luck than anyone I've ever seen. Even that boy I'm fighting in the woods back there was bleeding from more than one would after I blasted him, but not you."

"Ranma?" Moon whispered. She closed her eyes, shuddered a bit, and remembered what Queen Serenity had told her about him being her Soul Mate. Ryoko had just reminded her why she was out her in the first place. They couldn't even go home until Ryoko was defeated and Ranma was safe. Rallying her strength, she straightened up and opened her eyes. "This crap has gone on long enough!"

Mars glanced at her leader and raised an eyebrow at the course language. She had never heard Usagi say something like that. "What the heck?"

Moon stalked forward and held her sceptre up. "I am the soldier of love and Justice. And in the name of the Moon, I will Punish You! Even if I have to beat you unconscious with this thing!"

A look of surprise crossed Ryoko's face as stared down at the blonde haired girl, at the sceptre, and then threw her head back and started to laugh She laughed so hard that she nearly fell out of the air. Instead, still floating

in the air, she fell over backwards and rolled around. "WHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!"

Sailor Moon glowered at her, scowled, and raised her sceptre up into the ir. Mercury and Mars ran forward, stood behind her a few seconds later, and prepared their own attacks. "You asked for it!"

"MERCURY AQUA RHAPSODY!"

"STARLIGHT HONEYMOON THERAPY KISS!"

"MARS FLAME SNIPER!"

The Scouts attacks quickly launched at Ryoko, but she seemed to be paying more attention than expected. The girls were quite surprised that in mid laugh she just vanished, before the attacks could even get close enough to hit. They continued until they hit the ground a few hundred yards in the distance and exploded, sending dirt high into the air.

Katsuhito winced a bit as the lands around his home take even more damage. If this kept up he would have to replace more than half the trees on the grounds. Then Ryoko reappeared behind the girls and blasted Sailor Mercury before anyone can even move, sending the girl flying into the side of the house.

She doesn't even have time to scream before she hit the wall and slid down to the ground. Tenchi and Sasami both run over to her and start to examine her for injuries. They are somewhat surprised to find that other than being a little groggy she doesn't have any damage at all. She has

Tenchi help her to her feet and she can barely stand. Using the wall to keep her balance she shakes her head, pulls her computer out, and flips it open.

Mars barely has time to spin around and fire off another Flame Sniper attack, but this time Ryoko doesn't even dodge. She just holds out her hand and lets it slam into the force field. The attack rebounds off to the side, and heads right for Katsuhito, who hasn't even moved.

He crouches and bats it out of the air with his boken and sends it flying into the ground behind him, but sets it on fire. Within seconds, the boken is nothing but a handle and a pile of smoking ash at his feet.

"I thought I might get you with that one old man." Ryoko said as she snapped her fingers.

The old man just shrugged and tossed it to the ground. "You're still too young to defeat me Ryoko."

Still helping Sailor Mercury, Tenchi gives him a weird look as the old man shrugs and adjusts his glasses. Then they watch as Sailor Mars formed another magical arrow of fire and pointed it at Ryoko. They stepped back and Sailor Moon nervously tells her not fire another one.

Ryoko notices Sailor Mars' actions out of the corner of her eye and quickly holds up her hand and waves a finger in her face. The three jewels on her body flare up for a brief second, and then a wave of energy surges from her to slam into Sailor Mars.

The girl cried out and flies right into the side of the house just a few feet from where Sailor Mercury hit it a few seconds before, but this time, because of the previous damage to the wall. It creates a large hole leading directly into the living room. Sailor Moon can only gape at what

Ryoko has done to her friends. For a moment she's frozen in place as she tries to assimilate it all.

"There we go, another nuisance down and just a couple more to go."

Mihoshi and Sasami run over to check on the girl as quickly as they can. They have to spend a little while tossing the remains of several boards and other bits of the wall out of the way until they find Mars underneath the rubble. She appears to be in good shape, but there is a large bump on the side of her head and she's babbling about meatball heads and an ice cream sandwich.

"Mars! Sailor Moon yelled as she broke out of her shock, ran over to her friend, and knelt down next to her.

Katsuhito looks over at Ryoko. "Tenchi, she may not be as dangerous as we thought."

"What do you mean grandpa?"

"She's had all these chances to kill us and yet none of are dead yet, she may be fighting the possession on some level."

"I'm not too sure about that." Washuu spoke up. She was still working on the holographic computer. She hadn't bothered to drop her force field now that it had been employed in the fight, so there was a bubble of energy swirling around her as she worked.

"Why?" He asked her.

"I'm not sure, but her subconscious does have something to do with it. Her basic readings have been changing ever since that thing entered her. I'm working on it, but I could take me some time to get that thing out of her and if the changes continue at this rate there won't be anything left of the old Ryoko by the time I do figure out how to split them."

"Sailor Mooncan split them if she needs to." Sailor Mercury said as she walked over. She was still a little woozy from the earlier attack, but she was already starting to feel much better. "I better get over there and help Sailor Moon out before she does something she shouldn't."

"Something she shouldn't do?" Washuu asks.

"By using the Silver Crystal, it's very dangerous so we keep it around as a last resort weapon. We tend to use it when we go up against the leaders of whomever we are fighting. It's usually an all or nothing type fight to the death."

"That thing Queen Serenity used to lug around in her crown?"

Mercury thought back for a second and nodded. "The first Serenity kept it in her crown, but after that most of them held it inside a broach like Sailor Moon does."

Washuu winced and watched as Mercury ran over to where Moon was kneeling next to Mars, completely unaware that Ryoko was about to attack them again. The blue haired girl got into position several yards away from her and yelled out her attack phrase. "MERCURY AQUA PHAPSODY!"

A massive amount of magically powered water fired from Mercury's hands and slammed into Ryoko's back, making the girl stagger forward and away from the hole in the side of the house. Moon looked up at the sudden movement, noticed just how close Ryoko was, and wondered why she hadn't realized just how close she had been. She carefully sat Mars' head back down as carefully as she could and stood up.

Soaking wet and just a little irritated, Ryoko sneered at Sailor Mercury and held up her hand. Once again the jewels briefly flared with light and something swirled around her hand. "You're annoying me, have a little taste of what you will be experiencing as you die."

Sailor Mercury dove to the side just as the jewels flared, but she stumbled and realized that she wasn't feeling as well as she thought.

"No!" Moon yelled as she ran forward, but she wasn't fast enough.

They could only watch as the girl, still stunned from her earlier blow, was hit with the full force of the blast. It lifted her off the ground and tossed her into the air like a piece of cloth, and then she reached the top of the arc.

For just a second she appeared to be floating in mid air, but then she plummeted right into the heart of the lake beside the house. A plume of water rose fifteen feet into the air as she landed in an ungraceful belly flop and vanished below the surface.

"MERCURY!!" Sailor Moon screamed.

There was total silence for several seconds as everyone waited for Mercury to resurface, but as the water calmed down there was no sign of the blue haired Scout. Ryoko took it as a good sign and started to laugh as she lifted off the ground. Then when she was about ten feet up, she turned and looked down on Sailor Moon and formed a ball of energy. "You're next you blonde pest."

"No!" Sailor Moon yelled.

She ran for the lake, there had to be some sign of Mercury, but then Ryoko flew over her head and blocked her from reaching the lake. "That's far enough girl, prepare to die."

"Get out of my way!"

Ryoko thrust her hand forward and fired the energy blast, but in an almost amazing bit of luck, Moon suddenly tripped. It was impossible to see what had caught her foot, but it was impossible to miss the fact that the beam of energy missed hitting her by several inches as it flew by. Washuu's

force field was still active, so all she had to do was expand it to make sure the blast didn't hit the house.

"You lucky little…!" Ryoko screamed and formed her sword. "You're as lucky as the pervert!"

Sailor Moon tripped a lot, and because Ranma had been training her for several weeks now she was able to roll with the fall and come back up on her feet in an instant. She blinked in surprise and saw that Ryoko was heading right for her and had formed her energy sword. She whimpered a bit as the woman glared at her hatefully and floated towards her.

"Can't we talk about this?" Moon stuttered as she backed away.

"No, now die!"

Moon shrieked and twisted out of the way as the sword missed her head by a couple of inches and she had to move her head to the side. Then she tripped over her own ponytails, ended up falling below Ryoko, and scrambled away on her hands and knees.

Ryoko lost it completely as she missed again and threw her energy sword at Sailor Moon's retreating back side. "If I can't hit one end I'll aim for the one I see the most!"

Then Sailor Moon rolled to the side and let it miss her by a mile, looked over her shoulder, and pulled an eye lid down and stuck her tongue out at Ryoko. Once she was up on her feet she ran into the trees nearby using her full Scout enhanced speed. The last any of them saw of her was the tips of her hair and boots as she passed by a large bush next to the lake.

"She was doing all that on purpose?" Ryoko muttered as she gaped at the girl. "What the hell?"

Inside the house, Sasami and Mihoshi were placing Rei on the couch so that she could rest. Sasami was making sure the Galaxy Police officer didn't do anything weird, like trying to perform first aid on Sailor Mars. Luckily Mihoshi was easily distracted with chocolate chip cookies.

**********

Ranma, Ayeka, Sailor Venus and Jupiter ran through the trees, making their way back towards the house as fast as they could. They came out of the woods on the other side of the lake and saw the battle going on in front of the house. Ranma glanced around and frowned.

"How the heck did we get all the way over here?"

"We've been running and fighting for some time now, we must have circled the house in all the smoke and confusion of the battle." Sailor Venus said, her voice sounding different than she normally did. "Though I did have other things on my mind, a naked something..." She said with a significant glance at Ranma's backside.

"We don't have time for that kind of thing right now!" Ayeka yelled at them. "The others are in danger!"

"Gotta enjoy the tundra." Venus smirked and elbowed Jupiter.

"Scenery." Jupiter automatically corrected and slapped her hand away.

"Whatever, it's still worth thinking about."

Jupiter nodded.

"I can't believe you two!" Ayeka yelled.

"What are you guys yelling about?" Ranma asked as he turned away from the fight. "We have to get over there, that version of Ryoko over there seems to be stronger than the one we just fought. She's causing quite a mess."

Ayeka glanced at the fight, and winced as Sailor Mars went through the side of the house. Monster woman seemed to be displaying powers she normally didn't use when they fought each other. She wondered if they were only available to her when she had all three jewels powering her. That reminded her of the one they were chasing after. "Have you spotted the clone yet?"

"No, thy may already have merged. The jewels seem to be glowing on that one too." Ranma explained as he indicated Ryoko as she confronted Sailor Mercury. "Those things are really noticeable so I'm not sure why I didn't missed them on the other one."

"You had other things on your mind." Venus said. Then she muttered under her breath and glanced at Ranma, even with his ripped clothing he looked good to her. 'I know I do.'

"Uh oh." Ranma said as he pointed at Sailor Mercury. "She just made a huge mistake."

Venus and Jupiter, suddenly standing a little to close to Ranma, looked over his shoulder as their friend flew into the air as Ryoko waved her hand. Then they gasped as the girl flopped into the middle of the lake.

"We have to save her!" Venus exclaimed.

"I'll get her out, you three see if you can slow Ryoko down." Ranma said as he stepped over to the waters edge, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. He turned around to see Ayeka holding him back.

"You and the two Scouts go and help, I'll get the girl out of the lake. I don't think I'll be able to help out against Ryoko when she's in that state. I barely even managed to help stop the other one and this just might be the original. We can already tell she's stronger than the other one as well."

"I don't know…" Ranma began, he was a little worried about Mercury being out there in the water. He shook his head. "Can you get her out?"

"No problem, just stop Ryoko."

Venus gazed at the lake and tried to tell where her friend was, but she couldn't see anything. "Ayeka is right. Look over there, Ryoko is going after Sailor Moon now. We have to protect her above all else."

Ranma nodded. "Let's go!"

The three ran off along the edge of the lake and Ayeka watched them for a second before she sighed. Then she gazed out over the lake, looked around, and used her Juraian power to fly out over the lake. She used her little logs to form a barrier around her and headed below the surface of the lake.

She had never used her powers in this way before, but she could survive full vacuum outside a space ship with this bubble so she wasn't too worried. Ryoko would have been the best one to save her though. She didn't even need to form a bubble to move around in space.

**********

Growling in frustration as he ran, Ranma reached up and ripped what was left of his cape off. The girls could really tell how much the uniform resembled the outfits worn by Beryl's Generals now. They ignored the bad memories this brought up and continued to run along side him. Ranma tapped the side of his visor, but it wasn't working anymore, and shook his head.

"I can't get the visor to work so I'm not sure where anyone is." He told them.

"That's alright." Jupiter told him and ran a little closer. Visions of a naked Ranma running through the smoke appeared in her mind. She nearly stumbled and fell as they turned somewhat perverted, but she didn't complain either. The longer she was around Ranma the more she liked him, so it wasn't all too bad.

Venus, who was lagging behind a bit, just blushed and hoped no one figured out what she was thinking about. To distract herself, she thought about Sailor Moon. Once they found her they would have to fight Ryoko, so she started to plan ahead. She was just lucky she could focus on two things at once or she would have been in trouble.

"I hate to admit this, but I'm pushing my limits now." Ranma told them. "We need a way to stop Ryoko no matter what and now that she's after Moon we have to hurry."

"I think I might know of a way." Venus said as an idea occurred to her. "My heart chain and one of Sailor Moon's attacks can be combined, she hasn't used it in a while, but I think it will work if I can keep Ryoko from moving around."

"That might work." Jupiter admitted. She was only a few feet behind them, but every now and then she would shake her head, glance at Ranma, and then look away before anyone noticed her. 'What the hell is wrong with me?' She wondered to herself.

"I have two special attacks I can pull off as well and they don't' depend on magic reserves." Ranma told them. 'Even then, pulling them off might be a problem if I over extend myself.' He thought to himself.

"This is only your second major fight Ranma. There's nothing to worry about, we always win." Venus grinned at him.

"Yeah." Jupiter agreed, and decided not to tell Ranma about the times they were captured during a fight. Like when Rubius had hung them on crosses inside his ship a couple years back, or when they had all died at the hands of the Doom and Gloom Girls before that, and then there was Galaxia of course. She hated to think of those times.

Ranma and the Scouts, using their enhanced speed, managed to run around the edge of the lake in a couple of minutes. Then they raced across the open field beside the lake and towards the house. They made sure that the only people that could see them coming were Washuu and Katsuhito.

Both of them were watching for any sign of an attack. Katsuhito waved them over when he saw them. Ranma considered if for a second, but his link with Sailor Moon told him that he had to get to her as soon as he could. She was still in control, but she was frightened out of her mind as well. The mixed feelings were driving him nuts.

He slowed to a stop and let the girls catch their breath. "Sailor Moon just ran into the forest. I'm going after her. Maybe I can sneak up on Ryoko and give her a chance to use that attack you just mentioned. You two keep an eye out for the clone, it should have gotten her ahead of us."

"You'll need me to come with you for the plan to work Ranma." Venus reminded him.

"Naw, I think I can find a way to hold her in place for a few seconds so Moon can hit her. Get over there and check on Mars and Mercury. Catch up with me once you do that. It will also give us an advantage if we stagger out attacks." Ranma explained.

"I don't know Ranma…" Venus said hesitantly. He brain was telling her one thing and her hormones were trying to start up a party in other areas. A vision of a naked Ranma flashed across her mind again and she shuddered.

"Come on Venus, let's go and check on Mars real quick." Jupiter told her.

"Why? Moon's in trouble."

Jupiter grabbed her arm and started to drag her towards the house. "Ranma is going after her." She hissed.

"Huh?"

Before they could say anything else, Ranma hunched over and vanished from sight, using the Umisen-Ken technique. They watched for a second and were surprised when they didn't even seen tracks in the grass leading off after Sailor Moon and Ryoko.

Venus grumbled and looked at Jupiter. "I've never seen him do that before."

"Come on, the quicker we check on Mars the better, I don't want to be too far behind him."

"Washuu is looking after her and Ayeka is getting Mercury, we need to help Sailor Moon right now!" She snapped at Jupiter.

"I know, but I also needed to get away from him for a few seconds." Jupiter confessed and blushed a little.

"What do you mean?"

"I can't get the vision of him running around naked out of my head and it's driving me crazy."

"Work around it! We need to go and help Moon; we can lust after him at the same time."

"Heads up!"

They looked up just as Ayeka landed next to them with Sailor Mercury in her arms. "This girl weighs more than I thought." She said.

"Is she okay?" Jupiter asked.

"I think so, but I wanted to let Washuu look at her as soon as possible." Ayeka told them. Mercury didn't look to good, her uniform was soaking wet and they could even see through it in several places, which meant that it was soaked clear through to the skin. Even her powers over water didn't get her this wet.

"Let's get Mars to help us then, she should be up by now, so lets hurry." Jupiter said.

"This doesn't feel right." Venus insisted. She shook her head and gazed off after the general direction that Ranma had gone.

"We just need to be quick, the more fire power we have the better." Jupiter explained.

Katsuhito walked over to them as they entered the front yard. "Are you girls alright? Where's Ranma, I saw him with you a little while ago."

"He went to help Sailor Moon." Venus muttered.

"We wanted to check on Mars and Mercury before she went after him." Jupiter said.

"That girl was quite good at dodging Ryoko's blasts." Katsuhito said with a grin. "At first I thought she was doing it on accident, but then everything missed her by the same small margin and I knew she was doing it on purpose."

"Huh?" Venus asked.

"Moon has been training with Ranma for several weeks Venus, you know that, she's gotten quite good at avoiding those tickle attacks of his. That's also why I'm not too worried at the moment, but I don't want to wait to long."

Dumbfounded, Venus realized that she had completely forgotten about Usagi's training. She had too much naked Ranma on her mind to remember such little details like that. "Crap, I forgot completely about that."

"Sailor Mars inside on the couch if you want to go and talk to her, but I don't think she will be able to help you." Katsuhito told them.

"Thank you." The girls said and headed for the house.

"We've only got a couple of minutes Venus, let's hurry." Jupiter said as they ran.

"Right."

Ayeka was still holding Sailor Mercury on her back and she glanced at Katsuhito. He motioned over at Washuu and she nodded. "Can you take a look at her?"

The red head looked up from her computer and noticed Ayeka for the first

time, glanced up at her hair, then back down. "You have a fish in your hair."

Ayeka blinked. "Um, whatever, what do you want me to do with her?"

Laughing, Washuu plucked the fish away, tossed it to Tenchi and snapped her fingers. Sailor Mercury vanished in a burst of light and a portal appeared next to Washuu. "Not to worry, I'll take good care of her. I just sent her to my lab, so I should have her fixed up good as new in a jiff."

"Do you need any help?" Katsuhito asked.

"Why would I need that?"

"Well we have to look after Sailor Mars as well, plus you mentioned that you needed to be here to get the proper readings on Ryoko."

Washuu nodded slowly and started to think. "I'll just have my computer examine Mercury then, Mars just has a concussion, and I've got Ryoko covered. There we go, all solved, I'm the greatest ever!" She exclaimed and started to laugh.

Sailor Jupiter and Venus looked into the house through the hole Mars had made. They noticed that most of the mess had already been cleaned up and that someone had placed an Ofuda on Mihoshi's head to knock her out. They recognized Mars' work instantly. The blonde-haired woman was sitting in a nearby chair with her hands and feet tied up just in case she woke up.

Sprawled on the couch, Mars had a wet rag over her forehead and it looked like she had a fever. Sasami was kneeling next to her preparing to change out the rag with a fresh one. Someone had also placed a bandage around Mars' head. "How's she doing?" Jupiter asked.

"Better." Mars mumbled before Sasami could reply. The little girl shrugged, picked up her bowl, and headed for the kitchen.

"Don't do anything foolish."

"No problem, my head hurts too much to move."

"You're awake?" Jupiter asked in surprise.

"Barely, my head hurts and I can't move around very much."

"Washuu says she has a concussion from flying through wall head first." Sasami said as she came out of the kitchen with a tray and a bowl of soup. She sat them down near Sailor Mars and handed her the bowl and a spoon. "Here eat this, I put some medicine in it to help the concussion. Little Washuu said it would help quite a bit."

"Thanks." Mars said, then looked over at Jupiter. "Where are the others?"

"In trouble." Jupiter muttered. "I was hoping you would be up and around to help us."

"You got it…" Mars said and tried to sit up. "No concussion is going to slow me down."

"No!" Sasami yelled and pushed her back down. "You can't move around for at least two days!"

Sailor Mars winced and collapsed back against the couch and glared at the little blue haired girl. "My friend is in trouble!"

"You need your rest."

Mars sighed and stopped struggling against the little girl. "What happened to Mercury?"

"Ryoko tossed her about fifty feet in the air and she landed in the lake." Venus said. "She's water logged."

"At least she was in her element." Mars muttered and held her head in pain. "Every time I move my head I see these little spots and I get dizzy. I hate this concussion already. I'm useless!" She yelled and winced.

Sasami sighed and didn't say anything as she handed her the bowl of soup. With a bit of reluctance, Mars took the bowl and started to eat it as the girls watched. "You said there was medicine in this?"

"Yep."

"I hope it works quick, I can't just lay here while my friends fight that monster."

"I won't let you leave until you are over the concussion." Sasami told her. "And don't think I can't make you."

Mars sighed and finished off the soup. "I'm stuck here, go and help Sailor Moon."

"I was about to leave anyway." Jupiter said and motioned for Venus to follow her. "Get well as soon as you can."

"No problem." Mars called after them."

As they walked away Venus looked at Jupiter. "She won't be any help in that condition; Ranma and Moon have quite a head start on us as well"

"I think your right, I thought Rei would be in better shape." Jupiter said. "Let's go and find them. They can't have gotten too far in just a few minutes."

"As fast as we move? They could be miles from here by now." Venus snapped. "We'll have to take a guess, where to you suppose they are right now?"

"I'm not sure, but we need to hurry if we want to catch up with Ranma."

The two girls nodded and broke into a run. They raced across the grass and vanished into the trees next to the lake less than a second later. From

inside the house Tenchi watched them speed off and he wondered if they would make it in time. He had seen Ryoko like this before and she needed special handling.

He made sure he had the Tenchi-ken in his pocket as he came down stairs and saw something weird. Sasami had an Ofuda stuck to her head and she was asleep at Mihoshi's feet. There was no sign of Sailor Mars except for a rag on the floor and an over turned bowl of water. Kneeling down he reached for the strip of paper on her head and it shocked him.

"Grandpa will have to deal with these." He said and walked over to the hole in the wall. "Grandpa!"

"What is it Tenchi?"

"Sailor Mars is gone and she used one of those Ofuda things to put Mihoshi and Sasami to sleep. I can't remove them."

"Alright, they need a special touch…" Katsuhito said and turned to head into the house, but an alarm suddenly on Washuu's computer and he stopped to see what was going on.

The red headed scientist tapped a button on her keyboard and a second holographic screen appeared on top of the other two and angled towards her so she didn't have to strain to see it. She read the data, started to frown after a couple of seconds, and started another scan with her sensors. "That other reading we were discussing earlier, the other person that was possessed? It seems to be moving again, this time it's heading after Sailor Moon and Ryoko."

"We need to help out." Tenchi said as he walked out of the house and heard her.

Katsuhito nodded. "We haven't had a chance to join in the fight yet either."

"What are we going to do about the fires? They are starting to get out of control." Tenchi reminded them as he looked in the direction of the multiple fires created by Ryoko's wild blasts.

"So many problems to deal with." Washuu said. "I'll take care of the fires by drenching them in lake water. As for the other problem, you two will have to take care of it."

"How?"

Washuu nodded and tapped a key on her keyboard. A swirling hole appeared above Katsuhito for a brief second and he suddenly found himself holding what looked like an elaborate sword hilt. Washuu pointed at it. "That is an energy sword I developed a long time ago, but never really had a way to use it properly. It works like the Tenchi Ken, but can also be used by anyone

with even the slightest access to Jurian energies."

Katsuhito activated the sword by twisting the base and spun it around a few times to get a feel for the blade. It had a red blade that cut through the air like a knife. "I haven't used one of these in quite some time."

"I figure you can put it to the best use since Tenchi now has your old sword."

"Excellent, lets go then. Tenchi, you and I will handle the other person that got possessed."

"It's not a person." Ayeka spoke up. "I saw it while I was running around out there, it's a cat of some kind and it is huge."

"A cat?"

Ayeka nodded. "Yeah, it's about eight feet high at its shoulder, all black, and the length of a truck."

"That's a big cat." Tenchi muttered and gulped.

"Sounds like this cat I saw on Rigell that one time I visited." Katsuhito muttered to himself.

"Well just be careful when you fight it, those claws are strong enough to use them to cut down trees." Ayeka said.

"We'll be careful." Tenchi said and concentrated for a second so he could assume his Jurian battle armor.

"Good luck you two, I'll monitor both fights and let you know what is going on." Washuu said as she tossed something to Katsuhito. "Oh, take this with you as well."

"What is it?"

"A communicator and a portable sensor, while you have it I'll be able to monitor the situation much easier. It's set up to pierce through the interference that has been 'futzing' up my other sensors."

Katsuhito placed it inside his shirt and made sure he still had his new sword. "Come along Tenchi, we need to get into position to cut that cat off before it can cause any more damage."

Nodding, Tenchi moved after his grandfather as he ran into the trees. "What did you have in mind?"

"I've spent the last few years teaching you how to simply fight, but I've never had the opportunity to teach you how to be tricky."

"Tricky?" Tenchi asked.

"Yes, cunning, guile, and dirty tricks that can be used to help you win a fight."

"What did you have in mind."

"Remember when you stole the keys to Ryoko's cave?"

Tenchi nodded, already knowing what the old man was going to say.

"That impressed me and it proves you do know how to use cunning every now and then."

"This is what I have in mind…" Katsuhito started as they entered the forest.

A few minutes later Tenchi couldn't help but be a little impressed.

**********

She didn't really have a destination in mind as she ran through the trees at a break neck speed. All she really wanted to do was get away and make sure she wasn't in the line of fire, but whenever she looked over her shoulder, she would see Ryoko flying along above her. She weaved around a grove of trees and suddenly changed directions, curving off to the left.

Up above her Ryoko missed the turn and lost sight of Sailor Moon for a brief second. Considering the girl was blonde, wearing a blue skirt, and bright red boots she was a little surprised. She slowed to a stop and hovered in the air for a second. Holding out her hand the jewel on he wrist started to glow.

Suddenly she started to fire multiple beams of energy down into the trees down below. At first, all was quiet, but then some of the energy rained down on a section of bushes and Moon yelped out as she dodged. She rolled to her feet, and rook off running again.

"I have you now!"

Moon looked behind her as she ran through the trees and she had a front row seat as all three jewels on Ryoko's body flared up. The air was suddenly full of massive energy blasts. These made the one's she had just been firing look puny by comparison. They weren't any bigger than the others, but they packed a bigger punch as they blew up.

The world exploded around Sailor Moon as the first blast ripped a giant hole in the side of the mountain. She screamed as trees, bushes and the very ground around her suddenly ceased to exist. Weaving and dodging as best she could she veered off to the side and changed her direction, side stepping a couple of blasts before they could touch her.

In the midst of the destruction, she stopped running, doubled back a little bit, and hid behind a tree. From there she watched to see if Ryoko would fly over and miss her completely. She stayed as far away from the fire and destruction as she could without giving herself away, but she knew that it wouldn't take to long for it to make it's way over to her.

Ryoko stopped flying and flew a little higher into the air as she started to look around for any sign of the girl. She made a mental note not to toss around such big blasts, they looked great, but they managed to obscure any signs of her prey.

She flew over several areas, still saying above the trees, and cursed under her breath. These puny half wits were turning into pests that just didn't know when to die. It was like they had nine lives or something and they just kept coming back for more.

The only sounds that could be heard for the next couple of minutes, was the fire as it raged through the trees and filled the air with more smoke. Ryoko cocked her head to the side, the jewel on her neck flared for a second, and her eyes lit up. Her eyes quickly started to scan over the trees below her until she came to one spot and saw the back heel of a red boot.

"Got you!" Ryoko yelled as she teleported and grabbed Sailor Moon by her throat. She grinned and started to squeeze.

"Ack!" Moon gasped and grabbed Ryoko's wrist.

Then Ryoko slammed her against the tree a few times. "How are dodging all those blasts?!" Ryoko snarled. "I'm aiming right at your back and they aren't hitting you!"

"Y-you're a bad shot?" Sailor Moon stuttered out.

Ryoko's eyes narrowed and started to glow once more as she leaned forward and glared right into Sailor Moon's face. "You will suffer for that."

The fist comes in from out of nowhere, but as it hit Ryoko across the jaw she is caught completely by surprise. It's so strong that she is knocked off her feet and is sent tumbling for several feet. She crawled to her knees and shook her head a few times before looking up.

Moon staggers away from the tree and over to Sailor Jupiter. She rubs her fist a little bit and glares down at Ryoko. Then, to completely ruin the moment, Sailor Moon grabs Jupiter and bear hugs her.

"Whaaaaa! I thought I was done for!" She wails.

"Well she won't hurt you now." Jupiter declares and moves away from Sailor Moon. "Now to make sure this scum doesn't get a chance to hurt you anymore."

Sighing in frustration, Ryoko climbs to her feet and rubs her jaw a bit. "That was a good hit, but it didn't accomplish much did it?"

Jupiter takes a fighting stance. "It stopped you from hurting my friend, that's all that matters to me."

Ryoko just laughs. "You have so much to learn."

"Bring it on, witch."

Ryoko floats into the air with a smirk. "Alright, I'll play with you instead. The other one was beaten anyway, so there's nothing to worry about there."

"I'll make you pay for that!"

"Better control that temper, or you might get in trouble before you even begin."

Growling, Sailor Jupiter held her hands apart and electricity started for arc between her hands. "I'll show you who's in trouble!"

Raising her palm up, Ryoko continued to grin as the area around Jupiter suddenly filled with little balls of floating energy. "You've seen what I

can do and you are still using those useless attacks."

"JUPITER THUNDER DRAGON!"

"Oh, something new." Ryoko mutters as a dragon formed from lighting forms out of Jupiter's hands.

It flew out of her hands like giant swarm of electricity and hurtles towards Ryoko. At the same instant, Sailor Venus staggered out of the woods a few yards away gasping for air. She stumbles over to Sailor Moon, looks her in the eye, and grabs her by the arms. "You!"

"Me?" Moon gasps. There are leaves sticking out of Venus' hair.

"Let's go while Jupiter holds her off." Venus says, grabbed her hand, and they run off into the woods.

"Wawawa!" Moon mutters. "We have to help her…"

"We need to get away from her right now." Venus explains. "She's got a plan."

Sailor Moon nodded as they headed deeper into the woods and away from the fire.

The Jupiter Thunder Dragon slamed into Ryoko's shield as she held her hand up to block it. For a brief second Ryoko can't see anything, but she's not worried, because the energy is harmlessly vanishing after it hits the shield. Then just as the attack stops and she dropped her arm, a large burning log flies at her from out of nowhere and slammed into her head.

"Got you!" Jupiter yells as Ryoko slammed into the ground and glared up at Jupiter.

Getting to her feet, she turned and blasted the burning log to splinters then started walking towards Jupiter. "I'll make sure you die a slow death girl, all of you. You could barely fight my clone, what makes you think you can fight me any better?"

Jupiter just grins, holds up her hand and yells. "FLOWER HURICANE!"*

A literal hurricane of flower petals fill the air and swarm around Ryoko. She gasped as the pressure around starts to increase and push her back. She crossed her arms in front of her face and tries to see through the storm, but for several seconds she is completely blind. As the attack dies down she relaxed and looked around.

The brown haired Scout is standing about forty yards away and she jumped up and down a few times and made a rude gesture. "You're way too slow Monster Woman!" Then Jupiter ran into the trees and vanishes.

"AGHAAAAAAAAAAA!!" Ryoko screamed as a red hot rage fills her and she fires a pair of energy blasts after Jupiter. Instead of getting Jupiter all they do is blow up a couple of trees. "I'm going to get you!"

"Gotta catch me first!" Jupiter's voice echoed from out of the woods.

Ryoko launched after Jupiter even as the obliterated trees are still raining down around the area. Then she sees a flash of red and a Scout steps out of the trees, holds up her hands, and yells out an attack name.

"Burning Mandela!" Mars yelled and launches dozens of fire rings right into Ryoko's chest.

Even as the attack slammed into her, Ryoko had to wonder where in the heck she had gone so wrong.

So, surrounded in fire, she flew back and slammed into the ground. She bounced a few times and rolled to a stop and just laid there for a second.

Then a bright light flared around her body and the flames are instantly put out. Muttering a curse, she sits up and punched the ground a few times in frustration. She doesn't even have to look around to know that Mars is gone as well. The attack had been a delaying tactic. She had used them on several occasions herself.

Standing up, she took a second to make sure her clothing looked good and heard something. She turns and looked into the woods as Ranma walked into sight as he passed a couple of large bushes. He's carrying a large branch on his shoulder like a bat, stops about ten feet away from her, and smiled. "Hey, long time no see. I see you are having a few problems? I thought you were all powerful now?"

Ryoko snorted. "You people are like cockroaches aren't you? I take one of you down or run you off and another one pops up?"

"You sound disappointed." He said.

"Why aren't you fighting my clone?"

"She went looking for you after she lost a few pieces of herself." Ranma said with a shrug. "Or she ran off like a scared dog, which ever explanation you like better." Ranma said and shifted the branch from one shoulder to the other.

"You don't really think you can fight me and win do you?"

Ranma shrugged. "As far as I'm concerned I've already won. You don't have what it takes to defeat any of us. We also out number you six to one."

"We've been fighting all this time and all of you have yet to stop me."

"You can't stop us either." Ranma said. "The Scouts are making a fool out of you and you just keep letting them do it."

Growling, Ryoko glared at him. "You are really pushing your luck."

"Well, I guess I'll have to try a little harder." Ranma snapped and threw the branch at her like a dagger.

It was unexpected move, but Ryoko wasn't all the surprised either. So she teleported out of the way and reappeared a few feet away and formed another ball of energy. "Is that the best you can do?" She sneered, and then noticed that Ranma wasn't even there anymore. She blinked, looked around in confusion, and realized that he'd just ran off when she was in between teleports. Just like the girls had done a little while ago. "You bastard!"

"Gotta catch me first, doofus!" Ranma's voice yelled out from the forest several hundred yards away.

Seething mad, she flew up above the trees and started to look around for movement. Then she looked to the side just as her clone appeared beside her and looked in the direction of the forest. "What do you think they have in mind? It's quite obvious they want us to follow them."

"True, and I don't feel like falling for it, but I'm not sure what they have in mind."

"He's tricky too."

"I can't believe he's giving us this much trouble."

"Bah, I don't care about that. I just want to have some fun and off a few of these idiots. I'll be happy so long as I have some fun."

"Well yeah, but he's very good at dodging."

"Running away you mean."

The clone shrugged.

Ryoko spotted something and pointed over to the shrine. "They are heading for that little waterfall over by the shrine."

"Want to attack them from two different directions? Or just blast them out of existence?"

"I'd rather play with them some more."

The clone smiled. "Oh yeah, that will be fun too."

"How do we keep from falling into their trap?"

"I think we need to take them down one at a time."

Ryoko nodded. "Leave the boy for last, I want to make him suffer for all this aggravation."

"No problem."

"Alright, you go that way and try to circle around them."

"Sure."

**********

After ditching Ryoko, Ranma quickly caught up with the girls. They were standing around and he realized that Mars was looking worse and worse as he got closer. Her face was whiter than normal and Jupiter was helping her stay on her feet. They looked up as he headed for them. He could tell that Sailor Moon was quite worried.

"Are you feeling up to this?" He asked Mars.

"I keep telling you, I'm fine." She growled.

"You should have stayed at the house, all you're doing is making things worse."

"I will survive." She snapped.

"Mars, he's right, lets get you back to the house. You're going to hurt yourself if you keep this up." Jupiter told her. "You can barely stand."

"I'm staying!"

Ranma glanced at Sailor Moon and she just looked worried.

Then the Scout of fire shook off Sailor Jupiter's support and staggered over to a tree. "I will not lay around while all of you fight that monster."

"I've got a temporary way to help then." Ranma said and the girls looked at him. "I've been hit in the head so many times and been taken to this doctor that I know, that I've become almost immune to concussions."

Before the girls could say anything he stepped forward and jabbed his finger into Mar's stomach, spun her around, and did three others at the base of her spine. "There, you should…"

"You jerk!" Mars yelled and punched him in the jaw.

He stumbled back a few feet as the girls swarmed around Mars and glared at him. "What?"

"What did you do that for?!"

"It's a way to alleviate a concussion, but only for a short time." Ranma told her as he rubbed his jaw.

For a brief second Mars looked confused, then she realized that her headache was gone and that she wasn't dizzy anymore. "It's gone?"

Ranma nodded. "For about an hour, then you are going to simply fall down and sleep for the next twenty four hours. So you need to make sure you are safe when it wears off."

"So we have an hour to beat Ryoko?" Sailor Moon asked.

"Yeah, or we need to get Mars back to the house where it's safe." Ranma explained.

"Then I say we continue with the plan. We've already set it in motion and she should be following us by now." Venus said.

"She shook off an attack that I've seen rip a Droid to pieces. I'm amazed that she's is this strong." Sailor Jupiter muttered.

"I hit her twice and she just blocked it." Mars said, still marvelling at her clear head.

"We all took a shot at her, so I think she will be too mad to think straight by now. She was pounding on the ground after Mars attacked her and ran off. I took advantage of that and added my own attack to the mix."

"Good, then lets get into place, I'm positive that we only have one shot at this." Sailor Moon said. "Do all of you know where you have to be?"

They nodded, except for Ranma, who wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. She turned to him. "Ranma, I need you to help the others out, they are going to try and keep Ryoko on one spot. The best place to try is that water fall over there."

"Sure, she tends to hold back from attacking whenever she takes a good hit. It's usually several seconds or so."

"Just blast her until she can't move anymore." Venus told him. "It always works."

He sweat dropped. "Um…sure."

Then the girls scattered, each one of them heading in a different direction, but still in the general direction of the waterfall. Ranma noticed that they weren't even trying to hide anymore. They wanted Ryoko to notice them now that they were ready to take her down.

As he was about to go himself, he sensed something and looked to the side as Katsuhito and Tenchi came out of the trees and ran over. He also noticed that they both looked like they were expecting an attack at any second. "You two need to be careful, Ryoko is nearby."

The old man shook his head. "We know, did you know that there was a second person that was possessed like Ryoko?"

"No." Ranma said. "Who was it?"

"We don't know, but it's headed this way. Washuu's computer picked it and traced its route right to Sailor Moon."

"She's about to attack Ryoko with something that might remove the thing possessing Ryoko."

"We need to protect her at all costs and stop the other one." Tenchi said.

"What about that other girl, Ayeka?"

"She's back at the house helping out Washuu and making sure Sasami and Mihoshi don't get into trouble."

Ranma nodded, that was what he had expected when she didn't follow after Jupiter and Venus earlier. "Do you two think you can fight that other one?"

"Easily." Katsuhito said.

Tenchi shrugged.

He wished his visor was working, it gave him good tactical advice when the situation changed. Now he would just have to go with the flow and see what happened. That was kind of normal for him though, so he wasn't to worried. "Let the Scouts put their plan into action over by the water fall, the three of us can handle that other one while the girls deal with Ryoko."

"Are they really strong enough?"

Shrugging, Ranma turned as he sensed Ryoko off in the distance. "Ryoko is coming, she'll be here in just a few minutes, you two go and take cover."

"What about you?"

"I'm the bait." Ranma said with a smirk. "Try to alert us when the other one is close."

"No problem."

Ranma bent over and stood perfectly still as he faded from sight an vanished. He knew that Ryoko wasn't about to fall right into the Scouts trap, she was to smart for that. She had learned how to defend against his other attacks almost as soon as he used them. That was why they had been

tossing long range energy blasts at each other.

Now that things were so close to finally ending he wanted to make sure their plan worked. While cloaked in the Umisen-ken his senses seemed to work a little differently. He could tell that there were two Ryoko's running around out there.

He'd been wondering what happened to her, now he would have to lead both of them into the same trap. Things were getting a lot harder than expected, but if one of them fell for it, then the two of them surely would. They were the same person after all.

"Time to see if they are still letting their guard down." He muttered to himself as he ran through the trees like a silent wraith. Above him, about fifty feet in the air, Ryoko was flying towards the waterfall in the distance.

She was heading right where Ranma wanted her to go, so he decided to focus on the other one instead. Ranma focused in on her, changed direction, and crossed the distance between them in just a few seconds. She was only about half a mile away.

So he spotted her relatively easily. He came to a stop beside a tree and cursed under his breath. She was hiding in the branches of a tree and looking down on Sailor Mars as she moved through the trees.

He watched the two of them for a second and there was no sign that Mars knew she was in danger. Then as Ryoko formed a ball of energy between her hands Ranma shot forward, picking a branch up off the ground.

Ryoko didn't yell as she thrust her hands forward and fired her blast at Mars. As he sped across the distance between them, Ranma threw the stick with his full strength. Mars saw this and turned and noticed him as he ran. He could see the confused look on her face.

Then she looked right up at the blast as it headed for her.

"Move!" Ranma yelled, but his stick hit the energy blast before she could even think of dodging.

The explosion swept across the area, blowing leaves off of trees and sending a large ball of fire in all directions. He was a bit surprised that she didn't see Ryoko's attack, but he knew from first hand experience that even when the pressure points were used, it was still a bit hard to think on

your feet.

He grabbed her around the waist, lifted her off the ground, and jumped into the air as the fire washed over where she had been standing. Cradling her in his arms he flipped around in mid air, bounced off a tree, and made his way through the forest for several seconds before he landed.

"Are you all right?" He asked her as he sat her down on the ground. She was shaking quite a bit.

"How…" She started to ask.

"I was tracking Ryoko when I noticed her clone in this area, I guess she was trying to take you out before you could do anything."

She looked back in the direction of the attack and frowned. "I can't sense her. The other Ryoko is over there though." She said and pointed off towards the falls.

"Me and Ayeka removed those power jewels from this one a little while ago, so if you are sensing energy levels, then I think she might be a little hard to see."

"How did you track her?"

"I was looking for her." Ranma explained, leaving out a few details.

"We didn't take her into account when we made this plan."

"We just need to get the two of them in the same place instead of just one of them." Ranma said with a shrug. "It can't be that much harder."

"Nothing bothers you does it?" She snapped.

"Not really, it's just a fight." He said with a smirk, but then turned to look over his shoulder as Ryoko flew into sight and glared down at them.

"You!"

Ranma waved at her. "You missed again!"

The look of shock on Mars' face as he said that is impossible to describe.

"Die pervert!" Ryoko screams and her eyes glow brightly as she launched a barrage of energy blasts fire from her hands. At her lowered power level, the attack wasn't as dangerous as it could have been. That didn't stop it from blowing large holes in the ground, scorching trees, and making Ranma and Sailor Mars run for cover.

"You idiot!" Mars yelled.

In mid dive, Ranma formed a ball of Ki and hurled it at Ryoko, then landed on his shoulder, rolled, and came to his feet as the blast hit her. Just like Ryoko's blast, it didn't have much power behind it, just enough to get her attention. She kept her position in the air, took a second to shake off the blast.

"I'll make you pay for that!"

"MARS FLAME SNIPER!"

The clone spun around just in time to take an arrow of fire right to the chest. Mars wasn't as exhausted as Ranma was, so her attack had a lot more power behind it. It exploded into a giant fireball and sent her crashing to the ground, taking out several trees before she came to a stop.

Mars turned and smirked at Ranma. "That was easy."

"You do know she's going to get back up don't you?"

She shrugged. "Better than insulting them into a blind rage."

With his hands behind his head, he looked over at Ryoko's unmoving form and shrugged. "Whatever works."

She glared at him. "Don't make me deck you again."

He just grinned at her.

Ryoko growled as she sat up and took a second to regenerate the areas that were damaged by the attack. She glanced over at the two of them and realized that they were waiting for her to get back up. "Great, now I'm getting predictable."

"C'mon toots, we don't have all day." Ranma yelled.

Mars gave him a weird look again. "Do you ever try not to piss your opponents off?"

"Where would the fun be in that?"

With a heave, Ryoko tossed a fallen tree to the side, stood up, and rose into the air. She watched Ranma and Sailor Mars for a second before she raised her hand up and hundreds of little spheres of light appeared around them.

Ranma glanced at the little spheres and his dangers sense started to warn him of impending danger. "This is new."

"She hadn't used this before?"

"No."

"This is why you don't piss off your opponents."

"Humph! Just run for it." He said and took off at a dead run into the trees.

Barely a second later Mars took off after him and in the back ground behind them, the whole area went up in a massive explosion. They could hear Ryoko screaming after them, but they couldn't see her because a wave of destruction was following after them. Trees simply vanished form existence when the wave hit them.

"Where is she getting the strength to do this?!" Mars yelled as they ran.

"She's the clone of the other Ryoko, so I think she's drawing power from the other one."

"This isn't good!"

"This is great; we're getting her to go in the right direction after all!" Ranma yelled back.

"That is not a good enough reason to get blown up!"

"Not to worry! It's dying down anyway!" Ranma said as they finally got away from the wave. The only thing left was a bit of wind and dust that made Mars's skirt and bows flutter around.

Ranma cocked his head to the side and tried to sense the clone. "She hasn't moved from where we were and I can barely feel her power level."

"I still can't sense her." Mars muttered.

"I'm used to doing this against my opponents."

"Hey check it out." Mars said and pointed behind them.

Ranma looked around and saw that they were about ten feet from the river that led away form the falls. "Great, how much closer do we need to get?"

"Close enough to see the falls."

"So a coupe hundred more yards."

"Just about."

Whipping out her communicator, Mars called the others and let them know they were all right and near the Falls. Ranma didn't pay any attention as she checked in, he was to busy watching for Ryoko. He could feel her heading their way, though at a much slower rate of speed.

"How long until she gets here?" Mars asked.

"About five minutes at her current speed, I think she wore herself out firing that blast."

"The others are all ready in position, we need to get moving so that everything will be ready."

"Did they have any problems?"

"No, they haven't even seen Ryoko. They didn't know about the clone though, and I got them caught up on the situation. They were about to come and look around to see if anyone had been caught in the explosion."

"Good, we should be there in a few minutes." Ranma said as they started to walk through the trees.

"I can sense the other Ryoko, but she is over by the falls. I wonder why the others can't see her."

"She might be hidden in a tree, under water, or behind the falls themselves. She can do quite a bit. If any of us were normal people we would have died in the first attack." Ranma said, then he noticed that Mars was looking a little pale again. "The pressure point is wearing off."

"It's only been a few minutes."

"Actually it's been about twenty minutes since I gave it to you, we have been doing a lot of running around."

"You said an hour!"

Ranma thought about it for a second. "I think your enhanced healing might be doing what it can to heal your body. That includes removing the pressure point's effects."

Mars growled and started to walk faster. "Let's move."

He stopped and looked behind them for a second and saw Ryoko rise above the top of the trees. It didn't take her long to find them. "Here comes Ryoko."

"We aren't close enough."

"Then we run. She isn't thinking clearly right now and should follow after us." Ranma said and started to jog.

"AGHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"

"She spotted us."

"You think?!" Mars yelled.

"So we have to say hello!" Ranma yelled.

"What?!" Mars screamed.

Ranma slid to a stop, held up both hands as they flared with Ki. "DOUBLE MOKO TASKABISHA!"

In the split second that she had to react, Ryoko spun in mid air and let both blasts pass by her harmlessly. She laughed insanely as she closed in on Ranma. She swooped in to teach him who the real fighter was. "I've got you now!"

Her fist connected with his jaw and Ranma didn't have time to even roll with the punch. He grunted in pain as his head snapped back and the force of the blow nearly knocked him off his feet. Still laughing, Ryoko pressed her advantage and fired a quick energy blast right into his chest. This time he slammed into a tree several feet behind him.

"Crap." He muttered and staggered for a second.

Ryoko punched him again, this time knocking him clean off his feet and to the ground. "I knew you couldn't keep it up!"

"RANMA!" Mars yelled.

"Your next girl! Just stay there for a second, I have some trash to take out." Ryoko snapped as she advanced on Ranma.

He kicked out and got her in the stomach, but she just used that to grab onto his leg. "Let's see how you like weird moves."

Half a second later he is lifted into the air and spun around like a top for several seconds before being tossed.

"AKURYOU TAISAN!" **

Spinning around, Ryoko gasped as Sailor Mars fires a stream of fire filled of Ofuda at her. She growled and held up her hand to block the attack, but as it slammed into the shield she realized that she doesn't have any of the jewels left. That means she can't sustain the power needed to form the shield for very long and gasps as it collapses.

The Ofuda filled fire slammed into her and she screams as they start to attach themselves to her. A burning sensation fills her body almost instantly and she can only stand there, frozen in place, as her very self is ripped to shreds. "What is this?!"

"A great distraction." Ranma yells as he grabs her by the arm and throws her into the air above the waterfall. "Mars, hit her with your big attack!"

"MARS FLAME SNIPER!"

In quick succession three Flame Snipers are fired at Ryoko as she sailed above the falls. They home in and explode the instant they hit her with three explosions that take toll on her. Ranma fires his own Ki blast a half a second after Mars fired the last arrow and tagged Ryoko in the lower back.

As the smoke and fire finally recede and they can see again, Ryoko looks like she's been hit by a mountain or two. Her clothes, almost untouched until now, are finally showing burn marks. She has cuts and bruises all over her face and arms and most of her hair is gone. What little is left is still burning as she floated there.

Ranma made sure the clone was in position and glanced at Mars. "She's right where she needs to be, now we make sure she doesn't leave."

"Right."

Then the clone's eyes finally shut and she fell, only to be caught by the other Ryoko. This one looked pissed as she grabbed the clone's arm and made sure she didn't fall into the water below. "Time to reabsorb you I think."

"Sorry…"

"But first I have to take care of something else." Ryoko said as she grabbed the clone with her other hand. Raised her arm into the air and let the jewels on her wrists and neck flare just as she fired a massive blast of energy at Sailor Mars.

"DIE!"

Sailor Mars scrambled out of the way and barely managed to dodge the blast. It landed a few feet behind her and went off practically under her feet. She didn't even have time to yell out before it lifted her off the ground, and tossed at the base of the waterfall where several large rocks jutted out above the surface.

Even before she had a chance to hit the rocks, Ranma ran out to the edge of the water, jumped into the air, and caught her before she had a chance to hit anything.

Above them, still seeing with anger, Ryoko turned to focus a blast on the two of them while the were still in the air. She formed a quick blast of energy and sent it flying at Ranma's exposed back, but he twisted in mid air and dodged it completely.

He landed, placing a foot on one of the rocks at the bottom of the fall and used that to bounce around until he landed on the other side of the water fall with Sailor Mars still cradled in his arms. The instant he landed he took off and ran into the trees just a few yards away.

As Ryoko turned and focused to form another large blast of energy, the jewels glowing brightly, Sailor Venus and Jupiter stepped out of the trees on opposite sides of the waterfall and fired their attacks at the same time. Ryoko thrust her hand forward and formed a full power shield, forming a sphere of energy around her that would be more than enough to withstand the attacks.

"VENUS LOVE AND BEAUTY SHOCK!"

"JUPITER TUNDER DRAGON!"

Still hanging from Ryoko's hand, the Clone could only watch as the Scouts tossed of their attacks. They both knew that the shield could withstand the attacks easily and wondered why they had even tried in the first place. If this was the best trap they could come up with, Ryoko thought they needed more practice.

What neither of them expected was for the two attacks too suddenly combine into one much larger attack in mid air and change direction so that it would come up on her from below. Ryoko just snorted and made the shield stronger at her feet so that she wouldn't have to worry about it.

Then she caught sight of a third scout stepping out from behind some trees in yet another area around the falls. Sailor Moon held her sceptre into the air and it started to glow bright silver. It matched the glow that was forming from within the broach on her chest bow.

"MOON PRINCESS HALIATION!"

The combined attack of the two Inner Scouts slammed into the shield as she tried to increase it's strength and power at the last second. She could feel the power in the attacks and knew that she was in trouble.

"AGHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" She screamed, making the jewels on her body blow brighter and brighter. Then the worst happened and the shield collapsed under the power of the three attacks combined. Energy rushed up from below her and washed over her body from the feet up.

This was enough to stun them, but at the same time Sailor Moon's attack hit them from the side. Ryoko could only gape in shock as the blast hit her, not with any force, but with pure cleansing energy. So pure that it invaded her body and that of the clone and started to purify them both.

From within the forest Ranma and Mars watched as the clone seemed to be vaporized under the contentious assault by Sailor Moon's attack. Once it was started, it would not stop until it was finished. Ryoko's body on the other hand had a different reaction to the cleansing.

Her shadow appeared to be ripped from her body just as the silver energy got so bright they couldn't see her any more. Like a miniature sun, silver light filled the sky around the waterfall for several minutes as Moon strained to keep the attack going. Then after several seconds, Sailor Moon

lowered her sceptre, let the magic fade away, and gasped for air.

Ryoko's body just hovered there, bent over backwards with her hands in front of her as if she was still resisting the blast. Then it wobbled and plummeted to the water below. She only missed the rocks near the falls by only a few feet.

She hit the water with a giant splash and sent water flying in all directions. A few seconds later her body resurfaced and was swept down stream where she would eventually end up in the lake. None of them had the energy to go and pull out, so all they could do was watch. She vanished

around the bend in the stream and they all sighed in relief.

Ranma helped Mars stagger over to the others and they all collapsed at the edge of the stream to rest for a few minutes. They could tell that Mars wasn't in very good shape at all. The girl just sat there and tried not to moan in pain as her head throbbed and she fought against a dizzy spell.

"That was a good shot Sailor Moon." Jupiter said as she patted Usagi on the head. "I can't believe that plan worked."

Ranma nodded. "That was amazing, I'll have to figure out how you were able to do that. It would be a good attack to surprise an enemy with."

The girls gave him a weird look.

"What?"

Moon shook her head. "Never mind; do you think she's finally defeated now? That's the hardest fight we've had in a long, long time."

"I hope so." Venus said. "I'm wimped out."

"Wiped out." Jupiter corrected her.

"Whatever." She muttered and waved her hand. "How are you feeling Mars, we need to get you back to the house before you collapse."

"I'll be fine, I just need to rest for a minute." She said.

"You couldn't even stand."

"I wanted to make sure Ryoko was defeated, you couldn't do it without me." She snapped and winced as her headache got ten times worse for a few

seconds.

"What about your concussion?" Jupiter asked.

Mars shrugged. "Nothing to worry about."

Sailor Moon stood up, sighed, and motioned for the others to follow her. "We need to get back to the house and see how Mercury is doing."

"Good idea." Mars said as she forced herself to get up. Then as she started to walk towards the house, she tripped over her own feet and landed face first in the grass.

They all ran over and knelt down beside the girl to see if she was alright, but she was out cold and wouldn't wake up. Ranma reached down and pulled her onto his back, taking a second to get her balanced just right for a long walk. He didn't want to drop her or anything like that.

"Let's get her back to the house, I think she pushed herself a little too much in that fight. My pressure points are also wore off, that's why she won't wake up. She'll be out for the next twenty four hours." He said.

"You said the point would last for an hour or so." Moon said.

Ranma nodded. "On a normal person, but when you're transformed like this it seems that the time for pressure points is quite a bit less."

They all looked worried about Mars, but they nodded and quickly turned and started to head for the house. Then Ranma noticed that Tenchi and Katsuhito had decided to come out of hiding.

"Is she alright?" Tenchi asked as he indicated Sailor Mars.

Ranma nodded. "Yeah, I think she just pushed herself to hard."

"I am amazed that you were able to actually defeat Ryoko, I was almost positive that it would take everything we had just to slow her down." Katsuhito said. He looked a little shell-shocked.

"It was quite a fight." Ranma said. The fight had taken more out of him than he wanted to admit. He barely had the strength left to stand and if they didn't make it back to the house within the next few minutes he knew he would be in trouble.

"Is the cat coming?" He asked.

Katsuhito nodded. "The other one is coming and should be here any time now."

"Other one?" Moon asked.

"Remember there were two people possessed. The other one is in the area and has been tracking you for the last hour or so." Tenchi said.

"Remember, it was a few hundred yards from where Ryoko was possessed."

The girls groaned as they recalled the incident. Ryoko's attack had just taken everything they had just to stop her.

"I'd forgotten there was another one of those things running around." Venus said. "Just how strong is this one?"

"Washuu's readings said it wasn't anywhere near as strong as Ryoko, but just as dangerous in other ways."

"I can cleanse it like I did with Ryoko, but I need to catch it when it can't get away from me." Moon explained.

"We had better hurry then." Sailor Jupiter said. "Something has been watching us for the last few minutes."

Ranma nodded, he had been sensing something for a little while now. It was just hard to pinpoint for some reason, so he didn't know if it was a threat or not. "I'm just not sure where it is and that's bothering me, I can usually find anyone by sensing their Ki. That's how I was able to keep track of where Ryoko was during the fight."

"What a time for Mercury to be down for the algebra." Venus muttered and looked around nervously.

"Down for the count." Tenchi corrected her.

Venus shrugged. "Eh."

"Where do you think the other one is?" Sailor Moon asked as she led the group through a small copse of trees that actually managed to survive Ryoko's multiple attacks on the group.

"All Washuu could say was that he was heading in this direction. Tenchi and I were out here to keep an eye on it and to make sure it didn't attack you while you defeated Ryoko. If we hurry we can get back to the house and get another reading on it before we go and fight it." Katsuhito explained to them.

"We don't have time for that." Ranma said as he looked off to the side where a few trees were still burning and he narrowed his eyes. "There's something in there and its watching us. I can feel a lot of emotion coming from it, hatred, anger, and a few others I haven't encountered before."

"You can sense all that?" Venus asked in surprise.

He nodded. "I'm sensing the Ki it's putting out. He must be quite close for me to sense him though, or he stopped concealing his abilities now that he knows where we are."

Katsuhito pulled his sword out as he finally sensed something and looked in the same direction that Ranma was facing. "I can feel him too, there is lots of power here."

"More than I thought there would be." Ranma said.

The girls formed up around Ranma and Sailor Mars to protect them and prepared to send attacks into the enemy as quickly as they could. "I was really hoping to make it back to the house before we had to do anymore fighting." Moon said.

"You and me both." Ranma muttered, he had really pushed himself too far to take Ryoko down. Then he forgot about that as he saw the shadows around several trees contort and form into a large monster.

The girls gasped.

Rei snored, but she was out cold so she couldn't say much.

"It's here." Tenchi said as he noticed the morphing shadows, pulled out the Tenchi-ken, and formed the energy blade. "It's moving in and out of the smoke like a ghost."

Katsuhito nodded as he pulled out the energy sword Washuu had given him earlier. "I see it too, a huge cat like creature."

Ranma gulped and backed up a few paces. "It really is a cat?"

"Ranma?" Moon asked, wondering why she could feel a rising fear in him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" He snapped and visibly forced himself to calm down as the girls looked on. "Let's get Sailor Mars back to the house and then come back to help them fight this thing. She's wounded and shouldn't be here."

"All of you go!" Katsuhito yelled at them and pointed in the direction of the house. "We can take care of this one on hour own, get the wounded back to the house where Washuu can look at them."

"What about you?" Moon asked the old man.

"I've fought large cats before, so I know how to defeat them easily enough. So get going!"

"But…"

There was a sound and the girls gasped as Sol stepped out from between a couple of burning trees and eyed them like his next meal. He was black as pitch and looked like a ten foot tall black panther as he silently walked towards them. His glowing red yes swept over them and stopped on Sailor Moon the instant he spotted her.

"It's been a long time Your Highness."

Sailor Moon gasped. "YOU CAN TALK!"

It snorted. "Of course I can talk."

Ranma tried to control his visible shivering as he stepped back another couple of paces and the cat noticed. "What do we have here? You're afraid of me? That is quite a surprise and considering how good a fighter you are."

Sailor Moon placed her hand on his shoulder. "Calm down Ranma, I will make sure he doesn't hurt any of us."

"I'm Fine!" He snapped.

Moon backed off and realized that she had never seen him like this before. He really was frightened of the cat. She nodded and turned away from him

before he could see the look in her yes. "We will stop you." She told the cat.

It snorted again. "You just got done fighting that girl and look how long it took to defeat her. All of you should be easy for me to defeat now that she has worn you down." Sol said and let the crescent moon on his forehead flare up so they could see it.

"He's a moon cat?" Venus asked herself.

"Indeed, I was created to be an adviser to Sailor Earth, but she isn't around these days so I've been stuck in perpetual limbo for thousands of years. I was tired of it and decided to get a bit of revenge on the people that ruined my life. Namely all of YOU." He snarled and bared an evil set of teeth.

Sol lifted a paw into the air and slowly let his claws extend they could get a real good look at them. "This new body of mine is quite surprising. It comes with all kinds of powers that even I've never heard of and I had to train in all levels of magic and diplomacy just to get the job. Now I want to show you what can really do."

"Let's talk about this…" Sailor Moon started to say.

Instead of listening to her, he just slammed his paw into the ground, shattering stone and dirt. "NEVER!"

For just a second they all stood there in shock, but then the ground around his paw suddenly heaved and shattered, sending an explosion of dirt and rock flying towards them. Sailor Moon and rest of the Scouts all jumped out of the way as Tenchi and Katsuhito ran forward and used their

swords to slice the larger rocks to pieces before they could reach the girls.

The only one that didn't move was Ranma. Instead he just cringed a bit and backed up a few more steps. "This sucks he muttered. Why the hell did it have to be a cat and how in the hell can it pull off a Bakusai Tenketsu like attack?"

"If you think I might be a pushover think again ladies, I have just as much power at my disposal as the woman had." Sol growls and turned to look at Ranma.

"Ranma, come on! We have to get Mars back to the house." Sailor Moon yelled at him.

"Are you two sure you can handle this?" He asked the two men, even though he was visibly shaking under the cat's glare.

"Yeah, this is nothing compared to some of the other battles we've been in." Tenchi said as his clothing shifted into his Jurian armor, altered his skin color, and formed black slash marks on his cheeks. "This should be an easy opponent."

"Jupiter!" Ranma yelled. When the Scout looked back at him, he shoved Sailor Mars into her arms. "Get her back to the house."

"What about you?" She asked with a hint of worry in her voice.

"I have to stay here and help." He said.

"Ranma you don't have the strength for this." Sailor Moon said.

He glared at her. "I will not abandon anyone in this fight."

"You are not abandoning anyone! We need Washuu's help to defeat these things!"

"Then go and get her to help, I'll make sure it doesn't leave this area." Ranma said, then turned around, and ran over to stand beside Tenchi.

Moon glared after him for a second before she turned and motioned for the others to follow her. "MEN!" She yelled.

"Come on Sailor Moon, we need to hurry." Jupiter said and started to run for the house carrying Mars.

"We'll be right back!" Venus yelled at the guys and they waved as they ran off.

**********

"Are you sure you're up for this?" Tenchi asked.

Ranma shrugged as he watched the cat before he glanced back at Tenchi. "I have no idea, but I'm not going to run off and have someone else fight my battles."

"Don't let your arrogance make your decisions for you." Katsuhito said as he watched Sol. The cat hadn't made a move as the girls ran off and that had him worried more than a little. The cat was up to something and he couldn't figure out what it was.

"Speak for yourself, old man." Ranma muttered as he tried to think of an attack that could get rid of the cat.

"You're shaking in your shoes just looking at this thing." The old man said. "I don't know why, but if you let your fear control your actions you will not win this fight."

"Screw you old man." Ranma snapped. "I'm fine!"

"Why are you so afraid of this little cat?" Katsuhito asked.

"That's none of your business, old man."

"What's it doing over there?" Tenchi asked as he pointed off to the side of the cat, at its shadow.

The burning trees were casting fire light everywhere, creating wild shadows the seemed to shift and move as they watched. The Cat's shadow on the other hand seemed to be bubbling like water instead of shifting and moving like the others.

As they watched the scene, the cat slowly turned its red eyes on them and the bubbles of shadow suddenly grew out of control. They actually formed into shapes, stepped out of the cat's shadow to form into little tiny versions of him.

Little panthers the size of a small house cat, with glowing red eyes, that moved without any sound at all. They swarmed out of the large cat's shadow and began to form up into ranks around the men. They hissed, almost as one being, and crouched down with their claws extended just as they were about to attack.

Ranma had to resist ever instinct he had not to scream and run like he usually did when faced with a cat.

"I am ready to begin." Sol said.

"It's time." Katsuhito snapped and brought his energy sword to bare.

Tenchi nodded and did the same.

"Go little ones! You know what to do!" Sol yelled and the little shadow cats ran at them, fangs bared, and little red eyes glinting evilly in the light generated by the fire.

Ranma did what he could to control his fear as he reached into his subspace pocket and pulled out his sword again. He didn't want to touch the little vermin and as far as he was concerned the quicker he killed them the better. Then he got quite a show as Tenchi and the old man went into action using their energy swords to slice the feline bastards to pieces before they could even get close.

The only thing Ranma could see was whirling energy blades as each one of the cats got close, shredding it into little chunks of shadow that quickly vanished in the air. He actually wasn't help out very much, but he did get a few chances to use his sword and copied the moves that Tenchi was using to kill the little buggers.

He felt good about killing the evil little buggers, splitting them in half, beheading them, and just slice and dicing them. Within seconds the three of them were being attacked from all sides. They ended up back to back as they fought, just doing everything they could to keep the things from touching them.

Sol just looked on and grinned at them.

"There's too many of them." Tenchi said.

"Keep fighting them." Katsuhito snapped, using his sword to swat three of them out of the air as they jumped. "He can't keep this up forever."

"Neither can the three of us." Tenchi yelled back.

Ranma didn't even have time to talk. Every time they took one of them out two of them would take its place. As he copied Tenchi's sword style and unconsciously picked up the Jurian sword style, he thought of a quick attack that might work against these things. He revised it on the fly, like he did with so many moves, and slashed straight down with his sword and channelled

his Ki into the blade. "Kijin Raishu Dan Revised: Blade of Blood!" Ranma screamed.

A massive vacuum blade launched off the edge of his sword and flew threw all the little shadows in front of him, vaporizing a couple dozen at once, and slammed into Sol's head.

The cat, who was concentrating on the attack, didn't have a chance to dodge as the ki attack slammed into him. He yowled in pain and scrambled back in shock. After several seconds it stopped scrambling around and crouched down to glare at them. This allowed the little shadow cats to run around without any direction from Sol. Most of them simply melted into the nearest shadow, but a few of them stuck around to see what would happen next.

Katsuhito was a bit surprised at the sudden end to the onslaught of little cats, but then he heard Ranma gasping for air behind him and knew something had happened. "What happened?"

"Some kind of weird air blade attack." Tenchi said as he relaxed and gazed at Ranma too.

Ranma shuddered as he looked at the cat, but forced himself to relax as best he could. He kept having flash backs from the Pit and it took everything he had not to lose control and descend into the Neko-ken.

"There's more from where that came from cat, bring it on and I'll show something even stronger."

"I think I understand why that girl had so many problems fighting you."

He smirked.

"You just don't react the way a normal person usually does, do you?" The cat said and paced to the side and back again.

"Bring it on you half wit monster, I can take anything you have to throw at me." Ranma snarled, actually feeling a bit of his confidence come back.

Sol snarled. "Let's see how you handle this then."

His eyes flared up as he looked at Ranma and fired two beams of energy from his eyes, one from each eye. They missed Ranma completely, but they did hit Katsuhito and Tenchi.

Ranma scrambled out of the way as the two men screamed out in shock and instantly fell into their shadows, as if a hole had suddenly opened up beneath them. He made a quick grab for Tenchi's hand, but the boy was already gone by the time he even got close enough to try. In an instant there was no sign of him or the old man except for their shadows.

"What did you do?!" He yelled.

The cat laughed. "I'm calling on one of my more useful powers boy. While you take care of this I'm going to go and play with the girls, I believe you said they would be at the house."

"I won't let you."

"You wont' have time to stop me." Sol said and used his head to gesture at the two shadows.

He turned and started to back away as the shadows started to writhe and shift around for several seconds. Then Katsuhito and Tenchi slowly rose out of their shadows and stood there with their heads bowed.

It was instantly apparent that the two of them had changed in significant way. The first thing he noticed was that their Ki seemed to have been corrupted while they were inside their own shadows. He didn't know how to describe the other changes he could see.

Tenchi's clothing, though still in his Jurian battle armor, was darker and appeared to be more evil and corrupted. There was no white left on the uniform, everything was either black or grey, even his sword. It had a dark grey finish and the jewels on the hilt were glowing. Though they seemed to alternate between red and blue ever few seconds.

On the other hand, Katsuhito didn't seem to have changed all that much. He still had his robes, but he looked younger now. With his hair tied back in a longer ponytail. The biggest change was his eyes. Without the glasses Ranma could see the old man's power looking out at him from the depths.

"Have fun with my toys boy, you should lots and lots of fun with these two. They resisted the shadows I placed inside of them quite a bit, but it was worth it just to see them take you out." Sol said with a laughing hiss.

Then Tenchi lifted his head and Ranma gasped as he recognized the same look that he'd seen in Katsuhito's eyes.

"They've been possessed?!" He yelled.

Sol laughed. "Maybe yes, maybe no, it's all up to you to decide what I did to them."

Ranma started back away from the two men as they suddenly came to life and turned to glare at him. "Oh &%$#!" He yelled.

"They should keep you occupied long enough for me to go and talk to the princess as any good adviser should." Sol said. "Oh here, I guess you can play with this one too. I saved her before the Princess could obliterate her completely."

The cat's laugh made Ranma shiver a little as he backed away a few more steps and watched in shock as Ryoko lifted up out of the cat's shadow and looked around with glowing red eyes. She turned to look at the cat, then at Ranma, and nodded as she cracked her knuckles.

The three of them shot forward and Ranma jumped back before they could slice him in half with their swords. He ducked, rolled, and flipped out of the way as the two master swordsman attempted to turn him into ground chuck. Then the ground at his feet went up in an inferno as Ryoko added her own personal stamp to the fight.

"&%$#!"

"Ta ta!" Sol yelled as ran off in the direction Sailor Moon gone just a few minutes before.

For just a second Ranma saw red as he lost his temper and he turned that onto the three people attacking him. He focused on Tenchi first and use his Anything Goes skill to show the sword user just how hard it was to take him on.

With three devastating blows to Tenchi's foot, groin, and forehead, he sent the boy flying into a nearby tree hard enough knock him out cold. He watched the body for a second, not really realizing what he had just done, and noticed as the body flickered Tenchi returning to normal.

"If all I've got to do is knock them out, then this should be easy enough." He muttered to himself as he turned back to Katsuhito. The man hadn't continued the attack after Ranma focused on Tenchi, but now that Ranma was looking at him again, he decided that the battle was back on.

"What are you thinking?" Ranma asked the man.

Instead of replying, Katsuhito didn't make any noise at all, as he shot forward and Ranma had to go on the defensive as the energy blade whirled around the old man's body almost faster than he he'd ever seen it move yet. Ranma was amazed at the old man's level of skill and seriously wondered how long he could keep up this pace.

He kept an eye on Ryoko as she floated above them and watched the fight with her arms crossed. For some reason she was waiting for them to finish fighting as well. If the two of them had fought together, Ranma was positive he would lose that fight. The old man was just too good, but if they went one at a time, he could take them down.

So he focused on Katsuhito completely, the style was the same as the last time they had fought, but much faster than before. He understood what the sword could do from watching Tenchi and the old man for a while now, but he had never encountered a man with this level of skill with the sword before.

That horse's ass Kuno would never be able to fight like this, even when a magical sword possessed him. He let instinct guide his hand and he did a sudden side flip, twist, and Katsuhito's blade passed right through his side.

It was a sacrificial move, but one that he needed to do in order to change the flow of the fight. This allowed the old man to slice out a small bit of skin just below his ribs. He landed, spun his blade around at an odd angle, and forced Katsuhito to back up so he wasn't hit himself.

The old man wasn't slowed for long though, moving so fast that Ranma couldn't even get a hit in. Ranma had been fighting all day now and he'd reached his limit while fighting against the first Ryoko. Now he was forcing himself to fight even more battles and he seriously wondered when it would end, but there was no way he could back down.

Then completely out of the blue he spotted an opening in the old man's defenses and took advantage of it. His sword spun in his hand and he ducked under Katsuhito's blade using his enhanced speed as Vulcan, formed a ball of Ki in the palm of his hand, and slammed it into the old man's chest.

The direct attack exploded and hurled the old man off his feet. He flew back a few yards and landed in the grass with a thump and rolled a few times before he came to a stop. For a second it looked like he was going to get up again, but then the just fell back down and lay still. Then he flickered for a second and returned to normal.

Gasping for air, Ranma staggered back a few steps, dropped to one knee and looked up at Ryoko as she hovered above him. There was no trace of emotion on her face as she looked down at him. No excitement, no happiness, nothing that he could see that would indicate that she was in a winning position. "Well, aren't you going to say anything?" He muttered.

She just lifted her hand and formed a ball energy and prepared to fire it at him.

"They aren't talking." Ranma muttered and had a sudden idea as he saw something and heaved himself back to his feet.

He used his foot to suddenly kick a handful of dirt into her face, jumped into the air an instant later, and spun his sword around so that he could slam the hilt into the base of her neck. She fell to the ground silently and flickered out of existence. Not even leaving a body behind.

"That's what I thought." He muttered as he dropped his sword, fell to the ground, and fell over unconscious.

Several minutes later the Scouts finally returned, Sailor Moon, Venus, and Jupiter came to a stop and surveyed the destruction in awe. They rarely had fights that ended with this level of destruction and it was a sight to see. Sailor Moon ran over to Ranma and checked to make sure he was all right other than the fact that he had pushed himself too far.

"He's hurt!"

Venus quickly checked on Tenchi and Katsuhito and found that they were unconscious as well. "So are these two."

"Where is that cat thing?"

"I don't know, it doesn't appear to be here anymore." Jupiter muttered as she looked around.

Nearby, a door of light appeared out of nowhere. Washuu walked out and looked around. The red headed scientist quickly called up her holographic computer, scanned the area with her computer, and nodded to herself a few seconds later. "Just as I thought, that thing isn't around anymore."

"Where did it go?" Jupiter asked.

"I don't know, but I'll find it."

"What about the guys?" Venus asked.

Washuu snapped her fingers and all three guys vanished in a flare of light. "I sent them back to my lab. I'll be able to treat them there. Let's get back to the house and make sure everybody else is okay."

"You didn't place them with Ryoko did you?" Ayeka asked.

"No, Ryoko has been placed in stasis until I can make sure she is alright."

"What about Mars and Mercury?" Sailor Moon asked.

"They just need some sleep and they will be fine. Sailor Mercury is asleep at the moment, along with the guys, and Mars is being treated for her concussion and the damages she did to herself while fighting. They'll be fine." Washuu explained.

"Does this mean the fight is finished?" Moon asked with a hint of worry in her voice.

"Yes, now let's get back to the house." Wahsu said. "I'll meet you at the house and let you into the lab when I get the men stabilized."

The girls nodded as Washuu stepped back through her door of light and vanished from sight.

"What a day." Moon muttered and headed back for the house.

"That witch could have at least given us a ride back to the house!" Venus complained.

The other two girls nodded.

**********

The girls crowded around one side of the table as Ranma lay on the hard metal surface. Now that they were able to get a better look, they were shocked that he had even been able to fight for as long as he had. Most of his Vulcan uniform was burned around the edges or had large holes in it where you could see the burned skin underneath.

He had lost his cape somewhere along the way and the jewel on his chest flickered erratically. His gloves were gone, the visor was useless, and the Scouts were amazed that Ranma was still breathing. Surprisingly, there were no signs of broken bones according to Washuu as she ran a scanner over his body and let her computers analyze him.

"This is the second time I've had a chance to scan Ranma." Washuu said a few seconds later to get the girl's attention. "The first time was when he showed up here as a girl."

"Will he be all right?" Sailor Moon asked.

"I think so, he seems to have just exhausted himself during the fight. I'm actually surprised he lasted as long as he did."

"Is there anyway to wake him up?"

"Let's just let him rest for now." Washuu said as she used a hypo spray to send him into a deeper sleep. "He needs his rest. The same goes for Sailor Mercury over there, I figure the two of them should be up and around eventually. Perhaps in a few hours."

The girl nodded.

"Now these two," Washuu muttered as she indicated Tenchi and Katsuhito laid out on a couple of nearby tables. "They need to be monitored for the next few days. That cat did something to them and it may have effected their minds, so I need to be around to make sure they are completely healed."

Then she walked over to the other side of the lab where Ryoko was floating inside a large tube filled with a green liquid. "According to my scans Ryoko doesn't have any sign of that thing inside of her anymore. In fact it's as if the possession never happened at all. What ever you did Sailor Moon, it seems to have cured her completely."

"I used an old attack on her, one that can remove all the negative energy inside them."

Washuu nodded as she took some notes. "The thing that possessed her was almost entirely made up of a kind of negative energy now that I think about it. So your attack must have been quite devastating."

"Hey what are these things?" Sailor Venus asked.

They turned around to see Venus poking at the rather scratched up, but repaired, bodies of Kamindake and Azaka. She jumped back as a large spark of electricity jumped from her finger and hit Azaka in his jewel sensor. A nearby scanner shorted out and exploded in a hail of shrapnel.

Venus coughed up some smoke and sighed.

"My god, she's another Mihoshi!" Washuu yelled as her hair stood up on end.

"Where's Sailor Mars?" Sailor Moon asked as she looked around and didn't see her friend.

"Your other friend is in the next room. She took the most damage, except for Ranma. She received that concussion and then went and ran around like an idiot for half an hour or so. I'm surprised she didn't kill herself just doing that. The headache must have been painful enough to knock out anyone else." Washuu muttered. "I've got her hooked up to a machine that was designed to help with concussions and skull fractures. She'll be on it for a while yet."

"Can we see her?" Jupiter asked.

"Yes, but from a different room."

Washuu led them through a couple of doors and into a large circular room with large windows set in the floor that rose all the way to the ceiling at an angle. They all walked over and looked down into a room to see Sailor Mars laid out on a table with her head inside a large machine. There was a large sheet draped over her body and all they could see were gloves and a

chest bow.

"How long will she have to be in that thing?"

"Twenty four hours at least, the process is quite slow, but it has to be that way in order for it to work." Washuu explained. "It also doesn't help that your magic, while transformed, makes working on all of you a bit difficult."

"It allows us to heal from injuries that would normally take us down." Jupiter explained.

"It just slows me down." Washuu muttered as she led them over to a door and opened it to reveal a giant hot spring bath. "Anyway, while we wait for everyone to recover, would you girls like to use this to relax?"

"Wow!" Moon gasped. "I didn't even know something like this existed!"

Venus and Jupiter ran inside to look around in awe. "How did you build something like this inside the house?!"

"I am the greatest scientific genius in the universe!" Washuu declared. "Building a dimensional pocket was child's play for a scientist of my skills."

"Thank you." Sailor Moon said as she entered the room.

"I'll let you girls get cleaned up. You see that rock in the middle of the spring, it's a fake rock, just flip it up and there is some shampoos and other odds and ends in there to help you relax." Washuu explained as she left the room and shut the door.

There was a table nearby with several large towels stacked on it, so the girls transformed back to normal, stripped their school uniforms off, and wrapped the towels around themselves. Minako didn't waste any time running over to the spring and dipping her toe in.

"It's really hot!"

"It's a good thing we are cleaned up when we transform, or we would really be in a mess right now." Makoto said as she stepped into the water.

Usagi sighed as she finished wrapping her hair in a towel and wadded into the spring and leaned up against the wall. "This feels so good."

"What are we going to tell Rei about this place?" Minako asked.

"Huh?"

"She won't be too happy that we used it when she's being fixed by that machine."

"Washuu said she would be fine." Usagi said. "I think we can trust her after everything that happened today. She can try this place out when she wakes up."

They nodded and took a few minutes to enjoy the feel of the heated water. Then Makoto wadded over to the rock Washuu had pointed out to them and opened it. She started to sort through all the bottles inside to see if there anything in there that she might like. "Oh my!"

Usagi looked up. "What did you find?"

"Sake!" Makoto yelled and held up a large bottle.

"Is it heated?" Minako asked. "After what happened today I think I could use some of that."

Makoto grabbed one of the several wooden buckets stacked near the fake rock and used it float the sake over to the girls while she grabbed three small sake dishes. "We shouldn't drink much of this, but a dish or two will be fine."

They grinned as they all drank the sake and leaned back to let it go to work. A few minutes later, they downed their fourth dish and started to look a little flushed. Usagi just sighed and leaned up against the wall to enjoy the warm water. Makoto, didn't look like the sake was effecting her very much as she drank right out of the bottle.

Minako on the other hand was looking completely sloshed, as she was half-sprawled against the wall and giggling. "I can't shtop thinking about it." She muttered.

"Minako, are you alright?" Usagi asked as she helped the girl lean back up against the wall.

"Thinking about what?" Makoto wondered aloud as she decided that Minako had no alcohol tolerance and quietly put the half-empty bottle back in the fake rock. She figured out of sight, out of mind.

"I saw Ranma running around naked in the woods." Minako gushed and blushed a solid red. "I've never seen anything like itsh!"

"Oh that." Makoto muttered and blushed just as red as Minako. "I have to agree, that was quite a sight and he didn't even seem to care that we saw him either. Right then, and there, he looked just like my old boyfriend, though there were some big improvements." She giggled and blushed. "What a sight."

"Aaaaaaaaaaaa!! You saw my Ranma naked!" Usagi yelled.

The two scouts leaned back, relived the memory, and sighed in unison. "I'll never forget that as long as I live."

Usagi bounced from one foot to another. "But…but…but…"

"We saw that too." Minako said with a giggle.

"To bad Ayeka ruined the free show." Makoto muttered.

"I think I might be willing to give him more than a second chance." Minako muttered, reliving the fantasy and starting to drool a little.

"You can't have my Ranma!" Usagi yelled.

"I like the idea of an 'our' Ranma." Makoto said and smirked.

"I can drown with that!" Minako laughed, fell over, and floated away from the two girls. She splashed around for a while trying to get her balance back.

Usagi started to pout.

The door opened and Ayeka wandered in and spotted the girls. "Hey you three, it's been an hour. We should have something to eat ready by the time you get back to the living room. We set out some futon's for you as well. So you can sleep here tonight."

"I have to call my mom if we are going to stay the night." Usagi muttered.

"No problem, get dressed and I'll show you where the phone is."

"Okay." Usagi muttered as she walked over to the table where she had piled her clothes. Minako and Makoto debated for a few minutes whether they even wanted to get out again, and then decided that they'd had enough.

"Wait up Usagi!" They yelled as she was about to leave the room.

The four of them were able to walk out of the door into the hallway in the main house without having to go through Washuu's lab. Ayeka led the girls over to the phone at the end of the hall to let them call home. Makoto realized that they had transformed back to normal and let the others see them.

"Usagi, should we worry about them seeing us as ourselves?" She asked.

"Naw, they seem pretty cool with all this strange and unusual stuff anyway. We can worry about it later if it becomes a problem."

Makoto nodded.

On the other hand, Minako still hadn't stopped daydreaming about a naked Ranma. She completely zoned out as she followed the two girls, even though Usagi was trying to ignore her. After that, Usagi tried to use her communicator to call Luna, but the black cat wasn't answering.

"It's pretty late, she must be sleeping or something." Makoto said.

"Could she be with Artemis?" Minako suggested drunkenly. "Those two are so close to being a couple perhaps they finally took that final step?"

They giggled and remembered the commotion Diana had caused when she arrived from the future. Luna had completely blown a gasket and attacked Artemis in a fit of jealously. Minako pulled out her communicator and tapped a button, a few seconds later Artemis appeared on the screen.

"Minako?"

"Artemis, what are you doing with Luna?" Minako asked evilly.

"NOTHING!" he yelled looking around frantically.

"Right, I know how you are tuna breath."

"Minako, are you drunk?"

"Oh yeah, and feeling good." She muttered and waved nearly lost her balance. Makoto had to grab her shoulder to make sure she really didn't fall on her butt.

"Minako!"

"Don't you yell at me tuna breath!" Minako snapped and glared at the cat.

"You know you shouldn't drink."

"Eh, whatever." Minako muttered and waved her hand.

Usagi moved behind Minako to and looked into the screen. "Artemis is Luna there?"

"Nope."

"We weren't able to get a hold of her."

"Um, weird, I'll head over to your house and see if I can find her. Is it important?"

"We just wanted to update her on the situation."

"Just tell me and I'll relay it to her." Artemis said and glanced covertly to the side, but the girls didn't notice it.

The girls nodded and spent the next few minutes getting him up to date on the day's fight. When they were done, Minako grilled Artemis for a few minutes about Luna, then gave up with a sigh. They closed the communicator a little while later and walked out into the living room where Sasami was setting dinner on the table.

"Hi guys! Ready to eat now?"

"I'm always ready to eat!" Usagi said as she sat down looked at all the food.

"Did Washuu say if any of the others would be joining us?" Minako asked Ayeka as she sat down.

"No, but I think that Mercury should be waking up soon as well as Tenchi and Katsuhito. So they may join us soon."

"I'm worried about all of them." Usagi muttered as she started to put some food on her plate.

"They will all be fine." Ayeka said.

"I hope so."

They ate in silence, a rare occasion at this house, but then the door to Washuu's lab opened and Katsuhito, Mercury, and Washuu walked out. Washuu walked over and started to fill up a plate before any of the others even had a chance to say anything to her, then turned around, and headed back into her lab without saying a word.

A blonde blur jumped up from the table and tackle hugged Mercury before she even had a chance to react. Mercury looked up from the floor beside the couch and saw that everyone was looking at her and blushed. "Um…"

"I was so worried!" Usagi wailed.

"I'm fine." She said as Usagi finally let go and backed off. "Is it all right for me to transform?"

Usagi nodded.

She stood up and a few seconds later Ami sighed as she took a seat at the table next to Makoto. "What happened while I was out."

"A nasty fight." Makoto said.

"Oh? Was anyone else hurt? I don't see Rei around her anywhere." Ami said.

"Washuu is treating her for a concussion. She really shouldn't have been fighting with that kind of injury."

Ami nodded. "Is there anyway I can help?"

"Eat first, and then we can all go and check on the others." Ayeka said.

"Well…" Usagi started.

"Washuu's orders, eat first, relax, then you can check on them." Ayeka explained.

"Ah." The girls chorused.

"What happened to Ranma?" Ami asked.

"He fought until he just passed out from exhaustion." Ayeka said as she dabbed her mouth with a napkin. "Washuu was monitoring the fight with her sensors in that area. That giant cat thing managed to possess both Tenchi and Katsuhito before they had a chance to understand what was going on. Then after that it raised this shadow version of Ryoko and Ranma was forced to fight all three by himself."

"How did he win?" Ami wondered.

"Washuu wasn't sure actually, but Tenchi and Katsuhito have special abilities that make them very powerful. The fact that Ranma was even able to hold his own against them was amazing, but to knock the two of them unconscious in his condition shocked even Washuu. She thinks Tsunami might have interfered to give Ranma the chance he needed. Then, after that he used the very last of his strength to attack the Shadow Ryoko and knock her out by tricking her." Ayeka explained.

They all looked at Katsuhito, but he shrugged. "I don't remember a thing that happened. One second I'm fighting off these little shadow cats, the next I'm waking up in Washuu's lab."

"I've been training with Ranma for a while and I've learned that he doesn't like to quit, ever. He pushes himself to hard sometimes." Usagi said as she quickly finished off her dinner.

The others nodded and realized that Usagi had been acting a bit different from normal too. Minako wasn't really paying complete attention to what was going on around her, but the drool on her chin and the never-ending blank stare gave a good clue to what she was thinking about.

"Can we check on Ranma and Rei now?" Usagi asked. "It's been over an hour and Washuu said Ranma might be awake by the time Ami woke up."

"Sure, let's just clean up the dishes first and then we can go and check on them." Ayeka said.

"I'll handle the dishes." Sasami said.

"Are you sure?"

"No problem, I can handle them by myself. Go and check on the others, I want to know how Tenchi is doing too."

"Great!" Ayeka crowed as she stood up and headed for the door that led to Washuu's lab. "Let's go."

**********

"Washuu, were back!" Ayeka yelled as they all entered Washuu's lab a few seconds later.

The red headed scientist was running a scan on Ranma as they walked in and she sighed. Distracting them with the hot spring and dinner hadn't worked as well as she might have hoped it would. Even worse, the Mihoshi clone was back. For a second she considered placing her with the bubble headed blonde in the back room, then shrugged and waved them over to where she was

examining Ranma. "How are all of you feeling?"

"Better." Usagi said with a grin.

"Good, can one of you get him to transform back? I can't do anything so long as he's like this." She said and waved at the Ranma's battered clothing and armor.

"He needs to will the clothing away." Ami said. "It's made like that to protect us when we lose a fight."

Washuu nodded. "While he's like this I can't do anything though."

"He's had a couple hours sleep, so wake him up and get him to do it himself." Usagi said.

"I might hurt him if I force him to wake up to early and getting proper readings through this outfit of his is impossible." Washuu snapped. "I had better luck with Sailor Mars, at least she had skin showing."

Ami pulled out her computer, ran some scans on Ranma, and found that she was able to get some decent readings on him. "He's got a lot of internal scaring, but nothing life threatening. Just let him sleep for now and he should be fine in a few hours. If these readings are right then he should also wake up here in a few hours anyway." Ami explained as she showed the readings to Washuu on her little computer.

"I see, I see, I hadn't taken into account the types of energies being used to maintain the clothing. It's different than what you girls are using for your fuku." Washuu said as she read Ami's computer screen. Then she noticed something else on the very edge of the screen and pointed at it. "What's this reading for?"

The blue haired Scout leaned forward and looked to see what Washuu was looking at. "Oh that, I haven't been able to track down what it means yet. It's never changed while we were in a battle and never even started to show up until just recently."

"I've seen that reading before, but I'll have to do a bit of research to track it down myself."

"Do you think it's important?"

Washuu nodded. "Yes, but it's nothing to really worry about right now…" Washuu said, but a groan interrupted her before she could say anything else. She turned to see that Ranma was waking up. "What in the world?!"

"Ranma!" The girls yelled as he raised his hand to his head and cupped his face.

"I feel like my old man tried to teach me a new technique." He muttered as all the girls crowded around him and forced Washuu to move away.

"Interesting, he's almost as intriguing as Tenchi." She said as she moved to check on the other boy and give the girls some privacy.

"Ranma, are you all right?" Usagi asked as she grabbed his hand.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I just feel like I was hit by a car." He muttered.

Amy made a few more readings. "You over stressed your body and used your powers to much."

"That sounds about right." He muttered and forced himself to sit up and set on the edge of the table and looked around. "Where are we?"

"Washuu's lab."

Ranma paled a little and recalled the torture session he'd had to endure the last time he was here. "Well since I'm awake, I need something to eat."

"We just got done with supper, but Sasami might be able to get you something." Ayeka said.

He glanced over at her and remembered when he left her by the lake. "Good, I think I could eat enough food to feed an army."

"We may not have that much, but we can get you a meal at least."

"Anything." He said as he slid off the table and stood up on shaky legs. "So long as its food and there's lots of it."

"You might want to transform Ranma." Minako suggested with a covert glance at Makoto to keep quiet.

"Oh yeah, didn't even notice I was transformed, my visor isn't working." Ranma said. His clothing shimmered and he was suddenly standing in front of five girls with a robe wrapped around his waist.

The girls gasped as they all saw his muscled chest and stomach, they started to drool.

"Humina…" Minako muttered and had to force herself not to reach out and touch something.

Ranma gave them a weird look as all their eyes glazed over. Then he looked down and noticed what he was wearing and the robe fell to the ground. This of course gave the girls another free show and they all froze in shock as

Ranma calmly bent over and rewrapped the robe around himself. "Oh yeah, I forgot I'd lost my clothes before I transformed."

"Hey Ranma, you're a little underdressed there." Washuu called out as she looked the over.

"Yeah, about that, you wouldn't happen to know where my pack is at? I sat it down somewhere just before the fight with Ryoko started. I have a change of clothes in there."

The holographic computer appeared as Washuu raised her hand and she tapped a few buttons. "It's out in the front room, hold on and I'll bring it in here."

A portal opened up and the bag fell out at Ranma's feet. He reached down and opened it up. He tossed the clothes he'd bought for Tenchi to Washuu. "While I'm thinking about it could you give those to Tenchi when he wakes up, I managed to destroy the ones I took from him, and so I had to replace them with a new set."

"Sure, no problem." Washuu said.

Then Ranma pulled out several items and quickly dressed in his normal clothing, except this time instead of the sleeveless red shirt it was the one with the long sleeves and white cuffs. A few seconds later he sat his slippers on top of the bag. "You wouldn't happen to know where I can get

some shoes would you?"

"Shoes?" Washuu asked.

He nodded. "My only pair were destroyed in the fight."

"I'll make you some, what kind did you have in mind?"

"Basic everyday shoes that can stand a bit of wear and tear from all the martial arts that I do." Ranma explained.

"Sure, and what about them?" Washuu asked and pointed at the salivating girls still grouped around Ranma's bed.

"Got me, girls are weird." He muttered.

Then the girls all turned, almost in unison and for a second Ranma felt light headed. Several rather dirty thoughts flashed through his head as he looked at the girls. He wasn't used to such thought and whenever he did the Tomboy would usually hit him through the roof. It was as if she could read his mind or something.

He looked around to see if she really was there as the hair on the back of his neck stood up, then sighed as he remembered that he hadn't seen her in some time. Then he caught a hint of movement out of the corner of his eye and looked up just as Minako shot forward, jumped into the air, and tackled him.

"Whoa!" He yelled, but didn't get any further as she suddenly kissed him right on the mouth. His eyes tripped in size and he froze in place as she attempted to suck his tonsils out.

Ranma barely sensed the wave of anger and shock that washed over him as all the Scouts suddenly pounced on Minako and tried to pull her off, but she wouldn't budge. Ranma whimpered a little and found that he couldn't think straight as Minako rubbed something against him that he usually tried to ignore if at all possible. Then Minako was pulled away form him with a 'pop' and she desperately tried to get back to him.

"Mine!" She yelled and clawed at the air.

"Control yourself Mina!" Makoto yelled, but the blonde just continued to struggle.

Then Usagi dove in just as Ranma was recovering and she kissed him as well and he completely passed out a few seconds later. Usagi looked a little sheepish as she crawled off him. "Oops."

"No!" Minako yelled.

"Minako!" Makoto yelled.

"I don't know, but I want to do that too." Ami said and made a grab for Ranma, but the rest of them dog piled her before she could get close enough.

Washuu looked over at Minako and smirked a little as she thought to herself. 'She has no control at all does she?' Then she reached into a sub space pocket, pulled out a hypo spray, and used it to medicate Minako into a deep sleep before she could resist.

The girls were a bit surprised at first, but then they suddenly got tired themselves and slumped to the floor a few seconds later. The only one not affected was Ayeka and she had to dig herself out of the pile.

"What in the world was that?!" She yelled.

Cackling loudly Washuu just shook her head and headed across the lab to go and check on Rei. She had a feeling that the girl would be affected as well. She wasn't too surprised to see that she had been struggling against the force field keeping her in place before she got tired and passed out too. "Yep, that girl has no control yet, but she'll learn in time."

"Hey Washuu, are these girls supposed to be talking in their sleep?" Ayeka asked suddenly.

"No, why are you asking?" Washuu yelled back.

"Minako just started laughing and mumbling about taking a vacation, while she was still sleeping." Ayeka said.

"Sounds like a good idea to me, just remind them in the morning." Washuu said as she typed a few commands into her computer and opened portals below the girls. "Now get out of my lab, I have other people to look at and all of you are in the way!"

Ayeka and everyone else ended up in the living room right in front of the TV piled on top of each other. She groaned as she had to dig out from under them again. They didn't even stir as she pushed various body parts out of the way. "This is just not my day."

**********

To Be Continued...

* Flower Hurricane - http://www.geocities.com/juubandistrict/attacks/flowerhurricane.html I

wasn't sure if I should use this, but since its part of the established Sailor Jupiter arsenal attacks, I figured what the heck. It also works great for this part of the chapter. It's listed as an attack in the Manga and the Live Action series.

** Akuryou Taisan - http://www.geocities.com/juubandistrict/attacks/akuryoutaisan.html This is

another attack from the Live Action series, first used in episode four. This is another of those attacks I wasn't planning to use, since I was going to stick with the manga and anime attacks, but I just found an excellent place to use it and went with the flow. Unlike Jupiter's attack, this one is pure Live Action Sailor Moon, it doesn't appear anywhere in the manga or the anime.

End Notes – And there ends the battle between Ranma and Ryoko, did I do a good job? A massive amount of material to cover, but as it progressed almost all of this had to be put in. I even had to shorten a few things just make sure I didn't go overboard. I hope I made it a fun read and that everyone likes the way the fight went. There was no way, in my opinion, that Ranma could single handily defeat Ryoko in a one on one fight. He's strong, but she is almost unstoppable, can fly, survive pure vacuum, and fire off energy blasts stronger than what Saffron could ever do. From that grew this fight and all its twists and turns.

As for its length, I figured I'd just include the whole second half of fight in one chapter otherwise I would still be on chapter 7 instead of chapter 8. The next chapter will be shorter as I cover a vacation trip for the Scouts and they drag Ranma along for the ride. I will also explain Sol's sudden

disappearance and set in motion the final battle of the story. I will try not to make it as long as this one was, but no promises, I like a good fight scene.

*****

Omake:

By Gordon Stevenson

"Ryoko, we can help you." Tenchi said as he stepped forward. He ignored the look his grandfather was giving him.

"Sorry Tenchi, but being possessed an all, I have to do this, and so be a good boy and go inside where you will be safe." Ryoko said as she looked at him lustfully.

"But…"

"Remember to cover yourself with honey as well. I'll be by to help you clean it up later." Ryoko said and licked her lips.

Tenchi paled a bit and moved back several steps. "Um…heheheh."

"Ryoko that isn't very nice." Mihoshi said. "You need to use chocolate instead of honey. It lasts longer and tastes so much better."

Suddenly Sailor Venus Popped up and said: "Really?! Let me write that down," and pulled a pad and a pencil from her subspace pocket and quickly began taking notes.

Turning to Mihoshi: "Do you have any more advice sensei?"

"Well, you need something to go with the chocolate, there's Whip Cream and Cherries or Whip Cream and Strawberries." Mihoshi said.

"Which do you recommend?" asked Venus quickly jotting down notes as everyone stared at the two of them in shock. (Except for a deeply red blushing Sailor Mercury who was taking her own notes on the Mercury computer).

"Actually, I prefer both; I have quite a sweet tooth". Said Mihoshi which caused a mass facefault from the surrounding listeners except for Sailor Venus and a beet red Sailor Mercury.

"Great idea! After what I just saw, I can't wait to try this new 'recipe' out said Venus. She started daydreaming and a line of drool started to form and hang off the edge of her lip. Then she started giggling lecherously.

Over in the forest surrounding the Masaki family shrine Ranma paused as his whole body underwent a full body shiver.

"What the heck brought that on?" he wondered.

Back at the Masaki household Venus snapped out of her erotic daydream, turned to Mihoshi and asked, "Do you know if they make candy Handcuffs?"

"No they don't," Replied the blond GP officer, "But I'm sure Washuu-chan could turn a pair of normal handcuffs to candy for us". Stated Mihoshi with confidence. "Here you go". Said Washuu as she handed a pair of candy cuffs to Venus causing a severe nosebleed to a severely blushing Sailor Mercury as a few uses for the cuffs suddenly popped into her mind.

Back in the forest, Ranma gasped as a full body shiver twice as powerful as the last racked his body. "What the Hell is going on?" he wondered.

To Be Continued...

*****

(This is what happens when you write and don't think about what you are writing)

Sort of an unintentional Omake

His clothing fluttered around him as the energy built up into a loud moan of power that rebounded of the walls of the hole. The one remaining lens on his visor lights up, glowing just as brightly as the ball of energy does and displaying just how pissed off he is. "Actually I told you about the attack because I needed to distract you for a second."

"VULCAN METAL PSYCHO WAVE!" Ranma screams as he thrusts his hands forward.

Ryoko throws her hand forward and fires off her own blast. She gasps as she suddenly realizes that Ranma's blast dwarfs her by several orders of magnitude. His blast of energy seems to be spreading out from him instead of launching, slowly filling the hole with super condensed energy. She backs up a few yards to stay out of the way and notices that it's ripping a hole

through the walls of the hole, widening them as it slowly moves forward.

She turns to get out of the way and hears Ranma screaming on the other side of the blast. Then she notices that the surface of the energy is starting to boil, as if it was water. She vanishes just as it touches her. For a second she can feel all the cells in her body shift just a tiny bit and she screams in agony.

Then she appears high above the hole, and watches as the blue energy launches forward, cutting a long crevice in the side of the mountain. She gapes in shock as the blast hits the horizon and keeps going for several seconds before it flickers and dies out.

"What the &%$# was that?!" She screams.

(Man, talk about Dragon Ball Z flashbacks :3)