[FFML] [Fanfic][Ranma][SM] Hailstorm


First of all, I need to make a mention to a plot hole pointed out to me
by Benjamin Goldberg (though I'm sure he didn't know it was at the time).
What Benjamin was actually referring to was how I had made the villain
slightly out-of-character by adding a line they normally wouldn't use.

The lines in question:

[snip]

[snip] "It is only a matter of
time before the power of the black crystal is freed, and then the
world will be filled with evil, and Crystal Tokyo will never come to
exist!  This is not over yet, Sailor Senshi!" Esmeraude vanished.

Aside from the Dark Kingdom, how many of the Sailor Senshi's enemies
really and truly thought of themselves as evil?


And what it should actually be (will be in future postings):

[snip] "It is only a matter of
time before the power of the black crystal is freed, and then your
perfect, peaceful world will be crushed,  and Crystal Tokyo will never
come to exist! This is not over yet, Sailor Senshi!" Esmeraude vanished.

In any case, special thanks to Benjamin Goldberg for pointing this out to me.

------

Hailstorm - Chapter 3
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1098190

Inspired by Dark Phoneix's story "Who's Your Daddy?"
http://tannim.anifics.com/Daddy/Daddy.html

C&C welcome at laqjr_200@hotmail.com

******************
Chapter 3
************

Disclaimer

I do not own Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon or Ranma 1/2. Characters used
without permission.

************
Sinking Downward
******************

Ami walked slowly down Yamano Street, pondering the events of the last
few days. It seemed an epidemic spread across Tokyo nearly overnight,
and most people were sick in bed for their second or third day. Though
Ami did have a few of the symptoms of the quickly spreading sickness,
she was not so unwell as to be unable to attend school. However, the
school closed early due to the overwhelming number of absent staff, so
she headed to the library to see if it remained open.

The last few days were uncomfortable for Ami. Her mother still woke her
up early every day, and every day the woman would show her some new way
to hold herself, make an attack, or defend herself, and expect her to
remember each stance or movement by making her practice them all in
different kata. This all forewent the fact that Atsuko always left her
some strange task or extra training regimen to perform, and because of
the last droid attack only four days ago and the plague saturated city,
her mother rarely came home before midnight anymore. Yet despite this,
if Ami did not perform the extra training prescribed by her mother,
Atsuko made her swim twice as many laps (or more), or assigned her some
other exercise likely designed solely to exhaust her.

Training under Atsuko was not for the weak in health.

Though Ami saw her mother every morning when the older woman woke her up
for training, Ami could not bring herself to dredge up the argument
between them to apologize for her behavior. The time just seemed
inappropriate for meaningful discussion.

The truth of the matter was Ami felt scared of her father. Before, the
man had no meaning in her life, being someone who she never knew, never
met, and probably never would see. Now, he knew her secret, which not
only meant he knew about her and where she lived, he also knew one of
her deepest secrets, placing her in his mercies. What if he told someone
her secret? What if he used her secret against her?

Really, it was an irrational fear, but years of not knowing her father
and never having thought of him left Ami with no idea of what to do now
that he reentered her life. Partially, anyway. He still hadn't shown up
at the apartment, and Ami so far only saw him at the youma battle, but
she knew he'd be showing up more often now that he fancied himself her
protector. He made that obvious to her when he shielded her from the
droid's attacks at the cake shop. And he's standing in that abandoned
lot across the street, too, so-

'What?' Ami quickly hid behind the corner of the building next to the
abandoned lot- the next intersection read 35th Street- and carefully
inched around the corner to see what he was up to. A dirty and unkempt
man, harried from days of travel, stood before him, carrying a huge
travel pack and holding an umbrella that went out of style long ago,
shouting some sort of challenge. Her father's clothes appeared damp, but
no open water sources were nearby.... 'What were they doing?' Ami
stepped out from behind the building to find out more from them,
decreasing the displacement between them and herself.

The travel worn man shouted, "You can't hide anymore, Ranma! This is for
abandoning Akane!" He leaped high into the air and fell toward her
father's position, who jumped away before the man landed. A huge crater
formed under the man's feet when he landed.

'Ranma? Is that father's name? Is Akane my mother?' The sight of such an
impossible leap and an equally impossibly large impact crater stunned
Ami to immobility.

"Ryoga, you jerk! What're you trying to do? I left Akane long ago! She
knew we'd never be together. I thought you'd be happy to have me out of
the way!" Ranma growled as he wearily circled Ryoga, unknowingly
blocking Ami from Ryoga's line of sight.

Ryoga glared at Ranma while shouting, "It's all your fault, too! If you
hadn't left, Akane wouldn't have married Sanji! I'm going to kill you,
Saotome!"

Ryoga's announcement shocked Ranma, giving him the time to charge and
attack her father. Ami watched as they fought swiftly at speeds she
dared not hope to achieve. Their movements were easy enough to follow,
but Ami could not possibly catalogue all the different attacks or blocks
either party used. By the time she identified a specific strike or
block, both combatants had already performed two or three more
interactions.

Her father shouted something akin to "Roasted Chestnuts", then launched
a high speed volley of punches before jumping back and away from the
other man, who he identified as Ryoga. Ami looked around Ranma at Ryoga,
who took two or three bandanas off of his head while glancing in her
father's direction.

"This time, I'll get you, Ranma," he said. "There's no more running away
now. Let's finish this the way it started all those years ago."

"I've never run away from a fight, Ryoga, and I'm not gonna start now."
Ranma dug his heels into the ground and took up an unfamiliar stance.
Ryoga frowned.

"You ready, P-chan? 'Cause this is really gonna hurt! There's no way
you're gonna beat me!" Ranma shouted.

Ami stood still, clueless as to what they were talking about and hoping
neither had noticed her yet. Participating in high speed martial arts
battles is very hazardous to one's health, and Atsuko probably wouldn't
be happy with her if she started getting into fights that didn't involve
her.

The bandanas in the other man's hands disappeared from her sight as the
two men engaged in another round of combat. Though both were very good
and fought very hard, Ami easily saw and readily understood that her
father was steadily giving ground and on the verge of letting down his
defenses. Was he trying to lose?

The other man in the yellow and black clothes, Ryoga, landed a solid
punch to Ranma's gut, sending him flying to land around 15 meters in
front of her. He rolled up onto his knees and clutched his stomach,
spitting out phlegm and some blood. Ryoga picked up a nearby stone,
about the size of her computer tower, and threw it up in the air. When
it fell back toward him, he casually swung at it with one of the newly
reappeared bandanas and cleaved it in two. The two halves of the rock
crumbled upon impact with the ground.

"This time, Ranma, there's no getting away," said Ryoga, casually
spinning the bandanas, then letting them loose with quick flicks of his
wrist. The bandanas flew straight toward her father, who had managed to
roll away in time, but now they were headed toward her....

"What.. are those?" voiced Ami, completely frozen by the gruesome
thought of extremely sharp bandanas cutting her into pieces. What would
her mother think if she came home decapitated? She'd never hear the end
of it at school!

'What am I thinking? I'll be dead.' That was it. She was going to die,
and not of old age, or even from fighting youma, demons, or droids. Some
stupid piece of cloth would be her undoing, who would have thought?

"Ami!" She heard her father's voice distantly, and there was an impact,
and suddenly she lay staring up at the sky. The sun's brilliance burned
her eyes in its path of ascension. What had saved her?

She looked down to see her father above her, having tackled her away
from the strange headgear projectiles.

"Ami, are you alright?" Ranma let go of her and touched her shoulder
softly.

Suddenly she was filled with anxiety at how close her father was. Who
was this man who had saved her life so easily? She backed away from his
touch. "I'm okay now," she said.

The man did not relax in the slightest at her pronouncement. He instead
turned away from her and looked at Ryoga, who stood dumbfounded. "Ryoga!
You could have hit her with those! I'm going to 'kill' you!" he shouted
before leaping at the man. Ryoga picked up and opened his umbrella,
blocking Ranma's strike, then bounded over the wall behind him. Ranma
followed closely behind.

"Wha.... What happened?" For a few moments, Ami could only stare at the
debris around her. Deciding that going home would be the best way to
spend the rest of her day, she stood up, picked up one of the yellow and
black spotted bandanas which lay embedded in the ground, then stalked
toward her home.

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

When she arrived home, Ami immediately thought of turning back to go
out. There, on her doorstep, was someone she just could not deal with
today. It was.... Minako, with Artemis on her shoulder and a large bag
hanging from her arm.

"Minako, why are you here? I told you, I'm not sick!" Minako was the
only other girl on their team who didn't get sick from the bug floating
around, so she had taken it upon herself to go on a crusade to the home
of each Senshi and make sure they 'got well soon'. Minako had already
visited Makoto and Rei, and planned on stopping by her house before
going on to Usagi's. Ami tried to convince the girl she wasn't sick by
any means, but Minako just couldn't take the hint, no matter how
blatantly obvious it was given.

"Come on, Ami! Can't I just stop by for a visit? Wow, you live in such a
nice apartment, it looks bigger than my house. Are you sure this is an
apartment?" Minako said. She looked around while waiting for Ami to
unlock the door.

"Yes, Minako, this is just an apartment, even if it is big. Alright,
come in. The house is a mess, though, I haven't gotten around to
cleaning up the rooms yet." Ami unlocked the door and went inside.

"Oh, that's okay, Ami. Hey, I brought you something, in case you're not
feeling well. I know how you love sandwiches and, well, soup is supposed
to be the best thing to eat when you're sick, so I decided to combine
them to make something better." Minako peeked around one of the doorways
to look into the living room. "Wow, that's a big TV. I wish my TV was
that big."

"You... what? You combined a sandwich and soup? Ah, um." Ami wasn't sure
how to continue, and didn't want to know how Minako had managed to put
soup into a cutlet sandwich. Such matters were very dangerous topics of
discussion. She very discreetly dumped the contents of the...
sandwich... in the waste disposal.

"Oh! A 20 disk CD player. I brought some soothing music you might like,
wait, here, let me get it...." Minako dug into her bag while Artemis
crawled toward Ami.

"Be careful, Ami! Minako's on a rampage today. She already blew up
Makoto's favorite blender and Rei's stereo system.... Who knows what
might go wrong now?" Artemis said from below her.

Ami started at seeing the white cat. "Oh, I forgot all about you,
Artemis," Ami said. "Cats aren't allowed in the apartment complex,
neither are any other pets. And my mother doesn't like cats, either." A
crash resounded as Minako's disks spilled all over the floor.

"I'll get them," the blond girl shouted, and Ami rolled her eyes as she
watched Minako crawl around the floor picking up the various optical
disk media.

"Minako, Ami says cats aren't allowed in the apartment," Artemis started
as he walked toward his ward.

"What? Oh. Well, then I guess we'd better go, huh?" Minako appeared to
be embarrassed as she looked up from grabbing the last of her CDs.
"Sorry Ami, I'm such a klutz some time. Um. I'll just come back later
and check on you then, okay?" She stood up and, after stuffing all her
CDs in the bag, picked Artemis up and placed him on her shoulder again.

"That won't be necessary!" Ami hastily said. "I mean, um, my mom's a
doctor, so she takes care of me. I don't get sick often, anyway."

Minako laughed. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Well, call me if you need
anything. I'm going to Usagi's house, then."

Ami walked her to the front door.

"Well, bye Ami. See you later, then," said Minako.

"Bye Minako. See you in school," replied Ami.

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

Ami gratefully closed her Geometry book and took a deep breath. She'd
managed to complete chapter 12, with the theorems regarding angles whose
rays formed tangents with a circle.... Granted, the assignment had been
in chapter 3, dealing with centroids and medians of a triangle, but the
coursework simply was not accelerated enough for her, and Ami liked to
work at her own pace. Maybe next week she would borrow a few books on
prospective geometry and begin on that until the class caught up with
her. Certainly that would be much more entertaining than completing the
math book and sitting in class with nothing to do.

Two hours had passed since Minako left the apartment. Supposedly, the
girl was to come back for another visit to check on her, but Ami planned
to be asleep by that time. She just lay her head on the pillow when her
communicator beeped at her. Picking it up and pressing the button for
audio, she heard Minako say, "Hey guys, Esmeraude's got Chibi-Usa at
the pharmacy in Juban General hospital! I've got this one covered,
though. Don't worry about a thing!"

Ami immediately got out of bed and left for the hospital.

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

"Mercury Bubbles Blast!" she shouted, creating a fog in the dimly lit
pharmacy of Juban General Hospital. Hopefully, the hospital wouldn't be
too damaged by their battle, and her mother wouldn't find out they were
here.

"Everyone, you shouldn't have come here, you should all be in bed,"
Venus said matter-of-factly.

"Venus," began SailorMoon, "thank you for fighting alone and protecting
Chibi-Usa."

"Don't worry, you're not in danger anymore now that we're all here,"
Ami said to Chibi-Usagi.

Esmeraude, impatient with the fog, shouted, "Droid! Attack them now!"
She disappeared in the slowly dispersing mist.

"Mars Fire Surround!" Mars shouted, blasting the droid to impede it.
SailorMoon didn't look to well, and staggered a moment before Tuxedo
Kamen caught her.

"SailorMoon, don't get sick now! I want you to get well soon," Tuxedo
Kamen said in what Ami supposed was an encouraging speech.

SailorMoon stood up from Kamen's arms, struck a small pose, then
shouted, "Moon Princess Halatation!" She extinguished the droid, and
another dark crystal shard shattered.

"Rrr, you're really getting on my nerves! I'll get you all later, I must
be going to do other things. You won't win next time, Senshi!
O-hohohohoho!" Esmeraude disappeared.

Mercury sighed, then looked past where SailorMoon and Tuxedo Mask were
making out. There, in the doorway, was her mother. Atsuko nodded to her,
an indicator that the woman approved, well, something anyway. She
quickly disappeared around the corner.

"If you guys don't mind, I'm going home now, I don't feel well," said
SailorMoon from within Mamoru's embrace.

Ami could not have agreed with her more.

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

Author's Notes:

For those of you who are wondering, the identity of Ami's biological
mother will not be revealed/confirmed until after the Senshi go to
Crystal Tokyo.

C&C welcome at laqjr_200@hotmail.com

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