Ranma 1/2 is owned by Rumiko Takahashi. Sailor Moon is owned by Naoko Takeuchi. Everything else is my fault.           

            A humble home for a strong heart

                Chapter One

The sun shone brightly upon the streets of Tokyo.  People milled about, doing
their normal business: talking, laughing, making business deals by cellular.
Hardly anyone noticed as five girls in glamorized sailor uniforms and tiaras on
the foreheads dashed by.  Those who did discreetly pulled themselves and their
companions into buildings or any kind of shelter.  Those who didn't frowned
irritably as another scantily-clad female pushed past them, a determined look on
her face as she shouted, for no reason at all, "Juicy-fruit!! Juicy-fruit!!"

One gentleman glared at the woman from behind the newspaper he was reading.
"Hey!" he stated. "It's against the law to streak!" His eyes traveled down her
long legs as his voice trailed. "I'll call the...authorities...on..."

The woman halted and grinned. She raised a hand and shouted, "Hubba-bubba
madness!" Pink goo streaked from her fingers and wrapped around the man. With a
shriek, he fell to the ground, unconscious.

Ahead of her, the five other girls grounded to a halt.

"Getting her out in the open was a great idea!" the tallest of them snapped.

The girl next to her shook her head, her sky-blue hair bobbing. "If we'd stayed
in the store, we would've been snared for sure.  Here, we have more of a
chance."

Another girl, with raven-black hair, said, "But now it's going to drain all
these people of their energy.  What do we do now?"

"Leave that to me!" growled the first girl.  A thin antenna sprouted from her
tiara.  She crossed her arms. "JUPITER...THUNDER...."

A bolt of lightning streaked from the perfectly clear sky.  More people began to
discreetly remove themselves.

"CRASH!!!"

She threw her arms and the lightning flashed from her, streaking into the
monster's elongated arms and snapping the pink bands holding the gentleman.

The monster screeched in indignation and took off through the now-empty street.

The blue-haired girl gasped. "Be careful, Jupiter!  We don't want to fry him!"

"Aw, he'll be fine, Mercury." One of the two blondes, the one wearing the bow,
knelt to inspect the prone man and stated cheerfully, "Yep! Sleeping like a
babe!  And a babe in the cradle is worth two in the bush."

"Uh, Venus," said the raven-haired. "that's supposed to be a bird in hand is
worth two in the bush."

"Whatever."

"Guys?!" Jupiter yelled over her shoulder. She was already well on her way
pursuing the monster.  "Do you mind giving me a hand?!"

The three other girls sprang after her except the last one, the other girl who
wore her hair in the incongruous style of pigtails streaming down from two round
puffs, like meatballs.  Throughout the entire exchange, she had not said a word,
mesmerized by a display of colorful manga in the large window of a bookstore.
She pressed her face against the window and squealed.  "Ooo! The new Rayearth is
out!!! Oh, I must get that, I must, I must, I must!!!"

A few seconds later, the raven-haired girl bounded back and snatched the blonde
away by the pigtails. "This is no time to be ogling comic books!!" she huffed.

Wincing, Sailor Moon whined as she was hustled away from the dazzling display.
"Aww, Mars, you're sooo meeeeeeeaaaannnn!!!!!!"

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Panting, Lita swerved to attempt closing the space between her and the monster.
Since becoming Sailor Jupiter, all she ever gotten was exercise, yet still she felt horribly out of shape when she fought for long periods of time.  Perhaps her body was repaying her for the sumptuous meal she fed it the
other night. It wasn't her fault no one was around to help her eat it.  It
wasn't her fault she always made too much food. She exhaled sadly as she leapt a
bench too soon for her standards. It was time to go on yet another diet.

The monster abruptly leapt, clearing Lita's hand just as she reached for its
neck. She skidded and looked up, just to see a pink, tropical-fruit smelling
mass plop atop her, snaring her in gooey strands.  She cried out and got a
mouthful of sticky sweetness.

"Ha ha ha ha!!!" tittered the monster.  "Bubbalicious yum-yum entangle!!!"

"MERCURY BUBBLES...BLAST!!!"

The air suddenly dropped fifty degrees, and a strong mist rose up.  In the cold,
Lita could feel the gum hardening. With a mighty heave, she broke the sweet-
smelling net apart.

"VENUS CRESCENT BEAM, SMASH!!!"

Lita rose just in time to duck a bright-yellow beam that flashed over her head
into the monster behind her. The monster shrieked as it was slammed to the
ground.

Mars' voice cried out.  "Now, Sailor Moon!"

"All right, all right.  Geez, don't pester me."

"Pestering you is the only way to get you to act nowadays!"

"There you go being mean to me again..."

"GUYS!!!!" This time, Lita was accompanied by the exasperated Venus and Mercury.

"Fine, fine..." Sailor Moon grumbled.  She whipped out a strange scepter and
waved it several times before pointing it at the monster. "MOON SCEPTER,
ELIMINATION!!!"

Stardust and glitter poured from the head of the wand, ridiculously slight, it
seemed.  However, the monster yowled in agony as the stream swept over it.  It
had time to gasp out a last "Bazoookaaaaaa...." before its body begin to crumble
into a pile fine grey powder.  The only thing that was left was a strange card,
wavering in the air for a second, with a picture of the monster transposed upon
it. Then, as it dropped into the ash, the picture faded to blackness.

The mist wafted away as Venus gave a small impromptu jump. "Hooray! We did it!"

Lita did not answer.  Her mind was replaying her sudden entrapment with shame.
She couldn't believe she fell for the oldest trick in the world.

"Dumb," she muttered under her breath.  "Dumb, dumb, dumb!"

"Lita?"  A hand touched her shoulder, and she looked up to see Mercury's concerned
face. "Are you okay?"

Hastily she scrubbed at her face. "Yeah. Fine. I just--" Suddenly she became
aware of a stinging sensation on her knee.  She looked to see her right knee
glaring an angry red.  "I just scraped my knee real bad, that's all."

Mercury frowned and was about to reply when a high voice grated above them. "So, the
sailor-suited bimbos think they win again!"

All turned to glare at the two newcomers, floating in the air casually as though
they had been doing so all their lives.  Their oddness clashed with their surroundings, from their pastel skin to the pointed, elfin-like ears. The male grinned,
showing small pointed, fangs, then looked at his companion. "So, Ann, what do
you think we should do with these girls?"

Ann smiled, looking strikingly feral.  "I think we should teach these girls that
it isn't nice to ruin our creations.  Don't you agree, Alan?"

"As always, my sweet."

With a snarl, Lita rose to her feet.  She could feel her temper rising past its
boiling point.  "I was having a perfect day until your little toy decided to
wreck it!  Why don't you go back to whatever negaverse you're from?!"

Alan lifted an eyebrow. "Negaverse? An interesting term. I think I like the
sound of that..." His eyes glittered dangerously. "NOT!!"

Before the scouts could react, a blast, hotter than Mars's firebird attack,
knocked them all to the ground. Lita, being in front of the others, took the
brunt of the attack. Her breath whooshed from her as she hit the ground, but
already she was scrambling to her feet, her snarl rising to a roar, ignoring her
small hurts.

Sailor Moon looked up, dazed.  To her horror, she saw that Jupiter's skirt was on
fire, flames licking up its back.  Jupiter was too enraged to notice.

"Lita!" she shouted, uncaring that the two aliens heard. In a panic, she looked
about--Mercury had been knocked out, and besides her bubbles were good for
hiding and hardening things, but putting fires out?--and there she saw it: a
pail some passerby had dropped to get to safety.  Oh, if only it had water in
it...

Lita drew in a deep breath.  She could feel the air charging about her, lifting
tendrils of her hair and rising the hair on her arms.

"JUPITER...!!!"

Serena scooped up the pail and could have cried with relief. Yes, it was filled
with water...there were even a few goldfish swimming about, lost in their fishy
thoughts....

Her rage thrashed inside her, threatening to break loose.  Why must this always
happen to her when she managed to feel good for a while? Well, she'll teach them
a lesson...she'll mess up more than their creations! The air literally hummed with
her wrath.

"THUNDER...!!!"

Snagging the pail, too panicked to notice what Lita was doing, Serena flung the
pail's contents towards the burning girl.

With all the force that was within her, Lita flung up her arms, shrieking from
the pit of her soul.

"DRAGON!!!!!!"

A blinding white streak shot from the heavens to her waiting arms.

At the same time, water, goldfish and all, smacked into her from behind.

The world went ballistic, knocking Serena off her feet, hurling the aliens high
into orbit.  Windows shattered and cars rocked from the concussion. It was a
wonder that the buildings still stood.

For a while, all was silent.

Raye groaned, clutching her head.  She and the other scouts were sprawled across
the wall of a building.  How did they wind up there?  And where was--

Awareness caused her to sit erect. "What--what happened?"

"Owww...." moaned Serena.  "My head."

Amy shifted to her knees. "That was...some explosion! Was that from the
aliens..."

Mina frowned.  "No..."

"Scouts!  Scouts!"

The girls turned to see two cats, negative images of each other except for the
golden crescent moons on their foreheads.  None of them were surprised when the
white cat spoke.  "We were on our way when a huge explosion knocked us off our
feet!  Is everyone all right?"

"I think so, Artemis." Mina ventured, but Amy's eyes widened.

"Where's Lita?" she frantically asked. "What happened to Lita?"

"I--I don't know," Raye began, but Serena paled as her memory returned.

"She was on fire!  Those weird aliens blasted us, and we were on the ground, and
Lita got up, and her skirt was on fire...and there was some water nearby and I
threw it on her. Next thing I knew..."

The black cat interrupted.  "Was she saying her attack, Serena? Was she?"

"I don't know, Luna. Maybe she was.  I don't--"

"Good Lord!"  Raye scrambled up, horror etched on her face. "Lita! Serena, how
could you...how could you!!!" She began running down the street to where they
first saw the aliens--a good fifty feet away.

Serena scrambled after her, the others close behind, dread icing her stomach.
She began sobbing aloud.  "I didn't mean to...I didn't know! I'm sorry, I'm so
sorry..."

The area they had been in was now a fairly-sized crater, gouts of smoke rising
from it.  The aliens were nowhere in sight, which was a small blessing.  Raye
threw herself into the crater, waving her arms to dispel the smoke. "Lita!
Lita?"

When Serena first saw the body from the crater, lying peacefully as if Lita was
tanning herself on the beach, she drew up short in mid-sob, as a memory
tugged at her, almost deja-vu-like.  She wanted to scream in hysteria.  It was
happening again...except this time, it was by her own hand, and that she
couldn't take....

"No!"

Raye knelt there, utter shock on her face.  The body looked pitifully small,
shrunken within the scorched uniform. Her chestnut hair, which she always wore in a ponytail, was now singed short and was spread in a dark nimbus about her.  With a cry, Serena threw herself into the
crater, onto the body.  "My God!  Lita! I didn't mean!  Don't die! I didn't--I--
I..."

Her words faltered into silence, and she simply stared, like Raye, in shock.

From the distance, it was hardly noticeable.  But now she was closer and the
smoke was thinning, she couldn't believe her eyes.  The sailor uniform, the tiara, was the
same.

The girl, however, wasn't.

What Serena had taken for singed hair was the actual hairstyle of the girl,
short and bluish-black, hardly singed at all.  In fact, despite a few smudges on
her arms and legs, she seemed unharmed.  Her chest rose and fell smoothly,
albeit clad loosely in Jupiter's (?) uniform.  She was the same size as Amy,
perhaps slightly more chubbier.  One thing that was true: she was definitely not
Lita.

Gasps behind them announced the others' presence.  It loosened Serena's tongue
from silence to babbles. "What?  Raye?  What?"

"This is..." Luna breathed.  "near to impossibility..."

For some reason, they all turned to Amy, but Amy was too busy staring to offer
answers.  She wouldn't even know where to begin.

A soft sound whipped their heads back.  The girl was stirring, turning her head
slightly as a moan slipped through her. "Raaaaaa...."  Her eyes blinked open,
revealing dark pools of midnight.  "Raaaanma? What happened? Ranma?"



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LaShawn M. Wanak (tbone_m_jenkins@yahoo.net)
T-bone Enterprises * In Touch With Yours Truly
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