Infinity's Shore
By James Barnhill

Thanks go out to Jerry and the Ranma Fanfic Forum for C+C and urging me
to continue this fanfic. And especially to Phu for hosting this fanfic on
his excellent site.

Legal Disclaimer:  Nothing illegal going on here, uh uh, not now or ever.
 I'm just borrowing these characters from their perspective stories
without the intention of making (much) money.

Satisfaction Disclaimer:  You may not like this fanfic.  Should you hate
fanfics where the Senshi and or Ranma 1/2 characters get cast unfavorably
then dont read this.  Also I have never claimed to be the worlds most
PERFECT fanfic writer.  So if any of you must have perfection.....then
read something else.  I warned you.

Health Disclaimer:  This fanfic has been known to cause severe insanity. 
Should you begin to think that you are insane, then keep reading cause
your not insane.  But if you feel that you are sane and well adjusted to
both reality and this society...THEN GET HELP, GET HELP RIGHT NOW BEFORE
YOU HURT SOMEONE!

Namely me!

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

Deep blue eyes looked out of one of the apartment's few windows.  His
visitor for the moment forgotten.  

He still remembered.

A year and a half ago he used the Nan-ban mirror to go back in time with
the intent of trying to change Happosie from a lecherous freak into a
honorable sensei.  It had seemed like a really good plan too, until the
mirror deposited him before a woman wearing a fuku.  She said her name
was Sailor Pluto and that she needed his help.  Showing him two futures
that were both possible, one that showed the Earth as a wasteland and the
other showing.......the people of Earth unified in peace and harmony.  Or
to him it looked like they were at least happier then they would have
been in that wasteland of a future.  Pluto then asked him to help her
create that brightfuture.  He had of course agreed, though now he wished
he hadn't.  

What she had never told him after that night was the price needed for
that bright future.  But he'd seen the clues appear when he moved to
Juuban.  One by one they had happened by accident.

She gave him this apartment......no, this prison cell to live in.  She
told him that for certain events to occur he would need to stay hidden
from public view.  So he'd stayed in this apartment for months with only
schoolwork to do.  Sometimes in a great while he and Setsuna would talk. 
It had helped him to pass the time.  That and the Nan-ban mirror that she
had changed so that it would only show you places around the world
instead of taking you to those places.

He'd seen Ukyou meet Zoicite one night in a park.  They became friends
within the week.

He'd seen Akane become a sailor scout, or rather Sailor Io.  She became
cold and distant to everyone that wasn't a Sailor Scout, possible proof
that her past life was catching up to her.

He'd seen Shampoo get defeated by Mamorou, how he could not tell, as the
mirror had fogged up at that point.  He learned from Setsuna that
Shampoo's tribe would later become the Imperial Guards for the King and
Queen of Neo-Tokyo.  He also learned that Shampoo would die ten years
later defending Sailor Moon.

He'd seen what would happen to the Sailor scouts and who they ended up
with.  Originally he didn't really care about the other Sailor Senshi,
but after a while he became curious as to whether or not they were as
cold and distant as Sailor Pluto and Io acted.  He was surprised at the
amount of yelling that would take place at their meetings during lunch at
school.  It was entertaining most of the time, but it really made him
wonder if they could defend the Earth.  He started to wonder if he was
missing something.....

Rei would meet Hiroshi and the two immediately hit it off.  Minako would
meet Ryouga when he accidentally wondered into her house.  It looked like
love at first sight.  At least with the way Minako got infatuated with
him.  Those hearts that appeared in her eyes were scary.  Ami would meet
Mousse when he mistook her for Shampoo.  Mousse would later come to her
house and apologize, and Ami's mother used that opportunity to clean the
house and force them outside.

To him the arrangements had been.....unusual.  At least for him to
contemplate.  And why were these Senshi's love interests from Nerima? 
Was Pluto trying to do something else besides ensure the creation of that
bright future?  It was hard for him to think like this for any length of
time, especially before going to sleep.  But somehow he got the
impression that when Pluto wasn't visiting she was watching him through
that portal of hers.  If that was true then he couldn't give away his
suspicions.  The next morning he learned of his parents' death.

He remembered crying the night after the funeral of his parents.  At the
cemetery Akane had been cold and distant.  They were the only ones there
as Akane had been sent to make sure that he didn't try to meet with
anyone else before or after seeing his parents graves.  He'd tried to
speak to her but she brushed him off like some insect and left.  Never
had he felt so alone, so vulnerable.

Two months ago he was allowed to help the Sailor Senshi fight Wiseman. 
For some reason he couldn't quite grasp Wiseman seemed to know how he
fought or evaded attacks and throughout the battle scored some painful
hits on him while leaving the Senshi alone for the most part.  After the
battle he'd been attacked by his ex-fiancees 'and' the Sailor Senshi.  He
would never forget the pain he felt when Rei put that spirit ward on his
forehead.

And here he was, again standing before Sailor Pluto.  She told him he
could leave now, that he was no longer needed.  But he didn't believe
her, he would never believe her again.  He *knew* that she was going to
kill him, it was the only thing that made sense to him.  Cause when she
showed him the future, he wasn't there, but everyone he knew was.  It was
logical though; to create such a bright future people like him that
attracted chaos on a daily level would have to be........dealt with.  

It explained why his mother and father died in a 'freak' earthquake.  And
why he wasn't allowed out of the apartment.  Because if he went to school
then he would gain new fiancees and enemies, and thus the cycle would
start again.

He wasn't afraid though.  He'd had weeks to deal with this conclusion. 
He'd talked to his fiancees, who just wanted to be friends, except for
Akane, who now felt that talking to him was beneath her new station in
life.  The Sailor Senshi acted like he was contagious, staying at least
six feet away, looking around them like they were afraid to touch
anything he'd touched.  Rei in particular seemed to hate him with an
inhuman passion, blaming his curse for everything.

Even Soun didn't want to speak to him, as he blamed Nodoka and Genma's
death, as well as Akane's change in attitude, on Ranma.

The fear was gone now, leaving behind an icy calm that made him turn
around before stepping out the door, to see Setsuna pointing her Time
staff at him.  From outside the apartment he felt the auras of the other
Senshi plus Shampoo, Ryouga, Ukyou and Mousse.  All of them willing to
destroy him if he got away from Pluto.

Right now he was just relieved that the wait was over.  Now nobody would
ever control him again.

He smiled at her, to show he had no regrets.  "Finish it, Pluto."  

He could hear the staff weapon charging up with a dull whine.  Along his
arms he could feel the small hairs rising up as if they were being
attracted by a static charge.  Now the air began to feel and smell
differently, not very strongly but somehow wrong.  He shifted his weight
to his right foot, the straps of his backpack were digging into his
shoulders.  Slowly he moved his left foot an inch back, ready to move it
further when the time came.

Smiling, he took out the mirror from his backpack, hoping her attack
would give it the jump start he needed to escape and warn everyone else. 
His right leg bent at the knee as he pushed his left foot further back,
bracing himself for what would happen next.  Opening his eyes as he
raised the mirror like a shield he made sure to wink at Pluto before her
'Dead Scream' hit the Nan-ban mirror.  

THE END?



Part 2
 
Alia's Judgement
By William Dix

Alia hung out of phase, watching as Sailor Pluto's Dead Scream struck the
Nan-ban mirror and the young man who to her glowed with the blue white
energy of a chaotic nexus disappeared in a surge of temporal energies. 
Moments later the top floor of that apartment blew outward to shower the
Senshi and their respective others with wood and plaster.  None of them
showed any emotional reaction to Ranma being gone, though Ryouga and
Mousse seemed about ready to dance.

With a cold grimace she decided to flick into phase and tell Pluto and
those with her exactly what she thought of them.  Being a intelligence
consisting primarily of quantum energy states and radiation she was not
what one could exactly call human although she'd been human in a universe
far from here and long ago.

She watched them gather around Sailor Pluto and with a surge of energy
she dropped into phase and using the air and dust in the air she created
a quasi body to speak with.

Alia observed with amusement as they spun around in shock at the bright
energy flash from her dropping into phase and her creation of a form to
speak with and said.   "You may call me Alia the Outsider."

And she continued, "For so called warriors of Love and Justice you do not
show those virtues. What you just did in any decent code of ethics would
count as murder."  Turning to sailor Pluto in disgust.  "And you thought
he was a fool?  You didn't expect him to deduce what was to happen to him
after his long imprisonment and you murdered his parents."  She noted
with interest the surprised reactions of some of those present. 
Apparently they thought that no one could spy on them with Pluto around. 
Well it was about time they got smacked by reality, and she was just the
person to do it.

With a pitying glance at Sailor Io she stated.  "And you Io, or should I
say Akane Tendo.  Why did you participate in this travesty of justice?" 
And then turning to Ryouga, Ukyou, Xian Pu, and Mu Tsu she quoted with a
contemptuous tone.  "With friends like these who needs enemies." 

Finally she turned back to her original source of anger, turning to Pluto
in disgust she continued.  "On your head be it Pluto, you alone created
this foe with your actions, all to create a perfect future.  I am afraid
that dream now will never really be possible. You think you can foresee
the future?  As a matter of fact you foresee what you wish to see, the
fact that you are right most of the time can be attributed to blind luck!
 While I on the other hand am able to observe all possible outcomes, no
matter how terrible they are. And what you did here was not what I would
call the optimal path to take, nor for that matter the most ethical one
to take."  Calmly ignoring the rising energies around her.  "As a matter
of fact you cannot even attain the overview I am able to attain, for my
visualizations of possible futures is much clearer and more accurate than
yours.  That's because I don't filter my visions with hatred of that
which I do not understand, unlike all of you contemptuous *things*."  She
drew the word out as if it were the most vile thing she had ever said.

She felt the surge from one of the Senshi's attacks and with a cold smile
she absorbed the energy from the attack and converted it to her own use. 
Amusedly, she stated.  "You would need the energy release of a supernova
to really catch my attention young ladies, and so very much more to
bruise me."  With that she faded out of phase, her body dispersed like a
cloud of dust.  For now she would be content to watch events unfold.  She
would relish the look of defeat that each Senshi would have upon her face
when they found no easy way to kill Ranma.  But in time.  For now she
wanted to savor the moment, and watch the Sailor Senshi fume and curse
below part of her perception matrix.  Events like this did not come as
often as she would like, and instead of leaping ahead she would watch it
all happen in a slow linear fashion.

A part of her perception matrix found its other target.  She split her
attention between the two.  Noting that the information was coming from
within China.  Her secondary focus lay on the floor of a hollowed out
mountain, his impact had broken up a particularly beautiful mosaic inlaid
into the floor.  Above she could see that his emergence into the immense
hollow space had left carbon scorching on some of the higher levels
arches.  She willed that half of her perception matrix to focus on the
small creatures below.


Part 3

"Is this....him?"  Kima asked, looking at the charred and blackened form
that lie motionless in the center of the floor.  The cracks radiating
from the body told her it had hit the floor at high speed.

"Yes, Your Highness.  One of the inner guards heard this scream and came
running to this very spot.  He said he saw this man appear out of the
explosion on level 15."

Kima turned on the guard in an instant.  The armored man cringed and
backed away from the look in her eyes.  "Explosion?!  When were you going
to tell me about that?  For all we know he could be a part of the Chinese
Red Army."

The guard fought for control.  "He's not, the clothes he's wearing are
definitely not a uniform.  If he were a soldier for the Red Army he would
at least have a pistol but we didn't even find that much on him.  Over
there lie the remains of a travel pack that we searched through but most
of the contents were destroyed except for what appears to be a diary 
Also their are no tunnels leading outside from level 15, or any of the
levels immediately above or below it.  I immediately questioned the
guards but all ten of them were awake at that time so he couldn't have
slipped though the main gate.  Whatever the explosion was he didn't
create it, all we found around him were these small mirror fragments."

The charred figure started to moan, getting slightly louder for a few
moments before its voice broke down into a fit of coughs.  Kima walked
over to it and turned him over, gasping when she saw Ranma's face still
mostly intact with his eyes staring at her.  Suddenly his hand grabbed
her bare shoulder, she looked at the offending hand to see the cracked
skin oozing blood.

"The...Senshi....coming..be prepared...."  Ranma slumped back to the
ground, his breathing more labored then it had been.

"Guards!  Call a healer, NOW!"  She kept her attention focused on Ranma. 
Unwilling to show the guards any trace of the fear she felt at seeing
Ranma's battered body.

"Captain!"

"Yes?"

"Wake the Keepers and tell them to search for any knowledge pertaining to
transporting from one place to another.  Give them all the details of
Ranma's arrival as well as where to find him should they
require...evidence."

The head guard saluted before extending his wings and taking off for one
of the higher floors.

Ranma coughed several times more while his bleeding hands covered his
stomach.  But each time he coughed blood came out of his mouth.  Still
his eyes stared at her and for a moment she saw fear.  Then the healer
arrived with a stretcher.  They took him to one of the higher level rooms
meant for people that needed to heal, around the inside of the room were
plants that kept the atmosphere rich in oxygen.  The healer moved her and
the guards out of the room before shutting the door.

Kima paced about for several minutes.  Her mind going over the fight she
had with Ranma before he fought with Lord Saffron.  She wanted to know
what happened to Ranma and, more importantly, she wanted to know if it
could happen to any of her people.  Her anger rose when she reexamined
how the Healer had literally thrown her out of the room.  To occupy her
mind for a little bit she positioned the guards at the entrance of the
door while verbally berating them for their slovenly conduct, pointing
out that if it had been Saffron who had seen their performance he would
have them punished in excess.  

She tried knocking but only got a muffled 'go away' from the healer.  She
wanted to know what had happened to Ranma.  And, more importantly.  She
wanted to know what he was trying to warn her about.  None of the words
he'd said made any sense.  Still they should be ready.  She told one of
the guards to wake more men to man the gates.

"Good of you to show up, my lady.  I was getting tired of staring at the
walls."

Kima stood before the old man, letting his slip in etiquette slide for
the time being.  He was an old man after all and they had to be allowed
then eccentricities from time to time.  "How is he?"

"I administered what herbs I had on hand for his most serious injuries,
fortunately he seems quite healthy. And most of the injuries he sustained
were to his skin, which as you can see, is charred almost completely
black and cracking in most places.  I have no doubt in my mind that he
will survive though there is the possibility of infection to the exposed
muscles.  Something about his injuries puzzles me.."  He said as they
stood outside the closed door to the room.

The Healer continued.  "The Captain of the guards told me Ranma came out
of an explosion on level 15.  They didn't find any traces of an
explosive, just small fragments of a mirror."

They stopped at the end of the hall, looking down to the bottom floor
where Ranma was found.  There were small splotches around the impression
in the floor that might have been blood or stone.  Koron looked up and
pointed at a spot several levels up that looked like it had been burned.

Kima described the damage done to the floor and the scorch marks around
the entrance arches of level 15

"It does sound like a chemical fire.  But it doesn't make sense.  The
patient, Ranma's, unburned skin has been prematurely aged by some force
that none of our magic users could detect.  Then of course the fire that
engulfed Ranma had no discernible cause, like it had been willed into
existence.  And the mirror fragments found near him may or may not have
something to do about it.  My lady this has the marks of some sort of
magical attack but I do not have the expertise to correctly label it if
I'm right.

"Someone could have set fire to him before he got here."  Kima thought
out loud.  She knew the Healers reasoning was solid, or at least as solid
as it could be given the circumstances.  But she wanted to explore some
other possibilities before falling back on magic to explain Ranma's
injuries.

"I'm afraid not.  The fire was just a possible byproduct of the attack
failing, this idea is supported by the fact that Ranma is still alive. 
Also while inspecting the worst injuries I saw that the unburned skin had
become criss crossed with wrinkles and what appeared to be liver spots. 
Peeling that diseased skin away revealed healthy skin underneath with no
signs of advanced aging."

"Then he was hit with some sort of....what?  Aging weapon?"

"I don't know.  It would seem came here to warn us before it was too
late."

"It may already be."  Said a hoarse voice from behind them.

Kima turned around to see Ranma leaning against the door frame, most of
his body covered in blood stained bandages.  "Ranma!  What are you
doing?"  She angrily rushed to his side and put one of his arms over her
shoulder to support him.  For a moment angry at him for making her do
this for him.

The Healer walked to Ranma's other side to examine a patch of skin that
had been burned to a crisp before.  "Remarkable.  I didn't think a human
could heal so fast."  He bent lower to inspect the bandages that had been
torn away from the hands, showing healthy pink skin where before muscle
and small irregular 'aged patches of skin had been.

Ranma grimaced at the feeling of Kima pressing into the burned skin of
his side.  "Long story. Careful.  Pluto's Dead Scream really did a number
on me."  Ranma let Kima and the Healer help him back to the room as he
tried to clear his head.

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

Outside Phoenix Mountain a woman walked up the pass leading to the gates.
 She had been deposited at the bottom of the mountain so as not to
trigger any of the magical alarms still active within the mountain.   She
noted that many of the steps had eroded over the years but as Pluto had
promised it was still passable.  Akane made her way through the piles of
loose rock and thorn bushes with one objective in mind.  The closer she
came to that objective the better she felt.  Safe in the knowledge that
she was more powerful then Ranma, and that he wouldn't be a threat for
much longer.  She reached the last step and looked around, the sun was
beginning to set creating a beautiful sunset, turning to the mountain she
could see Phoenix men lighting torches to get ready for the long night
ahead.  She smiled before stepping into their line of sight, making sure
that she looked suitably worried.

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

Ranma grimaced again when thy set him down on the bed.  Wincing slightly
he took a quick look of his surroundings to see Kima now at the foot of
the bed while the Healer continued to examine his skin.  He was surprised
to still be alive.  Then again the look Kima was giving him didn't bode
well for his future health.  Still, he needed to find out how mad or
annoyed she was.  "Nearly everyone I knew is either a traitor or dead."

Kima dispassionately looked at him from the foot of the bed he lay on. 
"How?"

Ranma willed the muscles in his face to freeze.  He stared at her for a
moment, mulling over the tone she had used.  It almost sounded like she
didn't care about what had nearly killed him.  He gave her a sad smile
before continuing.  "Sailor Pluto.  She put certain events into effect
that drew my fiance's and friends away.  You should see what they did to
Akane.  They gave her this transformation pen and made her into one of
them."  He saw the incredulous look Kima and the other person who had
attended his wounds gave him.  "You don't believe me do you?"  He lay
back on the bed, trying to ease some of the pressure from his burned
skin.  He still wasn't sure how his back had gotten burned.  

Kima spoke up.  "Why should we?  You defeated our Lord Saffron last time
you were here.  Seeing you now I cant help but be suspicious of your
intentions.  For all I know you came back here under false pretenses to
try and finish off Saffron while he is still a child!"  Kima stopped her
little triad when she felt someone putting their hand on her shoulder. 
She spun around, ready to give a scathing retort when she saw it was
Koran who had stopped her.  For a moment she stared at him incredulously
as she found herself trembling with blind rage.

Ranma looked at Kima's livid expression change to something of
puzzlement.  Now he felt even more out of place.  The speech he'd had all
ready no longer fit the circumstances as he'd never counted on Kima still
being so angry with him.  He now had to play it by ear and hope he didn't
give them enough reason to either throw him out or kill him in his
condition.  He looked down at his hands, wishing that he had the mirror. 
And some food.

He tried again.  "Haven't you noticed the increase of attacks lately from
both the Chinese Red Army, Amazons and the Musk?  Pluto has set these
cultures after you with the intent of whittling down your forces, then
when the times right she and the rest of the Senshi will attack you and
annihilate your people!"  There, he'd said it in the hope that where
reason had failed outright threats might get through her hatred. 
Especially as the threat not only applied to her but to everything living
within Phoenix Mountain.  He looked from her to the other guy to see that
none of them quite believed them.  Kima looked at the other guy as if for
some sign.  Ranma took a deep breathe before going ahead.  "Of course
their may be survivors but they'll only be around long enough to teach
the Sailor Senshi how to use all of the magical artifacts that you've
been hoarding for so many years.  That's a couple of years off, but
because of me you should expect a attack from either the Sailor Senshi or
some other faction close by very soon."

Kima took several long steps from the foot of the bed to Ranma's side
where she preceded to hoist him up by the bandages covering his chest. 
She ignored his grimace at the pain as she shook him.  "You knew and you
came here anyway!?"

Ranma's grimace changed to a deep scowl, his eyes staring at her.  Kima
resisted the urge to let him go so easily, instead she stopped shaking
him.  "Yes I knew!  By coming here I'm giving you a chance to evacuate
your people, Kima."  

"Liar."

Koran watched Ranma.  In so many ways he was like Saffron.  Powerful,
intelligent and morbid to the point of suicide.  He saw the look of fear
in the young mans eyes when he treated the unusual wounds, the look of
someone who had nothing left to lose.  He guessed that quiet acceptance
of whatever happened lay not too far behind the fear.  It hurt the old
Healer to see someone in such pain without a cure.  He moved quickly to
stop Kima from pounding on Ranma, mentally chastising himself for not
paying more attention to the here and now.

"Let me go!"  Kima shouted when she found a pair of hands suddenly seize
both her arm and twist them behind her back.

"I would appreciate it if you didn't beat up on my patient."  He spoke to
her like a father to a child.  Kima's resistance lessened.  Koron waited
a few seconds before releasing Kima while making sure to put himself
between her and Ranma for the time being.

Kima stared at the old Healer for what seemed like an eternity as the
Healer calmly looked back at her with no trace of hatred or disapproval. 
Ranma waited quietly, subtly uncomfortable and feeling like he should be
somewhere else for the time being.  "Where's your proof, Ranma?"

"Wha..?  Just look at me!  Do you think Id do this to myself!?  If you
want proof then bring me my backpack and the Nan-ban mirror."

"How am I supposed to know what your capable of?  The last time I saw you
you were taking on Saffron, you a mere mortal, and winning!  I cant
imagine anyone able to defeat you.  Nor why you would come here of all
places looking for help, Ranma.  I don't know what game your playing but
I intend to find out, even if I have to torture you."

"Fine!  If thats the way you feel then just get me some damn clothes and
Ill be gone."  Ranma nearly got out of the bed before he was doused with
some cold water.  Sputtering the irate redhead looked at Kima.

Kima put down the pitcher of water while continuing to smirk at
Ranma-chan.  "Cool off.  Your not going anywhere until we find out how
you got here."

A guard came into the room and spoke quietly into Kima's ear for a few
seconds before retreating to a respectful distance to await her command. 
She looked to Ranma-chan to see her unwrapping some of the bandages on
her right arm.  "Koron, guards, watch Ranma.  I have to see to something
at the gate."  She and the guard left the room before the Healer could
respond.  

Koran looked from the guards standing at attention to the only exit of
the room to Ranma-chan, who was taking off the bandages covering her
still bleeding chest. Walking over to the nearest chair he sat down with
a weary sigh of relief before looking up at his patient, trying not to
look too intently at his patient.  "As for your last question,
boy..er..girl, the ashes of your backpack were found near you with almost
everything inside destroyed."  Koran picked up a book from the table near
him and handed it to Ranma-chan.  "Except for this and the picture
inside.  But we didn't find any mirror near you.  Maybe now you can
answer some of my own questions young man?"

Ranma-chan stared at the old man before her for several seconds.  "Only
if you give me some hot water."

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

Kima met the guards at the gate to find a most unexpected visitor.  Akane
stood within a circle of guardsmen, looking sullen and somewhat
frightened.

"Hello, Akane."

Akane immediately looked up from her shoe scuffing the ground.  "Kima! 
You've got to help me, Ranma's sick."

She pretended not to care, hoping that Akane would tell more.  "Oh?"

"He.....He ate some roots that made him go insane, he thinks that
everyone's out to get him.  He nearly killed Ryouga.  Luckily Cologne was
able to stop him before he hurt anyone else."

Akane looked sincere but to Kima it all could have been a lie, still. 
There was one way they could find out though.  "Search her."

Akane resisted, shoving several guards away from her but one of them
behind her caught her arms and held her while the rest of them searched
her.  They came up with several hundred yen and a bit of lint.

"He told you I was a, what was it?  Sailor Senshi?"  Akane asked with as
much incomprehension as she could muster into her voice and facial
expression.

"Hmm...yes, he may be sick after all."  She began to doubt Ranma's story,
noting that Akane didn't seem all that cold or distant, well maybe a
little distant but she also looked a bit worried too.  And since they
couldn't find that transformation pen on her they didn't have any
evidence to prove Ranma's story.  But that still didn't explain how Ranma
got here, or why it looked like he was attacked by a magic user.  Could
Cologne have sent him here?  "Guards!  Come with us.  You two wake up the
next shift."

Kima led Akane through the heavy reinforced doors into Phoenix mountain,
with Akane walking slightly behind her with the guards bringing up the
rear.  No one noticed Akane smile briefly as she pretended to run her
right hand through her hair while actually taking her transformation pen
out of her subspace pocket.

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

"So you studied this.....uh...Sailor Saturns ability to heal and came up
with a way to emulate it with your, ki, was it?"

"Thats right."  Ranma said in a tired voice as he finished dressing. 
Wincing slightly at how the wool of the shirt scraped against his
partially exposed arms and chest.  He sat down on the bed, trying to get
more comfortable but failing as the new pants managed to irritate one of
the small exposed sections of skin on the back of his leg.  "I'm still
working on the technique though, it requires quite a bit of ki to work
right.  Even then, it wasn't meant to heal burned skin so quickly."

"Fascinating.  I'm starting to wish that I met you when I was younger, we
might have been good friends."

"Oh?"  Ranma replied with a confused look directed at Koran.  Noting the
small smile on the older mans face, then comparing it with the hard set
jaws of the guards standing by the rooms only door.  "I didn't think
people like yourself could interact with humans.  Isn't it frowned on or
something?"

"Now.  Ever since you beat Lord Saffron the other nobles are worried that
some outsider will come along and decide that this mountain should be
destroyed.  In fact, some of them wanted to send our best soldiers to
hunt you down and kill you."

Ranma paused in unwrapping the bandages from his left hand to stare at
Koron.  Then he turned back to the bandages.  Muttering.  "Always the
same..."

Before Koron could ask him what he meant the door to the room opened to
admit Kima and Akane.  Ranma took one look at Akane and immediately
jumped behind the bed, assuming a defensive posture while wincing
slightly from some of the tender areas of his body.  "You let her in
here?!"

Akane passed Kima and walked around the bed, her eyes her partially full
of unshed tears as she held her arms out to Ranma.  "Oh Ranma, I was so
worried...."  She stopped talking when Ranma lowered his arms halfway to
give her a inquisitive look.  

Silently she walked up to him and wrapped her arms around him.  Then,
standing on her toes so her mouth could reach his ear she said.  "Now, I
can finish what Pluto started!"  She lifted him up in the air and
tightened her hold on him until the sound of vertebrae popping out of
place filled the room.  Ranma retaliated with palm strikes to the right
temple of her head.  Akane released him and stepped back, clutching her
head in pain.  The guards behind Kima ran into the room and surrounded
Akane.  Akane merely smirked at them before holding up her transformation
pen and activating it, the flash of light blinded everyone in the room. 
When the light faded Akane was gone, and one of the guards had been
knocked out.

Ranma turned to Kima.  "Call all your guards out.  NOW!"  He ran out of
the room, into the corridor, noting that the two guards posted outside
had been killed but other then that there was no sign of Akane anywhere. 
With two directions to choose from he chose the one to his right.  He
started running.

Kima called to him.  "Ranma, wait!"  She called out as several guards
came out of the room, heading in the opposite direction.  Ranma swore
softly before running back to her.

Together they ran toward the central shaft while the guards that ran
ahead of them jumped off the edge.  His eyes looked out over the hollow
center of Phoenix mountain, searching the floor below for signs of Akane.
 Nothing except for the guards flying down to the floor yelling. 
Something definitely didn't feel right.  He looked down, not quite
knowing what to look for and saw a bit of dust and a few rocks on the
polished rock floor before him.  Then his eyes widened as he looked up,
craning his neck and body until he almost fell off the edge to see the
deep cut in the floor above him and above that floor another deep cut. 
He turned to Kima and grabbed her arm.  Kima yelped and almost screamed
until Ranma asked her.  "Where's Saffron?"

Kima stared at him, then her eyes widened.  Her face became quite pale
before she answered.  "At the top."

Ranma looked up, counting more then a dozen floors in his line of sight
and knew he couldn't get there by jumping alone.  He let go of her arm
and grabbed both hands before wrapping them around his waist.  "Carry
me."

Kima blushed faintly but complied, on the way up they heard the master
alarm and the cries of 'Intruder!'.  Neither one looked down to see the
ensuing chaos below, instead fixing their gazes on the top level.

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

She came upon the room of her secondary target.  Outside of it had been
two guards, lightly dozing off until she killed them.  The first one had
gone very quietly but the second one had seemed to know that his time had
come and tried to fight her.  With his hands around her throat she tore
off the second guards left wing while with her right she smashed his
lower mandible into his skull before he could scream out.  Then bringing
out her weapon she cleanly sliced off his head.  While dragging the
bodies and head from the entrance she smiled again before opening the
door.

The room was dark; the torches in the outer corridor had been put out so
as not to wake her prey.  Akane slipped into the room before closing the
door behind her.  She breathed a sigh of relief when she didn't hear any
signs of pursuit.  Looking around she waited a couple of seconds for her
eyes to adapt to what meager light was available.  Around her the room
sparkled with gold, diamonds, and fine silks.  Her eyes sought out the
single source of light, straining she could see that the light came from
another room thats door was slightly open.  Probably for circulation. 
She activated her visor and immediately the room came into focus, the
crystal of the visor acted like Night Goggles but it didn't gave
everything a greenish glow.  She looked down and around before choosing
her path through the room.  Several times she nearly stepped on objects
that might have been these people's version of a toy.  It took her longer
then she had planned to reach the door.  Peeking inside she could see a
candle burning, and she caught a whiff of some faint incense.

THERE!

She saw the small child turn under the covers of the intricately carved
bed, exposing one of his small wings.  Taking out her staff she spun it
in a half circle until the rounded blade faced up.  Stepping back
slightly she raised her foot to kick in the door.

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

Kima barely made it to the top with her heavy load.  Ranma managed to
catch her before she fell off the edge.  He gently laid her down, quickly
scanning the surrounding area for any sign of Akane.  Seeing none he
gently shook Kima.  "Where's Saffron?"

Breathlessly she pointed down the last of the three corridors.  Ranma
thanked her and immediately ran down it.  Upon entering the corridor he
started running as fast as he could but when he saw that the rest of the
torches lining his path had been put out he slowed down, keeping his
senses open in case Akane tried to attack him from a concealed position. 
When he came to the end of the corridor he met his first door.  It was
large.  Possibly made of iron or brass but with the surrounding torches
out he didn't have the time for such idle thoughts.  Walking to the door
he almost fell over one of the dead guards, or rather the dead guards
head.  Frantic, he grabbed the handle and started to pull.

>From inside the sounds of something crashing met his ears, in his haste
he opened the door too fast and made it smash into the wall it was
attached to.  Wincing as the crash echoed off the walls, he stepped
inside the dark room.  The sounds of a commotion were coming from his
left.  Focusing his ki he formed a small sphere that lit the space around
him.  He quickly made his way to the only door with light coming out of
it.  Extinguishing the ki ball at the last moment before grabbing the
door handle he peeked through the small crack.  Inside he saw Akane
trying to pull the sharp blade of her weapon out of the stone wall. 
Looking around he saw the child Saffron hiding under a nearby table,
staring at Akane like he was trying to will her to die.  Ranma stepped
into the room, being as quiet as possible.  Akane was totally absorbed on
pulling her weapon out.

Saffron struggled when he felt a pair of hands land on is shoulders, his
child mentality causing him to suddenly think of someone else out to kill
him.  In desperation he tried to scream but found one of the hands
holding him suddenly clamp around his mouth, he took that opportunity to
bite the hand and felt a moment of satisfaction at hearing a low grunt. 
He tried looking at his assailant, his eyes momentarily widening before
they became slits as he caught the familiar blue eyes and face of Ranma. 
Ranma gave him a stern look before motioning with his head toward the
door while shifting around.  Saffron saw that Ranma was putting himself
between him and Akane.  Nodding, he ran for the door.

"AAAAHHH!"  Akane, aka Sailor Io, cried out as she managed to pull her
weapon out of the rock wall.  She spun around to see her secondary target
run out the door.  Her eyes immediately focused on Ranma.

"You're not killing him Akane.  I wont allow it."  Ranma shifted his
stance slightly, readying himself for an attack.

"I'm Sailor IO.  And both of you will die!"  She charged Ranma with her
staff held high, within three feet of Ranma she swung the staff down in a
oblique strike.  Ranma dodged out of the way and kneed her in the gut. 
Backing away his back hit the door, closing it as Akane charged him again
with her staff.  He waited until the last moment to move his head out of
the way, causing Akane to miss him and drive the bladed edge of her
weapon into the heavy wood of the door.  Ranma got behind her and started
punching her back using the Amigurikan technique to deliver hundreds of
punches within the space of a second, seeing her elbow coming for his
stomach he tried to deflect it with his right knee.  Akane retaliated
with a elbow to his gut but instead hit his right knee as she managed to
pull her weapon out of the door while simultaniously destroying it.

He jumped over her and through the door into the larger room with Akane
in pursuit.  Akane grinned when she saw Ranma favoring his right knee
when he landed on the polished rock floor.  

Her grin quickly faded when Ranma's ki flared up for a few seconds,
changing color from blue to a soft yellow.  Then he shifted his weight
until more of it rested on his right leg.  Akane looked up to see Ranma
smiling at her.  She snarled before calling out her 'Blizzard' attack. 
Immediately a small snow storm erupted from around her body and toward
Ranma, Ranma jumped over the small storm, just managing to graze the
rooms ceiling.  The 'Blizzard' passed beneath him to hit the opposite
wall and freeze it solid.  Then he charged her before she could call out
any of her more devastating attacks.  With a spin kick to her head Akane
was knocked several feet back, a light trail of blood came from her upper
lip.  Ranma charged her again, this time Akane tried to run him through
with her staff.  Ranma dodged what he could, taking the occasional cut to
his skin while he worked his way inside her defenses.  Akane gave up
using her staff and resorted to her fists.  Her fists blurred along with
Ranma as he blocked or dodged, always trying to get closer.  When he was
close enough to attack her all out she changed tactics, opting to use
several wild kicks to push him away.  One of the kicks connected with his
chest.  Ranma brought up both hands to defend himself when Akane brought
her staff around for a final strike.  Ranma grinned.

He deflected the staff with his right arm, the force behind the staff
created a sickening crunch, while at the same time he used his left hand
in a knife thrust at Akane's throat.  She dropped to her knees, holding
her throat with both hands in a attempt born of instinct to protect it
from further harm.  Ranma stepped several feet away from her, his face
impassive.

The large doors to the room opened, outlined in the faint light were
Kima, and behind her Saffron.  Akane managed to look up at them.  Her
eyes burning with rage she stood up.

Ranma stood behind her.  "Don't do it Akane."  He looked at her staff on
the ground, then a different staff lying on a wall nearby.

She was beyond rational thought.  The very fact that she had been
defeated by Ranma, while in Sailor form no less, drove her over the edge.
 By her memories she should have won, she remembered being the best
martial artist in her past life.  But here she had lost to that...that
thing!  That nexus of chaos that threatened Crystal Tokyo's future.  The
rage in her mind kept increasing.  Every slight, whether real or imagined
added to the fire.  Her face red, Akane started running toward Saffron. 
Determined to finish this part of her mission.

Then something stopped her, she'd felt something hit her back before it
went numb along with part of her chest.  She struggled against it while
keeping her eyes on Saffron.  When she couldn't move forward Akane looked
down at the spot where she felt the numbness.  Her eyes opening in horror
when she saw the blood covered blade penetrating through her chest.  She
looked back to see Ranma with a firm grip on the weapon.  He released the
staff, causing Akane to slump to the floor with her legs under her.  She
just stared at the blade.  Then her body faded from the room.

Ranma stared at the spot where Akane had been.  Wondering why he wasn't
crying.  His mind came up with the answer that he knew Sailor Saturn
would heal her before she could lose enough blood to die.  But even
knowing that he found himself strangely numb from the battle.  He did
love her, right?  For some reason he remembered the day his parents were
buried.  He had knelt at their grave's in silent prayer, when he looked
up for some sign of support from Akane she had only looked annoyed.  That
was why he didn't feel anything for her.  She wasn't the girl he had
known.  Nor would she go back to being that way again, the allure of
power was too much for her to resist.  He blinked.  Suddenly noticing
that little Saffron was tugging at his pants and Kima stood a few feet
away from them.  She looked scared.  Though he couldn't tell for sure.

He took a deep breath before picking up Sailor IO's weapon with his left
arm.  Hoping this would convince the others to follow his plan.

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

Part 4

Pluto had watched the Timestream since the collapse of the Silver
Millennium as a favor to her Queen.  For hundreds upon thousands of years
she watched the people of Earth rebuild their civilization.  She noted
with interest early on that they were instead shunning magic and
embracing technology as a means to tame and control their environment. 
The novelty had worn off though early on.  To keep her mind stable she
read and reread everything in her personal library.  Then it happened.

Sailor Moon came back, soon followed by each of the Senshi.  Pluto had
been overjoyed when her long, lonely watch of the Timestream had paid
off.  Now she wasn't alone and above all she could again practice her
skills.  She watched each fight through the Gate of Time before the fight
happened.  This was to insure that her control and manipulation of the
Timestream had not deteriorated during her long vigil.  And with each
successfully predicted fight she felt more at ease concerning the future.
 

Then the Timestream disappeared.  

For several hours she sat on her throne, staring at the Gate of Time,
shocked at the abrupt loss of information.  She tried going back to a
past event and was relieved to find that the Gate of Time still worked. 
She immediately started a search for the cause of the disruption.

It took her weeks of intense searching to pinpoint the exact time the
gate would no longer send her information.  Part of that time was spent
testing the Gate to see if she could someway work around what she deemed
The Chaos.  In truth the gate still worked perfectly fine, but after
looking so far into the future she didn't see just one timeline, but
thousands!  More then half of them ended in tragedy for the people of
Earth.

After that she looked for the normal causes of such disruptions.  Yet no
matter how hard she searched she couldn't find any.  Out of patience she
ordered the Gate of Time to show her random images from all over Japan
for that day.  It was a guess really since she had found no dark forces
on the other continents of Earth.  Again and again the image changed. 
Cycling from images of families to construction workers assembling
buildings, to 'Top Secret' research facilities.  She had only looked away
for a second but something out of the corner of her eye caught her
attention.  The gate stopped on a small Japanese home for a rare form of
martial arts.  But that wasn't what caught her attention.  Shown at the
dinner table was a male youth of 17 to 18 years.  But the way his body
looked in the Timegate made her think of a reflection in a lake, while
all around him the other people's image was sharp as could be.  Something
didn't feel right to her.

For days she tracked the male from home to school.  She watched him fight
enemies and fiances.  Her eyes widened when he used a ki attack.  The
Timegate caught the subtle play of powers around his hazy body, powers
much like the ley lines around the Earth.  She knew what he was, and she
was afraid.

When the Sailor Pluto that had come before her imparted all of her
knowledge she told a very old story about how the Silver Moon Kingdom
came to be.  All the various factions that strived for dominance on each
world and its surrounding space.  The first Queen Serenity united the
world of Earth, Moon, and Mars.  When that was done she set the greatest
minds of those worlds but a single task:  Peace.  For hundreds of years
the scholars recorded as many events as they could, trying to develop
ways to promote harmony out of the chaos.  They helped Queen Serenity
convince the worlds of Venus and Mercury to join them.  They added the
great minds of those worlds toward the same task.  Unintentionally
finding something new.

One of the younger scholars took it upon himself to correlate the data
from the other worlds and find a root cause for all of the chaos that
occurred on all of the populated worlds.  He tried everything from
psychological studies to comparing the histories of two people or more
from different worlds.  Nothing matched.  Alone, shunned by his peers the
young scholar tried one last technique.  He compared their DNA.

Amazingly enough those people who were responsible for creating such
chaos turned out to have 85% of the same DNA, though no direct relations
between two Chaos people could be found.  Not only that but somehow these
people managed to violate the laws of chance and probability through
their genetic make-up.  This made them unusual from a normal person in
that their good/bad luck were always out of balance.  A normal person
might find a bit of money on the sidewalk, then sometime later they might
break something by accident.  But these Chaotic people would find a bit
more money, then get arrested by the local police.  How genetics could
account for their nature, no one could tell.  Some actually thought they
were possessed when the findings came out.  But at least now they had a
possible key to peace.

Only problem was they didn't have any way to stop these people from being
Chaotic short of killing them.  All attempts at treatment from chemical
medicines to powerful magic failed against these people's Chaotic nature.
 The problem was taken out of the researchers hands when the ruling
family of Mercury made a desperate attempt to remove the DNA fragments
from these people.  To that end they used a retro virus that was supposed
to replace the dangerous DNA with a more benign DNA set while leaving the
host and the normal people unharmed.  Several month's later all of those
Chaotic people were dead.  No single answer could account for all of
their deaths, for even in death they were chaotic.  Some had died in
accidents, others had been murdered, still others were killed when the
retro virus in their bodies mutated into a deadly pathogen that somehow
failed to spread to other people.  Some of the scholars came up with the
idea that the DNA in those Chaotic people's bodies also served a
defensive function that allowed them to survive with the unpredictable
events that happened around them, sort of giving them a danger sense. 
But no more studies were made of the DNA to confirm the idea.  All
everyone wanted to do was bury the bodies and forget the whole sordid
deal.

After the bodies had been buried the first Sailor Pluto was created.  It
was her task to protect their Past/Present/Future.  Unofficially though
she'd been created to prevent any Chaotic people from being born, this
was partly to assuage the Queens fear of more death.  With the powers of
the Time Gate she checked around the Sol system, then she went ahead into
the future a number of days/months/years.  The process was tedious as
billions of people had to be checked against their potential life
partners for those dangerous DNA segments.  When such a couple were found
in the future it was a simple matter to make sure that the two people
never fell in love by changing certain events.  Thousands of years later
those DNA fragments had been diluted and or bread out of the people.  The
last recorded Chaos person ever born was four years before she herself
was born.  The Elder Pluto tried to use the latent energies in that
person to enhance her own powers over time.  The effect killed the little
girl and seriously injured the Elder Pluto.

For days Pluto tried to figure out how Ranma even existed.  The records
of the Moon Kingdom clearly showed that all of the Chaotic people died. 
Not only that but a detailed account of the first Pluto's campaign to
dilute and ultimately remove the dangerous DNA from all those in the
general populace confirmed those reports.  Combing over the rest of those
records for anomalies had been a waste of time.  Ultimately she tested
the waters of Jusenkyo to see if some form of the DNA was in it.  Still
nothing.  However Ranma came to be neither she, the Gate of Time, or the
complete knowledge of the Moon Kingdom could find a logical explanation.

Tired, hungry, and suffering from the largest headache she had ever had
Sailor Pluto lay back on her throne and tried to think of a way to get
the timeline back in order.  At first she couldn't kill Ranma without
suffering serious repercussions from both his suiters and his enemies. 
But what if she eliminated those people first by integrating them into a
modified timeline?  The plan was tricky and dangerous, more so with Ranma
around.  But if she were to find a way to keep him in 'one' spot his
disruptions of the timeline could be kept to a minimum.  Perhaps she
could even use the chaos that surrounded him to order certain other
events to her advantage.  Her chance came when he tried to use the
Nan-Ban mirror to travel back through time.  With little effort she
redirected the energies of the mirror to place him before her.  It was
easier then she would have believed to convince him to stay in that
apartment and watch events from afar without interfering.  

She had lulled him into complacency by showing him the best and worst
futures.  She'd made sure that the apartment was in a relatively deserted
part of Juuban so that if Ranma did decide to disobey her warnings his
contact with other people would be kept to a minimum.  To distract him
she arranged for homework assignments.  The worst part though was when
she spoke to him.  Whenever she got within six feet of him her connection
to the Time Gate would immediately sever.  At those times she felt
powerless and frightened.  It made her want to destroy Ranma and be done
with it.  But instead she modified the Nan-ban mirror to show Ranma other
times and places.  In the long run it had seemed like a good idea as it
would free her from having to speak to him at all.  And with the lack of
space for him to practice his martial arts she hoped that he would soften
up or at least slow down in his training.  It had been too easy to
believe him a total idiot, and now she was paying the price for her over
confidence.

Sailor Pluto stared at the Time Gate before her.  Knowing that it was now
up to her to destroy this Chaotic person, Ranma, before he could wreck
her plans and send the timeline into further disarray.  Her first attempt
had failed.  Her second attempt by sending Akane to Phoenix mountain had
only been a diversion.  She stood up from her throne.  Her link to the
Time Gate allowed her to see Akane being healed by Hataru.  Several miles
away from the Outer Senshi the Inner Senshi were in a heated argument
over the morality killing Ranma.  Concentrating further the Time Gate
also allowed her to........feel, that other presence on some subconscious
level.  Matters were getting out of hand.

She didnt want to involve the Inner Senshi anymore then she had to. 
Already their ties of freindship and loyalty were being strained to the
limit.  But if she let Ranma go the number of random variables that would
upset the creation of Crystal Tokyo would increase and jeoperdise the
future.  Even now the timeline she had strived to create was starting to
fray from Ranma's actions.  

But, like all planners, she made allowances for such difficulties. 
Sailor Pluto smiled.

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

Outside of the room a dozen of the Elite guardsmen were posted in case
the Senshi should come back.  Inside Ranma, the child Saffron and Lady
Kima sat around one of the larger tables.  Each one had two empty seats
on either side of them.  Ranma looked at Kima, then Saffron.  Kima
appeared to be staring at the tabletop, maybe tracing some of the darker
lines with her eyes while recounting the brutality of Sailor Io's
attempted assassination of Saffron.  Or rather, the child Saffron.  He
too seemed shaken by recent events, though what effect his childs body
was having on his adult mind was unpredictable.  Was he scared?  Did he
feel the need to cry for his mother?  Or was he seething with rage and
ready to try to kill the first person who pissed him off?

Again, Ranma tried to remember why he had chosen Phoenix mountain of all
places.  Besides Phoenix mountain there were two other places he could've
escaped to but the second one would have been too dangerous in his
weakened condition and the third one, while more survivable, was best
kept a secret until he needed to go there.  Perhaps it was more guilt
then anything else that lead him here.  Ever since defeating Saffron he
had relived the battle during his days and dreams, wondering if there
might not have been a better outcome then to go all out.  But in the end
he knew on some level that after both he and Saffron were committed to
battle only the Kami would have stood a chance of stopping them.

He didn't understand Saffrons motives and probably never would.  But like
him Saffron did not like to lose to anyone.  Especially someone mortal
and by definition easy to kill.  He couldn't begin to imagine how angry
Saffron was after being reborn.  Nor what other emotions he might have
experienced.  For instance was being reborn painful?

Ranma shook his head, clearing it of the unnecessary questions.  What
mattered was the here and now.  Seeing that neither Kima or Saffron were
moving he tried breaking the ice.  Taking hold of his right arm he pulled
at it until he felt the sharp pain of broken bone parts rubbing against
not only one another but any other nerve endings nearby.  The resulting
pain made his breathe quicken as he hastened to put his arm back into its
rightful position while at the same time trying to remain calm enough not
to make any mistakes that might leave lasting results.  A portion of his
mind compared this pain to the pain he experienced when indirectly hit by
Pluto's Dead Scream and found a broken arm much more painful.  Perhaps it
was the fact that after a certain pain thresh hold had been met and
exceeded the nerve cells in his skin simply stopped working.  That or his
mind was unconsciously blocking out the pain.

But the little show did attract Kima and Saffron attention.  At least
that's what it looked like out of the corner of his eyes when he could
see passed the forming tears.  Taking in a deep breath he shifted the arm
down more, twisting it unintentionally when he had to take another breath
of air to calm his pain deadened nerves.  Wincing, he suddenly let go of
the arm, at the same time letting out the breath of air he hadn't known
he was holding in.  Wincing, he flexed all of the muscles in his right
hand while his left hand held his lower arm where the bone had been
reset.  The space between his left hand and right arm glowed for several
seconds before he leaned back in his seat.  Staring up at the ceiling
while sweat dripped down from his forehead, feeling a tear tracking down
his cheek he used his good arm to wipe away the unwanted tears.

"They found me."

Kima looked up at him, her eyes focusing on his face.  Out of the corner
of his eye he saw her studying his face, maybe looking for some sign of
remorse.  Seeing nothing, or maybe something she didn't like, Kima stood
up from her seat.  Keeping her hands to her sides she walked around the
table to where Ranma sat.

Kima's punch shook the entire table.  Momentarily jolting the child
Saffron back to some semblance of perception as his head immediately came
up to look at Kima with fearful eyes.  Ranma saw her fist, and the web of
cracks radiating from the spot she hit it at.  Looking up into her face
he could see the same look that Akane had given him so many times before
using her mallet on him.  Strangely, he felt no fear, no wanting to
cringe or run away like he had done with Akane so many times.  Then it
had been a perverse sort of fun, like some stupid childs game.  But he
wasn't a child.  And this could never be considered a game.

" 'They found me.'?  IS THAT ALL YOU CAN SAY!?"  She smacked the table
again for emphasis while staring into his eyes with all of the hatred and
revulsion she could muster.  Willing him to look afraid.

"No.  I can say: Why weren't there more guards in front of Saffrons
door?"  He said with icy calm.  Finding it surprisingly easy to sound
like Nabiki when she dealt with one of her factors.  He saw her flinch
for just a second.  But wondered if he wasn't just hallucinating. 
Suddenly he found himself being lifted from his seat by his shirt front. 
He saw the hatred in her eyes, now more intense, and knew that she had
flinched.  Though that information would probably not save him.

"It was because of 'you' that I posted those guards at Saffrons door! 
Before you came here none of our enemies managed to get past the main
gate!  Now....six guards...dead.  BECAUSE OF YOU!"  Kima shook Ranma
before throwing him at the wall in front of her.  She smiled when she saw
his body impact with the wall, then go limp as he slid down to the hard
floor.  Kima walked toward him when she realized he wasnt going to get up
anytime soon.

Saffron watched Kima throw Ranma.  The child part of him wanted all of
the fighting to stop, wanted its everyday world to return.  Instead he
had almost been killed and now felt the overwhelming need to cry.  The
adult part of him wanted Kima to finish Ranma off, or at least break a
few of his bones.  Each part knew of the others existence and had, in the
past, fought for dominance.  Now both watched, one in horror, one in
delight, Ranma spit out some blood while Kima approached him.

Ranma watched Kima come closer to him.  He could see her hands flexing,
maybe getting ready to grab his throat and squeeze it until he could no
longer breathe.  If she could do it.  One foot and several inches away
she stopped.  Maybe he could make her flinch a bit more.  "Doesn't matter
how many guards you put in front of Saffrons door now.  Akane knows its
exact location.  Maybe she'll come back tonight and finish the job.  Were
all dead anyways so don't matter who dies first."

She stared at him for what felt like a long time.  Minutes?  Hours? 
Killing him would only make her feel better for a little while.  And even
then she still had the Senshi to deal with while at the same time
protecting Saffron.  But Ranma couldn't be trusted.  If he brought Akane
here then who knew what else might be after him.

"But if you want my help.  You'll have to do something for me."

"What?!"

"Send a message to Prince Herb.  Tell the courier to tell Herb: We know
why the Red Army is attacking you.  Come to Phoenix Mountain."

"No!  Never!"

"Then I wont help you."

Ranma looked up at Kima.  As they stared at one another Ranma let his
mask fall, showing Kima a small glimpse of the hatred he felt.  She
blinked.  Probably wondering if what she had seen was real or imagined. 
Or at least that's the way it seemed when she walked away from him to the
door.

Saffron looked at Kima walk through the door, her face seemingly
expressionless.  But that was a lie, he'd seen her like this when she was
really mad.  But unlike most people she hid her anger, waiting for the
right chance to strike back at who ever had angered her.  It made him
shudder with all the unknown implications and complications.  The child
part of his mind watched/felt/lived these thoughts but instead of
contemplating possible outcomes it decided to ask Ranma a question.  "Why
was Akane trying to kill me?  Isn't she your fiance?"

"Its her mission.  And not anymore."

The child Saffron looked at Ranma's prone body lay against the wall, from
his vantage point it looked like Ranma was sleeping.  The whole situation
felt wrong.  Any moment now he expected to wake up in his bed, in the
normal world where his hated enemy, Ranma, didn't act so.......sad.  He
fidgeted in his seat for several minutes before laying his head down to
rest.

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

"But she killed him!"  Usagi yelled over the general din of conversation
that had erupted around the table.

Rie stood up, towering over Usagi she gave her a disgusted look.  "You
heard Pluto.  If he didn't die then the future we fought for could never
be!"

Usagi looked down at the table, tears welling up in her eyes.  "He cant
be evil Rie, he just cant be!  If he was then why did he help us to
defeat Wiseman?"

The other Senshi watched the argument between Rie and Usagi with a little
trepidation.  They were split on the issue of whether it was right or
wrong to kill Ranma.  Mercury, Minako, Rie and Akane believed that the
ends justified the means if it meant saving millions of lives later on. 
While Usagi, Makoto and Darien thought that destroying someone who wasn't
truly evil made them evil for either endorsing or doing nothing to stop
said action.  

Makoto looked at her friends while they bickered amongst themselves. 
Seeing friends turn on one another without knowing how to fix everything
made her feel so weak.  But if she left then she might miss a chance to
break-up any fights that might break out.  Even though she knew that her
friends would never fight physically, still, it made her feel useful to
some extent.  She looked at all of them again as a thought formed in her
mind, halfheartedly she spoke the idea out loud, hoping that at least one
of them would stop arguing.

"If Ranma's a threat to the future, then why isn't Rini here?"

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


CH 5

Ranma got up from the cold floor.  He saw Saffron still sitting at the
table, only now the child was crying.  Ranma looked at Saffron, feeling
out of place and as if he were trespassing.  Quietly he stepped toward
the door, trying not to make any noise to disturb Saffron.  Still, the
thought that a godling like Saffron could actually cry was hard to
understand in light of the limited powers the boy must still have. 
Opening the door he slipped out, putting the question away as he saw the
commotion taking place in front of the door.

"Lady Kima gave us express orders not to allow anyone into Lord Saffrons
chambers."  The first of three guards that stood in the strangers way
answered with cool detachment.  Ranma stayed out of sight for the moment,
wondering what was happening.

"I am Healer Koran, I am to see to any injuries Saffron might have
recieved from the assassin.  And if you do not want me reporting your
lack of respect to Kima then let me pass."

Ranma recognized the voice of Koran almost immediately, thought he would
have recognized the old man if his view wasnt ubstructed by several
guards in front of him.  But from his view he could see the lead guards
shoulders tense like he was getting ready to attack.  But if Koran saw it
coming he didnt let anything on as he stared at the guard.

"Saffrons fine."  Ranma spoke up, his voice startled the guards in front
of him.  They all turned to look at him with a mild grimace on their
faces, probably angry at him for sneeking up on them but he ignored them
as he walked past the guards to Korans side.

"Your sure?"

Ranma tried to smile but couldnt make himself.  The image of himself
thrusting the spearpoint into Akane's back kept flashing before his eyes.
 He ended up shrugging as he led Koran away from the guards.  "He wasnt
hurt, just in shock or something.  I think he needs some time alone for
now."

"Im still going to check him out later.  Just to make sure."

"Go ahead."  he said noncommitally as he and Koran aproached the end of
the corridor as it opened up on the center of Pheonix Mountain.  "Can you
help me down?"

Koran looked at him for a moment, blinking a couple of times before he
burst out laughing.  "Im not quite that young, Ranma.  Here, I know
another way down."  he led Ranma down the corridor to their right until
they came to the large tapestry marking the end of the corridor.  Koran
walked to the side of the tapestry to lift one of its edges while
motioning Ranma through.

On the other side they found a wide passageway that rounded at both the
top and bottom for as far as either could see.  Koran led Ranma down the
smooth rock floor.

"Pheonix Mountain was not your first choice."  Koran said.  It was a
statement, not a question.

Ranma looked at the old healer to see that he was staring strait ahead. 
Ranma decided to do the same as he answered.  "Yeah.  How'd you know?"

"Why did you come here in the first place?"

Ranma waited several minutes for Koran to answer his question.  He looked
over to the old Healer, but couldnt discern any emotion from his facia
features.  But not wanting to offend him Ranma answered.  "This is where
the Senshi will get most of their magical artifacts."

"Looters."  Koran spat the word as if it were the most vile thing he had
ever tasted.  "From what Kima told me these Senshi can teleport out of
places.  Could'nt they just teleport into the mountain and steal the
magical artifacts they need?"

"I dont think so.  From what I saw in the Nan-ban mirror they used the
Musk and Amazons to whittle your forces down before they attacked the
mountain.  I guess something here, maybe one of the artifacts their
after, doesnt allow a close teleport.  Or ma.."  Ranma stopped talking
when he heard Koran chuckle, though it sounded more like a cough then a
chuckle.  "Are you okay?"

Koran waved Ranma away.  "Yes, yes, Im fine.  Heh, Ive heard stories that
their are more then a hundred spells woven into the rock of this
mountain.  Over the ages the knowledge of what each spell does has been
lost until now only a handful of the spell's purpose's are known."

"Maybe.  It was hard enough looking at the future."

"Where else would you have gone?"

"What?"

"I said, where else would you have gone?  What was your second choice?"

Ranma wanted the conversation to be over as it made him feel uneasy. 
Almost like he was being grilled for information by Nabiki.  But he didnt
have any freinds here, and probably never would.  Still, he wanted
someone to understand his motives.  And if that someone was also on
freindly terms with Kima, then he had nothing to lose by answering the
question.  "The Musk Citidel.  Im pretty sure I'd be dead now if I went
there.  I cant imagine Herb missing out on the chance to kill me when Im
at my weakest."

"Was that your only other choice?"

"Yes."

"Thats absurd.  There are several continents you couldve hidden on,
mingled with the population until you were sure that no one was following
you.  Maybe you could get some form of protection from some government,
or atleast change your identity.  Even if it took years these Senshi
couldnt be that diligent in killing just you.  Thats one point among many
I dont understand about your story.  Why do they want to kill you?" 
Koran asked as he and Ranma turned into the next corridor.  Ranma held
the tapestry until Koran had walked under it.

"Because Im unpredictable."  Ranma softly replied as they came out of the
corridor and into the spot where he crash landed.  

Oddly enough the floor looked like it had never been scratched.  He
wondered a little, trying to find some evidence of his arrival, until he
saw something glitter from one of the shadows.  Walking closer he saw
that it was a small pile of mirror shards.  Spying one large piece he
picked it up as Koran came up behind him.  But his joy at finding some
part of the mirror intact dissipated as the large shard crumbled to dust
between his fingers.  He searched the pile again with shaking hands that
caused the smaller shard peices to crumble and the precious few larger
peices to crack into smaller peices.  When he sneezed most of the  fine
dust created by his fumbling blew away into small dust clouds, leaving a
small mound of coarse grains behind.

"T-t-the mirror.  Its gone."  Ranma said to no one in particular.  His
eyes still staring at the spot where the mound of mirror dust had been. 
He'd know the mirror couldnt take much strain, in fact he was quite sure
that it would break up into dozens of pieces.  But he'd expected at least
one large piece to survive the explosion.

"Such sloppy maintenance!  I told the workers to put the remaining peices
in a container and send it to my room.  When I find those hatchlings I'll
pluck them lyself!"

Ranma continued to stare at the spot where the pile of mirror dust had
been.  For the moment Korans rant was forgotten as he tried to come up
with, something, anything to do!  But all he could think about was the
Nan-ban mirror.  His only way to watch the future was gone and with it
any warning he might have had of Pluto's plans.  Absently he could feel
his stomach making its presence known.  When had he last eaten?

He looked up to see the Healer talking with one of the guards.  The
question was absurd, stupid beyond comprehension...but it would give him
something to do while thinking about how to deal with the future and the
problems it would bring.  "Koran?"

Koran nodded to the guardsmen, dismissing him, before turning around to
face Ranma.  "Yes?"

"Is there a kitchen around here?"  His stomach chose that time to make
its presence known, this time loud enough for Koran to hear.

He covered his mouth with one of his hands, feigning coughing.  The
absurdity of the situation though was just too funny.  But managing to
calm down he directed Ranma down one of the passages where they found a
well stocked kitchem that looked to have been recently vacated.  Ranma
was surprised to see several modern refrigerators, asking Koran he found
out that they also had several small generators in one of the adjoining
corridors that provided power for the refrigerators and some shop tools.

Ranma ate at one of the large tables they used to prepare some of the
food with Koran seated opposite from him.  Between mouthfulls of food
Ranma spoke.  "So how do ya keep children out of those passages?"

Koran looked at Ranma, frowning somewhat before he understood the
question.  "The tapestries hung over the entrances are imprinted with
spells that easily deflect a childs curiosity.  It might even be strong
enough to deflect any curiosity you might have had if I hadnt shown you
what lay beyond it.  Keep in mind though the spells were created
specifically against children, not adults."

Ranma considered the answer as he finished another of the sandwiches he'd
made.  Taking another sandwich off the plate he paused to reply.  "Okay,
I see.  But why not use a door instead?"

Koran laughed at Ranma.  "There are more then thirty levels in this
mountain, each one has two such passages leading through it on opposite
sides.  Now imagine if everyone had to carry around sixty keys to unlock
only a few doors?"

"Yeah, I guess it was a stupid question."  He returned to eating the rest
of he food he'd piled on the plates before him.  The hunger he had felt
had abated enough for him to eat much quicker without having to worry
about accidentally choking on some of the weird stuff he was eating.

"The guard I talked to told me that the messener had come back and that
Herb would arrive within the hour."  Koran said.  Usually whenever he was
eating with one of his fellow people there was always gossip at the table
relating to politics or some scandelous act.  Just sitting there,
watching Ranma pack away so much food without talking very much made him
acutely uncomfortable as he had nothing else to do at the time being.

Ranma quickly polished off the rest of the food before setting the silver
trays in some of the cleaning sinks.  As he exited the room Koran had to
sprint to catch up with him.  "In that case Ill be outside waiting for
him.  You better go check on Saffron."

When he was sure that Ranma was going to wait at the gate he spread his
wings to fly up to Saffrons room.  

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

Kima stood at the entrance of Pheonix Mountain, watching the night sky. 
Behind her the giant doors leading to the interior of Pheonix Mountain
were open, beside each half of the door stood five guards that were ready
to close the massive doors at a moments notice.  The wall surrounding the
main gate swarmed with soldiers readying their weapons and or patroling. 
But even those soldiers that were cleaning their weapons were keeping one
eye out for anything out of the ordinary, no matter how innocent and weak
it looked.

The messenger that Kima sent said that Herb would arrive in an hour.  She
looked behind her to one of the mechanical clocks built into the tunnel
walls.  Five minutes more and Herb would be late.  If that happened she
was ready to send two patrols out to look for him in case he ran into the
Sailor Senshi.  But seeing what Akane had done she didnt hold much hope
of her soldiers lasting very long against any of the other Senshi. 
Suddenly she looked over her shoulder to see that Ranma was behind her.

He briefly nodded at her before joining most of the other soldiers
watching the sky for Herb.  "Anything wrong?"

"Not yet.  Im worried Herb's not going to get here.  Or if he does he
will attack us instead of hearing you out."

"He'll make it.  From what Ive seen the Senshi are going to concentrate
their attacks on this mountain.  Though I doubt that Herb would attack at
a time like this with the few soldiers he does have going to scout
patrols to watch out for Red Army patrols"

Kima paused for a moment, wondering if the tone in Ranma's voice was
apprehension or relief.  From her position watching the sky she couldnt
see if Ranma might have been frowning or smiling.  If he was feeling
nervous she could understand that.  She decided to lighten the mood. 
"Thanks.  That makes me feel much better."

"Sorry, but I now how they operate, or how Pluto operates.  Right now
your people are on her number one hit list.  If anything happens I think
it will be when Herb gets here, that way she'll be able to kill all of
us."

Kima resisted the urge to walk into the mouth of the tunnel.  Ranma's
reasoning made her feel more defenseless then she had felt before.  It
got to the point where she didnt want Herb to show up at all.  She nearly
jumped out of her skin when Ranma put his hand on her shoulder.

"I didnt mean to scare ya Kima.  Okay?"

Kima was spared from having to reply when one of the guards called out to
the others.  Soon they could all see Herb flying from the direction of
the Musk Citadel.  Kima looked up at Ranma to see him staring at Herb
with a curious expression on his face.  Around them the guards readied
their weapons in case Herb tried to attack them, most of the guards used
spears with metal tips while others brandished crossbows.  Some of the
guards hiding themselves in and around the wall readied their Chinese
rifle's.

Herb came in low over the horizon, just managing to clear the outer wall
before he landed on the bare ground between the wall and the main gate. 
He took one look at the assembled guards and smirked at each and every
one of them as he let his ki flare to life around him for all to see. 
When he saw the guards flinch and slightly back away he looked over at
Kima, his face losing all expression when his eyes locked onto Ranma's. 
The two stared at each other for several seconds.

"Ranma."

"Herb."

To Kima it felt like hours while she stood just to the side of Ranma and
watched them have their staring contest.  She suddenly got the urge to
smack both of them for being so egotistical.  Instead she reframed from
any undiplomatic measures for the time being.  She let out a sigh of
relief when Ranma and Herb nodded to one another.  She quickly spoke up
before they could do anything else to waste time.

"Shall we go in?"

Herb nodded to her and fell in line with Ranma.  Behind them the large
doors swung shut with a silent creaking sound that sent shivers down
Ranma's spine.  They traveled in silence to Saffrons quarters.  The only
bit of conversation between Ranma and Herb was when one of the guards had
to give Ranma a ride to the top floor.  Herb took one look at Ranma
before laughing out loud.

"Well atleast I dont freak out when I get splashed with cold water."

Herb scowled at Ranma before flying ahead.

Before the doors to Saffrons receiving room stood a dozen of the Elite
guards who were now dressed in battle armor.  Herb took one look at the
guards before looking at Ranma and Kima for a explanation.  They only
pointed to the open doors and motioned him inside.  They found Saffron
sitting at the same chair of the one large table in the room, just
staring at the heavy wood.  In one discreet corner of the room Koran
watched them enter the room before turning his attention back to Saffron.

Without being asked Ranma sat down opposite from Saffron while Herb took
a  position between Saffron and Ranma, eyeing both with his arms crossed
and standing.  Kima took the seat next to Saffron and gently shook him
out of his daze.  Saffron immediately sat up and looked around until he
caught sight of Ranma and Herb.  He gave Ranma a feral look before
returning his attention to Herb.  No one spoke, tried to exchange
pleasantries or smiled.

"The reason we are all here is because a group is now operating in Japan
with the intent of destroying all of us and remaking the world.  At best
we have one, maybe two, days to evacuate to some safe place before then."
 Ranma had avoided looking at anyone or making direct eye contact for
fear of faltering and making them suspicious of him.  That's the last
thing he needed to deal with at the moment without getting into these
people's version of political intrigue.  He kept his hands at his sides
to look calm and collected, while mentally he felt that something really
bad was gonna happen very soon.

Herb chose that moment to blink and then laugh out loud at Ranma,
thumping his fist on the table like he had heard the funniest joke in his
life.  "HAHAHA!  Is that the best you can do?  Where's your proof?"

Kima put a restraining hand on Saffrons shoulder, preventing him from
leaping out of his chair and attacking Herb.  Herb laughed a bit more as
if daring Ranma to show his proof.

Ranma got up and went over to one of the other tables spaced equally
around the room.  He returned with a  staff.  He sat it down in front of
Herb, Herb backed up a few inches but continued to eye the grey staff
with a bit of curiosity and suspicion.

"Go ahead touch it, it wont harm you."  Atleast it hadnt harmed him when
he picked it up.  Ranma resisted the urge to smirk at Herb's caution.

Herb reached out with his index finger and touched the gunmetal grey rod,
when nothing happened he grabbed it with his hand and examined it.  It
looked like an ordinary metal staff, except for the two ends.  On one end
rested some sort of decoration that looked like a spider web, on the
other was a crescent shaped blade attached to the staff at its center. 
There were no obvious signs of wear or tear, nor signs that it had been
put together from separate parts.  Without asking Herb backed off to give
himself some room.  He swung the staff around to test its weight.  Near
the bladed end he saw what appeared to be small characters imprinted into
the staff and flowing onto the blade.

He swung it a few more times but couldnt see anything particularly
menacing about it.  "Whats so special about this?"

"See that sculpture over there?"  Ranma pointed to a bass relief of a man
with wings holding someones disembodied head.  Seeing Herb nod Ranma
continued.  "Attack it with the staff."

Saffron jumped out of his seat.  "No!  I forbid it.  Do you have any idea
how old that statue is?!"

Herb paid him no attention and struck out with the blade end of the
staff.  A foot from the sculpture the staff stopped.  Saffron, Ranma and
Kima watched as sweat broke out on Herbs forehead before he drew the
staff back and tried to attack the statue again while putting more of his
strength behind the swing as he tried to force the staff further.  The
crystalline snowflake adorning the other end of the staff lit up as small
points of light coalesced from the outer portions of the flake to the
center where the light became a small bolt of lightning that traveled
through the staff and up the length of Herb's arm before he screamed and
let it go.  He backed away several steps while his hands stopped smoking.
 Kima and Saffron came around the table to see the staff lying on the
ground, looking as if it had never been used.

Ranma drew in a deep breathe and started to talk.  "I think that you can
understand just how dangerous these Senshi, as well as their weapons,
are.  I just wish I could have convinced you sooner without Akane getting
into the mountain, or Herb burn his hand.  Sorry.  Im not too good at
this, let me start at the very beginning to bring Saffron and Herb up to
speed."  He saw Saffron relax somewhat.  Though it was hard to tell
whether or not the childs body interfered with the normal emotions he
would have felt as an adult.  Would he get bored and fall asleep?  Or
would he try to blast Ranma to make him get to the point?  So many
questions that without the help of the Nan-ban mirror he might never have
the answer to.

"As you can see, Herb, these Senshi have weapons that are quite powerful
and cannot be used by anyone else who isn't a Senshi.  What you saw and
experienced was just a defense function to insure that no one besides a
Senshi could use the weapon, compared to what Sailor Io has done with
that weapon you only got a small taste of its true power.  Though whether
or not a Senshi can use anothers weapon is not known, for the time being
lets assume they can only use their own personal weapons.  When fighting
with a Senshi it is important to make sure that they do not have access
to their weapons, for them the weapons act like a lens that focus's their
powers by several factors.  Fortunately we have an edge over them."

Herb stopped flexing his singed hand to look at him suspiciously.  "And
what advantage would that be?"

"Magic.  The only powers they have involve either their planets or simple
disguises that all of us could see through.  The reason they want to kill
us all is because of the potential for chaos we embody, as well as to get
their hands on the magical artifacts of your peoples.  For in their
perfect world people like the Musk, Pheonix, and myself cannot exist. 
They also need the magical artifacts both your people's possess to guard
their future kingdom."

Herb spoke up.  "How do we know that they aren't just going to kill you
and leave all of us alone?"

Kima answered.  "If that were the truth then they wouldn't have sent one
of their own here to kill Saffron."

Herb shut up as Ranma continued.

"My only method of escape from the Senshi before they could kill me the
first time was the Nan-ban mirror, which was destroyed by Pluto's attack.
 Though even if it were repaired I dont think it could transport all of
your people's to safety, atleast not in the time we may have left."

Saffron silently added.  "Then we'll die..."

Herb.  "You brought me here just for this!?"

"No.  If the Nan-ban mirror could transport people then there must be
other artifacts like it with the same function!  Right?"

Herb looked at the table while in deep thought.  Aloud he said.  "Whats
in it for me?"

"Your life and the safety of your people."  Ranma inwardly smiled at
Herbs slightly dazed and scared expression.  For a moment he wondered if
this is what Nabiki felt when she cornered him.  If he was right then
Herbs instincts for self preservation and defending others should be
kicking in.  He hoped.  "  Look through your records, books, scrolls for
anything like the Nan-Ban mirror.  Its all I ask.  Meanwhile we have to
organize the people for evacuation when we do find something."  He left
out the 'if' on purpose, trying to sound more confident then he actually
was.

Kima.  "Ive already asked the scholars here to look through their books
and scrolls, hopefully they'll find something soon."  

Ranma nodded at Kima, surprised that she had anticipated him.  Then
mentally scolding himself for not thinking of it sooner.  "It would
probably be best if I told you all everything I know about the Senshi. 
It may help all of you in the future if you knew what each of them were
capable of.  Believe me, the last thing you want to do is laugh at their
uniforms."

Herb stood up.  "Just a second Ranma.  Kima, could you spare a courier? 
I want to send a message to my subordinates."

"There should be several ready, just in case.  Give me the message and
Ill pass it along to the courier."

Herb took out a piece of paper and quill from a nearby desk and began to
write.  When he finished he took out a disk from him pocket along with a
dirty cloth, he poured a bit of the ink on the cloth before wiping it on
the disk and firmly pressing the disk into the paper.  He handed the
message to Kima who passed it to the guards outside the door.

Ranma waited until Kima was seated before beginning.  He started with his
first meeting with Pluto, explaining how cold she seemed and emphasizing
her control of time and ability to see into the future.  He didnt
describe the apartment in too much detail since it wasnt very important,
he did tell them of the modified Nan-ban mirror he had used and the
horrible things he had seen in its surface.  His fiance's coming to
Jouban and each finding her own happiness without ever finding him, along
with the enemies that followed behind them and also found love interests.
 He tried to keep from looking at his little audience when he described
how strange it had all seemed, much too orderly for the people who he had
known for two years.  But thoughts like that were quickly forgotten under
the anguish he'd felt over being forgotten so easily, to forget them he
lost himself in viewing the present and the future.  But watching event
after event in different countries grew boring.  On a whim he then looked
to see how Crystal Tokyo would be created........ 

His skin paled as he closed his eyes, fighting for control instead of
breaking down and crying.  When he felt he had enough control he forced
himself to continue.  

The death of so many people when the polar icecaps expanded over there
homes and froze them to death as they slept was a horror that no one, in
his opinion, should have to watch.  The fact that Pluto caused it to
happen and could stand by while so many people died made him sick to his
stomach as he'd begun to trust her.  For a while he thought that he'd
found a woman that could be his friend without becoming a potential
fiance.  He wanted to believe in that so much that at first he shunned
what had appeared in the mirror, wanting to believe instead that
something was interfering with it.  Instead he looked for his future self
in Crystal Tokyo.  He found Ryouga, Mousse, Shampoo, Ukyou, Akane and the
rest of the Senshi, but not him.  He used the mirror to look at the other
countries of that future, hoping to find some future version of himself,
with the same result.  He then tried asking the mirror to show his future
self, the mirror responded by showing his death.

He opened his eyes to see that he had everyones attention.  He continued
by going into detail about what attacks each and every Senshi would use
as well as which Senshi had weapons.  He tried to stress how important it
was that if they should meet Sailor Saturn that they should not threaten
her in any way.  He didnt know if she would destroy this planet, but
given what the other Senshi have done he didnt want to take any chances.

After he had finished and sat down there was silence.  Each of the people
around the table pondering what he had said.  Wondering if it was the
truth.  

Herb looked at Saffron and Kima, wondering what the people of china would
think if they found out that these people had been living within the
country for thousands of years.  Even his own people and their enemies
were just legends to the average Chinese citizen.  Even if the Chinese
Red Army knew of their existence they treated them like terrorist groups
and dissidents.  In china legends and myths had a strange way of coming
to life and biting you on the ass just to show you up.

Saffron was the first to speak up.  "Is that all?  They should have some
weakness's.  Maybe enemies we can ally ourselves with."

Ranma was about to answer when Herb added his two cents.  

"He's right.  No ones that perfect...although, it does sound like they
can only fight as a group..."

Saffron.  "Care to explain that Herb?"

"Its their attacks, each of them seems to have a attack modeled after
some force of nature and only that.  Sure they probably improvise attacks
and maybe learn but none of them is capable of duplicating the other's
powers, they each use a fixed power source.  What are they using for
power, Ranma?"

"From what Ive seen and heard I think each of them draws their power from
their respective planets, though I cant be sure.  I dont know how or if
there is a way their powers could be blocked.  But.....I do know that
they each have *limited* powers, when a Senshi first gains her powers and
memories they are very weak and can only use basic attacks.  Or atleast I
heard.  But every time they fight they gain new knowledge and learn to
tap a bit more power from their respective sources.  In a sense they are
still trying to wake up, regain all of their memories and skills. 
Fortunately its gonna take several years for them to do that."

Kima spoke up before either Herb or Saffron could comment.  "If we
separate them we might be able to hold them off or defeat them
totally..."  She stopped when Ranma shook his head.

"No Kima, it doesnt work like that.  Beryl, their first enemy, tried that
a few times but it never worked long enough to defeat them.  Hell, I dont
even know if my theory is right.  I mean that...well...their are two
people who violate my theory, Sailor's Pluto and Saturn.  Its easy to
guess why Pluto is as powerful and knowledgeable as she is but Saturn is
the real wild card here, when she was reborn she came with her power
intact but not the knowledge to use it.  Even now as we speak she is
having a hard time controlling her powers."

Kima.  "Okay, then will 'she' fight 'us'?"

Ranma sighed and looked down at his hands.  "I dont know."  He looked up
at everyone.  "Everything I know."  He grimaced briefly before resuming. 
"Everything I think I know I got from the Nan-Ban mirror and from peices
of conversation I overheard from the Senshi while they were talking.  I
could be wrong about several things or everything.  The Senshi treated me
like I was diseased, few of them came close to me.  Fewer talked to me. 
I dont know anything about their minds.  All I really know is that I dont
have anymore freinds, my fiance is a Senshi, and their cold blooded
enough to kill my parents just for being my parents...."  He stopped, for
a moment looking down instead of showing them the confusion he felt.  The
disappointment of not being able to talk to them of what he felt.  His
eyes focused on the table, at that moment he unleashed all of his anger
with one punch that put a hole in the table.

Everyone else jumped out of their seats, taking several steps away from
Ranma.  They looked at each other nervously.  All hoping that Ranma hadnt
chosen this time to snap, yet none of them wanted to voice the question. 
Instead they watched him take several shallow breaths, each time he
exhaled his shoulders seemed to shake with the effort.

With a bit of hesitation Kima walked around the table until she was a
foot from Ranma.  From this distance she could tell that he was tense
and, she paused to look a bit closer.  Crying?  She tried to reason out
why he was crying.  But she didnt understand him well enough to tell what
was troubling him.  She looked back at Saffron and Herb, seeing the
indecision in their eyes as they looked at Ranma then at her for as if
waiting for the right time to act.  For a moment she considered doing the
same.  But instead she put her hand on his shoulder, hoping that it would
somehow comfort him.

She relaxed when she could feel his shoulder relax as his breathing
slowed down.  He turned his head to look at her out of the corner of his
eye.  "Thanks, Kima."  He emphasized his words by putting his hand over
her own.

Saffron was the first to come around the table with what looked like real
concern.  "Ranma I.."

"They killed my parents."  He said again as if to explain what had
happened.  "They haven't killed any of your people, or families."  He
paused for a moment to let his last statement take effect and let the
others know they may not survive what would happen next. He cleared his
throat before taking a deep breathe.  "You can kill me anytime you want. 
I wont defend myself.  But I am telling the truth.  I swear it upon the
graves of my mother and father."  He looked at them, hoping they would
see how strongly he felt.  One by one they nodded their agreement.  He
almost let himself smile but forced himself no to.  For now they would
trust him.

Herb came forward.  "Theres something you should know."

The way he had said it held ominous tones.

Herb.  "On my way here I saw two small columns of tanks and other
vehicles heading here.  They'll be here in two hours, maybe more or less
depending on the terrain."

Ranma scowled.  Just when everything seemed to be shaping up this
happened.  And he knew, without a shadow of a doubt whose fault it was. 
"Pluto."

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

"DAMM IT!"  Akane cried out when Micheru finished taking out the last of
the stitches in her back, the skin beneath the stitches looked as if it
had never been cut.  But all Akane could think about was the pain that
persisted in the muscles around the healed area's, that and the sensation
of having the stitches pulled out only to grate against sensitive nerve
endings.

Hataru lay on the couch watching Akane wince again when Micheru pulled
out another section of the stitches.  She felt slightly guilty for having
Akane get stitches but it made the healing process a bit easier and
quicker.  Though the fact that Akane hadnt thanked her made Haruna a bit
happy at her fellow Senshi's pain.

Micheru looked at the back of Akane's head with a frown on her face,
clearly she wasnt enjoying the task of pulling out the stitches, or
hearing Akane yell out or curse at no one in particular.  She could
handle the yelling, but she looked over to see Haruna wince slightly at
the more colorful words Akane was employing.  "Akane.  If you keep
yelling like that I wont be able to pull the other stitches out, then
Haruka wil have to do it."  She grinned at Haruna when she saw Akane's
shoulders tense and her mouth shut with an audible click.

Haruka watched all of this from the dinner table.  Feeling slightly
pissed at Pluto for not letting them take Akane to a hospital or Sailor
Mercury.  She didnt like sneaking around like this around the Inner
Senshi, though why Pluto didnt want the Inners to know about her and
Micheru and Haruna she couldnt understand.  Though she never did
completely understand Pluto's motives in the first place, or her fixation
with destroying Ranma.  For that matter she didnt understand why she had
to destroy that couple in Nerima.  Too may things were happening for her
to understand anyone in great detail.  All she knew for sure was that the
Inners were starting to bicker amongst themselves more and Ranma was
still alive.

Haruka pinched the bridge of her nose to alleviate the headache she could
feel developing.  Akane's sudden, though muffled, yell just made the
beginning headache worst.  She needed more information from Pluto but
Pluto had disappeared to parts unknown.  And she had left implicit
instructions that she and Micheru and Hataru were not to meet the Inner
Senshi.  Akane was the only exception as she worked like a spy for them,
telling them what happened at each meeting and helping to mislead the
Inner's investigations concerning the mysterious Senshi that showed up
from time to time to help them.

"All done."  Micheru said with a little bit of relief showing through.

Akane noisily exhaled before pulling her shirt back on.  She stretched
her arms up high to work out some of the kinks in her chest and back,
suddenly wincing when she felt a pain between two of her ribs. 
Apparently the muscle needed more time to rest.  She turned around to
look at all of her Outer friends.  "I want another chance!  If Ranma
hadnt interfered I would've succeeded!"

"Im afraid you wont get the chance for revenge, but I can offer you some
entertainment."

Haruka looked across the table to see Sailor Pluto in her customary
business suite's sitting down at the table as if she'd always been there.
 For a moment Haruka felt angry with herself for not hearing her come in.
 But of course she never did quite see Pluto come or go.  Instead of
focusing on that fact she tried something else.  "Entertainment?"

Pluto smiled at her but the smile didnt quite reach her eyes.  Then the
Outer Senshi disappeared from the room.

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

Several miles away from Pheonix mountain two J-8 II fighters flew around
the mountainous region.  Their normal armaments having been replaced by
special sensor pods under the wings where missiles or air to ground
armaments would have been.  In the back seats of both fighters the
copilots hunched over their displays to ferret out details and highlight
it for the experts who would see it later on, making special note of
which areas appeared to be inhabited by their IR signatures.  As well as
the rough outlings of the hollow interior gained by a combination of
radar and sonar pulses sent through the rock.  The copilots of those jets
leaned over their green/black display and tried without success to
resolve 50% of the interior that only showed up as a indistinct blob with
very few definite highlights.  Each one knew that the success of
tommorrows operation depended on their work and the work of the experts
at Beijing, and that if any insights gained by them proved particularly
valuable then they would receive a share of whatever war spoils were to
be found in the mountain.  

They also knew that if tommorrows plan failed then heads would roll. 
Most likely their own

The relatively calm air currents in the region allowed both fighters to
complete several wide circles of the inhabited mountain with plenty of
fuel to spare.  The small fact that they hadnt been attacked by any of
the warriors of Pheonix mountain was in itself a minor miracle.  When
they recieved the code word to return to base each pilot silently thanked
whatever god's or goddess's they could think of.

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

Ch 6

Disclaimer:  Same as above except I can promise you that the Ranma in
this fanfic will never wear a Sailor Fuku!  Because if he did then I
might as well make this a twisted anime version of The Rocky Horror
Picture show using various anime characters.  And I dont think anybody
(especially me!) is ready for that:)

Alia watched them from her quantum prison.  The Senshi were beginning to
fracture at the seems from the stress of killing Ranma.  Some of them
could probably feel how *wrong* their timeline was and instinctively felt
the need to correct it without knowing how or when to start. 
Unfortunately Pluto's plan made no allowances for such corrections to the
past, as it was there could be no trips to the foreseeable past for any
of the Senshi with the amount of power that Pluto put into stabilizing
their timeline.  Surprising really, she would have thought that Pluto was
one of those people who could be very patient for exceedingly long
periods of time that would allow them to carry out plans that took
decades if not millennia to complete, maybe this was a new trend
developing within her mind that made her impatient for the older days and
the stability of those times.  Alia looked again to the future of Crystal
Tokyo and saw that the gleaming city of crystal no longer
seemed....whole...was that right?  She looked closer to see that distinct
portions of the city were phasing in and out of existence in some pattern
that she couldnt quite see at this time.  In fact, it almost looked like
someone was destroying those buildings in the past while another person
remade them.  

The buildings within the effected areas changed from the modern
structures built of crystal to the same buildings but made out of more
simpler materials.  Slowing down the image before her she could see small
ripples starting from the center of the phased areas.  Everything they
touched changed, either becoming more modern in construction and design
or very primitive.

Her eyes widened when the effected area started to spread and flow about
the rest of the city, though never quite reaching the center tower where
the royal family lived.  She sped up the image to see the effected areas
moving more quickly over the entire city of Crystal Tokyo while at the
same time a shimmering around the edges of the phasing eddies seemed to
be pushing it back or stopping it before it could get to the center.

For a moment Alia felt worry gnaw at the pit of her stomach.  This looked
like a temporal war, but those never worked, the participants......

The portal showing Crystal Tokyo shattered into a thousand pieces. 
Reflexively she jumped away from the falling shards of muon particle
sets.  

She smiled when she saw that Pluto's ideal future was now destroyed.

Alia turned her perception matrix away from the shattered and twisted
temporal portal to the present.  Before doing so she looked back at the
shattered portal with a questioning glance.  

Or was it?

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

Kima walked through the crowded passages, only her status kept her from
being jostled about as everyone tried to impatiently move from their
homes on the higher levels to the shelters deep below the mountain where
most of the art and artifacts they had acquired were kept.  Kima walked
slower then she wanted to, looking at the people she passed and seeing
the fear in their eyes.  She understood that fear all too well.  For
thousands of years her people had lived inside the mountain, their
military might enough to turn away all who had tried to destroy them and
their home.  And now they were being forced to seek refuge for the first
time in their lives because of threats they either hadnt heard of through
rumor or chose not to believe.  She knew that all too well and had wished
several times to wake up and discover this horrible nightmare had only
been a dream.

She walked through the crowd, the people before her saw her approach and
made space so as not to impede her.  The smell's, the faces, everything
too real to be anything but reality.  And yet with a heavy heart she
could do nothing to alleviate these people's fear, all she could do was
help the guards keep the lines orderly and make sure the people didnt
jostle each other too much.

When Kima reached the end of the passage she could see the hold up. 
Apparently some of the higher nobles had chosen to have their personal
possessions moved with them and the moving of said possessions required
so much manpower and space that no one else from the levels below could
get through.  She looked through the descending workers and furniture,
seeking the person(s) responsible.  One of the workers fumbled with a
small carpet, nearly dropping it but just managing to catch it.  Overhead
Kima heard some man, she assumed to be a high noble, screaming for the
worker to be careful.

With a flap of her wings she was upon him, noting who it was she tried to
hide her expression of hatred from his eyes.  Kro, one of the most
irritating high nobles she had the misfortune to meet.  The last time
they had met it was at a party to celebrate Saffrons rebirth, only the
spirit and customs of the event prevented her from gauging the high
nobles face off when he tried to tell her her 'proper' place.  Since then
he had sobered up and had not tried any more advances on her lest she
challenge him to a duel.  

She slapped him across the face as hard as she could to get his attention
away from the workers who were moving several of his chests.  Everyone of
the workers stopped in disbelief, looking to Kima and the high noble
cheek that was rabidly bruising from the slap.

Kima turned on the workers while noble Kro went through his little period
of shock.  "All of you take that junk up to Kro's room.  From now on I
dont want to see any of you workers moving junk like that while there are
still people to get to the shelters."  She looked at all of them as they
just stared at her.  
"MOVE IT!!"

The workers hurried to comply with her orders, the guards that had been
helping to hold the people at bay flew up to assist them.  Kima took a
moment of satisfaction from the orderly evacuation of the higher levels
before turning back to one of her problems currently laying on the floor
before her.  Kro, one of the many nobles of Pheonix mountain who had
inherited his title and wealth from the deeds of his ancestors.  For
years he and the people he had associated with had tried to bring back
the 'Glorious Pheonix Empire' of old and to that end they had caused
quite a bit of trouble with the Musk and Amazons to start a war.  Their
own greed for power and prestige blinding them to the horrible
consequences that war with any or all of those nearby would have, all
they saw was the opportunity to assert their own malformed ideas of how
everything should be.

The expression he had on his face while he wiped at the spot of blood
coming from the corner of his lips almost made her laugh out loud. 
Instead she held it in and looked at him as if he were the lowest form of
life on the planet.  And at this moment when people's lives were at stake
and he wasted their precious time moving furniture from his room to the
shelters gave her a good enough reason to break a few of the bones in his
body.  As long as she left his wings intact, that is.  He almost looked
like he was going to attack her with the way he continued to glare at
her.  But he wouldn't, most likely he would tell his friends what
happened at this moment but make himself look like the victim.

"How DARE you!  Have you any idea how long those works of art have been
in my family line?  Their irreplaceable!"

>From the corner of her eye Kima could see several guards fly a bit closer
to her position.  Beyond them the regular traffic of people evacuating
their homes resumed at a more rapid pace.

"I dont care if those works of art belong to Saffron himself.  Only
people are to be evacuated to the shelters in a time of emergency.  Your
possessions can 'burn' for all I care."  Kima smiled when Kro got up off
the stone floor, his face flushed as his hands clenched and unclenched
into fists.

"You...!"  Kro shut his mouth, unable to come up with a proper response
to the insult Kima had just delivered to him.  Instead he settled for
glaring at her with every ounce of hatred he had ever felt for the dammed
woman.  Time and again she had resisted his offers of political alliance,
and more.  Acting as if he were some sort of barbarian landwalker.  How
she had ever become a warrior eluded him and the rest of his allie's. 
And now this!  She was purposely countermanding his authority in front of
everyone for the sake of time.  What did she think would happen?  For
centuries their people lived in this mountain, resisting numerous
attempts throughout history to crush their home.  He knew that nothing
bad would happen, and to show his viewpoint he ordered several workers to
take down some of his possessions to the shelters so that he might enjoy
a few creature comforts while waiting for the all clear.  Was that too
much to ask?  He stared at Kima for a few seconds before forcing his
hands to his side, walking past her to fly down to his assigned shelter.

Kima turned around to watch Kro fly down with the rest of the people,
some of whom were giving him dirty looks as he flew alongside or past
them.  Kima took a deep breathe to calm her nervous heart, she had been
aching for a fight but knew that Kro liked the indirect method when it
come to vengeance of any sort.  She looked up and smiled at the guards
who had also been watching Kro descend to the lower levels.  "Thanks."

They bowed in unison to her before flying off to help other people move
to the shelters.  Kima looked after them for a moment to make sure that
she wouldn't be needed before spreading her wings and flying down to the
middle of the mountain.  She entered one of the corridors that had the
emblem of a scroll sculpted onto the arch.  Down the corridor she could
see several people in thin dark cloaks carefully loading books into large
trunk-like cases.  She swore softly when she saw how few people were
helping them save the collected knowledge of their people.

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

The mountains had proved a great obstacle for the three divisions of
Chinese armor and their escorts of APC's, fuel tankers and mobile
Howitzer platforms.  

The way the mountains and terrain had formed around Pheonix Mountain left
few routes to the main gate.  Or rather few routes that didnt involve
transport via cargo plane or heavy lift helicopter, they'd tried that
before.  And lost.  During those few attacks the transport helicopters
had been taken out by spears in the rotor shafts before they could
discharge their load of death.

The soldiers in the APC's shifted uneasily against their restraints. 
Some of them had heard the orders to attack Pheonix Mountain, that info
had been spread to all the other soldiers through their version of the
grapevine.  Some of them didnt care what their target was but most of the
others had heard of the mysterious mountain.  Some of the legends told of
a birdman with the powers of a god that could easily decimate a mountain,
others were mere rumor that involved the mountain and how it wasnt
natural but built thousands of years ago.  Still other stories told how
the soldiers that had tried attacking the mountain before them had been
taken prisonor and used as slaves.

The speed of light had nothing on the rapid interchange of gossip and
rumor and myth that had left even the staunchest soldiers looking for an
easy way out that didnt involve getting killed.

When the column of armor stopped they waited in silence, hoping that
their commanders would order them to pull back at the last instant. 
Instead they were ordered to get ready for a siege scenario.  Apparently
the officers in charge had sent a ultimatum to the Pheonix People
demanding their surrender to the rightful political codes.  The soldiers
looked at one another and shook their heads, guessing the story was false
but afraid to speak out for fear of being overheard by bugs or political
spies.

They were given one hour to make final checks on their weapons while
their superiors debated on the best method to attack.  Near the back of
the column the army engineers were making final checks on the large
drilling machines as several cranes stood ready to deploy them and or
lift them for more detailed maintenance checks.  When that was done and
there was nothing more to say they sat there on the hard metal benches
and toyed with their night vision gear.

Around them the Howitzer's began to move past the carriers to the front
sides of the formation.

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

Benar sighed for what must have been the twentieth time in two hours. 
Two hours ago he'd been woken up along with everyone else on his living
level and told to start moving down into the shelters.  Instead of going
with everyone else he went down to the library to start moving all of the
books.  To that effect he'd collected as many of the apprentices and
Elder Keepers to organize the materials for moving along with workers to
actually move the texts and scrolls to a secure location.  Normally he
wouldn't even consider taking such actions but with the way the warriors
kept hurrying everyone along made him very uneasy.

"This one, and this one, and.....this one."  Benar pointed to several
shelves of thick books that the workers and the younger trainees
immediately starting hauling to the storage cases outside.  In the
distance one could hear an argument from several of the Keepers as they
debated over the contents of one bookcase, one of them could be heard
saying that they should search further while another one was strongly
against it and the third sounded confused.

Kima walked past the ornate stone doorway decorated with a bass relief of
a scroll and book into the center of a whirlwind.  All around her there
was shouting, arguing, moving piles of books, and more shouting creating
a deafening roar that nearly drove her out of the large room.  The only
thing that stopped her was the head Keeper of the library that
immediately waved her over as he was still talking to a worker.  As she
got closer however she noticed that he wasnt so much talking to the
seemingly small worker as yelling at him as the voices from the rest of
the vast chamber faded into a general background murmur in the face of
Benar's verbal lashing.

"HOW ARE WE GOING TO MOVE ALL OF THESE BOOKS WITHOUT THE LARGE TRANSPORT
CARRIERS?  IT TOOK US TWO HOURS TO EMPTY THREE CASES WITH JUST THE SMALL
CARRIERS!  SPEAK UP!"

Kima looked from Benar's flushed face to the cringing Worker and felt
some pity for the poor man.  Unfortunately with Benar if you showed
yourself to have a weak spine he'd immediately attack you.  Fortunately
with his advanced age he didnt physically attack people anymore. 
Hopefully the worker wouldn't cower.

"I-I-I-Im sorry b-but the large carriers a-a-are unsafe to u-use....."

Kima walked between the two men before Benar could tear into the
terrified worker.  "Now Keeper Benar, Im sure that this young worker is
doing everything he can to help.  Right?"  She turned to the worker and
winked at him, hoping he would get the message.

The young worker blinked several times before comprehension dawned on his
face.  "Y-y-yes.  S-since the large carriers haven't been maintained in
some time were converting several of the larger mining carts for
transport."

Kima  narrowed her eyes and looked to the exit, the worker got the
message and hastily left before Benar could explode.  

"MINING CARTS!?  THERE GOING TO TRANSPORT THE WHOLE OF THE PHEONIX
PEOPLES KNOWLEDGE IN DIRTY MINING CARTS!?!  THE IMPUDENCE!  WHEN I GET MY
HANDS ON THAT...THAT...!"

Kima took his arm like she had done so many times before to cool him down
when his temper got the best of him.  Otherwise he would rant and rave
for hours on end until either she or some other woman happened to grab
his arm or shoulder to distract him.

Benar looked down to Kim and shrugged her arm off before turning around
to hide his blush by pretending to examine some random book.  Kima just
smiled slightly at his back.

"Weren't you being a bit rough with that worker?  He was only doing his
job to the best of his abilities."

Benar growled slightly.  The sound was lost to the shouting from various
corners of the room but the way his shoulders tensed up and the way his
winged began to twitch from side to side told Kima to wait.

"If he was doing his job the large carriers for these books would have
been well maintained.  But INSTEAD, they let the repair schedule fall
into disarray.  Like everything else around here."  He took several books
and passed them to a apprentice wondering by before turning back to Kima
with a sorrowful look.  "The rumors are true, aren't they?  This
emergency drill is all fake and the Red army is really going to attack."

Kima looked around, the general din of conversation and shouting had died
down somewhat but not enough to eavesdrop on someone without resorting to
lipreading.  Seeing no one watching them she turned Benar so that they
were both facing away from anybody watching.  The last thing she wanted
to do was cause a panic.  "Yes.  Prince Herb has informed us that the Red
army has started to move their heavy infantry and tanks into the general
area.  We dont know when, or even if, they are going to attack but given
Ranma's arrival and the assassination attempt on Saffron this seems too
much of a coincidence to ignore."

Beran closed his eyes, for a moment Kima thought he would faint but then
his eyes opened and immediately fixed on her.  "What will we do should
they get past the main gate?"

"There are several old tunnels that run near the Musk Citidel.  Well use
those to get everyone to the Citidel.  But Benar, there aren't enough
workers to move all of these books.."

"Lady Kima!"

Kima steeled herself.  This was the first time he had ever used 'Lady'
with her name.  She could understand him not wanting to abandon most of
their peoples knowledge but in times like this there are priorities. 
"NO.  First we save the people and get them to safety.  Then the books
and scrolls."

"B-b-but Kima!"  He briefly looked around as if expecting someone to
notice them talking before continuing.  "All this knowledge.  It would
take centuries to replace all of it."

"I wish there was something I could do, but your knowledge can be
replaced easier then the lives of everyone living in this mountain.  Ten
more cases and thats it, choose whatever we can use and is harder to
replace."  She walked away from Benar to stop him from arguing with her. 
She hated what she had done to her friend.  Later, when she got the
chance, she would apologies to him.  

>From behind her she could hear him yelling at everyone to stop.  

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

Everywhere around him people were running or walking from place to place
as they raced to prepare whatever had to be done before the Chinese Red
Army attacked them.  Most were leading people to the underground
shelters, though others were helping carry large crates of foodstuffs
from the upstairs kitchens to stock the kitchens in the emergency
shelters below that hadnt been restocked in nearly a century and a half. 
Beside him Koran and several of the guards were watching the lines of
people to make sure that no one lost their place in line or got separated
from their families.  Most of them were also stealing glances at him from
time to time as they talked amongst themselves.  He'd seen people talk
like that at school as they spread rumors about his 'love' life or about
how cruel he was when he wasnt being watched by one of his fiance's. 
These soldiers were probably doing something similar, maybe trying to
figure out why he was here or when they should attack him.  The best
thing to do in such situations as he'd learned was to keep his mouth shut
and ignore those people while eating his lunch.  Or in this case watching
the crowds move forward into the complex system of tunnels down and
outward from the mountain.

Above the clamor of voices he could hear frightened children asking their
mothers or fathers what was happening and the hurried and ill practiced
lies that they used to make their offspring feel better.  He grimaced, he
knew what they were telling there children was a lie but most of the
people going into the shelters didnt know.  One of the lines at the
opposite end of the tunnel had stopped to allow several workers carrying
a small generator to get through before the line was allowed to move
again.  Again the voices but this time they were the questions of adults
as they tried to ferret out some tidbit of information that would make
them feel more in control of their lives.  But as the questions persisted
and were directed at the soldiers they became a bit more frantic,
somewhat pleading in tone, as they strained to keep their voices level so
as not to worry their or anyone else's children.  

He stared at those moving lines for minutes.  At some point he began to
notice that he wasnt feeling anything.  No shame, hatred, anger, blood
lust, shock, disorientation, nothing.  No, that wasnt true.  He was
feeling something, something he hadnt felt in a long time.  Emptiness. 
With all of his fiance's and enemies now working with the Senshi he was
essentially alone.  Even if he managed to make freinds with some of the
people in this mountain he would always feel like an outsider.  Where as
in Nerima he had been almost...normal, compared to everyone else there. 
Now for what was really the first time in his life he was alone.  From
now on he would have to plan for whatever moves Pluto made in the future.
 His face twisted into a grimace.  With the Nan-ban mirror gone he lost
his ability to see into the future.  The future he'd originally seen
didnt have the Chinese Red army attacking Pheonix mountain at this time,
or Prince Herb's meeting with him and Saffron.  But the anger didnt fade.
 Surprisingly he felt it blossom and grow as if it had become aware of
its predicament and wanted to lash out at anything potentially dangerous.
 Without focus the anger made him recall memories and each memory made
the anger stronger then before.  All he could do was watch.

Koran walked up to Ranma's side.  But if Ranma did notice him then he was
ignoring him.  Curious, he waved a hand in front of Ranma's eyes which
elicited no response.  Looking at his face Koran could see several
expressions form and fade to be replaced by others.  Some of the
expressions he recognized as hate, sorrow, but the others seemed to be a
blend of emotions he couldnt quite identify but got the overall idea that
whatever he was thinking about didnt feel too good.  Odd.  The man before
him had defeated Saffron, and here before this old Healer he was slowly
falling into shock.  Deciding to stop this while he could he applied a
pressure point technique to Ranma's shoulder.

When Ranma felt someone tapping his shoulder he turned to see Koran with
a worried expression on his face.    It took him a few seconds to
consciously see the old man and refrain from smashing his face in. 
Shaking his head slightly Ranma noticed that most of the people had gone
except for several groups of workers that were taking several barrels
down the tunnel entrance and the soldiers that had stood beside Koran
were now gone.  He turned back to the old man.  "What?"

"You've been here for four hours strait, Ranma.  When I got here you
appeared to have gone into a trance.  Is anything wrong?"

Four hours!?  Where were the Chinese Army?  He tried to keep the shock
from his face while inwardly he seethed at how much time he had wasted
just staring off into space for no damm reason at all.  Now wide awake he
looked all around him to get some sense of what was now happening before
he answered Koran in what he hoped was a level voice.  "N-no.  Just
thinking.  Whats happening so far?"

Koran began to lead Ranma up the passageway away from the shelters.  "Its
been four hours after sunset with no word from our scouts.  Some of the
soldiers think the Red army is just conducting exercises in the area. 
But we know differently, dont we?  At this moment half of the soldiers
are awake manning the gates, the other half is sleeping.  For the moment
all we can do it wait."

Ranma started to answer Koran when the mountain began to shake.  The last
thing he saw before losing conscience was the floor rushing up to him.

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

End Ch 6.

And heres the $200 (Monopoly money) question:  Who wants to see armed
conflict, lots of explosions, and confusing stuff happen in the next
chapter?  (As if this wasnt confusing enough!)

Of course if I were a very sadistic person I might have Ranma wake up and
everything else turn out to be just a dream.

C+C, Q+C, $ , or maybe a random thought or two? Ive heard some very
interesting ones that I am adding to chapter 7 right now, and a few
others that have given me a few ideas:)

Below is a list of sites that host my stories and others.

This is Tannims page where my second fanfic Ranma of BORG is being
hosted.  I really got to get back to writing ch4!

http://tannim.anifics.com/

This is Phu's site, he was the first person to ask to host Infinity's
Shore, and I am grateful...otherwise this story would still only be in
the Ranma fanfic forum.  There are two more stories posted here: 'The
Casket of Nanichuan' and 'Lives Unvieled chapter 1'.  That reminds me,
gotta finish ch2!

http://members.nbci.com/phu_lam/

This is The Lost One's website which also hosts Infinity's Shore and
Ranma of BORG.  

http://ranmaxovers.tripod.com/

All of these sites are excellent places to find fanfics, especially of
the crossover kind (^_^), so if you find anything there you like please
be kind enough to thank these people for going through all that trouble
to keep their sites updated, okay?
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