FanFiction.Net - unleash your imagination
| FanFiction.Net - unleash your imagination |
|
| Home Just In Communities Forums Beta Readers Dictionary Search | Login Register Extras |
Ice Squared
by Lerris
Smith
Nabiki turned and fumbled for wherever the light switch was and then reached for her communicator in its subspace pocket. Ranma, awakened by the panic he could feel in Nabiki's ki, turned only to see that same panic etched on the normally cool girl's face.
“...is going on?” asked Makoto's voice.
“You can sense it as well as I. The Gates of Time are in danger and whoever it is must be stopped.” said Nabiki's new voice.
“Who are you?” asked Minako.
“I'm Ami. Look, there is no time and I'm too far away to be of any help anyway. The rest of you should go meet at the shrine and then teleport to help Sailor Pluto.”
“Why should we listen to you? I don't recognize your voice,” said Haruka.
“Because you know Sailor Pluto is in danger, or are you going to waste time arguing until your friend is killed and the Gates of Time are the plaything of some aliens? Now go dang it!” said an obviously irritated Nabiki.
“It's Ami.” Usagi paused as if considering her next words. Her tone once again held the rarely used seriousness of the Moon princess in command. “We will figure out the rest later. For now everyone meet at the temple. We have to save Pluto.”
Nabiki and the others quickly transformed into their Sailor forms and the others roof hopped to the temple in Juban. Meanwhile, Sailor Mercury turned to Ranma who's eyes still seemed a bit glazed from watching her transformation. Yes that was very satisfactory, thought Mercury. A small smirk appeared on her face that just as quickly left.
“Sailor Pluto is in danger and perhaps the Gates of Time themselves. I'm too far away from Juban to teleport with the others, and doing it by myself would leave me helpless for far too long.”
“Can I help?” Ranma asked, shrugging off the last of his sleepiness.
“Maybe. How recovered are you from all you did yesterday?”
“Completely. All I needed was some sleep and food.”
Sailor Mercury nodded. Ranma seemed a bit too certain with her answers, but then she had few other options. She touched a spot on her communicator. The others would be in the middle of running now, but their communicators should still be open. Mercury noted with approval that Ranma had somehow gotten fully dressed and had her staff out. “My red haired friend and I will be teleporting by ourselves. I look a bit different so please don't blast us by mistake.” The last was said with a mixture of sarcasm and pleading.
“Are you crazy? You're lucky if you don't end up in a coma teleporting by yourself and why the heck would you bring someone? What the heck could they do?” demanded the slightly out of breath Sailor Mars.
“You'd be surprised what Ranma can do, and as for myself I intend to hide and rest or possibly get Pluto to send me back. Now, if you want to help, hurry up and get there!” Sailor Mercury flipped the communicator off.
“Are you sure about this?” asked Ranma cautiously. The unvoiced question about not being blasted hung in the air as well.
“I wish Pluto would have stopped to pick us up first, but now that she is there she will not return until the crisis is over. If the Time Gates are lost, then the Earth may follow. Even our deaths would be a tiny price to prevent that. When we arrive, try to get me to Sailor Pluto. I'll probably be unconscious, but hopefully she will be able to portal me back to Earth to allow me time to recover. After that, trust Sailor Pluto if you must, and trust Sailor Moon always.”
“Okay.” Ranma seemed dubious but walked a few steps closer to Sailor Mercury with her staff held in one hand.
“Grab your pack," Nabiki ordered, "We won't be coming back here.”
“But I thought...”
“No. That much non living material will not make much of any difference. Even you will not make it that much harder and there would be no point in going by myself. Now, lets go!”
Ranma quickly picked up her pack and then suddenly found himself crushed into Nabiki as she seemed to be trying to squeeze the life out of her. “Remember, trust Sailor Moon and the inner scouts.” She paused for just the barest moment as a cool blue light enveloped them and with the quiet words, “Sailor Teleport,” they were gone.
“Hello Ranma. We have a little time left it seems.” Setsuna's voice was resigned and yet accepting. Setsuna got up and helped Ranma lay her down gently on a nearby leather couch.
“Shouldn't you return her to the dojo to recover or something?”
“I could, but the situation is not quite as urgent as I feared. We have a few hours left before they arrive. This place is near the Gates of Time and the Gates recognize her as they do you as a friend. She will recover her energy in time here. You can check if you wish.”
Ranma-chan nodded and once again laid one hand on her head and the other on the flat of her stomach over her clothing. Her hands glowed briefly for a moment and then Ranma nodded to herself. “I could see it, even without touching her. The energy of this place is flowing into her. Heck, a little of it is flowing in to me.”
“As I said, the Gate recognizes friends.”
Suddenly the others appeared in the center of the room. Endymion holding hands with Sailor Moon, who held hands with Sailor Venus, and the others.
Seeing as Ranma was the only one in the room they didn't recognize, they immediately turned to her. “Who are you? Where is Sailor Mercury? What have you done with her?” asked a suspicious Mars.
“On the couch.” said Pluto with obvious sarcasm.
They all rushed over, immediately dismissing Ranma-chan as irrelevant, well except for some rather appraising fiancee level smiles from Uranus and Neptune. That alone made her shiver. Those smiles always brought pain, usually as the result of one of the other fiancees assuming the worst, but wasn't it supposed to be of his guy form? Ranma tried to blend into the background, while trying to keep an eye on Nabiki. Experience had taught her that it paid to be unnoticed among so many women.
Sailor Moon kept the others from crowding Nabiki too much. “What is wrong with her and what happened to her?”
Sailor Pluto chuckled. “Everyone always expects easy answers, but as to what is wrong with her, I should think that is obvious. Mars already commented on it in fact.”
“Then the teleport drained her?” asked Jupiter.
“Of course, solo teleports will do that, but as I was telling Ranma, she will be okay in time and we have a few hours before the battle will begin.”
“Then what about how she looks?” asked a somewhat jealous Venus. “I think she is even a little taller than before.”
Sailor Pluto said, “I hadn't noticed.” She gestured as if dismissing a small detail before continuing. “At any rate, the plan is a simple one. The portal at the end of the room will send you to Castle Charon, which will be their target, since it is designed to appear to be the home of the Gates of Time. I suggest leaving within the hour to scout around. All you need to do is insure all of them are inside the castle and teleport back to Earth.”
“Then what happens?” asked Sailor Moon.
“The power source in the basement goes critical and annihilates the castle and much of the surrounding countryside.”
“Isn't that a bit extreme?” queried a concerned Neptune.
“I have looked. This is the only path to which all of us have a chance to stay alive. It is just a building after all, even if I have lived there for a few thousand years.” She pulled a small blue pen like object with a star on top from out of nowhere and tossed it to Ranma-chan who reflexively caught it. “It is really just the costume and a disguise field, yet you should use it so no one recognizes you. Now, I have some things I must do.” Before anyone could say anything more to her, she stepped into a just created portal and was gone.
Just as Pluto was leaving, the object grew warm in Ranma-chan's hands and she was engulfed in an aura of blue fire. Ranma's clothing shifted and writhed around her. Her red hair was freed from its pigtail and flowed loosely behind her. Her ubiquitous blue pants were replaced with a dark blue short miniskirt with thigh high white boots. Unlike most of the sailors footwear hers seemed to lack the traditional high heals the others wore. A light pink, almost white short sleeved top formed over her chest with a red bow on the back. White full length gloves came up to her elbow replacing her bracers. A golden tiara with a blue gem formed on her head. Pink lipstick formed on her lips and her eyes shifted to a piercing green color. The red staff that she had left by her pack came to her right hand and took on a pink coloration.
“Ack," she swore, gaping. "And I thought Jusenkyo was bad, at least nothing was pink!” Sailor Uranus nodded, as if in agreement to the distaste of the color pink before Ranma continued with, “The old pervert would probably promote me to Master just to see me in this...” Her sentence trailed off as she tried to think of what to call her new outfit.
“sailor suited costume for the defenders of love and justice!” exclaimed Sailor Moon helpfully which led to an immediate face fault by Ranma.
The burst of energy must have been enough to wake Nabiki, because her eyes opened and she starred at Ranma-chan's transformation before sitting up. “Lovely,” she teased, causing Ranma to grimace, albeit cutely, “So Ranma gets to join the gang huh?” Nabiki yawned and pulled the Mercury computer out.
Neptune's predatory smile combined with Uranus's obvious leer combined to make the newest member of the short skirted team very nervous. Sailor Moon looked at Ami's friend with warmth and approval, while occasionally glancing at Endymion suspiciously. Most of the others just sort of shrugged although Venus did look on with a touch of jealousy.
Sailor Moon broke the odd tension that had formed by warmly embracing the newest pseudo-Senshi. “So what do we call you now?” asked the Senshi of the Moon.
Nabiki fought off another yawn as she tapped a few more buttons before a small grin appeared. Some of the others began to carefully watch the changed Ami. Nabiki continued, “It seems Pluto still has a dry sense of humor. The costume is the template for Sailor Pandora," she explained. “Pandora is a minor moon of Saturn and of course there is the legend of Pandora's box in which the gods locked every manner of misfortune.” Ranma's face fell and a soft “Figures” could be heard from the blue skirted Senshi. Nabiki continued in a brighter tone, “Fortunately for us they also placed hope in that box.” This caused a brief almost smile from Ranma and a look of curious puzzlement from most of the others.
She paused for a second while she tapped a few more keys before offering a wry smile and continuing, “Pluto was right. It doesn't seem to do a thing for Ranma other than the other disguise field and the costume.”
“What do you mean? It turned me into a freaking magical girl!” Ranma demanded, tugging at the short hem.
Nabiki smiled and glanced at the others before starting a mental countdown. A sudden thought that she shouldn't of mentioned having heard Pluto flashed through her mind before she dismissed it as irrelevant. With what was coming, nobody was going to remember. Still, they didn't need to know about the Mercury computer's passive recording functions.
Nabiki managed to count to four before it began. “What's wrong with being a magical girl?” The scream of outrage came from Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Some of the others contented themselves with annoyed glares.
Ranma held up her hands in a placating gesture. “Nothing. Nothing at all.” Sweating, and more than a little worried, she glanced at Nabiki, who seemed to be humming faintly and showing every evidence of enjoying the show. Ranma-chan or rather Sailor Pandora sighed in resignation. Some days it just did not pay to get out of bed.
Seeing the poor distraught, yet delectable redhead, Sailor Uranus walked over and put her arm around her. “There, there. That's alright,” she offered, pulling the shorter girl in for a very close hug. Uranus then placed a wandering hand a little low on Ranma's backside.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Ranma cried, while twisting out of the blond haired Senshi's arms.
Sailor Neptune looked on in flat disapproval, to which Uranus shrugged and said, “I was going to share.”
“Papa!” Hotaru scolded, blushing.
"Yeah! What she said!" agreed Ranma, halfway between outrage and embarrassement.
Nabiki's laughter was the pebble that started the avalanche, as they all laughed at the blushing red head. A random thought occured to Nabiki that Ranma was at least delaying the enevitable talk about her changes. She dismissed such thoughts from her mind and spoke with a serious tone, “If what Pluto says is right, and I have confirmed that there is a ship on its way to Pluto, we had better get going.”
She stood and walked to the centre of the group. “I don't know how much any of you remember about Castle Charon from your past lives, but I remember very little, and of course Sailor Pandora has never seen the place.”
“It still seems odd that Pluto was quite so informative.” opined Neptune.
“Yes it was, wasn't it?” All eyes turned to Sailor Moon as she spoke those words.
“So what will we do?” asked Saturn.
“Let's go see Pluto's home.”
“What about her though? Ami said that she has no powers,” asked Mars while gesturing at Pandora. Sailor Moon turned to regard the newest 'Senshi' with everyone else soon following her example, although of course Neptune and Uranus had been 'keeping an eye' on her from the beginning.
“Hey, I can take care of myself!" she replied, “and I don't need no stinking magic powers to do it!”
Nabiki sighed. “While poorly phrased, Ranma can take excellent care of herself,” she insisted. “A few months back she took on and killed a demi-god to save my little sister.”
“You've got to be kidding!” yelled Makoto.
“No, I'm not,” replied Nabiki seriously. "I wasn't there, but I checked with everyone that was.”
Sailor Moon asked, “Um, what do you mean little sister? You don't have a sister.”
“Um, I'll explain that later. For now, we had better go,” Nabiki evaded. Then she suited words to actions and stepped through the portal at the end of the room.
“Since when has she been taking lessons from Pluto?” asked Mars grumpily.
“Nabiki has always been like that,” Ranma explained in an unsurprised tone.
“Nabiki?” asked Sailor Moon.
“Um, I'd better go follow her.” Sailor Pandora picked up her pack and ran through the portal, deciding on discretion.
“Let's go guys.” Sailor Moon started for the portal but then stopped and added one parting comment in a fond, yet strongly possessive tone, “But remember, when the time comes, Ami's interrogation is mine.”
Just as all but the outer scouts had gone through the portal, Sailor Pluto reappeared and motioned for Uranus and Neptune to stay behind for a moment. They stopped and turned back to Pluto.
“Watch over the princess," she warned. "Make sure she gets home safely. I will not be able to help you for some time after today.”
“You're going to do that then?” asked Michiru softly.
“They know about this place and I wish I knew how. Even defeating this group, will not end the threat. I will seal this place while you get rid of this bunch. Don't forget to remind Mercury about their ship. It may prove useful in the future.”
“They are going to leave it unattended?”
Setsuna just smiled but declined to answer.
“Okay, then what is up with this Ranma and Ami?”
“You should go now. If you can, watch over Ranma a bit too. He has a good soul, but doesn't believe in taking lives," she explained, "which might cause a problem from time to time. You should go now.” With that Sailor Pluto waved her time staff and disappeared once more.
“Did she just say he?” asked the Senshi of Uranus, not missing that point in the seriousness of the moment.
“Yes, but there is no way...”
“I should hope not.”
“I thought you didn't know this place that well?”
Mercury's visor dropped in place. “Did I mention the job came with neat toys?”
“You're just avoiding explaining to the others..” Ranma accused.
Mercury smiled and with a teasing voice said, “Actually, it is all part of my secret plot to spend more time with you to seduce you away from Akane.”
“Hey! I know I'm irresistible, but...”
“You're just too easy Pandora. Come on lover-girl, or I'll leave you around for Uranus's and Neptune's tender mercies. They seemed to be quite interested in you before. Who knows, after a week or two you might even prefer that body.” She was now in full tease mode.
“Nabiki!” Ranma was blushing a storm.
Nabiki laughed. “Keep the names right Pandora," Nabiki scolded, "and come on!” She reached over and started to drag the red-faced red-head along after her.
“Whatever!" Ranma conceded, "just as long as we can get this over with so I can get out of this outfit and finally get some hot water!” As Pandora said the last Mercury proceeded to drag her along beside her, pack, staff, and all.
After a few minutes of touring the tower and seeing all the lush countryside outside Ranma asked, “So where are we anyway? I thought you said this was Pluto.”
“It is. Many thousands of years ago the Sailor Senshi and their Queen ruled benevolently over the nine planets and life and prosperity flourished. The mechanics of how life flourished varied from planet to planet, but the planet Pluto, at almost one thousand five hundred miles in diameter, was their ultimate masterpiece of mechanical and magical engineering.” Nabiki lectured.
“You've got to be kidding me! I mean, I've seen pictures of Pluto, its nothing but a hunk of rock in space.”
“Yes, it is, from the outside. Pluto you see is hollow," Nabiki told him with an almost triumphant air. “The outer shell itself is composed of super dense matter, that combined with the terraforming magic allowed people to walk around the inside in about half of normal earth gravity.”
“It feels normal to me.”
“In here it does, since the Castle gravity is artificially enhanced to allowed Sailor Pluto to live here without her muscles atrophying.” They went through a very old wooden door that led to outside. Ranma immediately proceeded to jump up in the air.
“Cool, I can jump allot higher,” she bounced.
“Actually, since the gravity here is about half Earth's and assuming you can manage to leave the ground at about twice the speed you can on Earth, you should be able to manage to jump about eight times higher here.”
Ranma-chan jumped way up in the air as the other Senshi joined them outside. “Come on guys. Pandora demonstrates an important point. None of us are used to fighting in less than normal gravity.” She turned to see Pandora coming down. “Hey Pandora, why don't you and Uranus spar for a bit? I'll spar with the others. We don't really have time to learn much of anything, but perhaps we can at least get use to the gravity.”
It took quite a while to get Uranus's attention. For some reason she seemed to find Pandora's chest distracting in the extreme as she jumped around.
“The actual battle with the aliens was, well odd, by Senshi standards. Always in the past the enemies had tested us first, and sent relatively stupid creatures after us, so that even our 'blast them till they quit moving' strategy was quite effective. Still, it was not as if I didn't know better. Logic stated that we were dang lucky in the past, and yet my experience with the chaos in Ranma's life, and the past battles as a Senshi always had me believing that things would always turn out right in the end. Then again, why I believed that, after having died before fighting alongside the others, is beyond me. Perhaps I was just infected by Usagi's unceasing positive attitude, although I suppose that not remembering the actual dying part helped, yet recent events should have taught me better.”
“They appeared to be human, or at least human shaped. No one could really tell, since they wore full armor, including some kind of face coverings. My scans with the Mercury computer and sensor visor revealed nothing. Whatever they wore had some kind of shielding against scanning. Of course, things changed when they started throwing rapid fire bursts of magic at us. That was easy to scan, but of little information beyond what the naked eye could see. The real question, to which I have no answer as of yet, was how they could manage attacks so fast? It was almost as fast as some of the pulse laser weapons some of them were using, although thankfully the total energy emitted in those attacks were within what the Senshi protection field could handle, well as long as you didn't get hit by more than about one within a few second period anyway.”
“All in all everyone avoided major damage except for Ranma and Minako. Ranma-chan lost an eye in a near miss, and Minako lost part of her right right hand. The first loss was to a laser hit, taken pushing Saturn aside. Ranma is always foolish like that. Most likely he had already noticed how effective the laser blasts were against the Senshi, but seeing a girl in danger seems to override his common sense. A very endearing quality that, but still something would have to be done to reduce Ranma's risk in the future.”
“Minako's loss came later when she failed to completely dodge one of their rapid fire bursts of destructive magic. Both injuries were impressive in their own ways. Ranma's was, since according to the Mercury computer's recording of the energy emitted, it should have taken off half of her head. Ranma's resistance to damage must be incredible for a normal human. It was a pity that the Mercury computer could not adequately explain the phenomenon, but one thing was sure, the Senshi needed to gain that ability, if they possibly could, since it would augment their Senshi protection against damage. The possibility also existed that with practice against lesser amounts of magic and laser energy that Ranma could improve his resistance to both. Ranma is annoying like that, doing the impossible, yet it certainly gives me plenty to do, just to figure out how he does it.”
“Ranma's healing abilities were exceptional, but neither she nor Minako could heal back so delicate of injuries unaided. Fortunately, Hotaru could and was most eager to do so, particularly after Ranma was injured saving her. It was truly amazing to see Ranma's face reforming before my eyes, yet all things have a price as Hotaru's unconsciousness afterward demonstrated.”
“Minako's healing was more complicated. Usagi had recovered enough after her use of the silver crystal to cast a Moon Healing Escalation' on her. I still do not understand why it failed to heal it completely, although I suspect the magic that injured her left a small taint behind that reduced the effectiveness of Usagi's spell, which is normally so effective, especially on Senshi.”
“In the end Usagi ended up using the Silver Crystal again, despite Minako asking her not to through tear filled eyes. I'm just glad Usagi used the spell first and that it was able to undo much of the damage before she used that leech again. Twice in one day was two times too many, especially for Usagi. Just thinking about how that crystal feeds on its host is enough to make me hope it is never used again, yet I doubt we will get that lucky.”
“The staffs that Ranma and I found turned out to be useful, although how Ranma managed to parry laser blasts I still haven't quite figured out. The staff just seemed to absorb the energy. I'll try to figure it out later. In my case the staff was nearly useless for one on one fighting. Relearning the art I so cavalierly dismissed six years ago is going to have to be a priority, somehow. So far, the only benefit I've found from my staff is it enhances my Shabon Spray Freezing attack by perhaps 50. It is amazing what desperate flailing will turn up when your backs against the wall.”
“The escape from Pluto did not go as planned. We were battered by the time we finally reached the central hall in Castle Charon. The Mercury computer had linked into the castle defense system and it seemed that they were all finally within the castle, but I couldn't be sure. Ranma and Minako had received their injuries by then too. Mamoru ended up carrying Ranma-chan, who was in shock from the pain and blood loss, while Minako had to be helped along by Makoto. Still, all save Setsuna were there, and she had not been seen since they arrived.”
“In the end, though it all seemed to be for nothing, for in fighting off their attackers they had used far too much power to ever hope to teleport back to Earth. Fortunately, Neptune remembered another alternative and we all ended up teleporting right inside the alien's ship. Once aboard, Haruka dispatched a loan alien with her sword. Afterward, I ended up dumping him out an airlock, although in hindsight that was probably a mistake. At the very least, I should have taken off his armour and scanned him first. I guess stress can make the brightest of us act rashly, but I don't have to like it. Still, it could have been worse. Who knows what an Earth Shaking would have done to the ship? It definitely wouldn't have been pretty.”
“Perhaps the greatest loss was represented by the still untalkative green haired woman, for you see she had succeeded and failed. She had succeeded in taking the entire planet out of time itself, which was another of those forbidden powers, but apparently, there were exceptions to those rules, like anything was fair game if the time gates themselves were threatened. In that she had succeeded, and it was a good thing, for the risk could not be taken that the power of the Time Gates would fall into alien hands. That kind of failure would likely be unrecoverable.”
“In fairness how she had failed really was not her fault, for you see, it would take the power of the Time Gates to restore Pluto back to the normal space-time continuum, and she was not there to do it like she had planned. At any rate, somehow Usagi had sensed that Setsuna was in danger, so she used the Silver Crystal to yank her from the Gates of Time before the planet fully shifted out of space-time. All in all it would have been simpler and better if Pluto just activated the self destruct system and annihilated the Gates, planet, and all. At least then, we wouldn't have almost gotten killed, but then Setsuna had never planned to sacrifice the Gates. She just meant to stand personal guard over them until the crises was over, whenever that might be. Still, it was hardly the first time plans were messed up when Usagi Tsukino got involved.”
“There was also the possibility that one or more of the aliens had lived, despite what the Mercury computer said. After all, if the aliens could block scanning technologies, then perhaps they could avoid them completely? There was no point in bringing up the possibility though. I don't think there is a way to enter Pluto from the outside, and if there is someone inside it is probably best they never figure out that the nice artificial sun in the middle of the hollowed out planet is really just an elaborate way to radiate the energy the Time Gates generate as a byproduct of their normal operation. Who knows, if we are really lucky, then perhaps they came to Pluto for another reason, and never really knew about the Gates. The magic signature of the planet is certainly impossible to hide, but most who knew what to look for would just see it as the effects of the terraforming, which it was, partly anyway. An entire false world constructed so that control of time itself was possible, even to that limited extent. The false sun in the middle and all the nice terraformed real estate made it look like the moon kingdom's greatest colonization project ever, and nobody ever moved in because those in charge would not risk anyone finding out its true purpose. In the end, the debate raged for years, until one day the moon kingdom fell, and all the debaters died. It still seems a great loss to me, but it is done and we have one more warrior to fight in the battle ahead for it. I would have made Pluto's choice.”
“So here we are flying a stolen space ship back to Earth. Ranma, Minako, Usagi, and Hotaru are sleeping, probably from the energy drain from healing and such. We are a few days away yet, but those days may be needed for the others to fully recover, and this ship is too big a prize to let go. At least I managed to grab Ranma's pack before we teleported. Knowing Ranma, It should contain enough food in it for a couple of small meals, even for a group as big as us. Given the unique color of the alien food rations I found, I suspect everyone will appreciate the instant ramen.” Nabiki paused in her typing for about half a minute before continuing with, “I need to get Setsuna to talk, but I have no idea how. Oh well, at least the water is palatable, and I have a lot of studying to do, so I don't suppose I'll get too bored.”
“The subject of what has happened to me has not been brought up yet. I suspect the others are waiting for Usagi to wake, so I have a little more time. A little more time before I have to tell my best friend that the girl she knew is no more. A little more time to hope it will all work out. I'd almost rather tell my mother again. Still, everyone is healthy, and after their naps should be in good shape for the most part.” A smile grew on Nabiki's face as she typed, “I can just imagine how Usagi will react to the news of our next meal. Some things do not change, and perhaps that is as it should be.”