Skysaber's Choice

Part Thirteen

by Jared Ornstead

=====

	The arrow went wide and hit a post, which immediately burst forth in 
sprigs of leafy branches and flowers.
	Nobody noticed save for one cyborg and a very old amazon woman. Both of 
these took *great* interest. Grey wisely began to hug the ground, no 
longer concerning himself about blocking *anything*. Cologne made a leap 
for the bow.
	Unfortunately getting the matriarch shot by a startled Rae who never 
could have hit her on purpose.
	Grey considered the wisdom of digging a foxhole or was the slope of the 
ground enough to protect him? He decided that he didn't want the 
attention, so lay still.
	Michelle stepped well clear of her fellows raised a ring to her lips, 
recalling Jared's choice statement after identifying it. "Most rings I 
know of that nature are activated by a kiss." She delivered a smooch and 
was instantly wrapped by rings of water, hung suspended around her in the 
air, as she activated her Ring of Elemental Command, whose particular 
venue was Water.
	The aqua-tressed young girl shot an arm forward, shouting. "Ice!"
	Akane jumped back, amazed and startled as a column of frozen ice 
appeared where she'd just stood. If that had happened any swifter that 
would have encased her! What were they doing!?!
	They were girls! Solidarity, right? Wasn't that the way it was supposed 
to work? After all, it worked at Furinkan.
	Lita took out her own secreted gift from the cyborg, raising a 
two-headed war hammer aloft, she cried. "Thunderer!" A bolt of lightning 
came down out of the clear sky and illuminated her weapon, shoulder and 
arms, then she arced her body and flung the heavy weapon forward, blazing 
an arcing trail of lightning behind it.
	Akane squeaked and jumped back, letting the ice pillar take the force of 
the blow, which struck with a thunderclap and then the hammer retreated 
to Lita's hands.
	Shampoo wished she knew what *her* prize did. Then she did what Lita had 
done, reading the little tag that was attached to the haft. Unfortunately 
for her, Rae was still firing off arrows. She had, by now, turned the 
other post of the temple gate green and blossoming, caused no discernible 
change to the metamorphic structure of one of the carved yard ornaments, 
hit Cologne two more times (so she'd stay down, to Rae it was obvious by 
now the bow didn't do any damage, but it sure looked like it *stunned* 
people good! And if Akane stopped moving they could beat her up for 
having hurt Jay-chan that way), and caused one of the pigeons to be 
warbling its little heart out.
	Michelle threw a bolt of water at Akane's chest. And as the girl ducked 
it Lita threw the Thunderer again, striking the ball of water right over 
the hentai girl's head and causing such an explosion of electrical energy 
to arc out that it engulfed Akane anyway.
	The hentai girl decided that enough was enough, dodging in among the 
others' allies so they'd be less cheery about flinging huge magic around.
	She hadn't done anything to deserve this, had she?
	She was just fooling around!
	Shampoo just finished reading the instructions when Akane dodged behind 
her without her noticing. Shampoo began gleefully unwrapping her package 
just as Rae, figuring she couldn't *hurt* the purple-haired girl anyway, 
shot at Akane in spite of the cover. Shampoo learned she was in the line 
of fire only as Akane jumped away and she, true to Rae's untrustworthy 
aim, got hit.
	Akane got illuminated by another thunderbolt and hid behind Jared. "Hey! 
Can't we talk this over??? It was all just a misunderstanding. Can't we 
be friends!"
	She might have been believed if she wasn't groping Jared's behind for a 
quick chi recharge. Several of the Scouts turned purple and went to 
excuse themselves 'just for a bit'.
	"We're the only ones allowed to do that!" Mina fumed prettily, before 
ducking away.
	³Rapid Fire Strike!² Rae stayed a moment longer, trying a Ranma-esque 
style martial art technique firing the last of her arrows in rapid 
succession, creating flurries of shots in every which direction (because, 
martial artist or no, she was *not* in Ranmaıs league) before she threw 
down the bow in disgust and stalked off. 
	Akane looked at the dozen or so arrows sticking out of Jared's side. 
"Gosh. They really *did* want to get me!? I wonder what got them so 
upset." 
	She moved around the back of the hunk of man and considered, watching 
him stare off sightlessly. "Hmm.... Well, since he's so distressed maybe 
I can relax him as a favor, being the kind and generous person that I 
am!" She reached around his waist with both arms to untie the knot 
holding his pants up.
	"Meteor Beam Shower!!!!"
	The sprawled Tendo girl looked up with crisp and smoking hair from where 
that blast had flung her to see six Sailor Scouts now standing on the 
shrine's plowed lawn.
	Akane looked up in that sickened way Happosai had when he was caught and 
about to be mauled. The Pose of Imminent Doom.
	"Jupiter Thunder, Crash!"
	"Mercury Bubbles, Blast!"
	"Mars Fire, Flash!"
	"Venus Crescent Beam, Smash!"
	Followed a moment later by a follow-up...
	"Deep Submerge!" and
	"Dead Scream."
	Jared stood stock still, unable to move for the still dwindling shock. 
His clothes rippled in the wind of the passage of massive amounts of 
concentrated energy. Akane flew off into the horizon, limbs splayed, 
dress burning, frosted and otherwise torn and shredded. But the girl was 
intact all the same, if a trifle bruised.
	Then a blue mist issued from the ground at his feet, lifting him off of 
the ground and spinning him in a slow circle. His clothes billowed around 
him and a beam of gold light spat from his forehead and shot up to the 
heavens, piercing clouds to arrive at an unknown distance above. Then he 
settled to the ground.
	Cologne's eyes narrowed as she'd watched.
	He still couldn't move for the shock. But he actually managed to blink 
once.
	"Oh! Jay-chan!" A stack of sympathetic Sailor Scouts descended on Jared, 
carrying him off into the temple building.
	The Tendo twins looked up from where they'd been hiding. "Is it over? 
Nabiki asked.
	Kasumi looked around and nodded. "It seems so."
	Grey got up from where he'd been hugging the ground. "A female Happosai, 
oh the horrors. And Akane too." He shook his head sadly. "The terror, the 
humanity." He went looking for his sack to retrieve his rail gun. It was 
worth a try. Hyper-velocity shots fired in streams so fast they looked 
like blasts of liquid metal stood an even chance of hurting her should 
Akane show up again.
	Shampoo spoke up from where she and her great grandmother were. "Who is 
boy?" Her eyes filled with stars where she looked off where Jared had 
been taken.
	"Hm?" Kasumi wondered. "Oh, that was Jared Saotome. He's a Devil Hunter."
	Cologne snagged her daughter's arm. Come, child. We should really go see 
how the boy is doing." 
	Inwardly her mind was racing with possibilities. 
	~A Devil Hunter, genetically inheritable traits of warriors able to 
actually seek out and destroy demons. And the boy stood off a girl whoıd 
*obviously* trained under old Happy. We might not need that Ranma boy to 
defeat our enemies. Though *both* could still add to the tribe!~
	Today was looking good indeed.
	Grey noticed his bow was missing, that was the spot Rae had flung it. He 
began checking around. He groaned as he saw the shrine walls, stone 
ornaments, a few buildings, Nabiki's ward stand, the ground and sidewalk, 
two ravens, all with little arrows sticking up that faded away as their 
magic discharged. 
	The Cherry Hill Shrine revealed that it was largely made out of cherry 
wood as it burst out in flowers and the blossoms identified it. The 
ground was now thickly covered with flowering plants and the sidewalk and 
statues were slowly transmuting into rose quartz.
	Nabiki checked points on her fingers. "Well, no elves. But we've got 
thunderbolt flinging hammers, a girl with a ring that does water, a bow 
that apparently doesn't hurt anything." She stuck her arms behind her 
head and gazed up at the sky. "No dragons yet."
	"The day is still young." The cyborg muttered to himself.
	Kasumi grabbed her sister's arm. "Come on, we've got to see if he's 
alright."
	"Sis, hold still, let me get this arrow out of you."
	Kasumi looked down at herself in time to see the aforementioned just 
shimmer and fade away. "Wow. That bow really *didn't* hurt people. I 
didn't even notice being hit."
	"Tell me about it." Nabiki was rubbing a spot on her shoulder, trying to 
crane to get a look at it. Kasumi spun her sister around and checked it 
for her. 
	"Just a softly glowing heart mark, sis. Doesn't look deadly, just... 
well, I don't know. Silly. Who shoots a bow that only causes little 
heart...."
	Both sisters blinked at each other. "Oh my." They chorused.
	A small, wrinkled old figure of extreme ugliness wandered by wearing a 
huge hat and a priest's robes. He clapped hands and, rubbing them 
together, proclaimed. "Most Ominous."
	Grey, noting Cherry's presence, took appropriate steps. He'd been 
feeling useless anyway and kicking the old monk to the horizon before he 
could make things worse was a release.
	Kasumi and Nabiki turned, their eyes going past Grey without really 
registering him. The twin sisters stared after the trailing dot vanishing 
into the horizon. Kasumi was the first to speak. "What just happened?"
	Nabiki shook her head slowly. "I dunno, sis. But I get the idea that if 
it was male and stuck around we mightıve fallen in love with it."
	"I think I am going to be sick." Kasumi looked a trifle green.
	Nabiki grabbed her sister around the arm, guiding her toward the temple. 
"Let's get to shelter before a dragon *does* show up, sis."
	³Or another troll.² Grey muttered.
	They ran inside to the bathroom to be violently ill.

	Artemis looked down at the young girl in the smoking clothes that had 
just landed in a crater made by her fall. The pussy cat frowned 
obviously. ~Hmm, not hurt a bit. Sheıs got to be either from the Moon 
Kingdom, an associate of that Mage fellow, or the Negaverse. But I donıt 
remember...~
	An arrow caught up in the wind of Akaneıs passage (sheıd flown past it 
in her trip through the sky) chose that moment to zap the little kitty.
	Artemis jumped down and used his paws to begin shaking the girlıs 
shoulder. ³Cımon! Youıve got to get up! We need your help! Youıre 
Sailor... whatever, I canıt remember just now. But we need your help in 
defeating the Negaverse.²
	³Huh? Wa...?² Akane woke up to look into the eyes of a talking cat and 
yelled in fright, yelping and scrambling back a few feet.
	~Hope I remember that mind trick Luna taught me.~ Artemis thought, the 
yellow crescent on his forehead beginning to glow.

	"So that was a dark general, huh?" Lita asked.
	"Let's *hope* not." Jared groaned, holding his head. Michelle gave him a 
water bottle to hold against it and he smiled up at her.
	"I don't understand." Rae protested. "We hit that thing with enough 
power to turn Tokyo Tower into tapioca pudding. If it was anything human 
it'd be long dead. It *had* to be a general, right? I mean, nothing else 
could stand up to that. Could it?"
	"She was using chi." Jared said, shuddering slightly at the memory. 
"It's a mastery skill, forming planes of force to increase the power of 
attacks or to blunt those incoming. It's not uncommon among those who are 
really good at martial arts. Some can even use chi to directly increase 
their physical abilities like endurance, dexterity and so on. A rare few 
can even use chi itself as an attack." He sighed heavily and snuck his 
arms around whoever was closest for support.
	That turned out to be Susan, for some odd reason.
	He shuddered in aftershock of being... *raped*, almost. Half a dozen 
Sailor girls cooed comfortingly as he went on. "That's not what was so 
frightening as the fact that she displayed no limits! I mean, *no one* 
ought to have had enough chi to do what she was doing. I think the level 
of power you'd been flinging could have roasted me fairly easily, if that 
was what you'd wanted. I am *so* glad for the Silver Moon targeting 
advantages you guy have!" He shuddered again and leaned against the warm 
body comforting him. Susan smiled pleasingly and tossed her head, draping 
his body with her hair.
	Michelle sat close and took Jay-chan's hand. The other girls hovered 
near with strokes and soft noises. Jared breathed in a long sigh. 
Akane... he was accustomed to not liking her, but there'd been something 
so decidedly *filthy* about her this time! She didnıt look different 
except for those glasses, but being around her had been like being dipped 
in the worst sort of disgusting muck. It made him feel ill.
	"Excuse me, but we wanted to check on the young lad. Is there anything 
we can do for him?"
	"Cologne?" Jared called, surprised, his view blocked by the maidens 
around him. He sighed in relief. "Thank goodness. Could you tell my 
friends about how chi users work? In particular any of old Happy's 
skills, if you remember them?" He hopped out of their embrace and lunged 
for the door. "I'm going to go bathe to get some of that disgusting slime 
feeling Akane gave me away."
	He ran out with a wave, but in too much of a hurry for looking back.
	The old matriarch made an amused sound in her throat. "Well... this 
promises not to be boring."

	Ataru Moroboshi was walking along the street with a floating girl 
hovering behind him wearing a tiger striped bikini. Ataru was fuming over 
the refusal of certain travel companies, notably inspired by female heads 
and a rich nobleman who didn't like him, to have anything to do with 
getting him out of the danger zone.
	"But darling, I could always take you out on my spaceship?"
	The boy turned to regard her, already upset by the nagging feeling he 
was missing something that ought to have him collapsing, foaming at the 
mouth, and dying of envy. If only he could find out what it was he could 
make it his own!
	Someone around here had a harem. He could *sense* it!
	"Lum,...." His spiel got cut off when a stray arrow, lofted an 
incredible distance, struck him in the back. He stood standing there 
amazed for several moments.
	"Darling?" The green-haired alien girl grew nervous at the way he was 
staring past her at something.
	Ataru ignored the female oni, lunging past to the object of his desire. 
He came before it and prostrated himself, reverencing it on his knees, 
sneaking quick glances at the amazing beauty again and again. Soon he 
could take it no longer and swept up and embraced the object of his 
desire.
	"At last! Now I've found you, and I'll never let you go! It's true, all 
things are clear now. How could I *ever* have looked upon another? As of 
this moment I'll forsake all girls in favor of you."
	The alien girl floated over, getting steamed. "Darling! You are talking 
to a MIRROR!"

	Amy knocked. "Jay-chan, are you alright in there?" What little she knew 
about rape victims said not to leave them alone by themselves to pout. 
They also suggested that most subjects immediately wanted to bathe, so 
that was okay, the extra towels and borrowed bath things in her arms were 
a mere coincidence as she had no intention of bathing with Jay-chan. 
Nope. None. Thought never occurred to her.
	The bathroom door slid open and Kasumi and Nabiki came out. "Okay 
Amy-san, you can use it now. We're done."
	Amy dashed inside, then was back out as quickly. "But... but I don't 
understand. Jay-chan said he was going to go take a bath."
	"This is the only bathroom with a tub." Rae confirmed from behind her, 
confident in that her bathing things were already in there.
	"So where has he gone?" Mina, along for moral support and holding her 
own towel, queried. Lita, standing beside her with proud looks and lots 
of linen.
	"I don't know."
	The girls all shared worried looks. 
	Rae stormed off to the shrine room, trailing the others after. "This is 
no way to run anything! I'll go do a fire reading to see where he's gone. 
He might get in trouble, and..." She flung wide the screen to the room 
with the sacred fire.
	"Eeek! Don't look!"
	The girls all instantly spun around, then looked at each other and 
STARED back into the shrine room.
	"Jay-chan???"
	Said flame-haired youth was sitting in the uppermost bowl of the 
redesigned sacred fire's domain, a brush in one hand and a little, yellow 
squeaky duck in his other, the rim of the Pheonix Font covering him well 
above the waist and perfectly modest, especially from their vantage point 
on the floor.
	Nabiki and Kasumiıs faces paled and their eyes went round.
	Doki Doki.
	Rae gawked at the massive onyx sculpture where her fire had been. "Where 
did *this* come from??!?"
	Lita looked at her. "I thought you lived here. You mean you hadnıt 
checked this room earlier?"
	"I was busy, okay? Besides, grandpa usually does this part." Rae turned 
slightly rosy. "And we never couldıve afforded something like this. 
Whereıd it come from?"
	Jared gave his duck a playful squeak. Leaning forward to scrub his back 
with flaming oil, he smiled roguishly. "I made it. The old flame went 
out, this one never will. And it's just too-too convenient as a tub!" He 
lifted a foot out and scrubbed the sole of it, then waved the brush 
around. "I'll take a water bath later, to get the oil off. But there's 
something so *cleansing* about fire, burning out impurities!"
	Indeed, the flames were up to his chest, licking about him merrily.
	³A baptism of pyre, I suppose.² Mina pondered aloud.
	Nabiki and Kasumi slumped against each other in a double faint, sliding 
down to the floor where they heaped upon each other. Amy absently sat on 
them.
	"So, um, if you don't mind?" The boy twirled a finger around.
	Rae shook her head, blushing. "No! Not at all." She went to the screen 
door again and leaned out. "Hey everybody! Come look at what Jay-chan's 
doing!" Then rejoined Mina and the others in staring at the boy.
	The boy waved his brush at them. "You know, we ought to be married 
before you start taking liberties with my person." He reproved.
	"We don't mind." Amy replied with a dazed blush.
	"But grandpa isn't *here*!" Rae protested, figuring that if he wanted a 
wedding then grandpa ought to be glad to oblige. There was that tricky 
legal matter, no *way* was it legal, but grandpa would gladly fudge if 
she asked him to.
	The room began to fill with females. Shampoo shrieked, her hair standing 
up. But quickly quieted down when details became obvious. No one, to her 
knowledge, had ever burned themselves to death holding a brush and a 
rubber duck.
	Michelle kissed her ring.
	"No Wait!!!" Jared almost stood up, and checked the motion. He crouched 
down behind the rim of his impromptu bathtub. "Look, I'm immune to fire, 
remember? You don't have to go dousing me. I'm okay. Besides, it's 
supposed to be a sacred fire and doesn't burn the pure of heart."
	"It hasnıt been blessed since it got restarted. It canıt be sacred." Rae 
corrected.
	Many red-faced maids experiencing naughty collections of impure thoughts 
flinched as the fire seemed to roar out a little threateningly at them.
	"Then again?² The fire priestess clutched her neighbor.
	Two ravens flew in the open doorway and settled into one of the lower 
pools. It miraculously did not burn them, and they began to shake the 
flaming oil from their feathers and play like ducks in water. This 
surprised them even more than Jared being there, seeing as how he 
routinely performed the impossible.
	But they chalked it up to his account anyway.
	"Phobos, Deimos?" Rae recognized her twin ravens in wonder.
	Jared leaned part way out and regarded them, thinking aloud. "Hmm, I'm 
going to have to replace the floor in here with stone or something if 
these guys keep splashing like that. How come theyıre NOT burned?"
	The other girls were tiptoe and trying to get a look. Jared was 
*almost*...
	"Hey!" He splashed down before they could get a peek. "Do you mind? I'm 
trying to get clean here."
	"No, we don't mind at all." The increasingly large group of females 
reported, sitting down to watch. Someone noticed what Amy was sitting on, 
and removed her. But then Shampoo sat down where she'd been. ~Why was he 
not burning?~
	Mina put forth a hand and snatched it back, licking her fingers.
	"Yes," Jared smiled down at her from his perch. "Itıs real fire, and I'm 
immune. Really, I thought I told you guys that."
	The blonde shook her head. "I don't remember you telling me."
	He dumped a bucket of flaming oil over his head, then began to work it 
into his already flame-seeming hair. "Well, there are advantages to being 
part pheonix, you know."
	Cologne listened to that and decided they had a good match against 
Pheonix Mountain here, now how to convince the boy...
	Rae stopped gaping like a guppy. "Um," she asked hesitantly. "Am I 
supposed to perform fire readings with that?"
	He seemed surprised. "Well, yes, that's the idea."
	She blushed, doubting she'd *ever* be able to get this image out of her 
head when she was trying to get a reading on ANYTHING else! She suddenly 
noticed what the others had been too preoccupied to dwell on. Why was the 
fire *blue* anyway???
	"So, sonny-boy, do you leave ring around the barbecue? What is going on? 
If you don't mind an old woman asking."
	The sole male here smiled at her. "Great grandmother, I was trying to 
get a simple bath and all of these girls won't leave me alone." He 
blinked. "Hey, wait a minute!"
	Cologneıs jaw hit the floor. HE... he KNEW she was going to try and push 
a Saotome/Shampoo marriage? She became slightly more wary. Ahh, if only 
she was a few centuries younger. This boy seemed both strong and clever.
	He mumbled something and frowned, looking back up sourly. "*Great!* Do 
you know that someone's slapped us all with a powerful love enchantment? 
It's so subtle I almost didn't notice it at first. Mina, could you do 
that scepter thing? It removes curses rather handily."
	"Later," she told him, blinking up with starry eyes.
	Funny, he could swear he'd heard ominous music for a moment there...
	The ravens continued splashing about.
	Jared cast an Invisibility spell and got out of the tub.
	As one, all of the girls with Scout identities reached up an arm and 
touched an earring, causing multicolored visors to spread across their 
faces. Jared sat back down in the tub with a splash.
	There was a rather copious amount of drool being produced anyway. 
Cologne had her curiosity piqued. She addressed one of the visored girls. 
"Excuse me, child. Would you mind explaining your reaction?"
	Amy was blushing too hard to drool, but her throat was too tight to 
speak.
	Cologne refocused her question on the next in line. Mina was shining 
like a bright, glorious pillar of female hormones. "With our Scout 
computers we can do readings on people and things." The blonde whispered 
a response.
	"They're for finding weaknesses in our opponents." Rae added, absently 
wiping her chin. "And other tasks like that."
	Michelle was daintily holding a handkerchief to her lips to prevent 
overflow. "Artemis made the mistake of telling us they can detect 
invisible, as well as illusions. *Normally* we'd use that in combat, 
but..."
	"It looks like they can also scan through barriers imposed by magical 
bathtubs." Amy finally found voice to answer.
	"And record." Susan added sardonically.
	Suddenly five girls were scrambling to find out how to start that 
function. For the first time since his arrival there, Jared found an 
excuse to use his druidical power to change into an animal.
	All the girls simultaneously sighed in disappointment as a housecat 
smugly left the burning font.

	Genma ran, Ranma flapping in the air behind him ala C-ko style. Behind 
them *another* gang of street toughs turned predator lay bruised, draped 
over fences, cut or mauled, tossed in bushes, heaped up in the street or 
laying in painful piles.
	That morning Genma had been attacked by a waitress with a knife when 
he'd tried to eat at a roadside cafe. Earlier a man with a SHOTGUN had 
nearly blasted him away when the obese martial artist had been helping 
himself to the man's...
	Well, okay. *That* attempt on his life may be unrelated. Like the time 
when he... um, well, anyway, The number of people trying to kill him now 
included groups he had neither stolen from (yet) or hadn't grievously 
offended in person.
	A swift duck saved the martial artist's neck separating from its long 
association with his bald head. Genma dropped Ranma (who went flying 
along the street into a store front from the sudden loss of velocity) and 
tried to evade the martial artist who now stepped from the alley from 
whence he'd made his strike.
	Apparently, the rampant poverty now cropping up in Japan had driven more 
than a few legitimate masters of one art form or another to look for 
alternative sources of income, as well as the street toughs and simply 
the starving. Besides, word had apparently gone out about his thievery 
and one thing was *very* certain in Japan at this time. Those who stole 
from others successfully enough to remain fat were roundly hated by 
almost everyone, law abiding or no.
	Genma was viewed as an entry level mission. There were those who'd take 
him down for free. Far many more wanted to stave off starvation via the 
reward, though.
	At that moment in Tokyo, a report was being filed with the police, 
linking all the various cases, and a certain bald martial artist popped 
up on their wanted lists.

	Prince Darien approached an abandoned structure wearing a well tailored 
business suit and flowing cape. This made a rather startling contrast to 
the mongrel dressed humans who frequented the area, but with that sword 
at his hip no one was about to argue about it.
	The prince kicked open the boards covering an entrance to an abandoned 
building, adjusted his sunglasses, and strode boldly in, the 'sunglasses' 
feeding him a perfect image of the place in spite of the darkness.
	He saw what he wanted everywhere. Removing from his vest pocket a slim 
vial, he pulled the cap and a green mist began to escape throughout the 
confines.
	Prince Darien dropped the vial and vanished, while the green cloud began 
to escape out and fill the entire building. As he vanished a smile was 
the last thing that could be seen on his face.

	Jared lounged on Grey's shoulder, all of the girls supposedly going 
around their own business but staying remarkably close all the same. 
"...and so that's what got me to get involved. I've watched your series, 
learned about you, grew to like you, and just happened to wind up here 
and saw that you needed my help."
	The cat yawned, glad that the ability to speak with animals apparently 
wrapped over into the ability to speak with humans when you *were* an 
animal, at least in form.
	"That seems kind of weird, to think that we are a TV show." Amy supposed.
	Jared stretched. The most *useful* thing about being a cat, aside from 
defeating certain girls from monitoring his privates, was how absurdly 
comfortable they could make themselves!
	Mina cocked her head at him. "Was that all you knew about us?"
	He blinked, enjoying curling up on an armor plate. Resisting the urge to 
stretch again, he stared at her. "I once read Sailor-V comics in class. 
Not only was the teacher boring but I was ahead in my work. I *also* 
owned some games associated with you, and I watched the TV show."
	The cyborg wouldıve smiled if he could. "And then there was the 
dojinshi. You *really* don't want to think about what was going on in 
some of those."
	"Bad?" Rae said with a wince, thinking of some dojinshi she'd seen.
	"Iıve heard stories." Jared shuddered. "Anything you could imagine, and 
worse."
	³Well letıs see...² the cyborg mused aloud. ³Dark Kingdom love hotels, 
tentacled Negaverse generals...² Grey paused as a paw was put over the 
speaker unit he used for a mouth. When it was removed he finished in an 
amused tone. ³It was so bad I couldnıt get past the first page.²
	An empty wind blew through, emphasizing the silence.
	Michelle coughed into her hand.
	Jaredıs eyes found theirs, noting that both Mina and Amy still seemed 
absurdly pleased by his pronouncement about school. "All I can tell you 
that my first universe hop dropped me onto a world where all the fan 
material abut *ME* was all over! It was an eye-opening experience. Not 
only did they know everything about me, but I can tell you that 
somewhere, right now, somebody is selling what we are doing at this 
moment as part of an anime series. It's kind of spooky that on that world 
back there somebody is reading all about this right now in their favorite 
comic book."

	All the assembled stared out at the reader.

	Lita shivered, turning back away. "Oooh! That's spooky!"
	"It gives me chills." Michelle agreed.
	"i've got a copy of a Skysaber dojinshi," said the cyborg, handing a 
magazine to Jared. Unfortunately it vanished into Rei's hands before 
reaching the mage's paws.
	The girls closed ranks around the comic and Jared realized heıd never be 
able to get it back. He only hoped it wasnıt one of the ones heıd heard 
of co-starring them. Theyıd get ideas.
	Not that they didnıt already have them.
	Susan just smiled mysteriously. She was usually the one doing the 
watching. In fact right now she'd better go back and change the tape. It 
might run out and she'd rather not miss recording this!
	Jared was just beginning to consider the dangers of remaining a cat when 
he almost reached forward a back paw to scratch behind his ear. It was so 
amazingly comfortable that he began to seriously consider changing back 
before he lost the will to do so.
	He jumped to the ground and resumed his normal form, complete with 
clothes. Though he noted wryly that he was now covered once again in 
flaming oil. That bit about 'storing your belongings when transformed' 
apparently included whatever dirt or stuff was on him.
	Burning oil obviously counted as 'stuff'. Mere dirt would not cling to 
his skin.
	Jared, still burning, leaned back up against the tolerant cyborg and 
quaffed a mystical potion. The girls stared as he was once again 
spotless. The mage showed the half empty potion bottle to them before 
restoring it to his pouch. "That was a Clean and Dry potion. Once it is 
quaffed the imbiber's body, clothing and equipment become fit to match 
the name. I've noticed your Scout transformations do the same thing, only 
more so. They style your hair, do your nails, do a major cleansing of all 
of your delectable little parts from teeth to toenails and keep you from 
getting soiled by dirt or undesirables that might otherwise cling to your 
persons or clothes. Or so I've observed watching the change anyway. 
Apparently, whoever designed your costumes decided if you needed to fight 
then you also needed to be presentable. I agree. I use magic of the same 
sort myself. It's just your transformations do it automatically and I 
have to juggle enchantments and pay spell points."
	The boy paused, rubbing his chin. "Though that *would* explain why, in 
the TV series, if any of you got beat up the worst you ever looked was 
scratched up a bit. No dirt, blood, or anything like that. Hmm, one 
mystery solved." He stopped mid stride as he'd begun to walk away, 
turning to address the cyborg who'd been composing emails to his 
Asgardian friends.
	"Speaking of mysteries, can you tell me something? Why is Serena only 
five years old?"
	"Serena? Who's Serena?" Rae asked as Grey was wrapping up his messages 
and getting ready to reply.
	"She's Sailor Moon, and the one who usually unites you guys. In 
universes where she appears on time the Dark Kingdom never gets the 
foothold they have here. Mina never has such a hard time going it alone, 
Lita and Amy have more close friends in and out of school, Rae gets some 
help here at the shrine as well as having a singing debut Œcause she's 
got more free time... Serena is the very essence of friendliness refined. 
She is *also* a klutz, a boy-chaser, a frantic devourer of that which is 
sweet, a stealer of Rae's comics, and all-around enigma. Even when she 
infuriates people she ends up drawing them closer to each other, and 
against those most ruthless enemies who show no mercy she often gets them 
to change their sides and become good guys. Like I said, the very essence 
of friendliness refined."
	The redhead swept the group with his gaze. "And I happen to have been 
roped into the family to which she belongs, and so I can state quite 
reliably that instead of being of an age with the rest of you, like she 
ought to be, she is instead five years old." He turned back to the 
now-prepared cyborg. "So why is that?"
	"Easy," Grey managed to sound relieved to be of use for once. "A company 
that didn't make it to the final planning stages on most worlds became a 
fad over here in this timeline.  A company named Tanjotech was big 
business in the mid 70s through the late 80s. They capitalized on the 
Japanese misunderstanding about birth control (the Pill being thought of 
as unsafe due to other ad campaigns and government spin doctors) and the 
economic bubble to promote 'children when you are ready- not just nature' 
and how easy and convenient it was to have kids when you could schedule 
them, as opposed to when they occurred."
	"Nature is fairly smart about such things, more so than most people." 
The druid remarked over folded arms.
	Susan, formerly amused listening to this, suddenly grew as pale and 
tight-lipped as ever she'd ever been. She excused herself and vanished, 
checking on the timeline.
	The cyborg went on unconcerned. "Their ad campaigns were quite 
successful here, promoting the whole thing as not only new tech but as 
women taking control over their own lives. What the company did was 
essentially suspended animation of fertilized embryos. Serena was 
conceived at the normal time, but frozen afterwards. Heck, she's not the 
only one. There's over four thousand of these time-misplaced individuals 
out there."
	Jared put his arms behind his head and stared up toward the sky. "Moral 
of this story: Birth Control is bad, no matter how prettily packaged. Not 
anything I wasn't prepared to hear, my religion discourages it and always 
has. We are taught that the forces of evil will do whatever's necessary 
to muck up a person's life, and the two best and most effective ways of 
doing that are to screw up how you enter, or when you leave. Thus murder 
and immorality are both wrong almost equally. Though murder leads."
	The cyborg triggered certain servos that poorly imitated a shrug. "Okay. 
Seems to bear you out in this case. Back in '89, though, Tanjotech ran 
into some problems. Seems the detachment of the infant, the freezing 
process, and reattachment aren't all perfect. One in ten fails along the 
way, not counting the ones where they tried to do it and the development 
was too far along. So, that's four hundred babies that didn't make it." 
Grey repeated his shrug as best he could. "That's what i got off the scan 
anyway. Right now Tanjotech is thoroughly bankrupt, being in a bad way to 
begin with it was one of the first companies to go belly up when all this 
started to hit."
	Jared considered the girls. "Well, so far we're two Scouts short of a 
full system, if we count Sailor Moon out as too childish."
	The cyborg turned to regard him more fully, face to fanged face (for 
intimidation value - curse the designers of this chassis). "About that. 
i'd not intended to stay here any longer than was necessary to give you a 
gift to help even out my karma a bit. But it looks like Ares is around 
having fun. He may have slipped something in where getting you and Usa... 
Serena 'reconciled' has become my first labor - i'm getting in touch with 
Belldandy to confirm that. Ares has been known to pull tricks before."
	Jared frowned at the thought of Ares involved; Chaotic Evil according to 
the Deities and Demigods tome, with power and influence over War, 
specifically bloodlust. If *THAT* kind of guy was getting interested in 
this plane then it was a higher priority to take him out of it than it 
was to face Beryl. All his efforts to resolve this would lose with that 
kind of influence working behind the scenes. Unconsciously, the Mage 
increased his defenses.
	The red cyborg noted the youth's pensive look and misinterpreted it. "If 
there's anyone else you're missing, check the Tanjotech records on Amy's 
computer. Likely they're either still frozen or they're really young like 
Serena."
	"Hey! We've got computers, too, y'know!" Lita activated hers just for 
proof.
	"About that," Grey appeared as concerned as an eight foot red-painted 
cyborg could manage the body language for. "i thought only Mercury had a 
computer, at least as far as the series goes."
	Jared shrugged. "In the series, yes. But you'll hopefully recall that 
when Luna was giving the thing to her she said that Mercury was the 
*best* at using it, not the only. Frankly, I think they were equipment 
starved the entire... Hello, what's this?"
	From out of the ground a copy of the redhaired youth had risen, 
anatomically incorrect and naked, but otherwise very much the young man 
as made out in earth and stone. It rumbled.
	Grey raised his rifle, to get stopped by Jared's outflung arm. "Hang on, 
I'm trying to make out what he's saying." He nodded as the dirt formed 
copy of him rumbled out some noises approximating earth tremors.
	"Okay," the redhead nodded a last time to his dirty double. Then he 
motioned to indicate the disturbed shrine grounds. "Hey, if you wouldn't 
mind, I tore up the ground here rather a bit in my last fight. Feel like 
a little groundskeeping? The trees and plants could use some more 
minerals in the soil, they're particularly short on copper. If you want? 
Cool."
	The double sank back into the soil, no sooner had it done so than one of 
the nearby impact craters from a ridiculously overpowered, chi-enhanced 
fist striking dirt instead of Akane began to be smoothed out.
	Jared was shaking his head. "He *likes* doing it. Weird."
	"What did he say?" Mina asked, skipping forward.
	"Hmm?" He turned to her. "Oh, just that it'd been a millennium since 
he'd been told to do any gardening. Oh, where are my manners? That was an 
Elemental I'd summoned a while back. He was reporting that he'd done my 
project and... hmm, actually it's rather odd to have them *wanting* to do 
any extra chores, but he did. I shouldn't be complaining."
	"What project?" Lita asked.
	"And why did he look like you?" Amy pressed, sliding forward.
	Jared noticed that he was getting encircled about by girls again. On a 
whim he hugged Amy, just to watch her turn pink. That was when he learned 
the identity of one of those girls who'd groped him. "Amy!" He jumped 
away, startled.
	She giggled, cocking her head aside. "I'm sorry, but your mom 
recommended it."
	"She would." He said darkly, then acquired a thought. "Hey, when we were 
first in that crowd you hadn't *spoken* to her as yet! How could..."
	She only just smiled.
	"Forget I asked." He mentioned, figuring Nodoka had ratified the action 
after the fact and Amy was using that excuse to take cover behind.
	"So what project did your youma report on?" Rae asked, flitting in to 
fit herself nicely into his side.
	"Elemental, not youma. Big difference. Elementals are forces of nature 
grown frisky, and so far every time I'd summoned one around here they end 
up looking like me. No, I don't know why. I'd say it had something to do 
with the magical radiance of this world, which seems most peculiar. 
Anyway, they don't feed off of human energies, don't have a ton of magic 
powers, and are generally more docile."

	Viewing the timestream it was obvious.
	Yes, indeed, that was the source of the temporal disturbance that led to 
her timeline becoming a disaster. One little mistake, not even a strong 
one, just a small little thing too insignificant to get noticed.
	An altercation, an adjustment from outside, just... *anything* more 
obvious than a businessman getting successful and lucky when he wasn't 
supposed to, and Sailor Pluto could have dealt more readily with it. The 
Sailor of Time gazed horrified on the tangle as it was suddenly clear to 
her. 
	She could erase this error now that she knew of it.
	But at the cost of Jared never entering their timeline. No resurrection 
of the Queen, no restoring of the palace on the Moon (even though it was 
not yet clear to those on the Earth, she knew of it), the work on Mars...
	...even her own happiness these past few days. The Sailors having a 
boyfriend (when it was clear Artemis would never have allowed any but 
their Princess to marry), and... just... 
	She had laughed not long ago.
	Susan had not laughed in well over a thousand years, since receiving her 
job as Sailor Pluto. Time was too serious a thing to laugh about, too 
much heartache and loneliness and hardship and pain.
	Sailor Pluto again viewed the timestream. There was something else, 
though, if she were to adjust the stream now, the change had matured to 
such a point that she was uncertain if the energy required was even 
available, and if there was there would be backlash from using it. Enough 
that was critical had been modified that undoing this minor change would 
lead to other ripples... very strong ones.
	If she were to elect to do this, remove the source of the problem...
	It would create other changes in reversing this one. Such a thing would 
be done without considering if this timeline had stayed on the course it 
had only just led, but things were now on a definite upswing. It became a 
point of choosing, did she want to remain with an altered timestream 
which appeared to be under control, or chance that correcting the 
original error wouldnıt create something *more* dreadful, and do it when 
she would be exhausted and without the Mage to help correct it? There 
would be no Pheonix Mage to help then, the restructuring of the timeline 
would eject him as if he'd never entered.
	THIS whole mess began from a little ripple too small to notice at first. 
Correcting it would cause major waves, and...
	Sailor Pluto raised her key and locked shut the Gates of Time. 
	There would be no changes here.
	Now she could go back and visit her boyfriend!

	Kasumi and Nabiki both groaned, got up from the floor of the shrine's 
fire room, looked at each other, blushed, and left to go tend the desk 
and yard like they'd been hired to do.
	They found the yard empty of all except the cyborg.