Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and its characters and settings belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon belongs to Takeuchi Naoko, Koudansha, TV Asahi, and Toei Douga, and DIC.

Introduction: The ArbyFish always used to say: "Oh, well, loife is loike a cave a' mushrooms!" And one might ask exactly HOW life is like a cave of mushrooms. "Well, it just is, ya see! Gotta 'ave the mushrooms. Wouldn't be propa' otha'woise."

So, there you have it. Life is like a cave of mushrooms.

However, we're not here to talk about ArbyFish and mushrooms. We're here to talk about dunking our favorite martial artists into cursed springs and seeing them turned into cats, girls, men, princesses, and, of course, princes. But that's mostly martial arts frogs.

Anyway, this particular story involves Ranma dunked into Spring of Drowned Moon Princess, of Sailor Moon fame. It gets worse: Genma got dropped into Spring of Almost-Drowned Annoyingly Cute Pink-Haired Princess From The Future. Very tragic story — she not drown in spring.

Larry F has been very helpful in this respect. So have the bazillions of people that have helped contribute ideas. (Thanks, guys! Remember: Resistance IS Futile.)

And now, on with the story!

Tendo Haruka's motorcycle slowed to a halt outside the White Dove Academy, the engine purring like a lion in anticipation of its next meal.

"Here you go," Haruka said, grabbing Genma under the arms and placing her on the ground. She took a moment to straighten out the little girl's uniform, brushing a few dust specks off of her blouse and tightening the ribbons tied around the base of the rabbit-ears in her hair. "I'll be back to pick you up at four."

"But it ends at three!" Genma protested.

Haruka patted the girl on the head and smirked. "So study a little longer. Maybe you could even join the soccer team." She revved her bike's engine a couple of times and took off at her usual alarming rate. "Have fun making new friends, Genko-chan!"

"Genko-chan?!" Genma huffed and folded her cute little girl arms, pouting. "Why do I have to go to this school anyway? I'm not a child anymore, and I have a wedding to plan!" She grumbled to herself for a moment. "Besides, it's too far away to walk to in an ordinary day. Wasn't there a closer one?" She closed her eyes, clenched her fists and turned around. "That's it, I'm going back to Ranma to explain to that boy—"

*PLUNK* Ch-CHK!* Genma opened her eyes to find her nose touching the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun. The gun was held by an all-too-familiar muscular man in black leather and mirrored sunglasses.

"I told you I'd be back!" the half-robotic truant officer announced in his Austrian accent. "You have two minutes to get to class," he added, motioning with his weapon toward the school gates. "Or I dust you like burnt cake."

*Bling!* The metal of the weapon gleamed in the morning sunlight.

"HMMMMMMMMMM!!!" Pale and trembling, the rabbit-eared girl turned around and marched toward the building, then started trotting faster before breaking into an all-out run toward the institution's doors. "WAAAAAAAH!!!"

The truant officer's expression remained neutral as he watched the potential delinquent enter the building. He didn't so much as move one centimeter when he saw a titanic black and diamond-spiked Invid Space Hive descend and launch its giant metallic battloids, or when those fighters descended and opened fire on the White Dove Academy.

*BLAM-BLAM-BLAM!!!!* Hundreds of small red plasma-disks blasted into the elementary school, shattering the windows and breaking through the roof and floors.

"WAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" Dozens of first to sixth graders poured out of the building, screaming their lungs out as they dodged the shrapnel.

"Stay calm, everyone!" the teachers urged their students. "Remember, just like in the drill! …Who're we kidding?! RUN FOR YOUR LIIIIIIIIIIVES!!!!"

"WAAAAAAAAAAH!" A blonde fourth-grader dressed like a nurse and carrying a staff ran away as fast as her little legs would carry her, an Invid fighter in hot pursuit.

"FLOWER OF LIFE DETECTED!!!" The battloid's loudspeaker had accidentally been activated instead of its communications array. "RETRIEVING!!!"

With its metallic arm, the Invid battloid snatched the girl and flew back up into the space hive, its jets screaming triumphantly.

The remaining forces blasted the White Dove Academy to pieces, sending flaming bits of wood, paper, concrete and metal every which way. Finally, their job finished, they returned to their spacecraft, which rose out of the atmosphere, and in a brilliant flash of light, jumped away into another part of the galaxy.

The teachers scrambled to find their students and took roll.

"Okay, okay, okay," a female teacher panted in shock. "Seiya? Yes, there you are. Kanou? Ahhh, good, good. I'm glad. Moiyra Ririka?"

"…" A hush fell over the students.

"Ririka…?"

"…"

"Are you here?! MOIYRA RIRIKA!?!?"

Two boys, a fourth-grader and a sixth-grader looked at each other, then back up at the sky. "PLEASE tell me you've got some kind of plan," the fourth-grader pleaded.

The sixth-grader hung his head and shrugged helplessly. "Oh boy. Eh heh." He struggled to keep his cool, rubbing the back of his neck. "Oh dear, this will be most difficult to explain to Helena…"

"I'm sure there HAS to be a way to get her back."

"From the Invid? Err, Seiya-san, we would be better off trying to face down the Dark Joker armed only with a six-pack of soda cans."

"Hey, I've got one of those…"

The older boy frowned at his friend. "How about a useful suggestion?"

Seiya gestured to the truant officer. "Maybe if we tell him she's truant, he'll go after them?"

"That idea is worth consideration…"

Genma ran back out of the gates, hoping to sneak away from the truant officer, not to mention the environment of helter-skelter, school-collapsing destruction.

Without missing a beat, the T-800 android snagged the little pink-haired girl by the back of her blouse and lifted her up to look into her eyes.

"Uhhhhhhhhhh," Genma began, VERY nervous, "I can't go to school if it's been BLOWN UP BY ALIENS!!!"

The truant officer's eyes glowed red for a moment. "Your parents and/or legal guardian(s) will be informed of your recent transfer to Tomoeda Elementary School. I will personally escort you to your new class."

Genma tried to protest, but she'd already been thrown into the back of the squad car, and the door slammed shut behind her.

Rei checked over her notes just in case she'd be called on to answer some questions when class started. She looked to her side to see Ranma almost nodding off. She reached over to prod him with the back of her pen. "Ranma, now's not a good time to sleep."

The pigtailed boy yawned. "Hmmm? Oh, sorry." He paused. "Hey, it's been, like, fifteen minutes. When's that Tomoe guy gettin' here?"

"Last Friday he said he was going to be busy with his research over at Mugen High. We're getting a substitute today."

"Oh? Who's it gonna be?"

"I have no idea," Rei whispered back, then looked very seriously at the boy, "but it's a good idea to stay alert anyway."

Ranma shrugged in reply and looked up, twiddling his fingers to pass the time. It was to no avail, however, since a moment later, he once again slipped into happy, stress-free unconsciousness.

Suddenly, a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girl rushed in, carrying a pile of papers in her arms. She had shoulder-length black hair in a pageboy cut and wore a red blouse with a knee-length green skirt. She panted in overexertion, holding a hand to her chest. "Sorry," she breathed, "sorry, I'm late."

The members of the class frowned, looked at each other, and looked back at the girl, who hurriedly dropped the papers on the front desk, grabbed a piece of chalk and started writing on the board as quickly and neatly as she could. The result was sufficiently legible.

A brave student in the front row ventured to ask, "Uhhh, who are you?"

"I am," the girl breathed hard, "Tomoe Hotaru," she finished writing her name on the board, "and I'll be your substitute teacher for this class from now on for Mondays and Thursdays."

The class's collective blink could be heard up to three classrooms away.

"Uhhh, how old are you?" a girl in the front row asked.

"Me?" Hotaru asked, pointing at herself. "Well, I just had my fourteenth birthday last month."

"SHE's a teacher?!"
"How did some fourteen-year-old get to do that?!"
"I don't believe this…"

"This has never happened before," Rei noted to Ranma. "A lot of stuff does go on, but not like this."

Ranma didn't respond. Rei prodded him again to awaken him.

"Are you related to Tomoe-sensei?" another random student asked.

Hotaru nodded. "Oh yes. I'm his daughter." She waved a hand when the students' murmuring roared up. "Right now, I'm taking part in a pilot program to give top students the chance to have first-hand experience teaching an actual class with real students." Looking over the class, the thought "delinquent students" crossed her mind. Shaking her head to clear away the negativity, she smiled. "I'm really looking forward to getting to know all of you."

A couple of gangsterish boys in the back row folded their arms incredulously. It wasn't that they weren't in uniform, because they were. It was more how they slouched in their seats and the way they appeared to have a waistline roughly three feet lower than the average human being. "Oh yeah?!" they yelled at their very young new teacher.

Tomoe Hotaru winced. "Yes, I know it seems strange to everyone, and believe me, nobody is more nervous than I am right now." She picked up one of the sheets she had placed on the desk. Taking a deep breath, she tried to speak over the muttering and whispering going on in the classroom. "Okay, now I'm supposed to explain to you the importance of chemical bonds in…"

The overly young substitute teacher trailed off when it became apparent that nobody was listening to her. "Ahem." She frowned, her eyes widening. "AHEM." She stood up as tall as she could, her lips pursed as she tried to figure out a way to take control of the situation. "AHEM!"

The bulkier of the delinquent crew snorted. "Like I'M gonna listen to some stupid baby girl?!"

"Heh. You said it," the lankier one of the snotty Turner and Hooch duo slurred.

"Bwaha ha ha ha ha!!!"

"SHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Rei tried to hush the students around her. Oddly enough, the only one remaining calm was Ranma. Of course, it was easy to be calm since he had fallen asleep again. The raven-haired girl hunched down, bracing herself for the inevitable retaliation that would come for lack of compliance with the school rules of paying attention.

Small tears began to form at the edges of Hotaru's eyes.

*WHAM!* Suddenly, the door slammed wide open, its velocity creating a vacuum-shockwave that knocked the substitute teacher against the opposite wall. She fell down, her eyes closed and her face slightly bruised.

The noise woke Ranma, something Rei had been unable to accomplish. The bandannaed boy that had attacked earlier ran into the room, his umbrella out and ready for combat.

"RANMA SAOTOME, PREPARE TO DIE!!!"

Ranma leapt out of his desk to land right in front of the fanged young man. He cracked his knuckles. "OKAY, fang-boy. You want a fight, you got it!"

"Ranma, sit back down, RIGHT NOW!" Rei shouted urgently.

"What?!" Ranma asked, turning to look at the girl.

*WHAM!* The traveler-boy took advantage of the opening and smacked his weapon against the back of Ranma's head with enough force to smash in his skull. Or would have if the pigtailed youth hadn't ducked under it. Instead, the anti-rain device tore a few bricks out of the wall and its wielder inadvertently kicked over a few unoccupied desks.

"HEY! Umbrella-freak!" Ranma shouted, rolling out of the way of another strike. He put his hands against the wall and horse-kicked the other young man away to the other side of the room to land on his stomach. "Look, WHO are you, and WHY are you after me?!"

The bandannaed boy got back up, his fists and teeth clenched. "A year ago, you backed out on our duel, and you DON'T REMEMBER?!"

"I ain't never backed out on a duel!" Ranma shot back. He paused. "Well, I didn't back out of that one. The guy never showed up." His eyes widened and he took a step back, holding up a hand. "Wait a sec… Ryouga, is that you?!"

"Yeah!" Ryouga shot back. "So you FINALLY remember, huh!?" He leveled his weapon at Ranma. "Now, I'll make you SUFFER for—"

The fanged one's growl died off when something about the air felt completely, utterly wrong. He turned to see the substitute teacher stand back up. Seemingly from the floor, a heavy breeze blew back Hotaru's hair and a purplish-red aura rose off of her body. The air went still and an unseen woman started singing a few soft, calm, and serene notes.

The fourteen-year-old's eyes started glowing. Her lips twisted into a malevolent smile, the sort normally used by leaders of the Spanish Inquisition when they explained to potential victims exactly what would be done to them if they didn't confess. And then again, maybe they'd do it anyway; you know, just for fun and to see what might happen. The girl with exactly that variety of expression reached forward with a grasping hand and took Ryouga by the shoulder.

*BZRRRRRRRRRR-ZRRRRRRRRRR!!!* Sparks flew between the boy and the girl, causing him to convulse. The color drained out of his skin and he thinned to a gaunt appearance. Hotaru walked him over to the window and with what appeared to be a gentle kick, she punted him out the closed window, destroying the glass and sending the boy sailing over the horizon. She chuckled evilly and turned toward those occupying the desks or the floor nearby.

Everyone in class froze, staring at their teacher in shock. After a tense moment, the wind suddenly stopped. The glow in Tomoe Hotaru's eyes and the aura around her also faded. Mercifully, her cruel expression faded once more into soft innocence.

"Oh dear…" Holding her chest, the girl stumbled and fell to her knees, taking a sudden, surprised breath. The class sat, transfixed by her as she stood back up and walked back to stand behind the front desk. Frowning, she glanced around at the others. "I'm fine," she said, trying to sound cheerful. "That was just a seizure; they happen to me from time to time." She waved her hands bashfully. "There's no need to be alarmed."

"Ah, ermh. Aye yai yai…" Ranma stood back up and stared at Hotaru, who grinned sheepishly back at him.

"Oh," she began, hesitantly looking at the seating chart that she had been given by her father. She saw an empty seat where she remembered someone was sitting when she came in. "Saotome-san? Could you please return to your seat?"

*PHOOMP!*

Hotaru blinked at the after-image where the boy had been, then looking over and seeing him now in his proper seat, gave a sincere, cute and sweet smile. "Thank you, Ranma-kun, err, Saotome-san!" She looked at the others. "Are we all ready to begin now?"

"Hai, Tomoe-sensei!" everyone replied at once in their most respectful tone. The entire class sat up straight and stiffly in their seats, hands trembling on their desks around their pens and notebooks. At the back, the Yakuza-wannabes had their hands firmly jammed in their very low pockets.

"I'm very glad," Hotaru beamed. She looked at the shattered window. "Was that broken when I came in?" She thought about that, trying to remember. Finally, she decided it wasn't important and shrugged in spite of herself. "Now to review." She checked the seating chart again. "Ah, Tendo-san, can you please tell me the correct proportions for the chemicals in the starter fluid in the gene-bonding process?"

Rei looked over her notes and slowly lifted her gaze toward the substitute. "Tomoe-sensei, I don't think we covered that one last time."

Tomoe Hotaru frowned, looked over her notes. With a start, she covered her mouth. "Oh! I'm sorry. That's for next Thursday's class." She turned over the page she had been reading. "You had the lab demonstration last time, didn't you? Otaku-san, could you please summarize what happened?"

"Ummmm, I don't really remember," Otaku admitted, shaking in fear. "Sorry. I mean, I'm really sorry!"

"It's all right, Otaku-san. It's all right."

Rei surreptitiously glanced over at Ranma. Muddling over the fact that if he could move like that, she realized that he might just have the potential to be a truly great martial artist. Maybe someday, he'd even be a match for Haruka. She'd have to speak with her sister at lunch to ask her about perhaps trying to train the actually-not-half-bad-looking-boy together. If, of course, there wasn't too much homework to do. Rei quickly returned her attention back to the teacher.

The tall, muscular Austrian killing-machine urged Genma to take another step towards certain doom. Mindful of the truant officer's 12-gauge shotgun, the cute little pink-haired girl in the white and blue sailor fuku nervously stepped into the classroom.

The teacher, a moderately tall man in semi-formal attire named Terada Yoshiyuki, nodded encouragingly and motioned for her to come and stand at the front of the class. "Saotome-san," he said courteously and with a smile, "we got the note from the office that said you were coming." He looked up at the rest of the class. "It looks like the mystery's over. Everyone, this is our new transfer student!"

Keeping the T-800 Truancy Enforcement Unit in the corner of her eye, Genma waved with a very nervous smile. "Ummm, hi…" Silently, she decided to wait until the android moved on before escaping, since another direct confrontation was obviously out of the question. She wasn't THAT suicidal. But that would probably mean suffering through school for at least until lunch. She never had liked school. Not one bit.

"Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, Saotome-san?" the teacher suggested, nodding in the direction of the class. "They are all very anxious to know about you."

Genma hesitated, desperately looking around for all available escape routes.

"Don't be shy," Terada urged, giving another disarming smile.

"Oh, all right," Genma sighed, then clenched her fists and stared at the wall on the other side of the room. "My name is Saotome Spo…" she trailed off, then suddenly found herself wondering why she'd chosen to bring up the name used by her son to insult her, "I mean Genma." She took another breath, thinking about how she was going to escape at lunch and how she could get her boy's engagement back on track. "I enjoy training in martial arts, getting out of class and," she almost slurred the rest of her half-muttered words, as if not really concentrating, "finding out how to make sons go through with arranged marriages with a friend's daughters…"

Genma suddenly noted with a certain sense of apprehension that some girls' eyes lit up with the mention of the word 'marriage' and some boys with the words 'martial arts'.

"She knows martial arts?" one student commented.

"She likes stuff about marriage?" a girl with dark eyes and long dark hair whispered to herself. She turned to her friend, who was sitting next to her. "Maybe I could get her to help me try out a few new designs on Sakura…" Aloud, she said. "Sakura-chan, what do you think about inviting her out later to help with a costume I've been working on?"

Kinomoto Sakura, a girl with short brown hair and a sort of thoughtful, innocent look about her, didn't take her gaze off of Genma. "Uh, sure, Tomoyo-chan." She leaned her cheek against her hand, starting to look worried. "You know, she looks kind of weird, especially the hair…"

Daidouji Tomoyo nodded. "Pink rabbit ears. We don't see that too often, that's for sure. I've got a cousin with pink hair, but he always dyes it neon purple to look more normal…"

"Oh, that's very nice," the teacher commented at Genma's words. "I imagine you've made a lot of friends that way. Have you considered joining a club having to do with that?"

Genma paused. "There's a club for that?"

Terada nodded, not really having paid attention to anything that the girl had said. "Saotome Genma comes from another school and hasn't had time to get a new uniform. As you can see, she's a little embarrassed about it."

Indeed, the little girl blushed a faint red and shifted uncomfortably in her dress.

Not losing his pleasant expression, the teacher added, "Please try to be nice and make friends with her."

*Vrrr!* The cat-faced balloon called Luna-P floated into the room and hovered over Genma's shoulder, looking really quite tired after having had to chase the squad car all the way over to Tomoeda Elementary School.

Sakura shifted her gaze over to the levitating ball. "Tomoyo-chan, do you see that ball?"

The dark-haired girl nodded. "Umm-hmm!"

Terada nodded with approval at Genma. "You've brought something for Show and Tell! My, you're certainly prepared." He pointed at an empty seat in front of Tomoyo. "Could you take your seat, please?"

Genma slowly nodded, and with all the enthusiasm of an inmate going through the hallway toward the gas chamber, walked over to the empty desk. She slumped down into it with a downtrodden, resigned expression on her face.

"Since we're all here now," the teacher continued, "we can begin show and tell. I believe this will be the perfect way for our new student to get to know everyone, won't it?"

Most everyone hummed in agreement, though the noise made by Genma was more of a groan.

"But first," Terada-sensei added while looking around the classroom, "we need to have a quick eight-page test."

"Awwwwwwwwww," the class collectively moaned.

"I know," Terada said with great empathy, "but the school needs to know how high your reading levels are. Anything from third grade and up will be just fine." He smiled at Genma. "It's nothing to worry about. Really. Just fill in the definitions on this scantron sheet with a number two pencil."

Genma looked at her little hands. "Er, pencil?"

"You don't have a pencil?" Sakura asked, then reached over with one of her a spare pencils in hand. "Genma-san? You can borrow one of mine."

The pink-haired girl turned around and frowned. "Well," she began, ready to accept the offer when one of the tests was passed her way. "Okay…"

*Poof!* In a sudden puff of pink smoke, Luna-P changed into a small, sharp, yellow pencil and flew into Genma's grasp.

Li Shaoran, a boy with short brown hair and blue eyes near the front of the class, suddenly whipped around to see the ball's transformation. "Hmmmmm…"

Sakura's eyes went wide. "Oh! I guess you already have one…"

"Wowwww," the rest of the class awed.

"Neat trick," Terada-sensei commented.

Tomoyo leaned over to the brunette and whispered, "Could that be a Clow Card, Sakura?"

Sakura nodded slowly, pursing her lips in thought. "Hmmm… Maybe, but I'll have to ask Kero-chan."

Genma blinked at Luna-P's quick response to her necessity, then shrugged and twisted over to face the front.

"You will have twenty minutes," the teacher added. "If you can't finish it all, don't worry. It's just to see how high you can go. If anyone has any questions, raise your hand and I'll do what I can to help. You may begin."

Genma looked down at the thick test beneath her and winced. "I always hated tests," she muttered under her breath, and gingerly turned over the test's cover, pausing in confusion when she saw that the page only had four vocabulary questions on it. "Hmmm…"

The cursed Saotome patriarch flipped through the other pages and found that they were all basically the same.

Genma grinned maliciously, touched the tip of her pencil to her tongue, and got started.

Youma Laracroft of the Dark Kingdom crawled silently through the spacious ventilation ducts of Furinkan High, determined to obey her master's wishes to find out once and for all what had happened to Youma Fortranda. Resources were getting scarce, she had been told, and Jadeite could not afford to lose too many more of their troops to an unknown cause.

She was naturally a bit nervous, what with all the rumors that the Outer Senshi were out and about again. Nevertheless, with the knife in her boot and the dual magically-enhanced semi-automatic .45 Magnums holstered at her sides, she felt confident that she was prepared to face whatever this world could possibly throw at her.

Laracroft shimmied down a vertical duct and kicked out a thin metal grating before silently leaping downward into the room where she was certain she would find the answers she wanted.

The big-busted, tank-topped, tight-shorted youma landed softly onto a polished metal conference table, then deftly leapt off to land beside the doors. She stealthily turned around, and discovered that she was not alone.

*Hoo-prrr!* A black-armored man breathed loudly. He had a cape and wore a black breathing mask and a helmet that covered his entire head. What looked like an electronic regulatory system covered his chest.

Having some slight powers of precognition, Youma Laracroft instantly knew that this was the being that had destroyed Fortranda.

Laracroft curled her lip into a snarl. It was time to show this guy that you don't mess with the Dark Kingdom. "Prepare to die!"

She whipped out her dual guns and opened fire with everything she had.

*BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAAAAAAAAM!!!*

*Pang-pow!* The armored man stood and held up a hand, against which the bullets dissolved into a smattering of sparks. He then reached out and willed the weapons to leave their owner's grasp and leap into his own.

"So glad you could join us for breakfast," Vice-Principal Vader said in a deep and gravely voice, putting down the firearms and raising his wineglass.

Cursing the limitations of her clairvoyance, Youma Laracroft spun around in an attempt to flee, but was foiled when the doors flew open and a squad of Furinkan Stormtroopers rushed in to subdue the delinquent threat.

*BAM!* WHACK!* POWWWWWW!!!*

"The Principal will be most pleased to know we have a prisoner to interrogate," Vader mused.

To be continued…

Author's notes: Okay, who spotted the bits that needed to be fixed?

Hands down, everyone. Thank you. Now, who could kindly inform me where they are?

Thanks! Be hearing from you, then. ^_^

Benjamin A. Oliver
boliver@email.arizona.edu

Webmaster: Larry F
Last revision: January 7, 2006