Chapter 1

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.

"Why did she make us meet here?" Usagi whined. She was still dressed in her pajamas and had static electricity crackling through her unbrushed and un-meatballed hair. The other girls, with the exception of Ami, were looking equally bedraggled. They hadn't stopped searching for the new agent of evil until well after sunrise. That had been three hours ago.

Rei, baggy-eyed and more ornery than ever, looked at her semi-friend flatly and said, "This is Setsuna. She wouldn't tell us if the end of the world was three minutes away. It probably has something to do with that guy, though."

Makoto sighed wistfully. "I really wish he wasn't some sort of horrible demon/monster thing in a human suit, because he was a major babe." She blushed at the memory of the compliment he had paid her.

"Oh, shut up," someone snapped from behind them. They all turned with varying degrees of sluggishness to see the new arrival. She was short, red-haired, and made all the girls except for one who will remain nameless (she blushed instead) nearly insane with jealousy. "So that's Pluto's name, eh? Setsuna. Anyone know her last name?"

I was not in a good mood. Three dozen pigeons could attest to that, if they weren't piles of ash and feathers now. And that bus really shouldn't have gotten in my way.

"Who are you?" black-haired and baggy-eyed asked in an 'Oh please give me a reason to kill you' voice.

I might not be able to get to Setsuna, but there were plenty of targets around here for a little petty vengeance. "I'm the retard that Setsuna tricked into trying to teach you girls how to use your powers. You all are the Sailor Senshi, right?" There was a very strong resemblance between these girls and the Senshi from the night before. At least they could do a passable glamour spell on their own; at least, one strong enough to mislead me. My life would have been a good deal easier if I had ever been able to do more than make a pimple disappear.

"What?" the same girl continued.

"Okay, I'll go slowly so no one misunderstands the words that are coming out of my mouth. I am named Ranma. I use magic. I like to blow stuff up and kill people that piss me off. I got suckered into teaching you all how to do your job." I formed a globe of prismatic light in my left hand and tossed it into the air. It exploded into hundreds of motes of light that blossomed into flowers wherever they struck the ground. A simple illusion that faded quickly, but it served to get the point across.

"Wow, that was so pretty!" tall, blonde, and 'blonde' exclaimed. "Are you a new Senshi? What's your planet? Do you have a cat like Luna or Artemis? What color is your skirt?" And the deluge continued for all of three minutes without a single break to breathe.

I noticed that the other girls were all giving the airhead looks of disgust at least as malevolent as mine. Goody, dissention within the ranks.

"No, I would kill myself before I let myself be caught dead in one of those things you call an outfit," I said, finally managing to break the torrent of never-ending questions. "I am going to teach you girls magic. Does anyone not understand that?"

Lo and behold, the girl of a million questions raised her hand. "Do you mean we're going to learn to pull rabbits out of hats and stuff?"

I looked at a girl with short blue/black hair. The spark of an unusual intelligence burnt within her dark eyes. Wonderful. At least one with more brains than a turnip. "Could you explain to her that I am supposed to teach you magic? You know, wrath of the kami kind of stuff."

Non-stupid was explaining while three other girls were eyeballing me suspiciously. To break the uneasy silence I asked, "About the skirts, do you where those by choice or are they some kind of required Senshi uniform thing?"

They all had the slightly shell-shocked expression of someone who just found out that they're gay. Finally the tall brown-haired girl answered, "They come with the transformation."

"Transformation?" Great. Now they spring something like a magical transformation on me. Setsuna was really racking up un-cool points.

Long black hair elbowed tall brown hair and she remained silent. "Look, I don't have a choice in the matter. I made a blood pact with Sailor Pluto. You know who I'm talking about? Tall, has green hair, and really needs her ass kicked?"

"Well, that is true," muttered long black hair.

Before I could get any more info, the smart one called, "I think she understands now." And it only took five minutes.

I pointed to tall brown hair and said, "She just mentioned a transformation. Would someone like to explain that a little better?"

"I can do that." Ah, Setsuna was actually stupid enough to show up. I may not be able to hurt her, but boils and oozing sores don't really count. No, wait; the forces surrounding the image were skewed. It was just an illusion. Damn, guess I'll have to settle for the gentler curses.

"That was a real nasty trick you played on me, Setsuna," I commented. "One day you'll regret it."

Setsuna just nodded and introduced me to each of the girls. With names to put to the faces, the glamour was completely broken and I could easily place them from the night before. "The transformation is a shortcut method that allows the Senshi to access their power and provides them with certain spell templates that require no actual casting to invoke. The transformation automatically includes a glamour and magical body armor."

I nodded as she explained. The practice wasn't unheard of; at least it wasn't in the time when most of my more potent tomes of arcane knowledge were written. I'd never read of such an overall effect though. Magical body armor? "Heh, heh heheheh.” My full-blown laughter stopped Setsuna from continuing. "Those little pieces of ribbon and spandex are magical body armor?"

"I'll have you know that during the Silver Millennium, that style was highly fashionable," Setsuna retorted tartly.

Sigh. "What effect does the stuff have besides being every fifteen-year-old's wet dream?"

"Lessens physical and mystical blows, and quadruples overall physical abilities." This time Ami answered. She had definite potential, both in power and the full range of mental faculties needed to grasp the more difficult points of advanced sorcery.

Hmm, maybe I could alter that part of the transformation spell to give them some decent armor, maybe an actual weapon besides that ridiculous scepter of Usagi's. "Well, then. That's all I need to know, I guess. You can run along now, Setsuna. I expect you'll be needing to hop on the toilet in about…"I looked at my watch, "…six seconds." Six seconds passed in silence then the illusion of Sailor Pluto abruptly vanished.

"What did you do to her?" Minako gasped.

"Explosive diarrhea." I grinned evilly. The girls all sported looks of shocked horror. "If you knew what she did to me, you wouldn't think I'm such a horrible person."

I was ignored for a few minutes while a spontaneous debate on what punishment Setsuna deserved for sticking them with a psychopath like me. They could at least have the good sense to call me sociopath like I deserve. I'm not crazy, really, but I have an image to maintain.

"Enough of this crap. We have all day to work on deciding what to teach to whom, and I don't plan on wasting it. Get those pen things that you use to become Senshi out and hand them over." They were all reluctant— especially Rei— but my hard, glowing-eyed stare diffused that situation. I have to give whoever made these things some credit. No one would ever think that they were powerful magical tools. Novelty vibrators, yes, but never what they truly were.

"Well, here goes nothing," I said, making sure that I had all four pens and the locket firmly grasped in my right hand. A flash of green light and a screeching/crunching sound were the only visible effects generated by the destruction of the henshin rods.

I expected gasps and maybe a few screams, but not Rei lunging for my throat with claws extended. Despite my surprise, I was easily able to erect a barrier capable of holding off a completely ignorant, non-magically-enhanced mortal. This girl has some serious anger control issues.

"Calm down, damn it. I had to do that. It released your magic into you without leaving behind a conduit for it to be stolen or controlled by someone else." Jeez, this was going to be a long decade.

I wasted the next hour determining that each girl had an extreme elemental affinity that was so ingrained that almost all other magic was beyond her ability to use. Not my fault. They would all be extremely good at what they could do, though. Usagi was going to be a problem. Not just because my left shoe was more intelligent than her, but also because as her control over her true powers grew, her control over that giant energy crystal she wore as a broach would lessen. She probably would have been more effective if Setsuna had just excluded her. I guess I shouldn't complain, I do, after all, have all intention of taking that crystal with me when I finish this job. None of the Senshi would be able to use it anyway, and they don't have to turn into a freaking girl so they won't be hunted twenty-four/seven. Yes, with that crystal, world domination might not be too far over the horizon.

"Finally, we can get to the actual learning. This is a very weak spell that is useless as anything but a magical flashlight. It may not even be that good if you generate a dark color." I drew my athame and made a few quick passes in the air, leaving ribbons of white and green light. "Stare at the patterns until your eyes water so badly that you can't see anymore. When you've done that, do it again and again until you understand how to do what the instructions say." Sure, this is the hard way, but I'll be damned if I'm going to make it easy on them. It would take just as long either way, and this method makes it easier to learn the more complex stuff.

No one even questioned me. I spent half an hour focusing the spiritual energy that permeated this shrine through my athame, and using it to rework the spells that I had absorbed from the henshin rods. No exertion at all on my part, and I had changed the Sailor Senshi from sex objects into armor-clad and nicely armed devil hunters. I'd let them activate the spell themselves sometime later and see how they liked it. I had barely finished when Ami beckoned me over to her.

A fist-sized sphere of soft blue light was slowly orbiting her head. She was a fast learner. She was even making it move. "Nice work. It's good to know that someone here actually deserves the power they were gifted with," I sighed.

"This is what the spell is supposed to make, sensei?" she asked shyly.

I nodded and said, "Yep. You caught on quickly. No other spell is even a fraction as easy to learn as this one, but at this rate you may get another weak illusion finished today."

Ami beamed at my praise. I was about to go check on the progress of the others when she shyly said, "Ranma-sensei, I know that you're not very happy to be teaching us, and that you were tricked into it, but could you try to be patient with us? Especially Usagi. She isn't as… dumb as she looks or acts. We've all been through a lot together, and she's never let us down."

I nodded without comment. It wouldn't do to upset my only promising student. I decided that maybe it wouldn't hurt to be a little nicer to the girls; but Usagi, in my opinion, was still dumber than my shoe. Rei was the next to successfully cast the spell. Not surprising, now that I knew she had some pretty extensive spiritual training. Her natural aural color was blood red. I was starting to notice a pattern with this whole color scheme. Next came Makoto with deep green, followed by Minako with warm yellow, and finally Usagi with virgin white.

"It's pretty late, at least too late for you to learn another spell." That wasn't entirely true. Ami had managed to learn the flower trick, but she was vastly outgunning her friends with her learning curve. Setsuna probably wanted the purely offensive and defensive to be the main focus. Good; as soon as she got of the toilet, she could look back and see me spending weeks on useless crap. Of course, if she understood more than her temporal magic she could easily know that there wasn't much other way to teach the Senshi.

Before I made my escape I asked, "Do any of you have any actual combat training?" I wasn't hoping for much, but sometimes even I can be surprised. Why was I going to teach the Senshi how to fight? Beats me. I guess I like to do a good job, even if I was tricked into it.

"I know how to do this really neat super-kick thingy that helped beat a youma a long time ago." I ignored Usagi's babbling and waited for any more responses.

"I have my first dan in kempo," Makoto volunteered. Hallelujah!

"I'm a black belt in karate," Rei answered. Praise Bill Gates!

See, never have any hope and anything short of death is a pleasant surprise. "Good. Tomorrow we start the physical side of your education." I didn't give them time to ask any questions. I sunk into the shadows and rose beside a trashcan in the park across the street. All in all, not too bad of a day. Setsuna should be noticing the mutant lice any time now.

Far off in space, in the really dark part where evil tended to spontaneously appear for no reason but to give superhero types anxiety attacks, nothing was happening and all was right with the galaxy.

Deep under miles of ocean, nothing was stirring, not even a giant squid, much less a force for evil.

Several abandoned fortresses and castles from the time of the Silver Millennium remained abandoned.

Thanks to an industrious American named Quinn Mallory, there were no unusual dimensional invaders eying our own little piece of semi-quantum stability. They were all too busy fighting off a prolific race of eyeball-eating things with an unreasoning hatred of humans that young Quinn was inadvertently leading on a grand tour of the known multiverse.

And besides a small city in southern California with an extremely high vampire-to-human ratio, there was very little active involvement with the forces of hell.

So, why was Setsuna getting the Inner Senshi a classical sorcerous education?

Ranma didn't care for the safety of the whole world or that cosmic balance between good and evil crap. He figured if things ever got bad enough where life on Earth was threatened, he could just call up a gateway to an alternate earth, or maybe try to break into heaven. Everyone has to have a hobby.

Disgustedly, Ranma threw down the TV remote and stalked into the kitchen. He would never have guessed that unlimited access to as much free porn as he could stand would take all the fun out of actually watching it. Damn it, Setsuna was just asking for a vicious case of crabs.

Across Tokyo, in a surprisingly large house for such a crowded area, one Soun Tendo, emotional wreck extraordinaire, was rereading his mail.

Tendo, bringing Ranma from China
-Saotome

"Oh, happy day! Girls! Kasumi, Nabiki, Akane! Come here! Your father has an announcement to make!

"I said no, and I mean no!" Ryoga shouted in fury. "I would rather die than pretend that I was Ranma! Do you hear me?! I would rather DIE! Do you have any idea what he would do to me if he found out I was impersonating him again?"

"What could be worse than turning into a pig when you get splashed with cold water?" Genma asked dumbly. He had to do something, or the schools would never be joined. If they could get rid of the boy's directional curse and have those fangs ground down, Nodoka might even be fooled.

"I don't know," Ryoga said calmly before exploding, "Maybe being a pig all the time!!!"

The boy had a point. "What if I taught you secret techniques so dangerous that I sealed them away years ago? Techniques powerful enough to defeat even my misguided son?"

Ryoga lowered the umbrella that was about to crush Genma's skull and asked, "What techniques? Magic?" He shuddered at the thought of using something as horrible as magic.

"No, you dolt! Martial arts techniques, not that magic crap. The Umisenken and Yamasenken are powerful beyond belief, and can only be truly mastered by someone both strong of body and mind." Genma looked at Ryoga doubtfully as he spoke the 'mind' part. There really wasn't much choice, though.

"And all I have to do is pretend that I'm Ranma, and you'll teach me how to defeat the real Ranma?" There had to be more to the deal.

Genma forced a laugh. "Well, of course you'll have to marry one of Tendo's daughters. I hear that they're all more than nice to look at, especially the oldest."

The mention of marriage led Ryoga's small mind straight to what married people are supposed to do. Before he could even respond, a fountain of blood erupted from his nose and he passed out.

The boy would do for now. Genma hoisted Ryoga onto his shoulder and started jogging toward the coast of China.

Across the Pacific Ocean, Bill Gates, the only man richer than the Almighty, chuckled darkly as the latest version of Windows was shipped out. Try to take away his monopoly, would they? Try to split his company into mere shards of its greater whole? Ha! They would all pay, and their little dog too.

"I still don't think we can trust her," Rei said. She was tossing her sphere of light from one hand to the other.

"She finally managed to get Setsuna," Minako commented. "That makes her okay in my bag." She didn't notice the stares her comment received.

"Setsuna wouldn't have gotten her to teach us if she wasn't trustworthy," Makoto added.

"And look what she got for her troubles," Rei retorted.

"But from what she says, Setsuna did something pretty bad to her. She seems nice enough to me, even if she is a little rough around the edges and way too masculine for someone so pretty." Thankfully, no one took notice of the last part of the remark from the nameless Senshi. (Oh, come on; it isn't like this is supposed to be hard to figure out)

"Okay then, what happens if we need to fight a demon, or rescue people from a burning building or something?" Rei sounded desperate to find some inexplicable fault with Ranma.

"That is pretty important. I'm sure that she'll tell us about that today," Ami said.

Usagi was too busy showing Luna her own light sphere to contribute anything meaningful to the conversation.

To be continued.

Author's Notes: I hope to god that my writer's block has finally chosen another helpless victim to torment. Maybe it has, but I'm guessing that it's probably just on vacation. Send C&C to dark_phoneix@hotmail.com please.

Webmaster: Larry F
Last revision: May 21, 2007