Chapter 6

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.

Within hours of setting out the next morning, we found, at last, a destination. The city sat behind massive walls of the same type stone and construction of the road. Ninety meters high and half that thick, I couldn't help but be impressed by the work. The city itself was huge. The buildings were all low to the ground and constructed of a single color of stone. When viewed from above, the buildings took on the same pattern of organization as in the road. Oh yeah, there wasn't anyone living in the place. There could have been people, or six-tentacled clams, or whatever passed for intelligent life on this planet hiding somewhere, but I didn't see any signs of them. Windblown dust had gathered in corners and between buildings, suggesting significant age.

"Did we scare all the people away?" Usagi asked sadly. I shook my head. I was still feeling a little sorry for Usagi after last night's unfortunate incident, and I didn't want to make her cry by rebuking her.

"Look around," I said once Usagi's attention was focused elsewhere. "No one has lived here in a long time." Besides the dust, though, there was no debris or litter. There was nothing except stone. Wooden window casements in some of the dwellings we passed had rotted away to nothing. I wouldn't even have known that any had ever existed there if not for Ami pointing it out. That little computer of hers has to be magically augmented; I just don't know how.

"This is a nice place," Makoto said after we had walked into a sizable square with a still functioning fountain that sprayed a fine mist into the air. "Why would anybody abandon it?"

"Who knows?" I shrugged. "A plague could have killed off the inhabitants ten thousand years ago, or they could have decided that living in such a colorful place was aggravating. We'll never know." I didn't feel any magical agent at work, so how could the stone this city was composed of have escaped the relentless erosion of nature, especially a place so close to an ocean that would bring in frequent storms and a steady and continuous salt spray to further speed destruction?

"Then I," and Usagi did a little semi-speech, "shall claim this the City of Usagi!" She raised her arm and swirled it around, collecting energy and forming it into an extremely skillful construct. It was well done, the flag of silver with her picture on it, though not really suited to my tastes.

I watched, with the Senshi as witnesses, as Usagi flew to the top of the highest structure and planted her flag. The silver fabric caught a nonexistent wind and unfurled completely, giving off a radiant glow. "Maybe it's something in the air," Minako supplied to the silence of big eyes and giant sweat drops.

"What do you think?" Usagi asked, streamers of pure happiness twirling around her. Sometimes there can be such a thing as too Good.

"Uh, it's great, Usagi," I replied. "What made you think of such a wonderful name?" Everyone else just nodded along with me.

The girl shrugged and smiled. "It just felt right." She shivered. "I just couldn't stand for such a pretty place to be so lonely and abandoned." As long as she didn't try to clean it up and make all nice and shiny, I couldn't care less what she called it.

"The next one is mine," Rei snapped, irritable that she hadn't thought of claiming the city first. Those two have a really weird love-hate relationship, kinda like the one my mom had with the old bastard, but without the sex.

All the Senshi, even Ami, then called dibs on who would name what. Poor Minako looked like a sulky little kid when she found out everyone was ahead of her. Ha, watch this. "You all have your fun. If we don't find anyone to tell us otherwise, I'm claiming and naming this planet." Ha, ha, ha. "Ranma has a nice ring to it, don't you think?" The choking noises made by Rei and Makoto were worth letting myself get caught up in the small lapse into silliness.

Ami and I were the only ones who had decided not to go explore the city in more detail. We were sitting outside the wall at a small fire and eating berries from a big leaf I had wrapped them in. There weren't any wombats around, and I didn't feel like hunting much.

"Ranma, if the whole planet is like Usagi's city, we're screwed," Ami said around a mouthful of berries. I congratulated myself on getting Ami to say 'screwed' within a normal conversation. A little time and I could maybe get a few curse words worked into the Senshi' vocabulary.

"Yep," I agreed. "Of course, I get to be Emperor of Ranma, then." Ami smiled worriedly. Heh. "Really, though, if it comes down to the wire, and I can't find what we need, I can just tear a hole into another universe." My crystal and I can do that, for the record. Not me alone. No one has that much power, even Silence and Saturn. "That would destroy this planet. That's a last resort measure, though, because we could end up somewhere worse. I'm on good terms with the inhabitants in the Hell of our universe, but destroying an entire sentient species by accident, though," I shook my head, "Would get me personal attention from the Prince of Hell himself."

Ami was staring at me when I looked up to get some more berries. "You mean you've really been to hell?" she asked disbelievingly. "I thought all those references were just jokes."

"No really, I have. It's not a bad place to visit; a little warm for my tastes, but nice, in a… red sort of way. The Dark Prince isn't a bad guy, he just got stuck with a crappy father." I've had my fair share of bad parenting, so I know.

"But the… tormenting of lost souls… and eternal damnation…"

I waved that off. "Hell isn't what people think it is. You have to do something really bad to go to hell. Trust me, if you're there, you deserve it. I was just babysitting Nicky, so I'm the exception." Nicky's a nice kid. Too bad his brothers hit him with that shovel.

"Who's Nicky?" Ami sounded resigned, like she just couldn't help but believe me.

"The Dark Prince's youngest son. He's a bit on the goofy side, not really Prince of Hell material. I've heard that his mother was a goat, so you can't really expect much." The berries slowly dwindled away in the silence. I hoped the other girls could find themselves something to eat, or they were going to throw a fit. "Ever hear of Hitler?" Stupid question, I know. I told her about his twice-daily anal pineapple rape and had her cracking up pretty good by the time the girls came back, a monstrous watermelon held between them.

"Look what we found!" Usagi exclaimed. That was a big damned watermelon. We made a feast of it, sporadically interrupted by a shootout between Rei and Usagi with peach-pit sized seeds. I showed my little group of girl scouts how to remove the moisture from thin slices of the melon, producing a huge quantity of dried watermelon chips. I didn't ask Usagi why she carried garbage bags in her purse, it seemed like a waste of breathe. No more picking berries for a while.

Weeks later, with no other sign of civilization besides the Road and Usagi's city, I started to get worried. My companions and I were all in relatively good spirits, though for how long I couldn't guess. I 'm really thinking about getting rid of this damned ring and letting the Senshi know who I really am. It's not like they could destroy me, and I'm the only one with the know-how and power to get us home… Truth is, I'm really horny. I could probably have seduced Ami in my girl form— I just think she swings that way for some reason— but that would make things way too awkward, and I'd much rather be a guy for the occasion.

I'd continued instructing the Senshi in the arcane art, and was pleasantly surprised that the higher energy levels of Ranma World (has a nice ring to it) made learning spell patterns easier for some reason. Ami knew, if not well enough to properly use, all of the ice and water based spells that I did. She was getting completely separate lessons from Usagi in white magic and myself in the darker aspects. Rei and Makoto were far enough along with their studies to help each other with the more difficult heat/electricity spells that were most familiar. Minako consistently insisted that hers was the power of love, and I couldn't really make her understand that most of her magic was centered around high-energy plasma.

"What are those?" I asked Minako and Makoto as we sat in the cave I had found. Night had fallen and everyone was relaxing. They were playing some kind of card game. I couldn't see well into their little corner of the cave because of the shadows cast by the light spheres they were using. I didn't want to play, I have the worst poker face ever; I was just curious and bored.

"Pokémon cards," they answered simultaneously. The duo took turns describing the layout of the game. I nodded and said yes and no whenever appropriate, but my attention wasn't really with them. I was busy discreetly watching Rei give herself a sponge bath. I wanted to cry. It's all so unfair. When they finished, I made my escape into the cool night.

I climbed to the top of the rock outcropping that housed the cave and slipped the ring off, feeling the instant change from male to female. If I hadn't accepted this thing, I would not have had a way to truly hide from devil hunters, then again, I would be somewhere now having fun doing 'something' or someone.

If I hadn't been so wrapped up in my own problems, I would have heard or sensed Ami's approach. When her head popped up over the rim of slightly flattened ledge made by the jutting rock, I froze, unable to move or think. Well, the secret was out, I guess.

She continued to climb, unaware of my appearance. It wasn't until she was almost all the way up when she began," Ranma, I—" and a cloud moved just enough to bathe me in moonlight. She, too, froze. I thought she would fall, but she powered up a flight spell and floated over the rim and to her feet. Hmm, why wasn't she screaming and trying to blast me? "R-Ranma, what are y-you doing? Is that an illusion?" She didn't come any closer and I could sense the building of defensive barriers around her.

"No Ami, this isn't an illusion. This is my true form." I quickly slipped the ring on and changed back into a girl. "This is just an altered state." At least I had managed to speak.

"But, but Luna said that you were evil all those months ago… and then you showed up as a girl…" Things must have started to add up in her head.

"Luna was wrong about me being evil," I informed her heatedly. Damned furball. "I just have a demonic presence."

"That's why you hate Setsuna so much, isn't it? She tricked you into teaching us, and you had to honor the agreement, but you couldn't do it in your true form, so she gave you the ring. You didn't know it would make you a girl, then?" Wow, she inferred most of it out of that one little piece of info. Good girl.

"That's mostly right. The agreement was to teach the Senshi so that I could have the ring. It was supposed to mask my presence so that devil hunters would leave me alone. They've bothered me for years, you see. Sailor Pluto didn't feel like telling me that it would have to change my gender to be effective." That reminded me that with me out of the same general area as Setsuna, the power to all the curses I had stuck her with would be gone. They had probably all faded away by now. Shit.

Ami didn't speak right away. I remained silent as she walked up to me and sat down. "I won't tell the others. I think you would be surprised if you did. Luna has been wrong before. The others are open-minded and genuinely think of you as a friend; they'd accept you without much trouble, I'm sure." She sounded like she believed what she was saying. I didn't.

I chuckled and said, "You forget that I'm really a guy, and that I've seen you all naked a lot, and listened to you talk about nipples and stuff. I'm not sure if it wasn't a punishment more than a pleasure. I don't think most girls would see it that way, though." I did have to sleep, after all, and all kinds of bad things can happen to a person's resting mind and body.

"It's up to you. Your secret is safe with me," assured Ami. "And I don't know about you," she said shyly, in a whisper, "but I liked it when you saw me nude."

Alarm bells and all kinds of flashing lights were going off in my head. I wasn't entirely sure whether Ami was squeezing my crotch, either. This wasn't supposed to happen, not with Ami. I could see Minako, the future slut, making a move like this, but not AMI! I was surprised, not stunned into inaction. I switched back to my true form and saw that Ami didn't take exception to it. Yay!

It's amazing the amount of tension one can relieve through sex. When you've gone months without it, while being in a highly sexual (from a guy's perspective) situation, you feel like a totally different person. I didn't even let myself notice all the knowing looks I was getting from the Senshi, even Usagi. Ami was a real screamer.

Isn't today a great day? All sunny and breezy, not a hint of a cloud in the sky, a giant spaceship slowly descending to the ground. I rubbed my eyes and shook my head. Yep, still there.

"Look alive, girls!" I shouted back towards the cave. The Senshi scrambled into the clearing in full battle regalia. I didn't need to point out the ship.

"Do you think this is their planet?" Usagi asked. "They can't have my city!" She looked ready to blast the ship.

"It doesn't matter if it is," I heard Ami reply. "If they're friendly, anyone with the ability to build a ship that size could get Ranma the supplies he needs to find home." I turned and winked at the Senshi of Mercury, causing her to blush rosily.

The ship was too close for comfort by now and a deep humming whine filled the air. The thing was going to set down right in front of us. The closer it got the easier it got to appreciate the true magnitude of the ship. It was shaped like a giant saucer with a sharply curving protrusion flowing downward, from which were attached to uprising tubes that glowed with energy.

"Look," Rei pointed. "There are words on it! In English!" She was right. It read U.S.S. Enterprise.

To be continued.

Author's Notes: It's shorter than normal, I know, but if I ever get a good lemon scene for Ranma and Ami, it'll fill out pretty good. No, this isn't going to be a Star Trek crossover, just a kind of guest appearance. I'm thinking of having a 'Crossover Crisis' like romp through various anime universes. I still haven't decided. C&C welcome at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com

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Last revision: May 21, 2007