The Phantom and The Silence: Chapter 3

"Damned pervert!" Hotaru hissed as she followed closely behind
Ranma."I can't believe that his father is the principal." They were
heading for Ranma's house where he assured Hotaru his mom would be
able to help her get re-enrolled in a school after getting expelled
for 'attacking' the principal's son without just cause.

Ranma looked back to grin at Hotaru then decreased his sliding pace
along the sidewalk and came to a steady cruising speed beside the
girl. "What I can't believe is that no one minds the principal
dressing up like a woman," he said.  Principal Kuno was the most
hideous woman he'd ever seen.

Hotaru made a gagging noise deep in her throat and replied,"Ugh, don't
remind me." Hotaru easily kept up with Ranma, though she couldn't
reproduce his gliding trick, and the pair streaked down the street
towards Juuban.  Raising her voice to be heard better, Hotaru asked,
"Ranma, are you sure your mom can get me back in school?  Grandfather
may do something to that crossdresser that could get him in bad
trouble if she can't." Perverted Happosai may be, but he cared greatly
for his heir and had an overprotective streak a mile wide.

"Trust me on this, Hotaru, I've seen her make grown men cry just by
glaring at them." It didn't hurt that she carried around a katana,
either.  Nodoka had as forceful a personallity as any Ranma had ever
encountered, and his mother didn't mind using it to her advantage.

Hotaru nodded hopefully.  And sped up to catch up with Ranma who had
began to increase his pace.

****

Hotaru still wasn't having much trouble keeping up with Ranma, but
fifteen minutes into their trip, Ranma suddenly reached out and
grabbed a lamp post, using it as a fulcrum to change his momentum and
propel him down an intersecting street like a bullet.  Hotaru cursed
as she frantically launched herself into the air to avoid running into
traffic.  A nearby apartment building served as a spring board, and
with a few secondary jumps from surrounding buildings, Hotaru was back
alongside Ranma.

"Idiot!" she snapped, bopping him on the head with her staff."You
could have at least warned me!" The staff slid back into stasis and
Hotaru apologized,"Sorry, that was uncalled for, but don't be so mean
next time."

Ranma took the hit in stride, sensing that there had been no real
harmful intent and not really minding the small amount of force she
had used."I didn't leave you behind intentionally," Ranma claimed,"I'm
just used to running on my own and forgot about you for a minute."

Hotaru accepted Ranma's apology and assumed he accepted hers.  From a
few scattered signs, Hotaru could tell that Ranma had led her to
Juuban.  Tokyo was much larger than she at first believed.  They'd
been clearing better than fifty kilometers an hour for at least twenty
minutes and there was no sign of an end to the sprawling metropolis.

The air in front of Hotaru, within a heartbeat, thickened noticeably
and Ranma's arm snaked out, catching her around the waist tightly.
She nearly squealed in fright, not expecting the sudden action, but an
iron will and Ranma's hand across her face kept her silent.  They were
no longer moving, Hotaru noticed, yet only a moment earlier and ten
feet back the pair had been blurs of superfast movement.  The trick
with the air must have been Ranma's version of brakes.

"Shhh!" Ranma whispered fiercely as he held his finger across his
lips.  Hotaru nodded and he withdrew his hand from her mouth."Look,"
he breathed, pointing around the corner of a small intersection.

Hotaru followed Ranma's gaze and tensed in preparation as she saw a
nine foot tall, vaguely female demon ravaging a storefront and
smashing several parked cars.  Now that she had stopped moving, Hotaru
could easily hear the destruction."That looks like one of
grandfather's creatures." Happosai was always summoning up demons for
her to fight.  It kept her sharp, he claimed.  He'd never before
raised one that did anything but attack her, though, with the
exception of some smaller dog creatures that he occassionally took out
on panty raids.

"Huh?" Ranma asked dumbly.  As a frequent visitor to Juuban, Ranma had
seen plenty of these things, but at the urging of his mother, always
kept to himself and left the Sailor Senshi the task of elimanting
them.

"Grandfather uses demons to train me sometimes, but they never bother
anyone else." The creature in the mean time had destroyed another car
with a blast of purple fire.

"Oh, well that's something different.  This is probably just another
of the demons that are always showing up around here.  You ever heard
of the Sailor Senshi?" Hotaru shook her head negative."We'll wait here
so you can watch the show.  They're really pathetic.  I mean they have
these little tiny skirts and can't fight worth a shit.  Mom says not
to pick on them, but sometimes I can't help it.  About the only thing
they have going for themselves is their magic.  I don't know where
they got it from, but the stuff is pretty effective.  Anyway, you'll
see."

Hotaru was about to ask Ranma what in Hell he was talking about when a
loud voice rang out across the impromtu battle field."For destroying
such a wonderful place as a lawyer's office...wait, nevermind that!  I
commend you for your service to the community, but the destruction of
so many innocent automobiles can not be forgiven!  I, Sailor Moon,
warrior of love and justice, shall punish you!!!"

A girl with long blonde ponytails, dressed as Ranma had said, in a
tiny little mutli-colored skirt, as well as a skin tight bodysuit that
showed off her curves in their entirety."You didn't mention stupid
speeches," Hotaru whispered to Ranma.

Ranma grinned evilly."I didn't want to spoil it for you."

Back on the battle field, Sailor Moon had been joined by another four
sailorsuited warriors of love and justice.  Similar speeches were
spouted and four more girls made fools of themselves."This is
embarrassing to the female gender," Hotaru said in disgust."Why would
anyone choose to fight in micro-skirts?"

Ranma shrugged."I don't have a clue."

"Oh my, I didn't believe her when she told me you silly little twits
actually wore those things, but she was actually telling the truth!"
Bellowed the demon thing.  Laughing giddily, it began to gather
electricity. the energy beginning to crackle and spark over its purple
fur."Die!!!"

The senshi all narrowly avoided the attack, diving behind cars or into
craters as the purple lighting the demon threw from its hands raked
the scene completely.  The black-haired girl in red was the first to
regain her feet.

"Mars Flame Sniper!" she shouted, forming a bow of fire and launching
a flaming missle at the demon.  The projectile slammed into the
demon's right forearm but did no noticeable damage to the spiked
gauntlet it wore.

The demon chuckled, then suffered a coughing fit as it inhaled the
smoke left behind from the firebrand's attack.

"Jupiter Oak Evolution!" This came from a brown-haired girl in green.
Wave after wave of electric force cascaded from her outstretched
fingertips as she piroquetted gracefully.  The energy flowed around
and over the demon, once again leaving her unharmed.

"Come now, is that the best you have to offer?" the demon sneered.
She raised wickedly clawed hands into the air and cackled to the
heavens as power began to build between them."I shall destroy you
all!!!"

"I won't allow you to harm anyone else, you foul creature from the
negaverse!" Sailor Moon exclaimed, raising a wand that looked
suspisciously like a dildo.  She glowed, she twirled, she shouted
something totally ridiculous and inappropriate for the situation and
in the end did more property damage than the demon had.  And to top it
all off, the demon stood not half a foot to the left of the energy
beam as it destroyed several buildings, vaporizing the people who
lived within them.

"Ranma, this is sad," Hotaru stated."We've got to help them." If she
was understanding things properly, Hotaru thought that the girls were
the good guys, but that last one, in her ineptitude, had just killed
dozens of people and destroyed millions of yen worth of property.  If
the girl was that pathetic as a superhero, she should find another
business.

Ranma laid a restraining arm on Hotaru's shoulder."We're not supposed
to interfere.  They always win, eventually, and mom'll get pissed if
she finds out that I revealed myself." Ranma could see how Nodoka
didn't want him drawing attention to himself or his school, but she'd
never even let him compete in any tournaments, even when he was
assured a quick and easy victory.

Hotaru looked ready to hold back, but the demon chose that moment to
throw a massive bolt of black energy at the girl in the blue skirt.
She attempted to dodge, and was partially succesful, her right
shoulder barely getting tagged.  Still, the blow held enough force to
smash the girl into an overturned van.  Hotaru broke away from Ranma
and jumped into the fray.

****

Hotaru landed a dozen feet from the demon.  From stasis emerged her
staff, already whirling in a blurred disc and throwing blue fire from
each end.

"They may dress, fight, and talk like idiots, but at least they're
human," Hotaru shouted."You, on the other hand, are not!" She brought
the staff to a stop, pointing it directly at the demon.  Chi gathered
from Hotaru herself and the surrounding environment blasted into the
demon in a continuous beam.  The demon couldn't move fast enough to
avoid the attack and had its left arm burned away.

"Arrrrggghhhhhh!!!  You puny human, you shall die a thousand deaths
for this insult!" Black and purple energy poured from the ghastly
wound, intertwining and becoming a viscous version of the missing
limb."Arise my pets, arise and destroy those who would harm your
mistress!!!"

From every shadow in the abandoned street came thousands of cat sized
demons, complete with tiny wings and miniscule fire breath.  The
purple demon cackled a final time before disappearing into a portal of
the same energy it had previously lobbed around so negligently.

"Who are you?" Sailor Moon asked, breathless from the strain of using
her most powerful attack.  It never occurred to her that her sloppy
aim had cost scores of people their lives.  The girl was flanked by
her four friends, each looking at Hotaru curiously.

"Uh, no one really, just a concerned citizen," Hotaru answered.  The
little minions summoned by the retreating demon were forming packs,
some gathering together to create larger versions of themselves.

Now only ten school, bus sized shadow demons, along with a few hundred
of the small demons remained.  From boths side of the street the
demons stalked, converging on the senshi and Hotaru.

Ranma appeared beside Hotaru, looking mournful.  His mom was gonna be
soooo pissed, but he couldn't let Hotaru get hurt."Unless you girls
haven't noticed, there are some more demons to take care of," Ranma
said coldly.  He didn't approve of their careless methods and couldn't
help but hold the senshi in disdain.

"We might as well take care of them," Hotaru said."These...girls
certainly aren't up to the task."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" one of the girls screamed
indignantly.  Ranma and Hotaru, now facing the demons, couldn't tell
who has asked and didn't plan on acknowledging her anyway.

****

Ranma's match the day before with Hotaru had been a test of skill and
speed mostly, with powerful attacks limited by their environment and
the friendly nature of the competition.  Now, though, Ranma had no
intention of getting in range of the demons.  Their mouths, little
more than gaping maws filled with six inch teeth, dripped acidic slime
that bubbled as it struck the asphault, and each arm was tipped with
talons of dark energy that scraped deep furrows in the pavement as
they drug the overly long appendages behind them.

The nearest demon topped fifteen feet in height and had a flock of
smaller demons orbitting it warily, carefully avoiding its snapping
jaw.  Ranma's battle aura came free, a great blurry grey distortion
that nearly equaled the demon in height.  Using his arms more as a
guide for his battle aura, Ranma swept them both forward, patterning
and arranging several layers of vacuum force.  Windows exploded and
buildings collapsed as Ranma unleashed his first attack.  The demon,
unaware, or too stupid to realize that the rapidly approaching zone of
wavering air was an attack, didn't even attempt to dodge.

The little demons simply ceased to exist as anything more than wisps
of darkness that rapidly faded into nothingness.  The big demon was
more substantial, so when it was ripped in half by a pressure
invariance, globs of slime and chunks of green bone splattered the
area.  A trio of elemental energy attack, fire, water, and lightning,
careened into another of the big demons, killing it, but with much
less speed.  Its own little flock of mini-demons were left to fight
over the corpse.

Three more giant demons fell to Ranma's power, two of them in the same
manner as the first and the last losing its head to a huge vacuum
blade.  The senshi took out the remaining two on Ranma's end.  Ranma
turned to see how Hotaru was doing and was releived to see the last
demon on her end of the street fall to a focussed beam of chi.

****

As the last demon fell to the ground, its head and most of its upper
torso burned away, Hotaru breathed a sigh of relief.  The creatures
had been practically immune to hot and cold chi, but pure chi,
properly focussed with lighter emotions worked wonderfully to destroy
them.  The problem was that the demons were enormous in size and all
but the last of them required massive energy discharges to bring down.
Two of the senshi, with their efforts combined, 'had' actually managed
to kill one of the demons, but that had still left her with three.

"Nice work, a little messy, but nice," Ranma commented as he walked
over to her, carefully avoiding the remains of fallen demons.  His
task was made easier as the black and purple innards turned into a
fine black powder that rapidly ceased to exist in the mortal plane.

"You too," Hotaru said, returning her staff to its resting place."Did
you have to be so loud?  I thought the whole point to your style was
stealth." Hotaru stuck her tongue out at Ranma and tried to shake the
ringing from her ears left by Ranma's thunderous attacks.

Shrugging, Ranma said,"Sometimes the situation calls for brute force."

"Hmmm mmm!" coughed one of the senshi behind Ranma, Sailor Moon.

Ranma and Hotaru both looked at the girls."Wow, that was so cool!"
Sailor Moon squealed."Are you magical warriors for love and justice,
too?"

Ranma turned a little green and Hotaru chuckled."Sorry, honey, but I
wouldn't be caught dead in that getup."

"We really should get out of here before reporters start showing up,"
Ranma whispered to Hotaru."If mom sees me in the newspaper she'll
freak out." To the senshi, he said,"Nice to meetcha and all, but
you'll probably never see us again." With that, he enfolded himself
and Hotaru in a blanket of warped chi and distorted air.

****

Ranma sat Hotaru down three blocks over and let the masking cloak fade
away.  Hotaru looked around, amazed that life and traffic were
uneffected this close to a demonic battle zone."Don't ever, ever do
that again, Ranma, not without my permission," she said, rebalancing
her aura after such prolonged contact with Ranma's trademark vacuum
aura.  She couldn't imagine how his chi had become so warped.

Confused, Ranma asked,"Why, it didn't hurt did it?" He sounded hurt.

Quickly, to assuage Ranma's confidence, Hotaru said,"No, nothing like
that.  Your aura is just unusual, sorta like a vacuum, and it tries to
pull mine in whenever we touch.  I can fight the effects off without
any trouble, but if I had extended my resources too far in that fight
back there you could have unwittingly have drawn in enough of my chi
to knock me out."

"Ah, forgot about that, sorry," he said sheepishly."Pops says that
eventually I should be able to pull away someones chi at will without
any visual evidence.  Not much of a way to fight, if you ask me.  It
would just knock the person out, but it'd be a great way to kill
someone if the need ever arose." Ranma scratched the back of his head
nervously.

Hotaru reminded herself to never try the Happo Go-en Satsu on Ranma.
To open a chi conduit between herself and Ranma would not be the
safest thing to do.  Maybe she should teach Ranma that technique.
There would be time for that later."Oh well, it's not really important
right now.  Let's just get to your house."

****

"Love, I believe you were mistaken," the purple demon from before
growled as she floated down out of the portal.  Her demonic form
became fuzzy and began to flex, moments later disappearing entirely.
A young woman in her late teens now stood in the amber light cast by
softly glowing lamps.  Her aquamarine hair shimmered as the last
vestiges of demonic prescence slipped away.

From a shadow cast by a large bookcase, a pair of arms appeared.  They
wrapped around the girl's waist and pulled her into their owner's
embrace.

"How so?" Haruka asked teasingly, breathing on her lover's neck while
caressing her breasts.

"The Sailor Senshi are not the pushovers you made them out to be.  The
ones in the suits were pushovers, but the one with the staff, she tore
my infernal-form's arm off with a beam of energy." Michiru didn't care
about the encounter with the senshi, not with Haruka there to lean
upon.

"Perhaps we should consult your mirror later," Haruka suggested.

"Yes, later, but now..."

****

"Wow, nice place," Hotaru remarked as Ranma pointed out the large
house.  Closer to a mansion, the house possessed a large outer wall,
complete with iron gates and a coded entrance panel.

"Mom's a little peculiar about it, well at least about the Garden."
The Garden was something straight out of a cheesy horror movie,
complete with giant carnivorous plants and living statues.  They never
tried to eat Ranma, so he didn't bother them.  He typed in the
security code and the gates swung open on their own volition."Stay on
the path," he cautioned her, pointing out three inch spikes hidden
along the slightly higher grass that bordered the walkway.

Ranma led Hotaru into the house through a side door that opened into a
spacious kitchen.  A pot of something was bubbling on the stove
merrily and the smell filled the kitchen with the aroma of chocolate.

Hotaru was more than impressed with Ranma's home and was about to
comment further on it when a beautiful green-haired woman wearing an
apron over casual black slacks and a green silk blouse walked in.

"Hey mom," Ranma greeted.  Ranma's mother stepped forward and embraced
her son warmly.

"Ranma, I see you've brought a friend..." The woman's mouth fell open
and her eyes widened, but she quickly controlled the gesture and
said,"Nice to meet you, young lady.  I'm Setsuna Meiou, Ranma's
mother."

Hotaru smiled and exchanged greetings with the striking woman,
wondering silently to herself why she felt so familiar with Ranma's
mother.

****

Author's Notes:  Before anyone tries to attack me, remember this.
Happosai took Hotaru as a child, therfore Mistress 9 never had a host
and the entire Death Busters arc never happened.  The Outer Senshi
never had a chance to reawaken.  The Inner Senshi have gone without
the help of the Outers and Saturn and aren't as powerful as they
should be.  I don't really know what I'm gonna do with Haruka and
Michiru yet, maybe something with them being swayed to use their
latent magic for evil and were turned by it.  As for Setsuna being
Ranma's mother...I just had the idea while talking to a friend on AIM
and decided to run with it.  Setsuna could have had a big plan to use
Ranma to control Hotaru so she seduced Genma and got knocked up, but
then Happi stole baby Hotaru away and she couldn't find her, so she
stuck with Genma and Ranma, eventually growing to love them and
keeping Genma from making too many mistakes with her son.  This
chapter isn't proof-read, sorry.  Didn't feel like rereading it.  C&C
is welcome as dark_phoneix@hotmail.com