The pale-haired woman wearing somewhat singed and dented battle armor stared in disgust at the dozens of perfectly similar, hourglass-like objects arrayed before her, floating lazily over marble pedestals and sealed within cubes of diamond glass. The hated empire had fallen, after years and years of painstaking, horrific fighting. The last source had fallen days ago with the emperor thanks to a well-placed bomb (May the brave soul of the one who brought death to their foe be blessed by the gods), an event that had temporarily stunned the planetary defenses enough to let their invasion begin.
Yes, that man was a hero, and would surely be remembered for millennia's to come. In fact, she would make sure of it. It was thanks to him, after all, that they had overthrown the empire and freed themselves from its tyranny.
Of course, there was still this task to be done; the destruction of the keys. The very keys that were currently being looked over by their most brilliant egghea--um, scientists ("Diplomacy, diplomacy," she reminded herself chidingly. She would soon be a ruler, after all) were looking over them, every now and then emitting little sounds of awe and wonderment before what was, for them, priceless pieces of magical engineering.
Tranquility was many things; a fine appreciator a high-level magi-technology was not one of those things.
"Milady, these are amazing pieces of work," the head scientist, a squat, mostly bald man with a face aged with stress lines (but then, so was pretty much everyone under her command) declared excitedly. "The number of things we can learn from them--"
"You will not learn anything from them, except how to destroy them," she interrupted flatly. The man's face was funny, in a somewhat sadistic way; he looked like a big, squat and bald child who had just had his birthday present stolen under his nose.
"B-But...But milady, these are priceless! They're... they're unbelievable! They're--" He cut himself off when she rounded on him, eyes glaring furiously.
"What they are, Zephyr, are abominations! You've seen what they can do, what happened to the poor souls who came in contact with them! And you know just as well as me that the Sol Empire could try and rise again, as long as these... things are left in one piece. No, Zephyr, I want you to destroy each and every single one of them, and wipe every trace of their existence from every record there is."
She moved closer, grabbing him by the somewhat grimy collar of his lab robes until her attractive face was mere inches from his; many men would have killed to be in his position, whereas he would have killed not to be at that moment. When she spoke again, it was heavy with menace and cold with anger.
"And you will do it."
Zephyr nodded frantically, a second before she released him. Then, with a single hand movement toward her most trusted friend and most loyal follower, the redheaded Irina Meioh of Pluto, she left in a flurry of her silvery cape, the ex-knight of Pluto at her side, where she belonged.
She was Tsukino Tranquility, spiritual and tactical mastermind behind the rebellion, enemy of the Sol Empire, hunted across all 14 planets and their hundred and fifty inhabited moons, founder and first ruler of the Moon Kingdom, founder of the Silver Millennium, and five times great grandmother of Queen Tsukino Serenity.
She was not a woman who could be denied.
Unfortunately, Zephyr happened to be torn between his eternal love for knowledge and technology, and his loyalty to Tranquility. In the end, his mind reached a compromise that satisfied both; Tranquility was still suffering from the war. She was under a lot of stress, and no doubt she was nervous about the uncertain future (there was very little doubt as to who would be chosen to lead the people into the new age, though how it would go was anybody's guess). Surely she was entitled into making a few hasty decisions.
He decided to destroy all of them, just like she ordered him, after having concealed one in a safe spot and created a crafty illusion he could dispel at any moment. He would be ready, when the technology would be needed, to reveal his disobedience at the right moment. Oh, he had no illusions, she would be furious, but in the end, surely she would appreciate his forethought?
Unfortunately for him, two days after the artifacts were destroyed, he could not remember where he had hidden it. In fact, he did not even remember taking one away, not did he remember those artifacts having ever been found; their task accomplished, the science team and Zephyr found their memories of the artifacts wiped thoroughly by Tranquility's powers, and in the absence of proof of their existence, the rumor about the artifacts' existence was deemed ridiculous by the populace and was never seriously written or spoken of, ever again.
Unfortunately for him, and for a young man, a powerful martial artist cursed to become a girl, nearly thirteen thousand years later...
RANMA½/Sailor Moon Crossover - MAGICAL SOURCE
AKA: Project Broken Ranma
Author's notes at Fukufics readers:
Please note that the "redheaded" part to the ancestor of Setsuna was added on a whim, and doesn't have to go anywhere.
This, like the Sub-name implies, is something of a dark fic, possibly with a bit of Shoujo-ai scented romance and a great deal of angst.
Magic is a very basic force; in its raw state, it's little more than fuel. In contact with a spell, though, magic becomes something, whatever it be. Living beings do not normally produce magic, they can only use it. Just as well, something that produces magic cannot possibly use it.
The artifacts mentioned in the introduction were the secret behind the power of the Moon Kingdom's predecessor, the Sol Empire. On contact with a suitable person, the artifact connects a basic piece of the universe's very, very chaotic magical energies to the person, essentially turning them into literal batteries of chaotic, uncontrollable magical power: Magical Sources.
And now, Ranma, in his girl form, came in contact with an artifact (while searching for a cure) that can make a sufficiently chaotic person into a literal fountain of chaotic magical energy. Who bets Ranma becomes a magical source? Yeah. Thought so.
Now a fountain of magic power, Ranma inadvertently locks everyone in their natural forms, as none of them were into their cursed form when they came into Ranma's magical field. Everyone, including himself, or rather, herself.
Thus begins the first arc of the story: Nerima, and how people deal with it. Understandably, none of them are very helpful.
Ranma herself takes it very, very badly: the other times when she was locked (the cat's tongue, the ladle), she had a cure within her sights, and a quest to get herself cured. This time, however, there is simply nothing. Even Cologne has no idea how to help her, and no one is jumping out to tell her about their nefarious plot to lock her into a girl or anything.
The fathers are obviously unhelpful to the extreme: Soun, constantly crying about the schools never being joined, and Genma, pushing Ranma for her to find a cure… without ever doing anything himself, and while enjoying the mysterious 'cure'. As for their morning sparring, Genma holds back, something that angers Ranma to the point she uses too much strength and breaks one of his arms and a few ribs.
Despite all her years of experience, this is something that completely stumps Cologne; she has some idea, though, and is perhaps the most helpful character, Shampoo and Dr. Tofu excluded.
Nodoka is just as bad as Genma: Despite her son's female state, she continues to push him towards being Manly, perhaps even worse than before. After all, when he finds the cure for his condition, he cannot possibly have gained female habits, no no no.
'course, when Ranma's periods start, Nodoka simply flips.
Kasumi and Nabiki are helpful, somewhat; Kasumi is a soothing, gentle anchor who listens to her as she grows more and more depressed (and ultimately points her situation to Dr Tofu), whereas Nabiki does her best to drive the chaos away from her.
Ryoga and Mousse are plain awful: Ryoga is positively delighted that Ranma is stuck in girl form, while he is cured and fully able to go after Akane. His ultimate goal, to destroy Ranma's happiness, is well underway. As for Mousse, he is now certain that Ranma is no threat for his chance at Shampoo; he is now certain that all he needs to do is convince Shampoo to finish her Kiss of Death quest, return to China with her and be deliriously happy.
…as said in Girl Days, he is blind to reality.
On the fiancée front, Akane and Ukyo try to be helpful, but when things start to move forward (pushed by Nodoka, actually), Akane ducks out to go with Ryoga under Sayuri and Yuka's peer pressure ("People are starting to think you're a lesbian, Akane!"), and while Ukyo does go out on a date with Ranma-chan, she cannot bring herself to act intimately with another girl, something Ranma senses very easily, especially after Ukyo tries to force herself to kiss her at the end of their date.
Kodachi and Kuno… have not changed. 'nuff said.
Even Ranma's friends, Hiroshi and Daisuke, crack under the pressure; after Hiroshi tries to take Ranma's hand while watching an action movie during what Ranma thinks of as a Friendly Outing, she stops hanging out with them.
Happosai… um… read Kuno's part. Read the last two words again for good measure.
Shampoo, however, is helpful, more so than everyone else. Her curse removed, she is free to approach Ranma without scaring the wits out of her, and, unlike Akane and Ukyo, she doesn't have the western conditioning against Homosexuality; far from that: in a tribe of women warrior, is there a better compliment than being so attractive one attracts even other strong warriors?
This Shampoo does not use the Fanon "I want to use Ranma as a stud" attitude (whereas Cologne does… but whatever).
The end of the Nerima Arc: Ranma, after handling near inhuman levels of abuse, breaks under the strain; she runs. Shampoo follows her to Juuban.
Arc 2: Juuban
Obviously, this is the Sailor Moon part. I thought a long time about when to put Ranma in, and I decided that the best timing is very, very early on, perhaps as soon as Rei's introduction. Any later and you either have Makoto's fighting skills giving way too big a hint to Ranma as to who the Sailors are, or the trigger-happy outers joining in ("She's flooding with chaotic energy! WORLD SHAKING!"), or, if it's after galaxia, absolutely no threats left, which would be utterly boring.
Such an early timing has the advantage of having a small, unstable team of Senshi, thus possibly causing tensions (Rei would naturally be suspicious of Ranma, especially since the damn redhead ends up living under her roof thanks to her grampa's (lecherous) generosity, while Usagi would be all for protecting the "innocent and sad new transfer student who keeps attracting the youma for some reason"), but also, mostly, because they'll be fighting Youma.
Ranma's ki attacks are essentially balls of life energy being thrown at an opponent, like a long-distance a very powerful punch. To a life-energy draining youma, an attack like that is a snack. Plus, by her very presence, every magical being around her, be it a general, a senshi or a youma, is strengthened by the energy she releases. And fighting close-range to an enemy who drains life by touching things is deathly dangerous, never mind that it's being strengthened by her own powers.
Thus, Youma become an enemy that Ranma is simply unable to fight and win against; only the Hiiryu shoten ha and the Bakusai Tenketsu work, but unfortunately the first is too dangerous to use in a city (never mind that she'd need a source of heat, as Youma emit no heat naturally) and she never learned the second. Shampoo has, though, but Ranma doesn't exactly appreciate being protected by her.
But then, she appreciates even less being protected by a bunch of silly, disorganized girls in cheerleading outfits…
She wouldn't figure out who they are until Makoto's introduction; she'd recognize Sailor Jupiter through her fighting style, and from there, it's very, very simple to guess who the others are…
On the romance side, Shampoo/Ranma would be frightfully easy. Rei/Ranma would be fun, too, or maybe Ranma/Usagi…
I even hovered around the idea of mixing Card Captor Sakura instead of SM, or maybe along with SM. Sakura would be one or two years younger, but she'd feel Ranma glowing like a beacon. Her cards would just plain love her, too… although Tomoyo might not so much.
"I am ignoring my feelings for Sakura for the sake of her happiness with Syaoran. That doesn't mean I'm going to let the first girl who catches her eye get to her so easily."
"…excuse me?!"
…but there isn't much to explore on the CCS side, so… unless someone gets a clever idea, that's a no-go.
Now, as to why I post this here and not write it myself, well… 2 reasons.
First: Given my frightful record at completing fics and horrible lack of long-term focus, I wouldn't trust myself at completing this thing. It's a big, long fic, better left to someone who can do it right (like Ozzalos or Trimatter or whatever).
Second: My memory of Sailor Moon is extremely shaky; I can barely remember the general events surrounding the intro of Usagi and Ami, never mind the others. I'd need to d—erm, acquire the series, and frankly I'd rather get something else than Mahoujo if I go look for Anime.
And yes, I realize there's quite a few details written out, but those are just plans. Meaning, things to be discarded in case of a better idea happening. Plus, it seemed to me like the most logical possibility.
So, the offer is up: Whoever wants to take it, be my guest. Please, actually, I really want to read it!
