I would like to thank everyone who has reviewed this. I hope I’m pulling this off alright.

Boldly going where others had gone before and meekly going where few have been.

I don't own any of these characters or situations. Okay the spelling errors are mine, as are the grammar mistakes.
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Juuban part 9

*****************

Behind the "Yoshi Cafe' American", outside of Ranma's sleeping quarters, a slit appeared in the very air about three feet above the surface of the roof. The slit opened wider in the middle as a flat edge of a sword began prying it apart widening enough for a ponytailed girl to stick her head out through the gap to have a look around. Her red hair flew about her face and head as it rubbernecked around.

[Whew! Made it. Finally.]

It had been an eventful afternoon.

Even though the Saotome school of Anything Goes is an arial one, with leaps of incredible heights of two to four stories high not being uncommon, heights of 64 miles straight up were something of a new experience for Ranma. She found out first hand after climbing to that altitude, she really wasn't prepared for that. Even if after remembering how she got up there - the problem was she couldn't quite remember how to get back down. She realized this after the euphoria had worn off from being “reborn” and she finding herself floating in the vacuum of space. This is what she got for going along with a feeling from the last dream she had.

Ranma had floated along and panicked a bit at first before calming herself, she tried to remember how to do this but drew a blank. Most of the memories from her earlier life were more like strong feelings now, with very few specifics, but still very, very tangible. She knew that she knew, but sometimes it was hard to think about what she knew. Everything was happening on an instinctual level, without any conscious thought, almost as if she spent a great deal of time practicing it. It was like doing something so long you can’t tell anyone else how you did it anymore.

After calming herself, she relaxed and floated along and watched the world pass by beneath her. It was a lovely sight and one she seemed to remember seeing before many times, but like all of her memories of her past life, it was more of a feeling. So while Ranma was making new memories as she did a little sight-seeing, she also thought in the back of her mind about what to do about her predicament. She watched the Pacific ocean go by as it faded into night, the lights of the great cities of the America’s out line the continents western borders where it meet the sea as the world passed under her.

It was about this point that Ranma realized that if she extended her senses in almost the same sort of the way she would if she were extending her ki to help detect opponents, she could actually feel the earth as it passed. Not just part of the Earth, the whole Earth. Pushing her senses up a notch, the impression of the Moon was felt even though it was on the other side, with the Earth between them. Pushing it up even more, she could feel, actually feel everything on the Earth, she broke from that as the overload of information threaten to overwhelm her. That was a weird and mind expanding experience.

Getting back to her then current situation...

Oh well, if one way doesn't work try another. So with that as inspiration, she once again called her Solar Sword and tried something she a just an impression of, another technique from another dream. Picturing the word “home” in her mind, she slashed down and opened a slit before her in space, then with the flat of the sword, widened it and entered. Hoping that it would take her where she wanted to go, the restaurant.

Oops.

The moon was not where she wanted to go.

It took awhile for her to compose herself for another attempt. She found that her concentration must be focused entirely where she wanted to go, or she would find herself someplace unexpected. It took several tries to figure that out. After a few trips that carried her once to China and Australia (she blamed a recent viewing of “Crocodile Hunter” on that trip), and then various places around Tokyo until she finally got the hang of it. Which is why she was currently stepping onto the roof of what she considered her true home. With more practice, Ranma was sure this would become second nature.

[Man, I thought this was going to be easy.] Ranma thought as she de-transformed into her street clothes. She stopped, wondering how she did that, shaking her head she jumped down from the roof into the darkening alleyway below and she entered through the rear of her the building. She hoped that Granny wasn't too worried for her. Making her way through the kitchen area, Ranma noted that she must be on time, for it looked like dinner hadn't been started yet, that was until she noted the time on wall clock finding it was way past dinner. [Oh man, I was gone longer than I thought. I hope they were not too worried.] Going into the dinning area she spotted Akiko and Michiko talking at one of the tables near the front while looking out the front windows. Ranma made her way over to them.

"Granny. Michiko. I sorry I'm so late." Ranma apologized as she bowed.

"It's alright, dear." Akiko replied, with a hint of worry, "Did everything work out?"

"Yes, better than I hoped for." then turning to Michiko, "I'm sorry about not going with you and Hitomo today... I just had some old issues come up that I had to take care of it."

"Granny told me that you were troubled by something. Is there anything I could do the help you?" Michiko looked at Ranma while twirling a lock of her hair between her fingers.

"Nope, all taken care of. Thank you for asking, though."

"Good for you, dear. Now why don't you grab a quick bite then help Michiko and I prep for tomorrow. We can talk about what you did this afternoon later." Akiko said to Ranma with a relieved look in her eye.

************

It was fairly late in the evening when Michiko and Ranma finished up prepping for tomorrow. After bathing together and dressing for the night, Akiko signaled Ranma over.

"Is everything really alright, dear? You seemed so troubled earlier - I just want to be sure that you are okay." Akiko spoke softly.

"Yes, granny. I think most of those problems are behind me, I'm ready to have new and exciting problems now." Ranma said with a playful grin on her face.

Akiko regarded her and smiled back, "I'm sure you will, but remember what I said earlier, you are not alone in this. You have people who will help you if you need it, you are family now and family takes care of family."

Ranma stared at Akiko for the briefest of moments before enveloping the older women in a warm and affectionate hug.

"Thank you, thank you. You have no ideal how much that means to me." Ranma whispered, choking back the emotion.

Akiko return the hug as both women basked in the moment.

*******************

Next day...

[Let's see, how to deal with Happosai?] Ranma pondered that problem while nibbling at the end of her pencil. She didn't want to kill, no matter how much the mind altering little runt deserved it. She didn’t dismiss that option either, but kept that line of thought as a last resort. There was no way, though that she was going to let Happosai and his gang of idiots get away with what they did. Happosai will probably end up doing it to some other poor bastard if she didn't do something to stop him.

Then there was the other masters to contend with. They took care of Happosai for three years while he recovered from his wounds from the last time they fought, it would be a good bet that they would band together in a moment of crisis. With that in mind Ranma had to think of the best way to stop Happosai and the other masters from doing anything she would consider stupid.

[Let's see, Happosai wants to retire and can't until he finds a replacement. That could give me some leverage, but how to stop these stupid and insane "tests" that they give every candidate. Hmmm. I'm going to need something that will effect the entire school of Anything Goes, not just Happosai. He may be a grand master, but he is the product of that school. I'll just have to change the school, but how?]

Ranma ponder this question some more, oblivious to the fact that the teacher was getting more and more impatient with her to answer the question that was just asked of her. She didn't realize this until her neighbor from behind reached over and nudged her in the ribs.

"Yes?" Ranma said while looking around and blinking her eyes, bringing her back into the here and now.

"Miss Ranma Yonai, I'm sure that the possibly of daydreaming about boys is a interesting pastime, but it won't get you very far in this world. An education is important and you would due well to pay attention. Do I make myself clear?" Mr. Isobe, the history teacher said while looking over his glasses.

"Um... oh! Yes sir, sorry sir, won't happen again sir." Ranma stammered out as she blushed while bolting upright in her seat as the rest of the class giggled at her plight.

"See that it doesn't. You are fortunate to live in a time where you have the combined knowledge of the past to learn and build from, without it we wouldn't be where we are today. Now let's turn our attention back to..." he droned on.

Ranma had an ideal. It seemed like a perfectly marvelous ideal. She smiled to herself, just a few details to work out and she'll pull the rug out from under Happosai and his gang.

************

The pseudo-cat was reviewing data from the last 12 hours when it came across an energy spike, an enormous energy spike. The reason that it didn't set off any internal alarms was that it was so brief, scarcely 1/1000's of a second in duration, that it was disregarded as a scanner error by the internal filters. The pseudo-cat would had too, if it weren't for the fact that the energy signature matched closely to the earlier anomaly. The difference in this spike was that is was more concise and controlled than the one that came before. The pseudo-cat wasn't even sure that it couldn't even pinpoint where the spike occurred.

The pseudo-cat was alarmed, so much so that it opened the emergency hyper-space uplink and filed a report on the energy spike directly with the council. So large was the reading that it was impossible to measure with any degree of accuracy, and just now like the other old Moon Warriors, was just as hard to pinpoint. It knew that this might disrupt the invasion time table.

When the flyer had returned from it global mission last week it had found that even though this world did process highly destructive weapons, their reluctance to use them would prove to be in the Protectors favor. Also noted was a reluctance, for the most part, to doing any harm or injure another of their own kind. The pseudo-cat knew that this would be helpful in what little it knew of the plan that had been drawn up for the invasion.

****************

Ami was not happy, again. It has been three days since Saturday’s night’s fight with the demon and meeting the supposed Sailor Sun and she was no closer to figuring it out what had happened. Pluto was evasive as usual and disappeared back to the Gates of Time, probably to nurse her sore jaw. Her jaw, Ami couldn't believe it! Ranma had actually decked Pluto. A good one too, considering that Pluto's jaw was beginning to swell before she left. Ami felt that her and the rest of the scouts wouldn't be hearing from Pluto for a while. She felt a little guilty that she was secretly pleased that Pluto was caught off guard like that, but how in the hell was Ranma able to do that? Ami was in her Senshi form, and couldn't figure out how Ranma was able to move so fast - it was faster than anyone could possibly move. Unless...

Maybe she had access to her Senshi powers while untransformed... if she did then why didn't she change... were the transformation words the wrong ones? Was she already in her transformed state? With a bra hanging out of her pocket? A bra? What was she doing like that? At that time of night? And what was that about Neptune and spanking? Ami's imagination ran wild entertaining all sorts of - unusual thoughts - before coming back under control.

Ami shook her head and sighed. This didn't make sense. She thought about using the Mercury computer to search Sailor Sun's files again for anything they overlooked during their first, brief investigation. However, without Usagi doing the work she wouldn't get anywhere, and... no she didn't want to go through that again, not if she could help it. There must be something else she could try.

Why would they make a super powered Senshi, a ridiculously super powered Senshi and no one, with the exception of Pluto, knows anything about her? Why would they have something like that around and not use it during the war with the Negaverse? With that much firepower victory would have been assured.

Something was not adding up.

***************

The pseudo-cat had just received confirmation from its superiors and the latest incident was noted and logged. There would be no action taken, since the council thought that it had that contingency covered already. Figures, the council was more interested in the know old Moon Kingdom warriors than any unsure, unknown factor that it was sure the Ultimate Weapon could handle. The pseudo-cat felt that the council was getting impatient and careless, but kept such thoughts to itself.

With that, the pseudo-cat rested it's head on its forepaws as it enjoyed having its fur rubbed from some random middle schoolgirl.

*****************

Over the last two nights Ranma had been exploring the extent of her new found powers, or in this case rediscovering her old powers. She found, as a Senshi she could see things she ordinarily couldn't sense, she could actually if she wanted, feel the fabric of space around her. It was hard to describe, but she could, by using her will fold, smooth and twist it doing all sorts of interesting things, flying just being one of them.

So every night, after work and the night time routine was completed and while everyone else was asleep for the night, Ranma transformed and made her way the the very top roof of the building via sword. She didn't want to use the window just in case she was seen, and felt safer doing it this way. Her control over where she was going was much better than when she started and, as she thought the first night, it was starting to become almost second nature.

These past few nights, since Sunday, Ranma had been very busy honing what she could. When she took a little “training trip” to test her new abilities, she first started by thinking of the most isolated place she could imagine and with her sword went there, she ended up back on the Moon. Oh well, one place is as good as another Ranma figured, and she wouldn’t have to worry about being interrupted by anyone. There she would try several things she remembered from her dreams and then these would loosen more memories of other things she would then try. Flying was easier now, if a little unnerving, but she was fast getting use to it.

One of the most useful things she discovered the first night however, was something that slowed time down to a crawl. She tested how much she was able to slow time by borrowing a digital stopwatch from Michiko before bedtime and setting away from her on the living room table before transforming and slowing down time. After observing the stopwatch and comparing it to the time on her wristwatch, which was also set to stopwatch mode, she then watched until the numbers changed. It took a long time. Ranma was however, able to get a good estimate of how much she was able to slow down time. She calculated she could slow time down for her to a point where 1/100th’s second equaled approximately six hours. That meant one second equaled twenty-five days, one minute equaling over four years, she didn’t want to figure beyond that.

She started using this ability to lengthen her training time at night and look for the library and still be able to get a respectable nights sleep out of it.

************

Orders just came in. The next schedule test attack would take place in the park, in two nights around 11:00 at night, near where the expeditionary force will land and establish a beachhead. They would send another super trooper again to make up for the lack to readings from the last attack. Remembering the councils displeasure, the pseudo-cat would be sure to get a full set of readings this time.

It will also give the pseudo-cat time to find something more to eat, and maybe another back rub - something which it found itself becoming very addicted too.

This would be the last test attack before the date would be set for the invasion force and the following reconstruction force crossed over to reestablished the Moon Kingdom.

*************

Because of the slight drizzle outside, Ranma was eating her lunch in the classroom. She was surrounded by her usual crowd Hitomo, Chiyo, Tamami and of course Michiko listening to Chiyo finishing tell about the latest fight the Senshi had the night before. Ranma was not particularly interested in what was going on with the Senshi, with the exception of one.

[Oh, yeah. Pluto I gotta think of someway to deal with her after I deal with Happosai. One disaster at a time, though.] Ranma mused.

"You keep up these things, what do you think going on?" Hitomo asked Chiyo.

"Well," Chiyo theorized, "The demons are up to something, there have been a lot of attacks, like clockwork, but no real damage - it's like... I don't know."

"Yeah and I heard that the demons are not like the others from before. These turn into a sludge that stays around, not a dust that fades away." Tamami informed the group.

"Where did you here that?" Chiyo asked.

"I read about it on the internet."

The conversation went on along those lines as Ranma tuned it out and thought about what she had to do before weekend.

************

[Now were is that little perv's Library?] Ranma thought as she once again scanned the fabric of space/time around her. This was the second night she went looking for the Anything Goes Library after training and she knew it had to be around somewhere in space and time. There were many little and large anomalies, but nothing "felt" like what she was looking for. Ranma quickly found with practice she could “home in” on anything she wanted that was in the space/time fabric, it was a matter of trying to filter out the massive amount of information that she was being bombarded with.

It took some doing and many spent hours in slowed time to find it, directly overhead tucked against another distortion. Ranma flew up to it and with her sword cut a small slash into the distortion. She was soon greeted by the interior of the Anything Goes Library, unoccupied, [Perfect] she thought as she exited. Once she was back on the roof, she then took a few pieces of space/time and folded over the distortion that was the Library, the refolded it on itself. After that she was able to take the whole thing and put into her personal "stuff space", unreachable to all but her. The library with the sum knowledge of the Anything Goes history and techniques in her pocket - subspace pocket that is.

A perfect bargaining chip.

*****************

After a few days of thinking along narrow lines Ami stopped her train of thought for a moment to reconsider. She hit upon not considering Ranma as some girl who could maybe turn into a Senshi, and started thinking of her in a political sense, a weapon. Then, with that in mind, continued thinking along a new, broader and different lines of thought.

Why would they build a Senshi capable of destroying a star system? They would have to have a reason. Ami thought back to her research into the founding of the Moon Kingdom, it was during that period of time that there was many perceived threats from outside the Solar System. Could that be it? Sailor Sun was built to protect the Moon Kingdom from threats from outside the Solar System? That would explain why Sailor Sun could function so well in space. Were there really that many threats? Maybe there were, maybe not - sometimes just thinking that there are threats is enough to motivate a person or a group of people into action. A powerful weapon such as Sun would make a good...

... deterrent?

Using Sailor Sun as a deterrent would explain a lot, it would also explain the test video they watched... maybe they were really more like demonstrations of capability instead. Anyone who witnessed that kind of strength would think twice before attacking the Moon Kingdom. Doing so would be would be tantamount to committing suicide.

Then what happened? Why wasn't Sailor Sun used during the fight against the Negaverse?

Why build such a weapon of mass destruction and not use it? A weapon so powerful that... that... you would be afraid to use it. A sentient weapon that could possibly turn on you. How would you control such a weapon? Wait. How would you control such a person?

Ami felt she was going to have to brush up on her psychology.

*************

The next part of the plan was to confront not only Happosai, but all the masters at once. This meant that she would have to do that in a preferable transformed state. Ranma searched her still very spotty memory, looking for something, anything that would make her appear normal in her transformed state. She had found if she wanted to, she could search her memories of anything that she needed, but she had to "think" a certain way in order to access them. That was the difficult part, trying to figure out what thought, what "key word" if you will, would jog a memory loose and give her the answer she needed.

Thanks to another episode of "Crocodile Hunter" she watched that night after homework, she ran across the correct line of thought.

Camouflage. That's what she needed. So that night, she was again on the very top of the building that house the “Yoshi Cafe' American” and “Team Leader Clothes and Fashions” working on camouflage. It didn't take as long as Ranma thought it would to find the correct "key sequence", the end result was one Senshi, dressed a Juuban High School uniform - complete with blue bow - ugh. Tomorrow, she would be ready.

**************

When Ami had asked her mother the day before if she had any reading material on psychology, the few books that she produced were voluminous. Looking thought the books before her, Ami was intimidated by the possibilities and she was not one that was easily intimidated. There was a lot of information that was covered in each book. Ami exhaled through pursed lips and with arms upraised, stretched the kinks out, still being a bit sore from the fight the other night. There was just too much material to cover blindly, she had to get more specific information, and that meant doing the unthinkable. Tomorrow she would have to use the Mercury computer...

... and call Usagi.

****************

She waited at the park after breaking the summoning rod, hoping that Happosai would hurry, she didn’t want to be any later for work than she had to be. Happosai soon made his appearance, dressed as before. "So my boy, have you decided to be my heir?" he asked with a hint of excitement in his voice.

"Not quite, Happosai. I have a few more questions for you and the other masters - could we get together - say this Saturday around 2:00 in the afternoon on the same roof as last time?" Ranma replied in a slightly "girlie" way that seem to throw Happosai off a bit.

Happosai, slightly deflated, looked at Ranma and blinked, then asked. "What questions? Surly you could just ask me now?"

"I'm afraid not, Happosai. This has to do with the very school of Anything Goes and its future, if any." Ranma said, while batting her eyes.

Happosai looked lost for a moment. [What in the hell is the boy up to now?] after another moment of contemplating he finally spoke, "Very well Ranma, my... boy?, ahh... girl? ... em, I'll make sure we'll meet you Saturday at 2:00, same roof as last time."

"Why thank you so very much Happosai, I'll see you and the rest of the masters, then." Ranma gushed as she gave a million dollar smile.

Happosai stood and stared, wondering if something he did adversely effected Ranma’s mind. By the time he shook himself from these thoughts, Ranma was gone and on that note he left the park himself.

Giggling to herself, Ranma walked away, so far it was going as planned. She was glad that she hit upon trying to access her powers without transforming - it needed the right frame of mind to do it though. She was still going to the meeting transformed state though and in camouflaged. She figured she would need the extra firepower, just in case.

*************

The next day after school, Ami and Usagi were up in Ami's bedroom. Ami was attempting to lead Usagi through the menu's that lead to the files that contained the information on Sailor Sun.
It was as bad as Ami remembered. She had hoped that Usagi would have retained some of what she did last time, but all she remembered from the last ordeal was that it was "neat". Ami was glad that none of the other scouts were here, after Rei literally bit a hole in one of her favorite pillows the last time, she wasn't sure if any of them would survive this. After a while, she wasn't sure if she would survive this.

Finally! They found themselves at the splash screen and clicked through it that lead to Sailor Suns files. After hearing the question "Like before?" for what seemed the ten zillionth time that evening, Ami's nerves were a little frayed. But, she finally got where she needed to be and looked over Usagi's shoulder and scanned the list of files. Close to the bottom of the list there was one titled Psycho Induction and it looked promising.

Pointing to the file, Ami said, "Open this one."

"Like before?" Usagi asked while maneuvering the pointer to the indicated file.

Sigh. "Yes, like before."

>Click<

Usagi moved over to allow Ami to sit in the chair in front of the computer and read as she herself picked up a manga that she had brought along with her to pass the time. Ami was already reading before she took the seat vacated by Usagi, hoping to find a clue on the mental state of the past Sailor Sun.

****************

The test of a few nights ago was successful and the complete set of readings were compiled and uploaded via hyper-space uplink to the council. The warriors of the old Moon Kingdom were powerful, singularly more than a match for any of the super troopers, but the Protectors superior numbers should more than offset this. All that is needed was the "go" date. Until then the pseudo-cat-cat decided it would take some time off and relax, after all once this is over with there would be a plenty of work to do during the rebuilding.

**************

It was slow reading, but informative. Ami sat back in her chair and looked over at Usagi who was sitting on the bed still reading her romance manga without really seeing her. Ami was lost in thought. The girl who was Sailor Sun was apparently raised in isolation from the general public, only having social contact during special events, balls, royal functions and other such things. Sun was also heavily educated in many variety of subjects with special attention paid to those emphasizing honor and loyalty. Sun was trained in the combat arts beginning when she was very young and anything that she might need to know for being a Senshi. The combat training was apparently emotionally and psychically abusive, deliberately so from what she read, leaving the young girl clinging to whoever could give her any form of affection. Sun eventually looked to Queen Serenity for the sought after approval and affection and then eventually became emotionally dependent on the Queen.

In spite of these conditions, it was noted that she was quite outgoing and friendly in behavior. Even if she was restricted in contact with anyone outside the upper royal court and the other Senshi most of the time. She loved to socialize when she had the chance to, and discovered and enjoyed dancing and would dance with whoever would partner with her at the balls that were held periodically. This open friendliness would intwine her in relationships with the other Senshi and she seemed that she grew close towards two of them, Uranus and Neptune. [Hmmmm.... spanking?] Ami shook herself out of that line of thought.

Keeping her a secret was also a key. After all, how can anyone have a lasting relationship with another person that you want to love and trust if you have to keep your true self hidden? It was felt if you didn't really know "how you stacked up" against the other Senshi then that unknown factor would help keep you in line, at least on an emotional level. Like a deterrent for a deterrent.

Emotionally dependent, socially isolated, educated with overbearing sense of honor and trained in the combat arts from an early age. That was the recipe for Sailor Sun.

The most powerful Senshi ever created was controlled by a most unusual upbringing and limited social contact. Even with all the emotional and socially placed safeguards, she was still feared by those who knew of her. So feared, that they were too frighten to use her when they really needed to, they held her back fearing that she would eventually turn on them. A ridiculously powerful weapon, made useless by the fear of her creators.

This answered some of the questions about Sailor Sun of the past, what about now? What kind of person was this Ranma? Surly her life, at least in this life, was far better than what she had in the past. Maybe she should get together with some of the other scouts this weekend and visit Nerima and find out from people who knew Ranma. Ami felt they needed to know more about the type of person they were dealing with.

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