Wild Time Chapter 4 Disclaimer. I'm not writing for money or fame. Just so that my hordes of adoring nubile blond fans of young female flesh can, with bosoms heaving breathlessly, can follow my work. I also don't own any of these characters. Geez. I've lived one of the weirdest lives ever, and in that weird life I've seen some pretty strange things. This tops them all. I mean, where the hell am I? One second I'm about to be fried, the next I'm the one doing the frying, the next...WHAM! Here I am. Allow me to describe what precisely 'here' looks like. Flat, empty, and with null visibility. The air around me is filled with a fog so thick it actually makes it a bit difficult to move. What I can see of the terrain around me is nothing. Cautious waving of my arms reveals that, in the space immediately around me there's nothing I can touch. "Weird," I mutter, just so that I can hear my own voice. This silence is starting to get to me. As I'm peering about, the fog around me begins to move. Slowly and sluggishly. I tense. Could there be something out there? I get into a fighting position as the movement in the fog gets closer, and then sweeps by me. I shiver a bit as a cold breeze continues on its way. The fog in front of me is slowly rolling towards me, and it feels weird against the skin of my legs and arms. Wait a second. Against my legs? I look down to see what has happened. Ranma's clothes better not be too damaged, damn it. "EEK!" I shriek despite myself at what I see. Check that, Ranma's clothes aren't damaged in the lest. I'm not even #%&^#ing wearing them anymore! Instead of the comfortable and comforting silks and linen, I'm dressed in one of the most provocative outfits I have ever worn. Body suit so tight I'm surprised you can't see the THO. Skirt so short I don't know why they don't call it a belt instead. And bows...lots of lacy colored bows. If I had seen someone else wearing this, I would have either blushed or drooled (Depending on who was wearing it). A vague thought struck me. I wonder if I could get Ranma to see me in this? A quick check with my hands verify that, yes, I am wearing panties. I sigh in relief. After I get over my shock at my new dress, I get kind of pissed. Alright, who the hell stole my clothes and stuck me in this wet dream? The fog around me has been thinning under the constant breeze, and now visibility is semi- decent. I guess it would be best to get moving. The sooner I find who's responsible for this, the sooner I can beat them shitless. I start walking. I don't know how long I walk. You ever hear that cliché expression 'could have been for a second or hours" or something like that? Well, that kind of sums it up. The entire trip is kind of hazy in my memory, like the fog that surrounded me. I remember once or twice trying to start counting my steps, but I must have messed up the count somehow, because I would suddenly find my self at number like twelve million and six or something. I don't remember getting sleepy, tired, hungry, or anything. I was just...Walking. After god only knows how long, my eyes began to pick something out in front of me. It looms slowly out of the mists around me, a dark and foreboding shape. I feel myself tensing as I got closer. What could it be? Finally, I'm close enough to make out what it is. A huge structure, set into nothing. A giant set of gates, ornate and old looking. Just being near them is enough to make me feel small. And across the top of the gates is a plaque reading "The Gates of Time". Too freaking weird. I just have enough time to wonder if maybe these mean something when I'm suddenly on more familiar ground. I leap easily out of the way as a shape streaks out of the mist behind me and slams into the ground that I had been standing on a second earlier. "This is just what I need," I say out loud, and start to turn around. "The chance to work off... some...stress...?" I trail of, jaw gaping as I see who is behind me. The object that had just missed impacting with the back of my skull was the business end of a huge staff. Immense, metal, with strange protuberances, and a huge semi-translucent red stone at the end, now resting against the ground. And holding the staff is... "Ranko?" I ask, somehow shocked to the core. The petite redhead in front of me lifts up the staff and grinds its butt into the ground in front of her. She looks ridiculous small, dwarfed next to the staff, and strangely out of place in this surreal atmosphere in her immaculate business suite. Somehow, she radiates more menace and danger than all of my previous foes put together. "Ranko," I continue. "What's going on? Why..." I'm forced to trail off as the redhead attacks again. I dodge the moves lazily, trying to find a way to disarm the redhead in front of me, to get her to talk. After one of her powerful swings, I move into strike her wrists and get some answers. Considering how wild she's swinging, it shouldn't be too... THU_CHUMP! Ouch. I clutch my stomach tightly for a second, my mind in a sudden haze of pain. I can barely lift my head up from where I'm laying on the ground. She had hit me. Moving so fast I could barely follow, she had recovered from her overextension easily and introduced the big rock on the end to my stomach. Ranko regards me coldly for a second, holding the position the strike had left her in, before leaping high into the air. SHIT! I move, despite the pain, and barely get my head cleared from the impact zone between that rock and the ground. I regain my feet, dodging all the while her vicious assaults. Now that the pain had worn off a bit, I was kind of getting pissed. Who the hell did she think she was? After I get a feel for her attacks, I move in again, this time with a more vicious offense. If I knock her out, I can disarm her and immobilize her, and then question her. My fist rockets towards her face, and... THWACK_CHUMP! My arm screams in pain, but this time at least I manage to recover my footing instantly. My eyes widen, and I realize just how much trouble I'm in. Ranko's eyes remain cold, her face like a granite statue. Then, she attacks. I have long considered myself to be the best there is. I've been everywhere, studied everything. When it comes to fighting, there's not much out there I don't know. Or at least I thought until now. I'm good, great, awesome. Ranko though... She's better than that. She is the ultimate elite. After twenty seconds, I've already pulled all my restraints. It doesn't matter. I'm still barely holding my own against this mad women with a stick. A minute into the battle, she separates a bit, and I gladly latch onto the chance to catch my breath. "Yes," Ranko says slowly, quietly. Despite the fact that she had been trying to kill me only a second ago, that voice still makes the air around me feel warm, and my cheeks hot. "You just might be her." "Why," I panted. "Are," I huffed. "You," I wheezed. "Doing this," I sputtered. "To test you," Ranko whispers back. Before the chill her voice gives me has run its course, she's on me again. THWAM! I manage to get my arm up in time, but the raw force behind the blow sends me reeling. If she keeps this up... I might not make it through this fight. That thought fills me with terror. No! I'm Setsuna Meioh of the any-time-any-place school of martial arts. I. WILL. NOT. FAIL! "Dead scream," I whisper, and the ball of violent energy launches itself at her. There. Let's see how she takes that one! With a deft spin of the strange rod, Ranko casually dissipates the blast. Shit. She took that one apparently very well. She begins another charge. Desperately now, I launch the strange technique over and over again. "Dead scream. Dead scream. Dead scream." As my redheaded tormenter charges, her form blurs and disappears from the paths of the magic, clearing it untouched. SHUNCK! The rod raises up in a brutal upwards strike, and I find myself airborne, horizontal, and out of control. My landing is hard and graceless. A boneless mass on the ground. And as I land, something flashes through my head. A helicopter. Two women. A hopeless fight. A fight I new we had to win. With those flashes, more techniques enter my head. Woozily, I regain my feet, and rejoin the fight. By now, I'm in no condition to hold my own against such a skilled opponent. I try my best, though, and the new techniques seem effective, though I'll be screwed sideways with a two by four if I can tell where they're coming from. Using another lull in the combat (Beat down, really) I launch another attack, like the dead scream only stronger. "Chronos Typhoon," I declare. The energy shrieks out of me, zeroing in on Ranko. With great speed, she breaks off the next attack she had been about to launch, and retreats quickly from my attack. Finally. Something that works on her... With another quick spin of that rod, Ranko calmly declares, "Rising dragon ascensions blast." Within my attack, two dragons make themselves known, and a tornado shreds my magic into little fragments. My heart dies in my chest and I collapse. There's nothing left. Nothing but... Another flash. Looking at the two women, knowing that we must win. A forbidden technique. Stopping time. I rise weakly too my knees. If I stop time, than I can escape, or attack and disable Ranko while she can't move. It's the only possible way I have of winning this. But...It's forbidden. Forbidden for a reason. To stop time, merely to keep myself from dying? To screw with the very nature of the universe just for that? "Time..." I start, slowly. Ranko has stopped in front of me. Slowly, so slowly, she raises the orb above her head, preparing for the finishing strike. All I would have to do is finish the attack. Time stop. ........ I can't. Bowing my head, I wait for the blow that will finish me off. It doesn't come. After a minute of waiting with my head bowed, I look up. And into the most beautiful pair of blue green eyes I have ever seen. Ranko is kneeling in front of me, looking in my face, and smiling beautifully. My heart starts beating again. Hard. I know she was trying to kill me a second ago, but damn. I flush from the close proximity. "You passed the test," Ranko whispers, and leans in close to me, as I fall forward. My weight too much for my arms to bear. "You're the one." **** I wake up from my unconsciousness in a lot of pain, but in a comfortable position nonetheless. My head in Ranko's lap, my shoulders against legs, bare beneath her miniskirt. "I have something for you," Ranko whispers. "Something I have been guarding for a very long time. You will not thank me for it. You will, in all certainty, hate me for what I am about to do to you. But I have no regrets in doing this." With that, she put a finger over my lips to keep me from saying anything, and leaned down to kiss me, ever so gently, on the lips. My eyes went wide, my tired hands opening in shock. And then she slipped the rod she had been carrying into my hands. Memories strike me. Hard, fast, and painful. The Silver Millennium. The great battle. The thousand years of solitude. The Sailor Scouts. My desperate last technique. My identity. I am Sailor Pluto. Even as these rush through me, holding me powerless, Ranko continues. "Because of who you are, you can have no family, no friends, no other obligations. From this moment forward, the Setsuna Meioh that once you were will cease to exist. Your friends will not recognize you, your family not acknowledge you, your prior obligations not concern you. It will be like you never were." While I lay frozen, memories and words immobilizing me, Ranko slowly stands, gently placing my sore body on the cool ground in front of the gates. Without another word, she turns, and vanishes into the perpetual mists that surround the Gates of Time. ***** Author's note: There is the end of this chapter. If anyone is still reading my work (Especially the nubile blonds I mentioned earlier) then don't worry! There will be more.