At this point Setsuna was under the impression that things had gone well and truly south.
The proof of that was swaying at her from the former Gates of Time, now turned demonic pub. That the figure was a barely humanoid version of a tropical frog wearing a little tuxedo and swirling a martini did nothing to calm her nerves. Grinning stupidly and drooling slightly while staring up at her skimpy senshi uniform the demonic frog introduced himself. "Hello lovely one, I am the magnificent paramour known as Tink. We were admiring your...fashion sense from the bar...ehehehe."
A lecherous knock off of Kermit the Frog with a bad French accent was hitting on her. Her day did indeed suck.
Hiccuping slightly the frog was apparently content just to enjoy the view up her tiny skirt for now. "Eheh, zee others in the bar are most boorish. They makes wagers and suggestions about what a pretty guardian such as yourself might do. Me? I am not like zat. I shall...I shall be your guide, yes? You are interested in young Ranma, no?"
Really not wanting to talk to the very strange and quite obviously perverted demon frog, the lonely senshi struggled before eventually giving in to curiosity. "Is there something you can tell me about this situation?"
Grinning widely, the little blue frog wobbled slightly before returning to sipping his drink. "Ah yessh. I think, it is well...you should see what happened to his Ministra, the Valkyrie. Ah, such a lovely woman..."
Following the lead, Pluto checked in on the boy's Ministra at age ten. At that time he had three. One was a bound and sealed demon, his pactio with her serving mostly to negate her seals when her power was needed. As she possessed a dark personality she had apparently managed to annoy young Ranma as the demoness fumed at being bound to a mere boy. Apparently not in the boy's good graces, the demon stayed out of Pluto's sight for the time being.
His second Ministra was his martial arts sensei, a kunoichi jounin by the name of Chiyaka Nagase, the mother of Kaede Nagase. The woman was mostly a Taijutsu master, which suited young Ranma just fine. She also hailed from the same clan of ninja which provided a bodyguard service for young Ranma independent of his Ministra. No one really expected his Ministra to be strong, mostly seeing it as a way to encourage the develop of that sort of relationship for when he was older and had some significant power.
It was the final Ministra that surprised Setsuna. In fact the woman surprised her so much that she had to stop and research her history in this 'new' world.
Serena Tsukino, an obvious reincarnation of the original Queen Serenity of the Silver Millennium. Having been born in the future Crystal Tokyo herself, Queen Serenity was something of a legendary figure to her.
In this world Serena, along with the mothers of a few other senshi had traveled to the magical world version of the ancient Moon kingdom to save it. It was apparently somewhat closer to the Magic Knight Rayearth line she was familiar with than standard Sailor Senshi.
The big note there was that they eventually lost. Cast back to Earth, the girls settled down to be young women and start families. With the majority of their powers lost to them, there was little else for the girls to do except move on with life.
Serena apparently wasn't ready to give up just yet. When Usagi was four and Ranma was five, she formed the first pactio with the young boy. As Ranma left home to train at Mahora and coincidentally be out of his father's reach, Serena served as a surrogate mother while Ranma lived with her family.
For the most part people laughed at the idea of Serena, a failed magic girl, actually doing anything with only a five year old Magister as her source of power. Potential or not, she was a failure and Ranma was just a little brat. Most people just dismissed it as harmlessly cute, good practice for the day when Ranma was old enough and found someone worthwhile.
A year later Dark Empress Beryl launched her first invasion of Earth, choosing to first silence the warriors that stood against her. This was directly responsible for Makoto becoming an orphan and Hotaru losing her mother. The Tsukino household was next to be attacked.
Unlike the rest of the targets however, this target wasn't powerless against them. In fact, Valkyrie Serenity had little in common with her former magical girl persona except for an affinity to holy magic. The only thing remotely cute about her appearance was the pair of white angel wings on her back. The plate armor and large two handed sword marked her decidedly more serious take on combat against the forces of Evil.
While little Ranma hid little Usagi, Serenity tapped into the well of magic Ranma could not yet wield to scorch her foes with brilliant light and come out victorious. After the battle few took Serenity seriously, instead crediting it to young Ranma's potential, not that she cared.
After that day, Usagi idolized her mother the Valkyrie as her own personal hero, with Ranma being a close second. Serena in turn was thankful to Ranma for her victory and the ability to protect her own daughter.
Ranma ended up suffering Usagi sleeping in his bed as the girl was afraid of the dark.
Serena took in Makoto and Hotaru, both girls essentially being orphaned. Hotaru joined Usagi in using Ranma like a safety blanket to get to sleep. Makoto wasn't afraid of the dark, she just liked cuddling Ranma.
Ranma objected to all this.
Ranma was duly ignored by adults that would just grin knowingly and talk about the future. Serena baked him cookies to soothe his ruffled feathers, something Makoto picked up on.
In short, it was a rather happy little family type deal.
Slipping back to the time the pervy little frog had suggested, there was apparently a rather serious event in their lives when Ranma was age ten. Now that she knew what to look for, she could see the results of it. The girls in Ranma's class were somber, particularly the three little senshi. Ranma was bandaged and extra grumpy, looking like he'd been mauled by an overly affectionate bear.
Wanting to know more, Pluto slipped back to the Sunday that was supposedly so important.
Apparently that Sunday was a somewhat typical one for the group, off in the wilderness away from town for a little picnic while Chiyaka trained Ranma in martial arts.
That was the day Beryl decided to attack once again, this time more to capture Ranma than to kill Serena. Like most people, Beryl credited Valkyrie Serenity's power to Ranma, and with that power at her disposal the dark empress would have the juice to power more invasions.
Not wanting to fail at the chance to poach Ranma while he was away from the relative safety of the Mahora campus and the watchful eyes of his normal bodyguards, Beryl pulled out the stops for this attack. Youma were quickly neglected, being so pathetic enough that even moderately strong martial artists could stand up to one. Dark Generals had also been discarded for this, simply lacking the power she desired. Instead she went with battle demons called Zoanoids, horned inhuman monsters of considerable personal power, physical might and combat ability.
She struck at the end of training when the two fighters were tired and everyone was relaxing. One demon grabbed little Ranma. A second went after the kunoichi, the experienced ninja deftly deflecting the surprise attack. The third nailed Serena in the chest with poisoned spikes, mortally wounding the woman even as she transformed into a valkyrie.
While Genma might have liked to think Ranma being trained by anyone else while simultaneously wasting time on schoolwork, magic and girls, that the boy would have been weak. The demon would have disagreed with this as the boy twisted and launched a head rattling knee into his jaw. Twisting and falling out of the monster's grip the boy briefly touched both palms to the monster's chest in a parody of CPR. That parody blossomed as an admixture of holy and spiritual energy flared into pale blue flames as Ranma delivered twin magically enhanced palm strikes. While this stunned the demon a bit more it also served to push both of them away from each other.
As he landed the boy already had his hands cupped back, pooling chi into a ball. His favorite method of delivering ranged magic attacks, he pooled a bit of lightning and fire magic into it, even a bit of wind magic for good measure. Not putting too much time into building the attack up the young boy threw the energy blast forward into the demon, pleased with the shockwave and riot of energy the attack produced.
Unfortunately that was the end of his success as his opponent was strong enough to withstand his attack and much more skilled in combat. While he could be congratulated for getting off the surprise attack and chaining as many attacks into that advantage as he could, it was little consolation to the boy as the demon's reprisal combo ended with the young boy lying still in a small crater.
With her daughter and adopted daughter there, not to mention Ranma, Valkyrie Serenity fought with fury that surprised the invading dark empress. The kunoichi as well surprised Beryl with how effectively she could fight against demons despite a distinct lack of demon slaying techniques.
That was the end of the good news however. Ranma occupied his opponent for less than a minute, so the battle quickly turned into three on two. Worse, Beryl personally joined in on the battle in the role of dark magic artillery, further tipping the odds.
In the end, Beryl had to withdraw without claiming victory as reinforcements finally arrived.
For the home team, the victory was pyrrhic at best.
Ranma survived, and with magical healing he was only roughly banged up after the ordeal. Most were worried about what this would do to him emotionally.
Chiyaka survived to make it to the hospital, staying in critical condition despite the availability of magical healing. Pluto wasn't an expert on martial arts but apparently it had something to do with Lotus Blossoms and opening too many inner gates for power.
Valkyrie Serenity died in front of her daughter, fading away into motes of light that scattered on the breeze.
Before passing on, Serenity comforted her daughters, both natural and adopted. Guiding them to look over Ranma, she left them with one a final regret as advice for the future.
If only she had been strong enough to protect Ranma. With his aid she would have been able to heal her own wounds and thus not have had to leave them.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Valor Phoenix
(Posted Fri, 15 Sep 2006 12:09)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.