[Ranma][Fanfic] Adulthood of a Modern Dynasty - Story Overview
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Adulthood of a Modern Dynasty

Ranma 1/2 characters/situations created and copyright by Rumiko
Takahashi/Shogakukan/Kitty/Fuji/Viz - Used without permission

Adulthood of a Modern Dynasty series created, written, and copyright
2000-2010 by Jim Lazar

An ongoing series set after the end of the Ranma 1/2 manga and anime.
For maximum enjoyment of this fanfic series, please read my Childhood of
Modern Dynasty series before reading Adulthood.

E-mail comments and/or criticisms to: contactus |at| animeprime.com

Make sure to check out my Modern Dynasty website for all released AMD
stories, graphics files, and other information:
http://www.animeprime.com/ff/md
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The following is a general overview of the parts of Adulthood of a
Modern Dynasty that were to take place after chapter 17. Only the basic
story elements and major events are listed and may have changed quite
drastically by the time I got to writing them. Each is separated into a
general story arc, but the final story could have interwoven these
stories differently. I will only mention future events with James and
Akane when there was a particular reaction/event that was to happen.

While much of this outline was worked out during my initial planning and
writing for CMD, I have revised and tried to make it clearer for my
readers for this official 'Outline'.

Errata from initial release of part 1: I made a mistake in saying that
Akane was named leader of the Task Force when it was first formed. I
mis-remembered my plans. Ranma was selected the first leader of the Task
Force after a typical crazy martial arts contest of some kind. That is
corrected in this new version. I guess that's what happens when you
write some things down and keep some things in your old brain.


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Part 1: Birth of the Task Force

Although still just a 'cover story', the Task Force starts to form as
people from Ranma and Akane's past start to arrive in Nerima. The exact
order and some details of the arrivals haven't been worked out and may
even stretch into other story arcs or return/join after the official
forming of the Task Force.

* Ryoga arrives with his usual 'Ranma, prepare to DIE!!' catch phrase.
After being pummeled by Daiji and Yohachi, who have never heard this
phrase so think it's a real attack, he declares that he's mad because
Ranma formed the Task Force without him. Even after being told it's a
lie, he's sure he's being left out intentionally. * Kang and Kodachi *
Herb, Mint, and Lime * Pantyhose Taro and Rouge * Some of the Inferno
Company students arrive and ask to join (including Li-Wen). * Kamajirou
is apparently trying to teach the rest of Inferno Company (one of the
reasons some of the other students left Area 52) the chi attacks * The
birdmen of Mt Phoenix attack, but when Ranma and co successfully defend
the compound against them, Saffron offers to join the Task Force and
lend his people's fighting ability to a just cause. The Task Force's
'Air Force' begins to take shape.

Nabiki and Mousse make some inquires at a Japanese SDF base about flying
lessons and help in getting the Task Force to battle locations fast.
They get some agreements and equipment under the table, but there
appears to be some resistance from other countries (the US, for one) to
assisting them. They assume it's the Area 52 people working against
them.

With a sizable group forming in Nerima, Ranma and company decide to
fight even if they have to swim to the battlefields. Over time there is
a build up of TVs, radios, computers, ect... that the 'Task Force' will
use to fight their private war. This makes Akane's house a bit cramped.

Kuno attacks with his sons, Ranma beats up Kuno, Daiji and Yohachi take
care of the boys, but not until one of them has some confusion involving
Daiji and some water.

A monolith appears and Ranma and company can't get to the battle. The
SDF transports the Amazons (per the agreement made with the US), but
won't carry Ranma and company. A plan is devised that doesn't sit well
with Ranma since "He hasn't worn a bra is years and I'm not going to
wear one into a battle!!"

The Task Force goes into their first 'unofficial' Task Force battle
dressed as Amazons. After the monolith is destroyed, a photo is taken
showing Ranma in drag. That's the last draw for him. "We've got to do
something about this!"

A decision is made to contact the people at Area 52 to work out a deal
of some kind. Contacting them is fairly simple, they just ask the three
men in black that are usually standing in front of the Tendo 'compound'.

Some uneasy discussions are held with the Area 52 people wanting them to
come back to Nevada with them to form the Task Force. Akane refuses and
is backed up by everyone else. "That didn't work out that well last
time." The talks collapse due the unwillingness of the Area 52 people to
budge on running things.

Yukiko tries to work with the US and Chinese governments on getting some
assistance for the Task Force, insisting, "They are Amazons too". Lack
of breasts on some of them leaves many people dubious.

Sadly, a major Buyierfei attack causes the destruction of Paris and a
large chunk of western Europe after Ranma and company are unable to get
to the battle. Spain, Portugal, and parts of what's left of France are
now on an island. TV reporters confront Ranma about why the 'Task Force'
didn't save France and he snaps back, "Because we couldn't get a flight
to Paris!". Because of this disaster, a special session of the United
Nations is called. They'd like the Task Force's leader to appear.

This sets off a lot of squabbling over who the 'Leader' of the Task
Force is, with Ranma and Ranko coming to blows over the issue. Finally,
a martial arts contest is held to determine the leader. Sanma joins the
contest too, despite Ukyo's protests. In the end Ranma wins and is named
the leader.

Akane and Nabiki, their husbands, and a large group of Amazons go to New
York to address the United Nations in a private session. Ranma makes a
grand speech about the unique nature of the Buyierfei and how
traditional armies won't be able to combat the menace alone. He seems a
bit uneasy and concentrates more on the details of battle and how to get
around the world fast enough to help.

After some de-missive comments from the UN representatives, Akane gives
a passionate speech that starts out rehearsed, but eventually turns into
a personal plea from Akane to "let them fight before my kids have to."

Eventually (after a lot of other discussions and back room meetings) a
charter for the Anything Goes Task Force is approved. Nabiki makes sure
things are laid out to protect Akane and her family. Among the
provisions in the top secret part of the charter (the part the public
and even most people in the governments that approved the charter do not
know anything about):

* Complete autonomy for the Task Force. This was the hardest provision
to get an agreement for, since no one wanted to give up control and
Akane, Ranko, and Ranma are unwilling to take orders after events at
Area 52. Akane starts to discuss why they need autonomy, but when she
mentions Area 52 the meeting stops suddenly when three men in black step
out of the shadows and whisper to the UN representatives. Eventually,
complete autonomy is approved based on the votes of the UN security
members from Russia (as gratitude for destroying the Moscow monolith
before it reached critical mass), France (despite protests that France
barely exists any longer), and China (there's the hint that the female
UN representative from China is an Amazon, but that's based mostly on
her breast size). * Unlimited funding/resources as long as it can be
directly connected to war preparations/fighting. * Protection from
lawsuits * Protection from claims due to large and small-scale property
damage. * And of course Nabiki makes sure that there are contracts for
Tendo Enterprises for equipment and supplies for the Task Force and
other military forces.


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Part 2: Rise of The Task Force

With the Task Force officially formed, they start to organize into
squads and platoons using a combination of Amazon traditional battle
formations and by watching old WWII movies. Training picks up, with Soun
organizing most of the training.

Kamajirou is caught trying to sneak into the compound. After being
caught, he explains that he was ordered to take his team on a suicide
mission. Well, it was a normal mission, but his students were pretty
sure it was a suicide mission based on his abilities as a 'teacher' and
he decided he needed some help.

Some of the other students from Area 52 who left and joined the Task
Force don't trust him, but Ranma and Ranko want to hear some details
about the mission.

Turns out Area 52 found a monolith in Antartica. The location has
everyone (Area 52, Task Force and Amazons) scratching their heads, since
the Buyierfei feed off of life. With the limited life to feed off of in
Antartica, there's no way a monolith should have enough energy to form.

Ranma is the first to realize the horrible truth; That's where they
shipped Happosai off to years earlier.

"If the Buyierfei get a hold of that old pervert's energy..." Ranma
begins. "...no woman would be safe," Ranko finishes. "Not to mention
their underwear," Sanma adds the punch line.

And so the Task Force prepares for it's first battle. Kamajirou tries to
bow out of the battle, but Ranma decides that his old pupil should
finish what he started. As per the agreement with the UN, they get
transport to Antarctica and attack with almost two hundred members (both
Task Force members and Amazon warriors).

The battle goes smoothly until they are in the monolith and start being
attacked. Oddly, the attacks are focused on the women and most of the
casualties are in the form of panties and bras. Thousands of perverted,
invisible Buyierfei strip the Amazons. "I think I liked it better when
they tried to kill us!" Ranko insists as she tries to keep her panties.

Inside the core, they find Happosai feeding energy into the code
directly. Their attacks to destroy the core fail until Sanma reluctantly
snaps open her shirt that she had managed to save from the perverted
onslaught. "Come and get these puppies, Old Man!!"

Happosai, being Happosai, can't resist this and destroys the core from
within in order to escape and grab Sanma's breasts.

Everyone appears in the New Paris Sea, a wrinkled prune glomping Sanma's
chest. Fortunately, they avoid drowning due to a large number of saline
implants in the Amazons that help keep them afloat. They eventually get
rescued, leading to a standard rule of monolith battles: Always have a
recovery team positioned at the last monolith position (or positions).

Thus ends the Task Force's epic first official battle. In the future,
James is unsure how to describe the battle. Most people have always
pictured the Task Force's battles with awe and might be a bit shocked to
find out their first official battle was so... bouncy.

And Happosai? They sent him to Area 52 for "dissection".

(yeah, this first battle was mostly done for laughs and to destroy the
image of what a 'grand first battle' would be like for the Task Force)

As time goes on, there are other battles, Ranma and company start to get
a lot of press and fan attention. Ranko and Sanma have to bust some
fanboy heads when they get a little too attracted to the redheads. Ranma
is on the front lines more and gets more attention from the press and
public. His speaking English allows him to do more interviews, leading
to some friction with Ranko and Sanma, who mostly get noticed by the
drooling fanboys.

The ALF attacks, trying to get back at Akane for killing their leader
during the plane hijacking.

Even with the Task Force, the armies of the world are ramping up to do
battle. Deborah sees Bobby off to war (well to boot camp, at least), but
not before she gets pregnant with Mary (James' older sister) due to a
long night of goodbyes.

The Tendo Compound continues to grow, both horizontally across Nerima
and vertically underground.

Around the world, several countries start to build shelters to help
preserve the human race. These later become known as the "Great
Shelters'.


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Part 3: Too Young to Fight

The Task Force seems to be unstoppable as they win battle after battle.
The Buyierfei rarely get a chance to get a monolith formed outside the
windows when the monolith on the moon can give an energy boost.

Despite their successes, there is some resentment forming around the
world because of the rough living conditions people are living under as
more and more resources go towards the war and because the Black Wars
seem to be endless. Even when they are successful in destroying a
monolith, they still explode and destroy the immediate surroundings.
This leads some to question the Task Force's methods.

Things start to take a turn for the worse when the Task Force takes
heavy casualties during a battle with multiple monoliths. Two monoliths
are destroyed, but two remain. One is in San Francisco and one in South
Africa.

When the teams that destroyed those monoliths reappear and they realize
that the teams sent to destroy the hearts of the two undestroyed
monoliths must have been killed, Ranma goes back into the monoliths
again with most of the remaining Task Force members. Weeks pass without
any sign, so Akane is preparing to take the few remaining Task Force
Members and Amazons, including some who are still recovering from wounds
sustained during the earlier battles. Daiji and Yohachi ask to go along
and fight. Akane says no because "You're too young!!"

"We're almost sixteen!" they insist, causing Akane to have to pause and
count the years. "How did I miss you growing up?" (this age is
approximately where I imagined this story to fall, so could have shifted
in the final written chapters)

Regardless, she doesn't allow them to come, insisting that they need to
protect the younger children in the Compound that will be left with
minimal protection in the underground shelter they've built and
fortified. It is her own words that make her realize what she was about
to do: Leave her children almost unprotected.

After much soul searching, Akane goes to the three men in black who are
always standing in front of the compound. "I'm going to need your help."

Area 52 tries to get major concessions, but Akane only agrees to one:
She tells them exactly why the Buyierfei's leader looks like Ranma and
Ranko.

In the end, Area 52 arranges for most of the Japan Self Defense force to
take up defensive positions around Nerima and provide land, air, and sea
protection while Akane is away.  "That will at lease slow the Buyierfei
down before I can get back," Akane says. Area 52 also agrees to send
army and air support to South Africa (they were already supporting the
defense in San Francisco). Akane insists that will help deflect presure
on the Task Force team heading to San Francisco.

Akane heads to San Francisco with her father and Hinako, both of which
hadn't been a regular part of the Task Force battles. Unfortunately,
they leave with a couple of young stowaways, as well.

They find the San Francisco Monolith in the center of San Francisco,
atop one of the Twin Peak mountains. It is surrounded by the signs of
battle. The US Army and Area 52 forces have been fighting streams of
Buyierfei coming from the monolith, but haven't been able to contain
them entirely.

As the Task Force battles its' way through to the monolith, they are
unexpectedly attacked by a human enemy. A large group of people dressed
in black with black shrouds tied around their heads like a hood try to
prevent Akane from reaching the 'temple of their lord'. It is here they
finally learn of the cult worshiping Shuma: The Black Shroud Clan.

Caught off guard by this, the Task Force gets split into two and Akane
goes into the monolith with only a third of the fighters she came with.

The others on the outside are reluctant to fight the humans with full
force. Ironically, the Buyierfei end up saving Soun as he was about to
be killed by the leader of the Black Shroud fighters. Trying to put the
monolith between them and the fighters, a couple of Amazons use the
Hiryu Shoren Ha to nudge the position of the monolith until it tumbles
down the mountainside towards the Golden Gate Bridge, killing most of
the Black Shroud fighters and a large number of Buyierfei in the
process.

Inside, Akane enters the first of the two hearts and finds Ranma, Ranko,
Sanma, and most of their missing teams ensnared in a web surrounding the
core. Relieved (at their being alive) and horrified (at their obvious
emaciated and helpless condition) at the same time, she tries to free
them. Ranma awakes and screams at Akane to get out before they are
caught too, but she tries to free them even as they fight off Buyierfei
attacks. Chi energy doesn't seem to affect the web, but brute force
pulling and swords have some effect.

The battle seems to be going Akane's way, with several people being
freed from the web, when Shuma appears and kicks Akane savagely into the
web, trapping her. The remaining Task Force members are soon captured
and added to the web.

Outside, the battle between humans is over, but the Buyierfei are still
streaming out. Soun devises a plan to nudge the Monolith further and
dump it into the ocean. Although it won't totally stop the Buyierfei
from leaving, it should slow them down and give the regular army troops
a better chance to combat the Buyierfei that are ravaging San Francisco
and streaming north over the Golden Gate bridge.

Over the course of several hours, the Amazons manage to nudge the
monolith to the edge of a cliff in the Presidio overlooking the ocean
and Soun pauses to watch it tumble into the ocean. As he turns back to
the land battle, he is speared by a unseen tentacle. Seeing this, Hinako
goes to her husband's aid and gets him away from his attacker. But it's
too late and Soun passes away in his wife's child-like arms. Burning
with grief and rage over his death, she captures the last of his chi as
he dies and goes on a very destructive killing spree against the
Buyierfei in her adult form.

Inside the monolith Shuma is gloating over his victory. "You have caused
me a great deal of trouble, but now it is over. Your world will become a
feast for us."

Akane manages to spit at Shuma. "Don't think you've won."

Shuma chuckles. "You can't escape that web, the more you struggle the
more energy it sucks from you. It will always be more powerful than you
are."

"Someone will come for us..."

"The other monolith is sealed off due to my 'mother'." Shuma glances at
Sanma. "And this monolith is now underwater. It will be impossible for
YOUR kind to enter." Shuma chuckles. "And I can feel no other intruders
in our realm, so you loose."

"Let my father go!!"

Shuma is shocked at the voice and spins around just in time to get a
face full of chi balls thrown by Daiji and Yohachi. The chi balls blow
Shuma across the core, burning easily through the web as they go.

Akane is both happy and horrified to see her children inside the heart.
"I told you two..." She starts to scold until she realizes it might not
be the best time. "Get out of here! It's not safe!!"

"We'll get you all down first!"

"But chi energy doesn't..." Akane trails off as a smoking and charred
Shuma climbs out of the burned web he fell into. "But..." As Shuma
starts to stand up again, she yells to her children. "Blast the web and
that guy there!" she screams pointing at Shuma.

A series of blasts flare out from their hands. Yohachi's chi blasts
don't do much harm to the web, but he gets a couple good hits on Shuma.
Daiji's blasts seem to slice through the web easily.

Released from the web, Akane falls to the ground and crawls over to pull
the web off Ranma where he fell nearby. "But why does the web burn so
easily..."

Shuma pulls the semi-concious Ranma away from Akane by the neck. "That
is my sister... I recognize the energy."

Akane shudders. "Don't you touch my children."

Shuma chuckles. "She should have been ours at the beginning, but I will
take her now." He holds Ranma up to avoid being blasted. "Judging by the
damage she's doing, she may be more Buyierfei that human. That's why I
failed to sense her before."

Akane realizes that even with the web releasing a lot of the Task Force
members, they are so weak they can't help much. Time is not on their
side. She looks at Daiji then all around before locking eyes with a
Amazon on the other side of the heart from her. "Any task force member
that can, get out of this heart!!"

Some of the recovering Task Force members who came with Akane are strong
enough to crawl out start moving towards the edge of the heart.

Shuma chuckles. "Running away won't save you."

"Who said we're running away?" Akane cups her hands in front of her.
"Hiryu Hyouchuu Ha!!" Akane aims a pillar of cold air at the crystal
heart at the center of the heart.

"Hiryu Hibashira Ha!!" the Amazon across from her cries as she trows a
pillar of hot air at the crystal heart.

"Futile..." Shuma chuckles. "You're much to weak to break the heart
before I kill you all."

"Daiji, blast this two-faced impostor with everything you have!!"

Daiji stops her random sweeps of blasts and looks to where Akane points.
A fireball blasts Shuma shortly after. "Who is that?"

"A very bad thing!" Akane shouts.

Shuma recoils from the blast. "Not nice to lie to the child." Shuma
grins at Daiji with his half male and half female face. "You and I are
the same, my child. Brother sister, all in one."

Daiji sends some more blasts at Shuma, but hesitates when she recognizes
the features of her mother (Ranko) and male father (Ranma) in Shuma's
face. "Huh... but..."

"Daiji, don't listen to him. That monster stole Uncle Sanma's child and
warped it into that abomination."

"But..." Daiji's blasts start to fluctuate as Daiji's confidence
falters.

Akane tries to keep her cold air votes steady while dealing with a very
complicated family situation. "Daiji... if you don't stop him, we will
all die!!"

Shuma tries to put on as pleasant of a face as he/she can with her half
and half appearance. "Daiji... is that what they call you? You were
stolen from us. They only want to use you to fight their battles."

Daiji shakes her head. "No... they don't want me to fight."

"You are not human. You're like me, right?" To try to prove this Shuma
shifts male and female sides. "See?"

Daiji falters again until Yohachi runs up besides his brother. "Daiji!
That thing is lying, don't listed to it!!"

Daiji looks at his brother and then Akane and Ranma and Ranko. "But..."

Shuma smiles pleasantly. "Come here, my brother." He holds out a hand,
which causes the light to illuminate a thin strand running between his
fingers and Daiji's head.

Akane sees this and screams. "He's brainwashing her!! Damn you!"

As Daiji starts to walk towards Shuma, Yhachi pulls his brother back,
but is sent crashing across the ground by a savage punch from Daiji.

"Very good, sister." Shuma says as he waves a hand and a black energy
washes over Daiji transforming him into a girl. "See, we are the same."

Daiji blinks and looks down at her smaller body. "No water..."

"Daiji!!" Akane and Yohachi scream, the later sending some chi balls at
Shuma.

"Now let us dispose of these troublesome insects and we can suck this
pathetic world dry together."

"Dispose of this!"

Shuma looked down at the smaller female Daiji just in time to get a big
chi ball shoved up his face. "Arghh...."

The point blank blast sends Shuma flying across the heart and directly
into the already cracking crystal heart. The energies from Daiji, Shuma,
and the hot and cold energy vortexes combine into a large heart
shattering explosion.

"Out of the heart, we have to blow the other one before..." Akane tries
to say as she makes a run for the edge of the heart, but is cut off when
the heart explodes around them.

She is awoken by a soft tap on her cheek. "Mom?" "Dad?"

She opens he eyes to see her two oldest looking down at her. "My
babies..." she says before her eyes open in horror at the gray sky above
them. "We're still in the monolith."

Daiji and Yohachi shake their heads. "No, we're in San Francisco."

Akane's eyes finally focus and look around to see the foggy skies. A
quick scan around and she see the city buildings in the distance, the
charred and pulverized hills of the Presidio, and to the north the
remains of the Golden Gate Bridge. "San Francisco... but Shuma said we
were in San Francisco's heart, so..."

Akane briefly celebrates with her husbands and Daiji and Yohachi before
she finds out that her father died in the battle. She collapses and
doesn't want to leave the area.

They learn that the South African and San Francisco monolith exploded at
the same time. The Amazons/Task Force who escaped the San Francisco
heart heart reported that the two hearts exploded at the same time. The
Task Force members and Amazons who were held captive in a web in the
South African Heart were also released and appeared in South Africa.

The two hearts exploding at once and unusual reactions to the explosions
(those inside the monolith hearts usually end up where the LAST heart
exploded not where the current heart exploded), is believed to be
because of Shuma getting blasted into the crystal heart by Daiji.

Daiji explains that she was just acting like she was being controlled by
Shuma. She felt him trying to influence her mind, but never lost her
free will. They are unsure if Shuma was killed or not or if the
Buyierfei will be back, but the suspect they haven't seen the last of
them yet.

Daiji and Yohachi are severely scolded by their parents, but are allowed
to start training with the Task Force. Akane can't avoid the horrible
reality any longer that her children will have to fight this unending
war as well. They have a long talk with Daiji about her origins.

In time, part of the San Francisco Presidio becomes the first Task Force
Compound outside Japan. Established to allow the Task Force to have
quick response teams all around the world and also to hold the grave of
Soun Tendo and a large monument erected by the citizens of San Francisco
to honor his heroic efforts to save their city.

(This story arc was to force Akane to accept that her children will need
to fight and also to reveal that Daiji's energy is similar to the
Buyierfei energy.)


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Part 4: No Other Choice

With the Task Force now cooperating somewhat with the unnamed and
non-existant organization from Area 52 (mostly for technical equipment
and information gathering) more and more, they are called into the Japan
branch's version of 'Area 52' for a urgent briefing. Japan's Area 52 is
under Mt. Fuji. (I haven't thought up a appropriate name for it yet.)

There is some discussion by the Task Force that they always assumed that
Area 52 was a secret American organization, so why do they have a base
under Mt. Fuji? Nabiki decides to file that info for future use.

General Smart greets them and apologizes for the events in Area 52 and
Nevada. "You the only general they have?" Ranko asks sarcastically.

"No, the higher ups just wanted to to see a familiar face."

"Just don't put our families in danger again."

"We're sorry about that."

In a large briefing room, they are shown a view of an asteroid that is
on a collision course for Earth and the Task Force is needed to destroy
it. It's large enough to wipe out most of mankind of it impacts Earth.

"But why us? Why don't you blow it up with nuclear missiles or
something?" Ranma asks.

"We did, a week ago," the General Smart says and points towards the
displays. They show a tiny point of light streaking toward the large
asteroid and impacting it with a huge flash of light erupting from the
side and filling the screen. When the display clears, the asteroid is
surrounded by debris, but is still mostly intact.

Nabiki looks at another display showing the orbital data with the
projected course of the asteroid now swinging past Earth. "See... it's
been deflected." The time indicators on the displays speed up, showing
the asteroid on the main screen veering slightly towards the camera. The
orbital display again shows the line intersecting with Earth.

"It..." Ranma stammers.

"Changed course?" Akane and Nabiki say in unison.

General Smart nods. "Yes. Take a look at this view from Hubbell." The
main screen changes to show a high resolution image of the asteroid's
surface.

Teeth and fists are clenched around the room.

"A monolith," many of the Task Force members say in unison as they see
the rectangular object jutting out from the surface of the asteroid.

"Yes, that asteroid is under the control of the Buyierfei and they are
steering it directly at us."

"But... they feed on life, why wipe us out?"

"Our guess is that they hope to destroy our ability to fight back and
will feed on whatever life survives."

"Well, the monoliths are all connected, so the next time one appears
we'll just destroy that one too."

General Smart shakes his head. "As you know, the monolith on the Moon
hasn't formed any monoliths for the past three cycles. We don't believe
they are going to let you get close to that Monolith's heart." He
gestures at the monolith on the screen. "And since the monolith on the
Moon isn't connected like the others you've destroyed, this one may not
be either."

Ranma jumps to his feet. "Then you're just going to have to send us up
into space to intercept that one directly!"

Akane shakes her head at yet another stupid idea from her husband.
"There's no way..." she begins.

"That's exactly what we want to do."

Akane's jaw drops. "You're kidding?"

"No, it'll have to be a small team and there's no guarantee that they'll
come back to Earth after destroying it, but we think we can use the
mothballed Mars Expedition Transfer Vehicle to get a small team out to
the orbit of that asteroid in time to destroy the monolith and then nuke
the asteroid again if the astroid is still headed for Earth. 
Fortuantely, we still have five months until impact. That should be
enough time to train you, outfit the Mars ETV for the new mission and
intercept the asteroid in time."

"But..."

"If you have some other idea how to destroy that monolith before the
asteroid impacts earth, let us know..."

Discussions between the Task Force and Amazons don't come up with any
other option, so they start making plans.

They will use an excess lunar lander left over from the new moon program
to do the final landing on the asteroid. Two NASA astronauts will pilot
the METV to the asteroid and then land the lander on the asteroid as the
METV passes by. They will have to go into the monolith with the Task
Force, since there would be no time to land, allow the Task Force to
disembark and get back to the METV before it passes out of range. In any
case, the METV will be on a one way mission to deep space, so will be
unmanned after the lander detaches. The Mars Expedition Return Vehicle
was never constructed.

The lander has room for six, so with the two NASA astronauts four Task
Force members can go. Only two are needed to destroy a monolith heart,
but they agree that taking four people will maximize the chance of
success.

Despite Nabiki's protests, Moose is chosen to go because of his flight
training and combat flight experience.

Ranma, Ranko and Sanma all volunteer, but in the end Ranma agrees to
stay behind at Ranko's pleading, "This could be a one way trip. Let's
not leave Akane alone." Sanma is also excluded since he was currently a
panda and there is no spacesuit that would fit him.

Ryoga and an Amazon fill out the four monolith attackers, with Ranko
leading the group.

Ranma and another Amazon will train with them in case of medical or
other problems.

The team goes through a very tough and vigorous set of tests and
training. Fortunately, they are all very fit (naturally) and manage to
get the basics down fast. But not before some vomit is spilt on the
various simulators. Ironically, Ryoga manages to stabilize the
multi-axis spinner the fastest. "Just seemed like a walk in the park to
me." The others all think of Ryoga's multi-country 'walks in the parks'.
In other words: He's used to being all over the place.

Moose spends most of his training time training with the two NASA
astronauts learning some of the flight controls.

As they get closer to the launch of the shuttle that will take them up
to the reconfigured International Space Station where the METV and lunar
lander are being readied (the ISS was going to act as an assembly and
launching platform before the Mars program was canceled due to the Black
Wars), Nabiki announces she'll be hitching a ride up to the station with
them. "To oversee the final integration of the Tendo Enterprises
systems, of course," was the stated reason to NASA. "To see off Moose,"
was the reason to her family. "To get a free ride into outer space," was
her real reason.

Ranma and the other Amazon on standby will go up as well. Nabiki goads
Akane into going along for a chance to see off Ranko.

After a tearful goodbye to all of the various wives and children they
are leaving behind on Earth, they go up in one of the new mini-shuttles
and dock with the ISS.

After they dock and get aquatinted to weightlessness and oh and awe over
the view of Earth from space, they start preparing for the METV to
separate and blast out of Earth orbit.

During the final preparations for launch, a bright beam of light cuts
through the space station. The station is ripped into several big
pieces, which are sent spinning away from each other.

The source of the light beam was the monolith on the moon. Reports from
around the world is that the beam of light never reached earth, so there
won't be another monolith. It was precisely aimed to hit the ISS. "The
Buyierfei know what we're up to," General Smart comments calmly back in
Houston's Mission Control while NASA tries to get in contact with the
station or shuttles.

On board the ISS, the space station crew reacts fast to close airtight
doors to save most of the people on board, but they find themselves
separated and falling out of orbit.

Ranma, Moose, Nabiki, Ryoga, one of the Amazons, and one of the NASA
astronauts were all on the METV during the attack. One of the station
residents pushes Akane through the ETV's hatch and seals it before the
section they are attached to depressurizes and blows him into space.

Ranko the other Astronaut and several station members manage to get to
one of the docked shuttles and detach with it's crew. The other part of
the station is lost with five crew members and the other Amazon.

On the METV, they manage to detach from the section of the ISS they were
docked to, but the remaining astronaut isn't sure he can get them back
to Earth in this vehicle. "It's not built for Earth reentry."

Ranma looks hesitantly at Nabiki and then to the others who made it on
board, then steels his nerve. "We can't go back to Earth. We have to go
after that asteroid or there won't be an Earth at all." Akane
reluctantly nods her agreement.

"But I'm not sure..." The Astronaut sees the serious look on Ranma's
face and turns his attention to the flight systems. "Um... Moose can you
take the other seat and help me here?."

Frantic moments go by as they try to see if they can maintain orbit long
enough to light the main engines to get out of orbit.

Nabiki puts a shaking hand on Moose shoulder as he tries his best to
help. "Moose... I..."

Moose looks up at his wife. "I know... this is more than you bargained
for. We'll keep you safe."

They manage to stabilize their orbit and get in contact with NASA. They
learn that Ranko is safe, but the shuttle had to move to a much lower
orbit to avoid debris. They won't be able to reach the METV with their
available fuel.

The call is made by all that the METV has to go with it's current crew.
"It's our only hope to destroy that monolith."

A orbit is quickly computed by Mission Control and they strap in before
igniting the main engine to send them out of Earth orbit and towards the
asteroid.

As they settle in for the almost month-long trip to the Asteroid, some
things become apparent.

* The NASA astronaut will have problems landing the lander alone. he
starts to teach Moose on how to help him. * As the asteroid nears it
starts to adjust it's orbit, forcing many last minute course corrections
to stay on target. * They determine that someone will have to stay
behind to keep the METV on course, since the computer can't keep up with
the orbit changes. NASA also can't control it remotely, since there's a
ten minute time lag. * It becomes obvious that Moose will have to stay
behind on the METV to keep it on the correct orbit during the
separation. Nabiki is hysterical over this and tries to find some other
way.

They all record last messages for their families on Earth just in case
they don't make it back. Nabiki and Moose send one to their children,
but find it impossible to tell them that their father isn't coming back.

As everyone moves to the lander, Nabiki holds onto Moose. "I can't let
you go..."

Moose is crying more than she is, but tries to put on a stiff upper lip.
"I know... but this is the only way."

They all say their goodbyes to Moose, then have to drag Nabiki away from
her husband. As they enter the lander, a sudden corse correction sends
everyone crashing around the lander. In the process one of the helmets
is shattered.

As they start to strap in, they realize one person won't have a helmet.

There are a lot of volunteers to stay behind and even some talk that
Nabiki should stay behind since she can't fight once they get inside the
monolith (this came from the stoic Amazon), but in the end the NASA
astronaut says that he'll give up his helmet for Nabiki. "I'll just stay
on the lander."

Nabiki realizes he's sacrificing himself for her. "All because I wanted
a free trip into space as a lark," she mutters to herself.

As they start to seal the hatch, Nabiki twists away from them and closes
the hatch between the lander and the METV. "I'm sorry Akane... my place
is with my husband," she calls over the intercom as she jams the hatch
on her side, preventing them from getting back inside. "Akane, I'm not
needed on the mission. Don't try to stop me, just go down and destroy
that monolith."

The asteroid is almost within range and Moose is still managing to keep
up with the changes in the asteroid's ever shifting orbit.

"Akane, go!!" Nabiki screams. "Take care of my babies..." she says as
she turns off the intercom.

"No!!!" Akane screams, but she is finally forced into her seat by her
husband. "Nabiki!!" she screams for her sister as the lander detaches
and starts it's plunge down towards the asteroid.

Moose is tracking the landers decent when Nabiki comes up behind him.
"They're gone."

"Nabiki... why?!?"

"A woman's place is by her husband's side." She slips into his arms and
holds on tight. They watch as the lander makes a safe landing on the
asteroid.

"Houston, the lander is safe on the surface." Moose says. "Good luck..."

Akane is still in tears as they start to seal up their spacesuits for
the EVA walk to the monolith. "Nabiki..."

"Akane, we have to go now... the rest of our family are counting on
us... Earth is counting on us."

Finally, they settle her down and she nods reluctantly. As they make
their way across towards the monolith in their heavily weighted down
spacesuits to deal with the low gravity of the asteroid, she looks up at
a dot in the sky and watches it as it slowly arcs away from them.

They battle Buyierfei on the surface of the asteroid, fortunately
finding that they can form chi balls outside the suits as their tests on
Earth had showed. They eventually learn to adjust their shots to account
for the very low gravity. When they finally reach the monolith, they are
ambushed again. The Amazon is sent spinning into space by a blow and
Ryoga finds his arm speared by a tentacle. As his spacesuit
depressurizes, Akane tackles Ryoga from behind, sending them both into
the monolith. The rest join them shortly.

Inside, Ryoga is breathing heavily as Akane pulls off his helmet and
tries to stanch the flow of blood. "That was too close..."

The fighters and the astronaut join up shortly and make their way
towards the single heart.

Back on Earth, they continue tracking the asteroid, which now is on a
direct collision course for Earth again. Although the asteroid and
monolith were top secret, world astronomers now have been tracking the
asteroid as it got close to Earth and the public is aware of the peril
they face. The Task Force's media relations group announces that the
Task Force has made it to the monolith and will destroy it to reassure
people, but the impending doom causes people to flee to the still
unfinished Great Shelters to seek refuge. The scientists and governments
around the world know that the shelters won't be enough for this type of
disaster, but allow the people to keep some hope of survival.

As the astroid nears earth and hopes dim on Earth for survival, the
monolith explodes and shatters the asteroid. Several large pieces come
close to Earth, but slip by harmlessly. Some of the smaller pieces
shower down on earth, causing a light show for weeks. A few bigger
chunks do impact the Earth, but cause relatively little damage.

Three weeks later, Akane, Ranma, Ryoga, and the astronaut appear on
Earth where the last monolith was destroyed (not sure where this would
have been).

Waiting nervously for them is the now usual Task Force recovery team and
a large collection of diplomats and onlookers to congratulate them on
saving the Earth.

Akane is in no mood to celebrate. "My father... now my sister... I can't
fight this war any more..."

"Your sister and her husband asked me to tell you directly that they are
alive and well," General Smart says as he comes out of the crowd.

Akane looks up. "Huh?"

"We managed to get them into a trajectory that will get them into a safe
Mars orbit."

"So they'll be coming home?"

General Smart shakes his head. "No... there is no return vehicle."

"Then..."

"Your sister and brother-in-law are about to become the first people to
land on Mars."

(Yes, this section of story was influenced by the movie 'Armageddon' in
which a group of miners are sent into space to destroy an asteroid. It
opened a whole lot of possibilities and would have been a bear to really
write. It also separated Nabiki from her children in a unique way.) :)


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Part 5: Nabiki Tendo, Queen of Mars

After the lander separated from the METV, Nabiki and Mousse recorded a
message for their family and then turned the radio off. They weren't
sure if they wanted to know if the Task Force was successful in saving
Earth or not.

As the days went on, they started calculating the food, water, and
oxygen supplies on board. They started to wonder if it was a good or bad
thing they could last for four more months or not.

They drew out a calendar on one of the walls in pen for the next four
months, not bothering to write the date that the asteroid would impact
Earth. They didn't want that date to come.

On the second day after the Earth was destroyed, they finally got the
nerve to turn the radio on. They were moved to tears when they heard a
recording of their children saying "We love you Mommy and Daddy!"
repeatedly on a loop.

"Tell our children we love them too," Nabiki responded back as she and
Moose hugged and kissed. "They're alive!!" she yells with glee, knowing
that the transmission wouldn't be there if Earth was hit by the
Asteroid.

Mission Control reports back on the situation. The asteroid was
successfully destroyed and Earth didn't suffer any significant damage.
They won't know for three weeks what happened inside the monolith, but
they are hopeful.

After going over the supplies and options with Moose and Nabiki they
confirm what they all already knew. "I'm sorry, but even if we shed
every ounce of unneeded equipment and supplies, there's no way we can
get two adults into a orbit that would get you to back to Earth before
your consumables run out. Mars might be possible for..." The CAPCOM
pauses, before continuing. "For one of you, but,,,"

Nabiki doesn't even wait for the delayed message from Earth to finish
before responding. "Not a chance. We're together till the end." Moose
nods his agreement.

"Besides, Mars is just a different place to die," Moose says
reluctantly, causing Nabiki to cringe at the thought they had been so
careful to avoid saying directly.

CAPCOM's delayed response comes back. "No, there is a great deal of
equipment and supplies that have been sent to Mars already to build the
Mars Exploration Base. If we can get you to Mars, you could live for
quite some time on the surface. With the war, we don't know when a
return vehicle could be built, but it's at least something."

Moose insists that Nabiki should go to Mars and then unconsciously
glances at the airlock.

Nabiki slaps him hard, which in the zero G of space sends them both
spinning in opposite directions across the cockpit of the METV. Nabiki
rubs her sore shoulder where it hit the ceiling. "Remind me never to do
that again." Then she glares at Moose. "We're in this together.
remember?"

"Yes, but..." Moose start to protest, but he knows his wife would never
give in. She would if it were their children. "But you could eventually
get back to the children."

Nabiki cringes, knowing deep down he was right. "But I can't let you
make that sacrifice."

"Nabiki! One parent is still better than none!!" Moose's forehead
wrinkles in concentration. "Two... adults." He turns towards the radio
and keys the send button. "Houston, can you run a calculation on getting
us to Mars with only one very petite and beautiful woman and one white
duck on board?"

Nabiki's jaw drops.

There is some confused back and force communication between them, but
eventually CAPCOM comes back. "Um... yeah, if for some reason Mrs. Tendo
and a duck were on board, that would reduce the weight of the
spacecraft, plus the oxygen and food consumed to the point we could just
make a very wide elliptical Mars orbit that would allow a decent in the
Mars Decent Capsule."

Nabiki and Mousse grin and embrace each other. "Houston, send up the list
of what equipment we need to eject. As soon as the hard work is done,
we'll be using just a bit of cold water."

Moose grins. "We'll need a little hot water when we reach Mars too."

Three weeks later, Akane is told of the plan and laughs. "Thank goodness
Nabiki married a duck!"

The duck and his wife reach Mars orbit and after a little hot water,
descend to the surface together in the Mars Decent Capsule.

Despite some attempts to keep the landing a secret, word that part of
the team that saved the Earth was going to make a safe landing on Mars
leaked out. The Japanese government played up the fact that a Japanese
would be one of the first persons on Mars along with China's boasting
that a Chinese man would be the first on Mars. NASA and the US
Government, naturally, played up the fact that it was a US spacecraft
that made it possible.

Nabiki and Moose try to ignore all the political posturing and ball
scratching (Nabiki's term) back on Earth, which was fairly easy when
you're millions of miles away. Given their new status as the undeniable
saviors of the entire Earth, Akane and the Task Force are more and more
in the limelight and urge people to see Nabiki and Moose's forthcoming
Mars landing as a worldwide accomplishment.

So the whole world watches live--or at least live via a twenty minute
delay as the signal races back to Earth at the speed of light--when
Nabiki is the first out of the capsule and sets her space-suited foot
onto the red soil. Why Nabiki? She insisted that since a man was first
on the Moon, a woman was a natural choice for the next great leap for
'Humankind'.

As Moose and many of her business partners found out long ago, it was
hard to argue with Nabiki and win.

Instead of the prepared "That's one small step for a woman, one giant
leap for Humankind," speech prepared by NASA, Nabiki looks up at the red
sky and says:

"I, Nabiki Tendo, claim this planet in the name of Tendo Enterprises.
All hail Queen Nabiki of Mars!!"

Twenty minutes later, NASA, the U.S. Government, and many others were
not amused.

Akane and her family laughed their socks off.

After Moose joins her, they eventually say in unison: "That's two small
steps for a couple, one giant leap for Humankind." That version is
replayed more on the official news feeds, but Nabiki's first words are a
big hit on YouTube.

As the days go on, Nabiki and Moose are busy assembling a living space
using the components that were sent ahead by NASA. As NASA said, there
is a lot of equipment to maintain large crews for a long time, so two
should be able to live there for the rest of their lives if needed.
Nabiki and Moose hope that won't be needed, but are resigned to that
fate if the war keeps a rescue mission from being made.

Even after closing off parts of the Mars Expedition Base that they won't
use to save oxygen, they are still left with quite a large section to
use as a home. They even end up adding a few things NASA never intended.
Part of the green house that grows food was turned into a nice red stone
hot spring. Nabiki insisted it was for Moose to turn back into a human
as needed, but her family knew that Nabiki couldn't survive for long
without a good soak in an onsen.

With living necessities taken care of, NASA eventually asks Nabiki and
Moose to do some scientific work. Gathering samples, drilling test
bores, locating and getting information on the nearby Spirit rover to
see how it held up after years of inactivity on the harsh martian
surface, and regular trips in their large, pressurized Mars rover to the
northern ice caps to resupply their water supply and survey the area.

After several months of life on Mars, they made one of their frequent
reports back to Akane and NASA. Nabiki asks a question. "So,  when were
you going to tell us and the world that you were building a Great
Shelter on Mars?"

Akane's jaw drops twenty minutes later. On the video feed, a lot of
scuffling is seen at Mission Control as three men in black appear and
cut off the video feed.

After an hour of static, Nabiki and Mousse finally get a signal. General
Smart, three men in black are standing behind Akane and Ranma. "Mrs.
Tendo, what do you mean?" General Smart asks, failing at looking the
least bit innocent.

Nabiki grins. "Akane, I hope you are not under any duress due to my
question, but I trust you can hold you own against them." Due to the
time delay, she just goes into her explanation. "General, Moose and I
are not stupid. We've put together the pieces of our house here and have
seen all the large containers you shipped up here. Many of which have
very recent dates on them. There is way too much here to supply even a
year long Mars exploration team. There's enough here to keep thousands
of people alive for decades if needed."

"This is a Great Shelter for Humans to survive if the Buyeirfei ever
overtake the Earth completely, isn't it?"

Twenty minutes later, the general nods reluctantly. "Yes. Naturally, if
the public knew this they would panic and then there would be chaos over
who would be sent to Mars to keep the Human race alive."

Akane interrupts. "I can imagine."

"The original Mars expedition program was scrapped in the early days of
the Black Wars, but we decided to keep it going as a secret project
should the wars go badly."

"Just who would be chosen to populate your little ARK, General," Akane
asks, the suspicion evident in her voice.

"A final selection hasn't been made, but there was hope of a
multi-cultural group to be drawn from..."

"Your organization, I presume," Ranma mutters.

General Smart doesn't respond. "We really were trying to save at least
part of humanity. Without the METV, that plan is now on hold anyway."

"And returning my sister and her husband to Earth?"

"NASA is working on it, but all work on the return vehicle was stopped
over a decade ago, with the focus going to getting people, supplies, and
equipment to Mars as quickly as possible. With the METV and ISS gone,
it'll be years before we can even send supplies to Mars, let alone a
Human crew or a return vehicle."

Twenty minutes later, Nabiki responds to the conversation from Earth.
"Motivations aside, even if you can't bring us back, the three of us
will make a life for ourselves here."

"Three?" Akane asks before even waiting for a pause in Nabiki's delayed
message.

"Despite all the medical equipment sent up here, condoms and birth
control pills were not part of it," Nabiki explains. "I'm probably about
three months pregnant." She puts her hand on her belly.

Moose smiles. "No cigars up here either, so smoke one for me Ranma."

"I'll record a message for our kids later to tell them they have a new
sibling on the way."

"But why tell us now after dropping the bombshell about the secret Mars
shelter?" Akane finally asks when Nabiki and Moose's message paused for
a response from Earth.

"Mostly to make sure you and our family knew knew the situation and
General Smart wouldn't try anything like cutting off communications if
they got nervous about their secret getting out." Nabiki rubbed her
belly. "I've been thinking of family even more lately and I wasn't sure
they were actually trying to get us back after what we discovered up
here. General, in a sense, this is exactly what you planned. A colony on
Mars to continue the Human race. Our child may be the first Martian."

Time passed, Nabiki's belly grew to the point she had to use a bigger
sized space suit, Moose worried about having to deliver his own child
and was absorbing as much information as NASA could send him via the
computer uplink from Earth. The doctors on Earth were very concerned
about the baby's development in the low gravity of Mars, so Nabiki was
told to use the gravity simulator as often as her nausea could allow.
The medical equipment did include an ultrasound, so they were able to
keep track of the development of the baby.

Moose managed to help Nabiki deliver a healthy bay girl. They name her
"Kasei", the Japanese word for Mars. The world celebrates the first
extraterrestrial birth.

She looks pretty normal, but is a little taller, or longer depending on
the angle, than a normal human baby due to the low gravity. She learned
to crawl very fast in the low gravity.

Back on Earth, Nabiki and Moose's oldest Nijiko is growing despondent
despite Kasumi and Akane's best efforts to raise Nabiki's children.
"Mommy doesn't love me any more," the young girl insists.

"Nonsense, she always sends you messages from Mars," Kasumi insists.

"But now they have a baby to replace me with."

Kasumi knew Nijiko was just going through the normal jealousy of any
child who gets a new sibling, but was intensified by being separated by
millions of miles of deep space. "You know what? Your mother was upset
when your Aunt Akane was born."

"Really?"

"Yeah, don't tell your mother I told you this, but she tried to bury
Akane in the back yard."

"But I can't do that."

"Well, aren't you glad to have Aunt Akane around? I know Nabiki learned
that having a little sister was a good thing, as I did when Nabiki was
born."

"I guess, but I'd rather have my Mother around."

Kasumi looked up at the red dot in the sky. "Someday, I hope she will
be."

"When?"

"I don't know... maybe after the war are over."

(There was also meant to be a flash forward to James talking with Nijiko
about this part of her life and how she dealt with being separated from
her parents. The gist of this part of the story with Nijiko is it
explains why she dislikes the war with the Buyierfei and Akane's
involvement with that war. On some level she blames Akane and the Task
force for separating her from her mother and father.)

(A good deal of the Mars part of the story was to continue concurrently
with other events on Earth. How exactly these would have been interwoven
was not clear when I planned the outline. There would be events on Mars
that would affect the story on Earth and visa versa (it wasn't just a
cheap way to write Nabiki and Moose out of the story without having the
guts to kill them).)

Years pass. Another 'Martian' is born, a boy this time. They call him
Daichi, Japanese for geological Earth. (Chikyuu is the proper name for
Earth in Japanese, but I didn't like the sound of it as a name.)

Family strolls become possible by Moose carefully modifying some of the
space suits. The baby is mostly in a helmet with a bag and life support
pack attached. Wheels on the bottom make it the ultimate baby stroller
for Mars parents (Patent Pending Tendo Enterprises). Kasei is already
hopping all around, so she gets to have legs and arms in her modified
suit, but it's still a bit cumbersome due to her small size. Moose was
already working on the next size up. Kids always outgrow their
spacesuits so fast, don't they?

One thing that he develops in secret is an attempted spacesuit for his
duck form. He hasn't been able to soar in the sky since he got to Mars
and he really misses it. The greenhouse gives him some room to fly
freely, but it's still not the same experience. Only after it's done
does he tell Nabiki and NASA. At which point NASA tells him that a duck
would never be able to fly in the thin atmosphere of Mars, especially
with a spacesuit on. His trial runs prove them right. Mousse is
disappointed.

Years pass without a rescue in sight, but the Martian family seems to be
resigned to waiting out the war. One day their peaceful days are
interrupted by a earthquake... err... marsquake. These are very rare
events on Mars with only a few slight tremors recorded since they
arrivd. This one was strong enough for them to feel. NASA is monitoring
using equipment setup by Mabiki and Moose. After several more over the
next year are felt, they pinpoint the area they are coming from.

NASA wants them to go check it out. With the two young children, Nabiki
and Moose are reluctant to go so far and into possible danger. But NASA
says that the marsquakes could endanger them and they need to make sure
what the source is and what danger it poses to the family. Due to the
time delay from relaying data and messages from Mars to Earth and back,
there has to be someone local to monitor things and react to any
situations that come up so Moose going alone isn't an option.

They outfit the 'Winebeggo', which is what they have come to call the
large pressurized mobile rover they use to fetch water from the north
pole and other long duration drives, and strap one of the smaller rovers
to the back. Naturally it looks like almost any big RV with a car being
pulled behind it on the way to Yellowstone.

The plan is for Moose to take the smaller rover to check out the areas,
while Nabiki and the kids stay a safe distance away, but still close
enough to assist if needed.

As their cross country trip starts the kids literally bounce with joy
(due to the low gravity) at the new scenery. Of course, to the
Earthlings, the endless red dunes and craters may seem the same, but to
the young Martians every crack and crevice is a new experience.

They approach a large mountain range, the source of the earthquakes, and
setup camp. Several days of trips out and back by Moose allow him to
setup various pieces of sensing equipment, but don't reveal any insight
into the marsquakes.

Even NASA is somewhat confused since the mountain range doesn't look
like a typical range uplifted by tectonic shifts like on Earth.

On one of his excursions, he finds a large tear in the side of one of
the mountains that seems to lead into a cave or cavern. A robot rover is
sent in, but contact is lost due to interference from the rock. Moose is
about to go in, but Nabiki screams at him to stop.

Twenty minutes later, NASA is heard over the radio telling him to stop
as well.

They really want to explore the cavern, so Nabiki moves the Winebeggo
closer and Mousse will go in with a hard umbilical line that will allow
for communications and a lifeline.

Moose goes in describing the cavern as he goes, even though the video
from his helmet camera shows Nabiki and everyone back at Mission Control
what is going on. She keeps her eyes on his vitals and suit indicators
for any sign of problems.

When he gets to where the rover stopped transmitting, he chuckles when
he sees it spinning in circles. "I guess that's why it never came back
when losing communications like its supposed to." After pulling the
small rover back towards the entrance a dozen meters, Nabiki is able to
remotely control it again and navigates it back to the entrance.

"Moose, shouldn't we just put the cable umbilical on it and let it go
deeper in?" Nabiki asks over the intercom, the worry in her voice very
evident.

"It's starting to get pretty rocky. I don't think it could go much
further anyway. I'll continue at least a little further."

About a third of the way that they had planned to go this trip, she sees
some movement from one of the geological sensors. "Moose, get out
there's a..." she's unable to finish her warning as a sudden jolt throws
her from her chair. She scrambles over to protect her two children as
the Winebeggo shakes around them. She's thankful they took the
precaution to have them fully suited up and sealed in their spacesuits.

She's not so thankful to see her helmet rolling away from her.

After an eternity, the shaking stops. Double checking her children
first, she looks at the Winebeggo's status display to make sure there's
no leaks or O2 problems. Satisfied that the hull is intact, she races
over to the console she was just at and checks the panels. "Moose...
Moose, can you hear me?

Her cries grow more panicked as she notices the blank video feed screen
and errors all across the vitals and suit status display. "Moose...
Moose..." She resets the systems to see if it's a local problem, but she
know the umbilical was most likely cut.

She didn't want to consider the other option.

Scanning the area outside the Winebeggo for signs of rock slides and
other dangers, she retrieves her helmet and begins to button it up for a
EVA. Luckily they had the pressure inside already adjusted to the lower
pressure they use in the suits so she wouldn't have to wait to adjust to
the lower pressure before going out. She pauses to look at her children
then back at the console. She hurriedly rambles off a quick status
report to Houston and then goes over to her children. "Kasei, you have
to take care of little Daichi. Okay?"

"Okay, Mommy," the older girl pats her brother on his head... helmet.

(I don't know exactly how old the kids are at this point. A lot will
depend on other events on Earth and when they would mesh up with Mars
events.)

Nabiki does her best to follow proper procedures as she rushes to get
out to the site. She gets into the crack before finding the crushed
rover under parts of the roof that had collapsed. She manages to get in
further, but soon is blocked by rubble.

As she scratches at the rocks trying to dig through the pile, her radio
crackles. "Nab... Nabiki..."

"Moose!!" realizing he must now be in radio range, she smiles. "Are you
okay?"

"I'm alive and my suit's okay, but..."

"Yeah, I'm on the other side of the rock collapse."

"Are the kids okay?"

"Yeah..."

"Um... I'm going to have to try and see if there's another way out of
here."

"But..." Nabiki glances at her clock display, mentally calculating how
much longer Moouse's suit had. She didn't like the math.

"I don't see any way through this pile."

"Well, don't go too far. I'm going to see what I can do from this side."

"Be careful, the kids need..."

"They need both of us!" Nabiki interrupts.

"I love you."

"Tell me that when we're back in the Winebeggo."

"I will..."

Nabiki tries to see what can be done with the rocks. As she sees her
clock display get higher and higher, she starts banging the rocks with
her hands in desperation. "Dammit!!" She bangs her hands once more,
knocking her backpack against the rocks. The spare oxygen bottle she
brought for Moose falls down and clatters to the ground. "Damn..." Her
eyes widen. "Yeah... I'm that desperate."

"Moose if you're still in range... get away from the rock fall!!"

Digging into the rocks again, she digs out a hole and stuffs the
cylinder into it. Digging through her toolkit, she prays that she has...
"Yes!" she exclaims as she pulls out a small acetylene torch. Lighting
it, she wraps some tape around the handle and then wedges it against the
cylinder.

Then she runs. "Moose, get clear of the rocks!"

She felt the explosion before the low pitched growl reverberated through
the thin martian atmosphere and reverberated inside her helmet. Climbing
up to her feet again, she checked her suit's pressure and oxygen
readings. Still safe and sound. She raced back down towards the rock
fall and smiled as she saw a wide hole on top of the pile of rubble. She
scrambled up the pile and made her way to the other side. "Moose!!"

She scrambled further into the cavern, shining the lights on her helmet
all around in search of her husband. "Moose!! I"m through!"

"Nabiki... you've got to see this."

"Moose, I'm through now. Come back, your suit is almost empty!"

"Yeah, I know. But you've got to see this first."

Nabiki continued down the cavern as best she could until she saw the
lights from Moose's suit. She smiled and increased her stride. She
looked upwards at cracks in the ceiling that were letting some light
into the dark cavern. As she neared Moose, she started to notice
something odd about the walls.

Then she stopped dead in her tracks.

And she stared at the sight before her in disbelief.

Back on Earth, Akane and her husband crowded around a video conference
screen connected to Houston. "Any word yet?" Kasumi asked as she came
into the room.

"No... nothing since Nabiki sent her message after the last quake," the
current CAPCOM replied back. The screen showed him with other
technicians and personnel scurrying around. "The view from inside the
rover shows the kids. I believe they are playing patty cake."

Almost an hour crawled by before a radio transmission was heard. "Jake,
we... BOTH on our...  back to the rover. We're both okay. Get my sister
and her gang on the line. We have news they need to hear." A pause.
"Everyone will need to hear it."

Jake smiled as mission control erupted into cheers. 'Roger, Nabiki, we
hear you. Glad you're both okay. Your sister and her husband are both
online already along with Kasumi. Ready when you get back in the rover."
Over the extended years of this 'mission', the communication between
Houston and Mars had gotten very personal.

Back in Nerima, cheers also went up.

Minutes went by way too slowly for everyone involved before they saw two
suited figures climb into the rover and start removing their space
suits. They smiled at the kids and then the camera. "We're okay."

Plopping down in front of the Camera, Nabiki sighed. "You're not going
to believe this."

"We're just going to rattle this off, so listen carefully and save your
questions for later."

Nabiki took a deep breath. "Mousse was deep into the cavern when the
marsquake hit. He was almost buried and was trapped behind the rockfall.
I managed to clear the blockage, but Moose found something when he was
searching for another way out."

She glanced at Moose.

He took a deep breath. "There is... or WAS life on Mars." He
unconsciously waited almost as long as the breath he held when first
seeing the sight in the cavern before continuing. "Intelligent life. I
found an underground city. The ordered walls and what looked like
streets could be nothing else. Part was carved out of the rock, but
other parts were artificial: formed steal, some kind of concrete,
artificial beyond doubt."

"It was old though... very old. We didn't see anything other than the
basic structures and piles of debris. Something about the layout was
very familiar."

Nabiki steeled herself. "We even know how they died out. A little
further into the cavern..."

Moose continued what Nabiki couldn't say. "Tell General Smart that his
plan to preserve the Human race on Mars wouldn't have worked."

"We found a monolith."

"Big, black, spotless, and towering over the dead city."

"The Buyierfei probably sucked this planet dry before ever arriving on
Earth. That 'city' looks disturbingly like the Great Shelters on Earth
to us."

"And our best guess is the monolith is the source of the marsquakes."

"I... I think we woke it up."


(The asteroid mission, stranding Nabiki and Moose on Mars, their kids,
were all leading up to this reveal. Needless to say this ties into the
main story line back on Earth in a big way and is why "Nabiki Tendo,
Queen of Mars" wasn't a side story.)

(Again, I wasn't sure exactly where these events would fit into the main
story and were I would insert them in the book. In small or big chunks.
Here in this outline I basically decided to go forward with just Nabiki
and Moose's story until this big reveal, mostly ignoring events that
happened on Earth. How it would have played out in the final written
form of Adulthood of a Modern Dynasty, I have no idea.)

(Next, it's back to Earth and back in time to soon after the new
Martians landed on Mars.)

(One joke that might have been used in the story was that for the next
monolith mission after the asteroid monolith was destroyed, the next
monolith attack team would wear spacesuits and a shuttle would be in
orbit to recover them in case they reappeared in space after destroying
the heart. The chances of recovering in space were slight, but they
decided they had to try.

The joke came into play that they appeared in the middle of a city being
rebuilt and wearing their full spacesuits, looking a bit weird to the
workers.)


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Part 6: The Blackness Engulfs Akane's Heart


After the saving of the world and the birth of Nabiki's first Martian
child, things in Nerima are on a upswing. Despite saving the world
countless times from the  Buyierfei, the Task Force saving the world
from a killer asteroid and Nabiki and Mousse landing on Mars elevated
Akane and her family to such a high level, they start having trouble
fighting the war. Reporters try to follow the Task Force into battle and
one even gets into a Monolith with the Task Force team. The videos from
his camera become the world's first visual representation of the horrors
that occur inside a monolith. He is given a posthumous Pulitzer Prize.

Angela (James's grandmother) also has some close encounters with Ranma
and the Task Force (fortunately, without the same result as the reporter
above).

Akane has to take some drastic actions (including almost blasting a
reporter) when her kids get ambushed repeatedly by reporters and fans as
they try to keep as normal of a life for them. Akane makes it very clear
that her children are off limits to everyone.

The Tendo Compound continues to grow vertically underground and
horizontally, leading to some growing pains as it bumps into Tendo
Enterprises HQ. It is being run by Gosunkugi with a lot of email
directions from Nabiki on Mars, which leads to some problems with the
companies board of directors who are looking for excuses to cut Nabiki
out of the decision making process. Fortunately, 'being on Mars' isn't
automatically grounds for invalidating her majority stake in her
company. (Eventually Najiko will take over, sack all the people who
dared go against her mother, and grow Tendo Enterprises into one of the
world's biggest companies, but that's still years away.)

San Francisco debuts the first underground 'tube' service in wake of the
Buyierfei attack there that crippled the city and cut off escape routes.
The Tube system is basically a underground tunnel system like a subway,
but that uses smaller magnetically levitated cylinders to move people
around underground (think Space:1999 travel tubes). This initially is
for evacuation use during the war and expands to other major cities,
Including Tokyo, but eventually expands into a general travel system as
time goes on. The pods that move around are very flexible in their
movements and are mostly publicly owned. Some private tube systems and
pods do eventually get made (notably for the Tendos and Task Force to
use).

Daiji has ongoing problems in the romance department. Despite her/his
fathers insistence that she/he was a boy, she grew up accepting her dual
gender. This leads her/him to fall for people of various genders and
some heartbreaks as the person of her/his affection can't handle the
situation. Unfortunately, one of Kuno's sons inherits his father's
inability to tell that Daiji switches genders. More unfortunately for
Daiji's parents, she/he actually dates him for a while since he at least
accepts part of her.


Three monoliths appear in Osaka, Bejing, and Taipai There is some
concern because they are so close together. Past multiple monolith
appearances have always been spread out around the globe more. With the
moon monolith nearing 'firing range' soon after their appearance, there
is concern that something big will happen.

Three monolith attack teams (lead by Ranma, Ranko and Sanma) are sent
into the monoliths (one for each heart). As the deadline for the 'firing
range' draws near, two of the monoliths are destroyed. As feared, the
last remaining monolith is struck by a beam of light from the moon. It
destroys a large chunk of Osaka as it lifts into the sky and makes a
beeline towards the Tendo Compound in Tokyo.

During the battle in Tokyo, Kuno is killed despite Daiji fighting off
the Buyierfei to save her boyfriend. Things go badly and Daiji ends up
breaking up with him as she sees his true insanity in the aftermath as
he blames Ranma and his family for Kuno's death (which they had nothing
to do with other than that the Buyierfei were attacking Tokyo and Nerima
to get to the compound). The long term feud between the families
continues and is intensified by both the death of Kuno and Daiji's
rejection of his son.

A fierce battle is fought with Akane's house getting destroyed 'yet
again' (tm), and the underground Task Force base being the only way her
family survived. Akane is left to lead the fight against the Buyierfei.
But with the monolith flying around, it's almost impossible to do
anything about.

A plan is hatched to parachute a team to destroy the monoliths heart
(the assumption is one of the teams that went in has either been killed
or incapacitated). Daiji keeps his mother from going along, as he and
some of the best fighters strap themselves into a helicopter in hopes of
either jumping in or flying the helicopter in directly (prior experience
has shown them that not every aircraft can get inside intact, so the
first choice is to parachute in.

They use several helicopters and jets to try to 'coral' the monolith to
a stationary position. They use chi blasts to try and get the monolith
to shift directions. When Daiji lands a hit, they find that the monolith
actually seems to get damaged by the blast. A spectacular air battle
ensues with Daiji driving the monolith away from Tokyo. Eventually,
Daiji's helicopter baits the monolith to chase after it near the top of
Mt. Fuji. After the helicopter dives unexpectely down the slope of the
mountain, the monolith crashes into the side of the caldera and tumbles
down the east side of Mt. Fuji. Unfortunately, the debris hit the
helicopter which goes down on the west side of the mountain.

As a rescue effort starts up and a new monolith attack team is put
together, the monolith explodes and takes half of Mt. Fuji with it. In
the aftermath, Daiji and most of his team are found safe, but the hidden
Japanese version of 'Area 52' is found. The Japanese government is not
happy to find what they consider a secret American military base on
their soil. Or under it.

The danger of the monoliths over, Akane waits impatiently for the teams
and her husbands to return. First Ranko and her team reappears, followed
shortly by Sanma's team. That leaves Ranma's team, which must have
destroyed the Mt. Fuji monolith. Three weeks go by without a sign of
Ranma.

As the the calendar passes day 23 since Mt. Fuji's destruction the world
and especially Akane and her family start to fear the worse. While most
teams reappear on day 21 or 22 after a monolith is destroyed, a couple
have been as late as 24. Akane flies to Beijing and sets up camp in the
ruins of Tiananmen Square to await his return.

Day 24.

Day 25.

Day 26.

Day 27... a blackened figure stumbles out of the darkness, most of his
combat gi hanging in shreds. "Akane?" a tired and horse voice calls out.
Akane closes the gap between them faster than any human could. Well, a
human not trained in the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts.

Their reunion is carried live on worldwide television. The joyous
reunion is marred when Akane asks, "Your team?" Ranma shakes his head
and looks behind him at several burnt husks. "Nipplering was hit just as
we finished off the heart."

In the days that follow, the world celebrates Ranma's survival as the
Task Force tries to rebuild what's left of their base and homes in
Nerima.

The scandal of the secret base under Mt. Fuji escalates with more and
more rumors about a super secret organization being talked about
publicly. This is not what the organization with no name wants, of
course.

A month after Ranma's return, some semblance of normalcy is returning to
Nerima. "Normal' being highly relative, of course.

The Japanese government formally takes possession of the equipment and
aircraft of what's left of the secret base under Mt. Fuji and starts to
rebuild it for a base of operations for Japan defense against the
Buyierfei. They even offer to allow the Task Force to share it with
them, to avoid putting too much in Nerima again. The Tendo's neighbors
have either moved far away or constantly complain about the frequent
property damage. Of course, their neighbors did this before the
Buyierfei appeared, so that hasn't really changed. Just the scale of the
property damage has changed. They propose a private tube system to
connect the base with the Nerima Task Force headquarters.

A group of people who were rescued and identified at the Mt. Fuji base
come to the Tendo Compound and ask to join the Task Force. Since they
are now known to the public and governments, they can't remain part of
the less-secret-now origination that still has no name. Officially, that
is. The Japanese government has come to call it "Organization X" for
lack of a better way to refer to it in all their official complaints to
the US Government and the UN Security Council, both f which deny any
knowledge of any such organization." Some of them Ranma and Akane knew
from Area 52, so decide to let them join. Join provisionally, that is.
"We can use some technical help and we'll need help at the new Fuji Task
Force Base."

Then something strange starts to happen in the Tendo Compound. First,
several people disappear without any trace and then someone is seen over
the body of one of the Amazons. A chase ensues, but the figure gets away
without being caught or identified. Some suspect the former
'Organization X' members, but it's pointed out that they are all
stationed outside the Tendo Compound, so couldn't be involved. Security
is tightened and even the repairs are put-on hold to keep anyone other
than family members, Amazons, or Task Force members from being within
the fortified walls of the Compound. They increase patrols and even send
some of the children to the San Francisco compound with Ukyo, Sanma, and
Hinako for safety.

Days go by without any additional problems, then an explosion rips
through the underground base destroying a dozen aircraft and collapsing
part of the underground base. Due to the stoppage of work, only a few
casualties are reported. A few to many for Ranma and Akane's taste. They
do a complete search of toe compound, above and below. Everyone is
tested with the Amazon wand that detects Buyierfei energy, but no
reaction is found.

A couple more disappearances are noticed over the next days and the
compound is under full lockdown and heavy patrols to find who or what is
causing the damage and deaths. One night, Ryoga and Daiji are on patrol
and come across a figure blasting one of the Amazon barrack buildings
with black chi energy. They attack, but not before the building explodes
killing scores of Amazons inside. After trading blows, Ryoga lands a chi
ball onto the unknown attackers chest, illuminating his face. "Pop?"
Daiji gasps, hesitating in her attack at seeing Ranma in fronton her.
Ranma uses that hesitation to kick Daiji savagely into the barracks
where she is buried under debris.

"Ranma, what the hell are you doing?!" Ryoga shouts as he trades blows
with Ranma.

"Killing you," Ranma snarls back and thrusts a black chi ball at Ryoga's
head.

Ryoga ducks and the chi ball misses him, as he follows up with a series
of kicks and punches. As the fight goes on, he fleetingly thinks that
this was just like old times when they would fight. The only difference
was that in those old fights, neither of them were seriously trying to
kill the other despite Ryoga's usual 'Ranma, prepare to die!" challenge.

Ryoga realized as the fight went on that Ranma was, beyond any doubt,
seriously trying to kill him. That realization came when Ranma thrust a
black glowing fist through his chest. Ryoga had a split second to
realize what had happened before he died.

Daiji stumbled out of the ruble just in time to see this. "Father!!!
What are you doing!!" she screams in terror, reflexively charging up a
chi ball in each hand.

A group of Amazons, Ranko, Akane, and others also appear, drawn by the
sounds of the expolosion. They can tell with a horrified glance that
Ranma has Killed Ryoga. "Wha... what?" Akane gasps.

Ranma casually slips Ryoga off his arm. "Knew I should have killed more
of you while you were off your guard." He starts to fling black chi
balls into the assembled fighters.

Daiji lets several chi balls fly at her second father, but Ranma jumps
to avoid them.

"Daiji, what are you doing?" Akane shouts, despite having seen Ranma
kill Ryoga.

"He's got to be possessed by the Buyierfei!" Daiji responds and she
launches more attacks. The Amazons and Task Force members who came at
the sound of the fight quickly start to take up positions and adding
their chi blasts to the melee.

"No..." Akane shudders and looks around helplessly. "Hinako... we have
to get Hinako over here to suck the energy out."

Ranko pulls the conflicted Akane out of the path of a black chi ball.
"She's in San Francisco with the young children! We have to wear him
down!!" She steps forward and scores a hit on Ranma. She steps forward
to protect Akane, who is standing and staring at disbelief at the battle
that erupted around her. "Akane, snap out of it! We've pulled people
back from the Buyierfei before, we'll do it again!!"

Akane is reluctant to join in as the fight escalates around her. Several
people fighting are hit by the black chi balls and go down. Some
wounded, but an Amazon falls in front of Akane. She's seen enough time
on the front lines to know death when she sees it. "Ranma, stop this!!"
she screams, unconsciously forming chi balls in her hands.

She leaps into the air and lays down a barrage against Ranma. "Come back
to me!!"

Ranma's head snaps in her direction. "Perfect, just what I was waiting
for." He jumps towards Akane, twisting in mid air to avoid her chi
balls. Ranko leaps at him, but is kicked aside as Ranma sweeps by Akane,
grabbing her as he passes her in mid air. Gracefully landing behind the
in of defenders, hHe wraps his arm tightly around her stomach and neck.
"Stop or the Un-cute-one dies." The hand hovering over Akane's throat
starts to glow black.

Akane's eyes widened. Not in fear of dying, but at hearing the familiar
term. She had not heard it from Ranma in years, which meant... She
quickly charged a chi ball and thrust it between her legs hitting Ranma
in a very sensitive spot.

Ranma howled in pain, loosing his grip on Akane. "Now you die."

Akane twisted out of his grip and rolled forward, blasting Ranma with a
stream of chi balls. "You first, SHUMA!!!"

The others all gasped in recognition. Even as their minds came up with
dozens of questions about Shuma's fully male appearance, the chi balls
and blasts flash out towards him and likely escape vectors. Their
hesitation to kill Ranma had limited their response. Until now.

"Damn, bitch..." Shuma grunts as he takes several hits. "I guess this
farce is over. I had hopped to kill most of you before being found out."

"What have you done with Ranma!!" Akane shouted as she sidesteps a black
chi ball and laid down a strong barrage of her own at Shuma.

"I guess I don't need the dead weight any more," Shuma chuckled with
glee as his features blurred and he split in two. A blackened image of
him collapsed to the ground as half of Shuma's body took on a female
form, the familiar dark jagged scar returning too separate his two
halves.

Akane shuddered and looked at the ground and saw the lifeless eyes of
her husband staring back at her.

"His body was useful for a bit..." Shuma chuckled as he leapt towards
Akane.

Ryoga and Daiji intercepted him and traded blows with him to keep him
away from Akane. Soon, the three of them went crashing to the side in a
tangled heap of limbs.

Oblivious to the battle, Akane just stared in disbelief at Ranma's body
and let out a primeval howl as she stumbled forward and collapsed the
ground where Ranma lay. "No... No... No..." she muttered as she clutched
the obvious lifeless body of Ranma, a yellow glow started emanating from
her body.

"Oh... shit..." Ranko swore as she recognized Ryoga's Shi-shi-hou-kodan,
an attack that Akane had never been depressed enough to perform. Until
now.

Normally, the negative energy would build up and then be pushed down to
create the Shi-shi-hou-kodan. In this case, Akane formed the negative
energy as part of her grief over the sudden revelation of Ranma's death.
With no focus, the energy had no where to go.

"Akane, push the energy down or it'll kill you!!" Ranko screamed as she
and Daiji traded blows with Shuma.

Something in Akane registered Ranko's shout and pushed the energy
downwards, causing a intense Shi-shi-hou-kodan explosion.

Daiji landed a savage kick to Shuma and sent him right into the vortex
of energy.

A charred and smoking figure appears on the other side and stumbles to
his feet. "Next time I'll make sure to kill you first," Shuma called out
as he raced away, chased by hundreds of Amazons and Task Force members.

Ranko and Daiji stay behind and wrap their arms around Akane, trying to
console the unconsolable.


In the aftermath of Shuma's attack, the world is shocked by Ranma's
death, who had been the public face of the Task Force since the world
found out about it in Moscow two seconds after Ranma thought it up. 
Although the outside world was only told that he died defending his
family from Shuma's attack, not that he was probably already dead when
he returned from the Mt. Fuji monolith.


(In the Future, James is a little shocked at the revision to known
history. "So the whole tale of him saving the compound against Shuma's
attack was made up?" he asks.

"Partly... a part of me has to believe that part of Ranma stopped Shuma
from causing more destruction and killing more people," Akane said as a
tear ran down her cheek.)


For Shuma to use Ranma's male body to hide his female side and
disfiguring scars was something no one had ever foreseen. Nothing like
it was recorded in the Amazon history scrolls.

Akane was so shocked and distressed she had to be taken in a wheelchair
to the private funeral for Ranma, Ryoga, and others killed by Shuma.
Under Kasumi and Ranko's constant attention, she made it through it
without breaking down further.

A global memorial wake was held in Ranma's honor as people said their
own goodbyes to the great hero that had become the face of the war
against the Buyierfei. Questions started to arise of the Task Force's
ability to save the Earth from the Buyierfei without Ranma.

Ranko, Sanma, and others try to reassure the public and politicians that
they still have the ability to fight back against the Buyierfei. Ranko
and Sanma insist that they are just as capable as Ranma, stopping short
of explaining how they used to be Ranma before their splits.

As the world grieves their loss, Akane falls deeper and deeper into
depression at her much more personal loss. Unable to fully accept the
death of Ranma she retreats from the world and her family despite Ranko
and her family's best efforts. "I'm still here, Akane," Ranko whispers
as she wraps her arms around Akane. "We'll make it through this
together."

"No... no... no..." Akane mutters, oblivious to her first husband's
attempt to console her. After all she'd seen and been through, the
Darkness had finally engulfed her heart.


(I originally had planned to have Shuma discovered as he tried to kill
Akane, but that didn't work as well when I wrote the outline out here.
In the finished book, I may have had him cause more or less carnage
during his impersonation. The thought was that he would try to kill as
many people as possible before going after harder targets like
Akane/Ranko/Sanma/Daiji.)


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Part 7: And It Just Gets Worse


As the Task Force did it's best to regroup under Sanma's guidance, Ranko
continued to try to find a way to save Akane from her destructive
downward spiral. Akane's health deteriorated so badly, that Kasumi had
to start feeding her youngest sister by intravenous fluids.

Just as they thought Akane might be turning the corner and starting to
get better, things got worser than anyone could have expected.

A medical exam discovered that Akane is pregnant. Kasumi talks to Ranko
first, since she doesn't think Akane will take the news well in her
condition. "I don't know how this is possible," Kasumi explains. "After
Kourui was 'born'," she resisted saying 'torn out of Akane's uterus', "I
didn't think she'd ever be able to get pregnant again."

"But she is?"

"Yes, about 5 weeks now," Kasumi said softly.

"Five weeks?" That's after..."

"Yeah.. it might not be Ranma's."

"Or... human..." Ranko spat, knowing that Akane had spent some time
'welcoming' 'Ranma' back from battle. She knew that fact was a large
part of why Akane had retreated mentally from everyone. She was
essentially raped by Shuma.

"We don't know much yet. After the fetus develops more we should be able
to see any abnormalities and do some blood tests."

"But is it safe to even wait that long? Shouldn't we do an abortion
now?"

"If that's what Akane wants."

"She's in no state to get news like this... or make a rational decision.
We should just do it..."

"This is her decision," Kasumi insisted. "It's her body."

"But if it's a BUYIERFEI?! We don't need another Shuma out there!!"

"We don't know that it's been affected by the Buyierfei. It could still
have been Ranma's sperm, regardless of who was in control of his body at
the time."

"Maybe, but... you know Akane is not going to be able to take this news
in the state she is in. You know all too well what she went through with
Yohachi and Kourui at the hands of the Buyierfei. Tell her she might be
carrying a inhuman monster and she'll never regain her sanity."

Kasumi sighed and buried her head in her hands, the weight of this news
showed on her slumped shoulders. "Yeah, you're probably right... but
what can we do?"

"I don't know... I don't know..."


Time passes without Ranko or Kasumi telling anyone about Akane's
condition. They know that anyone, especially outside the family, knowing
even the possibility that the baby may be a Buyierfei would cause panic.
And they know that Akane has to be told soon, but can't decide on the
best way to tell her.

While Kasumi was giving her an exam, Akane looked up. "Kasumi... what is
that?"

Kasumi paused, but kept the same gentle smile on her face that could
calm a rampaging Buyierfei. "Oh, just looking for any intestinal
blockage." She glanced back at the display screen of the ultrasound to
make sure it was still turned away from Akane's sight.

"Oh..." Akane said absently. "When is Ranma coming back?"

Kasumi grew visibly flustered at the question. "He's not, Akane."

"Why?"

"You know he's dead. Doctor Higawa has been working with you on this."

"It's just a lie... I know he'll reappear from that monolith soon..."

Kasumi frowned then turned her attention back to the screen. The doctor
in her took over and she carefully examined the image of the fetus. She
smiled at the human looking fetus she saw and pressed the capture
button.

It wasn't until Akane pulled the printout off the equipment that Kasumi
realized her mistake. "What's this?" Akane asked as she examined the
image. Turning it sideways, her eyes widened.

"Akane, please give that to me," Kasumi said, grabbing for this
printout.

Akane pulled away from Kasumi, falling off the exam table she was on.
"I'm... I'm... pregnant?"

Kasumi knew there was nothing else to say. "Yes, yes, but we wanted to
make sure it was healthy before telling you."

"I'm... pregnant..." Akane smiled for the first time in two months. "I
can't wait to tell Ranma."

Kasumi shuddered.


After walking Akane back home and giving her a sedative to sleep, Kasumi
talked with Ranko. "The good news is Akane was happy at the news. The
better news is she smiled."

"And the bad news?" Ranko asked.

Kasumi took a deep breath. "I'm not sure I have bad news yet." She put
down the ultrasound printout. "The fetus looks completely normal."

"Normal human, you mean?"

"Yeah."

"So what now?"

"She still is denying Ranma's death and as far as she's concerned it's
Ranma's baby. I doubt in her condition that she'd care if it had 
tentacles and was tearing her apart from the inside. She's not going to
let go of it."


Time goes by. All the tests Kasumi runs seem normal. The fetus is
developing into a healthy baby as far as they can tell. When Akane
starts to show, they have to let the immediate family know. Some
naturally fear the danger and others note that Akane has at least gotten
better mentally from knowing she's pregnant, even if she doesn't accept
that Ranma is dead.

Unfortunately, she tried to blast Doctor Higawa so hadn't been having
regular therapy sessions.

As Akane entered her six month, a new monolith appeared and Ranko
started to head off with a team to destroy it, but Akane stopped her and
pleaded with her not to go.

"But I have to go, Akane," Ranko insisted.

"Why?"

"Because we have to fight the Buyierfei."

"Why us?"

"Because we are the only ones who can."

"How many more will have to die?"

Ranko frowned. "I don't know. But Ranma died fighting this war because
he knew there was no other choice."

"Ranma..." Akane looked around. "Where is he?"

Ranko sighed and pulled Akane into a deep embrace. "He's dead, Akane. He
won't be coming back."

Akane shuddered. "Will you?"

"Of course I will!" Ranko lied, knowing there was no guarantee.

"That's what Ranma said before he left..."

Ranko gulped. "Akane, if there was any way Ranma could have come back to
you, he would have."

"But... but he didn't." Tears streamed down Akane's face.

"No... he didn't," Ranko said as she tightened her arms around Akane.

"I can't do this..." Akane rubbed her belly. "...without you."

Ranko suddenly realized why Akane was being extra clingy. She had seen
her and Ranma off to battle countless times before. She had initially
assumed it was just the loss of Ranma that was causing Akane to cling to
her this time, but it was also the thought of being pregnant by herself.

It was a feeling that Ranko knew all too well.

"Akane, you won't be alone. I'll be with you. Your family will be with
you."

"Then don't go."

"I can't do that. If I don't go this time, I'll think any casualties are
my fault."

"It's only one monolith... Sanma can..."

Ranko put a finger on Akane's lips to interrupt her. "Sanma still has a
dislocated shoulder from the monolith he took out two months ago. And
can you face Ukyo or their kids if he doesn't come back?"

Akane gulped.

"I'm going to go destroy that monolith, but i swear I'll come back."

"How can I be sure?"

"Because there is no way I would miss our wedding."

Akane frowned and looked at Ranko with her tear feared eyes. "We're
already married."

"Yeah, but not legally. I figured it's about time that we make it
official and also return the favor when you married me to get me through
my pregnancy with Daiji." Ranko put her hand over Akane's belly. "This
is OUR baby, all three of us. Mine, Ranma's, and yours."

Akane gasped. "That's a nice thought, but same sex marriage is still not
legal in Japan."

"Hasn't Nabiki taught you anything about dealing with governments in all
these years? We'll just use some of our clout as saviors of the world
and call the prime minister. I'm sure she can get a law passed to change
my official sex to my real sex: Male!"

Despite her sadness, Akane chuckled and smiled. "It might be easier to
just get gay marriage approved."

Ranko smiled at Akane's smile. "Well, I like my idea better, but
whatever works for you."


One call to Prime Minister Hirano and three weeks later, a bloody and
worn out Ranko appeared in the new crater on the side of Mt. Fuji with
her full team.

She was expecting the usual Task Force recovery team and maybe even
Akane.

What she found surprised both her and her team. "Akane?"

Akane smiled from in front of the assembled crowd of friends and family.
"You promised," she said, her white dress flowing across the ground in
front of the minister.

Ranko smiled as she scanned the flowers framing the altar where Akane
stood and shook off her exhaustion. "Yeah, I did. It's the only thing
that go me though that. Shuma is not happy."

Akane frowned. "Good."

Ranko looked down at her tattered combat gi. "I'm a little messed up."

"Ranma..." Akane gulped, her eyes wavering a bit. "...married me in the
middle of a battle inside a monolith. What's important is you kept your
promise and came back to me." She glanced at a tent setup near the back
of the crowd. "But we did prepare a little something for you in there."

Ranko frowned as she opened the tent and saw the white dress spread out
inside. "Not a tux?"

"Well, legally we're both women, so..."

Ranko sighed and disappeared into the tent. Daiji followed her in to
help his Mom clean up and change.

When they reappeared, Ranko looked stunning in the dress. Everyone
gasped and commented on what a beautiful bride she was.

"Sorry Dad, Mom insisted," 'Ranko' said.

Akane just rolled her eyes as others in the crowd realized that the
'bride' in the dress was Daiji after some warm water. They thought Ranko
looked way too young. Ranko stepped out in the white tux Daiji had been
wearing. "That's better," she said, tugging at the slightly too big tux.

And Akane Saotome became Akane Tendo once again as she took Ranko's
family name that Ranko had herself taken when she had been adopted into
the Tendo family when she first married Akane unofficially.


(In the future:

James smiled after hearing this story. "You know a lot of people thought
you married Ranko to keep the family together or because she wanted to
comfort you after Ranma's tragic death. I know some of the public
reaction was negative since it was so soon after his death."

Akane nodded. "Yeah, but public opinion was the last thing on my mind
then. Ranko pulled me back from an abyss that I was speeding towards.
I'd have never been able to survive that time of my life or what
followed if not for Ranko."

James gulped. "About the baby..."

"Yes... the baby..."

)


Akane screamed louder than any woman ever had in the history of the
world.

Yes, she was THAT loud.

Since the baby was still a close family secret, Kasumi and Doctor Tofu
were doing the delivery themselves with the help of a trusted Amazon
midwife.

More than half of the Task Force was either in the delivery room or
right outside in case a monster from the deepest regions of hell came
out of Akane's womb.

There were still plenty of people who thought Akane was making a big
mistake in having this baby.

Akane was one of them, but she just could not give up hope that the baby
was Ranma's child and would be normal. Normal for a Saotome, at least.

Ranko was by her side, helping to keep Akane cool with wet towels and to
give her now legal wife encouragement.

They were prepared to do a c-section if needed, but so far the birth was
going smoothly.

"Oh my..." Kasumi said calmly.

Only those closest to Kasumi would have registered the concern in her
voice.

"What?????" Akane screamed between clenched teeth.

"There's something in the way. Some kind of membrane or skin over the
birth canal.

"Huh? Her water broke, so..."

Kasumi shook her head. "It's not the mucus plug or anything I've seen
before." She looked up at Doctor Tofu. "We'll have to do a C-section
after all."

"Will it..." Akane started to say.

"...be alright?" Ranko finished.

"Yes... yes... I'm sure it will." Kasumi reached down and tried to see
if there was anyway around the obstruction. "Wipe that down, can you
dear?"

Doctor Tofu nodded and wiped the blood from the area.

Suddenly a bright light blinded Kasumi and caused her to fall backwards.

The assembled Task Force members snapped to attention and charged up chi
balls, ready to blast anything nasty that came out from between Akane's
legs.

Nastier than a normal birth, that it.

Akane screamed again and Ranko wrapped her arms around her convulsing
wife.

Kasumi looked up and frowned at the sight she saw. "Huh?" She poked at
the object dangling in front of her. "That can't be right."

"Tentacle!!" one of the Task Force members shouted and blasted a hole in
the ceiling in his excitement.

"Ranko, get off me!"

Ranko frowned at hearing the male voice. She pulled back and gasped.
"Where the hell is Akane?" she looked under the bed and started to shove
the man aside when she realized who it was. "Ranma?"

"Uhhhh... yeah..," he said, looking around the room, very confused.

Everyone else was just as confused.

"What's going on and why is Kasumi prodding my testicles?"

Kasumi looked up from her examination. "Um... what is going on?"

"I don't know. One second I was fighting one on one with Shuma and the
next I'm here. Did I kill him?"

"Um... no... he killed you."

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm right here."

Ranko frowned. "Yeah, but a second ago..." Her jaw quivered as it
dropped open. "Kasumi, do you have any hot water?"

Kasumi nodded and reached for a pan of steaming water before she
realized why Ranko wanted it. "You think it's a curse?"

"After all we've been through, anything's possible." Ranko scooped a bit
of hot water into her hand and poured some of it over the man's chest.

"What are..." the male voice switched to female. "...are you doing?" A
disheveled Akane asked looking around.

"Oh my..."


(In the future, James fell off his chair.

Akane knelt down next to him and tried to help him up. "Are you okay?"

"No... no... I don't think I am."

Akane smiled slightly. "Yeah, I know it's shocking. We were pretty
amazed ourselves."

James finally took Akane's hand and shakily got his feet. "So, somehow
you were cursed to turn into Ranma's body?"

"No.... I was blessed with him," Akane said. "ALL of him. Not just his
body, but his soul as well. Somehow Ranma's consciousness, soul,
memories, whatever you want to call it, were still within Shuma and were
transferred to me. Ranma came back to me..."

"Wow..." James found himself speechless.

Akane smiled. "Maybe it's time I introduced you." She keyed a button on
her wristtop. "Ranma, meet Mr. James Davidson, Hanaki's husband." She
released the button.

James gasped as the woman in front of him blurred and grew in size into
a muscular, older gentleman. A holographic image of Akane popped up in
front of Ranma and said "Ranma, meet Mr. James Davidson, Hanaki's
husband."

The man seemed briefly confused, then smiled. "How do you do, Mr.
Davidson. Akane's told me a lot about you." He held out his hand.

James just starred dumbfounded for several seconds.

"Sorry I couldn't meet you earlier, but Akane insisted on surprising
you," Ranma said smiling. "She's gotten a bit mischievous in her old
age.

James finally found his voice. "Yeah... um... so you're Ranma Saotome?"

"The one and only. Well, one of three at one point, I guess."

"And Akane is cur... blessed with you?"

Ranma nodded. "Yup, the old cold water gets me, warm water gets Akane
deal. Runs in the family."

James chuckled despite his racing heart. "But I didn't see Akane use any
water."

Ranma smiled and pulled up the hem of the dress Akane--and now he--was
wearing. "After all these years we've come up with this little device."
He gestured to a small two inch square device strapped to his thigh. "It
circulates cold or hot water as needed to activate the blessing. It's
linked to our wristtop."

"Handy, I assume."

"Very. Would have saved me a lot of trouble when I was a teenager."

James sighed as a familiar thought occurred to him. "I'm going to have
to re-write my drafts again."

"Damn..." Ranma cursed. "Akane bet me you'd say that and I lost."

)


"What? WHat?" Akane screamed as she lay in a hospital bed. She had been
sedated to calm her down and then cleaned up before being awoken with
the news. She flung the sheets off and pulled up her hospital gown to
reveal a flat stomach. No evidence of being pregnant could be seen.

"Akane calm down," Ranko said, even as she was barely able to remain
calm herself. "Somehow the baby wasn't Ranma's child, but was Ranma
himself."

Akane tried to wrap her mind around what they've been telling her. One
thing popped to the top. "So Ranma is alive?" She smiled.

Ranko nodded. "Yes. As far as we can tell, you're cursed with him now.
Cold water changes you to Ranma and warm water switches you back to
being you. Body and soul."

Akane grabbed her chest. "Cursed? No... it's a blessing if it's true."

Ranko smiled. "It's true." She reached over to a video camera hooked up
to a monitor next to the bed. "He wanted us to show you this."

A video image appeared on the television of a smiling Ranma. "Akane, I
love you."

Akane clutched her chest. "I... I love you too."

"I'm sorry I can't be there with you, but I'm glad I'm still around to
make sure you're alright." Ranma sighed. "I would have preferred to come
back to you some normal way, but then it's been a long time since our
lives have been anything close to normal." He paused as if wondering if
'normal' EVER applied to their lives at any point. "Ranko and I talked
things through and think it might be better that we not tell the world
about this for the time being. Considering the size of my funerals, they
might think we faked my death for some reason."

Ranko smiled. "He insisted on seeing the video of his funerals, public
and private."

Akane nodded and looked back at the screen.

"Anyway, I can't be around full time, so I think it's better not to
reveal this until things settle down with all the people opposed to the
Task Force. We're going to check to see if the Amazons know anything and
maybe even if there's a way to use Cologne's splitting magic to split
us. In the meantime, know that I'm alive and well inside you. I love
you."

Tears were streaming out of her eyes and she clutched her chest. "I love
you too, Ranma."

Ranko wrapped her arms around Akane. "When you're ready, we can record a
message for you to Ranma."

Akane sniffled. "I'm ready now."

Ranko nodded, then looked at Akane. "Maybe we should fix your face
first."


(In the future, James is still trying accept that he's talking to Ranma.
'The Great Hero'.

"I still can't believe you never told the world you were still alive,
let alone, weren't found out."

Ranma smiled. "Well, there were some close calls and if you look at some
of the news footage of the Task Force, you'll see me there at times. One
nice thing about the blessing is it tends to minimize the effects of
aging, so Akane and me tend to look younger than we are." He struck a
pose with his head. "See, still a handsome devil."

James nodded. "So you were mistaken for a child or relative, I imagine."
He sighed. "I'll have to dig through all the archives. Umm... you are
okay with me putting this in the book?"

Ranma nodded. "Akane wants to finally set the record straight and loves
telling her stories."

"I hope you do too, since it'd be great to hear things direct from the
Great Hero."

Ranma chuckled. "Akane hates that label."

"And you?"

Ranma smiled. "I've grown to like it."

"A lot of people will be amazed that you're still alive. I know my..."
James gasped. "I don't believe you and Akane didn't even tell my Mom
when we visited."

Ranma smiled. "Actually, we did when Akane talked to her alone."

James' eyes widened in recognition. "Ah, when she screamed."

Ranma nodded. "Yeah, sorry, but we swore her to secrecy until we could
tell you."

"I'm used to it... but this is going to shake up the world."

Ranma nodded. "We're used to doing that."


Later, James is again talking to Akane. "This is amazing. To loose the
love of your life and regain him..."

"Yes, it was a blessing, but at the same time..."

James noticed a wave of sadness wash over Akane's face. "But?"

Akane reached out and put a hand gently on James' cheek. "But a simple
physical touch like this is denied us. We're separated by hot and cold
running water. Imagine never being able to touch or feel Hanaki ever
again."

James frowned. "Of course... sorry, I guess I was just shocked and
excited by the thought that he was actually alive that I didn't think of
that."

Akane nodded. "Yeah, that was my reaction at first. Don't get me wrong,
I am eternally happy and grateful Ranma is alive and well inside me, but
it's not always easy to be able to see and talk to him, but unable to
touch him for but that brief second when we change."

"You can feel him then?"

Akane nodded. "Yes, if we're concentrating when we use water to change
ourselves, there's a brief moment where we can feel each other. Not
feeling in a physical sense, but as if our souls are connected for that
one brief second. It's a very intense feeling that is way too short."

)


(I was always intending that Ranma's 'death' would lead to his
resurrection as a curse of Akane. How that resurrection would occur was
a little less planned. Some kind of object in a monolith that absorbed
his soul and then Akane was cursed with Ranma during a later battle was
my initial thought. Akane getting pregnant during Shuma's impersonation
using Ranma's body was originally a different plotline that might have
ended with a flesh colored half-Buyierfei/half-Human being born. But I
had long ago dropped the idea of the pregnancy. Then it occurred to me
that having the pregnancy lead to Ranma's resurrection would be an
interesting way to bring him back. It did advance the return of Ranma
more than I wanted. Originally I expected a couple years to have gone by
before Ranma returned.

Anyway, this sequence of events seems to work well and did the trick of
getting Ranko and Akane married legally, then getting Akane cursed with
Ranma as intended.

The idea of a single person cursed to switch between two separate souls
was inspired by a movie called "Ladyhawke", one of my all time favorite
movies. In that medieval movie, a man is cursed to be a wolf during the
night and a man during the day. A lady is cursed to be a hawk during the
day and a woman during the night. The two lovers can never meet due to
this curse. That very much is how I was inspired to curse Akane with
Ranma.

So, Akane gets more involved in the fighting after this due to Ranma
needing to use her body. This leads to some interesting bits.)


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Part 8: War is Hell


(things mill be less detailed from this point as I only worked out major
plot points and events after the Mars story and Ranma's story. I've
fleshed things out a bit here, but can't do as much as I have been in
prior parts. The order of events might also have changed.)

--

Sanma and Ukyo's kids finally go into battle. The "Six Pack" performs
flawlessly as a team, much as they have throughout their lives. Although
Sanama and Ukyo were nervous wrecks before, during, and after the
battle, they eventually gloat and beam with pride at their children's
success.

--

Ranma is itching to get back into battle, but Akane is uncertain if he
can still fight in his current half life state. "What if you get
splashed with water at a bad time?"

"You're more than capable of fighting," Ranma responds.

Akane smiles when she hears Ranma's videotaped response. "Dying has
brought out your better side."

Eventually, they develop a pair of quick hot and cold water bottles that
they can use to quickly switch in battle.

Their first battle together, ironically enough in a area of Yellowstone
with hot and cold springs, has some funny moments as they try to handle
sudden changes in personality in the heat of battle. In the end,
Yellowstone gains a new unnatural wonder: The Great Caldron of
Yellowstone, a bubbling churning mass of magma exposed by the monolith's
destruction.

--

A monolith appears at the top of Mount Everest. A small team is sent to
climb up to it and destroy it, but upon entering tithe team find a half
dozen hearts. "Where the hell are all the other monoliths?" is the first
question that comes to mind.

"Damn, we didn't have to climb that damn mountain after all," Is the
second question thought of by very sore legs.

The six Task Force members break into pairs and go after three hearts,
relying on getting out of the heart's aura before it explodes to stay
within the Buyerfeiri realm. This is only sometimes successful.

In the end with two hearts left, Ranma finds himself alone and unable to
destroy any more hearts. Well, alone as he ever could be now that he's
sharing a body with Akane. After writing notes back and forth to each
other, they decide to see if they can do alternate hot and cold attacks
by shifting between themselves.

In the end, they manage to get hot and cold vortexes started, but then
run out of water. As their vortexes collapse, Akane can only look on in
horror as the heart starts to go critical. She escapes the exploding
heart in time, but looks on helplessly as the second monolith goes
critical as well.

"I wonder where those two were..." she mutters as she vanishes.

In the aftermath, she learns that K2 was now the world's tallest
mountain. Larges swaths of Nepal, Tibet, and India were vaporized by the
Mount Everest monolith.

And South America was no longer attached to North America, since the
other monolith ripped apart most of Central America. Sadly, while the
area around he Mount Everest Monolith had been evacuated so the death
toll there was low, no one knew of the Central American monolith, so the
death toll was staggering there. The Black Wars continued to get
blacker.

Akane swears to herself that they had to come up with a better way to
switch between her and Ranma.

(this eventually leads to the hot and cold patch seen in the future
segments to switch them without losing water.)

--

The constant power transfers from the moon monolith is making battling
the Buyierfei more and more difficult and leaving large chunks of the
Earth a twisted mass of rubble. This is what caused the two monoliths
that Ranma/Akane were unable to destroy to go critical so fast.

Now that they know that Daiji can damage monoliths from the outside,
he/she has been doing some external damage to monoliths (at least when
they can find them), and has twice been able to destroy them completely
without risking a trip inside.

Since the moon monolith was unapproachable without getting fried by
lightning/energy pulses, a direct attack was never considered. But if
Daiji can destroy it from afar, they might be able to destroy the moon
monolith and stop its destructive energy transfers.

A plan is put together to send a small team to the Moon using the last
remaining lunar lander. The original lunar landings at the start of the
21st century used the International Space Station as a staging ground.
With it destroyed, they have to work out a plan to launch the lander and
then use one of the old style shuttles to do the transfer from Earth
orbit to moon orbit (the mini-shuttles not being big enough to
accommodate the jury rigged propellant tanks needed). They would do it
shortly after the moon monolith passed out of sight of the Earth, with
hope that that is when it was the least powerful and couldn't directly
target Earth if cornered.

Akane is reluctant to let Daiji go, but she knows its a good plan that
may just save the Earth. She initially wants to go with them, but Ranko
insists that her 'condition' (as they've come to refer to her Ranma
curse in the presence of non-family members) would make it difficult for
them to disguise her other half during such a mission.

So Daiji, Ranko, Sanma, and two Amazons go along with three Astronauts
to fly the shuttle and lander. Daiji's trains with the others over a
couple of months for the flight as the space hardware is hastily put
together and readied for launch. After some charred gloves, he finally
manages to form his monolith attack blasts outside the spacesuits. (This
will eventually lead to the use of the 'pods' on Tendo One and attack
helicopters in the future where they form chi attacks outside of the
enclosed pods providing additional protection.)

The mission launches and Ranko gets her second taste of spaceflight. She
chuckles as Sanma gets space sick and smugly calls her an amateur
astronaut.

"Um, Mom, Dad said you also threw up when you first launched during the
asteroid mission," Daiji said, ruining Ranko's boast.

The mission lands a couple of miles from the monolith and as they
approach the monolith on lunar buggies, they are attacked by invisible
Buyierfei. The low gravity causes the already impressive leaps they can
normally do on Earth to be even more impressive, but also leads mission
control to warn them not to jump with too much force or they may go into
orbit.

Battling through the Buyierfei, Daiji reaches attack distance. The
monolith starts to spark and throw lighting around, but they can't reach
Daiji's position.

Daiji scores several hits on the monolith, taking several chunks out of
the usually flawless surface, including punching a hole clear through
the middle. Suddenly, the lightning blasts stop reaching out for Daiji
and start blasting the moon rock at the base of the monolith.

Daiji's eyes widen as he launches another blast at the monolith. "Oh
shit... it's trying to go airborne."

"What?" Ranko called over the comm.

"Yeah, it's trying to escape from me. PLAN B, EVERYONE!"

Up until then, the other Task Force members were only concerned with
keeping the Buyierfei away from Daiji, so he could blast the monolith
unimpeded. Now, they had to do that and to start blasting the crater
wall beside the monolith in hopes of keeping it grounded until Daiji
could destroy it.

With about 60% of the monolith destroyed, it finally slipped free of the
surface and rose into the air.

"Not yet... not yet..." Daiji growled as he tried to hit the flying
monolith. Two blasts missed, but one did impact the side, blowing a
chunk off. The monolith started moving towards them, lightning flashing
towards the defenders.

"Daiji, we have to go..." Ranko started pulling on Daiji's spacesuit.

"Just..." A Daiji launched a blast towards the monolith and then leapt
to the side, pulling her mother with him. "...a..." He launched a second
blast mid-air... or mid-vacuum. "...second." He landed and released a
third blast.

The first blast clipped the side of the monolith, causing it to start to
spin.

The second blast impacted the center of the monolith, which had already
been narrowed by his previous blasts.

The third blast impacted the top of the monolith, causing a shock wave
to ripple down the surface. As the wave reached the middle of the
monolith, it cracked and sent two halves of the monolith spinning away
from each other. One half was sent crashing towards the moon's surface.
The impact sent up a billowing plume of dust and rocks.

Ranko dove on top of Daiji, shielding her son's helmet with her body.

The shockwave hit them and tossed them around like a rag doll thrown
into a jet engine.

Fortunately, they managed to stay in one piece.

Except for the hole in Ranko's face plate. "Gaaaaa!!"

"Air pressure drop in Ranko's helmet! Air pressure dropping Ranko's
helmet" mission control screamed over the com.

Daiji rolled his battered body over and pulled Ranko up. "Mom, don't you
dare die!" He slapped his finger into the hole, even as he tried to find
a puncture repair tube that should have been on his arm.

It wasn't.

"Dammit..."

"Daiji, roll to your left and start blasting the monolith again, it's
down, but still not toast."

"But..." Daiji hesitated.

"Trust your uncle, boy!"

Daiji came to his senses and did as he was asked. Sanma landed by Ranko
and pressed a wax blob over the hole in Ranko's helmet.

"Pressures returning, good work, Sanma," mission control reported.

Sanma exhaled and then looked up to see Daiji blasting the monolith
pieces on the surface. Using prior experience as a guide, they found
that once there were no pieces bigger than 10% of the original size
intact, it was harmless.

As the piece exploded in it's death throws, Daiji looked up and swore at
the piece rising away from the surface. He tried blasting it, but it was
out of range.

Bathed in the shadow of the moon the piece started to vanish from sight.

After finishing off the monolith and Buyierfei, the weary team made
their way back to the lander. Despite the harsh conditions, they
suffered no losses, save for a few lawyers of skin on Ranko's face that
was frozen due to the helmet puncture.

As they neared the lander, they realized they should have moved faster.

That realization came when the surface behind them exploded in a ball of
light.

"Oh... crap..." Sanma spat as she turned around and saw the blast wave
racing toward them. "Lander, get ready to blast off!!"

The five of them scrambled off their rovers and took several long leaps
towards the lander.

Seconds raced by as the blast wave raced towards the lander.

Hatches were sealed, straps were pulled across spacesuits.

And the accession rocket roared to life and blasted the top half of the
lander into the advancing energy wave.

Seconds crawled by as Akane and Ukyo stared at the video view from the
shuttle in moon orbit. It showed the side of the moon engulfed in a a
huge blast wave.

Seconds and then minutes crawled by and Akane and Ukyo clung to each
other.

"Houston, lander here. We're battered, but in orbit. Request rendezvous
instructions with the shuttle."

Cheers went up in mission control.

The moon, yet again, had a huge scar across the surface and a whole new
batch of debris to feed the debris ring already circling around it, but
for the first time in years it didn't hang over the world's heads as a
bringer of mass destruction.

For a brief moment, the world rejoiced in celebration at the huge blow
against their mortal enemy that was made.

Unfortunately, it was a brief moment.

"Houston, any tracking info on the piece that escaped the surface?"

"Not yet. It's barely radar visible and hard to see against the
blackness of space."

They are halfway back to Earth when the partial monolith is spotted.

It was hard to miss the huge explosion in the Moon's orbit and the
multiple beams of light that rained down on Earth.

The good news was that the explosion finished off the remaining fragment
of the Moon monolith.

The bad news was that nighteen monoliths had been formed on Earth.

The Task Force and Amazons would have their work cut out for them for
months to come.

--

One of those monoliths appeared in China near the Amazon village. Yukiko
(Shampoo) was badly hurt during the battle, but most of the Amazons
escape before the monolith explodes and destroys the area, including
diverting the source of the the Jusenkyo springs. As Sanma morns the
loss of her ability to activate her curses, the Amazons arrive in Nerima
and are taken in as refuges.

The Amazon Circle try to remove Yukiko as Matriarch since she can't
fight, and a Matriarch must lead her people into battle. After some
political maneuvering, Akane becomes the Matriarch of the Amazon tribe
to prevent an Amazon who wants to sever all ties with the Tendos, Task
Force, and world governments from becoming Matriarch.

With Akane already leading the Task Force in the eyes of the public
since she had to go to allow Ranma to go with her, her new role as the
Amazon's leader elevates her to a very visible position in the eyes of
the public and the world leaders.

She is not particularly pleased with the extra attention.

--

With the Moon monolith gone and the last monoliths created by it's death
throws destroyed, the appearances of monoliths decreases. But there are
increasing attacks by flesh and blood Buyierfei all around the globe in
numbers not seen since the Black Wars began. Speculation is that they
were being bred and hidden until needed.

This forces the Task Force and Amazons to switch from a 'wait for a
monolith to appear and destroy it' strategy to a more traditional
infantry war strategy. Along with the remaining armies of the world,
groups of Amazons and Task Force members are deployed around the world
to combat the hordes of Buyierfei when they are found. More Task Force
Compounds are established to have people nearby when the Buyierfei
attack somewhere.

Fortunately, the regular armies have become somewhat adept at battling
the Buyierfei outside of the monoliths. Various technological advances
(partially provided by the organization behind Area 52) and some weak
chi attacks learned from the Task Force allow them to take the brunt of
the work at battling the flesh and blood Buyierfei, leaving the Task
Force and Amazons to deal with the monoliths that still appeared on
occasion.

James' father Bobby is killed during one of these skirmishes, not long
after a long R&R left Deedee impregnated with James. Akane was there and
comforted Bobby as he died in her arms. To her he was just another
nameless tragedy in the endless war. For once, neither Akane or James
makes the connection that the fallen solider was James' father.

Unfortunately, the constant grind of Buyierfei attacks seemed endless
and starts to take it's toll on the moral of the Task Force and Amazons.
It also starts to cause more and more deaths in the ranks.

During a United Nations meeting that Akane is reporting to, some of the
UN delegates question whether they were better off battling the
monoliths versus the large swarms of Buyierfei.

Akane goes ballistic at this notion. "Way too many of us have died going
against the monoliths to keep battling them forever. At least the flesh
and blood Buyierfei can be battled by us AND the armies of the world to
help keep the Task Force and Amazons in a position to keep fighting.
We've lost way to many already."

She was tempted to reveal Ranma to them then to help booster her case,
but then one of the delegates says, "Yes, we know you've lost your
husband and other close family members and friends. You have our
sympathy for that, but the people of the world are growing weary of the
endless wars and we need something to reassure them that there might be
an end to these wars."

That kept Ranma's existence a secret once again. Ranma's 'death' was a
shock to the world, but one that helped harden the world's resolve to
fight harder. Instead of giving up hope, they used his name to rally
behind and keep the fighting. Akane and others feared his reappearance
might cause a public backlash.

Even the unnamed organization behind Area 52 was operating more openly
since Ranma's death. Still unnamed and operating under a cloud of
secrecy, they've taken the lead in many battles against the flesh and
blood Buyierfei. The fact that they had hidden bases in many countries
around the world becomes obvious. Some in the most unlikely of places
(Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia to name three).

The questions continued. "Is there anything in the Amazon's history that
tells how they defeated them?"

"Unfortunately, the way the Amazons sealed away the Buyierfei four
thousand years ago is only partially recorded their history scrolls.
They talk about two of their mighty gods working to break the Key's
connection between our world and the Buyierfei."

"The key would be?"

"Now, he is known as Shuma. Back then they refused to speak or write
it's name. but described it as a multi armed creature breathing fire.
Supposedly another person or creature absorbed into the Buyierfei realm
to lead the Buyierfei back then. The other problem is they only put the
Buyierfei into hibernation, leading to their return now. We've worked
hard with the Amazons to try and reconstruct the ancient techniques and
it has helped battle them, but a final solution hasn't been found."

"I think even a four thousand year hibernation would be welcome to the
world right now. At least it would allow us time to recover and prepare
to fight them again."

"Yes, we agree, but we don't have any Amazon gods handy."

"There are many who've abandoned the God or Gods they used to believe in
and see your family as gods."

"We've tried to keep people from seeing us as such, I assure you."

"Now... about your appropriation for a..." the questioner flip through
some pages in front of him. "A 'high speed aircraft capable of
delivering key Task Force members to any battlefield in the world from
the Tokyo compound'. You already have multiple compounds around the
Earth for fast response, why do you need a dedicated aircraft like
this?"

"Well, for one thing, if an emergency comes up while I'm here talking
with you, I may very well need to go into battle with our core battle
team. Every minute of delay could doom any mission."

"Yes, but we're not sure such a aircraft exists. The fastest jets are
smaller than...'

"Um... a certain organization that can't be named because they have no
name indicated to us that the United States has such a vehicle. I
believe they call it the SR-512 Spacejet."

All eyes turned towards the United States representative.

He gulped. "I don't believe I can confirm or deny if such an item exists
or doesn't exist."

The China representative sighed and adjusted her ample bosoms. "I call
for a vote to provide one of these SR-512 SpaceJets..."

"We'd like two, please."

"Two?"

"Always good to have a spare..."

"I call for a vote to provide TWO of these SR-512 SpaceJets to the Task
Force within a month."

With the world economies in tatters due to the wars, most production
capabilities were dedicated towards producing arms for the war, food to
feed the masses, and other items necessary for survival. Food and
necessities were rationed out, so the currencies that were still in use
were very limited in their uses during the Black Wars. So it was no
longer necessary to request funding. They had to directly procure or
request from the entity that had something the Task Force needed for the
war effort. Most times this was handled by simple, direct requests.
Larger items and items that might not be easy to obtain from certain
parties went through the United Nations Task Force council that Akane
was addressing on a monthly basis now.

The vote was quickly taken, with only the US representative not voting
to approve it. He gulped. "If such a vehicle exists, I'm sure it will be
provided."

"THEY will be provided."

He gulped again.

Three weeks later, the two sleek spacejets were delivered to the Mt.
Fuji Task Force base along with a support crew and trained pilots, since
the Tendo compound did not have a runway long enough to accommodate
them. The underground runway exiting the side of the mountain made the
departures seem right out of a old super sentai team show. It became
even more spectacular in the future when a monolith destroyed a chunk of
the Japanese coastline and the exit of the runway exited directly over a
steep cliff over the ocean.

Fortunately a high speed private tube system already connected the Tendo
Compound and the Mt. Fuji base together so they could be airborne in
less than an hour if needed. And then anywhere in the world in less than
8 hours if they were in a hurry, which they often were.

The first one was named 'Tendo One' by a bemused Akane.

When it was destroyed two months later, the spare became the second
aircraft of many to hold that designation.

Akane had to go back and ask for another spare.

This time the US representative voted for the release of the spacejet.

The first Tendo One had been destroyed saving Air Force One from attack
by avians, after all.

In that particularly bloody battle, avians attacked Washington D.C. en
mass. The birdmen of Mt. Phenix took the lead in that battle, and
suffered large losses. While many monuments and buildings are spared in
the battle, the White House, Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monuments
are destroyed. The Capitol dome is also sent crashing to the ground.
Less damage than a monolith explosion, but still devastating for the
moral of the USA.

Tendo One was speeding to Washington to backup the Task Force members
already there. They arrived just in time to find Air Force One trying to
escape with the president and first family on board. During an
impressive Air Battle, Air Force One escapes, but only due to Tendo One
ramming a large avian. Fortunately the entire crew parachuted to safety.

--

Several years later after more battles with Buyierfei and monoliths,
Akane and Ranko crowded around a video conference screen connected to
Houston mission control. "Any word yet?" Kasumi asked as she came into
the room.

"No... nothing since Nabiki sent her message after the last quake," the
current CAPCOM replied back. The screen showed him with other
technicians and personnel scurrying around. "The view from inside the
rover shows the kids. I believe they are playing patty cake."

Almost an hour crawled by before a radio transmission was heard. "Jake,
we... BOTH on our...  back to the rover. We're both okay. Get my sister
and her gang on the line. We have news they need to hear." A pause.
"Everyone will need to hear it."

Jake smiled as mission control erupted into cheers. 'Roger, Nabiki, we
hear you. Glad you're both okay. Your sister and her husband are both
online already along with Kasumi. Ready when you get back in the rover."
Over the extended years of this 'mission', the communication between
Houston and Mars had gotten very personal.

Back in Nerima, cheers also went up.

Minutes went by way too slowly for everyone involved before they saw two
suited figures climb into the rover and start removing their space
suits. They smiled at the kids and then the camera. "We're okay."

Plopping down in front of the Camera, Nabiki sighed. "You're not going
to believe this."

"We're just going to rattle this off, so listen carefully and save your
questions for later."

Nabiki took a deep breath. "Mousse was deep into the cavern when the
marsquake hit. He was almost buried and was trapped behind the rockfall.
I managed to clear the blockage, but Moose found something when he was
searching for another way out."

She glanced at Moose.

He took a deep breath. "There is... or WAS life on Mars." He
unconsciously waited almost as long as the breath he held when first
seeing the sight in the cavern before continuing. "Intelligent life. I
found an underground city. The ordered walls and what looked like
streets could be nothing else. Part was carved out of the rock, but
other parts were artificial: formed steal, some kind of concrete,
artificial beyond doubt."

"It was old though... very old. We didn't see anything other than the
basic structures and piles of debris. Something about the layout was
very familiar."

Nabiki steeled herself. "We even know how they died out. A little
further into the cavern..."

Moose continued what Nabiki couldn't say. "Tell General Smart that his
plan to preserve the Human race on Mars wouldn't have worked."

"We found a monolith."

"Big, black, spotless, and towering over the dead city."

"The Buyierfei probably sucked this planet dry before ever arriving on
Earth. That 'city' looks disturbingly like the Great Shelters on Earth
to us."

"And our best guess is the monolith is the source of the marsquakes."

"I... I think we woke it up."


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Part 9: From the Blackness...


After discovering the monolith on Mars, Nabiki and Moose are enlisted to
explore the cavern, keeping as far from the monolith as possible. They
discover some carvings on the walls that are a combination of pictures
and some kind of language. They transmit it back to Earth. The drawings
show a race that they assume to be Martians. It seems that all the movie
images of what martians looked like were completely wrong. The truth:
Six legs/arms, no head, but separate eye stalks, and a hardened central
mass containing the brain and eating and breathing openings.

Their tale with the Buyierfei was drawn out as well. A large
civilization with cities was devastated by monoliths and Buyierfei
attacks, centered around a large stylized Buyierfei that resembled the
Martians. The odd thing was the Buyierfei looked taller, and something
like a sea anemone with tentacles at both ends of a central mass. A
sobering conclusion was reached: The current Buyierfei resemble the
Martians. Much like Shuma was born from Humans and took human form, the
Martian Buyierfei leader must have taken the form of a Martian.

History was repeating itself.

The fact that the cavern Nabiki and Moose found the monolith in on Mars
had a uncanny resemblance to the Great Shelters being used on Earth
caused a lot of people to think that maybe the battle against the
Buyierfei was hopeless.

If the Buyierfei went to another world, those Buyierfei would probably
look more human than like tentacle monsters.

Despite the discovery that intelligent life once existed on Mars, only a
small number of people know of the discovery of the Martians and the
monolith on Mars to avoid panic.

As bleak as things seemed on Mars, the discovery of the monolith did
offer one bright possibility: Nabiki and her family might be able to
escape Mars by going into the Monolith.

Unfortunately, the two monolith attacks on Earth since the Mars monolith
was found showed no sign of an extra heart that might be the Mars
monolith. Nabiki was obviously reluctant to go into the monolith with
her children without some assurance that it would lead them to Earth.

Despite the continuing marsquakes, they did have a safe home on Mars for
the time being.

A test is done to send some organic material into the monolith to see
what would happen. A tracking device and a bundle of carrots from their
garden is tossed into the monolith. I disappears inside. Since it wasn't
zapped like the Moon monolith did to anything getting close, they at
least know that it would be safe to go inside the monolith, but not
where they'd end up. The next monolith attack teams will have devices to
find the tracking device in hopes that a way through will be found.

The next monolith attack team doesn't find it, but they decide to repeat
the tracking bundle whenever news of a monolith appearing on Earth is
received.

--

During a series of battles in Canada and the east coast of the United
States, a monolith appears over the United States' north-eastern Great
Shelter under a Maine mountain and starts blasting into the mountain to
get into the shelter. Panic ensues, and many people die in the stampede
for the exits. Akane and her team are inbound when the monolith goes
critical after reaching the main chamber of the shelter. They barely
escape the ensuing explosion.

Since it was underground when it went critical, only Maine and New
Hampshire are totally wiped off the map. Parts of Canada, Massachusetts
and Vermont are severely damaged by the blast, but only have light
casualties.

Ironically, many of those killed in the Great Shelter were people who
fled from Boston or New York out of fear that they would be prime
targets during the wars.

Some people start to question the usefulness of the Great Shelters,
especially those that know about the 'great shelter' found on Mars and
the monolith sitting in the middle of it.

--

(This is the end battle of a planned series of battles where the Task
Force try to corner/trap Shuma to end the war once and for all.
Unfortunately for this outline, I can't detail more than this. Sorry.)

During a battle inside a monolith, Shuma is confronted by Ranma. "I
thought I killed you?"

Ranma chuckled. "Yeah, but I've came back to kill you."

Shuma chuckled in almost the same voice as Ranma, but his chuckle
sounded a hundred times eviler. "I don't know how you survived, but you
cannot kill me. Like all the other times your kind has tried, I will
prevail.

"More like you ran off." He smiled. "Not this time." He reached to his
waist and touched a big button jury-rigged to a box of some kind
strapped there. "Shift blast time!"

Shuma's eyes went wide as Ranam blurred and transformed into Akane. "The
uncut one... how..."

Akane looked confused for a second, then saw the blinking light on the
control box. "Sure, try this out for the first time in battle on
Shuma..." Akane said. "Baka." Cupping her hands in front of her, forming
a large ball of energy in front of her. She burred and Ranma took her
place again.

"Ah... you've been touched by our energy... interesting side effect."

Ranma only has a couple seconds to feed more energy into the energy ball
before blurring back into Akane.

Shuma frowned as the energy ball increased in size and intensity far
faster that it should have been able to. To late he tried to step out of
the way, but the huge blast hit him squarely in the chest and sent him
flying far across the Buyierfei realm.

As the series of hot and cold water washes to the patch on his side
subsided, Ranma looked pleased with the result. "That worked better than
I hoped." He dashed off towards where Shuma went, gesturing to other
Task Force members around him. "Phase one complete... goto phase two!!"

After several more skirmishes, Shuma found himself completely surrounded
by the Task Force. Although they have to be careful to avoid blasting
each other, the central group surrounding him blasted Shuma repeatedly
while the Task Force Members on the edges keep the Buyierfei away to
avoid Shuma escaping. The Birdmen provided attacks from the air as well
as keeping an eye out for avians.

Daiji stepped closer, her eyes fixed on Shuma.

Then Shuma looked at her. "Can you really do this, Brother? We are the
same."

Sanma ran up beside Daiji. "Don't listen to him. Whatever he could have
been to our family... that monster isn't worth listening to."

"I know, Uncle," Daiji agreed and continued streaming chi balls at
Shuma.

"That pains me to hear, Mother," Shuma said calmly, even as he spasmed
in pain as each chi ball hit him.


Just as Shuma was crouching on the ground and was seemingly done for,
the two monolith hearts started pulsing, as they do when about to be
destroyed.

"What? We didn't send any heart breaker teams into the hearts yet!!"
Ranma screamed, glancing at Sanma who was at his side to confirm.

"No, they were only to go in if the operation to surround Shuma failed."

Shuma chuckled and looked up at his mother. "This is my realm. It obeys
MY will, not yours." He looked at Daiji. "Don't go far."

"Shit, he's going to blow the monolith hearts himself!!!" Sanma yelled
as she dashed forward with a sword.

Several others start forward as well, but then a Birdman swoops in from
the sky. "Incoming!! Get out of the way!!" he yells as he grabs Sanma
and another Task Force member. Two other Birdmen swoop in and save
several more, including Ranma and Daiji.

The others run as a huge red sphere dropped from the sky and envelops
Shuma.

Sanma looks up from where he was dropped after being saved. "Dammit, we
almost had the bastard this time." She steps forward, but is held back
by the Birdman.

"Look!" the Birdman pointed at a Task Force member who didn't get out of
the way in time.

"Alex!" Sanma yelled as she saw the man writhing in pain on the ground
that was now enveloped in the transparent red sphere. She snarled when
she saw Shuma standing nonchalantly in the middle of the red sphere.
"What the hell is this?" she asked no one in particular while scanning
the sphere.

No one had and answer and Shuma wasn't going to provide one.

Shuma chuckled and fixed his eyes on Daiji. Then he slowly faded from
view while Alex collapsed to the ground, lifeless.

Sanma looked on, helpless. She looked at Daiji for a moment.

"Sanma..." Ranma said as she came up beside his sister. "We have to get
the two hearts. Nothing more can be done with... this... whatever it
is."

Sanma nodded without saying anything. Almost everyone in the world had a
reason to hate Shuma, but Sanma had more reasons than anyone to want an
final end to the evil Buyierfei leader.

--

On Mars, a marsquake rippled through the habitat dome. Nabiki's eyes
snapped to where her two children were playing. "Kids, into the cubes,
now!!" The three of them rushed into three of the four pressurized cubes
they kept on hand in case the habitat's dome fractured during one of the
daily quakes they were getting. Once she sealed her kids into theirs,
she sealed herself in a third. Then she reached for the communicator.
"Mousse, you okay out there?"

"Yeah... yeah... just a little shaking. I'm in a safe spot..." Mousse's
shaky voice replied back. "You guys in the cubes?

"Yeah." With the frequency of the marsquakes, they had taken precautions
to safeguard themselves. The interlocking cubes had food, air, and
supplies for a month if needed. And space suits, so they could go out
and repair any damage. The 'Winnebego' was also fully stocked in case
they had to evacuate the dome entirely.

"This is a long one."

"Yeah."

Later, Houston reported back. "That was a big one, shook half the planet
if the sensors you guys planted are reading correctly. We've got two new
volcanos spewing ash in the southern hemisphere, and Olympus Mons is
increasing it's destruction of itself."

After the full report was over, Nabiki reported back. "Thanks, Eric.
We're hanging in here. I'll report back if Mousse finds any problems
outside." She cut off the communications. "Damn, that twenty minute
delay is annoying. Mousse, Houston said the worse should be over for
now. How's it going outside?"

"Looks good out here, nothing looks damaged this time," Mousse's voice
called back.

"Good, after last time and that huge crack I'm tempted to make the kids
live in their cubes full time. Who cares if they're cramped and bouncing
ageist the walls."

Outside Mousse smiled in his spacesuit. "Isn't that how you described
living in the habitat when we first setup the first small part?"

Nabiki's chuckle came back over the radio. "Yeah... yeah... it was quite
a lifestyle change. If it wasn't for these damn marsquakes, I'd be more
than happy to spend the rest of my life here with you, Darling."

"And I with you. But I still miss the blue skies of Earth," Mousse said,
looking up at the red sky.

"Interesting. Never expected cattle to be here."

"Wha... is that Houston?"

"Is what Houston?" Nabiki asked back.

"That voice."

"I didn't hear anything."

Mousse frowned. "Then..."

"Trying to escape us, huh? The cattle from the fifth tried that too."

Mousse realized the voice wasn't coming from his radio. Having been on
Mars for so many years, he'd have never guessed a unknown voice could
come from anywhere but over the radio when he was outside. Slowly
turning around he gasped after seeing the man standing behind him, who
was turned slightly away from him and scanning the dome and other
modules that made up their home. "Ranma? How are you..."

Mousse's thoughts on how could Ranma be on Mars AND how could he be
standing there without a spacesuit when the figure turned towards him.

The half female, half male face grinned back at him.

"Shuma," Mousse hissed.

"I have to give you credit for leaving your planet in hopes of
surviving, but you can't hide from us."

Mousse was lost for words.

"The cattle from the fifth fled to this world and you see how that
turned out for them." Shuma proudly waved his hand across the desolate
surface around him.

"The fifth?"

"The fifth planet."

"Jupiter?"

"How silly of me. The former fifth planet. I believe you call it the
asteroid belt. We enjoyed destroying that. Lots of energy."

Mousse's jaw dropped.

Inside, Nabiki rushed into action when she heard Mousse hiss 'Shuma'.
She quickly called up the video feed from outside and spotted Mousse and
Shuma standing about twenty feet apart in front of the dome. Although
rarely used, she keyed in the commands to turn on the external
microphone on Mousse's suit. Sound didn't travel far on Mars, but it did
travel far enough to hear Shuma from twenty feet. How he was breathing,
now that was a mystery.

"Mousse, I'm getting the kids into the Winebeggo for safety. Keep him
talking," Nabiki whispered into the microphone to avoid being overheard.
She was a little too rattled to have thought of turning down the gain on
the microphone instead. She switched the link to Houston on and rattled
off a emergency message. "Houston, the shit has hit the fan up here."
Nabiki knew that 'we have a problem' didn't come close to describing
what the appearance of Shuma meant to her family. "The Buyierfei's
leader is up here talking to my husband outside. I don't know why Shuma
is able to survive out there, but he is. Tell my sister and everyone you
can about this. I'll report back once I get the kids in the Winebeggo."

Outside, Mousse was casually talking to Shuma. "So the martians in that
cave came from a world that was destroyed?"

Shuma nodded. "Yes. They put up a fight at first, but then fled when we
killed the last of their collectors."

"Collectors?" Mousse had heard the teem the Buyierfei used for chi users
before, but was stalling for time.

"Yeah, too bad your collectors aren't as good as them. They held out for
hundreds of your years."

Mousse clenched his fists. "The Amazons defeated you in a single
generation, didn't they?"

Shuma chuckled in that deep throaty rasp that irritated everyone who
heard it. "We are never defeated. We're back now, aren't we?"

"I guess." Mousse glanced at his status display and saw three more
spacesuits were online and reading normal pressure. <Good, they're
heading for the Winebeggo tat was parked on the far side of the dome.>

"How many cattle are here with you?"

"Millions."

"Doubtful."

"So, what brings you here?" Mousse asked, trying to sound as nonchalant
as possible.

"I've grown tired of your collector's interference. So I reopened the
old portal left behind on this planet when we migrated to yours. Dead
world as it is, there is still energy to be found within this red
carcass."

Mousse's eyes widened and he almost let his thoughts spill out of his
mouth.

Inside the Winebeggo, Nabiki heard that and had the same thought.
"Mousse, that means the monolith is probably connected back to Earth. We
can escape."

Mousse tried not to smile. "Yes, that sounds good," he said, trying to
sound like he was speaking to Shuma.

"Not for you, it isn't."

Mousse casually ran his gloved hand over his control pad located on his
suit's left forearm. "We really aren't a danger to you, so please don't
hurt us," he said, as he sent a text message to Nabiki reading, "Nabs,
get goig. I'll hold Shuma hre to giv u time to escap." You try texting
without spelling errors when you are facing an inhuman monster on the
surface of Mars.

"Not a chance!" Nabiki screamed back, unfortunately loud enough for
Shuma to overhear.

"I see, you have someone talking to you. Clever." Shuma looked towards
the small habitat. "You are right. You're no danger to us. You're free
to live until..." Shuma was cut off when a chi ball impacted his chest,
sending him crashing across the surfaces in the low gravity.

"Nabiki, get the kids and yourself through that monolith!! That's an
order from your husband!!" Mousse shouted as he started to form more chi
balls outside of his gloved hands, feeling very glad he kept up his
training even while on Mars. He even managed to learn Daiji's focusing
technique to focus energy outside of his glovers.

Shuma dodged the second blast, but was hit by the next two.
"Interesting... a collector all the way out here." He sent a chi ball
flying back at Mousse. "But no matter... a weak collector like you will
be no problem."

Mousse dodged the blast by jumping to the side. Aided by his experience
moving the low gravity of Mars, he managed to avoid the second blast as
well when it went wide due to Shuma not being familiar with the thin
atmosphere of Mars and how it affects chi.

"I see I was mistaken in thinking you were mere cattle. No problem...
I've faced hundreds of your kind and in this case I only need to hit you
once to shred that precious suit of yours. I assume you need that to
survive here?"

Mousse cursed inside his head. <He's right dammit, I can't hold him
long.> He unconsciously looked to the side, hoping to see the Winebeggo
racing away from the dome. Instead, he saw it barreling towards him from
Shuma's side.

Shuma almost took advantage of the distracted Mousse to blast him, but
instead was sent flying away when the large Mars rover ran into him. The
chi blast he was generating exploded in his own face.

Mousse jumped out of the way as the Winebeggo skidded to a halt. "Grab
on, we're out of here!!" Nabiki shouted over the radio.

Mousse shook his amazement away and climbed up onto the side of the
Winebeggo that had some equipment racks that he could grasp. Nabiki
didn't even wait for him to say anything before speeding out and leaving
Shuma in the red dust behind them.

"Nabiki, you should have..."

"Shut up!" Nabiki snapped. "There was no way I was leaving you behind
and as far as I know, Shuma can't run faster than this baby."

Mousse smiled. "I love you."

"Of course you do."

--

Inside the Buyierfei realm, Ranma and Ranko were attacking the core of
one of the hearts when an Amazon in golden armor jumped into the heart.
"Stop!!! Don't destroy the heart!!"

Ranma looked over at the newcomer and gasped when they saw who it was.
"Yukiko? Why are you fighting?"

"Just stop the attack on the heart!!"

"Why?" Ranma asked, growing suspicious.

"Shuma is on Mars!!" Yukiko screamed.

"What?"

"Shuma is on Mars."

Ranma and Ranko looked at each other than nodded and let their hot and
cold vortexes dissipate. They rushed over to Yukiko. "Should you be
wearing that armor?"

Yukiko smiled. "Well, since YOU won't wear it, Matriarch, I figured I
might as wear the Matriarch's traditional battle armor again." She
unconsciously gripped her left arm, which hung limply at her side. This
was her first time going into battle since she had to step down as
Matriarch. But with good reason.

"About Shuma?"

"Houston got a emergency call from Nabiki. Shuma appeared up there and
they managed to hit him with the rover and take off towards the
monolith. Their thinking is..."

Ranma nodded. "If Shuma is on Mars, the monolith must be connected to
the realm here."

"That red sphere must have been the Mars heart!" Ranko remarked looking
to her side. With the glowing aura wound the heart they were in, she had
no idea where the red sphere was in relation to her,but that seemed as
good of a place to look at any.

"I rushed to the nearest Monolith with a team in order to make sure you
guys knew what's going outside. Looks like another team already
destroyed the other heart. I didn't see it out there."

Ranma nodded. "Sanma's team went to destroy that one. Ranma looked
around and then raised his voice. "Okay team! Change of plans, we're
going back to that red sphere. It's apparently the Mars monolith's
heart."

Daiji rushed up. "So Aunt Nabiki?"

Ranma nodded. "They're on their way to the monolith to hopefully get
back to Earth. We have to be ready to help them."

Yukiko nodded, but added something else. "Yes, but also... if we can
destroy that heart when Shuma is still on that side of it..."

Ranma gasped. "He'll be trapped up there." He looked around to make sure
all his team had gathered along with the Amazons who had come with
Yukiko. "Let's hall ass!!!"

Everyone took off running out of the heart's aura. Once outside, they
located the red sphere that had spirited Shuma away and started running
towards it.

"Ranma, hot water time! I'll fill in Akane," Ranko called as they ran.

Ranma nodded and reached for a red thermos.

--

It took most of the night to drive to the mountain where the monolith
was, so the sun was just rising over the mountain as they approached it.

"Any sign of Shuma?" Nabiki asked format he driver's seat.

Mousse looked up from the screen he was staring at in the middle of the
rover. "No... but it's still dark out there."

Nabiki looked at her 'co-pilot' who was seated in the chair next to her.
"Daichi, give your Father and me a kiss and then get into your space
suit."

The little boy smiled. "All right! Hoing outside!!" He jumped over to
his mother and kissed her quickly and bounced back to do the same to his
father.

"Kasei, you too."

The older girl shrugged. "Do I have to?"

Nabiki sighed. "Yes, this is really important. Give us a kiss and then
help your brother suit up as well."

"Okay..." Kasei said as only a girl just about to enter her teenage
years could. Although on Earth her height might make people mistake her
for an adult, Nabiki knew her little girl was still a little girl
inside. <She'll be taller than me soon.>

Nabiki smiled as her daughter gave her a kiss. <It's amazing how the
parenting books for Earth apply just as well up here.>

--

As the Winebeggo neared it's destination, the spacesuited family
nervously scanned the windows and monitors for any sign of pursuit. That
sign cam in the form of a black chi ball that exploded in front of the
rover. "Shit!" Nabiki swung the large vehicle to the left, almost
causing it to tip over.

Mousse swore and tried to find the source of the chi ball. He saw it as
the second one came right at them and hit the back of the rover,
knocking out the rear camera and shaking the occupants around.
"Dammit... he's still a ways back, but close enough to hit us." He
scanned the interior of the rover for a weapon that he could use to
protect his family. Unfortunately, making swords wasn't high on his list
of tasks while on Mars.

"Mousse, that hit slowed us down, we must be dragging something..."

Mousse's eyes widened. "The small rover was strapped to the back." He
looked up at the hatch on the ceiling. "I've got an idea. Nabiki, go on
ahead and get the kids to the monolith. I'll slow down Shuma."

Nabiki glanced back. "But..." she said softly even as she kept driving
in a slightly erratic zig zag pattern to avoid getting hit again.

Mousse tried to smile back reassuringly. "Don't worry, I'll come, but
none of will make it if Shuma isn't given a different target."

Nabiki gulped. "I love you."

"Tell me on Earth."

Nabiki smiled and watched her husband disappear up into the hatch and
cringed when it snapped shut with a bang.

"Where's Daddy going?" little Daichi asked.

"Just outside for a little bit..."


Mousse stumbled along the top of the large rover, keeping an eye out for
chi balls and trying to keep a grip on the hand railings that ran along
the top. Reaching the end, he verified that one of the two straps
holding the small two person rover that they used for side trips when on
long trips away from the habitat had snapped. the rover was dragging a
wheel behind them. He climbed down and swallowed hard as he unlatched
the last strap.

With a mighty thud, the small rover bounced down to the red dirt covered
ground dragging Mousse with it. Freed of the dragging rover, the
Winebeggo accelerated away, spinning up dirt as it sped away.

Mousse looked of the rover to make sure it was drivable and clambered
into the driver's seat. Starting up power, he took one last look at the
retreating Winebeggo and then looked to where he had seen the chi balls
come from. "Get the kids into that monolith, Honey, I'll take care of
Shuma."

"I will..." was Nabiki's somber response.

Mousse sped away from his family, veering to the side to try and keep
Shuma's attention on him instead of his family.

The first chi ball hit near the side of the rover confirmed that Shuma
knew he was coming. <Now would be a good time to have a plan...> Mousse
thought as he neared an enemy he had no chance of defeating alone.

(There probably would have been more here to describe the action and
fight that followed, but can't put that into this outline. Sorry.)

--

As Nabiki followed her scrambling kids through the narrow passageway,
she kept glancing back behind her while urging her kids forward. "Keep
going, kids, fast as you possibly can." She kept glancing between her
kids, the dark tunnel behind her, and the status display that still
showed Mousse's suit had full pressure. His heartbeat was racing very
fast, naturally. Fortunately, they had put repeaters all along the
tunnel and cavern to keep communications while exploring the cavern.

As her kids rounded a corner ahead of her that lead intuit eh big
cavern, the tunnel started shaking. "Crap. Run kids!!"

She tried to keep up, but was thrown to the ground. With dust and debris
raining down on her, she instinctively put her hands over her helmet
visor.

After an eternity, the shaking stopped and she got up onto her shaky
feet.He status displayed showed her kids suits were still intact and had
only slightly elevated heartbeats. "Kids, are you okay?"

"Yes, we're both in the cavern," Kasei said, sounding out of breath.
"But... it looks like the tunnel collapsed."

Nabiki sighed. "Yeah... yeah, it does." She looked at the mass of rock
and debris in front of her. She dug at the rubble, even knowing it was
useless with the huge solid slab she saw in front of her. <No little
oxygen tank is gonna budge this. A few feet further and I'd be under
that.> She came to a decision, but it was one that terrified her very
soul.

"Kasei... um... I need you to take your little brother into that big
black monolith. You should find some of your aunts and uncles on the
other side. They'll protect you from there," Nabiki called over the
radio.

"Mommy? When are you coming?" a scared little girl replied back.

"As soon as I can find a way through, but you two have to go first. It's
not safe here any more. The cavern could collapse and bury you. You have
to go by yourself."

"I'm scared."

"I know you are. I am too." Nabiki hated the idea of sending her kids
into the monolith alone, but having them wait until she could find
another way in was too dangerous. Besides, their previous explorations
had never found another way in except to climb the mountain and come in
through the crack in the ceiling. That was going to be tough in normal
circumstances. "Kasei, this is very important. You're a big girl now and
you have to protect your brother. If you stay inside there you both
could get killed. Take him into the monolith and find help there. We
will join you soon as we can, but you have to go NOW!!"

"But Mommy..."

"Kasei!! You have to do this NOW! Protect your brother and go NOW!!"

"OKay... I love you Mommy."

Nabiki gulped. Her daughter was mature enough to know this might be the
last time she talked to her mother. "I love you too, Kasei. Daichi, I
love you. Listen to your sister and stay safe."

A sobbing male voice called back. "Mommy... I'm scared."

"Yeah, I know. But it'll be okay as long as you go into that monolith
with your sister. You can finally meet your other brother and sister on
Earth."

"Really? We're going to Earth?"

"Yes, first you'll be in a gray area and you have to find your aunts and
uncles there and they'll take you to Earth. You can finally see the
ocean."

"Lets go Kasei, let's go to Earth!! Let's see the ocean!"

"Daichi..."

Nabiki could her the fear and trepidation in her daughter's voice.
"Kasei, you can do this. Go now!!"

"I love you Mommy!!"

Nabiki keyed the controls on her suit to make a private radio connection
with only Kasei. "Kasei, when you see one of your aunts or uncles, tell
them this exactly..."

After giving her daughter her instructions minutes passed silently.
Nabiki worried that her kids wouldn't go through the monolith and at the
same time worried what would happen if they DID go into the monolith.
Then her status display suddenly showed 'communications lost' for her
two kid's spacesuits. "They're gone..."

She turned to leave the tunnel, absently putting her hands to her face
to wipe the tears out her eyes. Realizing her mistake when her hand hit
her helmet visor, she sniffled and then started to make her way out of
the tunnel. After a short distance, the ground started to shake again.
She quickened her pace as rocks and dust started to drop from the
ceiling.

Reaching the end, she launched herself into the bright sunlight as the
tunnel collapsed behind her. Checking her suit's pressure out of habit
that years on Mars had taught her, she scrambled onto her side and
looked back at the tunnel. "Won't be able to dig through that for sure
now." Getting onto her feet she looked up at the top of the mountain
where she knew the cavern was open to the sky. Even in the low gravy of
Mars, that was going to be a hard climb. Mousse had done it once and had
taken almost a whole day.

Looking back to where the Winnebago still sat where they left it and
then back to the mountain, she sighed and made her choice.

--

Inside the Buyierfei realm, Akane, Ranko, and Faiji stared at the red
sphere. "So how do we destroy this?" Ranko asked.

Akane looked back at Yukiko, who shook her head. "No idea here. Nothing
like it is recorded in the Amazon's battles."

"I don't think we can just go inside like a normal heart," Daiji said,
looking at the crumpled body of Alex that could still be seen inside the
red sphere. "Wait... Alex looked like he was suffocating when he died.
If this is connected to Mars..."

Akane nodded. "That's my smart girl... the atmosphere in there is from
Mars."

Daiji looked around. "Medic!!"

Ranko looked confused and wondered why her son needed a medic now. "Are
you hurt?"

One of the medics that routinely came into battle with them came running
at Daiji's call from where he was helping treat the wounded on the
defensive line surrounding the red sphere. The Buyierfei had been
attacking them during their dash to the sphere, but had doubled their
attacks once the group stopped in front of the red sphere.

Daiji shook her head. "Nope." She turned to the medic and gestured
towards his backpack. The medic turned the pack over and Daiji rummaged
through it until she pulled out a oxygen cylinder and a face mask. "It
might not allow us to last long on the suffice of Mars, but should be
enough to do a hot and cold attack."

"That's my son!!" Ranko beamed looking around. "Only one medic is still
with us. A side by side attack is possible, but sharing one mask will be
hard."

Ranko nodded. "Yeah, but we have no other..." her response was cut off
when two small spacesuited figures appear out of nowhere and stumbled
out of the red sphere. Suddenly finding their space suits much heavier
the two figures stumbled and then crashed to the ground together.

Akane rushed up to them. "Nabiki?" she asked, even as she recognized her
niece and nephew. She looked up at the red sphere again.

"Mommy and Daddy are coming later..." little Daichi said from under his
sister, his voice muffled by the helmet.

Akane nodded and smiled to reassure the kids. "It's nice to meet you
both finally."

Both of the kids got up into a sitting posture. "Aunt Akane?"

Akane smiled more. "You can take the helmets off..." Her eyes grew wide
and looked at Ranko. "We can use their suits.

Ranko nodded. "But we can't do anything until Nabiki and Moose get
through."

Akane helped Daichi take off his helmet. "Earth air smells funny,"
Daichi said.

"Don't worry, kid, this isn't Earth yet.> Earth smells much, much
better," Ranko said as she helped Kasei take her helmet off. "How are
you Kasei?"

"I'm okay but..."

"But?"

"Mommy wanted me to tell you all something."

"What?"

"She said, 'Take care of my babies, we'll hold off Shuma as long as we
can. Do what you have to do'."

Ranko gulped and looked at Akane. They knew what Nabiki was asking of
them. And judging by the tears in Kasei's eyes, the young girl did too.

--

Mousse held a survey pole in front of him like a javelin as he
accelerated towards Shuma. Playing cat and Mousse worked for a brief
while, but Shuma had the advantage of being able to move freely without
a spacesuit. It was also hard to drive with one hand and form chi balls
with the other.

Shuma easily dodged to the side, but Mousse had anticipated Shuma's
movement and twisted his javelin at the last second, impaling Shuma in
the side.

Black blood erupted from the wound. "Foolish, you just delay the
inevitable."

"That's the point," Mousse said, turning his rover around for another
attack. Unfortunately, Shuma wasn't injured enough to let Mousse go that
easily. A chi ball impacted one of the rovers wheels, blowing it apart.

The rover crashed to the side and threw Mousse off as it spun in a
circle from the missing wheel. Breathing heavily, Mousse stumbled
shakily to his feet and spat a blood glob out against the bottom of his
visor. "Okay... that one hurt."

The two fighters faced off, slowly moving towards the monolith despite
Mousse's best attempt sot deflect Shuma's course. Suddenly Shuma looked
up and back at where the monolith lay. "Ah... so you thought to delay me
while two of you escaped by the Portal."

<Two?> Mousse thought, relieved that at least two of his family had made
it through the monolith. <Maybe it's time to end this then...>

He took a running leap at Shuma, hoping to catch the Buyierfei's leader
off guard. Unfortunately, the ground started to shake violently causing
SHuma to get tossed in the air as the ground he was standing on was
thrust upwards. Mousse only ended up with a hemet covered by dirt.

"Time I left then. This world won't last long," Shuma said casually, as
if he was just playing with Mousse.

"Huh?"

"We may have sucked the life energy out of this world eons ago, but we
can still use the mass of the planet itself."

Mousse's eyes widened as the cause of the marsquakes became clear.
"You're destroying this planet? Why?"

"To get rid of the annoyances on your world. With the energy created by
the destruction of this world, we'll open so many portals even the
uncute one will have no way of getting to them all."

Enraged, Mousse leapt at Shuma blindly. It was so sudden, Shuma only had
time to get an arm up to deflect Mousse to the side.

Mousse crashed to the side and felt something cold flowing down his
side. He realized too late that one of his drinking bottles had cracked
from the fall. A white duck looked on helplessly from within the
spacesuit as Shuma turned back towards the monolith. He had just stepped
out in front of a hill when he was run over by a Winebeggo.

If ducks could laugh, Mousse would have.

Shuma ended up embedded half inside the windshield of the large rover as
it screamed towards a large cliff.

<Nabiki!!!> Mousse shouted inside his feathered head, realizing that
neither of his kids could drive the large rover, so his kids must have
gotten through the monolith. Half relieved and half horrified, he
watched the Winebeggo fly off the cliffside.<Nabikiiiiiiiiiii!!>

His heart broke as he realized that Nabiki had sacrificed herself to
stop Shuma.

He lay uselessly on the surface of Mars as it shook around him.
Suddenly, he was thrown into the air and he figured he'd be dead soon.

"I hope that delays him long enough for Akane to destroy the heart."

Mousse quacked at the voice over the radio. As his faceplate was turned
around he saw Nabiki's smiling face in front of him. "Quack!"

"I locked the steering wheel in place and jumped out after hitting that
bastard."

Mousse sighed. "Quack quack..."

"Yeah, I love you too," Nabiki replied and held her husband close. She
looked back in the direction of the monolith and then at her suit's
display. "I heard what Shuma was saying over your radio. Want to get a
view of the end of the world?" She nodded towards the hill the Winebeggo
had appeared from behind.

Mousse could see the same displays in his own suit and came to the same
conclusion. Walking they had no chance of making back to the monolith
before their oxygen ran out. The duck nodded.

Nabiki scrambled up the hill with Mousse in her arms. Reaching the top,
she settled to the ground and held Mousse close. "The kids are through
safely. I told them to tell Akane or whoever they find to destroy the
monolith's heart to prevent Shuma from getting back."

Mousse nodded.

"I guess we should have hooked up that hot water system in your
spacesuit after all."

Mousse nodded as a crack opened up in front of the hill, swallowing
large chunks of land.

"It wasn't a bad life."

Mousse nodded as the mountain surrounding the monolith tilted to the
side and collapsed onto itself.

"I would have liked to have seen one more sunset."

Bolts of black lightning started to flash out of the collapsed mountain
and spreading out over the the surface of the red planet. The ground
shook with each bolt of lightning.

"That's new..."

--

After realizing that no one could fit in the small suit worn by Daichi,
they decided to just use the helmets and oxygen tanks. Some duct tape
would seal the bottom enough for what they had to do.

Daiji finished taping up Ranko and patted his mother on the shoulder.
"How's that, Mom?"

Ranko had been the first one taped up and took some deep breaths. "Seems
good."

Daiji reached for the second helmet.

Sliding up her faceplate to save oxygen, Ranko frowned. "Wait... Akane
said she would use that one." She glanced over to where Akane and Yukiko
were tending to the kids, who were out of their spacesuits and now
wrapped in some ill fitting Task Force uniform tops. The golden thread
interwoven in the material would protect them from some chi blasts.

"I know, but that isn't a regular heart. There's no telling what will
happen when we destroy the core, or even if there is a core to destroy.
Plus we may end up on Mars for all we know." Daiji said as she looked at
the red sphere. "I don't want to risk all three of my parents in there."

"Just the one who gave birth to you, huh?" Ranko shot back.

"You know you're better than both of them combined."

"They are combined. Anyway, Akane already decided..."

"Hey, Dad, just this time lets do it our way."

Ranko flinched at hearing his son call him 'Dad'. Despite her best
attempts, Daiji always called her 'Mom'. <He's serious.>

"Come on, Dad, lets do this as father and son," Daiji said, ruining her
statement by puffing out her ample chest.

Ranko chuckled. "Okay, but you'll need some cold water first. We'd
better hurry before Akane sees us."

They didn't hurry fast enough.

"Daiji, what are you doing?!" Akane yelled as she grabbed her now-son
before he and Ranko entered the red sphere.

"Well... um..." Daiji looked at Ranko.

"Um... well..." Ranko said and looked at Daiji.

Akane sighed. "You know..."

Suddenly, the red sphere pulsed and black lightening started flashing
out from the inside.

They ducked for cover, but the lightning bolts weren't aimed at people,
they sailed off into the gray realm.

"Huh?" Akane said as she raised her head. "Dammit... we're out of time,
give me the helmet, young man!" she said in her most motherly scolding
tone.

"Shit... look!" Daiji said, pointing to where one of the bolts had gone.
A yellow and white glowing sphere appeared.

"A... heart," Akane gasped.

"And another," Ranko said, pointed to the side.

They all jumped to their feet.

"You're right... we're out of time," Ranko said, drawing Akane into a
tight hug. "I'll love you forever, Akane."

"Ranko... wh..." Akane surprised voice said, then turned deeper. "What
the hell are you doing?!"

Ranko pulled the blue thermos away from Ranma's back and pulled out of
the hug. "No time to explain it all, but me and Daiji are going into the
red sphere to destroy the Mars monolith. Akane wanted to go but..."

Ranma looked around. "Yeah, I know the feeling." Every time he went into
battle, he had to second guess his decisions since he wasn't just
responsible for his own life, but Akane's as well.

"Anyway, Yokiko can fill you in on the rest," Ranko said, putting down
her faceplate. "You're going to have your hands full as well." She
looked at Daiji, who had also closed his faceplate. "Ready, Son?"

"Ready, Dad!" Daiji smiled and leapt into the red sphere together. they
took a second to make sure they could breathe and then headed deeper
into the red sphere.

Ranma Looked around and saw the hearts forming around them, at least a
dozen that he could see. "Oh, shit..." He raced over to Yokiko and the
kids to get the story. A part of him smiled with joy at recognizing his
niece and nephew, but his gut tightened up when he didn't see Nabiki or
Mousse.

Not even a duck.


Inside the red sphere, Ranko and Daiji kept walking deeper and deeper
towards what they hoped was the center of the heart.

"I don't see the center core..." Daiji yelled to be heard through the
helmets.

"No... me either. This isn't like the regular hearts." Ranko kept
looking around, flinching whenever a lighting bolt would flash by near
them.

"We'd better start running... we don't have a lot of air to waste."

"We'll use up more if we run, let's just quicken our pace."

They started moving faster, but then Daiji looked behind them. "Is it me
or does it not look like we've gone that far?"

Ranko looked back and saw the Ranma and the others outside. "Yeah, they
should be much smaller by now."

Daiji sighed. "I really hate how the Buyierfei realm doesn't obey the
laws of physics."

Ranko smiled. <Guess all that school paid off.> Turning around again,
she saw another black lightning bolt flash by very close to them. "That
was close."

"Yeah... but where did it come from?"

"Huh?"

Daiji squinted his eyes and then pointed. "There!"

Ranko followed his son's finger, just as another bolt flew out from the
spot he was pointing at. It was hard to make out by there seemed to be a
small circular object that was the source of all the bolts. "That has to
be this heart's core."

"Invisible core? That's not fair!" Ranko said as she took off running.
"I'm cold."

"Hot on it's way," Daiji grinned.

Two vortexes, one hot and one cold soon started blasting at the spot.
The churning energy vortexes illuminating the invisible heart from
within. The occasional black lightning bolt occasionally flashed out,
causing the energy to swirl in different directions.


Outside, Ranma was starting to count his troops, especially those who
could destroy hearts. "Damn... even if Sanma comes inside with the rest
of the Task Force and Amazons, this will take forever to destroy this
many hearts."

"Twenty-eight!" one of the lookouts called.

Ranma sighed.

"More Buyierfei at the perimeter!" another lookout yelled.

Ranma's shoulders dipped. Looking around, he straightened up. "Okay
everyone, first priority is to safeguard Nabiki's kids. Second is to
hold the Buyierfei at the parameter, which will help with the first.
Third, is to keep Ranko and Daiji from being distracted." He looked and
saw the faint outlines of their forms, their energy vortexes visible.
<Good they've started. Hope they know to run outside before it blows so
they can help with the other hearts.>

"And the hearts?" Yukiko asked.

"Yeah, we have fifteen people capable of forming the vortexes... Ummm...
sixteen if you can with your arm."

Yukiko nodded. "I can still do the vortexes... two handed chi blasts are
a bitch, though."

"Okay, I'll send the first four groups out and see how they do. We'll
stay around here and protect the kids and this heart."

--

On Mars, the couple sat silently looking at the planet destroy itself
around them. It was a spectacular sight that they wished they weren't
seeing.

The silence was shattered by a urgent quacking. "What, Mousse?" Nabiki
asked.

The duck was trying to gesture with his wing from within the cramped
helmet. Nabiki followed the tip of the wing and her heart skipped three
beats.

"Shuma..."

In front of them, a figure covered in black blood was crawling up over
the edge of the chasm that had opened up in front of them. It was
missing its right arm and a good deal of flesh from its left leg.
Stumbling to his feet, Shuma looked back at the two spacesuited figures
and smiled. His right eye dangling from his socket made this a
particularly gruesome sight.

Turning toward the mountain covering the monolith, he stumbled forward.
He used his own fleshless leg as if it was a walking stick to shamble
towards the mountain. Waving a hand in front of him, a large number of
black lightning bolts flew straight up into the air and then crashed
down on the mountain. After the dust and debris settled, the monolith
could be seen half buried.

"Shit... he's going to escape," Nabiki got up, but the realized they had
no way to get to Shuma now. Even if they did, a glance at her oxygen
supply verified they would have no time to do anything else. They had
done all they could have... and more. "Come on guys... destroy that
heart now..."

She plopped back onto the ground and pulled Mousse close. "If only..."

--

Inside the Buyerifei realm, things were looking a bit grim. Over fifty
hearts amd counting. Two had been destroyed by the teams, who all made
it back outside the hearts before they exploded.

Ranma was barking orders and trying to keep everyone safe in their
improvised fort around the red sphere. He waved over one of the heart
breaker teams. "Kamajirou, I need you and Li-Wen to go destroy a heart."

"Sure..." the younger man, who was once a very troubled student from
Area 52 turned to leave.

"Wait, in addition to you destroying the heart and getting out of the
aura before it explodes, I'm going to send four Amazons and these kids
with you. They'll stay inside the heart as it explodes. Assuming the
world exists in three weeks, they'll be safer there than in here."

Kamajirou nodded. "Yes... makes sense."

Ranma walked over to the kids. "Kasei and Daichi? I'm going to send you
with these four nice women here. They're going to get you safely out of
here and back to Earth."

Kasei looked at the women hesitantly. "Um... Mommy said to find our
uncles or aunts."

"Yes, but we're needed here to fight. Don't worry these Amazons are some
of our strongest warriors."

"Okay," Kasai said, standing up. "Daichi... we have to go."

"But what about Mommy and Daddy?" Daichi asked as he stood up and took
his sister's hand.

Ranma gulped and was about to answer when Kasei spoke instead. "They'll
come along later. We have to go to Earth now."

"Earth!! Will the sky be blue?"

Kasei nodded. As she turned to walk away with the Amazons, her eyes met
Ranma's.

<She knows...> Ranma keep his eyes on the kids as they walked away. <She
knows it unlikely her parents will be coming back.> He gritted his teeth
and then said a soft, "I'm sorry," when she took one last look back at
her uncle.

The tall little girl wiped a tear out of her eye as she turned back and
tried to keep her face calm for the sake of her brother.


(At around this point in the story I pictured a future segment where
James was interviewing someone about Nabiki and Mousse's life on Mars.
It was to be slowly revealed that the interview was taking place abroad
a space station, such as via mentions of the Earth being seen through a
window, a cup floating by, etc...

The final reveal was that it was an adult Kasei he was interviewing,
indicating that she and her brother had survived.

She was unfortunately only able to spend brief periods on the Earth's
surface due to her body growing up on the low gravity of Mars.
Fortunately, her brother was still in his growth phase and adapted
enough to stay on Earth.

"It's for the best... Daichi was always talking more about seeing Earth
than me. I'm a Martian, through and through."

"Last of your kind."

She nodded sadly, but then smirked. "Well, at least you've met my
half-martian children. So the martian genes will go on."

"Yeah, the Rei's are... unique."

Kasei chuckled. "I blame all the time they spent up here while they were
growing up." She looked around the space station. "Lots of stuff to
tinker with and take apart."

"How's your brother?"

"He's great. He's a marine biologist. Never could get him away from the
ocean after the first time he first saw it. For someone who was lucky to
have a full bath once a month on Mars, he took to the ocean very fast."

"You always yearn for that which you don't have."

"So true..." Kasei replied, looking out the window at the Earth below
her.

)

--

Ranko and Daiji could see the heart clearly now with all the energy
flowing around. Cracks seemed to be forming along it's surface, a sure
sign that it was about to blow.

"It's almost there!!" Ranko yelled over the din.

"Yeah, make sure to be ready to run for the edge!!" Daiji replied back.

Ranko nodded, then suddenly squinted. "That is..."

Daiji swore. "Shuma!!" he yelled as she saw the head starting to emerge
from the cracking surface of the core.



Outside, Ranma was greeting some welcome relief. "Sanma!!" he greeted
his sister and looked to see almost every remaining Task Force Member
and Amazon start to form up and help defend the area around the red
sphere, relieving some very warn out fighters who had been on the line
for... well it was hard to tell time inside the Buyierfei realm. Lets
just say they felt like they were fighting this battle for longer they
ever had before.

"Looks like all hell has broken out in here," Sanma said. When we
emerged from the monolith we destroyed and were told the Rio monolith
hadn't been destroyed yet, we started to make plans to send a team
there, but then these new ones started popping up all over. When the
count went into the double digits, we mobilized all the remaining Task
Force Members and Amazons. Even the old crones from the Circle." She
nodded over to the small dried prunes wearing armor.

"How many monoliths were outside when you came inside?"

"Thirty-One."

Ranma gulped. "Our count is up to Seventy-two."

Sanma's jaw dropped open.

Yukiko ran up to them. "Ranma, they've got trouble inside!!" She pointed
at the red sphere. Inside Rankp and Daiji could be seen blasting the
heart's core. But that wasn't what she was pointing at.

Struggling to pull himself out of the crystal core, Shuma's half male
and half female face could be seen along with half of his torso and left
arm.

"Shit if they don't destroy it before he gets through..." Ranma starting
forward, but paused.

Sanma took off running, not knowing that there was no air inside.

Seeing his sister rush by him, Ranma jumped forward and tackled her.

"What? Let me go!"

"There's no air in there... It's connected to Mars!"

Sanma stopped struggling. "Shit..."

Yukiko meanwhile had the same urge to go inside, but knew she couldn't
last long inside even holding her breath. Then her eyes spotted the
medic's oxygen tank and mask that had been left behind when they decided
to use the helmets instead. Snapping it up, she strapped on the mask,
turned the tank on, and then slung the tank over her shoulder. "For the
honor of the Amazons!!" she screamed. She drew here sword and ran past
Ranma and Sanma.

"Yukiko!!" Ranma and Sanma gasped as she ran past.


Inside the heart, Ranko and Daiji were trying to focus as much energy
into their vortexes as possible, hoping to destroy the heart's core
before Shuma could get fully out.

"You can't win, if you kill me then YOU-" Shuma's one good eye looked
directly at Daiji. "-will be made into the focus and the key."

"Don't listen to him!!" Ranko yelled.

Daiji didn't let his energy vortex fluctuate, but had to know more.
"What do you mean?"

"I set this portal up very carefully. Destroy me and it will make you
the key and focus for the Buyierfei. We are identical, after all...
Brother."

"Daiji, he's just trying to distract..."

They almost lost their concentration and let their vortexes collapse
when Yukiko ran between then and sliced Shuma's arm off. Her follow up
swing was thrust right down his throat, driving him back into the core.
"You've said your last words, monster!" Yukiko felt herself being drawn
into the core with Shuma, so she reluctantly let go of her sword.

Falling on her butt, she scrambled backwards as she saw Shuma disappear
back inside the core.

And then the core exploded and the world around them turned to red
crystal.


Outside, the surface of the red sphere suddenly crystalized and began to
shrink. Ranma and Sanma raced up to the surface of the newly formed
crystal, but stopped short of touching it because of past experiences
with Buyierfei crystals. Bad experiences.

"Ranko!!"

"Daiji!!"

"Yukiko!!"


Inside, Ranko, Daiji, and Yukiko found themselves suspended in a
semi-solid crystaline material. Twisting around, they managed to locate
each other and then heard Sanma and Ranma yelling at them.

Thanks to their helmets and mask they could still breathe, but their
attempts move were severely hampered.

They saw Ranma, Sanma, and others trying to get to them. Hacking at the
red crystal with swords and trowing things at it, which were all were
defected and the red crystal unaffected.

She looked around at Yukiko and then Daiji. "We did it," she said, the
exhaustion in her voice evident.

Daiji smiled and nodded. "Yeah... What did Shuma mean when..." He
suddenly jerked and arched his back, as every cell in his body cried out
in paid. "Argh..."

Ranko looked towards his son and grimaced. "Daiji!!" He tried to get
closer, but then recoiled when she saw her son's eyes turn black. "No!!"

Daiji gritted his teeth. "Break the crystal... before... I... lose my
mind!!"

Ranko eyes went wide. "But we'll die!"

Yukiko had managed to get upright. "Dammit... he's being filled with
Buyierfei energy to replace Shuma!"

"No... no... no...."

"Please... FATHER!! I don't want to become like that. I... grrrr...
don't want to be responsible for killing billions of people!"

Ranko tried to swim through the thick crystal, but couldn't get to her
child.

Yukiko looked at Ranma and Sanma, who were now very close. "You have to
destroy this crystal!!"


Outside, Ranma shuddered. "Impossible... you..."

Yukiko yelled back with out waiting for Ranma to say no. "If you don't
Daiji will replace Shuma as the Buyierfei's leader... Shuma set us up to
replace him if he was killed!!"

Ranma shuddered.

Sanma clutched her chest. She wouldn't let another monster like Shuma be
created, but to destroy the crystal meant...

"You'll all die!!" Ranma yelled back, shaking his head.

Ranko looked from his son towards Ranma, her eyes showing she had come
to a decision. "Do it or this war continues and billions more will die."
Feeling her fingers start to tingle, she looked down at them. "Everyone
will die."

Ranma stared at his sister for an eternity. "But..."

"Please... you have to!" Daiji screamed.

Ranko smiled calmly. "Give our love to Akane and the kids." She raised
her hands, which had transformed into crystal, making them almost
invisible in front of her face.

"And to my husband and kids," Yukiko adding her vote, her eyes tracing
the crystal growing up the side of her body.

Sanma gasped. "Cologne turned to crystal just like that before..."

"Please, Pop!! Before..." Daiji pleaded, but then a inhuman howl
emanated from his throat. Unlike Ranko and Yukiko, he was still fully
flesh and bone.

Ranma shuddered. It was a sound he had heard all too often in battle.

And in his nightmares.

His eyes dropped to the ground.

His hands came together.

"Forgive me, Akane."

Sanma looked on silently as a hot vortex of energy formed between
Ranma's hands. Her shoulder's slumped as she brought her arms up and
started forming cold energy. <I'm sorry, Akane.>

As the twin energy vortexes hit the red crystal, Ranko sighed and looked
back at his son. "Fight it a little longer, my beautiful daughter."

"I... will... FATHER!"

Yukiko closed her eyes and waited for the end, which came as her mind
exploded with all the colors of the rainbow.

--

On Mars, Nabiki looked on horrified through binoculars as Shuma crawled
into the monolith and started to disappear. "No... no... no..."

Then with a flash of light his armless body was flung back out of the
monolith with a sword trust down his throat. The armless figure tumbled
down the ruins of the mountain and spasmed uncontrollably in a pool of
his own black blood.

She dropped the binoculars. "They... they did it. They forced him back."
She ignored the blinking red indicator in her spacesuit's status display
and pulled Mousse close. "I hope our kids will be happy. We did all we
can for them."

Mousse let out a soft quack as the monolith started to collapse in on
itself and was enveloped in a bright red light. Dust and rocks started
to swirl around the red, pulsing light.

"Oh... there's my sunset." Nabiki smiled, then came to a decision. She
would not die without her husband in her arms.

Reaching down, she undid the catch on her glove and then reached up to
her helmet. Knowing she wouldn't just explode like the movies would have
you believe, she quickly unsnapped the catches and turned the helmet.
After talking a deep breath and holding it, she broke the seal and
tossed the helmet aside. She reached down and grabbed the catch on
Mousse's visor.

The duck started to quack at the motion and then saw his wife without
her helmet. His eyes widened as he realized what she was doing. Taking a
deep breath, he held it as the seal on his visor was broken.

Mousse started flapping his wings until he felt her warm hand stroke his
neck. He stared at his wife as she pulled him out of his helmet and
pressed him against her face.

No words could be spoken.

No words had to be spoken.

The two lovers watched the 'sunset' until their lungs ran out of oxygen
and they passed out, slowly freezing still locked in their embrace.

They would eventually be called the 'Saviors of the world' and 'The
parents who gave a whole world for the life of their children.

Those that knew them called them...

Friend.

Sister and Brother.

Mother and Father.

Nabiki and Mousse.

--

For what might have been hours or days, they sat locked together in
their frozen embrace at the calm center of huge violent vortex of energy
that ripped out across the surface of Mars. And then it ripped through
Mars itself.

Chunks of the surface were blown to pieces. What didn't manage to escape
the pull of gravity and reach space was pulled back to the spot where
the monolith imploded.

As the remnants of the planet collapsed in on the 'sunset', the matter
accumulated and was compressed until it couldn't be compressed any
further. At about a quarter the side of it's former size, Mars looked
like a gray pool ball for a split second.

Then it exploded.

Phobos and Deimos, the moons of Mars, escaped the fate of their planet
and were flung away with the rest of the debris that was once called
Mars.

Over years, the debris spread out along the former orbit of Mars and
formed a new asteroid belt where the red planet once roamed.

It was named the N-M Belt.

Some insisted it meant 'New Mars Belt'.

Most people called it the 'Nabiki-Mousse Belt'.

The former moons of Mars mingled in between the rest of the debris,
doing a slow pirouette around each other as their gravity attracted each
other.

It wasn't long before they became known as Nabiki and Mousse: Two lovers
eternally dancing around the heavens with each other.

They were officially renamed that on the twentieth anniversary of the
end of the Black Wars.

--

Millions of miles away, the world panicked as monoliths appeared all
over the world. The governments of the world couldn't keep up as the
known count passed two hundred.

The unknown count was much, much higher.

Some appeared in the middle of deserts, some in the middle of cities,
some at the top of mountains, some at the bottom of the sea.

Some went unnoticed. Some caused panic as people fled from them, only to
cause more panic when there seemed to be a monolith wherever they tried
to flee too.

Even if they didn't go critical, they were enough of them in enough
places to make the world a very dead cinder hanging in space.

The world called out for the Task Force to save them.

But the Task Force was nowhere to be found.

Which was because they were busy saving the world.

--

Ranma and Sanma collapsed to the gray ground as the red crystal exploded
into every color possible and even some impossible ones. The gray realm
of death that the Buyierfei called home was illuminated with those
colors.

Sanma looked up as shouts from the defensive line rose in volume. Sanma
looked over and gasped. "Ranma, the Buyierfei are visible!"

Ranma didn't look up.

Sanma scanned the almost endless mass of black tentacles surrounding
them. They had suddenly appeared and at the same instance stopped
attacking the human fighters defending the area around the red sphere.
Now they were just bumping into each other aimlessly. "Shuma... Shuma
must be dead."

Sanma clutched her chest. She knew to defeat the Buyierfei that Shuma
would have to be destroyed and often thought she would be the one to
slice her own child's head off. At least that was how her nightmares
usually went.

Since Shuma was destroyed, the Buyierfei lost their focus and became
mindless sheep with no purpose. One by one, the Buyierfei started to
turn to dust.

Sanma looked at several nearby hearts, which were throbbing with energy.
<We're not out of this yet...> She tried to stand up, but her legs
wouldn't cooperate.

Suddenly, the bright auras surrounding all the hearts started to
disappear, almost as if a light bulb was turned off. The crystal core at
the center of each one hung motionless for a split second after their
aura vanished and then dropped to the ground with a loud thud.

Several teams attacking the hearts found themselves accidentally
blasting their partners with hot or cold energy when their target
dropped away from them. No one cared about the cuts and bruises caused.



Outside in the real world, the hundreds of monoliths spread out across
the world vanished without a trace. No destruction was left in their
wake. Those that saw them go, swore they saw a rainbow suck them into
nothingness.

But that could have been a trick of the light.



With the hearts dropping like flies and the Buyierfei dissolving into
dust, the Task Force and Amazons started to gather. Even the heart
attack teams came back after their targets went dead.

Yohachi and Ukyo ran up to Ranma and Sanma from where they had been
fighting on the defense line. "We did it! We finally defeated them!"
Ukyo beamed.

"Yeah, but..." Sanma said, turning back to look at Ranma.

"Were's Pop and Daiji?" Yohachi asked.

Ranma let out a howl in despair.

And then the colorful world exploded into blackness.

--

Ranma was still howling when he appeared in the blackened ruins of what
was once known as the Vatican, which was where the last monolith
destroyed was located.

His howl was nothing in comparison to the cries and pain Akane would
experience when told of what happened.

Ranko Tendo.

Daiji Tendo.

Yukiko Dobutsu.

They wouldn't have any grand celestial bodies named after them, but like
Nabiki and Mousse their names were at the top of the list of heroes who
sacrificed their lives so that the world could survive.

Like the 'Great Hero' Ranma Saotome, they would be posthumously honored
as saviors of the world every year as the anniversary of the end of the
Black Wars came around.

Unlike Ranma, they would not be around to celebrate.

Statues, Parks, Memorials, Cities, and even one small country bear their
names.

No one on Earth will ever forget their names.

But no one felt their loss as hard as Akane and her family did.

In one horrifying moment, Akane Tendo lost her sister, brother-in-law,
husband, oldest son/oldest daughter, and a good friend.

She was inconsolable for weeks, and barely spoke to anyone for a year
after the fighters emerged from that final battle of the Black Wars.

She did eventually find her way out of the blackness her heart fell
into.

Much like the world found its way out of the blackness the world had
fallen into.

--

That day they emerged on that black charred hillside, no one celebrated.

Not Akane.

Not Ranma.

Not their family.

Not the Task Force.

Not the Amazons.

Not even the world.

Driven weary by the endless battles and the endless false hopes of an
ending to the Wars, the world greeted the announcement that Shuma was
dead and the Buyierfei were defeated with disbelief or denial.

Unlike in human wars, there was no armistice or treaty to sign marking
the end of the Wars.

There was no slain leader's body to prove that he was dead.

There was no conquered nation to show as the spoils of war.

Without concrete proof, it was hard to imagine the horror was truly
over.

As Akane and her family grieved, the world waited for their hopes to be
dashed once again.

Not even the clear and irrefutable evidence of the destruction of Mars
could convince everyone that the Black Wars were finally over.


A week without battles meant nothing.

A month without battles led some people to poke their heads out of their
shelters.

A half year without battles finally saw some major reconstruction
beginning, even if those doing it were unsure if their work would be in
vain.

A year without battles... the world finally sighed a huge sigh of relief
collectively.


On the first anniversary of the end of the Black Wars, the world came
together and officially celebrated the end of the Black Wars. Regardless
of when their hearts had accepted the Wars were over, the one year
anniversary was when the whole world finally celebrated as one.

It was one hell of a party.

--

No one partied in Nerima.

--

Estimated world population at end of the Black Wars: 2.6 billion

Primary cause of death during the Black Wars: Incineration by Monolith
followed closely by starvation.

Number of countries left with populations: 138

Number of states left in the United States: 43 (Maine, New Hampshire,
and Florida no longer exist as land masses and were dissolved as states.
Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri were ravaged when the Buyierfei
attacked America's breadbasket. Due to the almost complete decimation of
the land, buildings and infrastructure, a single state called New Plains
was formed to rebuild from the ashes. North and South Dakota were
combined into a single state called Dakota after the Manitoba monolith
destroyed a large chunk of North Dakota. The southern parts of
Saskatchewan and Manitoba didn't even get off that easily.)

The Chinese Communist party collapsed during the war after a monolith
under the sea between China and Korea went critical. Most of the Korean
peninsula was submerged and large chunks of North-Eastern China were
destroyed, including Beijing. With the Chinese government gone, the
Democratic government of Taiwan stepped in to stabilize the nation.
Tibet separated from China and is now a separate nation.

The Koreans who survived repopulated the string of islands where the
Korean Peninsula once was, looking much like a miniature version of
Japan. There was no reason to care about the old division between north
and south in forming a single country from the rubble, since the old
38th Parallel separation line vanished with most of the peninsula.

Like many countries Australia declared martial law during the war to
keep order and maintain the flow of food and critical supplies, but when
the war ended the extremists in the government retained control and
refused to return the former democratic government. Using loyal troops
hardened by the war, they used censorship and strong arm tactics to keep
their population controlled and placated. Aided by Kang and Kodachi,
skirmishes broke out and the Western Australia and Northern Territory
states managed to break away from the eastern fascist government,
dividing the continent into two.

The endless Israeli-Palestinean conflict ended when Palestine and Israel
were submerged under the Mediterranean Sea by another monolith that
devastated the Mediterranean seashore.

The remaining population of Israel resettled on the now uninhabited tip
of what was once Central America. No longer connected to South America,
the entire populations of several nations were wiped out when the
monolith severed the land connection between the two continents.

Only Mexico survived between the new Israel and the United States,
although some small populations of people displaced by the destruction
did settle in southern Mexico.

The remaining Palestinians resettled in the middle of Africa, near the
new lake formed in the crater left by the Fourth Monolith.

Attempts are made to form a single world government. Not only was it
seen as a necessity to help rebuild the war ravaged world by getting
resources where they are needed regardless of the national borders that
used to be clearly defined, but also as a way to prepare for a possible
return of the Buyierfei.

In the end, more governing power is entrusted to the United Nations and
the structure is redefined (mostly due to the old structure not making
any sense in the post-war world).

While the world economy shifted away from a currency based one during
the war in order to fuel the massive international war effort to save
the world, the end of the war started the process to restore some of the
old currencies. The United States Dollar and European Euro were the
first to recover, with others following. Some nations banded together to
form loose financial groups that shared common currency and some overall
financial governing functions. The African Commonwealths, the South
Asian Union, and Iran/Iraq agreement were three of the bigger ones.
Unfortunately for Iran and Iraq, none of the other mideastern countries
wanted to join their shared economy since they viewed the governments of
those countries as dictatorships and untrustworthy.

Iraq's hard won democracy collapsed during the war and the hardliners in
Iran finally quashed their opposition. It should be no surprise how easy
it is to make your enemies 'disappear' when they did so every day of the
war.

Local skirmishes broke out and had to be quelled to avoid the world
falling into a world war against itself. Fortunately the Black Wars had
united most of humanity against the common enemy and the local
skirmishes were small and contained.

The Task Force was forbidden to interfere, but that ended when Akane saw
the suffering during the South American rioting that led to Peru and
Colombia taking up arms against each other after Peru closed its borders
to avoid more refugees from the monolith ravaged Colombia from heading
south. That war was short lived as Akane and the Task Force restored
order. The United Nations threatened to dissolve the Task Force over the
action, but Akane made her first public appearance since the end of
Black Wars and gave a televised speech that "She would not let men turn
against men to destroy the peace that my family gave their very lives to
bring about." That pretty much kept any arguments about dissolving the
Task Force to mild grumblings, else face a huge public backlash.


Yes, the war had reshaped the world in many ways.


It would be decades before even a semblance of peace and prosperity
returned.


And then the Blackness returned.


----


(I envisioned the end of the Black wars in the early to mid 2020's but
never settled on a exact date to avoid locking me into a firm timeline.
You'll notice that this outline didn't give exact dates either. Some of
the drastic changes to the world were planned and some I just wrote as I
did this outline. The large population drop was planned from the
beginning. First, it was a very, very large war with monoliths that
could vaporize large mountains and small countries in a single blast
(much, much worse than nukes). Second, the world wouldn't be able to
sustain 6.5 billion people through such a long and widespread war.

Nabiki's and Mousse's end pretty much was envisioned like it was written
here. A grand way to go out, while saving their children and all the
children of Earth. Shuma's presence on Mars was a later addition, but
the original idea was that Nabiki and Mousse would save their kids by
getting them through the monolith and then save the Earth by
interrupting the flow of energy somehow.

Ranko, Daiji, and Yukiko's sacrifice was also planned fairly early.
Hence why they don't appear in the future segments. I kind of wish I
could have made their sacrifices grander or with more foreboding, but
after the Mars setup, it was hard to top that for these three. They
contributed to the saving of the Earth in their own way and were
remembered in their own way.

There were some side bits that never made it into this outline. A
possible death or two of Sanma's kids (breaking up the Six-pack), more
on the Birdmen, more on the unnamed organization behind Area 52 (the
reveal of the Mt. Fuji base might have led to other conflicts and an end
to that organization, but those details didn't fit into this outline
now).


Needless to say, the Buyierfei returned as indicated in the future
segments.

There were to have been two followup stories to Adulthood of a Modern
Dynasty.

Birth of the Amazon Way would look back at the Amazon's history and how
they came into being and how they battled the Buyierfei across the face
of the Earth. It probably would have been fairly short (but then so was
this series when I started).

End of a Modern Dynasty would have covered the events after the war in
more details (mostly the personal ones surrounding Akane and her
family), the return of the Buyierfei, and the hopeful end of the battles
forever. The final fates of Akane/Ranma and Sanma would have been the
end point for the 'Dynasty'.

I'll see if I can put together some outlines for these too, but they
will be VERY brief overviews if I do. I have even less planned for them
than I did for Adulthood.

Thank you for reading.

)