Cologne looked down at the sleeping lad.  It had been one day since she had taken him from his father.  Although he had not awoken as of yet, he had already impressed the other Matriarchs enough to allow Cologne to keep him and adopt him if she so choose.  When he had been brought to the village a day earlier the boy was suffering from many injures, both internal and external.  One of his arms, his nose, and multiple ribs were broken.  His shoulder needed to be reset.  And there was no telling what else had been done to him.  But today his broken bones had reset themselves and were mending at an astonishing rate and the cuts and bruises that littered his body had all but healed.  Cologne smiled at the boy.  (“You have so much potential.  To be able to use your ki at such an early age should be impossible, yet the proof lies before me.”)

            The boy stirred.  He sat there for a moment before opening his eyes.  “Doko?”

            “You are in my home,” Cologne answered.  The boy slowly and painfully turned his head to face her.  “Get some more sleep.  We’ll talk in a little while.”

            Ranma did not nod.  Instead he closed his eyes and drifted off into a silent sleep.  Cologne smiled once more.

 

 

            Pain.  He remembered pain and blood.  Not as much as the Neko-ken but still allot.  He started to move but the pain returned, and he had to stop.  He opened his eyes and looked up.  He didn’t know where he was.  “Doko?”  He asked himself in a vain attempt to jog his memory.

            His answer came from someone near him.  “You are in my home,” The voice said.  Knowing that moving too fast would aggravate his injures Ranma slowly turned his head.  Sitting beside him was an old woman, a very old woman as far as Ranma knew.  He was about to ask a question when she spoke once more.  “Get some more sleep.  We’ll talk in a little while.”  Ranma wanted to say no to demand answers now, but something in the back of his head to him to listen to his woman.  He closed his eyes and almost immediately succumbed to the darkness.

 

 

            Eight Years Later, Juuban Ward, Tokyo

 

            Silence.  To him it was worth more than he could ever hope to pay.  An uncommon commodity that was harder to come by than gold.  He loved it so.  There he sat; his back against a tree, an empty bento at his side, and all sounds being blocked out.  Saotome Ranma would have never found time to enjoy such a small thing as silence.  But he was no longer Saotome Ranma.  Saotome Ranma had died the day Elder Cologne had saved him.  He was now Ranma Koboyashi.  He had recently returned to Japan from the mainland and had enrolled at a local high school.  To be normal, or at least semi-normal, that was his goal.  To this end he was an outcast at school and a loner outside its walls.

 

 

            But things do not always go as we would like them to.

 

           

Elsewhere in Juuban

 

            Things that do not revolve around healing and the making of friends are taking place.  Ironically enough these events are taking place at a rundown hospital.  In the lower levels of the hospital people still live, work, and plan.  But their activities have nothing to do with what would normally take place at a hospital.  Instead they are experimenting on live human subjects.  Subjects that they pick up off the street, the undesirables that no one miss.  Within on office a man sits.  In front of him is a desk with a small computer and a single photo, both obscured by darkness.  A knock on his door brings his attentions to it.  “Enter,” He commands.

            Through the door comes a ravishing beautiful woman in a nurse’s uniform with the skirt cut far too short to be deemed decent.  Her long red hair is the only thing that can be distinguished through the shadows.  She carries a clipboard in her arms.  “Doctor, I have good news.  Our first successful test subject is ready.”

            The doctor nods.  “Excellent.  Now we need to test his abilities to make sure our experiments have been successful.”

            The woman nods.  She flips to the last page and takes out a pen.  “And where shall we send him in order to receive an accurate test?”

            The doctor smiles.  “Juuban High.”  The nurse nods and writes on the paper.

 

 

            Some Time Later

 

            The girls sometimes known as the Sailor Senshi exit their school and begin their walks home.  They stop, however, when one of their number is noted missing.  They turn and are a bit surprised to see Ami with a familiar blue handheld in her hands.  “Ami?”  Usagi asks.

            The blue-haired girl looks up at her friends.  Her expression is deadly serious.  “We’re got trouble.”

 

 

            Sailor Pluto looks upon Juuban High through the Time Gates.  (“Now is the time.  The beginning of everything that will lead to Crystal Tokyo.”)

 

 

            And with a crash everything began.

 

 

            The Senshi arrive just as the dirt around the wall.  They wait for whatever made the hole.  After a few tense seconds, it appears.  It appears to be a man, but his features have been distorted, almost mutilated.  It looks to be nearly seven feet tall (though it is hunched over so it appears to be around five feet tall), its right eye is set slightly higher than its left, its right ear is about one and half times larger than his left, the hair on the back of his head is long and thin, while bald spots dot the front.  His chest is large and contains a handful of scars, his left arm looks normal up to the shoulder, which is slightly larger than normal, and his right arm, especially his hand, is much larger than it should be.  His legs seem to be the only thing that is in proportion to his body, and even then they are much larger than a normal human’s.  It nearly stumbles into the schoolyard.  It is hunched over and uses the wall to support himself slightly.  It raises its head to look upon the Senshi.  “Senshi…” It speaks as though it were half dead or half asleep.

            Sailor Moon gulps and steps forward.  “Hai, we are the Sailor Senshi.”

            The thing looks around at the girls.  “Senshi…” It pulls back it oversized right fist.  “Die!”  It screams out as it punches.

            Sailor Moon eeps and dodges the incoming fist.  It crashes into the ground and makes an indention of nearly a foot in depth.  “What was that for?”  Sailor Moon cries out.

            The creature answers with another fist.  Sailor Moon hops back and rejoins her friends.  “Senshi…Die,” The creature repeats.

            “It seems to have a low level of intelligence,” Mercury notes.  Her visor pops up and begins to analyze the situation.

            “Is it human?”  Jupiter asks.

            “Give me a second,” Mercury tells them as she continues to sort through the data the visor is feeding her.

            The mutant (lets just call it for now) advances on them and throws another punch.  “Scatter!”  Venus cries out.  The mutant begins to attack them wildly.  It doesn’t really aim for any one particular girl.  This action is probably the combined result of its low intelligence and the Senshis’ dodging.

            After a minute or so of dodging the wild attack, Mercury speaks.  “It is human!  Or at least part human!”  She yells to her friends.

            “What do you mean part human?”  Jupiter asks.

            “It looks like its DNA has been spliced with some kind of demon,” She explains.

            “That means we can’t kill it!”  Venus yells.

            “Looks like I’ll have to try and heal it!”  Sailor Moon says as she produces her wand.  She uses the wand on the mutated human, who falls to the ground in pain.  Sailor Moon rushes to the mutant intent on making sure it’s all right.  Instead she is greeted with a rather large fist.  She slams into the wall around the school and falls to the ground unconscious.

            “Sailor Moon!”  The other Senshi cry out.  They try to make their way to their fallen, but the mutant swings wildly at them.  They have no choice but to fall back.  The Senshi look at it in shock.  The mutant’s body is morphing and reshaping.  The parts of its body that were not in proportion with its body are slowly adapting.  It is not long before it looks more like a superhuman than a mutated freak.

            “Sailor Mercury, what’s going on?”  Venus asks.

            Mercury searches desperately for an answer.  Finally she finds it.  “It looks like Sailor Moon’s healing powers have caused the demon and human DNA to combine correctly.”

            Jupiter curses as she launches an attack.  “Supreme Thunder!”  She cries out.  The attack streaks across the ground and hits the mutant.  It cries out in pain while the attack courses through its body.  Once it has ended, the mutant merely shakes its head clear before looking at the girls in anger.

            “Senshi…Die.”

            “At least its i.q. hasn’t gone up any,” Venus notes.  She soon regrets speaking when the mutant wheels around and looks at their fallen leader.

            “Shit!”  Jupiter cries out as the mutant rushes towards Sailor Moon.  Its arm is already cocked and ready to deliver the killing blow.

 

 

            Ranma, for his part, had been aware of the mutants impending attack as long as the Senshi.  So far he had sat on the sidelines and watched the fight noting everything that could be a strength or a weakness.  (“The girls use magic I’ve never seen before.  Even those monks I met in Tibet didn’t have spells that strong.”)  His eyes roamed over the Senshi.  (“Not much in the way of martial arts training, but they’re good as a group.”)  He looked at the mutant.  (“The girl in the blue said it was part demon, part human.  But did doesn’t move like any hanyou I’ve seen.  It’s a whole lot weaker, slower, and dumber.  The dumb part might’ve been done on purpose to make it easier to control.  But why is it so slow and weak?”)  His answer, once again, came from Mercury.  (“Combining DNA?  Somebody made this thing?”)  Anger flared within his being.  He looked to the metal bracers on his wrists, each with the numbers 100% written on them in script.  He sighed.  “Might as well.

           

 

            The mutant’s fist moved towards the unsuspecting girl even as Venus cried out, “Venus Love and Beauty Shock!”  They hit at almost the same time and knocked up quite a bit of dirt.  “Was I too late?”  Venus asked.

            The dirt began to settle and the first sight to be revealed was the mutant with his fist still extended.  The next was a welcomed sight, Sailor Moon unconscious and unharmed a few feet from the mutant.  But what came last was a shocker.  A figure stand around six and a half feet tall came out of the dirt.  But it was not a man or at least a human man.  It seemed to be a mix of cheetah and human.  It had stopped the mutant’s powerful fist with a simple outstretch claw and was showing no visible strain at it mutant tried to push him back. 

 

 

            It took everything Sailor Pluto had not to scream out in anger and shock.  Someone with an amazing amount of chaos had just thrown the time stream for a loop.  Now the Time Gates where closing so they could realign themselves.  (“If they close…”) Pluto did not finish her thought.  Instead she teleported, she didn’t care where she ended up.  All she knew was one thing, (“If the Time Gates close while I’m here, I won’t be able to leave until they’ve realigned themselves.”)

 

 

The Were-Cheetah growled in anger.  “You give hanyous a bad name.”  With that the cat turned the mutant’s fist away and delivered an open palm strike to its stomach casting back some ten feet.  “Calling you a hanyou would be an insult.”  The mutant got up and attack with the same mindless strength that it had before.  “You’re too slow!”  One dodge to get his point across.  “You’re too weak!”  This time he allowed the punch to connect but did not flinch.  “And you’re definitely too dumb!”  His fist blurred as the punches fell in succession.  The mutant fell back again but did not rise this time.  “Down after 217 hits?  Pathetic.  I’m only using the second stage of the Neko-ken, and you’re no match for me.”  He snorted.  “Course, even if I wasn’t using the Neko-ken you wouldn’t be much of a problem.”

“S…Senshi…D…Die…S…Senshi…”

            Ranma frowned and shook his head.  “You’re nothing but a weapon.  Somebody did this to ya, then sent ya to terrorize people.  I doubt there’s a way to turn ya back inta a normal human.”  Ranma raised his claw hand as he spoke.  “The only thing I can do is end your sufferin’.  Forgive me.”  His fingers blazed with an eerie red light before it solidified into a red glow that pulsated.  “Chi Claw!”

 

 

            The Senshi for their part stood there in almost stunned silence.  This one cat demon was ripping apart this half-breed demon like it wasn’t even there.  Mercury was scanning the newcomer trying to find out she could.  She made a mental note to find out about the Neko-ken…that is if she survived.  If this mutant was nothing to the cat demon what would happen if he decided to attack the weakened Senshi afterwards?  Her musings and scannings were cut short as she and her friends tried to keep their lunch down.  The cat demon stared as what remained at the mutant.  “Gomen,” She heard him say to the remains.  “I didn’t want to kill ya.  But I couldn’t let ya hurt anyone.”  He brought his hands together in front of him and bowed his head in prayer for a moment.  After he was done saying his respects to the remains he turned his head to the downed Senshi.  Mercury gasped.  There was no way any of them could get to Sailor Moon before him.  They tensed.  But the demon made no move towards her.  Instead he turned to them.  He stared at them for a moment.  His slitted eyes seemed to radiate sadness.  Finally he spoke.  “You’re friend’s probably got a concussion and a few bruises.  She should be fine other than that.”  He turned and made his way out of the courtyard.

            “Maitte!”  Jupiter yelled as she ran after him.  She exited the courtyard only seconds after him but found nothing.