The prologue of Hailstorm is a modified portion of Dark Phoenix's prologue to "Who's Your Daddy?", found on Tannim's page (http://tannim.anifics.com/Daddy/Daddy.html)

Sinking Into the Depths
 

Ami walked slowly down Yamano Street, pondering the events of the last few days. It seemed an epidemic spread across Tokyo nearly overnight, and most people were sick in bed for their second or third day. Though Ami did have a few of the symptoms of the quickly spreading sickness, she was not so unwell as to be unable to attend school. However, the school closed early due to the overwhelming number of absent staff, so she headed to the library to see if it remained open.

The last few days were uncomfortable for Ami. Her mother still woke her up early every day, and every day the woman would show her some new way to hold herself, make an attack, or defend herself, and expect her to remember each stance or movement by making her practice them all in different kata. This all forewent the fact that Atsuko always left her some strange task or extra training regimen to perform, and because of the last droid attack only four days ago and the plague saturated city, her mother rarely came home before midnight anymore. Yet despite this, if Ami did not perform the extra training prescribed by her mother, Atsuko made her swim twice as many laps (or more), or assigned her some other exercise likely designed solely to exhaust her.

Training under Atsuko was not for the weak in health.

Though Ami saw her mother every morning when the older woman woke her up for training, Ami could not bring herself to dredge up the argument between them to apologize for her behavior. The time just seemed inappropriate for meaningful discussion.

The truth of the matter was Ami felt scared of her father. Before, the man had no meaning in her life, being someone who she never knew, never met, and probably never would see. Now, he knew her secret, which not only meant he knew about her and where she lived, he also knew one of her deepest secrets, placing her in his mercies. What if he told someone her secret? What if he used her secret against her?

Really, it was an irrational fear, but years of not knowing her father and never having thought of him left Ami with no idea of what to do now that he reentered her life. Partially, anyway. He still hadn't shown up at the apartment, and Ami so far only saw him at the youma battle, but she knew he'd be showing up more often now that he fancied himself her protector. He made that obvious to her when he shielded her from the droid's attacks at the cake shop. And he's standing in that abandoned lot across the street, too, so-

Ami quickly hid behind the corner of the building next to the abandoned lot- the next intersection read 35th Street- and carefully inched around the corner to see what he was up to. A dirty and unkempt man, harried from days of travel, stood before him, carrying a huge travel pack and holding an umbrella that went out of style long ago, shouting some sort of challenge. Her father's clothes appeared damp, but no open water sources were nearby.... What were they doing? Ami stepped out from behind the building to find out more from them, decreasing the displacement between them and herself.

The travel worn man shouted, "You can't hide anymore, Ranma! This is for abandoning your fiancées!" He leaped high into the air and fell toward her father's position, who jumped away before the man landed. A huge crater formed under the man's feet when he landed.

Ranma? That was the name of her father, wasn't it? Just the sight of such an impossible leap and an equally impossibly large impact crater stunned Ami to immobility.

"Ryoga, you jerk! What're you trying to do? I thought you'd be happy to have me out of the way!" Ranma growled as he wearily circled Ryoga, unknowingly blocking Ami from Ryoga's line of sight.

Ryoga glared at Ranma while shouting, "It's all your fault, too! If you hadn't left, I wouldn't be having these problems! I'm going to kill you, Ranma!"

Ryoga didn't immediately attack Ranma. He glared a minute longer, then said, "Akane married a man named Shitori Sanji, did you know that? She never loved you!"

Ryoga's announcement gave Ranma pause, allowing the stranger the time to charge and attack her father. Ami watched as they fought swiftly at speeds she dared not hope to achieve. Their movements were easy enough to follow, but Ami could not possibly catalogue all the different attacks or blocks either party used. By the time she identified a specific strike or block, both combatants had already performed two or three more interactions.

Her father shouted something akin to "Roasted Chestnuts", then launched a high speed volley of punches before jumping back and away from the other man, who he had identified as Ryoga. Ami looked around Ranma at Ryoga, who took two or three bandanas off of his head while glancing in her father's direction.

"This time, I'll get you, Ranma," he said. "There's no more running away now. Let's finish this the way it started all those years ago."

"I've never run away from a fight, Ryoga, and I'm not gonna start now." Ranma dug his heels into the ground and took up an unfamiliar stance. Ryoga frowned.

"You ready, P-chan? 'Cause this is really gonna hurt! There's no way you're going to beat me!" Ranma shouted.

Ami stood still, clueless as to what they were talking about and hoping neither had noticed her yet. Participating in high speed martial arts battles is very hazardous to one's health, and Atsuko probably wouldn't be happy with her if she started getting into fights that didn't involve her.

The bandanas in the other man's hands disappeared from her sight as the two men engaged in another round of combat. Though both were very good and fought very hard, Ami easily saw and readily understood that her father was steadily giving ground and on the verge of letting down his defenses. Was he trying to lose?

The other man in the yellow and black clothes, Ryoga, landed a solid punch to Ranma's gut, sending him flying to land around 15 meters in front of her. He rolled up onto his knees and clutched his stomach, spitting out phlegm and some blood. Ryoga picked up a nearby stone, about the size of her computer tower, and threw it up in the air. When it fell back toward him, he casually swung at it with one of the newly reappeared bandanas and cleaved it in two. The two halves of the rock crumbled upon impact with the ground.

"This time, Ranma, there's no getting away," said Ryoga, casually spinning the bandanas, then letting them loose with quick flicks of his wrist. The bandanas flew straight toward her father, who had managed to roll away in time, but now they were headed toward her....

"What.. are those?" voiced Ami, completely frozen by the gruesome thought of extremely sharp bandanas cutting her into pieces. What would her mother think if she came home decapitated? She'd never hear the end of it at school!

What am I thinking? I'll be dead. That was it. She was going to die, and not of old age, or even from fighting youma, demons, or droids. Some stupid piece of cloth would be her undoing, who would have thought?

"Ami!" She heard her father's voice distantly, and there was an impact, and suddenly she lay staring up at the sky. The sun's brilliance burned her eyes in its path of ascension. What had saved her?

She looked down to see her father above her, having tackled her away from the strange headgear projectiles.

"Ami, are you alright?" Ranma let go of her and touched her shoulder softly.

Suddenly she was filled with anxiety at how close her father was. Who was this man who had saved her life so easily? She backed away from his touch. "I'm okay now," she said.

The man did not relax in the slightest at her pronouncement. He instead turned away from her and looked at Ryoga, who stood dumbfounded. "Ryoga! You could have hit her with those! I'm going to kill you!" he shouted before leaping at the man. Ryoga picked up and opened his umbrella, blocking Ranma's strike, then bounded over the wall behind him. Ranma followed closely behind.

"Wha.... What happened?" For a few moments, Ami could only stare at the debris around her. Deciding that going home would be the best way to spend the rest of her day, she stood up, picked up one of the yellow and black spotted bandanas which lay embedded in the ground, then stalked toward her home.

When she arrived home, Ami immediately thought of turning back to go out. There, on her doorstep, was someone she just could not deal with today. It was.... Minako, with Artemis on her shoulder and a large bag hanging from her arm.

"Minako, why are you here? I told you, I'm not sick!" Minako was the only other girl on their team who didn't get sick from the bug floating around, so she had taken it upon herself to go on a crusade to the home of each Senshi and make sure they 'got well soon'. Minako had already visited Makoto and Rei, and planned on stopping by her house before going on to Usagi's. Ami tried to convince the girl she wasn't sick by any means, but Minako just couldn't take the hint, no matter how blatantly obvious it was given.

"Come on, Ami! Can't I just stop by for a visit? Wow, you live in such a nice apartment, it looks bigger than my house. Are you sure this is an apartment?" Minako said. She looked around while waiting for Ami to unlock the door.

"Yes, Minako, this is just an apartment, even if it is big. Alright, come in. The house is a mess, though, I haven't gotten around to cleaning up the rooms yet." Ami unlocked the door and went inside.

"Oh, that's okay, Ami. Hey, I brought you something, in case you're not feeling well. I know how you love sandwiches and, well, soup is supposed to be the best thing to eat when you're sick, so I decided to combine them to make something better." Minako peeked around one of the doorways to look into the living room. "Wow, that's a big TV. I wish my TV was that big."

"You... what? You combined a sandwich and soup? Ah, um." Ami wasn't sure how to continue, and didn't want to know how Minako had managed to put soup into a cutlet sandwich. Such matters were very dangerous topics of discussion. She very discreetly dumped the contents of the... sandwich... in the waste disposal.

"Oh! A 20 disk CD player. I brought some soothing music you might like, wait, here, let me get it...." Minako dug into her bag while Artemis crawled toward Ami.

"Be careful, Ami! Minako's on a rampage today. She already blew up Makoto's favorite blender and Rei's stereo system.... Who knows what might go wrong now?" Artemis said from below her.

Ami started at seeing the white cat. "Oh, I forgot all about you, Artemis," Ami said. "Cats aren't allowed in the apartment complex, neither are any other pets. And my mother doesn't like cats, either." A crash resounded as Minako's disks spilled all over the floor.

"I'll get them," the blond girl shouted, and Ami rolled her eyes as she watched Minako crawl around the floor picking up the various optical disk media.

"Minako, Ami says cats aren't allowed in the apartment," Artemis started as he walked toward his ward.

"What? Oh. Well, then I guess we'd better go, huh?" Minako appeared to be embarrassed as she looked up from grabbing the last of her CDs. "Sorry Ami, I'm such a klutz some time. Um. I'll just come back later and check on you then, okay?" She stood up and, after stuffing all her CDs in the bag, picked Artemis up and placed him on her shoulder again.

"That won't be necessary!" Ami hastily said. "I mean, um, my mom's a doctor, so she takes care of me. I don't get sick often, anyway."

Minako laughed. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Well, call me if you need anything. I'm going to Usagi's house, then."

Ami walked her to the front door.

"Well, bye Ami. See you later, then," said Minako.

"Bye Minako. See you in school," replied Ami.

Ami gratefully closed her Geometry book and took a deep breath. She'd managed to complete chapter 12, with the theorems regarding angles whose rays formed tangents with a circle.... Granted, the assignment had been in chapter 3, dealing with centroids and medians of a triangle, but the coursework simply was not accelerated enough for her, and Ami liked to work at her own pace. Maybe next week she would borrow a few books on prospective geometry and begin on that until the class caught up with her. Certainly that would be much more entertaining than completing the math book and sitting in class with nothing to do.

Two hours had passed since Minako left the apartment. Supposedly, the girl was to come back for another visit to check on her, but Ami planned to be asleep by that time. She just lay her head on the pillow when her communicator beeped at her. Picking it up and pressing the button for audio, she heard Minako say, "Hey guys, Esmeraude's got Chibi-Usa at the pharmacy in Juban General hospital! I've got this one covered, though. Don't worry about a thing!"

Ami immediately got out of bed and left for the hospital.

"Mercury Bubbles Blast!" she shouted, creating a fog in the dimly lit pharmacy of Juban General Hospital. Hopefully, the hospital wouldn't be too damaged by their battle, and her mother wouldn't find out they were here.

"Everyone, you shouldn't have come here, you should all be in bed," Venus said matter-of-factly.

"Venus," began SailorMoon, "thank you for fighting alone and protecting Chibi-Usa."

"Don't worry, you're not in danger anymore now that we're all here," Ami said to Chibi-Usagi.

Esmeraude, impatient with the fog, shouted, "Droid! Attack them now!" She disappeared in the slowly dispersing mist.

"Mars Fire Surround!" Mars shouted, blasting the droid to impede it. SailorMoon didn't look to well, and staggered a moment before Tuxedo Mask caught her.

"SailorMoon, don't get sick now! I want you to get well soon," Tuxedo Mask said in what Ami supposed was an encouraging speech.

SailorMoon stood up from Mask's arms, struck a small pose, then shouted, "Moon Princess Halatation!" She extinguished the droid, and another dark crystal shard shattered.

"Rrr, you're really getting on my nerves! I'll get you all later, I must be going to do other things. You won't win next time, Senshi! O-hohohohoho!" Esmeraude disappeared.

Mercury sighed, then looked past where SailorMoon and Tuxedo Mask were making out. There, in the doorway, was her mother. Atsuko nodded to her, an indicator that the woman approved, well, something anyway. She quickly disappeared around the corner.

"If you guys don't mind, I'm going home now, I don't feel well," said SailorMoon from within Mamoru's embrace.

Ami could not have agreed with her more.