"Calm down Usagi, it was just a joke," Rei snapped as the group of
girls got off the subway train.

Usagi was still meticulously examining each hair with a small pocket
mirror."Leave me alone," Usagi snapped back."I'm suprised that you
would even want to be seen in public with an old hag like me," Usagi
said after a few minutes of walking.

"Usagi, Rei is older than you are," Ami pointed out helpfully.

"But I don't have granchildren!" Rei flared.

"I'm only sixteen and I'm already an old hag!" Usagi cried.

Makoto, being the tallest among them, couldn't help but notice the
strange looks they were getting from other pedestrians."Cut it out
Usagi, you're making a scene," Makoto hissed in her ear.

Usagi managed to stiffle her wailing, but she could not stop the small
sniffles that continued to plague her.  Rei was so mean to her!

Rini walked silently behind the others.  Ami said that Endymion was in
Nerima and that he was relatively stationary, so at least they didn't
have to chase after him, but this slow and easy pace was worse.  If
they had had to run after him then at least her mind could be occupied
by something else besides her reunion with Endymion.  The excitement
had quickly worn away, leaving apprehension and fear behind.  How was
she supposed to treat her son?  She couldn't treat him like a little
child and tell him what to do, he was older than her, and she was
still to much of a child for that any way.  Like a big brother?  That
could work, but how would Endymion react to an eleven year old little
girl being his mother?  Would he even believe her?

Most likely not, not at first anyway.  Her and the other senshi would
probably have to transform to convince him that they were being
truthful.  Afterall, who wouldn't believe the famous Sailor Senshi?
Luna's angry rebuke drew Rini's attention.

"Usagi, stop this nonsense at once," the cat shouted from inside her
duffel bag."You don't have any gray hairs!  Now stop swinging me
around and act your age!"

"But Luna," Usagi whined,"how do you know that I don't have any, you
can't even see out of the bag?"

"Owww, hey, don't take it out on me," Artemis cried out.  The bag took
on a life of its own as the two cats fought for a minute.

"Sorry, just had to take care of something.  Now Usagi, you can't
possibly have gray hair because your family never shows any of the
detrimental signs of aging.  You'll live four or five millenia then
drop dead looking like a 25 year old," Luna said sounding much more
reasonable.

"Oh, well why didn't you say so?" Usagi enthused.  She patted the bag
with the cats in it, earning a hiss when she accidentally hit Artemis'
head too hard.
****

"Shouldn't you be studying, Ranma?" Nabiki asked Ranma.  She had
expected to find him in the dojo, and she hadn't been disappointed.
It was kind of unnerving to see Ranma going about his business looking
like something that had escaped from the bowels of hell.  He turned
around to regard her with startling bright silver eyes.

Ranma pulled his chi back in, carrying the black aura and silver eyes
with it."Hey Nabiki.  Is that a new kind of perfume your wearing?" he
asked as if he hadn't heard Nabiki's question.  His senses were
starting to remain enhanced even after dropping the aura.

Nabiki's eyes narrowed as she studied Ranma.  No, he wasn't
joking."Why yes it is Ranma, would you like some?  I'm sure it would
go well with your girl form."

Emphatically, Ranma shook his head."Why would I be studying?" he
asked, finally acknowledging her earlier question.

"Well finals are in less than two weeks, and I figured that you would
want to pass your junior year.  If I was mistaken I'm terribly sorry,"
answered Nabiki sarcastically.

Ranma shrugged and said,"I'll get around to it eventually.  Right now
I'm more concerned with learning how to control my new...whatever it
is." To demonstrate Ranma held out his arm and loosened his chi
slightly, causing only the arm to take on the black aura."It's not
like a normal battle aura.  There are some really weird properties to
it that I need to learn.  I also need to figure out how to hide this
thing," Ranma pushed his bangs aside revealing the black crescent,"or
Kuno is going to have a field day calling me a foul sorceror and all
that."

Nabiki couldn't fault him on his logic. If she started looking like a
demon every time she used her art, the family would starve.  In
Ranma's case there would just be more people trying to kill him."Well,
I just came to tell you that dinner is ready."

"Wow, thanks.  Free of charge?" Ranma asked.  Then he remembered who
he was talking to and quickly bolted, leaving a fuming Nabiki alone in
the dojo.  He definitely couldn't afford to get on her bad side now,
not after getting his money back.  Chances were that his father would
be at the meal too.  He could find out what that crystal was and why
it had messed around with his chi.

All the food was laid out on the table when he entered the house.  He
took his cutomary seat and waited for everyone else to arrive.  Akane
came first.  She glared at him hatefully while fingering the bandage
on her head.  The fathers came next.  They were walking sideways, the
shogi board held between them.  As they took glances to make sure they
didn't run into anything, the other would rearrange the pieces to his
advantage.  By the time they were at the table Nabiki too had taken
her seat.  Genma and Soun appeared to be unable to decide what to do.
Whoever tried to sit down first would surely lose a number of valuable
pieces, but then again Kasumi's wonderful cooking was calling to both
men.  The problem was solved when Kasumi came in carrying the final
dish.  She set it down and smoothly lifted the game board from the
adults' grasp.

Deprived of the only obstacle between them and the table, Genma and
Soun sat down.  Kasumi returned after carrying the board by to the
parlor and they had a normal, almost quiet and uneventful meal.  Ranma
even forgot to steal all of his fahter's food in order to force him to
tell him about the crytal.
****

Usagi had complained loudly about being famished so they had stopped
at a nearby McDonald's and feasted on some of the world's unhealthiest
food.  She was still loudly slurping on a massive ice cream cone that
was composed of no less than nine different kinds off ice cream when
they got off the bus in Nerima.

It was like walking into another world.  Most of the buildings showed
signs of recent repairs, the roads were a mix of old and new asphault,
and every third building housed the main office of either a
construction company or a psychiatrist.  Almost everyone they passed
on the street had a nervous, wild gleam to their eyes, like they were
expecting an armed invasion at any moment.

"This is creepy," Minako said."I thought all the stories about Nerima
were just myths, but...wow, is that a crater?" she finished, pointing
down a small side street.  The street and the face of a small grocery
store were had a very large chunk of material missing from them.

"I haven't heard of any explosions in the news recently," Ami wondered
aloud."Do you think that the whole ward is really haunted like
everyone at schools says?"

Makoto answered,"I doubt it.  I hear that there are a lot of really
good martial artists here, world-class even.  Maybe we could stop by a
dojo and see if that's true.  I would love to spar with one of the
best, just to see how I rank."

"We didn't come all this way to check out dojo's, Makoto," Rei
said."We're looking for Rini's son, that's it."

"I wish I could have got in touch with Mamo-chan.  Nerima is a
dangerous place," Usagi said after inhaling the last of her snack.

"If there's anybody that should be scared, it's the idiots that make
this place dangerous.  We are the Sailor Senshi afterall, so what do
we have to worry about?" Makoto asked no one in particular.  She
realized just how loud she had said that and hurriedly spun around,
making sure that no one had heard that wasn't meant too.

Ami spoke up once again,"What are we going to tell Endymion once we
find him?" She led them down another street as she followed the small
map displayed on her computer.

"That Rini is his mother, of course," Usagi answered.  What else could
they say to him?

Rei shook her head."Meatball head, you're hopeless.  We can't just go
up to a boy, that's never met us, has no idea who we are, and tell him
that Rini is his mother.  Did you even think that he may not know that
he was adopted?" She assumed that Endymion was adopted.  There wasn't
much else that could be done for a little baby."We don't even know
what the name he goes by is."

"Yeah, we should just tell him that his mother isn't his real mother.
Once we manage to convince him of that, we can move on to the more
outrageous facts, like Rini being his mother and Usagi his
grandmother," Makoto added.

"Are we going to tell him our secret idenities?" Minako asked.

"We'll probably have to in order to convince him that we're telling
the truth," Rei said.

"Is that really a good idea?  We don't know him as a person yet.  He
oculd be untrustworthy." Makoto feared that they were getting their
hopes up.  Endymion could turn out to be a car thief or a muderer or
something.

"We can trust Endymion, I know we can!" Rini shouted.  What right did
they have to talk about her little boy like that?

"I'm sure we can Rini.  From what my computer has picked up on of
Endymion's energy pattern, he is very powerful.  I believe someone of
his abilities would have come to the attention of the authorities long
ago if he was a trouble maker."

They walked in silence after that until Ami said,"He should be near
the end of this block.  Is everyone ready?"

They all answered yes, including the two cats they were carrying with
them.
****

Kasumi had just dried the last dish from supper when someone rang the
doorbell.  Who could be visiting?  It surely wasn't any of Ranma's
fiances or friends, they were always much more direct, always saving
her the trouble of greeting them by jumping over the wall into the
backyard or making their own entrances.  She dried her hands and took
her apron off before answering the door.

"Yes, may I help you?" she asked as she opened the door.  Oh dear.
There were five young woman, all very beautiful, and a cute little
girl with wonderful pink hair.  She so hoped that they weren't more
fiances of Ranma's.  He had so much trouble with the ones he already
had.

"We were looking for a young man that may live here.  He'd be
seventeen years old, with black hair, and possibly have a small black
crescent shaped tattoo on his forehead," said a girl that looked so
much like Akane that Kasumi didn't believe she could have told them
apart if not for the slight difference in their hair styles and eye
color.

"You must mean Ranma.  He's in the dojo practicing now, but I'm sure
he wouldn't mind having visitors.  If you would follow me?" Kasumi
motioned for them to enter and led them through the house and towards
the dojo."If I may ask, what are your intentions towards Ranma?"

"It's a personal matter," the nice girl with long black hair said.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Near the entrance to the dojo, Kasumi said,"Ranma may
be using a new technique that he learned recently, so don't be alarmed
by his appearance.  He's perfectly human I assure you."
****

They all exchanged guarded looks.  What was that last comment supposed
to mean?  The polite woman that had greeted them at the door opened
the door of a traditional Japanese dojo.  It became woefully clear
what she had meant as they followed her into the training hall.

Near the center of the dojo, a humanoid mass of blackness was darting
around three wooden dummies that looked like they had seen better days
and were set up in a triangular pattern.  Every time it passed one of
the dummies, a small piece of the training equipment was torn away by
a blurring band of shadow.

"Ranma, you have visitors."

Ranma stopped moving and faced them.  Now that he wasn't an
indistinguishable blur, they saw the shining silver eyes and sharply
defined physique of shadow.  Every single one of them had to fight the
urge to pull out her henshin rod and transform, even Rini who knew
that she was possibly facing her son.

Ranma saw the girls all gawking at him and and nearly choked.  No way!
There, were five of them, and a little girl.  Please don't let them be
fiances.  Please!  Seeing that he was frightening them, Ranma
releashed his chi and tried to smile reassuringly.

Rini and the others gasped as the blackness that surrounded Ranma
seemed to be drawn within him.  When it was gone, there stood a young
man who's lack of a shirt revealed his wonderfully muscled chest and
abdomen.  He smiled a small smile at them.  The black crescent over
his brow was unmistkable

"I'll you all talk now," Kasumi said. She left the dojo and determined
that she needed to find Nabiki.  She wasn't going to tell her sister
about Ranma's guests, she was instead going try to keep her curious
sister occupied so that Ranma could have some privacy.

"Um hi, I'm Ranma," he greeted them."Before we even start, none of you
are engaged to me are you?" Better to go ahead and get this part out
of the way.

"Engaged?!" everyone but Rini and Ami bellowed.

Ranma saw their reaction and knew immediately that this wasn't one of
those situations."Oh sorry, it's just that Pop has engaged me to so
many girls that I'm sorta cautious now."

Rini couldn't believe her ears.  Endymion, correction, Ranma had just
said that the man who had raised him had engaged him to more than one
girl.  That horrible man!  When she got her hands on him...ooooo, she
was going to do something very not nice!

"You have more than one fiance?" Minako, the closet romantic asked.
The thought of talking to Ranma's father and maybe making arrangements
for herself flitted through her mind for an instant, but common sense
and the knowledge that Ranma was Rini's daughter stiffled her desire.
Damn he was sexy!

Ranma proceeded to towel himself off and then answered,"Three right
now, four if you look at it a certain way, but there were a couple
engagements that I managed to get out of."

Rini was really, really going to hurt that man!

"Okay, now you girls know one of the aspects of my screwed up life,
maybe you could tell me what you want," Ranma said.  That girl that
looked like Akane was unnerving.  He kept expecting her to scream
something about him being a pervert and attack him with a mallet, but
this girl had a totally different aura than his fiance.

Rei stepped forward and asked,"Did you know that you are adopted?"

Ranma laughed for a couple minutes.  If only he could have been so
lucky.  Hell, he could get out of three of the engagements just by
being adpoted.  After he stopped laughing, Ranma saw that the girl was
being serious and scowling at him."You're not joking are you?  I guess
you girls just made a mistake, sorry.  I'm Ranma Saotome of the
Saotome school of Anything Goes martial arts, and I'm sure that I'm
not adopted."

Usagi made herself known, and impressed her friends once again with
how serious she could be when it was necessary, by saying,"Ranma, that
crescent on your head is a family birth mark, see?" Her brow furrowed
in concentration for a few seconds, then with a flash of golden light,
a golden crescent like Ranma's black one revealed itself.

Ranma approached Usagi and examined the golden crescent carefully,
making sure not to laugh at her ridiculous hair style.  It really was
there, just like his except for much shinier.  Still, that proved
nothing."That's a nice trick, probably good at parties too, but it
would take more than that to convince me that I'm adopted."

Usagi continued,"When you were a baby, your mother left a small black
crystal with you when she left.  It was shaped like a tear drop and
attached to a gold chain."

Usagi's words had the desired effect.  Ranma jerked like he had been
slapped.  How big of a coincidence was that?  It hadn't even been a
day since he had found the crystal in the first place and now a bunch
of girls, one with a similar mark on her forehead, came looking for
him, talking about that crystal.  Ranma didn't say anything to the
girls as he walked out of the dojo.  Genma had A LOT of explaining to
do if that girl was telling the truth.

Usagi led her little crew of adolescent and one pre-adolescent girls
after Ranma.  This was what she was made for.  Whenever there was
major trouble, Usagi took charge of the situation and never let her
friends down.  This time it was her daughter and grandson that she had
to help.  She wouldn't fail.

Ranma found his father just where he expected him.  Genma was playing
checkers with Soun in the parlor and was in the process of prying his
way into a new bottle of saki.  Ranma gave him no time to move.  He
walked over to his father calmly, reached down and grabbed him by the
throat, and slammed him into the wall.  His black aura coursed up his
arm and surrounded his hand for a moment.  Ranma pulled his hand back,
but the black energy remained, holding Genma's struggling form against
the wall.

Genma saw all the girls arrayed in the doorway behind his son thought
that he was done for.  He had hoped that none of the other girls he
had engaged Ranma too would show up, but five at once, he might as
well have told Nodoka the truth all those years ago.  Ranma was going
to kill him, but he didn't have a nice sharp katana to do it with.
Then Genma caught sight of a golden crescent on one of the girls'
forehead, and he knew that death would be a blessing to what he would
soon endure.  He was pretty sure that there was no escape, but that
didn't stop him from trying.  His kicking and jerking at the wall was
only serving to put more force on his throat, though, and he
eventually ceased struggling.

Once the fat bastard had stilled, Ranma said,"Oyaji, if there's ever
been one time in your life where your life depends on how honest you
are, this is it, understand?"

Genma looked down to his son and croaked out a,"Yes." It would be a
lot easier if Ranma would at least let his feet touch the floor, then
he could talk halfway decently.

"This girl..." Ranma looked at the girl with the retarded hair.

"Usagi," Usagi answered the unspoken question.

"Usagi says that I'm adopted.  I didn't believe her, but then she made
that little moon appear on her forehead.  It looks a lot like mine,
don't you think?" Genma once again answered yes."Turns out that it's a
birthmark from her family.  I still didn't believe her, but then she
mentioned a little black crystal that was supposed to have been left
with me when I was a baby.  The way she describes it, it sounds just
like the one I found in your stuff earlier today.  That crystal gave
me my little moon and screwed my chi up so that it's black and acts
all weird.  Now, am I adopted?"

Soun had been silently gathering his courage and chose this time to
save his friends life.  He bounded towards Ranma with suprising speed,
the unopened bottle of saki held in his hand like a club.
Unfortunately, Ranma's foot was faster.  It impacted brutally with
Soun's face, creating a meaty SMACK and propelling him mercilessly
into the wall.  Noiselessly, Soun's inert body slid down the wall and
crumpled into a heap of broken man.

Genma still hadn't said anything, so Ranma once again prompted
him."Are you my father?" he asked slowly.

Genma was almost too afraid to breathe, but he finally manage to pull
in a shaky bit of air.  What could he tell him?  The truth? No, never,
but what else was there to tell?  He couldn't think of any plausible
lies that Ranma would believe.  He just hung off the wall, trying to
breathe.

Ranma's ire was steadily building.  Genma's silence was answering his
question as well as a written confession, but he wanted to hear the
words.  More than that though, he wanted to hear an apology.  An
apology for all the shit he had been put through, all the trouble his
father had caused, and most especially, all the damned fiances that he
had stuck him with.

Throughout this encounter, Usagi and the other girls remained silent.
Ranma had to find this out for himself.  They were all slightly scared
of bothering him just then, too, but how could they not be a little
bothered by Ranma's display.  They had barely even seen him move when
the other man had attacked him.  The older man had just snapped back
when he came in contact with the blur that they assumed was Ranma, and
flown into the wall like he was a doll.

Rini was kinda proud of Ranma.  He had grown up to be very handsome,
just like a prince should be, was an excellant fighter, so that he
could fight alongside her and her friends, and he really looked like
he was going to punish that horrible man who had raised him.

Genma looked helplessly at Ranma, and for the second time, saw his
color shifted aura appear.  He couldn't bring himself to look into the
silver depths of Ranma's burning eyes, but he could feel them pressing
down on him, making it even harder to breathe.

"Damnit, answer me!" Ranma roared.  The walls rattled with the force
of his demand.  Ranma was pleased to see a yellow stain spreading from
the crotch of Genma's gi down to the bottom of the left leg.

Ranma's demand also drew the attention of the other inhabitants of the
house.  Together, Kasumi and Nabiki came down the stairs and
manuevered their way into the room.  Kasumi saw her father slumped
against the wall and rushed over to him.  Nabiki remained silent,
observing with a keen eye all that happened.

Akane bulled her way through Usagi and her friend and shouted,"Ranma,
you pervert!"

Akane's claim followed only milliseconds after Genma's rasping
confession,"No, I'm not your father."

Ranma ignored Akane and allowed himself to smile under his aura.  It
wasn't a happy kind of smile, the kind you get when you find out that
you've just won the lottery, or the sad kind of smile for someone
you're taking pity on.  No, this smile was full of malice."Kiyaaa!"
along with the cry, Ranma relaxed the control over his chi much more
than was necessary to maintain the black aura.  The results were
spectacular.  The wall which Genma was pinned to was blown completely
away, carrying Genma into the yard with it, and Ranma's midnight
enshrouded form changed.

Ranma couldn't see the changes in his aura, but everyone else could.
It seemed to almost become blacker, if that were possible, but was in
fact drawing in light more rapidly than before, truly wrapping Ranma
in shadow for three feet in every direction.  Along his back, arms,
and legs, the utter blackness of his aura formed numerous spines of
varying length, the longest being those on either forearm that
resembled wickedly curved swords.  Most stunning, and frightening of
all, were the wings.  They were both beautiful and horrifying,
appearing to be much like bat wings.  The spaces where tightly
stretched membranes of skin would have been were instead filled in
with glowing planes of shining silver energy, the same energy that
formed the eyes of Ranma's black aura.

Ranma, his body encased in its demonic shell, stepped through the
space where the wall had once stood and glided towards his target.
Genma lay among the debris of the shattered wall, unmoving and
lifeless, except for an occasional groan of pain.
****

Author's Notes:  I'm on a roll.  This makes three in less than thirty
hours.  Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys this and you can send C&C to me
at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com