Ranma had come to the sad conclusion a few moments ago. He was not going to win this fight. He was just not strong enough. But he was determined not to give in. After all, Akane's life was at stake... but he was fighting a Demon. A creature not of this world. A creature without the limitations of mortals... one that had lived for over thousands of years, if its words were to be believed.
A flood of memories stormed through Ranma's mind as he dodged the demon's fists. How the twenty-foot tall demon had come to the Tendo Dojo, saw Akane fighting Ranma.... Okay, they were not "fighting" exactly.... Ranma had just insulted her cooking so she was beating him up with that mallet of hers. One look at Akane and the demon said, "Yes... You are the One."
So saying the demon flattened her with his large palm and then grabbed her and ran off. Ranma had immediately pursued. The demon had ignored him the whole time he ran after it. It had continued to ignore him as it set Akane on some type of stone altar in a cave until finally Ranma was given sufficient time to set up a 'Moko Takabisha.' The ki-ball that struck the demon only made it decided to finish him off to avoid further distractions.
Since releasing the 'Moko Takabisha,' Ranma had been on the defensive. The demon moved too fast to give him time to set anything more powerful up. His 'Amaguriken' only gave the demon time to swat him away, although he did notice that where his 'hundred punches per second' landed there were bruises, but bruises only. The maddening thing was that he could feel the power in the cave... only he did not have the time to collect it into a 'Hiryu Shoten Ha Revised.'
Ranma was afraid that even his most powerful technique was not enough. Of course, it was academic since he could not set it up. Unable to think of anything else, he asked the demon, "So why do you want such a uncute, tomboy like Akane, anyway?"
The demon paused, and thought about it a moment, and finally answered if, "Since I'm going to kill you anyway.... I simply want her power."
"Power?" Ranma replied as he dodged another of the demon's fists. "What power? The only power Akane has is to make perfectly good food toxic...."
"Hahaha.... Foolish mortal," the demon stated. "It is a wonder how you hu-mans survived without your Highlord guardians..."
'What is he talking about?' Ranma thought to himself. Out loud, he said, "Huh?"
The demon spoke in a soothing voice, "Why don't you just give up? You don't stand a change against me..."
"Right," Ranma replied unconvinced.
"You don't know who I am," the demon replied with a laugh. "I am Taque."
"Tak? So?" Ranma replied. He knew he was in trouble with a capital 'T.' The thought formed in his head, 'Nothing I do even phases this demon... What am I going to do?'
/*You need to relax, Ranma,*/ a voice spoke directly to his mind.
"No.... Taque!! One of three demons responsible for bringing down the mightiest of the human kingdoms!" Taque stated proudly.
"And which kingdom is that?" Ranma inquired trying to buy some more time. /*Who are you? Can you help me? */ Ranma asked the voice.
/* Who I am, I'll explain later...*/ the voice answered. /* Just do as I show you. */
"Why the Moon Kingdom!" the demon exclaimed. "Do you not know your own species' history?"
"Never heard of it!" Ranma simply stated. "What kind of name is that? Moon... Kingdom? Next thing'll let me it was on the Moon!"
Surprised, Taque replied defensively, "Well... It was! Even the Dark Kingdom and the Negaverse could not defeat it!"
"The Dark... Kingdom... Nega... verse? Now I really believe that you're making this up..." Ranma said.
"A thousand of your years the Moon Kingdom stood... until I, the great Taque, the grand Trin, and the unstoppable Tichve came and leveled it," Taque boasted.
As Taque went on about how he and the other two demons tore through the Moon Kingdom's soldiers, Ranma did as the voice told him to. He reached deep within himself, deeper than he had ever gone before, and he found something. Up until now, he had collected the ki he needed from his surrounding but this time what he was going to do would come solely from him. He was surprised at the amount of energy he found in himself.
As Ranma jumped into the air, he formed a ball of ki-energy within his hands that were in front of his chest, and at the apex of the jump he raised the ki-ball at Taque with a scream of, "Terra Dragon Fire Strike!"
The ball floating between his hands formed into a dragon's head and blew ki-fire at Taque. Taque's eyes opened wide as he said, "Impossible! All Sailor Senshi are female..."
What's the Sailor Senshi have to do with... Ranma thought as he saw the ki-fire consume Taque completely.
Ranma after he regained his breathe ran to where Akane was. He noted all the injuries and the blood covering her. He knew that he had taken too long with the Demon. There was not enough time to get to the nearest hospital which was over three hours away running at his top speed. So he did the only thing he could. He cradling her body as her life slipped away as she struggled to breath. All the while thinking of the things he wished to tell her...
/* It's not too late, Ranma, */ the voice in his mind said.
"Nani?" he replied. He had forgotten about the voice in his grief.
/* Set her back now, */ the voice in his head said. "I'll take care of her," the voice said out loud this time.
Ranma turned around and saw a strange man walking towards him after he set Akane back down on the altar.
The stranger straighten out Akane's body with her hands crossed over her chest giving the impression that Akane was just sleeping instead of dying.
"What can you do..." Ranma began but was stopped as he was the stranger's right hand start to glow. The glow was a gentle blue and it reminded Ranma of the Ocean for some reason.
As the stranger's glowing hand passed over Akane's body, Ranma could see that Akane was no longer laboring for breathe and that the color was returning to Akane's face.
"Sit down, Ranma," the stranger said softly, "it will take some time to fully Heal Akane Tendo. In the meantime, I'll answer some of questions you might have..."
Ranma sat down and looked at the stranger. His first impression was that the stranger was a gaijin simply because of his size. There are not that many Japanese men that stood six feet tall or had white as the color of their hair. But this stranger did. The stranger's brown eyes looked on with amusement as Ranma studied him. But the stranger spoke and acted like a old-fashion samurai. Ranma always tried to identify where his opponents came from in hopes of understanding thus defeating them. But Ranma saw none of the usual characteristics that could identify the stranger's origins. As his eyes moved down, he noted that the stranger was wearing white armor that completely covered his body from the neck down. There was a blue belt with various objects attached at the stranger's waist. The white was broken by the black boots and a sword belt that secured a sword to the stranger's back. The handle of the sword rested over the his right shoulder.
The outfit, for some reason, made Ranma picture a sailor's uniform. His question was simply, "Who are you?"
The stranger laughed and replied, "Start with the hard ones.... Okay. The simply answer, for now, is I'm Sailor Sol."
"Sailor Sol?" Ranma asked confused. "Like Sailor V... and Sailor Moon?"
"Kind of," Sailor Sol replied. "As the star Sol gives the various planets their light... I give the Sailor Senshi their power."
"Okay..." Ranma answered not sure he understood but that was usual for him.
"What was that demon..." Ranma began.
"Taque... the demon's name was Taque," Sailor Sol inserted when he saw that Ranma had already forgotten the demon's name.
"Right," Ranma continued. "What did Taque mean with all that he said.... about the Highlord guardians, Moon Kingdom, and History?"
"Hmmm... That's a little complicated," Sailor Sol stated. "The answer to that question will take some time. But we have nowhere to go at the moment so.... The best to start, I suppose, is the Beginning.
"In the Beginning, there was the Source and I mean the Source of Everything. I suppose that others have other names for the Source, such as the Creator or Kami-sama, but let's not complicate things. It'll be efficient for now.
"To continue... From the Source came Creation, which can be split into the Lords of Order and Chaos and the Cosmos. The Cosmos consists of... Multiverses, Omniverse, and the like... but that's not important right now. All that is important is that while in one sense Creation happened in an instant.... There are six parts to it. Each part is called a World or a Realm.
"The Highlords of Atlantis, as they were to be called by humans, came from the First Realm of Creation. As such, they are the closest and the most powerful beings in Creation after their parents, the Primal Ones. The Primal Ones you probably know better as the seven elements, Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Spirit, Space, and Time. The first four being female and the last three male. Well... The Highlords are offsprings of the Primal Ones.
"As it came to pass, over seventy-five thousand years ago, the Highlords settled down together. There, the Highlords studied the Mystical and Martial Arts. The results were High Magic and Zenbudo Ryuu of Martial Arts. Over time, various people heard of them and their powers and sought them out for various reasons. The ones that came to learn, to study, and to grow became known as their Disciples. Together all twelve Highlords, their numerous Disciples, and the Disciples' families created the first city-state to be called Atlantis. Again, over time, other people came to hear of Atlantis and the wise Highlords and began to follow their example of living in peace. So, by default, Atlantis became the capital city of the entire world as everyone saw the wisdom, kindness, and understanding that the Highlords showed.
"After about three thousand years had passed the oldest, strongest of the Highlords, the one called Zaxxon, created a pocket dimension in the fabric of the Universe and filled it with a portion of his energies... his magic. He allowed his Disciples to tap into this Plane of Power to help them with their magic spells.
"Soon mortals could perform High Magic similar to but not on the same scale as the Highlords themselves could. Those that used the High Magic of the Highlords and especially those that could use the Highlord Zaxxon's Plane of Power began to change. In the beginning, these changes were subtle and went unnoticed but people began to realize that those who touched the High Magic were living longer, never grew old or got sick. Basically, they had become Immortal. They helped their shorter-lived brethren with their powers. And things were good.
"But with everything outside of the Source, there is a Beginning and an End. For reason of their own, the Highlords left the Earth Realm sometime over fifteen thousand years ago. Before they left, each of the twelve Highlords gave Humanity twelve Objects of Power. To you, the important one would be the Pool of Shape.
"Anyways... after they left, there came the 'Great Disaster.' What happened was that all the ice that had accumulated on the Poles became too much. So, with all that weight, the tectonic plates moved as one turning the arctics into tropics and vice-er-versa. Atlantis which was in the tropics became Antarctica. Yet the people survived the tectonic displacement. The saddest part was that not only had Humanity has lost the Wisdom of the 'Council on High' but their city and libraries as well.
"Of course, Life went on. Other civilizations rose and fell, trying to take Altantis's place. Even stealing its name from time to time but never truly succeeding. One of the direct-descendents of the Highlord's Disciples re-discovered the Plane of Power by accident. Unprepared, he unleashed its power in a chaotic burst of raw energy. The Second Great Change, as it was called, gave those with the genes that could access the Plane great powers and abilities.
"Only this time, without the Highlords to counter-balance them and to show them their place... those changed began to think of themselves as gods. Thus giving the rise to the world the various pantheons, such as the Norse, Greeks, Egyptian, and Asians. For a while, about five hundred years... various people worshiped them.
"Anyway, getting back to History.... while the High Magic could only be used by these new self-styled 'gods,' other people began to develop their own magic, based on what remained of the Highlords' teachings. What they created was called Low Magic since it was localized where as High Magic was not.
"When Low Magic became popular and stable, various people began to study it, to learn it, and to grow from it thus giving birth to what was called the Golden Millennium. Not that it lasted only a thousand years... actually it lasted about twelve hundred, fifty years. But I digress... Through Low Magic and the Objects of Power that remained, it was possible to settle the various planets in the solar system. Thus giving Humanity more 'elbow room' as it were. Once settled onto the various planets. Humanity had found the limits to Low Magic. There was nothing left to study about Low Magic. So they turned to other Arts beside Magic. Most historian arbitrarilly assign this point in Time was the end the Golden Millennium, since they considered it as an Era of Study and Understanding."
"But what does that..." Ranma asked impatiently.
"I'm getting to that," Sailor Sol answered. "I realized I'm telling you a lot things... but you'll need to know the Past in order to understand the Present. As I was saying... Humanity had settled the other planets of the solar system. First the Moon, which is a planet in its own right, and then Mars and Venus, and spreading out from there. Over time, each planet developed its own characteristics.
"There were the usual problems with settling new territories. Also all that energy and magic that went into the settling of the solar system didn't go unnoticed. The Devils of the Fifth Realm took note of it and they wished to take the Objects of Power, that the Highlords created, for themselves. They knew that only those with High Magic could defeat them. Those that can weild High Magic were few and far between. Yet, they destingushed themselves so much that they became to be known as the champions of their particular world.
"So these champions of Humanity fought the Devils and after five long years convinced them to return to their World and leave Humanity alone. Unfortunately, a lot of these champions, chosen solely on the basis of genetics, were killed off. Most in suicide runs taking some Devils with them.
"Noticing the decline of champions and the poor skills they had, each world began to train those with the power of High Magic. These trained soldiers became known as Sailor Senshi. Each world had at least one powerful Sailor Senshi who would be named after their world. The others, less powerful Champions, were separated by called themselves 'Knights' for their respective worlds.
"In fourteen years, it became obvious that the most powerful Champions shared similar traits with the Highlords... So when the issue of planetary leadership came up, it was naturally that these most powerful Champions, these Sailor Senshi, became the leaders of their world. With the hope that they would lead Humanity like the Highlords did.
"Two years after assuming the Throne, Sailor Moon, now Queen Serenity, for various reasons of her own, made the Moon Kingdom a matriarchal society."
"A what society?" Ranma asked.
"A matriarchal society... is a society in which only a woman can rule. Like the Amazon society Shampoo and Cologne grew up in, which, incidentally, are the direct-descendents of the survivors of the Moon Kingdom.
"After twenty or so odd years of the Sailor Senshi becoming the leaders of their planets, it become obvious that a central, unifying government was needed for the solar system. Since Terra choice to distance itself from the other colonies, they chose the next oldest world, the Moon. To show their loyalty and willingness to follow Queen Serenity of the Moon, the other Sailor Senshi surrendered their Power Crystals to her. With the help of the Court Mages, Queen Serenity combined the crystals with her own and created the Imperial Silver Crystal, the 'Ginzuishou,' after a similar Crystal that the Pantheons had created sometime ago.
"With the solar system united, except Terra, under Queen Serenity, peace came to the system thus beginning the Silver Millennium, an era of Peace and Goodwill. At the beginning of the Silver Millennium, Queen Serenity decreed that only woman could be Sailor Senshi. Why? You'll have to ask her. Most thought it was ridiculous, after all most of the Champions that won against the Devils were male and only the Moon Kingdom had some ahmm... so-called troubles... with some highly-placed men, but none save the Council of Elders on Terra cried foul when Queen Serenity used the Pool of Shape to turn the then male Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars, and Sailor Uranus into female versions of themselves."
"What? That sounds like my curse..." Ranma screamed.
"Thought you be interested and yes, it is related," Sailor Sol said. "I'll get to that soon.... Anyway, Mercury and Mars excepted their change while Uranus, while still loyal to the Moon, tried to use magic to undo it. But since the Pool of Shape was created by the Highlord Vattaz, it was impossible to undo. The best Uranus was able to do as attain an androgynous state, a state with both male and female characteristics.
"Life continued on, Queen Serenity took a mate and had a daughter, of course. The Queen named her daughter after herself, as was the custom of the Moon Kingdom. At the same time, the Champion of Terra received his second child, a son who was named Gaea. As it happens, it was Gaea who inherited the Power of Sailor Terra. The first son, Endymion, went on to become the First Knight of Terra... an older, and to Terrains, a more important position than Sailor Terra. While Queen Serenity was not thrilled with the male Sailor Terra, she didn't wish to anger Terra with the change of their Sailor Senshi, so while she publicly tolerated him, she avoided him as much as socially possible without giving any obvious offense. She also tried to confuse the idea when she could by 'mistaken' referring to Sailor Terra in the female form instead of the proper male version. Since Gaea thought little of the Moon Kingdom, it didn't bother him.
"You should understand that the power of the Sailor Senshi was directly proportionally to the age and size of their world. In other words, Terra, the oldest World and the birthworld of Humanity, made Sailor Terra the strongest of the Senshi, with Sailor Saturn, the largest of the colonies, next in strength. Since Sailor Terra was so powerful, Gaea was able to share some of his power with his older brother, Endymion, and still be as strong as the other Senshi. Endymion, while not powerless in his own right, accepted the gift, both to avoid offending his younger brother and to use it as a link to help Terra and the Senshi.
"At this time, the Inner worlds' Sailor Senshi had following Queen Serenity's lead, passed on their powers to their oldest female children who were then brought to the Moon Castle so they could protect the young Princess and learn from the quote best unquote in the system. Never mind, that Terra itself had the oldest and brightest Universities anywhere.
"Towards the end of the thousand years, Queen Beryl of the Dark Kingdom, which is a part of the Negaverse ruled by Empress Metallia, invaded the solar system in a move to expand her borders. The first time, almost four hundred since the transfer of power from parent to child, Queen Beryl sent an expeditionary force that came from outside the system, but the small force was defeated by the Outer Senshi: Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Unfortunately, Pluto took some serious injuries, thus weakening the Outer Senshi whose duty it was to defend the system from attacks from without leaving the Inner Senshi to defend/police the system itself.
"And now we come to Taque... The Negaverse, a separate plane from Earth, which borders Hell, so when Taque, Trin, and Tichve offered their aid to Queen Beryl, she accepted since she knew of their reputations. So with the three demons and the entire Dark Kingdom army, Queen Beryl invaded the Moon Kingdom by opening a portal on the Moon surface, thus catching everyone by surprise.
"Queen Serenity, in pride, arrogance, or something else, refused to call in the Outer Senshi or Sailor Terra. As it happened, Prince Endymion had been on the Moon, at the request of the Princess, who had fallen in love with him, and tried to help but being a man, he was, for the most part, ignored. To make a long story short, the combined might of the three demons and the Dark Kingdom was enough to overpower the Moon Kingdom's defenses... Before the demons entered the throne room, Queen Serenity used the Ginzuishou to send her daughter and the Inner Senshi to the future, where they would be safe and could defeat, if necessary, the Dark Kingdom's return. She also sent Prince Endymion to the future too after casting a love spell over him so he would protect her daughter. Once that was accomplished, Queen Serenity sacrificed herself to destroy the three demons and the Dark Kingdom's army.
"She succeeded in destroying Tichve and most of the Dark Army. To take care of the what remained of the Dark Army and the other two demons, Sailor Terra called in the Outer Senshi and together them finished off the Dark Army and imprison the other two demons.
"With the lost of the Ginzuishou, Queen Serenity, and the Inner Senshi, the colonies began to break up... literally. Low Magic, specifically, and other Magics in sympathy, became unstable and wild. Sailor Terra did his best to save as many as he and the Outer Senshi could by creating a portal to distant world where magic was more stable but the Low Magic that made the system habitable was falling too fast to save everyone. Fortunately, the Highlords aided the remaining Senshi and returned everyone to Terra. Going with the Council of Elders' decision, the Highlords erased the knowledge of the Colonies and the knowledge of magics. That happened about two thousand years ago. It because of the Highlords' spell that few people believe in magic these days.
"As for the Pool of Shape, if you haven't guessed, it was corrupted during the Fall of the Silver Millennium and when it returned to Terra, it became Jusenkyo, the Land of Cursed Springs. The Highlords disappeared again and the Outer Senshi helped Sailor Terra to defend Terra. They continued the tradition by passing their powers on to their children. The Outer Senshi to the eldest female child and Sailor Terra to whichever child was the stronger."
"But why did Taque go after Akane?" Ranma asked seeing that Sailor Sol's tale was coming to a close.
"Taque was awakened by the Ginzuishou, which Sailor Moon has recently used here on Terra, and he wished to take revenge on Sailor Terra," replied Sailor Sol. "Of course, the power of Sailor Terra had been passed on since the Fall of the Silver Millennium two thousands years ago. So, Taque sought the great-grandson of the Sailor Terra that trapped him. Since Taque knew only of the Silver Millennium civilization, in general, and what the Dark Kingdom knew about the Inner Senshi, in particular, Taque assumed, as many of the citizens of the Silver Millennium did, that Terra also followed the laws of the Moon, so Sailor Terra should have been female... and Akane does have a high ki level."
"So Taque thought Akane was Sailor Terra?" Ranma asked in wonder.
"Yep..." Sailor Sol replied. "And his mistake cost him... his life."
"What about..." Ranma begin but stopped as he noticed that Akane was coming around.
"If you want to know more, ask your mother, Ranma," Sailor Sol said before disappearing.
"What?!!?" Ranma exclaimed.
"Ranma?" Akane asked hesitantly. "What happened?"
"Oh Akane..." Ranma cried seeing that Akane was fine. "I was so worried that..."
"What the matter with you?" Akane stated confused.
"You were so near death..." Ranma began.
"Baka! If I was so close to dying, then why am I in a cave?" Akane replied. "Let's go home, Ranma."
"Okay," Ranma said with a smile. "I'll met you there... There's something I have to do first."