And so, as a special favor for Sketchfan's outoto, we begin Dan-sensei's training regimen.
Mars: PSh...how hard can it be?!
Dan: (Glowing with the fire of Satsui nohadou) Kukukukukukukuku...
Usagi: (Koalla hugging Rei, who's spiritual senses are going off the charts) WAH! SAVE ME REI-CHAN!
No senshi were harmed during the making of this chapter...much.
Round 12.
"Open blast you!" Setsuna snarled, hurling consecutive Dead Screams at the doors of the Time Gates, the repetitive blasts shaking the very foundations of the pocket dimension said gates occupied. Behind her lay the fruits of her previous attempts, including several empty crates of TNT, a cracked Jackhammer, and a super-sized 'jaws of life'.
Pausing in her bombardment, the senshi of Pluto scowled at the gates, which remained steadfastly closed, not even scorched from their recent assault. "So that's the way you want to play things is it?" she muttered, waving a hand and summoning one of her trumps, a small, but potent tactical warhead she'd…borrowed, from an American Munitions dump, her eyes shining with a hint of madness as she leveled the thing at the gates before teleporting out just before the blast reached her.
Immortal and slightly deranged she may be, but even Pluto wasn't so out of her mind she was willing to take her chances against a damn nuke.
Though as she teleported back to the gates, only to find them as pristine as ever, cleaner even, she couldn't help but slip into a full on scream fest that would've been frightening to any outside eyes, though admittedly morbidly amusing.
If said eyes could tear themselves away from the sight of the raging woman, they might have noticed a faint, masculine outline standing in the shadows off the room. Had they looked closer, they'd have spotted a man with short silver hair and beard, dressed in a strange black and silver bodysuit and coat, his arms crossed over his chest and a smirk on his face as he leant against the wall, watching the normally reserved woman tear at her emerald locks, a silver key with Pluto's insignia held between his gloved fingers.
'This is more fun than I thought it'd be.' The figure chuckled, watching as Setsuna actually started pounding on the gates with her fists, swearing up a storm 'Sorry Pluto, not this time…' he noted, smirk widening with dark mirth 'Serenity's orders.'
"I can't go ooooon!" Usagi whined, the meatball sporting blonde collapsing pitiably on her face, lying there limply, her body completely drained of energy from her recent, soul taxing ordeal as she wept "Mamo-chan…forgive me…!"
"Wake the hell up, odango-atama!" Rei snapped, the fiery tempered priestess glaring down at her so called 'best friend' and 'fearless leader' in resigned disgust "We haven't even finished warming up yet!"
"But Rei-chaaaan!" Usagi wept, the blonde looking up at the priestess desperately, her eyeslittle watery pools of unshed tears in the face of her friend's heartlessness "I can't move another step! My whole body hurts!"
"Good grief they're only push-ups!" the priestess muttered in disbelief, looking down at the blonde in exasperation, "and he only asked us to do ten, even Ami's already finished those, but you haven't done one!"
'This is the hope of humanity?' Dan muttered, the master of Saikyo-ryuu standing off to the side with his arms crossed and Diana perched atop his head, a bead of sweat sliding down his head, and those of the Mao, as they watched the girls, or rather just Usagi, attempt the simple warm up 'Not exactly a stirring performance.'
"Ru-chan…" Usa uttered concernedly, the future princess of Crystal Tokyo watching as Hotaru struggled to finish her fifth push up "Maybe you should take it easy…I mean, it's not like we're going to be fighting, right?"
"But…Hibiki-san made me his student…" Hotaru insisted, the frail, purple eyed girl panting as she lowered herself to the ground for another push-up, her arms trembling "So…I have to work just as hard."
"I told you to call me sensei didn't I?" Dan deadpanned, though there was a gentle smirk on his face as he sidled up to them, his arms folded across his chest "Ease up there kiddo, just because the style is called Saikyo, doesn't mean you gotta outdo your fellow students."
"H-hai…" Hotaru gasped, sitting up from the exercise and accepting a bottle of water from a smiling Usa, who patted the drained girl on the back encouragingly as they went off to a corner to rest up, the reincarnation of Saturn gulping down the water gratefully.
"And as for the rest of you." Dan called out, his face stern once more "You're a lot older, so I got no qualms driving you into the ground. My first disciple was around your age when she started training, so I wont have any complaints about me bullying people younger than me." He gestured for Makoto to step forwards "Come on, let's see how you rate in a quick spar."
"You sure?" Makoto asked, rolling her shoulder confidently as she stepped forwards amidst cheers from Minako and Usagi and a concerned look from Ami "I'm no slouch in the martial arts myself you know."
"Then this should be interesting." Dan replied with a smirk, settling into a guard stance, both arms extended from his side, one behind the other, as he gestured for her to advance "Sa-KOI!"
Makoto rushed forwards with a high kick, aiming for the man's head, only for Dan to block, noting with some surprise that she was stronger than Sakura had been before the girl got some serious training, and delivered a stern, but gentle, elbow strike to her stomach, knocking her off her feet, more winded than hurt.
"Nice kick you got there." The Saikyo master acknowledged, dancing nimbly on his feet despite the baggy hakama as he loosened up "Between you and Sakura I'm starting to wonder about the schoolgirls of today."
"Glad you approve." Makoto grinned, the tall brunette going for a sweep kick that Dan dodged by stepping back, following it up with a rising spin kick to the cheek, making good use of her long legs to close the distance.
"You and Elena'd get along pretty well." Dan noted with approval, dodging under the strikes, swatting the kicks aside as he referred to the African Capoeira princess. "Though your kicks don't quite measure up to hers…or ol' thunder thighs' for that matter."
"Detective Xiang?" a concerned secretary asked, drawing everyone's attention to the stunned Chinese Interpol Officer as she looked down at the coffee mug she'd inadvertently crushed between her hands.
'Why do I have the sudden urge to kick someone through a wall?' Chun Li muttered, a frown on her face as a feeling of irritation she normally only associated with a certain indecently dressed kunoichi's comments washing over her.
"Pretty good punches too." Dan noted, the hakama clad street fighter knocking one of Makoto's palm strikes aside and using her arm and momentum to throw her over his shoulder "But all said and done, you got a lot a work to do!"
"Mako-chan!" Usagi cried in alarm, the odango-sporting, pigtailed blonde racing over to coruch at her friend's side, watching as the taller brunette sat up, rubbing her head from the fall with a groan "Daijoubu?!"
"Yeah…just my pride…" Makoto sighed, shaking her head at how easily she'd been taken down. She was the best fighter amongst the inners, though out of the scouts, Haruka was widely considered her better, if only because the outer senshi had been at it longer "You're pretty good, Sensei."
"Naturally!" Dan exclaimed, his nose growing longer at the praise "I traveled the whole world to hone my skills! I may not be in the same league as Masters or Ryu, but I'm pretty confident in my abilities."
"Masters?" Minako repeated, the shorter blonde, touching her finger to her lips in thought, only to beam widely in sudden understanding "Ah! You don't mean Ken Masters do you? The Pan-American champ?"
"Uh…yeah?" Dan muttered, the master of Saikyo-ryuu scratching his cheek in confusion at the girl's reaction, a sense of premonition washing over him "He and I studied under the same master for a while…we've fought a few times too."
"No way!" Minako exclaimed, slipping into fan girl mode as a poster of Ken seemed to materialize behind her "He's so dreamy!" she gushed "Those long brows! That golden hair! I just wanna run my fingers through it!"
"He's married you know." Dan pointed out, the hakama-clad fighter sweat dropping as the girl froze, the sound of cracking glass filling the air as the image of Ken shattered behind her, revealing the kanji for 'homewrecker'.
"Minako-chan…" Ami mumbled, the shy bluenette sighing as she patted the depressed blonde on the back as she huddled in a corner, a little ball of depression as a cloud of doom hung over her "Ganbatte-ne…"
"And there's another reason not to go for pretty-boys Hotaru-chan." Dan muttered as an offside to the confused girl, nodding his head sagely as he spoke "More often than not, they're spoken for."
Hotaru noted, mentally adding the point to her 'List of Hibiki-san's teachings', which she was considering turning into a written document. He certainly made more valid reasons for not doing things that Haruka-papa and Michiru-mama, who kept going on about something to do with the birds and bees whenever she'd asked them where babies came from, like everyone else. 'To think parents can get them from hospitals.' The girl noted with a hint of wonder, as she'd always associated hospitals as places of pain and sickness. The fact that new life could begin there was heartening.
"Right, I think that's enough of a breather." Dan noted, popping his neck joints as he spoke "You there…Rei was it? You're up next."
Rei frowned, slipping into the standard defensive stance her grandfather had taught her, unwilling to let the cocky brunette off lightly. True he hadn't done anything wrong, not compared to Gouki's assault of her familiars, but she just didn't like the guy's cocky attitude. It had nothing to do with the fact he'd flashed her in her own room, or that fact that she was going to have to spend a week meditating to get the 'image' of him lying spread-eagled on her floor out of her mind. Priestess in training and Senshi of Mars or not, she was still your everyday teenage girl, one that hadn't had a decent man in her life since Mamoru turned out to be Endymion.
Lunging forward with a palm strike, intending to knock Dan off balance, she was surprised when the man instead grabbed her wrist and rolled backwards, using his foot to send her over him in a perfect throw, causing her to land on her back some feet away.
"Pretty aggressive for a priestess." The fighter noted with a cocky grin, rolling back onto his feet, a little off balance, as he still wasn't used to the Hakama, "But then considering the kind of people you're up against, I suppose that's natural."
"You-!" Rei snapped, rising to her feet with a growl and striking out with kicks and punches, trying to determine the man's center of gravity, to better knock it off center. But Dan merely swerved around her strikes, stepping forwards to cut off her kicks with his shin and thighs, slapping her palms out of the way with minimal effort, that oddly approving smile never leaving his face "Face me dammit!"
"I am." Dan shot back, spinning round and slapping her on the back, sending her staggering away from him, nearly falling on her face "I'm just not going all out, that's not how you teach."
"What're you doing there, Ami-chan?" Makoto asked, looking away from the spar to find her blue haired friend typing away at the mercury computer, looking up at the fight from time to time with a calculative expression "Instant replays?"
"Sort of." Ami admitted, looking up at the fight as Rei was sent stumbling away for a second time "I'm just analyzing Hibiki-san's body as we fight…for some reason his energy signature is completely human, no traces of magic at all."
"How's that possible?" Artemis wondered with surprise, looking at the bluenette in alarm at the statement "Even if he's not a natural Mau, a complete lack of magical energy after a transformation like that…"
"I know," Ami assured the white Mau, her brow furrowing in confusion as she looked over the scans results "But the fact is that as he is now, Hibiki-san is simply a highly trained human being with slightly developed ki pathways." She frowned "Which is odd…it looks like he hasn't developed them fully, they aren't properly aligned with his body either."
"What…so he's got a few screws loose or something?" Usagi asked dumbly, earning sweat drops from the group at how fitting the statement was. She might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but sometimes the Moon Princess came up with some pretty fitting analogies.
"Sort of…" Ami admitted hesitantly, looking over as Dan tossed Rei to the ground for the umpteenth time "At the very least, he's stronger than an ordinary man, but his undeveloped pathways mean he can still go further if he takes the time to sort them out."
The groups' thoughts were interrupted as Rei stumbled over to them, panting for breath and flushed, but otherwise unhurt in anything but pride, Dan calling Ami up for her turn, much to the bluenette's uncertainty.
"Relax, I can tell just by looking you've got next to no hand to hand skills." Dan offered, trying to sound reassuring but coming off as blunt as ever "So I'll be running you through some basic katas to start off, but first, let's see you make a fist."
Ami, blushing in embarrassment, did as she was told, only to blink as Dan took her fist and began making corrections. "Don't ever tuck your thumb inside your hand when you make a fist." The ponytail-sporting fighter corrected calmly, "You hit anyone with that and you'll snap your own thumb off…or shatter the joint."
To Ami, whose study habits took up most of her spare time, the idea of damaging her ability to hold a pen was terrifying. So she listened in rapt attention as Dan corrected her stance, posture, even the way she positioned her feet and tilted her fist.
"Too much pressure on one foot makes it hard to dodge the other way." Dan explained sagely, having learned that one the hard way when fighting Sagat's disciple Adon a few years back "I can tell you're not the type that likes slugging it out, so we'll be focusing on how to read attacks and defend yourself once we've got the basics covered."
Ami sighed in relief, promptly following Dan through a short series of Kata, albeit a little clumsily for her first time, noting with wonder that she rather enjoyed them.
'The buffoon does good work.' Gouki noted grudgingly, the Master of Fists watching from his spot on the shrine wall, his Ki hidden from everyone as he watched Dan take the weakest of the group, the blue haired one, and led her through a series of basic Kata that seemed to include elements of Tai Chi and Chinese Kempo. Even from the first glance he could tell the girl lacked the instinctive drive to be a true fighter, and from their fight he'd garnered her abilities to be of the support category, good for surprising or waylaying the foes, but otherwise requiring she distance herself from actual fights.
'Though some of those attacks seem deadly enough,' he allotted, recalling dodging an Aqua Rhapsody that had encased a boulder in ice within seconds 'Still, it would probably be best to simply teach her to defend herself for now.'
Having failed to locate this 'Setsuna' person anywhere in the area, the maned Mau had returned to the shrine to find Dan's lessons in full swing. While dubious at first, he had to admit that, as a martial artist, the idiot knew what he was doing. True the Ansatsuken's training regiment was made of far sterner stuff, one couldn't be mollycoddled if you hoped to master a style designed to kill with one strike, but for a group of girls that were in need of a good wake up call, Gouki had to admit the buffoon's school covered everything needed.
'The katas should limber them up without putting to much initial strain on the body.' The Mau acknowledged, watching as Dan called the Meatball headed blonde to the fore, the girl promptly falling on her rear of her own volition, promptly bursting out into tears about her bruised rump, much to the groups embarrassment 'Yare-yare…'
"Oh come on!" Rei snarled, the fiery-tempered priestess glowering at Usagi as the blonde bawled her eyes out "He didn't even TOUCH you yet, quit embarrassing us and get up there, Odango-Atama!"
"But I don't want him to touch me!" Usagi bawled, looking up at the sheepish looking Dan, who was scratching the back of his neck in consternation "He threw Mako-chan around like a rag doll! I don't wanna!"
'We're doomed…' Luna and Artemis muttered, looking from the future queen of Crystal Tokyo to one another and shaking their heads in defeat. It took something close to the apocalypse for Usagi to get her act together each time, that or someone precious to her, like the senshi or Tuxedo Kamen, sacrificing their lives. True the Ginzuishou could revive them, and repeated use of said gem hastened Usagi's own ascension, but one had to wonder just how many times the senshi would have to die before Neo Queen Serenity's persona came into being?
"Look…" Dan muttered, crouching down next to the blonde and patting her on the shoulder "I wont throw you if that's what you want, but sooner or later you're gonna go up against someone not as nice as me…and what're you gonna do if he's beaten up all your friends because you wouldn't fight him head on?"
Usagi blinked at that, looking up at the solemn faced fighter in surprise, the rest of the group looking on in interest at the man's logic.
"I mean sure, from what I've heard that stone you got there's pretty damn powerful." Dan admitted, nodding to the locket that contained the ginzuishou, "Hell some of the reasons you've been fighting are because people want it for themselves." He frowned "But that's the thing, unless you can keep them from taking it from you, they're gonna keep coming at you with everything they got." He nodded to the other girls "Sure your friends will be there for ya, but do really wanna be the one cowering in a corner while they're risking their lives for you?"
Usagi looked over at her friends, eyes roaming over them as she recalled everything they'd gone through together, from her quarrels with Rei to studying with Ami, from learning to cook from Makoto to hanging out with Minako. She recalled every battle they'd been in together, all the good times and the bad, the worst of all being the shared memories of their deaths, all because she hadn't been strong enough from the start.
She looked over at Hotaru and Chibi-Usa, recalling how Hotaru, as Sailor Saturn, had to sacrifice herself to stop Pharaoh 90 and the void of silence, and how Usa, her own daughter, had been turned against them by Wiseman because she let the old freak get the best of her. She recalled the battles with the Outers, all of which could've been avoided if she'd been strong enough to earn their respect from the get-go.
Wiping her eyes, the blonde stood up, surprising everyone with the look in her eyes, a set, determined expression they'd only seen on one woman to date, a woman she would yet become in the future.
Dan, smirking at the blonde's change in countenance, moved into a ready stance and beckoned her forward, Usagi doing so with a yell that startled everyone, charging to meet him head on.
"Well I'll be…" Artemis murmured, the white Mau watching the spar with a look of wonderment, shaking his head in disbelief as Usagi simply refused to go down, at least not for long "You ever seen her this worked up Luna?"
"Never." Luna admitted, watching as her princess and friend kicked and punched at Dan, albeit sloppily and with openings the Saikyo master took no qualms abusing, though he kept his word and didn't throw her "I mean I know she could be serious when she wants to, and Serenity knows she's saved the world enough times to know when the chips are down but…"
"But she's never been THIS devoted before, right?" Artemis finished, nodding in understanding as Usagi pushed herself off the floor and threw herself back into the fray, Dan merely blocking and weaving around her blows while making the odd comment here or there "And the look on her face…" he whistled "I don't mind admitting it Luna but when I saw her eyes a second ago I could've sworn I saw her father looking back at me."
Luna nodded, dimly recalling Queen Serenity's consort from the Silver Millennium.
He had not been a man of noble birth, if anything he was a traveling vagabond that had come to her aid during one of her sojourns to Earth centuries ago. The queen had recently lost her first daughter and consort to what was later revealed as political sabotage, and had been visiting earth on the then King Endymion's invitation when she and her escort had been beset by weird, Youma like creatures with white masks.
Just as the escort were about to be cut down a giant of a man, dressed in rags and wielding a sword that had seen better times, had leapt out of the woodwork and started hacking away with reckless abandon. Apparently, according to the official report, he'd cut them down with such ease that even Sailor Saturn, who would've been Hotaru's mother in that lifetime, had almost dropped her glaive in shock, and considering what would happen if she HAD, that was saying something for how shocked she was.
Serenity, grateful for the rescue, had invited him to her palace as thanks, an offer the man had accepted after much consternation, as he apparently hadn't noticed them being attacked when he'd leapt in to kill the things. During his stay he'd driven most of the advisors, including Luna's father, to their wits end, as not only was his sense of direction deplorable, but he kept challenging anyone that looked relatively strong to fights that either resulted in either the himself, his opponent, or both being carted off for treatment, often with the result of a wing of the castle being reduced to rubble.
Serenity apparently thought it was amusing, and Luna had to admit the look on the then Saturn's face when her glaive had bounced off his hide was priceless. The monarch would spend most of her free time conversing with the man in her gardens, seemingly finding comfort in the brute that had terrified most of the rest of the castle with the exception of the Senshi, and it wasn't long before rumours of wedding bells filled the air.
Then one day the big lummox had gone chasing after a giant version of the masked Youma that had somehow made it past the wards, leaping right into the thing's portal as it tried to crawl away and had promptly disappeared, leaving behind a disappointed, but oddly accepting Serenity, who nine months later gave birth to a healthy baby girl.
'What was his name again?' the former advisor muttered, wracking her brains as she tried to recall what the man called himself 'Come to think of it, he said he didn't really have one…unless the old Uranus' nickname of 'That Bastard' applies.'
In the afterlife, a giant man with his hair done up in spikes and bells sneezed, pausing in the midst of his suicide drills with his men as he rubbed his nose in thought.
"Ken-chan, Daijoubu?" a little pink haired girl asked, halting in her toying 'read horribly maiming' of one of the cocky new recruits to their division to look up at her adoptive father with a look of concerned interest.
"Yeah…" the giant muttered, snorting in annoyance to clear the dust from his nostrils, his sword dripping with the blood of the poor soul he'd been facing off with, said fool lying as still as possible on the floor to avoid having to fight any longer "Someone's probably talking about me again…"
"Ah! Maybe it's Soi-soi!" the little girl giggled, referring to a certain short-tempered captain that had an unhealthy obsession with her predecessor "or Shirou-chan!" This could've only referred to the youngest captain, as the elder 'Shirou-chan' didn't talk smack about people "Or Robo-face! Or-!"
"Zaraki-Taichou…" a calm voice called out, the duo turning to find the regal features of Unohana Retsu, 4th division captain, standing in the battle-torn courtyard, her ever present, bodhissatva-like smile on her face "I've come to escort you to the captain's meeting."
"Another one?" Zaraki muttered, the spiky haired captain of the 11th leaning his ragged looking blade over his shoulder with an annoyed grunt, his recently acquired bells janglingfrom the slight movement "Didn't we have one a while back?"
"There have been new developments." Unohana replied, the chief healer and leader of the 4th division looking solemn as she drew closer "Ukitake Taicho's lieutenant was killed in action by an unusual Hollow."
"Shiba huh?" Zaraki muttered, sole visible eye narrowing in thought as he sheathed his blade with a click "Damn waste, guy could throw a pretty good punch when he wanted to." He snorted, turning his head to his lieutennant "Yachiru, keep these guys at it till they piss blood."
"Hai! Ken-chan!" Yachiru cheered, dancing off to play, 'read: torment', with the terrified members of the 11th division, heedless of their screams of terror and Zaraki watching her go with an unusually serious expression on his face.
'Funny…' the monstrous captain muttered, watching the girl laugh as she tried to devour his recently promoted 3rd seat's head, the bald man running around like a headless chicken on crack from the pain 'She always reminds me of someone when she laughs…'
Snorting, he brushed it off, walking off alongside the serene 4th division captain without another thought to the matter, brushing the fading memory of a smiling woman with silver hair out of his thoughts.
And I think I'll just leave off here.
Will I be going anywhere with this implication? Or is it simply there for comedic references?
Sorry, but I'm not spilling here, you wanna know?
Then REVIEW!