Story: Mrs Mercury Tendo

While Akane did feel it would be sort of fun to watch the Saotomes get run through the ringer by Auntie Rei, she also felt it would bring back a few too many bad memories of the many, many times where she had to endure the same thing. Besides which, she might say something that would draw her ire upon Akane herself, and so she quietly began to shuffle off -

Then noticed a certain pink haired girl was, in essence, mimicking her body language without seeming to notice it. The two locked eyes. Realised they had the same essential thought process, then hurried on inside.

"I think we're in the clear," Akane said once they hit the living room. But Usagi wasn't done running yet.

"You've never seen her when she's ranting about something spiritual, have you?"

"As a matter of fact there was that one time when I got lost in a place called Ryugenzawa when I was little..." Akane trailed off, the blood draining from her face as <i>that</i> memory came back to her. Then she continued with her hasty retreat. Sound advice! Being in the building during this rant was like asking for a disaster to drop on you, and given how easily Genma seemed to get under people's skin by being a complete idiot... With multiplying factors like those, maybe even staying in Furinkan wouldn't be far enough.

<b>"And what is this thing I see in his hair tie?! Is that another curse?"</b>

<i>”Dammit lady Pops didn’t know about that!”</i>

<b>"Don't you raise your voice to me, young man!"</b>

Akane immediately began to pick up the pace. Far, far away sounded really good about now.

"So, I've never been to Spain how about you?" Akane asked. “I bet Auntie Michiru could spring for a trip.”

Usagi snorted. "You're being melodramatic. Besides, she'd probably turn us around and make us listen to a rant from Auntie Rei about running away from home."

Damn and blast, that was a good point. Okay. Fine. they'd have to at least stay within Furinkan until things cooled down a bit. Let's see, let's see...

"Oh, that's right. I never introduced you to my friends, did I?" Akane asked. Bear in mind that Akane merely thought that she had known Usagi for a long time. In actuality they had only recently met, and this trouble causing pink haired girl from the future had used future magitech to implant those memories.

Now, we could go into the ethics of that but let's be real here you've seen way, way worse on this site. So let's move by this minor plot point and onto something of more consequence.

Namely, that Usagi was imagining what Akane's friends were probably like based on a rather poorly formed conception of the girl. Namely, she was imagining bruisers. Big muscles, tiny brains. Stereotypical martial artists. Heck, it might even explain why she didn't even seem to be giving Ranma the once over as she was probably used to having handsome muscular tough guys around.

In which case her number one priority was to see those hunks for herself to see how they measured up.

"Onwards! To your friends!"

So yeah this was going to end really well for everyone involved.

<hr>

"Sayuri I think you have a problem."

Introducing, Akane's two friends. Note that they were not male. Nor did they have muscle mass outside of the norm for their demographic.

"Honestly Yuka, it's just a hobby."

They were, in fact, two perfectly ordinary girls. Normal in most every respect. Put them in a crowd and they'd blend right in. They were the very definition of the background character who only exists because someone like them logically has to exist, but they only really normally have any effect on the plot in fanfiction. Ahem.

"Just a hobby! This isn't a collection, this is a museum!"

Please also note that this was discussing their <i>appearance</i>. In terms of personality they weren't <i>quite</I> as ordinary as they seemed. Case in point, Sayuri's room looked like a shrine to a certain group of Sailor Suited superheroines. Posters, dolls, duvet covers, wallpaper and at that very moment Sayuri was working on a cosplay outfit.

"Goes to show they did their job properly then! Please stop complaining and put that wig on."

Yuka grumbled a bit, but she had to admit that her friend was really good at this cosplay thing. Looking at herself in the mirror, she was rocking these high heels and the red miniskirt made her legs really pop out. She attached the wig over her own hair, and barely suppressed a gasp at seeing her own reflection. This long black flowing wig was exactly the right -

"Sayuri, visitors! It's Akane and a friend of hers."

"Oooh! Goodie!" Sayuri rubbed her hands with glee. "I just finished putting on the last touches for a Sailor Mercury outfit!"

"I dunno, Akane always gave off more of a Jupiter vibe to me..." Yuka mumbled to herself. She smoothed down her skirt. It popped right back up. Or rather, popped out. Oof! How did those girls ever manage to fight like this? Especially Sailor Mars. These heels must have made it impossible to move quickly.

"Hey girls, this is Usagi -" Akane began, gesturing to a pink haired beauty who, upon taking one look at Yuka, fainted on the spot for some reason.

“Oh no please don’t tell me I just killed someone with cosplay.”

Not yet but the day was still young.

<hr>

Fun thing about being a celebrity, people get really weirdly obsessed with you. Even when the form celebrity takes is being a superhero from around twenty years ago. People remember you, people get <b>nostalgia</b> for you. And then the reboots and remakes come in cashing off that. Sufficient to say for many people the Sailor Senshi were still as hot as they were back then.

This was not something that Usagi was used to as of yet. That is to say, aha, Chibi-Usa was not used to it. For a moment there she thought that she'd somehow walked in on Sailor Mars in the middle of this random girl's room. So she had fainted. Then she woke up and things were explained and she was also staring at a bobble headed doll designed after her younger self.

She was staring. Yet she was not blinking. In case that thing tried to eat her alive. Something that wrong looking had to be a youma in disguise, right? It had to be. There was no other explanation.

"Sayuri, for the last time. I am not cosplaying for your amusement."

Blip! Usagi snapped out of it. She looked around innocently. Or at least faking it really well. "Cosplay?" she asked.

"Costume play," Sayuri answered. "It's where fans dress up as characters they like. Real or fictional."

"Sayuri is smitten with the Sailor Scouts," Yuka sighed.

"Sailor Senshi," Sayuri said warningly. "None of that American weeaboo bullshit, if you don't mind. Anyway, Akane! I just finished a Sailor Mercury uniform. Wanna try it on?"

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. This was perfect. It was sublime. The material looked pretty much dead on even if on closer inspection it was lacking the magical touch that the actual armour wore. Usagi's eyes flickered between Akane and that outfit. Ohoho, yes!

It's worth remembering that Usagi Tsukino - that is to say, Chibi Usa's mother - always had a bit of a gay streak to her. Actually, it’s more like “Pansexual” streak. (Rumor mongers still weren’t quite sure to this day in Crystal Tokyo how many, <b>if</b> any, of the Sailor Guardians Neo Queen Serenity had polyamorous relations with.) Like mother like daughter. It also didn't hurt that for some reason Akane tended to hammer all the right buttons for anyone who even sort of liked girls.

"Well, why not Akane?" Usagi asked. "This looks like a lot of fun. And you did want me to meet your friends, so it's only right that we show interest in their hobby. Right?"

Alas, she had forgotten. This was the daughter of Ami Tendo (née Mizuno) that she was dealing with. As such:

"You first," Akane said.

Ah, but by the same token Akane had forgotten that this was the daughter of Usagi Tsukino! If she'd ever known that in the first place. Anyway, the point was: Don't challenge her to a dress up contest. Without thinking, Usagi grabbed hold of the uniform that Sayuri was still working on and tossed it into the air. “Moon Prism Power!”

Luckily she was not holding onto her transformation locket and/or any other form of magically enchanted transformative device at the time she had said that. Still, while the leotard and skirt floated down Usagi went into a faster than normal pace, unbuttoning her blouse with one hand and unzipping her skirt with the other. Then she twirled around, causing both to fly off her body while she kept on rotating in place. One arm up while she crooked a leg, and she caught the leotard through its sleeve. She then arched her hands in a wide gesture which pulled her other arm into the other sleeve and her head through the leotard's neck hole.

Next, she performed a somersault that allowed her legs to catch the skirt neatly as it drifted down, then she landed on her feet and in one fluid motion both adjusted the skirt so that it hugged her hips while also pulling her legs into the right holes for the leotard.

“In the name of the Moon, I will Punish You!”Then she capped it off with a very Sailor Moonish salute, and all three of the other girls in the room were a little bit more gay than they were a minute ago. Like mother, like daughter.

“Oh. My. God. That’s the best Sailor Moon I’ve ever seen.” Sayuri whispered in religious awe. "Wig! Put on this blonde wig, right now! I have to see this in all its glory!"

The wig actually fit pretty nicely, largely because her hair had wound up in a very similar kind of style to her mother's. As soon as it was on Sayuri made a high pitched noise that she was pretty sure made every dog in a mile radius (which included the Saotomes, in her view) to suddenly look up in confusion.

"Akane, where did you find this adorable morsel?" Sayuri asked. "Can I keep her? Please? Let me keep her!"

"Sayuri! How many times do I have to tell you, you can't keep the people that fit your costumes to a tee!" Yuka yelled. She made to stomp her foot, but then remembered she was in high heels when she started to topple over. "Woah!"

"Ugh! Fine... Fine... I'll Wear this stupid thing," Akane grumbled. "But I'm not going to enjoy it. Okay?"

"Usagi, I think I love you," Sayuri said. "Nothing I ever tried got her to try on one of my costumes before. So, I'll wear Sailor Venus and then -"

"Mercury Power, Makeup!"

All three girls turned around at once to see Akane toss her gi into the air, whereupon it landed perfectly on the rack Usagi had grabbed her costume from. Akane glowered at the costume. Then she spun around and grabbed the skirt, wrapping it around her hips by the time she'd done a full rotation.

Then she kept right on spinning. She put her hands behind her head and stuck a foot out, snagging the leotard between her toes. Then she leaned back against the wall and pulled it up her legs, while at the same time hooking her arms into the sleeves, and then culminated by adopting her normal battle posture and saying "In the name of Mercury, I'm here to whoop you into next week!"

The gayness quotient in the room improved significantly in that short time span. Which really helped illustrate exactly how different Akane was from her mother.

"Hmph! Does it look good?" Akane asked. "Not that I care about something so silly, I'm only asking because you always bug me while trying to get me to wear one of these costumes... Thank goodness Ranma can't see me like this."

Usagi held up a sign that read 'translation: I want to show off to Ranma, but don't want to admit it.' Nobody in the room was looking at her so it went uncommented.

"W-Well, it looks good," Sayuri said. "Except, Akane?"

"Yeah?"

"... Maybe you should have put the leotard on first rather than the skirt?" Yuka suggested. "You've kind of, uh, got the skirt trapped underneath."

And that's when Akane looked at herself in the mirror, then turned bright crimson as she realised how stupid she looked just then. Oops.

1. Ranma is sent to retrieve Akane for dinner, gets roped into the cosplay fun as Sailor Jupiter.
2. Ranma and Genma are still getting a dressing down from Rei.
3. Meanwhile a group of evil beings are plotting trouble.
4. Something else