The Phoenix Saga

"Hyah!"

A cloud of gravel dust rose around Ranko's ankle as she spun into a high kick that whipped through the air with a snap of the fabric of her black gi pants. She dropped back into her taekwondo stance, firing a punch forward at eye level. The redhead followed her fist with a spinning back elbow, and then a leaping crescent kick.

She fought with a singular focus. Her invisible opponent stood no chance.

"Hey, Ranko!" Akane called to the redhead as she watched from the rooftop access door of the Phoenix, but she received no answer.

Ranko sprung from her crouch, executing a back handspring that hurt her hands on the gravel rooftop. She thought she saw someone in her peripheral vision as she flipped backward, twisting mid-air.

Wow, Akane thought. She's been training a lot harder since she got back. She squinted into the setting sun, shielding her eyes with her left hand and watching as her wife completed the gymnastic maneuver and turned toward her.

"It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine…"

Ranko pulled her headphones from her ears, letting the song continue to play from the black foam-padded speakers hung around her neck. "Hey, Akane. What's up?" Ranko wiped her brow on the long sleeve of her black-and-pink striped cotton shirt, her chest heaving slightly from her workout.

Akane closed on the young woman, wrapping her arms around the smaller girl. "It's getting to be about that time, love. You gotta get ready for your show."

The redhead nodded, looking back out over the rooftop of the little dive bar in which she had been reborn nearly three years prior. She wasn't quite ready to stop her workout yet. "Yeah, you're probably right. I'm gonna need to grab a shower and shit anyway. The boys here yet?"

"Everybody but Shin. They're all downstairs. Crash is two beers deep already." Akane frowned, rubbing Ranko's back through her sweaty tee shirt. "Hey, babe? Are you… okay? It's been a long time since I've seen you come out here like this. Something's just been a little… off with you since you've been home."

Ranko shrugged softly, turning her face away from her wife. "Yeah. I'm okay. I just… everything makes more sense out here sometimes. Shit's simpler. I've missed it."

Akane eyed her bride more nervously than before, reaching timidly for her arm. "Ranko, what aren't you telling me? I'm worried about you. Did something happen while you were away?"

Ranko chuckled nervously. "What? No! I mean, other than the Yokai shit, but we already talked about that." I can't… I just can't look at her and tell her what almost happened to me. She'd never look at me the same.

"Hmm. Alright, if you're sure. But you know you can talk to me about anything," Akane said gently, leaning over to kiss her love on her sweat-slick temple. "Now, come on, let's go get you pretty for your show."

"Hey!" Ranko forced herself to laugh, flicking her damp red ponytail over her shoulder and gently nudging Akane in the ribs. "You tryin' to say I'm not pretty like this?!"

Akane smiled softly, shaking her head with a wide grin. "I wouldn't dream of it, princess."

* * *

"There she is." Crash slid from his bar stool, walking to the gap between the main and service bar counters to greet his best friend as she emerged from the blue saloon door leading into the back rooms of the Phoenix. Crash gently wrapped his arms around Ranko, giving her a squeeze.

She wore a pair of black leather pants, a set of black ankle boots with a short chunky heel, and a white lacy top, her still-damp hair tied back in a high ponytail with a white ribbon. She wished she could have used the blow dryer in the bathroom of her former apartment upstairs, but the heat of it on her scalp was too much for her Full-Body Cat's Tongue skin to bear.

"Hey, Crash." Ranko sighed, relaxing into his hug. She hated how awkward she felt when he hugged her of late, ever since the realization she'd reached in Thailand, but she pushed it out of her mind. He's my friend. I'm not doing anything wrong. "You guys about ready?"

The guitarist shrugged. "Everything's set with the gear, but Shin's still not here." He motioned to the far end of the crowd. "Jake and Zo are eating, and Hitomi and Emi are… shit, I don't know where they are."

The blonde standing behind Ranko scoffed. "Thousand yen says they're making out in the bathroom. Again." She draped her arm over Ranko's shoulder in her yellow satin long-sleeved blouse. "Looking good, sis."

Ranko blushed shyly, a bit of a wistful smile crossing her lips. Can't get away with that shit with Akane anymore. But, it's the price I had to pay to save this place. "Thanks, Yui. Doubt Izzi would approve; she's always pushing for the dresses and stuff."

The bar's new proprietress waved her hand dismissively. "You do you. It works for you - even if you do look a little like a pirate."

"I am not a pirate!" Ranko blushed deeper still, giggling a bit. "I don't got a parrot or nothin'!"

"Bawk! Crash want a beer!" her blond guitarist crowed with a loud chuckle from just over her shoulder.

Ranko could only smile and shake her head at her friend's antics. "You are such a goofball. I swear." She gestured over her shoulder to Crash, smirking in the direction of her elder sister. "Although, what can I expect from a boy who tried to rent a fucking kangaroo?"

"Hey! You were part of that!" Crash blushed. "Where you get off blaming me?!"

"It was your idea, dumbass!" Ranko smirked, resting her fist on her hip sassily. "I just went along with it so you wouldn't be embarrassed alone."

Yui smiled, rolling her eyes as she capped a bottle of arak. "Oh, stop it, sis. You're both loveable idiots. Just lean into it."

"She's not wrong!" Crash and Ranko said in unison, laughing with each other.

"Oi!" The new voice from just beyond the slatted blue door admonished the trio. "You guys gonna get up there and sing, or what? Folks are waiting!" The door swung outward, and a woman with long black hair in a gray pencil skirt and an emerald green blouse emerged.

Ranko cringed, looking up at Crash. "Damn, new boss lady's not fucking around!" She turned back to Sakura, smiling and nodding. "We're just waiting on Shin. He's late. But as soon as he gets here, we're gonna do a new song, so the people will be fine. It is ready, right, Crash?"

The leather-clad guitarist laughed. "Yes, it's ready, even though you only gave us two days' notice to get the music ready and practice it. And you're over here sayin' Sakura is strict!"

"It's a good thing I asked nice," Ranko said with a playful smirk. "I'm sure Emi has a whip I could borrow."

"Totally not a pirate," Yui said over her cackling as she finished preparing a Snakebite cocktail for a middle-aged man in a green sport coat.

From just beyond the back room, a low, loud rumble overtook the sound system in the still-filling bar room. "The hell?" Ranko blinked curiously. "Did somebody bring a fucking tank or something?!" Sakura turned to the back room and Ranko followed, finding an equally-perplexed Mei in the kitchen. The roar of the engine from the back alley grew louder still, and Ranko pushed the steel door open and walked out by the dumpster.

Parked just behind the building was a pewter-colored sports car, low to the ground. Its body was sleek, with only a very slight angle separating the front hood and the windshield, and tapering off into a low spoiler running the full width of the body molded into its rear. Wide grooves ran the full length of both doors, ending in a pair of door scoops just in front of the rear tires to aid with aerodynamics. Its windows were tinted jet black like a limousine. It was waxed to an almost mirror finish, shining despite the thin coating of gravel dust disturbed by the tires in the alleyway.

"What the shit?" Crash blinked, emerging from the door behind Sakura and Mei. "Ranko, you shacking up with some European prince I don't know about?" He almost yelled his words to be heard over the car's engine, which continued revving loudly, as if it was preparing for a race rather than just idling a few meters from the rusty green trash receptacle.

The redhead turned, stomping her boot on the concrete stoop outside the kitchen door and clenching her fists at her sides. "Hey! Why do I always gotta be the floozie in your little scenarios?! Why not Hitomi, or…"

Crash shrugged with a chuckle, reaching out to squeeze her around the shoulders. "You're the star. Besides, it doesn't get a rise out of them when I suggest stuff like that. But you turn red as an apple every fuckin' time. It's more fun!"

"I'm gonna get you, Matsuy…" Ranko trailed off as the sports car's engine cut off, and the headlights folded closed, disappearing into slightly raised bumps in the hood. The door opened, and a tall man in a long black duster stepped out of the vehicle in rugged black steel-toed boots. "What the hell?!" Ranko exclaimed.

Shinji Yokota pushed the door of the car closed, turning to lean his back on it with a prideful smirk half-hidden under his sunglasses. "Not bad, huh?"

"Shin! Dude!" Crash approached the slender bassist, his eyes wide as he examined the car. "You bought this?!"

Shinji nodded, crossing his arms over his chest with a proud grin. "Just rolled off the lot, bro! I woulda got the chrome package, but it was a little spendy. Maybe if somebody hadn't given away a bunch of our money…"

Ranko sighed heavily, bowing her head with a gentle shake. "Look, I fuckin' told you I was sorry, and I'm splitting up part of my cut with all of you for the next year to make it up to you guys. Nabiki set it all up already."

The blue-pigtailed girl to Ranko's right scoffed with a shake of her head. I swear. Ranko used her money to save her family, and dickhead uses his to compensate for his little… Sighing at her ex-boyfriend, Mei rolled her eyes and turned back toward the kitchen. "C'mon, Ran-chan. Let's let the boys play with their toys."

Ranko nodded, following her into the kitchen. The heels of her black boots made a distinctive ka-clack on the floor, far different from the flats her sisters usually wore to work. The sound never failed to make Ranko feel a little awkward, as if she was somehow not a part of the group anymore, but rather, something set apart. She loved singing for a living, but sometimes, she missed those simple days when she'd first discovered the Phoenix, when she just ran buckets of ice and refilled the dishwasher and didn't have every eye in the place on her every minute. When what she wore didn't matter. When every stroke of a makeup brush wasn't scrutinized. When she was just grateful for the chance to help, and not the one everyone expected to be above refilling a glass of soda or fetching a basket of tater tots from the kitchen.

Still, though, she knew she had helped the place, and in no small measure. More than once, a timely concert on that little stage had paid the bills during a lean month, going back to that first Christmas show in 1989. And, just the week before, it had been not one concert, but thirty-five, spread out among nine months and more than a dozen countries, that had earned her enough money to purchase the building outright at the eleventh hour and save it from its imminent demolition. Besides the millions of yen she'd invested, all it had cost her was her pride.

Ranko had tried to present the deed to Hana, her adoptive mother, but she chose to retire instead. Even now, she was probably sitting on her couch at home, getting her ass handed to her in a video game by her grandson, leaving her cadre of seven daughters - one by birth, four by adoption and two by marriage - to carry on with the business in her stead. While there were seven names on the ownership transfer paperwork Nabiki had filed for them, it was clear to everyone in the building who truly owned the Phoenix.

"Yo, Ranko! They're getting awful restless out here! You doing this, or not?"

"I'm comin', Yui! Sheesh!" Ranko grinned, punching her blonde sister playfully on the shoulder as she passed through the blue saloon door into the main bar area.

Welp, so much for the days of flying under the radar, Ranko thought, blushing as she emerged behind the bar. She had not yet cleared the bar counter before she was spotted, first by a woman in a too-short yellow bodycon dress who whooped loudly at the bar as Izumi finished pouring her a Hypnoteaser.

"RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO!" a young man at the bar in a white sport coat began. It quickly spread as more and more of the partygoers took notice of her emergence from the kitchen. Ranko gave them a sheepish wave.

Her flushed cheeks darkened at the sight of the two girls seated at the near end of the bar, both of whom had joined in the chant. "Alright, alright, you two. You ready to quit drinking and get to work?"

Hitomi Uyeno slipped off the brown vinyl seat of her stool, giggling as she reached out and pulled Ranko into a hug. "The work part, sure! The other thing, not so much."

Ranko chuckled, looking over the sparkly fuschia designer dress with the flowy skirt that Emi wore as she flounced over from her to join her girlfriend. "Okay, Ems, I am so borrowing that later, girl!" I shouldn't be jealous, Ranko mentally admonished herself. Sure, everybody else got to spend their money on fun shit, but I chose to take care of my family instead. Ranko sighed, shaking her head slightly with the faintest hint of a smile. Shin buys a fucking muscle car, and the thing that triggers my jealousy is an expensive pink dress. Ranma, if you had a grave, you'd be fucking rolling in it.

Flanked by her backup singers, Ranko strode toward the back of the narrow bar room, and the stage that was all but her exclusive dominion. She resisted - barely - the urge to grab at the ass of the cute black-haired server that was taking a drink order from table nine as she passed. Can't get away with that shit anymore, she thought with a frown, willing it to fade from her cheeks before she ascended the first of the three steps at stage left to take her rightful place - a place that, not two weeks earlier, she had thought would be lost to her forever.

Ranko smiled, waving to the crowd as she slipped her headset over her almost-dry red hair and clipped its battery pack to the waistband of her pants behind her.

"What's up, Firebiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirds?!" She held the sound for nearly five seconds at the top of her lungs, waving to the cheering crowd with a bright smile as she did. "Ya know, just last week, they were actually talking about closing this place down? Are we putting up with that shit, guys?!"

"NO!" The crowd roared back at her in a singular voice.

Ranko nodded, flashing a little smile to Crash as he reached the top of the stairs and mounted the stage. He strode to his usual spot on Ranko's right and began strapping his instrument over his chest.

"You're damn right! And so, for very fucking far from the last time…" She raised her right fist into the air, pumping it skyward. "WELCOME! TO! THE! PHOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENIX!"

The redhead grinned as the crowd thundered its approval. "Though, some things are a little different around here. You might've heard… my mom, Hana, retired. She…" Ranko paused, not wanting to speak over the crowd's impromptu cheer for her mother. "Yeah, you're right, guys. She's pretty fucking awesome, no mistake." The redhead's eyes panned left to the bar, where a lithe thirty-year-old blonde deftly bounced a bottle of tequila over a line of shot glasses. "But don't you worry. This place is in good hands. The best. Ain't that right, Yui?!"

The crowd whooped, but it was Ranko herself that organized their smattering of cheers into a single, repeated word.

"YU-I! YU-I!"

Behind the counter, Yui blushed, hiding her face with her right hand even as the left never stopped pouring.

Ranko grinned behind the boom of her headset microphone. "Alright, alright, let's not embarrass her too much. But yeah, we're not going anywhere, Firebirds! Would you believe this place has been open forty years this November?! Friggin' crazy, right?! And man, what a story this little bar has to tell." She smiled softly at Izumi, her eyes panning right to Mei as she dropped a pizza at the counter for Akane to pick up, and then to Yui behind the main bar. "And it plays a role in so many other impossible stories, too - including mine. Especially mine."

Noting that the remainder of her bandmates had taken their positions, Ranko gave a little nod to Jacob Trimble behind his synthesizer keyboard, and his fingers began to dance across the white plastic keys. His partner Zoe's drums soon joined him, followed by the thrum of Shinji's bass guitar. The restless crowd whooped louder still, for there was only one thing that riled them up more than Ranko and the Dapper Dragons playing a song they knew and loved: Ranko and the Dapper Dragons playing a song they didn't.

Yet.

Ranko swayed on her heeled boots with the jaunty tune, which wasn't quite fast enough to dance to, but too lively to stand still for like a love ballad. With a bright smile, she surveyed the room in which her life had begun.

"It was opened by a guy named Ito back on November tenth of '52. That first night, the servers wore tuxedos - silly for a place they called the Bottle and Brew. They served sake and soju, cheap whiskey and a few craft beers, and the bar became the place to go to… it only took about seventeen years."

Ranko smiled in acknowledgement of the crowd's cheers, bopping side to side with a little wiggle of her backside in her tight black pants as she gave the revelers a history lesson about the little temple that had saved her life - and that her voice had saved in return.

"The old man was kind and decent, and the day that he retired, he left the building keys in the hand of the very first girl he hired…"

The song had an almost American country twang to it, as it sort of lumbered through the lyrics, but with the chorus, Ranko seemed to perk up, swishing her hips side to side with a greater energy.

"Hey! Welcome to the Phoenix! We've been here for a while. We may not always make a difference, but we'll always make ya smile. It's the place the locals come to, and it has been since back in the day. Hey, welcome to the Phoenix! C'mon in, and enjoy your stay!"

Crash grinned, repeating the musical signature of the chorus. The song didn't call for it, but he could tell from the look on Ranko's face that she wanted a few more moments to bask in the crowd's appreciative roar.

"The place was left to Miss Hana in September of '74. That first day, she smoked some marijuana and painted that Firebird on the door."

The redhead giggled into her microphone at the audience's loud whoop. Wow, didn't think that many of you guys were into that stuff. Not me. One day with Shin's cookies was enough for me.

"She wanted people to know it was somewhere to go when the times were at their worst, and she knew it always had been, 'cause way back when, she'd been the first."

Hana hadn't told many stories of her own youth at the Phoenix - back before the bar bore that name - other than the ill-fated relationship that had resulted in the birth of Ranko's eldest sister Ayako. She'd offered, usually when she'd had a few too many of her favorite craft beers, but Ranko always found some excuse to get out of the conversation. Ranko didn't want to consider the idea of Hana as a young woman prone to mistakes - her mother had attained mythic status in Ranko's eyes, and she was more than happy to maintain the illusion that the woman who had saved her life was incapable of missteps in her mind.

"Hey! Welcome to the Phoenix! We're glad you stopped on in!" Ranko shimmied with a bright smile alongside Hitomi as the brunette joined her in singing the title of the song. "It's a place where nightmares go to die, and fairy tales begin! We're here for drunks who've lost their jobs, and girls who've lost their way. Hey! Welcome to the Phoenix! C'mon in, and enjoy your stay!"

Ranko smiled softly down at Mei, covering her heart with her left hand. What a gift her sister had given her, on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, when she'd shamed a nervous girl who wasn't even sure of her own name into singing for a half-empty bar. She'd only agreed to do it because she feared getting in trouble and being broke and homeless again. If I only knew back then, how much my soul would grow to need this, Ranko thought with a smile. How much my heart would grow to need them.

"They couldn't even fit a band up on that worn-out corner stage, until Mei stuck a microphone in my hand on the night I came of age. Now, four or five nights every week, I'm singin', sometimes strummin'..."

Ranko reached out with her right arm, squeezing her guitarist and best friend in a side hug as his left hand slid down the neck of his instrument.

"First there was Rise, and then came Sneak, and the hits just keep! On! Comin'!"

This time, Ranko did not pause for the crowd's adulation, roaring right into the third variant of the chorus alongside Hitomi and Emi. There wasn't much choreography to the song; she merely strode the stage waving expressively to her fans as she sang. There would be time enough for dancing when Demon in Your Radio or B-O-U-N-C-E came up in the set list. But, with this song - especially for its first performance - she just wanted to connect with the people who had made it possible.

"Hey! Welcome to the Phoenix! We're glad you came around, to watch this silly girl get to shake your world with eighteen thousand watts of sound! C'mon, pull up a chair! Order some hot wings to share as you watch the Dragons play! Hey! Welcome to the Phoenix! C'mon in, and enjoy your stay!"

The redhead smiled down at Akane as her wife flitted between two tables in her short blue skirt. Don't let your eyes linger, Ranko admonished herself, instead turning her gaze back up to Yui. Gotta be careful now.

"We want you to relax, so please wear casual attire. Take a load off and kick back with a shrimp pizza and a Dragonfire."

She glanced down at her right wrist, and the silver dragon that rested coiled around it as always. Ranko thought back to those first few nights, back when she arrived at the bar cold and hungry, and Yui and the girls had taken her in with open arms. She remembered sitting on the bed in the little apartment that first Saturday night as Yui told her the stories of all four of the young women who had sat there before her. It was the night Ranko learned just how special the bar she stood in truly was.

"We take more pride in every beer than most of those other dives, because for everyone who pours one here, these four walls saved their lives! Hey! Welcome to the Phoenix!"

The songstress grinned as most of the crowd joined her, Emi and Hitomi in singing the song's title over the jaunty little tune.

"You're just fine as you are! We're equal parts an orphanage, a temple, and a party bar!"

Ranko clasped both of her hands over her heart, closing her eyes in her sincerity.

"And I'm one of the lucky ones who gets to stand here and say, hey, welcome to the Phoenix! Come on in, and enjoy your stay!"

The redhead shivered slightly, lost in her memories as the next verse came up. She bit her lip for strength, pointing over the heads of the crowd to the tinted glass front doors of the bar by the vacant hostess stand. The cracked and faded paint of the red trapezoidal logo had been refreshed, courtesy of Izumi's husband Kaito. The silent sentinel stood ready at the gates of a sake-soaked Eden to greet a new generation of revelers and refugees alike.

"A lot of girls over the years crawled through those double doors. Both good and bad, a lot of tears have seeped into these floors. Now, every booth and table is chock-full of memories of times some poor girl was able to get back up off their knees…"

Ranko smiled softly as the crowd took over for her. She was glad of it, as it gave her a few beats to fight the urge to cry.

"HEY! WELCOME TO THE PHOENIX! It's more than meets the eyes," she resumed. "Here, strangers become sisters, bonding over sad stories and fries."

She raised her left arm to point at the bar, where Yui and Izumi worked side-by-side, shaking cocktails vigorously over their shoulders with bright smiles.

"It made us all a family: me, Aya, Yui, Izumi, and Mei! HEY! Welcome to the Phoenix! C'mon in, and enjoy your stay!"

Ranko made a little heart shape with her hands as Yui looked up from her work. She was so happy for her sister; taking over the Phoenix after Hana decided to step down had been her dream for as long as Ranko knew her. In a lot of ways, after Hana, Yui had been the one that had been almost a second mother to Ranko more than a sister. Ranko hoped the day might come that one day, she and her wife Sakura would carry on Hana's legacy of not just serving drinks, but providing a shelter from the storm for a new generation of desperate, wayward girls in need of help, healing, and love.

"We had a little close call, in September of '92," Ranko sang to begin the final verse, finding it strange to refer to a month that was less than a week old in the past tense. "We almost lost it all, but worked together, and we made it through. After forty years, Mom knew she'd had enough, and needed rest."

The redhead pointed to the back left of the bar room with a bright smile as the blonde behind the counter caught a spinning bottle of mezcal out of the air.

"That's why my sister Yui is the new proprietress!"

Ranko grinned proudly as Yui blushed, adding a bit more sass to the sway of her hips as she whipped her body forward for the final chorus.

"HEY! Welcome to the Phoenix! We're so glad you came!"

The young singer panned her hand over the audience, pausing momentarily at several random individuals to highlight them as separate from the crowd.

"Everyone who comes here is different…"

She threw her arm to the side as if waving away an annoying fly.

"... but nobody leaves the same!"

Hitomi walked up behind Ranko on her orange stiletto heels, resting her hand on the small of Ranko's back. "No matter what else happens," she sang in her only solo of the song.

"Yeah, come whatever that may," Emi added, throwing her arm over the shoulders of the emotional redhead who stood between her and her girlfriend.

Ranko closed her eyes, smiling softly, and her shoulders seemed to relax. It's good to be home, she thought.

"You're welcome at the Phoenix! C'mon in, and enjo-oy your sta-a-a-ay!"

The redhead beamed, offering the crowd a little bow as the music came to an end and the music stopped. It was nearly two full minutes before they had quieted enough to allow her to speak. "Yeah! This is some place, isn't it? Most folks wouldn't think of a little dive bar as the kind of place that could change people's lives, but, here we are. I thank the gods every day I found this place, and the amazing people who run it, and I'm so grateful we get to keep on doing this every night with you all."

She grinned back at Shinji as the crowd roared its approval. "And you should be glad, too. It's a much better way to party than sitting around at home listening to the radio. Besides…"

Ranko's voice dropped two full octaves, emitting a sinister laugh into her microphone as Hitomi took her position to her left and Emi to the songstress' right.

"... I hear there's a demon in it…"

"Whoa-oh-oh, uh-oh! Look out! Look out!"