Operation: Reality Check
A Sailor Moon/Reality Jumpers FanFic
By Roehl Sybing
Last time, on O:RC....
Simply put, the Reality Jumpers do a small recon sweep across the enemy territory, the NegaVerse. The mission is cut short when Jake does battle with a mystery man (that's the good part of fanfic writing, you don't know WHO it is).
Episode 8: Prisoner Exchange
Hacker One sat patiently in Dimensional Travel Room 8, waiting for the Jumpers to come back. At that moment, someone opened the door, saying, "Boss, there's a small leak in our fusion power line."
Hacker replied, "Umm, fix it quickly; the Jumpers should be coming back in an hour or two, we don't want anything wrong with the gateway machine's power supply."
"Yes, sir."
As the door to the room closed, the machine at the far left of the room automatically turned on, signaling someone was coming through. The portal opened, and out of it came the eight entities that formed the Reality Jumpers. One by one, they were all thrown to the floor. Jake, who was the last one to come out, looked up at Hacker and said, "Ouch....see what I mean?"
"Sorry, Jake. Remind me to work on that Wednesday, OK?"
"Make that tomorrow, Hacker. TOMORROW."
"OK, OK...so why are you guys here so early?"
Chris, while out of breath from running around inside the NegaVerse, stood up and replied, "Monsters....big....dangerous...." And at that he lay back down on the floor of the room.
"Well, I told you it was dangerous. What did you find out, anyway?"
Sailor Moon, who changed back into Serena, looked up and said, "What do you think we'd find in only a half hour, huh?"
Just then, everyone felt a gush of wind circulating from the room. Luna looked around the room and noticed another portal opening, but it didn't come from the machine. She put her paw up and pointed at the opening, saying, "Look!"
They all noticed the gateway in an open corner of the room. Everyone dropped back to the ground and tried to hold onto something. After half a minute, the portal closed and disappeared. Hacker looked around the room and asked, "Everyone all right?"
Shortly after that, Luna shouted, "Wait! Where's Serena?"
"I don't know...." Hacker counted the number of people in the room, including himself and the cat. The total was seven. "Where's Jake?"
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"Where am I?" Jake said as he looked up and observed that he was in total darkness.
"JAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!!!" a voice cried out.
Though Jake was startled by the extra presence, Jake recognized the cry. "Serena, it's all right." He felt along a wall and noticed the rocky surface. "Great, I bet we're back in the NegaVerse...."
At that moment, Serena shouted, "HEY, I DON'T WANNA BE BACK HERE!!"
"C'mon, Serena," Jake replied calmly, compared to Serena's whining. "I thought you were used to this kind of stuff..."
"Yeah, I know, but..."
She was stopped in mid-sentence when a burst of light cut through the darkness. Unfortunately, it was the eerie glow that was emitted from the picture of a face that appeared in front of the two. In an instant, both knew who it was.
"Ha ha ha! Did you REALLY think I'd let you get away THAT easily?" Queen Beryl said.
Jake shouted, "Hey, why did you bring us back here?"
"Well, you know the obvious reason: I want to get rid of you very quickly. But I don't have it in me to do it myself."
Serena looked up, "You're too afraid we'll defeat you again?"
"Yes....you could say that."
Thinking there was still not enough light, Jake turned on his flashlight and continued, "So what're ya gonna do? Leave us here forever?"
"Not actually. Instead, I want to play a little game with you before you die a quick death. You see, I sent one of my minions to set a bomb somewhere within the area that you are currently in. Now I'm not saying you won't find it, you just won't be able to defuse it."
"YOU'RE LYING!"
"Now now, boy, I may be evil, but I'm not a liar. In about twenty minutes the bomb will go off, leveling the entire cavern!"
"Why are you doing this? Why don't you just finish us off right now?"
"Because I have someone else over in that part of the NegaVerse I want to get rid of, and I thought it would be appropriate that all three of you were destroyed all at once. Well, it's been really nice knowing you, gotta go!" And at that the face of Queen Beryl disappeared.
19:58.47.....
Serena started to panic, saying, "What're we gonna do? WHAT'RE WE GONNA DO?!?"
"Don't worry," Jake said calmly. "That Queen Beryl thinks she can kill us that easily. Well..." He reached into his pockets, but nothing was in there. "The track-and-return device! I lost it!"
"Well, where did it go?"
"I don't know, I must've dropped it when we hit the floor back at the building!"
"Ohhhh, great! Now what?"
Jake couldn't respond, because they heard someone scream, but they didn't know where the scream came from.
"Well, we got to find a way out of here, but first we gotta find that person who's screaming." He pointed in one direction and added, "You go to the left, I'll go to the right. Meet back here in TEN minutes, OK?" And so they ran in opposite directions as Serena shouted,
"MOON STAR POWER!"
19:04.51.....
....and turned into Sailor Moon. She ran down the rocky hallway for about a minute until she reached a dead end. On the floor she noticed something beeping. "This must be the time bomb!"
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17:53.79.....
As Jake ran through the hall, he could hear the scream getting louder. He noticed a path on his right leading to a room. He followed the path and entered a large room filled with machines and tools. Also in that room was the girl who was screaming. The girl was restrained against a wall with restraints on her wrists and legs. Her body was bruised in several places and her clothes were slightly torn. When the girl noticed Jake, she said extra-loud, "HELP ME!"
Startled by the noise, Jake replied, "OK, I'm here, youcanstopscreamingnow...."
"Sorry, I've been here for almost two days. Please, get me out of here!"
"All right, all right...." Jake looked around the room and noticed a bin of tools in a corner of the room. Knowing the clock was ticking, he looked through the bin, trying to find something that could release the girl's restraints. In the bin he found a mechanical torch that only contained a little fuel, but Jake predicted it was probably enough. He ran up to the girl, turned on the torch and pointed it at one of the wrist restraints.
"OW!" she shouted. "That burns!"
"Sorry," as Jake put the torch down. "But this is probably the only way to get you free."
"Well, actually...."
"I suppose you have an idea."
"Yes. The access code, I think, is 5183."
"Excuse me?"
"That was the code that locked these restraints to my wrists and my ankles. I noticed it when Queen Beryl typed it in."
So Jake turned on the machine that the girl pointed to and typed in the code. In seconds, the restraints disappeared and the girl was free. But Jake realized something. "Why didn't you tell me that a minute before?"
As the girl limped towards Jake, she replied, "You didn't ask...."
Jake's head dropped. "I must've heard that a million times......" He put his hand out and added, "I'm Jake."
"My name's Ami."
Didn't Jake hear that name from Serena before? "Wait a minute.......Ami? As in.....Sailor Mercury?"
Ami looked surprised, "How did you know?!?"
"Long story, c'mon, let's get outta here. A bomb's gonna go off in about fifteen minutes!!"
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16:47.81.....
After carefully examining the bomb for a few minutes, Sailor Moon managed to get the top panel of the explosive device open. Inside contained a series of wires all connecting to a digital clock that was counting down from "16:41.09."
"What do I do now?" Sailor Moon thought. "If I hit it with my sceptre, the thing'll probably explode, right?.................I know! Maybe if I cut one of the wires, the thing will stop..."
So she took off her left glove and pinched the only red wire in the bomb using her pink fingernails. When the wire was completely cut, the digital clock counted down faster and faster. In seconds it read "16:04.77" and falling. Sailor Moon panicked. She stepped away from the bomb and ran back to find Jake.
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14:37.90.....
"MERCURY STAR POWER!"
Right before Jake's eyes, Ami turned into Sailor Mercury. With wide-open eyes, all he could say was, "Neat.....look, there's no way we can get out of here before the bomb blows."
"Well, how did you get in?"
"Let me see....I think we went through one of Queen Beryl's portals."
"Good, we might have a chance then...."
"Another idea in mind?"
She didn't respond. Sailor Mercury touched the side of her head, making a blue visor appear in front of her eyes. On the visor contained some information which Jake couldn't see. After a few seconds, she added, "Yes, I was able to lock on to some sort of energy the portal left behind when it closed. I used that to re-open the portal, and it's located in that direction, where youl came from."
"Wow. You're good. I couldn't even think of that...."
"Let's go, shall we?"
10:11.83.....
"Yep. Hey, got a lot of time too. We got, like, fourteen minutes...."
Just then, Sailor Moon entered the doorway, out of breath. She noticed Jake, but her eyes were focused on Sailor Mercury. She ran up to her and shouted, "It's you! It's really you!"
"I'm glad to see you too!" She turned to Jake and added, "You never told me Serena was with you...."
Jake responded, "I forgot, all right? Listen, we've got," he looked at his watch, "Thirteen minutes. We'd better get out of here."
Now Sailor Moon had to break the bad news. "Umm, Jake, we got a little problem..."
"Uh oh, what's that?"
"Well, I found the bomb, see? And so I opened it, right? I cut the red wire, and...."
Jake's smile, as little as it was, quickly disappeared as he shouted, "WHAT? Why did you do that? Anyone smart enough knows never to cut the red wire!"
"I'm sorry!!"
"Well, what happened after you cut it?"
"The clock on the bomb started to count faster..."
"Great, that equals that we have to get out of here, FAST!"
1:13.74.....
Jake, Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury ran through the hall back to the place where the portal is supposed to be. As they neared their destination, Jake thought, "Oh, I hope we're not too late...."
0:21.04.....
On the far side of the cavern, the bomb hit "double-zero." It caused a blast to take out the rocky ceiling above it, causing a chain reaction that would destroy everything in the cavern.
The three heard the blast, then the sound of falling debris followed. Fortunately the open portal was in sight; about fifteen feet ahead. They all rushed to the portal, but a boulder from the ceiling fell and hit Jake in the knee, forcing him to the ground. Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury turned their heads to look at Jake as he cried in pain.
"Oh no!" Sailor Moon said. "Are you all right?"
Jake tried to move his leg, but found out that he couldn't. "I can't move it, guys!" he said. He felt around his leg and concluded it was a simple fracture.
At that moment a set of rocks and boulders fell and separated Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury from Jake.
Sailor Mercury screamed, "Don't worry! We'll get you of there!"
Realizing the cavern was falling apart and fast, he made a quick decision, "Go! Go on without me!"
"What?!?" Sailor Moon replied.
"There's no way you can get me out of here in time! Go through the portal now!"
"We're not going to leave you here!"
"You don't have any choice! Leave!"
Sailor Mercury took Sailor Moon by the hand, saying, "Don't worry, we'll find a way to get you of here!"
"I hope you do, OK?"
At that, the two Sailor Scouts left through the portal as the ground became covered with debris from the ceiling.
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"It didn't work!" Hacker said as he turned off the dimensional tracking device. He said that in front of the six remaining Jumpers in the room.
Chris replied, "They've been gone for almost twenty minutes! What makes you think we'll find them now?"
Just then, the portal re-opened in a corner of the room. Out of it came Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury.
Kim said, "Hey! You came back!"
Mina looked at the two and added, "Ami? Is that you?"
They greeted each other with a hug and some tears of joy. But it was then when Mike asked, "Serena, where's Jake?"
She stood in silence as the sound of a great big crash was heard from the closing portal signaling the cavern had completely caved in, but out of it came a tiny object that spun on the ground and fell. Sailor Moon picked up the object. She recognized what it was. "Jake's mirror...." she thought as she burst into tears.
"What happened?" Hacker asked softly. Still Sailor Moon gave no answer. But everyone in the room got the picture. "I see...."
The room was quiet for a few minutes as they all put their heads down in sadness.
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From another part of the NegaVerse, Queen Beryl sat in her chair, watching the activity going on in the FRC room. She smiled wickedly as she said, "Just as I had planned...." She summoned her minions and said, "Get the Tyler kid for me. I want to use him before they figure out he's still alive!"
TO BE CONTINUED......
