Sailor Moon/Bubblegum Crisis
"Best of All the Years"
Episode 3.
(To review:
Priscilla S. Asagiri has awakened in early thirtieth century Crystal
Tokyo. She is outraged to be told that due to the expense involved in her
restoration, she will not be permitted to end her life, but must rather
pay back her "debt to society". Furious and grieving for her long-dead
friends, Priss swears to find Lady Mars, and exact an explanation for the
orders that led to her resurrection (which had come from Mars). This task
proceeds at a slow pace for six weeks, when she finds herself catapulted
into a meeting of rebels against the government of Crystal Tokyo, led by
Arduin Daeden, who had attempted to assassinate Queen Serenity. Lady Mars
is also present at the meeting, and is rescued by Priss, who then demands
an explanation for her cloning. Mars responds that there has been no
cloning, that Priss had been in cryogenic suspension.)
"What?" I asked weakly.
"Priss, you're not a clone! We did get your DNA at that contest, but
we never had to use it, because eight years later you ..."
"But Serenity told me that I was a clone, dammit!" I shouted. This
didn't make any sense. Why the hell would she ...
"No. That *can't* be true, Priss. She doesn't lie. She doesn't
always tell the whole truth, but she wouldn't tell a baldfaced lie like
that. What exactly did she say to you?" she pressed.
I closed my eyes. "She said that ... I wasn't actually Priss Asagiri
in the fullest sense of the word. And then she started talking about how
clones of people weren't considered reincarnations of those people, but
.."
"But she never said that *you* were a clone of Priss, right?" Mars
interrupted triumphantly. "Misdirection. She wanted you to think that
you were a clone ... for whatever reason."
"But what about your orders? She said that I'd been brought back on
*your* orders."
She considered. "I did leave standing orders that any of my charges
who were in suspension should be released if I ever resigned ... and you
are my responsibility, in a way. I didn't expect Serenity to go through
with them, since I thought that she'd be hoping I'd come back."
"Okay ... start from the beginning, all right? How did I get into
suspended animation? I don't remember anything past August of 2033 ..."
"An artificial memory block. It's a fairly simple telepathic
technique. I could undo it ... if I had my powers."
"Powers?" I asked wearily.
"I have certain ... talents that I've developed over the centuries.
Unfortunately, *this* ..." She held up the bracelet she'd put on under
Arduin's orders. " ... prevents me from using them."
"So you can't do squat, in other words," I said disgustedly.
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," she said with deceptive calm. She moved
faster than anything I've ever seen, grabbed the gun I was still holding
on her, and pulled it out of my hand. "I'm still much stronger, faster,
and tougher than any mortal, Priss," she said calmly. "Don't piss me off,
okay?"
That was it. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I
slumped down to the floor of the tunnel, and burst into tears. I hadn't
cried so much since ... since Sylvie had ...
"Oh, megamisama, Priss ..." Mars muttered, and knelt down beside me.
She tried to put a hand on my shoulder ...
"Don't. Fucking. Touch. Me!" I shouted between the sobs.
She drew back, giving me a nice, safe distance.
After a few moments, I was coherent again. "It's bad enough the lot
of you drag me into this bloody insane future, make me into a goddamn
BOOMEROID ..."
"What are you talking about *now*?" Mars demanded.
I yanked up the back of my shirt to show her the thing on my back.
She stared at it. "What the hell is *that*?" she muttered. She started
to reach out and touch it, but I jerked away.
"It's some kind of medicalert implant so that I can't kill myself and
thus screw your government out of the money they spent to clone me ..."
"You're not a clone. And why on earth would they make such a huge
"implant" when they can make something like that practically submicro-
scopic?"
"So what are you saying?" I asked.
"I'm saying that that's not what you think it is. Will you please let
me take a look at it?"
I stared at her. I didn't want to trust her. She was the one who'd
gotten me into this bloody mess in the first place ...
Mars handed me the gun. "Put it to my forehead," she instructed me.
"If I do anything but examine that thing, pull the trigger. I'm trusting
you with my life. Can't you give me a little trust?"
I swallowed. I set the barrel of the gun against the bridge of her
nose. "Move slowly," I whispered.
She slowly reached towards my back. Towards the implant. I felt her
warm fingers brush against my back. I tightened my grip on the trigger.
I felt a small tearing sensation.
She pulled away, holding the thing in one hand. "It's not an
implant," Mars said simply. "It was attached to your back by some
adhesive gunk, but it came off pretty easily."
I lowered the gun. "Okay, then. What is it?" I was trembling.
She examined it. "A mini-hologram projector. The sort of thing that
we use to send messages by courier. Lessee ..." She manipulated tiny
controls on the device, and a small screen displayed characters that I
couldn't make out. "There's two messages hardwired into the memory.
One's got my name on it, one's got yours. You mind if I take a look at
mine first?"
"Go right ahead ..."
She pressed a button, and the hologram flickered into being above the
device. It was Serenity, and her Amazon bodyguard Jupiter, and the blue
haired woman I'd punched who I'd been told was called Mercury. With the
three of them were another woman with long blond hair, and a man in a
lavender suit. They were all about six inches tall.
"Raye, we miss you," the man said simply.
"It's not any fun coming home when you're not here," the other blonde
said with a smile.
"You make every day a little more interesting," stated Mercury.
"And your generals are all reporting to *me*. It's a bloody
nuisance!" Jupiter snarled, but there was humor in her eyes.
"Raye. Come back to us. Please." Serenity spoke quietly, but there
was a gentle, pleading quality to her voice.
The hologram faded out. Mars sat staring at it for a long moment.
"Hey," I said. "Are you okay?" Suddenly I realized something. "Wait
a minute. They brought me back so that I could deliver that thing to
you? Like I'm some kind of carrier pigeon?"
"I didn't know Mina was back on Earth," she muttered, as if she hadn't
heard me. "They ... they all came together to ask me ..."
"Yo!" I interrupted. "I'd like to take a look at *my* little telegram
from the Queen? If that's not too much trouble?"
She fixed me with a very hard stare. "No trouble at all." She
manipulated the controls, turned the hologram so that it'd be facing me,
and stabbed a button.
A six inch Queen Serenity confronted me, standing alone this time.
"Ms. Asagiri, I apologize for the deception I have engaged in towards
you. It is time for you to know the truth."
And my mind exploded.
I was at the Karaoke Contest again, feeling a needle into my
shoulder. I turned around, and saw a guy wearing a coat with sleeves
covered with little pointy things stumble past me in a drunken stupor. I
decided not to tangle with him.
And then things sped up. Fights with boomers, with people, singing,
dancing, sex, talking, watching my friends age, watching myself start to
slow down ...
In the welter of images and memories, I struggled to grab onto
something concrete ...
And I was in my hardsuit. I was hurting all over. I'd just
dispatched a bunch of the newest combat boomers that GENOM had begun to
put out on the street. There had been so *many* of them recently. We
were hard pressed ...
"Priss, help!" I heard Nene shout over the communications net. I
sighed. She'd gotten just a bit better over the last eight years, but she
was still basically helpless in combat. And just as nerdy as ever ...
"Hold it, Nene, I'm coming ..." I started running for her position.
The radar showed no hostiles in the area, but I couldn't get a fix on
Linna and Sylia either ... what the hell was wrong with Nene? Probably
some boomer'd fallen over on her and she couldn't budge it, or something
equally stupid.
"Help, Priss, help!"
I got to her position, and she was just standing with her back to me
in the middle of an open area. "Whassamatter, your suit freeze up on
you?" I asked as I walked towards her.
She didn't say anything.
I tapped her on the shoulder.
She fell over, and I saw that her face had been pulped. There was
only a red mess where her head had been. The rest of her was fine, just
.. nothing left of her face. There was a tiny recording device near her
communicator, endlessly repeating her voice crying out for my help.
I realized that I was on my knees, cradling her body, and tears
streaming down behind my visor. "No ... no ... you stupid, stupid little
idiot ..." I heard my own voice say. "*I'm* the one who's supposed to die
first, not you ..."
"Priss!" Sylia's voice crackled across the comm. "What's the
matter?"
"Nene ... oh, god ..."
"Priss, is Nene hurt?"
"They got her, Sylia ... they got her."
A long silence. "Priss, hang on, we'll be there in ..."
Sudden explosions across the radio. "Sylia, we've got company!" Linna
screamed.
"Priss, get yourself together ..."
"No."
"Priss, dammit, I'm ordering you!"
"I quit."
I turned off the communicator. I pulled off my helmet. I waited for
them. They'd set it up perfectly, dragging me here with that fake
distress call, so that I wouldn't be there when they ambushed Sylia and
Linna.
GENOM had won. They'd made a boomer that was as smart and as cruel as
a human being.
"Come on, you metal bastards ... this is the day you've all been
waiting for ..." I whispered, holding Nene's corpse to myself.
And they came. Dozens of them. They surrounded us, and began to
power up their weapons.
"It's a good day to die," I muttered.
"But the day is not yet over!" a voice exclaimed behind me.
I heard shouts, and watched as the boomers were flamed, lasered,
electrocuted, and blasted with frost, all around me. It was like I was
watching a movie ... I wasn't really there, none of this was happening ...
and then they stepped into view.
The Sailor Soldiers.
I'd heard the legends, just like every other kid in MegaTokyo. But
nobody believed those stories, any more than the ones about the martial
artist kid as tough as a wild horse, or the western goddesses living in
that temple ... it was just stuff someone made up. A myth.
"Holy crap," the one in red, the dark haired one, whispered.
"We're too late," the blue one sighed.
"There was nothing that you could have done, Mercury," a soft voice
came from behind me. "She chose her own fate, ultimately ..."
And then the goddess walked around where I could see her. She shone
with a light that was so ... perfect.
"Rest in peace, Nene Romanova ... you will be remembered, I promise."
She walked over to one of the boomers that was still somewhat
functional. Her face darkened with anger, and she reached down, and
pulled the robot's head from its body, and held it up to her eye level.
"I know you can hear me," she whispered. "I will not permit it. You
will not take this world into the grave with you, Quincy. I WILL NOT
PERMIT IT!"
She flung the head away just a second before it exploded.
As if nothing unusual had just happened, she spoke to the tall, green
suited one. "Jupiter, take Ms. Romanova's body and make arrangements for
a proper burial. We have much yet to do today."
"Right." She started towards me. The thought that they were going to
take Nene away penetrated my consciousness, and I lifted my railgun in
response.
"Don't," I said. Suddenly my suit went dead as all the electricity in
it surged away.
The tall one smiled grimly. The red one put a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't hurt her," she said. It was a request, not a plea.
"I won't hurt her permanently," the tall one said calmly.
She only broke both my arms.
I yanked my mind away from that agony. I was adrift in the memories
again, watching the explosion of GENOM tower, quietly weeping, and finally
lying down in a coffin ... no, not a coffin, a cryogenic tube ... and then
the grayness.
I pulled myself from the memories, into the hard reality of the
tunnel. Mars was staring at me as I came out of the convulsions the
sudden freeing of the block on my memories had caused.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
Nene.
"No," I said. "I'm never going to be all right."
I felt, rather than saw, her start to reach out to put her hand on my
shoulder ... then she paused, and retracted the arm. "I'm sorry," she
said, simply. "But it wasn't your fault, Priss."
"Bullshit," I muttered. "You still haven't told me why you did it."
"When we found you, I recognized you at once. We'd gotten your DNA
earlier, and we'd been hoping to eventually approach you about letting us
get a braintape ... but things went crazy before we could. I ... liked
you. You remind me, in a lot of ways, of myself when I was younger. So I
set things up so that you could go into cryogenic sleep."
"You should have just let her kill me," I said bleakly.
She shook her head. "She wouldn't have done that. Anyway, you spent
the last eight hundred or so years inside the fortress in Tibet that we
were operating out of. I was hoping that when we thawed you out, you'd be
amenable to psychotherapy. But I never got around to doing it, and I
guess that Serenity eventually had other ideas ..."
"Yeah, no shit. Like using me as a goddamn burro!"
"I think the term, courier, would be a little more appropriate," she
said with a sardonic smile.
"Shove it."
The smile vanished. "Look, Priss ... I can't do a damn thing about
the hand you've been dealt. All I can do is, hopefully, get us out of
here and back to someplace safe, where I can get this bracelet off. But I
have to get Arduin."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because he tried to kill my Queen!" Mars shouted. "I can't let that
go!"
"*She* did. Whassamatter, Mars, feeling guilty over something you had
no control over? Trying to atone for something that wasn't your fault?"
She held a finger up to my nose. "Don't push me, punk. This is *not*
the same thing as your guilt complex over Nene."
"The fuck it isn't! You'll do anything to make up for whatever little
failure you suffered that let him get close enough to even try to make the
shot, right? Well, I'd give anything for just a little more speed, a
little more power, to have gotten there in time ... she wasn't supposed to
die like that, dammit!"
"You're quite correct, about that, at least." She suddenly looked
like she wanted to bite her tongue off.
The implications of that remark sunk in, and I remembered how Serenity
had spoken about Nene, and ... "She was working for you guys, wasn't she?"
I said in a very soft voice. "She was trying to prevent the Apocalypse."
"No." Mars shook her head. "Nothing could have stopped the
Apocalypse. It was as inevitable as ... as a sunset, or a coming of age.
What we were trying to do was ensure that there'd be enough people to make
sure that civilization would be able to get a start again, after the Dark
Ages ... after the freeze."
"So by not saving her ..."
"You maybe added a day or two to the time it took to make the
recovery, and that's it. Or maybe things in one isolated corner of the
world were a bit worse because she didn't get her job finished. It
doesn't make any difference, in the long run."
I closed my eyes, and shook my head.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps in the distance. I went absolutely still.
"Down the corridor," Mars said in a very soft voice that was not a
whisper. "Past the junction." She began to move in that direction.
Slowly, I followed her, keeping a firm grip on the gun.
In the corridor that intersected with the one we were in, Arduin was
speaking with a figure in dark robes ... who was hovering over the ground,
carrying a crystal ball in his lap. From the expression on Mars' face, I
gather that she knew him.
"Master, will you not grant me more power?" Arduin asked.
"You dare to ask this? For nearly a thousand years, I have protected
and hidden you, the last of your kind. And now, in the very instant when
we come nearest to the goal, you fail me!"
"It was the intervention of the unpredicted element, Master. The
actions of the human were completely unexpected, and illogical. The
intelligence we were given led us to believe that she would welcome any
attempt to exterminate the Senshi."
"Do you have any idea of the nature of the human you sought to use?"
the robed one demanded. "I am surprised that you did not recognize the
one your creators programmed as a primary target."
Arduin stood silently for a moment. "But that is thoroughly
illogical. The clone of the individual termed Saber Blue or Asagiri
Priscilla should have no memories of her opposition to my creators."
Creators. Programmed. Illogical.
I turned very slowly to look at Mars. "He's mine," I said quietly.
"You can't have him."
Before she could do anything, I stepped into the entrance of the
corridor, and said, "I am not a clone." And then I started shooting.
The bolts from the gun slammed into Arduin, and passed right through
the guy in the robes. I wasn't really looking at him, though. I was
watching the huge man whom I'd just shot four times pull himself to his
feet, metal gleaming where the artificial flesh had burnt off. And then
he expanded even further, clothing and flesh shredding instantly.
Arduin Daeden was a boomer.
I started pulling back on the trigger even faster, sending shot after
shot at the metallic abomination that was slowly beginning to walk towards
me. It ignored my shots.
"Damn, I could use my hardsuit right now," I muttered under my breath.
The boomer was less than six feet away from me. It opened its mouth.
The particle beam cannon in its throat began to glow.
I leapt at the thing, shoved the barrel of the gun down into the
cannon, and flung myself back ...
And it exploded. The shock front caught me in the back, and I knew
nothing.
When I awoke, I couldn't hear anything, and I was in a universe of
pain. Mars was standing over me with an awestruck expression on her
face. Her lips moved.
I wanted to ask her what " 'shai dorsai" meant, but at that moment, I
wanted to lose consciousness a little more.
So I did.
There was a trial, of course. I mean, in an ordered society, you
can't just let people blow up parts of the sewer system without an inquest
into their actions and motives.
My defense, such as he was, was mostly intent on demonstrating that
neither Lady Mars nor any member of the Royal Government had instructed me
to take any actions, that I had acted purely on my own initiative.
Which was, in a way, true.
The trial concluded, and the judge found me not guilty of wanton
destruction, although he did strongly suggest that I take a firearms
safety course.
However, after making his ruling, the judge made a speech commending
me for my quick thinking in the defense of a valued member of the
government of the Crystal Kingdom, and for my courage in dealing with a
potentially fatal menace to the realm. "In my opinion, Citizen Asagiri,
Crystal Tokyo is very much in your debt."
From my hospital bed, I grinned at him. That was about all I *could*
do, at that point.
I was released from the hospital a few weeks later, and decided to
finally pay a visit to the memorial.
It was a tall marble column on which four statues -- me, Linna, Sylia
and Nene -- stood, facing the east. We were displayed in our hardsuits,
but without helmets. Whoever the artist had been, he hadn't quite gotten
our faces right. My nose wasn't ... but anyway, the plaque on the column
read as follows:
Knight Sabres
2031 C.E. - 2041 C.E.
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose
of human existence is to kindle a light of
meaning in the darkness of mere being.
C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
The day I visited it, it was raining. I stood there, in the rain,
staring up at the artists conception of what I and ... the people I'd
loved most in the world had looked like, and puzzling over the quote.
I heard a step behind me, and I slowly turned around to see Mars. She
was wearing the costume of the Sailor Soldiers under a green raincoat.
We stared at each other for a long moment. "You didn't visit," I
said, not accusing, just stating a fact.
"It wouldn't have been appropriate," she said, not apologizing.
"Could you please tell me something? Why'd you people build that
thing? And what's with that ... fortune cookie expression?"
"Jung would be thrilled to know you've such a high opinion of him,"
Mars said drily. "For the first ... well, this is the short version:
quite a few of the jobs that the Knight Sabres took in the latter part of
the 2030s were for us, sometimes indirectly."
"So what? Why honor us for something we didn't even know about?"
She gave me a look that was eerily like the one Serenity had given me
weeks ago, the sort of look that makes you feel very, very small.
"Soldiers often fight battles without being aware of the overall strategic
purpose of their mission. Do they not deserve to be honored for their
sacrifices?"
I didn't have an answer for that.
"With regards to the quotation ... let's just say that it has to do
with choosing to take action rather than simply accepting bad things that
happen to you. Do you get the idea?"
I nodded. That, I could understand. "So now what?"
"I bear apologies from Queen Serenity. She never intended for you to
become involved in that little matter."
"Shouldn't have defrosted me, then."
"Probably not. But that's the way it goes. She just wanted you to
deliver that message, and then get out. She knew that Daeden was a
boomer, but she couldn't reveal that to anyone. She didn't know that he
had a connection to our enemies. Do you hate her?" she asked suddenly.
"I don't understand her. I don't understand why she had to be so
bloody deceptive."
"What kind of government do you think we have?"
I wasn't expecting that. "I dunno ... constitutional monarchy?"
"Close. Do you know what timocracy is?"
"Democracy? That's ..."
"No, TIM-ocracy. It's the most advanced form of democracy, where
there aren't any elected representatives. People vote on everything. In
essence, the people become the government." She paused. "If enough of
the voting populace became convinced that Serenity was violating the
ideals of Crystal Tokyo, they could vote to have her removed from power.
That's why she had to be circumspect. What she was doing, in trying to
deal with an organization with ties to forces that are in opposition to
us, treaded dangerously close to a violation of our ethics. It's not
permitted for us to try and interfere with what people believe. If they
want to throw us out, we can't just start arresting them. But this was
.. different."
I nodded. I doubted that I'd ever really *understand* what she was
talking about, but I did get the gist. "No ... I don't hate her. But I
don't like her very much."
"Neither do I, some days. Well, I also bear some other things." She
pulled a pair of envelopes out of her inside pocket, and handed them to
me. "Read the one from the Queen first," she advised.
I opened it, and read the single paper inside.
"Let it be known that in recognition of the
debt owed to Citizen <Nofirstname> Asagiri by
Crystal Tokyo, Her Majesty extends the
charity of declaring any debts owed by
Citizen <Nofirstname> Asagiri null and void."
"Cute," I said. "So that's what she meant by, in the truest sense
possible."
"You're free and clear. If you want to kill yourself, no one will
stop you."
I looked up and across at her. It had been a while since I'd even
thought of doing that. "Not even you?"
She didn't look me directly in the eye. "If you try when I'm not
around. I make no promises otherwise."
"Huh. So how does this square with TINSTAAFL?"
"Simple. Her Majesty decided that the debt that you owed her was more
than cancelled out by the tremendous favor you did her by saving my life.
There are many ways of paying for something, you know."
"So who's this one from?" I asked, looking at the other, unmarked
envelope.
"Read it and find out."
I tore it open and stared at it.
Priss, by the time you read this, I'll have
been dead for a long time. I don't know how
long. Rei won't tell me exactly who she's
working for, only that they can guarantee
that you will be brought back into a more
peaceful world. Which ain't gonna be any
time soon. With GENOM gone, the other big
corps are starting to get into serious scraps
over what's left. MegaTokyo's even more of a
battlefield now than it was when all that
stuff went down.
She's also told me that before they put you
to sleep, you were blaming yourself for what
happened to Nene. I wish I could have
scrounged some kind of audio recorder so that
I could include a little verbal message with
this -- my voice saying "It wasn't your
fault!" over and over again.
God, Priss, Nene was on a clock, just like
the rest of us, and she took every single
risk that we did. It was just her time. For
you to insist that you could have changed the
outcome is really insulting. You're as bad
as Sylia. I have in front of me a copy of
her journal (it was anonymously published a
couple days ago). And I think you might find
the last entry informational.
March 15, 2041
It's not right for a mother to outlive
her children.
A couple days after that, she walked into
GENOM tower with some kind of micronuke in
her briefcase. We thought you were dead,
like Nene. I still remember her face when we
got to where you had been transmitting ...
she just stood there, her helmet off,
staring, with no expression on her face, at
all those boomers.
And then she turned and walked away.
You're self-destructive enough as it is,
Priss. You don't need this kind of guilt.
So just accept that you weren't responsible,
and feel bad, feel angry, feel sad ... but
not guilty.
I envy you. The world you live in will be so
wondrous ... but probably also terrifying.
That's why I turned down Rei's offer. But I
had to send you this little missive.
Enjoy the future, red eyes.
You mind if I date Leon?
Love, Yamazaki Linna.
I folded up the letter, and slid it into my pocket, telling myself
that the water on my cheeks was rain.
Mars was gazing at me. "I didn't think it was right that she not know
what had really happened to you," she said quietly.
"Thanks," I said, my voice a little hoarse. Probably from all the
yelling I'd been doing lately.
"Well ... like I said, you're free, Priscilla S. Asagiri. By the way,
what does the S stand for? None of the information we've recovered ..."
"It's my middle name. Serena."
I watched her start at that, and blanch a little bit. "What's the
matter?" I asked.
She looked away. "I had a ... friend named Serena, once. She died."
She was silent for a very long time. "She annoyed the living hell out of
me, and I cared about her more than I was ever able to tell her, and ...
I'd have given my life to save hers, but in the final hour, that wasn't
enough. And even though there was nothing I could have done to change the
outcome, it's still ... my fault."
She turned, and started to walk away.
I looked up at Nene's statue. For some reason, it was the most true
to life of all of them. I could almost imagine her winking ...
"Hey!" I called out.
She turned back, wordlessly.
"Did you know Nene well?" I asked.
She shook her head. "Never met her."
I was reaching ... "I'll make you a deal ... I'll tell you about her
.. if you'll tell me more about your Serena ... deal?"
"Sounds ... okay," she said.
So I rushed to catch up to her. "There any good bars in this town?" I
asked.
"Oh, I know one or two," she replied.
"Y'know, Mars ..."
"Please, call me Raye."
"Y'know, Raye ..."
"And if you say `this could be the beginning of a beautiful
friendship', I'm gonna have to slug you or something."
I grinned through the rain. I wasn't gonna say that. What I was
gonna say was, the best of all the years ... are just beginning.
The End
Author's Notes
This story is dedicated, with respect and admiration, to Jeanne Hedge,
for putting up with my efforts to combine a comedic fantasy with dramatic
science fiction. I strongly recommend that anyone who reads this visit
her homepage at http://www.accsyst.com/jhedge/main.html
After I completed part one of this story, I realized that part of
Priss' dilemma was inspired by my reading of Chris Willmore's Ranma 2096
side story, "A Winter's Tale". I also recommend that anyone who reads
this check out the Ranma 2096 webpage at http://qlink.queensu.ca/~4cw6/
The expression that Raye uses to describe Priss at one point ('shai
dorsai, meaning "real, genuine dorsai") is taken from the Child Cycle of
Gordon R. Dickson. Again, the novels and stories of this epic come with
my highest recommendation, especially the short story "Brothers".
One more time: Sailor Moon was created by Takeuchi Naoko, and brought
to North America by DIC. The characters of Bubblegum Crisis were created
by Kenichi Sonada (and others) and brought to North America by AnimEigo.
Nobody sue me, okay?
Chris Davies, Advocate for Darkness, Part-Time Champion of Light.
"I am not a very nice person anymore." - Rand al'Thor, "Crown of Swords"