Okay, Part 5 done (actually, I did this a little while ago, but I'm trying
to
deter those Taskmasters until I actually get some work done...)
I've changed the ** symbols after comments that it was too obtrusive.
They're now replaced by _ _ (underscore) characters. See if it helps
any.
Knowing Compuserve, they've probably completely screwed the formatting
again, but since I don't have the time to go through the 'fic and shorten
it
to 70 characters per line (and not, say 78), I'm afraid this is how it'll
stay for now.
Enjoy,
Terence Fergusson
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Terence Fergusson (101740.1042@compuserve.com)
Books/Bubblegum Crisis/Sailor Moon
"Boomers and Youmas"
Part 2 : "Kawaii Just Doesn't Cut It"
Both Bubblegum Crisis and Sailor Moon are copyrighted by their respective
copyright owners. Any material used from Bubblegum Crisis or the original
Sailor Moon series are not of my own creation, and I take no credit for it.
Thank you for not suing me.
Ian Robinson, Chronos, and all the Books-related stuff are presumably
copyright Terence Fergusson aka Me. This fanfic, excepting those scenes,
characters and other stuff that belongs to the two aforementioned series,
plus any other anime, manga or general fiction, is mine.
Story notes: /.../ designates thoughts...
_..._ designates stressed words...
Any other strange symbols _should_ be self-explanatory.
The prologue to this part is not _exactly_ the same as the preview at the
end
of the previous chapter, but nothing vital's changed, so feel free to skip
it
if you've already read it. I will probably post a full revision of the
entire story once all parts have been completed.
And now, to continue....
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PROLOGUE
DAY 2
Ian ran full pelt out of the portal, none the worse for wear from his
experience, and skidded to a halt within a large shopping precinct. With
badly hidden frustration, he noticed that the signs were still in Japanese,
but fortunately, it seemed, he was back in the present day. By the light
streaming in from outside, it was early afternoon. A clock on the other
side of the building confirmed it.
It was a little odd, that the portal had brought him inside a mall, when
he had just escaped from the streets.
What was definitely strange, were the amount of people lying on the
floor,
seeming... drained, somehow.
And the eight-foot tall monster with the really sharp claws that was
moving
around the place laughing as people collapsed around it. It was standing
in a similar place relative to Ian that the boomer had been. /Oh, so
instead
of sending me to similar surroundings, it bloody well sends me to similar
circumstances..../ And this time, there were no Knight Sabers.
Without thinking twice, Ian started to back slowly away from it, hoping
it
wouldn't notice him.
He was out of luck. It spun to face him the moment he moved.
Almost out of instinct, Ian whipped out his pistol, aiming in the
monster's
general direction and succeeded in blasting it several times in the chest.
The barrage seemed to cause it immense pain, but to Ian's dismay, it was
still moving when the pistol decharged.
/Aw man..../ Ian hurriedly leapt behind a potted plant as the monster
started to flick energy bolts at _him_. He set to work, feverishly pulling
down on the charging mechanism; the pulse-laser pistol only stored a
limited
charge before it had to be `recharged' by pulling a hard-to-move mechanism
back and forth once, similar to a pump-action shotgun. With Ian, it always
seemed to happen at the _worst_ possible times.
He dodged out of cover just in time to see that others had responded to
the
threat. Five teenage girls, to be precise. The _young_ half of teenage.
There was something familiar about them, that tugged at Ian's mind. He
shook
it off and started to run towards the monster, gun upraised. The monster
hadn't noticed them yet; it was still concentrating on Ian. Those girls
were
going to get themselves killed not knowing when to run and when to....
"JUPITER POWER, MAKE UP!"
/Huh?/
"MERCURY POWER, MAKE UP!"
The girls all had something held up high above their head, and they were
each shouting something different. The monster half-turned to look at
them. A couple of laser bolts to the side of his head brought it snarling
back to face Ian....
"VENUS POWER, MAKE UP!"
As they each finished their own sentence, blinding light coalesced around
them, and they became hidden from Ian's view....
"MARS POWER, MAKE UP!"
Now, only one of the girls was left. She had a _very_ distinctive
hairstyle. Two balls of hair with a long ponytail dangling down from each.
It made him think of... of... /Meatballs. Like meatballs./ Now where had
_that_ come from?
The last girl held some kind of pendant over her head, and shouted:
"MOON PRISM POWER, MAKE UP!"
As the light cleared, Ian found himself watching on the sidelines. The
girls had changed, that much was definite. Each of them were now wearing
some sort of superhero costume; almost like a sailor's uniform with a short
skirt, complete with white gloves and high heels. /A sailor fuku,/ his
mind
helpfully came up with. Where had he heard that before? Fortunately, the
monster was no longer paying him any attention. It spun to face the
newcomers.
The one he had recognised with the distinctive hairstyle pointed at the
monster with a scowl on her face. "Even though shopping can be a chore, it
is a neccessary part of life, and often pleasurable. To interfere with it
in
such a way is unforgivable. For love and justice, we are the beautiful
Sailor Senshi! In the name of the moon...."
"...and the planets Jupiter..." interrupted the tall, pony-tailed girl,
who
seemed rather tomboyish; almost looking forward to the fight.
"...Mercury..." continued the shorter, girl with an almost bluish tint to
her short dark hair.
"...Venus..." said the blonde-haired senshi, arguably the prettiest of
the
five; at least, Ian thought so. He felt sure the girls themselves would
have
other ideas.
"...and Mars..." picked up the one with long, black hair; Ian would have
sworn she was rolling her eyes. As for appearance, she looked an awful lot
like the blonde-haired girl before her; maybe they were sisters?
"...we will punish you," finished the meatball-haired girl, who unlike
the
previous girl, seemed deadly serious about the speech.
Suddenly, he stopped. His eyes widened slightly as he realised
something.
Sailor fuku. Meatballs. Senshi. It all fit. Ian realised just who it
was
who had replaced the Knight Sabers in this book.
"Oh no," Ian muttered under his breath.
The speeches finished, the senshi charged the monster. Most of the
fighting appeared to be just energy attacks; none of the girls seemed
willing
to close for hand-to-hand which, considering the size of the monster, was
just as well.
"SHABON SPRAY!"
Long ago, back before all this business with the bookshop had ever
happened, back when the worst Ian had to worry about was homework being in
late, Ian had been `introduced' to Japanese anime by a friend of his. One
of them had been a dubbed series named "Sailor Moon".
"CRESCENT BEAM!"
"Oh god, oh man, oh shit...."
Ian, personally, couldn't stand it. The closest thing he had to compare
it
with was an American TV programme called "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers", a
show so corny and stupid that it didn't even merit watching for the idiotic
monsters. The plot of each episode of MMPR was identical to every other
one.
New monster goes around causing chaos. Power Rangers go and trounce new
monster. Evil megalomaniac sorceress controlling operation causes new
monster to grow to Godzilla height. Power Rangers call their dinosaur
inspired mechanoids and trounce Godzilla-size new monster. Admittedly,
they
didn't then all go back home and have a round of ginger beer, but the last
five minutes of each episode appeared to be devoted to learning some kind
of
moral. Apparently, Power Rangers had done really well in the States.
"THUNDER CRASH!"
"No, no, no, no, no!" Ian continued his litany, panic setting in at the
edges of his voice, which had been steadily rising in both pitch and
volume.
Of course, there was no way he could be in the dubbed version. That was
a
TV programme. However, his friend had said that the original Sailor Moon
had
been Japanese manga, in amongst all his helpful explanations of most of the
other Japanese terminology....
He was stuck for twenty-four hours in the middle of a book he neither
liked
nor cared about. A little girl's book. He believed `kawaii' was the word
his friend had described it. Japanese for "cute". And that it was. Ian
could almost puke.
"FIRE SOUL!"
He was in their reality now. He was bound by their laws of physics and
their way of doing things. He was, to all intents and purposes, trapped.
"MOON TIARA ACTION!"
The battle had been raging for well over a couple of minutes, and sadly,
it
looked like the other buildings had borne most of the attacks. However,
the
fight was now coming to an end. And with that final cry, a tiara whistled
through the air from the meatball-haired girl's hand, and crashed into the
badly wounded monster. With a mixed cry of rage and pain, it collapsed
into
dust. The golden tiara continued to spin through the air in a smooth
parabola, before returning back to the girl.
The scene brought reality screaming back to Ian with a crash. There was
no
denying it now. He knew exactly where he was, and exactly what he thought
of
it.
"Yatta," cried Sailor Moon in exultation.
"NO!" cried Ian in despair.
`Saved' by a bunch of fourteen year-old girls in abbreviated sailor
suits.
Things just couldn't get worse.
--**************--
CHAPTER 5 - Jumping Over The Moon
There are many facts of life. Some of these are particularly strange
facts, and some are only based on superstition or hearsay, but there
appears
to be truth in most of them. Like, whenever you plan a picnic, the skies
cloud over. Or when you get a plumber around, they can never make it
today,
it's always "next week, maybe the week after". It is often said, that fact
is stranger than fiction. This is very true.
One group of facts are known vaguely as Murphy's Laws. However, one of
his
laws sums up the whole group quite succinctly, and was known more famously
as
Murphy's or Sod's law. It goes like this: "Anything that _can_ go wrong,
_will_ go wrong."
Fiction is riddled with such key phrases, where the hero suddenly says
something like: "That was too easy," or "_This_ is a heavily guarded
fortress?" or some other boastful sentence like that. And then storms of
monsters rush in, surprising the said hero. You _know_ what's going to
happen as soon as they say it. And so, it becomes a fact. A fact of
fiction, if you will.
Whenever someone thinks or says that "Things just couldn't get worse,"
the
universe has a way of rearranging things so that they do. This is a well-
known fact, and has led various cultures to come up with superstitious
phrases designed to protect people from the consequences of this fact; such
as "touch wood", for example. Ian has promised many times to give up
intoning the former of the two phrases mentioned, but old habits, bad or
good, do die hard.
The universe isn't fussy about _when_ it gets people back. Just as long
as they _are_ got back.
In Ian's case however, the universe usually makes an exception.
Improbability fields have nothing on what the universe sometimes does to
get Ian Robinson back.
--**************--
Ian came back to his, admittedly ragged, senses to find all five girls
looking at him. He wondered why. He ran his still recovering mind over
the
last few minutes to find out the reason. Unfortunately, he was trying to
get
over his preliminary shock over the current events, so he wasn't as quick
as
he usually was.
/Fighting the monster futilely... no, there _are_ some people stupid
enough
to do that other than me. Firing off lasers in a modern day world... nah,
they'd never think it was anything than another gun. I hope. Besides, it
doesn't shine a candle next to their powers. Watching them transform...
uh... um... they _might_ have noticed it..../ Ian glanced at them. /Of
course, they were rather focused on the monster at the time..../
/Sticking around in the vicinity of a crazed monster... uh-uh, as before,
there are people stupid enough to stick around and watch fights like this.
Screaming "No" just after they whipped the monster's ass... nope, that
couldn't..../ He stopped, and went over that thought again, more carefully
this time so his mind could cope.
/Uh oh./
Ever so carefully, hoping not to break any stalemate that might be in
force, he put his gun away. He thought he could hear the senshi whispering
fiercly to each other. He turned, a little faster than he really wanted
to,
and started making for the nearest exit. The words "Dark Kingdom" and
"Youma" drifted to him from the girls, as well as the strange paranoid
feeling of furtive glances being directed at him. He started walking
faster.
Not running, at least, not yet. He'd learnt that lesson the hard way;
running brings attention. He remembered reading a very good book that had
something about that. Something about the time to run was when someone
said....
"Hey, you!"
/Oh yeah, that was it./
Ian ran.
--**************--
The ancient art of harakei is quite a mysterious one. It is a very
useful
and valuable technique, if learned, but also very difficult to master.
Harakei is basically the ability to know whether an attack or ambush is
immenint, and generally allows the gifted person to sense other people. It
is often labelled as a sixth or seventh sense, and the technique is usually
incorporated in the teachings of many ancient martial arts. The process of
learning it is very hard; the actual techniques (as opposed to the
preliminaries, which involve learning whether an unseen person wishes to
watch, hurt or help you,) begin with sending the blindfolded student into a
room full of obstacles. Every time they pass through it, the room is
rearranged, and once they can get through it a number of times without
hitting anything, the process is begun again, except this time, their ears
are stopped as well. After they complete it with those restrictions, the
nose is stopped. And then they introduce other people. Then it escalates
to
hand-to-hand fighting, (without the handicaps, naturally,) finally
finishing
with real weapons when the student is on the verge of graduation. One can
see how difficult it would be to master.
Ian is just an ordinary university student. At least, he _was_. He
never
wanted to know how to fight, how to run, how to shoot and how to hide. He
doesn't really know what harakei is; he's never even heard of it.
It is possible, just possible though, that the constant danger over the
last eight months has imprinted on him a sense of harakei. It _may_ not
have
been luck that has got him through all these scrapes; it is almost possible
that he has actually _learnt_ the various guerilla techniques he has needed
to survive.
"MOON TIARA ACTION!"
Fortunately, this time the tiara flew in a non-lethal trajectory,
smoothly
intercepting Ian's legs and managing to successfully trip him up. He hit
the
ground heavily, and had the wind knocked out of him.
Then again, maybe it _has_ just been luck all the time.
--**************--
Breathing heavily, Ian struggled to get up and catch his breath at the
same
time. He found he couldn't do both at the same time; a whimper from his
muscles confirmed that point. High-heeled footsteps behind him confirmed
Ian
on his own point, which was to tell his muscles to get knotted, and stand
up
anyway. He tried again to run out of the mall, but succeeded in only a
stagger; apparently his body wasn't about to forgive him yet.
By then, it was too late. The meatball-haired girl - /Sailor Moon,/
thought Ian through the mental equivalent of clenched teeth - placed
herself
directly in front of him, hands on hips and feet spread in a defiant pose.
"Where do you think you're going, running off like that?" she said,
trying
for an authorative tone of voice. She very nearly pulled it off.
Ian considered his options as quickly as he could. /I could try for the
short but sweet approach..../ Abruptly, that idea brought the word
`kawaii'
to mind, causing him to drop it like a hot potato. It helped that he
wasn't
exactly sure what that approach would have entailed anyway. /How about
playing it dumb... maybe..../
Sailor Moon started to tap her foot impatiently.
"Uh," started Ian, "I'm going outside."
The dark-haired girl moved herself inside his view, slightly
interspersing
herself between the two. Sailor Moon looked a little agitated at this
obvious interruption, but kept her display of annoyance down to a glare at
her sister-in-arms. Unlike Sailor Moon though, the red-suited senshi
demonstrated the authorative look with an ease that you normally wouldn't
associate with a 14 year old. "Why are you so scared around us? We just
saved your butt back there," she stated, with a tinge of bitterness and an
underlying accusatory tone.
"Um, er," Ian stuttered, trying to think of an answer that would convince
them to go away and leave him alone, thank you very much.
He was saved from answering the rest of their questions, and talking
himself into a deeper level of excretement, as a groan was heard from
behind
him. Apparently, the people the monster had drained were just waking up.
The sailors were briefly distracted, looking past at them rather than at
him.
Ian leaped at the chance, having had enough time to gain his second wind.
"Uh, nicetalkingtoya, gottarun, bye," he said in a rush, darting through
the
girls, and shoulder-barging the exit open. Ian had one of the best
acceleration rates in the world, and within a flash, he was gone.
"Idiot. Letting him get away like that."
"What?! You were the one not looking!"
"_Me_ not looking? You could have been blind, for all the difference it
would have made!"
"Yeah? Like you stopped him!"
"Klutz!"
"Meanie!"
Two tongues shot out, as the two girls pulled faces at one another. The
rest of the senshi just shook their heads in disbelief.
--**************--
Ian stood at a corner just a few streets away from the shopping precinct,
leaning one hand on a nearby wall to keep him from collapsing. His chest
was
heaving, trying to regain the breath he'd expended during his escape.
The simple truth was, he was exhausted. Completely. The effects of the
adrenaline were wearing off now that he was no longer in immediate danger,
and he hadn't had a decent night's sleep since.... He realised where that
line of thought was going, and quashed it immediately. What he really
needed
at this point, was either a roof and a bed, or....
The smell reached him first, reviving him almost completely. Almost in a
trance like state, he eagerly crossed the road - causing many drivers to
brake suddenly, and a stream of curses to be thrown at him - and ended up
outside a certain building. _That_ was where the aroma was coming from.
His backpack came over his shoulder and landed right in front of him. He
rummaged through it with an uncommon vigour, looking for.... He smiled as
he
retrieved a 1000 yen note from a waterproof plastic container, the money
being one of the few souvenirs he had from Nerima. Without hesitation, he
barged into the building, and placed himself on a seat by the counter.
The woman behind it looked at him, or rather the state of his attire, in
astonishment, but Ian gave her no chance to respond. He placed the note
carefully in front of her, and said, half in a daydream, "One coffee,
please."
The waitress turned and picked up a mug. She got as far as the coffee
machine when Ian cleared his throat.
"I meant a pot," he continued, stopping her in her tracks. "Black,
please."
--**************--
In a different place altogether, a place called the Dark Kingdom, there
is
a throne room. It is not known why it is called the Dark Kingdom - even
those who lived there had embraced that name - but that is what it was
called.
In this throne room, there was a throne. It makes sense; you find
chokeapples under a chokeapple tree, you find thrones in throne rooms.
Logic.
The throne itself wasn't a large one. In fact, it was human sized; which
is rather unusual since most supreme evil entities are usually about 30
feet
tall with bad tempers and a need for total domination.
In Beryl's case, two out of three wasn't bad.
Queen Beryl, ruler of the Dark Kingdom, was sitting on her throne. She
was
admittedly quite beautiful, but in an evil sort of way. Just looking at
her
made people think of a Black Widow. There is a saying that goes "Beauty is
only skin deep." However, the phrase "rotten to the core" would probably
be
more accurate in Beryl's condition.
In front of the queen, bowing before her, was a young man dressed in a
gray
uniform. He was well built, and although his shoulder-length hair was pale
white, he looked to be in his mid twenties. He was, of course, a far older
entity, in spite of his appearance. For he was one of the four generals
who
served Beryl.
At least, there _used_ to be four. Beryl didn't have much patience for
failure. And thanks to the Sailor Senshi, there'd been a lot of that.
However, this meeting wasn't about the Sailor Senshi. It was about
energy;
something the Dark Kingdom needed a lot of.
"And you say you've discovered a new source of energy?" asked the Queen.
Once again, the voice was quite lovely, a complete contrast to her... uh...
personality.
"Yes, my Queen," answered the general, as he straightened up. "Although
it
was momentary, it was quite different in nature to any other I have felt on
Earth."
"Yes," Beryl mused, "I felt something myself." She turned her visage
back
upon the general, eyes boring into him. However, he was used to this, and
didn't flinch.
"Kunzite," she continued, "what are your findings on this new source?"
"I felt it come from the building my youma attacked. I am not sure how
or
why the energy was released, but shortly afterwards, the Sailor Senshi
confronted the youma. I was unable to withdraw it for questioning before
it
was destroyed."
"Which reminds me." The Queen smiled, causing Kunzite to groan inwardly
as
he realised what was coming next. "I take it then your mission was a
success?"
"A success, my Queen?" asked Kunzite uneasily.
"I assume the youma you sent was meant to be defeated by the Sailor
Senshi,
yes?"
"Uh, no, not exactly." If Kunzite hadn't been as experienced as he was,
he
would have been tugging at his collar. Revenge had proven rather difficult
to achieve.
"So, things didn't exactly go to plan?" Beryl's eyebrows went up in
surprise. /But of course, she isn't surprised,/ thought Kunzite. /She's
just going through all this to torture me./ Once again, Kunzite was
astonished at exactly how well it worked. Beryl had become slightly more
lenient with the death threats lately, having only one general left to
count
on. In turn, though, she made these debriefings all the more scathing. In
another book entirely, there is a saying: "Wounds to the pride are
remembered
long after wounds to the flesh." It seemed to have found truth on this
occasion.
"I trust you have made arrangements to make up for your failure?" she
continued in that mocking tone she had adopted.
"Ah, yes, my Queen. I shall begin looking in to that new source of
energy
at once."
Beryl smiled at that. "Good. You impress me, Kunzite, with your quick
thinking. I hope you will not disappoint me again."
/Irony,/ thought Kunzite with despair. /I think I liked it better when
she
was more open with the threats./ "Yes, my Queen." He bowed at his
mistress,
and then disappeared into the darkness.
A figure stepped away from the shadows, and stood before Beryl. "What
about the Senshi?" he asked.
"Metallia believes that this new power may be enough to revive her. Of
course, should Kunzite's plans fail, we will still need the ginzuishou."
Endymion bowed. "Very well then. I shall continue my efforts to
retrieve
it." He walked away into the shadows, and vanished from view.
Queen Beryl sat there, relatively alone, except of course for the hordes
of
minions who chanted their devotion mindlessly at the edges of the throne
room.
She became vaguely aware of someone other than the multitude of servants
in
the chamber. "Who goes there?" she cried in a commanding tone.
A shadow manifested itself before her. Although it was hard to tell, it
bowed towards her, before speaking. And when it did so, the voice was low
and wavering; the voice completely unidentifiable. "I assume you are Queen
Beryl."
Beryl scowled at this impertinence. Who was this who did not know who
she
was? "Speak, insolent dog, before I tire of your presence."
"I was wondering if perhaps you would require my assistance?"
"Assistance?" The Queen smirked at that. "Why would I need _your_
assistance?"
If anything, the shadow seemed even more unimpressed than before. "Do
not
mock me, Beryl. You are fighting a losing battle. However, I may be able
to
tip the balance for you. Of course, my aid would come at a price."
Queen Beryl fought hard to control herself, but could not stop the bouts
of
hysterics. "Begone! Since you have amused me, I shall allow you to go
freely. I will not forget this joke in a hurry!"
Instead of protesting, the shadow simply nodded, and then faded away,
leaving the chamber echoing with Beryl's mocking laughter.
However, as the shadow left, a final sentence, almost unheard over the
noise, reached her ears: "Maybe you will find that time will diminish your
complacent behaivour. I will see you again soon."
Beryl did not care; who had the audacity to offer their help at a price?
The mere thought of it was going to keep her giggling for months on end.
Losing battle. What a joke!
--**************--
End Chapter 5
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