wyrm@mail.utexas.edu JEFFERYSTR@rascal.guilford.edu This story takes place in an alternate reality, just after Jadeite's final battle with the Senshi. Let's admit it: Sailor Moon and Dr Who just don't exist in the same reality. We're going to tweak the history and future of the Silver Millennia, the Modern Era and Crystal Tokyo a bit. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- PROLOGUE: Jadeite was teleported back to the Great Hall of the Dark Kingdom, facing his queen. He noted that Beryl's eyes were narrowed with anger. This sent a cold chill up Jadeite's spine as he realized that this was the end of the line for him. "Jadeite, I told you to eliminate the Sailor Senshi and you have failed me!" she growled. Jadeite shrunk back. He had been cheated of his rightful victory by that insufferable Tuxedo Mask. To quote the Dirty... er, Lovely Angels (Not even Metallia could save him from those two! ;), it wasn't his fault! "Beryl-sama, I beg you... I know the identities of the Sailor Senshi!" he pleaded. Perhaps a fortuitous piece of information may sway the queen enough to give him one more chance. Just one more chance was all he needed. He was so close. Queen Beryl sneered. Jadeite realized he wasn't going to get his chance. "Jadeite, you have failed me once too often. Prepare for Eternal Sleep!" With that last shout, Beryl's eyes flashed brightly. Jadeite was hit by a blast of energy that surrounded him completely. He screamed, or tried to, but not one of his muscles responded. Indeed, he could feel nothing, sense nothing. But he could see. So the rumors were true. He should've closed his eyes. "Let it be a lesson to all traitors!" he heard Beryl's voice through the crystal. Damn, the bitch wasn't shut out, either. "I shall not tollerate failure." A wave of the hand later, and a sickness overwhelmed Jadeite as he was teleported, crystal and all, to the Crypt. "Nephlite," Beryl called. "You shall take command of Jadeite's forces and gather energy. Do not disappoint me, or you shall suffer the same fate." The stated general stepped forward, his long brown hair flowing. He bowed and stated simply, "Yes, my Queen." Childras had the most unwanted job in all the Dark Kingdom: The Keeper of the Eternal Sleep Chamber. It was a most dismal duty, tending to these... wretches. Very few came here to view the Sleepers; even for the youma breed, it was a most horrid place. No one came here except those who needed to come, and thus it earned the nickname "Crypt". Being the Keeper, Childras was one of those unfortunates. 'Oh well, better them than me...' Childras thought idly. He stepped up to the new meat, Jadeite. Like all of those unlucky enough to keep their eyes open during the imprisonment, Jadeite's eyes were full of terror, something that Childras felt to his very bones. No matter how many times he saw it, he could never stand that terror. It was like pure moonshine; all but the most vile could not bear that look. All youma partook of the spirits of terror, savoring it, but no one liked being overwhelmed by too much, too fast. Some were binge-drinkers, some connoisseurs. Very few could stomach the heavy stuff. Childras was a connoiseur of terror; the pure concentrate of terror eminating from the eyes of the Sleepers was far too crude for his tongue. A few hours later, Childras finished his duty for a while and stalked off to other things. Jadeite saw the Crypt-Keeper's attentions, of course, but could do nothing about it. He was a statue; his powers useless, his body frozen. He realized that he would go mad with isolation. As he brooded, he became aware of a noise not unlike that of wheezing elephants and grinding gears. He watched a small dust-devil spring up before him, and to his astonishment, a humanoid figure appeared before his crystal. 'How dare a human invade the relm of the Dark Kingdom?!' he fumed. He could do nothing else but fume, trapped in the crystal. The human, male Jadeite realized, was dressed completely in black, long robes and a high collar. He wore a black cap embroidered with gold on his head. He stepped forward, to Jadeite's crystal, and put a hand on it. "A fly trapped in amber." The man smiled. "Yes... Yes, your body should do nicely..." he said. The stranger pressed a copper bracelet on his right arm, and the thing began to hum. Jadeite heard the noise again, and the background began to dissolve. Soon, everything was a swirling void save himself, his crystal, and the stranger. The swirling void was even worse than the Crypt. On top of the fact that he couldn't move and was forced to hear and see, what he saw didn't make any sense. His mind did its best to cope, but he felt his sanity ebbing away, slipping like sand through despairately groping fingers. Jadeite locked his attention onto the man; he shut out the void, as it was beyond his ability to grasp, but the man was here, tangible, and there was simply nothing else that made sense. The trip lasted several minutes, but when they arrived, Jadeite found himself in a white-walled room with many consoles scattered about. Another man, dressed in lavander and purple robes stood and bowed to the stranger. "Lord President," he stated simply. "At ease, Hin. I have found the perfect form for Wyrm to take when we exile him to Earth, as well as the location and period," the man, "Lord President", informed the young Hin. "Inform the High Council that I have returned and the sentancing of Wyrm is about to begin." "Immediately, Lord President," Hin acknowledged and started working again at the terminal. "Oh, and prepare this... creature for bio-projection and transduct hom to the auxiliary stand when you're finished." "Immediately, Lord President," the young one acknowledged and began his duties. The Lord President of the High Council of Gallifrey left the room, the doors shutting behind him. Jadeite felt a wrenching pain in all of the cells of his body as he was 'transducted' into an alcove facing a large chamber. On one side, he could see a double-row of benches seating a total of thirteen people, with the odd bench on the lower tier. From its decorations, it was clear that this odd chair was intended to be held by a prodigeous person. Opposite these benches were two desks flanked by two pulpits. Each held two seats. On his side of the room held another alcove similar to his own. Opposite him was a bank of pulpits for spectators. Jadeite waited impatiently as he could for _something_ to happen. He couldn't move so tapping anything, or escape, was out of the question. So he thought back to the encounter he had with the young human, Hin. The man put him under the scrutiny of thirty different scans, accurately recording his... bio-projection, whatever that was. It was all science to him; he was never much one for science. Anyway, Hin finished his analysis and then sent him off into this alcove. He said one parting message: "You should feel privilaged... you are about to see the High Council punish the infamous criminal who will wear your face." Jadeite wondered if it was similar to a Glamour that nonhuman youma use to disguise thier features to look like a generic human or even a certain human. The door opened at last, and people in purple, gold, green and other shades filed in. Each was wearing long robes, with the men wearing caps of appropriate color, the women wearing various baubles. Every single member wore a coweling that looked somewhat like a whale's tail on the back, glittering precious accents and each having a complicated round design of gold and black on each of the breast-flanges. He realized that those designs were miniturized versions of the plaque hanging just above the bank of benches. Looking at the ensemble, he could note one exception to the pomous mode of dress these fellows had. Now sitting in one of the desks opposite the bank, he was dressed in an outrageous checkered shirt, plaid vest, yellow bowtie, and pshycedelic jacket. Also worn was a pair of red-striped beige pants, western belt with big buckle, Daffy Duck socks and wingtip shoes. A mop of slightly-greying black hair was held in check by a white tie to hold it back into a ponytail. He carried a lime-green umbrella with a purple polkadots and red spiral to complete the costume. In short, an eyesore. Jadeite would not blame his captors if they punished him for looking like a circus clown. Why, the only thing missing was face paint. A white-robed old man stepped into the room and called, "All rise..." Everyone did, including the circus clown with a bit of prodding. Secretary Ion announced, "I present to you Lord Borusa, Lord President of the High Council of the Time Lords, of the planet Gallifrey." The said Lord President stepped into the room, and Jadeite immediately recognized him as the man who brought him here. He stepped up to the remaining (and flashy) seat in the bank. Borusa smoothed out his white robe and sat, and the others did. "The convicted shall rise," Borusa stated clearly. The clownman did. "Renegade Wyrm of Gallifrey, member of the Prydonian Chapter, you have been found guilty of one count of breaking the First Law of Time, two counts of the Third Law of Time, and multiple counts of the Second Law of Time. All other charges have been aquitted or dropped." "Swell," said deadpan the man Jadeite now knew as Wyrm. The attourney beside him angrily prodded him to shut up. Borusa made a point to ignore him. "Because of your conviction, you are sentenced to the punishments of Exile, Prohibition... and Regeneration." At the sound of the last penalty, a stirring began in the spectators. The convicted, Wyrm, seemed shocked by this, too. "Lord President, I must protest this!" he declared, slamming his fist against the table, much to the startlement of his attourney. "It's cruel and unusual punishment!" President Borusa scowled at the uppity young man. "The First Trial of the Doctor clearly set the precident of forced regeneration in cases such as these," he stated calmly. A small smile spread upon his face. "You of all people should know that, Wyrm of Gallifrey... The sentance is to be carried out immediately." He nodded to a helmeted man, red color with white accents and a white cloak. The man, presumably a guard, manhandled a protesting Wyrm to the second booth opposite to Jadeite. "This is outrageous! I...and the Doctor, only do what you refuse to do! What about my choice of bodies, eh? This is a perver-sion of justice, I tell you! Let me go!" He managed to grab his umbrealla. It's handle glowed. "DONNERSCHIRM!!" rang a shout as the umbrella smashed into the guard on his left. He screamed with surprise and pain as he flew away from Wyrm as if hit by a giant fist. A shot rang about the chamber, and Wyrm convulsed and let out a strangled scream. One of the guards was holding a plastic-looking pistol in his hands, aimed at Wyrm, who was now slumped and unresisting. One of the guards relieved him of his umbrella. "You didn't kill him, did you?" Borusa asked, not a hint of concern in his voice. "No sir. Low stun only. He should be coming around soon," the guard said. Indeed, Wyrm was moaning, recovering quickly. "Ah, awake already I see." Borusa responded to Wyrm's only question, "Too much have criminals abused the choice of bodies to delay their punishment. The Trial of the Doctor also sets the precident that the High Council may choose a body for the convict in cases where there might be such an abuse. We have therefore chosen this creature's bio-projection as your new form." Jadeite's alcove lit up, and he became aware that it was indeed dark beforehand, hiding him from Wyrm's view. Now that Wyrm looked at him, his face became drawn with horror. He sent a pleading look Borusa's way. "We thought it appropriate, viewing where you are to arrive." "You..." Wyrm breathed, "You BASTARD!" By now, Wyrm was strapped into the alcove. "That's Jadeite! I'm being exiled to 20th century Tokyo, aren't I?! The Sailor Senshi will KILL me!" Borusa smiled a predator's grin. "Then you best stay out of their way, Wyrm...Activate the regenerator!" "NO!" The machine began to hum, and Wyrm's form became washed-out in a wave of energy. "You can't...!" The machine's hum built up to a maximum, and Jadeite was forced to watch as Wyrm disappeared in a flash of light. When his vision cleared, he saw a new man slumped over in the machine, hair blond, but still long. He was taller and slightly bulkier, and had lost a great deal of chubbiness. The clothes didn't change, and they looked tight on him. The face made Jadeite suddenly desire to scream, for it was his own. The newly-regenerated Wyrm was quickly unstrapped from the machine and extracted from the alcove. His body was limp as if drained. "Manipulation complete, Lord President," the attending Time Lord stated. "Regeneration successful; memory blocks in place." "Excellent." Another Time Lord rushed in and said, "Lord President." "Ah, Paide!" Borusa sighed. "Is Wyrm's TARDIS prepared now?" "Yes, Lord President," Paide answered. "I appologize for the delay, but the afformentioned TARDIS was custom-made. We had to guess a couple of the technologies, but we are confident that it is adequately disabled." "Well, Wyrm is a wiley chap. He built that TARDIS from the ground up." "From the..." Paide parroted. "Lord President, his TARDIS is powered by the nucleus of a black hole, an Eye of Harmony, that rivals the power of the Greater Eye here on Gallifrey! That is an amazing feat of Solar Engineering, to say the least..." "It was a hobby," came the reply. Paide paled. Another guard stood by Jadeite's crystal. "What shall I do with this, Lord President?" he asked. "Oh, transduct him into one of the storage vaults," Borusa answered. "The more we can play on Wyrm being Jadeite, the better." "Yes, Lord." A couple of minutes later, Jadeite was rudely transducted to an immense storehouse of odds and ends. If he could only excape... 'Oh well. At least Beryl can't pin this on ME,' he thought. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Begin "Doctor Who" BGM from FOX pilot] Tj/Wyrm Presents A GAC Production W Y R M THE EXILE * o r * S M E* (Sailor Moon Exile) *(For those of you that thought this meant Sado-Mastocistic Erotica, GET HELP!!) STARING James Hetfield..................................as Jadeite/Wyrm #3 Miriam Surois.........................................as Wyrm-chan Amy Mann.............................................as Mizuno Ami Patti Russo............................................as Hino Rei Alanna Myles......................................as Tsukino Usagi Kasim Sulton.......................................as Chiba Mamoru Nancy Sinatra.................................................Luna WITH Meat Loaf...............................................as Wyrm #2 Leona Helmsley......................................as Queen Beryl Sting (YES!)...........................................as Nephlite Boy George..............................................as Zoicite Monica Seles........................................as Raionji Rui Debbie Harry.........................................as Osaka Naru Jason Presley..........................................as Childras Tim Carry (be afraid; be very afraid).............as Tsukino Kenji Cindy Crawford....................................as Tsukino Ikuko Mucully Culkin...................................as Tsukono Shingo ARRIVAL Episode One ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Well, Nephlite?" Queen Beryl addressed her general. "I have transfered control of Jadeite's forces to your command. I hope that you use them to better effect than he did." Nephlite, a humiform youma with hair brown and long, bowed in acquiescence. "Yes, Beryl-sama. Jadeite was a fool because he targeted large groups of people. He was thus drawing attention to himself, and leaving him vulnerable to detection. I shall avoid this entirely by draining energy one individual at a time, while he or she is at his maximum output." A gale of feminine-sounding laughter fractured the air, and to the right of and behind...and above, as it also happened, a whirlwind of cherry-blossom pettals traced out helical patterns as would a dust-devil. Out of this mael-strom emerged a blonde with hair tied back into a ponytail. This one sat crossleged on nothing while floating a few feet off the ground, a head resting on a lax hand. At first glance, this newcomer appeared female. However, a more careful viewing would reveal that this was, in fact, a bishounen man. Otherwise, he would be a very flatchested woman. "And how do you intend to find THAT out," he asked, voice high as if it belonged to a deep-throated female. Grinning wickedly, he added, "Nephlite-chan!" "Don't call me that, Transvestite..." Nephlite scowled. The man gained a spark of fire and protested. "Hey! I am not a transvestite!" "So you say..." "Kono...Come to my room in two spans and I'll show you what's what!" "Pass. Already got a woman..." He was lying. ;) "I TOLD YOU I'M NOT A--!" "NEPHLITE! ZOICITE!" a strong and regal voice broke up their argument. "Argue on your own time!" It's not as if Beryl didn't enjoy it when Nephlite and Zoicite fought; their verbal fencing often proved very entertaining. However, this was not the time. "Yes, my queen," Nephlite bowed and appologized, "I have no excuse." Zoicite merely harrumphed and vanished in another cherry-devil. From a lesser, Beryl would've been insulted, but she made a special exception in Zoicite's case, as he was so entertaining when he did that. After he left, Queen Beryl turned back to Nephlite. "Still, Zoicite raises a valid point. How do you intend to find out which humans are at their peak?" Nephlite smiled. He was fully prepared to answer this question, as he had researched his subject thoroughly. "The stars know all," he declared. "All events in this universe are goverened by the stars. I shall set up a planet-arium on Earth and use the motions of their stars to tell me which one is ripe for the picking." Beryl nodded. She had heard of Nephlite's expertise in astrology, and had always been accurate in such predictions. She therefore could trust Nephlite on this manner. "Very well, Nephlite. Proceed." "Yes, my queen." "Oh, and Nephlite..." "Yes, my queen?" "Fail me and suffer the same fate as Jadeite." Nephlite swallowed. "Yes, my queen." Mizuno Ami appeared to be just your average geeky computer nerdess, but she was much, much more. She reflected that her life had turned much more complicated when she discovered that she was the reincarnated warrior of Mercury, one of (at last count) three Sailor Senshi, including Sailors Moon and Mars. 'If I wasn't part of it myself, I would never believe it. I mean, talking cats, peculiar monsters, reincarnated warriors with awesome powers wearing abbreviated sailor suits?' she mused. 'Sounds like something from a Shojo Manga.' Ami usually studied in the park; it was so peaceful. Usually. Not today, and by some perverted twist of fate, it was anything but peaceful in the vicinity of Ami. A slight breeze wafted through the forest as a whirring, groaning, wheezing sound picked up volume. Ami began to become alarmed as she looked around trying to find its source. As the sound became louder and louder, it became clear to Ami that it was, in fact, coming from a thicket behind her. Quickly and quietly, Ami snuck into the clearing where the din was eminating. Her eyes widened with amazement when a blue fire built up around where she thought the noise originated and quickly solidified as a shape not unlike an old-style public phone booth materialized. The groaning concluded with a final *THUNK* as the wind died completely and the fire disappeared, but the booth remained. Fearing a Dark Kingdom trap (although why the Dark Kingdom would use something shaped like a telephone booth in the middle of the park was beyond her), she pulled out her communicator. "This is Ami!" she said in hushed tones. "Usagi, Rei, please come in!" An image rezzed in on the tiny screen. It was Rei. "Hello, Ami. What seems to be the trouble?" Ami gulped. "You're never going to believe this, but a phone booth just materialized in a thicket in the park!" Rei blinked a couple of times on the viewscreen. "Aw, come ON!!" she jeered. "Didn't I tell you you wouldn't believe it?" Ami returned, "I'm not joking about this, Rei!" "Alright, alright...I'll be right there." The view winked out. Ami sighed in relief. It seems she did so too soon, because a groan escaped behind her. She turned to see that someone was hanging by the open door of the booth wearing an outfit that made Dark Kingdom fashion look classy. The man in question lost grip and stumbled facefirst onto the grass of the thicket. Against her better judgement, Ami emerged from hiding in the foliage to come to the man's aid. A cursory glance revieled nothing outwardly wrong, no injuries of any sort. She turned him on his back...where she proceeded to leap back as if he was suddenly electrified. "Jadeite!" Ami choked. At the sound of his name, Jadeite's eyes popped open, and his body popped up. She let out a shriek of surprise, as Jadeite was staring _right_ _into_ _her_ _EYES!_ Ami knew that Jadeite knew that she was Sailor Mercury; no point in keeping her secret from him. So, she leapt up and pulled out her transformation pen: "MERCURY POW--" "Akane, be a little less hammer-happy next time, willya?!" Jadeite yelled, and then promptly fell back and closed his eyes. Ami blinked. Then blinked again. "Huh?" She got down on her knees and pulled Jadeite's eye open. After a looksee, she came to a conclusion. "He's passed out!" Jadeite sat up again suddenly, looking straight ahead, thus causing Ami to jump back again. Again, he was looking into her eye...Wait, no he wasn't. His eyes were unfocused, as if he was looking past her, or locking onto a memory. He might not have really 'seen' her at all. "No, Priss! You may NOT have a Janis thorn!" He flopped down and passed out. Ami was as confused as ever. She put her hand on his forehead; a little cool, but she didn't know if this was normal or not, not knowing anything about youma metabolism. It was the face that was really wierd. It was definitely Jadeite, but...something made his face look more...friendly? Compassionate? Kind? Trustable? These were certainly not attributes she normally associated with the Dark General. She was still puzzling it over when Rei ran up to her and asked, "What's the problem?" After taking a look at Ami's patient, she jumped to conclusions. "Jadeite! MARS POWER, MAKE UP!" A transformation later, and Sailor Mars was ready to rumble. She turned to her blue-haired friend and childed, "Ami! Why haven't you changed into Sailor Mercury yet?" "Wait, Rei! Something's wrong..." Ami started. Jadeite popped up again. Mars began her spiel: "How dare you disturb the peace of this park! I am the beautiful sailor suited warrior, Sailor Mars! And in the name of Mars--" "Nene," said Jadeite, "Always remember...never, but NEVER, cut a deal with a Dalek!" He fell back and passed out. Again. Mars blinkblinked. "What...the...heck!" Ami looked at her sailor suited friend and shrugged. "I don't think he's in a condition to put up any sort of struggle, Rei," Ami answered honestly. "I think we should get him to a hospital." "The HOSPITAL?" Sailor Mars gave Ami a funny look. "Would they _know_ how to handle a sick youma?" "No less than we do." Ami flipped out her computer and did a cursory scan on Jadeite. She tapped wildly on the little thing, and her brow furrowed in puzzlement. "That's odd...His physiology doesn't match any of the normal youma." "Why should he? He is the head honcho, you know," Sailor Mars pointed out, "And he's the only youma we've fought who was anything approaching human." "True..." Jadeite went up again. "Mary had a little lamb, his fleece was white as snow..." And he went back down again. Ami blinked again, and returned her attention to the screen of her computer with an incredulous shaking of her head. She studied the readouts and came to a conclusion. However, it seemed to Rei it was a conclusion that even she couldn't believe she could come up with. "He's hypoglycemic," she declared. "Hippo-what?" Mars parroted. "Hypo-glycemic; his blood is running low on glucose...brain fuel, basically. His brain isn't working properly because of it, thus his erratic behavior." Pop. "...And everywhere that Mary went, Her lamb was sure to go." Flop. "It usually happens in diabetics when they take too much insulin. It causes all the sugar to be absorbed, leaving the brain nothing to feed it," Ami explained. "I didn't know Jadeite was diabetic..." Ami tapped on her computer again. "He isn't. His pancreas seems to be working fine. Also, the level of insulin and its decay products indicates that insulin has been produced in normal amounts in the past four hours. "Besides, of what we seen of youma so far, do you think they would let him live if he had been diabetic?" Mars shook her head no. Pop. "No, Doctor. I do not think entering the event horizon is a Good Thing." Flop. Sailor Mars murmured, "Well, SOMEthing's wrong with him." Ami and Mars stared at their charge for several seconds, trying to figure out what they should do, and deciding whether it was the wise thing to do. "If he is sick, then we must help him," Ami said simply. "But he's the enemy!" Ami nodded. "And he is defenseless. If we do not help him, what does that say about us?" That they were no better, was the unspoken answer. Mars lowered her head in shame. "Alright...Let's take him to a hospital. BUT," Mars shot a finger at Jadeite. "if he does anything funny, he's toast!" "Right," Ami agreed. Jadeite snapped straight up once again, yelled, "SPOON!" and passed out again as soon as he hit the ground. A young woman with dark-green hair sat passively in her booth, reading the Tokyo Times and nursing a cup of coffee. Her long green hair was pulled up into a ponytail. Although quite contempt, her expression was carefully neutral and calm; a woman of ice. Her eyes widened with surprise as she felt...something familiar just barely brushing her awareness. He or she was in distress, a call for anyone of his/her real species to come to the caller's aid. The woman knew the people well, as she had more than a passing experience with them, and these people had the ability to travel through Time using machines called 'TARDISes'. Being a policewoman of Time of sorts, this made it her concern. Reaching out, a staff appeared out of nowhere. No one in the restraunt noticed it; they went about their business and blatantly ignored it. The crystal set in the top glowed slightly. When it stopped, she sighed and banished the staff. As the Guardian of the Timegate, it was her obligation to investigate preterbations in Time and space. The woman stood, placing a couple of yen onto the table to pay for the coffee plus a percentage for the waitress, and the woman exited the restraunt in a calm and orderly manner. Raionji Rui loved tennis, pure and simple. Every day she would go down to the courts and practice her technique. Today she was in especially good form, as she returned the ball effortlessly to her opponent. "Go, Rui-oneechan!" Naru called from the sidelines. Rui took a moment to wave back. Usagi, her everpresent, and ever-ditzy friend, looked at surprise at Naru. "I didn't know you had a big sister, Naru..." Naru looked slightly surprised, but when she realized what Usagi was talking about, she smiled. "Oh, its not like that. Rui is a childhood friend of mine. She was really nice to me, just like a big sister..." "Ahh..." Then it happened. Usagi and Naru both heard the sound of a hand on the chain-link fence surrounding the court. The turned... and were met with the most beautiful sight ever treated to the adolecent girl. A handsome man with long, free-flowing brown hair was scrutinizing the match between Rui and her unnamed opponent. The man saw with green eyes and his skin had been lightly tanned, and also seemed to be slightly grey. He was clothed casually, just a guy out on the town. It was then that both Naru and Usagi experienced a peculiar reaction unique to teenaged girls called 'Heart Eyes'. With hands clasped together in front of them, they gazed at the Grade A hunk standing in front of them, their eyes pink and seemingly heart shaped. They even appeared to beat like hearts. Finally, no 'Heart Eye' reaction is complete without a goofy grin. Strangely enough, 'Heart Eyes' is not a painful condition. "What a dreamboat!" Usagi sighed. "Yeah, like...totally!" Naru agreed. Nephlite watched the game for awhile before coming to a decision. "Put more weight into the ball!" he shouted and hurdled the fence with a single bound. The two players stopped playing at once at the sight of the man clearing a high fence a la Superman. Had they been living in Nerima, this would be an everyday occurance, and so would be ignored. But this is Juuban. You just didn't see that much jumping over fences around here. Using the distraction to its full effect, Nephlite took the racket from Rui's parnter. "I want to see your serve," he instructed. "Show me." Rui nodded and stepped back to the baseline. Using a well-practiced routine, she bounced the ball on the ground three times, raised both it and the racket to face Nephlite. The racket was swung back as Rui tossed the ball high in the air. With precise timing, she swiped the racket high into the air, spanking the ball dead-center, and followed through. The ball sailed at Nephlite, who pivoted for the return. And he did. Hard. The ball rocketed from the racket face and over the net. Frantic, Rui jockeyed for a position to return the ball. She managed to hit the ball, at least, but the shot had such power that the racket was knocked from her hand and clattered to the ground. An amused smile crossed Nephlite's face. "A fly could've landed on that serve," he declared, and progressed toward Rui. Rui stared at her grounded racket for a little bit, and then turned back to Nephlite and asked, in a slightly unfriendly voice, "Who are you, anyway?" Nephlite was now standing over the racket. Pseudonym time. He bent down while saying, "Sanjoin Masato, a curious tennis coach." As Sanjoin "Nephlite" Masato grabbed the racket, he concentrated, calling forth the powers at his command. A red glowing mark appeared on the racket's butt; the mark of the youma. It vanished as quickly as it appeared. Nephlite stood and handed the impregnated racket to Rui. "Just put more weight into your serve," he said. "I guarantee you that it will blow the opposition's socks off." Rui nodded sceptically and stepped over to the baseline again opposite a boy that had finished a game with his own partner. She went through the mantra of motion once more: bounce, two, three, lift, two, three, drop, throw, swing, hit, follow through, rest. Except this time, there was a difference. Again, Rui swung the racket back and the ball was tossed in the air. Rui then swept the racket high, reaching for the heavens themselves...while putting more weight into it as she was instructed. The racket almost literally glowed with power, it seemed to Rui (it was). Power surged through herself and into the racket, striking the ball again, and Rui could actually detect that the ball almost squishing flat. The ball flew like it was posessed. It slammed into the boy and was knocked back into the fence. "Wow..." Rui whispered. "I wanna try that again!" In just a few minutes, Rui bombarded all the remaining boys with balls that sought heads, arms and stomachs like heat-seeking missles patroling for the kill. In minutes, they were all scared off or knocked out. Rui surveyed the carnage and laughed out loud, hard, and long. A Kodachi-brand Evil Bad Girl (tm) laugh. "Wow, your sister is COOL!" Usagi grinned. Naru didn't. Something was wrong with Rui. She was too sweet a girl to do such things. Hikawa Shrine. The three Senshi were gathered around its entrance. Rei had made sure that her grandfather was well away so that he wouldn't overhear anything he wasn't supposed to. Oh well, at least he hadn't tried to induct Usagi and Ami into being temple-girls. Luna lept onto the porch and sat beside Ami. She had just finished the story about how the Dark Kingdom had destroyed the Silver Millennium several thousand years ago. The next thing was going to be presented almost immediately. "We found Jadeite," Rei declared matter-of-factly. "WHAAT?!" Usagi and Luna yelped in perfect sync. "What do you mean you found Jadeite?!" Ami blinked innocently. "Wow! Did you practice that?" "Nevermind that!" Luna snapped as Usagi continued to freak out. "What happened? Where is Jadeite now?" "In the hospital," answered Ami. "The..." "...hospital?" Usagi and Luna asked together. Rei and Ami nodded gravely. "He seemed to be ill," Rei added. "But an Earth hospital wouldn't know what to do with him," Luna countered, looking at the two girls strangely. "Rei! Ami! He's the enemy! He's evil, and he threatened to turn Tokyo into a barbecue!" Usagi wailed as she started to run around in place. "WAAAHHH!!! I DON'T WANNA BURN! IT'LL RUIN MY HAIR!!" "I am cursed..." Luna murmured. Ami stood up, displacing Luna and causing her to NOT land on her feet, and grabbed Usagi by the arms, holding her still. She looked into the blonde's eyes and said, sternly, "USAGI, CHILL OUT!" Two girls and one cat stared at her incredule. "Ami! You never said anything like _that_ before!" Ami smiled. "I know. The shock value has calmed down Usagi." Rei and Luna realized this. Usagi did to. "Umm...Why did you do that?" asked the ditzoid. "So you'd listen to us," answered her friend. "We found Jadeite in near-shock in the park. He was delerious, and required medical attention. That's why we took him to the hospital; they know as much about youma biology as we do, and they're better equiped for it." "But..." Ami shushed her. "Shh...Listen. When Jadeite came here before, it was always with full health and usually had set up a scheme for draining human's energy. Now, he arrives in dire condition, without his helpers, and not already setting up some sort of plan. "Also, our last battle with him indicated that he had reached a serious point in his relation with Queen Beryl. If he didn't succeed that time, he would be finished as a Dark General. "The conclusion is that he has been exiled from the Dark Kingdom. If we could make peace with him, he might be turned toward the side of good. In any case, we would at least have one less enemy. "Of course, it could all be some sort of elaborate trap," Ami finished. Rei frowned. "Jeez, that inspires a lot of confidence." Childras appeared within the great chamber of the Dark Kingdom in front of Beryl. "Queen Beryl, my liege, I have bad news." He knew that his life was forfiet by telling the queen, but if he didn't there were worse punishments than death... "What is this bad news, Crypt-Keeper?" Beryl asked absently. "Lord Jadeite..." Childras explained. "He's gone!" "Gone?!" "Gone! Not there! Missing! Vamoosed! Wandered off! AWOL! His crystal is missing amongst the other Sleepers!" the frantic Crypt-Keeper explained. "I went to check on him just this morning, and he was gone!" Beryl frowned. If Jadeite was free, he would count himself lucky that he had escaped and lay low. Of course, he could go to the Senshi to ask for amnesty in exchange for information about the Dark Kingdom. Although Jadeite was a fool, he did have access to some very sensitive knowledge. He put it to good use, which was why he was allowed to serve her still, until he failed once too often. Of course, by freezing him in Eternal Crystal, Jadeite would not be discrete with his information. He knows that his life in the Dark Kingdom is over, and thus he would either be reimprisoned or killed, more likely killed, if and when he was found. Jadeite now had nothing to lose by going to the Senshi. This was _very_ serious. "Childras, as you were the one to lose him," Beryl ordered, "you shall be the one to recover him." "But my liege, he is a Dark General! He'll make youma meatloaf out of me!" the little youma choked. "Either recover him, and all will be forgiven," Beryl offered, "or suffer his fate. That is your choice." "Y-Yes, Queen Beryl..." Childras disappeared in a puff of smoke. Queen Beryl let out an exasperated sigh. "I'm surrounded by IDIOTS!" she fumed. Wyrm's eyes fluttered open. He looked dizzily around, searching for something. "Shoes..." he groaned. A nurse found him searching the locker at the side of his bed for something. "NO!" she snapped, pulling Wyrm back into the bed. "Don't move! You've had a rough time, and we don't want you moving around until we know what's wrong with you." "Shoes," whispered Wyrm. "Must...have my...shoes..." "Your shoes are safe, Dite-san," the nurse informed the wily patient. "Don't worry about them; they're safe." A knock came from the door. The nurse put Wyrm on his back again and found that he had passed out again. Sighing, she called to the visitors, "Come in!" The door opened to reveal the two girls that had brought the patient in, plus another girl with a cat. "Hello," said the nurse, "I'm sorry, but he's passed out again. Er, cats aren't allowed in the ICU, Miss." "Oops! Sorry!" Usagi giggled, blushing. She stepped outside and put Luna down. "Stay out here and be a good kitty, Luna." "Every hospital has the same stupid rule!" the cat whispered harshly. The nurse came out a moment later. She saw the cat waiting patiently by the door and smiled. The cat looked up at her with what the nurse could later swear was a dirty look. "Jadeite!" Wyrm opened an eye slowly in response to the name. Why, he didn't know. Then he opened the other and focused them on who was talking to him. It was a girl around fourteen. The girl's long raven hair framed an intense face. Wyrm could swear he could feel a tangible malice coming from her. He quickly scanned the room to find two other girls there. A blue-haired girl and a blonde of about the same age. Both of these were wearing sailor fuku school uniforms. The blue-haired girl had her hair cut short, and her face raidated calm intelligence. The blonde had her hair in balls and ponytails that reached down to her knees. Her eyes showed fear as she looked at him. He gave a friendly smile. That seemed to make the blond girl less nervous, but for some reason it seemed to make the other two tense up. Wyrm turned back to the first girl, searching his memory for a name to attach to the face. He had seen it before...sometime in the galaxy...Aha! "Hino Rei," he said simply. He couldn't be sure, of course; regenerative shock wrecked havock with memory, especially when forced or hastened. "You know my name?!" asked Rei as she drew back. True, Jadeite knew their faces, but not their names. If he did, then chances were that Beryl knew as well. And if Beryl knew, then the Sailor Senshi would be in really deep trouble. "Yeah...at least I think so," Wyrm answered groggily. Something in the back of his mind insisted that what he was about to do was a Bad Thing. But it couldn't be that bad, could it? "The blonde over there's Tsukino Usagi, and the blue-haired one is Mizuno Ami; AKA, Sailors Moon and Mercury. And you're Mars," Wyrm answered frankly. "Great!" Rei sighed. 'We're dead!' she thought. "So much for secret identities..." Ami agreed. "How did you find out who we were?" Wyrm blinked for a few seconds, bewildered by the question. Finally, he dredged up the answer: "I remember reading about your bio-extracts. However, my memory's still not working very well, so I'm not too sure about it." Rei sighed, exhasperated. She was probably known to the whole Dark Kingdom by now, the guy who did it was laying in bed in front of her, her whole family was probably going to be a Dark Kingdom target, and she had to clean her room. This was definitely turning out to be a crappy day. "Listen," she began, "Jadeite..." "'Jadeite'?" Wyrm repeated, "'Jadeite'? Is that my name?" Rei looked startled at Ami. Ami looked thoughtfully at Usagi. Usagi looked ditzily at Rei. Then they all looked hard at Wyrm. "Did I say something wrong?" Finally, Ami asked, "You can't remember?" Wyrm shook his head. "Not at the moment, no. I'll probably remember eventually." Wyrm paused a second. "Or possibly not." After taking an obligary moment to facefault ("*OOF!*"), the girls turned away into a huddle. "You think he's serious?" Rei asked. "I think so...He has gone through some unknown strain that put his brain out of whack. He wasn't faking any disorientation earlier; his glucose levels prove it." "Can't we just go home?" "Usagi! There's a dangerous man in a hospital! We have to think of the patients here!" "I have the strangest feeling that we can trust him," the blonde said simply. "Trust him?!" Rei hissed, glaring at Usagi incredule. "Usagi, the guy's from the Dark Kingdom! I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw my planet! This is the guy who tried to fry Tokyo, REMEMBER?!" Ami, however, just stared at Usagi with an amazed look. "You too?" "Huh?" Rei asked. "When I look at him, his face is the same, yet different," Ami explained. "It says that he means no harm, and is trustworthy." "I don't believe you guys!" Rei grimaced, fire rising in her eyes. 'They've been replaced by pods!' she thought. "Rei, he's one of the patients. He was out of it; you said so yourself. Besides, if he acts funny, we'll just moon dust him!" Usagi grinned. "Usagi's right (for once)," Ami declared, "we can keep an eye on him while he's in the hospital, and if he trys anything, we move in." "Alright, alright! We'll do it," Rei aquieced. "Break!" The Senshi came out of the huddle to find Wyrm passed out on the bed. "Well, he's not going to be much of a problem at the moment...Who's got first watch?" Usagi had the night watch, sitting on a chair, looking very drowsy. Luna was asleep in her lap. Wyrm had not awoken in the interviening four hours since she took watch after Rei. Ami had homework to do, after all. Rei had used a pretty fancy piece of verbal sparring to trick Usagi into watching the patient, hitting on Usagi's quite obvious attraction towards the man, even if he was (or looked like) a youma general. 'Rei will pay for this,' thought Usagi darkly. She let out a silent yawn and mused, "Jadeite won't wake up... he's just too out of it." With that, she fell soundly asleep. *BRAAWWWWW!!!!!* Wyrm woke to the sound of a loud buzzsaw-like sound. He brought his head up and looked around the room to see what the heck was going on, and found it was Usagi making all that racket. He rolled his eyes. "Natch..." The regen-shocked Time Lord rubbed his temples. "Idiots didn't put glucose in my IV. That would've helped my condition. Blast! If they did, remembering would be easier. What did they call me? 'Jay Dite'? Well, good enough a name as any for now." Wyrm raised himself out of bed and tumbled into the bathroom. He examined his face. "Hmmmm... Not a bad looking fellow," he appraised, carefully examining the face that he would be wearing until he regenerated again. "Taller than my old one, but a new body is like a new house, as the Doctor always says." Standing back to admire the frame he was put in, he wondered aloud idly, "I wonder what my female half looks like this time?" He drew himself a cup of cold water and doused himself with it. Wyrm felt a familiar change occuring throughout his body; it shrunk and its mass was reduced. Hard and well-developed muscles became slimer and lithe. His face softened, and hair darkened to jet black and became fine, and his neck grew thinner. Hips flared out and chest expanded as other, less obvious features altered. His frame had shifted into that of a woman. Wyrm-chan admired herself in the mirror through a pair of now-red eyes. She threw her hair back, admiring its softness and body, glinting in the light. "Yep, the Jusenkyo Simulation Field-Generator Image is still cranking out." She smiled, as she noted that, like her last two female bodies, this one was ravishing. "Spacewarp, you certainly know your fluxon physics!" It wasn't a true magical effect, of course. Field-generator images were what result from fluxon physics. They consist of one or more field-generators that are linked together to produce an image, which is metaphysically active, such as Wyrm's "curse". And since it wasn't a proper Jusenkyo curse, it couldn't be cured the same way as a true Jusenkyo curse. Any cure would lie in creating a field-generator image to cancel the effect of the current one. 'Oh well,' she sighed. 'After six centuries of this, I've kind of gotten used to it.' Wyrm-chan turned the hot water tap to fill with hot water, which would change her back into a he. However, all she got was a loud gurgling sound. She shut off the tap quickly, wondering with frustration and annoyance what had happened. Her eye wandered to a small note next to the sink which she had blatantly ignored before, but Wyrm-chan could now see that it was an important announcement: [ Tokyo General Hospital has experienced a problem with the water heaters, which mandated that the hot water lines be shut off and drained. We appologize for the inconvenience. Should you require hot water, just ask the friendly hospital staff to accommodate you. -- The Staff ] Wyrm smacked her forehead. 'Great!' She was so distracted by her plight, that a knock at her door just about made her jump out of her skin. "Dite-san, it's time to take your medicine..." a feminine voice on the other side called. 'Uh oh!' Wyrm yeeped and flattened herself against the door just as it opened. It swung easily open, not because the nurse had the strength of a monster and didn't know it, but because Wyrm used a martial arts technique called 'nezumi nakaguchinigete', "mouse scurrying into a hole". Basically, fade into the woodwork; fail to be noticed; be neither seen nor heard; become someone else's problem. Among other things, if you hide behind a door and it is opened, then you will move with the door as if you were a painting on it. The nurse closed the door behind her and walked toward the corner that Wyrm's bed lay behind. The nurse saw Usagi asleep on a chair, and a cat in her lap. She decided to let it go while she gave her patient "his" medicine. She then turned the corner and gasped, dropping the tray. Thinking quickly, Wyrm moved in and tapped a pressure point on the back of the nurse's neck. She fell immediately unconcious and fell to the floor. Wyrm then swept up the falling tray and nurse in each arm before they could crash into the floor. Wyrm breathed hard as she set down her burden gently on the ground. The adrenalin worked at her brain as she turned toward Usagi sleeping (and still snoring loudly), and Luna also, who had clamped her ears shut to cut out Usagi's snore. The adrenalin jogged a few memories in Wyrm-chan's mind, and she became more anxious. 'Damn! Now I remember who Jadeite was, and why the Senshi aren't too hot about him. I need to escape...FAST! 'But how?' she wondered, as she felt something at the back of her head nag at her. A tingle, almost. The tingle...it felt familiar. Something having to do with her species. A mental contact, faint, but too faint to locate or get a grasp on what it was, and now it was gone. She fretted, then shook her head, dismissing it as a glitch. She turned the nurse over onto her back, still snoozing peacefully. Wyrm realized that this nurse had a face and body structure similiar to her own, and long black hair. Wyrm looked up toward Usagi, and remembered the transformation pen that she carried. Also remembered was Wyrm's own knowledge of dimentional trancendentality and how the 'Moon Pocket' worked. Wyrm-chan grinned as a plan formed. "How conveeeenient!" Like a cat, she tiptoed up to the sleeping girl and reached out with her mind, trying to 'feel' the dimentional pocket that she knew was there. 'Jackpot!' thought Wyrm-chan triumphantly and reached into the pocket, causing it to shimmer a little, and began grasping around within it for the pen. Wyrm grasped a long, thin object that felt right and smiled. Usagi smacked her lips and shifted position, slightly disturbing the moon cat in her lap. Luna shifted and moved, cracking open herbleary eyes to find a new and more comfortable position. Wyrm froze solid as the cat half-awoke; she knew that this cat was sentient and possessed language. She prayed to Rassilon that Luna would not notice. Luna curled up and fell asleep in Usagi's lap again. Wyrm let out a sigh and pulled the transformation pen out all the way. She tiptoed away and stood in a clear area of the room. After waiting until she was sure that both beings were still sound asleep, she whispered thoughtfully to herself, "Okay, if I remember correctly, the activation sequence is..." She stood and held the pen high, and commanded clearly to it: "Moon Power, change me into that nurse at my feet!" Nothing happend. Wyrm-chan narrowed her eyes. "okay...um..." Inspiration hit. She did her best to replicate the tones and speech patterns of Usagi, and chanted again: "Moon Power, change me into my wicked-cool nurse!" Still nothing. "C'mon, you baka pen!" she hissed, glaring at it and shaking it like a soda can. It totally ignored her. "Crap..." she swore quietly, turning the useless artifact over in her hand and studying it as if it would eventually tell her its secrets if she tried hard enough. It more or less did just that. "Wait! This isn't a ruby! It's something else..." she thought aloud and softly after studying the jewel set at the end. "Isn't this a quartzonium crystal?" Quartzonium... A mad grin spread upon her face. "Eureka!" she declared, and went to the closet where her clothes were stored. "Now where did I put it?" Rummaging through the coat pockets, she pulled out and recovered some baubles and most of the important tools, putting them in a small paper bag. Wyrm-chan pulled out a silver-colored cylendrical widget about as long as her flat hand and as wide as her pinky finger and smiled. "Okay, setting four at 12.774...cyclic two should do the trick..." She raised the pen above her head, putting the head of the widget to the crystal set in the end, repeated the chant... "Moon Power, change me into my wicked-cool nurse!" ...and pulled the barrel-trigger of the widget down. A high-frequency, pulsating whine buzzed from the tip for a second as the trigger was held, causing the jewel to flicker in unison, and then spark with power as the trigger was released and the sound killed. "Bitchin'!" The Moon Kingdom Transformation Pen had activated. The pen spewed forth its magic, and lifted out of her hand. It spun like a top in midair, threads of magic weaving around Wyrm silhouetting her against the Moon. Wyrm felt her body change slightly to exactly match that of the nurse's, and a light layer of makeup settled on her face. The mystic threads and hospital gown merged, morphing into the nurse's outfit, identical to the last detail. The pen, its magic performed, settled back into Wyrm's hand. Now disguised as the nurse, Wyrm took a moment to examine herself in the mirror. "Perfect to the last detail," she declared. She lifted the widget and gave it a gratified smile. "Sonic screwdriver, you are probably THE most useful tool since pliers! Thank yew!" she cooed and kissed it. Pocketing it and the transformation pen, she snatched up her bag of tricks and pushed it into a now transdimensional pocket. Wyrm-chan was about to step out when she realized, "Key! I forgot the key!" She rummaged through the bag, chanting "Key! Key! Key! Key!" Nope, not there. Then through the discarded junk. "Key! Key!" No dice. Then under her bed, in the various drawers and cubboards. "Key! Key! Key!" Nada. Nearing panic, Wyrm stood still, finger on her temple and eyes closed. The Time Lord/Lady snapped open her eyes and smiled. She grabbed her old shoes and shook out one, then another. Out of one, she got an old Dr. Scholl's Food Deoderizer. Out of the other, a shield-shaped medal on a silvery chain dropped out. "Of course!" Wyrm shrugged, putting it around her neck. "Obvious place!" To better conceal it, she dropped the medal down the front of the uniform, right into her cleavage. Wyrm jumped at the sensation. "Oooh! Cold!" She patted it down, moving to the door. After a second's pause, she swept up the real nurse's note-pad and went out the door, closing it gently behind her. The woman sighed. That had been close, she decided. The Guardian of the Timegate had almost been detected by the Time Lord (or was it Lady?). This one had accute senses indeed; normally, their telepathy wouldn't have stood a chance of detecting her at her current phase-level. This Time Lord was a powerful one; he (she?) would prove useful in the Senshi's battles. In fact, the Guardian was sure that this Time Lord was trained by the Doctor himself. "USAGI! WAKE UP!!" Luna screeched. Usagi screamed and jumped out of the seat, promptly klutzed out, and landed on her rump. "Owchie!" she moaned, and then shot a pissed-off glare at Luna. "Wadja do that for?!" "Jadeite's gone!" Luna cried. Usagi looked toward the bed and found it empty. She looked down and saw that the nurse was unconscious with a clutch of medicines at her side. "Nurse-san! Are you alright?!" Usagi called to her as she shook the unfortunate nurse awake. "Uhhn..." she groaned, shaking her head and opening her eyes. "What...? The last thing I remember...I saw that Dite-san's bed was empty...and then a tingling at the back of my neck...and then darkness." Luna, now perched on Usagi's shoulder, whispered to her, "Ask her what time that was." "What time was it?" Usagi repeated. The nurse's brow furrowed a little in thought. "It was at the 9 PM medication run," she recalled. "I usually get to Dite-san's room around fourteen minutes into the run, so it would be 9:14, right?" She blinked, looking a lot more in the here and now. "Why? What time is it now? How long was I out?" Usagi looked toward the wall clock. "10:41." "An hour and a half," she estimated, which was close enough to the actual value of an hour and twenty seven minutes. Luna gained a puzzled look, which the nurse thought was cute. 'That's odd...Usually, Jadeite's victims stay out for hours, at least three. And the nurse seems fully aware now. It takes humans a full hour to fully recover. That means she wasn't drained. 'Why wouldn't Jadeite drain anyone's energy at such an opportunity?' Luna asked herself. 'Unless that wasn't his mission, or he really is exiled.' "Usagi, get out of the hospital and call the other Senshi," she whispered. "This is an emergency." Wyrm-chan, still disguised as a nurse, stepped out of the hospital without being stopped. She smiled confidently. "Now, all I have to do is make it back to the TARDIS," she whispered, and started down the street. An hour later... "WHERE THE HECK IS IT!?!" At the Hino Temple, the Sailor Senshi had gathered once again. It was an emergency meeting, for the one that they called (but not neccessarily was) Jadeite. "How could you let Jadeite get away?!" Rei shouted at the blonde. "Let me guess! You fell asleep! Usagi, you knew that guy is dangerous and yet you go and fall asleep on us! How stupid can you get?!" "Oh, shut up, Rei! If you wanted to be so sure, why didn't you keep watch?!" Usagi snapped back. "Because I had already done my stint and Ami had to study for her test!" Things very quickly degenerated into a catfight between the two girls, much to the disappointment of Luna the cat and the amazement of Ami. "It's amazing how they can let themselves be totally distracted by a fight when such evil is afoot," Ami observed. Luna sighed with chagrin. "Why me? Why am I stuck with such a motley bunch? Well, I guess I have no choice left." With that, she whipped out a Big Ass Mallet (tm) from hammerspace and blugeoned the both of them. *BAM!**BAM!* Needless to say, the two shut up in a very short order. "Stop fighting, you two!" Luna hissed, making the mallet go...some-where, "We have a job to do: find Jadeite! That means to save this little arguement for until we find him and neutralize him! Clear?!" "Crystal..." "Clear..." "Right!" Luna took a couple of deep breaths before continuing. "Usagi, Rei, Ami, Transform!" "Right!" all three acknowledged. "MOON PRISM POWER!" "MERCURY POWER!" "MARS POWER!" "CAT POW...Oops! Sorry!" Luna blushed. The girls rolled their eyes. "MAKE UP!" they called simultaneoulsy, completing the activation mantra. The three girls went through their respective transformation sequences, their Senshi uniforms forming around them. Soon, they were ready for the hunt. "Let's go!" shouted Moon, and the team moved off. Childras stalked through the streets, searching for the Dark General that had caused all of his problems. Childras idly wondered how the heck Jadeite got out of Eternal Crystal; it was supposed to be impervious to all forms of escape. That means that if Jadeite escaped, he had to have had help. That was bad, Childras decided, as it made him look as guilty as hell. The only way that he could clear his name was to recover Jadeite, fast. Hence the guise. He was currently in a human Glamour as not to attract undue attention to himself. This Glamour currently covered up his normally monsterous insectoid form with one perfectly human. This was fortunate and constructive, as then he would not have humans running screaming from him, which would attract the attention of the Sailor Senshi, and he definitely had no need to confront them now. "Excuse me, do you know who I am?" asked a female voice behind him. Childras turned to face a woman in a white nurse's uniform. He raised an eyebrow in confusion. Wyrm-chan had felt something unfamiliar in this person's aura, whatever that was, and decided that if anyone knew his/her identity, this one would. "What?" asked Childras. "Well, I need some help, you see..." Wyrm-chan explained. "I have a name, but I don't know what it means." Childras smiled as he probed this person. She had a strong aura, and he had the proper training to draw energy. Time for some gratuitous energy gathering... He dropped the Glamour. Wyrm-chan stepped back as the human form melted and twisted grotesquely into that of Childras' natural insectoid form. "Erk!" she squeeked. "Your energy is mine!" Childras rumbled, and struck out for her head. Unfortunately for him, Wyrm-chan dodged out of the way too fast to be grabbed, as the hard-wired automatic response program of her multiple-styled, high-powered martial-arts training kicked in. Childras drew back puzzled. "Impossible..." Wyrm-chan shrugged. "Well, obviously it's not. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to dodge that." Childras growled in anger. He would NOT be showed up by this human. He struck out again. Wyrm-chan vaulted over the youma, bounced off his head, and landed behind him. "I ain't going to be monster food, thankyeverymuch!" She started running. A growling Childras pursued. Sailor Moon stepped around the corner followed by Mercury, wearing her virtual visor, and Mars and Luna underfoot. "See any sign of Jadeite yet?" Luna asked. Mercury shook her head, examining the symbols and graphs superimposed on her view of the world. "I'm afraid not. His bio-profile hasn't shown up yet." "He's gotta be somewhere!" Sailor Moon grumbled in frustration. "I'm missing out on some perfectly good sleep!" Mars rolled her eyes. "SOMEONE HELP!" a female voice screamed. The Senshis' heads swiveled simultaneously to look behind them to see a raven-haired nurse being chased by what looked like a praying mantis. When she spotted the Senshi, she screeched to a halt in front of them, then turned around to face the creature, then back again at the Senshi, as if she was unsure which was the greater evil. "Hey! It's the nurse from the hospital!" Sailor Moon observed, then clammed up when she realized her faux pas. "BAKA!" Luna snapped. Wyrm narrowed her eyes at the Senshi. Deciding that the creature was probably the greater evil, Wyrm-chan adopted a planted stance facing him. "Usagi, Ami, Rei!" she whispered to the Senshi, "You're job is to protect innocents from evil, right?" The shell-shocked Senshi just stared; not another one who knew their secret identities! "AM I RIGHT?!" Wyrm stressed. At their nodds, she continued, "Then help me take out this bastard!" "How did you know--?" Rei started. They might as well wear nametags saying, [Hello, my name is Ami/Rei/Bimbo...] (*THUMP!* "REI NO BAKA!") "Nevermind...Later..." "HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT?!" Sailor Moon whined. "WAAAHHHHHH!! I JUST WANNA BE A NORMAL GIRL! WAAAHHHHH!!!" The others rolled their eyes. Wyrm-chan addressed the creature. "I warn you, creature, I am a master in the Musabetsu Kakuto Style of Martial Arts! I'm not going to be easily beaten." "Foolish mortal!" Childras roared and struck at her. Wyrm-chan dodged deftly to the side, letting the blows pass harmlessly. Becoming more and more frustrated, the youma finally struck down at the nurse-disguised Time Lord with one of his claws. Seeing an opening, Wyrm-chan vaulted over this blow, and planted her feet firmly into the youma's head. It turned out to be a mistake, as the youma was not a human, and did not lose his balance as Wyrm expected. Instead, he took the blow and used the opportunity to slam Wyrm something nasty. She flew back and landed in a trash heap. *CRASH!* *CLATTER!* *CLANK!* "uhh..." Wyrm-chan managed to articulate before passing out with twisty eyes. (@.@) The Transformation Pen fell out of her pocket and landed with a clank in the trash heap. The power disengaged and both the nurse's outfit and figure morphed back into the hospital gown and Wyrm-chan's own. "HEY, YOUMA!" Sailor Moon shouted, and doing silly poses. "Nurses are here to help us get well! To attack them is unforgivable! I am the guardian of Love and Justice, the beautiful sailor-suited warrior, Sailor Moon! In the name of the Moon, I shall right wrongs and punish over evil! And that means you!" "What she said!" Mars chimed in. "That goes for me, too!" added Mercury. "Heh!" Childras hissed. "Prepare to die!" End Episode One [Ending theme: "Wish", Dark Generals] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Begin "Doctor Who" BGM from FOX pilot] Tj/Wyrm Presents A GAC Production W Y R M THE EXILE *or* SME* (Sailor Moon Exile) *(For those of you that thought this meant Sado-Mastocistic Erotica, GET HELP!!) STARING James Hetfield..................................as Jadeite/Wyrm #3 Miriam Surois.........................................as Wyrm-chan Amy Mann.............................................as Mizuno Ami Patti Russo............................................as Hino Rei Alanna Myles......................................as Tsukino Usagi Kasim Sulton.......................................as Chiba Mamoru Nancy Sinatra.................................................Luna WITH Meat Loaf...............................................as Wyrm #2 Leona Helmsley......................................as Queen Beryl Sting (YES!)...........................................as Nephlite Boy George..............................................as Zoicite Monica Seles........................................as Raionji Rui Debbie Harry.........................................as Osaka Naru Jason Presley..........................................as Childras Tim Carry (be afraid; be very afraid).............as Tsukino Kenji Cindy Crawford....................................as Tsukino Ikuko Mucully Culkin...................................as Tsukono Shingo ARRIVAL Episode Two ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "HEY, YOUMA!" Sailor Moon shouted, and doing silly poses. "Nurses are here to help us get well! To attack them is unforgivable! I am the guardian of Love and Justice, the beautiful sailor-suited warrior, Sailor Moon! In the name of the Moon, I shall right wrongs and punish over evil! And that means you!" "What she said!" Mars chimed in. "That goes for me, too!" added Mercury. "Heh!" Childras hissed. "Prepare to die!" "I don't think so, chumley! MARS FIRE IGNITE!" Sailor Mars shouted and blasted forth hot fire from her fingertips. Childras recoiled form the hot touch screaming in pain. 'This is too much of a risk!' he thought, and promptly beat the heck out of there. 'So much for gratuitous energy draining.' "Hmph! We showed him!" Sailor Moon smiled. "You didn't do a thing, ditz." "Kono..." "Quiet, you two! We need to see to it that nurse is all right, and then we find Jadeite," Ami interupted. The two Sailor Senshi looked downcast as they realized their friend was right. The three went to where they saw the nurse go down, and found someone other than the nurse. Wyrm-chan lay on the ground disguiseless, the Transformation Pen laying next to her, and clothed only in a hospital gown. Her eyes were twisty with forced unconsciousness (@.@). "Hey! This isn't the nurse! It's just some girl in a hospital night-gown!" Sailor Moon observed. Then she saw the artifact lying next to her. "HEY! That's my disguise pen! What's she doing with it?" she raged as she recovered it. Ami examined the fallen woman with her visor. She gasped. "Her physio-logy isn't human!" "WHAAT?!" "Two hearts, a respiratory bypass, some strange miniature organs, nonhuman (although still red) blood...in fact, they look like Jadeite's readings," Ami explained. "You mean she's a youma?" Mars stated. Ami was disturbed. At no prior time did she not have answers. However, there was nothing she could do about that now, so she told the unbridled truth, "I don't know. It's nothing like the physiology of known youma, except Jadeite. Perhaps it is the biopattern of a Dark General?" Luna shook her head. "Can't be. The Dark Kingdom had no female Generals." She broke off and muttered under her breath, "Zoicite's a poofter, but he doesn't count." "o/~ We're Jews in Space...We go forth to protect the human race... o/~" sang Wyrm-chan. "I have now officially seen it all: a youma who likes Mel Brooks..." Mars sighed and lifted her upon her shoulders. "Let's take her to the temple." Wyrm-chan awoke slowly; her head rang like she had spent the night slugging down cheap tequila. For all she knew, she probably did. "owww..." she moaned. "What hit me?" "A youma..." answered a frank voice. Ami's, Wyrm realized. It also sounded like she was typing away at something. Rei stood over her again. "Alright...Who are you?" "What do you mean, who am I?" replied Wyrm. "What are you talking about, Rei?" Rei grabbed her by the scruff of the pajamas she now wore. "Come off it!" she hissed. "How come you know our names?! The fact that we're the Sailor Senshi?!" Wyrm glanced over to Ami. Looking back at Rei, she asked, "I suppose it's too late to convince you that I'm human, ne?" Rei nodded slowly. Wyrm sighed. "Okay, it's like this...I saw right through whatever disguise you use to hide your civilian identities. It boggles ordinary humans, but it doesn't work on us." "Who is 'us'?" Luna asked. Wyrm stared at the cat with a crecent moon on its forehead. "The cat talks?" she asked. "Well, duh!" Luna snorted. "To answer your question..." Wyrm began. The Senshi leaned in, expectant. "I can't." They facefaulted (making Rei drop Wyrm, "*oof!*"). Wyrm-chan sighed. "I wish I _could_ remember, so I could tell you, but I can't," she explained. "I was forced to regenerate this time...that's much harsher than a natural or self-triggered regeneration..." "Regeration?" Ami asked. Wyrm-chan scratched her head. "I'm really sorry about this, but my brain isn't working right. Acute post-regenerative shock," Wyrm explained. "Yeah, I'll be out of it for quite a while yet. I know what I'm suffering from and what causes it, but not what it actually is." "How long?" Ami asked. "Anywhere from an hour to a few days," Wyrm answered. "Part of my long-term memory has been scrambled. It'll sort itself out eventually, but it'll take time." Wyrm-chan closed her eyes in thought. Then held her head in her hand, trying to force an uncooperative brain to work. The bewildered Time Lord sighed and mumbled, "Time...Time...Time...That seems familiar somehow...but I can't quite remember..." She sighed with frustration. Ami came over to their "guest" to examine her. "Well, I'm sure being roughed up by that youma didn't help any. You might have selective amnesia brought on by the trauma." "Could be...I can't remember," Wyrm-chan replied with a wry grin. Ami smiled, appreciating the humor. "Actually, you're lucky you got off as well as you did; most people would be dead from that." "I'm made of sterner stuff than most. I've taken punches that drove me through trees, but barely fazed me," Wyrm appeared to be boasting, but it was actually the straight truth. His/her training was in a world where the human body was the most dangerous of machines. The Senshi seemed to relax a little. Not much. "Does Beryl know about us?" Wyrm thought hard, trying to remember. "No," she said with certainty. "Jadeite was imprisoned in Eternal Crystal before he could tell her." That seemed to make the Senshi relax a little. Not much. However, the news that Wyrm's spitting-image was still in crystal struck Ami as odd. "But, if that was true, then how could Jadeite appear on Earth?" "He didn't; he's still imprisoned," Wyrm replied. The Senshi narrowed their eyes. 'She obviously doesn't know what she's talking about...' they thought simultaneously. "Forget it," sighed Usagi, "How were you able to get my Transformation Pen, and operate it, for that matter?" Wyrm beamed proudly. "Elemetary trancendental dimentionality and crystaline piezodynamics!" she stated modestly. "I just reached into the interface of the pocket and brought the pen out. As for activating it, I merely beamed some carefully chosen sonic vibrations into the quartzonium crystal, which forced it to activate." Ami nodded as if in understanding. Of course, she probably understood the basic principles fine, but she would need the details to truly grasp what Wyrm was saying. But she was only sixteen, while Wyrm was over six-hundred. Give her a break! :) Needless to say, the other Senshi were lost on this point. "Uh, right..." Usagi murmured. The girls went into a huddle. "Now what?" Usagi asked. Wyrm lifted a hand to her head. Things were beginning to get blurry again. 'Damn! The shock's coming back!' Within seconds, she was out again. "It's wierd...I get the feeling that we can trust her," Rei murmured. "You too?" Ami asked. "Hey! She may know our identities, but she seems like a trustworthy person..." Usagi agreed. "Break!" Rei said and turned around. "Lady, we...oh!" Ami moved up beside her and tapped a few buttons on her computer. "Hmmm...She's unconscious..." Rei looked at Usagi, who looked at Rei. "Daja vu all over again!" the priestess observed. Wyrm-chan slept more or less peacefully; that is until something happened. Childras peeked in holding an ebony crystal. 'Hmmm...I wonder why the crystal lead me to her?' he wondered. Using a more productive approach than randomly wandering around Tokyo, he looked in the local hospital registers for a permutation of the Dark General's name, and found one in "Jay Dite". Typical. He tracked down the room and found it empty, a friendly orderly telling him that Jadeite had been patient-napped. Thus, Childras fashioned a crystal to find the former occupant of the room. The crystal had lead him to this temple and directed him to her. At first, he thought that the crystal was going wonky, but then he considered that Jadeite had merely changed forms to remain incognito. What better way than to disguise yourself as the opposite sex? Childras looked toward the girl standing watch over her. Perhaps a friend he/she had made in the human world. She would have to be taken out before he could do anything. Rei looked back toward Wyrm. The woman hadn't moved in two hours. 'Probably hovering right on the edge of consciousness,' she thought. She thought back when she and the others put a pair of her pajamas on her. 'She and Usagi were probably separated at birth...' Then the door smashed open, revealing Childras in his human Glamour. "Hey! What are you--!" Rei started before she was smashed into the wall by a powerful arm-swipe. Childras smiled as he approached the resting woman. The racket had not caused her to rouse, which was good, as it would make capture a little easier. Knowing the parylizing power of holy wards, Childras carefully retrieved one of them from the priestess' possession with tongs. Turning Wyrm-chan abruptly over, startling her, he slapped the ward over her mouth. Wyrm froze; if she moved, she would probably have been manhandled. But if she stood still, he would think that the ward had worked and would use no other restraint. Childras carefully moved her to a waiting wheelchair and rolled her out. They got about halfway out before Wyrm made her break. Childras had turned around to open a door, when Wyrm proceeded to immediately race away on the wheelchair as fast as her hands could pump the wheels (which was pretty damn fast). "HEY! COME BACK HERE!" Childras yelled and rushed after her. Wyrm-chan didn't stop. She headed set course for a place of relative safety, the TARDIS. 'NOW I remember where it is!' she fumed. 'Probably the adrenaline.' Sailors Moon and Mercury tried again to break open the TARDIS under the supervision of Luna, but it steadfastly refused to break. Moon's tiara just bounced off the door, and it wasn't as if Mercury's Shabon Spray was a powerful attack. Instead, she scanned the TARDIS to see what could crack it. To all her scans, it looked like an ordinary telephone booth, which just didn't make sense. Needless to say, they weren't getting anywhere. "COME BACK HERE, BITCH!" came a grating voice. Just then, a speeding wheelchair carrying Wyrm-chan burst through the hedges and hit an unfortunate stone. She spilled out of the chair and stopped rolling at Moon's feet. "What are you doing here?" asked Moon. "*Mmph!*" Wyrm-chan mumbled through the ward, gesturing behind her. Childras, in full youma form, burst from that direction. Then froze. "The...Sailor Senshi?" it rattled in fear. "That's right! I am Sailor Moon!" Moon announced. "For the crimes that you have committed, afformentioned in a previous announcement, I shall punish you!" "You ABBREVIATED one of those speeches?" Mercury asked incredule. "Hey, cut me some slack! I'm not completely stupid!" Moon snapped back. Childras stepped back, thinking. The Senshi probably didn't even know that girl was Jadeite in a drag glamour. "Okay, Sailor Brats...Let's cut a deal. Beryl wants that girl back, and she doesn't care what I have to do to get her back. In return, we'll free Raionji Rui from our influence." "Rui's being influenced?" Sailor Moon asked. "Yes," confirmed the youma. "Give her to me and we'll free Rui." Sailor Moon looked over to Sailor Mercury, who looked back. They looked at the girl at their feet; she was spontaneously out again, apparently. Should they make a deal with the devil? Something just didn't feel right about that. Their minstrations were cut short by a rose impacting the ground between the two groups. All conscious members looked up at the thrower. "TUXEDO MASK!" the girls cheered. The black-clad watcher lectured to the girls. "Don't sell out people and doom them to suffering, Sailor Moon. To give her or anyone to Queen Beryl to suffer in the place of another. That is an act of selfish evil." Moon and Mercury nodded in understanding. "No deal!" Moon said. "I see," Childras hissed. "Then I'll just have to destroy you!" He raised his head and spewed out thick strands of mucousy fluid. Moon and Mercury shrieked in surprise and dived to the side. Sailor Mercury stood, focusing her power into a small bubble before her. "Shabon...SPRAY!" she announced, and sent forth her fog, blocking everyone's view. Lost in the fog, the vaults in Wyrm's mind began creeking open. 'The adrenaline! Stress! The brain's working!' she thought. 'Not enough on its own, but if I can get into the TARDIS...' The two Senshi became aware of a buzz above them. They looked up to see the outline of Childras flying above them. "I can see you!" the insectoid sang, and sent forth its glue again. It wraped its way around a stunned Sailor Moon and Mercury. They soon found themselves trapped in a sticky ball of gum. "Yuuuck! This will just take forever to clean out!" Moon complained. "We've got other things to worry about, Sailor Moon!" Mercury reminded. Childras laughed. "Now I shall take the girl and--*OOF!*" Childras was interrupted by a screaming kiai and a kick to his midsection. "TEIIIIIII!!!" called Wyrm-chan as she had risen out of the fog to strike the creature head on. Childras was forced back, losing some altitude in the process. "Grrr! Die!" he roared, and spat at the offending creature. Unfortunately for him, Childras knew nothing about the Martial Arts Super Jump, which allows such practitioners to change momentum in the air without visible means. Wyrm used it to change her direction enough to avoid the goo, and she came in for an attack. "KASHUU TENSHIN AMAGURIKEN!!" she shouted, and Childras was suddenly riddled with hundreds of punches, forcing him into the ground. Wyrm-chan landed next to the Senshi and pulled them toward the TARDIS. "C'mon! I'll get ya out of that stuff!" she assured. She reached into the neck of the pajamas, then frantically began searching her person. "Wait! Where's the key? I lost the key!" she paniced. "Is that was it is?" Luna came up with the key in her mouth. "It won't fit in the lock," she said when Wyrm removed it. "Oh, that's just the guardplate," Wyrm explained. She shot a reprochful stare at Luna and said, "You really shouldn't take things that aren't yours." She flipped open the guardplate (which looked like a Yale lock), and inserted the key into the arpeture revealed. It turned easily, and the TARDIS door opened. "We won't all fit in there!" Mercury said, taking a quick look at the booth. Wyrm-chan smiled. "You're in for a surprise." "WOW!" Moon, Mercury and Luna and gasped together as Wyrm threw open the door to the console room. It was BIG! Much bigger than the small clearing that the TARDIS sat in. In the center was an eight-sided mushroom-shaped hardwood console packed with blinking lights, switches, levers, dials, and touchscreens indicating obscure statuses of the machine they were now in. The console controls were a mix of Jules Verne, Star Trek, Modern Era, and other unidentifiable types of controls. The touch-screens featured strange symbols and menus of choices. Above the console was an awning that contained various screens displaying in more detail what was on the screens of the main console. They also seemed to be general purpouse screens that could be literally anything as opposed to dedicated screens and controls. The middle of the awning streached down to attach to the top of a clear cylinder that streached to meet the center platform of the console below. Inside were two symetrical bundles of eight beveled crystaline rods arranged at equal intervals around a circumference. Each of their bevels slanted inward, and was held rigid by a swashplate near the dangling end. They were currently at the retracted position in the bottom and the top of the cylinder. Supporting the awning were six struts reaching to the ceiling and then buttressing over to the awning itself, anchoring it to them. Each of the struts had glowing conduits in their centers. Opposite the door they came in was another door leading deeper into the TARDIS. On its right side was an array of closets and drawers. On the left of the door was a large library of similar books with a touchscreen by it. To the left of that was a small shrine of some sort, and to the left of that and the right of the main door was an array of controls and monitors of similar construction and mix as the main console. To the left of the entryway was a blank section of wall covered by two hardwood shutters, and to the left of that was a row of six lockers and a small alcove. The vaulted ceiling up to the awning was separated into six sections separated by six buttresses extending to the struts holding up the awning. Sailor Mercury noted that the sections of the wall looked odd for some reason. Machinery occupied the space just above the awning. The decor in general was very Gothic; columns, arches, and gargoyles. Candles littered the place, although it was a number of glowing strips and points that illuminated the place. A dominating image in the structure was a complicated and curly yin-yang like symbol sported most prominently above the entryway. Altogether, an amazing structure. "Wow!" repeated Sailor Moon. "It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!" "Of course it is," Wyrm replied casually. "It's a TARDIS." "I see," murmured Mercury. Wyrm shot a slightly incredulous look her way. "Do you?" "No." "This is yours?" Moon asked. "Yep...Built her from the ground up; the Type TT 12000C-deluxe TARDIS!" Wyrm-chan announced. Then something clicked as the combination of the familiar and telepathically linked TARDIS worked with the residual adrenaline in her blood, stimulating her brain. She grimaced and pressed her temple to suppress a headache comming on. "Are you alright?" Ami asked. But Wyrm did not answer. Her memories were in chaos. The vaults of experiences deep within Wyrm-chan's mind were ripped open, causing an influx of jumbled images to invade her mind. The pain came in waves as the TARDIS's telepathic circuits wove her memories together into a coherent whole. When the pain passed, Wyrm-chan opened her eyes and shouted, "That's it!" "What?" Wyrm smiled. "I remember who I am!" she shouted triumphantly. "I am a Time Lord...Renegade from the Citadel...Member of the Prydonian Order...I AM WYRM OF GALLIFREY!" She laughed aloud in relief that her shock had blown over. It was then something occured to her; she looked down. "But I think I'll need some proper clothes..." "Could you get us out of here first?" Ami asked. Wyrm-chan turned back with an embarrased grin. "Sure. I'll get the plasma torch..." She stepped over to one of the lockers. "There!" Wyrm-chan said triumphantly, severing the last bit with a plasma torch. Now wraped in a bathrobe from one of the lockers, she stood as Sailor Moon worked herself free of the strands. "Oh, you might as well change back into your street clothes, Usagi and Ami." Sailor Moon and Mercury gave embarrassed smiles and changed back into civilian dress. "Where you going now, Wyrm-san?" Usagi asked. "To get something more decent than a bathrobe on," Wyrm-chan explained. "I can help you choose!" Usagi jumped up and down wildly, her pigtails flailing. "And I'd like to know more about this 'TARDIS' of yours," Ami added. "And I'll keep Usagi out of your hair," Luna further amended. Deep inside the bowels of the TARDIS, Wyrm and her three female companions (two of whom were human) proceeded down unending corridors. The major corridors were high and wide, and looked all the world like gothic cathedral halls. The minor corridors, on the other hand, had a sleek and sterile white-walled appearence with roundals depressed in some walls. Ami scanned kept a map with her computer, except the poor thing barked at her every few minutes, protesting that the map could not fit in normal space. Such features included hairpin turns that contained doors or protals on the inner walls that held rooms too large to fit in the wall of the hairpin; corridors that wrap around in figure-eights, crossing each other, but not connecting. Sometimes the space folded back on itself in such a way that they would pass through a room, decend a couple of flights, and then find themselves in the same room. Eventually, Ami just gave up. "Tell us, Wyrm-san, why is the TARDIS bigger on the inside than it is on the outside?" Ami asked finally. Wyrm-chan smiled. She knew that eventually one of them would pop that question. "Well, your computer was having problems mapping out the structure, right?" she asked. "Well, yes. What's your point?" came the reply. "And what does it say?" "It says, 'This map cannot exist in three-dimensional space'. Ohhhh!" Ami gasped in realization. "Smart girl," Wyrm complimented. "The inside and outside do not share the same dimensions. The 'outside', as you call it, is merely ashell surrounding and anchoring the dimensional interface between the TARDIS and the Real World. And since the inside is in no way bounded by the outside..." "...both the inside and outside can be any shape and size as you please," Ami finished. "Correct. It also means that the mass outside is no way related to the mass inside. You would make a great Time Lady!" Wyrm said. Ami beamed. "Thank you!" "D-uh...I'm confused..." Usagi murmured. Luna sighed. "This is no surprise." Ami giggled. "So, where are we going?" "Kitchen!" Wyrm-chan declared. "I'll need to get something before I can go to the cloak room." Arriving in the kitchen, it didn't look like a kitchen. It looked like the interior of a five-star restraunt. Along the hardwood sides were small alcoves. A door lay beyond the "kitchen". "Why is everything so big?!" Usagi gaped. Wyrm-chan shrugged. "Gallifreyan grandeur complex?" she hazzarded, an amused smile on her face. "Actually, since there can be, in principle, an infinite number of passengers, or very large numbers of passengers at any rate, there is a need to make things big so that you can service a large number of passengers. "Anyway, this is just the main kitchen. There are several smaller kitchens scattered around, as well as a large number of these..." she concluded and stepped over to one of the small alcoves there. It was just above tabletop level and looked like it could fit two small televisions side-by-side. She spoke to the alcove. "Water, medium hot." A small teakettle rezzed into existance in the alcove. At their amazed looks, Wyrm said, "Matter replicator. As for the water..." Wyrm-chan then took the teakettle and upended it over her head. The water poured out and steam rose around her. Her form twisted into another shape, the one that Ami had helped Sailor Mars carry to the hospital. "Hi!" he said. "JADEITE! You tricked us all along!" Usagi squealed. Wyrm made no-no gestures with his hands, looking like maybe he made just a SMALL error in judgement. "N-Now wait, Usagi...Calm down..." "MOON PRISM POWER, MAKE UP!" "Hoboy..." "MERCURY POWER, MAKE UP!" Ami intoned. "Et tu, Ami?" Wyrm sweated. The two girls started their respective transformations. Wyrm noted a brief glimpse of skin (echi!), but remembered that these two girls were going to try to make him into a wyrm-kebab in a few moments. Then again, if he ran, the Senshi would likely rampage through the TARDIS to try to destroy what they thought was an evil machine. Now, he couldn't let them do that to his TARDIS. "I'll get ye fer this, Borusa!" he growled apostrophetically. By now, the two Senshi had finished transforming and were ready to rock. "I am the pretty sailor suited warrior, Sailor Moon!" announced Usagi, now the said warrior, and accompanied the speech by silly gestures. "I fight for love and justice! I shall right wrongs and triumph over evil, and that means you!" She ended up with her right fist in the crook of the elbow, index extended toward him. Sailor Mercury copied Moon's jestures and made her own speech. "And I am Sailor Mercury, and I also shall correct injustice and prevail over ill. On behalf of the Planet Mercury, I shall dicipline you!" Wyrm remained silent, back turned to them. "C'mon, Jadeite!" Moon shouted. Wyrm didn't respond. Didn't even move. Above all, Sailor Moon HATED being ignored. She stormed up to Wyrm and grabbed his shoulder. "LISTEN UP, YOU--!" Her words froze as she gaped in complete astonishment. It wasn't Wyrm, rather, a scarecrow dressed like Wyrm with one of those silly hiragana faces on it. It collapsed to the ground. Wyrm popped out from under a table. "Your speeches are WAY too long, you know that?" he taunted, seving up a full akanbee. *beeda* "K-Kono..." she fumed. She almost ripped off her tiara. "MOON TIARA ACTION!" Sailor Moon shouted and sent the tiara flying at Wyrm. Wyrm automatically dodged to the side. "Woah! Sore spot!" he jested. The tiara flew back to Moon's hand. Sailor Mercury was powering up for a Shabon Spray when she saw Wyrm dodge out of the way ofthe tiara. 'Jadeite would never do that!' she thought. "MOON...TIARA..." Moon chanted again. "...ACTION!" She let it fly again. This time, Wyrm ducked under the table. The tiara followed him, smashing it to pieces. "Moon dusted!" Sailor Moon concluded. Wyrm popped out from under a table behind her. "Not by a longshot, Dearheart!" he said and disappeared under. "Howdedoit!?" Moon shouted. She snatched her tiara from the wreckage of the first table and started, "MOON...TIARA..." "Oi! Over here!" shouted Wyrm, popping out from under a third table before disappearing again. "...ACTION!" *BOOM!* "Missed!" "HEY! MOON TIARA ACTION!" *CRASH!* "Try again!" "Why you little! MOON TIARA ACTION!" *SLICE!* "So you can hit tables. Big, harry deal. Hit ME, rabbit-girl!" "STAND STILL!! MOON TIARA ACTION!!!" *BA-KOOM!* "Hey! Why are you hitting that one, you baka ditz?!" "TEMEE!!! MOON TIARA FUCKING ACTION!!!!!!" *BAAAA-KAAAA-ROOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!* "I think she's losing it," Sailor Mercury bigsweated. "I agree," the cat nodded. "One last chance, Usagi! Hit me! No brainer!" Wyrm called dancing around in place, making himself the perfect target. Sailor Moon's face was contorted in a very unapealing fashion. "KONO KUSO-BAKAYAROU!!" Mercury blinked at both the language and the red aura just barely flickering around Moon. "She is pissed!" "Busu..." Wyrm taunted. That did it! Ami saw her aura pulse and expand suddenly as Moon's eyes flashed fire and the visible flicker grew. "JADEITE, YOU WILL _DIE_! MOON... TIARA..." she roared, pulling back her arm to throw the tiara. 'Here it comes...' Wyrm thought, planning exactly how to move. He glanced toward Mercury, to make sure that she was not going to interfere. Wyrm gathered his ki. "ISHIRYUU..." he chanted. "...ACTION!!" Sailor Moon screamed and let loose the tiara at Wyrm. A streamer of red aura had wrapped itself around the discus. "...UROKO!!!!!" bellowed Wyrm, and a disk of red aura flickered into existance before him. The tiara hit, richocetting off the ki-shield and off the walls and through the columns. It returned to Sailor Moon's hand. "OKAY, ONE MORE TIME!" Sailor Moon shouted. She pulled back her throwing hand. "MOON...TIARA..." Wyrm wasn't paying attention to her, as he noticed that the column behind Moon was starting to fall toward her. Ignoring his own survival instinct, Wyrm rushed forward. "USAGI!!!" he yelled. Of course, Sailor Moon took this as an attack and suicide run. "...ACTION!" she shouted, and let the tiara fly. It was a good thing that Wyrm had good reflexes, as he dodged the tiara with only a cut on his cheek. He had no time to mind the pain, so it passed him over. Sailor Moon saw that her attack failed and started to scream as Wyrm neared her with a determined look on his face. She shut her eyes; this was the end... "WATCH OUT!!!" came his shout. It thoroughly surprised Moon. And Mercury. 'What could he possibly be talking about?' Mercury wondered. She looked for something that could be considered dangerous, and her eyes came to rest on the column, separated from its moutings by the tiara richocette, falling toward her blonde friend. Sailor Mercury shouted a warning to Moon, "THE COLUMN!" Wyrm grasped Moon around the waist and threw himself and her clear of the danger zone as the column crashed down on a few remaining tables in the area. They landed with an uncomfortable thud near Mercury, Sailor Moon held cradled in Wyrm's arms. "Oh my!" Sailor Mercury kasumied. Moon uncovered teary eyes, and found herself looking into Wyrm's face. "You gotta...*huff*...watch where...*pant*...you throw around...*gasp*...your toys..." he managed to say, pointing to the fallen column. Sailor Moon stared where she had just been, and shivered. If Wyrm hadn't saved her, she would be Sailor Okonomiyaki by now. "You-You saved me," Moon teared. "Don't worry about it," he gasped. "Only my first day here, and I get into a life-or-death fight with the last person I wanted one with. Ohhh, Borusa's gonna PAY!!" "You're not Jadeite, are you," Mercury said. Wyrm snorted. "What makes you say that?" he asked sarcastically, a smile materializing on his face. Mercury smiled gently. "Jadeite has enough power to just stop Sailor Moon's tiara in midair. You dodged and avoided it, only able to parry it with that shield technique, and I know that you did not use magic to do that. Furthermore, you got cut dodging her last shot. So, I got thinking about why. Why didn't you just stop it if you had the power?" "Short answer, I couldn't!" Wyrm replied, releasing Sailor Moon and sitting up. "Ergo, you're not Jadeite at all, but someone who looks remarkably like him," Mercury concluded. "Besides, he would NEVER risk his life to save Sailor Moon." Moon and Luna absorbed what they were saying. Luna was the first to speak up. "There is no excuse, Wyrm-san...We should have not been so hasty in judging you..." Wyrm harumphed. "I don't blame you. The High Council chose this form for me for a reason," he said darkly, "to put me not on the best of terms with you guys on the off-chance that I might be killed because of it." "And we almost did. *sniff!*" Sailor Moon sniffled, eyes doey and dancing with tears. She glomped Wyrm around the chest ("*whouf!*") in a hug, crying, "WAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY!!" "There's nothing to forgive, Rabbit," Wyrm comforted her, stroking her hair. "Just glad that you realize your mistake. Now, leggo before you get my clothes damp..." he ordered gently. "Thank you..." Usagi said as her Sailor Moon uniform dissolved. She let go of Wyrm to look him in the eye. "How did that sexchange thing happen?" "Something I picked up about six centuries ago," he told them as he got to his feet. "CENTURIES?!" "There an echo in here?" Wyrm playfully held a hand to his ear. "Yes, centuries. We Time Lords live a long time, you see, because of our regenera-tions. When our old bodies wear out, we regenerate into a new one." "And how many regenerations have you gone through?" Ami asked. "Eight or so?" "Nah. Just went through my second regeneration recently," Wyrm answered. "Neither of them were past middle aged. And on top of that, I've had a rough life, you see..." "Wow..." Ami gaped. "That would mean that each body would live for hundreds of years." "Each of my bodies can live for just over nine-hundred years, give or take a century or two. However, as I've said, I've had a rough life. As for the reason I look like Jadeite while male is because this is the form I was regenerated into, purpousefully. Someone used Jadeite's bio-projection for the template of this body," he said as he moved again toward the replicator. "What would you three like to have?" "Chocolate sundae!" Usagi shouted estatic. "Tuna treats," Luna said. "Hot Earl Grey tea." Ami requested. "Expain to us about regeneration." "Regeneration is a proccess that all Time Lords can go through when their bodies get fatally damaged or terminally ill from disease or old age," Wyrm explianed. "It's a proccess that rejuvinates our cells, rewrites our genetic code, and repairs any damage in a matter of seconds. "Unfortunately, it also is very stressful on the body; it eats up all the blood sugars and consumes much of our reserves. The revision also skews our genetic codes, and the thirteenth rewrite produces an unviable code, and we die. Thus, Time Lords in general have thirteen lives," Wyrm explained. He turned to the replicator and said, "Tea, Earl Grey, hot. Sundae, chocolate. Cat food, tuna treats. Baka Pepper, cold." When the terminal acknowledged his choice, he added, "In certain, rare instances, one regeneration out of a million, the Time Lord, or Time Lady as the case may be, may actually change apparent race or even sex." The afformentioned items appeared in the replicator terminal. Wyrm took them out and handed the sundae to Usagi, laid the tuna treats next to Luna (who immediately began devouring it), and the tea to Ami. He kept the Baka Pepper for himself. "Is that sexchange thing what happened to you?" Wyrm laughed aloud and shook his head no. "I've only regenerated twice so far." His voice grew slightly somber. "However...I have an...odd...genetic makeup. My father had a gene that produces an emzyme that does what my Time Lord emzyme does, except that it does it much more efficiently and robustly. Theoretically, I could have anywhere from seventeen to seventy more regenera-tions. "No one knows, of course. I'll have to just see. But if it's true," Wyrm said, somewhat grimly, "I'll live a VERY long time. I might actually exper-ience a transexual regneration." A wry grin crossed his face. "At least I won't be _completely_ unprepared for being female." This raised smiles from the two girls and cat. "I think I'm beginning to see," Ami smiled. "I don't doubt it. You're about as smart as a Time Lord, you know," Wyrm smiled. "Anyway, I change sexes because I have a simulated Jusenkyo curse; cold water changes you into your cursed form, hot water turns you back. My cursed form happes to be a female version of myself with a different color of hair. So far, I've had fire-engine red, blond, and black in my current regeneration." He then drained the rest of his Baka Pepper. "Are you three about done? It's time to move on and choose my attire." "If you're so *chomp, chomp* despirate for clothes *smack*, why didn't you just *slurp* grab your old set *chomp, gulp* before clearing out?" Usagi asked, finishing off the sundae. "Remember what I said about changing tastes?" Wyrm asked, with an embarrased look on his face. "Well, I used to like that attire, but now I think that it's tacky as hell. That's why I'm going to the cloak room; to pick up a new set of threads." He stood up from his seat, tossing the can of Baka Pepper into the waste disposal bin. "Let's go." "Okay," said the three of them, and disposed of their trash. The three of them continued toward the cloak room. Childras was frustrated beyond words. He had seen his target and the Sailor Senshi go into that telephone booth, but it was resisting his each and every attempt to break in. Tuxedo Mask watched with some concern. He had seen three girls and one cat enter that phone booth, even though it looked impossible for only two of them to do so, let alone three. Of course dimentional trancendentality didn't occur to him. He just hoped that the girls were safe. Wyrm stopped just outside a large oak door, threw them open, and stepped into the room. The two girls and cat followed. "WOAH, MOMMA!" the females yelped. Inside was the most extensive collection of clothes they had ever seen. Even Luna's memory of the Moon Kingdom, as dim as it was, remembered no wardrobe even approaching this size. In fact, she had the nasty suspicion that some of the fashions included were Moon Kingdom. The cloak room reached the ceiling, which happened to be several times the hieght of a gothic cathedral. The clothes themselves were distributed in double-sided isles and the ceiling of one layer became the floor of another. In these isles were the clothes and jewelry of millions of different cultures over thousands of different periods each. "Now this is what I call a wardrobe!" Luna breathed. Usagi didn't respond. Her eyes were glittering as she surveyed the racks and racks of clothes. "I want it..." she whispered. "Later, Usagi. Now, to choose my outfit..." Wyrm grinned, wiping his hands together. "After all, I think I ruined Rei's pajamas." He shifted uncomfortably. "And it is a little tight around the chest." That raised smiles. Wyrm made a couple of attempts at his attire... He first came out in a circa-2367 Starfleet command uniform. "How's this?" he asked. This first made the three draw Bigsweats (tm) from their foreheads. Luna was the first to snap out of it. "Wyrm! We're trying to look inconspicuous!" Wyrm blinked. "Too much?" "YES!" all three snapped. "Hang on!" he said, and went back into the cloak room... ...and came out in a Roman Senator's outfit, complete with tunic, toga, sandles, and shoes. At their glaring stares, Wyrm asked, "No? I'll try again!" He ducked back into the cloak room... ...and stepped out in a bobby outfit, a British beat cop. "How's this?" he asked. The three other sentients bigsweated. "I could always alter my TARDIS to look like a police box." "No," Usagi said sternly. "Aw please..." Wyrm pouted. "No," Usagi repeated. Wyrm shook his head. "Spoilsports," he grumbled and walked back into the cloak room... ...and strode out in the outfit of the King. Of Rock and Roll, that is. It was white with sequens, flared bellbottoms, and heels. Red and blue sparkling trim completed his look. He struck a pose, holding a prop mike to his lips. "Uh-huh!" he Elvised. "Uh-uh," Usagi contradicted sternly. "Ahhh, babeh...Elvis has left the building..." Wyrm continued his Elvis and strutted back into the cloak room saying, "Thankyou...Thankyouvereh-much..." The door closed... ...and opened and Wyrm strode out proudly in a bearskin and weilding a club. He smiled. "Well?" "NO!!!!!" the three shouted, making Wyrm jump back. He snapped his fingers in disappointment and stepped back into the cloak room... ...and came back out again as a Viking, complete with horned helmet and shield, and using his spear as a walking stick. He had a hopeful smile on his lips. The three girls had stern looks on their faces, shaking their heads slowly, in phase, and in unison. Wyrm lowered his head in sadness and returned to the cloak room... ...and came back out yet again dressed in a white button-down shirt, long beige overcoat with matching fedora hat, white sports jacket and grey slacks. Brown wingtips were over his feet, and a Zodiac umbrella (with a tapered spike at the end) was held in hand and resting on his shoulder. "How do I look?" he asked, flicking back his long hair, now pulled back into a ponytail with a white tie. "Like a mad cross between Humphrey Bogart and Ryo Saeba," answered Ami deadpan. Wyrm looked surprised and disappointed. "If it's not to your liking, I can always try again," he offered. "NO!" all three yelped. "Don't worry! That'll be fine!" Usagi said nervously. She didn't want him to go back in and choose something worse and waste more time doing it. "Good! Then it had the effect I was looking for," Wyrm said and started walking again. "Back to the console room!" After a few minutes, the four were back inside the console room where they began. Wyrm sat down in the easy chair next to the library and the sofa, which the girls sat down with him. Wyrm retrieved what tools he had stored in a concealed place on his person (a technique he leared from a certain Joketsuzoku warrior), and started stuffing his pockets with them. He then proceeded to shove various odds and ends and unidentifiable and seemingly functionless knicknacks into his overcoat pockets, among them a few paper bags sitting next to him on a table. "Maybe next time I might develop a taste for that eightteen-foot scarf that Romana knitted me," he quipped, nodding to an flong scarf on the hatrack in the far corner. Usagi blinked. "Are those exclaimation marks on the lappels?" Wyrm nodded, brushing the lappels off and showing that they were indeed exclaimation marks. "The Doctor always wore question marks on his lappels, and as a joke I started wearing bangs on my own." Wyrm smiled as he remembered the prank. "The practice stuck." "'Bangs'?" Usagi asked. "Hacker-speak for 'exclaimation mark'," Ami explained. "USAGI!" Luna yowled, causing Usagi to fall off the sofa again. "I just remembered! You need to get home! Your family's probably worried sick about you!" Usagi groaned. "Jeez, great Luna! My mom said that if I was late one more time, I'd be grounded for life." Wyrm jumped up from his seat. "Well, no time like the present, eh?" he asked and strolled over to the console and started manipulating the controls. "What are you doing?" Ami asked, stroling over. "Setting coordinates for Usagi's house, of course!" Wyrm grinned. "A few hours ago. She'll arrive way before her curfew." "All right!" Usagi smiled. With fevor, Wyrm threw the main power switch and activated the demater-ialization mode of the dematerialization circuit and the multidimensional stabilizer. Now, normally, this would result in the dimentional interface of the TARDIS dematerializing (the outer shell of the TARDIS, now shaped like a phone booth), and the TARDIS itself leaping into the spacetime vortex and into temporal orbit. That's what would normally would have happened. But the Time Lords had been doing some...monkeying around...with the TARDIS systems The two bundles of beveled rods in the clear cylinder moved together, meshing perfectly up to their swashplates, and accompanied by a groan. However, the motion was jerky and the sound was wheezy and grinding. It didn't sound to good to the trained ears of Wyrm. "Uh oh!" he murmured. "What's wrong?" Ami asked. "The time rotor's jamming!" he declared with some alarm. A jamming time rotor is a Bad Thing. "It means that either the TARDIS is breaking up and we'll all perish in the spacetime Vortex ..." "BREAKING UP?!?! PERISH!?!?" Usagi squealed. "WAAAAHHHHHH!!!! I DON'T WANNA PERISH! I'M TOO CUTE TO PERISH! WAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! WHAT DOES 'PERISH' MEAN ANYWAY?!!" Wyrm opened his umbrella and shielded the console and himself from the deluge. "...or," he added, over Usagi's wails, "it means that we haven't demateriallized properly and can't enter the Vortex..." He checked a few readings over the twin dins of the jamming rotor and Usagi's sobbing. A panel blew underneath the TARDIS, startling the girls (making Usagi wail more), and Wyrm killed the power. It made an almost comical *twang!* as the rotor stopped dead. Crawling beneath the console, he poked into the blown pannel, then hissed with pain as he pulled his hand back and fanned it down. "Ouch! Hot!" Wyrm pulled out a handkerchief and using it as a potholder, pulled out a tetrahedral-shaped "tube" out of the console. "Ah! Here's the problem..." "What is it?" asked Ami. "This," he said crawling up from beneath the console and holding up the errant circuit tube, "is why we couldn't move: the dematerialization circuit. It dissolves the outer plasmitic shell of the TARDIS in concert with the multidimensional stabilizer to allow the TARDIS to enter the spacetime Vortex." "WHAT?!" Ami yelled over Usagi's screams. "I SAID..." Wyrm began. Then looked at Usagi. "YOU CAN STOP CRYING NOW, USAGI! WE'RE NOT BREAKING UP!" Usagi's crying stopped. "We-We aren't?" she sniffed. Wyrm shook his head. "No, we aren't." "We're not going to 'perish' either?" "No." Usagi let out a cry of joy and danced around. Wyrm sighed, "Why me?" "I ask myself that same question," the cat said. "Now, what was that you were saying?" Ami asked. Wyrm held up the useless demateriallization circuit. "This basically does the equivelent of pulling in the anchor of an ocean-liner. With this inoperative, the TARDIS can't budge an inch by itself." Ami shrugged. "Shouldn't you be able to repair it?" "It's not a question of repair; it's been sabotaged," Wyrm said grimly. "And my own knowledge about time travel physics and dematerialization theory and engineering has been blocked. I can recall the basic principles, but the actual application is presently beyond my knowledge..." "Why?" the three asked. "It's part of my punishment; my exile..." he answered simply. "But that can wait. First, I have to get you out of here and back home." He appraised them. "Change into your Senshi outfits. You came in as Senshi; you go out as Senshi." He nodded toward the regular thumping floating in through the door. "Besides, I think your youma friend out there's still at it." "Right," the two girls said. "MOON PRISM POWER, MAKE UP!" "MERCURY POWER, MAKE UP!" Wyrm cuteously turned around. Their familiar transformation sequences ran their courses, leaving them with Sailors Moon and Mercury. "We'll go out first," Mercury said. "You're no Senshi." Wyrm raised an eyebrow. "In view of our...argument earlier, you really think I NEED protection?" He held up the umbrella. "And I didn't choose this umbrella just for its ability to keep me dry." Sailor Moon looked at Sailor Mercury; Sailor Mercury looked back at Sailor Moon. They both looked at Wyrm. "Okay. If you say so..." "Right. Let's go." He threw the lever that controled the entryway doors and started towards them, Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury close behind. Childras was still getting nowhere after an hour of banging on the door, but he couldn't let his quarry get away. He drew back for another strike. Suddenly, the door opened and the spike of an umbrella stabbed out of the opening, accompanied by a shout: "GEKIHOU!!" As it made contact with Childras's carapace, a bright flash of light filled the air, and the youma was rocketed backward, crashing into a nearby trunk. Tuxedo Mask blinked with surprise as a man dressed in what looked like a mad cross between what was worn by Dick Tracy. The man held a blue umbrella with the Zodiac on it in his right hand. A beige fedora hat covered his features, but he could see a long blond ponytail in the back. "How do you like THEM apples, youma?" sneered the man...in a voice like Jadeite's! Tuxedo Mask lept down in front of the man and saw that his face was indeed Jadeite's. Tuxedo Mask extended his cane and said, "So, Jadeite! I see you have returned for a rematch. Not only that, but you've taken those two Sailor Senshi hostage, I see. What's the deal? I fight you or you don't release Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury?" Anger flashed in his eyes, and he made sure Wyrm could see them. The Time Lord rolled his eyes. "Rassilon! Not another one!" Wyrm looked coldy back at him. "Listen, Tux-Boy, I have no qualms with you, and further-more, the two Senshi are my guests, not my prisoners." Sailors Moon and Mercury emerged from the TARDIS, smiling and waving, much to Tuxedo Mask's surprise and relief. "As you can see, they're just fine." Wyrm looked over Tuxedo Mask's shoulder and then back at Tux himself. "Oh, and another thing..." He kicked out Tuxedo Mask's feet, causing him to fall... "...Mind the youma," Wyrm finished. ...just as Childras swiped a sharp pincer where Mask's neck would have been if Wyrm hadn't felled him. The two Senshi screamed, "TUXEDO MASK!" "*oof!*" Tux coughed as he hit the ground. Wyrm brought his umbrella up so that its point was directed toward the youma. "RYUUGEKIKEN!!" Wyrm shouted, and the handle glowed brightly. The tip suddenly flashed and vomited a huge boomarang-shaped blast of energy, smashing point-blank into the youma's face and knocking it five yards back. "CLUBS!" Wyrm snapped his wrist and produced what looked like an ordinary playing card. The Queen of Clubs, in fact. With a second flick, he sent it flying at the youma. It flew straight and true, and made solid contact. It crackled and the youma was corsucated with green arcs, and the youma froze. Wyrm turned to the Senshi and smiled. "Stun card. Finish him off, Moon!" "Right! MOON TIARA MAGIC!" said Senshi chanted and threw her now disklike tiara at the youma, slicing clean through it. The creature dissolved into dust. "YATTAZE!" Sailor Moon cheered. She then ran over to her hapless protector. "Oh, Tuxedo Mask! Are you alright?" Sailor Moon bawled and wrapped her arms around him. "I'm...okay, Sailor Moon..." Tuxedo Mask smiled sheepishly. He then regaining his feet, even with a hyperactive, ditzy blonde fawning all over him. "Uh...Thanks, Jadeite...I owe you my life..." "My name ain't Jadeite, Tux-Boy, and it never was..." Wyrm said with an amused smile. "I am Wyrm." "Fine, Wyrm it is then. Farewell," Tuxedo Mask disappeared into the night. "Oh, Tuxedo Mask...Who are you?" Sailor Moon sighed. "I know who he is." "Really!?!" Moon gasped. "How?!" "I'm a Time Lord, remember? I can see through those flimsy disguses of yours," Wyrm grinned. "Besides, I read his bio-extract." "Whoishewhoishewhoishe?!" Sailor Moon pleaded, jumping up and down. "*tsk,tsk* That would be telling. You aren't supposed to find out yet..." Wyrm smiled mysteriously, much to Sailor Moon's disappointment. "But I can tell you that he's always close at hand. Change back, you two. I need to get you back home, don't I?" Usagi pulled an eyebrow as she watched Wyrm enter the not-booth. "Now how are you supposed to do that? I thought you said your TARDIS is immobla... immobol...ack, can't move." Wyrm poked his head out the TARDIS door. "I didn't say that the TARDIS is my ONLY form of travel." He ducked back in. Sailor Moon shrugged and both she and Sailor Mercury banished their Senshi suits and became plain old Usagi and Ami again. Just then, Sailor Mars came running in panting. "Whaddimiss?" she panted. "Everything," said Usagi. "Oh, poop!" Sailor Mars growled and turned back into Rei. After a few seconds, the space just left of the TARDIS shimmered and suddenly, a 1987 Chrysler Voyager appeared out of nowhere. The three girls jumped back. Wyrm stepped out of his TARDIS wearing the Backpack O' Doom. "Ah! Glad you could make it, Rei," he piqued. "Jadeite!" Rei hissed. "MARS POW--!" "REI, STOP!" Usagi, Ami and Luna said together, and quite effectively stopped Rei. "But..." Rei began. "This isn't Jadeite!" Usagi stated. "But..." Rei elaborated. "This is Wyrm, a Time Lord!" Ami pointed out. "But..." Rei added. "He looks like that because his species can regenerate, and the folks that punished him to exile on Earth regenerated him in that body," Usagi explained. "Now, don't attack him. After all, he saved both Tuxedo Mask's life and my own." She blinked. "Did I just say that?" "But..." Rei pointed out. "Oh, very well. I guess if he saved Tuxedo Mask's life, I should give him a chance." "Glad you guys see it my way," Wyrm sighed and pulled the TARDIS door shut. Rei grinned an impish grin. "However, if he saved yours, Usagi, I'll just have to lecture him on wasted effort." Usagi grimaced. "REI!" she ground out. "Ohboy..." Wyrm sighed. Ami and Luna expressed similar sentiments. He lifted his umbrella and shouted, "RYUUGEKIKEN!!" The thundering noise of the ki-shot interrupted the two's argument as it passed between them. "I thought you were supposed to be a TEAM!" he said. "Uh, well...That is...uh, you see...well, yeah..." they stammered. "Then why are you fighting?" Wyrm asked. "After all, it was Ji Tzu who said that you are your own worst enemy." Rei and Usagi lowered their heads. "Actually, it was Napoleon," Ami corrected. Wyrm bigsweated. "So it's been a while since my Earth history class!" he said tersely. The girls giggled. "The point is that you shouldn't fight amonst yourselves." A megawatt smile returned to his face. "Well, enough of Tactics 101." He gestured grandly toward the Voyager. "Girls, meet the 'Voyager-Deamon'!" "That's disgusting!" Usagi growled, after hearing the story of Wyrm's exile. "Ain't it, though?" Wyrm smiled wryly. "Time Lords pride themselves in staying out of the affairs of other species," Wyrm said. "However, a few of us, like the Doctor and the Celestial Intervention Agency, want to make the universe a better place to live. Unfortunately, it breaks every law of Gallifrey." "Wow! Is it really bigger on the inside than it is on the ouside?" Rei asked wide-eyed with wonder. Luna and Ami nodded their heads together. "It's like an entire citadel in there! It's great!" Wyrm continued his coversation with Usagi. "The Doctor was caught once, and was exiled to Earth as punishment. However, he was eventually forgiven after closing up a black hole. He's been roaming around and doing good ever since. "Some Time Lords simply retire, like Professor Gravis, Drax and Ken-Po Imposse, and leave Gallifrey altogether to spend their lives in relitive peace. Ken-Po didn't need a TARDIS; he just projected himself across space. Drax stole an old TARDIS and dismantled it on arrival, while Gravis stole an antique and lived in it." "You should see the wardrobe they got!" said Luna. "He even got fashions from the Moon Kingdom." "Even Guess and the Gap!" Ami grinned. "KYAA!" Rei squealed with glee. "I gotta visit there someday!" "I am a sort of protege of the Doctor's. He took me under his wing and taught me all I know about science, engineering, and most importantly, philosophy, universal morality, tinted by his particular viewpoint, tactics, everything that would help me in my struggle for justice later." "And the kitchen...It's a restraunt! Food from matter replicators and such. There must be a real kitchen there somewhere," Ami said. "Wow! Food!" "I was known as a 'busy beaver', as well as less flattering names, such as 'smart ass'. I built my own TARDIS, y'know...the very same TARDIS that's sitting on top, so I wasn't stealing anything. I built it from the ground up, and instead of having a wimpy link to the Eye of Harmony (known as a Lesser Eye), I have my own Eye of Harmony powering this TARDIS, making it the most powerful TARDIS ever made. Tim Taylor Syndrome, I guess. "I originally built my TARDIS as a hobby, but when the Doctor left after we had defeated the Master, I got to thinking about what he said. I also became listless because Gallifrey is not the planet of my birth. Earth is. My father was an Earther, see. So I came to a decision; I would leave Gallifrey and explore the universe. The High Council agreed, as they owed me a favor for disposing of the Master, and let me go, in my own TARDIS, to enjoy myself, as long as I didn't get involved." "But you did get involved..." Usagi stated. "Yep!" Wyrm smiled. "I was heading back to Earth when I came across a Dalek invasion. I stopped it, and picked up a few companions as well. Then it was just one crazy adventure after another. "Then they caught me...My companions were sent home without any memories about their travels with me, and my trial began. It was a sham, of course; I was found guilty in very short order. I had already regenerated once, and like the Doctor, I faced another regeneration and exile to a certain point on Earth. They had decided on a certain Dark General, retrieved him, regenerated me in his form, and sent me here in a TARDIS that would not move again once it arrived while I was still in regenerative shock." "And so here you are," Usagi piqued. "Marooned on Earth." Wyrm smiled sadly. "Yeah..." "Hey...Don't worry, Wyrm-san!" Usagi smiled, patting him on the back. "You got friends here!" Wyrm brightened. "Yeah!" "And the botanicary..." Ami grinned. "It's like the mother of all Biospheres! Plants, animals, fungi, all sorts of wierd and wonderous wildlife and plantlife. It's all so beautiful!" The Voyager (DEMON-1) drove up to the Tsukino house, and the door opened to let out a safe and sound Usagi. Half relieved and half upset, Tsukino Kenji and his wife Ikuko snatched up Usagi and escorted her to the house. "Usagi-chan! Do you know what time it is?!" Kenji snapped. At her innocent shaking head, he answered, "It's twelve-thirty, for cripe's sake! Do you know how worried we were?! You're gr--!" He stopped at a clearing of the throat behind him. He turned to find a handsome young man (or what appeared to be one. He was six centuries old, after all), behind him. "Good evening. Tsukino-san, is it?" Wyrm asked. "Uh, yes?" Kenji said. "I think I can explain your daughter's tardiness," he began. "You see, she was attacked by one of those monsters roming around these days." Kenji paled, as did Ikuko. Thier precious daughter attacked? "Sh-she's alright, isn't she?" Kenji asked. Wyrm nodded. "Do not worry, Tsukino-san. Your daughter is perfectly alright. The Sailor Senshi stopped the creep before much harm could be done." Shingo popped out of nowhere. "WOW! THE SAILOR SENSHI!?!" "I thought I sent you to bed," Ikuko said. "I did! But when you mentioned the Sailor Senshi, I woke up. It's like radar." Wyrm laughed. "Maybe, but the whole mess scared her something awful. It took a while to calm her down enough to let go of that pole. After that, I drove her home." He smiled warmly at Usagi. "Don't worry, dear. You're safe now." Taking the cue, Usagi played up the scared daughter bit. "Th-Thank you, mister..." she stammered. "You're welcome," he returned. "Well, I gotta return some other unfortunates to their homes now. Goodbye." He turned back to the Voyager. "Hey! Mister!" Kenji called. Wyrm turned. "What's your name?" he asked. Wyrm looked confused; he wasn't prepared for this. "Er...Dite!" He smiled. "Professor Jason Dite." END ARRIVAL ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- EPILOGUE: "Wyrm-san?" "Yes, Ami?" "Why is this called the 'Voyager-Deamon'?" Wyrm bigsweated. "Well, that's a _very_ long story..." he said, "A long, long time ago, in a country far, far away..." That earned him a light smack from Rei. "Not funny, Wyrm-san! Not funny at all!" "Sorry," he shrugged. "I'll tell you girls that story when I'm sure I have time to finish it, okay?" "Okay!" they both said (^_^). "Another thing, Wyrm-san. Why did you call yourself 'Jason Dite'?" Rei asked. Wyrm shrugged. "Hey! You named me! I might as well be consistant. Besides, it isn't THAT bad a name, is it?" "Guess not..." Ami examined the interesting array of switches and dials located throughout the cabin. On of them was a big red button that said [START]. "Wyrm-san? What does this button do?" she asked, and was overcome by an absolutely all-consuming desire to push it. Wyrm spared a glance at Ami, then went back to the road with a smile. Then he had a Look of Fear (SB-Eric Idle: "What a strange, strange line!") on his face as he turned sharply back. "DON'T TOUCH THAT!!!" With a grinding mechanical racket, the Voyager-Deamon switched to battlemode. It seemed to expand a little from the outside, revealing a lethal-looking array of weaponry and ordinance. The inside expanded also, the back wall flipping down to reveal a transdimentional bike bay. In the confusion to restore order, the Minivan-turned-Armored-Transport launched a couple of SAMs from its hood, killing a sparrow, two eagles and a duck with glasses... THE END (FOR REAL!) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ENDING THEME: "Wish" Performed by Dark Generals A wish... That's all I ask for. A wish... There's nothing I want more... Just a wish... That I can call my own. Just a wish... That'll make me free to roam... (Change tempo) Trapped here; a stranger in paradise. I've nowhere to go; nowhere to hide. Though I love you tenderly, if I had a chance, I'd fly away from here without a second thought And leave you here in paradise. But I'm trapped here; I'm not gonna go, And while I'm here, I'll love you so. I'm trapped here; I'm not gonna go, I'll love you, and then I will fly And leave you in paradise. I dare to wish; I dare to dream. You'll never know what it means to me. Careful what you wish for, You just might get it. But I know exactly what I want-- I know exactly what I want! Dare to wish! Dare to be! It might be answered; you'll just have to see. Dare to dream! Dare to long! Probably won't happen, but I have been wrong. (Sax solo) I dare to wish; I dare to dream. You'll never know what it is to me. Beware of your wish, You just might get it. But I know precisely what I want! Trapped here in paradise, We've certainly been through a lot. And I've grown to love you, Let there be no thought that I did not. But you must understand, please have no rage. This paradise is still a cage! I just want a wish so I will be free. You've no idea what freedom means to me. I wish I could wish myself out of this hole. It's a lovely hole, but I must be goin' home! Dare to wish! Dare to be! It might come true; it might set you free. Reach for your wish! Hold onto it tight! It might be answered, you know it might. Make a wish; see the star. Close your eyes before it falls too far. Make the wish with all your heart. It might not work, but it's a start. Find a well; drop the coin. Make a wish, it's the nature of our kind. I just want a wish so I will be free. You've no idea what it means to me. I wish I could wish myself out of this hole. I've made my wish, and I must be goin' home! (Guitar solo) (Speed tempo) (Make a wish!) Blow out the candles. (Make a wish!) Jump into the brambles. (Make a wish!) See the star. (Make a wish!) Before it falls too far. (Make a wish!) Break the wishbone. (Make a wish!) For me to go home. MAKE A WISH! Producer, Writer, Lead Vocalist, Lead Guitar: Wyrm (James Hetfield) * Second Vocals, Rhythm Guitar: Hino Rei (Patti Russo) * Saxophone: Nephlite (Sting) * Base Guitar: Kino Makoto (Ellen Folley) * Synthesizer, Lead Keyboard: Mizuno Ami (Amy Mann) * Keyboard, Percussion: Aino Minako (Jewel) * Piano: Osaka Naru (Debbie Harry) * Drums, Percussion: Tsukino Usagi (Alanna Myles) * Background Vocals: Kino Makoto, Mizuno Ami, Aino Minako, Osaka Naru, Tsukino Usagi, Luna (Nancy Sinatra), Artimus (Tom Petty), K-9 (John Leeson)