Subject: [FFML] [FanFic][SM] Nuke 'Em 'Till They Glow!! Ch.10 P.2 (13/??)
From: Boredcollective@aol.com
Date: 11/15/2001, 12:10 AM
To: ffml@anifics.com

Presenting another section to the increasingly inaptly named Chapter Ten,
part Two of the story!

Chapters 1-10 are available at:

http://members.tripod.com/DNyx/NETTG.html

And all the rest are currently only available upon request.
(We're still working on getting the website updated. ^_^;;;;)

So, what has gone before...

    Inside a rapidly growing flashback, Princess Terrifying
of the Moon Kingdom has done a number of charming things
to get acquainted with her peers from other worlds.

<Scene of Terra getting ready to toss a biscuit at Althea,
Princess of Venus.>

    There was breakfast...

<Scene of Terra, dressed as Sailor Chibimoon, duking it
out with the Younger Inner Senshi of the Silver Millennium.>

    ...which soon became a round of SAILOR KOMBAAAAT!!!

<Scene of a disturbed bunch of interplanetary princesses
with large sweatdrops on the backs of their heads while
they watch Terra twitch and writhe in agony at a horrible
circus performance.>

    Then they made friends and went off to see the Circus
together and Terra got volunteered for the Grand Finale.

And now the story continues!

(Continued from Ch.10 P.2 12/??)

...

    Princess Terrifying was keeping a very close watch on Catseye.
After the acts that had been presented, being locked to a stone
tablet and getting knives thrown at her was not in the pattern. And
if there was anything she knew about, it was patterns.

    "ONE!" Catseye shouted, and chucked the first volley of knives.

    Terra watched the throw pattern and saw that they were
designed to just barely miss her.

    <Lookit 'em fly!>

    *Th-th-th-thump!* The knives imbedded themselves in the
stone at her sides just below her ribs, at either side of her neck,
and just above her head.

    The crowd gasped.

    Catseye pulled out another set of knives. "TWO!" He threw them.

    Terra examined the trajectory and calculated them to just
barely miss her again.

    <Yeah, baby!>

    *Th-th-th-thump!* As expected, the knives hit millimeters
away from their counterparts.

    "This is actually a lot better that everything else," Terra
noted to herself. "Yeah," she replied aloud.

    Catseye pulled out a third set of knives. This time, there
was a much stronger gleam in his eye than during the other throws.

    Hermione stood up from the front row of the bleachers and
declared, "Stop! There is a deadly toxin on those blades!"

    The ringleader laughed and threw his daggers. "THREE!"

    That was when the ex-galactic destroyer knew something was
up. She saw that the knives were aimed for critical areas of her
body: her heart, her neck, and both eyes. She also could sense the
poison coating the blades. It was a rare neurotoxin that could
easily render a girl, or a pack of elephants for that matter,
twenty kinds of dead before she or they even felt the prick of the
knife. Nasty stuff. Catseye was a lot more intelligent than for
what she had given him credit.

    <Another assassination attempt! Red alert! Shields up!>

    The adopted princess's heart beat faster as she prepared
herself for battle. <Woop! Woop! Woop! Arm all weapons! Power
the phaser banks! Charge the nuke-cannons!>

    <Heh heh heh. This is gonna be FUN!>

    <KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!>

    <Starlight, get over here and fight, or shut up!>

    <...?>

    <Nnnnno, I'll stay here, thanks. My wife and I are catching
up on old times.>

    <Stupid, insolent construct...>

    <Don't talk about yourself that way.>

    *Bling!*Ch-ch-ch-ching!* A thin translucent barrier winked up
in front of the girl, deflecting the daggers off into random
directions to land somewhere in the sawdust.

    Catseye frowned and took a step back. "W-what?! That was a
perfect shot! I couldn't have missed!"

    *Ting* The manacled girl smiled very broadly, showing off her
nice, beautiful pearly whites.

    "Terra!" Princess Serenity called out in shock at the attack.

    The Younger Inner Senshi were already standing and had their
chibi-henshin sticks out.

    "Venus Prism Power!"
    "Mars Prism Power!"
    "Mercury Prism Power!"
    "Jupiter Prism Power!"
    "MAKE UP!"

    By the time the Sailor Chibiscouts finished transforming, Terra
had already gone through hundreds of battle scenarios and had tackled
the problem of how to defend herself.

    She couldn't use her _real_ power, due to the risk of exposing
herself, and her Knight in Shining Armor was being unresponsive. She
couldn't teleport him in. It'd look weird and wasn't worth the waste
in energy. Plus, the guards' response time would be something on the
order of three minutes, provided they knew something was wrong. The
Chibiscouts were not powerful enough to truly defend her, and the
rest of the children in the audience were not even worth mentioning.

    So, having gone through every other available option, her mind
stumbled upon the broken Moon Prism. She still carried it with her.
The design was simple--oh, so simple--and it could be repaired and
recrystalized with only a minimum of energy loss.

    <Nuuuk-leee-aaaaar! Whessels!>

    <If we inject the high-energy photons INTO the prism matrix,
it should regenerate itself.>

    <And while we're at it, we can upgrade it to something a little
less embarrassingly primitive.>

    <Soooooooooooooopaaaaaaaaaah powaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!>

    <Besides, I wanna go kick some righteous-->

    <Aardvark?>

    <Kitty-cat?>

    <Mule???>

    <Horse-lupine half-breed?>

    <Nooooo!>

    <Donkey?>

    <Yeah, baby!>

    The girl bowed her head and focused her energies toward the
broken prism she still had clipped to the front of her dress. Inside
the closed pendant, the little bits of pink crystal reformed around
the core.

    The Younger Inner Senshi ran to stand between Catseye and
Terra. The ringleader's two sailor-suited companions stood behind
him, immobile.

    As their training had brainwashed them into doing, the Sailor
Chibiscouts started making poses and speeches.

    "I am Sailor Chibimercury!"
    "Chibimars!"
    "Chibijupiter!"
    "And Sailor Chibivenus," Althea called out, pointing a finger
at Catseye. "I, as the ringleader of the pretty Sailor Chibiscouts--"

    "Younger Inner Senshi," Chibijupiter corrected.

    "--challenge you, the ringleader of this no-good, low-down
circus," Chibivenus turned her head and spat, "to come up with better
acts!" She impatiently tapped her thumb against the palm of her other
hand. "Practice, rinse, repeat! Break an arm! Stage on! In the words
of the Great Venusian Philosopher, Al, cry DISCO, and release the
clowns of yore!"

    "Clowns, eh?" Catseye looked amused. "Well, we're not after
_you_, but since you asked so nicely..."

    The ringleader's shadow extended in two separate directions.
A funky multicolored eye-shaped design appeared at the head of each
shadow.

    A pair of very large clowns sprang up from the shadows. They
were gaunt, thin and female. They wore white-balled red and white-
striped caps and their belled full-body stockings jingled as they
hopped up and down.

    "Play with the nice girls, my lemures," Catseye giggled.

    The clowns honked their noses and reached out toward the
Chibiscouts. Their arms extended and grew to grasp a girl around
the waist in each hand.

    "WAAAAH!" all four princesses cried at once.

    The audience shrieked. All the boys and girls shuffled toward
the exits, disappearing through the curtains and black haze as they
went.

    "Soap Bubbles," Sailor Chibimercury began, building up a blue
glow around her, "Spray!"

    A splattering of slippery foam splattered across all of the
Chibisenshi.

    Sailor Chibivenus wiggled around and with the aid of the
soap managed to free one hand from the grip. She held up her index
finger and a glow built up at the tip. "Beamwhip Snap!" She aimed
right for Catseye's face.

    *Bling* Catseye effortlessly flicked away the bolt of light
in a bored fashion with two fingers.

    Chibijupiter struggled around in the giant clown's hand and
crossed her arms and fingers. A lightning rod shot up from her tiara.
"Lightspark Shock!"

    The clown Iolanthe had targeted didn't even flinch when the
electrical attack hit it.

    "Firestorm!" Pyra shouted, sending a flurry of burning
particles to streak across from left to right across all three
foes.

    Catseye let out a high-pitched giggle. "That tickles! Clowns,
finish them off now!"

    The lemures raised the four Chibiscouts high and flipped them
over, preparing to dash their heads against the floor.

    "WAAAAH!" the Younger Inner Senshi cried.

    "STOP," Terra commanded. Her voice was penetrating and ever-so-
richly full of power.

    The action slowed and everyone looked at her. Terra lifted
her head, allowing all to see that the brooch on her chest was
gleaming. The gold rim shifted upward to form a pair of wings with a
star at the center and a crown at the top. The entire device was now
heart-shaped and rimmed with pink.

    "This looks like a job for," Terra spoke in a deep echo.

    The brooch flipped open to reveal that the prism had reformed,
albeit in a more compact setup. The gem gleamed with lunar energy,
which shot out in a great beam and flashed around the girl.

    Her restraints fell away while the stone table which held her
cracked and scattered. She levitated nearly a foot off the ground.

    The glow covered her body. She held her arms out straight to
her sides. A great wind whipped around her, pushing her arms back
slightly. Pink ribbons wrapped around her, blowing in the breeze.
The ribbons formed the core white part of her sailor outfit. A
red bow was at her chest and tri-level translucent guards formed
at her shoulders.

    Her skirt appeared, being mostly white, but rimmed with one-
inch borders of yellow, then pink. Her pink boots and pink-rimmed
white gloves flashed into place, and her tiara's gem was now covered
with a crescent moon. White barrettes appeared in her straight hair.
A little gold belt with a pink heart-buckle blinked into place at
her waist. The white ribbon on the small of her back became very
large, having ends that went down to the backs of her knees.

    "Super-DUPER Sailor Chibimoon," the pretty dang upgraded
sailor-suited soldier for cruel and unusual punishment intoned, her
hands on her hips and looking condescendingly at her foes. The pink
backing of her sailor-collar with a white trim flowed behind her like
a short cape and the letters SDSCM burned themselves into the lower
part of her prism casing.

    Not wasting any time, Terra dove forward, taking the barrettes
out of her hair, charging them with energy, and jamming them into the
lemures' midsections as she went by. She twisted and ground in the
tri-pronged blades, taking great satisfaction at the fleshy tearing
noises they made.

    Super-Duper Sailor Chibimoon crouched down and followed up with
a spinning, flaming uppercut that fried its way from Catseye's sternum
up to his chin. "Shroy-you-ken!"

    Catseye's head snapped upwards and he clutched at his chest.
The circus performer went flying backwards and slammed into one of
the pavilion's support beams. "AAAAAAAAAH!"

    An electrical current surged through the clowns' perforated
bodies, tensing their muscles and forcing them to let go of the
Younger Inner Senshi. The four girls fell to the ground.

    "ACK! Stage out-ooooh!" the lemures cried, quickly being
ripped apart by the energy shockwaves. Their images seemed to wad
up like discarded brown paper bags before they disappeared.

    On the ground, the glowing designs on the shadows evaporated.
Chibimoon's barrettes twirled around in the air for a second, then
flashed forward to replace themselves her hair.

    "I hate clowns," Terra muttered. She tapped at her prism and
ran her fingers through her hair. "Yes, much better. Much less
primitive, and less rabbity."

    "Whoa," Althea awed at what had just happened.

    Super-Duper Sailor Chibimoon stood up as tall as a ten-year-old
girl could, cracked her knuckles, then placed her left thumb and
index finger at the crescent moon on her tiara. In a smooth, upward
motion, she slipped it off and held it out in her hand where it
became a bright disc of light. With a satisfied grin, she questioned
Catseye, "Hey, clown! Ever dance with a Sailor in the pale Earth-
light?"

    Catseye slid back down to the floor. Hyperventilating and with
a fearful look in his eyes that just made him seem to be repeating
over and over again 'Oh crap, oh crap!!!' he looked toward his
sailor-suited accomplices. "EEEEEEEEERRRR!!!! Sailor Akis! Sailor
Jares! Plan B! NOW!"

    "Kak-kah-kah-kah!" the turbaned Asteroid Senshi, Sailor Akis,
laughed. "Be right there, Catseye!"

    "Of course!" agreed Sailor Jares.

    Terra held out her hand and fired the disc toward Catseye,
aiming low to ensure that he would have a most excruciatingly slow
and painful death.

    At that moment, Sailor Jares just HAD to rush in and ruin the
moment. Moving at phenomenal velocity, she intercepted the glowing
tiara, snatching it from its path midair. The acrobat paused to
smile back at Terra. "Hah! Caught it!"

    Super-Duper Sailor Chibimoon tilted her gaze to look at the
trapped tiara and back up at the Asteroid Senshi. She snapped her
fingers.

    *BLAAAAAAAAAAM!!!* The tiara flared up, exploding in a sphere
of ultra-concentrated white light. The energy engulfed Sailor Jares
and Catseye and burned in the air for several seconds.

    A thick cloud of acrid smoke rose off the blast crater.

    Terra's smile deepened. "Burn!!!"

    "Kah-kah-kah-kaaah!" Sailor Akis laughed, her hands on her hips.

    When the smoke cleared, it slowly became apparent that neither
JareJare, nor Catseye had been killed. The woman was pretty badly
singed and had her blonde hair blasted to the side in a spiked
formation. Catseye, however, barely even looked barely touched by
the blast.

    Sailor Jares blinked a couple of times, her eyes the only
white portion of her face.

    Terra looked more disappointed than shocked. She shrugged.
"Okay."

    *Bling* In a yellow glow, Chibimoon's tiara reformed on her
forehead. She shifted her stance to a spread-out defensive posture.
"Prepare to die, circus-midgets!"

    "Oh my," whispered Iolanthe, trying to scoot away from the
action, along with the other Younger Inner Senshi.

    "I calculate thirty seconds before the guards arrive," Sailor
Chibimercury noted.

    "They _really_ need to work on their response time," Pyra
groaned.

    Terra whipped out the Pink Sugar Heart Wand and held it high
above her head.

    Sailor Jares shook her head. "That's too weak to harm US!"

    Terra grinned very broadly at her opponent. <Hah! You WISH
you could be tough as me, even with THIS thing.>

    <It would be far more efficient to use our true power.>

    <And less embarrassing.>

    <That's not the point. The point is to beat them at their own
game and show them how weak they truly are.>

    <Yeah, baby!!!>

    <Starlight, get over here or shut up!>

    <...>

    <That's what I thought.>

    Terra looked down at her wand for a second, then shrugged. <Oh
well, might as well milk it for all it's got.>

    <Okay, adapting from the useful patterns found in previous
artifacts utilized by Sailor Senshi...>

    <Which one? Which one???>

    <And the winner is...>

    *Vrr-click!* A five-foot extension shot out from the handle
of Super-Duper Sailor Chibimoon's wand, allowing her to grip it
with both hands. The crystal topping the staff flattened, and two
sharp, golden wings grew upwards. One wing was longer and curved
toward the other, which was short and jagged, like a dagger.

    "The Pink Sugar Cardiac Arrest Glaive!" Super-Duper Sailor
Chibimoon spun the staff around her a few times for effect before
dodging in close to point it at Sailor Jares's neck. "Your treasure
or your life."

    <HEY now, we're not fighting space pirates anymore.>

    <Irrelevant.>

    <It's not polite to play with your food!>

    <Aww, but that's half the fun!>

    The acrobatic Asteroid Senshi blinked, then laughed. "Hah!"
She dodged the blade-swipe and made a leap backwards, and midair she
pulled out a long, blue baton. "Electro-Baton!" she called out. Her
baton crackled with green energy, and she flung it toward the
young Super-Duper Senshi.

    *Jr-wrrrh!* Terra leapt out of the way of the baton.

    *BLAAAAAM!!!* The electro-baton exploded in a large flash of
lightning where Terra had been standing.

    "Oh yeah?!" Chibimoon shouted back. "Try THIS one!" She held
up her Glaive. A tremendous glow built up in the gem and the floor
beneath her started to compress and crack downward in a semispherical
pattern.

    Light flashed around the girl, illuminating the whole
pavilion.

    "Aye yai yai!!!" Sailor Chibivenus looked at her three
teammates. "Everyone, on the count of three!"

    The three Chibiscouts nodded in agreement.

    "One!"

    Terra spun her staff around a few times as the glow continued
to build.

    "Two!"

    Herc and the guards rushed in from the circus tent entrance.

    "THREE!" Althea called. "RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!"

    The Sailor Chibiscouts blindly bolted for the exit,
accidentally snagging and carrying away the guards as they left.

    Catseye had made his way over to a wall and locked down the
switches that were marked [Seal Entrance] and [Blast Off.]

    *Vrr!* The entranceway slid closed and the whole tent started
to rattle.

    Super Sailor Chibimoon halted her energy-charging efforts and
held her staff high. "DEATH PINK-RIPPING SILENCE SUGAR-GLAIVE
REINCARNATED DANCE DANCE BLACK WALTZ REVOLUTION SURPRISE WITH A
QUANTUM SINGULARITY ON TOP! FIFTH MIX!!! HA-CHI-CHI-CHAAAAAH!"

    Sailor Jares's eyes went wide. "What the--?!"

    Sailor Akis shook her head in disbelief. "This can't be!"

    Catseye looked on in horror. "NO!" He frantically grabbed for
another switch on the wall.

    There was a quiet moment while Terra slashed downward,
impacting the Glaive's blade into the sawdust-laden floor.

...

    On the Moon's surface, the Elite Lunar Guards watched on in
horror as the Asteroid Circus Tent levitated upwards just as they
were thrown out with the four Younger Inner Senshi.

    A moment later, shafts of light began to shoot out of a few
places of the giant tent. At first, there were only a few, but dozens
more followed.

    *KER-BLAAAM!* Suddenly, a gigantic internal explosion rocked
the craft. A spherical shockwave smashed outward, pushing along for
a second before vanishing.

    Still somewhat intact, the tent flew around haphazardly, like a
popped balloon. Somehow, it managed to correct itself before
continuing its rapid ascent and vanished in a flash of light.

    "Yikes," Herc whispered in shock. He looked down at Princess
Serenity, whom had brought him in for the rescue attempt. "Are
we missing anyone?"

    The Moon Princess looked around frantically. "Where's Terra?!"

    "Uh oh," the sports coach muttered, a feeling of dread creeping
up his spine. "The Queen's gonna kill me..."

...

    Reverberating echoes of the destructive magic bounced around the
circus tent, decreasing in magnitude as the seconds went by. Some
sparks waltzed across the metallic planks of the floor. Whatever
remained of the sawdust layer slowly burned off in a corner.

    A latticework of fractures went up the walls and floors. There
was not a surface in the entire pavilion that wasn't cracked,
splintered, or otherwise mutilated.

    "Ulllllpphhh," Sailor Jares groaned, tossed aside underneath
the bleachers like a crumpled-up cardboard cup.

    Catseye and Sailor Akis were not faring any better.

    "Owww, oww, oww..."

    "My pretty face!" Catseye cried, his countenance full of red
first-degree burns and his hand still clinging to the last switch he
pulled, which was marked [Emergency.]

    "Are we sure we have the right girl???" Sailor Jares asked,
suddenly not wanting to be in this particular circus tent. "I didn't
sign on to go up against Sailor Saturn!"

    "It's her," Sailor Akis confirmed. She pushed herself up on
her hands. "She's just imitating Saturn's powers. We can still get
her, though! I can feel it!"

    "Heh!" Super-Duper Sailor Chibimoon looked at her handiwork in
semi-satisfaction. "That," she said, "was fifth mix." She held her
staff up in one hand and looked around at her challengers. In a
perfectly serene voice, she asked, "Anybody wanna see eighth mix???"

    "NO!" all three circus performers called out at once,
frantically scooting backward.

    <Queen Saturn's data was most useful in generating the attack,>
Terra thought, nodding to herself.

    <Kinda weak, though, y'know.>

    <Tell me about it. Couldn't even scratch a comet with that
one...>

    <Eh well. Gotta blow 'em up with whatever we've got, no matter
how tiny.>

    <Yeah. If Mom says anything, we'll just plead self-defense.>

    "Okay." Princess Terrifying shrugged and once again gripped
the Pink Sugar Cardiac Arrest Glaive in both hands. "Eighth mix,
let's go!" She raised her staff up high, gazing aloft.

    "AAAAAH!!!" Catseye and the two Asteroid Senshi screamed,
scrambling around like a bunch of maniacs.

    As this happened, a flurry of black, crystalline debris fell
down around Terra. Having been looking upward at the time, some of
it got into her eyes.

    "Ouch," Terra whispered, "that hurts." Balancing her staff
against one shoulder, she rubbed her eyes.

    Catseye and the two Asteroid Senshi crawled around on their
hands and knees in an attempt to regroup.

    Sailor Chibimoon laughed in a taunting manner at the three.
Turning around, she caught sight of a very large, very cracked mirror.

    The girl stopped.

    Terra felt her heart rate slow. Her staff suddenly started to
feel very heavy to her. Resisting the sensation, she tore her gaze
away from the mirror and struggled back into her combat stance.

    <Something's wrong.>

    <Whatever it is, it's slowing us down.>

    <Gotta check it out.>

    <It feels like...>

    <I'm checking. Check, check, check, check...>

    <Feels like...>

    While Super-Duper Sailor Chibimoon tried to analyze what was
happening, Sailor Akis pulled out what looked like a flare gun. She
pointed the wide barrel at the struggling girl and called out, "Kah
Kak-kah-kah! Akis Aki-Ray!" She pulled the trigger.

    *RRROAAAR!!* A red beam flared up and shot towards Terra.

    "Shields," the apparent ten-year-old said without inflection,
holding up her staff with one hand and her head with the other.

    *BLING!* The blast reflected off an invisible barrier and
sped at Sailor Jares.

    *Whoosh!*BLAM!* The acrobat deftly leapt away from the low shot,
just barely avoiding getting hit. The deck behind where she had been
standing now had a one-foot-deep hole blown out of it.

    The entire pavilion jarred roughly.

    Catseye pulled aside a small curtain and looked outside. His
mouth fell open. He turned his head, shouting, "A Moon ship has
attached a boarding gantry to the Tent!"

    "Oh no!" Sailor Jares gasped, covering her mouth. "Lunar
soldiers!"

    "Don't worry about THEM," Terra said through clenched teeth,
"worry about ME!"

    "Gaaaa-aaaa-aaaah!" JareJare shrieked, her gaze shifting rapidly
between Terra and a big red spot forming in the floor. "They're coming
through!"

    Terra closed her eyes, which stung, as if on fire. <Analyzing.>

    <It is deep, like unto a well.>

    <It's magical! An unfamiliar pattern.>

    <Yeeech! What is this junk!?>

    <I'm having difficulty decoding it...>

    Princess Terrifying drew in a few more breaths. She looked
around for her foes. The images she was getting shifted and warped
around, making it hard for her to pinpoint them. However, she could
still sense the trio. She caught sight of AkiAki, who appeared to
be smiling.

    "Kah-kah-kah-kaaaah! Nobody panic! Our Queen has arrived!"

    The air grew cold.

    The ex-galactic destroyer stumbled forward, stooping under an
incredibly powerful invisible force. Trying to discover what was the
problem, she continued to feel for the energy affecting her.

    

    <Can't. . . .>

    <Can't. . . . what. . . . .?>

    An eight-foot-tall by four-foot-wide black mirror appeared in
front of Terra.

    Her vision blurring, her senses fading, and her central nervous
system shutting down, the girl collapsed into the outstretched arms
of a pale young woman in a black dress.

...

To be continued...

Okay, anyone see that one coming? (raises a hand)

Big thanks go out to the prereaders:

Jason Hanks!
Tefloncat!
Jason Liao!

And David Choi for giving me that one last public comment on the
section.

As always, any and all comments and/or suggestions are greatly
appreciated.

BTW, we're still working on Heart of Sugar. It's just that SIs are
so horrendously easy to botch, and I'd much rather get it right
the first time. (Plus, I've got essays due, exams, etc. You get
the idea.)

-------------------------------
Benjamin A. Oliver
boredcollective@aol.com

    "We are the Bored. Lower your shields and surrender your fics.
     We will add your standup and slapstick comedy to our own.
     Your humor will adapt to entertain us.
     Resistance is and always has been: Futile."
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