And getting back to this:

<He reminds me of my last. . . .>

<?!?!?!>

<Errr, elder Jupiter's last. . . . overfriendly upperclassman.>

Heh

<But until I execute you, I have a job for you, since you're
a free, single bachelor now and've got a starship.>

That's cold.

<You would!>

<And, by corollary, so do you!>

true

Terra nodded. <Yes, that was a rather bumpy ride out, wasn't
it?> Aloud, she continued, "It's no problem," and had about five
hundred inner voices that silently added, <handsome!>

"I am afraid that nor have we any medic to help you recover."

Not sure what you're trying to say there.

<Eh, well, when someone gets to be my age, I can't imagine
them being afraid of much of anything.>

<Heh. Yeah!>

<What about the clowns?>

Good point.

touching it, her soft skin demonstrated no sign of scarring or
residual injury whatsoever.

<Oh yeah, THAT's easy stuff to fix. Take one cell, say, 'HEY!
take these proteins and make a duplicate of yourself, right by that
other one,' and do that on a large scale...>

Sounds pretty easy to me. I'll have to try it someday.

Terra considered that.

<The prism was broadcasting a distress call and I didn't know
about it?!>

<Well, looking back over the data, there _was_ a distinct
signal being sent, but only another Lunar Senshi or Queen Serenity
should have been able to pick it up.>

<Unless one knew what one was looking for.>

Curious. So why was he looking for senshi?

"How about you first, so I may return you to your home before
going to mine. Where do you live?"

"Third rock from the Sun."

Heh. Cute

Giles froze and looked downward, his expression growing
worried. "The Moon Kingdom?" He held a hand to his chin. "Whom is
she that you call Mother?"

"Well, the one I've been calling Mother is Queen Serenity."

Heh.

*Bling* At that moment, the intercom chimed and an officer's
voice came on. [Lord Tranquility, we have arrived.]

Hm. Serenity and Tranquility, interesting.

Mist obscured those who had just disembarked. All that could
be told was that one tall, over six feet in height, and the other
was just over four.

The musicians brought trumpets into play, slow enough to
avoid sounding forced while heightening the dramatic feeling.

The tall sihouette

silhouette

Giles looked them over, pleased at having been honored as such.
He repeated the playing motion and held up his right hand, two
fingers in a V-shape. "Be," he said, "excellent to each other."

Ouch.

Giles thought about what his wife was saying and started to
put the pieces together. "Hmm, would this girl you took in happen
to have powers as a Sailor Senshi and be named Terra?"

Heh.

"I am very, _very_ glad to see you," Serenity whispered.
"Your sister and I were greatly worried about you. Your friends
were sorry for leaving you, too." The Queen looked happy, but still
concerned about something else. "Are you hurt? Would you like me to
heal you with the Ginzuishou?"

"NO!" Terra shot back immediately.

Hehehehehe.

The excitement of the moment calming down, Queen Serenity
returned to stand with her husband. Arm in arm, they followed the
girls inside. "Come, Giles, we have much to discuss."

Sure they do.

The doors slid quietly shut.

Out of an older guard's armor popped a small, green and white
seal-like creature, which fluttered over to perch on a fountain,
using its tail like a hummingbird wing. "Alroight, lads, that doez
it for ta'day. See ya next month. Gotta get back ta th' lab on
Merc'ya'ry before anyone notices."

"Bye, Arby!" replied everyone in a manner that suggested they
had done it many times before.

Heh

"You picked one hell of a time to come back home, you know,"
Kull added. "On Earth we've had three major rebellions to put down
in the past year alone."

Kull: Life's been good, for a change.

"Perhaps you should treat your subjects with more kindness,"
Giles suggested.

"Maybe _you_ should try harder to keep the sorcerers and the
mass-brainwashers from coming to _my_ planet! _You're_ the ones with
the all-powerful magic, remember?"

Good point.

"Its name is Oblivion's Kiss--a horrible and violent affliction
that eats living souls and turns them into a nhilistic scourge upon
creation; turns men into demons and demons into sludge."

Kull: Sort of like lawyers, only not that repulsive.

"A few hours ago, the curse began to spread across space. The
people of the Asteroids Kingdoms of Akis and Jares have been utterly
consumed

Doesn't sound like that was part of the plan.

"There's only two ways we could think of to stop it," Kull
added. "It'd have to be, like, in fourty minutes or less for the
curse to end, and we'd have to either kill everyone that's been
affected so far--every man woman and child, burn their ashes, drink
from the skull of one of their leaders and completely vaporize those
two asteroids," he took a breath to let everyone soak up the
implications of his statement, "or Queen Serenity could take her
big, powerful crystal over to the edge of the curse's affect area and
use your Bone Healing Hip Gyration or whatever it is you call it."

Heh.

"Moon Healing Escalation," Serenity corrected, "and anything
less than full power would be unable to stop the foul magic."

"At full power?" Giles asked incredulously. "But all that
have used the Ginzuishou at that level have perished!"

Serenity nodded. "However it is the only way we can possibly
save our worlds, Giles, aside from ordering our men to go in and
commit some horrible abomination, possibly succumbing themselves
to this travesty. There simply is not enough time to carry it out!"

Kull: Actually, that's what I'm hoping for. No need to kill yourself or
anything. Me and my horde will be happy to slice away.

Princess Terrifying walked in, wearing her finest green gown
and flanked by her two assistants. "So you're telling me that Lord
Giles Tranquility is already married?"

"To your mother," the girl to Terra's left added.

The girl to Terra's right sighed. "What a lucky goiyle."

Heh

"Hey," Princess Serenity whispered, "what am I? Diced bovine
innards? And why does she get two servants and I don't get any?"

"She needs more reassurance and help than you do," the Queen
whispered back to her true daughter.

The Princess blinked. "Oh, okay..."

Heh

"What? Oh, nearly forgot about that. My communications officer
went on extended leave. Weeeeeeellllll, to tell the truth I had to
jettison my entire crew into the cold darkness of space since they
mutineed when they heard my last order."

Heh

"Let 'em listen!" the green-armored man shouted, looking
right at Terra. "You like that, 'Princess?!' Huh?! I did exactly
like you told me. I violently slaughtered those two circus midgets
and eeeeeeeeeveryone that _might_ have been involved. The ones that
surrendered got a quick death. The ones that didn't have found an
entirely new definition of pain and suffering as I reconfigured their
innards to leave every single nerve ending in their bodies exposed
to-"

"Shut UP, Starlight," Terra whispered through clenched teeth.

Yeah, someone should pick up on the Princess comment.

Queen Serenity pulled Terra closer and gave her a kiss on the
forehead. She breathed a relieved sigh. "Good job, Terra. Good job."

Starknight's expression fell. He froze, gawking at the Terran
King, as did Terra at her adopted mother.

"IT WAS?!" both captain and princess asked incredulously in
linked unison.

Heh. So much for getting Terra in trouble.

you guilty of performing above and beyond the call of duty in taking

care of that doomsday curse, having the gumption to respond and do
whatever it took to stop it."

The Queen nodded along with the verdict. "Though your methods
were unorthodox and extreme, I believe they were necessary.

My, she changed her tune rather quickly. A moment ago she said she didnt'
want the blood on her hands.

"I remember when my daddy got back from a long trip," Althea
added, "he was in intense rehab for _months_! He kept talking about
how huge the mushrooms were, and how flammable the rope got, and
how sweet the pixies were. Then there was all the dragon-dancing."
She looked wistfully off into the sunset, which was going to be
around for another few days. "Someday, I wanna go where he went."

Of course.

<Right, right. I'm our 'vent.' Since I'm the head of Earth's
fleet, I can make bigger, better ways to destroy things!>

<And if you _still_ need that idiotic physical relationship,
Neptune's princess is of age and isn't technically married yet.>

<...She doesn't like men.>

<So? You like a challenge, don't you?>

<Well, yeah, but NOT when it comes to->

Heh

"The weak can become very strong quite quickly," noted
Chibimars.

"Just how powerful are you?" Chibijupiter asked.

A gleam came to Terra's eye. "Wanna see?"

Heh. This could get messy.

"Blast it!"

Chibijupiter stood back up and crossed her fingers together
as tightly as she could, a small lightning rod extending from the
gem of her tiara. "Grrrr... LIGHTSPARK SHOCK!!!"

*Bzrrr-zrrr-zrrr!* The lightning glanced off the rock without
doing any damage whatsoever.

"Yell at it!"

Yeah. Thought I recognized the dialogue.

"Sailor Chibimoon?" one of the guards began. "What in blazes
were you doing?!"

"Just a demonstration," the redhead replied, "nothing to see
here." She waved them off. "Move along, move along."

Red in the face, the chief guard looked down at the hole, then
back at the girl. "Selene's name, child! You've just destroyed the
Runestone!"

Sailor Chibimercury gasped. "It was the Runestone!?"

Heh. Of course something bad had to happen.

<Why?>

<Remember what nearly killed us when we arrived?>

Heh. Think she would have considered that sooner.

The Chibiscout leader stared after the two running adults.
After a moment, she shrugged and faced her teammates. "Okay,
everybody, feet together, eyes forward. Raise your right hand to the
square and repeat after me."

Mars, Jupiter and Mercury raised their right hand and fixed
their gaze firmly on their leader. Mars crossed the fingers of her
left hand behind her.

Of course.

Terra Incognito slowly awoke, instantly forgetting over half
of the images she'd just dreamed. She opened her eyes to see her
mother sitting in a soft chair right by her bed. "Mother? Mother!
I had this strange dream, and you weren't there," she pointed at
the brown-haired woman, "nor you," she pointed at her plush Sailor
V doll, "or you..." She pointed at her Sailor Stylin' doll. She
held her head. "My forehead stings some."

Heh

"No, no, nothing like that." The girl looked down at her feet.
"But I'm worried; I want to see my friends."

"Soon enough, but not today."

"Why not?" the teen asked, almost frowning.

"Because today, your grandmother is coming over to visit."
The girl's father pointed to a calendar on the wall, circled in
red and marked in small, alarming letters, [GRANDMA.]

Terra paled. "Grandma?"

Heh

Well, that's the big flashback for this part. I figure it's good
enough practice to put in some level of backstory. Actually, a
lot of people tend to like the past incarnations of ASK and Terra
a lot better than the 'present' ones. Fancy that...

Both have their pros and cons.

Nice work and good way to wrap up the flashback. Look forward to more
present day action and the apperaanceof Gramma Jenova.

D.B. Sommer




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