Author's note: I took the ideas from the C&C for the first version and
tinkered a bit. I would stress that this is still very much in the idea
stage. C&C welcome
Disclaimer: Sailor Moon is the creation of Nako Takeuchi, Tekkaman is
copyrighted by Tatsunoko Productions & Sotsu Agency. No Money is being
made from this and no such intent should be inffered.
It has been said that if an evil is defeated, it leaves a hole that
must be plugged.
Woe to those who go forth to battle evil.
For they may become that plug.
****
Greenland . . .
They emerged from the portal. Each one wore the blank face of someone
who had commited a crime so horrible, so unthinkable, that it was all
they could do
to walk.
"Sailor Moon?" Luna asked.
Sailor Moon did not even look at her. None of them did. They simply
trudged past her and vanished through the portal back to Tokyo.
"I'm sure it's nothing, Luna," Artemis said. "They'll be fine."
****
Tokyo, six years later:
"Fine! Hmph!" Fast as a bullet, a single black paw came down on the
neck of a large rat who had emerged from its den in search of some sort
of food.
The impact momentarily stunned it, long enough for the teeth of black
cat to snap it's neck, killing it instantly. Even if the rat had
posesed the cognitive facilites necessacary, it wouldn't have had time
to realize that it was dead.
"Fine, he said."
Six years previous, a rather unique cat named Luna had taken a thirteen
year old girl named Usagi Tsukino and revealed to her what destiny had
planned.
Though she had made mistakes at first, Usagi had indeed proven herself
worthy of the duty laid upon her. Within a year, she had gathered the
rest of the Inner Senshi to her, found the Ginzinhozou crystal, and
done battle with Beryl herself, defeating the evil queen and destroying
her.
But Usagi was only thirteen . . . and to kill at any age is a terrible
thing.
To commit genocide, to destroy an entire race, even if that race was
the Youma, is a crime beyond forgiving.
Understanding why it was commited, perhaps. But forgiveness, never.
Especially not from ourselves.
Luna looked out over what had once been Tokyo from the roof of the
skyscraper she now stood on.
In less then ten years, Tokyo had become a devastated ruin, and rising
over all of it was the palace where the Sailor Senshi dwelt, wallowing
in barbaric debauchery and occasionally governing the world they had
ruthlessly conquered. At the time, they had offered the excuse that it
was to protect it.
Like other excuses, that one had been quickly forgotten.
Like acid to metal, so is absolute power to the soul.
"So that's dinner?" A man's voice asked. "Fortune favors us with so
splendid a meal."
Luna looked over her shoulder. A man stood there. His uniform was
grayish blue with red trim. It had been patched in places and his blond
hair hung to his shoulders. His arm supported a woman who had been
beautiful once. Now, Setsuna was a lush, a drunk. Her clothes were even
worse then the man's, made mostly of filthy rags and dirt. Her eyes
were the vacant, uncaring stare of one who sought oblivion in drink and
other chemicals.
"Yes, Jadeite," Luna said. "Dinner."
Jadeite set Setsuna down against a the hollow shell of an AC unit and
picked up the rat. His hands glowed with blue fire for a moment and
when it faded, the rat had been cleaned and cooked.
"Not bad," Luna said, driven by good manners to compliment the meal.
Jadeite divided the rat into thirds and passed one piece to Luna. "It's
all I can do," he said bitterly as he began to coax Setsuna to eat
something.
Luna nodded and taking a bite out of the rat, turned to study the
palace once more.
All the Senshi were tied to the Gizinhouzou, even Pluto, who was not a
true Senshi. Which had saved her soul. Only Mamoru was not. But forever
loyal to his princess, he had walked at her side down that dark road.
Luna supposed a particularly twisted person of poetic bent might be
able to wax nostalgic about romantic it was that Mamoru had willingly
given up his soul and humanity to be with Usagi, but quite frankly, the
notion (but more likely the rat she was eating) turned Luna's stomach.
Pluto, however, who while she wore the Senshi uniform, drew her powers
from elsewhere. A fact that had saved her soul. Pluto's loyalties lay
not with Usagi, but to the Moon Kingdom itself and the dark-skinned,
green haired woman was absolutly commited to it's survival.
Sadly, Sailors Uranus and Neptune had stripped Pluto of her garnet orb
staff, and by extension, her most significant powers. In doing so,
Sailor Pluto had died, her dream of a reborn moon kingdom dead with her
and now, there was only Setsuna.
Jadeite was a former General of Beryl who had been imprisioned inside
his own body for his failure to kill the Senshi. When Beryl died,
Jadeite had been freed, only to find himself in an even worse hell then
before.
He had tried to exact revenge, but had failed and done so miserably.
Somehow, Mercury, clever, clever Mercury, had managed to strip Jadeite
of most of his powers and then didn't even bother killing him, but
rather turned him out into the city.
He had joined Luna and Setsuna, and between the three of them, they
somehow managed to survive on the forgotten rooftops and high places of
Tokyo. Dangerous, perhaps, but safer then the streets. The nightmarish
streets ruled by feral gangs at night.
Perhaps the worst part was that there was no alternative.
Not to mention the fact that there was no resistance. Mercury, who sat
at the heart of her spider's web of machines, could detect so much as a
flashlight being turned on, and unpowered weapons were no good against
the Senshi's powers or the legions of troops they had assembled out of
the dark side of society. Mercury . . . who had followed her queen into
darkness, but not excess. So far as Luna knew, she hadn't taken a
consort, or joined her sisters debauchery and violence.
Luna had still failed her. Failed all of them.
"So this is the wise and brave Luna," said a woman's voice mockingly.
Luna spun, aware of Jadite rising to his feet as well.
Standing nearby was a young woman, perhaps sixteen or seventeen. She
had cotton candy pink hair and wore what seemed to be combination of
armor and clothes. In one hand, she . . .
Luna's heart caught in her chest.
In one hand she carried Setsuna's staff, and in the other, the Moon
scepter, the Silver Crystal glittering in the light of the setting sun.
"Who are you?" Jadeite demanded.
The girl's lips twisted into a cruel, cruel, smile.
****
"Usagi."
Usagi sat straight, knocking away the man who up until that point, had
been trying very hard to make her happy and not suceeding very well.
"Highness?" he asked, trembling.
"Over here, Usagi," the voice snapped.
Usagi looked. Seated in a chair was a woman in her mid-twenties. She
wore a black dress with a blue cloak and her white-blonde hair was in
odangos. "Who the hell are you?" Usagi demanded.
"Neo-Queen Serenity," the woman replied. "I'm you, the future you."
Usagi crossed her arms and stared at Serenity. "I doubt that."
"Nerima," Serenity said levelly. "Jinnai Misata. Nineteen-Ninety."
Usagi obliterated the man she had knocked off the bed and looked at
Serenity. "Fine. You're the future me. What of it?"
"We have a problem. Our daughter is loose in your time and --"
"Daughter?" Usagi inturrupted in stunned disbelif. "I . . . pregnancy?"
Serentiy nodded. "With Mamoru of all people," she said. "It seemed like
a good idea at the time. I caught him with one of the maids a few weeks
later. He likes them young, you know, and I still can't bring myself to
kill him."
"Pregnancy?" Usagi said, still shocked.
"Yeah, it horrifies me too," Serenity said. "I told you, it seemed like
a good idea at the time. The point is, the result -Chibi-Usa by name,
has gone back in time and taken the Garnet Orb staff and Moon scepter
with her."
"And this is my problem, how?" Usagi asked.
"I can't believe I was this thick," Serentiy said, rolling her eyes.
"The point is, Usagi, that A, She's in your time, and B, if she can
find help, *any* kind of help, she could kill you."
"Me? Why me?"
"Me, actually, but she can't beat me, so she's going after you."
"What the hell did you do?"
Serenity shrugged. "Her girl-toy was making noises about dethroning me
so I had her killed. For some reason, that upset Usa, so now she wants
me dead. Heh. Who'd have thought she actually cared about Hotaru?"
"Hotaru?"
"Sailor Saturn. The girl-toy. She hasn't awoken yet. Besides, it's
Mistress Nine you want."
"Who?"
"You'll find out. I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise."
"Gee, thanks."
"Anyways, we have a common goal. If she kills you, I'm dead too. So
have Mercury find and kill her before she becomes a nuisance."
With that, Serenity vanished.
"Hag," Usagi muttered and reached for her robe.
****
"An intriguing offer," Jadeite mused, when the girl, who'd said her
name was Chibi-Usa, had finished. "But unfortnutly, there's no help we
can give you. Even if Setsuna was herself, which she's not, and if I
had my full powers, which I don't, and with those items in your hands,
which you admit you're not completly sure of how to use, there's not
enough power to take on all seven Senshi and Mamoru, plus the soldiers.
"Are you telling me that there's nothing you can do?" Usa demanded. "I
thought you were warriors."
"We are. But even warriors need something to work with. Armor, weapons,
an edge. We can't take on Tokyo with out some sort of technogy and-"
"That's it!" Luna shouted. "I remember! I remember!"
"What do you mean?" Jadeite asked. "Then he frowned. After all their
years together with only each other for company, Jadeite knew how Luna
thought. It didn't take him long to arrive at the same conclusion "Wait
. . . that was destroyed. I supervised it myself."
"Not all of it," Luna said. "Three pods were later found and hidden
away on Earth. You and the others had defected by then. I was supposed
to activate them in case Sailor Moon failed against Beryl. But I'd
forgot about them until now."
"A backup plan?" Jadeite asked. Luna nodded. "Figures."
"What are you talking about?" Usa demanded.
"A long time ago, in the latter half of the Silver Millenium," Luna
began. "The Moon was attacked by an alien ship, an envoy from an alien
race. It kidnapped people and turned them into armored creatures known
as Tekkamen. The Tekkamen were without fear, mercy, compassion or
empathy, and totally loyal to their masters."
"The war devastated Jupiter's moons," Jadeite said, and destroyed a
planet, turning it into an asteroid belt."
"The war gave the Senshi of the time vital experience," Luna said. "It
was only because of that invasion and the experience they gained, that
Beryl was halted at all when she invaded.
"An hoot wood you damn ta th't 'ife?" Setsuna asked." The former
Guardian Of Time swayed as she stood. "A curse, th't is."
"Maybe," Jadeite said. "Maybe not."
Everyone looked at him.
"Everything happens for a reason," Jadeite said. "Serenity was never
one to trust to chance. If she did, there wouldn't have been Senshi to
oppose us when we returned. But there were and we were defeated."
Jadeite crossed his arms. "She hid away the pods for the day when they
might be needed, and that means she'd have chosen who would use them."
****
They met in an abandoned house in the Shinjuku district.
A scientist, a shopkeeper, and a soldier.
At one point, Usagi had called each one friend.
"Naru Okasa, Gurio Umino , and Motoki Furahata," Luna said. "You all
knew Usagi. You all called her friend. You are here tonight to take up
a destiny that should not be taken up, should never even be mentioned,
but we have no choice."
The three people looked at each other nervously as the cat explained
the situation. None of them could explain why they had followed the
strange feeling that had led them to this place. Nor could they explain
the strange looking pods, or that Usagi's pet cat was talking to them.
But it seemed right, somehow. Natural.
"Why the hell would we want to give up our humanity?" Motoki demanded.
"That's even worse enslavement then what's out there?"
"Is it?" Luna asked. "The world is slowly burning. Usagi and the others
will destroy it, if not by war, then through their own inattention and
selfish induldgence. Ninety-five percent of Africa is unhabitable and
within the decade, completly uninhabitable. Antartica is gone, the
Middle East burns bright enough to be seen from space and Europe is in
a state of permanent anarchy. Even the Americas are no more." The black
cat looked around. "There is still a chance, still a way to halt the
process. But we need your help. We need the Tekkamen."
"Excuse me," Umino said. "If I could examine the process? There might
be another way."
Luna stared at him for a moment. Umuino had been the top brain at
school before Ami had transffered in. It was possible he could do it.
She nodded.
****
"It is possible to become Tekkamen without sacrificing our humanity,"
Umino said when he was done. It had taken him weeks and there was still
much he didn't understand. Still, he'd learned enough to do what they
were asking. "But there is a price. The conversion process takes eight
days. If the process is inturrupted on day six, we will retain the
powers of Tekkamen, with only a ten percent loss."
"I hear a however," Motoki said.
"However," Umino said, pushing his glasses up. "We can only be Tekkamen
for thirty minutes at a time. After that, what there is of the
conditioning kicks in, and we will become monsters."
"I know its a lot to ask," Luna said. "But please believe me when I say
we would not be doing this if we had any other choice."
The three went into a huddle while Luna, Jadeite and Usa exchanged
glances.
"We're in." Naru asked when their conversation was done. "Tell us what
to do."
* * * *
"A child?"
"Yes," Usagi snapped, pacing on the disc. A complicated array of
Holograms made it appear as though the clear crystal disc she stood one
hovered in space. Before her, Mercury's face hovered, seemingly formed
out of the void of space. "Sprog. Crotch Dropping. Hellspawn." She
continued to pace, careful not to leave the disc. Intellectually, she
knew that the seeming void was nothing more then a holographic
projection. But her instincts told her otherwise.
Besides, it would be just like Mercury to be playing with space warps
and all that Star Trek shit. Usagi had no intention of leaving the disc
until she was positive that she was back on Terra Firma. Her terra
firma. Mercury had a weird sense of humor and Usagi had no intention of
finding herself on a planet of bunnies or some other fucked up place.
"And the child came back in time to kill you, being unwilling or unable
to go up against her mother. She also stole the garnet orb staff and
the Silver Crystal. All to avenge her lover's murder by the future
you."
"Yes!" Usagi snapped. "Jeez, have you even been listening?"
Mercury looked at her levelly. "I am merely going over the facts," she
said. "Planning is the key to victory and facts are the heart of
planning." Her lips pursed in thought and the void vanished to be
replaced by an areial view of Tokyo. Even the disc vanished and Usagi
managed to not give into the momentary urge of panic as her instincts
insisted that she was about to fall. The next morment, the view was
overlaid in a green and black wireframe. Markers of various colors
appeared across the landscape.
Mercury was silent for the longest time. "There is only one Garnet Orb
Staff and one Silver Crystal in Tokyo," she said at last. "The staff is
in the Trophy room, where you put it and the Silver Crystal is on your
person."
"You mean this was a wild goose chase?" Usagi snapped.
"Hardly. Perhaps your future self simply projected herself too far back
when she delivered her warning. Usa may arrive here tomorrow, next
week, next year. Or she's already here and somehow managed to conceal
herself. Perhaps some combination of the two. Doesn't matter."
"Wait, are you saying someone out to kill me is nothing for you to
worry about?" Usagi's tone of voice was dangerous. Mercury ignored it.
"I'm saying that there's facts that are irrelavant to the task at
hand," Mercury said. "We know who's coming, what she's coming here to
do, and how she's most likely going to do it. That's all I need to
prepare a plan of battle. Go about your bisinuess, Usagi. Consider the
matter handled."
"See that it is," Usagi growled as the view faded and she found herself
back in the plain room. Behind her, the doors hissed open and after a
glance to confirm that the gaurd was in fact, human, Usagi left the
room.
Mercury, whose conciousness was spread throughout the palace, watched
her go even as another part of her brain turned it's attention to the
problem which had been dumped in her lap.
She enjoyed solving problems, but really, Usagi could have said please.
****
-Steve "Komodo" T.
http://www.geocities.com/studio_pc_hub/
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