Morgan Hudson wrote:
Hello!
I know it's been a little while (about a month, by my reckoning), but I
needed to take a short break from ficcing to prepare myself for the awesome
that was Anime North this year.
Hey, I'm pretty happy when I get a chapter out in a month _without_
taking a break. You've got nothing to apologize for.
I am pleased to report that I was also able
to finally get the last DVDs I needed to finish off my Ronin
Warriors/Yoroiden Samurai Troopers collection. There were totally in the
discount bin. ^_^
I need to get around to picking those up.
REVAMPED LEGAL DISCLAIMER: the Sailor Senshi belong to Kodansha and
Cloverway, and the Samurai Troopers are the legal property of Sunrise and
Bandai Entertainment. I am only borrowing them for a few chapters, and I
intend no harm.
Righty-ho!
Standard C&C Disclaimer: All the below is my only occasionally useful
humble opinion, my only occasionally correct grammatical and spelling
corrections, and/or my only occasionally funny humor.
Somewhere along the way, however, something had gone wrong. Nana
had never realised that her pet hobby of outing various movie stars and
idol singers who had been trying to keep their homosexuality in the closet
(along with salacious, if dated, photographs) had accidentally caught the
interest of a demon named Zoicite.
You know, I can't really say it's inaccurate, but I blink when I see one
of the Generals referred to as a demon. Too used to thinking of them as
humans, I suppose.
It sometimes occured to Nana that Sailor Moon had likely been
trying to do her a favour by changing her back into her mortal form. It
was hardly as though the young warrior of love and justice could have
known the effect that her Moon Stick was going to have. Sailor Moon seemed
to think that people were naturally decent: it never would have occurred
to her that her Moon Healing Escalation might remove more than just the
taint of the Dark Kingdom from someone's soul. She never would have
guessed that some of that evil that was getting scrubbed away was supposed
to be there.
It isn't really your fault, but I'm getting flashbacks to too many
terrible "Crystal Tokyo is a fascist dystopia of brainwashed zombies"
stories. Give me a moment to recover...
...there, better.
To Nana's horror, she had been made to come face-to-face
with all of her various shortcomings and deficiencies. Sailor Moon had
forced her to realise that deep down inside, she was just a sad and lonely
young woman who was trying to manipulate people because she was afraid
that nobody would be her friend unless she forced them to. That for all
of those years, she had just been projecting her own self-hatred onto the
people around her; assuming that they were all as bad as she thought that
she was. Nana Asahina had been forced to see all of the pain she had
brought onto the people around her, and she had not even had the luxury
of pretending that they had done anything to deserve it. It had been the
single worst moment of her entire life.
Ouch.
Something strong, and vibrant, and powerful enough that no mere mortal
could ever hope to harm her again. Nana Asahina could become a youma.
Surely it couldn't be too hard: she had already been one before, hadn't
she?
Wouldn't the "new and improved" Nana have some moral qualms at this
(particularly later on, when she apparently is explicitly told that
she'll be sacrificing her "goodness")?
If prolonged exposure to the nastier side of humanity is reducing the
effects of the Moon Healing Escalation, one might think that a decision
to start using the blackmail material again, at least to protect
herself, would come first.
Incidentally, how do her enemies figure out so quickly that she's no
longer willing to use the blackmail material? Just because she quits
her job at the tabloid?
She was tempted to just make something up and go home right away.
Radanthus was basing himself out of the Crimson Nadir, and it was not a
place that was friendly or inviting by any stretch of the imagination. In
theory, the papers she had tucked safely down the front of her uniform
marked her as an official envoy from Jadeite to Radanthus, and thus gave
her a valid reason for being present if she was discovered. With those
papers, she would probably only be subjected to a week or so of public
torture and humiliation before they returned her to her master.
If Radanthus is still trying to recruit Jadeite (my memories of the
details of your Dark Kingdom political setup are a little fuzzy, so I
could be mis-remembering) wouldn't that be more than a little unwise?
Even as a human, she had never liked to be considered weak. She
may not have been born a member of the aristocracy, like Radanthus,but
she still had a number of tricks that made her someone to be reckoned
with. Oniwabandana closed her eyes and bowed her head, her aura
flickering and writhing around her body as the ghostly images of multiple
arms and legs began to emerge from her body. There was a sudden flash of
dark purple energy, and a swarm of identical women raced out from their
starting point, each one trailing a thin metal wire from her wrist as
she charged off in a different direction from all of the others.
Scrambling through the shadows and careening wildly along the ceiling,
they spread through the castle. When one reached a fork in the path ahead
of her, she paused only long enough to produce another copy and send it
hurtling down the new pathway to explore further before continuing on her
own journey.
Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!
Sorry. :)
In other words, Badamon. Apparently, he did not wish to be
disturbed. As Oniwabandana did not particularly care what Badamon wished,
she began making preparations to disturb him, anyway.
Heh.
With a sense of unease, Oniwabandana reached up and gingerly touched her
earlobe with a single fingertip. As she had suspected, her entire hand
came away coated in blood. Anything that needed to be said in a language
like that could not possibly be saying anything worth translating.
Actually, given her mission, I would probably think the opposite.
Whatever has to be said in that sort of language is probably _important_.
Badamon turned and looked directly at her. Oniwabandana's breath
caught in her throat as she waited for him to blast her out of existence
with a single crackling bolt of eldritch energy. She couldn't hide from
the Ankoku Priests, and Badamon was their leader... she should have known
that a spiritual entity would be able to sense her energy....
"Things move all the time around here," he said crankily, and
turned back towards Nise Suiko. "Don't let it bother you."
Oniwabandana sighed in relief. He hadn't seen her. He had been
looking right at her, and somehow he hadn't seen her.
Hmm. So why does Badamon want Oniwabandana to get back to Jadeite with
what she's seen? Curious.
Carfully, she inched
her leg over the top of the stack and let the book slide off of her foot.
"Carfully" should be "Carefully"
"Well, we didn't track down Mistress Nine and Shutendoji to be
chaperones, if that's what you're asking," Ryo admitted, looking a little
confused. "What's the big deal? We just went to a museum."
...okay, it seems I really am fuzzy on some details. When did the
Samurai Troopers learn about Mistress Nine again?
"Don't worry about it," Shuu said consolingly, shaking his head
in sympathy to his leader's obvious discomfort. "Trust me, Ryo: girls
always have stuff like this worked out years in advance. You might be a
little confused right now, but I can guarantee you that Ami Mizuno knows
exactly what she's doing."
One... two... three...
**********
For perhaps the first time in her life, Ami Mizuno did not have
the slightest idea what she was doing.
Right on time!
Usually, she was the girl that
everyone else turned to for a plan, the one who always kept her cool when
the rest of her friends were losing theirs at the top of their lungs. She
was not used to feeling so disoriented. Most of the past evening was a
blur of colours and images that didn't seem to be in quite the proper
order to make any sense, as though she had viewed the whole night through
a kaleidoscope while falling down a hill. It was a dizzy, light-headed
feeling that she had begun to associate with the presence of Ryo Sanada.
Had she been in a better frame of mind, she would have associated it
with the drugs she habitually shared with him.
Not that she was complaining - there were many delightful perks
to be found in the presence of Ryo Sanada.
Like free drugs.
"I'll say," Usagi agreed, frowning thoughtfully. "I was kind of
assuming that Ryo would end up with Rei, since they both have fire
powers...."
Well, that's generally how it winds up working! :)
"Okay, so maybe I noticed a little," Rei admitted, blushing
slightly as she stepped back. "There's a big difference between looking
and actually wanting to be with a guy, Usagi!"
"Not to me there isn't!" Usagi crowed victoriously. "I've never
checked out a guy I didn't fall immediately in love with!"
....heh. That seems more of a Minako-ism than an Usagi-ism, though.
"He's too short," Rei said dismissively. "I mean, he's barely even
as tall as I am! A guy should be taller than his girlfriend, or else it
just looks funny."
"Well, if that's the case then Mako-chan's going to have to settle
for a basketball player," Usagi argued. Sighing dramatically, the blonde
girl clasped her hands together in front of her and leaned back, her eyes
glistening with dreamy emotion. "Height shouldn't matter, anyway. Not if
true love can find a way into your hearts...."
Now there's Usagi.
Petz snorted. Sure, if the Dark Kingdom needed some filing done,
then maybe she could see the point, but she doubted that would happen.
Elios needed people who could handle themselves in a fight, not some
love-struck executive assistant who was obviously tarting herself up in a
vain attempt to attract her boss' attention. Really, who wore stilleto
high heels with a lab coat, anyway?
Someone has _not_ seen Sailor Moon S. :)
"We'll be landing at Eureka," Kaolinite explained. "Professor
Tomoe pulled a few strings and was able to get us permission to use the
Environment Canada weather station there. As far as anybody knows, all the
equipment that you stowed so safely in the overhead compartment is going
to be for tracking Arctic stormfronts. Considering the entire base has a
population of eight, we should have no problem slipping away.
Wouldn't that make it more difficult, since their absence would be
noticed pretty quickly, and result in a search and rescue mission?
"Deal," Petz replied with chuckle of her own. Maybe she had been
wrong about Kaolinite - it had been known to happen, sometimes. At the
very least, there was more to her than just her filing skills. They might
have a chance against this Radanthus the Unconquered guy after all.
Between the two of them, the Dark Kingdom wasn't going to know
what hit it.
Didn't really have any line-by-line comments on it, but _very_ nice
fight scene to close out the chapter.
I'm definitely enjoying this story quite a bit; keep up the good work!