Hi, Lurker!

Wow, I'm surprised you found time to reply to my little fic, what with how 
busy everybody's been with saving the Internet. Or at least, our little 
portion of it. I've got to get myself around to replying to your new 
Detective Conan fic, too. Frankly, I'm starting to have trouble keeping up 
with all the posts lately.

Which is ironic, when you think about the circumstances. :)

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.

Uh-oh!

Uh-oh, indeed. Enjoy it, because that was probably the last mention of 
Zoicite in this story. Not that I don't love old Zoi as much as any other SM 
fan (especially those of us who caught the live-action version), but frankly 
there are already *quite enough* old faces to keep track of in this thing.

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.

Which is pretty much what's going to lead to an intolerably squeaky-clean
Crystal Tokyo someday...

Usagi's problem is that she believes all people are inherently good. If they 
seem "bad", it's always because of some outside influence - they're being 
posessed by a youma, or they've been exposed to black magic, or something. 
She has never had to realise that some people are actually bad on purpose. 
It is a survival trait, of sorts.

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.

Awwwww.

It's kind of sad, yeah, but it does not change the underlying issue. Therapy 
is not supposed to be this abrupt. The main problem here is that Nana was 
just not ready to face the truth about herself, and the ginzuisho did not 
give her any choice. As a result, Nana was left with none of her old coping 
skills, but all of her old problems.

Nobody would be willing to help her. The only hope
she had was to find a way to help herself.

That's what Mr. Happy Gun is for...and his friend Li'l Billy Bullet...

Something she probably would have considered, if she hadn't hit on the 
Ultimate Escape, instead. By turning back into a Youma, she literally found 
a way to stop being herself.

with the
help of the Ankoku Priests, she had been able to make sure that nobody
could ever change her back into her pathetic human form again.

Which means next time she gets the moon wand, she's dust.

To quote Aladdin: "You wanted power? Well, you got it! And *everything* that 
comes with it!"

Being a "real" Youma has a lot of perks, but -as you noticed- it also has 
one hell of a disadvantage. If Oniwabandanna fights the Senshi again, she's 
not getting cured: she's getting destroyed. The Senshi are a lot less gentle 
when dealing with "real" Youma.

He was very
kind and considerate to his subordinates, in that he did not have them
randomly flogged for his own amusement.

He preferred random gang rape instead.

That is a *very* different fic from the one I have in mind. >_<

One of her fingers suddenly released a quiet shriek, and went
permanently numb.

"Oops...papercut."

<snerk> Good one! ^_^

There was a faint memory of glowing sigils, and then a sudden fiery 

death

that had enveloped every fibre of that one replica's being. Glowing
symbols meant mystic wards, she recalled, mulling hazily over the 

markings

that she had seen but not registered as that body had approached them. 

She

began to shrink, replicas throughout the castle abruptly fading into
nonexistence as she focused her mind back onto the task at hand. She had
seen wards like that before. She had learned them in the back alleys of
Kabukicho, shakily repeating the marks of the ominous priest that had
shown them to her. Still more copies vanished, as she racked her brain
to remember what had been so important about those wards.

"Was it a trap card, or an effect spell...?"

Darn that spikey-haired kid and his stupid Duel Monster cards! He just can't 
help leaving them lying around the place....

Heh. Oniwabandanna would actually make a pretty good Duel Monster card, 
actually. So would a lot of Dark Kingdom youma. I wonder if....

Nope, that's a different fic again. Although a tempting one. Personally, I'm 
holding out for the day that Yami Yugi and Sakura have a little game of "Go 
Fish" with the Clow Cards. ;)

Sigils and marks had been carefully prepared on the floor in a fine red 

powder

that writhed and re-shaped itself as Badamon focused on the task at 

hand.

He's not performing dark rituals at all! It's just the Dark Kingdom version
of an Etch-A-Sketch.

Badamon: "Soon, *I* shall be the master of all magic! And not even you can 
stop me, David Blaine!"

David Blaine: "But how can you be master of all magic... when you're a 
nothing but a bunny?"

Badamon: (wiggling nose) "Curse your uncanny skill at prestidigitation!"

Oniwabandana made a face and fought the sudden urge to go back out into
the corridor and pretend she had been unable to find the vile man. There
was something about the whole scene that she did not like at all.

"Why is he NAKED?!"

O_O

One word, man: Ewww....

How was it possible that
this could be the same armoured juggernaut who had steamrolled through
half of her camp just a few nights ago? He looked like a kid. He didn't
even look like a particularly dangerous kid.

It's always the quiet ones.

I don't know about that: sometimes it's the loud ones, too. :)

"Unchecked," Nise Suiko muttered with an air of disdain. "Let me
guess: that means you want me to handle things and get roughed up again
while you stay here in your little fortress of doom, fresh as a daisy.
Am I right?"

He's a sharp one, he is.

>From his perspective, he has been doing a lot of the heavy lifting in this 
partnership, and Badamon had been doing a lot of the "supervising". Plus, 
he's getting a little cranky because he lost his last couple of fights.

I mean, come on - Elios nailed him with the same trick *twice*. In a *row*. 
He lost to the FLYING HORSIE. That has got to rub a guy the wrong way.

"Well, for starters, he's bright red and you aren't," Shuu said in
reply, spreading his arms and shrugging as he leaned back in his chair.
"Besides, no evil twin could hope to copy your limp wrists and girlish
figure."

OUCH! XD

Sometimes Shuu gets in a good jab or two. ^_^

"There's not much to tell, guys," Ryo said defensively, shrugging
off Shuu's arm and flopping onto the sofa with his fingers laced behind
his head. "I just went out for a while, cleared my head, got a few 

things

off my chest...."

"We don't care what you got off *your* chest," Shuu interjected,

*SNRK* Good one!

Thanks, I was kind of fond of that one, myself.

The Samurai Troopers are a bunch of sixteen year old guys. Just because they 
save the planet a few times, it does not mean they do not have raging 
hormones. Or the natural desire to hear a potentially smutty story. ;)

"I think you guys are blowing this way out of proportion," Ryo
warned them. "It's not like I ran off to some seedy love hotel, or
something."

"See?" Shuu moaned. "That's the kind of thing you could have lied
about! If you had lied about that, it would have made the story, like, a
million times better! Shin, make him tell the story better!"

I love this entire exchange, just so you know XD

Thanks. I like to write the Troopers talking. Oddly, I prefer to write the 
Senshi thinking, which is something a few people have called me on - I very 
rarely go inside the Troopers' heads. Maybe it's just my way of emphasizing 
that the Troopers have very little going on in there. ^_^

"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."

*waits for it*

Yeah, I'm really starting to telegraph a few of these, aren't I? :)

For perhaps the first time in her life, Ami Mizuno did not have
the slightest idea what she was doing.

Wiiiiii! XD

*snip Ami going all shoujo over kissing Ryo* Heheheh.

I like to write Ami when she's all flustered and confused. It's such a 
refreshing change of pace for someone who is normally one of the most 
confident and in control of all the Senshi. Plus, Ami has always seemed to 
be something of a closet romantic.

Ami was so
used to looking after Rei and Usagi that it was practically second 

nature

to her, but having to juggle Minako and Makoto at the same time would
have been exhausting.

Especially while riding that unicycle.

I think I'll just do us both a favour and add that to my list of "things I 
really didn't need a mental picture of" right now. :)

"She certainly doesn't *seem* very upset," Ami noted carefully.

"Trust me," Rei growled between her clenched teeth, giving Usagi
a dirty glare, "She was VERY WORRIED about you. She's just... hiding it
really well."

*dies* Beautiful. XD

Rei is a very bad liar. :D

"What are you talking about?" Usagi asked, blinking in confusion.
"You're the one who was calling all the hospitals and asking if they had
anybody with blue hair, remember? I was the one telling you that she was
probably off getting a can of juice."

"She was gone for three hours!" Rei yelled, throwing her arms into
the air and storming into the room as Usagi shrugged reasonably and sat
down at the small side table where Ami had left all of her schoolwork.

"So? Maybe she went home for it," Usagi argued reasonably

*dies all over again* XD XD XD XD XD

This was actually one of the first parts of the fic that I wrote. That line 
just stuck in my head and refused to go away until I let Usagi say it. It's 
just the right blend of ditzy and clever at the same time - I think that it 
really fits her, for some reason.

this isn't about
what I may or may not have copied off of you! This is about why you're
wearing Ryo Sanada's shirt."

"It is? Why would it- I'M DOING WHAT?"

*dies a third time* Dammit, stop being so funny that I keep dying from
laughing! XD XD XD XD

Sorry. I'll try to be less entertaining in the future. :p

"This is so unfair," Rei grumbled. "I can't slap you, and Luna's
not here to do it for me."

Heheheh.

Well, Rei promised that she wouldn't do it any more after Usagi was revealed 
as the Moon Princess, but Luna has never had any problems smacking a little 
sense into the girl. I assume that the two of them have reached *some* kind 
of arrangement. :)

"What is wrong with you?" Rei asked, with an exasperated groan.
"Why is my love life any of your business, anyway?"

"Because I say so," Usagi replied simply, sticking her tongue out
at her friend. "And I'm the Moon Princess. So there."

Gotta love THAT logic XD

It's perfect Usagi, isn't it? "Because I want to, and I'm the Moon Princess" 
seems to be exactly the kind of excuse she would use for almost anything. It 
kind of works, too, when you realise she can actually back it up.

Rei: "You're not the boss of me!"

Usagi: "I'm the Moon Princess! I am *totally* the boss of you!"

"Really? I can't lose a shoe without hitting my boyfriend," Usagi
said, stroking her chin thoughtfully.

And she means that literally!

Yeah, I couldn't resist that one. It's also where she picked up her amazing 
ability to hit anything in the head with her shoe: she just pretends it's 
Mamoru. ^_^

"Great choice in crushes, Ami. Real convenient." After a moment,
the other girl sighed. "Oh, well - I guess you can't control who you 

fall

in love with. We'll just have to work with what we've got. Now, the 

first

thing we've got to do is get you a new wardrobe...."

Lots of fishnets and nylon body stockings. And pleather.

Oh, great. Now my mental image of Ami is hiding under the sofa and refusing 
to come out.  :p

It was also slit
so high up the sides that the whole gown practically counted as two
seperate pieces of fabric, and Petz would not have been caught dead in 

it

even if she *was* convinced she had the body to pull it off.

Emphasis on "pull it off".

Hey, nobody's denying that Kaolinite pulls that look off. Even Petz can't 
really argue with the results. And it's hardly as though Petz's costume is 
conservative or dowdy, either. Talk about pleather and body stockings... she 
looks like a cross between a dominatrix and a Vegas showgirl. I think it's 
all the feathers.

"All the way across the ocean?" Petz snickered. "On what, your
magic broomstick?"

"Broomsticks are for amateurs," Kaolinite said, smiling politely
as her pupils glowed with a soft crimson light. "I stopped working with
props a long time ago."

Heheheh.

It's funny: one of them is wicked, and the other one is a witch. A match 
made in heaven, to be sure. ^_^

of all the people to send to the North Pole, why did he have to pick
us? He could have sent those creepy alien children."

"I mean, the North Pole? It's colder than a witch's tit..."

"Oh, trust me, it's much colder than that."

Hehehehe. You catch on quick. ^_^

The
sky rumbled with evil intent, and huge sheets of blue lightning sparked
and rippled around them. In the distance, the black clouds spiralled and
began to take shape in the heart of the darkness that surrounded the
entire northen tip of the island they had been flying towards.

Well there's something you don't see everyday...

Kaolinite: "Well, not *lately*, at least...."

The Professor had told her that he liked *good* girls, now, so
that meant she had to be on her best behaviour until he changed his 

mind.

After all, it wasn't like she really cared one way or the other what she
was doing, as long as it was with the right people.

Wow, nice moral ambiguity there, Kao-chan!

Kaolinite does not tend to view the world in terms of "good" or "evil". She 
prefers to look at it all in terms of "with Professor Tomoe" and "against 
Professor Tomoe". That way she never has to worry about which side she is 
on. ^_^

It was more like swimming than flying, only worse:
swimming usually involved water. This was like swimming through chunky
tapioca pudding.

*mental image of Kaolinite in a giant vat of tapioca pudding*

....

.......'scuse me for a bit.

Don't worry; we'll wait. :)

Kaolinite
had no idea what kind of fossil she was looking at - a Brachiosaurus,
maybe, or a Diplodocus - but there was a deliberate menace in its sinous
motions that was quite out of place for a simple herbivore.

Oh great, a frozen undead dinosaur. Just the thing to start the day with.

For any budding paleontoligists in the audience, it was a Brachiosaurus. You 
can tell because it had "chisel-like teeth" and a "bony crest" on its skull. 
I'd hate to have you think that Kaolinite was getting slapped around by a 
*generic* dinosaur. ^_^

Whatever was powering that abomination, at least it could
only stretch so high. She would just stay out of its reach.

Riiiiight. Just keep thinking that...

Well, it was at least worth a try. I mean, logically, when you can fly and 
your enemy can't, it's usually easier to just ignore the fight entirely. ^_^

The last thing she
needed was one of those things to pierce her - she liked her body with
exactly the number of holes it currently posessed.

You just WANT me to make a perverted comment here, don't you?

Admit it: you're tempted. >:)

"See?" she said, her teeth chattering as she lowered herself to
the ground and tried to look as imperious as possible when covered with
seaweed and shuddering uncontrollably. "I t-told you we were p-past the
groundline."

Heh!

Of course, she kind of didn't think of this tactic until *after* the 
dinosaur had already tried it on her first, but let's not go mentioning that 
Kaolinite got outsmarted by something that used to have a brain the size of 
a grape. ^_^

Between the two of them, the Dark Kingdom wasn't going to know
what hit it.

Indeed. XD

I truly fear what those two will accomplish if they actually start getting 
along. And it looks like they are about to, so I am *not* betting on the 
Dark Kingdom. These two are going to hit that place like it owes them money. 
  :)

Good chapter!

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it. As always, I appreciate the time it took to 
respond, especially considering how busy you've been lately.

Later!

-Morgan Hudson



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