[FFML] [FanFic][SM][NETTG] Terra in Tokyo Ch. 14 (of 27) "Night of Fate"

[Benjamin A. Oliver]

Heya!  Longer chapter this time.  May the stalwart readers who have
made it this far find it interesting!

**polite bow**


Disclaimer:
This story is based loosely on Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon by Naoko
Takeuchi. This is a non-profit fan work created as a tribute, and no
infringement is intended. All rights to the characters, settings, and
situations of Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon belong to Naoko Takeuchi,
Koudansha, TV Asahi, and Toei Douga, and DIC. ArbyFish belong to
Daniel Oliver and are used with permission.  Gotta have ArbyFish.
Who'd conk you on the head with a mallet and feed ya mushrooms if you
didn't?

Right then, let's go blow something up.

Nuke 'Em 'Till They Glow!!
Terra in Tokyo
Final Mix

---Chapter 14:  Night of Fate

	The upper stories of the Starlight Tower stood silhouetted against
the twilight orange of the onrushing evening with the building's
silvery glass bathed in a ruddy, molten wash of rays from the dying
sun.  Shimmering in the air near the argent spire was a shaft of
lambent darkness, streaming forth from a rent in the atmosphere that
all but screamed of evil nasty badness.  Had anyone been on the roof
of the tower and had the courage to follow the boiling obscurity to
its source, they would have noted how the blackness carved its way
through a circular gash in the fabric of reality itself and created a
warped, twisted passage to a place no ordinary man would have ever
dared imagine; the prison dimension that both served as the
suffocating cage of the Dark Kingdom, and at the same time its home
and sanctuary.  Even now, within the Starlight Tower, the forces of
evil plotted their dirty work in a horrific, fiendish way that only
they could possibly hope to concoct.

	Or, at least, that's how the Star Light Knight saw it, when he passed
nonchalantly through the twisty portal into a black cavernous area.
With the giant crystal in his hand powering his cloaking device, he
stood undiscovered while listening to and observing the two generals
now before him.

...

	"A daring plan," Zoicite breathed while hanging over Kunzite's
shoulder, his small opera mask chafing badly against the Fourth
General's cheek.  "Expanding a portion of the Dark Kingdom to include
this entire tower?"

	Kunzite nodded and unfurled another portion of a scroll on the table
before him.  "It will effectively remove any disadvantages we may have
had before.  Ever since Jadeite failed to open a permanent portal
through which to send our armies, we've been forced to go ourselves,
and as a result, our numbers have been very few."

	"Safety in numbers?" Zoicite asked.

	"Most certainly," Kunzite replied.  "Combining their powers, the
Sailor Soldiers can deal with perhaps as many as five of our normal
youma at once."  He grinned evilly.  "I doubt they will fare as well
against several dozen of our elites."

	"Dozen?"  The Third General looked dubious.  "But aren't there
thousands and thousands awaiting their chance to attack Earth?"

	"Yes, but still, we can only support so many in this... imitation of
our realm.  However, I think we will have more than enough."

	"And what about Chibimoon?" Zoicite pressed.  "She might seem like a
helpless wallflower most of the time, but then she comes out and...."
he trailed off, touching the damaged portion of his face.

	"That's right," Kunzite soothed, "we don't like her.  That's why
we'll kill her first."

	Zoicite's eyes lit up.  "A surprise attack?"

	Kunzite nodded.  "Straight for the throat."

	"Can we torture her first?"

	"Yes, that's the plan... after we first deal a mortal blow."

	"And the others?"

	"They're no worry for us.  In a few more minutes, the tower will be a
part of our realm.  They won't be able to defend against the traps we
will place there.  And once we have the Violet Rainbow Crystal,
nothing will stand against us, not even Bruce!"

T_T;

	Safely invisible and inaudible, the Star Light Knight snuck along
behind the generals, stuck his tongue out at them, and made googly
eyes before heading back.  "Wait'll they get a load of ME!" he
chuckled to himself as he crossed the threshold into the terrestrial
portion of the Starlight Tower. "And Chibimoon... Heh, I'll bet it
sure sucks to be HER tonight!"

>_<;

	Sailor Chibimoon took a deep breath, clutched the Violet Rainbow
Crystal close to her heart, and began to walk towards the entrance to
the Starlight Tower.  Since she was supposed to be the sacrificial
victim in this scenario, she came alone.  Her friends remained hidden
about half a block away while staying in contact with her through a
new cellphone her mother had insisted on buying for her before the
battle.  It was an abnormally tiny and abnormally expensive headset
with the receiver nearly concealing itself in her right ear, while the
microphone portion was hidden along the lower part of her jaw.  A
teased-over lock of hair concealed the wire that led to the actual
phone, tucked into the tight-fitting shoulder of her Sailor outfit.

	"Are you still okay, Chibimoon?" Usagi's worried voice chimed in.

	"Yeah, I'm fine," Terra whispered.  "Just about to go in."  She
touched the unmoving sliding glass door, and waved her hand in front
of the automatic sensor to make sure it wasn't just being slow.  "But
it's really quiet around here.  I'll tell you when anything
interesting happens."

	"Okay."

	Chibimoon checked for another way in, but couldn't see any, so she
knocked on the door and called out, "Leaders of the Negamafoozles--er,
I mean, Dark Kingdom!  You're right; we agree with you, we can't win!
I've got the crystal and have come as a sacrifice to save my friends!
Let me in and we can get this over with!"

	The door sensor suddenly glowed red, and the door made an ominous
humming noise before sliding aside.

	"Yup, they're here all right," Terra muttered.  "I'm going in."

	"Be careful, Chibimoon," Ami advised.  "We know it's a trap."

	"I'll be all right," Chibimoon replied confidently.  Her heart was
warmed by the glow of her innate red energy, ready to do whatever she
willed.  The green was mercifully at a low ebb, and the black stayed
at rest toward the fringes of her consciousness.

	As soon as she stepped in, however, she felt a rush of coldness.  The
steel and concrete of the modern skyscraper twisted into jagged
volcanic rock, much like what she imagined the dimension of the Dark
Kingdom must have looked like.  The Starlight Tower now appeared as
some malevolent creature waiting to devour her.

	Terra's black energy stirred within her, as if it suddenly felt at
home.  She took a deep breath to calm herself down.  "Definitely a
trap," she whispered.  "Guys?"

	But the headset had gone dead.  Slipping the device out, she
discovered she had zero bars.

	Ordinary radio waves can't pierce dimensional barriers, her mind
whispered.  From this point on, she was on her own.

	"It's okay, I can do this," Chibimoon whispered to herself.
Frequently, she'd desired to be a true heroine, and the ones she
wanted to be like always had to face their greatest challenges alone.
Certainly, the current plan called for the others to back her up once
she got in position, but now that didn't look like an option.  She
went back and touched the door behind her to make sure that she
couldn't do something smart and obvious like going back and revising
the plan.  The door had also solidified into a thick, towering wall of
rock.  "All up to me now."

	Terra continued through what had been the tower's main lobby, and
something soft and squishy squelched when she stepped in it.  "Ew."
She gingerly lifted her boot to see what it was.

	Arby peered up and greeted her in his usual Cheshire manner.  "'Ello, madam!"

	Er, Cheshire is a kind of CHEESE, Terra's mind berated her for having
improperly used the proper noun as an adjective.

	"It is SO an adjective," the girl shot back to herself.  "Now quiet,
you!"  Then she returned her attention to her merry mutant mascot.
"Arby!  What an unpleasant surprise!  What are you doing here and why
are you carrying that mallet?"

	"The question iz... wot ISN'T Oye doin' 'ere!" the ArbyFish retorted swiftly.

	"And the mallet?"

	"'Andin' out door proizes."

	"Hoo-kay."  Terra considered attempting to dismiss him so she could
get on with her mission, but then she remembered that she was alone,
cut off from her friends, in a very dangerous area.  Any help, even
Arby's, just might be the difference between life and death here.
Naturally, she would have preferred the company of Tuxedo Kamen, but
she and her friends hadn't managed to contact him before the time came
due to head for the tower.  Nobody knew his address, and "Chiba
Mamoru" had an unlisted telephone number.  She knew; she'd checked
over a dozen phone books from different parts of the city in a
desperate attempt to locate him.  Strictly for saving-the-world
purposes, of course.  Seriously!

	You could have asked his friend at the arcade, Motoki, where he
lived, her mind whispered.  She replied aloud, "But I didn't know that
he was his friend."  Chibimoon frowned.  "Hey, how DO I know that?"
Her mind didn't answer that one.  "I'm warning you!"  She pounded
lightly on her head.  "Take that... AND THAT!"

	Arby watched her intently while munching on a bag of pop-shrooms,
quite amused by her antics.

	Chibimoon glared at him when she noticed.  "What are you looking at?!"

	"Nothing," Arby said.

	"That's right," Terra confirmed with a defiant nod.

	"In-deed!"

	She paused.  "Hey!  Did you just call me nothing?!"

	Arby promptly clocked her on the head with his mallet.  When that
didn't quite do the job, he took a couple of hops back and overclocked
her in the forehead.

	"AAAAAH!!!" Chibimoon screamed as her tiara broke off and a glowing
crescent moon flared to life on her forehead.  It hurt quite a lot,
and she found herself writhing around on the floor, spasming with a
long series of seizures.  "BLARGH!"

	"'N yew wins th' Grand Proize!" the ArbyFish announced proudly.  "A
subscription ta Mushin' Minutely, delivered boie-weekly every morning
ta ya bedroom doorstep."  He thrust a slimy magazine into her splayed
fingers, and then fluttered off.

	Sailor Chibimoon's tiara fragments vanished, and a new one appeared
on her head, this one with a crescent moon where the gem had formerly
rested.  She didn't need to see it; she could feel it burning her
skull.  She tried ripping the metal ornamentation off, but that just
made the burning more intense, so she jammed it back on.  Suddenly,
her black energy felt as if it were being forced to the very edge of
her consciousness, and the red became so weakened that she could
barely feel it.

	To add insult to injury, a mound of vine-like tentacles burst from
the floor beneath her and utterly entangled the girl.

	"DANG IT!!"

	A group of shadows broke off from the general gloom and took shape
around her, becoming five multicolored demon-girls with tails, wings,
and fangs.

	"This one was too easy," the blue one said.

	"Yes," the leader agreed, then knelt down, pushed Terra's chin up,
and looked into her unyielding eyes.  "But she's not frightened,
either.  Is that false bravado I see in you, Sailor Chibimoon?"

	No, Terra didn't reply, it's complete and utter frustration at having
the other shoe drop so early on in the plan.

	The situation hadn't sunk in; rather, she was too upset to be
frightened just yet.  Her powers didn't feel like they were working,
but she decided to have a go anyway.

	"You will take me to Kunzite NOW," Chibimoon ordered forcefully.

	The demon-girls cackled in glee.

	"Kunzite?" the leader asked with amusement.  "Why would we want to
take you to Kunzite?  He's quite busy, you know.  Until Zoicite gets
here, you are ours to toy with!"

	With that, the vines began constricting tighter around Terra's neck.

	"Ullghhh!"  There were any of a number of things Terra could have
said at this point, from vile swearing to a desperate pleading for her
life.  Instead, however, a few meaningless words popped into her head
and went straight to her lips.  "Pink Sugar Heart Attack!"

---

	Sailor Moon banged the cellphone against a brick wall.  "C'mon, WORK,
darn it!"  She held up the device and declared, "Ami-chan, this
thing's broken!"

	Sailor Mercury grabbed it and yanked it out of the blonde's fingers.
"No, don't hit it!  These are sensitive."  She held the phone to her
ear.  "Chibimoon, what's going on?  Chibimoon!"  She realized that the
call had dropped, so she redialed, waited a few seconds, and got an
answering message telling her that the owner of the number was out of
the area of service.  Shaking her head, she turned to her three
friends.  "We've lost the connection."

	Mars whapped Sailor Moon up the back of her head.  "Look what you did
now, stupid odango-for-brains!  You broke it!"

	Usagi looked at her with hurt, forlorn puppy dog eyes.  "Rei-chaaan!"

	Sailor Jupiter took the phone and toyed around with it.  "Hey, this
thing ain't broke," she noted.  "Look, the address book's up and
everything."  She accidentally hit one of the autodial numbers,
calling up Kasumi, who picked up before the first ring had even
finished.  "Oops.  Hey, Terra's mom?  Oh, I'm just calling because,"
she noticed everyone waving frantically for her not to say anything,
"uh, everything's... going just fine and according to plan.  So don't
worry."

	"Can I please speak to Terra?" Kasumi requested.

	"She's..."  Sweat formed along Makoto's brow as she desperately tried
to think of what to say.  "...er, busy.  Yeah, totally tied up at the
moment.  Oh, would you look at that.  Important battle up ahead.  Yup,
wouldn't want any distractions at all while we're in it.  Call you
back when we're done.  Bye!"  She pushed the "end" button.

	Everyone breathed a long sigh.

	"We lost the signal right when she went in," Mercury said.  "I
suspect the Dark Kingdom put some sort of barrier around the tower."

	Jupiter took a step back and gazed up at the tower.  "Well, they sure
did something.  Looks like youma central up there now."

	"What?"  Ami furrowed her brow.  She and the others went to look.
Aside from the jagged igneous rock ramparts and the eerie green
lights, evil wispy spirit-things circled several places on the tower,
wailing the tortured screams of the golly-gosh-darned.

	"That doesn't look good," Usagi stated the blatantly obvious.

	"Ayeyaiyai," whispered a wide-eyed Sailor Mars.

	"All who think Chibimoon needs backup right now, raise your hand," Ami said.

	All but Makoto's hand went up.

	"What?" asked Sailor Jupiter innocently.  "She can take care of
herself.  Let's just let her handle the whole thing and we can go
shopping instead.  I hear there's a nice sale on shoes at the mall."

	Sailor Moon looked at her expectantly, with just a bit of a worried pout.

	"She'd do the same for us!" Makoto insisted.

	"Lita," Mercury said disapprovingly.

	"Oh, fine."  Jupiter finally lifted her arm as well.  "Let's go."

	They sprinted half a block before they encountered the Star Light
Knight, staring at the tower with his arms folded and his right hand
pointedly clenched shut.

	"Star Light Knight!" beamed Sailor Moon, who bounced up and down
happily at his presence.

	"Oh, hey there, kid," S.L.K. greeted her passively without turning
away.  "You DO know that whole place up there's a trap, right?"

	"Well duh," muttered Jupiter.

	"We have to rescue Chibimoon," Usagi insisted.

	"We lost contact with her," Mercury explained, "and we're afraid
something's gone wrong."

	"Gone wrong?" S.L.K. laughed.  "You sent her into the middle of a
youma-infested demon-loving transdimensional tower... OF DOOM!  Meh, I
just figured you gals wanted her dead or something."

	"Look, tin-man," Mars interjected, "we had a very good plan laid out
to get back all of the rainbow crystals and save everyone that's been
captured."

	"Trap the trappers?" said S.L.K. with an eyebrow raised.  "Heh, why
didn't you say so?"

	"Will you help us?" Sailor Moon asked hopefully.

	"HECK FRICKIN' YEAH--I LOVE SUBTLETY!!  Let's go get that dorky li'l
teammate of yours."  He raised his hands and in them appeared a pair
of huge gatling guns with laser-sights and quad rocket-launchers.
"Here, I'll escort'cha in."

O_o

	In the corrupted tower lobby, the five youma stopped and stared at
the miniskirted Irish girl, quite perplexed at the phrase she had
spoken.

	"Er.  What did you say?" the leader inquired.

	"Pink Sugar Heart Attack!" Chibimoon repeated, her left eye
twitching, somehow making the youma wince.

	"PINK SUGAR HEART ATTACK!" Terra screamed insanely, and the youma
recoiled at the terrible sound of her words.  "I SAID, PINK SUGAR
HEART ATTACK!!!"

	The vine-tentacles loosened, allowing the redhead to slip out.  "PINK
SUGAR HEART ATTACK!" she kept repeating as she inched towards the
elevator door and frantically pushed the up button.  "PEEEENKKK
ESHUGAHHHH HEARRRTO... ATTACKKUUU!!" she added her worst fake Kansai
accent.  Or was that New Jersey?  English, Japanese, and American
accents never really registered for her properly.

	Oh well.  If it wasn't Gaelic, she couldn't even judge whether or not
the right emphasis was placed on all the syllables of a large word.

	Nevertheless, repeatedly voicing the name of what should have been an
unusual Sailor attack made the youma squirm around on the floor,
covering their ears and screaming.  Finally, the elevator arrived with
a loud "ding," and Terra slipped through the slowly-opening doors.
She pushed the button for the top floor and the doors closed, the
mechanism somehow still functioning despite the weird things the
Negamafoozles had done to the place.

	"What in the world was that?!" Terra demanded of herself, but there
was no response.  She took stock of her energies.  Green was still
safely at a low ebb, but red and black were nearly extinguished.  A
new one, yellow, focused on her forehead and burned very bright.
Unfortunately, it was a power she couldn't quite figure out how to
control at the moment.

	"Great, just great," Chibimoon muttered while running a hand through
her long silky red hair.

	That was when she knew something was very wrong.  "SILKY hair?!" she
exclaimed while taking a strand and examining it.  "My hair's never
been silky!  Oh, maybe a couple of months ago, before that armored
jerk popped up, it was sort of fine, but since then, it's been coarser
than mangy DOG hair.  Takes half a bottle of conditioner just to get
it to not spike out!"

	Terra quickly noticed other effects, like somewhat fairer skin and a
slighter build.  Her muscles, which had been gaining a fair amount of
strength in the past couple of weeks, had suddenly atrophied to the
point of being useless for any kind of combat.  Right now, she might
as well have been some sort of royal spoiled brat.  She doubted
whether she could even dress herself properly with the sudden lack of
strength in her fingertips, much less perform common household tasks
such as opening jars.

	On the bright side, her powers seemed to be working on some level,
since she managed to incapacitate a squad of tough-looking youma with
nothing but a few words.  On the other hand, it WAS a pretty annoying
phrase she was tossing out, and the youma might have had a very
specific psychosis relating to the words, or they could have been
frightened by lampshades when they were very young.

	In any case, it didn't matter WHY it worked.  The point was that it DID work!

	But, she considered, how had the transformation occurred, and why had
Arby initiated it?  Or, did he in fact cause it?  Yes, he had to have
done it.  The change happened right when he started hitting her.

	Glancing at the floor display, she saw that she was a little over
halfway to the top.  Then she noticed she still held the magazine Arby
gave her.

	"This isn't Mushin' Minutely," Terra whispered.  "It's... 'Changing
Form:  The Truth About Genetics, Past Lives, Destroying Galaxies, and
You.'"  Staring at the black cover with six glowing red cat-eyes on
it, she concluded, "Hmm, what an odd title."

	Before she could open up the book, a vine-tentacle thrust through the
floor, pierced the literature, and pinned it to the ceiling.  Then the
youma from downstairs tore their way into the elevator box and once
again netted her.  The leader grabbed her by the neck, drawing blood
with talon-like fingernails.

	"DISCO INFERNO!" Chibimoon sang without thinking.  The demon-girls
winced, but didn't slow down.  Since her larynx was about to be
crushed, she had to think fast, but there was no time to come up with
much of anything.  Her subconscious mind, for some reason, supplied,
"She's a Smaaaaaaaaaaall Wonder!"

	"GRAAAAAGHH!" the youma screamed, cupping their hands over their ears.

	"PRETTY AND BRIGHT WITH SOFT CURLS!" Terra sang as hard as she could.
 "SHE'S A SMAAAAAALL WONDER!"

	With a barely perceptible "ding," the elevator arrived at the top.

	Chibimoon's voice quickly became hoarse from all the screaming, as if
her throat was designed for nothing more than giggling softly and
swallowing peeled grapes.  However, the residual effect of her words
seemed to have been carried into the deepest parts of her enemies'
souls.  Fallen on the floor with bloodshot eyes and veins bulging in
their heads, they looked like they were dying from some severe inner
brain trauma.

	"Oh please.  The show wasn't THAT bad," she berated her foes.

	As soon as Terra stepped out of the elevator, the suspending wire,
damaged from one of the girls' tentacles, snapped and sent the entire
box falling into the darkness below.

	The regal redhead breathed a long sigh of relief.  In a moment, she
had traced where the saving thought and words had come from.  "Hah!
Ami... I love you and your crazy perverted writing!  Totally going to
friend you on Facebook now."

	The tendril of red energy that had shot out and saved her--she hadn't
noticed it until now--finally faded back to the edge of her being.
There had indeed been a mental component to her verbal onslaught, but
it looked like she couldn't expect any more for a while.

	"Back to being on my own," she whispered, and took in the grand
crystalline penthouse floor.  Though the ceiling was made of crystal
clear glass, the starry sky it showcased was partly obscured by a
black cloud.  A short distance away, Zoicite sat at a grand piano, his
back towards her.

	Terra hid behind a corrupted piece of furniture.  She couldn't risk
being seen, not when she had no powers worth speaking of.

	"Or do I?" she wondered quietly to herself.  Despite the lack of red
and black, there was still plenty of the new yellow type--an excessive
amount, in fact.  But what was it good for?

	Chibimoon stuck out her hand and experimented with the energies at
her disposal.  She teased the power out in ways similar to how she had
felt the red move before, but it didn't respond alike.  It felt more
like....

	Terra blinked.  The yellow moved much like how her power did when she
made projections like the centurion back at the airport, or the titan
when fighting Bakeene, each try leaving her half-dead.  Dare she
attempt it with this untested power?

	Before the thought could be further elaborated, she felt a sudden coldness.

	"You can come out now, Sailor Chibimoon," Zoicite spat her name,
drawing the girl out of her reverie.  "I know you're there."

	Against her will, Terra found her body responding to the suggestion.
She moved out into the open and strode into the center of the room.

	The Third General pounded a few notes on the piano, but they were all
harsh discords.  "Uwaaahahaha!" he laughed.  "Maybe I can't play this,
but in the realm of the Dark Kingdom," he paused while turning around,
revealing his cruel smile, "I can certainly play you."

	Terra tried to speak, but her jaw wouldn't respond.

	"Don't believe me?" Zoicite asked in an amused manner, putting a hand
on his cheek.  "Jump," he commanded, and Terra obeyed.  "Fall down and
don't catch yourself."

	This command was obeyed as well, and the pain Terra felt from her
jaw's impact with the floor was considerable.

	"Tell me, how does it feel to be my puppet?" Zoicite inquired, and
snapped his fingers.  "Speak!"

	"Uh," Terra coughed, suddenly able to voice her opinion, "OW!"

	The Third General snapped his fingers again, removing the girl's
control of herself once more.  "Good!" he chuckled.  "And you thought
my DD Girls were just trying to capture or kill you, hmm?  No, they
implanted a cursed pathogen into your nervous system.  Did you feel
the prick when they first struck?  No, I doubt it.  The infection was
complete within minutes.  How does it feel, slave?"

	Terra couldn't even blink, and it was starting to hurt her eyes.

	"Exactly," Zoicite said smugly.  "So how is that for a fatal blow,
hmm?  I'll make sure you suffer enough, in ample payment for what you
did to my face."  He touched the opera mask he wore.  "Yours will be
much worse when I'm through with you!"

	Oh goodie, Terra couldn't say sarcastically, so she thought it
instead.  More grotesque disfigurement for all!

	This was the second time the Negamafoozles had attempted a
mind-control or body-snatching on her, she recalled.  It must have
been a personal vendetta or possibly a fetish on Zoicite's part.  But,
the first time, she had been immune--at least for a while--thanks to
some weird multi-consciousness effect going on in her mind.  Right
now, she indeed maintained control over her thoughts, but as for how
her body now worked, she was definitely Zoicite's puppet.

	"To think, you and your paper-thin, homely friends hoped that you
could best us with your play trinkets and toy make-up kits?  You're
nothing but a bunch of whining children trying to act big.  Now you
see that it's a grown-up's world, you uncouth dog-haired rugrat!"

	The situation should have frightened the girl, and it really kind of
did.  To be a prisoner in her own body, having none of the control,
but feeling all the pain, was rather disconcerting.  If this were to
last more than a few minutes, she might truly lose hope.

	"And where are your friends now?  Abandoned you as a sacrifice,
hoping that would stave off our conquest.  I can imagine pudgy Sailor
Moon curled under a blanket somewhere, stuffing her face with cheap
confections.  That stick figure of a girl, Mercury, who dreams of
someday having a body capable of being seen in public.  And who could
forget that butch Jupiter?  I would bet that she's off with Sailor
Mars, doing unspeakable little things together with their twisted
misshapen forms.  Where does that leave you?  Alone and at my mercy.
Tremble and despair, Chibimoon.  Your doom has come."

	Terra's fears were dampened somewhat when a rose smashed
blossom-first into the Third General's face at supersonic speeds, and
she heard the reassuring voice of one who had saved her on multiple
occasions.

	"Leave her alone, Zoicite!" Tuxedo Kamen demanded, leaping between
Terra and the Negamafoozle general.

	Zoicite delicately took away the floral projectile and ground it
between his fingers much as one may have destroyed a sugar cube.
"Tuxedo Kamen," he said in fascination.  "I'm so glad you could make
it.  I've prepared a special surprise that may interest you."

	The man in black narrowed his eyes beneath his mask.  "What do you mean?"

	"Chibimoon," Zoicite continued smugly.  "Give me the crystal, then
kill this man yourself."

	Terra's body obeyed, removing the Violet Rainbow Crystal from her
belt and hurling it limply towards the general.  The phrase "throwing
like a girl" would have been inadequate to describe her pitch.

	Tuxedo Kamen grabbed the poorly tossed crystal midair and hid it in his jacket.

	Zoicite stood up.  "No!" he huffed.  "That was supposed to be..."  He
gave up.  "Kill him, Chibimoon!  Kill your lover!"

	Chibimoon then jumped at the masked man, leveling a swift kick at his
chest.  If it had sufficient force, it would crush his ribcage and
kill him instantly.

	Fortunately, Terra's kick did not have that much force.  She bounced
right off him and landed spread-eagled on the floor.

	"Of all the incompetent--!" Zoicite cursed.  "Can't you do ANYTHING
right, you pasty flat-chested worthless bimbo?!"

	Terra wanted to scratch her head at that.  Was Zoicite trying to
insult her based on facts, or just spluttering things out because he
was surprised?  At least two items were factually incorrect.  Her skin
wasn't exactly pasty or pale, though it was a couple notches under
being tan.  And the other thing was patently false; indeed, a factor
that once got her turned down for a job.

	"I said KILL HIM!"

	The girl found her body rising again to flail punches and kicks at
her personal hero.  He only had to move one step out of the way to
send her back to the floor.

	"Sailor Chibimoon," breathed Tuxedo Kamen as he stared down at her,
"what are you doing?"

	"Yes," moaned Zoicite with a hand at his forehead in embarrassment,
"what in the nine black dimensions ARE you doing, stupid twit?!"

	Hah, Terra thought defiantly.  I suck WAY too bad as a warrior to
even BEGIN to hurt Tuxedo Kamen, especially in this new spoiled-brat
body.  Uh, wait.  Hey!  That hurts....

	It was a rather sharp blow to her ego that she should be so useless
as a fighter, even to her enemies.

	"Fine," the general declared, and formed a large crystal spear in his
hands.  "I'll kill you later.  Pssht.  If you want something done
right, you have to do it yourself."  He hurled it at the tuxedoed
fighter with incredible speed and force.

	Tuxedo Kamen dodged, and it ripped through his cape, but when the
spear hit the wall, it broke into a hundred pieces which sprayed back
at him in a shotgun effect.  He whirled his cane to deflect most of
the scraps, but some did get through and tear into his arms and head
as he shielded himself.  That, in and of itself, would have been fine,
and he could have continued the battle reasonably unencumbered had it
not been for the second rock missile that Zoicite launched at him.

	"URK!!!" Tuxedo Kamen choked when the shard pierced him all the way
through the belly and out his back.  He crumpled to the floor.
Mercifully, the crystal didn't vanish, so he didn't instantly bleed to
death, though the process was beginning anyway.  "Ch-Chibimoon," he
whispered, holding his hand out towards the unflinching zombified
girl.  "I'm sorry."

	Terra's unblinking eyes stared at him.  She wanted to cry, and that
much emotion did escape in the form of a single tear that went down
her cheek.

	Zoicite floated midair with a finger on his chin and his legs crossed
as if he were seated.  "Ohohoho!  That looks like it hurts."  He
watched with satisfaction at Chibimoon's crying face and Tuxedo
Kamen's bleeding form, but then sighed and looked at the girl's weak
stumbling body.  "Chibimoon, you are completely useless as a slave!
Yes, nod your head up and down.  Good."  He looked at Tuxedo Kamen.
"Now, you die, masked man, and then when I've had my fill, she will
too."

	NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Terra couldn't scream.  Not Tuxedo Kamen!

	With no way to move, no time to plan, and no idea what she was doing,
she grabbed hold of the yellow energy glow, and did whatever felt
natural.

	A loud bamph and a puff of smoke obscured the area.

	As the smoke cleared, a hunched-over blue demonic creature with cleft
hands and feet, wearing red and blue spandex, looked around in utter
confusion.  "Verdammt! I knew I should have taken a left turn at
Albuquerque!"

	He disappeared in another sudden bamph.

	This time, when the smoke cleared, in front of Chibimoon and around
Tuxedo Kamen stood three new female figures.  All three looked vaguely
like Terra and wore sailor suits and miniskirts, but the leader had on
in addition a set of ancient Roman-style armor.  She kind of looked
like Sophitia from that Soul Calibur game back at the arcade.  Another
had curly hair and an excess of ribbons, while the third wore a
bandanna with the kanji for explosion on it.

	"I am the Sailor Knight Centurion," declared the armored leader.

	"Sailor Kawaii!" announced the cute one.

	"And Sailor Nuke!" roared the third, hefting an R.P.G. launcher.

	"Oh my," Zoicite sighed impatiently.  "I'm afraid I'm not familiar
with your names."  He landed and took a few steps to the side.  "You
can't be Sailor Senshi.  So what are you?  Just more pre-teen rejects
from the bargain fashion store thinking you can match the might of the
Dark Kingdom?"

	"You may control my body," all three Sailors said in unison while
indicating Chibimoon, "BUT MY SPIRIT FIGHTS ON!!!"

	"What's going on?" breathed Tuxedo Kamen.

	S.K.C. glanced down at him and gave a faint smile.  "Here, let me
save you, just this once."

	"Psychic projections," observed Zoicite without the least hint of
worry.  "How _sweet_."  His lips curled in distaste at the last word.
"So you never were fully under my control, were you, little
Mini-Moon?"

	"That's CHIBI-Moon to you," declared S.K.C. emphatically as she
pointed her sword forward.  "And my mind is my own.  You can't control
it, not with a thousand youma.  And you can't stop us, not with a
thousand of your crystal shards!"

	Zoicite didn't look at S.K.C. or either of the other new Sailors.
Instead, he glanced down at Terra's blank eyes and said, "This is your
unflinching 'will'?  This is your unbeatable fighting spirit given
form?"  He ventured a glance at Sailor Kawaii and said, "How very
garish!"

	"Shut your gaping yap, Zoyafish!" Sailor Nuke shouted. "Let's get on
with this shindig!"

	"Right!" all three projections agreed.

	S.K.C. threw a spear at Zoicite, who raised a barrier.  The large,
heavier portion of the weapon was indeed deflected, but the
three-foot-long metal tip broke off and pierced the shield, but just
barely missed his ribs as he lifted an arm and bent out of the way.

	Sailor Nuke fired a shot from her launcher.  It broke into several
parts, spread out MIRV style, and impacted on Zoicite's position at
multiple angles.  The resulting explosion knocked Terra off her feet,
and made Tuxedo Kamen slide back several meters.

	When the dust cleared, the Third General was nowhere to be found.
Instead, swirls of cherry blossoms floated through the air in a light
whirlwind.  In a moment, Zoicite reappeared none the worse for wear.

	"Ooh, flowers!"  Sailor Kawaii squealed in delight.  "I can do that!"
 She ran around the general in a circle, giggling and tossing petals
of posies in the air from a basket expressly summoned for the purpose.

	"Heh," Nuke laughed and loaded a big chain of thick ammo into what
looked like a gatling gun, "gotta work on THAT gal's attack."

	S.K.C. leapt forward and kicked at Zoicite, who deflected the strike
with a magical barrier.  She drew her sword, and slashed wildly at his
chest.  He summoned a crystalline blade and gracefully parried each
strike as if he were following some kind of dance routine.  One thrust
from the general bit into an unprotected section of the Centurion's
lower ribcage.  She recoiled and fell to the ground, clutching at the
wound.

	"So you're a soldier?" asked Zoicite.  "I'm a general.  You're
inferior any way you look at it.  I'll break your fighting spirit as I
would break a disobedient riding pony, and then I'll watch as you're
left cold, destitute, and empty!"

	"You'd think he had a grudge against me or something," muttered
Sailor Knight Centurion to Tuxedo Kamen as she quickly bandaged her
own wound, then threw up her hands at the man's injuries when she
failed to see a method within reach to patch such extensive damage.

	"Gee," coughed the man in black, "you think?"

	"So you think you're a tough li'l pansy boy, eh?" Sailor Nuke
taunted.  "Outta the way, Kay-Cee.  He's MINE."  She hoisted her huge
gatling rifle off her back, flicked the safety off, and pushed the
same switch WAAAY around to the "FULL AUTO" setting, and held down the
trigger.  "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

	A spray of bullets would be unfair to describe the broadside Nuke
gave Zoicite.  Projectiles the size of Terra's fist, heading at three
times the speed of sound, pounded the general's position at ten rounds
per second.  Shrapnel from the wall behind Zoicite cascaded downward.
S.K.C. took out her buckler shield and prevented most of the debris
from further injuring Terra or Mamoru.

	Sailor Nuke's weapon made a satisfied clicking noise when the
magazine ran out, as if it had just had the best meal ever.  For good
measure, she hurled a pipe bomb into the cloud of dust where Zoicite
had been.  That resulted in yet another pleasing bang.  She dusted her
gloves off and said, "Well, that should about take care of that."

	All would have been well at this point, too, except for the
six-inch-diameter rock spears, which were suddenly thrust through each
of the new Sailors' bodies.

	"Oh, poo," sighed Sailor Kawaii, before vanishing into a smattering
of sparklies.

	"URK!" Sailor Nuke choked, before likewise vanishing.

	"No way," S.K.C. whispered when she saw Zoicite's skinny, but
surprisingly sturdy, body walk out of the ruin.  The shells had
obviously impacted, since there was a Zoicite-shaped shadow in the
wall behind him, and his uniform was dusty, but they hadn't done any
damage.  "What a monster!  No one could have gotten up after that!
No... one--HURK!!"

	Zoicite finished S.K.C. off with a stab straight through the heart,
and stepped toward the two remaining fallen heroes.  "You're far too
weak," he said, "if you want to defeat me, little girl.  I am a
General of the Dark Kingdom!"  He kicked Terra harshly in the cheek.
"You!  Slave, there's a sharp crystal shard on the ground.  Kill
yourself with it at once."

	"Chibimoon," coughed Tuxedo Kamen.

	The girl's body began to obey Zoicite's instruction, but the mushroom
mark glowed bright for a second.  Tendrils of green shot out from it
and expanded the mark until it made what looked like a claw mark over
her left cheek.  Then it went down her back, making feather-shaped
tattoos under her skin along her spine.

	"Kill yourself!" Zoicite repeated angrily.

	Sailor Chibimoon convulsed for a second, but then stopped and took a
breath before standing back up.  She looked at Zoicite.

	"I told you to do something, incompetent slave!  Take the shard and
slash your throat out!"

	"Go slash your own throat out!" Chibimoon growled at him groggily.
"Sheesh, what a vindictive piece of Negamafoozle trash!"

	There are words that should only be said when a tactical advantage or
overwhelming numbers have been achieved.  These phrases include
taunts, goading, or outright ridicule.  While they may dishearten a
beaten opponent, they only serve to infuriate an adversary in a
superior position.  It remained to be seen, Terra thought, which
combatant now resided in what position.  She did note, however, that
fatigue had set in, and she definitely felt like the weaker,
desperately reckless one.

	On the other hand, Zoicite appeared rather taken aback by her
outburst.  "You've... broken my control?!"

	"Yes!" Terra said, touching her cheek to where the mark had expanded.
 "It appears that my puppet strings have been cut."

	Zoicite, though surprised, hardly seemed worried.  "Hmph!"

	Sailor Chibimoon felt her other powers flow back into her body.
Though the mushroom mark's effects remained, she regained her former
muscle tone and hair consistency.  "And that's not all!"

	"Very well.  I suppose our 'fun' is over, then!"  The effeminate
general lunged forward with his sword aimed toward her heart.  "Die,
Sailor Mini-Moon!"

	Terra's red power returned, making her smile when the implications of
that detail became clear.  She raised her palm and pursed her mouth,
focusing one of her inner powers towards her enemy's head.

	As if somebody had just pushed the pause button on a video of the
scene, Zoicite froze mid-thrust.

	"W-what--?!" the general forced out through unresponsive lips.
"What... have you... done?!"

	"Our roles have changed," Terra declared emphatically as she lowered
her hand and stood up straight.  "You are now MY puppet."

	Zoicite's face contorted with rage.  "NEV...ER!  YOU... LIT-TLE...
TRAMP!  WILL.  NEVER.  HAPPEN!"

	"Oh, but it has!"  Terra reaffirmed.  She gazed deeply into the man's
eyes.  "General Zoicite, you are under my control!"

	"I..."  Zoicite's eyes glazed over.  "I am... under your control."

	"You will give me the Rainbow Crystals now."

	Zoicite's body trembled.  He seemed to be fighting it hard, but the
force his enemy exerted was too much.  "I... will give you the
crystals now," he said in an obedient tone.

	Terra folded her arms.  "Yes, you will!"

	"But... they are not here right now."

	"They're not?  Fine!"  The girl waved dismissively at him.  "Then
hurry off to wherever you've stored them, and bring them back to me."

	"What a great idea," whispered the general, and vanished in a shower
of cherry blossoms.

	Chibimoon nearly collapsed from the effort.  It wasn't like making
the other girls do silly little things back at the shrine.  She was
their friend, and they put up comparatively little resistance.  In
Zoicite's case, she not only had to pierce through his tough will and
immense hatred towards her; indeed, she had to overcome someone else's
mind control on top of all that.  The power pulling Zoicite's strings
felt oddly familiar, with a very similar flavor to her own black
energy.

	Could it be that Zoicite, or perhaps all of the Generals of the
Negamafoozles were really just pawns in this whole thing?  Had she
really been fighting the wrong people all along?

	The train of thought evaporated when Terra saw Tuxedo Kamen's
terrible state.  She crawled over to him.  "Tuxedo Kamen," she
whispered urgently, "are you okay?"

	"Mortally wounded," the man replied, referring to the hole in his
stomach, "or pretty close.  Please tell me you've got some healing
powers to go along with the mind control and magic summons?"

	Chibimoon shook her head sadly.  "It happened once by accident, but I
don't know how to do it again.  In fact, I don't think it was me doing
it at all."

	"What happened with your body?" Tuxedo Kamen asked.  "You changed
right in front of me.  Are you really a shapeshifter?"

	"No idea," Chibimoon replied.  "No idea whatsoever.  I might be.  I
might not even really be myself.  I think I might be a clone, come to
think of it.  I'm still looking for the fishtank with dozens of me
grown in it.  But, no, probably not.  Let's see if I can fix you up."
She looked over the wound, and the blood pooling beneath the man.
"Yeesh, this IS bad."

	"You're telling ME?"

	"We'll get you to a doctor!  I promise!"

	"No, what he'll need is a coroner."

	Chibimoon looked around frantically.  "Who said that?!"  She
recognized the voice.  "Kunzite!"

	"I apologize for my lateness.  I had some business to attend to."
The silver-haired general stepped out of the shadows, applauding.
"Very good, Chibimoon!  I would never have guessed you'd last this
long.  We haven't given you nearly enough credit.  Tell me, what have
you done with General Zoicite?!"

	"Hah!" Chibimoon laughed maniacally.  "Again I say, HAH!  What's
happened to Zoicite?  The same thing that's about to happen to you!"
She gazed into his eyes and waggled her fingers at him.  "You will
leave us alone and never return!"

	Kunzite stared at her, perplexed for a second, then resumed his
previous smugness.  "Oh, I see.  You're trying to do a mind trick on
me."  He pointed to the tinfoil hat atop his head.  "That won't work,
I'm afraid.  So that's what you did?  To think, I was actually worried
for a minute.  I was afraid you might have killed him."

	In the next instant, General Zoicite reappeared, holding a small
case, which contained six of the seven Rainbow Crystals.  "Yes, my
lady," he said in a daze, "I have them all right...." he trailed off
and blinked a few times when the hypnotic suggestion wore off.  "No,
I'm not supposed to have these here!"

	"MINE!"  the girl screamed, and leapt at the case.

	Terra had never really wondered what getting an energy blade to the
stomach would feel like, but now she had the chance to experience it.
Without a word, Kunzite had sent a glowing blue boomerang into her
midsection.  It was glancing, so it didn't penetrate her Sailor
attire, but it was nevertheless quite an unpleasant blow that sent her
cartwheeling backwards to the ground.  She hit her head on something,
but after all the punishment her cranium had already taken in the past
while, she hardly noticed it.

	"You sent him to get the crystals?" Kunzite sighed in a manner that
suggested a major portion of a fond plot of his had been foiled.
"Bah!"  Despite whatever plan of his had been abandoned, it looked
like he found another one.  "Zoicite, put those down."

	The Third General worked to shake himself out of his confusion, but
obeyed the instruction, placing the container on a nearby table.
"Kunzite, there was nothing I could do!  All of the sudden, she stared
at me, and... I couldn't fight her!  I ran off--"

	"Zoicite!"  Terra called over.  "Fight him for us!"

	The blonde man went rigid.  His eyes bulged as he fought the latest
assault on his psyche.  But then, Kunzite draped some tin foil over
Zoicite's head, instantly providing relief.

	"Aww!" Terra protested when her only remaining trump card vanished.

	"It seems Chibimoon is a psychic," Kunzite said.  "Full of surprises,
this one.  First, she defeats us all at once, then thwarts us in
acquiring the seventh Rainbow Crystal, and now this."  He folded his
arms and glared at Chibimoon as she started to get back up.  "What do
you say we put an end to her once and for all?"

	Zoicite, massaging the minor scratches on his chest that had already
begun to fade, nodded emphatically, and glared at the girl with a new,
burning hatred.  "How DARE you invade my mind!"

	"How dare you invade my world," Chibimoon replied before she could
stop herself.  Now, her mind muttered, was the time to get on her
knees and beg for mercy.  That would at least buy her some time.  But
now, she saw the evil gleam in her foes' eyes and felt some
retaliation coming on.  "Aw, nuts."

	"Earth was ours," Kunzite retorted nonchalantly, "millennia before
you could even begin to call it yours."

	"Yeah, about that," Terra tried to stall for more time.  "Who are you
people, anyway?  Maybe we're really all just a bunch of good friends
and we don't realize it yet!"

	Kunzite glanced at Zoicite, who raised an eyebrow, laughed, and said,
"I don't think so!"

	Terra saw the the pose the generals took up.  Clearly, they intended
on teaming up against her, and this time, she wouldn't have the
advantage of surprise nor of mind control.  "Mind, help get me out of
this," she whispered to herself.

	Nope, her consciousness replied, I'm afraid you blew it.

	Chibimoon snapped her fingers in disappointment.  "Oh well.  It was a
nice life... kind of."

	"Run," Tuxedo Kamen urged, "save yourself!"

	"Running won't do any good," Zoicite said.

	Kunzite chuckled his agreement.  "That's right."  He held out his
palm flat out at her.

	Chibimoon gasped and crossed her arms in front of herself in
preparation for the doom which was to come.

	"Five," Kunzite said, twitching his fingers on the extended hand.
"I'm going to count to five, Chibimoon.  Say a prayer, find something
to eat, beg for mercy--anything you want to do--and then, you will
die."

	Terra gulped, and took a step back.

	A dark energy began to burn around the two generals.  "One!"

	Running was probably the foremost thing on the girl's mind, but she
had run before and it didn't do her any good.  It had taken Tuxedo
Kamen to save her before, the man who now lay bleeding to death behind
her.  He saved her when she was in trouble, and now she was going to
pay him back by running and leaving him to die.

	The blackness grew deeper.  "Two!"

	But what could she do?  The powers she knew she had--red and
yellow--were already spent.  Her own spine only functioned because it
was running on a backup provided by the green energy from Arby's
accursed mushroom thing.

	"Three!"

	Her black energy curled up at the edge of her mind, but remained
stubbornly slippery.  If she could compress time again, or reverse it,
she would stand a chance.

	"Four!"

	Terra's thoughts were cut short when she took a large energy blast to
the chest that knocked her up against a jagged rock wall.

	Before she could react, the generals were on either side of her,
wrenching her off the wall and hurling her into the air.  In unison,
they kicked her in the head from opposing sides before juggling her
around with a brutal series of energy-enhanced punches.  Crystals from
behind attempted to stab into her back, but her outfit somehow managed
to deflect them, though some of her ribbons tore.  Next, both the
generals' knees crushed into her gut, and a pair of elbows knocked her
to the ground, limp and slumped over the now-unresponsive Tuxedo
Kamen.

	"YOW," the girl summarized her feelings at this point.  "Argh, I'm
sorry... Mamoru," she wept, "they're too strong!"

	"That was just the warm-up," laughed Zoicite.

	"And now for the coup de grace," said Kunzite.

	"You're going to feed us FRENCH stuff?!" Terra asked in horror with a
twitch in her left eye.  "I hate French stuff!"

	Tuxedo Kamen stared at her.

	"Seriously," Chibimoon insisted.  "They tried to feed me SNAILS one
time!  They're... so... BLAND!  Wouldn't even let me put chili powder
on them!"  She paused and looked back at the generals.  "Oh, wait, did
you say 'coup de grace' or 'soup de grace?'"

	The Third and Fourth Generals ignored the girl's culinary protests
and held their hands out toward the two on the floor.  Dozens of
crystal shards appeared in front of Zoicite, while similar numbers of
boomerang-shaped energy blades formed around Kunzite.  Blades and
shards hurled towards Terra and Mamoru.  As soon as the first volley
was sent, another appeared in its place and also fired.

	The mad cackling of the two villains could barely be heard from all
the noise.  No squad of soldiers, no battalion of artillery, no fleet
of warships ever could have dispensed this much destructive firepower
in so short a time.  The floor glowed, cracked, and melted from the
barrage.  The entire tower rattled and swayed from the force of the
assault.  A whirlwind of debris and shrapnel hurtled through the air
and imbedded into the walls.  What windows remained shattered into
millions of pieces.  They seemed to blast away at Chibimoon for hours,
enjoying every second of it, but in reality, it was more like three
fourths of a minute, the blast intensifying with each salvo.

	When the dust cleared, there was nothing but a hole that went
straight down through all the floors to the bottom of the tower.

	And in the center of it stood a lone platform, on which were Tuxedo
Kamen, Sailor Chibimoon, the other Sailor Soldiers, and the Star Light
Knight.

	"YOU CALL THAT A SOUP DE GRACE?!" S.L.K. shouted at them as a barrier
above him vanished when he lowered his glowing hand.  "My GRANDMOTHER
could cook up better soup de graces than YOU!  And you freakin' forgot
the chili powder, ya big dumb hairless apes!"

	"You're a robot," Usagi noted.  "Do you even have a grandmother?"

	"Shh," S.L.K. hushed her.  "Go make a speech or something."

	Sailor Moon nodded, struck a pose, and pointed at the two flying
generals, and declared, "Not so fast!  You have terrible manners,
beating up our friends and trying to kill them!  I am the Sailor
Soldier of Love and Justice, Sailor Moon!"

	"And Sailor Mercury!"

	"Sailor Mars!"

	"Ditto, for Sailor Jupiter!"

	"In the name of the Moon," Usagi continued, "we will punish you severely!"

	"Tuxedo Kamen needs help fast," Sailor Mercury whispered urgently to
the others.  "Whatever magic he has is keeping him alive, but I don't
know for how long."

	Sailor Moon knelt by Sailor Chibimoon and asked softly, "Terra-chan, are okay?"

	Terra, dazed and battered, confirmed a few broken ribs before
responding, "Oh yeah, doin' great.  Havin' a blast.  Thanks for
coming.  Was wondering what kept ya."

	"Admit it, Red," Jupiter chuckled, "you'd be lost without us."

	"No arguments there," Terra coughed.

	"You can't die now," Mars insisted, "you still owe me for all the
clothes you borrowed and never returned."

	"So," Kunzite called down to them, "Supreme Commander--or Ex-Supreme
Commander, rather--you've decided to join forces with these pitiful
little sailor-girls?  Traitor!"

	"Finally recognized me, eh, Kunzie?" S.L.K. replied.  "Took ya long
enough.  Still shacking up with pansy-boy there, I see!"

	"Pansy-boy?!" scoffed Zoicite.

	Kunzite shrugged, almost amused at the nickname.  "As they say, if
the shoe fits," he said.  "You've managed to block our most powerful
barrage, 'Tommy.'  I do admit, somehow your powers have grown far
beyond even our own."

	"Then why are you both smiling?" Sailor Jupiter asked, nearly pushing
S.L.K. aside.

	"Because we know something you don't know," Kunzite said.

	S.L.K. shook his fist at the generals.  "Oh yeah?!"

	"What's that?" Sailor Moon wanted to know.

	Zoicite looked down at them and spread his arms triumphantly.  "This."

	Kunzite snapped his fingers.  The gloom around them sprang to life,
red eyes glowing in the darkness and strange glowing shapes making
themselves apparent.  Dozens of youma--perhaps nearly a
hundred--shrieked and cackled with glee.

	"Hoo-kay, that's pretty good," S.L.K. commented, and readied his twin
gatling weapons.  "Don't panic, they're nowhere near as tough as the
generals."

	Sailor Mercury tapped out a few things on her computer, and her jaw
dropped when her heads-up visor flashed with all kinds of huge
numbers.  "Ah, actually...."

	"Just shut up and shoot the dang things!" S.L.K. hollered, and opened
fire when the first few lunged in close.  A few were driven back by
his concentrated blasts, but others kept creeping closer.  "Sailor
Moon, stick by me!"

	"Why?"

	S.L.K. took her by the shoulder and gazed right into her eyes.
"Look, you may be a raging klutz, but aside from me, the princess
chump in pink down there, and the flying, talking seal, you're the
only one that has a chance of conjuring up something to get us out of
this.  So sue me if I wanna be close to THAT, okay?!"

	"Um," Sailor Moon responded slowly, in a confused manner, "thank you?
 I think."

	All the heroines still standing joined in the battle.

	Mercury waved her arms, spun around, and called out a mighty, "Shabon
Spray!"  Freezing bubbles of ice obscured the area in a thick cloud.
This, however, didn't seem to impair the vision of her friends, who
found their marks and continued with their own attacks.

	"Supreme Thunder!" cried Sailor Jupiter, who let forth several arcs
of electricity.  The shot impacted a youma in the chest, knocking it
off its feet.  Two more to its side rushed forward in its place.

	Sailor Moon took of her golden tiara and charged it with energy,
transforming it into a disc of light.  "Moon Tiara Action!" she
announced, hurled it towards the two nearest youma.  It bounced off
the head of one, and burned the side of another's neck.

	"It's not having enough of an effect!" shouted Mercury.  "We need
something stronger!"

	"Maybe this will do it," Mars muttered.  She clasped her hands
together and summoned a ball of fire at her fingertips, which grew in
size by a factor of fifty as she cried, "Fire Soul!!!"

	The huge wash of flame incinerated a leading youma, but washed over
the ones behind it without much of an effect.

	"Keep trying!" urged Sailor Jupiter.

	Their continued efforts did nothing more than maintain a small safety
zone around them.  Until, that is, shadowy arms started reaching up
the floor and grabbing onto them.

	"Grr," growled the Star Light Knight.  "Forget this!"  He raised his
hand that had the crystal imbedded in it and, with a mighty yell,
called forth its power.  The spherical blast-wave smashed outward,
separating the youma from them like a school of fish darting away from
a ravenous predator suddenly appearing in their midst.  But the effect
didn't last.  The gem, once shining brightly, grew dim, and the
attacks resumed.

	"What?!"  S.L.K. fell to one knee, a hum from his body lowering in
frequency.  "Out of power?!  It was a perfect replica!  How can it be
out of power?!"  He paused, held his head, and continued to himself,
"The power of Love and Naivete?  What're you talking about?!  Like I
have time for that right now!"

	Sailor Mercury was the next to go down; hit in the face by a youma's
energy blast.  Then went Mars and Jupiter, though they fought a
valiant struggle.

	"We have to re-merge," S.L.K. whispered to Sailor Moon urgently.

	"Do what?!" Usagi asked.

	"We must become one," the man insisted.  "We'll have more than enough
power to win if we do!"

	"I don't know what you mean!"

	"How can you not know what I mean?!  We've fought in so many battles
together, we've gotten close.  You should remember by now!"

	"Well, I don't!"

	"Dag nab it!" S.L.K. howled as his head was blasted off and bounced
to the floor.  "This is life and death here!"

	"You big jerk," Terra muttered from the floor, "quit bugging Sailor
Moon!  She's doing the best she can!"

	"Who asked you?!" S.L.K. shouted at her from his head's position by
her feet.  His body scrambled on the ground as if searching for a
missing contact lens.  "Over here, ya cheap foreign hunk of junk!!"

	"And now, Sailor Soldiers," Kunzite said from across the chasm
between them, "you will die."

	"No they will not!" a majestic voice echoed throughout the building.

	"Oh?" the Fourth General inquired, looking left and right in search
of the speaker.  "A new little friend you have been holding in
reserve?"  Kunzite smiled faintly and appeared to decide to play
along.  "Why, then, will they not?"

	"Because I know something you don't know!"

	Zoicite and Kunzite looked at each other.  With a mocking expression,
the silver-haired general just shook his head.

	"Come on!  Ask!"

	"Uh, what don't we know?" one of the shadowy youma queried.

	"THIS!"

	The youma's head exploded in a spray of muck and ichor.  The other
Negamafoozles looked up to see high-energy particle beams rain down
upon them.  Youma were vaporized all over the place until there were a
scant few left.

	When the carnage was over, a new figure emerged from the darkness.
She was a little under five and a half feet tall, with luxurious
hip-length orange-highlighted yellow-blonde hair.  She wore a
miniskirted sailor suit with gemmed earrings, white leotard, deep
orange skirt, pink ribbons, and blue highlights.  The girl couldn't
have been older than fifteen, yet her smooth skin and
well-proportioned body would have made many supermodels feel
inadequate, and when she spoke, her voice was a perfect duet sung in
complete harmony.

	Yet despite all this, a white cat was the one to hop up and announce
her arrival while she struck a series of bone-cracking poses.  "Risen
from the ashes like a great phoenix," the cat said, "the burning
bright power that lifts the morning star over the horizon, I present
the sailor-suited warrior of Beauty and Fashion..."

	"The Sailor that was once named Venus," the girl declared.  "Whose
body was shaped like a--"

	"That's enough," the cat laughed nervously.  "No need for limericks!
You can go fight now."

	Panting from the effort, Luna hopped up next to the white cat,
saying, "Artemis, I'm so glad I found you!"

	"We wouldn't have known where to go if you hadn't come along," the
other feline responded.

	Sailor Moon's eyes widened.  "Sailor Venus?!  There's another Sailor Soldier?"

	"Venus?!" Kunzite shouted in a manner that suggested yet another one
of his secret plots had crumbled away into nothingness.  "The Soldier
formerly known as Sailor V?!"

	"The same!" Venus replied.

	"But... Bruce killed you!" Zoicite protested.  "And your little friend too!"

	"Was not!"

	"You were," Kunzite added.  "I watched.  In fact, I may have a video
tape somewhere."

	"You're only half-right," the girl said.  "Or maybe more like three-fifths."

	"Well then!" Kunzite sighed.  "We shall have to make it one hundred
percent, then, shant we?!"  He raised his hands and created more of
his energy blades.

	Sailor Venus placed two fingers near her brow.  Her fingertips shone
a bright gold, while groups of four connected white crescents of light
infused themselves into the gathering energy with a loud noise that
wasn't unlike the starting of a jet engine.  Then she pointed at the
two airborne generals.  "Crescent Beam Ribbons!!!"

	A wide, thin beam sliced through the air at supersonic speeds,
piercing Kunzite through the heart before circling back and doing the
same to Zoicite.  The energy ribbon then circled around them, causing
their skin and clothes to smoke when they came into contact with it.
The attack expanded to engulf the two.  They screamed with agony as
they were pierced repeatedly on top of being deeply burned.

	When the attack ended, the Third and Fourth Generals crumpled to the
ground.  Zoicite remained down, groaning and writhing, but Kunzite
lifted himself on one elbow.

	"Im...impossible," Kunzite wheezed.  Then his expression turned
slightly ironic.  "But then, it can't be impossible, since you've just
done it, haven't you?  Tell me, how did you gain this new power?"

	Sailor Venus's smile was beautiful, but deadly.  "The powers of
Beauty and Fashion have been united.  Against it, creeps like you
can't compare."

	Kunzite took a few harsh breaths, but after a while began to laugh
malevolently.

	"What's so funny?" Venus demanded.

	"All of your friends--"

	Sailor Venus held up a quieting hand.  "Um, actually, they're not so
much friends as acquaintances, seeing as how we've just met and all."

	Artemis groaned and held his head in his paws.

	"Ah, how silly of me."  Kunzite made another short coughing laugh.
"All of your new 'acquaintances' are about to become nothing more than
memories.  Behold their deaths!"

	"What?!"  The teen supermodel whirled around to see the pillar--off
of which the other heroes' and heroines' platform was supported--had
started to bend.  If they fell off at that angle, they'd be crushed
against a wall and then fall several dozen stories.  "Oh, horsemeat!"

	Sailor Venus let out a shout, and a gold aura sprang up around her.
In an instant, she had teleported over to where the others stood or
lay.

	"Sailor Venus!" Usagi exclaimed when the other girl grabbed on tight
to her shoulder.

	"Everyone who's conscious, hold onto someone else!" Venus commanded.
"I'm going to try something.  It... will probably work."

	Jupiter grabbed Usagi and Ami, Rei took Venus by the arm, Usagi held
onto Venus and S.L.K., and S.L.K. grabbed his head and Terra, while
Terra took hold of Tuxedo Kamen.

	"This is so embarrassing," S.L.K. muttered.

	Just as the platform crashed into the abyss below, the whole team
reappeared on safer terrain, next to Luna and Artemis.

	"Amazing!" exclaimed Luna.

	"You're so neat, Sailor Venus!" squeaked Usagi, who was quite
impressed with the show.

	"Well it's not over yet," replied the taller girl with half a smile.

	"Oh, but it is!" announced Kunzite, whose bloodied face showed a man
who believed he had just won the whole war through an amazing
strategy.  He growled and groaned from the effort, but he raised his
hands into the air, burning with black energy.

	From all four directions, pillars of lightning-filled blackness tore
across the battle-scarred terrain, finally intersecting where all of
the heroes were huddled.  A black dome surrounded them.

	"This time I mean it," Kunzite coughed, "my final attack, which will
destroy you, and from which there is no escape!"

	"Fire Soul!" Mars shouted while firing off her burning strike.  It
was absorbed into the black dome without effect.

	"Supreme Thunder!"

	But Jupiter's attack did no good, either.

	"C'mon, you bunch of one-trick ponies!" complained S.L.K. as he took
out a gun and shot at the barrier, but the bullets bounced back and
smashed deeply into his exposed electronics.  "Dang it!"

	Venus glowed gold for a second, but the effect subsided.  "Hey!  I
can't teleport!"  She charged up her attack and pointed at the dome.
"Crescent Beam Ribbons!!!"

	Just like the others, the Soldier of Beauty and Fashion couldn't
affect the barrier.

	"It's a Dark Kingdom pocket dimension within a pocket dimension,"
Kunzite explained while the edges of the dome shrank down.  "No force
can escape.  Not even light, nor sound.  What you hear is my voice
that I choose to send to you."

	"I'd pay real money if he'd just shut up!" growled S.L.K.'s head.

	"Oh dear," said Luna.  "This looks bad."

	"Really?" Artemis sighed as the others crowded in on him to avoid the
edges of the impenetrable sparking black dome as they closed in on the
group.  "Like I hadn't noticed!"

	"Mmmmohhdear, this is so depressing," a fluffy white harp seal moaned
as it slipped through some cracks in the floor.

	"Guess this is it," whispered Tuxedo Kamen.  "At least... you helped
me remember some things... Terra."

	Chibimoon smiled faintly.  "Thanks for calling me Terra... Mamoru.
We tried our best."  She lay down close to him, her arm around his.

	"Yeah, well, your best just wasn't good enough, was it?!" S.L.K.
jibbed, then held his head with one arm and pulled out a guitar with
the other.  "GRRRRR!  REMEMBER, GOSH DARN IT!!!"  He smashed the
guitar into Sailor Moon's forehead.

	A harsh discord echoed throughout the area.  It was as if someone
said something really inappropriate at a large business party and, for
a long moment, the world stood still in response.

	Terra noticed that the dome suddenly stopped collapsing.  A quick
look around discovered why: a white barrier had sprung up around the
group, fighting against the black dome.  She looked up and saw Usagi,
with blank eyes, standing up.  Her tiara had broken in two and fallen
off.  In its place was a bright yellow crescent moon, like the one
that had been on her own tiara a few minutes ago.

	"What a shock," Sailor Moon whispered.

	"Sailor Moon, whatever you're doing, keep it up!" Mars urged.

	"I... remember!" Usagi exclaimed.

	"Remember what?" Terra asked.

	"Everything!"

	A soft glow suffused Usagi's body, and her sailor suit was magically
replaced by a long white dress with gold trim.  She had little pearl
barrettes in her hair, and the fabric of her new outfit rippled as if
blown by a slow wind.

	Usagi closed her eyes for a moment, before opening them again with a
more focused expression.  "I am..."

	Luna's crescent moon glinted with recognition.  "Princess Serenity!"

	"Serenity," Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter whispered, their voices also
noting some familiarity.

	"Yeah," Venus whispered softly with a nod.  She seemed, if it were
possible, overjoyed and quite let down at the same time.  "Serenity."

	"All this time," Luna whispered, "she's been with us!"

	"Wait a sec!" S.L.K. complained.  "That can't be right!  She can't be
Serenity!  She's--"  He frowned.  "I can't have gotten it THAT wrong,
can I?!  WHO DOES THAT MAKE ME, THEN!?"

	"A monkey wrench's uncle!" Terra snapped at the android.

	"Oh yeah, very funny, 'Mini-Moon!'" S.L.K. groused.  "Get beaten up
by any good books lately?!"

	Princess Serenity silenced the quarreling pair with a look, then took
out the Crescent Moon Stick she had been given to help look for the
Rainbow Crystals.  A sphere of light appeared at its tip.  The crystal
that Tuxedo Kamen had taken flew up to it, and the crystals in the
container outside pierced the pocket dimension barrier, also infusing
into the mix.

	"The Silver Ginzuishou Crystal of the Imperium!" Tuxedo Kamen said
with wide eyes.

	All of the Seven Rainbow Crystals had finally become one.

	Serenity lifted her wand with the crystal firmly seated atop it, and
proceeded to drive back the dome.

	"NO!!!" screamed Kunzite, clenching his fists and pouring even more
power into his attack.  "I WON'T LET YOU!"

	Despite the Princess's efforts, the dome began to shrink again.

	"Help her!" pleaded Luna to the other Sailor Soldiers.  "Lend her your power!"

	Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter nodded, stood, and placed their hands on
the wand's handle.

	"Urk!" choked Terra, as she declined to get up.  "Broken back, can't
feel my legs.  Or my arms, for that matter."

	"Stone spear in my gut," explained Tuxedo Kamen.  "Nearly bleeding to death."

	"Excuses, excuses, ya wee pansies!" sighed the Star Light Knight in
an Irish accent, with a hole burned through his chest and his head
still in his hands.  He tucked it under his arm, and placed his right
hand--the one with the crystal in it--on top of the girls' hands.
"Atomic Starlight Robot Power, Activate!"

	The others joined in uniting their abilities.  Their voices and
powers joined in the completion of one great cause.  Mars and Mercury
were first, followed quickly by Jupiter.

	"Mars Power!"
	"Mercury Power!"
	"Jupiter Power!"

	Sailor Venus placed her hand atop the others and said loudly, "Venus
Power!" and then, so quiet the others could hardly hear her, "Stylin'
Power."

	"Moon Healing Escalation!" proclaimed the princess.

	The final energies seemed to do the trick.  The barrier between them
and the black dome around them expanded and pushed the dark energies
back.  With a crack of thunder and the sound of something unbreakable
being shattered, Kunzite's sphere cracked and burst as shafts of light
poured through the fissures.  When the final vestiges of the dome were
gone, the heroes' energy exploded outward.

	A wave rippled through the area, erasing the corruptions and
modifications the Dark Kingdom had made to the Starlight Tower.  Bit
by bit, the building returned to its former splendor.

	"Confound it all!" hollered Kunzite as he and Zoicite were hit by the
wave, vaporized within seconds as it passed through them.  "It should
have worked!  It... should... have... worked...."  The general's voice
echoed through the halls for several moments after his obliteration.
Blackness and ash remained on the floor where they had lain.  All in
all, it seemed a rather sudden end for two of the mightiest Dark
Kingdom warriors.

	The light shone through the windows and a beacon shot up into the sky
for all to see.  Like fireworks, little starbursts went off in the air
above the tower.

---

	Absolutely agape and aghast, Queen Beryl watched these events through
her crystal ball in horror.  Not only had this plan failed
spectacularly, it had deprived the Dark Kingdom of two more if its
prized generals, several platoons of elite youma, and untold amounts
of energy.  Not only that, Sailor Venus was still alive and more
powerful than ever, the Moon Princess had reappeared, and now their
enemies had the crystal Beryl had so long sought out.  All she had
left was Nephrite, who was off on another errand.

	This setback could very well cost them everything.

	"What next?!" the woman cried, letting her face fall into her hands.

	A familiar chuckle echoed throughout the throne room.

	"Who is that?!" some of the youma in the darkness at the edge of the
room asked.

	"It's Bruce!" screamed one.  "Bruce, who has--AAARGGH!!"

	A loud squelching sound interrupted the youma's cries.  Its arm fell
into the light, only to be dragged back into nothingness.  There were
a few more sickening crunching noises before silence returned.

	Dabbing his mouth delicately with a handkerchief, Bruce the White
ArbyFish hopped onto the floor in front of Queen Beryl.

	"I see you were plotting against me," the creature noted with an
amused grin.  "And even though I did nothing to stop you, you failed
anyway!"

	"Us, plotting against YOU?" Beryl spat back swiftly, with bloodshot
eyes.  "If YOU had done your job, Sailor Venus would have been dead--"

	"She IS dead," Bruce retorted.  "I tortured, maimed, and killed her
myself."  He held up his switchblades.  "And I used these to do it.
Oh yes, she is dead.  Mwahahaha!"

	"Then how do you explain THIS?!" inquired Beryl as she showed Bruce
the image of Sailor Venus on her crystal ball.

	"That's not the same girl," the White ArbyFish replied, waving off
the protest, but then stopped and came closer for a better look.  "No,
it is her.  And it's also her little friend.  Somehow."  His grin
became such that everyone could see his fangs.  "Interesting."

	"We had a deal," Beryl intoned, "and you didn't live up to your part
of the bargain."

	Bruce looked angry for a second, and appeared to be taking Beryl's
long glare as a sort of challenge for dominance, like a pair of
animals might quarrel over pack dominance and mating rights.

	Finally, Bruce was the one to back down, though he made it readily
apparent that he could eviscerate Beryl and not think twice about it.

	"Very well," the evil creature said.  "I'll keep to our bargain.  And
it seems I've broken my part.  So, as per the rules, I have to pay."
He flew up in front of the Queen, holding up a cupcake with a single
lit candle in it.  "Here.  Count to three, blow it out, and make a
wish."

	Apparently befuddled by the request, Beryl took a deep breath but did
as she was bidden.  She made a silent wish that she could have the
power to dominate the Earth.

	Bruce nodded, like he was pleased with the choice she had made.
"Very good.  The power to dominate the Earth, is it?  I'll give it to
you."  He reached into the fur at his back, underneath his cape, and
took out a large black pearl.  "What do you say we begin by reviving
Metallia, that demon goddess of yours?"

---End of Chapter 14

And now it's time for... MIND YOUR MANNERS!!! with Sailor Nuke.

(Terra gets whacked on the head by Arby's mallet and turns into a
useless princess-like beauty)

Sailor Nuke:  Today, we learned that blunt head trauma gives you magical powers!

(The Star Light Knight hits Usagi in the forehead with a guitar)

Sailor Nuke:  It doesn't matter if you're a whiny little girl or a big
hulking robotic knight.  Hitting people on the head is FUN!

Sailor Kawaii:  What?!  No, no, no, NO!  It's WRONG to hit people on the head!

Sailor Nuke:  Uh, why?

(Back in Chapter One and Two, Terra gets her appearance and especially
hair tampered with after her blunt head trauma)

Sailor Kawaii:  Sometimes it makes you... less cute!

(Chibimoon's psychic projections, Sailor Knight Centurion, Sailor
Kawaii, and Sailor Nuke, beat the tar out of Zoicite)

Sailor Nuke:  But more explosive!

Sailor Kawaii:  That's not the point!

Sailor Nuke:  Yes it is!  When's it NOT!?

(Sailor Venus roars onto the scene, taking down Kunzite and Zoicite,
then rescues the heroes and heroines like a fourteen-year-old goddess)

Sailor Nuke:  Eh!  Kids, just remember, do what it takes to get lots
of power.  Sailor Nuke sez.  BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!

Sailor Kawaii:  And don't be afraid to improve your appearance.  It
makes it SO much easier to win and get what you want.  Sailor Kawaii
says.  Tee-hee!



Thanks for reading! ;)

-- 
Benjamin A Oliver
benjamin.a.oliver at gmail.com

Technical Writer / Translator
M3 Engineering & Technology

Master of Science in Management Information Systems
Eller College of Management
University of Arizona

Writings: Fan Fiction
http://boliver.florestica.com/

Webcomic: Nuke 'Em 'Till They Glow!! The Early Years
http://nettg.com