[FFML] [Sailor Moon] Double Exposure 3 [Dark/Comedy]

[Paul Durant]

   Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and the DARK•MATTER
setting was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. I own neither of
these things, and expect that if either of those last two people Google
their own names they are going to be incredibly confused.



* * * * *



   For being an ancient, alien demon who has been on Earth longer than
mankind has, simmering for millennia in his own toxic hatred, eternally
trapped a handsbreadth away from reality, seeing everything but only
able to affect it in the most transient of ways, ever longing to be free
and to annihilate the world that has imprisoned him, for all this the
creature most recently known as the Pharaoh 90 is a very patient, very
accomodating sort.


   He said his true name was "death" and that's closest to what he
thinks of himself as, but it's not the truth. He doesn't really have a
name and he doesn't much care about when people assign him the wrong one
(unless, of course, he's using the truth about his name to intimidate a
foolish mortal who he will in thirty seconds shred the mind from the
body of and leave her locked into that moment of fear and despair and
anguish forever, but we've already seen this). He's collected so many
names over the years not because he feels compelled to wear a different
mask to each culture he approaches, but because he just never bothers to
correct them. Call him The Silent One, or Isci ba Fan, because the minds
of those he occupies are utterly silent? Sure, that seems accurate
enough, knock yourselves out. Want to name him Lucifer because he
represents everything you're afraid of? Seems like as good a name as any
for someone who wants all of you to die screaming. The Wolf of Ragnarok
who will cleanse the Earth of the impure enemies of the Aryan race? Sure
will, and he'll kill everyone else as part of the deal but we don't need
to tell the Thule Society that. You just got done reading a book about
the Pharaoh Akenaten who was so evil the Egyptians tried to scourge his
name from history and you think the end of the world comes in '99? How
about we have the Pharaoh of Ninety and oh just for you let's make a
servitor psyche and call it the Mistress of Nine and now no suprises
when we come together and end the world, okay?


   Pharaoh 90 is used to working slow and subtle and not sweating the
small stuff. He needs the help of human beings to arrive fully in our
world and escape his personal limbo, but he doesn't need or care for
them to know what it is they are doing. Sacrifice a man on a basalt
altar and pass around a chalice filled with his blood? The only part of
the ritual that mattered was gathering the psionic energy the man was
spewing out as he was in terror for his life, but if you want to do
something after that you go right on ahead. Lucifer isn't gonna stop
you, because Lucifer doesn't want to take the effort to go find another
demoniac cabal that might do things a bit more efficiently. Are you so
deranged with guilt that you've got to rationalize that psionic energy
harvest as plucking out the very essence of a pure soul? Then Pharaoh 90
says pluck, pluck away at those "pure heart crystals" because only four
or five people on the planet Earth understand the physics of what you're
doing and the rest of them are happy and well-adjusted and DON'T live on
top on one of the biggest dark matter gateways in the Eastern
Hemisphere.


   Pharaoh 90 can afford to operate like this because he is immortal and
has time to wait, even after countless summoners screw up and get
something wrong or get caught by the authorities or break apart due to
interpersonal differences. Getting impatient, moving too quickly, coming
on too strong could just drive people away. He had time to get it right.



   Pharaoh 90 chose to operate like this because, and deep down he
realizes this, he is squeamish. He is capable of directly controlling a
human mind but almost never does so, and even then only for incredibly
short periods, because it is gross. To him it is like wearing someone
else's dirty underwear, only instead of putting it on his groin he is
putting it on the immaterial essence of his mind which is arguably more
valuable. Even when he put into motion a plan that required close
contact with his summoners, he psionically crafted a separate
intelligence and used it to possess the human he was using as a focal
point, one that was far less intelligent and skilled than he was, just
so he wouldn't have to get his soul dirty by touching icky human brains
with it.


   And how did that plan turn out? Oh, everything got cocked up fourteen
seconds before completion. Fourteen seconds and the aperture would have
been wide enough to allow in not just a portion of the Silent One's
mind, but his physical form in all of its destructive glory. Maybe two
or three more seconds for him to kill everyone on the island of Japan.
Looking back he saw at least a hundred places where Dr. Tomoe or the
Mistress Nine or those intolerable Witches had screwed around for way
more than fourteen seconds where he should have just taken direct
control and moved things forward efficiently and quickly.


   And instead, he was trapped again, worse, locked in a space that was
no space, expansive and claustrophobic, a dull gray he could sense even
without eyes, for the past 58 hours and 45 minutes. Unable to see or
effect the hated human world at all, he's had a lot of time to reflect
on his past mistakes, on how they led to this current failure, and
Pharaoh 90 has made a decision.


   He is absolutely done fucking around.


* * * SAILOR•MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE


CHAPTER 3: DOUBLE DUTY * * *


JUUBAN GENERAL HOSPITAL ROOM 409 TOKYO, JAPAN
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 20, 1995, 3:03 PM


   Bill Wheeler stared at the young Hotaru Tomoe across the back of a
hospital chair. She stared right back at him, her indigo eyes patient
and sad, like she was waiting for him to finish so she could go back to
doing something she dreaded. She was in a hospital gown, an IV drip was
in her arm and EKG electrodes were stuck to her chest and the weight of
the world was on her shoulders.


   "Your English is really good," Bill said more to fill up the awful
Silence than to actually communicate an idea, "I bet that took a lot of
practice."


   "No, it didn't," she sighed, and almost let the sentence end there.
Then added, "My father spoke English for his work, I've been speaking it
as long as I have Japanese."


   "Oh." Bill shifted his weight around on his chair. "It took me
forever to learn Russian and now I barely get a chance to use it."


   "That must have made you unhappy." She looked away from him, toward a
wall with nothing interesting on it. "Having all that effort turn out to
be for nothing."


   He shrugged. "Well, I thought I was going to need it for when the
Soviets invaded the US for the New World Order, so I'm glad I wasted my
time if that was the alternative." He turned around and grabbed a couple
cans that he'd laid on the ground behind him. "You want something to
drink? You must be pretty thirsty after being out for two days. I got a
blue can of stuff, and a purple can of stuff, neither of which I have
any idea what's inside."


   "I'm not thirsty, thank you." A lie, of course, but fulfilling needs
like her thirst didn't seem like something anyone should waste their
time on. "The blue can is fruit punch and the purple can is grape soda,
if you want them."


   He looked at the purple can and arched an eyebrow like he was
examining some pre-Sumerian artifact. "Grape soda? That all? You're sure
it isn't anything crazy like eggplant?"


   She didn't stare at him, she didn't stare through him, she just
pointed her eyes at him and then abandoned the controls. "No. It's not
eggplant."


   He shook his head and put both cans back down where he got them. More
silence, clearly less comfortable to him than to her. Finally, "You
know, they sent me in here to talk to you because they think I have some
kind of rapport with kids."


   "But you don't." Not an insult, a statement of fact, and one he could
not dispute.


   "I don't. They just think I do because I got this autistic kid to
open up and tell us where his dad -- who was some kind of crazy wizard
guy -- where he ran off to so we could stop him from blowing up Spokane.
And the only reason I could do that was my cable had been on the fritz
and one of the only shows I could get was the one he was obsessed with."


   "And now they're forcing you do do things you don't know how because
they don't know how either."


   Bill snorted, in a half-laugh. "No, I volunteered. I didn't want any
of them to come in here and lay a line of bullshit on you about how you
won some kind of contest and you get to go on a fun trip or something
stupid like that."


   She looked down at her feet. "As if that ever happens."


   "Exactly," he said, not fully aware of the sentiment he was agreeing
with, "Those yoinks want to talk down to you like you're a little kid
who can't put two and two together, and I know differently. They think
you're pulling things from some TV show--" The lights suddenly went out
and he stopped, though he could still see everything clearly by the
sunlight coming in through the window. After a couple seconds there was
a revving sound that he could only attribute to 'the backup generators
kicking in' and power came back to the hallway one light at a time with
a rhythmic 'thuk-thuk-thuk'. He stared up at the ceiling a few more
seconds and blinked. "...Huh. I wonder what that was?"


   Then a voice came on over the PA system, saying something in
Japanese. Hotaru said "They just said my name and what room we're in",
as if that information made her sad, but no more or less sad than
anything else in the world made her.


* * *


   The five Senshi met at the hospital now that Usagi was awake,
hopefully to shed some light on what had happened. Ami and Minako, who
had gone home that fateful night, had a lot of creative explaining to do
as to where they were and what they were doing but for the most part
found family members who were happy they were safe and, relatively
speaking, healthy. Makoto had just spent a night at the hospital, having
no pressing reason to go home, and the doctors wanted to keep Rei
overnight for observation even after she regained consciousness. Usagi
had come to last night and looked to be getting the same treatment. Her
parents were here, relieved beyond words that their daughter was alive.
It had taken a couple of hours, but Usagi had finally convinced them to
leave and let her discuss "girl things" with her friends; even then the
five of them whispered as Usagi's parents were right outside the door.


   "So they say they found you at Toudai?" Minako asked in a tone of
voice that didn't know if it wanted to be inquisitive or gossipy. "How
did you get to Toudai?"


   "I don't know!" shouted Usagi as if she was denying a murder
allegation, then remembering she was supposed to be whispering, "I don't
know. The last thing I remember was... Sailor Saturn told me 'goodbye',
and then I tried to save her, but I couldn't..."


   "We don't think this was Sailor Saturn's plan," interrupted Rei, and
quickly so Usagi wouldn't start crying. "She hadn't even turned to face
the Pharaoh yet when it happened, and she looked like she was preparing
to do something but she wasn't ready yet. When the portal exploded I
think she was as suprised as anyone."


   Usagi blinked. "So... what did happen?"


   Makoto sighed. "We aren't sure. We think the Pharaoh 90 is dead, or
back on his home planet, nobody's seen a sign of him or any daimons
since the incident. We think that maybe a piece of equipment must have
overloaded, or malfunctioned, or something. Nobody's been able to find
Neptune, Uranus or Saturn either -- and there was no school on Friday
and it's the weekend now so we've had time to look."


   Ami piped up. "The explosion apparently took you to Toudai, and it
took us about twenty meters closer to Toudai, and you were standing
closer to it than us. If it was based on distance, Saturn may have been
thrown past Toudai and Neptune and Uranus would have wound up somewhere
between us." She paused and looked a bit disappointed. "That doesn't
help us find out where they are now, though."


   Usagi furrowed her brow. "Well, couldn't you use the Mercury Computer
to track them, or plot a trajectory or scan for lifesigns or whatever it
does?"


   Makoto sighed again and uncrossed her arms. "The Mercury Computer
can't do that any more, Usagi. None of our powers have worked since the
incident. They're gone."


   Usagi tilted her head and cocked an eyebrow. "No... they aren't..."
she said while looking at Makoto like she'd grown a second head.


   Makoto got ready to admonish Usagi about how this was serious and
pretending there wasn't a problem wouldn't solve it... and then she
realized son of a bitch, Usagi's right. That inner spark, that point of
light, was there and simmering with the same intensity it ever had. It
must have faded back in instead of appearing as abruptly as it left, and
like the fabled frog in the pot of boiling water the changes had been
too gradual for any of them to notice. It hadn't come back as of 8 AM
this morning, which was the last time any of them checked, but that left
seven hours afterward for it to gradually seep back. Minako, Ami, and
Rei, all coming to the same realization, blushed and turned away in
unison and felt like colossal jackasses.


   "Wait," said Rei, "If we didn't lose our powers, something had to be
keeping us from using them. And if that wore off eventually, what if
the--"


   She cut herself off abruptly when the lights went out; not that she
required the lights to speak, and she could see just fine with the
daylight from the window, but the lights going out just seemed like the
kind of event that you stop talking for. There was a revving noise that
sounded exactly like backup generators do when they kick in, and the
lights in the hallway came back on one at time with a 'thuk-thuk-thuk'.
A couple seconds later a young man came on the public address system and
announced, matter-of-factly, "Tomoe Hotaru is in room 409."


   "Well..." said Minako, "I guess that's one question answered?"


* * *


   A young man in a patient's gown threw open the door to room 409.
Behind him was a woman in a similar gown with burn scars on her face and
a man wearing what looked like a uniform of some kind, what Hotaru
recognized as the uniform worn by students of the Mugen academy. All
three of them had the same look of empty malice in their eyes.


   Bill Wheeler shouted "Hey, es ocupado!" at the intrusion but the man
didn't seem to hear him or care what he had to say. He walked to the
side of the bed and reached for Hotaru and that was when Bill punched
him in the face. The man recoiled but was not felled, and he glared at
Bill as his two backups entered the room. He said something, something
that was probably very intimidating, but as it was in Japanese and did
not contain the words "konnichiwa", "sayonara", or "kamikaze", Bill did
not understand a word of it.


   Bill threw another punch that was slapped away by Gown-Man and
retorted to with a fist to his throat. Bill gasped but was able to block
the followup shot to his chest with a well-placed forearm. He threw a
wild elbow to his right in case Gown-Girl was circling off to his side
but he connected with nothing but air.


   "There's no point to it," Hotaru said as if there weren't three
people there to violently abduct her, "I can't do what they need me for
anyway." She did not elect to repeat that in Japanese and if any of the
three spoke English -- which they probably did -- they showed no
reaction to it.


   Gown-Girl wrapped her arms around Bill's neck from behind, prompting
him to rush backwards and smash her against the wall, toppling an
uneaten lunch tray off the counter and leaving clumps of rice sticking
to her back. Bill tried to kick Gown-Man in the chest to keep him from
closing in, but didn't have the room to extend his leg and ended up
weakly tapping his thigh. Gown-Man grabbed his foot and started to lift
it to throw Bill off-balance; Bill grabbed a hold of the IV stand next
to the bed and smashed Gown-Man over the head with it and sent him to
the floor like a sack of wet sand.


   Meanwhile, Uniform-Man had calmly walked to the other side of
Hotaru's bed and started to make off with her. He'd reached for her as
if to grab her and throw her over his shoulder, but she raised a hand
and indicated she'd go with him on her own. She disconnected the
electrodes on her chest, leaving the white circles of gauze, and calmly
removed the IV from her arm. She sat up and tenatively put a foot onto
the floor; confirming she could walk, she stood up and began to follow
Uniform-Man out of the room. She turned back and looked at Bill with an
expression that said 'I could be resisting but what would be the point?'


   Gown-Girl kicked Bill in the back of the knee before he could bring
his other foot back into position and then both of them hit the floor .
Bill was throwing elbows behind him to try and dislodge the girl but he
couldn't get them far enough behind him with any force. She re-
positioned herself to sit above him, one arm still around his throat,
and she grabbed the clear plastic tube that had just been in Hotaru's
arm and started wrapping it around Bill's neck. Bill tried to get his
thumbs underneath the girl's improvised garrote to give himself enough
room to breathe but he wasn't quite fast enough.


   Uniform-Man was walking ahead of Hotaru and so he reached the door
first and bumped into Donna Truitt, spilling some hot chocolate out of
the mug she was holding. Both of them looked confused for a split-
second, and then Donna shattered the ceramic mug across the man's face,
dousing him with hot liquid as well. He winced and covered his eyes and
left himself open for Donna to punch him in the solar plexus, take a
half-step backwards, and then kick him in the stomach and send him
rolling over the foot and into the bed Hotaru had just been laying in.


   "Gack", called Bill from the floor, which combined with the panicked
kicking of his legs was the Universal Language of Being Strangled for
'Help me, I am being strangled!' Donna quickly stepped over Gown-Man's
fallen body and grabbed Gown-Girl's arms, both now pulling on the tube
wrapped around Bill's neck. She grabbed the girl's thumb and yanked it
back until she screamed and let go; Bill immediately leaned forward and
gave Donna room to knee the girl in the face and send her, hard, into
the wall behind her.


   Hotaru looked at Uniform-Man's unconscious body dejectedly. Bill
grabbed at his throat and gasped for air. Gown-Man started to get back
up, and Donna stomped on his stomach. Bill looked up at her and tried to
gasp a question but he didn't have the breath to make it out.


   "I went over to the nurse's station to get Miss Tomoe some hot
chocolate," she said to answer what she knew Bill was asking. A pause.
"I can't leave you alone for a second."


   "Those were Mugen Academy students," Hotaru said without looking at
either one of them. "They're still under the Pharaoh 90's control and
they want to bring me back to summon him. If they took me, I would have
had another chance to kill him."


   Donna thought about that for a second. "Yeah, Bill, what did you go
and do that for?"


   "Not..." gasped Bill, waving his arms in front of him for no apparent
reason. "Gonna let you... Because you said... Had to die to... to do
it."


   Donna scoffed. "Okay, you were so not thinking about that until just
now."


   "It's the only way to stop him," said Hotaru. She paused a couple
seconds, then, "I'm sorry they hurt you."


   "It's okay," he gasped, "It's okay. Not your fault."


   There was the sound of a huge crash from downstairs and faint
shouting. "Oh, that can't be good," said Donna, "I think it's time we
got the Hell out of here."


* * *


   "Why would they just announce where Hotaru was staying? They didn't
even, like, page a doctor there or anything," asked Usagi.


   Ami thought about it for a second. "You know, most of the people
affected by the accident were students at the Mugen Academy, and a lot
of them are still patients here or are visiting their classmates who
are..."


   They all looked at each other and shared the same realization --
which was, roughly 'oh, shit'.


   "One of them must have found out where she was and then called them
all up there!" said Minako, "We've got to get up there before they take
off with her!"


   Ami, Minako, and Rei got to their feet -- Makoto got to her one foot
and one crutch -- and Usagi threw the hospital blanket off her body in
one fluid motion. Rei held out a hand and stopped her. "Usagi, what are
you doing?"


   "What do you mean what am I doing, I'm coming with you to save
Hotaru-chan!" said Usagi at a normal conversational level.


   Rei winced. "No, you can't get up and start doing Sailor Senshi
business!" she whispered as loudly as she could make a whisper go. "Your
parents are right outside the door and you're not even supposed to be
walking around yet! They'll stop you and they'll blow your cover!"


   Usagi started to say something but Rei figured they were operating
under a bit of a time limit, so she threw the door open and backed out
of the room without hearing what she had to say.


   "So, you girls sort out everything you needed to?" asked Usagi's
father from a bench on the other side of the hallway. That was good,
that meant he probably wasn't close enough to hear them.


   "Oh, everytyhing we could," chimed Minako sweetly. "But you know how
us girls are, once we get to chatting we can go at it for hours!"


   "Well, why the rush to leave? We were going to go get some lunch and
bring some back for Usagi-chan, why don't you come and join us?"


   "Thank you for the offer, Tsukino-sama, but we actually told a
classmate we'd check on someone else for her today," said Ami, glancing
nervously back and forth between a pair of people in Mugen Academy
uniforms and the open elevator at the end of the hallway.


   "And we already ate on the way over," said Makoto as she hobbled her
way down the hallway, the rubber foot on the crutch squeaking against
the linoleum. "We wouldn't want you two to pay for a meal we we're
hardly going to eat, right?"


   Mr. and Mrs. Tsukino looked at each other. "Well, all right, if you
say so..." The girls turned away from him and started to move.


   "...But before you go," said Mrs. Tsukino, and the four girls half-
sighed and turned back to her, "I just wanted to thank you all for being
such good friends to our Usagi. We know you're the world to her, and it
really means a lot that you showed up to support her."


   Minako grinned. "Why thank you, Tsukino-sama! It's what friends are
for."


   That was when they heard the horrible crashing, grinding cacaphony
from the lobby, a noise followed up by mixed screams of panic.


   Minako's grin vanished. "You two," she pointed at Rei and Ami, "409,
take the stairs." They nodded and took off at a sprint, no longer caring
about what the Tsukino family thought -- the the Tsukinos were a couple
doors down the hall, looking into the lobby with shock and horror.


   Minako and Makoto looked at each other, then Minako spun and kicked
open the door to the room next to Usagi's. It was occupied, but by an
eldery man who seemed not to respond to the loud noises or Minako's
sudden intrusion -- it'd have to do. Makoto dug through her pockets for
her wand, flinging aside newsstand reciepts and Tootsie Roll wrappers
and spare change, Minako slammed the door behind them, and almost in
unison they cried:


   "VENUS STAR POWER, MAKE UP!"


   "JUPITER STAR POWER, MAKE UP!"


   Light and sound and energy cascaded over the both of them as ancient
magics lent them their power. In almost no time at all they had
transformed, shedding their guises of Aino Minako and Kino Makoto to
become Sailor Venus and Sailor Jupiter, warriors of the Silver
Millennium.


   The instant the spell had finished casting and their feet touched the
ground again, Sailor Jupiter screamed and fell, would have collapsed
utterly if Sailor Venus had not caught her.


   "OW!" gasped Jupiter as she put a hand out on the wall to brace
herself. "Okay, that's good to know. Sailor Transformation makes a leg
cast go away. Sailor Transformation heals minor wounds. Sailor
Transformation does NOT heal a broken leg."


   "Are you okay?" asked Venus.


   "Yes, go, go!" said Jupiter through gritted teeth, waving her free
hand toward the source of the noises. "I'll catch up in a second!"


   Venus nodded and stepped back into the hallway just in time to see a
young man -- who was not wearing a Mugen uniform but certainly had the
eyes for it -- shoulder-tackle a stunned Ikuko Tsukino to the ground.
She ran towards them, as she did pounding on the door of Usagi's room
and shouting "DO IT!" as if she hadn't realized that yet.


   The probably-Mugen student spun from the prone Ikuko and punched
Kenji Tsukino in the stomach, abruptly stopping his ability to counter-
attack. He swept Usagi's father's legs out from underneath him and
brought his fist to the man's jaw on the way down. Venus considered a
'halt, evildoer!' speech but figured now probably wasn't the best time,
what with her best friends parents being beaten up and the horrible
grinding and gnashing noise still coming from the lobby. She conjured
forth the Venus Love-Me Chain and snapped it at the assailant, getting a
loop from his left shoulder to right armpit. She gave it a yank and
almost went toppling forward, the man had braced himself and prepared
for a game of tug-of-war; and the extra bit of oomph Venus was expecting
the chain to provide was conspicuously absent -- maybe the power wasn't
all back yet.


   The man grinned evilly as he looped the chain around his right arm
and prepared to yank it out of Venus's grasp. For his benefit, she put
on an expression of mock-dismay for a moment, then pointed her middle
and index fingers at him and shouted "Crescent Beam SMASH!"


   And SMASH! it did, nailing him right in the sternum and sending him
backward and to the floor. He bounced off the wall with a satisfying
'WHUD', barely audible over the horrid gnashing from the lobby, and hit
the ground like a wet rag doll. He was breathing -- the Crescent Beam
wasn't fatal to normal humans even at full power -- but he wouldn't be
trying anything crazy like this any time soon. Venus blew an imaginary
wisp of smoke off her fingertips.


   The door to Usagi's room flew upen and out came Sailor Moon, looking
dismayed and with a bunch of wires tangled into the ribbon on her chest.
Just behind her was a grimacing Sailor Jupiter using her metal crutch in
a gait so wide it would be more accurately named a 'pole-vault'. All
three of them made it to Usagi's parents at about the same time, so all
three of them saw what was in the lobby at once.


*


   Donna, Bill and Hotaru raced down the rear stairwell to the emergency
exit, the van was parked closer to the back doors and there was no need
to use the lobby. Hotaru had mentioned she couldn't run as fast as them
and would slow them down, and that's why Bill was carrying her in his
arms like a very large newborn.


   "Where's Phil and Nadine, we can't leave them!" Bill said.


   "Don't worry, they're not even here! They went off to get us some
lunch, they walked because they figured you were going to need a while,"
Donna called back, taking the steps three at a time. "We'll just call
Nadine on her cellular once we get clear of here and tell her what's
going on!"


   "This is all my fault," said Hotaru, "None of this would be happening
if I wasn't still here."


   Bill looked down at her and made a 'pfft' noise. "How do you know
this is your fault? Crazy shit happens around me all the time, how do
you know it's not my fault?"


   "Yeah, Miss Tomoe," Donna chimed in, "This is all clearly Bill's
fault." She picked up her pace to run at the emergency exit, leapt into
the air, grabbed onto the doorframe, and kicked the door open with both
feet. The alarm didn't sound. She hung there for a moment, waiting for
Bill to catch up or for some kind of accolade, then she dropped to her
feet and started rummaging through her pockets.


   "Oh Jesus Donna, do not tell me you lost the keys!"


   "Keep your pants on, I got them right here. Wait, what is..." She
closed one eye and stuck the tip of her tongue out as she pulled out the
object, a fat and gaudy pen topped by a black sphere intersected by a
purple disc. "Oh, I almost forgot about that! I think this is your pen,
Miss Tomoe."


   Donna handed the transformation pen to her, obviously having no idea
what it was, and Hotaru took it. Then she looked down at herself and
realized her gown didn't have any pockets. She just held onto it rather
than making a fuss.


   "So where are we going to go?" asked Bill as they reached the car.
"Police never help with this kind of stuff."


   "No, not the police," Donna said as she unlocked the car. "Phil says
there's a safe house somewhere around here. We drive a couple blocks,
use a pay phone, ask him where it is."


   Bill opened the sliding door and Hotaru walked in like a cow being
led up the slaighterhouse ramp, feeling like an idiot holding her
transformation pen. The seat was uncomfortable, lumpy. Bill opened his
own door, jumped into the seat, and immediately swore. "Son of a BITCH!"


   "What is it now?" asked Donna, clearly not caring.


   Bill pulled a rectangular hunk of plastic from unerneath his thigh.
"Nadine left her phone in the car again."


   "DAMN it!" Donna smacked the wheel. "What's the point of having one
of those if you leave it in the car all the time?"


   "I don't know!" yelled Bill like he was being accused of something.
"Did they tell you where they were going?"


   "No, they said they were going to quote 'poke around' a bit." She
sighed. A huge, soundless flash of blue light came from some of the
windows on the first floor, and she sat bolt-upright and turned the
ignition. "We can't stay here -- they'll know to meet us at the hotel,
right?" she said as she was already halfway out of the parking lot.


   "Sure... do you know where the hotel is?"


   "No, I don't. One of them was always reading a map -- is there a map
in the glove box?"


   Bill popped the glove compartment open, pulled out what was inside,
and grimaced. There was a road atlas of the greater Tokyo area, and
aside from the words 'Greater Tokyo Road Atlas' on the cover none of it
was in English. "All in Japanese, Donna."


   "Bill, I can't read Japanese." She moved into the turn lane despite
the fact she had no idea where she was going.


   "Well it's not like I put that there to foil you!"


   "It's not -- if you -- it should --" Donna flailed, trying and
failing to make this Bill's fault so she could have someone right there
to yell at.


   Hotaru sighed. "I can read the map."


   Donna started to say something and Bill cut her off, then turned
around in his seat much farther than he could if he wore a seatbelt.
"Hey, if you're up for it I'm not going to stop you. Donna, why don't
you stop at this light for a change and we can switch seats?"


   She stopped, and they switched seats, Bill immediately identifying
the source of discomfort in the backseat as his Mosin Nagant sniper
rifle laid across the seat with a blanket thrown carelessly over it.
Hotaru got into the front seat, buckled her seatbelt, and with two
fingers holding her transformation pen opened the road atlas and began
to navigate Donna toward the Juuban Hilton. It would be much later when
she recognized the significance of this event, if she thought it was
significant now she would not have done it. It was the first time after
her recent attempt at suicide-by-Silence that she had put herself in a
position where another person trusted her, no matter how minor the role.


*


   The main occupant of the lobby and the source of the horrible racket
was a daimon. A creature, nine or ten feet tall, its body made of
rusting steel and fraying wires, studded with electrical coils up and
down its arms. The hospital's ceiling was only about seven feet high, so
the monster was on its knees, and even then its head and the coils on
its shoulders were gouging into the ceiling, scraping and tearing at the
wiring and ductwork. There was a featureless black star on each of its
hands, a sure sign of the Death Busters, and it was picking up the
unconscious forms of the people around it, extracting heart crystals (of
varying shapes and purities) by means of a sustained electric shock, and
throwing the "empties" into a pile behind the reception desk. A couple
people moved around it, bringing unconscious people to it from areas it
could not reach, and the noises it made as its coils scraped the ceiling
and its legs scraped each other was mind-searing.


   "Stop right there, evildoer!" shouted Venus and Moon in near-unison.


   The daimon turned to face them with its huge red LED eyes and wide,
functionless metal jaw; it could only turn its head so far and ended up
facing a point 30 degrees away from them. "SHUT UP!" it shouted, "SHUT
UP SHUT UP SHUUUT UUUP JUST SHUT UP!" Its voice was harried and a bit
panicked; to the extent a electrical-demon-robot has an identifiable
tone of voice.


   The coils lining its body flared to life with crackling blue-white
power, the lights all flickered, and the other people in the room
stopped manhandling the unconscious bodies in the room and all ducked
behind cover. The charge built up in a split-second that seemed to take
hours, a hum rising in pitch until it was almost outside of human
auditory range. Venus agonized for an instant before she dove into Moon
to get her out of the way of the attack, but Jupiter was out of her
reach and there was no way she could get out of the way in time. She
didn't even try to move to avoid the attack, she just let go of the
metal crutch and pushed it off to her side.


   The daimon unleashed its attack and the lights went out, the Sun went
out, everything in the world was pitch darkness when compared to the
eye-searing illumination of that bolt of lightning. Venus and Moon had
made it out of the way, but barely, and their hair and clothing were
standing on end, and Minako was twitching slightly. Mr. and Mrs. Tsukino
as well as the man Venus had knocked out, laying on the floor in the
hallway, were twitching and spasming wildly.


   Jupiter, totally unmarred, scoffed. She looked upward -- as if she
could even see something mounted in the center of her own forehead --
and muttered "Lightning rods don't even work that way."


   "GO AWAY!" the monster howled, waving its arm as it built another
charge. "GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAYAWAYAWAY WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE!" Venus
peeked her head around the corner and almost instantly another discharge
of electricity, one mercifully less intense, streaked from the daimon's
body directly into her face. She yelped and was thrown backwards a good
two feet, luckily Moon grabbed her and was able to get her back behind
the cover of the wall before the monster could discharge again.


   "That thing's got a lot of zap to it," shouted Venus over the hum of
its coils recharging.


   "Yeah, I noticed!" Jupiter shouted back without looking. She crouched
and reached for the crutch on the floor; as her fingers neared it
another discharge leapt from the monster's arms toward the piece of
metal, lightning arced from it to her fingers and gave her a shock.
"Sailor Moon! Could you throw me your left shoe?" A couple seconds later
she was hit in the head with a boot; it would have knocked her off her
one-legged balance if she hadn't expected it. "Thank you."


   Jupiter crouched down to pick up Moon's shoe, slowly so as not to
throw off her balance, never taking her eyes off the daimon in the
lobby. It was spinning in place by pounding its fist into the floor and
dragging itself in a circle so it could face her better, but as long as
it didn't have any other ranged attacks she was a good 5 meters out of
its reach and it could take a long time to close that distance. Her leg
was only a dull, throbbing pain when nothing was touching or moving it,
but when it jostled around as she moved without a cast on the pain was
nearly paralytic. There was no suitable material nearby for a splint,
and she was going to need to hop around without shrieking in agony and
collapsing. She knew Usagi was a couple of shoe sizes smaller than hers,
and she hoped that her knee-high boot would be tight enough to hold the
bone in place so the level of pain was at least manageable.


   She slowly, deliberately dropped her shoe on the ground and lined her
foot up with Usagi's boot. The daimon had rotated around to face her
completely and appeared to have built up a full charge but was doing
nothing, unless repeating "HURRY UP HURRY UP WHY ARE YOU TAKING SO
LONG?" counted as something.


   She grimaced and yanked the boot onto her leg in one motion,
instantly she felt as if the lower part of her leg had been ripped off
and replaced with a vat of acid filled with broken glass. She shrieked
in agony and collapsed, thrashing back and forth slightly, biting down
on her forearm in a mad attempt to have some kind of control over the
sensation. A few of the hypnotized students poked their heads out of
cover and resumed their business, though they all steered clear of where
the three senshi were.


   And then, the momentary pain passed, though the constant pain that
underlied it was still pretty significant. Jupiter wiped a tear of pain
from her eye and experimentally lifted her left leg a little. It hurt,
it hurt like she'd been stabbed, but that was a lot less than it did
before and she could deal with it if she had to. And she did. Gingerly,
on three limbs, she crab-walked over to Venus and Moon, who helped her
to stand.


   "Are you okay, Makoto?" asked Moon, lifting her up by the arms to
help support her.


   "I think I'm going to throw up," she replied. Venus and Moon shifted
thier stances so no part of them was in front of her.


   They waited a couple seconds and when Jupiter hadn't vomited in that
time, Venus spoke. "It looks like it won't attack you because it knows
it can't hurt you, and it can't move toward us fast enough to use its
hands. Sailor Moon, I don't quite remember, do you have any magical
attacks that only use your hands?"


   Moon looked off to the left for a second as she thought. "Well, I can
throw my tiara... other than that no, they all use the Moon Rod. Why?"


   Venus nodded. Her hair was still pointing out from her in every
direction; she looked like she'd eaten a Van de Graaf generator. "That's
what I thought. Okay, Jupiter, what I want to do is have you lean away
from the wall just a little so it can see like half of your body. I only
need two fingers to use the Crescent Beam, so I'm going to stand behind
you and try to shoot it without exposing more than my fingertips, and
hope he can't hit those when they're next to you. Think you're up to
it?" Jupiter swallowed audibly, but nodded.


   Venus and Moon helped her most of the way over to the edge of the
wall, then Jupiter hopped out into the monster's field of vision on her
own, sharply inhaling through her teeth with each jump. The monster was
still staring at them, still humming and crackling with power, and when
it saw her it resumed shouting. "STOP WASTING MY TIME! WHY ARE YOU
WASTING MY TIME? STOP WASTING MY TIME! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!" Jupiter
leaned forward and put her left shoulder on the wall, and looked at the
daimon warily.


   "What is this thing's problem?" Venus asked. "Usually they're telling
us their name and how they're going to defeat us and how we're sailor-
brats, or sailor-runts, or smelly-senshi, or something. This thing is
freaking out like we're bothering it in the middle of a test. Okay,
Jupiter, press your right arm to your side."


   Jupiter did as she was asked, and pressed her arm to her side. "I
know, it's acting like we're interrupting this real important job, but
it isn't actually trying to do it. Or trying to move around and attack
you two, or get rid of me." Venus stretched out her arm, reached behind
Jupiter, and pushed her middle and index fingers between Jupiter's arm
and ribs until just the tips were poking out the other side. "And
there's still four guys there, stacking up people for the monster to
drain, even though he isn't doing it. They're not trying anything, it's
like they don't know we're here. Like they can't tell what's going on,
or even talk to each other." She looked down at her armpit, closed one
eye, and looked back up at the daimon. "All right, you're aiming at
him."


   Venus howled "Crescent Beam SMASH!" not even bothering with the
gestures this time. Brilliant yellow energy shot from her fingertips
right above Jupiter's elbow and streaked toward the daimon. What
happened next was over in a fraction of a second, but was so bright that
Jupiter could just study the afterimages it left in her vision to
determine what hapened. The electrical coils had all fired at a point in
space about five meters away from the monster and that's where the
streak the Crescent Beam left in her eyes stopped. She blinked and shook
her head a few times to dispel the afterimages. "Did I get it? What
happened?" asked Venus.


   "No," said Jupiter, "It shocked the beam and dissipated it in midair.
I think. It was real quick."


   Venus scowled. "It's a laser! Lasers don't even work that way!"


   "Electricity doesn't work that way either!" snapped Jupiter in
exasparation. "Oh, wait, hang on, pull your hand back. SPARKLING WIDE
PRESSURE!" Jupiter's arm shot out in front of her and the hallway was
illuminated by pure white light. "Okay, two of them are coming for us,
it can suck up my attacks if they aren't directed at it, pull me back
pull me back PULL ME BACK!"


   Venus yanked Jupiter back into the hallway by the back of her fuku;
she started to fall, but Sailor Moon caught her outstretched arm. A
couple seconds later one of the probably-Mugen students rounded the
corner, blank malice in his eyes, and took a Moon Spiral Heart Attack to
the face for his trouble. Then, after a couple more seconds, the second
student rounded the corner with the same expression, in almost the same
pose, and Sailor Venus kicked him in the chest. He staggered backwards
long enough for Sailor Moon's energies to recharge and give him a Moon
Spiral Heart Attack to the face. There were now five unconscious bodies
laying in the hallway, splayed out on top of each other, in a location
where they couldn't move them for fear of being electrocuted.


* * *


   "You said we were going to go get some lunch, why are we going to the
mall?"


   Dr. Neary shrugged. "They have a Chik-Fil-A in this mall. I like
Chik-Fil-A."


   "I can't stand malls," muttered Dr. Akens, "They're like mausoleums
of thoughtless consumerism. Japanese malls are worse."


   Nadine arched an eyebrow as she opened the door for Phil to usher him
in. "Mausoleums?"


   He rolled his eyes. "Like a monument to thoughtless consumerism, only
it's inside a building and there's a bunch of them."


   She considered it carefully. "Okay, I guess that works." She shut the
door behind them and took the lead, walking purposefully without
consulting a map or guide. "Anyway, we're not just here for Chik-Fil-A,
we're going to hit up a gift shop and buy the Tomoe girl something cute.
Something she'll like to have."


   Phil scoffed. "And will we write on the tag 'By Accepting This Plush
Octopus You Agree To Employment By The Hoffmann Institute'?"


   "Oh, come on. Her parents are dead, her dad tried to blow a hole in
space and time with her, she's got no siblings, she sounded like she
didn't have any friends -- nobody she wanted us to tell that she was
here, that she was safe. She needs people to be kind to her, show her a
little love." Donna was wrong, but neither of them had any way of
knowing that.


   "I know, I know. I'm just... why would he tell us to recruit a 12-
year-old Japanese girl?"


   "Hey, hey, she's 13. That's different." Phil gave her the exasparated
look he got to use so seldomly. "Eh, I don't know. Donna made it sound
like Nakami thought she had some kind of power and that we'd need to use
it more than we'd need to study it."


   "There's that kid in Richmond who can set people on fire with his
mind." Donna nodded. "We put him under surveillance, we never asked him
to join us." Donna shrugged. "What does he think she can do that's
better than that?"


   "Set people on water, maybe? That'd be a neat trick." She sighed. "I
don't like it any more than you do. This girl needs extensive therapy
and instead we've got Bill 'The Government Took My Skynyrd Tapes'
Wheeler up there, lying to her about how she's won a contest and gets to
go on a fun trip or something. But once Nakami gets something in his
head like this, he's not going to let go."


   Phil cracked the hint of a smile. "In his enormous head with his big
black eyes." Nadine giggled, slapped him lightly. A couple of people
jostled into them as they ran by, then a couple more. "Is there like a
band making an appearance here? I swear I hear this, like, tenny-bopper
screaming that OH SHIT."


   That last part Phil had said when he started to look around him and
saw why people were running away and screaming. And as reasons for
people to run and scream go, a four-armed, twelve-foot-tall woman with
hands the size of hubcaps whose entire body was wreathed in flame seemed
like a goddamned good one. Phil and Nadine both silently wished they had
a job that let them scream and run away.


   The burning monster was a couple hundred feet away from them, rushing
back and forth into packs of people. It was grabbing people at random
but it didn't look like it was trying to kill them -- it seared them a
little and then threw them into a pile by the entrance it used. Even
though it had four arms and could carry two people at once, each time it
grabbed one it stopped, held it for a couple seconds, threw it onto the
pile, and then took off in another direction for a new target. It ran
back and forth between crowds, jumped up to the second floor and back
down again, never sticking with one group as long as it could. There
were a couple people the monster seemed to be ignoring right by the
pile, who looked like they were picking people up and stacking them.


   Phil and Nadine were wondering what the hell they were supposed to do
when that question was at once answered and made a lot more complicated.
Two people jumped down from the second floor of shops not five feet in
front of them, a blonde and a blue-hair, both of them wearing what
appeared to be white one-piece swimsuits with miniskirts attached.


   "The herald of a new age, I am Sailor Uranus!" shouted the blonde on
the right.


   "And I am Sailor Neptune, appearing elegantly," said the blue-haired
one on the left.


   "Oh, hell," muttered the old black man and the short half-Korean
doctor standing behind them.


* * *


   Behind the three Senshi, the doors to the stairwell opened up, and
out came Sailor Mars, panting, bruised, and disheveled. "Where's Hotaru-
chan?" called Sailor Moon immediately, but Mars waited until she'd
walked over to the other three, and took a second to catch her breath.


   "They got to her before we did." Pant, pant. "The room was a mess --
she must have put up a hell of a fight, the shelves were knocked around,
bed was beaten to hell, two unconscious people on the floor, hospital
gowns. One looked like he had a Mugen class ring, we think she must have
fought those two off, before another one grabbed her."


   Venus and Moon arched their eyebrows and asked, "Wait, Hotaru did
that?"


   "I can't think of anyone else who would. Mercury..." she paused to
gasp for air, "Mercury tried to track her with her computer, but there's
too much electrical interference or something. But someone -- who may be
the 'World's Greatest Aunt' -- broke a mug of hot chocolate in there and
it was still hot, so we had to have just missed her. Would have... would
have looked for her but we got attacked right after."


   "Is there another daimon in the hospital?" asked Moon, panic rising
in her voice. If the daimon in the lobby was going to be the average for
today, they had serious problems.


   "No, no." Her breath was coming back. "People, they were -- you know
what, I'm just going to call creepy hypnotized people 'Mugens' even if
we don't know they went to the school. Like four Mugens came out of the
stairwell after we did and came at us. Fire doesn't have a 'stun'
setting and we couldn't kill them so I was punching them while Ami was
using her magic. We got that group under control pretty quickly, but
then five more came out of the elevator. Then while we were fighting
them, two more from around the corner, and then another four from the
back stairs. I think every Mugen in the building came for us."


   "Was it an ambush?" asked Venus.


   "No, they all were suprised to see us, and they kept getting in each
other's way duiring the fight, and they would all try to get into room
409 before they started really going at us even though we were outside
it. It's like they all just thought nobody else was going to get Hotaru
so they had to do it, and they all showed up at once. Anyway, it took us
a while, and by the time we dealt with the last ones the first ones were
coming back to consciousness, but we got them stuffed into a supply
closet and we tipped over an ice machine in front of it. Ami was going
to check on the other floors and see if anyone needed help getting out
and I ran down here to see if you needed any." She paused and looked
downward. "Sailor Moon, where did your other shoe go?"


   Moon and Venus stepped to the side to reveal Jupiter laying down
behind them. She raised her arm weakly and gave a thumbs-up.


   "We've got some kind of super-Daimon down here" said Venus. "Hits us
with a bolt of lightning if we expose ourselves to it, luckily it's too
big to move around and chase us. Can't hurt Sailor Jupiter, but..." she
looked down at Jupiter on the floor, whimpering at a volume she thought
the others couldn't hear. "but her Sailor Transformation took her leg
cast off and it almost hurts too much for her to move. She's using that
boot to hold it in place but it's not as good as she needs it to be. And
her lightning attacks can't hurt it, either. The Daimon was extracting
Heart Crystals out of everyone in the lobby, now it's just waiting on us
and shouting we should hurry up. There's two uh, Mugens out there with
it, but they haven't come for us."


   Mars contemplated for a second. "Did you try standing behind Jupiter
and firing at it?"


   Moon shook her head and frowned. "Venus had that idea, but it zapped
her Crescent Beam out of the air."


   Mars stopped for a second. "Wait, I thought the Crescent Beam was a
laser?"


   Venus threw her hands in the air and exclaimed "I know!"


   "Okay, okay, pull me back up, I've got an idea," said Jupiter from
the floor. Venus and Moon reached down to help her get to her foot.
"Okay, from what I can see is that all of those electro-coils he's
shooting power out of are on his arms and shoulders. The ones on his
shoulders are caught in the ceiling and they can't hit anything, and if
he was standing up the with his arms at his sides the arms would cover
everything, but he's bent down and his arms are out in front of him like
a gorilla and they don't cover as much."


   "So we leave out the back exit and come around through the front
while he's facing you?" asked Venus.


   "No, no," Jupiter shook her head. "The entrance isn't on the opposite
wall from this hallway, and he can still cover a wide area. And the
other two walls don't have any doors that link to the rest of the
hospital. You could shoot him but you'd have to do it from directly
behind. Moon, is that Moon Rod made out of metal? Or plastic?"


   Moon felt its weight in her hands, rapped it lightly against the back
of her hand. "Uh, I think it's made out of love. It feels pretty solid."


   "Do you think that things made of love conduct electricity?"


   "Not that I can remeber, no."


   "Okay," said Jupiter, "Do you mind if I borrow it?"


   "Why do you need the Moon Rod, Jupiter?" asked Venus.


   "Because it's not made of metal and it's not made of something
breakable," said Jupiter as one continuous sigh. "I'm going to get in
there and go to the far wall and get it to face me. When I do, I'm going
to call to you guys and that's when you pop out from behind that corner
and give it both barrels, and hopefully destroy it." She glanced at the
rod. "I need the rod because there's two Mugens still out there and if
they attack me I'd like to have a weapon that I can carry, that won't
get me zapped, and won't snap when I smash it against someone's head."


   "I don't think it was meant to be used like that..." Sailor Moon
looked down at the rod in her hand, "...but if you need it, then you
need it, Mako-chan." She placed the enchanted scepter of the Moon
Kingdom into the hands of someone planning to use it as a billy club and
smiled.


   "All right. Carry me as far as you can, but don't peek around until I
shout for you. And if you see Ami... ask her where they keep the
painkillers here. The ones they have to lock up." They carried her to
the edge of the hallway, and she experimentally poked the Moon Rod
around the corner; when it wasn't struck by lightning, she started
hopping her way into the lobby.


   The monster appeared not to have moved from its position, and when it
saw Jupiter it started yelling "WHY HAVEN'T YOU GONE AWAY YET? WHY ARE
YOU MAKING ME DEAL WITH THIS! YOU'RE DELAYING THINGS! GO AWAY!" Jupiter
wondered what it would do if she really did leave, as the creature had
seen her vanish behind the wall and yet had not resumed whatever it was
doing that was so important. Next to it was a stack of unconscious
people, three wide, waiting on the daimon to drain their pure hearts.
Everyone in the room had been assembled into the stack, save for the six
or so that had already been drained, and the stack was now about thigh-
high -- really too big to stay together on its own; the Mugen who had
been piling them together was now just picking up the same two people
who kept falling off the top and placing them back on the top, where
they fell off within seconds. Occasionally someone started to wake up,
and the Mugen punched him or her in the head until they stopped moving
again. The other Mugen was walking back and forth, looking under the
seats and benches as if checking for people he missed. He was also
looking underneath magazines and handbags and potted plants, so maybe he
was looking for very tiny people he missed.


   Jupiter hopped, slowly even for someone hopping on one foot, into the
lobby. She kept a wide berth around the daimon -- she was pretty damn
sure she wasn't immune to an electricty-monster punching her. Or
snapping her like a toothpick, which he could damn well do with those
massive hands. She hopped a slow circle around the creature, wishing
that she was shorter or the Moon Rod longer so she could use it as a
cane. The daimon continued to shout "GO AWAY! GO AWAY! SHUT UP AND GO
AWAY!" at her, and rotate its head to keep her in sight, but once she'd
made 30 degrees of the circle around it she realized it was not rotating
its body to face her. She wouldn't be much use if SHE was behind it,
because those damn generator-arms of its could draw away her lightning
attacks from a much greater distance and wider angle than they stopped
Venus's Crescent Beam from. She waited for Mugen Number 2 to pass her by
as if she didn't exist, then picked up the issue of Rolling Stone he'd
just lifted up and looked beneath for the fourth time. She put her hand
on the bottom corner, pointed the spine at the daimon, and gave it a
fling. The pages flapped open as the magazine turned end over end, and
then John Entwhistle on the front and the bottle of Absolut vodka on the
back were both incinerated by a burst of electricity from the daimon's
arms. "YOU'RE NOT DOING ANYTHING! WHY WON'T YOU STOP DOING IT?" it
hollered, but obviously it thought she did do soemthing as it moved its
arms around and started to rotate its body by pulling in a circle on the
floor. The two Mugens looked up at her as if she had not already been in
the room for a good five minutes.


   Mugen #2 was closer to her and without a snarl or a growl, just the
same unchanging nonspecific loathing, he charged at her. Jupiter grabbed
a bench with her right arm and pulled herself out of his path while her
left arm swung the Moon Rod into his face. She caught him in the jaw
with a satisfying CRACK and he veered away from her but he didn't fall.
Mugen #1 had to run in a circle around the daimon's legs and on the way
it looked like he'd picked up an old man's cane, which he was holding
aloft like Excaliber. He closed the gap to her and swung it at her neck
with both hands, she swung at it with the Moon Rod in only one. The
instant they collided the wooden cane snapped in two, Mugen #1's half
continuing on its path downward and to the left and Jupiter's half
smacking her in the face and spraying her with shards of wood. Mugen #1
had overextended himself after the swing, and with one eye still closed
because of the sawdust Jupiter bashed him on the back of the head with
the base of the Moon Rod.


   Mugen #2, recovered and re-oriented, charged Jupiter from her left.
She swung at him again, aiming for his throat, but the angle was awkward
and he easily ducked it. He went into a baseball-slide position and
kicked her right in her broken leg with his full running momentum, and
this time she did throw up. A stream of putrid yellowish-green liquid,
filled with the remnants of this morning's oatmeal and the Twix bar
she'd got out of the vending machine a couple hours ago, surged forth
from her mouth and coated the front of her fuku as well as the kneeling
form of Mugen #1. It didn't really feel all that worse than it had
before, to Jupiter's perception, in fact the pain seemed a bit duller
than just a moment ago. But the fact she was vomiting, her vision had
whited out, she'd dropped the Rod and fallen to the floor and was
shrieking incoherently, all said that her relative peace might indicate
she was in more pain then she could actually comprehend. She didn't even
know that was possible.


   She felt a hand on her arm, then she felt herself being moved, and
guessed it was Mugen #2 dragging her along the floor to throw on the
pile. Her voluntary muscle movement was back, that only took a few
seconds, but her eyes still weren't giving her anything. Not wanting to
wait and get dragged within arm's reach of the daimon, she reached
across her chest to grab the arm holding her, wiggled it slightly to get
an idea of where the torso it was attached to was, and then yanked it
toward her. She threw up her elbow to where she thought the man's head
would land but she was working blind and misguessed and the man's head
landed in the middle of her chest. He might have even liked it if he had
all his mental faculties, and her chest wasn't coated in vomit. He
started to push up off of her but she grabbed him by the head with one
hand, shouted "Sparkling Wide..." and then punched him in the neck with
the hand that her attack was charging in. He twitched, and she twitched
because she was touching him, but after they were done twitching he had
stopped moving and she still could. Theoretically.


   She rolled him off of her and put a hand over her eyes. "WHY ARE YOU
STILL HERE? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? WHY WON'T YOU GO AWAY?" yelled the
daimon.


   "Are you still back there?" shouted Jupiter over the monster's
whining.


   "Mars went to do another sweep and make sure everyone is out,"
shouted Moon's voice back. "What's happening? Are you okay?"


   Jupiter moaned slightly. "No, no I'm not okay. It might take me a
minute or two to get back up. And I threw up on your Moon Rod. But me
and Whiny Shocker are all that's left here."


   "I forgive you," said Moon, way too quickly.


   "Okay, just, just give me a minute, okay?" The pain was fading, and
when it was fading from 'incomprehensible' that meant it was fading into
'comprehensible and ludicrously severe'. Jupiter tried to concentrate on
her breathing, concentrate on something that wasn't the pain in her leg.
That wasn't easy when it felt like her lower leg stretched up to her
collarbone and some enterprising advertiser has secretly replaced her
bone marrow with molten magma and then turned to the camera and said
'let's watch'. She wiped away more tears of pain and pretended they were
laughter.


   Her vision was back, if blurry, and she hiked herself up on her
elbows and looked around. Neither of the Mugens was getting up, and the
monster had not turned away from her, it was still shouting for her to
leave, or stop bothering it, or stop doing things in general. And she
would have been glad to if there hadn't been a pile of people next to it
it was going to vacuum the hearts out of.


   She looked at the edge of one of the benches and briefly considered
using it to stand back up; when she realized that she would rather shoot
herself in the head with a gun that shot steam locomotives than stand up
again she rejected that plan. She rolled over slightly and grabbed
another magazine -- a National Geographic with a meerkat on the cover --
and slipped it underneath her left heel so it would slide across the
floor easier, and she began to drag herself to her destination with her
elbows, pausing whenever she passed a magazine to throw it at the
monster and make sure it was still following her. It did, dragging
itself with its hands to follow the movements of her dragging herself
with her arms, all the while shouting its complaints and questions.


   Eventually she made it to the other side of the lobby without
crossing within range of it, she could see the entrance of the hallway
where Venus and Moon and maybe the others were, and all of the monster's
generator coils were pointed at her. But she hesitated. She couldn't
help it. This monster put her through hell and she needed a little
personal satisfaction. So she waited until the monster shouted "WHY ARE
YOU DOING THIS?"


   Just so she could shout back "Because you never shut up, that's why!
VENUS! MOON! HIT IT NOW!"


* * *


   "Bill, you said this was a mixtape, are there any songs on this that
aren't 'Free Bird'?" Donna slapped the "off" button on the car stereo in
disgust rather than switching to the radio. She mashed the 'eject'
button on the tape deck with her thumb, meaning to throw the tape out
the window, but apparently Bill became a damn mongoose when his Skynyrd
tapes were in danger and he snatched it away from her in the blink of an
eye.


   "Okay, that was three blocks and that looks like the mall, so take a
right here," said Hotaru from the passenger's seat. She tipped to the
left which told her that Donna had followed her directions again -- and
she'd never complained once! About the directions, anyway.


   "So, you're saying that if you got a New York strip steak," said Bill
as he waggled the tape a bit before he slipped it in his pocket, "you'd
rather put butterscotch on it than steak sauce because it's
'different'?" He looked at Hotaru for some support; she didn't giggle,
but she felt like she might have, theoretically. "Because that's what
I'm hearing you say."


   "Wow, Bill. You've broken your previous record for 'car with feet', I
do believe that is the stupidest analogy ev-- LOOK OUT!" Donna stood on
the brake, a pedal to which she was not usually accustomed, and the car
screeched to a halt. Hotaru was held in her seat by the safety belt, and
Bill collided facefirst with the back of her seat with a 'thud'.


   Nobody had to ask why she stopped, it was the same reason that there
weren't any cars behind her honking their horns or swerving past her and
giving her the finger (though in Japan they rarely did that anyway). It
was because there was a gigantic woman -- ten feet easy -- with no hair,
armor made of scuffed and dented galvanized steel, safety-cone orange
skin threaded through with what looked like piping, cable, and rebar, a
black star on her forehead, and a massive pneumatic piledriver replacing
her right arm below the elbow. There were two piles of people, one on
either side of her, and she picked up someone from the larger pile on
the right with her non-piston hand, caused it to glow as she pulled
something out of him, then dropped him on the pile on her left. At her
sides a couple of people scurried about and straightened the piles.


   "That's a monster," said Donna.


   "That's a monster," agreed Bill.


   "That's a daimon," said Hotaru like she regretted it. "They're what
the Pharaoh 90 sends to gather pure hearts from people."


   Bill didn't gloat even though he was totally right and Donna was
totally wrong about her story, there would be time for that later.
Instead he said, "It's bad, I'm going to shoot it." He grabbed a handful
of rifle bullets out of the seat, stuffed them into his jacket pocket,
and jumped out of the car with his Mosin Nagant in hand.


   The sighting on the scope was useless since at least two people had
sat on it, but the monster was across the street and he didn't need a
damn scope. Bill waited until he saw both humans' and the monster's
backs were turned (they seemed not to notice him but best not to take
any chances), then he rolled from behind the van, dropped to one knee,
braced the rifle against his shoulder, and fired.


   The daimon-monster's head snapped forward, but not far enough, and
when it came back up again bullet fragments fell out of the little
bloodless pit they made in the back of it's head. "Bulletproof," he
muttered, "I should have guessed."


   The monster whirled in place to face him and pointed with her left
hand. It shouted something in Japanese -- Hotaru was the only one to
recognize it as "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? WHY AREN'T YOU GOING AWAY?" It
started to run at him, the ground shaking with her every step. Oddly
neither of her "attendants" seemed to notice, and they were just
concerned with straightening the human piles that kept falling apart
with her ground-shaking steps.


   Bill jumped on the back bumper of the van and shouted "PUNCH IT!",
the tires squealed, and a massive metal piledriver passed through the
space where his head was about half a second before. He held on to the
rear-doorhandle for balance, fearing if he opened it he'd fall off the
narrow rear bumper.


   The monster turned and chased after the car, yelling "I DON'T HAVE
TIME FOR THIS! YOU ARE WASTING MY TIME!" but making no attempt to break
off pursuit. Her legs were long, but heavy, and with the lack of traffic
Donna quickly got a five-block gap between them. That's the point when
she pulled an abrupt 180 and sent Bill rolling off his perch and into
the curb. At the same time, the passenger-side door opened and out
hopped Hotaru, holding a Japanese road atlas in one hand and her
transformation pen in the other. Almost before her feet touched the road
the van took off with a squeal of rubber and drove straight at the
monster.


   "Oh, this is stupid," muttered Bill. Hotaru nodded her assent.


   The van actually managed a speed of 40 miles per hour or so, and the
monster running at least ten, when Donna yanked on the handbrake and
spun the wheel to her right and sent the car into a slide. She opened
the door and stepped out as coolly and calmly as if the car had been
standing still and a second later, the van and the daimon collided,
rolling backward down the center line of the road, emitting shrieks of
pain and a horrible grinding noise of metal on metal. Donna kissed the
back of her knuckles and threw her hand up in the air in the 'V for
Victory' sign, walking calmly toward Bill and Hotaru.


   When she heard the monster's massive piston-arm fire and blast the
wrecked heap of the van away from her, Donna broke into a sprint.


   "STOP IT! STOP IT! YOU'RE NOT DOING ANYTHING! GO AWAY!" shouted the
monster as it rose from the tangled heap of machinery, and it was clear
that Donna had done something. Her left arm was chopped off above the
elbow and the stump oozed a thick purplish glop. Several pieces of the
car's frame were piercing through her torso, her right eye has been
gouged out along with a good chunk of her head. Still she ran at them
once more, howling "SHUT UP! IT DOESN'T WORK! SHUT UP!"


   Hotaru winced and after two seconds of thought that lasted forever,
dropped the road atlas to the sidewalk, took a deep breath, and called
out, "Saturn Planet Power, Make Up!" She was bathed in flashing,
multicolored light, wreathed in ancient energy, and within seconds she
was remade. She was taller, older, and she stood in the stance of a
confident warrior but her eyes were two purple and black pools of terror
and doubt. Her flimsy hospital gown was gone, replaced by a white fuku
with a dark purple skirt. Dark boots went up to her knees, white gloves
went to her elbows. A large purple bow was on her chest, adorned by a
many-pointed gemstone. On her head rested a golden tiara, and in her
hand was a long pole attached to a deadly-looking twin-headed blade.


   Bill looked at her with complete confusion. Donna looked at her with
a face that was too contorted by running for her life and yelling "SHIT!
SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT!" to adequately express complete confusion. The
daimon was still shouting and chasing Donna but didn't look at her at
all. For a horrid moment Hotaru felt as if she was in a play and she had
forgotten her lines. Then after a second she yelled,


   "The herald of catastrophe, I am Sailor Saturn!"






---




* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* B O N U S   C O N T E N T *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


HOFFMANN INSTITUTE AGENT NUMBER S-0014407
NAME: TRUITT, DONNA KIMBERLY


AGE: 31
PREV. ASSOCIATION: Central Intelligence Agency (Governmental, Espionage)
ASSIGNMENT: Investigation & Response Team Rho


HISTORY: Donna Truitt was recruited by the CIA shortly after graduating
from college (UC Santa Cruz -- go Banana Slugs) to be an infiltration
and extraction expert. Shortly after her training, she found she could
not do the jobs asked of her by the government and resigned. She sold
her skills as a professional thief on the black market, but only to
those who she believed would not use the things she stole to harm
others, and neither would she steal from people who she believed it
would actually harm. Needless to say, her business was incredibly slim,
and most of her jobs were aborted halfway through after finding out some
unpleasant detail about the person who hired a shadowy professional
thief on the black market to steal something.


Mrs. Truitt joined the Institute after being involved in an October 1992
incident that concerned the summoning of an ice-demon at a rural Idaho
truck stop, where she had stopped while fleeing a previous employer.


PSYCHOLOGY: Donna Truitt is massively insecure. Far moreso than the
other three insecure members of I&R Team Rho. She has built an ideal of
herself as a limitlessly-cool, vastly-skilled, utterly ice-hearted
professional and hates every part of herself that doesn't live up to
this. She hated herself for her inability to kill people for the CIA,
and for her inability to steal from orphans, and constantly is driven to
prove herself as living up to this imaginary and sociopathic ideal --
but finds herself incapable. Reacts with great hostility to any
percieved attempt to mock her for her shortcomings as well as any
attempt by others to act as if they are superior to her.


Skilled enough at 'infiltration and extraction' to warrant retaining,
and Institute business seldom conflicts with her moral code enough to
cause problems. Needs to be surrounded by a team to keep her in check
and provide an outlet for combative urges. A team of three or four
mentally healthy individuals would have smothered her in her sleep by
now.


SPECIES: Human
PROFESSION: Free Agent
ACHIEVMENT LEVEL: 5


STR 09 [+0]  INT 12 [+1]
DEX 12 [+2]  WIL 09 [+1]
CON 08       PER 10


Second Sight   [4]: After an aggravating fiasco in Spokane, Washington
involving a warlock making heavy use of 'glamours', Donna has been
trained in the ability to see through illusions. She recieves a -1 step
bonus on any skill roll to pierce an illusion, and is always entitled to
a WIL feat check to pierce illusion even if the skill normally allows
none.
Code of Honor [+3]: Donna talks a big game and plays herself off as cool
and callous, but deep down she cares too much. Donna will not knowingly
perform an act to harm someone, directly or indirectly, who she does not
believe had hurt or is trying to hurt her. And if she inadvertantly or
throuh inaction causes harm to come to those she percieves as 'innocent'
she must work to make it right again, even and especially when such
behavior is a huge pain in the ass for her and her teammates. Note this
generally applies to people she doesn't know, which is why if one of her
teammates were to point out or mention this code of honor, she would hit
them.
Temper        [+4]: Donna cannot -- CANNOT -- stand having her skill
questioned, and neither can she abide people making her out to be their
inferior. When exposed to such behavior in all but the most minor way,
she becomes irate and belligerent, acting without thinking, and suffers
a +2 step penalty to most actions until she calms down or the offender
apologizes (and she believes it).
Clueless      [+4]: Donna is nowhere near as good at the art ofseduction
as she thinks she is. She keeps trying it, though, playing into her own
fantasies of being the femme fatale, the erotic assassin. Nobody else on
the team will tell her why she keeps failing because that's the ticket
to a half-hour berating session. Donna has a +2 step penalty on all
Interaction -- Seduce skill checks.


Combat Information:
Weapon:       Score:   Range:   Damage (O/G/A):   Type:
Unarmed       14/7/3 Personal     d6s/d6+2s/d4w    LI/O
.45 1911A1 12/6/3 +1  6/12/40   d4+1w/d4+2w/d4m    HI/O
Coffee Mug 14/7/3 +1 Personal d6+2s/d6+3s/d4+1w LI+En/O


Action Check: 15+/14/7/3
Durability: 08 / 08 / 04 / 04
Actions Per Round: 2
Last Resort Points: 2


Athletics                  [09/4/2]
> Climb 1                  [10/5/2]
> Jump 2                   [11/5/2]
Unarmed Attack             [09/4/2]
> Power Martial Arts 1     [10/5/2]
Acrobatics                 [12/6/3]
> Defensive Martial Arts 2 [14/7/3]
> Dodge 2                  [14/7/3]
Manipulation               [12/6/3]
> Lockpick 1               [13/6/3]
Modern Ranged Weapons      [12/6/3]
Stealth                    [12/6/3]
> Sneak 1                  [13/6/3]
Vehicle Operation          [12/6/3]
> Land Vehicle (Car) 1     [13/6/3]
Stamina                    [08/4/2]
> Endurance 1              [09/4/2]
Knowledge                  [12/6/3]
> Computer Operation 1     [13/6/3]
Security                   [12/6/3]
> Security Devices 2       [14/7/3]
Awareness                  [09/4/2]
> Intuition 1              [10/5/2]
> Perception 1             [10/5/2]
Deception                  [10/5/2]
> Bluff 2                  [12/6/3]
Interaction                [10/5/2]
> Seduce 2                 [12/6/3 +2]
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