[FFML] [Sailor Moon] Double Exposure 5 [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.


   Special thanks to Pavel for providing Russian translations that he
will probably be the only one to ever read but that I demanded anyway.



* * * * *



   "Iron Butterfly to Lead Zeppelin, come in Lead Zeppelin." Donna's
voice, tinny and crackly, came out of a speaker set into Sailor V's
bright plastic mouth. They'd rather use actual two-way radios instead
of walkie-talkies shaped like children's cartoon characters, but
actual two-way radios are expensive and they could barely afford
these.


   Nadine picked up the toy and depressed the 'Talk' button in Sailor
V's ear. "This is Lead Zeppelin, go ahead Iron Butterfly." The toy's
antenna, wrapped in soft blue plastic, drooped and jiggled with each
motion of her hand.


   "I'm at the junction box now. Is Jefferson Starship in position?"


   Nadine glanced behind her to see Bill and Hotaru standing just
around the corner from the Foreign Affairs Intelligence Analysis
Bureau building, Bill dragging a hand truck loaded with boxes, Hotaru
wearing his jacket that reached down to her ankles. He was giving her
a few more random Russian phrases to memorize while both of them
waited for her to give the signal.


   "Jefferson Starship is in the launch position and waiting for your
go-ahead."


   "Copy that," Donna's voice crackled back, "Cutting lines in
five..."


   Nadine looked back again, raised one finger, and pointed toward the
storehouse. Bill and Hotaru nodded and started walking forward.
"Jefferson Starship is inbound," said Nadine into the walkie-talkie,
"Operation Glass Firefly is go."


   From the passenger seat, Phil scoffed. "I still cannot believe you
wanted to name this 'Operation Slow Ride'."


   "Oh, so now it's a big deal to you? I didn't complain about
'Operation Seal Ion' and that doesn't even make sense."


   "That's the point, see!" said Phil as he leaned in toward her,
"It's a pun! 'Operation Sea LION' is the reason operation names no
longer have anything to do with what they are, and 'Operation Seal
ION' is just gibberish, but it sounds like... you see?"


   Nadine shrugged. "So, that doesn't make it any better than
'Operation Slow Ride'. Slow Ride's a great song!"


   Donna cut the phone access to the building. Bill and Hotaru threw
open the front doors and barged into the front office of an MiB-
controlled facility like they owned the place. And out in the car,
Nadine drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.


   "Slo-ow ride... dah-da dah, dah-nah, dah-nah-nah... Take it ea-
say..."


* * * SAILOR.MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE

CHAPTER 5: DOUBLE-CHECK * * *



OUTSIDE JAPANESE FOREIGN AFFAIRS INTELLIGENCE BUREAU ADMINISTRATIVE
OFFICE #23
TOKYO, JAPAN SUNDAY FEBRUARY 20, 1995, 7:48 PM


   Tomoe Hotaru's heart was racing, her hands sweating inside her
elegant white gloves. She was about to rob a government facility with
two people who are, essentially, total strangers, so some anxiety is
understandable. But that's not the only reason behind this reaction.


   Tomoe Hotaru was excited. She knew she shouldn't have been, but she
couldn't help it. What she was doing was wrong, and not just in the
sense that it was against the law, but in the sense that it was really
stupid. Earlier today she'd been unconscious in a hospital bed and
dreaming of a nightmare wonderland on the Moon where all things both
respected and reviled her, and now she was committing crimes with
random idiots. Crimes that may very well be pointless as they have no
way of knowing if what they want is really here. They have a plan that
will almost certainly go wrong at some point and end in screaming,
running, and shooting. What she's doing is stupid.


   But it's what SHE was doing. Standing on the sidewalk with an old
Army surplus coat on over her Sailor Saturn outfit, her tiara stuffed
in her pocket, repeating back random Russian phrases to an unstable-
looking white man, she felt more in control of her situation than she
had in a very long time. She wasn't here because it was her destiny,
she wasn't here because Kaolinite or her father or the dark powers he
served wanted her to be here. She was here because something she
wanted was here and she wanted to get it. Nobody told her she couldn't
and nobody stopped her, and nobody forced her to either.


   When the four faux-FBI agents were formulating plans that involved
bomb threats or flaming dumpsters or ammonium nitrate, they didn't
make her become an accomplice. And when she offered up her opinion
that they didn't have to break in to get past security, but make it so
security would rather let them in than deal with the alternative, they
had listened and they agreed. And they formulated a plan that was at
least 50% or more hers -- they let her name it, and not as a token
gesture of pity either. It was because they didn't like the name Dr.
Neary came up with, but Hotaru still considers that better than pity.
And now that plan was being put into effect.


   Hotaru, being a very well-read and intelligent girl, knows that it
is juvenile to feel this sense of liberation from being allowed her
own stupid actions. And yet she feels liberated all the same.


   Dr. Neary gave them the signal and Hotaru and Bill nodded back,
then walked in to the building like they had every right to be there.
That's what their whole plan was, act like they belong, and it's the
kind of thing Hotaru read about in books and wished she could do. She
thought she never could, until she realized she was just about to. The
thought that she could have that kind of audacity was terrifying and
exhilarating. Was it too late to back out now, to change her mind, to
make Dr. Neary or Dr. Akens take her part? She was inside the front
door, yes it was.


   Inside the building was a small room with one other door and one
elevator. On the far wall was a fake mahogany desk, behind which sat a
security guard in a cheap, black suit, alternating his attention
between his computer monitor and his issue of 'Shonen Jump'. Hotaru's
fingers were shaking and her throat was stiffening, and there was no
way the guard didn't see how scared she was and why did she ever think
she could do this why didn't she turn around and leave why did she
have to speak up why couldn't she let them try and crack the place by
ramming a dumpster filled with flaming garbage into the front door? At
least then when they failed it would be their fault and not hers!


   The guard laid his magazine down on the desk with one finger in it
to keep his page. "Can I help you, ma'am?" he said in the most
disaffected voice he could manage.


   She froze for a good two seconds, then she stared at him with eyes
and a smile that were both too wide. "Yes, hello there!" She turned
back and gestured at Bill, who was trying to get the hand truck he was
dragging over the ridge of the doorway. "This is Officer Vladimir
Zolstakov, and I'm his interpreter," she stopped to think of a name
for an amount of time that she was sure made him suspicious,
"Minaguchi Yuko. Officer Zolstakov is here for the case involving Dr.
Tomoe."


   Bill leaned forward and extended a hand. "Kak tolko ty nas pustish,
ya napolnyu eti yashiki kradennym," he said with a warm smile.


   The security guard looked at Bill's hand for a few seconds, then
tentatively extended his own to meet it. Bill's handshake was
vigorous, long, and very, very firm. When it concluded, the guard
wiped his hand off on his shirt, then tapped at his keyboard for a few
moments. "I'm sorry... Minaguchi-san, but there's no mention of any
Officer Zolstakov here."


   She put her hand to her chest to show just how shocked she was, and
instantly knew she'd oversold it, that the man could see right through
her. "That's impossible! Officer Zolstakov has been working very
closely with the FBI on this case from the beginning, we're bringing
over all of Spetznaz's records that pertain to this group..." She
turned back to Bill, pointed at him, and pieced together some Russian-
sounding gibberish. "Nyet, ved tzorko gorojye... gorojye bryn!"


   Bill immediately looked outraged and personally insulted by the
security guard in the bad suit. The words Hotaru had just said were
meaningless and he had no idea what the Japanese conversation they
were having meant, he just knew that when Hotaru pointed at him and
said her Russian gobbledygook it was time to get angry. He exhaled
heavily and pushed his way past his 'interpreter', stomping up to the
desk and shouting "Vot, i esho zapihayu tebe zhvachki v zamochnuyu
skvazhinu!" He pulled a laminated card from his wallet with a great
flourish and slammed it on the counter, pointing at it and saying "Eh?
Eh?"


   The card was actually a laminated gym membership, for a gym in
Kiev, that expired a year ago. But the card was in color, it had his
picture on it, the stylized bicep in the background looked kind of
like a stylized and intimidating-looking claw, and all the writing was
in the Cyrillic alphabet. A Japanese guy who doesn't speak or read
either Russian or Ukrainian and has no idea what a Spetznaz ID card
would look like could easily be fooled.


   Hotaru pulled back on his arm, very relieved that the focus was
momentarily on him and not on her. "Nyet, Vladimir, nyet! Y dih kunyeh
zochinyu!" Bill stepped away from the desk and let the guard study his
gym membership card, as if he could actually understand it.


   "I'm sorry, sir," he said after a few moments of intense scrutiny,
"but I can't let you in without proper authorization."


   "Then could you call the Director and ask him yourself?" asked
Hotaru, trying desperately to get caught up in the moment. "Officer
Zolstakov just got off a very long flight, we were separated and he
was held up in customs for hours with no interpreter, our taxicab
couldn't find the right neighborhood, and now his name is not in the
system... It's been a very long day and we would like to finish this
and get to our hotel as soon as we can."


   "Da ya tebe mogu chto ugodno kalyakat. Ty vso ravno menya ne
ponimayesh!" added Bill.


   The guard picked up the phone and punched in two numbers before he
realized the line was dead. "I'm sorry... our phone does not appear to
be working right now..." and in that moment Hotaru had the horrid
realization that the man had a cell phone, of course he had a cell
phone, they were in Tokyo for Pete's sake, and he reached down to his
pocket and he pulled up his radio. "Itsuki-san, are your phones
working?"


   A pause, and then a voice came back, "Nope, actually, I can't get a
dial tone."


   "We did see an automobile accident close by here on our way over,"
said Hotaru, "maybe one of the cars took out a phone line? The public
works people will probably have it fixed by tomorrow."


   The guard frowned. "Itsuki-san, do you know anything about a man
named Vladimir Zolstakov who's supposed to come by here?"


   The radio crackled again. "You know they don't tell me anything,
Fuyoshi-san."


   Hotaru turned around and 'explained' the situation with more chunks
of random Slav-ish syllables. Bill listened to the whole thing,
nodding and making grunts of comprehension. When she was done, he
pointed at 'Fuyoshi' the security guard and said "Kstati, vsem vidno
chto tvoy pidzhak --- pricepka," in the way someone might explain
something to a particularly slow Russian toddler.


   "Officer Zolstakov and I are both very tired and we need to sleep.
He would like to know if there is any way we could just drop these
records off and call back in the morning when everything is sorted
out?" Hotaru fidgeted, rubbed her heel on her toe, and she knew that
he saw it and the jig was up. Her stomach plummeted, her skin flushed
with cold water, and she could barely speak around the weight of her
tongue. "Some of... these materials are very sensitive and we wouldn't
be comfortable leaving them around in, in an unsecured hotel room."


   Fuyoshi the Security Guard thought it over and Hotaru thought she
was going to pass out. This was it, this was the moment of truth, and
she KNEW she'd blown it. What was supposed to happen was the guard
would feel intimidated but not directly threatened by a strange man
speaking Russian loudly and angrily at him, be given a situation in
which he didn't have enough information to make a decision, credibly
believe he could get in trouble either way, and choose the option that
delayed the unpleasantness until later. That wasn't what was
happening, though. He was on to them, she could see it in the
suspicious cast over his eyes. He knew Spetznaz wasn't involved in
this, he knew that this wasn't even the kind of thing Spetznaz did,
and he was just giving them enough rope to hang themselves. He saw how
nervous she was, how unsure her speech and action, and he'd sniffed
out her deception instantly.


   Why was she even doing this? This wasn't the kind of thing she did
at all! Tomoe Hotaru reads books and collects antique lamps, she
doesn't get arrested and maybe executed for posing as a Spetznaz
interpreter! That was the kind of thing she read about, and even then,
she didn't read about it that often! All she did was overhear some
other people making up wild and crazy plots to get in and they were
just going around in circles so they asked her what she thought and
she only thought she had to humor them so she answered with something
from a spy novel she'd read and then all of sudden they turned to her
like she knew what she was doing and she'd been too stupidly,
childishly excited by the fact that people would actually give her
that kind of attention to realize how incredibly stupid it was until
it was far too late! And now it was over! The guard was going for the
button to summon the police squad right now!


   The guard reached under the desk and tapped a button. On the side
of the room, the elevator doors opened with a low 'buzz'. "Okay, go on
up. It's on the fourth floor, third door on the right. But come right
back down!" Hotaru almost didn't hear him over the thunderous rushing
of blood in her ears.


   "Oh... Okay, thank you," she squeaked out of her cotton-filled
throat. She turned around to Bill and gave the 'okay' signal with her
hands, saying a few more gibberish words. Bill looked at the guard,
gave him a 'thumbs-up' and the broadest, fakest smile Hotaru had ever
seen, and the two of them quickly walked into the open elevator.


   Hotaru pushed the button, the doors slid closed, and the two of
them let out enormous sighs of relief. In unison they turned to each
other and said "I did not think that was going to work!" Then they
laughed, nervously.


   "I guess you were right," said Bill, "if they don't know what the
FBI does they don't know what Spetznaz does either." He pulled a stick
of gum out of his pocket and started to chew it.


   "Yeah," said Hotaru, still nervously chuckling with disbelief, "I
guess they don't!"


* * *


   Hino Rei gazed intently into the flickering flames, repeating
mantras in a dull murmur, her hands endlessly shifting between sutras.
With rapt attention she stared at the tongues of orange and red that
danced before her eyes, eager to drink in their secrets. Hino Rei was
not truly a pyromaniac, but here while she read the fire, she could
easily see the attraction.


   Divining the future was always a difficult business, for Time is an
unstable artiste and she hates to let her work be seen before it is
done. Glimpses obtained are fleeting and incomplete, and the times it
is truly important -- the times when one is most likely to need a
vision of the future -- destiny covers events like a heavy black
shroud, difficult to pierce. Rei knows these difficulties but she is
prepared for them, for she knows the reward is worth the toil.
Sometimes, she knows, she must know what the future is before she
knows how she can prevent it, and if discovering this is an arduous
task then an arduous task she will undertake.


   What frustrated Rei now was how easy her task was. Visions came to
her freely and quickly, and she did not have to struggle to interpret
their meaning. They were clear and crisp and nonthreatening and
utterly useless. She just saw visions of herself and her friends
having normal, ordinary days. She saw Usagi oversleeping and coming in
late to school, and she saw Ami admonishing her to be more serious
about her studies, like they always did. She saw herself sweeping the
steps of the shrine and waving to her grandfather as he walked out to
the store. Makoto playing football after school, with no sign of a
broken leg. Haruka racing around the oval track in a car she no longer
had. And Dr. Tomoe Suoichi holding his infant daughter Hotaru and
burbling baby-talk to her, even though Dr. Tomoe Suoichi was
pronounced dead on arrival by triage nurses at Juuban General Hospital
at 9:58 AM Thursday morning.


   Rei thought back to what Sailor Pluto had said. What she'd said
while she was still Sailor Pluto, and not... "My vision of the
future's gone asynchronous with what's happening. I don't know what's
going on any more, I just know what would be going on if something
different had happened." She thought of how completely terrified Pluto
had been, and she shivered. For her it would be like going blind... or
finding out every single thing you knew about the world was wrong. Or
both, at the same time.


   She shook off the thought and focused on the fire. How it had
presence and no substance, it moved and was still, it spoke in no
tongue and wrote in no alphabet and fed without hunger. It was the
essence of change and transformation. The fire held the future in it,
and if she looked hard enough she would pass the meaningless visions
and find it.


   Her grandfather opened the door and she yelped at the sudden
intrusion, almost falling over. Her first, mad instinct was to throw
herself between the fire and him so he couldn't see it, as if a fire
was something like a hentai manga that nobody could see you with.


   "Rei! There you are, I've been trying to find you for half an
hour!" said her grandfather, oblivious to what he was interrupting. "I
just wanted to remind you that those people from the television show
are going to be coming in later this evening, so if your friends come
back over try not to make too much noise or get in their way."


   Rei put her hand over her eyes and rubbed her temples. "Yes,
Grandfather, you told me about that. We'll be very quiet."


   "Good," said her grandfather, "Because they'll have just come off a
long flight from America and they probably don't want to be kept up
all night with giggling and gossip and all that," here he made quotes
in the air with this fingers, "girly stuff."


   "You don't have to worry Grandfather, they won't even know we're
here."


   He nodded. "I'm glad I can count on you, Rei." He turned around and
started to walk away without bothering to close the door. "Yes, I
believe the--" he cleared his throat, tapped his chest with his fist,
and started over in a lower tone of voice, "Yes, I believe the Hikawa
Shrine has a long spiritual history. I've often felt a presence while
walking the grounds, and it's only intensified since..."


   Rei stretched across the floor in a futile attempt to slide the
door closed without getting up, but unless her arms grew another four
feet it wasn't happening. She rubbed her eyes, they hurt after staring
at the fire for this long. All she needed to do was give them a break,
just a little bit of rest before she tried again. There was no way she
could see the future clearly with dry, itchy eyes.


   Rei didn't remember getting up and walking to the street, but she
must have, because that's where she was now. Everything around her was
in black and white but her body and the Sailor Mars garb she was
wearing were in full, brilliant Technicolor and she couldn't see
anything wrong with that. On the left side of the street was Sailor
Moon, and on the right was a woman with a gun. There was some kind of
horrid lizard-person running at Sailor Moon, its scales glistening in
a light that had no visible source, its mouth filled with serrated
teeth, its hands ending in obsidian claws.


   It ran at Sailor Moon with absurd speed but it never seemed to
reach her. Sailor Moon was holding out her Moon Rod and shouting "Moon
Spiral Heart Attack" -- or that's what it looked like her lips were
saying, all Rei could hear was a dull, repetitive 'whud-whud-whud'
that came from all around her. Sparks and ribbons of black-and-white
energy struck the creature over and over again, and it flinched, but
never seemed to slow down. To her right, the woman with the gun fired
it again and again at an advancing daimon, one that Rei remembered was
made from a tree at the shrine. She fired dozens of times without
reloading and each shot struck the creature dead-on but was harmlessly
deflected.


   Down the center of the street walked a stream of people looking
straight ahead, and when one of them turned to the side a man in a
black suit with a black tie, a black hat, and black sunglasses stepped
out of a shadow and put his hand over that person's face. When Rei
looked real closely, that hand had a thumb on each side of it.


   She turned around and there was a whole line of men in black suits,
stretching off as far as the eye could see, looking straight ahead,
though only two or three that she could see wore glasses. Sailor
Saturn was walking past them, wearing a long coat that was translucent
to show her sailor fuku underneath it. As she passed each man they
kept on looking straight ahead, but when she passed one of the men
with glasses he turned to look at her and he kept following her as he
moved on. He reached into his pocket as if to pull out a gun, but
instead pulled out a hand wreathed in living shadow. Chibi-Usa was
walking down the road in the other direction, and she and Saturn waved
at each other as they passed, and then the heads of the sunglasses-men
were following Chibi-Usa's movements.


   Rei turned around again and found she was not on the street at all,
but underground. She was in a great, hollow cavern, all around her
were stone carvings and obsidian spires and the teeming ministrations
of hundreds and hundreds of the lizard-people. Between them, swinging
her great key-staff to and fro striking their heads and rears, was
Sailor Pluto -- or at least, the walking silhouette of Sailor Pluto,
with only her eyes and hair visible in full color. She was watching
the lizards digging into the air, using shovels painted with a black
star, and the object of their search was the spherical, pulsing dark
hole hanging in the air above them. The hole was not evil itself, but
it was powerful, and if Sailor Pluto's silhouette reached it it would
be able to climb out and into the world to the ruin of all things.


   And then Rei realized she wasn't in a cavern, no, she was in a
subway car. It was about ten meters wide and at the end of it, sitting
alone on the rear bench, was Hotaru. She had Sailor Saturn's Silence
Glaive in front of her, point up, and gently swayed the polearm back
and forth, pointing to her left and her right. Her gaze followed the
weapon, back and forth and back again, and she was chewing on her
fingernail. She seemed to be mulling over something of great
importance.


   The 'whud' noise from before was gone, replaced by the music coming
from the speakers in the subway car. The lyrics were in English, but
Rei understand them perfectly because this was the only song she ever
listened to. "If I leave here tomorrow... would you still remember
me..."


   To Hotaru's right were nine beautiful and elegant women wearing
dresses and gowns of literally un-Earthly grace. They were not simply
the nine Sailor Senshi, they were the nine Princesses of the Moon
Kingdom as they appeared at its zenith. Rei saw herself there, the
Princess of Mars, and the Princess of Pluto was there too even though
she knew that Pluto wasn't here, that they were on the subway to find
her. So was the Princess of Saturn, but she stood to the side , away
from the rest, and even if the scene were not in black-and-white she
knew her gown would be jet black. All of them stared straight ahead,
unmoving, unblinking, a sculpture of perfection that any change would
ruin. No, all but one of them: the Princess of Saturn did not belong.
The other Princesses wore jewelery of silver, diamond, emerald;
Princess Saturn wore jewelery of glass and tin. Her dress did not
match the others in color or quality, and her hands were quivering as
she tried to remain still. Nothing else in the scene depended on her,
and there would be no visible gap if she were to be removed
altogether. Though it was still a beautiful scene with her presence,
were she to be taken out it would truly be flawless. Rei had the
horrid impression those dresses weighed a thousand pounds.


   To Hotaru's left were six people that looked like they'd been in a
tornado. All of them were dirty and disheveled, and only one of them
was someone Rei recognized. Four of them looked vaguely American or
European, but their faces were hazy and indistinct. One was a short,
bald thing can can only be called a "man" by charity, with a thin,
frail frame, grey skin, and a head too large for his body and black
oval eyes too large for his head. And there was Sailor Saturn, younger
and thinner and more sickly than Rei remembered. Her uniform was old
and dingy, ripped in several places, like she'd been wearing it for
years. She had a blindfold over her eyes and a broken hangman's noose
around her neck, that she kept touching for reassurance the way one
might touch a crucifix or a star of David. On the floor all around her
were pieces of broken glass, snakes, and the fingers of horrible
things waiting to drag her into the dark depths below. She was
barefoot, walking in aimless, squiggling paths, stopping to pick up
things only she could see but all of them needed. They thanked her
each time she found something, and they meant it, and each time she
was about to step on something horrible one of the other five would
grab her and turn her away from the danger. But they were also
carrying on their own conversations with each other, not paying full
attention to her task, and Rei knew that she was going to get grabbed
by one of those hands eventually and the others wouldn't be fast
enough or smart enough to save her. And then once Saturn failed to aid
them, they would all be dead as well.


   Over the speakers, Rei heard "Lord knows, I can't change, Lord help
me, I can't chaye-ea-ea-ea-- Lord, I can't change! Won't you flyyy...
highhh... freee... birrrd..." When the guitar solo began, Sailor
Saturn pulled up her blindfold, Tomoe Hotaru looked up from her
weapon, and Princess Saturn turned her head. Three faces were now
looking right at Rei with the same set of eyes, the same expression of
uncertainty and loneliness and sorrow and desperate fear. They all
needed answers like a man in the desert needs water, but they were not
answers Rei could give.


   When Rei woke again, all the fire would show her was a cooing,
happy infant with no great decisions to face.

* * *


   Sailor Mercury stood, one hand holding her visor steady while the
other adjusted it from the Mercury Computer, and stared intently at
the sidewalk beneath her.


   While Rei sought the future, the other Senshi were hitting the
bricks. Haruka and Michiru were reluctant to take orders from Usagi,
her actions last Thursday night having convinced them she was too
foolish to lead, but when pressed they did agree that now was not the
time to be arguing or withholding information. The two remaining Outer
Senshi would work with the others, for now, if only because the two of
them alone wouldn't have the manpower they needed. Any disputes they
had -- and there were many -- could be worked out once the Pharaoh had
been found and defeated.


   Mamoru and Chibi-Usa had gone to the Tomoe household to see if
there was any information there they could use. Michiru and Haruka had
gone to see how close they could get to the Mugen wreckage for much
the same reason. Rei sought the counsel of the flame, and Ami, Usagi,
and Minako went to check on the subway station their last daimon had
fled to. It didn't get very far, but it was the only daimon they saw
trying to return after completing its mission and they were pretty
sure none of the others had used the subway to get to where they were.
Chances are, the subway wasn't its means of conveyance but its goal.


   When they had arrived, the subway station was closed to repair the
damage the daimon had done to it, a little cartoon man in a hard hat
on a sign at the entrance told travelers he was 'sorry about the
inconvenience' and asked them to 'pardon our dust'. Not that Sailor
Mercury needed to be standing in the station to give it a looking-
over, of course, above it worked just as well.


   "Can you see anything, Mercury?" asked Moon, looking around her and
feeling ridiculous for just standing on the sidewalk in her elegant,
florid Senshi outfit. Not everyone was staring at her, but enough
were.


   "Yes..." she said, trying to fine-tune the sensors to just the
right frequency, "there's three people down there cleaning up the
glass and rivets, they've got a radio, and the tracks are still
electrified, but those are the only energy signatures I see down
there."


   "Okay, so, if it was trying to get to somewhere it wasn't the
station itself it was going for," said Venus. "Anything around it,
like a tunnel the branches off into a secret hideout or something?"


   "No... I'm trying... it isn't..." Mercury made an exasperated sigh,
then she took the visor off and extended it toward Venus. "Here, you
try looking for something. Look down at the sidewalk and I'll show
you."


   Venus looked downward and Mercury slipped the visor over her eyes;
Venus had to hold it on with both hands because her head wasn't the
same size as Mercury's. She blinked and took a moment to get
accustomed to the translucent display, then started looking around
beneath her. "Okay, I see... a couple of red shapes that look like
people, a couple of green boxes, and then a green line, that must be
the rail." She shifted her view forward a little bit. "And then, a
bunch of purple and black with some orange squiggles." A pause.
"Mercury, I really don't know what I'm looking for here."


   "Just a second. Now, look up at me and Sailor Moon."


   Minako did. "You're not as bright an orange as Moon is, Mercury,
are you feeling chilly? Okay, a bunch of orange people walking around,
green signs and storefronts, cars going by have red engines... I'm
sorry, I don't see what it is I'm supposed to be seeing."


   "Now, turn around and look up at the top floor of the building
across the street from us."


   Venus turned and began to look upward, around the time her head was
at a forty-five degree angle she squealed "MY EYES!" and recoiled,
letting the Mercury Visor fall from her face, though Sailor Mercury
snatched it before it hit the sidewalk.


   "Sailor Venus, are you all right? What happened?" asked Moon,
rushing over to comfort her friend.


   "I'm sorry," said Sailor Mercury, "I'm sorry. I had the sensitivity
up a touch too high and then it was like you looked into a bright room
with night-vision goggles on. I should have lowered it some more."


   Venus rubbed her eyes and blinked. "A little warning next time
might be nice!"


   "But you did see what I was trying to show you, Venus. Nothing
special is happening in that building, you would have got that
reaction from any other building you looked at. That's how bright
normal activity is at that sensitivity level."


   "But Venus was just looking around at the street, and she wasn't
blinded then," said Moon.


   "I know. I had to turn the sensitivity way up to see things at a
normal level. And when you look down you can only see below ground
about twenty meters in any direction, even though it's usually much
more." She paused, hand on her chin. "I think the visor is magical, at
least partly, and it's being inhibited from picking things up like
normally."


   "So, do you think it's the same thing that made your powers not
work that's making your visor not work?" asked Moon.


   "Maybe..." Mercury responded and tapped on her chin... "Maybe it's
not working right, but then our powers would be affected too... Maybe
there's something it's picking up that's getting in the way... Hold
on, let me try something." Mercury slid the visor back over her head
and started tapping buttons on the Mercury Computer. "Quantum
vacuum... no, that isn't it... Cosmic microwave background... nope...
Makai-spectrum energy... not it either... Dark matt-- AAH! MY EYES!"


   Mercury keeled over and rubbed at her eyes. Venus quipped "See? It
hurts, doesn't it!"


   "Okay, okay," said Mercury as she winced and shook her head. "I
really should have known to turn down the sensitivity by now. But that
tells us what our problem is, we must be close to a large amount of
dark matter."


   Moon looked concerned. "And that's what's draining the energy out
of this place and making it so hard to see? Is it something that Queen
Beryl used?"


   Mercury was confused for a second. "What? Oh, oh, no no no. 'Dark
matter', like 'dark' as in 'dark room', not like in 'dark kingdom'.
They're both 'ankoku busshitsu', but it doesn't mean 'evil material',
more like 'material we can't see'. It's not draining anything, but
when I told the visor to search for all kind of matter and energy it
was showing the dark matter by dimming everything else, since dark
matter can't be detected directly."


   "Oh. So, if we can't detect it, how do we find it?" asked Venus.


   Mercury scratched her head. "Well, it seems like it's underground
somewhere, but the real question is what is dark matter doing on Earth
at all? It's supposed to be out in deep space, and it's still mostly a
theoretical construct."


   "If the daimon was trying to get into the subway underground," said
Venus, "and the dark matter is underground, then we can guess it was
probably wanted to go to the dark matter. Either that's where the
Pharaoh is, or that's something he wants, but either way I think
anything called 'dark matter' is never going to be good."


   Mercury would have corrected her that dark matter had nothing to do
with the metaphysical kind of darkness, but she had to agree that
there was no way this would turn out to be a good thing.


   "Sailor Mercury, is there any way we can get a closer idea of where
it is?" asked Moon.


   "Well, I can't get a direct detection of it... I can kind of tell
how close I am to it by how dim things are, but nothing more precise
than that. I might be able to triangulate it if I took readings all
over the city..." She raised her finger and smiled suddenly in that
'eureka' gesture she so seldomly used, "Actually, if we got on the
subway at another station and rode it around a complete loop, I could
be taking readings the whole time and we wouldn't have to worry about
walking everywhere or missing bus stops."


   Moon smiled. "That's a great idea, Mercury!" She paused and reached
for her pocket, only to realize she didn't have one. "Um... Did anyone
remember to take the money out of their pockets before they
transformed?"


* * *


   Bill was prepared to subdue the guard on the fourth floor and leave
him in a broom closet with his hands zip-tied, but there was no guard
on the fourth floor. They disconnected the alarm on the emergency exit
to let Donna in, and that appeared to be the extent of the security on
this floor -- the room where they were supposed to drop their boxes of
newspapers and four pages of a Dean Koontz book handwritten and
translated into Russian, in case the guy decided to check on the
contents, was a conference room that didn't even have a lock on it.
There had to be dedicated facilities and procedures for this kind of
thing, but they sure weren't being used.


   Donna and Bill were consulting with Phil about which pieces of
equipment to take and which to leave behind, using the Sailor V
walkie-talkie because neither of them wanted Phil in the building if
things got hairy. The only one of the three that could read Japanese,
Hotaru was looking for any written materials that may be useful while
the other two scavenged the equipment that they hadn't already
scavenged the first time.


   "Okay," said Donna into the microphone on Sailor V's nose, "we got
a metal box, about... two feet to a side, door on the front, black
star. Bunch of thick wires inside, looks like an Easy-Bake Oven from
outer space."


   "I don't know what that would be," said Phil through the speaker,
"How heavy is it?"


   Donna cradled the walkie-talkie in between her ear and shoulder and
experimentally pulled at the box, grunting. "Oh, I'd say, hundred and
fifty, two hundred pounds? We're not getting it out of here."


   "It's the daimon incubator," said Hotaru, feeling great shame that
she knew it. "They... we put daimon eggs inside there to hatch them."


   "Miss Tomoe says it's an incubator for those monster things." Donna
paused and turned to Hotaru. "Is it okay if I break it then? Is it
going to explode or anything like that?" Hotaru shook her head and
Donna kicked the inside of the incubator a few times, snapping the
coils and cables inside. Then, for good measure, she kicked it so it
fell backwards. "Okay, I broke it," she said to Phil, "the next item
in our program is this pink stick with a crescent moon on it..."


   "Hey," said Bill from the other side of the room, "Ask him what
this metal tube... no, wait, I think this is a lamp." He held up the
object, an antique desk lamp from 1938 wrapped in bubble wrap and
missing its glass shade. "This yours?"


   Hotaru didn't say 'yes', but the speed with which she ran over to
take it out of his hands indicated her answer just as plainly. She
looked into the box it came from and saw some of her other lamps,
carefully taken apart, wrapped in bubble wrap, and then placed in
styrofoam packing peanuts to avoid breaking. The men who took them
were probably afraid that if they were broken, that some kind of evil
spirits would come out of them, but the end result was still that they
were here and mostly unharmed, from what she could see. She felt happy
that her collection wasn't lost, and almost instantly ashamed that
she'd care about such insignificant objects so much. She was sure
normal people wouldn't be this happy about an ordinary lamp
collection.


   Next to the boxes with her lamps in them was a container that
looked to be filled with paper files, and after digging a bit through
the packing peanuts to get an idea of how many lamps were there, she
looked into it. The first stack of papers she pulled out were written
in English, in a hasty, shaky shorthand that looked like neither her
father's nor Kaolinite's. It looked to be about resonance fields and
how to assemble a device. She put it back in the box and then walked
her fingers a little farther back. The next paper she pulled out was
in Japanese, in writing she recognized as being Kaolinite's.


   "April 6, 1993


   "Hotaru appears to be rejecting M-9 implantation again. Immune
system reaction, fever, coughing, etc. probably in tandem with psychic
rejection. Fainting spells slt. increase in frequency but due to diff.
cause. Rec. dosage of 'Golden Dawn' opiates to increase psionic
susceptibility of host.


   "April 9, 1993


   "Hotaru no longer actively rejecting M-9, physical illness
worsened. Rejection could be due to rare illness or coincidental with
infection. Patient on bed rest and given sm. amt analgesic for pain
and steroids for respiratory function, but more adequate dosage would
likely result in severe side effects mixed w/ Golden Dawn.


   "I wish there was something more I could do about her pain."


   Hotaru's head jerked to the side like she'd been caught on a
fishhook, and she slid the paper back into the box without looking at
it. There was more on the page, and probably some stuff they would
find useful, but Hotaru couldn't read any more. She remembered that
time, when she was out of school with the flu for an entire week and
thought she was either going to cough out her lungs or puke out her
stomach but either way some of her insides were coming out. She
remembered how her father had to find a 'special medicine' to treat it
and how worried they were when she got worse. She remembered her
father saying she couldn't take any more painkillers even though the
ones she had weren't enough. And she remembered Kaolinite walking down
the hall past her room, mockingly imitating her whimpers of pain.


   Above all else, she just wasn't ready to deal with the idea that
Kaolinite could have cared about her at all.


   "I found some papers here, they look like they could be useful,"
Hotaru said after a few moments to regain her composure. "Notes and
stuff."


   "Well that's good," Donna responded, "because I think they got your
dad's computer from where we left it and the power supply looks like
it exploded." She kicked the beige box with black streaks she referred
to, and walked over to the file box. She glanced at the first paper in
there, laughed, and spoke into the walkie-talkie. "Hey Phil, some of
these are yours! Did you leave your notes behind at Tokyo U with the
Doctor's computer?"


   "It's a good thing I did," his voice crackled back, "Because if
they'd been in the car they probably would have been torched when you
crashed it into a monster!"


   "Oh yeah, like you would have dealt with it so much better. 'Quick,
let's see if this mall has a Crate & Barrel, we need more chairs to
throw at it!'"


   Before long they had packed up all the equipment they thought they
would need, a couple things that they didn't know what they were but
were small enough to throw in, as well as Hotaru's lamps and some
paperback books someone must have found suspicious. Most of the stuff
in the room was left behind. A lot of it was equipment involved in the
creation of daimons, and they had no use for that. The rest were
random, ordinary objects from around Hotaru's home. Coasters,
candlesticks, throw pillows, a TV remote, 'drinking bird' toys, a
candy dish with a butterscotch welded to the bottom with spit.


   They managed to get almost all they wanted to bring to fit on the
hand truck, but one of the boxes of lamps was too big and Bill was
going to carry it out separately. On her way out, Donna stopped and
turned back to Hotaru. "Okay, Miss Tomoe, are you sure this is
everything from the house you want? We're probably not going to make
another trip."


   Hotaru looked around the room and thought about it. She recognized
each object in there, she knew where it went and what it did and who
used it. She remembered her father imitating that drinking bird at the
dinner table by dipping his nose into a glass of water. She remembered
Kaolinite putting that butterscotch in her mouth and then trying to
cooly slide it back in the bowl when Dad mentioned they were for
company only. She remembered fainting on the living room floor and
waking up with that throw pillow under her head and an afghan draped
over her body. Every one of these objects was a part of her home, her
history.


   "No," she said, holding back a tear. "No, I don't want any of
them."


   Donna shrugged. "Suit yourself," she said, and dragged the hand
truck behind her out of the room. Hotaru followed, then Bill came
last. He turned and lifted a foot to close the door, and when he did
an arm emerged from the shadow the door was casting on the wall, even
though there was no way a man could have been standing in that space.
It was wearing a black suit, and it was holding a gun pointed at
Bill's head. When Hotaru looked closely, she saw the hand had a thumb
on each side.


   The man to whom the arm belonged stepped out of the shadow as if he
were walking through a doorway. His face was hidden by a black hat and
sunglasses, but they couldn't mask his predatory smile. His skin was
white like the underbelly of a shark, and Hotaru thought if she rubbed
it she would cut her hands.


   "You picked a real bad day to screw with me, civilian," said the
suited man in a tone of voice that could have matched Kaolinite for
haughty superiority.


   "Then tell me a good day," responded Bill with a far less
submissive tone than one usually finds in people with guns to their
heads. "I can come back and screw with you then. Is Wednesday
alright?"


   "You're a real witty guy, William Scott Wheeler. Drop the box and
put your hands in the air." He turned his head almost imperceptibly
towards Hotaru and Donna. "That goes for the both of you, too. Hands
in the air."


   Donna put her hands up, but Bill didn't drop the box. "Okay, you
know my name, that's reeeeeal intimidating. What are you, ATF?"


   "He called you by your full name, Bill," sniggered Donna, "Maybe
he's your mother."


   "No, miss Donna Kimberly Truitt, I am not his mother and I am not
with the ATF," the man in black said with his aim rock-steady at
Bill's temple, "and the thought you just had where you could get me to
shift my aim by insulting me is one of the most childishly idiotic
things I have ever heard. I'm with a far higher agency of law
enforcement than either of you can think of, not that it matters."


   Bill's arms were starting to shake, the box was heavy. Hotaru
worried about the lamps breaking if he dropped it and then thought
that made her a horrible person. "Oh, so now I get to be on two watch
lists? That's great. Do you guys have a file on me too? Because it's
great to know I scare you so damn much."


   The man in black chuckled mirthlessly. "You aren't on our watch
list because if you were, you'd be dead now. And you don't have a file
because everything about all you Hoffmann Institute lackeys are
written all over your damaged, insecure egos. Like how Donna here
hates anyone who might imply she wasn't good enough to murder South
American dictators for the CIA. She hasn't shaved her legs since
Wednesday and she's terrified someone will notice. And how your little
friend here..." He turned to Hotaru slightly and stopped mid sentence,
and the corners of his lips -- fat, pale leeches of lips -- turned
down. "Your friend here, is..." but he didn't get any farther that
time either. It was as if he'd been reading off a script and turned
the page only to find a blank sheet of paper.


   Hotaru stared at him and even behind his sunglasses she knew he was
staring back into her eyes. "She's a what, G-Man?" asked Bill through
scattered grunts and straining noises. "Oh some on, you've... nggh,
got to give us at least a name! Other... errrgh... otherwise you're
the worst party magician ever!"


   Hotaru wondered what the man would do. His hand was shaking and he
was now scowling at her, and something about her offended him very,
very much. She wasn't that surprised. She wasn't holding her Silence
Glaive, but it was always in her hand, all she had to do was grab for
it. Could she close the distance to him before he shot Bill in the
head? Not likely. Better she get shot instead of him, then at least
she'd die saving someone's life. If Chibi-Usa ever found out about it,
it was at least something noble, something she could say reflected
well on her. Hotaru moved her feet a bit farther apart, raised her
fists, and glowered at the man in black, looking as intimidating as
she could without making a sudden movement that would make him pull
the trigger.


   The man scowled, baring his teeth, and the shaking of his hand was
audible now. Finally he shouted "You can't HIDE from me, you dumb
tart!" and whipped his arm around to point at her. Bill shouted in
surprise and dropped the box, the glass inside made a tinkling noise
as it shattered. The man fired three times, one clipping her in the
elbow, one striking her in the ribs, and one hitting her directly in
the heart. She screamed in pain and fell backwards, from the shock
rather than the force of impact. It HURT, it hurt like hell, like
someone with steel-toed boots had taken a running start, jumped, and
kicked her in the chest with both feet. She could still feel the force
of the impact all over her chest, and she struggled to find her
breath. It actually took her a moment to notice she wasn't bleeding.


   Bill threw his shoulder into the man's armpit and tried to tackle
him to the floor. The man grunted, threw his arms over Bill's body to
try to get some control... and then, suddenly, he shifted. He didn't
move, per se, but she shifted, and instead of being thrown to the
ground by a man tackling him and desperately grabbing at him for
control, he was crouching in preparation of a man tackling him and had
his arms out to redirect his momentum. Bill was thrown over the man in
black's head before he knew what was going on and collided ass-first
with the opposite wall of the hallway. The man in black spun back to
face Donna, and found the left lens of his sunglasses touching the
barrel of her .45.


   "You shot a little GIRL, you son of a BITCH!" she screamed, and
squeezed the trigger. The man in black spun and flew backwards, his
hat and sunglasses thrown from his head, but rather than blood what
sprayed from him looked like black ink that vanished within moments.
His head was bald and misshapen but unscarred, and once he hit the
wall he turned back to face Donna and grinned. He had two rows of
teeth and his eyes were pupil-less orbs of milky white. She was
shocked for a moment, then lowered her gun to fire again but this time
he was quicker than she and he fired two rounds into her gut. She
dropped her gun and with a frozen expression of surprise, she fell to
her knees, then onto her face in front of him.


   "Now who's the bitch?" he snarled.


   Hotaru didn't feel rage at seeing this, and she didn't feel joy
either. She didn't feel anything. She just knew with a cold,
dispassionate logic, that the man in black had to be destroyed, and
that she was the only one there who could do it, and therefore she was
going to destroy him. She pulled herself upright with the Silence
Glaive, leaving Bill's coat in a heap on the floor. Without
admonishing the man for his crimes, without swearing vengeance,
without a grunt or a roar or a whisper Hotaru charged him with the
Glaive at her side at a perfect height to slice the head off his
shoulders. He turned at the sound of her footsteps just as she closed
the distance to him, too late to move or stop her. She dragged the
blade across his form... and nothing happened. It was as if she'd
slashed at the reflection on a pool of water. She spun on one heel,
brought the weapon around for another strike, but the man delivered a
roundhouse kick to her chest that sent her crashing into a wall.


   "You just don't know when to stay down, do you little girl?" he
said with a malicious smile, and he trained his gun as her even as he
stepped backward and stomped on Bill's stomach as he was trying to get
up. "But I'm sure even a girl like you can see it's game over now.
You're coming with me, where I'm certain we can find much better uses
for you. Oh, but first..." He walked over to Donna's bleeding,
shuddering form, leaned over, and grabbed the Sailor V walkie-talkie
off her belt. He frowned, wiped off some blood on his pants leg, then
slid it on the floor towards Hotaru. "I want you to call your Hoffmann
friends and tell them to come up here. You've already caused enough
trouble for me and I don't want to have to go tracking them down.


   Hotaru had no idea who this man was or what he wanted. He was
probably the man whom everyone here thought worked for the FBI, but
that didn't tell Hotaru anything. He wasn't a daimon, he wasn't a
Death Buster. He was some other kind of horrible thing Hotaru never
saw before, a man of shadows and malice whose evil had nothing to do
with the Pharaoh 90. Donna wouldn't have been here if not for Hotaru,
but the man would have, and would he have shot someone else and left
them to bleed out on the carpet? Probably.


   Hotaru said to herself before that it didn't matter who she was
with, that it would be bad either way, but now she's realized she was
wrong. She wants nothing to do with this grinning, hateful shadow-man.
She picked up the walkie-talkie with one hand, kept her other on the
handle of the Glaive, and never took her eyes off him.


   "This is Jefferson Airplane to Lead Zeppelin," she said, slowly and
evenly. "Come in, Lead Zeppelin."


   "You're Jefferson Starship, not Airplane," said Nadine from the
other end. "And what's going on up there? We thought we heard
gunshots."


   "Oh, was I Jefferson Starship?" she said, "I was confused. I know
they used to be Jefferson Airplane." She was stalling for time, trying
to think of something, some way to escape, some weapon she hadn't
tried. She knew that Moon and Uranus and Neptune and probably all the
others had special, magical attacks. Did she? Maybe she only had the
Glaive, but maybe not; she didn't really know what muscle she would be
flexing to make that kind of thing...


   "Whatever, whatever, it isn't important. Are you okay? Were there
gunshots? What's going on up there -- the security guys have to be
suspicious by now."


   She tried focusing on the man in black, visibly displeased by the
pace of her conversation, and willing him to be struck down by a bolt
of energy. And she felt something, but it wasn't enough. She was
trying to force something out of her that just didn't have the power
to escape, and she felt like someone who has begun to vomit and then
stops when it's halfway up their throat. "No, no gunfire," she said,
but it gave her an idea. She curled her fingers around the handle of
the Glaive, imagining it was a rifle she could point at the man in
black's head. She shifted its position and made it look like she was
moving her elbow to be more comfortable on the floor but she ended up
with the blade digging into the carpet of the hallway and the handle
pointed at the man's chest -- she couldn't get it high enough for the
head. She felt the weapon quiver in her hand and that energy came a
little further along, but it wasn't coming out yet. "No gunfire, but
we do need you to come up here. We found something here and we can't
move it on our own."


   "What something, what is it? Why are you talking so funny?"


   "I don't know what it's called," she said evenly into the
microphone, and instantly she knew that if she didn't know what it was
called she'd have to make up a name for it to work. "It looks like one
of those... a sat... A Saturn shot, no, it's, it's, a Saturn... SATURN
SILENCER!"


   There was a low 'WHUD' and the Glaive shook in her hands. She was
expecting to be shot again but the attack took the man in black by
surprise and caught him before he could fire a shot. The attack wasn't
even visible to Hotaru's eyes as more than a distortion like the heat
over asphalt, but it was solid enough when it connected with the man
in black's stomach to send him flying backwards, dropping his gun.
Hotaru's hand was numb from the vibration of the weapon, and the rest
of her body ached from the force of various impacts, but she found her
way to her feet with the Glaive pointed at the man's head before he
could scramble back to the gun. "SATURN..." she yelled, more confident
this time, but before she finished the incantation the man rolled to
the side and he was gone, fallen into a shadow on the wall like it was
a hole in the floor.


   Hotaru kept her hand on the Glaive in case he came back, but rushed
to Donna's side. She was still breathing, but it was shallow and
pained. Hotaru turned her over and laid her hand on Donna's wounds,
hoping she wasn't too late. Her hand glowed, and Hotaru felt a twinge
of pain in her own stomach, and the wounds didn't heal all the way but
the bleeding appeared to stop.


   Donna coughed and raised her head, meekly. She wanted to think of
something witty, something along the lines of it being easier to list
all the superpowers Hotaru didn't have than the ones she did, but
instead she just said "Thanks, Miss Tomoe."


* * *


   Though it was late and school would be back in session tomorrow
morning, the Senshi all convened once more at the Hikawa shrine to
relate the information they had gained. All the Senshi save three, at
least; Makoto was already asleep, Setsuna was no longer working as
part of their team, and Hotaru's location was unknown but very close
by.


   "So once we found out it was dark matter," Ami said, "we did a loop
around the city on the subway taking readings. I couldn't get much
more precision, though, even for the Mercury Computer dark matter
detection is a tricky business. I can't say more than that it's
underground, somewhere deep, and there's a lot of it." She shook her
head. "But I have no idea what it does, or how we can get there, or
even if we can -- I know there are tunnels under Tokyo but the dark
matter's interfering with the ability to scan and map them."


   Haruka squinted one eye and cocked her head. "And we can't teleport
in if we don't know where it is and it's an energy source we can't
actually see, so that's out."


   Ami sighed. "Even if we could, I have no idea if we would want to.
Science has no idea what exposure to dark matter would do to a human
being, but something that ignores that many laws of physics can't be
safe."


   Rei grimaced. "Pluto does. Or he does while he's using her. He's
trying to find his way to it as well..." She bit her lip. "No. He's
already there. It's not the material he wants, it's the gateway that
brought it here. He can't open it yet, but they're working on it."


   "Whatever the Pharaoh wants it for, we know we have to stop him."
There was a couple seconds of silence after Minako said that.


   Usagi turned over to her boyfriend and would-be daughter. Chibi-
Usa's eyes were a bit read and streaked from tears, but she put on a
brave face when her mother looked at her. "That was what we did. Did
you two find anything at all at Hotaru's house?"


   Mamoru shook his head. "Someone got there before we did. When we
got there there were two government agents tied up in the living room
with the phone cords; they said they'd cleaned the house out because
they thought the Death Busters were terrorists and all of their
equipment was evidence. The two we found were left behind to guard the
place, and got attacked a few hours before we arrived by some people
who wanted to know where the materials confiscated from the house
were." He grimaced, thinking carefully. "They could have been more
Death Busters, trying to salvage the Professor's equipment, but...
they left the two alive. They shot one of them in the leg, but then
they cleaned and bandaged the wound, and got them something to drink
and asked what TV channel they wanted to watch while they were tied
up. And from their descriptions, Hotaru was already with them; I don't
know if she was a prisoner or not."


   Chibi-Usa started to say something, then thought better of it and
looked off to the side.


   "Where were they going?" asked Usagi, "Do we know where Hotaru is?"


   "We went to the building they were headed to," Mamoru continued,
"but we were too far behind. When we got there there were police cars
everywhere and men in black suits telling us this was FBI business and
we should stay out, but it looked like the people had already left.
The two men at the house, they said the FBI was in on this too."


   "That's interesting," said Haruka, "because when we went to see the
ruins of the Mugen Academy, that's exactly what we got. Pale men, dark
suits, 'FBI business, stay out of it'. I mean, Michiru and I are --
were, students there, we have a legitimate interest in what's going
on, but the only thing they told us was how it was none of our
business."


   "And," added Michiru, "that's what the people at the mall who were
asking about Hotaru said, that they were with the FBI, and that they
already had her."


   "But none of them are with the FBI at all," said Minako, "because
they only handle things inside the United States. If anyone from the
US was out here, it would be the CIA." She looked around the room,
slowly. "Apparently, I am the only person in Japan who knows this."


   Rei's grandfather didn't knock, but when the door slid open
everyone stopped to look at him. "Rei, do you know where the extension
cords are?"


   Rei took a moment to switch from 'Sailor Senshi debriefing about
threat to all life on planet' mode to 'Help Grandfather remember where
he puts things' mode. "They're... In the tool shed, aren't they? They
should be behind that leaf blower that doesn't work. Why do you need
extension cords at one o'clock in the morning?"


   Her grandfather looked at his wrist even though he knew damn well
he wasn't wearing a watch. "Oh, it is pretty late, isn't it? Shouldn't
you girls be in bed? It's a school day tomorrow, you know." He waited,
not sure what kind of response he was waiting for. "Anyway, those TV
producers just got here and they're setting up, but they lost some of
the luggage with their equipment in it. I knew we had a couple
extension cords laying around somewhere." He turned away without
closing the door, said "Don't stay up too much later, girls!" and
walked off. Mamoru sighed, walked over to the door, and closed it.


   "TV producers?" asked Usagi.


   Rei waved her hand. "It's some stupid... Apparently in America
there's this show called 'American Spookhouse' about haunted houses,
and a few years ago they did a special on ghostly places in Tokyo,
which they imaginatively called 'Tokyo Spookhouse', and the shrine was
one of the places they profiled." She sighed. "Apparently, ratings are
low again so they want to do a followup episode and clutter this place
with cameras and microphones and cables and gaffer's tape all over
again. Meanwhile there's daimons running around the city and they want
to listen to tape hiss and hear otherworldly voices."


   "Oh," said Minako. "Did you get to be on TV?"


   "They... interviewed me and Grandfather for a couple hours each,
but they cut my interview entirely and Grandfather's down to thirty
seconds. And the man they had overdubbing his voice sounded
ridiculous."


* * *


   Hotaru lost consciousness before they left the building, and she
had no further part in the Hoffmann agents' escape or sanctuary that
night. Her sleep was deep, almost as deep as death, but not nearly so
peaceful. She dreamed many things that night, events and places she
cannot remember save to know they frighten her.


   She was trapped, in a dark room somewhere deep underground. She was
running, but she knew not to where, and this place was like a maze.
All she knew was that she was being chased, and if she was caught, she
would die. She ran, and ran, and ran, groping blindly in the darkness,
slipping and falling and crashing into walls many times. She was
certain she was going to be caught when she turned and saw Chibi-Usa,
illuminated by a soft and gentle light that shone from within her.
Chibi-Usa beckoned her to come with her, and she took Hotaru's hand.
Hotaru fled, following with Chibi-Usa, and now she knew if she was
caught Chibi-Usa would be killed as well. Hotaru coughed and wheezed,
unable to cope with the physical exertion, and she knew Chibi-Usa
would be so much faster without her and yet she stayed behind to help
her friend to safety because she was a good human being and that's
what good human beings do. Hotaru knew she wouldn't be able to do the
same for her because Hotaru wasn't a good human being.


   After what seemed like years of running and terror they reached the
shaft of light that was the exit and found blessed freedom. They were
outside now, in a verdant garden in the courtyard of an exquisite
marble palace. The night was bright and cloudless and the Earth hung
above them in the sky.


   Chibi-Usa turned and gasped, pointing at Hotaru. "Hotaru! You're
naked!" she cried, and her expression was one of horror rather than
embarrassment. Hotaru felt herself blushing, and put her arms up to
cover herself... only when she looked down, there was no need. She
wasn't naked, she was wearing the same dress she always wore, silken
and as black as the cold nothingness between the stars.


   "Cover yourself, Hotaru!" Chibi-Usa shrieked. "We can all see what
you are underneath!" She held out a mirror, and Hotaru knew what she
would see when she looked into it. There would be a malicious, wicked
smile across her dark purple lips and a black star would be emblazoned
on her forehead. She took the mirror into her hand, and...


   And she woke up. Her body was aching all over, her head splitting,
her back sore. She thought she was blind for a moment until she
realized someone had put a towel over her eyes. She removed it,
wincing when she moved, and glanced around. She was on a bedroll, on
the floor in a room with paper walls. Around her she saw Bill, Nadine,
Phil, and Donna laying on the floor, though Nadine was stirring as
Hotaru did. There were piles of papers and half-disassembled
equipment, and all around them were her lamps and a spider's web of
extension cords and power strips they were plugged in to. Some of them
were cracked and held together with masking tape, none of them had
shades, all of them were turned on.


   In the open doorway stood a figure, though the sunlight could not
silhouette him as it was brighter in here than it was out there. He
pounded on the doorframe since he could not knock on a paper door, but
Hotaru was awake before he made the noise. He absolutely stank of
alcohol, the odor assaulted her, burned her nostrils, it was so thick
she could almost see it.


   What Nadine saw standing in the doorway was an aging Japanese man
of average height (which is to say, short), wearing a rumpled dress
shirt and cheap slacks, a loose tie, and black plastic glasses; his
hair was greying and his face creased by worry lines. He looked uneasy
but irate.


   "Oh my God, Nakami," she said to the Director of the Hoffmann
Institute, "did you take a bath in bourbon?"


   What Hotaru saw was a short, humanoid form with slightly purplish-
grey skin and too-thin arms and legs. He was naked save for what
looked like a loin cloth around his hips and a tie hanging loosely
around his neck. His head was bald and too big for his neck, his mouth
a tiny slit at the bottom of his chin, and his eyes were great black
featureless ovals.


   "It's ten in the morning!" said the little grey alien. "What the
hell are all of you still in bed for?"




---



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


NEW ARCANE MAGIC FX SKILL: PLANETARY SORCERY


Name                 Stat    Cost
Planetary Sorcery              14
> Planet's Aegis      CON       4
> Energy Blast        WIL       4
> Matter Blast        WIL       4
> Energy Control      WIL       4
> Matter Control      WIL       4
> Planet's Veil       PER       3
> 2 Variable Powers             *


PLANETARY SORCERY (Cost 14, Arcane Magic FX Broad Skill)
This skill cannot be used untrained.


"Planetary Sorcery" is the name given to a set of arcane magical
disciplines said to draw on a planet's "star seed" by attuning it to
the "star seed" that is said to reside inside each sentient being in
the universe. This grants great strength and resilience to the person
so attuned, a chosen champion who in turn uses that power to defend
the planet and its inhabitants from extraterrestrial magics. Many
species have independently discovered this magic, suggesting it is a
natural development of all sentient species, but the most skilled
practitioners are generally agreed to be the humans of the ancient
kingdom known as the Silver Millennium. Practitioners of this form of
magic are known as "Senshi", the Japanese word for "warrior" or
"soldier", as they were referred to in the Silver Millennium. Almost
all Senshi are female, though males are not unknown -- Sailor Earth
was a male who went by the name 'Tuxedo Kamen', the Senshi of the T'sa
Cluster are of both genders, and it is speculated that if the gardhyi
practice planetary sorcery, their Senshi would likely be male as no
gardhyi females have ever been observed. The position of a planet's
senshi (a title generally referred to as "Sailor <Planet Name>", the
origins of this name are unclear) is passed down generationally,
either by heredity or bequest. FX Talents of Planetary Sorcery are
possible, usually in societies where the position of Senshi is
inherited, though incredibly rare. There is never more than one Senshi
of a single planet at a time, not counting FX Talents or incidents
involving time-travel.


To utilize almost all of their powers, an FX Adept using Planetary
Sorcery must first transform into their "Senshi Form" using what is
known as a "Sailor Transformation". This transformation is flashy and
dazzling while in progress but actually 'transforms' very little about
the Adept's physical appearance. The most obvious change is that the
Adept's clothing vanishes and is replaced by their uniform, usually a
stylized version of what they consider a scholar's garb to be, and
different for each planet even within the same solar system. (This
rather defeats the purpose of a uniform, but let's not dwell on that.)
This transformation takes a full round to accomplish, during which no
other actions can be taken, and is accomplished by calling upon the
name of the planet from which the Senshi draws power. The specific
form of this invocation varies, from "Venus Star Power, Make Up!" to
"O Sheya, bestow on me your gift that I may tend the land and guide
they who hunt upon it," to "Kurg! WAR!" and many other forms besides.
This transformation is usually accomplished with the use of a magical
focus device, a wand or talisman engraved with something representing
the planet from which power is drawn. If no such device is present the
transformation can be accomplished with the expenditure of an FX
Energy Point, and in neither case does the action require a skill
check.


Once in "Senshi form", the Adept has full access to her power pool and
any and all FX Skills purchased as "Active" are up and running. The
Senshi may spend her FX Energy pool freely, since her transformation
comes from another source of power, she won't turn back even if her
personal power supply runs dry. The transformation is however limited
by time: at the end of the second hour of a Sailor Transformation and
each subsequent hour thereafter, the Senshi must make a Stamina --
Endurance check or suffer 1 point of fatigue damage. As most Senshi
have below-average constitutions, this makes two to three hours the
limit on transformations, although Sailor Kurg can run around for days
in her transformed form. This time is cumulative, and transforming for
90 minutes, de-transforming, and changing back for another 90 minutes
won't get you around it, but the timer does reset after about six
hours of sleep -- for a human, or a proportional amount for alien
species that do not usually sleep eight hours a day (T'sa only stay
still that long when they're dead). It is not quite known why this
happens, as the Transformation doesn't feel exhausting at all and the
Star Seed of a planet ought to have enough energy to sustain the
transformation indefinitely; one theory states that planetary Star
Seeds have vast amounts of energy but very narrow throughput, the
energy required to maintain a Sailor Transformation slowly increases
as time goes on and outstrips the Star Seed's narrow bandwidth and the
Senshi must make up the difference with power from her own personal
Star Seed. Whatever the cause, it's a phenomena all Senshi should be
aware of.


The Sailor Transformation ends either when the Senshi loses
consciousness with two or more Fatigue damage, or with no remaining
Stun damage, or when the Senshi wishes it to end. The Senshi can end
the transformation at any time, this does not require an action, and
her normal clothing reappears on her body as her Senshi uniform
momentarily appears as shredded gossamer. Her "active" skills all shut
off and she loses access to her FX abilities. When the transformation
is ended in this way, the Sailor Transformation cannot be re-attempted
for another 15 or so minutes. (18 minutes 36 seconds, but who's
counting?)


Characters may at creation choose one Planetary Sorcery skill they
wish to be able to use outside of their Senshi form; they may do so by
permanently increasing the base cost of that skill by one. "Active"
skills may not be chosen in this way.


Each Senshi has access to Planet's Aegis, Planet's Veil, one type of
Matter Control or Energy Control, and one type of Matter Blast or
Energy Blast. In addition to this, each Senshi gets two additional FX
skills that are counted as Planetary Sorcery skills but are chosen
from other FX or Psionic skill lists, paying the same costs and
adhering to the same restrictions that skill normally has. Skills that
require physical sacrifices, such as Hemomancy and Diabolism skills,
do not require the literal and visible shedding of blood but will
inflict damage on their caster all the same. These skills along with
the forms of Matter/Energy Blast/Control should all fit thematically
with the Senshi's planet, either culturally or physically, but note
there does not have to be a universal cultural theme among them.
Sailor Jupiter, for instance, has Energy Blast (Electricity) because
Jupiter was the Roman god of lightning and Matter Control (Wood)
because Jupiter's name in Japanese means "wood star". Also, some types
of Matter or Energy control may be best simulated by another skill
entirely, and these should be swapped in for their normal skill
choices even if it isn't one of their two "bonus skills". Sailor
Aleer's Energy Control (Data) makes a lot more sense as Telepathy --
Datalink; Sailor Saturn's status as "bringer of the end" could make
sense as Energy Control (Entropy) but causes a hell of a lot less
headaches and balance issues as Enochian -- Unravel Enchantment.



PLANET'S AEGIS (cost 4, CON)
Active or 1 FX Energy Point
This skill cannot be used untrained.


The armor and shield of a planet's guardian, the magical pavise that
protects an otherwise-frail Senshi from harm. The word "planet" in
this ability's name is always replaced with the name of the planet the
Adept champions; Sailor Pluto has "Pluto's Aegis", Sailor Sheya has
"Sheya's Aegis", et cetera.


While activated, this power provides the Adept d6-1(LI)/d4(HI)/d6-
1(En) armor of Good toughness against High Impact and Energy attacks,
and Ordinary toughness against Low Impact attacks. It can only be
activated in Senshi form and has a duration of 10 minutes; however it
can be purchased as being "always on" in Senshi form for the permanent
expenditure of 3 FX Energy Points. It cannot be bestowed on others.


(X) Increased Effect: At rank 4, the armor provided increases to
d6/d4+1/d6. At rank 8, it increases again to d6+2/d8/d6+2, and at rank
12 the armor's toughness becomes Amazing against HI and En and Good
against LI attacks.


ENERGY BLAST (cost 4, WIL)


This power is identical to "Energy -- Energy Blast" in chapter 5 of
"Beyond Science: A Guide To FX" (TSR 11432), save that there is an
additional rank benefit, and extremely liberal interpretations of
"energy" are allowed.


(>) Non-Lethal Attack: At rank 4, the user of this skill may
voluntarily downgrade the damage it deals to Stun, after upgrading or
downgrading damage based on the attack's intensity and defender's
toughness. This can be done at the time of the attack, or the Adept
can establish conditions under which the downgrade occurs, such as
attacking civilians under some mind-altering effect.


MATTER BLAST (cost 4, WIL)
1 FX Energy Point
This skill cannot be used untrained.


This power is almost identical to "Energy Blast", though obviously it
focuses on matter instead of energy. A type of matter, such as
"water", "air", "metal", etc. Virtual matter of is created or real
matter assembled and given cohesion of a brief moment, then flung at
an enemy. It deals d6w/d8w/d4m (HI/O) at a range of 60 meters and is
opposed by the target's Dexterity resistance modifier. Like Energy
Blast, its user may choose to downgrade damage to Stun at any time. A
character may not know both Energy and Matter Blast at once.


(X) Increased Damage: At rank 4 the damage increases to d8w/d8+1w/d6m.
At rank 8, the damage increases to d8+1w/d12w/d4+2m. At Rank 12, the
damage improves to Good intensity.


(>) Non-Lethal Attack: At rank 4, the user of this skill may
voluntarily downgrade the damage it deals to Stun, after upgrading or
downgrading damage based on the attack's intensity and defender's
toughness. This can be done at the time of the attack, or the Adept
can establish conditions under which the downgrade occurs, such as
attacking civilians under some mind-altering effect.


ENERGY CONTROL (cost 4, WIL)


This power is identical to "Energy -- Energy Control" in "Beyond
Science", save that extremely liberal interpretations of "energy" are
allowed.


MATTER CONTROL (Cost 4, WIL)
1 or 2 FX Energy Points
This skill cannot be used untrained.


Similar to Energy Control, only for a specified type of matter.
Classical elements (air, earth, water) and more specific materials
(stone, metal, wood) are acceptable choices for elements, as are even
odder things (dark matter), but things like "liquids" or "solids" are
too broad. Usage of this skill grants something like a more precise
but more limited telekinesis, the ability to shape and control amounts
of the chosen element within a 30 meter radius for the duration of 1
round. Moving materials into the shapes of machines that require small
moving parts is all but impossible and requires an Intelligence feat
check at a +2 penalty at best -- shaping metal into a gun, for
example, is not possible no matter how good your roll. Control of an
element cannot be used directly against another living thing: an Adept
with Matter Control (Metal) could not suck the iron in a person's
blood out through his pores, nor could one with Matter Control (Water)
dessicate him with a snap of her fingers, nor could one with Matter
Control (Air) asphyxiate him by sucking the oxygen from his lungs,
etc. Things someone is holding or using, however, are fair game,
though the person holding the object gets to add his DEX or WIL
resistance modifier, whichever is higher, to the roll. Matter Control
(Air) can be used to suck air out of a general area, if not a specific
target, and affected characters begin to suffocate as per normal
rules. However, an FX point must be spent each round to keep affected
characters airless.


Alternately, a character may spend 2 FX Energy Points on activating
this skill to conjure up to 5 kg of their chosen material out of thin
air, in a pre-chosen pattern if they so choose. Structure requirements
must still be obeyed, so this cannot be used to conjure a firearm, but
it could be used to make a sword, or a chain-whip with heart-shaped
links. The conjured material lasts until dismissed by its summoner or
its summoner uses this ability again. Materials that have been
consumed do not get dismissed in this fashion -- breathing conjured
air will not cause someone to collapse of anoxia when she summons more
of it.


This ability can be used in concert with a Matter Blast of the same or
compatible type to enhance that attack, like Energy Control can
enhance an Energy Blast. A character may not know both Energy and
Matter control at once.


PLANET'S VEIL (cost 3, PER)
Active or 1 FX Energy Point
This skill cannot be used untrained.


The means by which the Senshi hides among the population she protects,
Planet's Veil is an illusion that is not an illusion. This mind-
clouding affect does not alter the Adept's appearance in any way, but
prevents those that observe her from recognizing that the Adept's
Senshi form and the Adept's 'civilian' identity are the same person.
Characters who have not been given a specific reason to think that the
Adept's two identities are one and the same (and them having the exact
same hair color, eye color, voice, and facial features don't count)
make no roll to see through the ruse, and those who do have such
reason make an Awareness -- Perception or Awareness -- Intuition check
opposing the Adept's Planetary Sorcery -- Planet's Veil check
(requiring no conscious effort on the Adept's part and disregarding
any conditional penalties the Adept may be suffering due to wounds,
fatigue, other FX powers, and the like). If he gets a greater degree
of success than the Adept, he pierces the cognitive illusion and is no
longer affected by it. If the Adept has a greater degree of success,
or they tie, then he shakes off his suspicion and concludes they
cannot be the same person -- though some new event or evidence might
give him another chance to break the spell.


Planet's Veil lasts for 10 minutes per activation or for the permanent
expenditure of 2 FX Energy Points it can be "always on" when in Senshi
form and "always off" when not. The power need not be active at any
given time someone is trying to find a Senshi's secret identity;
whenever the power is "off" the adept has Identity A, whenever it is
"on" the adept has Identity B, and at all times the magic inhibits
people from seeing they are the same person. A person who sees the
Adept on multiple occasions with her Hidden Identity deactivated will
recognize her as the same person, and a person who sees the Adept on
multiple occasions with her Hidden Identity active will recognize it
is the same person, but one who sees the Adept sometimes with and
sometimes without the Planet's Veil thinks he is seeing two different
people. This effect extends to recordings made of the Senshi, people
looking at the video or photographs of her with her Planet's Veil on
can't recognize her as the same person as with it off.


Anyone who sees through the Planet's Veil is never affected by it
again, though he does not become immune to the Planet's Veil effects
of other Senshi. Anyone who witnesses a Senshi transforming into her
civilian guise gets to make an immediate Awareness -- Perception check
to see through the disguise, and anyone who sees an Adept's civilian
form transform into a Senshi pierces the disguise automatically. Like
Planet's Aegis, this skill is never purchased as "Planet's Veil"; the
word "Planet" is always replaces with the name of the planet
represented.



What follows is a list of Sailor Senshi and their powers. The Senshi's
title is listed, and then in parentheses that Senshi's species. If
powers are listed for Senshi who do not appear to have used those
powers, obviously those Senshi felt their Achievement Points would be
better spent on other skills.


Sailor Mercury (Human): Energy Blast (Cold), Energy Control (Cold),
Metaconscious -- Genius, Metaconscious -- Super Intelligence


Sailor Venus   (Human): Energy Blast (Light), Matter Control (Metal),
Hemomancy -- Blood Debt [inverted, penalty to hostile actions, bonus
to PER-based skills], Mesmerism -- Befriend


Sailor Earth   (Human): Energy Blast (Kinetic),  Energy Control
(Courage) [Monotheism -- Blessing], Brick -- Super Strength, ESP --
Sensitivity


Sailor Moon    (Human): Energy Blast (Light), Energy Control (Purity)
[Monotheism -- Exorcise], Monotheism -- Heal, Metaconscious -- Super
Personality


Sailor Mars    (Human): Energy Blast (Fire), Energy Control (Fire),
Pyromancy -- Incendiary Seal, Monotheism -- Vision


Sailor Jupiter (Human): Energy Blast (Electricity), Matter Control
(Wood), Brick -- Invulnerability (Electricity), Druidism -- Surge of
Greenery


Sailor Saturn  (Human): Energy Blast (Sonic), Energy Control (Entropy)
[Enochian -- Unravel Enchantment], Hemomancy -- Lifeblood, Energy --
Energy Field


Sailor Uranus  (Human): Matter Blast (Air), Matter Control (Air),
Brick -- Super Strength, Movement -- Lightning Speed


Sailor Neptune (Human): Matter Blast (Water), Matter Control (Water),
ESP -- Precognition, Brick -- Life Support


Sailor Pluto   (Human): Matter Blast (Dark Matter), Matter Control
(Dark Matter), Psychoportation -- Duplicate, Psychoportation --
Timeslip


Sailor Fraal: The Greys have not seen their homeworld in generations
and it is not believed they ever practiced planetary sorcery on it.


Sailor Aleer (Mechalus): Energy Blast (Electricity), Energy Control
(Data) [Telepathy -- Datalink], Metaconscious -- Genius, Chi -- Focus


Sailor Kurg    (Weren): Energy Blast (Kinetic), Matter Control
(Stone), Brick -- Impact Conversion, Chi -- Power Strike


Sailor Taasa    (T'sa): Energy Blast (Fire), Energy Control
(Electricity), Movement -- Fusillade, Metaconscious -- Hyper Learning


Sailor Sheya (Sesheyan): Matter Blast (Air), Energy Control --
Darkness [Shadow -- Call Shadows], Shamanism -- Dreamwalking, Druidism
-- Kinship of Beasts


Sailor Bluefall (Deepfallen): Matter Blast (Water), Energy Control
(Sonic), Body Modification -- Phasing, Mesmerism -- Befriend


Sailor Yellow Sky (Human): Matter Blast (Acid), Matter Control (Air),
Brick -- Life Support, Alienism -- Bend Space


Sailor Penates (Human): Energy Blast (Cold), Energy Control (Entropy)
[Enochian -- Unravel Enchantment], Telepathy -- Drain, Hemomancy --
Bloodlust


Sailor Lison  (Mechalus): Matter Blast (Dark Matter), Matter Control
(Metal), Druidism -- Wield the Ley Line, Brick -- Life Support


Sailor Gardhyi: Gardhyi obviously know of arcane magic FX and it is
not at all improbable they have discovered planetary sorcery. Normal
gardhyi can call shadows, throw bolts of elemental darkness, and make
jumps of 75 light years WITHOUT A STARSHIP. And those are the regular
ones. If there is a Sailor Gardhyi Homeworld, pray you never meet him.
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