[FFML] [Sailor Moon] Double Exposure 12 [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.


* * * * *



   The Gates of Time, a free-standing doorway to nowhere situated dead
center in a vast featureless plain. Sailor Pluto stands ever-vigilant
guard over these ornate doors, for if one were to pass through them,
he could traverse history and cause inconceivable damage in the
process.


   Isci ba Fan cannot cross through time by this means and does not
care besides. He would be unable to bring most of his body with him
through the Gate, and to travel backward in time would mean there was
something he regretted enough to change. He learns from mistakes, but
he does not regret. Regret was for the weak and frail.


   The dark matter gateway that usually contained the Gates of Time in
a no-space dimension pocket had expanded outward as more power was
drawn from it, and now the entire north and east walls of the main
kinori cavern were replaced with the vast expanse of the Gates, its
floor and gravity off from normal by 20 degrees. Two huge Tesla coils
were set next to the Gates, sending bolts of brilliant green lightning
into each other, and machinery was affixed all over its frame, the
cables leading from them going into even more machines and devices all
over the cavern.


   Kinori technicians darted to and fro, manning the machines, and
looking worriedly at the three decapitated corpses laid in the middle
of the room. The Gate-Keeper kept stressing she did not rule by fear,
and would not kill a subordinate simply for failing due to
circumstances outside his control. And as far as they had discovered,
this was true, because at this point when the Gate-Keeper heard
information that made her angry she killed the nearest living thing
regardless of whether it had been the one to displease her. They were
operating machinery they could barely comprehend, and when the
Gate-Keeper was in the room it was a hellish game of Musical Chairs to
not be the one standing closest to her when someone inevitably screwed
up.


   Fortunately she was not in the room right now, having traveled to
the antechamber with the daimon incubator. The large-type daimons were
vastly diminished in reasoning capacity and had to be programmed with
all of their responses to circumstances; the last time this was done
with the daimons and their hypnotized human support teams, the results
had been disastrous. But things, of course, promised to be different
this time, and so Kher-Aya was now monitoring the Gate and its
progress.


   "Do we have an estimated time?" the blackscale asked, smacking the
stock of his shotgun into his other claw. "Gate-Keeper grows impatient
for the Master's arrival."


   "Uhhh... Less than 24 hours. I think. If I'm reading this thingy
right and everything is... you know... calibrated." The technician
lightly flicked the monitor with one of his talons. "Actually, we need
to talk about the Gate-Keeper."


   "What is it now? My time is valuable."


   "The fact that she keeps impaling and decapitating people? She's
dangerous, she's insane."


   "Stop failing and maybe you'll have nothing to fear."


   "Yes, yes, I understand, Great One," the technician said, waving
his arms and bowing his head as a display of humility. The others all
shuffled away from him to avoid being hit by stray fire. "We all trust
that you have the nest's best interests at heart, but do you know she
does? We've only just learned of her existence and she is already
commanding our actions and carrying a weapon in the egg chamber.
Maybe, you know, the other workers would be more comfortable if we had
time to know her."


   "I am the blackscale and my word is law. I'm the only one that has
to know her and I am satisfied that any sacrifice we make to have her
destroy the surface-dwellers is worthwhile. When we control the world
of daylight and have infinite room to roam free, those who fell here
will be remembered as heroes." He leaned in and his tone became
conspiratorial. "We've scraped and survived in these cold underground
caverns for too long, subsisting on their cast-off detritus. I'd be a
fool not to take any chance to improve our lot in life." He looked
around to make sure nobody was listening in. "And yes, I'm aware of
her control issues. The eight-man honor guard following her now is
ordered to attack her at once if she appears to be betraying or
endangering the nest as a whole. I'm not a blind fool, and she cannot
repel a coordinated assault from them if she is surprised."


   "Oh. I never should have doubted you, Great One."


   "I will ask her about her interactions with the nest if it worries
you." Kher-Aya groaned slightly. "...Actually, I'll send a subordinate
I don't like to ask her."


* * * SAILOR.MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE


CHAPTER 12: DOUBLE BIND * * *


HOUSE OF COUNCILLORS OFFICE BUILDING, LOBBY
NAGATACHO, TOKYO, JAPAN TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1995, 4:12 PM


   "...and it was a nightmare, because to stick together, every time
Usa-ko did something to get sent out into the hall, both of us had to
do something to get sent out with her. " Makoto punched Usagi on the
arm playfully. "Now they think we're all on the path to slackerhood
like her."


   "Hey, don't pretend it was all her fault. He caught you for
doodling that one time, and I had to take a dive for that!" Minako
stuck her tongue out at Makoto.


   "I don't know about you two, but I was, like, freaking out the
entire time, jumping around at every sound and movement because I
thought something was going to jump out and get me. I was so paranoid
and trying to be watchful," she paused and put her finger on her chin
in contemplation, "I think I ended up paying more attention in class
than I have in years."


   "Ha!" Rei barked. "If your parents get sick of your grades, maybe
they should hire you a stalker instead of a tutor." Usagi opened her
mouth to respond, but Rei shushed her with a hand as they approached
the receptionist. "Hello!" said Rei, and flashed her student ID along
with her winning smile. "My name is Hino Rei, Hino Takashi's daughter.
My friends are doing a project on the legislative process, and, we
were going to speak to someone involved firsthand." Rei paused,
waiting for the receptionist to pick apart her story so she could
counter it.


   "Ah, yes, Hino-san. Your father told me to expect you, he's waiting
in the office up on the ninth floor."


   Rei blinked, but showed no other sign of surprise. "Yes, well, I
just wanted to check in. We'll be on up, then."


   "You told him we were coming?" whispered Usagi.


   "I thought you said we were going to use the disguise pen and get
at his files," added Minako. "And then if that didn't work, we were
going to transform in the ladies' room and have four Senshi demand he
reveal what he was hiding, for justice. 'And maybe rough him up a
little,' in your words."


   "I didn't tell him!" Rei rasped. "We never even talk to each other.
I have no idea why he'd tell them to expect me. Maybe it's wishful
thinking."


   "Maybe I'm keeping my hand on my pen," whispered Makoto as they
entered the elevator.


*


   Hino Takashi sat behind his desk, not even trying to appear cool
and in control. His shirt and tie were rumpled, his hair was unkempt,
his posture was that of a man exhausted, he was holding a cigarette
smoked down to the filter, and on his desk was a bottle of sake,
three-quarters empty. The feng shui of the defeated politician. "Oh.
Hello, Rei-chan," he said as his unlocked door swung open, without
meeting her eyes. "That was quick. I didn't expect you to even get the
message so soon."


   "Don't call me '-chan', 'Dad'." Pure contempt seeped from every one
of Rei's words, leaving burning streaks on her father's ears. "What
did you want from me now?"


   Takashi glanced to her friends and did a little math in his head.
"Close the door first, okay? I don't want the whole hallway hearing
it."


   With a great put-upon expression, she shut the door and locked it,
while Usagi, Minako, and Makoto edged to the other side of the room.
Getting involved with this fight was going to be a bad idea. "There,"
said Rei, "Now what's the big -- oh Jesus Christ, are you smoking
again, after how hard Mom had to try to get you to quit?" Rei was a
devout Shintoist, but she learned to swear from Catholics.


   "You're a Sailor Senshi and you didn't bother to tell your father
or grandfather about it, okay? I think that counts more than me taking
up smoking."


   All four girls went wide-eyed and slack-jawed. "WHAT?"


   "Yeah, okay, you're a Senshi, you're probably either Sailor Mars or
Jupiter depending on how the disguise works, and you brought your
friends because they're Sailor Senshi too, I imagine." He rested his
cheek on his palm and sighed. "Last year it was two aliens, who went
by the names Ginga Seijuro and Ginga Natsume, and then a demon army
running out of a black spaceship, and now it's a bunch of
science-witches trying to summon a demon and end the world. And even
though you don't look the same, too much has been happening at the
Hikawa Shrine and your periods of absence from school have matched up
to when the Senshi were in periods of intense fighting, and we put two
and two together. We've known about you, specifically, since October."


   "And you were going to keep it a secret that you knew, so you could
spring it on me like this?"


   He banged his fist on the desk and shouted, "No, I wasn't, my
superiors were! I know you like to think of me as the source of all
evil, Re... Hino-san, but this is a bureaucracy. People are giving
orders to me from so high up I can't even see them."


   Rei snarled. "Who gave you the order to let your wife waste away in
the hospital without ever visiting her, the Bureau of Heartless
Assholes?"


   He chewed his lip and looked into his desk. "I didn't call you up
here to have an argument, I called you up here because I need your
help."


   She crossed her arms and stared defiantly but he still would not
meet her gaze. "Well, I think you wasted a phone call."


   "Okay, then I called you up here because the people of Japan need
your help. The government hasn't got involved in Sailor Moon and
company because we don't want a paper trail and we don't want to tie
you up in bureaucracy. And after this, we will stay out of all your
hair and let you fight space alien cyborgs and we can pretend we never
met. But we've found out that some of those youma-things have been
infiltrating the police, posing as FBI agents. Nasty customers who--"


   "--who can read minds and shrug off any hit they see coming and
warp between shadowy areas," Minako finished. "We've heard of them.
One of them has Sailor Mercury."


   "And we'd be out looking for her instead of here if we knew the
slightest thing about where and how to find them," added Makoto.


   "All I knew about was the mind reading part. We don't know if there
are more of them still uncovered in the police hierarchy, or in other
government agencies, and we were wondering if you could give a few
departments the once-over and use your, your Senshi skills to deal
with them. We would have let you do it on your own, but we thought
that doing internal-affairs sweeps wasn't usually on your itinerary.
That's what your father..." Rei glared, "...what the government wants
from you, okay? Find out, or tell us how to find out, if there's any
youma in the NPA or the ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs, or
Defense."


   "Okay. But you have to do something for us. That's how it works in
your little world, isn't it, favor for a favor, quid pro quo, you
scratch my back I scratch yours?" She tilted her head like she wanted
an answer but she didn't wait for one. "We need a map of the tunnels
under Tokyo."


   He looked genuinely confused. "Why? Nobody's used those since the
70's. There's not enough room for an evil headquarters in there, at
least, I thought."


   "There is an entire nest of kinori somewhere in there! They're
working with the Pharaoh, they're what we need to find. And we can't
search the tunnels on our own, there's too many of them."


   "Wait, is a kinori a type of youma?"


   "No..." Now Rei was confused too. Takashi was in with Kunimatsu
Takaji, he knew about youma, why wouldn't he know about this? And why
would he lie about it if he did? "No, they're lizard-people that live
in an underground cave network under Tokyo. Those tunnels were dug to
help them access everything in the city better without being seen."


   "Honey, that would be news to me. As far as I can tell, they were
dug for some kind of alternate-evacuation scheme in case of World War
III, and a bunch of contractors started digging caves to nowhere to
rack up their costs, and the project was cancelled in 1978 because we
were going to too much effort to spend too much money for something
that was totally useless." He shrugged and held out his hands. "I'm
not going to call you a liar, you are the one fighting the demons
after all, I'm just going to say that this is the first I've ever
heard of kinori, or secret lizard societies underneath Tokyo."


   "I thought they were in league with the lizards," muttered Minako.
"I'm actually kinda disappointed."


   "Ask Kunimatsu Takaji about it," said Rei, "because, apparently,
kinori and fraal hate each other's guts."


   "Okay, now what is a 'fraal'?"


   Rei blinked in disbelief. "The aliens. The Greys. Kunimatsu Takaji
is one of them. I thought you were in on all of this?"


   "Kunimatsu Takaji is an alien? Damn it, how much else are you
people hiding from me!"


   "Look, look, it doesn't matter, okay? Somebody knows more about
those tunnels than you do, and we need to know what he knows. Because
we KNOW there are these kinori things underground and we need to know
how to find them. If you want us to help you with your problem, you
HAVE to help us with ours."


   "I'll, I'll do what I can, okay? See who I can rouse in Records,
among the people who know you actually exist outside of folklore. I
can't make any promises, information like this doesn't get released
easily, but I will try."


   "You've said THAT before."


   He tried to take a drag of his by now long-dead cigarette. "Well,
usually the thing I was trying to do didn't involve the summoning of a
space-demon, okay? So I have a bit more of an incentive. But if you
don't get on this thing with the police department, I'm not going to
have any chips left to cash in to get your map. Don't do it for me,
will you do it because youma infiltrating the government is a bad
thing?"


   "Yeah. Tell whoever it is you have to tell that Sailor Moon's been
notified and is officially working on it." She was about to leave,
then remembered one last thing. "Oh, and I'm Sailor Mars, by the way.
I tell you that so I can tell you, if you tell anyone else about me
being a Senshi, I am going to immolate you."


   "Not a word, I promise. I know you don't want to believe this,
but... I really do l--"


   "Finish that sentence," Rei intoned darkly, her left eyebrow
twitching, "and I swear it will be the last thing you EVER say. Come
on girls, let's get out of here before I do something I won't regret."


   And the other three girls waited until they were out of the office,
out of the elevator, out of the lobby, and on the street to say
anything. "Wow," Makoto finally remarked, "You really, really don't
like your dad, do you?"


   "That bastard let my mother die a slow, agonizing death without
ever being there for her because he thought his career was more
important." Rei spat for emphasis, not something she usually did, but
it felt appropriate. "I may have the misfortune of sharing some DNA
with him, but that doesn't mean a thing. I am not his child and he is
absolutely not in any capacity my father."


   "I'm surprised he knew..." Usagi looked around at the other people
on the street, "...surprised he knew your secret, but none of that
other stuff."


   "Yeah, I didn't get that either," Minako added. "I thought once you
were In On It, you were, well, In On It. He was a lot less useful than
I would've thought."


   "Welcome to age six through age fifteen," Rei said bitterly. "At
least I know that the next time he talks to Kunimatsu Takaji it's
going to be one of the most awkward conversations he's ever had. I
wish I could see it."


   "Yeah, conversations with... those kinds of people tend to be that
way."


* * *


   "That took you long enough," said Nakami as Haruka and Michiru
entered the apartment. Haruka was carrying a heavy box that he made no
attempt to help her with.


   "We had to find a pickup truck," said Haruka as she set the box
down on the table, "because we don't know what kind of supplies your
employee is having delivered that we'll have to haul around, and my
father didn't know we were going to use one."


   "We also went shopping for supplies," said Michiru, rummaging
around in it. "Six pairs of night-vision goggles as per your
suggestion, since you said the light level would be very poor, some
climbing rope, and one hundred chemical glowsticks." She paused and
pulled out the shirt she was looking for. "And a change of clothes for
Haruka and myself as we could not get one from our apartment."


   "Guns?"


   "I know that in America you can walk into store and walk out with
an artillery piece every time you like, but here in Japan the
licensing process alone takes months."


   "Huh." Nakami picked up one of the pairs of goggles, it was brushed
metal and encrusted with lenses and looked like the kind of thing only
the richest fraal would have, much less humans. He struggled to get it
on without jabbing himself in the eye, even though to Haruka and
Michiru it looked as if fit perfectly over his head. "These look
really nice. Expensive. Did you two knock over a bank or something to
just be able to buy six of these at the drop of a hat?"


   "We're cooperating in order to solve a problem that faces all of
us, and we are even listening to your advice on how to do it. Please
don't turn this into another argument."


   "Well, from what I heard from Hotaru," Nakami gave up trying to put
on the goggles, his eyes were much larger than the rubber areas meant
to go around them, "and from my people, I got the impression the two
of you were supposed to be bloodthirsty, evil people. And I don't
believe that you are quite that bad, but that doesn't make you
'good'."


   "Sailor Moon and her retinue revile us because we tell them things
they don't want to hear," said Haruka. "We tell them that closing your
eyes and wishing isn't going to solve every problem they encounter,
and one day their luck in that regard is going to fail, and it is
going to end in tragedy. We make the sacrifices they're unwilling to
and they think it makes us evil."


   "I would have thought," added Michiru, "that someone in your
position would agree with ours. I know that your problems are not
solved by blind, unthinking idealism. I know you must have at some
point sent men to their deaths."


   "My problems aren't some greater meaning," said Nakami. "They're
aliens and weird critters and government bureaucrats thinking they're
the lords of Creation, nothing more. It's not a choice between, 'close
your eyes and hope' and 'throw a guy into a wood chipper'. I have sent
men out and they have died, yes, but I never sent them for that
purpose."


   "Then you were right before. You obviously don't know the slightest
thing about the forces at play here."


   "Isci ba Fan's not an analogy! He's not a, a referendum on idealism
versus fatalism! No, I'm not going to say, if it really and truly is
the only way to stop this hellish psionic demon from entering our
world, that I would say Hotaru shouldn't give her life to stop it.
Because that would be asinine, since she would die anyway. But I don't
know that's the only way! You don't know that's the only way!"


   She grabbed him by the tie, the only part of his clothes that
existed, and pulled his face toward hers. "Listen to me, you
ungrateful little alien. The only reason you are even here to complain
is because people like me are willing to make the tough choices to
keep the world safe. If we were all like Sailor Moon, we'd sit in a
circle wishing for the monster to be our friend, and if we were all
like you, we'd be paralyzed in inaction as we frantically searched for
an option that didn't seem icky to us, and then we'd half-ass
something at the last minute. If someone doesn't step up and make
these decisions everyone is going to die. And Hotaru is the only one
that can kill the Pharaoh, because she's Sailor Saturn, and that's her
destiny."


   "You can't just justify it with--"


   "And if that is not enough for you, it's her destiny because to be
able to cleanse a planet she has to be able to output teratons of
force. Nothing else anyone on Earth has comes close enough. She was
born with this power, it's something that she herself cannot stand to
live with, and it's the only thing that can solve the problem." She
released his tie and let him fall a few steps backwards. "That's what
destiny is. Destiny isn't everything turning out okay, it's the
horrible and inevitable result of factors totally outside of our
control. She didn't ask to be Sailor Saturn. She didn't ask to have
the ability to kill herself to destroy worlds. But she is, and she
can, and there's a hellspawn creature out there that can't be killed
any other way, so there is only one way this ends."


   "It doesn't make us happy," said Michiru, "and we don't relish it.
We wish it could not be true. And... that is part of why Haruka and I
resent Sailor Moon so much, because she gets to view destiny as a
cushion, a protector, insurance that everything will turn out all
right. But I know it won't, and you know it won't. Destiny is a cruel
and callous whore and it sends all of us to ignoble, painful ends. So
if we seem angry or vindictive, it is because they are rejoicing in
what we will never have and we know it will only make it hurt more
when it all comes crashing down. And we know we will have to watch,
and do, horrible things, and that nothing we can do will stop it."


   "I... don't believe in destiny."


   "Now look me in the eye," said Haruka with no trace of anger or
superiority, "and tell me you believe in happy endings."


   Nakami looked her in the eye for several seconds, but couldn't say
a word.


*


   Hotaru was supposed to be napping on the couch, but was really just
laying there with her eyes closed, eavesdropping. She didn't want to
go back to sleep because, she knew who she was going to see as soon as
she did. So she would just stay here for a while and pretend to be
napping and then advance toward her own destruction as before. Someone
else pushed her legs out of the way and sat down on the couch, and --
damn it.


   Hotaru sat up, sighed, and looked at the woman sitting next to her.
The seven-fingered woman in the black dress with the red scar on her
neck whose face looked like her own. She'd fallen asleep again.


   "Princess Hangaku," said Hotaru, not really greeting her so much as
stating a fact. "Why didn't you come last night?"


   "You woke up too early. I had to talk to your friend, instead." She
sighed. "And now I'm talking to you because there's a few things I
forgot to tell you."


   "About how it's really a wonderful thing to be Sailor Saturn?"


   "No. Well, okay, that too, but not just that. You just... 'know'
about the whole Silver Millennium the way the rest of the Outers did,
and you remember how to swing your weapon like you remember how to
ride a bicycle, but there's other stuff nobody mentioned."


   "...Like what?"


   "Okay, well, like the other things about the Silence Glaive. You've
already figured out that it vanishes when you aren't touching it, so
nobody can steal it." She started to count off features on her
fingers, then realized she shouldn't do that on the hand that only has
two fingers. "Uh, we thought it wouldn't be good for me to have a
weapon that can cut through anything and then get pitched forward by
an explosion and slice myself or another Senshi in half, so part of
the magic on it is, if it's about to cut into human flesh and the
blade is outside of your field of vision, the blade will disappear
instead. So, if you think you're about to swing into someone on your
side, close your eyes."


   "How did you lose your fingers, then?"


   "That was what made us think to put that... particular safety
feature on it." She looked at the finger-stumps on her hand and
sighed. Hotaru realized that meant Hangaku had to be looking right at
the blade she ended up chopping her own head off with, and shuddered.
"And, it only works on humans, so... you'll have to be very careful
around Artemis and Luna, or around any objects you want to keep
intact."


   "Did you ever test it?" Hotaru didn't need to specify what she was
testing, they both knew.


   "You mean did we wipe out a planet? No. But it was crafted by Queen
Serenity to have that power, and I was given the mantle of Sailor
Saturn in order to have that power, and she was among the most
powerful sorcerers the world had ever seen." She looked down at her
hand again. "I know I never doubted her or it. I just wish you could
see it, up close, for yourself. That you'd really see the Silver
Millennium, and know what a beautiful, wonderful thing you've been
given, and how special and great it makes you."


   "So it might not work at all, then. The planet-destroyer. It might
not work."


   "Hotaru, I think you know the answer to that. Or you will."


   "But you won't tell me. Like how I have to work out if there were
aliens there." She laughed, bitter and empty. "Because if there were,
then it was like Atlantis, and the whole Kingdom was a bunch of people
who thought they were way cooler than they really were, and I've
inherited a legacy of failures and broken promises. And if there
weren't and the Silver Millennium really was the perfect beautiful
place, I've inherited a horrible power and standards I'll never live
up to, and you can't tell me which. What a choice."


   "Nobody can tell you which one is true but you." She sighed. "But
it doesn't matter anyway if you can destroy a planet. You'll never
have to use it. All you have to do is trust Sailor Moon."


   Hotaru stood up, there was a whole dream-apartment here and her
anxiety made her feel like she had to be moving around in some way.
"Sailor Moon who loves everybody and she'll make everything okay with
the power of love and friendship."


   "When you say it that way, it sounds stupid, but it's exactly what
she does. There's a very good reason she's the Queen, even if she is a
bit of a klutz."


   Hotaru walked to the table to find something for her hands to
fidget with, but the box on it was empty; the dream didn't go into
that much detail. "I don't, I don't doubt in her, so much as I doubt
in the power of love and friendship. You, and her, and Chibi-Usa all
say it is the cure for every ill, and it's a wonderful thing to
have... but I can't see it as a panacea. It's wasted on me."


   "Hotaru, no! You know that's not--"


   "No. No, it is true. I'm a walking curse, Hangaku. I have murdered
people, I have hurt people--"


   "That's not you. That wasn't you then and it isn't you now, that's
just depression talking."


   "I think I have some real reasons to be depressed! The people who
loved me in the past, I responded to with ingratitude and hate. I'm
not a happy, well-adjusted person. I can't just wash that off. I'm not
a princess. I'll never be a princess. I'll never be beautiful and
happy and self-confident and charming and elegant. If I'm Sailor
Saturn, I'll never be able to live up to the good parts, I'll always
be the creepy one who can kill everybody. Chibi-Usa loves me... I
don't know why she would." She sat down on the floor, cross-legged,
and she started to sniffle. "She's the only one, you know? She's the
only person I ever... If I didn't have her, I'd be so much more lost.
My only friend. My one, only, friend left. Isn't that sad?"


   "That's not true. Usagi, Ami, Makoto, all of them, they're all your
friends."


   "They're all Chibi-Usa's friends, and they think that we're friends
just through that. That don't know me. It's no comfort to know that
someone who doesn't know me approves of being my friend in a general
sense."


   Hangaku winced, not really sure if she wanted to say this, but
decided she had to. "And what about the lady doctor? She's never met
Chibi-Usa and she loves you. She was up all night watching you because
she was so afraid you would hurt yourself."


   "She only did that because her boss said he wanted to hire me. It
isn't the same thing as what Chibi-Usa feels."


   "No, she wasn't. She thought it was a stupid idea... I know you
love Chibi-Usa. But you won't be betraying her friendship if you let
other people in. People all around you want you to be happy, Hotaru,
and people who you've just met want you to be happy. What will it take
for you to want you to be happy?"


   "I don't know." Hotaru thought it wasn't so much about wanting to
be happy, as the possibility not existing.


   "Look me in the eye, Hotaru. I'm your past self, I'm your soul.
Look me in the eye and tell me there's something that you can see or
that can happen that will change your mind. Even if you don't know
what it is yet. Promise."


   Hotaru closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and thought about it.
Then, she met Hangaku's gaze, and said, "I promise."


* * *


   Time slid onward. The sun began to set, and lengths of time that
felt like eternity when they were being chopped and thrown and
punched, now went away in the blink of an eye. Philip marked a map of
Tokyo with a Sharpie as he spoke to a geologist in Scranton, Donna
stood by the door with the sock full of batteries, and Bill and Nadine
watched TV and tried not to drive themselves insane with more
fruitless worry. It wasn't working very well.


   "So..." Nadine said, hands on her knees. "Hell of a thing, huh?"


   "Ah-yup." Bill was on his knees in front of the TV, flipping
through the channels since the remote didn't work.


   "Don't suppose you have any ideas how we blow up an alien demon
from space, and another dimension?"


   "Nope." He paused on a channel when he saw Arnold Schwarzenegger,
then flipped away when he saw he was selling some kind of energy
drink. "This place is weird, huh?"


   "It's a different culture. My mother thought what we did in America
was weird."


   "No, no, that's not what I'm talking about. I mean, not like Tokyo,
I mean crazy supernatural crap in Tokyo."


   "That's always weird."


   "Well, okay, yeah." He put out his arms in the classic 'you got me'
gesture. "It's in the definition. But I mean, how Uranus and Neptune
have this apartment that costs an ungodly amount of money, and evil
Dr. Tomoe had an ungodly amount of money and he's building stuff in
downtown Tokyo out of his own pocket. And there's magical princesses,
with bulletproof leotards and magic lasers, against a witch coven with
like twenty PhDs who summon monsters that only the magic lasers can
kill."


   "Feel like we just stumbled into the Big Leagues?"


   "I dunno. Kinda. I feel like I'm waiting for the Candid Camera guy
to come out. I feel like, nobody's this good, nothing fits together
this well." He stopped again, only to see it was the same
Schwarzenegger commercial as before. "Something has to be up."


   "Nothing is up, Bill. They're just plain better than us. It's a
feeling we all should be really used to by now. They've got destinies,
I know we sure as hell don't." She sighed. "Once this is over, and
they probably solve it without our help, we should just get on a plane
back to the States and not screw them up any more."


   "They're not better than us," Donna said without looking from the
door. "They just do different stuff than us, that's all. It's like
comparing... uhh..."


   Bill clapped his hands together and pointed at her. "Like Superman
and Batman. Superman can fly and punch like a train and he's got heat
vision, and Batman is just a guy. So Superman punches aliens, but
Batman's a detective and a scientist, and he does a different kind of
thing."


   "I was going to use a less dorky analogy, Bill, but, sure. These
guys do lasers and demons, and we do investigation and stuff."


   "Well... Wait, Go back, go back! That was the news!"


   Bill went back down two channels to the news report, and even
though he could not understand the chipper newscaster, Nadine could.
"...has now confirmed, that Metropolitan Police Headquarters was in
fact attacked, by operatives attempting to break out prisoners held in
the detention cells. Unfortunately, the names and pictures of these
escapees are unavailable at this time."


   "Oh, thank God," Nadine said.


   "The NPA is responding to this terroristic aggression with all due
force," said a man in a suit on the TV that the caption said was
Kunimatsu Takaji. "We advise Tokyo's citizenry to be unintimidated by
these threats, but to report any suspicious activity to local police
authorities."


   The newswoman continued. "The Ministry of Justice now reports that
one of the masterminds of the attack, a woman named Arimura Yuko, is
already in police custody." The image switched over to a grainy
videotape with 'Courtesy Tokyo Metropolitan Police Dept.' in the
corner. There was a red- and purple-haired woman in a hospital bed, in
a neck brace and with casts on her arms and legs, glaring up at the
camera. Nadine's jaw dropped. "Arimura sustained heavy injuries while
attempting to flee arrest, and is currently in police custody in an
undisclosed location until she is medically fit for detention." The
image swapped again to a file photo of Arimura Yuko in better times,
in a white lab coat with bright crimson hair and eyes, wearing large
red star-shaped earrings and a pair of rectangular eyeglasses on the
end of her nose, looking vaguely surprised. "Arimura is believes to
have been involved with the recent destruction of the Mugen academy,
where she had been impersonating an engineering professor for some
time. No word yet on what charges, specifically, she will face, or
whether or not she has been offered a plea bargain."


   "'Undisclosed location' my ass!" Nadine shouted. "THAT'S where I
know that name from! She's at Juuban General, she drove her car off a
cliff because she was going like ninety miles an hour!" She looked
around at everyone, not sure of what response she wanted. "They made
me go in there and change her dressings and drain her abscesses. She
was not in condition to move her. The terrorist witch who was trying
to end the world, that's in an undisclosed location, we know where she
is."


   "See? There we go. We're Batman. Superman wouldn't go track down
and pump the bad guy for information."


* * *


   Nobody else had been looking at the TV because nobody else
recognized Arimura Yuko's name. Hotaru did. She was Eudial, and she
was alive, and she was in a hospital room in a hospital where Hotaru
had been. She recognized the place.


   She should have told everyone, but she didn't. Because Eudial tried
to kill them, and they fought back against her, and Hotaru didn't
quite want to talk to Eudial. Even though that was the name she used
most of the time, she thought it was different. And if Eudial had been
the evil witch, then Arimura Yuko was the one she talked to, and she
needed to talk to her. She could talk to Eudial while she was there,
but if the others came, she wouldn't be able to talk to Yuko. Selfish
and foolish but she did it anyway.


   She waited until they were ready to leave for the airport and pick
up the delivery. Once Haruka, Minako, and Mamoru had gone downstairs
to leave, Hotaru said she changed her mind and wanted to go with them,
left to 'follow' them and crept out the back way. She got half a block
before Chibi-Usa caught up to her.


   "Why did you go off on your own, Hotaru-chan? Where are you going?"


   Hotaru sighed and slowly turned around, expecting to see everyone
else following her as well, but it was just Chibi-Usa. "Eudial-san is
in the hospital. Not under the name 'Eudial', of course. I need to go
see her, and I... I have to go alone."


   "It isn't safe. If you go out on your own, people will worry, and
if something happens nobody will know. If she tries to hurt you..."


   "No. Chibi-Usa. She won't."


   Chibi-Usa was confused for a second, blinked, but then understood
it. "You don't want to go there because you want to, like, get
information out of her. You want to go there because she's been hurt.
And if someone else was there she'd just be an enemy."


   Hotaru nodded, shivered with shame.


   Chibi-Usa thought about Eudial, how every time she's seen her red
dress and white hatchback she'd been attacking someone, extracting
someone's pure heart, summoning daimons. At the teahouse, the school,
the cathedral, she was greedy, violent, callous, and cruel. And she
looked into Hotaru's eyes, and she remembered what Hotaru had said
about knowing her when she was younger, and she saw her lip quiver...
"If you want to see her, then you should be able to see her without
everyone else screaming and attacking. You deserve it, Hotaru-chan,
and nobody should stop you." She laughed and tried to lighten the
mood. "I know Usa-ko would screw everything up, and Haruka-tachi would
be all 'blarg, an enemy, let's sacrifice someone to stop her'. But I
wanna go with you to make sure you're safe. Is that okay?"


   "...It's always okay for you to come with me, Chibi-Usa."


   "I'm happy you say that, Hotaru! Plus, I can bring the Luna-P and
record it if she says a whole bunch of technical stuff."


* * *


   "Find Makoto?"


   "Yeah, but, couldn't get her alone." Statler took off his hat and
scratched his bald, lumpy head. "She was sticking with Moon and Venus
at all times, even in the bathroom. Probably trying to avoid this," he
waved an arm at Sailor Mercury, "whole thing right here."


   "Oh, they'll get bored of moving in packs soon enough. And Ami's
done." Sailor Mercury -- Shadow Mercury -- was no longer tied to the
chair and was staring straight ahead, arms folded in her lap, waiting
patiently. Her fuku was slightly more sinister looking, all th white
areas now turned jet black. On her finger was the sapphire ring, her
Mercury Computer was a sleek black palm-top, and her tiara and
earrings were now silver set with onyx. Her hair blew around slightly
as if a breeze were coming from her shoulders, small wisps of smoke
came off her skin like it was dry ice, and her eyes were a uniform
milky white.


   "That does look pretty cool," Statler remarked.


   "Not that you should care about that in the slightest degree. Ami,
do YOU care how 'cool' you look?"


   "Sir, I do not."


   "Well, looks like the brainwashed slave has one thing up on you."
Waldorf took off his sunglasses, wiped off the lenses, and handed them
to Mercury. "Ami, do you care about anything that isn't doing what we
tell you?"


   "No sir, I do not."


   "Anyway, you gotta take her out and show her how her stuff works,
while I stay up here recuperating from being shot a thousand times."
Ami put on the glasses to mask her unnatural eyes, stood and walked to
the door, then waited obediently with her hands folded and her face
downward.


   "Oh, no no," said Statler with an ironic chuckle, "After YOU,
Ami-chan."


   "Yeah, have fun with your new toy!" Waldorf snarked. "Ass."


* * *


   An unmarked panel truck waited for them on Runway F of the Haneda
airport at precisely eight-thirty PM. It appeared only one man was
with it, a young, well-built man in military fatigues who looked more
than slightly twitchy and unstable. The three of them had transformed
before arriving, and Venus and Uranus changed back into a more normal
set of clothing while Tuxedo Kamen left his hat, mask and bow tie in
the car. They needed to be prepared if something went wrong, but
couldn't look suspicious.


   The man surveyed them with completely unmasked disdain, wondering
who the hell these people were, then recalled he didn't care at all
who these people were because he was going to be square either way.
They stopped in a triangular formation and looked at him expectantly,
as if there was some kind of secret code exchange they were waiting
for. So he thought for a few moments and decided on, "And Bill?"


   "Bill sent us," responded Kamen.


   The man nodded at some point behind them. "Did you bring a horse
for me?"


   Kamen furrowed his brow in momentary confusion, because he had no
idea what this man was talking about, and all three of them got ready
for trouble. "Excuse me?"


   "Once Upon a Time in the West? Anyone? No?" The man pointed his
finger out at them and smacked the base of his hand like it was an
imaginary six-shooter. "'You brought two too many', ka-pew-pew-pew!
Gooood movie. Of course they wouldn't have it here in Japanland."


   "Do you have the delivery?" asked Uranus, in a serious tone that
hopefully masked the fact she had no idea what the delivery was.


   "Yeah, yeah, I got it here. Didn't expect him to send anyone like
you, but what do I give a shit for, right?" He opened the back doors
to reveal a large, rectangular, olive-green crate marked 'PROPERTY OF
U.S. ARMY'. "I don't care if you guys are Yakuza street thugs, I
delivered this shit, on time, we're even. If you do happen to see
Bill, tell him he's totally cashed it in. I don't care what dirt he
has, or what he did for me in Afghanistan. He could pull my newborn
son out of a volcano and I still would never owe him another favor
ever again. You copy?"


   "We... copy that."


   "Good! Now help me with this thing, it's goddamn heavy." Handles
were set on the side, and Kamen and him grabbed one each, and lugged
it over to the pickup. Uranus and Venus felt like they should help,
but there was really no room for them to get in and grab anything, and
ended up standing there staring at them like total jerks. As soon as
the box was loaded up, the man jumped into his van and left without so
much as a 'goodbye'.


   "Well," remarked Uranus, "The 'PROPERTY OF U.S. ARMY' stencil
indicates to me that this is not going to be your magical
problem-solver device."


   "Hey, it could still be some top-secret experimental military
device!" said Venus.


   "Or it could be a rocket launcher," said Kamen as he looked into
the box. "And one, two, three assault rifles." He tapped the back of
the lid and let it fall closed. "Now we're arms smugglers."


   "No, you're the arms smuggler," said Venus with a wagging finger.
"I'm just an accessory."


* * *


   Chibi-Usa said that if there was a guard posted, she could use the
Luna-P to hypnotize him into letting them in. And Hotaru kindly and
earnestly asked that she never, ever use that feature on anyone ever
again. It reminded her too much of Mistress Nine and Wicked Lady to
ever be comfortable with.


   Luckily for them there was no guard. Fingering Arimura Yuko had
been a complete Hail Mary pass for Kunimatsu Takaji, considering that
the most severe infraction she could be charged with in court was her
numerous speeding infractions and reckless driving citations. The
hospital video was only there to justify why she wasn't being tried.
No special guard was in place, she wouldn't be worth the expenditure
and was evil anyway. Hotaru and Chibi-Usa walked in to her room like
they owned the place.


   Eudial was propped up in her bed, looking much better than she had
in the video. Her neck was still in a brace but her eyebrows had
mostly grown back and her hair wasn't mostly scorched purple anymore.
Two I.V. tubes went into her arm, and by her elbow was a button she
could click for a dose of morphine. She was reading some engineering
trade publication and didn't even look up when the two entered.
Chibi-Usa picked up Eudial's chart from the edge of the bed, realized
she had no idea what anything on it meant, and put it back down.


   Hotaru cleared her throat, Eudial set the magazine down and looked
at her, and immediately started to squirm. The waves of discomfort
coming off of her were palpable. "...Oh."


   "So, uh... How are you feeling, Yuko-san?"


   "Oh, good, good. No, no, not really, but, I'm better than I was."
Her voice cracked and squeaked. "Does Mimette know I'm here?"


   "Mimette is dead." The words were heavy and fell out of her like
balls of lead.


   "Oh. How did she die?"


   "From what I heard, she tried to use one of your devices and
amplify her power, and Tellu pulled the plug on her." Hotaru didn't
know if Eudial would celebrate or mourn, or which would be worse.


   "Witches Electric Warp? That thing was flawed from the first
blueprint. I abandoned that prototype nine months ago, whole idea was
stupid. Dumb bitch deserved what she got twice over if she thought she
could hack up that piece of shit." Hotaru sighed. Celebrate. That was
the worse option. Eudial saw her reaction and got defensive, adding,
"Mimette cut the brake lines on my car, stuck snails on the gas pedal
simply to gross me out, and then broke in on my radio frequency to
gloat right before I went off a cliff. I was inches away from death
and she couldn't be bothered to finish the job. There were
third-degree burns all over my body, my legs are twisted and mangled,
I've got one kidney, I'm blind in one eye, if someone sneezes at my
vertebrae wrong I'll be a quadriplegic, I have to go to physical
therapy to be able to walk and move my arms again... I've been in
agony for months. So yes, I'm happy she died."


   "But you... when she did that to you, YOU were trying to kill the
Senshi, weren't you?"


   "And when they thought I was dead, I bet they were happy about it."
Chibi-Usa wouldn't say she was happy, but she was relieved, and it was
weird to see her talk so candidly about this. Did Rubeus and Esmeraude
talk like this when nobody was around and there was no reason for
propriety? "Mimette thought I was dead, too. You all did, I'd wager. I
was in no condition to speak for a long while, and I didn't exactly
carry photo ID in that skimpy Death Buster dress. I couldn't get my
equipment down here and I couldn't really ask around Mugen without
getting smothered with a pillow, so I had to lay low here since. Cops
found out who I was and I had to get a few hours of interrogation with
a bigwig, but I don't think they had things on the books to charge me
with and they didn't really care that I wasn't naming names. Haven't
been following the project but I guessed it wasn't going well. So, if
you're wondering where I was, that's where."


   "...Do you think Dad would have visited you if he knew?"


   "I would hope, but maybe not. Apparently he was getting kind of fed
up with how often Sailor Moon was cocking things up, like it's my
fault and I wasn't the one who found two goddamn Talismans."


   "Yeah... He could get like that sometimes, I think." She chuckled
and smiled a little thinking of a few times when the time for grant
proposals was drawing near and he was freaking out around the house,
even though he didn't need the grant money he just needed to be part
of the process, and then when it was all over he'd talk about what a
goofus he'd been, mockingly imitate his own voice to make fun of the
little things he thought were so important, and take them for ice
cream. Then she realized that this behavior was relating to how her
father treated his evil subordinates for failing on their quest to
destroy the world. "I would have visited you, if I knew. They didn't
even really tell me you were supposed to be dead."


   "There wasn't much of me to visit there for a while. I guess if you
want to call this a visit, I'll say it counts."


   "It is. Sort of. You can guess why I'm here, but... I wanted to
know if you were okay."


   Eudial gestured to the IV stand and the neckbrace, "Well,
Hotaru-san, I can say I have been much better. But I suppose I'm not
as bad as I used to be, if that makes you feel any better."


   "Did you like me, Yuko-san? Eudial? I don't know, either one of
you. When you came by and you would show me some cool new game you
got, you were just making it easier for Mistress Nine to take hold,
right?"


   Eudial looked Hotaru right in the eyes, not as a challenge, not as
defiance, a show of seriousness. "Do you want me to lie to you?"


   Hotaru broke the gaze and looked down at her feet. "Yes... Yes, I
guess I do."


   "You meant nothing to any of us, just the vessel to end the world.
We lied to you the entire time." No rage, no guile, no sarcasm, no
irony, barely any modulation to her voice at all. "Even your father."


   And she knew, because she'd asked Eudial to lie, that it wasn't
true. But she wanted it to be. She wanted so very badly for it to be
true, even though it would tear at her heart, it would devastate her
and it may even kill her to know that her father didn't love her and
every act of kindness she received was a lie. Because then, they were
all monsters who hated her and she didn't have to think about them,
she wasn't contaminated by associating with them, she wasn't one of
them. She would have been lied to by evil. She wouldn't have loved
evil and have it love her back. "I changed my mind. Tell me the
truth."


   "You were our boss's cute little daughter and he never shut up
about you. He thought you were the greatest thing in the world. If we
were working on discovering the Higgs-boson we would have come to see
you a few times anyway. And, you were a cute little kid, Hotaru. You
were pretty easy to like. You can understand why the most of us didn't
have too many friends outside the workplace, there was no reason to
really be bitchy to you, someone nobody could really object to. Tellu
and I painted the town a few times but most of the other Witches had
issues with each other."


   "I liked Tellu. I only saw her three, maybe four times, I knew she
was just my father's coworker, but... she made me feel like one of the
'big kids'. I guess that wasn't part of her mission." Hotaru
swallowed, like the words hurt her throat coming up. "She died too.
Her plant ate her."


   "Yeah..." Eudial wished she could turn away, but it was impossible
to do in a neck brace. "We have to keep work and personal life
separate. Or we'll go totally insane."


   "Viluy and Cyprine too. Trying to kill the Senshi."


   "I didn't really know Cyprine. She wasn't a scientist." Nervously
glancing around the room, she spotted a little pink-haired girl she
was pretty sure had bit her on the arm in the middle of a mission.
"What happened next?"


   "You were trying to summon Master Pharaoh 90 and end all life on
Earth. Make me into the Mistress 9 to do it." Tears welled in her
eyes. "It worked up until the last second. Mistress Nine is dead now.
Dad and Kaori too. Everyone but you and me. It turned out I was Sailor
Saturn, and then someone accidentally stopped the summoning with a...
a rotator magnet..."


   "Rotating magnetic resonance disruptor? Those things are horribly
inefficient. Had to be a lot of power put through it." She hiked
herself higher up in her seat, and brushed a strand of hair out of her
face. "I actually worked on some of the first models of those. I was
going to see if I could use one to shut off the Senshi's powers, but
it's too tricky to calibrate and the power requirements are too high
to--"


   "Why did you do it?"


   "In all honesty we thought by the time M-9 fully manifested it
would be so close to the end you wouldn't care." She couldn't shrug,
but she could put up her arms and make a 'distance herself' gesture,
even though it wouldn't matter. She wanted to put the confrontation
off for as long as possible and every second was worth it. "I wasn't
much involved in the implantation. I was in the technical, engineering
side."


   Hotaru's hands were shaking. "Why did you want to kill everyone?
Did the Pharaoh promise you power or wealth or something if you
summoned him?"


   She laughed, mirthless, the laugh of a person who hates every
aspect of herself and every decision she has ever made since her
birth, and yet could not possibly have done things any differently.
"He did, but I didn't believe him. Mimette might have, but she's a
dumb bitch. No, we knew we were going to die and there was no chance
anyone was going to live through it. It's not like we were going to
explain this to you when you were older, we didn't want to live that
long."


   "If you wanted to kill me anyway, why not, why didn't you lash me
to a chair in the basement and feed me intravenously until the time
came?"


   "We didn't hate you. I said, you're a pretty good kid, Hotaru, at
least from what we saw. I don't expect you to believe it, but, there
you are. But you weren't a happy or a healthy kid, and even if we
hadn't been growing a demon in you, you wouldn't have been. You know
what it is I'm talking about."


   "Then, then if you liked me how could you do it at all?"


   Eudial wouldn't have shrugged even if she had the range of motion
to do so. because it felt like her whole body was weighted down with
lead. "We had to keep professional and personal opinions separate or
else we'd all have to be so deranged we'd be unable to function. We
all had different ways of dealing with it. Mimette, from what I hear
she actually may have been an intelligent person before she fell
behind a facade of bimboism so she could say she didn't understand
anything she did. Viluy disowned all of her emotions so she could
distance herself. Your father played up the differences between his
persona at home and his persona at work so much it was almost like two
personalities and he could disown all the bad things he did as being
the work of another."


   "It wasn't?"


   "Not as much as I think he liked to pretend. Otherwise when he
wasn't 'possessed' he'd be working to stop what he did. And when he
was, he wouldn't have loved you. He agreed to summon the Pharaoh in
order to have him save your life after the accident."


   Hotaru looked down at her feet. "Then this is all because of me."


   "I think that if you had died, and I'm not convinced the Pharaoh
really did anything to save you, he would have found some other way to
complete the summoning and done it faster. You're talking to a
suicidal nihilist warlock and I can say that the darkness inside your
father's soul scared me. It scared him, too. You and his wife were the
only things keeping him remotely sane and he knew it, he figured a
life without you was not even remotely worth living. He tried to
replace Keiko but he didn't fool himself or anyone else for a second.


   "Kaori... Kaolinite never acknowledged her desire to have children
and started seeing you as a surrogate, then when she realized it,
acted as if she hated you so she could distance herself from what she
had to do and what she perceived as her own weakness. She thought if
she made you hate her she'd be able to safely hate you. It didn't
work." Eudial drummed her fingers on the back of her other hand. "Good
Lord, that woman was a train wreck. But it wasn't just you, Hotaru. We
may not have had many loved ones or things we cared about, but we had
some, and everyone had to reconcile that with what we were doing."


   "And you? How did you deal with it?"


   With no hesitation, no pause for soul-searching, Eudial responded,
"I profiled every human being I met, trying to reduce all of their
quirks and behaviors, their free will, into simple and quantifiable
causal relationships. I tried to see everyone's behavior as
predictable and mechanical. You can't program an accurate, predictive
computer model of the behaviors of half a million people without a
very in-depth understanding of social psychology, and if I used that
to reduce every human into a heuristic equation, I wouldn't have to
acknowledge what I did to them as a human being."


   She sighed again. "And, I admit I felt pretty cool driving around
at breakneck speed in a really tight-fitting labcoat shooting people
with a lepton cannon and deploying demons. It felt good. I felt
powerful. But it didn't last, did it? I wasn't good and I wasn't
powerful and it all came crashing down and look at me now. The human
condition."


   "So that's why. Now you're going to tell me man is a corrupt and
evil creature that deserves to die." Hotaru was a little happy at
this, it was an explanation she could firmly reject and denounce and
not be tainted by association with.


   "I think that was Cyprine's motivation, not mine. No, the world is
an awful place for us human beings because to be human is to be
miserable and suffer. Almost everything we do to make it through the
day is either deliberate self-deception or an outright lie." She
started twirling her hair in her hand, not even aware she was doing
it, just needing an outlet for all this nervous energy. "The heuristic
behaviors that are deep-programmed into all of us ensure we'll be a
ball of misery forever. All happiness is fleeting and all our
suffering leaves deep, lasting scars. Something bad happens to you in
your childhood and it can destroy your psyche forever, but if
something good happens to you it doesn't make you a good person. We
inevitably grow to hate everything we have and we're consumed with
regret and remorse over everything we lose. Our capacity to cause
suffering in others without even thinking it is orders of magnitude
greater than our capacity to make people happy. So many things and so
many ways for a human mind to just, to just snap and be destroyed, and
it never goes back. Good God do you know how many ways a blow to the
head can maim your ability to think?"


   And now Hotaru was laughing too, and nearly as bitter as Eudial had
been. "So you weren't punishing the world. You were committing mass
euthanasia."


   "'Universal suicide is the most logical thing in the world - we
reject it only because of our primitive cowardice and childish fear of
the dark.'" Her expression was one of pure and universal contempt.
"Mankind isn't special and we weren't created and we don't have a
destiny and almost everything we ever say to justify or mitigate our
suffering is self-deception or a total lie. There's no God, there's no
afterlife. Happiness can't be attained. We're random assemblies of
cells that through freak of evolution has the ability to feel anguish,
and it's in our immutable natures to try and survive to just keep
suffering, and create more individuals to keep suffering and it's
just... it's time to end the farce."


   Her hands and her eyes were shaking and Hotaru never thought for a
second she was trying to convince herself, for she clearly was
convinced. She just wondered if Eudial hated the world or she hated
herself more. "'Pure Hearts' are an ironic name for a power source
generated by certain psionic fields. There's no soul driving our
actions, we're organic computers with more defects than features,
feeding ourselves false data in order to keep going. There's nothing
more after this. There's nothing now. Everything, EVERYTHING is
another boil of mental anguish waiting to burst. Keeping anything
alive is cruelly prolonging the inevitable."


   Chibi-Usa was quivering and talking into her own hand, but she was
not interrupting, because she promised.


   "You're wrong." Hotaru was surprised she said that, considering
that was how she felt about herself. "Maybe people like you and me
can't be happy. Maybe a lot of people would be happier if they died.
But you can't choose that for them."


   "They won't make the right choice for themselves. Everyone's going
to keep going and keep suffering because the subconscious dictates
they can't control, tell them to keep going and keep suffering."


   "Then it's their right not to, if they want to be miserable in some
distant hope it'll be better. And people ARE happy. And, and, and
people can BECOME happy. I know that Chibi-Usa's happy, and I make her
happy, and even if I can't be happy then that's at least a reason to
keep me going."


   Chibi-Usa's voice was whisper-low, and Eudial had to strain to hear
it. "It makes me very sad, that that's how you feel Hotaru. I love you
and I don't want to hear you say, that you'll never be happy and there
are lots of people who are so miserable they should want to die.
And... Eudial, it makes me sad to hear you too."


   "I don't need your pity." And clearly, Eudial didn't, and she hated
herself for it all the more.


   "I thought you just hated everyone and you'd cackle and say you did
it all for evil's sake. But you're sad, all the time, and you, and you
think everyone feels like you because you can't imagine ever not being
sad. Like when you get really sick and you can't remember ever not
feeling sick. And both of you, you're so alone. I try to cheer you up
Hotaru but I can't do it all by myself, and Eudial, you don't have any
friends."


   "Don't talk to me about the 'power of friendship'." She was crying,
but trying not to act like it. "That doesn't work that way."


   And the next thing Chibi-Usa said she was not even fully aware of
until it escaped her lips. It was the second most mature and grown-up
thing she ever said. "You're right, it doesn't work like I thought it
did. Friendship isn't a magic spell and it isn't a power-upgrade and
it's not something you can sprinkle on a bad guy and turn them good,
and I kept thinking of it as this big, this shapeless, blob of happy
things that is everything good to everyone. Everybody has lots of
reasons to be sad, and maybe... maybe people like Hotaru and you are
sadder than others. And all our friends, they all take a piece of sad
away, so we can just, go on and do other things and be happy. I kept
acting like I could keep telling you I was your friend and it would
make you happy and I was wrong, Hotaru. I was wrong. The power of
friendship isn't a magic wand to make everything better, it's, it's
something you have to work at that really pays off, and it doesn't
make everything better, but it lets everything be better." She inhaled
deeply and nodded. "That's what Mama wanted me to learn."


   Eudial looked at the far wall. "What, you think I'll just say I'll
see the light and come over to your side?"


   "I want to be your friend, Eudial. You tried to kill me and my
friends, like, a whole bunch of times. And it wasn't all okay, either,
but I want--"


   The door opened again, and a woman in a doctor's coat walked in
and, without really looking, picked up Eudial's chart and scrutinized
it. Her coat was stolen, but the name tag on her pocket really was
hers. "Okay, I have a few..." She looked up and the chart dropped to
the floor. "Oh my God... Hotaru?"


   She ducked forward, not even really registering the presence of the
two other people in the room. She grabbed on to Hotaru, and she
squeezed for all the was worth. "Oh my God, I was so worried about
you! You got away from the police, but we didn't know where you were
or what you were doing or if you were okay, and we didn't have any way
to find you... I am so, so, so glad you're okay."


   "You didn't have to worry about me. I was fine, really. I've been
with Chibi-Usa and her friends."


   They broke the embrace, and Nadine saw Chibi-Usa standing next to
Hotaru, beaming. "Hi!" she waved. "I'm Princess Usagi Small Lady
Serenity, but you can call me Chibi-Usa."


   "Oh. And I'm, uh, Doctor Nadine Leslie Neary. You can call me
Nadine." Chibi-Usa put out her hand and Nadine bowed, then Nadine put
out her hand and Chibi-Usa bowed, then they both laughed, Nadine more
nervously than Chibi-Usa.


   "And this..." said Chibi-Usa, "Is Eudial. Er, Arimura Yuko-san."


   "Okay." She blinked.  "You do know she's a crazy evil sorceress,
right?"


   "Yes, yes, we've been through all of this," Eudial tried to sound
snarky enough the doctor didn't notice her tears.


   "We were just asking her..." Hotaru inhaled, "why she did all of
it."


   "Did she tell you how to STOP all of it yet?"


   "Ha!" The laugh was forced but no less bitter. "I don't even know
if you can stop it. He's not going to go away if you stop the
summoning this time, or the next, or the next. It's not like you can
seal a portal and get him out forever, the portal is already closed.
He's not going to stop until he finds a way in."


   "Just for the sake of argument. Can you tell us, exactly how you're
doing what you're doing?"


   "Okay, fine. Let's see your power of friendship go to work." She
didn't want to admit it, but she'd been stewing in regret and
self-loathing in her hospital bed for too long. And she was too
self-aware to say anything but to tell the truth she was a little bit,
slightly touched by Chibi-Usa's declaration. And having that bit of
hope only meant it would hurt more when it was let down. So she
decided, tell them what's happening, let their hope be crushed when
they fail. "Master Pharaoh 90 is a demon of horrific power that is
composed of two pieces. One piece, the largest one, resides in a
dimension almost completely out of phase with ours, and the other,
tiny piece, is his consciousness, which is here. They pull toward each
other naturally but they can't break through dimensions because of the
same reason things from other dimensions don't fall in here all the
time. Think of it like a wall, or, or a piece of cardboard with
magnets on either side of it. With me so far?"


   All of them were, to their mutual surprise.


   "Good." Eudial also liked being able to talk science to people who
weren't just glazing over and nodding like Mimette and Cyprine. "The
phase barrier in between these dimensions is thick and it's strong and
it takes a massive amount of power to breach. I don't mean like
magical sorcerer power, I mean exajoules. The Holy Grail was going to
put out that amount of power, but I'm guessing they found some other
way."


   "They did."


   "Burrowing through the phase barrier is kind of like digging, only
as you go deeper, the energy required to keep digging goes up
exponentially. It turns out, we found, to actually create a
full-fledged portal to this dimension would require more energy than
we'd get if we built a Dyson sphere around the sun and it went
supernova."


   Chibi-Usa didn't know what a Dyson sphere was, but she still got
the general gist of it and didn't want to interrupt.


   "So we hacked up a solution. We'd use our machines to weaken the
phase barrier as much as we could, and then we would set it up so that
his big piece would fall toward his little piece, and his paraspatial
inertia would smash through the remaining width of the barrier like a
brick through a plate glass window. We set up a little anchor that
he'd fall much faster towards because it was set up so strongly in
this world."


   "The Mistress 9. I was the anchor."


   "Yes. You were. It had to be a living, intelligent creature and the
younger the better."


   "It didn't work. She's gone now and apparently my brain got so much
practice fighting her off that nothing else can even try to get a
hold."


   "Huh." She seemed genuinely surprised and interested. "Cyprine said
that was a possibility, but if you hadn't built up an immunity by the
time you were ten you never would."


   "So the anchor's gone, right?" asked Nadine. "Mistress 9 was the
anchor, she's dead, no more anchor."


   "Well, if the summoning was stopped at the last second, the anchor
did its job. The big part is still falling toward the small part with
the same force. He finds another person to thin the walls, and he
smashes on in. I don't know of any way to lower the pull between his
two parts."


   "We could kill him," Hotaru said.


   "You are very welcome to try but I don't think the survivors will
be happy with the results."


   "Sailor Moon will find a way to stop him!" said Chibi-Usa.


   "Power of friendship isn't going to work on a going-on ten thousand
year old psionic demon, honey, and you said that yourself."


   They all looked up at Nadine expectantly, and she shuffled her feet
and coughed. "Don't look at me, I sure don't have any ideas."


   "Well... We'll figure something out, okay!" Chibi-Usa hopped to the
side of Eudial's bed and wanted to hug her, but pulled back when she
saw the neck brace, and squeezed her across the chest instead. "And I
meant what I said about being your friend. We're gonna go save the
world now and then I'm going to come back and I'm going to show you
why it was a good thing."


   Eudial rolled her eyes, fooling nobody. "You can do whatever you
feel like for all the good you think it will do."


   "You said you profiled everyone. Reduced their behavior to
equations. What AM I going to do?"


   "You're going to kill yourself," said Eudial with no more gravitas
than she did when she said what time it was.


   Hotaru knew she should make an argument against that, but she
couldn't, not now. She made her way up to where Chibi-Usa had stood
and looked into the neck brace. "I think I could make you better,
Yuko-san. I think since I'm Saturn, I can heal injuries... you
probably know that."


   "Can you heal every wound every time any human being is
horrifically maimed by a slight change in circumstances beyond their
control?"


   "...No."


   Tears were coming again and, she gritted her teeth. "Then I don't
see how that would make a damn bit of difference in anything, would
it? Keep it to yourself."


   Hotaru sighed, nodded, and followed the other two out the door...
then she turned back. "If you change your mind, please, just tell me.
I know a lot of people who would be willing to be your friend, I
think. I... I'm pretty sure I would have been, too."


   And she tried to hide it, but Eudial really thought about it.
"...Turn off the light. It's late and I want some sleep."


*


   The other Hoffmann agents were sitting in the lobby on the first
floor, waiting for Nadine to return. They did not expect who she would
come down with.


   "Miss Tomoe?" asked Donna, incredulous. "How the hell did you get
here?"


   "Holy shit, we found Hotaru! Or, she found us! Or something!"


   Nadine waved meekly. "They were already up in Arimura Yuko's room
when I got there. They had the same idea we did."


   Chibi-Usa furrowed her brow at all the talking in a language she
didn't understand, then remembered she came prepared. She whispered
"Luna-P, henge!", waited for the puff of smoke to clear, and put on
the cat-eared headset microphone that came out. Now, she could hear
what they were saying translated into Japanese, although for some
reason she never got this thing to do so without a Kansai accent.


   "Well, hey, we know she's okay, right?" Bill nodded at Chibi-Usa.
"Is she your friend?"


   Donna looked at the pink-haired girl and blinked. "And wait, have I
seen you somewhere before?"


   Chibi-Usa started speaking in Japanese, and as she did the words
came out of the cat-ears in English, in a perfect replica of her own
sweet, cheery voice. "Hi! I'm Hotaru's friend, Chibi-Usa." She
curtsied to them in a very ladylike manner. "Are you the people that
help-- are you her new friends?"


   Philip blinked and shook his head, not really expecting the cat
ears to be a translator. That was a neat little trick. He tapped
himself on the chest, then pointed to his partners. "Oh, uh, Philip
Akens, Donna Truitt, Bill Wheeler. Is she one of the, ah, the you know
whats?" Hotaru nodded.


   Donna leaned over towards Hotaru and got caught in the nether-zone
between a full hug and a playful hair-tousle. "Where have you been,
Miss Tomoe? Nadine was worried sick about you. I mean, we were all
worried, but... you know."


   "I've been fine, really. I was staying with some friends. Have you
been all right?"


   "Oh, you're not going to believe it," Bill said. "I've been axed,
arrested, broke out of jail, got smacked around by a giant cell-phone
monster... It was a hell of a Monday. Oh, and Uranus and Neptune, the
ones that were all going to kill you? We've actually been in their
apartment while they're off being evil, that place is huge!"


   Hotaru coughed. "Uh, Mr. Bill, Uranus and Neptune are working with
us now."


   They all suddenly found their shoes or spots on the wall very
interesting. "Oh, no... Then you probably shouldn't mention I said
that, huh?" He looked down at the clothes he was wearing, then up at
Donna's school uniform. "And... hope they don't recognize their stuff,
I guess."


   Hotaru would have said something, but that was the moment they all
heard the clapping behind them. The slow, mocking clap appropriate for
the haughty and the contemptuous. The receptionist was gone, the other
doctors or patients were gone though there hadn't been that many to
begin with, and behind them, leaning against a support pillar while in
the shadow cast by the supplies left all over for renovations, was a
smug-looking Man in Black. "Quite the tearful reunion you have here,
don't you? Four Hoffmann agents, our Mystery Saturn Bitch, and the
little girl from the future. Were I not certain your God was a
childish lie, I would think he was smiling on me to put you all in one
place."


   "Well if it isn't Sam the Eagle, kids."


   "Oh, you're very cute, Donna. By the way, you're not going to make
it look like Hotaru's your sidekick if you keep calling her 'Miss
Tomoe' all the time. And Hotaru-chan, sweetie, Nadine is only so fond
of you because she's never been able to hold a relationship with a man
for more than two dates, has never had children, and stupidly thinks
that if she can be a surrogate mother figure for you she'll make up
for that glaring flaw."


   Bill rose to his feet. "And I once drank my own piss on a bet, oh
yeah, secret's out there. You can kiss my ass, G-man, I don't care
about your stupid games and if you think you're shaking us up by
revealing our 'deep secrets' you got another Goddamn think coming."


   "If you throw that chair at me, William, I will swat it out of the
air and I will shoot you in the forehead. Besides, wouldn't that be
more Dr. Akens' area of expertise?" Philip bristled. Now the Men in
Black were making chair jokes. "Oh, and Hotaru, I wouldn't think about
transforming if I were you. Chibi-Usa, I don't care about you, because
you've always been totally useless. Transform away if you're childish
enough to think it matters."


   "Is that what you do all day?" Donna asked, arms folded. "You just
show up and use your mind-reading powers to be a complete asshole to
people?"


   "What I do all day is so, so far above you you will never even be
able to perceive it, let alone understand it," said Statler, lying
through both rows of his teeth. "Today, however, I've come here to
show you something."


   "Okay, you've shown us you're an ass. Now piss off," said Donna.
Nadine and Philip both wondered why Donna and Bill had to be so
antagonistic to evil shadow-men with guns.


   "Missed the mark again!" He wagged his finger. "Your record is
really rather dismal. I came here to smother Arimura Yuko with a
pillow, but before I do, I came here to watch my new friend kill you
all. Ladies, gentlemen, walking piles of psychological damage, why
don't you give a great big fat Hoffmann Institute welcome to Shadow
Mercury?" He stepped to one side to reveal Sailor Mercury, or at
least, what had been Sailor Mercury. Donna, Bill, Hotaru, and
Chibi-Usa gasped; Nadine and Philip had never seen Sailor Mercury
before but could be pretty sure she didn't usually have solid white
eyes, wisps of steam coming off her skin, hair blowing in a phantom
breeze, or an evil black costume. She was smiling, wide, giddy with
anticipation.


   "Now do me a favor, honey, and show me how well you can kill them.
Go for the one you can't read first, she's the only legitimate Senshi.
Watch the blade. I'll stop them from escaping."


   Shadow Mercury let out a low chuckle and cracked her knuckles.



---



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


TOMOE HOTARU

AGE: 13

SPECIES: Human
PROFESSION: Adept (Diplomat)
TITLE: Sailor Saturn
ACHIEVEMENT LEVEL: 4

STR 06 [-1]  INT 11 [+1]
DEX 12 [+1]  WIL 13 [+2]
CON 07       PER 11

Alien Artifact [8]: Hotaru is the wielder of the Silence Glaive, see
below.
Psi Resistance    : Hotaru's constant exposure to mental manipulation
from the Mistress Nine has built up an immunity. All psionic or FX
abilities that directly affect Hotaru's mind incur a +5 step penalty
-- directed illusions, mind-reading, suggestions, mind control, memory
erasure, telepathic contact, and the like. This defense cannot be
lowered and Hotaru is never aware that it's been used. It has no
effects on psionic or magical abilities that do not actively affect
her mind; an effect that goes into her mind and removes her ability to
see something is blocked, but an effect that bends actual light in
order to make an object invisible is not.
Delicate      [+3]: Hotaru has severe respiratory problems. She
receives stun damage from making unarmed attacks or engaging in
stressful aerobic activity.
Fragile       [+3]: Hotaru is sickly and receives a +1 step penalty on
Stamina -- Endurance checks.
Despair       [+5]: Upbringing, experience, and no small measure of
chemical imbalance have given Hotaru a warped, melancholic view of her
own worth and capabilities. While this depression obviously has many
in-character effects, it has a mechanical effect as well. Any time
Hotaru's player asks the GM what the total difficulty of a skill check
will be, the GM reports it as being [d4-1] steps higher than it really
is, adding the extra steps to resistance modifiers, range, local
conditions, etc.

Once the player has committed to the action, the GM reports the real
difficulty. If Hotaru fails the use of any skill outside of a combat
scene by 5 or more, she must make a Resolve -- Mental check any time
she wants to use the skill again for the rest of the session; failure
on this roll indicates she is so certain of her failure in that task
that she cannot even try.


Combat Information:
Weapon:             Score:         Range:    Damage (O/G/A): Type:
Unarmed              3/1/0 +1    Personal    d4-1s/d4s/d4+1s  LI/O
Silence Glaive      15/7/3 -2    Personal   d8w/3d4+1w/d4+3m  LI/*
Saturn Silencer     14/7/3             60    d4+1w/d6+1w/d4m  En/O
S. Glaive Surprise {17/8/4}            60  d6+1w/d6+2w/d4+1m  En/O
Death Reborn Rev.  {21/10/5}        120  d6+2w/d8+2w/d4+2m  En/O

Defenses:
Saturn's Aegis  [Senshi]    d6-1[O]LI /   d4[G]HI / d6-1[G]En
Saturn's Aegis   {Super}      d6[O]LI / d4+1[G]HI /   d6[G]En
Saturn's Aegis {Eternal}    d6+2[O]LI /   d8[G]HI / d6+2[G]En
Silent Wall     [14/7/3]    Reduce firepower of attacks by 1 grade

Note: Hotaru cannot use her latter two energy attacks and Saturn's
Aegis skills, as she does not have enough skill ranks for the
increased effects. At 4 ranks each in Energy Blast and Saturn's Aegis,
she can become Super Sailor Saturn, using the first improved armor
stats and gaining access to Silence Glaive Surprise. At 8 ranks in
each skill, she can become Eternal Sailor Saturn, uses the highest
armor value, and has access to the Death Reborn Revolution energy
attack.


Action Check: 13+/12/6/3
Durability: 07 / 07 / 04 / 04
Actions Per Round: 2
Last Resort Points: 2
FX Energy Pool: 07


Athletics                [6/3/1]
Melee Weapons            [6/3/1]
> Blade 3                [9/4/2], but see below
Acrobatics              [12/6/3]
> Dodge 2               [14/7/3]
Vehicle Op              [12/6/3]
Stamina                  [7/3/1]
> Endurance 1            [8/4/2] +1
Knowledge               [11/5/2]
> Deduce 1              [12/6/3]
> Language (English) 3
Physical Science        [11/5/2]
Awareness               [13/6/3]
> Intuition 1           [14/7/3]
> Perception 1          [14/7/3]
Creativity              [13/6/3]
Resolve                 [13/6/3]
> Mental Resolve 2      [15/7/3]
Culture                 [11/5/2]
Interaction             [11/5/2]
> Charm 2               [13/6/3]


Planetary Sorcery: Saturn
> Energy Blast 1        [14/7/3] (Sonic)
> Lifeblood* 2          [13/6/3]
> Saturn's Aegis 1      [Active]
> Saturn's Veil 1       [Active]
> Silent Wall 1         [14/7/3] (Energy Field)
> Unravel Enchantment        [0] (Energy Control [Entropy])


Alien Artifact: Silence Glaive:

The Silence Glaive is an enchanted polearm created over a thousand
years ago (at the very least) by witch-artisans of the Silver
Millennium and entrusted to the guardian of the planet Saturn. It can
only be conjured by Sailor Saturn, who does so at will, and it
vanishes if it leaves physical contact with Sailor Saturn (or her
clothing) for more than two seconds.

The Glaive is phenomenally sharp no matter what material it cuts, and
superbly weighted and balanced, requiring almost no exertion to swing.
Mechanically, it allows its user to add her Melee Weapons -- Blade
skill to either her STR or her DEX, whichever is higher, and provides
a -2 step bonus on such checks. When wielding the Glaive, Tomoe
Hotaru's Melee Weapons -- Blade skill rating is [15/7/3, -2]

The Glaive is said to have the ability to obliterate a planet's
habitable area simply by burying it point-first in the ground. Whether
or not this is true -- it has never been tried -- this ability is too
grand in scope to be modeled in this rules system. Any observer versed
enough in arcane lore to know of the Glaive will take appropriate
action to remove the threat to the planet.