[FFML] [Sailor Moon] Double Exposure 8 [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.



* * * * *



   Meioh Setsuna sat cross-legged on the floor of the stone cavern,
drumming her fingers on her knee, grinding her teeth, staring into a
mostly-black monitor. The Death Busters had done all their computing
on a liquid nitrogen-cooled Cray YMP; transdimensional physics has an
astonishing number of variables and even with the most optimized code
possible a personal computer will chug and labor to carry out the most
comparatively simple operation, and crash often. The monitor displayed
"CALIBRATING..." above a progress bar that was 93% complete. Reflected
in the monitor's glass, Setsuna would have seen a black-scaled kinori,
waiting patiently to be acknowledged, then seen her own face. She
would have, if she was currently in control of her eyes, and her own
face wasn't shrouded in unnatural darkness.


   "You've encountered Sailor Moon and her retinue, I take it?"
Setsuna didn't turn around, watching the progress bar creep upward.


   The blackscale shifted his feet, wouldn't look directly at her.
"Yes, Gate-Keeper." His Japanese was harsh and barking even when he
was showing deference, his mouth simply couldn't make the full range
of sounds needed to express the idea.


   "And since you didn't come in here holding a severed human head, I
gather the assassination attempt was unsuccessful." She turned back to
face him, expression unreadable and nonvisible. "Did you encounter
Moon, Saturn, both?"


   "One with the head-fibers you described for Moon. None with the
blade weapon. There were six others... four sorcerors, two others. May
have been human law enforcement, had guns." He took a half-step back
to make sure he was out of striking range. "We suffered two
fatalities, one missing in action. Only wounded one, think fatally.
Kill not confirmed." He winced.


   She nodded slowly and rose to her feet. Her pants were caked in
mud, her arms and the backs of her hands were red and raw. "I am
disappointed in this, Kher-Aya. Were you followed?"


   "No, Gate-Keeper. The daimon and my team became separated but we
met up at an ambush point and waited until we were certain we were not
being pursued."


   "But one is missing in action, and he may have been taken by law
enforcement." She tilted her head and the tip of Kher-Aya's tail
started to twitch. "None of the other kinori we sent to the surface
speak Japanese, and the Sailor Senshi would not interrogate him
anyway. The government, however, will want to extract information from
him. It is not implausible that they could find a telepath to assist
them in this end."


   She gestured her arms around the cavern and bid Kher-Aya to look.
The cave roof was high, riddled with stalactites, the walls were slick
with condensation. Clusters of eggs were bunched around blunt
stalagmites, heated and illuminated by a scavenged array of
headlights, heat lamps, and fluorescents; the thin strands of wire
coming from them mixed with the fat black bundles of cable coming from
the matte grey pieces of high-tech machinery -- resonator pylons,
entropic anchors, gravitic pulsers, a PowerMac 8115 -- to form a
confusing electrical spiderweb. White-scaled kinori walked to and fro,
hesitantly working on the machines, checking and tending to the eggs,
looking down as they walked so they wouldn't trip over a power cable.
Two bundles of cable led into a hole on the wall next to Setsuna, a
meter wide and a meter and a half up the wall, the point where the
Gate's sub-dimensional space intersected an open part of the cavern;
inside was a vast, empty plain and a doorway to nowhere.


   "This is a lot of effort, Kher-Aya. This is your home. And if that
soldier is interrogated before the Master can arrive then it's all
going to be destroyed. I don't need to tell you how bad it is that you
let someone be captured."


   "Were, were... complications!" said Kher-Aya, waving his taloned
hands in front of him. "Were almost immune to sorcerors' magic, but
one was cryokinetic, other two had guns, no resistance to them, gun
weapon not effective against Moon-sorceror, daimon uncooperative!
Please forgive me! Give another chance!"


   She tilted her head and her red smile widened. "You think I'm about
to kill you for failing?" She laughed, and even the creature who has
little experience with human speech is chilled by it. "No, no, Sailor
Moon is obviously very hard to kill. Were the Master to kill every one
of his servants each time they failed, I'd soon have nothing left. And
if you were constantly afraid I'd kill you for failure, you'd take
unsafe risks that would cause even more damage. Soldiers are valuable
and scarce, I won't deprive myself of that resource because they had a
difficult mission. That is incredibly inefficient."


   Kher-Aya clucked his species' version of a sigh of relief.


   "But the Master will need you to find and either reclaim or kill
your lost soldier before he can reveal our position to the surface-
dwellers. Take all the members of your team fit to fight, recall
another one of the ambush teams from the surface if need be, and track
him down." Behind her, the computer made a 'ping!' noise, she turned
and growled. "If this piece of machinery can't function like -- oh,
that noise apparently means it's done." She crouched down and gingerly
pressed the mouse button with her index finger without putting her
hand on the mouse.


   Immediately, the lights went dark, leaving only the battery-powered
lanterns lighting the room. The air was filled with acrid smoke and
ozone. "WHO WIRED THAT?" Setsuna screamed, and pointed at one of the
pylons, wisps of smoke rose from it. "WHICH ONE OF YOU WAS RESPONSIBLE
FOR HOOKING THAT MACHINE INTO THE GRID?"


   One of the kinori nervously stepped forward "Gate-Keeper, so
apologize, was mistake! Can't happen again!"


   "You're right, it can't happen again, because you fried the
machine!" Her hands balled into fists. "I told you! The red and black
leads are hot, the green lead is ground! Mix them up, and that's what
happens! How HARD is that for you to remember?" The kinori stammered a
defense, but wasn't thinking clearly enough to speak Japanese. Setsuna
looked back at Kher-Aya and reached her arms behind her toward him.
"Hold me down for thirty seconds and don't let me go before then," she
sighed. "I'm about to have one of my seizures."


   Kher-Aya was confused, but nodded, and grabbed her arms and held
them. Her body twitched and she craned her neck around to look at him,
now her face was lit in the same light as everyone else's. Her eyes
were rimmed by deep, dark circles, and her lips cracked and broken;
Kher-Aya has seen enough television broadcasts from the surface world
to know what they meant. "Let me go. Now." she said, cold and even.


   "You just said not to. I won't." Across the cavern, the kinori who
admitted to the bad wiring job jerked oddly, his face suddenly cast in
shadow.


   "You don't know what you're doing. He doesn't want to kill
humankind. He wants to kill everyone. You included."


   "Said you had seizures. Thought that meant you twitched."


   "I didn't tell you anything." Setsuna crouched and sprang upward,
kicked the kinori in the stomach. He yelped and released his grip,
Setsuna stepped forward out of his reach. She dug into her pocket,
paused, and kicked Kher-Aya again, sending him across the floor. She
pulled out her transformation pen and shouted
"PlutoplanetpowerMAKEUP!" as fast as she possibly could. By the time
Kher-Aya got back to his feet to charge Sailor Pluto and hold her
down, she was able to crack him across the nose with the Garnet Staff.


   Kher-Aya rubbed his face with the base of his scaly hand. "Testing
me, somehow?" He rose to his feet. "Show of dominance?"


   None of the other kinori were helping him in the fight, because the
few who wouldn't be too scared to attack the Gate-Keeper weren't even
aware there was a fight. They were all transfixed on the horrid sight
of the shadow-faced kinori who had found a knife and was now slowly,
methodically slicing open the major arteries in his arms and legs. He
didn't seem to react to the pain at all until he made the fourth
incision, then the shadow passed from him and he began shrieking in
agony, limbs flailing in every direction, spraying blood on
everything.


   "There's no time, damn it!" Pluto barked. "He's a monster, and if
you don't let me pass he'll enslave or murder your entire species!"
They looked at each other for a moment, though the kinori's eyes were
set too wide for them to make eye contact. Then Pluto broke left,
running for a cave she hoped was the exit, and Kher-Aya leapt at her,
headbutting her in the chest with his bony crest. She fell backwards
but brought up the staff to block the counter-attack. As the
blackscale reeled, she struck him two more times from the sides, then
delivered a thrust to the head that caught him in the open mouth,
pinning him to the ground with the staff pressing on the back of his
throat.


   He gagged and swatted at the staff but couldn't knock it loose.
Just when he thought the Gate-Keeper was going to kill him for failure
after all, the staff was lifted; when he sat up to look at her her
face was once again shrouded.


   "Repulsive." she said, looking at her hand even though it hadn't
touched anything unusual. "I'm going to have to bathe again just to be
able to withstand the concept." She turned her hand over, observing
the skin turned red and raw by repeated scrubbing. Across the cavern,
the electrician-kinori moaned, gagged, and died, the sound amplified
by the concave walls.


   Kher-Aya looked over at his dying nest-mate, then back up at Pluto.
"I said that soldiers were a scarce resource, Kher-Aya," she said,
rubbing the back of her right hand with the base of her left as if she
was trying to rub off a persistent stain. "Labor is not. You've no
need to worry about that befalling you, so put it out of your mind.
Just, assemble your team, and recapture that hostage."


* * * SAILOR.MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE


CHAPTER 8: DOUBLE WHAMMY * * *


HIKAWA SHRINE
TOKYO, JAPAN MONDAY FEBRUARY 21, 1995 3:09 PM


   Hotaru held on to Chibi-Usa for a few more seconds, sobbing. Usagi
hesitated, unsure of what she should do, then tried to slip her hand
in between the two girls. "Hotaru-chan, please, we've missed you too,
give everyone a chance to..." As soon as she felt Usagi push, Hotaru
let go and stepped back, shuddering. Usagi kneeled down and extended
her arms, pulled Hotaru into a hug; she returned the embrace only
tentatively. "We were so afraid we'd lost you, we were afraid you were
hurt, or you'd been taken, but we didn't know where you were, we
didn't think there was anything we could do..."


   "You shouldn't have worried about me." Usagi stepped forward to let
everyone else filter into the room, Rei leaned in to give Hotaru a
hug, saw the girl's expression, and thought better of it. "I was fine,
really."


   "Really?" asked Minako. "That man, uh, Bill, he said you fought a
monster and got shot."


   "Yeah..." Her eyes stayed off to the side, unable to meet anyone
else's. "...but it wasn't anything important. I mean, you could have
done the same thing. You've killed all the other daimons, I didn't do
anything you couldn't. And you wouldn't have even got shot in the
first place, and it wasn't that bad, so..." She sighed. "It's not
anything really worth mentioning."


   "Of course it..." Chibi-Usa paused while Rei slid the door closed
behind them, then lowered her voice. "Of course it's worth mentioning!
You were fighting evil, saving the city! And there were so many of
them yesterday, we were all stretched so thin, it took all the Senshi
to win. If you weren't there, we couldn't have dealt with all of them,
so of course we needed you!" She put her hands on Hotaru's shoulders.
"You're a Sailor Senshi. And you're my friend. And either way, it
means that what you do is important."


   "I couldn't pull my weight anyway." Her voice was flat, lifeless.
"I had to have two more people helping me just to do my share. I'm not
a good Senshi... not in any sense."


   "Two more... were they named Bill and Donna?" asked Ami.


   Hotaru nodded. "They were the ones who found me after... after I
failed before. And two more, and their boss came later. They're with
something called the Hoffmann Institute. They wanted to stop the
Pharaoh, but they didn't know how, or what they were doing. I don't
think they knew, or believed, or cared that you were going to do it.
They thought they needed to keep me with them and needed to keep me
safe. Now I think they've all been arrested, if what Makoto-san said
was what I thought it was. So it turns out they were wrong about an
awful lot of things." Like who they wanted on their team. And if there
was ever a kingdom on Saturn. Maybe.


   "Don't worry, Hotaru-chan," said Usagi. "We'll find your new
friends and we'll make sure they're okay, too."


   "...I didn't say they were my friends."


   "Oh..." Usagi's hand went to her mouth. "Did they hurt you?"


   "No, no, they didn't hurt me. They were kind enough, loud,
outspoken, tried to act like I was their friend already, like I guess
Americans are supposed to act like -- they didn't really know what
being my friend would mean. But I only saw them for a day, and they
thought a lot of things about me that weren't true. They didn't know
me, I didn't know them... I wouldn't call them friends."


   "But if they helped you," asked Chibi-Usa, "and they were kind,
wanted you to be their friend, and they tried to keep you safe, why
shouldn't you call them friends? That's what friends do, isn't it?"


   Hotaru looked into Chibi-Usa's gentle red eyes for a few moments,
than looked away. "It's not the same thing."


   There was an awkward silence that seemed to stretch on for an hour
but was really more like five seconds. "So, uh, Mako-chan," Minako
said, just to get conversation going again, "Why didn't you tell us
that Hotaru was here?"


   "When I called you, I didn't know!" Makoto propped herself up on
her elbows. "I just heard something about the cops being here, and the
TV people getting arrested and leaving some suspicious stuff behind. I
thought that was reason enough for me to call you and tell you to come
back." She nodded at Hotaru. "She came in later, after the police had
left. She was helping me get this cast off before you guys came back."
She tried to look at Hotaru, but the girl wouldn't meet her gaze.
"Hotaru-chan, why didn't you mention any of this to me?"


   "If I did, you'd have worried about me." She chewed her lower lip.
"I don't want you to do that."


   "Hotaru-chan... we worry, because we care about you. We don't want
anything bad to happen to you."


   "I know." She put her hand on her forehead. "I... wish you
wouldn't." She let her arms drop to her sides and sighed. "I should
finish doing what Makoto-san asked me to do."


   "Thank you, Hotaru-chan," said Makoto. Hotaru moved her hand as if
she was trying to catch a fly and by the end of the motion caught the
Glaive instead. "I'm so glad you could help me, because if you weren't
here, I'd have had to stand on a broken leg again and I don't know if
I could do that.


   Hotaru didn't know why she'd have to do that, but it didn't matter.
She leaned in, grabbed the blade steady, and continued making the cut.


   "We're going to have to be careful," Mamoru said. Hotaru wasn't
really paying attention, concentrating too hard on not nicking
Makoto's leg again. "We've had a lot more physical injury in the past
couple days than usual, today I had to mend a few broken bones of my
own, sealed, uh, Bill-san's axe wound, put odango's tooth back in, fix
your leg... I can't keep doing it forever, I don't want my power to
run dry when someone takes a claw to the femoral artery."


   "Hotaru could do it though, right?" Chibi-Usa added. "You could
help to fix Mako-chan's leg."


   "Huh?" She let the Glaive vanish again, she was done with the
incision. "Is that what you needed this for, Makoto-san?"


   "Well, yeah." Makoto blinked. "Mamoru has to touch the injured area
to heal it up, and I couldn't get the cast off so he could get at it
unless I had a little rotary saw, or I transformed and stood on it
again. I didn't know if you could do that too, or I would have asked."


   "But... it's gross." Hotaru looked around. "I mean, I have to touch
it, and poke at it with my hands, and there might be blood, so nobody
wants it to..."


   Chibi-Usa held Hotaru's hand between both of her own. "Hotaru-
chan... it's like I said before. You have a gift that can help a lot
of people. There's nothing sick or wrong about it. And nobody should
ever be unhappy because you've touched them. You've touched all of us,
and we're all happy you did."


   "And even if it WAS gross," added Makoto, "I'd be willing to eat a
live cockroach if it meant I could turn back into Sailor Jupiter
without collapsing in pain." Chibi-Usa shot her a chastising look.
"Well, I would!"


   Hotaru leaned in again and gingerly started removing the strip of
plaster between the two cuts. "So, Hotaru," Rei asked as she worked,
"The 'Hoffmann Institute', the ones who said they were the FBI, what
were they doing here? Did you tell them to come to the shrine to meet
us?"


   "No... I didn't know we were coming until I woke up here. I was
passed out." She looked in at the exposed area of Makoto's leg,
wondered why it wasn't pale and clammy until she realized the cast had
only been on for a couple days. "We took a bunch of stuff from... my
old house, some machines and some notes, that they were going to look
over to see how they could stop the Pharaoh. They didn't believe me
when I said I already knew how." She poked lightly at Makoto's leg,
she gritted her teeth and hissed. "They came here because, I don't
think they could get a hotel room. One of them had done some kind of
TV show here, I think, and their boss called ahead to say they were
coming back so they had an excuse to stay the night." She looked over
at Makoto. "I'm going to have to press on it kind of hard to touch it,
okay?"


   Makoto nodded. "Just do it quick." Hotaru pressed in on Makoto's
leg, her fingertips glowing as she dragged them up the area, flaring a
brighter white when she passed over the actual fracture. Makoto bit on
her knuckle to control the pain, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it had
been at the hospital, and soon it was over. She sat up, poked her leg,
and felt only a dull ache. Hotaru stood up, almost fell when she tried
to put weight on her left leg, but found her footing.


   "So the equipment you had, that's the lighting equipment
Grandfather mentioned that they left here?"


   "No. Well, some of it. But they also brought my lamp collection...
most of it."


   Ami nodded, hand on chin. "If we have notes and equipment from the
Death Busters, we could probably be able to analyze it, find out more
about the Pharaoh. We'd know what he was doing and how to stop it."


   Everyone in the room looked at her funny. "Okay... and by 'we could
analyze it', I mean 'I could analyze it.'"


* * *


   "No point in sugar-coating it." The detective leaned over the
table, resting on his knuckles, the bare light bulb hanging above his
head casting odd shadows over his face. His grey suitcoat was hung
over the back of a chair, his tie was loosened and his shirt untucked,
forming an image he had carefully crafted. He stared at the suspect
for a few seconds and nodded ruefully at the stack of papers on the
table between them. "You don't have to be able to read that to know
that you're in a lot of water."


   Bill sat with his arms crossed over his chest, staring straight
ahead. He looked pale and slightly woozy, and he was still wearing his
blood-soaked pants. "William. Scott. Wheeler," he said as if reading
from a notecard.


   The detective pulled the chair up to the table and sat on it
backwards so he could appear more casual and thus more approachable
and trustworthy. "They got you dead to rights," he said, pointed at
the stack of paperwork again. "If you won't cooperate with us, then
the system won't cooperate with you. You don't want that. I don't want
it either."


   Bill stared right through the detective. "Private, first class."


   "I sympathise with you, I really do. You're lost in a foreign
country, you don't speak the language, can't read the signs, don't
understand the culture. You're scared and alone and you don't know
what's going on. I know it wasn't your idea to come here." He extended
his opened palm, a gesture of clemency. "And we recognize that. It's
not your fault if you were just following someone else's orders."


   "Serial number: Ess-dash-zero-zero-one-four-four..." Bill looked up
and to the left as he tried to recall the last two digits, then
resumed giving the thousand-yard stare. "...Zero-five."


   The detective slicked back his hair. "I don't know what you've
heard, but the Tokyo police don't want to spend time prosecuting
people like you. Good people, who were doing their jobs, that happened
to be on the wrong side of a regulation. If you'll just sign a
confession, tell us what you did and who you did it for, you can be
out of here and on a plane back to the US within a week." He sighed so
it would look like the next thing he said was weighing heavy on his
heart. "But if you won't cooperate, the district attorneys will think
that you were the mastermind. They won't listen to guys like me,
they'll want their pound of skin from someone. If they can't get at
anyone higher than you, they'll send you to prison for a long time...
maybe even give you the death penalty."


   Bill's back itched, but he felt like if he moved to scratch it he'd
look like he was being affected by the cop's string of lies. "No free
man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or
possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any
other way..."


   "Don't you get it, man?" the detective said as if he was really
making a heartfelt plea for sanity. "You're preaching to the band! I'm
on your side, man, I don't want to see you go to prison. But you've
gotta know how the system works, you need to work the system!"


   Bill continued, heedless. "...Nor will we proceed with force
against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement
of his equals or by the law of the land."


   "Damn it!" The detective pounded his fist on the table so as to
look like the suspect could have him as either an ally or an enemy.
"This isn't America, you don't..." He put his hand on his chin. "Wait,
that's not the US Constitution, is it?"


   "To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or
justice..."


   "What is that... you're quoting the Magna Carta, aren't you?" He
blinked, and the confusion he showed was totally genuine. "Why are you
quoting the Magna Carta?"


   Bill shifted almost imperceptibly in his seat, dragged that itchy
spot on his back across the edge of the seatback. At this point in an
American interrogation, he'd be rattling off the US Constitution; back
in his militia days everyone in the New Patriot Church of Liberty had
it memorized and most of them did so for just such an occasion. He'd
thought it out a bit further and memorized a few choice passages of a
more fundamental document in case he found himself in an area the
Constitution didn't apply; he actually felt a little bit happy he got
to show off his foresight. The other agents probably wished they were
him right now.


* * *


   "Okay, Ami, what do we have?"


   "Trouble."


   Makoto blinked and put her hands on her hips. They were in the
guest room, and Makoto and Rei were picking through the scavenged
equipment, mostly so they could feel like they were doing something --
they couldn't make heads or tails of any of the strange high-tech
devices. Ami scrutinized a few stacks of papers arrayed out in front
of her, and Hotaru, Minako, and Chibi-Usa looked on at her waiting for
the prognosis. Mamoru had left to wash the blood off his arms, and
Usagi had gone with him, feeling like she could be more productive
there. Luna tried to pore over the research notes, but found most of
it way over her head; Artemis was asleep in the corner.


   "We had trouble before, Ami-chan," said Minako. "We were kind of
hoping you could give us some specifics. Can we stop the Pharaoh from
returning?"


   "Well, I don't know. Maybe." Ami waved her hand over a section of
papers. "Most of these are from 1989 or earlier, I gather they
switched over to computerized record keeping after that. This was when
they didn't know a whole lot about the Pharaoh or how to summon him,
and the data I can get from it isn't definite."


   "That isn't all of it, though, right?" asked Luna. "There's
material that's more useful to you in there as well, isn't there?"


   "Well, I've only glanced at them so far, but it looks to taper off
around March 1990. Then there's a bunch more records from 1993, but
most of it appears to be procedural stuff, records kept to make sure
they were maintaining experiments correctly, not the methods or
purposes of the experiments. And the records taper off steadily from
there as well, almost from where they began."


   Hotaru nodded. "Dad's computer crashed on him around then, I
remember him complaining about Windows and how it ate all of his data.
I think he told Kaori she was supposed to keep paper copies of her lab
notes so they wouldn't be lost. I guess they both got sick of it." It
took a couple seconds for Hotaru to realize that not only was she
speaking with familiarity about the inner workings of the Death
Busters, but that both of the people she was talking about were dead
by her hand. She teetered wordlessly and would have fallen if Chibi-
Usa wasn't here to hold her up and give her a smile.


   "That'd explain it," Ami nodded. "So it doesn't look like I'd have
what I'd like, but I may be able to find the information we need, and
there's something here in English that doesn't look like anyone else's
handwriting about making a magnetic resonance disruptor that could be
useful. No, I think the trouble comes from this. Take a look -- you
shouldn't need to know the technical stuff." She pulled out a battered
piece of yellow legal paper, the blue ink fading and smudged over the
years. She started to hand it to Minako, looked at Luna, and laid it
out on the floor so both of them could see, and Rei and Makoto leaned
in to give it a look as well.


   "Ahem. 'Power Options for MP-90 Project,' dated September 18,
1989," read Luna. "'Tokyo Power Grid, Pro: Covert, low initial
equipment cost, legal,' question mark? 'Con: Easily Disrupted if
Discovered, prohibitive over-time expense, long time to gather power
plus poor storage.'"


   "'Nuclear Fusion,'" Rei continued. "'Pro: Self-contained, hard to
cut off if discovered,' ampersand, 'high power output. Con: Uranium
hard to gather, gain attention, no means of waste disposal.'"


   "'Dilithium Crystals!'" Minako said as if this was the part that
caught her interest. "'Pro, magic space do-anything tech. Con: Do not
exist,' comma, 'Mimette is stupid.' Looks like me and the Death
Busters agree on one thing."


   "'Psychic Crystallization', and this one is circled in red ink,"
said Makoto. "'Pro: No energy lost to conversion powering M-9, greatly
increase energy output, Talismans could have additional application,
easy storage and acquisition. Con: Energy difficult to combine; energy
output decreases' log, loga... 'logarithmically with each introduced
impurity; quality and purity of hearts difficult to control. Only need
3 hearts,' question mark? And then at the bottom there's a drawing of
UFOs fighting Godzilla, and a potted plant with teeth saying 'Feed me,
Tellu!' What does it mean?"


   "It's from 'Little Shop of Horrors,'" said Hotaru. Everyone in the
room turned to look at her and she felt that horrid feeling of free-
fall again. "It, uh, it was Tellu-san's favorite play." Chibi-Usa
patted her on the shoulder.


   "The point is, at the end she's talking about Pure Heart Crystals,"
said Ami. "But it's not the only thing on the list. They could have
tried to summon Pharaoh 90 using a nuclear reactor, but they thought
that Pure Hearts would work better. They could have got energy from
other sources."


   "Ohhh..." Luna would have slapped her forehead if she had an arm
capable of doing so. "And if he needs pure heart crystals to complete
the summoning, you can find the daimons and stop them before they get
the Crystal or get back with it. But, if he can get an alternate power
source, it's probably not something nearly as vulnerable to your
disrupting it."


   "And yesterday," Ami continued, "he sent out as many high-endurance
daimons as possible at the same time to gather heart crystals,
apparently going for quantity over quality even though that's less
efficient, hoping we'd be overwhelmed. But we weren't, and we stopped
all of them. So it would be the perfect time to change tactics to
something we can't disrupt."


   "Which is whyyy," Minako said, nodding her head as she caught up to
speed with Ami and Luna, "this latest attack had a daimon that didn't
fully form until we were there, and the lizards waiting to spring out
-- it was an ambush! If he doesn't need crystals any more the only
reason to send out daimons is to kill us, probably because he's
worried we could find his power source. So, all we need to do is find
where he's siphoning power from."


   "No. We know where he's getting the power from." Rei's eyes were
wide. "He has Sailor Pluto. And she's at the Gates of Time. And he's
not going back in time, because we still exist."


   "I think the Gates won't let him through," added Chibi-Usa. "Or, or
if Puu-chan has some kind of evil Wicked Lady thing going, she doesn't
count as Puu-chan and can't let people through."


   "But he's still there. He's at the Gates of Time even if he can't
go back through them. Ami, how much power would it take to travel
through time?"


   "A lot of power. And that's what he's going to use instead of Pure
Heart Crystals. He's never going to have to leave the Gate!"


   Minako clapped her hands and sat up, fully in 'commander' mode.
"But we know he's got those kinori on his side, and we know he got one
of those kinori to the Gates of Time without a key. Chibi-Usa-chan's
key won't work without Pluto letting her in from the other side, but
if we can find the kinori nest underground, either we'll have the way
he got to the Gates or be a lot closer. Ami-chan, can your visor find
the underground nest?"


   She shook her head. "The dark matter is interfering too much. I
could try sonar, but I'd still have to get in there and explore on
foot."


   "Knew it would be too easy." Minako chewed her lip. "Those people
from the Hoffmann Institute looked like they knew about kinori -- knew
they were called 'kinori' anyway. Hotaru, did they tell you anything?"


   "They didn't really have a reason to. They did tell me some stuff
about Bigfoot."


   "All right. He's got an independent power supply so we're going to
have to go offensive, and we don't know how much time he needs so
we're going to have to work quick. Ami-chan, find out everything you
can about the Pharaoh, who he is, where he's coming from, how he's
coming and how to send him back."


   Ami nodded. "Roger." She shuffled through the English-written
papers. "I'm going to try and put together this resonance disruptor --
Rei-chan, do you have an old TV and a four-slice toaster you don't
mind losing?"


   "Ask Grandfather, he may have thrown his old TV out."


   "The rest of us are splitting into two teams. When Usa-ko and Mamo-
san get back I'll tell them they're finding the Hoffmann Institute
people and finding out what they know -- that Disguise Pen should work
for that. Mako-chan, Rei-chan? We're going caving, scoping out where
the nest could be. Uranus and Neptune... will do whatever they want
regardless of what I say."


   Chibi-Usa hesitated to give Hotaru a chance to ask, then asked on
her own. "What about us? What are we doing?"


   Minako didn't have a task for them, but she couldn't really say so.
One of them was useless in a fight and the other was unstable, and an
unknown factor, and oh yeah nonzero chance she could end the world,
and neither of those things were something she could accommodate.
Luckily, Ami saved her bacon before she had to some up with something
on her own. "You two can stay here with me. This will go a lot faster
if I have more than one person, and... you know your way around some
of this stuff, right, Hotaru-chan?"


   Hotaru nodded glumly but didn't object. Usagi opened the door, a
dumpling in her mouth and another in her hand. "So, what's going on?"
She swallowed. "Rei-chan's grandfather was making these, they're real
good -- you should try one. What'd I miss?"


   "Finish that off, odango, we're mobilizing! Get Mamo-san and I'll
explain."


* * *


   "Why do you even bother trying to reason with him?" the short,
balding detective asked his taller, younger partner. He was trying to
appear as intimidating and hostile as possible so his partner would
seem that much more trustworthy by comparison. "It's obvious he
doesn't have the slightest idea the trouble he's in. Don't waste your
time sugar-coating things so he'll accept them, let's just throw the
book at him and knock off early today."


   "No, it's YOU who don't have the slightest idea of the trouble
you're in," responded Dr. Philip Akens, frustration clearly evident in
his voice. "By holding us here you're putting everyone in the city --
in the entire WORLD -- in grave danger! A psionic-demonic
manifestation so massive they don't even have a classification for it
is trying to rend its way into our reality right now, you've got to
let us out before it's too late to stop it!"


   Bad Cop scoffed. "Please. If you're trying to set up an insanity
plea, you should know we don't even have those in Japan. Everything
you say just deepens your guilt."


   "No, no, wait," said Good Cop. "I think we should at least hear him
out. Akens-san, why are we in danger if we don't release you?"


   "Because this thing -- this Pharaoh 90, Isci ba Fan -- it wants to
kill everyone on Earth, and it could if it got here." Phil hunched
over and put his weight on his elbows, moving his hands to and fro to
emphasize what he said. "Right now it's almost completely out of phase
with reality, so it can't affect very much, but it's opening a gateway
to let all of itself in. It tried to do that last Thursday at the
Mugen Academy, but it got stopped at the last minute; the police
didn't do anything about it. Now it's trying again -- and if you don't
let us back out to find a more permanent solution it's going to
succeed!"


   Bad Cop rolled his eyes, Good Cop leaned in closer to hear what
Phil was saying. "So, the Isci ba Fan was responsible for the
detonation at the Mugen Academy? That makes a lot of sense." He
nodded. "We thought that those people at Mugen were up to something
sinister but never had enough evidence. But how do you know he came
back and you need to stop him now? Maybe he just went away."


   "No, no, no. He didn't go away." Phil shook his head and waved his
arms. "He attacked the city en masse yesterday to gather up the power
he needs." He looked back and forth between both cops, neither one of
them showing the spark of recognition he wanted. "There were honest-
to-God MONSTERS, man! Ten feet tall, brightly colored, sucking
people's 'heart crystals' out! Don't tell me nobody... You don't...
How the hell do you explain all the property damage?"


   Good Cop nodded, finally recognizing. "Ah, so Isci ba Fan is
another name for Asahara Shoko. And the Aum Shinri Kyo members who
carried out all the vandalism yesterday were monsters in disguise. And
you were just trying to stop them, not help them."


   At this point Phil realized there was already a cover story for
everything and he had no chance of penetrating the lies to show the
man the truth. "No, they weren't monsters in DISGUISE!" he shouted,
personally insulted. "They were ten freaking feet tall! Covered in
spikes or blades or fire, sucking out people's souls! And the people
with them weren't Aum Shinri Kyo, they were students at the Mugen
Academy who were psychically programmed by Isci ba Fan! You can't...
You can't possibly tell me that nobody remembers this!"


   "Calm down, calm down. I'm sure that it felt very real to you..."


   "Of course it felt real, it actually happened!" He sighed. "What,
what about the FBI guy? You KNOW he's some kind of monster, right?"


   "Are the monsters out to get you, Akens-san?" Good Cop put on his
best sympathetic face, though it was hard. "Are you the only one who
can see them?"


   "Don't give me that!" Phil extended a finger at Good Cop; Bad Cop
moved to take him down but Good Cop warned him off with a hand. "I
know you can see him, because you're taking orders from him, and the
little time I saw him just about everything he said was showing off
the fact that he can read minds! He can walk through shadows, I bet
you he NEVER takes off that hat and sunglasses, even inside, the FBI
doesn't arrest people in other countries, the CIA does, and THEY don't
do it out in the open, and none of what he does makes any sense from a
law enforcement standpoint! It's like he's showing off the fact that
he's an alien and daring you to stop him."


   "He's an American," Bad Cop scoffed, "Americans are weird."


   "Listen, Akens-san. It's going to be okay." Good Cop laid his hands
on top of Phil's. "You're in police custody now, where the monsters
can't get to you--"


   "No, forget that. Call in the officers who've been working with him
and let's interview THEM. Or just call him in here and ask him to take
off his hat and glasses. Right now. I will show you, it's right in
front of you."


   "Buddy," said Bad Cop, "You have got much more important things to
worry about than Agent Statler's sunglasses."


   "The truth is always important," Phil pouted, arms crossed.


* * *


   Osaka Naru closed one eye and looked through her jeweler's eyepiece
at the sapphire-in-silver ring. The Osa-P was closed, following
yesterday's attack, while they repaired the fixtures and took a tally
of what was damaged for their insurance company. Even if a gemstone
looked fine on first glance, a closer examination could reveal
hairline scratches or fractures that drastically reduced its value.


   The official story was that their store was the victim of
terrorism. Or vandalism. Or terrorist vandalism, as part of a larger
campaign against the city of Tokyo. Display cases were smashed, stock
damaged, holes put in walls, the carpet torn up. Naru's mother said
she must have been so frightened by the barbarousness that she passed
out, but was pretty sure it was vandal terrorists. That failed to
explain why there was a band saw sitting, unplugged, on top of a
smashed display case. Naru's mother guessed they were using it to
smash things, but that made less than zero sense.


   Naru remembered what happened, though. She remembered it perfectly.
There was a youma, or some other kind of youma called something else,
and like all other youma it was drawn to the Osa-P like a moth to a
flame. Everyone in the store was screaming and panicking, save for the
three people that followed it in, and Naru herself. Naru took cover
behind a cabinet and was wondering if there was still a blowtorch in
the back room she could use as a weapon -- it's worked well on youma
before -- but when she saw just how big the youma was, and the
whirring saw-ribbon threaded through her arms and neck, she decided
she needed to stay in cover and hope Sailor Moon showed up for this
one.


   It wasn't Sailor Moon, but close enough, it was Sailor Neptune and
Uranus. The fight was quick but brutal, with the impact force of their
attacks sending youma and people flying all over, smashing and
breaking. But, soon the youma was destroyed, back to the object it was
made from. Uranus and Neptune had stayed behind momentarily to help
restrain the youma's human assistants, and Naru had thanked them for
saving the store (sort of) and her life; they'd smiled, and Uranus
said "It's what we do, ma'am." It felt good to be able to thank
someone for it, the window of time in which she could was very short.


   Naru frowned. There was a crack on the underside of the gem, next
to the setting; not something that really detracted from the beauty
but still a noticeable flaw. They'd be able to sell it, but as an
irregular for reduced value. She sighed and started to write down the
description of the damage.


   The bell hanging above the door rang, and the hair on the back of
her neck stood up. The door had been locked, and there was a sign
hanging on it that said 'Sorry, we're CLOSED,' and her mother wouldn't
be back for an hour, and the fixture people wouldn't be in until
tomorrow due to their backlog. That only left one person it could be,
the one who'd visited her after every youma encounter past the first
couple.


   "Osaka Naru," said the man in black, all business.


   "Agent Waldorf," she responded in likewise manner.


   "Lot of crazy stuff happened yesterday," said Waldorf as he walked
toward her. "Lot of potential to cause a panic. That's why it's
especially important that you keep your pretty little mouth shut about
what happened."


   She sighed. "I never talked before, and I haven't this time. It was
terroristic vandalism like everyone said. They smashed one of the
display cases with a band saw. There was no monster."


   "Good. That's my girl. And, this way, can't you say you subdued the
vandals on your own? That would be a nice boast to be able to make.
Much better than saying Uranus and Neptune saved you from a
monster..."


   "...And having the store be shut down by the government and me and
my mother living in a cardboard box under a bridge in Hokkaido." She
sighed again, longer and louder. "I know. You told me before. I won't
talk to anyone. Can I please go back to work?"


   "Just checking in to make sure we're on the same page." He paused.
"That's a nice-looking ring you have there. Doing an insurance
inventory?"


   She nodded. "Yeah, have to record everything that got damaged and
how before we get any money back. This one has a crack on the
underside, you can see it when the light shines on it the right way."
She looked up at Waldorf's thin, but widening smile, and exhaled. "And
you want me to tell them that it shattered, don't you?"


   He plucked the ring out of her hand. "Whatever else can be said of
you, Osaka Naru, nobody will claim you are not a team player."


* * *


   "So, you seem to be taking this... well."


   Haruka stared into her reflection in the bus's mirror. "Why
shouldn't I? The way I take it won't change anything. Anger or despair
won't help me get the car back and it won't help us complete the
mission, so why bother?"


   Michiru shifted in her seat and coughed. "I know you feel
something. It's not healthy to keep your emotions bottled up like
this. You'll get a brain tumor."


   "Then I can have a brain tumor until after the mission. Once it's
over, if it's over, I'll start screaming profanities and vomiting
blood if it would really make you happy."


   Michiru got a mental image of Haruka having a Grade-A freakout and
herself coaching her along, saying "Great! Really show me that
intensity! Yes, you're taking me there!" and wasn't sure if she should
laugh or look concerned.


   "So, how far are we?" Haruka asked.


   "A couple more blocks. Not far." Michiru shifted again, unable to
find a position that didn't have a metal bar pressing into her thigh.
"It's the last place I could be sure it was, but if we can go from
there, we can map out its path further. It can't have gone too far
before it stopped."


   "And by 'it', do you..." Haruka looked around the bus to see if
anyone was paying attention to their conversation, and lowered her
voice. "...do you think that we're tracking down the creature or my
car?"


   "Doesn't matter to me. Does it matter to you?"


   Haruka looked back out the window. "I'll be fine." Outside the
window, a row of small, closely-spaced but well-maintained houses
passed them by. As they passed one with a slightly shaggier front
lawn, its meager area dotted with children's toys, there was a sudden
flash of light that nobody else in the bus seemed to react to.
Standing on the lawn was now a woman with pointed ears, charry-red
skin, multicolored plastic streamers in place of hair, and large
bicycle wheels coming out of her knees and shoulders. Haruka closed
her eyes and banged her forehead against the window; Michiru
wordlessly pulled the metal cord above them to signal the bus to stop.


*


   The daimon hopped in place as it waited for Sailor Uranus and
Neptune to approach, then popped from out of the yard into the
sidewalk once she thought they were close enough. "I've been waiting
for you, Sailor Senshi!" she called to them in a cheery tone that
sounded like she was hiding something in her cheeks. "You'd better be
ready, though! I'm the fastest one on the block, and nothing bad can
catch me now!" She bent her knees and put up her hands like she was
getting ready to box.


   Uranus's voice was like an approaching thunderstorm. "You... have
ABSOLUTELY no idea how stupid it was to show yourself within five
kilometers of me." She tilted her head until her neck cracked. "I am
going to break you in half."


   "Uh... and I am Sailor Neptune, appearing elegantly."


   The daimon ran at them, riding its knee-wheels, and Neptune raised
her arms to use a Deep Submerge; Uranus slapped them back down right
before she ran head-on into the daimon's advance. Uranus readied a
World Shaking, then spiked it into the ground between her knees, the
recoil sending her flying forward into the daimon's face.


   The daimon yelped in confusion, not ready for an attack, as
Uranus's knees and fists drove into her chest. Before she had even
landed Uranus was raining blows on her face, body, legs. She flailed
around, trying to get a shot in, to pull out her bicycle chain, but
could get nothing. Uranus deflected the first couple strikes, then
caught one in her palm, twisted the daimon's wrist, and pulled back on
her index finger until it snapped; yanked on the arm, spun the daimon
around, and fired a World Shaking into the small of her back.


   "They're here!" the daimon screamed in panic, voice trembling like
she was sitting on a washing machine. "They're here! Get them now!" At
her cue, a nearby manhole cover popped open, and four white-scaled
lizardmen, carrying axes and spears, scurried from the hole toward
Sailor Uranus.


   Uranus snarled and drew the Space Sword from her hip, bisecting the
daimon with the same fluid motion. The cut glowed yellow, the two
halves slipped from each other, and then both were gone and a red
children's bicycle fell to the sidewalk. The lizardmen in the lead of
the attack formation stopped, claws scrabbling against the asphalt to
cut his momentum.


   "You want some too?" Uranus shouted, posture hunched and expression
murderous. "You wanna be next? What do you want from me now, huh?" She
took a step forward, the lizards took a step back. "You can't want my
heart, you already took that. You already have my car. Already took my
school. Want the Talisman? I gave it to your friend. What, do you want
the clothes off my back?" She reached to her skirt with her free hand
and tore a section off, she threw it towards the lizardman and it
lazily fluttered to the ground in front of her. "Here! Take it! I'll
run around naked! Want the jewelry? Yeah, that's got to be worth a
couple yen!" She pulled the tiara from her forehead and threw it to
the ground, pulled out her earrings and threw them into the
lizardman's face. "Here! Take them! Sell them to a lizard pawn shop!
Give them to your lizard wife! What else do you want from me, huh? Is
it my blood? You here to steal my blood?" Her eye twitched and she
extended her sword-arm. "Because if you are, you should have
brought... your... Kryptonite!"


   The lizardmen looked to each other, the one in the lead talking
very low very fast, and then their heads jerked in unison to the
manhole and they sprinted back inside. Uranus gave chase after them,
but it was clear she'd never catch them. She looked into the black
hole for a few seconds, waiting for an attack, then sighed and turned
around.


   On the front step of the house, there was a nine-year-old boy
staring at her in slack-jawed awe. On the sidewalk, Sailor Neptune was
staring at her in slack-jawed awe. The kid started to clap, met
Uranus's gaze, and then remembered there was something incredibly
important he had to do back inside.


   "So, uh... how are you feeling, Sailor Uranus?"


   Uranus smiled. "Lot better, actually!"


* * *


   "I'm not going to sugar-coat this. You're in a very bad situation,
Mrs. Truitt."


   Donna nodded and pouted her lip out a bit. "I know."


   The detective nodded. "But I want to help you. I want to get you
out of this."


   "I know. I know you want to help me. I want you to help me." She
batted her eyelashes, but he wasn't looking. "How can I help you help
me?"


   The detective sighed, relieved that things were going this easily,
he could only imagine the difficulty the others were giving. "You'll
have to sign a confession, tell us what you did, and who was with you.
You can't do it in English, so we'll just write it out for you -- all
we'll do is translate what you tell us. Once that's done we have a lot
more options we can pursue."


   "Isn't there..." Her hand crept up to the loaned white dress shirt
she was wearing and undid the top two buttons. "...something I can do
to help things along?"


   "Yes. There is." The detective blinked. "Sign a confession. Like I
just said."


   She scooted back in her chair to give her chest more room to stick
out. "But isn't there something... else I can do?"


   It took him a second to realize what she was saying, because it was
so astonishingly stupid he didn't expect it. "No. No, all I want is
the confession."


   "Come on," she said in what she thought was a seductive purr. "A
nice guy like you shouldn't be spending all his time at the station...
need to relax some time..."


   "Oh, no." He took off his glasses and rubbed at his temples. "No,
no, no, no no no you are not doing this. You are not trying this on
me. You're doing something sane and rational, like throwing the chair
through the one-way mirror and trying to subdue every officer in the
station with your bare hands."


   "Don't worry so much!" she whispered. "Let yourself go... you know
you want to!"


   "No. I don't. I do not, in fact, trip over every white woman that
falls in my path. Most of us Japanese men don't! Especially when the
white woman is being interrogated for weapons crimes and being a
terrorist, by me!" He looked around the room as if he was looking for
someone with some sense. "You know you smell like spoiled milk, right?
You are trying to hit on me while smelling like expired dairy
products. You ever wonder why Japanese people are always forcing
politeness around you? It's because you smell and nobody wants to tell
you. And nobody wants to have sex with you no matter how freakishly
gargantuan your breasts are."


   He turned around, threw his hands up in exasperation. While she
thought nobody was looking, she pointed her nose into her armpit and
gave a surreptitious sniff.


* * *


   Sailor Mars, Jupiter, and Venus stood at the edge of the subway
platform, Venus with a small stack of papers with a subway schedule on
top, Mars holding onto one cheap plastic flashlight and two thick
metal Mag-Lites, Jupiter holding one more. All three Senshi had
removed their shoes and were watching the subway tracks, waiting. "I'm
still not sure this is a good idea," said Jupiter. "We should be going
in with more firepower. Mercury should be here, her attacks would
work."


   "We're just here to do some recon, Jupiter," said Venus without
looking up from the schedule. "We're not going to engage anything, and
our powers will be enough to let us escape if we get attacked. This is
a scouting mission, not a fighting one."


   "I don't know," Jupiter said, "I'm not sure I'm really comfortable
with being a Sailor Scout."


   Mars grinned, and held up the red plastic flashlight dangling on a
string from her wrist, her own image was inaccurately drawn on the
side. "Somebody's grumpy they were out of bootleg Sailor Jupiter
merchandise!"


   A train came to a stop in front of them, they didn't move. "Hey!"
Jupiter extended a finger at Ray in playful castigation. "They were
sold out of Sailor Jupiter merchandise. That means I'm more popular
than you two are."


   "Whatever you have to say to get to sleep at night," said Venus,
chuckling. The train doors closed and it whizzed past them into the
dark cavern of the subway tunnel. "Okay, there's one more train, and
then there's four minutes before the one after that. We break right,
make for that recess there," she pointed into the tunnel, "and wait
for the next train to pass."


   "Hey, excuse me," said a young man with glasses and a 'Manziger Z'
shirt behind them as he prodded Venus in the back. "You've been
standing there for like three trains and you haven't done anything. If
you're not going to jump off and kill yourselves, at least let someone
else through who is!"


   Venus handed the schedule off to Jupiter with a sigh, turned on her
heel, and faced the man. As much as she would have loved to take him
aside and show him all the love and beauty in the world and why his
life was a precious thing that shouldn't be cast away, she was in a
hurry, she'd have to give him the abridged version. She leaned
forward, put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him on the lips
for five seconds solid. She broke the kiss with a wet 'smack' noise
and looked him in the eyes. "Do you still want to kill yourself now?"


   "What are you -- Yes!" He was flabbergasted and insulted. "You
can't solve all the problems in my life just by giving me a kiss!"


   Venus nodded and turned to Jupiter, who looked confused for a
second then rolled her eyes. Venus threw her arms around Jupiter's
neck and kissed her, running one hand down her back and playing with
her ponytail with the other; Jupiter hesitantly ran her fingers
through Venus's hair. When they broke the kiss, a man at the back of
the platform started clapping. "How about now?"


   The man in the glasses put his hand to his chin and half-lidded his
eyes, as if he was contemplating a very difficult math problem.
"Well... I guess I can try to find a job again," he said after a time,
then walked away to the street exit.


   "So, that went to a pretty weird place," remarked Mars once he had
left.


   "What did you want me to do?" responded Venus. "I didn't want to
let the man kill himself after we left. He just needed to be shown a
little love, that's all, something to hold on to... and if it saved a
life, I'm not ashamed of it."


   "No, no, I..." Mars laughed nervously. "...I just didn't think
you'd take 'showing him love' quite so literally."


   Jupiter smacked her lips with a look of deep thought. "Sailor
Venus, did you just get done eating an orange? Because I haven't seen
one in the past couple hours."


   "What? I haven't had anything orange-flavored all day. Why do you
ask?"


   The train moved up to the platform in front of them. Mars shifted
from the her heels to her tiptoes and back. "Pret-ty weird place,
indeed..."


*


   "So, what are we looking for, anyway?" Mars swept her flashlight
back and forth, the illuminated circle dancing with those from Venus
and Jupiter's lights on the concave walls of the dark, abandoned
subway tunnel.


   "A lot of things," Venus responded, voice raised enough to be heard
from five meters away but not much further. "Signs, markings, tracks,
evidence of recent travel, secret entrances and exits. Here's
something..." She stopped to examine a half-decayed piece of paper,
but it was just an ad for a Russian restaurant that had already gone
out of business. "Nope, just looks like an ad that someone dropped on
the platform and got blown in here."


   "Why would there be many of those?" asked Jupiter. "Signs of
passage, I mean. I know we're right next to the subway that daimon
tried to escape into, but, it never got there, and the daimons didn't
come from here originally. There wasn't a chance for them to leave
anything behind. And those kinoris used the sewer, not the subway."


   "Because, we're not after..." She paused and let Mars and Jupiter
catch up to her so she could speak at a conversational level. "We're
not looking for anything the daimons left. We're looking for stuff
from whoever else was using the tunnels before."


   "The... subway company?" Jupiter looked around. "It's just an
unused subway line."


   "That's where you're wrong. I was looking at these underground maps
that Re-- Ma-- that that secretary guy got for us yesterday?" She held
up the papers in her other hand, pointed her light at them, and gently
waved them so they made a little noise. "This tunnel isn't just on the
subway map now... it's never been on the subway map."


   "That doesn't mean anything, does it?" Rei looked up and down the
tunnel wall, not sure what was going to be there. "This could be where
they sent then trains into when they get repaired, so they're out of
the way."


   "But how do they get in here when there's no rail, and where do the
people work on them?" Venus was smiling now, though nobody was shining
a light on her face to see. "No, this place is a secret. Nobody's
supposed to ever go here. There's a whole secret network of tunnels
running underneath Tokyo, accessing all the most important areas in
the city, that the government denies all knowledge of. And this, here,
where we're standing? Is either one of the tunnels, or leads to one of
them."


   "What?" Jupiter laughed in disbelief. "Pfft. You can't really
believe any of that, it's just an old urban legend! Next are you going
to tell me that you've..." She faltered a bit, but caught herself,
"that there's really shinigami coming out of the Shirogane tunnel."


   Venus shined her light in Jupiter's face, realized her mistake and
shined it on her chest instead. "You were about to say 'you've seen a
UFO,' weren't you?" She laughed. "That's what your standard statement
of skepticism was going to be!"


   "No, no, I, I just forgot the name of the tunnel for a second."


   "Ooohhh, admit it." Mars smirked to herself. "You were going to say
that it was as crazy as believing in UFOs, until you remembered what
the Black Moon flew around in."


   "Yes, yes, okay!" Jupiter sighed. "I was going to say it was as
crazy as believing in UFOs. That's just the expression people use, all
right? People say 'Maybe Sailor Moon will work that out for you' when
they're talking about something that isn't going to happen, too,
that's just an expression."


   "I don't get why magical girls hiding out in Tokyo, demons taking
human form, Dark Kingdom trying to subvert society from within,
talking cats that look like normal cats, all of that's perfectly fine
to you, but as soon as I say that the government is being deceptive
about something it's all," her voice went low and dopey, "'Oh, don't
listen to her, she's a crazy person.'"


   "Who said I didn't think the government could lie?" Jupiter held up
her index finger. "I didn't think there'd be a reason to lie about
this."


   "Trust me, Sailor Jupiter," said Mars, "and this is from personal
experience: they don't need a reason to lie."


   Soon the tunnel split, a branch going left and the tunnel
continuing on straight. On the dusty concrete were a set of tire
tracks, leading into the new branch and down the old tunnel.


   "Where now?" asked Mars. Venus set down the papers and her light,
and scrutinized the tracks in the light from the other two girls. The
tracks into the left branch were more close together than the ones
leading from straight ahead, and at the apex of the turn all of them
swerved and ess-curved. She put out her hand, palm down with her thumb
and pinky out, and slowly moved it along the ground. She glanced at
the thickness of the tracks, turned her hand 90 degrees, and kept it
moving on the same path while imitating the 'CREEEEE!' of brakes
squealing. After a couple seconds, she moved her hand forward in its
new direction, toward the new tunnel branch.


   Venus got up and swept the hair out of her face. "I think whoever
was driving this car was going down that way," she pointed to the
tunnel on the left, "and coming from that way," she pointed straight
ahead. "He had his car turned sideways when he hit the turn, so he
must have been going pretty fast." It was a her that was going pretty
fast, actually, but Sailor Venus doesn't know that. "We should follow
where he was coming from, see if there's a garage or some other
facility."


   "Wait." Mars held up a hand. "What if he was driving back from
somewhere and in a hurry to get back to the garage?"


   "That's a good point." Venus contemplated. "It really could go
either way. We don't want to split up..."


   "We'll settle it like all great decisions are made." Mars held her
flashlight in her armpit, held out her open palm and put her balled
fist on top of it. "And we go 'jan, ken, pon, shoot!' I don't want a
do-over because you threw your sign too early."


* * *


   "I'm not going to sugar-coat it for you..." the detective glanced
down at the file in his hand, "...Neary-san. These are very serious
charges."


   "I just hope you're happy." Nadine's eyes were red, she wiped a
tear away.


   "But I think I can help you, if you're just willing to--"


   "I could have murdered the Pope on live television and you'd never
prosecute without a confession and everything out of your mouth is a
lie until you get one," she spat as if the words tasted like wax. "So
I hope you're happy. There's nobody higher up the food chain to go
for, and you're going to let us go after a couple months because
nobody is going to fall for your game and we're too stubborn or stupid
to change our minds. So was it worth it? Because I hope it was."


   "...Excuse me?"


   "I hope they throw you a ticker-tape parade," she choked in a tone
of voice clearly indicating she did not. "I hope they give you the key
to the city and they name a bridge after you and you're a national
hero. I hope you get as much as you can to look at it and say 'That
was worth an innocent girl's life.'"


   "Are you telling me about the..." He flipped past a couple pages in
the file, "Pharaoh 90? That he'll strike again if you aren't
released?"


   "She's already dead." She sobbed once and put her hand to her
mouth. "She was only a little girl and she didn't know how much life
she had in front of her and now..." She shuddered. "Now she's gone. I
wasn't there for her."


   "If you're, uh," he flipped the file around, looking for the name,
"talking about Tomoe Hotaru, she's in custody right--"


   "Don't lie to me!" she shouted, but she couldn't look him in the
eye. "You don't have her. They told you to say that so, what, so my
'accomplices' were all caught and I'd want to confess? We waited on
the scene for ten minutes when they couldn't find her. Nobody listened
to what I was saying about her. She got away."


   He sighed. "Okay. We don't have her. You got me. I don't understand
why that's brought you to tears."


   "Read the file. I..." she shook her head. "Just read about the
arrest."


   He sighed. "'Suspects Nakami, Neary, Akens arrested by Agent
Statler upon arrival at scene, contraband confirmed and located in
their room (one M16 assault rifle, one Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle, two
bags of ammunition, mixed caliber).'" He looked up at her, then
skimmed the report in silence. "Uhh, suspect Tomoe fled on foot,
attacked a shrine-keeper... 'suspect Neary became belligerent and
combative, demanding either release or opportunity to negotiate
Tomoe's surrender, repeatedly exclaiming...'" He let the file drop to
the table. "'"You can't let her go on her own, she'll kill herself,
she'll kill herself."'"


   "We had her on suicide watch." She leaned forward and buried her
face in her hands. "Someone always had to be close by, room away at
most. She said she wanted to kill herself, we had to keep an eye on
her. I got two hours of sleep last night so I could watch her sleep
and make sure she wouldn't get up and slit her wrists in the bathroom.
And, and all night..." Her voice cracked and the tears spilled out.
"All night she was thrashing around, and she looked so scared, and I
wished I could make it all better for her, but I couldn't, she, she
had so many nightmares, all I could do was be here for her now and
tell her it was okay and, and, and I wasn't, I couldn't be there for
her, I let her down, she needed me and I let her down!"


   "You... you just arrived in the country, she'd never left. How is
it you're the one she's depending on?"


   Nadine's head went into the table and she sobbed. "She didn't have
anyone else, don't you get it! I had to be there for her because
nobody else would! And, and, I failed her, she's GONE!"


* * *


   Chibi-Usa leaned on Hotaru's side, gently stroking her shoulder.
She couldn't decipher technical notes, or help Ami put together her
device, and she'd just slow down Venus, Mars and Jupiter, and she'd be
of no use getting into a police station. She knew these things, but
she didn't want to acknowledge them. But she also knew she could be
here for her friend Hotaru, and she knew that was enough.


   Ami worked slowly and carefully on a mass of wires and mechanical
components laid out on a blanket of newspapers, frequently checking
the handwritten instructions. Hotaru sat on the floor, back in her
civilian clothes, slowly working her way through a stack of lab notes
while Chibi-Usa leaned on her for support.


   After minutes of silence, Ami looked up from her work. "Hotaru,
have you found anything? If we know more specifics about, about other
ways they could have summoned him or how they put it together, we'd be
a lot further along."


   "No." Hotaru rubbed at her eyes with her shirtsleeve. "No, I don't
understand most of it, so it's slow going, but none of it looks
like... it's all about heart crystals, or daimon creation, or... I
can't do this." She threw the paper she was holding to the ground. "I
just can't..."


   "It's okay, Hotaru, it's okay." Chibi-Usa patted her on the
shoulder. "That looked like really hard stuff. And I couldn't
understand any of it, so you're still doing better than me!"


   "It's not hard!" She looked away and chewed her knuckle. "No... it
is hard, but it's not that it's hard. I just can't bear to do it."


   Ami nodded. "Hotaru, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you to, I
mean, your father was... but, I just wanted to find a way..."


   Hotaru sighed. "You already know the way to stop him." They were
all silent after that, and eventually Hotaru spoke up again after it
was clear nobody was going to interrupt her and take away her ability
to talk about this. "It's... it's not just my father. It's that too,
seeing things he wrote, the little phrases he used... the way his
handwriting degraded over time. But, it's, Tellu and Eudial and
Mimette and Viluy, I mean I knew by now what they were doing, but,
there's stuff here and they're talking about meeting me and seeing
something about me, and I remember when that happened, I remember them
coming over to see me, and I had no idea they were sizing me up for
how to make me a human portal..."


   "Don't worry, Hotaru." Chibi-Usa smiled, tried to get a smile from
Hotaru, failed. "We're your friends. We're not going to hurt you like
them, we just want you to be happy."


   "That's, that's just it. I liked it when they came over. Kaori, I
always thought she was trying to steal Mom's place, but the rest of
them... I didn't see them enough to call them friends, but, but they
were certainly like cousins I didn't get to see often. They, they had
fun with me. And after I... after the Mistress, I, I thought it was
all a lie and they were just trying to get close to me for their
work."


   "But they were evil, Hotaru. We're not going to hurt you like that,
we won't lie to you."


   "Mimette let me braid her hair and we talked about idol singers
until two in the morning. Eudial would come over every time the
computer was acting up, and she always had some great new computer
game that just came out in California that she wanted to show me.
Tellu, this was just a couple of years ago the Takrazuka Revue was
doing a musical adaptation of JFK, and I thought it sounded so silly I
had to go, and Dad said I shouldn't because he thought it was going to
be all about the Zapruder film, so Tellu got me a ticket and she snuck
me in like it was an R-15 movie and I thought it was just so cool
because I'd snuck in to see something for grown-ups. And, and even
Viluy, she didn't talk to me a whole lot but one time she just came
there out of the blue with two tickets to Puro-Land, said she'd won
them in a contest and couldn't find anyone to buy them and letting
them expire would be a waste of resources."


   "Hotaru, I know it hurts that they'd pretend to be your friends.
It's happened to me."  Chibi-Usa nodded slowly. "But you're with
friends, now!"


   "No..." Hotaru shook her head, voice cracking, pulled her knees to
her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "No, that's not... None of
that's in here. And most of it's about me. Everything that was part of
an experiment, or that was supposed to make me Mistress Nine, they
kept a record of. The stuffed animal they gave me that was supposed to
make me trust them more and be more open to the implantation, that's
in here. Eudial, she wrote down where it was in my room in four
different notes. Nothing about playing 'Red Baron' and the both of us
squealing and covering our eyes whenever we were about to crash." She
gestured at the last file she'd been reading. "I said she was trying
to take my mother's place, Kaori was always mocking me, I hated her
and she hated me... and that's her talking about how to make up this
chemical so I'd absorb it through my skin, and that it would be less
efficient than, than injecting it but it wouldn't hurt me nearly as
much." She sniffed. "I used to get these big, Dad called them booster
shots, these injections with this huge needle every month. I hated it,
I always cried, and Kaori called me a baby, and six years ago I
stopped getting them. Because Kaori figured out a way to do it that
wouldn't hurt me as much. And now she's dead. I killed her."


   "You didn't kill her, Hotaru! The Mistress Nine did, not you. She's
the evil one, not you." Chibi-Usa held her close. "And Kaori was only
giving you those chemicals to make you into the Mistress Nine. It
doesn't matter how she did it to you, she can't do it to you again."


   "Because if she was just evil why wouldn't she keep on hurting me?
I wasn't going to fight back. Why not just, just tie me to a chair so
I can't escape?" Hotaru returned Chibi-Usa's hug and sobbed into her
neck. "Why would she care about what I felt?"


   "Hotaru..." Ami chewed her lip as she recollected her thoughts.
"You know there's evil in the world. There's things that are nothing
but hatred and malice for everyone and want everyone to suffer as much
as they do. That's what the Pharaoh is. That's what Queen Metallia and
the Death Phantom were. The Sailor Senshi are here to fight that kind
of evil when it appears. But that's not what most evil is. People..."
She thought about Nephrite, dying in Naru's arms. "People with evil in
their hearts can have other things in them, too. They can even love
other people in their own sad way. Evil can be black and white, but,
most of the time... it's human."


   Hotaru looked at Chibi-Usa and held her tighter.


* * *


   Kunimatsu Takaji tapped his foot impatiently. His hair and dress
were impeccable, the pants of his navy blue suit still creased as if
he'd never sat down in them. In his left hand he had a long coil of
rubber hose and a black plastic garbage bag. A plastic badge with his
name on it was clipped to his lapel, perfectly parallel with the line
formed by his breast pocket.


   The door to the security office clicked open and revealed a pudgy,
balding policeman of about forty. He blinked when he saw Takaji's
face, glanced down at the badge to confirm his identity. "Kunimatsu-
san! I'm sorry, I thought you would be meeting the Captain, I didn't
expect you back here..."


   "I am having a very unpleasant day," said Takaji, his tone clipped
and even. "I am not in the mood for small talk. Is the suspect named
Itohiro Nakami in interrogation room eight?"


   "Yes, sir, just like you asked." The policeman gestured to the bank
of monitors behind him. "You can watch him on the camera if you want."


   "I don't want. Interrogation room eight does not have a one-way
mirror, correct?"


   The cop nodded. "Yes sir, like I said over the phone, although we
usually don't use it because--"


   "Shut off the camera for interrogation room eight."


   "Uhh..." The cop looked down at the bag and hose in Takaji's hand.
"Sir, I'm sorry, but all interrogations have to be recorded, I can't
just..."


   "And whoever told you that, I outrank him." Takaji's eye twitched,
but his voice remained perfectly calm. "I give orders to the person
who gives orders to the person who told you not to turn off the
cameras. Now shut off the camera for interrogation room eight."


   The cop put his hands out in front of him to feel as if there was
some distance and shook his head. "Sir, these are regulations, suspect
interrogations have to be recorded. There's limits on what we're
allowed to do to provoke a confession."


   "Do not tell me about the limits on what the police can do. I know
them. I wrote some of them. Do not talk to me about regulation." He
rolled his neck, but produced no cracking noise. "Do you know how far
a person can fall in the ranks of the police hierarchy? Did you know,
for example, that there are ranks lower than civilian? There are
people walking around Japan who are legally obligated to obey every
command given to them by another human being, and all of them have
done something to piss me off."


   The cop swallowed nervously, turned around, and flicked a switch on
his control console. One of the monitors went dead. "When, when should
I turn it back on, sir?"


   "When I tell you to turn it on and not before. If anyone asks you
to turn it on before then, tell them your orders came from me. And do
not let anyone into interrogation room eight before I say to, either.
Understand?"


   The cop nodded and handed him the key, and Takaji briskly walked to
the door of Interrogation Room Eight. He pulled open the door to see
Itohiro Nakami sitting at the table, eyelids drooping, head suspended
between his palms, shirt and slacks in their perpetual state of
disarray. "It's really you. Itohiro Nakami. Head of the Hoffmann
Institute."


   Nakami looked up at Takaji, standing in the doorway. "Who are you?"
he said in a manner he thought was wary but was really more drunken.


   Takaji sighed, stepped forward into the room, pulled the door
closed behind him, locked it. He walked over to the table and
wordlessly emptied out the garbage bag, leaving a head of lettuce, two
cans of Pocari Sweat, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol sitting between
them. And in an instant Kunimatsu Takaji the aging but well-groomed
head of the National Police Agency was gone, and in his place was a
short, grey-skinned man with a head too big for his body and
featureless black eyes too big for his head. He wore a child-sized
kimono that was actually slightly too small for him. "Itohiro-san..."
the Fraal said, shaking his head and speaking as if he was
disappointed and nothing else, "what the hell are you doing here?"



---



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


XENOFORM: YOUMA
(Part 2 of 2: Creation and Mechanics)


   Youma can be created much like human heroes and NPCs, in fact the
process is almost identical until the last step. Youma come in
Marginal, Ordinary, Good, and Amazing qualities, though this is
determined by their creation rather than a reflection of their
training and experience as it is with human NPCs.


   It would take far too much time and effort for any reasonable
person to determine all the possible factors that can affect a person
or object and change its resulting youma, and there's no real reason
to try. In nearly every case it is entirely sufficient for a player or
Gamemaster to create a youma character, then look at it and come up
with a template that would result in a youma with those stats.


   To create a youma, first allocate points to each of its six stats,
just like a normal character creation. Marginal youma use the standard
60 attribute points, Ordinary have 62, Good have 64, and Amazing have
66. If the youma is being made from a human template, and the human is
already known in the campaign, feel free to use the human's stats as a
baseline but don't feel compelled to stick to them. Youma have a
minimum of 4 and a maximum of 15 in any stat.


   Youma of Marginal or Ordinary quality are considered
nonprofessional but Good and Amazing youma can be Combat Specs, Free
Agents, Tech Ops and Diplomats, and must obey the attribute
requirements for their profession. If the youma has a profession, it
receives all of the standard benefits.


   Next, purchase skills. Each youma begins with the same six free
broad skills as humans, Athletics, Vehicle Operation, Stamina,
Knowledge, Awareness, and Interaction. One would think youma wouldn't
have any Knowledge, especially if they've existed for less than a day,
but they appear to gather a general impression of "common knowledge"
from people in the area the same way they gather psychic impressions
of something to form themselves around it. Youma are not humans and do
not receive the free broad skill or five free skill points that humans
do. Youma can never be mindwalking talents, and cannot purchase FX or
Psionic skills that haven't been granted to them by one of their youma
Alterations.


   Next, purchase perks and flaws. Certain perks or flaws altering the
youma's (theoretical) relationship with society should be off limits
-- a creature that has been alive for 18 hours can't be a celebrity no
matter how famous the thing it was made out of -- but a great many can
be justified with some creative interpretation. A youma can create
some valuable material, making it Filthy Rich; it could be made of an
object that powerful people want returned to its original condition
and thus have a Powerful Enemy.


   Then, choose the specific magical qualities of the youma, called
"Alterations". Each youma has a number of YP to spend on alterations:
Marginal youma have 3, Ordinary have 6, Good have 9 and Amazing have
12. Every kind of alteration has three levels of power, Ordinary,
Good, and Amazing. Ordinary alterations cost 1 YP, Good ones cost 2,
and Amazing cost 4. One extra YP can be purchased at creation at a
cost of 15 skill points. The same alteration cannot be purchased more
than once. Some alterations can increase attributes beyond their
maximum, but ones that give skill ranks beyond the maximum skill level
are only usable at the skill-capped level: an achievement level 1
youma who gets an alteration that gives him 5 ranks of a skill uses it
as if he has 3 ranks in it, upon achieving level 2 he will use it as
if it were rank 4 without putting any further points into it.


   Once the youma's alterations are picked out, character creation
proceeds as normal (you may want to go back and change your skill
allocation, if you put points in something that went over the skill
cap, or to put something in an FX skill you received from an
alteration). If a youma receives a psionic skill from an alteration,
treat it as an FX skill that uses FX Energy Points; youma can never
use psionics.


   All youma have the following qualities: Good toughness against non-
magical HI and LI attacks, receive a +1 action penalty instead of
becoming unconscious when their Stun track is filled, provoke the
"Taioron Reaction" unless specifically suppressed, cannot survive when
too far from an active dark matter gateway or reactor. Below is a list
of 15 youma Alterations, each of three strengths; this is by no means
a complete listing and players and GMs are encouraged to come up with
their own.


YOUMA ALTERATIONS:


 - Enervation: One common function of youma is to drain, retain, and
deliver back to their masters stores of human bio-psionic energy,
often for use in Entropomancy Arcane Magic FX. Youma drain the power
from humans and store it in special magical reserves until it can be
emptied and repurposed. As great, great quantities of bio-psionic
energy are required for more advanced applications of Entropomancy FX,
practitioners will send out youma in great amounts and great
frequency. This alteration is almost never found naturally on youma,
but can be quite reliably added to a youma at creation if the creator
wishes it. 'Life energy' drained from a human has multiple forms -- if
a victim has FX Energy Points, these are drained first, then any
Psionic Energy Points, and finally Fatigue durability, but once
drained they are all the same type of energy and cannot be re-
accessed. A youma who drains an FX Energy Point from a human may
choose for it to refill its own FX Energy Pool by 1 point, but can't
change her mind later. Only mortal humans who do not have the
Entropomancy broad skill can be drained of their energy.

Ordinary: The youma has 4 FX Energy Points and can store up to 15
total points of life energy, tallied separately than FX Energy Points.
To drain energy, the youma must grapple them with an unarmed attack
using Unarmed -- Brawl or Acrobatics -- Defensive Martial Arts, and
then spend an FX Energy Point. Each round thereafter until the hold is
broken, the youma drains 1 point of life energy and places it in her
own reserve.

Good:     The youma has 6 FX Energy Points and can store up to 25
total points of life energy. It may drain energy in unarmed combat
like the Ordinary level, but may also employ the use of devices in
order to assist in the energy draining: by spending one FX Energy
Point on an inanimate object, the youma enchants it, and at a later
time with the activation of a command spell the object will drain
energy from its owner remotely and send it directly to the owning
youma. Enchanted objects can only drain energy from people who have
had prolonged physical contact with them in the past 12 hours, lose
their enchantment after two days away from their creator, and the
drain has a maximum object to victim range of 2 meters and owner to
object range of 2.5 km.

Amazing:  The youma has 8 FX Energy Points and can store up to 40
points of life energy. It has all the abilities of Ordinary and Good
levels of this alteration, but can enchant animate objects as minions
to gather energy independently of their creator. These animated
minions cannot fight or defend themselves, but can creep their way
into a great many places and draw energy from a great deal of people,
leaving their creator free to pursue other matters.



 - Defensive Coating: The youma's construction is more durable than
most, or the youma is made out of an especially resilient material,
which makes it more able to shrug off damage. Often found in object-
template youma made from dense, durable substances, or objects that
are viewed as protecting someone emotionally or physically.

Ordinary: The youma gains armor of rating (d4+1/d4/d4-1).

Good:     The youma gains armor (d6+1/d4+1/d4). Its toughness against
En-type attacks improves to Good, but it retains a weakness to magical
attack.

Amazing:  The youma gains armor (d6+2/d6+1/d6+1). Its toughness
against En attacks improves to Good, and its toughness against LI and
HI-type attacks improves to Amazing. This youma will be almost
impossible to kill.



 - Illusionist: The youma is a lord of deception, weaving a tapestry
of deception in the very air to deceive the unwary. It is capable of
creating life-like images or sounds in order to trick others into
doing its bidding and to avoid physical confrontation. Stage magicians
and their tools, carnival workers, and on occasion televisions can
create youma with this alteration.

Ordinary: The youma gains 4 FX Energy Points and the Illusion --
Moving Pictures Arcane Magic FX specialty skill at rank 2. Unlike the
normal version of this skill, auditory components may be included as
part of the illusion.

Good:     The youma gains 7 FX Energy Points and the Moving Pictures
skill at rank 4. The duration of Moving Pictures's effect is doubled,
and the image does not stop moving if the youma stops paying attention
to it so long as she is within 50m.

Amazing:  The youma gains 9 FX Energy Points and the Moving Pictures
skill at rank 4, with enhanced duration and effect as with the Good
level of this alteration. The youma also gains Mesmerism -- Hypnotize
at rank 2, its effect can be used remotely on individuals interacting
with the youma's illusion who have been doing so for five minutes or
longer.



 - Keen Senses: The youma is good at locating its prey, even when
normal tracking might be impossible. It gains a bonus to Awareness --
Perception checks, Investigate checks, or WIL feat checks made in
which sight, hearing, touch, taste or smell play a part, and may also
gain extrasensory abilities. Often found in object-template youma made
from recording equipment, or animal-template youma made from such
animals as a hawk.

Ordinary: The youma gains a -2 bonus to the listed skill checks.

Good:     The youma gains a -2 bonus to the listed skill checks, and
also has an additional physical
sense not possessed by normal human beings. The ability to see in the
infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray, or gamma ray portions of the
electromagnetic spectrum, the ability to sense tremors on bare earth,
or electrical senses akin to a shark's "lateral line" are all good
examples.

Amazing:  The youma gains a -3 bonus to the listed skill checks and
gains the ESP psionic broad skill, the Clairvoyance skill at rank 3,
and 4 FX Energy Points.



 - Master Energy: The youma is strongly associated with some element
or energy -- cold, fire, electricity, light, and radiation have all
been reported -- and can command it as a general commands an army.
Many people and objects can create youma with this power, even thought
most of them aren't consciously associated with a kind of "energy".
This power can be substituted for youma that have power over a certain
material as well, water being the most common example, just substitute
the appropriate matter skills for the energy ones.

Ordinary: The youma gains the Energy -- Energy Blast Super Power FX
skill at rank 1, of the appropriate energy type, and 5 FX Energy
Points.

Good:     The youma gains Energy Blast and Energy Control, both of the
appropriate energy type and at rank 3, and 8 FX Energy Points.

Amazing:  The youma gains Energy Blast, Energy Control, and Energy
Field all at rank 5, and 13 FX Energy Points. Youma who actually use
energy, but not matter, may instead substitute Energy Field for Brick
-- Immunity to the appropriate energy type.



 - Melee Weapon: Some aspect of the youma's body is suitable as a
melee weapon, or the youma is created with one that always seems to
return to her side. While this is an obvious quality for youma made
out of melee weapons, or people famous for their use, it also applies
to others: carpenters with their hammers, chefs with their cleavers,
nurses with gargantuan hypodermic needles. Melee weapons can use any
of the three Melee Weapon subskills -- Bludgeon, Blade, Powered,
whenever the below notes say "melee skill" substitute the appropriate
type for the particular youma's weapon. Youma may have lethal or
nonlethal weapons.

Ordinary: The youma gains 1 free rank of its melee skill. A lethal
weapon does d4w/d6w/d6+2w, a nonlethal one d4s/d6+1s/d6+2s, LI/O.

Good:     The youma gains 2 free ranks of its melee skill. A lethal
weapon does d4+2w/d6+2w/d4m, nonlethal d4+1s/d4+3s/d6+4s, LI/O.

Amazing:  The youma gains 3 free ranks of its melee skill. A lethal
weapon does d8+1w/d8+2w/d4+1m, nonlethal d6+1s/d6+3s/d8+4s, LI/O.



 - Protean Form: Many youma are able to manipulate and alter their
physical forms. Whether to increase their strength or escape danger,
for practical reasons or vanity, many youma can use the fact that
their physical material isn't supposed to exist to their own benefit.
Human-template youma made from an especially duplicitous person can
often have these powers -- if your husband turns into a youma that can
change shape, hire a private investigator.

Ordinary: Choose 1 specialty skill of the Body Alteration Super Power
FX broad skill. The youma gains 1 rank of it and 3 FX Energy Points.

Good:     Choose a Body Alteration specialty and gain 3 ranks in it,
and 5 FX Energy Points. As a full-round action the youma may reduce
one of its physical stats (CON, DEX, STR) by up to 2 to increase
another by the same amount; it cannot do this again until the first
change is reverted.

Amazing:  Gain 2 Body Alteration specialty skills at rank 3, 7 FX
Energy Points, and the youma can re-allocate up to four points of
physical stats at a time.



 - Ranged Weapon: As with "Melee Weapon", only the youma has some kind
of regenerating or easily replenished ranged/projectile weapon.
Knives, bullets, thorny spines, rocks, seeds, basketballs, acid spit,
all could serve as a youma's ranged weapon. If a youma has an energy-
based attack, such as a flamethrower or laser, but isn't really a
master of flame or light, it's probably a normal Ranged Weapon. Youma
ranged attacks can use any of the Heavy Weapons, Modern Ranged
Weapons, or Primitive Ranged Weapons skills, or Athletics -- Throw; if
a weapon has no clear skill to use, it's Athletics -- Throw. Youma
ranged attacks have a standard range of 5/10/30, are of Ordinary
intensity, fire only in single-shot mode, and every 3 shots expends 1
FX Energy Point, however they have several optional qualities below:

* Area Attack: The ranged attack creates a larger area of damage,
perhaps an explosion or a large blob of corrosive goo. The damaging
range is 2 meters for Amazing, 4 for Good, and 6 for Ordinary damage,
however the attack is more inaccurate and now sustains a +2 step
penalty.

* Armor Penetrating: The attack does damage of Good intensity. This
counts as three options.

* Extended Range: The weapon's range increases to 30/60/200.

* Hawk Eye: The weapon is very accurate and gains a -1 accuracy
modifier every time this option is taken.

* Persistent: Something about the attack sticks to the target, like
fire, acid, or little spiny growths. Whoever is hit by this attack
will continue to take d4-2 Wound damage per round for d6 rounds or
until they take a round to clear the damaging material off them.

* Rapid Fire: The weapon is capable of burst-fire mode. Taking this
option twice allows the weapon to autofire.

* Subdual: The attack has a nonlethal mode for capturing targets. The
youma can choose each time the weapon is used to convert all damage
dealt to stun.

Ordinary: The youma gains 1 free rank of its ranged skill. The ranged
attack does d4w/d6w/d6+2w and has one of the above options.

Good:     The youma gains 2 free ranks of its ranged skill.
d4+1w/d4+3w/d6+3w, two of the above options.

Amazing:  The youma gains 3 free ranks of its ranged skill.
d6+1w/d6+2w/d4m, four of the above options.



 - Regeneration: The youma is capable of mending its own wounds to
quickly get back to the action. A youma with Regeneration may not be
able to withstand the same amount of damage as one with Defensive
Coating all at once, but if it fights many times over a longer period
it may absorb enough damage to kill the more durable youma and escape
unharmed. Activating Regeneration is normally reflexive and requires
no action, however, at creation this alteration may be purchased to
require full-round concentration to use and heal twice as much per
round. Youma made from plants or reptiles often have this power.

Ordinary: The power can be activated for a total of 8 rounds per day
and heals 1 point from each track of the user's durability per round.

Good:     12 rounds per day, 1 point per round.

Amazing:  12 rounds per day, 2 points of each damage type per round.



 - Unearthly Agility: The youma is unnaturally fast and dextrous for
its size and build. Human-template youma made from sprinters,
acrobats, and thieves can have this alteration, as can object-template
youma made from items associated with them, or animal-template youma
made from cheetahs, gazelles, monkeys, etc.

Ordinary: The youma's Dexterity score is increased by 2.

Good:     The youma's DEX is increased by 2, its DEX resistance
modifier improves by +1 step, and its action check gets a bonus of -1
step.

Amazing:  The youma's DEX is increased by 3, its DEX resistance
modifier gets +1, its action check gets -1 step, it gains the Movement
-- Fusillade Super Power FX specialty skill at rank 3, and 4 FX Energy
Points. Series IX youma cannot have this alteration as they cannot pay
the Fusillade skill's additional cost of 1 Fatigue point per extra
action taken.



 - Unearthly Presence: The youma is beautiful (or handsome) to behold,
ironically having a far LESS "Unearthly" presence than other youma and
able to easily be accepted as a normal, charismatic human being. At
higher levels, this youma becomes utterly striking, commanding the
attentions of all nearby with a simple gesture. This alteration is
found on object-template youma made from cosmetic or beauty supplies,
or human-template youma for models, movie stars, or temptresses; it
can also be engineered onto a youma that will need to pass as human.
Series IX youma cannot possess this alteration at any level.

Ordinary: The youma's Personality score is increased by 2, and it may
assume human form. While in human form it resembles its true youma
self in general build and facial structure, but with no abnormal skin
color or bodily features; it may interact with humans without them
being affected by the Taioron Reaction. Entering and exiting human
form is reflexive and takes no action.

Good:     The youma's PER is increased by 2, it may assume human form,
it gains the Telepathy -- Suggest psionic specialty skill at rank 1,
and 4 FX Energy Points.

Amazing:  The youma's PER is increased by 3, it may assume human form,
it gains 8 FX Energy Points, it gains the Telepathy -- Suggest skill
at rank 4, telepathic suggestions last for 2, 4 or 6 hours on an O/G/A
success, and receives the "Delusion" rank benefit for the Suggest
skill at no cost.



 - Unearthly Brilliance: The youma possesses startling intelligence,
that is almost always put to ill use. Computers or textbooks, as well
as people renowned for their intelligence, can often create a youma
with this alteration. Series IX youma cannot possess this alteration
at any level.

Ordinary: The youma's Intelligence score is increased by 2. If
purchased at character creation this does increase the number of
available skill points for the youma to spend.

Good:     The youma's INT is increased by 2, its INT resistance
modifier improves by +2 steps, and it gains the benefit of the
Concentration perk as described in the Alternity PHB.

Amazing:  The youma's INT is increased by 3, its INT resistance
modifier gets +2, it gets the Concentration perk, the Metaconscious --
Genius and Hyper Learning Super Power FX specialty skills at rank 2,
and 5 FX Energy Points.



 - Unearthly Endurance: The youma is implacable, unrelenting, an
unstoppable juggernaut. It can absorb great amounts of punishment and
still keep coming undaunted.

Ordinary: The youma's Constitution score is increased by 2.

Good:     The youma's CON is increased by 2, it gains a -2 bonus to
any CON-based skill or feat check, and it ignores up to 2 points of
action penalties for having stun, wound, fatigue, or mortal damage.

Amazing:  The youma's CON is increased by 3, it gains a -2 bonus to
CON-based checks, it ignores up to 4 points of action penalties from
damage, and if rendered unconscious by wound damage it may attempt to
shake it off with a Resolve -- Physical check as if it were stun
damage. It is still dead when he has no Mortal durability remaining.



 - Unearthly Might: The youma's strength is beyond anything a human
could attain, bare knuckles shattering concrete and tempered steel.
Most youma with this alteration are human-templated, but object-
template youma made from industrial equipment can have it too.

Ordinary: The youma's Strength score is increased by 2.

Good:     The youma's STR is increased by 2, its STR resistance
modifier improves by +1, and melee and unarmed damage it causes is
improved by +1, see "Table P9: Strength & Damage" in the Alternity
PHB.

Amazing:  The youma's STR is increased by 3, its STR resistance
modifier is +1, melee and unarmed damage it causes is +1, it gains the
Chi -- Power Strike Super Power FX specialty skill and 4 FX Energy
Points.



 - Unearthly Resolve: The youma is utterly driven, focused, and
centered, possessing amazing willpower. It cannot be bargained with,
it cannot be reasoned with, it doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear.
Series IX youma cannot possess this alteration at any level.

Ordinary: The youma's Will score is increased by 2.

Good:     The youma's WIL is increased by 2, its WIL resistance
modifier improves by +1, and it gains two Last Resort Points.

Amazing:  The youma's WIL is increased by 3, its WIL resistance
modifier is +1, it gains 2 Last Resorts, and its Last Resort points
are refilled at a rate of two per session.



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