Version 1.0 - 26th Jul 1998 ------------------------------------------------------------------- USAGI IS DEAD II DEAD IS USAGI by DARK DAY FOR ANIME Disclaimer - Sailormoon is owned by Takeuchi Naoko and Bandai, so these characters really belong to them, except ones I made up. This means I'm only using the Sailormoon characters for purposes benign. (And if you believe that, you'd believe anything. ^_^) ------------------------------------------------------------------- S T A R T ------------------------------------------------------------------- "This is it, folks! Over the top!" >Take a Long Line - The Angels< ------------------------------------------------------------------- FLY ME TO THE MOON Neil slowly scampered down the metal step ladder, from the airlock door of the small landing craft. He was hampered by the bulkiness of the space survival suit he was wearing, unsafe in the knowledge that the suit itself was fairly experimental and had only gone through a very few years of rigourous testing. This was the first true opportunity anyone had had to actually use one for the purpose to which it was designed, and the strangely light gravity that was to be found on Earth's sole satellite didn't make it any easier for him. Remembering that millions of people were watching him back on the his homeworld of Earth, keen for this apparently historic event to be done with quickly so they could get back to watching their favourite soapies, he glanced over at the camera, mounted some small distance away, and decided to go through with the speech he had prepared as his feet touched the barren, irradiated and long-dead dusty surface of the moon. He was not to know that mankind had been here before, so many thousands of years ago, using technology that would make what he was using look like.... well.... crap, for want of a better term.... Nor was he to know that the society that had existed here was far more advanced and, in many ways, considering the penchant for sheer imbecility the human race was capable of, civilised, than anything he was capable of imagining. Even as he stepped down the ladder, with the occasional hop and jump, he had the most haunting feeling that there were eyes watching him.... Eyes of the dead.... Eyes of spirits older than entire civilisations. For a few moments, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he could feel little tingling sensations running up and down his spine. And every so often, he could hear the sound of stones, being thrown by someone not that far away, hitting the top of his helmet, mocking him.... After spending close to a minute looking for the little bastard who was doing that, he decided to get on with things. "This is one small step for man...." He began, his voice crackling across the tv sets around the globe. "One giant leap for mankiiiiiiiaaaaaaaarrrrrrggggghhhhhhh....." He slipped as his foot came down on the banana peel that was waiting for him, collapsing backwards and landing heavily on the moon's surface. Millions around the world winced as he blinked with stunned surprise, then shot to his feet and posed for the camera, hoping nobody would think twice about his fumble. "Ultra....MAN!" He stuck a hand into the air and sweatdropped. Then he felt another stone hit the top of his helmet and spun to see a young girl in an odango-bearing suit sticking a tongue out at him from the nearest rise, pointing to a wooden sign that bore the words 'Serenity waz 'ere first! Go home, Earth wankers!' She then promptly leapt from the rise, landed in front of him, slapped him across the back and pointed to the sailorfuku additions made to the body of her suit. "If you're going into space, boyo, the very least you can do is do it in style." She then performed a space-suit Can Can dance for the television viewers back on Earth, complete with music broadcast over the suit radios. "HAH!" The Youma Usagi thought. "Let's see 'I Love Lucy' outrate this NOW!" ----o AS HAS BEEN NOTED.... "You said something about changing our current destinies..." Hotaru prompted Miste, waving a hand in her direction. Miste looked at the hand.... It was like an insulting signal to her.... Like the black-haired harpy was giving her the come on.... She swallowed and clenched her fists.... The rage within was almost too much to control, and they could see it.... Their expressions were a mixture of amusement and distrust.... Don't read their faces, she repeated in her mind, like a mantra, don't read their faces.... "Uh, yes.... It would appear that our destinies have been skewed, in a direction that wasn't meant to exist, by an outside force...." Miste's voice was barely a warbled croak by the end of the statement. Makoto sat forward, studying her. "What kind of force would this be?" Makoto squinted inquisitively at her. Miste imagined laser beams coming from those eyes, boring into her skull, trying to destroy her, mind and body.... "A... A force that has no name, no true consciousness, yet exists within every corner of the universe.... An immense force of destruction." Miste went silent as Hotaru stood, surprised by the young woman's sudden movement. Hotaru slowly paced across the floor of the lounge room, towards the window, where she peered out through Venetian blinds at the drab exterior of the cobbled street. "Chaos." Hotaru said, eventually, turning to Miste. "You're talking about Chaos, aren't you." Miste nodded. "Yes. Chaos is what it likes to be called." Out of earshot, across the dimensions, a deep-throated chuckle entered the universe with no destination.... ----o Part Ten The Long and Winding Road to a Shy City IV ----o DARK SALVATIONS The Austrian artist made a toast to his lovely companion, sitting across the dinner table, raising high the sweet red German wine in acknowledgement. "Ah, Fraulein Serenity.... If it vas not for you, I may haff abandoned my painting career for ze perils of political life." "Indeed." The Youma Usagi said, putting on a sweet smile for the somewhat middle-aged man with the funny little moustache, leaning her chin against the backs of her hands with poise. "Your latest display of works has been an outstanding success." 'Amongst all those boring, Tutonic bastards, yes.' She thought to herself. 'And the only reason he listened to me in the first place is because I'm a blond.... Probably have an apoplexy if he ever discovered I was Japanese.... Maybe that wouldn't be so bad....' She chuckled to herself, quietly.... Some people were born to be lead.... "And I owe it all to your guidance, my dear fraulein." Adolf smiled. "To the Weimar Republic, may it live long and prosper." And he downed his wine, studying her attractive figure through his glass. She leaned back and brushed down the burgundy dinner dress he had bought her only a week ago, telling her how lovely she would look in it. She wasn't quite so sure, but she wore it, anyway. "Sounds like a good line for a silly tv show, 'live long and prosper'...." She giggled. Adolf looked at her as he contemplated a refill of his glass, leaning over to the keraff that sat off to one side. "What is this.... tv thing... you talk about?" He lifted an eyebrow. Every so often, she seemed to drop little hints and ideas in a roundabout manner, ones with a financial gain to be reaped.... The rotary engine, micro-circuitry, reverse cycle air conditioning.... Well, everything except the UHT milk, but he could deal with the blunders. "Ah.... Just a little idea I have for you to take up, Herr Hitler. It might make you a fortune, if you're quick...." ----o CHAOS THEORY "Everything that has happened to you.... will happen to me, is because of the influence of Chaos. It is one of the most powerful forces to have ever existed...." Miste leaned forward, gesturing earnestly to her companions. "But I thought we'd rid ourselves of Chaos.... Or, at the very least, Serenity had rid Galaxia of Chaos...." Makoto scratched her head. "We know, all too well, what can happen when Chaos runs amok. We experienced its power, first hand." "By dying." Hotaru added, sullenly. "The force of Chaos is essential in the cycle of life, death and rebirth.... It is the destructive element that wipes the slate clean when all has degenerated into state.... And from its void comes Creation.... Creative energies designed to make the slate anew..." Miste's eyes turned to the floor as she thought to herself. "But what we experienced was no passive force.... It had intent. Intent upon wanton destruction, almost for its own pleasure. It was a CONCIOUS entity." Hotaru paced the carpet, watched by Makoto. "Galaxia did warn us, however, that it would return...." "We treated Chaos as we did all our other defeated enemies... Like something that would go away and never return...." Hotaru swallowed. "Why did it return so soon? HOW did it return?" "I have watched the paths of your existence.... Time and time again, you have ignored the fact that there have always been darker powers behind that which you have initially faced. Need I mention the names of Metallia? Wiseman? Pharaoh 90? And all these culminated with the being known as Chaos itself. Has it never occured to you that all of these beings resemble, in some way, shape or form, the same essential entity? Bodiless, with precisely the same intent...." Miste smiled, shaking her head. "I have, within my grasp, information of this nature. Information that could stop our Kingdom from ever falling.... Information on how to remove Chaos from the body of Galaxia before she starts to eradicate the Senshi and Miko of the universe...." "You're trying to tell us that all the enemies we've faced.... All the REAL enemies, have been one and the same?" Makoto's eyes went wide. Miste looked up at her, surprised to see the shock in the face that bore such a resemblance to Atrenar Kesseille. It amused Miste. "They might have had individual minds, initially, like Galaxia herself.... But slowly, over time, their minds and bodies are eaten away until there is nothing left but the force that drives them. You managed to save Galaxia in time. Kami help us if the most powerful being in the known universe were to have fallen to the powers of Chaos...." ----o TRAVELLING DIARY "But Galaxia didn't fall.... She was renewed.... And returned to her world afterwards." Michiru leaned back in her seat as Kaorusagi shared her edible discoveries with Usashin. "Galaxia new better than anyone the threat that Chaos posed. Why do you think she sealed Chaos within her, even at the cost of her own being." Usashin munched on the bar of something that had been handed to her, unwrapped from its greasepaper cover. It had a strange kind of taste to it.... A bit like roast beef with spicy plum sauce. She momentarily looked at the foodstuff, that bore a strange resemblance to an off-white chocolate bar, with a similar consistency. "So the whole episode with Chaos.... We were fools to think that things could end so easily...." "Chaos wants to destroy everything that exists.... There should be no mistaking this fact. This desire is purely nihilistic. It does not care that what will result is void. Perhaps it glorifies the concept of that eternal nothingness.... We shall never know. One cannot simply have a conversation with it to find out." Usashin nodded, solemnly. "So why is it trying to manifest itself, here on Wyccfaer?" Michiru frowned. "This world is, by no means, a central point in the universe in which to launch some form of universal campaign of nihilistic extermination." "Ah, but it is. You see, Wyccfaer is a universal hub, for all kinds of trans-universal systems and structures. It is why we are here." Kaorusagi gestured to Michiru with a half of a small meat bun, the other half in her mouth. "On Wyccfaer, there is no such thing as death, merely differing forms of dispensation. We were fortunate enough to have died during moments of immense pan- dimensional upheaval. Thus we were all salvaged by the energies of the world at the heart of those upheavals." "Wyccfaer? A universal hub?" Michiru looked out of the train window at the passing darkness beyond. "It looks like nothing more than humdrumsville out there." "Try staring into it with your REAL eyes, Sailorneptune. The eyes of a Senshi. Then you shall see the ley lines that exist." Usashin leaned forward. "You will see nothing of greater beauty or horror for as long as you exist." "I don't really think I WANT to see it, now." Michiru swallowed. She watched as Kaorusagi munched away at her bag of meat buns with childish abandon, doing her best not to salivate. Usashin nudged her partner in the side. "What?" Kaorusagi looked up at her. Usashin pointed to Michiru, and Kaorusagi giggled. "Oops, sorry. Forgot to give you yours...." She handed Michiru a greasepaper bag, full of steaming something or other.... Michiru looked in at the small, golden- coloured, biscuit-like nuggets with trepidation. "Don't discard them, Sailorneptune." Usashin smiled, staring out of the window. "We shall have to use these ley lines if we are to defeat Chaos." Usashin lowered her face as Michiru tried one of the nuggets, finding it to her taste. "And this time, it must be defeated completely." ----o EXPERTS IN THE ART "But how does one defeat something like Chaos completely? After all, Chaos isn't a physical entity." Makoto rubbed her face, getting a little tired at the metaphysical nature of the conversation. "Is there anything that can really BE destroyed? After all, Chaos is really nothing more than the physical manifestation of negative emotions and thoughts...." Hotaru took a breath, thinking. "I've seen much in my time as Sailorsaturn to convince me of the essential darkness that exists within the universe. You can't destroy it. It is as indestructible as the light." "You can destroy something like Chaos by placing it back from whence it came." Miste rubbed her hands together, getting to the point of her argument. "In the minds of the denizens of the universe." "What? Take Chaos into ourselves?" Makoto seemed aghast at the suggestion. "Chaos was born of us.... Therefore there is no reason why it should not find its resting place within us also." "NO!" Makoto jumped to her feet. "No! I'm not having something like that inside of me." She stepped away from the sofa, towards the wall. Miste and Hotaru watched her. "It is ALREADY inside of you, Jupiter. That is where it gets its energy from. You can't fight it, no matter what you do." "No...." Makoto croaked. "Galaxia tried to do that, and she failed." "Because she tried to seal it away, alone. The very nature of Chaos is such that it feeds on that loneliness.... The only way to defeat it is through the many...." "I'M NOT GOING TO ABSORB THAT CREATURE WITHIN ME!" Makoto spun on them. "And there is nothing you can do to make me." ----o THE BLUE ROBES The silver-gray 1956 Rover 75 rolled, majestically, through the streets of Shy.... In a world where such a car should never have existed, its appearance would often gain the car's owner quite a bit of attention. Its mixture of squared-off lines and curves.... The vast silver front grille and badge.... The car was more like a motorised work of art, despite its middlebrow intentions. It had been so well kept that most of the factory accessories were still sitting within the vehicle. Mostly because the owner couldn't quite figure out what the accessories did. The chauffeur revved the 2.2 litre straight six engine, a curious motorised device that he had made his life's duty to engineer and adapt. The small front window didn't allow him much of a view of the road, but the vehicle's vast front was enough to intimidate pedestrians and other vehicles out of the way. Especially in the district known as the Callitan.... A fairly bohemian district filled with a multitude of markets and even more con artists. The car's eccentric owner knew them well. When she had first arrived on Wyccfaer to lead a resistance movement against the Petrice, she had almost fallen prey to some of them. She mourned not having her friends.... her Senshi.... with her. The Petrice. The owner of the car, sitting in the back seat, staring out at the passing crowd, sighed to herself. She had been told of their intrusion here. The Empire's own resident mafia.... Immensely powerful and influential, for all the wrong reasons. Her world had only just been able to shake off their scourge. But here on Wyccfaer there was no similar evangelical zeal with which to stir the masses into dealing with the problem. She knew why.... and knew that only someone with the bearing of a Princess would be able to stir them from their lethargy. It hadn't been easy, though. By their very nature, Wyccfaerie wanted to have as little to do with outside cultures as they possibly could. In that climate of weak-willed apathy, the Petrice slipped in and started to despoil heaven with great rapidity. Only the Princess and her resistance group stood a chance against them. "Would you look at that...." Her chauffeur had his face turned to the footpath, his exclamation shaking her from her reverie. "What.... What is it?" "I'm sure she must be a Miko.... Those robes.... Just have a look at them.... They couldn't belong to anyone else." The Princess turned, and as he had said, there was a young woman, covered in the most glorious blue robes she had seen since she had left her homeworld, virtually creating a path in the pedestrian traffic, as she had made her way along the Callitan street. The chauffeur turned aside to him mistress. "What should we do about her? She stands out like a beacon around here...." "It would be most interesting to speak with her, I think. How about it, James?" "You're wish is my command, milady." He smiled and picked up the radio handset.... ----o Naiad had followed the scent of both Hotaru and Makoto to the capital, determined not to lose them again.... Having gone out of her way to actually find their point of origin on Wyccfaer, for reasons best known to some tiny little voices at the back of her mind that it would be a good thing to do, she was annoyed by the fact that someone else already acted, with the same intention. She liked the effect that her Miko robes were having on the locals of Shy's Callitan district. Obviously, despite the disconnection they had with the empire as a whole, there was still a deference for the position of office within them. Well, most of them, anyway. One particularly nasty individual had spat at her feet, for which she had instilled twenty years of panic seizures in the back of his subconscious. Being a mind-based Miko did have its benefits. "Would tha lady like to peruse our wonderful range of Siderian carpets?" "Fresh Coltep, three Dio's a pound." "Damn his Coltep, lady... I've got the mother of all Coltep, here, on sale, only two Dio fifty a pound." "Well I have its father, lady." "Oh yeah? Well I have the Great Granduncle!" Naiad walked past the two warring butchers as she continued her search for the owner of the more-powerful signal she had detected as soon as she had entered Shy. The signal had, literally, dwarfed Hotaru and Makoto, and even their newfound companion which, to her chagrin and concern, felt remarkably like Miste Kiele. She almost spat at the very thought of the name.... The Witch of the Senshi.... She had spent much of her time, since her ascendancy to Miko status, trying to counter much of the ill will the damned woman had spread throughout the Kingdom.... Now she was here, in the presence of two future Senshi incarnations.... What did she want from them? It was that that she was thinking about when she felt the cloth being pressed over her mouth. She gasped, instantaneously, and realised that it was the wrong thing to do as the fumes from the chemicals that stained it entered her lungs.... ----o Naiad's eyes popped open with comical surprise as she sat up from her resting place on the small banana lounge. She could hear a slow, rhythmic ticking sound, and turned to see an old grandfather clock sitting off to one side of a large open fireplace, wood burning and crackling with zeal at its heart, with elaborately carved mantlepiece around it. On top of the mantlepiece were a pair of glasses, filled with some kind of dark liquid, warming in the traditional fashion that one warmed alcohol. Naiad turned and looked down at her robes, making sure that they were all there. The robes were quite expensive to produce, being made of imported fibres.... One of the benefits of being a member of the Court of the Kingdom, or any Kingdom, for that matter. The price such robes would fetch on the open market would have been quite high. Added to that the jewellery that went with it.... But no, everything was still where it had been. The robes, themselves, were folded carefully so as not to crease underneath her form. She found that to be rather interesting. Slowly standing, and feeling momentarily dizzy as the last effects of the chloroform wore away, she heard a voice coming from deep within the leather armchair that sat on the other side of the room, turned away from her. "You're awake. Good." The young woman's voice was genuinely cheerful and friendly. But Naiad had heard people speak that way before, and followed it up by killing the person they were talking to. She squinted at what could be seen of the figure as they stared out of the sole window onto the rain-soaked street beyond.... A deep shade of straight red hair.... Scarlet, even.... "That wasn't entirely the best method of inviting me here. Asking me might have been preferable." Naiad shook her head to clear it, then held her nose in the air, haughtily. "Used to the charms of the aristocracy, aren't we?" The woman's voice was tinted with an air of amusement. "Obviously. I get the impression I would have been a less interesting target for kidnapping had I not been...." "A miko?" The woman turned the chair, and Naiad frowned, seemingly recognising the partly-mature, partly-youthful expression on her face, framed by that long, deep scarlet hair. The woman wore a black and white dress with gilden fringes, and it was only as she stood that Naiad realised those fringes really WERE gold. "Have we met before?" Naiad studied the young woman as she paced across the room to where the two glasses were sitting. "Possibly, in the days when the Empire was at its peak, and all the various members of the aristocracy would gather...." "So, you're a Princess." Naiad rubbed her chin. "I should have recognised the fact sooner. Something of a comedown for you, being on this world." The Princess smiled, taking the two glasses from the top of the mantlepiece and offering one to Naiad. Naiad stared at the dark liquid with some trepidation. The Princess chuckled. "No need to be wary. I brought you here for your own safety. It is not good for members of the various courts to walk the Callitan in full dress." "Why would this be?" "That is what I want to talk with you about." "It would be better if you gave a name to your title." Naiad took the glass and dubiously tested the contents with her nose, finding the aroma quite inviting. "Really. You are a most untrusting soul." "It has come with the territory. The Kingdom from which I hail has had its fair share of.... internal problems." "And that would be...?" "The Moon Kingdom of Sol." The Princess's eyes opened wide. "Serenity's homeworld." She calmed herself, then nodded. "Yesss.... There have been occasions on my planet...." She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I'm being rude, I really should introduce myself. My name in Kakyuu." She took Naiad's free hand, shaking it. "Princess Kakyuu to the more loyal of my subjects. I am the leader of the Wyccfaer Resistance Movement. Pleased to meet you." Naiad took a long shot of the drink and let it soak into her system before she felt like going much further with this conversation. END OF PART 10 ------------------------------------------------------------------- S T O P ------------------------------------------------------------------- Next Chapter ' "The Long and Twisting Road to a Shy City V" _________ / @ \ DDFA (The Right Dishonourable Mark A Page) / / ^ ^ \ \ ayanami@merlin.net.au /\ Chief Propoganda Officer, Keeper of \/ \/ the Tapes and Co-Founder of the Saitou-chan \___________/ Appreciation Society - Adelaide Japanese /_/ \_\ PU Animation Society