Skysaber's Choice 

Part Four 

by Jared Ornstead 
  
=====

    Miss Ayumi was a teacher who seemed like she might do. In spite of 
the fact that she taught poetry she had several history classes. 
    She'd also insisted on serving him tea. 
    The campus student center had a rather nice breakfast nook and tea 
shop that she insisted on taking him to, her treat (not like he was 
worried about price). Stopping briefly by the teacher's lounge he'd 
been mobbed. It seemed like the faculty here was primarily female, or 
at least all those that followed them into the tea shop and crammed 
into the adjoining booths were of that persuasion. 
    The waitress who'd taken their order had to be jarred back to 
reality before she could go and fill it. Jared did not drink tea, but a 
nice cup of cocoa would be nice. 
    Every one of the teachers there had suddenly also ordered cocoa. 
    Weird. 
    Jared asked his questions, and was informed (often by committee), 
on what he had come hoping to find: Recent Events. Sailor V's past 
seemed mostly unaltered up through hanging out fighting crime in 
England. But when the Negaverse had attacked, Sailor Moon had never 
made an appearance. No Sailor Moon, no Tuxedo Mask, and all the other 
Scouts seemed to have remained silent as well. The teachers seemed 
clueless about any other Scouts even being possible. 
    So that confirmed Sailor V had taken the brunt of it all alone, not 
even Tuxedo Mask had been around to help her out. 
    From the sound of it, things started out fairly equal, with the 
usual plot and good guy confronting it style. But Jedite had grown in 
power rather quickly. Not that Sailor V wasn't competent, far from it. 
She just didn't have anywhere near the kind of backup Sailor Moon 
normally did. Despite her best and valiant efforts, Jedite had won a 
few battles, gaining in energy, which made him able to use more power 
to best her the next time. 
    Things had snowballed very quickly. 
    Lately Sailor V's efforts had become fairly pitiful. She'd grown in 
power really fast, as she was being pressed hard to do so, but still 
was nowhere near able to keep pace. Jared divined that he'd appeared at 
a point where the Negaverse had basically won. Jedite's youma were 
supercharged. He had enough power to casually construct a fortress and 
build a gate that would save him power in every youma he summoned. 
    The stories of the Japanese Defense Forces attack on the Negaverse 
fort had been pitiful and heart wrenching to hear. And the last time 
cops had tried to handle a youma had been far worse. Sailor V had 
*usually* been able to do something about it, but increasingly often 
the bad guys had taken what they'd wanted and left. 
    Total Negaverse victory, requiring only cleanup. 
    Jared had stopped them in the very act of killing Sailor V and 
ending the last thing able to put up a trivial amount of defense 
against them. He put down his cup, which he'd been holding with an 
occasional sip for the last hour (they'd been refilling it too fast to 
empty and get rid of), and nodded in gratitude to those teachers 
gathered around. 
    Actually, wasn't it more packed than when he'd entered? Save for 
his chair it had become standing room only. 
    Weird. 
    He pushed back his chair, ready to stand. "Thank you, ladies. Your 
help has assisted me in many ways. I hadn't known until now how bad 
things had become. Do not worry, there are things I can do to end this 
threat to your world." 
    There came a bloodcurdling scream from outside. 
    He cocked a grin and fired. About time they showed up. He was 
beginning to wonder about the Negaverse's lack of a decent response 
time. "If you'll excuse me, I think I'm needed outside." 
    With that, he stood up. But access through the crowd was all but 
impossible, so he leapt out through their window, replacing his winged 
helmet as the shattered glass cascaded off his pearl clad body. 
    He landed to see a trio of dirty golem-type youma attacking a 
girl's marching band. He was actually surprised it wasn't directed at 
him. These guys looked merely to be out on an energy gathering mission. 
    Let's see, fireball would crisp most of the college (blast radius 
wasn't variable, and *would* fill a certain amount of space, that space 
being ridiculously huge by most standards), lightning would still 
strike too large an area, steam breath and others from among his best 
attack spells were useless unless he wanted to fry civilians. 
    So that left him with the weird stuff. 
    Mumbling the power phrase required to do this, he drew in breath 
and shouted with magical amplification. 
    The Taunt spell. 
    The magical ability to insult, jape and jeer in such an infuriating 
way as to cause bloody-minded rage in affected hearers so that they 
could not help but charge him with intent to maul in close combat, 
forgoing distance or magical attacks in favor of rushing in to do 
melee. 
    Of even greater benefit was the Taunt spell was racial specific, 
insulting youmas did not affect humans, or vice versa. 
    The humans were of a mind to run away, but most had been hindered 
from so doing by outright interference or simple deer in the headlights 
freezing. As Jared said some things that raised the hackles on his OWN 
neck they were so vile (being able to understand all languages was 
sometimes not a boon), the evil monsters turned on him and the people 
began to get away. 
    The trio of youmas charged. 
    He'd need to hold them for two minutes, then he'd probably have a 
free field of battle and be able to use his big attacks. Triggering a 
magical secret compartment in the heel of each of his boots, Jared 
jumped and came down wearing a pair of skates. His boots were already 
thickly enchanted, and even without them he'd trained until he 
possessed the ability to run fast enough to get a speeding ticket in a 
school zone. With his boots enhancing that he could run at comfortable 
highway speeds. 
    The skates doubled that, and allowed him a whole extra realm of 
agility. 
    Having added them to his training regimen allowed him to pull 
tricks unheard of by Olympic skaters, but more importantly, with the 
simple ability to skate backwards he could in effect be running full 
tilt the other way while still facing and fighting his foes. 
    The mage pushed off and described a wide arc around his enemies, 
his skates effortlessly taking him across the broad lawn, decorative 
gravel bed, fallen branches and even the watery surface of the fountain 
of the university’s square as easily as the pavement while he was busy 
pulling out a bow. They were too angry to use distance attacks, his 
speed meant he controlled the range, and they were about to receive the 
blessings of a full quiver. Life was too good sometimes. 
    After only a few minutes of this, he muttered dark things about not 
having found or made a magical bow when he'd had the time. Stowing the 
useless weapon, having proved it was unable to harm the youma, he 
considered alternatives. People had fled, but only so far as the 
nearest *safe* place to watch from. Any decent attack spell would still 
probably kill hundreds of them merely from secondary effects. 
    Perhaps it was time to adopt melee tactics instead. 
    Skating to a stop, he brandished a pair of magic weapons of his own 
devising. He'd long ago started this character as something different 
from the norm. He'd began without a sword or bow of any kind and did as 
many things to be different as possible. Part of that had been to 
create some spectacularly unique things (such as his armor) which he 
had later enchanted. 
    He was holding three of his Glorious Jade Flower Fans in each hand, 
each one carved from a different color of that precious mineral and 
gorgeously enameled with a variety of meltingly beautiful flowers in 
bloom. 
    Where most adventurers were plain and functional in their choice of 
armaments, (aside from as many enchantment items as they can find, that 
is) he'd gone as far as possible in the opposite direction, spending 
skill proficiencies to become a master in fine artistry and many 
related areas. The sources of pearl, jade and other things were 
provided by a detailed (and DM approved) history, and he'd launched a 
career using nothing normal if he could get away with doing something 
flashy, unusual, or ornate. 
    He changed his grasp and the blossoms changed to different, yet 
still beautiful, flowers, also revealing the formerly hidden blades 
along the rim and sides of each fan. 
    It was time to get back to his original basics. 
    Of course, it didn't hurt that later in his adventuring career he'd 
found a deck of Bloody Cards, magical throwing weapons capable of 
severing limbs at a stroke, if you could avoid chopping yourself to 
ribbons using them, that is. 
    Transferring that enchantment to his fans had made them 
considerably easier to use, safer for him, and more deadly for his foes 
as he was an accomplished specialist in their use by then. 
    It was also his habit to name his characters only after they'd been 
around for a while and had some personality. In fact, he'd even 
revealed this character's clan only later, after he'd acquired the 
magic skates and began using them in combination with his martial arts, 
when the choice of name had been obvious. 
    He set his first six fans flying and had launched a dozen more as 
the creatures closed the distance. Speeding in among his foes he cried 
out, still with his magically amplified voice. "Vile spawn of Negaverse 
pits! Learn now why I bear the family name of Sanzennin!" 
    He waded into them with blinding speed, cutting them with handheld 
and flying fans, catching and reflinging the glittering tools in arcs 
that described a lethal bouquet of flashing jade, using the blades of 
handheld fans to parry blows from demonic arms and leaving a bleeding 
track of fury as he skated between knees, under arms, around sides and 
flitted about like a wrathful mist. 
    Jared emerged from the far side and caught his returning fans, 
stowing them without shifting from his stance of conclusion. 
    Pieces of the three youmas slid apart behind him and their bodies 
collapsed with sickening finality. 
    He hadn't looked around, sure of his results. Turning now to face 
the piles of youma debris, steaming as they dissolved, he declared. 
"That wasn't so hard." 
    Sweeping his cloak around himself, he was gone. 

    "Jedite!!" Queen Beryl sat upon her throne, scrying for the missing 
general. "Report, Jedite! Our flow of energy has been disturbed. Why 
aren't you doing anything about...." *gasp!* 
    Inside her crystal ball appeared the ruins of their Tokyo Harbor 
fortress, blazing as the youma slaughtered each other thereon. Bits 
were even breaking off and falling into the sea. 

    Very possibly the weirdest thing, Jared reflected, was that his 
powers were not dependent on a transformation. His *STUFF* he certainly 
didn't want anyone to see him use outside of times and forms of his 
choosing. His spells were limited in spite of what he could do to make 
them otherwise, but his innate powers from race, class, his rebirth, 
and whatnot were things he could use all the time, in mixed company, 
without fear so long as he exercised a little care in keeping them 
discrete. 
    It felt very weird to be in a Sailor Moon world without that 
restriction. 
    Restoring his items to the extra dimensional pockets that he 
normally kept for them, he transformed to his 'normal' self at boyish 
age and rejoined the flows of traffic. 
    He'd about figured out now some of how things worked. Objectively, 
he thought from the data he had, that his attacks and powers were doing 
about half the damage he'd expect of them; that one hit point by a D&D 
scale, by which he'd been created, was turning out to be roughly half a 
hit point by a Sailor Moon scale, which included all the things he was 
now fighting. 
    A D&D fireball was one of the best spells for damage, and while he 
had other means to do that level of harm, nothing was really better. 
Which was pathetic, really, as Fireball was third level and there were 
nine levels of spells. You'd think *some* mage *somewhere* would've 
invented something that did damage a little more impressive. But there 
wasn't, or at least nothing he'd run across. 
    But anyway, from the formulas he remembered, his fireballs averaged 
about seventy points of damage, D&D scale, which made them about 
thirty-five locally. They could get lucky and do more, or unlucky and 
do significantly less. 
    The second weakest Sailor Scout attack did thirty points. Rini 
could do less, but any of the others were throwing at least thirty at a 
shot, their higher attacks did no less than twice that. 
    Of course, the flip side was that a Sailor Senshi could fling maybe 
a handful of those without recharging. If Jared truly wanted to get 
ridiculous about things he could fling a hundred fireballs. But that 
wasn't the point. A whole aspect of combat was being ignored there. One 
of the powers the Negaverse gave its forces was the ability to resist 
energy attacks somewhat. Their Energy Deflection power at its weakest 
gave them the ability to shrug off twenty points of damage from a 
magical hit, at the higher levels they were ignoring a hundred or more 
points of damage from every shot. 
    But if an enemy were merely ignoring forty, a hundred fireballs 
would only keep him warm. 
    That was where the Sailor Scouts commonly teamed up their attacks, 
or stood behind someone like Sailor Moon who'd worked hers up to such a 
level that she was basically a magical artillery piece. 
    Neither of which option did he possess. 
    The spells of the native casters could be changed according to the 
needs of the moment. They could be made to strike only bad guys, target 
their attacks, change the area they hit, or be maintained to keep an 
assault going against an enemy for a longer time. He, himself, could do 
none of those things. Nor could he cast, in conjunction with another 
mage, a spell and combine their power into a single hit. His magic 
didn't work that way. 
    So he figured was he was about the power level of a Negaverse 
general as far as of sheer versatility from a volume of spells, the 
ability to do stuff like create storms, or illusions, or transform this 
into that. As far as being a sneaky, slippery eel in terms of magical 
tricks he rated quite high. 
    In terms of direct magical damage, and what he recalled his 
fireballs doing (or more to the point, *not* doing) to those ice dragon 
youma, he was more on the level of the most neophyte Sailors... which 
was frankly embarrassing considering he'd thought of himself as an 
archmage before. 
    This also explained quite readily why he'd always seemed to wind up 
losing when he'd relied on magic here. 
    Where he came into his own was his stuff, nobody in this entire 
universe carried such a entourage of magical trinkets and do-dads as he 
did, and in his close combat abilities, where his monk training and 
Kensai abilities still made him the meanest thing on wheels. 
    Not mean enough, though. 
    Thinking about it, if the health points went the other way, these 
guys doing twice the damage to hit points for attacks, then he could be 
removed fairly easily even by the meanest Negaverse mage. Two solid 
blasts from a power he'd failed to defend against and he was history. 
    Not a comforting thought, especially when a little more thinking 
revealed there were Negaverse powers that *could* slay him in a single 
magical blow. 
    Also, there was this continual flow of surprises about twists from 
useful to non and vice verse he was experiencing with everything else. 
    For example, his druidical ability of changing forms. When a druid 
hits seventh level he acquires the innate ability to transform himself 
into an animal three times each day. Very useful, as it grants combat 
and motive abilities not often appreciated by most gamers. The ability 
to become a falcon and fly one end of a rope across a gorge for the 
rest of the group to cross is just one of the staggering variety of 
applications. Listening in on conversations as a housecat, hound or an 
overlooked songbird is another. Never even mentioning how useful it is 
to become a tiger, bear or hunting cat when you have to fight and were 
deprived of weapons by something (and didn't have any martial arts 
training). 
    Staggeringly useful. Here he hadn't found a single instance in 
which it would be beneficial to do. He couldn't even go kitty cat 
without keeping an eye out for the pound. Never mention what would 
happen if he tried sleeping outdoors as a bear or tiger, a camping 
trick he'd once been fond of. 
    Then again, when druids hit sixteenth level they acquire the 
ability to alter their appearance at will, acquiring the body and 
facial features of any human or humanoid sort, altering height and 
weight by as much as fifty percent each, with an apparent age from that 
of a child to very old indeed. 
    Nifty, but he'd never found a good time to use it in the game. Here 
it had swiftly become a cornerstone of life! There weren't any elves 
running around here to blend in with, not getting into such things as 
moving hair that danced like fire! Without the ability to blend in to 
people in general, merely getting along here would've been very 
difficult and costly in terms of spell energy, energy that could 
probably be tracked while his druidic ability couldn't. 
    And switching to full hero mode did keep whatever life he 
established on the side separate and secret. 
    If he could establish such a life. 
    Jared skipped up the stairs to the Cherry Hill Temple. 
    He had no idea of the street addresses of any of the other Sailors, 
but Rae lived in an obvious and findable place. He even knew, from an 
episode, what *bus* passed in front of it in case that became useful; 
the 66. Jedite had been hijacking them to take the people within and 
give their energy to the Negaverse. 
    Jared came to a stop when the shrine came into view. It was 
deserted. Strolling around to get a hint of why wasn't productive as it 
just revealed that nobody seemed to have lived there for a while. 
    The abilities of a ranger would have been useful here, but tracking 
was one of the things he'd never bothered with. If he'd wanted to find 
someone's trail he'd always counted on summoning beasts to do it for 
him, tracking ones with smart noses to follow on the ground and swift 
birds to observe from the air. But here there weren’t any wild animals 
to... 
    The druid held out his palm. "Phobos! Deimos!" He called the names 
of Rae's two ravens, adding the power of a summoning spell behind the 
words. "I call upon you to answer in the name of your mistress!" 
    The two birds appeared after a short flight. He spoke to them with 
the force of a Speak with Animals spell, gained as a free ability from 
his monk training. "I am an ally of Rae Hino, come to aid her in her 
troubles. Can you tell me what happened to her?" 
    The squawks he got in reply translated freely in his mind and 
swiftly painted a picture identical to when Jedite had arrived and 
insinuated himself into the temple for that hijacking scheme, only this 
time it ended without the intervention of Sailors Moon or Mercury. 
    Rae had confronted Jedite and been dumped by him into that same 
part of the Negaverse where he'd been holding the girls captured in the 
buses that had been disappearing from the temple stop. Without any 
super powers Rae hadn't been able to get back out, but had sent her two 
ravens home to report this to her grandpa before the gate closed. 
    One more bus had disappeared after that, then suddenly no one had 
ever come to the temple anymore. Rae's grandpa had outfitted himself 
with traveling clothes and gone to search for his granddaughter. Jedite 
abandoned the shrine when it became clear nobody was going to risk 
coming here anymore, not with four buses of kids gone without a trace. 
    And so, since then, the inhabitants of Japan had been treating this 
as cursed ground, never going near it. 
    Jared began muttering things not complimentary to either Jedite or 
Sailor Moon, and went inside. There he found the room of the shrine's 
fire, now long gone out. 
    It somehow felt appropriate to reignite it. 
    In fact, even a little overkill felt appropriate. Jared wandered 
outside, teleported to another section of the world, using magic to 
search out his desired stone for building this. Finding onyx in a 
sufficient unspoiled supply, he obtained a block of it through the help 
of a summoned elemental, shaped it, and used extra spell power to 
teleport home with his find. 
    Mining was vastly simplified if you could speak to the earth and 
ask it for help. 
    Through his artistic abilities, aided by spells to speed the 
process, he finished the basin for the new fire, fashioning a beautiful 
work. After enspelling it properly, as was habit by now for any artwork 
he created, Jared put in place his creation. 
    It was a veritable fountain designed for flames. A large central 
bowl was made high and engraved very simply with images of firebirds 
trailing sparks as they circled in an open sky. From the highest bowl 
trailed streamers, bridges with grooves cut for oil or other material 
to pour down, leading to other basins about mid-height. These bore 
images of forest fires and volcanic spouts as were found in Hawaii, 
where lava flowed like water in grand and wonderful shapes amidst the 
splendor of living nature. From there, oil would pour down over 
irregular trails, too even for it to find any direct way (so that it 
would twist and wind with endless variety) into a large catch basin at 
the base, a pond of sorts whose wide, low flames should illuminate the 
whole work. 
    He was rather pleased with it, even after testing determined the 
oil flows had some minor flaws, which he corrected. 
    Jared stood licking a wide lollipop while he contemplated the final 
engravings. Twin pheonix spiraling up the main support, he thought, 
leaving trails of sculpted fire in their wake, and the base carved to 
simulate a vast volcanic basin. Yes, that ought to do nicely. 
    When he was finished, Jared reached into one of his pouches and 
pulled out a burning torch, one whose flames blazed brightly blue. They 
were otherwise perfectly normal, but he'd preserved them from long ago 
when wandering in strange realms and he’d happened across them. The 
torch was everburning, so there wasn't any fear about it ever going 
out. Jared applied it to one of the nine streamers running from the 
central bowl, and with both ravens still fluttering over his shoulders 
ignited the font with his torch. 
    He then applied the spells and magic necessary to make it a truly 
eternal flame. Nothing short of heavy magic would put this fire out 
again, nor would it require fuel, though any fires lit from this source 
wouldn't share those traits and would follow the trails of oil as 
dramatically as he’d intended while that fuel lasted. 
    He stepped back and watched the Pheonix Font (as he'd dubbed it and 
carved upon its base) burn to life. Okay, a fair deal of time wasted, 
and he'd spent more magic energy creating this than he had fighting the 
Negaverse last night, but it felt absolutely the right thing to do. 

    Nephlite stepped out of the Negaverse Gate into the blazing ruin 
their Tokyo fortress had rapidly become. Behind him streamed a good 
three dozen youma in good order. 
    "Enough!" He swept an arm dramatically to accompany the command. 
When the youma busy fighting failed to respond to his commands he 
ordered his own squad forward. "Go! Subdue all who resist! I'll have 
this place functioning again for Queen Beryl." 
    The squad of three dozen quickly beat or blasted into submission 
those youma fighting among the ruins of the gate room. Then, 
accompanied by their general, went further on into other chambers, 
subduing the strugglers as they found them, gradually growing in ranks 
as Nephlite reasserted his control over the defeated former servants of 
Jedite. 

    As Jared was preparing to leave the shrine he came to think a 
bonfire was also something he could use as part of a spell of scrying. 
While he could also have used a number of substitutes, he *needed* to 
find her, and searching for Rae through the use of fire also seemed 
only the most appropriate thing to do. 
    Returning to the right room, he cast his spell and looked into the 
flames. Unlike Rae, he had no ability to see past or future through 
this, but also unlike her, he was a trained mage and what he got was in 
surprising clarity and detail. 
    Jared saw Rae, trapped in a coffin-like block of crystal, her 
energy being fed through wires to an unseen distance beyond. On every 
side of her were dozens of similar coffins, the teenagers within them 
dry and husklike from weeks of prolonged energy drain. 
    The place this was instantly popped into the young man's mind. The 
bats he'd used to map the Negaverse fort had little to no ability to 
see color, so stone transparent to the naked eye had been solid blocks 
to radar. He'd put those coffins down as weird architectural details 
like the buttresses and columns. Apparently they were not so. 
    Also, apparently he'd have to go back into that fort. 
    Ick. Scary. 
    Rescuing Rae was one of his top priorities, but cutting off a 
continuing energy supply used by the dark forces was also high up there 
as a smart thing to do. 
    He stood, licking his lollipop. 
    Just how would he go about doing it? 
    He started to wander out of the shrine and the two birds appeared 
again, cawing and flapping their wings before his face in an obvious 
attempt to remind him of his duty to their mistress. 
    He bowed his head. "Okay, I will try." Thinking back on his ability 
to appear human via druidic shapechange gave him an idea. 

    Mina sat laughing with other girls by the time lunch rolled around. 
She'd already been able to tell a few about the hunk who'd stayed with 
her family last night. 
    While she didn't have any real close friends, and a number of girls 
thought her odd the way she was always disappearing during class or 
whatnot (thankfully, they just put it down to her being an unmotivated 
student), there was still great satisfaction in being able to start the 
rumor mill working in her favor for once. 
    Having actual people wanting to sit with her and showing them the 
meal Jared had prepared for her was reward enough for weeks of monster 
hunting! Eating it also added to the joy, and a few bits of shared 
chocolate got all sorts of girls willing to hang out with her! 
    Mina was happy. They weren't *real* friends, but they would do. 
Maybe soon she would get better ones. 

    Jared wandered the halls of the Negaverse fort looking exactly like 
a youma, because a youma was a humanoid creature and therefore 
something his druidic ability to change his shape let him appear as. 
    It even fell within his reasonable height and weight restrictions. 
    The sometimes redhead saw the fringes of a pulse of magic above him 
and looked skyward just in time to see a falling, pink haired girl 
coming right down on top of him. This was sufficiently unexpected that 
he caught her rather than stepping out of her landing zone, or, more 
intelligently, running for the hills. 
    Catching the falling girl brought her face within inches of his. 
    "Give me the Spellbook of Moonlight and Silver Dreams." She 
demanded. 
    He dropped her in shock, staggering away. "How do you know about 
THAT?!?!! You're supposed to be after the Imperium Silver Crystal! 
Look, you're not supposed to know anything about that or even *BE* here 
yet! And *certainly* not to attack ME!!! Why don't you go bug your 
parents?" 
    The little girl strode toward him menacingly. "I don't want the 
Imperium Silver Crystal. I *want* the Spellbook of Moonlight and Silver 
Dreams. Give it to me now!" 
    Jared rallied himself. "Look, we are in enemy home territory right 
now. I agree to discuss this with you *later*, but whatever you want, 
you are unlikely to get it if we both die from having a stupid argument 
right where the bad guys can destroy us both if they hear us, okay?" 
    The small girl looked rapidly around herself. "Eeek!" She screamed, 
latching onto his head and wrapping her body around his face, 
completely obscuring his view. "I DON’T WANNA BE HERE!!!" She shrieked 
at the top of her lungs. 
    Jared heard another youma approach, and saw it round the corner 
just as he managed to pry himself a small space around her body to see 
through. 
    Suddenly, the young man in disguise cackled insanely. "Hahahaha!!! 
You're energy is *mine!*" He yanked the little girl off his face and 
held her by the throat, his body being outlined by a glowing light as 
he apparently sucked life force from the little girl. 
    Jealous and torn, the other youma wandered on, as if fleeing 
something. But Jared didn't notice except that it was gone. 
    He stopped glowing and applied a small healing spell to the girl, 
then brought his face to within inches of hers. "Look. Another outburst 
like that and I'll do something more than just glow, I *might* have to 
hurt you. Our lives are both at stake here, and stupidity will get us 
both very dead. So while I can fix it if I cut off one of your limbs to 
make a convincing show for our enemies, I'm certain you don't want to 
go through that experience. Okay?" 
    Fearfully, the pink haired nodded, but little rebellious tears at 
the corners of her eyes indicated that it was an uncertain obedience at 
best. 
    Change of tactics time. 
    Stow her in one of his extra-dimensional sacks? No, not enough air. 
He knelt down before her to get their faces on a level. "Look, Rini 
right? Are you willing to be a heroine and help me fight the bad guys?" 
    More willing acceptance this time. 
    He nodded gratefully. "So let's play dress-up. We want you to look 
like a bad guy so the real bad ones won't kill us while we wander 
through here. What would you like to look like?" 
    Rini thought about it for what had to be less of a long time than 
it seemed. 
    She narrowed her eyes at him. "Something where I can keep an eye on 
you." She answered flatly. 
    Okaaaay, he thought. Stick her on my shoulder, disguise the join 
and pretend to be a two-headed youma? Not likely, that would cripple 
him if they had to fight, which wasn't as unlikely as he'd like it to 
be. Okay, so think of something that comes in pairs, preferably a 
smaller and a larger copy. 
    He shifted his features obviously, gaining a woodlike texture and 
having his hair trail down to the floor behind him in a single, 
whiplike tail almost like a string. Touching the girl, he cast a strong 
spell which caused her pink hair to rise up, instead of rabbit ears, to 
a single point, fluffing out at the base so that it looked somewhat 
like an upside down heart. Feathers grew from her ankles and she went a 
single, flat grey color. 
    "Okay, that was as strong a disguise spell as I could cast. From 
now on until we get out of here, I am Bowardia, and you are Arune. Bow 
and arrow youma, get it?" 
    Rini nodded. 
    "Good, because your disguise lasts less than an hour, so we've got 
to be quick." He ran down the hall, and when it became clear Rini'd 
have trouble keeping up, slung her under an arm and sprinted, feeling 
he had a right to go fast with this kind of cover excuse. They swiftly 
arrived at the coffin storage area. Jared dropped Rini to her feet and 
quickly examined a coffin. Finding the latch, he popped it open and 
flipped a small square of black cloth to Rini. 
    "Unfold that and lay it upon the floor, Arune. We need it to move 
these humans to a safer place." He growled in a scratchy voice, then 
winked at her. 
    Rini stared at him, then reluctantly began to unfold the portable 
hole, a magical storage device only accessible when it lay open upon 
the ground, and which could be folded again, and unfolded in a later 
place to find the same contents you'd loaded in before. 
    Unfortunately, as Jared scanned the chamber he was in, four bus 
loads of kids *FAR* exceeded any storage capacity he might have. He 
could carry a dozen people tops and he'd need eight times that capacity 
to move all the victims the enemy had in storage here. 
    Nothing for it, he began to pop open the crystal coffins and pull 
out the people inside as fast as he was able. Noting Rae he set her 
aside for special attention, then got another surprise when he came 
across Sailor Neptune, or what looked like Sailor Neptune in her 
non-Sailor-state, Michelle Chambers if he recalled correctly. Judging 
by how she'd fared so much better under the energy drain than the 
non-Scouts, he figured she probably was Neptune. 
    Putting her aside also, he ran as swiftly as he could to arrange to 
get all of the occupants of the coffins and in a rough pile, then 
quickly cast a mass polymorph to turn them all temporarily into small, 
plush dolls, save for the two drained Sailors. 
    Seeing his companion had finished opening up the device, he again 
acted as swiftly as he could to load in all of the plush dolls, then 
lay the pair of Sailors on top the soft cushion that made, cast spells 
upon them to reduce their air requirements (and wished he'd thought of 
that for Rini, but there'd be no way she'd put up with it now), and 
closed the hole over them, putting it back in his pocket. 
    He cast an illusion to make it seem the coffins were not empty, 
their energy lines appeared flowing and all as it was before, then 
Jared picked up Rini and made for the exit. 
    Only to run smack into a line of youma that began entering the 
room. Nephlite entered soon after, on the heels of a goon squad about 
sixty strong. Jared was swiftly running all sorts of combat scenarios 
through his mind, but nothing looked better than a fifty-fifty chance 
they'd developed a flaw in their base defensive enchantments and he 
could teleport out of there. 
    Nephlite scanned him up and down very swiftly, noting Rini in his 
arms. "You. Who are you?" 
    ~He might not know? Stick with the disguise, man!~ 
    In a gravely, youma voice Jared responded. "Bowardia! Arune and 
Bowardia have been standing guard!" 
    This earned a new appraisal from the Negaverse general. Looking 
around the chamber, and seeing his own youma had examined it carefully, 
there did not seem to be any more youma hiding there, so he pivoted on 
a heel and turned his back to leave the chamber. 
    "Follow me, Bowardia." 
    Jared did, Rini still under one arm. The other sixty or so youma 
followed as well. There was a chance he could strike the guy from 
behind and kill him, but no chance to escape after doing it. They would 
die, and, frankly, there were two more Negaverse generals after this 
guy. It wasn't worth the sacrifice at this time. 
    They arrived in a gutted out throne room, other youma fanning out 
all around them while Nephlite took the throne. A clear indicator that 
wherever Jedite was, alive or dead, he wasn't in power any longer. 
    "Bowardia, you are the only of Jedite's youma to have done 
something useful while the rest destroyed this place. I'm sending you 
on a mission." An image appeared of a high school. "Infiltrate this 
place and remain unnoticed til I call. I'm setting a trap for that new 
mage, and I'll need you in position." 
    Suddenly Jared's felt the strangest surge of power he'd ever 
experienced. Rini felt it too, from the way she stiffened under his 
arm. 
    "Now Go!" Nephlite waved a hand and the two fake youma appeared on 
the grounds of Furinkan High School. 
    Jared sought shelter then dropped his and Rini's youma guise. He 
wiped her face. "Man, this just gets weirder and weirder." 
    "Who was that man?" Rini asked. 
    "That," Jared sighed. "Was a Dark Kingdom general. He thinks we're 
working for him. We're not. But rather than *tell* him that I think 
we'll just quietly disappear." 
    "What did he do to us?" Rini inquired, clutching her Luna Ball to 
her chest tightly. 
    Jared shouldered the young girl and began to jog for Juuban. "He 
energized us with energy they'd stolen from humans. The thought makes 
me sick, but I don't detect any Geases or compulsions on us. I think he 
must have thought we were already loyal, and of course we *are*, just 
not to them. I'll run some spells to check us out more as we go." 
    "Where are we going?" Rini asked. 
    "First to a place where we can restore and return all those 
captives we rescued. Then, I think we'd better spend our time finding 
all the rest of the Scouts. Things are getting more troubled by the 
moment." 

    Mina was leaving her school when a commotion at the edge of her eye 
brought her attention to a couple of news vans whizzing by. Since that 
was as good a warning as she'd often had, she slipped away and 
transformed, making her way across the roofs to where whatever it was 
was going on. 
    As she was getting prepared to make a big surprise entrance (her 
favorite entry speech anymore was a Crescent Beam), she saw what was at 
the center of it all and stopped. 

    Jared chose a vacant lot (surprising how many of them he found, 
considering this was Japan with land prices as they were and so on), 
and got things ready for a big entrance. He wanted something flashy, to 
give people a focus for their hope, but at the same time didn't want to 
get caught or reveal anything he didn't want people to know. 
    Oddly enough, the timing worked out just so his illusion back in 
the coffin room ought to be running out right about now. That would 
create some questions over there. They might think their captives just 
vanished. Cool. 
    Rini had disappeared somewhere, so he went about this on his own. 
When he was ready he teleported above a sporting event that was going 
on, over a full stadium, wearing his pearl armor with the faceplate 
down and with his voice amplified. 
    Levitating above the stadium crowds, he began to shout before 
people could panic. 
    "People of Earth! I am the White Pheonix, also known as the Pheonix 
Mage. I have come to fight evil as I shall ever do and have ever done, 
and shall assist Sailor V in her fight to free you from the Negaverse 
which seeks to enslave. As a token that my words are true, this day 
have I invaded the enemy stronghold and brought back many of your sons 
and daughters that had been imprisoned there! Now I present them to you 
once again." 
    With that he restored his invisibility and faded from view, but the 
address of the vacant lot appeared in the sky above thanks to a handy 
illusion spell. With that, Jared teleported back to the lot and 
canceled the enchantments keeping the people as small dolls, letting 
the whole hundred or so of the rescued youths sprawl upon the lot with 
no evidence of his being there. 
    News vans and people began to arrive shortly. 

    Mina looked at the chaotic mess and began to scramble for thought. 
Here were over a hundred kids who'd obviously been drained of their 
energy! Whatever youma had done this was probably one of the nastier 
ones. 
    She began to wish Jared were here so that he could help out. 
    Twin red spots appeared on her cheeks. And if they got into a fight 
again she could watch that *cute* hiney of his as he beat the bad guys! 
    True to the worst prediction a youma appeared. It looked like 
another of those Sailor Hunter ones of Jedite's. 
    Ooh! Now she *really* wished Jared were here!!! 

    As he'd suspected, this kind of news brought the Negaverse. Jared 
watched as one of their really tough ones appeared. Then he smirked. 
    Nobody was going to get drained *this* day! 

    People began to panic as the reaction to the appearance of the 
youma spread like water from a breaking balloon. But even before the 
panic had halfway formed, the man in white armor appeared and began to 
attack the creature. 
    And what an attack it was! Shields and forcefields they'd seen stop 
Sailor V got punched through or broken. Then the monster was weakened 
by a dozen strikes from fluttering, thrown, multicolor fans! 
    The man in armor was just winding up to a big finish, standing back 
to get room, when, from the sky above, came Sailor V's cry of her 
attack phrase and the youma got blasted back into dust! 
    The self-proclaimed Pheonix Mage tipped his hat, touching two 
fingers to the brow of his helmet in salute of their beloved Sailor. 
    "Well met, Sailor V. Nice to see you again." 
    "I'm SO GLAD to see you again!!!!" 
    *Glomp!* 
    Lots of pictures flashing. 
    ~Uh, this was not in the plan, guys.~