Skysaber's Choice 

Part Nineteen 

by Jared Ornstead 

=====

Quick Note: I had this on my harddrive with no intent of ever posting it, 
but a strange thing happened! I got a surge of positive feedback and so 
I figured, why not? Barring a little polish, 20 is done too. But I don't know 
that I feel like continuing it. My interest lies less in fanfiction anymore. 

To those who've read previous versions: I've changed Sailor Uranus' 
name from Helen (which was a more direct translation) to Christine, as 
the nickname Chris just worked better for the gender confusion she is 
given in the series, and while I told myself Len might do, I hate that name. 
  
=====

    Dennis James was a perfectly ordinary office worker. He worked on 
files for the customer accounts and did it all reasonably well on a 
desktop computer provided for him to use by the company he worked for. 
Several years ago a marketing rep from Microsoft had been around and 
the few Macintoshes in use by the artists and in odd corners of the 
office had been 'standardized' onto the platform the Microsoft rep had 
been selling, with the net result that the entire company joined that 
90+% of the personal computing world that relied exclusively on the 
Windows operating system. 
    Mr. James was sitting down to his computer, turning power on and 
preparing for the day, sipping at the coffee he'd gotten on the way in 
and smiling at the joke of a coworker heard over the tops of the 
cubical wall as the rest of his office wandered in with those early 
morning rituals that characterized their days. 
    Until the startup screen of his monitor flashed with a dark symbol 
and the poor office worker, father of four, and innocent who had never 
even heard of the true cause of Japan's sudden and total collapse 
suddenly had his face suffused with a seething fury. 
    A mature onlooker would have to assume the unstable and troublesome 
system had crashed yet again. Yet, all around the normal sounds of the 
desk workers had stopped and their cries of irrational rage shook the 
building. Their own computers sporting the same dark symbol, they 
turned in animal fury and tore apart their cube walls, smashing desk 
items, scattering paperwork and breaking million-dollar appliances. 
    In minutes this totally unexplained fit of temper culminated when 
the first office worker exploded out of sheer, unexplainable annoyance 
at being unable to break enough quickly enough to sate his mounting 
rage and frustration. The man literally burst apart in a display of 
gore and blood droplets not unlike a water balloon filled with fake 
blood and gristle. His fury having reached such a seething emotional 
climax, whose only outlet seemed to be found in wanton destruction, the 
final release of which doomed him to the fate of a soap bubble. 
    As other office workers, enraged by the insult of being sprayed 
with their manager's body parts, found their own rage cresting limits 
and exploding as well, the softly glowing marks on each computer screen 
began to pulse and gather thick and long streamers of dark energy from 
the bodies of all involved. Mr. James was the last to explode because 
he had such an excellent wife who loved him very dearly and had just 
concluded a lovely vacation with his kids. 
    That 90% of the computing world ceased to be, along with a sizable 
hunk of the rest of the market who had been using the corporation's 
programs on other operating systems, proving that the Dark Kingdom had 
given just one more reason why it was bad to rely on monopolies. 
    Later the US would call out the National Guard to deal with certain 
office complexes with artillery, after cutting their power had proven 
ineffective in stopping their ever-widening circles of energy drain. 
Europe and the US East Coast had been hit the hardest simply because 
their offices opened earlier due to the natural spin of the world. Once 
the crisis was in full swing in Europe and spreading to the East Coast 
straggling survivors made it clear what the cause was and tanks rolled 
out to stop office centers from opening and reduce the scope of the 
catastrophe. 
    Certain modern cities had literally been gutted by the time it was 
over, with over half a billion dead, mostly in the most technologically 
advanced sectors. Third world countries, which included Japan's active 
tech level of late, had almost no casualties. 
    The Amish calmly went about their lives. 

    Sitting in the office of the president at Microsoft, having given 
new meaning to the term 'Hostile Takeover', Prince Darien watched the 
newly recruited Gates Youma gibber in sadistic glee as a globally 
distributed and magically delivered Dark Update triggered all over the 
world, causing often pyrotechnic rages which lasted a very short while 
as the rampages converted the entire being of their victims into dark 
emotive energy. 
    Prince Darien smirked as his efforts had coined a new term: Mark 
once, drain many. Add 'emotion' in there and it spelled Modem, the 
*New* Dark Kingdom, internet efficient, user-unfriendly approach to 
power. 
    It also spelled the end of the bulk of modern computing, with that 
modern corporate culture, and with that those same corporations, which 
in turn took out substantial hunks of the infrastructure they relied 
upon, obviously those things which relied upon those corporations, and, 
in short, inflicted such a blow that the world economy would reel and 
thrash about for a few more weeks or months, but people had better 
start learning how to chip flint knives. 
    As office workers, computer users, and home internet surfers 
triggered even a single Microsoft program they sealed their doom, 
converting themselves within minutes into the largest store of energy 
Beryl had ever held since the last war in which she'd destroyed an 
inhabited solar system. 
    And *this* time around, there were no emplaced defenses, 
experienced guardians, or magical wards defending against her, just a 
few inexperienced Sailor Scouts and a mage. 
    Darien flipped a disk about in his hands, remarking. "We *now* have 
the power to best those Sailor Scouts *and* their Mage. Even those 
Outer Scouts had better look out, and that traitor Jedite is *toast* no 
matter what backing he's received! Because with *this* I am ready to 
conclude our conquest of the Earth at last!" 
    The smile turned to a scowl as the Gates Youma began to gibber the 
word 'Barney' over and over while pointing at the giant, purple 
dinosaur costume the fallen prince wore. 

    Zoicite perched at the top of Tokyo Tower, the wind blowing her 
hair dramatically as she stared at the starship poised above her city. 
A scowl was on her face. 
    "I pity you for interfering." 
    She spoke to the cruiser, knowing that it couldn't hear her. "But 
I'm afraid it is rather obvious that makes you a tool of the Mage." 
    Her scowl transformed into a wicked grin. "And Beryl's orders are 
very clear on that. Anything belonging to the Pheonix Mage must be 
captured or destroyed to keep him busy while *she* works on more 
important plans." She leaned across the obsidian railing to address the 
distant ship privately. "And since Queen Beryl has so graciously agreed 
to put her energies to use healing Malachite of those holes that robot 
put through his chest, I can scarcely displease her, can I?" 
    Smiling wickedly, the Negaverse general cast a spell. 

    Shrieks split the air as the restored Tokyo Tower (which many had 
been scrupulous in avoiding since it's return as a giant structure of 
dark crystal) lit and powered up with a black, light-defying light, 
sending a crackling beam of the absence of illumination upwards to fill 
the sky in a dark, inverted lightning bolt pattern. 
    The Robotechnology cruiser Jared had inadvertently summoned on the 
moon and then prudently reused for his own purposes narrowly dodged out 
of the way, evading the second stroke with a brilliant pinpoint fold, 
then promptly unlimbered it's giant cannon to fire a bolt of shuddering 
power against the hastily-erected force field now defending the dark 
Tokyo Tower, then folded away again before a third shot. 
    "Oh my glorious goodness." Jared whispered in awe, watching the 
scene take place. Seeing the boy's evident reaction and interpreting it 
as fear the Sailor Scouts formed a small ball of huddling fright. If it 
was bad enough to scare *HIM* then they wanted no part of it! 
    Jared sighed wistfully. 
    Sailor Mars shrieked and her costume went from colorfully, 
flamboyant red to a dull grey color and she collapsed, utterly 
weakened, to the ground. Uranus and Pluto followed suit, shrieks as the 
colors disappeared from their costumes. 
    "What now??!" A frightened feminine voice tremored from within the 
ball of Sailors. 
    The redhaired mage and knight of the Silver Millennium (what was 
left of it) checked his Robotechnology wrist computer. "Readings say 
that beam from Tokyo Tower just hit and destroyed the planets Uranus, 
Pluto..." he shuddered. "And Mars." 
    The boy clenched a fist. "The thing just curved in the midst of 
space seeking targets and found them. I lost a half dozen support ships 
the beam just *passed through!* And I had arranged for alot of 
equipment to be stored on Mars." 
    "You mean they can just destroy our planets with a shot?!!" Venus 
cried from within the frightened, huddled ball. 
    Said ball tightened up a bit. 
    Jared looked over to the monument in question. "Obviously yes, but 
the question is how many shots can they fire? They have to take energy 
they don't lightly spare. Next is how badly does it cut into your power 
to lose your planet? You three are still transformed, that means you've 
got at least a measure of power still remaining. What's left?" 
    Uranus was shaky, trembling on her knees, but the best off of the 
three so it was she who responded. "I... don't feel good. There's not 
alot left. It'd probably kill me to throw a World Shaking right now." 
    "But you could do it." He surmised, then figured the same did 
probably NOT apply to the other two, which gave evidence for 
postulation. He muttered. "From your aura I'd say it cut your maximum 
capacity by about half, but only for energy. That's bad, but once you 
get over the shock you'd still be able to do something." The Mage 
closed his eyes and considered. "Okay, well, that ought to last until 
we rebuild your planets, at least. But now we *have* to take out that 
cannon. Amy, do you have a phone number up there?" 
    Amy, uncurling from the mass of huddled (and now somewhat stressed) 
Sailors, did a quick blink and activated her computer. In moments she 
gave him a number. 
    Jared went to a nearby phone booth and called it, jinked some with 
the dial, found that Zoicite had duplicated the phones up there mostly 
by forgetting to exclude them from her reconstructive spell, phreaked a 
bit, and got a connection in spite of the fact that no one was up there 
answering. 
    He sighed more comfortably and relaxed a bit. 
    Okay, this was odd even by their standards. 
    "Jay-chan?" Asked Amy as temporary spokeswoman (too difficult to 
get back into the ball, right now, actually). She noticed with mixed 
feelings that many youma were now spreading out over the city. 
    Eyes still closed, he answered. "It's a bit difficult to explain, 
Amy-chan. But I am destroying their tower right now." 
    "With a phone call!?" ~Odds are he's calling in some troops, I 
suppose. But then...~ A two-headed ghoul capered by and Ami relaxed as 
she casually killed it with an off-hand blast of crystal ice, not even 
thinking particularly about it. 
    ~Nice to know those dream lessons stuck,~ Jared thought. 
    "Yes. In my Robotech adventuring, once we'd taken out two of the 
four horsemen we found ourselves stuck there on Rifts earth, which is 
as close to a galactic butcher yard as any you're likely to find. I'd 
been to Ravenloft and it wasn't as bad (in spite of being a plane set 
up entirely for use as a prison for the megaverse's most vile villains) 
because on Rifts creatures equally bad run free and pretty much control 
the entire show. Any sparks of good on that world are there only for 
the vastly more powerful evil forces to terrorize, pretty much, and 
most of the 'good' forces are also corrupted to a greater or lesser 
extent." 
    He opened an eye to wink at them. "Not that I hadn't dealt with 
worse, on Mars. But that was a fight for a cause and on Rifts Earth 
there weren't any causes worth fighting for. Not unless you count 
escape, but most people don't think of that. Must be something the 
world does to their minds, because *nobody* is safe there. The only way 
that plane or Ravenloft even function is by drawing in folks through 
random dimensional portals. It's the only way to get body counts that 
high and sustain them. Rifts would kill it's whole population in less 
than a year if they didn't have people popping in to make up the victim 
quota." 
    Jared shrugged expressively. "Anyway, we found ourselves trapped 
there. Which was a bad thing. Our fold device had burnt out in the 
malfunction getting us there. So we did what we were used to doing and 
buried our ship for secrecy, then, being a military force, we scouted 
the area. That was when we found the horsemen, and killed them, and we 
also ran across a group that was fugitive from the Coalition. That's 
their title, but if you add 'Nazi' before the official name you not 
only understand their purposes, behavior, goals, atrocities and rules, 
but even their dress code. Lacking Jews to persecute, they went after 
anything not 'pure' human, pure being what they defined it as, of 
course. A change which led to wide scale slaughters that would make 
even Hitler blush, but that was typical of this type of thing on that 
world. Any organization larger than a few isolated people was liable to 
be corrupt to a certain extent, but more often just downright evil." 
    Saturn had, during this time, casually stuck the tip of her Glaive 
through the chest into the heart of a monstrous, rampaging youma, and 
calmly said the word, "Silence." 
    Said youma ceased to be, most dramatically. 
    The redhead chuckled and again closed his eyes. "Back to the main 
point - again. We ran across a group of fugitive troops from the 
Coalition and helped them out, blowing away the small army that was 
following them, but not before we'd discovered these guys had armor 
that was downright insane in toughness. Weak guns for the most part 
and... but you don't want to hear the full briefing yet. When we'd 
helped them out and saved them they revealed they were deserters. It 
turned out they were one of the few small clumps of genuinely good 
folks on that world, grown sick and tired of their egomaniac ruler and 
decided to make a break for it. What brought them to this was not a 
strong moral philosophy - which was not to be found in their homeland, 
but the discovery of an alien device." The boy gave them a wry grin. 
"Which that world is positively littered with. Anyway, they came across 
it in a standard sweep and patrol, crushing the locals for the joy of 
it, and one of them figured out what it did before the officially 
sanctioned 'Find. Destroy. Don't ask questions.' kicked in. He shared 
it with his buddies and they in turn shared it with their entire 
squad." 
    A wry smile. "It was this little helmet-like thing with a computer 
attached. The first guy put it on hoping it was a targeting device for 
a cool gun or something. It was a Brain Booster instead. Simply put, it 
caused all sorts of facts accumulated in the mind but not connected or 
assigned any importance to suddenly become clear and understandable. 
The guy who put it on suddenly *realized* what they were doing was 
wrong, in addition to gaining loads of skills observed but not 
understood at the time, including how to read." A soft chuckle. "To 
those Nazis, reading without a license was punishable by death, as was 
not agreeing whole heartedly with the campaigns of destruction, murder 
and horror. So by putting on the helmet they had essentially sentenced 
themselves to die, and knew it, but their knowledge was still too sweet 
not to share. They described it as waking up after years of nightmare, 
which was probably true." 
    "Jay-chan?" Amy asked in great concern. Another two youma had come 
by and it was almost relaxing for them to dust them. But the ball of 
Scouts started to slither away as the Obsidion Tower pulsed ominously 
in the background. 
    He opened his eyes, tracking her concerned gaze back to the 
obsidian tower. "Oh, don't mind that. So long as we keep to the ground 
they can't fire it at us without destroying this planet we're on, which 
would cut them off from all future energy resources and probably kill 
them as well. We have time, what I'm doing will take a while to succeed 
anyway. Don't you *want* to hear the story?" He blinked disarmingly, 
using his off hand to break the neck and transform to dust the 
shrieking howler youma that had snuck up trying to attack them. 
    The ball of Scouts had somewhat uncurled at his reassuring 
statements. Now they slithered back a few inches. Closer to Jay-chan 
was probably safer anyway. 
    His lack of concern comforted them once again, and they stopped 
huddling quite so tightly. "So they offered the use of the booster to 
us, and we used it not knowing how bad things like that on that world 
generally are. We quickly found out, however. The effects of the 
booster linger with you for about a year, at the end of which even the 
most dense clod has become fairly bright and well educated." More 
smiles on his part. "Knowing right from wrong comes as soon as you put 
the thing on. Fortunately so, or the device would have been destroyed. 
No one who really knows right from wrong will ever do wrong. They can't 
do it and live with themselves. Anyone who tries has to first forget 
what's really the difference between them, and the lies they tell 
themselves are very convincing to any who want to believe them. But to 
anyone who'd used the booster those lies are fully shown for what they 
are. Since those Nazi's rely on moral ignorance to keep their troops in 
line this was a destabilizing thing." 
    His bright eyes twinkled merrily. 
    Sailor Jupiter noticed two youma standing on high wires not far 
away and used her electrical powers to blast the closest transformer 
and zap them to death from a distance. 
    Jared went on, unconcerned. 
    "But we stopped them from killing the group that had it. More 
importantly, we were top notch 'kill-the enemy' operatives *used* to 
acting against vastly superior numbers and gave them the benefit of 
some of our experience." 
    A small chorus of nods. 
    A sigh of wistful memory from him. "It is hard for me to describe 
how touched we were by how sweet the understanding was we got from that 
device. For me it brought back all of the science I had learned under 
my mom. I devoured everything technical I could find from Rifts and 
quickly went through our own manuals and devoured more. The RDF had 
sent us along with a substantial library for maintenance and repair 
along our mission. Study of that material along with the effect of the 
booster made up for alot of years *not* studying with my mom. 
Afterwards I learned all I could by taking apart and repairing the 
deserters' equipment, even building them the capacity to make more 
along different lines. Cosmetic stuff like no leering skulls built into 
everything, for the most part. But there was also adding the added 
options." 
    Venus noted a half dozen flying youma in the distance beginning 
what she felt was a search pattern and used a modified Crescent Beam to 
take them all out. 
    Ordinary youma were simply no threat to them anymore. But that 
wasn't any excuse to let them gather information. There were still 
generals and Sailor Hunter youma that could be called to fight. 
    There was also that tower. 
    The redhead softly smiled, still holding the phone to his ear (and 
hand over the mike) as he spoke to them unconcerned on his original 
topic. "It did other things to other members of the team. One of the 
veritech pilots under me had taken soon after to observing things 
magical and acquired the skill to be a Techno-mage. The first thing he 
did with those powers was to teach us and our renegade coalition 
buddies how to make more brain boosters." 
    The mage chuckled. "The Bear never did let on that it taught him 
anything." 
    His shivering ball of sailor scouts uncoiled enough to blast 
another youma that came close enough to bother them. With the entire 
city overrun there was little they could do on a wide scale for now, 
and so focused in on the information they were receiving, as if that 
held the key for deciding the fate of the world. 
    Considering their husband, it might. 
    Jared then shrugged. "Well, we soon split from the guys we'd 
helped, leaving them to their antics as we wanted to get home and they 
had different priorities. We soon split up ourselves, having a great 
deal of ignorance about the place we were in and desiring to solve that 
quickly so we could make an organized attempt at getting home. That 
came up blank, so we agreed we'd go our separate ways for a year and 
come back to report when we'd learned something or at the end of that 
time. It was a daring move, not that we weren't used to a level of 
risk, but it was harder than I'd thought to leave the fledgling Bat 
Kingdom." 
    "*Bat* Kingdom??" The Sailor Scouts chorused. 
    It was Jared's turn to look sheepish and he rubbed the back of his 
head. "Yeah. We, um, watched a few movies with them. Fictional stuff, 
as a general precaution. But they took to the concept of Batman like 
you wouldn't BELIEVE. They all wanted black capes on their armor, false 
muscles, utility belt, sharp ears, bat symbols: the works. It worked 
like a charm on nighttime raids. They came in under IR shielding with 
their own echolocation showing the way and took their targets clean. 
They often captured every man in a camp, then put them through the 
booster and suddenly their prisoners *wanted* to tell them about secret 
troop movements and other such things." He cracked a smile as Michelle 
threw a copy of Ami's Mercury Bubbles Blast that enveloped the bulk of 
the city. "It didn't help with the Bear egging them on. The 'Dark 
Knights' had me write a virus to reprogram Coalition factories to paint 
all the skulls on all of their equipment red, while our techno-mage 
slid into their combat net and issued the order to make the change 
official regulation, and the Bear convinced a mage to help him and 
snuck into their main city just to plant a curse on the Nazi Emperor 
and his heir so their heads would mutate to look like red skulls - just 
so they'd match some comic book villains." The redheaded mage smiled 
softly. "Not that it wasn't fun. Both bad guys went a little nuts and 
that's always a good thing. Last I heard one was calling himself 
Skelator and had renamed their capitol city Castle Greyskull." 
    Mina giggled into her hand. Several other Scouts had smiles, their 
fears beginning to ebb. 
    Jared noticed and was glad. "Anyway, on my first night out after 
leaving them I was ambushed while at camp by a guy I later learned was 
a Juicer. He caught me outside of my veritech taking a bath and I was 
forced to kill him hand to hand. I'd already fought worse stuff, like 
Lynn Kyle, and from the intensity of my martial arts training I was 
already faster, stronger and tougher than this Juicer was. About the 
only unusual thing about him was how much punishment he took to kill." 
    The Mage shrugged as mist from the clouds rolling by enveloped the 
Tower. "But he was a weapons user and not any good without them. I just 
knocked the gun out of his grasp and punched him through the 
ridiculously huge holes in his armor. I'd never seen anything so poorly 
designed. It was like football padding made out of metal. It didn't 
cover his arms or legs hardly at all and his helmet didn't even cover 
much of his head, which made it really easy to finish him off using a 
chi-enhanced blow to the face, then search his gear." 
    The Scouts nodded. Searching gear was good policy. 
    Jared was shaking his head. "The guy could heal fast, but my chi 
control had me heal at a rate he couldn't touch. He couldn't be easily 
surprised, but then neither could I because of martial art awareness 
techniques." He shrugged happily. "Later I learned those guys are 
basically steroid pushers collectively paid ridiculous amounts of money 
for their services as mercenaries and thugs because their drug-powered 
abilities don't require years to train like the martial arts do. But 
they inevitably die because of massive drug induced system fatigue so 
I'll take martial arts any day." 
    Mina grinned smirkily at Jared. "A superpowered steroid pusher and 
he wasn't even a *small* workout, Jay-chan?" 
    The mage sighed fondly. "Okay, so he was a *small* challenge, but 
only from being unusual. Okay, so he could go five days without rest 
and I couldn't. So what? It didn't help him in our fight particularly. 
Even his thirty foot leaps were pitiful compared to my jumps of 
hundreds. So, being no strangers to espionage, having disguised 
ourselves as Zentraedi from time to time, I took most of his gear, 
figured out what it did, and kept it for a costume." 
    A chorus of nods. It was what he'd taught them to do. 
    Jared shot a glance toward his audience, who were beginning to 
finally relax during his narrative while more clouds rushed past them 
to fill the recesses of the city. "And if, after all, if weirdoes 
dressed up like that around there, I may want to blend in with them. I 
did after disabling the drug injectors that were part of his harness. 
I'd achieved much the same state of physical performance without any 
drugs at all and had no desire to use any. So I didn't. However the 
disguise was useful in towns and places where I couldn't use my mecha, 
so I used it. I even pulled down ridiculously high dollar amounts those 
times I had to earn eating money." 
    A snort. "Those times folks got a little curious they just assumed 
that I was some new type of Juicer." The redhead's face grew dark. "I 
spent much of my time taking on the pets of big tyrants, keeping lines 
out for information while I did it. Finally I annoyed the Sploogies bad 
enough they sent out a team with the objective just to get me. Since I 
didn't know much of anything about magic they did indeed, and I got 
turned into a slave. Thankfully only losing my Juicer gear instead of 
my precious Robotech stuff." 
    The Scouts all nodded, entranced, and by now far more at ease. They 
didn't really even pay particular notice to the trio of three-headed 
youma, except to note Neptune had Deep Submerged them into history. 
    A very hefty sigh from their very dear husband (as what happened in 
their dream they were *all* resolved to quickly make a part of 
reality), as he noted the disturbance was well enough in hand he could 
remain lost in his memories. "I was bought by a buglike slaver before 
I'd even woken up and put through an expensive process where they 
tweaked my genes, transforming all of my physical stats to even more 
superhuman levels - especially attractiveness, then sedated me again 
and hauled me off through a magic portal to another world and sold me 
as part of a truckload of other studs to some amazons who apparently 
held this race of bug guys by the balls somehow." 
    His face was carefully blank as he relayed this, keeping his eyes 
closed. "They were *not* the same, lovable amazons we know, but in some 
ways were a twisted parody of them. They used their secret techniques 
to blank our minds - resetting our memories to start over from scratch. 
Then when we woke up they treated us like friends and basically told us 
we had been victims of a tribe of mongol lizard men whom these amazons 
had been at war with for millennia. Every so often one side would 
nearly destroy the other, but every time it happened enough would 
survive in hiding to stage a comeback in a future generation. They told 
us men we were survivors of an amazon town that had been destroyed, and 
since we were allies they would gladly take care of us. Part of the lie 
was that it was supposedly the lizard men who had cost us our memories. 
They showed us a ruined town along with a few strange lizardlike bodies 
and from the perspective of someone with no history nor past to judge 
from it was pretty convincing." 
    His eyes remained closed, but their edges had softened somewhat. 
"The technique they used is usually temporary, but they had the same 
herbal stuff these local amazons do for making that long lasting, 
essentially permanent since we had *nothing* familiar around us to help 
us shake off the effects." He sparked a smile. "But it wasn't a BAD 
life. We couldn't remember any of our skills, but that didn't mean we 
couldn't use them if a situation came up where they came in by 
instinct. I could still dodge bullets. But nobody was whipping up all 
sorts of technological innovations, and I think the amazons wanted it 
that way." 
    The darkness departed and he smiled. "So they accepted us in and 
started wooing us as husbands. My chi control still gave me healing 
abilities, so guess which role I dropped in? They stuck me as student 
to one of the village healers and started teaching me their art for 
doing it well." Another wry smile. "An art which on most worlds is 
practiced only by cults of secret masters who use it's threat to keep 
rival crime lords at bay, because the student's knowledge of the human 
body is so acute they can kill with a single touch." His lips quirked 
in a grin that wasn't nearly so nice. "Not merely kill instantly, but 
kill inevitably, hours or even days after the attack is delivered with 
no trace of an injury." His happiness returned in a glad shrug. "Not 
that it was much use against lizards, but you understand if you're THAT 
good at knowing the human body inside and out what a terrific doctor 
you make." A tiny smile. "And of course the threat of it kept us males 
in line." 
    The girls' gladness had departed at the beginning of this dark 
story and he got a few sympathetic glances, or more than a few, as the 
girls quite honestly loved him. 
    He shrugged. "Fortunately, it's not something you do by accident. 
Nobody in the village, or even anyone I've known anywhere, has known a 
cure for the True Dim Mak. The rules in the conversion book say that 
two Remove Curse spells in quick succession would do it, but our GM 
disallowed that as too easy. So if you were hit you were dead, unless 
you had the capacity to hold it at bay like I did, and fortunately 
never had to use." He grew thoughtful. "I've always *meant* to seek out 
a cure for that, but never did. Oh, well. I guess someday soon someone 
will use it against me once for real and I'll *have* to! That almost 
happened once, but lucky me I was wearing armor and the person using 
the attack didn't know the countermeasure for that. Which brings us at 
long last back to the point for all this ramble; The Countermeasure." 
    He tossed a wink and a smile to his girls, who by now had calmed 
considerably at his tale, which was part of the point, really. Their 
love was also soothing, comforting some very dark memories of this. 
"Touch Mastery, as the school is called that the amazon healers taught, 
is not really combat suitable at all. It'll turn the opponent inside 
out if you can ever lay a finger on him, but if he knows it he'll never 
let you close enough to try, as getting through a competent defense is 
*not* something the form excells at. Since they'll know the attack is 
coming in any society other than secretive criminals, ancient masters 
added a new wrinkle to the problem by inventing Distance Death, or the 
ability to deliver touch attacks at range. So long as you can see him 
and there is something solid both of you are touching, the floor works 
fine, you can hit him with special techniques from as far as a hundred 
feet away. Even in close combat once you've learned this technique all 
of your special attacks will pass right through thick clothes and heavy 
armor." 
    Jared's smile grew confidence building. "There is another way to 
use Distance Death over nearly limitless distance and that is over a 
wire bearing an electrical current. Just sticking your finger in a wall 
socket hurts and can't be aimed, but there's a bit of energized wire 
that we all aim every day. A telephone." 
    Sweatdrops everywhere. 
    "Uhhh," Rae sweated. "You mean you're trying to tell us that you're 
killing that tower with a phone call?" 
    This seemed outrageous even for Jared. 
    "Well... yes." He concluded. "But not in the way you're thinking. 
Buildings do not have pressure points that I know of. Actually, scratch 
that. Cologne has a Breaking Point technique that can shatter them 
easily. But no, remember it was *touch* attacks that could be delivered 
at a distance. Do you all see where my hand is holding?" 
    They nodded, it was on the telephone over the part you speak in. 
    He nodded. "I am using a different attack entirely, one I came 
close to learning while on Mars, and eventually picked up among the 
amazons. I didn't *only* know healing, you realize. I had a substantial 
amount of stealth techniques as well, and from that I was able to pick 
up a large amount of knowledge in the village just by being stealthy 
and quiet. Due to a curse some generations back none of the amazons 
could bear boys. That made it hard to continue the race *without* 
buying slave stock, and since they had those bug creatures by the balls 
anyway (don't ask me how, I still don't know) they arranged to have the 
men fully genetically upgraded before they arrived. Why not? We were 
essentially breeding stock. Men were property and they didn't *want* 
them to know more than a certain small specialty so they wouldn't be 
too hard for their women to control. Especially in light of those 
physical enhancements they'd arranged for, ignorance on the part of the 
men was the best tool they could hope for." Again the wry smirk. "On 
the other hand, I was bored to tears and so found places where I could 
observe the instruction given to the younger village girls as scouts or 
warriors. They would train differently but then switch around puberty 
so the girls would have an advantage over their future husbands. Some 
would switch to healing, some healers to tracking, some of both as 
warriors. As they graduated the war college they would all have had a 
chance to try all three schools and have their choice of preference. 
Those with great ability would even have the privilege of taking 
further lessons in two or even three. I was mastering my pitiful 
lessons in the rudimentary healing arts easily and so I watched the 
rest of the advanced stuff given to the girls, and watched the other 
types of classes as well - all this while the Brain Booster still 
hadn't worn off." 
    "Didn't... didn't you have a girlfriend?" Michelle asked him, 
concerned, breaking through to what was, for her, the most important 
part of the story and he hadn't touched yet. 
    "Yeah," Lita thought about it. "I mean if that's what they got you 
for after all." 
    "There had to have been opportunities." Amy added, sucking her 
finger's tip. 
    Jared's smile was warm and comforting. "Never felt tempted." 
    "You mean not even once?" Rae inquired disbelievingly. 
    He shook his head calmly. "You see, the day after I'd arrived I was 
thinking about it, we all were. The pressure laid against us was very 
intent and they had done this before and knew what worked. They did 
everything they could to make matrimony seem desirable and some guys 
were already giving in. After all why not? Without memories to guide us 
we had precious few reasons to doubt them or feel a need to reject 
them, and they were playing on that very well with the experience of 
several generations. That was when the village got attacked." He 
shrugged, seeming more happy yet still a little distant in memory. "It 
wasn't much of a raid. The mongol lizard men knew about slave arrivals, 
of course. It was their curse the amazons were avoiding by importing 
men, after all. They staged an attack and threw a few spears using 
those monster tails of theirs to whip them about, firing them like 
catapults. And when it was over a few of the men had died and one or 
two of the lizards had (though they rode pretty fast on those reptilian 
horses), and about the only things of significance to me were that I'd 
employed a chi technique without thinking to save a few of my fellow 
guys from their wounds - earning me a place in the healer's huts, and 
one of the married amazons got killed." 
    Here his face hardened again. "It turns out they had this quaint 
custom where women got to be buried with their property. Things like 
weapons, clothes and mementos, though the best of each got passed 
around to her friends or descendants. One thing did not." His face was 
stony now. "When I saw her husband entombed alive with her I lost all 
desire I might have had to get married to any of them." 
    His Souts were all shocked, with disbelieving expressions. 
    Jared shook off the hardness as if it had never been. Suddenly he 
was glad once more. "So I had lots of time on my hands, and when they 
finally discovered I was watching more practice sessions and 
instruction than I ought there was nothing to do about it except throw 
me in to the war college and me push til I failed. I was by that time 
fully conversant of the basics and eager to learn more and surprised 
everyone by graduating in spite of it all. I became what is known in 
that system's rules as a Dedicated Martial Artist, and learned three 
forms of martial arts instead of one." He tossed a wink to the girls. 
"Just like those girls did, only better than most in spite of them 
having bred with genetically augmented males for generations. After 
all, I *was* one of those augmented males." His eyes twinkled. 
    They worried a little less about him, now he was beginning to 
return to form as the Jay-chan they all loved so dearly and well (and 
often - whenever they could). 
    A final deliciously frivolous shrug. "I admit, without previous 
martial art training I would have failed alarmingly. But I *had* been a 
martial artist and in spite of having little conscious access to those 
techniques if a case came up where I needed the Art of Stealth I knew I 
had it. None of the girls would poke holes in my ignorance to my 
previous training, so I thought I was this hotshot and did my best to 
live up to my own vision of myself as someone who could learn these 
amazing things in next to no time at all. Even the punishments they 
ladled out served to harden and toughen me up more than discourage me. 
So just to keep me busy they had to give me extra training while the 
girls worked on things I already knew. I am what I believe to be the 
only guy ever to have graduated from the Amazon War College, especially 
knowing all three disciplines." Jared switched costumes to his Robotech 
attire and fingered the scarlet length of silk worn over his belt and 
hanging on one side down to his knees, fondling touching his matching 
gloves and boots. 
    Jared wiped a glad tear from his eye. "So I wear the three red 
silks. The gloves of a healer, the sash of a warrior and the boots of a 
scout. Oh BOY did that annoy some of my classmates!" He shook his head, 
smiling. "There was nothing that peeved them more than having to sit in 
attendance while a *man* achieved induction as a full member of the 
tribe." A shrug. "Unless it was what the craftswomen felt about having 
to make me a set of weapons, or it *might* have been eclipsed by the 
fact that I was by then a confirmed bachelor." He gave a shudder of 
appreciative memory. "They *hated* that even more than me knowing how 
to fight. 'Cause you see, none of the men were taught how to fight. I 
was lucky to have been chosen as a healer. It's the highest calling men 
could normally achieve, even if they didn't teach them more than the 
rudiments of the art. The rest were left to farm and build buildings." 
He shook his head sadly. "As with too many women, they just didn't like 
men. I think most salved their illusions by treating me as a funny 
looking lady, but that didn't stop the elders from sending me out on 
the most dangerous missions they could find. Even then I always 
remained something of an outcast." 
    "So why did you stay with them?" Mina's hair had frizzed out at 
hearing his casual tales of what she'd rightly consider abuse. Nor was 
she alone in that. 
    He tossed her a somewhat sad, yet slightly triumphant smile. "What 
else was there? They were thousands of times better than the lizards, 
and no one who knew anything went down off the mountain. There were 
jungles down there filled with all manner of carnivorous plants, 
feeding on carnivorous insects, swarming with carnivorous reptiles that 
were bad enough when you were awake, and *everyone* has to sleep 
sometime. Not only that, lotus blossoms bloomed down there. You might 
easily never see the plant whose fumes intoxicated you, or paralyzed 
you, or put you to sleep, or..." He scratched his red head. "Come to 
think of it, the tribe never *did* catalog all the things those flowers 
could do to a body. Too dangerous doing the research, I guess. You can 
bet when healers went down there to gather herbs they went in numbers, 
took warriors and scouts and relied on their friends to pull them out 
if they got crazy. Which happened all too often. Lives could have been 
saved if they'd had more of those herbs, but lives were lost too often 
getting them. It was a scary business." 
    Again that glad smile. "Naturally, they sent me more often than 
anyone." He looked toward the sunset, still holding the phone. "I spent 
seventy years among them, doing like the elders did using chi to retard 
my aging - only I'd already had a huge store of chi going into that and 
training only made it more, so by the time I'd turned ninety I still 
looked twenty and felt like it too. Since year one I'd worn the red war 
sash. That earned a certain amount of respect for me, but also made me 
something of an embarrassment to the elders, so I was frequently out 
scouting or doing ambushes on my own." He laughed. "I don't think 
either amazons or lizards would've been at all displeased if I'd died 
on one of those missions. As a graduate of the war college they 
couldn't bully me, I was a full member of the tribe and they knew it. 
In all those years I'd actually helped assimilate a few new shipments 
of slave men, but it never occurred to me once to make the connection. 
I guess life is too easily led by our assumptions." 
    Several nods from the attentive Sailor Scouts, which was odd, 
considering. 
    Jared sighed gladly and wiped away a last tear. 

    Queen Serenity felt a shiver and gazed up into the sky. "A 
sacrifice cannon? How bizarre. Queen Beryl ought to know that..." She 
grew startled and gave disconcerted frown. 
    Serenity gulped audibly. 
    "That we no longer *have* the great aura shields around our planets 
that would make those ineffectual?" Nebula appeared by her side to nod 
sagely. "Yes, I believe she does know that." 
    The Queen broke at his remark, turning to him. "Oh, Basalt!" The 
Silver Queen stood quivering in his presence. "What am I going to DO?" 
    Basalt found himself stunned, not quite so much with her trust but 
the recollection of the last time she had so trusted him. There was 
only one time in their past when she had so honestly relied upon his 
judgment. Soon thereafter Serenity's ears fell to the persuasions of 
certain parties saying she relied too much upon him by giving him 
exactly that kind of trust. It was a reminder of the sweetest 
experience he'd ever held, and how its ending had nearly destroyed him. 

    A time the Knight had worked all too hard to forget. 
    Yet it was his Duty to answer. 
    Nebula worked himself up to a composed response, it was 
unsurprisingly along lines with which he was familiar. "It is your duty 
to defend your Scouts and subjects when you are able. However, there 
remains the fact our old defenses were wiped away as the kingdom fell." 
A bit of the reflection of a confident commander of troops and consort 
to the Queen from before Basalt's confidence was shattered shone 
through as the Knight raised a telling eyebrow. "But as soldiers are 
wont to say: The best defense is a good offense." 
    She looked at him trustingly and wondered why he flinched. 
    In Serenity's eyes the man before her filled out and once again 
became the stalwart commander of the troops of her own Royal Guard. The 
very name of Nebula Knight was given as the birthplace of stars, and 
the official duties of that position had always held first the 
responsibility for guarding the Royal Nursery. 
    The unyielding man who spent unending hours pacing that empty room, 
directing his knowledge and skill with utmost purpose toward eventually 
defending its contents with his life if necessary had captured the 
heart of a young Queen. 
    Rather than guard the Royal Nursery he had filled it with the 
offspring of his body. It started as something of a whim on her part. 
Unfamiliar with her own feelings, never taught to have any of a 
romantic kind, his devotion had captured her even as she'd gone through 
the rote rituals of taking him as consort, filling her arm as a Queen 
was supposed to. 
    But it was her heart he'd truly filled. She'd guessed afterward 
that no one had ever told him the position of consort was supposed to 
be shallow and empty. So he had filled it with all the gentle kindness 
he knew and she had never known. 
    Foolishly, she had squandered it. 
    The Knight of Duty, whose *first* duty was to guard the Royal 
Nursery, was barred from it when his own child therein was no more than 
two. A betrayal of love and that position that in so dutifully filling 
when there was only empty need he had won the right to *create* a need. 
And she'd betrayed him in that so powerfully, forcing him to be gone 
from her side, away from the child who doted on him and he loved in 
turn, and ultimately preventing him from filling the duty the Nebula 
Knight was called for, and his devotion toward had won her heart - 
until his child was that duty. 
    Princess Serena had cried without end for weeks. 
    It was common palace gossip that Queen Serenity would need a dry 
pillow every morning herself as well. 
    Only Basalt knew what the Knight of Duty needed or felt, but those 
dry pillows had to keep coming every day until the kingdom fell. Rumors 
were hushed in the same way as if the Queen was ill, and her rule went 
on until even she wondered why she cried. 
    Basalt suddenly found himself again with his arms full of crying 
queen, stammering apologies into his tunic and clutching as she vowed 
aloud she'd never let him go and repeat that mistake. "Nebula, I 
*swear* I will never send you away again!" 
    Basalt gulped audibly, resting a hand on her back lovingly even as 
he struggled with reply. Again he swallowed, looking down, fear and 
pain on his features. "You may have to." 
    The silver head against his breast shook vigorously. "NO! Never!" A 
fierce kiss, then he was met with streaming eyes. "Never again! I 
cannot, I wouldn't DARE to! Besides," her head ducked shyly to the 
side, though her eyes kept streaming. "As I am no longer Queen, the 
duties of that office may no longer hold me." 
    Once again that serious face with streaming eyes. "No duty ever 
compels a former Queen not to love as she pleases, Basalt." 
    Because you see, deep inside, the Queen always knew why she cried. 

    The chorus of Sailor Scouts were now clustered behind the dubious 
safety of a bush and scanning with their many colored visors at the 
tower. The mists were Millennial based and would not and could not 
block them, so served as augmenting their own cover. "I can see cracks 
appearing." Lita offered the observation helpfully. 
    "But they're healing just as fast." Mina interjected, despondent at 
the failing results and turning her face toward Jared. "It looks like 
whatever general is up there is healing that tower as fast as whatever 
you're doing is hurting it." 
    "I concur." Amy agreed, taking far more detailed readings than the 
other Scouts. 
    Jared rolled his eyes and hung up the phone, sighing. "I suppose it 
was too good to hope for that we might beat this plot without getting 
fired upon." A twinkle came to his eye. "Then again..." 
    Seeing and analyzing his smile, Mina surmised. "Let me guess. We're 
all going to go up there while you trick them somehow into blowing up 
Queen Beryl. Is that it?" 
    Jared's eyes widened. "Wow. Your plan is better than mine. Do you 
mind if I use it on some future occasion?" 
    "Why not now?" Michelle perched nearby with a beautiful smile. 
    Jared shrugged. "Well, I haven't the vital part of that plan handy, 
which is something clever enough to get them to shoot each other - more 
especially without blowing *us* up. But I'll think on that and let you 
know if I come up with something." 
    "So what was our plan?" Holly pressed, hopping down from her perch 
and letting the exhausted Sailor Mars lean on her for support. 
    "We'll want to do something about what's going on over there." Lita 
pointed, having her green visor amplifying the sight in the distance. 
All the other scouts turned and did the same. 
    "Looks like that cyborg friend of yours is trying to take on that 
tower. The catgirl is with him!" Serena bounced. It was all so 
exciting! 
    "They *will* need help." Holly turned imploringly to Jared. 
    The Pheonix Mage considered thoughtfully, then tapped his the 
Robotech device on his wrist. "Cruiser Luna, what is your troop 
compliment?" 
    "Full," came the abbreviated reply. 
    The mage displayed some amount of shock. He'd expected a reply of 
two or three sentences amounting to a small amount of guard drones. 
This was disturbing and in need of attention, but his plate was rather 
full right now, so he tabled it for later and cleared his throat. 
"Prepare your troops for a surface attack. Target, the object known as 
Tokyo Tower." Jared glanced out over the field of empty buildings 
around the crystal structure's base. They were all well emptied some 
time ago, the Japanese had developed flight reflexes to a tee. 
    "Full bombardment charges at maximum payload. Take it DOWN! But 
beware of allies on location." 
    Amy was blinking. "But why would you need a troop assault?" 
    Mina stood examining the mage thoughtfully. "Because we're not 
going in there." 
    Jared stood poised, casting a spell which brought about a Cloud 
Chariot again. He shot her a smile as he assisted Susan on board. "Ever 
read Sun Tzu? Marvelous reading, very insightful, with good quotes 
like: The enemy comes to attack your towns, but he does not fight well 
when his own are burning." Jared indicated Tokyo Tower with a tilt of 
his head. "That thing uses mass amounts of energy. They expect us to 
attack it because of its threat." He followed that statement with a sly 
grin. "But down in the ruins of Jedite's fort is a gate to the Dark 
Kingdom, which *saves* them energy. I agree they can hurt us more right 
now with that black tower, but the loss to *them* would be greater over 
time if we close that gate." 
    Uranus climbed trembling onto the little cloud. "Better yet if we 
invade." 
    The Knight of Reason considered this thoughtfully. With pursed lips 
he concluded. "Maybe a short raid..." 
    Amy settled with evident delight onto the soft surface of the 
cloud, with legs tucked under her she quoted from their Robotech 
lectures from the shared dream. "Standard plan Alpha: Reconnaissance in 
Force?" 
    "That should do." Mina assumed the leadership role without thought, 
hair flaring out in a lovely array as she turned from the head of the 
chariot to face them. "But give us a high and stealthy approach, would 
you Jay-chan? There are those clouds you can hide us in." She pointed 
with a slender arm. 
    Lost in how lovely she was, Jared only nodded. 
    Little Serena leaped up onto Jared's shoulders, questioning the 
group. "If we are all gunna sneak in it'll take time, right?" 
    The little cherub met with a chorus of puzzled nods, wondering what 
the littlest one was concerned about. Jared indicated the cover they 
were presently under. "Actually, yes. We'll probably be staying here 
until the tower gets attacked. I don't want to be flying when that 
attack of theirs can take us out with a shot." 
    Serena switched her perch to be staring Jared right in the face. 
"Then I wanna hear the STORY!" 
    Facefault. 
    Mina had bounced to her feet before anyone, clasping her hands to 
ask. "Yah, how did you ever get back home again?" 
    When Jared had climbed up, he shrugged. "There's not much left to 
tell. I began on my way home when Fang, the crotchety old healer I'd 
been assigned to for training at my first arrival, died. She was an 
elder by then, and I learned the folly of my single ways. Men were 
property, you see. It was decided that even a male graduate of the war 
college was still a man, and since I'd never belonged to anyone else by 
marriage I still belonged to that lady who had first been given me to 
train, and that was that." 
    He closed his eyes and took a very long, steady breath. "A mere 
amazon would be given a hole in the ground, or a barrow if they were 
especially heroic, but an elder got more special treatment. There were 
hundreds of warriors nearly as good as me in the village, and the 
elders had a special power for spotting people in spite of stealth 
techniques when they really wanted to. My escape attempt failed, and I 
got trussed up and tossed in a ceremonial burial cave with Fang's body, 
along with the rest of her personal belongings." 
    A small grin returned to him. "Back on Mars the Bear and I often 
held contests where we'd put a cupcake in the middle of a table and 
stare at each other for weeks, waiting for the other to take the first 
bite of it. We had the fasting techniques down pat. Since that gave me 
time I freed myself of the ropes that bound me, but the way out was 
blocked first by a long pit without holds on the sides, the stone that 
capped that, then finally the village on the other side that had 
captured me in the first place. Clever as I was, I could break past any 
two of those obstacles but not the third. I was stuck, so I started 
exploring." 
    He closed his eyes, though not in pain. "I can't exactly tell you 
what happened down there, I don't exactly know. I started reading the 
words carved on the walls using my fingers to touch and trace them. 
There were some martial arts secrets the amazons above had long lost, 
among them a chi ability or two. Since one of those chi powers allowed 
one to create light without immediately having to fire it off or blow 
something up I learned it swiftly. There was also some lore, and quite 
a store of history that the tribes above had forgotten as they never 
went down there anymore save to drop bodies off, then they took their 
ladders and torches with them, never looking back." 
    His face was tight with strain. "I read everything, trying to find 
some way to save my life. I'm fairly certain that I went insane at some 
point, but I also know that I was rescued from the endless tunnels and 
passages that led from off the Caverns of the Elder Dead." Jared took a 
deep breath. "And I'm not sure by who. All I can recall is being 
surprised at waking up at all. But somewhere in all the strain I'd 
regained my memory, including the settings on the dimensional gate from 
when the bug slavers first marched me through. Having woken up in a 
side passage facing light, and eaten the animal who was that cave's 
former resident, I made my way back to the village and used the gate 
they received slaves through to go back the other way." 
    A much more wry and confident smile met the girls. "Oddly enough, 
since I'd used those ancient settings exactly, the gate did it best to 
send me back to them precisely, just after I'd left since time was also 
one of those coordinates. Though I gather most gates do *not* have 
temporal ability." 
    Finally the story was over, and he showed it. "Anyway, from those 
walls I'd obtained precious secrets that had eluded me on Mars or the 
village. Now I have the ability to set up sympathetic vibrations that 
build upon each other and are destructive. It requires touch, but given 
time I can shake virtually any inanimate object to pieces. From other 
techniques I have the discipline that this does not take my absolute 
concentration, and using Distance Death I can shake Tokyo Tower apart 
with a phone call. Though when the object is large enough it takes 
awhile. Plus, I forgot the Dark Kingdom can heal their tools and 
things." 
    Now Jared's smile was sheepish. "Actually, since our arrival on 
Rifts and subsequent stomping out most of the evil on Africa, the GM 
asked we all choose new character classes and come up with histories 
explaining them. Since martial arts served me so well before, I went 
through the books and found the best I could find: An Ancient Master. 
Then I selected the styles I wanted and came up with a past explaining 
how I got them. The dice said I was ninety and looked twenty, and the 
rest is all history." A smirk. "Including plentiful ready-made reason 
why this character chose not to stick around a place where he'd spent 
all those years.  But this pilot I now am did become *quite* the 
martial artist!" 
    The redhaired boy laughed. "Next time I come up with a character 
history I'll have to make it less dark, though. I never thought I'd 
wind up living them! I just think I'll not watch any Sinbad movies 
beforehand, that ought to help. It's where I got the buried alive 
excuse and applied it to amazons because I wanted to learn their War 
Arts. Actually, it turned out funny because in researching the martial 
arts rules I made some observations to the GM about a few correlations 
and his reply was that I *wouldn't* get to put down Ancient Master on 
my character sheet. That my pilot had become an Enlightened Immortal 
instead." 
    "Well THAT'S a relief! I was beginning to feel quite ashamed at the 
conduct of my fellow amazons, however many worlds removed." Said a 
voice over their heads. "Before you go on, however, could you let us 
down?" 
    "Shampoo want down too." 

    "Admittedly, I had not expected you to rebuild the aura shields." 
The Knight of Duty reasoned, floating beside Serenity above the Earth. 
    She turned to face him with a bright smile. "Only the Earth has the 
population for such a shield to be self-sustaining for now. But its 
presence here will prevent them from firing that awful weapon at 
anything outside the Earth's own atmosphere." 
    Nebula nodded. "Leaving them with the choice of whether to destroy 
themselves or nothing at all. Clever, but if they have the power to 
energize a sacrifice cannon they can just as easily employ many of the 
other tools they used to destroy the Silver Millennium." 
    Serenity's face darkened. She spoke in flat tones. "We may have 
died, Basalt, but we took our own toll on their attacking force. The 
only weapon to serve them at the last was Beryl's Invincible Shadow, 
and that too was destroyed." 
    "How?" The military training of the Knight did not allow any 
partial solutions. He had to know if there were any loose ends 
dangling. It was crucial to the job. 
    The Queen began to look a trifle sheepish. "It was split into seven 
parts and locked into the Imperium Crystal, which shattered and fell to 
Earth." 
    This shocked the Knight. It was on par with saying he felt a little 
queasy and hearing 'the doctor will see you for risky, experimental 
heart surgery now.' 
    Serenity sighed. "I know you disapprove, but my training was in 
governing, not in warfare." A tear escaped down one cheek. "It was when 
silly socialites convinced me to stop listening to those we *did* train 
in warfare that our kingdom fell. I'm sorry Basalt." 
    A long pause. 
    "No help for it, now. Finish what you are doing, then on to the 
next task." Nebula gave an anxious look toward the planet. If Beryl 
felt her cause were desperate enough she could reasonably be expected 
to destroy the Earth with her just to deprive her enemies of their 
seeds to rebuild the Moon Kingdom. 
    "All done." Queen Serenity whispered, turning the magical bubble 
that kept them from exposure to deep space around. "Now we'll rebuild 
those planets which we lost." 
    "Sara? Is that wise?" 
    Serenity closed her eyes. There was alot of distrust in those 
words, and all of it was well earned. She sighed with a quaver in her 
voice. "Nebula," she addressed him by title to show her seriousness, 
even though it hurt to do. "It requires thousands of years for a planet 
to build up its energy to be able to support of all the spells required 
to allow our way of life along with the necessary terraforming magic. 
Three of our worlds are about to lose that if I don't repair them 
quickly." 
    The Knight said nothing. 
    That silence was very communicative. Serenity stopped her sphere 
before it had reached the ruins of Mars and its wildly flung twin 
moons. She bowed her head. "I'm not listening again, am I?" She asked 
repentantly. 
    "The battle for the Earth is desperate." He corrected softly. 
    The silver haired queen looked at him. "But there's more, Basalt. 
Isn't there? You just said that part I couldn't possibly disagree 
with." She tore a breath of absolute sorrow. "Did I hurt you that 
badly?" 
    Both could see that she had. 
    The Queen stood bowed and motionless. "Very well, Basalt. Tell 
me... Please?" 
    Seeing her stand waiting, the Knight drew together his courage. 
"Serenity, I disagree that this is an emergency. We'll have centuries 
before colonization becomes a problem." 
    Very carefully she argued, trying not to hurt him. "Basalt, 
centuries are not millennia. I have a duty to generations yet unborn, 
more still to Scouts fighting today. Without the mana from their worlds 
their powers will be reduced, perhaps a portion lost forever. I have 
not... forgive me, Serena has not so many defenses she can afford to 
spare a third of her Sailors. If anything the opposite is true." 
    A nod from Nebula. "Very true, but the terraforming magics are 
quite expensive in terms of power. Also very vulnerable, witness what 
happened to our worlds in the past. All a foe had to do was break those 
magics and all our populations were lost, dying to feed our enemies 
their life energy. I do not think I can fully support simply restoring 
that system." 
    She sent him a piercing gaze totally without hostility. "You'd been 
talking with Bennu, hadn't you?" 
    Basalt chuckled less painfully than he might've. "What else were 
two exiled Knights to do?" 
    Serenity's gaze became quite soft and loving. "Never exiled. Out of 
favor only. And what did he say? You know the Knight of Reason never 
did touch a problem without even musing aloud on a solution. If he gave 
you that much detail no doubt he'd thought about it." 
    A nod. "The Earth survived." The Knight said simply. 
    Serenity was not raised a queen merely for breeding, no good ruler 
became one without more effort than relying on genes. She saw his point 
instantly, and cocked her head to consider him. "Explain, dear. I don't 
want to misunderstand." 
    Basalt nodded, feeling himself relax more as perceived danger 
passed. She really was making an effort to treat him kindly once again, 
and he couldn't describe how good it felt. "A planet with the correct 
gravity needs no magic to sustain it at that gravity. If the gravity is 
correct it can be made to sustain an atmosphere by itself, all that it 
lacks is heat. Heat can be provided any number of ways, only some of 
which are magic. Even if our heat came from magic and that were 
dispelled the population could survive for weeks and could be rescued 
instead of dying in seconds. Without spells doing all our terraforming 
we are less vulnerable to begin with and can divert extra energy to 
defense. A planet a fraction the age could have a full moon colony and 
a full power Scout through saved energy." He quoted from Bennu. 
    Serenity's eye's twinkled with merriment. "But an old world would 
still be better, as it could do all that and more. Nor would it work on 
a gas giant. But I believe you, Basalt. The extra power would be nice, 
as we could divert it to no end of useful things. What else did he 
say?" 
    A heartache was forgotten in those words, and he trusted her with a 
revelation that the Pheonix Knight had once told him would be widely 
considered heresy if he ever dared speak it at court. "That it is not 
the age of the planets. The ones most difficult for our mages to 
research ways to make habitable were by natural course the youngest, 
and by nature of those difficulties required more of their innate magic 
just to support inhabitants." 
    Queen Serenity double blinked with a little squeegee noise as she 
thought about something she had never considered. 
    Basalt gave a sigh and produced the simple answer Bennu had 
condensed for him. "With the right gravity to start all other costs are 
trivial." 
    Serenity formed a petite frown which turned into a smile, then a 
light laugh. "I'll tell you what, beloved." She looked around herself. 
"I will follow your advice. Bennu is sure to have left notes on this, 
and we seem to have acquired a great deal of space debris since the 
last sweep was made to clear them. Yet Bennu has been wrong before," 
~in particular when he wrote that embarrassing limerick about me that 
got him out of favor in the first place~ "and I have no wish to risk 
all on his suppositions." 
    "So you will restore the planets right away?" Nebula asked. ~She's 
surely thinking about that limerick of Bennu's to discount his opinion 
right now.~ 
    She nodded. "Would you like to lead an attack on Beryl's sacrifice 
cannon as I do it?" 
    He inhaled and exhaled deeply. "I should do better to stay with 
you. I cannot bring the same power to bear as any Scout, much less you, 
my Queen. I'd serve you better by remaining and speeding your efforts, 
bringing you to the battle earlier." 
    Queen Serenity formed an extremely small and controlled smile at 
Nebula's choice of words. ~Serve, hmm?~ She cast a spell which brought 
old documents out of Bennu's files to hang suspended before her, and 
while examining them gathered energy for a spell. 
    "Basalt, the new Queen will need a court. Do you recall it is your 
*Duty* to produce an heir of your body to inherit your position?" 
    If Basalt had been drinking anything he would've sprayed it across 
Mars. He elected that he *would* go back to the brewing battle, after 
all. 

    Prince Darien walked with confident stride. 
    If this had been the Moon Kingdom he would've mourned the loss and 
failure of his generals. Actually, he HAD mourned them when Beryl 
converted them to her side. Now he felt nothing short of 
accomplishment, their failure meant his gain. 
    It was, sadly, the view of all too many Dark Kingdoms, no matter 
what their names. 
    Today he won a great victory, but it wasn't enough. To rest on that 
victory would be to open himself to reprisal - which was one of those 
reasons why it wasn't so terrible when your competition got themselves 
killed by the opposition. All the fewer to tear you down if ever you 
had a weak moment. 
    With Malachite confined in a healing pod with a few holes blown 
through him, another two generals absent and presumed traitors, with 
Zoicite desperately trying to prove herself useful so Beryl would 
continue to heal Malachite, and no other generals to be seen... 
    It was a grand day to be successful in the Negaverse. 
    Quite a switch from back when those same generals had been Prince 
Darien's loyal bodyguards during the Moon Kingdom. Those men (and in 
Zoicite's case woman) who had played, practiced, studied and ridden 
horseback between the stars from childhood together had indeed fallen 
quite a ways from those happy times. 
    As his armored footsteps resounded in the massive audience chamber 
he chuckled and he assumed the podium looking confidently out over a 
United Nations full session with every member in attendance. A nasty 
smile formed on his face, taking in the dark energy swirling behind all 
of their eyes. 
    "I presume you all know why I've mind controlled you here." 
    "To elect Beryl our Queen!" The united throng shouted. "The Queen 
of all Earth!" The Russian ambassador got up out of his seat to shout 
and call for an immediate vote. "We must serve Queen Beryl!" 
    It was unanimously in favor. 
    Darien leaned smugly into his podium. "Well then, as the first 
motion of the Counsel to Her Majesty Queen Beryl I propose gathering 
all the armies of the Earth to invade and reduce Japan to rubble, as it 
no longer has any unique use to us and is becoming a bastion of Queen 
Beryl's enemies." 
    "Our utter destruction needs to be now!!" Shouted the Japanese 
representative. 
    "Nuke us till we glow!" Added his assistant, vigorously in favor of 
the idea. 
    "That has already been tried, my friends." Darien was struggling 
not to smile too much at their antics. This was so amusing! 
    "Use submarine launches!" 
    "We volunteer chemical weapons!" 
    "Let us add our biological arsenal to the fight!" 
    Darien was doing all he could not to add his laughter to the din in 
the UN chambers. 
    A janitor came in and noticed all the uproar, looking around in 
confusion and scratching his nearly bald head. Then he shrugged and 
began to mop. ~What the hey? They let a known terrorist in to speak 
while carrying a machinegun, why not a guy in a Cylon suit?~ 
    The red glowing eye in Darien's chromed helmet continued to swish 
back and forth.