Skysaber's Choice 

Part Twenty 

by Jared Ornstead 

===== 

In Thanks to those who thanked me for the *last* posting. 

*** 

    Serenity backed off from her creative binge to look at the results. 
    The Knight of Reason had kept notes; research made in every subject 
ever studied. It was unbelievable how many notes he kept. She hadn't 
thought it was possible for one person to think so much, so deeply, on 
so many and varied topics. There were things here that if she'd known 
both her and her empire would've been many *thousands* times more 
prosperous. Easily he could've over tripled the magic available to each 
Scout, and through the other defenses made Scouts almost unnecessary, 
except for the fact that he'd also vastly upgraded their powers. 
    Serenity paused a moment to mourn. 
    She'd been such a fool, banishing this loyal and faithful Knight to 
a lonely tower all on a ridiculous whim, because he'd dared to speak a 
truth she didn't like to hear. Now she was grieving for untold 
trillions dead, a kingdom wasted and her family lost all because of 
stupid pride. 
    Her own stupid pride. 
    Serenity stifled a sniffle. He'd even pointed out to her, once when 
the man was still at court and before she'd banished him, he'd pointed 
out to her that... what was it? Oh yes, "Hubris was a road that led 
only to ruin." That was it. 
    She was standing in testament to that now, deeply aware of a dead 
kingdom in ruin. 
    It wasn't until it had arrived that she'd even seen that ruin 
coming, either for the moon first, or herself later. Such a bitter pill 
to swallow, it was almost more than she could take. Her royal consort 
had changed, as well. The Knight of Duty was cold inside now, nothing 
living. He'd had a heart once, bits of that poked through even now, but 
that was more the memory of what had been. When she was finished here, 
she would try and court him, give him of her love, and see if that kind 
man she'd once known could be revived, or if the Basalt she'd loved so 
dearly was truly dead. 
    In her heart she feared he was, but would try the attempt all the 
same. 
    The soon to be ex-queen shied away from those unhappy thoughts. It 
was not productive, as the Knight of Reason would say. She looked out 
over the solar system from the restored capitol of the moon palace and 
remembered the joy she'd had until unhappy thoughts had just now 
interrupted her. 
    It was still shocking her to think of all the detailed plans and 
devices that... Jared, yes, she would use that name for him (feeling a 
little thrill at the act of doing just a slice of shirking what she'd 
told Basalt was her duty. If he wanted to complain, then she had a 
right to point out all those duties of his own the Nebula Knight was 
shirking). Still, it was *shocking* how much time and talent the 
Pheonix Knight had put into improvements on her kingdom! 
    Queen Serenity consulted a map that now swirled on the roof of the 
chamber above her head. Even so simple a thing was dazzling, and 
useful. How could she have not thought of it before? Not only could it 
be used to overawe audiences brought into her presence (a thing no wise 
ruler ignored), but it was tremendously useful to see just at a glance 
all in real time the current positions of her immense holding. 
    The changes were quite dazzling. 
    Not many of her old court would've recognized the moon kingdom now. 
If presented with maps and asked to identify it, they never would've 
guessed this system was hers, and their own home star. Nor would they 
have taken in easily all the new defense systems. 
    The five innermost planets had all been terraformed according to 
Jared's design. As Queen she drew off a token of energy from all the 
worlds under her rule, and true as Jared's notes had said, in spite of 
all of the power required by the acts of magic required to do this, 
they had yielded such an immense increase in the life energy of those 
worlds that she was now more energized than *before* going into this 
mighty labor. 
    Mercury had had its orbit altered, and was now a safe enough 
distance from the sun that a few alterations to a now highly-reflective 
outer atmosphere and it was as pleasant a place as it was easy to find, 
with no magic required to sustain that. There was also a feature that 
she'd overlooked. The seas of Mercury had already been legend in their 
splendor way back in the kingdom of the moon, but now there was an 
added delight that made Serenity wonder if she could take a few years 
off and vacation there. 
    The outer atmosphere was reflective, like a one way mirror. But his 
change had let that same atmosphere be a giant, overhead reflector of 
the planet's natural beauty as well. One could sit for ages looking up 
at a mirrored sky, seeing one's own landscape superimposed as a ghostly 
mirage over the stars beyond. 
    It was quite honestly the loveliest thing Serenity had ever seen. 
    The lushness of Venus came close. She'd been skeptical at first of 
his idea of giant plants afloat in the sky, but they were delightsome! 
Huge islands of greenery floating about as natural dirigibles, shedding 
curtains of glittery flower petals as rain. Their perfumes and musk 
came as close as anything could to a waterfall of delicious smell, and 
labored on many levels to regenerate the living tissues of her race, as 
easily as human or elf. It would be its own native hospital, an entire 
planet! Not to mention all the feelings of well being and delight that 
would fill each person who visited. Yet those feelings would work to 
bring out the very best in each visitor, rather than cruder methods 
which rendered minds insipid! 
    The gardens of Venus had always been glorious. Gardens on the moon 
had been no better than mere transplants, keeping the best caretakers 
busy trying to avoid spoiling their native beauty with a new 
environment. But if Jared's seedlings took hold, those past memories 
would be but dull shadows of the present and future glory of Venus! 
    Earth was, well, Earth. She hadn't changed that one yet. No need to 
as long as rule of it remained contested, especially not with Beryl 
taking so much as her own. 
    Serenity had seen Jared's fleet building a new planet out of the 
asteroids, and had to smile. It was just like him. Not even death would 
make him forget a plan he'd lavished so much work on! 
    Well, she'd finished those plans for him and dismissed the fleet to 
its next task. They had even been working on a planet capture 
operation! Out in deep space there were many more times as great a 
bounty of earth-sized balls than stars managed to snare in orbits, and 
his fleet had been sucking one in! All on a carefully planned 
trajectory, of course, and in a few years it would have yielded another 
planet for her system. But Serenity hadn't wanted to wait. She'd taken 
the inbound world and deliberately smashed it up against the ball of 
rock he'd been making out of the asteroids, melted them both, mingled 
their essence, and then set them in complimentary orbits, relocated to 
be inside the orbit of Mars, between it and the Earth for ease of 
terraforming. 
    She called them Gemini, the twin worlds. It was all in his plans, 
after all. She'd merely saved them all years and given the two worlds a 
cosmic link by blending their substance. A thing Bennu... err, Jared 
would've done if he'd known how to. He'd even said as much in his 
notes, that this was the better way. It's just that he could never plan 
to have her cooperation and the might of the Silver Imperium Crystal to 
back her. 
    So she'd discarded his lesser plan of just getting a world, to the 
ideal plan of having their power and essence blended. Sadly, he'd never 
written out what he wanted their twin surfaces to look like. But 
Serenity was willing to leave those canvases blank for now, sure he'd 
think of something, and whatever it was would be glorious and wonderful 
beyond what she could think to do. 
    Mars had been an issue. The very rugged bleakness of the place had 
always held its greatest charm, though the natives had maintained for 
centuries that the beauty of their sunsets was well worth the rough 
landscape. 
    Serenity had not expected Jared's change to work so well. 
    The planet had been repaired and was now as all the others were, 
its own natural atmosphere carefully rigged to heat it properly at its 
distance from the sun, normal gravity maintained without magic, lush 
plant life and some water. 
    No, it was the caves that got her. How could anyone imagine 
anything so beautiful without ever having personally seen anything like 
it? She knew Jared had to have come up with all of this in his head, 
there was nothing in the solar system like this before. But what an 
imagination! The colors of the gemstone walls! The light from a 
thousand different directions making each room and cave a fantastically 
different sunset all at once! How could he even have pictured it? The 
surface was now one of ravines and gullies of such intricate majesty 
that Serenity felt herself get the twinge of wanderlust, to just grab a 
backpack full of gear and set off to explore their wonder. And while 
rugged in appearance, were anything but hostile to live and walk in. 
Water ran in many tiny streams, plant life flourished, and the work of 
man could very easily be kept to the high, vacant steppes where flat 
deserts just cried out to be built on! 
    It was a wonderland. One could wander forever over and under that 
enchanting land, never growing tired of it. How one man could picture 
so much inside his head boggled the mind of her Imperial Majesty. 
    One thing was certain, he'd never been idle on that tower when 
she'd banished him. She was beginning to think that her court and she 
suffered far more the loss of him than he'd ever lost by being apart 
from them. How could she have been so blind? 
    Well, there were six inner planets now: Mercury, Venus, Earth, the 
two Geminis and Mars. All had perfect terraforming, except the surface 
of the Geminis was undecided. They all had perfect natural mass, the 
resultant perfect normal gravity, and an atmosphere tailored and 
cultured to bring them exactly enough light and heat, while retaining a 
healthy pressure. It was amazing how easy it was for her to do, 
following his instructions as laid down. 
    His plans hadn't made a mistake nor had they missed a step. He'd 
really thought this all through in that time she'd given by banishing 
him. Serenity was tempted to do it again just to see what he could come 
up with this time, but was afraid for what her court would lose if he 
left it once again. 
    Bringing herself back to present reality, Serenity knew it wasn't 
going to be her choice. The court and all the intrigue and power would 
not be hers. Nor would the position be hers to decide. In a brief while 
she would no longer be queen anymore. 
    It was hard, unlearning a whole life in a moment, or what felt like 
one. 
    She went back to what she was good at, building and ruling a mighty 
empire. There were two outer worlds shattered by Beryl's sacrifice 
cannon that Serenity wanted to check on before she began to work on the 
other outer system planets. 
    There was the new Aura Shield design to think on, also. 

    There was a rule with youma. 
    You couldn't ever use more youma than you could energize and get to 
the battle, any more than a technological nation could use more tanks 
than they could transport and supply. It was all very good to have a 
million tanks, but if you've got no ammo or fuel for them all they are 
is expensive lawn ornaments. It took energy to power youma for battle. 
It took energy to break the seal on the Negaverse wide enough to slip 
some out, and it took energy to keep them there. It required energy to 
run all their illusions, powers and disguises, and more than that, it 
took energy to power a general to oversee and direct them. 
    Yes, deploying fifty youma could make an effective fighting force. 
But the cost to get each one out there could well be compared to 
performing an effective moon landing in the 1950's. LONG before you'd 
got that many out there you'd be trimming off essentials like 
spacesuits and return capability, guaranteeing they'd die, to get the 
costs down somewhere near where you could fantastically overexert 
yourself enough to barely manage it - and with such effort ask 
something close to a 15% chance of success because you've cut so many 
corners. 
    Clearly, it was better to send the few at a time you could more 
reasonably manage. 
    Jedite's Gate was something like a space elevator, to continue the 
analogy. It saved tremendously on the cost to loft each youma out of 
the Negaverse and keep it functioning in the field. It still consumed 
precious energy to fund their operations, just like it had expenses 
keeping *any* army in the field, but energy for that was vastly reduced 
from what it was. It was that savings that enabled that general to send 
out youma energized to Sailor Hunter levels. 
    Energy was something that Beryl had in generous supply, at the 
moment. 
    What they did not have was Jedite's genius. 
    Beryl had amassed a huge stockpile of stolen energy. However there 
was very little income of energy for the Dark Kingdom because so many 
sources had been lost or destroyed. The Pheonix Mage had personally 
destroyed the majority of their permanent gathering arrangements. Venus 
had, herself, interrupted quite a handful, and most of the rest were 
either temporary one-shot deals (like draining all Microsoft customers 
to death) or were invalidated because the situations they were set up 
in had been destabilized by changes - or by people growing smart (or at 
least more wary to this sort of thing). Half a dozen youma in 
parking-attendant guises were still patiently sitting in booths waiting 
to give out energy-draining claim tickets in parking structures no one 
ever visited anymore. There was a youma ice-cream vendor gathering dust 
in a shop not even Serena would visit on a half price sale. Another 
thirty or forty were trapped in similarly useless situations. Why? 
Because youma were very simple thinkers on average. An unempowered 
youma was little better than an inflatable, evil doll. Powering up 
their strength and toughness was cheap and easy. It was much more 
difficult, and took a longer time, to give them any brains whatsoever. 
So in all but the rarest circumstance, brains were left at the simplest 
(and cheapest) level. They cost too much to operate and maintain 
otherwise. So, aside from a few experiments, they were all boneheads 
who made Sailor Moon look smart, and consequently required the constant 
attention of a general to direct them with any kind of planning. 
    Beryl compared it to not having the footsoldiers run a campaign, 
that was for officers. However, even she had to admit that she was 
running rather short of officers at the moment. 
    If Jared was required to identify the styles of the four, now 
formerly four, Negaverse generals, he'd have to say that he'd pegged 
them as mage, priest, thief and warrior. Jedite was a thinker. He'd 
never involved himself without support, and he'd come up with four 
times as many schemes as all the other generals put together. Primarily 
they were for gathering energy, yet that was his job as he'd been 
assigned. He did it effectively enough when little girls armed with 
sailor fukus and sheer, blind luck didn't stumble by accident into 
every plot he'd planned - in sufficient numbers to disrupt it. 
    Nephlite was the priest, always trusting to a higher power than his 
(or even Beryl's, which was a dangerous practice in the Negaverse, if 
you think about it) for his direction and to do the real work behind 
his plans. Zoicite was a thief, with trickery, traps, ambushes and 
disguises her choice of fare. Malachite was a warrior, more than 
willing to press forward the fight personally and most able out of all 
the generals to do so. Jedite and Nephlite had, as wizards and priests 
are wont to do, hidden behind the ranks of their followers and minions 
for the majority of their battles, retreating when their servants were 
vanquished - especially if they were facing anything like a fair fight. 
Zoicite relied on trickery and trapped her foes, often using help to 
finish them off - exactly like a thief. But Malachite faced his fights 
himself, rarely relying on minions at all and even seeking out personal 
combat - exactly like the warrior he was. 
    With Jedite's energy gathering operation in shambles, more youma 
out requiring the energy than ever before (even though the gate kept 
those costs down somewhat), meant expenses were up, energy income was 
down, and it was only a matter of time before the supremacy of the Dark 
Kingdom forces failed, or they found another source of energy. That 
time would be fairly short if the Negaverse lost Jedite's Gate. 
    That is because both wizards and priests can make magic items, but 
thieves and warriors do not. If Beryl lost Jedite's Gate neither of her 
remaining generals could replace it. Nor was Beryl herself likely to, 
she just didn't have that kind of style. 

    ***BOOM!!!*** 
    Jared, wearing a 3WA version of a male fighting suit, sleek and 
stylish, flew through a gap where there formerly had been a previously 
seamless wall and split from Yuri's side in perfect formation flying, 
him left, her right, both blazing away at the exposed youma with hand 
held energy weapons capable of making the best Robotechnology look 
sick. 
    Youma perished in droves. 
    This was pretty typical. Anything in contact with the Dirty Pair 
long had a nasty habit of meeting short and violent ends. Even Jared 
couldn't count how many times they'd blown him up. They were always 
very sorry about it and promised to do better, but secretly he thought 
they just liked nursing him. Kei's fetish about giving him a sponge 
bath could almost qualify as a running gag. Not that Kei was here, 
right now. But it was difficult not to think of the pair together as a 
unit. 
    The Sailor Scouts followed at a safe distance behind and were doing 
very well as a mop up crew. The advance pair knocked everything with 
remotely violent tendencies into a recover-from-nonmagical-injury state 
so deep the Scouts behind finished off the weakened monsters with the 
ease of stomping on bugs. So most of their attention was left helping 
the innocent survivors to be cured and escape - which was a full time 
job. 
    Mars had her power come back with a vengeance, and all the inners 
were going at it like they'd been supercharged somehow, even *beyond* 
his considerable magical training given to them in the dream world. The 
last Venus Crescent Beam had penetrated two walls *after* vaporizing 
four full-power Sailor Hunter youma that'd leapt out of hiding, and 
went on to demolish the structural supports of a twisted, black tower 
that had withstood all of Jared's siege magics in the battle before. 
    The Inners were tossing about their attacks like they were an 
all-girl artillery strike, and even the two outers who'd lost most of 
their energy were recovering handily. That, and the fact that they were 
now a walking, magical bombard squadron able to deal out considerable 
fire support when needed made this operation something of a cake-walk. 
    They were also royally upset by some of the things they'd found in 
this fortress. 
    Someone had restarted Jedite's old energy banking scheme by 
securing innocent civilians in life energy draining tubes. Sailors Moon 
and Saturn were doing all they could just handling the traffic of folks 
needing to be rescued. 
    Yuri came to pose holding her blaster elevated. "Jared! I think 
we've found their gate or whatever it is! Do we go in?" 
    He gave a snap decision. "Yes! Let's do some damage in there." 
~Hmm. To sneak in or to use saturation fusion bombs as a "door 
knocking" exercise. Decisions decisions.~ 
    Venus appeared beside Jared and turned to motion to the Scouts. 
"Outer Scouts, you've got the duty for covering our retreat. Moon, stay 
here to continue with the hostage rescue. Inners, we're going in. The 
Outers will blow the Gate behind us. Let's snip grass and bake some 
grains!" 

    Zoicite was screaming shrilly. 
    A thousand years ago, in the sifting ash of a ruined moon, a time 
traveling mage had raised a fallen queen and one of the consequences of 
his then fractured and wild magic was to bring a transdimensional space 
cruiser crashing onto the mountains of ash. As the ship still had a 
vast majority of its techno-systems intact, he'd elected to stay there 
for a time, taking advantage of the life support while working on 
straightening out his spells. Queen Serenity had come visiting, and had 
fallen afoul of the ship's still intact cargo of automated drones. 
    The drones in the Robotech vessel had followed a simple directive. 
The original crew of giants had been killed in the battles that had 
accompanied the mighty chase the ship had been on throughout space. The 
active repair drones had seen fit to obtain new genetic material from 
which to clone a replacement crew. 
    Queen Serenity had been killed in their harvest attempt. 
    Jared had used a reincarnate spell to bring her back. 
    Reincarnate spells leave the original body behind. 
    That body, badly mashed though it was, still contained fresh 
genetic material for the drones to clean up off the floor and use to 
charge their cloning chamber. As the genetic code was female, the 
cruiser's computer simply compensated, reconfiguring itself and 
rearming along lines appropriate for the female crewed ships of the 
sharply gender-divided fleet. 
    Though he did not recognize it, that cruiser was known to Jared. 
    The reasons he didn't identify it were straightforward. The times 
he'd seen it before it had been through events which had damaged it 
much more severely, and lack of that and the very altered way it was 
rebuilt made it practically unrecognizable to anyone who knew it the 
other way. 
    In truth, in one of his pasts he'd spent more than a decade of a 
previous youth living on or around the giant spacecraft during the time 
his Robotech scientist mother assisted in directing the repairs. It was 
the Super Dimensional Fortress One, the original Macross 
Battlefortress. 
    And being less damaged it held considerably more in the way of 
surprises. 
    Full troop compliment had meant the ship's automatic systems had 
cloned dear-old Queen Serenity about two hundred and fifty thousand 
times. And about fifty thousand of those now-giant clones were 
advancing on Zoicite's position armed in the best powersuits that 
Robotechnology had ever devised. 
    Zoicite had seen her first fifty-foot Serenity when a youma blasted 
open the visor of one among the first wave of attacking powerarmors, 
and was now screaming her head off in sheer, blind, terror as waves of 
Serenities came down upon her and the Silver Moon sense became simply 
overpowering. The general was still immobile as masses of particle 
beams and missiles hit, shattering the black volcanic glass of her 
tower with every hit. 

    Saturation fusion bombs were his entry of choice. 
    As Jedite's fort's crumbling ruins were swept beneath the waves, 
his gate and all the equipment there destroyed, the bodies of youma 
crumbling to dust and the Outer Scouts fleeing from the devastation on 
a magic cloud with their rescued prisoners, the Inner Scouts had 
already entered the cooling craters of the negative universe entryway 
and were indeed snipping grass and baking grains. 
    The wheat youma were less than efficient at gathering energy from 
farmers, now that big combine machines did most of the harvesting, so 
Beryl let them guard some doors. 
    There had also been traps in the negative universe, but they'd 
fallen under the sheer weight of battle magic being thrown about. Then 
again, traps depend upon surprise, and a useful secondary ability of 
Jared's kept hauling him and his scout friends out of the brink of 
falling in by continuously warning him in time. 
    The Doom and Gloom girls, insectoid youma who'd destroyed all but 
one of the Scouts in their attack on the Negaverse in the end of the 
first season of anime, attacked. But Jared was well aware of their 
power, had his Scouts stay focused, coordinate teamwork, and finish 
these youma off from a distance so their self-destruct explosions 
wouldn't kill or hurt the girls. In short, he'd had them learn from 
their mistakes in the series. 
    Then the seven shadow warriors landed in front of them. 
    **BOOM!!** 
    A quick blast from a 3WA bazooka caught the giant lion-like one of 
them, casting it away from the group before they could combine into the 
Invincible shadow. "Sailor Moon!" Jared shouted, dodging several return 
blasts and switching to his Pheonix Mage suit and armor with a thought. 
"Attack Plan Delta!!" 
    "Right!!" His Inner Scouts shouted. 
    Moon fell back behind Venus and Mars, hiding behind the covering 
fire of their attacks (Venus to pick out a lead Shadow and shoot it - 
breaking their advance, and Mars to light up the fires within her, 
spraying the general area with flames as a suppression field able to 
ward off their attacks for a split second). Sailor Moon wound up for 
her attack even as the pair of Jupiter and Mercury were paralyzing and 
freezing her their choice of target - the one among the shadows wearing 
a monocle and strapless, black bodysuit, bald except for a red and 
yellow ponytail. 
    The shadow youma *caught* Jupiter's lighting attack in a scientific 
flask, but then the follow-up of Mercury's Ice Freeze hit it and not 
only immobilized the youma, but shattered the flask, releasing 
Jupiter's lightning to electrify it anyway. Another shadow youma moved 
to free her, this one dressed as a Juraian princess (almost), but a 
Moon Healing Escalation caught them both even as the second moved to 
free the first. 
    Yuri, of the Dirty Pair, stopped playing with the buttons of her 
bulging top (distraction technique, had paralyzed two of the shadow 
youma) and ran through, catching the two girls who had formerly been 
shadow youma, and with a cute "Bye now, see you boys later" wave over 
her shoulder at the drooling youma, got herself and the potential 
victims out of the just as one of the shadow youma noticed that it had 
a bomb lying at its feet. 
    **BOOM!!** 
    Jared kicked the youma he'd been fighting, a six-foot tall one 
covered head to toe in red and silver body armor that turned away the 
brunt of his attacks just in time to avoid the red blaster ray/energy 
whip two-stroke combination it had launched at him. 
    Rae, as Sailor Mars, was laying down a second dosage of covering 
fire for Sailor Moon when she noted a large apelike youma leap over her 
blaze. She reflexively hit it with a backfist, only to have it blocked, 
and soon she embroiled in a martial arts fight for her life against a 
youma that knew at least as much as she - which caused no small 
sweatdrop as she thought that, considering Jay-chan's extensive 
dream-coaching she'd received. 
    Deciding to use a blow from her family school, she began a 
five-stroke combination that would've clobbered the ape's head in had 
it ever been allowed to hit. Trouble was the beast caught her fast in a 
judo-lock before she'd made the third stroke. 
    "R.. r.. Rae??" Mumbled the crazy-eyed, bearded ape face of the 
shadow youma. 
    Sailor Mars almost began crawling out of her skin. "Sailor 
MOOOOON!!?" She cried desperately, struggling against the ape's grip. 
    Sailor Moon switched targets, as Jared'd trained her to do. The 
great, catlike youma that Jupiter and Mercury's attacks had frozen for 
her got switched to a secondary priority as she pivoted on the ball of 
one foot, smoothly turning her pirouette about to strike the beast 
holding Mars close by her side. 
    The healing energy smacked into the pair of them, leaving the 
monster in trembles and Sailor Mars quickly slipping out of its grasp - 
to see the shadow monster turn into her grandfather! 
    Shock took Sailor Mars out of the fight. 
    Venus scored a Crescent Beam on a six foot tall mechanical lizard 
with no neck, and drove it back from its attempted attack upon Jared. 
Jared was at that time already trapped between a human & bird hybrid 
shadow youma and the same red and silver armored one he'd fought before 
(and who had the *annoying* talent of adapting to his fighting 
techniques and pulling out combinations suited to them - like the whole 
thing was a video game. It didn't help that the game machine youma had 
the ability to reform one of his limbs into shapes more suited to 
countering his attacks, and menacing Jared in turn). 
    Mercury hit the frozen lionlike youma again to keep it down, while 
Jupiter dove in and used close combat to take some of the heat off of 
Jared, while Sailor Moon was still winding up for her third strike. The 
bird hybrid took her on, firing boxing gloves off its hands to keep her 
at a distance, trying to drive her back into the embrace of the 
mechanical lizard. 
    Sailor Moon shot off her third attack, taking out the shadow youma 
that'd been giving Jared so much trouble (and that, by now, had learned 
to counter all his moves). The youma trembled and fell, transforming 
back into an ordinary man. It worked, but Jay-chan vanished, pulled 
away by a hostile teleport. 
    That was when the cage of ice surrounding the lionlike shadow youma 
disintegrated, and Malachite appeared on the scene. He was surrounded 
by hordes of Sailor Hunter youma, who only appeared to get energized to 
even higher levels as they appeared, to where they now rivaled the 
Scout's new forms. 
    "Fast Break!" Jupiter shouted. 
    Sailor Moon disappeared in a fast teleport. Venus grabbed Jupiter 
and between them got Yuri and her two charges, vanishing back to 
safety. Mars grabbed her grandfather and had enough presence of mind to 
let the last boy trail along as she did her own teleport - this time 
back to her shrine. 
    Mercury ducked behind the bulk of the mechanical shadow lizard and 
ran, feeling the anti-teleport wards fall into place around her and 
knowing she'd been too late. Her fascination with and curiosity toward 
the youma energizing process had given her a delay in escaping that 
might well prove fatal. 

    Jared appeared in an elaborate system of glowing lines and force 
fields that reminded him of a paranoid, expanded version of the 
restraining system used to imprison captured Jedi Knights. 
    Looking beyond his floating prison, he saw the throne room of Queen 
Beryl. It was hard to make out details beyond the colored planes of 
force holding him still and upright, but he could make out a shabbily 
dressed man standing a pace from Beryl, and he could easily hear their 
words. 
    "And so you see, Queen Beryl, that book gives you the ability to 
adjust reality merely by saying the words. Your enemy is here and 
helpless and all you had to do was say it. Your victory is merely a 
matter of your stating it." 
    "Yes," the dark queen agreed. "This sample is *most* satisfactory. 
I'll pay your price!" 
    The queen gestured, and the man held out his hands accepting a dark 
metal tablet about the size of a cracker or wafer. It was probably 
inscribed with writing, but Jared couldn't see that clearly. The man 
then turned to face the imprisoned Pheonix Mage. "Don't take it so 
badly, boy. I couldn't just let successful customers run around making 
everyone know how badly my store had bungled. It's bad for business. No 
one's gotten the best of me yet and a punk like you sure wasn't going 
to start. I have to retain my rep. You are the last of the mistakes my 
temporary staff caused on my vacation. It's taken me a week to track 
down and deal with all of them personally, but I must admit it's been 
very satisfying. All fun must end, though. And here does yours." He 
held up the chit given to him by Beryl and laughed, an ugly sound, mean 
and hurtful as it took all it had at the expense of others. "So now 
I'll go and collect the Sailor Scouts I've taken as payment in return 
for the Dungeon Master's Guide I just sold to the mistress of the 
Negaverse!" 
    ~The Spells R Us mage!!~ 
    The Pheonix Mage fought down panic. It wasn't worth anything and 
there wasn't any time for frivolities. He tried a hundred things in the 
space of a second, but discovered the best he could do was speak. He 
did so. 
    "The Scouts are not hers to give. She has no claim on them to 
bestow on you." 
    The SRU mage shook his head, unconcerned. "It doesn't matter. She 
has only to say and they'll be hers. She's won this war, elfling. As 
her prisoners they're hers to do with as she pleases, and she pleased 
to give them to me. At most I'll wait a coupla seconds to take your 
lady friends as my devoted sex-slaves." 
    "Oh, *WILL* you?? That's been tried before, and I don't get any 
sweeter reacting to it as time goes on." Jared threatened. 
    The SRU mage sneered in the way only men totally given over to 
their filthy habits can manage. "You don't matter in the slightest. 
You're already worthless." 
    ~Not if *I* can help it!~ Once his magic senses and discrete 
probing had indeed proved his present prison was perfect, absolutely 
inescapable, specifically purpose built to neutralize him, Jared 
swiftly hatched a plan and switched his remarks to another. 
    "Queen Beryl, as this man has doubtless told you, being a Dungeon 
Master gives you infinite power over everything..." He noticed from her 
rather sharp look directed at him that the SRU mage hadn't told her any 
such thing. "... but has he told you the limits?" 
    "Limits?" The queen proudly mocked, sitting taller in her chair. 
"What kind of limits can there be on infinite power?" 
    "You can't participate." The boy swiftly retorted. "If you are to 
become an infinite, all powerful Dungeon Master with ability to shape 
existence as you will it, you cannot also be a player. Not at the same 
time. If you are to have infinite power in controlling all other things 
you cannot even exist in the world you control. You, yourself, will 
have no power because there is no *you!* You would control everything, 
and own nothing, not even your name. It would be the end of the person 
known as Queen Beryl in this universe." 
    It was hard to see fine movements and detail through the force 
field, but the angry glare she gave the SRU mage was so gross that 
Jared saw it anyway. 
    The Pheonix Mage rushed on. "Besides, were you not just standing 
here as witness to this man gloating over his *never* letting a 
customer go happy? What has he done but sell you something? Aren't you 
now his customer? What will he do to betray *you*?" 
    The SRU mage at that panicked and tried to escape, but Beryl 
clearly wasn't allowing it. She pointed a long fingernail at the 
shabbily dressed man. "You will speak honestly to me and reveal your 
plans." 
    The SRU mage was flinging about hundreds of powerful wards and 
enchantments, but just as clearly was rooted to the spot and unable to 
do a thing she hadn't permitted. He unwillingly cracked open his mouth 
to speak. "The book is trapped. It destroys the user in a hidden 
compulsion for becoming a sex-slave. We have computer programs with the 
same curse. Entire realities have become nothing but submissive, 
overendowed girls we trade among ourselves. The rejects are our 
supper." 
    Queen Beryl rocketed out of her seat in rage. "Blizzard!!" She 
called out to one of Malachite's favorite youma. The creature responded 
to her will by trapped in the already-frantic SRU mage in a solid 
encasing of ice. Queen Beryl then merely had to smile grimly as thirty 
of her best youma surrounded the immobilized spell merchant and drained 
him of all his energy, withering him within the encasing to a withered 
shell, pulling out from him all of the enchantments and contingencies 
that would've ordinarily saved his life - if Beryl herself wasn't 
presently disallowing them all. 
    Within about a minute the former SRU mage was dust and bone, robbed 
of all the magic he'd once worked and stockpiled to save him, cheating 
death in thousands of different ways. 
    It was all Beryl would do to grin, as from the crumpled body 
emerged a wispy ghost, only to be surrounded by blackest demons and his 
soul began screaming as he was carted off by the hellspawn he'd made 
pacts with. "May your torment be truly endless and unbearable." Beryl 
sneered at the corpse of the former SRU mage. 
    The gasping cries of the soul on its way to the abyss increased 
tenfold, before the gate shut, cutting them off. 
    Beryl's furious eyes found the Pheonix Mage, still unsatisfied in 
her rage. 
    Jared took a great breath, steeling himself. He quite calmly said. 
"I refuse to play with you." 
    Beryl took a startled step back as the glowing, multiple layer 
prison securing the other redhead ceased as if flipped by a switch. 
Jared fell to the ground, catching himself in an inexpert but 
serviceable martial arts move learned from Genma, and rolling across 
the ground while he drew his laser pistol from his Standard Light Urban 
Survival Pack. With a single shot he'd destroyed the Dungeon Master's 
Guide out from Beryl's hands. 
    Jared, superspy adventurer, was captured and seized by youma as 
paper sheets flitted down in the room from where he'd ceased to be the 
Pheonix Mage. He calmly shook his head at the redhaired woman sitting 
in something of a surprised stupor on her throne. "Lady Beryl, there is 
no rule that anyone *has* to play under any one Dungeon Master. It is 
entirely voluntary, and abuse of DMing power is the most common way to 
lose players. That book may have *promised* endless power, but in truth 
it was all entirely voluntary. And a Dungeon Master without players is 
powerless." 
    What about the SRU mage? His whole *life* was a lie. You can't just 
stop when you're like that. You forget how to. You won't even try. 
    Unfortunately, his own refusal had cost him all of his Pheonix Mage 
powers. Sadly, refusing to play meant that he, himself, had no more 
powers as a D&D player. It was back to being just who he was, good Ol' 
Skysaber. 
    And VASTLY outgunned for his present environment. 
    That was, unless... The youma were all awaiting orders... Queen 
Beryl was in a near coma from her recent loss of absolute power... one 
of the pages on which he'd written his character settled practically at 
his feet and some threads from what he recalled of the local magic 
rules came bubbling up to his mind, giving Jared some slight hope. 
    He knelt and picked up the fallen sheet. The youma holding him were 
so startled his first action was to kneel that they let him go to do 
it, assuming obviously that he was making obescience to their queen. 
Well, he was so underarmed for present company and their mind control 
so intensely powerful, if this didn't work he might well be doing that 
soon. 
    Kneeling and looking over the character sheet, Jared began to sing. 

"I take some paper in my hand 
and with a pencil draw a man 
the dream of who I'd really, really like to be. 

A man with courage in his brow 
who's licked his doubts and fears somehow 
A warrior of great nobility. 

But who am I? Just a wandering kid 
A cipher on the wall 
not even brave at all 

And where's my dream like his that I would fight for? 
And where's my cause like his that I would die for? 

In his eyes he's not afraid 
Because, you see, he's got it made 
my dream of what I'd really, really like to be. 

A brave and noble, fiery youth 
who's not afraid to die for truth. 
He's tall and straight, but best of all he's free. 

But still the paper's in my hand 
and every day I sketch the man 
who knows truth, and what life's all about! 

My conscience says I should be him. 
Show me how, and I'll begin. 
Then chances are, I'll probably find out." 

    The paper in his hand burst into a quiet ball of flame that did not 
hurt his hand at all. Somehow knowing what to do, the youth applied 
that ball of flame to his hair, suddenly beginning the transformation 
of all his lives. 
    He suddenly recalled them all. 
    This was a world in which Silver Millennial rules held sway. That 
included a massive spell in the far gone past that certain crucial 
people would eventually recall who they were, and while he'd come about 
it from strange means, Jared *HAD*, for some time, been the Pheonix 
Mage. 
    It was a desperate hope and gamble. 
    It also paid off better than he could've hoped for. 
    He was on this mission because the SRU mage's shop had trapped him 
while he was on a short vacation, and while it had quickly borne every 
sign of being an assignment, it had never been officially sanctioned, 
nor bound by any of the official Agency rules. Jared had been *many* 
things in his short career as an interdimensional superspy adventurer, 
and as each assignment wound to a close each of those power sets had 
left him. 
    The keys went back in the ignitions, turning back on each and every 
one of those power sets, the time he was retro-cloned into Washu's son, 
his work at the 3WA... all of it. His robes and pearl armor swirled 
once again around him as the Pheonix Mage was reborn in the courts of 
Queen Beryl, with *all* his strengths and powers from a half dozen 
timelines on line and useful to him. 
    It also used up every scrap of Queen Serenity's remaining spell 
from long ago to do it. But this time he was no longer a D&D character. 
he didn't know what he was, but the Pheonix Mage was really him now, 
and no longer dependent on any spell or magic item to remain that way. 
Nor would he be vulnerable to the SRU mage's tricks ever again. That 
trick relied upon something he no longer was. That just wasn't the way 
he worked anymore. 
    Once more, he was whole. All of him, every bit integrated with 
every other. A genius of near-Washu power, Ryoko's super abilities, 
Ranma's same training instructor, mecha pilots of many different types 
and a hero any way you wanted to measure him. 
    Queen Beryl just looked up from her throne as she heard his 
words... 
    "DRAGON SLAVE!!!" 

    Mercury ran. 
    She wasn't even sure *where* she ran, just that distance was a 
priority. The anti-teleport blocks Jay-chan was familiar with, and 
therefore had taught them about, were all limited in the physical range 
they covered. If she could just cover enough *distance* she could... 
    There appeared before her a man in menacing black attire, holding a 
sword casually in one hand. Mercury looked behind her, at the ranks of 
approaching white gargoyle youma, then back at the man. 
    She slipped into a ready stance. "Okay, but before we fight, can 
you please tell me why it is you are dressed up as Darth Vader?" 

    As powerful as he was, the Pheonix Mage was *not* the equal to the 
entire Moon Kingdom. And Queen Beryl had once *destroyed* the Moon 
Kingdom when she'd had less energy on hand than she did now. 
    She ripped apart his Prismatic Sphere with a rippling sheet of 
black lightning. She destroyed an Anti-Magic Shell by literally 
crushing it with blackness. Finally his Globe of Invulnerability was 
lost so fast it might as well not have had the 'IN' part in it. 
    His own attacks were rebuffed so powerfully he might as well have 
been using the Nerf versions. 
    Finally trying desperately to escape the transport-proof room (to 
any but Negaverse powered spellcasters), he ran, down to his last few 
hit points, phasing through obstacles, until he hit a trap she'd had 
the forethought to place over the only mortal-accessible exit. The trap 
went off, flinging the Pheonix Mage far away from the wall to slide and 
skid to a stop, entrapped in magical webbing, right at the feet of the 
standing queen. 
    "Now DIE!" She held up a black icicle bolt to strike at the man 
lying literally between her feet. 
    "Hold on! Queen Beryl, aren't those Sailor Team panties you're 
wearing?" Jared desperately interrupted, his face obscured by the 
trailing edge of her dress. 
    The queen of the Negaverse smiled, showing fangs. "Why yes. They're 
the Sailor Mercury set. I'm wearing them in order of the Scouts 
appearance and I just wore the Sailor Venus pair yesterday." 
    "They're quite flattering." He said from his place between her 
ankles. 
    Beryl blushed, dispersing the black icicle bolt to lift up the hem 
of her dress so she could see the mage's face. "Do you think so?" 
    He nodded, as it was the largest action his bound form could do. 
His face and voice dripped sincerity as he carefully considered her 
panties in the now greater light available to view them. "Why yes. But 
they weren't marketed for very long. How did you get a set? They've got 
to be among the rarest of Sailor Team collectibles." 
    The Dark Queen smiled, a victory smile full of meanness. "I have 
the most complete selection of Sailor collectibles *anywhere!*" 
    Jared feigned astonishment, still unable to move, not even able to 
phase properly. "No! You mean you have the *full* selection of team 
panties?" 
    Beryl smiled triumphantly, nodding. "Not only that, I have the bras 
and garter belts to go with them as well." 
    "I don't believe it." The male redhead countered, without heat, 
almost taunting. 
    "See?" Queen Beryl lifted the hem of her skirt until the garter 
belt was indeed visible around her waist. She then let slip one of the 
straps on her gown to let the matching bra be seen from his angle. 
    "Very, very impressive." He nodded. "And they fit you so well. But 
I have always understood that the fuku was the *most* important part of 
their uniform. Hardly anyone ever sees their panties. Do you happen to 
have...?" 
    "Hold on!" Queen Beryl dropped her gown and shucked the other 
strap, letting it fall off her to pool at her feet, making an 
interesting circle around Jared's face while the partially undressed 
queen vanished around the back of her throne. She came back in moments 
with a costume rack hung with every Sailor outfit yet seen. She posed 
proudly in her underwear. "Well," she asked, eyes alight and hands on 
panty-clad hips. "Which one should I put on?" 
    He considered gravely, frowning in seriousness while waiting for 
his team to save him. "Hmm, I'd have to say that the Mercury costume 
would go best with your present underwear." 
    "Ohohohohoho!!!" Queen Beryl laughed into her hand, the sound 
somehow less menacing and evil than usual for her. "But you have to 
know that their costume is too tight for wearing anything underneath!" 
    "Yes, I do." The boy glanced away, blushing softly. 
    "So which fuku shall it be?" Beryl asked, some of her old meanness 
creeping back into her face and voice. She disliked being kept waiting. 
    "The Sailor V one. After all, we might as well start with the 
first!" 
    "Agreed!" Beryl reached for the costume. A pair of Sailor Mercury 
panties fell on his face, obscuring his eyes. Moments later that bit of 
cloth was removed and Beryl stood over him, judging his reaction to her 
costume carefully with her eyes. 
    Jared was impressed. Apart from some parts being made of cheap 
plastic, the whole ensemble was correct from Sailor V's first 
appearance. "Wow! You've even got the accessories!" He said in genuine 
cosplay delight. "Where did you get them all?" 
    "Oh, this was easy!" Beryl countered. "The whole costume has been 
on sale for almost a year now, and they came out with adult sizes the 
first Halloween!" 
    "No kidding? I wasn't here then." 
    "Here, let me show you my laser compact." She took out an expensive 
version of the more common cheap plastic replicas. "It's got a laser 
pointer built in and a two-way radio included! This is the super-rare 
Nega-Con version." She posed as if accepting praise. "The whole event 
was hosted by myself in Kyoto." 
    "No kidding? That's *great!* What's your schedule like? When's it 
going to be this year?" He pressed her without any faking this time at 
all. "Do you have any events planned yet?" 
    Queen Beryl stood thinking long and hard about it. "Well..." 
    "Yes? Go on." He smiled eagerly, in unfeigned interest now. 
    She began playing with the compact, sitting back down on her throne 
and looking anywhere but at him. "The crowning event that any Con 
organizer could hope to arrange would be to have the stars themselves. 
But that doesn't work. I've got to kill them all." 
    "Why is that?" He blinked up at her in innocence. 
    "Well, they are standing in the way of my total domination and 
power, of course." 
    "Who says?" He shrugged, still immobilized. "I mean, they'd rather 
not have the whole solar system turned to ruin, but that's your goal 
too. What would you even use the power for, anyway?" 
    Queen Beryl looked up from her sulking. "Hmm? Now? Well, mostly 
holding cons, and seeing the right series are continued, and granting 
gifts to certain artists, and making *sure* I had all the merchandise I 
wanted. I find all the rest of it pretty boring, now. But it's all got 
to be done. I wish I weren't running out of generals, though." 
    A light came on above Jared's still head. He turned on the charm. 
"Really?" 
    "Yes, really." She went back to moping. 
    He screwed up his face, as if thinking. "So what you'd *really* 
want is someone to take over all the dry, boring tasks you don't want. 
All the terraforming, governing, settling disputes and waging wars and 
like that while you focused on the important parts, right?" 
    She scowled down at him. "I would never trust a general that much." 
    "I know." He went on, unconcerned, studying the ceiling. "But I was 
just thinking how you could sneak one past Serenity, making *her* do 
all the boring tasks and think she's won, while *you* got to do all the 
fun parts. It would be hilarious revenge to get everything you wanted 
and stick her with the bad parts, wouldn't it?" 
    Honest surprise struck Beryl's features as she thought about the 
idea. 
    Jared was back to considering the thoughtful queen. "More than 
that, the best part is you'd have so much free time that you could do 
*way* better than collect all the available merchandise. You could be 
helping design the new ones." 
    Beryl lifted her chin off her hands. "You think so?" 
    He gave a firm and happy nod. "I'm sure so." 
    She thought about it, then sat up, shucking the Sailor V blouse and 
beginning to change out of her costume. She paused with her hands at 
the clasp of the skirt. "But that would be kind of like losing. I don't 
like losing." 
    "No, of course you don't. But the pretty part of the whole plan is 
they *think* they win and you secretly get everything you want." 
    Stripped to the waist, the dark queen sat on her heels to bring her 
face closer to look down into his. "But you're on their side. You would 
tell them." 
    Jared tried hard to control his eyes. Her breasts were less than an 
inch from his face and she was a natural redhead. He found himself 
staring as his vulnerability to redheads got him. "Uhmm..." 
    She noticed where his eyes were and smiled, suddenly rediscovering 
the standard rule for female power. She shifted her legs somewhat wider 
and reached down to slide the white bikini bottoms off her flanks and 
out from under her skirt. 
    Jared was staring, not saying anything. 
    She inched closer, studying his paralyzed face and saying. "You 
know, I'm *sure* if the grand and trusted Pheonix Mage were to invite 
in his little friends, they would come." 
    Where *was* his team, anyway? 
    He sweated. 
    She changed the way she was sitting, allowing the man a more direct 
view within the folds. "If someone were to do something like that, I 
could reward him." Beryl set one of her knees down on the floor by his 
face and sat up straighter, lifting her arms to foof her hair and put 
her whole body on display. "I would be *endlessly* grateful." 
    Jared looked away, face hardening. He'd had a *number* of pleasant 
dreams and a host of girlfriends, yet no wives officially in the real 
world yet. That placed him in a tad of an uncomfortable situation as he 
was exposed to all manner of temptations and no satisfaction. It was 
leaving him more vulnerable than he liked to be. It had to be fixed. 
    "Queen Beryl, do you want to be allies?" 
    "YES!!" She pounced on him, releasing him from the webs that held 
him and putting her face an inch from his, her body lying atop his. 
    He looked back at her, smiling. He moved his arms up to embrace 
her. "Then we've got to make sure the Sailor Scouts don't suspect a 
thing, don't we?" 
    She nodded, smiling so far her fangs showed. 
    At last total victory would be hers! With the Pheonix Mage as an 
ally, obviously he meant as her general, then.... She was a little 
puzzled by his next words, as he released a gathered surge of energy 
upon her in a Silver Millennium spell. 
    "Purge Dark Energy!!" 

    The ranks of powerarmors had hit, and been repulsed. 
    The youma forces were simply immune to nonmagical weapons, even 
advanced particle beams and plasma missiles. The tower had been 
destroyed several time, but each time the energy had been drawn in to 
replace it. While the Queen Serenity clones driving the massive, 
Robotech powerarmors were all thick with the Silver Millennium power, 
this did not translate any of the magical force to their technological 
weapons, and Zoicite was frantically drawing power from the Negaverse 
to fire force bolts, repair the tower, and defend herself. 
    The attackers were repulsed, attacked, repulsed again. 
    Grey and Nuku Nuku were having the same problem. There *weren't* 
any youma swift enough to hurt the catgirl. But Grey's Manhunter body 
was torn up, raked by claw marks, and he'd lost his laser rod. He was 
down to a few built-in weapons and the railgun - with which he'd been 
trying to get in close enough to take out Zoicite. A sniper shot here 
could end the battle and go a *long* way toward winning the war. 
    A ghostly knight, dressed in combat fatigues appeared next to the 
duo. Looking them both over, the knight explained. "As you are not 
presently able to bear my presence within you, I shall fight this 
battle at your side." 
    "Who are you?" Grey croaked, loudspeakers damaged. (He tried to 
ignore the "WAI! WAI! Nuku Nuku have another friend!" happening at his 
side.) 
    The knight only sighed. "A phantom, a memory of what has been. 
Nothing more." Then the ghostly figure turned and whipped out two chess 
pieces, flinging them with deadly force to strike and shatter on two 
nearby youma closing in, preparing to counterattack. The two struck 
perished, but not before the chess pieces to hit them were identified 
as a knight and a pawn. The ghost explained. "A bullet weighing a few 
grams and traveling close to the speed of sound can kill a man. Your 
railgun fires bolts weighing significantly more at a fraction of that 
speed and can kill tanks. My chess pieces weigh close to a pound and 
travel several times the speed of sound, but Zoicite has defenses 
against them. I will guard you while you make your sniper attack upon 
her." 
    Grey moved his body forward, uncomplaining, unflinching, but 
knowing that this was probably going to hurt anyway. back over his 
shoulder, a light appeared next to the place where the Robotech 
powerarmors had gone to ground. 

    They renewed the attack. 
    Zoicite's forces were calm, waiting to meet them. Zoicite herself 
was beginning to calm down somewhat. Then the next assault wave hit and 
her Youma started perishing in droves. 
    Then she saw the reason why and started screaming again. 
    Queen Serenity, Silver Imperium Crystal blazing with silvery-white 
light, was floating along with the assault force, little tendrils of 
her power reaching out to all her clones acting as powerarmor troops, 
enabling them to use some portion of their innate energy and causing a 
whole new equation in the fight for Tokyo.