"Speaking as a person of Jewish lineage, I respectfully disagree."
Ken "Snake" Yakata

Black Dragon Productions presents...
A Guardian sequel/spinoff...
Which also happens to be a Sailor Moon crossover...

All characters not created by me don't belong to me. Like, duh.
Knowledge of Guardian is required for full enjoyment of this fanfic. An unstable mind fueled by black rage and madness is NOT required, but recommended nonetheless.
Notes: Story may contain references to stuff in Guardian that haven't happened yet. To answer any and all inquiries to this effect, YES, that stuff will eventually happen.
Other note: Because people would NOT SHUT UP about me leaving Hotaru alone for a little while, this installment will mostly focus on her. Are you happy now?
Other Notes: Sounds, computer readouts, 'thoughts', (side comments)

Millennium
Chapter 13
Ghosts of Plot Lines Past
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Hotaru squeezed her eyes shut tight as she sat with her legs crossed on the floor, a small vein of magma pouring down a section of the wall and into a spout in the floor to provide the room with heat and light.

As difficult as she found some of the physical feats demanded by her training, the meditations were by far the worst part of Nal'Shek's regimen.

Not because they were particularly taxing or unpleasant, but just because she personally found it impossible.

She had no idea why, but every time she performed any of the exercises the ancient Sith spirit proposed, rather than her mind clearing and becoming at ease, her mind became hectic and panicked instead.

Images that she recalled from the back of her mind came to the fore, demanding urgency. Pictures in her head of Sailor Moon, Haruka, Michiru, and even Ranma would surface, becoming sharper and more distinct the more she tried to focus her mind. And even deeper were less coherent images that threatened to bubble to the surface the moment she was without distraction: scorched worlds, continents shattering apart, ramparts crumbling, and the Giants winning the world series all teased her with momentary glimpses and shaky silhouettes stamped onto the back of her consciousness.

The ideas were even harder to deal with. Bizarre, dark thoughts fluttered about in her head as fast as she could banish them. She could feel it happening even now, actually. As she let go of the haze of perception that occupied her mind and released that crucial tether to the world around her, voices began to speak; some of them hers, some of them belonging to others important to her, and a precious few that were strange, unfamiliar, and desperately frightening.

She got the distinct feeling, when she dipped a metaphorical toe into that startling realm where she was supposed to feel nothing, that she didn't belong where she was. Not in the greater sense, as if she didn't belong on Earth, but rather that she didn't belong with the ancient Sith spirit, that she had important duties she was neglecting, and that the art she was being taught was... wrong. How or why it was wrong was impossible to say; such ideas were drowned in hysteria and fear that were only partially her own.

Those voices weren't so bad. As panicked and frantic as they felt, such ideas seemed grounded in reason and sense, albeit reason and sense that somehow escaped her waking mind.

It was the other thoughts, the other... things... that spoke to her that confused and terrified her. To clear her mind in meditation and bring herself closer to the Force, the power that Nal'Shek sought to teach her was less like immersing oneself in a calm pond - as her undead mentor described it - and more akin to being tossed into a stormy ocean. The sheer amount of power that surrounded and pressed her mind to its limits were almost more than she could bear.

But that was hardly the worst part. Trying to personally control a power far beyond any human's wildest comprehension was nothing new to Hotaru Tomoe.

No. The worst part was... there were sharks in that stormy ocean.

Predators that almost seemed to be of the Force itself, malevolent and intelligent beasts that sought her out within the vast sea of pure energy and boiling thought.

Some merely attacked viciously, startling her out of her meditations as if she had awoken from a nightmare. Others stalked her endlessly, their presence constantly on the edge of her stunted and unfamiliar senses. And some... spoke to her. They talked about things, sometimes as if seeking conversation, and other times as if they were trying to bully or tempt her. Hateful curses mixed with alluring promises swam desperately among the noise of her mental "calm", the particular words always fading away if she ever tried to recall them or formulate a reply. If she could formulate a reply. Nal'Shek's instruction on meditating a connection with the Force had made no mention of what to do about strange voices in your head.

She hated the voices. She hated them almost as much as they seemed to hate her. Always following her and interrupting her meditations and sending the occasional image of her maggot-bloated corpse laying atop a pile of festering bodies. It was almost enough to make her want to scream! No, it was much worse than that. It made her want to take their puny, insubstantial non-bodies and-

Sssssrrrreek! The sound of tearing metal brought her consciousness crashing back to Earth, and Hotaru gasped as she fell flat onto her back, sweat covering her entire body.


"Control! Control! You must learn control!" chided Nal'Shek from where the Force ghost overlooked his pupil.

As Hotaru panted for breath, her eyes were drawn across the room toward one of the many metal supports that spanned the height of the cavern. The beam had been twisted like a plastic straw, the middle of it pinched and then bent into a corkscrew shape.

"Did... Did I do that?" Hotaru asked between heavy breaths, her eyes wide.

"Oh, yes. A shame you didn't do it on purpose," the ancient spirit mused, his eyes glowing faintly as he floated over next to the twisted metals. "Remember this, pupil: the Force is a powerful force when controlled, a power beyond any other that heightens one's senses and body and can turn the merest gesture into a lethal attack," Nal'Shek warned, "but it is not truly your ally. The Force... thinks... yet it is not comprehensible to us. It can be controlled, but it also seeks to control us. If your grip on your power slackens..." the ghost's eyes dimmed uncertainly. "At best, you may lose your concentration. At worst, you would be torn asunder by your own power."

Hotaru digested that information as she scrubbed the sweat out of her eyes. "Well... that still makes it way less dangerous than my LAST barely controllable power. Tearing myself apart is bad, but not as bad as destroying an entire planet."

The Sith snorted disdainfully. "The ability to destroy a planet is INSIGNIFICANT compared to the power of the Force."

Hotaru blinked in surprise, taken aback as she stared up at the ancient spirit. "Really?"

"No, not really. That's just something we say," Nal'Shek admitted, shrugging his insubstantial shoulders. "I mean, don't get me wrong, the Force is great, but destroying planets is significant by any scale."

After a few moments of awkward silence, the spirit moved closer to his charge, a bemused expression on his shimmering face. "Hotaru, you seem... troubled. It concerns me that the meditations are so difficult for you."

The young apprentice scowled uncharacteristically as she lowered her head. "It's those... those THINGS! Whenever I go into deep meditation, they're always there, just... waiting for me." She shuddered weakly. "You're sure you don't know anything about them?"

Nal'Shek was silent, his empty, soft blue eyes staring at the girl below him. "It's... hard to say. The Force is the source of our power, the center of our existence, and yet we know so little about it. I can say with some certainty that the Force seemed... troubled is the word I would have to use... long ago before I died, when I first came to this edge of the galaxy. As I said, my ability to perceive and affect that plane of being is diminished so long as I remain in this state. That's the most likely reason that I've never sensed anything like you've described."

Hotaru blinked repeatedly.

"The Force is alive, yet not living. It has no will, and yet sometimes appears to act or make decisions. What you encountered could have been other Force-sensitive individuals or even beasts scrying that particular realm of thought, deep in their own meditations, or it could have been something... more."

Hotaru waited for the specter to trail off, and then spoke curiously. "You said... 'so long as I remain in this state'? You mean you can come back to life?"

Nal'Shek almost seemed to jump at the question, startled. "What? No, no. I cannot come back to life."

He shook his head. "The relationship between the Force and the flesh is tenuous and uncertain. Even with all my power, constructing a human body, with all its complexities and biological wonders, is a job for the more precise, deliberate realm of science, not the arcane rituals of the Sith."

The former Senshi of Saturn nodded slowly, wondering to herself if he was truly implying that the science of his home world could have created a human body from scratch.

"But back to our previous topic," the ghostly master said, lowering himself fully to the floor. "In order to deal with these... 'Force predators', I'll need to observe them for myself."

Hotaru cocked her head to one side. "But you just said that you couldn't."

"That's correct. But YOU can, obviously," Nal'Shek drawled, his translucent lips quirking into a smile. "I'm going to attempt to become one with you, Hotaru. For the extent of our union, I will be able to perceive the Force as it affects and flow through you."

The purple-haired girl jerked back. "Wh-What? You're going to... what?"

The phantom Sith sighed, having somewhat expected her to be revolted by the prospect of possession. "I'll simply be entering you for a short period of time-"

"W-Will I still be a virgin afterward?" Hotaru asked nervously, shrinking back.

It wasn't exactly possible for a ghost to facefault, but Nal'Shek made a good show of trying, plummeting straight into the rocky ground and vanishing from sight.

After a few seconds, he floated up once more, his insubstantial eyebrow twitching in annoyance.

"I can reassure you, the process is not sexual in any way, and you should feel foolish for suggesting such a thing," he snapped.

"Well, I don't think it's all that unreasonable," Hotaru said defensively as she sat up straight again. "I mean, you've been trapped in here for so long, all by yourself, and then randomly some young, helpless girl teleports in-"

"Stop talking, please," Nal'Shek requested, his eyes glowing more brightly as a translucent vein popped up over his head. "I don't have a body substantial enough to smack you upside the head for your foolishness, much less ravish you. This is simply the best method available in order to overcome your difficulties with the meditations and verify the existence of these... 'Force beasts'."

Hotaru nodded silently. "All right, if it will help me proceed... what do I have to do?"

"First, close your eyes while I touch you."

Hotaru whimpered.

"Oh, get over it," the Force ghost snapped as he approached, his hand reaching for the girl's forehead as she nervously shut her eyes.

"Hello everyone!" Usagi said happily as she passed through the front doors of the DAPC headquarters. Suspended behind her via a small crane-like attachment coming out of her shoulder was a stack of pink pastry boxes that represented the departments' usual breakfast. "I brought doughnuts!" Makoto walked in silently behind her, already slowly munching on a cinnamon roll.

Asuka glanced up from her coffee and nodded before her eyes returned to the data sheets on her computer screen.

The other officers were generally more enthusiastic about the appearance of doughnuts, and Tiro, Snake, and Kyle all rushed to claim their share as Junko lazed about on the couch on her own.

After several seconds the pastries had been unharnessed and were being messily devoured by the four police officers among cheerful small talk and moans of satisfaction.

Suddenly, Asuka frowned and once again looked up at her cybernetic subordinate. "Tsukino-san, where's Saotome? He didn't come in with you?"

Usagi blinked and quickly gulped down a chocolate-frosted bear claw, leaving a thick brown smudge all around her mouth. "Ranma-kun? He left for work a long time ago. You mean he hasn't arrived yet?"

Asuka raised an eyebrow. "He came in early? Why would he do that?"

Before Usagi could explain that she didn't know or offer any useless guesses, the elevator to the sub-levels suddenly beeped, indicating that someone had used it to ascend to the main floor.

As it so happened, once the heavy steel doors slid open, Ranma promptly staggered out of the elevator, his eyes swirling as he swayed back and forth. Even more odd than his state of disorientation was that he had a thick ring of padding around his neck, as if he had suffered a recent injury.

"Saotome? Where did you come from?" Asuka asked, turning around in her seat.

Ranma immediately locked on to the scent of food and made a bee-line for the doughnuts, his stride only wobbling twice before he seized a maple bar and stuffed half of it down his throat. After a few seconds of chewing and swallowing, he finally turned slightly to address the police captain. "I was downstairs. Doing... uh... recon, I guess."

"Why would you be on recon in our own HQ?" Tiro asked, showing unusual initiative in pointing out logical fallacies.

"Uh......" Ranma said nothing for several seconds, and then quickly ate another doughnut, using the time to think up a response. "You know," he mumbled around a mouthful of fried bread and sugar, "Rei-chan saw that weird thing the other night, so I'm still looking for it every once in a while."

Asuka's eyes narrowed. "Why do you have a neck brace on?"

Ranma gulped, knowing that this was the more important lie but at least having thought about it ahead of time. "Whiplash. It's from whiplash."

"How'd YOU get whiplash?" Tiro asked incredulously. "I've seen you get flung through car windshields at a hundred kilometers an hour and STILL land on your feet!"

Kyle sighed wistfully. "I kinda miss Tycho."

"Yeah... well..." Ranma stammered, wondering why everyone was giving his injuries so much attention all of a sudden. Nobody seemed to care this much whenever Snake blew him up! "It's just that... uhm... hey, it's Mako-chan! What's she doing here?"

Tiro, Kyle, and Usagi, being three of the more simple-minded officers present, immediately turned around in surprise (despite the fact that Makoto had apparently followed Usagi to the station in the first place).

"That's a good question, actually," Asuka said, her eyes lingering on Ranma's desperate expression before she looked over to the taller woman. "Don't the rest of you Senshi have classes or superhero patrols or something?"

The pony tailed girl frowned under all the sudden attention. "I'm only here because Snake told me he had something for me."

With the center of attention once again deflected, all eyes shifted to Snake, who was sipping some coffee nonchalantly.

"Well?" Makoto asked, crossing her arms under her breasts.

"Wait for it..." Snake mumbled before picking up another glazed doughnut.

"Wait for wha-"


WHAM! The walls shook slightly as the front doors were thrown open, and one of them shuddered badly before the hinge broke from the sheer force that it had been straining against.

Rayden Shikodan stood in the now-open doorway, his massive frame eclipsing most of the light from outside. Judgment was in his left hand, wrapped in rags as usual, while his other hand was gripped tightly into a fist.

Although the crusader sported his usual unreadable, grim expression, there were a few clues that indicated that he was in fact highly enraged. His fist seemed to shake and writhe restlessly, as if he was discouraged that he couldn't clench it tight enough, and the heavy rise and fall of his breath was big enough that judgment shifted constantly against his shoulder.

Crack! Thud! There was also the front door, which had lost its second hinge and collapsed onto the floor.

"Shiko-ch-" Makoto began to say brightly, only to stop as the Russian rushed past her and most of the other officers before halting in front of Snake, who slowly stared up at the expressionless gunman as he chewed his pastry.

"Wassup Frowny?" the American asked before picking up one of the pink boxes and holding them up to the super-soldier. "Doughnut?"

A contemptuous backhand send the box flying across the room as Rayden's eyes narrowed.

"Hey!" Usagi shouted as her arm snapped out faster than the human eye could follow, a long coruscating tendril of whitish energy striking the doughnut box and stopping it in place in the air. At the same time, a bluish blur streaked in front of pastries that had been flung out of the box and intercepted each one.

"That was totally uncalled for!" Usagi scolded, reeling the doughnut box in with her tractor beam.


Ranma stepped up next to Kyle holding a dozen doughnuts in his arms and generally looking far less exhausted than he was before.

"You know, what with you always zipping around like that at high speed, it's no wonder you have whiplash," the blond man said, nodding to himself.

Ranma frowned as he set the doughnuts down onto the coffee table. "So... are you the only one that believed that story, then?"

Kyle nodded immediately. "Yeah, I think so. Have you seen a chiropractor? Oh, maybe Seras-san could help!"

Ranma sighed as he rubbed the neck brace, feeling the lingering pain of the wound in his neck. "Can we please stop talking about this and focus on why Ray looks like he's about to grind Snake to a pulp?"


"I can tell you're upset about something..." Snake murmured as he kept his eyes locked with the towering vigilante. "Is there perhaps some way I can help you?"

With a cold, detached stare that was his trademark, the Russian finally spoke. "My home was destroyed today while I was attending a church service."

Usagi and Makoto promptly gasped, horrified that such a sudden thing had happened to him. The more experienced DAPC officers immediately pieced together what had happened and shook their heads wearily.

"Oh, wow. That sucks, dude," Snake said in an obviously rehearsed response. "I'll bet you didn't see who did it either, since your strict adherence to Catholicism makes it easy to predict exactly when you'll be at church and out of your apartment."

Rayden's eyes narrowed. "You are correct. However, as I was searching the torched interior of my home for anything useful that may have survived, the landlord found me and said that you had been by earlier today with an offer to let me stay at the headquarters if anything unfortunate happened to my abode."

Snake brightened. "Now that you mention it, I DID say that, didn't I? Well, I guess this all works out just fine then! We'll have Yamazaki show you around and-"

Clack! Snake stopped talking as a pump-action shotgun was leveled at his forehead.

"I demand to know why you did this," Rayden said, his voice like bubbling magma under a sheet of ice, "I have assisted you as you've requested and abided by your department's decisions and rulings time and time again, often to my detriment, and yet this is how I am rewarded?"

Snake was silent for a moment as he stared down the barrel of the gun in his face. Then he turned toward Asuka. "Why is it that people treat my acts of good will and generosity as evidence of guilt?"

Asuka sweatdropped. "Taking that question at face value, I would have to say that you're so unfamiliar with acts of good will and generosity that you literally just don't know how to go about them without also revealing that you're the one who TORCHED HIS GODDAMN APARTMENT."

Snake frowned as the captain's words sunk in. "So, is this an etiquette issue, or-"

The American was cut off as Rayden grabbed him by his collar, hauling him into the air. "I demand an explanation, lunatic." The shotgun from earlier clattered to the floor, thankfully unused.

"Whoa, whoa, ease up there," Ranma said suddenly, appearing behind the vigilante and resting a hand on his arm. "I know how you feel, but this is just Snake being Snake. He does this sort of thing sometimes. Or all the time. Anyway, it's not worth killing him over."

Rayden was still as he processed Ranma's logic, the icy rage within him slowly subsiding. "May I injure him severely, then?"

"Not while he's on duty," Asuka deadpanned. "I need him up and mobile so that he can fight on a moment's notice."

Snake promptly stuck out his tongue at the Russian and pulled down an eyelid.


Before Rayden could dwell on exactly how immoral it would be to murder the American policeman where he stood, a small but firm hand took him by the shoulder and squeezed it gently, demanding attention.

A listless glance behind him revealed the pony tailed brunette, her expression one of hope and determination.

"So... does this mean that you're staying here from now on?" Makoto asked. "Or are you going to try and find a place on your own?"

A heaving sigh came from the gunman before he dropped Snake back to the floor and then turned to face her. "It is best that I not remain here. I can-"

"Before I forget," Snake interrupted, taking a moment to re-adjust his collar, "I accidentally updated your police record with a few fresh murders after the vampire hunt debriefing. I'm pretty sure every single police officer outside the DA's jurisdiction has been ordered to shoot you on sight. Again."

Snake quickly gulped down the rest of his coffee as the others in the room gaped, and then he saluted as he tossed the empty cup away. "Well, I got patrol now! Ta ta!"

As the American rushed out the front door, Ranma grabbed Rayden's arm as it started to move toward the fold of his trench coat and the veritable armory that laid within. "No! Stop that!"

"Who would miss him?" the Russian grumbled, his face an iron mask even as his eyes promised death.

"Mina-chan would!" Usagi piped up, her voice entirely too cheerful considering they were discussing murder.

"I will send her my regrets," Rayden said darkly.

"NO, you won't. Calm down!" Ranma demanded. "We can get you set up here, I'm sure!"

"Yeah, fine, why not?" Asuka grumbled as she began typing away at her computer, "we already have vampires nesting in the bowels of our headquarters, and I was just thinking there wasn't enough violent tension around here. Let's give the sub-human religious fanatic a room. Do you want a reinforced vault door that can't be opened from the inside or an open room with lots of crates full of unknown and possibly dangerous materials?"

Rayden actually stopped to consider the question for a moment. "The vault. I don't want my work or meditations interrupted by the corrupt detritus that no doubt lurks below this place."

"Prison vault it is. Also, I'd like you to punch Snake in the gut for me after his shift for making me do this," Asuka mumbled bitterly.

"Amen," Rayden said solemnly before Makoto shook his shoulder again. "Yes? What do you wish of me?"

"I... I was hoping we could talk," the pony tailed girl said awkwardly, not knowing exactly how to broach the topic of their shared childhood in front of the police officers. "Would you like to go somewhere? Like, get some coffee, or maybe breakfast or-"

"Let us find a chapel," Rayden decided glumly, bowing his head. "There are things I must think on, and I will find no peace in this place." Without waiting to hear Makoto's response, he turned around and stalked toward the exit, Judgment still balanced over his shoulder.

"Okay, that's fine! Let's go to a chapel!" the brunette said happily, following the giant of a man out the door in anticipation of her reunion with her long-lost boyfriend.


"Tsukino, tell me: is it really SO hard to find good men nowadays that perfectly attractive young college girls have to start snapping up the murderous psychotics?" Asuka deadpanned, watching Rayden and Makoto leave the station with an expression of great disgust on her features.

Usagi frowned as she considered the question seriously, tapping a finger against her lip. "I'm not sure... but that reminds me; Mamo-chan and I still haven't made up yet. I haven't even SEEN him since that thing with the vampires."

"I don't know who that is, but as it seems we already have plenty of relationship drama floating around here, save me five minutes and a headache by not explaining," Asuka said coldly before snapping her attention to Ranma. "Saotome, I feel like some hand-to-hand training. You up to that?"

"Bwuh?" Ranma took a few seconds to process the request, and then shook his head to clear it. "Oh! Training. Sure. Okay."

Asuka watched the pigtailed man carefully, obviously concerned by his sluggishness. Nonetheless she walked off to the HQ gym with Ranma following sleepily.

The other officers watched them go, and after a few seconds Junko smirked and followed the pair.


"Well, with them gone, I'm pretty sure that leaves me in command!" Tiro said victoriously, pounding a fist against his chest as his other hand grabbed a doughnut from the pastry box that was still floating in the air, attached to Usagi's wrist by the tendril of unknown energy.

"How? I outrank you!" Kyle complained, pointing to the rank badge on his uniform jacket.

Tiro promptly snatched the badge away and affixed it to his own jacket.

"Awww..." Kyle wilted at having been defeated in a contest of logic - as usual - and Usagi patted him on the back sympathetically with her free hand.

"And now, my knuckle headed, nigh-indestructible comrades, we go on patrol!" the lecher said enthusiastically, pointing to the door.

Then Tiro spun back around to face Usagi, his eyes scanning the humming beam of white light that still held the doughnuts aloft in the air. "By the way, I didn't know you had a tractor beam."

Usagi blinked, confusion dominating her features. "I have a tractor what?"

Rayden had calmed considerably by the time he and Makoto had reached the nearest Catholic church, his earlier rage a distant, smoldering ember in the back of his mind as he glanced about the interior of the house of worship. The chapel was empty this time of day, although he guessed that there was probably a priest somewhere around the property to act as confessor. Thanks to Ranma's restraining him earlier, however, he had nothing to confess to, and so the Russian set down his concealed weapon before seating himself on one of the pews.

Makoto sat down next to him, obviously uncomfortable. They had not talked at all while traveling through the streets, as Rayden had moved surprisingly swiftly and she had been searching the streets nervously for police officers that might have seen him. Now that they had entered the church, however, the silence seemed to be a tangible thing, pressing down on her and preventing her from starting any of the dozens of conversations she had considered having with her long-lost friend.

Surprisingly, she didn't need to say a thing.

"It has been a long time, Kino-san. I had assumed when we met before that you didn't recognize me," Rayden said, his head lowered in reverence to the wooden statue of Christ at the head of the chapel.

Makoto started, her heart racing immediately. "Oh! Uh... well... I guess I didn't... technically..." she floundered weakly for a few seconds before she realized something. "Wait a minute! You recognized me from the start? Why didn't you say anything?"

"There was little to say at the time, as we were to head into battle. We had our duties, and I did not expect to live past that blasphemous hour," the Russian said grimly. "In any encounter of particular difficulty, I consign my soul to the Lord in preparation. I have little time for mere pleasantries."

"It was a terrible battle, wasn't it?" Makoto said softly, slumping the pew as the images returned to her. "So many... things... we had to destroy. And every one of them used to be human. And then... and then Mars was-"

"The midian is a subject I do not wish to dwell on," Rayden intoned, the slightest hint of a growl in his voice. "I consider her continued existence a personal penance, her twisted body an unliving reminder of my many failures in these past years as a paladin of the faith and enforcer of..."

The gunman trailed off as Makoto started chuckling to herself, and he fell silent.

"I'm sorry," she said between stifled giggles, "but somehow it just seems so like you to wax melodramatic about something like that. We were all so scared that we were going to have to destroy Rei-chan, and we were all so relieved when Ran died and she came back to us. I guess we've all been trying our best to pretend like nothing's really changed since then."

Rayden grunted, obviously displeased that they were dwelling on Rei's fate when he had specifically asked the opposite. "It is foolish to be so complacent. She is one of the accursed dead, and she holds together the shattered fragments of her humanity by sheer strength of will. There is no assurance that she will not falter."

"Oh, you!" Makoto said playfully as she lightly punched the Russian in the shoulder, seemingly cheered by the extraordinarily morbid speech. "You always look for the worst in people, don't you?"

Rayden finally turned to look at the brunette. "She is a vampire, a creature of darkness who feeds on the blood of humans. It is you who insists on never looking beyond her past existence as a human." His voice clearly expressed confusion where his face refused to betray his emotions.

"Hm. And what about Usagi-chan?" Makoto asked, her expression a lazy smirk as she pulled her elbows up onto the back rest of the pews.

Rayden didn't even hesitate. "She is a cruel abomination, a twisted mockery of the human form," he said with a note of sympathy in his voice. "Although she serves no apparent evil, she has had her humanity, that perfection of body and spirit granted to her by our creator, wrenched apart and replaced by cold steel and soulless circuits. How she can endure her own form is a mystery."

Makoto snorted and was about to speak when Rayden continued, apparently not done.

"Her fate saddens me greatly, as it is one that I bear as well. Having one's body altered by the imperfect hands and sciences of mortals in order to perpetrate sin on behalf of another is a terrible existence," the Russian spat, his head lowering.

As Makoto's amusement ceased, he suddenly straightened. "I didn't... ah... forgive me. It is not like me to speak so openly or at length."

"No, no! It's okay! We're old friends, aren't we?" Makoto said, gently squeezing the man's shoulder.

"In times long past, yes," the gunman said bitterly. "However, I have forsaken all on the altar of bloody revenge, Kino-san. My only companion and ally is the Lord, for the dark path I walk I must walk alone with only His light to guide me."

"There you go again with the bad poetry," the brunette said, rolling her eyes. "You're not alone, Shiko-chan. You have me and the DAPC!"

The Russian shook his head as he clasped his hands in prayer. "I do not have you, Kino-san. The man you once knew is long dead, having fallen with his adoptive parents. What you see before you is a shell forged by cruel, hateful sinners and men of war; a body suited only for the black art of murder."

There was a brief pause, and Makoto was surprised to see Rayden's eye twitch in a rare display of visual expression. "Also, the less said about the DAPC the better. I fear my Lord and Savior would not forgive me for the fates I wish upon the American."

"Amen to that," Makoto groused, momentarily forgetting herself as a dark cloud passed over her features. "Bastard actually trapped me in rubble on purpose! Just because he wanted a challenge!"

"To destroy my home merely to summon me, and then attempt to restrict my movements using his access to the authorities," Rayden seethed, his voice full of icy rage, "it rankles that his corruption is tolerated so. The man's only redeeming quality is his skill in war, and oft times I wonder if he has truly committed it to the cause of justice."

"There's no wondering about it," Makoto snapped, crossing her arms under her breasts as she fumed, "the only cause that sick bastard is interested in is violence, and I'm sick of having to put up with it, no matter what Mina and Usagi-chan say!"


As the pair took turns venting their frustrations, a priest slowly crept out the front door, his entrance completely unnoticed. He had been on his way to greet the two and welcome them, but after hearing them rant for a few seconds, had decided not to interrupt their conversation, considering that the pair almost seemed to be... bonding.

'Love may build families and bring us closer to the Lord, but nothing brings people together like hatred,' the priest thought to himself, shrugging as he slipped out. 'I think I'll leave those two alone.'

Asuka's breathing came heavily as she hopped left and right, her arms held at loose angles at her sides as she bounced around the perimeter of Ranma's reach, searching for one of the openings that he sometimes left in order to goad her into attacking.

Soon she found one, and dove into her instructor's defenses in a tight arc, spinning her entire body to put as much power and speed into a right hook.

Ranma's body flowed away from the attack like water, and the pigtailed man's back bent in order to avoid the swift roundhouse that followed it, allowing the captain's boot to scythe through the air barely a centimeter past his nose.

Once on the offensive Asuka didn't let go of her momentum, giving only the slightest attention to her defense as she launched strike after strike at Ranma seemingly untouchable form.

It wasn't a tactic that he particularly approved of, or one that found much purchase in Anything-Goes; his school of martial arts dictated a fine balance of offense and defense to best adjust for the often painful learning curve in learning of an opponent's strengths and keep enough strength in reserve to make the final push to victory.

Asuka's hand-to-hand training, by necessity, was of a much more pragmatic and grim nature. Her objective was always to either put down her opponent as fast as possible to eliminate the threat or live long enough for someone else to do it for her. It was one of the necessities of relatively normal human beings being trained to fight the horrific enemies that the DAPC often faced, and it was easy enough for Ranma to adjust the regimen.

Ranma snapped to attention once he noted that he had been cornered against the wall of the training room, his mind having wandered while he was analyzing Asuka's efforts. A slight backward hop sent him up against the padded wall of the room, and a careful kick had him somersaulting over his captain's head.

"Hyah!" Asuka had apparently predicted the move, and Ranma was honestly surprised as he quickly batted away the leg sweep that had been timed to strike at the precise moment of touchdown, preventing even him from possibly dodging away.

After knocking away her leg, Ranma caught Asuka's elbow in his palm and then slammed his free hand into her collarbone, staggering the woman and throwing off her assault.


Ranma let out a long breath as he stood up and stretched his back, finding himself worn out even after the relatively short workout.

"Don't tell me you're tired already?" Asuka asked as she stood up and once again moved into a fighting stance. "Is there something you'd like to tell me about, Saotome?"

"Nope, there sure isn't," Ranma said with full honesty, and he tried to shorten his breaths to hide his exhaustion. "Although I gotta say, you've improved a lot."

While Asuka lacked the raw physical prowess of a true martial artist - or rather, what counted as a "true martial artist" in Ranma's eyes - the police captain possessed an awareness of the battlefield and a mind for combat that neatly approximated Ranma's vaunted sixth sense. Even in the flurry of a combat that moved too fast for her eyes to track or her muscles to react to, her mind worked furiously to make up the difference, timing her attacks with precise estimations of where the enemy would be.

It was a considerable talent, although Ranma had to admit that it was of limited use against an opponent that totally outmatched her physically, as many of their enemies did. He supposed that was where her weapons and subordinates came in.

"Your attack strength is still a little on the weak side. You should spend more time muscle training," Ranma said, seeing that Asuka was still scrutinizing him silently, her gaze locked on the padded ring around his neck.

Eventually, the police captain shrugged. "I need speed more than strength to land a knife blow, and you know I hate fighting unarmed in the first place. But I'll keep that in mind." She brought up a much tighter defense. "Why don't you go on the attack for a bit?"

Ranma's stance shifted slightly, and Asuka slowly moved sideways on the balls of her feet, trying to get out from between her instructor and the wall. The pigtailed man approached fluidly and then backed away, slipping in and out of the bluette's guard to provoke her into attacking.

"Yeesh, you could cut the tension in here with a knife," said a new voice.


Ranma and Asuka's stances faltered, both of them feeling the rather oppressive mood slip away as Junko sauntered into the room.

"Can I help you, Chikiko? Or are you actually here for combat training?" Asuka asked, hands on her hips. It would be nice if the redhead actually did practice, as she actually had considerable natural talent for close combat that usually rested under a thick layer of cowardice, but she very much doubted it.

"No, nothing like that," Junko said as she walked up to a confused Ranma and clapped her hands onto his shoulders. "Ranma-kun, it's time."

Ranma's brow furrowed. "Time? Time for what?" He asked.

"Time for you to make a move on the metal hottie you've had sequestered in your house, silly!" Junko said, winking as she massaged the man's shoulders.

"What? Why?" Ranma asked, one eyebrow raised.

"I've been watching you two a long time, and it looks to me like the Girl of Steel is ready to become the Woman of Steel," Junko said as she circled the martial artist, wagging her finger while she lectured. "She's integrated nicely into the department, expanded her circle of acquaintances, come to terms with what she is, and most importantly, I detected a distinct note of disenchantment when she mentioned her previous boyfriend. The iron is hot, and the time to strike is now!"

Asuka rubbed her head as she leaned against the wall. "Did you really have to interrupt our training for this?"

Ranma winced. "Look... it's not that I don't like Usagi-chan, but we're not really-"

"Tut tut! This isn't about you!" Junko said, surprising the pigtailed man. "Usagi-chan is a part of the team, and I believe - as a psychiatrist - that it is in the best interest of her personal development, mental health, and the dynamics of our forces for you to bang her cybernetic brain out."

"That doesn't sound like a part of any psychology lesson I've ever heard of," Asuka deadpanned.

Ranma was thinking about the redhead's proposal, although he was clearly uncomfortable about the topic. "I just don't think it's a good idea to... well..." he looked away and scratched the back of his head. "Why me, anyway?" He didn't really like the idea of any of the other male officers of the DAPC putting the moves on his housemate, but Ranma didn't understand why such a bizarre obligation should fall to him by default.

"Why you? What a silly question," Junko tsked. "Usagi-chan is a very social person, and devours affection as fast as she devours doughnuts. If she's going to make a deep, intimate, and hopefully very sexy bond with one of our fine officers, it's obviously best that she does so with you so that she doesn't end up making a huge mistake and latching on to the wrong sort of person. To say nothing of whether anyone else would have the physical fortitude to try sexing up a cyborg."

Asuka winced. "That actually makes something approaching sense, although I still resent your attempts to hook up your fellow officers."

Junko rolled her eyes. "You didn't resent it back when I was trying to get YOU laid."

The police captain blinked, stunned. "Wait... me? What are you-"

"You know, maybe there's something to what you're saying, Junko-chan!" Ranma said loudly, suddenly seizing the redhead by the arm and pulling her toward the exit. "Let's talk about this in private, okay?"

"What did you mean you were trying to get me laid?" Asuka demanded, moving toward Junko as he furrowed.

Junko smiled as Ranma practically carried her out of the room, once again marveling at how easy it was to emotionally manipulate her fellow officers. "Maybe later, Captain! Sorry to interrupt your training!"


Before long they had located an empty room and Ranma quickly pushed Junko inside, making sure to close the door behind them. "What the hell were you thinking? Don't bring that up in front of the captain!"

"Ranma-kun, really, you both need to chill out. We're all adults here; we should be able to talk about little things like steamy office romance without freaking out," Junko chastised, dropping into a chair in the corner of the room.

"You know damn well that the captain is the only one of us who's that mature," Ranma said, glaring at the redhead, "and even then, she still doesn't like to talk about that sort of thing."

"Tell me about it; Usagi-chan's definitely not the only one who needs to get some," Junko murmured. "But enough about that. I'm quite serious when I say that I think you and Usagi doing the deed can only bring good things."

Ranma's eyes narrowed. "What about her boyfriend?"

"Okay, fine, mostly good things and possibly, MAYBE, minor retribution from a legitimately aggrieved third party," Junko allowed. "Although if that weirdo in the top hat really was her man, it's no wonder she's still a virgin after all this time. If he were any more of a fruit, he could cure scurvy."

Ranma shook her head. "I just have a really bad feeling about this whole idea. There's no way this could end well."

"And how do you figure that?" Junko demanded, crossing her arms under her breasts as she looked up at the martial artist. "She's a lovely young woman with enough ordnance to level a city waiting for her prince on a white horse and as needy as they come. You're an invincible fighter with an insatiable ego and a massive hero complex. You both like each other, live together, support each other, and from what I hear you've already seen her naked. Is it really that hard to contemplate hooking up with her?"

Ranma covered his eyes with a hand as he rubbed his forehead, searching for something to say. He had a vague sense that this whole concept was wrong; the scraps of romanticism within him that occasionally surfaced when it was properly dramatic protested that any relationship he had with Usagi should have come about from their respective feelings developing and surfacing at the right time and place, not from Junko's logical breakdown of Usagi's psyche.

"Can't we just, you know... be good friends? Like you and me?" Ranma asked, obviously frustrated.

Junko raised an eyebrow. "We've slept together."

"That was different!"

The redhead put her hands on Ranma's shoulders. "But it doesn't HAVE to be."

Ranma opened his mouth to refute her logic, but after several seconds of silence, realized that he couldn't find any logic to refute. "Huh?"

"I think we've reached the point in the conversation where you give up and do whatever I say just so you don't have to argue anymore," Junko said, nodding.

"Dammit, already?" Ranma mumbled as he rubbed the back of his head. "All right, look, I'll take her out on a date, okay? Whatever happens happens. Fair enough?"

"Hmph. Well, it's no guarantee, but it's a start I suppose," Junko allowed as she backed off of the martial artist. "All right, just leave the arrangements to me!"

Ranma blinked. "Wait, you're going to arrange it? How would you..." he trailed off as Junko walked out of the room, completely ignoring him as she flipped open a cell phone and started dialing.


Junko glanced back as she left the room, making sure Ranma wasn't following her into the hall before she hit the dial button. After a few seconds, the call connected.

"Mina-chan! Girlfriend! Got an update!" Junko said cheerfully. "It's on! I had to talk him into it, but Ranma-kun is on board!"

Excellent! You just leave Usagi-chan to me, and those two'll be all over each other in no time!

"I was a bit skeptical at first when I heard she had a boyfriend, but hey, if they're on a break, it's his problem," Junko reasoned.

So... any progress on the other thing?

Junko sweatdropped. "Honey, I'm working on it, but setting up Snake on a date is a little like laying siege to a fortress; you've gotta cover all your angles or you'll just find yourself bashing your head against a wall. Let's stick to the remotely feasible matchmaking for now, okay?"

All right, all right... so where is Usagi-chan? Is she at headquarters?

Junko raised an eyebrow. "Actually, I'm not sure. Lemme ask around a bit. She's gotta be somewhere around here."

"All right, now let's hit a sixty-degree angle with the bus. Commander, you ready?" Tiro called as he stood at the edge of a vehicle junk yard with a digital camcorder.

Kyle set his jaw firmly as he spread his knees, and then gave a silent thumbs-up.

"All right, pick it up!"

At the other edge of the yard, Usagi aimed her hand at an old, wrecked bus next to her, a circular beam emitter rising from her palm. A gentle hum came from her arm as a ray of soft white light lashed out from the disc, and the groan of straining metal filled the air as the mass of wreckage was lifted into the air.

"Easy now..." Tiro murmured as he recorded the feat of technology, carefully zooming in on Usagi before shifting the view over the length of the beam to the projectile. "And... go!"

With a determined grunt, Usagi brought her arm up over her head, the bus raining bits of dirty scrap metal as it followed the movement while its old, rusted frame strained under the tension of the acceleration.

With a harsh snap, the beam unleashed a sudden pulse of zero-point energy, denting the side of the bus inward as the wreck was sent hurtling through the air.

Kyle grit his teeth as the mass of twisted metal sailed toward him.

WHAM! Concrete buckled underfoot as the blond man caught the wreck directly, his muscles straining painfully as he slide backward from the force behind the rusted metal hulk.

After a few moments, however, Kyle was steady on his feet again, and he lifted the shattered vehicle over his head in triumph.

"All right! That's good! Now throw it back!" Tiro demanded as he panned out with the camera. "Usagi-kun, blast it out of the air!"

Whachak! Usagi's combat bracers extended to cover her forearms before a set of conductor coil heat vents opened up on either side of the weaponized gauntlets, a luminous green glow emanating from the coils as the magnetic cyclers below rapidly wove delicate energy fields around clouds of destructive plasma.

Raising her arms, Usagi spat half a dozen plasma bursts at the incoming metal hulk as Kyle hurled it straight at her, and Tiro whistled as the wreckage that was once a city bus evaporated in the air, its metallic skeleton vanishing within clouds of crackling green while the bits surrounding the plasma impacts rained to the ground as droplets of ruddy molten metal.


Usagi looked upon the destruction in satisfaction as she lowered her arms, a small smile gracing her features as acrid smoke slowly dissipated from the impact point between her and Kyle.

"So... why are we doing this again?" she finally asked, scratching her head. Kyle shrugged in response.

"This is training! Training!" Tiro said firmly, nodding his head. "You're learning to... better... utilize your weaponry! Yeah, that's it!"

"That makes perfect sense. I'll stop asking questions now," Usagi said as Kyle nodded.

"Great," Tiro mumbled as he raised the camcorder again. "Now, Usagi-chan, for this next exercise I'm going to need you to take off the armor vest and show me some neckline."

The blonde promptly recoiled. "What? Why do you need that?"

"Ah ah ah! You said you'd stop asking questions!" Kyle pointed out, wagging his finger at his subordinate.

Tiro frowned as his cell phone started ringing, and then put the camera down facing Usagi's general direction. "All right, hold it, I have to take this. You two practice lifting heavy things and putting them in a big pile or something."

Flipping open the hand set, the lecher briefly took note of who was calling before he connected the call. "This better be important Junko-chan, I'm busy making the best YouTube video ever, here."

Never mind your perverted hobbies. Listen up: "the plan" is go. I've talked Ranma-kun into it and Mina-chan is all ready to bring Usagi-chan around.

Tiro frowned and plugged an ear with his free hand to try and block out the sound of crunching metal behind him. "All right... but are you sure it has to be Saotome? I mean, I'm totally up for this myself!"

It was to Junko's credit that she managed to stifle her laugh well enough that Tiro mistook it for a violent cough. Well... no. I mean, even if you did manage to pull it off, there's no guarantee you'd survive coitus.

The lecher snorted as he turned around, watching as Usagi heft a bus and then tossed it onto a pile of wrecked vehicles that was already higher than the surrounding buildings. "She doesn't seem that dangerous to me."

Then congratulations: you're as jaded as the rest of us. Now stop wasting time and bring Usagi back.

"Fine, fine," Tiro mumbled, rolling his eyes. "But if this is going through after all, do you have any-"

Before Tiro could even finish the sentence, Junko cut him off. Mako-chan is in, five thousand yen for, and Snake is betting eight thousand against.

The lecher scratched his chin for a few seconds before he replied, "I'll match Snake’s bet that they do it. Or is there a spread?"

Unless that's some kind of childish innuendo, no. What about the commander?

Tiro put the phone down and called out to the two superhumans, both of whom were now cooperating to reinforce the sides of their scrap tower with a few wrecked trailers.

"Hey! Usagi-chan! Could you cover your ears for a minute?" Tiro called.

Usagi gave him a confused look but did as she was asked, pressing her hands flat against her ears.

"Commander, Junko-chan's taking bets on whether or not Ranma'll bang Usagi-chan tonight," Tiro said bluntly.

"What? No way that'll happen so quickly," Kyle said, shaking his head. "Neither of them are real desperate and they have a perfectly good friendship as it is."

"Would you care to attach some money to that opinion?"

"Put me down for ten thousand against, then," Kyle said as he gave the trailer above him a hard shove, shifting it into place.

"Noted," Tiro said, bringing the phone to his ear again. "All right, he's in for ten thousand on Snake's side. I'll get Usagi-chan back to you right away."

As he was speaking, Tiro noted that some of the wreckage that Kyle and Usagi had piled up was starting to fold under the weight put atop it, and he grimaced as he watched the scrap tower slowly tilt over toward where Usagi was standing.

"Hold on a sec. Usagi-chan! Move it! Watch out above you!" Tiro shouted.

Usagi raised an eyebrow, being unable to hear a word Tiro was saying since she still had her hands over her ears. "What? Are you talking to me? I can't hear you!"

"You can take your hands off now!" Tiro said, waiting a few seconds as the blonde simply continued staring in confusion. "Above you! Look up!" the lecher pointed frantically at the teetering wreckage.

"I still can't hear you!" Usagi said, exasperated. "Can I unplug my ea-" CRASH! Wham! Scrunch!

Tiro and Kyle winced badly as the cyborg was caught in an avalanche of twisted and rusted steel, and the former sighed before lifting the hand set to his ear again.

"Yeah, so, it might be a little while before we get Usagi-chan back to you."

What? Why? What was that noise just now?

"Nothing. See ya later." Beep!

Hotaru's breathing slowed as she felt the Force around her, submerging herself in the distorted blanket of energies that comprised its realm.

A cold prickling at her skin heralded the first attentions of the predators, little more than vague feelings in the back of her mind accompanied by an almost electrical sensation of fear surging through her. Anger, curiosity, and hatred followed the palpable trepidation, and Hotaru was disturbingly aware that most of the emotions were not her own.

When Nal'Shek's presence sought to enter her mind, Hotaru blanched at the feeling. The sensation was dull, blunt, and slightly painful, as if someone was pushing an eraser into her skin.

It also seemed to be unsuccessful, from what she could tell. His spirit, the shimmering collection of Force energy that lay tethered to the material world, was weak and pushed uselessly against her consciousness, failing to claw its way in.

Trying to push away the idle thoughts and emotions that kept gnawing at the back of her mind, Hotaru focused on her master's consciousness, willing it through the wall of her spiritual defenses.

Don't...

The sudden voice was soft, yet boomed much louder than the snarling voices from the ether, and Hotaru's concentration was jarred badly at the sudden command.

"What? Why? Why not?" Hotaru demanded, seeking the source of the voice. Was it one of the predators, fearful of her master's expertise, or...

Do not embark on this path. Do not let the blighted one in.

"The blighted one? Seriously? Who do you think you are, Gandalf?" Hotaru asked, quickly tiring of the enigmatic exchange. "Whatever, just shut up while I do this... like I don't have enough voices in my head."

With that complaint, Hotaru peeled away the layers of her consciousness barring Nal'Shek from her mind, and then the world went dark.


"Hwuh? What was... What's happening?" Hotaru mumbled as she blinked her eyes opening, the haze of colors above her gradually shifting into concise shapes.

One of those shapes was Nal'Shek, his body curiously solid and an impatient look on his face.

"It's about time you let me in. Why did you wait so long?"

Hotaru was about to answer, but her voice faltered as she looked down at her body, and then glanced around at her surroundings. Although it seemed as if she was in her normal, physical body, her surroundings were a cacophony of spilling colors and crackling energy, and she quickly became dizzy trying to take in the sights. "Wait, what is this? Why am I... like this?"

"That's my doing, actually," Nal'Shek responded gruffly as he turned around. "I find it easier to interface with the Force, and especially another consciousness, by forming a mental plane with most of the properties of the physical universe. The power of the mind can give shape, form, and law to mere concepts in order to better utilize them."

Then the Sith stopped and glanced back over his shoulder. "Or, at times, to better destroy them."

"Ah. I see," Hotaru mumbled as she stood up, noting how the "ground" seemed to be a sheet of black marble with purple veins that curled and shifted underneath her feet. "Huh. This does seem more convenient."

"My goodness... is this how you view the Force?" Nal'Shek asked, his eyes wide as he stared up.

All around them curved a massive glass dome supported by great steel ribs that met in the center above their heads, resembling an aquarium enclosure. Outside the glass was an ocean of lights and brilliantly colored fluids that was obviously in a state of total chaos. Currents of enormous power rushed this way and that, smashing into the protective dome with enough force that the supports groaned and the bolts fastening them in place rattled.

"This isn't how I see the Force, this is how the Force is," Hotaru insisted as she walked up to the wall, scowling. She could still hear the voices and sense the emotions, but with her thoughts crystallized into a physical state, they all seemed to echo from beyond the glass, largely muted by the protective shell her subconscious had erected.

"Hotaru, this is clearly a reflection of your inner turmoil; if you are calm, then-" Nal'Shek began to lecture, but to his surprise, he was cut off.

"THIS is not a reflection of my inner anything!" Hotaru snapped, slapping a hand against the glass wall and causing several lights to flash violently immediately outside the dome. "There is nothing in me this... this TWISTED! Even the Silence isn't anything like this! There's a certain... well... purity and morbid sense to it! This 'Force' is nothing like you described! This is insanity! This is-"

"Chaos..." Nal'Shek whispered, the title coming unbidden to his mind. Hotaru felt her blood turn to ice at the sudden naming, and she fearfully stared out at the swirling maelstrom that surrounded them, its lethal currents seeming to carry images of skulls and the stares of hateful, angry souls.

"My apologies. I was not certain to what degree this... place was separated from your personal psyche," the Sith mumbled as he started walking along the circumference. "Regardless, what's important is confirming that the Force is still usable."

He rapped a knuckle against the glass wall that stood between him and the boiling ocean of power. "This represents the mental barriers you've put in place to protect yourself from... what you THINK is out there within the Force. Namely, this reinforced glass is your fear."

Hotaru raised an eyebrow, and Nal'Shek continued. "In the mental realm of the Force, all emotions are powerful tools to control or contain the flow of power. Fear is the protector, shielding your mind from others and preventing you from drawing upon too much energy. However, just as in the world of flesh, fear has its disadvantages."

With that, Nal'Shek pulled one arm back, and Hotaru's eyes widened.

"No! Don't! You haven't seen them yet!" she shouted in a panic. "Those... things are out there! What if they get through?"

The Sith hesitated only a moment, and then smiled at his apprentice. "Do not worry. You have much greater concerns now."

As Nal'Shek's hand slammed against the glass, a great cracking noise like a planet's core snapping in two (Hotaru was unfortunately familiar with the sound) filled the dome, and a small portion of the glass under his palm shot out into the ether in a trail of glittering shards.

All told, it was a far less calamitous breach than she was expecting, and Hotaru felt her not-quite-real heart pounding in her not-quite-real chest as she tried to calm down.

Nal'Shek moved away from the crack as the Force, if one could so simply label the strange liquid that, seeped into the dome enclosure like a viscous, coruscating syrup.

"Here we are," the Sith said cheerfully, raising one hand up. Immediately the fluid leapt to his arm, twirling around but not quite touching the ancient master's old robes.

His other hand went up, and another tendril of energy broke apart into spheres that hovered about his shoulders.

"You have no idea how I missed this!" Nal'Shek laughed, his eyes alight with wonder as the spheres crackled and warped. "Trapped within that feeble shell, nothing more than a weak matrix of images and memory forced into that... spirit form. To know of the glory of the Force, to remember the exhilaration of life, but unable to experience any of it! A keener torture has never been devised, I assure you!"

Hotaru nodded slowly, wondering what the Sith's rantings had to do with anything. "Uh huh. I can imagine. I guess."

"I cannot tell you how long I spent brooding in that ancient fortress, watching the archaic technology rust away to nothing. My satisfaction at obtaining 'immortality' waned promptly, and for the vast majority of the millennia since I was trapped, I have yearned for true death and begged the fates to end my meaningless existence."

Arcs of blue and black lightning surged across Nal'Shek's arms, and the Sith's eyes, trembling with pleasure, finally locked on to Hotaru's.

"Hotaru... my apprentice... I have you to thank for ending my torment."

Hotaru blushed slightly and bowed her head. "Uh... it was nothing. I think..."

"No, this isn't the time for modesty," Nal'Shek said, his cowl flapping back and forth as he shook his head. "I am truly grateful, and as a consequence, I am truly sorry for what must now transpire here."

The purple-haired girl blinked. "Huh?"

Hotaru promptly regretted having taken on a physical form as a lighting arc lashed out from Nal'Shek's arm, catching her entirely by surprise as her body convulsed in agony.

"GYAAAAAH!" she screamed as she tumbled to the marble floor, her body curling into the fetal position as seething arcs of power danced across her flesh. "What are you d-doing?" She demanded through the pain, fighting her muscles as they began to lock into paralysis.

"I would have preferred more time before it were to come to this," Nal'Shek said almost conversationally as he raised one arm, palm up, into the air, "this would be much easier on both of us if you were better attuned to the Force and more capable." At his behest, the marble-like material that made up the floor suddenly rose up around Hotaru, the black stone flowing over her limbs and locking them to the floor one by one in gleaming ebony shackles.

Before long, Hotaru was spread-eagle on the floor, her terrified eyes staring up into those of her former master.

"However, the violent nature of the Force here concerns me, and its obvious your meditations were doing more to unravel my manipulations than progress your training. I fear if I waited much longer, the opportunity may have passed entirely." Nal'Shek continued to explain, more and more of the Force-water gathering in a puddle around his feet and drawing upward into a spiral that surrounded him with spiraling tendrils of power.

Hotaru gulped, willing her body to dissipate and mentally demanding that the floor let her go, but these commands seemed as useless in this mental realm as they did in the physical universe.

"You're probably wondering by now why you've lost all control over a region that is ostensibly within your own mind," Nal'Shek said as he poked one of the Force orbs, causing it to slowly expand. "And as I am still, in a way, acting in the capacity of a teacher, I feel obliged to explain: This realm exists within your mind, but it is also the nexus at which you interact with the Force, and the point at which you allowed me to enter your psyche. The Force exerts at least as much control over what happens here as you do, and it cedes such power to whatever thoughts have the greatest control over its power. Namely me," the Sith explained calmly as he stepped forward and leaned over the helpless young woman. "Allowing me to shape this place into a quasi-physical plane helped, of course. I'm afraid you'll find you're quite at my mercy."

Shimmering tears spilled from Hotaru's eyes as her body shook, trembling in fear. "What do you want? Are... Are you going to f-force yourself on me?"

A sweatdrop promptly slipped down the back of Nal'Shek's head. "Rather stuck on that idea, aren't you? No, I won't. And even if I desired such petty indulgences, now would hardly be the time."

He coughed into his fist as the slowly swelling sphere of Force energy started to grow spikes. "No, my apprentice, carnal satisfaction is hardly my goal. You have offered me a vessel, and I am in no position to refuse it. Once I have bound your psyche entirely, I will submerge you deep within your own consciousness, and I will take control of your body. I, Nal'Shek, Dark Lord of the Sith, shall be reborn!" He spread his arms wide as the spiked orb started to rotate wildly, and then his enthusiasm suddenly abated and he coughed into his fist again. "Granted, I'll be reborn into a fairly weak female body on a backwards planet out on the fringes of nowhere, but I'm not exactly flush with options, here."

Hotaru took several seconds to think on what he had said. "That's... That's even worse than raping me!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, undoubtedly, but I assure you it's not nearly as much fun," Nal'Shek said as he plucked the spiked Force sphere from the air by one of its spines. "Now that you know what is about to occur, there's only one more obstacle left before we can begin."

With that, the Sith suddenly pointed to the side, and the spined orb came alive with dark lightning as it blasted off in that direction, spinning crazily as it went.

Hotaru's head moved to follow its motion, but she was a little late in tracking it, and by the time she'd turned her head it had detonated against its target, filling the air with brilliant light that completely obscured her vision.

As the light faded, however, Hotaru could see ribbons of energy dancing along the circumference of a domed energy field, and her eyes widened as she saw who stood within the barrier.

"Nal'Shek. I was wondering what you were really up to. Thank you for making this confrontation possible," said Sailor Saturn, her eyes impassive as she angled the Silence Glaive at the Sith. "Earlier you expressed a desire to die. Allow me to help."

Minako hummed happily to herself as she jogged up to the front of DAPC headquarters, idly checking her watch to note the time.

'Well, I'm a little early, but I'm sure I can find something to do,' she thought as she pushed her way through the front doors of the building. After all, time spent around the DAPC was anything but boring.

Just as one example, Minako froze to a halt when she heard the door she was swinging open smack into something, and she felt her heart drop into her stomach as she heard a feral, rumbling growl coming from the other side.

Hunter curled his head around the edge of the door, his blood-red eyes glaring at the blond intruder.

"Uh... um... g-good boy?" Minako tried, her face paling as she started to step back.

The rumbling snarl that came from the alien war beast was not encouraging, and Hunter slammed the side of his head into the door to send it swinging shut, giving him a clear shot at pouncing on the hapless blonde.

"Hunter, knock it off!" snapped a voice off to the side, and Minako felt a palpable sense of relief as she spotted Asuka entering the room from one of the hallways.

The police captain had obviously just come from working out, as she was wearing a tank-top and had a gym towel over her shoulders that she was using to wipe away her sweat. "You can't show fear to that thing, Aino-san; it just provokes him. If you want Hunter to leave you alone, the best thing to do is ignore him."

"H-How do you IGNORE a monster like that?" Minako shuddered, quickly retreating through the middle of the lobby and moving behind her savior. "Why do you let it roam around the place as it wants?"

"Well, there's SUPPOSED to be other people here to watch him, but it seems like they all found other things to do," Asuka said irritably. "I don't suppose you'd know anything about why Chikiko has been trying to hook up Usagi and Ranma, do you?"

Minako sweatdropped as she laughed. "What? She's really trying to do that? That's so funny!" Minako was a fair actor, and so managed to avoid the nervous cackle that would have given away just about anyone else she knew, but Asuka still didn't look convinced. "Ah, that's right! I was wondering if I could speak to Rei-chan today!"

Asuka raised an eyebrow. "You mean now? Well, I suppose you can try, but she's fast asleep. You don't think she'd mind?"

"I haven't had a chance to really talk to her since she had her humanity stolen from her and was turned into a bloodsucking monster," Minako said matter-of-factly as she passed by Asuka to the elevator. "I think she can put aside a half an hour to talk to one of her best friends, Asuka-chan."

A vein promptly popped up on Asuka's head as she yelled after the blonde. "For pity's sake, I'm almost a decade older than you! Would it kill you to address me with-" alas, her complaint was cut short by the elevator door closing behind Minako, and a shaky hum filled the room as it began its slow descent to the vaults.

"Just what have we brought into my station?" Asuka mumbled to herself as she massaged her forehead. "My actual officers were bad enough, but lately Usagi's friends have been treating this place as their own personal hangout spot. Before long I'll bet they're going to start holding keggers and eldritch ceremonies here too."

The thought of eldritch ceremonies brought her thoughts back around to Rei, and Asuka's eyes narrowed. There was a topic she wished to discuss with the DAPC's newest member, and she really would have preferred that it not wait until nightfall.

"Well, if she's going to be woken up anyway..."

"Hey! Rei-chan! Reeeeeiiii-chaaaaan!" Minako called as she bounded over to the lacquered black coffin in the center of the sub-level vaults. "Hey, sleepy-head! Wake up!"

Smiling brightly, and willfully ignoring the Gothic and tomb-themed embellishments that decorated the vampiric Senshi's bedroom, the cheery blonde rapped her knuckles against the coffin before grabbing the heavy iron chains and rattling them noisily.

"Rei-chan! It's me! Are you up?" she asked, raising her voice even further.

A muffled growling noise, not entirely dissimilar from the ones she had just heard from Hunter, emanated from the sarcophagus before an exhausted-sounding voice finally spoke.

"Wha? Mina... chan? It's day..."

Minako had to lean in closer to the casket to hear, and she promptly rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know you're nocturnal now, but you can miss out on an hour of sleep, can't you? The early bird catches two other birds with its stone!"

"... Tha's wrong. Go 'way," Rei mumbled, the coffin creaking slightly from its occupant shifting within.

"C'mon Rei-chan! I want to hear about your adventure the other night!" Minako said, tapping a finger against the shining black lacquer and idly admiring the designs.

"Ask Usagi. Sleepy," came the terse reply.

Minako frowned. "Well, then can I at least tell you about this great plan I have to get Usagi and Ranma to hook up?"

"Nope," Rei mumbled. "Are you leaving yet?"

With a determined expression on her face, Minako picked up the heavy padlock and inspected it. "Stop being such a stick in the sand, Rei-chan. I just have to unlock this, right? Is the key here or-"

"Hey, Mina-chan!" Rei said, her voice suddenly sounding crisp and perfectly lucid through the polished black casket, "Did you know that the DAPC has a few moon cats in cryo-sleep down here in the sub-levels?"

"WHAT?" Minako gasped, dropping the padlock immediately as her eyes widened. "Seriously? There are moon cats here?"

"Yes! I don't remember where, exactly, so you'll probably get lost and not find your way back here for a few hours, but I'm sure they're down here somewhere! You should go get them!"

"Right away!" Minako said, all thoughts of conversation forgotten as she dashed blindly into the halls beyond the prison vaults. "Wow, I never thought we'd find more moon cats! Wait until I tell Artemis!"


A blissful sigh came from Rei's sarcophagus as Minako's exclamations of wonder and surprise faded into the distance, swallowed by the vast steel enclosure that was her home and prison.

At last, silence. Come dusk, Rei would be (almost) happy to chatter with Minako about whatever stupid thing she wanted to talk about, but for now daylight was sleepy time.

Not that Minako had anything useful to talk about. Really now, who cared about who in the DAPC was hooking up with who?

"Wait..." came Rei's voice from her coffin, sounding curiously alert, "WHAT?"

Bam! The sarcophagus shook from a sudden impact inside it, and Rei yelped before releasing a string of profanities as the chains holding her casket closed refused to yield.

"Goddamn useless police and their stupid useless security!" the vampiress growled as she started beating against the lid of her coffin, finding to her annoyance that her body refused to simply phase through it; probably because it was still daylight outside.

"Minako! Are you still out there! If you are, get back here and let me out!" Rei demanded. "Can you hear me? Look, forget about the cats! Trust me, our team is dysfunctional enough! Hello?"

Chak! Clunk!

Rei breathed a sigh of relief as she heard the familiar sound of the lock popping open and dropping off, and then promptly sat up in her coffin, pushing the lid open as the chains slid out of place. "Finally! Mina-chan, what did you mean when... you... said..."

The vampiress trailed off as she stared into the eyes of Asuka Takami, who was standing at the edge of her casket and twirling the padlock key around a finger.

"Oh. Uh... hi," she said awkwardly. It didn't escape Rei's notice that the police captain seemed rather nonplussed about something. "Can I help you?"

"Maybe, I was just curious about something and thought you might be able to help," Asuka drawled. "Tell me, what quality of Saotome's blood makes it so irresistible to vampires? Is it the unique white blood cells, or does it have to do with that 'ki' nonsense he's always going on about?"

Rivulets of sweat started to run down Rei's face, and her eyes glanced left and right for any sign of Minako to use as a distraction. "Wh-What an odd question to ask me! Huh! I'll have to think about it!" she said nervously, making to close the coffin as she shrunk back inside it. "I should have an answer for you in, oh, maybe five or six hours?"

Thump! Asuka promptly slammed her boot against the coffin lid, holding it in place. "No, by all means, answer NOW."

The vampiress gulped. "Well, I can't really say myself, but when I asked Ranma about it, he said it was due to elevated 'awesome levels' in his blood! You should really talk to him about that!"

"I would, but he seems rather skittish on the topic of vampires drinking his blood nowadays," Asuka deadpanned, her eyes narrowing. "However, he's an even worse liar than you are, so it hasn't helped your case any."

"Hey! I didn't lie!" Rei insisted, bristling. "Not once did I actually say I didn't drink Ranma's blood!"

Asuka's eyebrow rose, and Rei's face darkened.

"Well... uh... crap."

Asuka cleared her throat as the vampiress deflated. "All right, let's take this from the top: I want you to explain to me exactly why and how this arrangement came about. Obviously it's consensual, since I really doubt you could feed off of Ranma if he didn't let you, but I think it's best if we nip this in the bud right away."

Rei felt a surge of angry heat shoot through her body at the thought of being denied any more of Ranma's "donations". "Hey! What the hell gives you the right to come in here and dictate terms to ME?" the vampiress demanded, pushing the lid open completely and standing up so that she could glare down at Asuka properly. "It's none of your business!"

The police captain was perfectly unphased. "Hino-san, I run a police department charged with suppressing supernatural threats to this city, am personally responsible for restraining any danger you represent to humans, am your superior officer, and have a duty to maintain the good health and combat readiness of my officers, particularly Ranma. So actually, yes, it IS my business. So we're going to have a nice, long talk about your recent feeding habits whether you like it or not."

Rei's eyes narrowed, annoyed that the other woman hadn't even flinched at their confrontation. "Or what?"

In response, Asuka leaned over to the side, opening up a metal box that was lying next to her feet. After rummaging through it briefly, she stood up again as she loaded a crossbow with a gleaming silver stake in the ammunition groove.

Rei sweatdropped as she gaped. "You... You built a stake-thrower?"

"No, Snake did," Asuka admitted as she finished loading the weapon, and she gestured to the box. "He filled these security boxes with stake-throwers, silver crosses, holy water, and garlic spray and then scattered them all around the department as anti-vampire kits."

Rei raised an eyebrow. "In case of another midian uprising?"

"I'm pretty sure that wasn't the idea," Asuka deadpanned. "Snake even included a field manual in how to hunt and kill you."

"Really? He made a manual on hunting vampires?"

"No, he made a manual on hunting YOU," Asuka corrected, rummaging through the box again and lifting up a thin booklet. Rei was extremely discouraged to see a photograph of herself on the cover with a target drawn over her heart.

"You've really got to send that guy to a tolerance seminar or something," Rei groused, slumping back down into her coffin.

"I'll look into it. But for now, I have questions you need to answer," the police captain insisted.

Rei sighed. "What do you want to know?"

"Here, kitty-kitty-kitty! Heeeeeere kitty!" Minako called as she wandered the dark metal halls, her head whipping left and right as she searched.

"Dang, where would they keep a couple of moon cats around here, anyway?" the blonde murmured to herself as she reached a fork in the hall and glance in either direction.

To the right was a sign with an arrow that read "Small Organism Cryogenic Storage".

To the left was a sign with an arrow pointing in the opposite direction that read "Annoying Organism Cells".

Minako barely hesitated before turning into the left corridor.

"Let's see..." she mumbled as she found herself in a new corridor lined with reinforced cell doors, each one with a glass viewing slit for seeing the interior of the cell.

She had just moved to look into the first slit when she felt a shiver crawl down her back, and the blonde whirled around sharply.

"Hello? Is someone there?" Minako asked, her eyes flashing back and forth. The halls were poorly lit, with almost half of the sequenced ceiling lights dead or flickering - presumably to give the cold steel labyrinth even more of a "horror movie laboratory" feel - but there was still enough light that Minako could see that there was nothing following her.

"Rei-chan? Is that you?" Minako tried, wondering if her undead friend might be trying to play a trick on her.

After several more seconds and no response, the blonde slowly turned back to the door, though she remained on full alert and kept glancing over her shoulder.

The viewing pane was rather dirty and grimy from countless years of neglect, so Minako had to take her handkerchief and rub the exterior clean enough to actually see through.

Not that there was much to see. Much to the blonde's disappointment, all that lay within the cell was some sort of squat, dwarf-sized skeleton and what appeared to be a shriveled patchwork heart lying over it.

Frowning, she back away and noted that there was a name plate that was similarly caked with dust in the middle of door. A quick wipe of the handkerchief made the words on the plate legible.

"What the heck is a 'Care Bear'?" Minako wondered, moving on to the next cell.

After wiping the next viewing slit clean, she saw what appeared to be a large colony of mushrooms that covered the entire floor. It was hard to see because the glass was still dirty on the other side from dirt and spores, but some of the mushrooms appeared to have little holes cut in them, like little doors and windows.

The name plate, after being cleaned, simply said "Smurfs".

Looking puzzled, Minako moved on to the next cell, this time wiping the name plate clean first to see what was inside.

The plate read "Tom Green".

"Eugh... I hope it's dead," she mumbled distastefully, grimacing as she moved on without looking inside.

Suddenly, she felt her skin crawl again, and Minako turned sharply to stare down the hallway.

"Who's there?" she demanded, frowning as she gripped her transformation pen behind her back. "Come out and face me!"

Shlup!

Minako frowned as she heard a strange squishing noise coming from somewhere nearby, and slowly turned in a circle as she look down both ends of the long corridor.

"Hello?"

As the blonde continued glancing back and forth warily, a thick, black, oozing tendril slowly lowered itself from the air duct in the ceiling. It drew back for a moment, and then, with sharp snap, stuck itself to the back of Minako's neck, startling her badly.

"GYAH! COLD! WET! GET IT OFF!" Minako shrieked as she felt a thick, syrupy tentacle slip around her shoulders. "NOOOOOOO!"

She tried to run, but the goo seemed to predict the reaction and moved to stop her, wrapping around the girl's torso and leg before sticking solidly to the floor. Minako tried to pull free, but the slime seemed to expand rapidly over her body, and as she looked down in horror, she saw the creeping black slime quickly enveloping her.

Though her mind was almost blind with panic from the bizarre and terrifying situation, her eyes suddenly focused on her transformation pen, and Minako took a deep breath as the dark goo started to draw itself up to her jaw and wrap itself around her face.

"Venus crystal power, make up!" she managed to shout before the web of blackness stretched over her mouth.

As the transformation took hold and the lights started to appear, Minako felt something in the back of her mind; a voice she had never heard before. It spoke to her in those first few seconds, its words rich with wonder, joy, hope, and even love at what it had discovered, what it was seeing.

And then, all at once, the world went dark.

Crack! The black marble floor trembled around the bottom of the Silence Glaive as Sailor Saturn tapped the butt of the weapon on the ground, and then a moment later a seething wave of purple energy ripped through the ground in the direction of her foe.

Nal'Shek stopped the attack with a gesture, sending a small orb of Force into the floor immediately ahead of the of the attack.

BWOOM! The resultant explosion strained the entire dome with its shock wave, tearing huge gouges into the marble flooring and sending shining, polished rubble flying.

"Ha ha ha ha ha! Aha ha haaa!" the Sith laughed as he let loose with a web of Force lightning, the dark spears splashing harmlessly against Saturn's Silence Wall.

As the senshi of destruction spun her glaive about in one hand, she frowned while she analyzed her tactical situation as compared to her enemy's. "Why do you laugh, tainted spirit? This encounter will soon unmake you."

"Isn't it funny?" Nal'Shek asked between giggles as even more of the veritable ocean of power dripped through the cracks in the glass barrier to join with him. "Here we are, two ghosts of long-dead civilizations, desperately fighting to control the malnourished body of a single weak, little girl! A Sith Lord and the so-called Senshi of Destruction, a conqueror and an annihilator of entire planets respectively, struggling like wild beasts for a rotting carcass!"

With a flurry of hand gestures, the floor under the Sith started to break apart, causing large chunks of the black marble to rise from the ground all around him. "How far we have fallen, no?" he thrust his palm forward, and the rocks immediately rocketed forth toward Saturn in a loose spread.

Sailor Saturn didn't reply immediately, dashing forward as she broke her defensive posture. Moving straight for the biggest piece of flooring, she cleaved it apart explosively with a quick slash of the Silence Glaive, sending out a shock wave that knocked many of the small rocks away in the shock wave.

A second large chunk of marble was flying in behind it, and Saturn elegantly jumped atop it, running along the top of the projectile as it sped under her and leaping into the air once she reached the end of its length.

With a snort, Nal'Shek summoned a bolt of liquid power into his hand, the fluid hardening and extending roughly a meter before it seemed to come alive with electric current.

Fzash! The Force blade met the Silence Glaive, and both combatants were knocked back from the shock wave that resulted, Saturn barely managing to land on her feet as she skidded backward across the polished floor. Nal'Shek's body fell hard against the Force energy that surrounded him, the power seeming to cushion him and hold him upright with a fraction of the effort his foe displayed.

"You're not wanted here, corrupt spirit," Saturn hissed as she darted forward once again, spinning into a wide slash that made full use of the Silence Glaive's longer reach.

A wall of fluid Force came to protect its master, and it barely succeeded as the glaive sliced a deep trench into the makeshift barrier, the lethal edge trailing crackling purple sparks.

"This isn't what anybody wants, I assure you!" the Sith replied as he jumped forward to bring his own weapon down on Saturn, being blocked by the haft of the glaive. "We've all suffered tremendously in our journeys, and there's still much suffering to be done!" A few more quick slashes were all deflected by Saturn, seemingly without effort. "This is about destiny, girl! And I will not have mine cut short so easily!"

Retreating briefly from his assault, Nal'Shek beckoned Saturn forward with his free hand.

The senshi of destruction jerked forward awkwardly as she felt the Silence Glaive attempt to leave her hand, as if someone was tugging hard on it. Although she managed to keep her grip, the unexpected force staggered her, and Nal'Shek happily dove into the opening before slashing across Saturn's flank with his weapon.


Hotaru watched all this from her prison on the floor, her heart pounding desperately as her eyes glanced all around at the devastation the combatants had wrought. She knew that this area was, ultimately, an impression created by her mind, with none of the particular vulnerabilities or dangers of true glass, steel, or pressure, but as she watched liquid power seep from the cracks in the dome and pool on the floor around her, it was difficult to appreciate the unreality of the situation.

She felt like she should say something, or try to help in some way, but she simply didn't know what to do. She was completely helpless here, a prisoner in her own mind as forces far beyond her control struggled for control of her body.

It was not an unfamiliar feeling.


Fzash! Joot! Saturn grunted as the Force sword scored a glancing slash across her face, leaving a thick scorch mark running from her chin to her ear. As she brought the butt of the weapon around into Nal'Shek's side, the Sith simply blocked with his free arm, slapping the ancient weapon away.

Whomp! Frankly, a kick was the last thing the senshi of destruction expected in this battle, and she was sent reeling as her enemy booted her in the stomach.

Nal'Shek smiled as he launched another wave of Force lightning, and was extremely satisfied to hear the sizzling of burning flesh as the bolts connected. "In this place, I'm afraid every advantage is mine, 'Princess'," he said mockingly as he advanced, the coils of black power constantly digging into the senshi.

Even with the mind-numbing pain induced by the lightning, Saturn refused to scream, and a wide, desperate slash of her glaive dispersed the electric arcs burning her.

Staggering to her feet, the Senshi quickly pointed toward the advancing Sith. "Silence Wall!"

Nal'Shek clicked his tongue at the delaying tactic and placed his hand against the energy field as he watched Saturn limp away on the other side. "Run all you like, spirit. You cannot hide from me." Tendrils of power rose up around him and started to drill into the Silence Wall, the points of contact rippling like the surface of a pond disturbed by a pebble.

Saturn stumbled over to Hotaru, her body weakened and scorched in a dozen places. Her right eye was a blackened pit, and her left flank where Nal'Shek had scored his first clean hit was little more than charcoal, the searing energies having burned and fused the organs beneath the skin.

All purely imaginary damage, of course, but this realm had been created with great calculation, and Saturn could feel her strength failing just as surely as if it was her real body that suffered.

"Hotaru. Come. We must cut ourselves off from this place," Saturn said as she approached the girl and sliced open her stone shackles with quick snaps of the Silence Glaive. "We cannot stop Nal'Shek from gathering his power here, but we can fight him in your mind and soul properly, rather than this... nexus we find ourselves in. We are too weak here."

"No..." Hotaru whispered, looking past Saturn to where the Silence Wall finally disintegrated before the Sith.

"There's no more time! Get up!" Sailor Saturn demanded, grabbing the girl and hauling her to her feet.

Hotaru barely seemed to respond, still not looking at the senshi or in fact acknowledging her at all. "No... no, no, no, no, no... stop... don't come any closer..."

"Hotaru, my dear, please, just surrender," Nal'Shek sighed as he approached the two women, the Force practically boiling around him in a storm of pure power, "I promise that the process will be far less painful, and that I will be far kinder to your subdued soul, should you not resist pointlessly. Won't you give up?"

A wracking sob came from deep within Hotaru's throat, and tears seeped freely from her eyes as she collapsed at Saturn's feet, her body completely numb from terror. "It's here..." she whispered.

Saturn and Nal'Shek blink-blinked. "Huh?" they asked in unison.


The sound of the glass dome wall being breached was hardly deafening. In fact, the relatively small amount of noise produced by the small crack being smashed wide open made it all the more terrifying as the creature forced its way into Hotaru's consciousness.

Its shape was large, long, and twisted and seemed to go on forever, as if actually part of the ocean from which it emerged. Serrated scythes stuck out of numberless small wriggling limbs, each one desperately thrashing about for a target independent of any attack plan or sensory input. Eye were scattered across the length of its worm-like body in a fashion more becoming of warts or other dermal maladies, some of them gleaming black orbs, while others were human-like and bloodshot.

Its mouth was necessarily its most important feature, and not merely because it was yawning open to seize Nal'Shek's back. Massive curving fangs decorated the outer lips of its puckered orifice, and within its dripping confines dozens of smaller jaws writhed and snapped angrily, eager to get their own share of the kill.

Time seemed to slow as the Sith Lord whirled around to face the new threat, the Force swirling around his hands in preparation for battle.

"WHAT THE FU-" Crunch!

Hotaru watched in mute horror as the Sith's mental projection was mashed into a bloody pulp, his body folding in on itself as dozens of bone-crushing teeth closed in on him at once. Tendrils of the Force that had stood strong before the Silence Glaive yielded like butter before the predator, the entire structure of energy patterns and arcane rituals collapsing instantly.

Hotaru was more or less aware of Sailor Saturn's disappearance as she watched the terrible scene unfold, her numb body spattered with bits of gore and tainted light that flooded from the Sith's faux body in its death throes.

After a few seconds, the twisted pulp that used to be Nal'Shek was sucked entirely into the predator's puckered mouth, the whole orifice shaking and twitching as the secondary jaws within dug into the meal with gusto.

She felt a massive surge of power as the predator reared back and howled in delight, the Sith Lord's spirit suffusing it with new strength.

Hotaru could feel it with awful sensitivity: the absorption and death of a soul. The annihilation of a creature on the most basic level possible. And yet, even as his spirit, his thoughts, and everything that remained of the creature Nal'Shek was greedily devoured, she could still sense him trying to escape, to get a precious few nuggets of knowledge and emotion to safety...

Any thinking on her former master's fate ceased as the predator slowly turned toward her.

'No, not predator,' she thought, a new word bubbling up from nowhere, 'a daemon.'

Regardless of what it was called, she was potently aware that it would destroy her if she didn't get away, and she immediately set about trying to escape this non-reality and sever herself from the Force. She could already feel the bonds that held this strange, pseudo-reality together weakening, if she could just cut it away completely.

"No," she whispered as the daemon slithered forward, its progress making ripples in the pond of liquid Force that now filled her mental chamber, spilling into the craters caused by the earlier combat. "No!" she screamed louder as the world seemed to go gray about her and the daemon opened its mouth. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!" Hotaru screamed as her eyes burst open, exposing her real retinas to real light for the first time in about an hour.

The shock of suddenly plunging back into the real world knocked the young woman flat on her back, and for a few seconds Hotaru simply lay there, hyperventilating as she stared at the ragged stone ceiling of Nal'Shek's cave.

A million thoughts seemed to fly through her head at once as thoughts, ideas, and realization poured into her. Memories came unbidden to her mind, many of which were definitely not hers. Other ideas that were hers but had been previously subdued by the Sith's manipulations likewise fought to the fore.

Amongst the flurry of mental activity came a rather intense urge to vomit, and Hotaru promptly pushed all other thoughts aside and turned to face the ground in order to act on it.

She wasn't sure exactly how much time she spent retching, only that her body felt an urgent, almost primordial need to purge itself in order to clear the overwhelming sense of despair and violation.

Curiously enough, much of that dark malaise seemed to fade away as a particularly thick bit of stomach wastage spilled onto the ground, as if the gooey wad were a physical chunk of her emotional suffering.

Hotaru's eyes widened as she made the connection in her mind, and she leapt backward onto her butt as she saw a fleshy, pulsing blob emerge from the thin puddle of muck she had spit up.

"No! Get away from me!" she screamed, scrambling to her feet as she ran to the edge of the cavern.

When she reached the wall she turned back fearfully, and her stomach lurched once again as she saw that the... thing that had breached the Immaterium and crawled out of her had grown even larger, nearly to the size of a soccer ball. Bulges started to appear and seams in its boiling flesh split open, and even from a good ten meters away she could smell a noxious gas emanating from the creature.

"It's... It's the daemon, isn't it?" Hotaru said to herself, her disgust almost tangible at the thought that this foul thing had emerged from her. Fear started to burn away into hatred as the anger of all the most recent events began to bubble up within her. Why the hell did she have to put up with this, anyway? Wasn't it bad enough that she had been forced to watch helplessly as two otherworldly powers fought a battle in her mind over control of her body and her future? That all of the effort and misery of the past few weeks had led up to an enormous betrayal and nearly had her enslaved forever? What was all this for? What did this filthy aberration want that it had to do this to her?

With a thought, her transformation pen was in her hand, and Hotaru gripped the cool metal tightly. As terrible as this creature was, it was out of its element now; this she knew. It's realm was the mind, and the violent river that existed beyond the veil between dimensions. Now it was in her world, playing by nature's rules, and the urge to educate it harshly in the reality of energy emissions and physics sounded like a welcome reprieve from the mind games she had been forced to partake in.

And yet... as she raised the pen into the air, something prevented her from speaking her transformation phrase. She wanted the daemon dead and gone, definitely... but somehow the idea of doing it as Sailor Saturn annoyed her.

Hotaru's eyes narrowed as she watched bony limbs burst from the daemon's twitching body, each one scratching clumsily about to try and figure out locomotion in this strange new realm. There was another way.


Putting away her transformation pen, Hotaru dashed along the wall to the door that led to the inner sanctum, turning past a set of massive pistons that pumped magma into the deeper volcanic vents.

Glancing around, she located the doorway to the catacombs despite having never bothered to explore such a place within the caverns, and then ducked under the small doorway into the dank, unlit room beyond.

A mere thought created a small mote of light in the palm of her hand to aid in her search, although honestly she probably didn't need it. She located a specific sarcophagus immediately and pointed to it, and the pitted stone slab that covered the crude casket slid aside.

Despite the specific memories that she had picked out to lead her here, Hotaru was still somewhat unsure as to what it was she was here to find, and initially when she looked inside the sarcophagus only to find a metal cylinder the length of a serving spoon she was somewhat confused.

'Is this a weapon? It doesn't look like one,' she thought to herself as she reached into the coffin and picked it up.

"Sssssthrrrrrrh..." A quick glance over her shoulder made her spine tingle and her blood boil all at once as she caught sight of the creature tormenting her. It was bigger now, with almost a dozen spider-like legs that ended in uneven hooking claws. Hateful, bloodshot eyes dotted the central fleshy sphere of its body seemingly at random, all of them flitting back and forth in an unfocused panic.

It was obvious, however, that Hotaru held its undivided attention, and without further hesitation, it broke into a loping run at the young woman.

Hotaru grit her teeth and turned the metal tube parallel to the ground, pointing the only end that wasn't covered in metal at the approaching daemon. "Well, here goes everything," she mumbled as she thumbed the most obvious switch on the device.

Psheeew! Vwom! A beam of blue light suddenly poured from the cylinder, extending almost three feet before stopping in place.

Hotaru hadn't been sure what to expect from the weapon, so she spent a few critical moments standing still in surprise before she realized what she was holding and what was likely the best way to utilize it. The daemon was not similarly phased, and immediately lunged the moment it was within range to do so.

Vyooom! Hotaru twisted around the flailing limbs and then slashed down at an angle with her new light saber, taking off two of the daemon's limbs in a burst of crackling light and a puff of burning ozone.

The daemon howled and tried to reach more of its limbs up to attack, but instead stumbled as it lost its balance and tumbled onto the ground.

Vsash! Ksshk! "Look at you! Pathetic freak!" Hotaru snapped as she took off several more legs with sharp sweeps of her new weapon. "You think I'm afraid of you? You think you can violate me as you please? You're nothing to me!"

The daemon hissed angrily as it tried to lift its bulk on its three remaining legs and failed, its burnt stumps wiggling uselessly even as the unnatural flesh heaved to try and repair itself.

Whomp! Hotaru viciously kicked the beast in the side of its body, sending it rolling across the width of the hall and tumbling into an open casket that was dug in low to the ground.

A sharp gesture with her free hand slid a casket lid off of the sarcophagus on the barrow above it, and the heavy stone slab slowly floated down before sliding over the stone coffin that housed the daemon. "Welcome to reality," Hotaru said as she floated the entire sarcophagus out of its drawer slot and toward the small doorway, "don't let the door hit you on the way out."

With a wave of her hand, an enormous burst of Force shoved the sarcophagus out of the catacombs and sent it skidding across the cavern floor, directly toward one of the massive pistons as the cylinder was pulling itself up to allow its pumping chamber to fill with gas and lava from the pool below.

CRUNCH! Hotaru poked her head out to watch as the mass of steel utterly pulverized the stone coffin before grinding it into a pool of compressed magma, the heat and pressure annihilating the shattered remains in the space of two seconds.


Hotaru was honestly a little ashamed at the amount of pride and morbid pleasure that she felt from seeing the completion of her kill, and only as she glanced down at the light saber still humming in her hand did she realize how hard her heart was pounding.

With the daemon gone and all other physical distractions negligible, the chaotic jumble of thoughts, images, and feelings once again demanded her attention.

As Hotaru continued staring at her new weapon, however, she frowned, and once more her focus shifted the extraneous thoughts to the back of her mind.

"This thing doesn't look right," she decided as she glared at the light saber blade, and with only the barest inkling of what she was doing, she started poking at the device and looking for adjustment dials.

Gszt! Click! She twisted the length of the handle, and was surprised to feel the balance of the device change as the blade almost doubled in length instantly, making it longer than she was tall. She still wasn't satisfied though, and started playing with a dial at the base of the weapon.

This only caused the energy blade to flicker and spark, however. "Oh, come on! How do you work this thing?" Hotaru demanded, tightening her fist around it.

Then she swung her arm to the side and smashed the handle of the weapon hard against the steel wall.

BANG! Bzzzzsht!

The light saber blade flickered for a few seconds, and then it seemed to recover full function once again, this time with its beam colored a dark purple.

"Perfect!" Hotaru said cheerfully before she switched the weapon off, fully satisfied.

And then, without further distraction, she sat down and closed her eyes as she descended into deep meditation.

"I didn't want to bite him! I swear!" Rei said, throwing her arms up as she sat cross-legged atop her coffin while Asuka listened carefully and jotted down notes on a clipboard. "But then he threw down that line, 'you can either drink my blood now, or you can see it splattered on the ground when I have to come save you'! What was I supposed to do?"

Asuka frowned as she wrote the line down. "That sounds like Saotome-san, all right. So now you feed on him regularly?"

Rei cringed. "I didn't want it to be like this. Ranma-kun means more to me than just a meal. I just... I thought that maybe this way he wouldn't have to protect me anymore."

Asuka raised an eyebrow as she looked up at the midian. "You don't want him to protect you?"

"Well..." Rei fidgeted uncomfortably. "Right now all I have is my power, you know? I'm not human and I can't pretend like nothing's changed. If I've sacrificed even my humanity and become an immortal monster, then at least I want to be able to protect the people I care about rather than the other way around."

The police captain frowned as she jotted that down. "Well, I certainly approve of your attitude, but not your methods. Putting aside the purely moral repercussions of eating one of your fellow officers, you must realize that drawing so much blood from Saotome has begun to endanger his health."

Rei's face darkened, and Asuka raised an eyebrow as a few dark blue flames popped into existence above her head. "Ah. I see you hadn't realized that. Has the feeding become... more than a simple means to energize yourself? I mean, considering you haven't had a major engagement since the operation against Wraith, you haven't exactly been burning away the... what did you say his power was?"

"Awesome. I haven't been burning away the awesome," Rei admitted shamefully. "You're right. You're right about everything. His blood just... it just tastes so GOOD! And RANMA obviously doesn't know how much I need, because he's in here every morning, practically shoving his jugular into my mouth!" the vampiress complained, her face flushing.

Asuka winced. "Uh... you've got some... drool there..." she tapped her own lower lip.

Rei quickly wiped her mouth with her arm. "Okay, look, Asuka-chan, I-"

"CAPTAIN," Asuka snapped, her teeth clenching in irritation.

"Whatever! I can live without biting Ranma. Or... unlive, I suppose. That's not the problem. But I can't take the temptation!" she insisted, her eyes manic as she grabbed Asuka by the shoulders. "He comes in here all the time with his delicious blood and caring words and disarming personality and rock-hard abs and amazing ass and-"

"You're, uh, salivating again," Asuka deadpanned. "Aside from that, I'm not sure that-"

"Hello? Rei-chan! You're awake!" both women were startled by Minako's voice suddenly emerging from the other side of the room, and they turned to see the rather disheveled-looking blonde step out from the halls leading deeper into the facilities. "I heard something about an amazing ass and came running. What'd I miss?"

"Uh... Mina-chan, did something happen?" Rei said awkwardly. Her eyes looked sleepy and bloodshot, while her skirt and blouse were rumpled and dirty. In a different place and time, she would have guessed that her promiscuous friend had just had a short tryst with someone in the vicinity, but she was fairly certain there was nothing in the sub-levels that even Minako would want to get naked for.

Minako blinked, and her eyebrows climbed up her forehead as she considered the question. "You know... I'm not sure."

"You don't know if something happened," Asuka deadpanned, honestly wondering if something about blond hair follicles literally bleached the brain's synapses clean. "Either it did or it didn't."

The blonde scratched her head as she frowned, staring at the floor. "It's... odd. I can't remember the last few minutes. I know I was searching for those moon cats, and-"

"Oh, God, PLEASE don't unfreeze those things," Asuka said with a groan. "The pink one is just annoying, and I'm terrified of what would happen if Snake adopted the tom."

The two senshi gave her an odd look, but then attention shifted back to Minako.

"Well, I couldn't really find them. I was looking through the cells, and I'd just gotten to the one with Tom Green..." she suddenly looked pensive. "By the way, he's not still alive in there, is he?"

Asuka shrugged. "Nobody's had the nerve to check."

"Okay, well, after that, I remember... uh..." Minako frowned as she crossed her arms under her breasts. "Dang! What happened then? My mind's a total blank!"

"We've noticed," Asuka quipped, earning a snort and a giggle from Rei. "Anyway, it doesn't really matter. What do you want, anyway?"

"Oh, don't worry about it! Junko-chan texted me that we're going to go meet up with the others, so I should go find her," Minako said brightly, patting down her blouse as she walked into the elevator on the other side of the room.

Rei winced. "H-Hey, wait! What did you mean earlier about Ranma and Usagi?"

"I said don't worry about it," the blonde repeated, rolling her eyes. "If you really want all the little details, you can watch the sex tape later. Ciao!"

Rei and Asuka gaped as the elevator doors closed behind Minako, cutting her off from the many questions they had about this new endeavor.

"S-Sex?" Rei mumbled weakly.

"Tape?" Asuka followed, her eyebrow twitching.

The vampiress immediately rounded on her. "Asuka-chan! We've got to do something! We have to stop them!"

"Call me Captain," Asuka mumbled uselessly. "And while I very much disapprove of voyeurism, there's not too much I can-"

"Voyeurism shmoyeruism! They're planning to hook up Ranma and Usagi!" Rei shouted, shaking the smaller woman's shoulder.

"So I've heard. And why should I care about that over actual criminal activity?" the police captain asked, though she knew the answer would just annoy her.

"You fool! Don't you know it's dangerous to allow that sort of conduct between members of a fighting force?" Rei said hotly.

"As dangerous as letting a member feed off another member for sustenance?" Asuka deadpanned.

"Are you STILL on about that?"

The police captain sighed wearily as she rubbed her forehead. "Look, Hino-san, I'll be honest, I don't like the idea of their meddling either, and I think that their efforts are just going to cause humiliation and regret. But not only do I lack the provincial authority to stop them... I lack the ability."

Rei looked confused, and Asuka continued. "It sounds strange, I know, but my officers have... unusual areas of competency. Just as Chikiko would never think she could beat me in hand-to-hand combat or chess, I have to admit that her ability to manipulate men and take advantage of them is so far advanced that I have no ability to counteract it. In addition, assuming Yamazaki is in on this, his skill and experience when it comes to peeping is second to none. I couldn't stop him if I tried."

Rei's teeth clenched, and her fangs seemed to grow longer as her frustration built. "So you're just going to-wait, you have a peeping tom for an officer?"

"You haven't noticed? He must be pretty careful around you, then," Asuka mumbled, wandering over to the vampiress' desk. "He got you these candles, right? With the skull holders?"

Without waiting for a reply, she reached into one of the skull's eye sockets and pulled out a tiny video camera. "I don't even know how he finds cameras this size. This stuff is more advanced than the surveillance equipment the department has access to!"

Rei blanched, reflexively covering her breasts despite the fact that she was clothed (more or less, as she was wearing her new DAPC outfit). "You mean he's been watching me change all this time?"

Asuka blinked. "You change your clothes?"

Rei stopped to think about that. "Oh. I guess I don't. Never mind." She didn't even have to bathe, either, since she could immolate her entire body to purify her skin without harming herself.

With that distraction over and forgotten, the vampiress moved back to the more important topic. "Anyway, if you're not going to stop them, then I will!" Rei declared, stomping past Asuka toward the elevator.

The blue-haired woman arched an eyebrow. "You're going out in the middle of the day?"

"I'll be fine!" Rei insisted as she got in the elevator. "I'm not going out to burn anybody - hopefully - so it's not like I'll need my powers!"

Ding! Asuka said nothing as the doors closed, and she looked down at her watch as the elevator ascended.


Eight minutes later, the elevator descended once more.

Ding! Rei stumbled out as soon as the doors opened, her eyes reduced to dizzy swirls and her skin pale.

"You didn't even last as long as I thought you might, but I assumed this would happen," Asuka said, crossing her arms.

"So... sleepy... can't... think straight," Rei mumbled as she lurched back to her coffin.

"The vampires we hunted before the Black Dawn were survivalists," the police captain explained, "they could stand a bit of sunlight because they HAD to be able to. Not everyone had a safe dwelling where not a single ray of sunshine could reach them." She shook her head. "You've been thoroughly sequestered away every day, so you're completely unused to the daylight. Did you really think you could walk around the streets without so much as a hat?"

"Ugh... so tired," Rei mumbled as she stepped into her sarcophagus and bed. "Sorry, I can't really appreciate brilliant leaps of logic right now, Asuka-chan."

"It's CAPTAIN!" Asuka shouted before she slammed the lid of the coffin down.

"Usagi-chan! Heyooo!" Minako cheered as she and Junko stepped out of the car, seeing Tiro, Kyle, and a rather dusty-looking Usagi sitting down at a cafe at the street corner.

"Mina-chan! Junko-chan! Hello!" the other blonde said happily, one arm waving as she held a strawberry shake with the other.

Tiro stood up wordlessly, and then approached the two approaching women with his hands in his pockets.

The moment he was out of earshot of Usagi, he whispered to the girls in front of him. "I've got the plans in place and the gear is waiting. Saotome?"

"Having lunch at a booth downtown," Junko said tersely, "I'll take you there. Mina-chan, you've got this end handled?"

Minako gave a thumbs up as she and Junko passed by Tiro going in the opposite direction. "Lock and road."

Junko sweatdropped, but nonetheless did a sudden one-eighty and joined Tiro on his way to the parked patrol car.

Minako continued approaching her target, idly running a hand through her hair as she approached. She didn't know why, but after recovering from the confusion of being in the sub-levels, she felt absolutely FABULOUS, like the feeling she had just after a complete all-day beauty spa treatment. Her hair was silky and smooth, and she had an extra spring in her step as she looked forward to rearranging her friend's romantic life according to her whims.

Usagi looked confused. "Wait, where are they going?"

Kyle scratched his head and shrugged. The way they had acted had reminded him of covert operatives on a mission, and he could have even sworn he had even heard them whispering to each other while they walked. But that was silly.

Minako took her seat across from Usagi and then steepled her fingers under her chin, her mouth curving into a lazy smirk. "So Usagi-chan, what would you say if I told you that Ranma-kun was grooming himself to take you out on the town tonight?"

The blond cyborg blinked, and then her face flushed a bit. "He is? R-Really?"

"Oh yes," Minako confirmed as a waiter walked behind her chair carrying a tray of fresh drinks. "Hold on a sec."

Thunk! With a small, completely innocent-looking nudge of her chair Minako tripped the waiter, who gave a shout of surprise and dismay as the serving tray in his hands tumbled into the air.

With a graceful flourish that frankly left the two blond superhumans stunned, the senshi of love turned out of her seat and slapped a palm flat against the bottom of the serving tray before snapping it to the side with exactly the right level of force and spin to perfectly stabilize the various glass flutes and glasses that were threatening to fall over.

All save one fruit cocktail was saved from plummeting to the ground, and Minako calmly snatched it out of the air with her free hand before handing the tray back to the speechless waiter.

"Please put the cocktail on our bill, would you?" Minako asked as the young man numbly took his tray back. "Oh, and do try to be more careful, 'kay?" She winked playfully at the boy, who simply gaped and slowly nodded as he backed away from the woman in front of him.


As she sat back down and took a sip of her new cocktail, Minako eventually realized that Kyle and Usagi were staring dumbly at her. "What? I've always been good with my hands," she said teasingly with another wink.

Both of her current companions were too thick to pick up on the innuendo, so they simply shrugged at each other before trying to forget the bizarre display of dexterity.

"Anyway, where was I? I know you've still got this whole 'destiny' thing going on with Mamoru, but I think you should really give Ranma-kun a chance to strut his stuff, you know? Who knows, you might even get some tonight!"

Usagi's blush darkened considerably. "M-Mina-chan! You know our relationship isn't like that!"

"And why the hell isn't it?" the other blonde demanded between sips of her drink. "Ranma is totally your type! And we can all tell he likes you! What's the hold up?"

"But what if Mamo-chan finds out?" Usagi asked timidly, wringing her hands as a pair of robot arms sticking out of her shoulders mimicked the motions. "I don't know if it's a good idea to risk my engagement, you know?"

"Girl, when you've got a plate of grade-A choice tri-tip in front of you cooked and ready, what do you do to it?" Minako posed.

"Devour it without hesitation," Usagi said immediately, idly wiping the drool off her lips with her napkin.

Minako chuckled as she wagged a finger at her friend and leader. "The same thing goes with men. If you deny your appetite, what good does it do you? When you get your hands on a good piece of meat, you go for it!"

Usagi squirmed as she felt her embarrassment rising, and stared down into her lap as her face burned. "I just don't know... this seems to be going so fast, and I haven't-"

She was suddenly interrupted by a large, gentle hand clasping her shoulder, and Usagi turned and looked up into Kyle's eyes as the super-soldier looked down at her seriously.

"Usagi-chan, I know it might seem uncomfortable and intimidating," he began, his voice soft and understanding, "but if there's one thing I've learned growing up, it's that blind obedience is the best policy when your friends and co-workers pressure you to do something."

Usagi blink-blinked. "It is?"

"Oh, sure. They're way smarter than us, you know?" Kyle reasoned.

Usagi didn't need much more convincing than that. "All right, let's do this," she said as she turned back to Minako.

"Yes! Nice assist!" Minako cheered, giving the blond man a thumbs-up. Kyle simply shrugged in response.

"First, we've got to get you cleaned and dolled up," the senshi of love said as she shot to her feet, looking as excited as ever. "And that whole insta-clothes function you've got built in is nice, but it lacks a designer's touch, you know? We're going shopping!"

"What? But I'm still supposed to be on patrol!" Usagi protested.

An arched eyebrow greeted the complaint. "Were you on patrol up until now?"

As Usagi winced, Kyle shook his head. "See what I mean?" the blond man sighed, "It does no good to resist. They're way too good at this 'logic' thing."

Then he glanced at Minako himself. "So... is there anything you want me to do?"

"There sure is!" Minako chimed as she reached behind her, snatching their table's check out of the hands of a surprised waiter. "Take care of this, would you?" A flick of her fingers sent the scrap of paper flying over the tabletop, where it pinned itself against Kyle's chest armor. "Thanks! Bye!"


Kyle seemed disappointed at being abandoned, but shrugged it off as he considered the daily patrol duties that necessarily fell to him now that most of the DAPC was spending their day on Junko's master plan.

He reached down to take the bill off his chest, and frowned as he saw some sort of gummy substance that was adhering the paper to his armor. "Eh? What's this black stuff?"

Hotaru looked out over the expanse of sunny plains, a gentle breeze playing her hair as she watched the tall, golden grass swaying in the wind.

She had to admit, now that she could compress and shape her thoughts into a quasi-physical realm at will, the technique was incredibly useful and very relaxing. She had spent many hours in this sun-kissed realm now, organizing her thoughts.

Well, actually, it wasn't only her thoughts she had to organize.

Nal'Shek was a villain through and through, of this she now knew intimately, but in his final moments the Sith had shown some remorse in what he had done. Dispersing his spiritual form was probably the wisest thing to do when seized in the immaterial jaws of a thirsting daemon, but he had put the last of his power into pouring his power and knowledge into his student even as he himself was torn apart.

She supposed even that was hardly magnanimous of him; in his death throes, the idea of passing on the knowledge he had deliberately withheld from his student to try to preserve some small scrap of his existence through her was probably the only option left to him. Against the prospect of complete annihilation before being forgotten entirely, it was by far the better decision.

Hotaru just wished he hadn't chosen to do it by spraying his guts all over her.

Nonetheless, after sinking into a meditative state - blissfully disconnected from the Force this time - she had managed to sort through most of the information and memories she was now privy to, discarding old, useless data and the many Sith rituals that were too complex or horrific to wrap her head around. Her knowledge in the Force had expanded by decades, although the information was spotty in places. She imagined she could manage the most useful tricks, however. All she needed was a bit of practice.

She could admit easily enough that the sudden knowledge had changed her. Great epiphanies and new perspectives could do that to a person. Although she had no desire to walk the path of the Sith as her late master had, the wonder at her knew power and knowledge had excited feelings within her that she had assumed long dead because of her abusive childhood and the heavy burden of being a senshi of the Moon Kingdom. A sense of adventure, curiosity, and thirst for excitement tickled her thoughts where before they had been muffled by depression, caution, and her natural weakness.

"I'm almost done here," she said suddenly, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear as she gazed out at the empty plain. "This was all a terrible accident, and I don't think I'll ever be able to forget the awful things I've seen here..."

She stopped to gaze at the palm of her hand as she held it up. "But I've endured. I'm still alive, I'm still me, and I've become stronger through it all. Nal'Shek tried to take everything from me, but in the end, his power is mine, now."

She put her hand down and snapped up the light saber hanging from her waist, spinning it about within her fingers. "I'm almost done... there's just one more loose end that needs to be cut away. One more enemy that needs to disappear."

With deliberate slowness, Hotaru turned around, her eyes sweeping over the landscape before looking at a single figure sitting cross-legged atop a stone outcropping. "You."


Sailor Saturn gazed down at Hotaru with a disapproving frown, the Silence Glaive resting across her lap. "I'm an enemy now? Hmn."

"Perhaps 'enemy' isn't the right word," the young Sith admitted as her eyes dropped to the light saber, inspecting it. "But I really don't know what else to call you. Your existence has tormented me practically since the day I was born. You've taken my family from me-"

"Mistress Nine took your family from you," Saturn corrected, resting one cheek on her fist as she glared down at her host.

"And what was she after?" Hotaru demanded, her casual facade burning away in a burst of rage. "You think I wanted this? You think I'd ever want any of this? Being fought over, used, possessed, and sacrificed? Being turned into a weapon to fight a war for a nation that doesn't even exist in history books?"

Her hands shook as she gripped the light saber, her chest heaving with wrathful energy. "But I was never given a choice! Not by anyone! Not by you, or Nine, my father, or even Usagi! No, my first taste of freedom was chewed up in the jaws of a bloody daemon and spat out at me!"

Suddenly, her expression calmed considerably, and her stance loosened. "But even that... even that is better than living out this... 'destiny' you've drawn out for me. Even swimming in that ocean of raw power thick with predators is better than descending into the Silence again."

Sailor Saturn sighed wearily at the girl's anger as she stood up. "Hotaru, Nal'Shek's knowledge is corrupt. The appearance of the daemon should have shown you that. It has poisoned you to the point that you've lost all perspective. Was it not I that saved you from the Sith's plans?"

"A little, yes," Hotaru admitted, "though as much for your own sake as mine. Like he said: you're both spirits of dead warriors vying for control of my body."

The ancient princess snorted. "You trust the words of the man that betrayed and tried to possess you?"

"Just because he was a backstabbing creep doesn't mean he isn't right," Hotaru countered.

Saturn shook her head. "And what of the others? Your friends? Will you abandon them too?"

Hotaru raised an eyebrow, and her mouth twisted into a small smirk. "Abandon my friends? Why would I do that? You think I need you to be with Usagi-chan, Haruka-papa, or Michiru-mama? Do you really think that YOU, my cold, planet-rending alter ego, are really the focal point of my entire life?"

The young Sith seemed to think her own question over after she had asked it. "Well... maybe you are. That's kind of the problem, really."

"You think the others will accept you so easily when you turn your back on your duties as a Senshi?" Saturn demanded.

"If they don't then they're not very good friends in the first place, are they?" Hotaru sneered, clearly annoyed.

"Together, with my power, we have saved this world from destruction again and again," Saturn started to say, only be cut off.

"And now that all that's over - as Setsuna-mama said it is - I'm taking my life into my own hands," Hotaru snapped. "If you have any good reasons why I shouldn't obliterate you, then you'd best hurry up and get to them, Saturn. Your guilt trips aren't working and I'm getting tired of looking up your skirt."

The senshi of destruction didn't react verbally to the jibe, although she did hold her glaive close against her leg to keep the purple sailor skirt from moving in the wind. "You would throw away everything that we have achieved? The future of our world? For what? Your petty desires and meaningless pleasures? You would risk everything you have known for some feeble illusion of 'choice'?"

"You really don't get it, do you? Of course you don't. Miss hard-wired, brain-dead planet killer would never understand the concerns of an actual person. You see everything in terms of enemy and ally. Duty and law. You're barely even a complete soul; just a weapon doing its best to kill what its masters want."

Pshew! Vwom! With a snap of her wrist the violet light saber activated, and Hotaru's eyes narrowed as she stared up at the woman whose existence had for so long shadowed her own. "I'm sick of having YOUR past and future dictate my present! I'm tired of being used! From now on, Hotaru Tomoe makes her own decisions and builds her own future!"

Sailor Saturn's eyes were sad as she moved into a combat stance, staring down at her host with pity in her gaze. "Don't do this, Hotaru. You can still turn away from this path. Leave this place at once, return to the other Senshi, and forget this wretched place. This conflict will gain you nothing. You cannot simply decide not to be a senshi of the Moon Kingdom."

"And that, Saturn-san," Hotaru growled, "is why you have to die."


The first attack was Hotaru's, just as she had hoped. Taking loose control of the air around her light saber, she hurled it at the senshi of Saturn like a boomerang before thrusting a palm sharply upward.

A slight trembling was all the warning Sailor Saturn had before the boulder she was on suddenly burst from the ground, trying to catapult her into the path of the ancient weapon.

Saturn jumped quickly enough to use the extra boost to simply somersault over the light saber, and the Silence Glaive curved down in a vicious arc just moments after Hotaru leapt backward out of range.

The senshi slowly stood up straight, obviously feeling no pressure to stay on the attack. "The treacherous Sith's words still haunt you, even after his death. Even this plane, this little... arena, is the fruits of his black knowledge, isn't it?"

The senshi of destruction calmly sidestepped as the light saber spun back to its owner, the Force weapon sizzling as it burned the tips off the high grass in its path.

"I can sense everything you've done here, Hotaru. You've forced both our consciousnesses into this space in order to force me to face you on your terms. Confining spiritual energy and mental patterns to forms of vulnerable flesh in order to more easily subdue it... exactly as Nal'Shek did to you."

Hotaru snapped her light saber out of the air and then leapt to the side, her jumps taking her almost a dozen meters with each bound. "Except there are no daemons here to stop me from finishing YOU!"

She punctuated the last word by dashing toward Saturn, her body blurring as she closed the distance between them far faster than it was possible for any normal human to tracks.

Bzssht! Sailor Saturn was far from a normal human, and she parried the first slash with the butt of her glaive before whipping the bladed head around to slash at Hotaru's shoulder.

Hotaru took a shallow slash as she turned away from the attack, and spun once before bringing down her light saber in a vertical slash.

PSSSHT! GZSHT! Saturn caught the beam on the haft of her glaive, and the two nearly identical women locked gazes as sparks flew from their weapons.

"I'm afraid your confidence is misplaced, Hotaru," Sailor Saturn said matter-of-factly before she shoved her arms upward, throwing Hotaru backward and breaking the deadlock, "while you've absorbed an unfortunate amount of Nal'Shek's venomous knowledge, you've gained none of his wisdom. There was a reason he chose to challenge us so close to the veil between our mind and that nightmare realm known as the Warp, and he would have still done so even had he fully understood the risks.

Hotaru blinked as she circled her opponent warily. "The 'Warp'? You have a name for it? You know what the Force is?" She groaned. "Dammit. Even the voices in my head are hiding things from me."

Sailor Saturn ignored her host's grumbling. "In that place, my power was badly subdued, for to unleash the Silence so close to the fabric of the Immaterium... well, if we were lucky, I would merely have summoned a much more terrible daemon than the paltry scavenger that managed to crawl its way out of your belly."

Hotaru suddenly thrust her free hand forward with her fingers spread, and arcs of purple lightning lashed out at the senshi of destruction like violet whips.

Sailor Saturn couldn't help but smirk as the bolts splashed harmlessly against the Silence Wall, her expression in stark contrast to Hotaru's shocked expression. "Here, in the tranquility and limitless expanses of your mind... I have no such limitations."

And with that, Saturn jabbed the Silence Glaive in Hotaru's direction.


The explosion was perfectly soundless, so the first sensation Hotaru actually received from the explosion behind her was a tremendous wave of force knocking her clean off her feet. She managed to turn off the light saber almost immediately as she left the ground, which was good since she probably would have accidentally amputated a limb otherwise when she tumbled to the ground in a heap several meters away, completely stunned.

"I... made sure to..." the young Sith mumbled to herself with wide eyes as she dizzily pushed herself off the ground, one hand still holding on to her light saber tightly, "how did you..."

"You thought you had cut me off from the Silence?" Sailor Saturn asked as she walked over to the trembling girl, lazily spinning the Silence Glaive about in one hand. "Of course you thought so. In theory, this is a realm created by your own mind: nature doesn't really set the rules, you do. You can change the landscape to anything you wish, negate gravity, create imaginary soldiers to help you, suppress an enemy mind's power, or make yourself invulnerable."

The senshi of destruction continued her lecture calmly even as Hotaru finished getting up and scrambled away from her foe in fear. "That's all in theory, though. In practice, your ability to tilt the playing field is limited by the power of the soul you seek to oppose and the level of concentration and control you can muster over an entire demiplane." She suddenly leveled the Silence Glaive at Hotaru, and the ancient spirit's eyes narrowed. "However, I am woven into every fiber of your being, Hotaru. Your body is mine as much as it is yours. In this realm WE created, you are as vulnerable as I, and far more powerless. I'm afraid you hold a severe disadvantage here."

Hotaru's eyes hardened as the spirit's words fell into place. "You realize, of course, that this sort of thing is the reason why I hate you so much in the first place."

Saturn shrugged. "I care nothing for your approval, but this pointless resistance must end. No matter how you feel about me or your destiny, you cannot stop either. Surrender this foolish effort."

Vwom! The light saber extended once more, and Hotaru burst forward onto the attack, drawing more of the Force to her to speed up her body as she ran.

Bzsht! Ksht! Kzat! The young Sith closed to melee range in an instant, and even Sailor Saturn seemed to struggle to keep up as the glowing energy blade furiously battered the senshi's defenses.

Gzrt! Hotaru slashed heavily against the blade of the Silence Glaive to knock away the dangerous end of the weapon, and as she raised the light saber over her shoulder for a double-handed swing,

Click! With a twist of her hands, the light saber’s blade suddenly doubled in length, and Hotaru cried out savagely as she turned into a low slash that suddenly had more than enough reach to take off her opponent's ankles.

Ksssht! Saturn slammed the butt of the Silence Glaive into the ground to stop the attack, but it had come too fast for her to block completely. Sparks flew and lightning danced along the edge of Hotaru's weapon as the glowing purple blade burned through the enchanted armor of Saturn's sailor suit, eating through the boots, flesh, and bone with equal gusto before completely severing the senshi's left foot and skidding to a stop against the haft of the Silence Glaive.

Hotaru experienced a brief moment of exultant triumph before a massive shock wave blasted outward from the senshi of destruction, blowing her off her feet once again and flinging her backward through the air.

She was more or less expecting such things now, however, and called the Force to her as she righted herself to land heavily on her feet.

Saturn stared down impassively at her dismembered foot as dark smoke poured from the charred flesh of the cut. Then she shifted her weight entirely to her right leg as she turned her attentions back to Hotaru. "Are you satisfied now?"

"No, not really," Hotaru admitted, twisting the light saber again to bring it back to its more versatile longsword length. "I was hoping for you to fall down, or stagger, or... show some mild discomfort, at least."

Saturn snorted and once again pointed her glaive. "Silence Glaive Surprise."

Hotaru was thrown to the side as a considerable chunk of her dream-prairie was suddenly consumed in bright light, her body being thrown along the shock wave and tumbling into the tall, billowing grass.

Sailor Saturn spent a few seconds staring at the crater caused by the technique, the concave impact zone measuring nearly the width of a city block. And yet the only sound that disturbed the calm wind was the noise of chunks of exploded dirt raining softly onto the grass.

Vwom! Jhooooh...

Well, okay, maybe that wasn't the ONLY sound.

Saturn spun around with surprising swiftness considering that she had only one leg to stand on, and a quick gesture with the Silence Glaive caused a massive geyser of searing purple energy to erupt out of the ground directly in front of Hotaru, who had been dashing for Saturn's unprotected back.

Seeing that her surprise attack had been ruined, Hotaru clicked her tongue as she leapt away from her assault path, and then thrust her free hand forward to send several large rocks uprooted by the explosions hurling toward her enemy.

Saturn casually gestured toward the rocks with her own hand, not bothering to call out the name of her technique as the boulders smashed themselves to pieces against the Silence Wall. "That weapon is quite obnoxious, you know. You won't be able to sneak up on anyone with all that infernal humming."

Hotaru growled as she slammed a palm into the ground, and the earth beneath her feet trembled before a line of small explosions started going off in Saturn's direction, sawing across the dirt and throwing up waves of dust and shredded grass.

The new attack didn't stop when it reached the Silence Wall, the next explosion simply bursting up from the other side, and it almost looked like the ground wave was going to score a hit before Saturn slammed the butt of the Silence Glaive into the dirt once more.

Hotaru covered her face with her arm as another massive shock wave burst out from all around the senshi, and when she could once again see her enemy, she saw that her own puny assault had been completely snuffed out.

"Give up, Hotaru!" Sailor Saturn demanded wearily. "This conflict is pointless. I don't want to destroy you."

"And that's why you'll lose!" Hotaru declared as she took off into a frontal assault again, light saber held out at her side.

Saturn lifted the Silence Glaive up, and then, after pausing for dramatic effect, brought it down once again.

Hotaru's momentum halted almost instantly as another shock wave blasted into her, as she felt her rough, time-worn shoes digging into the dirt as she was pushed backward.

"The differences in our power is simply too great for you to overcome," Saturn said condescendingly, like a teacher lecturing a dim student. "I have the Silence at my command, and your mastery of this... 'Force' is nascent. I cannot lose."

"If you don't care about winning, you'll definitely lose!" Hotaru insisted through clenched teeth as her eyes glanced back and forth, searching for any possible weapon for her to use. "If the outcome doesn't really matter to you, if you don't have any passion for what you're fighting for, you can't possibly succeed! You don't really care about controlling me or securing the future of the Moon Kingdom! You're only doing this because of your orders and Serenity's goals! You won't beat me!"

Saturn sighed sadly as she shook her head. "Nal'Shek's dark thoughts become more pointless and deranged the further you delve into it."

"I didn't get that tidbit from Master," Hotaru corrected as she held her light saber upright in front of her, "I learned that from Ranma Saotome."


BWOOM! An explosion of power not dissimilar from Saturn's earlier displays burst from around Hotaru's body, and the very earth started to tremble as the Force poured from the young Sith in waves, digging into the ground like mighty roots.

The noise rose further as rocks started to lift up off the ground, at first small stones, but then larger and larger rocks began to dig themselves from the earth until the point that car-sized boulders were tearing themselves free from the ground in small explosions of dirt and shredded grass.

Sweat beaded across Hotaru's forehead as she drew more and more of the Force to her, and she knew that in summoning this much power she risked attracting the attention of wandering daemons thirsty for souls. It was the very mistake that had led to Nal'Shek's death, although her late master apparently hadn't been aware of the danger.

Still, seeing the look of mild concern on Sailor Saturn's face had already made the gambit worth it.

"Apocalypse Drive!" Hotaru shouted as she cut down with her light saber

At that momentous gesture, the stones suddenly rocketed forward before descending on Sailor Saturn in a massive barrage.

At first Saturn moved to launch an attack to knock out Hotaru and hopefully take out most of the incoming projectiles in a single shot, but a moment of hesitation saved her from that mistake when she noted that the ground was still shaking and that boulders were still tearing themselves from the earth all around her before arcing at her like homing missiles.

"Silence Dome Enclose!" the ancient warrior shouted, summoning a barrier just in time for the first wave of stones to pulverize themselves against the shield.

Saturn had to admit that she wasn't expecting this level of power or creativity from her foe, and she watched with considerable interest as the stones continued hammering the silence dome. The smaller rocks disintegrated from the combination of kinetic force and energy feedback, often bursting into hot dust on impact, but the boulders would instead break into smaller rocks which would bounce away and then double back toward their target, continuing to attack until they had been reduced to powder.

Even the inside of the silence dome wasn't completely safe, and as the ground bucked and heaved beneath her feet (or foot, rather), rocks would leap up from within her shield and pelt her. Not that these were little more than an irritation; there weren't many that broke the surface so close, and any stone large enough to cause damage was swatted out of the air before it got too close. However, it was still surprising and slightly worrying to see that Hotaru's last-ditch effort had partially circumvented her strongest defense.

It was also interesting to note that an attack such as this wasn't among Nal'Shek's memories; Hotaru had created it herself with imagination, raw power, and a great deal of inspiration from Saturn's own powers.

The senshi's musings ended when Hotaru came dashing toward the circumference of the barrier, probably desperate to launch a new attack as her most recent one finally started losing steam; the tremors had abated and the vast majority of stone projectiles had already shattered.

Saturn watched impassively as Hotaru slammed a palm against the silence dome, and she very nearly dropped her glaive in surprise as the dome promptly unwove itself before the young Sith, a gap yawning open widely enough for her to jump through before sprinting into a headlong charge.

GZZZssssht! Saturn caught the light saber slash against the haft of the Silence Glaive, and her eyes locked with Hotaru's as the girl tried to overpower her.

"Impressive..." mumbled the senshi of destruction as she shoved the crackling weapon away, making no move to attack. "Most impressive."

Bzrt! Choot! Kzshzt! Hotaru attacked in wild flurry, her strokes and slashed raining like lightning upon the ancient warrior. Saturn's defenses proved up to the task, however, and every blazing strike was parried with a clap of electric thunder and a burst of hot sparks.

"Your grasp of the Silence is much better than I thought if you can unravel it so easily," Sailor Saturn complimented before deflecting another light saber strike at a calculated angle, throwing Hotaru off-balance as she swatted the light saber blade to the side. "You truly were born to wield my power, Hotaru."

"You don't get to decide that!" Hotaru howled, twisting the light saber again and extending the blade with a crackle of azure lightning. "Shut up and die already!" Hot anger seemed to fill every vein in her body with fresh vigor, and her form burned with a violet aura as she surged forward with thrice the power behind her blows.

GSHZT! GAZOOHT! KASHT! Blow after sweeping blow hammered into the Silence Glaive, the extended length of the light saber edge and the improved leverage forcing Sailor Saturn to brace herself strong against every blow and catch the attacks perfectly, lest her pole arm be knocked right out of her hands. Yet, still she did not fall, and Hotaru's strength started to wane as she tried to press her assault.

Hotaru knew that her attack was faltering; Saturn's defenses seemed to be perfect, and Hotaru had taxed her body too heavily and too quickly in her desperate bid for the upper hand. The best she could hope for was a lucky hit, or that Saturn would finally stumble from having to defend herself on one foot...

With a gasp of surprise Hotaru glanced down at her opponent's feet, only now realizing that her foe had been bracing herself on both legs when one should have been reduced to an unusable stump. Much to her dismay, she saw that where the blackened flesh ended, a glowing purple mass had spontaneously grown into a shape similar enough to a foot to serve the senshi's needs, allowing the ancient warrior the proper balance to defend herself.

This distraction cost her dearly, however, and the moment Saturn saw that her opponent's eyes were not on her weapon, she batted the light saber away before cutting back across Hotaru's body, scoring a deep cut right under her breasts.

Before the young Sith could so much as gasp from having her lungs sliced open, Saturn rotated the pole arm over her head to swing the other end around into the girl's jaw, scoring two clean blows on a single rotation of her weapon. Hotaru promptly staggered away, her light saber deactivating as an ugly fan of blood gushed from her chest wound.

"It's over Hotaru," Saturn said with finality, approaching her wounded foe steadily. "Surrender now and dissipate this place, and all will be forgiven. Depart from this foolish path, and take up the mantle you were always meant to bear: that of the senshi of destruction and silence."

Hotaru gasped painfully as she held her free arm tightly around her ruptured torso, gobs of blood sputtering from her lips with every breath. "No... f-fair... your foot... already... cut it off..."

Sailor Saturn rolled her eyes. "I will take that as a 'no'. Very well."

Bwoom! With a gesture, another explosion took Hotaru clean off her feet, and the young Sith screamed as she was sent flailing into one of the few patches of tall grass that hadn't been obliterated by the battle.


Sailor Saturn felt Hotaru's mental grip on their environment weaken as she neared unconsciousness, though thankfully the girl would not die. Although she had been severely wounded, a soul's own will to survive would fight against the rules of the mental plane enough to ensure that one didn't die from bleeding out or suffocation. So long as Hotaru stayed down this time, she would survive.

This was rather important to Saturn, not because she particularly cared about Hotaru, but because having to inhabit the girl's body full-time would have been a fantastic inconvenience. Besides trying to get along in the somewhat normal life that Hotaru led most days, the destruction of Hotaru's soul probably would have caused some friction among her friends and parents among the Senshi, and frankly Saturn had enough issues with the whole "trust" thing as it were.

Putting aside Hotaru's fate for the moment, Sailor Saturn focused her concentration on the demiplane that Hotaru had created, forcing her will upon the landscape in ways that had been impossible with Hotaru's mind firmly trying to control the place.

Bits of broken rock and dust started to rise up and coalesce into spheres that floated in the air, and Saturn watched with a deliberate eye as the orbs slowly turned to balls of glass one by one. Each sphere glowed with an unearthly light as it spun lazily in the air, and blurry images seemed to move within each one, like a movie projection with exceptionally bad focus.

"I'm not certain if you can hear me now, Hotaru, but I'll inform you nonetheless," Sailor Saturn said as she kept willing the spheres into existence all around her, the orbs now numbering almost a hundred and still growing in number. "Unwanted souls and rampaging daemons aren't the only thing that can be summoned and then destroyed in this demiplane we've forged. Behold, your memories."

She walked closer to one of the orbs, peering closer until she could see the image of Hotaru doing various exercises in a pointless Rocky Balboa training montage.

"Not all of them, of course. Such a vast store of information is beyond my ability to summon into this place, and most are irrelevant anyway. No, these are your memories of your time in that wretched fortress with Nal'Shek, as well as the scraps of memories that he managed to pass on to you."

Saturn slashed the orb she was standing in front of with a negligent flick of the Silence Glaive, and as it split in two the sphere seemed to melt into sand, eventually falling to the ground to kick up a puff of dust.

"Since you've developed something of a stubborn streak over the past... oh, I think it's been about four hours now since you first started meditating... you leave me no choice." Saturn slashed apart another crystal, and then another, her glaive flicking to either side as she walked. "If you will not turn away from Nal'Shek's teachings, I will simply destroy them."

After seeing nearly a dozen more spheres reduced to bits of shimmering debris, Saturn moved up to another orb, this one showing Nal'Shek in his living days dueling with the light saber, and raised her glaive to destroy the memory that sustained Hotaru's skill at light saber combat.

Pshew! Vwom!

Saturn's eyes twitched as she heard the familiar sound of a light saber activating, and she turned her head to stare coldly into the patch of tall grass being bathed in bright purple light from within.

"I have shown you leniency again and again, Hotaru. Cease this resistance at once," Sailor Saturn demanded, her voice icy. "I spare your existence only because your feeble struggles are less of an inconvenience than the myriad difficulties of replacing you. Don't think that will stay my hand for much longer. You are becoming QUITE the nuisance."

The soft hum of the light saber was all that greeted her threats, and Saturn turned completely around to face her fallen foe.

"Hotaru?" the senshi of destruction frowned. "Did you get up, or did that thing somehow turn on by itself?"

Bwack! For the first time in untold millennia, an expression of complete and utter shock adorned Sailor Saturn's face as a kick from behind sent the Silence Glaive spinning away through the air.

Saturn whirled around just in time for Hotaru's knuckles to smash into her nose, sending the ancient spirit staggering back in pain and surprise.

"You were right!" Hotaru said through bloodied teeth as she launched a kick into Saturn's midsection, knocking her down onto her rear. "That thing really is noisy! Completely obscured my sneaking up on you!"

Saturn coughed as she scrambled to her feet, dizzy and a bit bloody but not seriously hurt. "How did you... that wound..."

The ancient spirit trailed off as she realized that Hotaru was still holding one arm under her breasts where she had been cut, and that said arm was glowing as the savage wound slowly regenerated.

"Healing is my oldest trick, Saturn," Hotaru spat, "and that's nothing I learned from the Silence."

"H-Hotaru... stop this," Sailor Saturn said, traces of nervousness creeping into her voice. She wasn't completely powerless without her weapon, and Hotaru was still unarmed and wounded, but the sheer, almost tangible hatred coming from the young Sith sent tendrils of fear creeping into her normally emotionless facade.

"NO, I will not stop," Hotaru hissed as she advanced. "I will not stop until you're dead and gone. I will not stop until my mind, body, and memories are safe from you. I will not stop until I'm FREE of the damn leash you and Serenity have wrapped around my throat! This is it, Saturn! Prepare for oblivion!"

The senshi of destruction bolted, pouring energy into her speed as she dashed in the direction of the Silence Glaive. "You're making a mistake, Hotaru! What will become of the future if the princess lacks the power of Saturn?"

"I'll tell you all about it when I see you in Hell!" Hotaru snarled, not bothering to chase her opponent. Instead she merely raised a hand toward the senshi's back. "Goodbye, Saturn."

Vwom! Hsssh! Saturn was first confused when she first heard the constant hum of the light saber mixed with an infernal sizzling noise, but comprehension came a moment too late as she saw the ancient weapon rising into the air in front of her, its crackling violet blade cutting and burning the surrounding grass as it hovered.

The senshi of destruction had no time to dodge and no weapon to block as the light saber lanced toward her, its five-foot blade instantly piercing her Senshi armor right through the crystal over her breast before burning through her ribcage, heart, and spine and then bursting out her back.


Hotaru breathed heavily as Saturn stumbled onto her knees, the senshi's body all but destroyed. Partially her exhaustion was from her injuries, much of it could be attributed to adrenaline, but the rest was pure emotion as fear, hope, and rage gave way to victorious pride.

"And that, Saturn-san, is something else I learned from Ranma," the young Sith said as she walked up to her defeated opponent. "An opponent is most vulnerable when they think they've already won. If you can't win from the front, hit them in the back."

Reaching Saturn's dying body, Hotaru grabbed the handle of her light saber.

Fzash! With an almost casual motion, she sliced the weapon upward, and Sailor Saturn exploded into motes of light as her spirit, the last remnants of a soul thousands upon thousands of years old, at last fled the body of Hotaru Tomoe.

The lights coalesced in the air to become a small jewel, and Hotaru caught it out of the air.

"So this is a star seed, huh?" Hotaru asked nobody, finally deactivating her light saber and clipping it onto her belt. "I thought it'd be shinier." It rather resembled a finely cut gemstone with a dark purple coloring, and the interior swirled about chaotically as if a tiny storm were trapped within.

"Inside this rock is all of Saturn's power. The access to the Silence Glaive, my senshi form, and the essence of the Silence itself," she mumbled, idly wiping away some of the flakes of dried blood that had gathered around her mouth.

And then, with a smirk on her face, she shattered the crystal in her hand, grinding it into little fragments.

"Heh. And now it's all gone," she said in self-satisfaction, watching her hand as the bits of broken star seed started to glow. "Finally, the nightmare is... uh..."

She trailed off as the fragments glowed brighter and brighter, the silvery light eventually swallowing her hand and showing no signs of abating.

"Okay, maybe it was a mistake to just smash something with that much power," Hotaru admitted nervously as the glow kept blooming brighter, filling up ever more of her vision even as she looked away from the energy quickly swallowing her. "Okay, let's calm down... I can handle this.. maybe I can just-OH GOD WHY?" she screamed as the light finally consumed her.

Far away from the cataclysmic events taking place in Hotaru's mind, Ranma was groaning in irritation as Tiro and Junko circled his body like predators armed with measuring tape and armfuls of shirts.

He was currently in the dressing room of some French clothing store with a name he couldn't pronounce and was hating every minute of it. Tiro and Junko had been quite insistent that they dress him up properly if he was going to go take Usagi out on a date, and after another fruitless argument with Junko, he had ended up agreeing.

His only consolation was that he had forced them to agree to a deal: that if he could select a pair of pants for his new outfit that would be accepted without complaint or discussion, he would suffer through having the rest of the ensemble painstakingly assembled by the DAPC's most lecherous officers.

Of course, he didn't make the deal because he had any particular pants in mind, but rather because he didn't trust Junko to be constantly undressing him from the waist down.

"All right, I think we've settled on wool for the outerwear, but what about a shirt?" Junko mumbled as she snapped a few picture's of Ranma's shirtless torso with her cell phone camera. "I can't decide between the gray with stripes or something with a little more color to offset the pants."

"I've got it covered," Tiro said as he practically threw the shirt onto Ranma's back. "Sky blue. Always a winner. Try it on, buddy!"

Ranma sighed as he did as instructed, buttoning up the shirt as Junko fetched a coat in his size from the pile in the corner. "By the way, I've been meaning to ask, why do so many of these shirts have wires in them?" He tugged at the cord through the fabric to emphasize its presence, which was otherwise not noticeable from the outside.

"It's just the fashion," Tiro said as he started adjusting the martial artist's collar. "There we go... and here's another VITAL accessory to the 'classy casual' look!"

Ranma frowned as he looked down at the button that Tiro had just put onto his collar. "It looks like a little microphone or something."

"I know, right? Trust me, it looks great," Tiro insisted while Junko nodded emphatically.

"This is all just so much trouble," the pigtailed man groused. "Why do I have to dress like some guy from a magazine? Can't I just be myself?"

"No man ever got laid by being himself," Junko declared as she helped him into a black wool coat. "Now hold still."

"I just think that if Usagi-chan would bother to go out with me in the first-" Ranma's eyes widened, and he and Junko stumbled for a moment as if physically hit by something.

"Whoa! Did anyone else feel that?" Ranma asked, holding his head suddenly.

Tiro raised an eyebrow. "No. What happened?"

"I don't know... it just felt like... a massive burst of ki or something," Ranma babbled, realizing that the explanation hardly made sense even to him. But it had come and gone so fast that he hadn't even had time to react.

"Uh huh. Sure," Tiro said, "trying to distract me so that you can go invisible and escape, huh? Not happening."

"No, he's telling the truth," Junko mumbled, slowly stumbling away from Ranma as she stared up at the ceiling in awe. "It was like... a massive psychic balloon had suddenly been popped, and we got caught in the rush of air. A force that's been swallowing life for... longer than I can imagine has been destroyed."

Tiro was struck speechless as he stared at the redhead. "Really? That's... that's pretty deep, actually."

Junko nodded. "Yeah. Although Ranma DID use the opportunity to go invisible and escape."

Tiro's head whipped around, and the lecher groaned as he saw only empty air where the martial artist used to be. "Damn it, let me get the GPS out."

"Did you tag his shirt?" Junko asked, rapidly forgetting about the momentous psychic event that had happened mere seconds ago.

"Too obvious. I managed to get it in his pigtail. Ah ha! Signal locked! Shoe department!"

"Perfect! After we corner him we can pick up some nice oxfords for him!" Junko cheered. "Let's go!"

Manipulating the threads of unreality for fun and profit: a primer on the similarities and differences between the Warp and the Force.

"Hello everyone, and welcome to this special edition Millennium primer," said Nal'Shek as he floated before a long white board, a tiny light saber in his hands. "I know this is usually where we post the kill count, but there weren't that many deaths this chapter, and they were all important and dramatic enough that you hardly need an end-of-chapter tally to remember them all."

Nal'Shek activated his light saber-slash-pointer, and then started slashing rapidly across the white board with it. "We had a lot of fun today, didn't we? And we had plenty of surprises, too! Like that daemon eating me; lemme tell you, back in the day, Force-users didn't have to put up with that sort of thing!"

When he was done drawing on the board, there were multiple pictures of himself using variously sized energy blasts. The last energy blast was the largest, and behind that particular image of the ancient Sith was a monster rearing up to eat him.

"You see, when a psychic, a psyker, or a Sith draws upon the Warp - or the Force, 'cause they're the same damn thing - they risk drawing the attention of a daemon. Daemons are beings composed of pure Warp energy that have managed to coalesce into a type of crude sentience, and the vast, VAST majority of them are pointlessly nasty, soul-devouring monsters. When a person starts drawing in power from the Warp to power abilities, it's like sucking water from a pond full of fish; draw a little, and nothing happens. But if you start taking buckets at a time, then there's a good chance that you might accidentally catch a 'fish,' if you get my meaning."

The ghostly Sith started drawing again in some empty space. "Now you might be thinking: 'But Nal'Shek, why didn't the Sith Lords or Jedi of old ever cough up daemons if they were using the Warp?' Well, the obvious answer is that these are two different canon universes with different rules. But because the author is the finicky sort, we've come up with a sketchy and annoyingly convenient explanation."

"You see, Star Wars happens a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. It makes sense that in the ancient past, and with the Warp's tenuous but existent relationship with real-space, that the 'Warp' in Jedi Land is different from the 'Warp' in the Milky Way. What with an unspecified but significant time span having passed, and being in a galaxy mostly populated by jerks - and by example please consider the Eldar - the Warp, a realm composed of emotional and spiritual energy, has naturally gotten a lot more riled up, and big chunks of it have decided that mortals taste like chicken."

Having finished his drawings, Nal'Shek revealed a picture of two Jedi and two Sith, one of each side by side. He pointed to the top two pictures, of which the Jedi was labeled "Safe" and the Sith was labeled "Angry". "Now please note the above two figures: the Jedi holds his emotions in and seeks control above all else. Because the Warp is stimulated by emotional energy, using it while maintaining an emotional void and being careful leaves one almost completely unaffected and unbothered by the energy. It's a 'safe' power, also known as the Light Side of the Force. The Sith, on the other hand, channels the Force using his emotions. This makes it stronger, but he suffers a lot of feedback since he keeps agitating the psychic energies with his own emotions. This can lead to a 'corrupting' effect of various degrees and outcomes, which has led to this usage being labeled the Dark Side of the Force."

He then pointed to the figures at the bottom. "In the Milky Way galaxy, consequences are a lot more dire." The Jedi's head was surrounded by flames and had the label "Head Explodes", and the Sith had devil horns and claws along with the label "Angry and Possessed". "The measured, careful approach to using the Force is still safer, but ultimately your survival depends mostly on not going crazy with the power levels. Don't use the Force Lightning when a light saber to the gut will do. If you're on the more passionate side, then you're either in big trouble, or you're golden. Daemons are often drawn to the emotions that birthed them, so a Sith might find a kindred spirit squeezed into his head that might form into a partnership that's merely excruciatingly painful and horrific rather than fatal. It's a shame I never got to chat up the worm that ate me this chapter; we might have hit it off."

Nal'Shek then pointed to another diagram which showed a Chaos star icon. "Besides that, most of the differences between Force-users and psykers are superficial. For example, in the Milky Way people often attach religion significance to such powers and ritualize it." He then pointed to another drawing of a chemical beaker and a light saber "In my galaxy, things tend to be more pragmatic. We call on the Force when it's useful, and tend to ignore it when it's not. Unless some dead guy's yelling in our ears about it, anyway."

The Sith Lord bowed and then waved his transparent hand. "Well, I hope you all learned something today, and if you didn't, don't worry! This is all a load of crap fandom anyway! Goodbye!"

End Chapter 13