Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and the DARK.MATTER setting was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. I own neither of these things, and expect that if either of those last two people Google their own names they are going to be incredibly confused. * * * * * "I take it you are the people sent from the Institute?" said the thin, nervous looking Japanese man as he pulled open the sliding glass door. "You'd be correct. Doctor Phillip Akens, Hoffmann Institute." He was a tall, dignified-looking African-American, around forty, his hair just starting to grey at the edges. He extended an opened hand, which the Japanese man stared at for a few seconds before Akens retracted it with a nervous cough. "These are my colleagues, Doctor Nadine Neary, Doctor Donna Truitt, and Mister William Wheeler." He gestured behind him and pointed to, in turn, a small, slender woman of mixed Asian descent with an unfocused, genial smile, a taller woman with long, dark hair and a tank top to show off her well-toned arms, and a broad- shouldered man with unkempt shoulder-length red hair, camo-patterned pants, and a jacket that went down to his knees. The Japanese man bowed. "Doctor Akito. I thank you for coming on such short notice, and only wish we could have met under better circumstances." He ushered the four foreigners through the door, then slid it shut and locked it behind them. "I have heard of your expertise in these matters -- I trust you will be able to deal with this situation quickly and quietly?" "Discretion is our watchword, Doctor. If you could show us to the site of the most recent incident?" "Ah, of course! Otoyo-san's office is... was this way. Please, follow me, I will explain what we know on the way." Behind Akito's back, the red-haired man whispered to the tall woman next to him. "Doctor Truitt? Why do you get to be a doctor and I only get to be a 'mister'?" She elbowed him in the ribs, but said nothing. "We've been experiencing problems with the electrical systems for about a month," said Akito, unable to hear what was going on behind him, "but the first fatality was a week and a half ago -- a student working overnight in one of the labs was found Friday morning, covered in what looked to be severe electrical burns. At first we thought it was some sort of power surge; much of the equipment was damaged as well --" "--But the maintenance staff said the power surge came from a different machine in a different room entirely, right? One that had no signs of damage -- the cyclotron?" "Ah, yes, that is correct, Akens-san. We were concerned, of course, but we examined the cyclotron and found nothing wrong with it. We hadn't really had a chance to progress much further when the second body was discovered, five days later. This time it was one of our custodial personnel, in the middle of a hallway, with a similar pattern of burns. Again, there was a power spike from the cyclotron. We shut it down, even though there was again nothing wrong with it --" Akens interrupted again. "--But two days ago you went into Doctor Otoyo's office, saw the good doctor's remains, at which point you closed off the department and called us?" "Ah, yes, correct. My assistant must have given you this information over the phone. This was Otoyo-san's office, and I have kept it locked since that day. I hope you can make something of it, I find it most disturbing." Akito opened the door and winced at the sight within. Akens' eyebrow arched, Neary looked queasy, and Wheeler let out a slow whistle. The office was a shambles; papers and lab equipment lay strewn all over. The doctor's large oaken desk had been overturned and splintered in several places. Most notably, what appeared to be Dr. Otoyo hung upside-down from the ceiling, covered in electrical burns, his legs below the knee fused into the plaster above them with no visible means of entry. "Akito-sensei, you've come to the right people." * * * SAILOR.MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE CHAPTER 1: DOUBLE VISION * * * UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO DEPT. OF HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS OFFICE OF OTOYO SHINICHIRO TOKYO, JAPAN WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 16, 1995, 4:08 PM "I still don't see why we have to hang around in here. We got all the information we needed over the phone." William Wheeler picked one of those clicking-ball devices off the floor -- Newton's Cradle, that's what those things were called -- and started to play with it. "We could be out right now looking for this thing instead of wasting our time here." "As much as I hate to say it, I agree with Bill on this one," said Donna Truitt, standing by the door. "We already know how this guy died and why, not like it had anything to do with what he was working on. And the dead guy hanging out of the ceiling is really starting to freak me out." Philip Akens didn't look up from the stack of papers he was leafing through. "I know we're not doing anything, but we have to anyway. It's all about appearances, about keeping face." Donna rolled her eyes. "Phil, with you everything is about keeping face." He sighed, a 'why-Lord-must you-test-me-so' gesture. "Yes, okay, Doctor Akito is one of the few experts in his field who would actually give my theories on dark energy a second glance, so I would appreciate it if we could solve this problem in such a manner that we don't look like a pack of wild animals. Just this once, perhaps?" Wheeler grunted. "I promise nothing." Another sigh. "Anyway," Akens continued, "We give it another ten minutes or so in here, convince him we're touching all the bases. Then we can get down to the real business." He paused, flipping back and forth between a few pages. "No wonder he had to pull an allnighter, this guy had no control over his department. Labs cancelled, tests lost, professors missing, had to be a lot of work if he's doing the work of six or more professors by himself. Hell, he's got a Doctor Tomoe here who hasn't shown up in over two weeks -- that's two weeks worth of three classes a week, labs to run, papers to grade, equipment to schedule..." "Vanished over two weeks ago?" asked Dr. Neary. "Didn't Akito say that the bodies have been turning up about every five days? Could be, the first victim they found wasn't the first victim it made." "Exactly what I was thinking, Nadine," Akens said as he folded the papers in half to place in his pocket. "And here you thought we were wasting our time." * * * After a thorough review of Dr. Tomoe's office in the physics department, the agents of the Hoffmann Institute came to the conclusion that he was indeed somehow involved in the summoning of the Fader. His office had no papers to grade and no pictures of his daughter anywhere, but what it did have were cursory notes on the summoning of extra-dimensional beings, probably ones he forgot to take with him when he cleared the incriminating material out of this office. The agents suspect that he summoned a Fader, and they are right. The Fader is a creature not native to our reality but from a plane of mostly energy, who take the form of human bodies that were sent into its home plane of existence. Most, perhaps all of these bodies the Faders take, were left in their world after the disastrous failure of the US military's "Project Rainbow", also known as the Philadelphia Experiment, in which the Navy attempted to teleport the USS Eldridge from one location to another by passing it through the dimension the Faders come from. Many of the crew were killed, some of them phased through the walls and floors by the massive distortions of energy, and some of the crew that came out on the other side weren't really the crew at all. Dr. Tomoe did summon such a creature, a being of warped, insane energy straddling between our world and theirs, but this was not his intention. Indeed, he's not even aware that it arrived in our world at all via the open portal he was using to test for the arrival of Pharaoh 90. The Fader simply saw a gate to our world, took it, and traveled toward the nearest source of energy it could find. Luckily for Dr. Tomoe and unluckily for us, he was not testing the gateway in his own backyard or the monster would have fed on the equipment in his basement; instead the closest source was the cyclotron at Tokyo University. The Hoffmann agents do not have access to this information and do not yet know that the monster Tomoe is attempting to summon is much, much worse than any mere Fader. But they did learn some things, and by the time the sun was setting they figured they had enough time to check on his house, or the private school he was teaching at, but not both. They chose to search his house, and if they had not, they would have been witness to far stranger events. Events like Ami, Minako, Usagi, Rei, and Makoto are witnessing right now, when the students of the Mugen Academy are walking in like a great shambling pack of zombies, faces clouded in unnatural shadow, to have their pure hearts sucked out from their chests to fuel the Messiah of Silence's power. The five Sailor Senshi are scared, they'd be foolish not to be, but they press on because they know they are the only ones who can stop this evil from coming to pass. And they're right, but they're not the only ones who would try. * * * Glancing from mirror to mirror and back again, Dr. Neary backed a Hertz rental van into the driveway of the missing doctor's rather impressive two-story home. Nobody expects any trouble -- they don't expect to meet anybody, as a matter of fact -- but she's learned the hard way to always, always park for a quick getaway. "Akito said that Tomoe had a daughter," Akens said as Neary struggled to get the aging manual transmission into 'neutral' without snapping the gearshift off. "If he's vanished, and I bet he has, she may still be around. Wheeler, can you give us your friendly uncle act?" "I don't know how well it will work if she can't speak any English, but I'll give 'er a shot." Wheeler heaved the sliding door on the side open, and it reached the end of its track with a muffled WHOMP. "Wish I brought a gun, though." Truitt rolled her eyes in the seat next to him. "Yes, I'm sure his daughter would be so much more easily amused if you had a shooting iron to show her. I know I ask this a lot, Bill, but just what the hell is wrong with your brain?" Wheeler shot her a scowl set on 'vaporize'. "Get a room, you two." Neary spun the keychain around her index finger a few times and then stuffed the keys into her pocket. "All right, here we go." Akens slowly, deliberately pressed his thumb into the doorbell, greeted by a harsh buzz muffled through the front door. He waited a few moments, then held down the button for ten seconds solid. "Looks like nobody's home. Donna, could you--" Truitt shoved him aside with a hand curled around a locksmith's pick set. "--Get the door? Why gee, I hadn't thought of that. It isn't like it's my job or anything." She knelt over and glanced at the doorknob, selected a pick from the fold-out set, and started to line it up with the keyhole before she stopped and just turned the doorknob. Met with no resistance, the front doors of the Tomoe residence swung open. The lights were off, and Donna slapped her hand against the wall a few times before finding the lightswitches -- she flicked them back and forth, to no effect. "Lights probably burned out," Wheeler said from a distance that sounded like he was right in Donna's ear, likely because he was, and she instinctively spun around and took a few steps backward, nearly stepping on a table. "Car isn't in the driveway, though, so if he left them on he was expecting to be right back." "Or maybe he was too busy thinking about quarks and bosons to remember to turn them off before he went to work. Whatever it is, we need to check around for anything indicating where he was going or if he was doing anything to attract outside attention. Probably best if we split up." And at Dr. Neary's suggestion, they split up. They would remain split up for no more than twenty-five seconds, which is how long it took for Donna Truitt to go into the basement and find the lab. Once she did, it was pretty clear that nothing else in the house was going to matter. * "Holy shit! It's like he's building a Goddamn Frankenstein down here!" "Donna, that's absurd. I mean, Tomoe's field was physics, not biology, and, and none of these things look like... I mean, if this stuff has something to do with the Fader's appearance, that's still something that would require... it'd need a totally..." Tubes and beakers filled with unidentifiable substances littered the several tables in the room. A mesh of copper wiring coated the walls and ceiling. The far wall was cluttered with machinery of various ages and applications. There was a Jacob's ladder, arcing electricity up its twin antenna to no apparent purpose, a Kenmore refrigerator, and a boxy device, painted with a star, that was either an autoclave that looked like an Easy-Bake oven, or an Easy-Bake oven that looked like an autoclave. A beige Hewlett-Packard was hooked up to most of the devices, its monitor displaying a series of multicolored tubes snaking around each other. Donna didn't look away from the lab. "What? What would it require, Phil?" Phil didn't look away either. "...It really looks like he's building a Goddamn Frankenstein down here." Dr. Neary pushed them aside. "Well, whatever he was shooting for, we know what he got. We'd better get an inventory of what he had, maybe if we can figure out how he got the Fader over here, we can figure out how to kill it or drive it off." They nodded in odd synchronicity and fanned out to begin looting the lab of anything that could either provide insight into the doctor's dimension-crossing ventures, or at least be sold. Dr. Akens moved to the computer and began to tap at the keyboard. A few moments later, Wheeler piped up. "Try 'Hotaru'." "Huh?" "His daughter's name. It's probably the password." Akens let out a long sigh. "There wasn't a password, it was just his screen saver. And that only ever works in the movies anyway." Wheeler sniffed the contents of the flask he was holding and grimaced. "Oh, you mean the movies, like the ones where crazy mad scientists have labs in their basements with those little widgets that look like rabbit ears with bolts of lightning zapping up them?" Akens would have greatly loved to have a withering put-down to respond to this, but damn if Bill wasn't right. * * * Upstairs, a black magic woman breathes a sigh of relief as she sees the four strangers walking back out to the car, carrying Dr. Tomoe's computer and several components of the lab. She was afraid that they might be some as-yet-unknown allies of the Sailor Senshi, but luckily they were just there to rob the place. They left behind the daimon incubator, by far the most valuable piece of equipment, and nothing they did take didn't already have four or five backups at the Mugen site. It took all her restraint to keep silent when she heard them come in, but she was pretty sure it was the right decision. If she killed them and anyone saw or heard it, then Chibi-Usa might be scared off and never come seeking her little friend. The doctor's personal computer wasn't important, but Hotaru's little playmate was vital. She was certain to have the purest heart of them all, and that's why Kaolinite sent her a dream about her friend, being torn asunder and screaming Chibi-Usa's name. She'd even thrown in some meaningless Christian symbolism and had Hotaru bound to the cross; that kind of stuff always got the kids riled up. When Kaolinite captured the girl and secured her pure heart for the Pharaoh, it would be clear to all who was the greatest servant the Pharaoh had. And it would especially be clear to that bitch Cyprine, who was going to be demoted to rinsing out the centrifuge so fast it would make her head spin. * * * "Okay, so we got the doc's research data. What now?" "Well, there's a bunch of data on there about trying to bridge the way to a sub-dimension of our own, and bring something over that's been straddling between two planes. We know that the Faders are probably from outside our dimension, and they need enormous amounts of energy to maintain their existence, but nobody knows what would happen if one were to be brought all the way into our reality rather than existing halfway between here and there. As far as I know, nobody's ever tried before Dr. Tomoe. Problem is, I couldn't find any actual schematics on there, nothing about a device to actually accomplish it. I may be able to--" "God DAMN it will you jackasses just let me TURN, or am I going to sit here with my blinker on until I die of old age?" Donna slammed the base of her palm on the steering wheel in frustration. "You don't get a prize for 'winning' at traffic, so it's okay if you let someone in front of you once in a while!" She paused. "I'm sorry, you were saying something that I wasn't at all interested in?" Dr. Akens cleared his throat. "Erm, yes. Anyway, I know of someone back in Arizona who may be able to take the data and help us make something to disrupt the Fader and drive it back to its home dimension. If we can get in touch with him, we might be able to stop the creature's next feeding cycle." "If? Well, what do you mean, if?" "Yeah... apparently, when I last talked to him, his financial situation was less than optimal. His last few paychecks from the Institute had bounced, and he suggested he'd flip a coin to decide if he paid for his phone or his cable television. I think he was joking. I hope." Donna slammed on the brakes and drove her hand into the horn like she was trying to tear through a human skull. "The light is GREEN you idiot! Does everyone cross against the light here in Bizarro-Land, or are you just retarded?" The short, pink-haired girl that had nearly been flattened by the van looked up at her as if in a trance, her red eyes distant and troubled. "Yes, I am talking to you!" Donna continued. "Go! Move! Motivate! Vamanos!" She began making wide hand gestures to illustrate the point. "MOOOOOOOOVE IT!" Nadine slapped her on the back of the hand. "Jesus, Donna, will you give it a rest? I think everyone's got the point by now that you're, ooh," she put her hands up near her head and wiggled her fingers a bit, "big scary lady with big important things nobody ever better cross!" Donna gritted her teeth and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel as the light turned red and the little girl snapped out of her momentary trance to continue off down the street. "Shut up, Nadine." "Run off, little pink-haired girl," Nadine continued as if she hadn't heard, "Run off and tell all your friends of this day, the day that you met the mighty Donna Truitt, the mysterious stranger, the erotic assassin who can kill with a glance, and lived to tell the tale! Go! And warn the others of what may befall them if she is not afforded her proper respect!" Donna blew a strand of hair out of her face. "I just... don't appreciate it when I've got the right of way and someone decides that their time is more important than mine. I don't think that's really all that unusual."A pause. The light turned green again and they continued on down the road. "And besides, if I did want her to go warn everyone, she could just make a sign and stick it in that hairdo of hers." * * * Princess Usagi Small Lady Serenity woke with a start, yelling Hotaru's name. She was panting, sweating, exhausted, and she had to take a moment to get her bearings and realize that she was awake now, she'd been having a nightmare. Hotaru was screaming her name as a thousand grasping hands dragged her down into the unfathomable darkness. She was nailed to a crucifix, for she was a Messiah, but hers was not an act of redemption. The Christians say the Messiah died to wash away the sins of man and grant them eternal life, but the Messiah of Silence would come to wash away the virtue and goodness of mankind and usher in utter annihilation. Chibi-Usa took a moment to be grateful she wasn't a Christian and didn't have to follow that line of symbolism down to its conclusion. She took a look around the room but Usagi and Mamoru were gone, and who knew when they'd be back. Chibi-Usa still couldn't believe that those two could ever grow up into her parents. Ikuko and Kenji, Usagi's parents, were probably still here, but what Chibi-Usa needed wasn't something that came from two people who are awakened at 11:30 at night by a kid who had a nightmare. It was just a nightmare, after all. Sailor Mars was the one with visions of the future, not her. This wasn't any more a vision of the future than her dream last week where she and Black Lady were both contestants on "Takeshi's Castle" and Black Lady kept tripping on her dress and falling in the water. Still... it couldn't hurt to check. If Hotaru wasn't in trouble, then she'd feel a bit silly. If she was, Chibi-Usa might save her life. It was just a dream -- she hoped it was just a dream -- but she just needed to make sure. She had already grabbed her compact, put on her shoes, and was halfway down the block by the time she made this conscious decision. But it was only right, wasn't it, that Chibi-Usa do everything in her power to save Hotaru? Even if, Chibi-Usa shuddered, the powers of Sailor Chibi-Moon might not be able to do a whole lot to a forest of pallid white arms stretching out of the maw of the Abyss. Chibi-Usa was a princess, after all, and -- no. No, Chibi-Usa corrected herself, this had nothing to do with being a princess. She was Hotaru's friend and that's what mattered, and she'd be Hotaru's friend whether she were a princess or a pauper. She had to do everything she could to make sure Hotaru was safe and she was happy, because she knew Hotaru would do the same for her. Everyone deserves to have friends, to have people that love and care about them, and if Hotaru only had one, then that just meant Chibi-Usa would have to be as kind to her as ten friends would. Hotaru was a sweet, kind girl, and someone like her should be cheerful, not sad. Hotaru always seemed sad before Chibi-Usa befriended her, and too often afterwards. They played, they laughed, they had fun, but sometimes Chibi-Usa got the impression that Hotaru's happiness wasn't replacing her sorrow, but just laying on top of it. Covering it up. She never talked about the past without regret, she always feared the worst would happen to her, and seemed a bit suprised whenever she was shown kindness. Always afraid, of being hurt, of being rejected, of failing, of herself. Hotaru would never say these things out loud, of course, because she cared about Chibi-Usa's feelings and didn't want her to worry, so she just kept her bad feelings on the inside where she thought nobody could see them. It was tragic, thought Chibi-Usa, that if she could open herself up a little more to the world she'd find so many new reasons to be happy, but until she was happier she couldn't open herself up to the world. That's what Chibi-Usa's job was. Not just to save her from being pulled into a physical darkness -- something that she still hoped was just a metaphor -- but to pull her out of an emotional darkness. If Chibi-Usa could be her ray of light and let her see things the way they really are, she knew Hotaru would be happy. And that would make her happy, too. Chibi-Usa stopped when she heard a car horn, not so much startled as confused. She looked around and realized she was in the middle of the street, blocking the path of the van that was now honking at her. The driver was a dark-haired woman, American or European, and she was screaming loudly and animatedly in a language Chibi-Usa didn't understand. She looked at the woman, shouting and waving her arms, for a long and morose moment. She was so angry, impatient. She was probably unhappy too. Did this screaming woman have friends when she was young, people to show her the goodness of the world? Chibi-Usa didn't think so, and when she walked away from the van the thought of it almost made her cry. People deserve to be better than that. Hotaru deserves to be better than that. When Chibi-Usa got to the house, she decided that for safety's sake it was best if she transformed into Sailor Chibi-Moon. She went to open the front door, but it opened to beckon her in... * * * Daniel Banks, the engineer to which Dr. Akens had earlier referred, was not joking. But this time, his coin flip had resulted in another month of payment to the phone company; any deviations in this tangent ultimately can be attributed to the results of this coin flip. It is why all night and into the early morning of February 17th, 1995, as the dwindling remains of a cabal of sorcerers in the Mugen Academy for Gifted Students work the mechanism of Armageddon, as eight Senshi struggle to halt its great turning gears, four underpaid agents were sitting in a circle on the floor of the office of Dr. Mitsumo Akito, surrounded by various electronic parts and components, one of them alternating between listening intently to the phone cradled between his ear and shoulder, tapping something into the keyboard of a beige Hewlett-Packard laying on the floor next to him, and shouting commands to a loose assortment of undergraduates to fetch for him the next part he will need. Four undergraduates are missing, not that anyone notices, and those would be the four of Dr. Akito's students that had taken part-time tutoring jobs at the downtown Mugen Academy. When morning came, the rest of the students found the entire building closed off by order of the department chair. The long-distance bill alone from this night will be over one thousand American dollars, not to mention the costs of rescheduling a day's worth of classes. The Hoffmann Institute will never see an invoice for this, because every party involved is about to have much bigger problems. Inside the Mugen Academy, Dr. Tomoe spoke softly, reverently, to his own daughter. "It is all ready now. Now we need only to put the chalice into the device, and the light of darkness will illuminate our world. That illumination is what is needed to show the way to our great Master Pharaoh Ninety. And when he arrives in our space, all will be destroyed and the Earth will fall into Silence. The era ruled by the light of lies will end and the era ruled by the darkness of truth will begin. " She smiled, a dark smile that portended nothing but suffering and sorrow. Her master would have smiled too, had he mouth or form. He was in the same room as his mad servitor, and yet was an entire world away. But soon, his nightmare would end, and he would surge into the existence denied him thousands of years ago. Soon, he would enact his hellish retribution on the world that had been his prison. The time of the Silent One was soon at hand. * * * "So that's it?" "That's it." Wheeler picked up the device and gingerly turned it over in his hands, then placed it back on the table. "It looks like a hot dog rotisserie." It did. "It's a rotating magnetic resonance disruptor. It cycles magnetic fields on a certain frequency, attuned to the dimension the Faders are from. If Dr. Tomoe's research was accurate, it'll force our Fader into one dimension or another." "And what will that mean?" Akens shrugged. "Depends. If it is more in its dimension at the time, it just gets driven back. It vanishes. If it's more in ours, it's forced all the way in, and it should be unable to teleport or make use of the energy it's been storing up." Wheeler pulled the Colt Python out of his jacket and made a show of twirling it back and forth between his hands. "At which point, I put bullets into it until it falls down. I knew you guys kept me around for something." "Don't get too trigger-happy. If we didn't get the frequency right, it could end up affecting a dimension the Fader isn't even in. Shoot it when it's at normal power and you'll just end up angering it." "Phil, I don't know if you've noticed this, but generally when I shoot things they aren't happy about it." He slid the gun back into its holster, just so he could make a show of drawing it again. "So, I nodded off at about four, what time did you guys end up going to bed?" "Didn't. I drank about three pots of coffee, and plus the grad students give me like twenty boxes of those little candy pretzel stick things with chocolate on them." "Pocky?" "Oh no thanks, I'll just put on a jacket." * * * Sailor Uranus, Sailor Pluto, and Sailor Neptune approached the Mugen Academy in a helicopter. The sky was grey and overcast, turning day into twilight. The weathermen at the channel from which the helicopter was stolen had predicted today would be sunny and clear, and for once this inaccuracy was not their fault. These clouds didn't foretell rain. They foretold death. "We have no time left," said Sailor Uranus. "We have to strike before she completely awakens." Neptune looked straight ahead, but put her hand around Uranus's, for support. "So there was no Messiah after all... we have to save the world with our own hands." She started to choke up, though with anger or sorrow she could not tell. "No matter what sacrifice we may have to make..." In the back seat, Pluto stared off to the side, in silent contemplation. Neptune and Uranus were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. So was she. But Usagi wasn't. No, Usagi had said "I won't let anyone be sacrificed," and she said it with the same conviction that they'd said they would die to stop the Silence. Neptune and Uranus think that means she's weak, naive, foolishly optimistic. That she'd be dead if not for cynical people like them willing to do ugly things so she can keep herself pretty. Pluto can't help but wonder, though. Sailor Moon has already fought the Dark Kingdom and the Black Moon Clan without the help of the Outer Senshi and without sacrificing any of her friends. Is the Silence simply a different threat, one that can't be fought the way Sailor Moon is comfortable with? Or would Neptune and Uranus have thought that the only way to defeat Queen Beryl was to sacrifice themselves and leave nobody to stop Wiseman? They say that Hotaru is the Messiah of Silence. Isn't the Messiah supposed to bear off the burdens of others, so they no longer need to make these sacrifices? She thinks she should know the answers to these questions. She's the guardian of the Gates of Time. She should know what's going to happen. And she does, doesn't she? Small Lady is here from a thousand years in the future, and she certainly couldn't be born if all life on Earth was Silenced. And Pluto sent her here, so she knows she doesn't give her own life. And she could look into the Gates of Time to know exactly how it will happen, she's done that kind of thing before... ...and yet, for this, she hasn't. She doesn't know what happens here today because every single time she's tried to look, she's stopped herself at the last moment. She's not concerned about breaking rules, or about knowing too much about her own future... she's afraid. She's afraid she will open the Gates of Time and look inside to this day and she will see the Pharaoh tearing his way into our space and laying waste to all humanity. And she will try to call Small Lady and warn her but she will be dead, worse, she will never have been born. And she will turn and look around her and see fire and wreckage and know there is nothing she can do about it. "What's that?" asked Uranus from the front of the cockpit, pointing at what appeared to be a dome of energy around the Mugen building. "It doesn't look like a normal barrier," said Neptune. "There's an opening on the top. Maybe we can get in through there." Uranus didn't mention that this was probably a trap, because they all knew that. And if the only way in was to walk into a trap, that's what they had to do. Because they were willing to sacrifice themselves, right? Uranus pulled in closer to land and saw that it was indeed not a normal barrier, it was a barrier made of hundreds and hundreds of red, gelatinous daimons. They had been dormant until the helicopter as in range, and then a great mass of them attacked in unison, leaping at all parts of the aircraft. They were each weak and had no weapons to speak of but neither of that really mattered because they didn't have to attack the three Senshi, they had to attack the far more fragile aircraft they were riding in. Uranus tried to pull back, to get away, but there was no time to escape the daimons. They wrapped around the craft like cords, pulling it in, breaking it to pieces, and showering it with dark energy. Sparks and smoke shot from the instrument panel, the rotors were jammed, the intakes were clogged, and the helicopter would have exploded before it even finished falling like a stone. What Pluto did next, she didn't even have time to think about, but after all the consideration in the world she would have done it anyway. She was outside the helicopter now, hanging in midair, holding the Key with the Garnet Orb aloft. The helicopter, the daimons, everything around them were frozen in time. Pieces of shrapnel hung in the air as if supported by wires, clouds of smoke and flame froze and looked like wads of cotton, flares of blue electricity became blue paint. "Pluto?" shouted Neptune, her voice echoing unnaturally. "What have you done?" asked Uranus. Pluto winced, feeling the tidal strain this was putting on her body. "I've stopped time!" she said. Her vision was starting to blur and different parts of her were being pulled in vastly different directions. "You've got a chance, now take it! You need to escape, now!" "You never told us you had this kind of power!" "I don't!" she said back, and already she tasted blood in her mouth. "For a Guardian of Time, this is absolutely forbidden." "Absolutely forbidden?" asked Uranus, trying to understand. "What's going to happen to you?" Neptune asked. Pluto smiled and retained her composure even as she felt like she was being stretched on the 'rack' in a dimension she couldn't even see. "If you ever find the real Messiah..." Neptune and Uranus vanished, teleported away into the building for the final confrontation. A second later, Pluto was gone too. * * * "You're sure it's coming." "Positive. It feeds like clockwork, every five days. According to the power usage logs, the feeding times get a few hours later each time, so it should be here around eight, eight-thirty. Unless it's moved on, and there's no reason for it to have done so, it'll be here this morning." Dr. Otoyo's office was silent for a few moments. "I'm bored." "We're all bored, Bill. We're not all annoying." More silence. "Bill, animals of North America, seven letters." "Nadine, we're supposed to be on a stakeout! We're making too much noise as it is already!" Ten seconds of silence, unblinking, unmoving, as inviolate as the utter darkness they found themselves shrouded in. "Gimme an 'E'." "No 'E'. You've got the guy's head." Truitt grabbed her temples and exhaled, slowly. "Wait, you don't just start with the guy's head! You have to draw the gallows first." "Bill. Nadine. Stakeout. Talking. Stop doing it." "I never played it like that. You always start with the guy's head. Otherwise you'd get, like, twenty guesses!" "Well, there's 26 letters in the English language, you can't just make me lose after six wr--" Truitt jammed a hand over Wheeler's mouth and pointed a finger up in the air. He began to protest, but then he heard it too, the sound she was indicating. A low buzz, a hum, permeated by the occasional crackling. Quiet, but getting louder. The fluorescent lights in the office started to flicker to life, even though they were turned off. "Showtime." Akens grinned before ducking his head slightly out the doorway. "Wait for my signal, then activate the device." He peered down into the hallway and spied a bluish glow coming down another hall toward the cyclotron room. In a few seconds, he saw its source: a man, or what appeared to be one, faintly luminescent, dressed exactly like a Naval crewman, of the USS Eldridge on October 28, 1943 -- though his plane of origin was nothing so mundane as that. It moved with a quick, determined gait toward the cyclotron. Akens pointed toward the device without looking away. "Hit it." * "Sailor Moon! Are you satisfied now? Answer me!" There was no response, there could be none. Sailor Moon stared in mute shock at the end of the world coalescing before her. Sailor Uranus fell to her knees and wept. Another voice, gentle yet strong. It was familiar and yet it was not. "Thank you, Sailor Moon. Thank you for protecting me. I am here, thanks to you." "Hotaru!" the doctor called to his daughter. "I am not Hotaru any more. I am now the only one who can save this world from the Silent One. Just leave the rest to me." It didn't speak, for it couldn't. It emanated forth its hatred directly, and its thoughts touched the minds of all in the room like being splashed with cold, black oil. YOU FOOLISH CHILD. I AM OLDER THAN THE PLANETS FROM WHENCE YOU TAKE YOUR NAME AND I WAS ANCIENT WHEN THE FRAAL FOSTERED THE LUNAR KINGDOM FROM WHENCE YOU DRAW POWER. WHEN FIRST THEY ARRIVED ON THIS WORLD, I WAS HERE, WAITING TO CONSUME THEM. THEY DESTROYED THOUSANDS OF THEIR OWN AND STILL COULD NOT STOP ME. WHAT CAN ONE MORTAL HUMAN CHILD EVER HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH? Sailor Saturn gritted her teeth and stood resolute. I HAVE BEEN CALLED COUNTLESS NAMES IN THE LIFE OF YOUR PLANET. YOUR FATHER CALLED ME PHARAOH. THE FRAAL CALLED ME THE SILENT ONE, ISCI BA FAN. I HAVE CARED LITTLE FOR THE TITLES GIVEN BY MORTALS. BUT NOW, I SHALL REVEAL MY IDENTITY TO YOUR SPECIES. MY NAME IS DEATH. * The device that looked remarkably like a hot dog rotisserie spun slowly, emitting a light squeak every quarter-turn. "What's happening? Let me see!" Truitt and Wheeler both moved toward the doorway. Wheeler shoved her aside and peeked his head around the doorway, just under the head of Dr. Akens. He saw a bluish, luminescent man in outdated clothing walking up the hallway, in no visible distress. "Phil. It's not working." "I am acutely aware of the fact that it's not working, William!" "I think we've found a problem in the plan, the plan requires your thing to be working!" The Fader stopped next to the locked door to the cyclotron, and arcs of blue-white lightning began leaping through it, into his body. The fluorescent lights all over the hallway began flaring and sparking. Behind them, they heard a muffled voice say, "I am the only one who can save this world from the Silent One. Just leave the rest to me." Truitt and Neary turned to each other and said, in unison, "Did you just say something?" * Nacreous black tendrils lashed out at Sailor Saturn, each parried with a brilliant strike of her blade. The gateway was a pulsing sphere of dark energy, slowly growing wider. The Pharaoh struck at her with these black tentacles, but these were just his fingertips. The aperture was not yet wide enough to allow his real form entry into the world, and when it was, not even the Senshi of Ruin would be able to stop him. Sailor Saturn struck, slashed, parried with her Silence Glaive at dizzying speed. The weapon was almost weightless, incredibly easy to wield and control. Though it weighed no more than gossamer, the blade was rigid, unbreakable, and the edge sharp enough to cut anything with the slightest pressure. She twirled and swept around with it, stopping attacks that were coming at her almost too fast to see, hacking off little chunks of tentacle that evaporated into black mist before they hit the ground. She was, in truth, actually a bit surprise at how skilled she was with this weapon; she was thankful that it was Sailor Saturn whom the fate of the world rested on, because Tomoe Hotaru would have failed everyone by now. Sailor Moon howled in frustration and despair, throwing herself uselessly against a barrier of dark energy. The Chalice was gone, she no longer had the power to break down the wall. She had vowed nobody would be sacrificed, and she was going to be tragically, horrifyingly wrong unless she somehow found the strength the Chalice would have lent her. USELESS. FOOLISH. ALL YOU HAVE DONE WILL DELAY MY RETURN BY A SCANT FEW SECONDS. I THINK THAT IN RETURN, I SHALL PEEL YOUR MIND FROM ITS MORTAL SHELL. I WILL USE YOUR PSYCHE AS THE CHALICE FROM WHICH I DRINK YOUR EXQUISITE SUFFERING. Sailor Saturn scowled. Sailor Moon screamed the magic words again and again, but nothing happened. Then behind her, she distinctly heard someone say, "I am acutely aware of the fact that it's not working, William!" Then another voice, "I think we've found a problem in the plan, the plan requires your thing to be working!" Sailor Saturn and the Pharaoh, locked in mortal combat, heard nothing but the sound of blades striking. * "Okay. Okay. Stay calm. It doesn't see us. We just let it feed and let it leave." This time, everyone heard it, though only Dr. Akens and Dr. Neary could understand the Japanese in which it was spoken. "Moon crisis make up!" howled a disembodied voice, "Moon Crisis Make Up! MOON CRISIS MAKE UP!" with each repetition becoming more desperate and hoarse. The Fader stopped and turned toward the source of the noise, and saw the heads of Wheeler and Akens poking from the doorway. It emitted a crackle that could have been its species' equivalent of a snarl and began to walk toward them. Akens ran his fingers into his hair and held them there. "It must, it must be picking up radio signals or something--" "Okay, time for plan B!" Wheeler pushed Akens back, then ducked into the doorway himself for just long enough to draw his Colt Python revolver, and then leaned back out, exposing only his face and weapon arm. He fired six times in quick succession, emptying the cylinder into the advancing creature. It flinched slightly at the first hit, but the rest seemed to pass right through. "Will, what did I say about pissing it off? You didn't listen to me, why does no-one LISTEN to me!" Panic was rising audibly in Akens' voice. "Well if you have any other bright ideas, I'm all ears!" "I, I don't know! The device was on his frequency, it should have- -" "That's it! The DEVICE!" William shouted in a moment of revelation, and yanked the device away from its wall socket. Donna realized what he was doing and dove to stop him, but was too slow, and she only got as far as "What are you doing you id--" before Wheeler threw the rotating magnetic resonance disruptor at the creature's head. * "I am known as the Soldier of Destruction because I have been given the power to destroy whole worlds. But when I use that power... even I have no escape." "No!" cried Sailor Moon, and she ran toward her ally, her friend, in the hopes she could stop her from sacrificing her own life. Sailor Saturn pointed the glaive at her, and she stopped short. The blade was so sharp she thought it could cut space itself. "Goodbye." Sailor Saturn took a deep breath, to steel herself for what she knew must be done, in anticipation of the fate for which she'd secretly hoped. She was scared, terrified and yet for the first time in a great while she felt content. Maybe even happy. And then she heard someone scream "What are you doing you id--". And then everything exploded. * * * Dr. Neary was surprise that such a flashy, catastrophic explosion would be utterly silent. Then after a second she realized that it had completely deafened her. She pushed a chunk of burnt acoustical tile off herself and slowly rose to her feet to inspect the damage. The spot where the fader had stood was now a radial scorch mark; there was no sign of the creature or the device remaining. The wall that previously obscured her vision of that spot had been blown to bits, as had several other walls around the hallway, the cyclotron itself, and a large part of the ceiling. She turned around to see which of her teammates would need medical attention, and saw something unexpected. Lying next to her, unconscious, in the middle of a pile of debris that seemed to indicate she'd been thrown bodily into the wall behind her, was a small, frail little Japanese girl. Her plain black shirt was tattered, revealing all manner of cuts and abrasions underneath, blood was oozing down her face, and both her hands were locked in a death-grip on a long, wicked polearm that still held a perfect mirror sheen even as everything around it was coated in a film of plaster dust. --- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * B O N U S C O N T E N T * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * HOFFMANN INSTITUTE AGENT NUMBER S-0014405 NAME: WHEELER, WILLIAM SCOTT AGE: 28 PREV. ASSOCIATION: US Army (Governmental, Military), New Patriot Church of Liberty (Civilian, Military) ASSIGNMENT: Investigation & Response Team Rho HISTORY: William Wheeler joined the US Army directly after his graduation from high school in Moscow, Idaho. He served a four year tour of duty, three months of which was combat duty as part of UN peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan, and declined to re-enlist. Upon his return home he found that his father's farm had been seized by the IRS for nonpayment of taxes, and this caused William to believe the government was out to harm its citizens. He joined a fringe militia group called the "New Patriot Church of Liberty", and stockpiled weapons as he preached to his neighbors about the imminent peril the government had placed them in. Mr. Wheeler joined the Institute after being involved in an October 1992 incident that concerned the summoning of an ice-demon at a rural Idaho truck stop, where he was distributing antigovernment leaflets. PSYCHOLOGY: William hates and mistrusts government of all types, but that is not what drives him. William needs to help people, to protect them from harm and wrongdoing, and unlike his teammate Donna Truitt he is not covert about this need -- he craves recognition for it. While a lofty and noble goal, it is marred somewhat by William's tendency to act well in advance of thought, misidentifying factors such as who needs "protection" in the first place, and from whom, and what exactly the best course of action to "protect" them would be. William is a very competent grunt-level field agent when he has others around to rein in his impulsive behavior. William exhibits a fascination with firearms of all types that in any other occupation would be disturbing and unhealthy but here may be the most sensible habit of any of his teammates. When informed that, of the many conspiracies existing within the US government, the IRS was exactly as it claimed to be and had no plans to spirit away tax dissenters in the night or to sell citizens' true names to foreign banks, he was actually a bit disappointed. SPECIES: Human PROFESSION: Combat Spec ACHIEVEMENT LEVEL: 5 STR 11 [+1] INT 09 [+0] DEX 11 [+1] WIL 08 [+1] CON 12 PER 09 Second Sight [4]: After an aggravating fiasco in Spokane, Washington involving a warlock making heavy use of 'glamours', William has been trained in the ability to see through illusions. He receives a -1 step bonus on any skill roll to pierce an illusion, and is always entitled to a WIL feat check to pierce illusion even if the skill normally allows none. Willpower [4]: What William lacks in good sense he makes up in gumption. He adds +1 to his WIL resistance modifier. Criminal Record [+4]: William has a record on file with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and if he is seen or leaves evidence of his committing crimes in the United States the ATF may take an interest. Rebellious [+2]: William does not trust government or police officials in any capacity and receives a +2 step penalty to any PER- based skill checks involving governmental agents. He has no problem with authority figures that are not associated with the government, or pretending to be one himself, he has even posed as an FBI agent using a novelty badge purchased at a Spencer Gifts. Combat Information: Weapon: Score: Range: Damage (O/G/A): Type: Unarmed 12/6/3 Personal d4+1s/d4+2s/d4+3s LI/O .357 Revolver 13/6/3 -1 6/12/50 d4+1w/d4+2w/d4+1m HI/O Mosin-Nagant 14/7/3 -2 200/400/800 d6+1w/2d4+1w/d4+1m HI/O M16 14/7/3 -1 60/120/300 d4+2w/d6+3w/d4+1m HI/O RPG-7 12/6/3 +1 30/60/150 d6w/d4+3w/d4m En/G Action Check: 14+/13/6/3 Durability: 12 / 12 / 06 / 06 Actions Per Round: 2 Last Resort Points: 1 Athletics [11/5/2] > Climb 1 [12/6/3] > Throw 1 [12/6/3] Heavy Weapons [11/5/2] > Direct Fire 1 [12/6/3] Unarmed Attack [11/5/2] > Brawl 1 [12/6/3] Modern Ranged Weapons [11/5/2] > Pistol 2 [13/6/3] > Rifle 3 [14/7/3 -1] Vehicle Operation [11/5/2] Stamina [12/6/3] > Endurance 1 [13/6/3] Survival [12/6/3] > Mountain 1 [13/6/3] > Winter 1 [13/6/3] Knowledge [09/4/2] > First Aid 1 [10/5/2] > Language (Russian) 3 Awareness [08/4/2] > Intuition 1 [09/4/2] Investigate [08/4/2] Deception [09/4/2] Interaction [09/4/2] > Intimidate 1 [10/5/2]