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.


   The real Kunimatsu Takaji was the head of the National Police
Agency and served in that position with distinction and dedication; he
is not, as far as I can tell, an alien.



* * * * *



   "Well, here I am," Sailor Moon said as she held open the changing
room door. She pulled out the red ornament from her left hair-odango
and let her hair fall unbound to the backs of her thighs. "Do I look
criminal enough?" She slouched forward, stuck out her jaw, squinted,
pushed her hands into her pockets.


   Tuxedo Kamen nodded and stepped inside. Sailor Moon had thrown on a
too-large pair of blue jeans and a baggy T-shirt colored to look like
camouflage fatigues, it bulged oddly where the ribbon on her chest
pressed against it. All of her costume was covered up save the bottoms
of the boots; with her hair out and figure disguised nobody could
recognize her as Tsukino Usagi or Sailor Moon, and anyone who pieced
together that she was one still wouldn't know she was the other. "If I
didn't know it was you, I would be showing you the error of your ways
now. Though I hope that 'Wheeler-san' doesn't mind us using his
clothes."


   "Thanks!" Moon grinned, never even paused to think that she was
taking a criminal appearance as a compliment. "And Hotaru-chan said he
would be fine with it, didn't she? I'm sure he won't mind if we come
to break him out of jail."


   "Of course..."


   "Mamo- uh, Tuxedo Kamen-sama... What's wrong?" Moon stood on her
tiptoes and hiked up her pants to try to stop stepping on the ankles.


   "Oh, nothing, don't worry yourself." He held up Sailor Moon's
Disguise Pen and looked at it, then down at the police uniform it had
placed on him. "It's simply that I usually come to rescue those in
danger, and," he puffed his cheeks and exhaled, "impersonating a
police officer may be outside my realm of expertise."


   "It's not like you're really impersonating a police officer,
though." She popped open her case of purple eyeshadow and started
rubbing her brush on it. "Well, you are. But it's not bad, this time!
When people say it's a bad thing to pretend to be a police officer and
get someone out of jail, they don't mean when that person was put
there by an evil shadow man."


   "Oh, I agree totally. It's still something to which I am
unaccustomed, that's all." He closed his eye and brushed the hair out
of it, letting Moon apply the makeup. "You need a man to be the
arresting officer, and that's more important than where my personal
comfort zone resides."


   Moon closed one eye and squinted. "It looks okay... I think I
probably should have used a lighter blue first and layered it. It
would look more natural." She opened her eyes and stood back. "I'll
know for next time, right?"


   Tuxedo Kamen blinked a few times to work off the thicker clumps of
makeup. "I should hope there wouldn't be too many more chances to
apply this skill."


   "Well, you never know, I still think it could come in handy." She
tore open the blister-wrap on a children's policeman playset, pulled
out the realistic-looking toy handcuffs and both keys, and let the
rest of the set stay in their plastic bubbles. "Okay," she said,
handing the cuffs to Tuxedo Kamen, "I'm a hooligan, I was shoplifting,
and you caught me. I punched you in the eye, so you decided you had to
take me down to the station instead of just calling my parents. And
the station is just a few blocks away so it was faster to walk.
Right?"


   "Right." He slid the toy cuffs around her wrists and slipped the
key into his pocket, though he thought Sailor Moon could break the
flimsy chain linking the cuffs if she wanted to. "And should we
encounter any mind-reading shadow men, we will be able to immediately
fight them without transforming and leaving ourselves vulnerable, and
if anyone else sees through our disguises, they will see another
secret identity. I'm worried this plan is actually a bit too good." He
grabbed her arm roughly and prepared to drag her out of the room, then
paused. "When this is over... do you think we should ask
Chibi-Usa-chan if Crystal Tokyo's criminal justice code has a 'evil
shadow man' clause?"


   Sailor Moon was about to start loudly and coarsely protesting
police brutality, but she was giggling too hard to say anything.


* * * SAILOR•MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE


CHAPTER 9: DOUBLE HEADER * * *


TOKYO METROPOLITAN POLICE HEADQUARTERS, INTERROGATION ROOM EIGHT
KASUMIGASEKI, TOKYO, JAPAN MONDAY FEBRUARY 21, 1995 5:54 PM


   "I'm sorry, that was rude of me. Would you prefer that I call you
'Itohiro-san' or 'Vesin'?"


   Itohiro Nakami stared at the kimono-clad little grey alien, his
illusory face showing a mix of disdain and dread. "'Itohiro-san'
should work just fine. You have me at a disadvantage, I don't know
either one of your names."


   "You can call me Kunimatsu Takaji, then," said the Fraal as he
pushed his chair closer to the table, "and that should be enough for
here." He sat down opposite Nakami and tried to meet his gaze, then
realized he wasn't actually looking into his eyes. "You can let that
illusion drop now. If you don't have the energy to speak
telepathically then it must be a great strain on you to maintain it.
The cameras are off and we aren't going to be disturbed. The director
of the NPA can order these kinds of things."


   "No thanks, Kunimatsu-'san', I think I'll stay the way I am. So,
the Ahotti have wormed their way this far up the ladder, that one of
you is now in charge of the entire police agency and using it to carry
out your own petty vendettas?"


   "I didn't know if you'd eaten in a while," said Takaji as if he
hadn't heard anything, "so I brought you a little snack." He gestured
at the soft drinks and lettuce. "Not much, I know, but it won't give
us diarrhea like most terrestrial food, and I didn't have time to
prepare something more fancy. That's actually the real reason they
make the soda, you know, so that we could have something to drink we
didn't get from a pharmacy, an auto shop, or a liquor store. Humans
like it too, I guess. I heard you were pretty tired, so I brought
something for that, too. Don't want you falling asleep when the humans
can see you."


   Nakami crossed his arms. "So you control the police and you control
the soft drink company. Are all of Japan's government and corporations
dancing on the Ahotti's strings?"


   "Oh, Itohiro-san... oh, Nakami, I suppose I should call you by the
American fashion to which you're accustomed, but then again that's a
large part of your problem, isn't it?" He shook his head and made a
'tsk-tsk' noise. "The Ahotti don't control Japan's government. We
participate in it. To say that we control it would require there to be
a single issue in which the Liberal Democratic Party and the Ahotti
party are not in complete agreement."


   "Both of you are political parties filled with old people with a
paralytic fear of change. You both  hold back progress and pine for a
yesteryear that never existed, though your only true allegiance is to
political power. You both would rather let a problem fester than admit
you were ever capable of wrongdoing and address it... and your
draconian and regressive policies are an enduring reminder of the
worst parts of the past of -- and are an utter embarrassment to --
your nation and your species respectively." Nakami nodded "Yes, I can
see why you'd see eye to eye on a lot of things."


   "Wow, I get the feeling if we let you out you're going to go back
to passing out poorly mimeographed political screeds on a street
corner! I was thinking more along the lines of, we're both
conservative parties who value thought before action, using
tried-and-true methods, who have been in power for almost as long as
their respective governments have existed, and their only opposition
comes in the form of agitators who feel like changing everything for
the sake of changing it." Takaji popped open one of the cans of Pocari
and took a swig, then continued. "But let's just imagine for a moment
that we aren't the same party. That there's an invasion. The Ahotti
are secretly infiltrating the Japanese government to bring it under
our sinister control and the Prime Minister and the whole Diet are
dancing on our puppet strings. What did we make? An ordered society
where violent crime is almost unheard of, that still retains its own
unique identity in the face of American cultural hegemony, producing
technological innovations that sometimes surpass what we have on the
mothership, that's one of the biggest economic powerhouses on the
planet." He took another drink. "Yes, I can certainly see why you'd
want to stop us from carrying out that malicious mission."


   "And if all it costs the people is their freedom?" Nakami scoffed.
"Why, that's a bargain at twice the price!"


   Takaji sneered. "Don't try to pretend that I'm the preacher from
'Footloose' here, that we take away everyone's joy so things will be
predictable. You damn well know..." He sighed and rubbed his forehead.
"Look. The Ahotti know a lot more about your organization than you'd
like to think. We only get bits and pieces, sure, but we keep our ears
to the ground... so to speak. We know about the 'addiction' you were
grappling with last year."


   "Is this a threat?"


   "It's a segue. Now, it's okay to get a little overwhelmed or
infatuated with some aspect of human culture." Takaji set his drink
down and leaned forward, one leg crossed over the other. "Myself, I
like to collect model trains. Big collection in my apartment, bigger
one back on the mothership. Everybody needs a hobby. Computer games
are a perfectly normal hobby, nobody's going to judge you for that.
But when you're up until 6 in the morning, falling asleep at your
keyboard in an unlocked office, neglecting your duties to the
organization you founded to play more? When your senior staff has to
destroy the install disks, delete the game, and inspect all incoming
software orders to make sure you're not getting another copy? It
doesn't reflect well on you to your peers."


   "'X-COM' is a very... engrossing game." Nakami fidgeted. "I'm not
the only one who said he was going to play one more mission and then
stopped when he saw the sun come up."


   Takaji nodded. "I know. I know. It's a good game, and it received
very high reviews in all the publications. I've had staffers up all
night playing 'Civilization,' so I can kind of relate to how that
happens. But you have to see how that would reflect poorly on you."


   Nakami looked away. "If you don't agree with what I'm doing, why
should you care when I'm not doing it well?"


   "You were playing a game about killing aliens with a plasma rifle,
chief among them, little guys that look like Fraal! There was a rumor
going around that you'd completely lost it, that you'd gone crazy with
hatred for your own species and were obsessed with acting out killing
us. A couple people thought we should move you up to a high-priority
threat before you did something crazy. I talked them down though."
Takaji put his hand out on the table as a show of friendship. "I know
why you like that game so much and that wasn't the reason."


   Nakami looked down at the extended hand, then back up at Takaji.
"And why is that?"


   "Because, in the game, there's a clear danger to the people of
Earth, and you can directly do something to stop it. Humankind is
threatened and you can save them." He nodded slowly. "It's the same
reason you started your little project, the same reason you came to
Japan. You want to be able to help, you want to be able to DO
something." He shrugged and spread his arms. "You, every member of the
Iltan, you see what we're doing, and you see all the problems in the
world and say we're not doing anything to solve them, so you want to
come in and change everything around rather than realizing it'll be
all right."


   "I came here because someone spotted Isci ba Fan, and he's close to
entering our world at full strength. I suppose you're going to tell me
that that is going to be all right?"


   Takaji sat bolt-upright. "Isci ba Fan? Really? For really really
reals?" He slid back into his normal posture. "Come on, you know as
well as I do that Isci ba Fan is a boogeyman meant to scare children
into obeying their parents. If you were talking about Master Pharaoh
90, though, then it is going to be all right. Sailor Moon's going to
kill it. Always does."


   "So, Sailor Moon's on your payroll too, then? Am I the only one in
Japan who isn't a member of your group?" Nakami thought about Hotaru,
talking about that whole Moon kingdom, how she wasn't worthy to be a
part of it.


   "What? No," Takaji waved a hand dismissively. "Sailor Moon doesn't
know I know a thing about her. She thinks she's waging war on the
forces of evil in total secrecy. Thinks she's some kind of queen,
too."


   "Princess."


   "Whatever, not like it matters. Cosimir knows where she actually
learned magic, point is, she knows it. And when monsters and demons
and freaks show up she's equipped to deal with them far more quickly
and quietly than the government. She hasn't let us down yet, and the
cleanup is far less of a hassle and the secrets easier to keep secret
when a magical girl does it than if we had to train and arm an SDF
division to do it."


   "So you're just going to ask a little girl to do your work for you
because it's easier?"


   "No, I'm not going to ask her anything. She's doing it because she
knows she has to. I've never even spoken to her, most I did was mail
her and her team some replacement equipment a year or so ago. They
don't even know who it came from." He chuckled. "I have my hands
pretty full as the director of the NPA. As a member of the Ahotti, I
don't do all that much. Because I know that meddling in something
makes it worse."


   "I thought you were at least going to use your position of power to
advance some kind of agenda, that might conceivably be defensible.
You're infiltrating and subverting the highest levels of government in
order to do nothing? To sit around and let others deal with your
problems?" Nakami shook his head.


   "We don't do 'nothing.' We go where we are needed to smooth over
problems. It only seems like 'nothing'  to you because you're frenzied
to do everything possible. Here, I'll tell you a story.


   "So, herewhile back, there was this pair of aliens that came to
Tokyo -- from some planet I never heard of, wasn't in the database --
and they were summoning monsters, gathering up energy for this tree
that was their mother, or their god, or something, I don't know which.
So instead of getting a bunch of people with flamethrowers together,
like you would have done, we kept our hands off and let Sailor Moon do
it. She cleared the alien's bolthole out with zero fatalities, not
even killing the two aliens. In fact they see the error of their ways,
because that is just the kind of gal Sailor Moon is, and they agree
peacefully and willingly to leave the planet and find another place to
plant their super-tree."


   He put his arm on the back of his chair and leaned back. "Of
course, they got as far as Mars before they realized they weren't
getting anywhere without a faster-than-light drive. They signalled the
mothership to ask us if we had one, which of course we don't, and
their little tree wouldn't grow on Martian soil. So they came back
here to Tokyo, intending to blend in instead of suck energy. We had to
cut them a few checks until they could get on their feet, and come
over a few times early on to remind them not to let on they were
aliens, but we haven't heard a peep from them in months now, they've
integrated. The tree's alive, the aliens are happy, Sailor Moon
thwarted evil, she's happy, almost nobody knows the two are aliens,
I'm happy. Everyone's happy. If I had sent in men with flamethrowers,
half of them would be dissolved by space-spores, the entire building
would be in ruins, everyone would know there was a giant space-tree
wrapped around it, and if the aliens weren't dead they'd be swearing
revenge. I came in when I had to, since Sailor Moon can't give aliens
fake birth certificates, but even then I did as little as possible,
and everything... worked... out."


   "And that's your plan. An alien psionic demon as old as the
Pyramids is coming and you're going to sit here and say 'everything's
going to be fine, someone else will take care of it?' You'll do
NOTHING rather than make a fuss?"


   "Well, let's look at your track record, shall we? Spokane,
Washington? How many city blocks did they have to evacuate? How many
millions of dollars of property damage did you cause? How long was CNN
speculating on what happened? Yeah, looks like your 'run in and muck
everything up' policy works so well. You meddled, you had to stick
your head in, get your agents all over it, and you made it worse. That
warlock would never have done anything if he didn't think you were
after him."


   "Oh, you're right. We can't have any property damage, can we."
Nakami threaded his fingers together and grimaced. "But an adolescent
child risking her life against soul-sucking demon creatures, that's
okay. Little girls who think they need to kill themselves because
they're the mass murderers of a moon kingdom, that, that's totally
acceptable to you, isn't it? As long as they die quietly and don't
make a big fuss." He shook his head in angered disbelief.


   "Sailor... who is that, Saturn? Pluto? The Big Silencer? The one
you're talking about. What do you want me to say to her? I don't know
what the hell Sailor Senshi go through. Everything in human psychology
would be built on the premise that she didn't have magic powers, it's
not like I can send her to a therapist. Anything I say is just as
likely to cause damage as help." He shrugged. "And who's to say she's
not the mass murderer of the moon? Neither of us were alive back then,
we can't say there wasn't a moon kingdom. Maybe the records were lost.
She could have a very good reason to kill herself, and if she can make
planets blow up, or whatever, I'd rather kill herself now than have me
talk her out of it and then blow up the planet in two years when she
goes through a bad breakup."


   Nakami blinked in disbelief. "There's no way. There is no way that
you just seriously suggested to me that it would be fine for a little
girl to kill herself."


   "If she can kill everyone else on Earth? Gee, let me think." He
adopted his mocking-contemplation pose again. "Of COURSE it is! This
is your entire problem. You think you see someone drowning, you'll
knock a thousand people off the boat to get back to him. And most of
the time, it turns out the person can swim."


   "Whereas you'll cheerily watch someone drown rather than
inconvenience yourself. Hope that someone else will save them."


   "Oh, what do you want me to do, run up and punch Queen Beryllium in
the mouth? All we could do would be to send out personnel to deal with
it. The ones in the miniskirts perform better than the ones in
uniforms, because they were born to do it, and we're not impeding
them. I don't see how you have any moral superiority when all you do
all day is send other people out to do your work."


   "Because my agents signed up for the job, they aren't picked by
magic princess lottery!"


   "Oh like hell, those people never know what they're signing up for
until three months in. The only thing you could possibly object to
about the arrangement is that I don't give them paychecks, but from
what I hear you don't have a problem with that either..." Takaji
paused and sat upright in his chair, he smiled as if he was just let
in on a joke. "That's what you came down here for, isn't it? You
wouldn't come down to see Isci ba Fan, you'd be running the other way
and screaming. You thought you could recruit a Sailor Senshi like she
was just a truck-stop hick who'd seen a boogum, didn't you? Get a
pretty mini-skirted planet all to yourself, shooting lightning bolts
and lasers on your orders, so you could justify in your own values
scheme how it was okay for her to do what you couldn't?"


   "No." Nakami's tone was icy and not the slightest bit embarrassed.
"I came down here because there was someone who could help keep the
world safe. I came down to say I'm willing to give her all the help I
can provide to do it. I don't expect you'd understand, because you
obviously wouldn't know compassion if it crawled up your ass."


   "Yeah, real cute. Hey everybody, let's all try compassion! Then it
can be just like when the Iltan party felt real, real sorry for those
poor toga-clad humans in Greece and decided we should come down and
show them how all of our neat technology and mindwalking worked. That
just worked so well."


   Nakami threw his hands in the air. "HOW did I know this
conversation was going to end up being about Atlantis!"


* * *


   "And they all saw it, too! They told me the Sailor Senshi went in
to save them, before I knew they were the Sailor Senshi, and then
Kirin-chan and her mama came right up next to the boat! But the next
time I brought it up, Usa-ko acted like she didn't know what I was
talking about. She said I had heatstroke and I dreamed the whole
thing, and dinosaurs weren't real any more. But aliens from the
future, she thinks that's totally normal."


   Hotaru giggled softly, not nearly hard enough to start a coughing
fit.


   "Usa-ko can really be a knucklehead some times..." Chibi-Usa sighed
and leaned back on her palms, looking up at the sky. Ami had made the
two of them leave the room when she got out her travel-size soldering
iron, so they wouldn't inhale any fumes; now Hotaru and Chibi-Usa were
sitting outside, watching the trees. Hotaru occasionally startled at
the sight of something moving, but it was never a policeman come to
take her in, and Chibi-Usa went on unworried. "...but she's not all
bad. She's just a klutz. She has a good heart."


   "I know she does. You both do." Hotaru recalled that she'd devoured
one of their hearts for a closer look and shuddered.


   Chibi-Usa flipped herself over so her chin was resting in her hand,
and set the other hand on Hotaru's leg. "It's going to be okay,
Hotaru-chan. You don't need to be afraid any more, I'm here for you."


   Hotaru put her hand on Chibi-Usa's and put on a smile that looked
like it hurt too much to maintain for more than a couple seconds.
"I... I know you are."


   "Then why are you so sad? It... it really hurts me to see how sad
you are. I want to see you be happy."


   Hotaru drew her knees up to her face and wrapped her arms around
them. "Please... don't. I'll, I'll, I'll be fine, really. Just like
you said. Don't worry about it." It was the most transparent lie she
had ever told in her entire life.


   "Hotaru-chan, please! You don't have to be sad. You're with people
who love you now, not just me, all of us! Ami-chan is in there finding
a way to make the Pharaoh go away forever, and nobody's smarter than
her. Nobody will be trying to hurt you any more. You can come and live
with me and Usa-ko, we'll be like sisters!" Chibi-Usa smiled warmly.
"I'd love for you to be my sister, Hotaru-chan."


   Hotaru closed her eyes and shook her head. "No, no, no no no... No,
you wouldn't!" She held her hands to her temples, trying to keep pure
self-loathing from spilling out. "You don't want me to be your sister.
I'd do nothing but hurt you and make you worry. You don't want me to
be your friend."


   "That's not true, Hotaru! I want to be your friend, we all do. We
love you."


   "I know, I know!" she choked out, then paused a moment to regain
her voice. "You want the best for me, you love me, because you're so,
you're... you're the most wonderful person I've ever met."


   "Why does that makes you sad?" said Chibi-Usa, scared and confused.


   "Because I don't deserve you! I'm bad, I'm bad and I'll just hurt
you. You'll keep caring about me and the only thing I'll do is make
you sad and let you down. Every time. I'm evil, nobody should love me.
It will just come back to hurt them."


   "Nooo... no, Hotaru-chan, you're not evil! You could never be
evil." Chibi-Usa was on the verge of tears now herself. "Of course you
should be loved. I love you."


   "My father loved me. and, and... and Kaori..." Hotaru swallowed.
"...I think she loved me too. Or she could have. And they're dead. I
killed them. You loved me and I, I, for God's sake I ate your soul!
I've done horrible things to everyone close to me. You shouldn't have
to go through it again."


   "You didn't do any of those things!" Chibi-Usa grabbed her arm and
clutched it tight, just so Hotaru could feel she was here for her,
rocked back and forth. "It was somebody else using you. It's their
fault, not yours. I know how scary it is. It happened to me, too."


   Hotaru hesitated, decided she couldn't bear to pry Chibi-Usa off of
her, and ended up patting her on the arm instead.


   "Someone twisted me around and made me forget everyone who loved
me. My mama, my papa, all of my friends." Chibi-Usa's voice was a
whisper. "He made me hate everybody, and he had me do awful things to
the people I loved. And after it was over, and I got better, I... I
was really scared for a long time. I was afraid of myself. I thought
I'd hurt my family. I just wished everyone would go away."


   "...what happened?"


   Chibi-Usa nodded and came in closer, let go of Hotaru's arm to lay
a hand across her shoulder. "Everyone wanted me to get better, but it
wasn't the kind of thing they could do with magic. It wasn't like I
was possessed or I broke my leg. I had to go to a hospital. Mama said
it was 'starlight honeymoon inpatient therapy'."


   "You went to a mental hospital?" Hotaru thought of the times her
teachers and principals had suggested her father send her to the
hospital, and how hard he'd fought the idea. They thought she was
schizophrenic then. He probably didn't want them to find out she
wasn't.


   Chibi-Usa nodded. "For six months! They said I could have been
there a lot longer, but it seemed like a long time to me. And, it took
me a while, but eventually, I learned that it wasn't my fault, that if
someone used me for evil, that I wasn't evil. And that everyone loved
me just as much as they did before." She closed her eyes and recited
"'No matter what happens, nobody can decide who you are but you,'" as
if it was something she'd repeated often.


   "I... had no idea."


   "That's because I never told anybody. Usa-ko, Mamo-kun, Ami-chan,
everybody here just knows I went away for a while. Only Mama and Papa
know. And you. I... wanted you to know you're not alone, Hotaru-chan.
It's scary, but... maybe, we can be scared together."


   Hotaru put her arm around Chibi-Usa. "Thank you, Usa-chan. That...
helps." It did, but not enough. Not nearly enough. Even without the
Mistress Nine, she would be a horrifying mass-murderer, that was a
part of her soul. That was nobody else's doing, it was her identity.


   But for now it was good to be with a friend who knew what she was
going through, to know in at least this she wasn't alone. Even though
it hurt as well, it was worth it. They leaned their heads on each
other and stared, wordlessly, at the setting sun.


* * *


   The first set of tire tracks led to another, and another, and
another. They all led off in different directions, but all came from
the same path, and the three Senshi tracked it back to its source. The
passageway was interrupted, by a pit, two or three meters deep, at the
bottom of which were guide rails and a toothed track leading off to
the left. A control panel was set into the wall on their side of the
pit, but none of the buttons seemed to work. The left wall was a
shuttered door with a featureless black star painted on it, it stopped
short above the tracks and left a gap about 25 cm tall. A dim yellow
light could be seen coming from the other side.


   "Well, looks like this is it," said Sailor Jupiter, her tone hushed
to minimize the echo. "Whoever our mystery driver is, this is where he
came from."


   "She came from," Mars corrected, and shone her light on the door
again. "That's the Death Busters star, and whoever came out of there
was power-sliding her car around corners in dim lighting, in narrow
underground tunnels, doing at least a hundred kilometers an hour.
Either these were left by Eudial, or there are two of them and I am
never going to ride in a car again until I know both of them are
dead."


   "Venus Love-Me Chain," said Sailor Venus, and wrapped it around one
of her hands to keep it at the ready. "This could be what we came here
for, we'll have to be careful."


   "Maybe not, though." Jupiter cradled her light between her ear and
shoulder and drew on her makeshift map to indicate where they were
now. "All the Witches 5 are dead, right? It's just the big Pharaoh,
and, apparently, the lizard people. If neither of them drive a car,
they could have just abandoned the garage."


   "That's true too. But it's the only set of tracks we found, we need
to check it out." She knelt over the edge, spied the safety ladder
mounted in the wall, and re-positioned herself to climb down it. "Just
get close enough to tell if anything's going on, then get out without
being seen." She touched down on the ground and extended a hand to
help Mars descend, then Jupiter.


   "My feet are freezing," remarked Jupiter, and she wiggled her toes.
Mars handed her the flashlight she was holding and turned around, and
Jupiter tied it into the bow on her back. "I mean, I know we don't
want to be running in high heels, but maybe next time when we go to
get supplies we should buy some boots. Or at least socks."


   "Hey, give me a break, I don't do this very often!"


   "I wonder..." Mars put her finger on her chin. "If you put on a new
pair of shoes, and then you un-transform, what happens to them? You
can't really wear two layers of shoes like you can clothes."


   "I'm totally going to try that out as soon as this is all over."
Jupiter knelt down to crawl under the door, then crept under it on her
elbows, streaking the front of her fuku with dust. She quickly stood
on the other side, looked around for any lizards, daimons, or other
baddies, and gestured for Venus and Mars to come in.


   "Be careful, Jupiter!" said Venus as she helped her to her feet.
"You might end up with... whoa."


   "I know, right?"


   Unlike in the rest of the tunnels, the sodium lights overhead were
still functional, bathing the room in yellow light. There was nothing
else on the walls or ceiling, and the guide-rails in the trench they
stood in extended far, far down to the opposite end of the room,
hundreds of meters away, ending at what looked like a loading dock or
cargo area. Nobody else could be seen.


   "How much do you think this cost?" asked Jupiter. "This whole
tunnel, for one... what do you call those..."


   "Sideways elevator thing?" Mars added.


   "Whatever. A big cargo truck mover thingy. Somebody had to dig this
tunnel, that's millions of yen, then they had to lay the track and
install the lights and load up the engine, and all that costs money.
And I can't see any use for this thing other than moving Eudial's car
a couple hundred meters through that little garage door. It's not like
they're taking deliveries or unloading trucks in the secret
underground tunnels."


   Venus nodded, glancing at the walls as they walked. "And even if
they are, wouldn't it be smarter to just drive through this little
tunnel and put their deliveries in the car? I mean, a tunnel's still
expensive, but why bother with a cargo-lifter at all? I mean, I can
think of a lot better ways to spend the money than this. I guess it's
like they say, 'the cruel and their money are soon parted.'"


   "Maybe that was the point," said Mars. "Maybe they had so much
money they couldn't spend it fast enough. Like they only bought this
after all the Death Busters had widescreen TVs and solid gold
daimon-makers."


   "Ooh! I know!" said Venus. "They were working for a school, so they
had to spend all their money on this at the end of the year so they
could keep their budget." She looked at Mars and Jupiter's twin
expressions of incomprehension. "Hey, if you knew anyone who worked
for a university that would be hilarious."


   "I'll tell you something, though," said Jupiter after a few
seconds. "If I was a Death Buster, I wouldn't even bother sending out
daimons for us to destroy. I'd just buy the Pure Heart Crystals off of
people, skip the middleman."


   Venus giggled. "Do you have money troubles? Bad credit? No credit?
Upside-down on your house? Upside-down IN your house? Don't file for
bankruptcy -- sell us your heart crystal! Our Witches are standing by
to--"


   Mars silenced Venus with a finger over her lips and a "Ssh!" then
pointed upward, a gesture which for reasons she wasn't clear on meant
'listen closely.'


   It took a couple seconds but soon Venus heard what Mars did, a
faint string of conversation over the dull un-echo of an empty
concrete room. Two people were talking, men, at a conversational and
informal tone. As they silently crept forward, they could soon pick
out the words:


   "...and his shit's still all over the place as he's saying this,
right?"


   "Right."


   "So there's little plastic Gundams and Sakuras and Sailor Moons all
over, and hand to God they are actually staring at me while he's
lecturing me about how we don't have room in the apartment for my
stuff, and he's going on and on about how it's unfair to him and he
pays his half of the rent and he should have a say and blah blah blah,
bunch of whiny crap."


   "So he's saying that little models of imaginary characters are
okay, and little models of fighter jets aren't?"


   "I'm not even to the best part. I started trying to tell him what
you just said, but of course all he wants to do is whine and yell, so
I say 'screw it, do whatever' and I pack up my little planes and put
'em in a box. I didn't want to fight him, he's never gonna be moved by
anything, and it's not like I'm gonna die if I'm not surrounded by
them like he is. But apparently he sees me staring at his crap during
this conversation, and he gets it into his head that I am going to,
like, get revenge on his little models."


   "Like Card Captor Sakura killed your family and now you're out for
vengeance."


   "Like I'm going to wreck his stuff because, apparently, I'm just as
petty as he is and I'm just out to 'GET' him. So the next day, I wake
up, and first thing I see is one of those little plastic bastards
staring me in the face. And I go to throw it out of the way and he
grabs it, because he's been standing there watching me sleep for who
knows how long, and he shakes it at me and says -- you ready for
this?"


   "I'm ready."


   "He says 'I know you're thinking you can get at me by striking at
my fiiigures. I did this to let you know that even when I'm not here,
Sailor V will be watching you. V-chan goes to those in need and she
alllways stops evildoers.'"


   "Wow. That's just... Wow."


   "I seriously didn't have a comeback. It was so stupid my brain shut
off for a minute there. His plastic Sailor V is going to stop me from
plastic-figure sabotage. What kind of thought process goes into that?"


   "That's really messed up. You need to find a new roommate, dude."


   At this point the three Senshi had reached the end of the trench,
standing next to the ladder on the movable platform, and Mars had to
cover her mouth with both hands to contain her laughter. "Great,"
Jupiter muttered, "now somebody like that is going to be making his
little plastic Jupiter and his little plastic Venus kiss each other
all night, I just know it."


   "We saved a life with that kiss! I think it's better that he be
thinking of us as little plastic lesbians than he get hit by a train."


   "Oh, yeah..." said Jupiter, "just... not very much better."


   "Hey, is there someone there?" came the man's voice, moving closer
to them. "Nobody's supposed to be down here!"


   Venus looked around, saw she couldn't hide beneath the platform,
and let a length of the Love-Me Chain uncoil from around her hand.
Shortly, a man came peeking over the edge, then another, the two of
them wearing policeman's uniforms and holding flashlights but taking
no offensive action. The one on the left looked shocked and muttered
"Oh, you have got to be yanking me..."


   "Hello, officers!" said Mars in between giggles. "We came by
because we heard reports of... plastic figure sabotage!" Then all
three of them broke out in laughter.


* * *


   The four agents of the Hoffmann Institute, their interrogations
over, were sent to the holding cells to "cool off." Most of the cells
were filled with students of the Mugen Academy, loudly protesting
their innocence. Philip and Bill were placed in a cell with two other
men, Donna and Nadine were by themselves. The fact they were placed
together led them to believe the cells were probably bugged and the
authorities listening for incriminating evidence. Since most of the
evidence they were looking for didn't exist, the agents weren't very
worried. They didn't need to talk about how they were going to escape,
as they had a procedure in place; they had no idea what they were
going to do after that and couldn't really compromise their plan
there.


   Donna paced back and forth in her cell, Nadine stared off into the
corner looking morose. Bill and Philip leaned against the back wall,
arms crossed, patiently waiting for their cellmate to stop shuffling
his feet and nervously glancing between them to finally get the
courage to ask them whatever he was going to ask them. He was, like
most of the inmates there, a clean-cut frightened young man of about
eighteen; there was a red splotch that looked like a recent burn on
the right side of his face and a Band-Aid on his forehead and cheek.
After ten minutes of waiting, he finally edged his way over to Bill,
nervously glancing at his teammate. "Do, do you speaking English?" he
asked with the same inflection a 17-year-old asks a clerk for a box of
condoms.


   Bill arched an eye to Philip, who shook his head slightly, Bill
then responded with a definite "Nyet."


   "I speak Japanese, though," Philip added. "What was it you wanted
to talk about?"


   "Oh!" The man edged closer to Philip, and now gave a suspicious
glance back at Bill. "I, I just wanted to ask you, what happened. To
get you arrested, I mean."


   "Why would that be an embarrassing question to ask? I should be the
one ashamed of that, not you."


   "No, it's not that... I'm really sorry, but you, you're, and I..."


   "You're not afraid of me because I'm black." He shifted from one
foot to the other. "You are afraid of how I look though. Probably
because I look like a college professor and you're a college student
who's afraid of his superiors knowing he's in jail. I wouldn't worry
about your reputation, though. I know ruining the names of Academy
students is the last thing on my mind." He extended his hand for a
handshake, frowned, and then bowed. "My name is Professor James. I
came here to teach linguistics at the Mugen Academy."


   "So then, we're here for the same reason?"


   "I don't know. Professor Zolstakov, Professor Kimberly, Professor
Leslie, and I heard of the incident on Thursday, but we couldn't get
any details or contact any of the administration. We thought when they
arrested us that we were going to be deported, as our work visas
wouldn't be valid any longer. But the way they've been acting, it
seems like they think we're part of something much bigger. I assume
they have the same mistaken impression about you?"


   The student nodded. "All of us here, they keep talking like we're
in a crazy cult or something, like we're members of this big evil
organization. They keep asking me to confess, to name my accomplices,
but when I tell them I don't have any and don't know what I'm
confessing to, they just start all over again!"


   "That's what we've been through." Philip sighed. "They take people
like you and I, rational, law-abiding citizens or resident aliens, and
take us out of our homes like drug dealers or felons, drag us in here
without even telling us what we're charged with... It's shameful."


   "They took you out of your home? Just like that?"


   "Just like that. In the middle of lunch."


   "No, I mean... they didn't do anything before that? Nothing
strange?"


   Philip gasped. "You mean, your face, they did that to you?"


   "No!" said the man, who looked around and moved in closer,
whispering conspiratorially. "I mean, maybe. That's the thing: I don't
know. I got to talk to a few other students, and... have you been
having, well, blackouts lately?"


   Philip stroked his chin. "Now that you mention it... Professor
Zolstakov had mentioned something like that... I thought it was the
alcohol." The two of them slowly looked over at Bill, who was slapping
out the drum solo from 'Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida' on his thighs.
"Seventeenth-century Russian lit. Lots of vodka."


   "No, see, I don't think it was booze. Because, I don't know if it's
everyone, but everyone I talked to?" The man pointed downward and sat
on the floor, and Philip followed, leaning in for at least some small
measure more privacy. "We've been losing some pretty long tracks of
time over the past few days. I lost like twelve hours on Wednesday
night, I remember that I'd finally got the courage to ask Tamiko-san
out on a date, we were getting out of the cab in front of the
Takarazuka theater... and then, I was waking up, face down on the
ground outside of what used to be Mugen, and it was morning, and there
were ambulances and cops everywhere."


   "My goodness! Was your friend Tamiko-san OK?"


   "She was there too! They took us all to the hospital, but they
wanted her to stay, they said she had internal injuries. They
discharged me after they figured out I had nothing broken, but, but I
saw other people, students, who were... in a lot worse condition."


   "And none of them knew how they got injured?"


   "Nobody! At first I thought I was going insane, and they did too,
but once we started to realize it happened to all of us, we wondered
if there was some kind of gas leak, or, or some chemical we got
exposed to at school... then yesterday I was coming in to see Tamiko,
and we were talking with this other kid in the room about what could
have happened, and it did again! All of us blacked out, and when we
came to, we're locked in a supply closet with like ten other people,
we had to wait in there a few more hours until someone on the other
side opened it because someone put an ice machine in front of the
door. And I had this burn on my face, and Tamiko had a broken nose and
a broken thumb. And nobody in there knew what had happened."


   "So the same thing must have happened at the hospital, then.
Whatever gas leak or chemical spill, they were using it at the
hospital."


   "No, that's just it! It was only the Mugen students there that were
affected, nobody else! And other students, who weren't at the
hospital, they all blacked out at the same time where-ever they were.
And they woke up in weird places with strange, unexplained injuries.
Tamiko told me her sister was shot in the leg!"


   "And they did something to all the students there, and now you're
having blackouts." The man nodded. "How do you think they do it?
Something in the food, the water?"


   "I have a theory. Have you ever heard, what they say... that at
night at the Mugen academy they have secret classes? Secret classes
where they teach new witches in the dark arts?"


   "People had mentioned it when I was transferring here, but I
thought it was just a rumor. I didn't see any witch classes, but come
to think of it they kept me out of a lot of faculty meetings..."


   "What if it's real, man! What if the rumors are right? I mean, I
mean it makes sense that witches have to learn how to be witches, they
have to have a witch school somewhere. And we don't know they're
there, we can't do magic, they wouldn't care about what happened to
us. Maybe they cast a spell on all of us to do their evil bidding, and
it keeps kicking in. They made us blow up the school and then they
made us fight each other. Probably for fun."


   "Why would they make you blow up the school, though? That's where
they go to school, too."


   The man scratched his head. "Maybe February is when finals are for
witches and they wanted to get out of it?" He sighed. "You think I'm
crazy, don't you?"


   "Oh no, I think your theory matches up with a lot of my own
independent observations. Dr. Tomoe was certainly involved in the dark
arts, I was surprised nobody else noticed."


   "Yes! I thought I was the only one! You look at his face, and
sometimes it's normal, and then you look at him out of the corner of
your eye his face is all black, and his glasses are shining no matter
what light they're in and his mouth is like this backlit cherry-red.
But you look straight at him and he looks almost fine, but even when
he's normal, he's got some kind of crazy arcane seal on his glasses,
and his face is always a bit dimmer than the rest of the room. He's
probably the head witch! Or warlock. And Professor Arimura, there's no
way she just invented all that stuff she claimed to, it was
witchcraft! When she vanished and they said she died in a car crash,
but they never had a body and they never had a funeral? I bet it was
because she faked her death and she was going off to be a full-time
witch!" The man paused. "You said some other professors were with
you... do you know if they're okay? Or do you think they..."


   "Professors Leslie and Kimberly? No, they're okay. Both of them are
very opposed to witches in general. I don't think anybody has to worry
about them." Philip stood up, nodded at Bill, and motioned as if he
was flicking an imaginary lighter, the signal that he was done and it
was time for their horrible escape plan.


   Bill nodded, stood straight up, and cleared his throat.


* * *


   "Here it is," said Ami with a florid gesture towards the object on
the table. and the pile of half-disassembled devices around it. She
lifted off her safety goggles and wiped underneath her eyes. "One
television, one four-slice toaster, one AM radio, one gravitic
reverberator, two electron beacons, a couple of helium-5 cores, and a
little solder, equals one rotating magnetic resonance disruptor."


   "That's it?" asked Chibi-Usa.


   "That's it," confirmed Ami.


   "It looks kind of like a hot dog cooker. A, what are those things
called, a rotisserie," added Artemis.


   It did.


   Ami took off her goggles and wiped off the lenses on her shirt. "It
was kind of fun to put together, in all honesty. Like an electronics
scavenger hunt. And I know a lot more about it having put it together
than if I'd just read the documentation."


   "And it can stop the Pharaoh?"


   "No, it can't," said Hotaru.


   "No, it can't," said Ami. "Not permanently. I'd have to get a lot
more materials to scale it up to make a permanent solution -- probably
require ten or twenty times more power, too. Manufacturing time would
be a lot longer. And, then we'd have to find out how to seal the
Pharaoh and not seal our powers. But this is still useful, because
from what Hotaru said, overloading one of these is what cut off the
Pharaoh the first time, and turned all magic off for a few days."


   "And it turned him off, too, right? Since there weren't any daimon
attacks and we all got our powers back a little before they showed up
again, that means he couldn't do anything either?"


   "Exactly it, Chibi-Usa-chan. What it does is prevents entities from
straddling across dimensions, and the Pharaoh is in a dimension other
than our own, so it can't affect the world until the pulse wears off.
If we overload another one of these, we can keep it out for another
couple of days. And if I can get access to some more parts I could
manufacture as many of these as we wanted."


   "Ohh... And so every couple days you blow one up, and then you can
take as long as you want to build the big one? Is that right? Because
that's actually pretty cool!"


   Ami blushed. "It is cool, isn't it? I feel cool. I wonder if this
is what idols and rock stars feel like." She set her goggles down and
shook her arms. "It feels good to put one in the win column for
science. I mean, I know we're all working together, we're all a team,
but usually everything comes down to destiny. If this works, not only
will we defeat evil, but we'll do it in a way we can explain and
reproduce. Those Hoffmann people, they didn't say how they overloaded
the device, right?"


   Hotaru shook her head. "They just said it blew up. We mostly talked
about what happened to me... I think you should ask Bill, I think he
did it."


   "That's funny, I actually have a message for him." She searched the
table for the scrap of paper she'd written it down on. "A man called
to say that, he was returning his call, and 'the package will be ready
tomorrow at eight-thirty PM, at Haneda Airport, runway F, and it
doesn't matter if Bill picks it up or not because they're still even.'
He didn't leave a name, or say what the package was. Bill left his
cellular phone here, the man called it, said that, and hung up."


   "It wasn't Bill's. The phone was Nadine's, but she always forgot to
take it with her."


   Luna looked up, then back at Artemis. "Oh, do we still have the
Saturn watch?"


   Artemis thought. "Oh, right, yeah. Should be still in the box,
fourth from the left."


   Luna nodded. "Hotaru-chan, there's something that we need to give
you, now that we know you're a Sailor Senshi." She shifted back and
forth a couple times, then sprang forward into a backflip, leaving a
trail of golden sparkles behind her. When she landed, there was a loop
of gold glitter hanging in the air over her, and a purple watch
underneath her, she stepped back to let Hotaru pick it up. "This is
your communicator watch, with it you can stay in touch with all of the
Sailor Senshi at all times. All of the Senshi have them." Luna looked
up at Hotaru, hopeful that it'd make her feel just a little like she
was part of a group.


   Saturn turned it over in her hand. It looked like a purple dome,
embossed with a yellow star and crescent moon design. She had to press
a button on the side to pop it open, revealing the actual timepiece
and the video screen set into the top half. The band was cheap yellow
rubber and seemed oddly out of place as she slipped it on her wrist.
She held it out in front of her face, subconsciously squaring her jaw
like Dick Tracey, and flipped it open and shut a few times.


   "Open it up to use the video, or keep it closed to do audio-only,"
said Artemis, rattling off a list of features. "There's a hole on the
underside you poke with a pin to change the frequency, but you
shouldn't need to, we all use the default. Press in the moon symbol to
send out a general distress signal, turn the knob around the watch
face to pick your recipient, and... Oh, remember to take it off before
you transform if you think you'll need to use it, because it will
vanish with the rest of your clothes. That's everything, right?"


   "It runs on three 'CR2016' batteries, and those are expensive, so
don't run them out by using the video when you don't need it. Well,
you can use it a couple times to see what it's like." Hotaru, Ami and
Chibi-Usa's watches all began to flash and beep softly, Ami and
Chibi-Usa quickly tapped them and held them to their ears. "There,
now, touch the moon or flip it open to answer that."


   Hotaru flicked the communicator open, and while her brain was
considering whether she should answer with 'Hotaru speaking' or
'Saturn here,' her lips responded with a "Y'ello?"


   "Hotaru? Did you have one of these?" Sailor Moon's face on the tiny
viewscreen looked momentarily confused, and her hair was let down.
"Oh, listen, uh, we found out they took the people to the police
headquarters in Kasumigaseki, and we're there right now, but it looks
weird, I think there's dai-- okay, there are daimons down here, lots
of them, we need some help!"


   "I know where that is... it'll take us ten minutes, do you think
you can last that long?  Sailor Moon, do you..."


   The image on the viewscreen spun around, showing the sky and the
parking lot twirling about, and Sailor Moon's voice could faintly be
heard calling "Moon Spiral Heart Attack!"


   "...that's a no." She ran her fingers through her hair. "Okay, we
need to get going now, I don't remember if there's a bus we can use
and Hotaru can't run that long."


   "You won't either." A pale man in black stepped through the
doorway, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt. Hotaru had seen this one
before, he was the one who shot her and Donna. From what Ami and
Minako had said, his name was Agent Waldorf. "Going to have to stop
you there, Mizuno Ami." He grabbed her arm in his big clammy hand and
yanked, bringing the two of them together next to Ami's workbench
table. "Sailor Moon will be able to handle herself up there, the two
of us are going on a trip while your reinforcements are otherwise
occupied, and if I don't take this chance who knows how long I'll be
waiting outside for another time when I won't be ganged up on."


   "Let her go!" shouted Chibi-Usa.


   "Let her go or you'll do what, 'Princess Usagi Small Lady
Serenity'? You've never done anything but be a burden in a fight and
you know it. Nobody's ever calling on Sailor Chibi-Moon to save their
bacon. Oh, yes, you killed a few daimons, but how long did it take
you, and how long does it take anyone else? Don't threaten me when you
can't back it up." He turned to regard Hotaru. "And you... you stay
the hell where you are, you little witch. I don't need to see in your
head to snap those little legs like dry twigs, and I will if you try
anything funny. You got your widget, now I need to use her for a
SONOFAWHORE!"


   Waldorf shouted in pain and let Ami go, grabbing at the hot
soldering iron she'd jammed deep into his thigh. The iron fell to the
floor, trailing wisps of darkness, but he was disabled  long enough
for three hands to go for their transformation foci and three sets of
magic words to be invoked. Chibi-Usa could see both of the others as
she turned into Chibi-Moon, and she saw the man in black reaching for
his gun in slow motion. Ami's clothes vanished, her skin becoming a
glowing white iridescence, the only features visible her eyes and
face. She spun on her tiptoe like a ballerina, swung her
transformation wand in a graceful arc that left a stream of
translucent blue ribbon. The ribbon wrapped around her, ensconced and
protected her, and with a pulse like a ripple spreading outward in a
pond it became a sailor fuku, and Ami became Sailor Mercury.


   Glowing, flashing lights came from Hotaru's transformation as well,
but they came from around her, not herself. Her skin was its normal
tone, her plain black shirt and pants still on even as she levitated
off the ground and her hair spread outward as if she was weightless.
There was a brief, brilliant crescent, a flash of steel striking her
arm, and her shirtsleeve was gone and an elbow-length white glove in
its place. Another flash, a phantom blade striking her other arm,
produced the same result. Her legs were struck one after the other, so
rapid they were almost simultaneous, and she was now wearing knee-high
purple boots. Then the phantom blade went up her torso, a long, spiral
cut that left her sailor fuku and many-pointed gem behind but didn't
cut away anything to show it. The last stroke clearly went all the way
through her neck, but instead of slicing her head from her shoulders
it left behind a dark purple choker, and a tiara and earrings appeared
to go with it. The long, flashing path of the cut ended at the head of
the Silence Glaive that was now in Hotaru's hand.


   "'In the name of the moon of the future, you'll punish me'?"
Waldorf growled, responding to something Chibi-Moon hadn't said yet.
"With what? Your useless pink hearts? You're so inept it's
embarrassing. Your mother probably sent you back here because she was
ashamed to be seen with you."


   "You don't know anything!" Chibi-Moon stomped her feet and balled
her hands into fists. "I'm a lady like Mama, and I'm gonna be a pretty
soldier like her too!"


   Hotaru grabbed the haft of the Glaive, cradled it under her arm and
pointed the bottom of it at Agent Waldorf, the head of the blade dug
into the wall behind her. She hesitated, wondering if she'd break the
machine if she fired, and slowly crept to the side to get a line of
fire that didn't go over the work table. Mercury had no such worry,
and with a cry of "Shine Aqua Illusion!" she spun about, gathering a
mass of freezing magical water in her hands, and discharged it in a
thick stream toward Waldorf's chest. He turned his head, watched her
invocation with what could have been bemusement, and let the stream of
water pass harmlessly through his body and leave a patch of ice on the
wall and floor behind him.


   "Thank you for letting me know that was coming. It might have hurt
otherwise. I suppose that's the difference between book smarts and
street smarts, huh? You'll do better when there's someone around to
give you some guidance, oh yes, yes I am implying exactly the thing
that you're thinking. Yes, just like Endymion, and whoever the hell
Black Lady was. Oh, it was her?"


   Waldorf turned around to regard Chibi-Moon, just in time to catch a
sparkling stream of pink hearts in the stomach. He shook his head.
"Tsk, tsk. You know I don't even have to defend against this, right?
Looks like the only time you're worthwhile is when nobody loves you,
isn't it?"


   "Saturn Silencer!"


   A directed pulse of ultrasonic energy, a heat distortion moving at
the speed of a bullet, streaked from the end of her weapon to
Waldorf's left shoulder. He crashed through the thin paper wall behind
him, rolling end over end, losing his hat and glasses, ending up on
the grass with his ass in the air. "Okay. So you can be a decoy too.
That's so much better."


   Mercury leaned through the hole in the wall, guessing he couldn't
defend against an attack he didn't see coming, and fired off another
Shine Aqua Illusion before he could right himself. The freezing blast
hit him in the small of his back, caking his backside in frost and
causing him to growl in pain. He rolled forward, revealing a lumpy,
misshapen bald head and milky-white eyes, and his arms darted around
at his sides to find his hat and his gun without looking away from the
Sailor Senshi.


   "What do you want with me?" Mercury asked. Hotaru ran to the
doorway, aimed the Glaive at his head, careful the blade was nowhere
near Chibi-Moon.


   "You know, that hurts like an absolute mother..." His left hand
found his hat and slid it back on, tilted sideways. The ice fell from
his back, crunching softly against the grass, trailed by little wisps
of onyx-black smoke. "I was fair, I waited for you to finish your
widget. Sailor Moon's turn with you is over, now it's my turn. You
know she'll be fine without you, like you said, she's got destiny to
solve her problems."


   "Am-- Sailor Mercury isn't a tool. She's a person. You don't get to
use her for your plan like she's some kind of, of device." Hotaru
looked far more angry than intimidated.


   "You know, I would argue that point with you, Mystery Saturn Bitch,
but I just found my gun." Waldorf drew his pistol and shot Hotaru
square in the center of the forehead.


   She shrieked in pain, staggered backwards, and fell to the ground,
the Glaive vanished from her hands when she lost her balance. She hit
the floor on her side and slid backwards a bit further; when she came
to a stop the flattened bullet fell out of the pit it left at the site
of impact, it looked like the red, bleeding remnants of the world's
largest pimple.


   "I don't get paid enough for this shit," Waldorf muttered. Mercury
sprayed the ground around him, building a wall of ice to trap him; he
made no effort to evade it and in short order he was sealed within a
dome of white ice. He reached behind him to where he'd been hit by
Mercury's attack, when he tried to rub the injured area his hand
passed clear through his back. He winced, hissed through his teeth,
looked the trails of darkness still hanging on his hand from the
wound. "Not by a long shot."


   Waldorf dug into his pocket and pulled out two plastic zip-ties and
a neatly-folded red bandanna that still had the price tag attached.
Mercury cautiously stepped forward to see if he would shoot his way
out. Chibi-Moon ran to Hotaru's side, she was wincing and holding her
head, wiping away the trickle of blood, but looked otherwise okay.


   "Are you okay?" asked Mercury from outside the room. "Be careful, I
think he can still shoot his way out. It looks like things only pass
through him if he sees them coming, so, so I think we need to try and
surround him. Indirect attacks work on him pretty well, too, do either
of you have any--." At that point, Waldorf stepped out of a shadow
behind her and punched her in the back of the head. She teetered
forward and he grabbed both of her arms, brought them together, and
held them with one hand around both of her wrists.


   "Quit squirming, these things are hard enough to line up as is." He
kicked her in the back of the leg once, twice, three times until he
managed to get both knees to buckle at once. With both of her arms
over her head, he easily wrapped the plastic tie around her wrists to
bind them together, too tight to slip off her gloves. "No, to answer
what you're thinking," he sighed. Her head was bobbing and twisting
back and forth and she was shouting bloody murder until he pulled the
bandanna into her mouth to gag her. "I don't even have genitals, so,
you're safe there if that'll make you more cooperative. Trust me, when
this is done, you're going to be perfectly okay with it and I'm still
going to think this whole thing was retarded."


   Hotaru half-walked, half-tripped out the doorway, Glaive at the
ready and Chibi-Moon close behind. "Let her go!" She paused, thought
about it, and amended her statement to "Let her go, you son of a
bitch!"


   "We are going to come back for you, Little Miss Silent," he said
with a laugh far more nervous than evil. "And we obviously need to
keep a closer eye on you too -- how the hell are we letting a future
girl run around, blabbering on about fusion or antimatter or whatever?
You watch yourself, future girl, because I am watching you." He yanked
Mercury upward, feet off the ground; she kicked at him but her feet
never seemed to touch any part of him. "Oh, stop being such a baby.
I'm taking you back with me, I've got an evil crystal at home, you're
going in a room with the evil crystal, and sooner or later you're
going to come out and throw out an evil laugh and say your name is
Shadow Mercury or something asinine like that and then we'll all be on
the same page, except I'm still going to think you're an idiot. You've
seen this before, it's very cut and dry, kicking me is not going to
help."


   He nodded at Hotaru and Chibi-Moon again. "Oh, and I'm about to run
straight at both of you, so if you don't want her cut in half I'd get
rid of that pig-sticker." And then he did just that, charged at them
while he held Mercury out as a human shield. Hotaru threw her Glaive
across the lawn, it struck a wall, hung there, and vanished. Hotaru
and Chibi-Moon both tried to dive sideways but struck each other in
midair, Waldorf easily cleared both of them. They found their feet
quickly and both gave chase, but Hotaru knew they weren't going to be
fast enough. He reached the curbside far ahead of them and
unceremoniously chucked Mercury into the open trunk of a navy blue
Trans Am with no license plates, and jumped into the driver's seat.
Hotaru threw the Glaive at the front tires, hoping she could disable
the car, but her throw was short and her weapon stuck harmlessly in
the sidewalk.


   The car roared to life and sped away from the curb, Chibi-Moon
shouted for help, and Hotaru ran after it, hoping it would be caught
at a stoplight or stuck in traffic and she could catch up. Of course
traffic was always light for villains, and soon she was on her hands
and knees in the middle of the road, struggling to breathe, and the
car's taillights shrunk out of sight. She turned around, looking for a
cab or someone's car she could jump in and say 'Follow that car!' but
of course there was nothing, nobody there to help. Ami had been
abducted, just like that. Someone had just decided he was going to
hurt her and then it was done. Hotaru fell to her hands and knees in
the middle of the street, sobbing and coughing in equal measures.


* * *


   Things were going pretty damn well for U-Kigumoko. She had a badass
sports car and she'd taken it to police HQ, where for her badass
mission she'd scrambled the card reader and snuck in through the
underground garage where they keep the police cars and Special Assault
Team vans, and the garage had a stairway up into the main building.
She'd figured out how to look like a normal human jackass, and that
meant she was just one disguise away from waltzing right in to the
nerve center of the Tokyo Metropolitan PD. The security cameras
wouldn't be able to show her at all, nobody could radio anyone else
that they'd seen her because their radios wouldn't work either.
Electronic locks freaked out in her presence and manual locks can
easily be picked, there wouldn't be anything to keep her from going
where she needed to go.


   There were a bunch more daimons and kinori waiting in the secret
tunnel exit in the garage in case things went wrong, but they weren't
gonna, so they were all going to be very bored. And the kinori were
all bossy jackoffs and the other daimons were complete goobers so it
didn't matter if they were entertained. She didn't need a damn lizard
telling her what to do anyway. She didn't need anyone telling her what
to do, not a lizard and not the "Master". She didn't take shit from
anyone, she was just doing this because breaking into police HQ and
liberating a prisoner was very cool, and she was very cool, so they
went together splendidly. She heard an approaching conversation and
ducked behind a police cruiser, waiting for the perfect moment to
strike.


   "Oh, I agree. The FBI definitely declared victory on this one way
too early. There's no way these people are the ringleaders. I had one
of them in interrogation, all he was doing was -- get this -- quoting
the Magna Carta. I'm not even sure how he thought that was going to
work."


   "Ha! You got lucky, friend. I was in there with that woman, Truant
or something? As soon as I start talking to her, she starts hitting on
me. She thought I was going to have sex with her on the table right
there and just drop all the charges. And I wouldn't anyway, but she
wasn't even all that attractive. Too tall, too muscular, hair full of
split ends, face is all dirty, hairy legs, the whole package, but she
thinks because she's got breasts I'll fall for her... Americans, am I
right?"


   "Americans. Everything's always about them. FBI comes over here and
muscles their way around because all of a sudden they're more
important than what we're doing. And they act like we're a bunch of
yellow savages who can't do anything because we don't do anything
their way. Then when they catch the low level dim-witted enforcers
they pat themselves on the back and fly back to Quantico and leave us
to finish cleaning up the mess."


   U-Kigumoko slid underneath the car, waiting for them to pass her by
so she could creep up on them from behind and take them out, maybe
steal their guns and uniforms.


   "Washington, actually. The FBI works out of the J. Edgar Hoover
building in Washington, the training facility is in Quantico. I lost a
game of Trivial Pursuit -- oh lord it's her! How did she get out?
Escaped detainee on P1!" the plainclothes detective shouted behind him
as he went for his gun. The daimon frowned, she thought she'd given
herself enough time to get under without being seen, but they must
have been running at her or something to throw off her estimate. She
pushed herself back out from underneath the car and slowly rose to her
feet.


   "Keep your hands in the air, Mrs. Truant," the officer said in
English as he kept the gun trained on her. "Nobody has to get hurt
here." Behind him, the other man pulled the radio out of his pocket,
flipped it on, but could get nothing but static.


   "Oh, whoah, you hang on a second here," said the camouflaged
daimon; her English had a slight Japanese accent. "Did you just say I
was that woman you were talking about? Did mister 'My hair is made out
of plastic broom bristles, my nose looks like a malignant tumor, I
dress like Joe Friday' just say I was too tall and had hairy legs?
Because you're obviously the arbiter of what's attractive, right! The
supermodels are coming to see Officer Nobody to make sure he
approves!"


   "Ma'am, calm down. I wasn't insulting you." He edged closer,
reaching for his handcuffs.


   "Oh, and you think I'm an idiot too! Like you're so damn smart
because you're a cop. Well who's stupid now, huh?" She swept her foot
upward and kicked the gun out of his hand, bending backwards to move
her body out of his line of fire. "Whoops! Dropped your gun! That was
boneheaded!" She stepped forward, easily deflecting his defensive
punch, and flicked his nose with her middle finger. "Shoulda seen that
one coming, too!" He grabbed her wrist and tried to sweep her legs out
from under her, she hopped over his foot like a jumprope, twisted out
of his grasp, put out her arm and snatched the falling pistol out of
midair.


   "Now I have your gun, too! Wow, you're terrible at this. You'd
think if you were going to run around passing judgment on people you'd
have something to back it up, huh?" She kneed him in the stomach; when
he doubled over, she delivered an uppercut to his nose.


   The detective grabbed his nose with both hands and ducked, giving
his partner a clear shot at his attacker. The partner put three rounds
right into her center of mass, each of them leaving a yellowish bruise
on her 'shirt' rather than piercing a hole. She grabbed her chest and
grimaced in pain, but then smiled. "Oh, all this and she's bulletproof
too! Bet you can't do that!" The partner's eyes went wide, and he
sprinted back towards the stairs; U-Kigumoko briefly thought she
should stop him, but decided kicking the guy that called her ugly was
more productive. "Say it! Say it, God-damn it!"


   "Okay, okay!" The detective coughed. "You're very attractive! And
bulletproof! I surrender!"


   The daimon blinked. "Actually I wanted you to say you were sorry,
but that'll work too." She tilted her head to the side and closed one
eye; her skin rapidly flushed to a bright pink and a pair of
functionless night-vision goggles 'grew' out of her forehead. Across
the lot, a wall began to rumble. "And my name is U-Kigumoko, it's not
that hard to remember, you got it?"


   "Okay! Okay! Your name is U-Kigamaki! I-- AAH!" The detective
looked at her to try to make eye contact and recoiled in shock, rolled
away and fell on his back. The daimon frowned, leaned forward, and put
the gun to his head. "I wasn't expecting it! I wasn't expecting it,
that's all!" he added.


   "You're going to expect this one, though." She shifted the gun
around to his temple, he winced, she gritted her teeth... then
muttered "damn it." She picked up the pair of handcuffs he'd let fall
to the ground. "Anyone asks you about this, I was out of bullets,
okay?" She pulled him over to the rear bumper of the car, threaded the
cuffs through, and locked them around his wrists.


   "You did the right thing. This is important, see, you can show
you're not a bad p-per... not all bad. That's good for you. We can
work with you."


   "I doubt that." Across the room, next to an area of the floor
marked as a loading zone even though it wasn't near any place to load
cargo, the wall of the structure swung open. The backside was a vast
wheel-lock like on a bank vault door, and inside were twenty-four
white-scaled kinori with shortspears; eleven daimons among which
U-Kigumoko could identify a tape deck, some kind of model dump truck,
and what looked like a blue-skinned Sailor Venus with a misshapen
ribbon between her absolutely gargantuan breasts; and a black-scaled
kinori with a lever-action shotgun and an expression that was most
likely how kinori express disappointment-slash-anger.


   "What the Hell are you doing?" Kher-Aya barked. "You were supposed
to get in undetected!"


   "Well, situations occurred, I was detected, nobody can change that
now. I'd sure like to see YOUR scaly ass do any better."


   "You were given an objective and a set of orders and you failed
within minutes! Is there any capacity in which you're useful?" He
looked back behind him and waved the troops forward. "Fan out, keep in
teams of no less than three! Daimons go in first, absorb fire! Kinori
move in after and clean up! If you meet Senshi, fall back to defensive
position, draw into melee range, keep daimons in cover! Take ranged
weapons from fallen officers, on their belts! Daimons, extract any
incapacitated kinori to the redezvous point! Immediate, shocking,
overwhelming force! Move out!"


   "Hey!" U-Kigumoko set one hand on her hip and pointed at Kher-Aya
with the other. The other kinori and daimons hustled from the tunnel
and made for the stairwells. "I don't have to take shit from you,
lizard. Your super-goddamn-ninja-salamander team sure as hell didn't
kill any Sailor Senshi, did they? I knocked out the sniper and the
best all of you could do was one asshead who wasn't even a Senshi. And
now you get to run all up in here and storm this place like in 'The
Terminator' and you know that's what you wanted the whole time."


   "I haven't even seen that," he growled. "Just the second one. I'm
here because the Master and the nest are in danger if they find us.
We'll make sure they don't find us. If that takes an assault, we use
enough to make sure we get the prisoner and out without leaving any
behind. If you're a danger to the nest, Master will take appropriate
action against you."


   "'Murrr, Master take appropriate action, mee mo ma mo mee mo mo.'"
U-Kigumoko held up her middle finger. "Shove it, lizard. You're not
better than me, you're not my boss. And when I find your stupid
captive first, you're gonna look like a total jackass and I am
completely going to rub it in your scaly lizard snout." She ran to the
stairwell and bounded up, taking three steps at a time. She didn't
know where the police would hide a lizard, but she figured lizards are
big, he can't be too hard to find.


   She skipped the first floor, figuring it was too obvious, and
hurried up to the second, behind more daimons and kinori going to the
higher floors. There were screams of panic and the occasional gunshot
all over as people reacted to the attack, but U-Kigumoko didn't pay it
much mind. After a cursory search, the second floor looked to be just
offices, a conference room, a bunch of screaming people in suits and
ties, but no cells or evidence lockers or interrogation rooms or
lizards anywhere. She was on her way from the balcony over the lobby
to the staircase when she heard something she DID pay mind to.


   "I am the beautiful warrior of love and justice, Sailor Moon! And
in the name of the Moon, I will punish you!"




---




* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* B O N U S   C O N T E N T *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


XENOFORM: YOUMA
(Supplemental Information)


   NEW ARCANE MAGIC FX SPECIALTY SKILL:


   Name:                 Stat:  Cost:
   Ex Timor Ex Nihilo  INT/PER      6


   Meaning "Out of fear, out of nothing," this is the arcane skill
used to create/conjure youma. It can be purchased as part of the
Diabolism, Entropomancy, or Hermeticism broad skills. When purchased
as a Diabolism or Entropomancy specialty, it is a PER-based skill that
requires a Good-quality sacrifice (one fatigue point for Diabolists, 7
Life Energy Points for Entropomancers) to be paid at the time of
creation. As a Hermetecism specialty, it is an INT-based skill whose
use requires reagents worth a total of $3000 (or the setting's
equivalent in gold pieces, Concord dollars, yen, et cetera) during the
preparation. It cannot be used untrained. Using this skill requires
one hour of preparation time, that need not take place immediately
before the skill is actually used and does not require foreknowledge
of what it will be used on.


   While in certain cases is may be necessary for a GM or player to
come up with a youma based on an object or person they did not have
prior knowledge of, for the most part it is far easier for a player or
GM to prepare one or more youma ahead of time and then justify finding
a template person or object to match the stats given. The skill check
is made prior to the youma's creation, and the effects are applied at
the creation: a Marginal youma is created on an Ordinary success, an
Ordinary youma on a good success, and a Good youma on an Amazing
success. On a failure, the youma core appears normal but fails to
function when it tries to merge with an object and dissipates
altogether.


   Each youma active and created by an individual makes it much harder
to create more; the "Ex Timor Ex Nihilo" skill check is at a +3
penalty for each still-living youma that was summoned by the caster.
Powerful otherworldly entities such as Queen Metallia and Isci ba Fan
are generally not subject to such penalty, but work through proxies
who are. Heroes or antagonists who can endure or avoid this penalty
will still find mass youma armies to be a bad idea in general; youma
are mentally unstable by nature (they are largely made of emotion) and
can create more trouble than they solve if not closely monitored. In a
"dark generals" or similar game, it may be appropriate to have youma
heroes as player characters; as they have access to alterations that
give them free skill points and natural resistance to damage, they
should start out at many levels below "normal" human / Dark General
PCs. Four levels should be the minimum, and youma PC heroes shouldn't
be of Good or Amazing quality, though they should be allowed to pick a
profession anyway.


   Series IX youma are willingly created like normal youma but the
attempt incurs a +1 penalty to the skill check. Series IX youma have
maximum STR, DEX and CON scores of 18 and their Durability is
calculated by multiplying their CON by 1.5, but their maximum INT, WIL
and PER scores are 7 and they have -2 to all resistance modifiers.
They have no Fatigue track and suffer no penalties from Stun or Wound
damage. They are generally dull-witted and act only when ordered or
programmed to, and are thus inappropriate for player characters.


   (X) Increased Mastery: At rank 6 of this skill, the practitioner
can create higher-quality youma. An Amazing success on the skill check
makes an Amazing youma, a Good result makes a Good youma, an Ordinary
result makes an Ordinary youma, and a failure becomes a Marginal
success that produces a Marginal youma.


SAMPLE YOUMA:


Marginal Youma: Gesen
Template: Human, "Crane Game Joe".
Notes: Created by agents of the Dark Kingdom who believed him to be a
reincarnation of one of the "Seven Great Youma" to serve Queen Beryl.
While Joe could have been a reincarnation of the human template from
which that youma was derived, it is not likely the youma he spawned
had anything to do with the youma the Dark Kingdom was looking for.
His name is likely an abbreviation of "game-center".

STR 11 [+1]  INT 09 [+0]
DEX 15 [+3]  WIL 10 [+0]
CON 10       PER 07

Ordinary alteration: Melee Weapon
Ordinary alteration: Protean Form
Ordinary alteration: Unearthly Agility

Durability:     10 / 10 / 05 / 05
FX Energy Pool: 3
Action Check:   13+ / 12 / 6 / 3
Defense:        Good toughness (Ordinary against Energy or magic)

Attacks:
Unarmed/Crane  12/6/3   d4+1s/d4+2s/d4+3s LI/O
Hammer         14/7/3   d4w/d6w/d6+2w     LI/O

Skills:
Athletics [11]; Melee Weapons [11], Bludgeon [14]; Unarmed [11], Brawl
[12]; Manipulation [15]; Vehicle Operation [15]; Stamina [10];
Knowledge [9]; Awareness [10], Perception [12]; Interaction [7],
Intimidate [9], Taunt [8]; Body Alteration, Stretching [11].



Ordinary Youma: Nipasu
Template: Object, custom-built emerald statue.
Notes: Used by the Black Moon Clan to establish control of a strategic
location, an ice cream shop. Nipasu was able to pose as a human
employee and use her Telepathy -- Suggest skill to induce feelings of
thermophobia and paranoia in the store's customers, fueling a "Crystal
Point" for use as an Entropomancy Leypoint. Her ensorcelled ice cream
could drain minor quantities of energy from consumers, fueling
continuous use of Telepathy -- Suggest. Nipasu's name may be derived
from the word "nippy".

STR 08 [+0]  INT 10 [+0]
DEX 09 [+0]  WIL 12 [+1]
CON 11       PER 14

Good alteration: Enervation
Good alteration: Master Energy (Cold)
Good alteration: Unearthly Presence

Durability:     11 / 11 / 06 / 06
FX Energy Pool: 18
Action Check:   10+ / 9 / 4 / 2
Defense:        Good toughness (Ordinary against Energy or Magic)
May assume human form. May drain Life Energy through use of prepared
objects.

Attacks:
Unarmed     8/4/2  d4+1s/d4+2s/d4+3s LI/O
Ice Blast  15/7/3  d4+1w/d6+1w/d4m   En/O

Skills:
Athletics [8]; Unarmed Attack [8]; Vehicle Operation [9]; Stamina
[11], Endurance [12]; Business [10], Small [11]; Knowledge [10];
Awareness [12], Perception [14]; Investigate [12]; Deception [14],
Bluff [15]; Interaction [14]; Charm [16]; Telepathy, Suggest [17];
Energy (Cold), Energy Blast [15], Energy Control [15].



Good Youma: U-Kigumoko
Template: Object, magnetic keycard descrambler.
Notes: Made from an object that represented its owner's greatest
failure or finest qualities, depending on what mood she was in.
U-Kigumoko is a walking pile of angry, defensive insecurity, perfectly
illustrating how the more powerful a youma is the less emotionally
stable. Comparatively few of her capabilities involve her actual
template object, most revolve around being a badass femme fatale spy.
Her name is derived from "Ukigumo", the first Japanese novel to
feature a "femme fatale".

Level 3 Free Agent

STR 11 [+2]  INT 10 [+0]
DEX 16 [+4]  WIL 11 [+1]
CON 11       PER 12

Ordinary alteration: Keen Senses
Ordinary alteration: Unearthly Presence
Ordinary alteration: Unearthly Resolve
Good alteration:     Master Energy (Magnetism)
Amazing alteration:  Unearthly Agility

Durability:     11 / 11 / 06 / 06
FX Energy Pool: 12
Action Check:   16+ / 15 / 7 / 3 [-1]
Defense:        Good toughness (Ordinary against Energy or Magic)
May assume human form. Has a -2 bonus to sensory skill checks.

Attacks:
Unarmed     19/9/4  d6+1s/d6+3s/d4+1w LI/O

Skills:
Athletics [11]; Unarmed Attack [11], Power Martial Arts [12];
Acrobatics [16], Defensive Martial Arts [19], Dodge [18]; Manipulation
[16], Lockpick [17]; Stealth [16]; Vehicle Operation [16]; Stamina
[11]; Knowledge [12]; Awareness [11], Perception [12]; Deception [12],
Bluff [13]; Interaction [12], Seduce [13]; Energy, Energy Blast [14],
Energy Control [14]; Movement, Fusillade [15].




Amazing Youma: Gamma-Chan
Template: Object, control rod at Chernobyl Reactor No. 4
Notes: One of the most powerful youma ever seen on Earth, Gamma-Chan
was created in 1988 by Palladia, a member of the Witches 7. She was
embodied by all the world's fears of nuclear power and of the Soviet
Union; she appeared as a red-skinned woman with glowing green eyes,
wearing what looked like a shredded hazardous-materials suit pierced
with twisted shards of metal and broken glass. Unable to be
controlled, Gamma-Chan preyed on and terrorized workers at reactors 1
to 3, still in use at the time, and denizens of Chernobyl City set up
to house those workers.

The Soviet Union, unaware of the existence of Sailor Moon, dispatched
a Spetznaz unit to destroy the creature. Astonishingly resistant to
damage, they finally were able to defeat Gamma-Chan by repeatedly
trampling her with a T-72 tank in order to drag her into a specially
prepared explosive-filled trench, sealing the trench in a makeshift
sarcophagus, and detonating four satchel charges inside it. Gamma-Chan
killed at least 20 plant workers and 7 Spetznaz soldiers directly,
another 12 died of leukemia afterward. Palladia never revealed the
secret of how she was able to make such a hellish youma, as she died
of severe, acute radiation poisoning before she could return to Tokyo
and her records were seized by the KGB. Gamma-Chan's name is a
reference to fatal gamma radiation.

Level 6 Combat Specialist

STR 13 [+2]  INT 09 [+0]
DEX 10 [+0]  WIL 14 [+2]
CON 16       PER 08

Amazing alteration: Defensive Coating
Amazing alteration: Master Energy (radiation)
Amazing alteration: Unearthly Endurance


Durability:     16 / 16 / 08 / 08
FX Energy Pool: 17
Action Check:   13+ / 12 / 6 / 3
Defense:        Armor d6+2/d6+1/d6+1, Amazing toughness (Good against
energy or magic). Energy Field downgrades damage by one additional
grade while active.
-1 bonus to Modern Ranged Weapons -- Rifle checks . -2 bonus to
CON-based checks, ignore 4 points of wound penalties, shake off wounds
as if they were stuns.

Attacks:
Unarmed         16/8/4   d4+2s/d4+3s/d4+4s  LI/O
Radiation Blast 19/9/4   d6+1w/d6+2w/d4+1m  En/O
AK-47           12/6/3   d6+1w/2d4+1w/d4+1m F/B/A  HI/O

Skills:
Athletics [13]; Unarmed [13], Brawl [16]; MRW [10], Rifle [12];
Vehicle Operation [10]; Stamina [16], Endurance [18], Resist Pain
[18]; Demolitions [9], Set Explosives [11]; Knowledge [9]; Awareness
[14]; Resolve [14], Mental [15], Physical [16]; Interaction [10],
Intimidate [17]; Energy (Radiation), Energy Blast [19], Energy Control
[19], Energy Field [19].