Arturus X. R. Sailor Moon: Marathon Part 3 Sorry about this part being a week late, but I've been busy studying (Read: Slacking off). When Mamoru Chiba awoke a second time, everything was illuminated with a soft whitish-yellow glow. A glow that would be comforting on Earth, but strangely unnerving here. Perhaps because the view out of the window showed a sky with a much darker shade of blue, bordering on purple, and not one, but two suns peering at him from their high perch. Save for the blowing wind, everything was silent. A dimly lit corridor showed the way out of the room Mamoru was currently in. A dry yellow substance had caked upon the walls of it. Mamoru's head was still waking up when he followed the yellow trail. Said trail led him on a simple path out into the outside. Mamoru found it was much easier to breathe outside than inside the building. Turning around, he appraised it. It was made of white, polished stone and stood about 10 meters tall. The windows weren't made of glass, they felt a little like plastic when he tapped them, but they were much sturdier than plastic. All taken into account, a very sound structure. When Mamoru looked around, however, there were no other structures of any kind for as far as he could see. So what was he supposed to be doing now? He looked up at the sky again. The twin suns were quite different from what he was accustomed to on Earth, but it wasn't really unsettling. He stood around and waited for absolutely no reason, and soon it became dark. He went back into the building, used the yellow trail to find his way back to where he woke up, and slept. When he woke up three hours later, he wasn't in his room. General Tfear was definitely NOT looking forward to reporting to his commanding officer. Either it was the horrible news he had to report that was panicking him, or it was that his superior could have such a...commanding presence, if you could call it that. He flicked on the monitor. After a moment, it initiated a connection all the way back to HQ, which was a considerable distance. In the upper right hand part of the monitor, a window appeared. A green line ran through the horizontal diameter of that window. At that time, a voice came through the sound system. "Greetings, General Tfear," Waves appeared in the green line showing the frequency of the sound. Normally, the window that appeared showed a picture of the person one was conversing with. However, that was not possible when talking to Phfor Commander Tycho. He did not have a body. He was an Artifical Intelligence, created by humans for use in scientific operations aboard a starship. Now, Tycho had jumped the proverbial ship and allied himself with the Phfor. "I have noticed unusual phenomeon in MK-S, Tfear. Is anything wrong?" *The bastard!* Tfear thought as he read the movement in the line. *He knows exactly what happened. He just wants to hear it from me!* "Er, Commander, we do have a trivial matter concerning-" "Shut up," said Tycho, in a tone that destroyed any last shred of hope that Tfear might have had. "Don't say anything until I'm done speaking. Better yet, don't say anything until this connection is terminated." After a reasonable pause, he continued: "You fucked up big this time, Tfear. Even with all the advantages in the world, hell, we traveled far enough into the past so that there would be no resistance from the humans, yet you still manage to find a way to screw up. If you read Durandal's logs, you should have believed them. As much as I hate the prick, I admit he never lies. Yes, he bends the truth so much you often can't trust him, but in this case, he has no reason to lie." "Normally, I would have you executed for such a mistake, but I really see no point. It would take months to put the request through the system. This way, you'll only have to sit in your own juices for two weeks. Terminating connection..." And the window went dark. Tfear took a few moments sifting through the data, but could no nothing to alleviate the pain he was feeling. Everything looked all the same to him, just as everything would BE the same in two weeks' time. After repeated attempts to coax Sailor Moon out of her depression, she regained her composure after she realized it had been an instance of either that thing...or me. She also accepted that there would be more one instance that the gun would be needed, so they brought it along. However, she gave it to Mercury, because out of the five, she believed Mercury could be the most collected in a dangerous situation. The five (plus two cats) found themselves in a tight, maze-like corridor. Mercury deduced that the area must be some enginerring or electrical sector. After several dead ends, and Sailor Moon getting lost several times and the others having to find her, they found an elevator. True to action-movie form, Sailor Mercury hit the button, then got to one side of the elevator door, her back facing the wall. When the door opened, accompanied by a beep from the speaker above, she spun around, and pointed the gun inside. Thankfully, it was empty. They all went in. Inside, there were no buttons, just a solid room. When the door closed, the elevator lurched downward of its own accord. After about a minute, the elevator stopped, and the door opened. Waiting outside was another alien. It seemed just as startled as the Senshi to see each other. Immediately Mercury drew the gun and fired twice. The alien dropped to the floor, a spreading pool of yellow blood forming under it. The report of the gun brought his comrades out from the darkness. Four green suited aliens stepped forward, but before Mercury could fire, they stepped aside, as another alien, clad in blue armor, advanced forawrd. It pointed the bud end of the staff at the Senshi. A barrage of energy balls, perhaps 50 or more, flew at the 5 girls and 2 cats like a hailstorm. The Senshi tried to jump out of the way, but Sailor Venus was hit by one of them. She staggered, fell to her knees, but got up. There were no visible signs of injury on her, but she knew she could have internal damage. It appeared that the blue alien was charging for another attack, but two doors about one meter high opened on either side of the group, and two metallic things that suddenly took to the air fired upon the aliens. The drones' built in machine gun put at least five hundred holes in the five aliens. On closer inspection, the drones had two built in machine guns and a grenade launcher or rocket launcher of some kind. A voice spoke from the darkness. "It's ok. No other aliens are in the room." Everyone turned in the direction of the voice. "Who...who are you?" said Sailor Moon. "I am Leela, the only fully functional artifical intelligence left on the Marathon. Those aliens that you've seen arrived here only a few hours ago, but they have assaulted all the main systems. I'm afraid the situation is bleak." "Well," said Luna, "How do we get out of here?" "Put these on," said Leela. Five technologically-advanced military uniforms materialized out of the darkness. Each Senshi found that each one was specifically suited for their respective body measurements. They also came with helmets. When they Senshi put them on, they found that the helmets had a wide array of features, including a motion sensor, an oxygen mask, and infrared vision. "These should help you find your way to the weapons cache." In a lower, more plaintive tone, Leela continued: "I'm afraid those aliens aren't the only thing you'll have to combat. From what my data tells me, they have enslaved various other aliens as well." An infrared stripe appeared across the floor, visible only to the Senshi. "Follow this line to get to a teleporter. I can give you further instructions from there. One more thing: stay away from Durandal." "Wait, who's Durandal?" pleaded Sailor Moon. But Leela was already gone. After a pause, Luna spoke up. "Wait, Senshi. Remeber that monitor we saw? Wasn't there a Durandal listed there?" "Yes," replied Mars. "That's right. It said Durndal was severly injured from the attack. But why should we be afraid of him?" Durandal had been fortunate to have the foresight to clone himself. The original back on the Marathon was injured enough that it would need to enter Rampancy to heal. He focused his attention on the form laying on the examining table before him. He started by inserting what he had dubbed an "electromagnectrode", capable of perusing a being's mind and memory, and if necessary, selectively erase it. A million gigabytes of data flew to him, but he absorbed it in a millisecond. *It is my language, anyway.* He thought. A recurring image popped up in the data: that of a silloughette of a girl. She was wearing a white dress and had two long piigtails. *Perhaps if I find this girl, and show her to him, I can coax him to do whatever I want. Yes, Chiba Mamoru, I own you.* End of Part Three Part Four Next Week (I hope) Arturus X. R. arturusxr@earthlink.net Thought for the Day: Why isn't there any anime with a Black Sabbath soundtrack?