"Mercury Switch" by Devin de Gruyl (The let's-get-ready-to-RUMBLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE... Kid) Part 8 --- "You're gonna REGRET that, you... you... whatever you are!!" With those words, I charged my "better half" in a blind fury. I did not care that Sailor Mercury's diminuitive form was no match for my real body's strength. Nor did I care about the fact that I would only be hurting *myself* every time I landed a blow on that body. The only thing that mattered to me was getting revenge for that cheap shot I'd let it score on me. (I can be awfully narrow-minded when I'm angry...) It probably looked like a scene from one of "Dragon Ball Z"'s interminable fight sequences. Except, of course, this one did *not* drag on to an eternity. I tried punches; my body easily dodged every single one. I tried kicks; it kept jumping out of the way. I even got desperate and chucked Ami's computer at his head (praying the thing was shock-resistant), but it managed to duck underneath the projectile, and the computer just clattered to the floor uselessly. I guess my entire offense lasted about a minute and a half or so. I couldn't tell. Once I'd stopped to catch my breath, however, my "worthy opponent" started in again. One punch to the midsection sent me doubled-over in pain. This was followed by a savage kick to my chin. For the grand finale, it grabbed me by my neck with both hands and actually *threw* me into the nearest wall. As I slumped to the floor like the proverbial sack of potatoes, I was only dimly aware of what happened next: I heard a voice scream "AMI!!!" as I'd hit the wall. That *had* to be Sailor Moon; not only would it fit my judgement of her character, but she'd been calling me "Ami" all along, even after having it proven that I wasn't who she thought I was. ( I promised myself, ) After that came sounds of a titanic fight: screaming, grunting, punches, kicks, and the occassional odd, sickening, and unmistakable thud of flesh and bone impacting against a stone floor. I groaned in pain as I tried to sit up. I was too blinded by stars and a throbbing headache to see what was going on, but by the sounds of things I could take a wild guess: The other Sailors were fighting my out-of-control body, and getting their butts kicked in the process. Clearly, not even a four-on-one advantage was enough for them to be any more successful than I was. "Unhh... hang on... guys... I'm comin'..." I managed, trying to get back to my feet. I was determined not to let them fight this one alone... Unfortunately, in this case, "pain and suffering" beat out "determination". No sonner had I managed to stand up, than I immediately fell back over. It just hurt too much. "...I'm comin'..." I finished, more to myself than anyone else. "...in a coup'la *days*... when I c'n *move*..." The next thing I heard was laughter. Apparently, somebody thought this whole thing had gotten so ridiculous, that a laugh track was put onto the whole affair. "Whuzzo funny?" I mumbled, still punch-drunk from what my body had done to me. "Whooz laughin'tme?" (Okay, so my Stallone could use some work. Sue me.) The only reply I got was more laughter. I thought, as my senses began to return. Suddenly, all the lights in the warehouse came on, and I could see from whence the hyena had entered... Just as I thought. "YOU!!!" Maiyra looked up to regard me. She was seated in front of a bank of computers that took up a good portion of the wall I'd been thrown into. I had no idea what those computers were for, and I was too angry to care anyway. She cooly looked me over, inspecting the costume I was wearing. "Hmm... so you *could* transform after all. I'll have to write that down..." Had I not felt as horrible as I did, I would've given her something to write down, all right... but as it was, I was just too sore to even muster up the energy to produce even a "single-fingered salute." Let alone do to her what I most wanted to do to her right now, for royally screwing with Ami's life and my own. Instead, I somehow managed to find enough in my reserve tank to blindly struggle back to my feet. For the moment, I had to put Maiyra and everything she represented to me out of my mind - not only did I still have a score to settle with whatever was controlling my body, I had to somehow find a way to stop it (him? Her? One crisis at a time...) from pummelling the other girls. Like I said before - *awfully* narrow minded. Ignoring the fact that just about every joint and muscle in my body was screaming in protest to my every motion, I was actually able to maneuver myself closer to the battle. I stationed myself in the shadows cast by the steel girders that provided the warehouse's sole furnishings (save, of course, for Maiyra's "computer lab"), where I could see what was going on. Given what I could see from my "ringside seat", I began praying that I'd settled for the Uecker Section. As I'd feared, and despite being grossly outnumbered, "I" was not only winning the fight, but doing so *handily*. I watched in shock and amazement as my body (which, to keep things simple in my mind, I began to think of as "Skippy," my "evil twin" - hey, it was a panic situation, I was hurt, it was all I could come up with), sidestepping Sailor Venus's Love Chain attack, simply swatted her inconsequentially aside as if she were a fly. Neither were Sailors Moon and Mars faring any better; he was easily able to dodge the fire Rei was throwing its way, and it even managed to snag the Moon Tiara in midair when Serena tossed the discus-like object at him. With an evil sneer, Skippy snapped the Tiara in half and dashed the pieces to the ground. Everybody - myself included - gasped aloud at this thing's audacity. That was Lita's cue, apparently. With a savage war cry, Jupiter launched herself at Skippy, fists and feet flying. She actually fared somewhat better than her sisters-in-arms, and even a marked improvement on my own display of brute force, as she actually managed to land a few blows. Unfortunately, though, she missed far more times than she hit, and the shots that *did* find their mark, didn't so much as tickle. The same could not be said of the crippling blow Skippy managed to score on Jupiter's back. When I saw Lita go down, I felt something in Ami's mind... *snap*. Just like that. Just *snap*. It had to have been the sight of Lita getting hurt that did it. I mean, I myself wasn't too happy about it either. But Ami... Looking back on it now, I think it was because Ami was such a reserved person by nature. She wasn't the type to go flying off the handle, in stark contrast to some of her friends - or, for that matter, myself. Maybe that's what made her sudden burst of pure fury that much more potent; it was as if she were making up for a lifetime of repressed anger. I felt myself rise fully back to my feet, suddenly re-energized. I knew only that I was not in full control of my own actions. I was being wholly guided by the sheer strength of Ami's will, probably because what she had just seen had enraged her beyond all reason. Or at least, that's what I tell myself now. At the time, I just felt myself being manipulated, much like a puppet. Not that I minded, of course; I wanted to get my mitts on this guy too. I decided to just lay back and let Ami run the show for a while. Maybe she knew something I didn't... I felt my body twisting itself into a familiar-seeming position, and the following words escaped my lips: "Shine... Aqua... ILLUSION!" I felt myself momentarily lost in a void, surrounded by an icy chill. It felt like I was taking a shower, only I remained totally dry. It crept all the way up my body, towards my arms, where it took physical shape in the form of a large ball of ice and water. I flung my hands towards Skippy, thus "firing" the projectile in its direction. Imagine my surprise when the sphere, rather than fly in a straight line towards its target, instead started randomly bouncing around the whole room! It wildly careened off the ceiling, off the walls, it sent people flying in all different directions... in fact, it went everywhere *except* where I wanted it to go! I yelped and dived for cover as the out-of-control ball flew in my own direction, and just barely got out of its way! In my mind, I felt Ami's primal fury die down, gradually replaced by puzzlement. I almost could "hear" her thoughts now - , she seemed to be saying. Before I could offer anything in reply, Skippy came at me again. It grabbed me by the neck once again, but this time didn't throw me around. Instead, it simply hefted me up into the air, holding me with my feet about a foot or two off the ground. I only had a moment to wonder what it was planning on doing to me in this position. For some reason, I felt little jolts of electricity run through its fingers, into my body. I howled in agony as the voltage coursed through me. Dimly, as if from a great distance, I could hear that damned laughter coming from behind me. "Beautiful, just beautiful!" Maiyra crowed. "It won't be long now... just about ten minutes or so, and Sailor Mercury will be no more!" I felt myself break out in a sweat, and it wasn't from the heat of the electricity. I was now officially running out of time. If I didn't get out of this, and fast... Gritting my teeth, I opened my eyes and gazed down into the face of my attacker. I would have said "into my *own* face," but any similarity between the face I recognized from mirrors and pictures and what now appeared in front of me was, as they say in the movies, purely coincidental. Skippy's face was blank, expressionless, cold. There were no pupils in its eyes, and the whites glowed with an insane brilliance every time I recieved a new shock. The light from the little jolts of electricity created an eerie shadow effect on its face, and it may have just been my pain-clouded mind, but I could have sworn that with every flash of "lightning," a deaths-head skull could be seen through its skin. My vision began to cloud over, and I felt myself start to lose consciousness... I had time for just one thought... ...but, just as I was about to fade completely out... ...as if from a dream, I heard... "JUPITER THUNDER -- CRASH!!!" That was followed by a loud CRACK!! of thunder, and then I felt myself fall to the floor. I landed on my knees, gasping for air and rubbing my throat. Now that I was free of Skippy's clutches, the electricty that he had sent through me gradually faded away until all that remained were the memories of pain. I looked up. Sailor Jupiter now stood before me, her hands still emitting smoke from the attack she'd fired at Skippy from behind. I noticed that her right arm was bent at an awkward-seeming angle, almost as if she had broken it. Behind her, the other Sailors were slowly regaining their senses - by the looks of things, Skippy and my own inept Shine Aqua Illusion had just about put them all down for the count. Jupiter had merely been the first back to her feet. "...thanks..." I managed to get out. "S'alright," Jupiter replied. "Your arm - it's..." "It's nothing," she tried to assure me. "Just probably dislocated..." "Bull," I shot back. Even as she'd said that, I could see the pain in her eyes. I could tell she was in agony, but she just wouldn't admit it. "That thing's gotta be killing you - I know, I've broken my arm before! Here, let me --" "No!" She instinctively backed away from my helpful gesture. "I'll be OK, really! You don't have to --" "Oh yes, I do," I said. "You got that busted arm on my account, and I feel responsible. At *least* let me make you a sling or something..." I glanced around, looking for something I could use to bind Lita's arm with, but found nothing. Except... With a grimace and mental apology to the proper owner of this uniform, I reached to the back of my skirt and tore off a long strand of sky-blue ribbon. Jupiter started to protest again, but did not resist as I tied the ribbon around her arm and over her left shoulder, fashioning a crude sling. It wasn't much, but at least it would keep her bad arm out of harm's way until a doctor could set it properly. As I was tending to Lita's arm, I was only partially conscious of two things: One, that I was rapidly running out of those ten minutes Maiyra said I had left - I was probably down to three or four now. And second, and perhaps more importantly... out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw my possessd body begin to stir... ...I finished tying the sling. "There, that's the best I can do for now... I hope it's OK..." "It's fine," Lita said. With her good arm holding on to me for support, she pulled herself back to her feet. "Thanks." "Least I could do," I replied. "You saved my life, you know - I can never repay you for that." "Don't worry about it," she told me. "You would've done the same for us..." I blinked. In the heat of the moment, had she forgotten who she was *really* talking to, outward appearences aside? "Um... don't you mean *Ami* would have done the same for you?" Lita smiled and shook her head. "No I don't, bucko. She would have, yeah... but I wasn't talking about her this time." I was stunned. She knew almost *nothing* about me... in fact, this time yesterday, neither of us knew the other even existed at all... and yet, in that short span of time, she had learned enough about me to make a judgement like *that* about my character! It was was impossible, it was ludicrous, it was ridiculous. It was also the truth. What's more, I knew the exact same thing was true of her. Of all of them, for that matter. "Lita... I..." I stuttred, trying to find the right words. "I... I..." ...never got to finish. That's because Skippy suddenly roared back to life behind me, and like the automaton it was, charged back towards Jupiter. This fight wasn't over yet. --- End of part 8. Author's Notes: I had intended to finish off this battle in one part. However, because of a few items I decided to add at the last minute - Jupiter's broken arm and Darren's treatment thereof, Darren's (mis-)use of a Shine Aqua Illusion, and one more idea that wil appear in part 9 that I just couldn't trim down, this fight had to be broken into two parts. As it now stands, Mercury Switch will likely clock in at around 11 parts - ten story chapters, plus an epilogue. All things remain decidedly NOT set in stone, however, so it will probably change. And no, there will never be a sequel to this story. I just don't see how that'll be possible. And once you see how it all ends, you too will realize that a Mercury Switch II (Electric Boogaloo) just wouldn't fly. Until later, I remain. Peace. Sailor Moon is TM and Copyright (C) 1992 Naoko Takeuchi / Kodansha / Toei Animation / Bandai. English Language Adaptation Copyright (C) 1997 DIC Productions, L.P., a division of the Walt Disney Corporation. All rights reserved. No claim of ownership, expressed or implied, is made or intended in the use of these trademarked names, characters, and likenesses. The character of Darren McCormick and this story itself, however, are my own creations. - Devin de Gruyl 18 June 1999 ************************************ * This chapter of Mercury Switch * * dedicated to the memory of * * DeForest Kelley * * ("Dr. Leonard H. 'Bones' McCoy") * * 1920 - 1999 * ************************************