Fire ________________ / \ | Bauxite's Hour | \________________/ This occurs towards the end of first season. All characters belong to Takeuchi Naoko. Thanks to my pre-readers: Ben aevan ukie Visit my website at http://www.users.fl.net.au/~fire --- Queen Beryl howled in frustration as her last minion faded into nothingness. Failed! All of them had failed! How was it possible? Grinding her teeth, Beryl realised that it was now her task to destroy the meddlesome Sailor Moon and her tiresome do-gooder friends. Waving her arms about in an impressive manner, Beryl began to summon the energy to move her to Earth. She would show them once and for all. Her Generals would have succeeded if it wasn't for those meddling kids! Just as she was almost ready, she heard a slight whisper. It almost sounded as though someone was turning a page. Who could it be? Who could possibly be in her domain without her knowledge? Did any of her Generals actually have the intelligence to be literate? Looking around the vast audience chamber she normally lived in, she spotted a man in a grey uniform. The uniform of General of the Negaverse. But... weren't they all dead? Slowly his name came back to her: Bauxite. The last - and weakest - of her Generals. All the other Generals were named for gems or precious metals. He was simply named for common aluminium ore. That was all he was worth. Well, if she had a General left, she would send him. After all, her crystal ball had such pretty colours, she did not want to leave it, just in case she missed something nice. "Bauxite!" She called in an imperious tone. "It is time for you to defeat the Sailor Senshi, and bring me the energy I need to free Metallia!" Bauxite looked up from the book he was reading. Realising that his Queen was actually speaking to him, he placed the book down and walked to the bottom of her dais. After bowing deeply, he looked up at her and spoke with as much respect as he could muster. "Thank you my Queen. If I may be so bold, may I ask why you have decided to call upon me at this time of need? My magic is but a small fraction of that of Jadeite or Nephrite." "Jadeite is dead. They are all dead. You are my last remaining General. As useless as you are, you are my last pawn. All of the other fools are dead." Bauxite rubbed his chin. "Your confidence overwhelms me, my Queen. If I may ask, did you realise that I was leading a day trip for the mental handicapped when you converted us to obedience for the Negaverse? I must admit to surprise when my charges were made your Generals." "Yes, of course, I was seeking the most magically capable people. Metallia found me in a similar institution." "Ah! That explains a lot. Especially since magical talent is severely hampered by general intelligence." Beryl leaned forward ominously. "Are you implying something Bauxite?" "Not at all, Your Majesty. It's just that I had noted that Sailor Moon is the, err, least gifted mentally. However, she is the most powerful Senshi. Sailor Mercury is the smartest, and she is even weaker than I am. Humph. When was the last time anyone was actually hurt by Mercury Bubble Blast?" "I seem to remember Nephrite stubbed his toe quite badly one time..." "My point exactly. Now... before I begin, if you would take a look at these photos. I just want to check my targets." Bauxite displayed a set of six, high gloss photos of the Sailor Senshi and their guardian, Tuxedo Kamen. "How did you get these?" "I followed Nephrite when he was on his missions. They're rather photogenic if I may say so." Beryl held the photos under better light and admire the shortness of the girl's skirts. "Yes... Yes, you may be right..." "Then I shall kill them, My Queen, and bring energy to the Negaverse." "Excellent." Without so much as a cackle of insane laughter or even an evil looking cloud of smoke, Bauxite vanished. * * * Bauxite admitted he was weak. He knew that his first demon would take weeks to gather the energy needed to be summoned, but he needed the time for other tasks anyway. After a week's time he had managed to get Queen Beryl to agree to teleport home his demon when he asked; he was too weak to even accomplish that much. As he sat flicking through the high school yearbook, Bauxite sighed. Basically they seemed like a nice bunch of kids. If he had not been seduced by evil, turned to the dark side, become one of the minions of darkness, relinquished his humanity to the dark forces, and forever dammed his soul by his actions, he may have regretted killing them. Beryl tended to do a thorough job on her recruits. As he drew a circle around Kino Makoto in the yearbook, Bauxite wondered again how people missed the obvious. He had been there when Moon, Mars and Mercury had challenged the Nephrite's plant demon who had been summoned from a park's gardener. They had even announced who they were before changing. With such a display of intelligence, it was hardly a surprise that they were magically gifted. * * * His demon was ready. The power of greed has slowly been tapped and feed its energy. Now, all was set for the end of the Sailor Senshi! Standing in the bank, Bauxite gave a wave of his arm, and the teller demon sprang to life. Being a magically created creature, it gave the obligatory inane comment: "Rargh! Your souls have my interest! Prepare to have them withdrawn!" With a potent mental command (the strongest magic he could manage), Bauxite commanded the demon to ignore the people and grab the money. In seconds the teller demon had ripped the hinges from the safe, and had a double armload of money. "My Queen... Two to teleport... Energise!" The demon and the General faded from existence before the Senshi finished their transformation . Completely by coincidence, they just happened to be withdrawing money from that particular bank at the time. Back in the Negaverse, Queen Beryl eyed the demon's money with disdain. "I assume you have a reason for this?" "Yes, My Queen. You may have the demon and its energy if you desire. I have no further need of it." Beryl squinted her eyes at her General. Surely he did not think he could use the money to live in the lap of luxury while she fought on? Bauxite paid her no attention as he counted the money and prepared the next stage of his plan. * * * The add in the paper read: "Let us drain your energy! Y5,000 per hour." All completely legal and above board. Even the Senshi couldn't attack since he was not stealing anything. Most of the money went to other, less savoury tasks. * * * (A Tuesday in Tokyo, if you a watching the sub, or Monday if you a watching the American dubbed version. Time zones can be a bitch.) Four days later Bauxite walked up to his Queen with his head bowed, a newspaper in his hands. "My Queen, I have most terrible news to report." Beryl began to summon the powers to imprison and banish her last General. "What is it now? Things were going so well." He showed her the cover of the newspaper. "Unfortunately, a school girl and her boyfriend seem to have been killed in a random shooting spree. A Miss Tsukino Usagi and Chiba Mamoru. "Although there is no comment in the paper, I have good reason to believe that it was a paid assassin that shot them." Slightly confused, Beryl looked at her minion. "How does this concern me?" Bauxite sighed and rubbed his brow. The world was run by idiots. "Perhaps you should compare their photos with those of Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen." * * * "More bad news, My Queen. A drunk driver apparently hit Aino Minako. She died instantly." * * * "It's terrible what conditions are like in Tokyo these days, My Queen. I can only hope that when you reign supreme, the streets will be safe to walk. Look at this... Such an innocent young girl as Kino Makoto, beaten and killed by muggers in a back alley. All they got from her was eight hundred yen." This time he did not wait for the Queen's inevitable question. Placing the yearbook photo of Makoto next to that of Sailor Jupiter, he offered it to his liege. "Bauxite, as much as I commend you valiant work, something about your methods disturbs me. How is it that the powers of the mighty Negaverse failed to either identify or kill the Senshi, but you have done both?" "My Queen, all I can say in my defence is that I have more intelligence than God gifted the average amoeba with. And even the average amoeba could out-think your previous Generals. Also, using purely mundane operatives, the Senshi have no means of detecting the Negaverse's influence." "Hmmm. You could be right." * * * It was the worst possible luck for poor Artemis. He had been out doing an evening patrol, trying to soothe his nerves. Nothing had gone well lately. There was no Negaverse activity that they could spot, and there had been that series of horrible accidents. Caught in his musings, Artemis did not notice anything until a large man wearing a Gi picked him up. Despite the way he scratched and clawed, eventually Artemis was thrown into a pit with other cats. God, normal cats are so boring to talk to... especially when you don't get fed for three days. Artemis may have escaped later, most of the cats eventually did. Unfortunately, when the small boy wrapped in fish sausage fell into the hole he landed right on Artemis. When he felt the sickening crack in his spine, Artemis knew his days of chasing the Negaverse were truly over. * * * Kenichi - called The Knife by his friends - slid up to the temple in silence. He was getting a cool $20,000 in US dollars to kill the kid and the old man that lived here. Talk about easy money. Moving silently on soft-soled shoes, he looked around. His contact had told him that the girl was likely to be awake or a bit nervous, so he needed to wait a few days. 'Make it look like an accident,' they had told him. An accident it would be. Sliding open one of the doors, he moved into the kitchen. Quiet as a mouse, he opened the gas valves on the stove and the oven. Then it was a simple matter of a home made detonator in the microwave. Ten minutes and there would be nothing left of the house. Slipping outside again, he retreated to his watching spot and picked up his binoculars. Watching the sleeping form of the girl, he mused over his good luck. His contact had offered to increase his pay from $10,000 to $20,000 just to ensure he didn't do anything with the girl before she died. Make it look like an accident they said. They temple was mostly wood and paper. When the cloud of natural gas exploded, the entire house caught fire almost instantly. She barely had time to scream, poor kid. * * * Beryl looked down at Bauxite. "I have decided. These new methods of yours are not acceptable. If we are to truly defeat the Sailor Senshi, we must use our tried and true traditional ways. There are to be no more hired humans trying to kill the Senshi. From now on, it will be done with demons as it always was." Bauxite managed to hide his smile. He had managed to work quickly enough. Only one of the Senshi survived, and she would not be a problem. "Yes, My Queen. I shall use a bat demon to destroy the last of the Sailor Senshi." * * * Mizuno Ami responded immediately when she saw the fruit bat morph into a demon. Off to one side, Bauxite watched the battle, idly flicking through a travel book. Ami pulled out her henshin stick and began her transformation... "Oh look, they got a new roller coaster at Disney World." He read a couple of pages... Sailor Mercury finished her transformation and began her speech... "Ah, but they got a new one at Sea World too." That was a pretty long article on Sea World... The fruit bat demon finally began to attack now that Sailor Mercury was ready. Bauxite had considered having it attack while she was vulnerable, but Beryl could be upset by rather minor things, so he had let it wait. Before the demon even got close to her, Mercury cast her Bubble Blast. While Bauxite continued reading, the demon stood still. Sailor Mercury pulled out her computer and tried to think of something. Eventually the bubbles receded, and the demon charged again. Mercury retreated and threw up more bubbles. After five tries of this, the demon was rather damp from the Bubble Blast's moisture, but that was all. Bauxite was also at the end of his book. "Hmm. That's long enough for a nerve racking final battle. OK, demon, go kill her." Once more the demon charged and Mercury responded with her blinding spray of bubbles. However, the fruit bat demon found her unerringly and ripped her to small, sticky pieces. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Sailor Mercury, I expected better from you at least. Everyone knows bats are blind and navigate by sonar. Your bubbles never had any effect. It couldn't see you right from the start." * * * Mr and Mrs Tsukino regretted the decision. It was almost their last tie to their daughter but they had no choice. Neither of them had the time or the inclination to look after a cat, no matter how much Usagi had loved it. The pound said that if no-one claimed it within a week, it would be put down. --- End of Story. Sorry. I had to write this after seeing just how dumb the Senshi and the enemies really were. --- End of authors rant.