Chapter 212

"So Setsuna's off on another one of her errands..." Haruka muttered sitting down in the kitchen of their apartment.

"Yeah..she and Maverick hurried off somewhere," Michiru said.

"Probably to that other dimension."

"I'd like to see it some time."

"Really?"

"Sure..just to get a new perspective on things. And I wonder what our alternate selves are like."

"Hmm..I kinda wonder that too. We obviously weren't enough to prevent all the trouble that happens over there."

"And yet his presence matters a lot. I wonder why?" Michiru asked.

"It is an interesting question. While Maverick is skilled, he's the least powerful of all of us. He has no leadership skills, and all his sophisticated equipment is back here."

"Well he might have it there too."

"Granted, but how does his presence there change things that much?" Haruka said.

"Maybe we should ask Setsuna some time."

"She won't tell us."

"Why?"

"Because she's a tease," Haruka said.

Michiru grinned.

There was a knock at the door.

Michiru moved to it and opened it. Hotaru walked in.

"Hello Hotaru, what brings you by?" Michiru asked.

"I had no where else to go," Hotaru said. "I thought I might be of some use."

"Use? Well I wouldn't put it that way, but it's always good to see you," Michiru said.

"Why? I am not good company," Hotaru said.

"We hope to change that someday," Haruka said.

"You two will have little to do with it," Hotaru said. "However I respect that, you have other matters to handle, your work, and your violin. I must find guidance from another. The ones I have chosen have both made themselves unavailable. Where should I go next?"

"Hmm..that's a good question," Michiru said.

"I'm sure there's someone who can teach you," Haruka said.

"And if not..I will," Michiru said.

"I did not want you to," Hotaru said.

"I can work it in," Michiru said.

"If necessary," Hotaru said. "But are their other possibilities?"

"We'll have to see," Haruka said.

"Wait..I know," Hotaru said. "Take me to see the one who shares my planet."

"You mean Greg?" Michiru asked.

"Guardian Saturn?" Haruka asked.

Hotaru nodded.

"Are you sure?" Michiru asked.

"If I wasn't I would not have asked," Hotaru said. "He will do adequately."

"All right," Haruka said.

"It makes sense," Michiru said.

"Ah..Mike..it's great to see you," the comedian, Mickey Arkio said.

"Yeah..well..here I am.." Mike said. "I try and visit all my good friends at least once a year."

"Hah..that's good," Arkio said and laughed. "So how ya been?"

"Oh..you know..stuff happens."

"You still got that girlfriend of yours?"

"No..she two timed, but we're still friends."

"She two timed on you, and you forgave her?"

"We're not dating, she's just the only one who laughs at my jokes."

"Hmm..good point," Arkio said. "So..have you seen my show lately?"

"Uh..no..they haven't canceled it?"

"No..of course not.."

"Jeez..I thought after the week of jokes about pork you would have been gone for sure."

The two stared at each other and then burst out laughing.

"The pork jokes were a little much," The comedian said. "But I liked them."

"Heck, I don't tell jokes to get other people to laugh myself."

"So that's your excuse now."

"It's worked more often then I expected."

"Really?"

"No."

"You know Mike. The only person who could possibly appreciate your humor is me."

"How fortunate that we know each other, or you wouldn't be able to tell me that," Mike said.

The two started laughing again.

"Say..I'm headed up to the comedy convention with me. You'd get to see all the greats."

"Oh..is that this weekend?"

"Yep."

"Well you see I want to go, but I can't leave the city."

"Why..are you under investigation?" Arkio asked.

"No..it's just that..you see..uh.."

"What?"

"I can't say..but I can't leave the city alone, that's all."

"Strange..but since it's you I can only believe your reasoning is nothing as serious as the terms would seem to suggest."

"You bet," Mike said.

"Well..it so happens that I can take some guests. It's to make sure that somebody's laughing at my jokes."

"You mean they set up plants?"

"Sure..every comedian there has ten hand picked audience members."

"Not a bad idea," Mike said.

"If you round up some of your friends can you come?"

"Yep," Mike said and gave a thumbs up.

"Well that's good.."

The door opened and in came robo-butler.

"I am robo-butler. Bow down before me mere mortals!" it shouted.

"It's on the fritz again?" Mike asked.

"No..no..I programmed him that way. He's hilarious," Arkio said.

"Really?"

"Robo-butler is in control..you're toast is ready, but only because robo-butler says so," robo-butler said.

"See what I mean?" Mickey said.

"Uh huh," Mike said. "Nice touch."

"Hail robo-butler!" the robot said and rolled out.

"Someday I'll get him one of the robo-maids to flirt with," Arkio said.

"You can buy them?" Mike asked.

"Sure..then you get a robo-kid soon afterward."

"I doubt they can mate."

"Still it would be interesting to find out for sure wouldn't it?"

Mike nodded.

"Hotaru, I don't know how much help I can be," Greg said. "I mean..it's not that I don't want to help, I sincerely do."

"I know that. I can tell when a human is lying to me," Hotaru said coldly.

"Uh..right..." Greg said. "I just don't know what I can do."

"You are nervous?"

"Yes..well..I usually am."

"Then that is good. I wish to attain your level of social acuity."

"Uh and how do you go about doing that?" Greg asked.

"By learning what you do."

"Oh..you mean my habits..the way I think?"

Hotaru nodded.

"Well..I guess if it'll help you..whatever works."

"Good," Hotaru said. "Let's begin."

"Uh..okay.." Greg said.

"I don't understand you at all.." Queen Nehelenia said. "You send a warrior with a very useful power out to fight the sailor scouts, and she does the stupidest thing possible, attack them all at once."

"We felt the surprise we could gain from this power could only be used once, and so it would have to be used on as many scouts as possible. I am sorry."

"Goddess of illusion, you should attack a more useful target in the future."

"I will consider that Queen Nehelenia."

"You will do more than that! You will do as I suggest. I fail to understand what your problems are. There are fifteen scouts out there. Fifteen! If you're not strong enough to take them all on you don't try.. Furthermore you seem incapable of handling just one of them."

"Well..Queen. The problem is that when we began our journey to take over this world, there were only five of them, and they were still inexperienced. We figured we would only have to deal with them."

"That shows a lack of foresight," Nehelenia said. "It's not my problem. You are all weak it seems. Unless you use your strengths to the best of your advantage, you aren't going to beat them ever. The scouts look unimpressive when observed in everyday life, but they've managed to beat me before, and that was only a few of them. Listen to me. Unless you get better, you will fail. Your plans must be ingenious. You must be prepared to stall the other scouts until you can finish one off. You cannot rely on stupid tricks. The scouts have seen it all."

"We would only like to bring up your majesty with Maverick not in this dimension anymore, one of their advantages is gone."

"You fool..the only reason he figured things out is that you played right into his hands. You decide to steal rubber and leave traces that is was obviously you. What do you think he's going to suspect! Mercury and the two Saturns are quite capable of figuring your plans out as well, and now they're focused. Never mind that Sailors Neptune and Uranus are very skilled. If you can't handle it. You should just call this operation off."

"And what will you do without us?"

"Find another way," Nehelenia said.

"We will succeed. But we will move more carefully now to ensure success."

"A good idea. But success can never be ensured with these meddlesome scouts around. Have you considered draining energy from the populace?"

"But that is not something we have planned for."

"I have."

"Yes..Queen Nehelenia, I suppose that is right. However...we can only expend our energy at certain amounts for a certain time before we have to rest. If we started draining energy, we would have little left for offensive operations."

"But I would gain enough force to fight them on my own."

"And then what would you need us for?" the goddess said.

Nehelenia scowled.

"With more energy..I could make you better off," she said.

"Possibly, however we cannot work under that assumption. Sorry," the goddesses said.

Nehelenia growled.

And at the Anderson-Patterson-Thompson house, Amy was sitting in the war room typing something into the computer system.

"All right..computer..I'm not exactly sure how you work..but let's see..if we can get the camera shot of the picnic." She pressed a few buttons. A file list came up.

"There we go.." she said and pressed some other buttons.

When the picnic went on she had programmed the camera to circle the area just in case.

"Now the camera didn't know the goddess was there or it would have alerted me..still..I wonder what the camera saw.."

The camera showed her an overhead view of the scouts stand up transform and then attack the goddess.

"It wasn't influenced by the illusion at all," Amy said. "Of course that makes sense..the computer doesn't have a mind. Still..we transformed in the middle of a park. I wonder if anyone saw us. I hope not. I didn't see any exclusive in the morning papers. What's interesting is that the goddess used her powers so ineptly. Even when she had us fooled, it would have taken hours for her to finish us off. Ample time for the military and the police to arrive and distract her, thus giving us an opening. And that was the best case scenario. Just what are these goddess up to? They're so annoying."

One of the phones in the room rang. There was a red one and a white one. Amy picked up the ringing white one.

"Hello?" She asked.

"Oh..hi..Urawa..how are you? Yes I liked our date. Didn't you?"

She got a reply.

"Oh..I'm glad..you did. I'm just a little nervous...you too? Yeah, so you know what I mean."

Urawa replied.

"What am I doing? Oh..just some research," Amy said. "On what? Stuff.."

Urawa replied again.

"It's not important what it is. So what's up? Tonight? Sure...bye."

She hung up the phone and stared at it.

"That's good," she said and sighed.

"I'm happy!" She shouted and jumped up onto the war room table and abruptly caught herself.

"Oh..I really shouldn't jump on D.V.'s table like this," She said and hopped down.

And in Raye's room.

"All right..I don't like the bass part.." Steve said.

"Why not?" Rick asked.

"It's just..too hard to play," Steve said.

"But you could do it?"

"Yes, but I don't want to, and it doesn't fit into the rest of the beat anyway."

"I agree," Raye said.

"Oh.." Rick said. "Can we save it for later then?"

"I'll consider it, if it really fits," Steve said.

"Fair enough," Rick said.

"Hi everybody," Mike said.

"Well..if isn't..Mike," Steve said.

"Yeah..Mike..how ya doing man?" Rick said.

Raye looked at the two strangely.

Mike whispered something to the two of them.

They started laughing.

"Hey..what's the joke?" Raye asked.

"There's no joke," The three said stoically.

Raye stared at them all as they held their straight faces. She then leapt in the air kicked Steve and Mike and finished off Rick with a spin kick.

She then burst out laughing.

"I'm sure that ruined the moment didn't it?" she asked.

The three guys glanced at each other and nodded.

"Anyway," Mike said. "My good friend Mickey Arkio is willing to take anyone who's interested to the comic convention."

"Really? Cool," Steve said.

"Yeah..I could use some laughs," Rick said.

"Raye you interested?" Mike asked.

"Oh..no..you guys enjoy yourself," Raye said.

"Mina's going anyway..so it's not like it's a guy thing," Mike said.

"Oh..well..I don't know..it's just.." Raye said.

"I'm sure it'll be fun Raye, and they'll be enough to deal with any goddesses if they were going to head up there," Rick said.

"Besides, if they do come after us, it'll be someone else's place they're trashing," Steve said.

"Not funny," Raye said and kicked him. "But..good point."

Friday night, a bus was moving along a dirt road towards the convention center and hotel complex where the event would be held.

"So is this comedian friend of yours any good?" Raye asked.

"Sure, sure he is, at least to me," Mike said.

"That doesn't convince me of anything," Raye said.

"Well...that's okay," Mike said. "There are plenty of comics who will be there. One of them has to be funny."

"I don't know..I've never really liked comedians. Still..I needed to go somewhere," Raye said.

"If you hadn't all noticed, I've been a little irritable."

"But Raye, how is a weekend trip supposed to overcome your entire personality?" Mina asked.

"Good question Mina.." Raye said. "And I'll let you know as soon as the bus stops."

The bus soon arrived at the site of the convention. They were soon climbing off the bus.

"So why exactly do they have it up here in the middle of nowhere?" Mina asked.

"Well, consider that the people organizing it see things the way I do," Mike said.

"Mike..no one sees anything the way you do," Mina said.

"I'm flattered," Mike said. "That could be the nicest thing you've ever said about me."

"I agree," Mina said and bonked him on the head.

"Nice place they got here," Steve said.

"Not too shabby. A shame they wasted it on comedians," Rick said.

"You said it," Raye said.

The group walked into the lobby and checked themselves in.

"Oh..yes..you're with so and so. Here you go," the manager said and handed them a key.

"One!" the five said.

"Hah! Just kidding with you," the manager said. "Here's number two. There are two beds in each room."

"Two rooms! Two beds!" the guys said.

"What? Can't you three guys handle sleeping in a room together?" Mina asked.

"No!" the three said worriedly.

"Fortunately, Mina and I don't have that problem right Mina?" Raye said.

"Of course not," Mina said.

The two girls headed up to their rooms. The three guys followed their eyes narrowed at each other.

"We'll fight for who gets the beds," Steve said.

"I agree," Rick said.

"I don't," Mike said.

"Too bad," the two said.

"Uh..well..we shall see.." Mike said.

The other two whirled and stared at him.

"See what?" they asked.

Mike pointed behind them. They turned and then turned quickly back. Mike was gone.

"That slick.." Rick trailed off.

"This could be a long night," Steve said.

"Not if we handle it right," Rick replied.

Steve nodded.

Raye and Mina meanwhile were quite tired from their long trip and were settling for bed.

"You know individually the guys may be palatable, but together..forget it," Mina said.

"I know," Raye said. " Rick sinks to their level anytime he's around them. It's annoying."

"The same is true with Mike," Mina said.

"Mina..Mike is their level," Raye said.

"No..that's not true. When their was still a spark in our heavily passionate romance.." Mina said

Raye snickered.

"He reached a level no one else got to see, it's only lately that he became his usual self around me. I had every right to cheat on him," Mina said.

"The law's the law Mina," Raye said.

"It's an outdated law that's unjust. It should be changed," Mina said.

"Sure Mina..what..."

They were interrupted by a large crash.

They both grinned slightly and opened up their door. The other door swung open and Rick and Steve went flying through it. They stumbled across the hall and hit the wall.

"What?" the two girls said in shock. Mike poked his head out the door.

"Had enough jokers?" he asked.

"You jerk!" Rick said and leapt into the room.

"He turned into Neptune..honest.." Steve said and ran back into the room.

"Neptune Power!" there was a shout.

"No..don't let him!" Rick shouted.

Raye and Mina looked at each other.

"They are using their powers much too gratuitously," Mina said.

"Uranus Power!"

"Pluto Power!"

"Loudly too," Raye added.

Guardian Neptune dashed out of the room, Uranus and Pluto followed.

"Guys..guys.." Raye said and blocking Uranus and Pluto's way.

"Think of where you are.." Mina added.

"He's gonna get it," Uranus said.

"But it would be dishonorable to ambush him, we wish to meet him head on," Pluto said.

"Guys..who cares about honor when I want to sleep," Mina said.

"You have my permission to be dishonorable," Raye said.

The two glanced at each other.

"Thank you," they said.

Guardian Neptune leapt back down the hallway and tackled both of them.

"I win again!" he said and dashed into the room.

"Win! You did nothing!" Uranus yelled and charged into the room.

"Second.." Pluto said and raced in after him and shut the door. There was a large crash again.

Mina and Raye sighed.

"I was hoping they would settle this," Mina said.

"Uh..huh.." Raye said.

Seventeen minutes later.

"You three jokers have really done it this time," Raye snapped. "You have to go and destroy your room, and now..you wanna stay with us.."

"We're very good with room mates," Mike said.

Mina bonked him on the head again.

"We uh..didn't mean for it to get this out of hand," Rick said.

"It usually doesn't," Steve said.

"All right..all right.." Raye said. "Listen...though..you guys will sleep on the floor..got it!"

The three nodded.

"And don't get any ideas," Mina said.

"I guess I won't need this then," Mike said holding up a wrench. All four of his friends looked at him.

"It's a wrench," Mike answered. They all glared at him.

A figure meanwhile stood on top of the hotel's roof looking about. A goddess.

"Five of them. But three are Guardians. It is still risky..but if we are going to prove ourselves to Queen Nehelenia this is the time to do so. I will just have to be especially creative."

The next day was the first day of the comedy convention. The guests were all sitting at tables in waiting for the first act to take the stage.

Mina and Raye were glaring at the three guys. They returned the glare.

"Oh..hello everybody," a comic said. "Anyone here from Tokyo?" he asked.

Several people, but also the five raised their hands.

"Ooo..there's a group in the back," the comic said.. "Yeah. You five. If there weren't five of you it'd look like a date."

"No it's okay...Mina here's dating him and me at the same time," Mike said gesturing to him and Steve.

"What?" everyone basically said.

"Well..sure..see..she's learning how to two time, so we're showing her the ropes..next time will teach her how to keep us from learning about the other guy," Mike said.

"MIKE!" Mina shouted.

"You're a two timer? I'm out of here.." Steve said and got up. The crowd burst out laughing.

"So..comedian yourself huh?" the comic asked.

"Apparently so..please continue," Mike said.

Steve returned. Mina bonked Mike again.

The acts went on for several hours. Some of them were good some of them were bad.

Raye was not impressed.

"So far, I've seen nothing very funny," She said.

"You're just mad because you didn't sleep last night," Mike said.

"Mike..why are you still alive? Why hasn't someone murdered you?"

"It's not worth life in prison to kill me I guess," Mike said.

Mickey Arkio eventually mounted the stage.

"Well hello everybody. I see my friend Mike's here...are these your friends?"

"No!" the four shouted.

"Hey..tough crowd..anyway..I'm from Tokyo..you know a lot of weird stuff goes on there. Stuff that's not even possible to explain. Just yesterday I was waiting for a bus, and it was early!" he said.

The majority of the crowd started laughing.

"Is bus service bad in other cities? I hadn't noticed," Raye said.

"Of course in Tokyo, buses occasionally disappear right Raye?" Mina asked.

"Don't remind me," Raye said.

"And of course Tokyo is also the home of those heroes they call the Sailor Scouts."

The five's eyes widened.

"Now that's right, occasionally some sort of evil force of nature shows up and they kill it, but what I don't get is their outfits. I mean..who fights crime in a sailor suit anyway? Fortunately the male scouts..have a sense of style," Mickey Arkio said.

The crowd started laughing.

"It's not funny!" Raye and Mina barked. Everyone stopped and stared at them.

"Uh...they look good in them," The two said and sat down.

Arkio smiled slightly.

"So it is, well anyway..give it up for them," the comic said.

The crowd let out a little whoop.

And back at their hotel room.

"So far, so good. We've been here and day and no attacks," Raye said.

"I called Amy, it's been all quiet in Tokyo," Mina said.

"That's good to hear. These goddess get on my nerves."

"Yeah, I know," Mina said.

Seconds later the door exploded off of it's hinges and flew into the room flying at them.