Dan Orner

"And I believe that makes it 21-20, my man," panted the glorious victor.

"Nice one, Mark," obliged an equally fatigued young man, and they exchanged a sweaty high-five. The latter swept his blond hair back from his forehead and retrieved the ball from where it had fallen.

"Toby," called the first player, "you gonna be there today?"

"Probably not," his friend returned, already walking across the width of the gym towards the double doors. "I've got something planned with Karen tonight."

"Good luck," Mark waved.

Toby Proctor dumped the ball in the back of his car and drove home, first thinking about the details of the game and concluding that it had been one of his better ones after all, and then thinking about the coming night and what he had planned. His income was petering out slightly, but he was still comfortably well off enough to provide a night on the town. Maybe they could go see the new musical that had opened up. What was it? Chicago? Whatever.

Interestingly enough, Toby had gotten two voice-mail messages in the short time that he had been playing basketball. He began getting out lunch while listening to them play out.

"BEEP. Hi, Toby, this is Karen." His hand froze halfway to the fridge door. "I don't think I'm going to be able to make it tonight, I'm really sorry. We can make it up, OK? 'Bye, honey. CLICK."

"Oh, crap." Toby punched his leg, for lack of another non-perishable surface.

"BEEP. Hey, Toby, this is Barry Andersen, casting director for Sailor Moon? We're planning to reopen the series, DIC's given us another seventeen episodes. I was wondering if you were available to take Darien again. Please call me back anytime before five today." He left a number.

Now there was an interesting message. Toby had liked his Darien role. Admittedly it was one of the strangest he'd ever taken, but he'd liked it. Unfortunately, his Flash Gordon persona was taking up a lot of time lately and he didn't know if Darien would be able to fit in...

He put lunch on hold, picked up the phone, and dialed the number given by the message.

"Hello?"

"Hi, this is Toby Proctor. Is Barry in?"

"Yeah, this is me. How's going?"

"Not bad. I got your message, and - well, I'd really like to take the part."

"Great!"

"How much are we talking?"

"Hmmm. Don't tell anyone, but I think pay might be a bit better than before. Merchandising."

"Yeah, I noticed the flood. Haven't seen any Tuxedo Mask dolls anywhere, though..."

"They're coming," Barry promised immediately. Toby laughed.

"Only problem is that I'm a bit busy with this Flash Gordon business. I don't know how much longer it'll take."

Barry's tone turned serious. "I can't wait much longer," he informed the voice actor. "We're slated to start work on Friday. If you can't make it, I'll have to get someone else."

"No, I think we're almost done for this season," Toby answered quickly. "I'll have to talk with the guy at Flash, but I'll hopefully be able to make it, OK?"

Barry paused. "OK, fine. Great! Get back to me, OK?"

"Sure. 'Bye."

Toby hung the phone up and thought, Darien...

Malachite slammed a bolt of energy into the dark wall of his training room. Darien! Because of him! Worthless, weak-willed, smirking, impudent - human!

"Urgh!" he grunted in absolute frustration, and punched the wall, leaving a small dent.

A person stepped out of a crevice and said, "Something wrong, Malachite?" and this was very interesting.

Because the person was Tami, and Tami was not a person.

But this was Project YOUMA.

YOUMA stood for Young Material, a euphimism for the raw energy that fed it and the advanced prototypes that it produced. Since its invention by Malachite, a very few beings had been priveleged to be its recipients.

The first was Tami, and after that Malachite could very well have thrown the thing out, because improvement was impossible.

Tired of the dull, inefficent, *stupid* monsters that spewed out of the Negaverse, Malachite had resolved to find something more useful. Tami was that.

Tami was more than a monster or demon. Tami was intelligent. Besides which, she had been given advanced battle training by Malachite himself, and could outperform all but the most accomplished officers of the Negaverse, proving to be one of the fastest learners he had ever met. He had taken Tami for himself, and she posed as not only his star pupil, but also his advisor and someone to bounce his ideas off. The initial novelty of having a demon for an almost-equal soon rubbed off upon seeing the true ability of his creation.

After creating Tami, Malachite had bequeathed Project YOUMA to Zoisite, who had used the Black Crystal to alter its purpose. It had allowed the Black Crystal to be used on humans - unfortunately, that plan had backfired. Instead of giving the victim the strength of a monster and the intelligence of a human, the sorry being was left with the stupidity of a monster and the weakness of a human. She never used it in that capacity again.

Never again.

Malachite had taken it back. It could never be used for creation again, but he still used it to capture humans and change them into monsters. The result was someone slightly more intelligent than a monster and quite a bit more powerful than a human. Usually it hadn't backfired directly, except for the first time he had tried it, on an entire barbershop's worth of hair stylists. That had been terrible.

His newest acquisition, Ninjana, was the best of the new lot, but she was nowhere near the aptitude of Tami.

Besides being powerful, smart, and - Malachite was almost ashamed to admit it - beautiful, Tami was one more thing.

She was a secret.

"The same thing is wrong now that was yesterday, and the day before, and ever since that cursed Prince Darien made Queen Beryl fall in love with him!" Malachite growled. He never failed to look Tami over, marveling at her, but now a mere cursory glance was all that he allowed himself.

"Why exactly are you so angry at Prince Darien?" Tami wondered, striding closer to him. "Were you expecting to rule beside Queen Beryl yourself? What are you afraid of?"

Malachite didn't answer her for a few seconds. Then, "He has done nothing that allows him his position. I've sweated and connived my way up to the top for longer than that brat has been conscious. I can't stand him being so close in Beryl's mind... so close - "

Vacantly, Malachite picked a small object up from his desk. It was a photograph with a plain golden frame, and there were two figures in it, embracing. Himself, and her...

"I don't think that's it at all," Tami broke in, peering over his shoulder. "I've had time to think about it. I think," she said slowly, letting the words draw out, "that you're angry because you blame him for Zoisite's death."

Malachite lashed out. "What!"

Tami pressed on. "Zoisite only ended up disobeying Queen Berl because of her hatred for Tuxedo Mask. And now you're forced to work alongside the same person. I think that might have something to do with it, don't you?"

"And if it does?" Malachite thrust out.

Tami shrugged. "It's up to you. You've got two choices - wait it out or do something about it."

Malachite subsided into rumination. "Yes, of course. But what? Queen Beryl has forbidden me to touch him. And she knows what I'm doing better than I do. I can't kill him and I can't stand him!" He slammed his fist on the desk.

"There must be some way to get at him without hurting him physically," Tami reminded him.

"But how - " Malachite's eyes grew wide. "Queen's Glory, Tami, I think I might have it!"

He peered at her happily. Sometimes he thought she knew more than she let on, which in itself was a bit scary, because at some point later on, she might actually become smarter than himself, as ridiculous as it might be.

But he wasn't afraid of dissension. Firstly, she was fiercely loyal to him. Secondly, she knew that he could destroy her as easily as he had created her, although with a lot more pain involved.

"Congratulations," she applauded. "Care to enlighten me?"

"Not just yet." He began pacing in frenzied steps. "It all makes sense. It's untraceable. And then - yes. It will work! The Pathway is perfect!"

"Pathway?"

"Now. I'll do it now!" His face held triumph. "You'll soon see, Tami. You'll see the power of the void between worlds!"