Author's Note: After the inordinately grim tone of my last several Sailor Moon stories, I thought I'd liven things up a little bit in this new tale where the Scouts team up with those super cool dudes who protect Earth from the scum of the universe: the all too awesome Men in Black. I mean, considering all the aliens and monsters who regularly visit Japan to raise havoc, it's a wonder MIB isn't headquartered in Tokyo instead of New York City! Since I love Men in Black, I thought it'd be fun to bring Agents Kay and Jay to the Land of the Rising Sun for a romp with the Sailor Moon and company. After some really heavy stuff, it's high time for something a little lighthearted, but exciting and action packed. I think you'll enjoy what I've cooked up. If you wish to comment on my story, either positively or negatively, don't hesitate to contact me at treetop@voicenet.com. Sailor Moon and all related characters are the property of Takeuchi Naoko, Toei Animation and DIC. Men in Black and all related characters are the property of Lowell Cunningham and Marvel Comics. So, please, don't sue me because I haven't any money. I do this strictly for entertainment purposes, not copyright infringement.

Scouts In Black
by Jeffrey C. Branch
Prologue
Rating: PG-13

Thirty-six miles above the Earth:

It's been said that in outer space, no one can hear you scream.

The same goes for swearing like a drunken sailor.

The small spaceship shuddered and shook as it flew through the remnants of a powerful solar flare. Inside the craft, instruments crackled, fizzled and caught fire as energy from the flare shorted out virtually everything, filling the cabin with thick, choking smoke which would've easily sufficated it's lone occupant, provided it needed to breathe. Fortunately, it didn't, but the fire was a major irritant while the loss of helm control made for a great deal of frustration which the pilot released in a blsitering stream of profanity that echoed off the interior hull of the cabin.

"ARRRRRHHGGHH! Can't those lousy, stinking, good for nothing wrench jockeys build anything to last?" he roared.

A violent shudder to the rear of the craft told the pilot that the ship's engine lone warp engine nacelle just blew, adding to his already considerable aggravation. Grasping what was left of the helm controls in a grip of steel, he attempted to steady the ship as it flew, or rather, dropped like a rock through Earth's atmosphere. However, the pilot gripped the yoke too tightly and it broke off in his claws, leading to another round of salty language. Really pissed now, the pilot checked what his navigational computer to see if he was still on course. He wasn't surprised to see that he wasn't.

His ship was thrown thousands of miles off course and spiraling out of control. As the ship hit the upper atmosphere for entry, the hull heated up to over six thousand degrees which its shielding was barely able to withstand, but the pilot barely noticed how hot it had become inside the cabin. He was far too angry to care. He activated his braking thrusters and, much to his amazement, they fired.

"I'll be damned! Something actually works on this rust bucket! Will wonders never cease," he grumbled.

The ship, now on what could laughingly be called a controlled descent rocketed downward at speeds in excess of fifteen hundred miles an hour over the Pacific Ocean. Without the braking thrusters, it would've disintergrated long before it even got that far. Inside, the pilot strapped himself into a reininforced lifepod and slammed the door shut. He knew he was going to land hard, where he landed he didn't know, he'd worry about that later, if he survived the crash. The pilot seriously hated annoying little details like that because they invariably took his mind off his sole mission in life....

Conquest.

Greenwich Village, New York City:

The stubble faced drifter couldn't help but grin as he threaded his way down a crowded street on a sunny Thursday afternoon. He carried a faded blue canvas backpack which he held tightly to his chest, fearful of becoming a victim of a snatch and run which was all too common in the Big Apple. And it was crucial that he safegaurd what he had inside.

A small, rail thin man with short, ratty blond hair, hideously bad skin with a pale pallor and clothes that looked like they hadn't seen the inside of a washing machine for weeks, the drifter was easily able to blend in with the eclectic, fancifully dressed crowds of free spirits the inhabited the Village. He felt confident that he'd never be caught, or even seen by the eyes of the law. And once he made it down to the harbor where his ride awaited, he'd be home free after pulling off the heist of his career. The thought of getting out of New York, most of all, getting away from....them made him delirously happy.

Rounding a corner, the drifter stopped short and gasped from shock at the sight just ahead, his eyes widening from horror as his hopes for freedom just went down the proverbial toilet.

Two men, each garbed in plain black suits over plain white shirts, narrow black ties and shiny black shoes, their eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses stood casually in the middle of the sidewalk, staring straight at the drifter. Even in the Village, the men looked unusually out of place. One man was a middle aged Caucasian of average height and build with brown hair, a chiseled, rugged face and a lantern jaw. His partner, African-American was slightly taller, moustached, lean muscled and younger with a cocky smirk on his lips. The drifter nearly wet his pants at the sight of them.

"Yo, Chuckie! Wassup? We've been looking for you, bro," said the black man in greeting. He then motioned with his head to the backpack. "Don't tell us you're trying to skip town, are you?"

The drifter laughed nervously, knowing full well he was busted. "M-me? Skip town? No way, man. I ain't the kind who breaks laws."

"Then you won't mind letting us have a look inside that backpack," said the black man's partner in a sharp, no nonsense tone.

The drifter gulped, loud enough to be heard by people walking by. Then he turned and ran for his life.

Special Agent Jay, his smirk gone watched the drifter run, barreling over people in his haste to escape. "Y'know, homes, the bad guys are getting dumber all the time. You'd think these clowns would know better by now than to run from us."

Special Agent Kay, staring down the street at the fleeing drifter shrugged. "If they were that smart, we'd be spending our days pushing paper in Customs. And where's the fun in that? Let's nail him!"

Forty-five miles south of Tokyo:

"Well, like the old saying goes, any landing you can walk away from is a good one," muttered the pilot, casually dusting himself off after crawling out of the wreckage of his ship, buried ten feet deep in a crater it made when it crashed. Behind the wreckage was a deep trench in the ground that stretched for nearly half a mile.

Feeling somewhat grateful that he wasn't hurt, the pilot took a long, critical look at his ship and arrived at a most logical conclusion regarding it's condition: it was a total loss.

"Crap! This is gonna make getting back home a major pain," he grumbled. The pilot then looked around him, trying to get a fix on his surroundings. Seeing that he was in a lush, green countryside, he knew that he was seriously off-course after his navigational computer went south, so he had no way of knowing just where he was. This did nothing to placate his mounting anger. And when he got mad, he wanted nothing more than to kill.

Just then, he heard the screech of brakes from behind him. The pilot whirled around to see two people, a man in his middle 30's and a woman of the same age climb out of a SUV. Both people were pointing at him and screaming at the top of their lungs from naked terror. Considerably annoyed at the noise they made, the pilot pounced on the couple, leaping the fifty feet between them with ridiculous ease and casually ripped them to pieces.

"There. That's better. Their blasted screaming was getting on my nerves," the pilot grumbled. He then took a close look at the people he murdered and scowled. "Asians? Aww, man! You've gotta be kiddin' me! I'm that far off-course?"

Stomping to the SUV, the pilot tore the passenger side door off it's hinges and peeked inside. Sitting on the back seat was a newspaper. Carefully, he removed the paper from the vehicle and stared at it. The indicia read 'The Tokyo Times'. That infuriated him.

"Japan? I'm in freaking Japan?" he roared, shredding the paper with his claws. The pilot had studied Earth's geography, including all its major cities prior to leaving his homeworld and was familiar enough with where he was to get even more annoyed than he already was. "Just great! Now how the hell am I supposed to get my butt to the States and study the Enemy?"

Suddenly, the pilot had a thought, a rarity of sorts since he hated to do any serious thinking because it gave him a headache. His race were creatures of instinct and sudden action. Thinking for long periods of time was almost unheard of amongst his species. No doubt his ship was tracked down to Earth by the Enemy. If he knew the organization he had been told about before departing on his mission, he wouldn't have to go to them, they would come to him. He figured it would only be a matter of time.

Grinning, confident in his assessment of the situation, the pilot stared at the dead man, intently studying his features. Until the Enemy arrived, the pilot would do some reconaisannce, learn all he could about where he was. But that meant going undercover, and the best way to do that was by impersonating one of the locals, loathe as the idea was to him. The pilot pressed a button on a belt he wore. His features then shimmered as he morphed, rather painfully in fact, into an exact likeness of the murdered man. He nodded at his appearance, but looked thoroughly disgusted.

"How do these vermin live in such fragile skins?" he wondered aloud. Shaking his head, he replaced the door he tore off the SUV, then, after cleaning up the shredded bodies as best he could, the pilot climbed inside the vehicle, frowning from confusion at the instrument panel. "Jeez! The things I do for the sake of a decent conquest."

Greenwich Village, New York City:

The drifter ran for his life, even though he knew it wouldn't do any good. There was no escaping....them. No one ever did.

Clutching his backpack tightly to his chest, the drifter ducked in a alley and sprinted towards the far end. He wished he could find a fire escape, thinking that might give him at least a halfway decent chance to escape, but he saw none in this alley.

As he neared the other end, the drifter stopped short when Kay and Jay rounded that corner, neither breathing hard from the chase but looking none too pleased from the endeavor.

"It's all over, Chuck," said Kay, pulling his weapon, a large, futurstic looking silver handgun out of its shoulder holster and leveling it on Chuck. A low whine coming from it told the drifter it was armed. "You're wanted for breaking and entering the sovereign territory of the planet Haddrath along with theft and attempting to move stolen property. Now, if you're a good boy and surrender, we might----heavy emphasis on might----arrest your stupid butt in one piece. Toss the pack over to us. Carefully."

Scowling, Chuck did as he was told, lobbing it to Jay who then opened it. When he did, a bright purple glow escaped from it, almost blinding him, even with his shades on. Jay's eyes windened and he gave a low whistle.

"Is it the real McCoy?" Kay asked, keeping his eyes locked on Chuck.

Jay nodded slowly. "And a bag of chips. Haddrathi Flame Gems. A dozen total. Looks like a righteous bust to me."

Chuck scowled, clearly frustrated. "How'd you find me? I didn't blab to anyone that I was skippin' town!"

"Wrong. You told Jeebs what you were up to when you fenced that Tellurian laser pistol for hard cash to get out of the city," said Kay. "Obviously, you didn't want to fence one of the jewels for your boat ride to Jersey. At the current rate on the Interstellar Exchange Market, one gem could buy the Yankees fifty times over. Imagine Jeebs' shock when I told him what you had. He was plenty pissed at not getting a cut of the swag."

Jay chuckled. "Yeah! Kay didn't even need to use any of his....friendly persuasion on Jeebs to make him talk. That weasel sold your sorry ass down the river faster than you can say 'I come in peace'. It's all over, chumpzilla."

"Damn you! You'll never take me alive!" yelled a furious Chuck, his body suddenly and violently shaking. Kay and Jay looked on calmly as Chuck burst out of his clothes and morphed into his true form, that of a dark gray, smooth skinned biped with tentacles like an octopus and three golden eyes in its large, bulbous shaped head.

Moving with surprising speed for something so ungainly looking, the transformed Chuck leaped straight up some fifteen feet up and landed on the wall. Like a spider, he scuttled up the side of the building, his only thought was to escape. The agents meanwhile were unimpressed with Chuck's transformation, if anything, they were rather blase about it. After all, in their line of work, tracking down and arresting criminal extraterrestrials, they had seen that sort of thing many times before.

"He's all yours, partner. My hands are full," said a bemused Jay, motioning to the bag in his hands.

"You're all heart." Kay trained his weapon skyward, took careful aim and squeezed off a burst. Chuck screamed as a yellow hued pulse bolt from the gun hit him solidly in the back. Chuck dislodged from the building and crashed to the crowd with a squishy thud, not unlike the sound a fish makes when it smacks against something solid. Chuck didn't move as all three eyes closed.

"Yee-haw! Nice shootin', Tex!" said Jay in a fake Texas drawl. "Y'all didn't send Chuckie to Boot Hill, didja?"

Kay knelt and placed two fingers on Chuck's left thigh to feel for a pulse and shook his head when he found one. "Nope. He's still breathing. Tellurians are lots tougher than they look. And the extra limbs come in handy for pulling heist jobs like the one he did at the Haddrathi Embassy three days ago."

Kay stood and removed a small, square device the size of a cigarette pack from his jacket pocket which he pointed at Chuck. He pressed a button on the device and thin, yet strong steel restraining bands shot out from it, enveloping Chuck's body. "We can call this one a wrap. Literally."

Jay yawned. "Just in time too. We're scheduled for some down time after this case. Man, those 37 hour days get to you after awhile."

Just then, Kay's communicator beeped. Removing the device from his jacket pocket, Kay activated it, and the bearded, always scowling visage of Zed, his and Jay's superior filled the communicator's tiny screen.

"Did you nab that two-bit second story man? The Haddrathi are screaming bloody murder about the gems he stole!" Zed growled in greeting.

"Tell 'em to relax, Zed. Chuck's hogtied and ready for the pokey. And the gems are safe," Kay replied.

"Good work. I want you and Junior back at HQ pronto. I've got a hot one for you boys. I mean, it's radioactive." And the viewer went dark.

Jay rolled his eyes from exasperation and frowned. So much for his down time. And he had a front row center ticket for J.Lo's sold out show at the Garden tonight. "Never any rest for the weary."

Kay switched frequences on his communcator to call a clean-up crew to take Chuck into custody. He then smirked at his partner. "That's what we get paid the big bucks for, Slick."

"What big bucks?" Jay grumbled back.

NEXT: Field Trip Blues

GO TO CHAPTER 1