Notes at the bottom, as usual.
The majority of characters in this story are owned and/or copyrighted by
Naoko Takeuchi, DiC, Disney, Bandai, Toei Animation, Seagull Entertainment,
Graz Entertainment, Sunrise, Mixxzine, Saban, Playmates, and probably a half
dozen other corporations which I've neglected to mention. I should add for
the benefit of their respective legal departments that I make no claim to
the characters which the previously listed or referred to companies have
copyrighted, and I am not making any money from the distribution of these
stories (if I were, do you think I'd still be working at McDonald's?)
The characters which do not appear in either the Sailor Moon or Ronin
Warriors shows are mine. Touch them and die.
Now that that's out of the way...
Crystal Scouts #5
"Air Sailors"
"How is she doing?" Tori asked.
"Pulse normal, still unconscious, same as five minutes ago," Merry
answered in a monotone. Roxanne was placing a cold compress on the dark
blue one's forehead.
Tori slumped back onto the couch. Chloe was sitting on the edge of
a chair, alternately watching Merry and Roxanne leaning over the dark blue
one on the floor and Tori, who seemed more tired than anything else.
"Why did you ask me if the Sailor Scouts were real, when you're--
we're..." Chloe began.
"Because we thought we were the only ones," Tori answered. "We had
no idea there'd be others."
"If they're Sailor Scouts, then we're..." Roxanne mumbled.
"Crystal Scouts!" Chloe finished.
"I was thinking Crystal Sailors," Roxanne said.
"Scouts sounds better," Chloe insisted.
"We've got more important things to worry about," Tori interrupted,
"even though I like Scouts, too. I think we should go to Japan and find
these Sailor Scouts."
"Why do we need their help? We beat those monsters easily,"
Roxanne said.
"She didn't do so well," Tori said, pointing to the dark blue one.
"The Sailor Scouts have been at this longer than we have. I think we could
learn something from them."
"Sorry, Tori," Merry interrupted. "Even though you're the leader--"
"Leader? Since when?"
"Since from the beginning. You just didn't know it. Anyway, I
think you're wrong."
"How?"
"You're missing the big picture," Merry explained. "Someone is
sending those mosters after us. It didn't start until the day you and I got
those crystals. If it wasn't then, it should be obvious now that whoever is
sending those monsters is trying to get our crystals."
"It _was_ the only word that gargoyle could say," Tori said quietly,
remembering. "Okay then, what do you suggest?"
"I'd say--"
The dark blue one groaned.
Merry quickly leaned back over her. "She's waking up--"
The dark blue one's eyes snapped open, and she quickly sat up. She
backhanded Roxanne with her left hand, letting her slump unconscious to the
floor. With her right, she shoved Merry into a wall. She bounced off hard
and lay still as the dark blue one rose to her feet.
"What the--" Chloe said, stunned at the dark blue one's blinding
speed. Tori was almost as quick as the dark blue one, drawing her crystal
and holding it aloft, eyes blazing.
"Red Crystal Power!"
A red flash of light changed her into the Red Sailor.
The dark blue one seemed somewhat surprised. "You're a..." Her
eyes rolled back and she collapsed.
The Red Sailor's outfit turned to light and disappeared, returning
Tori to normal. She rushed to Merry.
"Merry! You all right?"
"She's...quick..." Merry groaned.
Chloe was checking on Roxanne, pressing the compress on her head.
"She's moving--I guess she'll be okay."
"It'll probably...take her a few...minutes to wake up," Merry
grunted, sitting up with Tori's help.
"You all right, Merry?" Tori asked again.
"Yes," Merry answered, testing her legs. "I'll probably have a huge
bruise on my back, though."
"Who _is_ she?" Chloe asked, still amazed.
"Don't know," Tori said. "We'll just have to wait for her to wake
up."
Roxanne was the first to wake up.
"Feels like I've got a carillon in my head..." she groaned.
"Are you all right?" Chloe asked.
"Nothing a couple bottles of Tylenol won't cure." Roxanne felt her
jaw. "Who does she think she is? Mike Tyson or Bruce Lee?"
The dark blue one's eyes opened again. This time, everybody quickly
backed away from her. Her dark blue eyes stared at everyone, finally
stopping at Tori.
"So, you're a Sailor," she said in a perfect Brooklyn accent.
Tori nodded.
"I betcha these other three are too, huh?"
Tori nodded again.
"I must be _really_ out of it," Roxanne said. "It's beginning to
sound a lot like home."
The dark blue one glared at her. "Ya lived in New York?"
"Yes."
"So whatta ya doin' here in Frisco?"
"I could ask you the same thing."
The dark blue one changed the subject. "Where am I?"
"You're in my house," Merry answered.
"Why'd ya bring me here?"
"You're part of our team," Tori replied.
"If I'm part of your team, why'd ya ditch me and let me get tossed
outta the door?"
Tori indicated Chloe. "We didn't know she was one of us, or we
would have helped you."
"Good an excuse as any," the dark blue one said bitterly. "All
right, _teammate_, how do I change back?"
"What?" Tori asked, surprised.
"I've been in this outfit, wide awake, fightin' for the past forty
eight hours. I need some sleep. How do I change back?"
"You used the crystal to change into a Sailor, right?" Merry asked.
"Yeah."
"So concentrate on bringing it back."
The dark blue one closed her eyes. Her dark blue Sailor costume
flashed once, twice, three times, then vanished. She now wore blue jeans
and a dark blue windbreaker. She opened her hand to show a dark blue
crystal.
It slipped from her fingers as she fell asleep.
The girl's eyes snapped open as Chloe approached.
"I--I just brought you some lunch," Chloe said hesistantly, holding
out the steaming bowl.
The girl slowly sat up. "Lunch? How long I been out?"
"You've been asleep for the past sixteen hours. It's noon now--
Saturday."
"What's this stuff?" the girl asked, poking at it with the spoon.
"Dinty Moore beef stew," Chloe answered. "Best we could do for five
people on short notice."
"Not bad," the girl said, digging in. "better bring me another
bowl."
Chloe returned from the kitchen in two minutes with another bowl.
The other three girls followed her, each carrying their own bowls of stew.
"You're looking better," Merry said.
"Uh-huh," the girl mumbled between mouthfuls.
"So, who are you?" Tori asked.
"Telyainaminit," the girl mumbled, the words doubly muddled by the
stew. She swallowed. "Got any more?"
"I'll just bring you the pot," Roxanne said dryly.
The four waited patiently while the dark blue haired girl finished
off the rest of the stew. When the girl was finally finished, Merry opened
the inquisition again.
"What's your name?"
"Gail Skyler."
Roxanne quickly cut in. "Where'd you learn to fight?"
"I spent the last two years livin' on the street. Ya learn pretty
quick how ta defend yourself."
"How did you wind up there?" Merry asked quietly.
"Ya really wanna know?" Merry nodded. "My mama died when I was
fourteen. The next day the landlord threw me out."
Merry shook her head sadly. "How did you survive?"
Gail's face brightened slightly. "Playin' hoops. Nobody beats me
one-on-one--except once, when I was cheated. After that, I figured I'd
better leave town--and leave as far as I could."
"Where'd you get the crystal?"
"Woke up two days ago, and it was sittin' in the ground by my head.
I figured I could sell it, but then I saw you three--" she pointed to Tori,
Merry, and Roxanne--"use yours and turn into Sailors. So I did the same
thing--only it didn't work like I planned."
"How did you know to show up at the art gallery?" Chloe asked.
"I dunno. It's like, since I got that crystal, I can sense evil."
"Could come in handy," Merry said sotto voce. "Do you feel well
enough to move?"
"Sure."
"Tori'll show you to your room, then we're going to the lab."
"No way I'm stayin' here," Gail stated. "My mama taught me never to
take charity."
"It's not charity," Merry replied. "You earned it after the last
two years. Besides, until we find out who's sending these monsters after
us, I think this team should stay together."
"All right, I'll stick around," Gail reluctantly agreed. "But
what're we goin' to this lab for?"
"Roxanne and I have some research to do."
Tori was doing something she thought she'd never do until she was
forty.
She was driving a minivan.
"Your Camaro can't carry five people," Merry had glibly pointed out.
"We'll have to take your dad's Windstar."
So now here I am, Tori thought, blithely motoring along in a vehicle
with a top speed of only ninety miles an hour...
"Did you say something?" Merry asked.
"I think we'd better stop by the gallery and see how much of Chloe's
stuff can be salvaged."
Chloe's apartment was a mess. Only her clothes and the artworks
downstairs remained unscathed. The girls took the clothes and a few other
articles. Tori had thought about destroying Michelle's painting and blaming
it on the monster, but decided against it.
Half an hour later, Tori entered the parking lot of Nautilus
Undersea Mining and Exploration. She pulled into the spot closest to the
building, decorated with a nautilus shell and a sign reading, "Reserved.
Violators Will Be Keelhauled."
The five were met a tthe door by Henry Nelson. A balding,
bespectacled, and bowtied little man, he was the supervisor of the facility
when Tori, Merry or their parents weren't around.
"Do you have any idea how much it's costing us--you--to close this
place for the day?" he spluttered.
"A couple hundred thousand?" Tori guessed as Gail's eyes widened.
"At least that much," he continued to vent. "You're just lucky we
don't have any government contracts right now."
"I notice there's only one other car in the parking lot," Tori
changed the subject. "I take it that means you sent the security staff
home, too?"
"Yes," the supervisor replied though tight lips.
"That's good, Henry," Tori said. "Since it's Saturday, why don't
you go on home? We'll close up the place for you. Oh, and tell the
security staff to return in--" she checked her watch--"four hours. Okay,
Henry?"
He threw up his hands in defeat. "Sure. You're the boss." As he
got in his car, he had one last thing to say.
"Bye, Tori, Merry. Try not to break anything, like last time."
The girls waved as he left.
"Okay, I'll bite," Chloe said. "What did you break?"
"Only a beaker," Tori replied.
"With some sodium in it," Merry prompted.
"Into a dive tank," Tori continued.
"Let the chemistry major figure the rest out," Roxanne cut in. "Big
boom, right?"
"We had to close the place for a week."
"So what's the story with this place?" Gail asked as the five
continued down another endless hall.
"Nautilus has three facilities in the United States," Merry
explained. "This one is mainly for research and development. The one in
Baltimore is mostly the business end, close to Washington for securing
government contracts. The one in Honolulu is our testing grounds, right in
the Pacific for deep-water trials."
Tori reached the doors of the lab and entered the fifteen digit
authorization code. The thick steel doors slid open, revealing another set.
Merry entered another fifteen digit code.
"Well, Roxanne," Merry asked, "what do you want to try first?"
Roxanne flipped through her notebook. "The main thing is that we
don't know how magical crystals will react to scientific research. We
obviously won't be able to get a sample for spectrometry--not with a
hardness scale ranking of 10+--so I say we just try to get the statistics of
the crystals themselves. I'd also like to check the energy released during
transformations and attacks, but that can wait."
"Optical equipment is in the rear," Merry replied.
"Ya have all this stuff?" Gail asked. "I thought this was undersea
research."
"All our equipment here has applications to oceanic mining," Merry
replied. "We need to be able to determine what minerals we have, so we know
whether they're worth bringing to the surface or not."
Merry produced a velvet-lined dish as they reached the optical
equipment. "Roxanne and I are going to need everybody's crystals," Merry
announced, placing her own in the dish.
Four others soon joined it.
Three hours later, Roxanne sat rubbing her eyes.
"What'd ya find out?" Gail asked impatiently.
"Just the basics," Roxanne replied. "Singly refracting crystals,
adamantine luster, fifty-eight facet brilliant cut, specific gravity of
3.52..."
"Sounds interestin'," Gail interrupted. "But weren't we supposed
to figure out how to find the other crystals?"
"They're magical crystals," Tori replied. "She already said we may
not be able to--"
"No, no, Gail's right," Roxanne cut in excitedly. "Sound. We can
use the natural frequency of the crystals--"
Merry smacked her forehead. "Of course. Crystal resonance."
"What?" the three others said in unison.
Roxanne quickly began typing commands into the computer. "Since
these crystals are so similar, it's likely they may have come from the same
original crystal."
"But they're different colors--" Gail began.
"Probably magical tendencies of the crystals themselves," Roxanne
continued. "The natural frequencies of the crystals should all be the
same--" she finished typing and pointed to the screen--"and they are."
Merry had already moved across the room. "Great," she yelled.
"Print out the results and bring them over here."
"What're ya doin'?" Gail asked.
"I've tapped into the military radar satellite network," Merry
answered. "It'll take a couple minutes to complete the search."
"Ya hacked inta government computers?" Gail asked, wide-eyed.
"It's okay," Tori reassured her. "Remember what I said about
government contracts. We get to use their databases."
A Mercator projection of the globe appeared on Merry's screen, with
continents in outline. Three dors, one much brighter than the other two,
were visible.
"This one's us, here in San Francisco," Merry said, pointing at the
brightest. "The other two are in Paris and just north of Edmonton."
"I say we go to Canada first," Tori said. "It's closer."
"Good enough reason for me," Roxanne said.
"Will you be able to build a portable detector?" Chloe asked.
"Not in half an hour," Merry replied. "But I can re-check the
crystals' locations anytime I need to, with my laptop and cellular modem."
"How're we gonna get there?" Gail asked.
"Corporate jet," Tori replied. "We've just got to go to the
airport."
"You're not flying it, are you?" Chloe asked.
"No," Tori answered. "I don't have my pilot's license."
"I thought ya said we'd be takin' a jet," Gail grumbled.
"Sorry, but the jet was in New York," Tori replied over the engines.
"Brian said he'd meet us in Edmonton, though."
"This looks like an old Air Force bomber," Gail said.
Merry looked around the plane. "Probably was," she replied.
The plane shuddered again, waking Chloe and Roxanne.
"Whole lotta shakin' goin' on," Gail said wryly.
"We're crossing the Canadian Rockies," Merry said, looking out the
window. "Probably nothing to worry about."
"Great," Gail said grumpily as she settled back into her seat. "My
first time in a plane and it's an ancient charter flight. No corporate jet,
no commercial airline, no salted peanuts..."
"No in-flight Stallone movie, no airline meals," Tori said. "It
could be worse."
"It _is_ worse," said the pilot, who had appeared in the cabin
doorway.
"Ain'tcha supposed ta be flyin' the plane?" asked Gail.
The pilot's voice deepened a couple of octaves. "That won't be
necessary anymore, because..."
"Indigo Crystal Power!" Gail yelled, jumping from her seat. She
stared at her friends. "C'mon, what're ya waitin' for? Transform already!"
"Good idea," the former pilot said as his body started to shimmer.
He added one foot and one hundred pounds to his frame. Wings grew from his
back, and his left arm turned into a propeller.
With a chorus of colors, the other four girls transformed.
The propeller whirled as the monster flicked it toward the cabin
door. It blew away like a leaf, as the partial vacuum began to draw things
out of the plane.
"Flight's over," it said. "Everybody out."
The Indigo Sailor started to charge the monster, but the Blue Sailor
grabbed her wrist.
"Wait," the Blue Sailor said. "Use your power instead."
"What're ya talkin' about?"
"Each of us has an elemental power," the Blue Sailor replied. "Is
that why you got hurt last time--because you didn't use your power? Because
you didn't know you had it?" The Blue Sailor turned to the others.
"Sorry," the Green Sailor said. "There's no ground up here to grow
anything on."
"An earthquake in midair won't do any good either," the Orange
Sailor added.
"Guess it's up to me to demonstrate," the Red Sailor said.
"Fire--Flame!"
The monster laughed, turning the propeller on the fireball. The
flame was quickly extinguished.
"How do I find my power?" the Indigo Sailor asked.
"Concentrate. Say what you feel."
The Indigo Sailor closed her eyes. "Swift and fast, like the wind
whipping through the air..."
Her eyes opened wide as her hand began to glow. She whirled to
face the monster.
"That's it! You're goin' down--way down!" The Indigo Sailor
started to slowly walk toward the monster.
"Not likely," the monster scoffed, turning its propeller full-force
on her.
The Indigo Sailor, unfazed, continued toward it.
"No! It's not--"
"Air..." The Indigo Sailor pointed her hands straight at the
monster.
"Possible!"
"Wind!"
A spinning column of air slammed into the monster, tossing it to its
left--directly out the open door. The monster disintegrated into ash on its
way down, scattering across the Canadian snow.
"Nice work," the Blue Sailor complimented.
The drone of the twin engines turned to sputtering. After coughing
three times, the right one died. The plane took a sharp nosedive.
"Ain't over yet," the Indigo Sailor said. "We're gonna crash!"
Hi, it's me again. Here are the notes...
* After re-reading the first scene, I'm _still_ not sure how I came
up with Crystal Scouts instead of Crystal Sailors. Chloe's right though;
Scouts _does_ sound better.
* Even though almost everybody else I know hates it, I loved Molly's
"Noo Joisey" voice in the DiC dub. So I thought it'd be fun to give Gail
an unexpected voice too. (Besides, don't all streetwise people talk like
Bugs Bunny?)
* And now you have the answer to the immortal question: "Just how
_do_ the Scouts return to normal?"
* Yes, Dinty Moore beef stew is one of my favorite foods...
* I'll bet you thought that by the time I got around to telling
exactly how Gail survived on the street, I'd find some really nasty
skeletons, right? Sorry. I don't write _that_ kind of stuff.
* Gail's statement that she can sense evil is a reference to the
Rainbow Crystal carriers. (You'll recall that Raye's grandfather had the
indigo one...)
* I noticed that the cars are starting to become puns, too...
shades of Rayearth?
* Tori and Merry are just lucky that I didn't go a little further
down the periodic table. Cesium would have done a lot more damage...
* Nautilus' facilities are on each US seaboard. allowing them to
cover both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
* The scientific statistics on the Rainbow Crystals are actually
describing a diamond.
(
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