It may seem bizarre. It sounded preposterous. It was absolutely
positively-
Possible.
Chemistry is capable of massively bizarre results. Modern
chemistry has already found a manner with which to create instant ice
in any temperature water using just two chemicals.
Alchemy is a much older version of chemistry and more mystical in
nature. Put in more vicious terms, it was basically something where
one learned things by accident.
Of course, chemistry can be considered to be very much the same
as alchemy, only it relies less on time of day, planetary positions or
alignments, and star patterns.
In actuality, chemistry was the dumb man's alchemy.
Alchemy was much bigger as it is capable of so much more.
For instance, while chemistry would take months, maybe years or
decades to create a living being, alchemy could shortcut that into an
hour. Maybe less.
Admittedly, the concept of making a monster from a potion may
seem completely preposterous.
Then again, the world has been saved by a girl who's skirtline
does more to show her panties than hide them.
Considering the ludicrous nature of both ideas, I'd have to buy
the monster in a potion theory first.
- Anonymous 20th Century Wizard
====================================================
Sailor Moon Versus Dungeon Keeper
Chapter 3 - Spores From The 34th And A Half CENTURY!
====================================================
Ian had a number of good friends who didn't mind getting in on
the world domination racket. However, two of his friends, he
considered ready to actually join his ranks.
He'd provided them with a fully stocked laboratory with both sets
of creation instructions he'd stolen from Doctor Tomoe's laboratory.
David was the chemist. He'd be making the actual concotions.
Mathew, on the other hand, was the idea man and the right one to
pick when choosing someone suitable for the job of deciding what to
make. He'd be the one actually testing the creations that David made.
He'd also be doing all of the computer work to see if the Droido
crystals Ian had rescued were salvageable in some way.
It hadn't taken much to get them to work for him. They wanted
pretty much what Ian's youma wanted. Food, a bed, some cash, some
power, and if they were feeling randy, a little bit of nookie.
Once he started actually conquering Japan and the world, they'd
be able to get all the free nookie they wanted.
Setsuna was _not_ amused, "In hindsight, I should have expected
this."
"Yes, it's not as if they've ever been team players before."
Makoto commented.
The group had searched for clues, but save for some faint heat
signatures that only indicated that Sailor Neptune, Sailor Uranus and
one other creature had been in the room. Of course, the shattered
bones of fifteen skeletons also said that the keeper had indeed been
collecting the undead.
"We're in luck if he's only got skeletons on his side. However,
something tells me that it's not that simple." Setsuna declared.
"That's right." came a familiar voice.
Everyone turned to see a pink-haired Usagi standing the doorway.
It took everyone a minute to register the fact that Usagi didn't have
pink hair, and was already present as Sailor Moon. Plus, Usagi didn't
wear a blue jean jacket, blue jeans and a white t-shirt that had an
arrow pointing upwards over the line, "My eyes are up HERE, jerkoff!".
And Usagi didn't have a tendency to chew on a candy cigarette.
"Chibi-usa?!" Usagi asked, looking at her daughter, who _had_ to
be about the same age as her.
Chibi-usa nodded, "Seems something nasty was going to happen if I
didn't show up. So, I figured, 'eh, might as well'."
"Why are you... so much older than last time?" Rei asked.
"You needed firepower, not comedic relief. Besides, mom figures
34th century living is bad for me. 'Corrupting my morals'," Chibi-usa
responded, rolling her eyes, before muttering under her breath, "Geez,
me and Hotaru go to one Lesbian Goth Rave and mom has a cow."
"So, uh, can you tell us where the Keeper is?" Minako inquired,
trying very hard not to laugh at the image of Chibi-usa wearing goth
makeup while retaining her bright pink hair.
"Nope. 'Sides, even if I did remember, I couldn't tell ya. Not
how things were supposed to go and all that bullcrap. 'Course, I'll
have to stay at Makoto's. It'll be too suspicious if I try and worm my
way into the Tsukino household and Setsuna's getting a bad enough
reputation as a woman of loose morals." Chibi-usa responded.
"WHAT?!" Setsuna demanded.
Chibi-usa chortled, "Just kidding."
Then, Chibi-usa's face took a more serious tone, "Seriously,
though, this Keeper is NOT to be underestimated. All I can tell you
about the enemy is that he's not using those pathetic goblins anymore.
He's using more magical creatures."
The group exchanged silent looks. If looked like another major
battle was brewing.
Mathew had made an interesting discovery about the Droido gems.
The gems were not unsalvageable, as was believed by both Sailor Moon
and the Dark Moon family. In fact, the gems were made to interface
with a USB cable, indicated by a proper slot at the very back of the
gem.
Ian looked over Mathew's shoulder as the computer genius typed
away at a frantic speed, "You called me down here, so what's up?"
Mathew turned to looked Ian in the eye, "These things weren't
made for combat."
"Huh?" Ian inquired.
"From what I've gathered from their databases, these 'droidos'
were originally created to take over the menial labour. However, since
they wanted these droidos to be able to function in numerous fields,
they made a number of preset patterns that would allow them to self-
modify in order to work in various fields that were deemed too
frivilous, dangerous or wasteful." Mathew responded.
Mathew pointed to some of the programming which was very similar
to C++, but had garbled letters and screwed up symbols that were of no
language that Ian knew of, "Someone or someTHING hacked their databases
and added various violent tendencies, but also added a bunch of shit
data that wound up making them about 25% effective. That means that if
we were to go through each database and remove the crap data, these
things would be about 200% better than they were when Sailor Moon faced
them. Not only that, but faster, stronger and able to formulate
strategies."
"You're serious?" Ian asked.
"Well, the increase is speculation from the amount of horseshit
someone dumped into here. Just about every three lines of code has
this ugly ass shit." Mathew replied, causing Ian to silently wish
Mathew didn't swear so often. Mathew was a genius in computers, but he
tended to regress in a speech pattern that he referred to as
"Hardcore". Ian referred to it as "Dumbass".
"So, once you get rid of this coding, you can get them to work?"
Ian asked.
"They'll need some power to create their own bodies, but yeah.
It's as simple as rebooting them." Mathew answered, adjusting his
glasses.
"But, don't you need to-" Ian began.
"Nope. The crap that was added was all RAM. Everything else is
ROM. Rebooting them will wipe out the RAM as well as undo the system
fault that Sailor Moon's Halation attack caused." Mathew responded,
flicking some messy black hair out of his face and making Ian wonder if
he'd taken a bath or shower lately.
"There are mana vaults in the corner." Ian told Mathew, "Just be
sure to make a few into something that'll be good at torturing. We
need to convert Sailor Uranus and Neptune to our side."
"Hmm, no can do. They can fight, but they've got set blocks
against deliberately causing terror or despair. Well, there are
disablers to the blocks in the cursed programming, but we can't save
that." Mathew responded.
"Then it's likely these things were actually a marketed item from
wherever the Dark Moon family came from." Ian commented.
Mathew nodded.
"I guess we'll have to wait for David to finish making some
Daimons. Crap, and I was hoping to get them converted today." Ian
sighed.
"Say, I've been reviewing that timeline you gave me and I've
noticed that you haven't gone back to pick up any of those Cardian
things that those two... uh, Ail and Ann, used." Mathew noted.
"Actually, I've got them already and recaliberated 'em so I cold
use them, but the problem is the activation. These things are kinda
like those Magic the Gathering cards. Unless you know the proper
activation sequence, they'll only appear for about ten minutes, then
revert. I'm looking into changing the ones I've got. A lot of them
aren't actually that bright or powerful, even if I were to activate
them." Ian responded
"You think you can?" Mathew inquired.
"Well, yeah. The magic involved is largely enchantment." Ian
explained, "Anyway, I'm going to go see how David's project is going."
Setsuna turned to the other Senshi, "It's risky, but we can try
an extraction."
"An extraction?" Sailor Moon inquired.
"We'll need Mercury to locate Uranus and Neptune via the Mercury
computer. Then, we do a Sailor Teleport with Mercury doing the
visualization. Once there, we free Neptune and Uranus, then Sailor
Teleport the hell out of there." Setsuna declared.
"That's a bit more than dangerous, Pluto, we could all get
captured if the keeper is expecting it." Chibi-Usa commented.
"That's just it, I don't think he is." Setsuna responded.
"You're the boss." Chibi-Usa answered.
With a flare of pink energy, Chibi-Usa changed into Sailor Chibi-
Moon, the outfit having changed in proportion to become a close replica
of Sailor Moon's.
"Let's do this tang." Minako agreed in English.
Mercury decided not to correct Minako.
Sailor Uranus was frustrated at two things. First, her own
foolish pride that had proven itself more hazardous than useful this
time around; second, her wheel, which looked like slightly rotted oak,
but it was a foot thick, magically enchanted and wall mounted, so she
felt her blood rush to her brain every other minute; and thirdly, the
children who were running around gleefully IN THE TORTURE ROOM, playing
a game of tag with only a single adult youma (that could've easily fit
into the more sexually arousing descriptions of the succubus) watching.
Okay, three things.
"Hey, watch out!" Sailor Uranus called out, just before one of
the young girl youma tripped and scraped her knee on another wheel.
The succubus-like youma sighed as she walked over to check on the
crying girl. She examined the injury, healed it, then 'beep'ed the
crying girl's nose, "Be more careful, okay?"
The girl sniffled and nodded. Sailor Uranus sighed with relief,
then wondered WHY she had sighed with relief. It wasn't like they were
normal children. But from that display, what was the difference? The
appearance was about it. The children youma had little to no powers
yet.
Maybe, just maybe the keeper wasn't that bad a person.
Sailor Uranus bit her tongue hard to snap herself out of that
train of thought. Even if they weren't entirely a bad person, they
were still trying to conquer the world at the very least and that
designated them a villian.
Sailor Neptune was mounted on the wall next to her, but her head
was currently in the pool of water mounted around the bottom of her
wheel. It was a good thing that Michiru had a strong set of lungs as
her wheel spun a bit slower when her head entered the water, apparently
testing her lung capacity and strength.
Sailor Uranus wondered if they would get out of the torture
chamber before they were 'converted', as that Keeper desired. At least
Neptune's head was rising out of the water, so they would be able to
keep each other talking.
Just then, Sailor Uranus noticed someone new in the room. They
wore a heavy brown robe that concealed all but the tip of their nose.
The new person walked over to Sailor Uranus and seemed to examine her
and Sailor Neptune.
"Hmmm, I'd heard there were other senshi, but I didn't believe it
until now. I guess it's amazing what you can forget over ten thousand
years..." a female voice spoke from within the robes.
"Ten thousand years?" Sailor Uranus demanded, "Are you the
keeper?"
The woman said nothing, but turned and almost exited the room
just as a flash of magic filled the room, followed quickly by the
familiar voice of Sailor Moon, "Uranus, Neptune!"
The youma children cried out in terror and fled to the far corner
while the succubus leapt in front of them protectively. Sailor Pluto,
Mars, Mercury and Moon hurried to try and free Uranus and Neptune.
"Okay, this is awkward." Sailor Jupiter noted, unused to such a
fearful reaction from children, even if they were youma children.
"Nevermind that, how do we get them free?" Sailor Venus asked,
concentrating on trying to pull Uranus off the rack and failing,
despite the fact that there didn't seem to be even string holding her
down.
Sailor Chibi-Moon shook her head, "Don't bother trying to free
them like that, the magic in this room will prevent them from being
removed until they're converted, removed by the keeper or dead.
Everyone, try to channel some of your energy into the floor. If we can
disrupt the room, we can free them a lot faster."
"Oh no, you don't!" the robed woman snarled, unleashing a bolt of
lightning that struck Chibi-Moon, sending the future Senshi to the
floor.
"Mars, Mercury, do as Chibi-Moon said. Jupiter, Pluto, Venus,
let's take her down!" Sailor Moon commanded.
No sooner had Sailor Moon made that declaration, than fourteen
skeletons appeared behind the robed woman. The robed woman backed out
of the room and fled, allowing the skeletons to charge forward,
swinging their swords and releasing bone-chilling shrieks. The Senshi
didn't even notice the sudden disappearance of the youma children or
their guardian. Sailor Mars and Mercury began their best to do as
Chibi-Moon had suggested.
Sailor Jupiter launched forward, punching at the leader, who
raised his shield and blocked the strike, but fractures formed on his
arm regardless. He retaliated by slashing at Jupiter, who leapt back
and summoned her magical energy, "THUNDER DRAGON!"
A torrent of lightning surged forward, creating the image of a
dragon as it swallowed six skeletons and slammed them into the roof of
the dungeon. The skeletons collapsed to the floor, heavily damaged,
but not destroyed.
Sailor Pluto struck another skeleton with her staff at the
skeleton's chest with enough force that the strike should have powdered
it's entire ribcage. Instead, the skeleton staggered back, then
slashed at her. She blocked, disarmed the skeleton, then swept it's
feet out from underneath it and crushed it's skull beneath her boot.
Then, the skeleton's arms wrapped around her thigh. Pluto growled in
frustration.
Sailor Venus managed to use a bare-handed sword block to stop one
skeleton's sword, before yanking the weapon out of the skeleton's hands
and beheading it. She felt confident that she'd won before the
skeleton's headless body grabbed her and began kneeing her in the
stomach with surpising force.
"Moon Princess Halation!" Sailor Moon cried, unleashing a beam of
magic that engulfed all of the remaining skeletons, destroying half of
them instantly and knocking the rest onto their backs.
Mars and Mercury blinked as they dropped an inch. They both
looked at the ground beneath their feet and noticed that it had gone
from reinforced stone to dirt, the nearby wall was similarly un-
reinforced and the room's restraints had shifted. Then, they heard the
sound of two people hitting the ground headfirst. They winced as they
looked at Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus, who were clutching their
heads and groaning in pain.
Suddenly, all of the remaining skeletons were pulled upwards two
inches from the ground and disappeared from the room.
"SHIT! Everyone! We've got to get out of here NOW!" Chibi-Usa
declared, regaining her feet.
No sooner has the group formed a circle for a Sailor Teleport,
explosions began filling the room. Ten seconds later, the Senshi were
gone.
"GODDAMMIT!" Ian cursed as he saw them vanish on his map.
"I'm sorry. I should have stayed to fight." the robed woman
apologized.
Ian sighed, "No, it wouldn't matter. We're not ready for a full
confrontation with the Senshi. Besides, your identity might give them
the clues they need to begin training to a higher power level. As it
is, we'll just have to be content that they'll be out of our hair for a
while. Even if they did escape, they were in the Explosion spell's
range for more than a few seconds. We have a little more time now."
"Then, might I interest you in another potential resource of
personnel?" the robed woman inquired.
"I'm always listening." Ian replied.
Ian's words were true. The senshi had escaped, but hardly
unscathed. In fact, were it not for Sailor Moon and Sailor Chibi-Moon
being able to heal them all, they would have needed to visit the
hospital for treatment for first and second degree burns with a few
being close to third degree. As it was, they were going to get a lot
of comments about how they'd spontaneously gotten rather deep tans.
"Thank you all." Sailor Neptune declared.
"I'm sorry that we charged in. From now on, we'll listen to
instructions." Sailor Uranus apologized.
"Well, at least we know what his undead are like." Sailor Pluto
commented.
"And we know that he can restrain our powers if we ever get
caught." Sailor Chibi-Moon joined in.
"_And_ we know that he has children in his dungeon." Sailor
Jupiter commented.
"'He'? So if that robed woman wasn't the Keeper..." Sailor
Uranus began, before trailing off.
"Why, what did she say?" Sailor Moon inquired.
"Well, she said that she'd forgotten about the Outer Senshi, then
commented that 'it was amazing what one can forget in ten thousand
years'." Sailor Uranus explained.
"Ten thousnd years? That would mean she was alive back in the
Silver Millenium." Sailor Pluto commented.
"But no one survived from back then, except-" Sailor Mars began.
"The Dark Kingdom!" The Inner Senshi and Pluto exclaimed in
unison.
"The Dark Kingdom?" Uranus and Neptune inquired.
"It was before the Inners and Outers met. We battled the
remaints of an evil kingdom hell-bent on destroying the Moon Kingdom,
lead by Queen Beryl and the four Generals of Earth." Mercury explained.
"So, the woman was Queen Beryl?" Sailor Uranus inquired.
"Well.... it might have been her or one of her youma..." Mercury
began.
"No way, I killed Queen Beryl..... didn't I?" Moon asked, turning
to Pluto.
Pluto was considering something, "Your powers, and those of the
Serenities, have always been largely purification and healing-based.
The idea that you'd purified Beryl instead isn't entirely impossible.
After all, she herself had been corrupted by Queen Metallia, who even I
don't recall that well. But a magical manifestation, like the one you
destroyed, could have been simply a shell."
"So, it's at least a possibility." Chibi-Usa began,
detransforming.
"Yes, it is. But, if it is Beryl, she might remember who you all
are and what your limits were back in the Silver Millenium. And you
all aren't up to even half of your power from back then. If they're
using that to project your limits... we're all in serious trouble."
Setsuna warned, as the rest of the senshi transformed back into their
civilian forms.
"Wait, if we're not even half as powerful as we were back then,
then you know what attacks and such we used back then. We could train
up to the old limits and then try and go beyond them." Rei commented.
"I'm afraid it's a problem of your power. Even if I were to show
you what abilities you had before, until your magical limit and control
of what powers you do have is equal or superior to that of the past
Senshi, it's not going to do you much good to know new techniques."
Setsuna explained.
"So, it's time to do some serious training." Usagi declared,
surpising Luna, who instantly began to dance as she heard that Usagi
was finally learning to act like a proper queen.
"UNfortunately, we'll have to wait for it. Summer break is
coming up, which will give us all the time we need, but before that is
_exams_." Ami declared, "And if you don't pass, then you'll likely be
spending all summer studying rather than battling evil."
Usagi wilted, realizing that while her grades had improved, she
had a long way to go before she was ready for the exams.
"As for the keeper, Pluto and I will do what we can to try and
find an entrance to his dungeon. The sooner we find it, the better we
can prepare." Chibi-usa declared, "And we'll also have to see what we
can do about restoring Hotaru to her normal age."
"What?!" Haruka asked, her mind-reeling in horror from the
concept of reviving the Senshi of Destruction.
"Face it, this keeper nearly did us all in from an attack that he
can do continuously anywhere in his dungeon. We NEED Sailor Saturn's
power in this fight if we're to beat him before he becomes too powerful
for all of us combined." Chibi-Usa told her.
"You think it might come to that?" Ami asked.
Chibi-Usa frowned, "It's already come to that. His power expands
exponentially. And, my mother told me that if we can't beat him by
summer's end, he'll be unbeatable."
"But, wait, wouldn't the fact that the future still exists imply
that we'll win?" Minako asked.
Setsuna and Chibi-Usa exchanged glances before Setsuna shrugged
helplessly.
Chibi-Usa sighed, "Apparently, none of you are familiar with
Dracon's Law of Time-Travel. It is completely impossible for a person
to go into the past of their own dimension as it would automatically
rupture time and space for them to exit prior to their own existance.
It IS possible, however, for a person to time-travel into the past of
another dimension as they do not technically exist in that universe and
thus have not made an impact on it."
Ami's eyes widened. The other senshi exchanged confused glances.
Chibi-usa saw the blank stares and simplified it, "In the
layman's terms, I'm not THIS Usagi's daughter. I'm from another
world's future where these events occurred very similar to how they
occurred in my world, which is the REAL reason I can't tell you
anything about the Keeper."
"Then what was with that 'paradox' stuff?" Minako asked.
Chibi-usa sighed, "I don't know how much has changed or how much
applies and even if I could tell you, I shouldn't. It's never a good
idea to get a swelled head about how things should go because then it
might not happen."
"But then, the Chibi-usa of our future..." Usagi began.
"If we survive this, you could send her into the past of a
different world to train her against real enemies, just like my mother
did with me." Chibi-usa explained.
"But if the world is different, couldn't you die?" Rei asked.
"Yes. But that's the good thing about being from an alternate
future: My mother can use her power to revive me. Unfortunately,
there's some big 'time travel agreement' that the Sailor Plutos and
Serenities have to agree to sign and honor in order to prevent multiple
dead universes from occurring." Chibi-usa explained.
"Dead universes?" Makoto asked.
"How little you all know..." Chibi-usa sighed.
Ami spoke up, "I've heard of the dead universe term. It occurs
when a universe inadvertantly kills it's own future by mucking around
too much in time or dimensional travel. It would allow Entropy into
the violating universes."
"And what's entropy?" Michiru inquired.
Setsuna spoke up, "Entropy is what all life fears above all else.
It is similar to the Silence that Sailor Saturn wields, only much more
powerful and completely unstoppable. Entropy is like 'The End' at the
end of a book, but instead for everything in our universe. Everything
is drawn into the Void and dies, even time itself. And then..."
"The Big Bang starts the universe all over again." Chibi-usa
finished.
"But, couldn't sending Chibi-usa into the past violate that?"
Usagi asked.
"No. You see, the Dead Universe syndrome would occur if we were
all to jump into universe after universe and make sure that every
single dimension was identical, right down to the trivial things, like
Haruka sneezing at the exact same moment. What I'm doing is creating a
nudge or shove in the right direction, but I'm not hopping into tens of
thousands of universes and _forcing_ the exact same thing to occur over
and over. I'm doing this ONCE and only ONCE." Chibi-usa explained,
"Come August 15th, whether I'm alive or dead, my mother pulls me home,
revives and purifies me if need be, and then that's it. Kaput.
Finito. I'm done. I never time travel again, unless it's an emergency
and even in that case, it's probably going to be my children rather
than me doing the time traveling."
=======================================================================
Another clue has been dropped about Ian's companion, but what
will she give him that will further bolster his forces.
The Senshi of Saturn is back.
Summer time training.
Allies are made and revived.
And where is that free nookie?
And now, to answer your not-at-all-asked questions!
Q) Why did you bring Chibi-Usa back as a Teenager?
A) As I said in the last one, this is a serious storyline.
Q) Is anyone going to wind up dead?
A) I haven't a clue.
Q) What do you mean, 'you haven't a clue'?
A) No, I said 'I haven't a clue'.
Q) @#%@#$%@#$!
A) Fine, I mean I don't plan. Sometimes, I'll get a good idea
going in my head and I'll right up to it, but otherwise, I fly by the
seat of my pants. No, not like how Neville flew by the ears of his
head in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (go watch it, you
cowering bastards!).
(
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