Dear Cere-Cere,
I hope this letter finds you in good health.
Sakura stands alone on the barren surface of the solar system's largest Asteroid, Ceres, looking down at an elegant obsidian grave marker, lilies in her left hand.
I'm doing well. Today was the 752nd anniversary of Ichiro's Death.
Sakura stands alone by a small memorial stone in the hills of Sendai Japan, the ancient site a stark contrast to the air cars zooming overahead. She leans down and places a single rose in front of the marker, clasping her hands in prayer and bowing her head.
Oh, I never told you about him, did I, Cere? When I was stuck on Earth with amnesia, I took on the identity of a girl named Shinjuugi Sakura, and got involved with a group of soldiers who defended the imperial capital from demonic invaders. This was back in the 1920's. Ichiro was our squad leader. Eventually we fell in love and got married. That's right! I bet you didn't know that about me! Well I can't blame you, I haven't talked about it much, these last few centuries.
As the years passed, he grew older and older, but I didn't. We didn't have kids or anything. Eventually, he died... just sort of... stopped one day. I was with him at the end. He was a kind, sweet man. I still miss him lots. But unlike that death, which I could come to terms with and understand (he'd had a full, rich life and we'd been together for all of it)...
Sakura stands on the plains of Venus, placing two Gallifreyan flowers of rememberance on golden obelisks, one with the seal of Rassilon carved into its front, and the other with the sigil of Venus.
...I could never fathom the murder of my parents. I spent 68 years with them, but I still felt like it wasn't enough... like we were taken from each other too soon. All I can think about now is revenge. I'm so sorry you got caught up in the feud between Eudial and myself. I swear to you I'm going to hunt down that murderess and avenge us all.
Back at the asteroid, Sakura kneels and places another letter next to a stack of others by the grave marker, where the airless void of space would preserve them perfectly once she, and her TARDIS, along with its atmospheric bubble, left.
And then I will wait for the day when your Sailor Crystal finds its way back to me, and we can talk again. And at that time, perhaps I can find forgiveness-- or retribution-- at your hands for what I did to you. Either way I will accept it gladly.
Now I have to go. Somewhere out there in space and time there's a trail of breadcrumbs leading to good ol' Yuuko Arimura, and I'm going to find. Until then, rest well, my good and noble friend.
--Sakura
With a screeching, scraping metallic sound, Sakura's TARDIS dematerializes, vanishing and leaving only the empty stillness of the grave in its wake.
ACT 04 - "The Irrepressable Sakura"
Dr. Xadium (drxadium@DEATHTOSPAMgate.net)
March 27th, 2005
Naoko Takeuchi is hereby thanked for her involuntary contribution to this fanfic.
Thanks to Ikari Shinji and Yaijinden for the use of their characters in this fic.
Thanks to Saiyajedi for help with the German.
RATED PG-13
EARTH, 1952, HOPE ARKANSAS, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
"Now Jimmy, I dun told you twice, boy. Critters ahr fer pets or meat. They t'aint fer beatin' da crap out of'n fryi'n wit gosh durned lites frum da sun wit dat confounded magnifyin' lens yer gran got yuh fer christmas!" Zebediah Hatfield crossed his arms, spitting into a nasty, grime covered can on the railing of his backyward porch. "You listenin' boy?"
Little Jimmy Hatfield, a short, freckle-faced readhead with a mischvious twinkle in his eyes, bowed his head in the most deferential posture he could adopt, shuffling his feet in the rich black earth as he mumbled "Yes'm, pappy. Um sorry, pappy."
"You best not be lyin' to me, boy!" Zebediah snapped, spitting again, with uncanny aim. "The good lord punishes those who lie."
"I'm not lyin' pappy. I swear," Jimmy lied.
"I'm gonna choose to believe that, boy," the grizzled, rough-hewn older man said, holding up a gerbil by the tail as it squirmed and arched its back, trying desperately to bite the hand that held it aloft. "This here's Henry. Mama got him fer yuh ta replace da one ya played "Frenchie Revolushun" with. So you best be makin' sure this'un survives da night."
Jimmy's eyes lit up as he gently clutched the small rodent. "Tanks, pappy!" He ran over and gave the older man a kiss on the cheek, waiting for the adult to leave.
"Hiya, Henry...." Jimmy said darkly, staring into the animal's beady little eyes. "You'n me ar gonna be best friends...."
A few minutes later, "Henry" the gerbil was tied up on a toy train track, looking on and squeaking in terror as a heavy metallic toy train barreled down the track towards him.
"Check it out," Tommy Whipsnatch, the local bully, exhaled in awe. "I ta'int nevuh seen nothin' lik this befur!"
"Corn crackers!" Jimmy exclaimed in glee. "Word'a this is gonna spread far n' wide, Tommy. We're gonna be famous! Got thuh camera ready?"
Whipsnatch held up a bulky Kodak camera. "Yup!"
As the train roared towards Henry, the boys looked on with rapt attention. but while their gaze had drifted to it in anticipation of a bloody slaughter, their attention was now captivated for another reason altogether.
"Whut in tarnashun..." Jimmy exhaled. The gerbil had let out a long, low squeal, a blast of light flashing out from its body as the bonds surrounding it had been shattered. The next instant it stood on all fours, its fur standing straight up, spiked and golden, a firey halo surrounding it. Its beady eyes were a bright, eerily glowing green.
"Thunderation it's floatin'!" Whipsnatch pointed out. Indeed, the small creature was hovering off its feet and growling.
"The good lord punishes those who lie." those words pounded along with the blood in Jimmy's ears.
"Um so sorry!" Jimmy cried out, dropping to his knees. It was the last thing he would ever do as a living being. The next instant, the gerbil had slammed forward at high speed, ripping through his chest like a small cannonball.
Whipsnatch watched in blind, uncomprehending terror as the Gerbil circled around Jimmy's bloody body for a few moments before diving down and beginning to rapidly consume it, the flesh being stripped from the bone in a matter of seconds. the next second, it flew at the bully and smashed through his skull, squeaking in victory before flying up and into the sky, becoming nothing but a mere speck in an instant.
SAKURA'S TARDIS, THE VORTEX, TIME INDETERMINATE
"And there's another one," Sakura muttered, wincing slightly as she pulled another long blue hair off her head. Every year at this time, this tended to happen to her-- a biological reflex-- her body responding to her latent grief over the death of the man she had loved, back when she had forced her hair to be that color all the time.
"By Rassilon, I was such a bumpkin back then," Sakura said with a smile as she looked into a mirror at her long blonde hair and mentally imagined it dark blue once more, in the guise of Shinguuji Sakura. "Simple, childish and trusting." She then looked at a drop of the blood on the titanium-chromium wall behind the mirror-- one of the spots where Cere-Cere's blood had not been wiped away-- and she cast her gaze to her hands. "And what have I become?"
"It's not over," a soft-spoken male voice said from behind Sakura. Sakura did not need to turn to see who it was. Her training as a Miko allowed her to sense spirits with a fairly good degree of clarity. It was Kazuma Shinguuji, the father of the late girl whose identity Sakura had co-opted during her time in 20's Japan. "Don't condemn yourself just yet."
"Kazuma-san," Sakura asked quietly, adopting the Japanese honorifics she rarely ever used, "Why is it that I can see you, and not Ichiro, or my parents, or Cere-Cere?"
"We have the same blood," Kazuma replied quietly.
"We what?" Sakura asked, not understanding. "I know I took your daughter's place in your clan, but I assure you we are not blood related."
"The spirit and the flesh are as one," Kazuma replied.
"That's something r-chan would say," Sakura chuckled. She missed rei.bot, but understood why her friend would have wanted to stay behind in Crystal Tokyo. After her defeat at the hands of Hino Rei's dream division miko, the artificial life form would not rest until she had overcome her weakness.
"Souls move from body to body," Kazuma continued. "This is the wheel of karma."
"If you believe in such things," Sakura said in a way that implied she did not. "I know that Sailor Senshi have their essences stored in their sailor crystals, and those are effectively eternal, barring catastrophic circumstances. But reincarnation, the transmigration of souls? I don't see it. There is no scientific basis."
"Your sailor crystal is new, is it not?" Kazuma asked. "You are a second child of your world Venus. Where would your soul's starseed come from?"
"Hah," Sakura replied not so much mockingly as softly incredulous. "Are you implying the starseed / soul of your dead daughter travelled through time and space and fused with my nascent Sailor Crystal? Rubbish."
"Some might say that about a woman who can travel though space and time and who can transform into a Sailor soldier." Kazuma chuckled.
"That is science. What you are discussing is metaphysics." Sakura frowned. "And why are you discussing metaphysics anyway? And why appear to me now?" She softened her expression. "I'm sorry. I owe you more respect, as befits the head of my adopted clan."
Kazuma chuckled. "Merely planting the seed of an idea, Sakura-chan." He vanished.
Sakura laughed to herself. "Reincarnation and Sailor Crystals. Starseeds. I've no time for such things."
Turning to the TARDIS console, Sakura prepared to set a course for Earth, in the time period of the Crystal Millennium. But something stopped her.
"Wait just a minute," she mused. "Starseeds and Sailor Crystals. When I fought Black Lady Serenity, I was unable to stauch the flow of power from Venus to her Ginzuishou, implying the connection my mother made to it was still active. But no one, not even r-chan or Hino Rei and the 50 miko of the Imperial Dream Division were able to sense her at all. If she was dead..."
Sakura had to work hard to overcome the feeling of pain that went with that thought. It was raw, heavy, palpable and like a shot to the kidney. "Still, if she was dead... her Sailor Crystal would have gone back to the source... Galaxy Cauldron... at Saggitarius Zero star."
"Maybe I can intercept it!" Sakura exclaimed, rapidly punching in temporal and spatial co-ordinates for Sag 0. She dared not ponder the other alternative-- that maybe, just maybe her mother had lived and Sailor Crystal had never made its way there at all.
SAILOR CORPS ORBITAL HEADQUARTERS, ORBITING SAG 0 STAR, 3057
"Intruder Alert. Intruder Alert. Foreign object in central courtyard. Dispatch interception Squad. Repeat. Intruder--"
The sounds of booted, high-heeled, sandaled and even bare feet echoed across the ultra-modern plasti-steel floor of the orbital facility. There, in the vast "open air" atrium, directly in front of the stories-high transparent aluminum window which afforded a spectacular view of Galaxy Cauldron-- the heart of all creation-- stood a tall, slim silver, shiny monolith.
"Oh give me a BREAK!" the waif-like, hemp-suited Sailor Green Moss wailed, wrinkling her nose.
"Can't that kid ever use a DOOR like normal people?" the burly Sailor Tectonia growled gutterally, her lava-like blood flaring red under thecraggy, coal black skin of hardened magma that served as her skin and uniform.
"But I am using a door," Sakura said cheerily as the front of the Monolith split open along an invisible seam and she stepped out. "See, it's a door!"
"Our Door," The tall, wiry, nine-foot tall metal-skinned Sailor Animon Silver chirped in irritation.
"Ahh. Yes, well." Sakura chuckled and rubbed the back of her head sheepishly.
The senshi relaxed their guard.
"Welcome, Senshi of Venus, Sol III", Sailor Psionis said mentally, her thought-body wafting breeze-like into Sakura's mind. "The Sailor Corps welcomes you to Galaxy Cauldron."
"I'm really impressed," Sakura said slowly, taking in the facility, and looking at the hundreds of Sailor Senshi from just as many far-flung worlds as they milled about the headquarters, each of them wearing an armband that signified their membership in the Corps. Emblazoned under their logo of a heart over a sword was the Latin phrase "Amare et castigare"-- "To love and punish".
"You senshi took the destruction of your planets in stride," Sakura said nodding, "coming together like this and securing the Cauldron, forming a Galactic peacekeeping force to prevent the tragedy from ever happening again."
"It's too bad your Saturn won't join us," Tectonia boomed. "We need more Senshi of Mass Destruction for the Omega Division."
"She's not keen on being used as a deterrent," Sakura replied, shrugging.
"What of you, Venus? We need emotive Senshi to serve as diplomatic attaches, to help read emotions and soothe tensions between opposing factions in peace negotiations."
"I've never been too good at the whole emotions thing," Sakura admitted. "Too many hangups of my own to deal with."
An alert chime went off.
"All water senshi report to transmat wing 5. There is a planetary firestorm on Abraxis V. Repeat. All water Senshi report to transmat wing 5 for immediate deployment."
"You can move across the whole Galaxy in a matter of seconds," Sakura noted. "Impressive."
"Well, I'm glad someone thinks so," Green Moss said in a singsong voice, her scent emitting a pleasing, relaxing odor that put everyone at ease. "All it seems like is that we get beat up doing our jobs, then laughed at for going around in miniskirts and making speeches."
"Is it a wonder I almost never transform?" Sakura laughed. None of the others were amused.
"We take our roles as Senshi very importantly, Venus," Psionis "said", mentally frowning. "We wear our uniforms as a badge of honor."
"I don't really think of myself as Venus," Sakura mused.
"You still think of your mother," Psionis intuited.
"That's not nice, sniffing about in other people's brains!" Sakura snapped. "You never know what might be lurking in there!"
"With all due respect you were screaming it psychically," Psionis muttered, floaitng out of Sakura's head. "and what you've come for is not possible."
"Huh?" Sakura asked dully. "I just want to check if any Sailor Crystals matching my mom's, or Cere-Cere's, that have entered or exited the Cauldron within the last few centuries."
"That information is not available to anyone," Sailor Animon Silver chirped. "The records you seek do not exist."
"Why not?" Sakura asked in shock. "Isn't it your job to monitor all the comings and goings at Galaxy Cauldron?"
"Our job is to prevent the rise of another Chaos Galaxia," Tectonia said loudly and firmly. "Part of that job entails allowing no one to have direct access to the Cauldron. It also means not keeping track of when new senshi are formed or dispersed. Such knowledge would be devastating in the wrong hands."
"And if there are no records," Green Moss cooed, "They cannot be stolen."
Sakura was about to say something when she noticed the senshi glaring at someone behind her.
"Hey, Sakura." The greeting can from a tall. slim fellow wearing the uniform of the Green Lantern Corps.
"Oh great it's him again," Green Moss cried. "The stupid Corps always sends him here to make our lives hell."
"They can't stand a little competition," Animon Silver twittered.
Sakura chuckled. It was her friend Ikari Shinji. Yes, _that_ Ikari from Neo Tokyo 3. But not quite. An Ikari who had been through probbaly more interdimensional trials and tribulations than even herself, and ended up as part of the Green Lantern Corps, a galactic squad of superheroes dedicated to preserving order in the Galaxy.
"Competition from a bunch of well-meaning amateurs? I find that laughable," Shinji replied with a smirk, casting his gaze at their miniskirts in a mix of appreciation and subtle mockery.
"Oh shut up Green Pajamas Boy," Tectonia rumbled. "Why are you here, anyway?"
"That planet you guys are sending water Senshi to? We cleaned it up. Tomar Xu and I put the fire out with our power rings."
"All Hail Deus Ex Machina," Green Moss fumed.
"This coming from a bunch of magical girls," Shinji replied smoothly. "Riiight."
"Is there a reason you're here, or is it just to engage in some stupid jurisdictional turf war again," Tektonia asked dryly.
"I've got some dirt for my friend Sakura here," Shinji replied, ignoring the magma-skinned Senshi. "I was going through the records for my sector and came across this report made by Abin Sur back in the 50's about a kid eaten alive by a glowing, superpowered rodent." He produced a picture of a curled up, golden-haired furball.
"A Super-Saiya-jin Gerbil?!" Sakura asked in shock."
"Yup. A homicidal Hamtaro, just like those others you said you'd found along Eudial's trail." Shinji nodded. "This little bastage killed 20 people before it got taken down."
"I suppose it was this Sur who dealt with it?" Sakura asked.
"No, according to Abin the thing choked on a chicken bone."
"Yeesh."
"Yeah, here's some DNA profiles he filed with the GLC." He handed her a sheaf of papers.
Thanks, Mr. Ikari." Sakura curtsied, watching for a few moments as Shinji and the senshi got into a war of words, and then nipped back into her TARDIS, which dematerialized.
SAKURA'S TARDIS, THE VORTEX, TIME INDETERMINATE
Sakura sat back in her lab, studying the DNA modifications that had been made to the gerbil. They were elegant hacks, no doubt. The style was completely consistent with that used by Eudial... but there was a level of grace and sophistication to the synthetic recombination that transcended even the best work of the most skilled cloners she had ever seen.
"Who's that blasted good..." Sakura mused. The pattern and delicacy of the manipulations should be as unique as a fingerprint. Sighing, she settled into the TARDIS library for hours of thumbing through her genetics texts.
THREE DAYS LATER
"That's it. That's the pattern. Kamonian." Sakura wrinkled her nose. "Legendary cloners. I wonder why I didn't think of it sooner."
"That's in Galaxy Four, I think..." Sakura mused. "Hmm, haven't been there in ages." She walked to her console room and set a course.
"No data on Kamino?" Sakura banged on her shiny metallic TARDIS console for minute. Maybe the Time Lords had finally cut off her access to the Matrix. No, no that wasn't it, she was still getting regular datafeeds. There was simply no data in any of the Republic files. That was the governing body that controlled corner of the galaxy she knew Kamino to be in.
"Hmm, planets don't just vanish." Frowning, she did a bit of research on border and trading worlds at the rim of Republic space. Her assumption was that someone, somewhere, usually amongst the black market traders, would know either of the planet itself, or of someone who knew where it was.
THE PLANET TATOOINE, 1977 (EARTH RELATIVE)
"H'chu apenkee, Grandio Jaabaa", Sakura said with a bow and flourish, standing before a large, slug-like being with thick, leathery skin, human-like arms, large black eyes, and a wide mouth. She coughed. Her Huttese was extremely rusty. [I am coming here to your greatness appeal for a mercy small. Seek planet Kamino do I]
[Kamino?] The Hutt blinked its huge eyes and regarded her closely. [Why should I help you, woman?] The large creature asked. It was sitting on a large platform, flanked by a personal bodyguard, one arm holding onto a chain which stretched into the darkness behind it. [What can you offer me?]
Sakura frowned. This "Jabba" was the young head of the largest criminal syndicate on the planet. Letting him know how smart she was could be dangerous, as smart people tended to either be killed or slaved to the syndicate. On the other hand, looking too stupid might consign her to being captured and used for less-than-pleasant things by the giant slug, whose predilection for humanoid females was well known. She decided posing as a trader would be wisest.
[I have many items rare from across galaxy. Things seen never in this area of space. Extreme rarities.] Her grammar improved as she listened carefully to the Hutt speak.
"Waaaaaaaaah!" came a piercing, whining scream from the darkness next to Hutt. "Let me go! This stinks! You can't do~~ this to me~~"
"That voice..." Sakura's hearts nearly stopped. It sounded like her mom! No wait. Not her mom, but someone mom had routinely mocked... but it couldn't be. Not out here... not on Tatooine....
"E chu ta!" Jabba exclaimed in anger, yanking on the chain he was holding, pulling out a slender, blonde-haired girl whose hair was done up in dual ponytails. She was dressed in a revealing metal bikini top and bottom.
"Serenity.... II?!" Sakura exclaimed.
"Minako-chan?!" the blonde exclaimed. "Minako-chan, get me out of here!!"
"I'm not Aino Minako," Sakura said softly. "But I did know her! Serenity, what are you doing here?" She avoided making references to Serenity's royalty in hopes that Hutt wouldn't get any ideas regarding ransom.
"That [BLEEP] Pluto sent me here one night after I had my way with my man! She laughed at me and kicked me through the time gate! GRRR!! All because I didn't have my Ginzuishou!"
[Stupid woman always yells] Hutt muttered, [But she pleases my eyes].
"Get me OUT OF HERE!" Serenity yelled.
Sakura sighed. Now she was on a rescue mission all of a sudden.
[What do you want for the noisy female? I have clients who might appreciate her services], Sakura asked dryly.
[She pleases my eyes,] Jabba repeated, licking the side of Serenity II's face with his large, slimy tongue. [She is not for sale.]
[Then a bet,] Sakura said instinctively, mind racing. Gangsters loved bets.
[Oh?] The Hutt turned to face her.
[I get the woman and the location of Kamino if... if... my racer wins the uh...] Sakura looked at a poster on the wall. [...Boonta Eve Classic podrace].
[And if you lose?] Jabba asked with a smile, licking his non-existent lips and looking over Sakura appreciatively.
[I'll give you some... really rare art?] Sakura tried weakly.
[If you lose... I get you], Jabba said, laughing.
"Marvelous," Sakura muttered.
[Which racer?] Jabba asked, waving forward one of his minions, who held out a flyer with all the racers in the upcoming event listed.
[I'll need some time to examine their records], Sakura replied, hoping to buy enough time to get back to her TARDIS and look up the records from three days hence. It was a minor violation of temporal law, but it was for a good cause.
[Pick now or no deal,] Jabba replied, smiling dangerously. [The champion is mine.]
"Figured he would be." Sakura had nothing to go by other than pictures, so she picked the one who looked the most confident. [This one... 'pugwin'.]
As she said the name, everyone around her seemed to break out into laughter.
[You have three days to prepare,] Jabba said, waving Sakura out quickly before she could change her mind.
That night, Lounging in a local cantina, Sakura sighed and sipped on a fizzy fruit drink. "I don't get it," she groused to the bartender. "Everytime I mention Pugwin, people laugh."
"Thatsa becausa Pugahwina isa whiny kidda," the Bartender replied. "He saysa hesa wasa descended froma Sebulba, the guy whosa Pod wasa da fastest in da Galaxy. Butta hissa pod don'ta even workah... ha hah ah ha!"
"DOESN'T WORK?!" Sakura nearly spat out her drink. "Do you know where I can find him?"
"It'll costa you extra~~" the bartender replied with a toothy, stained grin. "500 Wuipiupi".
Sakura didn't think twice, slamming the currency on the counter without a second thought.
"Heha," the Bartender chuckled. "Yousa can finda him at da pod racinga track in Mos Espa, hesa always lookin for partsa an somone to fix up hisa pod."
"Well he just found himself a mechanic," Sakura said with determination, gulping down her drunk and barreling out of the bar at high speed. Within 5 minutes her TARDIS had taken off and rematerialized in the shadows of the Mos Espa racweay.
THE NEXT MORNING
After searching all night, Sakura finally came across Pugwin, who was asleep in a pile of parts and grease, curled up in the cockpit of his pod racer.
"Let's see here," Sakura mused, looking over the racer. "A small, one-man repulsorcraft composed of a floating anti-gravity pod propelled by dual turbine engines not physically connected to each other.... that can't be structurally sound.... ahh it uses strong-force plasma binding to hold them in place.... this rear pod contains the driver, and is connected by Steelton control cables to the turbine engines."
Sakura nodded to herself and continued to walk around the pod, heedless of its sleeping oocupant. "A repulsorlift engine keeps the craft at a specific, low-level altitude."
[What do you want, girl?] said a belligerent voice from behind Sakura. She could feel the press of a knife against her jugular. In a flash she had leapt up and over the head of whoever was behind her, her legs wrapping around his head, and she dropped to the ground, slamming him backwards into the dirt.
[I'm here to fix your pod, Puggy] Sakura replied, calmly and coolly.
[Why?] Pugwin asked as Sakura's boot pressed against his neck.
Looking down at the small Camel-like Dug creature, she realized she'd have to be very firm with him. [Because you're going to win this race for me,] she said with her best Malastarian gangster accent. [Or else I'll grind you up in the engines of your own pod.]
[Hah!] Pugwin snorted. [It doesn't even work!]
[It will by tonight.] Sakura said flatly. [And you'll race the best race of your life.]
[Don't touch my pod, stupid woman!] Pugwin yelled.
Sakura replied by pressing her boot down on his neck hard. [Quiet.]
The next hours were quite the sight as Sakura began field-stripping and upgrading the Pod using parts from the scrap pile, all the while keeping the squirming Pugwin under her heel.
"Now this is a synchro unit," Sakura began crossly, annoyed to distraction with the constant yelling and cursing that was coming from Pugwin. "My friend Ri Kohran helped with the design. It links your spirit to the machine. I've had to cobble one together from the parts here, but it should do the job. Assuming you even manage to pay attention to your surroundings, your reaction time should go down significantly, and you'll be able to make moves none of the others can dream of."
Pugwin's grateful reply was to spit in Sakura's face.
Sakura just picked up the Dug and tossed him into his pod. "You're welcome. Now win."
TWO DAYS LATER - BOONTA EVE CLASSIC PODRACE
Sakura sat in Jabba's private box overlooking the Mos Eisley speedway, well aware of the guns pointed at her back. Across from her, on the other side of the box, Serenity II sat chained, looking down at the race without understanding what was going on.
"Come on, Puggy," Sakura muttered.
The race began badly for Pugwin, as he could not even get the Pod started.
"Good grief, stop looking at the women," Sakura muttered, facepalming. "Focus on the race."
Getting up irately, Sakura yelled "PUGWIN SUCKS! HE CAN'T FIND FIRST GEAR!"
Hearing the slight, Pugwin growled, his mind back on the race. The sych rating with his pod shot up instantly, and the engines roared to life, hauling the machine out in front of the others at terrific speed. Sakura chuckled. Placing the synch points in the bottom of the seat had been a deliciously twisted and appropriate choice considering what an ass the Dug was.
Jabba leaned forward and blinked, watching the race incredulously as Pugwin's pod began taking reckless turns with a speed and precision hitherto unseen on the Pod circuit. His expression was unreadable.
"Go! Go!" Sakura cheered, still aware of the guns around her. She began to get the sense that no matter what, Jabba wasn't going to let her go. She made a mental calculation. Wait for the race to end, and gamble on his thieves' honour, or make her move. She had long ago given up on using her HADS-R system, so this was going to be risky.
[I want to inspect my merchandise,] Sakura said gruffly, walking over to Serenity II.
[The race is not over yet,] Jabba growled, but allowing her to approach, since the guards with the guns had her in their sights.
Sakura approached Serenity II and slowly allowed her sonic screwdriver to slip down her sleeve and into her left hand. She allowed a black recall disc to slide down her right sleeve. Still walking forward casually, she turned the sonic emitter on the screwdriver to face the chain linking Serenity to Jabba. In a fluid motion, she squeezed the "on switch" sending out a quick sonic blast that shattered the chain. Before the guards could react, Sakura grabbed Serenity II and squeezed the recall disc. As the first laserbolts screamed through the air where she had been seconds ago, Sakura and Serenity II appeared in the console room of the TARDIS.
"Where are we?" Serenity II asked.
"This is my home," Sakura said, her brow furrowed. She had saved Serenity, but now she was probably persona non grata all over the sector. She'd blown her chance to find planet Kamino.
"You really do look like Minako-chan," Serenity said quietly, looking over Sakura carefully.
"She... was my mother..." Sakura said quietly.
"...Was?" Serenity asked in shock. The look on her face was raw confusion.
Sakura wheeled to look at Serenity with shock. "What, no one told you?!"
"Well of course they told me," Serenity said, pouting. "But I figured they lied to me to try and keep me from hunting her down and making her work for me again. Which... I guess I would have."
"No Royal we?" Sakura asked quietly. "Your highness Serenity, You do know your daugther has taken the throne, yes?"
"No more Serenity, just Usagi. I'm tired... ummm... Sakura-chan, was it?" Serenity muttered. "Tired of the palace and the politics and the yelling and the screaming and the contests with Setsuna... I just want to live out the rest of my days with Mamo-chan as plain old Tsukino Usagi... Chibiusa's welcome to the job."
Sakura nodded. "I... I'm hunting down the woman who killed Mom and Pop. Yuuko Arimura. That's what's brought me all this way..."
"Eudial?!" Serenity-- no, Usagi-- was shocked. "But... I killed her years ago!"
"Apparently not," Sakura said glumly. "I was on her trail when..."
"When I got in the way," Usagi finished the sentence.
Sakura did her best to smile. "It's all right. I'm going to drop off some artificially intelligent radio-chatter probes for a few hundred years in both directions and let them record. Hopefully if someone mentions "Kamino" I'll get the word and can get back on the trail."
"Stupid Setsuna," Usagi muttered. "This is all her fault. I wish I could make it up to you."
"There is something..." Sakura replied hopefully. "Can you be Neo Queen Serenity for me one more time?"
SAILOR CORPS ORBITAL HEADQUARTERS, ORBITING SAG 0 STAR, 3057
"Intruder Alert. Intruder Alert. Foreign object in central courtyard. Dispatch interception Squad. Repeat. Intruder--"
Sailor Tectonia sighed. It had been less than five minutes since Sakura had left, and here she was again.
"Hiyas!" Sakura said cheerily, stepping out of her TARDIS, and standing aside to reveal Neo Queen Serenity.
"LADY SERENITY!" Tectonia dropped to one knee. Every sailor soldier knew the tale of the mighty Serenity, who had put an end to Galaxia's reign of terror and brought life to her victims once more. No one sailor soldier was more renowned or revered, especially in the corps, the bulk of whom were made up of senshi Serenity's victory had directly saved.
"I bid you rise," Serenity said, somewhat enjoying the genuflection. "My friend here seeks a favour."
"We told her already. We have no records." Tectonia sighed heavily, the lava-blood in her arms brightening. "We can't help."
"I need no such records," Serenity said, regally walking to the window and stretching forth her hand. A ruddy light began to emerge from her chest.
"Is that the... Ginzuishou?" Sakura asked in shock. Last she'd heard it had been shattered in a titanic conflict with Serenity III.
"It is as much a part of me as any Sailor Crystal," Serenity replied quietly. "It will regrow with time and spirit."
Stretching out her hand, Serenity faced the Cauldron. "Oh seed of creation that breathes life into this galaxy, I call to you."
Sakura didn't know whether she imagined it or not, but the cauldron seemed to pulse. By now, a throng of Senshi, of all different shapes and sizes had gathered to watch, not knowing what was going on.
"Cere-Cere, Para-Para, Ves-Ves, Jun-Jun." Serenity began. "To me." She stretched forth her hand. Nothing happened.
"Ther crystals may not have reached the cauldron, or they may have already been reborn," Serenity said slowly, watching Sakura's face fall slightly.
"Venus," Serenity began. Sakura's hearts skipped a beat. "To me."
Again, nothing happened.
"It is the same," Serenity said quietly. "I am sorry."
Sakura nodded numbly. "Umm... Serenity... there are matter transporters that can take you... wherever... I... gotta go find planet Kamino now." She was doing her best to not cry. She had really hoped she could have at least saved Cere-Cere. To see her face again, even if it was an angry, hateful face. Not to mention mom...
"Kamino..." excitedly twittered Sailor Animon Silver, its long slender neck curving and snaking through the air. "Our homespace from before the great migration across Void...."
"Do you know where it is?" Sakura asked excitedly.
"Do you know the co-ordinates of your homeworld," Animon replied sarcastically.
"Galactic coordinates ten-zero-eleven-zero-zero by zero-two from galactic zero center," Sakura replied coolly.
"Well I shall have to ask," Animon said, swirling its neck almost into a knot with irritation as it walked off to dispatch a query to its home planet's historical archives.
SAKURA'S TARDIS, VORTEX - TIME INDETERMINATE
"That was fruitful," Sakura muttered, soaked from the pouring rain that ceaselessly pounded the planet Kamino. Her trip to Tipoca city had been one unending ethical argument with scientists there, who had only been persuaded to give her the information she wanted after she showed them records of the carnage wreaked by Eudial's creations.
Eudial had indeed been to Kamino, learning and mastering their techniques. She had bartered samples of the Super Saiyajin genome, as well as genetic material from other species of her home galaxy in order to gain access to a private lab. After long argument, the Kaminoans had been convinced to clone some of the samples udial had provided them.
"What the hell is she trying to make, I wonder," Sakura mused. "But as long as I have this DNA, I can track it back to its source. And then Eudial is mine."
Sakura's plan was simple. By hooking the DNA up to the TARDIS' long range space/time scanners, she would lock onto the time and place the samples were taken. Assuming Eudial had taken them herself, she would still be there. And then Sakura would have her revenge.
"Let the games begin," she muttered, engaging the scanner.
TOKYO, JULY 5th, 2002
Sakura pressed herself against a wall, dressed in the outfit of a Pizza delivery girl. Worried that the homing signal might have brought her right into Eudial's lap, she had knocked out the first poor unfortunate that had come her way and taken her clothes, scooter and telephone.
Her portable DNA scanner was going off, and she was closing in on the source of the DNA. Eudial was sure to be nearby.
Sakura was just about to peer around the corner when the cellphone she had stolen went off.
"So much for cover," she muttered, grabbing it and flipping it open. "This is Sakura speaking," she blurted out of force of habit. She checked herself too late, and hoped Eudial had not heard. After the voice on the other end made a confused sound, it continued.
"You want a Pizza delivered where?!" Sakura asked in confusion. Dimly, she noticed a thin, pale-skinned girl in black walking by out of the corner of her eye. The girl seemed oddly familiar...
"But I don't know where 'Meioh Setsuna's Secret Lab' is!" Sakura blurted in exasperation. Idly, she wondered if this was the same Meioh Setsuna as the woman she called "Puu-P" (her pet name for Pluto). But the odds against that were astronomical...!
Before Sakura could ponder it further, the waif-like girl had tackled her and stolen her phone, apparently worked up about something.
"Could you give me driving directions?!" the girl asked, in a fairly good imitation of Sakura's voice.
"H-Hotaru-p?!" Sakura mouthed in shock. But by then Tomoe Hotaru was long gone, off in some kind of a rage.
Sakura shook her head and got to her feet. So Eudial had had her DNA. It made sense. The power of Saturn was quite strong.
Wasting no time, Sakura got back to her TARDIS and began following the other DNA pattern.*
* Yes, that was Sakura in Suburban Senshi episode 5, even way back when in 2002! If you doubt our archives you can even check google groups!
PAPAYA ISLAND, MARCH 3RD, 2003 Sakura stuck her head out of her TARDIS just in time to see something she could only describe as a black hole skip by at high speed, swallowing half the wall of the canyon she had apparently arrived at, then flying off into deep space.
"What the heck?!" she exclaimed.
"'And I've got you'" said a cocky voice from somwhere overhead. Looking up, Sakura saw a solitary figure standing in midair. It was clad in the white bodysuit of a Sailor Senshi, wearing a grey skirt, white dark kingdom gloves and leather boots, as well as a dark red front and back bow. Its skirt was triple pleated like Super Sailor Moon's, only trimmed with dark red, goldenrod, and dark blue. The warrior's face was that of Jedite's but with Haruka's hair and eyes, the jewel in its Tiara a blood red. The sheer amount of energy radiating from the figure sent a stiff wind all throughout the area. It had its first through a small robotic thing that looked much like Serenity III in her youth.
"J-Jeruka?!" Sakura had heard the tales, but never seen Jeruka up close and personal.
"Blast!" the robotic Serenity III yelled, floating backwards, bumping into Jeruka, who had used one of Jedite's transport portals to get behind her.
"Peekaboo!" Jeruka said, using the barest tap from her elbow on the robot's skull to send the tyrannical tinkertoy plunging straight through the planet, creating an impact crater dangerously close to Sakura's location.
"This is too dangerous," Sakura muttered, getting in her TARDIS and following the next sample.
WEST DESERT, 1994
Sakura gasped in awe as she stood several miles away from a figure even more imposing than Jeruka-- the fused Super-Saiyajin Vegitto, who was standing with his back to her, concerned about a mad out of his mind Majin buu, whose screams were literally ripping apart the fabric of reality.
"She took his DNA too?" Sakura asked in awe. It was of course obvious how she could have gotten it-- the amount of damage to the surroundings betrayed tons of knockdowns that would have left bits of m
Sakura was unable to finish the thought, as something smashed her in the back of the head.
Instinctively, she scrambled forwards and turned , totally ignoring the titanic battle for the fate of the world going on behind her, now focused on the personal fight before her. For before her was none other Eudial herself.
"KEH-YAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Sakura yelled, unsheathing her sword and charging forward in a blind rage, slashing forwards and releasing a massive wave of ki.
"NANO-BUSTER!" Eudial yelled out, as swarms of nanites from gauntlets in her arms flowed up and around her hands, creating impenetrable gloves that took the ki hit and allowed her to grab the katana's blade.
Grunting, Eudial pulled the sword from Sakura's grip and tossed it aside.
"FIRE BUSTER!!" Eudial cried out, firing a column of flame at Sakura. She wanted the bitch dead as quickly as possible. To her surprise, the flames stood still.
"It's called a Time Lock," Sakura said darkly, walking around the inferno, and picking up her sword, spinning it around in a figure 8. "You'll find that your attacks are useless."
"Oh, are they?" Eudial asked with a sweet smile snapping her fingers as the flames flew forth again, almost striking Sakura in the side. "I've heard of your tricks, 'Sailor Galaxy V'."
Sakura said nothing, flipping over and somersaulting overhead, going for a decapitating strike.
"But have you heard of all of mine?" Eudial asked, chuckling darkly, shooting forth a tentacle-like net of steel from her gauntlets that ensnared the airborne Sakura and shocked her with 10,000 volts, dropping her to the ground with a thud. The steel loosened just enough for Eudial to get her kicks in one after the other, smashing against Sakura until she could hear the leather of her vest rip, the cloth of her shirt tear, the hardness of her ribs cracking.
Lifting up Sakura, Eudial tossed her down the side of a hill and slid down after her, leaping over the tumbling, bound girl and kicking her in the head repeatedly.
"You (kick) ruined (kick) my (kick) career (kick) in the (kick) syndicate (kick) BITCH!"
Sakura bore the pain and slipped her sonic screwdriver into her hand, triggering it and cutting though the metal, grabbing the tendrils and lashing out with them, striking Eudial in the side of the head.
"YOU!" With a vicious kick, Eudial knocked the sonic screwdriver from Sakura's hand and then she stomped on the girl's fingers, breaking the bones. "YOU will NEVER raise that hand to me AGAIN!"
Sakura could not help but scream.
Eudial kicked Sakura over, pinning her knee in the small of the girl's back and jerking her right arm backwards, snapping it. "I'm going to break a bone for EVERY TIME I've had to take [BLEEP] from the syndicate because of you!"
Grabbing the tentacle that Sakura had hit her with, she began savagely whipping the girl, lash after lash after bloody lash until the steel was coated red with blood, cloth and flesh.
"BITCH!" Eudial screamed, grabbing Sakura's sword and slashing at her head. The holy blade, however, heated up and forced her to drop it, causing it to miss Sakura's neck and instead chop off a good portion of her hair from below mid back.
"And now the end," Eudial growled, taking the bloody steel and wrapping it around Sakura's neck, jerking it up and backwards with intent to snap. At that moment, however, Majin Buu (the victim of a swift kick from Vegitto) streaked though the sky and slammed into the Earth nearby, sending her off balance and forwards, releasing the tension. The earth cracked, and Sakura's body fell into a deep ravine.
Eudial scowled. It was too deep a chasm for her to risk checking on the body. She wanted to be sure, but just in case, she would continue with her contingency. The combined DNA of Sailor Saturn, Jeruka and Vegitto would make a formidable warrior indeed. Pressing her Time Displacement band, Eudial vanished into Time and Space.
Sakura groaned, rolling over. Her head was spinning. Pain stabbed throughout her whole body, yet she looked physically undamaged. She was surrounded by a white misty haze.
"Is this... death?" She asked groggily, moaning in pain. She decided it probably wasn't, because she was still hurting too much.
For a few moments she lay in the fog, breathing heavily, the pain cutting into her every breath. She felt herself getting weaker and weaker.
"Ahem." A voice cut through the fog.
Sakura turned her head, trying to see who was speaking. It pained her tremendously.
"Heeere~~" the voice said again, teasingly, mockingly. It sounded oddly familar, like someone she had met on her long travels. Heh. She had met so many. Sailor Senshi, Triplanetary Space Police, Starfleet Captains, Earthforce Commanders, Green Lanterns, Visigoths, Vikings. She'd come so far and seen so much-- made so many friends. It saddened her that she was probably going to end her travels here, whereever here was.
"Hello~~" the voice said, a bit louder. "Requesting your immediate attention!"
Sakura frowned and looked to where the voice was coming from, seeing nothing. Somehow, her mind focused on the spot, and suddenly, with an inrush, something became visible. Something... incredulous.
"Wha--?" Sakura began in shock.
"I'M YOUR ANIMAL SPIRIT GUIDE!" A small, paramecium-like creature floated in midair, wiggling its tentacles around excitedly.
"You're a Nematode!" Sakura blurted in stunned reply.
"So? It's still an animal, merely one that is fairly hard to percieve." If the nematode's feelings were hurt, it didn't show.
"Oh is this some kind of symbolism now?" Sakura mused, realizing for the first time she was probably within her mindscape somewhere.
"Perhaps. It may be some kind of deep philosophical reflection of your withered spunk and courage, or it could just be my perverse sense of humour at play." The nematode smiled darkly.
Sakura shook her head. The voice, the mannerisms. They all reminded her of someone she looked up to-- a wise man (some had called him a madman, but she violently disagreed) she had met on the edges of the Crystal Millennium, straddling the space between worlds. She valued his wisdom immensely, even if he looked like a nematode at the moment.
"I just got frelling shredded out there, and you're in my mind playing pranks. Swells."
"Such is the perogative of the true master. His amusement at the expense of his pupils is a welcome perk afforded him after his own long, hard years of suffering at the hands (or metaphorical equivalents) of his own tutors."
Sakura snorted incredulously. "What years of suffering? Didn't you cut a deal with some demon?"
The nematode shrugged, an amusing sight. "It's safer to say the deal cut me, but we're not here to talk about me, are we? I'm not the one hallucinating nematodes and bleeding to death."
"So are you here to teach me the mantra or koan that unleashes my hidden powers and allows me to triumph victorious?" The girl's brown eyes lit up with hope.
"No, I was just here to laugh at your misfortune, for want of anything better to do in between Hackmaster sessions."
Dimly, Sakura muttered, "So no words of sage advice, then?"
"Words? I've got lots of them. It is entirely up to you to decide if they are sage or not. Wisdom, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder. Or some such cliche."
"Well as I'm lying here dying, maybe you could lead me on the path of enlightenment, O great one." Sakura mentally projected an image of her tongue sticking out.
"Dying? The only thing you're dying of is your own stuffy-self indulgence. 'Wah my parents are dead Wah I killed that girl Wah I want revenge WAH my life is pain Watch me be COLD and HEARTLESS as I carve a path through my enemies and right wrongs with my sword and PITY ME."
Hearing her life's story so calmly presented as an annoying triviality cut Sakura to the quick. "That's... cold."
The Nematode stared ahead unflinchingly. "I never claimed to care about the social niceties. You asked for enlightenment, and so I shall provide. You're so deadly SERIOUS all the time it's laughable, if your gravitas was any stronger you'd implode into a black hole of angst. Not that that wouldn't be interesting to watch, mind you."
Sakura facefaulted. "Hey! Severe trauma here!"
Pedantically, the nematode continued, ignoring the childish outburst. "Your parents were mortal, yes? That whole business about the Sailor Crystal in your mother aside, their corporeal forms would have kicked the bucket at some point, no?"
"I suppose...." Sakura replied quietly.
"What suppose? You watched your husband age and die, and you took that well enough?"
"My parents were MURDERED!!" Sakura exclaimed, the pain wracking her entire body. "Oogami..." she muttered quietly-- softly-- sadly-- "faded as all things do."
The Nematode sighed. "And there you go again. Ignoring your own understanding in order to give yourself that edge of self-righteous indignation that you think will convince the universe to lend you favour in battle. Newsflash, sneaky girl, all it does is *Bore People*. And for what? Did you ever even *find* the bodies?"
Sakura just floated in her mind for a moment. "They were atomized," she said dully. "In the explosion."
"Mmm yes. And you determined this how?"
"Well, the accident reports and datafiles from the Matrix --"
The Nematode shook its "head" and produced a mental construct. It was a very long pole, approximately ten feet long.
"What's this?" Sakura regarded it closely. Some kind of Freudian metaphor?
"You seemed pretty hands-on when it comes to most things, like hunting down redheads or blowing people's heads off, but you won't touch the actual root of your trauma at all. The likes of you, content to rely on hearsay? I hand you this in the spirit of wisdom...." The Nematode slammed Sakura in the head with it.
"OUCHIES!!" Sakura exclaimed, wincing. Even at 1800+, her vocabulary was still charmingly childlike at times.
"Now let's see what comes of this," the nematode said with a sinister chuckle, interlacing its cilia in a steepled formation.
Sakura's expression changed to one of shock as a small bump formed on her forehead, growing rapidly.
"Wh---What's this?!" she asked in shock.
"Don't ask me, I'm just a figment of your imagination," the Nematode demurred.
Sakura's forehead exploded and repaired itself, but not before giving birth to a small, incredibly cute Chibi version of herself.
"That was annoyingly unexpected," the Nematode said darkly, irritated at the saccharine cuteness of the child-Sakura.
"It's me again!!" the little kid said, waving and grinning. Sakura recognized it as the smaller part of herself that she had shoved further and further away as she had progressed further on her quest. She regarded it curiously. "Oh look," the Nematode said dryly. "It's the pure untainted side of yourself. The hopeless, naive optimistic child who died the day Babylon 3 exploded. All-in-all an overused cliche that is as tired as your own angsty search for redemption. Quick, let's kill it and get back to the matter at hand."
"Kill it?" Sakura asked weakly.
"A conscience can only be an impediment for the seeker of righteous vengeance. Strike it down with all your might.... something... something... dark side..." The nematode trailed off, bored to tears by even his own speaking at this point.
"Well you put your foot in it this time, didn't you, Saki-chan?" the little kid asked impetuously. "I mean here you are, beaten to a pulp, and getting lectured by a nematode."
"Geez, now I'm mocking myself," Sakura sighed. "I suppose reminding you of what's happened won't quiet you down, huh?"
"Doesn't matter," the kid said with a bright smile.
"What?!" Sakura asked incredulously. "Didn't you love them?"
"THE KID GETS IT?" the Nematode exclaimed. "INDIFFERENCE IS STRENGTH?"
"Where there's life there's hope!" the kid said.
"Cliche..." both older Sakura and the nematode exhaled tiredly.
"You people!!" Chibi-sakura wrinkled up her face super cutely. "We should do our best!!"
"Y'know, I think I am gonna kill it," Sakura said, getting up in her mind and dusting herself off, withdrawing her sword and charging.
"YES FOR VIOLENCE!" the Nematode screeched. "GIVE INTO YOUR ANGER!"
"I'm not angry," Sakura replied quizzically, "just annoyed."
"GIVE INTO YOUR ANNOYANCE, THEN!" The nematode cried out, trying to make the best of it.
Sakura slashed and stabbed at the kid, but it teleported around her, laughing and chuckling and making playfully rude gestures at her.
"Too slow old lady," the kid mocked, standing on the top of Sakura's blade. "You're weighed down by all that baggage!"
Sakura found herself holding huge cases, emblazoned with the words "HATE", "FEAR", "DUTY", and "REVENGE", causing her to trip and stumble forward.
The Nematode yawned. "Can we move this along, please? I have places to be."
"I'm lighter and faster because my spirit is free!" the kid exclaimed far too self-importantly.
"You're lighter and faster because you've a third of my mass," Sakura countered dryly.
"Yes, yes, cutting to the quick, the point is you need an emotional enema or something," the Nematode snapped.
"Well if you're bored...!?" both Sakuraii yelled at the Nematode. "Throw the baggage away," the kid said helpfully. "just chuck it and make a fresh start of it."
"But... my parents," Sakura replied hesitantly.
"Can this record get any more broken?" the Nematode asked tiredly. "You seek to avenge your parents, but you won't even enquire into the true nature of thier demise. Maybe they are dead, in which case you can go forth and kill with wild abandon. But if they're alive...."
Sakura's hearts stopped for a moment.
"But you don't want to face that, do you?" the Nematode asked with a sinister smile. "Because what if they were, and everything you did... the little compromises, the questionable choices and ruthless decisions, was pointless and moot... could you live with yourself then?"
"I've done more good than harm," Sakura said staunchly.
"But are you the type who can live with having done harm to others, or would you implode under the weight of your ethical transgressions?"
Sakura paused. "I don't honestly know."
"I see." The nematode took a deep breath, more for dramatic purpose than anything else. "At least you admit your own ignorance, that's something."
Chibi-Sakura looked at the four briefcases her older counterpart held. "I don't like those," she said, pointing to HATE, REVENGE and FEAR.
Sakura looked at them for a moment. "I don't understand why I still hold FEAR. After they died I lost my fear."
"You lost your fear of losing them, of the death of your own flesh," the Nematode pointed out. "You still fear the future. What will they think of you if they're alive? Will they approve of their mercenary little girl? Will they disown you? Will this Chibi torment you for the rest of time?"
Sakura frowned.
Chibi-sakura jumped up and down. "Hey! Who cares?! As long as they're alive, right?!" Her eyes sparkled. "That's what we really care about!! Anything else we can take!"
"You know, you're right, runt." Sakura chuckled and hurled FEAR off into the white ether of her mind.
"Who's a runt," the Chibi replied, pouting.
"But they could still be deaad~~~" the Nematode pressed.
"In which case there's even less to fear, isn't there?" Adult Sakura replied with a grin.
The Chibi pointed to "HATE" next.
Sakura tried to toss the case, but could not.
"What's it filled with?" the nematode asked.
Sakura looked inside. "Hate."
"Well that's OBVIOUS." The nematode sighed. "What kind?"
"Hate for what Eudial did. What she made me become. Hatred of myself for what I became."
"Well the first one, for now, is immmovable, considering. But the other two, they stem from your own behaviour, yes?"
"I guess."
"So if you change yourself, then would not those hatreds change as well?"
"But I can't change what I did before."
"It's called Moving on. Putting one foot in front of the other and all that. The journey of 1000 miles, etc, etc."
Sakura nodded slowly. "One cannot evolve without shedding vestigial remnants."
"Oh stop trying to sound smart and get on with it."
Sakura gave the Nematode a nasty look and hugged her chipper chibi counterpart, absorbing her back into herself. Sakura's body glowed brightly for a moment, and the briefcase marked HATE turned into a small wallet.
Sakura grinned and pocketed the wallet. Her expression was more like that of the happy child's.
"Catharsis?" the Nematode asked, trying deperately to feign continued interest.
"Hmmmm..." Sakura mused, looking over REVENGE and DUTY, the only cases left.
Sakura threw REVENGE on the ground in front of her and jumped up and down on it several times, smashing it flat. Then she picked it up and forcibly folded it over a few times, cracking open DUTY and stuffing it inside.
"Hey, that's cheating," the Nematode protested.
"It's my mind, so there," Sakura countered.
"It's just as well, this little introspective scene was taking too long anyway," the nematode muttered. "Hackmaster calls. By the way, your body should be healed by now. This little psychodrama was just the thing to keep your mind from interfering with your body's healing processes. "
"w00t!" Sakura exclaimed gleefully, showing more spunk than she had exhibited for quite some time.
"Remember the parents," the Nematode whispered. "Parents... parents... parents...."
"What's with the repetition?" Sakura asked, confused.
"Reverb."
"REVERB?!"
"Bah you youngsters don't understand anything about style," the Nematode hissed before vanishing into the etheric mists.
With a jerk, Sakura snapped back to consciousness on the plains of West Desert, the wind-driven sand biting into her flesh. Apparently, while she had been out, a stray ki bolt had vaporized the top and walls of the crevasse.
Somewhere far removed in time and space, a slightly scruffy, somwhat sinister figure clad in grey robes, tan cargo pants, a red kimono and sandals exited his meditative trance and chuckled. Now the game was going to get interesting. And by the game he meant Hackmaster. The movements of the cosmos around him were but passing trivialities to be tinkered with for a moment's amusement.
SAKURA'S TARDIS - VORTEX - TIME INDETERMINATE
"I kind of like the new look," Sakura muttered, tilting her head to the side, and looking at her shorter hair, which now dropped to about the middle of her back, as opposed to all the way down to her waist as before. "Although the barber could have at least cut straight." She stretched. "Pity about the vest, though. I so did love it." She fingered the torn, bloodstained leather, and looked at her ripped, soaked shirt and sighed.
Taking a moment to set the TARDIS co-ordinates to the Epsilon sector, she decided to do something she should have done a long time ago. Find out the truth about her parents' fate.
As the TARDIS cut through time and space, Sakura took the opportunity to change into new clothes that looked much like her old ones. The tattered vest she kept; it had been a precious gift from Clark "Doc" Savage Jr., and she was loathe to part with it.
Feeling as if a weight had been lifted from her, Sakura decided to get to work as efficiently as possible. She hadn't wanted to take her TARDIS back to the exact time of the accident and do the recording herself; the Blinovich limitation effect, a Temporal Physical law which stated that a TARDIS could not materialize in its own past, or in the same place it had already occupied, meant that should she find anything of itnerest in the recording sweep, she'd be unable to get back to it later. Therefore, to get around the problem, she equipped several camera probes and sent them into space several hours before the accident,their instructions being to record everything for the next 10 days.
10 days later, she picked them up. Some of the cameras had been destroyed by micrometorite impacts, and still others had been defective; but she still had enough data to do a proper analysis of the area. Settling back on her console, she sat down and stared at the TARDIS viewscreen, eyes going over the data, which was being played back in real time.
Sipping a Ra'ctagino (Klingon Coffee), and munching on some Pizza (of which several boxes were placed by her), she prepared for a very long and very boring wait.
She saw the Cruise ship Rising Star. The escape pod she had stolen for her joyride. The explosion.
Her hearts stopped for an instant as she saw the explosion from a third party perspective. It had been so abrupt, so terrifying to her that she had never pondered it properly. But there it was, engulfing the station's midsection in a puff of quickly extinguished flame. Now there was debris. Salvage ships moving into clear out wreckage and look for survivors. None were found. That much she knew.
Sakura hit replay. her eyes were tired. She didn't want to look at the screen any longer. It wasn't that her body could not handle the strain, the emotions of the incident were taking their toll on her. Still, the thin, fragile hope that her parent... or parents might still be alive, pressed her back into action. Every time her anger at Eudial began to flare, she pushed it down, focusing on the task at hand.
After about two days, however, she stopped. There was too much data to sift through. She needed to have a better idea of where to look. She began with the assumption that the duo had managed to survive somehow. If so, there would have to be something out out place or unusual to permit it. That is what she would have to find.
Cross-referencing the Gallifreyan data she had gathered from the Matrix (sketchy though it was) she had a good idea of where her Father might have been. She was worried about her mother on the Rising Star, but realized that if her father had given her a recall disk, he might have given one to mom as well. On the assumption they would therefore be together, she focused more on close-up visual examination of the area of the station that had exploded. She watched it blow up, again and again. There were no escape pods, no bodies in environmental suits. She knew if there was a way to survive, her mom and pop would have found it. But what was it? For weeks she studied every frame of the explosion and the ten minutes after, but nothing.
On the 20th day, tired and losing hope, she stopped looking at the screen and left to get some pizza and take a shower, not bothering to stop the tape. When she returned, she cursed a little at the fact that the tape had moved on. She was about to spin it back when she noticed a repair shuttle making an emergency course correction.
"That's odd," she muttered. The shuttle had moved to dodge even though there was nothing onscreen to dodge. She let the tape continue on. Ship after ship passing through the debris field made similar corrections, choosing paths above and beyond a certain spot. They were more stately than the first-- obviously that first one had badly veered off course-- but they were still seemingly trying to avoid hitting something-- but what?
Zooming in on the area, Sakura still saw nothing. Thermographic, IR, X-Ray and Gamma all showed nothing. Nothing at all. In retrospect, that should have been her first clue. After all, they're's always *something* in space, even if just dust particles.
"What the frell are they ducking?" Sakura asked herself, still watching. She shook her head, watching some small asteroids tumble by. She turned her head away for a moment to grab another slice of Pizza, when something caught her eye. Blackness. The cold blackness of space... but IN FRONT of one of the asteroids.
"Hallo, what's this?" Sakura mused, curiousity piqued. She watched the tape some more. It was a definite visible void. Perhaps some light-sucking dark matter? Ships clearly knew to avoid it, and space rocks smashed against it. The odd thing was, while everything else in the debris field tumbled and moved, still spinning due to the inital momentum provided them by the explosion, this thing was totally stationary. Completely. Its co-ordinates never wavered by even a micron. Something that shouldn't be possible, unless external forces were at play.
Doing some digging into the records, Sakura learned that right after the explosion, this anomaly had been mentioned when a repair ship had collided with the area, damaging a support strut. A navigational hazard warning was issued, and apparently no one looked into the matter further, choosing simply to route their ships around the whole area. And since Babylon 4 was being built in another location, no one really paid any attention to the area after salvage operations had completed. After all, believe it or not, in space, the odd anomaly was not that uncommon. But one in the middle of the accident site-- that was something.
"Curiouser and Curiouser, as the Rabbit said to his pocketwatch as he ran screaming into the rabbit-hole," Sakura mused. She wanted to know more about this anomaly.
Overlaying a graphic of Babylon 3 on the area, she realized with shock that the anomaly corresponded exactly to the area the Temporal Accords summit had been held at. The strange formation had now moved from a mere object of curiousity to a definite item of interest in her book. Setting the Co-Ordinates on her TARDIS, she decided to go take a closer look at just what this hazard to navigation really was.
"C'mon, land!" Sakura yelled in frustration, banging her fist on the TARDIS console. The craft shuddered, its vortex drive groaning and screaming as the vessel tried to set down on the anomaly.
"What's goin' on here?" she fumed. The TARDIS would try to set down and then take off again, as if it couldn't settle on a fixed spot to come to rest on.
Narrowing her eyes, she focused on the instrument gagues in front of her. Every time the ship tried to land, it would insist that the point in spacetime specified had vanished and so aborted.
"It's like... trying to stand still on a moving sidewalk," Sakura suddenly realized. The anomaly was moving forwards in time, away from the explosion timeframe. It was like a distended instant... a millisecond had been stretched out into a second, then a minute, then an hour, and on and on, further forward into time. Everything-- matter and energy, had been pushed away from the devastation. It was a common enough parlour trick on Gallifrey-- push something out of the local timestream and it would vanish, replaced by a solid black wall of non-spacetime.
"By Rassilon...." Sakura exhaled, suddenly feeling weak and nervous as the blood left her body. "They... they could be..." she felt giddy, resting her hands on the console to steady herself, "they could be al... alive." Her voice was small and quiet as the shock set in.
"It won't do to get too hopeful," she said, coughing and trying to calm her mounting excitement. Still, with a renewed flourish and flair, she began setting co-ordinates, allowing the TARDIS to dangerously drift across the stretched instant of time, hoping to synchronize it with the anomaly.
The ship shuddered and shook, shaking violently as it pulled and twisted, moving and stretching in ways it was not meant to. Somehow it managed to adapt, its superstructure groaning and complaining, but holding.
"I know you'll hold together, old thing," Sakura said affectionately, patting the TARDIS console.
The next second Sakura was dashed against the wall as the TARDIS finally injected itself into the anomaly, crashing into a battered, broken, yet intact space station corridor.
With a slight hiss, the door of Sakura's TARDIS slid open.
Slowly, trepidatiously, Sakura made her way out. She didn't like the idea of walking around an anomaly unprotected, even if as a Time Lady she was somewhat immune to their effects.
Mentally, she concentrated, her body transforming, but not her clothes. It was a trick she had forced herself to learn many years ago during an adventure in a more repressed part of the galaxy where short-skirted women were verboten.
Breathing deeply as the inrush of power suffused her body, Sakura used her doubly enhanced senses to listen for any signs of life. All she heard was the corridor were the thuds of her own footfalls on the tritanium deckplates, and the beating of her dual hearts pounding in her chest. The mere fact that this anomaly existed was more than she could have ever hoped for. It had the fingerprints of her father's interference all over it.
The words of the wise "nematode" echoed in her ears.
What if they were [alive], and everything you did... the little compromises, the questionable choices and ruthless decisions, was pointless and moot... could you live with yourself then?"
Sakura shook her head. Such concerns could wait. Clearing her mind, she closed her eyes and listened, using her Gallifreyan and Senshi senses to their full, tuning out her own heartbeat, and listening, meditating and trying to become one with her environment the way rei.bot had taught her.
After a few seconds.... quietly... very quietly... she could hear a heartbeat. Coming from behind her. Moving rapidly.
Swinging around fluidly, Sakura brought up her sword, locking it with the metallic casing of Eudial's Fire Buster.
"H-How?" Eudial asked in shock.
"Come now, Eudial," Sakura replied, smirking. "Did you really think I'd fail to notice that small tracking device you slipped on my vest during our last encounter? I really must give you credit for anticipating your failure to kill me."
"Hmph. For someone who talks big, you certainly are stupid," Eudial snapped, chuckling. "NANO BUSTER!" The nanites advanced from her gauntlets, towards the blade once more.
"And what's this going to do? Eat the blade or something?" Sakura raised an eyebrow, apparently unconcerned.
"Well, yes," Eudial replied, chuckling as they rushed towards Sakura.
"Too bad I'm not really there," Sakura replied from behind Eudial.
"Wha-- What?" Spinning around, Eudial turned to see Sakura behind her, sword drawn.
"But you're back there?!" Eudial exclaimed. She looked stunned for a moment, then smirked. "It's a hologram. Nice try." She turned away from it.
"Can a hologram do this?" The Sakura behind Eudial walked up behind her and smacked her in the head.
"Ittai!" Eudial exclaimed, keeping one eye on the Sakura in front of her, and the one behind her. "What's going on?!"
"Well," Sakura said, stepping forward, another version of her stepping out from that version, "this is a temporal anomaly--" Another copy emerged from the one that had emerged."--So time doesn't work quite right here--" Like a series of unfolding paper dolls, Sakura after Sakura split apart from each other, creating a virtual army.
"We're all a few milliseconds apart in time," Sakura 15 explained. "But because of the way time is being dragged across us, we can all act simultaneously."
Eudial turned around and around, finding herself surrounded by a circle of Sakuras, many of whom had their swords out, pointed at her.
"H-heh," Eudial muttered, sweatdropping. "It doesn't matter! Your little paper knives are no match for the power of the Death Busters!"
Eudial squinted and grunted, splitting herself in two. "Cyprine and Ptilol taught me this one!"
"Weren't they twins?" Sakura 7 asked dimly.
"Hajya Kensei Ouka Houshin!" Sakura 13 yelled, sending out a ki blast from her sword at the two Eudials.
"HAH!" Eudial #2 laughed, reflecting the attack forwards and back to #13, creating a mist-like fog which filled the corridor, leaping away into it... and right towards Sakura #5's fist.
"Hi~~!" Sakura 5 said, punching Eudial 2 in the face and sending her crashing to the ground.
"How did you read my moves?!" Eudial 1 exclaimed, just as a huge textbook slammed her on the head.
Wrinkling her face up in anger, she grabbed the book and looked at it. "'MEMOIRS OF THE LAUGHING MAN', by Professor Souichi Tomoe?!"...
Sakura #19 nodded. "After you so handily beat me the last time, I took to heart the words of the immortal Sun Tzu - 'If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.'"
"So what?" Eudial asked haughtily, getting to her feet and cracking her neck as her counterpart generated steel tentacles from her gauntlets, preparing to counterattack.
"So I went to see your old boss," Sakura #9 explained.
FLASHBACK - NEO BERLIN 5, 3057
"Rechte Hand auf Gelb!" cooed a scantily clad, impressive teutonic blond as she seductively jiggled for a roaring crowd.
"MUAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" laughed Professor Tomoe, his giant image splayed across a huge 50 foot jumbotron as he stretched and strained, finally managing to raise his right hand up and around the outstretched leg of a lovely redhead, twisting his arm around and managing to place his palm on a yellow circle. The crowd went ballistic.
Panting and sweating, Tomoe looked down at the twister mat, stunned as the woman under him him suddenly got dragged away, replaced by a grinning blonde.
"Guten Abend, Herr Professor!" Sakura cheerily greeted him as the crowd made shocked noises. "We need to talk," she whispered in his ear.
PROFESSOR TOMOE'S LAB, FLASHBACK - NEO BERLIN 5, 3057
"Nice place you got here," Sakura said, whistling appreciatively, looking up at the clearsteel roof of Tomoe's 30 story open-air lab. Workers scurried about in hallways that ringed every floor, taking readouts and performing experiments, all the while working furiously on a gigantic robot which stood majestically in the center of the facility.
"THE MERCEDES-FIAT WAGNER VALKRYIE M6000," Tomoe said proudly, pointing to it. "A NEW CONCEPT IN MECHANIZED WARFARE."
"That design is a total ripoff of the Mercury Mechanized Brigade's battle mechs," Sakura said dimly.
"WELL OF COURSE IT IS," Tomoe replied, laughing. "BUT AS LONG AS THE BOSSES AT MERCEDES-FIAT THINK I'VE HAD TO SPEND MONEY DEVELOPING IT, THAT LEAVES ME WITH BILLIONS AT MY DISPOSAL! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"So where's the real lab," Sakura asked mischeviously, poking Tomoe in the ribs. "I heard about that big stink where the Neo Parisians kicked you out of the country after you turned the Eiffel Tower into a giant beam antenna and nearly precipitated a pan-dimensional invasion of two-foot tall squiddy things."
"HEY THEY WERE THE ONES TRYING TO BE 'LE NOUVEAU THULE'," Tomoe protested. "THEY JUST BLAMED ME WHEN THE DEMONS THEY WANTED FOR THEIR NEW ARMY TURNED OUT TO LIKE THE FRENCH PEOPLE A LITTLE TOO MUCH."
"Liked them for dinner, you mean," Sakura muttered.
"ANYWAY MY NEW LAB IS IN LATVIA," Tomoe replied. "I BOUGHT THE COUNTRY SO THE NEO-UN CAN'T DO ANYTHING TO ME. ALL THE MAD SCIENTISTS ON THE PLANET HAVE TIMESHARES IN MY ALPS."
"So what are you doing all the way out here in Neo-Germany? Surely there are extradition treaties still in force for you?"
"THEY DON'T APPLY TO ROBOTS," Tomoe replied, tearing open his jacket to reveal a mass of circuits and lights. "I'M TELEPRESENCING! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"Hah!" Sakura laughed. Her expression became somewhat more serious. "Proffy, I know it's been a long time since we talked, but I've been having problems with an old student of yours named Yuuko Arimura..."
"SHE'S STILL ALIVE?!" Tomoe-robot asked in shock. Sakura could swear she saw it drool.
"She... killed my mom and pop," Sakura said slowly. "Didn't Hotaru-P tell you?"
"HOTARU AND I HAD A FALLING OUT," Tomoe-robot replied sadly. "BECAUSE I WAS MEAN TO HER CAT."
"Did you try to do something to Arty-P?!" Sakura asked in shock.
"WELL HE'S A CAT, RIGHT?" Tomoe asked. "WHEN HE SAID HE WAS GOING TO MARRY MY LITTLE GIRL, I JUST WANTED TO FIX HIM UP SO HE COULD LAST ON THE HONEYMOON."
Sakura looked at Tomoe askance. "Eh?"
"CATS GENERALLY FINISH UP IN 30 SECONDS TO FIVE MINUTES," Tomoe said pedantically.
"You... do know he becomes Humanoid, right?" Sakura asked dimly. She remembered the shock she had experienced when she had first seen Artemis transform into a human.
"NO ONE TOLD ME," Tomoe replied, pouting. "SO AFTER I'D SLIPPED HIM THE HYPERVIAGRA, HE BECAME A LOVE MACHINE...."
"The thought of Artemis as a 'Love machine' distresses me greatly," Sakura admitted without reservation.
"A FEW WEEKS LATER WHEN HOTARU-CHAN FINALLY RE-ADOPTED A VERTICAL BASE SHE CAME AFTER ME..." the Tomoe-bot sweatdropped.
Sakura shook her head to clear out the cobwebs. As old as she was, as worldy as she was, as much as she knew about biolology and mating habits alien and domestic, the thought of Hotaru Tomoe-- her confidant and intellectual compatriot in the extended senshi family-- horizontal for a weeks' time was enough to fry some small part of her mind.
"At any rate..." Sakura said slowly, trying to rid herself of the distressing mental image, "Eudial seems to have access to highly advanced technology from the Death Busters. I was wondering if you could give me any insights in how to counter her."
Tomoe-bot looked at Sakura and adjusted its glasses.
END FLASHBACK
"I find it hard to believe Tomoe-hakase would bother with a goody-two-shoes like you," Eudial #1 said mockingly. "You're just trying to confuse me." She adopted a martial arts stance. "Yuuko Arimura! First of the witches 5! Master of Martial Arts and etiquitte! Face my wrath!"
Sakura #12 sighed. "You may have noticed that I have you surrounded." All her counterparts pointed their swords at Eudial and began to close in.
"Pointless," both Eudials punned, spinning around and firing small black-hole like star-shaped bursts of energy at the Sakuras. "CHARM BUSTER!"
As the alternate Sakuras dodged, some took hits and collapsed, causing a ripple effect as teir future selves also fell from the blow.
"Just... like... dominoes," Eudial grinned, watching her enemies topple over, fading out, leaving only one, wheezing Sakura.
"You cut me... to the... nick..." Sakura groaned, falling over and passing out.
"'Quick'", you idiot!" Eudial snickered, kicking at her side. Suddenly a 10,000 volt charge leapt out from Sakura's prone body and shocked Eudial, stunning her.
"YEAUGH!" she screamed, smoked and charred. "What the hell?!"
"A gift from Proffy," Sakura said with a grin, from atop her TARDIS. "A little robot he put together for me. Superior German Engineering, don't you know?" She pouted. "But now you broke it, and I don't think Charm Buster hits were covered under warranty. And it was so hard to program it to shift in time too."
"Again with the lie. What, afraid to face me directly?" Eudial smirked. "Don't you want to get me up close, to slash me, to extract your pound of flesh?"
Sakura looked down at Eudial from her perch. "For the longest time that's all I could think about. Wrapping my hands around your throat and choking the life out of you. It made me reckless and stupid."
"So I noticed," Eudial said with a sneer. "So what are you now, a coward?"
"Nope," Sakura said, pressing her right index and middle fingers together and pointing them to the side of the wall by her. "I am not a coward. My name... is Sakura Xadium Aino, scion of Venus, and a child of Gallifrey. You are directly responsible for the deaths of the satellite senshi and quite possibly the two people I loved most in the whole world. And I... won't... allow you... to continue your evil ways."
"Big words, little girl." Eudial shouldered her Fire Buster Mark III and aimed it at Sakura.
"I tried fighting you on your terms," Sakura intoned quietly, her mind lapsing into a state of zen concentration. "Brutishly, thuggishly, inelegantly. That's not me. That's not who I am. My sword is a sword of protection, not vengeance." She inclined her head slowly. "My way of fighting is different." With no other words, Sakura sent out a crescent beam which slammed into the reflective metal walls, and ricocheted, blasting across the room and hitting her TARDIS, where the beam split on its corner, sending out two more beams which began bouncing all around the room, blinding Eudial, who was starting through the viewfinder on her Fire Buster.
"The angle of incidence... equals the angle of reflection," Sakura said, ducking absently as a beam whizzed past her bangs and shot off on a new tangent. Both Eudials jumped around, trying to dodge, "and in the words of the immortal John Sheridan... 'ricochet is a killer'."
"Bah!" The two Eudials exclaimed in unison. "Is that all you have?! All we have to do is find something to absorb the impact of the shot and your little tactic is useless!"
To prove her point, Eudial #1 threw her Fire buster into the beam and watched it explode in a ball of flame. The beam dissipated instantly. But a black star punched through the cloud of flame, slamming into Eudial #2, sending a black crystal flying out of her back. Eudial #2 crumpled to the ground.
Sakura shouldered a pure-heart buster rifle, and shot off another crescent beam, shattering the black heart crystal from Eudial's double, which promptly turned grey and died.
"That's MY rifle!" Eudial #1 protested. "How did you...?"
"I Told You," Sakura said tiredly. "Proffy." She knocked on the side of her TARDIS, and Professor Tomoe stepped out from it.
"EUDIAL-KUN," Tomoe said in a low, almost seductive voice.
"Tomoe-hakase?!" Eudial's heart skipped a beat. Then her features hardened. "This is just a robot." She pulled out a portable machine, plugging it into the wall. "ELECTRIC WARP!"
A stream of energy lashed out, enveloping Tomoe. The Electric Warp Device would digitize and store its target in a volatile energy matrix. Once it was turned off, however, the victim would cease to exist.
"Oh rats, you got me," Sakura said, feigning disappointment. "But I must thank you for completing the electrical circuit between your Electric Warp and the robot."
Eudial blinked, not understanding.
Sakura sighed. "Come now. To envelop my little robotic buddy your electric warp has to create an encapsulating energy field which then pulls him in yes?" She pointed to a paper with the schematics on it. "Your patent was filed for it sometime back in the 1990's." Pedantically, she continued, "But energy's a funny thing. Once it's applied to work-- you know, doing something like lighting up a bulb, or coursing through a robot's superstructure... that energy can be channeled... manipulated... or diverted. Very easy to do when you've read up on your foe like a good little girl and deduced the contents of her stock bag of tricks. Just as you did to me."
Eudial regarded her incredulously.
"I have to admit," Sakura said, "It did take you approximately 12 seconds longer to deploy the warp than I had anticipated. You threw me for a snoop."
"Loop," Eudial said with venom in her voice."
"Yes," Sakura said smiling brightly. "I know. Just keeping you occupied long enough for Tommy here to get in position."
Tomoe-bot raised its hand up, the energies of the electric warp surrounding it. It smiled a glowing crimson grin.
Eudial hissed and instinctively went to tap her Time Bracelet, but nothing happened.
"Temporal An~o-ma~ly..." Sakura sang. "I suggest you run."
Eudial moved to kick the plug out of the Electric Warp machine, but her foot pulled the cord out of the wall just as the Warp beam from Tomoe-bot struck her in the back, sucking her into volatile memory just as the power cut out. With half a scream, Eudial was gone.
Sakura hopped off the top of her TARDIS and regarded the machine curiously. While it was powered off, it crackled with energy. She kicked it and tilted her head. "Schrodinger's Eudial," she quipped. "Dead or alive. Open the box and find out."
She reached her hand over to the power switch. "I... think I'll pass."
CRYSTAL TOKYO, 3057
The chanting of the 50 imperial Miko of Hino Rei's Dream Division grew louder and more insistent as rei.bot 2.0 sat opposite them, seated in the lotus position. Their battle of wills had been going on for the last four days, the indomitable cybernetic miko honing and refining her methods of psychic combat. Whereas before the dream division had been able to easily beat her down, she was now capable of holding her own against the 50 separate minds.
"Kami-sama, how long can they keep that up?" Hino Rei asked in shock, begrudgingly developing more and more respect for her cybernetic counterpart.
Suddenly the 50 Miko gasped in unison, breaking their concentration, as rei.bot rudely forced them out of her mind, in a manner much akin to a bowling ball smashing into a row of pins.
"a time of revelation" rei.bot intoned, sensing what was about to occur light years from the palace and several centuries in the past.
THE TEMPORAL ANOMALY
Sakura pulled her hand away from the box that might or might not contain Eudial's essence and frowned. Looking around her, she realized that beyond the small confines of space-time affected by the vortex drive of her TARDIS, everything else was totally frozen, oscillating backwards and forwards in time taking three steps forward and three steps back. Whoever had had the bright idea of shoving the corridor forwards in time and space had not had the power to pull off the manuever completely.
"That's why you wouldn't land here easily, eh?" Sakura looked at her TARDIS. "Well, it looks like we'll need to help it along, won't we?"
Sakura frowned. If she'd been in this kind of a jam, she would have drawn power from the surrounding space station. But what if that power had been cut by the explosion? Yes, that would lead to this particular scenario. Thus the solution would be to restore power to the system.
"And from the division of ironic punishment," Sakura muttered with a smile, "we bring you... Eudial's shocking finale."
Pulling out a heavy-gauge power cable from her TARDIS, she jury-rigged a patch cable between the Electric Warp machine and the corridor's power system. Then she flipped the power on, sending a massive surge of power-- and possibly the remains of Eudial-- flowing into the corridor.
The next second there was a tremendous crash and jerk, as the corridor suddenly broke out of the temporal anomaly and came to rest in normal timespace.
"The fly out of amber at last," Sakura waxed poetic. "Hmm, I guess this thing got wherever it was going." She pressed a forefinger to her forehead. "But where... and when are we?"
"Yes, a PARLOUR TRICK!" an irate voice yelled from the other side of the corridor, from behind a wall.
Sakura went pale. It was a voice she hadn't heard in so long she almost had trouble recognizing it.
"Well this had better work!" boomed another, more authoritarian voice.
"Of course it will!" the first voice replied crossly. "We'll just shunt right over to the station which is going to be built in orbit around the planet, and displace one of its lower decks."
Sakura froze. "Whoah... that would put us at..."
THE YEAR 2256, SPACE STATION BABYLON 5, IN ORBIT OF EPSILON 3, DECK GRAY 17
"What, is someone out there?" The authoritarian voice boomed.
Sakura froze out of her contemplation and bolted down the corridor as fast as her legs could take her. She almost exploded with joy as she saw the ridiculous-looking Mountain Dew Vending machine that was her father's TARDIS in the hallway, the lights off.
Skidding to a stop in front of it, Sakura lost her composure and began banging on the door frantically. "Mom!? Dad?! Are you in there!! Hello!?"
After a few seconds, the TARDIS door groaned in protest, trying to open against Sakura's pounding.
Sakura jumped back as if shocked.
"X-chan??" Minako asked curiously, poking her head out of the TARDIS.
"Mom...!" Sakura gasped, unable to believe what she had thought impossible for so long. Tears immediately flooded her eyes. "MOMMMA!" She ran over to Minako and almost bowled her over, burying herself in her arms and sobbing. "Momma!!" she cried, so overwhelmed that she was unable to say anything more for several minutes. "Mommamommamommamomma..."
Minako, for her part, was completely confused, unsure of why Sakura was so upset, assuming it had something to do with the explosion. She barely noticed the changes in Sakura's height, build or clothing. Unless--
"X-chan?" She asked with worry.
A portion of the corridor wall blew out with a clang and a clatter as both Xadium and Pryonex tumbled forward, after having rammed the utterly annoyed Dalek they had been trapped with into it like a battering ram.
"I WILL HAVE MY RE-VEN-GE..." the Dalek muttered.
"X-chan!!" minako exclaimed happily.
"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!" Sakura wailed, tearing herself from her mom and running over to Xadium, hugging him tightly, almost crushing his bones.
"Sakura..." Xadium gasped. "You've... gotten stronger...."
"You," Sakura said, sniffling hard and pulling back, looking him in the eye. "You have no idea."
Minako finally noticed the full extent of Sakura's changes. "Sakura-chan??" she asked curiously. "Where did you get those clothes? And that katana??"
Xadium turned around the corner and saw the sleek silver monolith that was Sakura's TARDIS. The door was open, so he was able to peer inside.
"My word!" he began, in shock. "Is this your TARDIS? Sakura, when did you get a TARDIS?!" He ran inside. "And why does it look more advanced than mine?"
Sakura turned and smiled, tears flying from her eyes. "It's... a really long story, you guys..." She swiveled back to yell in her TARDIS. "AND POP! NO STEALING PARTS!" She stuck out her tongue playfully.
CRYSTAL TOKYO, 3057
"Fascinating," Mizuno Ami said, looking at the historical records. "If I hadn't known... all of a sudden Xadium-san and Minako-chan are back in the history books, as if nothing had happened."
"It is simple," Setsuna said nonchalantly. "As long as his escape plan remained incomplete, he and Minako-chan were outside of time. Time went on without them, and we could not sense them, and so thought them dead."
"I seem to recall Puu doing this to us at one point," Queen Serenity III said to Setsuna, sticking her tongue out. Everyone laughed. At long last, the Senshi family was whole once again.
EUDIAL'S SECRET LAB, October 2nd, 2057
Deep within the recesses of the lab, a sleeping creature slowly stirred to life, its blind, unreasoning mind awakening. Even with Eudial no longer around to provide the trigger, the automated computers had faithfully carried on their work. A chimera of Jeruka, Sailor Saturn, and Vegitto, King Jeruka was the strongest being in all of creation.
The LCL-filled tube housing King Jeruka broke as it gave out its birth howl and went Super Saiyajin. It knew its orders. Fly to the medical space platform around Ganymede and kill Sakura Xadium Aino before she could even take her first breath.
It exploded out of the lab and shot off into space. The wheels of destiny had begun to turn.