Special note for August 23rd: Chatboxers read this forum thread. YOU can battle today in #ss3 to change the very shape of Suburban Senshi for the next year! We NEED people to champion the villains and unpopular people
PART TWO
"Minako-chan!" Rei's voice was a blur that seemed to be coming to Minako from a faraway place, muffled, distorted, like she was hearing it from underwater.
"Minako!" Ami cried out also. Even in her desire for power, Ami's friendship still existed. She sounded like she was coming closer.
Minako reached out weakly, not really able to see, her hand brushing against Artemis' small paw. She smiled weakly. In a lot of ways he was her oldest friend. She gently squeezed his paw, curling her fingers around it.
"I'm dying... aren't I..." she whispered softly.
"Mina, you're not going to die!" Artemis panicked voice cut through her muddled thoughts with Razor-sharp clarity.
Minako chuckled, her memories flooding back.
"You sound like you did that one time, remember?" She coughed. "After I'd graduated from high school and become an idol, then I got sick all of a sudden..."
"The tumor," Artemis said softly, recalling. It was a secret she had kept from almost everyone. Back in the 90's, on her last day as Sailor V, Minako had been caught in a warehouse explosion in London. Fortunately, since she had awakened in China as Sailor Venus just before going to England, her body had been able to take the force of an exploding grenade with no worries. At the time, Artemis merely thought that she had just been banged up fairly badly.
Minako had come home, and joined the other senshi. But, as it turned out, the factory had been filled with barrels of carcinogenic chemicals which had sparked off a small cancerous growth in her brain after she had inhaled the chemicals. It had taken years, but by 1998, the tumor had become large enough to become noticed and cause problems. She had become sullen, bitchy and withdrawn, with Rei and Artemis her only confidants. Then, one day, she had fainted on stage in the middle of a performance, and had been rushed to the hospital...
"It's okay, Artemis," Minako burbled gently, squeezing his paw more, the memories coming in stronger. "I've already cheated death so many times~"
"You're not going to die!" Artemis insisted desperately.
"Heh," Minako chuckled very weakly, smiling, not seeing him, remembering how he had said the same years ago, dressed up in his stupid plushie disguise-- the only way he could get into the hospital-- convincing her to fight and take the risky operation that could cure-- or kill. She had gone along with it, and died on the operating table for over 2 minutes. The press mistakenly reported her death, but thanks to Ami's quick intervention, she had survived and gone back to her usual cheery self.*
* PSGM Artemis plush, Minako cancer and death + idol career merge GET++ AND A STAR TREK REFERENCE TOO
"We all know this day had to come," Minako whispered, thinking about how the brush with death had made her even more famous until finally she had retired in 2001 after meeting X-chan. X-chan...
"At least... I'll be able to see him... again..." she rasped, head lolling to one side, eyes closing, exhaling with finality.
"OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!" Artemis exclaimed, smacking her in the face with his paw. "YOU'RE NOT GOING TO DIE MINAKO! YOU WERE SHOT IN THE BUTT!"
"But it's such a PERFECT butt!" Minako protested, leaping up from where she had sprawled, charred behind jaunting into the air, hands trailing back, feeling her bottom.
"I've fixed the damage," Mercury intoned, nodding to herself in a self-satisfied way.
"All you did was put a bunny-head BAND AID on it!" Mars shot back.
"My poor butt," Minako whined.
"Budget cuts," Mercury snapped. "Building an Army of Gundanium death machines is costly."
"My butt is better!" Mars exclaimed, sticking hers out and patting it. "and my legs, too!"
"Oh yeah, well my chest is bigger!" Minako shot back, gesturing to her chest with rounded hand motions, leading Mars to glare at her angrily.
"That's because all the JUNK FOOD YOU EAT goes right to your BREASTS!" Mars shot back.
"I'm not complanin'," Haruka mused, ogling, loving Minako's low cut executive suit.
"Neither does X-chan," Minako giggled, remembering her dead husband, and why she was even here. "I have to go find him," she suddently realised.
"No, I don't think so," Mercury said in the sultry tone used by Spock in that hacked up Kirk / Spock MP3 that is on all the cool internets. She aimed an ice sword right at Minako's heart. "I saved you merely so I COULD KILL YOU WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS!"
"Saved her from a SHOT IN THE BUTT!" Mars reminded.
"Infection was a REAL DANGER!" Mercury hissed. "NOW DIE, AINO MINAKO, DIE!"
"Oh, I wish X-chan was here to suck out the poison," Minako cooed, blushing, utterly ignoring the mortal danger.
"WHAT POISON!" Mars boggled. "It was a FLAME ARROW!"
"Will you people just. SHUT. UP." Jedite appeared out of the darkness, hitting Mercury square in the back with a blast from the Golden Crystal, which he had ripped off of Mamoru's crotch during an earlier battle. "Now, I claim the Imperium for the NEO DARK KINGDOM / Tomoe's Tasty Coffee Flagship Axis of EVIL ALLIANCE!"
He prepared to strike a killing blow.
"Don't do it!" Sailor Mars commanded, getting in front of Jedite. "You OWE ME one, remember?"
Jedite looked at Mars, not understanding. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Artemis, and the memory returned. Of how early on, in his first encounter with Mars, she had fried him almost totally to a crisp, near death, but then relented at the last second, letting him crawl off with haughty pride.
"Damn you," Jedite muttered. "It would have been better if you had let me DIE. Beryl had to regrow my body from a stone, and I was..." His voice trailed off as he shuddered at the memory. "I was a stupid pimply faced boy with bad teeth until my powers grew strong enough for me to reform properly."
"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA" Haruka started laughing hysterically, spitting out some beer though her nostrils at the image of a perky-happy teen Jedite.
Jedite shot her a death glare. "Yes, well, people thought I was dead so I let them believe that rather than be seen... in that way." He growled, preparing to fight through Mars.*
* Jedite's death in the manga and his looks in PGSM are now retconned. The rest of his timeline is as in the Anime and SubSen.
"I won't let you hurt her, even if she's gone evil!" Mars declared, describing an arc with her hands and forming another Flame Sniper.
"What, I'm just disposing of a failed experiment," Jedite said cooly, locking gazes with Mars.
"Experiment?" Mars asked, maintaining a poker face, her sixth sense telling her Jedite was not lying.
"Why don't you tell them yourself, Dorkury," Jedite mocked, kicking Mercury slightly.
"That's DARKury," Mercury growled, her Sailor Fuku changing, shifting into a darker, black-lace frilled version as she rose to her feet, a new ice blade in her hands.
"Nani~?" Minako asked in shock.
"Oh, didn't Kunzite ever tell you?" Jedite asked with a smirk, casting his gaze at Artemis for a moment. "About how he cornered 'Bubblebath no Senshi' one day and stabbed her with his blade, spreading Metallia's taint in her body?"
"A-Ami-chan, is this true?" Mars asked in shock, the flame sniper flickering unsteadily. Ami just looked at her coldly.
"About how we all thought the experiment failed when she only transformed once, and then got away~" Jedite continued. "But I suppose it was just a dark seed that took 150 years to grow, corrupting her fully with Negative Metallia Force by the time she was living in Crystal Tokyo..."
"I am filled with the power of Negaforce," Darkury snapped.*
* PGSM merge complete, and now we have an in-canon reason for why SubSen Mercury is So Damn Insane! AND DUB INTEGRATION TOO!
"That is the most retarded name ever," Haruka muttered as Mercury hurled her blade at Minako, who dodged with an inch to spare, a slight cut forming on her cheek.
"Lucky," Darkury hissed.
"Tell me about it," Artemis sighed. "It's like she's got a guardian angel looking out for her."
"You were always my favorite," Haruka blurted, her words not her own, the Glow in her eyes again. She patted Minako on the head.
As Minako blushed happily and smiled, Haruka blinked, taking control of herself again.
"Oh, F[BLEEP]K NO!" Haruka yelled, putting her hands around her throat and starting to strangulate herself.
"What... is Haruka doing?" Artemias asked in shock.
"Yeah, I thought she LIKED touching other women," Mars noted.
"I wish she'd touch me," Motoki whined.
""Motherf[BLEEP]ker why do you ALWAYS favor her!" Haruka yelled at the air through ragged breaths, glaring up at the sky towards some unknown Third Person Narrative Entity before ramming her head into the wall again and again and again. "I'll teach you, assh[BLEEP]le! I'm the one who STARTED this sh[BLEEP]t , without me there WOULDN'T BE A GOD[BLEEP]MN THING!!"
"Oh, I know who she's yelling at," Artemis nodded, as everyone else just stopped, even the sounds of battle ceasing as EVERYONE stared at Haruka throwing herself bodily onto the ground in a self-bodyslam, trying repeatedly to punch herself between the legs. "NEKO CAME LATER WHY DOES SHE ALWAYS GET THE ART, THE STORIES, THE HOT LOVE LIFE, THE F[BLEEP]ING TV NETWORK!!"
"I wished on the Dragonballs?" Minako asked innocently, watching dumbfounded as The Glow in Haruka took a few moments to smile at her stupidly even as Haruka poked at her own eyes to try and get at it.
"Yeah," Mars mumbled. "I want some equal time..." She dimly remembered being so forgotten about in one tale the story ended with her and Makoto in meaningless limbo while Venus got to kill Beryl.*
* See the first Sailormoon fic Xadium ever wrote, "Queen Beryl's Fatal Rage-Related Atomic Disintegration"
"Dammit!" Haruka yelled, frustrated at her inability to beat the living crap out of something metaphysical. "JED!"
"Yessss?" Jedite asked, leaning on a wall with his arms folded, occassonally unfolding them to toss the Golden Crystal in the air.
"Come kick my ass!" Haruka yelled. "Quick!"
Jedite raised an eyebrow, shrugged and slightly nodded to himself before walking over to Ten'ou and sadistically wailing on her with a shower of vicious kicks and punches.
"Thanks man... ohh, my ribs," Haruka coughed, spitting up blood and cackling "take that you dumbass..."
"Wow, Haruka is kicking her own ass," Motoki mused. "Someone should take pictures."
Minako did, even as the voice possessing Haruka smiled stupidly at her and Jedite savaged away.
"Wow, I want some of this," Mars realized, jumping in. "THIS! IS FOR! NOT PLAYING NICE! WITH US! AGAINST TOMOE!"
"OW!" Haruka yelled, taking a red stiletto heel to the face. How the hell did Mars run in those anyway!? "HIT THE VOICE NOT ME!"
"What voice?" Mars yelled.
"The one coming out of me!" Haruka protested.
"I AM!" Mars affirmed, kicking Haruka in the knees.
"Dammit NOT WHAT I MEANT!"
Eventually, Jedite got bored savaging Haruka and left Mars to it, turning to Minako.
"So, Aino, is there any reason you're here besides getting shot in the ass?" Jedite chuckled.
Minako nodded sternly. "I've come to put my sister back on the throne!" She tugged on a Love-Me chain and pulled in an unconcious Usagi.
"Sister!?" Mars asked in shock, putting away her truncheon and paying full attention, to which Minako simply replied by pulling out a copy of the Sailor V manga and the Sailor Moon manga, putting pictures of her Papa and Tsukino Kenji side-by-side.
Mars' hand fled over her mouth, oh god, they were IDENTICAL.
"Hai, Papa was a layer," Minako said, sighing even as Artemis snapped "PLAYER!"
"He had this other family on the side, so Usagi-chan is my half-sister, and Shingo-kun my half-brother".*
* Takeuchi-sensei this is what you get for re-using character designs, and this development was actually hinted at years ago in the Pixel Manga
"No wonder those two always acted in stereo," Haruka coughed even as she punched herself in the face.
"Yes well," Jedite muttered, cracking his knuckles. "Ditz no Senshi is in the way of my taking over the Empire."
"Jedite, I won't let you do this!!" Minako exclaimed. Mars went to her side.
"Oh, like I'm really scared of..."
Jedite's voice trailed off and he started laughing hysterically. Chibiusa as Chibi-moon had slid into the scene in front of Minako and Mars, waving and posing and giving a little speech. No one had noticed because no one had bothered to look down.
"BICH!!!1" Chibiusa yelled, scampering over and smashing Jedite in the kneecap with a billyclub. "DEWNT FACKING LAFF AT MI11111"
"RUNT!" Jedite roared, kicking Chibiusa out of the palace with one swift boot to the face. He then teleported behind Minako and made as if to attack Usagi.
There was the sound of a latin Guitar and a gunshot as a rose flew in.
With a cool Matrix like move, Jedite jumped, rotated around in mid air, grabbign the rose in his hand and hurled it back at his REAL target, the man he knew would come if Usagi was ever in any danger.
Tuxedo Mask, in the Lavendar Suit Variant Repaint.
"Endorkion," Jedite said wirth a sly smile as the rose shot back into the King's shoulder. "Just the man I wanted."
"Wow, you swing that way?" Haruka asked, desperately trying to knee herself in the corner.
"WANTED FOR KILLING, MORON!" Jedite yelled.
"Wow, Jedite is into snuff," Minako noted.
Jedite was livid, and shot a bolt of Dark ki at Darkury, who was crawling off. "Where do YOU think you're going! We're going to settle the issue of Who Rules right here, RIGHT NOW!"
As Darkury rose to confront Jedite, a figure blurred between the two.
"...there is no question of who should rule," the tall figure intoned, her long green hair flapping in the wind. "It is Endymion-sama."
"Why are you backing 'Fiore's Fantasylad'?" Jedite asked.
"Because," Setsuna said, all ounce of cool gone from her voice as she clutched her hands in front of her heart, little pink hearts bulging from her eyes, "He's my fantasy lad too."
Jedite rolled his eyes. "Have you FORGOTTEN that you are his CLONED SISTER?!" He pointed to the distance where Chibiusa was sitting up, preparing to charge back towards them. "And your red eyes, did you not ever wonder where you got them?" He laughed. "They didn't just *give* Endymion clone two X chromosomes... they took one FROM HER!"
"From Small... Lady?" Pluto blanched. She held her head, her sailor Fuku vanishing, replaced with her normal clothes. Then the Fuku re-appeared, but flickered again.
"My powers..." She dropped to her knees. "Am I a Senshi, a civilian, daugther of the God of Time. I don't know! I DON'T KNOW!!!"
"You are a clone from the future crafted in my lab," Ami answered flatly. "Because no one of non-royal blood could be trusted to guard the time gate. You were sent back tens of thousands of years to do your job from the moment life came to the moon. Can you please be quiet now?"
"But is Pluto a planet or ISN'T IT?!" Pluto cried out. "I don't want to be a Satellite Senshi, or worse, an *asteroid*. She stood and coughed. "While I still have my dignity..."
Stretching out her hands, Setsuna began to grow "Oh Cronos," she cried out, "hear me, I cast myself to the wind~"
"She SO stole that from the Trek episode 'who mourns for Adonis'," Artemis mused.
Minako thwapped him on the head. "Geek~"
Setsuna dramatically became larger, and larger, fading out as lightning began to crash across the sky, and a heavy wind picked up.
"Ten'ou, stop farting," Jedite snapped.
"Huh?" Haruka asked, slapping herself once, then stopping, totally oblivious to what had happened.
"What happened what happened what happened?" someone new asked, appearing by rappel cord from the ceiling of the palace.
"Sakura-chan!!" Minako exclaimed in joy, jumping up to hug her daughter, in the process forcibly pulling her off the rappel line. "You're alive!!"
"For now, yeahs," Sakura nodded, hugging back. "But holy heck history's having a hysterics fit. Harry-P and Aunt Michi's cloned kids from the future are gone, Uncle Arty and Hotaru-P never got together, so half the new generation senshi are gone--"
"Me... and Hotaru?!" Artemis paled while Haruka puked and Motoki nosebled at the cat side of the equation.
"Never happened," Sakura confirmed clinically even as Artemis' face fell, her brain rattling off the changes as fast as she could recall them. It had been a hard day, being pulled back to life, then nearly beat to death by Eudial and having to level via the old "get Mr. Piccolo to maul you over and over again" method. "Did Aunt Sets just jump into time and I missed it, nuts because it's not every day you get to see the sordid and sorry spectacle of a sailor senshi suicidally slipping into the stream of time."
"Suidicially?" Mars asked in shock.
"Yeah, but I'm sure she'll be back once reality* decides what to do with her," Sakura nodded.
* And the International Astronomical Union
"But the strain added to the already messed up time vortex that Setsuna added by tossing HER life-force and Plutonic Planet or Planetoid Power Punched up the Pressure of the shockwave blast that had careened back in time from the detonation of the Time Gate in the 31st Century* and caused all that fun stuff like my pop splitting into himself and alter-pop."
* See Sub. Senshi Season 6.
Minako nodded. "So this is where it all started... the Crisis went that far back??"
"On even further," Sakura chirped, happily rattling off a list of changes. "It split Sailor Jupiter too, when she detonated the gate explosion, one version of her remained as usual and the other went on to head the Military forces of the Jovian Guardian Republic*."
* Making room for the SSEU's Jupiter and SubSen's upcoming variant.
Minako just nodded her head, much as the others did. Time was an annoying thing, and time paradoxes even more so. As the others broke their brains on the concept of two Makotos, Minako could only think of one thing. The reason she had started this off by firing at Galaxy Cauldron in the first place.
"Sakura-chan, if you're alive, does that mean... your father..." She looked at Sakura with hope, but Sakura sadly shook her head.
"I got revived by Eudial. All this temporal flux is keeping me around, but the way in which she revived me broke my safeguards against being wiped out by a timeline change..."
Sakura hugged her mother. "When this is all done, I'll probably never have been."
Minako tried her best not to cry. "But what about all those adventures you told me about?! they take place even later than this... now... time!!"
Sakura sighed. "The Celestial Intervention Agency has a motto: 'The Names may change, but the story remains the same.' Someone will step in to fill the historical void. Maybe Noriko, the little half-sister I never knew I had till this all started, who now apparently is / was / will be my best friend... a poor pity that'll be undone when I am."
Minako gripped Sakura harder, not wanting to ever let her go. Jedite ate some popcorn, feasting on the tears of the weak. Haruka cracked a beer, checking her watch. The Oscar Committee was getting their annual bribe package.
"It's ok mom," Sakura tried to soothe, tears welling in her big, brown loving eyes, the limpid pools of light playing of her corneas as her lower lip trembled and she sniffled, trying desperately hard to contain her emotions. Oh yes, so hard. So very painfully emotive. So Oscar Worthy. SO VERY OSCAR WORTHY PEOPLE. She choked up and forced out "It's ok... because... you've never... even... have known... I was ever... even... alive!!!" She broke down into painful sobs, clutching her mother, who cried seas of wailing lamentation.
"Oh just let me kill her now and spare us all," Jedite scowled, eager to get back to the battling stuff.
"But srsly," Sakura continued, choking back her melodramatic emo as an Oscar statuette was slipped to her discreetly, her mom giving her a proud thumbs up for carrying on the family tradition, "I have lots of friends in Soul Society-- You see, I was hired as a Temp Captain of 3rd squad and then I went to Central 46--"
"SAKURA!!!!!" A psychotic yell screamed out, as a blue haired, insane android version of Shinguuji Sakura in a black frilly gothic lolita dress, wielding replicas of Alucard (from Hellsing)'s guns, swooped down from the rafters, opening up a salvo of rapid fire blasts at the girl at near point blank range with homicidally malicious glee!*
* AIZEN!!!!!!
TO BE CONTINUED