A cold, bitter wind shot through the alley, the air cracking and tearing as blue lightning scorched forth from a fissure carved deep into the heart of reality itself.
With a bassy thunderclap, the fissure spat forth a large, steaming object and slammed shut, sealing the rift that had, for a moment, knotted two ends of reality together, twisting time and space into an unnatural bridge.
In the center of the alley, it lay, immobile, the heat of the rift still boiling off its surface.
"H-Hey..." a local wandering drunk muttered in a low, gravelly voice, stumbling forward, unsure of his senses, not knowing if what he saw before him was real, or a mental figment, a product of the cheap, low grade sterno he had taken intravenously mere moments ago.
Squatting, the wino took a closer look at the thing which had just appeared from out of nowhere.
Curled into a fetal position was the nude form of an adult human male.
"You awright there, buddeh?" The wino asked, poking the man with a filth-ridden* stick.
* By "filth" we mean s[BLEEP]t.
Groaning slowly, the figure turned, stretched, and stood slowly, towering over the comparatively short drunk.
Blinking twice, trying to process the scene, the wino looked up to meet the gaze of the stranger, who looked down at him with clear blue eyes.
"I need those clothes," the tall man, finally said, eyeing the drunk bum.
"It'll cost you five yen and a pack of chewing gum," the bum replied slowly, pulling a small breath spray out of his pocket and spritzing his mouth. "And more if I haveta swallow."
The tall figure sweatdropped as the Hobo leered.
"N-No thanks..." the taller man said, stepping back quickly, almost stumbling backwards in a panic. "I'll... I'll just wear this box."
Grabbing a cardboard box, the tall man rammed it over his head, sliding it down to cover his shame, and ran off.
The bum pouted for a moment before taking another shot of sterno right in the arm.
"HEY!" a shrill voice suddenly snapped from behind him. "HEY!"
The bum spun around just in time to get clubbed in the face by a cutesy-looking, yet dreadfully solid sceptre.
"WHERE'D HE GO!" the voice demanded as a female figure stepped into the light, spinning the sceptre around.
"TELL ME WHERE MY MAMO-CHAN IS!!!"
* Disclaimer: just like in Highlander this is not the Endgame or final destination
"No, don't light it on fire!" Sailor Saturn yelled in frustration as Sailor Uranus struck a match and tossed it behind herself, igniting the gaseous consequences of the last night's dinner straight in the face of the gnarled, disgusting monster behind her.
"GRAAARGH!" the creature screamed, the mammoth explosion from Uranus' posterior blasting half of its Bob-Saget like face into pulp.
"Ara," Sailor Neptune mused as the creature twitched and convulsed, finally dropping dead. "I'd say that was a definite improvement in appearance, wouldn't you?"
Sailor Saturn slapped her face as Uranus, propelled forth by application of Newton's Third Law of Motion, shot through the air like a cannonball, smashing through the front livingroom window and ending up face-first in a thorny rosebush, legs sticking up in the air at odd angles.
"Dead... Scream..." Sailor Pluto intoned dramatically, firing off a blast of purple energy into the corpse of the creature.
"Oh THANK YOU FOR SHOWING UP NOW," Saturn snapped, "After we have spent the last THREE HOURS doing the job ourselves."
Pluto smirked cryptically as she was wont to do, and stepped on the neck of the corpse.
"MY SENSHIMON," Professor Tomoe wept into his mug of tasty coffee. "THE PERFECT FUSION OF ALL YOUR DNA INTO THE ULTIMATE LIFEFORM... KILLED BY FLATULENCE." He took a deep swig of the liquid and shrugged. "OH WELL."
Tomoe looked on absently as Pharaoh 95-chan scuttled into the room, blinking its three million eyes cutely, waving its translucent tentacles and licking its beak. The tiny demon moved forward in a quick scuttle, stopped, observed the corpse, moved forwards again, stopped again, looked, then shot its tentacles all around the body. It then began to scuttle backwards slowly, dragging the body away as the others spoke, paying it no heed.
"God!" Saturn exclaimed, detransforming. "That was the sloppiest operation I've ever seen!"
"Shut up little miss 'I wanna save the world by blowing the s[BLEEP]t out of it'," Haruka growled, staggering back into the house, thorns stuck into her from all directions.
Looking around, she nodded to Jedite, who was standing by the refrigerator, arms crossed. "Beer me."
Jedite cracked open the fridge, wincing a little as he caught sight of the freezer, and grabbed a can of Duff beer, tossing it at ballistic speed to Haruka, who opened it too quickly and sprayed most of the can's contents all over herself.
"I. Am. So. Embarrassed," Hotaru groaned. "We, the last of the Senshi here in this time-- we're supposed to be the first line of defense for this world, and look at us!"
"I, for one, was exceptionally graceful in battle," Michiru stated authoritatively, placing a hand over her heart and walking upstairs.
"And you people," Hotaru continued darkly, casting her gaze over to Jedite, Elios, and Minako. "You didn't even lift a finger to help."
"I'm evil," Jedite answered simply, and went back to microwaving a rodent he had found in his subbasement lair.
"I was too busy checking out those senshi legs that won't quit, s[BLEEP]t," Elios chuckled, looking Hotaru up and down. "You ain't got da chest, but hell you gots da rest, girl."
Hotaru growled. "Why did I even bother asking." She shifted her gaze to Minako. "And what of you, sempai?"
Minako giggled. "It's almost my one-year wedding anniversary!! I can't die before then!!"
As Hotaru winced, Minako continued, "And besides, I'm semi-retired."
"Mina! The fight for evil knows no retirement!" Artemis scolded, arching his back and hopping on Hotaru's shoulder.
"You're just f[BLEEP]ing up to her!!" Minako shot back, waving her finger at Artemis knowingly.
Hotaru and Artemis both blushed uncontrollably at the malaprop and looked to each other then away quickly.
"s...sucking.." Haruka corrected weakly.
Artemis' blush got even deeper.
"N...not helping, Haruka-poppa," Hotaru stuttered.
"And while we're on the subject," Hotaru slowly continued, trying to turn attention away from her nascent romance with Artemis, "Where was Chibiusa-chan?"
"no prablam pap," Chibiusa muttered, barely paying her father any heed. It had taken a long time (and unbeknownst to her, regular doses of Sakura Xadium Aino's futuristic 'Anti-viagra' drug) but she had finally lost her lewd, lascivious ways-- at least when it came to her personal life. She no longer desired rampant unions with her father or with Elios, but she did use her personal "skills" and "techniques" to get what she wanted from men. And she did want something from her father.
"u stey hear n b quite ok, mam wall navar fynd u". Chibiusa smiled cutely and posed for a few candid webcam shots. Amazing what a little bit of skin would make desperate Internet men buy you these days. Right now she was aiming for a new Porsche.
"I'm the leader of the Outer Senshi," Hotaru protested. "You of all people should respect battlefield hierarchy."
"Leader, Schmeader," Haruka replied tiredly, belching. "Lemme show you something."
Scratching her butt and farting, Haruka ambled to the front door, looking sloppy and slovenly to excess.
"Ugh..." Hotaru muttered as Haruka threw open the door, letting the bright sunshine in.
As Haruka crossed the threshold into public, music began to play as sakura petals wafted around her, her appearance magically becoming clean, soft, attractive and in all ways perfection itself.
"He's so cool..." some random passersby cooed as Haruka grinned at them, light glinting off one tooth.
"Yes, yes, Ikuhara perfection field, we know, we know," Hotaru replied tiredly, as Michiru, slightly irritated that Haruka alone was in the spotlight, gently shoved her way into the doorway, similarly becoming bathed in an aura of blissful beauty.
Haruka and Michiru waved to the public for a moment before re-entering the house and locking the door, suddenly looking far more average and nondescript.
"Yeah we gots the power," Haruka replied. "And you don't. So how can you lead us?"
"It's so ludicrous a proposition," Michiru began, raising one hand to cover her mouth delicately as she spoke, "That would be like saying a mere webcomic author could replace Michelangelo! OH HOHOHOHOHO!" she laughed.
Hotaru sighed and sat on one of the many couches in the house livingroom. "Just because I can't dress myself up in watercolour makeup and have an invisible singing choir showering me in flowers is no reason for me to be disrespected as leader. In terms of sheer strength and knowledge--"
"Strength, huh?" Haruka swiftly ran up behind Hotaru and put her in a headlock.
"Mmrmrmrnf!!" Hotaru protested, twisting and turning, trying to worm out of it.
Haruka chuckled and tightened the pressure a little.
Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Hotaru squeezed her eyes shut and transformed in a blast of light, breaking out of the hold.
"Hah, you had to transform," Haruka chuckled. "But even now you're weaker than I am hand-to-hand."
"Need I remind you of which one of us has the power to destroy the world," Saturn began darkly.
"So could I if I had a big enough bowl of chili the night before and a match to light under my ass," Haruka retorted.
"I'm serious," Saturn said coldly.
"So do it then," Haruka replied coolly, confidently meeting Saturn's gaze.
"What?" Saturn asked, unblinking.
"Blow up the planet, show me how tough you are," Haruka replied. As Saturn blinked, Haruka snapped her fingers. "OH SNAP you can only do that shit once and then it's bye-bye you. Hell of a power, there, squirt."
Saturn scowled and detransformed.
"I never get any respect," Hotaru said sadly, slumping down in her chair. "At the risk of sounding self-absorbed, I daresay I'm the most polite, well-mannered, well-educated person here, yet no one pays me any mind at all!"
"I do," Artemis said softly, purring and nuzzling Hotaru's cheek.
"That's just because you're jealous you're not the only man in my life," Minako interjected, smirking, showing off her golden wedding ring.
"Hahaha it took a SPACE ALIEN to put up with a sneaky manipulative tomboy like you," Artemis retorted.
"WELL WHO'S ON THE REBOUND FROM A DIVORCE!" Minako yelled back. "Sinking your claws into the first woman who even smiles at you!"
Artemis cringed and Hotaru sighed more deeply.
"Yo yo yo, I know why da perfection dun flow," Elios rapped, leaning on a wall.
"If this is another joke about how I need to mate," Hotaru began darkly, her Silence Glaive phasing in and out in front of her hand.
"Hey I used ta have a perfection field dat made da ladies squeal," Elios replied.
"Yeah you gave Michi that nosebleed virus, too," Haruka replied. "You were a smooth b[BLEEP]d back then, what the heck happened?"
Jedite smirked. "I taught him the meaning of pain at the Budokai."
"You think you so fly, but check this out, guy." Elios concentrated, and slowly, a black bordered aura began to form in the air around him, with various colored roses at its four corners.
"Holy crap the Utena Brand Ikuhara Perfection Field!" Haruka exclaimed. "I thought you lost that power!" She stuck a finger in her nose to stop the nosebleed that was forming.
Elios grunted as the field vanished, never perfectly forming. "I did, dude, this s[BLEEP]t's just rough and crude."
"How did you do that?" Hotaru asked curiously.
"To git yo Ikuhara-given wealth," Elios replied, "You need to get in touch wit yo damn self."
"I TOLD YOU NOT TO MAKE HENTAI JOKES!" Hotaru snapped, swinging her glaive at Elios, who rolled out of the way and dodged.
"Dude I meant git self-actualized!" Elios screeched, shifting into his Pegasus mode and flitting out of the house through the ceiling.
"Sorry," Hotaru apologized, calming down. "I'm not used to you engaging in civil conversation."
"WHAT HE SAYS MAKES SENSE," Professor Tomoe said, watching Pharaoh 95 slowly devour the remains of Senshimon in the corner. "HARUKA-KUN THERE IS SECURE IN HER IDENTITY AS A TOUCH BUTCH FEMME, MICHIRU-KUN AS THE RADIANT EYE-CANDY ON HARUKA'S ARM, AND SETSUNA-KUN AS THE KNOW-IT-ALL WISE WOMAN WHO PLAYS BOTH SIDES AGAINST THE MIDDLE! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAhA!"
"But I know who I am," Hotaru protested. "I'm in touch with myself."
"Hotaru-chan if you were any more repressed you'd implode into some kind of black hole," Haruka replied.
"If you were a set of bowels, an enema would be required," Michiru chimed in. Everyone stared at her in shock.
"O HO HO HO HO!" Michiru laughed in a quick panic, covering her mouth with her hand.
"Hotaru-chan does deny herself a lot," Minako added in, leaning over the back of her soft red velvet couch.
"Unlike sempai who denies herself nothing," Hotaru countered sharply.
Minako waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "So? I'm happier than I've ever been. Can you say the same?"
Hotaru nodded. "Of course I can! I have my books, and my lamps, and..."
"...and?" Artemis asked hopefully.
"...and they are all I need," Hotaru replied confidently, as Artemis' head fell, tears gushing from his eyes.
"Ooh, books and lamps," Haruka intoned with an air of utterly sarcastic awe. "Lamps and books. So you're secure in your identity as a goth bookworm, then?"
"I AM NOT GOTH!" Hotaru protested, livid, fists quivering as she screamed. Sliding down even further in her seat, she intoned weakly, "Not gooth..." almost whining.
"I've never seen Tomoe the Younger like that," Jedite mused.
"HER PSYCHE IS FINALLY CRACKING," Professor Tomoe noted.
Hotaru looked ahead with a dull, glassy-eyed expression, not really registering the world around her. It was as if her head had been shoved underwater-- sound was muffled, and there was a pressure pressing in on her from all sides.
"Face it," Haruka pressed, oblivious. "You're anti-social, you hole up in your victorian-style bedroom filled with antiques, dressed up all in black, and you love to wax on about how much the world sucks, spouting the deepest sounding poetry you can find. That, kiddo, is goth. G-O-T-H."
Hotaru shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself as she slid to the ground completely, rocking back and forth, mouth opening and closing slowly, with no sound escaping from her lips.
Haruka smirked for some reason, and then cracked her neck. "Oh crap," she announced, holding her stomach. "I need to go to the s[BLEEP]tter."
"Thank you so much for sharing, Ten'ou," Jedite snapped. "Now we know to break out the gas masks."
In an almost synchronized manner, everyone leaned down and pulled out oxygen masks from under the various sofas in the room.
"Aww f[BLEEP]k you," Haruka shot back, walking over to the hallway. Heh. For once her congenital flatulence problem would serve her well. No one would dare follow her now. She could do what she had to in utter secret.
Walking down the darkened hallway, Haruka stopped in front of a large figure, who was obscured in ominous shadow.
"Is it done?" the shadow croaked in a low, gravelly, distorted voice.
"You need to lay off the cigars, man," Haruka observed shaking her head.
"Quiet," the figure croaked, spraying its throat.
"It is done," the voice said now, in a normal, soft feminine tone, as the hall light finally clicked on and Setsuna was illuminated. "I arranged for his escape from Neo-Argentina. No doubt she will have followed him back."
Haruka rubbed her hands together in glee. "Excellent. And you've designed... the garments?" She raised an eyebrow.
"Genuine Meioh originals, as requested," Setsuna nodded. Her eyes flashed. "But remember our arrangement. In return for my specially designed lingerie--"
"I know, I know," Haruka nodded. "Keep her distracted long enough for you to sneak back to Crystal Tokyo and formalize your little coup, with Chiba Mamoru in tow."
Setsuna smiled cryptically. "Precisely. By the time she comes back to Crystal Tokyo, she will be able to claim no more than a job as a cleaning maid."
Haruka nosebled for a moment, contemplating Usagi in a French Maid's outfit.
As Setsuna slid back into the shadows, Haruka stood there agape, the vision of French Maid Usagi dancing in her head. She didn't even notice the piercing blue electric eyes of rei.bot as the miko walked towards her, wanting to get past.
"Gimme your lingerie," Haruka intoned mindlessly, for a moment thinking she was still talking to Setsuna.
rei.bot's fist moved faster than the eye could see, and the next moment, with a supersonic boom, Haruka found herself crashing through the ceiling and into a high arc over Azabu-Juuban.
"I don't understand why we can't do this in the Mugen Facilities, Souichi," Jedite muttered, idly handing the mad professor a pair of rusty salad tongs.
"THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT HAS AN EYE ON MUGEN EVER SINCE THAT TIME I MADE THE BUILDING TRANSFORM INTO A SUPER ROBO AND CONQUER THE TOKYO DELTA," Tomoe muttered, ramming the tongs into the exposed chest of the test subject below him on the operating table.
Jedite leaned over and looked down with unabashed curiousity as Tomoe moved the tongs around, a slimy, squishy, squidgy noise accompanying his half-stirring movements.
"OH KAMI-SAMA ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH" Yuuichiro screamed, the complete and utter lack of anaesthetic placing him in indescribable agony as Tomoe moved his vital organs around with the tongs.
"STARSEED, DREAM MIRROR, BALL OF ENERGY, KITCHEN SINK..." Tomoe muttered.
"Ooh can I have the ball of energy?" Jedite asked, tentatively reaching a gloved hand forwards to collect it, a gleam in his eye.
Moving rapidly, Professor Tomoe made a clucking noise and smacked Jedite's hand with the bloody tongs as he shoved them back in and pulled out what he had been seeking.
"ONE PURE HEART CRYSTAL! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Professor Tomoe held the crystal aloft, laughing as it glinted in the light. The next moment, in a rapid blur, Pharaoh 95-chan had leapt up in a graceful arc, swallowing the heart.
"HEY GIVE THAT BACK!" Tomoe yelled, hurling his boot at the chibi Old One, which scuttled under a desk, chittering and licking its beak with its forward tentacles.
"I'll get it," Jedite muttered, powering up and diving under the table, viciously fighting the small gelatinous-sheathed squid-like daemon for several minutes.
As the battle-- punctuated with high-pitched demonic shrieks, bassy blasts of dark energy and lots of screaming and cursing--- raged under the table, Professor Tomoe sat on the edge of the operating table and sipped a Tasty Coffee.
Finally, several minutes later, Jedite emerged from under the table, cut up and bruised, holding up a goop-covered Pure Heart crystal.
"YOU'RE GETTING SLOW," Tomoe laughed as he grabbed the crystal and shoved it into the body that was lying next to Yuuichiro's. The short old man twitched and spasmed, screaming out before going limp.
"Shut up," Jedite muttered, watching the rest of the operation.
With a quick motion, Tomoe slammed the old man's grey-black pure heart into Yuuichiro, who jerked up on the table, eyes in a semi-circular crescent of happiness, a leer on his face.
"HO HO HO!" he exclaimed, feeling his chest. "I've got PECS again!"
"HOW DO YOU FEEL?" Tomoe asked Yuuichiro curiously.
"I'm feeling... HAPPY!" Yuuichiro cackled, bounding off the table. He sniffed the air. "Women live in this house...."
"Yes, they do..." Jedite started slowly.
"Woo-hoo!" Yuuichiro exclaimed. "The perfect chance to expand my legendary underwear collection!"
With a series of blindingly fast maneuvers, Yuuichiro vanished, heading up the stairs in perverse glee.
"What about old Happosai here," Jedite asked, pointing to the small old man, who was now sitting up and crying for "rei-sama", feeling weak and inadequate.
Tomoe unceremoniously picked him up and dropped him in a garbage can.
Jedite watched approvingly, then squinted as the lab was briefly filled with blinding light as Yuuichiro threw open the door and escaped, brushing past someone as he ran.
"My... underwear..." Setsuna intoned, embarrassed, one arm crossed over her chest, the other over her waist as she stood in the doorway.
"I'D CALL THAT LITTLE EXPERIMENT A SUCCESS," Tomoe noted with approval, eyeing the blushing Setsuna, who could not move, because her largely fishnet-style elegant dress was now revealing much more than intended.
"Hahahaha" Jedite laughed, walking up the stairs and poking Setsuna in the face. "Does this bother you? Does this bother you? You can't move because your unfortunate choice of fashion design, i.e. 'hooker light' finally bit you in the ass."*
* see how she dresses in the manga
Setsuna growled. "I hope you all are getting ready, Minako-chan is throwing a formal dinner at Tokyo Tower to celebrate her one-year wedding anniversary."
"Do we have to pay for the food?" Jedite asked. "Is she going to stick us with the bill and run like the last time at the 6 month one?"
"Michiru is paying," Setsuna said slowly. "She wants to show off her engagement to Haruka in public."
"So who are you going with," Jedite asked, spinning around, his outfit transforming into a slick dinner jacket and well-pressed pants, with white silk shirt and red bow tie. He grinned at her, light glinting off his perfectly polished teeth.
Setsuna's heart skipped as the burning flames she had held in her heart for the Dark General flared up once again. "Y-you...?" she began hopefully, sounding a bit girlish in anticipation.
"Ahahahah YOU WISH," Jedite replied with a smirk, pushing past her and walking off.
As Setsuna's face fell, Professor Tomoe chuckled. "DON'T WORRY, SETSUNA-KUN..."
Setsuna looked up into the ultra-reflective, blindingly bright lenses of Tomoe's glasses.
"REMEMBER WHEN YOU USED TO STUDY PHYSICS IN MUGEN..." Tomoe began slowly, walking over to Setsuna and opening his lab coat wider and wider as he moved towards her, like a vampire opening up his cape.
"We always ended up.... studying biology.... hakase..." Setsuna whispered, moving her hands from around her and embracing the Professor as he enfolded his lab coat around her. "...with the optional twister course..."
"MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA--- AHH!"
"So, when are you going to give me something to wear besides this box?" Mamoru asked, teeth chattering as he shivered in a corner of the room, doing his best not to let it slip down.
Chibiusa slowly walked over to her father and looked down the front of the box, shaking her head. "I kant beleef i wented dat sit."
"HEY!" Mamoru exclaimed, upset, then upset that he was getting upset his daughter was not interested in him any longer.
"bich y dnt u hanshin int2 taxseedo maks?" Chibiusa asked tiredly.
Mamoru blushed. "It's... not the same like it used to be."
"Lamme see bich." Chibiusa grinned.
"your mother... modified the henshin...." Mamoru looked away.
"LAMME C OR ILL GAT MADVAL ON UR AZ!" Chibiusa yelled, pulling out a pink whip.
Mamoru jerked back. What was it with the women in this family, anyway?! Holding up a rose, he began the henshin.
In slow motion, Mamoru began gyrating, slowly lathering himself with oil and rotating his pelvis as tight black briefs appeared on it.
Chibiusa's eyes bugged out a little and she began to drool as Mamoru became more and more muscular, a tight black bow tie forming and flying around his neck.
Tuxedo-- no-- "Briefs" Kamen stood there, clad in nothing but a Top hat, his white mask, the tiny black bow tie and tight black briefs that left nothing to the imagination.
"Hloy... sit..." Chibiusa exhaled, the Anti-Viagra in her system doing its utmost to keep her from collapsing in a pool of lust-filled drool right on the spot.
"Hey babe," Elios said slowly, having opened Chibiusa's door without knocking, as he loved to do. When he saw her gawking at the muscular, virile, overly hot bishounen Briefs Mask, his eyes narrowed.
"Mother[BLEEP]er!" Elios yelled, glaring at Mask, who sweatdropped. "Imma gonna cap you right now!"
Before Mamoru could react, Elios pulled the Golden crystal from his head, his rage causing it to do something it had never done before-- change shape into a bling-encrusted golden semi-automatic machine gun.
"You best git yo ass outta here, this is a FLY BY!" Elios yelled, transforming into a Pegasus and flying forwards, the gun in his mouth, peppering the room with machine gun rounds.
Chibiusa simply stood there, willing the Future Ginzuishou to deflect the hail of bullets from in front of her. Mamoru, on the other hand, lacking any such protection, and now facing both the initial hail of bullets and the ricochets from Chibiusa's shield, did the best he could-- forgetting about his manly dignity and running from the room like a little b[BLEEP]ch.
Scrambling from the room, Briefs Kamen was suddenly grabbed and pulled into a closet.
Panting, he found himself pressed very close to Setsuna, who was blushing deeply.
"You can't escape, my liege," Setsuna exhaled breathlessly, spent from her time with Tomoe.
"Setsuna--" Briefs Kamen began slowly, before she kneed him and he doubled over in pain.
"You're the bait," Setsuna said coldly, then looking down at him lovingly. "You will be at my side in the future...."
She then looked at the white lab coat she was wearing. "And for now... I shall double-dip."
Quiet, victorious laughter filled the closet.
About a half-hour later, as rei.bot slowly walked down the upstairs hallway, her normal red-and-white kimono exchanged for an elegant black dinner dress, she stopped abruptly as the closet door burst open, and Briefs Kamen staggered out, red lipstick all over his face, and looking exhausted.
rei.bot sensed time and space fluctuate as someone-- probably Setsuna, made her discreet exit.
"y-you!" Kamen panted, looking into rei.bot's electric blue eyes. He'd heard tales of her, but had never met the formidable miko in the flesh... err, metal... err, whatever she was.
rei.bot bowed-- and as she did so, noticed something.
straightening, rei.bot intoned "shorts."
"Huh?" Kamen asked, and followed rei.bot's gaze down to his waist.
Well he couldn't call himself "Briefs" Kamen anymore.
"use haruka's things," rei.bot suggested, calmly pointing to Haruka's room. Her clothes were about the right size for Mamoru, and indeed, were more manly than his usual fare.
Kamen bowed quickly and ran for the room.
rei.bot continued on her way. She had initially thought of declining Minako's invitation to the anniversary dinner, but her pet Sakura had convinced her it was good to socialize.
"So the food has been ordered then?" Michiru asked haughtily over the telephone.
"IMPORT THEM FROM FRANCE BY JET IF YOU HAVE TO!" she yelled, slamming it down. "Cretins!"
"Is everything OK, Michiru-san?" Minako asked curiously, watching Michiru take several calming breaths to regain her composure.
"Yes, dear, don't worry," Michiru said with a reassuring smile. "Your anniversary dinner will be the height of elegance."
"You know she's just using your dinner as a pretext to jack up her social standing, don't you?" Jedite asked, smirking.
"Who cares as long as it's free?" Minako replied, grinning, grabbing her husband in a headlock. "Ne, X-chan?" She smiled down at him.
"R-right," he wheezed, having no choice but to agree.
"Mina!" Artemis snapped, hopping from the top of one couch to the next, landing on her shoulder. "Don't corrupt him with your lazy ways!"
"Lazy?!" Minako shot back, tightening her grip on Xadium's neck unconsciously in her ire. "Who's the one too lazy to make me a new item! I've wanted that Venus electroshock Taser for the last two years!!"
"DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO PASS A CHARGED TASER THROUGH YOUR BOWELS?!" Artemis shot back.
"Haruka does," Michiru answered confidently, blushing elegantly when the others shot her a curious look.
The room fell silent for a moment as everyone, save Michiru, tried to ponder exactly how Haruka would have gotten that experience.
"FACKING SUM OF A BATCH!1111" Chibiusa screamed from upstairs as Pegasus zoomed down the stairs, firing off his golden gun. "U brok mai Lona-P111"
"I'm gonna kill that sumbitch!" Pegasus roared, blasting out the front door.
"Kill who?" Minako asked, as the shockwave from Pegasus' departure knocked her, and the others over.
"Mamo-chun!" Chibiusa yelled.
"Holy crap, Mamoru's here?" Haruka asked, staggering back into the house just in time to get flattened by Pegasus.
"he came out of the closet" rei.bot explained, walking down the stairs, completely calm and unruffled amidst the chaos.
Everyone sweatdropped.
"Mai Lona-P is brokan!" Chibiusa wailed. "Hi wuz mai brest fend!"
"I'll say he was," Minako said tiredly, still choking out Xadium absently. "When I was still playing Queen I saw what you made him turn into..."
Minako shuddered at the sounds of those horrific screams of ecstasy.
"SAT DA FICK PU BICH`111" Chibiusa bawled, hurling the broken Luna-P at Minako, who easily ducked, rei.bot getting hit in the face with it.
"o... sit..." Chibiusa spluttered as the miko glared at her for a minute, then looking down at the broken toy.
rei.bot tilted her head and leaned down, picking up the ball and observing it. It was a primitive construction, built with 30th century technology that was vastly inferior to her own. Pulling off some of the fingers on her left hand, she revealed a set of repair tools, and cracked open the ball, modifying some of the circuitry that had been shot to pieces by Elios.
"Haruka you smell horrible!" Michiru exclaimed, making a huge show of covering her nose. "Where have you been?!"
"rei there punted my ass into low orbit and I fell in the Ginza s[BLEEP]t pit," Haruka replied, wiping off her face.*
* Created when Haruka covered half of Tokyo with manure back in season 1.
"Go get cleaned up, we've a formal dinner to attend," Michiru commanded. "Celebrating our engagement in public for the first time."
"Not tonight honey, I have a headache," Haruka intoned, using a phrase he had used many times in the past.
"HARUKA!" Michiru bawled. "I've already paid for the Tokyo tower for tonight! We're GOING."
"But I got plans!" Haruka whined. "I'm gonna go down to Mo's Tavern and watch wrestling!"
"YOU SHALL NOT!" Michiru screamed back as elegantly as she could.
rei.bot, for her part, became momentarily distracted by the yelling, and did not notice when she inadvertently re-activated a small microchip in the Luna-P placed there by the Mizunomics Corporation. As she finished up the repairs, the Luna-P began to come back to life, its programming subtly altered. In addition to its prime directive to serve the Princess Chibiusa, it also ran a second stealth protocol, originally meant to be triggered only at Mizuno Ami's express command-- the Universal Domination Program.
"u faxed it ray.butt," Chibiusa said happily, taking the floating ball and hugging it. Running up the stairs, she and everyone else utterly failed to notice the toy's eyes briefly glowing red.
Artemis padded into the room slowly. As a cat, his eyes were able to quickly adjust to the relative darkness, which was punctuated only by the soft purple glow of any number of lamps placed all around, creating a somewhat starry backdrop.
In the middle of the room, a silhouette rocked back and forth, mumbling words and phrases from a language long dead, the syllables tumbling forth from it like a babbling stream of incoherent jibber.
As Artemis silently padded closer to take a better look, he realized the reason he was having a hard time seeing the shape of the figure was that it seemed to be sucking all the light (such as it was) in the room, into itself.
Artemis continued to move closer, trying to fix his vision on the head of the figure.
"H-Hotaru...?" he began slowly.
Suddenly, the figure's head spun to face him, glowing purple eyes locking gazes with Artemis as a storm of black sakura petals began to swirl around the room, the sounds of an unholy dirge beginning to play in the background.
"OH BY SERENITY~!" Artemis exclaimed.
Mamoru straightened Haruka's bow tie and regarded himself in the mirror. He was wearing one of her black tuxedos, and scarily enough, even though it was slightly tailored for a more feminine build, it fit him rather perfectly.
The look on Mamoru's face was one of barely controlled disgust-- for while he looked elegant in the clothes, he was wading knee-deep in a garbage-dump like sea of dirty clothes, magazines, papers, and half-eaten food. The pile was so high that it rose to the top level of Haruka's bed, and there were only some well-worn paths in it that led to the various closets and doors in the room.
Eyes tearing up somewhat, Mamoru headed back for the door, but made the cardinal mistake of actually breathing in the air before making it out to the hallway.
Breathing in some of the fumes, he staggered and fell, his head getting buried in a bucket of scalding, burning bleach, or something like that.
Yanking himself upright, Mamoru quickly staggered out of the room, and down the stairs, where he bumped into Haruka.
Haruka was knocked back by the impact and fell down the stairs, landing safely on her bottom by some miracle of insane luck. Looking up, she saw... herself coming down the stairs, albeit with brighter blue eyes and slightly lighter hair.
"Holy [BLEEP] alien clone!" Haruka exclaimed in a panic.
"Whatever you say, dear," Michiru intoned tiredly, paying Haruka no mind as she helped adjust Minako's expensive low-cut dinner gown and Xadium just stood there nosebleeding.
Mamoru, for his part, was so out of it from the fumes that he just ran down the stairs and burst out the front door, knocking aside a slight young girl who had come bearing a box of cookies.
"Dyam dat hoit," Osaka Naru muttered, laying backwards on the ground, looking up into the front door of the Ten'Aino house. The box of cookies she carried were laced with her special sulfuric acid. Her plan had been to feed these to everyone and watch their insides melt as she got revenge for her Nephy-poo, who was stuck in the afterlife somewhere because of them.
Naru groaned and tried to get back up to her feet. But before she could do so, a large floating ball somewhat vaguely shaped like a cat's head floated in front of her.
"Hay," Naru began slowly, in her Southern / Bronx accent, "Yar dat Cheebeeusa goils' little toi rite? Hau kute!"
Luna-P looked down at Naru, its internal sensors registered a massive, massive store of potential energy in Naru's body. This one had an almost completely formed Sailor Crystal in her body, and was an almost unlimited wellspring of energy. It had all the materials needed to allow Luna-P continue its metamorphosis.
The ball turned away from her and floated down to the cookies, firing a blast of energy from its overly cute antenna and absorbing the box, powering up slightly.
"Hay, dose wah mai kookies!" Naru exclaimed, hopping to her feet and looking for the nearest object she could headbutt so as to release her mostly-loosened starseed and become the phage-senshi Sailor Supervolt.
Before she knew what was happening, Luna-P had headbutted HER hard, causing the starseed to pop out.
As the ground exploded beneath Naru and giant black tentacles began to leap out, signaling the beginning of her henshin, the Luna-P moved in and simply ate her starseed.
Naru's body vanished as her essence was absorbed into the inner workings of the ball, powering it up.
Lightning crackled around Luna-P as its energy levels shot up, and its programming took full effect, albeit slightly distorted. Whereas its previous instructions were to help take over the world for Mizunomics Corporation, it now desired dominion over creation.... for itself.
"i 4m j00r p4g4n g0d, b[b133p]cH35", the ball suddenly spoke, levitating up in the air, looking around, seeing the world now as nothing more than a breeding ground for the cattle it would eventually herd into its new order. They would die slowly, horribly, and then their souls would be its to command!
"H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H44H4" the ball laughed in l33tspeak as gathered even more power and prepared to embark on its course of chaos.
"hay wuz dere sum1 at da doar?" Chibiusa asked, dressed in a fairly elegant dark pink dinner dress. Looking down, she saw the ripped up pavement, but no immediate cause for its destruction, and looking up, she saw the Luna-P.
"hay lona-P wat r u dong ot hear?" Chibiusa asked.
Luna-P shuddered as its primary objective-- to protect and serve Princess Chibiusa-- kicked in, and it lost volitional control. Floating back down weakly, it was all the ball could do to settle back into Chibiusa's little hands.
"i 10v3 j00 my m4573r", Luna-P said helplessly, hating every word.
"Hloy sit u kan tlak!?" Chibiusa exclaimed, huggling the ball to her chest. More than Puu, more than Hotaru-chan, this ball had been her one constant friend since she was a little girl, and she loved it deeply.
Luna-P beeped slowly, tears of helpless hate running down its face.
"Are you READY YET, HARUKA?!" Michiru elegantly yelled from the livingroom.
"Just about!" Haruka yelled from her room.
"There you are, then," Michiru said to Minako, pinning an orange rose to her dress. "You look wonderful, as is to be expected from someone who has received my expert aid in this matter."
Minako smiled and bowed. "Arigatou."
Watching Minako as she bowed, Xadium nosebled, and was promptly slapped by Michiru.
"Ara, do stop that Xadium-san, or we'll have to make you wear a red Tuxedo."
Xadium rubbed his face and nodded.
"ror dat wuld b mror dstopid loking dan popaz parpale tazseedo," Chibiusa remarked.
"Speaking of which, where is Mamoru-san?" Michiru asked lightly. "He was such a wonderful dancer..." She covered her mouth and giggled elegantly.
"I think I saw the human pansy scrambling out of here a few moments ago," Jedite muttered. "It's too bad I hadn't been paying closer attention, otherwise I might have gotten a chance to re-enact the Christmas Massacre of the Silver Millennium all over again."
"Never bring that up again," Minako hissed, the bad memories of the past life bubbling to the surface of her mind unbidden.
"Hahahah what you senshi can't stand is that if it wasn't for your little magical rock, we would have successfully taken over your kingdom that day." Jedite crossed his arms and nodded.
"Aren't you forgetting," Sakura Xadium Aino pointed out, leaning on her shiny chrome monolith of a TARDIS casually, "that even had you completed your coup, Sailor Saturn would have smashed you to subatomic particles with a simple swipe of her Silence Glaive?"
"When did Sakura-chan get here?" Minako asked, looking her future daughter over. The girl was wearing a black variant of her leather vest, with gold buttons, as well as grey dress slacks, a white silk shirt, lime green tie and socks, as well as black and white golf shoes.
"And her damn alliteration," Jedite muttered, covering his ears. "Is it pathological or something?"*
* thanks Yaijinden
"I came to see the froopy fight unfold, folks," Sakura replied nodding to herself. "And alliteration is always awesome in application."
"By Metallia, she's doing it again," Jedite exclaimed, firing a bolt of dark energy at her.
"Fite?" Chibiusa asked, but no one heard her in the confusion.
Sakura withdrew her crysteel-bladed Katana in a flash and deflected the shot.
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH" Xadium cried out as the deflected shot fried him.
Sakura looked over at her father and winced. "Hey..." she mused. "I deflected that shot away from any person. Now the angle of incidence being equal to the angle of reflection, that roast requires a requisite ricochet..." she looked over to where the shot would have had to have rebounded from. "...r-chan?!"
rei.bot smirked, holding up her hand. "i deflected shot / frying xadium is fun / ha ha ha ha ha"
Minako helped Xadium up slowly, and dusted him off as parts of his tuxedo jacket fell apart pathetically.
"I'll go help him change," Minako said, leading him back to their TARDIS.
"No, I will," Sakura said, pushing her mother aside. "If *you* do, the two of you won't come out of there for hours."
Minako stuck out her tongue at her daughter. "Well it is our anniversary!! And you shouldn't be so rude to your mother!! Respect your elders!!"
"I'm over 11 times older than you are," Sakura replied, sticking her tongue out as well. "Be right backers."
"I'm ready!" Haruka exclaimed, walking down the stairs clad in her white tuxedo suit.
"Why aren't you wearing your black one?" Michiru demanded.
"It's not in the closet..." Haruka replied sheepishly. "I dunno what happened to it."
"I am NOT going to announce our formal engagement with you dressed in WHITE," Michiru hissed under her breath. Stalking off to her art studio, she came back with a bottle of black paint and a brush. "Now STAND STILL!" she commanded.
"Now if this devolves into some kind of ecchi body-painting exercise..." Jedite began slowly. "I--"
"You What," Michiru hissed as she carefully began dyeing the Tuxedo black.
"I have popcorn," the Dark General concluded with a wide grin, popping a soft, fluffed piece in his mouth as he held up a bag.
"Yes, but it's Haruka-san she'd be painting," Minako reminded him.
Jedite turned green and almost choked. To him Haruka was always "one of the guys."
Michiru continued to paint as a polyphonic ringing started to come from Haruka's pocket.
"Why is your pocket playing Speed Racer?" Michiru asked curiously.
"It's a cell phone," Haruka groaned. "Didn't you used to have one?"
"Never," Michiru replied. "Filthy things, beaming radiation into one's brain."
"Mr. Cell phone never break haruka brain" Haruka drooled.
"Will someone get that?" Michiru asked, the ringing irritating her greatly.
"I'll get it," Minako said, leaping forward and fishing in Haruka's pants pocket for it. She had always wanted to get her hands on Haruka's phone numbers list. Who knew how many famous people were in there!?
Xadium, now dressed in a new jacket, came out of his TARDIS with Sakura, chatting with her animatedly about quantum thermodynamics, his words trailing off as he found himself looking at the posterior of his wife, which was jutting out and swaying as she stood more or less in front of Haruka, doing something frantically.
"What..." Xadium began, not really wanting to know.
"No... clue..." Sakura replied dimly, sweatdropping.
Both Xadium and Michiru looked at Minako dimly as she bent over, totally focused, the sound of her shuffling in Haruka's pocket filling the deathly silent room.
"Ara, you seem eager to get in her pants," Michiru said coldly as Minako fished her hands deeper into Haruka's pocket to get the phone, giddy at her chance.
"You can get in there anytime, Neko-chan," Haruka muttered, looking over Minako's back and at her bottom, forgetting where she was for a second.
The air was filled with the CRACK of a stereo slap on Haruka's face courtesy of Michiru and Xadium.
"Got it!" Minako exclaimed, pulling out the phone and flipping it open, totally oblivious to everyone else. "Moshi Moshi?" She asked curiously as she put the phone to her ear.
Everyone watched Minako as she listened to whoever it was on the other end of the phone, her face wrinkling up a bit in confusion, her eyebrow raising.
Eventually, Minako nodded and muttered "H-Hai...", flipping the phone shut. Then, remembering her purpose, she flipped it open and tried to access the electronic address book. Unfortunately, she had no idea how to do this, and overloaded the phone, causing it to explode in her face.
"My new phone," Haruka cried.
"The addresses!" Minako cried.
"Did you at least get the message?" Haruka asked, almost crying-- in a manly way of course.
"Hai," Minako replied. "She said 'the eagle has laid the egg, and the viper vill be coming to vash your vindows vor $39.99.'"
"Kickass!" Haruka exclaimed, pumping her fist in the air and causing Michiru to miss a paint stroke, smearing her face with a paint moustache.
"I TOLD YOU NOT TO MOVE!" Michiru exclaimed, huffing and getting the turpentine.
Haruka and Michiru, Chibiusa and a well-dressed Elios, Professor Tomoe and Setsuna , Xadium and Minako, Sakura and rei.bot, and Jedite, who was glaring suspiciously at Luna-P, walked into the Observation Deck of Tokyo Tower, happy and chatting with one another, rivalries and grudges forgotten for this one wonderful night, a time of remembrance and anniversary.
Dazed and tired, Mamoru stumbled into Mo's Tavern. It had been years since he'd been back there-- he and Artemis used to share drinks there all the time, reminiscing about the perils of married life and future children. Not to mention that his best friend Furuhata Motoki ran the place-- and right now he felt like he could use a drink.
Inside the bar, Motoki sat slumped behind the counter, a bottle of rum in his hand, looking dimly at the glass aquarium where his pet turtle kamekichi had formerly resided.
"Efen ewe leffft mi..." Motoki said with a slur, raising a glass to the cage. "They all said it wuss an akkshident, but I kno better... you ran into that cat's jaws... on purposh... just to get away frum... mee.."
"Gawd..." Motoki murmured to himself. "I whish reika-chan wahs hear tio comfurt mi..."
Motoki flipped open his cellphone and dialed a number. It wasn't Reika's, but it was someone close enough.
"Mmm, isn't this wonderful?" Minako asked, resting her head on her husband's shoulder as they slow danced by one of the windows, looking down at the bright lights of Tokyo. "Just like our wedding day... looking down into a sea of stars."
Xadium nodded slowly. "It's hard to believe it's only been a year, even though we've known each other for longer..."
"It seems like a lifetime," Minako whispered softly, as they both looked towards their friends in the venter of the ballroom, Professor Tomoe waltzing with Setsuna, Chibiusa and Jedite arguing, Elios leering at Michiru, who was arguing-if happily-- with Haruka, and Sakura standing cooly in the back, just observing and taking notes for one of her interminable future anthropology papers.
"We're all such a wonderful family," Minako said smiling, frowning as her cellphone rang, the ringtone playing the Sailor V anime theme. Xadium started to say something.
"One second, itoshi, Minako said, placing a finger on Xadium's lips and pulling out her phone. "Moshi Moshi?"
On the other end of the line, there was deep, heavy breathing.
Minako frowned. Oh, not this bakayaro again. Tonight of all nights!
"Do it," the voice said throatily. "You know you want to."
"Don't ever call me again, kusotare!!" Minako yelled, snapping the phone shut.
"You all right, love?" Xadiuma sked softly, drawing Minako closer to him by the waist. "Who was that?"
"A Telemarketer," Minako lied. It wouldn't do anyone any good for him to know the truth. She kissed Xadium to take his mind off it and they danced above the lights of the city.
"Don't ever call me again, kusotare!!" the voice on the other end of the phone snapped before the line went dead.
"Oh yeah...." Motoki exhaled. "She sounds just like Reika in every way... even down to the dehumanizing insults..."
As Motoki took another swig from his bottle of liquor, Mamoru stumbled in and sat on a stool.
"Hey, Mo," Mamoru began. "Been a long time, man. I missed you."
Eyes blurred by the drink, Mo saw the blonde hair, blue eyes, and bishounen face of the person in front of him. Such luck!
"Haruka-kun!" Motoki exclaimed with joy, leaping over the bar, finally throwing caution to the wind, as he had nothing left to lose. "God, I've missed you!"
Without giving "Haruka" a chance to respond, Motoki planted his lips on hers and pressed her to the ground passionately.
It was not long before screams of passion gave way to screams of unholy terror, and then screams of "oh well, it's already gone this far, and its no worse than a turtle so..." and the night wore on.
Setsuna held her head for a moment, shivering.
"SOMETHING WRONG, SETSUNA-KUN?" Professor Tomoe asked, curiously.
"It was..." she began slowly, "as if his highness suddenly cried out in effeminate pain and then was suddenly silenced by a kiss to the lips."
"OH?" Tomoe replied, suddenly very interested in this vision.
"...a manly kiss," Setsuna continued.
"OH," Tomoe replied dimly, all interest gone. He turned his attention to Chibiusa, who was placing a cellphone call to someone who was screaming an awful lot on the other end of the line.
Near the center of the room, with sakura petals and soft music all around them, Michiru and Haruka danced in a whirpool of watercolour effects.
"Don't you think it's time, Haruka?" Michiru asked softly, her voice full of love and warmth.
"R-Right here?" Haruka gulped, as Michiru nodded softly, eye brimming with tears.
"In front of everybody?" Haruka asked, throat going dry.
Michiru nodded. "The world deserves to see."
"Uh... ok..." Haruka nodded,, bringing one hand up to Michiru's shoulder and starting to slide off one of the shoulder straps on her dress.
"TAKE IT ALL OFF, BABY!" someone boomed from the audience, which seemed to have grown greatly over the past few moments.
"IDIOT!" Michiru hissed archly, delicately batting Haruka's hand away and re-adjusting her strap, "I meant our engagement announcement!"
"Oh yeaaah..." Haruka muttered, sweatdropping.
Michiru looked around in confusion, whispering, "these people don't look like the cultured elite... what's going on...?"
"Oh damn, they're here!" Haruka noted with childish glee.
"They...?" Michiru asked dimly, veins beginning to pop out of her forehead as Haruka loosened her bow tie and jumped up on a table, just as the lights went out and a giant spotlight illuminated her.
"Hello my people!" Haruka boomed into a microphone. "Tonight, for the first time ever, the answer to everyone's question since the end of the Sailor Moon S anime, for which we have STILL not gotten royalties!"
"No... she didn't..." Michiru muttered weakly, losing the ability to stand, dropping weakly into a chair next to Setsuna, who cryptically smirked.
"Messiah of Light! Messiah of Darkness! We know these words," Haruka boomed, "but not who the TRUE Messiah is!" She raised her fist in the air and then pointed to one end of the observation deck. "On the one hand, we have Neko-chan Tsukino Usagi, a/k/a the Blonde Bonehead Messiah of Light--"
Neo-Queen Serenity burst into the room dressed in tight, very revealing lingerie, complete with wings sprouting out of the back. "CHIBIUSA-CHAN TOLD ME MAMO-CHAN WAS HERE WAITING TO SERVICE ME!" she screeched.
"Mohshshshshshshsshhsshs" Chibiusa laughed darkly.
"And on the other," Haruka continued nervously, hoping her timing was perfect-- but she needn't have worried as she was in public and her perfection field was in full effect, "the gothic Master of Disaster, Messiah of Silence--"
"Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuggggggggh!" Artemis screamed as he flew into the observation deck from the other direction, the dark sounds of a demonic dirge following him as black sakura petals whirled into the room, revealing a tall, well-endowed, lethally armed Mistress 9 clad in the traditional black leather quasi-fetish gear of the Tairon Hive.
"Mistress NINE!" Haruka concluded as the crowd burst into applause.
Mistress 9 swung her silence scythe around several times, smiling brightly as it cut through the air.
Professor Tomoe cackled. "NOW *THAT'S* MY GIRL! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!"
"And up above," Haruka began again as the spotlights focused on a man tied up in rope, "the prize for the evening, Chiba Mamoru!"
"Two Harukahas?" a drunken Motoki asked before passing out, slamming his head on a table on the way down.
"Mamo-chan!" Usagi screamed, running forward and pulling out her Eternal tier from her cleavage as she leaped up to cut him down.
"The man-meat is mine," Mistress 9 growled, leaping up and rotating her Scythe around, locking it with the tier and sending both women crashing down into a pit of mud, sending a small wave of filth at everyone.
"When did the wrestling ring filled with mud get there?" Minako asked, wiping some of the mud out of her eyes.
"Now now, Ladies," Haruka chastised, "we wouldn't want you two to get hurt, so we'll just be taking these weapons away--"
Leaping forward at super speed, Haruka jumped over the ring and grabbed both the tier and the scythe, landing smartly on her feet.
"You can use these instead," she said with a grin, tossing two pillows into the ring.
"B[BLEEP]ch!" Usagi screamed, grabbing one pillow and smashing Mistress 9 in the side of it. "Stay away from my HUSBAND!"
Setsuna smiled as she saw the fight begin. Now, the Queen would not be paying close enough attention to the state of her future empire.
Vanishing, she headed to Crystal Tokyo to free the Animamate Senshi and begin the long march to glory.
"Is that really Hotaru...?" Artemis asked in awe as Mistress 9 raised up from the mud slowly, the soft goopy mess dripping from her ample curves as she brought her fists up over her head, smashing Usagi on the top of the head, sending her splat into the mess.
Minako instinctively covered Xadium's and Artemis' eyes with both her hands.
"Place your bets! Place your bets!" Haruka yelled as the mud exploded outwards from the ring, Serenity hovering in midair and turning slowly like Trinity from the Matrix, wrapping her legs around Mistress 9's head and jerking to the left, smashing her sideways into the goop.
Elios just stood at attention, unable to sit down.
Michiru fumed silently as the brawl continued, the two women now fighting hand-to-hand, clawing and tearing and ripping, delicate lingerie giving way under the relentless assaults, with nothing but mud protecting their modesty, assuming they had any to begin with.
Mamoru looked down from his sky-high bonds, and began to nosebleed. He couldn't help it. The sight was too much for him, even conditioned as he was to the constant presence of magical girls with revealing transformation sequences.
Some of Mamoru's blood landed on Mistress 9's lips and she tasted it, becoming all the more vicious and aggressive.
"X-chan..." Minako began slowly... "Mamoru-san's nosebleeding a lot... even more than you on our honeymoon..."
Xadium nodded numbly, unable to see anything with her hand over his eyes, but nosebleeding a bit at the memory she evoked.
Mamoru writhed and struggled. He was bleeding a lot... too much! But there they were, nude, writhing, slippery, arching, clawing... so... unbelievably feminine...
Dual streams of blood gushed forth and continued gushing as the women fought below, not even noticing the crimson rain over their heads.
"Without that stone of yours you could never have defeated me!" Mistress 9 screamed, wrapping her hands around Usagi's throat and strangling.
"One quart... two quarts... three quarts... four..." Sakura counted from the back somewhat analytically, only dimly interested in the overall result of the confrontation in the ring.
"DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!" Usagi screeched, having broken out of the hold and pinning mistress 9 in the mud, body arched over hers as Mistress 9's legs wrapped around her back.
Mamoru saw the sight and blood exploded out of his nose as his vision began to dim.
"Man this rocks!" Haruka exclaimed with glee, checking out the cut she was getting of the bets being placed.
"Usako...." Mamoru said dramatically as his blood pressure dropped to nothing and he went limp, dead.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Usagi screeched overdramatically as she felt the other half of her die. Mistress 9 took the chance to uppercut her and knock her out of the ring.
"We have a Winnah!" Haruka exclaimed triumphantly.
"Mamoru-san is dead!" Minako exclaimed, shocked.
"We have a Winnah!" Haruka reiterated.
"Onigay ganzushoe!111" chibiusa screamed, worried now more about her future existence than the survival of her father, and a beam of light lashed forth, striking Mamoru and reviving him, his blood now replaced with a kind of pink sugar.
Mamoru fell from the ceiling, smack dab on top of Usagi, who slapped him silly. "HOW DARE YOU GET TURNED ON BY SOMETHING LIKE THIS!!"
Mamoru replied by pinning her in the ring and kissing her passionately.
As the scene there rapidly devolved into cheesy hentai, Mistress 9 arched up, a rock in her hands, ready to split open the lovers' skulls.
"NOOO HOTARU!" Artemis wailed, leaping forward and landing on Mistress 9's chest, gaining purchase on one of her... on one of them, anyway.
"Hotaru, please come back!" Artemis wailed, burying his head in her cleavage. "Please come back to me, I love you!"
As Artemis exclaimed those words, everyone in the arena went deadly silent in shock, staring at the scene, slackjawed.
"Did he just say..." Minako whispered as Xadium numbly nodded.
"I LOVE YOU!! Ever since you moved into Mina's house, and took care of me after she got married, and especially after the divorce trial when we spent so much time together, god I love you!!"
The cat wailed, his body glowing as he slowly became humanoid.
"That's more of him than I ever wanted to seem" Minako muttered darkly.
"Not according to 'Submission Venus, yo" Elios began just before Xadium punched him out.
"L-Love..." Mistress 9 began slowly, the word registering in her brain, even as Artemis became fully human, resting against her, arms around her.
"I love you," Artemis repeated, kissing her softly.
"Ok, so when Chibiusa does that with Elios, or Luna with Spaceman, it's creepy and sick, right?" Jedite asked. "So what makes this different, again?"
"Nothing," Michiru replied flatly, her dreams of an elegant engagement announcement getting flushed ever further down the drain.
"Come back to me," Artemis whispered through the kiss, as Mistress 9's body began to shrink, and return to Hotaru's.
"That part can stay!" Elios bawled as Hotaru's chest also resumed its previous boyish dimension.
Artemis kept up the kiss as Hotaru slowly came to.
"A.. Artemis..." Hotaru began, wide-eyed in shock as she took in her surroundings. "Why are you a man? And why am I ... n---nude... in mud?!" Her face flitted between surprise, shock, horror and rage. Instinctively, she hauled off a punch and sent Artemis skidding across the ring.
"ARRRRRRTTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEEMIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSS!" She screamed, eyes glowing purple, the silence glaive forming in her hands.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Artemis cried out, transforming into his feline form and bailing out of the arena at lightning speed.
"Ugh," Michiru grunted in disgust, standing up and causing a spotlight to shine on her, mercifully giving Hotaru the chance to get some clothes on, "Anyway, everyone, I know this has been known in some circles for some time now, but Haruka and I are engaged to be married this year."
"But you're both girls!" Someone screamed from the back.
"YOU HAVE JUST SEEN A CAT FEELING UP A YOUNG WOMAN. TELL ME WHICH MAKES MORE SENSE!" Michiru snapped back.
"Sorry," the anonymous person replied, abashed.
"Congratulations, Haruka-san, Michiru-san!!" Minako cheered, leading the way as everyone pulled out bottles of champagne and showered the happy couple in bubbly.
"About damn time too, yo!" Elios replied, giving them a thumbs up.
"And with all this cash we can have a bigass wedding," Haruka grinned.
"MY cash," Hotaru snapped, pulling the bills away as Haruka's face fell. "Cash made off my personal denigration and humiliation."
Haruka looked at Hotaru like a puppy dog that had just soiled the family carpet.
Hotaru frowned for a solid moment, then smiled and thrust the cash back into Haruka's hand. "Salutations and congratulations--" she pumped her fist in the air. "--From the TRUE MESSIAH!" She did her best to cheer.
"Hell yeah!" Haruka exclaimed, grabbing Hotaru's other hand and lifting it aloft.
As everyone cheered and celebrated, the Suburban Senshi family grew closer than it ever had before...
...And in space, Luna-P flew into high orbit....
"500n4 11 j00r 50u15 wi11 b3 min3, b[b133p]cH35! pr3pr 2 j0in my 4rmy 0pH d4rkn355! H4H4H4H4H44H4H4H4H4H4Ha!"
"And that," Sakura said with a smile, "is how that happened."
The older Chibiusa nodded, her memories clear once more. "I remember now," she said brightly, wincing at the image of Artemis and Hotaru in the mud along with her parents. "Though I wish I didn't."
The Sovereign of the Imperium stood regally. "I sense it... the tide has finally turned," she said with a smile.
"But the Ocean still looms at our door, Serenity," Sakura responded slowly.
"Then we will face the waves together, as we have so many times before," Serenity replied softly. "Shall we go, Sakura-chan?"
Sakura stood and saluted for a moment, and the two took their leave of Planet Sedna, to see what remained of the Imperium.