Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply. I'm not making
money from writing, and you know you don't want to sue an 11th
grader with no money anyhow. Especially since I'm not trying to infract
anyone's copyright on these lovely characters. Some of the lines said by Rubeus
actually belong to Prince Dimando, as quoted from the Alex Glover's manga
translations. The ones at the end are quoted directly from the translation to
act 20, volume 6.
Knowledge
of the manga version of the Black Moon arc will not hurt you. The short version
is, Mars, Mercury and Jupiter get kidnapped by their Ayakashi sister
counterpart (who dies during the battle) and are taken to Nemesis. You can
survive if you know that much.
There's
a short glossary at the bottom, should despair strike. Understanding the math
adds to the story… you don't have to ponder long upon terms you've never seen
before, since there will be no sudden epiphany, but try to make some sense out
of things.
This
is more of an experiment in writing than anything else… the style is strange,
and changes from paragraph to paragraph; there are changes in verb tense within
paragraph, leaping from past to present back to past; the storyline itself is
somewhat strange, but I guess there is some sort of logic to it. I hope there
is some sort of logic to it, anyhow. Which, incidentally, explains the title.
Enjoy.
Logic
(or
e^(i*pi)+1 = 0)
(written
by narie the waitress)
*****
e^(i*pi) = -1
*****
She is drowning in the water. It's all
around her; can't see a thing, can't breathe, can't scream, can't do anything
but hope it will be over soon.
*****
Outside the watery sphere, Sailors
Moon, Jupiter and Venus stand, watching in anger and helplessness as Beruche's
body becomes nothing, but the sphere still lasts, still holds Mizuno Ami inside
it. The Ai no Senshi aims a Rolling Heart Vibration at it, but it doesn't do
anything... the blue orb absorbs it with no problem, welcomes the energy it
provides and strengthens its hold on the soldier of ice.
Then he appears out of nowhere, leering
at them, flaunting his catch in front of their eyes and vanishing before any of
them can react.
The feeling inside them is identical to
the one they experienced a week ago, when Hino Rei vanished in front of their
eyes in a very similar manner.
They have no choice but to watch. Ami
tries to breath inside the sphere, but they can tell that she is drowning, that
she is running out of air and will not last long. As Rubeus disappears with her
in tow, all three girls hope that where ever it is that he is taking her, he
allows her to leave the water bubble, and that she is alive when they find her.
Because, most certainly they will.
As they will find Rei. The Sailor Team
is unstoppable, and damned be those demons from wherever it is they come from.
Love and Justice will triumph over Evil.
Always have, always will.
It's an universal constant.
Good Evil.
And late at night, from her room in the
city, Tsukino Usagi looks at the bright, pristine Moon, veiled in clouds and
shrouded in darkness.
*****
And late at night, from his ghostly
city, the spectral King of Earth looks sadly at the dark object that obscures
his view of the Moon, in all of its pristine brightness, shrouded in clouds and
veiled in darkness.
*****
1
equals 1
and
that's all there is to it
or,
if you must, you can call it the loneliest number
*****
She could breath now, and she was
thankful for that. Her fuku was as dry as when she first transformed, which
surprised her, because she could remember the watery prison, although she had
spent a very short time inside it. And most of that time had been spent trying
to breathe, anyhow, not to focus on her surroundings.
She looked around her; there was
nothing of interest. The room was barren but functional: a bed in one corner, a
desk, with assorted paraphernalia on top of it, on the opposite one, a chair
between the two of them, a dark, thin-but-not-cheap carpet covering the ground
and a door leading to who knew where. No use trying to open it, because she
could hear the footsteps at the other side; quick, nervous back-and-forth
pacing. They were the only sound around her. She couldn't even hear herself
breathe, for some strange reason.
The room lacked a window; the light
being provided by... what? Her eyes searched around the eerie room, looking for
anything that radiated light, but found nothing. The ceiling was uniform, and
so were the walls. Smooth and unbroken by anything, unadorned. Simply existing.
The bed was made, the clean, white
sheets stretched over the mattress tightly, a pillow at the head of the bed,
serenely, inviting her to lie down and rest, and to hope that when she woke up
she would simply be lying on the ground, with her friends looking at her, worry
and relief etched in their eyes, but nothing else.
She moved to the desk. Atop it lay
scattered pieces of paper, filled with stylized katakana and hiragana, no
kanji. Then diagrams of a foreign city, filled with little markings and
circlings. In a corner sat a miniature chess set, as sleek and functional as anything
else around her. Lacking a personality; ghostly dim.
Her exploration of the room concluded,
there was nothing for her to do except to return to her original posture: a
semi heap in the ground, her back leaning against the wall, knees drawn up, hands
nervously resting on her lap, head between knees.
*****
Wondering where she is, the terror of
the situation beginning to permeate her defenses she pulls out her computer,
and is reassured by it. She flicks it open, with a long-practiced movement, and
her hands dance their silent dance over the keyboard, the screen displaying
everything it is asked for as soon as it is requested.
Let's see... the air is breathable,
even if lacking in oxygen, at least according to what she is used to. But she's
not going to die soon, and that's what counts. The temperature is of 15.7
degrees Celsius, pretty acceptable. The gravity is .3457 Gs. Altitude is...
Wait. Hold it. Backtrack. Rewind.
Pause.
.3457 Gs??
Not good.
She is most definitively somewhere else
than Earth, because gravity is a constant and on Earth it equals one, and
that's all there is to it. There's no arguing it.
She switches over to some obscure
function, and asks for her current position in regards to the Sun, the Earth,
the Moon and Mercury, the last one being only out of past-life homesickness.
The computer screen flashes white for
one second, and then goes pitch black.
She hits a key, any key. No response.
She closes the computer, and opens it again. No response. She lets go of it,
and watches it vanish into another dimension. She pulls it back out, opens it
again and is rewarded with the black screen. She tries to do that again.
Nothing. And the damned thing doesn't even use Windows.
She tries to hold the tears back. She
blinks quickly and holds the liquid in. Success. Her eyes are watery, but her
cheeks are dry.
The door opens, and he, the... monster
who took Rei from them steps through, smiling cruelly at her, the mark on his
forehead contrasting with his pale, pale skin. She looks at it carefully, and
wonders why the upside down black crescent, mocking the one on her princess'
forehead. She is afraid. He can overpower her, without a doubt. And he wouldn't
feel the slightest remorse if he had to kill her. He'd probably be glad. She can
see it in his eyes, as they stare at her with undisguised amusement, their
glints of metallic cruelty sparkling for her to see. He knows she's afraid,
he's happy she's afraid, and he wants to make sure she'll remain afraid.
"Sailor Mercury... Seishin no Senshi,
if you will. I am very pleased to meet you."
He is mocking her. She can see it is
his eyes, his smile and in every single gesture he makes. And she wonders why
he is here. What he wants from her. She can think about that forever, but
ignoring him does not seem a wise option. Trying to hide her fear, she raises
her head, meets his eyes and tries not to shiver.
Swallowing nervously she replies, her
voice destroying whatever show of confidence her words might have carried.
"Indeed. Where is Sailor Mars?"
He looks at her disdainfully, amused by
her behavior, but dances around her question. "You will come with me, Sailor
Mercury."
As he leads her through the spiraling
hallways of the maze they are in they are both silent, until one of the faceless
people they walk by stops to say something to Rubeus.
"Another Senshi? What do you plan to do
with her, Rubeus-san?"
"The Prince will decide what he wants
to do with her. I would take her directly to keep her friend company, in the
core, before they die, but I want her to see the projection room first."
The other figure's eyes shine with
cruelty and hatred towards Ami. "Oh, I'm sure that it will be interesting for
her… "
And out of that conversation only one
thing makes it past Ami's fear.
Rei!
Rei-chan is alive!
All she needs to do now is find her,
and then they will figure out how to leave. The fact that she is most likely on
a different planet is ignored by her mind, as she gives in to happy fantasies.
She shakes her head.
And returns to reality.
Reality bites. She feels him urging her
onward, making her move so he can show her even more of their perverse, twisted
plan.
But there is hope in her still. Her
friends, back home. They will not allow them to succeed.
They reach another chamber, after more
twists and turns through the labyrinth.
"I don't know why I am bothering to
show you this. You will not be alive to see it. And neither will you be able to
tell Sailor Moon, or any of your other friends about it.
"But, since you're the Senshi of the
Mind, the one that is not pathetically stupid out of the whole of you, I guess
you should know. So your death will hurt even more, when you know what you
failed to prevent. You can spend the few days you have left living with that
guilt." The smirk works itself into his voice, even if it is not visible.
The chamber, both impressive and
oppressive, spreading out endlessly, supported by countless dark columns,
greater than any room she recalled having been in before, with silent figures
lining the walls, moving quickly, purposefully. Nothing around her indicates
carefreeness, or freedom. It's all a cold, cruel, antiseptic order.
He leads her onward, violently,
stopping in front of an empty pedestal. One of his hands reaches down to his
pocket and produces a small crystalline something, buttons included. He pushes
one of them and the pedestal suddenly comes to life.
A beautiful city of glass shimmers in
front of her. She makes a motion to touch it; it is beautiful. So beautiful,
but her hand goes right through it.
"Oh gods… even you are
stupid. It's a hologram, haven't you ever seen one? Useless senshi... your
queen's stupidity must be contagious."
Her hand quickly returns to its
position, hanging limply at her side. A hologram… with this definition… a small
part of her wishes she could sit down with whoever made it and talk with that
person for hours on end. Oh, to create something this precise and beautiful,
and…
A larger part of her listens to what
Rubeus is saying, however, and watches at the image in the pedestal changes in
time with his narrative. "This is Crystal Tokyo, capital of Earth. The Golden
Empress, Serenity, rules over it as does her Ginzuishou." That word, said with
such hatred really piques her attention. She dedicates her full attention to
him, moving her gaze away from the hologram, breaking its spell. "All those who
live there have unnaturally long lifespans. We didn't like it. We wanted
nothing to do with that Earth. We would create a new Earth. To the past, before
the Moon Kingdom's influence started. We went to the past. We would rewrite
history. This is our magnificent Replay operation. The recreation of history."
His voice takes on a foreign tone, what he is saying are not his words as much
as a memorized speech, but there is still a passion inherent to his words. A
malicious smile appears upon his face. "Yes. Our Replay operation. Crystal
Tokyo is no more, Senshi. It lies in waste, its people dead and its queen
encased in her crystal. Our troops triumphed over it. Endymion and the Senshi
lie dead, the Queen lies asleep and the Rabbit is gone. But we will find the
rabbit, and complete our operation. And no matter what, we shall triumph, and
return the Earth to its natural state.
"The Ginzouishou disrupts what it touches.
We shall destroy it alongside with the Rabbit with the power of the
Jakozuishou, and then the Earth shall return to the right path. We will change
history. The Black Moon family, of Nemesis. We shall rewrite history, and lead
Earth back to its rightful path."
The deep evil laughter the cynical part
of her mind expects does not come. Rubeus' eyes swarm out of focus for a
moment, as he loses himself in his own visions of glory.
She shudders once. Rubeus looks down at
her, returning to the here and now, smirk in tow He thinks she is afraid, when
in truth she is being assaulted by sorrow and anger.
Anger at these horrible, monstrous
beings who toy with the lives of so many. Before there had been some warmth in
her heart towards them, as she didn't know their motifs, but what Rubeus has
told her now has shattered whatever absolution she might have been willing to
grant them. Daring to play with history, to destroy so many lives! Oh, how can
they, inhuman beasts that they are. Even if they look human, they surely are
not; they have been wrapped past anything that resembles human kindness.
And what pains her the most is that she
can do nothing about any of this.
She can hear an evil chuckle from
somewhere inside herself.
Her dislike for Rubeus reaches a peak
level just as his hand grabs her shoulder tightly and pushes her away from the
fascinating hologram, now displaying a wrecked mockery of the city of crystal
from before. He leads her back to the room, roughly shoving her in after
nodding curtly to the guards outside, who in turn bow their heads to him.
"You will stay here until our Prince
decides what to do with you. He might have an use for that supposed
intelligence of yours."
The door closes behind him.
The bed is looking very appealing to
her.
Surrendering to her fatigue she moves
away from the door and to the bed, and lies down, face up, thinking to herself
that it does not matter whether she falls asleep or not, because if anyone in
this forsaken world wants to kill her they will do it no matter what.
Her fuku seems a ridiculous choice for
an outfit as she shivers in the cold prevailing in this place.
*****
i
equals the square root of negative one
no
number, when multiplied by itself, gives –1 as its answer
so, i
does not exist. not in this universe.
call
it an imaginary number.
so
many people do already, it's not going to hurt if you do it too.
*****
"I am Sailor Tangerine, defender
of love and tanginess throughout the Universe! In the name of the Great
Tangerine Tree, I shall punish you!" A young girl, about 15 years of age,
wearing a bright orange sailor fuku appeared out of the middle of nowhere, a
tangerine made out of patchwork sewn up in the place where the ribbon would
have been, her bright orange hair pushed back by two strategically placed hair
clips.
"I am Sailor Lemon, defender of
peace and citric crops throughout the Universe! On behalf of that which is
sour, I shall punish you!" The second girl must have been around 10. She
had bright yellow hair, reaching just about her shoulders. Not blond, yellow.
As befitting, lemon yellow. A shiny, lemon shaped piece of yellow vinyl was
sewn up to her fuku, its short yellow skirt covering almost no skin at all.
"I am Sailor Grapefruit, who
watches over those whose life is bitter! In the name of all those whose
suffering you have caused, I shall punish you!" This one must have been 13
years old. Her orangish-pink hair trailed behind her, like a cape. A round
patch of cloth, made up of an impossible to define color replaced the ribbon in
her outfit. Her skirt was pink, but with an orangish tint, and as short as the
others. She was wearing platform shoes, which made her about four inches higher
than she would have normally been.
"I am Sailor Lime, defender of all
that is delicate and juicy! In the name of the Citric Family, I shall punish
you!" The last of the four must also have been 13. She had a lovely face,
and long lime-green hair, which, as a part of her transformation, had been
braided by invisible hands, although with nothing to hold it back, it soon came
undone. As is to be expected, a plastic-looking lime substituted the ribbon in
her fuku, which looked exactly identical to that of Sailor Tangerine, if it
weren't for the color scheme, of bright greens.
"We are the Citric Sailors! For
the love of all things we hold dear, we shall punish you, and send you back to
the place were you came from!" All four Citric Sailors struck a pose,
smiled and looked around for rabid admirers.
Then they ran around and surrounded
their target, a youma shaped like a giant wheat weed, conveying an expression
of astonishment in an very credible manner.
"TANGERINE ACID SURROUND!"
"LEMON SOURNESS ENGULF!"
"GRAPEFRUIT BITTERNESS
AFFECT!"
"LIME EXTREME BLISSFULNESS!"
The youma felt the effect of being hit
by acid and three unidentified substances, one right after the other.
A figure watched from a nearby rooftop,
and chose that moment to make her grand entrance.
"And I!" she stressed the 'I'
very heavily "I am Sailor Marmalade, protector of all things sweet in this
universe! Impersonating one of the food groups is a crime no one should ever
commit. Think of the confusion it could cause! On behalf of the food groups, I
will punish you!" The fifth one
was the scariest of them all. She also wore a normal fuku, with something that
looked suspiciously like a sticker from a marmalade jar in the middle of her
breast, replacing her ribbon. Her red hair, which shone gold here and there was
held back by nothing, and thus, kept on falling over her eyes, which were as
red as her skirt, which itself was not that far away from being blood colored.
The Citric Sailors stepped away and
gave way to their leader, who smiled sweetly, and then screamed "MARMALADE
STICKY COATING!"
The youma collapsed and turned into
ashes, not before being covered with a reddish substance, which seemed to
impair any movement.
The five girls gave a flashy smile to
their audience and disappeared amidst a flash of lighting.
In their places, a tangerine, a lemon,
a grapefruit, a lime and a jar of "Smucker's Strawberry Preserve"
stood.
The audience clapped and cheered for
more.
These Citric Soldiers were just… great.
Of course, the fact that strawberry is
not a citrus, much less when turned into jam didn't bother anyone.
When you have five girls in fukus,
defending love, justice and tanginess, who cares about what they stand for?
Nevertheless, they faded into
nothingness as Mizuno Ami came to, once again, in the room with the desk, the
bed, and the chess set.
Laying besides her she could make out a
jar, filled to the brim with something that felt like water, smelt like water
and that she assumed to be water.
Next to that was another recipient,
flatter and wider, holding something she hoped was edible. She would have scanned
it with her computer if she could, but it has refused to appear on her hands
the last time she tried to summon it into this reality.
She felt an odd twinge envelop her.
When she looked down at herself, her skin was blazing blue, and her fuku
vanishing in front of her eyes. A few seconds later, she was wearing her school
uniform, the clothing she had been wearing before transforming yesterday.
Yesterday. How would her mother deal
with this? What would her friends tell her, to explain her absence? Did she
even know Ami was gone?
Calculus equations fleetingly crossed
her mind, but were replaced with more important thoughts. She was powerless
now. Completely, and utterly so. Even if she found Rei, there would be no way
for the two of them to escape.
As a little consolation prize, her
henshin pen appeared in her hand, unrequested. She fingered it sadly, looking
it over, wondering where all the power she wielded was store. Such a tiny,
insignificant object. Such a powerful object.
She looked around the room once again.
The maps of the city she now knew was Crystal Tokyo laid undisturbed atop the
table, as she had found them. The chess set did likewise.
Her fingers made a reaching motion for
the chess set, delicately picking up one pawn. She twirled it in her hands
unconsciously, and then replaced it. She repeated the same strange ritual with
all the pieces, then picked up the board, placed it on the ground and started
playing against herself. Solely to pass the time.
As she is deep within her fifth game
(black wins 3 to 1) the door opens, and a woman with green hair steps through
the threshold, not noticing her. She picks up the scattered papers with some
grief, visible mostly in the manner in which she carries herself. Ignoring Ami,
she opens drawer after drawer, picking up whatever the owner left in them. As
she walks out of the room she turns around and fixes her dark green eyes on
Ami's, stopping dead in her tracks.
"You killed her. Rest assured that it
will not be forgotten. Nor forgiven. We do not forgive one who kills an
Ayakashi sister, Senshi. This planet will be your grave, as yours was
Beruche's." Her voice is steady and lined with hatred. "I, Petz, shall kill the
Senshi and bring the Rabbit to the Wiseman and to our ruler, Prince Dimando!"
Her eyes shine with reverence for a second as she mentions the mystery prince,
no longer nameless. Then they are clouded with anger once again as she sends
one last contemptuous glance in Ami's way and leaves the room briskly.
A tear escapes Ami's eye as she sits on
the ground, blinking steadily.
*****
This place was getting to her, dimming
her. She fingered the useless henshin pen with apprehension, afraid of what
would happen next.
The silence that refused to lift
itself, regardless of anything; the odd light illuminating the crystalline
rooms; the strange language spoken by the people around her... At least Beryl's
generals had spoken Japanese with no problem. The humans here didn't. There was
an accent in their speech, a strange reluctantly to pronounce certain sounds as
they were supposed to be pronounced. And outside her door, when she heard
voices, they always spoke to one another in a strange way. There were words she
didn't recognize, words she couldn't understand and strange grammar rules, all
of them part of the pseudo Japanese spoken around her.
The door to the
room opened, allowing in an extra slice of light, accompanied by the shadow of
the person who stood at the other side. Dark hair, pale skin, but nothing else
she could see. Simply another product of this planet. It took Ami a few seconds
to shake the drowsiness and dullness off her, and attentively listen to her
speaker.
"…Nemesis no
Senshi, but then again, you already knew that, didn't you?" Bitter and angry,
unidentified still, but undoubtedly female… "No. My sisters and I share the
powers of the Senshi of Nemesis. But it was different one day. You think this
dark planet is just a recent addition to your Solar System? It isn't. Nemesis
was the 10th planet of the Silver Millennium, until the Millennium
fell to Metallia." The Japanese was fluent, but the accent still remained.
"The Nemesis
Senshi, the Koudou no Senshi. Last of the Outer Senshi, not as powerful as
Saturn or Pluto, and lacking a Talisman. Your Golden Empress never liked this
forsaken planet, nor did her mother. Sailor Nemesis existed solely to keep the
Nemesians happy, as a last resort, should the others fall. But that was just
propaganda; everyone knew that Serenity never did trust Nemesis enough to fully
empower their Senshi. And that it would make no difference whether she was
alive or dead.
"And so the
Millennium fell, and so did Sailor Nemesis, and since then there has never been
a Koudou no Senshi, although if there were one, she would probably be the Kyuushuu
no Senshi nowadays, for Serenity decided that Nemesis did not deserve a Senshi,
not after her so called betrayal of the Millennium when Beryl came. Sailor
Nemesis died when the Millennium fell, and she was not reincarnated. Your
Golden Empress never liked this forsaken planet, never cared about it.
"And now Petz is
dead, and I, Caraveras, am the only remaining sister.
"And I shall kill
the Senshi, and bring the rabbit to the Prince of Nemesis."
*****
0
equals 0 equals nothing.
a sad
constant, yes?
*****
"Now, let's see, let's see. I need a
fitting line here, don't I? Something to go down well with you, or for you to
think about. Maybe something to show my humanity? But that would ruin the
stereotype, wouldn't it, Seishin no Senshi?
"Nevertheless, it is only fitting…
Watashiga korekara surukotowo yurushitene"
And he left, closing the door behind
him, the room instantly wrapped in night. And the woman walked side by side
with him, hanging off his shoulder, and he kissed her, and she rubbed her hands
along him, and that was the last she ever saw of Caraveras. Rubeus she would
see one more time. And then she slowly got up, and tentatively tried to see
anything in the darkness around her, but failed to do so. The faint sound of
something breathing came close from her left, but she could make out nothing.
The smell of rotting flesh suddenly drifted towards her, overpowering anything
else she might have been feeling, and for a few moment she stood still, eyes
closed, pretty mouth curved into a pretty grimace, trying to ward the stench
off, and refusing to accept the limits of her underground prison.
She opened her eyes again, or at least,
she thought so. Holding a hand in front of her face she waved it to and fro,
trying to see something, but gave up.
Letting her hearing guide her she moved
cautiously towards the left, deliberate step after deliberate step, wishing
that there was a wall she could reach out for, trying to forget all about that
story she had read involving pendulums, pits and walls that moved inwards.
She froze suddenly, prey to a sudden
attack. Breathing, it was so hard, it hurt. The pain, the smell, the room, the
darkness, the night, the place, the everything. The darkness spun around her
invisibly, coming closer, leering, snickering, mocking.
*****
The seconds fickle by, carelessly, one
after the other, in their steady march.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The seconds fickle by, carelessly, one
after the other, in all their randomness.
One after the other.
*****
She regained control of herself after a
few moments of uttermost panic, but those were forgotten as coughing came from
her left. Hope renewed.
Five or six steps later she stopped and
reached down, noticing a change in the texture of the ground. It had suddenly
become silky. Shutting her eyes tightly she ran one finger over the ground, and
trembled momentarily as she realized that she was indeed standing on someone's
hair. Her hand followed one single strand down to its end, and then back again,
to the scalp of the owner. She sighed in relief when she found real warm skin,
and not a pale imitation.
"Rei-chan?"
The figure didn't move in any way,
nothing indicating its aliveness except from the slow breathing, like that of
something hibernating.
"Rei-chan?" More frantic now, she shook
the girl slightly after having located a shoulder to shake.
"Rei-chan, please, wake up" The shaking
itself became more frantic, until a hoarse cough escaped the other girl.
Rei-chan did not respond with anything
more than that.
*****
pi
equals the circumference of a circle over the diameter of the circle
if a
circle has radius x, the diameter equals 2x
and
the circumference is 3.141592265359x
so pi
equals 3.14159265359 yadda yadda yadda.
*****
Rei coughs again. She has not eaten
anything for a long time. The underground prison, the Room of Darkness, this
room is called. A blue haired man mentioned it to Rubeus when they came across
him, in the room with the hologram. He looked disapprovingly at Rubeus,
commented on the sheer stupidity of parading Sailor Mars around the city and
then told him to take her to the underground prison, and leave her there to
die. The prince would appreciate that, he said. They wanted dead Senshi.
Not that Ami knows any of that. Given
that Rei is not awake to tell her…
Yet here they are, the two of them,
trapped in a circular room. There is nothing to eat or to drink, and there will
be nothing to eat or to drink in the near future, at least for them.
If all were to go according to plan
(their plan, not that of the Senshi) the creatures that occasionally squeal in
the darkness will have something to feed themselves with, as the two of them
die.
The circular room… a circle... the most
beautiful shape in the universe. The most perfect one. Given a set perimeter,
you can fit more things into a circle than in any other place. Circles are
beautiful.
A planet is an oblate spheroid, an
almost perfect sphere. There's a flaw to it someplace that forbids it from
being perfect.
A meteor is a large rock that orbits
around something.
A circle never ends.
A cycle repeats itself endlessly.
Getting up, Ami tried not to think. If
only they had their henshin pens.. if only her computer were working. If only…
So weak.
She couldn't think of a sole thing she
could do, right now, to save herself. She could estimate the volume of the
room, and calculate just how much oxygen there was available, and whether she
would suffocate to death or starve to death, but such was not an appealing
prospect.
So useless, all of her knowledge. It is
not going to save her know. Rationally, there is nothing to do but to sit down
and accept her fate. She is going to die, unless a miracle takes place anytime
soon.
Do you believe in Miracles, Ami-chan?
Good Evil.
The seconds flicker by, in all their
eerie beauty.
The minutes walk by, in all their
haunting grace.
The hours crawl by, in all their
uncanny splendor.
The days…no, the days don't trickle by.
Not yet.
As a strange gas fills the room, Ami
suddenly collapses to the ground, unconscious.
*****
e
equals the limit as n goes to infinity of (1+r/n)^n/r, where 0r1
if x
equals n/r, then the equation becomes (1+1/x)^x
the
answer surprisingly being 2.718281827 and then some more
*****
The door to the room is suddenly thrown
open, allowing for one sudden blast of blinding light, had anyone been
conscious enough to look at it. An angry, struggling Sailor Jupiter, still in
her fuku is pushed in by Rubeus and Caraveras, and the door is then locked,
while the two of them once again walk down the hallway back to their rooms,
Caraveras' arm intertwined with that of Rubeus, as she nibbles his ear
playfully, and mutters something that elicits a grin from him.
Makoto paces around the room angrily,
still in her Senshi outfit. She no longer calls out to her powers, as she has
tried it many times before, to no avail.
But her anger still remains, even if
she did not get a full tour of the facilities that come attached to the rock
known as (the) Nemesis.
The verdant gas fills the room again,
and she joins her unaware and unknown companions on a heap in the ground.
*****
Drowsily the three of them wake up.
Something has just called for them, and they know what that something is. Usagi
is near. She's on Nemesis.
"Jupiter Star Power!"
"Mercury Star Power!"
"Mars Star Power!"
Nothing happens.
The girls collapse to the ground.
*****
yet,
beauty requires a formula…
you
need to find some sense in the randomness, and find a Miracle floating in the
air to make it work.
e^(i*pi)+1=0
in
other words, e to the i pi plus one equals zero.
*****
They wake up one last time, in the
room. They feel the call of Usagi's power again. Groggily getting up, leaning
on one another. As Ami sways and moans, Makoto catches her, concerned. And then
they all hear Usagi's voice, telling them that they can transform.
"Jupiter Star Power!"
"Mercury Star Power!"
"Mars Star Power!"
"Make up!!"
And to the shock and dismay of those
present in a different room, one above them, the three missing sailor suited
fighters of love and justice appear next to their leader.
And in his heart, Rubeus knows that he
is going to die soon, because if those pretty girls don't kill him, then the
Wiseman will.
Or maybe one of his puppet princes.
He allows himself one final snicker.
One of his stupid puppet princes. Had Safiru decided to keep his psychopathic
tendencies to himself, nothing of this would have happened. Idiot. The girls
would still be safely locked up in the Room of Darkness, and Sailor Moon would
be entertaining his Highness.
And to think that Safiru is supposed to
be the brightest of them all…
He sobers instantly.
Well, what does that say about their
plans, then?
He's not given too long an amount of
time to search for the answer, as his body is consumed by flames.
*****
The return to life of the beautiful
frozen crystal city is the answer to his question, however.
*****
End notes:
Once
again, I have no real explanation for this story. The equation was given to me
some time ago by my math teacher, and it's the thing that has awed me the most
in the whole year. Get a graphing calculator out, plug in all the values and
puzzle yourself as to why it works.
Watashiga
korekara surukotowo yurushitene: forgive me for what I am about to do
Ai: love
Seishin: soul,
spirit, mind
Koudou:
justice
Kyuushuu:
revenge
Comments of any
kind are appreciated, constructive or deconstructive, flames or not.
Version 2.0
differs from the original on the fact that some typos or grammar mistakes have
been fixed, and extra words have been added here and there, and removed
elsewhere.
narie.
(Brazil, January
26th, 2001)
