Title: Sand (Part 1)
Series: Sailormoon
Author: Sievert Dinar
Rating: R (For scenes of violence)
SAND (Part 1) by Sievert Dinar
Disclaimer: This is a Standard Sailormoon Disclaimer
Disclaimer: This is another disclaimer.
Disclaimer: The previous two disclaimers were not the same as this
disclaimer.
The chill wind, signifying the approaching night, blew
through the gates of the township, barely more than an outpost,
as the gatesman watched the sun set over the eastern dunes. It
had been hours since the final carriage from the landing port was
supposed to arrive, and the gatesman was starting to fret. As soon
as the sun was down, the gates HAD to be closed, otherwise that
wind would blow into the township, defeating the attempts of the
generator to keep things tolerable within the surrounding high,
thick concrete walls.
Scorched during the day and frozen during the night. That
was all the little planet of Garribos had to offer the township.
There were no oceans to regulate the weather of the planet.
Indeed, it was up to the generators, such as the township's, to
make the planet capable of sustaining life... If it hadn't been
for the crystalline ore buried deep within the sand, nobody would
have bothered trying to sustain any kind of colonial settlement.
The township was only just fortunate enough to produce sufficient
quantities to make it financially viable. Time and again, the
township council would make decrees that funding for a full-scale
mining venture was just around the corner, but it never seemed to
come to pass. And so the township languished in its state, with
changes in population coming only in a change of mining personnel
or in the death of the more 'permanent' residents.
The gatesman was one of those residents, having arrived in
the township some twenty years previous, never working up the cash
to leave. If he seemed depressed at his situation, he never showed
it. Like most of those who made the township their long-term home,
he was a loner, disinterested in the families and social gatherings
of the mine workers. There was no point in making friends with
them if they were likely to disappear within a few months on one of
the carriages, even if he was the last person in town to see them.
It was his job to make sure arrivals and departures were done as
quickly and efficiently as possible, in that he liked to pride
himself. Whether or not he knew the people on those carriages was
completely immaterial.
But what really annoyed him were late carriages, especially
arrivals... Late departures were something he could do about,
often berating those in charge for their tardiness, sometimes even
the passengers for their slack attitude to schedules... But
arrivals were completely out of his control, because they were out
there where he had no say. Worse still, late arrivals could mean
trouble... Breakdowns or Sand Pirates... or worse. And that often
meant having to break with his usual job and forming search parties
for the errant transports.
But not at night. Nobody ever left the township at night.
Unless it was one of the carriages, which were designed to deal
with the overbearing cold, and the township only had one such
vehicle for its own uses, owned by the town council. The vehicles
were expensive to run, which made the town council loathe to use
it. That was probably why he hated late arrivals, more than
anything: it meant having to inform council members of the
situation, followed by the sheriff's office... And it could all
be a false alarm, for which he would receive criticism after the
search party had been organised, ready to go...
He shivered as he checked his trenchcoat, making sure it was
closed as tightly around him as possible, as he stood at the edge
of the open gateway, staring along the visible horizon for any
sight of the carriage. Occasionally he would glance back at the
gateman's cottage, sitting flush with the wall beside the gateway,
wishing he was in there now, sitting down in front of the heater,
enjoying a warm meal and a drink. It was just as he was about to
give in to those thoughts and close the gate when he noticed the
small figure, striding over one of the nearby dunes. Rubbing his
eyes, in case he was imagining things, he watched the figure as it
approached the gate of the township, striding purposefully. It had
been a very long time, in the gateman's memory, that the township
had had a visitor arriving by foot.
The figure was indeed small, hidden underneath a large black
trenchcoat and wide-brimmed hat. It also wore sun-goggles and a
mask against the blowing sand, and carried a large backpack and
polearm which, as they crossed the last few yards between the dunes
and the gateway, the gatesman could see was tipped with a rather
vicious-looking double-blade. He recognised the weapon immediately
as that of a Senshi, and his blood ran cold. It had been many
decades since a Senshi had deigned to visit the township, and their
presence only signified trouble.
He stepped back into the arrival compound of the township and
hit a small button at the base of the gate controls: a silent alarm
for the council and the sherriff... He had no choice but to rouse
them now. He stood by the controls, waiting for their arrival,
partly stepping from one foot to the next in an effort to keep
himself warm, partly from nerves. He almost leapt a foot or two
when he felt the finger tapping him on the shoulder. He turned to
face the Senshi, whose approach had been close to silent.
She took off her hat and goggles, then lowered her mask. She
was wide-eyed and almost innocent looking, with a round, elfin-like
face and straight, medium-length black hair. She smiled at the
gatesman, trying to calm him. All he could see was the tiara that
encircled her forehead. "Excuse me..." She said, her voice
croaky from the dry air. "Could you direct me to the nearest
hotel. My throat is rather dry and I require a drink and a room."
The gatesman swallowed and pointed into the township.
"It's... er... Just along the main street, there... Opposite the
Town Council..." He watched as she turned to follow his
directions. "Umm... If you would like to wait, the Council and
the Sheriff will be here to meet you, personally."
"Immaterial." The Senshi donned her hat once more. "I have
no interest in seeing them until I feel I need to." She glanced
aside at him. "And the transport you are waiting for... It will
arrive in approximately twenty minutes."
The gatesman was taken aback. "Is that your power, my...
uh... My Lady? To predict?" The Senshi blinked, then smiled,
shaking her head.
"No. I saw its lights approaching as I crested the dunes
back there. See you later. Try and keep warm. This night is
going to be exceptionally cold." And with that she walked away
into the growing twilight of the township.
The main hotel was not much to look at. A nondescript grey
building with a front bar, saloon bar and small function hall. It
certainly wasn't getting into the tourist mood, unsurprisingly,
since there were never any tourists. But it did have a large
number of rooms, to supply its transient population.
Having made her way there, the Senshi had booked a room, not
specifying to the manager how long she would be staying, a worrying
enough sign as it was, and one that caused the manager and his wife
some consternation. In all the time they had been running the
hotel, they'd never had a Senshi stay before.
"If there is anything you need..." The manager wrung his
hands nervously as the Senshi surveyed the (larger than usual) room
she had been given. Combined main room and bedroom, with shower
and toilet off to one side. Not quite as spartan as the manager
thought she was used to: she had spent many a night in places even
a vagrant would avoid, out of necessity... She had served the
Kingdom well in all of its conflicts, and she had the scars to
prove it.
"I'll let you know." She tossed her hat onto the bed and
reached into her trenchcoat, pulling out a large wallet, from which
she produced an ingot: small, rectangular in shape and thick around
the edges, the manager recognised it immediately. The currency of
Earth, the homeworld... Just one of the royal ingots was worth his
income for the entire local year, which was roughly twice that of
the Earth.
She held it out to him and he took it tenderly, as if it
would explode at the merest touch. "Th... thankyou." He bowed,
almost comically, as he backed his way out of the open doorway.
"Thankyou, my lady." And with that he closed the door and beat a
hasty exit.
The Senshi sighed and shrugged off the coat, revealing the
Senshi fuku she wore underneath: the one designed for the
battlefield, far more practical when it came to field work such as
this.
Rather than the traditional skirt and bow piece, it was more
like a one-piece bodysuit, with a black and purple motif, and the
insignia of her rank as a Senshi on the shoulders. She wore thick,
knee-high boots and almost-as-thick elbow-length gloves, both
thickly padded and sturdy.
And suffocating. Almost as soon as the coat was gone, she
whipped the gloves and boots from her extremities and left them
where they lay, flexing her fingers and toes. It had been the
first time in days she had been able to do so.
She padded over to the window, which faced the street, and
pulled the curtains aside, staring down at the small group of men
which had gathered at the front of the hotel. Mostly minor members
of the town council and the sheriff's deputies. She sighed: this
meant that the Mayor and the Sheriff, themselves, were already on
their way up to see her. Why did people always overreact to her
presence?
Turning away from the window, she made for the bathroom.
The Mayor tapped softly on the door and paused to listen.
"I think she's in the shower." He turned to the hotel manager.
"You didn't say she would be in the shower."
"All things considered, I think that is the least of our
problems, Mayor." The Sheriff, an imposing-looking man in his
forties, with prematurely white hair tied back in a tail and an
equally white goatee beard, placed a hand on the manager's
shoulder. "We're the ones who came charging up here. And she IS
a human being. After walking all that way, of course she'd want to
wash the sand off."
"Human being?" The Mayor, a portly, balding man in his late
fifties, gave the Sherriff a stern look, which failed to impress
the Sheriff much: he was used to the Mayor's pomposity. "A Senshi
is not a 'Human Being'. A Senshi is something entirely more
dangerous and unpredictable. Isn't that right, Prentice?" The
Mayor turned to his secretary, a thin, reedy young man with a
permanently nervous expression.
"Yes, sir..." Prentice swallowed hard, wiping sweat from his
forehead. "They bring no end of trouble, wherever they go, sir."
"You make it sound as if they were monsters." The Sheriff
shook his head. "They aren't. And don't forget, they RULE this
part of the universe. I'd hate to think what she would do if she
heard what you were saying now." He gestured towards the door.
"In fact, she probably CAN, knowing Senshi. They're not stupid."
The Mayor huffed with contempt. "They may rule, but they're
still a menace. Do you know how many innocent lives were lost,
thanks to them, in the last offensive of the Sailor Wars?" The
Sheriff did not reply, so the Mayor warmed to his theme. "They
are criminals, Lleyton. War criminals, of the very worst kind.
Butchers of innocent women and children."
"I thought they were supposed to be on the side of the
angels." The hotel manager wrung his hands together, not liking
one little bit the situation that was developing. Prentice tugged
on the sleeve of the Mayor's coat, gesturing to the fretting
manager, and the Mayor changed his tack, clearing his throat
nervously and lowering his voice.
"Yes, well... You all know my opinion of the Senshi, and
why. Perhaps we can discuss this at another time, hmmm?" The
Mayor smiled at the Sherriff, who returned with a pained gaze.
"I think she has finished her shower." The Sheriff stepped
in front of the Mayor and rapped hard against the door, making all
those around him have an apoplexy.
"Yes?" Came the Senshi's tired voice, almost snapping with
annoyance. The Sheriff smiled a lopsided grin as the Mayor lifted
his hands as if to throttle him, only just holding himself back.
"It's the Sheriff and the Town Mayor. We're here to talk to
you about your little... umm... visit." It sounded pretty lame to
the Sheriff, but what the hell. He was not one for pleasantries,
not even to Senshi. After all, his daughter...
He sighed as she grunted a response. "I think she agrees to
see us." He smiled at the Mayor and checked the door handle.
Finding it unlocked, he opened the door and stepped in, not really
caring what state of nakedness the Senshi was in as he did so.
Sometimes it was better to try and catch them on the hop, so to
speak. It put them on the backfoot and made things simpler for
him, at least in his experience.
She was wearing little more than her underwear and a uniform
jacket, knocking back a tin of brew from the small barfridge as he
stopped in the middle of the room. She didn't even look flustered
by his entrance, which took the wind out of his sails. Well,
nothing ventured, nothing gained, he thought, before being brushed
aside by the blushing Mayor, who was wringing his hands with
embarassment. "I'm so sorry." The Mayor croaked. "I'm so sorry
for my Sheriff's lack of manners. We didn't mean to barge in on
you like this..."
The Senshi looked at them, one after the other, without
saying anything. When she clamped eyes on the manager, he scuttled
back from the room, closing the door behind him. Then she placed
the tin on a counter and stepped over to where she had left the
polearm, leaning against the end of the bed, as the Mayor
continued. "I'm sorry for anything rude I might have said about
you out there. I don't really know what I'm talking about,
sometimes. But you have to look at things from my perspective..."
The Sheriff frowned as he watched the Senshi. There was
something going on here, of that he was sure. Her movements, since
she placed down her drink, had been slow and deliberate, and she
was reaching for her... Her WEAPON!
The Sheriff turned as he heard a gasp from Prentice's
throat. The thin, nervous young man had not said anything since
they were outside the room, and he had ignored him. It had not
been hard to do, as the Mayor's Secretary was not exactly the most
forceful presence, even if he did make it his business to stick to
the Mayor wherever the older man deigned to go. The Sherriff stood
back as Prentice's face contorted into a mask of hate. Even
more... into an expression no human being with normal facial
muscles should have been able to achieve. The Secretary hunched
his back, his teeth becoming sharp and canine-like, and his hands
crooking into claws. He looked like an animal who was about to
jump his prey.
But the Senshi was quicker. Grabbing the polearm, she spun
and bundled the Mayor aside as she brought the vicious-looking
double blade to bear on the Secretary's body, slicing neatly
through from his left shoulder to his right abdomen. There was a
flash of light and the Secretary's body exploded in an abomination
of tentacles, screaming inhumanly as the light turned into fire.
And then he was gone, little more than whisps of smoke, floating
along the ceiling.
The Sheriff and the Mayor stared at the scene in horrified
silence, before the Mayor spluttered into outraged life.
"Prentice... You killed Prentice! How DARE you, you MONSTER!"
"Prentice was already dead." The Senshi stood up, rapping
the base end of the polearm against the floor. "What you saw was
little more than a facsimile. A copy. And a monstrous one at
that." She turned to the Mayor. "And there might be a great many
more of them in your town."
"What do you mean?" The Sheriff stepped up beside her.
"What really WAS that thing, if not Prentice?"
The Senshi looked from the Sheriff to the Mayor, both
expression on her face and in her voice flat and unemotional. "It
was a creature of Chaos, of Evil, created by a criminal from the
last Sailor War." She then smiled, holding out her free hand in an
expansive gesture. "This criminal is in your town, and I am here
to bring him to justice, by any means necessary."
To be continued. Or "bugger, is that all?" =^.^=
Sievert Dinar
sievertd@hotmail.com
Series: Sailormoon
Author: Sievert Dinar
Rating: R (For scenes of violence)
SAND (Part 1) by Sievert Dinar
Disclaimer: This is a Standard Sailormoon Disclaimer
Disclaimer: This is another disclaimer.
Disclaimer: The previous two disclaimers were not the same as this
disclaimer.
The chill wind, signifying the approaching night, blew
through the gates of the township, barely more than an outpost,
as the gatesman watched the sun set over the eastern dunes. It
had been hours since the final carriage from the landing port was
supposed to arrive, and the gatesman was starting to fret. As soon
as the sun was down, the gates HAD to be closed, otherwise that
wind would blow into the township, defeating the attempts of the
generator to keep things tolerable within the surrounding high,
thick concrete walls.
Scorched during the day and frozen during the night. That
was all the little planet of Garribos had to offer the township.
There were no oceans to regulate the weather of the planet.
Indeed, it was up to the generators, such as the township's, to
make the planet capable of sustaining life... If it hadn't been
for the crystalline ore buried deep within the sand, nobody would
have bothered trying to sustain any kind of colonial settlement.
The township was only just fortunate enough to produce sufficient
quantities to make it financially viable. Time and again, the
township council would make decrees that funding for a full-scale
mining venture was just around the corner, but it never seemed to
come to pass. And so the township languished in its state, with
changes in population coming only in a change of mining personnel
or in the death of the more 'permanent' residents.
The gatesman was one of those residents, having arrived in
the township some twenty years previous, never working up the cash
to leave. If he seemed depressed at his situation, he never showed
it. Like most of those who made the township their long-term home,
he was a loner, disinterested in the families and social gatherings
of the mine workers. There was no point in making friends with
them if they were likely to disappear within a few months on one of
the carriages, even if he was the last person in town to see them.
It was his job to make sure arrivals and departures were done as
quickly and efficiently as possible, in that he liked to pride
himself. Whether or not he knew the people on those carriages was
completely immaterial.
But what really annoyed him were late carriages, especially
arrivals... Late departures were something he could do about,
often berating those in charge for their tardiness, sometimes even
the passengers for their slack attitude to schedules... But
arrivals were completely out of his control, because they were out
there where he had no say. Worse still, late arrivals could mean
trouble... Breakdowns or Sand Pirates... or worse. And that often
meant having to break with his usual job and forming search parties
for the errant transports.
But not at night. Nobody ever left the township at night.
Unless it was one of the carriages, which were designed to deal
with the overbearing cold, and the township only had one such
vehicle for its own uses, owned by the town council. The vehicles
were expensive to run, which made the town council loathe to use
it. That was probably why he hated late arrivals, more than
anything: it meant having to inform council members of the
situation, followed by the sheriff's office... And it could all
be a false alarm, for which he would receive criticism after the
search party had been organised, ready to go...
He shivered as he checked his trenchcoat, making sure it was
closed as tightly around him as possible, as he stood at the edge
of the open gateway, staring along the visible horizon for any
sight of the carriage. Occasionally he would glance back at the
gateman's cottage, sitting flush with the wall beside the gateway,
wishing he was in there now, sitting down in front of the heater,
enjoying a warm meal and a drink. It was just as he was about to
give in to those thoughts and close the gate when he noticed the
small figure, striding over one of the nearby dunes. Rubbing his
eyes, in case he was imagining things, he watched the figure as it
approached the gate of the township, striding purposefully. It had
been a very long time, in the gateman's memory, that the township
had had a visitor arriving by foot.
The figure was indeed small, hidden underneath a large black
trenchcoat and wide-brimmed hat. It also wore sun-goggles and a
mask against the blowing sand, and carried a large backpack and
polearm which, as they crossed the last few yards between the dunes
and the gateway, the gatesman could see was tipped with a rather
vicious-looking double-blade. He recognised the weapon immediately
as that of a Senshi, and his blood ran cold. It had been many
decades since a Senshi had deigned to visit the township, and their
presence only signified trouble.
He stepped back into the arrival compound of the township and
hit a small button at the base of the gate controls: a silent alarm
for the council and the sherriff... He had no choice but to rouse
them now. He stood by the controls, waiting for their arrival,
partly stepping from one foot to the next in an effort to keep
himself warm, partly from nerves. He almost leapt a foot or two
when he felt the finger tapping him on the shoulder. He turned to
face the Senshi, whose approach had been close to silent.
She took off her hat and goggles, then lowered her mask. She
was wide-eyed and almost innocent looking, with a round, elfin-like
face and straight, medium-length black hair. She smiled at the
gatesman, trying to calm him. All he could see was the tiara that
encircled her forehead. "Excuse me..." She said, her voice
croaky from the dry air. "Could you direct me to the nearest
hotel. My throat is rather dry and I require a drink and a room."
The gatesman swallowed and pointed into the township.
"It's... er... Just along the main street, there... Opposite the
Town Council..." He watched as she turned to follow his
directions. "Umm... If you would like to wait, the Council and
the Sheriff will be here to meet you, personally."
"Immaterial." The Senshi donned her hat once more. "I have
no interest in seeing them until I feel I need to." She glanced
aside at him. "And the transport you are waiting for... It will
arrive in approximately twenty minutes."
The gatesman was taken aback. "Is that your power, my...
uh... My Lady? To predict?" The Senshi blinked, then smiled,
shaking her head.
"No. I saw its lights approaching as I crested the dunes
back there. See you later. Try and keep warm. This night is
going to be exceptionally cold." And with that she walked away
into the growing twilight of the township.
The main hotel was not much to look at. A nondescript grey
building with a front bar, saloon bar and small function hall. It
certainly wasn't getting into the tourist mood, unsurprisingly,
since there were never any tourists. But it did have a large
number of rooms, to supply its transient population.
Having made her way there, the Senshi had booked a room, not
specifying to the manager how long she would be staying, a worrying
enough sign as it was, and one that caused the manager and his wife
some consternation. In all the time they had been running the
hotel, they'd never had a Senshi stay before.
"If there is anything you need..." The manager wrung his
hands nervously as the Senshi surveyed the (larger than usual) room
she had been given. Combined main room and bedroom, with shower
and toilet off to one side. Not quite as spartan as the manager
thought she was used to: she had spent many a night in places even
a vagrant would avoid, out of necessity... She had served the
Kingdom well in all of its conflicts, and she had the scars to
prove it.
"I'll let you know." She tossed her hat onto the bed and
reached into her trenchcoat, pulling out a large wallet, from which
she produced an ingot: small, rectangular in shape and thick around
the edges, the manager recognised it immediately. The currency of
Earth, the homeworld... Just one of the royal ingots was worth his
income for the entire local year, which was roughly twice that of
the Earth.
She held it out to him and he took it tenderly, as if it
would explode at the merest touch. "Th... thankyou." He bowed,
almost comically, as he backed his way out of the open doorway.
"Thankyou, my lady." And with that he closed the door and beat a
hasty exit.
The Senshi sighed and shrugged off the coat, revealing the
Senshi fuku she wore underneath: the one designed for the
battlefield, far more practical when it came to field work such as
this.
Rather than the traditional skirt and bow piece, it was more
like a one-piece bodysuit, with a black and purple motif, and the
insignia of her rank as a Senshi on the shoulders. She wore thick,
knee-high boots and almost-as-thick elbow-length gloves, both
thickly padded and sturdy.
And suffocating. Almost as soon as the coat was gone, she
whipped the gloves and boots from her extremities and left them
where they lay, flexing her fingers and toes. It had been the
first time in days she had been able to do so.
She padded over to the window, which faced the street, and
pulled the curtains aside, staring down at the small group of men
which had gathered at the front of the hotel. Mostly minor members
of the town council and the sheriff's deputies. She sighed: this
meant that the Mayor and the Sheriff, themselves, were already on
their way up to see her. Why did people always overreact to her
presence?
Turning away from the window, she made for the bathroom.
The Mayor tapped softly on the door and paused to listen.
"I think she's in the shower." He turned to the hotel manager.
"You didn't say she would be in the shower."
"All things considered, I think that is the least of our
problems, Mayor." The Sheriff, an imposing-looking man in his
forties, with prematurely white hair tied back in a tail and an
equally white goatee beard, placed a hand on the manager's
shoulder. "We're the ones who came charging up here. And she IS
a human being. After walking all that way, of course she'd want to
wash the sand off."
"Human being?" The Mayor, a portly, balding man in his late
fifties, gave the Sherriff a stern look, which failed to impress
the Sheriff much: he was used to the Mayor's pomposity. "A Senshi
is not a 'Human Being'. A Senshi is something entirely more
dangerous and unpredictable. Isn't that right, Prentice?" The
Mayor turned to his secretary, a thin, reedy young man with a
permanently nervous expression.
"Yes, sir..." Prentice swallowed hard, wiping sweat from his
forehead. "They bring no end of trouble, wherever they go, sir."
"You make it sound as if they were monsters." The Sheriff
shook his head. "They aren't. And don't forget, they RULE this
part of the universe. I'd hate to think what she would do if she
heard what you were saying now." He gestured towards the door.
"In fact, she probably CAN, knowing Senshi. They're not stupid."
The Mayor huffed with contempt. "They may rule, but they're
still a menace. Do you know how many innocent lives were lost,
thanks to them, in the last offensive of the Sailor Wars?" The
Sheriff did not reply, so the Mayor warmed to his theme. "They
are criminals, Lleyton. War criminals, of the very worst kind.
Butchers of innocent women and children."
"I thought they were supposed to be on the side of the
angels." The hotel manager wrung his hands together, not liking
one little bit the situation that was developing. Prentice tugged
on the sleeve of the Mayor's coat, gesturing to the fretting
manager, and the Mayor changed his tack, clearing his throat
nervously and lowering his voice.
"Yes, well... You all know my opinion of the Senshi, and
why. Perhaps we can discuss this at another time, hmmm?" The
Mayor smiled at the Sherriff, who returned with a pained gaze.
"I think she has finished her shower." The Sheriff stepped
in front of the Mayor and rapped hard against the door, making all
those around him have an apoplexy.
"Yes?" Came the Senshi's tired voice, almost snapping with
annoyance. The Sheriff smiled a lopsided grin as the Mayor lifted
his hands as if to throttle him, only just holding himself back.
"It's the Sheriff and the Town Mayor. We're here to talk to
you about your little... umm... visit." It sounded pretty lame to
the Sheriff, but what the hell. He was not one for pleasantries,
not even to Senshi. After all, his daughter...
He sighed as she grunted a response. "I think she agrees to
see us." He smiled at the Mayor and checked the door handle.
Finding it unlocked, he opened the door and stepped in, not really
caring what state of nakedness the Senshi was in as he did so.
Sometimes it was better to try and catch them on the hop, so to
speak. It put them on the backfoot and made things simpler for
him, at least in his experience.
She was wearing little more than her underwear and a uniform
jacket, knocking back a tin of brew from the small barfridge as he
stopped in the middle of the room. She didn't even look flustered
by his entrance, which took the wind out of his sails. Well,
nothing ventured, nothing gained, he thought, before being brushed
aside by the blushing Mayor, who was wringing his hands with
embarassment. "I'm so sorry." The Mayor croaked. "I'm so sorry
for my Sheriff's lack of manners. We didn't mean to barge in on
you like this..."
The Senshi looked at them, one after the other, without
saying anything. When she clamped eyes on the manager, he scuttled
back from the room, closing the door behind him. Then she placed
the tin on a counter and stepped over to where she had left the
polearm, leaning against the end of the bed, as the Mayor
continued. "I'm sorry for anything rude I might have said about
you out there. I don't really know what I'm talking about,
sometimes. But you have to look at things from my perspective..."
The Sheriff frowned as he watched the Senshi. There was
something going on here, of that he was sure. Her movements, since
she placed down her drink, had been slow and deliberate, and she
was reaching for her... Her WEAPON!
The Sheriff turned as he heard a gasp from Prentice's
throat. The thin, nervous young man had not said anything since
they were outside the room, and he had ignored him. It had not
been hard to do, as the Mayor's Secretary was not exactly the most
forceful presence, even if he did make it his business to stick to
the Mayor wherever the older man deigned to go. The Sherriff stood
back as Prentice's face contorted into a mask of hate. Even
more... into an expression no human being with normal facial
muscles should have been able to achieve. The Secretary hunched
his back, his teeth becoming sharp and canine-like, and his hands
crooking into claws. He looked like an animal who was about to
jump his prey.
But the Senshi was quicker. Grabbing the polearm, she spun
and bundled the Mayor aside as she brought the vicious-looking
double blade to bear on the Secretary's body, slicing neatly
through from his left shoulder to his right abdomen. There was a
flash of light and the Secretary's body exploded in an abomination
of tentacles, screaming inhumanly as the light turned into fire.
And then he was gone, little more than whisps of smoke, floating
along the ceiling.
The Sheriff and the Mayor stared at the scene in horrified
silence, before the Mayor spluttered into outraged life.
"Prentice... You killed Prentice! How DARE you, you MONSTER!"
"Prentice was already dead." The Senshi stood up, rapping
the base end of the polearm against the floor. "What you saw was
little more than a facsimile. A copy. And a monstrous one at
that." She turned to the Mayor. "And there might be a great many
more of them in your town."
"What do you mean?" The Sheriff stepped up beside her.
"What really WAS that thing, if not Prentice?"
The Senshi looked from the Sheriff to the Mayor, both
expression on her face and in her voice flat and unemotional. "It
was a creature of Chaos, of Evil, created by a criminal from the
last Sailor War." She then smiled, holding out her free hand in an
expansive gesture. "This criminal is in your town, and I am here
to bring him to justice, by any means necessary."
To be continued. Or "bugger, is that all?" =^.^=
Sievert Dinar
sievertd@hotmail.com