Dark Side Of Moon - 20th Anniversary Edition
A Real Ghostbusters/Sailor Moon Crossover
By Dan "Ectodude" Shannon
Chapter 1: Beginning of the End
October 25th, 1994
It was a dark foreboding place. In an unknown time of day in an unknown place, subjects milled around in hopes their queen would give them a very important task; to prove their worth to whom they serve. In a main chamber not too dissimilar to a royal court, a woman with red hair and a violet-colored dress sat on a throne of power. Before her was a crystal ball suspended in the air inside a holder that looked like dead plantlife in the shape of hands holding the ball. Its operator had their eyes closed. She sensed someone was coming, opening her dark yellow eyes to watch her subject approach.
A man appeared in the space within her circle of subjects, a weak flash of magenta light in the shape of a man before materializing before her. He stumbled slightly, crossing his arm across his chest briefly as a salute before approaching his mistress. He was an average-sized man with blonde hair, blue eyes, and was wearing a mandarin-collared double-breasted grey tunic with matching slacks.
He stumbled closer as he attempted to address her, "Queen Beryl, I have important information for you!"
The look on the woman's face was one of displeasure. She leered at the man before her, speaking bluntly as she did, "You have failed to defeat the Sailor Scouts, Jedite."
The man held his left arm with his right, denoting he was in pain. This man named Jedite looked to have been beaten and bruised as he attempted to address the woman he called his Queen. There was a look of fear in his blue eyes as he made his final plea, "But Queen Beryl, I have learned the identities of the Sailor Scouts!" The look in his eyes; it was clear he knew what was to come, but he tried anyway in the hopes that reason would be seen, "I know who they are!" "I will hear no excuses!" she belted. This woman - this Queen Beryl - called out as her eyes began to glow, "Sleep forever!"
As her eyes flashed, Jedite called out one last time as an energy ball launched from her eyes, "Queen Beryl, wait!" When the energy ball struck him, he screamed in terror as the energy started to encase him in crystal. Before he knew it, it was the end. This man - this Jedite - was encased in a crystal that forever sealed his body. The others in this court mumbled at the horror they just witnessed.
The crystal with the encased body of the man began to rise from the ground, quickly disappearing into a crack of folded space. As the magic involved to dispose of the man and his prison worked, Queen Beryl spoke again to her minions, "Let Jedite's fate be a warning to all of you!"
One year later…
October 17th, 1995
Ghostbusters HQ
New York City, NY USA
3:27 AM
It was a quiet night. After the last call received and the final set of ghosts disposed of in the Containment Unit, the Ghostbusters had settled in for the night hours ago and were sleeping soundly. Dr. Peter Venkman - Co-Founder and resident psychologist of the Ghostbusters - slept soundly. He was dreaming of being awarded every humanitarian award and accolade under the sun, him riding in parades thrown in his honor. Dr. Raymond "Ray" Stantz held tightly to his stuffed Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man plush as he dreamed of catching several class 6 bi-dimensional attractors and a class 4 full torso apparition in a single trap. Dr. Egon Spengler dreamt of playing a game of poker with Sir Issac Newton, Dr. Albert Einstein, and Dr. Stephen Hawkings and breaking even on his bets. Winston Zeddemore was dreaming of working beside Sherlock Holmes helping him solve his latest case.
Even secretary Janine Melnitz and local science experiment Slimer were asleep; Janine at her desk, and Slimer hovering above all the other Ghostbusters in the firehouse's sleeping quarters. Everyone was sleeping soundly…
Almost everyone.
In a bunk among the other seasoned Ghostbusters was a young man named Dan Shannon. He was a 20-year-old, 6 foot tall, blonde-haired, Chicago-born man with a stocky build. Hired a few months ago by the Ghostbusters as extra help and as the resident experimental equipment tester, Dan was splitting his time between sleeping at the Hook & Ladder 8 firehouse - the building the Ghostbusters operated out of - and his apartment. Tonight, Dan laid in his bunk at the firehouse, tossing and turning violently as he began to sweat profusely. While everyone else slept calmly, he wasn't; he was having a nightmare.
Dan found himself walking around in darkness. He didn't know where he was or why he was there. As he looked back and forth in the darkness for any kind of indication of where he was, a bright light appeared at the top of a flight of stairs. In the light, he looked down to himself and found himself wearing dark green, weird looking armor. Something compelled him to start climbing the stairs before him. Looking back up he began to climb. The higher he ascended, he noticed something blocking the light. It was in the shape of a woman.
The best he could see she was nearly as tall as him sporting her hair in a ponytail. After he reached the top of the stairs she began walking toward him. He stopped his advance to see what she was to do. She walked up slowly and stopped just before him, her green eyes shining from behind the silhouette of the light. She put one arm around him and put her other arm around the back of his neck to pull him into a kiss. It was slow and sensual. After a moment, they broke.
Another light filled the space behind her and there was a hard THUMP from behind her. She gasped in pain and collapsed. Before she could hit the ground he grabbed her out of the air and began setting her down to the ground gently. He looked at her face. It was familiar. A face he saw somewhere in the past. As he looked her over, the shadow of a man hovered over them. The shadow made him jump and turn.
As he knelt beside the woman, hanging over him blocking out the light there was a man looking down at him. The man held up his hand pointing the palm at Dan as he spoke, energy waves gathering at the epicenter of his hand, "Tell me kid: Have you ever been a Knight in the Moonlight?" He wound up and threw the ball of energy in his hand at Dan…
Dan sat up in his bed and screamed.
You could swear the scream echoed for a solid two square blocks around the building. Everyone in the firehouse snapped awake in panic. Everyone rolled quickly to the side of his bunk. Peter especially rolled off and pulled his backpack-sized nuclear accelerator - a device known as the Proton Pack - from under his bed upon dropping to the floor, drawing it's thrower and firing up the weapon. Janine woke up and immediately hid under her desk like an old Duck and Cover film. Slimer awoke, quickly phased through the bunk room floor, and flew to the basement under the stairs screaming in fear as he flead.
Dan looked over and saw Peter pointing the particle thrower of his pack at him. He quickly held his hands up, "Peter, stop! It's me! It's me!" Peter powered down his pack and dropped the thrower down, him putting his head in his hand. By this point, the other Ghostbusters pushed themselves off the floor and looked to see what happened, Ray being the first to break the ice, "Dan, are you okay?"
Dan scratched his head as a look of confusion came over his face, "I don't think so." Peter stood after strapping his Proton Pack on, "Was it Slimer? If it was Slimer, I'm gonna…" "It wasn't Slimer, goddamnit!" Dan bellowed.
Egon had by this time grabbed his glasses from the nightstand to put them on. He turned to his rookie team member, "Was it a ghastly oneirologistic event?"
Dan sat in his bed and stared at him blankly, speaking in German, "Bitte auf Englisch?"
Winston rolled his eyes before having to translate for the physicist, "'Did you have a bad dream' is what he's asking." Dan looked back and suddenly realized what was being said, "Oh! Uh... ' now he looked embarrassed. Made sense that he was, "Yeah. Same one I've been having for a week. It keeps getting more and more intense the more I see it." Peter began unstrapping the pack from his back when his curiosity kicked in, "A week? Forgive me for asking, but what was it about?"
Janine ran into the room in a panicked state, her turning on the bunk room's lights and looking around to see if anyone somehow ended up murdered, "I heard screaming! What happened? Is everyone okay?!"
Dan kicked the sheets off his feet and swung his legs from under them to the side of the bed exposing him wearing a white t-shirt and black sweatpants, "It's okay, Janine," he wiped the sweat from his brow, "I had a nightmare. It scared the hell outta me. Sorry about that," He looked back to Peter to answer him, "I've been having this dream where I find myself in the dark. A light starts shining above me and I find myself wearing armor. Then I saw a… A girl. I've never met her before, but she seemed familiar; like I've met her before in a different time and place. She kissed me."
There was silence. Peter scoffed at the explanation, "And you call that a nightmare?"
Egon was intrigued. Peter's smart aleck response did rub him in an abrasive way. He turned to his colleague, "Peter, be quiet," he then turned back to Dan, "Continue."
Taking a moment from the abrasive response he received, Dan began again, "She was … killed…. By some guy. He used some kind of energy ball he created with his hands. He did the same thing to me, but every time he does, he says something. Every time he says it, it makes my heart pound." The look on Dan's face was a look of distraught. It already looked as though the line had echoed in his mind, him not being able to express it without himself looking crazy. He didn't want to say it.
Ray looked around the room at the concerned faces, then back to Dan's. He had only known the man for a handful of months himself, but he knew enough to know the look on Dan's face was one of, "Please, help me, but don't judge!" "What? What did he say?"
Dan looked to his feet as he hung over the bed. He repeated the man's line, "'Have you been a Knight in the moonlight?' He'd throw the energy ball, then I'm awake. This isn't the first time I've screamed myself awake from it." All of the men in the room looked at each other as Peter cocked an eyebrow, "What's that supposed to mean? It sounds like something the Joker would say."
There was something about this whole encounter that was peaking Egon's interest. The fact that it was the first he was hearing of it, he started probing Dan to divulge more, "What did the man look like?" Dan looked to the floor as he attempted to recall. It was fuzzy "Blonde hair… blue eyes. He was wearing this grey suit with a red trim. It looked like something the Beatles would wear."
"And the girl?"
Dan shook his head, a sigh escaping his mouth before looking at the physicist, "Oh, Egon. You would not believe how beautiful she was. Brown hair, green eyes… What she was wearing was… odd. Hard to describe."
Now Ray was getting interested. It was very specific how Dan was describing the people in his dream. He instructed the man to keep talking, "Well, try as best as you can."
Dan again looked to the floor. Taking a breath, he started searching his memory, "She had a white bodysuit with a short green skirt, a green sailor collar. It wasn't too far off from a Japanese school uniform. She had white gloves all the way up to her elbows, and was wearing some kind of tiara," there was a beat of silence from the man again when he started again, "When I was putting her down, she looked so young, so… Wait a minute, what in the hell am I saying?!"
Peter smirked as he stated out loud, "You're lucky; I normally don't have dream girls kiss me."
"Yeah," Winston responded, "he usually gets kicked in the face."
"Wrong, Winston: It was a kick to the groin."
"Although unusual and vivid, it doesn't sound like anything of concern. It might just be something stored in the collective unconscious intruding on present time." Dan stood from his bed and he approached the scientist, "Are you saying this person exists? I mean, I could believe it. She looked so familiar; I saw her somewhere before!" Ray walked up and put his hand on the young man's shoulder, "This dream - no matter how realistic - is still a dream. It's confusing you. You might just want to go back to bed and sleep."
Dan felt slighted by that, but in the end - logically - Egon and Ray were right. Taking another deep breath, he nodded, "I guess you're right, guys. It's just a dream. She can't possibly exist." After that, all of the Ghostbusters went back to their beds and Janine went back to her post at her desk. Shutting off the lights again and laying back in their beds, everyone quickly slipping into sleep with the exception of Dan. He looked toward the ceiling, the sounds of the other Ghostbusters snoring filling the room as he began quietly muttering to himself, "I don't get it. I just don't get it. Why do I keep seeing this dream happening? Who was she? Why did she kiss me?" he sighed, "Egon and Ray are right; it's just a dream. I'm just gonna make myself sick thinking about it."
After a few minutes Dan's eyelids became heavy, "Still," he said as he began yawning, "I'd keep enduring it just to see her again." He passed into a deep sleep. Silence filled the firehouse once again.