By Yohann DeSabrais
a.k.a. Technuma Saturn
Prologue
one thousand years ago...
He had flown the starship Firebolt thousands of times, on a wide
variety of missions that varied from rescues, repair of substations,
transports and observations. He had even flown it around the solar
system while racing against Ramatech Jupiter or just to find an empty
corner of space where he and his girlfriend Litechnae Venus wouldn`t
be disturbed for a few hours.
This time however, Noratech Neptune was on a different kind of
mission.
His teeth cringed as he followed the ion trail of the starship Quanta
on his radar. He`d been hot on the ship`s trail all the way from
Saturn Station Alpha. Six hours later and halfway across the solar
system to the almost abandonned Deimos base.
Noratech accessed the base`s logs through his flight computer, which
confirmed that the Quantum was indeed docked there. He wanted to dock
as well, but the shields were raised. He sat silently in the worn out
pilot seat, staring at the small station gently floated around the
small mars satellite in very regular elliptic orbits.
With the push of a button, he accessed the comm system of the small
base and addressed the man he had chased over such great distances.
"I know you`re in there. I know what you`ve been through... hell,
we`re bound by links that go beyond mere kinship- come out right now,
the Prime can fix everything! These memories can be made to go away,
you know that as well as I do!!!" he said.
No response.
"We can`t leave it at that, not in your condition! Come out right
now and I promise you my personal protection!" added Noratech.
Still no response.
"Get out of there this instant, or Prime help me I`ll kill you where
you stand!!!" he screamed into the microphone.
As his only answer, he saw the shielding of Deimos base increase to
full strenght.
"Oh damn, why`d you have to do it like that?" he thought sadly. "I
just have don`t any alternatives now."
SETTING FORWARD WEAPONS TO MAXIMUM
While he flicked a few switches to transfer power from engines to
weapons, he hoped that maybe, just maybe, the shields would go down
and the Quanta would dock out.
WEAPONS READY
Noratech looked at the weapon controls, then at the station, then
weapon controls again. Time had run out. Time now to carry out his
orders. Time for one of his own to die.
WEAPONS LOCKED ON TARGET
He pushed the red button. Two large spheres of red energy blazed
through the void of space from the cannons of the Firebolt and made
contact with the shields. Already weakened by centuries of use and
decades of disuse, the derelict station forcefield cracked and
buckled under the assault, shutting down in mere seconds where it
once might have been able to withstand ten times more firepower for
hours on end.
Noratech fired again, hitting the base head on. The hull
disintegrated on impact, opening a large hole in the power core.
The ensuing detonation vaporized the entire space station.
The starship Firebolt remained there immobile for many hours
afterwards while Noratech held his face in his hands, sobbing
silently.
* * *
CYCLES OF LIFE: EPISODE 20
PLAYING THE BALL WHERE IT LANDS
"Hey, wake up! It`s time for breakfeast!" said Chibi-Usa with
enthusiasm as the nurse arrived in the room to remove Usagi`s
intravenous line. "You`ve got a good meal prepared, I made sure
you`d like it, mommy!"
The nurse showed total astonishment. This youthful looking woman was
mother to this seven years old girl?
"It`s just a nickname she has for me." lied Usagi. "Her parents had
some big problems and she lived with me for a long time; we became
very close to each other in that time."
"Oh, that makes more sense! Otherwise I would have insisted on your
telling me the name of your plastic surgeon..." she said, removing
the long needle from Usagi`s bluish vein. This was a great relief.
"Thanks." she said.
"I came to tell you more of what happened that slipped your mind."
said Chibi-Usa.
Usagi waited until the nurse was gone, then nodded her daughter from
the future to go on while she dug in her meal.
"After Gallagher was trashed by Neptune and Venus was brought to the
hospital, you and the others were hell bent on revenge... although
some of you were calmer than others." explained the small lady,
giving as much details as she could...
* * *
Inside Mamoru`s large appartment, the sailor scouts and senshi were
united in a meeting to discuss a situation with dire possibilities.
Mamoru and Shingo assisted as well, compensating somewhat for the
absent Rei, Ami and Minako. Even Naru was there, concerned for the
safety of her friends.
"Okay, so what do we know about this Gallagher?" asked Makoto,
clenching and unclenching her steel-hard fists in impatience.
"He seems to be looking for the missing pieces of a broken sword, a
weapon he calls 'Heresy'." said Michiru.
"I say we use that to our advantage; find the pieces, for sure he`ll
come to us!" said Haruka, her eyes gleaming with the anticipation
of a rematch.
"Is that a good idea? Fighting off an opponent we know nothing about?
To me, that spells certain defeat!" objected Laurella.
"Hey, Michiru beat the crap out of him single-handed!" replied
Makoto.
"Only because she had soul power. There`s only two of us that have it
so far, that hardly evens out things against such an enemy."
commented Usagi, whose mood was more sullen than usual.
"I hate to admit this, but she`s right..." conceded Haruka, rubbing
her throat, still very sore from her nearly fatal strangulation.
"Besides, that one attack left me drained. If I`d missed, the four
of us would have died at his hands for sure." mentionned Michiru.
"I don`t care about his stupid powers of the darkness of the heart
or whatever he claims to have, I`ll rip his arms off and stick his
heresy where the inquisition doesn`t shine!!!" yelled Makoto in
fury.
"ENOUGH!!!" screamed Luna in her commanding voice. "We all want to
stop him, granted- but getting killed won`t bring back Minako from
her coma!"
"She`s right. We have to find out exactly who she is... even as we
speak, Rei is proceeding to a fire reading. Any info she can get
would help us." added Artemis.
"Since we don`t know what Gallagher`s true motives are, we must work
under the assumption that Minako is still in danger; we`ll have to
relay keeping guard over her hospital room." continued Luna.
"Which brings another problem; Ami is totally crushed from Minako`s
condition, she`s incapable of helping us right now and we need her
laptop to figure out where the other pieces of that black sword might
be." observed Michiru.
"Is there anyone else in this city with computer skills enough to
actually use that laptop?" asked Mamoru.
"In know a few." suggested Naru. "But there`s only one I would trust
with our secret."
* * *
Waking up in the middle of Saturn Station Beta`s simulated night,
Technuma Saturn felt empty on the inside again. The Prime`s presence
soothed him for a while, but these bouts of uncertainty had been
getting closer and closer for the past few centuries now, striking
as often as each time he left the station, or if he wasn`t in close
proximity of the ancient being.
He wanted the Prime to soothe his tortured soul again so that he may
sleep better, but didn`t want to disturb the inner peace of the
Prime... was there anything that could disturb the calm of his
creator? Then again, only a truly peaceful mind could emerge from
the millions of hours of meditation he had experienced over the
millenia. Technuma was grateful that this inner peace was
transferrable somehow.
Unable to sleep, he plunged back into his efforts towards solving
Robin`s crippling epilepsy. As far as he could tell, the puzzle was
missing a critical piece located in his faraway past.
"Computer..." he called out.
"Yes..." answered a low tone voice.
"I need a file. A really old file. Search the files older than a
thousand years." he said.
"My archives predating the conflict against Beryl were severely
damaged in the emergency backup from Saturn Station Alpha."
replied the computer.
"I know. Try to reconstruct any files you can salvage, ignore the
irretrievable ones. Look for the following key words: neurones,
synapses, neural web, epilepsy, seizure, bioengineering. Pay close
attention to the medical files." said the guardian while staring at
the ceiling over his bed.
"Shall I add the words BREAKDOWN, REGENERATION and SYNDROME?" asked
the computer.
"Yeah, good idea."
"The search will take a few seconds, please be patient."
"A few seconds only? I expected it would take weeks!" said Technuma.
"I have spent the past few months reconstructing the archive files in
my spare time in case you ever asked me this request." answered the
computer.
"Clever system!" complimented the guardian.
"Here`s the results: 1200354 files contained any or all the keywords,
17883 had medical or biological references to them, 340217 were
irretrievable and one was denied access."
"Huh? Denied access?"
"Yes. It is encrypted with level four scramble."
"Decrypt it. Autorization: Technuma one. Password: Robin and Hotaru."
said Technuma.
"Decryption denied. Insufficient security. Access to file named
'Queen`s Gambit' is still unautorized." objected the computer.
"This is not right. Why would this one file be locked out?" wondered
the guardian. He wasn`t going to find the answer through the voice
command terminal in his quarters, so he put on his uniform and headed
for the main control room.
* * *
Four floors down, the Prime was having some difficulties of his own.
Sitting at the largest of the twelve seats of his conference room
table, he was staring in his usual silence at the hologramatic
comparative display of two DNA strands.
The automated door opened in front of him across the table; the
Prime watched the athletic silhouette of Litechnae Venus entering
the room.
"It`s pretty late, you know." she said, fighting off a loud yawn.
"This better be good."
The ancient greyish skinned being motionned her to come to him and
sit in the chair next to him. He was a very intimidating being,
seeing as he stood over eight feet tall. Even sitting down, he was
still taller than the delicate Litechnae. He pointed towards the
table`s built-in holodisplay.
"I may have designed the program for comparing the dna strands, but
I`m not Technuma. What am I looking at, exactly?" she asked.
The Prime pushed a few buttons and started the comparison sequence
which gave a hundred percent match result. He frowned slightly as
he "spoke" his mind to the guardian.
"Yes, I agree that this dna recovered from Deimos base does match
the one we had on file. That`s not surprising, since Noratech
blasted the place with him still inside." she commented.
Pushing more buttons, the Prime enlarged the search patterns to
encompass not only the one percent of the strand that defines the
specific humanoid genome, but also the remaining ninety-nine percent
of inert nucleotide coding resulting from billions of years of
evolution. This search would take a lot longer, though, so the
Prime turned to the young looking woman, taking a more neutral
expression.
"Yes..." she answered to the unspoken question. "...I did set the
default setting to the human genome only search to cut down runtime.
How could that make any difference?"
The difference was rapidly obvious. Nucleotide sequencing of the
Deimos sample revealed one blaring mistake after only fifteen
seconds of comparative search. Then another. And another. And a
thousand more, these mistakes piling up in a senseless fashion.
The result of the comparison was horribly simple to understand:
this dna recovered by Noratech was a clever fake, designed to fool
a system into believing that this was actual living tissue.
And it had worked to perfection.
"Does this mean the traitor is still alive?" she asked with her
increasingly shaking voice.
"We can only assume he is." said Noratech as he joined them and sat
across the room.
"This is bad. The whole timetable is endangered." said Litechnae.
"The timetable? Try the whole agenda!!!" replied Noratech. "Whatever
happens, we have to try and keep things looking like business as
usual. We can`t afford to have more trouble like last time that
happened... I`m not killing my brethren again, you can count on
that."
The expression on the Prime`s face again, a visual clue that he was
"addressing" his two guardians directly.
"It`s agreed then. I`ll take care of the hands-on business myself,
Litechnae will keep an eye on Technuma." said Noratech Neptune,
twirling in his fingers the long blonde ponytail which ran down
his back all the way to his waist.
Litechnae`s face went pale white with fear. The others wondered
what she might be holding back, so the Prime "asked" her.
"I ran across Technuma on my way here... he was heading to the core
archives, mumbling about an encrypted file... I think he might have
stumbled on *Queen`s Gambit*..." she said nervously.
The Prime stood up in all his majesty, towering over his two
guardians. He gave some instructions to Noratech without saying a
word and left them alone in the room. Once they were alone, Noratech
stood up and walked towards Litechnae.
"So let me get this straight... not only do you program a major flaw
into the software we relied on to tell if the renegade was indeed
dead, but you also messed up the destruction of our most sensitive
file which found its way to Technuma Saturn somehow?" he asked her,
slowly bending over to level his eyes with hers.
She did not answer, looking away in shame.
Noratech slapped her hard, stinging her face very much and leaving a
large red mark.
"If this ends up sending Technuma down the spiral like it did the
renegade, you`ll pay for that. I won`t allow anyone to screw up what
the Prime has been planning all these thousands of years, not even
my own mate!" he coldly said, then left her alone in the room, crying
by herself like a child punished for not putting her toys away.
In a way, she was just that.
* * *
"So what`s our first lead?" wondered Laurella as she followed her
leader Sailor Moon down the stairs and out of Mamoru`s appartment
building.
"We go back to the museum. The cops have had the place sealed up
for the duration of their investigation which will not turn up
anything tangible as usual." said Usagi. "I believe they`ll most
likely miss the most obvious clues left behind, as they always did
in the past."
As they walked out of the building`s front door, the two girls met
with the very cheerful Robin Redwing. She`d been looking for Usagi
for a few days now.
"Hey, Usagi, where have you been since friday afternoon? We were
supposed to go shopping together on saturday, remember? And what
have you been doing all this time? I had to track you down to your
fiancee`s place to find you!" said the gorgeous girl with the
really short black hair.
"I`ve been kinda busy... I`m really, really sorry, Robin... can we do
this sometime later this week?" said Usagi, holding her hand behind
her head in embarassment.
"Okay, I`m busy today myself- I just wanted to make sure you were
all right." said Robin. She scooted away.
"She always seems to pop up when you least expect her. Just like
Sailor Saturn... which reminds me, where DOES she fit in this
Gallagher mess?" wondered Laurella as she picked up a pair of
helmets from her motorcycle and handed one to Usagi.
"Since she`s still a wildcard, we can`t put any stock in her
showing up exactly when we`d like her to. For that matter, it`s
not even sure whose side she`s on... we`ll have to be careful."
* * *
Naru opened her backpack and pulled out an ocean blue laptop adorned
with the symbol of Mercury. Years of use had worn out the golden
alchemical symbol to a dull yellowish grey. She placed it on the
living room table in front of her boyfriend Umino. His eyes grew
wide in disbelief.
"WHERE did you get THAT?" he asked, bewildered. He opened it and was
shocked to see it was indeed the real one. "It`s really Sailor
Mercury`s computer, isn`t it?!?"
"Yes. Can you operate it?" asked Naru.
"That`s not the question. How did you get a hold of Sailor Mercury`s
laptop? Doesn`t she need it herself?" he asked right back.
Naru knew that Umino`s parents were away for the day and that he was
an only child, so no one would walk in on them. Haruka, Michiru and
Rei looked at each other and nodded. They would trust him with
their secret.
"URANUS STARPOWER MAKEUP!!!"
"MARS STARPOWER MAKEUP!!!"
"NEPTUNE SOUL POWER TRANSFORM!!!"
The golden flash of the three girls changing into their sailor
forms filled Umino`s home and blinded him for a second. When his
eyes pierced through the intense light, he was stunned to see them
becoming three of the heroes he`d heard so much about.
"You girls are..." he started to say, the rest of the words hanging
on his lips.
"The sailor scouts." said Mars.
"And I am now a sailor senshi." added Neptune.
"So that explains the Captain Commando look..." thought Umino.
"So you see, Umino, my friends are heroes who fight against
unspeakable evils to defend us all." said Naru.
"Even Usagi?" wondered the thick-glassed teenager.
"ESPECIALLY Usagi. She`s Sailor Moon!" answered Naru.
"Are you one too?"
"No, but I manage to always get dragged into their battles somehow...
but that`s besides the point. Minako, who`s really Sailor Venus, has
been badly wounded by a maniac called Gallagher and her girlfriend
Ami, who`s Sailor Mercury, is so totally crushed that she`s incapable
of helping us. Can you make her computer work?"
Umino took a more careful look at the keyboard and screen; he pushed
his glasses up with his finger and squinted slightly in deep thought.
"Yes, I believe I can." he said to the four girls` relief.
* * *
One motorcycle ride and a quick transformation later, Laurella and
Usagi entered the museum five minutes after closing time. They snuck
their way in discreetly, unaware of the third presence following them
from a safe distance.
Sailor Saturn had just entered the conflict, and would soon be
getting much more than she`d bargained for.
"This place looks even cooler when you`re alone!" commented Sailor
Jendra. "It is pretty cold, though. This skirt is not exactly
designed to help you cope with temperature controlled places like
this one."
Laurella couldn`t wait to get soul power like Usagi; not only would
she get increased power and self-understanding, but she could finally
switch the skirt and sleeveless shirt for the full body combat fuku.
The room for exhibiting the odder pieces was in the exact state it
had been left by the scouts and the newly revealed senshi Neptune.
The only differences were the police tape to seal it up and the
wooden board to close the shattered window which Gallagher had been
catapulted out of.
The statue pieces strewn across the floor were intriguing Sailor
Moon. She started to observe them one at a time, convinced she could
find something there.
Sailor Jendra caught movement in her eye and decided to follow it-
she was intrigued, wondering who that could be... yet somehow she
knew it was Saturn. The mysterious scout had made the same sort of
shadowing the first few times they`d met.
"I`ll go see if it`s her, Sailor Moon." she whispered.
"Be careful." said Usagi absent-mindedly, focused on the marble
scraps.
After a few minutes, she heard footsteps coming behind her.
"So, was it Sailor Saturn you saw?" asked Moon without stopping her
methodic search.
"Not quite." answered a deep masculine voice.
Her blood rushed through her veins, and she jumped to her feet like a
cat, taking a combat stance to face the man who`d snuck up to her.
Dressed all in black with matching cloak, hood and mask, for sure it
was Gallagher.
"I am the pretty soldier Sailor Moon, and in the name of the moon
I..." she started to claim.
Gallagher interrupted her rudely.
"Cut the battle chit-chat, I`m here to talk." he said.
"I just wish Sailor Venus was here to talk with us as well!" said
Sailor Moon with fireburning in her eyes.
"I`m not interested in fighting you, moon child. Your soul is
already a well tempered blade, I believe you call it Avenger." said
Gallagher, referring to the moon senshi`s sacred weapon.
"How do you do this? Find me so easily?" she wondered.
"Easy. Your soul power is a beacon of spiritual strenght that I can
home in." answered the masked man, showing the senshi a card with
her picture on it. "What you are looking for is right over there,
next to the stainglass shards. Let me point it out for you..."
By simply pointing his gloved hand to the colored glass pieces, he
made one of the pieces rise in the air and move right next to Sailor
Moon at her eye level. It was no piece of glass, however. It was a
refined piece of crystal, something like the moon kingdom might have
used to store their data.
"I recovered this little trinket from the twisted wreck of the
Avatar, but I lost it on my way out of this place during my last
visit... I believe Sailor Neptune told you all about this most
unpleasant experience.Did you ever wonder why you and your friends
always reincarnate and come back to life so conveniently? Fate?
Destiny? Karma, or chance perhaps? I think not, young Sailor Moon.
Or should I call you Moontype Female Genome Humanoid?" asked
Gallagher. "Part of the answer is locked in there." he said,
pointing to the crystal.
As Sailor Moon looked at it and snatched it from its hovering
position, she didn`t notice right away that Gallagher vanished-
when she did, it was too late to stop him.
She stared at the crystal, ans its contents was displayed into her
mind in a telepathicly compatible form. The message had two parts:
first, a long display of a detailed DNA sequence identified as
MARSTYPE FEMALE GENOME HUMANOID MARK II. The second was an image
of the guardian Technuma Saturn inside his long destroyed ship
AVATAR, dictating an autopsy report.
"Log entry number forty-seven, Sailor Mars has finally succumbed to
her intensive second and third degree burns inflicted by Celeste,
the demoted Sailor Mars. Regen-cloning of her replacement has already
begun and will take approximately five to six days. Brain pattern
copying will help assure that she does not realize this switch
happened at all. Log entry end."
"Oh dear god..." thought Usagi.
This crystal might be a fake, but... what if it wasn`t? She couldn`t
tell this to the others. Not right away.
"I think it was her, but she ran off." said Jendra as she returned.
"Found anything?"
"No... nothing." lied Sailor Moon.
They left.
* * *
"The signal leads here." said Umino, his eyes locked onto the digital
screen of the borrowed computer. "Over there." he added, pointing to
a mountain side buried under a very large rockslide.
Stepping out of the bright red sportscar, the four girls and their
somewhat geeky male friend walked down a grassy path leading to the
small, featureless and wholly unremarkable mountain. Overall, this
was truly the best place to hide a piece of the most remarkable
weapon that was never forged in this galaxy.
"I`m really proud of you, Umino. You managed to make this incredibly
complicated machine work and you`re helping us fighting the most evil
being we`ve ever faced." whispered Naru.
"I`m just happy to be doing this by your side. I love you more than
you can imagine." he whispered back, looking up from the computer
just long enough to take a look at his girlfriend`s gleaming eyes.
Following the two lovebirds a few steps behind, Michiru and Haruka
were positively feeling quite amorous themselves; this walk through
the small forest patch was reminding them of the nature treks they
took in europe.
Then came Rei, who felt a bit lonely all by herself, her boyfriend
Yuuichiro being miles away in a musical tour that would keep him out
of Tokyo for the next couple of months... at least. She was not
totally alone, however, as the new life growing in her womb vibrated
harmoniously with her own lifeforce. It made her feel... whole.
"There it is." said Umino, halting before the mountainside.
Huge mounds of rocks were stacked in apparent disorder, but hid a
very well constructed barrier. No matter how much Sailor Uranus tried
to move the boulders, not even the seemingly weakest would budge of
a single inch.
"No wonder no one ever found this sword... the pieces are impossible
to find!!!" she finally said in a burst of frustrated anger.
"Polar opposite could help us out here, don`t you agree, Sailor
Mars?" asked Neptune.
"I agree... FIRE SOUL!!!" screamed Mars, hurling a scorching
fireball to the rock pile, superheating it to the brink of melting.
"DEEP SUBMERGE!!!" completed Neptune, sending crashing a wave of
cold water onto the white hot rocks; a loud cracking sound made
itself heard and a wide fissure appeared.
"My turn now..." said Haruka, smiling with a grin of vengeful
wrath. She concentrated all of her willpower into her fist and stared
to the wide fissure. "LET HER RIP!!!" she yelled as she smashed her
fist with full force. The rock surface exploded violently, showering
the others with a barrage of pebbles.
"I just love doing that." said Uranus while her friends dusted
themselves. "Releases stress, you know. Come on, let`s go get this
metal piece!"
* * *
Ami was tired. Very tired. Her short dark blue hair was a mess and
her clothes were wrinkled from the overextended use she`d made of
them, but she wouldn`t go home and refresh herself. Not while her
dear love Minako was still lost in the shrouds of her deep coma.
The exhausted girl had been keeping watch for twenty-four hours
straight now, sleeping on and off in the chair next to the hospital
bed, although not nearly enough to recharge herself to full health.
"Oh, Minako darling, please come back to us... find your way home!"
she pleaded.
Find your way home.
These words found their way into the mind of the severely wounded
girl. They pierced through the shadows and all the way in the deepest
recesses of her psyche where Minako had taken refuge.
An imaginary grassy field is truly a thing of wonder. Thick lush
herb and wild flowers as far as the eye can see, deep blue skyes
where thin pure white clouds slowly drifted along soft breezes that
caress the skin.
Somewhere in the middle of this paradise, Minako lay down sleeping.
She was still wearing her sailor scout uniform, though it had
known much hardship, ripped and torn to nothing more than a few
shreds that failed to cover all but her most intimate areas.
"Find your way home..." these words came, brushing her ears
smoothly.
So Minako began her long walk home. It would be a very long, lonely
walk.
* * *
"This place is creeping me out!" commented Naru as the group walked
inside a cave hidden for many centuries by the cleverly disguised
rock wall.
The tunnels lead to a large room, shaped as a huge dome. All around
it at the exact positions of north, south, east and west rested four
statues of hideous beasts. Though their shapes were all blasted in
appearance and wicked in intent, they were all unmistakebly linked
to one another for two clearly apparent reasons: they were all
mounted with a strange looking saddles, and also they were all
carved from the same material- dark marble, exactly like the one
used to create the four hellish knights in the museum.
In the middle of the dome was an altar. On it laid the next piece
of Heresy.
"Let`s just take it and leave. I`m not spending one more minute
here, this place is emitting the most horribly oppressive aura
I`ve ever felt!" said Rei.
* * *
Laurella walked in on Usagi and her future daughter as she was
explaining how the third piece of the black sword had been found.
Her boyfriend Shingo followed her in and told Chibi-Usa that it
was time for her to go home to get some sleep.
"You won`t be alone for long, sis, we`ll keep you company a few more
minutes until visiting hours are over. The doctor says you can even
leave tomorrow morning!" said Shingo.
Chibi-Usa hopped off the bed and walked out of the room to Rei who
had come to pick her up.
"Hello small lady." said Rei. "Had a good time with your mom?"
"Yes, she`s remembering more and more now. Maybe she can even tell
us what happened before that huge explosion." said the cute
pink-haired girl. Turning around, she saw Usagi laughing along
with her friend and her brother.
A wave of sadness caught hold of her as she witnessed them so happy
together. She could barely hold back her long supressed tears and
sorrow. "I`m so sorry for what I`ve done to you, Laurella... you
didn`t deserve it, neither did your love."
"What`s the matter, Chibi-Usa? You look so sad!" said Rei, crouching
down to her level.
"I feel that... it`s just... hug me, Rei!" she said, tears rolling
off her cheeks.
Rei held the sweet child in her arms for a few moments. This felt
good. This felt right, to both of them as though it had been missing
from their existence somehow.
They held each other like this until the nurse told them visiting
hours were over.
To be continued...
a.k.a. Technuma Saturn
Prologue
one thousand years ago...
He had flown the starship Firebolt thousands of times, on a wide
variety of missions that varied from rescues, repair of substations,
transports and observations. He had even flown it around the solar
system while racing against Ramatech Jupiter or just to find an empty
corner of space where he and his girlfriend Litechnae Venus wouldn`t
be disturbed for a few hours.
This time however, Noratech Neptune was on a different kind of
mission.
His teeth cringed as he followed the ion trail of the starship Quanta
on his radar. He`d been hot on the ship`s trail all the way from
Saturn Station Alpha. Six hours later and halfway across the solar
system to the almost abandonned Deimos base.
Noratech accessed the base`s logs through his flight computer, which
confirmed that the Quantum was indeed docked there. He wanted to dock
as well, but the shields were raised. He sat silently in the worn out
pilot seat, staring at the small station gently floated around the
small mars satellite in very regular elliptic orbits.
With the push of a button, he accessed the comm system of the small
base and addressed the man he had chased over such great distances.
"I know you`re in there. I know what you`ve been through... hell,
we`re bound by links that go beyond mere kinship- come out right now,
the Prime can fix everything! These memories can be made to go away,
you know that as well as I do!!!" he said.
No response.
"We can`t leave it at that, not in your condition! Come out right
now and I promise you my personal protection!" added Noratech.
Still no response.
"Get out of there this instant, or Prime help me I`ll kill you where
you stand!!!" he screamed into the microphone.
As his only answer, he saw the shielding of Deimos base increase to
full strenght.
"Oh damn, why`d you have to do it like that?" he thought sadly. "I
just have don`t any alternatives now."
SETTING FORWARD WEAPONS TO MAXIMUM
While he flicked a few switches to transfer power from engines to
weapons, he hoped that maybe, just maybe, the shields would go down
and the Quanta would dock out.
WEAPONS READY
Noratech looked at the weapon controls, then at the station, then
weapon controls again. Time had run out. Time now to carry out his
orders. Time for one of his own to die.
WEAPONS LOCKED ON TARGET
He pushed the red button. Two large spheres of red energy blazed
through the void of space from the cannons of the Firebolt and made
contact with the shields. Already weakened by centuries of use and
decades of disuse, the derelict station forcefield cracked and
buckled under the assault, shutting down in mere seconds where it
once might have been able to withstand ten times more firepower for
hours on end.
Noratech fired again, hitting the base head on. The hull
disintegrated on impact, opening a large hole in the power core.
The ensuing detonation vaporized the entire space station.
The starship Firebolt remained there immobile for many hours
afterwards while Noratech held his face in his hands, sobbing
silently.
* * *
CYCLES OF LIFE: EPISODE 20
PLAYING THE BALL WHERE IT LANDS
"Hey, wake up! It`s time for breakfeast!" said Chibi-Usa with
enthusiasm as the nurse arrived in the room to remove Usagi`s
intravenous line. "You`ve got a good meal prepared, I made sure
you`d like it, mommy!"
The nurse showed total astonishment. This youthful looking woman was
mother to this seven years old girl?
"It`s just a nickname she has for me." lied Usagi. "Her parents had
some big problems and she lived with me for a long time; we became
very close to each other in that time."
"Oh, that makes more sense! Otherwise I would have insisted on your
telling me the name of your plastic surgeon..." she said, removing
the long needle from Usagi`s bluish vein. This was a great relief.
"Thanks." she said.
"I came to tell you more of what happened that slipped your mind."
said Chibi-Usa.
Usagi waited until the nurse was gone, then nodded her daughter from
the future to go on while she dug in her meal.
"After Gallagher was trashed by Neptune and Venus was brought to the
hospital, you and the others were hell bent on revenge... although
some of you were calmer than others." explained the small lady,
giving as much details as she could...
* * *
Inside Mamoru`s large appartment, the sailor scouts and senshi were
united in a meeting to discuss a situation with dire possibilities.
Mamoru and Shingo assisted as well, compensating somewhat for the
absent Rei, Ami and Minako. Even Naru was there, concerned for the
safety of her friends.
"Okay, so what do we know about this Gallagher?" asked Makoto,
clenching and unclenching her steel-hard fists in impatience.
"He seems to be looking for the missing pieces of a broken sword, a
weapon he calls 'Heresy'." said Michiru.
"I say we use that to our advantage; find the pieces, for sure he`ll
come to us!" said Haruka, her eyes gleaming with the anticipation
of a rematch.
"Is that a good idea? Fighting off an opponent we know nothing about?
To me, that spells certain defeat!" objected Laurella.
"Hey, Michiru beat the crap out of him single-handed!" replied
Makoto.
"Only because she had soul power. There`s only two of us that have it
so far, that hardly evens out things against such an enemy."
commented Usagi, whose mood was more sullen than usual.
"I hate to admit this, but she`s right..." conceded Haruka, rubbing
her throat, still very sore from her nearly fatal strangulation.
"Besides, that one attack left me drained. If I`d missed, the four
of us would have died at his hands for sure." mentionned Michiru.
"I don`t care about his stupid powers of the darkness of the heart
or whatever he claims to have, I`ll rip his arms off and stick his
heresy where the inquisition doesn`t shine!!!" yelled Makoto in
fury.
"ENOUGH!!!" screamed Luna in her commanding voice. "We all want to
stop him, granted- but getting killed won`t bring back Minako from
her coma!"
"She`s right. We have to find out exactly who she is... even as we
speak, Rei is proceeding to a fire reading. Any info she can get
would help us." added Artemis.
"Since we don`t know what Gallagher`s true motives are, we must work
under the assumption that Minako is still in danger; we`ll have to
relay keeping guard over her hospital room." continued Luna.
"Which brings another problem; Ami is totally crushed from Minako`s
condition, she`s incapable of helping us right now and we need her
laptop to figure out where the other pieces of that black sword might
be." observed Michiru.
"Is there anyone else in this city with computer skills enough to
actually use that laptop?" asked Mamoru.
"In know a few." suggested Naru. "But there`s only one I would trust
with our secret."
* * *
Waking up in the middle of Saturn Station Beta`s simulated night,
Technuma Saturn felt empty on the inside again. The Prime`s presence
soothed him for a while, but these bouts of uncertainty had been
getting closer and closer for the past few centuries now, striking
as often as each time he left the station, or if he wasn`t in close
proximity of the ancient being.
He wanted the Prime to soothe his tortured soul again so that he may
sleep better, but didn`t want to disturb the inner peace of the
Prime... was there anything that could disturb the calm of his
creator? Then again, only a truly peaceful mind could emerge from
the millions of hours of meditation he had experienced over the
millenia. Technuma was grateful that this inner peace was
transferrable somehow.
Unable to sleep, he plunged back into his efforts towards solving
Robin`s crippling epilepsy. As far as he could tell, the puzzle was
missing a critical piece located in his faraway past.
"Computer..." he called out.
"Yes..." answered a low tone voice.
"I need a file. A really old file. Search the files older than a
thousand years." he said.
"My archives predating the conflict against Beryl were severely
damaged in the emergency backup from Saturn Station Alpha."
replied the computer.
"I know. Try to reconstruct any files you can salvage, ignore the
irretrievable ones. Look for the following key words: neurones,
synapses, neural web, epilepsy, seizure, bioengineering. Pay close
attention to the medical files." said the guardian while staring at
the ceiling over his bed.
"Shall I add the words BREAKDOWN, REGENERATION and SYNDROME?" asked
the computer.
"Yeah, good idea."
"The search will take a few seconds, please be patient."
"A few seconds only? I expected it would take weeks!" said Technuma.
"I have spent the past few months reconstructing the archive files in
my spare time in case you ever asked me this request." answered the
computer.
"Clever system!" complimented the guardian.
"Here`s the results: 1200354 files contained any or all the keywords,
17883 had medical or biological references to them, 340217 were
irretrievable and one was denied access."
"Huh? Denied access?"
"Yes. It is encrypted with level four scramble."
"Decrypt it. Autorization: Technuma one. Password: Robin and Hotaru."
said Technuma.
"Decryption denied. Insufficient security. Access to file named
'Queen`s Gambit' is still unautorized." objected the computer.
"This is not right. Why would this one file be locked out?" wondered
the guardian. He wasn`t going to find the answer through the voice
command terminal in his quarters, so he put on his uniform and headed
for the main control room.
* * *
Four floors down, the Prime was having some difficulties of his own.
Sitting at the largest of the twelve seats of his conference room
table, he was staring in his usual silence at the hologramatic
comparative display of two DNA strands.
The automated door opened in front of him across the table; the
Prime watched the athletic silhouette of Litechnae Venus entering
the room.
"It`s pretty late, you know." she said, fighting off a loud yawn.
"This better be good."
The ancient greyish skinned being motionned her to come to him and
sit in the chair next to him. He was a very intimidating being,
seeing as he stood over eight feet tall. Even sitting down, he was
still taller than the delicate Litechnae. He pointed towards the
table`s built-in holodisplay.
"I may have designed the program for comparing the dna strands, but
I`m not Technuma. What am I looking at, exactly?" she asked.
The Prime pushed a few buttons and started the comparison sequence
which gave a hundred percent match result. He frowned slightly as
he "spoke" his mind to the guardian.
"Yes, I agree that this dna recovered from Deimos base does match
the one we had on file. That`s not surprising, since Noratech
blasted the place with him still inside." she commented.
Pushing more buttons, the Prime enlarged the search patterns to
encompass not only the one percent of the strand that defines the
specific humanoid genome, but also the remaining ninety-nine percent
of inert nucleotide coding resulting from billions of years of
evolution. This search would take a lot longer, though, so the
Prime turned to the young looking woman, taking a more neutral
expression.
"Yes..." she answered to the unspoken question. "...I did set the
default setting to the human genome only search to cut down runtime.
How could that make any difference?"
The difference was rapidly obvious. Nucleotide sequencing of the
Deimos sample revealed one blaring mistake after only fifteen
seconds of comparative search. Then another. And another. And a
thousand more, these mistakes piling up in a senseless fashion.
The result of the comparison was horribly simple to understand:
this dna recovered by Noratech was a clever fake, designed to fool
a system into believing that this was actual living tissue.
And it had worked to perfection.
"Does this mean the traitor is still alive?" she asked with her
increasingly shaking voice.
"We can only assume he is." said Noratech as he joined them and sat
across the room.
"This is bad. The whole timetable is endangered." said Litechnae.
"The timetable? Try the whole agenda!!!" replied Noratech. "Whatever
happens, we have to try and keep things looking like business as
usual. We can`t afford to have more trouble like last time that
happened... I`m not killing my brethren again, you can count on
that."
The expression on the Prime`s face again, a visual clue that he was
"addressing" his two guardians directly.
"It`s agreed then. I`ll take care of the hands-on business myself,
Litechnae will keep an eye on Technuma." said Noratech Neptune,
twirling in his fingers the long blonde ponytail which ran down
his back all the way to his waist.
Litechnae`s face went pale white with fear. The others wondered
what she might be holding back, so the Prime "asked" her.
"I ran across Technuma on my way here... he was heading to the core
archives, mumbling about an encrypted file... I think he might have
stumbled on *Queen`s Gambit*..." she said nervously.
The Prime stood up in all his majesty, towering over his two
guardians. He gave some instructions to Noratech without saying a
word and left them alone in the room. Once they were alone, Noratech
stood up and walked towards Litechnae.
"So let me get this straight... not only do you program a major flaw
into the software we relied on to tell if the renegade was indeed
dead, but you also messed up the destruction of our most sensitive
file which found its way to Technuma Saturn somehow?" he asked her,
slowly bending over to level his eyes with hers.
She did not answer, looking away in shame.
Noratech slapped her hard, stinging her face very much and leaving a
large red mark.
"If this ends up sending Technuma down the spiral like it did the
renegade, you`ll pay for that. I won`t allow anyone to screw up what
the Prime has been planning all these thousands of years, not even
my own mate!" he coldly said, then left her alone in the room, crying
by herself like a child punished for not putting her toys away.
In a way, she was just that.
* * *
"So what`s our first lead?" wondered Laurella as she followed her
leader Sailor Moon down the stairs and out of Mamoru`s appartment
building.
"We go back to the museum. The cops have had the place sealed up
for the duration of their investigation which will not turn up
anything tangible as usual." said Usagi. "I believe they`ll most
likely miss the most obvious clues left behind, as they always did
in the past."
As they walked out of the building`s front door, the two girls met
with the very cheerful Robin Redwing. She`d been looking for Usagi
for a few days now.
"Hey, Usagi, where have you been since friday afternoon? We were
supposed to go shopping together on saturday, remember? And what
have you been doing all this time? I had to track you down to your
fiancee`s place to find you!" said the gorgeous girl with the
really short black hair.
"I`ve been kinda busy... I`m really, really sorry, Robin... can we do
this sometime later this week?" said Usagi, holding her hand behind
her head in embarassment.
"Okay, I`m busy today myself- I just wanted to make sure you were
all right." said Robin. She scooted away.
"She always seems to pop up when you least expect her. Just like
Sailor Saturn... which reminds me, where DOES she fit in this
Gallagher mess?" wondered Laurella as she picked up a pair of
helmets from her motorcycle and handed one to Usagi.
"Since she`s still a wildcard, we can`t put any stock in her
showing up exactly when we`d like her to. For that matter, it`s
not even sure whose side she`s on... we`ll have to be careful."
* * *
Naru opened her backpack and pulled out an ocean blue laptop adorned
with the symbol of Mercury. Years of use had worn out the golden
alchemical symbol to a dull yellowish grey. She placed it on the
living room table in front of her boyfriend Umino. His eyes grew
wide in disbelief.
"WHERE did you get THAT?" he asked, bewildered. He opened it and was
shocked to see it was indeed the real one. "It`s really Sailor
Mercury`s computer, isn`t it?!?"
"Yes. Can you operate it?" asked Naru.
"That`s not the question. How did you get a hold of Sailor Mercury`s
laptop? Doesn`t she need it herself?" he asked right back.
Naru knew that Umino`s parents were away for the day and that he was
an only child, so no one would walk in on them. Haruka, Michiru and
Rei looked at each other and nodded. They would trust him with
their secret.
"URANUS STARPOWER MAKEUP!!!"
"MARS STARPOWER MAKEUP!!!"
"NEPTUNE SOUL POWER TRANSFORM!!!"
The golden flash of the three girls changing into their sailor
forms filled Umino`s home and blinded him for a second. When his
eyes pierced through the intense light, he was stunned to see them
becoming three of the heroes he`d heard so much about.
"You girls are..." he started to say, the rest of the words hanging
on his lips.
"The sailor scouts." said Mars.
"And I am now a sailor senshi." added Neptune.
"So that explains the Captain Commando look..." thought Umino.
"So you see, Umino, my friends are heroes who fight against
unspeakable evils to defend us all." said Naru.
"Even Usagi?" wondered the thick-glassed teenager.
"ESPECIALLY Usagi. She`s Sailor Moon!" answered Naru.
"Are you one too?"
"No, but I manage to always get dragged into their battles somehow...
but that`s besides the point. Minako, who`s really Sailor Venus, has
been badly wounded by a maniac called Gallagher and her girlfriend
Ami, who`s Sailor Mercury, is so totally crushed that she`s incapable
of helping us. Can you make her computer work?"
Umino took a more careful look at the keyboard and screen; he pushed
his glasses up with his finger and squinted slightly in deep thought.
"Yes, I believe I can." he said to the four girls` relief.
* * *
One motorcycle ride and a quick transformation later, Laurella and
Usagi entered the museum five minutes after closing time. They snuck
their way in discreetly, unaware of the third presence following them
from a safe distance.
Sailor Saturn had just entered the conflict, and would soon be
getting much more than she`d bargained for.
"This place looks even cooler when you`re alone!" commented Sailor
Jendra. "It is pretty cold, though. This skirt is not exactly
designed to help you cope with temperature controlled places like
this one."
Laurella couldn`t wait to get soul power like Usagi; not only would
she get increased power and self-understanding, but she could finally
switch the skirt and sleeveless shirt for the full body combat fuku.
The room for exhibiting the odder pieces was in the exact state it
had been left by the scouts and the newly revealed senshi Neptune.
The only differences were the police tape to seal it up and the
wooden board to close the shattered window which Gallagher had been
catapulted out of.
The statue pieces strewn across the floor were intriguing Sailor
Moon. She started to observe them one at a time, convinced she could
find something there.
Sailor Jendra caught movement in her eye and decided to follow it-
she was intrigued, wondering who that could be... yet somehow she
knew it was Saturn. The mysterious scout had made the same sort of
shadowing the first few times they`d met.
"I`ll go see if it`s her, Sailor Moon." she whispered.
"Be careful." said Usagi absent-mindedly, focused on the marble
scraps.
After a few minutes, she heard footsteps coming behind her.
"So, was it Sailor Saturn you saw?" asked Moon without stopping her
methodic search.
"Not quite." answered a deep masculine voice.
Her blood rushed through her veins, and she jumped to her feet like a
cat, taking a combat stance to face the man who`d snuck up to her.
Dressed all in black with matching cloak, hood and mask, for sure it
was Gallagher.
"I am the pretty soldier Sailor Moon, and in the name of the moon
I..." she started to claim.
Gallagher interrupted her rudely.
"Cut the battle chit-chat, I`m here to talk." he said.
"I just wish Sailor Venus was here to talk with us as well!" said
Sailor Moon with fireburning in her eyes.
"I`m not interested in fighting you, moon child. Your soul is
already a well tempered blade, I believe you call it Avenger." said
Gallagher, referring to the moon senshi`s sacred weapon.
"How do you do this? Find me so easily?" she wondered.
"Easy. Your soul power is a beacon of spiritual strenght that I can
home in." answered the masked man, showing the senshi a card with
her picture on it. "What you are looking for is right over there,
next to the stainglass shards. Let me point it out for you..."
By simply pointing his gloved hand to the colored glass pieces, he
made one of the pieces rise in the air and move right next to Sailor
Moon at her eye level. It was no piece of glass, however. It was a
refined piece of crystal, something like the moon kingdom might have
used to store their data.
"I recovered this little trinket from the twisted wreck of the
Avatar, but I lost it on my way out of this place during my last
visit... I believe Sailor Neptune told you all about this most
unpleasant experience.Did you ever wonder why you and your friends
always reincarnate and come back to life so conveniently? Fate?
Destiny? Karma, or chance perhaps? I think not, young Sailor Moon.
Or should I call you Moontype Female Genome Humanoid?" asked
Gallagher. "Part of the answer is locked in there." he said,
pointing to the crystal.
As Sailor Moon looked at it and snatched it from its hovering
position, she didn`t notice right away that Gallagher vanished-
when she did, it was too late to stop him.
She stared at the crystal, ans its contents was displayed into her
mind in a telepathicly compatible form. The message had two parts:
first, a long display of a detailed DNA sequence identified as
MARSTYPE FEMALE GENOME HUMANOID MARK II. The second was an image
of the guardian Technuma Saturn inside his long destroyed ship
AVATAR, dictating an autopsy report.
"Log entry number forty-seven, Sailor Mars has finally succumbed to
her intensive second and third degree burns inflicted by Celeste,
the demoted Sailor Mars. Regen-cloning of her replacement has already
begun and will take approximately five to six days. Brain pattern
copying will help assure that she does not realize this switch
happened at all. Log entry end."
"Oh dear god..." thought Usagi.
This crystal might be a fake, but... what if it wasn`t? She couldn`t
tell this to the others. Not right away.
"I think it was her, but she ran off." said Jendra as she returned.
"Found anything?"
"No... nothing." lied Sailor Moon.
They left.
* * *
"The signal leads here." said Umino, his eyes locked onto the digital
screen of the borrowed computer. "Over there." he added, pointing to
a mountain side buried under a very large rockslide.
Stepping out of the bright red sportscar, the four girls and their
somewhat geeky male friend walked down a grassy path leading to the
small, featureless and wholly unremarkable mountain. Overall, this
was truly the best place to hide a piece of the most remarkable
weapon that was never forged in this galaxy.
"I`m really proud of you, Umino. You managed to make this incredibly
complicated machine work and you`re helping us fighting the most evil
being we`ve ever faced." whispered Naru.
"I`m just happy to be doing this by your side. I love you more than
you can imagine." he whispered back, looking up from the computer
just long enough to take a look at his girlfriend`s gleaming eyes.
Following the two lovebirds a few steps behind, Michiru and Haruka
were positively feeling quite amorous themselves; this walk through
the small forest patch was reminding them of the nature treks they
took in europe.
Then came Rei, who felt a bit lonely all by herself, her boyfriend
Yuuichiro being miles away in a musical tour that would keep him out
of Tokyo for the next couple of months... at least. She was not
totally alone, however, as the new life growing in her womb vibrated
harmoniously with her own lifeforce. It made her feel... whole.
"There it is." said Umino, halting before the mountainside.
Huge mounds of rocks were stacked in apparent disorder, but hid a
very well constructed barrier. No matter how much Sailor Uranus tried
to move the boulders, not even the seemingly weakest would budge of
a single inch.
"No wonder no one ever found this sword... the pieces are impossible
to find!!!" she finally said in a burst of frustrated anger.
"Polar opposite could help us out here, don`t you agree, Sailor
Mars?" asked Neptune.
"I agree... FIRE SOUL!!!" screamed Mars, hurling a scorching
fireball to the rock pile, superheating it to the brink of melting.
"DEEP SUBMERGE!!!" completed Neptune, sending crashing a wave of
cold water onto the white hot rocks; a loud cracking sound made
itself heard and a wide fissure appeared.
"My turn now..." said Haruka, smiling with a grin of vengeful
wrath. She concentrated all of her willpower into her fist and stared
to the wide fissure. "LET HER RIP!!!" she yelled as she smashed her
fist with full force. The rock surface exploded violently, showering
the others with a barrage of pebbles.
"I just love doing that." said Uranus while her friends dusted
themselves. "Releases stress, you know. Come on, let`s go get this
metal piece!"
* * *
Ami was tired. Very tired. Her short dark blue hair was a mess and
her clothes were wrinkled from the overextended use she`d made of
them, but she wouldn`t go home and refresh herself. Not while her
dear love Minako was still lost in the shrouds of her deep coma.
The exhausted girl had been keeping watch for twenty-four hours
straight now, sleeping on and off in the chair next to the hospital
bed, although not nearly enough to recharge herself to full health.
"Oh, Minako darling, please come back to us... find your way home!"
she pleaded.
Find your way home.
These words found their way into the mind of the severely wounded
girl. They pierced through the shadows and all the way in the deepest
recesses of her psyche where Minako had taken refuge.
An imaginary grassy field is truly a thing of wonder. Thick lush
herb and wild flowers as far as the eye can see, deep blue skyes
where thin pure white clouds slowly drifted along soft breezes that
caress the skin.
Somewhere in the middle of this paradise, Minako lay down sleeping.
She was still wearing her sailor scout uniform, though it had
known much hardship, ripped and torn to nothing more than a few
shreds that failed to cover all but her most intimate areas.
"Find your way home..." these words came, brushing her ears
smoothly.
So Minako began her long walk home. It would be a very long, lonely
walk.
* * *
"This place is creeping me out!" commented Naru as the group walked
inside a cave hidden for many centuries by the cleverly disguised
rock wall.
The tunnels lead to a large room, shaped as a huge dome. All around
it at the exact positions of north, south, east and west rested four
statues of hideous beasts. Though their shapes were all blasted in
appearance and wicked in intent, they were all unmistakebly linked
to one another for two clearly apparent reasons: they were all
mounted with a strange looking saddles, and also they were all
carved from the same material- dark marble, exactly like the one
used to create the four hellish knights in the museum.
In the middle of the dome was an altar. On it laid the next piece
of Heresy.
"Let`s just take it and leave. I`m not spending one more minute
here, this place is emitting the most horribly oppressive aura
I`ve ever felt!" said Rei.
* * *
Laurella walked in on Usagi and her future daughter as she was
explaining how the third piece of the black sword had been found.
Her boyfriend Shingo followed her in and told Chibi-Usa that it
was time for her to go home to get some sleep.
"You won`t be alone for long, sis, we`ll keep you company a few more
minutes until visiting hours are over. The doctor says you can even
leave tomorrow morning!" said Shingo.
Chibi-Usa hopped off the bed and walked out of the room to Rei who
had come to pick her up.
"Hello small lady." said Rei. "Had a good time with your mom?"
"Yes, she`s remembering more and more now. Maybe she can even tell
us what happened before that huge explosion." said the cute
pink-haired girl. Turning around, she saw Usagi laughing along
with her friend and her brother.
A wave of sadness caught hold of her as she witnessed them so happy
together. She could barely hold back her long supressed tears and
sorrow. "I`m so sorry for what I`ve done to you, Laurella... you
didn`t deserve it, neither did your love."
"What`s the matter, Chibi-Usa? You look so sad!" said Rei, crouching
down to her level.
"I feel that... it`s just... hug me, Rei!" she said, tears rolling
off her cheeks.
Rei held the sweet child in her arms for a few moments. This felt
good. This felt right, to both of them as though it had been missing
from their existence somehow.
They held each other like this until the nurse told them visiting
hours were over.
To be continued...