Operation: Reality Check
A Sailor Moon/FRC fanfic
By Roehl Sybing
Episode 2 - Welcome to the FRC!
"Get up, Serena!"
"Just wake me up in ten minutes....."
"You said that twenty minutes ago! Wake up!"
"You sound like my mother...."
"Hey, do you want me to get MY mom so she can wake you up?"
"OK OK! I'm awake."
It was 8:45 on a Saturday morning. Serena and Luna slept in Jake's house for the night. They both took Jake's bed, while Jake slept on the floor. He didn't mind, except that he couldn't get to sleep because Serena was talking in her sleep.
At 9:37 the three left the house and headed to the Federal Reality Commission headquarters. It was Serena's first day with the Reality Jumpers, because she knew she could help them locate her missing friends.
They were inside the building's lobby when they were stopped by two security guards. The first one said, "Stop, only authorized agents allowed!"
Jake held up his ID card, "Don't worry, they're with me."
The second guard took Jake's ID card and swiped it through the scanner. The small screen above it showed Jake's agent information and the word "AUTHORIZED" on the top.
"OK, Junior Agent Tyler, you, your friend and her cat are free to pass." The guard handed the ID card back to Jake and gave a "VISITOR" pass to Serena.
The three went through two more security checks before they reached the war room of the Reality Jumpers. The four other RJ's, Jackie, Mike, Chris, and Kim, were sitting at a table when the three entered the room. Jackie went up and said, "Hi Jake!"
"Hi! You all know Serena, right?"
The four nodded.
"Well, for a while she's part of the Jumpers. Like I said before, we have to locate her friends, but she'll be helping us in doing that."
Mike replied, "That's cool. So when do we start?"
"We start now. Follow me."
All seven walked out of the room and reached the elevator. Jake pushed "83" on the elevator panel. After a minute traveling up the building, they exited the elevator and followed Jake into a room labeled "DIMENSIONAL TRAVEL 8."
Jake said to the others, "All of you are going to travel to the coordinates I assign you to. These coordinates are the places where non-signature readings have been found. Hopefully you'll be able to locate the missing scouts."
Chris replied, "This should be easy, then."
"No it isn't. There's like a thousand places with areas that have no anomaly signatures in it. We're going to be working in this room for a long time. Right now we're checking just a few sites. We'll all split up and return back here at five. Kim, you take Luna with you. Me and Serena will be together. Jackie, Mike, Chris, you'll be together."
They all agreed as one man walked into the room. He said, "Well well, if it isn't the famous Reality Jumpers....."
Jake mumbled, "Senator Dreyfus.....what's this creep doing here?"
"Did I hear you say something, Tyler?"
"No, it was all part of your imagination."
Chris spoke up, "What are YOU doing here, Senator?"
"Ah, Agent Davis. I just came to wish you luck on your mission...."
"And to tell us how much it's going to cost you?"
"No, of course not!" At that moment, Dreyfus frowned and reached into his pocket and crumpled up a piece of paper. Jake noticed the word "EXPENSES" written on it. Jake replied, "Look, could you just leave? We're trying to start a mission here."
"Well, it seems I am not welcome here."
"You never were."
"Fine, I'll leave then...." He quickly left the room and slammed the door behind him.
Luna lifted her head and said, "What was all that about?"
Mike replied, "Him? Oh he just nags us about how 'expensive' our missions are."
Chris added, "That and many other things. His opinions are interesting, considering that we rank 28th out of all the FRC teams in cost..."
"He's just looking for an excuse to hang around us."
Jake said, "Well, can we finally start the mission?"
They all nodded as Jake flipped the ON/OFF switch on the panel next to him. A machine on the other side of the room made some noise signaling it was turned on and ready. At the panel, Jake entered a group of numbers. A portal opened to the left of the machine.
"All right, jumpers one, two, and three, go in. Good luck!"
Jackie, Mike, and Chris each took a supply pack, jumped into the portal and disappeared. Jake entered another set of coordinates, changing the destination of the portal.
"Kim and Luna, go for it!"
Kim, while holding Luna, also got a pack, jumped in and disappeared.
Jake entered the final set of coordinates and said, "Computer, auto-close-portal-delay-2-minutes." He then grabbed another supply pack, went up to Serena and said, "C'mon, let's go."
"In......there?"
"Of course in there. It's not as scary as it looks."
"But it's dark in there!"
"If it makes you feel any better, there's light on the other side. You do want to find your friends, do you?"
"All right, then. Um.....you go in first."
"Fine."
Jake leaped into the portal, and Serena followed behind him. Once inside the portal, they experienced the "displacement" effect, where a person traveling through a portal experiences what people call a "brain freeze" for a second, and it wasn't pleasant in any way. But the trip through reality only took 3 seconds. They had reached the area that contained an entity with no anomaly signature.
It was noon in the Grand Canyon, when the portal Jake and Serena were using opened up in the sky. The two were screaming as they fell straight to the ground from 20 feet off the ground. They laid unconscious for 20 minutes before they woke up. Jake said to Serena, "Umph....ow.....you OK?"
Serena replied, "OW, my leg! What does it look like?"
"OK, dumb question. Give me a minute."
Jake reached into the backpack of supplies and found a medikit. With it, he treated the wound on Serena's leg. "There. Can you walk now?"
"Let me see." She attempted to stand, but was forced back down. "No, I can't. It's still hurts!" And with that remark she started crying.
"Aw, don't cry. C'mon, it's not gonna make you feel any better."
But Serena didn't stop crying.
"OK, let me see if this works..."
He grabbed a stick from the medikit and unfolded it into a flexible pole. "Hold still," Jake said. He placed the pole next to Serena's leg and pressed a button on its small panel. The pole wrapped around the leg and covered it. "OK, you can stand now."
Serena finally stopped crying and tried to stand up. With some amazement, she was able to stand. "Hey! I....can walk! How'd you do that?"
"Oh it was nothing. That cast should be able to fix the sore muscle in your leg. You can take it off in an hour or two, but you can't run on it."
"Thanks! Say, does that portal always throws us out of the sky?"
"Once in a while. You have to learn how to handle this kind of stuff. Welcome to the FRC!"
"Oh....great...."
"C'mon, let's go scan the area. Here's a scanner." Jake turned on the scanner to track their target. To his surprise, the scanner displayed that their target was on a cliff 5 feet above them. He looked up and saw a man.
"Hey, who are you?" Jake said to the person that was standing right above them.
The person replied, "I am sent by the NegaVerse to destroy you."
Both Serena and Jake said, "Eh?"
The man didn't hesitate. The man leaped into the air and drew a sword. The two ran in opposite directions as the person landed on his feet. He stood straight, turned to Jake, and said, "Goodbye, Tyler..." He pointed his sword at Jake and from it came an energy beam, one that is similar to the one Queen Beryl used to attack Serena and Luna yesterday.
Jake thought, "Oh great, here we go again..." He reached for his mirror, held it in his hands, and said, "MIRROR....REF...." He couldn't finish the voice command, because the energy beam hit his hand, knocking the mirror out of his reach.
The man said, "We know better than that now." He fired another energy beam, which hit Jake's shoulder as he was knocked to the ground.
Jake tried to look beyond his enemy to see Serena as he said, "Owww....hey, you plan on helping any minute now?"
Serena stood up and replied, "Oh! That's right!.............MOON STAR POWER!"
And with that Serena transformed into Sailor Moon. The man turned around and said, "Eh?"
"I am Sailor Moon, champion of justice! In the name of the moon, I will right wrongs and punish evil, and that means you!"
Jake thought, "Man, if we said stuff like that, we'd all be dead....."
The person said, "Well well, looks like I'll have to get rid of you...." He created another energy beam which flew toward Sailor Moon. Fortunately, she avoided the incoming attack by jumping to the left. She fell to the ground, though, because her leg was still not repaired. She noticed the big hole in the rock wall that was caused by the energy beam.
She turned to the man and said, "Well then..." Out of nowhere, she grabbed hold of a sceptre and said, "MOON....SCEPTRE....ELIMINATION!" The sceptre then put out a great deal of energy and was heading toward the man withthe sword. Once it hit him, he was pushed back and was thrown toward the edge of a cliff, greatly weakened.
Jake limped to the edge of the cliff and said, "Who ARE you?"
The man replied weakly, "I don't know......where am I?"
"You don't know anyone named Queen Beryl?"
"W-who's that?"
Just then, the ledge below the unknown person gave way, where the man fell into the bottom of the canyon to his death.
Sailor Moon transformed back into Serena, walked up to Jake, and said, "What was that all about?"
Jake replied, "If I knew.......but I think he was brainwashed by the NegaVerse to get us...Oh yeah, thanks for saving me."
"Hey, now we're even."
"C'mon, we got a lot more area to cover before seven."
"Aw, can't we just take a break? My leg still hurts."
"All right, then."
Jake found his mirror and put it back in his pocket. He then reached into his supply backpack and got two rations for lunch.
At that moment, Queen Beryl was in the NegaVerse watching Jake and Serena from a viewing portal, examining the entire battle from her seat. She said, "Hmmm, they seem to make a good team. I think it's time to even up the score now...."
TO BE CONTINUED....