Sailor X #1 Manhattan Project
By: John Brengman
Edited by: Jamie Lewis &
Thomas Schell
The windows of the room let in the star-speckled night. The light of the stars paled, however to the light
of the nearby planet, it's light reflecting blues and whites to everything nearby, including the lunar base that was home to the Luna Foundation, and the operational center for the Sailor Scouts.
The light from Earth pooled brilliantly in shafts of light shining through the windows that dominated the far wall of the control room. The rest of the room was lined with various computer stations that monitored the Earth, the solar system, and various other things. No one manned the control room at this hour of the night, so the computers seemed content to hum and whir to themselves.
All of this pleased Luna, basking purrfully on the throbbing top of one of the control stations. "Oh, there are times when it is good to be a cat." The thought drifted lazily through her mind as she soaked in the rhythmic pulsing.
The lights on the control panel began flashing an insistent red. The alarm clamored for attention. Luna abruptly awoke. Taking one look at the control panel that had betrayed her, Luna jumped down and headed for the hallway towards the residence quarters.
Reaching Brandy's room, Luna burst in and landed on the sleeping girls bed with a quick leap. She hurriedly pawed at the covers. "Wake up, sleepy-head!" Luna thought, then quickly dodged the hand that lightly batted her away. "Not now, Cat," Brandy said sleepily.
Luna growled at Brandy's use of her 'pet name' and bit her on the ear.
"Hey!" Brandy yelped as she was jolted awake, "what was that for?" However, by the time she finished asking the question, Luna was already bolting for the door on her way to rouse the next sleeping Sailor.
"Damn it, Cat," Brandy muttered as she began to dress…
== * * * ==
"How could this happen?" Bethany inquired, her blue eyes looking worriedly toward the windows.
"I don't know yet," Melissa replied, her gaze focused intently to the computer monitors, her brain processing the information they were feeding her. "I'm not even sure where to start."
"Ask Artemis to check for weird energy readings," chimed in a hollow voice from the windows.
Bethany nodded and leaned against Melissa's chair. "Yes, ask that."
Bethany obligingly fed in the question. The response was not promising, to say the least.
"Infinity particles?" Melissa gasped. "What are those?"
"They are rare, dangerous, and unstable," Vanessa answered as she entered the control room while combing her long white hair. As the guardian of the Timegate, Vanessa was considered the know-it-all of the group. "Infinity particles combine with certain chemicals to form reactions. They then perpetuate themselves, generating more and more particles.
The others looked at each other as if Vanessa had explained it perfectly.
Cassandra reacted first. "Oh yeah," she quipped. "I buy it."
An offended Vanessa was quick to counter-attack. "Well, you would understand it better if you paid a bit more attention in physics class. It's a chain-reaction." Vanessa spoke as though telling a 5 year old what grass is.
Cassandra would have none of it. She shook out her long wavy red hair and her eyes flashed angrily. She growled, "The TEACHER goes too fast! I can't keep up!"
Melissa was about to remind Cassandra that 'Aunt Amy' had volunteered to help them out with the more difficult areas of advanced physics when Luna stopped the conversation with a loud whistle. "Let's stay focused, girls! This is no time to bicker!"
"What can we do about this situation?" The voice from the windows queried. Vanessa spared a withering glance for Cassandra before going to a secondary control panel. "I'll check," she stated in a clipped voice as she began entering inquiries into the computer. After several minutes where all attention in the room was on her, Vanessa straightened up and turned to face the others. "Artemis says that whatever happened did not happen within the past day.
"In fact," Vanessa continued, "the decay of the infinity particles suggests that the accident took place more than fifty years ago."
Dead silence filled the room as the implications of Vanessa's statement sank in. At about that time, Rachel entered the room. "Unless the galaxy's going to explode, someone's in big trouble!" Bethany glanced uncomfortably over at Rachel. Although the group did not yet know each other well, one thing was etched in stone: never disturb Rachel's sleep.
The circumstances in this case were different.
Sandra stepped forward from the shadows near the window into the light provided by the control room. "Be careful what you wish for," she said, her face somber as she pointed at the window.
The planet Earth was gone.
== * * * ==
The conversation continued as the girls and Luna headed towards the chamber containing the massive Timegate.
"Do we have any idea who's behind this?" Sandra asked.
"No," Vanessa replied, "but very few people have had access to Infinity particles. Queen Serenity forbade anyone in the kingdom from possessing them. Even the rulers of the Negaverse were never insane enough to use the particles they claimed they had."
"So, let me get this straight," Brandy said with an angry toss of her long blonde mane, "we don't even know who has these particles?"
"You have the rather annoying knack," Luna stated, "of being absolutely correct at the most unfortunate times."
Rachel broke in, sick of the verbal
jousting between Luna and Brandy. "Ok!
So, we go back in time and stop this at the source. Sounds simple enough. My question is, if Earth was blown away
fifty years ago, why are we still here?"
The girls reached a set of metal double
doors and stopped. "You may thank the Timegate for that," Vanessa replied. "It generates a field which protects us from
the timestream."
"Oh!" Cassandra exclaimed. "Sort of like
those thingamajiggies of yours…"
Vanessa sighed. "Yes. Exactly like those." She pushed a few
buttons on a panel and the metal doors separated. The room beyond was dominated by a huge translucent dome-like
structure built into the floor. As the
others watched, Vanessa stepped forward and raised her right hand in the
air. She shouted, "TIMEGATE
ACTIVATION!" The ring on her right hand pulsed, and shot a green beam of light
into the dome. The light washed over the dome, and then shot back like a
boomerang and engulfed Vanessa. The
group stood and watched while Vanessa and the portal communed mentally. When Vanessa finally broke the connection,
the green light continued to splash and flicker about the dome as the portal
waited for further commands.
Vanessa walked over to a small table
along one side of the room and pulled out several devices. She returned and glanced at the group. "Are
we ready?"
Sandra stepped forward. "Someone needs to stick around here in case something else happens while we're gone. Brandy, Beth, keep track of us. The rest of you," she gestured toward the portal, "let's go."
"Hold on!" Brandy snapped. "Nothing is going to happen here. It's already happened! You guys are the ones in danger! Cat can handle things here, right cat?" Brandy turned to Luna and was met with a flat glare. "r- right?"
Sandra's lips were tight as she took a step towards Brandy. "In case we don't come back. Someone has to be here. There has to be something, that you could do…" Sandra looked tensely into Brandy's eyes. "Please." There was fear there too, and the raw honesty of someone telling a harsh truth. Brandy met her gaze for a moment. Then the defiance faded out of her. She nodded once.
"Don't worry about us," Beth stepped up behind Brandy and squeezed her shoulder. We'll take care of it." She smiled reassuringly at Sandra and the other scouts. Brandy smiled too, including the whole group in her apology.
With that, the four senshi stepped into the portal, and into the past…
Brandy and Luna exchanged glances. "they'll be ok, Luna," Brandy said.
"Of course they will," Luna replied. Somehow, neither of them sounded sure. Beth simply looked silently at the Timegate.
== * * * ==
Tinian Island August 4, 1945 7:15 pm
"One
scientist bet on the chances that the blast would ignite the atmosphere.
He
offered a side wager on whether it would destroy the entire world…or
only
New Mexico."
- Peter Jennings, "Hiroshima: Why the Bomb was
Dropped" (ABC News, 1995)
The staging area for the secret operation against the Japanese homeland was a small cluster of buildings grouped around an airfield on a scrap of land amidst the blue waters of the Pacific. One prefab corrugated metal building stood near the end of the airstrip. It was under heavy guard.
Inside stood storage cases, neatly stacked in columns that reached towards the ceiling. The cases dominated half of the building. The other half was empty except for a single bay-loaded bomb that sat upon its storage stand in an area roped off from the rest of the building.
A dark figure kneeled by the cylindrical device. He opened an access panel and inserted a flat circular object about the size of a wristwatch. It's magnetic bottom easily attached to the inside skin of the bomb. The figure replaced the access panel, and stood looking over at the two prone forms laying unceremoniously in a heap nearby.
With a slight bow to the unconscious guards, the dark-robed man murmured, "May your aim be true…although that is not really necessary. Either way, my plan will succeed."
"Not if I have anything to say about it!" The robed man whirled and looked around franticly for the source of the voice…and saw a group of women standing just inside the huge doors of the building.
"MOON PRISM POWER!" Sandra shouted as Vanessa placed a small star-shaped device on one of the boxes and activated it.. Sandra's shout was followed by, "MERCURY POWER!", "MARS POWER!", and "PLUTO POWER!" as the senshi began their transformations.
The Sailors began to glow. Sandra brought her fist down, and pointed at the villain, "I am Sailor Moon, Vanguard of Justice! I will right wrongs and vanquish evil!" The glow around the Sailor Scouts faded, and her voice called menacingly from the darkness, "and that, my friend, means you!"
"I am sorry I cannot greet you with an equally impressive display," the dark-robed man said urbanely. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Scaramanga, Master of Darkness. I regret leaving the company of such beautiful ladies, but I do have a prior engagement. I leave you to your doom."
"Not so fast!" Sailor Mars shouted from nearby a stack of crates. "MARS FIREBOLT BLAST!" A searing firebolt erupted from Mars' outstretched hand and shot angrily toward the villain. Scaramanga quickly dodged the blast, and it slammed into the far wall, immolating some crates.
"Careful now," Scaramanga scolded. "You wouldn't want to damage such an important part of history, now would you?"
"I hate to admit it," Sailor Moon thought to the Scouts, "but he's right. No beam attacks near that bomb."
"Yeah," Mercury growled. "Dodge THIS! MERCURY SHARD!" A thick crystal shard appeared in her hands as she called upon the power of her patron planet. "Eat this, jerk!" she yelled as she hurled the shard at Scaramanga. He grunted as he caught it and crushed it in one hand.
"You are trying my patience." Scaramanga stated. "DARKFORCE ATTACK!" Tendrils of dark energy slid out of Scaramanga, slamming into the stacks of crates. They showered down upon the senshi as they tried to scurry out of the way.
As Sailor Moon picked herself up from under a pile of debris with the help of Sailor Mars, she thought to the group, "Pluto, are those devices still working?"
"Yes," Pluto replied. "We are still outside the timeline."
"But I am afraid you are out of time," quipped Scaramanga with a vulpine smile at his own joke. He was now floating above the bomb. His face twisted grotesquely, as he screamed "ZAI!" On command, a scorching energy bolt erupted from his fingers and stabbed Mercury through the chest. Screaming, she fell to the floor.
"Mars", Sailor Moon ordered tightly, "See to Sailor Mercury." Focusing her attention on Scaramanga, Sailor Moon noted that the villain was hovering above the bomb, but beneath a heavy-looking utility hook. With a mental "Ah!", she pulled her tiara from her forehead. "MOON TIARA MAGIC!"
The tiara activated with a flash, and illuminated Sailor Moon's face with a pale light. "Screwball in the side pocket," she said as she bared her teeth in a grim smile. She hurled the tiara at the chain holding the hook. It ricocheted off the chain and returned to Sailor Moon who caught it triumphantly. Scaramanga looked up only to see the hook smash down onto his face. He was driven upon the bomb. The hook was deflected by his body. It landed a few feet in front of the bomb, clattering with hollow finality in the big hanger.
"I thought you said no attacks near the bomb." Pluto remarked wryly as she approached the bomb. As she neared it, Scaramanga faded and disappeared.
"Hey," Sailor Moon remarked aloud, "I was being careful, unlike some others we could mention."
Sailor Mars smiled wickedly at Sandra.
"Finished," Pluto said as she removed the Infinity Device from the bomb. "Mission accomplished."
"Not quite finished," came the familiar voice. The Sailors turned and saw Sailor Mars staring at the bomb, its sleek metal surface glinting in the dim light. The other Sailors saw the look in her eyes, and felt a collective thrill of fear. Sailor Mars intended to incinerate the "little boy".
"Mars," Sailor Moon said sternly. "Don't."
"You can't order that," Sailor Mars replied coldly.
"I can," Sailor Moon stated, "and I did."
"You can't do this," Sailor Pluto added. "You will alter history. That's exactly what Scaramanga was trying to do. It wasn't his place to do so, and it's not yours."
"But people will die if they use this thing!" Mars shouted, as her face twisted with grief.
Jupiter stepped forward. "Mars, Cassandra, listen to me. People will die anyways. Just different people. Maybe more people. You can't second guess history."
"Yes," Sailor Moon said as she stepped in front of Sailor Mars. "And if you destroy the bomb, you may save the people of Hiroshima, but you will have to kill me first."
Sailor Mars held her hands in front of her, her gaze locked on the bomb, ready to send a fiery blast towards the bomb, and towards history.
"Please move," Mars pleaded as tears welled up in her eyes.
Sailor Moon
shook her head no sympathetically. "No,"
she said quietly.
"We can't pick and choose here, Mars! It is dangerous to tamper with history! In the future, the earth was destroyed. Do you want to do something worse? Beth and Brandy are back there! Please!" Pluto stretched out her hands towards Sailor Mars.
"She's right," Sailor Moon said.
"Yeah, I know," Mars replied as she dropped her hands and fell into Sailor Moon's outstretched arms, tears running down her face. "It just doesn't feel good, that's all."
"I know," Pluto smiled, eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Sometimes it doesn't feel good."
"Yes," Sailor Moon said. "But doing what is right when it doesn't feel good is what separates normal people from heroes." She smiled tiredly at her comrades. "Let's go home."
== * * * ==
Hiroshima August 6, 1945 8:02 am
A silver phoenix soared through the clouds over the southern end of Honshu. Upon the signal from the pilot, the bombardier released a single bomb which fell toward its target….
From the future, Cassandra watched through the Timegate, transfixed, as the ground exploded. The atomic reaction sent its mushroom spiraling up into the heavens, and the silver phoenix flew into the morning sun.
== * * * ==
Sandra stood sleepily by the window of her bedroom and gazed out over the lunar landscape. Illuminating the dark gray of the jagged hills, Earth glistened, an innocent blue ball. Squinting to look closer, Sandra saw Japan emerge from night, to start another day. With that, Sandra quietly disrobed returned to bed.
** FINI **
Fanfic ã1999 – John Brengman and Artemis Publishing
Sailor X series inspired by Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon,
ã 1992 by Toei Animation Co Ltd. and based on Kodansha's
manga production of "Sailor Moon", written by Naoko Takeuchi
This fanfic is freely distributed.
Release date: August, 1998
Edited: October 4, 1999
Release: 2nd Edition: October 4, 1999
Release: 3rd Edition: January 16, 2001