Dirty Pair: The Power of the Muroc.
A Dirty Pair fan fiction by Tim Norman.
The Dirty Pair are copyright 1987, Sunrise Inc. Everything else is copyright 2002, Tim Norman.
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Kei takes a good look at the planet below. It has a brown look to it, giving away the fact that more than half the surface is covered by land.
"Where did Gooley say it was?" she asks Yuri.
Yuri taps the console in front of her, and the screen displays the coordinates of the city they are heading to. There's no spaceport, so Kei and Yuri are going to land the only way they know how: without guidance.
Their ship, the Lovely Angel, does not make smooth landings. It's not that it can't, it's that Kei doesn't know how. She only has to land for Yuri and Mughi, and it's not like they would complain to the captain about the bumpy landing. Not without receiving a kick to the head, anyway.
The ship comes down on a barren plain. The city sits out on the horizon, and Yuri realises with some horror that it's going to be a long walk.
"You could have landed closer," she complains. "This heat is bad for my complexion."
"Eh? Complexion? I don't see how this heat could make that any worse."
Kei doesn't see Yuri's look of daggers. She puts both her hands behind her head, kicks up her legs, and begins to whistle.
Mughi watches them from a slight distance. He mews silently to himself.
The three of them sit in a room: Ricardo Ramano on a chair, Jacqueline Palomar and Robert Riemann on the couch.
"He's been gone for four days. Why did you want us to come here now?" Ricardo asks Robert. He is holding back tears.
"Because I spoke to an old friend of mine at the 3WA yesterday, and he promised me he'd send his best agents out here to help find the Professor."
"Best agents?"
"Yes. He referred to them as the Lovely Angels."
Ricardo and Jacqueline look at him in horror. "D- Dir- Dirty Pair?" they say in unison. Everyone knows the stories of the Lovely Angels. The first one usually involves using their nickname in their presence.
"But they'll get us all killed!" Ricardo says. He is angry now. No one should have to turn to the Dirty Pair to get their problems solved.
"Gooley tells me they're the best. He's a good friend, so I believe him."
"The best at destroying planets!"
"Calm down Ricardo. They're due to arrive any minute now."
"Ricardo," Jacqueline says, "Robert is the one with the money remember. If he says they'll help us, then they'll help us. He's the one that has to pay their bill. Please, lets at least see them first, okay?"
Ricardo sighs with reservation. "I've got a bad feeling about this."
"Lucky!" Kei says as they finally manage to flag down a truck that will take them into the city. The driver is old, and has no problem stopping for two young women wearing standard-issue World Works and Welfare Association female battle-uniforms.
He does seem somewhat nervous about the cat, however. It's bigger than normal cats, and seems rather temperamental. He decides it's okay, as he can't see any scratches, scars, or other injuries that a large cat may cause, on the legs, stomach, back, chests, and faces of the two women. The cat must be harmless.
Kei, Yuri and Mughi sit in the empty trailer. The cab's window is broken, so they can easily talk to the driver.
"Where you from anyway?" he asks.
"Around," Kei replies.
"What brings you to Selene City?"
"We heard there were some hot guys in town, we wanted to see for ourselves," Yuri says, winking at Kei.
"Heheh. Well, that's certainly true. Hey, if you girls want, I could give you the tour."
"Uh, no thanks," Kei says, winking back at Yuri.
"It's your loss."
"Hang on, Kei, maybe this guy really can show us a good tiime."
"She's right, Kei. I can do that if you want."
Now it's Kei's turn to look daggers at Yuri. Mughi rearranges himself at the other end of the trailer, and mews again.
"Thanks," Yuri says as she gets out of the trailer. She hears the thud of Kei landing behind her. "It's because you're not kind to others that you're so clumsy, you know," she says.
Kei flicks out a leg as Yuri is about to step over the kerb, tripping her. "And it's because you're so kind that you're so clumsy."
Neither of them hear Mughi patter onto the pavement. He looks at Yuri as she stands and dusts herself off.
"You better wait out here, Mughi. We don't want to upset these people."
Mughi makes a mournful sound, before settling down beside the steps that lead into the building.
The door to the room opens, and Ricardo, Jacqueline and Robert watch as two young women walk in, one after the other.
The first one is taller, with red hair, raised up into a style that might have been popular a hundred years ago, but looks hopelessly dated now. She has a serious, masculine look about her, and Ricardo decides that he should be nice to her.
The other girl, slightly shorter, has long blue hair and matching blue eyes. Ricardo decides that she is beautiful. He can't help but noticing the uniforms they wear. He wonders if all female WWWA Trouble Consultants wear such uniforms.
"Ah, you must be the Dir-- Lovely Angels?" Robert says.
"Yes. Kei and Yuri, 3WA Trouble Consultants, at your service," Yuri says, bowing in front of him.
"I'm Robert Riemann, a friend of your chief's. This lovely lady is Jacqueline Palomar, and on that chair is Professor Winston's assistant, Ricardo Ramano."
"Professor Winston?" Kei asks when she doesn't see anyone else.
"What did Gooley tell you?"
"He told us that he wanted us to help an old friend of his, and sent us to this city. He never told us what it was about."
"Ah. That's because I didn't tell him. You see, this project has some, shall we say, influential backers, whom I represent. These people would be rather annoyed if they were to discover what has happened. So, the fewer people that know about it, the better."
"But what did happen?" Yuri asks.
"Ricardo, tell them what happened," Robert says.
"Uh, the Professor and I, we went out to the ruins. That was four days ago. He found part of a machine that he says might be an energy source, and wanted to return to find out.
"We were in a part of a library, I was looking through some of the remains of books on Muroc culture--"
"Muroc is the name of the race that built the ruins," Robert interjects.
"--and the Professor was in another part of the room, when a wall came down between us. I tried to open it, but it was impossible. I called Robert, and the three of us tried to open the door for a long time, but we had to give up.
"We went back to the ruins each day for the last 3 days, but there's still no sign of the professor. Then Robert tells us that he'd called you two in."
Kei and Yuri stay silent for a short time, letting Ricardo's story sink in.
"How far out are these ruins? We didn't see them when we landed," Kei says when Ricardo has finished his account.
"About 60 kilometres north of here. Half an hour, by car."
"We'd like to visit it, if you don't mind," Yuri says, looking somewhat hopefully at Robert. The prospect of a car trip with him makes her feel that this case may not be so bad after all.
"No," Jacqueline says.
Everyone looks at her.
"I don't.. I don't want to... go back again." It's an excuse. Really she doesn't want the Dirty Pair going anywhere near the ruins.
"How are they going to help us if they can't see the scene of the crime, so to speak?" Robert says. Kei thinks he's more nervous than he should be.
"We have images and maps."
"No. They will have to go out there. It's too late to head out now, so we'll make arrangements for tomorrow morning?"
The Lovely Angels look at Robert, and nod.
"Do you have a place to stay?" Ricardo asks them.
"Uh..." Kei stops for a second. They had planned to use the Lovely Angel as a base of operation, but it's too far out from Selene City to be useful to them now.
"I have a friend who runs a hotel not far from here. He will be able to give you a room," Ricardo says. When Yuri smiles at him, he knows it was worth it.
"Yes, you do that," Robert says hurriedly. "Jacqueline and I have a meeting with the Chancellor of the university. I'll see you all tomorrow morning," he checks his wristwatch, "at around 0900?"
Yuri visibly deflates when Kei says yes.
The hotel room is surprisingly nice, and the manager, a man by the name of Albert, didn't even mind that Mughi be allowed to stay with them. After some discussion, he was even happy to find a small mattress for the oversized cat.
"Wow. This city is bigger than I realised," Yuri says as she opens the window. Mughi, currently standing next to her, mews in agreement.
There's a faint wind, blowing her hair slightly as she leans into it. The air is warm-- this is a desert planet, after all-- and Yuri thinks for a second that she could be happy here.
"Uuh, this water's cold!"
Kei's shout jolts her back. "Albert said you'd have to wait 20 minutes for the water to heat up," she says, remembering something the manager had told her earlier.
"Ehh?"
"The rooms. They all have their own hot water, which is turned off when they aren't used."
"Why didn't you tell me this before I went to take my shower?"
"You didn't ask."
After her shower, Kei goes to bed. Yuri stays up for a while, looking at information about the ruins, taken from the university's databanks. There isn't a lot of information there, or at least, if there is, it's not available to her. She makes a mental note to ask Ricardo for access to at least a map of the place tomorrow.
Just as she is finally going to bed, Yuri hears a noise in the other room.
She stops. Her first thought is that it's Kei muttering in her sleep, or maybe Mughi shifting on the floor. When it happens again, Yuri is able to get a direction on it.
"Kei," she whispers, tapping Kei on the shoulder as she does so.
"Mmm-mm-phmm."
"Kei, there's someone in our room." Urgent now. Kei actually wakes up.
"Wha?"
"Shh." Yuri says, pointing in the general direction of the living area.
Both of them can hear the sound of someone trying to be quiet, but failing. They wait at the door of the bedroom. Kei kicks Mughi with her foot, waking him up too.
He knows what to do. He walks out slowly into the living area. There is enough light from the planet's moons for Yuri and Kei to be able to see a figure dressed in black, and standing perfectly still, a natural reaction when faced with a pair of large yellow eyes in the dark.
For all his size, Mughi still manages to walk with the grace and nonchalance of a cat. He sniffs the figure. Kei and Yuri follow, holding out their guns.
"Don't move." Kei says. The figure raises its hands. Yuri is about to turn the light on, when something swats her arm away.
She is thrown across the floor, landing ungracefully between Kei and Mughi. They don't need any more signal to fight.
Mughi makes a howling sound, and runs at the figure standing still, who kicks him. Kei shoots, but she's kicked in the side of the face as she does, and falls down.
The two figures jump out of the window before Kei, Yuri and Mughi have a chance to recover.
Kei runs to the window and looks out, but no one is there. "Damn. They got away fast," she says.
She pulls the window shut, and locks it. "That'll teach you for leaving the window open."
Kei crosses the room, and turns the light on, surveying the damage. Yuri hasn't moved.
"Yuri?"
Mughi makes a groaning sound as he gets back on his feet. Yuri still doesn't move.
"Yuri?" Kei repeats.
She walks over to Yuri, and pokes her with her foot. Yuri still doesn't move. "This might be serious," she says to herself.
She pokes harder this time, and hears a weak groan. "Perhaps not."
Yuri stands up slowly, using Kei as support.
"Who-- who were they?" she asks.
"I don't know. I didn't get a good look at them. Whoever they were, they know why we're here. They took your computer."
"Ehh?" That news is enough to make Yuri forget her grogginess and look at the blank space where the computer had been. "Oh well. I didn't have much anyway. The university's databanks were pretty light on information about the Muroc and the ruins."
"We should still be a bit more careful now," Kei says. She turns and looks at Mughi. "Mughi?" The oversized cat looks at her. He knows that her tone of voice means that he's going to do something he would rather not. "I want you to stay here and watch the room. You will not go to sleep, do you hear me?"
"Nnggrrwwr." It's a mournful sound.
"Good boy," Yuri says, before leaving Mughi on his own. Now she might finally be able to go to bed.
The planet's sun burns down on them as they walk into the ruins. Kei tries to stifle a yawn as she walks behind Robert.
She is surprised by the condition of the ruins. She would have thought that such ruins would be old broken, but many of the buildings here are still intact. Even signs of age are minimal: few of the buildings appear to be worn by weather or other natural occurrences.
This gives the place a somewhat eerie feel: as though the race that built these ruins just up and left one day. There is no sign of any cataclysm being brought upon their civilisation.
"Different parts of these ruins are different ages," Ricardo says, taking the role of tour guide. "Most of what we've found spans a period from six thousand to four thousand years ago."
Kei nods. She could have asked Yuri for much of this information, but, really, she just wants to hear Ricardo speak.
"The place was a large city. We think it might have housed more than a million people at one stage. Most of it is buried though."
"Buried?"
"Yes. The city doesn't cover a large area, mainly because the Muroc built up, instead of outward. It's a very efficient design. But at some stage, the whole area seems to have partially sunk into the planet, and the desert eventually buried it. That was maybe two thousand years ago. It doesn't take long for the desert to cover things on this planet."
"So the sinking didn't wipe the Muroc out?"
"No. They were gone long before that happened."
"Show them where the professor disappeared," Robert says. Kei notes that he sounds impatient.
They walk for another ten minutes, before coming across a large structure that must have held great importance.
"This is a library," Ricardo continues. "We had hoped that there would be a lot of information about the Muroc here, but unfortunately, time has destroyed most of it."
"This is where the professor went missing?" Kei asks.
"Yes. Follow me."
The five of them enter the building. Kei doesn't know if it's more eerie inside or outside. Every footstep kicks up some dust, and she gets the feeling that simply touching a wall would bring the entire place down.
"TSU!"
The sound makes her jump. She looks to see Yuri recovering from a sneeze.
"Eheh. V!" Yuri says, making a 'V' sign with her fingers.
After a short walk, they arrive at a large chamber at the back of the library. "This is where the professor disappeared," Ricardo says.
"You're welcome to borrow anything you need to, if it will help find the professor," Robert says.
"Robert! No."
Everyone turns to look at Jacqueline, who, until now, hadn't spoken since they arrived. She seems horrified that Robert had just given the entire ruins over to two of the most dangerous people in the universe.
"Don't worry," Kei says, "We won't need to take anything."
Jacqueline seems to breathe a sigh of relief. Kei turns back to the wall.
"Where's the door?" she asks Ricardo.
He points to a wall that looks slightly out of place with the rest of the room.
Kei walks over to it and bangs on it. Yuri flinches as she does so.
"Oi! Professor! You in there?" Kei yells.
There's no answer. Kei tries again. The wall is pretty hard, but she's strong enough that it doesn't hurt her to hit it.
"Oi! We're going to get you out of there now! Just stay still, we'll be there in a moment."
"Maybe you should move to the far side of the room," Yuri says helpfully to the wall.
Neither of them notice that Ricardo, Robert and Jacqueline have backed to the entrance of this chamber, and are looking on with the same expression used for watching car accidents that are about to happen.
Kei pulls some explosives out of a pack on her utility belt, and attaches them strategically to the wall.
"You can't do that!" Jacqueline says, hysteria rising in her voice.
"You want the prof back or not?" Kei says. Jacqueline is really starting to annoy her now.
"But-- but-- you'll bring the whole building down!"
"Let them do their job," Ricardo says. He seems resigned to the fact that they will lose this library.
"Okay," Kei says once the explosives have been planted. "Stand back." She runs out of the room with Yuri in tow. The others take a few seconds to grasp what's happening, before following them.
Just as they get out of the library, there's an incredible "Whoomp!" sound, and the air becomes very heavy for a second. The ground shakes, and dust is stirred up everywhere.
When things begin to clear, Kei stands up, and surveys the damage. She is mildly surprised to see that the library is still standing. Yuri stands behind her.
"Do you think it worked?" Yuri says.
"Lets find out."
They run back into the library.
"Wait! You can't go in there! It's not safe!" Jacqueline yells after them. She realises it's futile, and begins to run after them herself. Ricardo and Robert follow.
They arrive back in the library itself, looking at the damage.
Kei is surprised to see that there is very little. She is also surprised to see that the door is still there. She taps it to see if it will collapse on her. It doesn't.
"Eh? They were my best explosives."
Yuri can't quite stifle a giggle. She doesn't get out of the way of Kei's hand as it slaps her face, either.
"We're going to need more firepower than this." Kei thinks for a second. "Mughi!" she says into her earring.
There's a plaintive mewling from the other end.
"Mughi, i want you to get the Lovely Angel and bring it to the ruins. Just follow our communicator signal."
She hears another mew, this one of acceptance.
The five of them are standing in the room now. Yuri is looking for a switch, or something that might open the door. Now that Kei's plan has failed, this is hers.
Kei looks through the relics strewn about the table and other areas of the room. Jacqueline sees her lead, and also starts looking through them.
Ricardo provides the two girls with advice on what each object might be, and how old it is, and how it probably has nothing to do with opening the door.
Robert follows Yuri. He doesn't help her, just follows her around the edge of the room.
"Hmm," Yuri says after finding what feels like a button on one of the walls.
"You found something?"
"I think so."
"Don't press it!" Jacqueline says.
It's too late. The button clicks, and the floor of the room disappears, taking Kei, Ricardo and Jacqueline with it.
Yuri and Robert are left on the outer edge, with only a very narrow pathway leading out of the room.
"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!"
"Oof."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
"Who's leg is that?"
SLAP!
"Sorry, Kei, sorry."
Ricardo hurriedly lets go of Kei's leg, stands up, and dusts himself off.
Kei also recovers, and helps Jacqueline stand up. They look around. The room is dark, but not black. Faint light is coming from somewhere.
"Yuri? Can you hear me?" Kei says into her earring communicator.
There is nothing but static. It occurs to Kei that they should still be able to see the hole in the room above, but when she looks up, she can only see black.
"Where are we?" Jacqueline asks.
"U- Under the ruins. It goes down many levels," Ricardo replies.
"How far down are we?"
"We can't be too far. Maybe this is where the professor is."
"Maybe."
Jacqueline looks around in time to see a beam of light moving around. It's Kei, with the torch she carries. Jacqueline muses to herself that she doesn't remember seeing a torch on Kei's belt before.
"Follow me," Kei says, "I think I've found something."
Yuri tries hailing Kei over her earring. All she gets is static. She tries Mughi, and when he responds, she knows the problem is at Kei's end.
Right now, however, Yuri has other things to worry about. Like Robert Riemann. He's standing, waiting for her to say or do something. She toys with the idea of saying or doing something ridiculous, but quickly decides against it. He probably wants to see Jacqueline returned safely to him.
"We're going to wait for Mughi to get here in the Lovely Angel," Yuri says, once they're outside of the library and sitting on its steps.
"Ah. How long will that be?"
"Soon. I wouldn't worry about her, I'm sure she's alright."
"She?"
"Your girlfriend."
"My... girl.. oh. Jacqueline. No, no. It's not like that at all."
"It... isn't?"
"No. She's with Professor Winston. They've been together for years."
"Oh." Yuri says. She is surprised by this, but part of her mind is throwing a fireworks party.
They wait. Time passes slower than it should. Yuri entertains herself by thinking of the life she could lead if she married Robert. He's older than her, but still young enough; incredibly rich, at least from what she can make out; and probably lives in a nice big mansion somewhere on this planet. The benefits of such a marriage are obvious to her: she could ditch Kei, and quit the 3WA, living a life of luxury instead.
The Lovely Angel arrives, pulling Yuri back into the real world. It can't land here, instead it hovers above them, and Mughi releases a rope ladder for them to climb up. Yuri realises that she has no idea what she is going to do with the ship. Kei was going to use it to blast the library apart, but with Kei missing, Yuri can't risk it.
"Where are we going?" Robert asks.
"Did you have anywhere in mind?" Yuri replies.
"I'd like to go back to the university. With your ship, it won't take any time to get there at all. There's a small launchpad on the university grounds. I can get them to let us land there."
They climb up the ladder and into the Lovely Angel, which then flies off at speed.
"I think we're still going down," Jacqueline says.
Kei resists the urge to give her a good right hook. Jacqueline has been nothing but trouble since they arrived down here. She'd fallen over twice, requiring Ricardo or Kei to carry her part of the way, and she complained constantly, often questioning Kei's leadership.
Ricardo had proved useless, neither backing Kei up, nor agreeing with Jacqueline. He seemed perfectly happy just to be travelling through here. Kei understands why: he isn't Professor Winston's assistant for nothing.
"I wish I'd brought the maps with us," Ricardo says finally. "We had everything down to level three mapped."
Kei wants to turn around and thump him.
"There are maps?!" Jacqueline says incredulously.
"Uh, yes. That hole wasn't on them, neither was the room the professor disappeared into. But much of this area is mapped."
"Then- then you know where we're going?"
"No. Not without the maps I don't."
"Where are they now?"
"At the university. On the professor's desk."
"Dammit. We could be out of here now if we had those maps."
"Jacqueline, shut up," Kei says. She's reached her limit with the woman. "We don't have them, there's nothing we can do about it. Right now, we just have to follow these paths until we start going up."
Jacqueline sighs.
They walk for a time. Kei lets Ricardo make decisions about which direction they should be going. He constantly admits that without the maps, he is pretty useless. Not even Professor Winston knew the layout of the ruins without them.
Every so often, Kei taps her earring optimistically, but it only responds with static. The communicator should work, no matter how far down they are, so she suspects that something is jamming the signal.
Yuri likes the university. It's full of young men who like to stare at her for long periods of time. She stays close to Robert, in order to give the impression that she's taken.
Robert doesn't mind either. He feels happy to have such a beautiful young lady beside him. The two of them walk with dignity as they reach the archeology building.
The building itself is one of the older buildings in the University, with an architecture that, to Yuri, looks as old as the Muroc ruins.
"Good day, Mr Riemann," a security guard says as they enter the building.
"Good day, Mal."
"Will your friend be studying, or is she just browsing?"
"She's investigating and she would like the full co-operation of the security staff."
"Of course, sir." He turns to Yuri. "Ma'am, Malcom Reese at your service. Along with the entire security staff of this building."
Yuri laughs. "Thank you." She knows she won't need their help.
Yuri and Robert walk through the building, up two flights of stairs, and into a hallway filled with offices.
"Couldn't we have used the lift?" she asks after they reach the top of the stairs.
"The exercise will do you good."
"I'm already good."
"Ah. Here we are," Robert says as they reach a door with the words 'Professor Alan Winston' printed on it. He opens the door, and they walk into a rather untidy office. "Perhaps I should check the desk for some clues?" he says, almost mocking Yuri.
Yuri doesn't notice it. "Sure," she says absently. She's looking at the shelves full of relics from various civilisations throughout the galaxy, and wondering how much they would all be worth.
Probably more than Robert, she muses. After a while, she seems to snap out of the trance, and turns to the desk, which Robert is rummaging through.
"I've found the maps of the ruins. At least we might be able to find the others." He hands Yuri several large pieces of paper. She tries to roll them together, but it doesn't work, so she winds up having to just hold them as best she can.
"Interesting, I wonder what this is for..." Robert says, looking at a small ball with a centre that appears to glow green.
"It's... beautiful." Yuri sounds almost hypnotised. She grabs the crystal before Robert has a chance to, and drops the maps in the process. She puts the crystal into a pack on her utility belt, careful to only handle it with her gloved hand, and proceeds to pick up the maps. She laughs when Robert looks at her.
Kei knows that someone is watching them. She has a pretty good idea of who it is, too.
They've stopped going down now, and have reached what appears to be an open, flat area. The walls here glow slightly, with neon-like green lines running through them.
"We should stop here," Ricardo says.
"Why?" Jacqueline says curtly.
"I.. I think I know where we are."
"Okay, we'll stop," Kei says. She has her own reasons for wanting to stop now: confirmation of her suspicions about their follower.
"You can come out now, Professor Winston." She says it loud enough that it echoes around the chamber for a short time, startling Jacqueline and Ricardo.
"Ah, yes, sorry," says an addled voice. Kei moves her torch in its direction, revealing the slightly ragged face of Professor Alan Winston.
"Pr-pro-professor!" Ricardo says, running towards the old man.
"Alan! You're alive!" Jacqueline's turn.
"Yes, yes, I suppose I am. Sorry about all that."
"Sorry? You've had us all worried sick. Robert even got the 3WA in to find you."
"Really? I presume this lovely young woman is the 3WA agent?"
"She's one of the Di-- Lovely Angels. We should get out of here soon." Ricardo sounds nervous.
"Mm, I suppose we must. I've found something very interesting though, and I want you all to have a look at it with me."
They follow the professor out of the chamber, and start heading downwards again.
"It's not too far," Professor Winston says. Kei notes that he seems quite healthy for someone who's been here for four days, apparently without food or water.
The Professor leads the way into another chamber, with Kei following. She nearly knocks him over when he stops suddenly.
Her eyes have to adjust to the light
"What is this?" she asks.
The room is brilliantly lit, and the walls are full of working computers and electronic equipment. In the middle of it all is a massive orb, raised up about 10 metres by a complex tangle of wires and struts and surrounded by even more computers. Light streams down from a point somewhere above this, but it's so intense that Kei can't tell if it's daylight or not.
"I don't know," the Professor replies. "I don't know. I wandered down here after I got locked in the library."
"Why didn't you stay there?" Ricardo asks angrily. "We've been trying to rescue you."
"Ah, but it gave me the perfect chance to explore this place. I have seen more of these magnificent ruins than anyone, ever." The Professor makes a grand sweeping move with his arm as he says this.
They wander around the room for a time. Professor Winston explains what he thinks the room is for, while Kei walks around looking for something that might lead out.
It is late afternoon when Yuri and Robert return to the ruins. The Lovely Angel lands right on the edge, and they walk back to the ruined library. Robert carries the maps, rolled under one arm.
When they reach the room at the back of the library, the floor has returned, looking as though it had never disappeared. Yuri walks across it tentatively, unsure whether it will collapse under her or not. Robert spreads the maps across it, and begins to study them.
There's nothing in these maps that says whether or not there's anything under this room. There's nothing about the room that the Professor was locked in, either."
"Strange." Yuri is working around the walls, in the hope of finding the button that opened the floor on them before. She finds it, and presses it, but nothing happens.
"Yuri?"
"Uh, I'm fine," she says hurriedly. She smiles at him.
"I don't think we should open the floor again," he says.
"Oh?"
"We don't want to get lost either."
"But we have the maps, now. We'll be fine."
"Did you hear what I said?"
"Yes, yes."
Just as she says it, the wall blocking them from the information room opens.
"Ehh?" Yuri looks around at it.
Once it's open, she and Robert step into the room.
"We shouldn't take too long in here, it might close again," Robert says.
"The professor isn't here." Yuri realises that Robert already knew this.
"Yes. I wonder how he got out."
Yuri doesn't. There's no access to the room at all, other than from the wall out there. If the Professor had been here, he came back out before he disappeared.
Robert stays out of her vision, and Yuri doesn't notice his search for a solid object. He settles on a steel rod, and walks up to her.
"I'm sorry Yuri," he says.
She feels a sharp pain in the back of her head. The world goes black.
Robert takes the crystal ball from her pouch. It's glowing brightly now, and he looks into it, almost hypnotised.
The sound of the door beginning to close rouses him, and he has to run to make it out of the room in time.
Yuri lies perfectly still on the floor.
"I know a way out," Professor Winston says suddenly.
The others look at him incredulously. They all want to say 'Why didn't you tell us earlier'?
"Ahahaha. I didn't realise it until just now. Sorry."
"Where is it?" Kei asks when she gains enough composure to not sound like she wants to throttle him.
The professor motions for them to follow him down a passage at the other end of the room. It's the bottom of a staircase, leading up.
They begin the climb. It soon becomes obvious that the staircase is quite long. After a while, walking up it becomes hypnotic.
"Here we are," the Professor says when they finally reach the top. There's another short passage, leading to the outside world.
They walk out into the sunset. Kei looks around at the exit, which is in the side of a building. The door, once closed, is invisible. Another strange aspect of this place.
"Yuri? We've found the Professor," Kei says when she gets a slight moment to herself.
There's no answer. "Yuri? Yuri?" She can hear something at the other end, but it's not Yuri. The communicator is working. "Hmm."
Robert can feel the warmth of the crystal in his pocket. It's comforting. The Muroc survivors have chosen for him this task, and he will carry their will. "Power to Muroc," he says under his breath.
The Muroc survivors have told him that there is an entrance here. He is about to look for it, when it opens from the inside. Quickly, he hides behind a wall.
He leans out to see Kei, Jacqueline, Ricardo and Professor Winston walk out.
He curses, knowing that the only way they could have come out is from the generator room. At least he knows where the entrance is now.
Robert waits until they have left the area, then heads towards the door. He presses the wall, but nothing happens. As if following an instruction, he pulls the crystal out and places it on the wall. The door opens.
He enters, and heads down the staircase. The crystal glows brighter and brighter as he does so. It comforts him.
He reaches the bottom, and sees the generator. He doesn't stop to marvel at it, however; instead walking around to a section at its base, pressing the crystal against it, and waiting.
After a short time, there are some clicking sounds, and a door opens in the bottom of the generator. Robert steps through it, into the darkness on the other side.
"Uhn..."
Yuri wakes up. Her head hurts. She touches the back of it tenderly, trying not to cause more pain. She stands up shakily and looks around the room. Her memory of what happened is unclear, but she can guess. She sees the closed door and realises that she is stuck here for the moment.
"Kei, are you there?" She says into her communicator.
"Yuri? Are you okay?"
"I'm stuck in that room the professor disappeared into."
"Eh? How did you manage that?"
"Robert. He knocked me out and locked me in here."
"This doesn't sound good. Why would he do that?"
"I don't know. If you can get me out of here, maybe we can find out."
"Right, I'm on my way."
The Professor, Ricardo and Jacqueline are standing by the car when Kei walks back.
"Professor, how did you get out of that room?"
"Room?"
"The one you locked yourself in?"
"Oh. Uh. I can't remember. Why?"
"Robert locked Yuri in the same room."
The Professor thinks for a few seconds. "You know, I can't seem to remember. I remember walking into that room, and then waking up in a smaller room somewhere else."
He doesn't get the chance to finish, Kei is running back into the ruins.
"Kei, wait!" Ricardo calls out to her, but she doesn't stop. He runs after her, leaving the Professor and Jacqueline behind.
"I think we should head back to Selene City," Professor Winston says.
Jacqueline thinks that she couldn't agree more.
Kei and Ricardo arrive at the library just as the last hint of twilight disappears from the sky. Kei has called Mughi, and now the Lovely Angel hovers ominously above the library.
"Hmm." She thinks for a second. Unlike Ricardo, she is not concerned as to whether or not the shot will destroy the library. Her concern is that it will destroy Yuri.
Actually, when she thinks about it, that's not her concern either. Really she just doesn't want to have to do all the dirty work herself.
"Yuri?" she says into her communicator.
"Yes?"
"Stand as far back as you can."
"Okay."
"Ricardo?"
"Yes?"
"Run."
"Mughi?"
"Rneow?"
"Fire."
BANG.
They make it out of the library just in time, the blast knocking them to the ground. The entire back end of the library is destroyed. Kei walks carefully through the wreckage.
Yuri walks around the huge door. "We have to find Robert. He took my crystal ball!"
"Crystal ball?"
Ricardo has made it back into the room now, and he looks at Yuri with an expression of horror.
"No, it can't be."
"Eh?" Kei says.
"The crystal. That was the artifact we were investigating when the Professor disappeared."
"But he didn't disappear." Kei says. "Robert conked him over the head, like he did to Yuri."
"Y-yes. He forced me to keep quiet about it. Now I understand why he asked for the Dirty- I mean, Lovely Angels, to investigate."
The Lovely Angels look at him blankly.
"He knew that you two will destroy the ruins, and hide any evidence of what he wants to do, if he fails. He'll walk out with a clean sheet."
"Fails?"
"Not all the Muroc disappeared. Some still live in hiding on this world. He says that he can hear them in his head. They want to revive their power, and rule this world once more."
"So the Muroc are just megalomaniacs?" Yuri says.
"It's not that simple. With the crystal in his hands, he is completely under the control of the Muroc. You must have noticed the power of it?" He looks at Yuri.
She looks back sheepishly.
"And there's one other thing," Ricardo continues.
"What?"
"If the power is reactivated, it will destroy this planet. That's what the Muroc knew when they abandoned this world."
"Does Robert know this?"
"I don't know. The Muroc survivors would not know, if they stayed here."
"Or they're incredibly suicidal," Yuri says.
"So, all we have to do is get Robert before he does anything, and not destroy the ruins?" Kei asks.
"Yes."
"Well," Kei says, "there's a first time for everything, I guess."
Robert appears inside a brilliantly lit chamber. He walks to its centre, and holds the crystal out.
It floats there. A beam of energy passes between it and the walls of the room. More beams begin to cross the room, each one coming from the crystal. Robert tries to shield himself from them, before realising that they are harmless.
He can hear the sound of something building up inside the chamber. He looks at the crystal, and watches it glow.
"The Muroc will revive once more," he says, fascinated and maniacal.
Then the crystal explodes. Beams of energy, and explosions fill the room. Robert can only watch as the energy becomes harmful. "Save me, Muroc!" he screams as his body is destroyed. A beam of energy shoots out of the top of the room.
Kei, Yuri and Ricardo see the beam shoot straight up into the sky from where they are.
"Oh no," Ricardo says. He starts running towards the beam.
"Ricardo!" Kei shouts after him. They run.
"What's that?" Jacqueline says, noticing a point of light in the rearview.
The professor turns his head around. "Oh no. The ruins. We must go back." He turns the steering wheel sharply, and the car spins out of control. He manages to get it back, and they head towards the ruins.
As they get closer, it becomes obvious to Kei and Yuri that they're not going to be able to get to the source of the light easily. It's coming out of a hole burned through the ground. The beam is about four metres in diameter, and pure white. It hurts their eyes to look at it for too long.
"We're too late," Ricardo says. He slumps beside a wall, away from the beam.
Yuri tests a theory by throwing a medium sized rock into the beam. It's instantly destroyed.
"The maps!" Yuri says. She'd completely forgotten about them. "They'll show us a way in."
"I'll get them," Kei says. She runs back towards the library.
Yuri sits down next to Ricardo. They are facing away from the beam, but she can still feel its heat, and see the light reflected in the shiny walls of many of the other buildings around them.
She tries to contact Mughi, but the beam is interfering with the communicator. The Lovely Angel is safe for the moment anyway.
After a few minutes, Yuri starts to get impatient. She paces. Occasionally she glances at the beam. It makes a rumbling sound: a constant low vibration that goes through her whole body.
The fourth or fifth time she looks at it, Yuri notices the colour has changed. It's gone from the brilliant white light that was difficult to look at, to a softer green shade.
"Ricardo, look."
He looks around fearfully, and sees the same thing. "Oh... no," he says.
Yuri grabs him by the collar and pushes him against the wall. She doesn't normally do this, but she saw it on a drama show recently and decides now to try it out. Ricardo is really annoying her.
"Listen, you know more than you're telling us. What's bad about that beam changing colour?"
"E- everything. It means the power source has stabilised."
"Stabilised? Isn't that good?"
"No. Because the other power sources are going to start." He points up.
Yuri looks up and sees eight beams flying away from a point that must be the top of this one.
"The planet is doomed. We should get out of here now!" Ricardo says desperately.
"Oh." She still doesn't quite know if that's bad.
Just as Ricardo is about to say something else, Kei arrives with the maps. "Fortunately Mughi didn't toast many of them," she says. They begin to lay them out. Ricardo studies them for a while, tracing paths with his finger. Kei and Yuri provide torchlight for him to work in.
"He says the world's going to end, Kei."
Really?"
"Yes."
"We'll have to see about that."
Ricardo looks up at them. He seems to have made a decision. As he's about to tell them what it is, Professor Winston and Jacqueline appear, almost running towards them.
"Kei," Yuri whispers, "is that Professor Winston?"
"Yeah."
"He's quite good looking."
"..."
The Professor agrees with Ricardo's choice about the path they should take to the generator room.
As they head into the depths of the ruins, the noise of the beam becomes quite loud, and they have difficulty just talking to each other. There's also the force of the vibration. On more than one occasion, Yuri feels as though her bones are going to vibrate to pieces.
"We can't go in," Ricardo says when they reach the generator.
"Of course we can!" Professor Winston says abruptly, before walking straight into the room.
When it becomes clear that he hasn't been vaporised, the others follow him. The noise is impossible here, and the atmosphere is heavy.
The Professor walks around the base of the generator. "It must be refracting through something," he says. He inspects several of the consoles around the machine, as well as on it. He mutters to himself constantly.
"Isn't there an off switch?" Kei asks.
"If only it were that simple. No, I think we're going to have to go inside."
The professor pulls out a crystal ball, identical to the one Yuri had earlier. He places it against a section of the generator, and walks into the entrance that opens before him.
"Alan!" Jacqueline cries out. She follows him into the entrance.
"N-no!" Ricardo says, as Kei and Yuri make to follow them. "You'll be killed."
It's too late. Kei and Yuri are already inside. Ricardo finds he can't move. Fear has paralysed him. He watches the door close.
They run into the chamber. The beam is invisible here, but it's energy is all around them, manifesting as short lived points of light and flares all through the room.
"Yes, now I am ready."
The Professor holds the crystal above his head, as though offering it to some higher being.
Yuri can see his eyes. "Kei," she says, pulling Kei beside her.
"Professor!" Kei yells. He can't hear her, the crystal, and the Muroc survivors, control him. Even if he could hear, the noise of the room cancels out her voice.
A beam of light comes down from above, surrounding the Professor.
"Alan!" Jacqueline screams it as the noise becomes more powerful. She grabs Yuri's gun and fires into the beam.
The beam absorbs the blast, and the Professor remains unharmed. Jacqueline turns to the Lovely Angels. "Please, do something!" she says to them.
Kei has already decided. She pulls a small explosive from her utility belt and throws it into the beam. It manages to survive the beam for long enough to hit the crystal and explode. The crystal is shattered, the beam disappears, and the Professor is released from the Murocs' hold.
Jacqueline grabs him and begins to pull him out of the room. She stops suddenly, realising that there's no exit.
The room goes silent. The energy stops.
"Alan, are you okay?" Jacqueline supports him.
"I... I can't remember."
Kei and Yuri start looking for a way out. The walls of the chamber are smooth, broken only by the lines of energy that cover almost every wall in the ruins.
"The power of the Muroc," the Professor says suddenly. "It's all gone."
"Gone?" Kei says.
"Yes."
Suddenly, the floor of the room begins to shake. "Kei!" Yuri yells as she falls over. There's the sound of a huge explosion, and the room cracks open.
The Lovely Angels lead the professor through the crack, which leads back into the generator room. Ricardo lies on the floor, blood coming from a wound in his head.
Kei runs to check that he's okay, but she can't find any sort of pulse. "He's dead," she announces. Another explosion shakes the room, and a beam of energy shoots out from a hole in the generator, hitting a wall and destroying part of it.
"We don't have time," Yuri says when Jacqueline goes to pick up Ricardo's body.
The four of them run out of the room and into the stairway. Explosions shake the ground constantly now, forcing them to move slowly for fear of losing their balance.
In the background of all the explosions is a rumbling sound. They can all hear it, but they can't pay it any mind for now.
As they climb the staircase, the rumble becomes a roar, and the ground under them lifts violently.
The four of them scream as they're thrown into the air. They fly out of the building and land unceremoniously on the ground.
There are explosions everywhere. They have no time to sit and recover, and instead have to keep running through the ruins.
"Mughi!" Kei calls into her earring-communicator, "get out here, now!"
She hears a mew of affirmation, and keeps running.
The ground itself is shaking, and Kei can see cracks forming all over it. The dull rumbling is still present.
They finally reach the edge of the ruins, and Kei turns around to see that Jacqueline and Professor Winston have fallen some way behind. She is surprised to see that it's the Professor supporting Jacqueline, and not the other way around, as inside the generator room.
"She was hit by debris," the professor says, answering Kei's facial query.
The Lovely Angel finally appears above, dropping a ladder down for them to climb. Kei has to help the Professor get Jacqueline onto it, and then climbs up after the both of them in case something goes wrong.
Below them, the ground breaks up, replaced by a ball of pure white energy, expanding outwards. The rumbling has risen to a deafening level, causing Kei to wince as she climbs into the ship. The silence that comes from the closing of the hatch is a huge relief.
Suddenly, everything gives way. Even inside the ship, the sound of the explosion is louder than everything that came before it. The Lovely Angel is knocked far into the atmosphere as the shockwave hits it, and the huge white fireball expands rapidly, giving out more light than the local star.
Kei, Yuri, the Professor and Jacqueline watch from the bridge as a quarter of the planet's northern hemisphere is engulfed by the fireball. The ship has stabilised now, but they are still dangerously close to the doomed planet. Yuri and Mughi work to move the ship further away, while keeping an eye on the planet below.
"So much power," the Professor says vacantly.
The fireball blows itself out with a final expansion that scours the remaining surface of the planet and blasts its atmosphere away completely. No living creature survives it.
"All those... people," Jacqueline says. She turns away from the window and starts crying.
Kei and Yuri look out. The planet is ruined: the surface is a scoured husk, glowing slightly red as it cools, with no sign that life ever existed on it. A quarter of the planet is missing, sliced out by the fireball. The inner structure is clearly visible: the solid core and molten mantle appearing as though in an educational book. Their sudden exposure to the vacuum of space sees them cooling rapidly, and the girls know that the res of the planet could break apart at any time.
"We failed," Yuri says. "We destroyed the ruins." She sighs.
"Well, we did get the professor out." Kei says, "At least this time someone survived."
"This time?" Jacqueline says through her tears. "You... you mean you've destroyed planets before?"
"Uh... well... heheh." Yuri laughs awkwardly.
"How... how can you..?" Jacqueline says. The professor covers her mouth with his shoulder.
"Don't," he says. "This is what they do. They tried everything they could."
Jacqueline accepts this. She watches as Kei and Yuri argue over where they are going to go next.
The ship's communicator beeps.
"Aren't you going to get that?" the Professor asks.
"It's Gooley, and he's going to have a lot of questions for us," Yuri says. She enters a course for anywhere but the 3WA homeworld, and the Lovely Angel disappears into space.
A Dirty Pair fan fiction by Tim Norman.
The Dirty Pair are copyright 1987, Sunrise Inc. Everything else is copyright 2002, Tim Norman.
::::
Kei takes a good look at the planet below. It has a brown look to it, giving away the fact that more than half the surface is covered by land.
"Where did Gooley say it was?" she asks Yuri.
Yuri taps the console in front of her, and the screen displays the coordinates of the city they are heading to. There's no spaceport, so Kei and Yuri are going to land the only way they know how: without guidance.
Their ship, the Lovely Angel, does not make smooth landings. It's not that it can't, it's that Kei doesn't know how. She only has to land for Yuri and Mughi, and it's not like they would complain to the captain about the bumpy landing. Not without receiving a kick to the head, anyway.
The ship comes down on a barren plain. The city sits out on the horizon, and Yuri realises with some horror that it's going to be a long walk.
"You could have landed closer," she complains. "This heat is bad for my complexion."
"Eh? Complexion? I don't see how this heat could make that any worse."
Kei doesn't see Yuri's look of daggers. She puts both her hands behind her head, kicks up her legs, and begins to whistle.
Mughi watches them from a slight distance. He mews silently to himself.
The three of them sit in a room: Ricardo Ramano on a chair, Jacqueline Palomar and Robert Riemann on the couch.
"He's been gone for four days. Why did you want us to come here now?" Ricardo asks Robert. He is holding back tears.
"Because I spoke to an old friend of mine at the 3WA yesterday, and he promised me he'd send his best agents out here to help find the Professor."
"Best agents?"
"Yes. He referred to them as the Lovely Angels."
Ricardo and Jacqueline look at him in horror. "D- Dir- Dirty Pair?" they say in unison. Everyone knows the stories of the Lovely Angels. The first one usually involves using their nickname in their presence.
"But they'll get us all killed!" Ricardo says. He is angry now. No one should have to turn to the Dirty Pair to get their problems solved.
"Gooley tells me they're the best. He's a good friend, so I believe him."
"The best at destroying planets!"
"Calm down Ricardo. They're due to arrive any minute now."
"Ricardo," Jacqueline says, "Robert is the one with the money remember. If he says they'll help us, then they'll help us. He's the one that has to pay their bill. Please, lets at least see them first, okay?"
Ricardo sighs with reservation. "I've got a bad feeling about this."
"Lucky!" Kei says as they finally manage to flag down a truck that will take them into the city. The driver is old, and has no problem stopping for two young women wearing standard-issue World Works and Welfare Association female battle-uniforms.
He does seem somewhat nervous about the cat, however. It's bigger than normal cats, and seems rather temperamental. He decides it's okay, as he can't see any scratches, scars, or other injuries that a large cat may cause, on the legs, stomach, back, chests, and faces of the two women. The cat must be harmless.
Kei, Yuri and Mughi sit in the empty trailer. The cab's window is broken, so they can easily talk to the driver.
"Where you from anyway?" he asks.
"Around," Kei replies.
"What brings you to Selene City?"
"We heard there were some hot guys in town, we wanted to see for ourselves," Yuri says, winking at Kei.
"Heheh. Well, that's certainly true. Hey, if you girls want, I could give you the tour."
"Uh, no thanks," Kei says, winking back at Yuri.
"It's your loss."
"Hang on, Kei, maybe this guy really can show us a good tiime."
"She's right, Kei. I can do that if you want."
Now it's Kei's turn to look daggers at Yuri. Mughi rearranges himself at the other end of the trailer, and mews again.
"Thanks," Yuri says as she gets out of the trailer. She hears the thud of Kei landing behind her. "It's because you're not kind to others that you're so clumsy, you know," she says.
Kei flicks out a leg as Yuri is about to step over the kerb, tripping her. "And it's because you're so kind that you're so clumsy."
Neither of them hear Mughi patter onto the pavement. He looks at Yuri as she stands and dusts herself off.
"You better wait out here, Mughi. We don't want to upset these people."
Mughi makes a mournful sound, before settling down beside the steps that lead into the building.
The door to the room opens, and Ricardo, Jacqueline and Robert watch as two young women walk in, one after the other.
The first one is taller, with red hair, raised up into a style that might have been popular a hundred years ago, but looks hopelessly dated now. She has a serious, masculine look about her, and Ricardo decides that he should be nice to her.
The other girl, slightly shorter, has long blue hair and matching blue eyes. Ricardo decides that she is beautiful. He can't help but noticing the uniforms they wear. He wonders if all female WWWA Trouble Consultants wear such uniforms.
"Ah, you must be the Dir-- Lovely Angels?" Robert says.
"Yes. Kei and Yuri, 3WA Trouble Consultants, at your service," Yuri says, bowing in front of him.
"I'm Robert Riemann, a friend of your chief's. This lovely lady is Jacqueline Palomar, and on that chair is Professor Winston's assistant, Ricardo Ramano."
"Professor Winston?" Kei asks when she doesn't see anyone else.
"What did Gooley tell you?"
"He told us that he wanted us to help an old friend of his, and sent us to this city. He never told us what it was about."
"Ah. That's because I didn't tell him. You see, this project has some, shall we say, influential backers, whom I represent. These people would be rather annoyed if they were to discover what has happened. So, the fewer people that know about it, the better."
"But what did happen?" Yuri asks.
"Ricardo, tell them what happened," Robert says.
"Uh, the Professor and I, we went out to the ruins. That was four days ago. He found part of a machine that he says might be an energy source, and wanted to return to find out.
"We were in a part of a library, I was looking through some of the remains of books on Muroc culture--"
"Muroc is the name of the race that built the ruins," Robert interjects.
"--and the Professor was in another part of the room, when a wall came down between us. I tried to open it, but it was impossible. I called Robert, and the three of us tried to open the door for a long time, but we had to give up.
"We went back to the ruins each day for the last 3 days, but there's still no sign of the professor. Then Robert tells us that he'd called you two in."
Kei and Yuri stay silent for a short time, letting Ricardo's story sink in.
"How far out are these ruins? We didn't see them when we landed," Kei says when Ricardo has finished his account.
"About 60 kilometres north of here. Half an hour, by car."
"We'd like to visit it, if you don't mind," Yuri says, looking somewhat hopefully at Robert. The prospect of a car trip with him makes her feel that this case may not be so bad after all.
"No," Jacqueline says.
Everyone looks at her.
"I don't.. I don't want to... go back again." It's an excuse. Really she doesn't want the Dirty Pair going anywhere near the ruins.
"How are they going to help us if they can't see the scene of the crime, so to speak?" Robert says. Kei thinks he's more nervous than he should be.
"We have images and maps."
"No. They will have to go out there. It's too late to head out now, so we'll make arrangements for tomorrow morning?"
The Lovely Angels look at Robert, and nod.
"Do you have a place to stay?" Ricardo asks them.
"Uh..." Kei stops for a second. They had planned to use the Lovely Angel as a base of operation, but it's too far out from Selene City to be useful to them now.
"I have a friend who runs a hotel not far from here. He will be able to give you a room," Ricardo says. When Yuri smiles at him, he knows it was worth it.
"Yes, you do that," Robert says hurriedly. "Jacqueline and I have a meeting with the Chancellor of the university. I'll see you all tomorrow morning," he checks his wristwatch, "at around 0900?"
Yuri visibly deflates when Kei says yes.
The hotel room is surprisingly nice, and the manager, a man by the name of Albert, didn't even mind that Mughi be allowed to stay with them. After some discussion, he was even happy to find a small mattress for the oversized cat.
"Wow. This city is bigger than I realised," Yuri says as she opens the window. Mughi, currently standing next to her, mews in agreement.
There's a faint wind, blowing her hair slightly as she leans into it. The air is warm-- this is a desert planet, after all-- and Yuri thinks for a second that she could be happy here.
"Uuh, this water's cold!"
Kei's shout jolts her back. "Albert said you'd have to wait 20 minutes for the water to heat up," she says, remembering something the manager had told her earlier.
"Ehh?"
"The rooms. They all have their own hot water, which is turned off when they aren't used."
"Why didn't you tell me this before I went to take my shower?"
"You didn't ask."
After her shower, Kei goes to bed. Yuri stays up for a while, looking at information about the ruins, taken from the university's databanks. There isn't a lot of information there, or at least, if there is, it's not available to her. She makes a mental note to ask Ricardo for access to at least a map of the place tomorrow.
Just as she is finally going to bed, Yuri hears a noise in the other room.
She stops. Her first thought is that it's Kei muttering in her sleep, or maybe Mughi shifting on the floor. When it happens again, Yuri is able to get a direction on it.
"Kei," she whispers, tapping Kei on the shoulder as she does so.
"Mmm-mm-phmm."
"Kei, there's someone in our room." Urgent now. Kei actually wakes up.
"Wha?"
"Shh." Yuri says, pointing in the general direction of the living area.
Both of them can hear the sound of someone trying to be quiet, but failing. They wait at the door of the bedroom. Kei kicks Mughi with her foot, waking him up too.
He knows what to do. He walks out slowly into the living area. There is enough light from the planet's moons for Yuri and Kei to be able to see a figure dressed in black, and standing perfectly still, a natural reaction when faced with a pair of large yellow eyes in the dark.
For all his size, Mughi still manages to walk with the grace and nonchalance of a cat. He sniffs the figure. Kei and Yuri follow, holding out their guns.
"Don't move." Kei says. The figure raises its hands. Yuri is about to turn the light on, when something swats her arm away.
She is thrown across the floor, landing ungracefully between Kei and Mughi. They don't need any more signal to fight.
Mughi makes a howling sound, and runs at the figure standing still, who kicks him. Kei shoots, but she's kicked in the side of the face as she does, and falls down.
The two figures jump out of the window before Kei, Yuri and Mughi have a chance to recover.
Kei runs to the window and looks out, but no one is there. "Damn. They got away fast," she says.
She pulls the window shut, and locks it. "That'll teach you for leaving the window open."
Kei crosses the room, and turns the light on, surveying the damage. Yuri hasn't moved.
"Yuri?"
Mughi makes a groaning sound as he gets back on his feet. Yuri still doesn't move.
"Yuri?" Kei repeats.
She walks over to Yuri, and pokes her with her foot. Yuri still doesn't move. "This might be serious," she says to herself.
She pokes harder this time, and hears a weak groan. "Perhaps not."
Yuri stands up slowly, using Kei as support.
"Who-- who were they?" she asks.
"I don't know. I didn't get a good look at them. Whoever they were, they know why we're here. They took your computer."
"Ehh?" That news is enough to make Yuri forget her grogginess and look at the blank space where the computer had been. "Oh well. I didn't have much anyway. The university's databanks were pretty light on information about the Muroc and the ruins."
"We should still be a bit more careful now," Kei says. She turns and looks at Mughi. "Mughi?" The oversized cat looks at her. He knows that her tone of voice means that he's going to do something he would rather not. "I want you to stay here and watch the room. You will not go to sleep, do you hear me?"
"Nnggrrwwr." It's a mournful sound.
"Good boy," Yuri says, before leaving Mughi on his own. Now she might finally be able to go to bed.
The planet's sun burns down on them as they walk into the ruins. Kei tries to stifle a yawn as she walks behind Robert.
She is surprised by the condition of the ruins. She would have thought that such ruins would be old broken, but many of the buildings here are still intact. Even signs of age are minimal: few of the buildings appear to be worn by weather or other natural occurrences.
This gives the place a somewhat eerie feel: as though the race that built these ruins just up and left one day. There is no sign of any cataclysm being brought upon their civilisation.
"Different parts of these ruins are different ages," Ricardo says, taking the role of tour guide. "Most of what we've found spans a period from six thousand to four thousand years ago."
Kei nods. She could have asked Yuri for much of this information, but, really, she just wants to hear Ricardo speak.
"The place was a large city. We think it might have housed more than a million people at one stage. Most of it is buried though."
"Buried?"
"Yes. The city doesn't cover a large area, mainly because the Muroc built up, instead of outward. It's a very efficient design. But at some stage, the whole area seems to have partially sunk into the planet, and the desert eventually buried it. That was maybe two thousand years ago. It doesn't take long for the desert to cover things on this planet."
"So the sinking didn't wipe the Muroc out?"
"No. They were gone long before that happened."
"Show them where the professor disappeared," Robert says. Kei notes that he sounds impatient.
They walk for another ten minutes, before coming across a large structure that must have held great importance.
"This is a library," Ricardo continues. "We had hoped that there would be a lot of information about the Muroc here, but unfortunately, time has destroyed most of it."
"This is where the professor went missing?" Kei asks.
"Yes. Follow me."
The five of them enter the building. Kei doesn't know if it's more eerie inside or outside. Every footstep kicks up some dust, and she gets the feeling that simply touching a wall would bring the entire place down.
"TSU!"
The sound makes her jump. She looks to see Yuri recovering from a sneeze.
"Eheh. V!" Yuri says, making a 'V' sign with her fingers.
After a short walk, they arrive at a large chamber at the back of the library. "This is where the professor disappeared," Ricardo says.
"You're welcome to borrow anything you need to, if it will help find the professor," Robert says.
"Robert! No."
Everyone turns to look at Jacqueline, who, until now, hadn't spoken since they arrived. She seems horrified that Robert had just given the entire ruins over to two of the most dangerous people in the universe.
"Don't worry," Kei says, "We won't need to take anything."
Jacqueline seems to breathe a sigh of relief. Kei turns back to the wall.
"Where's the door?" she asks Ricardo.
He points to a wall that looks slightly out of place with the rest of the room.
Kei walks over to it and bangs on it. Yuri flinches as she does so.
"Oi! Professor! You in there?" Kei yells.
There's no answer. Kei tries again. The wall is pretty hard, but she's strong enough that it doesn't hurt her to hit it.
"Oi! We're going to get you out of there now! Just stay still, we'll be there in a moment."
"Maybe you should move to the far side of the room," Yuri says helpfully to the wall.
Neither of them notice that Ricardo, Robert and Jacqueline have backed to the entrance of this chamber, and are looking on with the same expression used for watching car accidents that are about to happen.
Kei pulls some explosives out of a pack on her utility belt, and attaches them strategically to the wall.
"You can't do that!" Jacqueline says, hysteria rising in her voice.
"You want the prof back or not?" Kei says. Jacqueline is really starting to annoy her now.
"But-- but-- you'll bring the whole building down!"
"Let them do their job," Ricardo says. He seems resigned to the fact that they will lose this library.
"Okay," Kei says once the explosives have been planted. "Stand back." She runs out of the room with Yuri in tow. The others take a few seconds to grasp what's happening, before following them.
Just as they get out of the library, there's an incredible "Whoomp!" sound, and the air becomes very heavy for a second. The ground shakes, and dust is stirred up everywhere.
When things begin to clear, Kei stands up, and surveys the damage. She is mildly surprised to see that the library is still standing. Yuri stands behind her.
"Do you think it worked?" Yuri says.
"Lets find out."
They run back into the library.
"Wait! You can't go in there! It's not safe!" Jacqueline yells after them. She realises it's futile, and begins to run after them herself. Ricardo and Robert follow.
They arrive back in the library itself, looking at the damage.
Kei is surprised to see that there is very little. She is also surprised to see that the door is still there. She taps it to see if it will collapse on her. It doesn't.
"Eh? They were my best explosives."
Yuri can't quite stifle a giggle. She doesn't get out of the way of Kei's hand as it slaps her face, either.
"We're going to need more firepower than this." Kei thinks for a second. "Mughi!" she says into her earring.
There's a plaintive mewling from the other end.
"Mughi, i want you to get the Lovely Angel and bring it to the ruins. Just follow our communicator signal."
She hears another mew, this one of acceptance.
The five of them are standing in the room now. Yuri is looking for a switch, or something that might open the door. Now that Kei's plan has failed, this is hers.
Kei looks through the relics strewn about the table and other areas of the room. Jacqueline sees her lead, and also starts looking through them.
Ricardo provides the two girls with advice on what each object might be, and how old it is, and how it probably has nothing to do with opening the door.
Robert follows Yuri. He doesn't help her, just follows her around the edge of the room.
"Hmm," Yuri says after finding what feels like a button on one of the walls.
"You found something?"
"I think so."
"Don't press it!" Jacqueline says.
It's too late. The button clicks, and the floor of the room disappears, taking Kei, Ricardo and Jacqueline with it.
Yuri and Robert are left on the outer edge, with only a very narrow pathway leading out of the room.
"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!"
"Oof."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
"Who's leg is that?"
SLAP!
"Sorry, Kei, sorry."
Ricardo hurriedly lets go of Kei's leg, stands up, and dusts himself off.
Kei also recovers, and helps Jacqueline stand up. They look around. The room is dark, but not black. Faint light is coming from somewhere.
"Yuri? Can you hear me?" Kei says into her earring communicator.
There is nothing but static. It occurs to Kei that they should still be able to see the hole in the room above, but when she looks up, she can only see black.
"Where are we?" Jacqueline asks.
"U- Under the ruins. It goes down many levels," Ricardo replies.
"How far down are we?"
"We can't be too far. Maybe this is where the professor is."
"Maybe."
Jacqueline looks around in time to see a beam of light moving around. It's Kei, with the torch she carries. Jacqueline muses to herself that she doesn't remember seeing a torch on Kei's belt before.
"Follow me," Kei says, "I think I've found something."
Yuri tries hailing Kei over her earring. All she gets is static. She tries Mughi, and when he responds, she knows the problem is at Kei's end.
Right now, however, Yuri has other things to worry about. Like Robert Riemann. He's standing, waiting for her to say or do something. She toys with the idea of saying or doing something ridiculous, but quickly decides against it. He probably wants to see Jacqueline returned safely to him.
"We're going to wait for Mughi to get here in the Lovely Angel," Yuri says, once they're outside of the library and sitting on its steps.
"Ah. How long will that be?"
"Soon. I wouldn't worry about her, I'm sure she's alright."
"She?"
"Your girlfriend."
"My... girl.. oh. Jacqueline. No, no. It's not like that at all."
"It... isn't?"
"No. She's with Professor Winston. They've been together for years."
"Oh." Yuri says. She is surprised by this, but part of her mind is throwing a fireworks party.
They wait. Time passes slower than it should. Yuri entertains herself by thinking of the life she could lead if she married Robert. He's older than her, but still young enough; incredibly rich, at least from what she can make out; and probably lives in a nice big mansion somewhere on this planet. The benefits of such a marriage are obvious to her: she could ditch Kei, and quit the 3WA, living a life of luxury instead.
The Lovely Angel arrives, pulling Yuri back into the real world. It can't land here, instead it hovers above them, and Mughi releases a rope ladder for them to climb up. Yuri realises that she has no idea what she is going to do with the ship. Kei was going to use it to blast the library apart, but with Kei missing, Yuri can't risk it.
"Where are we going?" Robert asks.
"Did you have anywhere in mind?" Yuri replies.
"I'd like to go back to the university. With your ship, it won't take any time to get there at all. There's a small launchpad on the university grounds. I can get them to let us land there."
They climb up the ladder and into the Lovely Angel, which then flies off at speed.
"I think we're still going down," Jacqueline says.
Kei resists the urge to give her a good right hook. Jacqueline has been nothing but trouble since they arrived down here. She'd fallen over twice, requiring Ricardo or Kei to carry her part of the way, and she complained constantly, often questioning Kei's leadership.
Ricardo had proved useless, neither backing Kei up, nor agreeing with Jacqueline. He seemed perfectly happy just to be travelling through here. Kei understands why: he isn't Professor Winston's assistant for nothing.
"I wish I'd brought the maps with us," Ricardo says finally. "We had everything down to level three mapped."
Kei wants to turn around and thump him.
"There are maps?!" Jacqueline says incredulously.
"Uh, yes. That hole wasn't on them, neither was the room the professor disappeared into. But much of this area is mapped."
"Then- then you know where we're going?"
"No. Not without the maps I don't."
"Where are they now?"
"At the university. On the professor's desk."
"Dammit. We could be out of here now if we had those maps."
"Jacqueline, shut up," Kei says. She's reached her limit with the woman. "We don't have them, there's nothing we can do about it. Right now, we just have to follow these paths until we start going up."
Jacqueline sighs.
They walk for a time. Kei lets Ricardo make decisions about which direction they should be going. He constantly admits that without the maps, he is pretty useless. Not even Professor Winston knew the layout of the ruins without them.
Every so often, Kei taps her earring optimistically, but it only responds with static. The communicator should work, no matter how far down they are, so she suspects that something is jamming the signal.
Yuri likes the university. It's full of young men who like to stare at her for long periods of time. She stays close to Robert, in order to give the impression that she's taken.
Robert doesn't mind either. He feels happy to have such a beautiful young lady beside him. The two of them walk with dignity as they reach the archeology building.
The building itself is one of the older buildings in the University, with an architecture that, to Yuri, looks as old as the Muroc ruins.
"Good day, Mr Riemann," a security guard says as they enter the building.
"Good day, Mal."
"Will your friend be studying, or is she just browsing?"
"She's investigating and she would like the full co-operation of the security staff."
"Of course, sir." He turns to Yuri. "Ma'am, Malcom Reese at your service. Along with the entire security staff of this building."
Yuri laughs. "Thank you." She knows she won't need their help.
Yuri and Robert walk through the building, up two flights of stairs, and into a hallway filled with offices.
"Couldn't we have used the lift?" she asks after they reach the top of the stairs.
"The exercise will do you good."
"I'm already good."
"Ah. Here we are," Robert says as they reach a door with the words 'Professor Alan Winston' printed on it. He opens the door, and they walk into a rather untidy office. "Perhaps I should check the desk for some clues?" he says, almost mocking Yuri.
Yuri doesn't notice it. "Sure," she says absently. She's looking at the shelves full of relics from various civilisations throughout the galaxy, and wondering how much they would all be worth.
Probably more than Robert, she muses. After a while, she seems to snap out of the trance, and turns to the desk, which Robert is rummaging through.
"I've found the maps of the ruins. At least we might be able to find the others." He hands Yuri several large pieces of paper. She tries to roll them together, but it doesn't work, so she winds up having to just hold them as best she can.
"Interesting, I wonder what this is for..." Robert says, looking at a small ball with a centre that appears to glow green.
"It's... beautiful." Yuri sounds almost hypnotised. She grabs the crystal before Robert has a chance to, and drops the maps in the process. She puts the crystal into a pack on her utility belt, careful to only handle it with her gloved hand, and proceeds to pick up the maps. She laughs when Robert looks at her.
Kei knows that someone is watching them. She has a pretty good idea of who it is, too.
They've stopped going down now, and have reached what appears to be an open, flat area. The walls here glow slightly, with neon-like green lines running through them.
"We should stop here," Ricardo says.
"Why?" Jacqueline says curtly.
"I.. I think I know where we are."
"Okay, we'll stop," Kei says. She has her own reasons for wanting to stop now: confirmation of her suspicions about their follower.
"You can come out now, Professor Winston." She says it loud enough that it echoes around the chamber for a short time, startling Jacqueline and Ricardo.
"Ah, yes, sorry," says an addled voice. Kei moves her torch in its direction, revealing the slightly ragged face of Professor Alan Winston.
"Pr-pro-professor!" Ricardo says, running towards the old man.
"Alan! You're alive!" Jacqueline's turn.
"Yes, yes, I suppose I am. Sorry about all that."
"Sorry? You've had us all worried sick. Robert even got the 3WA in to find you."
"Really? I presume this lovely young woman is the 3WA agent?"
"She's one of the Di-- Lovely Angels. We should get out of here soon." Ricardo sounds nervous.
"Mm, I suppose we must. I've found something very interesting though, and I want you all to have a look at it with me."
They follow the professor out of the chamber, and start heading downwards again.
"It's not too far," Professor Winston says. Kei notes that he seems quite healthy for someone who's been here for four days, apparently without food or water.
The Professor leads the way into another chamber, with Kei following. She nearly knocks him over when he stops suddenly.
Her eyes have to adjust to the light
"What is this?" she asks.
The room is brilliantly lit, and the walls are full of working computers and electronic equipment. In the middle of it all is a massive orb, raised up about 10 metres by a complex tangle of wires and struts and surrounded by even more computers. Light streams down from a point somewhere above this, but it's so intense that Kei can't tell if it's daylight or not.
"I don't know," the Professor replies. "I don't know. I wandered down here after I got locked in the library."
"Why didn't you stay there?" Ricardo asks angrily. "We've been trying to rescue you."
"Ah, but it gave me the perfect chance to explore this place. I have seen more of these magnificent ruins than anyone, ever." The Professor makes a grand sweeping move with his arm as he says this.
They wander around the room for a time. Professor Winston explains what he thinks the room is for, while Kei walks around looking for something that might lead out.
It is late afternoon when Yuri and Robert return to the ruins. The Lovely Angel lands right on the edge, and they walk back to the ruined library. Robert carries the maps, rolled under one arm.
When they reach the room at the back of the library, the floor has returned, looking as though it had never disappeared. Yuri walks across it tentatively, unsure whether it will collapse under her or not. Robert spreads the maps across it, and begins to study them.
There's nothing in these maps that says whether or not there's anything under this room. There's nothing about the room that the Professor was locked in, either."
"Strange." Yuri is working around the walls, in the hope of finding the button that opened the floor on them before. She finds it, and presses it, but nothing happens.
"Yuri?"
"Uh, I'm fine," she says hurriedly. She smiles at him.
"I don't think we should open the floor again," he says.
"Oh?"
"We don't want to get lost either."
"But we have the maps, now. We'll be fine."
"Did you hear what I said?"
"Yes, yes."
Just as she says it, the wall blocking them from the information room opens.
"Ehh?" Yuri looks around at it.
Once it's open, she and Robert step into the room.
"We shouldn't take too long in here, it might close again," Robert says.
"The professor isn't here." Yuri realises that Robert already knew this.
"Yes. I wonder how he got out."
Yuri doesn't. There's no access to the room at all, other than from the wall out there. If the Professor had been here, he came back out before he disappeared.
Robert stays out of her vision, and Yuri doesn't notice his search for a solid object. He settles on a steel rod, and walks up to her.
"I'm sorry Yuri," he says.
She feels a sharp pain in the back of her head. The world goes black.
Robert takes the crystal ball from her pouch. It's glowing brightly now, and he looks into it, almost hypnotised.
The sound of the door beginning to close rouses him, and he has to run to make it out of the room in time.
Yuri lies perfectly still on the floor.
"I know a way out," Professor Winston says suddenly.
The others look at him incredulously. They all want to say 'Why didn't you tell us earlier'?
"Ahahaha. I didn't realise it until just now. Sorry."
"Where is it?" Kei asks when she gains enough composure to not sound like she wants to throttle him.
The professor motions for them to follow him down a passage at the other end of the room. It's the bottom of a staircase, leading up.
They begin the climb. It soon becomes obvious that the staircase is quite long. After a while, walking up it becomes hypnotic.
"Here we are," the Professor says when they finally reach the top. There's another short passage, leading to the outside world.
They walk out into the sunset. Kei looks around at the exit, which is in the side of a building. The door, once closed, is invisible. Another strange aspect of this place.
"Yuri? We've found the Professor," Kei says when she gets a slight moment to herself.
There's no answer. "Yuri? Yuri?" She can hear something at the other end, but it's not Yuri. The communicator is working. "Hmm."
Robert can feel the warmth of the crystal in his pocket. It's comforting. The Muroc survivors have chosen for him this task, and he will carry their will. "Power to Muroc," he says under his breath.
The Muroc survivors have told him that there is an entrance here. He is about to look for it, when it opens from the inside. Quickly, he hides behind a wall.
He leans out to see Kei, Jacqueline, Ricardo and Professor Winston walk out.
He curses, knowing that the only way they could have come out is from the generator room. At least he knows where the entrance is now.
Robert waits until they have left the area, then heads towards the door. He presses the wall, but nothing happens. As if following an instruction, he pulls the crystal out and places it on the wall. The door opens.
He enters, and heads down the staircase. The crystal glows brighter and brighter as he does so. It comforts him.
He reaches the bottom, and sees the generator. He doesn't stop to marvel at it, however; instead walking around to a section at its base, pressing the crystal against it, and waiting.
After a short time, there are some clicking sounds, and a door opens in the bottom of the generator. Robert steps through it, into the darkness on the other side.
"Uhn..."
Yuri wakes up. Her head hurts. She touches the back of it tenderly, trying not to cause more pain. She stands up shakily and looks around the room. Her memory of what happened is unclear, but she can guess. She sees the closed door and realises that she is stuck here for the moment.
"Kei, are you there?" She says into her communicator.
"Yuri? Are you okay?"
"I'm stuck in that room the professor disappeared into."
"Eh? How did you manage that?"
"Robert. He knocked me out and locked me in here."
"This doesn't sound good. Why would he do that?"
"I don't know. If you can get me out of here, maybe we can find out."
"Right, I'm on my way."
The Professor, Ricardo and Jacqueline are standing by the car when Kei walks back.
"Professor, how did you get out of that room?"
"Room?"
"The one you locked yourself in?"
"Oh. Uh. I can't remember. Why?"
"Robert locked Yuri in the same room."
The Professor thinks for a few seconds. "You know, I can't seem to remember. I remember walking into that room, and then waking up in a smaller room somewhere else."
He doesn't get the chance to finish, Kei is running back into the ruins.
"Kei, wait!" Ricardo calls out to her, but she doesn't stop. He runs after her, leaving the Professor and Jacqueline behind.
"I think we should head back to Selene City," Professor Winston says.
Jacqueline thinks that she couldn't agree more.
Kei and Ricardo arrive at the library just as the last hint of twilight disappears from the sky. Kei has called Mughi, and now the Lovely Angel hovers ominously above the library.
"Hmm." She thinks for a second. Unlike Ricardo, she is not concerned as to whether or not the shot will destroy the library. Her concern is that it will destroy Yuri.
Actually, when she thinks about it, that's not her concern either. Really she just doesn't want to have to do all the dirty work herself.
"Yuri?" she says into her communicator.
"Yes?"
"Stand as far back as you can."
"Okay."
"Ricardo?"
"Yes?"
"Run."
"Mughi?"
"Rneow?"
"Fire."
BANG.
They make it out of the library just in time, the blast knocking them to the ground. The entire back end of the library is destroyed. Kei walks carefully through the wreckage.
Yuri walks around the huge door. "We have to find Robert. He took my crystal ball!"
"Crystal ball?"
Ricardo has made it back into the room now, and he looks at Yuri with an expression of horror.
"No, it can't be."
"Eh?" Kei says.
"The crystal. That was the artifact we were investigating when the Professor disappeared."
"But he didn't disappear." Kei says. "Robert conked him over the head, like he did to Yuri."
"Y-yes. He forced me to keep quiet about it. Now I understand why he asked for the Dirty- I mean, Lovely Angels, to investigate."
The Lovely Angels look at him blankly.
"He knew that you two will destroy the ruins, and hide any evidence of what he wants to do, if he fails. He'll walk out with a clean sheet."
"Fails?"
"Not all the Muroc disappeared. Some still live in hiding on this world. He says that he can hear them in his head. They want to revive their power, and rule this world once more."
"So the Muroc are just megalomaniacs?" Yuri says.
"It's not that simple. With the crystal in his hands, he is completely under the control of the Muroc. You must have noticed the power of it?" He looks at Yuri.
She looks back sheepishly.
"And there's one other thing," Ricardo continues.
"What?"
"If the power is reactivated, it will destroy this planet. That's what the Muroc knew when they abandoned this world."
"Does Robert know this?"
"I don't know. The Muroc survivors would not know, if they stayed here."
"Or they're incredibly suicidal," Yuri says.
"So, all we have to do is get Robert before he does anything, and not destroy the ruins?" Kei asks.
"Yes."
"Well," Kei says, "there's a first time for everything, I guess."
Robert appears inside a brilliantly lit chamber. He walks to its centre, and holds the crystal out.
It floats there. A beam of energy passes between it and the walls of the room. More beams begin to cross the room, each one coming from the crystal. Robert tries to shield himself from them, before realising that they are harmless.
He can hear the sound of something building up inside the chamber. He looks at the crystal, and watches it glow.
"The Muroc will revive once more," he says, fascinated and maniacal.
Then the crystal explodes. Beams of energy, and explosions fill the room. Robert can only watch as the energy becomes harmful. "Save me, Muroc!" he screams as his body is destroyed. A beam of energy shoots out of the top of the room.
Kei, Yuri and Ricardo see the beam shoot straight up into the sky from where they are.
"Oh no," Ricardo says. He starts running towards the beam.
"Ricardo!" Kei shouts after him. They run.
"What's that?" Jacqueline says, noticing a point of light in the rearview.
The professor turns his head around. "Oh no. The ruins. We must go back." He turns the steering wheel sharply, and the car spins out of control. He manages to get it back, and they head towards the ruins.
As they get closer, it becomes obvious to Kei and Yuri that they're not going to be able to get to the source of the light easily. It's coming out of a hole burned through the ground. The beam is about four metres in diameter, and pure white. It hurts their eyes to look at it for too long.
"We're too late," Ricardo says. He slumps beside a wall, away from the beam.
Yuri tests a theory by throwing a medium sized rock into the beam. It's instantly destroyed.
"The maps!" Yuri says. She'd completely forgotten about them. "They'll show us a way in."
"I'll get them," Kei says. She runs back towards the library.
Yuri sits down next to Ricardo. They are facing away from the beam, but she can still feel its heat, and see the light reflected in the shiny walls of many of the other buildings around them.
She tries to contact Mughi, but the beam is interfering with the communicator. The Lovely Angel is safe for the moment anyway.
After a few minutes, Yuri starts to get impatient. She paces. Occasionally she glances at the beam. It makes a rumbling sound: a constant low vibration that goes through her whole body.
The fourth or fifth time she looks at it, Yuri notices the colour has changed. It's gone from the brilliant white light that was difficult to look at, to a softer green shade.
"Ricardo, look."
He looks around fearfully, and sees the same thing. "Oh... no," he says.
Yuri grabs him by the collar and pushes him against the wall. She doesn't normally do this, but she saw it on a drama show recently and decides now to try it out. Ricardo is really annoying her.
"Listen, you know more than you're telling us. What's bad about that beam changing colour?"
"E- everything. It means the power source has stabilised."
"Stabilised? Isn't that good?"
"No. Because the other power sources are going to start." He points up.
Yuri looks up and sees eight beams flying away from a point that must be the top of this one.
"The planet is doomed. We should get out of here now!" Ricardo says desperately.
"Oh." She still doesn't quite know if that's bad.
Just as Ricardo is about to say something else, Kei arrives with the maps. "Fortunately Mughi didn't toast many of them," she says. They begin to lay them out. Ricardo studies them for a while, tracing paths with his finger. Kei and Yuri provide torchlight for him to work in.
"He says the world's going to end, Kei."
Really?"
"Yes."
"We'll have to see about that."
Ricardo looks up at them. He seems to have made a decision. As he's about to tell them what it is, Professor Winston and Jacqueline appear, almost running towards them.
"Kei," Yuri whispers, "is that Professor Winston?"
"Yeah."
"He's quite good looking."
"..."
The Professor agrees with Ricardo's choice about the path they should take to the generator room.
As they head into the depths of the ruins, the noise of the beam becomes quite loud, and they have difficulty just talking to each other. There's also the force of the vibration. On more than one occasion, Yuri feels as though her bones are going to vibrate to pieces.
"We can't go in," Ricardo says when they reach the generator.
"Of course we can!" Professor Winston says abruptly, before walking straight into the room.
When it becomes clear that he hasn't been vaporised, the others follow him. The noise is impossible here, and the atmosphere is heavy.
The Professor walks around the base of the generator. "It must be refracting through something," he says. He inspects several of the consoles around the machine, as well as on it. He mutters to himself constantly.
"Isn't there an off switch?" Kei asks.
"If only it were that simple. No, I think we're going to have to go inside."
The professor pulls out a crystal ball, identical to the one Yuri had earlier. He places it against a section of the generator, and walks into the entrance that opens before him.
"Alan!" Jacqueline cries out. She follows him into the entrance.
"N-no!" Ricardo says, as Kei and Yuri make to follow them. "You'll be killed."
It's too late. Kei and Yuri are already inside. Ricardo finds he can't move. Fear has paralysed him. He watches the door close.
They run into the chamber. The beam is invisible here, but it's energy is all around them, manifesting as short lived points of light and flares all through the room.
"Yes, now I am ready."
The Professor holds the crystal above his head, as though offering it to some higher being.
Yuri can see his eyes. "Kei," she says, pulling Kei beside her.
"Professor!" Kei yells. He can't hear her, the crystal, and the Muroc survivors, control him. Even if he could hear, the noise of the room cancels out her voice.
A beam of light comes down from above, surrounding the Professor.
"Alan!" Jacqueline screams it as the noise becomes more powerful. She grabs Yuri's gun and fires into the beam.
The beam absorbs the blast, and the Professor remains unharmed. Jacqueline turns to the Lovely Angels. "Please, do something!" she says to them.
Kei has already decided. She pulls a small explosive from her utility belt and throws it into the beam. It manages to survive the beam for long enough to hit the crystal and explode. The crystal is shattered, the beam disappears, and the Professor is released from the Murocs' hold.
Jacqueline grabs him and begins to pull him out of the room. She stops suddenly, realising that there's no exit.
The room goes silent. The energy stops.
"Alan, are you okay?" Jacqueline supports him.
"I... I can't remember."
Kei and Yuri start looking for a way out. The walls of the chamber are smooth, broken only by the lines of energy that cover almost every wall in the ruins.
"The power of the Muroc," the Professor says suddenly. "It's all gone."
"Gone?" Kei says.
"Yes."
Suddenly, the floor of the room begins to shake. "Kei!" Yuri yells as she falls over. There's the sound of a huge explosion, and the room cracks open.
The Lovely Angels lead the professor through the crack, which leads back into the generator room. Ricardo lies on the floor, blood coming from a wound in his head.
Kei runs to check that he's okay, but she can't find any sort of pulse. "He's dead," she announces. Another explosion shakes the room, and a beam of energy shoots out from a hole in the generator, hitting a wall and destroying part of it.
"We don't have time," Yuri says when Jacqueline goes to pick up Ricardo's body.
The four of them run out of the room and into the stairway. Explosions shake the ground constantly now, forcing them to move slowly for fear of losing their balance.
In the background of all the explosions is a rumbling sound. They can all hear it, but they can't pay it any mind for now.
As they climb the staircase, the rumble becomes a roar, and the ground under them lifts violently.
The four of them scream as they're thrown into the air. They fly out of the building and land unceremoniously on the ground.
There are explosions everywhere. They have no time to sit and recover, and instead have to keep running through the ruins.
"Mughi!" Kei calls into her earring-communicator, "get out here, now!"
She hears a mew of affirmation, and keeps running.
The ground itself is shaking, and Kei can see cracks forming all over it. The dull rumbling is still present.
They finally reach the edge of the ruins, and Kei turns around to see that Jacqueline and Professor Winston have fallen some way behind. She is surprised to see that it's the Professor supporting Jacqueline, and not the other way around, as inside the generator room.
"She was hit by debris," the professor says, answering Kei's facial query.
The Lovely Angel finally appears above, dropping a ladder down for them to climb. Kei has to help the Professor get Jacqueline onto it, and then climbs up after the both of them in case something goes wrong.
Below them, the ground breaks up, replaced by a ball of pure white energy, expanding outwards. The rumbling has risen to a deafening level, causing Kei to wince as she climbs into the ship. The silence that comes from the closing of the hatch is a huge relief.
Suddenly, everything gives way. Even inside the ship, the sound of the explosion is louder than everything that came before it. The Lovely Angel is knocked far into the atmosphere as the shockwave hits it, and the huge white fireball expands rapidly, giving out more light than the local star.
Kei, Yuri, the Professor and Jacqueline watch from the bridge as a quarter of the planet's northern hemisphere is engulfed by the fireball. The ship has stabilised now, but they are still dangerously close to the doomed planet. Yuri and Mughi work to move the ship further away, while keeping an eye on the planet below.
"So much power," the Professor says vacantly.
The fireball blows itself out with a final expansion that scours the remaining surface of the planet and blasts its atmosphere away completely. No living creature survives it.
"All those... people," Jacqueline says. She turns away from the window and starts crying.
Kei and Yuri look out. The planet is ruined: the surface is a scoured husk, glowing slightly red as it cools, with no sign that life ever existed on it. A quarter of the planet is missing, sliced out by the fireball. The inner structure is clearly visible: the solid core and molten mantle appearing as though in an educational book. Their sudden exposure to the vacuum of space sees them cooling rapidly, and the girls know that the res of the planet could break apart at any time.
"We failed," Yuri says. "We destroyed the ruins." She sighs.
"Well, we did get the professor out." Kei says, "At least this time someone survived."
"This time?" Jacqueline says through her tears. "You... you mean you've destroyed planets before?"
"Uh... well... heheh." Yuri laughs awkwardly.
"How... how can you..?" Jacqueline says. The professor covers her mouth with his shoulder.
"Don't," he says. "This is what they do. They tried everything they could."
Jacqueline accepts this. She watches as Kei and Yuri argue over where they are going to go next.
The ship's communicator beeps.
"Aren't you going to get that?" the Professor asks.
"It's Gooley, and he's going to have a lot of questions for us," Yuri says. She enters a course for anywhere but the 3WA homeworld, and the Lovely Angel disappears into space.