"You gotta Skibidi the MIPS then rizz the vector engine or else the game will go to Ohio."
- Vinny Vinesauce when he was ROM hacking some N64 games
"Remove life essence from girl in the abstract form of a miniature crystal left over from the formation of the universe. Girl becomes salt pillar."
- Helpful instructions on how to quickly deactivate a hostile Senshi
"Uhh… Beetlefruit? Beetlebreakfast? Beetledrink?"
- A famous movie line that's slightly relevant to the content of this fanfic
"…-ooooOOOOOOOooooodddd!"
- The same Troll 2 kid I quoted in Territorial Modulations
Once she finished Lord Drakkoning all of the Sailor Guardians and Event Horizoning the universe so hard it would have made Ozymandias feel humble, Galaxia fell into one of her dour Ming the Merciless moods. Eternal life could be so boring when there weren't any fresh lambs to slaughter.
The Queen of the Conquered Universe was less sitting on her throne, and more like sprawling over it as if it were a rigid gold hammock. Her gilded armor boots swayed aimlessly over the armrest as she drew little destructive black holes in the air with her index finger. Her other fist was tucked under her chin in constant subdued agitation.
The rest of Galaxia's ruthless team was seated around a circular counter under a narrow spotlight a few short paces away from the throne. Officially, they were a gathering of noble confidantes. Unofficially, they were more along the lines of fashionable gangsters crowding around a speakeasy and flexing their daintily-defined muscles at each other.
Aluminum Siren was one usual suspect sitting in the ring. She kept quietly to herself as she placed a warm mug on the table and reached into the fin-shaped pocket on her hip. Her hand returned to the mug with a certain collection of ashes crushed in her fingers, carefully sprinkling the mysterious powder into her morning brew. The Star Seeds she wrenched out of her victims' bodies belonged to Queen Galaxia, but the Sailor Murderess was allowed to keep the finely-ground remainder of her earnings.
Her only disappointment was she didn't have the entire Earth Sailor Army tangled in a heap under her tentacles when she zapped the Star Seeds out of their pathetic carbon molecules. She could have won the whole messy war for her dear Lady Galaxia with just a soft hum and a little flick of her hair, and then she would instantly have a dozen or so different powder flavors to mix and match in her tonics.
But it was probably more proper that Galaxia got the highest number of kills in the vicious, grueling version of history that really happened. Siren was just happy she was able to prey on the Earth team's watery, electrically-inclined guppies and make Galaxia's job a little easier. She didn't even mind how much the other servants were jealous of her combat record. She only got to deliver the coup de gril to two Earth-System Sailor Guardians, forever cementing (and cremating and dissolving) them as the weakest of their kind.
Heavy Metal Papillon watched Siren from the opposite side of the table with her arms crossed and her violet-painted lips twisted in a silent pout. Galaxia's diligent grave keeper was the most jealous of them all, having no personal kills that she could pridefully collect on her wings with the rest of her moth dust.
Aluminum Siren mixed her drink with a tiny plastic stirrer shaped like a trident before she took her first sip. She called her fishy, witchly concoction a Jupicury Mocha.
"Ah! That's just the sweet aquatic sizzle I need start my morning!" She cheerfully exclaimed with her flippers perked.
"I prefer the cold embrace of Death, myself," Galaxia said smugly while she was brushing Pluto's skirt ribbons. Oh, now would probably be a good time to mention she lined her triumphant throne with the crudely re-assembled remains of Pluto and Saturn. Once considered the most powerful Sailor Guardians of their particular era and region of space, now they were just eerie and fanciful ashtray holders made out of ashes. Their sandstone statues were hollowed out without their Star Seeds, and eternally frozen with their final horrified expressions from the exact instant Galaxia ended them mid-battle. These Jean-Claude Van Dammes weren't getting a rematch against their Tong Po any time soon, but at least Pluto added some shapely and well-rounded furniture to the royal cathedral's mostly geometric décor.
"Bitches never knew the boss always keeps a wavedash special stored," Iron Mouse snickered in mischief at the table. She was naturally dressed in her Joe Pesci costume from the 90s anime.
"Didn't I tell you you'd love the statues?" Heavy Metal Papillon asked her dark and vile mistress, regaining some of her proud composure. It was her skillful combination of taxidermy and masonry that preserved the brutal terrified likenesses of Pluto and Saturn, and relocated them to their new home at Galaxia's side. "These cadavers are pretty useful when they can be their own gravestones."
"Hm. Every time I start to worry all this lounging about is going to make me stiff and dusty," Galaxia smiled while she gazed over toward Saturn's youthfully decrepit husk showing the erosion of the ten thousand years since the Silver Millennium, "I just look at one of these ladies and remember how fortunate I am."
This was a fact that made all the Sailor Animamates laugh heartily. Even Lead Crow and Tin Nyanko, who were arguing over who had the sharper nails.
Author's notes:
Yeah… I had to try really hard to make any kind of story happen here. It's more like just a scene than an actual story. I didn't really have anything after I thought up the completely ridiculous opening line. Aluminum Siren's morbid little segment was kinda fun to write, tho.
"Ozymandias" could be referring to Adrian Veidt from Watchmen, or referring to the actual Greek name for Ramesses the Great. Personally, I can see it working as a double-reference.
I'm so happy I found an optimistic Hisako Kanemoto magical girl main character who actually gets killed off with LESS total screen time than the bleak dystopian Hisako Kanemoto mech pilot side character from Muv-Luv (Ami's 29 minutes in Cosmos vs. Izumi's 40-ish minutes into the Total Eclipse anime). That's astounding. Like, I know how Cosmos is only one arc of Sailor Moon with several hours of TV episodes and movies preceding it, but that's just a *technical* limitation and I'm not going to let it hold me back. I mean, how wicked and uncompromising is it to have your entire storyline ended in one second just because you got stuck in a basic body part (electrified jellyfish hair, in this case) of what's ostensibly a comic relief starter villain, and not even some kind of imposing ultra-weapon wielded by the final boss or anything? You have no idea how much this kind of shock value absurdity inspires me. It's the kind of in-your-face mercilessness that makes you shout "Oh God! Oh Jesus Christ! Oh my God!" and/or "Not the beeeEEEEeeeeEEEEEEsss!" (more on that in a minute) The narrative opportunities are phenomenal here. I just need to come up with some more elaborate scenarios than "Aluminum Siren makes her into a Starbucks."
Should I make a Youtube video where Mercury and Jupiter are the Ninja Pizza instead of Yamashiro, since they're delivered in 30 minutes or less?
(In case I've lost you on the whole "Yamashiro" / "Ninja Pizza" thing, let me try to explain it with a more modern and mainstream example. Imagine you're Tachy from Stellar Blade, but instead of Raven capturing you after she chops your arm off and screwing with you for over half of the game before your devoted Squadmate Little Sister shows up to put your pitiful soul out of its misery, Raven just immediately eats you. That is the meaning of Ninja Pizza. [Which also ties further back to a scene from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze where Michelangelo says "Ninja pizza: Pizza that vanish quickly without trace!"] )
The Animamate crew in this story is kind of a pick-and-choose hodgepodge of their 90s anime and manga/Cosmos characters, mostly leaning toward their deadlier manga/Cosmos incarnations. I was just combining whatever traits I thought worked for the dark sarcastic tone of the story. I like to think of these characters as the "Viper Season 4" of the Sailor Animamates.
Babe, are you a Dodge Stealth? Because it seems like your only function in this show is to get obliterated by a teammate who turned against you after they gained pulse cannons and fancy metallic armor.
All other Earth-based Guardians not mentioned in this fanfic have achieved WASTED status. That much should be obvious from the way Galaxia and her cronies are acting. What exactly their WASTED condition entails is open for interpretation. I guess they're all molten together with their Sushi Crystals in the Cauldron and providing a massive energy source for Galaxia/Chaos. Or just fanwank something.
I didn't include any of the higher-rank Shadow Galactica Sailors because, for one thing, they would have absolutely nothing to do in this scene. And also because I don't want to write anything negative involving Lethe and Mnemosyne right now. I feel super-depressed for them after I watched Cosmos the other day, and I found out their actual subplot for the first time. Two twin Meister Otomes who kinda sucked at their jobs and could only sit back and watch their kingdoms destroy each other, and then Galaxia enslaved them so the only thing they had left to fight for was keeping each other alive. Poor girls just wanted to guard some peaceful planets together. qq
Speaking of reactions to watching Cosmos, my perception of Madoka Magica has definitely changed over the past few days. It used to be that analytical thesis everyone repeats that goes something like "Gen Urobuchi took the bright and goofy magical girl themes of the early nineties and restructured/rewrote theme into a gothic cautionary tale for adults." Now my feelings about Madoka are more like: "Oh. Gen Urobuchi just made a more accurate anime version of the Sailor Stars manga."
Speaking of Meister Otomes (and finally going back to the "Oh my BeeeeEEEEeeSSSSSS" situation), I was working on a very preliminary idea for a new Mai Otome fanfic entitled "The Running Man." The very, very general set-up was going to be: Kazuya fleeing for his life through a field while Cardair is being ravaged by war in the background, and he regrets leaving Akane behind after she pleaded with him to run to safety so she could hold the castle by herself. There's a certain thread of hope where he's thinking nothing bad will happen, and Akane will pull off some badass superhero moves defending the kingdom, and everything will go back to normal at the end of the day. And then that's when the story abruptly reveals its true message, with a really smart-ass line like "But naïve Emperor Kazuya must have gotten his action movies confused with his horror movies, because that was the moment the Running Man became the Wicker Man." He realizes Akane must have lost (as it generally happens) when his heart instantly stops, and then he does the typical dissolving sparkly Kazu-kun thing. Maybe close out the scene with a final feeling of relief, where he knows he and Akane will have no effect on saving Cardair's future, but at least their personal despair is over and they'll get to twinkle together in Fumi Land. I didn't end up writing that story because the scene was so short, like only a couple paragraphs long, and I really had nothing motivating me beyond that goddamn stupid genre-shifting line. I think watching Cosmos swayed some of the themes I was storing up for that fanfic. I'm a Gender-Equal Disintegrator, you see.
