"Minou, Minou, where are you??" Melanie sighed. Not expecting any answer, she was surprised when she heard Minou's voice.

"Melanie, is that you??"

"Um, yes!"
"Good! I was afraid you would not figure out how to use the crystal. Telepathy, especially, is difficult, because you need the exact sync rhythm to be able to create the passageway between to minds. But you did it! Congratulations!"

"I don't think I understand."

"Basically what you have done is alter the sync of your brainwaves so that, with concentration, you can reach into another's mind and communicate. It does not matter now. Just do not take your hands off the sync crystal, or we will be cut off."

Melanie stared at her hands, which were nowhere near touching the crystal.

"But, Melanie, what you must do now is crucial. I have been spying and have learned a little of what is going on, why you were to transform. I think it has something to do with the students being converted to the evil side, that of the Negaverse. That is why you, the guides, were sent to fight this force. The evil is not from without, because once the students are converted to evil, they ARE evil. The evil is from within. The power of all the guide crystals will destroy the evil and replace what was there before. You have to get Daina to transform, because her crystal is crucial. Then you must use your crystals to not only to obliterate the evil in this school, but the original source. And you must do it before school lets out, while the evil is confined! You do not have much time! Teleport if you must, as it will be fastest."

"Minou, how do I do that?"

"Just think of where you want to be. The sync of time and place will be altered, and you will be there. Now... Meow! Meow!"

"Minou, what's going on?!"

There was no response.

Melanie pondered everything. She had to go to Daina first, find out what was wrong, and get her to transform. How would she get into Daina's cell, though? She would teleport. Though she had no idea which cell Daina was in. Well, there were a limited number of cells. She could guess.

Melanie held her hand on the sync crystal, and it glowed. The thought of, concentrated on, the space inside the metal walls of the cell immediately to her right. She could see it in her mind.

"Sync Teleport!"

The cell was empty.

"Sync Teleport!"

Empty again.

"Sync Teleport!"

"Sync Teleport!"

"Sync Teleport!"

Someone else was in the cell. A man, looking vaguely familiar in the flickering light, was pounding on the door, and yelling.

"Scully!! Scully, where are you?!!"

"Oops! Hehe." Melanie did not have time to talk now, life as she knew it was at stake and she had a job to do! But the stranger whirled around in surprise at hearing her voice. He started when he saw her. But Melanie was already continuing.

"Sync Teleport!"

That moment, realization hit her like a blow. In surprise, she let go of the crystal. She hovered in nothing as billions of sync waves whooshed around her. She had better move back to the center of the dungeon and reorient herself.

"Sync Teleport!"

That was better. She located another random cell.

"Sync Teleport!"

The other four people in the dungeon whirled around in surprise, to see nothing. Melanie was gone, and the sync waves had already reoriented around where she had been.

Someone was in this cell too! But, again, not Daina. A woman in a trenchcoat was pounding at the cell door.

"Mulder, can you hear me? Are you all right?"

"Mulder is fine, but he won't hear you," Melanie told the woman. She whirled around in surprise, her face hauntingly familiar.

"I really have to go now. But, trust me, Mulder is fine. Sync Teleport!"

The woman gaped at Melanie as she disappeared.

In the next cell Melanie saw Daina.

Melanie stared at her a bit, wondering how to help. She went over and felt her forehead, which was reassuringly normal. She pushed open her eyelids, to find the eyes of her pupils normal. How could she do anything if everything was perfectly normal?? She did not even know what was wrong! Melanie sudenly decided that she would journey into Daina's mind to find out.

And with just that thought, with no touch of the crystal, Melanie was there.

At first she did not even know she had done anything. The sync waves there were flashing, seamlessly merging with the flashing of the fluorescent lights. But she was there, in a large, long tunnel, and Daina, she was sure, was somewhere there. Melanie was falling, she suddenly realized. She was falling toward her now.

Into a realm completely cold and dark Melanie fell. She knew, deeply and instinctively, that she was in the Negaverse. And it was not a good place to be. The darkness shank back a little wherever Melanie went, but not far enough for her to be able to see anything.

Then, by a miracle, Melanie found Daina. She was struggling crazily against the darkness. Wild eyed, her hair being pulled in every direction, she grabbed onto Melanie, where the darkness was thinnest. Daina was slipping between languages in her trauma, between Latvian and English, but the message was clear.

"Melanie, Melanie, paldies Dievam! Tu esi, you're here! Save me, Melanie!"

Even in Melanie's presence, where her sailor aura pushed the darkness back, the darkness was trying to grab Daina and pull her away. Melanie took a firm hold of Daina and started pushing upwards, up the tunnel, toward the world Melanie and Daina knew, the world of light. Soon, the darkness was only chasing them, and they were struggling up the endless tunnel of the flashing sync waves. But Melanie could alter sync waves. Even in the tunnel she had her crystal, as she had when she fell in. Now, she grabbed her crystal, with both hands, letting Daina fall for just a moment, just an instant in which they were separated. The crystal glowed more brightly than the flashing fluorescent lights.

"Sync Alteration!"

The light shone steady in the cell.

Melanie picked herself off of the floor, a foot from where Daina lay. Daina sprang up immediately, grabbing Melanie and laughing, swinging her around in her joy. But though Melanie was just as glad as to see Daina as she was her, there was no time. "Daina, you have to transform!"

Daina looked flustered for a moment, but looking down, she saw her crystal pendant around her neck. She touched it, and words sprang from her lips.

"Earthshine Crystal Power Make Up!!!"

Daina glowed brighter and brighter, and in a moment she stood there, transformed. Her fuku-style shirt was pure white, as were her shoes. And her pendant glowed not just as she held it, but constantly.

"Daina, grab my hand!" yelled Melanie. "Sync Teleport!"


"They're gone!" yelled Sarah.

"Where could they go??!" exclaimed Valerie.

"Are you sure this was the right cell?" questioned Veena.

"Positive!" replied Rachel. "They were here just a minute ago!"

"We're here, everyone!" called Melanie. The other four guides whirled around to look.

"Daina! Melanie!! You're all right!!!" they all yelled. There was a big, jumbled, confused hug, including even Valerie, but Melanie pulled out of it quickly.

"I found out what's going on!" said Melanie. "The sync waves in people's brains are being altered! I could connect with other people's brains without even trying, and everyone seems to be falling into the Negaverse, and turning over to darkness."

"Is that what happened to you, Daina?" asked Valerie.

Daina stared, bewildered, and shook her head. She had no idea. "I think that's what happened," said Melanie. "But the darkness couldn't capture you. You, after all, are a Sailor Guide, one of the elements!"

"No!" cried Rachel. "It's the coffee! That is what is given to people to make them turn over to the darkness." She picked up a cup that the principal had left when he was in the dungeon earlier.

"More like fall into," said Melanie. "But the fluorescent lights are what changes the brain's sync waves. Maybe the coffee affects to what side they are opened up?"

"Rachel, see where the coffee originates from," requested Sarah. "See what makes it do what it does."

"Air Clear Perception!" Rachel stirred the coffee. "Oh, wow! You will not believe this! Halfway across the earth, in what must be Brazil, where the coffee grows on coffee trees... it's like a cloud, covering the forest... a dark cloud... like a little wisp of Negaverse!"

"Wow," said Veena. "The Negaverse is in the very coffee beans!"

"Come on, everyone!" cried Melanie. "Minou said we have to combine the powers of our crystals to replace the evil with what was once there. And we have to do it before school lets out!"

"That means we don't have much time. Everyone's already gathered in the main gym." warned Rachel.

"Hold onto me, everyone. Sync Teleport!"


Go back to Part III.
Proceed onto Part V.
Retreat to Fanfic.
Return to central XFAF territory!