"LUNAR: Tales From Crystal Tokyo"
LUNAR:
The Lost Episodes
By Jeffery Branch
Volume
Thirty-eight: Episode 3-4.85 "Challenge Redux"
Rated:
R
Dreyious Prime,
somewhere under the Pacifica Ocean, 8 June 2740
Sailor
Britannica slowly opened her eyes, and was genuinely surprised to have done so
since she didn’t figure on still being alive.
Her first sensation was that of pain, a mild, throbbing, head to toe
pain, but the British Senshi took an odd delight in that, as it was verification
that she was corporeal.
Well,
well, well. You beat the odds
again, Allie. Congratulations, she
thought. As her vision cleared and
focused, the Senshi of the Elements found herself staring up a smooth, dullish
gray, alloy roof with fluorescent light fixtures spaced out every ten feet.
Okay, I’m in some sort of room.
Now, for the big question of the hour, where in the bloody hell am I?
Sailor
Britannica, feeling her healing powers dull the pain of her injuries, tried to
stand, but couldn’t. She looked down and found herself on a metal table, her
wrists and ankles locked tight in chrome restraints.
She also noticed she was naked, the remnants of her clothes, ruined in
the explosion of the sea skimmer mysteriously gone along with her underwear.
Being so exposed instinctively caused her to shiver, and that did nothing
for her increasingly sour disposition.
What
the devil happened while I was out? Who
undressed me? If I was violated while I was unconscious, there WILL be hell
to pay!
“Welcome
back, cherie,” came a voice to the Senshi’s right.
She craned her head in that direction and saw LISA agent Andre Broduer,
garbed only in boxer shorts, lying on a similar table, bound just like she was.
Sailor Britannica noticed that the agent’s left thigh had been
bandaged. Broduer tried a grin but
the effort was poor. “I was
wondering when you’d wake up.”
“I’m
just glad I did,” the Senshi grumbled. “What
about you, Broduer? Are you all
right?”
Broduer
nodded. “As well as could be
expected, given the present situation. I’m
not going to bother asking why we aren’t dead, again.
I’m just grateful to still be breathing.”
Feeling suddenly embarrassed at seeing the Senshi nude, he turned his
head away.
“What’s
wrong?” Sailor Britannica demanded.
“Decorum,
cherie. As a gentleman, it’s
grossly improper for me to be staring at you while you are in the nude,” said
the Frenchman in a halting voice. “It’s
just the way I was raised.”
Despite
the dire nature of the situation, the Briton laughed out loud.
“Bloody hell! I don’t
believe what I’m hearing! We
don’t know where we are, how we got here or what might happen to us.
We could face death any moment now, and you’re worried about my being
naked? My friend, that’s the
least of our worries.”
“I
would disagree,” came a voice from behind the Briton.
She struggled to crane her head around just as a blue skinned man with
dark hair and a look of menace sauntered into the room.
Sailor Britannica tried to keep her face impassive, even though she knew
who, or rather, what the man was.
A
DK soldier! Damn, she thought.
We’re seriously in trouble!
“We’ve
been waiting for you to wake up because we have a goodly number of questions to
ask,” said the DK thug as another man entered the room.
This man held a long, serrated knife in his right hand.
“And you will provide answers. For
starters, who the hell are you?”
“My
name, sir, or rather, my title, is Lady Alison Margaret Hawthorne, Princess of
Coventry of planet Earth. I’m
here on holiday which you’ve ruined,” the British Senshi snapped back.
“I’ve seen footage of you ogres.
You’re Dark Kingdom soldiers. Why
did you attack my vessel?”
“Because
we detected scanning beams from your vessel and deemed that you were searching
for us,” the man growled. He then
got right in Sailor Britannica’s face. “And
you can drop the act. You’re not
fooling anyone. We know you’re a
damn Sailor Senshi!”
The
Senshi of the Elements laughed nervously. “Senshi?
Don’t be ridiculous. I
have no idea what you fools are talking about.
We were scanning for good places to enjoy some deep-sea fishing.
That’s all.”
“Nice
try, bitch. But we know you’re
one of Neo-Queen Serenity’s sailor-suited whores,” said the first man with a
chuckle. “When we brought you
onboard via our submersible, you were bleeding profusely from a head wound and
your right arm was broken. In the
time you’ve been restrained, we watched from another room as the gash on your
head stopped bleeding and sealed itself while a medical scanner detected your
arm bones knitting. Only Senshi are
capable of such rapid healing. In
other words, you’ve been outed.”
Fuck!
He’s right! I’m screwed,
a scowling Sailor Britannica thought.
“What
about him?” the other man demanded, pointing his knife at Broduer, his face
impassive.
“Our
scans detected no powers, so he’s not one of Endymion’s magic using grunts.
My guess is he’s a LISA agent.”
The man removed his own knife from a sheath on his waist and grinned
wickedly at the Senshi. “I will
get answers from you, cunt. We need
to know if you have friends who know about our underwater weapons testing
facility. I will torture you to the
point of death, then let your powers restore your health so I can do it all over
again. And again.
And again.”
The Shroud, Dreyious
Prime, 8 June 2740
Sorcerer
Zulu, despite being a veteran warrior was taken by surprise by the four goons
who fired upon him and his companions, twin Wizards, Romulus and Remus.
Then
remembering that he made quite a target at little over seven feet tall, he dove
for cover behind a maintenance vessel while the twins secreted themselves behind
a shuttlecraft.
I
don’t get paid not nearly enough to deal with this nonsense, thought the
black man, angry at having been ambushed. “Fools!
We are soldiers of King Endymion on official business!
I order you to stop firing and drop your weapons at once!”
The
thugs responded with another volley of weapons fire.
That did nothing to improve the Sorcerer’s already ugly disposition.
The magic user’s large, golden eyes began to glow as he had enough and
decided to fight back. “Romulus!
Remus! Cover me!”
“Understood,
sir!” said the twins in an eerie unison.
Romulus and Remus clasped hands and closed their eyes as their bodies
glowed a bright red. “Globe of
Invulnerability!”
The
shimmering glow their bodies generated suddenly expanded outward as they rose to their
feet. The energy beams bounced
harmlessly off the cooperative force field spell as Zulu, his eyes blazing like twin suns from
tremendous power leaped to his feet and went on the attack.
“Warrior
Spirit! Come forth!” he yelled.
“Smite my enemies!”
Golden
beams of light shot forward from Zulu’s eyes and, from out of thin air, a
golden energy construct, in the form of a nine foot tall colossus in heavy
plated armor, bearing a shield in its left hand and a huge sword in its right,
materialized in front of the twins’ shield and, at the silent command of Zulu,
lumbered forward towards the frightened gunmen, who continued firing.
“What
the hell is that?” yelled one of the gunmen, openly frightened.
“Who
cares? Shoot it!” shouted
another. The gunmen continued
shooting, but the armored giant absorbed their beams as it continued moving
forward.
Henry
Bonds, cowering behind crates only five feet away, was horrified at what he was
seeing. One of the gunmen, the
tall, balding man with the artificial hand, whirled around to glare menacingly
at Bonds.
“This
is your fault! You brought those
Sorcerers here!” he snarled. He pointed his weapon at Bonds.
“If we’re going down, we ain’t going alone!”
“No!
I didn’t know about them! I
didn’t know I was followed! Honest!
Don’t kill me! Please!” a terrified Bonds cried.
Just
as the gunman pulled his trigger, LISA agent Ernesto Lopez, fellow agent Sadira
Hussein at his side, blaster in hand yelled, “Freeze, scumbag!
Drop the gun! Drop it
now!”
But
Lopez was too late as the gunman killed Bonds with a blast through his chest.
With a curse, Lopez snap fired, piercing the gunman’s right eye with a
well-placed blast, just as Zulu’s construct smashed through the puny defenses
of the other gunmen and, with a wide swing of its sword, disintegrated the thugs
as it passed through their bodies, reducing them to nothing more than dust.
“Ernie!”
screamed Hussein, pointing at the construct as it came at him and the Iraqi
agent.
“Shit!”
yelled a startled Lopez, ducking under another swipe by the construct’s
massive sword while Hussein dove to the floor.
“Zulu! We’re LISA
agents! Turn that fucking thing
off!”
The
Kenyan Sorcerer, gritting his teeth, blinked.
His eyes ceased glowing and the huge construct stopped dead in its
tracks, and then vanished, while the twins let go of their hands and dropped
their shield. Just then, fire
alarms began blaring throughout the hangar.
For several moments, the magic users and the agents glared daggers at
each other.
“What
are you doing here?” Zulu demanded, eyeing Lopez and Hussein with suspicion
after overcoming his initial surprise at finding GM spies here.
He had no love for LISA agents and their secrecy and dirty tricks.
“You interfered in an official RSN operation conducted under the
auspices of base commander Sailor Quetzalcoatl!”
“We
interfered? Get a clue, baldy!
You fucked up!” Lopez shot back. He
was furious at the Sorcerer’s hamfisted handling of the situation. “Those goons shot at you, pal!
Not us! They never knew we
were in the place! You were the
idiots who panicked when Bonds came in here, thinking he was going to bolt!”
“And
you didn’t think the same thing?” Zulu challenged.
“Otherwise, you wouldn’t have exposed yourselves!”
“Shut
up! Both of you!” Hussein angrily
snapped at the men as she knelt beside Bonds’ body.
She frowned at the smoking hole in the man’s chest.
She carefully reached into the man’s breast pocket and pulled out a
badly smashed communicator. “Dammit!
Wonderful! Just wonderful!
Whatever Bonds was up to in here we’ll never know.
He’s quite dead, gentlemen. And
our only link to that black market weapons operation died with him.”
“Meaning
we’re right back at square one,” said a scowling Lopez.
No
one said a word, but the two parties continued glaring at each other as
firefighters and rescue personnel rushed into the hangar.
Dreyious Prime,
Capricorn City, Archangel Spaceport, 8 June 2740
Sailor
Ebony took a deep breath and concentrated on her power.
The Senshi of Darkness extended her arms and a large, crackling black
sphere suddenly materialized.
“Ebony…
SPHERE OF NIGHT!” she cried, before unleashing the black light sphere which
struck the ship, expanded, then swallowed the vessel whole.
While Sailors Ivory and Cerebra, and LISA agent Aggie Lindstrom watched,
large, jet-black arcs of energy flared from stem to stern of Renegade for
several long, protracted seconds. Then,
the sphere vanished.
“Well?”
Aggie demanded.
Sailor
Ivory checked her microcomp, then grinned.
“Bingo! It worked!
The shield’s down! How
long that lasts is anybody’s guess!”
“Sailor
C! Get cracking before backup
systems restores the ship’s power!” Sailor Ebony ordered.
“Acknowledged.”
Sailor Cerebra trotted up to the ship and placed her hands on the hull.
Lowering her head, she opened her mind and concentrated on her power to
telekinetically control any and all electronic devices through tactile contact.
The
Chinese Senshi quickly interfaced with Renegade’s main computer and
frowned at experiencing resistance in the form of a powerful firewall erected by
the ship’s AI to prevent her from overriding the security system and allowing
the women access to the ship. Sailor Cerebra suddenly grimaced from tremendous pressure on
her brain as the AI fought harder to prevent her from taking control by putting
up more and stronger cybernetic barriers. Having
never interfaced with such a powerful AI, the pressure drove Sailor Cerebra to
one knee as the pain in her head increased.
It was all she could do to keep from crying out, but she maintained
contact. The Asian woman was
determined to succeed.
“That
can’t be good,” Aggie muttered, watching Sailor Cerebra struggle.
Sailor
Ebony’s eyes widened from horror as she watched the woman who owned her heart
battle mightily against her invisible opponent.
After two years spent living together, loving each other with a fiery,
primal passion, a mental rapport had been established between the two women, and
the Dark Senshi keenly felt her soulmate’s pain as strongly as if it were her
own.
Li
Mei! By the Crystal!
Li Mei, thought a worried Sailor Ebony.
Sailor
Ivory, because of the psychic bond the twins shared, also felt the pain her
sister experienced. She took Sailor Ebony’s hand in hers and gave it a
reassuring squeeze. Don’t
worry, sis. Li Mei will pull
through, she thought to her anguished sibling.
After all, she’s one of us, she’s Omega.
That means she’s fucking tough as nails.
I
know, Cat, I know, thought Sailor Ebony, grateful for her sister’s
unwavering support. But that
doesn’t mean I have to like what I’m seeing!
Or feeling! And it’s sheer
hell!
Meanwhile,
the Chinese Senshi, silently angry at having to fight so hard came up with a new
strategy. She circumvented Renegade’s
AI by shutting down the backup power systems which provided power to the AI’s
core, effectively shutting everything down.
With the immense pressure on her mind eliminated, Sailor Cerebra, her
strength flooding back, rose to her feet and issued a mental command to open the
main hatch.
“We
can enter now,” said the Asian Senshi, her face back to its normal
impassiveness.
“Righteous!
Let’s see what’s inside!” said an eager Sailor Ivory. As she and Aggie boarded Renegade, Sailor Ebony, her
face creased from deep concern, walked up to Sailor Cerebra and placed a hand on
her arm.
“Li
Mei, are you all right?” she asked.
The
Senshi of the Mind gave her soulmate a warm smile.
She had sensed Sailor Ebony’s concern and was moved, reminding the
Chinese woman of just how much she deeply loved the blond woman.
“I am well, beloved. Thank
you for your concern. Come, we have
work to do.”
Sailor
Ebony returned the smile then, with a nod, entered the ship with her teammate.
Dreyious Prime,
Sagittarian District, Argus Caves, Argus City, 8 June 2740
Crouched
behind several boulders, Sailors Magneta and Sirius, along with LISA Special
Agent Franklin Marley, looked on at a recessed metal door, painted a gray that
matched the color of the solid rock wall. The
trio was over four kilometers below the ground, far away from the routes used by
tourists exploring the large series of caves.
The air was extremely humid and dank at that depth, causing the trio to
sweat completely through their clothes.
“Serenity’s
crown! To call this atmosphere foul
would be an understatement,” grumbled Sailor Sirius, her bangs plastered to
her forehead from perspiration. “Bad
enough it’s like an oven down here, but it stinks too!
How in hell can anything, or anybody survive?”
“You
forget, Sailor Sirius, these conditions are tailor made for DK personnel,”
Sailor Magneta replied, ignoring the sweat that poured down her face.
“We must be close to a geothermal fault, which would explain the heat
and humidity. I can only hope we
weren’t detected from inside, I want the enemy unaware that we’re here.”
“So,
how do we handle this?” Marley asked, wiping his brow.
“Under
normal circumstances, Agent Marley, we would have already gone in guns
blazing,” the German Senshi replied. “However,
we need information as to where the hidden cache of weapons is; we can’t
wreck the place and run the risk of destroying whatever intelligence the enemy
might have available. Or give them
the chance to do that, themselves. First
things first, we must draw them out.”
Hearing
that, Sailor Sirius smirked. “No
doubt you already have a plan, right, boss?”
The
Senshi of Magnetism returned the smirk. “That
I have. Stand by.”
As
Sailor Sirius and Marley looked on, Sailor Magneta’s eyes suddenly glowed a
bright red as she brought her vast magnetic powers to bear.
Moments later, from the other side of the door, came shouts and curses of
frustration. Seconds later, the
door opened and blue skinned men poured out, grumbling about the lights having
gone out, unaware that the white haired Senshi had used a localized
electromagnetic pulse to kill the power. Within
seconds, eight men were standing outside.
“Did
that fault kill the power again?” one of the men wanted to know.
“Probably!
Whoever built this place needs to be shot!” grumbled another.
“It’s a fucking dump!”
“Excellent,”
whispered Sailor Magneta, her eyes still glowing as she stood up, startling the
assemblage, shocked at seeing the white haired woman.
“Magneta Blood… BURN!”
Suddenly,
the DK thugs screamed horrifically as the Senshi of Magnetism hit them all hard
with a crippling embolism, her power literally boiling the blood in their veins.
Mere seconds later, all eight men fell dead to the ground.
To Sailor Sirius and Marley, it was a shocking sight to see, and no less
chilling was the unmistakably malevolent grin the German Senshi wore.
“Ahh.
That was satisfying,” she said, pleased with herself as her eyes
returned to normal. Sailor Sirius,
seeing her superior’s evil smile shuddered, despite the heat.
By
the Crystal! I keep forgetting how
bloodthirsty Ronni can get. How
much she actually enjoys killing. Sometimes,
she’s even more ruthless than the enemies we fight!
“An
embolic seizure, I take it,” said a grim faced Marley who was well versed in
biology and physiology. He, too,
found Sailor Magneta’s behavior disturbing.
“Efficient, though… unnerving.”
“It
gets the job done,” the German Senshi said matter of factly.
“Come. Let’s find out
what’s inside.”
Asteroid Field, near
Dreyious Prime, 8 June 2740
Onboard
Rydos’ station, no one paid any attention to the crewman walking down the
corridor in a baggy jumpsuit, a ball cap pulled down low to obscure the person’s
face. However, it wasn’t as easy
to hide the considerable bosom the person had.
However,
that was of no concern to Moira “Scarlett” Cassidy as she roamed the
facility in search for the man she came all this way to find.
And she was determined to find him, no matter what.
So
far, so good. Rydos must have women
work here, or someone would’ve raised a stink about my boobs.
This station is plenty huge. Weapons
storage vaults all over the place. Rydos
really went all out here, thought the woman, her bright green eyes taking in
looking around her. While
finding Rydos and getting him off this rock in one piece is my top priority, I
should do something about these stores. From
scuttlebutt I overheard from other crewmen, he’s planning to move all this
stuff. Can’t let that happen.
Rydos can start a war with the stuff he’s got here.
Scarlett
sauntered over to a placard on the wall near the corner, which had an
illustration of the floor Scarlett was on, complete with hallways, emergency
exits and spaces such as offices and storage vaults.
Tracing the illustration with a gloved index finger, Scarlett studied it
intently, then grinned when she found what she sought: a engineering substation.
And that gave the bounty hunter an idea.
If
what Rollins told me was right, this place is shielded from prying eyes, like
the RSN knuckleheads on the Shroud,
she thought.
If I can knock out the power, this place will stick out like a sore
thumb, and someone’s bound to come calling.
Voila! Instant chaos! That could make snatching Rydos all the easier.
Nodding,
pleased with her plan, Scarlett headed briskly towards the room in question.
Ten minutes later, Scarlett reached the room, pressed a green button on
the wall to open the door, and entered. What
she saw was generator equipment, and the mainframes that monitored the energy
output and performed diagnostic tests. The
equipment looked familiar to Scarlett, not unlike what she saw in engineering
spaces aboard RSN starships.
Walking
over to one of the mainframes, Scarlett thought over options on how to shut
things down. She considered
reprogramming the computer but figured it would sound an alarm if tampered with,
and she didn’t want to be uncovered. Instead,
the redhead went with a third option. Scarlett
removed her right glove, held up her hand and made a fist.
She concentrated for a moment and, with a soft sound not unlike a sword
being removed from its sheath, a trio of one foot long, razor sharp claws made
of gleaming duranium emerged from housings in her knuckles.
Scarlett’s
face twisted into a scowl as she stared at the claws that were normally sheathed
in her bionic right arm, made of the same near-indestructible metal, like her
legs. However, it was yet another
grim reminder to the redhead that she was no longer fully human; that she was a
cyborg. After the accident on SLS Ronald
Reagan that nearly killed her, seven years ago, followed by the operations
that replaced her horribly mangled limbs with cybernetics, Scarlett was just as
much a machine as flesh and blood.
No
time for moping, girl. You chose to become this thing.
Time to go to work, she thought grimly. Walking over to the mainframe control workstation, Scarlett
drove her claws into the workstation, penetrating the machine like a hot knife
through butter. Removing the claws,
Scarlett repeated the procedure again, then a third time, followed by a fourth,
until sparks blossomed from the badly damaged workstation.
Satisfied
with her handiwork, Scarlett issued a mental command, and the claws retracted
into her forearm. Replacing her glove, Scarlett quickly left the room and
walked down the hall. Seconds
later, the hallway shuddered from a muffled rumble as the generators exploded,
something that happened quicker than even she anticipated. Seconds later came shouts and cries from crewmen rushing
towards the sound of the blast.
That
should start the ball rolling on the sort of chaos I need to get this job done,
thought the redhead as she hurried down the hallway.
Dreyious Prime,
somewhere under the Pacifica Ocean, 8 June 2740
As
a leering DK thug loomed over Sailor Brittanica, there came a calamitous crash
from just outside, followed by cries and shouts of men, the whine of energy
beams and hideous cracking and breaking sounds accompanied by horrific screams
of pain, then, silence.
“What
was that?” the first man wondered. “Ogrin,
see what that was.”
The
man, Ogrin, looked nervous as he slowly walked towards the door, only to have it
blown of its hinges from a ringing blow. The
door hit Ogrin flush with bonecrushing speed, killing him on impact.
The first man gasped from horror as a seven-foot tall nightmare, it’s
shape identifying it as female, shining from head to toe in indestructible
organic chrome armor, tromped inside. The
look on the figure’s face was one of pure rage.
“Get
away from my friends!” Sailor Russia roared in her booming, metallic tinged
voice.
Terrified,
the man charged at the titan with his knife, only to have it shatter against
Sailor Russia’s chest. The Senshi
of Power, openly disgusted, grabbed the man by his head in one large hand,
hoisted him off his feet and, with almost no effort, crushed his skull.
“So
much for resistance.” The giantess walked over to the tables and snapped off the
shackles restraining Sailor Britannica and Broduer, then smiled at the duo.
“Greetings, comrades, I am glad that you are well.”
Forgetting
her pride, Sailor Britannica, tears spilling from her eyes, hugged the Russian
Senshi and sobbed. “Damn, you, Sailor Russia!
Damn you! What took you so
fucking long?”
The
Senshi of Power, startled at seeing her haughty, arrogant partner openly crying,
powered down to flesh and blood, and, as naked as Sailor Britannica, embraced
the Briton. “My apologies, Sailor
Britannica. This facility is
unusually large. It took some time
to find you.”
Breaking
the embrace, Sailor Brittanica, feeling more than a little embarrassed for
having broken down, scowled at the Russian.
“That’s no bloody excuse for being tardy!
Don’t let that happen again!”
“Yes,
comrade.”
“Pardon
my curiosity, Sailor Russia, but how was it you survived the destruction of our
vessel?” asked Broduer, nervous at seeing the nude and brawny Russian woman.
“In
my armored form, I am indestructible. Surviving
the explosion was child’s play; however, remaining afloat was not, as my
weight exceeds one thousand pounds. But
when the DK submersible came up from below to apprehend you and Sailor
Britannica, I was able to hitch a ride down to their base.
The rest was history. We can
return to the surface in the same vehicle that brought us here.”
“But
first, we have business to conduct,” growled Sailor Britannica.
She then glanced down at herself. Frowning,
the Senshi closed her eyes and concentrated.
Her body was suddenly bathed in bright golden light and, an instant
later, she was garbed in her red, white and blue fuku.
Sailor Russia nodded and did the same.
“We
check for weapons, disable them, and then destroy this place.
Do you two comply?” the Briton asked her partners.
“By
all means,” said Broduer, wondering if he’d be able to find himself some
clothes.
To be continued...