Author's Note: If you wish to comment on my story, either positively or negatively, don't hesitate to contact me at treetop@voicenet.com. Sailor Moon and all related characters are the property of Takeuchi Naoko, Toei Animation and DIC. Men in Black and all related characters are the property of Lowell Cunningham and Marvel Comics. So, please, don't sue me because I haven't any money. I do this strictly for entertainment purposes, not copyright infringement.
Scouts In Black
by Jeffrey C. Branch
Chapter One: Field Trip Blues
Rating: PG
As a rule, it doesn't take much to bore Serena Tsukino silly.
If she happened to be involved in any sort of activity that didn't include food, boys, video games, boys, comic books, boys, pop music or boys, her mind, never organizied to begin with would wander with a vengeance. And when Serena became bored, she became extremely grumpy.
Take today for example. When it was announced that Serena's social studies class would be going on a field trip into the city, the happy-go-lucky blonde was estatic, looking forward to window shopping in the boutiques and department stores, hitting the video game parlors and gorging herself silly. And since today was Friday, that increased her anticipation for the trip exponentially. These were the times Serena felt that made high school worthwhile. But that was not to be the case.
The field trip, led by Mr. Anazaki, a thin, balding, bookish fifty year old was to the American Embassy to study a peaceful demonstration by an estimated two hundred people protesting the recent war by the United States against the country of Iraq to overthrow it's brutal dictator, Saddam Hussien. The purpose of the trip, according to Anazaki was to observe, first hand, the principles of non-viloent demonstration and how it had changed from the more violent form from the turbulent 1960's.
Amy Anderson, Serena's classmate and close friend was elated at the chance to study human nature in such a unique and up-close method. The petite, blue haired girl, jotting down notes on her brand new Sony PDA was in her element, finding the demonstration thoroughly fascinating, even entertaining. But, to Serena, arms folded across her chest, and pouting like the immature brat she often behaved like, it was all a colossal waste of time that could be better spent having fun.
"Stop me if you've heard this before, Ames, but this is bor-r-r-r-r-ring!" Serena groused as she stared at the protest from across the street with the rest of the class as the protestors, all Japanese calmly marched in front of the embassy building while holding placards and singing in broken English, the lyrics to 'Give Peace A Chance'.
Amy paused from her notetaking to give her best friend a disapproving glance. "I'm surprised at your attitude, Serena. After all, this is what social studies is all about. Learning about our fellow man. It's a shame Talia isn't here. She'd be absolutely captivated by this demonstration."
"Yeah, right! At least she's having fun with Tanya at that volleyball camp out in the country," a sour faced Serena grumbled, extremely envious of how the Vulcan teenager and her African-American friend were excused from classes this morning for the weekend camp. Serena sorely wished she were with them, even though she didn't have the slightest idea how to play volleyball. "Meanwhile, I'm stuck here listening to a mob of wannabe hippies mangle a Paul McCartney song."
Amy chuckled. "They're not hippies, Sere. I doubt they've even heard of the word. And for the record, John Lennon wrote 'Give Peace A Chance'."
"What-ever!"
"Ahem! And why aren't you taking notes, Miss Tsukino?" asked Anazaki in his high pitched, nasily voice, peering over Serena's shoulder with an annoyed look on his pinched, lemony face. "You need to follow Miss Anderson's example and take this field trip seriously! Your grade for this class depends on it! Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, sir! You do, sir!" cried a startled Serena, coming to attention. Hastily removing her shocking pink backpack, she pulled a notebook and ballpoint pen from inside as if her life depended on it. Flipping the book open, the ponytailed blonde furiously scribbled, not knowing, or caring what she wrote, just as long as she wrote something.
Anazaki nodded, pleased with what he saw. "Much better. Keep up the good work, Miss Tsukino and you might just pass this course."
"Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!"
Once Anazaki walked off, Serena exhaled from genuine relief. "Whew! I tell you, Amy, sometimes, Anazaki scares me almost as much as Miss Haruna."
"Coming from you, that says a lot," said a grinning Amy.
About fifty feet away, two women sat at a table of a sidewalk café sipping lattes. The women, in their late 20's were strikingly gorgeous, and strikingly similar in appearance, both wearing sleek, red Chanel suits with ridiculously short skirts and white, spike heeled Blahnik pumps which matched the color of their hair, lustrous, waist long and wavy. The only thing that set them apart was that one woman parted her hair on the left while the other parted it on the right. Their eyes, an incredibly bright, crystal blue took in the demonstration across the street with considerable interest.
"What do you think, Seika?" asked the woman with the left part.
"Hmm. This might serve our needs, Sika," replied the woman with the right part. Her lips, a glossy red like her twin, curled in a cruel smirk. "Admittedly, it's a bit much for a first test, given the sheer numbers involved, but I think I can pull it off."
Hearing that, the woman named Sika grinned. It was an evil, malevolent grin, devoid of any warmth. "Great! How long will you need to prepare?"
The woman named Seika downed the rest of her latte and took a deep breath. "Give me a minute, sis, then we'll have some fun."
"There! That should be plenty of notes!" Serena said proudly. "No way Anazaki can complain about this!"
Amy paused to look at Serena's notebook and arched an eyebrow from confusion at what she saw as nothing more than chicken scratches. "I'll say he won't. He'd need to be an archaeologist to decipher those hieroglyphics of yours! How can you read that stuff?"
"Easy! It's my handwriting!" Serena then stopped short and pointed across the street. "Hey! Look at that!"
Amy looked in the direction Serena pointed in and was puzzled to see the demonstrators suddenly stop marching en masse, drop their placards and signs and come rigidly to attention. No one moved or spoke as the crowd simply stared into space with wide, glassy eyes. Everyone watching the protest were openly confused.
"What on earth?" wondered Amy.
"Uh, pardon me for asking a dumb question, but does that sort of thing always happen at a protest?" asked a confused Serena, scratching her head.
Amy, just as puzlzled, slowly shook her head. "No. Something's wrong here. I can feel it. We may need to transform. I think this could be trouble."
Serena rolled her eyes and groaned. "Swell. Bad enough I couldn't have any fun today, now I may have to work. Fridays shouldn't suck like this!"
After several prolonged moments that seemed to last ages, the huge crowd silently turned to face the embassy and, as one body, rushed forward like a human wave, surrounding the entire building. Moving with surprising alacrity, the protestors climbed the twelve foot high gates and the wall, landing into the building's from yard. Some pounded on the doors while others broke the windows in what seemed to be a singleminded attempt to storm inside. And the whole time, none of the protestors uttered so much as a sound. To everyone watching the scene, they were shocked, even horrified at how it happened with such swiftness as a peaceful protest suddenly turned into a full blown siege.
"Ohmigod!" a stunned Serena cried. "What's going on?"
"Trouble! Just like I thought!" said a grim faced Amy. "C'mon! We have to find someplace to change! This calls for the Scouts!"
The two girls rushed off before Anazaki could shout at them to stay put with the rest of their classmates. Serena and Amy dashed onto a small street and quickly looked around them. Satisfied that the street was empty of people, the girls nodded to each other.
"MOON COSMIC POWER!" cried Serena. Crimson bands of energy blossoming from the Imperium Silver Crystal in the brooch placed between her breasts. The bands lovingly embraced Serena's body, filling every cell with tremendous power while altering her clothes into the uniform of Sailor Moon, the Champion of Love and Justice, leader of the Sailor Scouts.
"MERCURY STAR POWER!" shouted Amy. Her body flowed and shimmered like an ocean's waves and, an instant later stood Sailor Mercury, the Scout of Ice and Cold.
"I'll call the others!" said Moon, activating her communicator. "We could sure use the help!"
"Negative," said Mercury with a shake of her head. "We don't have time to wait for them! We have to stop what's going on before people get hurt!"
"And how are we supposed to stop a freaking riot?"
"I'll think of something, Serena. Let's go!"
The situation in front of the embassy building had quickly turned chaotic with the protestors laying siege with a disturbingly eerie silence. Dozens had broken inside and busied themselves smashing everything in sight and attacking the American members of the embassy staff while the native Japanese were left alone to flee for their lives. The embassy chief quickly called the police, then ordered his people to quickly shred sensitive documents. The Marines stationed at the embassy, not wanting to fire their weapons at unarmed men and women were quickly overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the protestors.
"Mercury Bubbles....BLAST!"
All at once, the corridors of the entire building were filled from floor to ceiling with a blindingly thick and chilling fog. The protestors stopped their destructive activities almost instantly and came rigidly to attention, their eyes wide and glassy. Moon and Mercury cautiously walked among the frozen hordes of vandals, trying to figure out what was going on.
"Okay, I give up. What's up with this?" a puzzled Moon asked as she looked around her at the unmoving people.
Mercury, her VR visor in place, shook her head as she studied the protestors. "I'm not sure, Sailor Moon. My goal was for the fog to disorient the mob, get them thinking the building was on fire and flee. I hadn't counted on this happening."
Moon, standing in front of one protestor, a chubby young man with stringy hair and a chrome nose ring waved a hand in front of his face. No response. "It kinda looks like they're in a trance. This is spooky!"
"I'm inclined to agree. Especially with the spooky part," Mercury admitted. The Ice Scout set her visor on x-ray mode and scanned some of the vandals. "I can't find any electronic devices on their persons that could have caused this, nor any chemical or biological agents in their bloodstreams. Fantastic as this sounds, I'm beginning to suspect this mob might be under some sort of telepathic control."
"Oh, wow! You may be right, Merc!" Moon gasped, then grinned as she had a sudden flash of insight. "In 'X2', Professor Xavier used his mind powers to freeze an entire hall full of people! That's gotta be it!"
Mercury rolled her eyes and sighed from exasperation. What was worse than Moon's ridiculous sounding fictional correlation to this bizarre, real life situation was the fact she could well be right. Just then, footsteps were heard coming their way. Fast.
"Freeze!" shouted one of the Marines, aiming a loaded M-16 at the Scouts. The nameplate on his breast pocket read 'Eastwood', his dress uniform was torn and his angry face bloodied from the attack by the protestors. Three other Marines, equally as grim faced, and just as armed as Eastwood stood behind him.
"Too late. I'm already frozen," grumbled Moon, shivering from the cold of Mercury's fog. She then glared at the Marines as unpleasant memories of having nearly been shot to death in Tokyo's subway two months ago flooded her mind. "Would you mind not pointing those things at us? Guns make me nervous. Besides, we're the good guys."
"Yeah, right," Eastwood growled, his rifle not budging. His eyes then widened from recognition. "Hey! Wait a minute! I know who you two are! You're those Soldier Scouts everybody in this town talks about! What's going on with this mob?"
"That's 'Sailor Scouts', sir. And I'm afraid we don't know," Mercury replied. If her suspicion about the mob being under telepathic control was right, then that could only mean the minions of the Negaverse were back at work, given the numbers of victims involved.
"Then allow me to fill in the gaps," said the entire mob in one single voice, startling the Scouts and the Marines. "This crowd is under collective mind control, young lady. The fog caught me off-guard, but I've recovered and reinforced my hold on the mob. Impressive, don't you think?"
"Who the heck are you?" Moon demanded.
"That's for me to know and you to find out, Sailor Moon," said the crowd, something the Scouts and the Marines found terribly unnerving. "A pity that's not going to happen, because you're all about to die. Now, I'll have my puppets tear you miserable foreigners apart."
With that, the mob began to march slowly towards the Scouts and the Marines who moved backwards into the building's large, two story foyer where more entranced protestors awaited, surrounding them. One of the soldiers, young and nervous, raised his weapon to the firing position, but Eastwood angrily pushed down the barrel.
"What the hell are you thinking, mister?" Eastwood snapped. "Can't you see? Those are unarmed civilians! Firing into that crowd would make for an international disaster!"
"But what are we going to do, sir?" the soldier asked.
"I was just about to ask that myself!" said an openly frightened Moon. She turned to her partner for answers. "Mercury?"
Mercury, her earlier confidence shaken from the bizarre circumstances, shook her head. "I....I don't know."
And the mob silently, relentlessly moved closer.
Somewhere in Battery Park, New York City....
When it comes to the fine art of practicing secrecy, MIB could teach the CIA, KGB, British Intelligence and the Mossad combined more than a thing or two about covert operations.
Because of the organization's mission to monitor the activities of several thousand extraterrestrials from all over the galaxy living in disguise on Earth as humans, stealth was the watchword in order to keep the populace from learning that aliens walked, worked, played, copulated, et al among them, which in turn, kept said populace from going into a panic.
And nowhere else was secrecy more important than in the case of tracking down the criminal element among the alien population, a thankless job that fell to MIB's Special Ops branch, and the devoted cadre of agents like Kay and Jay whose job was to efficiently and, more importantly, quietly keep the peace. Which they did. For the most part.
"Ring-a-ding ding! MIB's number one firefighters are in the house!" proclaimed Jay as he and Kay entered Zed's office in MIB's incredibly cavernous, underground headquarters. "Yo, Zed! Where's this heat you want us to deal with?"
"A few thousand miles away, Junior. Have a seat," Zed growled in reply. After the agents sat down, Zed pressed a button on his desk and a flat screen monitor slid down from the ceiling. The screen winked on, the agents saw a bright red line do a zig-zag course over a detailed map of the Pacific Rim. "Two hours ago, we tracked a bogey with no flight plan which hit our airspace over Siberia. It used a cloaking system to mask its descent, but we just managed to pick it up before it crashed."
"Hmm. It's not every day we get bogeys sporting cloaks," said Kay, studying the screen. "That spells bad guys cruising on the sly so we can't track them. Any idea where it landed?"
"Looks like it touched down in Japan, possibly near Tokyo," Zed replied. He paused as his brows furrowed. "Here's why I called you in. A preliminary make on our bogey was a one-man Zargonian scout ship."
Hearing that, Kay scowled. He definitely didn't like the sound of that. "Zargonian? Are you sure?"
"Sure enough to get my boxers in a twist, old buddy."
Jay glanced at his partner, then at Zed, the young agent's face a study in puzzlement. He raised his hand to get their attention. "Uh, excuse me, but is there something to worry about here?"
"Potentially. The Zargonians are major black hats in the Xandian star system, five thousand light years from here," Zed replied. "They're a violent race of warmongers, conquerors, terrorists, slavers and all around general badasses. Their entire society is centered around combat, subjugation and bloodshed. Think of the Nazis, armed with Star Trek technology and you've got these miserable rat bastards."
Jay frowned. "Whoa. Sounds like some seriously nasty mojo. So why'd this dude come billions of miles just to wolf down some sushi and snatch up Godzilla videos?"
"Japan wasn't his destination, sport. We were. Calculating the ship's original trajectory before it went haywire, it would've landed in the Hudson Valley. My guess is our friend came down here to spy on us," Zed replied. "But, the ship flew through a solar flare which probably knocked out its navigation equipment, sending it off course."
"And killed it's cloak, enabling us to see the ship before it crashed," Kay finished. "I don't get it. Zargonia's never been interested in us before. Hell, they've always looked down on Earth the same way blue bloods from the Hamptons look down on Harlem. Why the change of heart?"
"Maybe they're slumming," said Jay with a frown. "Straight dope, guys. Are we facing an invasion here?"
"Could be. Their m.o. is to send an advance scout to do recon, learn the enemy's strengths and weaknesses. And we were objective number one since MIB is the planet's the first line of defense," said Kay. "Funny thing about the Zargonians though. They may be the most bloodthirsty SOB's in the universe, but they're cautious to a fault. They never wage war against a foe they know they can't beat. Won't even try."
"Why's that?"
"Pride. Getting their asses handed to them in battle is the ultimate humiliation. To them, loss of face is worse than dying," Zed finished. "The Xandians have had their number for centuries, so they pick and choose their opponents based on how tough they are."
Jay snorted. "In other words, these chumps are the sci-fi version of the schoolyard bully, always looking for the scrawny kid with glasses to take his lunch money from."
"You got it. And we're being lined up for a mugging. That's why I'm sending you and Kay to Japan. I want positive confirmation that we've got a bully in our yard. If we do, I want him dealt with. Know what I mean?" Zed replied. "Agent Emme from the Tokyo field office has been notified and will extend you every courtesy. Pack your Ray-Bans and spare suits, boys. The shuttle leaves in thirty."
With a nod, Kay and Jay stood and left Zed's office. As they did, Jay gave his partner a sour look.
"Yo, man. Why'd you diss Harlem? I had an old girlfriend from there."
"Stop the presses. What happened to her?" Kay asked.
"Aww, she dumped me for another guy."
"Happens to the best of us, tiger. Where did he come from?"
Jay's frown deepened into a scowl and he paused for several long moments before he spoke. "The Hamptons."
Kay chuckled. "Walt Disney was right. It is a small world after all."
Tokyo, Japan....
For the pilot, long used to flying ships through the trackless void of outer space, driving a Toyota Landcruiser through the concrete canyons of downtown Tokyo at mid-morning when the streets were insanely packed with cars nearly drove him crazy from anger.
During the two hour long drive from the countryside, the pilot had enough trouble with driving. From figuring out how to use the pedals to the steering wheel to the shifter (using a stick shift proved to be the most maddening part of the entire process, leading to highly imaginative uses of foul language), navigating through the city itself was enough to make the pilot literally pull his hair out.
The pilot was enraged over how many times he'd gotten lost during the trip into the city. Of course, if he had a particular destination in mind when he started out, that wouldn't have happened. But then, that sort of advance planning was beyond the scope of his limited mental acumen. As a warrior, all the pilot cared about was fighting and killing. Anything else wasn't worth thinking about.
As the pilot cruised through the downtown area, barely having gotten used to driving (and wondering how humans manage such a feat), he felt a rumbling in his gut, telling him he was hungry. It had been a good three days since he ate the last of his rations packed aboard his ship for the trip. He slapped his forehead, annoyed that it hadn't occurred to him to eat the humans he butchered in the park.
"Dammit! I need to think more before I kill!" the pilot grumbled. Then he paused as a thoughtful expression came over his face. "Hmm! I never ate a human before! I wonder what they taste like?"
Just then, the pilot felt a sudden, painful pressure in his head that made him almost lose control of the car and veer into a parked truck. The pain in his head was brief, only a second, but it was enough to cause the pilot discomfort, which, in turn, made him angry.
"What the hell was that?" he growled. "It felt like someone touched my mind! Impossible! The apes on this planet can't do that! Can they?"
Closing his eyes, the pilot concentrated, something that was extremely hard for him (and, predictably, ticked him off), but, through considerable effort, he managed to get a psychic fix on where the pressure originated from. Setting his face, the pilot clutched the wheel in a death grip and headed in that direction. And what the pilot would do to whoever caused him discomfort was clear and simple:
He'll tear the fool apart.
Moon, Mercury, Eastwood and the other three Marines formed a defensive circle as the entranced protestors closed in for the kill.
"You girls are supposed to be superheroes," Eastwood growled to the Scouts. "Now might be a good time for you to do something heroic."
"I'm open to suggestions," Moon said crossly. Just as the Marines couldn't open fire on the people, she and Mercury didn't dare use their full powers on them since that would result in injuries to the helpless crowd, made innocent dupes by a mysterious enemy.
Just as one of the protestors, a tall, burly young man raised a fist to strike Moon, something whizzed past his face, slashing his cheek and the entire crowd stopped short and yelped from pain. Moon looked down and saw that the object that struck the man was a red rose, it's long stem imbedded halfway into the floor. Moon instinctively smiled from relief.
The rustle of cloth made the Scouts look upward where they saw a tall, lean muscled young man standing on the bannister at the top of the winding stairway. Dressed in a black tuxedo with a matching top hat, shoes and a cape lined in red with a white shirt, bow tie, gloves and a mask that partially hid his strong, handsome face, his arms were akimbo as he stared down at the chaotic scene below him.
"You gotta be kidding me," Eastwood muttered, staring up at the man.
"Need some breathing room, Sailor Moon?" Tuxedo Mask asked.
"You better believe we do!" Moon cried, coming up with an idea. "Mercury! Create us a barrier!"
Mercury nodded as her body began to glow from a soft blue aura. She understood in an instant what Moon wanted. "One barrier coming up! Shine Aqua....ILLUSION!"
As Eastwood and his fellow Marines looked in a utter shock, Mercury used her powers to create a twenty foot wide, ten foot high circular wall of ice, separating the Scouts and the soldiers from the protestors who were pushed back from them. The Sailors then leaped to the top of the wall and looked around them at the crowd, pounding on the barrier.
"Good idea, darling," said Mask, joining Moon and Mercury on the wall. He gave the crowd a wary look. "What have we got here?"
"Some sort of outside force entranced that crowd," Mercury replied. "Sailor Moon, I just thought of something. Perhaps the healing power of your scepter can break the telepathic hold on them!"
"I'll give it a try!" said Moon, holding her right arm high, and in a flash of light, the Cosmic Moon Scepter appeared in her waiting hand. "Here goes nothing! Moon Healing Activation!"
Concentrating on the near limitless power of the Imperium Silver Crystal, a massive blast of incredibly bright, silvery light burst forth from the scepter, enveloping every square inch of the building. The light blast was accompanied by a lengthy, high pitched scream of pain that issued from the throats of every enthralled protestor, and, after the light faded, the crowd, as one entity, collapsed to the floor. Moon, temporarily exhausted from the energy she expelled as the crystal tapped into her lifeforce for its power, wobbled on braced legs, but her tuxedo clad lover kept the Moon Princess from falling.
"Holy crud! You coulda warned us about that!" an angry Eastwood shouted from below as he and his men, temporarily blinded, rubbed their eyes. "What's going on?"
"It looks like the crisis is over. At least in here," Mercury replied. She then turned to her teammates. "I suspect whoever entranced these people is outside the building. And, judging from that scream, he's probably injured from Sailor Moon's attack. If we hurry, we might be able to catch him before he escapes."
Moon, her strength restored, set her face and nodded. "Okay! Let's go find that creep!"
Back at the sidewalk cafe, Seika Yoshida tilted back her head and let out an ungodly scream of pain as it felt like a million red hot needles had pierced her brain. All at once.
Sika rushed forward to catch her sister before she collapsed to the sidewalk. Pedestrians and diners turned to stare in puzzlement at the identically dressed women, wondering what was going on.
"Seika! Seika! Are you all right?" a worried Sika asked as she cradled her sister in her arms. Being twins, Sika felt the intense, blinding pain Seika felt and was amazed she was still conscious.
Seika, the older of the pair by six minutes nodded. "I....I think so."
"What happened to you?"
"Sailor Moon hit the crowd with some sort of energy blast that broke my telepathic hold on them," Seika replied, her voice hoarse from the scream she let out. "Never felt anything like that before. The psychic backlash damn near fried my brain. We'd better get out of here. The Scouts are bound to come looking for whoever enthralled that mob!"
"But they don't know who did it!"
"All the same, let's put some distance between us and those miserable do-gooders!" Seika countered. "I'm almost out on my feet, Sika. If we get into a fight with the Scouts, I won't be able to help you! And if we're caught, our plans will go right down the drain. We can't risk that! C'mon!"
Sika gritted her teeth and seethed from intense frustration since she hated running. She and Seika had run too much in their lives already, and now they were about to do so again. That made Sika's guts churn.
"Alright, Seika! We'll go!" she growled, slipping an arm around her sister's waist to support her. "But the next time, there won't be any running! We'll stand and fight! And kill anyone who gets in our way!"
"And we will. That day is coming soon, Sika. I promise you that," said Seika. "Let's go before the Scouts get outside."
The twins had barely traveled thirty feet when the Scouts and Mask burst out of the building and dashed out into the street, stunning everyone in sight. Ignoring the gawking and staring of pedestrians, including Amy and Serena's classmates, the heroes looked up and down the street for anything, or anybody that looked suspicious. It was Moon who saw the sisters staggering away and, for reasons she couldn't explain, she became instantly suspicious of them.
"Hey! You two! Hold it!" she cried, pointing at the sisters.
"Shit! I think we've been made," Sika growled. "We should've stayed put until they left. Looks like we don't have a choice about fighting now. You up for this, Seika?"
Seika shook her head. "Not yet. I'm still weak. I'm afraid you're on your own. Sorry."
"Don't worry about it." Sika grinned her malevolent smile. "I'll handle this. I've been dying to play for quite some time."
"You two! Stop!" shouted Moon as she ran after the sisters, a puzzled Mercury and Mask hot on her heels. "We know what you did! And you're not getting away with it!"
Sika stopped, cleared her mind and concentrated. She then turned around, her eyes glowing a bright yellow. "Little girl, you and your friends aren't going to stop anybody!"
Sika held out her free hand, her palm facing the heroes and the trio suddenly stopped dead in their tracks as if they hit an invisible barrier. She then raised her hand and the startled, wide eyed heroes, no longer in command of their bodies were lifted three feet off the ground. They tried with all their might to fight the mysterious force that held them fast but were completely helpless against it.
"What....what are you doing to us?" a stunned Mercury wanted to know.
"Wouldn't you like to know. But I'll keep that secret to myself," said a evilly smiling Sika. "I hope you kids aren't afraid of flying. Bye-bye!"
Sika made a pushing motion with her arm and the Scouts and Mask were sent flying away as if shot out of a cannon. Before any of the onlookers could blink, the heroes were already a mile in the distance. Watching them soar away like birds, Sika giggled.
"That was fun. C'mon, sis."
The sisters trotted off and around the corner onto a small street where their car was at the far corner. Sika and Seika were halfway down the block when a dark blue Toyota Landcruiser screeched around the far corner and roared right at the women before coming to a stop on feet away before Sika could bring her powers to play.
"What the hell....?" a puzzled Seika wondered. She felt recovered enough to help her sister if she needed it. The driver's side door opened, and a Japanese man in his mid-30's casually climbed out and glared at the sisters who, in turn, glowered at him. If the man had been an American, the sisters would have killed him on the spot. As it was, there was something about the man that raised the hackles on Seika's neck as she detected unusual thought patterns from his mind.
"So you're the miserable worms that touched my mind," the man growled. "I don't know how you pulled such a stunt, and frankly, I don't care. You made me angry, so I'll have to kill you."
"Humans?" Seika whispered.
Sika was equally annoyed. But she could plainly see that something didn't look right about the man. "Mister, I don't know what you've been smoking, but you're screwing around with the wrong women! Move aside or we'll waste you instead!"
The man chuckled. "Not on your best day, sweetheart!"
As the twins looked on, the man pressed his belt buckle and underwent a swift and utterly monstrous transformation. Looking up, Sika and Seika, wide eyed from shock saw first hand just what sort of horror they were up against.
"Now there's something you don't see every day," muttered Seika.
"At least not on this planet, sweetheart!" said the pilot.
NEXT: Partners In Crime