Typical Header Stuff: Even though most of these give you about as much coverage as a g-string on a stripper, I'm going to play it safe and include it anyway... Disclaimer: Sailor Moon and all characters contained within this work are the copyright of Naoko Takeuchi, Toei Animation, Kodansya, DiC, and probably lots of other big people I'm forgetting. I am using them without permission, but suing me because of it would be futile as I have nothing. Also Certain characters mentioned in the prologue are the copyrighted property of John De Chance. Any characters that are not copyrighted by other people are my own creation, and therefore copyrighted by myself... which means that if for some REALLY weird reason you decided you wanted to use them, (and why would you decide that?!?!?!?) you need to write me for permission. Comments, Criticisms, and flames welcome... Starrngr@aol.com However, due to a large amount of spam I have received in the past, I have blocked off mail from some domains. Sorry if your one of them. And don't expect me to reply to mail that's nothing but Flames! See the Character Bio for information on key people to this Fic.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Author's Note: Given a title like this, you know who is going make a cameo. Don't worry though, its all you'll see of them. The Wanderer: Wandering Moon: Episode 8: The Truth is out there. Its a common scriptwriting clich‚ that the villain always returns to the scene of the crime. Ergo, one would assume that any semi intelligent thug capable of watching TV would never do so. 'Of course,' Micheal thought to himself as his flashlight probed the darkened lobby, 'Wazziz name looked neither sane nor very intelligent.' His feet made slight crunching noises as he moved through the spilled food. Then he stepped in a patch of Malt balls and went sprawling, his flashlight skittering across the floor before fetching up against the snack counter. The flashlight bulb broke with a small popping sound. 'RATS! Oh well, I guess I was doing this the hard way anyway,' he decided. He stood, and brushed crushed food off his coat before shimmering into Star Ranger. With his transformation completed, his enhanced sensors turned night into day inside the theater lobby. Even with their help, it took a some searching to find what he was looking for. The spyders had reacted abnormally in that last fight, and so he came back to see if he could figure out why. It was on the balcony over the lobby proper that he found one of the control boxes the youma had been using. "Hellllllooooo Nurse," he murmured as he picked it up. "What's a nice gizmo like you doing working for scum like this? Come with me, my dahlink, und tell me your secrets...." * * * * * * * * * * Tinkerer stopped for a moment outside the door to Cabelite's chambers and listened. All was quiet now, which seemed to be a good sign, so he entered. He looked at the general devastation in the room with a jaundiced eye. Just about everything in the room that was breakable and a few things that really weren't had been reduced to small fragments. "You know its going to take a while to replace all of this," he commented sarcastically. "So, are you ready to talk yet or should I send in some more breakable objects? You know, dishes, furniture, small buildings?" Cabelite glared at Tinkerer before throwing himself down on his bed, the only thing in the room that wasn't shattered or melted in some way. "NO, I'm not ready to talk. Now go away before I decide to see how breakable _YOU_ are." "That's too bad then. Because you need to know just how badly your misadventure has hurt us," Tinkerer replied in an icy tone. "An even dozen hard to build spyders, an equal number of your irreplaceable youma, and you were almost captured or killed. Worst of all, you may have caused the one thing that we couldn't afford. You have planted the seeds for an alliance between our enemies. Working alone, they were a minor worry at best. If they start working together they will be a major threat. No wonder your ex queen was about to terminate you for incompetence." With that, Tinkerer turned and strode from the room, moments before an energy blast slammed into the edge of the door, sending fragments flying. * * * * * * * * * Micheal slammed on his brakes, coming to a stop just inches from the two Americans who had started across the crosswalk, after looking the WRONG way. /Careful there, buddy,/ he called out the window in English to the startled pair. /Traffic moves on the wrong side of the road in this town./ The taller of the pair, a man with sandy brown hair waved in acknowledgment, and they hurried across the street. As Micheal drove off, he gave the couple a second glance in via his rear view mirror. 'Durn if he doesn't look like David Ducovony.' Micheal shrugged it off and went about his business. Behind him, Fox Mulder looked at the retreating car. /Hey, that looked like.../ Dana Scully cut off that line of thought. /I don't care who you think that was. Its bad enough you talked me into taking this vacation in Japan, your not going to drag me off on one of your wild goose chases, Mulder. Come on, the bus stop is over this way./ /But Scully../ /No, Mulder./ * * * * * * * * * * Micheal decided to leave Fred parked a block away from the shrine. After ducking into a convenient alley for a modicum of cover, he shimmered into his Star Ranger form and quickly made his way across the rooftops to the designated meeting place. He arrived in the clearing in the middle of the grove with about a minute to spare and chided himself for a moment about cutting it so close. A quick active sensor sweep detected several highly powered humans nearby and headed his way, and something in their midst sending a similar scanning sweep in his direction. This, he assumed, was the Sailor Scouts, with Sailor Mercury scanning ahead for traps. His assumption proved accurate when the five scouts moved out into the concealed glade. Sailor Moon's protector, Tuxedo Mask, also known as Prince Endymion of earth several thousand years ago, was absent though. A second quick sweep did not reveal him hiding in the trees, so Star Ranger assumed whoever Endymion was in this life was unable to attend. There were a pair of cats just out of sight, but Star Ranger didn't think them important. "O.K., We're here," declared a still suspicious Sailor Mars. "Now, how about that explanation." "And an explanation you shall have," replied Star Ranger. "However, could we discuss this in forms not so prone to massive destruction?" The flat looks given him by four of the five scouts clearly answered the question for him. "Very well. The situation clearly calls for a demonstration of trust to achieve detante." With that, Star Ranger shimmered through his transformation back into Micheal Thunders. The effect was startling, like a computer morph, only it happened right before their eyes. He lost several inches of height, his limbs and body becoming round and human looking before suddenly growing clothes. The boxy head of Star Ranger grew round, and his face appeared, in metallic tones, before becoming flesh, his hair and mustache growing to their familiar lengths before their eyes. The transformation completed, Micheal sat down on a felled tree trunk and resumed speaking. "From the lack of a look of total shock on your faces, I can only assume that I've slipped somehow in concealing my alternate identity. I was born Micheal Thunders, in Los Angeles California. But not any Los Angeles you would be familiar with. This Los Angeles exists in another dimension entirely. One where, about the year 1980, people began to exhibit abilities far beyond those of normal men...." * * * * * * * * * Tinkerer looked up from his worktable as Cabelite entered the laboratory. "If you're looking for something else to break, I suggest you look someplace else," the scientist sneered. "Control your tongue, cripple, or I will decide that its YOU who needs breaking," retorted the still angry general. "Brave words from someone who would be in the hands of the enemy were it not for my interference," noted Tinkerer in a sub zero tone as he crossed over to the large computer console that filled one wall of the laboratory and sat down. The metallic exoskeleton that supported his right side glittered coldly in the light. "If you have business, I would like to hear it. Otherwise, I have other more pressing matters to attend to." "I want the head of that tin man, cripple. I want it more than I want anything. I want that infuriating _THING_ in pieces at my feet. And you seem to be the only person who can help me with that, Tinkerer," Cabelite ground out through clenched teeth. An evil smile crossed Tinkerer's face at those words. "So nice of you to finally admit it. I think I know just you need." * * * * * * * * * Patricia Haruna climbed the steps to the Cherry Hill shrine almost mechanically. If one would have asked her directly, she would have claimed a cosmopolitan attitude that bordered on atheism. Yet, when she had something major to think about she often wound up here, at this shrine. She washed her hands and mouth as she passed under the Tori, ignoring the small booth that sold prayer strips, instead walking over to the alter at the front of the shrine. Placing her offering in the box, she rang the chimes that would attract the Kami's attention. 'Help me oh \Kami, guide my thoughts on this matter that troubles me,' she thought to herself, before making her way around to the sacred grove that lay behind the shrine proper. Finding a quiet spot near the edge of the grove, her thoughts turned inward to the problem that was troubling her, namely just what was it she really felt for Micheal Thunders. * * * * * * * * * "Well, you certainly have had an interesting life," a new voice added to the conversation, its Japanese spoken with a uniquely British accent. "Fighter Pilot, Scientist, Superhero, and Dimensional Wanderer. But it still doesn't explain what your doing here, and who gave you a file about our past." "I was just getting to that," replied Micheal absentmindedly, neither registering the fact that it was a new voice speaking nor looking to see who the voice belonged to. "You see, I wasn't alone in that explosion that threw me across the dimensional barrier. Also caught in the blast was the villain I was fighting at the time, a sociopath genius who called himself the Tinkerer. Apparently that same accident delivered him into this dimension. I was brought here to stop him, by the same mysterious person who gave me the file........" His voice trailed off into nothing as he realized that he had been having a conversation with a small black cat with a gold crescent moon on its forehead. His jaw dropped for a moment in surprise, and he toppled backwards off the log and landed flat on his back. Mercury took a few steps towards Micheal in alarm, but relaxed when she heard him declare, "Freaking Godzilla." Five scouts and two moon cats exchanged looks of confusion and concern as Micheal pulled himself back into his sitting position. "You would be Luna, Princess Serenity's advisor here on earth, correct?" Micheal asked of the black cat, who had been joined by a similarly marked white cat. Luna nodded agreement to the question, so Micheal continued. "Like I said, I was brought here. Someone changed the co-ordinates of a transit I was about to make and brought me here. They provided everything I needed to fit in, from documents to a file what was going on here. It told me who all of you used to be, and what your powers were, but not who you are now." "You mean you don't know who the scouts are in this life?" Luna demanded in disbelief. "I didn't, until just now, when you spoke up. Suddenly I made the connection," Micheal replied. "Your the one I stepped on that morning, right?" Luna nodded in silent shame, hanging her head. "Snooping is a bad habit, Luna, but I still apologize for stepping on your tail. But that would make You," he continued, pointing at Sailor Moon, "Serena Tsukino. Which means that Darien Chiba is Tuxedo Mask, Mercury would be Amy Mizuno, Jupiter is Lita Kino, Mars is Ms. Raye Hino of this shrine, and Venus is the blonde you were with last night to whom I never got the chance to be introduced to." "Mina Aino," Venus supplied, holding out her hand. "Nice to meet'cha." Micheal shook the proffered hand. Micheal opened his mouth to say something when his coat began beeping urgently. He rolled his eyes skyward as he fished what appeared to be an older model cellular phone out of an inside pocket of his overcoat. "What is it FRED?" he spoke into the phone. "Yeah, they're here... Yes, you were right, she is.... O.K., we're on it. Muck out. That was my assistant, FRED," he continued, putting the phone away. "According to his detection equipment, someone just opened a transit portal here on the shrine grounds. Which probably means Tinkerer has just sent troops to attack." Almost as if on cue, something began beeping on Mercury's person. Pulling out her pocket computer, Mercury summoned her visor, her own sensors confirming the visor. "He's right. I'm detecting several youma signatures, and another more powerful signature that's probably the person we fought last night." Micheal sighed for a moment as he got to his feet, A bit of Shakespeare springing to mind and lip; " Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace there 's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger: Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. " This earned him a dirty look from the scouts, perhaps due to the reference to death, so he shrugged as he started running for the front courtyard of the temple. "Seemed appropriate to me," he noted to no one in particular. * * * * * * * * * Patricia's thoughts were disturbed by the distant sounds of screaming. An icy fist of fear gripped her, as she realized what the screaming must mean. Morbid curiosity overrode her desire to flee, and she moved quietly to the edge of the trees, in time to see the five scouts burst from another area of the grove and leap towards the roof of the shrine. Then her heart leapt into her throat as she saw Micheal burst from the same grove, following after. Unnoticed, across the space of three great strides, he transformed into Star Ranger before her eyes, his wings spreading from his back and the boosters on his back lifting him on a powered leap up and over the temple. The shock of all of this was just to great for her, and the fear, both for her safety and for Micheal's overwhelmed her, and she fled in panic for the deepest section of trees she could find. * * * * * * * * * Cabelite smiled at the chaos in forecourt of the shrine. Several of his best youma were enjoying themselves as they drained the shrinegoers Tinkerer's spyders had rounded up. Right now, thought, those same spyders were in hiding against the eventual arrival of those irritating sailor girls. These spyders were not remote controlled, but rather were programmed to attack the Sailor Scouts at all costs. Just in case that metallic menace Star Ranger also showed up, he had brought six of his more powerful youma, who were even now getting a fresh taste of power from the life force drained from the hapless shrine goers. These youma had been instructed quite carefully, and were to attack Star Ranger and only Star Ranger. With the Youma to keep Star Ranger from eliminating the spyders, and the spyders to keep the Scouts from attacking the Youma, he was certain that today would grant him victory. "STOP RIGHT THERE, NEGATRASH!" a familiar voice shouted from the top of the main shrine building. "Attacking a holy place not once but twice is totally disrespectful of the Kami that lives here. I am Sailor Moon..." "And we are the Sailor Scouts" the other joined in "And we will Punish you!" "Ah, the Scouts. Its about time you showed up. And where is that metallic menace of yours?" Cabelite taunted, but stopped as he suddenly ducked under the glowing streak of the Star Shield. "Warning: Assailants may be closer than they appear!" Star Ranger quipped with a Jim Carrey voice as he landed in the center of the forecourt, the star shield streaking back to his arm. Cabelite sneered and teleported himself to the top of the Tori that formed the entrance to the shrine. "Hey, do you want some breakfast or a little more of what you had last night?" Star Ranger taunted in Leonardo Di Caprio's voice. "I think I shall have myself some revenge, instead, tin man. ATTACK, my minions!" Cabelite shouted. At that command, the youma began charging Star Ranger, who jumped up and out of the way as the scouts jumped down to the attack. As the scouts began to attack, a swarm of Spyders emerged from the woods that lined the shrine and began firing on the scouts. >>Dreck, blech, barf, phooey, FELDERCARB!!<< <> >>Grrr. Pulse cannon and Shockwave launchers to 100% power. Target: Spyders. Snapshot target procedures<< <> Star Ranger rolled out of the way of the attack, ruining his attack on the spyders. The battle soon became a swirling draw, as attacks from the spyders forced the scouts to dodge before they could attack the youma and the youma kept Star Ranger from getting good shots at the Spyders. The tides of battle brought Star Ranger and Sailor Mercury back to back. "Houston, we have a problem," Star noted with Tom Hank's voice. "We need to even the odds," Mercury replied. "Can you keep everyone off of me for a moment?" Star's reply was action, as he managed to take out two attacking spyders while blocking a blast from a nearby youma with the Star Shield. "Mercury bubbles BLAST," Mercury commanded, taking advantage of the short break to fill the courtyard with a concealing fog. With its help, the scouts were able to avoid their attackers and regroup for a quick breather and emergency strategy session. Star Ranger's active sensors came on line and switched to a wire frame mode, allowing him to pierce their cover. "Can't we call a truce? I'm exhausted!" panted Sailor Moon. "They're not gonna do that, aint gonna happen," Star Ranger replied in George Bush's voice. "We need hit them now, while their distracted," interjected Jupiter. "You get the Uglies, I'll take out the Spyders," suggested Star Ranger before dropping into Pat Morita's voice. "Remember, Daniel-san. Best defense, Nooo be there." "Right. Lets do it, scouts!" agreed Sailor Moon, and the group broke up. Without anyone to distract his aim, Star Ranger was able to take out the spyders before they could zero in on the scouts, who were then free to blast the youma. What had been a bad situation for the scouts suddenly became a slaughter for their enemies. Spyders who were able to maneuver to get a clear attack at the scouts had their lasers blocked by the Star Shield, and were quickly crushed by the Shockwave Launcher or shorted out by the EMP fields of the Pulse cannon. The youma stumbled blindly through the mist, trying to find an opponent by sound, only to be torn apart by a combined attack by two or three scouts before Sailor Moon's Moon Scepter elimination reduced them to 'moondust'. * * * * * * * * * "NO!!!" Screamed Cabelite as the fog filled the courtyard and obscured his view. Everything had been going according to plan, but he was afraid of what this might do to disrupt it. He raised a hand to summon a spell that would blow the fog from the courtyard, when suddenly a searing pain erupted from it. He brought the offending hand to his face, and was shocked to observe a rose, its stem driven completely through his hand. Feeling the vibrations of someone landing on the Tori, he looked over to see Tuxedo Mask standing there, his cane out and at held like a sword. "Evil like yours is like a venomous snake." Tuxedo Mask declared. "It can be deadly, but its harmless once you cut off its head!" With that, Tuxedo Mask sprang forward, his cane slashing low. Cabelite jumped back out of the way of the slash, landing on the lower wall and summoning a whip of dark energy into being. "Do not forget that the head contains the fangs," Cabelite sneered, lashing out with his whip at the leaping Tuxedo Mask, only to have it cut into several segments by a spread of roses. The cut sections disintegrated as they fell, but the section still in Cabelite's hand grew until it was once more its original length. Even as he landed, Tuxedo Mask countered with a string of slashing blows, which though Cabelite was able to dodge or block, still forced Cabelite back along the top of the wall. Still the battle raged on, cane strikes deflected by the dark whip, and energy blasts shattered by thrown roses. Quarter was neither asked nor given. As the battle worked its way around to the middle of the back wall, Cabelite began to feel the first signs of fatigue. With Tuxedo Mask seemingly still going strong, Cabelite realized he needed an additional edge. Then he caught a glimpse of red below him, almost failing to dodge Tuxedo Masks blow while he was distracted. Grasping at what seemed his one chance, Cabelite fired off another energy blast aimed at Tuxedo Mask's head while his dark whip reached out and grabbed the hostage. Evan as he reeled his hostage in, Cabelite gave another powerful leap back and out of reach of Tuxedo Mask. Rather than jumping after the retreating general, Tuxedo Mask made a longer, lower angle leap, a spread of roses severing the whip holding the hostage, who landed in his arms. Cabelite snarled in aggravation of having his hostage rescued, but used the opportunity to escape. Patricia Haruna had been unaware of the battle above her, her thoughts caught up in a tangle of unresolved emotions and sudden shocks. Suddenly, a whip wrapped around her, pinning her arms and yanking her upward. A scream of terror was still forming on her lips as several red and green streaks flashed by her, and suddenly the bonds that held her fell away, causing even greater terror. Then she was suddenly being cradled in strong arms, Tuxedo Masks face looking down gently at her. 'He looks almost like Micheal, but his face is a touch more angular,' was her last conscious thought before the cumulative shocks overwhelmed her and dropped her into unconsciousness. --------------------------------------- Coming as soon as I can get it done: Episode 9: Breaking Point?