Heroes of
the Multiverse
Ladies
and Gentlemen, I humbly present to you what will be my boldest fanfiction
project I’ve ever embarked on. I’ve
written very few fics that could be classified as “epics”, but this one, once it
is finished, will fit that category. Heroes
of the Multiverse is what can be called an über-crossover, consisting of
characters and influences from (but not limited to) Dragon Ball Z, Sailor
Moon, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Yu Hakusho, Trigun, Rurouni Kenshin, Inu-Yasha, among
others. Believe me, this will just get
bigger and bigger as time goes on.
Whether you’re a casual fan of Ari Rockefeller’s work or a die-hard
devotee, you will not be disappointed.
Usual
disclaimers apply. These characters do
no belong to me.
When you hear the word
“hero”, what first comes to mind?
Do you envision a fictional
character?
Do you imagine someone more
realistic, like a police officer or a firefighter or a soldier?
Is this “hero” young? Old?
Male? Female?
A perfect physical
specimen? Or as unlikely as some heroes
can be?
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “heroism” as “heroic conduct, especially as exhibited in fulfilling a higher purpose or attaining a noble end.”
I like this definition. This single definition, more than any archetype or previous assumption or notion, defines just what a hero is.
Heroism is not limited to a select few, and is not restricted to those who do not possess the “gifts” that a hero may possess.
It is not the traits or origins of a hero that define him or her as such, but rather, their actions.
TALES OF THE CWF PRESENTS………
I am known by many names. To my Japanese countrymen, I am known as Chiba Mamoru. To my European contemporaries, I am Darien Shields. The peoples of the West – particularly the Americans – call me Darien Chiba. What do these three modifications to my name have in common? They are also associated with the name of a benevolent superhero, the Sailor Soldier representing the planet Earth, Tuxedo Mask.
This is not solely my story, nor is it the story of the Sailor Soldiers, the Silver Millennium, or the Earth Kingdom ruled from Crystal Tokyo. It is a story of heroism in and of itself.
It is a tale of how heroism in even the smallest vessels can perform remarkable deeds in the face of grave adversity, and of how an unlikely or unwilling hero is a hero all the same.
Within one hero lies the capacity to do great deeds. When many heroes are gathered to fulfill a given purpose, there’s no end to the miracles they can accomplish.
A MILLENNIUM PEN PRODUCTION
There
is evil here. Evil he has had a taste of
before, but here, in its stronghold, it is enough to make him sick to his
stomach. Evil that has plagued the good
people of Tokyo needlessly in the past few months, the same evil that he has
risen up to fight off time and time again.
But then, it was all on his turf, on his terms. The human world, if you will. Now, here in the most remote Dark Kingdom,
the rules were drastically different.
At first glance, it vaguely resembled
the Earth world, albeit a desolate wasteland somewhere on Earth that had been
polluted with demonic magic and occult practices. The denizens of this region, however, were nothing like the Earth
had ever seen.
This
isn’t the first time he found himself lost in the Dark Kingdom. Once before, the benevolent Tuxedo Mask had
been captured by Beryl, the sinister queen of the Dark Kingdom, and after a
long and very arduous torture process had been broken and manipulated by the
queen to do her bidding. His mind
eventually became putty in his hands, and once Beryl had broken him, she used
him to attempt to destroy her greatest nemesis—the girlfriend-turned-wife of
Darien Chiba and the Sailor Soldier of the moon, Serena Tsukino…Sailor Moon.
Fool
him once, shame on you. Fool him twice,
shame on him.
For
some time after he had been saved and reverted to normal, fragments of what he
was during that time broke through periodically. Most often, they would occur in his dreams. He would awake screaming in the middle of
the night just as a memory of Beryl inflicting some unspeakable pain on him
with some ungodly torture device. He
remembered the panicked look on his Serena’s face every time he awoke from one
of those wretched nightmares. He
remembered how his nine-year-old daughter Reenie (and a Sailor Soldier in her
own right, known as Neo-Sailor Moon) looked at him, asking what was wrong.
Tuxedo
Mask was lost to the Dark Kingdom once before.
He would not become lost again.
After
he was captured, Beryl tried to go through the same routine as before. But the usually cool, collected Tuxedo Mask
would not be a victim again, and snapped.
With just one of his signature Magical Roses, he greatly wounded the
queen and escaped her palace, and was on the run in a strange land. He might as well been running around in
pitch darkness.
The
escape from the palace had not been easy.
He encountered great resistance as he made his escape, killing any youma
that crossed his path while suffering serious damage to himself in the
process. Any amount of pain was worth
his freedom to Tuxedo Mask. His tuxedo
had become tattered, his cape frayed and nearly in ribbons, his mask and top
hat long gone. No big deal. Every time he transformed into his superhero
alter ego, his clothing would reappear fresh and brand new, without a mark on
it.
Right
now his clothing was the last thing on his mind. He could worry about his fashion sense when he made it back to
his home world. Not if. When. Darien would
rather meet death than let his mind and body be used for evil once again.
And
to be honest, he has considered that a few times. Although, the more he thought about it, reanimating a corpse is
elementary sorcery compared to some of the more powerful magic he’s
encountered.
Finally,
out in the open. How long has it
been? Hours? Days? A week, maybe? Darien lost all perception of time a while
ago. All that mattered was his
survival, no matter what the cost. He
paused at a nearby “stream”. It
couldn’t be a stream in the sense he was used to, because most rivers in his
home world were composed of water. This
stuff, this murky, dark purple stuff…well, he didn’t know what to call it. As he caught his breath, he took in his
surroundings. Not much to look at,
really. All he could see was barren
wasteland in every direction, save for the palace behind him, which he just
recently escaped. The sky was a deep
purple, the ground a desolate gray. As
if he needed to feel any more alone in this hostile dimension.
The
ground started to shake. Tuxedo Mask
could feel tremors underneath his feet every few seconds or so. He was jarred from his thoughts and began to
look around, finding the source of the quavers approaching from behind him, and
was closing the distance quickly with its long strides. This creature stood a good 30 meters tall,
and was an ash gray. It walked like a
human, but human it was not. It had no
head, just a huge, single eye in the middle of its chest. Its iris was blood red, and it didn’t blink
once as it stared down the would-be Sailor Soldier. Its hands twitched, as though it was about to fire some blast of
magical energy at its alleged prey.
“Well
you certainly aren’t a very inspired creation, are you, demon?” Tuxedo Mask
asked, not really expecting an answer.
“What kind of tricks do you know?”
The
beast extended and opened its hands, revealing two gaping mouths in each of its
palms. When they opened, they let out
ear-piercing and glass-shattering shrieks, forcing Tuxedo Mask to cover his
ears as he screamed out in pain. He
fell to one knee as the youma approached, intent on capturing this feeble
little man, just as it was instructed.
The
ear-splitting screeching didn’t let up for a second, and the creature drew
closer. Darien had to figure out how to
stop this thing or he’d be captured again.
And as long as there was a breath in his body, he would not become a
puppet the Dark Kingdom a second time!
As he felt like his ears would soon ooze blood, he noticed the
creature’s hands were always fixated on him.
This gave him a bit of an idea.
He jumped straight up in the air, as high as the demon’s shoulders. As he expected, the hands were brought up to
follow, which is where he set his plan into motion.
Drawing
on his own magical energies in this dimension was a painful experience, but one
he had to endure if he wanted to escape.
He concentrated, and his body broke down, turning into a cloud of red
rose petals. The cloud of petals became
swept up in a magical breeze that circled the monster’s body several times,
confusing it. When they were driven
down to the ground, they recombined to form Tuxedo Mask, while the monster was
still disoriented and confused. He
clenched his fist, and four of his Magical Roses appeared between each
finger. His hand lashed out as quick as
an eye blink, and the monster screamed again—not in an attempt to destroy the
interloper, but in pain. All four roses
where buried in its eye, and it wailed out in pain. The monster staggered around for a few moments before growing
still. It fell forward with a loud
crash, destroying the ground beneath them (which had been damaged by the sound
waves that thing produced). Tuxedo Mask
and the dead body fell down into the obviously hollow ground into a maze of
underground caves.
Someone must be having a really good laugh at this point, Tuxedo Mask thought.
IN ASSOCIATION WITH TENISTARKAGE
The
underground network of caves wasn’t very well lit, and Tuxedo Mask chose to
wait until his eyes grew a little more accustomed to the darkness. When they did, he pressed forward, making
careful note of the path he took. If he
would arrive at a dead end, he wanted to make sure he knew how to escape to the
surface quickly. Now Darien had been
spelunking very few times in his life, if any (any that he could remember, at
least). Despite his lack of experience,
he could at least be able to identify a few of the sounds that are associated
with caves—water dripping from stalactites overhead, the shrieks of bats
hanging from the ceiling, etc. Such
wasn’t the case here. Almost as soon as
he set foot into this underground world, every predator fixed its eyes upon
him. Their eyes glowed menacingly, and
Tuxedo Mask briefly compared the image of brightly glowing eyes in the shadows
to something out of a bad cartoon…an American cartoon, to be specific. His eyes kept shifting back and forth,
waiting for one of these beasts to make a move, almost daring them to attack.
Then,
one of them did.
It
was a hideous thing, with blue skin and long nails on the end of each of its
four claws. It leapt at the interloper
with claws extended, corrosive saliva dripping off its teeth. As it drew closer to its prey, it drew its
arms back, intending to slash Tuxedo Mask to shreds, leaving its body wide
open. Tuxedo Mask drew his
indestructible cane, and brought it down hard across its head, fracturing its
skull in several places, killing it instantly.
He had little time to pat himself on the back over his easy victory, as
the rest of the pack struck as well.
They
started in one at a time, with Tuxedo Mask dispatching with a handful of cane
strikes and Magical Roses as he kept moving through the caves. Eventually the attackers came in twos, then
threes, and then in fives. Already
exhausted, Tuxedo Mask was growing tired and desperate. He finally stopped fighting and kept running
in front of him as fast as his body could take him, far too outnumbered to beat
down his assailants. He would turn
around and hurl a Rose or two to deter the youma, but he wouldn’t waste too
much time. Right now, he was focused
only on running.
While
his eyes were a little bit accustomed to the darkness, there were things he
wouldn’t be able to see regardless.
Tuxedo Mask kept running until he felt himself quickly losing his balance. Flailing his arms wildly, he managed to keep
his balance before running straight off a cliff. He peered down, looking into the seemingly infinite darkness
below. He looked back over his shoulder
and saw the horde of demons closing the distance between he and themselves
rapidly.
Darien
weighed his options mentally. He could
stay and fight this youma horde while being heavily outnumbered, but that would
only lead to his eventual capture and/or disembowelment. He wouldn’t be any good to any of his friends
or loved ones dead, so it didn’t take long to decide against that course of
action. Now would not be a good time to
envision how well Serena and Reenie would take word of his death. The only option was to escape, into the
darkness behind him. That meant flying,
and that meant using his magical powers, which brought him pain while invoking
them in the Dark Kingdom. Fortunately
for him, flight took very little magical power to pull off; once he got off the
ground it was all about using his mind and turning his body whenever
appropriate. As long as he could get
passed the initial pain that would wrack his body when he would use his magic,
he would be home free.
That
is, if he knew just how the bloody hell to get to the aforementioned home.
Tuxedo
Mask jumped backward, and he fell into the darkness. Pain coursed through his body as he gathered the magical energy
needed to elevate his body, and once he grew accustomed to it he hovered in
space for a few moments, watching the demons stare up at him in vain. Most of the youma could do nothing
more. The rest, however, wouldn’t be
content to sit and let their prey escape.
Mostly
because they had wings.
They
took flight, their wings looking like those found on dinosaurs long extinct in
his home world. He took evasive action,
bobbing and weaving to avoid talons, claws, and beaks lashing out at him. He wanted to light them all up with his
roses, but the pain that would overcome him when he tried to form one could
make him lose concentration and fall to his death. The only alternative for Tuxedo Mask was to flee.
His
flight was straight as an arrow, occasionally dodging a dive-bomb attack from
his airborne pursuers. Tuxedo Mask
swung his cane at his attackers, injuring them but not enough to kill them or
stop their chase. They were clearly
more resilient then the fiends who originally chased him.
Slowly,
Tuxedo Mask began to pull away from his assailants. He occasionally threw a glance behind his shoulder, seeing the
winged youma hunting him getting smaller and smaller. After focusing his attention on his flight – though not entirely
sure just where he was flying to –
things suddenly began to grow very hot.
He started to sweat, and not just from his exhaustion. Not even his strongest magical attacks (as
few as they were) would drain him so, so how could something as menial as
flying make him start to heat up?
Wait…heat…up? Of
course! This huge hot flash he was
feeling could only be brought on by an external heat source! Instinctively, his eyes went down, which is
where he saw it.
There
was an endless sea of magma beneath him, and it was slowly beginning to rise.
Not
knowing what else to do, he pressed forward, flying parallel to the lava
beneath him. The heat grew more
intense, and he made a move to increase his altitude, when a claw slashed at
his back. It tore through part of his
tuxedo jacket and shirt, and he could feel the talon break some of the skin
beneath. He screamed in pain and
dropped some altitude, ending up closer to the lava in the end. He could do nothing more than keep flying
straight, trying to outrun his demonic pursuers and, judging by the low
rumbling sound, a tidal wave of fire rising up to take him down.
The
lava roared more loudly, and Tuxedo Mask threw a look over his shoulder to see
the lava cresting up into a molten tidal wave that was quickly gaining on
him. Gritting his teeth, he forced
himself to fly faster, trying to outrun the tide.
Pain
wracked his body. The heat grew more
intense as it drew closer. Tuxedo
Mask’s vision grew a bright white as he screamed out in agony.
Tuxedo
Mask could tell he wasn’t in the Dark Kingdom any further, despite his eyes
still shut as tight as they were when the blinding light overwhelmed him. He could still perceive bright light, but
the intense heat was long gone. Was he
consumed by the fire? Was he
alive? For one, he certainly didn’t feel
dead.
Darien
slowly opened his eyes, then snapped up from his kneeling position to survey
the environment around him. He was
indeed alive, and – after giving his appearance a quick once-over – still in
his Tuxedo Mask form. He was standing
on a narrow windowsill on a very tall building. There was city all about him, but surprisingly, not a lick of it was
familiar in any way. He originally
thought it was Tokyo, but this city was a lot bigger than Tokyo could ever be
in his home world. Plus, there were a
lot more skyscrapers, all of them reaching higher into the sky. From his vantage point, he assumed he was
somewhere between the 10th and 20th stories of whatever
building he wound up on.
“Where
the hell am I?” he asked himself.
HEROES OF THE MULTIVERSE
No
words left his mouth for quite some time.
Tuxedo Mask was completely awe-struck at the site of this fantastic,
ultra-modern city before him. It
appeared much like any other city he had ever visited, a Frankenstein’s monster
of every city trait he knows—the highly dense population of Tokyo (judging by
the packed city streets below him), the far reaching boarders of Mexico City,
and the cultural diversity of New York City.
There weren’t nearly as many flying cars or other such airborne devices
as he part of him had expected. When a
handful of denizens could fly on their own, who needs clunky machinery weighing
them down?
This
city certainly seemed peaceful. Of
course, Tuxedo Mask was at the point where Hell looked more appealing than a
trip back to the Dark Kingdom. It
wasn’t his native Tokyo, but it was civilization. Regardless, Darien surmised, it didn’t bring him any closer to
home. He wanted to get home and get
home now!
The
first thing he had to do was get to the ground and start working on how to get
home. His first instinct was to fly
down, or at least jump down and let his magical energy float him to
safety. A problem quickly arose,
however.
He
couldn’t bring himself to fly. He kept
straining his body to lift up and fly away, but he couldn’t bring himself to do
it. Did he suddenly forget how to fly? That’s impossible! Drawing his hand up, he flicked it out, expecting to produce a
Magical Rose in between his fingers.
But that wasn’t happening either.
Now he was genuinely scared. Not
a lick of his magic powers were working for him, not even his most elementary
of magic attacks! Was this strange city
doing this to him?
No,
it couldn’t be. Others were flying
around like they owned the place and they looked no more powerful than he
was! Then again, he just spent
gods-know-how-long fighting for his life in a harsh and unforgiving dimension
where everything with a pulse and two (or more) legs wanted him dead. He could be just that exhausted. Hopefully he could chalk up his current predicament
to fatigue.
Well,
in any event, it was time to get down. With
flying out of the question, he resorted to the only option available to him—the
window behind him. He turned around, and reached down and tried to open the
window. He pulled as hard as he could,
but his grip failed and he found himself struggling to keep his balance on the
windowsill. The heel of his right foot
was the only part of his body on the sill, his left leg up in the air while his
arms flailed wildly. Valiant as his
efforts were to stay balanced notwithstanding, he wailed out woefully as he
fell to the street below.
Amongst
the hustle and bustle of the city, no one took notice of a man suddenly falling
to what could presumably be his death.
The only way someone would do so was only if said man landed on someone. Passers-by simply walked around the tangled
mess of bodies, going about their daily business as though nothing had
happened. After falling on his
human(oid) landing pad, he rolled off, content to lying on his back and staring
up at the sky for a few minutes.
“Tap
the elbow twice,” came the reply from the poor sap Darien crashed into. The man had brought himself up to his knees
and was sitting back on his haunches.
“Don’t you know you’re supposed to tap the elbow twice before you drop
it on somebody?” The guy was a little
shaken, but the impact from the falling body didn’t hurt him that much. As a martial arts master and one of the most
feared and admired warriors in his own universe, he had repeatedly taken harder
blows in much quicker succession. This
was just enough to annoy him. The man
looked around, unaware of the other city folk casually walking passed them, and
found a guy in a night black tuxedo and a red silk-lined cape laying flat on
the sidewalk, staring up at the sky.
“Hey buddy, you alright?”
* * * * *
Darien’s
vision was blurry for a few moments as he lay on the ground, not fully focusing
on his surroundings. He perceived what
appeared to be a tree hovering above him…a…talking tree? He blinked
several times, his focus returning to him.
The “tree” in question wasn’t a tree at all, but a man. Could it be a curious passer-by,
perhaps? Well whoever he was, it was
his wild black hair that made Darien think he was a tree; his impaired vision
made the various spikes of hair going in all directions look like branches.
“Hey,
you still with us?” he asked, extending his hand in an offer to help him
up. Darien took hold of his thick,
muscular hand and accepted his offer.
Once back on his feet, his senses returned to him, and he got a look at
the Good Samaritan who gave him aid.
His
face bore an expression of worry, but Darien could tell from his eyes that a
strong, battle-hardened warrior lie under his calm, gentle demeanor. He was a mountain of a man, a veritable
man-beast. Every part of his body was
pure muscle; his hands looked like they were capable of crumpling up steel like
it were an old newspaper. His eyes were
as black as his hair, which was splayed out in several gravity- and
logic-defying angles. He wore an orange
karate gi—a V-neck, sleeveless shirt tucked into his baggy pants, which were
tucked into his black and orange boots.
He wore a blue shirt underneath his orange gi top, blue wristbands, and
a blue sash was wrapped around his waist.
The
guy was still looking at him funny.
“Hey!”
he said, a little more emphasis behind it.
“You alright?”
“Y-yeah,
I’m fine. Uh…” He glanced around a few
times before focusing his attention on this kind stranger. Perhaps he could get some information as to
where he is and how he could get home. “I…didn’t
land on you, did I?”
“Well,
actually you did,” came the answer.
“But don’t worry about it, I’m fine.
Believe me, in my line of work, you get banged up pretty badly.” He
ended his response with a chuckle.
Darien
was more than a bit hesitant to ask what sort of “line of work” he was in. Instead, he’d rather stay on topic. “Where am I?”
“You’re
not from around here, are you?” The guy
put on a cheery smile. “Well, neither
am I. In fact, you could go ahead and
say no one is ‘from around here’!” As the stranger chuckled to himself, Tuxedo
Mask’s eyebrows shifted in bewilderment.
“No
one…is from…around here…” he answered, slowly.
“But you haven’t answered my question yet…where am I? See…I was escaping capture from a…pretty
shady part of the world and instead of ending up home, I wound up here.”
“Tourist,”
he scoffed, but still he had a pleasant expression on his face. “You’d be surprised how many people have
given that story when they first
arrive. Something along those lines, at
least.” He smiled again and folded his
arms. “Well let me be the first to
say…” the muscle man reached out and heartily slapped him on the shoulder,
“…welcome to the Multiverse!”
“The…Multiverse?”
Tuxedo Mask answered, wincing under the blow.
Something told him he was holding back, but his friendly slap had a lot
of force behind it.
“You
look kind of beat,” he said. The guy in
the orange gi took a step out into the street, and quickly waved down a
cab. An old-looking yellow cab pulled
up beside them. It looked like
something out of an old Prohibition-era movie, yet it was in immaculate
shape. I guess retro stuff is
pretty popular at this time. “I have a place nearby; why not come with me back to
my place and you can get rested up?”
“Thanks,”
Tuxedo Mask replied. He followed the
kind stranger into the cab and shut the door behind him. “Oh, by the way, I didn’t catch your name…”
“Oh! Oh, yeah, how forgetful of me.” He stuck out
his hand towards the tuxedo-clad warrior.
“My name is Goku. It’s a pleasure!” They shook hands, but before he let go, he
asked, “And you would be?”
Goku. So he finally had a name to put with this
guy’s face. But what would he answer
his question with? Sure, in his home
world, he and his fellow superheroes, the Sailor Soldiers, couldn’t reveal
their secret identities. The only ones
who knew their true identities were one another. But then again he wasn’t in his own world, and he was curious as to whether or not those same rules
applied here or not. Were there other
superheroes like him in this strange world?
And if so, were they on the same terms as he was with Sailor Moon and
her friends? Oh well. Most likely,
once he got out of this world and went home, he wouldn’t return to this place.
“My
name is Darien.”
* * * * *
The
cab ride took about fifteen minutes, and when they finally stepped out, the cab
had brought them to a quiet housing development on the outskirts of Multiverse
City. That was the name given to the thriving
megalopolis Darien crashed down into.
Based on Goku’s descriptions, the city was as diverse as Darien assumed
and then some. Darien was even more
shocked to learn that the city, which was roughly the size of the state of
Delaware, boasted a population of one hundred million people. Goku’s Multiverse abode was on the north end
of the city, far removed from the ocean.
Darien had previously assumed that there was nothing to this dimension
than the enormous city in which he was visiting. There would be a lot that Goku would have to explain to the
stranger, but that would be after they got settled.
After
he was introduced to Goku’s beloved wife Chichi, he was offered use of the
shower, which he graciously accepted.
Before doing so, though, Tuxedo Mask did one thing he hasn’t done in
quite a while…he reverted to his normal form.
The signature tuxedo was gone, and Darien stood before his new friends
in a black polo shirt with a green sport jacket over top and khakis. For a few moments, the two were speechless.
“Well,
that was different,” Chichi managed to get out after quite some time.
“Cool
trick!” Goku commented. “How’d you do
that?”
Darien
smiled, and raised a hand to his face, the fore and middle fingers
extended. “Magic,” he said, whimsically.
“‘Magic’?”
Goku echoed. “Oh, I get it, it’s some
sort of trade secret, right?”
“For real, Goku,” Darien said,
rolling his eyes. “It’s magic. See?” Darien
shut his eyes and concentrated for a moment.
Translucent, white energy swirled around him, from his feet to his
head. When it subsided, Tuxedo Mask
stood before the married couple, his tuxedo fresh and clean, not a mark on
it. His top hat and mask returned as
well, each looking just as immaculate as the rest of his attire. “I can turn it on and off in an
instant.” With that, he reverted back
to his normal form, leaving Goku and Chichi just as startled. “You know, you two should feel honored.” He threw his arm back, unfurling his cape in
a flourish. “Very few people in this
world get to see the true identity of the one and only Tuxedo Mask!”
Goku
and Chichi facevaulted.
* * * * *
Chichi
had cooked up a huge dinner for the boys, the likes of which Darien was used to
seeing at large banquets. It was here
at dinner he was introduced to Goku’s oldest son, the twelve-year-old
Gohan. He resembled his father in many
ways, save for the hairstyle; Gohan had equally wild black hair, but it fell
down below his shoulders. Despite the
fact that there were only four of them at the dinner table that night, they –
Goku and Gohan in particular – ate everything on the table. All that was left were a pile of dirty
plates and table scraps. While he was
very hungry as a result of his exploits, he could only manage three platefuls
(how strange they measured dinner servings in plates), Goku and Gohan ate
everything else that was not nailed down.
Content
with their full stomachs, Goku and Darien retired to the back patio, basking in
the peaceful night of the Multiverse.
As Darien looked to the stars, he recognized several constellations. He figured this was a bit odd, considering
this was supposed to be an “alternate” universe, with certain aspects different
from what he was used to.
“You
know, I have a daughter about his age,” Darien said after a while, breaking the
silence.
“Oh
really?” Goku asked. “Interesting. Is she a ‘Sailor Soldier’ like your other
friends?”
“Indeed. My wife—her mother is a Sailor Soldier in
her own right. As am I, technically.”
“You
too, huh?” Goku’s head tilted to one
side, intrigued by his story. “I
thought they were all…you know, women.”
“There’s
always exceptions to the rules.” Darien
smirked. “Looks as though I’m the exception,
in this case.”
“How
did you land that role?”
“Not
by choice, actually, but by fate.
It’s…a pretty long story…one that starts about a thousand years
ago…” Darien then spent the next ten
minutes or so telling his newfound friend of the past, how his powers came
about, how he lived in his past life, and the rise and fall of the Silver
Millennium. Though he didn’t go through
every last detail, he told his friend of his past (and still applicable, when
he needed the extra strength) life as Endymion, prince of the Earth kingdom. Each of the planets of the solar system was
inhabited, each with a kingdom of its own.
The Moon Kingdom was the center of activity during this time, ruled by
Queen Serenity and her daughter, Princess Serenity—the current Sailor Moon and
Darien’s wife. He told of the Moon
Kingdom’s ultimate destruction and the eventual reawakening of the Sailor
Soldiers a thousand years later.
Eventually
he brought up the subject of how the Sailor Soldiers’ powers are passed down
via these magical objects called “Star Seeds”, passed down from mother to daughter. His mother (the queen of Earth) would’ve and
should’ve had a daughter, however she was cursed and was unable to bare a
girl. However, through some miracle, he
was born with the powers of Sailor Earth sleeping within him. It wouldn’t be until a long time until he
realized the true nature of his powers, however. The guardian/advisor to Sailor Moon and her Soldiers, Luna (a
talking black cat with a gold crescent moon on her forehead) informed the group
that the Silver Millennium was a matriarchal society; as great as Darien’s
powers were – or could’ve been – he would’ve been passed over for a woman with
magical qualities not quite as strong as his.
It was unheard of for a man to have any magical prowess whatsoever, let
alone be on par with any of the Sailor Soldiers at that time…and stand next in line to inherit his planet’s kingdom.
In
the distant future, the Kingdom of Crystal Tokyo is formed when the Earth is
frozen over and reawakened by his Serena, who by now was Neo Queen
Serenity. She was the queen and he,
Endymion, was king. They had a
daughter, a girl with pink hair the same shade as cotton candy, and red
eyes. Her name is Reenie.
“So,”
Goku asked as the topic of his daughter arose, “your daughter is…”
“The
child of two Sailor Soldiers,” Darien finished. “Her powers come from the strongest qualities of Sailor Moon and
Sailor Earth.”
“That
would make her twice as powerful as any other Soldier to date, correct?”
“On
paper, yes. But you forget she is
barely ten years old. She doesn’t have
the experience and maturity to fully realize her full strength. Also, in her own time, there’s peace throughout
the world, and there isn’t as much as a need for her to go into battle.”
“I
see. Well, that makes sense.” Goku smiled, and his eyes grew intense. “But man, if my son’s any indication, she’s
gonna be a tremendous force to be reckoned with. All that power at her fingertips, fighting for righteous causes
and such? Man! I’d hate to be an evildoer in your
world!” He chuckled to himself.
“What
do you mean, ‘if my son is any indication’?
I’m not quite sure I follow.”
“Well,
by that I mean…my son is a martial artist like myself. He’s really tough, too…I mean, he—in my
world there’s a group of about seven or eight of us who…you know, the first
line of defense for our planet. And,
well, he’s like nothing you’ve ever seen.
Hell, he’s one of the strongest fighter in my universe…and he’s not even twelve, for Kame’s sake!”
“Truly
incredible.” Darien looked to the night
sky. “I feel we can learn a lot from
each other regarding our ideals on justice and the eradication of evil. Too bad our ways must part soon.”
“You
know…it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.”
Darien
blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve
been tossing around this idea of mine in my head for quite a while, now. I’m not too trusting in ideas like fate and
destiny, but your stumbling into the Multiverse is no coincidence.” He positioned himself so he was completely
facing Darien. “You see, you’re not the
only one who’s traversed sub-dimensions of his own world. In my travels, I too have met a number of
great warriors whose beliefs are pretty similar to mine, but…for one reason or
another, haven’t followed me on this.
Though with the troupe I have back home, we’ve brought peace to our
world and rid it of evil. Well, the
really big, world-threatening stuff, not the petty personal squabbles, you know
what I’m saying, right?”
“You
couldn’t possibly wait on every personal grudge in any world; that’s just not
happening,” Darien added. “Besides, you
don’t know when a huge threat could come about.”
“I
know, right? But anyway, here’s my
point…” Goku’s tone became more
serious. “I’m not about to write off
your sudden injection into the Multiverse as coincidence. I believe you were sent here. I don’t
know who or what was most responsible for you getting here, but that’s not
important now. I learned a lot while I
was traveling and meeting all those other ‘good guys’: fighting strategies,
ideas of justice, defending the innocent, so forth and so on. This was all well and good, but the main
problem I had was that we never stayed together for very long. Until now.
“You
see Tuxedo Mask, ever since I became absorbed in Multiverse culture and had
gained new insights on how existence works, it has been my vision, my dream…to assemble a righteous fighting force dedicated to
wiping out evil—not just in an individual’s home universe, but in all universes and here
in the Multiverse.” He turned and looked
up at the night sky, holding his hands out, framing the starry sky in his
fingers. “Imagine…no matter what world
you could possibly visit, you wouldn’t have to worry about crime, hunger,
poverty, sorrow…it would all be nonexistent.”
His head turned to his new acquaintance. “You understand where I’m coming from with this? You probably think I’m crazy or something…”
“Not
entirely,” Darien responded. “I can
understand where you’re coming from and where you want to go, even if the
ideal, on paper, seems a bit Utopian.”
“So
whaddya say? You interested in joining
my new team?”
“I’m
still not sure,” he answered, uneasy.
“Like I said, I still want to get home and see my family—”
“Hey,
I understand. Traveling between the
Multiverse and one’s home dimension is pretty common, believe it or not. You could go to your world, catch up on
stuff there and hop back here and not miss a beat. Hell, I do it so much it’s almost as day-to-day for me as
training!” Goku laughed heartily, which
eased Darien’s tension a bit.
“If
I may ask…how does one travel from dimension to dimension?”
“Oh? That’s simple. Special cars are equipped with devices that allow people to
travel from one dimension to another.
You can rent them, for a pretty reasonable fee, or you can save up some
cash and buy your own. I have one of my
own, so it’s all a matter of getting the proper authorization.”
Darien
nodded solemnly. “So,” Goku continued,
extending his hand for a handshake?
“What do you say? You in?”
Darien
mulled over the heavily muscled warrior’s proposal. There was definitely potential in his plan, that’s for sure. Traveling around existence to stomp out evil
in every last corner of the universes, meeting interesting friends and
exterminating vile, nasty villains…it sounded like something out of a comic
book or a television show, but this, this was
too real to be anything else. Hell, he
hardly believed he had crossed into another dimension not even remotely connected
to his own, but he did.
Once-in-a-lifetime opportunities seemed to be falling into his lap
today, and this would be another one he wouldn’t turn down.
He
returned the handshake with just as much gusto as Goku had put forth. “Very well.
I accept your offer!”
“Outstanding!”
Goku declared. They broke off the
handshake and retired to inside the house.
“We’ll leave tomorrow morning to go dimension-hopping. We’ll recruit the strongest and most
righteous heroes ever known!”
* * * * *
The
family plus their houseguest slept soundly that night, and woke early in the
morning…early by Darien’s standards, anyway.
He liked sleeping in just as much as his wife and daughter when there
wasn’t much to do one particular day, but he was jarred from his sleep rather
abruptly. The sounds of Goku and Gohan
training out in the back yard – the collisions of fists and feet, the loud
shouting, and the occasional energy blast-related explosion did little to ease
him out of his slumber. Chichi calmly
explained that this was part of their daily routine. They get few complaints from their neighbors, partially because
they fear the ones responsible for the disturbances can do some real harm to
them should they…complain too much.
Chichi
again produced another large meal for the boys when they finished training, and
as usual, they eat heartily, leaving nothing but a few traces of eggs,
breakfast meats and bagels. They only
talked briefly about Goku’s plan to go dimension hopping, and only when Chichi
asked what Goku’s plans were for the day.
Gohan asked if he could join them, but his mother flat-out denied him,
citing his own studies were more important than the safety of existence.
Darien
didn’t quite understand that logic. “I’ve
been trying to understand that point of view for years,” he remarked.
Once
they had eaten, Goku led Darien through the house to the garage. Amidst the bikes, spare barbecuing
equipment, workbench and other miscellaneous riffraff was the car they would be
using when traveling through the dimensions.
It was a sleek, four-seat car, which looked something between a Lamborghini
and a redesigned Ford Thunderbird. It
sat on twenty-inch rims that looked like they had some practical applications
to them. Perhaps they could shield the
tires from any attacks. It looked to be
blue at first, but from different angles it appeared to be purple, or
green. It must be painted with that
special paint whose color varies depending on the angle, and how light hits it
and such. With a push of a button, the
driver and front passenger side doors opened, and Goku slid in behind the
wheel. Tuxedo Mask got in the passenger
side and shut the door.
“Alright,”
Tuxedo Mask asked, “so how do we do this?”
“Simple,”
Goku answered, putting the key in the ignition and starting the engine. The inside of the car came to life, the
dashboard looking like the inside of a cockpit. The 8” LCD screen and the variety of gizmos and other gadgets
imbedded in the dash (with enough room for a stereo system, apparently) didn’t
bother him as much as one particular design.
It was three glass tubes positioned like a Y, encased in a gray box mounted
into the dash. There were various warning
notices written in Japanese, all in red characters.
Darien’s
eyebrows furrowed. “Is that a…Flux Capacitor?”
he asked.
“Yep,”
Goku answered, punching a few keys on the keyboard underneath the monitor. Two hydraulic jacks raised the back of the
car off the floor, and Goku stepped on the gas. The odometer started to climb…20, 30, 40…. “How else do you expect to travel between
planes of existence? Magic?”
“Well…that’s
kind of what we use in my world,” Darien said.
“But this isn’t my world, now is it?”
“Hey,
you use what works. See, the theories behind
the Capacitor were designed only for traveling through time—think of it as
moving up and down in terms of parallel universes. Up and down is time travel, left and right is moving through
realities. A while ago they discovered
that one could move left and right.
See? The one I have in my car is
the original model, meaning you still gotta pump out 1.21 gigs of power while
going 88 miles an hour. But a while
back a new version was released, requiring less speed—” The odometer climbed to about 85 before Goku
released the jacks and the car took off like a rocket through the open garage. The car would’ve tore right through the
house directly across the street from them if it hadn’t blinked out of existence
right at the last second.
* * * * *
“—and
less energy to shift between dimensions.
The only problem is that once you get passed the gate to the Multiverse
you can’t travel as far horizontally.”
Goku didn’t miss a beat during his conversation with Darien as the two
exited the Multiverse and involved at what looked like a divine toll
plaza. It looked like an ordinary tollbooth
system one would find on a typical superhighway. The primary difference is that it looks like an ancient temple.
“What
is this place?” Darien asked.
“This
is what’s called the Gates to the Multiverse,” Goku answered, bringing the car
to a calm 20 miles an hour. “This is
where they regulate travel between the Multiverse and all the thousands of
parallel universes.”
“It
looks like a divine toll booth. It
wouldn’t surprised me if you had to pay money to do this.”
“Nah,
just the necessary paperwork.” A gate
blocked their path as they came to the tollbooth, and the portly woman working
the booth handed Goku a clipboard and a pen.
After scratching down the necessary information, he handed it off to
Darien. “Here, I need you to sign this.”
“Sign
what?”
“Just
some paperwork. It’s pretty standard
procedure and all.” Darien shrugged,
and signed where indicated. Once he
did, the forms were returned to the booth operator. Two lines of lights suddenly lit up the ground before them, again
raising his curiosity.
“What’re
those? Is thins a runway?”
“Just
think of it as the launching sequence.”
Engines whirred, computers beeped, and there was a growing rumbling like
a jet engine firing up. Goku leaned
back, putting his hands behind his head.
They wouldn’t be in control of the car at this point; they would be on a
form of autopilot until they reached their definition. However, just before they launched, they
heard a very disturbing sound come from the booth.
“Oops…”
Goku
and Darien’s eyes suddenly grew wide, and Goku was jarred from his relaxed position. They both looked at the tollbooth, then
turned their shocked gazes to one another.
“‘Oops’?!”
They
had no time to further discuss the mishap, as their car was suddenly
launched. It was like being on an
out-of-control roller coaster. The two
strings of lights kept going forever in front of them, until suddenly they took
a sharp turn upward. They were being
taken in a giant loop-the-loop, however, unlike a true loop-the-loop, this one
fell…short. Judging by the affect of
gravity on the car, pulling him from his seat (slightly, though; he was wearing
a seat belt), he estimated that they only went about 270 degrees—3/4 the way
around.
They
both screamed in shock.
“Something
tells me this isn’t usually how it goes!” Darien bellowed, his hands gripping
the seat as the car went faster. There
was no sign of slowing, the scene in front of them similar to traveling through
space at warp speed.
“I hope somebody gets fired for
this!” Goku shrieked, his hands clutching the wheel. The two men kept yelling as their car spiraled into the darkness
and into eternity.
TO
BE CONTINUED…………………