Author's Note: If you wish to comment on my story, either positively or negatively, don't hesitate to contact me at [email protected]. Sailor Moon and all related characters are the property of Takeuchi Naoko, Toei Animation and DIC. Sailor Sirius is the property of Sharon Williams. Any references to Vulcan are the province of Gene Roddenberry and Paramount Studios. So, please, don't sue me because I haven't any money. I do this strictly for entertainment purposes, not copyright infringement.
Girls Just Want To Have Fun
by Jeffrey C. Branch
Part Seven: Hunting Girls
Rating: PG-13
The people on the platform at the University of Tokyo subway station waiting for the train to take them home paid no attention to the two teenage girls who stood at the far end of the platform, looking from side to side.
A low, deep rumble heralded the arrival of a train as it pulled into the station while another train arrived on the other platform. The two girls patiently waited for the trains to leave the station, leaving the platform empty, save for them. After checking to see that the coast was clear, Talia carefully climbed down onto the tracks, followed by a nervous Tanya who did likewise. Once the girls were swallowed up by the darkness, they transformed, but that gave Sailor Sirius no comfort.
"We'll be lucky if we don't get plastered by a train," the Star Scout grumbled. "Uh, Tal? Have I told you in the last ten minutes that this isn't a safe thing to be doing?"
Sailor Vulcan, holding a penlight she took from Okada's apartment nodded. "As a matter of fact, you have. Approximately nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds ago. Actually, the odds of our being electrocuted on the third rail are considerably greater than being struck by a train."
Sirius glared at her partner. "Oh, really? Well, that sure makes me feel a whole lot better!"
"I merely state facts, Sailor Sirius," Vulcan said. A rumble from behind them made the Scouts turn around where they saw a train a hundred yards away as it pulled out of the station. Vulcan pushed Sirius against the wall, then flattened herself to it seconds before the train roared past. For several moments, Sirius, clinging to the wall for dear life feared she'd lose her grip and be slammed against the train. Once it passed, the Star Scout's ears were ringing and she was breathing hard to the point of hyperventilating. After a few moments, she managed to calm herself. Barely.
"Whew! That was close. I must've been out of my freaking mind to come down here," Sirius grumbled. She looked down and saw that her uniform, like Vulcan's was covered with a thin layer of soot from the passing train. Sirius rolled her eves. She hated being dirty. "This just gets better and better."
"I would agree that a temporary suspension of sanity was a prerequisite for this outing," said Vulcan. "However, it is not too late for you to return to the surface. I will not hold it against you if choose to do so. I am more than capable of continuing on alone."
Sirius emphatically shook her head. "Over my dead body! The only way I turn back is if you turn back. I don't abandon the people I love! Not ever!"
"I greatly appreciate your loyalty, Tanya." When the penlight Vulcan held illuminated a large rat scurrying into the darkness, Sirius screamed like a banshee and leaped into Vulcan's arms. Only the sound of a passing train on the other track muffled the sound.
"Afraid of rodents?" Vulcan asked.
Sirius, embarrassed over having been so easily frightened hastily broke the embrace and glared angrily at the Vulcan Scout. "Certainly not! For your information, Miss Busybody, I love screaming my damn fool head off in pitch black subway tunnels! Any more stupid questions?"
"None. There is no need to be upset. Your reaction was quite predictable, and understandable, given the surroundings we are currently in." Then, with a brief, but mischievous glint in her eyes, she added: "After all, Tanya, humans are not perfect."
Sirius decided to play along. "But Vulcans are, right?"
Vulcan effected a haughty expression. "Of course."
"Of course. Bite me, you pointy eared smart aleck!"
"Bite you? But that would not be a sanitary thing to...."
"SHUT UP! I swear, Kirk, if we get through this in one piece, I'm gonna buy you a book of slang and put a gun to your head until you memorize every stinking page! Now c'mon!"
"After you." Once again, Vulcan got a small measure of enjoyment out of annoying her friend.
Back on the platform, three women, garbed in short black dresses and toting large shoulder bags watched the girls enter the tunnel. The new Agent Silver, having gone to the campus had seen the girls leave Okada's apartment building and decided to follow them, figuring they might lead him to the scientist. When the trail led into the subway, the black woman nodded from understanding, coming to the realization that her target was underground.
"You figure they're headed to where Okada's hiding, ma'am?" asked Agent 5, the Asian.
"Yup, I sure do, Xian. Looks like they found a clue the cops didn't when they searched his place earlier," said Silver.
"Then we move?" asked Agent 6, the German.
"Absolutely. We move." Silver opened her bag and removed an oiled M-4 carbine and a satchel of spare clips. The black woman shoved a clip into the weapon and chambered a round. 5 and 6, sporting similar weapons quickly did likewise. "Time to go hunting, kids!"
Eight p.m., The Tsukino home:
Serena surprised her parents and Sammy by barely eating any dinner and then went to bed early. Despite how tired she was, Serena had trouble falling asleep because of the memories of the battle at the campus, memories she had been forced to relive when she gave Luna a full report on the return of the heartsnatchers.
For two hours, Serena tossed and turned and moaned in her sleep, forcing Luna who normally slept at the foot of her bed to move to the dresser instead. Of late, Luna had been spending many nights there as Serena was increasingly being plagued by nightmares over her past missions as Sailor Moon. Suddenly, Serena shot up with a loud gasp, her eyes wide, barely stifling the scream in her throat. She felt an icy chill run up and down her spine, and a deadly coldness clamp itself around her heart like a vice.
Luna, awakened from the sound of Serena's cry was startled. Poor girl. Did she have another bad dream, the familiar wondered. "Serena? What is it? What's wrong?"
Serena, shaking, clutched at her chest and was breathing hard, trying all the while to comprehend that feeling she had. No, not a feeling, she thought. A premonition! Like someone I know is headed into terrible danger. "Oh, God! Talia and Tanya! Luna! I think they're in trouble!"
"How can that be? They both went home! Didn't they?"
"Yeah! Didn't they?" Serena picked up the phone and dialed Tanya's number. It was answered on the other end by her father, Reverend Peter Cambridge who said his daughter hadn't come home yet. Scowling, Serena hung up and then dialed the Hattori home, only to get the same sort of response from Mrs. Hattori about Talia. After she hung up, Serena, now angry slammed the receiver down.
"Tal and Tanya never made it home! They must've gone after Okada! Damn them!" Jumping out of bed, Serena hurriedly got dressed.
Luna was shocked. "What? I can't believe they'd be so foolhardy!"
"C'mon, Luna! You know good and well how singleminded Tal can be!" snapped Serena, pulling on jeans. "Once she gets it in her head to do something, she doesn't quit! Period! And Ti's grown so attached to Talia, she'd never let her go off alone! I should've seen this coming! I've got to find them!"
"But, Serena! They could be anywhere! Where will you look?"
Serena scowled after throwing on a sweater. She grabbed her brooch from her nightstand and put it in the front pocket of her jeans. "I'll start at the campus where we fought those robots. It'll be suicide for them to battle the heartsnatchers alone! They don't know what those monsters can do!" Putting on sneakers, she opened her window and scampered out to climb down a nearby tree to the street like she had countless times before.
"Good luck, Serena!" Luna whispered to her charge.
"Thanks, Luna! I'm gonna need it!"
Vulcan and Sirius traveled half a mile down the tunnel, avoiding trains, rats and the third rail when they came across a small side tunnel, six feet across by seven feet high. The two Scouts looked at each other.
"You think this is it?" Sirius asked.
Vulcan nodded. "Yes. Unless my geography is in error, we are now under the east end of the campus where we had been attacked. Let us proceed."
The Scouts entered the tunnel, even darker than the train tunnel, the penlight being the only illumination. Sirius, feeling a sliver of fear in the stifling blackness reached for Vulcan's free hand and held it tight. The Scout of Order, feeling her friend's nervousness gave Sirius' hand a reassuring squeeze. The Sailors slowly covered a hundred yards when Vulcan saw the tunnel branch off in two directions. Without warning, she killed the light.
"What is it?" a worried Sirius asked in a whisper.
"Someone is coming down the left fork," Vulcan whispered back. "Several people from the sound of it."
"Okada's robots?"
"Possibly. Prepare yourself."
Sirius summoned her scepter while Vulcan crossed her arms over her chest and the power began to build within them both.
The footsteps grew' louder and louder as Vulcan and Sirius prepared to attack. Vulcan, as normal was calm and ready for action. Sirius however was frightened, yet resolute, silently vowing that she would not let down her friend. An instant later, ten black clad forms, carrying red lensed flashlights and Heckler & Koch MP-5 assault rifles leaped out into the main tunnel, ready to fire.
"Jesus! Hold your fire!" cried Inspector Haneda who was in the lead when he saw the Scouts. The others, including Officer Shidou lowered their weapons. "Vulcan? Sirius? What the hell are you doing down here?"
"Searching for Professor Okada," replied Vulcan, lowering her arms. "I must admit this is quite a surprise, Inspector."
Haneda, wearing thick black body armor and a riot helmet like the others nodded. He held a folded piece of paper in his right hand. "And then some. Say, where's Sailor Moon?"
The two Scouts glanced at each other before facing the veteran cop. "Sailor Moon is....indisposed at the moment," Vulcan responded.
The cop nodded. "I'm not surprised, seeing how she kept nodding off in my office. How did you know to come down here?"
"Well, er, seeing how that robot sneaked up on us on the campus. we figured it must've come from underground," Sirius replied hastily. She thought it best to stretch the truth rather than reveal that she and Vulcan had broken into Okada's apartment. "Sailor Vulcan's a student of history, and she told me about the underground tunnels from World War Two. So we decided to take a peek. We went through the subway to get here."
Shidou was startled. "The subway? Whoa! That was either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid."
Sirius glared briefly at Vulcan. "Bet your paycheck on the latter. What about you guys?"
"After you ladies left headquarters, I decided to look around Okada's apartment. When I saw the map he had on his wall, I immediately knew what it meant," Haneda replied. "So I put together an assault team to do a probe. We took a much safer route and came down a manhole that was on the campus."
"I am curious, Inspector. How do you know about the tunnel system?" Vulcan asked.
"My father, God rest his soul was one of the architects who designed it. His original version of the map is in my den." Haneda then held up the paper in his hand. "I made a copy of it to guide us around down here."
Sirius chuckled. "Walt Disney was right. It is a small world after all." She then smirked at Vulcan. "I thought you said the cops wouldn't find any clues to Okada's hideout."
"Obviously I was mistaken." While it didn't show on her face, it annoyed Vulcan to have been proven wrong. She then stared at Haneda. "Inspector, I strongly suggest you and your people return to the surface. Sailor Sirius and I cannot guarantee your safety should we encounter another android."
Haneda shook his head. "Sorry, but we're in this for the long haul. We're cops, Sailor Vulcan. It's part of the job to put ourselves in harm's way to protect the public. And besides, we love this city too."
"We should get going, sir," Shidou urged. She jerked a thumb at the right fork. "Maybe that tunnel won't be a dead end like the other one."
"Sounds good to me." Haneda turned to face the Scouts. "Ladies?"
"You betcha. But we'll take the lead," said Sirius in a no nonsense tone. And with the Scouts in front, the hunters headed off into the dark.
"May fortune favor the foolish," Haneda muttered under his breath.
For the last two hours, Midnight and Gold watched silently as Evelyn Hunsacker drank herself into a semi-stupor. For the two women, they had seen this many times before. And the sight never failed to repulse them.
"If I'd known Okada and his goons could make that stupid junk work, I woulda had them bumped off back in Houston," grumbled Hunsacker as she unsteadily paced the floor barefoot in Midnight's office. After stumbling in her heels following her sixth drink twenty minutes ago and nearly falling, she kicked off her shoes before pouring her seventh. "Okada's gonna be a pain in the ass to my partners in the oil industry."
"You couldn't have known this would happen, ma'am," said Midnight, seated on the couch, Gold sitting next to the brunette held her hand. "From the way Okada described his heartsnatching process, it sounded like something right out of an episode of Star Trek. It was inconceivable that his crazy scheme could actually work. You were right to send him packing."
"And that was my mistake, darlin'. Now we gotta clean up this mess. If he gets away from us and finds someone to bankroll his loopy scheme, we're screwed." After downing half her drink in one gulp, Hunsacker stumbled against Midnight's desk. The rich woman, tired of pacing plopped onto it.
Midnight rolled her eyes from barely concealed exasperation. "Don't worry, ma'am. We'll be ready to move as soon as we hear from Silver. She knows how to find people. By the way, I was curious to know if you've deposited the salary for this mission into our account?"
"Don't worry. I made sure everyone got paid before I left Hong Kong." She then eyed Midnight suspiciously. Hunsacker was disgusted to see her and Gold holding hands. "You and your sweetie aren't thinkin' of runnin' out on me, are you?"
"Not at all, ma'am. That never occurred to us," Midnight said with an all too false sincerity that Hunsacker was too inebriated to see through. "In fact, Gold and I are looking forward to continuing our employment with you."
Gold nodded emphatically. "She's right, Mrs. Hunsacker. We wouldn't dream of leaving."
Hunsacker hopped off the desk, staggered over to Midnight and glared at her. "That's good. Loyalty means a lot to me. Before I brought you in, honey, you were down and out. After you were booted from the Army for being gay, you didn't have squat for a future, not with a dishonorable discharge hangin' over your head. So much for 'Don't ask, don't tell', eh?"
Midnight scowled from the ugly memory. Lisa Mitchell came out of the closet at sixteen, outraging her conservative parents who sent her into the Army after high school, thinking military life would 'cure' her. They were wrong. For ten long years, she tried her best to conform, even becoming an officer and qualifying for the Special Forces, but her insatiable desire for women eventually doomed her career. "I was young and lacked control over my....impulses."
"You can say that again." Hunsacker then stared at Gold. "And you, blondie. You were sellin' yourself to Manhattan high rollers when I recruited you. Imagine my surprise when you turned out to be as fruity as your girlfriend."
Gold's face was stony, but she was angry because she detested homophobic behavior. Courtney Hughes, a lifelong troubled girl ran away from home at seventeen and spent eight years in New York as a call girl when she was recruited by Hunsacker who was in town on business. It was only after she met Midnight and fell in love with her at first sight that she realized she was a lesbian, changing her life forever. "We all have our quirks, ma'am."
"Ain't that the truth. But I don't care about that. The both of you owe me. Never forget that!" Hunsacker snapped.
Midnight returned Hunsacker's stare. "Don't worry, ma'am. We won't let you down. We'll prove that to you."
Following the Scouts at a careful pace, Silver and her team reached the side tunnel the heroines entered. Silver flashed a red lensed flashlight down it's length. She scowled at how far the tunnel stretched.
"Paydirt," the black woman growled.
"Shouldn't we call for back up?" 5 asked.
"Nah. We can't wait for Midnight to send in the troops. Besides, I doubt we could get a signal back to HQ through all this rock," said Silver. "We don't need help anyway. All we have to do is find Okada, check him and his cronies into the Dirt Nap Motel and this mission's done."
"What about his robots? From what we heard about the battle at the campus, our guns won't even slow them down," 5 pointed out.
"With any luck, we can waste Okada before he sics his tinker toys on us, Xian. I'm not worried."
"What about the Scouts?" 6 asked.
Silver hefted her rifle. "I'm sure those goofy looking bitches can stop a bullet just as well as anybody else. Let's go."
Okada nodded with satisfaction as lie gazed at the battalion of robots in the preparation chamber. Yet, he felt a twinge of sadness because Scott Ramsey was not here to see it all.
"I think we're ready, Masaharu," said Bagwell, standing beside his longtime friend. Holding a laptop computer in his hands, the portly scientist tapped a few keys and the visor lights on all the androids flared to life. "Even though we didn't have time to augment the seeds via direct exposure to radiation, by putting two in each machine, they should be more than powerful enough to handle anything, including the Scouts."
"And even though we lost two robots, we still have enough containment units to complete Operation Liberate," said Hawthome. "We're ready."
Okada, pleased, nodded. The robots were ready, the computer hard drives, all their info backed up on CD-ROMS were blanked, and the remaining two hundred seeds were in refrigerated storage for travel since the scientists had no intention of returning once they leave. Just then, there came a shrill beeping from his workstation. Arching an eyebrow, he walked over to his desktop computer and punched a key to turn off the screen saver. Flashing on the monitor screen in large red letters were the words:
PERIMETER BREACH
"What the devil does that mean?" Hawthorne demanded.
"The sensor beam in the tunnel's been tripped. We've got company," said Okada. He hit several keys on his keyboard, activating a hidden infra-red camera in the tunnel, showing the grim faced Scouts and the police.
"Good Lord! How'd they find us?" a worried Bagwell asked.
"I don't know, but that's not important. We have to prepare for them, and quickly," said Okada.
"How much time do we have?" Hawthorne wanted to know.
"Scott placed that camera a quarter mile away from our front door. Judging from their pace, I'd say we've got ten minutes, tops. Cletus, set up a phalanx, then prepare the transport. Hawthorne, remove two seeds from storage and bring them to the oven along with the experimental mold."
Hawthorne was puzzled. "The mold? What do you have in mind?"
"Like you warned me this afternoon, we can't afford to waste any more machines fighting the Scouts. So we're going to try something different."
"What do you mean by different?" Bagwell asked.
A hard look came over Okada's face. "We're going to repeat history."
After Serena arrived on the campus, she decided to head back to the Engineering building where she and the girls had been ambushed by Okada's androids this afternoon. She didn't know where else to search for her friends and figured that would be a good place to start.
As she approached the building, trying to act as nonchalant as possible, despite how badly her stomach was churning, Serena noticed the building had been cordoned off by yellow plastic tape while a couple of police cars sat in front of the main entrance. Only glancing at the building, Serena kept on walking, determined to find another place to search.
Serena walked another one hundred yards when she saw a large black van parked at the curb in front of a wall. Crouching behind some bushes, Serena saw a police officer sitting in the passenger seat smoking. She then saw that the van was blocking an open manhole cover. Serena nodded. The meaning of that became all too clear to her.
Maybe Okada's hiding underground and the cops figured it out, Serena thought, her face taut. Tal and Tanya must be down there too. Then that's where I'm going!
Her heart pounding, Serena picked up a handful of pebbles and crept out from behind the bush. Careful to stay out of the cop's line of sight, Serena sneaked up behind the van. Breathing shallowly, Serena threw the pebbles as far as she could, hoping the sound would distract the cop.
Serena's gamble paid off to perfection as the cop stepped out of the van and moved off to investigate. As he did, Serena bolted for the manhole and scampered down the ladder before the cop returned. By the time she reached the bottom, Serena, unprepared for how dark it was cursed herself for not bringing a flashlight.
"Great. Just great," she growled, removing her brooch to transform. She focused on her anger to keep from being terrified. "If Tal and Tanya don't get themselves killed down here, so help me, I'll strangle those two myself!"
After what seemed like an eternity, covering nearly three hundred yards, the Scouts and the Police reached a steel door at the end of the tunnel.
"Looks like this is the place, partner," said Sirius. Her stomach was twisted in knots from nervousness as she thought about what was waiting for her, Vulcan and the cops on the other side.
"That would seem to be the case," said Vulcan with a nod. She ran a hand along the door and stared at it intently. "In my opinion, a stealthy approach would be ineffective here. The possibility also exists that Okada is already aware of our presence. Everyone, stand back. I shall breach the entrance."
"How?" asked one of the SWAT cops.
"Are you kidding? We're Sailor Scouts!" said Sirius with a chuckle as she herded Haneda and his troops back a good twenty feet. "Go for it, girlfriend!"
Vulcan, also backing up and crossed her arms over her chest. The power quickly amassed within her as a golden sphere enveloped her torso. "Vulcan Shockwave....STRIKE!"
At practically point blank range, the Scout of Order thrust her arms forward and released her sonic energy sphere, easily blowing the door off it's hinges with a loud shriek of rendered metal, leaving a huge cavity in it's place. Before the dust settled, the Scouts and the police rushed inside, ready to attack. The invaders stopped short and gasped from wide eyed shock at what met their eyes.
Okada, Bagwell and Hawthorne stood at the back of a battalion of two dozen nine foot tall, four armed androids, all with the same visors which had blue LED's moving from side to side. The machines, all silent and unmoving left the Scouts and the police stunned from shock, none of them expecting such an incredible force.
"Oh, boy," whispered Sirius, her heart in her throat. "To quote a famous line from an all-time movie classic: 'We're gonna need a bigger boat."'
The sharp click-clack of Moon's high heels, seemingly amplified a thousandfold by the walls of the tunnel she walked in unnerved her. With the only light coming from the Imperium Silver Crystal in her brooch, Moon, worried that she was lost checked her communicator every few minutes for a signal from her friends.
"C'mon, guys. Give me a sign. Tell me where you are. Please," she whispered.
After ten minutes of walking, Moon, her breathing shallow, her heart pounding in her chest could feel the walls slowly closing in around her, increasing the terror she already felt. Shivering furiously, Moon stopped, hugged herself and sank to her knees. Her mind plagued by fear and claustrophobia, her concentration waned and the crystal's silver light went out, plunging her into pitch-blackness. Moon, hysterical, slapped her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming.
"Dear God. I'm alone. And in the dark. Somebody, anybody, help me! I'm frightened!" she whispered, tears spilling from her eyes. After several minutes, Moon, with a considerable amount of effort, shook off her fear. "C'mon, Tsukino! This is no time whine like a baby! You're supposed to be a hero! So get your butt in gear and act like one!"
Feeling her strength, and her resolve return, Moon rose to her feet. As she did, her brooch once again shone from the energy of the crystal, illuminating the path before her. With a nod, Moon continued on, determined to find her friends.
As she spotted the end of the tunnel, Moon spotted what she thought was a light from up ahead. Thinking it to be Vulcan and Sirius, a smiling Moon broke into a run and headed for the exit.
"Guys! Guys! Wait up! It's me!" Moon cried as she exited the tunnel and into a smaller one. Her smile vanished when she saw that it wasn't her friends, but three women in short black dresses toting assault rifles and sidearms in shoulder holsters. They turned to glare at Moon who had surprised them.
One of the women, a scowling, hardfaced blonde, leveled her weapon at a shocked Moon and opened fire.
"Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly," said Okada, a notebook sized computer in his hands. "My name is Masaharu Okada, and these are my associates, Cletus Bagwell and Reginald Hawthome. I commend you on finding us. Though it won't do you any good. You don't have long to live."
"The hell you say!" snarled Shidou, raising her weapon.
"No!" shouted Sirius, stopping the cop from firing. "Those tin cans are armored like battleships! The ricohets from your gun could kill us all!"
"I am aware of who you are, Professor Okada. You are Japan's leading expert on genetics. A well respected man of science," said Vulcan. "Why are you involved in this madness?"
Okada chuckled. "Madness? That depends entirely upon your point of view, my dear. I am a man of vision, and this is the fruit of my endeavors. These androids and the lifeforms within them represent the future of energy production in the world."
"Energy production? What the devil are you talking about'?" Haneda demanded.
"As you well know, our insatiable demand for energy is coming close to outstripping available resources. Oil reserves aren't infinite, nuclear power is borderline perilous and solar power isn't entirely reliable. We're going to need a new source of power for the 21st century, and this is it," said Okada. "Shoichiro Tomoe, a geneticist like myself had created an artificial lifeform capable of extracting the pure energy force from the hearts of living beings which contains a near limitless amount of raw power. I learned of Tomoe's research two years before the untimely disaster at the Mugen School, then set about conducting my own experiments down here to refine his process, leading to what you see before you."
"All these robots? They're heartsnatchers?" a stunned Sirius cried.
Okada checked his watch, then nodded. "Yes they are, although I prefer to call them extraction units. The first stage of our experiment after creating the lifeforms was to use one to extract the heart crystal from a German Shepard, which has powered this facility for the last six months, thanks to a conversion process the late Scott Ramsey devised. Stage two was the field test this morning with homeless people, which you Scouts interrupted. The final stage, codenamed Operation Liberate will take place at Tokyo's Fuchu Prison where our machines will take the heart crystals of the facility's population. Our process will provide the world's energy needs for this century and beyond."
"Mister, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life!" growled Haneda. "There's no way in hell any rational government will sanction you to use and discard human lives in your experiments!"
"Don't be squeamish! We plan to use our process only on convicts, the lowest form of life around," Hawthorne snapped. "Imagine all the prisons in this world, overcrowded with scum and vermin who contribute nothing to our society. Well, that will soon change. No one will miss a few million sociopaths when their heart crystals are providing much needed energy to our cities."
"While America, Europe and Japan won't sanction us, Russia, China and Iraq certainly will," said Bagwell, mopping his brow. "According to our calculations, a single heart crystal can provide clean, safe energy to run a medium sized skyscraper for fifty years. Imagine the benefits of our process on a global scale. Eventually, everyone will fall into line and trade their prison refuse for the miracle we can provide."
Sirius became enraged. "You bloody maniacs! Who the devil are you to play God and decide who lives and who dies'? Even prisoners have a right to life! You can't take that from them! And I'll be damned if I let you try!"
Vulcan took a defensive pose. "I echo those sentiments."
"That goes double for us! In other words, pal, you're under arrest!" growled Haneda, lifting his rifle as did Shidou and the other cops.
"Admirable sentiments, but useless except as an epitaph," said Okada with a shrug. He then checked his watch and it beeped for several seconds. "Your time is now up. If you'll look to your right, you'll see what I mean."
The Scouts and the police did so and saw at the far end of the door of the oven blow itself open and a nightmarish horror crawled out. The thing looked like a spider, standing over seven feet tall with long, thick and powerful legs. It's body was a bright metallic red with dozens of eyes clustered on it's large, bulbous head and a wide mouth loaded with serrated teeth. And, even worse, the thing was growing before their very eyes.
Haneda gulped, a shiver running down his spine. "Sailor Sirius, to quote a line from another popular American movie....holy shit!"
Silver was furious as she snatched 6's gun out of her hands after firing a short burst at the fleeing Moon. "Idiot! What the hell did you do that for?"
"But ma'am! That was one of those Sailor Scouts Commander Midnight told us about!" protested the German.
"I know that, you dumb Kraut bitch! We could've taken her out with our silenced weapons! You've probably given us away with all that damn racket!"
6, realizing the mistake she made lowered her head from shame. "I'm sorry, ma'am."
Seething from rage, Silver dropped 6 to the ground with a vicious right cross to her jaw. "You're right about that! If I didn't need a full team to whack Okada, I'd kill you on the spot! Get up, stupid! Now we've gotta rush this job!"
"What about the girl?" 5 timidly asked.
Silver shone her flashlight down the tunnel Moon fled. What she saw on the ground made her smirk. "I don't think she's gonna be a problem for us much longer. C'mon, we've got work to do."
Moon had run twenty yards down the tunnel before her legs gave out and she crumpled face first to the cold, hard ground. She tried to stand, but her body, feeling like it weighed tons wouldn't obey her commands. That was when the pain hit her. A terrible, searing, white-hot fire in her left side that raged throughout her entire body, making her cry out from agony. Afraid, but certain of what she would find, Moon placed a trembling hand on her side, and when she held that hand in front of her in the light of the crystal, her white glove was stained red and dripping wet with blood.
"Oh, wow. I've....been shot," she whispered. Moon coughed and more blood bubbled up from her lips. Her fear magnified as the realization of her peril set in, Moon again tried to move, but her strength was completely gone. The all-consuming pain then slowly faded to a paralyzing, yet soothing numbness. Suddenly, Moon felt very sleepy and was having trouble keeping her eyes open. As her concentration waned, so too did the light from her brooch. "Never had that....happen before. Can't wait....to tell Darien....and the girls....about....this...."
With a sigh that sounded suspiciously like a death rattle, Moon closed her eyes and lay still. A moment later, the light from the brooch went out, plunging the tunnel into darkness.
NEXT: Converging Girls