Tai's Test! Experiment At The University!
Usually, school was an incredible bore for Ikiruousei Tai, where not a lot of interest actually happened. Mathematics was even more boring than usual: somebody had turned the heat up a few degrees too high inside the classroom, so most of the students were half asleep, fully asleep or getting to either position fairly quickly. The students sighed and pulled at their collars and dozed over their textbooks: time went doubly slow, and watching the clock was a nearly unbearable agony as the minute hand moved through thick syrup.
It was a welcome intrusion, then, when the school nurse opened the door and beckoned the maths teacher out; nobody took this as anything other than an opportunity to snooze more openly until the teacher came back into the room looking a little ruffled.
"Ikiruousei-san," he said, "the school nurse wants to see you in her office." (Obviously the agony of her missing even a moment of mathematics was the source of him being put out.)
Tai popped up faster then a jack in the box. Collecting her belongings she rushed down the hall to the nurses office. Thank god, one more minute of math class and I would have combusted. She brushed her hair from in front of her eye and opened the door.
"Ah Tai, we have an important task for you" The school nurse said with a smile. "Down at the University of Tokyo, they are building something and they need a girl of you talents to help them out." The purple hair girl raised her eyebrow. It didn't really matter what she said, as long as she could get out of school, now.
"So will you be willing to do it?" The nurse asked, ever so sweetly.
"Of course, when can I go?" Tai was getting impatient now, she wanted to nurse to say now so she could rush out the door.
"After school, they will need you there by 3 o'clock" Tai's face dropped. It meant she had to stay in school for the rest of the day. She sighed and headed back to the dreaded math class.
The school day dragged. When it came three o'clock, though, and Tai came to the esteemed Tokyo University campus, she was hustled forth into the science faculty - issued with a pass and escorted through all kinds of James Bond security measures, with key-cards and winding hallways down into secret laboratories. Unfortunately, the secret laboratory didn't look extremely secret: it was light and airy and had a water machine and pot-plants. When she got there, she was met by three of the scientists: they all wore the classic white coats and only one of them looked anything like a scientist out a book. It was the man, who wore thick coke-bottle glasses and wore his thinning hair in a combover: another was a tall woman with salt-and-pepper hair scraped back into a bun. The third, mystifyingly, looked barely older than Tai herself, a little terrified scientist with pale peach hair and huge eyes.
"Thank you very much for assisting us in our project," said the first scientist.
"Thank you!" chorused the other two, joining in with him, and they bowed low. "We are very grateful for your help with this," said the tall woman. "You'll be compensated for your time, Ikiruousei-san. We only ask that you not tell anyone the particulars of what you do here, as the project is a secret government-funded operation."
"Which was the paper you signed when you came in here," said the first scientist again. He bowed once more. "If you would go with Ichidaikiu-san - Ichidaikiu, it would be appropriate if you helped set Ikiruousei-san up."
It was the young-looking one; she nodded her head to the man, but she was twisting her hands in front of her as though she really didn't want to. She bowed to Tai again, and then once more, quite hurriedly. "Please come with me," she said, and her voice was quite high and fluttery.
She lead Tai down to another room, and this one looked more impressive; it had a computer and a couple of large, unrecognisable machines, and the type of bed you might get in a hospital room. The scientist bowed again as she lead Tai through and closed the door.
"I'm awfully sorry," she said, "but could you please get on the bed and I can, I might take your heart-rate? Would that be - could I?"
Tai raised her eyebrow. The blond haired girl seemed so nervous.
"Uh, Sure." She went over to the bed and sat down. Her eyes scoped out the room, everything was so futuristic. "You seem really young to be a scientist. Are you like ridiculously smart or something? Think maybe one day you want to help me with my math homework?" Tai laughed, she was trying to be nice so the frail girl wouldn't die from a heart attack. "Our names kind of sound similar, that's kind of funny huh? My name is Tai by the way." Searching around in her bag, she pulled out a small clear sandwhich bag with carrots and celery in it.
"Want some carrots?" Tai just kept talking, trying her hardest to be nice to the girl, who knows maybe the girl would help her with her math homework.
The girl was taking things out of the cupboards and piling them in a box, which she put down on the bed next to Tai. "Oh," she said, when faced with the carrots, "oh, I... thank you, you're so kind. That's so nice of you... but, um, I better not. Please feel free to have a snack while I just... could I roll up your sleeve? I'm so sorry - "
An armband connected to another machine was put around Tai's upper arm. She was blushing furiously, as though nobody was ever nice to her, and every so often she would give alarmed gazes of admiration to Tai, as if trying to think up something conversational to say and failing. "Don't you like... math?" she eventually ventured. "I didn't... I mean, I'm sure you're fine at it... I'm sure you are. Maybe I could help," she said, and giggled nervously as though this were an incredibly out-of-order thing to say. "Oh, um, I'm going to have to ask you to take off your clothes after this and wear a smock, but, um, you can get changed behind this screen, I mean... I'm so terribly sorry but we have to, um, put a holter monitor on you, Ikiruousei-san. Is that all right? I'm so sorry."
Tai took the smock and headed behind the screen. "You can call me Tai, You know." she laughed removing her shirt. "Its not that big of a deal." For some odd reason, she felt sort of awkward, It seemed like the girl had never have human contact before. "So you never told me your name." Tai finished dressing and came out from behind the screen. She placed her arms behind her head and walked around a bit. Everything was so weird here, like it was something out of a science fiction movie. "Yeah I hate math, I actually dislike school all together. Its so dull and boring. Nothing ever happens and all they do is talk about useless things that I couldn't give a flying heck about." Tai stopped talking for a moment to even see if the girl was listening. "I don't know. Sorry that I'm talking so much."
~ * ~
Mania, or rather Manami-chan, as she had dubbed herself moved down the empty corridors of the science wing of the university, occasionally observing the few classes still in session. She was inconspicuous enough in her carefully researched uniform and human disguise, although the exaggerated swaying of her arms and hips seemed to suggest that the limbs were recent acquisitions. Of course, when compared to the ghastly-looking young man who trailed several feet behind her, Mania was nigh invisible.Grinning as he passed a rather unfortunate looking undergraduate, Michi turned around to watch her walk away, giving a low whistle. The mortified student scuttled around a corner, but not before giving him the dirtiest look she could muster. Cackling, he caught up with Manami, placing a lanky arm around her narrow shoulders.
"Manami-chan, what do you say we blow this proverbial pop stand in favor of, I don't know, anywhere else?"
She gave a sinister giggle, a dainty misshapen hand covering her mouth.
"Oh Michi-kun, don't be silly! Niter-sama was very clear on his instructions!" She puffed her chest out, and recited, looking and sounding nothing like Niter. "Iblis-sama is counting on me to find a pure soul! We're not leaving until we find one!"
Michi merely rolled his eyes as the pair continued down the hall, stopping only when they reached a door at the end that was not specifically marked, but clearly implied "Authorized Personnel Only."
After a perfunctory inspection of the door, it was agreed that whatever laid on the other side would reveal something far satisfactory than whatever they had encountered thus far. Taking several steps back, Michi folded his arms over his chest authoritatively.
"Bust the lock, baby."
With a final blow of Mania's tentacles, the metal door ruptured and gave way, clattering into in the room. Next to her, Michi's clothing was flaking away in bursts of tiny scarlet sparks, revealing his pale uniform. He grinned savagely, striding into the room where the two other scientists resided.
"Look, Mania! Humans!" Michi clasped his hands together, squealing in delight at the sight of the balding one, who was currently trying unsuccessfully to hide behind a potted fern. He crossed the room, looming over the terrified man.
"Listen, hi, if you could just sit quietly while I extract your soul, I'd really, really, appreciate it. Could you do that for me..." Michi glanced down at the man's name badge. "...Ganjou-san?"
When the only response was a horrified whimper, Michi shrugged, and slipped a hand into the man's chest. He frowned at what he pulled out, a dull, pulsating orb.
"Oh gross, it's all...dingy!" He turned to show the soul to Mania, who promptly applauded. "Do you think Iblis will notice, or should we just get out?"
~ * ~
At the noise on the door, Chiyoko jumped nearly out of her skin: she looked at the door in horror. Her mind raced over the possibilities: it was none of her coworkers all who would have knocked, nor cleaning staff who would have knocked as well, and no students were allowed ID access past to this laboratory. She could only think of one solution -"CORPORATE THIEVES," she cried out helplessly.
Logos popped out of her pocket. Chichi nearly squeaked again in embarrassment for Tai, who she had been hoping would be a new friend, and now Tai-san would think she was crazy or maybe scream and run away. "Sailor Epsilon!" he boomed. "I sense the power of the Dark Kingdom at work! Quickly, transform with Sailor Rho!"
Chiyoko looked around, panic-stricken, for Sailor Rho. "Tai-san, please," she said, "run away somewhere safe!"
A little taken back by the mouse that knew she was a senshi. Tai rushed for her purse to find her wand. "I'm not going anywhere. You have a cracked out animal talking to you also. I guess you're one of my teammates." Tai laughed, in a what the heck is going on kind of way. Digging through her purse she grabbed out her wand and held it up. Unfortunately, she forget what to say. "Rho something Power? Rho Cracker Power? No, no that's not it. Umm Oh! Rho Crisis Power, Make -up!"
In a flash of red lights, Tai transformed into Sailor Rho. Looking at the girl, she noticed that the blond haired girl hadn't transformed yet. "Uh. So. That was probably weird for you wasn't it? Come on though, we need to kick some ass!"
"You see, Sailor Epsilon," said the mouse, "friends may be found anywhere!"
Teal-and-orange sailor-suited-soldier Sailor Epsilon did not appear to be very comforted about this. She had squealed "Epsilon Crisis Power, Make-Up?!" in a way that exclaimed a question mark on the end along with everything else, which was not the most confident thing to say in front of Tai-san - but Tai-san was a senshi! That thought swelled up in the shy girl's chest. A teammate - a teammate of her own, not just like Sailor Mars, who was a Negaverse senshi. She would have racked her brain, tongue-tied, for something to say - but then she heard the voices of her colleagues in the next room, and the thought filled her with dread.
She pushed open the door of the little examining room that she and Sailor Rho had been hiding out in, and peeked her head out the door before shuffling into sight. It wasn't a great entrance, and upon seeing Mania and Michi, the colour drained even further from her pale little face. She had been practicing a lot to say her challenge phrase, but the words exited her brain.
It was Mania who spotted Epsilon first, and she gave an otherworldly shriek, flailing her appendages in the girl's direction. Michi scrambled to his feet, still clutching the soul in one hand. Squinting as he tried to recall where he had seen her distinctive uniform before, his face lit up like so many yuletide trees.
"Hey, you're one of those chicks we're supposed to be fighting or whatever!"
He strode across the room, stopping at an uncomfortably close distance to Sailor Epsilon, a decidedly predatory look gracing his features. Towering over the mousy soldier, he leaned down to murmur "So.. do you have any plans after you try to kill me? I know a great little restaurant near here."
"Did you really just hit on her you creep?" Sailor Rho yelled, busting onto the scene in classic form. "She's busy later, she has bad guys like you to beat." Rho poked the Shitennou in the chest. "Now give that guys... umm whatever you took from him back and get the hell out of here." Sailor Rho clearly wasn't thinking getting so close the villain like that. In her mind she really thought he would place the soul back in the body and just leave.
"Whatcha waiting for creep? Do what I said or I am going to have to fight you."
Sailor Epsilon wanted to die: she wanted the earth to open up and swallow her whole. She had drained of colour the moment that Niter had leant in close: she somehow drained even further once Sailor Rho had burst in courageously, budging up next to her to prod the Shitennou in the chest. It was far too much for her. She made a high, pathetic noise of pain and misery, crossed her arms over her middle to hug herself, and accidentally set off a trap she had set there earlier that selfsame morning.
With a muffled bang! and a sharp, short flash, reams of white powder billowed up from her chest and through the thin fabric of her fuku in clouds: for a third time, she managed to go a colour beyond white, and tried to back away hurriedly from the rising substance. She could not, of course, as it was emanating from her, so she clapped her hands about her mouth and nose. "I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry! RHO-SAN," she cried out, totally muffled: and then, incredibly unhelpfully, "EXPECTORATE!"
This was not entirely accurate and didn't work anyway: she let out a small sneeze between her gloved fingers. It had, of course, been sneezing powder.
Michi was about to invite the violet haired senshi along when he suddenly sneezed. He stumbled back, trying to avoid the rapidly spreading clouds.
"Ugh! You chicks are al- ah.. ah-choo! ah-choo! ah-choo!!"
This wasn't going at all to plan, not that Michi had one. He threw out his hand, ready to unleash the beast.
"Looks like you guys are in for some head games!"
Nothing happened for several long, agonizing seconds before Mania gave a polite cough behind a tentacle.
"Ah.. Michi-kun, that's not your attack."
Michi whipped around to stare at his underling with an expression that did more than betray how little he knew what he was doing. "Really? I could've sworn... What's mine again?"
Mania scuttled over and whispered something in Michi's ear that made him grimace. "Seriously? That's awful." He shrugged and turned back to his two sailor-suited opponents.
"Alright ladies, this time it's for real!" He gave a theatric clap of his hands, thrust his hand out and asked "Are you in?" A beam of scarlet light emerged, shooting towards Epsilon's and Rho's vague general direction.
Truthfully, Sailor Rho had thought that Epsilon had just exploded, until she could not stop sneezing. "What.. The Heck?" was followed by about thousand sneezes. Completely unfocused, Sailor Rho had not noticed that the Shitennou was about to unleash his attack. "Seriously, though. What the heck was that?" Rho asked again, brushing off the rest of the powder.
Sailor Epsilon turned her head to answer: this was a fatal mistake, as she missed the chance to dodge the red beam. Her eyes went unfocused, and her mouth went slightly slack before her hands twitched a little. Her hands balled into fists and she sprang at Rho like a not-very-intimidating house cat - grabbing one of the purple pigtails and yanking it hard, slapping blindly (and admittedly, fairly weakly) at every square inch she could get at, tackling her and using the element of surprise to try to fling her to the floor.
"Sailor Epsilon," the rat previously on her shoulder cried out in vain - he ran down her leg and escaped to the relative safety of the floor. "Sailor Epsilon!"
A bit confused about why all of a sudden her teammate was attacking her. Rho kneed Epsilon in the stomach in an attempt to back her back off.
"Come to your senses!" She yelled. "Moron! This is all your fault isn't it you freak! The first real teammate I find and you have to go and mess her up with all your stupid crappy powers!" Rho was just talking out of frustration. All she wanted to do is go and get out of school early, not have to fight some guy. But if she didn't get that guys soul back, she knew Techne would have her head.
Michi cackled in delight as the girlfight in front of him unfolded, digging into his pocket for his mobile. He whipped it open and quickly took a shot of Sailor Rho's agitated face to send to Talc later.
"How anyone loses to a group of sailor failures like you two is beyond me."
This was turning out to be even easier than he could've ever dreamed; all he had to do now was play courier and get Chiyo's unfortunate co-worker's soul back to his, well, Niter's boss. Michi plunked the dimly pulsating orb in one of Mania's tentacles, and she gave his now open palm a surreptitious low five with another black appendage.
"Oh, Michi-kun, you've done a sensational job! Truly inspirational, sir," Mania chirped. "Would you like to destroy them or shall I?"
Michi pondered this not-so-difficult choice for the briefest of moments, his back turned to his supposedly defeated foes.
Sailor Epsilon crumpled like a punched paper bag, gagging and winded at Rho's knee in her stomach. Unfortunately, whereas normally Epsilon would have laid down in a fetal position on the floor and begged to be allowed to commit ritual suicide for ever hurting her comrade, she was still under the influence of Niter's attack: she struggled to stand up again, still swaying, and blindly threw herself at the Shitennou's back. Obviously it didn't matter what target she had so long as she had one, and she clung to him like a very small, pathetic barnacle and beat him around the head and shoulders with her weenie fists. This was distracting if not painful.
Michi managed to stay upright for all of two measly seconds before toppling over with his tiny assailant in tow, a surprised yalp escaping from his lips. Flailing ineffectively at Epsilon's diminutive form, he mentally kicked himself for thinking this would be easy. Before he could actually kick at anyone, a pair of black tentacles wrapped themselves around Sailor Epsilon's arms and yanked her off Michi. Mania's face still held its usual wide smile, but now there was something altogether unsettling behind it as she gave her prey a firm shake.
"No one beats Michi-kun without his express written consent!"
"Hey, Ugly! Get your hands off her!" Sailor Rho yelled. Focusing all her energy, Sailor Rho began to glow in a red light. Pointing her finger at the tentacle terror, she called out "Under Active Thyroid!" a little ball of energy started to zoom towards the youma.
With a ugly shriek, the orb connected with the small of Mania's back, causing her to drop both Sailor Epsilon and the soul like so many bad habits. Michi watched in morbid fascination as the limits of Mania's already tight clothing were tested. Not that Michi minded a bit of padding on his women, but he made a mental note to begin doing so as Mania flailed and screamed, horrified at the addition of fifty pounds on her person. He scrambled to his feet, backing away from Mania's tentacles, lest he catch one in the face.
"Ewww! Mania, go stand somewhere else until you're hot again!"
Sailor Rho turned to the man. "Now, get out of here or you're next!" she said, rather calmly. Rushing over to Epsilon, she picked her off the floor. "You okay?" she asked smiling,
The attack was obviously starting to wear off of Sailor Epsilon: she let herself be helped up, groggy and bleary-eyed, before abruptly going the colour of a tomato. She turned her face away from Rho's in shame, even as her guardian scampered up Rho's leg to sit on the senshi's shoulder. "I h-hit you, Rho-s-san," she stammered, mortified. "I - I - " Big tears welled up in her eyes, and even more ashamed of them, she scrubbed at her face fiercely.
"This is no time for tears, ladies!" said Logos. "Sailor Rho, an excellent hit! But we still have a very clear and present danger to contend with. Quickly, the youma dropped the soul!"
"Calm down, that didn't hurt at all," Sailor Rho laughed with a wink and a thumbs up. "Now, I'll grab the soul and you can take him out." Quickly the purple hair sailor senshi picked up the soul and stared at it. "Um... How do I put this back in?" Rho asked she asked the mouse upon her shoulder.
Mania grabbed ahold of Michi's forearm, ignoring his disgusted yelp as he tentacles clamped around him. Even as her body suffered under the effects of Sailor Rho's attack, her eerie smile never left her features as she hissed at Michi.
"Michi-san... If you let them have the soul and get Niter-sama in trouble... I'll do that thing with my tentacles again."
Michi swallowed thickly, knowing exactly what the dark-skinned monster was referring to. He might have paled slightly, but with his coloring, it was largely a vacant action. He cracked his knuckles and turned towards the two sailor senshi, only to immediately shake his hands out, wincing. "Ow-ow-ow-ow.. Hey! You in the skirt!"
He ran towards the pair, furiously windmilling his arms.
Logos, who could not be accused of not making snap decisions, bawled: "Run!"
Sailor Epsilon immediately grasped at Sailor Rho's sleeve, scrabbling at a doorknob as she yanked her friend into another part of the lab: she could be accused of not making snap decisions, but the order and the desperation to not fail her portly guardian had seeped down right into her kidneys. She slammed the door behind her -- as though that were really going to help, as there wasn't a lock -- and wailed, "What do we do?!"
It was moments like this that Sailor Rho wished Techne was there. "Ummm... We could hit him with something?" At this point, the only thing the purple haired sailor senshi could resort to is violence. "Here hold this." She said, handing the soul over to Epsilon. Her lime green eyes shifted back and forth, looking for something, anything useful. Quickly she grabbed hold of a filing cabinet and pushed it in front of the door. "That should buy us a minute. Now, we need to find something to hit him with." it was clear that she had a one track mind.
Perhaps in another lifetime, Michi might have seen the door closing in front of him in time to stop, but in this one, he ran into it at full speed, making a spectacular "thunk" noise. He staggered backwards, clutching his nose, which was now sending a fair amount of blood down the front of his uniform. His normally apathetically cool facade was beginning to slip under the stress of having to do something besides stand somewhere and look handsome, and Michi could think of nothing better than taking it out on two teenage girls.
Tilting his head back, he turned to rattle off instructions with his hands still clamped around his nose.
"Lidden Bania, I want chu to breag down da door, and we're gonna kull bof ob does guhls."
"What?"
"Ugh! Da door! Breag it!"
"Oh, the door!" Mania tittered behind a tentacle, and reached out to open said door, which swung open towards them, revealing the back of a filing cabinet and two senshi.
Epsilon froze like a deer in the headlights, wringing her hands together, looking around the lab. They were in one of the work-rooms -- it was filled with the equipment that they had set up in order to test Tai, some treadmills, a computer system, a rowing machine, weights. Weights? "Preponderance," she shrilled. "Calisthenics. ENCUMBERANCE."
Michi growled and kicked the at the filing cabinet, cackling as it flew across the room and created a very large dent in the opposing wall. He stomped into the room, holding his hands out at the two senshi.
"Listen up, sailor whales! I don't care which one of you has that old guy's soul, but I want it back or else I'll let loose again with the lasers and crap. I might even let you two live if you're quick about it." He was lying of course, Michi planned on letting Mania tear the girls apart the second he had both their souls. He gave a giggle at the thought of it, giving off a deranged giggle. No wonder Niter did this for a living.
That was the straw that broke the camels back. As if Sailor Rho day wasn't bad enough, now this albino freak had just referred to her as a whale. The sailor senshi clenched her teeth.
"What? What did you just call me? Listen up Whitey! I don't care who you are or what you work for! But You Never! Ever! Call me a whale!" Sailor Rho was pissed. She lunged towards the man, fists flying, hoping she would land one good punch. Preferably in that ugly face of his.
As Michi was pummeled by what might possibly be the angriest teen he had yet to encounter, his thoughts drifted to other activities he could have wasted his day on. Flying kites in the park, finding that new pair of sneakers that would make his collection complete (until another pair caught his eye), roughing up middle schoolers for their pocket money... but no, he was here, being punched in the ear by some would-be sailor senshi. He felt Mania's tentacle's steady him as he pitched backwards, and he almost felt a pang of gratitude towards his monster but dismissed it as the endorphin rush from being beat up.
"Ow, ugh... Why the ear, man?" He whined, cupping his ear protectively. Mania rolled her eyes and pushed him forwards, hissing in his ear, the smile never leaving her face.
"If you mess this up for Niter I'll make the rest of your very short life miserable."
Michi gave her a panicked glance, and rubbed his hands together before clapping them once and pointing them at at Rho.
"Listen, you fatty fat face, are you in?"
Although the attack hit, what the Michi had overlooked is the fact he was still the target of her anger. Only this time she has no control over herself. Again the purple haired sailor senshi went right for him.
Amidst all the flailing, compounding matters to the stage of even worse!, suddenly a pale-haired and terribly frightened Sailor Epsilon popped up among the fray; sort of like a rubber clown that had been punched once and had taken a while to bob back up. She had her buckling arms full of weights, gathered in her little stick-thin hands, some balanced in her skirt; even as Rho flailed (forcing Epsilon to slightly vaguely duck out of her way, head back to miss a fairly pointy elbow), as though in a dream, she dropped them all abruptly.
She fell back, tipping over the purple-haired Crisis senshi. They fell down, hard. However, the weights also fell down, hard, all of them onto Michi's feet, which was never a fun thing to happen.
One might have thought that Michi would have been able to fend off the assault of a waifish teenage girl, but they would be wrong, and he barely managed to throw a jab of his own. Of course, the mental anguish of being battered by a tiny senshi was nothing compared to the agony lighting up his nerves as several very heavy weights were unceremoniously dropped on his feet. He let loose a inhuman howl, hopping up and down on one feet as he held the other. Truly, this was shaping up to be the worst day, played out with the worst of people. He was beginning to see how these girls had managed to kill off all those dead guys that Iblis used to hang out with or whatever. But this was no time to reminisce about some dudes, there were people to kill, and souls to steal back. Grimacing in pain, Michi tiptoed over to the two senshi on the floor, unable to walk at the moment.
"Take this, you hookers!" He screeched as he brought down his heel, ready to stomp both of them into the ground.
It was at this point that things happened very quickly. Sailor Epsilon might have been a frozen wreck, but she had also been a frozen wreck in a room full of delicate equipment and two villains and a panic button, and she was too fond of the delicate equipment to ever leave things up to herself. So she had pushed the panic button, which for sixty seconds had blared out silently to every member of security in the department that they needed to go rushing to that position right then. The sound of everybody down! was heard as the laboratory doors at the other side of the building were heard slamming open; Epsilon rolled out the way in the wake of Michi hesitating, grabbing Rho, Logos shrieking Go, go, Sailor Epsilon! as with sweaty palms she barrelled into the next room. Gas had started to fill the rooms, thick and choking, and she pressed her hand over her mouth as with grimy fingers she hastily returned the soul to her superior.
"PLEASE FORGIVE ME for the wait," she shrilled out loud, and dragging Rho again -- whose arm pretty much should have been pulled out of its socket -- returned to the gym room, also filling up with gas, knock-out formula, state of the art. It was a secret government laboratory, after all. Completely wild around the eyes, she shook Rho as her own fuku melted away.
"Please," she said, "please Rho-san, if they think I am a magical girl I will never finish my degree!"
Well.
When the police broke in, they found Tai and Chichi fainted on the floor, innocent victims, and the other scientists in the same position -- souls and all -- with an extremely pissed-off assailant in the equipment room.
~ * ~
The Crisis Senshi had won, but only with the help of Science. And the Dark Kingdom had failed, but only because of sheer dumb, stupid luck. None of this helped in any way when you were facing up to your superior after having to be extracted from a holding cell and your name erased from the governmental records and a couple of policemen removed and general quick mayhem and youma pulled into position, also with the help of a pissed-off Mania escaping and informing Michi's Shitennou brethren what had happened. It had been Bromyrite who had come to his call, but only because there was nothing else on T.V."It's cool, it's cool," said the General, patting Niter's head awkwardly as he snivelled in front of the dressing-down of their Dear Leader. "We've all been there, otouto. Except me. And except General Iblis. And except -- actually none of us have been there before. Sucks to be you."
Niter loudly blew his nose into a monogrammed powder blue handkerchief, his face by now a red, puffy mass of sobbery.
"Oh Gods, I'm a f-f-f-failure, Onii-sama!" He wailed into Bromyrite's sleeve, soaking the deep blue fabric with his tears. "This would have never happened to Jadeite!"
Once again, all of his careful planning and research had been rendered useless by none other than himself, and it was positively tearing him apart. Perhaps after this he could find a nice bridge to jump off of, or better yet...
With a pitiable sniff, he tried to look at pathetic as possible as he could, not very hard considering he was sporting a majestic black eye courtesy of Sailor Rho and had been crying for the better part of an hour.
"O-onii-sama.. do you have any rope I could b-borrow?"