Sailor Moon “U” Episode 4
The people of Earth watched as the last hope of for their future faded into the sun’s corona. The scientists at the lab watched the recordings reach off the scales from the readings the probe brought back. Sighs echoed around the room.
“What do we tell the public?” asked one of the scientists.
“Tell them,” he thought for a few more moments, “tell them that everything is fine. There’s nothing to worry about. The probe solved our problem.”
“But-“
“I know, but it’s the right thing to do. Let their last days alive be a pleasant few.”
The Sailor Senshi appeared an alley way. It was abandoned except for a few rats who were too busy planning their next raid on the pizza parlor next door to notice five girls in short skirts suddenly appear out of no where and land almost right next to them. They looked around at their new surroundings.
“Where *are* we?” whined Moon. She squealed and bolted in five different directions when she spotted the rats neat to her. Behind the screams and squeals and frantic shrieks, Mercury plunked (as usual) at her computer.
“I’ve located Zeal. She’s not far from here, but she’s in human form so she’ll be harder to find.”
“Not really, just look for that long red pony-tail of hers,” said Mars, who was watching Moon put on interesting flailing arm displays while getting tangled up in her own wings.
“Yeah, that can’t be too hard to miss. She stands out like a sore thumb!” laughed Venus, more at Moon tripping over herself and coming face to face with one of the rats, then running off again screaming.
“Wonder what she’s up too, going into public in human form. She must be planning something,” said Jupiter, avoiding being hit by one of Moon’s flailing limbs as she continued running around the group.
“Someone should really get her some professional help,” sighed Luna. The rest nodded their heads in agreement.
Moon stopped and look puzzled over the sudden quietness of the group. She walked over and poked her head in.
“What’s up?” she asked perkily. The girls sighed again.
Zeal walked up the streets studying her surroundings. They seemed a lot like the Tokyo of the Earth where she had encountered the Sailor Senshi. Except there were no Sailor Senshi in this universe. At least, none except the ones that had followed her through the universal gateway. She smiled when she thought of what had happened them and continued down the street looking as inconspicuous as a person with a six foot red pony-tail could.
As she passed an electronics store, a story on one of the televisions caught her attention.
“A probe was launched today from the observatory and reports from the scientists say that it has stopped Earth’s gravitational pull toward the sun. In one of the interviews with……….”
Zeal walked away from the store and giggled softly to herself.
The sailors, as normal girls, were walking on the opposite side of the street as Zeal was. Ami had her computer out and was tracking Zeal’s every move. They spotted her across the street staring into an electronics store.
“What is she *doing*?” wondered Artemis who was trying to keep balance on Minako’s shoulder while she was trying a shoelace that had accidentally come untied while Usagi was rampaging around (again) over rats.
“Whatever’s on television must be *real* interesting,” said Usagi, who was dying to get caught up on the latest programs.
“Actually, it’s a really interesting report on sending probes into the sun,” said Ami who was facing a television repair shop. Rei was watching with her and Makoto joined. Artemis positioned himself on top of Minako’s back to look inside. Luna was watching from Usagi’s shoulder and Usagi was pretending to care, but not really.
Zeal started walking away. Something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Five girls stood staring through the glass of a repair shop at something. At first Zeal thought that it might be the Sailor Senshi, but scratched that idea when she realized that they couldn’t be alive. Not after what she had done to them.
The girls watched for most of the interview. During the last part, Usagi tapped Ami on the shoulder. Ami brushed her off, but Usagi kept at it until Ami looked up at her.
“What is it Usagi?” Usagi pointed to the place where Zeal had recently been and she had left.
“Aren’t we supposed to be watching her?” Usagi asked.
Ami looked down at her computer.
“She’s headed toward the observatory!”
The rest of the girls looked up from the interview.
“Let’s go after her!” shouted Makoto.
“Wait a minute,” said Rei, “why would she go to the observatory? What’s there that would be important to her?”
“Maybe she knows something we don’t,” suggested Luna, who was still watching the interview from Usagi’s shoulder’s.
“Or maybe she wants to find something out about this probe thing,” said Minako who was staring up into the sky in a remote direction toward the sun.
“The only way to find out is to go after her.,” said Artemis.
The girls nodded.
Zeal ran up the steps to the observatory. She pushed her way through the people from the press who were still interviewing one of the scientists. She made her way past the security people and into one of the labs. There was some information on what had been happening with the probe and the sun and some junk like that, but nothing of any real importance to her. She went into the next room.
This one was similar to the last except that it had more equipment to monitor the probe that had already been destroyed by the sun. She looked at the readings left behind by that probe, and some other readings she couldn’t make out the purpose of. They looked like the readings for other probes that had been sent toward the sun, but each one up to the most recent one took longer and longer to get to it’s destination.
Zeal heard a bunch of news reporters coming toward the room she was in. She assumed they were following scientists who would probably not welcome visitors . She looked for a place to hide and finally shut herself in a closet.
“No more questions please! We’ve answered all we can for you!” yelled one of the scientists. Once the other three had gotten inside, they closed the door on the reporters.
There was silence and Zeal thought they might have left. It was far too dusty in there for her. She thought she was going to suffocate of air loss. The scientists began talking again and she decided she would have to survive until they left. They did, however, mention some very interesting facts about the future, or lack of, of the Earth of this universe.
The girls walked up the steps of the observatory. It was getting terribly hot even for being summer. When they reached the door, they were bombarded by angry news reporters who obviously didn’t get the whole story and would be answering to their angry bosses. Once they had passed, the girls walked in.
There were lots of pictures and plaques and what-not hanging around, but nothing that would interest them or Zeal. They kept looking around until they eventually wandered into a small room with a bunch of computers. They were reading the speed and time of the most recent probe that had made it’s plunge. Ami was staring at one particular computer. Luna had moved from Usagi’s shoulder to Ami’s.
“What is it?” wondered Luna, who couldn’t comprehend all the flashing numbers and ratios.
“It appears to be, er, I’m not exactly sure. There’s the numbers from the most recent probe we heard about, but then there are a whole bunch of other numbers that look like they cane from other probes. But something’s not right. If you look at the-”
“Excuse me!” shouted an angry voice.
The girls looked up from the screens they were watching.
“What do you think you’re doing here! Please leave the observatory immediately.”
With the assistance of two security guards, the girls were escorted out onto the steps and told never to return.
Luna looked up and Ami.
“What were you telling me before.”
“I was saying that the speeds of all the probes were the same, but the time it’s been taking to get to the sun keeps getting shorter.”
“That means that the earth in *this* universe….” Stared Minako.
“is going to…..” continued Makoto.
“crash into the sun.” finished Rei.
“Could this be Zeal’s doing?” asked Artemis.
“Not likely. The dates started a long time ago. Too far for Zeal to be f any influence.”
“Why would those probes be important to her though?” Luna wondered.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to use them,” mumbled Usagi.
The girls looked questionably at her.
“I was just thinking, maybe she wants to know if she should waste any time here if it’s just going to crash into the sun. If you think about it, she’d make more progress if she just left Earth to be blown up instead…..of…..” Usagi trailed off when she realized that the other girls were staring intently at her.
“Usagi might be right. I’ll keep watching her to see if she leaves Earth. She’s still in the observatory though. She’s been in the same spot for a long time now,” said Ami.
Zeal heard the scientists leave the room. The opened the door, stumbling over her own feet, while hacking and coughing. She managed to stand up remember where she had been for the past hour or so. She stumbled about the room until she found the doorknob and left the room.
Zeal though to herself about what she had overheard about the lack of future for Earth. The way she figured, she didn’t even have to be here to take over the universe if it was going to be blown up anyway. She smiled, then sighed, as she found the door.
Ami looked down at her computer. Zeal had begun moving again, and heading right for them!
“Guys, we have a minor problem.”
“What?” the rest asked in unison.
Before Ami could explain Zeal ran out of the doors of the observatory with the intention of taking over this universe as far away from Earth as possible. The girls caught sight of her and were paralyzed with fear to move. Zeal passed them with only a glance, not making any connection between them and her heroine enemies.
The girls sighed and watched as Zeal walked down past them to the bottom of the steps then stopped.
“Might as well not waste al this precious energy,” Zeal sighed as she threw off her disguise, took out her rod, and lifted it up into the sky. It began to drain the energy from everything around her.
The girls were at first stunned by what Zeal was doing, but then came back to their almost normal senses.
“Stop right there!” Usagi shouted toward Zeal.
Zeal turned around and stared at the five girls and two cats on the steps of the observatory. Her mouth dropped about five feet when she realized what she was staring at.
“T-that’s impssible. I *killed* you!”
“Mercury Crystal Power…”
“Mars Crystal Power…”
“Jupiter Crystal Power…”
“Venus Crystal Power…”
“Moon Eterna…”
“MAKE-UP!”
“No way…..” muttered Zeal to herself.
“Believe it! I am Sailor Mercury!”
“We won’t let you succeed in your evil plotting! I am Sailor Mars!”
“We protect the innocent! I am Sailor Jupiter!”
“Against creeps like you! I am Sailor Venus!”
“On behalf of the Moon,”
“and Mercury!”
“and Mars!”
“and Jupiter!”
“and Venus!”
“WE WILL PUNISH YOU!” they all shouted together.
Zeal could have screamed, but she didn’t. She stared blankly at the girls.
“I can’t *work* under this kind of pressure!” she shouted.
“Let me relieve you of duty then! Mars! Flame, Sniper!”
The arrow narrowly missed Zeal as she jumped out of the way.
“I’ll get her. Jupiter! Oak, Evolution!”
The leaves grazed her, but nothing serious enough that she couldn’t begin to open her portal.
“Venus! Love and Beauty, Shock!”
The ring of hearts knocked Zeal away from her portal and it disappeared.
“Bubble, Spray!”
The fog blocked Zeal from being able to activate her portal again.
“Pests,” mumbled Zeal to herself. She let out some of the energy she gathered and neutralized the fog. She opened her portal.
“You’re not getting away from me this time! Silver…Moon…Crystal…Power…-”
“Chow kiddies!” Zeal laughed and disappeared.
“She did it again! How dare she!” whined Moon.
Mercury finished getting the coordinates and the girls got in a circle. Moon, still upset after being “ripped off” yet again.
“Sailor Teleport!”