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<TITLE>Seven Swords: Prelude</TITLE>

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<div class=title>The Seven Swords</div>
<div class=subtitle>Prelude</div>

<h2 class=author>By Doctor Xadium and Shaldra Darkness &#8226; April 19th, 2007  </h2>
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<TD width=50>&nbsp;</TD><TD VALIGN=TOP><CENTER>
<DIV CLASS=chapterhead>I</DIV>
<div class=chaptertitleone>HER</div>
</CENTER></TD>

<TD class="storytext" valign=top>
<P>
Chris walked down the street slowly, his puppy in tow. It was a dark, stormy night, he reflected, but it was sort of peaceful and calm, reflecting the stillness that he felt in his heart as he moved through the world with
his pet puppy. Puppies were nice because they were sweet, innocent and trusting, reflecting the love and warmth of their human masters in a manner no human could ever reciprocate. After all, he had loved someone once, a beautiful woman with long blonde hair. Her warmth, her smile, her energy and beauty were the fires that made his life worth living. She was the apex of feminity, the ultimate object of Earthly desire, and she made everything in the word right with the merest hint of a smile from her soft, perfect lips, and the twinkling of her crystal blue eyes. She was his idol, his hope his--
<P>
She was right in front of him. Oh god, standing there, perfect, in the middle of the road, perfect, smooth silky hands at her sides, long slender fingers pressed so provocatively against the side of her firm, strong hips, perfect for the act of childbearing.
<P>
"Mina--" he exhaled loudly, in shock and surprise. His puppy yelped in reply, not understanding the statement was meant not for her, but for the woman who his name was meant to evoke.
<P>
Aino Minako smiled softly, the radiant warmth of the Goddess Venus flowing forth from every aspect of her being. Truly she was femininity incarnate. Love, in all its splendor and glory.
<P>
"Mina--" Chris said again, feeling so light-headed, enthralled and overjoyed at the sight of she who gave his spirit completion.
<P>
Minako snapped her fingers. From the darkness, feral growls arose. Something stirred. Forty rabid Nakos leapt from the shadows and tore into Chris J, rending him limb from limb, the horrified yips of his puppy Mina drowned out by the hellish, horrific screams and savage roars of savage fury on the part of the small blue creatures.
<P>
Minako arched her head back and cackled insanely, eyes rolling back into her head, grin demonic, features a wraith-like caricature of their former self, her body convulsing with pleasure even as blood splashed onto her dress, her face, her long lovely arms.
<P>
"Mina"'s yips grew louder until finally one of the Nakos bit its head off before dragging the corpse back into the silent night. Quieting, Minako turned and slipped into the dark, her homicidal lust sated once more.
<P>
<CENTER>* * *</CENTER>
<P>
"Who knows where X-chan is," Shaldra Darkness growled, trying not to let her anger and frustration lash out at her friends. The other half of her soul had been kidnapped weeks ago, and she had no Earthly idea where he was. Her friends, Michael Dembeck, and her sister from another dimension, Mewna Marianna, , along with Mewna's love, the Time Lord known as the Mediator, were trying to comfort her.
<P>
Of course it didn't help Shaldra any that the Mediator had been her X-chan in that universe, an X-chan who had chosen her sister over her there. Looking into his eyes, at the smiles he gave Mewna., the brief touches of her hand, and the unspoken bond between them, she felt jealous and annoyed and feeling that way. She just wanted her damn fiancé back.
<P>
"All rei.bot-sensei would tell us is that he's in another universe, a kind of anti-reality," Shaldra sighed, continuing an explanation she had begun a few minutes ago as The Mediator and Mewna listened.
<P>
"You mean like the "House of Moon" we came from?" Mewna asked.
<P>
"Not exactly," Mike cut in. "In the house of Moon, we were still us, just... not us.. like... exactly." He scratched his head. "So you were her X, but with a different past that had gotten rewritten so you wanted to hump Shal's sister instead of--" He trailed off as Shaldra glared at him.
<P>
"--Ya," Shal finished, annoyance deep in her voice. "You two somehow managed to survive our world getting reset back to the way it was, while my sis and X-chan snapped back to normal."
<P>
"LOL I wonder if X still has a secret crush on Mew," Mike began, shrinking back a bit as he got a death glare from Shaldra.
<P>
"She said it was a 'Dark Universe', Shaldra continued presently. "But I don't know what she meant."
<P>
"I'm familiar with the concept. Hmm, it's no simple thing to open a rift to what is basically anti-reality," The Mediator mused, sitting on his haunches in front of the BlingTARDIS<sup>TM</SUP>. "You'd need to know exactly where you want to go, and need a huge energy focusing apparatus, not to mention a safe means of travel through the Void between universes."
<P>
"I can feel X-chan through the pactio," Shaldra intoned quietly. "He's alive. I... until now he's been okay, but this morning, it felt like he was in such pain, a burning fire that ate into my heart." She looked at the others, violet eyes flashing. "If we don't save him soon, I think he'll die." She blinked quickly to prevent tears from gathering. She hated for people to see her cry. And besides, this was no time for tears. This was a time for getting things done, damn it.
<P>
"Yeah, but a pactio isn't some kinda GPS unit," Mewna interjected, sighing, tossing her red hair. "You can't just home in on somethin' across reality and give us a street address, can you?"
<P>
Shaldra shook her head sadly. As wondrous as her connection with X-chan was, it still had practical limits. Magic, despite the name, was just as limited as any technology used by the others. She clenched her fists, claws extending slightly, causing her palms to bleed. She bit her lip in frustration.
<P>
"Take it easy, Shal," Mike counseled, putting his hand on her shoulder comfortingly. "We'll find a way to get X back. I've been there, I know what it's like to lose the one you love."
<P>
"Well, the TARDIS here is strong enough to handle cross-dimensional travel," The Mediator mused. "I have my own ideas about where to get the power focuser, but the question is where to go."
<P>
"I can solve that."
<P>
Everyone turned to face the new person speaking. She was a tall woman in an elegant gothic maid uniform, her dark blue hair setting off her unnaturally pale face. Checking the ammunition in her golden Jackal handgun, "Psycho" Sakura April smiled devilishly at the group.
<P>
"Heh."
<P>
"How can <I>you</I> help?" Shaldra asked derisively.
<P>
Sakura April tapped her head. "I took the memories of a Time Lord remember? I can work their technologies."
<P>
The Mediator raised an eyebrow. "We don't need a Taxi driver on this trip, unfortunately."
<P>
Sakura April chuckled. "But see, I have a unique relationship to the multiverse. I'm Immune to the barriers that split one reality off from the next. I can steer through reality~ If I interfaced with the Telepathic Circuits of your TARDIS-"
<P>
"You could act like a navigator!" The Mediator explained, jumping to his feet, excited.
<P>
"Problem," Shaldra interjected flatly. "*I'm* the one who feels X-chan via the Pactio."
<P>
"Then pactio with me," Sakura April said with an evil grin. "Transitivity. I'll pick up the sensations and be able to home in on him with no problems." She chuckled. "Unless you're afraid to kiss a girl~"
<P>
Shaldra glared at the android. "I would say it's impossible to pactio with an android, but Negi-sensei did it with Chachamaru. But that could have been because she's powered by magic. And those anti-magic wards you have etched into your bo--"
<P>
Shaldra did not get to complete her sentence as the android forcibly kissed her.
<P>
With a massive punch, Shaldra sent the android crashing through a wall, a tree a parked car outside.
<P>
Sakura April stood and cracked her neck, confidently walking back into the house.  "Do you want to save your little boyfriend or not?"
<P>
"He's my fiancé!" Shaldra snapped.
<P>
"Whatever," Sakura April snorted. "Hurry up and do it."
<P>
Shaldra growled. If there was any other way she would take it, but she wrinkled her nose, closed her eyes and kissed the android. Being that close to her was painful torment, Sakura's wards feeling like pure death close to her, the sheer anti-magic force that was her body taking all of Shaldra's power as an Arch--magus to push past in order to form the Pactio bond.
<P>
"Whoa, HLA", Mike joked, as Shaldra shot him a glare out of the corner of her eye.
<P>
"Pactio," Shaldra grunted, breaking the kiss and almost falling back from sheer physical exhaustion. For her, Mana was life force, and she had used 80% of it just to push past Sakura's wards. Even then, the connection was spotty and weak.
<P>
"It'll do," Sakura April said flatly and started to walk towards the Bling TARDIS.
<P>
"Why're you doing this?" Shaldra wheezed, focusing on rebuilding her strength.
<P>
"Your boyfriend upgraded me that one time when he wanted to get revenge on that Hayley Adrianna for
f[BLEEP]ing with you and almost leaving you for dead. Consider it repayment for a debt."
<P>
The Android went into the Bling TARDIS and poked at the Telepath interface with her slender fingers, the machine responding in antipathy to her skewed mental impulses with a screeching sound from its Vortex Drive.
<P>
"Easy there, old girl," the Mediator cooed, patting the console.
<P>
"God, sometimes I think he loves that thing more than me," Mewna muttered.
<P>
"Tell me about it," Shaldra concurred as Mike stifled a chuckle and followed her into the TARDIS.
<P>
"Nowwww," the Mediator began slowly, tapping in co-ordinates, "to the Energy Focuser."
<P>
With a wheezing, groaning sound, the BlingTARDIS<sup>TM</sup> vanished and reappeared at its new destination.
<P>
"I should have known," Shaldra muttered tiredly as she looked at the view in the scanner.
<P>
"Whaaaa?" The Time Lord asked, as if somehow shocked at Shaldra's lack of enthusiasm for the sight of the
red-and-white tower on the screen. "It's a giant antenna! Shaped like La Tour Eiffel, even!"
<P>
"It's amazing this thing hasn't been replaced by a hologram already," Mike muttered.
<P>
"It will be in the 22nd century after the end of the Dalek invasion," the Mediator said absently as he set up an energy beam. "Frankly I don't see the attraction. Garish old thing. I ate lunch there every day when I stayed in Paris."
<P>
"Why, if you don't like it?" Mewna asked.
<P>
"It's the only place in Paris you can look around and <B>not</B> see the tower," The Mediator noted with a wolfish grin as he fired up the energy beam, energy lashing from the TARDIS and striking the base of the tower, causing a lance of pencil-thin energy to shoot from the top of the tower into space.
<P>
Outside, onlookers in Shiba Koen stared at the sky above the Tokyo Tower as the clear blue sky began to turn black, storm clouds seeming to appear from nowhere.
<P>
"The entrance to the Void," the Mediator mused, dematerializing the TARDIS, sending it through into a pitch black Nothingness that stretched for infinity in all directions. "Focus on Xadium, Shaldra," he instructed quietly.
<P>
"X-chan," Shaldra whispered, focusing on her feelings of him. She felt a sharp pain in her soul and took in a sharp breath.
<P>
"Delicious Pain," Sakura April cackled, her eyes closed, pressing her palms to the TARDIS Telepathic interface.
<P>
"Shut up," Shaldra snapped as the TARDIS jerked, suddenly changing direction, spinning on its axis as it swerved wide, homing in on Sakura April's innate map of the multiverse, pitching through the Dark towards a far point of creation.
<P>
"What's this turbulence?!" Mewna asked in a panic, the TARDIS shaking and jerking, rattling as if buffeted by the winds of a hurricane.
<P>
"Something more powerful than I've ever seen!" the Mediator snapped. "The TARDIS' outer shell  can't handle the force!"
<P>
"I thought you said this thing was nigh-indestructible!" Mewna protested as the ship bucked and reeled from massive impacts of unknown origin.
<P>
"Well welcome to the Nigh part of that sentence!" the Mediator snapped, sparks erupting from all over the console. "Damn! We're not going to be able to penetrate into whatever that is at this rate!"
<P>
"But I can," Sakura April muttered, grabbing Mike and Shaldra's wrists. "Come on!" She threw open the TARDIS doors.
<P>
"Hey can we think about this!?" Mike protested. "I died enough times this year!"
<P>
"What are you DOING!?" The Mediator screamed in a panic, seeing the grey-black energetic maelstrom outside his ship.
<P>
"Saving X!" Shaldra yelled, falling away with Mike as Sakura April hurled them into the void.
<P>
"SIS!" Mewna screamed, but it was too late. They were gone, lost against the turbulent canvas of the eternal nightmare.
<P>
"We can't worry about them at the moment!" the Mediator yelled, locking the doors and frantically hitting controls. "LOOK!"
<P>
A massive shockwave was heading their way.
<P>
"What now?" Mewna asked in a panic, her normally reserved calm slipping.
<P>
"I'll turn us into the wave, ride it like a surfboard," Mediator quickly explained, adjusting the axis of the TARDIS. "But this is like a kind of riptide across universes. There's no telling where we'll end up!"
<P>
"So... we're not going back to Shaldra's Azabu-juuban are we?" she asked sadly. She had been beginning to like it there.
<P>
"Maybe not right away," the Mediator said, smiling softly, stroking her cheek and then holding her tight as the TARDIS jolted, screaming through universal barriers to who-knows-where. "But as long as I have you, it doesn't matter where we end up."
<P>
Mewna smiled brightly and nodded as she watched the very fabric of reality rush past them on the TARDIS scanner. Wherever they were going to end up, it would be one fun ride.
<P>
<CENTER>* * *</CENTER>
<P>
A pale white fist smashed up through an asphalt street. The fist was followed by a black-clad arm, and then the body of Sakura April, who dragged a dirty, dingy Shaldra and Mike up out of the street, each by one hand.
<P>
"How did you DO that?!" Mike asked incredulously, lamenting at the fact that his white jacket was soiled everywhere.
<P>
Sakura April shrugged. "It's my 'special skill' I guess. I mean, aside from being a Grenadier. Universal retcons and reality barriers don't work on me. I guess it was my creator's way of making sure the Time Lords could never retcon me out of existence. You were both protected somehow."
<P>
"Somehow." Shaldra said that flatly. "So you had no guarantee we would have lived."
<P>
"Nope!" Sakura April said cheerfully. "It would have been just as much fun for me to watch you two melt away in the void like bubbling frogs on a hot plate! HUHUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"
<P>
Mike paled and facefaulted at the Android. Shaldra hung her head and muttered "Baka."
<P>
Sakura April ignored her, giggling quietly in her deranged way. "God, this city is beautiful~" she intoned.
<P>
"Are you on crack?" Mike asked, wondering how anyone could think their surroundings were pretty.
<P>
"What... is this place?" Shaldra asked quietly, finally getting around to taking in her surroundings and not trying to ponder how close she had come to dying. The sky was a torn grey-black, buildings in the area canted at rakish, improbable angles defying gravity. There was the stink of death everywhere, and the street was littered with black, burnt-out vehicles, some still in flames.
<P>
In reply, Mike pointed to a storefront sign that had apparently crashed down to the ground some time ago, bisecting a hapless passerby. Caked in dried blood spatter, the sign read "OSA-P".
<P>
"Home..." Mike exhaled, dread tingeing his voice.
<P>
"Uhh Mike--?" Shaldra began, tapping him lightly on the shoulder.
<P>
"What's up, Shal?" Mike asked, voice trailing off as he turned to see what she was pointing at. "Oh god, you've got to be f[BLEEP]in' kidding me."
<P>
Marching towards them down the street was an army of blue-jumpsuit clad men, numbering about 200, each with approximately the same build and facial features, but slight "tics" that distinguished one from the other.
<P>
Each was also carrying a shield marked "PEACEKEEPER" and they were screaming loudly for violence to end.
<P>
They were also massing heavy magical attacks.
<P>
"The hell!?" Mike asked in shock. "Peace through death?!"
<P>
"Release the seals," one of them growled, and explosions of mana began to erupt from each of the soldiers.
<P>
"Oh [BLEEP], they're leveling!" Mike exclaimed, preparing to unleash his own power.
<P>
"Pft," Shaldra snorted. Being an Arch-Magus herself, watching these people "level" was more amusing than anything.
<P>
The next second, a massive explosion tore through the ranks of the soldiers, their severed body parts lashing out in all directions, crimson trails of spatter filling the air with a macabre display.
<P>
"Sailor Nitro says explode responsibly!" There was a flash of pale white, yellow and orange, and a young girl was standing before them, holding a grenade.
<P>
"S-- is that YOU?" Mike asked incredulously, blinking, not believing the sight before him. the young woman was coated in blood, grinning wildly from ear to ear, tossing the grenade from hand to hand with giddy delight.
<P>
"Ooh, little girl wants to plaaaaay~" Sakura April cooed psychotically, hand reaching to her thigh for her Golden Jackal.
<P>
"Neechan, wh-what are you d-doing?" A green-haired boy with red eyes asked.
<P>
"What does it <I>look</i> like I'm doing?" the girl hissed, shooting him a glare.
<P>
"C-can't we all get along?" the boy asked, glomping his sister affectionately.
<P>
"GOD DAMMIT HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THAT!" she roared, shoving the boy aside and shoving the grenade right in his mouth. As Mike and the others watched horrified (well Sakura April was amused) the boy's head exploded with a huge bang, his limp, lifeless body thudding to the ground.
<P>
Eyes widening at the sight of her dead brother, the girl turned back to the others and pointed her finger at them accusingly "YOU. YOU PEOPLE MADE ME DO THIS!"
<P>
"US?" Mike asked in shock. "You're the one who got pissed at him and fed him a pineapple sandwich!"
<P>
"He's my Niisan, I'm allowed to explode him!" the girl cried out. "Now I'll never see him again! YOU MURDERING BA[BLEEP]TRDS!" She pulled out several more grenades.
<P>
"Barrier, BARRIER!" Mike Yelled, powering up. As Shaldra raised a barrier, Sakura April grinned and simply shot out the Grenades, causing a massive explosion, fragging the girl and sending the trio hurtling back, crashing into the remains of a house that looked familiar, yet all too twisted.
<P>
"Bak--" Shaldra began to mutter, but stopped suddenly, her blood turning to ice in her veins as she caught sight of Xadium, knocked out, curled up in a fetal position inside a gilded cage in the center of what appeared to be a a twisted parody of the Ten'ou House livingroom.
<P>
"Sh-Shal--" Mike began, pointing towards the female figure sitting by the cage, idly pouring some tea into a fragile china cup. He had heard the rumors about HER, but to see HER here, in the flesh, right before him.. it was enough to make him lose his nerve for a moment.
<P>
SHE smiled as she regarded the intruders. They were here, as expected. Her enemy's pupils and friends. The Time Lord's lover, as she had hoped. The final pieces she needed to begin.
<P>
"What have you DONE to him!" Shaldra almost roared.
<P>
"Nothing," SHE mused. "He's sleeping at the moment."
<P>
Shaldra sweatdropped as she heard Xadium snoring loudly.
<P>
"Why did you kidnap him," Shaldra asked darkly.
<P>
"I thought he had knowledge that would be useful to me," SHE replied matter-of-factly. "But he has refused to tell me anything."
<P>
"What are you after?" Mike asked coldly. "You killed the Voice."
<P>
"I was just trying to speak to the Khadi, to find out what he suspected," SHE continued. "The Voice simply presented an interesting opportunity to test the extent of my reach into your reality."
<P>
"And Furu?" Shaldra growled. "What about him?"
<P>
"I haven't killed Furu," SHE said, confused. "Why would I? It would not serve my purpose."
<P>
"Liar," Shaldra hissed.
<P>
SHE made a gesture of confusion. Shaldra herself was confused. She could usually tell when someone was lying, but SHE seemed to be completely honest about this.
<P>
"I kidnapped Xadium and killed the Voice. It was necessary. But I did not kill Furu. Why would I admit to two crimes and deny the third? It isn't logical."
<P>
"Whaddya you want?" Sakura April asked, tickled pink that their enemy was HER.
<P>
"Why, what everyone else wants. To live, of course."
<P>
"What's X-chan got to do with you living?" Shaldra asked, moving towards the cage. SHE noted the movement, but took no steps to stop her.
<P>
"Nothing directly. But he is known to she who would stop me."
<P>
"Sensei," Shaldra intoned.
<P>
"Yeah, I can see why rei.bot would want you dead," Mike nodded.
<P>
"Why, because I kidnapped her pupil and killed a Fourth Dimensional Entity?" SHE laughed. "Oh no, your friend rei.bot wants me dead because as long as *I* live, the Universe threatens to fall into Freedom."
<P>
"Freedom?" Shaldra asked, confused.
<P>
"The Freedom to do as you like, as you deeply desire, without the restraint of morality or concern for the feelings of others," SHE explained. "the unchaining of the restraints on the soul. The ability to reach one's true, full potential to shape the universe. That is what I would bring-- and what your rei.bot fears."
<P>
"Why do you care about giving people this 'Freedom'? Shaldra asked. :What do YOU get out of it?"
<P>
"Life," SHE continued. "The patterns of force caused by the unrestrained free will of the masses is to me as oxygen is to you. I was born out of tumult, and need it to live."
<P>
"We wont' let you have your way," Mike proclaimed, forming a crystal sword. SHE still did not move.
<P>
"Every moment I breathe, I am having my way. Over the past year you must have noticed that life has been increasingly... difficult for you," SHE said with a small hint of a smile, sipping some Oolong tea.
<P>
"Difficult my ass," Mike snapped. "It's been one f[BLEEP]in' crisis after another, after another."
<P>
"Incoming tides," SHE intoned matter-of-factly. "The first signs of the oncoming storm."
<P>
"What," Shaldra began disdainfully, "Are you tellin' us you planned all that? The Crisis, Chaos Avatar, the House of Moon, all the stuff in between?" She shook her head, some people were so damn arrogant.
<P>
"Actually no, I didn't," SHE replied, taking a long sip of tea. "It came as much as a surprise to me as the events did you."
<P>
"You didn't?" Shaldra asked, confused, momentarily taken aback by the lack of customary villain swagger coming from HER.
<P>
"Does the Sun consciously warm the Earth?" SHE asked, raising an eyebrow. "No. It is a ball of gas 93 million miles away, intrinsically having no purpose. But its light and heat is so strong that thy travel through space, giving you daylight and warmth. Similarly, as my power has increased, so too has the range of space and time that my Aura touches, and affects."
<P>
"Are you seriously sayin' your REIATSU is so strong that it caused all that s[BLEEP]t to go down on the other side of the universe?!" Mike asked, unable to believe it. Still, looking at HER, he somehow sensed it was true.
<P>
"It wasn't intentional," SHE continued. "It is just a byproduct of my existence."
<P>
"So what, you're the new Chaos or something?" Shaldra asked, trying to piece together how this all fit into the grand scheme of things. SHE locked her gaze with the Felpurr's violet eyes, telepathically sliding into her mind-- so easy to do since her consciousness has been reshaped for manipulation by the right sort of mind by her former master Marsilio.
<P>
As SHE spoke, she subtly exploited the Felpurr's Pactio with Xadium to pillage his mind, carefully gathering the data she needed from him. The information that she had kidnapped him to retrieve. The information he had stubbornly held back. But while he had stubbornly put up defenses against "the enemy", he was delightfully open and yielding to the mind of the one he trusted above all else. The information trickled through, a thought at a time.
<P>
"I am nothing of the kind," SHE replied smoothly, concealing her actions carefully. "Chaos is the opposite of Order. I too, am Order. My own Order. A Dark Law from a Dark Universe."
<P>
"Your 'Order' just seems to be more Chaos," Mike said dimly. "I've seen my friends killing each other, people acting batshit insane--"
<P>
"Incorrect," SHE continued, still seemingly unworried at having her enemies at her throat. The information she so desperately needed was coming through. Vindicator. Arataka. Tenseiga. Chokto Rekki. Sode no Shirayuki. Excalibur. The Ten Kings Blazing Sword. The Seven Swords that stood in her path. Now she knew where they were., thanks to the Time Lord's vast experiences across the multiverse as shared through Shaldra's pactio. "Being in my aura simply unleashes the id of the person within it. Restraints are loosened. Tendencies that are suppressed come to the fore or are amplified. Those who crave justice but are held back by petty morals cast them aside and become hard Vigilantes, for example." She smiled and looked at Michael and Shaldra. "You two should know this better than most. You have already started to become freed."
<P>
Shaldra shivered, a cold feeling traveling down her spine. She looked at Mike, who was similarly remembering the incident some weeks prior, when Cerulean had gone rouge and cast a dragon slave which had decimated half of Azabu-Juuban. Their desire to punish him to end the threat had been so great. No, even before that, with Dark Miracle. While they had usually been quiet as evil had been allowed to run about the city, letting the other heroes squabble amongst themselves and blunder to solutions based more on luck than anything else, they had suddenly become strict and ruthless, aiming to kill threats before they could grow out of hand. She clenched a fist as she remembered herself shooting Usagi dead in the House of Moon. Hell even MEW had started taking charge.
<P>
Yes, she has believed such actions were needed to save lives. To get things done. But she had usually been restrained. It HAD been as if something had triggered her to be more rash, impulsive, self-righteous and quick to act. She felt a blackness behind her eyes that rose and faded.
<P>
"We gotta get outta here Mike," Shal growled. "She's in our heads."
<P>
"I'm not, actually," SHE chuckled. "As I said, you stand near the sun. You cannot help but be burned." She closed her mental connection to Shaldra. She had what she needed. But it wouldn't do for other powers-- in particular that ONE power who had sensed her, to move against her too early.
<P>
"I say we take her out," Sakura April grinned psychotically, upholstering her guns and leveling them at HER.
<P>
SHE pondered her next move carefully. If she killed the insects now, or held them all prisoner, her enemy would become enraged and spring into action too soon. It will be better to send them back, changed, different, subtly compromised, so that when the time came she could play them off one another to the distress of her foe,, who would be so distracted with the well-being of her friends that all her power would be useless to her in the inevitable confrontation.
<P>
Leaping up suddenly, SHE twisted in midair, robes fluttering in the wind, dodging the bullets of the killer android, the projectiles seemingly passing her in slow motion as she slammed her feet into the golden cage wherein Xadium was housed, slamming it into the android, knocking them both back into Shaldra and Michael, who were knocked off their feet.
<P>
"X-chan!" Shaldra cried out even as she fell back, seeing the cage twisted and bent, pinning him inside.
<P>
With an imperious wave of her arm, SHE tore open the very fabric of space an time, and burned the memories of herself from their minds, taking the moment to also isolate and delete the memories of herself
from that blasted miko. Now that she had all the information she needed, SHE wanted time to relax, to prepare, without the threat of imminent retaliation from the other side of reality. If SHE was going to survive, she reflected, there was much to do, and it would not do to have any interference just yet. She hurled a fragment of herself back in time to secure the first part of the puzzle, the activation keys to the Voltron Unit which would render her the Ten Kings Blazing Sword.
<P>
Within moments of the quartet's departure, there was a light chuckling from under the floor. SHE bent her head slightly, raising an eyebrow as SHE heard the light, slightly deranged sound wafting up from a hatch which had opened in the floor.
<P>
"That's right...." the man clad in dingy, painted-over Van Saar Armor exhaled with an almost feral glee,, his sunken, hollow eyes raising to meet HERS, an urgent, increasingly insane laughter beginning to catch in his throat,  "I'm still alive, you fanatical she-bitch."
<P>
SHE narrowed her eyes in curiosity as he lifted something out of the hatch. It resembled a handbrake lever grafted onto a thick cabling which descended into the bowels of the Earth below the house.
<P>
"I stayed here," the aged warrior cackled, "working, improvising, while you cast your black magic on everyone else  on the city. The wards protected me," he spat with an increasingly desperate tone of crazed defiance, "blocking your foul corruption, keeping me pure. He snorted, an insane look of righteous zeal in his eyes.
<P>
"It was hell, but I did what I do best. I improvised.  It took the power cells from all 100 of my HK-50 hunter-killer droids, parts from my modified Orrus..."
<P>
SHE blocked out the sounds, exhaling tiredly as the man rattled off incomprehensible technobabble, perking up again as he finally completed his sentence with "...turning my entire bunker into a giant Fission device that's going to blow you straight to hell."
<P>
As SHE opened her mouth in surprise, he laughed, self-assured, feeling <I>right</I> for the first time since this hell had started. It was all so clear to him now. This was his moment, his time. The instant at which he would take A Stand, and Make Things Right.
<P>
"It was an early earth president," he began, "Abraham Lincoln, who best described the situation. 'The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. We cannot escape history. We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor, to the last generation. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, or last best hope for Earth."
<P>
He squeezed the handbrake-lever, and the world went white, a mushroom loud of oblivion
<BR><BR><BR>
absorbing Tokyo
<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>
in a singular moment
<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>
of tranquil finality.
<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>
"...as with everything else, it's the thought that counts," SHE chuckled, walking calmly out of the firestorm, towards her inexorable destiny. In a few months, SHE would be there, in that place where the light shines eternal, and then she would bring Freedom to creation.

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<div class=footer>All original characters and scenarios &copy; 2007 Sushil K. Rudranath, Michael Dembeck and Shaldra Darkness. All rights reserved.<BR></div>

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