ACT 02 - "The Long, Dark, Wintertime of the Soul"
Dr. Xadium (drxadium@DEATHTOSPAMgate.net)
December 25th, 2004
Naoko Takeuchi is hereby thanked for her involuntary contribution to this fanfic. RATED PG-13
GALLIFREY - THE FOOT OF MOUNT PLUTARCH, 3489809610.2 LOCAL DATELINE (2980 EARTH RELATIVE)
His blue formal robes flapping in the wind, the old man stood uncertainly on the blue-green grass of the plain, squinting to adjust his eyes to the burnt-orange brightness of the evening Gallifreyan sky. He had not been outside for centuries. Indeed, he had not expected to come outside again, ever. Yet here he was, standing in the fresh air, no longer surrounded by the musty confines of his carefully-prepared funeral chamber. Before him stood a wide-eyed youngster, director Manalapaxithan of the elite Prydonian Chapterhouse of the University of Gallifrey.
"Ahh, so good of you to come, Manalapax. It is nice to see the younger generation still heeds the call of its elders every now and then." His tone was friendly, but the iron in his voice was still evident-- a throwback to his younger days in politics and administration.
For his part, the "youngster"-- 5760 year old Manalapaxithanimanizariausprydonmagimus-- looked upon the old man with a sense of what he knew was rudely uncouth awe. When he had received a call to go meet the Lord Blyledgebraxionmetalaquormanzkatagoranshertanimanoxizusicanorion-- last member of the House Blyledge, which predated even the great Rassilon himself-- he had assumed one of the more annoying rouge elements in the university were "setting him up" as the street-slang so crudely put it. He fully expected to be ambushed by holograph vid recorders recording a joke segment for channel 347458's "Giddy Fun Time humiliation corner". He had also expected to be preparing a rather nasty letter to the Public Register demanding the abolition of said program immediately. Never in all his lives did he expect to meet a man some called more influential than the Lord President herself.
"Forgive me, my lord... but we all believed that you--" Manalapax paused uncomfortably. As the head of the Prydonian chapter, he was used to dealing with the elite of Gallifreyan society, but even this was a bit much for him. His hearts were racing a mile a minute. Standing before him was someone often described as "all of Gallifrey wrapped up in a little package."
The old man chuckled. He had forgotten what his presence often did to the others. "You thought I'd crawled off into my hole to dry up and die, eh?"
"Ahem," Manalapax coughed, unused to having his thoughts spelled out in such a blunt manner. "We had heard that you had entered meditation in preparation for your Death Day, yes, my lord."
Lord Blyledge nodded. "So I had, so I had. After 10,000 years of life one wonders what must lie beyond. I thought I was ready to make that journey... but it appears that there are a few matters I must yet attend to."
Manalapax looked at Blyledge curiously. While it was true that most Time Lords of that great age chose their own Death Day, it was extremely rare for one to change their minds once the mental preparations had been made for their passing. Privately, he wondered what could have influenced such a momentous decision.
As if in answer to the unspoken question, Blyledge said quietly, "it was a dream."
"A dream, milord?" Manalapax forgot his awe and simply blurted the question out.
"Yes," Blyledge replied as he began walking over to Manalapax's aircar. "As I was casting my mind out across the Vortex, I saw strange eddies and perturbations in the fabric of time... a lost flower, withering in the desert."
"I don't understand, my Lord."
"One of our cousins, my boy. Cast adrift by the cruel tides of time. Soon she will wash upon our shores, and we must receive her."
"Cousins?" It was a term used by members of one house to refer to another member of their house, but it didn't seem to apply in this context.
Blyledge grunted a little as he slung himself into the passenger compartment of the aircar. He did not explain. "You, my boy, are going to do me a great favor... indeed the whole house of Blyledge."
Manalapax started. To do a "favour" for such a great house! Such a move would carry incalculable political and social weight... if not for one small problem. "My Lord, with respect, you are the last of your line. When you die, your house fades with you."
"I'm not dead yet, you barely-out-of-diapers, wet-behind-the-ears youngster!" Blyledge snapped energetically, feeling *alive* again for the first time in centuries. "And besides, if I am correct... House Blyledge's time is far from over."
Manalapax looked over at Lord Blyledge curiously as he started the Aircar and levitated it off the ground, not understanding at all. Little did he realize that in a stellar arm at the far end of the galaxy, in a portion known to the Time Lords as Mutter's Spiral, the key to the future was even now beginning to turn.
2975 - ISHTAR TERRA, ON THE SURFACE OF VENUS
Ishtar Terra was FLAT. Ironic, considering it was named after the voluptuous Babylonian goddess of Beauty, Love and War. A plain nestled in between some of the largest mountains on Venus, it was flat, dull and boring. It was no wonder, Sakura mused, that r-chan loved to sit out in the middle of it and meditate. With her sitting cross-legged on the ground, several meters away from the TARDIS, it was a perfect, deadly dull, Zen setting. Sakura sighed, tapping her fingers on the plastic picnic table her mother had set out some distance from the TARDIS. It had a cute yellow umbrella over it, which fluttered in the breeze.
Idly sipping some lemonade, Sakura watched her mom and dad arguing about something by the TARDIS as r-chan just sat there, eyes closed, ignoring them in deep meditation. Or perhaps her ears were shut off. It was odd to see those two arguing-- they usually spent most of their time happy as whams. Squinting, she tried to make out what they were saying.
"Is she really ready for that?!" Xadium asked almost in a panic.
"You're too overprotective, X-chan!!" Minako shot back. "It's as much a part of her as that big brain she got from you!!"
"I just don't want her to get hurt," Xadium mused.
Hurt? Sakura liked the sound of that! Now, she was no masochist, but her life had been boring, dull and dreary. Yes, it was wonderful to have doting parents who cared the universe for you, but they seemed to go out of their way to keep her in their sights at all times, as if they didn't trust her to be all right on her own. Sometimes it got a bit annoying.
Minako looked over at her daughter, who true to the Aino name, was probably eavesdropping right now. She worried about the girl, who never seemed to leave her parents' side, even if she didn't consciously understand what she was doing. It had been so many years, and Sakura had complained a lot, but she had never asked to go off somewhere totally on her own. Her parents always had to be on the same planet as her, or she just refused to go anywhere. This had hampered Xadium's attempts to get her into a university back on Earth. As for his homeworld of Gallifrey... circumstances made that impossible.
Sakura knew her mom knew she was eavesdropping-- and by now her mom knew she knew she knew, and she knew she knew she knew she knew, and---
Sakura just got up and went over to see what was going on. Life was simpler when one was direct.
Minako looked to Sakura and grinned. "Sakura-chan, I think you're old enough to have this." She held out an orange pen, tipped with a golden star bearing the sigil of Venus.
"Your transformation pen," Sakura said dimly. She was hurt all right. Her dreams of excitement and adventure, dashed again.
"Yeah," Minako said, not pleased at the lacklustre reaction from the girl. "I don't need to use it anymore, so I figured as you also carry the planet's protection, you should--"
"--don't want it," Sakura said tiredly, shaking her head. "I have absolutely zero interest in becoming a Sailor Soldier running about in short skirts and spouting corny attack phrases. Give me a solid disruptior cannon any day."
"I blame you for this, X-chan," Minako said to her husband dimly. "It's all those comic books of yours."
Xadium sighed. "It's not my fault if she can build half of them."
"What I want is a frelling shuttle," Sakura muttered.
"Language, Sakura!" Xadium chided.
"Sakura-chan, we've often asked you if you wanted to go somewhere on a trip, but you've always said no," Minako said softly.
"Yeah well I'm beginning to feel housed up," Sakura pouted, standing next to her mother. Except for some slight facial, height and build differences and the colour of her eyes, she was almost a dead ringer for her parent. "I feel like making a trip."
"Excellent!" Xadium said, clapping his hands together. "I too need to take a little side-trip, to a small space station some time back. I can drop you off on the way."
"Wait," Sakura said suddenly, a small note of panic in her voice that only her parents and rei.bot caught. "You're leaving mom here?"
"Well yes," Xadium said. "It's just a bit of business. And I'm sure your mother would like to spend some time with her friends as well."
"So you'll be all alone?"
Xadium paused. "I'll be all right, dear. Not every situation in life requires fighting skills, you know. And even if it did, your mother has taught me a thing or two."
"Mom's never seen you work, has she?" Sakura asked. Xadium sighed. He knew the girl cared nothing for the world of Time Lords or their interminably boring "work." She was trying to create a context by which Minako would go with him. Sakura was almost obsessive in her need to keep her parents together, as if she feared something would happen to them should they separate. Actually, to be more precise, she was worried about _him_, since Xadium, unlike the senshi, was a scientist and not a fighter.
"No I haven't," Minako said cheerfully, also sensing what was going on, and eager to give Sakura a chance to stretch her legs, if even a little. "But I'd like to, ne, X-chan??"
Xadium looked at the two women in his life and sighed. Truth be told, he did not want Minako or Sakura around for this trip. Things could get dangerous, and he didn't feel like subjecting the only two people left in the universe that he cared about to any kind of dangerous situation, especially considering the crowd he was going to "hang out" with. But he knew that Minako, once she had sunk her teeth into the situation, would never let go. rei.bot, for her part, wore a darkened expression.
"All right dear. I think there's an intergalactic Song Contest going on at the time I'll be visiting, so you can enter that whilst I'm in conference."
"Great! Isn't that great, Sakura-chan!" Minako grinned and hugged her daughter and husband, leaving her henshin pen on the plastic picnic table, it's gold tip glinting in the light of the sun as the TARDIS dematerialized, taking the small family (and rei.bot) across space and time to the place where their destiny lay.
As the TARDIS prepared to materialize, Xadium handed his daughter a small black disc. "Take this, dear. It is a recall disc. It will allow you to come back to the TARDIS. All you have to do is squeeze it and you'll appear inside."
"Thanks pop!" Sakura said cheerfully, hugging her dad, her expression turning to a frown as she slipped the disc back in his pocket. Sure it was a recall disc. For him to recall me just when things get interesting, Sakura thought dimly, releasing her father. He meant well, but some day he would have to learn she was her own woman, even at the tender young age of 68.
2252 - THE CRUISE LINER RISING STAR, PASSING THROUGH EPSILON ERIDANI
"Ne, X-chan, you usually don't approve of me doing these contests in the past, there's a reason you brought me here instead of just taking me along to your work, isn't there?" Minako looked at her husband with her eyes narrowed, as if she already knew the answer.
Xadium nodded. "Yes, it's a bit of 'Time Lord business', as you might say. Fairly dry, boring stuff."
Minako sighed. "Moh, you're always going off on 'Time Lord business', it's sooo boring!!"
Xadium chuckled. "Now you're beginning to sound like Sakura-chan." He hugged Minako around the waist, and took her hand, pressing something into her right palm.
"What's this??" Minako asked curiously, as Xadium looked her in the eye, suddenly dead serious.
"A recall disc. If anything... odd should happen, don't think. Just squeeze it. It will take you right back to the TARDIS." Xadium squeezed her fingers around it. "Press it the INSTANT things look amiss. DO NOT hesitate, I beg you. I already gave one to Sakura-chan."
Minako looked at her husband's expression and for a moment her blood almost ran cold. "Do you think something's going to happen here, X-chan."
Xadium looked around and lowered his voice. "I can't say much, but know that there will be representatives of some fairly powerful Time-active races here, meeting in secret. I'm part of the Gallifreyan delegation. There is a mutual nonaggression pact in place, but none of us really trust the other, so things could conceivably turn nasty in an instant. This is why I didn't want to bring you or Sakura along."
Minako smiled. "We're tough, we can handle ourselves, you know. We're not all weak nerds."
Xadium affected a hurt expression. "Heh, well I know you want to help people, but if these powers start moving, your best bet would be to return to the TARDIS before taking action. Promise me you'll use the disc."
Minako nodded. Xadium pulled her close to him and urgently repeated. "Promise me you won't try to make a heroic stand."
"I-- I won't," Minako repeated somewhat hesitantly, wondering why her husband was so worried. She gently jabbed Xadium in the ribs and kissed him on the cheek to fluster him.
Xadium blushed and blanched, wondering if anyone saw, then kissed her back on the cheek and watched her appreciatively as she walked off, melting into the crowd.
"You brought your human with you." The voice behind Xadium startled him. It was grave and gravelly, dripping with condescension. "And... that girl. Not to mention the abomination."
Xadium turned to see the familiar, beady-eyed, somewhat plump face of Lord Pryonex, the Gallifreyan ambassador to the Centauri empire. He tried to avoid frowning at Pyronex's tone of voice, and only moderately succeeded. Humans were generally looked upon dimly by most Time Lords, and the idea of producing *offspring* with one... well that was just beyond the pale. Sakura's birth had been something of a minor scandal back on Gallifrey, which was one reason why Xadium tended to stay away from his homeworld. The Time Lords were still borderline Xenophobes, despite their recent (in strictly relative terms) foray into the wider universe of galactic politics. He doubted Minako or Sakura would ever be welcome on Gallifrey. And rei.bot... well being as she was constructed with Validum... a banned substance from the Time of Rassilon that most Gallifreyans feared (and with good reason), she'd never be allowed to set foot on the planet. If it were not for her vast power, he had no doubt the Time Lords would have destroyed her long ago. They had tried to prevent him from rebuilding her shattered remains, but he had managed to outwit them long enough to get her back online.
"I had no choice," Xadium replied tiredly, his tone of voice shifting to become more focused and serious. "They won't be in the way, I can assure you."
"Blast it man," Pryonex replied, scowling. "You of the younger generation don't know how to be discreet, do you? Aliens should be seen and not heard, that was the rule in my day."
Xadium almost snapped back that Pryonex's day was about at an end, but held his tongue. His ability to range free of Gallifrey was a tenuous one at best, and he didn't need an annoyed member of the High Council revoking his travel privileges on a whim. To be separated from his family now would be a fate worse than death.
Pyronex looked at Xadium and frowned. Xadium did not know what to make of his reaction. It was as if Pyronex had expected something more from him than meek assent.
"No spine," Pyronex eventually muttered. "You youngsters have no spine." He continued walking towards Xadium's TARDIS. "Why is this thing stuck in such an abominable shape, anyway? Have you still not been able to repair the chamelionic circuitry? Perhaps I should assign a low-level technician to fix it for you." He smiled as impolitely as one of his station could.
Xadium irritatedly changed the subject. "Do you mind telling me *why* half the time-active races in the galaxy have decided to have a summit meeting on a half-finished space station in the middle of nowhere?! And furthermore, why we're even allow a *Dalek* to attend? That's putting a fox in with the hens, if I do say so."
"Such a colorful metaphor. But I suppose it is to be expected, given the residue of humanity you seem to have accreted over the past few centuries."
Xadium frowned.
"The Dalek has had its weaponry, self-destruct and long-range communications apparatus removed," Pyronex continued. "It would be a most foolish fox indeed, to try and interfere with these particular hens-- especially when some of those hens are Time Lords. But all the same, we chose the partially completed Babylon 3 as, being under construction, no one would think to look for us there." Pyronex pulled open the "Mountain Dew" machine and stepped into the TARDIS with Xadium.
"By Rassilon!" his voice echoed as the door swung shut and the TARDIS dematerialized with a wheezing, groaning sound. "What HAVE you done to the interior?!"
In the _Rising Star's_ auditorium, Minako got up and took the microphone, getting ready to sing "Route Venus 2: The road to my heart" for the cheering, whistling, clapping (and sometimes glowing) audience. Before she could get started however, a voice boomed over the ship's public address system.
"This is the captain. Sorry to interrupt all, but If you'll take a look out the large viewport windows on the port side of the ship, you should see a rather large construction project going on. That, my friends, is Space Station Babylon 3. Located midway between the human, Minbari, Vorlon, Centauri, and Narn empires, it will be a sort of "intergalactic UN", if it ever gets built, that is. The last two were blown up. Seems some people just can't get along, eh?"
Minako looked through the giant viewport window at the far end of the auditorium. "Pretty..." she exhaled. It was like a shining jewel in space.
X-chan, is this where you had to go? Minako thought silently. Please be safe.
SPACE STATION BABYLON 3 - UNDER CONSTRUCTION, 43% COMPLETE
The creature stood half in shadow, its reptilian features barely visible. It held a small box in its hands, wrapped to look like an innocuous Christmas present, even down to the "security verified" stickers the Babylon 3 security staff used. Not that there was much security on the half-finished station.
"This is the device," the creature hissed. "You know what to do."
"Yes I do," Eudial said with a sick grin. "That BITCH won't get away with costing me my position at Black Star Enterprises!"
The creature melted into the shadows as Eudial regarded the little "present" she held in her hands. It was a high grade fusion bomb. She didn't know, or really care to know why the Drakh creature had given it to her. All she knew was they needed a bog boom, and so did she. Criminals were all the same, no matter the time zone.
She petted the package. All she had to do was place this on the station's reactor core, set it off, and the bitch-girl Sakura Aino who had cost her her cushy position in the Orion Syndicate-- along with her whole damn family, and just about every other ship in the sector-- would be just so much space dust. Fortunately, thanks to a Time displacement band she had picked up from a hapless time traveller a long time ago, she would be able to read about the explosion from the comfort of her own history books.
Eudial chuckled and made her way stealthily to the fusion core, dressed as a Babylon project construction worker in a Santa Claus hat.
Several levels down, in what appeared-- to those who didn't know any better-- to be a broken-down, completely unfinished area of the station, Xadium's TARDIS materialized with a Wheezing, groaning sound, its brightly lit soda-machine faux exterior filling the dilapidated surroundings with light.
"This is supposed to be a DISCREET meeting," Pyronex hissed as he came out of the TARDIS, momentarily blinded by the light coming from the garishly illuminated sign on its front. "I wouldn't be surprised if the whole QUADRANT knew we were here!"
Xadium chuckled and pressed a small switch on the front, killing the light. "I think the others are already here." He nodded to a pile of debris in the corner, which flickered ever so slightly.
"The Monan Host never were very good with their hologrammatics," Pyronex mused, as Xadium tapped another button on the TARDIS exterior, and it too, vanished behind a holographic shroud. Not as nice as a properly functioning Chameleon circuit--which would have changed the physical shape and characteristics of the TARDIS exteriour shell-- but it would do.
The two Time Lords walked through a seemingly solid wall and into the middle of a diplomatic firestorm.
"WHY ARE WE MEE-TING HERE? THE DA-LEKS PRO-TEST MEE-TING IN AN ARE-A OUR TEM-POR-AL SCA-NNERS COULD NOT AN-A-LYZE!!" The pepper-shaker shaped armored tank of a creature's eyestalk moved up and down as its one remaining arm (the gun arm having been removed) flailing in the air as it spoke.
"Blame the right honorable delegate from the Monan Host," Pyronex said with just the right amount of smarm in his voice to irritate, but not infuriate. "Their vortex drives are so hopelessly overpowered that they probably flooded the whole sector with Tachyon radiation."
"Hah," the Monan delegate laughed. "So overpowered that you Gallifreyans will do just about anything to get your hands on them. And you know full well we chose this spot precisely because the amount of ambient time distortion from the vicinity of planet Epsilon 3 makes it impossible for anyone to spy on us. So sorry if it causes the mighty Daleks any problems."
The Dalek eyed the Monan but remained silent.
"It also makes it impossible for anyone to determine any possible future potential danger," Pyronex continued. He looked around the room. "Gallifrey, Virgoa, Phaidon, Monan, the Dalek Empire. All accounted for. Now shall we get down to the details, ladies and gentlebeings? Today we decide the future of Time travel for all the developing races in the seven galaxies."
CRUISE LINER RISING STAR
Sakura sat at a dinner table at the rear of the auditorium, her head resting in her hands. She sighed as she watched her mother sing. The crowd was all excited and abuzz, but to her this was nothing special. She got to hear her mom sing every day, and while she appreciated her mother's musical gift, it really didn't appeal to her as a means of entertainment. She looked out the window to the space station being built some miles away and smiled. Now *there* was something interesting. A space station under construction. She'd never seen one of those before... all the stations she'd ever seen were bright and shiny, like luxury hotels in space. That thing was probably grimy, and messy, and half-done, with circuits exposed and conduits leaking and all kinds of nifty safety hazards. She really, really wanted to see it.
"Hey, r-chan," Sakura whispered. "C'mon!" She tugged the miko by her robes.
"dangerous" rei.bot replied, guessing Sakura's desire.
"That's what makes it interesting," Sakura replied cheerfully, as she pulled rei.bot out of the auditorium and headed down a corridor.
"what are you planning" rei.bot asked, almost as an afterthought. She could plainly see Sakura was heading for the emergency escape pods.
Sakura pried open an access panel with her Swiss army knife, and used her Dad's sonic screwdriver (which she had conveniently "borrowed" at the same time she had slipped the recall disc he had tried to foist on her back into his pocket) to disable the launch notification system. After crossing a few wires, she opened the pod bay doors.
"R-chan, our chariot awaits," Sakura said with a smile and a flourish, pointing to the interior of the pod.
rei.bot nodded and entered the pod without comment. Sakura missed the flash of sorrow crossing her friend's face.
A few moments later, the two were free and clear, flying towards Babylon 3... and, as Sakura would soon find out, the crux of her personal destiny.
BABYLON 3, TEMPORAL ACCORDS SUMMIT
"Gallifrey will not allow the Daleks unfettered access to the historical timelines of Sector 20," Xadium snapped tersely, coming eye-to-eyestalk with the Dalek delegate.
"WE ON-LY SE-EK AC-CESS PAST THE-TEM-PORAL AN-O-MA-LY A-ROUND THE PLA-NET PLU-TO" The Dalek replied, in an almost reasonable tone of metallic voice.
"The Warpsmiths of Phaidon concur with the Gallifreyans," boomed the Phaidon delegate. "We will not permit the Daleks entry into the Terran solar system again."
"The Monan Host knows the Daleks desire to repeat their invasion of the planet Earth," the Monan delegate laughed. "You never could get enough of that place".
"THE-DA-LEKS-WILL-CON-TROL-THE-EN-TIRE-GA-LAX-Y!" the Dalek yelled. "IT IS IN-EV-IT-A-BLE!" It then lowered its voice, and almost sarcastically added, "IT IS JUST A MAT-TER OF TI-IME."
"Very droll," Pryonex muttered. Xadium frowned at something the Dalek had said. He gave Pryonex a nod-- a pre-arranged signal between the two of them if either one needed to discuss something in private.
"We have an incoming transmission from Gallifrey," Pryonex lied. "Routine matters of state. Pardon us for a moment." He and Xadium went into a corner and activated a Privacy dome.
"What is it?" Pyronex enquired.
"Temporal anomaly around Pluto?" Xadium mused. "It seems to me that they must know of the temporal corridor that exists there."
"Oh, that," Pyronex snorted dismissively. "The primitive tunnel in care of some of your... Earth woman's family, yes? We don't even bother with such rudimentary technology."
"It opens out directly onto the Terran satellite Luna for a temporal radius of five billion years in all three directions, part, future and sideways," Xadium said coldly. "If they found that they'd have access to the entire timeline of the planetary system. It's only defended by a handful of Plutonians. None of the other Time-active races are supposed to know about it. Even the Daleks would be able to breach its walls and pour through to Earth."
Before Pyronex could reply, the entire room seemed to shake, the privacy dome flickering on and off.
"An explosion," the older Time Lord noted.
"The Daleks?" Xadium enquired. It would be typical of them to attack a diplomatic summit in midstream.
"My TARDIS just moved," Pyronex snapped. His symbiotic bond with his time ship was especially deep. All Time Lords were symbiotically linked to their craft from one degree to another.
"HADS," Xadium realized. The HADS, or "Hostile Action Displacement System" was a feature built into all TARDISes. It operated by constantly scanning the future around the TARDIS from anywhere to 30 seconds to five minutes, and if it detected an explosion or otherwise dangerous element that could damage the TARDIS or just pose a threat to its occupants, the TARDIS would automatically dematerialize and relocate itself out of the danger zone.
"How far did it move?" Xadium asked.
"It's over fifty kilometers away," Pyronex said weakly. That was the problem with HADS... it could easily move your TARDIS out of reach in an emergency. The implication also was that whatever was coming was going to take out at least fifty kilometers around it.
"What delay was your HADS on?" Xadium asked.
"Two minutes," Pyronex replied.
"Two minutes?!" Xadium calculated. "We could make it to my TARDIS, I don't use the HADS."
"Don't you mean your HADS is broken," Pyronex said dryly.
"That's why I don't use it," Xadium replied with a chuckle as the privacy dome collapsed. What he saw next made his blood run cold. The dome, which had had a built-in force shield, had apparently protected the two of them from a structural collapse in the area. The other delegates had been crushed by falling debris... all except for the Dalek, whose bonded polycarbide armour shell had protected it.
"THIS IS TREACH-ERY!" The Dalek snapped. "THE TIME LORDS HAVE CON-SPIRED TO EL-IM-IN-ATE THE OTH-ER DE-LE-GATES!"
"Nonsense!" Pyronex snapped. "This is as much a surprise to us as it is to you!"
"THE DA-LEKS ARE NOT FOOLS! THERE WILL BE CON-SE-QUENCES!"
Pryonex didn't even bother with the Dalek. "A small explosion. Obviously this isn't what set off my TARDIS' HADS system."
"Probably a trigger explosion for something larger," Xadium muttered. "But the door's blocked. We can't escape to my ship." He turned to the Dalek. "Now do you see we couldn't have done this? We wouldn't trap ourselves if we were planning treachery!"
"WE WOULD." the Dalek said flatly.
"How do we know this isn't your doing!" Pyronex snapped.
"YOU WOULD BOTH BE DEAD."
"Well we soon will be, if we don't figure out a way back to my TARDIS." Xadium struggled to keep his balance as the station shook again.
CRUISE LINER RISING STAR
"Atsui kimochi wa C'est la vie--" Minako's reprise of her famous theme song was cut short as screams began erupting from the back of the auditorium. There was a feedback screech from her Microphone as she saw the cause of the chaos and dropped it. Outside the window, the shining jewel that was Babylon 3 was beginning to spit flame-- large explosions from its middle which quickly extinguished in the cold vacuum of space, sending spheres of sparking debris out into the void in puffs of destruction.
"X-chan," Minako said in a panic, her heart almost stopping. Without thinking, she unconsciously gripped the TARDIS recall disc, just before realizing that the TARDIS itself was probably at ground zero. But even as she figured it out, her body beginning to slip through space, she realized it didn't matter. For her love she would go into hell itself.
SAKURA'S SHUTTLE
"What the Frelling hell"?! Sakura exclaimed as she saw the explosions bellowing out from the station, and the high-speed projectile shrapnel from the damages began zooming her way. Rapidly punching in commands on the navigation panel, she tried to turn the shuttle away, but it was an escape pod meant for rapid ejection and slow maneuvering. She managed to turn the shuttle sideways just as the debris tore into its side... her craft beginning to vent atmosphere.
TEMPORAL ACCORDS SUMMIT
"Less than a minute ten," Pyronex snapped even as he tried to clear the debris to the door. Xadium, for his part, had emptied all of his pockets and was trying to find something.
"What the devil are you looking for, man?" Pyronex yelled.
"My sonic screwdriver," Xadium muttered as he sifted through the veritable mound of junk he had produced. "If I had it, I could..." his hands closed around a recall disc. The one he had given Sakura. That irritatingly disobedient child! But her disobedience would probably save them all.
"We can use this to get back to my TARDIS," Xadium snapped, grabbing Pyronex and squeezing the disc. Nothing happened.
"Don't tell me it's broken too," he sighed.
"Under a minute."
"YOU WILL DIE HERE WITH ME," the Dalek said, enjoying the fact that its enemies, the Time Lords, were about to die before its eye.
Xadium scowled and dashed the disc across a table, cracking it open and exposing its delicate microcircuitry.
"I don't have any tools," Xadium muttered.
"Nor I," Pyronex replied. "And to work with that you'd need subatomic manipulators."
Xadium turned to the Dalek and smiled. "Don't Daleks use those in their interfaces with their armored shells?
The Dalek's eyestalk bobbed up and down, but it said nothing. The next second, Xadium was behind the Dalek, forcing open its casing.
"STOP!" the Dalek Protested. "YOU ARE VI-OLATING MY RIGHTS!"
"This is your only chance to survive," Xadium said tersely as he rather rudely ripped some equipment out of the Dalek's case and slammed it's lid shut again, running over to the recall disc. There were less than thirty seconds left. Flipping some subatomic switches and logic gates, Xadium reconfigured the device, and took it over to the wall, where, without hesitation, he kicked off a bent, protruding access hatch, hooking the disc up to a power source.
* * *
Minako, for her part, found herself in the middle of her husband's TARDIS, and activated a scanner, seeing a massive ball of flame and ancillary explosions heading right for her. She didn't know if the TARDIS, battered as it was from years of use, could take the hit. She was, more worried, however, that her husband didn't seem to be here with her.
* * *
"What's your plan, boy," Pryonex demanded, as he watched. What Xadium was doing looked insane, and they were less than ten seconds away from annihilation.
"Oh, just a parlour trick I used to do back at University," Xadium muttered, making the final connection.
"A Parlour trick?! You're entrusting all our lives to a PARLOUR TRICK?!"
"I hope the power relay holds," Xadium muttered. As he activated the device, all the power in the room failed. The next second, a massive explosion tore through the area, leaving empty space in its wake, matter inrushing into the void with a massive BANG and then.... nothing. Of the conference room, the delegates' ships, or even Xadium's TARDIS... nothing remained.
* * *
In her shuttle, Sakura just sat there, frozen, even as the atmosphere continued to leak from the shuttle. As a child with the powers of both the planet Venus, and the low-level telepathy of a Time Lord, she had always had a subtle telepathic connection to her parents. It was like a pressure that was light but constant, something so familiar it was forgotten. But now it was gone, and she felt the void, knowing instinctively, and with certainty... that they were both gone. That feeling washed over her, an empty weakness that seemed to hollow her insides, and render her weak. Her hearing faded, and she felt closed in, like someone being immersed in water. Everything was dream-like for her. She didn't want to move. She felt the encroaching coldness of the void, but didn't care. Her parents were gone, and she wanted to join them. Without them, her only friends, the ones she loved most in the whole universe, there was no point for her to live.
What Sakura forgot was that she still had one friend left.
rei.bot looked around her quickly, realizing that the shuttle was breaking apart. For her part, she needed no atmosphere to survive, so she would be fine. But Sakura could only survive for up to a half-hour in vacuum, and in her state, there was no way she'd be able to control her biofunctions to that extent. The exploding station was sending debris out in all directions. The next wave would tear the shuttle to shreds before decimating the cruise liner _Rising Star_. The only chance was the planet, Epsilon III-- but it was so far away.
rei.bot took another look at Sakura and nodded to herself. There was no time left. Her form began to shift into an amorphous silvery metallic blob, and she flowed around Sakura, forming a hard metallic cocoon in which she stored enough oxygen for the trip. remotely interfacing with the shuttle, she set it to self destruct. As it exploded, she rode the shockwave to the planet, Sakura nestled inside, still stunned and almost unconscious. The next second, another portion of Babylon 3 went up, the shockwave obliterating the _Rising Star_. What remained of the station was a burnt, damaged hulk that was almost unsalvageable.
rei.bot watched the planet Epsilon 3 come closer into view. She sensed some kind of great power from it, that she only vaguely understood. Something there was sending her a warning to stay away. But she could not. There was a rudimentary atmosphere there, and Sakura would run out of air. So she continued on course, her surface superheating as it entered the atmosphere.
From the surface of the planet, missiles launched, heading straight for her. In her current shape and situation, she could not form weapons to intercept them, so she emitted a tremendous shockwave of power which knocked them aside, causing them to explode. She did her best to control her rate of descent, and softly landed on the planet's surface.
While the atmosphere was not safe for humans, rei.bot knew Sakura's lungs could tolerate it. She shifted shape and deposited the girl on the ground gently. The artificial lifeform stood there for a moment, her Shinto robes fluttering in the alien breeze. She began calculating the myriad ways she might be able to get Sakura off the planet. Before she could take action, however, she was approached by strange man in flowing black robes-- a man who seemed somewhat apprehensive of her, but spoke to her nonetheless. rei.bot nodded as she said something to him in the distance. Sakura, for her part, lay on the ground in a fetal position, the light gone out of her eyes.
Without another word, she walked over, lifted up Sakura, and nodded to the man, vanishing.
* * *
SENDAI, JAPAN, 1915
"Shinguuji..."
Sakura lay on the ground, that word echoing in her mind. It was something someone had whispered to her in her dreams. Her mind was clouded, in a dream-like state of shock.
"Young lady?" Someone was speaking to her. Sakura's eyes opened slowly. She didn't understand where she was, or how she had gotten there. She couldn't remember much of anything, actually.
"Uhh..." Sakura moaned, holding her head. She looked up blankly at the man who was talking to her.
"Young lady? Do you have a name?"
"Shinguuji..." Sakura began slowly, repeating the word that danced in her mind. The man in front of her froze, seemingly in shock. Sakura shook her head, trying to clear it. Her name wasn't Shinguuji, it was... "Sakura."
"Shinguuji Sakura-san?!" The man looked at her aghast. "But we were told you had been killed!"
Sakura just looked at the man, too weak and traumatized to bother correcting him. She meekly allowed him to take her to his home, where she met his simple family, an older grandparent, a small noisy boy, and his sickly wife. They all seemed to treat her with a respect an awe that she could not understand. She sat there, largely passive and unresponsive, the shock of... something she had experienced (but where? and what?) weighing on her soul. Despite the fact that she was fairly certain the family were mistaken as to her identity, they seemed almost *desperate* to believe she was this "Sakura Shinguuji", a young girl with supposedly highly advanced spiritual strength, who had gone off to fight demons and never returned. They assumed her different appearance was due to some spiritual awakening she had experienced during the battle. They also seemed curious to know where her sword, which was apparently some powerful artifact-- the Arataka-- had gone.
Sakura answered none of their questions, too shellshocked to do much more than nod or shake her head. They seemed dismayed to learn that she had apparently "forgotten" all of her skills, which they re-taught her slowly and painstakingly. Surprisingly, she was quick study, able to master the forms of hand to hand combat and the Northern Long Blade sword style with only minimal training. Her reflexes and speed were both well beyond those of her instructors, even if her drive seemed to be lacking.
Sakura was always quiet and reserved, never smiling or showing any emotion other than a distant sadness. Her spiritual and meditative powers, however, seemed to grow with each passing day. She didn't know why she was able to do such things with ease, but occasionally the odd image of sitting next to a very serene shrine priestess on a barren plain would come to her mind. At those times she felt happy and safe, but the memories were always fleeting. She dove deeper into meditation and training, not to please those around her, but merely to try and expand those images into clearer memories.
One night, as she lay in her futon sleeping, Sakura felt a strange presence in the corner of her mind. Eyes flying open, her hands automatically reached for the wooden training sword she had been taught to wield with devastating efficacy. Her gaze darted from corner to corner. Finally, she saw a tall, imposing figure in the shadows, barely lit by the full moon. It was a Shinto Miko, but one whose eyes seemed to glow in the night.
Without saying anything, Sakura leapt to her feet, whipping her sword in front of her in battle stance. The Miko was gone.
Wasting no time, she ran to where the miko had been. Her senses were on overdrive. She could *feel* the shrine maiden's presence somewhere. She ran, quickly and blindly, instinct and sixth sense guiding her. She ran through the forest, across fields, and down ancient winding paths none had seemingly used for centuries, the fleeting presence of the miko continuing to spur her on.
Eventually, she came to a small stone outcrop in front of a hillside, upon which was carved the sigil of the Shinguuji clan-- the symbol of a clan that seemed to have been wiped from the face of the Earth with no trace as to their whereabouts, except for her. She reached out for the symbol, which glowed with an eerie light, the sigil retreating into the stone.
Suddenly, a wall in the hillside creaked and groaned, splitting open. Sakura, heedless of any possible danger, walked in confidently. She entered a dark cavern, where very little was visible. She stepped forward before seeing something that made her blood freeze in her veins. The skeleton of a young girl wearing a Kimono adorned with the sign of the Shinguuji clan. *This* was probably the real Shinguuji Sakura. From the looks of her, someone had snuck up on her and impaled her with a weapon no longer present.
Sakura could not help but shed a tear. Then she saw something clutched in the skeleton's hand. It was a sword whose blade glowed with a fierce blue holy light. There was also a blast pattern on the ground that seemed to indicate that whatever dark forces had ambushed the other girl had tried--unsuccessfully-- to pull it from her hands.
Again, without thinking, Sakura reached for the blade--
"do not touch the blade," a voice said from somewhere in the cavern. "you must just hold the handle."
Sakura froze, the voice seeming familiar to her, and close to her heart. Instead of looking for its source, however, she did as she was told and reached for the handle, gently prying away the deceased girl's hand from its grip. The sword pulsed once, with something almost akin to a heartbeat, and it glowed brightly. As she picked up the sword, her body was suffused with warm, pure holy energy.
"arataka" the voice said. Suddenly, parts of her mind that were closed to her began to open. Not all of them, but many. Knowledge, skills and memories spilled into her consciousness. She felt more confident and secure in herself. Gently taking the sword's wooden sheath from the dead girls' body, Sakura sheathed the sword.
Kneeling, she picked up the body and carried it outside, where she prepared it for a traditional funeral. In the back of her soul, she felt the gaze of her guardian, the elusive miko who always remained just out of sight.
Sakura spent days collecting blueberries from the forest, crushing them into a fine paste, creating a kind of permafrost dye, which she used to tint her long blonde locks a deep blue to match the deceased Sakura's. Somehow she *knew* that by the time her hair grew out, she'd be able to alter its color by will. She didn't understand it, but she knew her body was different somehow. She cut her hair a bit clumsily, and made herself appear as her mind's eye told her this girl had.
Why? Because a voice in the back of her mind, that of someone she suspected must have been her father... from a memory. He had told her continuity was important... that symbols should be preserved and exploited to motivate the people-- whether it be to rally them to action or to instill fear and dread into the enemy. She did not remember his face, but his kindness and determination. She also knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that he had probably been killed... just like this girl's family.
She felt a kinship with this dead girl and her cause. "I will avenge you..." Sakura said slowly. "I will complete your mission, in your name and in your place."
Taking the sword, she returned to the stunned villagers, who were now firmly convinced "their" Sakura was truly back. Sakura knew better, but never said anything otherwise, taking up the fight against evil started by the Shinguuji clan with quiet determination and a somewhat childish demeanor. Little by little, she was opening up to the world, and the name Sakura Shinguuji went down in legend.
OKINAWA, JAPAN, 1978
Sakura awoke in the middle of the night, not aged a day from the time she had awakened in Sendai. She felt a burning sensation on her forehead she could not understand. Looking into a mirror she saw a strange glowing sigil, that looked like an Egyptian ankh, but with a heart-shaped top. "The sigil of Venus," she said, without understanding why, or what the words meant.
In Shiba Koen, Aino Minako-- a newborn whose forehead also briefly shone with the sigil, cried out as she took her first breath.
TOKYO, JAPAN 1990
Over 70 years had passed since Sendai. Steam power had given way to Electric, society and culture had changed, but somehow humans stayed the same. Sakura's memory was still shattered and fragmentary, but her technical and spiritual skills had allowed her to find work doing odd jobs all over the nation. She had become a "hack of all trades" as she put it, a wandering traveler who seemed to soak up each new experience and add it to herself. Still, there was an air of depression around her that had grown darker and deeper over the years-- ever since 1978-- like clouds of a gathering storm. She became more are more sullen and withdrawn, eventually retreating to the hills of Sendai, which she now considered her ancestral home. There she trained and increased her spiritual discipline, waiting... for she knew not what. But she felt lonelier and lonelier with each passing day.
2980, SENDAI TOKYO
Sakura awoke with a start, the blade of the Arataka glowing brightly and fiercely. It had been difficult to keep the sword with her, especially after the Second World War, so she had left it here in its ancestral seat as she wandered Tokyo. Now it was reacting to something so powerful she could not even begin to imagine it. Before she could get up, the ancient boulder which served as the "door" to the cave she lived in exploded in a shower of rubble. Before she could react, something had snatched the sword from her in a rush.
"Impossible," she gasped. Nothing evil could touch that sword!
The next second she saw black and was unconscious.
2980 - TITAN CASTLE, IN ORBIT AROUND THE PLANET SATURN
It had been five years since Xadium, Minako, rei.bot and Sakura had vanished from Venus. The search for them had gone across the entire system, but without any clues as to where or when they had gone, and with Sailor Pluto benign close-lipped about the whole thing, everyone assumed the worst, and sadly went on with their lives.
"Dammit!" Haruka yelled, as she kicked a can of Yebisu 3000 across the purple-tiled lobby of the castle. "Michi wants to clone ANOTHER KID."
"Hah!" Hotaru laughed, lounging on a plush purple couch. "What does that make now, three?"
"It ain't funny," Haruka said, sighing. "I can barely keep up with the two we have now."
"That's why we don't want to have any," Hotaru said, chuckling. "Things are peaceful enough now."
"You mean YOU don't want any, and he's going along with you," Haruka said, chuckling.
"HAH!" Hotaru laughed. "He's insistent. I wouldn't mind. Lately I've begun to feel that it's time for such a thing."
"Wow," Haruka exhaled. "I NEVER thought I would hear something like that from YOU."
Hotaru smiled a bit, tossing her hair. "Life wants to continue, Haruka-poppa."
"Heh. like you're going anywhere," Haruka laughed. "You look just as good as you did 1000 years ago."
"If there's anything recent events have taught us, it's that things can change at a moment's notice." Hotaru's tone was soft and distant, as she remembered the painful search for Minako-sempai and her family. She looked away, her eyes moving to the doorway of her castle.
For a moment she thought she was hallucinating.
There, standing in her doorway, was rei.bot, her hakama slightly dirty and dusty, and at her feet, an unconscious Sakura Xadium Aino-chan.
"it is time she rejoined the world," rei.bot said, doing something she rarely did and breaking her usually mode of speaking in haiku.
"You... you came for me," Sakura muttered, looking at the miko who stood above her. The miko's name floated on the edge of her mind. "r... r-chan?"
rei.bot nodded.
Suddenly, all Sakura's fragmented memories snapped back into focus. She saw it all in her mind. The vague unknown fear that washed over her in the womb. Her childhood. Her family. Mommy. Daddy. The happy times. The sad times. The trips. The shuttle. The explosion. Their... Their... d...dea... death...
Sakura's mind shut off, and she collapsed again.
EIGHT DAYS LATER
"This sword has great power," Hotaru said, holding it gently and watching its blade glow. rei.bot nodded and took it, sheathing it. The miko had explained that for the time being it was probably better to not let Sakura have access to weapons. She was not in the best frame of mind. The girl had not eaten for over a week.
"My space sword could take it," Haruka said confidently, producing the blade, which now looked more like an elegant rapier than a crescent.
"Your room stinks," the Talisman said, in an exasperated tone.
"Shut up!" Haruka sighed. Ever since the damn thing had powered up, it had gained the power of speech and had decided to use that by commenting on just about *everything*.
"Cut your hair, you damn hippie," the sword retorted. Haruka's hair was now shoulder-length, but wild and unkempt, still retaining a masculine toughness about it.
"I'm rather glad the glaive doesn't talk back," Hotaru sighed. "The number of time's it's been used to remove Helio's nether regions..."
"Has she still not eaten?" Hino Rei asked, coming into the castle. It had taken he a lot of arguing with the Queen--not to mention a promise to watch the increasingly linguistically-challenged Chibiusa-- to get her permission to come to Hotaru's place. She hadn't said why-- because if Usagi found out that Venus's daughter was living in the sphere of Crystal Tokyo's influence, she might have tried to press her into service.
Rei paused and locked gazes with rei.bot, who shared her name and choice of wardrobe, but sported shorter brown hair and longer features, not to mention glowing blue eyes. She and the cybernetic miko rarely crossed paths. While she respected rei.bot's holy power, she felt as if the creation was a mockery of her in some way.
rei.bot, for her part, felt that the more worldly Hino Rei was an affront to her more pure-minded adherence to her duties as a Shinto miko. She narrowed her eyes, but bowed politely.
Hino Rei returned the bow tautly. "You summoned me?"
rei.bot nodded. "i cannot relate / a more human touch needed / take care of her please"
Rei looked at her opposite number, her ire dispersing a little. She could tell the robot... android... artificial life form... whatEVER was actually worried about Sakura's well being. "I'll see what I can do."
Rei walked over to Sakura, who was sitting at a small table, untouched food in front of her. She had heard the girl was refusing food and drink.
"Why this suicide?" Rei asked bluntly. Hotaru gasped.
"Rei-san..." she began hesitantly.
"There's no use jumping around the topic," Rei said firmly. "She wants to die."
Sakura nodded numbly.
"Sakura-chan," Rei said gently. "Parents die. My mother and father and grandfather are long dead. Not a day goes by that I don't miss them."
"I can't see them," Sakura said numbly. "You can see them."
Rei sighed. As a Miko she had some connection with the other side, it was true.
"I could see Kazuma Shinguuji, the spirit-father of a dead girl who shared my name. But I can't see MY mom or pop."
Rei bowed her head. "Your pain may be masking the connection," she ventured slowly. She didn't bother suggesting that they could still be alive. Neither she nor rei.bot could sense them, and Pluto confirmed the TARDIS was nowhere to be found in this time or the time of the accident. Babylon 3 had been irreparably damaged during mid-construction by the explosion and construction had been abandoned in favor of other stations.
Hotaru put her hand on Sakura's shoulder. "I lost my mother a long time ago, and I never sensed her, except for that time when I die..." she abruptly cut herself off, realizing what she was about to say. Rei shot her an angry look.
Sakura nodded. "I want to see them again. I want to die."
"Sakura-chan!" Rei scolded, slapping her, as rei.bot started, almost ready to attack Rei before she checked herself, "Your mother once said to someone else who was thinking about taking her life that once you feel your life coming out of your body you'll want to go back and it will be TOO LATE!!"
"I don't want to come back," Sakura said slowly. "They were my life. I loved them more than my own self. Without them, I have no desire to be."
"Surely you must have known you would outlive them," Hotaru pressed. "Most children do."
"I never wanted to," Sakura said, her tone completely neutral. "I was happy with our simple life. The three of us... well, the four of us. No offense, r-chan, but I can't live without them, and even though you've been very kind, I-- I always anted to go before them, or with them. I can't live... not anymore--"
Sakura was cut off as rei.bot hauled off a fierce slap to the other side of her face. Even Hino Rei was shocked. The crack echoed across the room.
"That cost me a molar, I should think," Sakura said, looking at rei.bot and trying not to cry. rei.bot had NEVER been harsh with her. Ever.
"who will avenge them?!" rei.bot exclaimed, letting anger come over her features for the first time anyone could ever remember. "a daughter seeks her own death, her parents murdered!"
Sakura's eyes widened. It had never occurred to her that the explosion could have been more than an accident. Actually, she'd never pondered the incident at all, considering she'd had partial amnesia for a good long time.
"They were murdered?" she asked in a low tone. "By whom?"
"unknown," rei.bot replied. The mystery surrounding the sabotage of Babylon 3 had never been fully dispelled, at least to the public.
Sakura got up, her eyes narrowed, her teeth gritted. The blood in her mouth from her displaced tooth leaked down the side of her mouth a little. She looked over at rei.bot and grabbed the Arataka from her. The blade was uncharacteristically dull in her hand.
"I will avenge them before I take my place alongside them," she said coldly. "Mother, Father. I swear it to you."
"Now wait a minute--" Rei protested, but rei.bot shook her head.
"This is wrong!" Rei continued anyway, heedless of the miko. "She's going to go off on some kind of vengeance quest!"
"Would you do any less for Serenity II if she were killed?!" Sakura snapped. Rei was forced to bow her head.
"Whoever this enemy is, they escaped in 2252," Hotaru mused. "Without Time travel, we had no way to go back and investigate."
"Puu-P didn't help you?!" Sakura's used of the cutesy term for Setsuna made Haruka chuckle.
"Kiddo, she's got rules."
"DAMN AND BLAST THE RULES!" Sakura yelled. "HARRY-P, I need to get back there! Maybe I can change things! Maybe I can save--"
"And that is precisely why you shouldn't go about the universe meddling with time, young woman," said a new voice, one which belonged to a man in black robes. The same one who had spoken to rei.bot so many years ago on Epsilon 3.
"Who are you?!" Hotaru demanded. "And how did you get in here past the orbital defenses?!"
"Heh," the older looking man said, his bearing dignified and regal. "Such things are but child's play to us."
"Who's us, punkass?" Haruka asked, leveling her space sword at the intruder.
"To the lords of Time..." Sakura exhaled slowly, feeling the familiar connection she had shared with her father. "My... people."
"We're your people, Sakura-chan!" Rei exclaimed.
"She can taste the flow of time," the old man said. "It fills every particle of her being. Her senses wander the fourth dimension. Her soul hungers for the touch of the Vortex. She is one of us. She needs to learn to hone her powers, to make use of them."
"Pluto can do that," Rei said skeptically.
"Can that child of Chronos teach her to think with her autonomic brain? Can she teach her how to enter a healing trance, or how to use her respiratory bypass system? Can she awaken all of this child's 27 senses? There are things only we, her people, can."
"And how long would she have to stay with you people?" Haruka asked coldly. "She's like a daughter to us."
"Time, my good woman, is relative. She could be back here yesterday. In strictly linear terms, she would be back when she has passed through the University of Gallifrey and graduated as a full Time Lady, with all the rights and responsibilities thereof. Her power, unchecked and untempered, running amok through the universe, would be far too dangerous."
"He's right," Sakura said softly. "I need to know more about my people... about myself. Both sides of my heritage."
"You sure about this?" Haruka asked darkly.
"Yeah," Sakura said, nodding. "I promise you I'll come back. Cross my hearts and hope to diet."
"Die," Hotaru reflexively corrected. The girl was so much like her late mother. Hotaru blanched. "Well, we don't want you to die!"
"I won't," Sakura chuckled. "Not yet, at any rate."
"Hearts?" The older Time Lord asked. "Did you pick up that expression from your father, Rassilon preserve him?"
"I have two hearts," Sakura said matter-of-factly. The elder Time Lord gasped.
"What, don't all of you have that?" Haruka asked.
"Well yes, but only after receiving the fourth helix of our DNA that signifies our graduation as Time Lords. That gives us the bodily enhancements such as a second heart, enhanced lung density, reflexes, strength, etc."
"I have four strands," Sakura said, shrugging. "Just like Pop does... did." She shook her head slowly.
"Hybrid vigor?" The old time lord asked himself. IF this girl already HAD all the physical attributes of a Time Lady, then why did Lord Blyledge want her in the University? Surely her father had taught her everything she needed to know about time? But he was not one to question one of the most prominent Time Lords on Gallifrey, and so dismissed his concern.
"Shall we be going?" he asked. Sakura nodded and left with him.
"I don't like this idea of revenge," Hino Rei said flatly.
"she needs something to live for" rei.bot said. "just for the moment." GALLIFREY 3489809610.2 LOCAL DATELINE (2980 EARTH RELATIVE)
The burnt orange sky of Gallifrey made Sakura homesick for Venus. The purple, green and yellow colors that streaked across it, which a human would have found awe-inspiring, barely impressed her. She wasn't here to see the sights. She had a mission to fulfill and she would do it. And whether the Time Lords knew it or not, they were going to help her.
* * *
"From this day, you are to be considered a member of my house," Lord Blyledge said, admiring Sakuraxadiumainoshinguujiblyledge, as she was to be officially known on Gallifrey. It is a senior house in the Prydon Chapter of Glorious Gallifrey."
"Politics bore me," Sakura said, not trying to be rude. "Just the same old lie, constantly recontextualized for those all too willing to believe it."
"If you can already see that, there is hope for you yet, young one," Blyledge said with a smile. "Politics is almost like air to those in the upper levels of Gallifreyan society. It is a dirty, dangerous, ignoble and vital exercise of statecraft and personal survival. You would do well to master its intricacies."
"That's why you brought me here," she said flatly. "To continue your line. Your influence."
"I would be lying if I said that wasn't one of my hopes," Blyledge said. "But really, what I want is a free radical. Someone lively and uncommon, who isn't afraid to 'buck the system' as they say on that planet Earth of yours. Someone who can shake things up around these dreadfully dull parts."
Sakura chuckled slightly. "I'm not your girl. I just want to learn about myself and leave, sorry."
If Blyledge was disappointed, he didn't show it. "Direct. Good. A lesser woman would have told me what I wanted to hear in hopes of currying my favour." The old man laughed. "Think of this house as your own, because it is." He pointed to a small, angular dark building on the top of a hill. "Those are the main quarters. They are older than the hill they sit upon."
"Was the house moved?" Sakura asked, forgetting for a moment where she was.
"My dear, this is Gallifrey," Blyledge said with a laugh. "Time runs in knots around here, as they say."
Sakura spent her first few weeks acclimating to the planet, meditating in a walled garden of silver trees that sat in the center of the house (open to the air). She often gazed across to the slopes of Mount Cadon, where the capitol city, and more importantly to her, the self contained city next to it that was Prydon Time Academy, rested. She marveled at the 28 square mile campus and wondered what her life would be like upon entering school.
* * *
"Many Gallifreyans attend a Time Academy," droned on the wizened old instructor as Sakura and her freshman classmates listened in half-interest. "but only a very select few are chosen to become Time Lords. This number is quite limited because (in modern times) there are only 1,000 Time Lords at any given time. Assuming you all pass your examinations," the instructor smiled wryly, "which is highly unlikely, you will learn to predict the movements of the Universe. You will become not a mere person, or member of a species, you will become a force of nature and history..."
When Sakura heard that, her hearts skipped a beat. She somehow knew *this* was what Blyledge wanted for her. Not to be a wildcard on the barren, boring world of Gallifrey, but to be something more... out there, in the universe. That must be why he took her in and paid a small fortune to get her into the most elite academy on Gallifrey.
"You will be expected to adhere rigidly to the tenets of our codex of disciplines..." the instructor continued to drone.
"Not much chance of that happening," Sakura muttered to herself, not out of free-spiritedness or anti-authoritarianism, but because she had heard tales of something that was on Gallifrey that could help her in her quest for revenge. The Time Lords' central data store of knowledge that covered all of past, present, and much of the future-- the APC Matrix.
She spent her spare time scouting out the layout of the academy, and hanging out in the TARDIS cradles at the compound's far end. There, she worked on repairing lord Blyledge's shiny new TARDIS, getting to know all its systems in and out. The others at the Academy were stunned when the old man had ordered a brand new TARDIS, since Time Lords symbiotically link to their semi-sentient vessels. Even the simplest TARDIS needed that intelligence just to keep itself whole, given its complex inner structure. The semi-instinctual neural-link between a TARDIS and its operator is incredibly intimate-- some one say almost sexual-- and when the owner dies, the vessel usually grieves and goes off to a "graveyard" on the edges of reality to die. Thus it was considered odd that Blyledge would want one just as he was preparing to die. It was considered a waste of material, but no one would dare argue with him on the point.
For her part, Sakura didn't worry about such things. The Symbiotic nuclei was the one thing she had NOT inherited from her father. It was usually given to junior grade Time Lords, and since she didn't have it, she could not use any TARDIS that had not already been primed with the link. Blyledge's was not, as it was ostensibly broken somehow, even though Sakura--on his instructions-- had taken apart as much of it as she could and put it back together three times. She worried more about getting to the Matrix's sensitive areas. Students had only limited access to it, and what she wanted was very classified, and very hard to obtain. While Sakura counted on the data being difficult to get, she didn't expect the real obstacle to her time on Gallifrey would not be security, but the prejudice of her fellow classmates.
* * *
"Say, did you hear about the half-breed bitch from Mutter's Spiral?"
"Yeah. She's a freak. She sits alone in her room all day scouring the Data nets and playing with that pet Rovie* that she picked up in the fields."
* - a small mouse like creature.
"Yeah, Prydon Chapter's supposed ta have 100 members only, and she's 101. I heard ol' Blyledge himself pulled for her position. He even lets her work on his TARDIS."
"By Omega. I can't even touch a TARDIS yet. Blast. I thought the old codger was gonna off himself, I guess she gave him a 'reason' to live, eh?"
"Well you know what they say about those apes on Mutter's Spiral. All they do is breed, it's all they're good for."
"And she's always walking around with Memento Mori pinned to her lapel*, it's freaky."
*- The Gallifreyan Flower of Remembrance for the dead, a yellow flower with 6 petals.
"I hear the bitch already has two hearts and everything. She'll have no trouble passing the exams. She'll bust the curve. There goes my fratzing triple Alpha."
"Heh, someone should bust *her* fratzing curves, if you know what I mean. We don't need half-alien scum stinking up Prydon Academy."
"Don't worry. I got friends at the Girl's dormitory more than willing to take care of it."
"You have friends who are girls, hah!"
"Shut it."
* * *
Sakura leaned on the balcony of her dorm room, inhaling the sweet night air, and letting her hair free in the breeze. She was beginning to feel her ancient connections to this world, to truly understand what it meant to be a Time Lady. She began to think that perhaps, once her mission was over, she might have something to live for.
"Terran pig," a voice snarled from behind her, just as a pair of arms shoved her over the balcony rail. Sakura dimly recognized the voice as being that of her "best friend" in class, an unassuming young girl named Atrex.
The next instant, she smashed into the ground, 200 feet below. As she lay on the ground, broken and bleeding, she managed to splutter out, "Actually I'm Venusian. " Before it all went black, an Owl flew past her. The bird which symbolized Rassilon, the founder of Time Lord society. Sakura guessed she'd finally get to see her family again after all.
* * *
"69 Chromosomes, divided into 23 homogeneous triads. Quadruple Helix DNA. Reflex ratings at 10 times faster than Terran. But oddly, only 10 of her senses are awake. Maybe 11." The Elderly medical technician waves his scanner over Sakura's bloodied body.
"Never mind that, man!" Blyledge blasted. "Will she live?!"
"Are you daft man?" The physician asked, totally unconcerned about who he was talking to. "Of *course* she'll live. See the ice on her body? She's managed to enter the advanced healing trance all on her own. Her body temperature is below zero, her hearts are beating steadily ever ten seconds, and her cells are undergoing recombinant reconstitution."
"Her father taught her well," Blyledge noted. "How long before she's conscious?"
"Perhaps a week," The physician replied.
"I want you to do me a favor. Inject her with the symbiotic nuclei."
"What? That is for graduates only! I can't do that! I wouldn't even have access to the new nuclei until they are loomed!"
"Give her mine," Blyledge said flatly. "Now. We don't have much time."
"Do you know what that would mean?" The Physician asked darkly. "You would never be able to pilot a TARDIS again, or use our more sensitive technologies."
"I am not long for this world," Blyledge exhaled. "I no longer need the power. But this one, she does. Give it to her. I beg you."
"There is no need to beg, old friend," the Physician said. "Lie down over there. It's a simple procedure, painless and quick."
FOUR DAYS LATER
Sakura was bored out of her mind. What the other students had done to her hurt her mentally more than it did physically. She was beginning to think that she didn't have a place on Gallifrey after all. Not that she had wanted one, she forced herself to recall. She was here for one reason. To acquire information from the Matrix about her parents and Babylon 3's destruction. That was it. The others could take a flying Frell. She idly clicked through all 87656432 media channels in the Public Register Video and sighed. For some reason, her head ached a bit. Chalking it up to headache, she tried to sleep. As she did so, however, a voice entered her mind. It was Blyledge, using telepathy stronger than he had ever used before.
"Your time is now. The way is clear. Go."
Sakura bolted awake. She *knew* how to get to the Matrix access chamber. She *knew* the codes. Blyledge had supplied them!
Running at top speed, she made her way to the control panel and began to type frantically.
"Babylon 3... construction stopped due to explosion amidships. Charges set by Drakh agent working for forces known as 'Shadows', real designation 14 million characters long. Charge transferred from Drakh to terran agent, Yuuko Arimura, attached to Orion Syndicate. Notation. Known user of illegal time transfer technology. Notation. Apprehend or eliminate at convenience. Notation. Suspected in the elimination of Doctor Xadiumarcalalephveriyardexatonlundaranathaxonianax."
"Dad," Sakura sniffed. Coldly, she noted there was no information on her mother. To the Time Lords she was less than a nothing.
"Xenophobic bastards," she muttered as she pulled up all the relevant data she could get on "Eudial". She tried to get more information on her parents, but the matrix refused all her commands, insisting no data was available, something she considered odd since it was very comprehensive. She downloaded all the data to a dataclip and pocketed it.
"Well if it isn't the half-breed bitch," a male voice said from behind Sakura. "And stealing information to boot. That's an expulsion-worthy offense." The Young man sneered at her. He smiled crookedly. "But I might be willing to overlook it, if you give me some of what you've been givin' old Blyledge."
"Aren't your tastes running a little low, if you want to do it with a half-breed?" Sakura asked dangerously, getting up and putting some distance between herself and the leering fellow.
"Shut up, bitch!" The boy advanced, wielding a low-grade staser pistol. Sakura heard the sounds of two, possibly three more men coming up behind her from down the hall.
"All right," she said as seductively as she could, sidling up to him, and running her fingers across his chest. "I'll show you what the daughter of the house of Venus can do to a man..."
The boy smiled and drew her close, his eyes crossing as she kneed him violently and simultaneously grabbed his staser. With a smashing chop to the neck, she dropped him.
Aiming the staser at the others, she tried to fire, but it did nothing.
"A FRELLING TOY?!" She yelled, catching herself. The others came running with pipes and chains. Those definitely weren't toys. She ran as fast as she could, away from the, and towards the TARDIS cradles. She still had the key to Blyledge's TARDIS, if she could get to it, she could hole up in there until they left.
With her pursuers hard on her heels, she made it to the TARDIS and got inside, locking the door as one of the boys tried to slide in after her. The door cleaved him in two, leaving a bloody mess of pulp in the gleaming silver console room.
Sakura didn't give a damn. She turned on the scanner and looked as the boys ran up to the door and screamed, pounding on the TARDIS.
"You bitch! You killed him! You'll be EXECUTED for this!"
One of them motioned to the others. "Get the emergency master keys."
"Oh no," Sakura said to herself. Those students were in charge of the bays. They could get into the TARDISes for maintenance purposes. She had to get out of here before they forced their way in. But she had no symbiotic nuclei, and this TARDIS wasn't primed! She put her hands on the Telepathic circuits of the TARDIS anyway.
"Please..." she begged.
Her forehead started to throb, and her whole body filled with a kind of dull heat. The TARDIS instruments lit up, in response to the nuclei in her brain that Blyledge had had placed there. A warmth and comfort began to fill her body, totally and completely. For an instant, she was one with the machine, and it with her, two totally alien minds meeting, crossing, not consciously understanding each other, but still aware of each other on a base level.
Sakura shuddered a bit, and the TARDIS sprang to life, dematerializing, its sleek metallic form vanishing amidst a sharp, scraping metallic sound.
As the boys cursed, Academy guards came upon them, having been alerted to the whole incident by the automated security system.
"Should we recall the TARDIS, Lord Blyledge?" one of the guards asked.
"No," he said. "She knows what she needs to. She is a Time Lady of the house of Blyledge and I expect her to be treated as such."
"Very good sir."
"Don't lose yourself, girl," Blyledge prayed. "Be everything I think you can be." He coughed a bit, and dropped to his knees, old age catching up with him at last. The nuclei transfer had taken more out of him than he had thought. Still, his affairs were in order and he was right by the matrix. His consciousness would live on in it, and he would make sure Sakura Xadium Aino would be welcome upon her return home to Gallifrey.
2975 - ISHTAR TERRA, ON THE SURFACE OF VENUS
Sakura stood outside her TARDIS, near the white picnic table she and her parents had been at mere moments ago before they had left for the song contest. Her hair whipped in the wind. As far as she knew, she was a wanted renegade on Gallifrey. She couldn't go back. But it didn't matter. She had her information, her skills, and a TARDIS. She didn't need to go back. What she needed to do, (since she now knew it was impossible to go save her parents due to the Laws of Time) was maximize her power. She had embraced her human heritage through the life and works of "Sakura Shinguuji", and her Gallifreyan side as Sakura Xadium, and that left the last part of her heritage.
She picked up her mother's old transformation pen from the table. It was still warm from her touch when Minako had put it down. Sakura shed a single tear, as her fears and doubts left her. With them gone, she no longer had any fears, since the thing she had most feared had come to pass. And, so, she did what she knew she had to bring her destiny into focus at long last. She lifted the pen aloft.
"VENUS COSMIC POWER, MAKE UP!!"
-----
NEXT TIME: Sailor Galaxy V goes on the hunt.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The Sakura Taisen crossover featured here is to an alternate version of the ST universe that more easily would fit in our timeline, i.e. one that does not use steampunk technology. Sakura and comrades fought by different means, although for fun one can assume that many of Sakura Shinguuji's adventures in the TV series happened to our Sakura as well with slight differences.