*DISCLAIMER*

None of these characters, situations, places, names, letters or silicon pathways belong to me. In fact, I'm not even writing this fanfic.

Tail Kinker Presents

F L U X

Part One Of Four

"Usagi! You have company!"

Tsukino Usagi, Japanese school girl and part-time saviour of all humanity, dragged herself away from the TV. "Always, they wait until I'm watching something really good...Oh, hi, Ami!" Usagi paused; Ami looked rather...serious...at the moment. A sure sign that this was Senshi business.

"Usagi...I've got something rather disturbing to show you." She glanced pointedly towards the kitchen.

For once, Usagi caught the clue. "Right. Let's just step on up to my room..."

* * * * *

Ami pulled out her palmtop computer - not the Mercury Computer, but a more conventional machine - and handed it to Usagi. "Check out the news files."

Usagi paged through the news articles. "What am I looking for?"

"Article #2238."

"...Got it." She read the report, then looked up in surprise. "That's one of Jadite's youma. I thought they were all destroyed when the Dark Kingdom was defeated."

"Apparently not."

Usagi looked back to the report. "The Honolulu police managed to kill the sucker, so I guess we don't need to go to Hawai'i...pity..."

"That's not all." Ami wrapped her arms around herself. "Check out Article #2247."

"Another youma popped up in Okinawa." Usagi frowned. "The JSDF hit it with a missile. We should have tried that."

"There's more."

"Another one?" Usagi flipped through the news articles. "This one in Kyoto. Why didn't we hear of this one earlier?"

"Apparently after these things attacked Kadena Air Force Base, the JSDF put the whole thing under wraps. That article leaked out through a tabloid."

"...Ah."

Ami pulled out a map. "I've plotted the path of the attacks. They don't form a straight line, but I tried some curves based on these points. This one--" She indicated a red line drawn on the map. "--goes nowhere and does nothing. It hits little villages at best, where these three attacks were on major population centers. This one, though..." She tapped it, then touched a pen to her lips. "The next attack, if you follow this curve, would be on Seoul. And this one...Hanoi."

"Both of those are rather distant."

Ami nodded. "But we have to cover them. Perhaps the Outer Senshi will help us."

"Not likely."

"No. But we have to ask."

Usagi sighed. "I'll call Haruka and Michiru, have them meet us at the shrine. You call the other three."

"What about Chibi-Usa?"

"Forget it." Usagi shook her head. "At best, she'd be a liability. Her training is nowhere near complete enough to deal with a Dark Kingdom monster."

"More likely, you just don't want to put up with her."

* * * * *

"All right, girls. The plan is really simple."

"So are you, Usagi."

"You shut up, spore. Now then." Usagi tapped the map. "I can take us to both cities without too much trouble, though I'll be weakened after making both jumps. I might not be able to fight effectively. Haruka, Michiru, Hotaru; I'll take you three to Seoul. The five of us will go to Hanoi."

"Wait a minute." Haruka leaned back and crossed her arms. "Why are five going to Hanoi, and only three to Seoul?"

Ami piped up. "The probability of an attack on Hanoi is forty-three percent higher. Plus, you and Michiru are stronger than, quite possibly, the five of us put together. On top of that, with Usagi being weakened after the teleport..."

"Fair enough. What about the spore?"

"Hey!" Chibi-Usa shook a tiny fist under Haruka's nose. "I'll put up with that from Meatball Head, but not from you."

Haruka snorted.

"Chibi-Usa is staying here with Usagi's mother."

"I am NOT!"

"And how are you gonna follow us, spore?" Usagi leaned forward. "If I just don't take you, you're gonna be stuck."

"Wrong. I'll just stow away on a ship."

The room was stunned to silence.

"You wouldn't dare."

Chibi-Usa stalked up to Usagi. "I swear to you, if you don't take me with you, I'll jump the next ship out of here. I'll get to Hanoi somehow, no matter how long it takes, whether or not you're there when I get there..."

Rei stood. "Usagi, she's coming with us."

"Rei! This is blackmail! She won't--"

"You're right. Because we're gonna take her with us."

Ami nodded. "It would be the best choice."

"Besides," added Minako, "it'll be fun for her."

"Not to mention educational."

"FINE!" She sighed in defeat. "But you listen to me, spore: You get yourself in trouble, it's all your own fault. Don't be looking to me for sympathy."

"Don't worry, Meatball Head. When do I ever look to you for sympathy?"

* * * * *

"It's too hot here."

"Shut up, spore. You wanted to come. You can suffer."

"But you didn't tell me it would be so HOT!" Chibi-Usa fanned herself with a magazine. "I'm gonna dehydrate at this rate!"

Usagi sighed, and slid a glass of water over to Chibi-Usa. "Better get some more water into you."

The Tsukinos were not the only misery in Hanoi. The weather also qualified. The table that Usagi and Chibi-Usa were sitting at was in the shade, just outside a small tea house, but the temperature was still horrid. Add to that the humidity, the language barrier, and the general dislike that the average Vietnamese had for the average Japanese...

Ami and Rei walked up to the table. Ami set two bottles of orange juice in front of Chibi-Usa. "Here. Each of you drink one of these. Orange juice is better for fighting dehydration than water."

Usagi grabbed a bottle, popped the top and chugged the whole thing in one breath. She dropped the bottle and gasped. "Thanks, Ami."

"No problem." Ami sat down and pulled out her palmtop. "I was unable to find any more news about marauding monsters."

"Joy."

"We'll just have to wait for one to make a move, then pulverize it." Rei smacked her fist into her open palm. "After that, we can extrapolate their next target."

"Wouldn't it be better to--" Ami was interrupted by a beep from her communicator. She pulled it out and flipped it open.

"Haruka! What news?"

"It came here." Sailor Uranus looked rather battered and singed. "Whatever the hell it was, it was powerful. It managed to get a good hit on Hotaru--"

"Oh, no!" Usagi leaned towards the communicator. "Is she okay?"

"Yeah. She got a couple of cracked ribs and a broken collarbone, but she'll live." She snorted. "Can't say the same for the beast, though. Michiru freaked. She just about went berserk, tore the thing apart with her bare hands." Haruka managed to look impressed. "I've never seen her do anything like this before. She's no pacifist, but she's always been rather less...aggressive than me. But when that...thing...hit Hotaru..." Haruka shuddered.

Usagi had been on the recieving end of more than a few attacks launched by Michiru and Haruka; she almost felt sorry for the monster. Then she pictured Hotaru, the delicate Senshi knocked flying by the monster, lying in a crumpled heap...

*That critter got off lucky.*

Ami finished plotting her curve. "That means that its next attack point is almost certainly Beijing."

"Not this one. This one's next stop is Tarterus."

"I mean the next monster. Whoever's controlling these things has led a fairly consistent curve. Haruka, is it possible for you three to reach Beijing?"

"No." Haruka managed to look apologetic. "Setsuna contacted us, and told us that under no circumstances were we to get involved in this. Said it was dangerous to the time stream for some reason." She scowled. "I thought it was really none of our business, at first...just the remnants of an old fight...but now I want to hurt them!"

Usagi shook her head. "No, Haruka. You've gotta listen to Setsuna; she knows what she's doing. I'll come to Seoul, take you three back to Tokyo."

"Don't worry about it. We've already got plane tickets." Haruka looked at Usagi intensely. "Go to Beijing. Stop the attack there. And if you can, learn who's controlling them." She looked bitter. "And punish them."

"You have my word."

Ami closed the communicator, then looked up at Usagi. The sometime Princess' face was set in a mask.

"Hotaru got hurt because she listened to me. These monsters are left over from our fight. Hotaru got hurt because I didn't do a good enough job on the mop-up."

"You--"

She whirled on Rei. "Don't say anything, Rei! It's my fault she's hurt. And someone's gonna pay." She turned to Ami. "Contact Makoto and Minako. Tell them we're leaving for Beijing, first thing in the morning."

Ami nodded, and reopened the communicator.

* * * * *

The bus bounced along the narrow country road, slowing occasionally to allow children to cross in front of it. Though the weather was just as stifling hot, it was much less humid, and the six Senshi were enjoying themselves more than they had in Hanoi. Makoto, in particular, was quite taken with the scenery, and spent an awful lot of time staring at the hills and forests.

Ami was pecking at her palmtop. Without proper telephone lines, she had been cut off from accessing Internet news, but her palmtop was capable of recieving FM radio. The problem lay in getting a channel that would report the news in some language she spoke. Her Cantonese was pretty good, but mostly she was getting Vietnamese stations.

Rei had spent most of the trip dozing, but snapped awake when the van lurched to a stop. She blinked, and looked out the window.

"Oh, hell. Usagi!"

"What?" Usagi stopped tormenting her 'daughter', and turned to Rei. "Problem?"

"Yeah. A really, really big problem." She jerked a thumb towards the window. "See those four trigger-happy goons approaching the van? The ones who look like they're about to ask for our non-existent entry visas? They are the problem."

"Oh, is that all?"

Rei blinked.

"Don't worry. They won't be a problem."

"How can you say that, Usagi?"

Usagi glanced at the piece of paper in her hand. "Ami's gonna get us past them. Right, Ami?"

Ami was sweating. "Um...I kinda wish you'd mentioned that earlier, Usagi."

"Don't worry, Ami. You'll do fine."

"Usagi, I really have no idea--" Ami shut up just as the first goon stepped into the van. She watched as the goon went from person to person, checking papers and identification. Finally, the goon came to her.

"Identification and entry visa, please."

Ami silently handed the goon her identification. The goon looked it over, then looked back at her. "These five are with you?"

"Y-yes."

"Carry on." The goon turned around and marched off the bus.

Ami let her breath out, then turned and glared at Usagi. "What happened?"

"Simple." Usagi handed Ami a poster. Ami took it and looked down at it--and gasped.

The poster, written in Chinese, stated that the girl in the picture was a common visitor to China, usually through unusual means. It also stated that she was a deadly threat in hand-to-hand combat, but known not to be a threat to the state. It advised all government officials simply to let her--and anyone with her--pass.

The shocking part was the picture. It looked almost identical to Ami.

"Usagi..." She let the paper fall from her fingers. "Where did you get this?"

"Off of the post office wall in the last town we stopped in."

Ami shook her head in disbelief. "You might have tried warning me..."

* * * * *

The youma lifted the limo over its head and threw it into a nearby bus. Several police officers milled around it, firing their handguns into it, but having no effect.

Six Senshi knelt on a nearby rooftop, watching the battle. Sailor Mars glared at Sailor Moon. "We've gotta get in there soon!"

"Wait for it. I want the police to back off first." Sailor Moon turned to glare at Chibi-Moon. "And you had better stay well out of the action."

"Hey, this thing looks nice and worthless. What can happen?"

A motorcycle landed on the roof, only a few inches away from Chibi-Moon.

"On second thought..."

Usagi stood up. "That's it. All police officers are in retreat. One down in the region, but still alive. Be careful that you don't hit him.

"Let's get in there."

The six Senshi landed in the middle of the street, twenty meters from the monster. Sailor Moon immediately struck a silly pose.

"The time for your kind is over; your leaders were vanquished years ago, and your entire Dark Kingdom vaporized. But still you are here, terrorizing helpless innocents. In the name of the Moon, I shall punish you."

Sailor Mars winced. "I wish she wouldn't do that."

The youma appeared totally unconcerned by Sailor Moon's speech. Like most of the Dark Kingdom's abominations, it appeared female, and had probably masqueraded as such before metamorphosing into its current form. Its skin was grey and scaly, and long red hair billowed outward from its head. It had four arms and four legs, and each finger and toe was tipped with a massive claw. It turned to face the Senshi, and launched a fireball towards them.

"Scatter!" The Senshi leapt in all directions, and the fireball impacted the street where they'd been standing.

"Flame Sniper!" Sailor Mars readied a flaming arrow, and shot the creature through the chest. The creature bellowed in rage, and hurled another fireball at Mars. She jumped out of the way, then stared in shock as the cauterized hole in the creature's chest...closed.

"It can heal itself. Even fire damage it can heal!"

"Not good." Sailor Moon frowned. "That means most of my attacks will be worthless - they're mostly based on healing."

Sailor Mercury landed next to her. "We've got another problem. Most of our attacks were developed after the battle with the Dark Kingdom. Our newer attacks won't affect this thing. We've got to rely on our older attacks."

"Right. Venus--"

"Way ahead of you." Sailor Venus leapt to a small ledge on a nearby building. "Crescent Beam!" The Beam impaled the creature, but the hole it caused rapidly closed.

"Thunder Smash!" Jupiter's attack was simple enough; just call down a bolt of lightning. But though the youma staggered, it righted itself quickly and resumed its assault.

Sailor Mercury had no damaging attacks available. She monitored the battle with the Mercury Computer. "None of us have an attack that causes enough widespread damage to it. Small wounds heal in seconds; even Jupiter's lightning attacks aren't enough."

Sailor Moon smacked her forehead. "I should have thought of this before. It's still just a Dark Kingdom construct, right?"

"Yes, but--"

Sailor Moon jumped down onto the street. She removed her tiara, which promptly started to glow.

Sailor Venus gaped. "What is she doing? That attack hasn't worked in--"

"Moon Tiara Action!" Sailor Moon threw the glowing tiara. It smacked into the monster and immolated it almost instantly.

"--years. Right. It's an old monster." Ami snapped her computer shut. "For once, she figured it out before me."

* * * * *

"I've plotted this attack, and also two other attacks that occured, one in Saigon and one in Hong Kong." Ami frowned. "This alters all three curves radically. And all three curves intersect...here." She circled a small area on the map. "I can't be certain of the exact location, but I am certain that the next attack should occur somewhere in Qinghai Province."

"Umm...Ami, Qinghai is rather large. Are you certain you can't narrow it down?"

"Well, somewhere in this area of Qinghai, in the mountains." Ami shook her head in frustration. "There's something inherently wrong with the pattern, but I'm not sure what. But if we go to Qinghai, I can track the negative energy patterns better."

"All right." Usagi pulled out her own map. "We can catch a bus to here, then walk the rest of the way. It should only be about twenty kilometers from the last stop."

Groans all around.

"Oh, come on! We can do twenty kay in a day if we need to! Even if we take it slow, we can do five kay per day, and spend some time camping." Usagi smiled. "I love camping!"

* * * * *

Author's Notes:

I can blame this one on Kitsy. It was all her idea. Of course, it was me that decided that it really needed writing...

I'm just gonna defuse some of the flames before they even reach me. Yes, I do realize that the Japanese version of Sailor Moon does not use the term 'Meatball Head'. But I don't really care. It's three in the morning, and I don't have the means to get the correct term. Second, I'm not entirely certain what happened to Jadite, but I do believe that he could have survived. If you disagree, well...I'll just fudge continuity (like I never have before :) so that he could. If you disagree with that...cope.

Comments and Criticism can be sent to tailkinker@home.com. Flames can be sent to kitsy@home.com.

A Further Author's Notes:

Okay, I found out what happened to Jadeite, but it has ceased to be important. All references to the poor goon are being removed.

Ja Ne!