77Obligatory copyright disclaimer: Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z and relative characters are intellectual property of their respective owners. I'm using them without permission, but this is only a no-profit Fan fiction.
Author's notes:
Sunshinekc - Thanks for the review! The story will be long and complicated. Expect funny moments and dramatic ones. The Senshi never lost their power, they only lost their transformation wands
Edit: My heartfelt thanks to Angel-Rias for Beta-reading the chapter!
Chapter two: Strangers in a strange land
Trying again to get up, Usagi breathed wearily. "Anyone feeling weak? I'm so heavy I can't even stand!" she sat on the hard soil, wondering where they ended up.
"I don't think we are weak, Usagi." replied Ami. "We are probably on a high density planet. Do you remember the gravity field Rubeus used against us three years ago? The effects are quite similar, if not equally strong." Her friends nodded understanding.
Makoto managed to stand up unsteadily, thanks to her greater strength. She looked around, and then made a surprised expression. "Usagi! Your hair... is black! Totally black! Minako's too!"
The two girls immediately examined their precious blonde hair, turned straight and raven black. "I'm going to transform into Rei! Aieee!" yelled Usagi, looking terrified.
Her reaction obviously annoyed her friend. "Then maybe you'll acquire some brains, you idiot!" she yelled back at her.
"How is this possible?" asked Minako, distraught with the occurrence but keeping a cool head.
"I don't know, really... but my hair is black too, and Makoto's. And not only the hair, the eyes too. We all have black hair and eyes. Must be a side effect of what brought us here." calmly explained Ami.
It was Usagi, always ready to be frightened, to notice the brown hairy thing wriggling behind Minako's lower back. "M-Minako-chan! Be careful, there's a hairy snake on your back!" she yelled.
Minako hated snakes... "Eeeek! Pull it off, pull it off!" she shouted panicking. Makoto, being the only one capable of standing up, made an effort and grabbed the scary, hairy thing, trying to pull it off Minako. It refused to come off however, and Minako immediately stopped screaming, started trembling, and then collapsed face first upon the ground.
Makoto understood the thing she was grasping was a tail, growing out of Minako's lower back. Letting it go, she looked behind her, only then noticing her very own tail waving behind her! They all had grown tails, hairy brown tails.
"This is madness!" whispered Rei looking at the furry appendage. "How is this possible?" she asked Ami.
The smart girl was examining her own tail, making it wave, grabbing a stone with it, then trying, only for an instant, to grab it. "It seems we have grown a prehensile tail, like a Lemur's. It is very sensitive to pain, so I suggest you to wrap it around your waist, for safety reasons." she did just that. "Actually it is quite comfortable to keep it so."
"I asked how it was possible, not for a user manual!" complained Rei, while trying to wrap the thing around her waist.
"Uh, it is funny! Look Rei! You can scratch your back with it! We are monkeys! Uuuk uuuk!" Usagi told her, mimicking a chimp, and making Rei madder.
"Usagi!" Rei growled, going into a 'I'm-going-to-kill-you' mode. She managed to stand up, trying to catch her.
The two girls started an impromptu game of tag, soon followed by the other three girls, trying to prevent Rei from catching Usagi. Laughing they started to move faster and faster, and finally were able to move without difficulty.
Panting from the effort, Ami looked at her body, standing up easily. "It's incredible that we have already acclimated ourselves to the high gravity. Our bodies cannot be human." Then she noticed the mysterious woman, still senseless but fully clothed, sprawled on the ground. Ami remembered her having brown hair, but now she was black-haired, like them. She had also grown a brown tail poking out from under her skirt. "She must know what happened. We should ask her." she suggested.
"You bet, I'll ask her!" growled Makoto, reaching the woman and turning her face up. "Wake up, you scum! Tell us where we are and what you have done to us!" she said while repeatedly slapping her on the face. "Wake up!" she said again kicking her.
Usagi flinched. "Mako-chan! What are you doing! Don't hit her! What's wrong?"
"It's her fault we are here, turned into monkeys. That's what's wrong!" Blushing, she put her foot on the neck of the woman, at just the moment she woke up.
"Yes, Makoto, you are right! It's all her fault!" Minako caught up with her friend and started kicking the woman.
"Yeah! Let's make her suffer!" added Rei, joining them.
Ami blushed intensely, moving near them, without kicking the defenseless woman but encouraging the other three girls "Ooh, yes! Hit her!"
Usagi was speechless. Her dear friends turned into naked and bestial brutes, lynching a poor defenseless woman! "All of you! What are you doing? Please, calm down!" however they kicked on, ignoring her and their victim's yelps of pain. Almost in a trance, they were clearly enjoying it.
This had to be a nightmare. She could not bear it anymore. Raising her voice Usagi started crying. "Stop it NOW! Or I won't be your friend anymore! waaah!"
The four girls stopped immediately, panting heavily, not of exhaustion but out of excitement and bewilderment. Usagi's crying made them realize what they were doing.
"Oh, no! Usagi! I'm so sorry! I don't know why... oh!" Makoto whimpered, falling on her knees distraught.
Rei and Minako were horrified of themselves and looked at each other speechless.
Ami knelt beside the woman. "I am mortified of our behavior. Let me help you." she appeared dejected, trying to look at the woman's wounds. Surprisingly she found none. Only some light bruises.
"Hmm, thank you kiddo. I'm not actually hurt, at least not seriously. Not for any lack of trying, though." the woman said between clenched teeth, standing up with ease.
Usagi stopped crying, consoled by her friends. "Usagi-chan, thank you for making us stop; I'm really sorry for what I have done." Makoto and Minako embraced her friend, while Rei stood silent, looking down.
"What the heck are you five doing here?" asked the woman sincerely puzzled. "You should not be supposed to follow me running!" At the same time she was stripping her clothes off, smiling dryly. "Use this to make something to wear, you exhibitionist!"
"Exhibitionists!" Usagi really could not stand this anymore! "YOU brought us here, while we were trying to block YOUR storm from devastating OUR city! We awoke naked, black-haired and with TAILS! In this ... this place! Where the hell are we? And who are you? And why did all of this happen to us? TAKE US BACK HOME, NOW!" she yelled and then started crying again.
While she could cope with lynching, the woman clearly had a soft spot for crying girls. "OK, I'm sorry. Really, sorry. I don't know where we are... but I will try to answer your other questions. First, put something on." she replied, tearing her skirt and t-shirt to make impromptu loincloths and breast bands for the girls to wear.
Still sobbing, Usagi looked at the woman. She was wearing a black sports bra and matching trunks beneath her clothing. "You sure use strange underwear..." she muttered.
"When you run like me, you wear for comfort, kiddo." the woman replied.
"You talk as if you were older than us, but you cannot be more than twenty. Aren't you, miss?" asked Rei, a little pissed by her patronizing way of speaking.
"Uh... Actually I'm one hundred year's old, kiddo; more or less. I lost count after the fifth Run." she replied.
While the girls stood with their mouths agape, the woman started to methodically check her body. "Two eyes, mouth... pointed teeth... small fangs... uh sensitive nose, what's this smell? Two ears, rounded. Black hair... will do... what we have here? A tail? Cute... ouch, sensitive too!" she yelped after squeezing her tail.
"Better to wear it around your waist, Miss." suggested Ami, who had already recovered from the shock of discovering her advanced age. "You seem very young, Miss. How can it be possible?" She asked, thirsty for answers.
"Eh, eat your vegetables and do a lot of sports!" the woman replied, obviously joking.
"Aw, don't make fools of us!" pouted Usagi.
"You seem to be as surprised as we are of your body, Miss. Really, can you tell us something more of this situation?" asked Makoto, still embarrassed for her violent behavior just a few minutes ago.
"I will but, as for now, we should find shelter. The sun is at noon, yet this place is cold and could become chilly overnight." She pointed to the small, cold red sun they had mistaken for a far off star.
Minako was amazed "That is a sun? I thought it was already night! This place is way strange!"
"Temperature is not too cold for that distant sun being the primary star; this system is probably a binary one." replied Ami, pondering on the sky.
"You are a smart one, huh? Yes, you are probably right. I've never seen planets with two suns before. Cool" remarked the woman. "Do you have any idea where to find shelter, kiddo?" she asked Ami.
"I smell metal!" Makoto told her, trying to be helpful. "That way." She said, pointing toward the middle of the rocky wasteland.
"Now that you said it, I smell it too!" replied Usagi. "I smell something else... maybe Rei's feet?" she started sniffing around her friend.
"Usagi!" Rei growled angrily while her friends started smiling.
"You are a carefree bunch, aren't you? Well, the sooner we get somewhere the sooner you'll have your answers. Metal means civilization, and civilization means a bath, and I could sure use a bath now! Let's go." She said, walking at a brisk pace towards the source of the smell.
"No one made you the leader, Miss. Anyway you are right, I want a bath too! Even a shower or a bucket of water will do. My hair is a mess... black... sheesh." Minako grumbled walking after her.
And so they all followed the strange smell, wandering deep into the wasteland.
~o~~~o~~~o~~~o A Few Hours Later o~~~o~~~o~~~o~
"Are we there yet? Rei, I'm starving!" whimpered Usagi, tugging Rei's tail, her tummy growling like a caged, starving lion.
"Ow! Stop that, Usagi! It's painful! And I'm hungry too." She replied, while all of their stomachs started to grumble in sympathy.
"Our new sense of smell must be on par with a hound's! We walked at least ten miles! It's amazing we could smell metal from such a great distance!" Ami told them, sniffing the air. "I can disseminate the distinctive smell of each one of you, and guess your distance using only my nose. This is great! I will write a paper on it when we return home."
"If we return home… I still don't know how we came here and why." replied Rei, looking at the woman.
"Patience, kiddo, we are almost there. Look at those hills! The bumps over there must be buildings. A last effort and we're good." She told them, her stomach also rumbling. "I hope for some food, too. I'm so hungry I'd eat my sandals!"
"At least 'you' have sandals! Me, had to hike ten miles barefoot in this rocky wasteland!" whined Usagi, looking sadly down at her rags and bare feet. "My poor, poor feet!"
"Really, you can have them." She shrugged while taking off her sandals and giving them to Usagi. The girl took them with teary eyes, as large as a fawn's.
"You should have told me before. I'm used walking barefoot. Once I had to live three years almost naked and barefooted with three-meter-tall blue cat-people! It's incredible what you can become used to with time."
"T-thank you but... I still don't like you!" Usagi replied while mischievously sticking her tongue at her.
The woman started laughing heartily. "Oh, you sure are a feisty one, aren't you? Oh look at that! We made it. Buildings!" she pointed to a cluster of strange small buildings.
They looked like hard concrete bubbles, four meters wide, piled one upon the other, three bubbles high and wide tops. They had round openings as windows and doorways, but no glass or doors were present. Numerous destroyed metal devices were scattered in the large square between buildings. There were no roads, but a more traveled path showed signs of wheels and tracks. A wrecked fence made of strange metal and glass poles extended as far as the horizon from north to south, just outside the small town.
"What is this place? These machines are rusted through; they must have been abandoned a long time ago." Ami pointed out.
"Look! Are those... bones?" They all followed her gaze, immediately finding what she was talking about.
A small number of human looking skeletons were scattered between the machines or under them. They all had tails!
"It looks like the machines were used to trample them!" Makoto said grimly.
"This one has a bullet-like hole in the skull. They were killed, but they didn't go down without fighting. Look at this." The woman was showing them a skeleton with his bony claws 'inside' one of the machines, as if it were able to wreck it bare handed before dying.
"Let's search inside the buildings, maybe we will find something useful." Makoto shouted, waving at them from a nearby door frame.
Warily they searched the buildings, finding boxes upon boxes of foam like material, stuffed with canned foods, dozens of strange coarse fabric tunics with rope belts and canvas shoes, cheap blankets and thin mattresses. There were skeletons in every building, some wearing the strange tunics, some in tattered fur clothing. All with tails and with clear signs of having been killed with some type of firearm. There were no bodies of their enemies though.
"This place is creeping me out!" whispered Minako. "It looks like a ghost town! It's like the skeletons will rise overnight to kill us!" She said, shivering.
"Hey, girls! I found something interesting." Usagi was rummaging under a ruined desk. She showed them a huge ledger. "Maybe we will find some answers here!" She said hopefully.
"Usagi, you moron! That book has surely been written in alien characters! You won't be able to read it!" snapped Rei, always ready to pick on her.
"Aw, but... I will try anyway, Rei you meanie!" She told her, sticking out her tongue. Opening the book, to her friend's amazement she read aloud what was written into it. The woman was grinning widely, almost as if she knew beforehand Usagi would be able to read it.
"Royal Tsufuru Bureau of Saiyan Affairs... Office of the North Western Saiyan Agent... Report on the unexpected population growth of the Saiyan Galangal tribes... Proposed tribe displacement to reduce the population to manageable numbers... Aw I don't like the sound of this! Proposed decrease of funds for clothing and food... Oh that's evil! Natural park reserve status waived for Grokk breeding... What's a Grokk? Anyone understands these things?" Usagi asked confused.
After a long minute of silence, Ami spoke up. "We are in a reservation. A 'Saiyan' Reservation! And judging by those skeleton's tails and the clothes they were wearing... we have Saiyan bodies now!"
"How is it possible? I'm going crazy with all this!" moaned Minako.
"Let's search for something to make a fire, and then I will explain what I can." The woman told them. "And some drinkable water too... I'm thirsty now." She started breaking some of the boxes. "I hope this will burn well. We can use a stone and some scrap metal for flint and steel."
Makoto smiled at her. "You have some experience with camping?" she asked her.
The woman continued to work, without looking at the tall girl. "Nope. I'm good at surviving. Let's speed up, it's growing dark. I don't want to meet a Grokk without a burning fire, whatever it is."
Usagi scowled at her. "Uh, what a jerk! Makoto was praising you! Why must you be so cold with us?"
Makoto took hold of Usagi's arm, trying to stop her friend from picking a quarrel with the stranger. "Usagi, it really doesn't matter, please..."
Looking at her friend's pleading expression, Usagi decided to let it go, for now. "OK, but no mysteries from now on! Understood?" she told her sternly.
"I can't make promises, kiddo. But I'm sorry for what happened, really sorry." She smiled sadly.
"Hey, girls! Let's open some canned food! Maybe it's still good!" said Minako, starting to open one of the airtight foil cans.
"Wait, Minako... not here!" gasped Ami, too late.
A horrendous, stinking, stomach-churning smell was released from the can! They were immediately overwhelmed, thanks to their vastly improved sense of smell.
"Argh, throw it away! Throw it away! For heaven's sake!" shouted the woman.
Rei, Usagi and Makoto started throwing up immediately, while Minako almost fainted, letting the can fall down. Ami, braving the terrible smell, kicked the can, throwing it out of the windows, to fall in the square.
"Ow! That was terrible! Minako you dummy! That can was years old! It was obviously spoiled!" Ami scolded her.
"Oh, my! What an experience... You made us discover a wonderful new meaning for the word 'stink', Mina-chan!" Usagi told her, trying to recover her strength.
"It seems we will have to do without food. Let's try one of that cans of water... in the square!" Makoto said, going outside.
~o~~~o~~~o~~~o~~~o~~~o~~~o~~~o~
The water proved to be drinkable, and they managed to start a reasonable campfire in one of the highest rooms cleared of rubble and furnished with lots of blankets and mattresses. They also wore the tunics and shoes, after cleaning themselves with an improvised shower made from a punctured can of water. They were still very hungry, but at least they felt human once again... if that was still possible for them.
"It's answer time, Miss." calmly stated Usagi, looking at the woman who brought them there. All of her friends nodded.
"OK kiddos, I'll tell you what I can." She shifted her seat to be more comfortable and started to speak, while fiddling with her tail.
"My name is Jean. Jean J. Walker. It's not my real name; can't remember it. This name was given to me by friends. I'm a Runner. And before you ask me, Runners are people... cursed by their inability to accomplish anything in life and... longing for impossible dreams." She stopped talking for a moment, obviously lost in memories.
"I mean... we... there are others like me, many others... could not live a satisfying life; could not accept the dreariness of the mundane. At the same time, we feared the unknown. Torn between extremes we accomplished absolutely nothing in our life, simply weathering it until the sorry end." She said wearily.
"Uh! That is terrible, Miss Walker!" Usagi interrupted her. "It must have felt really bad!"
Jean smiled at her. "Yeah, I felt bad. Very bad indeed. I was on my death-bed, trying to sleep over those cursed beeping medical machines, when I started dreaming; lucid dreaming. In the dream I met the... stinking demon-thing that conned me into this crap, the Faceless One. He offered me to fulfill all of my daydreams of glory and excitement in exchange for my 'unrealized possibilities', whatever they were." She angrily kicked a stone on the floor, remembering the day it all started.
"I was dying, I thought I had nothing to lose, so I accepted and the next moment I'm young again, partially amnesic, on a strange star ship. Cruising into the same red and blue storm you saw over that skyscraper yesterday. I befriended the crew; the ship broke down; I helped them repair it and lost myself in the storm... dying an ugly death. And then it started again." She scratched her head, looking at their doubtful faces.
"I'm being honest to you, I swear kiddos. The routine is always the same. I awaken in a strange new world, ship, place, anything. Sometimes I'm changed. I've been male, female, even androgynous! I gained pointed ears, gills and tails. Yes, this is not my first tail. The blue cat people was the first one. In every world I go, I make friends... even lovers. Once I was on the point of marrying... sad story, don't make me remember it." She said, scowling at the romantic look spreading on Minako's face.
"I always lose everything, though. I always find myself involved in some crisis, local or planetary, doesn't make difference. And to save the day... I die. It is as simple as that. Then the cycle restarts, they call it a "Run", and I awake somewhere else. I "Run" my dreams of adventure; therefore I'm a "Runner", is it clear?"
"Aw... This is horrible! I'm so sorry for you!" Usagi told her, on the verge of crying. Minako and Makoto were clearly sad for her, while Rei and Ami, looking at each other, had something else to ask.
"Excuse me, Miss Walker. What is the stuff you spoke of have to do with the battle on the rooftop we saw you in, and with us being here?" Ami asked politely.
The woman nodded at her. "Call me Jean, kiddo. I'm not so high-strung to require pleasantries. Anyway... on that roof I was fighting a Void in a reality duel."
"A... Void? I don't like the name. Remembers me of Youma, Droids, Daimons and Phages we used to fight in the past." Makoto whispered to herself.
"He was scary." added Usagi dryly, the only one of them seeing it up close. "He had empty eyes and a hollow voice, and looked... I don't know... too normal? A normal man turned totally evil. Not the usual colorful monsters we face. He was more like Beryl's generals, Rubeus, Eudial or any of our human enemies, I don't know if I can explain myself well." She shuddered at the thought of their past enemies, and the suffering they put them through.
"Yeah. They once were humans, but they lost it. Humanity I mean. They become followers of the Faceless One, and usually only want to destroy everything. They have strange powers, and can be killed only in a reality duel, by putting one's existence at stake. When the duel end only one of the two lives. If the Void wins, the runner is erased from existence. Otherwise if the Runner wins, the Void is dispersed between infinite universes, and cannot ever reform. I was following that one since last year. I was afraid of directly confronting him. Then I saw from afar your battle against that Galaxia hag. You inspired me, so I took the decision to draw him out by interfering in his plans, and then challenged him in his home turf. The rest is history." She relaxed against the wall, finally having explained it all.
"If you knew, why didn't you come to us for help?" Usagi asked her. "I was wondering the same" added Rei.
"Ords cannot start a reality duel. Only Runners can. It was my responsibility. And I was right. By meddling you managed to be thrown here with me. Tsk, rash kiddos." She said wearily.
"Again! What in the hell does Ord mean?" Usagi was starting to get pissed again.
"Uh, sorry, wasn't meant to be insulting. It only means 'Ordinary' in a certain sense of the word. You can be the most powerful super woman of your universe, but if you are an Ord and a Void or a Runner challenges you in a reality duel... you are a goner, no sweat! You lack Karma, and cannot win. Ever. Hope that clears it up for you." She was tired, even more than them. Evidently the effort to neutralize the storm had drained her.
"Karma? What's this? It's getting more complicated the more you explain!" said Rei, exasperated.
"It's a measure of the power to twist fate to your ends. A skill only Runners and Voids have. No need to know. Has to do with quantum mechanics and probabilities. Complicated stuff. Too tired... can't think straight." She said almost collapsing from the exhaustion.
Makoto roused her gently trying to keep her awake. "Please, try to tell us why we are here, with these bodies, we must know!"
The woman made an effort to speak, despite her tiredness. "I told you there are many Runners. Some time ago I met one that became my tutor. He taught me the basics of Running. Told me every time I Run, I somehow send my essence, my existence, through the storm, in a process called 'Dimthread'. When I reach a new world my body reforms there, adapting to the local conditions and world laws, 'Axioms' for short." She pointed at their tail.
"Everything is changed every time, to conform to the local axioms. Language, mannerism, instincts, and of course body type. Equipment stays the same however. Sensei told me it is more difficult to send non-living matter. You have to send a lot more info than a few DNA strands and a mental schematic I guess." She looked at Ami, the only one without a befuddled expression of the five friends.
"Are you saying you travel universes by sending data describing your existence through Einstein-Rosen wormholes? And when you reform your body you use quantum-entanglement to adapt to the environment? I get it now! The storm was a quantum singularity of immense proportions! This explains the conflicting readings of my scanner and the uncertain feelings of Rei! You used your energy to generate a negative-mass matter stream, stabilize the wormhole and shunt the power of the storm through it! Awesome!" Ami was starry-eyed, clearly enjoying this.
She continued to analyze the situation, despite the confused looks of her friends. The Runner was smiling wearily. "We got overwhelmed by the storm's strength and thrown through the wormhole... hem, dimthread, as you call it. We adapted to the local axioms, like it happens to you every time! During transition our sailor transformation was discontinued, and our transformation wands weren't brought with us, as they are made of non-living high-energy matter. Our clothes were stored in the wands, so we ended up naked. Am I right?"
"Eeeeh?", "Ugh, I'm getting a headache!", "...", "Hem, Ami, what?" were the comments of the other four girls.
Jean winked at Ami. "Good reasoning kiddo... I... was trying... to leave... quantum physics... out of this... b-but... it seems... you nailed it..." She finally fell asleep.
"There she goes..." Makoto said with a dry smile, covering Jean with a blanket. "It's really a weird story, but as weird stories go, ours is weirder." she sat down near the fire, her stomach grumbling loudly. "Man, I'm so hungry..."
"That's it! We'll go hunt one these Grokk things! If they used to breed them here, there must be some in the hills! We can make up spears with shards of metal from the wrecks and..." Usagi was so hungry, she was beginning to rant.
"Usagi-chan. It is pitch black outside. We will have to wait until dawn." Ami told her.
"But I'm so hungry I could die any moment! Please, pretty please, pretty please with sugar on top! We can make torches and go hunting now! I... AM... HUNGRY!" She started shrieking... and something answered her, straight down from the town square!