Lars Svensson was not a happy supernatural being.

The reasons for this unhappiness were several.  One was that he was an 
important official in the Weapons Department of Valhalla, but not 
quite important to be able to delegate everything to underlings.  It 
was such a huge job he spent most of his existence at it.  Because he 
was a supernatural being, he didn't need sleep and so he didn't even 
get that release from the drudgery of keeping an eye on all the 
weapons in Valhalla.  He wasn't sure how many there were;  the 
department had tried to keep track but eventually lost count somewhere 
around four and a half million.

Another reason was that his fellow workers had a complete and utter 
disregard for the formalities of the workplace and just called him 
'Lars' all the time, instead of his last name which they should have 
done.  Which led nicely into yet another reason for his unhappiness - 
everyone always misheard his last name as Svenson, with one 's', and 
they continually spelt and pronounced it incorrectly.  He suspected 
that they were deliberately getting it wrong just to annoy him.  And 
it did.

However, the main reason for his unhappiness was that he'd just been 
scanning through fairly routine paperwork and noticed the word 
'Duality' on the page.  This was something akin to walking along a 
city pathway only to have a giant snake fall on you, and had created 
in Lars much the same reaction.

Okay, perhaps not.  He hadn't screamed, been crushed to a pulp, and/or 
been bitten, after all.  But it had been an extremely nasty shock.  If 
he wasn't already dead he'd have probably died from a heart attack.

Upon closer inspection this turned out to be, just as he'd feared, 
just part of the phrase 'Sword of Duality'.

You didn't spend an entire afterlife in the Valhalla Department of 
Weapons without learning a thing or two about all the weapons of the 
world.  And one thing that he knew about the Swords of Duality was 
that they were all supposed to be held safely in Valhalla.  If one was 
being reported, then presumably it was no longer being held safely in 
Valhalla.  He flipped back to the first page of the report and read 
through the entire thing carefully.

This took some time.

When he finished he was perspiring and his spectacles were somehow 
dripping with his sweat.  He took them off and wiped them with his 
blindingly white handkerchief, thinking on what he'd just read.

Several Swords of Duality had been observed to be in the hands of 
mortals.

Though some of them hadn't exactly been swords.  After all, the Swords 
of Duality that were being held in Valhalla were really just ideas 
with a default form - in the mortal plane their form sometimes changed 
to suit the wielder.

As some apparently had;  the report mentioned a Blazing Sword of 
Duality, a Cleaver of Duality, a "Dragon's Tail" of Duality, and a 
Weird Multi-Bladed Thing of Duality.  The reporter swore blind that 
he'd even seen a Rocket Launcher of Duality, drawn not from the body, 
as usual, but from a symbiotic huge backpack.  However, despite their 
appearance, all the odd mutations definitely had the correct runes and 
gave off signals of Duality.

His trepidation rising, Svensson went as quickly as he could through 
all the evening's reports once more, searching for any more reports on 
the Swords of Duality.  There were several, and it took most of the 
afternoon to get through them all.

Then he was finished.  And it wasn't a pretty picture - it seemed as 
if most of the Swords of Duality in Valhalla had shown up in the human 
realm in the past month or so.  Ragnarok couldn't be very far away.

Something had to be done.

"Jorgendottir!" he shouted.

"Just call me Hilda," complained his secretary as she poked her head 
around the door.  "And what is it this time, Lars?"

There she went, calling him 'Lars' again.  He sighed, but decided not 
to press the issue.  There were more important things to worry about.

"Swords of Duality are starting to show up in the human realm," he 
said.  The effect this had on her was immediate - her eyes went wide 
with shock.  "Get people to check where we've been holding them."

"Armoury #4, right?"

Lars shook his head.  "More."

"I thought there were only twenty, all held in Armoury #4..."

"A ruse.  There are fifteen more, held in Armoury #2 and a few secret 
compartments in cellars around the place."

"Right on it, Mr. Svenson."

He decided not to complain about that, either.

When the agents' reports came in, half an hour later, things were even 
worse than he'd feared.  Most of the thirty-five Swords of Duality 
were missing from Valhalla, with just a few left.  The few that 
remained had been gathered up and placed under direct surveillance, in 
the hope that they could stop them going.

Lars Svensson hoped it would be enough.


   ---------------------------------------------------
    Do-Gooders
    (The Proactive Teen Superhero Team
     With An X Somewhere In Their Job Description)

    A FanArt HQ / Spoof Chase Improfanfic

    Episode 36:
    Explosion!  Four Gods, Three sisters, Two Dragons,
    the One, and Not a Pear Tree in Sight!

    Written by Steven Scougall
    Original Do-Gooders concept by Stefan Gagne, 1998
   ---------------------------------------------------


"OW!" shouted Ayame and Yukiko simultaneously, as their heads bounced 
off each other's.

Ayame blinked a couple of times as something hit her.  There was 
something... no, someone else inside her head with her.  She seemed to 
be seeing everything with two pairs of eyes, and when Yukiko said 
"It... worked?" it felt like she was hearing it through two pairs of 
ears at the same time.  She put her hands to her head in confusion and 
it felt like she was moving two arms at once and when she clutched at 
her head it felt like two pairs of hands were touching her head.  Or 
was that four pairs of hands?

At the same time there seemed to be another mind whirling around her 
own, with the faint suggestion of different memory and personality, 
but it felt like a rushing river that she was floating just above.  
She tried to make sense of it but it remained maddeningly out of 
reach.

Her sisters - no, said something in her mind, her daughters - had 
rushed over to her and were shaking her from side to side.  Strange, 
she couldn't remember collapsing to the floor.  Their touch, intended 
to be reassuring, instead just rammed home to her how weird everything 
was, for she was feeling twice as many hands as there should have 
been.

"Make it stop!" she screamed, and her voice echoed strangely through 
her head.

But underneath the confusion and fear, there was a sense of 
familiarity.

She didn't know how long she was curled up on the floor.  Everything 
felt off kilter, including time.  But she gradually became aware of 
the multiple pairs of senses and the different mind starting to merge 
with her own.  She tried to fight it off at first, but then her own 
voice asked why she was resisting.

Who was this?

She was who she really had been along, came a strange thought.

If she was, then...

Her mind... expanded, and she became someone else while at the same 
time remaining herself.

But... there was something different this time.  Something was not 
quite as it used to be.  Never mind, she'd be able to get around that, 
wouldn't she?

And Queen Amore opened her eyes.

She heard the end of what Yukiko was saying.  "...didn't happen with 
me!"

"Perhaps because I was going back to where I should have been, 
Yukiko," said Ayame, getting back up to her feet.

"It's the Queen!" shouted Esu.  "She's back!  She's back she's back 
she'sbackshe'sbackshe'sback!  Wai!"

"You're back, Mom?" asked Hanaki.

Ayame looked quizzically at her.  "But I'm your sister, Han."  She 
paused, confused.  "Aren't I?"

"What?" shouted Chiang, and suddenly he was standing in front of her, 
his hands lightly on her shoulders.  "Tell me who I am, Ayame!"

Ayame was confused.  Why was Chiang asking her such a question?  But 
something welled happily up in her, urging her to speak and exposit 
for all she was worth.  "You're Chiang, Greatest Advisor to the Court 
of the Kingdom of Delight of the Crystal Millennium," she started, 
then gained momentum.  "And you were the one who came up with the idea 
for the Sailor Team in the three thousand and twenty first year of the 
Kingdom's reign, and nobody thought much of it as first but I remember 
that after outlining the proposal in extreme detail you managed to 
convince every single one of us that it was such a good idea we should 
start the very next morning, and we did.  And -"

"What was I wearing on that day?" asked Chiang.

"You were wearing green and purple ceremonial robes, with the badge of 
an Advisor on your lapel, sleeves, and back, and you weren't wearing 
your official hat," she said promptly, and then when she remembered 
how shiny his bald head had been she giggled.  "And the shine off your 
head was enough to temporarily blind the King."

"That's Amore, right enough," muttered Chiang.

"But of course I am, Grandpa Chiang!" she said.

For some reason, he didn't look all that reassured.  Come to think of 
it, nobody did.

Chiang grabbed the nearest girl - it turned out to be Tejina.  "Who is 
this?" he asked, and then said "OW!" as Tejina stomped on his foot.

Ayame giggled and then launched into her answer.  "She's Tejina Nakao, 
my triplet sister!"  She then looked at Yukiko.  "Or is that my 
quadruplet sister, now?"

"Whatever," he grumbled.  "Change to Delight," he said to Tejina.

"Huh?"

"Sailor Delight.  You know, you get out the transformation pen and go 
click with your thumb."

"Jerk," she said, but clicked her transformation pen anyway.

"Right," Chiang said when the transformation sequence was over, "Who's 
this?"

"It's still Tejina," said Ayame.

"No, tell me who Tejina is now."

"Sailor Delight."

"And how is Sailor Delight related to you?"

Ayame wanted to answer "Duh, she's still my sister," but paused.  The 
Amore part of her brain wanted to say "My daughter."

"Um..." she said.  "My... no... Amore's daughter?"

"But YOU are Amore," he said, and looked smug.

She always hated it when Chiang looked like that.  It usually meant he 
thought he'd just presented the final part of a really convincing 
argument.  She remembered that he'd looked like that after presenting 
his pitch for the Sailor Team, way back when.

The Amore part of her made a suggestion.  Actually, it was becoming 
harder to tell which was the Amore part of her and which was the Ayame 
part, as they were still merging, into something that resembled a 
large gaseous cloud.  Pretty soon she wouldn't be able to tell anymore 
which part of her was doing the speaking.  But for now it felt like 
the Amore part.

"I am Amore's reincarnation," she said.  "And something went wrong and 
I was reincarnated at the same time as them instead of before.  See?  
I'm the same age as them so I can't possibly be their mother."

"Really?" asked Chiang, and arched one of his eyebrows.  It was such 
an enormous eyebrow it was hard to tell it was being arched.  "Then 
what about when you were Queen Amore before?"

A good question.  She couldn't remember a thing about when she'd been 
Queen Amore before.  For some reason the memories of her life all the 
way up to waking up just beside a gigantic palm tree in the DarkVerse 
were completely blanked.

She tried harder.  Surely she could remember!  After all, it was two 
minds working together on the same problem, wasn't it?  But no matter 
how much she tried, she just couldn't get at the memories of her life.

"I can't remember," she said, shaken.  "I can't remember a single 
thing."

"Um..." started Yukiko nervously.  "Forgive me for intruding, but... 
er... when I was Amore, there were memories of her having just come 
from a forty year old green haired lady, and if you were Amore just 
before, then that means you were that woman..."  She trailed off, 
looking down at the floor in embarrassment.

Ayame could sort of understand the embarrassment, after all, it was 
never polite to talk about a woman's age.  But this was HER they were 
talking about.

"But I'm seventeen right now!" she said hotly.  "If I really was 
forty, I'd be all... er..." she trailed off, realising there were 
males present.  There were just some things you didn't talk about in 
front of men.  "Let's just say I'd know," she said, embarrassed.

"Yeah, well, anyway," started Kireiko, "this isn't going anywhere and 
we really need to practice for tomorrow.  And Ayame's singing for us.  
So worry about this Queen Amore stuff later."

"This looks rather important, oni boy," said Matsuro.

"The gig tomorrow is pretty important too, drummer boy."

The teenagers in the basement seemed to come out of a communal trance.  
Aki, ever the practical one, looked up at the clock.

"Damn, it's nine thirty already!"

"Only nine thirty?" asked Kireiko.  "Nine thirty's nothing."

"When you have to be at the gig by eight thirty at the latest the next 
morning and you still have to rehearse a few songs," said Becky, fully 
in Agent BA-3 mode, "it is indeed a pressing concern, Morizaki-san.  
So shall we resume?"

"Hey," said Chiang, but he was ignored as the band members got into 
place on their 'stage' and got ready for another round of "I Think I'm 
a Clone Now."

"This sucks," he said, and then saw Yukiko watching the band play.  "I 
guess we'd better get you back home to Aomori," he said to her.

"At least let me hear until the end of this number," she said.  "These 
guys are good!"

                           *     *     *

It was now about eleven, and it was the final few bars of the last 
practice of "I Wear My Pink Elephant Hat".  Matsuro had the close of 
the song all to himself, and his sticks flew over every single drum in 
his set, ending with a rousing finish of the cymbals and bass drum.  
As the last echoes died out, he could hear an excited clapping and 
cheering.

"Wai!" shouted Yukiko.  "You guys are so COOL!"

"Shouldn't you be back home in Aomori?" asked Matsuro.

"Feh, I can tell my mother I'm at Rika's place and then call Rika and 
tell her to cover for me."

"I suggest you do that in the reverse order," said Becky.  "And it 
won't work if your mother gets Rika's mother instead of Rika on the 
phone."

"Just go home right now with Esu and you can get up early and get Esu 
to bring you back so you can watch their gig tomorrow," said Chiang.  
"And you can tell your mother you're just going out with friends for 
the day and she won't suspect a thing."

"That's a great idea!  No wonder you were the Greatest Advisor!" said 
Yukiko.

"I got my start in the Kingdom of Delight by advising my fellow 
schoolmates how to get out of trouble, you see," explained Chiang to 
the astonished crowd.

"This thing starts at ten tomorrow morning, doesn't it?" asked Yukiko.

"Yes," said Keiko.  "You'll be coming?"

"Of course!  I have to see you guys play tomorrow!  And I can bring 
Rika and Sayaki!  This'll be SO cool!"  She turned to Esu.  "Okay, 
Esu, can you please open a door back home?"

"Sure," said the squirrel, and a moment later the two had gone.

"Well," said Chiang, "most of the trouble with Amore being in the 
wrong person has been corrected.  Now, Miss Villyn..."

"Yes?" asked Aki.

"I want to talk to you about Sailor Joy and Princess Anniki, and the 
power you've demonstrated.  Right now, however, doesn't quite feel 
like the time.  Can we talk tomorrow night?"

"I guess," she said.

"Right," said the ancient sage.  He looked around.  "I think that was 
everything.  I'll see you all later then.  Pretty good music, by the 
way."  He then disappeared, with a slight ripple to the air being the 
only fancy effect.

Leaving just the usual gang there.  Well, almost.

"The animals aren't here tonight," commented Keiko.

"Yeah, they went off together earlier today, saying that there was 
something important they had to do," said Hanaki.

                           *     *     *

In the Department of Mystical Destinies, four animals and a secretary 
came to the final piece of paper in what had been a desk sized pile.

"So you see, the cross quantum perambulations of the particle 
Destinium seemed to be negating the regular flow of your charges' 
individual streams, meaning that the antitransbombardment of Fatum was 
lighter for them than standard levels, and thus several Destinium 
continua twisted together for your charges’ individual streams," 
finished the secretary.

There was a pause.

"Huh?" asked the dog Rover.

The fish Pepper was snoring, and Charles' eyes were looking as glazed 
as a canary's eyes can.  The only one that looked even remotely 
cognizant was the cat Daisy.  She looked at her fellow advisor 
animals.  "Idiotsh, the lot of 'em," she grumbled.

"So you do understand?" asked the secretary.

"Moshly," said Daisy, aiming for an airy tone but ended up sounding 
slightly drunk instead.  Which wasn't all that surprising, given the 
empty wine bottles beside her.  "Though there wash something -"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHH!" screamed Pepper, jolted 
into wakefulness by his fishbowl suddenly starting to shake.

"Oh good, he's finally awake," said Rover.

"III'ddd bbbeeetttttteeerrr gggooo ssseeeeee wwwhhhaaattt 
HHHaaannnaaakkkiii wwwaaannntttsss," quavered Pepper.  A small archway 
floating in mid-air appeared in front of him, his fishbowl floated 
through, shaking the whole way, and then the archway disappeared in a 
burst of fish food.

The secretary wasn't in the least bit fazed by any of this, and 
resumed from where they had left off.  "You were saying there was 
something you didn't quite understand, Miss Daisy?"

"Yeah, there wash shomething puzzling.  It wash a paper we saw near 
the beginning, and it had a couple of referencesh to Sealsh and 
Harbringers that weren't shatisfactorily answered anywhere elshe.  I 
mean else."

The secretary tapped her chin for a moment.  "Come to think of it," 
she said, "I vaguely remember that myself.  Seals and Harbringers, hm?  
That rings another bell...  Here, just wait a minute, will you?"  She 
stood up and disappeared into a side room.

The secretary leaving attracted the attention of the canary.

"Oh, is it over?" asked Charles, his eyes unglazing.

"Not yet," said Daisy.

"I can't believe there's even MORE to all this," grumbled Rover.

"Believe it," said Daisy.  "Becaushe the cross quannum perambulations 
of the particle Destinium seemed to be negatin' the regular flow of 
our chargesh' individual streamsh, I mean streams, therefore the 
antitransbombardment of Fatum was lighter for them than standard 
levels, and thus several Destinium continua, that ish, lines of 
destiny, twisted together for our charges' streams."

Charles' eyes had glazed over again.

"Whatever," said Rover.

"They got several destinies combined, instead of just one," translated 
Daisy.

"Ah," said Rover.  "Is that all?  Why didn't you just say that in the 
first place?"

"She did," said Daisy.

"I've found something," came the voice of the secretary, cutting off 
any further argument.

"So bring it out already!" shouted Rover.

"It's a whole damn CLOSET!"

"What?"

The three walked, bounded, and flew through the door, and saw the 
secretary standing by a large closet filled to overflowing with files 
of paper.

"This is going to take even longer than we thought," chirped Charles.

                           *     *     *

Matsuro and Aki looked as if they were about ready to strangle the 
goldfish.  Tejina wasn't surprised, for it had just said that the two 
were brother and sister, and she could understand it if, say, Daisy 
spilled a big secret of hers like that when she was supposed to just 
be answering a question about what the animals were up to and -

Wait a minute.  Matsuro and Aki were BROTHER and SISTER?

"You guys are RELATED?" she shouted.

Aki glared at the goldfish, who was hanging his head in shame.  Well, 
fish don't have necks, so he was doing the next best thing, which was 
tilting his body forwards so his head was pointed down.  With Aki busy 
giving the fish a megawatt glare, it was left to Matsuro to say "Yeah.  
We only just found out recently ourselves."

For some reason Keiko looked relieved.  Tejina wondered why for a 
moment, and then it came to her.  Aki and Matsuro had been hanging 
around each other for the past few days, no doubt Keiko had seen 
that...

"...oh," she said.  "So how did you two find out?"

"My mother told me," he said.

"But your mother's dead," she said.

"So?" he said.

"But dead people don't hang around telling their kids stuff!" she 
shouted.  "They're known for it!"

"Tell that to my mother and aunt," he said.  "Being dead hasn't 
stopped them hanging around my apartment."

She gave him her best "You're Weird" look, but that lasted for all of 
five seconds in front of his disaffected bishounen air.

This had been a weird day, what with that odd bishounen around 
lunchtime and ancient sages and talking squirrels obsessed with nuts 
and yet ANOTHER girl that looked just like her and Ayame seemingly 
becoming Amore again and now Matsuro insisting dead people were 
telling him deep and dark family secrets.  So she announced to the 
group that she'd had enough weirdness for one day, and slammed the 
door behind her on the way up to bed.

A short while later she was showered and in her pyjamas and in her 
bed, staring up at the darkened ceiling, and feeling completely and 
utterly awake.  She could hear the rest of the group leaving, and 
Hanaki and Ayame seeing them out.  They were probably making excuses 
for her.

Well... possibly.

Okay, only maybe.

Perhaps they weren't.  She had been a bit crabby tonight.  But wasn't 
that to be expected?  After such a trying day, and then yet ANOTHER 
girl that looked exactly like her and was supposedly yet another twin 
sister.  Or triplet, or quadruplet, or whatever.

Not too long ago, she was sure she was Tejina Nakao, daughter of two 
successful litigators and sister of a bratty young boy, and she had a 
fairly normal life.  Except for an incident with a talking cat and a 
youma.  Now her biological mother had lost about twenty years, thought 
she was her sister, and Tejina had no idea who her father was or how 
many identical sisters she had.

She hated this sort of thing.  When she had children she'd never give 
them up for adoption.  This was too much for anyone to go through and 
stay sane.  How could anyone DO that sort of thing to their children?

The youthened Ayame came through the door.  Tejina stared at her for a 
second and then her anger got the better of her, and she hurled her 
pillow at the greenhaired girl.  It wasn't a playful throw; it had 
quite a lot of force to it.

Ayame turned and stared at Tejina in amazement, her mouth opened in 
surprise.

"How COULD you?" shouted Tejina.  "How could you do this to your own 
daughters?  Adopt them out to all parts of Japan and not tell anyone 
anything?  How could you be such a callous unfeeling BITCH?"

Ayame looked very much like a deer caught in a truck's headlights.  
"...but, sis, I'm your sister, not your mother -"

"That's just what you THINK!" screamed Tejina.  "But you ARE my 
mother, you just THINK you're my sister!  And you show up out of 
nowhere and expect me to accept you, and then again when you lose your 
memory!  I hate you!  I hate you!  Leave for all I care!"

Ayame fled crying from the room.

Tejina felt righteous for all of two seconds, and then remembered the 
girl's tears and then she just felt worse.  Oh god, what had she done?  
She'd just gone and let her anger get the better of her and horribly 
insulted her own mother.  Sister.  Whatever.  She mechanically got out 
of bed and walked over to her fallen pillow.  She looked at it, 
remembering everything she said and the feelings grew worse and worse.

With her back turned to the door, she didn't even know Hanaki had come 
in until Hanaki hit her on the back.  Tejina went sprawling, and then 
it was her turn to turn around and look at her sister in amazement.

"How could you say all that to Mom?" shouted Hanaki.  "You can't even 
imagine everything she's had to go through as the Queen!  You weren't 
there to see her face when she talked about her other daughters!  When 
she talked about the husband she had to leave!  You weren't there to 
hear her crying herself to sleep every night for two years!  You don't 
know anything!"

And if she thought she felt bad before, she felt even worse now.

"But, Han..." she protested weakly.

"But nothing!  If you really don't like us, then we'll go and leave 
you alone!  Just like you say you want us to!"  Hanaki turned to go -

Surprising even herself, Tejina shouted "No!" and launched herself 
desperately at her sister.  The two landed in a heap.

"No?" asked Hanaki.

"I've just had a really bad day with all sorts of weird stuff 
happening and yet another sister showing up and talking squirrels and 
an ancient sage who used me as nothing more than a demonstration dummy 
and Ayame becoming the queen again and lord knows what else and it's 
all just too much and I don't want you to go really, you're one of the 
only things I'm sure of anymore so please stay!"

"...really?"

"Really!"  Tejina was hugging Hanaki for all she was worth and crying 
freely.  "I don't even know how to think of my family... well, except 
for Eiji, who's still an annoying brat, but even if you do lie a bit 
you're still one of the only people I feel sure about anymore.  You 
even cut your hair for me!  Please don't go!"

Hanaki was silent for a moment, and then slowly returned the hug.  
They held it for a moment, and then a voice broke their reverie.

"Tej?"

The two disengaged, and turned to look at Ayame, who had just come 
back in the door.  The look on her face was enough to get Tejina 
feeling awful again.

"Oh god, Ayame, please forgive me, it's just that I've been having 
such a bad day and -"

"Please... let me exposit.  Let me talk.  Maybe... maybe you were 
right... I can't remember anything from before, maybe I did do 
everything you said I did.  Everyone seems to think so.  And I can't 
prove I didn't.  And Amore was the mother of Delight and Bliss.  But I 
can't remember, and I'm sure I'm seventeen now, or somewhere about 
that age.  So I'm different now, please remember that I'm different 
now and I'm not the Ayame you hate so much, but the Ayame that wants 
to be your sister.  You and Han can tell me what I was supposed to be 
like and I'll really listen instead of saying I'm too young to be your 
mother.  Just please don't hate me."

"Come over here, Ayame-chan, this feels like the time for a group 
hug."

They held the group hug for all of two seconds and then Hanaki gasped.

"What is it, Han?"

"The gig tomorrow!  We have to be at the Tower by eight thirty at the 
latest and it's really really late!"

A few seconds later, now in bed and trying to get to sleep, Tejina 
thought that the group hug had been a nice two seconds.

                           *     *     *

The rest of the Do-Gooders and their related hangers-on were heading 
home.  Funnily enough, Matsuro and Aki lived in much the same 
direction, and could walk together for at least the first fifteen 
minutes or so.  That night, as they were walking along, they heard 
Keiko's voice behind them.

"Matsuro!  Aki!"

The two turned to face Keiko, who was running towards them.

"What is it, Keiko?  Is something wrong?" asked Aki.  "This isn't the 
way back to your place."

Keiko drew up to them, and panted heavily, trying to speak.  "Are... 
Are you... you and Matsuro... really..."

"Yes," said Matsuro.  "We really are brother and sister.  Apparently."

"I'm so glad!" she cried, throwing herself at Matsuro and wrapping her 
arms around his neck.

Matsuro was so surprised he actually blinked.

"Wait a minute," asked Aki, "did you think that he and I were seeing 
each other?"

Keiko didn't say anything, she just looked downcast.

"I TOLD you there was nothing like that between him and me!"

"I didn't know what to think!"

"Keiko... chan," said Matsuro, slowly returning the embrace.  She 
smiled back at him.  He looked back for a moment.

"...I'd never do that," he said quietly.

"Well, this is all very nice, but I'm getting cavities," said Aki.  
"So I'll just leave you two lovebirds here in the middle of the street 
then, shall I?"

That got them moving again.

                           *     *     *

Tejina wasn't sure when she fell asleep but when she saw a gigantic 
plain covered with clones of herself she realised she must have 
drifted off.

She'd had these dreams several times and she was beginning to notice 
differences.  There were clones that were there just to die.  There 
were clones that rampaged, destroying everything in sight.  There were 
also the builders - in this particular dream there were just builders, 
building a gigantic cracked earth symbol out of the ruins of a 
destroyed city.  She realised that the symbol was more complete now.

What would happen when it was fully built?

Ayame, Hanaki, and the new girl Yukiko appeared in front of her, 
cutting that line of thought short.

"Tejina, you must choose," said Hanaki, in a mystic voice that was 
completely unlike the girl's usual bubbly tone.

"But choose what?" asked Tejina.  "Between the light and the dark or 
something like that?"

"No," said Yukiko, in a similarly mystic tone.  "You must choose the 
path of the future."

This was new, but confusing.

"The future shall depend on the choices you make now," explained the 
dream-Ayame.  "You must choose the one of two that comes to you."

The 'one'?  This sounded remarkably familiar...  "Does this have 
something to do with Matsuro?  Or the 'One' Zathras talks ab-"

"You have chosen the new," said Yukiko.

"Huh?  I didn't choose anything."

Ayame and Hanaki stepped away, to opposite sides.  A mysterious male 
figure appeared behind Yukiko, and the blonde haired girl moved 
slightly aside to let him step forwards.

"Who are you?"

The male figure didn't reply, but just stood there looking 
contemplatively at her.

A thought struck her.  "Are you my real father?"

Again, he didn't reply.  He held out a hand and suddenly he was 
holding a katana, which he presented to her.  On its blade she could 
see mystic runes, which were the same sort of markings on Matsuro's 
sword and Keiko's cleaver.

Even though this was a dream, she hoped they had enough time on the 
way home to talk about things.

"This is the same as Matsuro's sword?" she asked.

The figure nodded its head.  "This is the sword of a Harbringer.  Take 
it and use it well, in the service of the Green Dragon of the Center 
and Earth.  Distribute 'har'.  Fight for the world's future."

The three girls and the mysterious figure then disappeared, with no 
fancy effects at all.

"How... anticlimactic," said Tejina.  She gave the katana a few 
practice swings - it had amazing balance and seemed to do exactly what 
she wished it to, even though she'd had no formal training in sword 
use.  She wondered how she was supposed to put it away.  Matsuro 
pulled his from his stomach.  "It's probably too much to ask for a 
proper scabbard," she muttered.

                           *     *     *

One of the rare times Villyn went without his armour was when he went 
to bed.  Of course, sleeping without the armour on was extremely 
dangerous and an enemy could easily kill him as he slept.  He disliked 
that idea and had tried to keep the armour on overnight.  The first 
time had been an absolute disaster - he'd tossed and turned all night, 
and when he finally awoke he discovered the weight had eventually been 
too much and he was on the floor amongst the wreckage of the bed.

He'd had a stronger bed made, and so the weight was no longer a 
problem.  But while the armour was fine during the day, it was still 
too uncomfortable at night and he got very little sleep.  On the sixth 
day, he started seeing monsters in his breakfast cereal, and Aki 
complained repeatedly about his smell.  He'd given it up as a bad job 
and started sleeping armour-less from that day forward.

Of course, that didn't mean he had to like it...

Grumbling, he undid the last buckle then pulled the last part of his 
armour off.  One of these days, he promised himself, he'd get a suit 
of armour that was large enough to hold all his improvements AND was 
comfortable to sleep in.  It simply wouldn't do for the Evil Overlord 
of the Entire World to be unnecessarily vulnerable as he slept.

So thinking, he got into his pyjamas, pressed the button that closed 
the two-inch-thick steel window shutters, and got into bed, thinking 
about the coming day.

It was going to be a big day, he thought.  His latest sure-fire plan 
for world domination would be put into effect at the Tokyo Tower Music 
Festival, and all going well, he'd be Supreme Evil Overlord of the 
Entire World in just a few short weeks.  Not really that much time, 
come to think of it.  Lots of things to do during those weeks.

..but...

He looked over at the photos on his bedside table.  Beside pictures of 
Aki, Akemi, and Natsuko, and a couple of others, there was one of 
Charity-chan.  Like Akemi's, it was facing the wall, but he knew it 
was there.  He reached over, turned it around and looked at her 
smiling face.  He remembered the promise the two had made.  That they 
would conquer the world together.  It didn't look like that would be 
happening anymore.

His resolve hardened.  Charity had lied to him, and used him.  How 
much of her actions had just been an act?  How much of her feeling had 
been real?

His resolve lasted for all of a few seconds.  They'd been together on 
that holiday for almost four weeks before coming across the pygmies, 
and there was no way she could have known they'd end up there, of all 
places.  Was there?  And during that holiday they'd come to know each 
other so well...

He sighed.  He wasn't sure what to think anymore.  Whenever he tried 
thinking about Charity these days he ended up thinking the same old 
thoughts, over and over...

He leaned over, switched off the lights, and drifted into an uneasy 
sleep.

                           *     *     *

The next morning dawned.  It was a Sunday and most people were still 
asleep at this early hour, except for hordes of teenagers either 
getting ready to perform at the Tokyo Tower Music Festival or to go 
attend.  And across Tokyo, a certain yuppie type going by the 
pseudonym of 'Ichiban' was doing something drastically different to 
everyone else in the city.  Instead of lounging around in bed, he was 
sitting in the basement, observing three eggs, and feeling very 
annoyed with his reckless charges.

The eggs were resting in the heater-device built just for the purpose 
it currently served.  Really, if it wasn't for the fact that the 
Apocalypse was approaching, and coming SOON, he'd throw these ones out 
and raise another batch, but their time was running dangerously low...

"What do you think the Blue Dragon of the East thinks of these three 
fighting for him?" asked Niban, his second in command.

"I don't even think about that anymore," Ichiban said.  "I'd throw 
this lot out if I could, you know that.  Things are too close, now, 
though."

Niban nodded morosely.  "I made another reading last night.  If 
anything, the Apocalypse is even closer, Ichiban."

The two looked at the eggtimer.  The eggs weren't too far from 
hatching, now.

"Say, Ryuuzaki-kun..."

"Numbers, Niban.  We call each other by numbers now, no longer our 
names."

Niban sighed.  "It's just so impersonal."

"You knew we'd have to make many concessions when we banded together 
for the Blue Dragon of the East, Niban."

"I guess."

"Anyway, Niban, what did you want to say?"

Niban nodded towards the eggs.  "I was going to wonder if they'll be 
any more sensible this time."

Ichiban made a face.  "They're SUPPOSED to be slightly different every 
single time we go through this.  So far, however, they've never 
demonstrated any sense at all.  Hopefully, this time they will."

They went back to glumly watching the eggtimer.

Finally it went off.  As it rang, the three pale-green eggs shook, 
first almost unnoticeably, then more actively, then vigorously.  Niban 
walked over with a mallet and pounded on one of the eggs, trying to 
break it open.

Instead of the egg he was pounding, another egg broke.  A pink-haired 
and slime-covered head shot out.  "It happened again, Ichiban," the 
dragon child said.

From the depths of the egg Niban had broken open, there came an 
indignant "Ow!!"   The exclamation was followed by a yellow-haired 
head.  "Uncle Niban, that hurt!"  The girl rubbed her head, having 
received an accidental whack from Niban's mallet, and as she did so 
she caught a glimpse of her hair.  She caught a lock of it and stared 
at it.  "Ick... my hair is YELLOW this time?  Where's my hair-dye?"

The third egg exploded messily, showering the smartly clad Dragon 
executives with goo.  The green-haired boy inside stretched a bit, and 
glared at the yellow-haired girl.  "This is all your fault, Koohii."

The yellow-haired Koohii crawled clumsily out of her egg, and pointed 
defiantly at her two companions.  "Is not!  I told you and Mermaid to 
keep watch!"  The trio got out of their respective eggs, and started 
bickering.

"ENOUGH!!" Ichiban bellowed, making Koohii and Scotch jump, and almost 
making Mermaid blink.  "Consider yourselves VERY lucky!  If it weren't 
for the fact that the Apocalypse is so close, I'd give up on you three 
and start another batch!  Now go clean yourselves up and prepare.  You 
still have the performance today at Tokyo Tower."

Scotch and Mermaid looked suitably abashed.  Koohii, on the other 
hand, started complaining.  "But what about that scary girl that 
killed us?" she whined.  "She's still around! And she knows that we're 
dragons!"

Instead of exploding angrily at the girl, as Koohii was half-
expecting, Ichiban nodded.  "Ah, yes.  Her.  She is a Wildcard and NOT 
to be harmed.  Is that CLEAR?"

Scotch slumped.  "Aw, damn. I was looking forward to some fun."

"But... but..." Koohii stammered, her eyes welling up.

"I SAID," Ichiban bellowed in a voice that sent the young dragons 
cowering, "she is NOT to be harmed!"

"But what if she tries to kill us again, Ichiban?" asked Scotch.

"Run away or something.  Now clean yourselves and prepare for the 
festival!  And try not to get killed AGAIN."

Niban watched the teenagers hurry away, presumably to the showers.  
"You always tell them that. Every time."

Ichiban slumped against the wall. "One day they'll learn.  I'm sure."

                           *     *     *

The Tokyo Tower Music Festival promised to be a huge event.  It was 
being staged in the space underneath the tower and sealed off parts of 
the roads around it, and even then the convenors weren't sure that it 
would be enough space for the expected turnout.

Excitement was at a fever pitch and ardent young music otaku had 
camped outside the staging grounds for two nights solid just so they 
could get decent spots.  The good spots, which had to be reserved, had 
all been reserved within ten seconds of the phone lines opening.

Not that any of this mattered to Daichi.  With the powers of a Seal of 
the Dragon of Heaven, it was but a trivial matter for him to walk 
unnoticed past the guards, especially in the confusion of people 
rushing into the grounds to secure the best decent spot they could 
find.

Once he found a place reasonably close to the stage, he waited in 
place, his mystic senses on high alert.

With his senses keened and ready for anything, it was pathetically 
easy to detect the Do-Gooders when they showed up.  Their signals were 
loud, clear, and wild.  He closed his eyes, charting their progress 
through the grounds and backstage, presumably to dressing rooms or 
wherever it is young music stars go when they're waiting to play at a 
huge event.

The group split up into two, with most of them going one way and just 
two going in another.  That was them probably splitting up into male 
and female groups.

And then he felt the arrival of something odd.  The signal was almost 
the same as a Seal, but not quite.  It was certainly close enough to 
not be confused with a Harbringer or a Wildcard or anything else.  He 
opened his eyes and concentrated on the source of the signal - the 
people generating it were in plain sight.  They were two sharply 
dressed middle aged men, and three teenagers with improbably coloured 
hair.

While he'd been checking them out, they had noticed him too, and had 
come over to where he stood.  They were no more than a few feet away, 
looking at him with interest.

"Well well," said one of the men.  "What have we here?"

"You tell me," said Daichi, a lot more coolly than he felt.

"What is he, Uncle Ichiban?" asked the orange-haired girl.  "Is he a 
Dragon too?"

Daichi's attention perked up at the mention of dragons.  Though 
hearing the term applied to him instead of the Dragons of Heaven and 
Earth was puzzling.  He decided to test them.  "I'm no dragon.  I 
fight for one, though."

"Indeed," said the man who appeared to be the leader.  "The Seals do 
that."

This man knew of the Seals yet wasn't one, instantly putting Daichi on 
high alert, ready to draw his weapon at any moment.

"Relax, Seal," said the man, holding up an open hand in a gesture of 
peace.  "We Dragons are on your side."

Daichi relaxed, but only slightly, and stared at the man for a moment.  
The man stared back, and with a start Daichi realised he hadn't seen 
the man blink once.  Who was this man?  WHAT was he?

"You have the advantage of me," he said at last.

"Indeed.  Niban, take the children to their dressing rooms and help 
them prepare.  I will stay and talk to this Seal."

Daichi barely noticed the other four leaving.

"I assume you fight for a Dragon too," he said.

The man inclined his head.  "A good assumption," he said.

Interesting.  This man fought for a Dragon yet he wasn't a Seal, 
Harbringer, or - and he was quite sure about this - a Wildcard.  Were 
there other sides?  Yoshimichi, the leader of the Seals, had mentioned 
that things were vague and there might be other Dragons apart from 
those of Heaven and Earth.  But this man's signal was too close to 
that of a Seal's for him to be from another side.

It was all or nothing.  "Does the name 'Dragon of Heaven' mean 
anything to you?"

"I thought so," said the man.

"Thought what?" asked Daichi dangerously.

"The full title of the one I fight for is the 'Blue Dragon of the East 
and Heaven'.  Considering our almost identical signatures, the most 
likely conclusion is that your 'Dragon of Heaven' and my 'Blue Dragon 
of the East' are the same."

This was interesting.  "Interesting," he said.

"I shall however have to investigate this."

"I also," said Daichi.

They looked at each other some more.

"I expect you will be attacking the Do-Gooders."

Daichi nodded.

"It would be best to co-ordinate attacks.  That way we have a greater 
chance of success."

Daichi nodded again, and then spoke.  "We attack after they've 
finished their act."

The man arched an eyebrow, and grinned slightly.  "You wish to hear 
them too."

"Of course.  They're supposed to be quite good.  It would be a shame 
to kill them before listening to them at least once."

"True," said the man, and then abruptly changed tack.  "Rooftop of the 
Diet building, tonight.  I shall be there.  Hopefully you will be 
also."

"I may bring like-minded friends," said Daichi.

"Indeed.  As the saying goes, 'the more the merrier', so bring them 
along."  The man looked at him, then turned and disappeared into the 
growing crowd.

Daichi checked his watch.  He'd spent longer than he thought on that 
encounter, and the first act of the Festival was due to start shortly.  
There was no chance to go backstage and fight the Do-Gooders.  Not 
that he'd ever really thought seriously about doing that - they'd be 
close together and besides he wanted to hear them play.  Apparently 
they were quite good.

A few minutes passed, and then his mystic senses noticed three 
Harbringers arriving in the staging grounds.  Two of them were 
probably the youngsters Sakyou and Yoruko, they always went to things 
like this.  He wasn't sure who the third one was - she was probably 
just here to keep an eye on the other two.  One Seal against three 
well trained Harbringers was too much of a mismatch, so he stayed 
quiet and hidden.  They shouldn't be actively looking for him, but 
just to be sure he muted his own signal as much as possible.

                           *     *     *

They weren't due to play until a bit after noon, so in the meantime 
the Do-Gooders hung about inside the complex, listening to the music 
being played to the masses outside.  Scoping out their competition, so 
to speak.

Technically, non-performers weren't allowed inside, but the Do-Gooders 
had discovered that performers had a right to bring guests inside, and 
then asked Ayame to ever so nicely tell the convenors about this 
right.  After a few minutes of the girl's happy exposition, the 
officials had practically shoved Aki and Keiko inside the complex 
along with their friends.

The band outside was in the midst of what could be best described as 
heavy-death-metal-to-the-nth-degree combined with a polka, and the 
result was truly weird.  The obligatory guitar solo finished with a 
high pitched wail, and then the electric accordion and drums came back 
in.

"Feh," said Kireiko, "that guitar solo was only one minute, and my 
ears didn't strain once."

"Some of us LIKE our hearing, Kireiko," said Aki, who had demonstrated 
sense and was wearing earplugs.

"You know what I say," said Kireiko with a toothy grin, "live fast 
and-"

"-go deaf young?"

"No, I was going to finish with 'hard, and let old age sort itself it 
out'."

The band thought about this for a moment.

"Nah, that'd never work," said Tejina.

"Besides, you'd start having problems a long way from middle age," 
said Hanaki.

"Hey, it works for me," said Kireiko.

"Well well well," said a familiar voice, "we meet again."

The band members and hangers-on looked, as one teen, to the side, 
where there stood two familiar figures.  One was a spiky-black-haired 
bishounen, and the other had extremely pale skin and extremely black 
clothes, making for an interesting combination.

"Sakyou?  Yoruko?  You're performing at the Festival?"

"Nah," said Sakyou.

"How'd you get in, then?" asked Becky, Agent BA-3 surfacing and making 
her extra suspicious.  "What are you doing here?"

"Mystic magical powers," said Yoruko.

"When we noticed you were here we just had to come and visit," added 
Sakyou with a grin.

"And we get to distribute some har, too," said Yoruko.

"Yeah?" asked Tejina, interested.  "What exactly IS a har, by the 
way?"

"Well, it's really hard to describe.  I'd love to show you but we just 
distributed the last of our batch."

"Oh," said Tejina glumly.

"You'll find out soon enough," said Sakyou reassuringly.  "Once you 
fully awaken as a Harbringer we can start teaching you these things."

Outside, the heavy-metal-polka came to a rousing drum solo finish.

"Their drummer needs to improve," said Matsuro.  "He's basically 
trying to hit everything at once."

"You play the drums?" asked Yoruko, with everyone except Matsuro 
noticing the change in her voice and eyes.  "How cool."

"Yeah, right," said Kireiko.  "You just hit the drums with the sticks, 
and then hit them again.  What's so hard about that?"

"Much harder than waving your fingers over the guitar's strings, oni 
boy."

"Let's see you play the guitar then, drummer boy."

The verbal sparring between the two continued, with a bemused Yoruko 
and Sakyou watching.  Sakyou leaned over to Tejina, asking "Do they do 
this often?"

"Sometimes," she said.  "It's all in good fun."

The two boys were now barely an inch from each other, Kireiko glaring 
and exposing all his teeth - especially his slightly longer-even-in-
full-human-form canines - his speech almost impossible to understand 
as he somehow contrived to speak without actually opening or closing 
his teeth.  Matsuro, on the other hand, just glared, but those who 
knew him knew that it was a Bring-Out-The-Nuclear-Weapons glare.  And 
their insults were getting extremely heated.

"I think," added Tejina.

"Still, I suppose we must learn these sort of things about fellow and 
potential Harbringers."  He looked closely at her, his expression 
becoming quizzical.  "In fact, it looks like you've received the 
Sword, already, so - "

Outside, the next act started.  A voice everyone knew and weren't 
overjoyed to hear rang out.  "Heya, y'all, are y'all a ready to be 
havin' a good time?"

Aki whirled to look at the monitor that showed the stage, and saw her 
armour-clad nutcase of a father standing there with a big cowboy hat 
on his head and an acoustic guitar slung around his shoulders.  "Oh 
no," she moaned, "what's he up to NOW?"

"It looks like he's about to play country music," said Matsuro.

"COUNTRY MUSIC?" shouted everyone.

"Why worry?  He'll get laughed off stage in less than a minute," said 
Kireiko.

"Not before really embarrassing me and perhaps even Matsuro," moaned 
Aki.  "I hate my life."

The crowd's jeering was almost deafening.  Unperturbed, Villyn went on 
with his spiel, randomly strumming his guitar as he spoke.

"I know y'all are gonna love this next piece so much!  I know, 'cause 
I did so.  It's gonna get into your brain and you'll'n be humming it 
for the next four weeks, and with y'all distracted like that I'll be 
able to use my moon beams to make y'all think it's night and when 
you're all sleeping I can TAKE OVER THE WORLD!  
ABWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Sakyou tinysweated.  "That's... your father?"

"Oh gods," said Aki, head in her hands.

"And I dedicate this to my daughter and my long lost son!  To Aki-chan 
and Matsuro-chan!  Here we go, folks, with 'Achy Breaky Heart!"

Ten seconds later the audience had charged the stage and forcibly 
ejected Villyn from the grounds.  Into low earth orbit.  All that 
remained of his act was a battered cowboy hat.  An enterprising 
audience member formed it into an effigy of the armoured Villyn and 
burnt it, and everyone cheered.

"Is your father ALWAYS like that?" asked Yoruko.

"Sometimes he's worse," said Aki.

                           *     *     *

Daichi allowed himself a smile.  It wasn't often that he got to smile 
as a Seal, for it was a grim and dirty business, and the only smile he 
usually used was more of a humourless "I'm about to kick your ass" 
one.  But that armoured lunatic had been genuinely funny.  He'd even 
almost laughed at the man's antics.

Hadn't the man said something about a long lost son called Matsuro?  
And wasn't Matsuro the name of the One?  It'd be an amazing 
coincidence if that lunatic really was the One's father.

Nah.  The guy's son was probably a different Matsuro.

                           *     *     *

A few more bands came and went.  Soon, after just a couple more bands, 
they'd be out there on stage.

Tejina was starting to experience the nervousness she always got just 
before going on stage, and as the worry increased, she was becoming 
more and more withdrawn from the conversation.

"Tej?" asked Hanaki.  "Are you alright?"

"Just nervous, I guess.  This is a really big gig, I hope nothing goes 
wrong."

"We'll be alright," said Ayame.

"No, we won't, we always get attacked.  I don't think we've finished a 
gig since we started playing as the Do-Gooders without being attacked 
by at least one person."

Matsuro nodded.  "Hopefully we'll get to play a couple of numbers 
before things go wrong."

"Surely nobody can be that unlucky," said Sakyou.

"Believe it," said Tejina morosely, and fiddled with her hair in 
nervousness.  "Just once I'd like to get through a gig without being 
attacked."

"Maybe you will today," said the spiky-haired bishounen, with a 
disarming grin.

"It'd be nice," she mumbled, and sighed.  The conversation drifted 
onto other topics, but Tejina only listened to it with half an ear.  
This was a really big, important gig.  It was even a possibility that 
a major record company would notice them.  Not that that was 
important, of course, but -

Who was she kidding?  It'd be great!  It was the aspiration of every 
young musician!

But somehow she didn't quite have the same enthusiasm she'd had before 
all this lunacy had started.

And then the band on stage started to play the opening music of Dragon 
Childe's "Candied Rainbow Pegasus! Crash! Crash! Smash!" number.  A 
song that made Tejina angry just to think about, and it caught her 
full attention.

But before she could protest, Keiko was on her feet shouting "WHAT?"

"What is it, Keiko?" she asked.

Keiko had turned even paler than Yoruko, and was shaking, staring at 
the stage monitors in shock.  "THEM?  But... but... they're..."

"They're what?"

"...supposed to be gone..." she mumbled, looking down at the floor.

"What do you mean by GONE?" asked Aki, suspicion clear in her voice.

Keiko didn't say anything, but kept looking at the floor.

Tejina started to get suspicious herself.  Keiko had been late last 
night, and had shown up with those big bags...

"You KILLED them?"

"...yes..." said Keiko in a really small voice.

Tejina stared in shock at the downcast Keiko.  On the periphery of her 
vision she could see everyone else was also.

She became aware that Yoruko was saying something.

"Hey!  I asked a question!" was what she was saying.

"But... but Keiko KILLED those three!" she protested.

"None of you had any problems fighting the orange haired one and her 
copies at the audition, you know," said Yoruko.

She had a point.  But still, what Keiko had done felt... wrong, 
somehow.

"But that was... different," said Aki, but she didn't sound very 
convinced.

"Not at all, she's just as much an enemy now as she was then.  Get 
over it."

                           *     *     *

Yukiko, and her friends Rika and Sayaki, had managed to make it to the 
festival.  They'd managed to grab a spot surprisingly close to the 
stage.  Esu's teleportation trick came in useful that way.

And it was almost time for the Do-Gooders to play.  Yukiko was almost 
bouncing with excitement.  "Rika, Sayaki, they're almost on!"

Sayaki sweatdropped.  "You've only told us that about twenty times 
already, Yuki-chan"

"But they're just so GOOD!  You have to hear them!"

"Yes, I'm sure we will," said Sayaki.  "If you don't bore us to death 
first."

"Stop being silly, Sayaki!"  Yukiko resumed her expectant waiting.

                           *     *     *

Somehow the band had gotten over the unpleasant revelation.

Actually, "gotten over" wasn't very accurate.  They'd sidelined the 
issue and were trying to not think about it.  They had a big gig to 
play - definitely the biggest they'd ever played - and disturbing 
thoughts about a friend just wouldn't do.

The band just before them - who had a weird name something like "4U" - 
was just finishing up.  The Do-Gooders, waiting in the wings, started 
getting ready.  The girls transformed into their costumes, except for 
Hanaki.  Kireiko wondered about that, but was told that they had a 
surprise ready.

Matsuro had finally made a concession to dressing up and had 
unbuttoned the jacket of his school uniform, and Keiko had assured him 
that the open jacket made him look even cooler.  Kireiko was already 
wearing sunglasses, an open leather jacket and ripped jeans, and 
Tejina took one look at it and proclaimed it a good enough costume, 
even if it was what he wore most of the time anyway.

4U came off the stage, all smiles and shouting genially at each other, 
and gave the Do-Gooders an enthusiastic nod, made even more 
enthusiastic by the girls' costumes.  The Do-Gooders ran on stage and 
set up their instruments in record time.

Tejina took the mike from its stand.  Without a single trace of the 
nervousness she'd felt earlier she shouted out an enthusiastic 
welcome.

"HIIIII EVERYBODY!  ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?"

The crowd roared its approval, and the band started to play some 
background music for Tejina's introductions.

"We are the DO-GOODERS!  BISHOUNEN DUDE!"  Matsuro glared at Tejina, 
and then, not once breaking from the beat, he lifted and waved a 
drumstick in a cool and detached manner.  The female half of the 
audience swooned.  "THE WILD ONE!"  Kireiko broke from the backing 
music for a moment, to play a wild riff on his guitar.  "SAILOR AGENT 
RAPTURE BA-3!"  Becky stepped forward and nodded curtly.  "AMORE!"  
Ayame bounced and cheered and waved happily at the crowd.  "SAILOR 
BLISS!" shouted Tejina.  Hanaki strutted to the front of the stage, 
just in time for Pepper to appear through a mystic floating archway.  
And then the two danced.

The dance involved lots of clothes shredding and skin getting exposed 
and embarrassing poses.  Pepper's part was to fly his fishbowl around 
her in intricate patterns that matched her dance steps.  For this 
performance, Pepper had added a sparkling golden trail streaming out 
behind his fishbowl that not only looked cool but also covered certain 
parts of Hanaki, much to her relief.  During the dance, they were 
singing some ridiculous lyrics that were on the lines of punishing 
evil in the name of blissful feeling.

Normally it would be an extremely embarrassing dance number.  But 
here, on stage, danced to the beat of the backing music, it worked.  
It finished with a final dramatic flourish that ended with Hanaki in 
full Sailor Bliss costume, Pepper's fishbowl held aloft in an 
outstretched hand.  Pepper then floated up and away, and disappeared 
through another archway, which then in turn disappeared in a burst of 
fish food.

The crowd was in a screaming frenzy by the end of all this.  Time for 
them to actually begin.  "AND I AM SAILOR DELIGHT!  And THIS is 'I 
Think I'm A Clone Now!'  Hit it, guys!"

The backing music flowed easily into the introduction of their first 
number and they were away.

                           *     *     *

Niban found himself tapping his foot in response to the Do-Gooders' 
music almost immediately.  He stomped on it with his other foot, but 
it didn't work - now he was repeatedly stomping on his own foot in 
time to the beat.  Which was just as painful and ridiculous-looking as 
it sounded.

"Uncle Niban!  Stop doing that, you're not allowed to enjoy their 
music!"

"Really, Koohii?" asked Scotch.  "So why are you bouncing in time to 
their beat?"

"No I'm not!" protested the orange-haired-once-more girl indignantly.

"Yes you are," said the pink-haired Mermaid.

"Their music IS catchy," said Ichiban, who was almost tapping his 
foot.  "A shame we have to kill them."

"Let 'em finish," said Niban.  "THEN we can attack."

"I suppose," said Ichiban.

"No fair," whined Koohii.

"Shut up," said Ichiban, mostly out of reflex.

                           *     *     *

Daichi found that he was actually enjoying the music.  Of course, the 
build up, including the fanservice dance at the beginning, had helped.  
But he was finding this to be extremely good.

And this was just their rendition of an existing song.  Appropriate, 
though, considering that the three singers were practically alike.  He 
wondered what their original music was like - it might be even better 
than this.

A shame he had to kill them.  Still, he could put that off until after 
they'd finished.

                           *     *     *

Two young women, dressed inexplicably in traditional red and white 
priestess robes, were also enjoying the music.

"Well, he looks like a Wild One, alright," said one of them 
doubtfully.

"He plays the guitar well," said the other.  "Just listen to that 
guitar solo of his."  She sighed.  "A shame we have to capture him..."

"I still think he's the wrong one, Jinko.  The photos showed that he 
was taller and had redder skin."

They sat back and listened some more.

"Even if we do have to capture him," said Jinko, "let's at least wait 
until they've finished their act.  These guys are good."

                           *     *     *

"See?  SEE, Sayaki-chan?  I told you they were good!"

"Yes, Yuki-chan, you did.  Now shut up and let me listen."

"Anybody got any nuts?" asked Esu.

"Shut up," said all three girls in unison.

                           *     *     *

They came to the end of "I think I'm a Clone Now."  After the big 
guitar finish, and after his ears stopped ringing, Kireiko could hear 
the audience stomping their feet and chanting for more.

"Having fun?" shouted Tejina.

The crowd roared an enthusiastic and positive reply that almost 
deafened Kireiko.  During it, he quickly tuned his guitar to the 
slightly flatter and sadder tuning that "Drop Dead, Sis" required.  
Once done, he quickly nodded to Tejina.  She nodded back, then turned 
back to the audience.

"Okay, everybody, our next number is called 'Drop Dead, Sis'!  Go for 
it!"

He might be a Wild One, he thought as he started the wailing opening 
chords.  But he DID know about music.

Damn, he was good.

                           *     *     *

And then, all too soon, they were finished.  The echoes of Matsuro's 
drum finish to "I Wear My Pink Elephant Hat" died out and the band 
realised with a shock that for once they'd actually finished a gig 
without being attacked.

"We... actually made it through?" asked Tejina.

"Yeah, we did," said Kireiko.

"Anyway, Tej, time to finish up," said Hanaki.

"Yeah."  Tejina bounded to the middle of the stage and said they were 
finished, thanked everybody for listening, and asked everyone to give 
a hand for the next band.

Well, she started to.  She got about a third of the way through, and 
then Koohii jumped onto the stage from the wings, followed closely by 
Scotch, Mermaid, and about sixty clones.  Tejina faltered in mid-
speech.

"We have you now!" shouted Koohii.  "With Uncle Ichiban's improved 
copies, we will WIN this time!  You WON'T stop me from becoming a pop 
star!"

Sailor Darkness and Aki in that ridiculously inappropriate Princess 
Anniki dress came from the other side of the stage.  "Just try it," 
said Keiko, holding her cleaver threateningly.

Tejina was just getting over the shock and the here-we-go-again 
feelings, when the bishounen she and Becky had seen yesterday jumped 
on stage, drawing a VERY long sword from the depths of his trenchcoat.

"I am Daichi, a Seal of the Blue Dragon of East and Heaven," he 
intoned, "and your fated enemy.  Prepare to die."  He raised his sword 
to an offensive stance, preparing to attack, and -

Sakyou and Yoruko came leaping from the wings, drawing their swords as 
they landed in the middle of the now quite crowded stage.  They were 
joined a minute later by another woman leaping from the audience, 
sword already in hand - the third Harbringer.

"Um, hi, Hirata," said Sakyou nervously.

"I HATE it when you two run off like that.  And call me Tomoe!" said 
the newly named Tomoe Hirata.  "But for now we'd better fight this 
Seal."

"Oh really," said Daichi, and shifted to keep everyone in his sights.  
He didn't make a move, waiting instead for the others to make an 
opening gambit.

Everyone on stage stared at everyone else on stage, the tension 
mounting.  Just the slightest misstep would mean setting everything 
off, leading to what promised to be a huge brawl.  The audience drew 
their collective breath, waiting for the first stroke.  And into this 
silence, Villyn fell back to earth and through the stage with a 
resounding crash.  He clambered through the hole he'd made upon 
landing and stood groggily, swaying from side to side, completely 
oblivious to the booing from the audience.

But for only a moment, and then he gathered himself together and stood 
tall and dramatically.  "The 'Blue Dragon of the East and Heaven', 
huh?" he shouted, his voice ringing out loud and clear.  "Well, *I* 
fight for... for..." his voice became uncertain for a moment, and then 
he rallied forth with "the Yellow Pikachu of Country Music and World 
Domination!"  His little finger was up at his mouth, by now;  he 
slowly lowered his hand and used it to point at Daichi.  "And I won't 
let you harm my kids!"

"This is your daughter, then?" asked Daichi, indicating Tejina.

"No, she is," he said, indicating Aki.  "That one's my enemy.  So go 
ahead and kill her.  I guess.  But I won't let you harm Aki and 
Matsuro!"

"I wasn't even going to," said Daichi.

"HAH!  You only say that!"

In the wings, Ichiban buried his face in his hands.  "This is 
ridiculous," he groaned.  "They're turning this into a circus."

"Shall I tell them to attack?" asked Niban.

"Go ahead," said Ichiban.

"DRAGON CHILDE!" shouted Niban.  "ATTACK!"

"And leave Daichi and the Wildcard ALONE!" added Ichiban.

Needing no encouragement, the improbably-hair-coloured Dragons, and 
all their clones, charged towards the Do-Gooders.

Kireiko roared defiance and ripped off his shirt.  Free of the ofuda 
sewn into it, his body reverted to its natural, extremely imposing 
half-oni form.  He charged to meet the Dragon Childe army's attack.

With a shout of effort, Daichi swung his longsword and sent an arc of 
shimmering energy speeding towards Kireiko's back.  At least, that was 
his intention, but Hanaki leapt to defend her boyfriend.  With a shout 
of "LOOSE CHANGE STRIKE!" she threw a hail of yen coins at Daichi, and 
he had to abort the attack halfway through and defend himself.

It turned into a huge brawl from there, with the audience cheering 
everybody on.

                           *     *     *

"See, Junko?  He IS an oni."

Junko was busy looking thoughtfully at the rampaging Kireiko, 
assessing him.  "I'd say..." she said at last, "that he's more a half-
oni."

Jinko looked closely (well, as closely as she could from a couple 
hundred meters away) at Kireiko, and then she nodded.  "True.  But 
whether he's half-oni or full-oni doesn't matter, we'll still capture 
him."

Junko nodded, and drew a handful of ofuda from the depths of her robe.  
"Let's go get him."

                           *     *     *

Things started off with a couple of Koohii-clones and the Seal 
charging at Tejina.  On the periphery of her vision, she could see the 
three other Harbringers coming to her aid – but they weren't with her 
yet and they were getting slowed down by the horde of Dragon Childe.  
For the moment, Tejina was by herself.

She fired off a Cardo Suwaru at the three attackers, but right in the 
middle of the throw there was a sharp pain from her shoulder.  The cut 
up credit cards went wild, but fortunately enough shards went the 
right way, forcing her would-be attackers back.

The pain grew worse.  Tejina, suspecting what it was already, looked 
down at her left shoulder and saw a fleshy extrusion coming from it.  
She put her other hand up to the extrusion, and pulled -

The pain was so intense she almost screamed, and as the katana kept on 
coming from her shoulder, it grew worse and worse.

Daichi charged at her again.  Weakly, she tried a Cheku Bounce, but 
there was no strength to it and the all the attack did was make the 
Seal bounce slightly to the side, which was nowhere near enough.  He 
closed the distance, his sword descending towards her.  Tejina tried 
to move - after all, the pain was just in her shoulder - but collapsed 
after only a couple of steps.  Daichi smiled in an "I'm about to kick 
your ass" way.

Thankfully, Sakyou and Yoruko showed up just about then, followed 
closely by Tomoe.  They instantly fell to fighting Daichi, and anybody 
else that came too close.  After a strained word of thanks, Tejina 
continued to pull the katana from her shoulder.

The pain was almost enough to make her faint.  But somehow she 
survived it.  Feeling ill, she pulled the last of the katana free from 
her shoulder.

The pain almost instantly went away.  Taking deep breaths, she stood 
up, and wondered what the hell she would do now.  She'd never been 
trained in fighting with a sword before.  Still, this sword felt... 
right, and very easy to use.

Her three fellow Harbringers parted from their formation, allowing 
Tejina to move.  Almost instantly, a Mermaid breathed a burst of pink 
fire at her.  There was a 'spang' noise, Tejina blinked, and realised 
that she'd just somehow deflected the blast right back at the Mermaid-
clone with her sword.

"It's pretty easy," shouted Tomoe, "just let it flow!  It'll be good 
enough!  We'll worry about proper training later!"

And Tejina let things flow.

                           *     *     *

"You're a Sailor!  You have to help them!  Transform!  Transform!  
TRANSFORM!" shouted Esu.

"But HOW?" yelled Yukiko.

"You mean I didn't give you the transformation bracelet?"

"No," retorted Yukiko.  "You talked about it before but always ended 
up talking about nuts again."

"Oops," said Esu, and sweatdropped.  He created a squirrel-sized 
dimensional door and dashed through.  Almost instantly, he came 
scurrying back, carrying a gold bracelet in his mouth, and dropped it 
in front of Yukiko's feet.

She bent down, picked up the bracelet and looked at it.  Set in it 
were four diamonds in a triangular pattern, thee as the points and in 
the center a slightly larger and flatter one.

"Quick, put it on!  To transform, you press the middle one!"

Yukiko slid it over her hand and onto her wrist, noticing that as she 
did so it contracted so that it fit.  She looked at it for a moment, 
doubts assailing her.  She'd have to fight.  She didn't know how.  And 
the transformation sequence promised to be really embarrassing.

"If only I was in your place," sighed Rika.  "It's just like a magical 
girl anime..."

Yukiko glared at Rika, looked back at the bracelet, took a deep breath 
and pressed the diamond in the middle.

There were psychedelic colours, half seen on the periphery of her 
vision.  There was the half heard sound of cheesy music.  Her clothes 
shredded but a light blue glow was covering her body, saving her from 
full embarrassment.  There was the feeling of new clothes whirling 
into existence around her.

Then it was over.  Yukiko stood there for a moment, looking down at 
her sailor-fuku-clad form.  The skirt was VERY short, she thought 
glumly.

"Cool..." breathed Rika.

"Very," said Sayaki.

Esu was already shouting.  "Now go help them!"

Halfway to the stage, Yukiko realised she didn't know what she was 
supposed to be called.

                           *     *     *

Daichi found himself being attacked by four Harbringers at once.

The Harbringers were also fighting off a constant stream of the Dragon 
Childe clones, which divided their attention, but even so, it was a 
tough battle.  Daichi was having to use his special techniques almost 
all the time, whereas the Harbringers were using hardly any.

If it went on like this he'd be out of power and energy in only a few 
more minutes and then he would be killed.  Perhaps not by Sakyou or 
Yoruko, but he knew Tomoe would have no qualms at all about it.

Time to exercise the better part of valour and get out of here.

Using the last of his fading power, he prepared a teleport spell.  He 
smiled sardonically at his opponents, said "We shall meet again", and 
invoked the magic.

It had only been enough power for a short distance teleport, taking 
him only about two hundred meters away, but it was a good enough 
headstart.  He started running like hell.

                           *     *     *

As Queen Amore, Ayame didn't transform into a super powered heroine 
like the others, and couldn't fire off energy blasts and such.  But 
even if she could there wouldn't have been much point – for while the 
attacks were killing the clones, they were just bouncing right back.
 
What she could do, though, was stand back and assess how the battle 
was going, and use Queen Amore's sense of strategy and tactics to 
direct her friends' efforts.  Which still wasn’t very easy, she had no 
idea how to deal with unkillable opponents like these.

At least that Seal with the long sword had just gone.  That made 
things slightly easier, as they could now focus all their efforts into 
fighting against the clones.  But that still didn't solve the basic 
problem of how to stop the clones coming back to life.

And then a white and light blue costumed Sailor with light blonde hair 
arrived on stage.  As Queen Amore, Ayame instantly recognised her.

"Sailor Winter!" she shouted.  "How good of you to awake just in time 
to come and help us in this time of dire need!  We need as much help 
as we can get, for these clones seem to be unkillable and do not 
succumb to the tactic of insulting their music which was successful 
against them before!"

"Um, hi," said Yukiko.  "I've never been... ah... Sailor Winter 
before, so what can I actually do?"

Any further attempts at conversation were cut short as a Scotch clone 
came charging at them, wielding a guitar.  Ayame would have laughed at 
his choice of weapon if she hadn't seen other Scotches swinging 
guitars with enough force to go through the floor.

The two jumped away from the descending guitar, and it tore right 
through the wooden floorboards.

Anger on her face, Yukiko lifted a hand and shouted "Snowdrift!"  Her 
voice sounded... different.  Older, and more mystic.  But Ayame didn't 
worry too much, as the effects of the attack were much more attention 
grabbing - a blast of snow had thrown the Scotch clone halfway across 
the stage and then piled up on top of him.  One of the clone's legs 
was humorously sticking halfway out of the snow - the skin was faintly 
blue and the whole leg was twitching slightly.

Ayame saw that Yukiko was just standing there and staring, her mouth 
open in amazement.  A Mermaid-clone took the opportunity to attack, 
and was quickly buried under another snowdrift.

Something was odd, thought Ayame.  The Scotch and Mermaid clones 
weren't digging themselves out of the snowdrifts.  "They... can't dig 
themselves out?" she wondered aloud.

"Uh oh," said another of the Scotches.  "They're not digging 
themselves out!"

A dim hope became a light at the end of a tunnel.  "Winter!" shouted 
Ayame.  "They haven't come back yet, it seems that the clones are 
affected by freezing damage!  So do that to all of them!"

Yukiko started attacking with Snowdrifts, but it was slow going - she 
needed to be fairly close to the target, otherwise they could easily 
get out of the way.  But at least they finally had a way to fight 
back, thought Ayame.

Inspired by Yukiko's success, Sailor Bliss stopped using her regular 
attacks, which weren't having much effect, and fired a Blissful Frozen 
Assets at a small group of the attacking clones.  They didn't freeze 
all over and turn into ice statues.  Instead, only... certain body 
parts that could perhaps be described as their assets froze.  It was 
bizarre, but it worked - the clones were obviously extremely 
uncomfortable, and as they could no longer feel their legs they 
couldn't move.

Just looking at them was enough to make Ayame shiver.  She hoped to 
never be on the receiving end of one of those.

                           *     *     *

Kireiko growled - from his half-oni throat this sounded particularly 
intimidating.  Though he wasn't trying to intimidate, he was growling 
in frustration.  No matter how hard he pounded these guys into the 
floorboards, sometimes hard enough to go right through them, they just 
got right back up again.

It didn't help that two thirds of the attacking force looked like cute 
girls.  He found it very hard to bring himself to hit them.  Only when 
one of them fired an energy blast that turned his favourite jacket 
into ash did he get angry enough to fight them.  And even then he 
found himself holding back.

Partly to press the attack, and partly to relieve stress, he grabbed 
one of the male clones in a vicious headlock, jumped high, and as he 
landed he smashed his victim through the floorboards and partway into 
the concrete beneath the stage.  

He got back up to his feet, glaring at his victim, daring him to get 
up out of his personal crater.  Kireiko looked at the plaid-dressed 
boy for a while - his chest was going up and down, but he didn't show 
any signs of getting back up.  He appeared to have been knocked out, 
hopefully for a good long while.

Time to get back up on stage.  He looked up at the hole he and the boy 
had made.  With his gaze elsewhere, he was taken completely by 
surprise by a burning sensation on his back.  He tried to twist around 
and grab at whatever it was, but found he couldn't move a muscle.

"We have you now, oni!" came a female voice, and two women dressed in 
traditional red and white priestess robes walked into his view, 
grinning nastily at him.

It had to be an ofuda of sealing on his back.  Placing him in the 
hands of these deranged women devil hunters, when he should be back up 
there helping out his friends.  He cursed violently, and found he had 
enough control of his mouth to speak.  The women winced, one of them 
going so far as to cover her ears.

"Oh, can't stand my language, huh?" he asked, and did his best to grin 
evilly at the two.

"Silence, oni!" shouted one of them.  "Be glad we are only to capture 
you, not kill you!"

"Capture?"  Kireiko started to think.  It was a lot harder to think in 
this form, for as a half oni his thoughts were mainly composed of 
violence and sex and pretty women, but if he tried hard enough he 
could string a few thoughts together.  And with him being completely 
unable to move, he'd have to think his way out of this.  "Who for?"

One of the women smirked.  "You shall find out, oni."

Damn, it was hard to think properly in this form.  But he managed to 
come up with an idea.  "Don't know, do you?"

One of them flinched.

"We DO know!" shouted the other.

"Prove it, then," he said, grinning as best he could with half his 
facial muscles refusing to move.

"We aren't that stupid," said one of them.

Damn, so much for that idea.  He put his mind to work, trying to think 
up another angle.  It took a while but eventually he came up with 
something.

"You must be working for someone who's about seven feet tall and," he 
hoped like hell he could pull this accent off, "tAlks rEAllY wEIrdlY, 
lIke thIs."  He mentally clapped himself on his back.  He'd managed 
the accent, though his throat would be sore for a while.

"You're bluffing," said one, but the other flinched.

"Knew it!" he said.  "He's the only one I know of who's after me, you 
see."

They glared at him.  "It doesn't matter if you know!  We'll deliver 
you to him anyway!"

It was gradually getting easier to speak and express himself in this 
form.  He exercised this freedom to exposit for a bit.  "You might 
like to know that he's an oni himself."  They looked disbelievingly at 
him.  "No, really, he has seventeen toes and things with octopuses for 
heads working for him.  I've fought against him a couple of times."  
It was getting easier to think, too, for another idea came to him.  
"In fact, I'll pay you to go after him."

"I seriously doubt you could match his offer of one million yen," said 
the other.  "So we'll deliver you to him anyway, get paid, and THEN 
we'll go after urk."  And then she fell over, along with her 
companion, revealing Hanaki behind them.

Hanaki looked down and saw the unconscious plaid-clothed boy.  "And 
now we'd better take care of him, too," she said.  She fired a 
Blissful Frozen Assets at point blank range, effectively immobilising 
him.

She turned back to Kireiko and gave him a Look.  "Honestly, you lug, I 
can't take my eyes off you for a second.  Anyway, we're pretty much 
finished up there, and I wondered where you were, and found you down 
here trying to out-talk some wackos.  Why weren't you just fighting 
them?  You know you can't think very well like that."

"Oh, I'm getting the hang of it," he said airily.  "And as for why I'm 
not moving, there's an ofuda on my back.  I can barely move."

"...oh," she said.

"Get it off me, please, Han!"

She looked at him, and a predatory smile came to her face.  "I can 
think of something much more fun to do first."

Kireiko saw the glint in her eye and eeped.

                           *     *     *

The last of the Koohii clones shook her fist and screamed defiance at 
the Do-Gooders (and their roadies/hangers-on), eliciting a huge roar 
of approval from the audience, and then was buried under a final 
Snowdrift, which elicited even louder cheering.

The battle had been won.  The Dragon Childe originals had run long 
ago, leaving their clones to distract and occupy their enemies as they 
escaped.  The clones had kept on fighting, but they lost heart at the 
abandonment and were even easier to defeat.  A couple had even just 
stood there, seemingly waiting for Sailor Winter or Sailor Bliss to 
come and finish them.

The victory hadn't come without a price - for the stage had been 
ruined.  The floor had many holes in it.  There was snow and ice 
everywhere, and lots of legs sticking humorously out of the snow.  The 
drum set had been turned into matchwood, cables were torn and 
sparking, and an amplifier had been buried under snow.  Banners had 
been torn down, the curtains were ripped, and one light fixture was 
lying in its own crater, right in front of a high ranking executive 
from a record company.  He was currently cringing in his wife's arms, 
babbling something about meteors.

"This is going to cost SO much," said Tejina, sobbing.  "And with that 
light fixture we'll NEVER get a record deal."

There came one of the organisers now, his face red, looking ready to 
do some serious shouting.

"Let me handle this," said Tomoe.

"But -" started Tejina.

"YOU STUPID - " the man started.

"Shut up," said Tomoe.

The man was so startled he shut up.

"Is your only complaint the state of the stage?" she asked.

"WHAT KIND OF STUPID QUESTION IS THAT?" he screamed.  "IT'S A PRETTY 
BIG COMPLAINT!  I'M GONNA-"

"I'll fix it right now," she said.

"You?  Just YOU?  What are you gonna do, just wave your hands and 
presto, it'll all be fixed?"

Completely ignoring the odious official, Tomoe closed her eyes, held 
up a hand, and her mouth moved as she started mumbling to herself.

"Hey!" he shouted.  "Are you even listeni-"

A wave of... something radiated out from her, nobody was quite sure 
what.  But in its wake the stage was brand new, with the floorboards 
whole once more, the brightly coloured decorations fluttering in the 
breeze instead of hanging in tatters, the instruments fixed, and all 
the snow and twitching bodies of their opponents were gone.

It came to the edge of the stage and stopped.  Except in the case of 
the fallen light, where it continued on, reached the fallen fixture, 
and it reappeared back above where it should be, the crater gone.

The audience clapped and went 'ooh' in appreciation.

The odious official was standing there with his eyes wide and mouth 
opening and closing in amazement.

"Now get lost," said Tomoe, and turned away from him as if he'd been 
switched off.

"HEY!" he shouted.

"You'd better leave," said Yoruko.

"Yeah," said Sakyou, "when Hirata gets like this you just can't talk 
to her."

"At least get off the stage and let the next band play!" shouted the 
official, and then left in a huff.

                           *     *     *

"This is going a lot faster than I thought it would," said Charles.

"Still taken half a day," grumbled Rover.

"It would have taken even longer to go through all that paper by 
hand," the canary pointed out.

"Yes," said the secretary, tapping quickly on the keyboard.  "It's a 
good thing we already had the Five Gods files transferred onto our 
computer system."

"Excuse me," said Rover, "but it's the FOUR Gods, not five.  Red 
Phoenix of the South, White Tiger of the West, Blue Dragon of the 
East, and Dark Warrior of the North.  That's four."

"Don't you ever listen?" asked Daisy, now fully sober.  "Normally, 
yes, but in this case, no.  This time we have the Red Phoenix of the 
South and Fire, White Tiger of the West and Wind, Blue Dragon of the 
East and Heaven, Dark Warrior of the North and Water, and Green Dragon 
of the Center and Earth.  And at the very least Delight, Rapture, 
Darkness and Matsuro are mixed up in it.  Those Swords of Duality they 
have them mark them as players in it."

"Oh, so THAT'S what those runes mean," said Charles.

Rover looked unconvinced.  "What about Void?" he asked.  "There's 
usually a void when you're talking about five elements.  I find the 
absence of a Void to be extremely suspicious.  And having two of one 
animal is also highly suspicious."

"Hey, Karen," said Daisy, "bring up the simple page that explains it 
all again.  Maybe Rover can get his soggy head around that."  The 
secretary sighed and tapped a few buttons, and the screen now had a 
bright cheerful page with the words "Who The Five Gods Are And How 
They're Related To The End Of The World!" in big friendly letters.

Rover read through it several times until he thought he had it 
straight.

"So," he started, "we have the Five Gods, with Six Champions for each, 
and sundry lesser champions in the background for each, and each god 
fights for something, such as the destruction of the world or the 
saving of it or something."

"And Delight is a Harbringer and Champion of the Green Dragon of the 
Center and Earth," said Daisy helpfully.

Rover continued on.  "There are five Wildcards -"

"...Rapture and Darkness are two of them..."

"Shut up, I'm trying to get my head around all this.  Your 
interruptions aren't helping.  So, five Wildcards, who can help out 
any side they like and one of the Wildcards is the Ultimate Wildcard, 
also called 'The One'."

"Which is Matsuro."

"I'd guessed that already, moggy.  And I said to shut up.  And he's 
the only one who can be a Seventh Champion and only when there are 
Seven Champions gathered can they call the God they represent.  And 
then the God does whatever, such as remake the world, destroy it, sit 
on its ass doing nothing, thus saving the world from destruction, and 
so on."

"Exactly," said Daisy, nodding her head.

"Ridiculous," said Rover.

"Seems awfully hokey to me," said Pepper.

"Very much so," chirped Charles, looking at Karen, the secretary, who 
in the absence of anyone else had become the de facto representative 
of the entire Department of Mystical Destinies.

Karen shrugged.  "Hey, don't look at me, I don't make this stuff up.  
Ask Her upstairs, who does.  And anyway, as I said before, the cross 
quantum perambulations of the particle Destinium led to lighter levels 
of antitransbombardment of Fatum, and several Destinium continua were 
twisted together."

"Huh?" asked Rover.

"Several destiny lines, which should have been separate, got twisted 
together," translated Daisy helpfully.  "If they were separate they'd 
make more sense.  In any case, now that we have things mostly cleared 
up we have to get back to our charges.  And tell them about all this, 
too."

"You're being incredibly smart and resourceful today, Daisy," said 
Pepper.

"A refreshing change," said Charles.

"It's because she hasn't had a drink," said Rover.

"Don't remind me," said Daisy, and shuddered.  "Soon as I get back to 
the house I'm raiding the fridge for Mr. Nakao's beer."

                           *     *     *

Off the stage and back inside, Tejina looked at the sword in her hands 
in trepidation.  She was going to have to put it back, she knew.  
Only, the thought of shoving a sword into her own shoulder was too 
much for her.

There came that new Harbringer.  She was called Tomoe Hirata, wasn't 
she?

The woman came right up to her, an annoyed expression on her face.

"Hirata-san, isn't it?"

"Yes," said the woman shortly.  "Now are you going to put that sword 
away or not?  Running around with a sword tends to attract attention, 
which is something we can do without."

"But..." said Tejina helplessly, looking at the sword with fear.

"Oh, for god's sake...  It came from your left shoulder, right?"

Tejina nodded her head nervously.  And then before she realised what 
was going on, there was a blur and the sword had been snatched from 
her hands and was halfway back into her left shoulder already.  There 
was a slight ache and she felt slightly nauseous.

"You can see that there is only a little nausea and pain," said the 
woman, "and even that lessens with time.  Now finish the job 
yourself."  The woman turned away.

Tejina stared after the woman.  No wonder Sakyou or Yoruko always 
referred to her by her surname, and hadn't talked very nicely about 
her...

"Tej, put the sword back in, PLEASE," begged Ayame.  "It's grossing me 
out like that."

Tejina grimaced, and pushed the sword the rest of the way back into 
her shoulder.

Sakyou wandered over.  "Bitch, isn't she?" he said.

"She is a bit... difficult," said Tejina.

He rolled his eyes.  "Try VERY difficult to get on with.  Anyway, be 
that as it may, you'll have to meet her and the other two Harbringers 
sometime.  We Harbringers have a meeting later this afternoon - I 
suggest you come."

                           *     *     *

Elsewhere there was a family feud going on.

Actually, 'family feud' is the wrong word, for that suggests lots of 
shouting between various people, and raised tempers, and lots of fist-
shaking, and people getting all dramatic and threatening to cut the 
other person out of the will.  In this case, all that was really 
happening was Aki yelling at her father, and Matsuro.  Keiko had been 
receiving cold looks from everybody except Matsuro, and was hanging 
off his arm even more than usual, if that were possible.

"I can't BELIEVE you!" Aki was shouting.  "Thinking you can take over 
the world with COUNTRY MUSIC and MOONBEAMS!  You've humiliated me 
again, and what's more you managed to humiliate Matsuro too!"

Matsuro nodded in silent assent.

"And if it wasn't for the fact that it was ruined already, you would 
have ruined things with your 'Yellow Pikachu of World Domination and 
Country Music'!"

"You got the order wrong, dear.  It's 'Country Mus'-"

"That doesn't matter!" she screamed.  "Just the very fact that you 
could spout something so STUPID!  It's RIDICULOUS!"

"But Aki-chan..."

"But nothing!  Goodbye!"  Perhaps a touch overdramatically, Aki 
whirled to face away from her lunatic father and stomped away.

"She's got quite a temper, hasn't she son?"

Matsuro gave him a coolly disinterested look, and then walked away 
himself, Keiko following him.  Villyn was left by himself.  He stood 
there in Righteous Indignation for a moment, and then deflated.

"Damn," he said.

                           *     *     *

"Wonder what's eating her?" said a fully-human-once-more Kireiko, as 
Aki stomped by.

"Probably her dad again," said Hanaki.  "You did see what he got up to 
today."

"Yeah," said Kireiko.  "He's nuts."

"And likes country music too."

Kireiko shuddered.  Country music had to die.  All else was 
irrelevant.

                           *     *     *

A few hours after the gig, Tejina stood in front of an old wooden 
building, Yoruko beside her.  The woman had met her at the nearby 
subway station and led her here, which was apparently the meeting 
place and base of operations of the Harbringers.

It looked more like a run down old building that should have been torn 
down decades ago.  The paint, such as it was, was old and peeling, and 
the traditional ricepaper windows were torn and full of holes.  She 
could also see holes in the roof, and if she strained her eyes she was 
sure she could see a bird's nest or two around the holes.

"It's... rather..." she started, unsure how to say it politely.

"Stinks, doesn't it?" asked Yoruko.

"Um... yes?"

"Our leader says that this is a spot of great mystic significance, and 
refuses to move.  Personally, I think it's just because he doesn't 
have enough money to get a better place.  But never mind, let's get 
you inside."

Tejina was astonished to see a tent in the middle of a giant room.  
She looked at the other four Harbringers in the room, who were in turn 
looking back at her.

"Our eminent leader will not see you outside the Sacred Tent," said 
the fourth, as yet unintroduced Harbringer.  "So go in and see him, or 
forever be known as the one that held the Harbringers from fulfilling 
their destiny."

Uneasily, she lifted the flap and crawled inside the tent.

"Greetings," said an old and cracked voice.  "I have been waiting for 
you, Miss Nakao."

"Um... good afternoon, sir," she said uncertainly.

"I have one thing to ask you."

"Yes?" she quavered, not sure she was ready to face what was sure to 
be a difficult question.

"Do you like pizza?"

                           *     *     *

Even later...

Aki was getting impatient.  The previous night, Chiang had said he 
wanted to talk to her and would show up the next night.  The only 
problem was, he didn't say WHEN and it was already a quarter past 
nine.  She was trying to do homework for tomorrow - after all, 
tomorrow was a Monday and a school day and with all the crazy stuff 
going on she was starting to slip behind in her schoolwork.  And that 
wouldn't do at all.

But every time she tried to work on History, she found she couldn't 
concentrate on the textbook and her mind wandered, and she always 
wound up wondering about Chiang and what he wanted to say.  
Considering her reluctance to transform into Sailor Joy, he probably 
had some hard words for her.

"It's not like I asked for any of this..." she grumbled.

She could hear her father clanking around in his suit of armour, 
downstairs in the living room.  Her face twisted into a grimace - just 
WHAT had the idiot been thinking, when he'd come up with the 
ridiculous idea of taking over the world with country music?

He'd been getting worse ever since he and Charity had fought, she 
thought glumly.  They'd even had to go back to the group sessions 
since then.  While group was good for blowing off steam, it was 
another time-waster, and in these last couple of high school years she 
could do with as few distractions as possible.

The cacophony of the doorbell rang throughout the house.  That was 
probably Chiang.  As the minions shouted "I'LL GET IT!" and charged 
for the front door, Aki turned off the desk light and padded 
downstairs.

It turned out to not be Chiang.  As she arrived in the hallway and saw 
who it was, her heart skipped a beat.  There were two figures, dressed 
in grey.  One was EXTREMELY androgynous, with pink hair in a really 
wild style.  The other was a bishounen young man, whose hair was much 
more sensible.  However, seemingly to make up for this, he was wearing 
a robe and all sorts of occult ornamentation.

However, it wasn't them that caught Aki's attention.  With them was 
Queen Charity, leaning on the shoulder of the sensibly haired man.  It 
was obvious from the half-lidded expression on her face and the way 
she was leaning that she was drunk.

Her father clanked into the hallway, and stopped dead when he saw who 
it was.

The Queen lifted her head and squinted muzzily at the teenaged girl 
and her father.  "Whozat?" she slurred.

Make that EXTREMELY drunk, thought Aki.

"You are Nemesis Serendipity Villyn and his daughter Aki Villyn?" 
asked the pink haired man... woman... whatever.

"Yes," said her father.

"Nemesis-chan?" asked the suddenly terrified Queen.  "Oh my god, is 
that really Nemesis-chan?"  Without waiting for an answer, she tried 
to hide behind the two figures, slipped, and crashed to the floor.

"Your Majesty!" shouted the two, and they turned and helped her up.  
She went back to leaning precariously on the occult figure's shoulder.

Aki frowned - that meant that these two were, as she'd suspected, 
definitely from the DarkVerse.  But in light of the Queen's state that 
didn't seem all that important.

"What's going on?" asked her father, his voice threatening.  He moved 
forwards so that she was only a few steps from the three.  "What's 
happened to her?"

"She's been drinking steadily, since who knows when," said the occult 
one.  "As she's in no state to be taking care of herself, we decided 
to step in and help her out."

Aki blinked.  "That's... remarkably nice of you."

"It is our duty towards her as her subjects," he said.  "In any case, 
she's mentioned you and your father a few times, and it we thought we 
should try bringing her here..."

"Ge' me outta here!" shouted the Queen.  "I can't see him!  He hates 
me!"  Her eyes teared up and in only a few seconds she was wailing 
like a young child.  "He hates me he hates me hehatesmehehatesme!"

Her father stood there, indecisiveness written all over his face.  Aki 
then looked back at the Queen and her two loyal subjects.  She might 
be an evil queen intent on taking over the world, but right now she 
looked like any other woman who needed help.

"She can stay here with us," she said decisively, and moved forwards 
to take the Queen away from the two.  An expression of relief flitted 
across the pink-haired figure's face.

"WHAT?" shouted her father.

As she helped the Queen up the step from the entranceway into the 
hallway, she glared at her father.  "Dad, you and her have let this go 
on too long.  You two have to talk about this.  Properly."  The queen 
snored drunkenly right into Aki's ear, and she winced.  "...once she 
sobers up," she added.

"That may take a while," said the occult bishounen cautiously.  
"Apparently she's drunk ten times her weight of double-strength 
BlackBlood Brew.  That'll probably keep her like this for at least 
another three days."

"Isn't there anything we can do?"

"Neither I nor Malaise have enough power to cast a strong enough 
sobering-up spell," he said.  "Short of convincing her to cast one on 
herself, and we've had no luck so far in doing that, there's nothing 
that can be done except wait."

Aki looked back at her father.  "There's no way we can let her go on 
like this," she said to him.  "Don't you agree?"

"...I suppose," he said.

Once it had been agreed that Queen Charity would be left at the Villyn 
household for a few days, the two DarkVerse men - well, one man and 
one unsure - left.  Aki and her father placed her carefully on the 
sofa bed, and Aki went back up to her room to continue with her 
History work.

                           *     *     *

As his daughter left the room, Villyn looked down at the sleeping 
Charity.

Now she was in his house and he wasn't even sure what to think about 
her.  He was still angry with her, but seeing her like this tore at 
something inside him.  She was like that because of him, because she 
thought he hated her.

Part of him wanted to say it served her right.  But another part kept 
on asking him if he really wanted to see her like this.

He'd thought he loved Akemi, and they'd had their troubles, and look 
at what had happened there.  Did he want that to happen again?

He sat down heavily in the nearest chair, and continued to look at her 
sleeping form, undecided.

                           *     *     *

Aki had finally got back to doing her History homework when the 
doorbell rang again.  She hurried downstairs, past the groaning forms 
of the minions who had fallen down the stairs again in their haste to 
get to the door, and went to see who was calling.

As she thought, it was Chiang.

"So, Aki Villyn," he said as he came into the house, "I understand 
that you - " he walked through the door of the living room and saw the 
Queen sleeping on the sofa, and Villyn asleep on a nearby chair - 
"What the hell is the DarkVerse Queen doing here?"

"She's sleeping off a drink," explained Aki.

"Don't you mean sleeping off a hangover?"

"No, as I understand it the hangover will come a few days later," said 
Aki.

"What has she been drinking, double-strength BlackBlood Brew?"

"Yes," said Aki shortly.

"Oh."  The ancient sage looked at the sleeping Queen.  "That would 
explain it."

"You wanted to see me?"

Chiang looked nervously at the sleeping Queen.  "I do, but I would 
prefer not to talk to you in here.  What I have to talk about is 
Kingdom of Delight business, and I would prefer for there to be no 
chance of someone from the DarkVerse (especially one such as the Queen 
of the DarkVerse) overhearing."

"Fine, fine, we'll go use the dining room and close the door."

They did so.  Suspecting what this about already, Aki started with "So 
what's this all about?  Is it about the Sailor Joy business?"

Chiang leaned forwards, his gaze piercing hers.  "After a fashion.  It 
is more about you and your continuing reluctance to become Sailor 
Joy."

"But I DO!" she complained hotly.  "I've become Sailor Joy several 
times now!"

"No you have not," he said.  "What you have done is turn yourself over 
to Princess Anniki."

"Don't you mean 'turn into'?"

"No, 'turn over to'.  There is a subtle difference.  The point is that 
turning yourself over to her is somewhat akin to squashing a cockroach 
by dropping Tokyo Tower on it."

"What?"

"Well, when you 'transform' you go right through being Sailor Joy and 
go right into being Princess Anniki.  The power levels when you do 
that are so high they go off the scale.  They're so high they're 
almost unbalancing, and most of the time you need hardly that amount 
of power.  And surely that dress you wear is really difficult to do 
anything in."

Aki's narrowed her eyes in suspicion.  Whenever people started talking 
about a balance they usually ended up spouting all sorts of stupid 
nonsense.  "'Unbalancing'?  Are you about to spout on about a Balance 
with a capital B?"

"No," he said promptly.  "As far as I know (and my knowledge is 
extensive) there's no such thing.  But think about the cockroach 
example again.  If every single time you want to get rid of one you 
drop the Tokyo Tower on it, pretty soon all you have around you are 
huge craters.  Sure, you've got rid of the cockroaches, but you've got 
rid of a whole lot of other things, too."  Seeing her expression, he 
hurriedly continued.  "Now what's happening in this case isn't quite 
that bad, but it's the best example I could think up on the spot.  So 
do you see why you have to stop turning over to Princess Anniki all 
the time?"

"...I had no idea," she whispered, looking down at the table.  She 
then looked up at the ancient sage.  "But all I thought I was doing 
was getting another costume!"

"Costume?" he asked.

"Sailor Joy's costume!  It's ridiculous!  The skirt's practically a 
belt, the underwear - such as it is - is really uncomfortable, and the 
blouse is too small and tight!  I don't know how Anniki could stand 
wearing it!"

"She always was a bit of an exhibitionist," mused Chiang.

"That explains a lot!  Anyway, I hate that thing!  And when I picked 
up the dress I thought I was just getting a better costume."

"I... see," said Chiang, and stared at her.

He stared at her some more, making her uncomfortable.

"What?" she said hotly.  "Why are you staring at me like that?"

"If the only problem is the costume," he said, "then why didn't you 
just modify it?"

"Huh?"

"You can do that, you know.  If you'd just told him about your 
concerns with the costume, Charles would have told you that you could 
have modified it."  He paused, and an uncertain look passed over his 
face.  "Probably.  I had no idea what we were thinking when we picked 
out the Advisors."

"Wait up, you mean I can modify the costume so it's not so hentai?  
Make the skirt longer and the blouse several sizes bigger and so on?"

"Yes, if that's what you want."  He looked at her for a moment.  "In 
any case, it seems we have that matter cleared up.  Please realise 
that the next time you transform (which I assume will be to just 
Sailor Joy) that your power will be less than what you've become used 
to.  Now that that issue is dealt with, there is something else."

"Yes?"

"Your friend Matsuro.  He's the reincarnation of the DarkVerse's Grand 
Duke of Midnight."

Aki remembered what they'd found out in Ketrel.  "Yeah, and Anniki was 
supposed to marry him and bring the two kingdoms together or 
something.  What about him?"

"So you know about that.  That's good;  it means I don't have to 
explain all that.  The point is, it's all part of fate and prophecy 
and it's still supposed to happen."

"You've got to be kidding.  He and I can't get married."

"Oh?"  He arched one of his huge eyebrows.  "Why can't you two do so?"

"Because he's my brother."

The sage sat there for a moment, clearly stunned.

"I wasn't expecting THAT," he said at last.  "Something has clearly 
gone wrong somewhere."

"You're telling me," she said with conviction.

He scratched his head.  "I'm SURE the prophecy was very clear about 
it."  He reached into his pack and pulled out an ancient looking 
scroll, and started carefully reading through it.

"There's some prophecy about it?" she asked.

"Oh yes," he said.  "It's a VERY old prophecy.  It was very old even 
when I was Great Advisor to the Court of the Kingdom of Delight.  It 
was what we were going by when we arranged that marriage between 
Princess Anniki and Grand Duke Midnight."  He turned a page and 
recognition lit up in his eyes.  "Ah, here we go."  But then he 
frowned.  "It's not quite how I remembered it..."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it goes like this:  'Only when the Champion of the DarkVerse 
unites with the Champion of the Kingdom of Delight and those of the 
Center and Earth can the worlds be united and survive the Coming of 
The Apocalypse.'  Now, the Champion of the DarkVerse is the Grand 
Duke, and I always assumed that as Anniki was due to become the next 
Queen that she was the Champion of the Kingdom of Delight.  But I 
don't remember the 'Center and Earth' part."

"Maybe the scroll is wrong."

"It can't be wrong, because it's the original and only copy;  it was 
written out by the original Great Advisor to the Court, and has been 
passed from Advisor to Advisor ever since."

"Oh really," she said, disbelieving.  "Why hasn't it fallen to bits 
then?"

"Magic," he said promptly.

She'd seen enough of magic to not disbelieve that.  "So then, do you 
have any idea what the 'Center and Earth' bit means?"

"None whatsoever.  For once, I'm stumped."

And he was supposed to be the expert authority on the Kingdom of 
Delight.  "Maybe something to do with the DarkVerse?" she asked 
tentatively.

"No, in my job as Advisor I had to learn all about the DarkVerse as 
well," he said.  "So that I could understand them better.  And they 
have nothing about a 'Center and Earth' either.  It's entirely 
possible that this 'Center and Earth' has nothing to do with either 
the Kingdom of Delight or the DarkVerse."

Something that wasn't related to either?  And then she realised that 
all the business with Matsuro and those Harbringers and Seals and 
Dragons and whatever seemed like something completely unrelated.  
"Matsuro and a couple of us others are mixed up in some other 
business, involving some Dragons or something.  I don't quite 
understand it all and I haven't heard 'Center and Earth' mentioned 
yet, but it might be related..."

"It's a longshot," he said, "but it bears investigating.  Who do I 
talk to find out about it?"

"I've no idea," she said.  "The guys who told him he's involved with 
it aren't too sure themselves, either.  But you should probably start 
with Matsuro."

"I will," he said.  He checked his watch.  "Tomorrow morning," he 
added.  "For now, it's late."

                           *     *     *

It was the dead of night in Tokyo, meaning that the city was slightly 
less active than normal.  But only slightly.

The sky was cloudy, and the light of the half moon was muted.  Its 
murky light illuminated two trenchcoated figures standing on top of 
the Diet building.  They looked as if they were waiting for someone.

"He's late," said one.

"He said he'd be here, Yoshimichi-sama," said the other.

Yoshimichi's mouth quirked.  "He had better.  This is wasting valuable 
time that the Seals could be using much better."

"He felt almost like a Seal.  If it wasn't the fact that six Seals 
have already been found I probably would have mistaken him for one, 
even."

"Indeed?" asked Yoshimichi, in a tone of voice that suggested he would 
never make such a mistake.

"Really, Yoshimichi-sama."

"You had better hope, for your sake, that you are right, Daichi."

The two stood there for a moment.

A few minutes later there was the sound of feet touching down on the 
roof in front of them, and out of the darkness stepped two middle aged 
men smartly dressed in suits.

"Well, we meet again, Seal," said one of the men.

Yoshimichi's eyes narrowed as he received the men's signal.  "I see 
what you mean, Daichi."

The other man looked coolly at the two.  "I have much to discuss, 
Seals."

                           *     *     *

"It's GONE!" shouted a large Valhallic guard, as he came bursting 
through Lars Svensson's office door.

Lars jumped to his feet, knocking his desk - and all the paperwork on 
it - over.  Such was his agitation he didn't even care.  "The Sword's 
gone?"

"Yes, Mr. Svenson!  I was standing right in front of the Sword of 
Duality when I saw it disappear!  I made a grab for it but my hand 
went right through!"

Lars Svensson stood there for a moment.  Then he sighed, took off his 
glasses, and rubbed them in his fingers.  "That was the last one.  All 
disappeared in the same way.  You know what this means, Jenssent?"

"That I'm going to be hung in the dungeons and whipped raw every day 
for the next hundred years?"

"No.  What it means is that Ragnarok will be coming soon.  We don't 
know exactly when and we don't know exactly how, but it will come."

He remembered the exact wording of the related prophecy.  "Almost 
probably," he added.  "Four chances in five, I think it was."

(TO BE CONTINUED)


WHAT DOES ICHI-BAN HAVE TO DISCUSS WITH THE SEALS?  WHAT DID THE
LEADER OF THE HARBRINGERS HAVE TO DISCUSS WITH TEJINA?  JUST HOW CLOSE
*IS* THE END OF THE WORLD?  AND IS THE END OF THE WORLD CALLED THE
APOCALYPSE, RAGNORAK, BOTH, OR NEITHER?  WHAT ARE CROSS QUANTUM
PERAMBULATIONS OF THE PARTICLE DESTINIUM?  HOW MUCH FLAK WILL THE
AUTHOR COP FOR RESSURECTING THE DRAGON CHILDE?  WHAT EXACTLY DID
TEJINA CHOOSE IN THAT DREAM SEQUENCE?  WHAT DOES HANAKI'S
TRANSFORMATION DANCE *ACTUALLY* LOOK LIKE?  WHAT DID ICHIBAN AND NIBAN
WANT TO TALK TO THE SEALS ABOUT?  WHAT DID THE LEADER OF THE
HARBRINGERS WANT TO TALK TO TEJINA ABOUT?  HOW MANY QUESTIONS CAN THE
AUTHOR THINK OF?  IS HIS CAPS LOCK KEY STUCK?  BUT PERHAPS MOST
IMPORTANTLY:

WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?


Author's notes
A bit over 110 KB... gah...  This is the longest Do-Gooders chapter
yet.  And I wasn't even trying for that record, either.  I had a fair
bit to throw in and was trying to tie several (mostly) separate plot
points together, and it just kept on growing.  And growing, and
growing...
   And I didn't introduce any major characters at all!  Though there
were a few cameos and minor characters that were new.
   I thought I'd be leaving the Dragon Childe dead but in the end
decided to resurrect them.  For that, well, you can blame both me and
Jonatan Streith.  He might have come up with the idea, but I DID go
along with it, so...
   Apart from that, many many thanks must go to Jonatan Streith.  He
helped a lot with this chapter - he preread, gave ideas, and even
wrote most of a scene (the scene where the Dragon Childe are
resurrected).  So let's all give him a hand and a cheer or two.
Huzzah!  Also, some thanks go to John Evans, who I borrowed a sentence
or two from, and a few to the DGML, where I also got a few quickie
ideas / references.
   The author with the unenviable task of following up this mammoth
chapter is Phoebe, so give her a hand and wish her luck.  I have a
feeling she may need it.