"Dead Scream!"
The Doctor sighed as he sensed the oncoming bolt of energy race at him. Before it could shatter the window of Ataru's hospital room, he reached out telekinetically to snare the attack and return it to sender. Seeing her own attack reversed on herself, Sailor Pluto yelped as she dodged right, allowing the Dead Scream to soar over the roof of the building across from Tomobiki General Hospital, it eventually slamming into the side of the hill where the Mendou Clan's Tarouzakura tree stood.
Turning around, the Doctor then smiled as he spotted four seifuku-clad women across the way. With that, he phased himself through the windows of Ataru's hospital room and levitated over the emergency entrance, where now, curious onlookers were gathered. "Good evening, Setsuna!" he then hailed out, projecting his voice in all directions to ensure the Senshi of Time could hear him. He then gazed on Pluto's companions, his mirthless smile growing a touch wider. "Ah! And I see Haruka, Michiru and Hotaru have also decided to grace us with their presences this fine evening!"
Hearing this white-clad monster call out their civilian names in a voice that had to have carried over quite a bit, the Outer Senshi braced up as Pluto moved to wind up another attack. Drawing the Space Sword from her personal hyperspace pocket, Sailor Uranus braced herself as Sailor Neptune prepared a Submarine Reflection, they both ensuring that this creature would not move to attack Sailor Saturn. "Shit!" Uranus spat out, she inwardly praying that the bystanders on the ground hadn't heard what this newest enemy had said. "Who the hell is this guy, Pluto?!"
"A threat to Crystal Tokyo! THE threat to Crystal Tokyo!" the time guardian snarled as she wound up to attack him again. "Dead Scream!"
The bolt slashed out at the Doctor. Hs simply stared at the oncoming ball of energy for a second before a wave of his hand -- and a telekinetic capture bubble -- snared the attack and sent it flying right at the other Outer Senshi. Before the three women could realize what happened, the Dead Scream slammed right into Uranus, sending her flying into Saturn. As both women were flung off the roof of the building they were standing on, Neptune screamed out, "URANUS! SATURN!"
"Do be careful of that first step," the Doctor helpfully advised with a raised finger. "It is quite a long drop to the . . . "
CRASH! Instant Senshi okonomiyaki.
"Ground," the Doctor finished with a shake of his head. "Dreadful sense of tactics. These people wouldn't last five minutes on Yiziba."
He then seemed to focus on Neptune as the Senshi of Water spun on him. "SUBMARINE REFLECTION!" the green-clad warrior of love and justice screamed out as a torrent of water surged across the chasm between her and her target.
"DEAD SCREAM!" Pluto bellowed as she launched her own simultaneous attack.
The Doctor then sighed as both attacks zeroed in on him -- before they slammed into a forcefield that just popped up around him. "At least they don't launch into those horrid speeches that Usagi and the Inner Senshi tend to use every time they confront something they don't like," he mused aloud as Neptune's attack was transformed into a cascade of water which fell onto the small garden planted in the traffic circle located at the emergency entrance to the hospital behind him.
Hearing this being speak of their princess with her real name, Pluto and Neptune recoiled before they moved closer to each other. "He knows all our real names!" the latter snapped. "What do we do?! Who is this monster?!"
"'Monster?!'" the Doctor retorted with a raised eyebrow as he seemed to drift closer to the attacking Senshi. "Wouldn't that be a case of the kettle calling the pot black, Michiru? You initiated this action in close range of a hospital currently housing forty-two ill patients, to say anything of the staff who work here. I truly wonder what Usagi would say if she understood what this was all about!"
"You're a threat to the future, Doctor Wysynski!" Pluto snapped back. "You'll never be allowed to unleash the anarchy of Yiziba on Earth!"
"Oh?" the Doctor calmly objected as he stared on the time guardian. "And what do you offer in return, Setsuna? That pathetic dystopia you happen to call 'Crystal Tokyo?' Please, my dear, do be serious! Or tell me this . . . " An icy smile then crossed his face. "Does your precious princess condone genocide?!"
The two outer Senshi recoiled from the sharpness of the Doctor's question . . .
Which was actually well heard on ground level.
"Who is this strange being currently fighting two of the famous Sailor Senshi of Tokyo's Minato Ward outside Tomobiki General Hospital?!" the reporter, who had come with an NHK camera crew to the hospital to report on the death of Moroboshi Ataru, asked as she and the growing crowd outside the emergency entrance stared on the action above their heads. "As you know, ladies and gentlemen, we came here this evening to report on the death of Moroboshi Ataru, the infamous teenage resident of Tomobiki who was the common-law husband of the famous Oni princess Lum. Yet when we got . . . "
"Oh, Momoko?! May I please interrupt your dialogue for a moment?!"
The reporter gasped as she noticed the grey-haired gaijin man in the white cape looking towards them. "Oh! It appears this being is actually speaking to us now!" she then gasped before she aimed her microphone towards him. "Hello, sir!" she then called out. "May we ask your name and what you happen to be doing outside of Moroboshi Ataru's hospital room? Are you actually some sort of alien prince who may have met Moroboshi-san when he went out into space with Lum-san . . .?"
That question earned her a racaous laugh from the Doctor. Seeing him nearly double over in mirth, Pluto and Neptune exchanged a knowing look before they spun around to launch a new attack on their enemy. Before they could even begin to call out their attack phrases, the Doctor literally moved to appear right between them. "Ladies, would you mind?" he asked as his hands lashed out to grab their arms. "Momoko was asking me a question. I would like to answer it . . . "
And with that, he leapt back, using centrifugal force to send the two outer Senshi flying into each other . . . CRACK! As both of them collapsed onto the roof, the Doctor then vanished in a flash of light . . .
To reappear right in front of the startled Momoko. "I apologise, my dear," he said with a courtly bow. "You were asking me something on behalf of your audience and we were so rudely interrupted by Setsuna and Michiru up above."
The reporter recoiled at the Doctor's show of Western-style gallantry -- which, save for the actual movements, could have easily passed muster in the Japan of old -- and then she giggled in embarrassment. "I apologise for interrupting your fight with the Sailor Senshi, s-sir!" She then quickly composed herself before moving to the point of the conversation. "Er, could you please tell us who you are and what you were doing standing . . . er, floating, I mean! . . . outside of Moroboshi Ataru's room! Are you actually some alien acquaintance of his or . . .?!"
"No, Momoko, I am not," the Doctor replied with a shake of his head. "I actually came by this evening to offer Lum a little hope when it came to what just happened to Ataru. But when I introduced myself, she was quite frightened of me . . . "
At that moment, the roat of starship engines echoed over the hospital grounds. Everyone spun around to gaze in the general direction of the Moroboshi home to see a tiger-striped craft lift away from the ground, it rocketting to the heavens. "And, as you will all no doubt note, Lum's fright is quite profound," the Doctor finished.
"Oh, my!" Momoko gasped as the cameraman spun his device around to allow it to capture the image of Lum's ship soaring away from Earth for the final time . . .
And since it was a live feed . . .
"LUM-SAN! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!" Megane howled on watching his beloved Oni rocket away from Tomobiki.
And that wasn't the only place that was receiving the transmission.
"MONSTER! HOW DARE YOU SCARE LUM-SAN AWAY FROM EARTH?!" Mendou Shuutarou screamed in outrage as he bolted up from his sitting room chair. He then spun around to gaze on two of the Kuromegane standing nearby, both ready to serve him. "MOBILIZE ALL THE CLAN FORCES! HAVE THEM ATTACK THIS MONSTER FOR WHAT HE'S DONE AGAINST LUM-SAN! DO IT NOW!"
"HAI!" both bodyguards screamed as they leapt to do their master's bidding . . .
"Oh, dear me."
Momoko was quick to notice the far-away look that had just crossed the Doctor's face. "Er, excuse me, sir? But are you about to be attacked?" she then asked.
"Most likely," the Doctor calmly replied as he stared at her. Seeing those strange eyes of his, the reporter tried not to turn away from them too much. "Both Mendou Shuutarou and Aisuru Satoshi both seem to have been put right off when they witnessed your transmission. I assume . . . " With this, his voice trailed off as his eyes turned towards another section of Tomobiki. "Ah, yes! Shitto Koosuke, Urayamu Akira and Daremo Hiroyuki are on their way as well, not to mention a considerable number of Lum's male classmates from Tomobiki High School, to say anything of Sakurambou Hayao and his niece, Sakurambou Sakura. All quite disturbed, unfortunately."
Hearing that, the reporter had to admit to herself that this guy, whoever and whatever he was, was as cool as a cucumber. "Er . . .? Don't they frighten you, sir?! I mean, the passion most people in Tomobiki feel for Lum-san is well-known!"
"Oh, yes, I am aware of their passion for Lum," the Doctor asserted before his face seemed to melt into a mask of icy contempt. "I could easily compare said passion to the same fervour supporters of the National Socialist Party in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s demonstrated to Adolph Hitler!"
At Megane's home, the self-styled leader of "Lum's Stormtroopers" was virtually frozen in place in the wake of hearing the Doctor's words. Also having heard them was Megane's very own mother, Aisuru Rui. "Nice to see that some people in this world don't kow-tow to that damned Oni!" the bespectacled forty-something muttered as she stormed away from her son's room to return to her evening tea.
At the Mendou mansion, a Kuromegane gets off his cell-phone before he turned to an equally frozen Mendou Shuutarou. "I am truly sorry, Young Master," the bodyguard said with a bow. "Your father has forbidden all displays of loyalty towards Lum-san in the wake of her most obviously final depature from Earth."
After hearing the Doctor's words, something then came to Mokoko. "You're from Earth!" she gasped as she stared wide-eyed at him.
"Quite true, my dear," he replied. "From a town in Poland to be exact, named Oswiecim." An eyebrow arched. "I believe you might recognize the name."
The reporter blinked as she took that in, and then her eyes widened as her mind transformed the Polish name to a very close-sounding counterpart. In German.
"Auschwitz."
"Yes."
Momoko's next question was understandable: "Are you Jewish?"
The Doctor's answer was automatic: "No. These days, I profess to acknowledge no religion for, put simply, I have evolved beyond the need for such beliefs. In my first life, I was Roman Catholic. Yet what I witnessed at that place, in all its satellite facilities, was quite apparent even when I was a child. People by the millions being slaughtered, for the most part because of how they worshipped the Creative Spirit. Surely anyone on this side of raving lunacy could have seen what Adolph and his cohorts were espousing. And yet . . . " A tired sigh escaped him as he stared heavenward. "Then, I possessed very little understanding of how the Universe worked. Now, I possess that understanding and seek simply to spread that understanding forth to others." He closed his eyes. "To ensure that another Auschwitz may never happen again anywhere on this world."
Momoko stared at him, she quickly sensing that this being before her meant every word he had just said. "Are you thinking of trying to create your own religion?"
A chuckle. "No, Momoko."
"Are you contemplating conquering all of Earth?"
He blinked, and then he stared curiously at her. "Why would I do something as utterly useless as that?"
Momoko jolted. Okay, this guy wasn't some would-be prophet of doom or world conqueror. What was he, then? "Then what do you plan to . . .?"
"Momoko, you are a native of Tomobiki, are you not?"
She blinked. "Er, y-yes."
"You experienced several of the paranormal events which struck this town in the period between Lum's arrival and her departure this evening, have you not?"
"H-hai."
"How did you feel?"
"Eh?!"
He stared tranquilly at her. "How did you feel when you had your life disrupted like that? Angry at those who seemed to have perpetuated it? Frightened that you could not defend yourself in case you became personally involved? Annoyed that something had happened and you felt you had no influence over it? Well?"
The reporter seemed to freeze for a moment as the Doctor's questions seared right into her mind. She then lowered her eyes. "All of them."
"Then you have your answer," the Doctor replied as he turned away from her. "My purpose is simple. To give everyone on this planet the power all those who live on Yiziba, the world that killed Grigori Stefan Wysynski and gave birth to Doctor Destructo, enjoy. Now, if you will excuse me, I have things to do."
In a flash of light, he vanished . . .
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Wed, 13 Sep 2006 03:23)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.