Chapter 34: Prisoners of War

The Lighthouse

Vertex Point Five

Homura Akemi watched and waited.

*****

La Fin de Toute

(formerly Galactica Palace)

The Merry-Go-Round

"So congratulations to you all! Mission accomplished." Joker applauded, and the assembled forces of Dead End cheered, watching from the upper rings of the Merry-Go-Round's vast circular chamber. Among the clamor of their varied shrieks and howls and bellows, Alph caught fragments of speech: "Kill them!" "Tear them apart!" "Let us feast!"

Alph took stock: she and the rest of the team were all immobilized by Droid Jamanen's viscous gel and at Dead End's mercy, surrounded by an army that included some of the deadliest and most dangerous beings in all the worlds. That included one of their own, poor Cure Fortune, apparently brainwashed into Jamanen's puppet and converted into a gelatinous monster just like her. The prisoners they risked so much to rescue were right in front of them, bound to the massive technorganic monstrosity... so close, but impossibly, maddeningly out of reach. And with Sakura Kinomoto in his grasp, Joker had all he needed to bring about reality's end...

Calm, Alph thought. She had to stay calm. If there was any hope of surviving this fiasco, they all had to stay calm. Far easier said than done, as the mere sight of Joker's toxic leer set her insides aflame. It took everything she had to suppress the urge to rip that damned smile off his face with her claws, to shred him to pieces, to make him suffer as he had made Fate suffer, made them all suffer...

Her teammates, to their credit, stayed still and quiet, in states varying from stunned shock to stony defiance. Even Iron Mouse lay motionless, though she might have been simply struck dumb with fear. Alph's heart surged with pride for them all; even the smaller ones refused to give Joker the satisfaction of seeing them angry or hearing them scream. Would that she could only manage the same... Other than Viluy, if there was anyone whom Alph would gladly tear the throat out of without a second thought, it was Joker. It was all his fault. For Fate's sake, he had to pay...

The harlequin tilted his head at her, sensing her anger. "Dear me, mon chiot, could it be you're actually trying to think your way out? Please, don't force yourself. You'll hurt something from the strain."

Laughter. Waves of laughter that made the blood boil in Alph's veins. If Joker would only come within reach of her teeth...

As if he could hear her thoughts, Joker leaned in close, millimeters from touching her. "Nothing to say, chiot? None of those long, inspiring speeches that your lot are so wont to launch into?"

It was a chance, however slim. Alph shifted to wolf form and gnashed her jaws. By any fair standard, it should have worked. The sheets of wine-colored gel that bound her should have been unable to handle the sudden alteration of her mass and body shape, it should have burst apart or at least loosened... Instead, the foul ooze stretched with her movement, then snapped and shrank back into place like elastic, leaving her stuck as ever.

Joker cackled, unharmed and unafraid. "Non, non, bad dog! Someone needs obedience training, I think." Turning, he called to his army of monsters. "Ah, is there perhaps a Dogba model Droid among you? Are there any Dogbas here?"

"Here, Master Joker!" One came running from the crowd, a thickly-built Droid with tomato-red skin and white hair gathered in a severe knot at the back of her head. With great enthusiasm, she brandished the whip she carried in a kind of salute. "Droid Dogba No. 111, at your service!"

Beneath his mask, Joker's eyebrow twitched. "Yes. Well, s'il vous plaît, Droid Dogba."

"Right away, Master! Let me at the little... uh..." Dogba's vigor failed her in a hurry as she took in Alph's size, specifically the size of her teeth, up close for the first time. Resolving to perform her special technique from a safe distance instead, she summoned a ring of light to her fingertips, took aim at Alph's neck, and fired.

Fate...! Alph braced herself for pain, for a killing blow, but it never came. Instead, something hard and tight and cold closed around her neck and drew a startled bark from her. A violent tugging motion followed, and—

*****

The gel holding Alph melted away, and the rest of the team watched in uncomprehending horror as the red wolf stood, wagged her tail, and trotted over to Joker, lead by the chain clutched in Dogba's fist, which was attached to the thick collar now clamped around Alph's neck.

"Good girl," said Joker with a grotesque smile as Alph offered him her paw. He shook it, and his minions howled approval. "Very good girl. Now, heel."

And the team watched, shock and fear turning to outrage as their brave, noble friend was lead through a series of humiliating tricks, the collar's control manipulating her body like a puppet. Alph heeled, she sat up, she chased her tail, she stood on her hind legs and barked at Joker and Dogba's command. Only her eyes showed her defiance, smoldering with purest loathing for her tormentors, for the Droid's control left her awake and aware of her misery, but helpless to do anything about it. The armies of Dead End laughed and jeered and whistled, some calling out suggestions...

In a final indignity, worse than all the rest, Alph was forced to roll over on her back and pant as Joker rubbed her belly. Her mouth hung open and her tongue lolled to one side, but there was murder in her gaze... her eyes burned like a pair of cobalt stars.

"Leave Alph alone, you bastard!" The shout came from Erika Kurumi, Cure Marine, who could stand no more. Ever unwilling to keep her mouth shut, she squirmed across the technorganic floor in her gelatinous bonds, moving toward Joker like an inchworm. In other circumstances, the sight might have been funny. "Yeah, that's right, I'm talking to you, you overdressed pastel circus freak! You think you're so high and mighty, walking around with your stupid nose in the air like your farts don't stink! I'd like to see you try to take us all in a fair fight!"

*****

A few meters away, Kyoko Sakura's eyes shone with a kind of pride for Marine. That was the kind of attitude she could grow to like. Maybe if they weren't all about to die—or worse—she and the little cyan-haired firecracker could have become friends. "'Attagirl, half-pint," she muttered under her breath. "Give him hell." The statement was tinged with melancholy; the way Marine was so stupidly willing to throw herself into trouble, damn the consequences, was so much like Sayaka. The old Sayaka, not the vindictive, spiteful one wearing her face. They even looked somewhat alike, wearing all blues and whites.

Sayaka. She was up there among the crowd of Joker's monsters, watching it all in silence. Kyoko couldn't bear to even glance her way, for the thought of meeting her gaze turned her stomach. Sayaka watched, surely knowing that they were all moments away from death or torture, but she did nothing.

"Mami?" said Kyoko quietly. "Are you okay?"

Next to her, Mami Tomoe, proper and dignified even in a situation as hopeless as this, closed her eyes. "No," she admitted. "Not at all."

"Me neither." Kyoko chuckled, a hollow sound. "It really looks like we're up shit creek this time."

"Language, Sakura-san."

"Sorry."

"It's all right." And incredibly, Mami smiled, that wonderful, familiar, big-sister smile. How she could do that right now, Kyoko couldn't begin to know. "At least we're together, that's what matters."

Kyoko tensed. Sayaka was staring right at them now, as if she could hear what they were saying. Could she hear them?

*****

His attention drawn from the wolf at last, Joker regarded Marine with a bemused expression as she spat fire and invective at him.

"Come on!" said Marine again, too incensed to stop. His mockery of Alph sizzled fresh and raw in her mind, blocking out all awareness of her own helplessness. Grunting with exertion, she managed to roll onto her left side as she struggled with the tight straitjacket of gel that held her arms and legs pinned. "Let me up, you cowardly piece of crap! I'll tear those stupid balls off your head and make you eat them! I'll make you sorry you ever—"

All the breath left Marine's lungs in one heavy gasp as Joker drove his pointed boot into her stomach. Unbidden tears to her eyes as she gagged and shuddered and flopped onto her back. Still she fought to glare at Joker through the sudden watery blur that clouded her vision, to prove to him him that no one tortured her friends and got away with it. "... Suh-sorry... yuh-you ever..."

He wasn't even looking at her. Joker had turned once more to his army. "Excusez-moi encore, mes amis," he said, raising his arms. "Pourrais-je avoir un marteau, s'il vous plaît? Un marteau, pour taire le salope strident? Quelqu'un...? Toi! Le grêle! Non, non, le grêle Jikochuu. Oui, toi. Bon, merci beaucoup." Joker's grin stretched wider as he brandished the heavy object that his minion, a tall and skinny Jikochuu, tossed to him.

Only Michiru Kaioh, Sailor Neptune, and Kirara Amanogawa, Cure Twinkle, understood enough of his command to know what was about to happen. Neptune knew the language from her many violin concerts across the globe. As for Twinkle, no one attended Noble Academy for any length of time without picking up at least a little French. While the rest of their comrades were still trying to comprehend the harlequin's words, both Neptune and Twinkle cried out in horrified unison: "No, don't...!"

The object Joker wielded was a sledgehammer, a simple, ordinary sledgehammer. He brought it down on the helpless Marine like the fall of a meteor, slamming it into her left knee with a sickening crack that was in no way cushioned or muffled by her sheath of gel.

Marine didn't scream. She had no ability to make a sound. Her whole body was a contraction, drawing in close and sharp and searing, razor blades of broken glass in her lungs, in her veins, in her heart. Nothing else existed but agony, raw and sustaining on and on and on until she couldn't remember who she was, where she was, anything except the pain. The blow shattered her Cure transformation; she was no longer Marine, just plain old Erika Kurumi in a diaphanous blue gown, but she had no awareness of the change, no awareness of anything else at all. When she was finally able to inhale, the breath stretched out interminably... she wheezed with effort, trying to breathe out, for if she didn't let out the air she would burst... but there was no sense of exploding, just swelling and swelling and... too much...

Erika slumped in a motionless heap, her consciousness flitting in and out through the maelstrom of pain.

*****

"Well, I can tell you one thing, Mademoiselle Kurumi. Your reflexes are fantastic." Joker's quip went unheard, drowned out by the storm of noise from the remainder of the team. Most of them were too incensed to even articulate their anger properly; their cries of rage and disgust were barely coherent. The ones that could manage words screamed almost exclusively profanities, vowing revenge for Erika...

Joker shrugged and casually tossed the sledgehammer aside. He left the broken Precure where she lay, forgetting all about her almost immediately. The wolf, still bound by the power of Dogba's collar, sat at the Droid's side, head on her paws... but her eyes blazed hotter and more murderous than ever. He made a show of yawning at her, just to fan the flames a bit more.

"Now then," he said once the volume of the outburst had subsided a bit, "would anyone else like to mouth off? No? Bon, c'est bon. Save your screaming for later, when you'll really need it."

So many more toys, and all the time in the world to play with them before he put them away on the Merry-Go-Round. Joker savored every hateful glare, every tear, every muttered curse as he walked among his helpless captives, watching them writhe in their impotence. Delicious.

"Ah, Madame Kaioh," he said, stopping by Neptune's side. "In truth, I'm surprised you would throw in with this lot... but then again, I suppose you've had one too many lonely nights back in... wherever it is you're staying. Really, though, you probably have your pick of the sporty butch types there, why not diversify a bit? Someone your age should take all that she can get, I think."

Neptune's gaze was hard, cold as the bottom of the sea. She refused to rise to his bait. All she said was: "Where. Is. Haruka?"

"Somewhere far away from you, Madame. I learned my lesson after last time. That's right," he said as something flickered in her eyes. "I sent her away from here long before you and your friends arrived. One less battery for the Merry-Go-Round, sadly, but given the risks... well. It's a sacrifice she was willing to make."

The next was Rei Hino, Sailor Mars. Constant plumes of smoke rose from the fiery streaks in her ebony hair, and as Joker watched, she flickered like an image on a bad screen. Her flaming wings strained to form within the gel that held her, but its pressure kept them smothered. Her Rei I side now fought tooth and nail for control, enraged by what the monster did to Alph and Erika... but without some semblance of harmony between her two component selves, it was all she could do to hold herself together.

Joker clucked his tongue at her. "Temper, temper, Mademoiselle Hino. Er, Mademoiselles Hino? Whichever. Cool your head a bit, before you burst a blood vessel."

And then Chibi-Usa Tsukino, Sailor Chibi-Moon, the one that cost Joker his two Witch-Hybrids. He had no words for her, only bafflement as to how she managed to not only turn the Hybrids back to normal, but destroy the Marble Engines shielding them both. All of Viluy's data indicated that she was the lesser of the two bearers of the Silver Crystal; could the data have been wrong? It didn't matter; the future Crystal was as good as his now, it could be examined at his leisure. The pink spore was in tears, blubbering "Marine" and "how dare you" and something about "Pluto" at him. Regarding the last one, it was tempting to show her, just to see the expression on her face... but all in due time. He moved on.

The traitorous Sailor Iron Mouse was barely worth his notice, though he enjoyed the way she quivered as he passed. The Amazons were behind her, all four itching to resume their fun with their favorite plaything. PallaPalla, unable to restrain herself, had already started: she poked Iron Mouse mercilessly through her bonds, giggling every time the thick fluid wobbled and resumed its shape.

"Ah, you two," Joker said as he stopped over Mami and Kyoko, lying side by side. "I did warn you that you would regret not siding with me, didn't I? You should be more accommodating, like your friend Mademoiselle Miki." On an impulse, up to Sayaka: "My dear, would you come down here, please? I know you've had your differences, but I'm sure you're eager to work it out. Do that 'friendship' thing that you people are so fond of."

As always, Sayaka did as she was told, descending through the assembled monsters to stand where he indicated. Joker watched her two former comrades for a reaction... after several seconds of silence, he prompted, "Well?"

Mami closed her eyes and said nothing.

By contrast, Kyoko hissed vinegar through her teeth. "Go choke on a whole bucket of dicks, clown."

"Tsk." said Joker. "I suggest you take a few lessons from Mademoiselle Tomoe, my vulgar little ruffian." And because he couldn't resist the opportunity: "She has a good head on her shoulders. Temporarily, anyway."

Only then did Mami shudder, just for a second. An expression of puzzlement drifted across her features... Those words should affect her more, she thought, but she couldn't explain why...

Sayaka summoned two cutlasses and stood between them, keeping the edges trained on their necks. "Don't move," she said, glowering, "if you know what's good for you."

"For God's sake, Sayaka!" Kyoko rocked back and forth in a frenzy. "Did you go blind or something?! You've seen what he does, how can you just stand there and do whatever he says like his fucking lapdog?!"

Sayaka lowered her blades half an inch. "I said don't move."

"Ah, now this is interesting!" Joker was already on the move again, Cure Twinkle having caught his interest. "What's happening here?"

"C'mon, Fortune," Twinkle was saying, quietly, desperately. "Iona-san, you gotta wake up, please. You've gotta be in there somewhere..."

The target of her plea was Drone Fortune, standing at attention by Twinkle's side with her master, Droid Jamanen. Not a trace of the righteous Precure remained in her expression... she was indifferent as a wall, and her face might have been sculpted out of the clammy, dusky violet ooze that now composed her body for all the emotion it betrayed.

"She's right here," said Twinkle. "Look, it's YuuYuu! You came all this way to save her, and she's right here! She's your teammate, she's your friend, she can turn you back to normal if you just let us go! I know you can do it!" In desperation, she tossed her head in the direction of unmoving figure of Yuko Omori, alias Cure Honey, freed from the hellish grip of the Merry-Go-Round only to be captured again, lying comatose three feet away. Even more of the color had drained from Yuko's face in the minutes since she was removed from the technorganic tower, and her skin now bore a sickly yellow-greenish pallor. "Please, we need to get her out of here! You can help us, Fortune, listen to me..."

"You might want to save your breath, mon petit étoile," said Joker, bending down to give Twinkle a condescending pat on the head. "Jamanen did her job thoroughly."

"Shut up!" Twinkle strained in the gel's confines, longing to give the harlequin a swift kick in a painful place. "Iona-san, answer me! Iona-san!" Her eyes brimmed with tears. "Icchan..." That was it, her final effort to break through. Twinkle prided herself on her nicknames for her friends, but Fortune had always been a tough nut to crack in that regard. After their sparring sessions together at the Lighthouse, Twinkle often ran through possibilities in her head during her cooldown showers, but nothing seemed to click. None of the nicknames she thought of seemed to suit Fortune in the way that her names for the others did. "Icchan" was the best she could come up with, a fairly basic diminutive of "Iona"... but the regret that she had never taken the opportunity to run it past her gnawed at the pit of her belly like an animal. Maybe, just maybe, if some part of Fortune was still herself, she would recognize what she was doing, what the name meant... "Icchan, you can fight it, you're one of us! You're strong as hell, and you can save us, I know you can... Just look at YuuYuu and remember who you are... Icchan...?"

Drone Fortune stared at Yuko for a moment, then back at Twinkle, her green, jeweled eyes blank, unblinking, unfeeling. "I'm not one of you anymore," she said in a monotone. "I stopped being a Precure, stopped being human, the moment Droid Jamanen melted me down and absorbed me. My mind and body are hers. I have no choice but to obey." And then, colder and harder than ever: "Maybe you'll be lucky enough meet the same fate."

Twinkle's heart cracked in two...

"That's the spirit!" Joker chimed in and gave Fortune a wet slap on the back... to which she didn't even flinch. After a beat, he grimaced at the film of sticky residue on his hand in distaste and flicked it away. "So much more agreeable now that she's all gooey, isn't she?" An idea occurred to him, something to twist the knife even further. "In fact," he purred, "Drone Fortune, if you please... could you tell me exactly where it is that you all came from?"

Jamanen slithered up behind her servant, working her influence. "Go on, my dear," she said. "Tell us all."

To Twinkle's horror, and to the horror of all the rest who knew her, Fortune answered without hesitation. "We came from the Lighthouse, in a long-range transport pod stolen from the TSAB vessel Arthra."

*****

The Lighthouse

Vertex Point Five

Homura Akemi tensed.

"Madoka," she said to her best friend, still sullen in her bed a meter away. "Madoka, I—"

Madoka Kaname's response was husky and strained. "Don't. Please, Homura-chan. Don't... don't apologize again. I can't take it."

"Madoka..."

"I've decided." And Madoka stood. Drawing herself to her full height, she wiped her tears on her sleeve and stared Homura right in the eyes. She spoke softly and quietly, but to Homura, her words rang across the room like a peal of thunder: "I-if you won't use your powers to help save them... I'll use mine."

*****

La Fin de Toute

(formerly Galactica Palace)

The Merry-Go-Round

"Fascinating," said Joker, circling around Fortune. "'The Lighthouse?' Which Lighthouse? Where is it?"

For the first time, Fortune hesitated. A faint sign of confusion broke the blankness of her expression. "I... I don't know."

Joker paused. "You don't know?"

"No." Fortune shook her head, but slowly, as if in a dream. "It's... a sanctuary, somewhere safe, but I don't know where it is. All I know is what Cure Black told us when she got back from meeting Fantine."

"Fantine?" Joker's black eyes lit up. "Who is Fantine?"

"Fantine is the being that controls the Lighthouse. None of us know who or what she is, but she saved us all." Fortune actually seemed to struggle for the next few words. "She... she doesn't want to be seen. She doesn't want to be... found."

"But you say you came here in a transport pod, yes? Does it still have the coordinates to this Lighthouse of Fantine's?"

"I think so."

"And where is that transport pod now?"

All the remaining members of the rescue team still awake and aware held their breath.

"It's idling approximately fifty meters from the entrance to the palace, protected by shields and cloaking spells," said Fortune.

The full extent of their mistake, of their failure, settled upon the team like heavy clouds. Not only had they been captured, not only had they failed to save the hostages, but their actions would now lead Joker straight to the Lighthouse, just as Fantine was afraid would happen... Joker and all his armies, his monsters, and his mind-controlled legions of their friends and loved ones would descend upon the Lighthouse like a plague of locusts. The multiverse's last bastion of hope would be overrun.

"That shouldn't be much of a problem, then! C'est bon!" Joker clapped his hands in delight. "Thank you, Drone Fortune, you've been a tremendous help. Commander Eas?" he said to thin air.

A crimson streak of light, and Eas, formerly Setsuna Higashi, formerly Cure Passion, materialized next to him. She dropped to one knee, dismissing the strangled sound of recognition and regret that came from Twinkle at her feet. "Yes, Master. I'm afraid I can't restore Lady Viluy's nanobot network, but Labyrinth's technology should be sufficient to locate the pod and break the encryption on its navigational computer. It will take time, but I can manage it."

"See that you do," said Joker. "Take Dr. Mizuno with you, she'll provide you with assistance." With that, he summoned a simple hand puppet dressed in a blue Senshi fuku and dropped it into Eas's waiting hands.

Mars, Neptune, and Chibi-Moon all paled at once. Ami Mizuno, Sailor Mercury, one of their missing friends, was alive after all... but transformed into a mockery of herself. Worse, far worse, her vast intellect was apparently Joker's to command.

It was Mars whose heart broke first, as realization dawned on her: If he has Ami working for him, making tech and weapons for him... we're doomed. We're all doomed.

"And as for this 'Fantine' character," Joker continued, turning back to the gelatinous Droid and her Drone. "Fortune, you said Cure Black met with her?"

Fortune nodded. "Yes."

"Well, then we'll just have to see what she knows, won't we? Droid Jamanen, is our friend Black still, er..." He patted his stomach for emphasis.

"Of course, Master," said Jamanen in a watery purr. "Pardon me for just one moment." She bent backward from her mid-torso at a sickening angle, heaved from inside, began to swell... and disgorged a human body from a stomach too small to hold it.

Coated head to toe in wine-colored slime but very much alive, Nagisa Misumi, Cure Black, fell to her hands and knees, gagging and sputtering, sickened by the cloying, artificial sweetness of the ooze clinging stubbornly to her lips. The last she remembered was being seized by Fortune, who attacked while she was still in shock over her comrade's transformation and corruption. There was a vague recollection of being dragged kicking and screaming to Jamanen, and the Droid's entire torso splitting vertically down the middle and opening wide to accept her like a giant, grotesque mouth. Then there was darkness, cool, fluid darkness, in which she floated endlessly and lost all sense of time. Black hugged herself tight for warmth...

"Mademoiselle Black, bonsoir! So glad you can join us, it's an honor. I don't believe we've met in person, have we?"

Her hands balled into fists. No need to guess who that voice belonged to. "Why you lousy, stinking—" Black began, shoving herself to her feet...

Five dark-clad shapes tackled her at once, forcing her back to the floor, which was something like meat and something like the inside of a computer, both blended together... The smallest and slightest of those shapes giggled as she jabbed two fingers into the back of Black's neck. A buzz and a pop, and an electrical current ran down Black's spine, forcing all her muscles to move in the wrong ways...

"Hey you, don't bully Master Joker!" said Kanna Kise, Bad End Peace, from her perch on Black's shoulder blades. "If it were me, you'd already be screaming!" A thoughtful pause. "On second thought, butchy jock girls really aren't my type, but I guess I could make an exception~..."

"Ki-Kise...?!" Black's response was almost inaudible, as Bad End Sunny's hand was on her skull and pressing her cheek into the damp, spongy floor. "Dammit, get off me! How the hell did you even—"

Joker yawned. "An alternate reality's Yayoi, she was a special project of mine to complete the set, blah blah blah, exposition exposition. The other four you've met, I assume? Hoshizora, Hino, Midorikawa, and Aoki? Good, now that you're up to speed... I hear tell that you've met this 'Fantine' woman who's sheltering most of you." Joker bent double to lean over her, the eyes of his mask alight with twisted interest. "Care to tell me about her?"

Gritting her teeth, Black squirmed beneath the bodies of the girls she now recognized as Yayoi's lost teammates, warped into perversions of themselves. "The hell I will!" she spat.

"Oho, Mademoiselle Black, your stubbornness does precede you!" Joker put a fawning hand to his cheek and chortled... the rest of Dead End followed his lead after a brief moment of consideration as to whether it was safe. "Just what I'd expect from the leader of the first Precure. I suppose that puts you in charge of them all, doesn't it? And at fault for all the ones that came after you..."

Black's ears burned. "I'll lead all the Precure in the universe if it means getting my shot to wipe that smirk off your—" She trailed off. Her eyes widened, refusing to believe what they were seeing.

It was a mere speck, a splash of color within the massive conglomeration of flesh, metal, and captive bodies that was the Merry-Go-Round. Barely large or distinct enough to make out, but the feeling was unmistakable. There was a presence that she recognized there, as comforting and familiar as her own two hands. Somehow, unbelievably, Joker had made an error... bringing her to this place, surrounded by enemies in the most twisted depths of his palace, was possibly the worst decision he could have made.

For she saw Honoka Yukishiro, Cure White, her best friend and partner, half-buried in the mass of the Merry-Go-Round, and just the sight of her filled her with new strength. Black actually smiled... a heartbeat before her battle aura flared and scattered the five Bad End Precure atop her like so many ninepins.

"I'm coming, Honoka!" She didn't even know if White could hear, but she didn't care. Black took off, plunging into the crowd of astonished villains and monsters. Many of the dumber ones snatched at her, trying to grab on and hold her back. Those she pounded on until they let go or went flying, it didn't matter which. Bit by bit, her flurry of savage kicks and punches cut a swath through Dead End's ranks. The closer she got to Honoka, the more her power grew. After who knew how many weeks of staying transformed and feeling useless, she was refueled and reenergized by the proximity to her partner. It was going to be all right. She was almost there.

Honoka! Black crouched, gathering power as blows rained upon her back. They might as well have been butterfly wings, for all she noticed them. She pushed off the floor and threw half a dozen of Joker's minions back with the shockwave alone, a mighty bound that Superman would be proud of, twenty meters into the stagnant air. It was no illusion; Honoka was there, hooked into Joker's disgusting tower with something like a nightmarish horseshoe crab clamped over her face, but she was there. And as Black watched, her body twitched, just a little... she was alive. "HONOKAAAA!"

Something clammy seized her ankle. She barely felt it as she reached out to Honoka's shape. If they could just hold hands one more time, nothing could stop them, nothing...

A violent jerk downward. Black's leap came to a halt. She had reversed direction before she was consciously aware of it. Honoka's shape stopped growing in her sight and pulled away from her. Black's fingers clutched at thin air. "Honoka, no..."

Falling. Plummeting. There was a sick, wet sound as she hit the technorganic floor, like someone striking a side of beef with an open palm. The blow darkened her vision and muffled her hearing for a few seconds. As she shook her head, trying to reorient herself, she heard a high-pitched squeaking that it took her a moment to place...

"You're gonna pay for everyone you've hurt, you monster! Black and White and Mipple and I are all gonna stomp your ugly face into the ground, ~mepo!" It was Mepple. Her fairy companion, roused from his slumber in the pouch on her hip, squealing his tiny lungs out and shooting his mouth off in classic Mepple fashion. Of course. Just being near Mipple recharged him as well, she had forgotten after all this time.

"You tell him, little guy," Black muttered. As the cobwebs cleared, she aimed a supportive pat in the direction of her hip pouch. "Give him what for."

"I don't care how many bad guys you throw at us, or how many of our friends you brainwash!" It was funny, Black thought. Usually when Mepple shouted at full volume, the pitch of his voice grated on her nerves, but now he sounded... kind of cool, actually. "We're gonna take every single evil thing you've ever done out of your stinking, rotten hide, ~mepo!"

Black grinned a lopsided grin, managing to rise to one knee. "What he said."

Joker had made his way to her crash site. He didn't look even remotely amused now, the expression on his face would have curdled milk. "Oh," he said, "you are just a treat, aren't you? I should have known. Bring the first two Precure together, and watch all your plans go poof. Up in smoke. It would be a privilege to tussle with you, Cure Black, but... I think someone else deserves the chance." He stepped aside...

... to reveal the source of the clammy thing that seized Black's ankle. It was a jellied tendril, taken shape from Drone Fortune's right arm.

Black's confidence slipped away like water circling a drain. Fortune had been turned into a monster right in front of her, and she had been able to do nothing, not one damn thing...

"Cure Black," said Fortune, by way of greeting. "Fight me with all of your strength."

A frigid wind spread over Black's skin, raising goosebumps. "F-Fortune... Iona, I—"

"We can do it, Black!" said Mepple's voice from her hip pouch. "We're at full power, we can take her, ~mepo!"

"I—!" The voice of her fairy companion seemed miles away, faint as a ghost. Her feet moved slowly, as if underwater, as she threw a punch that she knew would not connect...

Fortune tilted out of the way with scornful ease. The next few of Black's punches were swatted aside, as she hardened the fluid of her hands and arms to absorb and deflect the blows. Her newly malleable body stretched at the waist and curled around behind Black in a C-shape while she still reeled with the recoil. Fashioning her forearms into tapering needles, Fortune jabbed the hollows of Black's knees with two precise, pinpoint strikes, right to her target's pressure points...

Black crumpled like paper. Everything from her shins down fizzled as if she had sat too long and her legs had fallen asleep. She flailed, trying to at least land something, but Fortune had complete control of all aspects of her form, and the knowledge accrued over her lifetime of studying and practicing the martial arts was even more deadly when she was no longer bound by the limitations of a solid body. Blows thundered down without mercy, without restraint. Though Black's Cure form had incredible endurance and strength, her pressure points were still all too human. It was like trying to fight fog; she would lunge for Fortune's shape only for it to bend or melt or slide out of the way, and her attempt would be answered with another savage attack to the bridge of her nose, to her clavicle, to her solar plexus, to her underarms, to her calves...

"F-Fortune, wait...!" A mighty uppercut to her jaw, with an oversized fist hardened to the density of a block of lead. Black's feet left the floor, mouth filled with blood, her whole body ablaze, aching in a thousand places. She did not have the opportunity to touch down again; tendrils snaked around her in mid-air, drew tight, and slammed her into the ground. Then Fortune was upon her, hammering away with fists like leaden clubs. Mepple was screaming, the rest of her team pleading at her to get up, but her consciousness swam, on the verge of failing...

"STOP IT!" The shout came from someone who had not spoken since they all arrived in the Merry-Go-Round's chamber, from someone who watched the torment of her friends and comrades in terrified silence, who had no monsters of Joker's kind in her world, and was only now realizing the kind of evil they were all up against... "Stop it, please!" Sakura Kinomoto screamed not at Fortune, but at Joker, her cheeks wet and her eyes reddened from crying.

To the astonishment of all, Joker held up a hand, which brought Fortune to a halt. "Quoi?" he said, genuinely perplexed. "The Cardcaptor finally deigns to raise her voice? Do mine ears deceive me?"

"Stop it," said Sakura again, at barely more than a whisper. "You've already won, there's no more reason to hurt us." She swallowed, trying to stop the trembling in her voice. "Th-that's what you want, isn't it? To win the war... I'm the one you need, and you've got me. You've won, so please... just stop."

A pregnant silence grew within the chamber, festering until the tension drew so thick that it could have snapped...

Joker began to laugh. It was a laugh far more dangerous and more twisted than any of them had heard before, the equivalent of nails scraping across a blackboard, a sound at once crazed with mirth and empty of merriment. He pressed his hand to the scarred brow of his mask and laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and when he finally spoke, his words sent chills like ice water down the spine of every being that had one... "Winning?" he said over a bout of wheezing cackles that threatened to explode into another gale of laughter. "You think this is about winning? Oh, Mademoiselle Kinomoto, you are naïve. Of course, I knew you were, but this is another level. Please, allow me to correct your assumptions." The armies of Dead End looked on in shock as he crossed to where Sakura lay, crouched down, and took her chin in his clawed hands. "My dear child," he said, forcing her to meet his gaze, "if I merely wanted to win, I could have asked the Will to annihilate all your worlds, with a minimum of fuss. She can, you know. Destroying planets is child's play to a weapon with her power. In fact... Will!" His shout echoed throughout the chamber. "Come here at once!"

From her position at Dogba's side, Alph's eyes went wide.

A black-and-violet Belkan runic triangle shone from the floor at Joker's side, and all who were present who had any inkling of a sense for magical power could not help but shudder. The Will of the Book of Darkness, Unisoned with Hayate Yagami, was a being that could tear universes apart. She stepped from the spell triangle and bowed, her many wings shedding a perpetual molt of ebony feathers. "Master?" she said.

"Will," said Joker without looking at her, "I hereby order you to immediately transport yourself to the place we discussed, the You-Know-What Beyond You-Know-When. You are to merge yourself with the creature that you find there, and provide it with whatever power it requires, even at the expense of your own existence. Is that clear?"

The Will nodded. "It shall be done."

"And you understand," Joker continued, still with a tight grip on Sakura's chin, "that you will not be returning here?"

Again she nodded. "I understand."

"Then go. Now."

The spell triangle shone like an ultraviolet sun. It was a transport spell that even a lowly grunt could tell required an obscene amount of power... which the Will had in droves. Despite the titanic amount of mana being expended, it took effect in an instant, just like any other transport spell... the Will was gone.

Able to do little else, Alph stared in shock. Perhaps only she, who had faced the Will in battle before and barely escaped alive, could understand the magnitude of what Joker had just done. And once the shock abated, the desire to kill him returned, burning stronger than ever...

It was lost on Sakura. "Wh..." she stammered. "Wh-what did you just do...?"

Joker's smile should have broken his face in half. "I just sent the most powerful weapon Dead End has to a place where no one, not even myself, can get her back. The Will was perhaps the only being in existence capable of reaching that place at... well, at will. She's gone, permanently. Irretrievable by any side. And I sent her there, Mademoiselle Kinomoto, on a whim, simply to prove a point. That point is this:" Here, the fires of Hell blazed in the eyes of his mask. "I don't want to win... at least, not for a while yet. That's why I sent the Will out of my reach, because with her on my side, it's too easy to win. What I want is to make you, all the others like you, and every being in this Godforsaken multiverse suffer, as much as possible. Your misery is my wine, and I want to savor every... last... drop. I want billions times billions to weep at the cruelty of their lot in life, simply because I exist. Above all, I want every being who walks in the light, you especially..." His clawed fingers dug into Sakura's cheeks. "... to realize, as I've realized, what a sick, meaningless joke it all is. This war is but the final act of a play that has dragged on and on, repeating the same events time and time and time and time again. None of it means anything. None of it has ever meant anything. None of it will ever mean anything. And only when my Dead End has scoured reality, only when every last sapient mind resents the empty, hollow fraud that is life... only then will I use the Merry-Go-Round to its fullest extent, and only then will I win."

A pall of silence fell, thick as the depths of a bog. Several of the assembled Dead End soldiers exchanged worried looks. Most of them had enough comprehension to know that Joker and sanity were only vaguely acquainted, but very few realized the extent of his madness. There was something profoundly broken in the harlequin's mind, and even the most nihilistic and cruel among them felt somehow inadequate in the face of Joker's hatred of existence.

Through fresh tears, Sakura said something, too softly to make out.

"Excusez-moi?" Joker pulled her closer, tilting his head. "Could you repeat that, please?"

"Your..." Sakura stammed. "Y-you said 'your D-Dead End', b-but it's not—"

Before she could say another word, Joker whipped a jet-black Card from his sleeve and intoned: "TIME."

The armies of Dead End stopped. The prisoners stopped. The slow pulsing of the Merry-Go-Round's organic components stopped. Everything that was not Joker and Sakura came to an instant halt, frozen in the moment...

And Joker spoke, soft as a whisper, his eyes narrowing to thin black slits. "And just how," he said, "do you know that...?"

Sakura wriggled, trying to escape his grip. "It's Chaos. You... you're leading Dead End here, in the real world, but the one giving you orders, the one helping you... is Cha—"

Joker let her go. The instant his claws left her skin, she froze like all the rest.

In the absolute quiet of suspended time, he pondered to himself. "How?" he said aloud. "How?" It was, quite simply, impossible. As far as he knew, the number of beings who even knew of Chaos's existence should be vanishingly small... Usagi Tsukino, Sailor Moon, was one of them. Sailor Galaxia was another. One was accounted for but out of reach, the other disappeared so completely that even Joker was unsure where to look for her. As for beings who knew of his and Chaos's alliance, that number should have been just one: himself. Better to let the rank and file think that he held all the cards, it kept them in line. He told no one about Chaos... not Viluy, not his Bad End Cures or his new Bad End Peace, not even the Time Reaper.

There was someone, somewhere out there, who knew that Dead End was not fully his, and that person, being, or entity was spreading his secret. Who or what could it possibly be? Who or what could watch everything, everywhere, without revealing him-, her-, them-, or itself? He thought he had accounted for all those variables... but there was at least one unknown factor.

This demanded further investigation.

Regrettably, the time for playing with his toys was over.

Joker resealed TIME. Before the second syllable finished forming on Sakura's lips, he had given his command: "Jamanen, silence her."

Sakura shrieked as her slimy restraints crawled past her shoulders and up her neck and cheeks with astonishing speed, forming a tight seal over her mouth. She was muffled before she even hit the floor.

"So tell me," said Joker, looming over her and spreading his fingers in a grasping motion. "Do you know what a Cosmos Seed is, little Cardcaptor? Viluy knew, and her research yielded the most fascinating data... You see, all living things with minds of their own have something deep, deep down inside them. An essence, you might call it. There are any number of ways to brainwash, corrupt, or control a person, you know, and I've used most of them. You can even tear out a decent physical embodiment of a soul if you have the right tools. Call it a Heart Flower, a Pure Heart Crystal, a Linker Core, a Sailor Crystal, or what have you... but in all of those, there's something further down, an essence. And if you turn a person's essence, well... it tends to be rather more permanent. If you know what you're doing..." His hand plunged into her heart...

Sakura's eyes flew open. She tried to scream through the solidified gel over her mouth, but her voice was stolen from her... There was something dark and filthy rooting around deep inside her, deeper than just her heart. Panic flooded her veins, she strained to move, but Joker held her paralyzed...

"Sakura!" "KINOMOTO!" "Sakura-chan!" "Get away from her!" Cries went up from the rescue team, too jumbled to make out individual voices.

Sayaka Miki's grip tightened on the hilts of her twin cutlasses.

"... you can take that essence... a Cosmos Seed, in your case," said Joker, "and twist it until it becomes what I have... that is, a Chaos Seed. It's somewhat of a reflection of the person that you are, and everything that lives and thinks for itself has one or..." He stopped. "... or the... the other..."

For one of the only times in his life, Joker was speechless.

The Seed inside Sakura Kinomoto was not a Cosmos Seed or a Chaos Seed. It was a perfect balance between both. Light and darkness in harmony, one side not overpowering the other, but both sides giving each other strength, so that the two halves were somehow stronger than the whole.

"What..." Joker whispered, in total awe. "What is this...?"

*****

The Lighthouse

Vertex Point Five

Homura Akemi stood up.

Brushing back her curtain of raven-black hair, she faced Madoka, for whom she would commit any crime and suffer any sin, for whom she cared as she cared for no one else in any universe... and she almost smiled as yet again she spoke the words she had said to Madoka in countless timelines, more times than she could remember: "That will not be necessary."

Madoka was a hair's breadth away from running for the door. The words of Fantine and all the others who told her she was special rang in her ears. If she was special, if she was someone even Joker feared, then she should be able to do something, right? She should be able to save everyone. As a consequence, it took her a few seconds to comprehend what Homura had just said. "Homura-chan...?"

"That will not be necessary," said Homura, solemn and proud. "I'll do it, this time and every other time, if it saves you from putting yourself in danger." Unthinkable power gathered at her fingertips...

It took no more than a second for Fantine's voice to shout from the comm crystal, shrill with panic: "Akemi, what are you doing?!"

"What I have to," said Homura. "I suggest you alert the crew of the Arthra that they're about to receive guests in their main cargo hold. Omori and Kurumi in particular will require immediate medical attention... and the rodent will need an empty cell in the brig."

"You'll lead them right to us, you can't—"

Now Homura did smile. "Watch me."

*****

Sagittarius A*

~3 million kilometers from La Fin de Toute

Simultaneously

In the cold expanse of swirling gas and cosmic dust clouds that surrounded the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, an immense dark figure materialized. It stood fifty thousand miles high, extending barren black-feathered wings that could throw entire planets into shadow. Its eyes shone malevolent with magenta flame, its lips curled into a fiendish smile, and as it raised one gigantic, black-gloved hand, it began to laugh.

In outer space, there is no air to conduct sound waves. But Homura Akemi, the self-proclaimed Devil, was not bound by things as small as the laws of physics. Like the ripples formed in a pond when a stone breaks the surface of the water, her laughter spread outward in circles, leaving echoes in space and time... It was the only warning Dead End would get.

She set to work, raising her arms and spreading them to the endless heavens. A fiery violet sun bloomed between her hands, an orb of power large enough to swallow an entire solar system...

*****

La Fin de Toute

(formerly Galactica Palace)

The Merry-Go-Round

Joker froze. That power... He knew who it was before it even registered on the palace's sensors. Never in his wildest dreams did he think she would be reckless enough to reveal herself so brazenly.

Seconds later, her laughter pealed in the minds of every being in the chamber...

Sayaka Miki's heart began to pound.

"Master Joker!" shouted Eas, her fingers flying over a holo-tablet. "A massive energy signature has appeared, approximately three million kilometers from us! Sir, it's Akemi! She's preparing an attack!"

"I'm well aware." Joker pulled his hand from Sakura's chest, stood up, and faced the direction where he knew she was, all those millions of kilometers away. Probably best to turn the Second and get it over with, but... but Homura Akemi was a wild card. There was no telling what she had planned, no safeguard too cautious for dealing with her. After confirming that the Marbles he carried with him at all times were active, still shielding him, and that there were any number of spare Incubator bodies to regenerate from in the palace, should she find a way past the Isolation/AMF field the Marbles projected... he issued his command. "Commander Eas, divert all available power to every shield and barrier we have, and focus them all in the direction of Akemi's likeliest attack vector. Shut down everything nonessential if you must. And send an immediate dispatch of Type-V Gadget Drones armed with Isolation Fields and AMF generators to her location, if you please. If we can catch her in the act..."

Eas relayed the commands, but her fingers shook as she flew them over the holo. Her eyes widened like crimson saucers as readings scrolled across its screen. "Her power output is still climbing, Master... Thirty thousand yotta watts and climbing... forty thousand... fifty thousand...!"

*****

Sagittarius A*

~3 million kilometers from La Fin de Toute

Simultaneously

The orb, for all its glory, was not the weapon. It was little more than an elaborate light show, a sleight-of-hand to draw attention from the true weapon.

That weapon was a tiny chip of stellar rock half the size of a human fingernail, almost too small to even be called a pebble, which is to say that it was small enough to be beneath anyone's notice. While all eyes focused on the orb, Homura reached out to that pebble, seized it with a tiny fraction of her power, and flung it at her target, three million kilometers away.

Magic, by its very nature, is able to break the laws of physics. But the laws of physics can be useful if correctly applied by someone with the knowledge to exploit them, and the power to push them to their fullest extent.

Under Homura's influence, the tiny chip of rock flew at a velocity that few if any objects could ever hope to match by natural means. Without an atmosphere to slow its inertia, it would maintain that speed indefinitely; there was no need for Homura to push it further, all it needed was proper guidance. A magnificent trail of incandescent gas and plasma bloomed in its wake as it blasted through the local space of Sagittarius A* at almost 300,000 kilometers per second, igniting with friction not from air, but from countless photons, the microscopic particles of light that suffuse the cosmic void. Appearing as a tiny, brilliant spark followed by an impossibly long comet tail, the simple chip of rock, now little more than a collection of specks of dust burning white-hot, crossed the vast distance between Homura's avatar and Joker's half-solid palace with unthinkable speed. It screamed past the palace...

... and struck the abandoned Miller-Meteor, still cloaked and shielded, standing idle on the outcropping of the asteroid that supported the palace. By itself, the remains of the pebble would have done no damage, but as they were traveling at a scarce few decimal points below light speed, they burst the transport pod's shields like a bullet through a balloon. When they collided with the pod's hull, the palace lit up like dawn as all of the pebble's accumulated energy detonated in an uncontrolled fusion reaction. In an instant, a silent, blinding flash of thermonuclear energy annihilated the Miller-Meteor and the outcropping it rested on, reducing all matter within a perfectly spherical half-mile radius to a vapor of ionized component atoms. The palace's many layers of shielding, armor, and barriers, still focused on the orb, collapsed immediately under the sudden bombardment of fiery plasma. All of La Fin de Toute's solid outer surfaces and three meters of stone, alloy steel, and crystal beneath those surfaces flash-melted into irradiated slag, which rapidly cooled from white-hot to cherry red to dull brown to charred black in the exposed vacuum of space. The surges of electromagnetic energy that followed fried every piece of unprotected technology that the palace had to offer. Only its exotic construction and its bizarre half-tangible state saved it from further damage, and all inside it from certain death.

The humble little pebble's flight, from its beginning to its spectacular end, took ten seconds.

*****

La Fin de Toute

(formerly Galactica Palace)

The Merry-Go-Round

The palace shook as if struck by a massive cannonball. From the many floors above, there came a descending series of humming sounds as entire sectors of La Fin de Toute went dark one by one, a cascading blackout... Every system that had not gone down as a result of the EMP went haywire from the sudden, exponential increase in power drain as the palace's remaining electrical networks tried and failed to compensate for the damage.

In the Merry-Go-Round's chamber, Dead End's assembled forces flew into a panic. Their voices raised in a frightened, indecipherable storm front of babble...

Joker grasped the multicolored swirls of his hair and pulled. Nothing should have been able to hit them that hard through all their shields and barriers, nothing. Spittle flew from his mouth as he bellowed to Eas: "What the fuck just happe—"

And while that sentence was still on his lips, Sailor Mars, Sailor Neptune, Sailor Chibi-Moon, Sailor Iron Mouse, Sakura Kinomoto, Cure Black, Erika Kurumi, Yuko Omori, Cure Twinkle, Alph, Kyoko Sakura, and Mami Tomoe all vanished into thin air, right before his eyes.

*****

The Lighthouse

Vertex Point Five

She saw them all as miniscule pinpricks of multicolored light, faintly glowing amid choking clouds of evil black fog. One of those pinpricks was altered from what it should have been, distorted into a new form that was bound to part of that darkness. If she had no need to be careful, she could have snatched up that distorted pinprick anyway, and perhaps restored her in the process... In fact, she could have taken all the Merry-Go-Round's prisoners at once. Despite the gaudy, naked show of power that was her distraction, however, this was a delicate operation. Distraction aside, it had to be economical. In all probability, Joker could trace the power back to her if she pushed too hard... even with his fortress crippled, he would immediately set to work hunting down where his captives had gone. That also left out the possibility of attacking him while his defenses were still down, much to her frustration.

So she selected twelve of the pinpricks, just twelve. The distorted one was left behind. The others, the eight remaining members of the ill-fated rescue team plus one Sailor Animamate, one comatose Precure, and two Puellae Magi... she plucked them from space and time as subtly and neatly as she could, and deposited them in the Arthra's cargo bay, where hopefully Admiral Lindy had a team waiting to intercept. With a careful hand, she brushed away the trails that the twelve pinpricks left behind, scattering the telltale particles of her intervention throughout the countless planes of reality. It would take weeks at minimum for even Joker, with all his resources and at operating at full strength, to begin to track her now.

Done. Simple as that.

It had been a long time since she used that much power, and that plus the additional pressure brought on by Fantine screaming threats and warnings caused Homura Akemi to sag into Madoka's arms, tired but triumphant.

"Homura-chan!" Madoka cried, cradling her friend. "Homura-chan, what just happened?"

"I brought back all the ones I could," said Homura. "Kinomoto, Tomoe and Sakura, and nine others." She smiled, and just before she sank into deep slumber, she whispered: "It's all right now, Madoka. I saved them."

END OF CHAPTER 34

NEXT: THE BATTLE IS WON...