The Dark Siders Chronicles

The three Sailor Sith were camped around a table with Kougo Ada. The Evil Queen and her Alpha Sith were mostly quiet; Kendra was drawing, while Ariel listened and pondered.

"It's getting weird," Emi complained. "They're killing us with those strange powers. What's worse is that they're our kind of attack!"

"Eyah," Geri agreed. "I wanna hava new attack. I wanna blow something else up!" The crazy Sith girl giggled as she made her fingers melt together and form a webbed hand. "I'm a fishy!"

Emi sighed and shook her head as she racked her brain for ideas. It wasn't easy to think with an insane co-worker. Or a scheming partner. Or a power-hungry Queen. "This is crazy. And it's not fair! Dark side attacks are ours!"

Ariel nodded. She didn't say anything, but let the other Sailor Sith talk it out. Her silence was not inactive, but full of unspoken ideas. Everything that passed over the table was catalogued, regarded, examined, then filed for future reference, or fitted into the plan she had in mind. She had an idea, but wanted someone else to say it first. The evil Sailor was waiting for the right moment to propose her plan.

Crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out, Geri added her two credits. "What if... what if corrupt them, we do?" Her ears turned Yoda-like as she mimicked him. "Hee, hee!"

"Not like there is much we can do." Kendra gave them a passing glance as she sketched a drawing of Palpatine. She looked up again as something in Ariel's eye caught her attention. "What?"

For a moment, Ariel composed her thoughts. Kendra had been feeling particularly Sith-like as of late, and the Alpha had no intentions of being disposed of by her Queen. "Perhaps these Sailors are more like us than we realize. Per chance we could turn them for a moment to our side, and thereby turn them forever into dark Senshi. One of them is the Dark Sailor herself, and anyone with a name like that has a foot in our camp already."

"Then we'll kill them! We'll electrocute them and we'll burn them and we'll hurt them and we'll beat them up and we'll cut them up into itty bitty teeny tiny little itsy bitsy pieces! Little ones!"

Emi glared at Geri. "Like Ariel said, we'll turn them against the others using their own powers. Then it will be no problem to kill them."

Geri pulled a lollipop out of thin air and stuck it in her mouth. She twirled it around and then changed it into a huge replica of itself. Emi grabbed it and took it from her. "Stupid."

A rare and diabolical smile caressed the face of the Evil Queen after she'd thought the plan over. There was merit in what Ariel said. This could be what she needed to convince Palpatine to give her more power. Perfect. "A good plan, Senshi Sith. Very good."

Unseen, but as evil as her Queen's, Ariel's smile formed in her mind. Each time one of her plans was accepted, she knew that her power increased. One day, Kendra would be expendable, and Ariel was making sure that when that day came, she would not be considered expendable, but valuable. More so than any of her evil co-Sailors.

"Kairi-chan!" Seijoutai Priire called. When the little girl appeared, Priire rattled off a string of coordinates. Silence followed the words for a moment, then Kairiku responded.

"That would be Corellia," the girl said. She and Chakra came in and sat down beside the prone Priire.

Priire grinned. "Thanks."

"Where are we going?" another voice asked.

Without getting up from where she was laying to see who it was, Priire knew that the second voice was ChibiSuta. "Think about it, Suta," the blonde grunted. She was on her back trying to grab replace a datacard. "Oof!"

"Hiya, beautiful!"

"Get off of my belly, Solai!" Priire shoved the cat. Then, looking around, she exclaimed with a laugh, "I'm surrounded by Chibis!" After the laughter died down, the blonde pilot grabbed the card and snapped it in to. "There. That's done."

"Priire!" Kairiku exclaimed. "I wanted that!"

Laughter filled the room. "She knows, Kairi-chan," Nagareboshi said, smiling. "Why do you think she broke it?"

Kairiku responded with a grin. "I really wouldn't have replicated the Dreamer's IFF transponder..."

"Yeah right!" Solai joined the rank of roguish grins.

Everyone laughed. Until Kyoko burst in with news. "It's the Sith! They're attacking on one of those little defenseless planets they love to rampage on. We're got to help!"

Silence. The Sailor Jedi had split into groups, each patrolling a sector of the plain where the Sailor Sith had landed. Sailors Naboo, Chibi Naboo, Chibi Dathomir, Bakura, and Yavin were on the right of Asteroid, Shooting Star, and Dathomir. On the left were Kessel, Dagobah, Vjun, and Bespin. They were grouped together, standing in front of the other Sailor Jedi, who were in a fan shape behind them. Tuxedo Jedi was beside Sailor Asteroid, waiting for the inevitable conflict.

Then the Sailor Sith were there, on a conveniently placed ridge. They stood there, capes and skirt blowing in the wind. No one moved for a few heartbeats, letting the warm breeze blow hair in their faces. There was a feel to the battle, like it was the first of their careers... or the last.

Asteroids and shooting stars twirled together to blast a transformed person. The Sailor Sith had kidnapped what seemed like a whole city of indigenous peoples and turned them to horrible creatures.

"Asteroid! Use the Redemption Crystal!" Sailor Vjun yelled, flipping red hair out of her green eyes. "Help these people!"

"Will do," the Dark Sailor replied. She held her hands up and called the pretty crystal. At first, it was a perfect crystal, diamond-like and clear. As she held the jewel, it lengthened and shifted colors. It shaped itself into a scepter, with a crystal at the top. The handle of the wand was filled with crackling lightning; the crystal at the top was filled with the black of space dotted with the brightest of stars. Asteroid held the Redemption Crystal for a moment and grinned. "I like this rock!"

Tuxedo Jedi put his hand on her shoulder. "Go for it."

"Redemption Crystal Power!"

Asteroid's wand swept across the assembled people-turned-monsters with a beam of lightning. The lightning had a stream of space-blackness spiraling around it, caressed with stars. "Oh, that's fun!"

Mykyr laughed at her. "It's a good thing you're on our side!"

"Is she?"

As one, the Sailors turned to look at the Sith. "Of course she's on our side," Tatoonie told Ariel.

"Then I don't think you really know her," the Alpha Sith replied. "Do you know the secret she's been hiding from you? Or maybe, if you were the close friends you should be, you'd know there was something wrong with her."

Yavin looked at her sister. "Wrong?"

"Not only her," the evil Sith continued with a frown. "Three of them are in the conspiracy." Her red gloved hand extended in front of her and she surrounded Asteroid, Shooting Star, and Dathomir with their own ring of fire. Kouga Ada nudged with the Force's darker side and turned each ring into a different element.

Asteroid was framed by leaping blue and black flames. To her left, Shooting Star stood in a red laser ring. To the right of the Dark Sailor, Dathomir had a circle of green lightning around her feet. Each seemed to be spotlighted by their trap's color with the rest of the world blackened. Ariel looked down on them.

"Someone with such darkness in her soul should not be allowed to hold the crystal of redemption. Or be allowed to create. Or be allowed protect light."

Holding up a hand, Dathomir prepared to launch her brown water attack. Emi's upheld hand stopped her from attacking. "Really," the lady Sith purred, "do you have any right to use your attacks to protect good and fight evil when you yourself are a source of evil?"

"We're not evil!" Shooting Star said, pressing her lips together. "We're..."

Kouga Ada herself spoke this time. "You're what? Good? Try again, dark sider. You've used the power reserved for the Sith in your past and continue to use it to this day. You'll never be free of it. It will follow you always. Nothing you can do will free you of it. Accept it or live a lie. The lie you live right now. Is it pleasant to you? Is it good? Are you good?"

Crossing her arms, Sailor Asteroid stared at the Sith. "All right," she spoke, painfully. "Maybe we're not good. Sith, maybe I'll go all the way to say we're bad. Maybe we should be kicked out on our respective tails." She spat out a curse. "I don't know. What I do know is that I'll never stop fighting you. As long as I can breathe, and maybe longer, I'll raise my hand in defiance."

"It's not your choice. How long do you think you'd survive without your little friends to back you up? Hmm?" Geri snarled in an example of one of her more sane moments. "You may have the dark side attacks, but you don't ruler the rooster."

Emi pushed Geri behind her as Ariel began to speak again. "I want to see you try. Try it out on your own. How long will it be until you come running back? And you know they will not want you, so you'll come to the only place freaks like you have a place.

"You'll come here."

Identical poses met the Sith. Each of the targeted Sailors had her arms crossed in front of her with a glare on her face. Three pairs of deadly eyes cut into the Sith.

"You underestimate us. Don't they?" Shooting Star asked, looking to Sailor Asteroid.

The Dark Sailor didn't look to the side to answer but kept her eyes straight ahead. "There's one way to find out, isn't there."

"You don't have enough strength left to activate your attacks. They take more power than anyone of you three have," Emi laughed. "It'll kill you!"

White gloves met black ones as Asteroid held her hands out for Dathomir and Shooting Star to grasp. "Then we'll see you in Hell."

"Hawkbat!"

"Smuggler!"

"Nightsister!"

"Anger...!"

Time stopped. Three Sailors were frozen in crystals of fire, light, and lightning. Their mouths were still in the form of the last words they said.

"Release!"

Priire, Boshi, and Nom slumped to the ground. Their eyes were glassy with a faraway look in them.

Sailor Yavin shook Priire as Bakura shook Boshi and Chibi Dathomir shook her future mother. "Come on, guys, wake up!"

"That... that was some ride," Priire whispered. She sat up shakily and stared with Dathomir and Shooting Star at the havoc they had caused. At least the Sailor Sith were gone. To where, no one knew. The ground that they had been standing on was a burned crater, with no sign of the Sith. If they'd gotten away or if they'd died no one would know.

"Sailor Sith, you have failed me again. I am rather less than pleased with your dismal performance. To make up for your pitiful showing, more Sith Senshi will be activated. A few of them are Sailor Sith Vortex, Sailor Star Killer, Sailor Hapes, Sailor... you get the idea. You, my pets, will be replaced by these new ones if your performance continues as pitifully as it has begun!" Darth Sidious almost laughed with all the sadistic pleasure in his blackened heart. "You have let the Sailors expend their last dark sider powers, and thereby closed that door in your faces. Do not fail me again... or rather, if you do fail me again, be prepared for the consequences. Permanent consequences."

Sailor Iridona looked up at the sky above her fallen friends. The power of the Force pulsed through her like water through a fish's gills, and she knew there was a disturbance. A dark disturbance in the Force.