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Numako slid into the stool at the opposite end of the Holographic Pong table. At her feet was Ariel's last opponent... a poor, pale-faced, disheveled tramp, his eyes rolled into themselves like little white eggs. His mind had been temporarily fried by the brutality of Ariel's play; it would probably take him an entire week to shake the coma. And he was already drooling, drip by drip, out of the corner of his mouth. Numako shivered as the poor sod was dragged away by a couple of tired serving wenches.
Then she looked up at the young woman who now stood before her as the undefeated Pong champion for three days straight against some of the best minds on the planet. The scarlet and black-haired Shrew was tall, but then again, everyone seemed a little tall compared to Numako. And her eyes were red as rubies, burning with all the fires of hell! A smug little grin played on her lips, too, as if she had never known failure for a day in her life.
Well, Numako's competitive spirit thickened her resolve... the fact was, neither had she! And while she seemed to be doing this as a favor for the five strange girls, or perhaps, even for the wonderful, beautiful Shmi, the fact was, she was mostly doing this for herself... no one was going to beat out Numa for the grand Holographic Pong title!
Yes... She was just dying to kick some major butt!
"Get on with it, we shall?" Numako stuck out her tongue, and the devil-woman seethed. She ever-so-deftly slipped the electrodes over her fingers and pasted the suction string from temple to green temple.
One of the suctions even rested upon her shimmering hiddonite bindhi jewel.
The time was then called. Almost instantly, Ariel had whammed the bright little ball into Numako's subconscious, spinning the little green girl around and around in her stool without stop.
The five strange girls hissed as if feeling the pain for themselves.
"Hit!" the time caller sang.
Ariel laughed. "Trick or treat, Numa-chan!"
Numako's foot suddenly lurched out, and her dizzying twirl stopped with a snap.
She gave Ariel a look that could have frozen lava stiff in summer.
"Round 2."
Ariel's finger twitched yet again, and the ball slammed harder this time against Numako's brain. But the little troll girl was prepared and whammed the ball back with equal ferocity. Ariel was ready. Bang! The ball crashed again. Numako's hand lashed forward; the ball was repelled and repelled and repelled... with frightening skill!
The cantina quickly forgot about the silly singing cow and the jumping toad. Instead they turned to the fiercest holographic Pong match anyone had witnessed in a generation. The little green ball jumped back and forth between the two insanely talented opponents with rapid fire speed. Soon it no longer looked like a ball, but like an arrow of laser light! Wham went Numako's paddle, wham went Ariel's... bang, whack, slap, the ball popped, leaped, dashed and ran!
"No way!" Wriggle gasped from his little black room and started recording the game on the floating surveillance cam, quickly transmitting the sport to other locales around the city. "No one's been able to keep up with Numako this long!"
And then, with an underhanded bounce, slap, bounce, the lightning-swift ball managed to slip under Ariel's near-perfect defenses. The force of the ball's impact into her mind knocked her off her feet.
"Hit!" the time caller sang again.
Ariel looked like she was going to spew for a moment. She grabbed her mouth and clenched at her stomach. The crowd waited breathlessly for the demon-eyed girl to pull out of the game with a squared draw.
But, of course, she didn't. Slowly the red- and black-haired girl climbed to her feet again and returned Numako's ice-death gaze with one of her own.
Numako smiled back at her.
"Trick or Treat" She returned the jibe.
"Round 3, Final Match!"
Numako served the ball to Ariel. Ariel lurched forward, caught the projectile early, and slapped it back with cruel efficiency. The ball came at Numako faster now, but she was ready for it; wham! Ariel easily repelled. So did Numako. Once again, the velocity of the ball grew exponentially. But Numako was in the zone; she easily stayed atop the speed with hyper-electric reflexes. After awhile she even began to spin around in her chair of her own accord, laughing with transfixed delight.
Ariel was completely unable to touch her.
"Look at how fast Numa responds... that's impossible!" a creature in the crowd whispered in awe.
The Jedi with blue eyes nodded. "The Force is extremely strong with this one... little does she know."
Ariel fumed. None of her attacks seemed to be working! She had never been so thoroughly confounded during a Pong Match in her long, dark, mysterious life.
It was time, she decided, to up the stakes. She called upon the dark side of the force.
The Jedi sensed it. "Kyoko, Kumoko, Zyta, Kirin, Hisui! That girl, Ariel-ni'pah, or whoever she is, is a Sailor Sith! Quick, go into the shadows of the cantina and transform!"
Numako slammed the pong ball, one more time... for the last time!
Ariel posed her electrode-lined gloves in the air, and her black cape slid to the floor, revealing a red and black brassiere with a plunging neckline, a pair of red velvet short shorts, and scarlet, over-the-knee boots that matched Numako's in style. The fiendish woman began to laugh now, at first like the wings of a bat flapping deep inside her throat, then rising, rising, rising, until an insane climax of witch-like evil erupted from her serpent's tongue.
"You think you're just sooooo good, you prideful amphibian! Well, you've chosen the worst person in the universe to best at Pong! I'm Sailor Sith Ayameru... Now taste my Black Fire Surround!"
And with that, a horrible black ooze erupted through the holographic display.
Numako was too shocked and horrified to defend herself.
Suddenly the green troll girl felt a great force knock into her, not from in front, but from the side. The suctions were ripped from her head, the wires from her fingers. She blinked wildly, trying to comprehend what was happening. Her eyes focused, then, on a pair of brown fingers snapping in front of her. She looked up suddenly. It was that mysterious dark man again.
"Numako! Are you there? You've got to come to, quickly!"
"Yes..." she managed to croak.
Then the five strange girls... Kyoko, Kumoko, Zyta, Kirin and Hisui... emerged from the shadows. But they were no longer just girls, for they had transformed into the Pretty Sailor Jedi!
Sapphire-haired Kyoko was now Sailor Naboo, dressed in an adorable little sailor outfit of crimson and bright red, trimmed with black. Auburn braided Kumoko was Sailor Bespin, and she was dressed likewise, but in silver, orange-gold and white. Tall, blonde Zyta was Sailor Tatooine, and her outfit was tan and yellow, trimmed with sienna. Kirin, fair-skinned and blue-eyed, was Sailor Hoth, and she was dressed in white and blue. Finally there was Hisui, whose sailor raiment was simple and sophisticated in traditional black and white, for she was now Sailor Vjun!
"Sailor Sith Ayameru," they exclaimed as one, "leave now or prepare to meet your end! We are the Pretty Sailor Jedi and we fight for love and justice!"
"Oh no, not you again!" The sith rolled her eyes. She was simply not impressed. "Really, I was just starting to have some fun!"
"We're sorry to break up your party," Sailor Tatooine exclaimed.
"But we simply won't allow you..." Sailor Hoth trailed off.
"...to harm or kill an innocent girl!" Sailor Vjun concluded with heroic vigor.
Innocent, am I? wondered Numako for a fleeting moment, Know me, they do not...
"HAHAHAHAHA!" Sith Ayameru found them thoroughly amusing. "Now you must DIE!"
She ripped off her own electrodes and brow suctions and poised her hands up into the air as if she were some sort an evil enchantress. "Black Fire Engulf!" she screamed!
Everyone in the cantina shied back in horror, too frightened to move. Soul-scorching black fire bloomed from Ayameru's fingertips.
"Bespin Carbonite Freeze!" Sailor Bespin knelt and pushed her hands in front of her. The cold power of her defensive attack issued forth in a spray of ice and freezing carbonite mist.
But Ayameru drew from the hidden reserves of the Dark Side, and her fire grew stronger, more evil, spreading, now, to other parts of the cantina.
She laughed, and she laughed. "Is that the best you can do, pretty sailor jedi?!"
"Hoth Blizzard Blast!" Sailor Hoth now stood dynamically over Bespin's kneeling pose and added her own cold power to Bespin's.
Sailor Tatooine then attacked as well. "Tatooine Sandstorm Engulf!"
Ayameru's self-satisfied grin began to dissolve. The multiple Sailor Jedi attack was almost equal to the total amount of dark side energy she could draw upon at one time. "Sith Sisters, Attack Now!"
From out of the tightly pressed crowd of frightened cantina goers, two more Sailor Sith, dressed in the fashion of Ayameru, stepped forth. Their eyes were red as garnets, and they had long, long hair, longer by far than Ayameru, which cascaded down their twin backs like streams of volcanic fire and ash.
"We are Sailor Sith Iyagaru and Eimin! Now face our Black Hole Engulf!"
An indescribable, nausea-inducing, black emptiness took the place of the black flame, and all of the sailor's attacks were sucked away into a void beyond space and time.
Numako was without words for the first time in her life. Her lips trembled, and her eyes widened in horror.
"Jewel of Zenda Blast!" Sailor Naboo then shouted.
"Vjun Energy Sphere... Destroy!" Sailor Vjun came to her aid.
Their celestial energy combination overwhelmed the dark hole depths of Iyagaru and Eimin's attack. There was a flash of blinding light for an instant, and then the darkness was gone.
The three Sith sisters looked at each other, back and forth, in awe.
"Oh man!" Ayameru whined. "That didn't just happen, did it?"
"What the hell are you nincompoops doing, just standing about!" Yet another Sith voice issued into the cantina.
All heads turned to the stairway in the back. There, at the bottom step, stood a strange pale-skinned woman. While Kyoko had been pale like alabaster, and Kirin like snow, this one had the sickening pallor of a corpse or a ghost, and her long silky white hair glowed with an eerie reddish mandola. She had the face of a demon-cat, too, and she wore a slinky, black gown with transparent sleeves and a slit up the thigh. Around her neck was a string of red Krayyt dragon pearls, and obsidian bangles hung from her bone-thin wrists.
It was Kougo Ada, the Evil Queen.
"It looks like I'll just have to finish these losers off by myself... as always! But first... what should I do with this one?" And with that she pulled Wriggle down beside her with a cruel one handed grip. "He's been nicely recording everything we've done thus far on hologram cam and transmitted it all across Mos Espa!"
The Sailor Jedi looked at each other, a sinking feeling weighing in their hearts. Everything they had just done had been recorded and transmitted... they'd never be able to live down their reputations now!
"I say, let's kill him!" Iyagaru smiled wolfishly and clenched her fists.
"Kill him!" Eimin agreed.
"Kill him now!" Ayameru snarled and lunged forward.
"Patience, patience, my dears." Kougo Ada smiled with a girlish charm. Then the she lifted her one free hand, high above, yelling, "Black Hand Power, come to me!" And her palm and her fingers began to pulsate with darkness, slowly turning grey, then black, blacker, blackest! And then, ever so slowly, she brought her hand of death to Wriggle's throat.
"Noooooooooooooo!" Numako screamed.
And then Numako's mysterious dark angel whispered into her ear. "Say Dagobah Power, Make-up! Say it now."
Numako was so mindlessly shocked that she did exactly as he said. "Dagobah Power Make-up!" she proclaimed, and all the sailors turned to her in surprise.
Effervescent color... a hundred different shades of glittering green, brown and purple... rushed out from her toes and her fingers, and she found herself floating in an perfect singularity. Her cantina costume vanished in the light and was replaced by a cute little sailor outfit, just like the other girls'. Its body was skin-tight and dark as loam, matching the collar, while the little skirt was a somber gold, matching the collar's bow and trim. Around her waist was a V-band of lilac ribbon, which was tied in the back with another butterfly bow. Her gloves were now gold as well, and her boots were knee-high, dark brown with shiny gold toes to match.
And at her brow, where once her teardrop bindhi had sat, there was a thin gold circlet, tipped with a single hiddonite jewel.
In an instant, she was back in the cantina, in full Sailor Jedi dress!
Kougo Ada's brow went up. "Fascinating. Another one of them. Oh well, we'll deal with you soon enough!" And she lowered her black hand to Wriggle's chest. "DIE!" she willed.
"Now, Numako, say Dagobah Swamp Slime Encircle!" The dark man whispered into her ear again.
Numako lifted her hands forward and shouted, "Dagobah Swamp Slime Encircle!"
A wave of murky brown slop crashed down upon Kougo Ada. The Evil Queen screamed in disgust and pulled her hand way from Wriggle. The poor albino man used that moment to get away.
The Sith sisters growled, and attacked anew: "Black Fire Surround! Black Hole Engulf! Black Hand Power!"
The other Sailors joined Numako's attack.
"Bespin Cloud Surround!"
"Hoth Ice Reflection Surround!"
"Tatooine Twin Suns Blind!"
"Vjun Lightning Power!"
And the mysterious man whispered into Numako's ear, once again, "Now say, Dagobah Yoda Levitation Attack!"
"Dagobah Yoda Levitation Attack!"
And, last of all, their sapphire-haired leader stepped forth. "Jewel of Zenda Blast!"
The Sith attack was easily repelled by the monstrous Sailor Jedi defensive. Screaming with the embarrassment of obvious defeat, Iyagaru finally jumped into her own black hole! Her evil sisters jumped in after her. Kougo Ada gave the sailors one last glance, "You'll be sorry for this!" And then, with a swoosh of her long black skirt and cackling all the while like a mynok, she jumped into the hole as well. The darkness sealed up on itself, and the cantina was once again free from evil... at least of that kind!
And for now, the Sailor Jedi-Sailor Sith battle was over.
The girls all breathed sighs of exhausted relief.
Then they turned to Numako... who was now Sailor Dagobah.
"Queen Amidala and Tuxedo Jedi told us that there would be others … but I never suspected we'd run into one so soon!" Sapphire-haired Kyoko smiled brightly and offered a hand. "Welcome to the group."
"And to what group is this that I am welcomed?" Numako was confused.
"The Sailor Jedi, of course." Red-headed Hisui bowed dramatically.
"And the Sailor Jedi... do what?"
"They protect the galaxy!" Zyta offered with a sintillating twin suns smile.
"The galaxy?" Numako repeated dumbly.
"Yes, isn't that great?!" Kirin added and jumped up once, light as snow.
Numako was seriously disoriented now. For a moment, she spun and spun around, looking for that mysterious handsome man who had helped her in her greatest need. She expected him... no, demanded of him... to give her an explanation for all this!
But he had vanished!
"What... what about the letter to Shmi?" Numako suddenly remembered.
"Oh no! Watto!" Kumoko scanned the area for the flying blue slug.
"There he is!" Kyoko announced, and the sailors went running to the far booth, where the detestable little creature sat stiff as stone, in a state of shock.
They all took one look at him, and then started laughing uncontrollably.
"He looks like a freak!"
"He is a freak!"
"Man, if George Lucas could only see this!"
"Who... George Lucas... is?" Numako was totally confused.
"Ah, nevermind!" Zyta clapped Numako on the back. "It's... nothing. Just an inside joke."
Sailor Vjun, who had turned back into just Hisui, pulled a message sliver from out of her pouch. She slipped it carefully into Watto's belt.
"Do you think he'll actually deliver it?" Kirin asked doubtfully.
"Well, here's to hoping. We certainly won that bet all right!" Hisui remarked, a smirk playing on her lips.
"All thanks to Numako, here," Kyoko then added with a sigh.
Numako smiled back. She had a feeling she was going to like these girls a whole lot more than Ergot!
"Well, I suppose we should be leaving now..."
"Wait!" The blue-eyed jedi, who seemed to have disappeared for most of the battle, now stood among them, pointing at all the frightened people in the cantina, "They've seen everything!"
"Oh dear... What a mind trick this is going to take!" Kyoko moaned.
"And what about that albino guy's transmission?"
"OH no! That's even worse!" Zyta exclaimed, horrified once again by the realization that most of Mos Espa had been whitness to the day's events.
Kumoko tapped a single finger on the cantina table. "This is going to be one loooooong night."
"Well, we better get cracking..." Kyoko snapped to command. "Our transport to the planet Dagobah leaves tomorrow morning."
"Dagobah?" Numako asked. "A planet called Dagobah there is?"
"Well of course, there is! Your powers wouldn't have worked if there wasn't!" Hisui pointed out, as if it were obvious to all the world.
"Oh." Numako decided then... that at least for a little while yet... maybe she would be better keeping her mouth shut.
Early that morning, before the twin suns peaked over the vast deserts of Tatooine, one brown eye peered through a crack in the door of the old spare part's shop. The eye could see a wide, low-roofed room beyond, crowded with tables, chairs and shelves and cluttered with gagdets and gizmos that twinkled in the silver moonlight of the window. Everywhere else was steeped in shadows, making the hard, cold junk seem almost soft, the room almost womb-like. From the silence, the dark brown eye could tell there was no one here. So its pale green hand pushed the door open, and Numako stepped forward.
She looked about carelessly, then slipped over to the clamps to free her cat-bat XYZ-droid. She then lovingly tucked the old pile of junk under one arm, and with the other hand, she gathered her tool box.
Then, just as she was leaving for good, she hesitated.
Something wasn't quite right.
She placed her tool box and droid on the floor, and she gazed about the room with a curious wonder. She realized, suddenly, that this was the last time she would ever see this place again... at least for a long, long time.
Perhaps it was because of this realization, or perhaps because of any number of other random factors, that little green Numako picked up a nearby bottle of glue. For a moment she studied the transparent orange gel with an intense morbid fascination.
Then she turned the bottle over, and squeezed the glue out in think, long, gooey strips all over the shop. Upon reaching the end of the bottle, she chucked it into a nearby bin.
And, admiring her handiwork as well done, she recollected her things, and left Ergot, and her old life, for good!
She never noticed that her AK-G4 converter was now missing. Or that she hadn't been paid for it.
Or, then again... maybe she had...
