(Rating: PG-13) 
 
================================== 
Episode 402: America the Beautiful 
================================== 
 
*** [title sequence] *** 
 
	Sailor America dashed through the now-deserted streets of Nagano-2,
putting the years of work at the indoor track to good work.  She barely
broke a sweat as she made the turn down Fifth Street to Akagi Boulevard. 
Twelve blocks distant, almost as long a straight stretch of road as could be
had in Nagano-2, a pall of smoke hung over Kino Park.  She reached into
nowhere and pulled out her communicator.  "Valhalla, this is America. 
Status?"
 
	The response was slow in coming.  "Uncertain," came the slightly
tinny voice.  "We sent a team out there to attempt communications."
 
	"And?" 
 
	"And . . . one of them survived.  The rest were drowned." 
 
	Drowned?  The impact site was a good couple kilometers from Nagano
Bay.  "What were they doing at the bay?"
 
	Another pause.  "You mean . . . sir, you haven't been told?"  There
was the slightly sound of papers rustling.  Sailor America looked up and saw
that she was just three blocks away.  The communicator was silent as she
dropped into a walk, the streets empty.  Before, there had been the sound of
sirens and alarms, but now even that was gone, replaced by a slow, steady
rumbling that seemed to come from all directions at once.  She looked
around, searching for the source.  There was none to be found, though. 
Nothing but deserted sidewalks, traffic lights still cycling through the
familiar green-amber-red sequence, stores with their doors still wide open. 
There were plenty of cars, to be sure, but none of them were moving.
 
	Sailor America ignored most of these things.  The civilians were 
probably in the basements of the buildings around her -- briefly she
castigated herself for lacking the foresight to build a few shelters 
-- cowering and waiting for the end of this alarm that had interrupted an
otherwise perfectly normal day.  As she reached the final block, she found
some yellow "POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS" tape lying on the ground, knocked to
the ground by some impact or another.  Shrugging, she stepped over it
gingerly and continued on, almost to the lip of the crater that now loomed
before her.
 
	It was about ten meters in diameter, with a depth that couldn't be
determined easily due to the smoke that filled it.  If she had to guess
she'd put it at five or so meters.  The noise seemed to be slightly louder
here.  She looked back at the distance she'd come.  No-one to be seen; where
was the defense force?  She reached for her communicator once again. 
"Hello?"
 
	"Oh, we thought you'd gone off-air.  What is it?" 
 
	"Erm . . . where is everyone?" 
 
	"Our forces are almost exactly on the other side of the 
crater, if I'm reading your position right.  Sailor Orion is with them, by the 
way." 
 
	It was exactly what she wanted to hear.  "Okay, tell them I'm on
my-OOPF!" She fell to the ground hard, bouncing once on the scorched
pavement.  A spray of water splashed in her face, keeping her from slipping
into the embrace of unconsciousness.  That, and one other thing.
 
	"GRAB MY HAND!" screamed a female voice.  On instinct, Sailor
America reached out with her right hand, and nearly had it ripped out for
her trouble.  She flew a meter up in the air and then landed in the bed of a
pickup truck which peeled out away from the crater as fast as it could.
 
	Sailor America blinked, still in a slight shock, and looked up at who had 
grabbed her.  "Jen?" 
 
	"Hi there," said Sailor Orion, who sat against the cab of the truck
with a worried yet relieved expression on her face.  "Got here just in time,
it seems."
 
	"Where have you been?" asked Sailor America, brushing off her knees.
Apparently Valhalla had had its information wrong.
 
	"Hitched a ride with these GIs here," replied Sailor Orion, jerking a 
thumb at the cab.  In front, two men in uniform looked ahead warily.  
"Although after they saw what we're up against, they were a bit 
apprehensive . . . and I can understand why."  She gestured behind the truck.

	Sailor America pushed herself up to a sitting position and turned
around.  She promptly wished she hadn't; behind the truck and receding in
the distance was a monster.  There seemed no other way to describe it:
nearly four meters tall, almost eight hundred kilograms in weight, it was an
appalling sight.  

	Sailor Orion whipped out her communicator and began relaying a
description in a calm, disembodied voice, unwilling to accept the reality of
what was before her.  "Unknown is roughly humanoid, but with three eyes
instead of two . . . the third appears to be between and slightly above the
two other eyes.  Skin color is a dark blue, hands are, um, dripping . . .
can't tell with what from this distance.  Unknown is not moving, re . . .
wait, it's moving now, moving towards us . . . oh shit!  Be right back!" She
shoved the communicator into nothingness and banged on the window at the
back of the cab.  "Can't you get this thing to go faster?"
 
	"Yes sir, but she takes awhile to accelerate!" 
 
	Sailor Orion glanced back.  "That thing isn't taking any time at
all.  Move!"
 
	"Aye aye, sir!"  The electric motor whined louder. 
 
	The redheaded senshi took out her communicator again.  "Valhalla,
this is Orion, is the governor there?"
 
	"Yes sir, but he's occupied." 
 
	"Get him, tell him it's of the utmost importance." 
 
	"I'll try, but I can't promise anything."
 
	She Orion bit back a retort.  "Very well.  You've got thirty
seconds." She closed the link and turned to Sailor America.  "We're in
danger, and so is the city.  The Defense Forces are terribly unprepared, so
that leaves us.  Feel up to it?"
 
	It wasn't a question of choice, and Sailor America knew it.  The two
of them simply had to keep the whatever it was contained until the
xenobiology experts could figure out what to do with it.  The Defense Forces
hadn't even existed in a proper sense until the Exodus, and their most
powerful weapons couldn't possibly be used in Nagano-2 without leveling the
city.  For that matter, Sailor Orion was near-impotent as well.  That left
one alternative, and she swallowed hard.  "Today was going so nicely, too,"
she muttered.  "Just another typical day at work." Another kind of work
beckoned now, she knew.  "Sure," she said more loudly, "I'm game."
 
	Sailor Orion counted silently.  "Our friend couldn't get anyone on
the council.  Therefore," she continued, raising her voice and speaking into
the communicator for the record, "I am assuming command of the planet
defense forces as of now." She looked up again.  The beast, formerly a
comfortable two hundred meters away, was closing rapidly.
 
	"Driver!" shouted Sailor America.  "Make a left!"  The driver
understood immediately; if they kept in their present direction, they risked
leading the beast farther into Nagano-2, therefore increasing the potential
damage to the city.  The two senshi grabbed on to the sides of the truck as
they skidded across an intersection, just nicking a parked car.  A few
moments later came a second left, and then they were heading back for the
crater and Nagano Bay.  

	"America, are you ready?" shouted Orion, too busy to add some words
of comfort for her lover.
 
	"Yeah!" shouted back America, who hadn't fired a shot since the 
closing moments of the War of 3035. 
 
	"Go!" 
 
	Sailor America closed her eyes.  "American Blazing EAGLE!" 
 
	The familiar firebird swooped forth, arcing towards the galloping
beast who was now merely fifty meters away, and impacted in a flash of white
light and smoke.  The shockwave was slight, and only shook the truck a
little bit as they spun in a 540 degree turn and sped away.
 
	Sailor Orion was already on the communicator.  "Valhalla, Sailor
America has fired on the intruder, direct hit, say again direct hit.  Stand
by for damage estimates . . . ." Her jaw dropped open.  "Valhalla, no damage
to intruder, say again no damage to intruder." 'We're in trouble,' she
thought.
 
*** 
 
	"We're in trouble," said Hayato Kwakami.  Normally a mere watch
officer, he had commanded Valhalla since the crisis had begun.  The real
commander, Captain Yujiro Aida, had been vacationing in the mountains north
of the city.  A recall order had been sent, but it was anyone's guess as to
when he might arrive.  As for the trio who ranked immediately below him:
Lieutenant Commanders Kim Young, Vanessa Leeds, and Sammy Porter, they had
been conducting inspections in the south.  For the moment he was on his own. 
"Right, pull the defense forces back."
 
	"All of them?" asked a junior strategy rating who doubled as a
communications tech.  "Sir, that'll leave the entire city to . . . whatever
that is!"
 
	"Mr. Hattori, we're already strained to the limit!  I can't bloody
well throw away men and women I can't afford to lose, can I?"
 
	Hattori backed down.  "Of course, sir . . . of course.  I'll order
the withdrawal immediately."
 
	"Good.  Any luck raising the senshi?" 
 
	"They're still out of communications range somehow; we can't reach 
them." 
 
	Hayato growled.  "I don't need to tell you that those two senshi are
the best and only line of defense this city has, perhaps this entire planet. 
Find them and tell them to eliminate whatever that thing is . . . NOW!"
 
	"Very well, sir," said Hattori resignedly.  He already had a dozen
messages from the xenobiology department of the university urging every
effort to take the beast alive, but they seemed doomed to be ignored.  "All
units, this is Valhalla.  We're flying the coop.  Fall back and regroup
outside city limits, say again regroup outside city limits.  We're going to
let the senshi handle this.  Heaven help us if they can't."
 
*** 
 
	The truck continued to pull away as Sailor Orion tugged nervously at
her back bow.  The beast had withstood a direct hit by Sailor America, and
even now was accelerating.  "This isn't good.  Any ideas?"
 
	Sailor America gulped.  "Double team?" 
 
	Sailor Orion frowned and looked around.  "Too dangerous; we'd
probably take out half the city with us.  What we need is to get it to a
deserted area."
 
	"That'll take too long.  We need something better . . . Minobe
Park?"
 
	"Better than here!" replied Sailor Orion.  She leaned over to rap on
the back of the cab and give directions.
 
*** 
 
	Two minutes later, the truck was barreling into Minobe Park as fast
as it could.  Minobe was the largest park in Nagano-2 and covered three city
blocks, complete with two hills, a pond which was wonderful for ice skating
in winter, a playground, and plans for a picnic area.  To its south were the
fringes of the downtown area, to its north low sturdy houses.  The park was
empty now, however, save for the military truck as it tore up the grass
which had just been mowed a couple days earlier, swerving to avoid a tree.
 
	"I hope this works," shouted Sailor America over the whining of the
engine, whose motor was being overworked as it scampered over the ground. 
"We haven't tried this since . . . ."
 
	"Don't mention it," said Sailor Orion with a grimace.  Too many bad
memories there.  "Okay, here we go.  Stop the truck!" The vehicle's brakes
screeched as it skidded across a cricket pitch, finally crashing to a stop
and crushing the wickets.  The senshi leapt out, as did the driver and other
passenger, who immediately fled for the cover of some nearby trees.
 
	Sailors America and Orion stood side by side, staring down the beast
as it charged at them.  "Ready?"
 
	"Yep."  Deep breath.  "Orion Nebula . . . ." 
 
	The familiar cloud of hydrogen followed the beast as it came closer. 
Sailor America realized how little time they had; if she didn't act now,
they would be destroyed by the shock wave.  "American Blazing Eagle!" she
shouted quickly.  

	A rather smaller eagle of fire swooped down from nowhere and into
the cloud, detonating it in a flash of light and flame visible kilometers
away.  Sailors America and Orion were immediately blasted twenty meters
distant, luckily landing in a hedge of soft-needled bushes.  The bushes
didn't stop them, but slowed them down long enough to roll safely to a stop
in an adjacent children's playground.  Sailor Orion slowly raised herself to
a sitting position and spat out a mouthful of sand from the sandbox. 
"Dammit, that gets annoying after awhile." She blinked sand out of her eyes
and looked around for Sailor America.
 
	The American senshi lay motionless some meters distant against a set
of swings.  Her limbs seemed to be intact; no obvious external injuries.  It
was the internal ones that worried Orion.  "Hold on, Eileen," rasped the
redhead, coughing as some of the sand irritated her throat and nose.  She
half walked, half crawled to Sailor America's position, and was promptly
stopped by a behemoth.
 
	The beast that had pursued them thus far tore through the hedge,
uttering a blood-curdling roar that echoed and reverberated throughout the
park, a roar that was heard for nearly a kilometer.  Orion winced, but
couldn't surrender her arms to cover her ears.  If she could only get closer
to America and move her out of the way . . . but nothing doing.  With
another roar, the beast cut between the two, leaning over Sailor America and
staring down with unmistakable malice with its three eyes.  

	For her part, Sailor America was just beginning to struggle and
move.  She slowly managed to roll over on her back and look up and right
into the gaping maw of the creature, saliva dripping to all sides.  If she
had been more conscious she might have had the wits to vomit at the
disgusting sight, but she couldn't manage even that.  All she could do was
shiver in terror and wait for the inevitable end.  She turned her head to
the left, not wanting to look death in the face.  In so doing, she caught
sight of Sailor Orion, still trying to go forward.  Immediately the sight
snapped her back to reality.
 
*** 
 
	That's my Jen. 
 
	That's *my* Jen. 
 
	And if I die now . . . 
 
	. . . she'll be alone . . . 
 
	. . . she'll die alone . . . 
 
	. . . she won't die . . . 
 
	. . . she won't die . . . 
 
*** 
 
	"SHE WON'T DIE!" screamed Sailor America at the top of her lungs.  A
murderous light glowed in her eyes, and then everything went white.
 
*** 
 
	Far below in Valhalla, pandemonium reigned.  Through various
external cameras, the staff had been observing the battle when the flash
came."What in God's name was that?" shouted Hayato.
 
	"Unconfirmed, sir!" replied the talker.  All the status screens had
turned to static; there were no reports from the outside world.  "Looks like
some sort of electromagnetic pulse, but slightly modified."
 
	"Thaumatological?" 
 
	"Perhaps, we can't be sure." 
 
	Meanwhile, down on the floor, Sakutaro Jimbo's face drained of
blood.  He stared at the spectrum analyses that had been the last bit of
recorded data before all the sensors went off-line.  He was one of the older
persons in the room; he had been at the ripe old age of seventeen when he
first enlisted in the Royal Army, had been three weeks short of his
eighteenth birthday when he was first assigned to Earth Headquarters beneath
the Crystal Palace.  Just two days into his tour of duty, the War of 3035
had begun, and for months he lived in terror watching the developments that
would spell out the end of the Crystal Millennium.
 
	He had been there on one particular summer day, and the similarities
with that day were more and more frightening.  Finally, he could contain it
no more.  Jimbo punched a button and reported to his superior.  Back at the
command post overhead, the talker got the third-hand message in a matter of
seconds.  "Sir, energy signatures match those of Sailor Hyades when 
she . . . went super!"
 
	Hayato dropped the pen he had been nervously chewing for five 
minutes.  "It can't be." 
 
	"Sensors on-line!  Getting video in now!"  The fight, however, was
essentially over.
 
*** 
 
	Sailor Orion had the barest fraction of a instant to see a blinding
white sphere expand outwards from Sailor America at a frightening rate,
enveloping the attacker and Sailor Orion alike.  The beast howled in agony,
but she shuddered with an indescribable feeling that she later likened to
"feeling fizzy." With an audible whoosh, the feeling passed.  she blinked
away the feeling and looked for the beast.  It was nowhere to be seen. 
Heart pounding in her throat, she whirled to look for Sailor America.
 
*** 
 
	'So,' thought America, 'this is what it's like to be electrocuted.'
The world seemed exactly the same to her as she stood on absolutely nothing
at all; her high heels were a full ten centimeters above the ground.
 
	From afar, Sailor Orion had to admit that she was a truly beautiful
sight.  Sailor America's brown hair blew about her face and closed eyes, her
red skirt with the single blue and single white stripes fluttered about her
skirt, her bows waved in the wind from nowhere.  She looked the essence of
peace as she stood motionless, hands clasped on her chest.  Sailor Orion
noticed the differences immediately.  The bow at America's back was longer. 
The pendant at her front bow was a heart instead of a circle; a star had
manifested itself on her choker.  Transparent flanges were at her shoulders. 
The double stripe on her collar had become a single one.
 
	Super Sailor America had arrived, and she was pissed. 
 
	"Where are you?!?" she yelled, and now it was her voice that echoed
throughout the park.  "Where the bloody hell are you?" She settled down the
last ten centimeters and began running off and through the hedge.  Sailor
Orion barely had the strength to follow her.
 
	On the other side of the hedge was the enemy, still recovering. 
America didn't seem to be in the mood to deal out mercy, however.  As she
stood on a slight hill above the beast, she pointed at the thing with an
index finger of iron.  "For interrupting a peaceful day, for menacing our
fair city, for destruction of public property and lives, I, Sailor America,
will *not* forgive you!  Defend yourself and prepare to die!"
 
	The creature uttered a single, slightly surprised roar.  It didn't
know it had the honor of being the first recipient of a post-Dark Moon
senshi speech in decades.
 
	"Eileen . . . ." 
 
	Sailor America smiled, and it was not pretty as she crossed her arms
on her chest.  "American . . . Stars . . . and STRIPES!" With the last word
she threw her arms out as if giving a hug to a crowd.  It was not hugs that
were being dealt, though, but a myriad of tiny sparkling starlike motes
accompanied by racing streamers of pure flame, all of which swirled towards
the target with unbelievable speed.  With the slightest sound, they
perforated the beast, inciting a scream of agony and pain that was just as
quickly cut off.  Silent now, it arced back, wavered, and then crashed to
the ground.  As the two senshi watched, the now dead body turned to gray,
then to ashes, collapsing in on itself and disappearing into a thin line of
dust.  Sailor America lowered her hands to her side and looked down at the 
remains.  

	Sailor Orion, huffing and puffing, came to her side.  "America?" 
 
	The brunette turned to Sailor Orion, the cold look of rage still on
her face.  On seeing her lover's eyes, though, the face softened and warmed. 
"Jennifer . . . how'd I do?" Her eyes glazed over, and to Sailor Orion's
shock she crumpled into the redhead's arms, unconscious.
 
	"EILEEN!"