"If you were offered the chance to have one year of perfect bliss, but you would have to forget everything at the end, would you take it?"
She was nothing more than a blur of red, white, blue and blonde, leaping from rooftop to rooftop with incredible speed, doing her best to keep pace with an old red pickup truck that was wending its way through the side roads of the bustling University town. Mentally, she was becoming somewhat frustrated. These weren't her roads or her roofs; she was thousands of miles from the Minato Ward she knew like the back of her hand. Had she been in Tokyo, she would have had a thousand different shortcuts to take, a hundred different ways to cut off the petty thieves that were now perilously close to escaping her grasp. As the pickup truck finally made its way to an old industrial district, the young woman wondered why she, a stranger in a strange land, Sailor Venus (in her guise as the more-intimidating-to-criminals-Sailor V), was even bothering to follow some run-of-the mill creeps in the southern region of _America_ of all places.
But Venus' complaints were merely superficial. She knew full well that the lowlife bums, whom she had chased all the way from a port in the city of Jacksonville, were merely the tip of some kind of international weapons-smuggling ring whose reach had lethally extended to downtown Tokyo. While the other senshi were investigating other heads of the hydra all across Asia, Europe and Australia, she, Saturn and Mars had been assigned to North and South America.
Venus crouched low on the roof and watched as three scruffy, dirty men unloaded crate after crate of what she suspected were weapons (disguised as works of art), and took them into the warehouse. "Ars Temporalis, Inc.", she muttered under her breath, reading the English on the side of the crates. That was the name of the front company which was transferring the weapons across international lines.
Venus chuckled. Because of this mission she'd learned more about Non-Governmental Organizations and Corporate structures than she'd ever, ever wanted to learn. Mercury had taken great delight in forcing her to learn all about interlocking Keiretsu and their structure. Crime these days, she reflected, was a lot more complex than a thug on the street wielding a gun, or a monster blindly rampaging through the streets looking for energy, pure hearts, mirrors, starseeds or whatever. Corporate Bigwigs who never left their desks were just as big a threat. But who were the masters of Ars Temporalis, and how were they able to get their weapons all over the world with ridiculous ease? Those were the questions "Sailor V" had come to America to answer. Trading on her legendary prowess as a fighter of crime, she hoped her appearance would frighten the men into teaching her what she needed to know about the senshi's latest opponent.
Unfortunately for her, the night had another lesson plan in mind.
Venus froze as she heard an electrostatic hum behind her. Spinning instinctively, she was barely able to make out one of the punks she had been following standing behind her, with a rifle that looked like something out of Sci-Fi anime. But how had he been able to sneak up on her undetected? Transformed, her hearing was exceptional. And what the heck kind of gun was that he was carrying?! Unfortunately, Venus would not get her answers.
With a sneer, the scruffy punk fired a bolt of searing energy at her. The world went silent and black.
Consciousness came and went in erratic bursts.
...she's a cutie, hehehehe...
...we ain't got time fer dat [BLEEP], the boss sed ta kill ANYONE who came here, and you KNOW his ass is watching us...
...yeah, i don't think she's breathing...
...dump her ass in the dumpster, the garbage truck's comin' in 5 minutes, it'll take care of her...
...ain't you worried about evidence and [BLEEP]...
...Boss is coming to take us outta this hole in five minutes, let the CSI folks have their fun...
...huhuhuh... bye Barbie...
Venus was barely conscious. She felt the men lift her up and throw her from the roof, her body slamming into moist, damp, foul smelling garbage. She lay there for what seemed like an eternity, before feeling her world shake, and her body tumble as it was lifted up and tossed into the back of an open-air garbage truck. She felt the vibration of the road as the truck lurched into action.
Whether by instinct or training, somehow Venus was able to start pulling herself out of the garbage, despite barely being able to breathe. The pain in her joints was incredible. As the truck ground to a halt, it's front lifter arms pulling up another dumpster over the back of the truck, she fell back helplessly as more garbage fell upon her, sharp objects cutting into her, blunt objects pummeling her backwards. Somehow, she gathered the last of her strength and pulled herself up into the lifted dumpster, falling into it as the truck set it back on the ground, moving on with its rounds.
Prone, bleeding and covered in filth, Venus lost consciousness in the bottom of the blue dumpster. Her last waking thought was "what a crappy way to go."
February 21st, 2001 - "Polynesian Paradise Apartments" Unit 154.
The Time Lord Xadium was in one of his usual foul moods. A billion light-years from home, he was stuck on the backwater planet Terra, in the hind-end of Mutter's Spiral, doing emergency repairs on his TARDIS. His time and space machine, one of the greatest achievements of the Gallifreyan people, was in ruins. Forced to make an emergency landing, he had watched in horror as the TARDIS had phased in and out of space-time, it's plasmic shell fusing with the interior of a small human dwelling known as an "apartment". Most of the main controls had been decimated, except for the micro-particle interface linkages. In other words, all the vital systems of the TARDIS were accessible, tucked away in the spaces between atoms in the walls of his new "apartment" home, but there was no way to access them short of physically rebuilding a console to interface with them. And the state of 21st Century Terran technology being what it was, he held no hope that this could be accomplished in anything less than 0.4761 spans, or three of their years. Three years he did not have.
The Time Lord's crash had not been an accident. His home world of Gallifrey, home of the oldest civilization in the universe, had been brutally attacked from within. An unknown force had laid waste to the security centres of the Panopticon complex, and breached the APC Pantropic Matrix-- a living computer that housed the knowledge of every Time Lord who had ever lived, including the greatest of them all, Rassilon. All the secrets of Gallifrey's advanced technology, as well as data about all the goings-on in the universe past, present and possible futures--had been stolen and erased.
Worse yet, As an emergency measure, the Matrix itself, sensing its imminent destruction, "backed itself up" in five parts, dumping its physical Data, which was uncontainable in any mere solid-state computer, into the minds of five Time Lords-- four of which had turned up dead within hours of each other, their brains withered husks.
Number 5, Brixalon, or "Brix" as he was known, was Xadium's best friend. Or had been, at any rate. The need for absolute power, a disease so common in the Time Lord elite--but by no means restricted to them-- had infected Brix from within the part of the Matrix he carried, causing him to slay the others and forcibly integrate their parts of the Matrix into his mind-- by eating their brains.
When Xadium confronted him, it was already too late. Possessed by the raw ambition and knowledge of millions of Time Lords long-since dead yet yearning for a place among the living, Brix had changed, turning into a walking vortex of Time / Space altering energy known only as "Matrix". With this power, he easily smashed Xadium's TARDIS into scrap and sent it hurling to the planet Earth, sparing his ex-friend's life out of some last vestige of pity before turning on Gallifrey itself and casting it out of Space and Time entirely.
Xadium was now stuck with no means of support. The few Time Lords who remained were scattered across Time and Space, and most of them were amoral renegades who enjoyed the freedom of operating without the sword of Damocles in the form of Gallifrey hanging over them. He would have to rebuild the TARDIS on his own using nothing more than a field manual and the technological equivalent of bear skins and stone knives.
News continued to trickle in of the deaths of other Time Lords. Those who were not killed were either hiding in fear, wisely concealing themselves, or like Xadium, building up their resources for a final desperate battle. Now bereft of any empathy or pity, Matrix was sweeping the cosmos to kill the last of those who might defeat his ambition to reshape creation in his own image.
For the last terran year Xadium had scavenged as much technology as he could, but on a meagre budget it was proving to be an arduous and unrewarding task. Worse still, he had gotten the definite sense that Matrix was coming to Earth, assuming he hadn't moved in already. The time of their inevitable confrontation was drawing nigh, and he was not ready. Not by a long shot.
Going outside in the still dark, cold and foggy morning, Xadium tried to keep his eyes open. Time Lords generally needed only one hour of sleep a night, but he had been pushing himself for weeks building a kind of computer center in his "living room". Capable of pulling information from all global networks, it took over a whole wall, and was a hacked-together kludge of disposed of computer technology scavenged from second-hand stores and dumpsters (being a University town, students who left tended to just throw away what they didn't want to take with them when they moved). The Time Lord mused with some annoyance that the heart of the impressive complex in his room was a Gallifreyan data node smaller than the size of a sugar cube-- all the other nonsense was merely there in order to make a "human-readable" interface.
Commenting to himself on the sheer ignominy of having to "Dumpster Dive" (as his friends put it) for technology, the Time Lord looked around to make sure no one was looking, and stacked some crates in front of the bug blue dumpster which serviced his part of the apartment complex. Clambering up on them, he looked down into the darkness of the foul-smelling container and cursed his fate. Flipping on a small penlight, as the beam shone down and cut through the darkness, he gasped in shock as he saw not a computer or stereo set he could salvage for PCBs, capacitors and transistors, but the battered and bleeding form of a young woman who was groaning slightly.
Xadium almost left her there, but saw she was bleeding and in an unsanitary environment. Infection could set in. The Time Lord knew he had no choice. As much as he disliked dealing directly with the noisy, nosy, annoying humans, this one would probably die if not tended to. And he wouldn't have that on his conscience. Quickly he ran back to his apartment, got a ladder and climbed in the dumpster, retrieving the woman and taking her inside, where he gently lay her on the bed while he tried to figure out what to do about her wounds. Taking a damp rag, as she grunted in discomfort, he cleaned off as much of the blood on her as he could, so he could assess the real extent of the damage she had taken. There were some nasty gashes all right. There was also a curious blast pattern on her outfit, but the Time Lord filed that data away for later. Blast. While carrying the title of "Doctor", Xadium was no physician, and somehow, he noted dryly, a degree in Temporal Exitonics wouldn't do much for this girl in her state. As much as he hated to do it, he'd have to call in a physician. But how could be pay them? Terrans were annoyingly stupid about their approach to healing their sick. valuing small pieces of paper over the lives of their own kind. As the Time Lord would soon learn, however, the point would be utterly moot.
"Unh." The human was still making noises, but nothing coherent. The Time Lord hesitantly went over to look at her. To him, humans were like wild animal-creatures, things to be observed from a distance, perhaps even admired at times, but best avoided and left alone. They were willful, violent and easily betrayed each other. He had never cared for them much, other than some generic concern for the sanctity of life which was a courtesy he extended to everything from people to ants. Even roaches, which he hated, he loathed to kill. So having a total stranger in the heart of his TARDIS, in the midst of his personal space, was distressing and annoying to him. He wished the female would just go away. But she was hurt. Blasted conscience. Slowly, he removed the red and white mask which covered the girl's face and checked her eyes for any sign of shock. She seemed all right in that regard. He cast his eyes to her battered arms and legs.
To his amazement, the Time Lord watched as the human's wounds began to fade away. Where gashes had been, there were now merely cuts, and then scratches, which remained, but were already fading. This wasn't a human healing factor, he mused. Humans were exceptionally fragile beings. But this healing... it was faster than a Time Lord's and he dared say more complete as well.
"What is she?" he muttered to himself in a detached way, his scientific curiosity taking over from his natural aversion to humans. He regarded her clinically as she settled into a deep sleep, snoring a little. Acting on some kind of latent paternal instinct, the Time Lord covered her with a blanket and pulled up a chair to the side of the bed, where he waited patiently for her to awaken.
After seeing her healing factor, the Time Lord was no longer worried about the human female's health. He was merely waiting for her to awaken so he could get her out of his TARDIS. He was in a race against time, and infuriatingly, the human slept and slept and slept. At first he thought she was in some kind of self-induced coma like the Gallifreyan healing trance, but it turned out she was merely oversleeping. Wary of strangers, he did not want to leave her unattended, lest her 'sleep" be some sort of ruse and she turn out to be some kind of thief or investigative reporter. Also, he wanted to know why she healed so rapidly.
As the hours ticked by and the woman failed to awaken, instead curling up into a comfortable ball and sleeping soundly, the Time Lord's irritation grew. For lack of anything to do, he picked up one of her flaxen hair from the bed and ran it through a makeshift DNA Analyzer he had constructed, correlating it with his database computers. There wasn't any data. Noting her curious uniform, he took a picture and scanned in into the system. Pay dirt. News clippings from England and Japan from almost a decade earlier. Something about a fighter for justice, a vigilante known as "Sailor V". Using "Sailor V" as a base, the Time Lord did more digging, pulling up reports of the mysterious "Sailor Soldiers." Not much came up other than some sketchy eyewitness accounts, but all the stories agreed on one thing-- they were fighters for good.
At first the Time Lord thought the young woman might be wearing a costume and pretending to be Sailor V (lots of the college students tended to do that, he had noted, from the ones who wore all black and pretended to be vampires, to those who wore spiked collars and pretended to be animals for whatever reason). But her healing factor, coupled with the tales of what the Sailor Soldiers were reputedly able to do, told him he was probably dealing with the genuine article.
Walking over to the bed, the Time Lord regarded her more closely. This woman must have been fighting crime since her early youth. What must her life have been like, he wondered. Without realizing it, he had leaned closer to her, fascinated by the notion that she was "Sailor V" and wanting a better look at the face of the legendary crime fighter.
The next second he was smashed flat against the opposite wall, doubled over in pain. Within a blink of an eye, the seemingly asleep "V" had woken up and planted her left leg in his midsection, propelling him backwards with incredible force. Crouched down on the ground in front of the bed, she was coiled and ready to strike, eyeing the Time Lord warily.
"Atashi doko?! Dare da?!" she demanded in Japanese. The TARDIS auto translator systems being offline, the Time Lord had no idea what she said. Spitting up some blood, he wheezed out "Don't... understand."
Switching to nearly accentless English, she repeated herself. "Where am I?! Who are you?!" her crystal-blue eyes flashing with anger.
"My name is Doctor... Xadium," the Time Lord wheezed. "And you're in my TARDIS... my home, if you will." The next moment, he passed out.
Venus looked at the prone man coldly. She noticed her mask was gone, and scowled. What else had he removed, she wondered. Her fuku seemed to be in one piece. Cracking her neck a little, she took in her surroundings. It was a fair-sized apartment, 1LDK, crammed with computers and equipment. This guy was some kind of geek. A kidnapper Otaku? Or maybe even the boss behind Ars Temporalis!! She gasped as she saw newspaper clippings on herself as Sailor V and the other senshi displayed on the computer screens. He had to be the enemy!! She cast her eyes back to the bed. What if he--
She saw a wet, bloodstained rag in the corner. In the back of her mind she remembered someone cleaning off her wounds. Things were becoming clearer. She had been shot... and dumped... and dumped again. Then someone had picked her up... him... he hadn't hurt her, he had saved her...! And she had just knocked him out cold. Great.
In an amusing reversal of roles, Venus sat in the little chair by the side of the bed, waiting for "Xadium" to wake up. When he did stir, Venus clasped her hands together and said "Gomen Nasaiyo"-- "I'm very sorry..."
For his part, the Time Lord scrambled backwards, trying to put some distance between himself and the violent girl.
After that false start, Venus explained what she was doing in town, and the Time Lord realized that "Ars Temporalis" was probably an organization related in some way to Matrix. His examination of her damaged Sailor suit confirmed that she had been hit by a projected energy weapon-- technology not native to Earth, with an energy signature comparable to a Gallifreyan "staser" weapon.
Using the TARDIS computer, Venus and Xadium were able to pinpoint the local headquarters of Ars Temporalis in no time at all. The Time Lord found himself warming to the company of the oft-times silly, but always kind-hearted young woman. Still, when she asked about local hotels to stay in for the week, the Time Lord was shocked to hear himself offering her a place in the TARDIS. It was scandalous, if not unthinkable, for a Time Lord to harbor a young woman whom he barely knew in his place for days. The bounds of propriety had been irrevocably breached. What subconscious compulsion had led him to make such an arrogant offer? He did not know. But the words were out, there was no taking them back now. He fully expected the woman to consider him mad, or at worst, some kind of creepy pervert.
Indeed, she was taken aback, and was trying to figure out a way to decline. But when she looked at the TARDIS computer center, she realized that maybe it would be good to hole up somewhere with technology as good as the enemy's. Getting in touch with the others to let her know where she was, she consented-- on the grounds that Xadium stay in the living room at night and not peep on her in what used to he his sleeping area.
Offended that she would even think he would do such at thing--he was a Time Lord, by Rassilon, Xadium almost bade her take her leave. But he saw that the enemy would be hunting her, and as powerful as she probably was, she would be no match for Matrix. Only one Time Lord could hide from another. So he agreed, and the arrangement held for the week she was there.
Their week in combination was a fruitful one. Using intelligence data from the TARDIS, and coordinated strikes with the other Sailor Soldiers across the globe, Ars Temporalis was smashed. The weapons ring obliterated, the flow of Gallifreyan technology to common Earth criminals had stopped, and Matrix had been dealt a severe setback in his plan to ruin the historically significant planet Earth.
The time had come for partings. In the week that they had been together, Venus had learned how lonely and cold Xadium's time on Earth had been, and repeatedly tried to assure him that there was value in developing friendships and ties. But the Time Lord knew better. All his friends had either betrayed or forgotten him in time, and even as he looked into the smiling face of the girl he now knew as "Aino Minako" as she cheerily waved good-bye, he knew she too was lying, not deliberately, but in the sense of making a promise that the universe never let any of his past friends keep. Even with her promise that she wouldn't be like the others and that he would hear from her again, as he watched her get in her taxi to the airport, he knew, with complete certainty, that he would never hear from the human ever again.
Thus it was to his complete surprise when, some two weeks later, a cheery pink envelope adorned with cute scribbled cartoon drawings all over its surface arrived in his mailbox from Tokyo, Japan.
Aino Minako had been true to her word and written back. Granted, it was a typically bland "Hi How are you, I'm fine" type letter, but being the first the Time Lord had ever received from anyone, he treasured it greatly. His look of happiness, so atypical for the droll and dry Time Lord, would have been noticeable to anyone-- and indeed it was, to one person in particular, who was lurking in the shadows, retribution and friendship tearing at his dark, hyperintelligent mind.
Life with Minako was a never ending bliss of happy comfort and fun. The Time Lord could honestly say he had never been happier. When he looked back at the past six months, his life with Mina was the best part of his 950 year life span. Thinking back, he remembered how happy he had been when they had first met... somehow...
For some odd reason, he could not remember his first meeting with Minako after she had left for Japan following the incident with Ars Temporalis.
"Sweetheart," the Time Lord asked softly, using a word and a tone of voice his "heart of black ice" would have scoffed at mere months ago, drawing Minako closer to him, "do you remember when we first met?"
"Is this a test, koibito?" Minako asked with a sly giggle, nuzzling up to Xadium and leaning back onto him, using him like a chair as she rested her head on his shoulder and looked into his eyes. "Of course I remember... it was after we bumped into each other at the museum... no, the candy shoppe, you were looking for Pocky..."
"That must be it," the Time Lord agreed, turning her around and embracing her. But even as they kissed, he knew in the back in of his mind that something wasn't right. And somehow, even as Minako enjoyed Xadium's attentions, she knew something was amiss, too. But, she thought, enjoying the quiet moment, did it really matter? She'd finally gotten what she'd always yearned for... someone who loved her openly. honestly and completely for who she was. What did it matter if a few details were off?
Weeks passed, and the couple tore up the town, Minako enjoying the frantic, fast-paced atmosphere of a college town, and Xadium the attentions of the sweet and lovely sailor soldier who had taken his twin hearts by storm. As he enjoyed the sensation of watching her experience the world through fresh eyes, he found himself wondering how he ever got along without her. There was a time when he had held humans almost beneath contempt--them and their overexaggerated notions of love, romance and affection. He had always maintained the greeting card companies had managed to subvert the base procreative drives into something more sugar-coated for mass public consumption in order to maximize profits. Yet now, he found himself empathizing with, and understanding those selfsame feelings, both as they were expressed towards him by Minako, and what he himself was expressing to her. He found himself, for lack of a better word, "attached" to her. She was his world, and he could tell that in many ways, he was fast becoming hers. It was an unrivaled paradise, a perfect balance between two seemingly opposite poles, a sweet harmony of happy joy-filled days and tender caring nights.
And yet the back of his mind continued to insist there was something wrong. Not with Minako-- her feelings and actions were true. She did have a subtle manipulative streak, and had displayed prodigious cunning rivaled only by her mind-bendingly bad malaprops, but that was something Xadium happily embraced along with the rest of her. What others saw as flaws, he saw as endearing character traits that helped to make her all the more perfect in his eyes. Indeed, to him, she embodied perfection-- and as he thought back to the time he had first laid eyes on her battered form lying helpless in the dumpster, subconsciously, even then, he must have felt that way about her. Back then, he mused, when all he had wanted to do was send her away because she was interrupting his work on the TARDIS. His TARDIS, the vehicle he needed to repair to get away from Earth and face... something.
With something of a start, the Time Lord realized that he had been so intoxicated with Minako that for the past six months, he had done next to no work on the TARDIS at all. When he told this to Minako, she wrinkled her nose and pondered as well. She hadn't really talked to the other Senshi much at all, either. Of course, Usagi had been like that after she'd first moved in with Mamoru, so she figured that was normal, but something about it bothered her as well. She was so happy these that she barely even thought of the other Sailor Senshi, or her duty to them-- and this was odd, because they were like sisters to her, an extended family whose ties ran beyond the blood. They were usually never out of her thoughts, especially her best friend Makoto. And Artemis-- he was back in Japan but she had barely given him a second thought for the last half-year!
"Something's not right," she muttered.
"I agree," the Time Lord concurred.
Minako dialed up her friends and spoke with them. They were all happy and well, nothing unusual to report. But they also didn't seem worried about her long stay in America. There were no questions as to when she was coming back, or even if she was coming back. No one wanted to know more about the "new guy" Xadium, as the girls usually did, gossiping like mad when any of them had a new potential boyfriend... and she'd been with him for six whole months!
Minako was jarred out of her thoughts by a kiss to the base of her neck. Xadium had circled his arms around her waist and was pulling her closer... it was pleasant... yet worrying at the same time.
"X-chan," she whispered breathlessly, using her pet name for the Time Lord, "weren't you supposed to be..." she exhaled as he kissed the side of her neck softly. "...repairing something?"
"It can wait for later, Mina," the Time Lord said, drawing closer still, his breath tickling her ear. Minako half-closed her eyes and wanted to surrender to the feelings that were engulfing her. But something within her pulled her back from the edge.
"No, it can't," Minako said firmly, pulling away gently but authoritatively. She turned to face the Time Lord. The look in his eyes was full of love. Totally. There was none of the keen intellect, or sardonic persona that he had exhibited when they had first met. She knew that if she slapped him in the face right now, he'd take it with an unflinching smile. Something was very, very wrong here.
"I'm... not in the mood, and you need to fix things, X-chan," she said sternly, even though she felt her own heart saying, No, you want to play tonight. Things can wait until tomorrow. She felt an almost palpable energy forcing her to want to be amorous and flirty. It wasn't that she didn't have feelings for the Time Lord, but it was as if those feelings were being magnified, expanded, and blasted into every fiber of her being with tremendous force. Someone wanted her to want him... wanted her to want him now, when he had decided he would try to repair the TARDIS.
"Something's wrong! Minako cried, holding her head and dropping to her knees. As if snapped out of his trance by Minako's yelling, the Time Lord's expression grew serious, his concern for her overriding whatever amorous impulse that had taken hold of his psyche moments before. Kneeling down, he locked gazes with Minako, and saw the look of confusion and dawning understanding in his eyes mirrored in her own.
"Minako," he began huskily, trying to overcome the new emotions of fear and dread that were creeping into his voice, "I think... I think... you're being used... to manipulate me... to distract me... to keep me from doing what must be done..."
Minako nodded, tears forming in her eyes. They both knew that if they were right, then their entire "Summer of Love" had been based on nothing more than a lie.
"What is the meaning of this," Xadium said weakly, still looking at Minako and resisting the urge to dry off her tears. He no longer knew if he had that privilege.
"With my power, Time and Space are mere playthings. Your 'six months' of bliss were nothing more than six seconds of real-time experience.
"Liar," Minako stammered in Japanese, even as she knew the words to be true.
"Silence, girl," Matrix said coldly, turning to Xadium. "The other Time Lords I killed or assimilated into my being. But you, old friend... you I decided to spare, even after your meddling. I chose to give you the one thing even your cold implacable hearts could not resist, the true friendship that only love could provide."
"Based on a lie," Xadium said hoarsely, backing away from Minako as if he had been bitten by a poisonous snake. Bumping into the rear wall, he slid down weakly, and closed his eyes, as if trying to block out tears.
"Not really," Matrix said tiredly. "Well yes, I had to force things a bit. There was no way an introvert like you would ever gain the attentions of a social butterfly like this one."
"She would never give someone like me more than the time of day," the Time Lord said matter-of-factly. "I'm not a *fun* person."
"X-chan," Minako protested, "That's not true! We had lots of fun... I think..." she paused, wondering if any of their experiences had been true.
"What you both saw and felt were nothing more than elaborate simulations of the real world as plotted and controlled by the prognosticating centres of the Gallifreyan Matrix, a perversion of its ability to take input data and construct probability maps of the future, but still. 99% of the emotions were your own, with only a few 'pushes' here or there when either of you got a little too focused on business instead of pleasure. I just brought the girl here, put you two together and let 'nature take its course', both figuratively and literally."
"Why." Minako asked coldly. "Why me and not someone else."
"Why, child, because you made him happy, of course," Matrix said with no hint of sarcasm. "Your letter brought him no end of joy."
"Really?" Minako asked, a bit of warmth in her voice. Xadium did not reply, his eyes still closed.
"And you too had a void in your heart," Matrix continued to Minako, "even though you cover it well with your omnipresent smile and mangled witticisms. His genuine affection gave you something you deeply desired, and your love and loyalty gave him something he had lacked all his lives. A perfect symbiotic relationship."
"Made to serve your ends," Xadium hissed, pressing his wrist against the wall.
"I gave you paradise when I could have killed you!" Matrix yelled. "Such was my beneficence! And you repay me with scorn?! Very well, you may die with your fellows, old friend!" Narrowing his eyes, Matrix prepared to wipe Xadium from the time stream altogether.
"I won't let you!" Minako exclaimed, raising her arm in the air. "Venus crystal power, Make--!"
Matrix warped space and slammed Minako against the opposite wall, where she slumped down in shock. Not so much from the blast, but because, at the other end of the room, Xadium had seen her get hurt-- and didn't seem to care at all.
"So it was a lie," she whispered, ready to cry. Adonis had been right all those years ago. She was doomed to never have love. As Matrix moved in for the kill, she closed her eyes, not really caring anymore.
"Never," Xadium muttered, finishing what he was doing. All the while Matrix and Minako had been talking, he had been pressing his wristwatch (a cleverly disguised Gallifreyan device of incredible utility) against the wall, telepathically commanding its quantum filament connectors to integrate with the TARDIS controls embedded within the structure. Connections made, he had used part of his own brain as a temporary control circuit-- not enough to control the whole TARDIS systems, but enough to execute one or two very specific commands.
"X-chan??" Minako asked, hoping against hope.
"Die, worm," Matrix sneered, warping space to crush Minako into a powder. Or at least, that was his intent. As it was, nothing happened.
"The interior dimension of a TARDIS is in its own separate continuum, you know," Xadium said grimly. "A continuum the TARDIS itself controls. And I control... the TARDIS." With a rapid command, Xadium reconfigured space itself to turn on Matrix, compacting his body into a small cube, which the Time Lord quickly caught hold of and placed in a smaller box which was in actuality a tiny replica of the TARDIS interior.
"In there he has no ability to warp space, because the laws of physics have been changed to something no one in this universe has ever encountered," Xadium explained. "He has the combined intellects of all the greatest minds Gallifrey has ever produced, so it is inevitable he will escape... but this buys us--me... some time."
Sending the cube far into the future at the far edge of creation, Xadium sat down on the floor, the shock of the morning's revelations just beginning to hit home. Glancing at the Calendar, he saw that Matrix had been telling the truth. It was still March of 2001. His whole experience with Minako had been virtual.
Minako sat on the ground facing him. "So what... do we do now, X-chan... err, Xadium-san??"
The Time Lord looked at her sadly. "It's true you know. You never would have looked upon me as anything other than an acquaintance had he not interfered. You were used. I can't exploit that, no matter how much I--"
Minako tilted her head to one side and regarded the Time Lord closely. "I can't deny it," she said slowly. "X-chan is a nerd." She giggled.
Xadium scowled. "I happen to be a Time Lord, a highly educated scientist from a race of scientists," he snapped back a little archly. "Any resemblance to nerds is strictly superficial at best."
"X-chan..." Minako began softly, getting up. "Would you miss me if I left right now??"
"Yes." Xadium said flatly.
"Then we have to choose," Minako said seriously, walking over to him and beckoning him to stand. "Do we love a love lived in a lie, or live a love living now??"
The Time Lord tried to parse the sentence, but could not. So he responded in the filthy, disgusting, unsanitary human way. He drew her to him and answered with a soft, lingering kiss. When he broke it, he whispered, "Now and Forever, I choose... you."
"Heh," Minako replied as she cried a happy tear. "You make me sound like a Pokemon."
Try as he might, the stern, stolid, serious Time Lord could not help but break out in spontaneous laughter, which Minako joined in on. The sound of their laughter echoed throughout the night, and throughout all of time.