Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Warrior's Dream ❯ Chapter 1

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer: Some characters copyrighted by Naoko Takeuchi, Toei Animation, and Kodansha. Don't think that I'm stupid enough to claim them. I will, however, claim this story and all characters created by me.

A very special thanks to Griever, for his continued support and ideas.

Warrior's Dream
Chronicled by Dro'gan, called NiteFlier

I think on this now to bring my past together, the few fragments I have to become a greater whole. I still do not remember most of my time before my new Awakening, but I am determined, as I lie here, to find some "Self" as Simand says.

My first true memory was also my worst: when They came.

Snippets. A man, my father I think, yelling at other men, dressed in black suits. Peeking out from behind a skirt at the yelling man, and the calm men facing him. A woman, my mother? She gently pushes me to the back. The men in black have gotten angry now, pointing at me and demanding something. My father yells back, "You will not take her!" Mother has pushed me into the back rooms, but I can still hear yelling. Then a loud ringing sound, and something hitting the floor hard. Mother telling me, Run!

But they find me.

After they took me I cannot remember much. They did something to my mind, something that even now I cannot undo. Memories, scraps, they mold me, change me, every moment of every day, something is being done in my head. They make me sit, or walk, or sleep. I cannot control my own body, my own thoughts, my own memories. The only thing that is myself is my flame, my spirit.

No one speaks to me.

But I still can hear. "Project", "Corps", "Esper". These words become my most hated. What is this Project that they ripped me from my home? What kind of Corps uses children to fight? What is Esper?

Sleep. I must sleep.

They try to unlock secrets buried in my mind. Secrets that I know not. Secrets that are a part of me. Why do they kill me? Why do they destroy me? My flame dims.

I do not know what they did to me. I do not how long I was in their clutches. My organic memory serves me not, for it was that, my organic mind, they killed. Trying to find secrets that I kept, that I did not have.

There were others like me. They make me face them, fight them. Not with my body, but with the secrets they have finally uncovered. Force walls push me and ice burns me. They make me fight back but I cannot. I know not how. They let me loose to fight, but I shall never let them back in.

I have to die first.

The fight is over. My body is broken, icy burns cover me. I can't let them take me over again. But my will is strained from resisting their touch, and I cannot stay awake anymore.

They control me. Never again do they let me go. Not in sleeping, or waking. I cannot control my body, I cannot control my mind, only my flame.

Brutalizing fights. Resting periods. Fights. Rest. I cannot stay awake. My mind is dreaming. My body moving to their will. In every fight, my opponent is different, but the outcome is always the same. I lose. I am wounded. I die just a bit more inside.

My mind sleeps.

My mind Dreams.

Dreams of a life without pain. A life without torture. A life that is mine own.

Can this life be mine as well?

My mind wakes. This life will be mine.

They are giving up on me. Their hold is less on my body, my mind. It will be their last mistake.

One last fight. A boy, taller, stronger, but that does not matter in fights like these. I let them control me. Let them make me fight. The boy wins. I am on the floor, wounded deeply. They finally let go just enough.

The door to my mind, stretched, broken open, always used. It is empty for the first time since I came here. I slam it shut.

They notice. They try to break back in. But I am off the floor. I stumble. I have not moved this body in so long, but it comes back to me, memory dribbles back of all the tortures they have done to me. I can see the boy turning, saying something.

I scream. And the world burns with my flame.

* * * * *

Am I dead? I cannot hear, cannot see, cannot feel, cannot smell. Is this death? Then I welcome it, for I am alone at last in my mind.

I sleep. For this will be the last time I truly can.

* * * * *

I cannot see, cannot feel, cannot smell.

I can hear.

Shuffling. The whirr-click of machines. Someone softly singing.

I like him.

Steps. Someone, no, two someones approaching. They enter, but the man already present makes no notice of them. The two men, yes, they are men, stop above me. I am laying down?

"I don't like it."

"It was the only survivor. We have our orders."

"The records state that it was the worst one they had."

"Then why was it at the epicenter?"

"Could they have pushed it too far?"

"Who cares. We received what we needed. Simand!"

The shuffling and singing stop. The man in the background whispers near.

"Yes?"

"What is its status?"

There is the shuffling of papers once more.

"Over ninety percent of her original material was replaced. Various techniques were used to tie the new portions into what was left of her neural net. As well, we slaved a NP/658 to make up for what brain matter she had lost. Her--"

"Enough. Have you activated it yet?"

"She was in the process of waking up when I last checked."

"You mean its active?!"

"As far as I know, she is. However, due to orders, I've cut off what sensory input I could."

"Fine. Remember, Simand, You will make this work. A single report from me and you'll be tossed out onto your ass."

The two men leave. "Simand" stands by me for a second.

"That young fool." A harsh laugh. "This old fool as well."

There is movement, then a quiet voice by my ear.

"Can you hear me? Can you understand me?"

I cannot feel myself, but I think for my jaw to move. An echoing, sad, sorrowful wail. Is that me?

"Hush. It's all right. I understand." I can hear him move off. "It's all right. Just be calm for a moment.

I cannot hear, I cannot see, I cannot smell.

I can feel.

I am lying on a hard surface. My body is too heavy to be mine. My mouth opens again, but now I feel myself lifted up, being held, being comforted.

I cry.

* * * * *

One at a time. Sound, smell, touch, sight. Systems check to see if I can assimilate the data each present me. Simand is always with me. When I wake and when I sleep. He has a small cot in an adjacent room, and food is brought for him three times a day. Each day he checks a different system, making sure that I am calm with what I have become.

What am I?

When I asked Simand this, he asked me to search my memory, to try and find a basis for myself.

I have done so, and have come up with one answer.

I am nothing.

* * * * *

Simand does not like my answer.

"Why do you say you are nothing?"

Even though I cannot feel, I can still hear my slurred words. "H-how can I be anyth-thing, when I have nev-er been al-lowed to be mys-self?"

Strange. I think I can feel tears. Even stranger, is Simand holding me now?

"It's all right, my dear. You can cry as much as you want to. Never be afraid to show your emotions. I'll be here to help."

I *can* feel tears, now. I must tell him. Tell Simand of the torture that is my life.

* * * * *

"Oc-cular, please."

"Just a moment."

Sound is dimmed. It's still there, along with my sense of touch and smell. That is something I have yet to tell Simand about. He still thinks I only have one sense at a time. But they are there, muted.

I look around the mechanical room. The table I sit on is the only piece of furniture in the room, the rest of the space is taken up by monitoring equipment. Machines monitoring a machine.

Off to the side is the door to Simand's room, and on the other side is the pressure-sealed door to the outside.

I have never left this room.

Simand, dear old Simand, turns around after typing something in the change commands in one of the computers. He is old and gray, but strong. He can lift my weight easily, a task I wonder at sometimes. He is clothed in a long white jacket with pens and datapads stuffed into the pockets, and shirt and pants. There is a small pocket watch he wears on a chain, Oldtech it is. He wears sandals to avoid the masses of wires on the floor.

Lastly, there is me. My body is unclothed, skin pale in the artificial light. Is this what I would have looked like, had I not been taken by "Project E" as Simand calls my last residence? Taken, and twisted?

Simand says I look like a normal ten year old girl. Am I ten? Was I a girl before? There are things I need to know that Simand cannot tell me, no matter how much he knows.

There are a few things to differ me from a "normal" girl. My mass is one, a perfect seventy-five point two-five kilograms. "Minor" flaws in my appearance is another: pale, no hair, and my piercing gaze that even Simand cannot quite get a hold of. And the datajack, behind my left ear.

The datajack that keeps me connected to the ever-monitoring machines.

I look at the machines once more. Newtech they are, with a bit of Oldtech thrown in here and there. No Lostech in them, though.

Not like me.

Simand told me that after the Great War, technology slowly built itself back up from the apocalypse. Oldtech was found, remnants of the great civilizations of the past, and reverse engineered to create Newtech, for the civilizations of the present. Oldtech is worth more than Newtech, but less so each day. But, there were artifacts from the past that hidden quite well, and were not found until Newtech was accepted by the masses.

These artifacts could not be reverse engineered. They remained a mystery, and some of those who were more suspicious than others murmured: magic.

That was the reason for Project E: to see if there was latent power in certain bloodlines. It had been a partial success, they had found those who could wield magic, but even these could not make Lostech. The program did provide excellent warriors to pit against other nations, however, and so it continued as such.

Until me.

I don't know how Simand got all this information, about Project E and Lostech. Both are considered top secret information, but Simand seems to know more than he lets on.

He was the one who recreated me.

He commandeered nearly every piece of Lostech he could find, I don't know how many toes he stepped on or stubbed to get what he wanted. He took my broken and burned body and made me whole again. I do not know if this whole was me to begin with, but it is me now.

It is me.

* * * * *

Simand's pocket watch has fascinated me.

Its simple, measured movements, the turning of the gears inside. They make watches like it now, Newtech, but those aren't as pretty.

The sudden movement of the second to second, the slight movement of minute giving way to minute, the gradual sweep of the hour around and around.

I've spent days watching that watch. Listening to the click of gears inside of it. Feeling the minute vibrations of the time passing by.

I love that watch.

* * * * *

Do I sleep? Simand says I do. But he said it with that look in his eye. That look that says he's not telling everything. He gets that look whenever his superiors come to hear his reports.

I don't like them.

They are dressed in black suits, like the men who came to take me to Project E. For that alone I am biased against them. But there are other things. When they come, they are nervous around me. They clumsily try to make sure that I am not listening. Waving their hands in front of my eyes, coughing behind me, trying to examine the monitors of the machines.

I ignore them.

They are disbelieving, too, that I am what Simand is putting so much time into. Apparently he is an expert. Of what I do not know. For some reason they are unnerved most of all by the datajack and wire that comes out from behind my ear. Simand said that it is unusual for a datajack to be implanted in one so young. If it were not for the fact that that entire side of my head is artificial, he said that the bones would grow and crush the linkages inside my brain.

But it is artificial. It is metal, and the datajack will not be destroyed by growing bones. That saddens me some. I will never change from what I am now.

Some of the visitors have asked Simand about my hair. Since I have none, they are curious as to how he proposes to "field" me. Simand just shrugs and says that that is coming.

The visitors go as they have come, no real intelligence won from the meeting.

I have learned to ask Simand about things that I did not know of before.

* * * * *

My body is strange. I can feel the difference between the organic and tech portions. There is a thin line, almost ribbon like, where the two meet. It is an unfortunately small ribbon. The only thing it really encompasses is the inside of my head, a thin strip in my neck and a bit of my right shoulder. All the rest is false-me, things that don't feel quite right.

Like the datajack in my head. It touches the true-me portion, but it goes deep to do so, all the way to the near middle of my head. The left side is Lostech, something that Simand seems to know far too much about. The datajack feels like something that was stuck in, like the rest of my body that is false-me.

I wish I could find a way to switch something from false to true. Lies to reality. I remember something that I thought I had lost.

My flame. My spirit.

I hadn't really thought about it since I came under Simand's care, but I can feel it's there. But it feels like false-me for some reason. It feels like it belongs to me but something keeps it away. It doesn't feel stuck in, but rather, pushed out.

Can I bring it in?

I try, but it is the same as the rest of the false-me. I can't quite reach it. But it grows brighter when I try. I try again, and it grows again. I remember.

* * * * *

I remember the last time I used my flame. I did not try. I did.

Like the second hand on Simand's watch, clicking to the minute, forcing the minute to the hour, shifting the hour just enough so that all three are lined up in perfection for just one second...

The part of me that is false-me disappears, leaving only true-me.

My second stretches forever.

* * * * *

Simand was surprised to find my eyes tracking him when he had switched my senses to hearing and smell. He had been taking it slow, edging into the area of two senses, but I had already beaten him there. I think it surprised him as well that I was overriding the commands from the machines.

"I suppose you have an idea of what you are doing?" he asked me.

"Not really." My stumbling over words was almost nonexistent now that I could both hear and feel what I was saying.

He nodded and stood in front of me. "There are limits to even my knowledge of Lostech, and I am reaching them. Do you want me to tell you of what you are composed of?"

I thought a moment and nodded. I was still becoming used to the fact that there was no more false-me.

He sighed. "When you were brought to me you were missing everything beyond the lower half of your torso, and nearly your entire left side was char. Your skull had been split open and you had lost perhaps ten to twenty percent of your neural matter. In replacing what brain matter you had lost, I had to replace everything you had lost, as well as the majority of your right side as well, because of problems with fine muscle control. Eighty percent of what I put into you is Lostech, The rest Oldtech, and far more reliable than any Newtech equivalent. Most of the Lostech, though..."

I wait patiently. He frowns suddenly, and reaches out to caress my skull. There is a sort of prickly sensation to it, as if he were not rubbing just skin. He takes a step back and gestures to me. "Stand up."

I quickly get down from the table that is my bed, and stand straight. He looks me over carefully, lifting my arm, dropping it back to my side, going behind me.

He returns to stand in front of me. "What did you do?" He doesn't look like he expects an answer, so I give him none. He turns away to one of the monitoring computers and concentrates on what he sees there. I get back up onto the table and lie down, moving the cord trailing behind me away and wishing I could feel tired, so I could sleep.

* * * * *

Only a few days later I realize that the prickly stuff on my head is hair. Real, silky hair! Mother always used to say my hair was such soft and silky stuff.

Mother? Who? Where did that come from?

* * * * *

Simand is nervous. I can tell. He's found something he can't explain. Not to himself, and definitely not to his superiors.

He can't explain my hair.

Within the twelve days since he noticed it, it has grown almost down to my shoulders.

And I've eaten.

Simand almost had a fit when I wandered into his room after he had been brought food and begged him for some. I had been feeling something strange in my mid-torso, and when the porter had brought food to him I remembered feeling the same way before Mother fed me. I'm remembering more. I remember faces, like Mother and Father, and Grandpa. I wonder if Grandpa is still around.

Simand had to arrange a meeting with his supervisors to finagle food for himself after I get done with his. But he didn't want to have to explain it, because he can't.

I sit on my table, ignoring the men in suits as they come in. They, however, cannot ignore me. They notice my hair, and stare.

Simand clears his throat, attracting their attention away from me. "Gentlemen, I requested you her today to--"

"Forget that!" says the younger, "What happened to it?"

Simand looks at me nervously. "There... there was an error. There must have been. The NP/658 that took the place of her left hemisphere had decided to have her grow hair. To facilitate this, she's grown an appetite as well."

"What? You mean it gets hungry? And what do you mean about its brain?"

"Er." Simand looked at me again. "Yes, she gets hungry. And what don't you understand about her brain?"

"You told us you had replaced its brain with a computer!"

"No," Simand's voice grew rough. "I said that I had slaved a computer to her remaining neural functions. She still has a brain."

The older man stepped towards me. "Are you aware?" he asks me.

I cant my head to the side. "I know what is myself and I know what is not. What other kind of awareness is there?"

It is the first time either of the men have heard me speak. They are obviously surprised. The younger one starts to reach down by his side, but the older stops him. Turning back to me he asks, "And how long has you *been* you?"

I blink and think on this. "There were parts of me that were false-me. But now there isn't. All that is me is true-me."

Simand speaks up, "When? How?"

I turn to him. "A short while before you felt my hair. And..." I think for a minute as the others wait. "I think it was like the second hand moving to noon."

I look at the three men and realize that even Simand doesn't know what I'm talking about. I hold out my hand to him and ask: "Watch."

His eyes widen as he realizes what my earlier statement meant. He pulls the watch out of his pocket and hands it to me. I open it and listen to its sound for a few moments. The watch face says that its four thirty-four. I shake my head and show the two men in suits. They are still puzzled.

"What has that got to do with you growing hair?" the younger one complains.

Simand explains. "She made a small change that had great effects."

The older man looks at me again. "What did you change?"

"I made the parts of me that were false-me become true-me. I don't know how I did it."

He frowns. "What is "false-me" and "true-me"?"

"False-me was... almost everything. True-me was very little. Mostly up here." I tap my head.

Simand interrupted. "False-me was everything artificial, wasn't it?"

I nod at him and he fades back to one of the control computers.

The men in suits look at each other. The older turns to Simand. "Your request is approved. However," Simand looked back at him now. "I want to be informed the instant anything else happens."

Simand nods and the men exit.

* * * * *

"How is it possible?"

Simand has been repeating this for some time, so I feel as if I should not ask him what he is talking about. Besides which, the frequency with which he looks at me gives it away.

I feel along my hair and luxuriate in the soft sensations my fingers pick up. I can't tell the difference between what was false and true. It is all true to me now. My fingernails, too, grew for a while, but then they stopped. And at just the right length, I think.

I'm still eating a lot, though. And I feel off balance. Its weird.

"How is it possible?"

I look over at Simand and shake my head, but doing so brings the cord to my attention. That cord still keeps me attached to the computers, and at times drives me to distraction. It is not a part of me, but it is connected to me. I can feel the pulses it gives out, feeding the computers information on me.

I wonder what kind of data it transfers?

The computer that takes up the majority of the left side of my head is connected directly to that cord through the datajack. But isn't that computer a part of true-me? Couldn't I access what data it processes?

I try and stretch my consciousness down the cord, but can't. Is there some kind of block? Or am I just not doing it the correct way?

"How is it possible?"

"Simand?"

"Hurr, Yes?"

"How do you use a datajack?"

"What? Oh, no you don't!" He got up and walked over to me. "Don't try and use it alone. You don't have any browser software, or firewall functions. Don't even think about it."

"Will you give me those?"

"What? A browser and firewall? Why? You don't need anything like that yet, all you're hooked up to are these." He waved around the room.

"But I want to know what the pulses mean."

He stopped. "Pulses?"

I nod. "It gets annoying feeling them and not knowing what they mean."

He looks at me oddly. "How many are there?"

"Lots. Lots and lots. In just one second. They aren't even though. That's how I know it must be data."

"You can feel electrons moving?"

"Only in the datajack."

Simand sighed. "Fine. I'll get you what you need to understand those."

I smile at him. I like smiling.

* * * * *

Hand, fingers splayed. Zoom on the pointer. Density and value of skin shown, then sensory information, and circulatory. A cross section shows the metal bones, with something hidden inside.

Switch to torso, lower half. Cross section shows organs. Zoom on stomach. Display relative content, nutritional value, estimated time until processed food has been moved to distribution channels.

Switch to head. Cross section shows some areas in gray instead of active. Zoom on eye. Display shows no light is infiltrating lids, however, IR shows lots of heat, and other modes show different things.

Zoom out. Switch to NP/658. Shows neuron activity for organic side, as well as data rates for transfer. Different modes are accessible here. There is one called "datadump", another "dataacess".

* * * * *

"Wow."

I am lying on the table. Doing nothing more than following Simand as he flows commands through the cord and datajack. It is amazing what I am learning about myself.

"You know... You can access this yourself." Simand says.

"Yes."

"Er. That is, why do you keep following me?"

"What's wrong?"

He sighs. "Come here."

I get up from the table and walk towards him. My balance is still off, and I don't know why. I stand next to him and look at the screen. It shows the same as what I see in my head.

Simand turns back to the computer and zooms out to show my full form. "You're eating up to two thousand calories a day. Your systems weren't designed to handle that kind of load. A little bit here and there for appearances, but not that much. You are also eating more heavy elements than a completely biological person does. That much was expected and called for in basic, non-intrusive matinence. What is worrying is that besides your hair, which has stopped for the most part, you as a whole are growing."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you are growing up."

I pause. I'm... growing up? "I'm getting older?"

He nods. "Your organic parts are growing, and, quite surprisingly, your inorganic parts as well."

I slowly sink down to the floor. Simand quickly gets up out of his chair and crouches near me.

"How?" I say in a small voice.

"I don't know. That is, I don't know how it started. I think it was when you changed your inorganic parts to true-me, instead of false-me. But now..." he trailed off. "Now the Lostech in you is changing both itself and the Oldtech. Systems that were separate and disparate are combining to make a whole. A living, growing, whole. The NP/658 is changing itself and becoming more a part of your brain as a whole than a computer put into your head. As well..." He stopped.

I look up hope in my eyes. There was nothing wrong? But why did he stop? "Simand? Tell me? Please?"

He looks at me for a moment. "Listen very closely to this." He reached up behind my left ear and I hear a slight *click* and the screen above us darkens and shows an error message. He tosses the end of the cord to the ground.

"Simand?" My voice wavers. I have never been without that cord since I became what I am now.

"Listen carefully. There were others before you. Others that were not as wounded, not as adaptable. They died without ever waking. Over time I was able to collect more and more Lostech, hoping that this time, I would not have to go about taking it out of them again. Then you came, holding onto life by sheer force of will, I put every piece of Lostech I had into you. I thought that I knew what each and every system and part did, but I know now I was fooling myself. Those pieces and parts are fusing, becoming a whole. Some of them aren't doing what I thought they would. You are becoming what you should have been."

I look at him, not really understanding what he is telling me. "What am I?"

Simand looks me over carefully. "This project that they have had me working on, it was to give them an infiltrator into enemy operations. The NP/658, is a controller for the offensive and defensive systems integrated in you, but it has changed to become something more, and it has integrated into your organic brain. As a part of you, it commanded your hair to grow, and your body to age. I believe that when you reach the age that you believe is comfortable, you'll stop growing. That is what happened to your hair, after all."

"But what am I now?" I wail.

"Shh, shh, it is all right, everything will be fine." He holds me close, keeping my turmoil at bay. "They thought that your personality, your sense of self had been destroyed. But instead, it has taken over what they thought they could control." He pulls me back some, and looks me straight in the eyes. "You are You. Find your own path. You have the ability to be what ever you want. Here, you can't stay here, I'll help you get out." He stands and pulls me towards his room. "I have a few things that you can take. I'm afraid none of my clothes will fit you, however."

He pulls a box from under his bed, inside are all sorts of different gadgets and small machines. Simand shuffles through it and pulls out a small bag, filling it with a few items from the box.

"Here's a few things to help you learn about yourself. And this." He pulls his watch from out of his pocket. "You made more use out of it than I ever did." He places the watch in the bag, and loops the shoulder strap around my head. "I can help you get out of the compound, but I won't be able to do much after that. You should go to one of the dark districts. They shall surely come looking for you."

Simand grabs my hand again and we go to the doors to the outside. He raps on the door for a moment, then it opens to show a man in a strange splotchy outfit. "What--?!" He cries out, before Simand has laid him out with a straight punch.

We run down halls, turning corners seemingly at random. Simand looks like he knows where he's going. Before too long, however, I hear a loud, synthetic wail. "Damn, I didn't think they'd catch on that soon." Simand says.

We are still running, but now I see other people, yelling and trying to catch up with us.

Suddenly, we are through a pair of doors and out into the night!

I hear shots now, and the rattle of plaster and concrete saying that they are aiming for us. We turn a corner, but Simand suddenly sags, and leans heavily on the wall next to us. I look at him, and see a dark stain spreading from his shoulder and chest.

"Go! I told you I couldn't help you from here. GO, damnit!" Simand collapses.

I run.

End part one of two.