The Spluts stirred their slushies and threw sucked-out limes at each other as Alexis tried vainly to capture their attention. "Princesses! Girls! Spluts! Cut it oooooout!" Just then, Punkin blew a particularly large chunk of pink ice up Puddin's nose. Puddin sneezed a very wet pink sneeze all over the lizard, who tumbled backwards into Kitty's lap.
Kitty strung onion rings on Alexis' tail and laughed hard. "Look, sir! Spluts!"
Alexis groaned and stood up, muttering to himself. "I expected the worst, but this..." He trailed off into silence as a lime whacked him in the face.
Kitty picked him up and put him in the empty Sonic bag. "I think you're safer in here, pretty lizard." Muffled protests were ignored, and the three girls continued their Ched-R-Bite orgy. Fifteen minutes later, they lay on the ground like beached whales, moaning and clutching their stomachs. "I ate all that?"
"All that with double ranch dressing."
"Why is it called ranch dressing?"
"It comes from milk that comes from cows that live on a ranch?"
"Where?"
"Arizona."
"It should come in blue glass bottles."
"That's Kentucky dressing."
"Quit stealing your lines."
The paper bag rustled as Alexis' tail twitched. "Are you all quite finished?"
"More or less, shiny Lexi. Why?"
"While you're still calm and immobilized from cheese, I'd like to tell you a story."
"Oooh a bedtime story. Will you sing it?"
"If he's going to sing it let's make it opera and get him a hat with horns."
"I want a hat with horns."
Hoping to cut them off at the start, Alexis began talking loudly:
P>A very long time ago on the planet Couronne in the Tau Helios system in galaxy Sapphira, there was a highly-developed civilization of human creatures who unfortunately had the presumption to experiment with interdimensional travel. These humans had been ruled over and protected for countless ages by the family Coralline, rumored descendants of three mythological goddesses Aurora, Alisabel, and Coralie. The world's Princesses were always named for them, so that they would never be forgotten. At the time of our story three sisters were the Queens. Their husbands were Scientists and spent their days in research laboratories in the basement of the palace, and their daughters ran rampant around town and country alike, ostensibly protected by a particularly intelligent lizard who shall remain nameless."McKenzie?" Kitty asked. Alexis ignored her and continued.
The girls liked to hinder their fathers' work by asking them to play silly games like the barbaric pastime "lizardball," and also enjoyed hiding under the lab tables as they worked their experiments. The Princesses managed to learn a few things this way, surprisingly enough, for they shamefully neglected their studies and mocked their tutor most grievously.
"Was he perhaps small, golden, and shiny?"
"Lizardball." Someone snickered.
Alexis did not dignify this with a response.
Existence was comprised of two parts, the Known and Unknown Universes. The girls' fathers had managed to open portals to every dimension up to the twenty-third, and there it seemed to end. This they referred to as the Known. The dimensions from twenty-three to infinity were the Unknown. What kind of break between the two prevented them from travelling between was a complete mystery. Discovering the key to the Unknown became the focal point of existence for many Couronne Scientists. Generous rewards were offered for its disclosure, and of course the men Coralline worked hardest of all. The Princesses frolicked about, paying little or no attention to what went on around them, as usual...even now, it appears.
One night when the Scientists were despairing of a solution and nearly ready to believe in finite dimensionality, the girls tumbled down the stairs in a fit of boredom. The Princess Coralie, familiarly screamed after as Kitty, wandered her way to the inoperative Portal, set the Directive to twenty-six, charged the power cell, and jumped in. Her father watched, bemused, certainly not expecting what followed. The Princess disappeared.
A hideous commotion ensued. Kitty had disappeared to Goddess knows where, only she could bring herself back, and more importantly, she had somehow gotten the Transdimensional Portal to function in the Unknown! The royal family waited with baited breath until the Portal glowed and Kitty stepped back through. It was very pink there, she told her mother, and asked for pineapple juice. Her father attempted what she had just done and failed. Twenty-seven. Nothing. Thirty-two. Nothing. Seven hundred. Not a spark. What did Kitty do, they all clamored; what had they been doing wrong? She stared at them, not having an answer. Her cousins answered for her, She's never been all here, so perhaps part of her was already there and merely attracted the rest, like electrons and chemical bonding or something.
Punkin laughed demonically. "He said...bondage."
Kitty poked her. "No, that's your thing."
Puddin tittered through her nose. Alexis gritted his teeth and kept going.
The following afternoon, Kitty underwent several tests and experiments to isolate her transdimensional quality. After a few days, they discovered a mutation in her blood cells: some strange trace element apparently not found elsewhere in the Known. The excited Scientists named it coruskite and tried to synthesize it, but found it to be too unstable to exist longer than seven milliseconds outside of a vacuum. The Princesses made several quips about the vacuum between Kitty's ears, but the Scientists were not amused. They managed to create enough coruskite to mix into a titanium alloy. This they shaped into a key for aesthetic purposes. Due to some reaction with the mists of the Portal, a spiral hole in time-space opened to allow passage to all attempted dimensional Directives.
The planet rejoiced at the exploration possibilities this opened up to them, and the Key Corusca, as it was called, remained hidden until the Scientists could perfect its synthesis. Hidden on the person of Princess Kitty, shockingly. They key was shiny from coruskite, and she never lost anything that glittered. Time passed, but the Scientists met with no success. Still Kitty held the Key. Finally the Scientists began to question why Kitty held coruskite in her system. Coincidental mutation? Was coruskite commonplace in another dimension or on an undiscovered planet? Was it some strange recessive trait? They shoved the other two Princesses into the Portal without the Key, hoping they too would fall through. They were in luck. Alisabel and Aurora vanished without a trace. Unfortunately, they did not return.
"Well obviously they did at some point, since there's still three of us."
"I'm hungry."
"I'm bleeding."
"What'd you do?"<
"Paper cut from the lid to the ranch dressing."
"Is it shiny?"
"Not very. Make it stop."
Alexis paused and told her to wrap a napkin around it and quit whining.
After a few days, search parties set out after them, assuming there had been no shifts in the Directive since. They too did not come back. The Queens held high council and decided to wait and let the situation develop before taking further action.
The situation developed far enough overnight. Early the next morning, through the unguarded Portal swarmed masses of creatures from the Unknown, thousands upon thousands of the uncouth humanoid invader Autumnae, intent upon conquer and destruction. We were unprepared...with all the Scientists on the Unknown side, there was no one left to defend the planet. No time was lost; Kitty and the key were secreted away high in the mountains to prevent more coruskite from falling into enemy hands and aiding their spread to other Known dimensions. This much information we received: that the Autumnae had taken over the Unknown one dimension at a time, until they too reached the impenetrable break that we found on our own side. We deduced that the lost Princesses must have held the Portal open just long enough for them to gain entrance. At this point we still had no news of the other girls, and Kitty moped about apathetically, painting rocks pink and setting fire to small brush piles. At last the Autumnae took Couronne; I imagine they found their way off-planet as well. Strange powers they had...have.
As a last resort, the Queens decided to test Kitty's transdimensionality; perhaps the coruskite was highly concentrated in her enough to allow her own Portal without the other factors. It worked, surprisingly. I did not expect her to have the necessary focus. They sent me with her, to the other side to find Aurora and Alisabel...Punkin and Puddin. After quite some time, we found them wandering around the forty-fifth...I suppose their coruskite levels were too low to allow free movement between dimensions. We went back to Couronne then, and it proved to be a mistake.
"And boring."
"And lacking in that certain self-mocking something."
"Shut up and let me finish or you might miss dinner."
The girls shut up.
Our world was completely gone. The Autumnae had torn the planet apart in search of supplies...and the Key. They wanted the fourth through the twenty-third...badly. I left the Princesses hidden in the temples while I went to gather information....
There was a timeless legend on Couronne that the Goddesses are reborn into the royal family when the world hits its worst crises. The Coralline line always had three Queens and three Princesses, holding with this tradition. Little did I ever think to see this prophecy fulfilled myself...but I suppose the time had come.
"You are rather predisposed to ellipses, aren't you, shiny lizard."
"He's starting to sound like William Shatner."
"I'm still bleeding."
"I think that's ketchup."
"I bleed ketchup?"
"It's better to bleed ketchup than ranch dressing."
"Yeah. Think how mad the cows would be if you put them out of business."
"Am I going to have to move to Arizona?"
"May I continue now?"
"Whatever you say, Lexi-boo."
The lizard nearly bit through his tongue.
There had been four or five instances, but so very long ago as to be fairy tales by now. Princess Aurora would take on the powers of the goddess Aurora and become Sailoraurora, and the same applies to the other two. Alisabel becomes Sailorarsenicbutterfly, and Coralie becomes Sailorkitty. I can only guess at the significance of the title "Sailor"; perhaps it dates back that many millennia to when Sapphira was being colonized and Couronne was first settled. The etymology of "arsenic butterfly" eludes me completely.
"She was into poison before she got her first lighter."
" And the rest is history."
"This is too much like a history class."
"Lexi isn't much like Mr. Kuwitzky."
"That's a good thing."
"Poor Andy."
"That reminds me. How many dead babies can you...."
"None, because it's full of ketchup."
Alexis took a deep breath.
I shouldn't have left you there alone, but there was nothing else to do. Some of the temple priestesses had survived the attack and were hiding among the ruins. They recognized this as the next foretold crisis point and began making the proper sacrifices in prayer. I've never understood the way they do things, and I wasn't there at the time. Your lockets had been kept as relics for years, somehow remaining in perfect condition. The priestesses gave them to you; they were yours by right of birth...Through channeling, possession...in your cases, I would not rule out severe multiple personality disorder...
"My doctor said that won't happen any more if I just keep taking the pills."
"Didn't your mom buy a ten-year supply that day?"
"Now at least I have a reason to dissociate. Kind of."
"Hey! If we're Princesses, that means we can wear our tiaras all the time! Not just on Halloween!"
"You wear a tiara all the time already."
"It's shiny."
"I don't like ketchup."
;Alexis kept talking, mainly to himself.
However it was done, you transformed into Sailor form, as you did in the cow pasture today. When I came back to the temples for you, I found Alisabel annoying the head priestess with fireballs, Aurora shooting lightning at a scrying pool, and Kitty creating small explosions with her compact. The women were, needless to say, glad for me to take you off their hands.
I had discovered that the Autumnae were, as yet, confined to Couronne. Their leader, whom they called the Autarch, was much displeased that they hadn't figured out the Couronna ships. This cheered me somewhat; it would be easier to destroy them if they had only taken one planet. Not that I had any ideas on how to accomplish this. Finally I decided that it would be best for now just to push them back beyond the twenty-third, and take it from there.
The priestesses searched the ruined temples throughout the city and found some other items, which, they claimed, were for you girls, who had already taken to calling yourselves the "Sailorspluts." I see you've remembered that much in this life without my help. They gave Alisabel an oddly curved metal object, which she named "Allaquestalooma." For some reason, the other girls found this to be absolutely hilarious...It's been so long, my own memories are fading. Aurora had a kind of wand with a curiously flattened, wide end to it.
"Like a spatula?"
Punkin sat up suddenly. "I had a pink shiny spatula with a panda on the handle. But I lost it."
"Where's the panda!? It's going to dance at me." Kitty shrieked and hid behind Puddin, who groaned.
"How many times do we have to tell you, pandas aren't carnivorous. They eat bamboo and dead babies. That wasn't a real panda, anyway. That was a bad trip."
"Your mom's fault for spiking my sedatives."
"Do pandas like ketchup?"
"Its name was Antoinette."
"The panda?"
"No, the dead baby."
"No,the spatula."
"What's black and white and red all over?"
"A cow covered in ketchup."
"Mooooo."
"Wouldn't the cow be covered in ranch dressing?"
Alexis simmered. "May I?"
"May you what, pretty lizard?"
"Do cows eat dead babies?"
"Do pandas eat cows?"
"May I continue."
"Okay. But watch out for the panda. He might smell the ketchup."
"I don't like ketchup."
The high priestess of the main temple gave Kitty a silver mirror and told us that it would bring salvation to the people...Alisabel asked her if there would be retro appliances and weird old clothes for everyone. Kitty immediately whipped out her purse and began touching up her face. The priestess wished me luck..."You're going to need it, Alexis" were her parting words...and we never saw her again.
;Alexis sighed. "I must confess, I do not yet remember what happened after that. The Autumnae were defeated, and you girls did do it, but I suppose our memories have been suppressed for a reason. When the time is right, everything will be revealed to us, and you can do it again. I have faith in the Princesses." A butterfly landed on Puddin's nose, and she sneezed, hitting Punkin in the face as her head jerked forward. "You may be dumb as rocks..." Punkin whacked Puddin in the stomach. "...have all the grace of underripe turnips..." Puddin fell over onto Kitty, who bit her in the leg. "...and grate on my nerves like bad coffee, but you have all the power of our lost world behind you, and the Sailorspluts will prevail over all evil."
The three girls stared at him.
"I>What?"
"ou sound like a bad cartoon, Lexi."
The lizard sighed. "Whatever. Anyway, the first thing we need to do is train you to fight. After that, we can begin our search for the Key..." He trailed off as he realized the girls' attention had once again been diverted.
"You nugget, you ate all the ketchup."
"Didn't you bleed in that?"
"I don't like ketchup.">/p>
Alexis curled his tail, and his golden eyes stared off into the sun as it slowly descended to the horizon. His mission through every lifetime was to protect these girls and help them fulfill their destiny, and he would do it.
A ketchup-covered lime hit him squarely on the back, and he gritted his teeth.
"I don't like ketchup."
He would.