OBLIGATORY LEGAL DISCLAIMER : None of these guys are mine. The Sailor 
Senshi belong to DIC and Kodansha, while the Yoroiden are owned by 
Sunrise and Graz Entertainment. Okay? So don't bother suing me. I'm a 
student. 

                       RONIN SUMMER : FLASHBACK
            
         A Sailor Moon / Yoroiden Samurai Troopers cross-over

             by Morgan Hudson (dataraven_659@excite.com)

Chapter Five : Check Out A Book

	"This is crazy!" The blond girl dropped to her hands and knees 
and looked under her bed. "I mean, I left it right here yesterday 
morning! It didn't just get up and walk away, did it?" 

	Standing in the corner, a young man with short blond hair 
sighed and leaned against the wall. He was dressed in a hooded white 
robe with red and blue embroidery around the edges, and his glasses 
glinted in the sunlight as he shrugged. "It probably did. Whoever this 
'Ace' guy is, he's obviously a few steps ahead of us." 

	"I'm still confused, Sage," a blue haired young man with long 
pointed ears said as he lounged on the bed and stared at a playing 
card, "you're telling me that this guy just dragged you aside and read 
your fortune? Why would he warn you that he was up to something, if 
you're supposed to be the only one who can stop him?"
	
	"He says he wants a fair fight," Sage said with a shrug. "All 
I know is that Queen Beryl is up to something, and that the book I 
lent this girl has something to do with it. I think that Chief Scribe 
Nezumi might have hidden some kind of vital information in it, and that
might be why I'm so important to stopping them."

	"Why is that?" The blond girl asked, looking suddenly very 
interested. 

	"Because you mentioned that the biography of King Saigo I lent 
you has a scene where his daughter is kidnapped. But I've READ the 
Biography of King Saigo the Eighth, and I know that he only had sons." 
Sage smiled. "I'm probably the only person in the whole castle who has 
read that book enough to pick out whatever details Nezumi has inserted.
And, if we can get our hands on that book, I'll bet it contains 
instructions on how to kidnap the Moon Princess!"

	"So," the girl said quietly to herself, "the Princess is in 
danger? Then it sounds like Sailor Venus needs to get her hands on 
that book..."

	"What was that?" Sage asked. 

	"Nothing!" She replied. "Just... trying to remember if I left 
that old thing lying around somewhere else!"

	Rowen glanced over at her and smirked. Elves, even half-elves, 
were blessed with amazingly acute hearing. So, he thought to himself, 
our little bookworm is the one and only Senshi of Venus? How very 
interesting... 

**********

	Sage looked down at the four cards he still held. "Well," he 
said, "According to Ace, I have to find the Five of Swords if I want 
them to help me protect the Queen of Stars. We know that the Princess 
is the Queen of Stars, and I'm the Knave of Hearts..." He lifted the 
card in question, showing everybody the image of himself sketched on 
the face of it. "Captain Kento of the Royal Guard is the Knave of 
Clubs, and Rowen over there is the Knave of Swords... that means I 
still have to find the Knave of Stars and the Wild Card." 

	Sighing, Rowen sat up on the bed and laid down the card he had 
been staring at : his own, to be precise. Acting on impulse, Sage 
crouched next to the bed and laid down the other four cards. The Knaves
of Clubs, Swords, and Hearts they put in one row, and the Knave of 
Stars and the Jester they set in another row. 

	"Okay," Rowen said calmly. "All we need to do is figure out 
what, or who, these two cards might be. You said that they're Knaves, 
right? So what's a Knave?"

	The girl leaned over Sage's shoulder, staring down at the 
cards. "Well, it's the third highest face card, coming in right before 
Queen and King of their suit. Usually, a Knave is associated with a 
Knight, and that's what the word used to mean." She reached down and 
tapped the Knave of Clubs. "Kento is a Knight, because he's the captain
of the Royal Guard, and he likes to use blunt weapons. So... the Knave 
of Clubs."

	"True," said Sage, as he pointed at his own card, "but a Knave 
is also a thief, like the Knave of Hearts in that nursery rhyme. Ace 
said I was the Knave of Hearts because I had the power to toy with 
girls' feelings, although I don't know what he meant by that."

	"And the Knave of Swords was me," Rowen said, "because I was 
stealing swords from Kento's armory and teaching myself swordplay on 
the sly." 

	"So... who are the Knave of Stars and the Jester?"

	Sage pursed his lips. "Well... could the Jester be a Court 
Jester, maybe?" 

	"We don't have a Court Jester in the Moon Kingdom right now," 
the girl pointed out, "and we have to assume that whoever they are, 
they're nearby. Maybe the trick lies in what a Jester is in a card 
game." 

	"Well... it's nothing." Rowen shrugged. "A Jester is a useless 
card, and usually thrown out of the deck. A castaway. It has no value 
whatsoever."

	"Or, depending how you look at it, every value." Sage countered
as he looked down at the blurry card. "Jesters are Wild Cards, too. 
They can have any value they want, depending how the game goes. And 
there's usually two in every deck, but we've only got one."

	Venus groaned and shook her head. "So, it has no value, and 
every value, is vital to the game, but usually thrown away, and is two 
things at once? Now I'm getting confused..."

	"Hmmm..." Rowen picked up the card and squinted at it. "You 
know, this picture may be really blurry right now, but I think I can 
make part of it out... I mean, that's the Jester, and he's holding some
kind of masks in his hands... What's that hanging off the left mask? 
Some kind of hat?" Holding it closer to his face, Rowen narrowed his 
golden eyes even further and suddenly gasped. "I know who it is! I 
think I know who he is! You two work on the Knave of Stars, and I'll 
go get him!" Leaping off of the bed and tucking the card into the 
front of his tunic, he grinned. "Rowen is off to save the day!"

**********

	Or at least, Rowen confessed as he wandered the corridors of 
Serenity's palace, that's would I would do if I could find that damn 
tunesmith! He was so certain that he had known who the Jester was! It 
even made sense, in a way : what was a Jester? Someone who entertains 
the court. And who was currently in charge of entertaining the court?
His good friend Cye, who also happened to a wear a big floppy hat with 
a droopy feather on it, just like the hat in the picture. 

	Only Cye was absolutely nowhere to be found! Rowen sighed as 
he fiddled with the card in his hand. At this rate, he might as well 
just find a wild goose and chase it around the courtyard : it felt like
he'd be making the same progress. 

	His ears twitched, and Rowen stopped in the middle of the 
hallway. He could hear something going on behind the intricately 
engraved double doors he stood by, and that was wrong. He made a point 
of knowing everything that went on in the castle, as he was essentially
a permanent houseguest, and as such knew that the rooms behind those 
doors were supposed to be empty. Raising one eyebrow, he quietly 
reached down and drew an arrow from the quiver that hung at his waist 
and pulled the bow he had strapped over his shoulder into his hand. 
Nocking the arrow, he reached over and nudged the door open with his 
boot. Could he have stumbled onto the Dark Kingdom plot all on his own?

	Not, he realised as he looked into the room, unless the Dark 
Kingdom plot involved a beautiful girl lying on the bed and sobbing. 
With a sigh, he lowered his bow and slid the arrow back into its 
quiver. He really should get back to looking for Cye... 

	The girl looked up at him and sniffed, wiping at her eyes with 
the back of her hand. She was dressed in a red gown, and had a thick 
mane of long black hair. Rowen gulped. "Er, I'm sorry," he apologised, 
"I didn't know anybody was staying here." Biting his lip, he slung the 
bow back over his shoulder and tugged his pigtail of blue hair free 
from the bowstring. "Why are you crying?" 

	The girl sat up and looked at him as he fidgeted in the 
doorway. "My family was murdered by the Dark Kingdom."

	"Oh..." Rowen blinked. "Well, that's okay then. I'm pretty sure
I cried when my family was murdered by the Dark Kingdom. I can't be 
sure : I was pretty young." I sound like an idiot, he realised, and 
ran his fingers through his hair. "Well, uhm, except my brother, that 
is. At least, I THINK he's still alive..."

	"Does your brother hate you?" The girl asked quietly, and Rowen
shrugged. 

	"Probably." Rowen tossed his pigtail back over his shoulder and
sat next to the girl on the bed. "Bro and I never quite saw eye to eye.
Mainly because he likes to act like he's bigger than me."

	Mars glanced at the strange boy sitting on her bed and 
swallowed. "Does your brother want to kill you?" 

	That gave Rowen pause. "Well, if he did, I wouldn't know. I 
haven't seen him since I left Earth nearly five years ago." He sighed, 
and tucked his hair behind his ears. Mars stared. "What?" He asked. 

	She pointed to the long and sharp-tipped lobes. "Your ears," 
she said curiously. "I've never seen anybody with such strange ears."

	"Oh, that's because I'm an elf!" Rowen grinned. "You didn't 
have elves where you come from? Where ARE you from, anyway?" 

	"I am the Princess of the planet Mars." Mars said with a sad 
look, as she leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, placing
her head in her hands. "Or at least I was when there still was a Mars 
to be Princess of... I'm not sure what I am now. Can I touch them?" 

	"My ears?" Rowen blinked. "You MUST be from Mars." He looked 
off into the corner of the room, not noticing that Mars was already 
reaching towards his head. "Everybody knows better than to touch the 
ears of an elf!"

	"Why?" Mars asked, stretching out a finger.

	"Well, elven ears are very s-EN-sitive!" With a yelp, Rowen 
bounced off of the bed and leapt across the room, nearly slamming into 
the far wall before he landed and turned to glare at Mars, who drew 
back her hand and bit her lip.

	"I'm so sorry!" She said, looking like she was about to cry 
again. "Did I hurt you?"

	"No," Rowen confessed shakily, "I'm not HURT... but you really,
really shouldn't do that anymore." He smiled nervously. "Let's just 
say that my mother always told me not to let a strange girl touch my 
ears until we were engaged."  

	"Oh." Her eyes widened, and she suddenly blushed. "OH! I'm so 
very sorry! A-are you engaged?" 

	"No, I'm free as a bird in the sky." Rowen smiled again, a 
little less nervously this time. "It's, uhm, it's my big brother who 
has all the women chasing him. Seems to me that I heard something about
YOU being engaged, though..." 

	"Yes, to my darling Jadeite." Mars smiled, then looked downcast
yet again. "Who by now is either dead, or working for the enemy, as my 
brother accused."

	Uh-oh, Rowen thought, long story alert. Fortunately, he knew 
exactly how to deal with situations like this. Sitting down next to 
the girl, he placed one arm around her shoulders and smiled. "Tell me 
all about it," he said kindly. After all, Cye wasn't going anywhere...

**********

	"Well," Cye said as he carefully slung his biwa over one 
shoulder, "it's been fun, but I have to go." 

	"Really?" From her seat at the chessboard nearby, Princess 
Mercury looked up in confusion. "But why, dear cousin Arashi? Where 
will you go from here? It seems as though you only just now came..."

	"I wish I could stay, Mercury, but you know the saying : a 
rolling stone gathers no moss, but a minstrel must wander to earn his 
green!" Shaking back his shoulder length mop of brown hair, the young 
man donned his foppish navy beret with its comedically drooping 
feather and picked up his travelling pack in one hand. "Perhaps I'll 
travel to the Dark Kingdom : you have to admit, if there was ever a 
place in need of cheering up, it's there!" 

	Mercury suddenly looked very serious as she reached out and 
caught Cye by the wrist. "My cousin, I pray you : stay far away from 
that wretched place! Endymion and his Generals travelled there, and 
they have never returned! It is a place of villainy and despair, and 
I would fear for you."

	Cye grinned. "Very well, my dear cousin. I must go wherever 
the waves take me, but I shall be sure to paddle away from the Dark 
Kingdom. That old sea hag Beryl would probably put me off of my supper,
anyway." 

	"Visit with your father, Arashi... I mean, Cye." Mercury smiled
gently. "I'm certain he is already sorry for whatever fight it was 
that drove you two apart." 

	"Oh no! A castaway he made me, and a castaway I shall remain!" 
Cye chuckled and drew a flute from his pack, playing idly on it. "I 
find I have a knack for the life, and besides which, it agrees with me.
If YOU wish to drop me a letter, though, dear Princess Mercury, simply 
leave it with my good friend Sage. I'll blunder across his path soon 
enough : we seem unable to escape each other." With a final warbling 
toot, Cye turned and marched out of the room, keeping his own time on 
a small pair of cymbals and playing accompanyment on the small tin 
pipe. 

**********

	Kento spun the staff, listening to its hum with a well-trained 
ear. This, he could sense by the feel, was a good staff. He could take 
a man's head off with this staff, or block even the sharpest blade. 
It had a good grain, a good weight, and it slipped easily through his 
fingers. As usual, when he was surrounded by the droning hum of his 
weapon through the air, with the soothing rythmic feel of it slapping 
from palm to palm, he began to think.

	That Sage lad, he thought to himself, quite a shame, that. Nice
boy, as far as he could tell, but obviously insane. Shows up yesterday 
tagging after Venus like her newest puppy dog, and starts blithering 
about cards, and Dark Kingdom plots hidden in books... mad as a hatter.
Of course, it was Kento's experience that all scribes were a trifle 
mad : he was certain it must come from being cooped up in those cramped
chambers with all those ink and glue fumes. 

	Yes, he thought, that Sage boy was in desperate need of a 
little fresh air, some exercise! Mayhap he would see about training the
lad in a bit of swordplay, just to get him out of the library for more 
than a minute or so. Play along with his daffy little plots : why not?
If nothing else, it would serve as a nice diversion...

	"Greetings, Captain!" A young boy with a mop of brown hair 
wandered past with a biwa strapped to one shoulder and a travelling 
pack slung over the other, waving. Kento caught the staff and halted 
its spin, grinning and returning the wave. Fine lad, that Cye. Kento 
approved of his choice to leave behind the constant drudgery of idle 
life to wander the worlds and make his own way in real life. A lad like
that was pure potential, he thought as he leaned on his staff. He 
could become anything he wanted...

	Just... like a Jester. Like a card that changes its face and 
becomes anything it wants. Kento blinked. He never should have let 
that poor, deluded, Sage bend his ear with those tales of Knaves and 
Queens and damn fool quests. It was starting to take over his brain! 
Chuckling, he shook his shaggy head. 

	"Kento, old boy," he muttered, "you're never going to grow up.
Cards and fortunes and destined heroes... stuff and nonsense! You put 
away such childish things when you were accepted into the Guard!" He 
rested the staff in the crook of his arm and began to walk after the 
minstrel. "Yep," he continued as he walked, "you know better than to 
fool yourself into falling for this! You're not some lad, like that 
Rowen, all obsessed with saving days and wooing Princesses..." 

	"Still," he mused into the depths of his beard, "to be a hero, 
a TRUE hero... I won't say I would mind if people were to be cheering 
my name. And what can it hurt to check? Say, Cye, lad! Hold up a 
moment, and tell me what you think of this fool tale..."  

**********

	Sage sighed and adjusted his glasses. "Well, there's only one 
thing to do. If the biography isn't here, then Ace must already have 
it." Fiddling with the hem of his white robe, he sat next to Venus on 
her bed and stared off into space. "But what will he do with it? Ay, 
there's the rub..."

	"What do you mean? If this guy has the book, and it's so 
important, won't he just take it straight to Beryl?" 

	"No." Sage stroked his chin. "I don't think Ace has the power 
to go straight to Beryl. If he just gives the book to his commander, 
then he gets no credit for it. Plus, he's said to me before that he 
wants a fair fight. If we have no chance at finding out what to do or 
where to go, this game's already over." 

	"So you think that this Ace character hid the book somewhere 
nearby?" Venus shook her head and brushed back the strands of golden 
hair that floated freely past her face with the motion. "That seems 
pretty dumb of him, if you ask me..."

	"That's just it! He's so smart, he's being stupid. He's 
convinced I can't beat him, so he's taking risks he shouldn't be." Sage
grinned. "I mean, if he was playing smart, he would have killed me the 
second I overheard Nezumi talking about the book. He wouldn't have 
told me what his plan was, or given me so many hints on who I would 
need to help me." His brow furrowed, Sage locked his hands together, 
staring at the interlaced fingers as if they held the all the secrets 
of the universe. "I think Ace is liking this game too much to stop 
playing it now... and that means the book is still somewhere in the 
castle."

	"Great!" Venus nodded enthusiastically, and leapt to her feet. 
"Uhm, Sage... WHERE in the castle?" 

	"Where else?" Sage smirked. "Ace could only get his jollies if 
he knew the book was right under my nose the whole time. He likes to 
taunt me, and he loves to gamble. He put the book right back in the 
Castle Library. And I'm going to go get it, right under that fat toad 
Nezumi's nose." 

	"Are you sure about this, Sage? Even if you're right, it sounds
to me like the perfect trap. This Ace character knows that you'll do 
anything to get ahold of that book, and that makes it the ultimate bait
right now." 

	"What can I say? I guess I like to gamble, too." Seiji rose 
to his feet and brushed at his white robes, carefully arranging every 
crease. "Besides, I doubt that Ace would attack me now. He's been 
playing fair since the start of this little game..."

	"Gamblers ALWAYS play fair, Sage. Until they start to lose." 
The blond girl crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the young 
scribe. "I'm coming with you, and that's that."

	"I'd rather you didn't, milady." Sage raised an eyebrow and 
shrugged, spreading his arms wide. "It's bad enough I dragged you into 
this by lending you the stupid thing to begin with. You don't have it 
anymore, and there's no need for you to get involved."

	"Did you wake up dense today, or were you just born stupid?" 
Venus tapped her foot angrily as she quickly interposed herself between
Sage and the doorway. 

	Sage grinned. "Little bit of column A, little bit of column B. 
Would you mind explaining to me?"

	"This creep already broke into my room ONCE! What if I'm in 
here when he does it again?" On top of which, she added silently, if 
the Princess really is in danger, Sailor Venus is hardly going to stand
aside while some scribe takes on the Dark Kingdom to save her! "I'm 
staying right by your side, until this gets taken care of."

	"Fine," Sage groaned, and pulled off his robes. Beneath, he 
had black trousers and a physique Venus did her best not to stare at. 
How did a scribe get a body like THAT? Obviously, those books are 
heavier than they look... "Put this on and pull up the hood. I'll grab 
another robe from my room, and if anyone asks, we're just two scribes 
looking for an important scroll, okay?"

	"Uhm, okay," Venus said with a gulp as she pulled the white 
fabric down over her head. Looking down, she tugged on the robe and 
frowned as it tangled in the fabric of her gown. With a shrug, she 
reached behind her.

	"What are you doing?" Sage asked as he desperately took off 
his glasses and clamped both hands over his eyes. 

	"Looking the part." Her bodice untied, the gown fell around her
ankles with a loud thump. She shook the robe slightly, and smoothed it 
with her hands. "There we go : a perfect fit!" The fabric was 
surprisingly comfortable and soft, and hung down to her calves. Sage 
was quite busily polishing the lenses of his glasses and looking 
elsewhere. 

	"Er, can we please go now? And for Serenity's sake, WARN me 
before you do that kind of thing again!"

**********

	Rowen sighed and looked down at the earrings clutched in his 
hand. "Rowen," he said to himself, "you are the biggest idiot in this 
whole castle." 

	It was bad enough that he had listened to that poor girl's 
story, but what the hell had he been thinking with when he offered to 
track down her brother for her? He'd already met her brother, and the 
man had seemed much more interested in killing him than in listening 
to reason. 

	"But," he admitted as he examined the gleaming red stars she 
had given him, "I guess I always HAVE been a sucker for a pretty face. 
And how hard can it be to convince old Ken to see reason? Although, he 
always has been pretty stubborn... I'm doomed." 

	Although if he was going to doom himself, he was hard pressed 
to think of another lady he'd rather do it for. Well, maybe Jupiter, 
but that was a different kettle of fish. The important thing was that 
he, Rowen, NOT Endymion, was the reason that girl in there was smiling 
instead of crying. She was trusting him to make things right, and he 
vowed that he would not let her down. 

	Now all he had to do was find Cye, track down Sage, and maybe 
after they had all rescued the Moon Princess, he could talk them into 
giving him a hand with this little side quest of his. They were pretty 
nice guys, and none too bright : he could probably convince them.

**********

	Safely clad in their white robes, and anonymous behind the 
voluminous hoods that covered their heads, Sage and Venus casually 
strolled into the Castle Library. Fortunately, it was already getting 
quite late, and the gargantuan library was all but deserted. 

	"Remember," Sage whispered, "we aren't supposed to be here, and
you ESPECIALLY are not supposed to be here. If Nezumi catches us, he'll
do all KINDS of horrible, horrible things."

	"What will he do?" 

	"We're not sure," Sage admitted. "Nobody has ever dared to 
find out." With a shrug, he gently touched a match to the candle he 
held and fitted it into a special holder that he attached to his 
ring. "Just keep your head down low, be quiet, and follow me."

	The library was a massive place, filled with looming bookcases,
musty piles of scrolls dominating heavy cherrywood desks, and a layer 
of dust over nearly everything. Venus made a face as a large spider 
skittered halfway across a nearby desk before a scaly arm reached out 
of one of the books and snagged it. There were a series of crunching 
sounds, and the book burped. 

	"Probably some apprentice fiddling with one of the summoning 
books," Sage explained in a whisper. "We get all kinds of weird demons 
and bug-eyed ghoulies lurking around here. Wish they'd bother to clean 
up their own messes : summoners are almost as bad as alchemists." He 
glanced over at Venus and shrugged. "If there's time, we can swing by 
the Archives and I'll introduce you to the gargoyle. He's usually about
halfway through his poker game with the gryphon and chimera by now..." 

	"You're joking." Venus stared in disbelief at Sage, who met her
gaze unblinkingly. "You're SERIOUS?"

	"Hey, this is where magicians come to study. Sometimes they 
forget their crib notes." Sage groaned as he panned the candle around,
its feeble light batting away the lengthening shadows as they stretched
throughout the room. "We'd better get to work. There's over six 
thousand books in this room alone, and there's no telling where he 
stuffed it." 

	Venus shuddered. "This place is pretty creepy... aren't you 
bothered at all?"

	"Nah," Sage answered as he moved on, "I've never been afraid of
the dark..."

	"Well, can you at least remember any hints hemight have given 
you? I mean, he wouldn't want us to be looking aimlessly, would he? 
Assuming that you're even right..."

	Sage stopped and pondered that for a moment. "Now that you 
mention it..." He closed his eyes and thought, remembering the last 
time he had seen Ace. His eyes snapped open. "I KNOW WHERE IT IS. 
Follow me!"

	"You know? Where is it?" Venus asked as she scurried after 
the only source of light in the entire library. 

	"In the Games section," Sage answered as he made a left turn, 
nearly losing Venus in the twisting labrynth of stacks, shelves, and 
ladders. "Up there," he whispered, and pointed up one of the towering 
ladders. Venus nodded and started to climb, but Sage grabbed her 
wrist. "I climb," he said, "YOU stay down here and hold the ladder 
steady. No point tempting fate."

	Venus shrugged, and Sage clambered up the oaken rungs. 
Carefully, he began to examine the tomes lining the shelf in front of 
him. "The last time we met was when Ace threw me those cards that I've 
been using to track down the Five of Swords. He dealt them to me like a
poker hand. In fact, the whole time we were talking, he kept dealing 
himself hands of poker. So, if I'm right...." His voice trailed off as 
he pulled a thick volume from its resting place. "Hah! How To Be A 
Poker Ace, Eighth Edition." He cracked it open. "And the glue on the 
cover is nice and fresh, too : I can smell it. What have we here?" 

	"Timber." A strange voice answered, and Sage blinked. 

	"I beg your pardon?" He asked the eyes glaring at him from 
the other side of the shelf. 

	"I said... TIMBER!" A large arm thrust through the shelf, 
sending books flying and knocking Sage's ladder off balance. The book 
fell from his grasp as he scrambled over to the other side of the 
ladder and clenched his teeth. With a bone-jarring thud, the oaken 
frame slammed against the other bookcase. Sage looked down and saw 
a mountain of books scattered over the floor. Then he looked up and 
saw a large and angry creature blasting its way through the shelves. 

	"What in the name of all the eighteen nether hells IS that?"

	"I," the creature snarled through a mouth filled with gleaming 
tusks, "am the destroyer, the conquerer of worlds!" Its bat-like wings 
spread wide as it floated through the hole it had made, liquid flame 
spewing from its glowing eyes. "I... AM..."

	"Trouble," Venus and Sage chorused in a resigned tone. 

**********

To Be Continued...