“Any luck yet?” Xenos asked Astatine as she entered the Periodics’ headquarters.
 “You just shut up,” Astatine snapped.
 “Yep, she failed,” Xenos said.  “Now you owe me ten earth dollars, Tantalus,” he said to the green-haired man behind him.
 “What?” Astatine asked suspiciously.  “Oh no, did you guys bet on whether I’d make this mission?”
 “That’s right,” Xenos said smugly.  “Come on, Tantalus, pay up.”
 “Gambling is a bad habit,” Antimonia scolded as she entered the room.  “But as long as I’m not involved, or you’re not betting on me, I don’t mind.”
 Tantalus handed Xenos a stack of bills.  “Here’s the ten.”
 Xenos looked at him suspiciously out of the corner of his eyes.  Then he counted the money, one bill at a time.  “Liar!” he said.  “This is only eight.  C’mon, two more.”
 Antimonia laughed.  “Foiled again, Tantalus?”
Tantalus didn’t answer, just threw a wad of paper at Xenos.  Xenos unfolded the paper, which turned out to be the two dollars that Tantalus owed him.  Xenos smirked and recounted his money.
“Wait a second…” he said, recounting it again.  “There are only five in here now.”  He turned threateningly to Tantalus.  “If you don’t quit with those damn telekinesis tricks, I swear…”
“Fine,” Tantalus said.  He rolled up five more bills into a ball, then flicked the ball at Xenos.  It hit Xenos’s forehead.
“Hey, you better watch out or you’ll blind someone,” Xenos grumbled, counting the money again.  “Good, you paid me the right amount this time.”  He stalked over to his room to put the money away, but felt one of the bills slipping out of his hand, then another.  The bills floated back to Tantalus.  “Why, you…” Xenos charged at Tantalus and knocked him to the floor, trying to wrestle the dollars away from him.
“Hey, down boys,” a voice said.  It was Cleopatra 90, who had just entered the room.  Xenos and Tantalus both stood up.  “Good boys,” Cleopatra said, then gesturing them to stop, said, “Stay.”
“But he stole—” Xenos began.
“Hey,” Cleopatra 90 interrupted.  “Just give me the money, okay?  No more gambling, it’s a bad habit.”
“That’s what I told them,” Antimonia said proudly.
“Suck up,” Xenos said, rolling his eyes.
“Now, everyone,” Cleopatra 90 continued, as Tantalus gave her the money, “we need to figure out who has that crystal.”
“Isn’t that what we’ve been trying to do?” Xenos asked.  “Or at least, I’ve been trying to do.  Whenever those other three do anything it ends up not working.”
Astatine threw a rock at him.  “Shut up.”
The rock missed Xenos, and he said sarcastically, “Oh, you’re so mature, Astatine.  Keep it up, you might actually graduate from first grade.”
Astatine threw another rock, this one was bigger than the last and it actually hit him.  “I said, shut up.”
“Like I was saying,” Cleopatra 90 said, glaring pointedly at Xenos and Astatine, “I think that now I know who has that crystal.”
“Who?” all the Periodics asked at once.
“Well,” Cleopatra 90 said, “her name is…”
 

 Shiloe doodled a person’s face on her math paper, which was cluttered with complicated equations.  She was always bored in calculus class, because she had studied all those things before.  In fact, she was bored in all her classes because she had studied all of the high school level classes before.  She lightly sketched a picture of a girl in a sailor suit on the page.
 “Shiloe?” the math teacher asked.  “Are you listening?”
 “Um, yes?” Shiloe answered.
 “Wrong answer,” the teacher said.  “So what’s the answer to number 17?”
 She glanced down at her paper, then looked back up again.  “534.395?”
 “That’s right,” the teacher said, surprised.  “So I suppose you were paying attention.”
 Shiloe smiled and turned back to her picture.  She added a tiara on the sailorsuited girl’s forehead, then a choker around her neck.  Then, on second thought, she erased the girl’s hair and made it longer and more like her own, and added a sword in her hand.  The drawing didn’t look at all like her, but she was satisfied anyway.
 

 “All right girls, today we’re going to be playing flag football!” the PE teacher announced enthusiastically.  Daphne, Daniella, and Lilia looked slightly interested, whereas Moira and Michelle looked bored.  “Everyone out to the field, and let’s run a lap!” the teacher continued, leading them out to the field.
 “I hate running,” Lilia said.  “Running, and all forms thereof, must be eliminated.  What exactly is the point anyway?”
 “Think of it as Sailor training,” Dani said.
 “Lilia’s right, I mean, what is the point?” Daphne asked.
 “To run a lot so you can get faster?” Michelle speculated.
 “I don’t want to go outside anyway,” Moira said.  “I’ll get sunburned.”
 “At least then you won’t look like a Goth or something,” Daphne said.  Moira rolled her eyes.
 “All right, get in your teams, we’re starting!” the teacher yelled.  The girls lined up across the field.  The teacher blew on her whistle, and they started playing.
Lilia had the football, and she was running across the field with it.  Then suddenly, a flash of laser light hit her and she fell to the ground, dropping the football.
“Lilia?” Michelle asked, running to her.  “What happened?”  Lilia didn’t answer, she was unconscious.  Michelle heard people screaming behind her, and she turned to see what it was.  She saw that other girls were getting hit by the laser and falling to the ground.  “What’s going on?”
Then Michelle saw Tantalus, the Periodic with green hair and uniform.  He was hiding in the bushes on the side of the soccer field.  He had a small gun in his hand that looked like a squirt gun, and that was where the laser was coming from.  Tantalus saw her watching him, then pointed the laser at her and fired.  She ducked just in time, then went crawling across the field towards the gym.  Once she had gotten to the gym, she went into the girls’ changing room, and Dani was there.
“Michelle!” Dani said.  “You made it.  Moira and I were wondering where you and Daphne were…Moira, Michelle’s here!” she called in the general direction of the showers.
“That’s great,” Moira called back; apparently she was in the shower because Michelle heard the sound of running water coming from that area.  “Now let’s transform, and go find out what’s up.  Because I know that wasn’t an ordinary laser pointer.”
“And get the others?” Michelle suggested.
“We don’t have time,” Dani said.  “If it’s a Periodic or Celestial, then he or she will want the heart crystals.  If they get the heart crystals of everyone in the class, then we’re in big trouble.”
“It is a Periodic,” Michelle said.  “It’s Tantalus.  I saw him, and he’s in the bushes.  He has some sort of stun gun.”
“Well, he’s stupid,” Moira commented as she emerged from the shower with a towel wrapped around her.  “He zapped Lilia with that thing.  Xenos already checked her crystal, and he said it’s not the Dead Crystal.  So why would Tantalus check it again?”
Dani shrugged, pulling out her transformation pen.  “Oh well, let’s get this over with.  Zephyr Astral Star Power!”
“Nova Astral Star Power!”
“Andromeda Astral Star Power!”
 

 “So, if X is the sum of Y and Z, then…” the calculus teacher droned on.  Shiloe was only half paying attention, she was adding the finishing touches to a drawing of Sailor Orion.
 Then, the class was interrupted by screams coming from the general direction of the soccer field.  The teacher looked up annoyedly.  “Probably just some PE class being a little too loud.  Shiloe, will you please go tell them to be quiet?”
 “Sure,” Shiloe said, hurrying out of the classroom.  “I bet it’s not just a PE class…” she thought.  “I think it might be the Periodics.  Or the Celestials!”
She ran out to the field and saw the entire 5th period PE class, including the teacher, lying unconscious on the ground.  “Hey, that’s Tantalus!” she gasped, seeing a green-haired man out on the field, kneeling over one girl.  “And that girl is Daphne…”  She looked a little closer.  “Is that her heart crystal he has?”
Tantalus was holding up an orange crystal, looking at it closely.  “It is a heart crystal!” Shiloe concluded.  She ran off down the hall and ducked into the girls’ PE room.  Much to her surprise, Sailors Zephyr, Andromeda, and Nova were in there, about to leave.
“Guys, did you see what was going on out there?” Shiloe asked.
“You mean Tantalus, and that little gun thing, and all the unconscious people?” Zephyr asked.  “Yes, and that’s why we’re transformed.  You want to help us?”
“Of course!” Shiloe said.  “Spica Astral Star Power!”  She transformed, and the four of them rushed out to the field to confront Tantalus.
“Okay, green guy, you just stop that right now!” Spica yelled at Tantalus when she got out to the field.
“Sailor Spica,” Tantalus said.  “Just who I was looking for.”
“Uh oh,” Spica whispered.  “I think I’m in trouble.”
“Not for long,” Nova said.  “Nova Snow Blizzard!”
Snow swirled around the field, but Tantalus jumped out of the blizzard and landed on the roof of the gym.
“How’d he do that?” Nova muttered.  “Now he has an unfair advantage.  Damn.”
“I’ve got her now…” Tantalus said to himself.  He aimed his gun carefully at Spica and fired, but Spica jumped out of the way just in time and began to climb a metal ladder that was on the side of the gym.  “Hey, where’d she go?” Tantalus asked, not being able to see the ladder from the roof.  “I missed her, and she just disappeared?”
“Nope, I’m right here.” Spica said, climbing up onto the roof with him.  “Now let’s see who has whom.”
“Spica!” Zephyr yelled up to her.  “Spica, I’m coming up to help you!”
“Stay there!” Spica warned her, but Zephyr started climbing up the ladder anyway.  Spica’s sword appeared in her hands and she advanced on Tantalus.
“Spica, it’s too dangerous!” Michelle said, worried.  “You could fall…”
“I’m okay!” Spica yelled down, still moving towards Tantalus.  “You guys don’t worry, okay?”  She slashed her sword at Tantalus, but he seemed to have a wall or invisible shield in front of him that was blocking out her sword.  Looking a little closer, Spica saw a green aura around him.  “You idiot, you’ve got a force field don’t you?”
“Catches on quick, doesn’t she?” Tantalus said.  He whipped out his laser gun and fired it at her.  Since Spica wasn’t expecting him to do that, she didn’t dodge out of the laser’s way quickly enough, and it hit her.  She fell to the roof, and as she fell, a heart crystal popped out of her.  The crystal was light bluish purple, and it glowed brightly and sparkled in the sun.  Tantalus reached for the crystal.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Zephyr yelled, and jumped on him.  She shoved his face into the ground and, pressing her hand on the back of his head, yelled “Zephyr Comet Fireworks!”  The electricity from her attack passed through her hand and directly into him, giving him a bad electric shock.  Once he was unconscious, she jumped off of him and ran to Spica.
“You haven’t won yet.”  Xenos appeared in front of Zephyr, blocking her from reaching Spica.  “We still want to know if this is the Dead Crystal, don’t we?”
“Well…yes,” Zephyr admitted.
“Then I’ll check it.”  Xenos took the crystal, then teleported away.
“Hey!” Zephyr protested.  “You can’t do that!”
“Of course I can,” Xenos’s voice said, even though he was gone.  “You snooze, you lose, suckers!”
“Oh, I am so STUPID!” Zephyr yelled out to no one in particular.  “Why’d I let him get away with her heart crystal?”  Dejectedly, she picked up Spica and dragged her over to the edge.  “Now how am I going to get her down?”
“Here,” Nova said, standing in the shadow of the building, right next to the wall.  “You just throw her to me, I’ll catch her.”
Zephyr looked doubtful, but pushed Spica off the edge of the roof nonetheless.  Nova positioned herself underneath the falling Spica and caught her as she plummeted towards the ground.  She struggled a bit underneath the weight, then set her on the ground while Zephyr climbed down the ladder.
Once Zephyr had gotten to the ground, Nova walked up to her and slapped her, hard, across the face.  “You idiot,” she said.  “You’re a poor excuse for the leader of this group.  Now Spica might die.  She’ll die if we don’t get that heart crystal back, so you damn well better make sure you get it, you hear me?”
“I’ll get her back,” Zephyr said.  She turned to walk away, then stopped and turned back around.  “Oh, Nova?”
“What?” Nova asked, still upset.
“Thanks,” Zephyr said.
“What did I ever do for you, that you would thank me at an inopportune moment like this?” Nova replied.
“Thanks for hitting me, it brought me to my senses,” Zephyr said, walking away.