(Disclaimer: A warning to those who continue.  This is a sequel to a previous story.  Both of these were written in the mid-1990’s.  While the first one was slightly edited and vanity press published, this one has not been touched in over 20 years.  I figure I should do something with it and people may get a laugh or fright from how I used to be.  Every author comes from somewhere, so this is part of my origin.  To that end, I am deeply sorry for whatever nightmares I will inflict on the literary world and the American English language.  Enjoy?)

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Nothing makes a noise or even moves in the space skimmer for over two hours.  Fate and Hydrana are lying in a barely breathing heap near the crackling telepathic scanner.  Artificial brain juice is running down the console and making a pool around the two guardians.  The first sign of any life is when they suddenly jump to their feet in shock.  Thousands of joint cramps and a few sleeping body parts greet the guardians return to consciousness.  It is a greeting that makes both of them want to go back to the painless darkness.

“What the hell happened to us?  And, why do you keep saying that I better be sane?  Well I am, so don’t worry.  Your nasty trick worked just like you planned it and this Neptune guardian is back to normal.  Well, as close to normal as I can get.  Let’s just say I’m back to perfection and leave it at that.  Thanks, Slane,” Hydrana says while she massages her numb legs.

“Your welcome.  But I wasn’t talking.  I was repeatedly thinking that you better be sane.  I take it that you were reading my mind.  Guess this is one of those side effects of the cure, which is a lot worse than the disease.  The last thing I want is you picking up on my thoughts.  Can you still hear them?” asks Fate.  He straps the sword of light to his back before sitting onto a large box.

“Not right now.  I do have something that can scan us and find out what exactly happened here.  The telepathic bond could have only been for a few seconds.  God I really hope it was only for a few seconds.  There are some private thoughts I don’t want you picking up on.”

“Hold on.  I have to ask this before anything else happens, Delila.  Do you have any grief about any of the things that you did while you were a raving lunatic?  No offense,” mentions Fate.

“Why would I take offense at the truth?  Look, I’m really sorry about all of the cops that I hurt and what I did to you and the others.  But I am not sorry for what I did to my father.  In my mind, he was more sadistic than any of Adriana’s friends.  The things he did to me earned him the punishment of life long paralysis.  Now he’s as helpless as I was.  I told you about the verbal abuse and hinted at the . . . other thing.  Miracle knows the basic problem, but I don’t know if she mentioned it to anyone.  So, here comes the painful truth of my life.  My father sexually abused me every day since I was eight-years-old.  Mom and Rose were forced to keep their mouths shut or he beat them up.  Hey!  I thought about it and nothing happened.  I might be cured of the rage and cowering attacks,” explains Hydrana as she gets to her feet.  She does a very long stretch to get the kinks out of her shoulders and spine.

“Good for you.  Of course, I don’t want this whole problem to happen again.  None of us like what you did to your father because it was still wrong.  You should have told one of us or you should have gone to the police before you even agreed to become a guardian.  Take care of your own problems before you try to fix those of the universe.  That’s the best and safest thing to do.  If you have to talk to anyone about this or anything else, I’ll listen.”

“I know.  Miracle and Infinity are probably going to give me the same tear-jerking speech after we find them.  But I swear on my eternal soul that there will be no repeats of the past few days.  I promise.  Now, where is that lead box that I took with me?  Ah, here it is.”  She yanks the large box out from under Fate and opens it before the Mars guardian can get off his backside.  Hydrana pulls out a large, black diamond, which she places on a clean shelf.  She carefully attaches some wires from the damaged scanner and tries to put a charge into it.

“You stole a containment diamond?  SEAS is not going to like this stunt.  You’ll be lucky if you’re let back on the sun base at all.  Those things are beyond impossible to find in this galaxy,” states Fate as the diamond slowly starts to turn red.

“They are also indestructible, which means we can’t destroy them if we tried.  I took this one awhile ago in order to put it into one of the space skimmers.  That way we could immediately find out about anything new that we run into outside of the sun base.  We still don’t know enough to investigate things without the computer’s help.  Are you in there, SEAS?”

“Yes.  I have already done a brain scan and I have found two side effects.  You can read each other’s thought during extreme mental trauma, which I sincerely hope, happens rarely.  The other effect is that both of you can track each other by locating brain patterns.  I can get rid of these effects once one of you returns to the sun base.  That is, if you want me to.  What will you two do now?” inquires SEAS.  The diamond abruptly goes black again.

“I guess he can’t be out of the sun base’s system for too long.  I think we should get rid of these recent improvements, but that will have to wait until we finish everything here.  Infinity and Miracle are somewhere in this city along with Adriana’s group, so let’s go find them.  Hurry up,” orders Fate.

“Am I your second-in-command?”

“What?  We don’t have any time for this.  I mean, can’t this question wait for a couple of hours?”

“No.  I want to know your decision right this minute.  After all I went through, I deserve an answer to the question that helped push me over the edge.  You owe me that much, Slane.”  Hydrana blocks all the exits with walls of ice and stands directly in front of Fate.

“Fine.  The answer is yes.  It would have been that answer no matter what you went through.  Miracle talked me into it a couple of hours before you decided to attack Infinity.”

“Seriously?  Then I just wasted everyone’s time for something I was going to get anyway.  I feel like an idiot.”

“Can you feel like an idiot while we move?  Steve and Kelly need our help if they managed to run into all four of the evil immortals.”  Hydrana gives a quick nod before letting the ice walls down.  Both of them leave the inside of the space skimmer in time to see a ball of light shoot into the sky.