Story: Anime Alpha Male

 

This whole situation was the hottest of hot messes, and frankly, neither Venus or Mars felt in control over literally any of it. I mean, this was a situation that had already laid claim to most of their allies, and all it took was seeing Mamoru to fall under it.

"You know, he must be really, really cute if just seeing him has this effect," Venus whispered conspiratorially.

"You mentioned," Mars deadpanned right back at her. "Let's not get philosophical about this. Something about Mamoru is having that effect, and I rather like having free will, thanks."

"Right," Venus nodded. "Free will is the best thing for stuff. Like choosing what clothes to wear, and other things too!"

Mars stared a hole through her, knowing full well that this both was and was not an act. Venus is actually super competent when the chips are down. But competence wasn't going to be enough.

"We can't let him near women," Mars said.

"Ah, yes, and how do you propose to stop him?" Venus sweetly asked. "Without, in the process, losing your virginity up against the nearest surface?"

Mars frowned. The easiest solution would be killing him, but the bad guys have taken that off the table already. What they really needed was... a weakness. A vulnerability they could exploit. Something. Anything! Some way to make themselves immune aside from just staying away from him. They couldn't do that forever. If they kept running, and more women kept on seeing him, then he would become the ruler of the planet Earth in no time flat.

Which is funny because Usagi was meant to become ruler of the planet Earth - but let's not go there.

"If we knew how he was doing it, that would be one thing..." Mars grumbled.

"Yeah, but Mercury's the genius analyst on the team, and right now she's not being as shy as normal."

"That sounds like quite the annoying development," Karen said from across the room. "Yet, also, inevitable. She's already seen him, hasn't she? Any analysis she could potentially perform of the situation would inevitably put her under his control. So she would not have been terribly much use as it is... Unless...?"

"Unless?" Mars squinted at her.

"Unless we used her as a sacrificial pawn first," Venus said, her attitude changing on the spot. "You'd have tossed her out there to get absolutely ruined by him without thinking twice about it. Let her find out all she could about him - and then find a way to retrieve her."

"Of course," Karen said. "But why get upset about hypotheticals? She'd fallen into his clutches without need of such an approach. Now, instead, if we can retrieve her - separate her from him in some way - we might be able to figure something out. Either by probing her mind and observations, or..."

"If you think we're going to let you experiment on our friend -" Venus interrupted.

"The alternative is, the entire world becomes your man's personal harem," Karen observed. "But really now, you need not panic. After all, that would be but a last resort. We still need to come to an agreement on a far more fundamental problem. How do we separate this Sailor Mercury from him, for long enough that we can prevail?"

As if in answer, Karen received an alert, which she answered before either Venus or Mars could let her know what they thought of her, her suggestions, and what she could do with those suggestions, and on top of that where she could stuff those ideas and strategies after rolling them up into a tight little sphere.

<i>"An extremely attractive man has been spotted heading in the direction of one of our bases."</i> came the voice over the speaker. <i>"A series of clones observing the routes are furiously pleasuring themselves."</i>

"Very well. Take those clones to research and dissect them. If they get loose, you know what to do?"

<i>"Very good ma'am! They will be destroyed long before they taste freedom."</i>

"You see?" Karen asked. "That's how you do the job. Perhaps you are less willing to do such a thing with your friend, because she is a unique life form? Not a copy, or a clone, but even so. To achieve our goals, we must make sacrifices. Sensible, sustainable sacrifices. I am not advocating throwing them into a volcano to appease the God of some religion or other. I am advocating pragmatism."

"A lot of people that push for the worst things in history say they're being pragmatic," Sailor Mars warned.

But Karen scoffed. "Those people were not being pragmatic. They were lying to themselves and those around them to get whatever it was they truly wanted. Now, shall we save the moral dilemma for later, when we have the time to make such arguments? Or shall we use the limited time we have to make use of this situation."

"I do have, like, one idea?" Venus said. "But I need to know which base it is, the layout of the place, the surrounding area - any maps you can get me, and a line to whoever is running the place."

Mars expected Karen to bristle at the suggestion. It was a lot to offer up, but under the circumstances... Instead, she had them produced right away. Laid them out right where Venus could look them over and -

And it's one thing knowing fundamentally about how competent that girl could be. She'd been doing this longer than the rest of them by a fair bit, and managed to live while working on her own. She had to be pretty solid, right? Actually seeing it was something else. Instead of the cute, kinda vacant and dreamy smile, Venus was staring down at the map and nodding to herself. It was astounding how professional she - 

"Alright, bitches!" Venus declared into the phone. "Listen up close, because you're only getting to hear this once! Don't get distracted by my beautiful voice, just do as I tell you! Got it?"

Never mind. The spell was broken.

=====

When you get right down to it, the competence of the Sailor Scouts is really down to their own typical insecurities getting in the way. They're actually really obscenely powerful. Case in point: Sailor Mercury had already noticed they'd been spotted, but when she raised this to Mamoru?

"It's fine," he'd said, cool as cool could be. "We're not just here to win. We're here to make a statement. We're here to dominate, we're here to make our point made, heard as loud as could be. We won't do that by sneaking in the shadows."

Indeed they would not, for the true alpha male does not sneak around in the shadows. They are not stealthy creatures. They do not need to be! A true alpha male beckons those to challenge him so that others may rise up and then be knocked down, demonstrating to the group that they are not to be fucked with.

The girls all swooned around him, be they Scout or Youma alike. Soon enough they arrived at the place in question, where the Youma immediately scattered, turning their backs and spreading out in all directions.

"Bring them to me," Mamoru instructed. He slapped the girls on the butt as they all went out, each after a different one. "Don't let any escape."

"What if there's a trap?" Jupiter asked.

"You're all strong and smart and, most importantly, sexy enough that you'll be able to escape it."

That was the thought process they were all under. Pretty shallow, right? Well, so is the idea of the alpha male, when you really get into the weeds - but never mind that for now. What matters is this. Mamoru had given them their instructions, and so each of the girls immediately went off in pursuit of a different youma.

Mercury suspected a trap, of course. That behaviour, so blatantly fleeing upon their arrival, it was so... suspicious. However, she obeyed because what was she going to do, disobey someone that hot? No, of course not! For that reason, Sailor Mercury was in pursuit of one of the youma - 

And suddenly she found herself stuck in a pocket dimension. With the way out behind her suddenly sealed off.

Well then... what now, brainwashed girl genius? What now?