Jotaro adjusted his footing, tilted his cap, and exhaled deliberately. "Star Platinum!"

His Stand appeared at his side, a ghostly, muscular warrior with ethereal hair and a painted face. Star Platinum closed its arms around his own tough frame and absorbed the multitude of long-ranged punches, each of the boy's elastic limbs disappearing in a puff of steam before delivering a high-velocity fist to his person.

Damn, I can't keep this up. He'll punch right through me if this goes on any longer.

Miku, witnessing Jotaro's distress, flew back down, sailing over Luffy's Jet Gatling to knock the boy over with a clothesline.

"Thanks, Miku," grunted Jotaro.

"Anyway you want it/ That's the way you need it," she replied, soaring back up to surround the younger pirate.

"You guys can't just gang up on me," Luffy smirked, reaching up behind him. His arms extended in length until they reached Miku's altitude, allowing him to snag her legs and catapult the Vocaloid back at the still-recovering Jotaro. The flying green-haired girl knocked Jotaro off of his feet, and sent him crashing through the door of what may have been a barber shop.

"Ugh, Miku, are you okay?"

"Address all complaints to the Yamaha Corporation," she moaned.

"I'm sure I will," noted Jotaro, picking himself and the robot girl up. The boy was tough, even for a 10,000-plus. Jotaro knew that in order to defeat him he'd have to get close enough for his Stand to work its magic. But those stretchy limbs were keeping him away. There had to be some way to circumvent this- and he knew that a solution was not far away.

Elsa deflected another sword strike with the back of a heavy glove, then pivoted on one heel to send the other into Jack's gut. The pirate coughed under the roundhouse's impact, but gritted his teeth and raised his sword again.

"You're terribly strong for such a beautiful young lady," mused Jack, missing another slice.

Elsa gave him a skeptical look before diving into a three-inch-punch. "So pretty girls can't be strong? Is that what you're saying?"

"No, no, because clearly, you are, both, that is," he winced, sweeping a leg underneath her and forcing her to cartwheel backward a few feet. "It's just at first glance I wouldn't have said, 'Ah, that pretty young thing is a prizefighter.' Maybe, royalty, perhaps?"

"Aren't you perceptive!" she beamed. "I'm the queen of a small principality."

"Then, milady, it has truly been an honor to bask in your presence."

"Basking? Oh, that's very kind of you. But I would prefer it…" she removed one glove and wiggled her fingers freely, "if you bowed."

Jack was going to object when Elsa opened her hand towards him, causing a fine white mist to travel from her palm to his legs, locking them in place as it congealed into a block of ice.

"Oh," he yelped. "That's not gone well."

"No, it hasn't," Elsa smirked, giving the pirate a push and tipping him onto his face.

"Elsa! I need your help!" shouted Jotaro, sprinting towards her. Behind him was the boy in the straw hat, steam erupting from his body in short bursts. "We have to slow this guy down!"

"No problem," smirked Elsa, stomping her foot into the dirt. Ice sprung forth from the edges of her tabi, forming a rapidly-growing sheet that quickly reached the other two fighters. Jotaro knew what was happening and leapt toward a clear patch of dirt behind Elsa, but Luffy's sandals did him little good, and he promptly slipped onto his back.

"He's got a rubber body," explained Jotaro. "He can stretch any of his limbs. Favors rapid attacks, too."

"A martial artist?"

"Sort of, I guess," Jotaro admitted. "What are you-"

"Stretchy kid, you didn't hit your head when you fell, did you?" shouted Elsa to the fallen Luffy.

"Yeah, I did hit my head," he replied.

"Thank goodness, you're still conscious. What do you say about fighting me, one-on-one?"

Jotaro's eyes widened. "What the hell are-"

Elsa shushed him by pressing a finger to his lips, temporarily freezing them together. Luffy pressed his steaming hands into the ice and bounced to his feet, which slipped further. He carefully rearranged them until he was standing upright.

"Yeah, sure! As long as you don't try anything funny!"

"I promise I'm not going to do anything without telling you about it."

"Okay, then! What are we waiting for?" he cheered, throwing a single fist forward. Elsa ducked underneath the elastic limb as it stretched past her, making sure to brush her fingers against it as it passed. Luffy felt something chilly at his fingertips, and pulled his arm back to find his hand had become surrounded in ice that was slowly creeping up his arm.

"You didn't tell me about that," cried the boy, staring wide-eyed at the ice.

"Whoops," chuckled Elsa. This would be easy- the other limbs would be no more difficult to freeze. But the Trans-Dimensional Analyst's confidence began to fade as she saw the smug grin that had replaced Luffy's surprise.

"Why are you smiling like that?"

"Because I don't have any reason to be afraid of an ice attack," he explained, the ice falling away in wet chunks. "In Gear Second, my skin gets really hot, so it won't stick."

"I don't need to keep you still for long," Elsa growled, slamming an open hand into the ground. A torrent of icy shards erupted forward, creating a wave that swallowed the boy whole. Within an instant, the interior of the ice began to fog up as it was melted away. Elsa dashed forward, knowing her only option was one she would rather not use. The ice begun to crack under the heat of Luffy's body. Elsa felt her powers begin to surge within her body- no matter how liberated she felt with her gloves off, she knew that she was a danger to herself and others. As a Trans-Dimensional Analyst, she was glad to have an outlet for that energy, but it did little to solve the problem at hand. She was lucky that the Illuminati found her, as her powers had continued to grow over time. She was always needing bigger, stronger gloves, and she knew that one day the gloves would be no use. Her peers thought she was foolish to take up martial arts, but she had deduced that physically controlling herself might be the only solution to her problems. Now, as she raced toward the half-frozen pirate, she forcibly pushed her training aside. The mental limits she had placed on herself faded away as her hand raced towards the boy's exposed chest.

"FULL RELEASE!" she screamed, channeling an icy blast into Luffy's heart. He had just freed himself from his frozen prison, and upon receiving the attack fell backwards onto the ground, his body no longer venting steam.

"Full release?" asked Jotaro. "That is the worst attack name ever."

"It sounds a lot better than-"

"Let it go/ Let it go! Can't hold it ba-"

Miku was removed from the air by the sudden formation of a large block of ice around her body.

"Be careful," warned Jotaro. "We need her for the mission."

"I needed her to not sing that."

"Whatever," sighed the young man, crossing over to the boy. "Is he dead?"

A rubber fist connected with his chin and told him otherwise.

"Wh-what… did you… do… to me?" gasped Luffy through ragged breaths, staggering to his feet uneasily.

"I just reduced your lifespan to a few hours," said Elsa with a grimace. Luffy threw a shaky punch towards Elsa, who caught the attack in an icy grip. "I think he's slow enough now."

Jotaro rubbed his aching chin. "Good. This guy was starting to piss me off. Star Platinum!"

Star Platinum burst forth from his spirit, scowling as always. With a mere shrug, Jotaro sent the Stand floating towards the weakened boy. With one ghostly arm, it lifted him into the air.

"Elsa, do you want to tell him about what's going to happen now?"

"Certainly. You're about to become well-acquainted with the seventeenth Tarot."

"ORA!" cried Jotaro, as his Stand tossed Luffy a short distance into the air. Star Platinum then suspended his dying body on a cushion of machine-gun punches, each strike visibly deforming Luffy's elastic frame, and punctuated by a stream of "ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA!" Eventually, Jotaro's attack relented, and Luffy fell to the ground, motionless.

"Good grief, what a pain," sighed Jotaro.

"Is- Is he dead?" asked Jack from the ground weakly.

"No," Elsa replied. "With his body, it's unlikely that did any lasting damage. But his heart will give out soon, and then he will be."

"Ghee," Usagi yelped, reminding everyone that she was still cowering by the truck.

"Ice her, too, in case she tries something," ordered Jotaro.

Elsa nodded and complied, opening a hand to instantly freeze the girl to the side of the vehicle. Jotaro sulked back toward Miku and began to chip her out of the ice with precise strikes from Star Platinum.

"Hey, you're… you're okay with what you did back there, right?" he asked, his tone low and soft.

Elsa looked back at the boy lying on the ground.

"We had to do whatever was necessary to complete the mission," she said, her voice wavering slightly. "But that doesn't mean I feel any better about it."

Jotaro's Stand struck the center of the already-weakened block of ice, shattering it completely and freeing the chilled Vocaloid. "They'll come back."

"Right, right," murmured Elsa. "Sorry, Miku."

"Apology accepted," chirped the girl. "Shall I initiate reciprocation protocols?"

"No, we don't have time for that," Jotaro grunted, lifting her to her feet. "Let's head back to the vault."

He stepped forward, and ran into Miku, who did not move.

"What are you doing, Miku? Let's go."

"Should I freeze her again?" asked Elsa.

"No," replied the Vocaloid, pointing behind them. "We are not done here."

Jotaro and Elsa turned back, and immediately saw what Miku was referring to. The chunk of ice stuck to the side of the truck was now emitting a bright, white light.

"What's going on?" Jotaro called to Jack, who had not yet freed himself from the ground. The pirate looked over his shoulder, blinking into the light.

"To be perfectly honest, I haven't the foggiest."

Elsa placed a hand against her earpiece. "Then it's time to check the Scouter." The device made a few beeps as it acquired its new target, briefly flashed a few numbers, and exploded violently.

"Aiee!" cried the Trans-Dimensional Analyst, shutting her eyes to block any small, sharp debris that might want to take up residence there.

That looked just like the Overflow Failure… but these things are supposed to have been designed to solve that. Her scouter was just defective, thought Jotaro. He tapped the button on his own Scouter, which began to target the ice. It locked on and began to calculate, before displaying a readout of nine.

"Nine. Whew. That's good. She went up by six."

The scouter beeped again, and Jotaro looked at the reading to find that another nine had been added.

"Wait, no, ninety-nine. That's odd, I didn't know that the Scouter could have this kind of lag, unless it was-"

Another nine appeared at the end of the number.

"Oh… crap."

Suddenly, his display was flooded with nines, until the Scouter's eyepiece ran out of room for them. It then replaced the nines with a single line of text:

CRITICAL SYSTEM ERROR_OVERFLOW

The device then exploded. In an unusual echo, the ice they had been watching also did, scattering shards into the dirt. The light took a familiar form- that of the girl that had arrived with the pirates. She seemed to have undergone a slight transformation, not in physical form, but in outfit. Her once-baggy sailor fuku had metamorphosed into a shorter, more tightly-fitting garment with a similar skirt and collar and several ornate decorations. A thin red choker wound around her neck, and her sleeves had been replaced by long gloves. Similarly, her shoes were now long, red boots, which began to plant themselves one after the other as she stepped away from what had been her icy prison.

"Hey, Mr. Kujo, what's going on down there? I lost contact with your Scouter's signal," said the tinny voice of Rainbow Dash through her Mobile Suit's loudspeaker.

"Miku, send her a message to be quiet and not move," whispered Jotaro. "And don't use your scouter software."

The transformed girl turned to face them, slowly moving closer, her long pigtails drifting in a breeze that only seemed to affect her. She stopped no more than thirty feet from the Trans-Dimensional Analysts, her eyes focused directly ahead.

"You hurt my friends." She sounded somewhere between surprised and angry, which was terrifying for someone they had only ever seen display fear.

"You were the ones who decided to attack us," grunted Jotaro. "We were only acting in self-defense."

"Luffy's dying," she stated clearly.

"Like we said, we weren't trying to start anything-"

"And Jack's feet are getting frostbitten."

"She's right!" the pirate called. "It stings!"

Jotaro knew he wasn't really in a position to be snarky, especially considering that his Scouter couldn't measure her power level, but he thought, for just a brief moment, that a biting remark might get through to her. "And you're going to make things right by doing the same to us?"

She folded her arms into a complex pose that ended with her right hand aimed through the crook of her left elbow, which held a hand with extended index, pinkie, and thumb off to her side.

"In the name of the moon, thou shalt be punished."

"Great, she's nuts," sighed Elsa. The queen of Arendelle was instantly blown away in a flash of light from the girl's palm, sending her crashing through the bank's wooden exterior walls. Jotaro had to force down a cry of fear- that would show weakness, which was something that one should never display to an unknown enemy.

"Miku, go find Elsa, make sure she's all right," he said, slowly and clearly. "I'll take care of The Moon Pie Guardian here."

"That's Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon to you," announced Usagi sternly.

Miku floated back towards the bank, the cheeriness having mostly vacated her face. Jotaro stood alone before the Sailor Scout, his mind racing to assemble a plan that would allow his team to leave alive. If he counterattacked, she would retaliate, and he would most probably be severely injured. If he did nothing, she would attack preemptively, and he would most probably be severely injured. So Jotaro decided to do something in between those things.

"So, you're going to kill us?" he asked.

"In the name of the Moon, yes. Didn't I say that? I think I said that. I can't really remember. These routines, they're kinda all similar."

"In the name of the Moon?"

"Uh, yeah. Sailor Moon. That's pretty obvious."

"It's just… I don't really see anything that screams moon about you. You've got the little choker and the little bits on your boots-"

"I really like those."

"But do you actually do anything with the moon?"

Usagi looked a little confused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you shot Elsa with a big light blast, and you exploded out of the ice with light. Why aren't you Sailor Light?"

"Well, I came from the Moon, originally… and um… I have a lot of attacks with moon in the name."

Jotaro smiled. "Tell you what. If you can actually do something related to the moon, I'll just step out of your way."

It's risky, but I've got her pegged. She doesn't seem too bright, anyway. Sailor Light, my ass.

"Umm… I could… ah…" She stared at the ground, tapping her feet. "No… that's not… hrmmm…"

Jotaro discreetly looked back over his shoulder. There were no signs of Miku or Elsa returning. He took a slow step backward, keeping a careful eye on Usagi.

"Wait, that's it! I can do something with the moon!"

"Oh, hell, no," groaned Jotaro. "You better tell me you can make it sparkle or something."

"Kinda. It's actually the one thing they told me I should never, ever do."

"Oh… great."

"Yep! It is! Here! WE! GO!" She spun her arms in a flurry of movements, ending with her right hand across her forehead and her left hand extended, palm facing the ground. Only her index finger pointed out. "MIDNIGHT!"

"No, you- you don't have to," stammered Jotaro.

"MOON!"

"Really, you could just stop-"

"MASSACRE!"

And with a scowl, she turned her extended index finger toward the ground. Nothing else happened.

"What… did that do?"

"I'm not really sure," she blushed. "I just remember that the cats were always telling me, 'Sailor Moon, whatever you do, don't do that.' So I didn't."

"So… you're going to go kill the rest of my team, now, right?"

"No, I think that should take care of them."

"But… nothing happened."

"I think it's supposed to take a while."

"Well, we'll sit here nicely until it gets us."

"Backstreet's back, all right!" giggled Miku, returning with a limp, but conscious Elsa in her arms.

"Are you all right?" Jotaro asked.

"Arm's broken," she grunted, tapping her left arm with her right hand to form an icy cast over it.

"You'll live," sighed Jotaro.

Usagi raised an eyebrow. "But I thought you guys were gonna get hit by my attack?"

"Oh… yeah… Dash, cover our retreat."

Jotaro began to plug coordinates into his AEGIS as the once-still Mobile Suit began to rise to its full height. The Trans-Dimensional Analysts disappeared in a swirl of blue sparks, and a huge foot moved to occupy the space where they once stood.

"And there I thought I was going to let this sweet new machine go to waste," snickered Rainbow Dash, lowering the gigantic beam rifle's barrel toward the girl. "Try this on for size!"

With a click of a trigger, the massive weapon began to charge, drawing in ambient particles as it ionized its own supply in its reaction chamber. Sailor Moon's hair danced in the air the weapon sucked in, and raised an open hand toward the barrel. Rainbow Dash pulled the trigger, and the girl was swallowed in a thick torrent of yellow light that burned a kilometer-long scorch down the dirt thoroughfare.

"Okay, that was pretty cool," giggled the Pegasus. "Now to get back in contact with the ship to get ported out."

"You're not going anywhere," said Usagi from behind a spherical screen of smoke that quickly drifted away, revealing her to be none the worse for wear. "Optimus, destroy that rotten machine while I help Luffy."

The truck split into a surprising amount of small, sharp pieces that rapidly reconfigured around one another to form the Autobot, who rearranged his right arm into a glowing blade.

"I want one," whispered Rainbow Dash, reluctantly turning the beam rifle on the fascinating robot.

"I have no problems killing a lifeless machine," grunted Optimus Prime, charging forwards. Rainbow Dash pulled her trigger, and was treated to an error message about the rifle's recycle rate.

"Are you kidding me? Now of all times?!" She clicked the trigger a few more times, but to no avail. The Autobot leapt into the air and sliced the barrel off of the rifle, leaving it a few-ton chunk of scrap. Rainbow Dash twisted a joystick and caused the Mark II to cast the weapon aside, replacing it with a thin cylinder drawn from the side skirts. The Mobile Suit's fingers pressed a button on the cylinder, and it ignited into a blade of crackling energy.

"Well, at least I can say that things are finally getting exciting," smiled the Pegasus as she watched the smaller robot convert its other arm into another sword. The boosters within the Mark II's skirt armor kicked on, and the Mobile Suit slid backwards across the sand until Dash was comfortable with the distance between her and the robot.

"Huh. It is pretty fast," she noted.

Now, if I can just charge back fast enough, I should be able to slice that guy up, retreat to a safe distance, and wait for extraction. I've just gotta stay alive.

She shoved the twin joysticks forward, and the thrusters climbed to their full power. The Gatsby Mark II jolted ahead, kicking up a monstrous dust cloud in its wake. The Autobot still charged toward her, though nowhere near as fast. Dash's targeting computer brought up a range indicator, which rapidly scrolled through ever-shrinking numbers, until the beam saber's optimum range came into view.

"Now… take this!"

As Optimus jumped towards her, the Mark II swung the beam saber in a wide arc, forming a half-circle of yellow death in the air. Half of the robot's body disappeared below the saber's path, while the other half carried on through its leap and collided with the Mobile Suit's chest. Rainbow Dash was thrown back into her seat by the impact, disoriented by her fizzling viewscreens. The displays began to clear- and Dash did not like what she saw. Looming in her Mobile Suit's cameras was the upper body of the smaller robot, which had evidently dragged itself to the Gatsby Mark II's head.

"Give me… your face," it growled, jamming a sword into the faceplate. Rainbow Dash's screens went dark as the cockpit, which was nestled in the chest, began to ring with alarms. She sighed with defeat, activated the self-destruct mechanism, and hit the personal evacuation AEGIS. Instantly she found herself back in the Mobile Defense hangar. Char Aznable was milling past with a clipboard, taking notes on the docked machines, when he saw the dazed-looking Pegasus.

"So, we're going to need a Mark III, aren't we?"

"Yeah… probably," groaned Rainbow Dash, slumping to the floor.

"Come on, Luffy. Wake up," Usagi whimpered.

The pirate opened his eyes with some effort. "U-Usagi? What… happened to you?"

"I'm not Usagi! I'm Sailor Moon!"

"No, you're definitely Usagi."

"Whatever. So do you want to explain why I'm feeling fine?"

"I healed you with the power of the Moon!"

"Yeah… right," the boy groaned, picking himself up. "Thanks, for whatever it was. Where's Optimus?"

Usagi pointed to the staggering mecha just outside of town. "He's going and fighting that big machine out there. I'm sure he'll be fine."

At that moment, the Gatsby Mark II exploded in a plume of blue-white fire.

"Or he… won't."

Jack kicked his legs against the ground, shattering the half-melted ice that bound them together. "Either way, those nasty blokes are gone, so there's nothing between us and that coin."

"Except a vault," noted Sailor Moon.

"Bugger," Jack cursed.

Luffy began to lead them toward the bank, when he noticed something in the sky. At first, he dismissed it, but when he checked again, it was still there.

"Hey, guys," he asked. "Was the moon out, earlier?"