Author's Note:

Well, I was going to write this chapter in my fanfic notebook, the way I wrote the prologue. I didn't want to do any impulse writing for this story.

…so guess what I ended up doing? *sighs* I am such a sucker for my evil muse. I think, at least, that, in my "impulse writing," I managed to write Zurg tolerably well. Sorry about the short chapter—first chapters tend to be that way with me. =P Enjoy!

To my reviewers:

Historian1912: *laughs* I only wish I were genius-level crazy! And related to Sherlock Holmes, for that matter! 'Fraid I don't know of any Anglo-Saxon blood in me. Don't worry, though, I'll get all the way through this story—it'll just take a long time to do so. It's a pretty huge concept. *giggles* Why can I just see you nearly jumping through the roof when reading the summary? ;D Anyway, glad you liked the prologue, and Warp's POV (which you know I love to write). Yeeeaaah, I do kind of have a tendency towards weird stuff, don't I? I guess the fantastic just appeals to my muse—and I always and forever have loved time-travel as a theme. Thank you very much, and you're welcome! God bless!

Ranger-Nova: Ooo, glad you enjoyed it! I'm trying to make this story as easy as possible for both fandoms to follow, but of course it helps if you've seen bits of the show. If I recall correctly, SH22 is for sale on Amazon, if you ever have that option. Glad you think that Zurg is okay thus far, and hopefully you'll continue to think so! And I'm also glad you see his scheme as plausible, because I really do think it's something he'd do. And glad you thought Warp and Moriarty IC! For Moriarty, I stick with the show (I've watched most his episodes several times, since he's one of my favorite characters) and then draw off of how I think the original Moriarty would think and act. Ohhh, I can't wait for Buzz and Holmes to interact, either—you're dead right there's potential for fun interaction. They are very different. It's gonna be interesting, definitely. Mira and Lestrade will also be very fun to write. Yeah, I can't wait to bring in other characters—I think that, ironically, Ozma's going to play an important role. And Evilyear… well, sure, he can match Moriarty in sheer evilness. Definitely. But, of course, he just couldn't beat Moriarty's intelligence. Muwahahaha, yes, the Rangers do have their work cut out for them… God bless!

Erin3000: Thank you! Ha-ha, I can't wait for Holmes and Lestrade to meet Buzz, either!

==Chapter I==

The Napoleon of Crime

What about the world today?
What about the place that we call home?

The planet before him glittered gold and red and silver. Of course, appearances were quite deceiving, for he knew that this particular planet was considered by all to be the cesspool of the galaxy. His gaze drifted to the stars above, cold and distant and utterly spectacular.

"Space," he whispered reverently. "The final frontier."

"Master?"

He shook his head, not taking his gaze away from the magnificent vista spread before him. "You still haven't watched Star Trek, have you?"

"Uhh…"

"Never mind. Let's get going."

Warp Darkmatter still had a bad feeling about this. And, gosh-darn it, he was going to try to get through to Zurg one more time. "Boss!"

Zurg was conferring further down the hallway with a brainpod. He didn't look up.

And Warp knew his boss had heard him. He scowled. "O Most Majestic and Utterly Evil Imperialness?"

Zurg looked up then—all the way up to the ceiling, shaking his head. "Darkmatter, really. You didn't have to go that far."

"I'm a big believer in overkill. We've established that already."

"Pish-posh. So!" Zurg waved the brainpod away. "What's on your alleged mind?"

Warp sighed and moved closer so that Zurg would be the only one to hear him in the busy hallway. "Look, Big Z, I still think this is a bad idea." Zurg started to glance aside, and Warp held up his real hand. "No, wait. Listen. This guy's been here only a week and already he's mastered living in our century. And, to be honest—"

"Oo, this ought to be good!"

Warp rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth. "To. Be. Honest. The man's a creep."

Zurg clapped his hands once and rubbed them together. "Well, then, Warpster, you and he should get along swimmingly."

Warp moaned, dragging his real hand over his face. "I'm not getting through…"

"Nope, not really," Zurg said cheerfully. "Look, Darkmatter, believe it or not, I appreciate your concern. No, really, I do. Shows you have a brain and you're using it—there's hope for you yet! But I think your concern is unfounded. Professor Moriarty is a perfectly sane, logical man. He's certainly not like Evilyear or my unfortunate energy vampire project gone awry."

Warp snorted.

"And he doesn't have a power base here," Zurg continued. "I do. He has to know that he can't challenge me without challenging that. And if it came right down to it, I could certainly match him in a contest of wits."

"This from the man who couldn't figure out how to use his own word in a sentence?" Warp said skeptically.

Zurg scowled and folded his arms petulantly. "Not my fault Lightyear caught me off-guard."

Warp growled and smacked his forehead. "That's it! That's it right there! If Lightyear can catch you off-guard, what can a guy who's working with you and has ten times Lightyear's brainpower do to you?"

The nearest hall-comm. came to life before Zurg could answer. "The agents are in position, O Evil One," announced a Grub from the bridge.

"Capital!" Zurg beamed. "We'll be right there. Coming, Darkmatter? Or will Moriarty 'creep you out' too much?"

"That henchman of his sure will," Warp muttered. "I can't believe you actually pulled him through, too!"

"Professional courtesy, Darkmatter," Zurg shot over his shoulder. "Something I'm sure you wouldn't know anything about."

Aaaaarrrrrrgggghhh… yep, Warp was about ready to blast something. Or bang his head against the wall. Come to think of it, the latter option was almost more appealing…

James Moriarty stepped out onto a Tradeworld elevated sidewalk and smiled infinitesimally. It was a milk run today—just a bit of gun-running to get a feel for Tradeworld and operations in general. Moriarty still intended to do his own dirty work.

Behind him, Fenwick got out of their shuttle and scowled at the many pedestrians—all but a small handful of them alien. "Zoot," he muttered. "As if ze freak show staff wazn't bad enough."

Moriarty lifted a patrician eyebrow to remind the Frenchman of his own barely-human appearance. "You're one to talk," he said dryly, setting off for the Fixer's.

He had learned that, two years ago, there were three interplanetary experts on Tradeworld to contact for illegal activities: Crumford Lorak, Keno Kentrix, and the Fixer. Now there were only two, thanks to Team Lightyear's bust of Kentrix's operations on Mahambas VI. Kentrix's organization had splintered, and the Fixer provided one of the smaller fences for Kentrix's old goods.

And who knew? Perhaps they'd be lucky and run into Team Lightyear. He knew that Zurg was hoping for the exact opposite, but Moriarty wanted very much to see them in action and study them in person. He had not gotten Sherlock Holmes's measure, after all, until the young man was actively combating his syndicate.

It was almost a pity that Holmes could not have followed him into this new age as he had before. Conquest would be "all too easy," to quote Darth Vader. Still, he supposed he should be grateful for small favors. Sherlock Holmes had proven himself in two different centuries and lifetimes to be too powerful an opponent.

Old Kentrix weaponry was still being distributed in the galaxy's underworld, and, lately, there'd been a fresh surge of it flooding the black markets. Star Command's detective division had gotten word that there was to be a sale from the Fixer's shop, and Team Lightyear was there to make the bust. Each Ranger hidden, they allowed the buyer to get inside the shop before they sprung the trap.

"Now that is the ugliest human I have ever seen," XR commented casually as the buyer struggled beneath Booster's bulk.

"Hey!" the man cried in a strong French accent.

"XR," Buzz said warningly, handcuffing the Fixer. He was more amused than annoyed, really, and XR was right—with his greyish skin and oddly deformed face, their buyer looked more alien than human.

"Hey, you don't have anything on me!" the Fixer protested.

"Me, neither!" the Frenchman chimed.

Buzz lifted an eyebrow. "Possession and purchase of illegal weaponry? Nooo, I think we've got plenty on you two."

"Aaand don't think I've forgotten that whole AFD business," XR warned the Fixer, scowling and tapping his right tread.

The alien merely rolled his eyes. "Oh, for crying out loud…"

From a deserted room in a neighboring building, Moriarty was watching the arrests through a mini-cam on Fenwick's coat collar. He frowned, but not because his right-hand man had gotten himself arrested again. No, it was because there was someone missing from this little drama.

"Oh," he said aloud. "Idiot. She's out here somewhere."

"Ooo," said a female voice behind him, "you're just smart—" approximately 120 pounds slammed into him out of nowhere—"aren't you?"

He felt one manacle clasp around his wrist. Snarling, he grabbed at his attacker's wrist and pivoted, sending his attacker into the nearby wall. Smirking, he bowed as he had to royalty in the nineteenth century. "Princess Mira Nova, I presume."

The redheaded, blue-skinned woman rose and flipped through the air—he dodged and grabbed her ankle as she came down, slamming her to the floor. "An honor to meet you, Your Highness," he said smoothly. She growled and sprung forward… but he stopped her, grabbing her wrist again. He was now holding her completely suspended in the air, by her right ankle and left wrist. "Really, such behavior in a princess," he purred, amused.

She weighed less than Lestrade had, and he knew Ranger Nova had only three years with Star Command under her belt. The volatile Beth Lestrade, on the other hand, had possessed six years of experience in New Scotland Yard by the time Moriarty had first met her—and they had been in each other's ionizer sights for three years following that. It was a fair estimation that Lestrade was a better fighter than Nova.

The alien princess's beautiful face twisted with fury, and she swung her free fist towards his face. Rather than drop her, he turned his head and braced himself for the punch…

…and experienced the disconcerting sensation of an intangible hand passing straight into his skull. A moment later, the psychic sensations kicked in, and he distantly heard… a gasp, two gasps?... as he collapsed to the floor. As Nova's look of astonishment swam in his vision, he felt his mental defenses penetrated—thoughts, memories, emotions all at the mercy of the young woman who had just entered his mind.

And then James Moriarty became well and truly angry. Tightening his grip on her wrist and ankle to a chokehold, he swung her, all his weight thrown behind the move. The violating hand passed harmlessly out of his skull, and she collided full-force with the wall and dropped to the floor, unconscious.

Breathing hard, Moriarty rose to his feet. He could take her with him, but Buzz Lightyear & Co. would be sure to follow and take her right back. No, he was not prepared to take prisoners. Not yet.

He took care in getting away from the area, not even bothering to spring open the manacle around his wrist. He just needed to get out of here now. He could always break Fenwick out of prison later—he'd done so several times in the past.

In the shuttle, he commed Zurg as he ran the preflight check. "Did you see all that?"

"I did," Zurg replied irately. "Craters, why did Lightyear have to be the one to bust the Fixer on today of all days? Doesn't that just can your peaches?"

Resisting the urge to sigh, Moriarty revved the ship to life. "I can rescue Fenwick later. Right now, we need to go."

But Zurg was off on a rant about Lightyear's penchant for ruining his operations—Moriarty supposed he couldn't even blame Zurg for it. Darkmatter's voice came on the comm. and said, "Roger that. Your hangar's open and waiting for you."

And at least Darkmatter had some sense in him. "Understood." The shuttle lifted smoothly into the air and arced up towards a Dreadnought waiting behind Tradeworld's largest moon.

"Mira? C'mon, Ranger, wake up."

Mira opened her eyes slowly, saw her captain gazing down at her. "Hey," she said quietly.

"Hey, yourself," he smiled back. "Looks like you got hit pretty good."

She winced, holding her head. "Yeah. I hurt like the dickens all over… Oh!" Memory flooded her then, almost overwhelming her with the information she'd gleaned from her opponent's mind. "Ohmygosh, that man! Buzz, did you see him?"

He blinked. "The back-up you fought? No, he was gone before we got here."

Grimacing, Mira pushed herself up into a sitting position on the floor. "He… I've never felt anyone like that before. I got into his head. He…" She looked up at Buzz, amazement in her large blue eyes. "He was brilliant, Buzz. He was so incredibly intelligent that it hurt just to get a read on him. He had this… this massive presence…"

She shook her head, trying to formulate the words to describe her experience. "It was almost like holding mental contact with the Unimind… but, well, different, because he's obviously not a hive mentality or a telepath."

As Mira had begun to explain, Buzz had frowned… and his frown deepened throughout her tale. "And this man is a Zurg agent?"

"No, he's not," she said quietly. "I didn't have much time, but I got a lot in those few seconds. And he's not Zurg's agent—Buzz, he's Zurg's new partner."

Buzz looked astonished for a moment only before he laughed. "Mira! Zurg doesn't go in for partners—not since my evil double made that huge mess of things two years ago! He's just not that kind of—"

"Buzz, there's more," Mira said patiently. "It's… I don't know, I could have misread it, but…"

"But what?"

"This man? I think he's from the past. And if he's who I think he is—" she met Buzz's gaze squarely—"we're in big trouble."

We've never been so many
And we've never been so alone

Author's Note:

Writing the scene between Moriarty and Mira made me so nervous, especially because it's so important. I'm still not sure how good it is or how much I like it. What I did like was Moriarty's "Explain, Explain, Oh Crap" moment—inspired by Sherlock, actually, in the BBC series, but I could really hear Moriarty saying that.

Oh yes, and let me specify some heights really quickly. These are based off of observations of the specific height of characters and the seemingly average heights of extras in the two shows… with some speculation thrown in:

Booster: 6'10".

Zurg: 6'7".

Moriarty: 6'6".

Holmes: 6'2".

Warp: 6'1".

Fenwick: 6'.

Lestrade: 5'11".

Buzz: 5'10".

Commander Nebula: 5'9".

Mira: 5'9".

Watson: 5'9".

XR: 4'.

Okay, now that I've gone and made this A/N reeeally long just with that little list… ^_^ For the benefit of the BLoSC fans who haven't watched SH22, allow me to explain the Star Trek bit. In the episode "The Adventure of the Mazarin Chip," Moriarty suggests creating a transporter and beaming himself and Fenwick out of a police-surrounded apartment… then tells Fenwick that he's kidding. "Idiot. You obviously haven't watched the classics." Given the original Moriarty's in-depth knowledge of astrophysics, it was a stroke of brilliance on the writers' part.

Next up… Star Command discovers who exactly is now working with Zurg, thanks to Mira, and a daring plan is conceived! Stay tuned!

Please review!