Sailor Moon doesn't belong to me.
This is one of my lost fics. If I get enough responses, I might finish it. Or I might just hit the delete key. Ya never know.
The Unbreakable Past
The factory had been abandoned for quite some time, a relic of the Second World War where AM-7 Zero Zens were made, then later cars. After that, it made washing machines. Now it was just one more old building on the east end of Tokyo. Nothing made it stand out at all…
Except for the bright flash of light that illuminated the interior in an eerie blue glow.
This flash emanated from a ball of light in the center of the factory floor, arcs of blue electricity danced across the walls. From within this ball emerged two men.
They paused in front of the ball for a moment, rifles raised as they checked over their location. More people came from the ball. Two more, a third, and finally a fourth followed by…
A housecat.
One man, dressed differently from the rest and holding no weapon looked around himself. "Sylia?"
"I'm checking," one of his compatriots replied, looking at a hand- held scanner, her rifle slung over her shoulder. "There's a lot of chroniton radiation," she announced. "On a different subspace plane, but it's enough to jumble the gate." She shook her head. "Man, Pluto's going to be pissed…"
"She's already pissed," the man told her. "Did it come through here?"
She nodded. "Looks like." She put the scanner up. "But even so, it's gone now."
"What now?" one of the other men asked.
The one in charge, a blonde man with short hair and sterling blue eyes took a breath. "We proceed as planned. There's only a few possible targets here. Sylia, you stay here and set up shop. Callisto, you help her."
"I might be more valuable to you if I come along," the soft feminine voice replied.
The man looked down at his cat. "Sylia's going to need you here to coordinate this mess."
Callisto sighed and nodded. Her white and black swirled fur made her look more like an ice cream flavor than a cat, but the crescent moon symbol on her head showed that she was no ordinary feline.
"What about the portal?" another man asked. "Are we okay or worse off?" He sounded jittery.
"It doesn't make much of a difference now, does it?" Sylia replied with an annoyed sigh. "It wouldn't have made any real difference. We still have two weeks."
"Which means no time to fool around now," the man pointed out. "Let's go."
"Gaius," Callisto called out. The blonde man turned. "Be careful."
Gaius Endymion smiled. "Who? Me?"
Usagi reached out and clutched another handful of earth, weakly pulling herself another inch across the ground. Her tongue hung out of her mouth, and her eyes were half closed in exhaustion. She reached out with her other hand and continued to pull herself across the field.
"Well," Luna chastised from her perch atop Usagi's head, "If you had woken up at a decent hour instead of waiting until the last second, you wouldn't have forgotten your lunch, now would you?"
The blonde scout's stomach rumbled angrily, either at Luna for making the remark, or at Usagi in agreement with it.
"Shut…..up….Luna…" Usagi panted. "Must….find…..food…."
A few students in high school uniforms ran past her on their way to the other end of the field, paying no mind to Usagi's theatrical performance.
She reached out and was surprised when her hand wrapped around something smooth and warm. She looked up and saw it was someone's leg.
"Hey, Usagi," she heard. "Forgot your lunch again?"
Looking farther up, she saw Minako's face smiling down at her, a pair chopsticks holding a tasty morsel plucked from the bento in her other hand.
"Minako…" Usagi rasped. "Help me….food…"
Minako replied by popping the morsel into her mouth and chewing. "Yeah…gotta be a bummer."
"I'm….begging you…."
Minako thought about it for a minute. "Okay, but you have to do something for me."
"Anything…"
One blonde smiled down at another. "You have to introduce me to that cute exchange student from Florida."
Usagi's eyes went wide. "Um….I hardly know him…."
"Of course not," Minako said with a sly grin. "That's why you've been sitting next to him in class and asking him to help you with your homework despite the fact that Ami offered to help you several times…Not to mention…"
"Fine. Deal," Usagi gave in with a grumble.
"Here you go," Minako offered the bento to her.
Usagi's eyes lit up, and she grabbed the box, tearing into its contents like a starving wolverine.
Luna sighed and barely managed to hang on to one of Usagi's meatballs. "Minako, she's never going to learn if you keep giving her your meals…"
"I wasn't going to finish it, anyway," Minako told the cat, sitting down on the grass beside them.
Usagi continued to devour the bento. "If you ask me, Minako, you're better off taking a pass on that guy. He's kind of a jerk."
Minako shrugged. "A date's a date, I guess."
Usagi paused in her eating for a second to look over at her friend. "Yeah, but you could do better." This much was true. Usagi knew there was a line of guys hoping to catch a date with the blonde Minako, but for some reason she kept picking out the wrong ones.
Minako smiled. "Not everyone can have a Tuxedo Kamen, you know," she pointed out.
Usagi paused eating again. "Yeah….and he's all mine!" she giggled in glee before resuming her meal.
Minako sweatdropped.
"Still," Usagi said, her mouth full with rice and fish, "That doesn't mean you should settle."
"I'm not settling, I'm using the Shotgun Method."
Usagi paused to swallow and breathe.
"I take my shot with a few guys, and one of them is bound to be a hit," she explained.
"Doesn't sound like that great of a system," Usagi noted.
"Yeah, well, how would you know?" Minako muttered.
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
She turned to her friend and sighed. "You were destined to be with Mamoru. You don't have to go out there and look for a great guy. One just fell into your lap!"
Usagi didn't say anything.
"It's a little harder for the rest of us. We have to go out there and actually search for someone we be with. Even then it's not guaranteed to work out. Then we have to go search again…and again…and again….Then, maybe, we find someone."
Usagi thought on this for a moment. "No offense, Minako…But I prefer my method…" She went back to eating.
Minako sighed and turned away. "Yeah…me too."
Rei yawned as she walked up the steps towards the Hikawa Shrine. Another day, another class. She tried to shake the sleep out of her eyes. She hadn't slept very well the previous night. Something had kept her up. It wasn't really a dream…more of a bad feeling. Still, nothing had presented itself.
"I'm just overworked," she told herself. "Between class, being a Senshi, and babysitting Usagi, I do more before six A.M. than most soldiers do all day…"
It wasn't that she disliked being a Senshi. Far from it. She felt that she was really making a difference in the world. It's just that…
"I need a vacation," she sighed.
She stopped.
There was something behind her.
She whirled around quickly, adopting a fighting stance.
Nothing…
A few ravens flew from a nearby cherry tree and took off, cawing.
The hair on the back of her neck rose. She waited.
Still nothing.
She took a breath. "Calm down, Rei," she told herself. "You're just on edge." She turned to start up the steps again….
When something struck her in the face.
The Senshi flew ten feet into the air and landed on the steps. She screamed as she rolled down the stone stairway, tumbling end over end until she hit the bottom, bruised and bleeding.
She tried to move, but her leg was in agony. It really frightened her when it began to go numb.
(Broken,) she thought. (Wonderful.) She reached into her pocket and pulled out her transformation pen. "Mars," she rasped. "Star…."
She felt more than heard the heavy thump next to her. Something heavy had just landed beside her. She turned to look up at it when she felt something grab her by the throat. She had the sensation that she was flying as her attacker lifted her one handed and reached out, pinning her by the neck to a nearby cherry tree.
She cried out in pain as her back hit the tree trunk, hard. The transformation pen fell from her weakened fingers. She struggled for breath as her attacker squeezed, her hands going up to his arms, trying desperately to pull them off of her.
She opened her eyes and gasped. Her attacker was almost invisible. It was more like looking over a strip of pavement on a hot day. The air seemed distorted around it. Brief arcs of blue electricity ran up and down its 'body.'
It pressed her harder into the tree, bringing its face closer to her own. It forcibly turned her head to the right. She could feel the claws on the end of its fingers without having to see them. It turned her head to the left, studying her while she gasped and struggled, suspended three feet in the air.
She saw spots before her eyes as the creature continued to examine here. Finally, it released her, dropping her to the floor and turning casually away. Rei landed on her bad leg and cried out, falling to the ground. She coughed and gagged, trying to get more air into her lungs. She looked up and saw the creature moving farther away.
She removed her communicator and weakly opened it. "Help…me…" she rasped.
Oddly enough, the creature didn't attack again. Rei remained under that tree until help arrived half an hour later.
"When I get my hands on the piece of dirt that did this," Makoto hissed, her hands balled into fists, "He'll be lucky if he **just* dies!"
"Who would want to do this to Rei?" Minako asked, genuinely puzzled.
None of the other Senshi in the hospital waiting room had any idea. Sitting on the couch, Mamoru was holding a crying Usagi.
It was then that a frazzled Yuichirou came running into the waiting room. "Hey! I just heard! Is there any word yet?!"
"No," Ami told him quietly. "But I overheard some nurses talking. They were sending for all kinds of specialists. A neurologist, a surgeon, an orthopedic surgeon…."
"So there's a lot wrong with her, is what you're trying to say," Minako threw in.
Ami nodded sadly.
"I wanna know why," Makoto growled. "He didn't take her money or anything!"
"Maybe he wasn't after money," Minako whispered fearfully.
"What else could he have…" Makoto stopped midsentence as she caught on to what Minako was hinting at. "Oh my god…Poor Rei…" she whispered.
"We still don't know anything yet," Ami said, trying to allay their fears. "Let's just wait to hear what the doctor says!"
They nodded in agreement. As if saying it made it come true, Grandpa Hino and Rei's doctor appeared from down the hall. As a mob, they rushed forward.
"Is Rei all right?!" Usagi demanded.
"Yeah, what's going on?!" Makoto threw in.
Grandpa Hino waved his hands and tried to get them to calm down. The doctor adjusted a pair of glasses and put his hands in his labcoat.
"Okay," he said softly. "Here's the bottom line. Rei has a broken leg and a sprained wrist. But there's more. When she fell down the stairs she landed on her back a few times."
"Spinal injuries?" Ami asked.
The doctor nodded. "A cracked disk. Seventh vertebrae."
"Oh my god," Ami whispered.
"She's going to be here for a long time," he told them. "It's going to take awhile for her to recuperate."
"Did she say who did this?" Makoto demanded.
He shook his head.
"Can we see her?" Usagi asked.
"She's sleeping now. We had to sedate her for the pain."
"Then can we just…sit with her for awhile?" Minako requested.
The doctor thought it over for a moment and nodded. Turning, he led them down the hall. "You have to be very quiet," he told them, opening the door.
The sight that met them brought tears to Usagi's eyes. Rei was lying in bed, her face a bruised mess, asleep. Machines kept tabs on her vital signs.
"Oh, Rei," Ami whispered.
Minako was about to voice something similar when she noticed that someone was missing. She turned her head and saw Yuichirou walking down the hall towards the exit. "Yuichirou?" She started to follow him, running down the hall. "Hey, Yuichirou!" she called. A nurse shushed her.
Finally she caught up with him. She reached out and touched his shoulder.
He stopped.
"Where are you going?" she demanded. "Rei needs us. All of us."
He turned to her, and Minako blinked in surprise. She had never seen Yuichirou so angry. "I'll tell you where I'm going," he said quietly, almost softly. "I'm going to go out there, find the son of a bitch that did this, and stomp the life out of him."
Minako sighed. "Yuichirou, we don't even know who did this." He growled in response. "Look," she said softly, "I know how you feel. I want to find the guy who did this too. But until we know more, we can't do anything except be there for Rei." She reached out and touched his shoulder. "Please, Yuichirou? If there was ever a time that Rei needed you…it's now."
He sighed. "Yeah," he whispered. "Okay."
She smiled. "Good. Come on. Let's go see her."
Together, the two started back down the hall.
"Son of a bitch, I knew it!" Gaius growled tossing the newspaper down onto the table where Callisto was having her meal. One of the first page stories had the title, 'Girl Brutally Attacked.'
The black and white cat hopped over and began reading the article.
"Who here was supposed to be looking after Mars?" he asked the others.
"I couldn't find her in time," one of them, the jittery man, answered. "By the time I did, she was already attacked."
Gaius bit his lip.
"Hmmm….interesting," Callisto remarked, her tail darting from side to side as she read. "If it had her completely at its mercy, how is it she survived?"
"Subtle Influences," Gaius answered. The rest of them looked up at him.
"Of course!" Callisto cried. "Whoever created that monster doesn't want to destroy the future, he just wants to change it."
"I'm not following," Sylia told them.
"The creature must have a preset target in mind. It wants the other Senshi out of the way temporarily, but still wants them around to help create Crystal Tokyo in a thousand years. That's why Aunt Rei's alive but incapacitated. She wasn't the target." Gaius bit his lip in thought.
"So, it's not the Senshi, it's *one* Senshi he's after," Sylia concluded.
"Looks like it." He closed his eyes as another bout of pain hit him.
Sylia looked at him in concern. "Getting worse?" she asked.
He nodded, his eyes still shut. She got up and loaded a hypodermic. He felt the prick in his arm. The pain began to subside.
"These are going to become worthless after awhile," she whispered.
He ignored her. "Any luck on tracking that thing?"
She shook her head.
"Then we stick with the Senshi," he ordered. "Split up again. Keep close tabs on them."
"I think it's time I had a talk with my folks," Callisto said, rising to her feet.
"Can't do it, Callisto," Gaius told her. "SI could cause too many problems down the road. My sister's caused enough of those already."
"There's quite a bit at stake here," the feline reminded him. "We could use them."
Gaius paused. "All right. Not much choice, I guess."
Callisto hopped down to the floor. "Just watch. If anyone can figure a way out of this mess, it's my fo…Oou!" She said this last part as her breath quickened and her eyes shut.
"Callisto, you okay?" Gaius asked worriedly.
"Oh, god, that hurt," Callisto whimpered.
"It's the pluton poisoning," Sylia commented. "It's only going to get worse." She bent down and picked up the cat, stroking her fur and giving her a quick injection. "If you feel lightheaded or weak, come right back. I'm not sure how fast pluton affects cats."
"All right," Callisto assured her.
"Where would the Senshi be now?" Sylia asked.
"School," Gaius replied.
"How do you think she's doing today?" Makoto asked as she nibbled on her lunch.
"Ami and Usagi are with her," Minako replied. "You could always call them up and ask."
"I already know the answer," the taller Senshi said quietly. They had all decided that two of them would watch over Rei while the other two went to class and switch off day to day. This way, they wouldn't miss as much school and they could fill each other in.
Minako sighed and looked up at the sky. To think that exactly twenty-four hours ago, she was joking with Usagi about lunch and boys. Now things were…just different.
Sylia kept a watch on the two girls through the scope of her rifle from the top of the school building. Standing next to her, Gaius was checking the area using binoculars.
"I don't like it," Sylia muttered. "It's like using them as cheese."
"We're not exactly after a mouse, here," Gaius reminded her. He tensed suddenly.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Thought I…Check those trees. Ten o'clock. Halfway up."
Sylia moved her rifle to examine the tree. She checked the branches and saw some boy climbing it. She relaxed somewhat. "Maybe it went to the hospital with the others," she hypothesized. She looked up and found Gaius staring at something through the binoculars. She followed his gaze and found that the blonde Senshi, Minako, was on the end of it.
"When you're done," she assured him.
He went back to examining the trees. "Wait," he breathed.
"Well, don't worry!" Makoto told her, suddenly enthusiastic. "Rei's gonna be fine!"
Minako smiled. "Yeah! You're right!"
"And we only have fifteen minutes left for lunch, so I'm digging in. You want some?"
The blonde nodded. "Sure."
Makoto picked up her bento and turned to offer it to Minako. She blinked when she noticed something. There was a red dot on Minako's fuku. At first, she thought it was a stain or something.
Then it began to move.
It hit her.
"MINAKO!" Makoto launched herself forward and hit her friend, knocking her aside just as a blue blast of energy struck the earth where they had been sitting.
"What the hell!?" Minako cried. Other students saw what had happened and started to panic, running around in a panic.
"Quick! While they're distracted!" Makoto cried, holding up her transformation pen. Minako nodded and took out her own pen. "JUPITER STAR POWER!"
"VENUS STAR POWER!"
Light surrounded them as they began to transform.
"I never thought I'd see it for myself," Gaius whispered, as he watched the two Senshi tranform themselves.
"Do you see it?!?" Sylia cried.
"No," Gaius, replied. "But it's close. Stay here. Provide cover."
"Where are you going?"
"Down there to help."
The two Senshi stood back to back, searching the trees and the windows for their would-be assassin.
Movement to the right.
"SPARKLING WIDE PRESSURE!" Makoto cried, flinging a ball of charged electricity into a nearby tree! The bolt went straight through the tree, taking the top half of it off. But something was still there, yet not there.
Whatever it was swung around the other side of the tree. There was a flash of blue, and something hot hit Jupiter square in the chest!
She screamed as she was thrown back twenty feet, landing on her back. The front of her fuku was burned.
"Jupiter!" Minako quickly turned back to the enemy.
There was nothing there. She heard something to her right, but didn't move.
"Venus," she whispered.
She heard it again.
"Crescent…"
She turned suddenly just in time to be struck in the face by something; a fist! She landed on her back five yards away. She shook her head and looked up at the creature. She pointed at what she thought was its head.
"BEAM!"
Golden light leapt from her finger and struck the creature dead on. It stumbled backward and screamed. Minako jumped to her feet and posed. "So you're the heartless thing that attacked Rei! Even love has its limits, and love shall never forget a cruel and pitiless creature such as you! In the name of Venus, I shall…"
The creature turned and fired!
"CRAP!" Minako cried as the bolt struck her in the chest, hurling her backward. She felt a burning sensation in her chest. She looked up and saw the creature looking down at her. It seemed to be staring at her. Its eyes flashed…
Then it screamed at her.
Minako kicked out with her feet, crawling away from whatever the hell it was. Nearby, Makoto was slowly rising to her feet. The creature took a step towards her. Suddenly, she heard a high pitched whistle. The creature screamed again, something was sticking out of its chest.
Minako blinked.
A silver rose.
She sighed in relief and turned her head to the direction the rose had come. "Thank god you're here, Tu…" She blinked. "You're not Tuxedo Kamen."
"I get that a lot," Gaius said from his perch up in the tree. He held up another rose and waited. "Just get clear!"
Minako climbed to her feet painfully as the creature turned back to them. Another high pitched whistle and another rose was sticking out of it.
"This…isn't going to work," Gaius muttered. His eyes went wide as the creature fired at him. He hopped down from the tree just as the blue blast struck the branch he had been standing on! Gaius landed in a crouch. Reaching into his cloak, he removed a small, metal cylinder. With a short "shnick!" that tiny cylinder expanded into a two meter quarter-staff.
The creature paused, unsure as to how to handle someone who wasn't fleeing from it.
Gaius smiled. "Got you now, you son of a bitch."
"VENUS LOVE ME CHAIN!"
The creature jumped as a golden chain of hearts struck the ground where it had been standing.
"SPARKLING WIDE PRESSURE!" There was a flash, and the creature screamed. Gaius covered his eyes to protect them from the light. When he uncovered them, the creature was leaping from tree to tree in the direction of the school.
"Dammit!" He pulled two roses and flung them, both striking trees, but not the agile creature. "Sylia! Get it!" he cried into the communicator on his collar.
He turned his head and saw his companion on the roof heading for the stairs. "I got it!" he heard through the comm.
Gaius started after the creature. He wasn't surprised to find the two Senshi running along beside him.
"What is that thing?!" Jupiter asked him.
"Trust me, Mako sama, you don't wanna know!" Gaius replied.
Sylia raised her rifle and started down the empty hallway. In her other hand, the portable scanner beeped and showed her areas where chroniton particles were being left behind.
"Bleed," she whispered with a wicked grin. "Bleed, you bastard…"
She followed the chroniton trail into a large room. Basketball nets were on either side. She keyed her comm. "Gaius," she began. "I'm in a large room. Looks like a gymnasium. My position is…" She checked the scanner. "Thirteen by twelve by thirty seven. Situation is…."
It howled from behind and above her.
"SITUATION IS UNTENABLE!" She cried and turned raising the rifle.
A blue blast silenced her.
This is one of my lost fics. If I get enough responses, I might finish it. Or I might just hit the delete key. Ya never know.
The Unbreakable Past
The factory had been abandoned for quite some time, a relic of the Second World War where AM-7 Zero Zens were made, then later cars. After that, it made washing machines. Now it was just one more old building on the east end of Tokyo. Nothing made it stand out at all…
Except for the bright flash of light that illuminated the interior in an eerie blue glow.
This flash emanated from a ball of light in the center of the factory floor, arcs of blue electricity danced across the walls. From within this ball emerged two men.
They paused in front of the ball for a moment, rifles raised as they checked over their location. More people came from the ball. Two more, a third, and finally a fourth followed by…
A housecat.
One man, dressed differently from the rest and holding no weapon looked around himself. "Sylia?"
"I'm checking," one of his compatriots replied, looking at a hand- held scanner, her rifle slung over her shoulder. "There's a lot of chroniton radiation," she announced. "On a different subspace plane, but it's enough to jumble the gate." She shook her head. "Man, Pluto's going to be pissed…"
"She's already pissed," the man told her. "Did it come through here?"
She nodded. "Looks like." She put the scanner up. "But even so, it's gone now."
"What now?" one of the other men asked.
The one in charge, a blonde man with short hair and sterling blue eyes took a breath. "We proceed as planned. There's only a few possible targets here. Sylia, you stay here and set up shop. Callisto, you help her."
"I might be more valuable to you if I come along," the soft feminine voice replied.
The man looked down at his cat. "Sylia's going to need you here to coordinate this mess."
Callisto sighed and nodded. Her white and black swirled fur made her look more like an ice cream flavor than a cat, but the crescent moon symbol on her head showed that she was no ordinary feline.
"What about the portal?" another man asked. "Are we okay or worse off?" He sounded jittery.
"It doesn't make much of a difference now, does it?" Sylia replied with an annoyed sigh. "It wouldn't have made any real difference. We still have two weeks."
"Which means no time to fool around now," the man pointed out. "Let's go."
"Gaius," Callisto called out. The blonde man turned. "Be careful."
Gaius Endymion smiled. "Who? Me?"
Usagi reached out and clutched another handful of earth, weakly pulling herself another inch across the ground. Her tongue hung out of her mouth, and her eyes were half closed in exhaustion. She reached out with her other hand and continued to pull herself across the field.
"Well," Luna chastised from her perch atop Usagi's head, "If you had woken up at a decent hour instead of waiting until the last second, you wouldn't have forgotten your lunch, now would you?"
The blonde scout's stomach rumbled angrily, either at Luna for making the remark, or at Usagi in agreement with it.
"Shut…..up….Luna…" Usagi panted. "Must….find…..food…."
A few students in high school uniforms ran past her on their way to the other end of the field, paying no mind to Usagi's theatrical performance.
She reached out and was surprised when her hand wrapped around something smooth and warm. She looked up and saw it was someone's leg.
"Hey, Usagi," she heard. "Forgot your lunch again?"
Looking farther up, she saw Minako's face smiling down at her, a pair chopsticks holding a tasty morsel plucked from the bento in her other hand.
"Minako…" Usagi rasped. "Help me….food…"
Minako replied by popping the morsel into her mouth and chewing. "Yeah…gotta be a bummer."
"I'm….begging you…."
Minako thought about it for a minute. "Okay, but you have to do something for me."
"Anything…"
One blonde smiled down at another. "You have to introduce me to that cute exchange student from Florida."
Usagi's eyes went wide. "Um….I hardly know him…."
"Of course not," Minako said with a sly grin. "That's why you've been sitting next to him in class and asking him to help you with your homework despite the fact that Ami offered to help you several times…Not to mention…"
"Fine. Deal," Usagi gave in with a grumble.
"Here you go," Minako offered the bento to her.
Usagi's eyes lit up, and she grabbed the box, tearing into its contents like a starving wolverine.
Luna sighed and barely managed to hang on to one of Usagi's meatballs. "Minako, she's never going to learn if you keep giving her your meals…"
"I wasn't going to finish it, anyway," Minako told the cat, sitting down on the grass beside them.
Usagi continued to devour the bento. "If you ask me, Minako, you're better off taking a pass on that guy. He's kind of a jerk."
Minako shrugged. "A date's a date, I guess."
Usagi paused in her eating for a second to look over at her friend. "Yeah, but you could do better." This much was true. Usagi knew there was a line of guys hoping to catch a date with the blonde Minako, but for some reason she kept picking out the wrong ones.
Minako smiled. "Not everyone can have a Tuxedo Kamen, you know," she pointed out.
Usagi paused eating again. "Yeah….and he's all mine!" she giggled in glee before resuming her meal.
Minako sweatdropped.
"Still," Usagi said, her mouth full with rice and fish, "That doesn't mean you should settle."
"I'm not settling, I'm using the Shotgun Method."
Usagi paused to swallow and breathe.
"I take my shot with a few guys, and one of them is bound to be a hit," she explained.
"Doesn't sound like that great of a system," Usagi noted.
"Yeah, well, how would you know?" Minako muttered.
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
She turned to her friend and sighed. "You were destined to be with Mamoru. You don't have to go out there and look for a great guy. One just fell into your lap!"
Usagi didn't say anything.
"It's a little harder for the rest of us. We have to go out there and actually search for someone we be with. Even then it's not guaranteed to work out. Then we have to go search again…and again…and again….Then, maybe, we find someone."
Usagi thought on this for a moment. "No offense, Minako…But I prefer my method…" She went back to eating.
Minako sighed and turned away. "Yeah…me too."
Rei yawned as she walked up the steps towards the Hikawa Shrine. Another day, another class. She tried to shake the sleep out of her eyes. She hadn't slept very well the previous night. Something had kept her up. It wasn't really a dream…more of a bad feeling. Still, nothing had presented itself.
"I'm just overworked," she told herself. "Between class, being a Senshi, and babysitting Usagi, I do more before six A.M. than most soldiers do all day…"
It wasn't that she disliked being a Senshi. Far from it. She felt that she was really making a difference in the world. It's just that…
"I need a vacation," she sighed.
She stopped.
There was something behind her.
She whirled around quickly, adopting a fighting stance.
Nothing…
A few ravens flew from a nearby cherry tree and took off, cawing.
The hair on the back of her neck rose. She waited.
Still nothing.
She took a breath. "Calm down, Rei," she told herself. "You're just on edge." She turned to start up the steps again….
When something struck her in the face.
The Senshi flew ten feet into the air and landed on the steps. She screamed as she rolled down the stone stairway, tumbling end over end until she hit the bottom, bruised and bleeding.
She tried to move, but her leg was in agony. It really frightened her when it began to go numb.
(Broken,) she thought. (Wonderful.) She reached into her pocket and pulled out her transformation pen. "Mars," she rasped. "Star…."
She felt more than heard the heavy thump next to her. Something heavy had just landed beside her. She turned to look up at it when she felt something grab her by the throat. She had the sensation that she was flying as her attacker lifted her one handed and reached out, pinning her by the neck to a nearby cherry tree.
She cried out in pain as her back hit the tree trunk, hard. The transformation pen fell from her weakened fingers. She struggled for breath as her attacker squeezed, her hands going up to his arms, trying desperately to pull them off of her.
She opened her eyes and gasped. Her attacker was almost invisible. It was more like looking over a strip of pavement on a hot day. The air seemed distorted around it. Brief arcs of blue electricity ran up and down its 'body.'
It pressed her harder into the tree, bringing its face closer to her own. It forcibly turned her head to the right. She could feel the claws on the end of its fingers without having to see them. It turned her head to the left, studying her while she gasped and struggled, suspended three feet in the air.
She saw spots before her eyes as the creature continued to examine here. Finally, it released her, dropping her to the floor and turning casually away. Rei landed on her bad leg and cried out, falling to the ground. She coughed and gagged, trying to get more air into her lungs. She looked up and saw the creature moving farther away.
She removed her communicator and weakly opened it. "Help…me…" she rasped.
Oddly enough, the creature didn't attack again. Rei remained under that tree until help arrived half an hour later.
"When I get my hands on the piece of dirt that did this," Makoto hissed, her hands balled into fists, "He'll be lucky if he **just* dies!"
"Who would want to do this to Rei?" Minako asked, genuinely puzzled.
None of the other Senshi in the hospital waiting room had any idea. Sitting on the couch, Mamoru was holding a crying Usagi.
It was then that a frazzled Yuichirou came running into the waiting room. "Hey! I just heard! Is there any word yet?!"
"No," Ami told him quietly. "But I overheard some nurses talking. They were sending for all kinds of specialists. A neurologist, a surgeon, an orthopedic surgeon…."
"So there's a lot wrong with her, is what you're trying to say," Minako threw in.
Ami nodded sadly.
"I wanna know why," Makoto growled. "He didn't take her money or anything!"
"Maybe he wasn't after money," Minako whispered fearfully.
"What else could he have…" Makoto stopped midsentence as she caught on to what Minako was hinting at. "Oh my god…Poor Rei…" she whispered.
"We still don't know anything yet," Ami said, trying to allay their fears. "Let's just wait to hear what the doctor says!"
They nodded in agreement. As if saying it made it come true, Grandpa Hino and Rei's doctor appeared from down the hall. As a mob, they rushed forward.
"Is Rei all right?!" Usagi demanded.
"Yeah, what's going on?!" Makoto threw in.
Grandpa Hino waved his hands and tried to get them to calm down. The doctor adjusted a pair of glasses and put his hands in his labcoat.
"Okay," he said softly. "Here's the bottom line. Rei has a broken leg and a sprained wrist. But there's more. When she fell down the stairs she landed on her back a few times."
"Spinal injuries?" Ami asked.
The doctor nodded. "A cracked disk. Seventh vertebrae."
"Oh my god," Ami whispered.
"She's going to be here for a long time," he told them. "It's going to take awhile for her to recuperate."
"Did she say who did this?" Makoto demanded.
He shook his head.
"Can we see her?" Usagi asked.
"She's sleeping now. We had to sedate her for the pain."
"Then can we just…sit with her for awhile?" Minako requested.
The doctor thought it over for a moment and nodded. Turning, he led them down the hall. "You have to be very quiet," he told them, opening the door.
The sight that met them brought tears to Usagi's eyes. Rei was lying in bed, her face a bruised mess, asleep. Machines kept tabs on her vital signs.
"Oh, Rei," Ami whispered.
Minako was about to voice something similar when she noticed that someone was missing. She turned her head and saw Yuichirou walking down the hall towards the exit. "Yuichirou?" She started to follow him, running down the hall. "Hey, Yuichirou!" she called. A nurse shushed her.
Finally she caught up with him. She reached out and touched his shoulder.
He stopped.
"Where are you going?" she demanded. "Rei needs us. All of us."
He turned to her, and Minako blinked in surprise. She had never seen Yuichirou so angry. "I'll tell you where I'm going," he said quietly, almost softly. "I'm going to go out there, find the son of a bitch that did this, and stomp the life out of him."
Minako sighed. "Yuichirou, we don't even know who did this." He growled in response. "Look," she said softly, "I know how you feel. I want to find the guy who did this too. But until we know more, we can't do anything except be there for Rei." She reached out and touched his shoulder. "Please, Yuichirou? If there was ever a time that Rei needed you…it's now."
He sighed. "Yeah," he whispered. "Okay."
She smiled. "Good. Come on. Let's go see her."
Together, the two started back down the hall.
"Son of a bitch, I knew it!" Gaius growled tossing the newspaper down onto the table where Callisto was having her meal. One of the first page stories had the title, 'Girl Brutally Attacked.'
The black and white cat hopped over and began reading the article.
"Who here was supposed to be looking after Mars?" he asked the others.
"I couldn't find her in time," one of them, the jittery man, answered. "By the time I did, she was already attacked."
Gaius bit his lip.
"Hmmm….interesting," Callisto remarked, her tail darting from side to side as she read. "If it had her completely at its mercy, how is it she survived?"
"Subtle Influences," Gaius answered. The rest of them looked up at him.
"Of course!" Callisto cried. "Whoever created that monster doesn't want to destroy the future, he just wants to change it."
"I'm not following," Sylia told them.
"The creature must have a preset target in mind. It wants the other Senshi out of the way temporarily, but still wants them around to help create Crystal Tokyo in a thousand years. That's why Aunt Rei's alive but incapacitated. She wasn't the target." Gaius bit his lip in thought.
"So, it's not the Senshi, it's *one* Senshi he's after," Sylia concluded.
"Looks like it." He closed his eyes as another bout of pain hit him.
Sylia looked at him in concern. "Getting worse?" she asked.
He nodded, his eyes still shut. She got up and loaded a hypodermic. He felt the prick in his arm. The pain began to subside.
"These are going to become worthless after awhile," she whispered.
He ignored her. "Any luck on tracking that thing?"
She shook her head.
"Then we stick with the Senshi," he ordered. "Split up again. Keep close tabs on them."
"I think it's time I had a talk with my folks," Callisto said, rising to her feet.
"Can't do it, Callisto," Gaius told her. "SI could cause too many problems down the road. My sister's caused enough of those already."
"There's quite a bit at stake here," the feline reminded him. "We could use them."
Gaius paused. "All right. Not much choice, I guess."
Callisto hopped down to the floor. "Just watch. If anyone can figure a way out of this mess, it's my fo…Oou!" She said this last part as her breath quickened and her eyes shut.
"Callisto, you okay?" Gaius asked worriedly.
"Oh, god, that hurt," Callisto whimpered.
"It's the pluton poisoning," Sylia commented. "It's only going to get worse." She bent down and picked up the cat, stroking her fur and giving her a quick injection. "If you feel lightheaded or weak, come right back. I'm not sure how fast pluton affects cats."
"All right," Callisto assured her.
"Where would the Senshi be now?" Sylia asked.
"School," Gaius replied.
"How do you think she's doing today?" Makoto asked as she nibbled on her lunch.
"Ami and Usagi are with her," Minako replied. "You could always call them up and ask."
"I already know the answer," the taller Senshi said quietly. They had all decided that two of them would watch over Rei while the other two went to class and switch off day to day. This way, they wouldn't miss as much school and they could fill each other in.
Minako sighed and looked up at the sky. To think that exactly twenty-four hours ago, she was joking with Usagi about lunch and boys. Now things were…just different.
Sylia kept a watch on the two girls through the scope of her rifle from the top of the school building. Standing next to her, Gaius was checking the area using binoculars.
"I don't like it," Sylia muttered. "It's like using them as cheese."
"We're not exactly after a mouse, here," Gaius reminded her. He tensed suddenly.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Thought I…Check those trees. Ten o'clock. Halfway up."
Sylia moved her rifle to examine the tree. She checked the branches and saw some boy climbing it. She relaxed somewhat. "Maybe it went to the hospital with the others," she hypothesized. She looked up and found Gaius staring at something through the binoculars. She followed his gaze and found that the blonde Senshi, Minako, was on the end of it.
"When you're done," she assured him.
He went back to examining the trees. "Wait," he breathed.
"Well, don't worry!" Makoto told her, suddenly enthusiastic. "Rei's gonna be fine!"
Minako smiled. "Yeah! You're right!"
"And we only have fifteen minutes left for lunch, so I'm digging in. You want some?"
The blonde nodded. "Sure."
Makoto picked up her bento and turned to offer it to Minako. She blinked when she noticed something. There was a red dot on Minako's fuku. At first, she thought it was a stain or something.
Then it began to move.
It hit her.
"MINAKO!" Makoto launched herself forward and hit her friend, knocking her aside just as a blue blast of energy struck the earth where they had been sitting.
"What the hell!?" Minako cried. Other students saw what had happened and started to panic, running around in a panic.
"Quick! While they're distracted!" Makoto cried, holding up her transformation pen. Minako nodded and took out her own pen. "JUPITER STAR POWER!"
"VENUS STAR POWER!"
Light surrounded them as they began to transform.
"I never thought I'd see it for myself," Gaius whispered, as he watched the two Senshi tranform themselves.
"Do you see it?!?" Sylia cried.
"No," Gaius, replied. "But it's close. Stay here. Provide cover."
"Where are you going?"
"Down there to help."
The two Senshi stood back to back, searching the trees and the windows for their would-be assassin.
Movement to the right.
"SPARKLING WIDE PRESSURE!" Makoto cried, flinging a ball of charged electricity into a nearby tree! The bolt went straight through the tree, taking the top half of it off. But something was still there, yet not there.
Whatever it was swung around the other side of the tree. There was a flash of blue, and something hot hit Jupiter square in the chest!
She screamed as she was thrown back twenty feet, landing on her back. The front of her fuku was burned.
"Jupiter!" Minako quickly turned back to the enemy.
There was nothing there. She heard something to her right, but didn't move.
"Venus," she whispered.
She heard it again.
"Crescent…"
She turned suddenly just in time to be struck in the face by something; a fist! She landed on her back five yards away. She shook her head and looked up at the creature. She pointed at what she thought was its head.
"BEAM!"
Golden light leapt from her finger and struck the creature dead on. It stumbled backward and screamed. Minako jumped to her feet and posed. "So you're the heartless thing that attacked Rei! Even love has its limits, and love shall never forget a cruel and pitiless creature such as you! In the name of Venus, I shall…"
The creature turned and fired!
"CRAP!" Minako cried as the bolt struck her in the chest, hurling her backward. She felt a burning sensation in her chest. She looked up and saw the creature looking down at her. It seemed to be staring at her. Its eyes flashed…
Then it screamed at her.
Minako kicked out with her feet, crawling away from whatever the hell it was. Nearby, Makoto was slowly rising to her feet. The creature took a step towards her. Suddenly, she heard a high pitched whistle. The creature screamed again, something was sticking out of its chest.
Minako blinked.
A silver rose.
She sighed in relief and turned her head to the direction the rose had come. "Thank god you're here, Tu…" She blinked. "You're not Tuxedo Kamen."
"I get that a lot," Gaius said from his perch up in the tree. He held up another rose and waited. "Just get clear!"
Minako climbed to her feet painfully as the creature turned back to them. Another high pitched whistle and another rose was sticking out of it.
"This…isn't going to work," Gaius muttered. His eyes went wide as the creature fired at him. He hopped down from the tree just as the blue blast struck the branch he had been standing on! Gaius landed in a crouch. Reaching into his cloak, he removed a small, metal cylinder. With a short "shnick!" that tiny cylinder expanded into a two meter quarter-staff.
The creature paused, unsure as to how to handle someone who wasn't fleeing from it.
Gaius smiled. "Got you now, you son of a bitch."
"VENUS LOVE ME CHAIN!"
The creature jumped as a golden chain of hearts struck the ground where it had been standing.
"SPARKLING WIDE PRESSURE!" There was a flash, and the creature screamed. Gaius covered his eyes to protect them from the light. When he uncovered them, the creature was leaping from tree to tree in the direction of the school.
"Dammit!" He pulled two roses and flung them, both striking trees, but not the agile creature. "Sylia! Get it!" he cried into the communicator on his collar.
He turned his head and saw his companion on the roof heading for the stairs. "I got it!" he heard through the comm.
Gaius started after the creature. He wasn't surprised to find the two Senshi running along beside him.
"What is that thing?!" Jupiter asked him.
"Trust me, Mako sama, you don't wanna know!" Gaius replied.
Sylia raised her rifle and started down the empty hallway. In her other hand, the portable scanner beeped and showed her areas where chroniton particles were being left behind.
"Bleed," she whispered with a wicked grin. "Bleed, you bastard…"
She followed the chroniton trail into a large room. Basketball nets were on either side. She keyed her comm. "Gaius," she began. "I'm in a large room. Looks like a gymnasium. My position is…" She checked the scanner. "Thirteen by twelve by thirty seven. Situation is…."
It howled from behind and above her.
"SITUATION IS UNTENABLE!" She cried and turned raising the rifle.
A blue blast silenced her.