Keep Her Safe
By LadyPrin (Author's Note: I spell checked it. Hope I got all of it!)
Disclaimer applies.
Recap:
We see baby Serena's sleeping face, and we hear Queen Serenity's voice.
"Forgive me."
Chapter Two
Three years later.
"Ami, what do you think about this Princess we're going to be guarding soon?" Lita, daughter of the Queen of Jupiter asked her friend Ami, daughter of the Queen of Mercury.
Brown haired Lita, and blue haired Ami, were three years old, but they already could talk, walk, run, and fight. In less then four hours, they were going to be meeting their Princess. The Princess of the Moon Kingdom. Then they would begin the job of protecting her.
"I think I might like this Princess." Ami replied.
She was sitting on the grass with a text book in her lap. She used her index finger to push her glasses back up her nose.
"I haven't heard much, and I can't find anything about her in any book, but I think we might be great friends." She continued.
"But what if she's a brat?" Lita asked, pacing up and down, wearing a smooth path in the grass. "What if those Earth beings have totally warped her brain?"
"Lita, you and I both know, brains cannot be warped." Ami told Lita in her lecture voice.
"Yeah, yeah, you've told me." Lita said rolling her eyes.
"Besides, even if she is a, brat, Rei and Mina will be there." Ami comforted her.
Rei was the daughter of the Queen of Mars, and Mina was the daughter of the Queen of Venus.
"Yeah." Lita said thoughtfully.
"Hey!" She suddenly cried. "If she's not a brat, then we can play Rainbow Stars! There'll be five of us! That's just the right amount!"
"Lita," Ami said warningly. "Haven't you been listening to your mother? We can't use our powers except as a last resort. If we use our powers, even a little bit, while in the presence of the Princess, the evil Queen will know."
"Oh, right." Lita said.
"And we can't say the Princesses real name either. If we do, not only will the Queen of the Moon hear, but the enemy will hear also." Ami continued.
"Bummer." Lita said depleted.
She sat down heavily in the grass, right in the middle of the strip of dirt she had made with her pacing.
"Maybe, the Princess will teach us some Earth games." Ami said, trying to cheer her up. "And you could teach her to fight."
Lita perked up.
"Yeah, maybe. Hey wanna' see my new techniques?" Lita asked jumping up. "My mom has been teaching me how they fight on Earth. It's called Karate. I'm pretty good at it!"
"Sure!" Ami said.
Lita ran to a nearby tree. The planet they were on being Jupiter, the trees were alive in such a way that they could communicate.
"Wanna' play Karate?" Lita asked it.
The trees branches swung up and down in response, though no wind blew. It's answer was yes.
Lita bowed and the branches repeated her movement.
Then without warning the branches shot out at Lita. Had they hit her, it would've thrown her through the air like a rag doll. But instead, Lita jumped and twirled through the air, amazingly avoiding all the branches. Before she fell back to the ground, she grabbed a hold of one of the branches and swung around a bunch of other branches, tying them together.
Ami watched all this in awe. Her mouth was opened so wide that her glasses were sliding down her nose. She used her hands and slid them back up quickly, and held them in place as she continued to watch Lita.
Then she used her arms and blocked all the blows aimed at her. Then she ran away from the tree a few yards and ran back at it, dodging branches as she went. At the last second she jumped and kicked the middle of the tree trunk with all of her strength. Her being three years old, meant that it shouldn't have been much. Her being from Jupiter, meant that her strength was ten times the amount it would've been otherwise.
The tree wiped back.
When it settled back down, it bowed to Lita again. Only this time to show that she had won.
Lita bowed to the tree too.
As Lita went to hug the tree, Ami clapped and cheered.
"I bet the Princess doesn't know how to do that!" She cried.
Lita was smiling.
But as she untied the tree's branches, she frowned.
"Ami, please stop whistling?" Lita asked. "You're very bad at it."
"Lita, you and I both know, that I can't whistle." Ami said.
"Then what's that sound?" Lita asked.
Then without warning, the tree wrapped its branches around the girls and pulled them into the air. Way over the top of its head, so close to the ground on its other side that Lita's nose nearly touched it. Then it whipped them up and threw them (screaming) out into the air.
Just as a raging fireball came down upon the tree and blew it into oblivion.
"NOOOOOO!" Lita cried out, as they fell toward the ground.
They fell above a grove of trees, who entwined their branches together and caught the two girls as they fell.
Then they gently sat them down (unharmed) on the side of the grove that was nearest the city.
Ami went straight to Lita's side.
Lita didn't cry often, but when she did, it was like a waterfall.
"Lita, I know that tree was your friend, and has been since you were born. But that was a fireball. We have to find our mothers! Jupiter is under attack."
Lita looked at her blankly for a minute.
"You can kick whoever did this into the next millennium." Ami suggested.
That stopped her crying. A steely look came into her eyes, along with determination.
"Let's go!" She cried as she jumped up and ran toward the city, with Ami right behind her.
When they found their mothers, the Queen's of Jupiter and Mercury were just finishing off two snakelike humanoid beings with lobster like claws.
"There you are!" They cried when they saw their daughters.
"Come, we have to get you out of here." Queen Mercury said as she and Jupiter took the children's hands.
They lead them through the battle to travel pods. At the moment they were going to be used as escape pods.
Jupiter put Lita in one, Mercury put Ami in another.
"But mom, I wanna' help fight!" Lita cried.
"No, my dear. You must go to Earth and find the Princess. Her name their is Serena and she's the Princess of England. Tell Queen Ikoku or King Kenji that we sent you. Do NOT say the Princess's real name. But tell them of the birthmark on her right shoulder."
Jupiter strapped Lita in.
"Don't worry. Mommy's going to kick some yoma butt for what they did to Morna the tree." She added.
"Thank you!" Lita whispered.
Meanwhile, Ami was receiving some advice of her own.
"These were programmed to land in an isolated place in England, near the palace. Find the Princess and protect her. Use your brains and your heart. And remember. Queen Baryl works with illusions, she deals with lies. Trust her and your death is certain. Trust only your instinct and your heart." Mercury said as she strapped Ami in.
"I love you dear." She said with a kiss to Ami's forehead.
"You will win right?" Ami asked.
"Of course. With Jupiter's strength, and my brains, nothing can stop us!" Mercury assured her daughter.
Then her and Jupiter closed the doors of the one person pods and hit the button on the stand next to the pods.
The pods blasted off into space.
Mercury and Jupiter looked around them to discover that yoma's surrounded them.
"Let's fight together, heh Wateria?" Jupiter asked.
"One last time, Treenalyn." Mercury replied.
Up in the escape pod Lita was in, she had her little communication screen on. Ami was looking back at her from her pod.
"I hate these things!" Ami complained as her pod was jarred. "I always think that some thing's going to hit the pod and it's going to explode."
"Don't say things like that! Better, don't think things like that! You'll jinx everything!" Lita cried as her pod too was jarred.
Just then Ami's pod shook more violently then ever. A beeping sound was coming from Ami's pod.
Ami looked at something off screen, something on her control panel.
Her face paled.
She looked at Lita one last time.
"You were right. I did jinx it." She said.
Then the screen became nothing but static.
Lita banged on the screen, pushed buttons on her control panel, and threatened the screen, but she could not bring back a visual of Ami.
In Ami's pod, her power was failing. A huge chunk of something had hit the outer hull. And her power was now leaking out into space.
After her screen died, Ami had unbuckled herself and had opened a panel on the wall beside the seat. She started pulling out wires and reconnecting them to others. Trying to get life support back and hopefully a little control.
Suddenly from the speakers for the communications screen, music began playing.
"Oh sweetie you're like apple pie, you're warm and sweet and not too dry,"
"AHHHHHHHHHHH!" Ami cried as she quickly cut the connection.
"WHERE DID THAT COME FROM!" She yelled.
With a bit more struggling she managed to get life support back up, but it was only temporary. It only had forty minutes left. Fortunately, if she hadn't gotten hit off course too much, it would be just enough to last till she landed on Earth. Unfortunately, she didn't have control over the craft and where she landed was up to the wind.
Well, actually, it all depended upon the speed at which she was going, how far she was off course, gravity when she entered Earth's atmosphere, then the wind... You get the picture, right?
When Ami's pod finally did land, she was on land. Where, she didn't know, nor did she care at this point. She only had four minutes of oxygen left before she died.
She tried to open the door, but it wouldn't budge. She realized that either the door was jammed, or she had landed door side down.
She hoped it was the latter.
She tried pushing against a wall of the pod, and it moved a little! She pushed a little more, until she had calculated that the door was off the ground.
Then she carefully stood up on the back of her seat, for the door had been behind the seat, but now it was on the ceiling, and pushed.
It opened just as the oxygen timer beeped two minutes.
Ami leaped out of the pod and jumped to the ground. It was dirt, and rocks. On the opposite side of the pod, was ocean, on the side she was now facing was green land and not to far into that green land was a village.
Then the detonator voice chimed:
"Six seconds till detention."
Ami ran like the wind. The pod was set to explode six seconds after the door was opened. Just encase the wrong person got a hold of it.
"Three...Two...One...Fire!"
The explosion shook the ground and debris flew through the air. Ami was thrown five or six yards away, as her glasses flew off her nose.
She hit the ground hard, and her head hit a stone hard enough to knock her out. Her glasses landed a few feet away and broke in two, as the people of that village came running to see what had happened.
Lita's pod landed where it was supposed to without incident.
She got away from it in time to avoid the blast that issued.
For a while she just sat there and cried. When she felt better, she dried her eyes, and got up. She climbed up one of the trees that surrounded her, and found the palace faced west.
She climbed down from the tree, and started her journey to the palace.
Sadly, she would never make it.
When Ami woke up, her head hurt like heck!
She reached a hand up to her forehead and realized she had a bandage around it.
Her sight was blurry and she realized her glasses were no longer there.
She couldn't see much, but she heard people talking softly through what she figured was a door.
Then through that door came a person, who lit a lamp on a desk. Ami still couldn't see right, but she could see the outline of the person and it looked like a women.
The person walked over to the side of Ami's bed.
"Hello there, little one." Yup a women. She spoke in a soft, smooth, comforting voice. "My name is Taknisha. I'm the medicine women in this village. You are in the country Japan. May I ask your name?"
And it was then that Ami realized she didn't know her name. In fact, she didn't know anything.
We are now in the palace of the Moon Kingdom. Sailor Pluto had just requested an audience with Queen Serenity and had said that it was urgent.
Queen Serenity was now seated with Pluto in her private rooms.
"My Lady, the planets Jupiter and Mercury were attacked at the same time. I'm afraid there is nothing life wise left on them." Pluto told her.
"What about Queen Mercury and Queen Jupiter?" Serenity asked.
"They were both on Jupiter, as were their children." Pluto replied in a soft voice.
"So their all dead?" Asked the Queen just as gently.
"I...don't think so, my Lady." Pluto replied. "There were two travel pods missing. I think the children were in them. All the pods were programed with an Earth Course. I just don't know where they landed. I'm the Sailor Scout of Time and Space, yet I cannot see them. Something evil is blocking my vision."
"I never knew your vision could be blocked." Serenity said worriedly.
"It can." Pluto said with her head tilted down slightly.
"Where are Mars and Venus, and their children?" Th Queen asked.
"Here in the palace." Pluto replied.
"Bring them here. You will take them to Ikoku and Kenji immediately. No more time can be wasted." The Queen said.