It was still quiet outside as Serena and Luna walked out the front door and
into the yard. Luna ran up to the gate and looked out from it, toward the
intersection.
"Look, Serena! It came back!"
Serena walked quietly up behind Luna, and then looked to where she was pointing with her paw. There certainly was a dark figure standing in the street.
She couldn't tell exactly what it was, though.
"Luna, what do you think it is?"
"I don't know. I'm picking up this strange vibration from it, but it isn't telling me anything about it."
"Can you tell what it wants, or where it's from?"
"No, this is unusual. I don't believe it's from this world."
The figure looked to Serena something like a wild cat, standing on its hind legs. It had a long slender tail with the end being very thick.
Its arms were thin. It didn't look like it had any muscle anywhere but in its legs, which had powerful-looking thighs. It was looking around questioningly, standing in the shadow of a nearby building.
Serena and Luna watched the creature for a while, waiting for it to do something meaningful. It was only looking around, staying rooted to its spot. They could see the head moving, the arms shifting only a small bit. The tail moved like a cat's, twitching nervously back and forth.
Then, it turned to look behind it. It stared right at Serena and Luna. Its eyes appeared from the shadow, glowing with a bright red aura. Its tail stopped moving.
Serena looked down at Luna.
"What... it's staring right at us. Does it see us?"
She got her answer soon enough.
All of a sudden the creature was right in front of them, on the other side of the bars. Its small three-fingered hands grasped the bars as Serena and Luna backed away in surprise. Serena screamed in fright.
As the creature gripped the bars, its hands started to glow the same red as its eyes. To Serena's horror, the bars started to melt in the creature's hands.
"Luna...! What's happening?"
"I don't know! Let's get away from here!"
They turned and ran back toward the house. They didn't turn to see where the creature was or what it was doing.
They had reached the backyard when Serena used her watch-communicator to contact the others. She looked back toward the front yard, hoping the creature had given up and left. She didn't see any light, nor heard any sounds. She gave a small sigh of relief, still trying to catch her breath.
"Serena! LOOK OUT!!!"
Snapping back to alertness, she looked around.
The creature had somehow sneaked up BEHIND them. It was only a few inches away from Serena. She could hear its ragged breathing. Its eyes were still glowing bright red.
One hand reached up toward Serena's face. She was frozen in fear. Staring at the creature's round fingertips, she saw them start glowing a dull white.
She heard a screeching and slashing, and the spell was broken. Luna had sprung onto the creature's face, scratching with her sharp claws. The creature stopped to try and bat Luna off its face.
That gave Serena time to run somewhere and transform.
She turned and took off toward the back porch, hiding behind some tall bushes. She pulled out her henshin brooch.
"Moon Crystal Power, transform!!!"
White light exploded from behind the bushes, startling the creature. It stopped pulling at Luna and stared with wide eyes at the transformation taking place.
Sailor Moon's uniform materialized from nowhere, wrapping around her slender body and turning into a white leotard with a blue skirt and collar. Gold earrings and hairpieces flashed from around her head. Her glossed boots and gloves seemed to shimmer with the light of the moon overhead.
The senshi of the Moon stepped out of the light and turned to face the creature.
"Hold it right there, you... thing!"
It was still looking at her, unable to explain the sight before it. It tilted its head to one side quizzically. Luna was on the ground, watching the creature for any sudden movement. Sailor Moon continued with her speech.
"You have no business here, you monster! On behalf of the Moon, I shall punish you!"
Sailor Moon did her challenge pose. The creature still stared. Luna kept watching it. No one moved for a long while.
Suddenly the creature disappeared. Sailor Moon and Luna looked about frantically.
"Where... where did it go?"
Then Moon felt something grab her arm. Before she could turn around, all of the muscles in her body locked and she was left frozen where she stood. All she could see was a red light. She knew for sure the creature was doing this.
It was right beside her, grasping her arm tightly. Its other hand was about to touch her face. The light blinded her vision; she couldn't see it coming.
"Mars Celestial Fire, SURROUND!!!!!!"
The spell was broken once more as several glowing rings flashed past her, catching the creature and sending him across the lawn. It didn't scream or anything. All that was heard was the sound of fire flying through the air and the rings slamming into the creature, then the thud of the creature landing in some bushes on the other end of the backyard.
Sailor Moon turned around to see Sailor Mars, who still had her arms outstretched from the attack, watching the creature for a counterattack. Coming up behind her were the other scouts; Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter.
Luna looked up, and called to the others.
"Be careful! That thing has some sort of psychic power. Try not to let it touch you!"
The senshi nodded, then looked at the creature. As it got up from the bushes, a glowing translucent sphere faded into view around it. The red glow returned to its eyes at it glared at its assailant.
"Mars, watch out! It's about to attack!"
Moon looked at Mars again. Her arms were still out in front of her in battle stance; she hadn't moved.
"Mars, you okay?"
There was no reply. Mars' eyes were fixed on the creature, and didn't move with Moon's words. Moon moved closer and saw that Mars' eyes were wide open in fear.
"Mars, snap out of it!"
No response.
Moon shouted to the other senshi.
"It's got Mars! Somebody do SOMETHING!!!"
Venus was the first to respond.
"Venus Love Chain ENCIRCLE!!!"
She waved her arm about, summoning a golden chain of tiny hearts. The chain spun around her for a moment, then shot out toward the creature.
The creature looked up at it, but otherwise didn't move. The chain stopped when it came in contact with the sphere surrounding the creature, and with a flash the chain dissolved into sparkling dust. Venus moaned in disappointment.
"Maybe it needs to see its targets in order to stop them! Mercury Bubbles,
Blast!!!"
A thick blue fog then suddenly swallowed up the area. All the senshi could see of the creature was the glow from its shield.
"Moon, you see the target? Use your wand and see if that works!"
"Right!"
Moon pulled out her Scepter, and pointed it at the enemy.
"Moon Scepter ELIMINATION!!!!!"
The beam of pink light shot through the fog and struck the shield. There was a burst of light, and the beam faded. When the fog returned, they could still see the creature's aura.
Mars was still frozen in place, facing the creature, arms out.
Venus cried out in alarm.
"The shield must be what's keeping the Scepter attack from working!"
Moon looked over at Mercury.
"Do you have any data on this thing?"
Mercury pulled out her minicomputer and scanned toward the creature. The screen began to display some concentric circles around where the creature stood.
"This is registering some areas of quantum displacement..."
"What's that?"
"This creature must have come here from another dimension. The words showing up on my screen don't make sense... something about scientists... years of horrific gene-splicing and DNA experiments."
"That thing must have been created in a lab or something, then."
"Hold on, there's something else here about seeing the past and the future at the same time... that must explain the time-warp field around it."
"A time-traveler?"
"Look out, it's coming at us!"
The creature shot past them in a red blur, and the senshi scattered. Mercury dropped her computer in the grass, and got down to look for it. As she was preoccupied the creature slammed into her as it made a return trip. There was a flash of light, and the entire side of her body beneath the ribs was singed badly. The fog muffled her screams.
Sailor Jupiter looked around for the light from the monster's shield. Upon finding it, she prepared to attack.
"Jupiter Thunder, CRASH!!!!"
The thunderbolt blasted through the mist and hit the glowing shield, surrounding it but leaving the creature unharmed. In the flashes from the electric discharge, Moon could see the creature clearly.
It looked almost exactly like a wild cat except that it had no stripes or spots, much less whiskers or a visible nose. Even its fur couldn't be distinguished. Its skin was a dull green, except around its thighs and the entire length of its tail, which were a dirty yellow. It only had two toes on each foot, with a third one up around the ankles. Its forehead was large and broad, its glowing eyes sunk in under it. Its ears had no cavities; they were almost like spikes of bone standing up on either side of its head. There was a tube-like apparatus connecting the back of its head with its upper spine.
It turned and headed for its attacker, who was almost stunned by the ineffectiveness of her assault. Seeing the creature coming at her, she tried her attack again.
"JUPITERTHUNDERCRASH!!!!!"
The lightning flashed again, but to no avail. The creature only stopped for a brief moment, and then resumed rushing toward Sailor Jupiter. It was almost a few inches away from her when in a spasm of blind panic she thrashed out with her right hand, which went unscathed through the yellow sphere, striking the monster in its face.
The creature gave its first yell of pain, and recoiled. Its shield started to fade.
Jupiter stood staring at it for a moment. She was surprised that she hit the creature, and even more surprised that the shield didn't protect it from her hand. She looked at her hand, which showed no signs of damage.
However, soon enough the monster had regained its senses and was ready to attack again. It held out its arms, preparing to freeze Jupiter like it did Mars earlier.
Jupiter backed up a bit. The monster started to rush at her again, arms outstretched, ready to lock Jupiter in its grasp. Its eyes glowed an even fiercer shade of red.
From out of nowhere, Mercury's screams reached her.
"HIT IT AGAIN... BUT NOT WITH YOUR LIGHTNING!!!"
Almost disoriented, she didn't notice how close the monster was and sprung forward, body-slamming it hard. It was knocked down from that attack, falling on the ground, its shield fading out completely.
Mars was immediately released from the psychic hold on her. She fell over in exhaustion, hitting the ground and lying there panting. Venus, who was watching over Mercury at the time, got up and ran to Mars while Moon cautiously approached the half-conscious monster, who still lay sprawled on the ground, twitching from damaged nerves. Jupiter kept her distance from the creature. Moon felt it best to do the same.
"Why... how... our own attacks didn't seem to do anything to it... yet you only backhanded it and almost knocked it senseless."
"I dunno how it did that. Selective barrier, I suppose."
Luna ran over and tended to Mercury, who had found her computer and was scanning the creature again while lying on the ground.
"It has something here about stats... something about 'attack' and 'special attack'. Something about how Jupiter's physical attacks were not protected against by the barrier, which only protects against something called a special attack."
Luna watched the computer screen, which was starting to scroll numbers and undecipherable words across it.
"Special Attack... that must be like the elemental attacks we use, like lightning and fire. The barrier dispersed them. However, it didn't reflect Jupiter's hand away, since it wasn't an element, it was part of her body."
Mercury started to move a bit, then flinched from the pain. Luna looked over at her injured side. Part of the uniform had been burnt away and the skin underneath it had turned dark red with brighter red specks. Mercury had suffered some rather heavy damage from the creature's attack, and Luna was surprised that she wasn't dead yet.
"You need to stay still. We're going to get an ambulance and take you to the hospital. Your side is burned really badly and needs tending to immediately."
"Yes Luna... Only... I don't feel a lot of pain yet... perhaps the nerves were destroyed by the burn..."
Luna looked up at Sailor Moon, who was still over by the creature, looking at it.
"Sailor Moon, go call 911!"
She turned and looked at Luna questioningly.
"Yeah sure... uh... what's the number?"
Luna sighed out loud.
"Never mind... I'll go do it."
Sailor Venus came over to tend to Mercury while Luna ran inside to get the phone. Sailor Moon watched Luna leave, then turned her attention back to the sedated monster lying on the grass, which was twitching nervously.
"So, anyone have a guess at what this thing is?"
Sailor Jupiter shook her head.
"Your guess is as good as mine."
The creature's eyes snapped open, and then fixed themselves upon Sailor Moon.
For a moment Moon stood there stunned, then snapped to alertness. Jupiter yelled at the others.
"Everyone watch out, it's reviving!"
Venus and Mars stood up and looked over at the monster, preparing to attack when the need came. However, the cat-like monster didn't seem to notice anyone else but Moon.
It's eyes then started to glow a bright white. The area of the ground beneath it also began to glow white, forming a circle around the creature.
A second later, five of these circles shot out over the ground at the senshi, each one staying on the ground like a spotlight and stopping under one of each of the senshi. Venus leaped back in surprise, trying to dodge her circle. Although staying on the ground, the circle followed her to her landing spot, staying rooted underneath her. She screamed in alarm.
"What are these?!"
The other scouts tried backing away from the white circles, but they couldn't get out of their radius, their feet stayed within the circle as if a spotlight were fixed to each one of them. The monster started to get up, its eyes still glowing the same white as the circles.
It raised its three-fingered hands high in the air. Another yellow aura began to resolve around it. The senshi stared in terror of what the monster was about to do.
The aura then began to change from a yellow glow to a black shadow. The shield around the creature suddenly became darker than the senshi had ever seen before, and the creature seemed to disappear into the darkness.
In a short moment it was gone.
Sailor Mars looked down at the white circle underneath her. To her horror the circle blinked and suddenly turned pitch black.
"Scouts, watch o--"
Her warning was interrupted by a loud scream as she fell through the black disc. Each of the other scouts also felt the ground fall out from under them and ended up falling through their own circles. For a few moments everything to them was black.
"Look, Serena! It came back!"
Serena walked quietly up behind Luna, and then looked to where she was pointing with her paw. There certainly was a dark figure standing in the street.
She couldn't tell exactly what it was, though.
"Luna, what do you think it is?"
"I don't know. I'm picking up this strange vibration from it, but it isn't telling me anything about it."
"Can you tell what it wants, or where it's from?"
"No, this is unusual. I don't believe it's from this world."
The figure looked to Serena something like a wild cat, standing on its hind legs. It had a long slender tail with the end being very thick.
Its arms were thin. It didn't look like it had any muscle anywhere but in its legs, which had powerful-looking thighs. It was looking around questioningly, standing in the shadow of a nearby building.
Serena and Luna watched the creature for a while, waiting for it to do something meaningful. It was only looking around, staying rooted to its spot. They could see the head moving, the arms shifting only a small bit. The tail moved like a cat's, twitching nervously back and forth.
Then, it turned to look behind it. It stared right at Serena and Luna. Its eyes appeared from the shadow, glowing with a bright red aura. Its tail stopped moving.
Serena looked down at Luna.
"What... it's staring right at us. Does it see us?"
She got her answer soon enough.
All of a sudden the creature was right in front of them, on the other side of the bars. Its small three-fingered hands grasped the bars as Serena and Luna backed away in surprise. Serena screamed in fright.
As the creature gripped the bars, its hands started to glow the same red as its eyes. To Serena's horror, the bars started to melt in the creature's hands.
"Luna...! What's happening?"
"I don't know! Let's get away from here!"
They turned and ran back toward the house. They didn't turn to see where the creature was or what it was doing.
They had reached the backyard when Serena used her watch-communicator to contact the others. She looked back toward the front yard, hoping the creature had given up and left. She didn't see any light, nor heard any sounds. She gave a small sigh of relief, still trying to catch her breath.
"Serena! LOOK OUT!!!"
Snapping back to alertness, she looked around.
The creature had somehow sneaked up BEHIND them. It was only a few inches away from Serena. She could hear its ragged breathing. Its eyes were still glowing bright red.
One hand reached up toward Serena's face. She was frozen in fear. Staring at the creature's round fingertips, she saw them start glowing a dull white.
She heard a screeching and slashing, and the spell was broken. Luna had sprung onto the creature's face, scratching with her sharp claws. The creature stopped to try and bat Luna off its face.
That gave Serena time to run somewhere and transform.
She turned and took off toward the back porch, hiding behind some tall bushes. She pulled out her henshin brooch.
"Moon Crystal Power, transform!!!"
White light exploded from behind the bushes, startling the creature. It stopped pulling at Luna and stared with wide eyes at the transformation taking place.
Sailor Moon's uniform materialized from nowhere, wrapping around her slender body and turning into a white leotard with a blue skirt and collar. Gold earrings and hairpieces flashed from around her head. Her glossed boots and gloves seemed to shimmer with the light of the moon overhead.
The senshi of the Moon stepped out of the light and turned to face the creature.
"Hold it right there, you... thing!"
It was still looking at her, unable to explain the sight before it. It tilted its head to one side quizzically. Luna was on the ground, watching the creature for any sudden movement. Sailor Moon continued with her speech.
"You have no business here, you monster! On behalf of the Moon, I shall punish you!"
Sailor Moon did her challenge pose. The creature still stared. Luna kept watching it. No one moved for a long while.
Suddenly the creature disappeared. Sailor Moon and Luna looked about frantically.
"Where... where did it go?"
Then Moon felt something grab her arm. Before she could turn around, all of the muscles in her body locked and she was left frozen where she stood. All she could see was a red light. She knew for sure the creature was doing this.
It was right beside her, grasping her arm tightly. Its other hand was about to touch her face. The light blinded her vision; she couldn't see it coming.
"Mars Celestial Fire, SURROUND!!!!!!"
The spell was broken once more as several glowing rings flashed past her, catching the creature and sending him across the lawn. It didn't scream or anything. All that was heard was the sound of fire flying through the air and the rings slamming into the creature, then the thud of the creature landing in some bushes on the other end of the backyard.
Sailor Moon turned around to see Sailor Mars, who still had her arms outstretched from the attack, watching the creature for a counterattack. Coming up behind her were the other scouts; Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter.
Luna looked up, and called to the others.
"Be careful! That thing has some sort of psychic power. Try not to let it touch you!"
The senshi nodded, then looked at the creature. As it got up from the bushes, a glowing translucent sphere faded into view around it. The red glow returned to its eyes at it glared at its assailant.
"Mars, watch out! It's about to attack!"
Moon looked at Mars again. Her arms were still out in front of her in battle stance; she hadn't moved.
"Mars, you okay?"
There was no reply. Mars' eyes were fixed on the creature, and didn't move with Moon's words. Moon moved closer and saw that Mars' eyes were wide open in fear.
"Mars, snap out of it!"
No response.
Moon shouted to the other senshi.
"It's got Mars! Somebody do SOMETHING!!!"
Venus was the first to respond.
"Venus Love Chain ENCIRCLE!!!"
She waved her arm about, summoning a golden chain of tiny hearts. The chain spun around her for a moment, then shot out toward the creature.
The creature looked up at it, but otherwise didn't move. The chain stopped when it came in contact with the sphere surrounding the creature, and with a flash the chain dissolved into sparkling dust. Venus moaned in disappointment.
"Maybe it needs to see its targets in order to stop them! Mercury Bubbles,
Blast!!!"
A thick blue fog then suddenly swallowed up the area. All the senshi could see of the creature was the glow from its shield.
"Moon, you see the target? Use your wand and see if that works!"
"Right!"
Moon pulled out her Scepter, and pointed it at the enemy.
"Moon Scepter ELIMINATION!!!!!"
The beam of pink light shot through the fog and struck the shield. There was a burst of light, and the beam faded. When the fog returned, they could still see the creature's aura.
Mars was still frozen in place, facing the creature, arms out.
Venus cried out in alarm.
"The shield must be what's keeping the Scepter attack from working!"
Moon looked over at Mercury.
"Do you have any data on this thing?"
Mercury pulled out her minicomputer and scanned toward the creature. The screen began to display some concentric circles around where the creature stood.
"This is registering some areas of quantum displacement..."
"What's that?"
"This creature must have come here from another dimension. The words showing up on my screen don't make sense... something about scientists... years of horrific gene-splicing and DNA experiments."
"That thing must have been created in a lab or something, then."
"Hold on, there's something else here about seeing the past and the future at the same time... that must explain the time-warp field around it."
"A time-traveler?"
"Look out, it's coming at us!"
The creature shot past them in a red blur, and the senshi scattered. Mercury dropped her computer in the grass, and got down to look for it. As she was preoccupied the creature slammed into her as it made a return trip. There was a flash of light, and the entire side of her body beneath the ribs was singed badly. The fog muffled her screams.
Sailor Jupiter looked around for the light from the monster's shield. Upon finding it, she prepared to attack.
"Jupiter Thunder, CRASH!!!!"
The thunderbolt blasted through the mist and hit the glowing shield, surrounding it but leaving the creature unharmed. In the flashes from the electric discharge, Moon could see the creature clearly.
It looked almost exactly like a wild cat except that it had no stripes or spots, much less whiskers or a visible nose. Even its fur couldn't be distinguished. Its skin was a dull green, except around its thighs and the entire length of its tail, which were a dirty yellow. It only had two toes on each foot, with a third one up around the ankles. Its forehead was large and broad, its glowing eyes sunk in under it. Its ears had no cavities; they were almost like spikes of bone standing up on either side of its head. There was a tube-like apparatus connecting the back of its head with its upper spine.
It turned and headed for its attacker, who was almost stunned by the ineffectiveness of her assault. Seeing the creature coming at her, she tried her attack again.
"JUPITERTHUNDERCRASH!!!!!"
The lightning flashed again, but to no avail. The creature only stopped for a brief moment, and then resumed rushing toward Sailor Jupiter. It was almost a few inches away from her when in a spasm of blind panic she thrashed out with her right hand, which went unscathed through the yellow sphere, striking the monster in its face.
The creature gave its first yell of pain, and recoiled. Its shield started to fade.
Jupiter stood staring at it for a moment. She was surprised that she hit the creature, and even more surprised that the shield didn't protect it from her hand. She looked at her hand, which showed no signs of damage.
However, soon enough the monster had regained its senses and was ready to attack again. It held out its arms, preparing to freeze Jupiter like it did Mars earlier.
Jupiter backed up a bit. The monster started to rush at her again, arms outstretched, ready to lock Jupiter in its grasp. Its eyes glowed an even fiercer shade of red.
From out of nowhere, Mercury's screams reached her.
"HIT IT AGAIN... BUT NOT WITH YOUR LIGHTNING!!!"
Almost disoriented, she didn't notice how close the monster was and sprung forward, body-slamming it hard. It was knocked down from that attack, falling on the ground, its shield fading out completely.
Mars was immediately released from the psychic hold on her. She fell over in exhaustion, hitting the ground and lying there panting. Venus, who was watching over Mercury at the time, got up and ran to Mars while Moon cautiously approached the half-conscious monster, who still lay sprawled on the ground, twitching from damaged nerves. Jupiter kept her distance from the creature. Moon felt it best to do the same.
"Why... how... our own attacks didn't seem to do anything to it... yet you only backhanded it and almost knocked it senseless."
"I dunno how it did that. Selective barrier, I suppose."
Luna ran over and tended to Mercury, who had found her computer and was scanning the creature again while lying on the ground.
"It has something here about stats... something about 'attack' and 'special attack'. Something about how Jupiter's physical attacks were not protected against by the barrier, which only protects against something called a special attack."
Luna watched the computer screen, which was starting to scroll numbers and undecipherable words across it.
"Special Attack... that must be like the elemental attacks we use, like lightning and fire. The barrier dispersed them. However, it didn't reflect Jupiter's hand away, since it wasn't an element, it was part of her body."
Mercury started to move a bit, then flinched from the pain. Luna looked over at her injured side. Part of the uniform had been burnt away and the skin underneath it had turned dark red with brighter red specks. Mercury had suffered some rather heavy damage from the creature's attack, and Luna was surprised that she wasn't dead yet.
"You need to stay still. We're going to get an ambulance and take you to the hospital. Your side is burned really badly and needs tending to immediately."
"Yes Luna... Only... I don't feel a lot of pain yet... perhaps the nerves were destroyed by the burn..."
Luna looked up at Sailor Moon, who was still over by the creature, looking at it.
"Sailor Moon, go call 911!"
She turned and looked at Luna questioningly.
"Yeah sure... uh... what's the number?"
Luna sighed out loud.
"Never mind... I'll go do it."
Sailor Venus came over to tend to Mercury while Luna ran inside to get the phone. Sailor Moon watched Luna leave, then turned her attention back to the sedated monster lying on the grass, which was twitching nervously.
"So, anyone have a guess at what this thing is?"
Sailor Jupiter shook her head.
"Your guess is as good as mine."
The creature's eyes snapped open, and then fixed themselves upon Sailor Moon.
For a moment Moon stood there stunned, then snapped to alertness. Jupiter yelled at the others.
"Everyone watch out, it's reviving!"
Venus and Mars stood up and looked over at the monster, preparing to attack when the need came. However, the cat-like monster didn't seem to notice anyone else but Moon.
It's eyes then started to glow a bright white. The area of the ground beneath it also began to glow white, forming a circle around the creature.
A second later, five of these circles shot out over the ground at the senshi, each one staying on the ground like a spotlight and stopping under one of each of the senshi. Venus leaped back in surprise, trying to dodge her circle. Although staying on the ground, the circle followed her to her landing spot, staying rooted underneath her. She screamed in alarm.
"What are these?!"
The other scouts tried backing away from the white circles, but they couldn't get out of their radius, their feet stayed within the circle as if a spotlight were fixed to each one of them. The monster started to get up, its eyes still glowing the same white as the circles.
It raised its three-fingered hands high in the air. Another yellow aura began to resolve around it. The senshi stared in terror of what the monster was about to do.
The aura then began to change from a yellow glow to a black shadow. The shield around the creature suddenly became darker than the senshi had ever seen before, and the creature seemed to disappear into the darkness.
In a short moment it was gone.
Sailor Mars looked down at the white circle underneath her. To her horror the circle blinked and suddenly turned pitch black.
"Scouts, watch o--"
Her warning was interrupted by a loud scream as she fell through the black disc. Each of the other scouts also felt the ground fall out from under them and ended up falling through their own circles. For a few moments everything to them was black.