Foreshadowing:
Chapter Three -
The three remaining Senshi, plus the inert bodies of two Dark Kingdom servants, hit the pavement of yet another parking lot (this time a wet, muddy one in the gathering gloomy dark of a rain drenched sky) with a thud that left most of them reeling.
"You know," Makoto staggered to her feet, "if they get thrown around much more I think they're gonna have some serious brain damage."
She nudged the closest Shitennou, who happened to be Nephrite, with her boot. He had a bruise developing on his forehead from where his body had landed on the pavement.
"Who cares about them?" Rei muttered, shaking herself, "We'll be the ones with brain damage – I'm sure no one was meant to travel through time this sporadically."
"I don't know how Pluto does it," Mina murmured, rubbing her bottom from where she had landed rather suddenly.
"Don't you think we should go rescue Ami first?" Zoisite's ghost asked as it appeared through the rain.
"We can't-" Mina snapped, "We were just lucky I happened to be holding you instead of her when she got left behind."
"Oh, for crying out- We aren't going to abandon her," Mina continued, seeing Zoisite's treacherous face flicker in front of her, muttering curses, "We have to complete the mission first. Then we'll go back and get her, I promise. She's probably fine."
"Anyway," Rei added suspiciously, "Why do you care so much?"
"Because -"Zoisite began rudely.
"Because he's worried about his promise to Serenity and Endymion-sama to bring all of you back unharmed." Kunzite broke in sternly, and if he could have he would have kicked Zoisite. As it was he settled for a scowl in the younger man's direction.
Zoisite flicked his ghostly hair over his shoulder and turned up his see-through nose.
"So what's the plan?" Makoto asked, shielding her eyes from the rain.
"Let's see," Mina began, "um...I think we should wait until we see Zoisite holding Sailor Moon, and then -"
"Listen," Kunzite broke in heavily, "I have stood by and tried not to interfere with the way you run things here, but up until this moment you have had a staggering run of sheer dumb luck to get you through this mission. But you are dealing with myself and Zoisite now, and you can't afford any mistakes. He won't be that easy to capture or surprise."
"I should know," he added, rather smugly, "I trained him."
"Well aren't we modest?" Makoto muttered under her breath.
"So what would you suggest?" Mina asked primly. She crossed her arms across her chest and waited.
"I think the idea of waiting to capture me when I've got Sailor Moon is good," Zoisite began, "I can teach you how to break through the shield like that cat did. But the conundrum comes when we must decide how to dispatch me without letting yourselves see you there, because they'll all be focused on me and Sailor Moon."
"Good point," Makoto sighed, "We'll..."
"Hold on," Rei snapped her fingers, "Why don't we wait and burst through the shield at the same time Artemis does, then I can push Sailor Moon out of the way, and you and Jupiter can grab Zoisite."
"But what about the Crescent Beam?" Mina asked, doubtfully, "And won't we still see ourselves?"
"Well, then you can catch your stupid Crescent Beam boomerang and send it back to yourself, can't you?"
"I suppose," Mina answered skeptically, "But that still doesn't -"
"I can use Flower Hurricane to blind them – us," Makoto spoke up, "like I did with Nephrite."
"Ok."
"Be careful of my knives," Zoisite mentioned, "if they cut you they'll infect you with dark energy."
"You are a sneaky little -"
"Mars," Mina interrupted, "it's time, there he is." She pointed at the figure of Zoisite holding Sailor Moon on the roof of the nearby Rental Shop; as they watched, they saw themselves appear in front of the group, then Zoisite's shield manifested itself around him and Sailor Moon and the Senshi scattered as their attacks bounced back at them.
Mina, Makoto and Rei climbed the tree behind the Rental Shop roof, angling to get out on the tree branch that hung closest to the roof.
"Now," Zoisite's ghost whispered, "Use your Crescent Beam to cut that tiny hole you see behind my head, that's the weak spot."
"Got it," Mina muttered, and took aim. The minute she said the words to her attack a white cat bounded from a nearby tree and sailed through the force-field it thought was there to land in a heap on the other side.
"Sorry, Artemis," Mina giggled under her breath.
"Flower Hurricane!" Jupiter screamed.
"No! Not yet-" Mina shouted frantically.
In the process of launching themselves from the roof they were suddenly blinded by a flash and a strong wind whirling around them.
Mina collided with something warm and taller than she, Rei nearly fell off the building but scrambled back up, grabbing a booted leg and hurling Sailor Moon toward the reeling past Senshi. She went flying and knocked them all over like bowling pins.
A whirring noise and a pain in her side alerted Rei to the fact that no one had yet caught the Crescent Beam boomerang.
"Venus!" she shrieked.
"I can't see it!" Mina yelled, "Just run for it!"
"Mina!?" Artemis called, "What are you doing!?"
"Who are you!?" Zoisite's voice yelled, "Get off of me!" With a surge of power he pushed all of them off except Mina. She clung to his neck and saw her boomerang come flying toward their heads.
"Duck you idiot!" She screeched, and flung all her weight backward so that they both fell off the roof and landed in a heap on the parking-lot cement.
Rei and Makoto rushed over to them, narrowly avoiding the boomerang as it continued to cut holes through the air.
"Mina? Are you alright?"
"You stupid Senshi!" a shrill voice wailed.
"That's not Mina," Makoto remarked and she and Rei ducked under a sudden blast of dark energy.
As they rolled, they saw that Mina was lying unconscious on the ground from where she had cushioned Zoisite's fall.
Jupiter made another Flower Hurricane while Rei blasted Zoisite's feet – making his boots and uniform catch on fire. He immediately began rolling on the ground to put himself out and Jupiter grabbed the first thing she could lay hands on, flinging it at his head. A rock collided solidly with Zoisite's face and he slumped to the ground as the rock, which had held his ghost, cracked and disintegrated.
"We have to get out of here!" Makoto growled to Rei.
"How are we going to move four bodies by ourselves!?" Rei yelled back, her eyes were blazing.
"Just do it!" Makoto yelled, fumbling with her communicator and dragging Nephrite's booted leg under one arm, while struggling to roll Jedite into the trees.
"What a mess." Rei muttered.
She shoved Mina onto her back, and tried to pull Zoisite's limp form into the cover of the trees out of sight of the other Senshi. As she made it to the shadows the dark engulfed them all and sent them hurtling once more through time.
In the Library, Ami, having dozed off a few hours ago, was awoken by a low, deep throated chuckle. She opened her eyes sleepily, having forgotten for a moment where she was.
"Hello, Sailor Mercury," a voice spoke smoothly, "I'm so glad to see you're enjoying the comfort of the Dark Kingdom."
Oh, no! Ami thought, as her stomach dropped, you idiot!
A pair of steel grey eyes looked down at her with something like the amusement a cat has when it has cornered a baby mouse.
Before she could move a force of dark energy surrounded her, and she lost consciousness.
When they came out of the worm-hole for the last time, the Senshi and the Dark Kingdom servants didn't hit anything at all, they were floating, quite literally, in space.
"Did we take a wrong turn?" Makoto asked.
"Ow!" Mina yelped, opening her eyes, "I feel like a baby elephant fell on my head."
"Nope, just Zoisite." Rei returned.
"Is everyone alright?" Kunzite's disembodied voice asked.
They all started violently, then sheepishly looked at one another.
His form was hardly visible at all in the vastness of Space with the light of the stars reflecting blindingly in some places, and the utter darkness of the void sucking up light in others.
"Yeah, I guess," Mina said, "so, give us a clue – how do we take down Beryl's last and best Shitennou?"
"Endymion's Shitennou," he corrected thinly, "and it won't be easy."
"No, really?" Makoto asked sarcastically. Everyone was beginning to catch Rei's bad mood. Behind them the three bodies of the Dark Kingdom Shitennou bobbed and floated like discarded puppets.
"First of all, I will put up a force-field which you cannot penetrate – it doesn't have a weak spot like Zoisite's. Secondly," he continued patiently, "I can crush you with one blow, so don't put yourselves in the line of fire. Third, at this point I lost all memories of my former self – so I am nothing more than a killing machine – in other words, shoot on sight."
"This is grim," Mina commented in a subdued tone of voice.
"Yes," Kunzite replied in kind, "your only hope will be to capture me while I am focused on Sailor Moon – if you can hit me with all of your power, it might be enough to render me unconscious."
"Might?" Makoto asked with a gulp.
"Well, it took a Planet attack to kill him the first time," Rei commented dryly, "your Thunder alone would be like a weak kick in the shins."
Makoto whistled and her eyes grew wide.
"You are in a very dangerous situation," Kunzite concluded warningly, "Unlike Jedite or Nephrite, I will not be unaware of your presence, and unlike Zoisite, I will adapt quickly and efficiently to any situation."
"In other words," Makoto grumbled, "dumb luck won't be on our side."
"Precisely."
A flash of light below them alerted them to the fact that Sailor Moon had transformed and was about to catapult herself into space.
"Alright, everyone," Mina said, "let's get ready."
Ami awoke in a dark black cell with her hands manacled to her sides. Staring at her through the bars, with a stoic expression on his face, was Kunzite.
"Good-morning, Sailor Mercury," he said, his low voice unexpectedly soothing.
"Don't worry," he added, looking at her face, "I won't harm you. As long as you tell me what I want to know."
Ami swallowed hard.
"First, I want you to tell me why you are here in the Dark Kingdom. How did you get into the Library?"
Ami licked her lips but said nothing. Kunzite smiled as he circled the cage-like cell, and for some reason, she remembered the cage-dive she'd gone on two summers ago when she'd been invited to see the killer white sharks off the coast of California.
"Not going to tell me?" he asked quietly, "That's alright, I think I may know. Let's see. You and your friends recently destroyed Jedite, my underling. "
"At least," he added, "we can't seem to find him, so I assume he is gone. Now, the strange thing is that when I questioned Nephrite about the whole messy affair he told me that he saw the Senshi, which included you, disappear. And yet, Zoisite tells me that, no sooner had he heard Nephrite returning through the hall then he also heard someone who he thought was a servant enter the Library – smelling, as most servants do, very foul. I hope you'll excuse me, I'm sure it's not your natural odor, but when one has spent, let's say," he looked up calculating, "oh, five minutes or so in the lower regions, they tend to bring the acrid smell with them."
"Which leads me to wonder," he stopped, and lowered his head until his eyes were level with hers through the bars, "how is it that you disappeared and reappeared in the lower caverns, simultaneously?"
Ami was trembling slightly in spite of herself, but she remained firm. She couldn't devise a lie that would explain these circumstances and knew the only way to keep everything on track was to preserve silence.
"Still nothing?" he sighed, "But that's alright, I think I can even stretch my reason to explain this little problem, albeit, I find my own explanation difficult to believe. Maybe you can help me?"
"I posit," he began, pacing around the cage once more, "that, since it is impossible for you to be fighting Nephrite at this moment, - which is where you and your comrades are, according to our screens - and for you to also be trapped in this cell, that there are, in fact, two Mercuries."
"Now, as impossible as it may seem," he concluded, "that is my theory – and you will tell me why and how you have a doppleganger."
Ami was panicking, there seemed no way to answer him without alerting him to things he should know nothing about, not that he didn't already know far too much. Suddenly a searing pain flashed through her mind.
"Do you feel that?" the Shitennou asked calmly, "It will only get worse until you answer my question."
As if to prove his point he narrowed his eyes and the pain in Ami's head forced her to her knees.
"Are you going to tell me?" he asked, "Or will I have to rip the answer out of your mind?"
The Senshi assumed battle positions, powering up, holding themselves ready and watching the faint light that was Sailor Moon grow brighter as it came closer.
"On my count," Mina said, "we will use two attacks to blind them both, then when Kunzite is focused on Sailor Moon and the other Senshi, we will combine our most powerful attacks and strike him from behind. I will alert Pluto and we will disappear as the Senshi perform the Planet attack. No one will know we were here."
"I don't think that will work, Sailor Venus," Kunzite's calm voice spoke behind her.
"What?" she asked, startled, "but I thought you just -"
"Because you see," he said, "I'm already here, and you three -"
They turned sharply to see the real Kunzite hovering in space inside his force-field, smiling at them.
"-are about to be finished. Say good-bye Sailor Senshi."
With that he launched his attack at all of them, catching them in a tremendous bubble of dark energy, and sending them hurtling toward the Earth.
At that moment a small rock which had floated unnoticed by Kunzite burst into light as it made contact with his shoe. Sailor Moon appeared, as did the other scouts, and while he was distracted for that one moment, the Senshi powered up their Planet attack, meaning to wipe him from the face of the universe.
As the energy hurtled toward him it engulfed him and the other three Shitennou in a radiant white beam – suddenly he almost saw clearly for a moment, and remembered who he really was. With a desperate cry he tried to say something to the Senshi but as the killing blast came toward him a black hole swallowed up all the Shitennou.
With a groan, Mina opened her eyes to find herself in a dark cage with solid bars encasing the entire structure.
"Mars! Jupiter!" she cried.
"We're here," she heard Makoto's weak voice answer from the gloom.
"G-guys?"
Mina whipped her head around and peered frantically toward the sound of the voice. In the dark gloom she saw Mercury's pale, bruised face looking at her with pathetic hope.
"Y-you're here," she coughed.
"Mercury!" Rei nearly screamed, "Are you alright?!"
"I think so," the small Senshi whispered, "But there's something I have to tell you-"
"Well, this is touching," a silky, dulcet voice intoned. It sent shivers down their spines. From the darkness Mina could see two glowing eyes staring at her.
"Kunzite was correct," Beryl said with a chuckle, "as usual. It seems I should have believed him when he said there were two groups of Senshi running around."
"But what to do with you?" she asked herself, smiling.
"You can shove-" Rei started.
"Suggestions won't be necessary, Sailor Mars." There was a loud bang, and Mars yelped in pain.
"Let's see," suddenly Beryl clapped her hands together, "I know. I'm sure you'll all be sad to hear that my four marvelous Shitennou were recently taken from me by Sailor Moon," her face suddenly looked murderous, "I now have four new openings for Dark Kingdom servants."
"No," Ami whimpered. What have I done?
Beryl ran her long nailed hands across the bars of the cages.
"I need someone who can help me defeat the Senshi once and for all. Some who can break through their attacks, get inside their heads. - And I really think you four were made for the job."
She laughed a long, hard, sharp laugh that slit the dank air.
"We'll never help you!" Mina yelled suddenly, her eyes lit up in fury and disgust, "And there's nothing you can do to make us."
"That's very funny," Beryl sighed, "because, you see..."
She faced them all with a malignant smile.
"That's exactly what the Shitennou said."
Whew! That's a lot of story plot.
