Sailor Pluto had been throw clear, hit a wall, and slumped to the ground dazed after the beast's rushing attack which ended in Sailor Saturn being incapacitated. She tried to find her focus. Something important had just happened, something she had been hoping for for a long time now. The Moon Princess had returned to them at last.
But now Sailor Moon stood alone against a youma that had bested all of the other senshi working together. Sailor Moon, alone, stood no chance against the monster, Sailor Pluto was sure of this. She struggled to her feet, using her time key to help push herself up. One thought dominated her thoughts: the Moon Princess needed her.
She stood on unsteady feet, still unable to stand without supporting herself on the Time Key, when she saw the opening round of attacks between Sailor Moon and the youma. She had expected it to be over quickly, and despair filled her as she thought she was going to be forced, once again, to watch a Serenity die and not be able to do anything about it. One swipe, and it would all be over. The youma could finish the job it had started at its leisure, killing the nine senshi who were in no shape to fight back.
Sailor Moon charged. The beast swung its paw. The paw intersected Moon's path, and when it passed, Sailor Moon was no longer there. Setsuna waited to hear the sickening thud of a body connecting with a wall, or the ground, or something. The sound never came.
"Too slow!" She heard a voice from above, and saw an impossible sight. She hadn't even seen her jump, but there Sailor Moon was, high in the air. "Death from above!"(1) Moon delivered a flying kick to the top of the youma's massive head, sending it smashing forcefully into the ground.
Pluto was positive she hadn't just seen that correctly. Sailor Moon had challenged the youma to a one-on-one physical confrontation, and in the opening round had not only got the better of the exchange, but had come away unscratched. Moon jumped down from the top of the youma's head back to ground level, and stood in front of it. She took a coquettish pose. "Is that it? I'm disappointed."
"I'll make you EAT those words," the youma growled, and faster than Pluto could follow, it pounced on Sailor Moon, who was too close to possibly dodge.
"What are you doing? I'm back here," said Moon who, impossibly, stood behind the youma. She jumped up and kicked its tail. The beast roared, spun, and swiped at Moon, who was no longer there. She was now sitting, quite calmly, on top of its head.
Pluto was doing her best impression of a fish out of water at this point, her mouth gaping open and shut. Was... was Sailor Moon TOYING with the youma?
Moon noticed her from her vantage on top of the youma's head. She waved. "Hey, Puu-Puu! Do you think you could wake up the others? I might need some help."
Pluto's eye twitched. She HATED that nickname, and she knew Princess Serenity knew it.
The youma roared as Moon gave away her location, and shook its head violently. The motion sent Moon flying high into the air, and she came down hands first toward the rear of the youma. Pluto was astonished to see Moon deliver a flying, two-handed spank to the youma. Much like a real dog, the youma yelped. "Bad dog!" she heard Moon exclaim.
Suddenly, Pluto understood. Moon was distracting the beast, acting as bait, to give the other senshi time to recover. She had used that damnable nickname to shock her out of her stupor, and get her moving. As the fight between Sailor Moon and the youma picked up in tempo, she turned her attention to her other fellow senshi. Venus was already starting to come around, and Mars was stumbling back towards her from wherever she had landed. She turned to attend to Saturn. She was out cold. She looked to Mars. "See if you can wake up Mercury, and then find some water. Hurry." Mars was standing gape-faced at the fight between Moon and the youma. "Mars! Now!" she snapped, and Mars came back to herself and rushed over to where Mercury was lying. She didn't really blame Mars. After seeing the beginning of the fight, she wanted to just stand and watch the fight herself.
Sailor Moon was amazed at her transformation. She could feel her entire being humming with energy, energy that demanded to be used. She had started to use that energy much like she would normally use her ki, with incredible results. She was faster than she ever could have imagined herself being. She seemed to have a limitless amount of energy to use like this... or perhaps the energy simply generated faster than she could use it.
She did not understand what had happened to her, she hadn't had time to sort out the memories of another life floating around in her head, and she still wasn't sure who or what she was. But this? A fight for her life against a tough opponent? This she understood. While one part of her couldn't even imagine fighting the way she was, another part of her lived for it. She had trained for most of her current life for moments like these.
She used her speed to her advantage against the giant dog, and combined with her Anything Goes Insult and Injury fighting techniques, it had enraged her opponent beyond all reason. She now understood that the creature had been toying with the other senshi. The creature was much faster than it made itself out to be, and now that it was attacking her seriously she was barely keeping ahead of it. She dodged and weaved, and every time she had a chance to make the beast look foolish, she took it. At one point, she had clung to its tail, prompting the beast to spin around like a real dog chasing its tail, all the while she taunted it for acting like a real dog, and implying its master wouldn't be happy if it knew what a bad dog it was. The beast was beyond enraged, and that's the way she wanted it. Enraged enemies did not fight smart, and now it was showing her, and the other senshi, what its true speed and power was.
The reason she was doing this was simple. She couldn't figure out how to kill the thing. It seemed to be immune to physical damage, as her first attack before transforming and her powerful kick after transforming seemed to prove. She knew she had broken its neck with her punch, and her kick should have caved its head in, but in each case it just came back as if it were nothing but an annoyance. She could not beat it in hand-to-hand combat, she could only delay it so that those that could beat it could get back into the fight.
A glance in the direction of the other senshi showed that they were just about ready to rejoin the fight, so she tried to get some distance. "What's that?" she asked, pointing behind the beast, but she realized her folly the moment she had done it. The beast was far too enraged to be fooled by the trick.
She had left her guard down for just a moment too long. A giant paw crashed into her, sending her flying into a nearby building. The other senshi chose that moment to rejoin the fight, and now that the beast had demonstrated how fast it really was, they took its speed MUCH more seriously, keeping a greater distance between themselves and it, and scattering whenever it turned in their direction.
Sailor Moon dragged herself out of the person-shaped impression in the wall she had impacted, and brushed herself off. Her father hit harder, and had even done so not too long ago. She walked up behind the green-haired, black-skirted girl. "So, Puu-Puu, how do I use magic?"
Sailor Pluto shrieked, and Sailor Moon grinned as she delivered some karmic retribution for all the times she remembered Princess Pluto sneaking up on her in her past life. As Pluto's heart settled from the scare, Moon saw anger, confusion, and concern warring for dominance on Pluto's face. Something passed between the two of them, an unspoken understanding. They needed to talk, but this wasn't the time or place. Pluto settled for bopping Moon on the head with the Garnet Orb at the end of the Time Key. "Don't call me that!"
"OW! Fine, fine. But still, how do I cast spells like you and the others do? I can use my magic like ki, but I don't know how to cast any spells," Moon said, rubbing her forehead.
Pluto thought about it. "Do you know any ki projectile attacks?"
Moon shook her head. "No, that's something I haven't been able to figure out yet. It just kinda sputters out when I try to project one, and just leaves me tired."
Pluto nodded. "If you knew how to use ki projectiles, you could use magic that way as well. But if you don't, you might have to give up on it. While you're trying to use magic like ki, you won't be able to do anything with it that you don't already know how to do with ki. Try using magic like magic," Pluto said.
Moon thought about it. It made a certain kind of sense. The trouble was, she didn't know how to use magic like magic.
"Hurry," said Pluto. "Thanks to your timely arrival, we're back to a stalemate with this youma, but that can't last long. The senshi are getting tired."
Pluto turned back to the fight and released a Dead Scream, sending the beast off-balance when it looked like it was about to charge at Neptune. She shook her head. No wonder Moon had fought so well. She was trained in the ways of a Life Adept in this life, and was using the much more powerful Purification Magic that was her birthright as the Princess of the Moon instead of her own life energy.
Moon had watched Pluto release her attack, and saw part of the trick. She had been trying to gather the magic within her and project it out through her hands. Pluto, on the other hand, had released the magic from herself, gathered the magic to a point, and then released it. The magic took on its own form as it gathered and flew toward the enemy.
She decided to try it. She did have to stop using the magic like ki at all, because that seemed to prevent her from releasing the magic to outside of herself. She frowned. Using magic like magic would weaken her, she would not be capable of her augmented speed while casting magic at an enemy. She immediately saw the tactical aspects of this. Augmented speed in one case, the ability to attack at range in the other. She hoped the ranged attack was worth it. She held her hands together at her side, and started drawing the magic she released to that point. A shining ball of energy formed there. But it just stayed there growing, she couldn't figure out how to initiate the attack. She looked to Pluto helplessly.
"Call out the attack. The words give the magic purpose," said Pluto.
Moon thought about that a moment, then realized she was going to have to use a stupid attack phrase. She groaned. Well, she might as well get it over with. Hmm... the way she seemed to be holding the magic, it reminded her of a game she had seen outside an arcade once. Some of the characters in the game would charge up an attack between their hands, and shoot the attack out. What was that attack called? Oh, yeah.
"Tsukidouken!"(2) she called out, thrusting her hands toward the beast, and the magic responded. As it flew toward her target, it formed into a giant fist, and began to split. It split into two, then four, eight, and finally sixteen separate fist shaped attacks. One at a time, the fists began to accelerate toward the target, the end effect being a line of magical fists flying toward the beast. The recoil from the attack send Moon flying backwards a few dozen feet, to impact the same wall she had left an imprint in before.
"Get clear!" called Pluto, and the other senshi scrambled to get away. The beast saw it coming and tried to dodge, but the attack turned out to not be linear; each fist curving to track the beast. One at a time, each fist connected, and released the energy it contained all at once in a purifying explosion. The final fist connected, and the beast howled as a column of purifying energy encompassed it. In the aftermath of the attack, a large pile of dust was left sitting where the beast had stood. The pile of dust then further dissolved into nothing.
Sailor Moon struggled to regain her feet. She hadn't taken any additional damage from being knocked into the wall, again; she'd had far worse done to her, after all. But after that attack, she felt drained... more drained than she'd ever felt before. Had some of her ki gotten mixed up in that attack? She just wanted to lie down and sleep forever.
She had the presence of mind to be amazed at what magic was capable of. In place of ki, it made her much faster and more resilient, but didn't leave her much in the way of attacks. But that attack... Kami! She would have to leave herself vulnerable to use it, but that was a guaranteed one-shot kill. She just wished it didn't leave her feeling so drained.
A garnet orb came crashing down on her head, knocking her back on her seat. "Do you even know how stupid and reckless that was? Don't you remember anything about magic? You could have just killed yourself!"
She glared up at the black-skirted senshi that had just assaulted her, and jumped back up to her feet, her muscles protesting at the sudden movement. "No, Puu-Puu, I don't remember. I've had memories of my past life warring with my current life ever since my past life started to resurface. Before I can really understand what's happened to me, I have to jump into a fight to save your lives, and stop her," she pointed at the approaching Sailor Saturn, "from ending everything for whatever Kami-forsaken reason she thought it was a good idea. No preparation, no useful memories, and no chance to practice with a weapon that for all intents and purposes I've never even seen before. So you tell me, how stupid and reckless was I?"
"Watch your tone with me, and DON'T you call me that. You may be the Moon Queen's daughter, but that doesn't give you the right to say anything you want," said Pluto, treading on very familiar ground.
"Aren't you supposed to be guarding something?" Moon retorted, furthering the all too familiar argument.
"Spoiled brat!"
"Stuck-up time bitch!"
"Drama Queen!"
"Ice Queen!"
"Crybaby!"
"Bully!"
The two glared at each other as the familiar drama finished playing out. Then suddenly, both embraced the other, tears starting to stream down their respective faces. "It's good to see you again, Sailor Moon."
"It's good to see you too," replied Moon, and with an impish grin she added, "Puu-Puu."
She dodged the predictable attack, stood a few feet away from arm's reach, stuck her tongue out at Pluto, and winked.
"I hate to break up this reunion," started Venus. "But we'd probably better get out of here before the authorities arrive to take the victims to the morgue."
Moon looked confused. "Don't you mean hospital?"
Venus shook her head sadly. "This isn't our first fight. The authorities stopped taking the victims to the hospital some time ago."
"Well that's silly. You can't treat survivors very well at the morgue."
Venus was starting to get annoyed. "Look around you. Do you see any surv-"
A shriek from behind her, and Saturn clinging on to her from behind, cut her off. "I just saw that one move," Saturn said.
She turned around to where Saturn was pointing. Sure enough, one of the bodies she was sure had to be dead was starting to get up, and others were starting to stir. "But... but how?" she asked, then looked wide-eyed at Moon, the implications of this starting to sink in. "Purification energy?"
She turned to Mercury. "Scan them!" she said, but Mercury already had her visor on and her computer out.
"Every single one of them is showing normal life energy levels. They should all be fine after a few hour's rest," she said. "It's like all the life energy the youma had collected returned to its owners when the youma died. I've never seen anything like this."
The two were distracted by Mars, who had doubled over laughing. After regaining herself, she explained. "Sorry, sorry, but I needed that. Oh, Jadeite is NOT going to like this. After all that energy he had to have put into creating that one and sending it here, he loses the youma and is left empty handed." The other senshi smiled as they got the joke.
"Don't you see? This is our victory! A real victory, for once! A clean victory, where the Dark Kingdom didn't get away with anything but a little property damage! If we can keep winning like this, we... we might even have a chance of defeating the Dark Kingdom for good!"
"How do we know it isn't a Dark Kingdom trick?" asked Uranus, to the annoyance of Mars. "I know our memories are faulty, but I certainly don't remember any Moon Guardian in the Silver Millenium."
"Wouldn't Pluto know? You saw how familiar those two ar- hey! Where'd Pluto go?"
"Probably back to her precious gates," said Neptune bitterly. "You know, the ones that would let us stop any of this from ever happening? The ones she guards but refuses to use? Those gates."
Venus turned on Neptune and Uranus. "You two know as well as the rest of us that she has good reasons not to use the gates. As if Queen Serenity forbidding her wasn't enough."
"I don't care!" exclaimed Uranus. "The gates are a weapon, we should use it! Anything to get an advantage against those Dark Kingdom bastards."
"We have an advantage now," said Jupiter, entering the discussion. "Her," she said, pointing at Moon. "If the Dark Kingdom can't get any life energy, they won't be able to send nearly as strong of a youma. We've probably just set them back months, all in one night. I'd say that's one hell of an advantage."
"And what about all the people that died before she showed up? So we can save the youma victims now, big deal! That doesn't help the families of those that are already dead. If she's so great, why doesn't Pluto go back and awaken her before hundreds, thousands of people here lost their lives?" demanded Uranus.
Moon took the comment like a blow to the gut. All those people, dead, when her presence could have saved them. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she bit back a sob.
"We don't know what effect that would have had. For all we know, that would have made things worse! There has to be a reason she didn't appear until just now," said Venus.
This reminded Moon of many a familiar scene in the Silver Millennium, when the Princesses were brought together. Princess Uranus usually found some way of antagonizing either herself or Princess Mars. Princess Neptune joined in with Uranus, and Princess Venus and Princess Jupiter came to their defense. It usually ended in a fight between the four, which was typically broken up by one of the Inner Guard assigned to watch over them. What was happening now was taking an all too familiar direction. She knew she had to do something before it came to blows.
"Yeah? And what reason is that? Where was she when we were fighting, and failing, to kill the youma before their victims died? Where was she when-"
"Stop it! Stop this pointless fighting," she cried out, interrupting the argument. "Don't you see how stupid this is? We were raised to be princesses, we've known each other since we were little girls! We're all supposed to be friends! We can't fight each other like this. We need to stick together!"
Her impassioned speech rang in the ears of the five quarreling senshi and they all turned to face her at the same time, looking at her as if only now really seeing her for the first time.
Venus was the most troubled by it. Especially after that speech, this girl was ringing bells all over the place, but she still couldn't quite place her. She felt like she should be able to, something about the girl was so familiar to her.
Uranus seemed unmoved by the speech. She turned her back on the rest of them with a huff and started walking away, Neptune following shortly after. Saturn looked torn between staying with the inners and following the outers, but in the end chased after the two disappearing senshi.
It was Mars that was finally able to connect Moon with her memories, seeing the hurt and tearful look in Moon's eyes when Uranus and Neptune left. She gasped. "P-princess Serenity? Is that you?"
The other three remaining senshi gasped, when the name triggered memories that had remained buried within them; memories of the Princess of the Moon who had befriended them so long ago. The somewhat spoiled crybaby, who still had a heart big enough for all of them. If it weren't for her, the four of them would probably have never been friends.
Venus's face burned with shame. Now that she remembered, she had spent more time with the Moon Princess than any of the others. The girl had been like a sister to her, and to have forgotten her completely felt like an unforgivable transgression. She felt her throat constrict, and she struggled to find her voice. "Princess Serenity, I..."
Whatever she was going to say was interrupted, as the five girls heard emergency vehicles start to approach. Apparently, authorities had decided it had been quiet long enough to assume it was safe to start gathering the bodies. Imagine their surprise when there would turn out to not be any. "We need to leave this place. We're not very popular with the authorities, they don't like us around when they come to clean up our messes. We have a place we usually meet, will you follow us there?"
"Wait," said Mercury. "Maybe it's time to get some good press for a change. We just had a clean victory against the Dark Kingdom, no fatalities. There's no reason to be ashamed of that."
Moon wasn't so sure about this. "I don't think it would go as well as you're thinking. It sounds like a good idea, but it might be asking for trouble."
"I... no, you're right," said Mercury. "We need to go before they get here then. Can you follow us to the rooftops?"
Moon nodded. Roof hopping was a training method her father had used, after all. Usually after he had stolen something. "Lead the wa- Oh, wait! Where's Luna?" She looked around. Luna was lying on the ground, right where she had been when she had transformed. She ran over to her. "Luna? Luna, are you alright?" No response. She shook Luna gently. "Luna, wake up! Look at me! Please?" A slight groan from the mau was the only response. Tears welled up in Moon's eyes. "Luna!" she cried desperately.
"Moon, we have to go! Bring her with you, but we have to leave, now!" called Venus.
Tears falling from her eyes, Moon picked up Luna as delicately as if she were made of glass, and held the mau to her chest. The senshi took to the rooftops, and she followed, taking the utmost care not to jostle her precious cargo.
1: Kudos to you if you recognize the reference. If Mookie reads this, I hope he understands that this was an homage to him and takes no offense.
2: Moon Wave Fist
AN: Hello to everyone that has read this fanfiction. If you've managed to read up to this point then either you like what you're reading, or you're some kind of masochist. In either case, thank you for reading my fanfiction, and if you have any criticisms I'd be happy to hear them, as long as those criticisms are CONSTRUCTIVE. Insulting language, reviews such as "This sucks" without explaining why you think so, and troll posts will be ignored coming from registered users, and such comments will not survive guest moderation in the reviews. I know that, unfortunately, I can't do anything about such comments from registered users. All I can do is ask that if you don't like my story, don't read it, and kindly keep your comments to yourself unless you can make them constructive. Otherwise, please leave a review, as your interest in the story will be what keeps me interested in sharing.
I have to give credit here to frice2000 of the fukufics forum, who has been helping me catch my spelling and grammar errors and offering advice on certain story points, making the story a much easier read. A BIG thanks goes once again to other members of the fukufics forum, who helped me cut a certain plot device out of the story, which forced me to rewrite the whole thing and ended with the story being much stronger overall. I'm sure I've tested the patience of one or two of them, and for that I can only apologize. I hope that posting a well-written and (hopefully) entertaining story will make up for any perceived slight.
Well, here we are, the second chapter and the third submission for this story. The Prologue was around 3000 words, while chapter 1 weighs in at closer to 6000. At around 4000 words, not including this author's note, chapter 2 seems to be at a comfortable length for a chapter, and I will be attempting to keep each chapter at least this long. This may seem like a somewhat short length for a chapter, but at this length I will be able to continue to post chapters frequently, keep the story moving along, and keep you, the reader, interested. I hope.