BLINDED BY REVENGE
CHAPTER 4
The Hizrounswa
Written by Darkpower
Rating: 14 (Dialogue, Violence, Language)
Once more, the way to pronounce "Hizrounswa" is "HIS-ROW-NAS-WA".
Mamoru had shocked the Sailor girls as well as Kage when he spoke of a fabled shadow crystal only known as the Hizrounswa. "Basically put, if Rubeus is allowed to get a hold of this crystal, then he can kill every last one of us with one shot!"
"Well, whatever Rubeus might be able to throw at us," Artemis proclaimed, "I think we will be ready for him!"
"Right!" the rest of them agreed.
All of them, that is, except Mamoru. "You don't understand. This is something that's unlike anything that we've ever faced before. This is the most dangerous crystal that I've ever heard about in my life. Trust me, you have no idea what we're dealing with here. We cannot let Rubeus obtain that crystal."
Kage stood up and looked right into Mamoru's eyes. "Wait a sec, man. Those pages are only saying what's in the fables about the crystal, and talking about magical powers being imploded from within or something like that. We don't really know if that spells bad news for anyone or not. We don't even know if this thing exists or not."
"On the contrary," Mamoru responded. "It does, and it's buried somewhere in this world!"
"How do you know anything about this, Mamoru?" Rei asked. "You seem to know an awful lot more than that booked talked about. How are you so knowledgeable about this?"
Mamoru sighed, knowing that what he would say next might surprise a few of the people he was talking to, for more than one reason. "Usagi, I don't think I even mentioned this to you or to anyone else, but I did retain some memory of being under Queen Beryl's mind control."
"What?" Usagi gasped. "How much?"
"You mean to tell me that you were once under her spell?" Kage asked.
"Yes, Kage. I wasn't aware where I got these memories from at first, but once I was realigned with my memories of the past, I remembered hearing about this crystal. One of the things that I was ordered to do, amongst everything else, was to keep an eye out for a specific crystal that had evil properties. I asked what it was, and that's when I was told of its name and the powers it possessed. If the Dark Kingdom knew about the Hizrounswa and needed it, you know that's not good news if they get it. And now I saw this book which only confirmed my suspicions."
"So Queen Beryl also knew about this crystal, yet we didn't," Luna responded. "All this time she could've had our number and we would've never known."
"Actually, Luna, it wasn't Queen Beryl who told me about it. She didn't even know that it existed. At least she didn't tell me of her knowledge of it if she did."
"Wait, so if Beryl didn't know about this," Ami asked, "then who did?"
"Whatever the true ruler of the Dark Kingdom was."
"You mean who-ever it was, Mamoru!" Kage answered.
"What?" Mamoru gasped.
"That's what I was trying to say before we were interrupted by your call. When I was returning to the Moon Kingdom, I saw more than Beryl that attacked the kingdom that day."
"I remember you saying something about this black cloud that swiped at your shuttle," Minako said, "and that you saw the entity had a humanoid form at one point."
"Yeah, but there was more to it than that. Something didn't feel or look right. I only caught glimpses of the attack after I began free-falling, but from what I could see, Beryl seemed to be in and out of it at times. She was acting on her own power at one second, then under complete control the next. Was a weird sight to see, though I couldn't do anything about it. If I had gotten control of my shuttle back, I could've tried to use that to our advantage to at least buy everyone some time to rally some more forces."
Luna sighed upon hearing the news that Kage just delivered. "We will never know, unfortunately. Though I don't remember Beryl fluctuating in and out."
"Probably because she was still attacking the Kingdom. Maybe her reasons were changing as a result, but it was still the same actions, unfortunately."
"Well, that doesn't really matter now," Mamoru interrupted, trying to get back on topic. "All that matters is that we find this Hizrounswa, and destroy it, however we can."
"Even if this thing existed," Makoto proclaimed, "we wouldn't have the faintest where to look for it."
"Actually, I think we might have an idea where to start." Mamoru laid the pages of the book onto the table next to which he was sitting, and pointed to a spot on the second page of the article, "Legend says that the last place where it was spotted was somewhere in a large desert."
Ami took the pages and read the sentence that Mamoru was referring to. "So that could mean it could be either in Arizona, Australia, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt."
"Arizona," Kage responded. "I know exactly where to go, at least. If we're going to go on a hunt for this Hizrounswa thing, I can do a search there."
"Been in Africa before," Minako answered. "And Egypt and Saudi Arabia are rather close. I could try to find it there."
"And," Rei added, "I've taken a trip to Australia before. I do believe I could try to locate..."
"Hold on!" Usagi commanded. "We're not about to get separated, especially when this crystal is the least of our problems!"
"But Usagi," Rei answered, "if Rubeus gets his hands on..."
"I'm not saying it isn't dangerous, Rei. What I'm saying is that instead of hunting for the Hizrounswa, we hunt for Rubeus."
"Why would we hunt for the guy trying to find the thing when we could hold the crystal as our..." Rei began to ask in response, only to remember what else Rubeus now had in his possession. "Oh, yeah. How could I forget? He's got Ikuko. If we're not quick on this, he could very well kill her."
"Plus, I think Usagi's onto something here," Kage added. "Rubeus would be trying to look for the crystal, too. He may want to get the crystal and then kill her."
"But if the crystal is still out there," Artemis answered, "he would need her in order to make us keep searching for it."
"Don't think that he wouldn't try to speed up the process somewhat. He looks like an impatient man. He would try to locate the crystal himself. So, if we do what Usagi suggests and try to find the person who wants it..."
"Then," Luna exclaimed, "instead of us leading him to the crystal, he could lead us to it!"
"When we know he's found it, we follow him to the place, and make our move."
"We have to do this quickly," Mamoru said. "He must not even touch the crystal."
"I don't want to wait to go after him, though," Usagi replied. "If he finds out our plan, he'll respond by taking my mom's life. I gotta rescue her before anything else happens to her."
"Hold on!" Rei commanded. "Usagi, you said you didn't know how he survived that UFO explosion, correct?"
"Yeah, and I said that I didn't care how he did!"
"Maybe we should care! That could be a clue as to where he's hiding out at!"
"Yeah," Ami answered. "I always thought that some spaceships would have some sort of escape mechanism to get people out if anything were to happen to it. Maybe Rubeus knew that, too."
Rei nodded. "Find whatever he escaped in, and we'll find Rubeus?"
"I would believe so. I could check on my computer, to see if there were any strange sightings in the past few days."
"Do it, Ami," Usagi said. "I want to see where that bastard's hiding!"
"I'll see if I can dig up anything else on this crystal's location," Mamoru added. "This has me scared. Hopefully I'm wrong and this is just a myth."
-xXXXx-
Rubeus definitely had things going his way. He had used the bonds on Ikuko once more, tying her up to a huge basement pipe. The basement was the foundation for a small cabin that Rubeus was not about to reveal the location of to anyone (he even blinded Ikuko until he got there). Besides the pipes, there was a broken-down table with some chairs in the middle of the room, and the wooden steps that led to the first floor of the cabin, the basement was barren. The book that Rubeus had found in the escape pod was on the table, but with the pages about the Hizrounswa torn out of it. Rubeus knew he lost those pages while in the hospital, though he wasn't worried about it: he still had a spare copy made just in case anything happened (he wanted to make sure his claim of being a smart man was true, after all).
"All your daughter has to do is to find where the Hizrounswa is, and you'll be free to go, my sweet pet!" Rubeus said as he was hunched over at the table, studying the pages. "Well, maybe!"
"What are you talking about, Rubeus?" Ikuko cried.
Rubeus straightened his posture and walked over to Ikuko. "That crystal that your daughter and her freakish friends are hiding from me! As long as they do that, your life remains in my hands! Don't worry, Miss. I'm not about to kill you just yet; you're too hot of a number for me to off so quickly. Plus, I know that you realize now who your daughter-no, I should now say your adopted daughter-really is!"
"She's my daughter, you creep, and that's all there is to it!"
"She doesn't carry your blood, you dumb bimbo! Don't you see that? Don't you see that your daughter has been lying to you from the day she was born? You saw her transform before your very eyes. You know the truth now. How can you not be angry with her, want to ground her, hell, want to disown her for what she tried to pull?"
Ikuko was fuming with anger at this point. "How dare you even fathom that I would disown my family for anything? I'm not angry with her! I'm proud of her for the lives she's protected, and how determined she is to protect our family! She put all her beliefs aside to keep me from being hurt! How can anyone not appreciate a daughter like that? You, sir, are the worst human being I've met! I love her, no matter what you try to say to me about her!"
"Oh yeah, I forgot, you actually would be so dumb," Rubeus answered. "After all, what mother just leaves their kid to die without even checking? You cared more about your husband than Shingo! How pathetic is that?"
"You don't think I'm disgusted with myself that I didn't know he was in the house? You don't think I get sick to my stomach, that I don't feel any guilt, for leaving him there? You have no idea how horrible I feel because I neglected him!"
"You really should, though I thank you for letting me get her attention!"
"No matter what you say, she's still my daughter! I've loved her from the minute I held her in my arms! Even if she isn't my blood, she's still my damn daughter!"
"All right, all right, please spare me the melodrama! God, part of me want to just kill you right now just so you'll shut up!"
"I'd rather be dead than to see her get hurt!"
Rubeus glared upon hearing that. "You say something, bitch?"
"You heard me, you pig!"
"You're right, I did, and I didn't want to!" Rubeus slapped his prey in the face as hard as he could, turning Ikuko's face to the side as a result. "I told you to shut up! Or do you want me to test how true those words you just spoke were? Just remember, if you die, your son will die, as well! No compromise!" He returned to the table to study some more.
'Usagi, I'm sorry! I'm sorry about everything,' Ikuko thought. 'Shingo is in the hospital because I was stupid, and now I'm here, and I actually deserve this, for what I did to help turn our family upside-down. I just hope you can find this crystal and take Rubeus' head off.'
Rubeus, however, ignored the fact that Ikuko was in tears and looked at what the text on the pages said. "In the desert, the gods attempted to hide it from their enemies because it was the only power that the enemies possessed which they feared. However, the desert in which the gods hid the Hizrounswa is unknown to this day." He smiled as his eyes left the papers, and he stared at Ikuko. "How stupid do you think your daughter really is, huh? If she read the same thing I did, I don't think for a moment that Usagi would figure out that it was Egypt that they buried this thing at, right? The pyramids, the Egyptian gods, deserts. She couldn't find her way out of a damn paper bag, why do I think she'll lead me to this crystal?"
Ikuko couldn't say anything, but she narrowed her eyes.
"That stare," Rubeus said in response. "The perfect sign that a woman is pissed, and that's how a woman usually gets what she wants from whoever she's delivers it to. What a shame that I've seen it before in Lady Emerald, and it didn't work then, either. Though if you ever heard her voice, you'd see why it was hard to look at her, you would be too busy holding your ears hoping they didn't bleed! In any event, Egypt is where this is, I bet! And you're not going with me...not that you have a choice! And don't try anything fancy while I'm gone, either. Remember, I could return at any second, and if I see you trying to escape, you die, and you know what happens to your son if you die!" He then disappeared.
Ikuko could only sob and cry up a storm. "Usagi, please, don't let him win. I trust you!"
-xXXXx-
Usagi had gone to Ami's house (the other Sailors decided to get some sleep until something was found out). The two were looking for anything suspicious that could've led them to where Rubeus was hiding.
"Any luck?" Usagi asked, coming into Ami's room with some hot tea for both of them as well as various snacks, trying to keep awake long enough to find anything.
"Not really," Ami said while looking up stuff on her desktop computer. She took a sip of her hot tea. "Just various sightings, some of which are completely false, while others are under that pending investigation thing. Nothing out of the ordinary."
Usagi sat on Ami's bed and drank some of her own tea. "Just people thinking that lights are UFOs and that?"
"Well, yeah. There's a ton of those on the sites. You'd think that it would be a rare thing, but I'm fascinated that so many people actually believe this stuff. Probably from a lot of the science fiction stuff that people eat up. They'll believe anything."
"We're from outer space, in a way."
Ami thought about that for a moment. "Well, in a matter of speaking, we are, but not in the same way, I would assume."
Usagi sighed. "I wonder what my mother thinks of me now that she knows the truth. Maybe she thinks I'm some kind of weird alien instead of her daughter."
"She loves you to death, Usagi," Ami answered, turning around to face her friend. "I'm pretty sure she's just puzzled as to why you hid it from her all this time."
"I was following rules. You know, the super hero's secret identity should never be revealed to anyone."
"You know that rule doesn't really exist, Usagi."
"Artemis was scolding me at first, though."
"Artemis was thinking with his brain instead of his heart, and he changed his mind about the reason later on, if you remember. He was worried about what your mother might've thought. He didn't want you two to have some sort of family feud over it."
"He might be right on that. I don't know what she thought about it."
"To tell you the truth, Usagi, I think she might've already had her suspicions. She had that look as if she just knew. That motherly bond and all. You never see it, you never hear of it, but you somehow know that something is true." She saw Usagi sigh and get a bit teary eyed. Ami sat up and approached her friend, kneeling down to look into her eyes. "Usagi, we'll find her and make Rubeus pay for what he's done."
"I"m just so scared that he'll kill her."
"He won't. As long as he needs that crystal, he'll need your mother alive for us to keep looking for it."
"If I find my mother dead there, Ami, I...I don't know if I would be able to handle it."
"Rubeus has felt your wrath before. I'm sure he'll deserve all of it and more if, God forbid, that would happen."
Usagi's sadness turned to anger, her body beginning to tremble once more. "If that son of a bitch lays a finger on her, I swear I'll break him in two."
Ami was once more taken aback when she heard Usagi's newfound fury. "You know, in a way, I didn't ever think that you had this in you, Usagi. No offense, but I have never thought of you as a person who would want revenge so bad, even if someone harmed your family like Rubeus did. At least not expressing it that way. You're being a lot more vocal about it than I thought you would be."
"I really don't know how to show this anger. I've never felt anything like this before in my life."
"It's different with everyone as to how they show it. Some just let their actions show it, others wear their emotions on their sleeves, and others try to hide it. You've always handled yours in the quiet, letting actions do the talking type of way, but when you saw what Rubeus did, you snapped, and you allowed a black spot in your heart that no one had ever seen before to surface."
"I don't like it, Ami. I really don't like it."
"But I do, Usagi. It shows your humanity. And personally, I hope you keep showing it when fighting Rubeus. I didn't think in a million years that he was capable of..."
"What's that?" Usagi suddenly asked.
"Oh, I was just saying you're showing that you're human because..."
"No, Ami, I meant on your computer screen. That's not a picture of a UFO light."
Ami turned around towards her computer. Indeed, there was a picture of something much larger than a simple light. Rather, a spherical object. It got Usagi attention as much as it had now obtained Ami's, as the latter went back to her desk chair and looked at the picture intensely. The photo's caption read, "Large spaceship that was seen by man in the arctic. Crash landed near the South Pole, according to the expeditionary." The colored photo showed that it was a titanium alloy of some sorts, at least from how Ami perceived it. Whatever it was, it was large enough to hold a single passenger, which was enough for Usagi (who had now came up to the desk to see the photo herself) to narrow her eyes.
"In the arctic, you don't usually see that," Ami said. "It looks like some sort of escape pod."
"It would be able to hold only Rubeus, but he was the only one on that UFO," Usagi answered. However, it was then that she saw something in the description that made her gasp. "The expeditionary proclaims that he saw the flying sphere in August," she read aloud.
"If that's when he saw it happen, then it crashed landed two months ago."
"Exactly when we fought Rubeus in his UFO!"
Ami got out her mini-computer and hooked it up to her desktop computer. It looked like a chore, but she was able to do it with ease. "Let's see if this works."
"What are you doing?"
"Going to see if the Mercomp can read that photo and tell us if what we think is true."
"The Mercomp?" Usagi asked, puzzled over what Ami just called the mini-computer that she used as Sailor Mercury.
"Thought it needed a name, and I thought of it a month ago on the fly. Just fits."
"Ami's Mini-Super Computer of Truth might've been more fitting."
"Too long, though kind of like the idea of it. The Mercomp Truth Computer!" Ami thought about it for a moment. "Nice ring to it, actually."
A few moments later, the "Mercomp Truth Computer" was finished finalizing its version of the truth of the picture it was scanning. What Ami read from the scan startled her.
Usagi heard the gasp. "Ami?"
-xXXXx-
"We got him!" Usagi yelled as she threw a few sheets of paper down on the table. She had called the emergency Sailor meeting in the Shrine, even though not many of the others were ready to wake up just yet.
"Hold on!" Luna said before yawning. "You're saying that you're sure of this just because of a scan you two got from a picture."
"Ninety-eight percent sure, according to the reading," Ami answered. "The pod was made of the same metal alloy the UFO was, although it was made with protection in mind, and was more armored than the UFO was, if you can believe it."
Makoto was busy looking over some of what the papers read. "Two months between when this thing landed and now."
"It was two months since we fought him on the ship," Rei added.
"Which means," Usagi replied, "that Rubeus must've escaped that way."
"But," Artemis interjected, "how are you sure that was Rubeus that was able to get away in the pod? We know he can teleport."
Usagi, however, had a quick answer. "Maybe something happened when Rini took out the crystal that controlled his ship. He must've gotten his powers temporarily neutralized when she did that, or at least he thought they were. Would explain the need for the escape pod."
"Or maybe he just wanted to play it safe, or be fancy about it," Makoto replied.
"Still, though," Luna continued, "you're basing all of this on a picture. We don't know if it's true or not, and remember what Rubeus is after now. We may just find the pod but not him."
"Could be a start, though," Usagi responded.
"I agree," Ami added. "If this is right, and we find the pod, we can then track where Rubeus went to."
"And if we find Rubeus' hideout, we'll find where my mom is being kept. Simple as that."
"But Rubeus won't be there, I'm sure of it," Kage suddenly said. He was being silent the entire time, reading a copy Mamoru made of the two pages from the crystal book about the Hizrounswa, trying to listen and study at the same time.
"What do you mean, Kage?" Usagi asked.
"I think I've realized what this text was saying about the crystal." Kage then put the two pages onto the table with the other ones. "It said 'gods' and 'desert', and that the gods feared the crystal's power and hid it somewhere in a landmark desert. The gods were said to have created something else that is highly known: pyramids!"
As Usagi picked up the newly placed pages to investigate, Ami answered, "And there's one place where pyramids are known to reside."
"Egypt," Usagi said sternly. "The only place that makes sense now."
"Hopefully Rubeus hasn't figured it out yet," Artemis noted.
Luna shook her head. "I don't know about this. We're going on pure speculation at this point."
"We've gotta try it, Luna," Rei answered. "It's her mother's life we're dealing with! We can't take any chances."
"And remember what Mamoru said about this crystal," Minako replied. "We cannot let the crystal get into his hands."
"Again, it's a good place to start looking," Ami added.
"Actually, Ami," Usagi objected, "I need you to go to the South Pole and check on that pod."
"U-Usagi?" Ami asked, puzzled at the request.
"I trust your readings. It's got to be there, and if it is, then my mom can't be far away."
"But Usagi, listen to what you're asking her," Artemis said. "She'll be by herself, in the freezing cold, trying to find something we don't know for certain is even there. Who knows what kind of environmental danger you're asking her to put herself in. Plus, if we use the Sailor Transport to send her there and everyone else to Egypt, something we don't even know is possible to accomplish, how will she be able to return?"
"Luna, you need five Sailors to use the transport, I take it?" Kage asked.
"Yes, we do, and if Mercury..." Luna stopped, now realizing what Kage was ready to ask. "Wait a second. We may be acknowledging you as a Sailor, but that doesn't mean that you would be able to be used as a viable power for the transport. I don't know if it could work without all the planetary Sailors."
"If I were to take the place of Mercury, though, that would at least be one of the requirements down, and that's the only one that we know exists. Like you said, we're basing all of this on what we think we know."
"They'll still be able to use the transport," Artemis answered. "However, the parameters would be different because of the unusual power that the transport is receiving. It's not guaranteed of what could happen as a result of using it. That also still doesn't take away what this would mean for Mercury. I don't know about using the transport three or four times in one go."
"It may be a bit better if we all go and try to find this crystal first," Rei added. "Then we can all head to look for this pod thing and try to find Rubeus..."
"No," Ami barked, "that's not what I meant when I...Usagi...I was touched that you trusted me enough to have me go do this for you."
"What?" Artemis gasped.
"Of course I'll go find the escape pod!"
"Ami, you do realize what this means, right?"
"Exactly! I don't mind. Usagi has gone through a lot, and her mother has to be going through torture being tied up like a dog with that creep. That and we both suggested we would go find it together at some point."
"Ami," Usagi responded, "I didn't mean to say you had to..."
"I want to, Usagi. Besides, doing things this way will cover more ground more quickly. We can keep Rubeus occupied while we try to find your mother and get her back."
Usagi walked over to Ami, hugging her tightly. "Thank you, Ami."
She responded by returning the embrace, closing her eyes for a moment. She didn't even know Usagi trusted her this much.
"Ami, promise me something," Usagi ordered.
"Anything!"
"The second you get into danger, get in touch with us. We'll stop the search and get you the hell out of there. I don't want you to risk more than you have to. I'm questioning myself still as to if I should've asked you of this to begin with."
"I promise!" Ami smiled and then she and the others got into position, as the first thing they needed to do was to transform.
"All right," Kage said, "Let's do this!"
"Mercury Star Power! Make up!" The bubbles and ribbons donned Ami in the Sailor Mercury outfit, almost instantaneously. To some, it was about ten seconds, but to her, it felt like only one.
"Mars Star Power! Make up!" It was fireballs surrounding Rei and making her clothing, no ribbons here.
"Venus Star Power! Make up!" Minako told her Sailor friends one time that the Venus ribbon chain that made her into Sailor Venus tickled slightly. She often had to stop herself from laughing as she was being transformed, though not this time, as she was determined more than ever.
"Jupiter Star Power! Make up!" Makoto felt even stronger in the green lace-up boots and with her antenna tiara on, as several lightning bolts changed her into Sailor Jupiter.
"Moon Crystal Power! Make up!" Usagi's eyes were narrowed this time as she was transforming. She had always wished to have a reason to use this power, but not like this. Rubeus would pay, and pay dearly. Usagi, now Sailor Moon, promised herself that she would make him aware that no one messed with her family.
"Vulture Medal Power! Suit up!" Kage's shadow power would've been more than enough to help these plans work, but as the vulture shadows circled him to change him into the Vulture—actually it was now Sailor Vulture—he told himself that he would protect his sister and her family at any cost, even if that meant forcing his power to help the girls. He was determined to make up for the time lost between him and Usagi.
"All right, Sailors," Moon proclaimed, "only one way to find out if this works."
"Mercury," Vulture said, "let's get you to the South Pole first. If we can get you there, then we know that I can sub for you. Then we'll head to Egypt to get that crystal."
"One more thing," Luna chimed. "If either the Egypt group or Mercury spots Rubeus, I recommend that you inform the others. Don't fight him at anything below full strength. And Kage?"
"What's up, Luna?"
Luna answered by jumping up and flipping backwards, the sparkles forming a communicator. Only this time, the communicator was a flip top and gray in color, like Mercury's Mercomp, only more compact.
"Woah, Luna! Kick ass!"
"Like the cosmetic changes I made?" Luna asked, smiling at Kage as he picked it up.
"Yes and then some. You learn quick."
"I thought since we're denoting you as a Sailor, you might as well have the equipment to be one."
"Hopefully this isn't your only trick."
"Now, then, Kage. What did you tell us we should do to Rubeus? I think it was, um...kick his ass?"
The others were somewhat shocked that Luna would say it that way, but Kage chuckled a little afterwards. "Hey, you said it this time, not me!" He turned to the others. "Well then, if Luna said it, we better get to doing it!"
-xXXXx-
Outside, the Sailors readied themselves for something that they didn't know would work. However, there was no time like the present in their minds, and this could be their best chance to resolve a lot of what had happened during these past few days, and to prevent something catastrophic from occurring once again.
"Mamoru will stay at the hospital in case Rubeus shows up there," Moon said. "I hope he knows how important it is to have him there."
"If it wasn't for him," Vulture mentioned, "your mother would not be alive right now."
"Alright," Mercury interrupted, "I'm ready."
With a deep sigh from Moon and Mercury, the Sailors got into their positions, with Usagi and Kage next to each other in the circle the Sailors had made. Ami was at the center of this circle.
"Here goes nothing," Vulture replied. The Sailors began the transport, hoping that this would work.
"Jupiter Star Power!"
"Venus Star Power!"
"Mars Star Power!"
"Moon Crystal Power!"
"Vulture Medal Power!" Kage held his eyes tightly shut, hoping that his power wouldn't screw up the process.
All together, the Sailors then yelled, "Sailor Transport!" Within seconds, the entire group disappeared, leaving no traces of their former presence behind.
Luna, who was watching them from the front door of the Shrine, could only smile as the girls—and guy—went off to attempt to save the world once more. A few second after seeing them leave, Artemis trotted over to her side.
"Luna," he said to her, "I didn't know you to swear like that."
"There are a lot of things not many know about me."
"Like you taking a liking to Kage?"
Luna blushed slightly. "Well, he is a nice guy, or course."
"You gave him that special communicator, though."
"My talents are improving, mind you. It's been awhile since I made those communicators for the other girls. Kage's just the test for a new version, that's all." She then thought to herself, 'I hope your power can help them, Kage. Keep Usagi and them safe.'
-xXXXx-
It was nearly a barren wasteland. The scorching temperatures of the Western Egyptian Desert were more than what one person could probably handle without having the risk of suffering from sunstroke. There was not even a single camel, which were commonplace in this part of the world, in sight at the moment. No civilization, no buildings, and—of no surprise—little to no water anywhere. However, if one could look well enough, there were a few pyramids to be seen around the center of the desert, but they were rather far away from where the Sailors were deposited.
The plan, more or less, was that they would all go to the South Pole and drop Mercury off, and then do the transport again to go to Egypt. However, something went wrong, or so they thought. They had not only gone right to the Egyptian Desert, but Mercury was nowhere to be found at all.
Moon looked around to try to spot her. Maybe the addition of the Vulture powers made the transport go haywire as Luna had said they could.
"Oh, my god," Moon exclaimed in panic. "Where is she? Where's Ami?"
"I don't see her anywhere," Mars answered.
"Please tell me I didn't just risk her life with me asking to join..." Kage began to say.
He was interrupted by a voice that was familiar to him and the others. "No, I'm just where you needed me already." Kage opened up his communicator to see that Mercury was still alive. She was just already in the South Pole, a snowstorm surrounding her.
"Mercury!" Usagi yelled, ecstatic of Ami's safety.
Mercury smiled as she saw everyone else there. "I thought something went wrong. I only saw myself here and knew that wasn't part of the plan."
"I guess our powers have minds of their own and decided to kill two birds with one stone," Venus replied.
"Either that or Usagi's brother there made the Transport capable of doing such things."
Kage smiled. "I'm glad it worked. Don't care how it did it right now; I'm just glad we both got to where we intended to be."
Ami nodded, and then continued, "All right, I'll see what I can dig up over here. If I find anything at all, I'll contact you. Don't worry about me, just worry about what you need to do."
"Remember what Luna said, too, Ami," Makoto added. "If you see Rubeus, don't try to fight him by yourself. Lord knows what kind of plan he may have."
"Right! We fight him at full strength! Okay, I'm ready to go. Talk to me if you find out anything about this crystal! Mercury out!" The communication then ceased, Kage flipping his communicator closed.
"Okay, so now where do we go?" Venus asked. "Doesn't look like there's too much here. We would need some sort of detector in order to find anything."
"Hope whatever gods hid this thing didn't decide to bury the thing in the middle of nowhere," Vulture answered. "Would prove to be impossible for Rubeus to find, though."
"Wouldn't be so sure about that, Vulture," Mars chimed in, pointing to some markings in the sand.
Moon also saw them, looking at them strangely. "Is it here?"
"Would be one hell of a lucky break for us if it was," Vulture answered. "Right where we..."
"No, it's a footprint," Jupiter interrupted. "Of some flat-heeled boot."
Moon now saw, it, too, and also that there were more than one of them. "They look like they're fresh. Any sandstorm might have covered them up, so it wasn't that long ago, and they run over that way."
"Towards that pyramid in the distance," Mars replied, pointing to the only pyramid that was in the direction that the footprints were heading towards.
Moon's eyes narrowed. "He's here," she growled.
"Now remember what Luna said, Sailor Moon," Mars said.
"Yeah, I know. We fight at full strength. But I also know what I proclaimed. For me to break that man in two."
"Which is fine by me as long as we remember what he has as his ace in the hole right now. He wants you to lose any sense of judgment because of your anger, that's why he's doing all of this. He wants you to lose it, and then take advantage of your lack of judgment."
Moon remembered what Ami had told her earlier, as well, about how she remembered Usagi using calculated actions to show her anger. That in addition to Mars' words made Moon sigh deeply, trying to hold herself back from rushing to the pyramid.
"Let's all go in together," Vulture suggested. "Remember, we now have an advantage. We know he's here, but he doesn't know we are, too! We have the advantage of surprise right now."
Mars walked over to Moon, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Sailor Moon, we'll get him, I promise, and I'll make sure no one gets in your way of giving him what he truly deserves, I promise you that."
"Thank you, Sailor Mars!" Moon answered.
-xXXXx-
Once Sailor Mercury ceased the communication she had with the others, she looked ahead of her to see that she was in no different of a wasteland. It was snow and arctic temperatures instead of the humidity and sand, but it was still a wasteland, and trying to find anything in these conditions would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Fortunately, due to Mercury's newly-named Mercomp, that needle would stick out like a sore thumb before long. She continued to walk ahead, not really sure where she was—besides that she was in the South Pole—and uncertain as to where to start looking for this escape pod, assuming it was here at all.
However, this did prove to be beneficial in one way: Mercury could clear her mind on a few things.
"Kage" she said to herself once more, "what did you mean by Beryl going in and out of control? Everyone knows how she intended to destroy the Moon Kingdom, and we all know her reasons. Why are you saying it was a different story than how we know it? Oh, wait, that's why, I forgot. You had a different viewpoint and saw the whole thing from your shuttle that you were using. That still doesn't explain why you are telling a much different story. I don't want to say that I don't trust you, but it's still bothering me."
Mercury sighed and looked around some more, scanning every inch of the snowy tundra with her Mercomp. She knew she needed to focus on what she was there for, though she still couldn't believe that Usagi trusted her enough to accomplish this on her own. She was choosing to do this, but the freezing conditions were making it hard for her to think of this as a wise decision. She was thankful that her Sailor powers were resistant enough from the harsh conditions to let her accomplish this mission. Though it didn't exactly make her want to stay any longer than she had to, it made the conditions more bearable.
That was, until the Mercomp began to beep like crazy. It was pointing Mercury to the south end of where she was originally walking. As she began to be directed by the Mercomp, she could see a small ditch within the ice and snow. It was rather far away, but the computer beeped crazier than ever as she approached the ditch.
It was once she finally arrived at that hole in the ground that her suspicions were confirmed, and her jaw dropped. "My god!"
Before her eyes was a sphere; the same one as she had seen in the picture, even though it was much bigger than the picture had depicted. It was indeed a one-man escape pod. From the Mercomp's findings, it had the same exact metal alloy as the UFO, though it was also true that it could've withstood a lot more than the UFO could. Mercury inched closer to the sphere and touched it carefully, the metal being ice cold from the arctic air that was now blowing snow right at her.
"So that's how you did it, Rubeus," Mercury said. "You wanted to be sure that your powers didn't screw you over. Conventional methods for the win, I guess."
She looked inside the pod to see all kinds of controls for various actions. She knew she should've called the Sailors at this point to tell them that she had found the pod, but she was too fascinated by all the controls. She never seen anything like this before in her life. She wanted to learn so much more than she had, and thus, she stepped into the seat. Her first major sighting upon looking through the pod was a torn page. It wasn't that informative as it was only a title page, but she now knew the obvious: it was from the same book Rubeus had found the information about the Hizrounswa in. She was positive now that Rubeus had been here.
She folded and stored the page within her shirt and continued to fool around with the controls, also in order to find out how long ago the pod had been was used. She assumed that something could tell her what had happened right after he had crash landed. Any clues that she could get from this finding would've been helpful. She found a few small hook-ups from which she could download its data banks to a portable device. She had one of those, obviously: the Mercomp. Good thing the device had a storage area to keep such hook-ups as well (another reason why she loved that little gadget).
She took out a small cord and hooked up the Mercomp to the computer on the ship. Within seconds, and with the help of some knowledge of hacking into computer systems, she was in and downloading. She only wondered if the Mercomp had enough space and memory to hold all of the data that the ship had in its banks. Thankfully, it completed the download, and she was about to exit the shuttle and call the rest of them when the door slammed shut. Mercury tried to open the hatch, but it wasn't even budging. She was stuck in there unless she could find some way to open the door.
Things would only get from bad to worse, however, as a few moments later, Mercury head a few words from a computer voice that scared her to death: "SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED! SELF-DESTRUCT IN SIXTY MINUTES! THIS SEQUENCE CANNOT BE ABORTED!"
Mercury was in a panic. 'What in God's name did I push or do to start...?"
She soon got her answer, as in front of her, a video began, and the video was from a familiar adversary: Rubeus!
"Hello, unlucky one," Rubeus began in the video. "I'm sure that, if you're watching this, you did some sort of big no-no! You see, I need to protect my investments, and because of that, I have to do this sort of thing. I would love to sit and watch the pieces of you be skewed all over the tundra, but I have much bigger fish to fry. Anything that you do that wasn't authorized by me, which is pretty much anything you do to my ship, will result in the escape pod locking you in, and making you have to think about what you did, all before you die! Be thankful, though! It'll be quick and painless, unlike what I usually would enjoy! You have sixty minutes to live! I'm very sorry...well, on second thought, no I'm not!" After some maniacal laughter from Rubeus, the video ended.
"He must've known," Mercury said. "He had to have known someone would find it!" Mercury pounded on the door with her fist, as hard as she could. "Anyone hear me? Anyone? Someone get me out of here! Please!" She dropped back into the seat and began looking for anything that she could that might've at least let her escape. However, everything she pressed proved to be useless.
"SELF-DESTRUCT IN FIFTY FIVE MINUTES!"
"No, this can't be happening!"
She could only think of one other thing: she pulled her communicator out and tried to connect to any of the Sailors to tell her there was some danger. However, when she pushed the connect button, she could only see and hear static.
"Usagi? Makoto? Rei? Minako? Kage? Anyone?" She could feel a single tear leave her eye. "Luna? Artemis? This is Sailor Mercury! I'm trapped in the escape pod with a self-destruct mechanism set for fifty five minutes! I need help to get out of here! Nothing I'm trying is working!" She got no answer, and she tried to also bang the communicator on the dashboard of the pod, but even that didn't work. "No! Please don't let me die here!"
"SELF-DESTRUCT IN FIFTY-THREE MINUTES!"
Mercury found herself short of breath already.
-xXXXx-
It took a good five to eight minutes, but the Sailors eventually got to the pyramid. It was huge, nearly the same height as the Hikawa Shrine and the hill that it sat on combined. Large sandstone bricks formed the towering structure, with some of the lower blocks protruding to make climbable steps.
"Woah!" Jupiter gasped, looking up at the pointed structure amongst the few other pyramids on the horizon. "If only Ami were here. She would've gone crazy studying all of this."
"Incredible," Vulture added while trying to kick the sand off of his boots. "I only saw these in movies and in books. Never up close like this, though."
"If we don't stop Rubeus, we may never see them again," Mars interrupted.
Sailor Moon, who was ignoring her heat exhaustion, looked down to see the footprints stop right at the base of the pyramid. "This has to be the one he was looking in, or is looking in."
Venus didn't wait for anyone to start doing what she was attempting to do: find an entrance into the labyrinth. "Gotta be a way in somehow!" The other Sailors watched as she ran and jumped all over the pyramid, in such a way that was reminiscent of her Sailor V days. It would have cut the search time down considerably quicker that way, though the heat could have also made the tactic that much tougher to accomplish.
"It could be anywhere on this beast," Jupiter shouted to Venus, hoping she heard.
"It's not on this side, though," Mars yelled above the wind of a small sandstorm.
"Opposite side," Vulture suddenly answered.
Moon looked at her brother awkwardly. "Excuse me?"
"Opposite side. In all of the movies I've seen that deal with the pyramids, when someone follows footprints, the entrance to the pyramids are always on the opposite side of the place where the prints stopped."
"Weird way to put it," Mars replied.
"Call me old fashioned, but that's always how it worked."
"But movies are not real life, the entrance could be anywhere," Jupiter conceded.
"They can mimic real life, though. They always have structured movies to be more realistic. They could always suspect that it would turn out like that in real life, so they use the logic in their movies."
"I think I found it!" Venus yelled, her voice echoing. Though they could barely hear her, Moon heard enough to run over to the opposite side of the pyramid. Sure enough, there was a small opening, just enough for someone to crawl into. The other Sailors followed Moon, seeing her determination.
"I told you it was on the opposite side," Vulture said.
Moon, however, did not speak as she suddenly crawled into the hole and disappeared into the pyramid.
"Sailor Moon, wait!" Mars commanded. "We don't know what's in there!" The others shrugged at each other before following Mars into the pyramid.
-xXXXx-
There were thick gold blocks that made up the walls in the narrow hallway that the Sailors entered within the pyramid. There were some weird hieroglyphics on the walls, none of which the Sailors could make out without some help.
"This is what we needed Mercury for," Jupiter said. "Without her, we're clueless as to what any of these mean."
Vulture, however, was looking at his communicator, searching for other features the new toy had in addition to calling people. He pushed a few random buttons before one button caused a slight flash of white in front of the communicator.
"The hell was that?" Mars gasped, looking right at Vulture. The rest of them stopped and looked at him, as well.
Vulture looked at the screen on his device for a moment, and then smiled. "This thing even has a camera, and that picture came out perfectly. Maybe if I can take some pictures, we could at least document what we found and then ask Ami about them."
"Good idea," Venus nodded. "And we won't have to worry about staying in this creepy place for too long."
Moon, however, paced ahead as she saw something peculiar. "Look at this! I think this one is pretty straightforward!"
The others went to look at the drawing. It was self-explanatory: it showed two Ancient Egyptians transporting a crystal to an ancient pyramid, and then, a block down, it showed the same Egyptians using blocks to hide the crystal while fearfully watching a figure with horns on its head. There was also a sort of arrow pointing downwards.
"It's here, further down," Moon proclaimed.
"Yeah," Mars agreed. "There's no denying it now. They put some type of crystal here."
"The gods feared the Hizrounswa, so they hid it from the demons in a pyramid," Vulture added. "That's probably what this all is, telling whoever entered this place that they hid it here."
"Why would they make it so obvious, though?" Makoto asked. "Anyone with a brain could've easily figured out that the crystal was here."
"But it could be anywhere in the pyramid. There's no higher level, so the only choice is down below."
"So that could mean that these other drawings could've been what they feared about the Hizrounswa," Moon believed.
Vulture looked at what he and the others thought were drawings that they couldn't decipher. They showed of the crystal shooting beams at the gods, and then the gods becoming skeletons with "X"s across all three of the gods illustrated. It also showed the same horned figure using the crystal with a big grin on his face. There was an arrow that went from the drawing of the gods' death to the crystal hiding.
"They must've thought that it could kill them," Vulture began, "but nothing yet on what the exact power was in it that they feared."
"Gotta go further down to find that out," Moon said.
"Hold on, there's a torch here," Mars said. "We could use this."
"Wait, Sailor Mars!" Moon commanded. "You do know pyramids are full of weird secrets, right? Touching that torch could open a new route or be your death! Remember what my brother said about the movies!"
"There wouldn't be any trap or secret this high up," Vulture answered. "No movie ever used that tactic that quick."
"The gods wouldn't have wasted their time with this level, anyway," Jupiter added.
"It said it was further down," Mars agreed. "Nothing to fear."
She slowly picked up the torch (with no additional environmental changes as a result) and very softly said, "Fire Soul." The torch lit up instantaneously, and now they could see a bit better. There were some stairs leading downward, starting where the first drawing that Moon had figured out was.
Slowly, the five Sailors began descending (though not before Vulture took a few more pictures of the drawings). Moon ignored anything that would normally make her want to bail. Yes, she was scared to death in dark and spooky places like this, as she was now and would probably always be. Though it was trademark of her to put her fears aside to help her friends, the personal hardship was giving her strength she didn't realize existed. She found that the more she was determined to face Rubeus, the less she even thought about her fears. They were so nonexistent that not even the stray bat that she heard while she was walking down the steps could faze her.
Eventually, they got to the bottom of the steps, and what they found could've discouraged anyone: there was a huge pit in the center of the room. There was indeed a bottom, but any normal person that would've tried to jump down from this height would've had some bones out of place as a result.
"You've got to be kidding me," Venus gasped. "These gods can't possibly have expected anyone to try to go down this thing."
"They do, Venus," Jupiter answered, directing them to another drawing that Mars used the light of the torch to see. It illustrated the gods using an elevator platform to take the crystal down to the lower level.
"It's a fifty foot drop, though," Mars stressed. "And there's no platform like that from what I can see."
"I don't suppose that fancy gadget that Luna gave you has a grappling hook on it, does it?" Venus scoffed.
"I wish it did," Vulture answered. "There has to be a way down, though. I have to think that they wanted to make sure they could still find it, but keep these directions vague enough to keep the demons guessing what they meant."
"Well, good news," Moon shouted out, "I think we have our way down. Bad news...well, look."
The others turned around to see the same thing that Moon saw: a pulley mechanism with a large chain attached. That was obviously the good news. The bad news was what it was buried under: skeletons. Lots of them, probably about five or six, and from the looks of things, they hadn't been touched since whoever they used to be died there.
"Oh, you can't be serious," Venus said, holding her mouth in shock. "All of this for a crystal?"
"This damn well better have been worth it to discover," Mars added. "They went out of their way to hide it."
"I thought I smelled something rotting," Jupiter said.
Vulture, however, approached the pile of corpses and slowly contemplated moving them.
"Bro, please tell me you are not going to do what I think you're going to!"
Vulture proved Moon's suspicions correct, albeit with some stark hesitation. He slowly put his fingertips on the top body and slowly moved it out of the way, the body falling into the pit. Vulture was grunting and crinkling his nose during the process, which he repeated with a second body.
"I cannot believe you're touching those things," Venus said.
"Someone's gotta move them, might as well be me," Vulture replied.
"How the hell can you...?'
"Let's just say," Vulture began while moving a few more bodies, "I will not be paid enough money to do this shit again!" One more body later, and the pulley was clear. "There, hard part's done!"
"You better wash your hands when we get back to Juuban," Moon scolded.
"No problem there. Though it was strange: those bodies were just left here, out in the open, for what seemed like the longest time, but I moved them with ease. They didn't erode when I handled them. It was like they had just died."
"How long?"
"Can't say, though I'd imagine that any other skeleton that had been kept like that for so long would've seen worse days, believe me. Didn't sit right with me."
"Well," Mars interrupted, "the important thing is now they're out of the way."
"Uh...yeah, of course," Vulture staggered. "Now to find out what this is for!" He began to crank the pulley wheel, seeing that the chain was attached to a platform.
"Well," Moon said, "now we know where the elevator was."
A few moments later, the elevator was pulled up to the point that it wouldn't move anymore. It was level with the floor the Sailors were on.
"All right, all aboard," Vulture commanded. "I'll try to find some way to hold this up long enough for me to get on. Seems this thing is broken, why it wasn't up here."
While the girls got onto the elevator, Vulture looked around to find anything he could that would hold the pulley in place for a few moments. He found one thing: one of the dead bodies he just got done moving. With it just out of his reach, he decided to hold the pulley in place with his foot while grabbing the arm of the skeleton, hoping that it would hold it in place long enough as he pulled the skeleton towards him, placing the skull below one of the wheel spikes. With the skull being the only thing keeping the elevator from free falling, Vulture quickly jumped into the elevator. He thanked the gods for putting a guard rail on the edges. They were all going to be needing them shortly.
"You girls might want to grab hold of something, because this could be a bumpy ride!" As the girls held the various objects per Vulture's command, Vulture closed his eyes and crossed his arms in front of him. "Kongoru Eclipse!" The shadow vulture power struck the skull and shattered it. That was all it needed for the pulley to begin spinning like a top. Vulture quickly grabbed a hold of a chain as the platform was falling at about a mile a minute. About ten seconds later (and with the group feeling the blood rush to their heads), the platform crashed at the bottom of the shaft onto the sandy floor. Sailors Moon and Venus got knocked off their feet from the crash, while Mars and Jupiter were just barely able to stay on theirs as they almost lost hold of the chains. Vulture had one foot on the platform and the other on the guard rail, trying to avert complete dizziness. Thankfully, the Sailors survived, though they could've seen their lives flash before their eyes during the decent.
"Please remind me to never do this again," Venus asked.
"I didn't think we would have to go through all of this trouble," Jupiter added.
Moon was about to respond, until she spotted something. Not a drawing (though there were several on this level that she did see), but someone that made her forget what she just went through. "There he is!"
"Rubeus!" Mars growled. "He did know where to look!"
He was in a large circular golden room with two cage-like doors that were made from iron planks. There were paths behind each door, and Rubeus had been trying to look for anything he could to open the doors. He was even trying to shoot them with his beams, but to no avail.
Moon could be heard taking deeper breaths, and she clenched her fist and narrowed her eyes. She was ready more than ever, especially with Rubeus' back turned and inconspicuous to the Sailors' presence.
"Hold on, kemosabe," Vulture commanded, grabbing hold on Moon's arm. "Remember, full strength."
"Calling Mercury now," Jupiter said, unaware of the new danger that Ami was now in. When she tried to contact her, she found nothing but static on the feed. "What the hell? Guys, there's nothing coming in. This isn't good."
"Interference from the pyramids or the Hizrounswa?" Mars asked.
"Shit! Can't get her in on mine, either!" Vulture yelled as he also saw static on his newer communicator. "The hell's going on here?"
-xXXXx-
Mercury had pressed button after button several times, trying to find the mechanism for the door to at least give her a chance to escape. However, she found nothing. Not even hacking the system through the Mercomp did anything.
"No," she cried, "please, God, don't let me die here!"
She got up and tried to push the door open with her arm strength as much as she could. Nothing was happening. She then put her back onto the cushion of the seat and used her legs to try to shove the door open, kicking on any part of the door that she could. Even though there was a one in a million chance that something could've happened as a result, she was beginning to panic and was ready to try anything.
"It's no use," Mercury told herself after a full minute of trying to break free from her sentence. "Rubeus got me! He got all of us!"
"Ami," Mercury suddenly heard on her Mercomp. It was full of static, but that sounded a lot like Sailor Jupiter. Mercury suddenly got back upright in the seat and swiped up her Mercomp. She could hear something, but the video was completely blocked.
"Ami here," Mercury yelled out. "I'm trapped in Rubeus' pod. There's a self-destruct..."
"What the hell?" she heard Jupiter suddenly asked. "Guys, there's nothing coming in. This isn't good."
"No, Jupiter, it's me, I can hear you! Please, you must hear me!"
"Let me try it on mine," she heard Kage say. She then heard that same man call out. "Ami, it's Sailor Vulture. Can you hear me?"
"Kage, I'm here," she cried out. She was smiling at the sound of the voice, but a few tears were coming down her face as well.
"SELF-DESTRUCT IN THIRTY MINUTES! REPEAT, SELF-DESTRUCT IN THIRTY MINUTES! THIS SEQUENCE CANNOT BE ABORTED!"
"Shit! Can't get her in on mine, either! The hell's going on here?"
"No, Kage! Anyone! I can hear you! I don't want to die here!" Mercury then got no answer. Only static as video and audio were a bust.
Mercury began to let all her emotions go, letting her tears flow. "I—I'm gonna-I'm gonna die! Oh my god, I'm gonna die!"
Usual critiques are appreciated.
Good night and good luck.
