:: Sailor Moon Neo :: part 14
by Shelley Dream of Trista's Timely Tales
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While Sesja wrapped things up with her Uncle she felt a bit more at ease just from having heard his voice again. With the recent battles she had become a little worried about what was going to come next from Toro. His first attacks had surprised her greatly after her outburst with him that day in the palace. They had been so close and it seemed so suddenly that they had grown apart. Yet, it had taken years for this to happen. With her being born a few minutes later she'd known she was never going to become ruler of Jupiter. So, she'd set her sights on becoming a guardian. Leaving her twin brother, Toro, to the kingly duties he would one day be beholden to. So, they'd drifted apart and had rarely talked except for the perfunctory passing in a hall or conversation around the supper table.
She just took a big breath and sighed over her situation. Thinking, gladly, about her newfound help in the three senshi of Saturn, Earth, and the Moon Kingdom itself. Even if the Earth senshi was getting a little unsteady in all this, but still. Sapphire was her friend and she didn't like doubting her like that. So, she found herself in the kitchen and smiled. Thinking of Sapphire cooking breakfast this morning before the battle began. Yet, when they come in, Sapphire had been willing to show everyone at the table her wings. --Why? Why would you do that?-- She thought. Knowing very well at how uneasy, embarrassed, or sometimes even angry about that part of herself Sapphire usually was. --What drove you to do that? What are you going to do if they ask you about them? I don't get it.-- She shook her head and with a sincere smile she walked to the huge cooking stove. --I hope everyone's back in time for dinner.--
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Meanwhile; in the town center. Hotaru, Rini, Jama, Sapphire, and the mysterious Citara stood around making idle chitchat. Eventually, Rini's stomach growled loudly.
Jama looked over at Rini in astonishment. "You're still hungry after eating all that food the merchants gave you?"
Rini blushed. "What can I say? The battles have taken a lot out of me."
Jama smiled that giddy and warm smile of hers. "Well, we better get you back to the palace and I can prepare you a proper dinner. The time on Jupiter must be rashly different from your time. To make you so hungry."
Rini still blushing with her hand now behind her head. "Well, I suppose so. You're probably right."
Jama smiled with a glow and looked to Sapphire. "Is your new friend going to join us?"
Sapphire looked at Citara. "Do you wish to go to the castle with us to get something to eat? You might as well come for dinner since you saved my life. Its the least I can offer you."
Citara smiled and moved her pale blonde hair over her shoulder. Her cerulean eyes flashed over to Sapphire. "Of course. Maybe after, we could talk some more."
Sapphire watched the woman's eyes finding herself falling into them again. Her heart reaching out to this unknown women. "Yes, that would great. Maybe, then we could start on that training you talked about earlier."
Rini nodded unsure of what they were talking about. "Yes. So, then its settled. We'll all go to the castle and prepare dinner. Lets hurry. I'm starved." She put her hand on her skinny belly with a giggle.
Thus, everyone nodded and began their walk back to the castle. They couldn't enter in through the front gate, not without Sesja, so Jama took them back around the rear entrance. Where two Jupiter Guards were posted.
"Who are all these with you, Jama?" The first guard requested.
Jama nodded turning to her friends. "These are the three senshi who have arrived to help Sesja with the war, and this is Citara. A friend of Sapphire's, the senshi of Earth. May we pass?"
The first guard turned to the second guard. They gave each other looks and eyed at the pale blonde woman. Then nodded to each other.
The first guard replied. "You may enter."
The two guards stepped aside and a water wall of electricity seemed to rain down and follow the two guards. Like separating water. So, Jama lead the way into the castle and all four followed her silently in.
The guards eyed Sapphire and Citara. Unsure of those two, even though they had seen Sapphire before. Something still made them suspicious.
Once inside, Rini began to bubble over with joy. Her nose had picked up a great sent. "Oh, wow. That smells so good. Lets hurry. I'm so hungry. I could eat a horse."
Jama smiled back at Rini. Delightedly, with her carefree ways. "Alright, this way. My brothers must of gotten a head start on cooking for me."
They followed her through the maze of the castle from the lower level to the main castle and into the kitchen. Where, to there surprise, Sesja - wearing an apron - was stirring up something in a pan.
Sesja heard the footsteps and looked up. "Oh, good. You're here. Did you see Hora or Ren? I sent them out to get me a spice and they haven't returned yet."
Jama blinked. "No. We came in through the back."
Sesja nodded. "Well, alright." She continued to stir. "I know this might not turn out so well, but I thought I'd give it a shot. Since I didn't have anything else to do but stew." She looked over and saw Sapphire with them. Then saw this other woman. She turned off the flame and turned to them a bit shocked. "Who is this?" She nodded to the woman.
Everyone looked at Citara.
While Sapphire answered. "This is Citara. She's the one who saved us today in the early battle." She didn't bring up that Citara also saved her in the forest a little while ago too, in fear of how Sesja would react to that.
Sesja nodded. "Oh, so you're the one."
Citara nodded. "Yes, I am."
Sesja studied her for a while. Not coming to an conclusion too quickly about this mysterious person. "Well, I am grateful for your help." She eyed her.
Citara nodded, giving the Jupiter Senshi a strange sport of appraising look.
As Sapphire interrupted. "So, when will we be eating, Sesja? Rini over here is starving and I'm not too far behind myself." She smiled far to overzealously.
Sesja looked at her long time friend. "Yes, we will. Is… I'm sorry. I didn't catch your name." She looked to the woman.
Sapphire blushed. "I'm sorry. This is Citara."
"Citara." Sesja nodded repeating it clearly. "Alright, is Citara staying for dinner?"
Sapphire nodded on Citara's behalf. "Yes, is there enough food?"
Sesja nodded uneasily. "Yes, enough for us and Jama and her brothers. I'm not sure though, if her brothers invite more to come. I already told them it would be alright."
Jama nodded. "Well, I'll go and see if I can help Hora and Ren. They've probably gotten lost again." She turned and walked out the door back down to the servants quarters.
"Well, if you'd all like to sit down. Dinner will be done shortly." Sesja said turning back to the stove.
Rini nodded to Hotaru. "Is there anything we can do to help?"
Sesja smiled. "Well, yeah. Could you set the table?" She looked up and eyed at Sapphire. "Sapphire can help you find the dishes." Her gaze lingered.
Sapphire knew Sesja wasn't happy with her or her new friend. So, she lowered her head and bared through it. "Sure. I'd be delighted to help. Setting the table for any holiday or event was always my duty at home. I still like doing it. Since I've done it since I was a little girl." She informed Rini and Hotaru as she opened the cabinet of plates. Then walked to the drawer with silverware.
Rini reached for the dishes while Hotaru grabbed the silverware. Sapphire proceeded to get the napkins and walk over to the table with them. Gesturing to Citara to sit down.
Citara nodded back kindly. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
Sapphire flicked her hand at her. "Oh, no. You stay there. I've got it. Just need some glasses and drinks. You just sit there. You're our guest." She smiled.
Sesja just stewed over by the stove. Checking on the meat in the oven. Quiet, agitated by Sapphire's behavior to the mystery woman. This Citara gave her an uneasy feeling to be sure; but, by the end of her mental argument, she chalked her feelings about the mystery woman up to being overprotective and stressed out. So, dinner was served and the air about them grew lighter and happy. Jama and her brothers had returned with the spice, so Sesja got up and put it in with the desert. Just as she was doing that, Chara and Suine, Sesja's friends, arrived.
Jama instantly sparked to life seeing her two close friends. She immediately got up and greeted them both with a hug. "Oh, I'm so surprised you're here."
Chara smirked. Eyeing over to Hora. "Well, Hora told us we were invited."
Sesja smirked at Hora who was looking away. "Yes, I told him it was alright. He must of thought it would brighten Jama's day."
Jama smiled. "Oh, yes. Yes, it has. Please, come and sit. Sit. I have two senshi friends to introduce you to." She lead Chara and Suine to the table and Rini and Hotaru.
From there the evening became quite lively.
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:: Sailor Moon Neo :: part 15
by J. Anne of Trista's Timely Tales
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They were running for all their worth, out of the night from the town behind them. But even at that distance, she could see that their faces were panicked and sacred. "Nellin! Look!" She shouted over to her partner who was about a yard away on his rounds.
"Rowena? What is?..." But as he looked where his fellow guardian was pointing, he quickly shut his mouth and hurried over along with her to see to the two frightened children who were heading their way.
"What is it children? What's wrong?" Rowena asked as she got to them and bent down to talk with them.
The girl just flung herself into her arms and started crying. The boy though, his face was white as a sheet as he looked around and promptly got behind the two Jupiter Guardsmen for protection. "Cats! Big cats!... Black!" he sputtered out to Nellin who had just reached them. They all heard a deep growl from the shadows and looked around, only to hear another growl, and another.
Rowena could make out pairs of bright eyes in the gloom. "They're all around us." She warned Nellin.
-- "Flare!" -- Nellin called out, holding out his javelin staff and, using his training, channeled a light through it to illuminate the darkness around them. What he saw caused him to back up a couple steps in reaction. No less than twenty very menacing looking black panthers had been circling them from just outside the field of vision the palace lights had provided them.
At having been discovered though, the big cats began to move in towards them. -- "Lightening Strike!" -- Nellin called out, summoning a bolt of electricity to strike at the cats that were closest to them. The blast caught one of them flatfooted, but the others were too swift and avoided it, increasing their pace towards the humans.
"Nellin!" Rowena called out, letting the girl go and getting to her feet to help. "We've got to call for back up!"
"No! It's no good! Take them and go!" Her partner instructed, as the first panther attacked him.
"But what about...?"
"I'll be fine! The kids are our first priority, and you're faster than I am!" He fended off another attack.
Rowena looked at him as she tossed aside one of the cats that had leapt at her, a look of understanding coming over her face as she scooped up the two children into her arms and broke into a sprint for the palace gates, which were the closest point of escape.
The panthers didn't make it easy for her, but Nellin hadn't been exaggerating when he'd called his partner fast. In her classes at the academy, Rowena had always been by far the best wind dancer he'd ever seen. So, though the panthers lunged at her left and right, she was able to use the air around her to leap and dodge them with consummate skill, moving fast enough yet to at least keep pace with the enemy cats, keeping the children from their reach.
On one such leap though, her gaze fell momentarily on her partner Nellin who had fallen to his attackers. What she saw caused her to miss a step and get a swipe of sharp claws across her back. It knocked her to the ground, but she managed to twist in the air in time to land on her wounded back, sparing the children in her arms. Luckily, her armor had taken most of the damage, but that would hardly help, considering the cats would be on her in less than a second. So, summoning her best reserves, she summoned the most intense light flare she could to blind the cats momentarily and launched herself as high into the air as she could, leaping over the panthers and making for the safety of the lightening doors she knew she could cross but the panthers could not.
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Sesja had gotten the alert first. One of the castle guards had rushed to inform her right away and she had been down the corridors like a flash, heading for the guardswoman and the two children she'd brought in. When she got there though, she was surprised to see who the children were.
"Ellis, Marka!" She called to them as she went over and knelt before them. "What happened?" She directed the question towards Rowena.
"Panthers, your majesty. There were so many of them... They were chasing these two. Me and Nellin, we..." She looked down, then over to the two children she'd brought in. "He stayed behind to cover me while I got these two back to the castle... I..."
"It's all right, you both did just the right things... What happened out there?" She questioned gently.
"As I was going, I caught a glimpse of what they did to him." She said bitterly. "One of those monsters bit his arm and, and... It was like all the energy just left him... He was gone..."
"That's how it happened." Marka spoke up, an ashen look on his young face. "The panthers bit everyone... When they bite you, it makes another one of them... "
"Except Chara. They didn't bite Chara, or us either." Ellis finally spoke up, referring to her big sister.
"Chara? What happened to Chara?" Jama asked in panic as she, her brothers, and Rini and Hotaru made their way into the room. It had been just yesterday when Chara had been over here, to think that something had happened to her...
"I don't know." Sesja replied. "But we're going to find out." She said with determination, looking to Rini and Hotaru for support.
"Don't you worry Jama, we'll find her..." Rini assured Jama as she and Hotaru followed Sesja out the door. Hotaru also gave their new friend a look of encouragement as they left, and despite her fears, Jama felt a lot better.
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It was the strangest thing walking through town. The street lights were still on and they illuminated their way quite well, but as they went, the three senshi only could hear the occasional growl carried on the wind, all else was silent. They'd passed several people on the streets who were laying unconscious, their breathing very shallow.
"Why aren't they attacking us? Why keep to the shadows like this?" Sesja grumbled. "And where was Sapphire anyway?!" She grumbled with growing irritation. "And that new 'friend' of hers?"
"I... I'm sure she'll be along soon." Rini assured. "We left word with the guardsmen to try to find them and let them know..."
"I don't trust that woman." Sesja further complained. "Sapphire hasn't been the same at all sense she came... And I can't place it, but there's just something about her..."
"What do you...?" Rini started to say, but stopped short as they entered the town square and saw about a hundred black panthers all around them.
"Sesja, Rini, Hotaru, so nice of you to join us." A feline voice called to them. They looked over and saw two tall women perched on a wall near the edge of the square. They both had black armor, like that the two ravens wore, across their chest and midriff; black silken skirts, skin black as the panthers, bright golden yellow glowing eyes, clawed hands and feet, panther-like tails, and long black hair.
"Who are you?!" Sesja shouted. "What have you done to my people! My friends!" She demanded hotly.
"Don't be angry with us." The other of the panther women said. "We're just playing." She almost purred.
"What do you want?" Rini asked.
"Your people are ours now. "The first one said. "Why don't you let us into your castle? The hunting has gotten rather sparse out here..." She smiled predatorily at them.
Rini was looking at them strangely, and Hotaru noticed this. Sesja though, her attention was focused on the panthers that were circling them. Her temper was frayed and by this point she was itching for a fight. So, when one of the panthers started to move closer to them, she struck out and destroyed it.
From there, the battle crashed into a fevered start. The three senshi forming a circle, back to back at first. But as the panthers kept attacking, they got separated.
Rini and Hotaru had been driven over into a corner of the square that was close to the two panther women who were still just watching the fight and not getting involved. Across the square, Rini saw Sesja fighting like she was possessed with something. The anger and fury in her eyes and voice clearly evident even at that distance. Hotaru had been holding their own attackers off, but Rini could tell she was beginning to falter.
One of the panther women, the one who had spoken first, got down from her perch and moved towards them, swiping at Hotaru's shield with a clawed hand, causing it to break.
The surprise knocked Hotaru off her feet. Rini went to her aide, trying to keep the panthers away from her, but the second panther woman slipped by her unnoticed in the shadows. Rini heard Hotaru scream out and turned to see the panther woman biting her friend.
"NO!" Rini shouted, scrambling towards the attacking woman and tackling her away from Hotaru.
The woman beneath her just laughed merrily and said "It's too late" with a smile. Rini turned and saw a new panther appear above Hotaru's unconscious body.
Rini was thrown away by the woman under her and the panther that had come out of Hotaru was closing on her, along with the two women who had attacked her.
Suddenly, something clicked in Rini's mind and she flung her tiara at the Hotaru panther and blasted it to nothing, knocking the two women off their feet in the process. And sure enough, when she looked over, Hotaru was groggily waking up.
"I know who you are. Suine! Chara!" Rini accused.
They looked at her in surprise. "That's not our names!" The first one said. "I am Basha, my sister is Bastette!" She growled, getting to her feet and lunging at Rini with hate in her eyes.
-- "Silence Glaive Surprise!" -- Rini heard as Basha was knocked away from her violently by Hotaru's attack.
Rini smiled over at her friend in appreciation, then turned back towards the two panthers, Bastette having gone over to tend to her sister. "I know what to do." Rini said, getting out her Crescent Moon Wand and raising it over her head.
-- "Moon. Healing. Activation!" -- She called out as a shower of light and energy issued forth, changing the two women back into the familiar forms of Suine and Chara.
"What's... What's going on?" Chara asked, disoriented.
"It's all right. You're safe now." Rini went over to her and smiled in reassurance. As she went, she saw all the rest of the panthers disappear like evaporating mist and the people around them begin to awaken as from a dream.
"No! NO!" Suine shouted, and made a grab for a small oval shaped onyx stone that had fallen to the ground. Having grasped it, she returned to her former state as Basha. There was a second stone, but as Basha watched, it faded away just as all her panthers had. "You haven't beaten us yet!" She swore as she turned into a raven and flew away. The others just staring after her in shock.
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Back in Morcraft castle, in a darkened room, a figure in shadow looked out her window, her pale blonde hair blowing slightly in the breeze. She opened the palm of her hand and a small oval shaped onyx gem appeared there from a tiny whiff of mist.
The woman smiled. "Better luck next time little cat." She teased the gem. "At least you sister, Basha, has done better for herself, it seems." She mused idly before looking down at the girl who's head laid in her lap while she slept. "Sleep well, my Sapphire..." She spoke to her. "Soon, your friends will know the real you. I promise."
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to be continued