"This is quite a collection you have, Abenti." he said admiringly.
"Yeah..." Abenti said absent-mindedly as she sat on a black overstuffed leather recliner that faced opposite of the couch. Her thoughts were turned to all that had happened within the past eight hours. After a few moments of silence, she turned her questions to the two felines. "Was it hard for them? To accept their fates when they found out they were sailor senshi, I mean."
"In the beginning, yes it was. Especially with Sailor Moon. She kept insisting that it was all a dream and she was a klutzy crybaby as well. But with time, she matured considerably." Luna stated as she remembered how Usagi took in the whole ordeal.
"Actually she was still a klutz when she went up against some of the Lemures that we dished out." Toraboushi added. With a glare from Luna, he amended his statement. "But I'm sure her klutziness wasn't nearly as bad. I wasn't there in the beginning to compare and contrast."
"No, he's right. Usagi was still a bit of a klutz then." Artemis interjected.
"You're right..." Luna conceded. "Usagi was a major klutz when I first met her, but still..."
The whole ordeal seemed to have gone in one ear and out the other for Abenti as she was lost in thought. Her whole world had taken an one hundred eighty turn from normal to bazaar in a matter of hours. There were two talking cats and a former villain turned recently resurrected good guy in her apartment, yet the only thing on her mind was the tiger persona who shared her body. If one was to look at her at that moment, they'd say she was simply 'out of it.' However, at that moment in Abenti's mind's eye, she was having a conversation with a transparent version of the tiger sitting on the floor beside her.
"Why didn't you make yourself known to me sooner?" Abenti asked nervously.
"I wasn't sure that making contact was the best of ideas, especially since I didn't fully have any conceivable ideas of what to say." the tiger said with mild embarrassment.
"Letting me know that you weren't just a figment of my imagination would have been a nice start."
"I apologize. I'm here now. I wish I could clear things up for both of us, but my memories are foggy."
"Is there anything that you could tell me?" Abenti inquired.
"Such as?" the tiger asked.
"Your name... How long have you been 'aware' in the sense that you were able to know what I know but not the other way around? Any ideas as to why we share this body? What is it that you're trying to do?" Abenti ticked off the questions in rapid succession.
"My name's a mystery to me, but I guess you can simply call me Tiger. I think I've been 'aware' that we, you and I since we share this body, weren't normal since shortly before I became you a number of years ago. Why? How? I'm as clueless as you are unfortunately. My purpose, my very mission in life is to reveal the True Guardian, whomever that may be."
"True Guardian?" Abenti muttered out loud.
At that point all arguments ceased between Luna, Artemis and Toraboushi as they looked at Abenti.
"True Guardian?" Artemis repeated.
"Who's that?" Luna asked. "Abenti, do you know anything about what's going on?"
Abenti shook her head, not just to shake herself out of the fog her mind seemed to be in but also in response to Luna. "No. Neither Tiger and I know much of anything. There's suppose to be a 'True Guardian' that Tiger's looking for. But she's in the dark about who it is or why she's looking for it."
"So in a sense, we're still on square one." Toraboushi stated simply.
"Not quite. We know there's a new enemy, who are your former friends." Artemis said. "And it seems that they want more than just having you re-join them."
"I also wonder if they're working on their own or if they have someone to answer to." Toraboushi wondered idly.
"My wager is that they're working for someone." Abenti commented.
A few moments of awkward silence had Toraboushi shifting from one foot to the other before changing the subject.
"How's your shoulder?"
"Sore, but on the mend. It's weird. I hardly noticed it when I transformed, yet it throbs quite noticeably when I'm just me." Abenti stated as she gingerly touched her tender shoulder.
A few weeks passed and Abenti's shoulder completely healed. Neither the senshi or the former Amazon Trio had seen nor heard from Bull's Eye or Snake Eyes. That however did not mean that the duo had given up nor was it silent during the weeks that passed. Many unexplainable cases of people with what appeared to be rapid progressions of amnesia leading to a vegetative state came pouring into the hospital. It had reached the point where the administrative staff turned new patients away because the hospital was filled to maximum capacity.
"What kind of epidemic is this?" Abenti wondered out loud to nobody in particular.
"It's not natural." Rei responded. "I keep getting the feeling that whomever is behind this has an ulterior motive."
A chilled wind blew through the small gap in the doorway of the room at the Hikawa Shrine where the six girls met up at. Being closest to the door, Abenti rushed to close it tight.
"What gets me is that we're still in the dark about why it's happening." Makoto mentioned.
"And how." Abenti added.
As if to sound an alarm from their outside perch, Phobos and Deimos cawed loudly and repetitively before launching themselves at the cause of the disturbance.
"Trouble!" Rei said as she leaped up and nearly knocked over the low table that they were sitting at.
"Meet me there." Abenti called over her shoulder as she flung open the sliding door and dashed out. A few strides later, Abenti allowed the other resident of her shared body to take over and morph into the tiger form.
At the top of the stairway leading to Hikawa Shrine, a yajuu was bent over an unconscious man while extracting an oblong item. A few yards away, Snake Eyes stood watching the same process he oversaw countless times before. Removing Shabti from a person was a painless process, but Snake Eyes usually hypnotized the victim more often than not so that they wouldn't struggle. He never quite understood why Sesmar required Shabti or why he believed that Shabti, Ethereal or otherwise normal, were key components to immortality. Not that it particularly mattered what Snake Eyes thought.
"Normal." the yajuu grunted as it walked towards Snake Eyes with the Shabti in its clutches.
Snake Eyes shrugged indifferently. A pair of feline eyes watched from the underbrush. Before he was able to conjure up a portal however, a rustling in the bushes caught both of their attentions. Tiger sauntered out of her hiding place with a grimace on her face.
"What do you think you're doing?" She hissed as she coiled up for a possible pounce.
"Nothing that concerns you, feline." Snake Eyes said coolly. "Don't you have something better to do, like chase a mouse?"
"You're my prey today, viper. Like it or lump it." Tiger replied.
"Fine." Snake Eyes said with a shrug as he took the Shabti from the yajuu. "Attack me and this Shabti will break, causing that human to remain in his vegetative state permanently."
Tiger glanced at the item in his hands. She doubted that it would break but didn't quite want to take the chance, so she began to pace around him to keep him on edge. A golden heart linked chain lashed out and yanked the Shabti from Snake Eyes' grasp. Snake Eyes hissed in mild shock as he looked at his now empty hand and turned towards the owner of the chain. He knew that Earth's guardians would show up at one point or another, but he didn't expect it to be at this time.
"Taking things that aren't yours to begin with! How dare you?" Super Sailor Venus chided.
"I dare because I follow orders of Master Sesmar. Feh, I know when I'm out numbered." Snake Eyes said as he glanced at the sailor senshi. Before he could move to make an escape portal, he was pounced by the tiger.
"I ought to kill you right now!" Tiger roared in his face.
'No!' Tiger heard Abenti reverberate in her mind. 'Let him live.'
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't!" Tiger snarled.
"Information. I'm not above giving information to someone's who persuasive enough." Snake Eyes choked.
"Which could mean that you'd be willing to sell us out to your Master Sesmar." Tiger replied.
"And what would I tell him that he doesn't already know? That a pretty girl had stolen a Shabti by yanking it away with a metal chain? That I talked with a tiger? Grow a clue, why don't you. I know stuff that you can't even phantom." Snake Eyes said with a cool smirk upon his face.
"Chances are that you're just lying to spare your life."
"That may be, but do you dare risk the fate of millions of lives to satisfy your bloodlust?" Snake Eyes responded.
"Start talking, snake." Tiger growled as she glared at Snake Eyes and his slippery grasp on logic.
"No. Not here, not now, and definitely not when I'm outnumbered six to two. Neocity, distract them if you will." Snake Eyes called out.
"Right!" the yajuu called Neocity replied before making many duplicates of itself.
A number of the duplications slammed into the large feline's side. Having been knocked over, Tiger roared as she sideswiped the closest monster. In the midst of the confusion between the Neocity clones, Tiger and the sailor soldiers, Snake Eyes managed to escape through the portal he barely managed to open.
"But..." Eternal Sailor Moon protested before sighing.
Tiger roared once more as she managed to free herself from the clones piled up on her, bound onto the closest clone and began to maul it to shreds.
"Let's do it!" Venus exclaimed as she carefully put the Shabti down a safe distance away from the ensuing battle.
"Right!" the other senshi replied.
"Mercury Aqua Rhapsody!"
"Mars Flame Sniper!"
"Jupiter Oak Revolution!"
"Venus Love And Beauty Shock!"
"Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss!"
The combined attacks probed to be to much for Neocity and its clones. As each attack made contact, Neocity and its clones screeched in agony up until Eternal Sailor Moon's attack, which caused the enemy to cry out "Beautiful!" before disintegrating into nothingness.
Cautiously picking up the Shabti from where she placed it, Super Sailor Venus took it to the unconscious victim and upon placing above his barely rising and falling chest, the senshi were overjoyed that it merged into his body. A few minutes later, the man regained consciousness and found himself surrounded by six young women with concern on their faces.
"Are you alright?" Abenti asked him as she and Ami helped him to stand.
"I... I think so. I don't remember blacking out though."
"What do you remember last?"
"Crows cawing while flitting about the trees and..." the man shook his head as he attempted to clear his head some more. "...a definite hiss."