Chapter 8: The Dark Portal

Kiyoko and Yori collapsed into the chairs of the small, makeshift restaurant. After three hours of waiting in lines and wandering around the scorching hot amusement park, the both felt like they were about to die. Kiyoko removed the bag from her back and placed it carefully in her lap.

Kaito and Bumu took the other two chairs at the circular table and turned to stare at their exhausted friends. "What's up with you two anyway?" the blond demanded. "We've only been here three hours!"

"Yes. Three hours of standing around in the hot sun and suffering from severe lack of sleep," Kiyoko replied, not bothering to lift her head from where she had laid it on the cool, smooth surface of the table.

"Aw, it's just the sun!" Bumu said. Neither Yori nor Kiyoko responded. Bumu bent down to stare at the lifeless redhead beside her. Grinning mischievously, she raised her finger, preparing to poke Kiyoko in the side.

"You touch me, you die," Kiyoko muttered in a threatening voice.

Bumu sighed, and sat back in the chair. "I'm bored! Can't we go now!" she whined.

"Bumu, we need to be nice to Yori and Kiyoko," Kaito said, causing the blond to stick out her lip in a pout. Kaito turned to the other two. "What were you two doing, anyway? You knew we were coming to Six Flags today."

Kiyoko and Yori exchanged glances. "Um…" they said, "we were…"

"Playing Kingdom Hearts!" Yori said, while at the same time Kiyoko said, "Reading fanfic!"

Kaito raised an eyebrow at them. "Uh…I was reading fanfic while she was playing Kingdom Hearts," Kiyoko said quickly.

"Dummies!" Bumu shouted, right in Kiyoko's ear.

Kiyoko cringed away, and the two girls glared at the blond. "Bumu, that was my ear," Kiyoko said.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. You're just whining," Bumu said.

"Like you have any room to talk," Yori mumbled.

"OW!!!" Kiyoko suddenly yelled, causing the other three to jump in their skins.

"Are you okay?" Yori asked, staring at her friend.

"I'm fine, I have to go to the bathroom. Yori, come with me." The redhead stood up quickly from her chair and ran towards the restroom on the other side of the restaurant, dragging a confused Yori behind her.

"Okay! Okay! I'm coming! Let go!" Yori cried.

Kiyoko ignored her, and did not let go until they were in the bathroom and the door had closed behind them. She looked around quickly, checking all the stalls to make sure no one was there, then grabbed her backpack, pulling Luna out of it. "What was that for?" she demanded of the cat, setting her down on the floor.

Luna shook herself, then looked up at the girls. "I'm sensing a large source of dark energy coming from in this park!" she told them urgently. "I think any minute now there's going to be a horde of monsters coming out."

"Where?" Yori asked, looking around the bathroom as if a dark portal might be hiding there.

Luna thought for a moment, focusing her senses. "It's not too far from here. Near the middle of the park."

"Okay, lets transform and go find it," Kiyoko said.

Yori nodded, and the two girls reached for their pens, only to be interrupted by a loud scream erupting from the next room. "Uh oh," Yori said. She and Kiyoko quickly opened the door and stuck their heads out, only to see a frightened looking Kaito dragging a confused looking Bumu towards them.

Kiyoko, Yori, and Luna ran out to meet them. "There's a whole bunch of monsters like the ones that have been on TV recently running around outside!" Kaito gasped. "It's chaotic! People everywhere are—hey, isn't that that cat from before?" she asked, stopping mid-sentence as she caught sight of the black feline.

"Never mind that right now!" Kiyoko interrupted quickly. "Let's get out of here!"

"Okay!" Kaito nodded and, still dragging Bumu, she and Yori followed as Kiyoko led the way out of the restaurant into the crowd of rushing, screaming people.

The girls looked around. "Which way were the monsters coming from?" Kiyoko asked.

"They were coming from over there," Kaito told her, pointing to their right. "Look, there's one now!"

Kiyoko quickly grabbed Yori and Kaito by the arm, running in the opposite direction of the monster. She let go of Kaito, but held onto Yori. "Okay, we have to stay low!" she said to Kaito. "Avoid any monsters, and just get out of the park, even if we get separated! Hopefully, security will be able to get something of a handle on things, and most importantly, don't let go of her!" She nodded at Bumu, who was still being dragged along by Kaito.

"Right, okay," Kaito said, tightening her grip on the blonde's arm.

Kiyoko lowered her voice to a whisper so that only Yori could hear her. "On the count of three, we're going to duck into the crowd and head back." Yori nodded, and Kiyoko began to count under her breath. "One, two, three!"

The two girls quickly ducked into the swarm of people beside them, so that they were out of sight of their companions, and started to run back to the restaurant as best they could. Finally, they managed to slide into the doorway of the now empty restaurant, Luna at their heels.

"Good job, girls!" Luna said beside them. "Now quickly, transform!" The two girls nodded.

"Saturn Shining Power! Makeup!"

"Pluto Shining Power! Makeup!"

In a flash of light, they had changed to their Sailor Senshi form and ran back out into the park. Outside, the chaos had grown even more, as multiple numbers of monsters could now be seen amidst the crowd of flocking people. Saturn jumped into the air and swung her scythe down onto a monster which had cornered off a group of frightened looking tweens, while Pluto jabbed another which had grabbed a screaming child with the end of rod. She caught the child in her arms, and returned it to its mother, then ran back to Kiyoko.

"There's too many of them!" Pluto shouted above the noise.

"I know! We need to use our powers, but we can't with all these people around!" Saturn shouted back.

"We have to get them out of the park!" Pluto said. She looked around, trying to find something that would give her an idea for what to do. "Look! Over there!" She pointed at a stage not too far from them, where one of the attractions had probably been giving there performance.

She and Saturn slipped through the crowd toward the stage, and leapt onto it. Pluto grabbed a discarded microphone and held it to her mouth. "Everyone! Listen!" she yelled as loud as she could into the mike. Her voice carried over the heads of the people, and some paused in their scurrying to stare at the two Senshi onstage. "You need to get out of the park as quickly as possible! Try not to panic! Everything is going to be alright! As for you monsters! We intend to kick every last one of your asses, so why don't you all come over here so we can do it!" All of the monsters in the crowd stopped whatever they were doing and turned to glare at the two Senshi for a moment before they started to come towards them.

"Okay, it worked," Pluto said to Saturn, dropping the mike. "Now we just have to lead them away."

Saturn suddenly grabbed Pluto's arm. "Pluto! Look!" she exclaimed, pointing to an area in the crowd.

One of the monsters had not taken Pluto's bait, and was instead looming towards two frightened looking girls, whom Pluto and Saturn recognized all too well. "Bumu! Kaito!" Pluto screamed. "We have to save them!"

"Okay," Saturn agreed.

She and Pluto leapt off the stage and hurried toward the monster. They both brought their weapons down onto it, and with a loud scream the creature disintegrated. The two Senshi turned to their two friends.

"Are you okay?" Pluto asked. The two girls nodded.

"Hurry up and get out of here!" Saturn shouted.

Bumu scrambled to get up, but Kaito did not move, and remained staring at them, her eyes wide. Flames danced before her eyes, and showing faintly behind them, scenes were playing out in front of her. She saw Yori and Kiyoko, only it wasn't them. Kiyoko waved her long scythe in the air, bringing it down on a monster in front of her. Yori shouted something, pointing her rod at a monster, and a red orb shout out from her weapon. Both girls were running towards a group of monsters. They shouted something, bringing their weapons down simultaneously, and an orb of light shot into the horde of monsters. Then a third girl emerged, and even though Kaito had never seen her before, she was strangely familiar.

"Bumu! Get out of here! We'll take care of her!" Saturn shouted at the blond, who had stopped running as she turned back to Kaito. Obediently, Bumu turned and ran away.

Saturn and Pluto knelt down beside Kaito. "Kaito! What's wrong!" Saturn said, shaking the girl's shoulder.

Kaito did not move, and Pluto and Saturn turned helplessly to ask Luna for help, but the cat was already walking towards them, the crescent moon on her forehead shining. "Of course!" the feline exclaimed. "I don't know why I didn't sense it before!" The crescent moon gleamed, and a red transformation pen dropped on the ground in front of Kaito.

The blank look slowly disappeared from Kaito's eyes as she bent her head to look at the pen, and slowly reached out a hand to pick it up. "Just shout the words that pop in your head!" Luna told her.

Kaito held the pen into the air. "Mars Shining Power! Makeup!" A red light like fire flashed around her, and her outfit changed to a red Sailor outfit. Her short black hair grew to just above her shoulders, and its color changed to a flaming red.

"Cool! Kaito is Sailor Mars!" Pluto exclaimed happily. Saturn rolled her eyes.

"I'm…Sailor Mars?" Mars repeated, staring at her gloved hands.

"We'll explain later," Saturn said. "Right now we have to go defeat those monsters, before something really bad happens!"

"Okay!" Mars nodded, and the three Senshi ran past the group of monsters that was converging toward them and back to the stage. The monsters followed.

"Hey, hey! You should attack, Mars!" Pluto said.

"Right!" Mars agreed. She raised her hands into the air above her head, and began to spin around. Flames spiraled around her body as she spun faster and faster. Lowering her hands like a gun at the group of monsters, she shouted, "Phoenix Pyro Spin!" The spiral of flame continued down her arms, and spun toward the creatures, burning several of them to ashes.

"So cool!" Pluto shouted.

"Not 'so cool'," Saturn said. "There's still hundreds of them, and look, more are coming!" She pointed to their left, and the other two looked to see another crowd of monsters coming towards them.

"That's a lot of monsters," Pluto said, her smile disappearing.

"Good observation," Mars said sarcastically. Pluto turned to glare at her, hands on hips.

"Stop it, you two!" Saturn intervened before Pluto could say something back. "Luna, what should we do?"

"We have to close the Dark Portal," Luna replied. "More will just keep coming if we don't. Come on, follow me." The cat hopped off the stage, and started running in the direction the monsters were coming from.

The girls followed her, ducking attacks shot towards them from the creatures. Sure enough, several yards away an enormous Dark Portal hung in the air in the corner between two buildings. "Okay, how do we close it?" Mars asked.

"Well, actually only Sailor Moon can close it," Luna told them. She cringed at the glares sent at her by all three.

"Then you brought us all the way back here for nothing?" Saturn demanded. "We can't do anything?"

"I might be able to seal it," Luna said, turning her gaze to the Portal, but I'll need all of your help to do it."

"Okay, what do we do?"

"Point your hands at the Portal, and focus all of your energies at it," Luna ordered. The three Senshi obeyed, and Luna pointed her head at the Portal.

Energy shot out of the Sailor Senshi's hands, connecting together as they reached the Portal's entrance. Luna focused, and a golden light shot out from her crescent moon, combining with the girls' energy. The Portal began to gleam, and slowly it faded away into the air.

The three girls dropped their hands, and Luna collapsed onto the ground. "Luna!" Pluto and Saturn shouted, bending down to examine her.

The black cat did not move, and Saturn quickly stripped off one of her gloves and held her hand in front of the cat's mouth. "Oh good. She's still breathing," she said to Pluto.

Pluto sat back onto the ground in relief, as Saturn scooped the unconscious feline into her arms.

"Amazing! Simply amazing!" a voice called from behind them.

The three girls whipped around, to see a news cast pointing their cameras at them, and standing in front of them a blond woman wearing too much makeup holding a microphone. She shot the Senshi a broad smile, then turned to face the cameras.

"This is Jeanne Thompson, reporting to you live at Six Flags Over Georgia, where an overwhelming number of monsters just appeared out of nowhere and began attacking citizens, apparently coming from some sort of black hole. Standing before you are three mysterious young girls who, along with a small black cat, just used some sort of power to close up this black hole." The cameras panned to the Senshi, who were staring wide-eyed at what was happening.

"So, how about an explanation? What exactly just happened?" Jeanne Thompson asked Saturn, holding out her mike to the purple-haired girl.

Saturn just narrowed her eyes at the woman and did not reply. The news reporter cleared her throat awkwardly, and the cameras turned back to her. "It would seem they have no comment at the moment," she said. "It would seem that several of the rides at Six Flags have stopped since their workers ran away once the monsters appeared. Firemen are now hurrying to the scene to rescue the frightened—"

While the woman continued on, Pluto stepped up to Saturn. "Saturn what do we do?" she whispered.

Saturn glanced behind the news crew. "It looks like more of them are on the way," she whispered back. "Come on, let's get out of here before they come."

The other two nodded and quickly and quietly they leapt onto the top of one of the buildings behind them and ran off. "Yea for super-jumping powers," Pluto commented.

Mars giggled, but Saturn looked serious. "This is really bad," she said.

"What is?" Pluto asked, catching the seriousness of her tone.

"We're going to be all over the news," Saturn replied. She glanced at the cat in her arms. "And I'm worried about Luna."

The girls reached the end of the building and hopped down. Quickly changing back to their regular forms, they hurried out of the park and into the parking lot, running to Yori's car. Yori unlocked the door, and the three of them hopped in. Yori cranked up the engine and turned on the air conditioning, then turned to the back, where Kiyoko had laid Luna onto the seat beside her and Kaito.

"Is she okay?" Kaito asked.

"I hope so," Kiyoko said.

Yori examined the cat. "I think she's just unconscious," she said at last. "That probably took a lot out of her."

"Yeah," Kiyoko said, sounding unsure. "I guess we'll just wait here. It doesn't look like we'll be getting out anytime soon anyway."

Yori and Kaito nodded, and the three girls sat in silence, watching the lifeless form of their feline companion with concern.

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A/N: Okay, so Mars has come in. Mars is supposed to have visions and stuff right? That's why I put in that little...thing. Yeah. Okay. I'm shutting up now.