THE PROGENY
Chapter 10: "Change Of Heart"
A Neo-Sailor Moon fanfiction
By Bill K.
Though she couldn't turn her head to see what was happening, Sailor Saturn had a sense of what was about to happen. The youth named Luis stood over Sailor Juno, ready to deliver another blast of solar energy at the prone senshi. She had already taken several blasts and Saturn didn't know if she could take any more. All of the other senshi had been felled, either by the youth Miguel or one of the others. She was trapped in a bush tightly grown around her, unable to move. Miguel stared into her face, his mood malicious from the effects of her mind bolt and from the senshi's invasion of their space on the side of a mountain in southern Colombia.
The youth named Santo approached behind Miguel. Miguel seemed to be of a mind to kill them all. Saturn knew this, for if the youth was willing to kill one of his own, he wouldn't hesitate to kill them to maintain his status quo. Saturn had to conclude the others were of like minds. And she'd had her chance earlier to end Miguel's threat permanently. Her foster parents would have done it, done it in a second without hesitation. But Queen Serenity wouldn't have.
So what would Queen Serenity do now?
"We're not your enemies," Saturn croaked out, feeling the limb of the bush around her throat.
"If you weren't before," Miguel replied, his blind eye staring lifelessly at her, "you are now."
"We were defending ourselves," Saturn argued hoarsely. "We just wanted to talk to Luis."
"The problem with you slaves of the government is that you continually underestimate my intellect," Miguel huffed contemptuously. "Even the geneticists who did this to me didn't realize how much brain capacity they'd stimulated. I remember how surprised they were when I was reading and talking at six weeks old. When I tested out with an IQ of 167 at six months, they were elated. And when I began telekinetically lifting objects in the lab before I could walk, they thought their goal had been achieved. Frantically they tried to replicate me, through genetic engineering, through cloning, anything they could think of."
Saturn could see he was lost in his painful memories and used the time to try to figure out a way to escape this situation.
"But they couldn't replicate the conditions which created me," Miguel continued. "It was some unique combination of their genetic process coupled with the genes willed me by my unwilling mother and the soldier who raped her. And while they concentrated on that, my mind continued to grow. My IQ topped 375 by the time I was three. I could start fires with my mind. I could read their minds like they were open books and plant thoughts and illusions into them. I could see visions of the future. One such vision foretold of the Black Moon Invasion and the fall of General Almonte. I clung to that vision like a revelation from heaven. I spent two years planning for that time, planting ideas and beliefs into the minds of the people who intended to use me as their weapon."
Miguel glanced back to Santo and placed his hand on the youth's shoulder.
"And when the time came, we escaped," Miguel proclaimed proudly. "I was seven years old at the time. The others were between four and eight. I led them to this mountain top. I educated them. And with our abilities, we have been self-sufficient up here for fourteen years. No one bothers us. No one tries to use us to their ends. No more Almontes. No more Batistas." He glared at Saturn again. "You're thinking that if you have long enough, you'll find a way to escape and convince me you're telling the truth. But your time has just run out."
Saturn felt her chest tighten.
"Miguel," Santo ventured. "Do we have to kill all of them?"
Miguel turned to his friend. "Keep a couple of them?" he asked, reading the normal human lust in his fellow refugee. "I suppose. It is harder for you and the rest to resist your physical urges than it is for me." He considered a moment. "The shape-shifter, Vesta, and Ceres, the one who controls the plants. Their minds haven't been shielded from me. I could very easily wipe their minds and make them more compliant. And the telepath, Pallas - - I did want to study her mind more." His expression hardened. "But the others die," he snarled, pointing at Saturn, "starting with this one!"
"Moon Gorgeous . . ." Sailor Moon called out, even as Miguel turned to her and pointed with his right hand, "Meditation!"
She was laying on her stomach, pointing the Moon Kaleidoscope at Miguel and Santo. Something invisible struck her and she flinched, struck by a pain in her mind. But the discharge from the Moon Kaleidoscope, though diluted, enveloped the two youths. Miguel seemed to recoil, while Santo slowly sank to the ground. He lay in a stupor, a silly smile on his face.
Juno forgotten, Luis ran up to Miguel, his hands on the man's shoulders to steady him. Miguel was bent over, panting, his face hidden from Luis's view.
"Miguel! Are you all right?" he demanded.
Miguel straightened up. Tears were in his eyes. He stared out at nothing as if he'd just witnessed the promised land for the very first time. Miguel tried twice to speak, but words wouldn't come. For all his great power and great intellect, what he felt now was like nothing he'd ever experienced before and he didn't know how to handle it.
"Miguel?" Luis prodded. "What do we do? Do we still kill them?"
"No," mumbled Miguel. Then new energy surged through him. "Yes. Yes, we have to. Logically there's no other alternative. They won't give up." And then he seemed stricken, as if he realized he was about to destroy something beautiful.
They both turned to a sound. In answer to their motion, an air car rose above the edge of the plateau and hovered above them. In the time it took the pilot to take in the scene, the air car began to land.
"The government!" gasped Luis.
"We have to go!" barked Miguel.
"I can take them!" Luis argued.
"The odds are bad! Into the jungle!" Miguel countered. He grabbed his friend's arm. "Grab Santo and get into the jungle! Go to our fallback position!"
"But what about Carlos?" Luis exclaimed. Carlos was still held tight in one of Ceres' bushes.
"We'll come back for him!" Miguel told him. Luis hesitated. "WE HAVE TO GO!"
Scowling, Luis pulled the still-stuporous Santo to his feet and together the three fugitives ran into the thick plant cover on the side of the mountain. Moments later, the air car landed and Sailor Jupiter sprang out. She ran over and knelt down next to Sailor Moon, who was sitting on her hip, trying to get her head to stop spinning.
"Hon'?" Jupiter inquired, concerned.
"I'll be OK," wheezed Sailor Moon. "Check on Juno."
Jupiter nodded and ran over to Juno. Sailor Moon pulled herself off of the ground and went over to Saturn. Seeing Sailor Moon gave Saturn a visible sense of relief.
"Wow, Ceres got you good," Sailor Moon judged, looking her friend over. Saturn squirmed with embarrassment in the grip of the bush. Sailor Moon removed her tiara and transformed it into its energy disk form. "Don't move. I'll have you out of that in a few seconds."
"Are you sure?" Saturn asked, skeptical and just a little nervous.
"Sure," Sailor Moon grinned. "Mom told me how she did this once. Isn't that right, Auntie?"
"Your mom talks too much," Jupiter mumbled, recalling a day in her life that she preferred not to recall.
When Saturn was free, she went over to check on Juno. Juno was battered and breathing shallow, but she was alive. Immediately Saturn knelt down and placed her hands over Juno's body. She slipped into a trance and began emitting violet energy from her hands. Pallas was awake now and she was beside Vesta, trying to wake the senshi up. Jupiter and the air car pilot were attending to Ceres. Sailor Moon stood in the center of the compound and surveyed things.
"This could have gone better," Sailor Moon thought. Her costume wings vibrated slightly on the windy plateau.
"It could have been much worse, too," she felt Helios think to her.
"Yeah," she mentally nodded. "I guess it is kind of hard to launch a surprise attack on someone who can read your thoughts and sense you coming. But that was our best shot. What do we do now?"
"Is the goal worth the effort?"
"Juno deserves a chance to know her brother," Sailor Moon thought. "And this Luis character deserves a chance to live as a part of society instead of divorced from it. So yeah."
"Then you'll think of something," Helios assured her.
Walking over to where Juno lay, Sailor Moon knelt down next to her, across from Saturn. Saturn was still using her healing powers.
"How's she doing?" Sailor Moon asked softly, so as not to disturb Saturn's concentration too much.
"I think she'll make it. I'm trying to restore her vitality and ease her pain now," Saturn replied distantly. "I don't know where she'd be now if she'd taken a few more hits, though."
And Sailor Moon noticed Saturn's lower lip quiver.
"Saturn?" the Princess inquired. "What's bothering you? Is healing Juno too much for you?"
"No," Saturn whispered. The energy emitted from her hands began to waver. "I'm sorry, Sailor Moon."
"For what?"
"I had the chance," she said, emotion creeping into her voice. "I had the chance to end this - - to kill Miguel. And I couldn't do it." She swallowed. The healing energy stopped, blocked by her surging emotions. "Mama said that a soldier who can't kill might be in the wrong line of work."
"Yeah, and my mom says there's always an alternative to killing," Sailor Moon told her.
"Is there?" Saturn asked. She stopped emitting energy again and looked at her friend. "What if the alternative is worse? If I hadn't held back, Juno wouldn't be lying here like this. And we could both be dead, Sailor Moon."
"You chose hope, Saturn," Sailor Moon replied, reaching out and grasping her hand. "You gambled that he wouldn't take that fatal step, that we could end this conflict peacefully. Sometimes you gamble and lose. That's a fact of life. But you were gambling on peace. That's something worth taking the risk for."
She could see Saturn remained unconvinced.
"Suppose you had taken Miguel out," Sailor Moon continued. "Would that have ended it? Or would that have sent those other guys into a rage, giving us a pitched battle and potentially more dead and wounded? It's a gamble either way, Saturn. You don't kill and maybe everybody dies. You do kill, and maybe everybody still dies. There's no one right way. I've read the teachings of generals and philosophers, scholars and soldiers, and I still haven't found a definite answer. I guess ultimately, the only thing you can do is what you think is right."
"This is all fascinating," Juno whispered, "but I still feel like I was hit by a nuclear warhead."
"I'M SORRY!" squealed Saturn. Immediately she resumed transmitting healing energy. Sailor Moon got up to go. Saturn looked up and mouthed a thank you.
"Maiden," Helios thought as Sailor Moon wandered over to check on Ceres. "Have I said recently how much I love you?"
"Mental kiss," Sailor Moon thought back, smiling to herself. Jupiter stood up to greet her as she approached.
"I heard what you said to Juno," Jupiter told the Princess. "You got a pretty good handle on this thing."
"Thanks, Auntie," Sailor Moon said. "How's Ceres?"
"Sleeping like a log," Jupiter commented. "There doesn't seem to be anything physically wrong with her."
There was a pregnant pause between them.
"OK, Auntie, go ahead and ream me for doing this when you told me not to," Sailor Moon sighed.
"I'm not going to ream you," Jupiter told her. "You made a decision. That's what a leader does. I didn't agree with it, but I never agreed with every decision your mom made, either. As long as you did it to help someone and not just to prove you're in charge and nobody's going to tell you what to do, I've got no complaints." She scowled. "Well, aside from making me FLY ALL THE WAY UP HERE."
"Sorry, Auntie," Sailor Moon grinned. "You know, air cars are perfectly safe."
"Up here, yeah," Jupiter smirked, pointing to her head. Then she gestured to her stomach. "But I've still got a menagerie of butterflies down here."
Pallas and Vesta came over.
"Is Ceres beddy-bye, too?" Pallas asked.
"Yeah, thanks again to Miguel," Sailor Moon replied. "Can you wake her up? Don't push yourself."
"Pallas thinks so," Pallas said. Her brow furrowed and she stared at Ceres.
Suddenly Ceres pushed herself up off the ground, staring as if she'd seen a ghost. A startled exclamation escaped from her mouth.
"Sorry," Pallas offered. "Pallas had to wake you up."
Confused, Ceres looked around. Then she sighed.
"He did it to me again?" she fumed.
"Yeah, you and me both," Vesta told her. "Glad to see you, Jupiter-Sensei." She turned to Sailor Moon. "We going after these guys?"
"You don't seem sure," Sailor Moon observed.
"Don't get me wrong. I want another shot at this Miguel. This is two I owe him now." She glanced surreptitiously at Juno, only now sitting up as Saturn ministered to her. "But I don't know how far you want to take this."
"What do you mean?"
Vesta looked away, trying to figure out how to explain. "The set-up these guys had up here - - it reminds me of the crew I used to run with in Sao Paulo. This Luis - - he may not care that Jun is his sister. THIS is his family now. This is all the family he's ever known. Jun is one of 'them', you know?" She glanced to Jupiter for help.
"So what, we just pack up and leave?" Ceres demanded. "Leave Luis up here in jungleland with this dictator-in-training? Tell poor Jun 'sorry, you lose'?"
"I'm saying don't expect this Luis character to suddenly hug Jun and want to come to Crystal Tokyo and be the big brother she never had," Vesta countered. "You want to go after him, I'll back you. But if we try to take Miguel out, we're just going to be the enemy in his crew's eyes. And even if we don't, this Luis might still tell us to take a hike. We're not his family. They are. Him and Jun being related is just an accident of birth."
They all noticed Juno walking over to them. She was holding onto Saturn for support and they both seemed weak and tired.
"Did you hear that?" Sailor Moon asked.
"It's hard not to hear Vesta," Juno answered.
"Do you still want to try?"
Juno frowned. "Everything Vesta said makes perfect sense. And I hate asking all of you to face them again. But I want him to know that we're related. Even if Luis does tell me to go to Hell, I want him to know the option is there if he ever gets tired of hiding."
Sailor Moon nodded. "How about the rest of you?"
"We go where you go, Sailor Moon," Saturn said. "It's your call."
"OK," Sailor Moon replied soberly. "Then I think we should give it one more shot. At least make sure Luis is OK."
Remembering the captive Carlos, Sailor Moon turned and walked over to him. The other senshi followed, Vesta having transformed back into her wolf form. When they came into his view, Carlos eyed them suspiciously.
"Turn him loose, Ceres," Sailor Moon requested.
Ceres complied, influencing the growth of the bush to widen enough for Carlos to slip out. When the youth was free, he stood warily, ready to defend himself.
"Go join the rest of your friends," Sailor Moon told him through her translator device. "But do me one favor please: Tell Miguel that we don't want to fight. We just want to talk to Luis. We don't mean you any harm."
Unwilling at first to believe that he was actually free to go, Carlos waited for the other shoe to drop. Sailor Moon nodded and gestured toward the jungle. Tentatively Carlos moved toward the jungle. When he realized the senshi weren't going to follow, he plunged into the bush at full speed.
"You think Miguel will believe him?" Saturn asked.
"It's worth a shot," Sailor Moon answered. "But I'm not depending on it. Vesta?"
"I got his scent," Vesta the wolf said. "That was what Pallas thought-cast to me."
"That's what I told her to tell you," Sailor Moon nodded, watching the brush the entire time.
"You little sneak!" grinned Ceres.
"What?" Sailor Moon asked, barely containing a smile of her own. "If we're going to talk, we have to know where they are, don't we? And even if they don't want to talk, it'll still help to know where they are, just in case."
"Boy, I've got to start reading those books you read," Juno grinned, shaking her head.
Continued in Chapter 11