Sailor Epsilon's Last Stand
Morgan had never thought much about death. It was a rather unpleasant matter, so she preferred not to dwell on it, instead wishing to focus on the pleasantries of the world.
Well… most recently, that was what she liked to think of.
It was strange, really; just a few months ago, when she was only Morgan--when she was nobody important--she would have instead lost herself in a never-ending labyrinth of fretting and worrying about the little troubles in her life. She would have started panicking about making the rent, or how empty her bank account was. As far as she had known, there was nothing else to life and no way to escape; as far as she had known, that was the meaning to life. Running around in circles and worrying about money, daydreaming pointlessly about ways to get out--thinking about adventures and exploration and fun. But she wasn't brave enough or good enough at anything to do something like that.
She hadn't thought so, anyway.
But that had changed in the past few months, when she had become Sailor Epsilon; without really noticing it, she found that a lot of her thoughts had turned to more important things. The beauty of the world, however ephemeral it might have been; the goodness of people, however dark times must be for them to shine; adventures, no matter how dangerous and horrifying they were. In the midst of the horrific adventures, she suddenly realized that she had found the purpose and excitement that she had longed for her entire life.
Granted, reality was far removed from dreams. She was completely broke, received no fame or glory or even acknowledgement for her hard work, and she was routinely frightened out of her wits by faceless interdimensional horrors. But the truth of it was…
The truth of it was that she didn't want it any other way. She had a purpose; she was important; she was doing exciting, good, hard, honest work; and she had a friend. A real, honest friend, that she was extremely fond of, all told.
Yes, reality was radically different from all of the lonely, desperate dreams she had woven just to cope with her dull, meaningless existence.
Reality was ultimately better, even if it was rather more dark and terrifying than expected. While it wasn't sunshine and flowers and rainbows, the world was an awesome place, and she had grown to quite like it. It was a glorious place, one that she wanted to protect from the likes of Mr Fairchild and Miss Sigma, as well as any other creature that might have threatened it.
But she had never stopped to think about the possibility of dying in the line of duty, not even once. Every time she fought something, her thoughts were of life--hers or others', it had always been life. She had fought for survival, simply because she never considered the alternative.
Now, however, the thought seemed to hang over her head, like a little black raincloud. She couldn't quite shake it away, no matter how much she tried to do so. There was a nasty, nagging suspicion that something terrible was going to happen to someone tonight. She shivered.
What would death be like? And what happened? She had a vague feeling that something would happen afterward. Although she wasn't particularly religious, she had been raised that way, and had even attended a Catholic school back in Ohio. Somehow, she got the feeling that she wasn't bound for Heaven, since she hadn't been keeping up since the age of fifteen or so. Perhaps she would be a friendly ghost--maybe hang around the city continuing to protect people, even if she was just an insubstantial spirit. The Angel of the City of Angels. That would have been neat.
Ultimately, she didn't know, and found that she didn't care that much. There were more preoccupying thoughts at the forefront of her mind. If she did die, would it hurt? How would she go out? Blaze of glory, she hoped. If she absolutely had to die tonight, she hoped that it would be one of those epic charges where she took down both Miss Sigma and Mr Fairchild all in one go. Still… she hoped that she was just being silly, that none of this wondering would come to anything at all.
Another ugly thought came to her. What if it wasn't her? What if it was… She glanced over at Moffat and chewed her index fingernail nervously. She didn't want him to die, either. He was a good man, and good men should live. And, really, she…
"What?" he asked, noticing her staring at him. He clipped a little leather pouch to his belt. It was full of spare ammunition. They had stopped back at home to begin preparing for the night's stakeout, and for the past hour or so, Ian had been collecting all of the ammunition in his house and storing it into the pouch. He had also fed the snake and the turtle in the spare bedroom. Just in case.
"Um. Nothing, sir. Nothing at all." Morgan fidgeted and took her finger out of her mouth, trying to look nonchalant.
"You're a spectacularly awful liar," he commented. "Fess up."
"I'm… it's… I'm worried, I-Ian," she stammered, smiling nervously. It looked as though she were only smiling so that she didn't start crying really hard. Moffat wrapped his arms around her and gently cradled her close, brushing her russet-brown hair with the fingers of one hand. She squeaked and buried her head in his chest; he could feel her face turning red even through the fabric of his shirt.
"Go on," he said softly. "What about?"
"I… I don't know," she confessed truthfully. "There's just something… wrong about today. I don't want to go. I know we've got to, but… I feel like some… like something awful's gonna happen."
"I'll make sure it doesn't. Promise."
"How can you promise that?"
"With full confidence in both of us."
"I'm afraid it doesn't quite answer my question, Mr Mo--Ian," she mumbled.
"It'll have to do. I haven't got any other, real answers."
"Oh."
He gave her a squeeze. "I'll protect you if you protect me. How's that sound?" She nodded. "So let's just go out and kick Fairchild's ass like usual."
"Yes, sir," she replied, a tiny smile appearing on her face. She shifted around from foot to foot, then stood up on tiptoe and clumsily kissed Moffat's cheek. "Thank you, sir."
"No problem." He grinned. "Come on, let's go."
Together, they walked out of Moffat's house and out to the car. And despite his reassurances, Morgan found that she still couldn't quite shake the dark feeling hanging over her head.
Traffic was busy, so it took them quite some time to get to the big hill outside of town where the disappearances had taken place. Much to Moffat's annoyance, they found that there was a large crowd assembled there.
"What the fuck are these idiots doing?" he grumbled as he climbed out of the car and slammed the door shut. "More importantly, how're we gonna clear 'em out…?" The man drummed his fingers on the hood of the car and tried to think. If he had a proper siren or backup or something…
"Would you like me to do something?" Morgan offered helpfully.
"If you can."
She felt kind of strange transforming in front of people other than Ian, but perhaps these people could be discouraged and dispersed by the simple display of the minigun. Or at least, perhaps it would draw attention and they could be rounded up and scattered a little more easily.
Once transformed, she hefted up the minigun and advanced through the crowd, followed by Ian, and headed for the top of the hill. She pushed off of the ground and floated into the air above the assembled mass of people, trying to draw their attention.
"Pardon me," she said politely. "Excuse the inconvenience, but we're going to have to ask you all to leave, quickly, and in an orderly fashion, please."
Down below, the people merely gaped. Wildfire whispers ran through the crowd, confused and bewildered at the sight set before them. Camera flashes clicked and winked from the darkness, and she blushed brightly, using one hand to tug at the hem of her skirt, uncomfortably aware of her inappropriate, unladylike clothing and her current position. Still, it was a necessary evil.
"Please?" she repeated. "It's for your own safety." Her eyes scanned over the crowd, looking for two familiar faces… fortunately, they were nowhere to be seen just yet. Seeing this, Morgan breathed a sigh of relief; she didn't want these bystanders getting mixed up in this mess. But they made no attempt to move, instead content to stand and point and whisper to one another. She sighed. "If I must, I shall teleport you all back into the city limits, and I warn you that I haven't done that before, and it may hurt."
Still, nobody even attempted to move.
"I'm very sorry, but we would really like for you to leave, and it appears as though I must remove you. Sorry about that." A hundred little puffs of yellow smoke filled the air as each person in the crowd, save Ian, vanished one by one, and a new streak of color was added to the already smog-choked skyline of the city as these people all reappeared elsewhere. Sailor Epsilon smiled (a little tiredly, Ian thought, concerned) and floated back down to the ground. "They should be all right. They're in a safer place now. Back in town."
"Good girl." He patted her shoulder. "Now all we have to do is wait." Both knelt on the ground; Ian started to load his gun, and Morgan leaned against her minigun, gray eyes nervously darting about, trying to catch the first glimpse of Mr Fairchild or Miss Sigma or whatever they might have been sending out to call tonight. Occasionally, she would take her glasses off and clean them on the edge of her skirt, then put them back on to resume looking around. The bows tied on her hair ribbon fluttered about in the night breeze, mimicking the movement of the larger bow on her chest.
"Ian?" she asked.
"What's that?" Having finished with his gun, he started checking the other things he'd brought--the pepper spray, the truncheon, the handcuffs. Best to be prepared and know what kind of condition everything was in.
"What do you think happens when people die?"
"Don't know, don't care. I'll have plenty of time to worry about it when I'm old. Since I'm young, though, I'll worry about living. Why d'ya ask?"
"No reason." She hugged her gun, as if the cold gray metal offered her some great comfort. "I don't know, either. But I'm worried." He tried to think of some way to backtrack and make his answer more comforting, but found that he couldn't come up with anything that sounded honest enough. Instead, he reached over and rubbed her shoulder.
"Like I said… we'll be okay. I'll make sure of it." He tried to give her a reassuring grin, but all of a sudden, found that he couldn't entirely believe it himself. He'd never once stopped to think about it before, simply taking their victories as they came and being smugly satisfied with it, but now that he did… the odds looked really, really fuckin' bleak.
They were a neurotic (though admittedly sweet) girl and a hardheaded policeman, bumbling their way through these fights with nothing more than brute force and dumb luck on their side. Their opponents were a psychotic dark multi-eyed-octopus-thing with more power than God, an equally insane lizard-woman who seemed to have more finesse and skill than Morgan had with her powers, and their endless parade of goopy interdimensional horrors.
How long would their luck hold out? It wouldn't be forever. Who knew when it would just crap out on them?
He gently hugged Morgan again, finding it to be the only comfort that he could draw and the only comfort that he could give. She smiled at him weakly, and he felt the warmth of the forcefield surround him--a silent promise of protection, he supposed. Maybe she felt it was the least she could do.
After a few moments of this, they turned to look at the sky. There were no stars to be seen at the moment; they were all hidden behind a thick, dark cloud. The moon, as well. How appropriate, Morgan thought. Silently, they watched the dark and empty expanse of the heavens, waiting nervously for their opponents to arrive.
"Well, come-come. Don't want to keep them waiting. Since they're so eager to drag themselves to their deaths and all." Fairchild whistled cheerfully and tugged his plaything along by the yoke of pale-violet ribbon that he had made, like a child tugging along its little puppy on a leash. "We wouldn't want to disappoint, would we?"
She crawled along clumsily, wailing in great pain through her new mouths, which opened from one edge of her jaw to the other, stuck through with a hundred jagged-needle teeth. It felt like a splinter of eternal ice was being driven into every nerve in her body as she dragged herself along the pavement. All of her bones had been rearranged in uncomfortable new angles, befitting the new spiny, alien shape that her body had started to take. New skin had started to grow in the places where these bones had rudely torn through her old flesh, but it wasn't the soft, pale skin of a human; some of it was covered in thick, barbed gray scales, and some was shining, wet, matte-black. Her improved vision, her multiple new eyes, showed her the world just beyond the world that she had known as Laurie Dalton--a world full of squirming, ugly things and horrific shapes and colors.
But she hardly noticed any of it anymore. All she knew anymore was the mind-blowing pain of her existence. Her ability to think and to remember had been stolen away with the change in shape. Now, she was little better than a beast, dragged along by a ghastly-smiling master through a dark corridor in the sky, towards the Baiting Hill, as he called it. The ice-feeling had finally just overtaken her, eating her up alive. If asked, she would not have been able to remember why or how this had happened… except she remembered that it had been crawling all over her body for months now. On mild days, it sent her into itching fits for an hour at a time, peeling and flaking off her old skin to reveal the ugly scales beneath. On hard days, she would collapse to the floor and spend the entire time screaming and struggling and squirming against some invisible tormentor, until her master came to soothe the pain with his (false…?) smile.
But sometimes, he would just allow her to scream.
He could no longer see them. It still pissed him off to no end. So he was just going to draw them out, slaughter some of their people, and their messiah complexes would bring them there sooner or later, where he could finish up his game by killing them. Ultimately, it would be their own faults. They had found some way to hide themselves, and that annoyed him. And wasn't that the first unwritten rule of any being's life? Don't piss off the people in the station above you. Their fault.
He dragged the former Sailor Sigma through the corridor he had made between the stars and shoved her out onto the ground with a heavy thump. The ground quaked beneath her heaving, wailing form. Her long, knife-like claws dug into the sandstone.
Several feet away, Sailor Epsilon stopped the nervous pacing that she'd been doing and turned to face Mr Fairchild and Miss Sigma. Or what had once been Miss Sigma. The forced look of determination fell from her face, and she looked at the wyrm-beast in front of her. Was that what happened to the Sailors in the end? She shivered and felt a deep amount of pity and sympathy for her poor enemy. Sure, she hadn't liked the other woman, but that was just the thing. Miss Sigma, no matter how psychotic and vicious she was, had been a human once. Once…
Ian, without hesitation, grabbed his handgun and fired off several shots at Fairchild. They struck him directly in the center mass, with a few dull, muffled thuds, and he hardly seemed bothered by it at all. Instead, he stepped forward, one hand in the pocket of his leather jacket and one holding the ragged ribbon that he had tied around Sigma's neck.
"Good to see you both again," Fairchild said nonchalantly. He grinned, and there were too many teeth in his face.
"I believe in fair play, so I would like to give you a warning, Mr Fairchild, sir," Epsilon said politely, leaning on her gun. "Please leave this planet immediately, or else we shall be forced to expel you rather violently."
"Ain't you cute?" the man laughed. His jaw unhinged and hung down towards his chest as he did so. He seemed less and less bothered with keeping up the handsome human illusion. "I'm afraid I can't do that. I haven't had my fill of fun yet. Imagine the lives I could ste--"
A look of complete shock was frozen across his handsome false face as the long, pointed, burning-red bullets sprayed forth from Sailor Epsilon's minigun--3900 rounds per minute, chewing up his torso and splattering it across the gravel of the parking lot several feet away, his borrowed body raggedly torn in half across the middle. A lot of his belly had been vaporized by the assault, and some strange black vapor rose up from the frayed edges near his hips and near his collarbone. The lower half of his body collapsed squelchily onto the sandstone in front of Epsilon and Moffat. Bilious yellow-brown liquid drooled out onto the ground from both halves of the body. Moffat put a hand over his mouth, struggling very hard not to throw up right now; Epsilon wasn't quite so successful. She was knelt near her friend's feet, hugging his legs for support, and heaving. With his free hand, Moffat patted her head.
"Ugh," she said weakly.
"Oh, man," her friend agreed.
"Be fair, I gave him a warning that he chose to disregard," she said, panting and leaning her head against his knees. "And anyway, I don't think I'm done yet."
"Mm. Good point." The man helped her to her feet, giving her a quick hug. "Are you feeling okay, though? You look awfully tired."
"Just fine, thank you, sir," she said, still huffing and wheezing. He raised an eyebrow, looking as though he had his doubts, but he didn't say anything. She smiled a little. She was a bit tired, but she could just tough it out. Epsilon wanted this to be the last time she ever had to bother with seeing Mr Fairchild. Quite honestly, she'd grown frustrated with his homicidal antics, and wanted him off of her planet. Time to move on to bigger and better things. Nicer things.
"So what are we gonna do about that thing?" Ian motioned at the still, black creature that sat several feet away from them. It made no move to attack them or even snap at them once they crept closer for a better look; it merely lay on its side, its breath short and labored. Epsilon crouched next to it, squinting through her glasses and taking note of its appearance. Spine sticking up out of some thin, wet, sticky skin. About half a dozen eyes (she assumed that was what those little slits in the membrane were hiding, anyway). Two or three mouths. Several spindly legs with bones jutting out at strange angles. The front two legs were built more like hands, covered in scales, and had knife-like claws. And there was a tattered purple ribbon tied around where its neck might have been…
"…Miss Sigma?" she said, frowning. It made a wounded, gurgling noise in response. "Oh, my." Epsilon reached out, her open hand lighting up with the soft yellow glow of her healing spell. Maybe it would be able to cure Miss Sigma's unfortunate condition. And maybe if it did, they could start over correctly--make amends for any pain that had passed between them, become friends, and look forward to a new, bright future without the black, looming spectre of Mr Fairchild. It would have been quite nice. She felt sorry for the other woman, having been manipulated by the devil himself, and also felt sorry that she hadn't been able to help sooner.
The healing spell wasn't doing anything, except for perhaps giving the poor creature a pleasant tickle; she was purring or gurgling and seemed pleased at the moment. A ripple of huge, shifting black lumps froze on her back, but didn't go away completely. Perhaps the spell would at least slow it or freeze it, if nothing else.
"Sigma?" Moffat repeated, raising an eyebrow. "What happened to her?"
"I don't know, but it must have been terrible."
"Well, can you cure her?"
"I'm trying, but…"
"But nothing much is happening," he completed for her, sighing. He took out a pair of gloves from his belt and pulled them on, not wanting his hands to get sticky, and patted Sigma's gelatinous mass. "Look, I'm sorry for anything we mighta done to piss you off."
"Is there anything we can do to make it up to you?" Morgan asked gently.
A gurgle. One of Sigma's mouths opened, and a long, tube-like pink tongue lolled out, licking Epsilon's gloved hand. She politely tried to hide her disgust and patted Sigma's head again.
"We'll sit with you a bit, Miss Sigma," she said.
Morgan wondered, pityingly, if Miss Sigma were going to die in this form. She was in immense pain, it seemed, and her breathing was growing more labored by the second. If she did, then she and Moffat would have to hold a small funeral and bury her out here on the hill. Although she knew it probably wouldn't happen, she secretly hoped that Sigma would pull through somehow, whether in this form or morphed back into a human. If she did end up dying, then Morgan would have to dig her grave and hold a funeral--even if she didn't know Miss Sigma's real name, the poor thing nevertheless deserved a spot of kindness at the possible end of her life. Maybe that was why she'd fallen in with Mr Fairchild in the first place.
Was this what happened to them, then?
She shuddered. She didn't want to wind up like poor Miss Sigma.
Ian, perhaps sensing Morgan's concern, gently rubbed her shoulder.
While the two gently patted her rubbery hide in the most comforting manner that could be managed, Sigma gurgled softly, twitched, and drew her last ragged, labored breath. Her monstrous new body was still. Morgan shuddered again; Ian hugged her close to him comfortingly.
"She was an enemy, I suppose," she said quietly, mumbling into the crook of his neck, "but at one point, she was human… and she didn't deserve whatever led her all to this. I wish we could have made up and become friends."
He nodded, but didn't say anything, content to embrace his own friend, glad that she hadn't turned out the same way… yet? he wondered darkly. Christ. He didn't want to see her like that. He wanted her to stay here with him, forever if possible; he loved her. Maybe romantically, maybe as Just-Friends, he didn't know, but he was absolutely certain that, either way, he loved Morgan, and he was absolutely certain that he didn't want to let her go, didn't want her to become a monster like poor Sigma. Ian loved her the way she was--pudgy, neurotic, but always well-meaning.
"Oh--you're suddenly frisky," he said, startled and confused, as Morgan suddenly shoved him down onto the ground. She blushed brightly.
"Sir!"
"Kidding. What--"
A black, whiplike appendage, spiked with iron-like claws, went flying over them, screeching through the night air. Sigma rolled around to stand on her multiple legs, her many mouths snapping open and shut in a cacophony of angry, unearthly snarls. Jesus!
"Wasn't she just dead a minute ago?!" he asked, confused.
"I thought so, too," she agreed in a panicky tone of voice. Both ducked the next swing as well.
"I've got a plan--let me get her down, Morgan."
"Yes, sir--go ahead."
Sigma let out an almighty, screeching roar, and Sailor Epsilon felt the ground rumble beneath her feet.
"But you might have to run and dodge her claws for awhile," he whispered into her ear. "As a distraction."
"Right," she said reluctantly. She put her gun down for the moment and began running. If it weren't such a serious situation, it would have been goddamn hilarious; Morgan was a clumsy runner, being as unathletic as she was.
She would be okay, though.
She always was.
Ian unhooked the pepper spray from his tool belt and crept closer to the former Sailor Sigma, spraying it into what was probably her face. Distracted by the chemical burns assaulting her multiple eyes, she began thrashing about wildly, howling and screeching. It scratched fruitlessly at itself with the iron claws, ripping open its sticky skin to pour some white ichor onto the sandstone ground. He felt bad watching it, honestly… nevertheless, he reached for his taser and aimed it the best he could. The darts buried themselves into Sigma's rubbery, shining bruise-purple skin, sending jolts of electricity through her system. This stunned her briefly, long enough for Sailor Epsilon to throw the magical net over her.
"I'm afraid--I don't really want to kill her," the yellow-suited sailor said nervously. Ian rubbed her shoulder.
"You're a good girl, Morgan," he said gently. "But I think we have to. Poor thing's miserable, and she probably don't mean well for our world."
"I know, but…" She looked at the stunned, still body of the former Sailor Sigma, distressed. "I suppose it can't be helped." She hoisted her gun up a bit and took aim, then closed her eyes tightly. "I'm sorry, Miss Sigma. Pulsar Missile!"
Unseen, the long, pointed bullets erupted from the minigun with the screaming chatter of metal. Behind her, she felt Ian's hand on her shoulder again. "Shh. It's okay." She slowly opened her eyes, looking at Sigma. Her monstrous form was slowly evaporating into a sludgy black smog, dissipating into the night air.
"I guess she'll never have a chance to be a star, but she can still be a part of the night sky," Sailor Epsilon said, smiling a little. The warm, golden feeling pulsated in her heart. Miss Sigma wasn't in pain--she wasn't under the thrall of Mr Fairchild anymore, either--and now, she could still make up a piece of heaven. Perhaps if Morgan herself became a star, they would see one another someday, in some other shape, and she would apologize. And perhaps then, they really could be friends, in their different roles and shapes.
That was assuming she survived whatever was next.
Of course Mr Fairchild wasn't done. She shifted around nervously. What would he do next? Where was he?
"You can cry if you need to. I won't think any less of you," Ian said.
"Thank you, sir."
She felt like crying for a moment, but found that she couldn't. The golden warmth filled her, and she smiled briefly. Then the thought occurred to her again.
What would happen if she died?
What would happen to Ian, to Los Angeles, to the planet?
Miss Sigma was (perhaps) fading into moonbeams; her body was almost entirely gone now, vanished into the ether.
What would happen after?
Well… she just wouldn't find out, that was all. She nodded to herself a little. She would live. So would Ian. She would make sure of it.
Although the condition of Miss Sigma's body kind of raised a question. If she did live, she didn't have anything to show Mrs Ruiz back at the police department.
"Do you think Mr Fairchild will leave something behind?" Morgan asked.
Ian shrugged. "Dunno. He fuckin' better, or I'll be pissed and out of a job."
"Oh, my--we can't have that." She smiled at her friend, then looked over at where Mr Fairchild's human skin lay. Ink-black sludge was pooling out of his body, pulling back into its own eldritch shape, into the headache-inducing, ill-angled thing that she had seen in the darkness, when she went to speak to him--all spines and claws and strangely-proportioned eyes blinking open and shut, spilling out of more dimensions than it really should have occupied. A grinning, slippery shadow, smoothly sliding across the ground, flickering in and out of space, rising up to block stars in the sky. The sailor swallowed hard and ground her feet into the sand, the warmth in her chest flaring into a fire. "I… we warned you fairly, Mr Fairchild. I am out of patience, and I am through being polite with you," she said in the most civil tone she could manage. She swung her gun around, training it on Fairchild's ghastly form.
"Please," he said, chuckling darkly. His voice echoed; his grin spread across the gelatinous mass of his body, showing off a number of pointy teeth, stained yellow and rusty-brown. "It's pointless to even try with that little toy of yours. You could never hope to defeat--or even contain--me. I will eat your little pla--"
"Shut the fuck up," Ian interrupted angrily. He emptied an entire magazine into the shadows surrounding him. Bullets pierced the blackness just momentarily, before the little holes closed up again.
The darkness swirled, pressing in on all sides; it crawled around them, the ugly mouths grinning at the two of them. Ian gently squeezed Morgan's upper arm, and she gently shrugged him away.
"This place has begun to bore me," Fairchild said lazily. "I see no reason why it should continue to exist. I'm going to eat this world alive--swallow it up in my shadow and reduce it to utter nothing. Anything I don't like, I will destroy. Because there's no reason for it to be there otherwise."
"I suppose pointing out the beauty of life, love, art, and such would be pointless," Sailor Epsilon said impatiently. "So I won't bother, if it's all the same to you. Pulsar Missile!"
Screaming, burning-red metal carving up the darkness, revealing the stars beyond. The ragged, smoldering edges of Fairchild's body fluttered and flapped in the desert wind, then pulled themselves back together, resolving itself into a shadow that staked itself into the ground. Beneath her feet, the sandstone rumbled and cracked. A slimy tendril slid across her face, and awful, jagged yellow teeth were bared at her face.
"It's all pointless," Fairchild said. His voice sounded less and less human, it didn't even sound like he was speaking anything remotely resembling English anymore, but somehow, Morgan understood. She shook her head, trying to force the noise out of her mind; it made her head hurt, but no, she couldn't focus on that right now, right now, she had to focus on this. "You might as well give up immediately. I won't promise you a place as a princess or a free life in a new world, but I can promise you a swift death. Fighting back will only be postponing the inevitable."
The ground beneath her began cracking and crumbling; claws and tendrils shot up out of the ground, pulling cars and trees and cactus beneath, crushing them in Fairchild's iron grip.
He was beginning to tear the world apart.
She couldn't respond, because a mass of black tendrils wrapped around her neck; they lifted her into the air, choking her and letting her hang limply in the air. Her gun dropped to the ground, and she grunted and pulled at the tendrils with her white-gloved hands, ripping several apart; as soon as she had, though, several more were generated in their place, stronger than before. Losing air. Dizzy. Stars danced in front of her eyes, and she choked and gagged as the grip tightened around her throat. Morgan tried to think of something to do. So far, the gun hadn't worked. Obviously, this required a bit more finesse. But she was finding it hard to think straight, or even think at all, right now, what with her air being cut off and everything. She gagged and pulled at the tendrils again, and again, they grew back. Ian rushed to her side and began sawing at them with his pocket-knife. He was panting, scared, panicking, whimpering softly as he tried to cut her free. She squealed, trying to warn him of--
An enormous black claw shot out of the grinning shadow, gripping him around the midsection and hurling him across the sandy lot like a rag doll, where he landed up against a blue Civic. He tried to get back up off of the ground, then flopped back over, still.
"One down," Fairchild said pleasantly. "Wouldn't you like to join your friend in death?"
She murmured some nonsense, a choked response, that Ian was not dead, because Ian was so tough that, should death ever come for him, he would kick the Reaper up the ass and advise him to come back later. She believed in him. He wasn't dead. No way in hell.
But since she was in the midst of being strangled/hung, she couldn't articulate this very well. Nevertheless, the golden feeling flared up again, burning through her veins…
"Oh, I assure you, he is. Or will be very shortly. You see, I may have just broken his spine by tossing him away like that. His death will be most agonizing. Don't you want to join him?"
Morgan snarled--an alien sound from such a mousy, neurotic woman. Yellow, warm light blazed forth from her fists, which were tightly clenched around a cluster of the strangling tendrils; they burned away, flopping to the ground uselessly, and she landed on the ground again gracelessly, scraping up both of her legs. Behind her slightly-askew glasses, her eyes burned with a fire that hadn't been there before. She didn't say a word. She seized her gun, and it, too, was bathed in the yellow light. It sparkled in the moonlight for a moment, then it changed--from a cold gray to a warm golden color, from something resembling a miniature Vulcan cannon to something more like an Avenger. Golden fire crackled around her as she effortlessly raised the enormous gun.
"You hurt my best friend," she said.
"That's selfish, isn't it?" Fairchild said cheerily. "I've started chewing off bits and pieces of your world already. I'm going to hollow it out, then crush it like a grape. But here you are just worrying about one man. One insignificant man."
"I don't know much about the world," she said quietly. "All I know is my own pointless, insignificant existence. I know failure. I know loneliness. But now… because I've gotten to know Mr Moffat… I've figured something else out. I've figured out that I'm sick of being a failure, sick of being nervous, and sick of being lonely. I'm going to make my pointless, insignificant existence meaningful!"
"Isn't that cute!" He laughed wildly, and it was the most insane sound she had ever heard in her entire life. It didn't scare her; at this point, it only angered her further. She was so tired of him, and of everything he had thrown at her--at Ian--at their city.
"On behalf of Mr Moffat, I would like to cordially invite you to, in his unfortunately rather crude words, FUCK RIGHT OFF!" she snapped. "Genocide Sunshine!"
Four-thousand-two-hundred rounds per minute. Golden-colored bullets, each as big as her forearm, exploded out of the Avenger, each detonating magnificently within his shadowy body, shearing his shapeless mass away into nothing. The desert was scorched; the air was burning, hazy with the heat of the strange ammunition. Through blurred, pain-doubled vision, she saw all of the tendrils and claws and spikes he had put through the ground disintegrating. Stone turned to dust. A couple of cars that had been parked behind Fairchild at the time were melted.
It was hot out here. No, not out here. In here. There. The warmth in her chest threatened to bubble over--that soft, golden feeling that had been around for months now. That weird feeling--feeling of… power? Maybe?
The metal screamed and chattered for two minutes, until he was gone, completely. Not even ash remained; not even smoke; not even vapor.
She stood in a smoking crater of her own making, puffing and panting. Her head hurt, and her chest was searing with that painful white-hot feeling. Morgan tried to push it out of her mind, taking a deep breath, focusing hard, trying to reach out with that psychic trick she had tried during the phobia-gas incident weeks ago, trying to feel whether he was there or not.
But there was nothing of him left.
Beyond the edges of her own mind, she could feel the bare edges of Ian's. that was all. Nobody else.
Ian.
She clumsily limped over to him, dragging her Avenger on the ground. Tired as she was, she couldn't even lift it out of the crater that she had created; she just dragged it--and herself--up onto higher ground and over to the Civic, where her friend stood, calmly smoking a cigarette. The forcefield that she had covered him with glittered weakly in the moonlight; it had gone patchy… fading away on its own.
"Ian!" she said. Forgetting the burning in her body for just a fraction of a second, forgetting her perpetual case of nerves, forgetting how unladylike it was to do so, forgetting everything, she tackled him, hugging him, burying her head in the crook of his neck. He was alive! Alive! She hadn't ever been this happy to see someone before in her entire life. Her heart pounded, warmth bubbling through her whole body again.
"Okay, hey, calm down, Jesus," he said, confused.
"I was worried!"
"Nothing to worry about. I'm mostly fine. Got a few scrapes, and there's kind of a ringing in my ears, but other than that… I think your forcefield's defective or something."
She smiled faintly, enjoying the warm pulse that was surging through herself. It was familiar… good magic. At the same time, though… she couldn't help but feel some kind of strange… dunno… inevitability hanging over her head. The feeling that she was going to die hadn't gone away, despite both of her major enemies having been defeated tonight.
"Defective?"
"Yeah. Keeps flickering on and off. Saved me from mortal injury, sure, but it scuffed up my face and arms a bit."
Why was that? All of her forcefields up until now had been great--protecting him from zombies, phobia-gas, real serious stuff. Now, though…
She looked down at the ground, leaning against her Avenger for support, intending to puzzle this out, but all of a sudden, she realized something.
The little crystal that she used to change into Sailor Epsilon had changed.
First, it had been clear as glass, back when she first picked it up.
But now, it was a beautiful amber or topaz color--a rich golden-yellow. And it seemed to twitch slightly, in rhythm with her heartbeat--in rhythm with the warmth that pulsed through her. It glowed softly, illuminating the space between her and Ian.
"Ian?" she said quietly. In the surface of the crystal, her face was reflected in miniature. She closed her soft-gray eyes. When she did, she saw a new world.
Her newworld.
She knew its name immediately--Antares.
Soon, Morgan would no longer be Sailor Epsilon--instead, she would become Sailor Antares.
She opened her eyes again and looked up at her friend dolefully, then glanced around at the desert of the old world. She felt as though she were floating away from it, disconnected.
She knew.
"Huh?"
"I don't think I'm going to be Sailor Epsilon anymore."
"What? What the fuck's that supposed to mean? You quittin' on me, girly?"
"No, sir. It's just… I don't think I can explain it. Except… I think I'm… changing."
"How?" His voice was getting high-pitched with alarm--something she had never expected of him. He was always so calm and collected. In everything else that had happened, his voice had been steady and confident. How strange.
Morgan didn't answer him. She wasn't a terribly imaginative woman; she couldn't think of any way to explain it, because she barely understood it herself. The man grabbed her by the upper arm and shook her a little.
"Morgan, how? What the fuck are you talking about?"
Again, no answer. She closed her eyes, looked at her new world again… then opened her eyes, stood up on tiptoe, and clumsily kissed Ian on the cheek.
"I don't think I have long here, Ian. May I please have a hug?"
"Not until you tell me what the ever-loving fuck is going on!" he demanded.
"I don't know!" she cried. "Except I'm changing!"
For a moment, they stared at each other, both upset, frightened, a little bit angry.
Finally, though, Ian hugged Morgan, just as she'd requested, and they stood there awhile, silent and still.
Then Morgan groaned, clutching at her chest again, and stumbled away slightly, trying to prop herself up with the Avenger again. She closed her eyes tightly and saw her new world once again--this time, it was accompanied by a sensation of floating, of being pulled away--of fading. The ribbons and skirt on her costume were glowing white, fluttering as if being blown in a breeze.
Morgan looked up at the dark sky.
"I don't want to go," she mumbled.
The glow on her costume intensified, then flashed, nova-bright, in the night air, illuminating the desert around them with a sun-like glow. Ian shielded his eyes with his hand, squinting, trying to see what was going on, but found himself blinded momentarily.
Sailor Antares floated before him, several inches off of the ground, holding her golden gun with both hands.
Her costume was much the same as the Sailor Epsilon one, save for the color scheme; her collar, the ends of her gloves, and her skirt were a sunny-yellow, and the ribbons on her back and on her chest were a cheery soft-orange, as were her tennis shoes. The little clear crystal that had pinned back the ribbon on her chest was a beautiful, richly-colored topaz.
She didn't say anything. She wasn't creative enough to think up some clever, soul-stirring speech to sum up her adventures and how she felt about all this madness. If she had tried to speak, she would have only wound up crying. At the very least, she could try to retain some dignity.
Instead, she reached up with one hand and untied her hair ribbon, floating forward and pressing it into Ian's hand.
Understanding, the man took the police badge off of his uniform and pinned it to hers.
"Remember that," he said, his voice sounding rather croaky.
The two squeezed hands briefly--and then Sailor Antares faded away into the night, smiling faintly, mouthing unknown words.