Chapter 10 – The Power of Knowledge
Inside one of the spaceships belonging to the forces of the Black Moon, Rubeus was pacing angrily back and forth in a room that was completely bare except for a ring of large antique mirrors that each stood a little taller than him. Each one was slightly different and had ornate, gilded frames to them.
Rubeus walked back and forth with his arms crossed over his lower back. His jaws clenched tightly together and in the almost silence of the room, the grinding of his teeth could be periodically heard. His anger was radiating off of him in waves, preventing him from being aware of anything else around him. When a voice spoke to him from somewhere inside the room, he literally jumped. He'd been so lost in thought that he was startled by the unexpected voice.
"Rubeus! Have you been able to penetrate the shield surrounding the Crystal Palace yet?" The voice echoed around the room, seemingly filling every empty space and coming from every corner of the room all at once. Rubeus had been looking towards one of the mirrors when the voice suddenly sounded, and he instinctively whirled his body around to look at the large open space in the center of the room that the mirrors encircled. He knew the owner of the voice, and it certainly did not improve his current mood. As his crimson eyes focused on the center of the open space behind him, the form of Wiseman rose up from the floor and hovered a few feet above it. In what was typical for him, his hands continually flowed around the crystal ball in his lap that he was never without.
"Wiseman!" The name came out like an expletive, with no hint of respect in his tone at all. "If you're as smart as everyone seems to think you are, then you'll know that we can't. The queen is secured inside the castle and we need her in order to get the shield down. Seeing as we can't get to her unless the shield is down, we seemed to have reached a stalemate." He made no effort to hide the sarcasm in his voice, and even crossed his arms over his chest to show the Wiseman that he really wasn't in the mood for a chat. His hands were forming white knuckled fists tightly against his chest, and he pushed them harder into his sternum to stop them from shaking in frustration.
"If you can't get to them, make them come to you." Even though Rubeus had made it clear that he didn't fancy being around Wiseman right now, the hooded old man ignored the young lieutenant's disrespect and kept his voice calm and steady. The old man's words immediately sank in, and Rubeus' face changed into an expression of confusion.
"What do you mean by that?" Wiseman's words had touched his curiosity and given his current situation, he was willing to listen to his idea. However, he didn't want mysterious mystic to know that he was willing to take advice because he was desperate to get back in Prince Diamond's graces following the capture of Scorpion under his watch.
"The queen serves the people of this planet. Put those people in danger and she will not be able to remain hidden any longer. She will expose herself, and that will be your chance to capture her." Rubeus was silent for a few minutes as he pondered Wiseman's idea. Unfortunately, he knew that Wiseman was right. The queen's love and compassion for the people of Earth was well known and going to be her undoing in the end. Rubeus silently berated himself for not realizing that sooner.
"I will instruct the Spectre Sisters and the Rhino to go down to the city and personally cause unrest and chaos to draw out Neo-Queen Serenity. At the same time, I will use the ship's cannons to further demolish this symbol of sickening prosperity." As he spoke, Rubeus turned his body away from Wiseman and stared out the large window at the sprawling city that lay below him. Wiseman said nothing, and Rubeus took that to mean that he was in agreement with Rubeus' plan, or at least, he had no more advice to give. Wiseman hovered in silence for a few more minutes before silently sinking back down through the floor the way the same way he'd arrived, leaving Rubeus alone once more.
"Who is the leader of the Black Moon?" Neo-Queen Serenity posed the first question of the interrogation, and now she silently stared at Scorpion as she waited for his answer. After Tera had gone into the cell and scared the villainous Scorpion out of his mind with her symbiotic form, she'd left the cell to be replaced by Neo-Queen Serenity, King Endyimon, and Sailor Mercury. Now that the official interrogation was finally beginning, everyone inside and outside the cell were absolutely silent. The drop of a pin could have echoed for days in the atmosphere that was stirring so slowly that not even loose strands of the Sailors' hair would have moved in the breeze. The other Sailors, Magik, and Hybrid were riveted to the activity that was happening in the cell. The Scorpion took his time to collect his thoughts, letting the silence stretch on for longer than the queen wanted it to.
"Prince Diamond is in charge. His brother, Sapphire, is his second in command." The words had a grudging tone to them, as if the Scorpion still didn't want to willingly offer up the information. The two names that he had uttered touched something in Neo-Queen Serenity, King Endyimon, and the Inner Sailors. They had seen Prince Diamond during the initial attack, but the name of Sapphire further chilled them, making ice flow through their veins and goose bumps sprout up on their arms. They had encountered both of those people, not once, but twice. Once during the attack on old Tokyo after they had defeated the Doom Tree and the second time was when the evil shaman Apsu had manipulated the time stream which caused many of their previously defeated enemies to come back…including Prince Diamond and Sapphire. They began to wonder if the other members of the Black Moon that they had already defeated would be back as well.
"Who else is working closely with Prince Diamond?" Neo-Queen Serenity's voice chilled the air further between herself and the Scorpion as she pressed on with her questioning. She knew what the consequences of fighting the Black Moon and their forces might entail, and she was far from happy about it. Her question was one of the ones that burned away at her gentle heart. She had to know what her people would be up against when they launched their counter offensive. She was wise enough to know that in this case, knowledge was power and the more they knew, the better they could strategize. The idea of letting her guardians fight blind or be killed because of some unseen enemy made her want to run away from everyone and be sick in a hidden corner somewhere.
The Scorpion hesitated again before answering, as if he was still struggling with himself about giving the information. The Scorpion's face contorted with anger at some personal thought inside his brain before he spat the information out like a poison that he was sucking from the wound of a loved one.
"Some young upstart, snot nosed kid named Rubeus and the green haired harlot named Emerald are his top henchmen. They carry out every mission and operation that the prince wants done. Probably both kiss his feet, too. Spineless kiss asses." Again, a sharp pang resonated in the hearts of the Royal Couple and the Inner Sailors. It seemed like their past was bound and determined to repeat itself again. Before Neo-Queen Serenity could ask another question, the Scorpion cut her off, continuing on with his response. "Below them, are the four Spectre Sisters: Koan, Birdie, Petz, and Avery. Those scrawny brats are a couple of real pieces of work, let me tell you. They're always worried about their clothes or their hair, and they get into so many petty fights and arguments that it's a wonder that they can even get any of the prince's wishes done. It's insulting that I, one of the original founders of Nemesis, have to work with such…children!" The Scorpion was indeed very angry with the alliances that had been made in order to bring this attack plan into action. The pure venom with which he spat out the last word made everyone recoil from him involuntarily. Even though the malice that she felt was radiating off of him in waves, Neo-Queen Serenity pressed on with the interrogation, before he said something that angered him enough to make him shut down or distract the flow of questions she still had for him and cause valuable time to be wasted. If that happened, not even the promise of Tera's other form reappearing was going to be enough to get him to talk willingly again.
"You just said that you were one of the original settlers of Nemesis. Is that the name that you call the Black Moon, presumably?" Although he didn't answer her verbally, the look in his eyes was confirmation enough for her. "Who else settled Nemesis with you?" There was a sense of urgency in Neo-Queen Serenity's voice that even the queen herself couldn't explain. The queen now knew more about whom they were facing, but it still didn't make sense for them to have such a formidable army available to them given the time span that had passed from their last encounter with the Scorpion to this point in time. She needed to know more about the history of the Black Moon in order to find out how to defeat these new foes that she and her Sailor Soldiers had never encountered before. The Scorpion perked up a little, and there was a little more life in his voice than when he'd answered her question.
"Dr. Octavius, Vulture, Rhino, and myself. We landed there to escape being captured by you and your little minions. Fat lot of good that did me in the end…" He trailed off and lost all signs of animation as he answered. He rolled his eyes and looked away from his captors after he finished. There was even a hint of embarrassment in his voice, showing that he'd just come to realize that he had ended up exactly where he'd thought and hoped that he would never be. The Royal Couple and the Sailors were a little surprised to hear the names of the others that had gone with him, even though they shouldn't have been. After all, it was only logical to assume that the other villains in that quartet would have survived this long if the Scorpion had. It had been a mystery to all of them as to what had happened to Doctor Octopus and the rest of the Sinister Seven after they'd escaped the Oscorp building during the fall of Norman Osborn's criminal empire. The mystery was finally solved it would seem but whether the information laid anyone's mind at ease remained to be seen.
"And where are they now? Dr. Octavius and the others?" Neo-Queen Serenity refused to let her voice or tone reflect her feelings, and she stood in front of the villain with a completely blank expression in the hopes of making him wonder how this information that he was giving them would be received. Whether she was afraid to see them again or simply inquiring as to their whereabouts in order to decide if they should also expect an appearance from them, the Scorpion couldn't tell and that was the point. The queen of Earth would not give him any latitude to twist his responses for his own personal interests or amusement. Everyone remained silent and more than one noticed that even though the Scorpion had paused before every answer he'd given, this latest one seemed to stretch on into eternity before he finally responded.
"Vulture is dead. He died a few years ago. He managed to complete the flying devices for our spaceships and made it so they could defy gravity before his useless old body finally gave up on him. He looked like an empty husk, a mere shadow of his former self in those last days before he died. Dr. Octavius is still around, but he's almost as old as the Vulture was before he died. Prince Diamond thought that he'd be useless in a fight, so he kept him back on Nemesis so that he can continue increasing its technological power. I can't say that I disagree with the prince on that one. Sapphire was the doc's protégé or something. He was always glued to his hip, scribbling things down in his notebook. It was disgusting really. The doc taught that squirt everything he knew, and now the student is the chief technological powerhouse of everything on Nemesis." Sailor Mercury took a step forward, so that she was even with Neo-Queen Serenity now.
"Was Dr. Octavius responsible for the technology we've seen during this attack?" The question seemed to startle the Scorpion, and he shot a wary glance at the wise sailor guardian. The Scorpion remained silent, and turned his full attention to the new speaker. He sized her up, from the top of her white sailor boots to the tips of her short blue hair. Though she didn't show it, Sailor Mercury could feel her skin crawl as she was appraised by someone so vile and disgusting.
"Yeah. The doc did most of the work. He was at least smart enough to take all of Osborn's best stuff when we escaped from you all the last time. When we landed on Nemesis, he was able to use that stuff to set up our new home and then expand it from the stolen or acquired technology we got from the portal dwellers."
"Portal dwellers?" Neo-Queen Serenity asked slowly. She was afraid that she already knew what he was referring to, but it was always better to have confirmation. There was always that very tiny chance that she was wrong.
"Did I stutter, sweetheart? Turns out Osborn had created a machine that could open up doors to other worlds. His name still carried a decent amount of weight in some of them, which allowed us to acquire several new toys. Whatever we couldn't get easily, we just took by force." The Scorpion paused again and smiled, thinking back to his former glory days. Those were days where he was proud of who he was and what he was fighting for. Days like today just reminded him of the other side of that coin. Capture, and in some cases, torture were the two biggest un-pleasantries that came with being a hired mercenary. He smiled to himself again, looking up at the ceiling of the cell, and leaning against the wall as he reminisced about past memories. It was easy to see for all of the Sailors, the Royal Couple, and Hybrid and Magik as well, that he was actually proud of the things he'd done and all the people that he'd hurt to get him to where he was today. It sickened them all, each to a different degree. Although Neo-Queen Serenity and the others could feel their blood run cold as they stood listening to the old villain's words, it was Magik that was most affected by it.
She stood completely frozen between her brother and Sailor Mars. She knew better than anyone the dangers and horrors that lurked in the worlds that existed side by side with theirs. She'd spent eight years trapped in one, experiencing pain and suffering that would have driven anyone else to insanity or worse. Not that she was bragging by any means, but that was something that she was proud of herself for surviving. After she'd finally managed to escape her captor, Shang Tsung, he had tried to bring her back, but was defeated once and for all by her brother Hybrid and the Sailors. There was a small part of her that wondered if she'd ever encountered Osborn at some point during her stay in Negonall, and then there was another small part of her that warned her that she might not want to know the answer if she could ever find out.
Sailor Mercury stood by silently, pondering over all of the information that the Scorpion had given them thus far. In her over analytical brain, pieces were beginning to come together, and she shuddered at the picture they were beginning to form. She didn't like it at all, and she knew the others wouldn't either. The Scorpion interrupted her thoughts with a thinly veiled threat.
"This shield that you're hiding behind won't last forever, you know. Soon, Prince Diamond will break through it and this planet will be ours for the taking." He snarled smugly at the large group that was watching him, but they hardly heard a word he'd said because they were each lost in their own contemplations about the tidbits of information that he'd given them thus far.
"Shield? What shield? You must be turning into a senile old man. We don't know what you're talking about." Sailor Jupiter barked her insult as she griped the bars of the cell tightly with her hands. A brief pause followed as the Scorpion and Sailor Jupiter stared each other down with glares that could burn through metal. In the middle of that, Sailor Mercury licked her dry lips and quietly cleared her throat. All the attention in the room was now focused on her once again.
"I installed an energy shield around the Palace as a preventative measure, and as part of my upgrades to the Crystal Palace's security." She paused for a moment or two, hating the Scorpion for giving them that piece of information, and hating herself as she tried to weigh the pros and cons of whether or not she should tell them the rest. It wasn't necessarily important in the current situation that they were in, but she felt that her friends and most importantly, her queen, had a need to know.
She took a deep breath, ready to accept whatever came her way after she revealed this next part. "The shield is based on the technology of the Death Busters, and the daimon energy that they harvested during our final battle with them to prevent our entrance into the Mugen Academy. I found the device while we were searching the ruins for Sailor Moon. I worked on it little by little over the next few years, finally getting it to use the residual power that the Silver Moon Crystal gives off as opposed to the dark power of the Tau Nebula that the Death Busters used." She paused and took a second to scan the eyes of everyone around her. The looks she received in return ranged from surprise to suspicion. However, no one physically protested or verbally opposed this revelation, because they knew that the shield had kept them safe for this long…so far. The Scorpion broke the rigid silence.
"Doesn't matter where the damned thing came from. Prince Diamond will either break through it, or draw you all out and kill you one by one if he has too. Probably in front of each other, if I know my prince well enough."
As if on cue, the heavy metal door that marked the entrance to the detention area sounded, cutting off any retort that could have been flung his way. It was followed by the unmistakable sound of running footsteps as someone came pelting down the hallway towards them. Seconds later, one of the royal guards rounded the corner and came to a skittering halt in front of them all. He quickly snapped a salute in Neo-Queen Serenity's direction, and she inclined her head in acknowledgement.
"My queen! One of the spaceships has resumed its bombardment of the city." He had to stop to catch his breath before he could say any more, and everyone within earshot was anxiously awaiting the rest of the news. "Citizens are dying, or getting trapped in the ensuing chaos!" The guard spoke rapidly, using his stored breath to get as many words out as possible. His breathing was panicked and ragged, and now Neo-Queen Serenity tightly clenched her hands into fists. Hybrid and Sailor Jupiter immediately sprang into action, racing past the guard and calling back over their shoulders for the other Sailors to follow them. No one waited for the queen's response. This was their job, and they were going to do the best they could.
"Wait, Sailor Moon!" Sailor Mercury's shout caused the pink haired girl to skid to a sudden stop and turn around in confusion. The others didn't bother to wait for her, or to ask Sailor Mercury why she wasn't coming with them either. In the blink of an eye, they were all gone. The metal door slamming closed with a loud thud that echoed back to the cell where the Royal Couple and two guardians remained.
"What is it, Mercury? We have to go with the others and save our city!" The young Sailor was vehement in her exclamation. Her sense of urgency and desperation amped up a little more as images flashed through her head of what she knew must be happening to the poor citizens that were outside and unprotected from the Black Moon's assault.
"I need you for a different task, Sailor Moon. Its success could mean the difference between victory and total annihilation of the Crystal Kingdom." Sailor Mercury's voice was utterly serious, and yet, laced with concern for the young girl. Sailor Moon turned her body around to look directly at Sailor Mercury. She relaxed her body which told the older guardian that she was giving her full attention to her.
