THANK YOU GUYS for all the lovely reviews. I feel so incredibly flattered that you're liking this story so far^^
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What was happening around Usagi and Mamoru could be easily described as mass panic. The amount of people fleeing from the destroyed train and the platform– so many people, terrified, screaming, crying, stumbling over one another in the panic to get away – were trying to escape the narrow tunnels of the Ginza Line platforms of Shibuya Metro station.
A Cardian was amidst all this, having ripped through the walls of a shredded train car wall – had it appeared there and slashed its way out or had it trampled its way in to get towards its victims? – she wasn't sure. What she was sure of: That thing was giant, and appeared to be growing.
An alarming thought in a confined space.
Mamoru, beside her, was trembling with anxiety; fear for her and worry about the amount of people present. Also, she realized, there was no way he could transform here among all these people.
People around them were screaming, feral, shoving into them, dragging them with them if it weren't for Mamoru bracing himself against the ongoing current of running people and holding onto Usagi tightly.
It appeared to be some form of reptile, complete with a long thick tail, reminding her for a moment of a sort of dinosaur. It had big, thick scales covering all of its body in a dark black that shimmered green under the crackling lights of the ripped Neon lights above it, that it had broken when having grown – in mere moments – as tall as the ceilings even though it just fit in the train car. Sparks were thrown on it from the junctions where the cables above its massive head had broken. The scales, she saw with a bite of fear, were charged with electricity, emanating tiny bolts of blue light, it's purely black beady eyes making the thing look even scarier than it already was.
With an earth-shattering roar it emitted a sort of energy field – a pulse that ripped through the masses of people around it – some of them dropped instantly. This obviously was its way of draining energy.
Mamoru and Usagi looked at each other in alarm.
She could feel his need to push her back, get her away, shove her from him and let her be carried into the masses and away from the Cardian. He was trembling with fear and determination. Mostly for her.
She steeled her look. They had talked about this, she wouldn't fight this again. "I'm not going. You said you'd let me help."
He looked petrified for a second but then his jaw set. He gripped her by the arms and looked her in the eyes and talked to her with an urgency to his voice that threw her. "There is something you can do." He said and nodded towards the exit tunnel, completely blocked by the panicked masses that were trying to escape. "Find a way to the metro personnel, a pusher, anybody with a connection to their operational headquarters. Make them stop the trains in all directions. I'll try and push the Cardian into the tunnels."
She nodded, mutely. He was right, this was logical. They had to safe all these people. She set her jaw and ran towards the thong of people. In the back of her mind, where her connection to Mamoru whirred, she could feel him drop into the pit of the train tracks in the front part of the platform – where he'd be hidden from view for about a moment – and transform, only to jump behind the train and attack from the other side of it.
Like a madwoman Usagi dashed towards the crowd of crying desperate people blocking the way of the exit in their panic, thronging through them. The stopped briefly for the first pusher she spotted but continued on – he was here, on the platform, but as panicked and out of it as anybody else and she didn't think she'd get through to him to act as fast as she needed acting.
So she pushed on – with force yet careful not to hurt anybody in the process and somehow she made her way out rather quickly and unscathed, and ran frantically towards the first group of personnel she saw – they were shouting, muddling, trying to help the people escape.
"STOP THE TRAINS!" She yelled at the top of her lungs, grabbing at one, and though she screamed as loud as she could he barely heard what she said over the noises of panic around her even though she was shouting it straight into his face.
He attempted to calm her down, thinking she was another person in shock, telling her in a soothing yet loud voice that of course they'd already stopped the trains in this tunnel, but Usagi interrupted him. "No. Not just this tunnel. All the tunnels connecting to Shibuya. Tuxedo Mask is in there battling it but the Cardian grows. The tunnels will collapse, the whole systems around here might." She grabbed at him urgently, willing him to understand.
And he did, his eyes grew wide, panicked for a second, but then he collected himself and started shouting instructions to his colleagues and to the walkie-talkie that hung from his belt.
Satisfied that he'd understood the urgency, she jumped right back into the crowd despite the man's attempts to keep her from it. Right back into the panicked masses, and going against the stream of people streaming out with fear was unsurprisingly even harder than pushing through it in the first place. But the adrenaline discharging through her nervous system and this deep fear that Mamoru might need her made it possible and she found herself back on the platform – still impossibly loud yet so much considerably quieter with more people having dropped to the floor – their energy drained and more people already having escaped.
The Cardian wasn't on the platform anymore but she could hear the cracking of the walls in the tunnel, the sound of electricity discharging and the hum in her body that meant Mamoru was nearby and fighting.
So she ran towards and into the tunnel, completely illuminated by the electricity that thundered from the creature's scales.
It was so big now, crouched in this tunnel, the tail as big as a train car in itself.
She was behind it and Tuxedo Mask in front of it. He wouldn't see her of course, yet by the change in his emotions that she felt through their bond – a quick charge of fear – she knew he realized she had returned.
He was hurt, she could feel it, so without any logic or sense to it she did what came naturally:
She jumped on its back and held fast onto its scales.
She felt the electricity of it burn away at her hands and knees where she touched them but held fast and felt her crescent moon flash across her forehead as if in answer or to protect her, she didn't know how, yet she was charging energy against the threat in front of her.
It howled but wasn't severely injured and it flung its tail with her on it heavily. Her hands still connected were paralyzed, the burnt skin peeling away bloodily, but she hung on as it pushed its tail deeper into the tunnel. Behind her – where she'd only just stood and entered – the walls crumbled and the tunnel collapsed and she was flung forward forcefully.
She landed only paces away from a battered looking Tuxedo Mask on the floor, the walls around them shaking dangerously.
He limped towards her in an instant, grabbing at her and pushing her away from a crumbling block of concrete. With a start she realized the state he was in: The whole left side of his leg was burnt as her hands and knees were, a huge head wound bleeding on the back of his head, gashes, as if from giant claws, bleeding openly from the ripped front of his formerly white shirt.
The head of the creature disappeared through the ceiling, walls still crumbling around them, and with panic both of them realized that it was escaping to the street, having broken out of the tunnel.
Tuxedo Mask cursed loudly and pulled her away from another falling block of rubble.
He groaned. "Its weak point is its eyes but they're protected by a force field. I can't get at them without simultaneously destroying its energy center beneath its tail." He ground out, wincing from the pain in his side.
He grabbed her hands. She realized a moment too late what it was he was doing – he was healing her burnt hands. No, she wanted to scream at him, heal yourself first, you need it more.
But then she realized something and with widening eyes, she grabbed his hands right back.
She had a grip on her powers, and the way he let his energy flow into her hands, healing her, she could grip at his powers too, just like he always did with hers when he tried to help her reach them.
She did, and she concentrated, and the most intense burn of energy she'd ever felt bubbled between them, between their clasped hands. He was startled, torn between trying to get closer to her to keep her from harm and getting away from this power for a second before he realized how warm it was, how good it felt.
Forming between their hands the surge of energy began to take form, and with a light that glittered, exploding, around them, appeared a small heart shaped compact. Red, framed golden.
A medium, was Usagi's first sudden thought.
They looked at each other for a beat, perplexed, and then Usagi tightened her grip on it.
With words whispered that she had no idea where they came from and why she knew them ,she was enveloped in the warmest, brightest, prism of light she had ever witnessed that wrapped around her form like ribbons.
It only took a moment, and then she stood in front of Tuxedo Mask in a fuku – short, white, red and blue – just like those the warriors in her dreams wore.
He looked at her, dumbfounded, and she looked back, both of them in shock.
But she realized, and so did he at the same time, that she had an easy grip on her powers now, just like he did on his.
There would be no impulsive explosion of power today that left her behind powerless and without energy. She could control them like this.
The walls around them shook again and the Cardian, they saw, had now escaped outside, and a cacophony of hundreds of frantic screams and yells could be heard from the street up above, even louder than the platform had been before.
In its wake the tunnel collapsed completely now, and Tuxedo Mask jumped at Usagi and flung her with him towards the opening in the ceiling.
They landed on the asphalt just outside, the Cardian already a few meters away – heading, they realized with panic in their exchanged look, towards the most heavily trafficked of all crossings the city had to offer in the most popular neighborhood of Tokyo during its most crowded hour of the day; it was late evening, early night, and thousands of people were currently located at Hachiko Square, Shibuya.
And it was still growing.
It hefted itself onto its legs, the giant black-greenish scaled tail swooshing and lodging itself into the silver tower structure of the Shibuya 109 department store building. Electricity broke and sparks flew from the rubble where it had torn a huge gash in its wall, screaming people beneath scrambled for safety.
Most people ran, screamed, fled, others stood shocked, paralyzed, others again stood out of spite, training their phone cameras on what was happening.
It roared again, splitting the air, and the pulse that came with it flung hundreds of fleeing people through the air, with a throb that pushed them forward heavily, cutting off the oxygen in the air for just a moment.
The screams got even louder.
She could feel Tuxedo Mask struggle beside her, the emotions – the sheer panic - of all the masses of people clawing at him, affecting him.
Usagi was calm – she didn't know why, but she was. She knew she could and would safe all these people so she took his hand, in an attempt to share this emotion she felt, and he reacted.
He was still so afraid, for her, for these people, she knew it, yet he looked at her, first as if in admiration and then with a decisive expression, nodded almost unnoticeably and together they rushed towards this giant monster of a Cardian.
They moved as if synchronsized – Usagi blasting off a swell of energy that encased the Cardian momentarily – paralyzing it long enough for the people closest to it to be able to get away. Tuxedo Mask turned and pulled a boy onto his shoulder that would have been hit by the falling rubble and pushed him into the boy's crying mother's arms.
Drawing his sword he looked at her, and she looked back at him with the resolute and tenacious expression of a warrior in action.
"I take the eyes. You take care of the power center." She said, and he could only nod.
It only took mere seconds after that.
He got a grip on her waist and hurtled her up towards the sky with all his strength, and while she was soaring through the air he had dropped underneath the giant belly of the Cardian and buried his sword deep into the folds of the base of its tail. It let out a roar, yet the surge of electricity fell silent and ebbed away just in time for Usagi to land on its snout and not be electrocuted in the process.
She flew at its eyes and while the clouds opened and a beam of moonlight fell right onto her, she willed her powers to form in her hands and pushed a wall of warm – so warm – energy into its face, so easy now, so controlled.
It exploded in a wall of dense fog.
She fell, but Tuxedo Mask was there, jumping up towards her, catching her mid-air. It was like gliding into his embrace, as if they'd never done anything else.
He landed back on the pavement, Usagi in her fuku in his arms, among hundreds of people with mobile phone cameras trained right on them.
The energy around them changed. Where there had been screaming before it started to ebb into cheers, shocked crying and shouts. People stopped running, fell to their knees with tears, exhaustion and relief, such relief. Ambulances were rushing in and so were police cars and media. People around them were starting to shout questions both at Tuxedo Mask and at Usagi.
They only now noticed the amount of camera crews and reporters already on site – most likely having arrived beforehand for the coverage of the Cardian when it still only had rioted underground.
One of them, Usagi saw in a short moment of trepidation, was her father; his colleague and right hand Sato just beside him.
She stilled, looked her father right in the eyes over all this noisy commotion, but to her wonderment, she didn't see a flicker of recognition in his eyes.
Tuxedo Mask was about to rush them away from the scene, she could feel it, but she pushed at his chest with one hand and he gently – so tenderly – placed her on her feet.
They were still shouting questions at the two of them, closing in on them. One she picked out from all the noise. 'Who are you?' It might have been her father, she liked to think it, but she wasn't sure.
They were about to flee, Tuxedo Mask and she, but at this question she turned around, and started talking, in a loud, sure voice. "We – Tuxedo Mask and I, are here to protect all of you."
More questions, tumbled together to form an indistinguishable wall of static noise, but one, again, she picked out. 'What's your name?'
She blinked, her gaze flowing up the moon, the warm glow it seemed to emanate just for her, helping her, and thought of the warriors she called Sailor Senshi in her dreams.
Her answer was a mere whisper against the pandemonium, but there were enough people who heard her.
"Sailor Moon" She said.
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Halfway across the world, Minako was startled from the magazine she was reading on her bed, when suddenly, the brightest light she'd ever witnessed illuminated her small apartment.
It was gone as fast as it came, retreating to its source.
Minako yelped and crawled to the foot of her bed.
The source had been her kittens.
She gathered them towards her. They were shivering, mewling frightened, and on their foreheads glowing golden crescent moons had appeared.
With a start, Minako remembered something. Something so obvious she didn't know why it had taken her so long.
She remembered, suddenly, what the V she had adopted stood for.
"Venus" She whispered, in wonder. "It stands for Venus."
Dazed, she tried to calm down her screaming little balls of fur, not having the slightest idea what just happened here.
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Yeah. So I made a Godzilla Cardian.
In the middle of Hachiko square in Shibuya.
Because I could and because I had fun with it.
Also, I needed one that started out small enough that it could fit in a tunnel so Usagi in Usagi form would be protected from the media but then big enough so it would break everything and everyone would see Sailor Moon after no body having seen Usagi. So eh.
Also, I chose the Cosmic Heart compact and its associated incarnation of Sailor Moon because it's the one in the series that even* there* actually came from their combined powers and their love and stuff and not from Luna.
So I hoped you liked it, as I was very nervous about this scene while writing it ^^
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