Sailor Moon Aeons.
Book 1: The Senshi of dawn.
Act 3: Second era.
Episode 14: Death Walkers.

By Razor Knight
Last update: May 30, 2011
Last edited: May 19, 2017

"There's a virus spreading through the planet," Cognisance said, "but it's not just a normal virus, it seems to be backed by magic."

"What happened to the people of Lilith?" Serenity asked, already dreading the worst.

"We've managed to get some images from the biggest city of the planet," Cognisance said, "but what we could see was... This."

An image appeared in the large screen behind them, and the Senshi looked at it in shock. People with blood on their clothes, some had an arm or an eye missing, but they seemed to not notice their injuries. In fact, their eyes were lifeless and empty. "What's happening there?"

"The virus did that. I don't know how it works, since I cannot get any samples, but..."

Aejin was staring at one of the images. "They're all already dead, I can feel it even from here. What you're seeing are just corpses."

"What about Tyche?"

"We haven't located her," Cognisance admitted, "which may mean she could still be alive."

"We should all go and..."

"We don't know if our magic protection is strong enough to handle this virus," Cognisance noted, "or how the virus is transmitted."

"Then I'll go, alone," Aejin said.

"I can't let you do that," Serenity warned.

"I will not be stopped by words, even your own. I'm the only one in this group who could fix whatever happened up there."

"But what if you can't fix it?" Nela asked.

"If something prevents me from fixing all that people... Then I will do what I must. We cannot let any other world be infected by that thing."

"I guess there's no talking you out of it," Serenity said, sadness showing in her face for an instant. "Good luck, Aejin."

"Luck?" Aejin smiled at that, "Lilith is the planet of luck. I hope my luck is a different kind."

It only took her a second to go from the Moon to Lilith, and once she arrived, she saw things were worse than what she had guessed. She could only sense a tiny spark of life in this planet. And looking around, she saw the dead had noticed her, and were all crawling to where she was.

"They attack any living human," she said to herself, before leaping on top of the tallest building she could see. Once she landed, however, she saw there were several walking corpses up there. "Hmm, time for some field testing."

She focused in the closest corpse, trying to feel its soul. There was none, and that was surprising to her, even though she knew magic could do a lot of things she would have considered impossible years ago. "If there's no soul, there's no way to save them," she muttered, idly noticing the creatures were all quite close to her. "As if I would let you," she snapped, swinging her glaive around a few times, and cutting the creatures in half.

The torsos still kept crawling to her, and she guessed what the thing was. In a few more slashes, she had managed to behead all the crawling torsos, and they stopped moving. "Interesting."

She heard a scream and looked down to the ground. A woman was running from a pack of creatures, but before Aejin could leap down to help her, one of the creatures bit the woman's arm. The change was fast, as the skin around the wound turned a sickly, rotten color, and soon enough the woman was one more walking corpse. "So that's how it spreads," Aejin muttered.

'Serenity, I've seen the virus in action. These corpses have no soul left, so I can't heal them. And the virus spreads when one of them bites a victim.'

Serenity's reply was quick. 'Have you located Tyche?'

'Not yet, I'm heading for the Spire now.'

The Spire was the tallest building in Lilith, and the place where Tyche had spent most of her time for the past three years. Aejin had visited Lilith only once, while they were still fighting the Kh'sun, so she didn't know how the Spire was supposed to look. Right now, there were creatures surrounding it, and smoke could be seen coming out from some of the building's many windows.

But Aejin wasn't losing hope. She could sense it, a rather bright beacon of life, inside that building. It had to be Tyche. She jumped up, as high as she could, and smashed through a closed window. Looking around, she could see several walkers (as she had decided to call them,) and she swiftly dealt with them. Tyche was only a few meters above her right now, and she decided to take the fastest route.

As she teleported, she saw Tyche was sitting on a chair, her face a mask of sadness. "Tyche? What are you doing, why didn't you escape?"

"It's pointless," Tyche said, reaching her arm out, "I can't run from it."

Aejin noticed the bite marks in the other woman's arm, and some of her skin had already started to rot, but the virus was spreading much slower than it would normally. "I... Let me try healing you."

Tyche sighed. "Right."

Aejin concentrated, but the wound would not heal, no matter how hard she tried. "Damn it, it's not working."

"So much for that. Just leave me here, then."

"No, let's go. Cognisance may find a cure for this."

Tyche stood up, shaking her head. "I... I guess it's worth a try. But I want to ask something of you."

"What is it?"

"If I start turning into one of those creatures, kill me. I don't want to be one of them."

Aejin looked at Tyche for a few seconds before nodding slowly. "If it comes to that, I will make it quick and painless."

"Thanks."

Cognisance was surprised to see Aejin back, but was more surprised to see Tyche. "You've been bitten."

Tyche nodded. "Aejin told me you needed a sample to work on a cure. Since I failed to protect my people, maybe I can still be of use to them this way."

"Don't speak as if you already died, Tyche."

"Shut up," Tyche snapped. "I had to watch Kelim turn into one of those things. He was the one who bit me, because I hesitated to attack him."

Aejin gasped at that. Kelim was someone Tyche had met while she was still a slave, and soon after the war, they had married. But what about...

"I suppose you're wondering about Nun. She's still lurking back home, somewhere... I couldn't..."

Nun was Tyche's young daughter. Aejin had only seen adult corpses crawling around the city, but now she realized... Just like Nun, there might have been thousands of dead children, walking aimlessly and looking for something to infect.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Cognisance said, "but once we find a cure, we'll be able to heal your daughter back to normal."

"If you find a cure."

"Let's not lose hope," Aejin said, "at the rate the virus is spreading in you, we've got many hours left."

"Some of the walkers entered Venus through the teleporting network. They've been dealt with, but we're closing the network until this crisis is over."

Serenity nodded at Aresa. "We want to save the people of Lilith, but we can't let the virus spread."

Aejin appeared in the room. "Cognisance detected an energy reading like that of the virus, but on Earth."

"Where exactly is it?" Serenity asked.

"The Reaper Crater," Aejin said. It was a strange coincidence, since the Reaper Crater was the name given to the place where the R'pah had once been.

"I'll tell the others, be ready to..."

"I won't go. I made a promise to Tyche, and I don't break my promises."

Serenity nodded, as Aejin had told her what that promise was. "I understand."

When the Senshi reached the Crater, they could see a somewhat familiar figure standing there, looking at them with a mix of hatred and superiority. "We destroyed you."

Meth'lya laughed at that. "Oh, you tried to, that's true." Her body was much thinner than before, and her skin was paler.

"I don't understand. That much magic energy should have killed you."

Meth'lya looked at Nela. "I know, and I don't understand it, either, but... Being so close to the core when it exploded did something to me, I was changed. I am no longer a Kh'sun."

"Yeah, we heard that the first time," Lumina noted.

"If you're behind what's happening in Lilith, then we will destroy you for sure this time," Serenity said.

"Oh, I sure am behind that. And I suppose those missing from your group are trying to find a cure. There is none, once the soul is erased, there's no turning back."

Serenity looked at the creature in shock. Aejin had mentioned the creatures having no soul, but... Erasing a soul? Was that possible? And this woman had created such an aberration, with what purpose? To kill all humans?

"I see your leader's fallen silent," Meth'lya mused, "maybe now she understands how it feels to know your whole race is doomed."

"Shut up."

Meth'lya looked at Serenity. "Hah! You dumb brat, I'm much stronger than before, and I won't let you use that attack again!"

"I told you to shut up!" Serenity said, her voice a low growl. The air around her started cracking with energy, and light blurred her form.

"What's going on?" Lumina asked.

"I guess that creep made her angry," Aresa commented.

Cognisance looked at the monitor and sighed. "I can cure you, but I'm not sure the cure will work on people who's already been taken over by the virus." She took a vial with a strange, purple liquid, and walked to her 'patient.' "Here, drink this."

Tyche felt the effect of the liquid (and it's horrible taste) almost instantly. The skin of her arm returned to normal in a matter of seconds, and she could feel it growing warm again. "It does work. Do you have any more of this?"

"I've made a few vials of it," Cognisance said. "Why?"

"I know Lilith better than any of us, and I want to save the people from that world. I'll go there and test this cure on an infected person."

Cognisance nodded. "As a matter of fact, that liquid will also make you immune to the virus, so I suppose you're the best choice right now."

"I'll be back once I test this," Tyche said and vanished.

A few seconds later, an alarm started beeping in the scanner room. Cognisance went there, and blinked in disbelief at what the readings told her. "That's Serenity? That much power could overload her." She frowned and vanished from the room, her mind set on what she would do next.

As soon as she got to her destination, she realized things were quite out of her control. Serenity's body was shining, and Cognisance's own visor (a part of the suit only she had,) was telling her Serenity should be dead from mana overload by now.

As the light faded, the others could see Serenity had changed much more than with her previous upgrades. She had white wings on her back, for starters. And they could see the white aura around her, which faded slowly as Serenity opened her eyes.

Meth'lya had taken a few steps back. "This can't be. You're just a human, you cannot be this strong!"

"You came here to fight a Senshi, and instead you found a goddess," Serenity said, mocking what Meth'lya had told her in their last battle.

"Die, human!"

The others were ready to shoot at the creature, but they noticed Serenity wasn't moving. She simply let the attack hit. "I was born to protect my race from creatures like you. I may have failed protecting the people of Lilith, but if we really can't bring them back, then I at least can make sure you don't bring the same fate to any other world."

Before anyone could notice, Serenity vanished. But there was no time for surprise to set in, as something unseen was hitting Meth'lya from all sides. No, Cognisance noticed it wasn't really unseen. It was Serenity, moving at an incredible speed, and she wasn't using any magic to hit Meth'lya. No, she was using her bare hands. It all took only a few seconds, and the evil woman was thrown out of the area by a rather nasty-looking uppercut.

"Serenity?" Cognisance noticed the woman had stopped.

Her leader was looking at the strange green box Meth'lya had been standing next to before they started fighting. "Deal with that box, I'll take care of her."

"Of course," Cognisance said, and Serenity vanished again.

Meth'lya staggered up, coughing up blood, and saw her foe was standing there, looking at her. But the woman's eyes had no hatred, no anger. No, it was much worse. "Don't give me that look!"

"I've just realized, dear Metallia," Serenity said, using the name humans had given the creature, "that you're not worth killing. You're just a scared, weak woman, messing with things you didn't understand turned you into a monster, and you're afraid of being the last one of your species. So I'll give you one last chance. Leave this system and never come back, and I'll let you go."

Meth'lya burst out laughing, despite the pain. "Oh, aren't you nice? I'm not going to give up, not when I have the means to destroy your whole race!"

An explosion was heard in the distance, and Serenity smiled. "Not anymore."

"There's still the infected humans of Lilith," Meth'lya snarled.

"We'll find a cure for them."

"There is no 'cure', idiot. There's no way science or magic can recover a soul that's been erased!"

Serenity's face changed. "I can't believe that, I won't give up on the people of..." She suddenly flinched. She couldn't see what had happened, but she could feel the massive ripple of mana shooting out in all directions. "No... What happened to..."

Meth'lya took her chance to attack, or at least tried to. Weak as she was, it wasn't hard for Serenity to block her punch. "You dumb human, don't look away from me!"

Serenity realized what had happened and her face changed. "You had your chance, but you just lost it."

And the last thing Meth'lya saw was the massive ball of energy Serenity had summoned in a split second, shooting straight to her.

Minutes earlier, Tyche was flying over the former city of Gamble, the capital of Lilith. The city had been a peaceful human settlement a dozen hours ago, now it was a city of walking corpses.

She reached her destination faster than she thought. The Spire was a large building, but she knew exactly where to go, she had left her daughter locked inside her bedroom, and that door was strong enough to handle a punch from her, so no human, dead or not, would be able to get through it.

And she was still there, clawing uselessly at the door. It pained Tyche to see her daughter like this, but at least she had a chance of bringing her back now. The little girl noticed her and started walking her way. "Don't worry, Nun, you'll be back to normal soon."

She hugged her daughter, who bit her arm as she was caught. Tyche sighed as she saw no signs of infection in the bite marks. She took out the small syringe Cognisance had given her, and injected the liquid into her daughter's body, then looked hopefully as the child's color slowly returned to normal.

But her hope was short-lived. Her daughter's body was normal, but she wasn't breathing, and her eyes were lifeless. "No, it was supposed to heal you, to bring you back...I'm sorry, Nun, I really..." She put her daughter's body down and then flew out of the Spire, right through the closed window. It was hopeless, they were all already dead, and there was nothing she could do...

Tyche landed in the center of a once busy commercial zone. There were hundreds of 'walkers' surrounding her, and they all started crawling her way as soon as they noticed her. She wiped the tears off her eyes and looked around. Her world was doomed, and she would have been one of these monsters too, if not for Aejin. However, she had to deal with this problem, she had to cleanse the planet, to stop the corruption from spreading.

But she wasn't doing it because of her duty as a Senshi. She wasn't doing it to give the tormented souls a rest, she now realized these creatures had lost their souls. She would do this because she had her life taken away from her, and she could never bring it back. "Hope Serenity forgives me for this," she said as she felt the surge of energy rushing through her body. She could feel her power increasing quickly, but also felt an indescribable pain. Still, she stood there, energy flaring around her, destroying any walker who came too close, for almost one minute. And then, she smiled humorlessly as she punched the ground.

Serenity had made sure nothing was left of Meth'lya this time. The explosion had left a large crater around her, but she didn't really mind that. She was far too worried about what she had felt, to care about causing a bit of a mess in this planet. Noticing the others were now around her, she turned to Cognisance. "Please tell me what I felt is not true."

Cognisance shook her head. "I'm surprised you could feel it, but I suppose that's a side-effect of..."

"I'm not in the mood for your lectures," Serenity said.

Cognisance nodded. "I understand. And I'm sorry, Serenity, but it's true. Lilith is gone."

"What? What do you mean 'gone'?" Nela almost shouted. "What happened to Tyche?"

"I felt a power spike before the explosion. A spike that was almost a thousand times stronger than Serenity's one a few minutes ago," Cognisance explained. "If I were to guess, something happened up there, something that let Tyche use all the planet's mana in one shot."

"But we could have healed that world, right?" Aresa asked.

Serenity shook her head. "No. That monster said the corpses up there had their souls erased by the virus."

Cognisance let out a gasp. "Then I can guess what happened. See, I cured the infection in her, and gave her a small dose of the 'cure' to test it on someone. I didn't realize what she meant at first, but I know she was going to test it in her daughter."

"A body without a soul is just an empty shell," Aejin said, "even if she healed Nun's body, she would still be nothing but a corpse."

Serenity let out a growl of frustration. "Damn that monster!"

"Seeing her daughter like that may have broken her," Cognisance said, "and I suppose she decided to stop the infection for good, even if she had to pay for it with her life."

"The war against the Kh'sun is finally over," Serenity noted, "but it cost us a world, and a friend. Let's make sure this doesn't happen again."