Warning: From this point forward, there will be some character deaths. I warn you of that very strongly. Believe it or not, this was actually a part of my original ending, too (probably the only part I recall). It won't be terribly gruesome or descriptive, but you've got fair warning, so I don't want to hear any complaints. I apologize for not having this out last night; the site wouldn't let me upload anything no matter how many times I tried.
A/N: Readers, we need to have a little talk. I don't want to be one of those authors who complains about reviews, but I got a ton of encouragement from people who wanted me to continue this story, which is the whole reason I did. For my last chapter, I got one review. One. Now, writing this story is not really fun for me. I know the ending already, and believe me when I say that there's at least five other fics that can use the attention I'm placing on this story. The sole reason I am trying to finish is for people who want an end. So if you actually want that end, then please start reviewing for it. Right now I feel like no one is reading what I'm posting and let's face it, that wastes everyone's time.
Logan was tearing through the Danger Room when she found him. Usagi stopped and watched him for a while, a faint smile on her lips. He was physically strong, of course, and she had always been aware of the fact, but he moved with an unnatural grace that she could never even hope to emulate. Every move he made was calculated and refined. None of the robots or lasers or bullets that were supposed to pose a challenge of some kind for him came even close to their target before they were brought down by the razor sharp adamantium claws.
"He really is a wonder," she murmured to herself, placing a hand against the cool glass. As though he'd heard her speak, he glanced up at her. She wondered at the somber look in his eyes, but smiled and waved anyway. He nodded in return and headed for the elevator that would bring him up into the control room.
"Hey kiddo," he said as the doors swished open. He tensed in the next instant, looking uncomfortable. She thought she understood and didn't begrudge him for staying across the room, even though she wished that he would come closer. How awkward would it be for a centuries old man to have a girlfriend who had the physical appearence of a fourteen-year-old?
"Hey professor," she teased by way of response, hoping to set him at ease. "You looked really cool down there. I could never fight that well."
A frown touched his lips. "I couldn't imagine you fighting all."
"You know that I have," Usagi said, surprised at the comment. She walked over the cameras that displayed the whole Institute, smiling at what she saw. Most of the school was gone on a field trip for the day, but the senshi, Professor Xavier, Logan, Storm, Bobby, Scott, Jean, Kurt, Kitty and Rogue had remained behind. She strongly suspected that it wasn't a coincidence that the only people who had been left behind were the X-men. Clearly, she wasn't the only one who thought that a long explanation was in order.
"I know what you told me, but you just seem so..." Innocent. The word remained unspoken, but it hung between them, and he couldn't help that. He'd tried all morning to wrap his mind around the idea of Usagi being a fighter, but it didn't seem to work. Usagi being a saviour? Yeah, that was easy. It was the fighting part that he couldn't quite get. The petite blonde just didn't seem like a fighter. Professor Xavier had never suggested that they put her into the Danger Room, but he would have been against it even if the man had. She just didn't seem like the kind of person who could handle it.
Now Usagi was the one who was frowning. "Logan, don't get taken in by my appearence," she warned. "You know what I really look like. I wear this disguise because it was the way I was when I was fourteen, but that was a long time ago. I'm not nearly as naive or innocent as I look. It was a mistake for me to think that sealing away the memories of my friends was a good idea, but don't think that I can't fight. I might not like violence, but sometimes..."
Logan shook his head. "And see, that's what I don't get," he said, frustrated. "I would've thought you'd hate violence and that you'd avoid it at all costs."
She glared at him. "Avoiding it at all costs has nearly gotten me and my friends killed on several occasions!" she said heatedly. "I will always prefer to talk things out if we can. There should always be a peaceful way to resolve things. But corruption happens and I have to accept that, just like you have to accept that I'm not the weak little kitten that this body makes me out to be."
He was going to respond – no really, he was, even though he didn't have the slightest idea of what he was going to say – but before he could, the lights went out. Usagi yelped, a sound that really made her seem even younger, and then he heard her curse as she tripped over something. A smirk crossed his face at that – maybe she wasn't quite as innocent as he'd thought, if she could swear like that – and made his way over to her, easily avoiding all of the obstacles in the room.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, fine," she grumbled. "Damn it, I tripped over a chair. That hurt."
Swallowing a laugh, he reached out and groped around until he found the back of her shirt, then lifted her into a standing position. "Some fierce fighter."
"Shut up, Logan."
The screens that she'd been looking at before abruptly flickered to life. Usagi spun towards them as the visage of a surprisingly young woman came into focus. She looked to be about twenty or so years old, with a waterfall of dark hair the length of which would have rivalled even Usagi's, all done up into numerous intricate braids. Her robes were very similar to Kakyuu's, except they were done in shades of dark violet, silver, and pale yellow, colors that complimented her pale skin. It was the eyes, though, that got to Usagi. Flat and dark, the fathomless black depths seemed to stare straight into her soul. A chill went down her back. This woman was worse even than Chaos.
"Good evening, Princess," Rehanne murmured, her hands clutching her skirt in a parody of a curtsey. "By now, the Starlights have undoubtedly reached you with word of my presence on your precious planet. It will do you no good. You see, unlike your previous enemies, I have no desire to take over this useless place. I have one goal only: to utterly destroy you, Princess Serenity of the White Moon. For that, you'll notice that your powers are useless against me." A cruel smile crossed her face. "The one gift my great lord gave to me before he was forced to flee Kinmokusei was the ability to create a barrier against sailor crystals. You are on your own, dear princess, and your friends at my mercy. Unfortunately for them, I have very little of that."
"What..." Usagi's mouth dropped open, and for a second she could only stare at the monitor with a stricken expression. The whole point behind awakening her friend's memories was so that they could fight as senshi! Was it really true that they would be so helpless? "You... you can't do this!"
The screen scrambled with fuzz, then snapped back into clarity. Rehanne's message began to repeat for a second time, indicating that it had merely been recorded, and that there was no way for her to actually communicate with the woman. She stumbled backwards and cupped her hands over her mouth, staring with dazed eyes at the monitor as Rehanne's cold words seeped into her mind. They were too late. Too late...
With an angry shout, Logan moved, plunging his claws into the screen. Electricity sparked and crackled, but he seemed to be able to ignore the pain as he withdrew his claws and turned to Usagi. The stricken look on her face told him all he needed to know about just how bad this situation was, and as the room against went completely dark around them, he concealed a string of curses even as he reached out and jerked her to him. Her slender hands came up to touch his chest and he felt her whole body shudder.
"My family... She's going to try to kill them..." Usagi whispered, her fingers clutching desperately at his shirt. "Without their senshi powers, they... they..."
"Hey!" Logan wished that the lights would come back on, so that he could see her face, but touch would have to do. He cupped her cheek and forced her to look in his direction, thumb brushing at the tears that streamed down her cheeks. "Weren't you just telling me that you're a fighter? Then let's do this. Your friends aren't just senshi, you know, they're mutants too, and it sounds like this girl doesn't know that. They're not defenseless."
"You... you're right," she said finally, once his words had sunken in. She lowered her face to his chest and smiled a tiny bit. He was right. If there was one thing she knew about the senshi, about all of her friends, it was that they wouldn't go down without a fight no matter what it took. "Let's go. We have to find them before Rehanne does. If we can get together before she starts picking us off – " the words caught in her throat for a moment "then we'll have a better chance."
"What are we waiting for?" Hauling her along, he slashed at the door of the room with his claws, then kicked the weakened metal apart. He grabbed Usagi's hand, and the two of them took off.
33333
"This is not good."
"Tell me about it."
Chibi-Usa turned away from the screen that had pretty much appeared out of no where and decided to ignore the woman and her disturbing message. She hadn't been too concerned when the lights went off, but now she was frightened, and she couldn't help that. Her 'mutant powers' had only ever manifested in the fine pink mist that seemed to have the ability to paralyze everything it touched, and even then, she'd only ever done it once, when her mother was in danger. How was she supposed to know how to do it again? And Chibi Chibi was just a little kid, with no mutant powers at all. What could she do? It gave her the chills to realize that the three of them were basically sitting ducks.
"Chibi-Usa-chan?" Hotaru's warm voice came through the darkness, and her hand dropped onto Chibi-Usa's shoulder. "It's alright. I'm sure Usagi-mama is already looking for us."
"That's what I'm worried about," Chibi-Usa muttered. "Mama shouldn't be bothering to look for us. She should be worried about that freak over there." She shot an accusing look at the screen, which had since descended into fuzzy gray static. Hotaru and Chibi Chibi were just barely visible through the dim gray light. "Hotaru-chan... do you think it's true, what she said? That we can't transform?"
"I don't know," Hotaru admitted, her brow creasing. "I'm concerned about what she meant when she said there was a barrier against our sailor crystals. Will it just prevent us from transforming, or will it do something worse to us if we try?" She chewed her lip nervously. "I don't want to try and leave you and Chibi Chibi-chan alone if something happens."
"Then I'll try, because I don't really have anything to protect us with, anyway," said Chibi-Usa. Before Hotaru could stop her, she threw her hand in the air and shouted, "Pink Moon Crystal Power, Make UP!"
Nothing happened.
Disappointed, Chibi-Usa sank back into the chair. Her stomach clenched. She'd never had the rose crystal ignore her demands before. "I guess that answers that question."
Hotaru sighed and drew Chibi Chibi into her lap. The small girl curled up into a tiny ball. "This is not good. If we can't transform... I don't have a lot of control over my mutant powers yet."
"Well, I'm not going to just wait around here." Chibi-Usa stood up. "Let's see if we can find someone, anyone."
A thoughtful look on her face, Hotaru was silent for a few minutes. But then, apparently unable to think of a better idea, she nodded and rose as well, shifting Chibi Chibi slightly in her arms. The two of them walked out into the hall of the Institute, leaving the filmy gray light behind and entering a world of complete darkness. Chibi-Usa shivered and reached out, grabbing a handful of Hotaru's skirt so that they wouldn't be seperated. She would have preferred to hold her friend's hand, but Hotaru had her arms full of Chibi Chibi.
It was strange to walk through the halls when everything was so dark and quiet and still. Chibi-Usa trailed her fingers along the wall and wondered, briefly, if perhaps they'd been transported to an alternate dimension, and maybe they were the only ones there... but in the next breath, she forced herself to think otherwise. That kind of thinking would only drive her crazy, and she had to remain strong for Hotaru and Chibi Chibi, and anyone else they found... if they found anyone else, a fact that she couldn't quite force herself to forget.
So suffice it to say that when they turned a corridor, and saw the flickering candlelight coming towards them, she was infinitely relieved.
"Jean!" she cried with relief, flinging herself against the redhead.
Jean staggered back and dropped the candle. Her hand came up at the last instant, bringing with it the candle through the use of her powers. "Chibi-Usa!" she said with a gasp. "You scared me."
"Chibi-Usa? Who else is there with you?" Scott asked, straightening his quartz glasses. It was already a pain to constantly see things through a haze of red, and the flickering candlelight wasn't helping.
"It's me," said Hotaru, stepping into the light. Her dark violet eyes scanned both Scott and Jean silently before she added, "And Chibi Chibi. We were in one of the game rooms when the lights went out. No flashlights."
"Did you see that message?" he asked grimly. "Professor Xavier was explaining things to us, a little, when the power went out. We haven't heard from him since then even though Jean's been trying, but I guess that means there's no chance you guys can do your thing?"
"I tried," Chibi-Usa admitted, drawing back from Jean. She dried her eyes and said, "My crystal wouldn't even respond me. This barrier totally blocks us."
"Well, I think we should try to find the others," Jean said decisively. "There's safety in numbers. Like Scott said, I can't reach Professor Xavier, but he should be in his office." Her mouth twisted, the only real indication of how uncomfortable she felt at being completely cut off from him. She couldn't remember the last time when she hadn't been able to speak to her mentor telepathically. "Why don't we head that way?"
"Sounds good to me. I think it would be a natural meeting place," said Scott. "Jean, you go first. Chibi-Usa and Hotaru can walk in the middle. I'll take up the back."
Jean shot a concerned glance at him, wondering if that was really the best idea. She could tell that he was having difficulty seeing in the darkness, but the stubborn set of his jaw told her that there was no use arguing. When Scott set his mind to something, he rarely changed it. Reluctantly, she turned, taking a moment to orient herself before she kept going. In the dark, the Institute seemed like alien territory.
"Let's just hope this is over soon," she said under her breath. "I don't know how much more of this we can take."
33333
When the lights went out, Kurt's first thought was Minako.
His second was the rest of the X-men.
The furry imp crept down the hall, well aware that he was probably the only one in the whole place who could see without any trouble whatsoever. His golden eyes allowed him to have perfect night vision, with the result that sometimes he actually saw better in the dark than he did in bright light. This certainly wasn't a disadvantage to him, but he had the strong feeling that it would be for Minako and everyone else, and it was for her benefit that he hurried, scuttling down the hall and pausing every so often to listen for anyone else.
Before he had gotten very far, though, he had the strong sense that something wasn't quite right. Thanks to his teleportation abilities, his senses were often quite in tune with the world around him, and just then, the world felt very wrong. His skin itched as though he needed a bath, but it wasn't his fur that was dirty. It was the very air around him. He shuddered and leapt straight up, clinging to the ceiling. That helped, but only a little.
"I should have seen someone by now," he growled to himself, feeling fear and panic flowing through him even more by the minute. The Institute was a huge place, especially when one considered that there was so much underneath, but there wasn't really that many places for people to be. Considering all of the senshi and X-men who had been around that day, he didn't understand why he hadn't run across someone yet. He had been searching for a good half hour, but he still hadn't found anyone. Was he just missing his friends because they were walking around too, or was there something more sinister going on?
"Minako... where are you?" he wondered, wishing now more than ever that he could just focus on a person and bamf to their side. It would have come in handy right then. He also wished that he dared to call out, but he didn't want to risk drawing any negative attention to his position.
Therefore, when the sound came, it was so sudden and so shocking that he very nearly lost his grip on the ceiling. It would have resulted in a most ungraceful fall to the floor, so he was relieved when his instincts kicked in and kept him from slipping. He remained still, crouched close to the ceiling, eyes darting around warily. The sound had been so unexpected that he hadn't even been able to recognize it. But when it came again, he did. A soft thumping sound.
Curious, he dropped to the floor and followed the sound down the hallway to the door that it was coming from. He tapped on the door, wondering if he would get some sort of answer. The only response was that same, soft thumping sound. Kurt frowned, then jumped back onto the ceiling again. Slowly, his tail reached down and twisted the doorknob. He very nearly suffered a panic attack when a torrent of water flowed out of the room that he now recognized to have been the room Kitty and Rogue shared and he scowled once he'd gotten back under control, wondering how so much water had gotten into the room.
Then he froze.
His heart skipped a beat when he saw just what the water had brought out with it. He stared in blank terror, hardly able to comprehend just what he was looking at. Then he bamfed suddenly and unexpectedly, with no idea of where he was going, just wanting – needing – to get away.
He left behind the pale, peaceful, and very much dead bodies of Kaioh Michiriu and Tenoh Haruka.
A/N: Dun dun duuuuuuuun. The next chapter will go backwards a little and explain how and what happened to Haruka and Michiru. Next chapters: more numbers are up, and Usagi struggles to figure out how to defeat an enemy who has already blocked her greatest weapon. Please review.