"What do we do now?" grumbled Bulma, frowning in frustration. "I mean, I may be a genius, but the cloaking mechanisms placed on Nikota are pretty intense."
Zoicite only nodded grimly. After losing Amy's Sailor Signal, he seemed to have entered a constant state of melancholy; assuming the worst.
"Oh cheer up Zoicite." Growled Bulma, rolling her eyes at his childish behaviour. "If I got depressed every time I thought one of my friends had died, then I'd never be happy." She winked with a weak smile, "And besides, we don't know if she's definitely gone. All we know is that we've lost her signal. She might be in her human form, or just cut off from the rest of us. We'll find her and we'll bring her back, trust me."
He only nodded grimly.
"Can't we just use the locator that you guys built to help scan for Gohan? He's probably in the same place as Amy." Rei questioned gently, her face riddled with the same worry as the rest of her fellow scouts.
Bulma's faint smile dropped completely at this point and she seemed to frown at the suggestion. "I would say so, but we're not sure how dangerous it's going to be. Trunks is older and currently more powerful than Goten, but we still needed a lot of power from him to locate Vegeta. Without Amy here to stabilise the system, I don't know if Goten will be able to take the extraction. We need to scan the galaxy, or maybe even the universe for Gohan. Who knows how much energy that will take?"
"Excuse me?" spoke an unfamiliar voice from the doorway of Capsule Corporation laboratories. "I believe I have a solution to your problem."
Bulma and the scouts present turned to the doorway to see a beautiful, tall and slender figure. Her long emerald coloured hair falling gracefully by her knees. Sailor Pluto.
Beside her, her height hardly reaching to the breast of her friend and mentor, Sailor Saturn smiled at her friends. Silence Glaive held firmly in her grip looked far too powerful for the young scout.
"Uh, more scouts?" Bulma questioned with a raised eyebrow. Vegeta seemed to grunt and roll his eyes in the corner; unimpressed.
"Pluto! Saturn!" cheered Serena, running forwards to engulf her friends in a tight embrace. "What're you guys doing here? Not that I'm not happy to see you." she asked as she parted from them.
"You shouldn't be happy to see us." Saturn scolded mildly and Serena's smile dropped.
"It must mean the final battle is approaching." Commented Amara, frowning seriously and almost immediately readying herself for battle.
Sailor Saturn nodded, her expression grave.
"Wait, you said you have a solution to our problem. What problem are you talking about?" Bulma cut in.
"You're having issues locating Sailor Mercury and Gohan, correct?" Sailor Pluto confirmed. Urged on by a nod from Bulma, she then continued. "You don't need to locate Gohan using Goten. In previous timelines, he does not survive the energy extraction process."
Bulma's eyes widened, as did the majority of those in the room. Rei's hands covered her mouth in shock, while Mina had taken a step back from the machine; almost as though it had already been condemned her little friend.
"So how do we locate them without using Goten?" Darien question, bringing focus back to the key task at hand.
"We must assume that Sailor Mercury and Gohan will be on the same planet. We cannot assume that they are together, but that is a safe enough assumption for now." Sailor Saturn spoke, stepping forwards and towards the machine.
Sailor Pluto followed in step. "Using that assumption as our basis, we can use the connection that Sailor Mercury has to Princess Serenity and the Sailor Scouts to locate her."
"And once we know her location, we can just use the Sailor Teleport to get there and save her!" Lita contributed brightly, suddenly hopeful.
"Not to mention kicking some serious youma butt and saving Gohan too!" Mina added brightly, punching her fist into her palm.
"Yeah! Let's do this!" Rei cheered.
Zoicite frowned darkly, "I need a moment to recalibrate the system to search for magical energy wavelengths as opposed to the natural ki energy we were planning on using."
The excitement in the room seemed to drop slightly with that statement.
"How long will that take?" Michelle questioned, a hint of worry in her tone.
Zoicite simply shrugged and turned to his computer, already typing and altering the system parameters. "I'll have to see if it compiles."
"N- Nailah? What's going on?" Sailor Mercury stuttered, staring in horror at the powerful sisters before her.
Nailah simply smirked, her blackened irises turning intently towards the poor little Sailor Scout before her. "Heh. What I should have done long ago." She stood from her throne beside her sister. Nikiko snickered gleefully in her seat, lying across it happily. Her tail swished smoothly at her side.
Sailor Mercury, already kneeling in front of Nailah and Nikiko, quickly scrambled to her feet. Taking a few cautious steps back as she did so. She could see black pulsing throughout Nailah's body, just as it did to Nikiko.
Her eyes widened slightly in realisation, as a drop of sweat rolled down the side of her face. The stress of the situation was making her nervous, but this had to be the only explanation.
The poison that Nailah had always spoke about... The poison that spread through her system every time she used her planetary crystal... It had finally reached her heart.
"I should have embraced this power sooner." Nailah continued, a dark laugh escaping her. "I don't know why I resisted for so long. The limitless power. This energy. It's incredible!" she cried, charging up her power furiously and engulfing herself in the black flames of her ki. She smirked darkly, her ki now pulsing around her with shots of electricity. "And it's all thanks to you, Sailor Mercury. If you hadn't followed me to this planet, you wouldn't have been in so much danger. I would never have had to embrace my powers to rescue you. And I would probably have tried to defeat my sister in a one-on-one battle to the finish." She spoke lightly, inspecting her nails as she did. Chuckling darkly, her hand clenched into a fist. "It's all thanks to you, Amy Mizuno." She turned towards the pathetic Sailor Scout before her.
Sailor Mercury stared in horror. None of this was processing. What could she do? Should she try to buy some time until the Scouts could find her? She knew her scout tracer would be out of range. What if they presumed the worst? How would they find her? There was only one thing she could do.
She took a fighting stance and gritted her teeth.
Nailah laughed a darkly and sickly laugh before tilting her head at Sailor Mercury with a manic smile gracing her lips. "You really think you stand a chance against me without your Sailor pals?" she cackled once more, raising a single finger pointed in Sailor Mercury's direction.
Nailah began to charge up a small, sharp ball of energy at the tip of her finger, while she continued cackling. Her face grew more frightening as any remains of her sanity and humanity were gone.
Nikiko's smile began to drop, slowly. Her eyes narrowed as she watched her elder sister. "Sister..." she spoke in warning.
"Mercury—"
ZAP!
Sailor Mercury screamed in pain.
Nailah shot a light beam of energy at Sailor Mercury, burning through her left shoulder and incinerating her joint. Her left arm hung limply beside her, bleeding profusely. Sailor Mercury grasped the wound with a shaky hand.
Nikiko immediately appeared in front of her sister, her arms held out in front of her. "Sister!" she cried in warning, her eyes darkened and flaming in fury. "We agreed to keep her alive!" she hissed.
Nailah cackled, her eyes still on Sailor Mercury and she waved her hand loftily to Nikiko. A wave of energy sent her younger sister flying towards the left-hand walls of the hall. "I won't kill her." She smirked darkly, floating gracefully towards the Sailor Scout. "But that doesn't mean I can't have some fun." She sniggered darkly and raised her hand. Swiftly, she created a claw-like grip with her ki, casting a field of energy around Sailor Mercury's form.
Sailor Mercury gasped, eyes wide in panic. She desperately attempted to move her body out of the field of control, but she was trapped. She couldn't move.
Nailah cackled manically as the flaming ki surrounding her grew stronger, while Nikiko stared at her sister. Her eyes narrowing darkly and carefully watching Sailor Mercury.
She knew.
She knew another pair of eyes was watching the entire scene unfold from the shadows.
She had to be careful.
She needed to control Nailah, until the perfect moment.
The moment where she could allow all hell to break loose.
"Alright, you're sure that this is going to work?" Sailor Uranus questioned once more, glaring viciously at Zoicite. He grimaced in her direction as a response and simply began to fire up the machine.
The furious Solider of the Sky narrowed her eyes before rolling them and linking hands with Sailor Neptune and Pluto.
The Sailor Scouts, Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion stood in a circle in the circle of the locator machine. The Scouts surrounded the Prince and Princess, who were facing one another and gently supporting their respective crystals.
"Alright, I need your energy now. Summon it with Sailor Mercury in your minds' eye." Zoicite called as the machine began to charge. The group nodded and all closed their eyes.
Each Scout called individually to their planetary crystals, glowing as their magical energy began to flow through their veins. A rainbow of colour seemed to be flowing from the Scouts to the surrounding machine as it extracted readings and energy samples, sending tracking signals across the galaxy.
The Imperium Silver Crystal and Golden Crystal shone brightest of all the Scouts and crystals, summoning a great level of energy that the Prince and Princess were yet to release into the system.
Zoicite frowned at the results he was receiving. Their energy wasn't strong enough.
"I need more power!" He called.
In that instant, a powerful look crossed that of the Prince and Princess and their eyes shot open. Meeting in furious determination, they called to their crystals and an intense wave of energy was sent into that of the computer system.
"Woah!" Zoicite called out, shielding his eyes at the brightness of their combined power and bracing himself as he was knocked backwards off his own feet from the shockwave of energy they released.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
The brightness seemed to die away as a steady beeping sound echoed around the room.
Zoicite struggled to his feet and stumbled towards the monitor, blinking away the brightness from his eyes and clearing his vision. His breathing was heavy as he stared at the screen.
"Well?" gasped Sailor Mars, panting from her loss of energy.
"Did it work?" panted Sailor Venus. She had collapsed to her knees in weakness and felt admiration growing for Trunks for tolerating such an intense extraction of his energy.
Zoicite stared at the screen and nodded.
A/N: Sorry for such a short update! I'll make the next chapter longer, I swear. The story is very close to its final few chapters now I think. I just wanted to make sure I posted an update this weekend, before I spend the next week either at interviews or training/teaching circus. Hope you enjoy it and I'll see you next update! ~nofreakingway