Disclaimer: sailor moon is owned by other people, but not by me.
Trials
"Hellfire," Venus cursed under her breath, biting her thumb furiously. "L-1, do you read me? L-1?"
The sound of static filled the room, and Venus cursed under her breath again as Mercury quickly adjusted the settings. The interference lessened, but didn't disappear entirely.
"They… it… L-1, do you copy?"
"Come in, L-1. L-1, what's your status?"
"…under heavy fire…Be-Alsio region…last…transmission…V-1, don't…" the static once again overtook the message, and Venus was left worrying at her thumb in frustration.
"L-1! L-1, come in, L-1!" she yelled into the microphone. Mercury's fingers hurried across various instruments and dials, and sweat trickled down her brow as she tried to counter the interference.
"…stay away…" The sound of gunfire rang through the speakers, and Venus' teeth punctured the skin on her thumb, and the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. She wiped her thumb on her vest, leaning forward, grinding her teeth.
"L-1! L-1, do you read me?"
"…you won't…. me…bastards…think…Beryl…tell the…figure...and then…" The sound of more gunfire shot out, and Venus stiffened as cries of pain found their way past the static.
"L-1!" she screamed into the mic, knowing it was futile; whatever was jamming their communications with the team down there on Earth, it was strong enough for even Mercury to be having trouble with it.
"…gods above!...those things?!...V-1…me…monst…peat…monsters…" And then another round of shots rang out, and a sickening crunch brought their transmission to an end.
"L-1!" Venus cried, jumping to her feet and staring in disbelief at the now dead signal. Mercury let out a sigh of frustration, and shook her head.
"We lost it," Mercury said, biting her lips. Her hands trembled, and Venus slammed her fist against the table.
"Hellfire," she spat. "Those had to have been the weapons the Martian King traded to Earth. Gods above, I knew it was bad down there… but Lafayette made it through. He found something. And he almost told us!" Venus let out a shaky breath. "He almost told us. And then they killed him and his team."
"At least we know that their intentions aren't good," Mercury offered. "If they're willing to wipe out an entire team and interfere with our transmission while they do it, we now have proof that they are killing our men and don't want us to know about it. That they're hiding something."
"We knew that already," Venus sighed. Her eyes narrowed as she went over the garbled transmission. "But now we know something else. Lafayette said 'Beryl'. And it sounded like he was talking about some kind of monster. He must have been talking about her."
Mercury shrugged. "There's not enough information. The words he relayed to us were too jumbled to make any sense of. But yes, we now know for certain that Beryl is involved."
Venus narrowed her eyes. "That bitch is planning something. And whatever it is, we need to be prepared."
A/N: Yeah. I already have two rehearsals tomorrow for choir... it's mlk day, and school starts on tuesday, but we've got a concert really soon, so it's gotta be done ~_~ so in other words, i'll be super duper busy and probably won't be able to update tomorrow or anything. so i need to update now.
i'll try to update throughout the week to make up for missing the extra updates this weekend... things just got pretty hectic on my end. anyway, hope you liked the chappie! It's a bit on the short side, but it's got some interesting stuff going on. Feel free to leave a review, if you feel so inclined!