3 | An Old Fellow and a Radically New Path
Beryl slowly walked through the heavily damaged throne room toward the obsidian, crystal-swathed throne. She was forced to withdraw from the chamber during the battle by her zealous guards and failed to witness the full extent of the destruction that occurred there. Everywhere she turned her eyes she could see extensive cracks snake their ways through the wall, floor, and ceiling. A depression in the floor marked the position the princess stood when the Silver Crystal made its first appearance since the hated regal was revealed to her and anyone willing to pay attention to be the alter-ego of Sailor Moon. Another crater in the wall of the elevated platform indicated an unfortunate person's forceful collision with that solid surface. Fortunately, the chair itself was unharmed, thus allowing her to sit while she performed the spell that would free Jadeite from the tortuous prison of Eternal Sleep. There was no doubt that another explosion of similar ferocity to the one that extruded the crystal from the princess's body would have spelled the end of that room. Once she had performed her task she planned to order the start of a massive rebuilding effort.
The throne itself was nowhere close to as comfortable as the chair that resided within her personal chambers, but it was perfectly located to maximize her usage of the fundamental Dark Energy that emanated from the ethereal being in the adjacent room. That knowledge always helped to assuage the pain that typically resulted from long stays in the throne. Furthermore, if everything worked for her as planned, she wouldn't have to sit in that hard and unforgiving seat for longer than a few minutes. Firm in that mindset she plopped into the stone chair and held outward the dark violet sphere that sat atop the gnarled finger-like extensions of the wood staff. Her eyes automatically closed shut as she concentrated the sum of her mental focus on locating the dimension within which she banished the crystal-encased Jadeite. A low rumble that shook the chamber and displaced more of the façade from the wall denoted the successful discovery of the frozen general.
Fortunately, that did not take very long. The vibrations she felt through her seat prompted her smirk. All I have to do now is the far trickier part of reversing the spell.
And trickier it was, indeed. If she failed in the slightest bit to reverse the initial effects of sentencing Jadeite to eternal sleep, then her sole loyal general would be lost to her. The main pitfall was correctly restarting the vital functions of his organs, especially his brain, all of which indubitably were suspended as a consequence of his extended stasis. She had to ensure that all of them started simultaneously and worked properly, which meant administering a very precise amount of dark energy. Providing insufficient energy would kill him as a number of his organs would remain shut down, whereas dispensing too much energy when he was in such a vulnerable state would destroy his body. If there were a set guideline for reversing the effects of eternal sleep, particularly for the amount of energy required to achieve the goal, she would have been immensely grateful. However, the punishment was termed "eternal sleep" for the exact reason of its permanence, and she was the only person she could recall who attempted to undo eternity. Nevertheless, she had to act quickly upon releasing Jadeite's body from the crystal as any delay would only complicate her task.
A brilliant flash of white light revealed the general's immobile body and his countenance of outright horror. She imperceptibly flinched when she noticed the expression, feeling the slightest tinge of remorse at knowing that it represented the last thing he remembered: immense fear of her and her power. That reaction sharply contrasted with the unmitigated fury she felt when she condemned Jadeite to eternal sleep for his repeated failures. She knew that it was a rash decision to eliminate a loyal general in such a callous fashion, but her personality at the time contributed to such injudicious behavior. Time and experience had taught her to be more thoughtful.
Deep furrows formed across her brow as she studied the crystal more intently. A low-pitched hum escaped her lips, but it was too soft to extend beyond her own range of hearing. That was her state as she calculated to the best of her ability the amount of energy she needed to expend to break the crystal and, more importantly, the amount required to resuscitate the figure within. Once the translucent surface was punctured she would have mere seconds to begin the process before death took him.
For your sake, and for mine, I really hope this works.
Her anxiety was palpable when she initiated the process, filling the room with a bright red light that emanated from the orb. Deep fissures almost immediately began to appear within the crystal as the crimson waves of dark energy bombarded its exterior. A second later saw its reduction to mere shards, resulting in the sudden collapse to the floor of the formerly imprisoned Jadeite. She increased the amount of energy she poured into the staff to the point his body became swathed by a faint red halo of light. What that exactly meant she did not know, but given the gargantuan sums that she was feeding the general she assumed it was a sign of his slow revival. She poured ever more energy into the general's prone figure until the red aura shifted to dark violet and his body started to convulse uncontrollably. The meaning there was blatantly obvious, and it prompted her unconscious wince as well as her immediate and very deliberate reduction in the amount of energy she sent him. Despite her palpable stress and mounting physical and mental exhaustion she maintained that extremely high expenditure of energy for two full minutes. That was the amount of time required for the red light to shift to gold and for a small groan in a pitch much deeper than hers to find its way to her ears. She immediately stopped after that, fearing inadvertent harm to him in an attempt to further rejuvenate the man. Merely reviving him was her initial task, and at that she had been eminently successful.
He continued to lie on his back atop the hard, cold floor, but he was alive and in far better condition than he displayed only minutes before. His breaths were ragged and shallow as expected from not having used his lungs for so long. There were no symptoms of paralysis, although movement beyond tiny waggles of his fingers and his feet would have been impossible for several more hours. They were encouraging signs to the queen that carefully hovered over his body.
"Welcome back, Jadeite." Her words were delivered with uncharacteristic tenderness for a person sadistic enough to doom him to such a terrible fate in the first place. His initial expression of terror concurred with the sentiment.
"Y-your… ma-majesty…" he feebly whispered. It would take several more minutes for his voice to fully recover.
She shook her head. "Don't push yourself, Jadeite, as you're too weak right now. You need to rest and regain your energy before you do anything else. I'll take you to your personal quarters so you can do exactly that."
That statement utterly surprised the general, and in a way it also surprised the very woman who spoke those words. Under normal circumstances she would never make such an offer to a subordinate as she believed would damage her appearance as an assertive leader who commanded fear and respect. Furthermore, she was far too prideful to allow what essentially was a role reversal. However, she was forced to take the initiative in the absence of anyone else capable of quickly transporting the weakened man to his room. She bent to her knees and gently lowered a hand to his shoulder. A moment later the two had disappeared from the throne room in a bright flash of red and gold light.
—|1|2|3|—
Four hours had passed since Jadeite had been placed atop the atypically firm mattress that composed the surface of his bed by the one individual who he never would have anticipated performing such a task. It was at that precise time the rejuvenated man opened his eyes and welcomed the images of his poorly illuminated chamber for the first time in months. His mind still contained the memory of his personal room, of the darkened corridors, of his sacred queen, and of his hated adversaries. Considering everything that had elapsed during his forced absence those recollections were positively ancient, but they helped him navigate his way through the initial stages of his new existence.
He swung his legs off the side of the bed so that his bare feet touched the cold stone floor and energetically pushed himself off the mattress and into a standing position. The cold sensation running up his legs and to his brain didn't bother him. In a way, it satisfied him to know that he could feel something as mundane as sharp physical pain, as it was infinitely superior to the numbness that came with Eternal Sleep. He saw his boots sitting at the side of his bed but ignored them. There would be plenty of time to put them on later. For the moment, he merely enjoyed the feeling of… feeling. However, his attention suddenly was captured by something he saw that conflicted with the last image he remembered of his quarters. The granite table at the center of the room was familiar to him, but the yellow envelope sitting near the edge of the round surface was not. He cautiously approached the table and the object obliquely resting on its smooth surface, intently studying it and, perhaps, attempting to gauge its contents without touching it. After a few seconds he reasoned that it would not harm him to pick it up.
He broke the seal of the heavy manila and spread across the table the several documents and sets of photographs that were contained within. The pictures were of five young girls in total, of which three of the individuals immediately were familiar to him. His initial reaction was one of extreme irritation and rage, but that was quickly surpassed by shame and regret. Those three girls, the Sailor Senshi, were the bane of his existence and the root cause of his lengthy and excruciating punishment. That the photographs were taken of the girls in their civilian guises did not surprise him as he had learned their identities prior to what was to have been his final action with the Dark Kingdom. What piqued his attention was that there were two other girls, two more senshi that he never had the unfortunate luck to encounter. Indubitably that would change given his resurrection, and at some point in the future he knew he would meet them in person, but at that juncture the mere thought of more adversaries enraged him.
His attention shifted to the short stack of documents that were neatly bound together by a large clip. At the top of the stack was a letter penned by Commander Marakof explaining that the pile was a short summary of the comprehensive set of information the Dark Kingdom possessed regarding the senshi. The obvious intent of the package was for him to spend the requisite time to review the reports and become informed of the latest developments so that he could return to being a valuable member of the kingdom. Naturally, he was instructed—or rather, advised—that he should expend as much time as he sensed he needed to examine the information, yet be cautious of taking too much time. He removed the clip and set the cover letter aside, unable to suppress the sardonic chuckles that accompanied the act.
I guess this is better than nothing when it comes to saying welcome back.
The next page immediately stunned and silenced him as it contained a brief description of all of the known senshi—all eight of them. There were only five girls whose photographs in both senshi and civilian forms were present upon the table, but the document explicitly listed eight. The three missing senshi effectively were complete unknowns to them, as they were only identified by the term "Unknown Senshi" and a number. The authors of the report listed some basic knowledge about them, what little they could glean from the short and chaotic battle, such as the fact all three of them seemingly were older than the established senshi and likely were members of the group known as the Outer Senshi. Apparently, they were unable to match any single woman to a particular senshi identity, thus preventing him from learning what to call them should he ever see them during a mission. Otherwise, those few lines represented the sum of all data the Dark Kingdom held on those three.
Conversely, there were multitudes of pages dedicated to illustrating every known aspect of the lives of the guardian senshi. Some of the information was utterly superfluous, such as their favorite subjects in school, but the vast majority of it was essential to his mission and, beyond that, an astonishing revelation about their surveillance capabilities. He had no idea they had the ability to obtain so much intelligence about the normally secretive warriors. Granted, the big break that allowed their bonanza of information was a slip that occurred during a tense moment in the relationship between the senshi, an incident that was described in glorious detail in the report. However, the opening was exploited to its maximum extent upon its creation, and that fact made him quite proud.
He brought a small wooden chair closer to the table so that he could sit in relative comfort as he pored over the documents for about an hour, using a lamp on the table to provide essential light to make the reading somewhat less strenuous. During that time, he learned that many interesting events and surprises had occurred while he was away. One fair bit of news was that Sailor Moon was Princess Serenity, which initially shocked him but upon deeper consideration he considered it painfully obvious, if not embarrassingly so. Intriguingly, she was not a reincarnation of a form from the past life, unlike her fellow senshi, but a completely separate and modern princess. Again, that was reasonable given the absence of Sailor Moon during the Silver Millennium. Another thing he discovered was that the rapport between the girls had significantly degraded over the course of a few months. That was due to the mistaken idea held by the senshi that their princess and Sailor Moon were separate individuals, and that Usagi Tsukino, the civilian identity of Sailor Moon, was not and could not have been their princess. Any sense of amity had disintegrated to the point of Usagi's guardians breaking their friendships with her and, at one point, attempting to kill her in order to obtain her transformation brooch. That joyous concept brought a fleeting yet tremendous smile to his lips. The later report within the pile that described the battle between the senshi and the Shitennou eviscerated that smile, for not only was Sailor Moon far more powerful and skilled than he recalled, but one of the generals was killed and another turned to their side.
So… that means I'm now the last of the Shitennou. All of the hard work they did to ensure the advent of the rightful Kingdom of Earth will go to waste if I fail at my mission. His gaze turned steely as it focused on a distant wall of his room. However, I will not fail this time, for my fate will be far worse than Eternal Sleep if that happens. Furthermore, I cannot allow the senshi the satisfaction of knowing that they've beaten us, the greatest warriors of this planet, if not this solar system, so easily. Once we raise Metalia and build our kingdom, I will ensure that the senshi receive the appropriate punishment for their resistance, especially for killing Zoisite.
He then started to peruse the summarization of the Dark Kingdom's newest plan to gather energy by means of a massive army of youmas when something abruptly disrupted his attention. From the corner of his eye he witnessed the large screen that composed a section of the communication system briefly light up before displaying the bearded face of Commander Marakof. The fact that Jadeite didn't bother to look toward the display failed to detract the man from addressing him over the speaker.
"General Jadeite, I'm glad to see that you're awake and that you found the information we left for you."
"A lot has happened while I was sentenced to Eternal Sleep," Jadeite replied with a tone of nonchalance, although a slight bit of petulance could be detected.
"That is true, sir. However, we're well on the way to rectifying that situation with our current plan."
"I assume you're talking about the youmas. I'm reading about it right now. If nothing else, it's a fairly… ambitious plan."
"Do keep in mind you were liberated from Eternal Sleep specifically to lead this force of youmas. It's a sign that Beryl has confidence in you," Marakof stated more forcefully.
Jadeite felt a wave of anger wash over him. "I am aware of it and I fully appreciate that she thinks so highly of me. I only wish that she had chosen a less extreme method of punishing my past failures, especially given that all of them were due to the unforeseen meddling of the senshi in our plans."
"Beryl is a lot calmer now than she was at that time, and I'm sure that when you speak with her later that she will be more understanding of that fact."
"I got that feeling when she freed me from that crystal." His irritation had since subsided, replaced by feelings of frustration and resignation that caused him to sigh loudly. "So, what is the purpose of this call, might I ask?"
"In fifteen minutes we're meeting in the planning room to discuss the new strategy for gathering energy while hopefully mitigating any response from the senshi."
Jadeite reached into his jacket pocket and removed a large gold pocket watch. Unfortunately, it had stopped working the moment Beryl, in her fit of rage, encased him within the crystal that served as his tomb for several months. At some point in the near future he would need to repair the watch and adjust the time so that once again it would be useful to him. In the interim he would be forced to rely on the clock hanging on his wall that was set to Japan standard time and currently showed a time of thirty minutes before midnight. That was less of an inconvenience, however, as it meant that he knew when the senshi likely would be active. Given the displayed time the girls should have been sound asleep.
"I will be there. I am curious about whatever plan you guys have constructed that somehow accounts for the omnipresent senshi."
"The crux of the strategy came from Beryl. It's useless to go into too much detail right now, given we're going to be spending much more time talking about it shortly. However, I do believe it's a necessary departure from our typical methods, and I predict you will be quite intrigued."
"I certainly hope so," Jadeite said somberly. "If there's anything that needs to be changed around here, it's that."
"Anyway, I'll leave you to your reading. I'll alert you again when the meeting is due to start." Marakof's face soon disappeared and the screen turned dark.
Jadeite shifted his eyes back to the papers and the photographs strewn across his table and returned to his task of gaining a far better appreciation of his opponents. The idea of a new strategy energized him beyond the fact that he was resurrected from his tomb of Eternal Sleep. However, he couldn't help but wonder, if only briefly, whether the queen's direct participation in the planning stages was a benefit or a hindrance to their chances of success.
I guess having her involved really can't be much of a bad thing, considering what came beforehand, he mused while giving a wry grin to nobody in particular.
—|1|2|3|—
Jadeite's intuition told him that it would have been a terrible idea to teleport directly into the planning room. It was right. As soon as he opened the door to the relatively small chamber he was greeted with the sight of thirteen men and women in steel blue uniforms, the typical garb of Beryl's personal guard. Seven of the individuals stood in rather close proximity along the wall opposite the trio of monitors that hung from the ceiling, a consequence of the room being designed for a much smaller number of people. The other six occupied the chairs at the sides of the long table, leaving open the chairs at either end, presumably for Jadeite and Beryl. Commander Marakof immediately was recognizable from his large stature—at six feet and three inches, he was the tallest person in the room—and the red trim of his jacket. Had he possessed much greater skill at handling magical energy he might have been one of the Shitennou, but the abilities Jadeite enjoyed were extraordinarily rare.
"I'm glad to see you've made it here, and that you arrived early as usual," Marakof said with a welcoming tone and a slow nod of his head as he and the other seated members of Beryl's guard stood at attention in deference to the general.
He returned the nod and walked to the seat furthest from the door, one of only two left vacant. The few lucky enough and sufficiently ranked to have a chair took his action as a cue to sit, whereas the others had no choice but to remain standing.
"Welcome back, General Jadeite." The dark-haired woman who addressed him wore a silver-trimmed jacket, one that indicated her rank as a major.
"Thank you, Analiese." Although she was the only one to explicitly say so, he could tell from the pleased expressions of everyone within the room that they shared her sentiments. "By the way, congratulations on your promotion," he quickly added, drawing a light smile from the woman in return.
"With the current leadership situation, it's possible she may be seeing another promotion soon," Marakof nonchalantly stated. "As it stands right now, we have a dearth of individuals in key positions for our new strategy."
"I see. That may make sense, but at the same time we don't want to make our forces top-heavy."
"I can assure you that you describe an unlikely situation. We only have two generals right now. Sazaratha, a demon—in both senses of the word—who originally was one of Metalia's assistants, was recently promoted to the rank of general."
That revelation immediately piqued Jadeite's curiosity. "Why was this Sazaratha promoted?"
"We were short-handed in the number of people who were as skilled as you and the other Shitennou members in handling dark energy, teleportation, and wrangling youmas. It, or rather she, given her proclivity for assuming a female form, was the only one alive at the time who possessed those crucial capabilities."
"I understand. But, if that's the case, why isn't she here at this meeting?" One of his eyebrows reflexively lifted in response to his confusion.
Marakof gave his superior a curt nod of understanding. "Quite frankly, Beryl doesn't completely trust her, for good reason, and didn't want her to attend. Furthermore, as far as any of us could tell she's not even here at the moment. It's anybody's guess what she's up to right now."
"Hmmm… well, that certainly can be an issue."
"Anyway, you inquired about our force structure. We're rearranging the upper echelon of our command structure to fit our new mission, and the thirteen people you see in this room will be directly involved in that."
Although he knew everyone sitting and standing within the chamber quite well, Jadeite slowly turned his head to look at each of the officers. "It seems like a fairly risky move."
"It very well might be, but I'm prepared to make such a change." Nobody needed to turn to the doorway to see that the voice responsible for delivering such a bold statement belonged to Beryl. Given her identity, however, no one wasted any time in standing erect and bowing deeply in the direction of their queen.
"You may be seated," she calmly ordered as she approached the unoccupied chair and sat down. Upon noticing the seven guards still standing at the side of the room she shook her head in disappointment. "I guess at some point in the future we're going to need to find or build a larger room for this, but that is for later. Right now we're here to discuss our new strategy for obtaining energy for Metalia in a rapid and efficient manner, hopefully with minimal interference from the senshi. However, before we begin, I'm going to seal this room so that our conversation remains private."
Beryl then waved her hand in a sweeping arc in front of her body, temporarily filling the room with a dim red light. The glow soon dissipated, leaving no visible sign that anything had changed, but the queen's contented smile informed everyone that whatever she did must have worked.
"There. Now, nobody can eavesdrop on our meeting or, worse, teleport into the room, or into any of your personal quarters for that matter." She then gazed at the general sitting at the opposite end of the table, and any hint of arrogance soon disappeared from her countenance. "There's much I want to discuss, but I think my first order of business would be to extend an official apology on the part of the Kingdom, as well as my personal apology, to Jadeite for my rash decision to sentence him to Eternal Sleep."
"I fully accept your apology, your highness, and I'm quite honored to be back and working for you."
"And I'm glad to have you back," she said with a light smile that momentarily stunned the blond-haired man.
With that crucial issue properly managed, she knew she could return to the true purpose of the meeting. The unusually warm expression shifted to one of seriousness as she pushed one of the buttons on the keypad sitting before her. In response, the center monitor displayed an organizational chart detailing the eight official duties, bifurcated into five Field Operations and three Home Operations assignments, and the hierarchy of ranks designated to fulfill those tasks. The leftmost monitor showed the names of every officer within the room with their new ranks and missions listed alongside. The use of the two terms piqued Jadeite's interest as they implied that the people chosen for those roles would be sent away from the multitude of caverns that composed their base. It marked a tremendous departure from Beryl's typical insistence of minimizing the number of people who left, partially to maximize her personal protection. However, the failure of that previous strategy was exposed by the ability of the senshi to infiltrate the base and almost defeat the queen within her own throne room. In light of that, it no longer made sense to stay within the darkness of their base if they could achieve far more success outside.
"Now, the second part of my agenda is to reveal the new organization for our forces as it relates to our change in mission," Beryl announced, slowly moving her gaze about the room while she spoke. "It took a long time, and a near disaster that occurred way too close to home, for me to realize the need to rethink our strategy and distribute forces accordingly. Yet, as you can see, I have done exactly that, and as a result I have promoted some of you and reassigned almost all of you."
After completing that sentence, she pushed her tall frame from the seat and walked until she stood next to the center monitor. Each of them had suffered dozens of meetings and immediately deduced from her posture she soon would commence a presentation. However, none of them had ever expected the self-styled monarch to perform an act that was typical of her subordinates, and the collective facial expressions, accentuated by the utter silence, said as much. In fact, it said so much that her burgeoning annoyance at the scene deeply compelled her to quell their concerns.
"If my desire to take a more active role surprises you, then I would advise you to get used to it. We will be meeting like this once every month. I refuse to just sit back and watch the birth of our rightful kingdom slip further and further into the distance due to that disgusting princess and her senshi."
The shocked countenances that existed before the queen's comments immediately disappeared, much to her satisfaction. Not that it was ever a problem for her, but the statement also attracted their undivided attention to her ensuing explanation. She immediately seized the opportunity to describe the changes she had made to her forces, using the large monitor and the text that it displayed to emphasize her points. In particular she highlighted the organization of Field Operations, which was subdivided into Core Operations and Support Operations. The former was further divided into the duties energy gathering and combat, whereas the latter contained the tasks intelligence, communications, and transportation.
"Anyway, for anyone associated with Field Operations, you will spend most of your time outside of this base," she said with a more composed tone. "The captains in charge of Core Operations will answer to Major Grayson. The other three captains associated with Support Operations will be under the command of Major Kamei. This overall group will be led by Commander Marakof."
Marakof solemnly nodded his head. "I wholeheartedly accept this new command, and I hope to not disappoint you, your highness."
"That's exactly why I chose you for this vital task."
She turned her gaze to the reasonably shorter woman sitting beside the tall, slightly graying man. At the same time, she accentuated the portion of the chart that detailed operations occurring almost wholly within the base. That was partitioned into Defense Operations and Home Support Operations, with the second category consisting of field liaison and youma production duties.
"Commander Analiese, you will be in charge of Home Operations. Major Salomon of Home Support Operations and Major Ortega of Defense Operations will be under your purview."
"Understood, your highness," Analiese firmly replied, her statement punctuated with a sharp nod. The other two majors, one of whom was newly minted that evening, and the captains serving them also nodded in affirmation of the queen's order.
The faint smile on Beryl's lips revealed her contentment, allowing her to easily move to the third point of her meeting. "Now, I want to let you all know what I think our newest strategy should be for gathering energy."
She summoned a large map of Tokyo prefecture on the left monitor and an inset of the eastern region of the prefecture on the right monitor. The screen in the middle displayed the wards of Minato, Adachi, and Katsushika, in their proper orientations and distances from one another.
"What I plan to do is shift our focus from Juuban District within Minato Ward to the wards of Adachi and Katsushika. The reason for this is simple: Juuban is where the senshi are or were known to reside. I want us to operate in a region where the senshi are not known to live. Granted, we have no information on the three newest members of the senshi, the supposed outer senshi, and that will always be an issue for us. Furthermore, as we all know by now, both the princess and Sailor Mercury have disappeared from tracking. Not only did we lose three of our youmas in the process, but it makes it impossible for us to ascertain their whereabouts."
"Do you think they're going to be anywhere close to Minato?" Jadeite asked.
"My instinct tells me that they probably will be as far away from that ward as possible. However, we have no idea where in Japan they could be, assuming they're still within the country."
"It is possible they are staying with relatives in different city?" Grayson asked, his characteristic deep baritone echoing throughout the small room.
"Very possible, I would assume," Marakof replied. "The only issue is determining where they are."
"We don't have any solid information on the extended families of all of the senshi, particularly that of the princess," Analiese added.
"Well then, we know at least one of the people within this room actually has a job in the near future."
The blatant dose of sarcasm that laced her voice, joined soon thereafter by a momentary smirk, served as an antidote to the otherwise flat stare that she pointed at Ichikawa, her hand-picked intelligence captain. Still, the man dared not give more than a curt nod in reply lest he inadvertently risk angering his queen. After all, he wagered the costs of miscalculation were still extreme despite her apparent attitude shift.
"Is there anything special about Adachi and Katsushika?" Jadeite asked, expertly returning the discussion to the main point.
"The main reason I chose those wards was that they were spatially distant from Minato, yet were in a reasonably populated area so that deploying youmas there to gather energy would be worthwhile," Beryl answered.
"Wouldn't targeting a completely separate city achieve the same effect?" Salomon asked.
"Maybe so, but the fact that most of our resources are in Minato, with no easy way of transporting them in the absence of teleportation for everyone except Jadeite and a few of our youmas, limits our options at the current time." Beryl turned her eyes down to gaze at the dark brown wood of the table and exhaled a heavy sigh of disappointment. She then directed her melancholic gaze at Kamei. "The fact that we need to know accurately where to teleport is the second reason I didn't choose regions much farther from Minato. We'll have to ensure that Jadeite and whatever youmas we decide to employ become intimately familiar with the area, but the only way we can get to Adachi or Katsushika is by more common means."
"That makes sense," Kamei replied while tentatively nodding. "However, I hope that we could expand much farther as quickly as possible."
"That, indeed, is my plan as well."
She pushed another button on the keypad, bringing up a summary of the current state of the Dark Kingdom's youmas on the left monitor. It showed that there were forty-seven total, with five dedicated to the task of gathering energy from humans, nineteen skilled at combat, and the remaining twenty-three specialists at reconnaissance. Fifteen of the latter youma type were deployed within Juuban in a fruitless search for the princess or were closely monitoring the remaining guardian senshi.
"The other part of my plan is to conduct simultaneous energy-gathering missions in separate locations," Beryl said, her confidence returning. "The idea is that having more than one youma at work increases the amount of energy we can obtain at any time. It has the bonus of preventing the loss of one youma by the senshi from completely devastating our mission. Furthermore, the distance between the youmas should complicate any response by the senshi."
On the surface the plan looked reasonable, but Jadeite remained skeptical. "How would distance alone stop the senshi from destroying those youmas? Our energy-gathering youmas are pathetic at combat and would not stand a chance against any of the senshi except for Mercury. Also, they have Kunzite, which should allow them to cover great distances at ease via teleportation."
"I agree with you that it would be folly to leave the energy-gathering youmas by themselves." Beryl grinned, revealing her excitement in relaying the next part of her scheme. "That is why my initial plan is to have reconnaissance youmas accompany them. In the event of an attack or if senshi are detected nearby, they could alert us and enable us to deploy the combat-oriented youmas. The exact plan for how to achieve this is something I expect you and your commanders to construct, but I think that is a wise starting position."
"That it is, your highness. On its own it's not foolproof, but I'm sure we can improve upon it."
"Very well." She then pushed herself up from her chair, prompting everyone else to do the same, and slowly looked over her officers once again. "That is all I wanted to say for right now. Even though I gave plenty of specifics about our new strategy, it is far from complete, giving each of you plenty of space to find the best method of carrying out your tasks. I picked each of you for your individual roles because I sincerely believe you are the best suited for your missions. Do not forget that."
"We won't, your highness," Marakof and Analiese practically said in unison.
"Oh, and there's one last thing I need to do before departing," Beryl added, almost as an afterthought. She closed her eyes and fell into a trance-like state, her body slowly radiating bright red luminescence as she concentrated. Seconds later, several far more intense explosions of gold light occurred throughout the room as the glow surrounding the queen diminished.
"Congratulations on your promotions," Beryl evenly stated before she teleported from the planning room in a blast of red light.
Analiese's eyes widened when she peered down at her uniform and noticed that the trim had changed from its previous silver hue to red. With that alteration, she had become a true Commander in her queen's ranks, and it excited and elated her. Other people experienced similar emotions upon witnessing the tangible evidence of their new ranks. However, after a minute or so of ebullience, the mood turned somber as they knew they had to demonstrate to their queen that they fully deserved their stations. That mindset drove them to immediately start designing, in earnest, a far more detailed plan for gathering energy. It was a task that kept that baker's dozen of officers stuck inside that cramped room for several hours, but they considered it a worthwhile sacrifice given the complexities of their nascent plot.
