Chapter 11: The Pole

Well, he didn't exactly understand how they got there, but he knew what they were going to do there and he was one hundred percent behind that:

They were going to kick some ass.

When they touched down in arctic snow and ice he waited for instructions, angling towards Khalid to close their ranks - he understood what Kaito had meant originally, but that was with the Queen helping and the senshi with them and that didn't seem to be exactly the case anymore, despite the senshi getting them there. It didn't sit right with him that they were just giving up, but it helped a little that Jupiter, at least, seemed bothered by it, too, and, who knew, maybe their showing up and attempting to do something productive would encourage them not to give up so easily. He wasn't looking forward to fighting against Beryl, but if it would knock some sense into her they had little choice otherwise. Before the senshi could take off, Kaito called over to Mercury and he peeked over their shoulders to see the little mini computer screen and a bunch of dots and arrows probably meaning enemies ahead and pretty soon Venus and Khalid and Kaito were "discussing" what should be done, but with the general understanding that any captives (and leaders) would probably be in the middle of all of that for the best protection, they were quickly off, heading towards the giant mass of humans-turned-monsters.

Knowing that they were human meant they couldn't outright fight them-fight them, it was more like… fight to incapacitate them, or knock them off course or bar them from getting in their way - which meant their polearms were really useful. The anti-brainwashing items would've been great if they could somehow usher the unbrainwashed people to safety, but that wasn't possible here so instead they acted like… well, firefighters? Kinda? He and Kaito used their weapons to erect giant walls of stone and ice and push the hordes back (how useful would this have been last week?!) on either side and just… push it back to clear a path in the middle. It wasn't something they found out they could do immediately, and once they found out they could do it, it wasn't exactly quick or stealthy, either, and they were soon the stars of the North Pole! Come one, come all, come fight the Heavenly Kings! … But their instant-wall idea was kinda game-breaking in that the little guys were just… pushed out of the way and locked out of the encounter, and that was that. The more they used it, too, the better they got - before long he could split the rock wall and push it to either side, so it was like a sweeping motion? Anyway, easy peasy, and the others were taking care of any that were able to get in from behind or actually made it over the wall - just knocking them out, nothing else - and with Mercury and Khalid giving them the lay of the land ahead of them they made it towards this frozen castle base thing that was down in this giant crevasse without too much trouble and that's where the senshi split to go find Usagi-chan.

They were going to follow them - it would make sense that the final boss was also in the castle with the captured princess, right? - but just as they ran off into the depths, some of those creeps from the control room videos appeared, jumping over the cliffs they made around the keep and landing like the big-wigs they apparently were, and mini-bosses usually travelled around with the main boss, so chances were Beryl was out there somewhere, rather than down there somewhere.

Truthfully, he should have waited to hear them out. But… well, two of them had been distractions while Mamoru was taken out from beneath their noses and he honestly didn't care to hear any sort of bad-guy speech from them, so he went in swinging with his trusty rock knuckles, creating craters where one managed to evade him. Khalid yelled out instructions and he targeted the one he pointed out for him to take out - the magnet girl - and he was overjoyed at the idea of her finding out the hard way that he didn't need metal to kick her ass. Honestly with so many combatants going at once, it felt chaotic in a way that felt nostalgic in that weird Golden Kingdom sense, but he trusted his friends and kept his eyes open to duck around the odd explosion between the exploding one and Yuu, the shards of frozen metal from Kaito and the melty-one, and the metal-piercing exploding ballistic round from the powerhouse Khalid was dealing with - honestly, once he made this over-flexible pigtailed disaster down, he knew he'd be heading there next.

His fight was made a little less easier with all the flying metallic debris as she could just pull it out of the air from wherever to throw it at him and he couldn't pull that new nifty armor on with her able to do that, so he was stuck with dodging and ducking and punching it out of the way, which was tiring and was, frankly, her best option for a plan. … But she didn't count on teamwork. One call - "North!" and an ice wall appeared to block the incoming shrapnel and boom! Punch to the face, she's flying into one of the rock arena walls. She made a crater and her body actually stuck there. … so maybe he shouldn't have punched so hard, but she was still breathing and as he watched, her arm actually lifted to try to push herself back up, so he pulled the cheap finishing move in summoning his trident and erecting another wall just in front of her, trapping her in there. With a space between the two, of course: he wasn't going to suffocate her or anything, just wanted to keep her out of the game.

He caught his breath for half a moment before concentrating to call up the full armor of the Lord of the East and ran back into it with his nifty new sword to help Khalid with the armor-piercing exploding bullet dude.

Five minutes? Maybe? Later, exhausted, they trapped the last of them - Metallia's Generals - to make sure they wouldn't just get up and cause problems for them later. It hurt to breathe, but that was probably all the exercise in the short period of time, right? He just needed a minute. They were quiet, catching their breath, but once Khalid straightened up, they followed suit. He jumped to the top of the walls they made to block off the castle and Nero groaned and, rather than jumping, just pulled his trident out again and pulled more rock out to make an elevator up to the top for the rest of them. "So... where's Beryl then?" he asked, still catching his breath as he yanked the tri-tips from the layer of permafrost.

"You really... have to ask?" Kaito shot back, breathing heavily, and when he looked up he had to admit it was a really dumb question.

There she was. Huge. Like, suddenly sky-scraper tall with blue-green skin and dark red hair literally streaming into the sky with horns on her shoulders and pointed ears and a killer red dress and wingless but still obviously their annoying fairy. She was like three football fields away with an army between them and moving out quickly - presumably in the general direction of Japan and Crystal Tokyo. Great. Ok.

"Ok so she's a little bigger than we expected," he said, "but that doesn't change anything." he let out a long breath, pointed his trident out, and jumped down to bring the next path up - he'd just make a raised walkway instead of wading through all that, and any of the brainwashed people that came up with him could just be knocked off the side by the others. No big deal. Exhausting, but no big deal. … and eventually he started jumping further rather than making a continuous path - they could jump really far, they didn't need a straight-up path.

About halfway through the ninja lady made her appearance and that was annoying, but his friends eventually took care of her - Yuu made a flamethrower to keep her in one general area and Khalid cut her down and that was that. When they got close enough to Beryl, a tidal wave rose up and barreled towards them, but North threw him aside to freeze it solid with his spear, and Yuu melted the ice to give them a corridor to travel through and out the other side to slide down into the open, Tethys inadvertently creating an arena wall to block them off from the rest of Metallia's army. Tethys reappeared - all creepy mask and bodysuit - and South broke off from them:

"Use your items! You can get through to her!" he called in that specific "certain" tone before bounding off after Metallia's final general, his throwing knives and fire maybe not the best defense against someone who throws water about, but… North had that little pagoda, and he had the lute, and Khalid had the history with her. Yuu… South would be alright. Now was their chance to end this without any other hardships - not for Rin, or for this future, or Usagi-chan or Mamoru. They could stop this before it even left this frozen wasteland and put anyone else in danger, and if Yuu said they could do it, they could do it: they just had to give it their all; he didn't feel like he had all that much left to give, but he'd make what he had count.

"Beryl!" Khalid yelled, his voice carried by the wind and snow in a blizzard that kicked up only once Tethys had unleashed her tidal wave on them; the creature - he had seen her through his crystal and knew that she was not human - was engaged by South, and of all of them, while he may be the least suited to that particular duel, he had maintained the majority of his energy in getting where they were and so was the best choice for that fight. However, while she was not actively engaged with North, East, or himself, the weather she brought wouldn't make their attempt any easier.

Beryl - for she was still Beryl in there, regardless of her exterior and the darkness that spread through the very veins in that enormous body created for her - did not react to him, instead gliding along the icy terrain towards the south and east. He yelled her name again but still she ignored him, either purposefully or deaf to his calls - and no wonder for the latter with their size difference. He called his trident and his armor, having noticed in his earlier fight that it aided his movement rather than encumbered it, and ran for her legs, using tendrils of metal from the weapon in an attempt to bind her legs to the ground. She would notice him.

The metal groaned and snapped as she stepped forward and he set his jaw at the challenge, running in to reinforce a second attempt as his brothers positioned themselves around her in her trajectory; he could not let her pass them, and so he aimed higher still, weaving a metallic web around her shins to bind her. She faltered, staggered in her enormous steps, and alien eyes glared down at him from on high and a bolt of plasma shot from the sky towards him. He jumped aside, though the long blue cloth sleeves on his right were singed and blackened with the proximity of the flash; she hadn't recognized him - those eyes had been Metallia's, not Beryl's. But she was still in there. Khalid shook his right arm to free it from the sensation of pins and needles and redoubled his efforts to slow her down, catching in his periphery as East made another tower of stone: this one taller than the ones before, easily half the giant's height or more as he created a stage to play his instrument; Khalid still wasn't entirely certain what the music did, but Nero had told him before it was something along the lines of putting the darkness within the affected people to sleep, and if he could put Metallia to sleep they would have a better chance at exorcising her with North's pagoda - assuming he could keep her in one place and occupy her consciousness towards that goal.

The music began to play and Metallia faltered again, the metal strands he had used on her cracking and breaking under the strain, but rather than turn her ire on him, the giantess turned towards East, pointing a finger towards him, and Khalid jumped before anything could be made of that threat. He soared through the sky, freezing air seeming to cut his face as he unsheathed his scimitar, refusing to hesitate as he slashed at her outstretched arm and exchanged the blade for the trident before he made the top of his jump, stabbing the pointed ends into the flesh of her arm before he could fall back towards the Earth. His feet barely found purchase before she hissed and jerked her arm away, and only through sending tendrils of metal into the wound saved him from being immediately ejected from her form. He thought fast and kept moving, stepping up to launch himself from the protruding weapon to land on her shoulder, shifting his weight to maintain his balance before recalling his trident to his hand, some part in the back of his mind catching the parallel between where Beryl frequently stood on him and where he was now standing.

With his speed, he was perched even as she slapped her arm with her hand, and she snarled down at him and reached to grab him, but East's music had not stopped, and even as she reached for him the expression of pure hatred started to recede from her eyes and he took his chance, "Beryl!" he called again, and she shook her head as though to clear it. "It's working," he called back down to Nero, "Keep playing for as long as you can!"

"Beryl!" he yelled again, "Wake up!"

Beyond them, behind Beryl's Metallia form, another tower rose, this one of ice, and Khalid intended to keep any attention from it. "Beryl!"

"Kunzite?" Beryl replied in a daze, blinking twice before looking down at him with foreign red eyes, their size narrowing as she recognized him, a frown blooming across black lips. Even as she glared at him he could see Metallia returning and fading in her eyes, not fully in control but not yet relinquishing.

"It's Khalid now, remember?" he called, part of him wondering just how far gone she was. And he realized still she did not know of his newest form, or its duties; though she often played lip service against the importance of roles and titles, he knew of her regard for them deep down and the grief that had caused her in the past, and so in bringing them forward he hoped to sway her. "Kunzite, Knight of Purity and Affection and more: the King of the West, the Lord who Sees All, Punisher of Evil and Seeker of Enlightenment. Don't make me fight you, Beryl; surrender the darkness within you and return to our side!"

"Seeker of Enlightenment?" Beryl repeated, a mocking note creeping into her tone, "Lord who Sees All? Ha!" she laughed bitterly, "We have been fooled, Kunzite. My eyes have been opened to the truth, Enlightened to what was hidden from us, and I seek to punish the evil behind it. You should be returning to my side, and join me in wiping the last of the duplicitous White Moon from our System forevermore!"

Behind her, North held out his hand and something started to form there, but Tethys came streaking in from one side and North had to dodge her; he spun to deal with her, but Khalid could not pay close attention, less Beryl catch on. Still East played, and while Beryl's own fury colored her expression, the alien flashes of Metallia lessened. "Have you been enlightened, or have you been tempted into believing a facetious version of events that fit what you'd like to see? You have heard only one side of this story, how can you be so confident in declaring the truth?!"

"You have been deceived!" Beryl declared and started forward again; he lurched, reaching out to grab for balance on the horn protruding from her shoulder as she continued her march; "Once Serenity is destroyed, you, too, will be freed -"

Behind them, South launched up onto North's tower, rammed into Tethys, and fell off the side with her, and North quickly stood and held out his hand again. Suddenly everything went quiet as a little temple appeared, shining and golden in the palm of his hand, clear to his sight despite the distance between them. Behind his head spun a wheel of green fire that became a mesmerising whirl, and streams of darkness seemed to be drawn from Beryl's entire form and pulled towards the center of that whirlwind like dye down a drain.

Beryl froze, unable to move forward against that pull, and the song of East's instrument intensified, the only sound he could hear while in the vortex created by North's spinning green flames. Beneath his feet Beryl pulsed, and more of the black wisps appeared from her form to be sucked back towards North's glowing pagoda; Beryl yelled suddenly, cried out in pain and anguish and buckled, hugging herself tightly; he jumped, his perch suddenly gone, and grabbed what he could to remain near enough to her to hear him: her hair. As the darkness was drawn from her the strands changed brighter and brighter red, and the power that surged to stand it straight up started to fade. Not far from her ear, he spoke without shouting to East's playing:

"You're too smart to refute this, Beryl," he stated, only too easily recalling all those nights they spent patiently and carefully planning their strategy to keep the 'reborn Prince' safe and out of the crosshairs of Diana's Phases; she had always been so careful to consider things from all angles, to shoot down ideas that didn't pass her careful judgement; that she had been taken spoke to Metallia's prowess, but he felt confident she'd see the truth in this if he could line it out for her in irrefutable terms: "North's powers are only effective against evil; if it recognizes the power within you as such, consider what that means of whatever 'truths' it told you," he implored, "It found a weakness and it exploited it, changing its story to manipulate you. You aren't the first it has taken over - did it tell you that? Each and every time it has used its host to its fullest, drained every last drop before escaping its dead husk to find another! Is that how you want to be remembered, Beryl?! A woman so clever as to see the signs of destruction moments before it happened and figure out a way to escape mortality and save her people the next time around only to end up burned out after falling for a trick and betraying them?!" She shook her head and he held on tight, but even as she moved one hand from around her waist to cover the ear nearest him he kept urging, "Release Metallia, cast it off and deny it reentry, and you can change the narrative! I know you, Beryl, and I know you are more than this!"

"The White Moon Kingdom cannot be trusted!" She yelled in response, "They manipulated us! They manipulated him! When they are gone he will be free, and -"

"And what, Beryl?! He'd fall for you?!" he snapped, hanging on tight, taking no care to step aside her unrequited feelings for his Prince, even if he had politely ignored them before. He had felt for her - he had known the pain of wanting someone he could not have, but to this end?! "Don't let your infatuation make you blind! If the Moon Kingdom were behind his feelings towards Serenity, they would not have moved forward with war! They would have just waited things out, squashed any resistance to the engagement, and joined Kingdoms together and usurped power under a matriarchal monarchy rather than attempt to eradicate us - you know that!"

She flinched, and though he could only see one quarter of her face, he could see the stubborn scowl slip for a moment, and he pushed as more and more of that sleeping darkness was pulled out of her. "Be upset about it, mourn it, but recognize the fallacies in what you've been told and cast out that malicious force who has manipulated you into this position so that North can seal it away! It's not too late!"

Still doubled over in pain, she shook her head, fear in her voice as she admitted "I don't know if I can."

"I still believe in you," he said.

"You can nag anyone into doing anything, Beryl. This Metallia thing doesn't stand a chance against you!" East yelled over, his addition unexpected as Khalid had not known he could hear them. Beryl's head lowered further.

"You can eject it if you do it soon!" South shouted from somewhere below.

"We're here!" North shouted.

"This isn't your end, Beryl," he said, "No one here wants it to be. No one period wants it to be," he corrected, feeling he knew Mamoru well enough to speak for him. "Come back to us."

For a moment she was still but for the pulsing in her as North drained Metallia away in small rivulets of black smoke, but then, all at once, she straightened, her hands down at her sides, her chin up and her eyes closed, and she screamed. Not in pain, or anguish, but in repulsion, and he lost his grip in the suddenness of the wordless challenge. He fell and, knowing he had done everything he could and that it was all in her hands now, he let himself fall. The half-cape fluttered and slowed him, just as his full cape had, and he landed in the snow and ice of the pole, taking steps back to look up at the woman - his friend - that fought for control of her se,f.

Her body pulsated again, the darkness like a cloud surrounding her, its intensity doubled compared to what it had been. East's song picked up its tempo as Beryl continued to yell, and the shadows pouring out of her started to break, and then, suddenly, her entire form erupted in blinding black smoke. North's vortex drew it in, and as the miasma started to thin out, Khalid ran in, holding his blue crystal to his eye and searching through that foul darkness until he found a form falling amidst it. He leapt up to meet it, carefully catching Beryl's unconscious form and protecting it as he fell back to the ground -

"NO!" a formless voice howled, "This is not the end!"

He ran, keeping Beryl close, and turned to look behind him to find the dark cloud staring down at him with pointed empty glowing eyes, but North's vortex continued to draw it away. It was only a matter of time: this was it, Metallia's end -

But then flames were shooting to the sky, the brightness visible only as more and more of Metallia's smoke cleared from before him, and Khalid's stomach dropped: South was half-frozen near the base of North's tower, and Tethys was making for its top. He grimaced - he had only physical weapons, and he could not fight this cloud of darkness that was Metallia with a scimitar -

"Akuryo Taisan!" a voice cried out from the east, and flames tore through the air and crashed into the mass of the smoke-like presence.

"Jupiter Thunderbolt!"

"Venus Crescent Beam!"

"Mercury Freezing Mist!"

The Sailor Senshi erupted onto the scene in a rain of elemental fury, their slight forms crashing into battle with the force of a sledgehammer, and, unexpected as they were, none too soon. East's music was fading, its volume rising sporadically as it generally quieted, Nero no doubt fighting against the exhaustion, which did not bode well for North's predicament. He took off towards the incoming Lunar warriors, pointing with one hand towards North's tower, but the girls were already getting into formation from where they stood on the rim of the arena -

"Sailor -"

He abruptly changed direction - he had heard of this attack, and if they were charging it now he had to take the other matter into his own hands. He changed direction, running straight for North's tower, keeping Beryl as stable as possible as he ran faster than he had ever attempted before, his legs burning, and called his trident to him and spun it over his head as he darted beneath the worst of Metallia's bulk, the pressure above him lessening with the spear's rotation to disperse the worst of it.

"Planet-"

Metallia's voice boomed all around him, its voice persistent and all-encompassing as it promised him riches and dreams and threatened him with pain and anguish in equal measure, bargaining for entrance into him that it would have another host and be saved from North's pagoda and take its revenge, hundreds of stories trying to find purchase, looking for sympathy or empathy that he refused to listen to. Amidst the mental assault, energy bombarded him from every direction, knocking him left and right, but still he ran; in the darkness that surrounded him he thought only of making it through to aide North before Tethys could break his spell -

"Attack!"

He burst out of the other side of Metallia's cloud just as the multicolored attack slammed against its mass somewhere behind him; in his hand, Beryl was still but unaffected by Metallia - or so he had to assume in her continued unconsciousness. South's trident was outstretched still, flames shooting from them, but Tethys was far above and even as he craned his neck up the tower, he saw the green light of North's spinning wheel start to fade.

The music stopped.

He clenched his jaw and continued forward, jumping towards the top of North's tower, thinking quickly to throw his trident at the ice and use it as a springboard to keep upward momentum. Behind him the smoke was pulled towards their location with such speed it sounded like a roar, the Senshi's attack having scattered the mass and dispersed it enough for the vortex to pull it in faster. He climbed as fast as he could, the fire from below suddenly ceasing only to reappear above him. As he cleared the edge, he found North holding the pagoda but fading, his shoulders sagging, eyes closing, only to stubbornly reset his gaze, pointedly ignoring the fight around him as South fought Tethys, despite his just having been roughly 10 stories below just moments before. South was worse for wear, and while he was exhausted, he summoned his scimitar, kept Beryl close, and threw himself into the fight on adrenaline alone.

… but then the green glow went out, and North fell onto his knees, the golden pagoda disappearing as he fell forward.

The darkness of Metallia was greatly reduced, but still some of it remained.

"My liege!" Tethys shouted, appearing suddenly behind South and kicking the back of his neck, sending South sprawling. He lunged at her, slashing his sword toward her, but she flipped over him and kicked his back, and he very nearly went over the edge of the tower, catching hold of the edge at the last moment and hanging there single handedly. "Take this unworthy vessel -"

She had barely finished speaking before the darkness surged towards her and entered her body through the mask covering her face, and Tethys immediately changed - growing larger and larger, though only a fraction of the size Beryl had been. With a cackle, Metallia turned to face him, looking over Tethy's shoulder, "Your efforts are in vain, Knight. I will have my revenge; a new host has just been born."

And then she teleported away, her words hanging in the void.

A new host? He grimaced - they had to move, fast.

Khalid groaned as he pulled himself onto the ledge, careful of Beryl's body, though she stirred and stumbled onto the icy surface when prompted so he could use both hands to pull himself up. He had to get back to Crystal Tokyo, but his friends… He moved to South and held his breath as he felt for a pulse, relieved once he felt the blood still threading through Yuu's veins. He carefully turned him over onto his back and pulled out his blue crystal, to look across the way to East, and saw through the gem the truth that he, too, was still alive, but unconscious.

They all three of them were. They had greatly reduced Metallia's strength, and removed her from Beryl's body and took from her Beryl's sorceress powers, but she was still on the loose, and in the body of a monster, and so at unknown strength and danger to those in Crystal Tokyo.

They couldn't leave it like this. Uselessly, he shook Yuu as though he could wake him, quietly voicing his despair, "We can't stay here. We have to get to Crystal Tokyo - you have to get us back there. We must finish this-"

Two Sailor Senshi appeared, landing carefully on the tower: Mars and Venus. "Mercury and Jupiter are checking on the King of the East," their leader reported, and while he needed to keep moving, and had to return to Crystal Tokyo to stop Metallia, he was starting to see double. He closed his eyes tightly against it and concentrated, moving to shakily stand.

"He exhausted his energy putting and keeping Metallia asleep," he replied, moving to kneel - or, fall gracefully - to Kaito's side to gently turn him over. "North sealed most of it away, but it still escaped in that remaining general." He knew their goal; seeing them here could mean that Usagi was safe and had sent them to help, but he could not count for their continued aid if her safety was still in question. "It will be on its way to Crystal Tokyo. Did you find your Serenity?"

"No," Venus replied evenly, their presence there more a mystery, "but we found this time's Endymion, asleep encased in gold quartz, same as Queen Serenity had been in Elysion."

"I can't believe…" a small voice tentatively cried: Beryl on her knees, her features gradually returning to what they used to be. Her hair, while still red, was darkening, the horns on her shoulders and wrists were shrinking, the fangs in her mouth disappearing, her ears were rounding, but still she wore the foreign tight-fitting dress as opposed to the knee-length, A-line dress she used to wear. She wiped tears from her eyes, looking away from them as though disliking she had said anything aloud, and while he could not afford the distraction, he could not cut her off. She cleared her throat, "I'm ashamed of my weakness; it was so convincing, presented so logically… It was so easy to believe it, but I… I should have fought more, before it was too late -"

The two senshi turned from him to face the fairy, her wings slowly starting to reform, and Venus looked to Mars and Mars approached her and knelt down. Beryl glared up at her, but Mars offered her hand and said with grace and empathy, "We've been there."

"All you can do is to take better care be more aware in the future," Venus said, not unkindly, though the shift between who she was now and who she had been in the previous age was stark, and he wanted to talk to her, for her to talk to him as they had once done… but now was not the time. They had no time.

"Whatever it is you intend to do now," he asked, unsure of how long he could hold out, despite his best intentions. He forced himself to stand, stumbling and catching himself without trending on Kaito. "Please, take me to Crystal Tokyo; I can't let -" the blood rushed from his head -

Venus caught him and maneuvered to support him, her hand around his waist, his arm around her shoulder, and even though they were that close she looked only to Beryl - "Do you know where she is? Our Serenity?"

Beryl, who had tentatively moved to Mars's hand, made a motion that he could somehow still make out: she nodded, but whatever she said was muddled in his mind as his vision spun and his body finally gave out.