Chapter 15
Tick, Tock, Watching the Hands of the Clock...
Adonis dropped to the floor, breathing deeply. Zukamori, in Sailor Orion
form, also fell, leaning on her glaive for support. Both were extremely
exaughsted and covered in sweat. It had been almost four hours since the
others had left the training room and they had been fighting non stop, the
reason for which they have mutiple minor injuries.
"Wanna....take...a...a...breather?" Adonis said between breaths,
looking at her.
Sailor Orion raised her head and nodded weakly. She raised her hands
and looked at them. They were shaking from being used so long and were
beginning to get numb. She clapped them to get the feeling back in them.
"Maybe we've done this enough," Adonis said, leaning back against the
wall behind him. "We've done this everyday since Kyoko and them assigned the
training."
"No," she replied. "We have to. The training they've planned isn't
enough.
"And why is that, Zukamori?"
Both turned towards the voice. Ruri and Kyoko stood a few feet away,
both with curious expressions. "Why is that?" Ruri repeated.
Orion looked at them with a slightly annoied look before turning her
head away from them.
"We're going to find out sooner or later, you know," Kyoko said. Her
eyes glowed slightly.
"You can stop trying to read my mind now, Kyoko. You're not gonna find
out that way." Orion looked over at Adonis again and said, "You mind leaving
for a sec?"
Adonis nodded as he stood and walked off, glancing over his shoulder at
her once her reached the door. He mouthed the words, 'Be careful.' She nodded
slightly and he left.
Orion powered down and stood to face the two women.
"What is it you're not telling us, Zukamori?" Ruri started. "If it's
something to do with Nemesiss, then we need to know so we can do something."
"You say the training isn't enough," Kyoko said. "Why is that? And why
don't you train in your Senshi form around the others? Why don't you use your
crystal *and* weapon?"
To this, Zukamori smirked, yet didn't reply. The three stood there for
a while, staring at one another. Zukamori broke the silence by saying, "You
both have forgotten why I killed myself back then." They started to speak,
but she walked past them and continued, "You remember what I did, yet not
*why*. I'm training harder because I have to fight someone stronger than
anything I've ever thought possible. Also," she stopped at the door and
looked back. Her smirk widened as she said, "the 'owl' is set to arrive at
San Marita soon. If you can't figure that out, then ask Luna and Artemis. See
ya." She turned and left.
Ruri and Kyoko looked at each other. "'The owl'?" they both said,
thinking. Ruri gasped, "No way!" before rushing out the door. Zukamori was no
where to be seen. "Find Luna and Artemis!" Ruri shouted to Kyoko as she ran
down the left side of the hall.
Ruri replied, "Right!" and ran off in the other direction.
----------
Zukamori walked silently down the hall, her thoughts on what she had said.
The owl.... If what Adonis had told her was true, then it wouldn't be too
long before the 'owl' would appear. But who knew? They might not show until
the battle.
"What will happen, will happen," she thought outloud, "regardless of
what we think." She could only hope it would be enough.
----------
Adonis looked at the ground, thinking. he thought,
crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.
He glanced around, making sure no one was around, before he reached
into his pocket and brought out the crystal Helios had given him. Strangely,
the crystal had begun lighten in color with each passing day. Now it was a
light, pastel blue in comparison to what it had been. He didn't have a clue
to the meaning of it's change.
Footsteps reached his ears and he quickly put the crystal away. Adonis
looked up to see Zukamori approach him. He smiled, her presence easing his
worry over the up-coming battle. "What'd they say?" he asked.
"Same old same old," she said, running a hand through her blonde hair.
"If they really wanted to know then they should have paid more attention to
everything." She smiled slightly. "They're too wrapped up in the superfical
details to look into what they really mean."
After a second of silence, Adonis asked, "Do you think we'll win? That
all of us will surive?"
Zukamori's hazel eyes gazed into his blue one as she said, "I don't
know. I really don't. But I hope so."
----------
~*~
"So that's who Terry is," Chibi-usa said softly to herself. The mist around
her served as a remindered of what she had just seen. "Terry," she said
again, tears welling up in her red eyes, "...my brother." The images she had
seen flashed in her mind, causing the tears to fall. "It's my fault," she
sobbed. "It's my fault. If it wasn't for me then he could've survived. Mom
could've held on if she wasn't pregent with me. Terry..." She could not
finish.
~*~
----------
"She said what?!" Luna gasped.
"She said 'the "owl" is set to arrive in San Marita soon'," Kyoko
repeated.
"That can't be," Luna said. "We have no need of the One the Lengend
told about!"
"Do we?" Kyoko said quietly, a sudden thought causing her to think
otherwise. Luna looked at her strangely as she continued, "I think that's
what she's telling us, Luna. There must be something Nemisess has that we
can't win against and we need the One of Legend."
"But then why--" Luna started.
"Luna," Kyoko intterupted, "is it possible that some part of the Legend
or information of the One was lost or forgotten?"
The question made Luna stop and wonder. Could it be? Could there be
more to the Lengend than she knew? If so, then could they stand a better
chance at defeating Nemesiss? Only one thing could hold the answer to Kyoko's
question.
Luna looked up at Kyoko and asked, "Where Ruri?"
----------
Ruri skidded to a stop and shouted, "MCC! Wake up!"
The computer's screen blinked and said, "Hello, Ruri."
"No time for greetings!" a voice said.
Ruri turned and saw Luna and Kyoko coming up behind her. Ruri thought as the chair fromed under her. She quickly
began to type as she said, "MCC, pull up all information on the One of
Legend!"
"Posting..."
----------
"Any luck?"
The voice was full of curiousity and egded with steel that indticated a
visously violent temper. The man who had just come through the portal
shivered at the sound of the voice. He was in trouble.
"No, the preist anticipated the attempt on Small Lady's mind and
intterupted before the dream had gone underway," the man replied. He ducked
as an object was hurled at him from the other in the room. The peircing sound
of the object shattering upon impact of the wall behind him told him that it
had been a wine goblet.
"Idiot!" the other raged. "Xanatos, I'm beginning to wonder what good
it did when you were freed from the Cursed Grave so many years ago! It took
ten blessed years of planning of getting you out after I was relieved of my
bondage and they still failed! The Keeper then was foolish and had
underdevoped powers, but none the less she unleased you in her rage because
you were weak enough not to break out! For that, I'm thankful she didn't die
when she overheard the two from the Palace because it proved you don't have
any real streangth, do you?!"
Xanatos sighed inwardly. he thought.
"At least I don't mess up!" Xanatos ducked again as she threw another
glass and looked up carfeully at his better. The woman sat back in the
eleborately decorated chair she was on. Her long blonde hair was tied back
with a leather band. Her brown eyes were narrowed in anger and her teeth
clentched almost to the point of breaking. Her slender hands gripped the arms
of her chair, nearly ripping the finely carved wood under the crushing
streangth if her fingers. "You have best be careful of what you think,
Xanatos! I have a very short temper at the moment from all the failure I
seemed to be plauged with! First the youma failed to get the Small Lady, then
boy failed to find Adonis before the Queen did even though it's beyond the
point that Adonis was draw to the Palace, then Nemesiss couldn't keep the two
prisoners underwraps, and now you can't put a simple message in the
Princesse's head! We all know she can see the furture through dreams so she
needs to think that the Lost Senshi are her enemies and kill them when she
gets out of that stupid coma!!" The woman finsihed her exclamation by
slamming her left fist onto the arm of the chair it was on, causing it to
break into splinters.
Xanatos winced involuntarily. "We will suceed, Kome-san, when we begin
to attack in five weeks. We will be the victor of the battle."
Kome leaned foreward and said in a low voice, "We had better, Xanatos.
Or else..."
----------
"This is all the information we have?" Luna said, hoping there was more.
"That is all," MCC rpelied.
The three were reading the screen that only displayed a little more
than just the Lengend itself, nothing on the One it spoke of.
"Wait a mintue," Ruri said, mostly to herself, as she began to type
commands into the computer.
"Affermative," MCC replied to whatever Ruri had typed.
"Thought so!" she exclaimed, a wide smile on her tan-skinned face. The
visor and globes over her hands disappeared and she got off the chair.
Without explaining her sudden change of mood to the other two, she ran off.
"Ruri! Wait!" Luna shouted, hurridly running after her. "Where are you
going?!"
"The Libray!" Ruri responded over her shoulder.
"'Libray'?" Kyoko repeated, confused. "Why there?"
----------
"How much longer?"
Ami looked up from her computer to Makoto, who was sprawled out on her
back on a nearby couch. She then looked at a timer that sat on her computer
desk. She picked it up and showed it to Makoto as she said, "Four weeks, six
days, twenty-three hours, and eighteen minutes, Mako-chan."
Makoto glanced at the timer before laying back down on the couch with a
soft grunt of impatience. "Between training and resting," Makoto said, "the
only thing we can to is watch the hands of the clock as they tick by."
"Tick, tock!" Minako said as she entered the room with Rei behind her.
"So how many times was it today, Ami-chan?" Rei asked with a smile as
she sat down in a chair. "Did she pass tweleve?"
"I believe she asked me about..." Ami counted softly to herself,
"...fifteen times since the session eariler ended."
Makoto glared at the other three as they started to laugh. "Hey!" she
said defensivly. "I'm bored! So I want to know how many more days or so it is
till Nemesiss drops this sheild around the Palace so we can kick butt! Sue
me!" She tried to sound mad but she couldn't help smiling.
"Glad to see you guys can still joke around like all ways."
The four turned towards the voice and saw Serneity walk into the room.
They were surprised to see her in casual clothes as they were in, looking
very much like herself when she was younger.
"Usagi-chan? What--" Rei started to ask.
"I got tired of having to run in that dress," Serenity explained,
leaning against the wall beside the door. A small smile on her face. "So I
changed." Something seemed to be on her mind.
"Is something bothering you, Usagi-chan?" Makoto asked, sitting up.
Serenity was quiet for a moment or two, then said, "I've just been
thinking about what's going to happen, you guys. I'm worried that we won't
make it, or that some of us won't."
"What are you talking about, Usagi-chan?" Minako said.
"Of course it'll be a tough battle," Rei said, standing from the chair,
"but it'll take more than that to defeat us."
"Yeah," Makoto chimed in. "They are strong, but look at how much we've
advanced. Ami-chan's way better than she was when we were fourteen."
"Thank you, Mako-chan," Ami said sarcasticly. Growing serious, she
said, "But I have gotten better. And with as much streangth as we have, it
will take quite a lot to kill us, Usagi-chan."
"You don't have to worry," Minako said. "We'll be fine."
Usgai's smile grew a bit as she said, "Thanks, guys. I know it takes a
lot." she sadly thought to herself,
----------
NEXT: Serenity knows soemthing the others don't, but what is it? Ruri thinks
she's found information about the One of Legend. Will it be enough? Time is
slowly running out for them as Nemesiss, the boy, Xanaots, and their leader,
Kome, begin to prepare.
__________
Tick, Tock, Watching the Hands of the Clock...
Adonis dropped to the floor, breathing deeply. Zukamori, in Sailor Orion
form, also fell, leaning on her glaive for support. Both were extremely
exaughsted and covered in sweat. It had been almost four hours since the
others had left the training room and they had been fighting non stop, the
reason for which they have mutiple minor injuries.
"Wanna....take...a...a...breather?" Adonis said between breaths,
looking at her.
Sailor Orion raised her head and nodded weakly. She raised her hands
and looked at them. They were shaking from being used so long and were
beginning to get numb. She clapped them to get the feeling back in them.
"Maybe we've done this enough," Adonis said, leaning back against the
wall behind him. "We've done this everyday since Kyoko and them assigned the
training."
"No," she replied. "We have to. The training they've planned isn't
enough.
"And why is that, Zukamori?"
Both turned towards the voice. Ruri and Kyoko stood a few feet away,
both with curious expressions. "Why is that?" Ruri repeated.
Orion looked at them with a slightly annoied look before turning her
head away from them.
"We're going to find out sooner or later, you know," Kyoko said. Her
eyes glowed slightly.
"You can stop trying to read my mind now, Kyoko. You're not gonna find
out that way." Orion looked over at Adonis again and said, "You mind leaving
for a sec?"
Adonis nodded as he stood and walked off, glancing over his shoulder at
her once her reached the door. He mouthed the words, 'Be careful.' She nodded
slightly and he left.
Orion powered down and stood to face the two women.
"What is it you're not telling us, Zukamori?" Ruri started. "If it's
something to do with Nemesiss, then we need to know so we can do something."
"You say the training isn't enough," Kyoko said. "Why is that? And why
don't you train in your Senshi form around the others? Why don't you use your
crystal *and* weapon?"
To this, Zukamori smirked, yet didn't reply. The three stood there for
a while, staring at one another. Zukamori broke the silence by saying, "You
both have forgotten why I killed myself back then." They started to speak,
but she walked past them and continued, "You remember what I did, yet not
*why*. I'm training harder because I have to fight someone stronger than
anything I've ever thought possible. Also," she stopped at the door and
looked back. Her smirk widened as she said, "the 'owl' is set to arrive at
San Marita soon. If you can't figure that out, then ask Luna and Artemis. See
ya." She turned and left.
Ruri and Kyoko looked at each other. "'The owl'?" they both said,
thinking. Ruri gasped, "No way!" before rushing out the door. Zukamori was no
where to be seen. "Find Luna and Artemis!" Ruri shouted to Kyoko as she ran
down the left side of the hall.
Ruri replied, "Right!" and ran off in the other direction.
----------
Zukamori walked silently down the hall, her thoughts on what she had said.
The owl.... If what Adonis had told her was true, then it wouldn't be too
long before the 'owl' would appear. But who knew? They might not show until
the battle.
"What will happen, will happen," she thought outloud, "regardless of
what we think." She could only hope it would be enough.
----------
Adonis looked at the ground, thinking. he thought,
crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.
He glanced around, making sure no one was around, before he reached
into his pocket and brought out the crystal Helios had given him. Strangely,
the crystal had begun lighten in color with each passing day. Now it was a
light, pastel blue in comparison to what it had been. He didn't have a clue
to the meaning of it's change.
Footsteps reached his ears and he quickly put the crystal away. Adonis
looked up to see Zukamori approach him. He smiled, her presence easing his
worry over the up-coming battle. "What'd they say?" he asked.
"Same old same old," she said, running a hand through her blonde hair.
"If they really wanted to know then they should have paid more attention to
everything." She smiled slightly. "They're too wrapped up in the superfical
details to look into what they really mean."
After a second of silence, Adonis asked, "Do you think we'll win? That
all of us will surive?"
Zukamori's hazel eyes gazed into his blue one as she said, "I don't
know. I really don't. But I hope so."
----------
~*~
"So that's who Terry is," Chibi-usa said softly to herself. The mist around
her served as a remindered of what she had just seen. "Terry," she said
again, tears welling up in her red eyes, "...my brother." The images she had
seen flashed in her mind, causing the tears to fall. "It's my fault," she
sobbed. "It's my fault. If it wasn't for me then he could've survived. Mom
could've held on if she wasn't pregent with me. Terry..." She could not
finish.
~*~
----------
"She said what?!" Luna gasped.
"She said 'the "owl" is set to arrive in San Marita soon'," Kyoko
repeated.
"That can't be," Luna said. "We have no need of the One the Lengend
told about!"
"Do we?" Kyoko said quietly, a sudden thought causing her to think
otherwise. Luna looked at her strangely as she continued, "I think that's
what she's telling us, Luna. There must be something Nemisess has that we
can't win against and we need the One of Legend."
"But then why--" Luna started.
"Luna," Kyoko intterupted, "is it possible that some part of the Legend
or information of the One was lost or forgotten?"
The question made Luna stop and wonder. Could it be? Could there be
more to the Lengend than she knew? If so, then could they stand a better
chance at defeating Nemesiss? Only one thing could hold the answer to Kyoko's
question.
Luna looked up at Kyoko and asked, "Where Ruri?"
----------
Ruri skidded to a stop and shouted, "MCC! Wake up!"
The computer's screen blinked and said, "Hello, Ruri."
"No time for greetings!" a voice said.
Ruri turned and saw Luna and Kyoko coming up behind her. Ruri thought as the chair fromed under her. She quickly
began to type as she said, "MCC, pull up all information on the One of
Legend!"
"Posting..."
----------
"Any luck?"
The voice was full of curiousity and egded with steel that indticated a
visously violent temper. The man who had just come through the portal
shivered at the sound of the voice. He was in trouble.
"No, the preist anticipated the attempt on Small Lady's mind and
intterupted before the dream had gone underway," the man replied. He ducked
as an object was hurled at him from the other in the room. The peircing sound
of the object shattering upon impact of the wall behind him told him that it
had been a wine goblet.
"Idiot!" the other raged. "Xanatos, I'm beginning to wonder what good
it did when you were freed from the Cursed Grave so many years ago! It took
ten blessed years of planning of getting you out after I was relieved of my
bondage and they still failed! The Keeper then was foolish and had
underdevoped powers, but none the less she unleased you in her rage because
you were weak enough not to break out! For that, I'm thankful she didn't die
when she overheard the two from the Palace because it proved you don't have
any real streangth, do you?!"
Xanatos sighed inwardly. he thought.
"At least I don't mess up!" Xanatos ducked again as she threw another
glass and looked up carfeully at his better. The woman sat back in the
eleborately decorated chair she was on. Her long blonde hair was tied back
with a leather band. Her brown eyes were narrowed in anger and her teeth
clentched almost to the point of breaking. Her slender hands gripped the arms
of her chair, nearly ripping the finely carved wood under the crushing
streangth if her fingers. "You have best be careful of what you think,
Xanatos! I have a very short temper at the moment from all the failure I
seemed to be plauged with! First the youma failed to get the Small Lady, then
boy failed to find Adonis before the Queen did even though it's beyond the
point that Adonis was draw to the Palace, then Nemesiss couldn't keep the two
prisoners underwraps, and now you can't put a simple message in the
Princesse's head! We all know she can see the furture through dreams so she
needs to think that the Lost Senshi are her enemies and kill them when she
gets out of that stupid coma!!" The woman finsihed her exclamation by
slamming her left fist onto the arm of the chair it was on, causing it to
break into splinters.
Xanatos winced involuntarily. "We will suceed, Kome-san, when we begin
to attack in five weeks. We will be the victor of the battle."
Kome leaned foreward and said in a low voice, "We had better, Xanatos.
Or else..."
----------
"This is all the information we have?" Luna said, hoping there was more.
"That is all," MCC rpelied.
The three were reading the screen that only displayed a little more
than just the Lengend itself, nothing on the One it spoke of.
"Wait a mintue," Ruri said, mostly to herself, as she began to type
commands into the computer.
"Affermative," MCC replied to whatever Ruri had typed.
"Thought so!" she exclaimed, a wide smile on her tan-skinned face. The
visor and globes over her hands disappeared and she got off the chair.
Without explaining her sudden change of mood to the other two, she ran off.
"Ruri! Wait!" Luna shouted, hurridly running after her. "Where are you
going?!"
"The Libray!" Ruri responded over her shoulder.
"'Libray'?" Kyoko repeated, confused. "Why there?"
----------
"How much longer?"
Ami looked up from her computer to Makoto, who was sprawled out on her
back on a nearby couch. She then looked at a timer that sat on her computer
desk. She picked it up and showed it to Makoto as she said, "Four weeks, six
days, twenty-three hours, and eighteen minutes, Mako-chan."
Makoto glanced at the timer before laying back down on the couch with a
soft grunt of impatience. "Between training and resting," Makoto said, "the
only thing we can to is watch the hands of the clock as they tick by."
"Tick, tock!" Minako said as she entered the room with Rei behind her.
"So how many times was it today, Ami-chan?" Rei asked with a smile as
she sat down in a chair. "Did she pass tweleve?"
"I believe she asked me about..." Ami counted softly to herself,
"...fifteen times since the session eariler ended."
Makoto glared at the other three as they started to laugh. "Hey!" she
said defensivly. "I'm bored! So I want to know how many more days or so it is
till Nemesiss drops this sheild around the Palace so we can kick butt! Sue
me!" She tried to sound mad but she couldn't help smiling.
"Glad to see you guys can still joke around like all ways."
The four turned towards the voice and saw Serneity walk into the room.
They were surprised to see her in casual clothes as they were in, looking
very much like herself when she was younger.
"Usagi-chan? What--" Rei started to ask.
"I got tired of having to run in that dress," Serenity explained,
leaning against the wall beside the door. A small smile on her face. "So I
changed." Something seemed to be on her mind.
"Is something bothering you, Usagi-chan?" Makoto asked, sitting up.
Serenity was quiet for a moment or two, then said, "I've just been
thinking about what's going to happen, you guys. I'm worried that we won't
make it, or that some of us won't."
"What are you talking about, Usagi-chan?" Minako said.
"Of course it'll be a tough battle," Rei said, standing from the chair,
"but it'll take more than that to defeat us."
"Yeah," Makoto chimed in. "They are strong, but look at how much we've
advanced. Ami-chan's way better than she was when we were fourteen."
"Thank you, Mako-chan," Ami said sarcasticly. Growing serious, she
said, "But I have gotten better. And with as much streangth as we have, it
will take quite a lot to kill us, Usagi-chan."
"You don't have to worry," Minako said. "We'll be fine."
Usgai's smile grew a bit as she said, "Thanks, guys. I know it takes a
lot." she sadly thought to herself,
----------
NEXT: Serenity knows soemthing the others don't, but what is it? Ruri thinks
she's found information about the One of Legend. Will it be enough? Time is
slowly running out for them as Nemesiss, the boy, Xanaots, and their leader,
Kome, begin to prepare.
__________